LOCAL AUTHORITIES' POWERS

Deb 25 April 1951 vol 171 cc499-534

2.47 p.m.

LORD LLEWELLIN rose to call attention to the diminution of the powers of local authorities; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper raises a matter which I think is well worth some attention. I consider myself fortunate to be in a position to raise it in your Lordships' House, as I know of no place where it would receive more dispassionate and, indeed, more informed consideration. Local government is a treasured possession of our people. It is based in antiquity; in-deed, there were many parts of this country which had effective local government long before there was an effective central Government. Local government is in its essence democratic—often a much-abused word, but in this context quite appropriate and right. Are we not shortly to have, up and down this country, the opportunity for every elector to choose his or her representatives?— incidentally, on a franchise which is wider than the Parliamentary franchise in one small respect, in that in this case each of your Lordships is able to exercise a vote.

What concerns me, and no doubt other noble Lords also, is that if we as a Parliament do not put a stop to recent legislative trends and administrative practices, we may not be able to find the best and ablest people to give their time and energy in local administration, whether as councillors or as local government officials. If that position arises, it can be only to the disadvantage of the country. In a properly balanced system of government, in my view, everyone should have easy recourse to some responsible person if he has a complaint or a constructive suggestion to make in regard to the carrying out of those services which affect him and his family in their daily life. What are the legislative trends and administrative practices to which I refer? I can class them under three heads: (1) Powers that were formerly exercised by local authorities and which are now exercised by Government Departments; (2) powers that were formerly exercised by local authorities and which are now exercised by nominated boards; and, in a slightly different category, (3) powers that have now been transferred from smaller local authorities to larger ones.

I should like to cite two examples under the first head. One is the transfer, under the Local Government Act, 1948, of the function of valuing property for rating assessments from local authorities to the Inland Revenue. This was perhaps one of the oldest functions of local authorities, dating back, I believe, to the twelfth century. For better or for worse, the change was made against the unanimous advice of such professional bodies as the Rating and Valuation Officers' Association, the Chartered and Rating Surveyors, and the Central Valuation Committee. It has cast a tremendous burden on the Inland Revenue authorities, especially since it has coincided with the coming into force of the Town and Country Planning Act. They have some 12,000,000 buildings to assess for rateable value, and it is not surprising that the coming into force of the Act has had to be postponed until 1953. To cite another example under my first head, I go from the most ancient function to perhaps the most modern— I am now referring to the Civil Aviation Act of 1946. Under that Act Parliament took away from municipal authorities the airfields that many of them, wanting to be in the van of progress, had started in their localities. There were forty-two licensed airfields at the time the Act was passed, and they were all taken over by the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

I come now to give an instance or two under the second head—that is to say, powers that are now exercised by nominated boards. One of the most outstanding instances, I suppose, is the services affected by the National Health Service Act of 1946. I refer to the taking over of local government hospitals and county mental institutions, and their transfer to the Ministry of Health, which administers them through the regional hospital boards and the hospital management committees, both of which groups of bodies are nominated and not elected bodies. That has meant taking the administration of hospitals, covering no fewer than 500,000 beds, out of the purview of the local authority and putting them under these nominated boards. It is a comment on the situation to realise that one day the London County Council was the largest hospital authority in the world and the next day it was not a hospital authority at all.

Then we come to such Acts as the Electricity Act and the Gas Act. Before the Electricity Act. there were 350 municipally-owned electricity undertakings, and they were responsible for three-fifths of the electricity supply of the country. They are now operated, under the Ministry of Fuel and Power, by the electricity boards. Not only does that take away an incentive to local administration but it has actually taken away from many places a considerable benefit which they had in being able to relieve their rates by the profits made on their undertakings. Before the war—to quote just three examples—Nottingham received £24,500 a year in alleviation of rates by the profits made on its electricity undertaking: Cardiff received £14,600, and Leeds £13,800. Of course, the taking away of these undertakings from the municipalities obviously narrows the financial resources which they have at their disposal. In regard to gas, there were 276 municipally-owned gas undertakings, one-third of the total supply of this country. Here again, Nottingham ran their undertaking successfully, and made £31,600 in aid of their rates. Leeds made £9,800, and Barnsley £6,000. On the whole, they were rather well-run concerns. Now in the south-west of this country we have the South-Western Gas Board; and, incredible as it may seem, that Board is responsible for an area running from ten miles north of Evesham down to Land's End. And your Lordships will not perhaps be surprised to hear that with this unwieldy area the Board makes the biggest loss of any of the gas undertakings.

I come now to the Transport Act of 1947. As your Lordships are aware, most tram and trolleybus undertakings are municipally-owned. Nearly a hundred local authorities operate their own trams or trolleybuses, or perhaps motor bus and motor coach services. Under the Act, the British Transport Commission may propose for any area a scheme to co-ordinate passenger transport services. And, in nearly every case, 1 suppose, a scheme will involve these services being taken out of the municipal control. It is true that not much has been done about this at present. A scheme was suggested for the north-eastern area, but there was such a hullabaloo (if that is an appropriate word to use here) about it that at the present moment it has gone back into a pigeon-hole. I believe a scheme has been adopted for East Anglia, but it has not got very far. However, the tendency under that Act is, for the sake of greater uniformity, to take these undertakings out of the hands of people who, in the main, have run them well and taken a pride in doing so.

I come next to an instance or two under the third head—namely, the powers transferred from the smaller to the larger authorities. This, of course, may give some satisfaction to the councillors and officials in the larger authorities, because, so far as I can see in these days, everybody—whether a Minister or a Ministry or local authority—likes to make his dominion a little bigger, and to get a little more into it. But, to put it in a typical British under-statement, the change does not give any satisfaction to the smaller local authorities from whom the powers have been taken. For instance, the smaller local authorities have lost their maternity and child welfare powers, and responsibility for the ambulance service which they used to run. I should have thought that maternity and child welfare was essentially the kind of service that should be administered by those in close touch with the people who might need it. It is just the kind of service that ought to have been left in the hands of the smaller authority. It is true that every area has its representative on the larger county authority, but that representative may not be on the maternity and child welfare committee of that authority; in a number of cases, of course, he or she is not. But where the local borough runs the service, the probability is that one of the three councillors representing a particular ward will take an interest in that particular service, will be on the committee and will afford the proper local touch between the people who need this service and those whose duty it is to provide it.

My Lords, I have outlined some of the changes that have taken place in recent years. I am not saying that in themselves all the changes to which I have referred are objectionable, but they have all contributed to diminishing the functions, weakening the confidence and lowering the prestige of local government. A certain gentleman, a Dr. Robson, produced in 1931 a book called The Development of Local Government. In 1947 he produced a new edition, and in that new edition he says: In 1931, when this book was first published. I was able to refer in the preface to 'the immense and growing importance of local government in the life of the nation.' To-day, it is unhappily necessary to record its rapidly declining significance in the polity of our country…. It is no exaggeration to say that local government is facing a crisis of the first magnitude. That was written in 1947, and I suspect that a number of your Lordships will realise that Dr. Robson is right in what he says.

It was a Conservative Government which, in 1888, made local authorities democratically elected and compendious in their administration of local affairs. Before that, we had paving commissioners, turnpike trustees, burial boards, and all sorts of other independent bodies of that sort. Unfortunately, we are now moving back to non-elected bodies with equally dull names, such as those which are now running the hospitals, the electricity undertakings and the gas works of this country. The frightful thought occurs to me that this is completely in line with Socialist policy, which believes in centralising all the functions that they can. Unfortunately, some Socialists do not see that this would make the advent of Communism in this country far more easy, because, if the whole thing is centralised, if once the central Government falls into the wrong hands, it becomes easy for the whole country to be taken over. If, on the other hand, there are still independent, elected bodies up and down the country, it will make that sort of accomplishment, which we should all deplore, very much more difficult. Indeed, when I say that the present Government rather believe in this centralising policy, I remember that, had they obtained an effective majority at the last Election, all the water undertakings, 80 per cent. of which are at present administered by the municipalities or local government bodies, would have been added to the list. While all this transfer of responsibility has been going on, little has been put in on the other side of the scale. In regard to local government, any impartial observer could rightly say that the contribution made to the solution of the local government problem by the present Government and their predecessor has been mainly destructive and not, I am afraid, constructive. I think that this attitude is doing great disservice to the whole idea of responsible and properly elected local authorities.

My Lords, I do not intend to-day, although I know this topic is one of the most burning questions of the time, to enter fully into the need for doing something about local government areas. Clearly, there is a tendency not to entrust small and weak local authorities of a particular class with the full powers that would be given to the strong and effective units in that same class of local government; so someone at some time will have to go into this area problem. I believe that it was a good thing to set up the Local Government Boundary Commission, and I feel that it was rather a wanton act on the part of the ex-Minister of Health, Mr. Bevan, to do away with Lord Reading's Committee on London Government, and then, quite peremptorily, to do away with the Local Government Boundary Commission. Those bodies were both doing good work. However, on this topic I would say only that I agree with Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve, one of the best authorities in the country on this particular subject, that whereas non-human touch services—if I may describe them in that way—such as roads, for example, are better administered by the larger authorities, the human touch services—and I have been talking about maternity, child welfare, and things of that sort—are much better left in the hands of the smaller local authorities. The people concerned in the work of those smaller authorities usually live nearer to those for whom they are administering the services, and so can take a more direct and personal interest. The people connected with the larger authorities would no doubt like to take the same interest, but they have, in some cases, to live a long way away in the county from the place where those services are being operated.

Before I sit down. I must deal with one other matter, and that is the way in which local authorities are (if I may be allowed to use some alliterative words) hamstrung, hobbled, and humbugged about by excessive supervision from Departments in Whitehall. In this context it is to be recalled that, mainly as the result of representations made by local authorities, the Government did set up a Local Government Man-Power Committee which started work in January, 1949, This Committee, rightly, delegated detailed investigation of specific problems to sub-committees, but gave them some overriding guidance; and this, I think, shows how far the Government and their Departments had departed from what I consider are the proper principles to be observed between the centre and duly elected local bodies. It is only necessary to read two paragraphs of these guiding instructions. The first is headed "Main Objective," and it appears at the top of page 6, of the Committee's Report. It reads: To simplify the methods of departmental supervision over local government activities, to reduce the need for and the extent of such supervision, and to ensure, wherever possible, that a greater measure of responsibility rests on local authorities. Then comes the only other paragraph that I am going to read, which is headed: "General Approach." It runs: To recognise that the local authorities are responsible bodies competent to discharge their own functions and that though they may be the statutory bodies through which Government policy is given effect and operate to a large extent with Government money, they exercise their responsibilities in their own right, not ordinarily as agents of Government Departments. It follows that the objective should be to leave as much as possible of the detailed management of a scheme or service to the local authority and to concentrate the Department's control at the key point where it can most effectively discharge its responsibilities for Government policy and financial administration.

One would have thought that all that was so obvious as hardly to need saying. But we can see how far central Departments have gone in their detailed supervision of local authorities from the fact that this Committee felt it necessary to give the guidance contained in that paragraph headed: "General Approach."

I am told that a number of the recommendations of this Committee have been accepted, but, of course, bureaucracy is a hardy creeper; it sometimes vexes the heart and tangles the feet of those engaged in local government in ways that range from the merely irritating to the hardly credible. There was one case of which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, may be interested to hear. The construction of a by-pass round a place named Cheadle had been suggested. The suggestion was turned down by the Ministry of Transport because, it was said, Cheadle had not a large enough population to warrant the scheme being carried out. Unfortunately, as it turned out, some official concerned had confused Cheadle in Staffordshire with Cheadle in Cheshire, and there is a considerable difference between the populations of the two places. In the end, I believe, the decision had to be changed. One hears of other complaints. For example, the leader of the Liverpool City Council and chairman of the finance committee said when presenting his annual budget this year: I think the City Council is entitled to register an emphatic protest against the delay in the Government machinery for dealing with the financial operations of local authority transport undertakings. What happened here was that the Liverpool Transport Committee decided, in June last, to apply for sanction for fare increases, and voluminous details were sent to the Ministry in August to justify the increases. An inquiry was held in January, but it was only a week or so ago that consent was given to this apparently very obvious and unavoidable step. In the meantime, the undertaking had sustained heavy losses, which were directly attributable to their not being allowed to raise the fares; and those losses have now, of course, to be made good out of the rates.

There are numerous other cases, which I could quote in which there is clear evidence of daily and weekly interference—I do not say by Ministers, but by those acting under their authority in Whitehall—with properly elected local bodies who, so far as possible, should be given full freedom to carry out services for which they were elected by their fellow citizens. I think that perhaps I have quoted enough to show that if we still want to see good councillors and able officials in our local administration they must be more their own masters and not just the mouthpieces of Government Departments. Local government is a part, an essential part, of our democratic system. It may well be that we could destroy local government altogether, and still get better roads, sweeter-smelling drains, and greener parks. But if we did that we should lose something far more important: we should lose the beneficial effect of giving scope for proper ambition, for personal dignity, for satisfactory effort and achievement of ordinary, individual men and women who, up and down the country, seek by this work to serve their fellows by giving good service in local administration. It is because I am anxious that we shall still have that type of people in local government, both as councillors and as officials, that I beg to move for Papers.

3.20 p.m.

LORD AMMON

My Lords, as usual, the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, put his case clearly and concisely and as fairly as could be expected from anyone. I agree with him that there could be no better place to raise this matter than in this House, where it will be considered more objectively than it is likely to be in another place. I am in a large measure of agreement with the general remarks he has made. As one who has spent many years in local government and is still mayor of his borough, I agree that there is wide complaint of the lack of sufficiently qualified candidates for municipal government. Many of us are greatly worried about this problem and are concerned about what can be done to attract younger men and women to come forward to take part in the government of their own locality. It seems to me that there is a decline in the sense of public responsibility and in the willingness of younger people to shoulder the necessary work, although that work is interesting and important, especially from the point of view of the liberty of the individual. In my opinion what is necessary is a new survey and reorganisation of the whole of local government, and the need for this has been voiced by both Parties over a considerable period. The organisation of local government has grown haphazard and is now a little out of date.

But I cannot accept the sweeping denunciation made by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. Some good things have been done in the development of local government. I think he will admit that the equalisation grant was a step in the right direction, even if there is still room for improvement. He mentioned the transfer of assessment to the Inland Revenue authorities, and his remarks struck in me a sympathetic chord because for fourteen or fifteen years I was chairman of the assessment committee of my own borough, and when this change came about, I voiced my disagreement; but after having seen the new system at work I am bound to say it has done something to sweep away a good many anomalies and bring in a more uniform and equitable distribution of rating; and to that extent it must be counted as an improvement. I do not think the instances the noble Lord quoted were the happiest from his point of view. Transport, gas and electricity were far from being completely municipalised or publicly controlled when they were taken over by the State on nationalisation. Out of 1,049 transport services, only 92 were under public control, and only 300 out of 700 gas undertakings were under public control, so that it cannot be said that the majority were transferred from the local authorities to the central authorities. I do not think anybody would suggest that the old system of supplying water did not call for some sort of reform. It seems to me an obvious thing that such a vital service should be handled centrally, to the advantage of the whole country.

The noble Lord said that the deprivation of the local authorities of some of the services has resulted in less work for their officials. Whether or not it is work on which they should be engaged is a matter for further discussion. What I am concerned about is that we should maintain local government at the highest possible level and that the best people should be elected locally to direct those services which intimately concern the people. As I have said, a good deal of the trouble arises from the need for reorganisation, especially for the reconsideration of the size and population of local government areas. For instance, the largest urban district that we have has a population of 211,000 and the smallest has a population of 700. A penny rate in the first brings in £8,500; and a penny rate in the second, only £16. A condition of affairs like that certainly calls for some interference from somewhere, in order that small units may be linked up in larger areas. The whole of my municipal service has been in London, and many of the points which the noble Lord raised are matters which have not come under my own purview. In past years there have been attempts by both Parties to tackle this question, but the intervention of the war prevented them from giving effect to any of their suggestions.

I hope that what I am going to say will not be misunderstood. As one who has spent twenty-six years on the London County Council and who is a past Chairman of that body, I hope I shall not be thought to be attacking that organisation in any way, or to be criticising its work, if I make the suggestion that the time has come to consider its reorganisation. Excellent organisation as it is, and extra-ordinary as the work is that it does, the L.C.C. has become so large that to be a member of the Council is practically a full-time job. It is almost impossible to get people to become candidates for the L.C.C. unless they are wealthy or retired, or for reasons connected with their particular work are able to spare the time. That is a condition of affairs that is not desirable in local government, and I am wondering whether the whole question of local government in London, including the London County Council, should not be considered, so that we may attract people more qualified to do the job. But we are not going to get the best people if there is nothing to do but fiddle about with little details of administration. We must give councillors real work to do, which will call for the exercise of their qualities.

I hope I have not upset my friends across the water or my noble friend above the gangway, Lord Silkin, by suggesting that the L.C.C. and the local authorities may stand in need of reorganisation. I feel it would be better to divide London up somewhat on the lines of county boroughs, with about the same population. In that way a more intimate and personal relationship will be established than is possible at the present moment. This would enable people to enter local government who have the time and are willing to do the work, but who are unwilling to spend the great amount of time which is now taken in endeavouring to man the council and the various committees—practically a full-time job. There I leave the question of London to be considered by those responsible for its administration.

There is work that a local council can do which cannot be done by a large central body. I can speak from my own experience as a mayor. I have held several offices, including that of Chairman of the London County Council, but I have never held any office that brought me into such intimate touch with the people as that of mayor of a borough. I have been astonished at the variety of organisations and movements that exist in the borough with which I have been associated for a long time—bodies which one would not normally know about. A large amount of disinterested service is given, and it is a fact that people can and do go to their councillors to seek advice on most intimate matters. That seems to me to be the kind of relationship that should exist in a democratic organisation between the government and the governed. To that extent, I am concerned, as is the noble Lord who opened the debate, at the taking away of some of these services.

I do not think efficiency is the sole target to aim at although I do not ignore it. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, without qualification, in saying that there is great danger in centralising so much of the services and government; and I agree that, under present difficult conditions, it might lead to disastrous results. I should like to quote a characteristic sentence from Mr. Bevan when he was Minister of Health. He said: The whole difference between local government and other governments is emotional identification. That is characteristic of the gentleman, and we all understand what he means. I hope that every consideration will be given, not to how little can be left to the local authorities but to how much can be handed over to them, so as to ease the burden at the centre and, at the same time, help people to feel that they have a real interest. London is not concerned in the elections that will take place shortly, but I have had opportunities in conferences recently of talking with representatives from the various boroughs throughout the length and breadth of the land. They all say the same thing: that the standard of the candidate now put up is not equal to what it used to be in days gone by. People are always inclined to look upon the days gone by as having been something better than the present but it is a fact that we do not get the same quality of candidate. Many have not the qualifications, the will, or the desire to carry out the work which is so essential. The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has done a real service in raising this matter this afternoon. I feel that in an atmosphere of calm, without attempting to make Party capital, we should hammer out something that will bring home to our citizens, and to those in immediate control of public affairs, a sense of interest and of playing their part in building up the economy and the administration of the country. To that extent I feel that we shall all welcome the Motion, even if we do not agree with all the arguments put forward by the noble Lord.

3.36 p.m.

LORD RAGLAN

My Lords, the noble Lord who introduced this Motion did not mention the police, and I should like to say a few words on that service. Your Lordships will be well aware that county police forces are administered by standing joint committees—at least, they are supposed to be, though the powers of administration of the committees are being decreased every day. So far as chief constables are concerned, it was formerly within the power of the standing joint committee to appoint anybody they wished to be chief constable. But a rule was brought in some years ago that a chief constable must have had previous police experience; and now there is in the Home Office a list—I believe it is a very short list—of persons whom the Home Office consider suitable for the position of chief constable of a county; and anybody not on that list has to think again before expecting appointment.

The Home Office also lay down meticulous regulations about the strength of the staff: any division which has eighty-nine policemen, or less, has to have three clerks; any division which has ninety policemen, or more, has to have five clerks; and so it goes on all through. We are now told how many vehicles we must have, how many wireless sets we must have, and so on. At the present moment we are having a difference of opinion with the Home Office because they wish us to increase our establishment to an extent which we believe to be unnecessary. The Home Office will probably win, as they hold all the trumps, and we shall have lost the last vestige of our responsibility for the personnel of our police force. The meetings of our standing joint committee consist more and more of the clerk reading letter after letter from the Home Office, telling us what the Home Secretary has decided about this, that and the other, and what we have to decide gets less and less every time. We have some slight responsibility left for police housing, but I suppose that that will not last must longer.

I should like to mention one other institution with which I am connected— namely, the National Museum of Wales. The National Museum of Wales is, under its Charter, administered by a body of representatives from various institutions in Wales. The money all comes from the Treasury, and the Treasury have always exercised a general supervision over expenditure. But that state of affairs has ceased, and they now exercise a complete supervision over expenditure. The whole administration of our staff has been taken away from us. We no longer say how much they shall be paid; we have nothing to do with their conditions of service; the Treasury send their male inspectors to inspect our male employees, and their female inspectors to inspect our female employees. We have no complaint about the inspectors, who behave well when they come down; but the fact remains that the whole control of our staff has been taken out of our hands. Formerly, if one of our staff had a grievance, we had to sit up and take notice; but now we sit back and tell them to go to the Treasury. There is another department which deals with buildings, and they tell us what we can and cannot do in regard to decorations and repairs.

The result of this situation is, of course, that many of the members of the Council, and of the committees, who live in widely separated parts of Wales, do not think it worth while to come to meetings at which nothing of any importance has to be decided. I am quite prepared to believe that the Home Office can administer the Monmouthshire Constabulary better than the people of Monmouthshire can; and I am quite prepared to believe that the Treasury can administer the National Museum of Wales better than the people of Wales can. I am also prepared to believe that the Colonial Office can ad-minister the Colony of the Gambia much better than Gambia itself can. But I note with surprise that, whilst His Majesty's Government are every day "dishing out" powers to the people of Gambia to manage their affairs, every day they are taking away from the people of these Islands powers to manage their affairs. The only thing I can suppose is that His Majesty's Government feel that the people of Gambia are more capable of self-government than are the people of these Islands.

3.41 p.m.

VISCOUNT MERSEY

My Lords, there is one point that I should like to bring to the notice of the noble Lord, and that is in regard to the allocation of houses in villages. In my own village there is a very long list of people waiting for accommodation. There are at present, and have been for a long time, a number of cottages which were condemned—I dare say rightly—and which remain empty. The local authorities (and I am talking of the people at the top) say that they can do nothing at all without the leave of Whitehall. It seems to me that in a matter of that sort more latitude should be given to the people on the spot.

3.42 p.m.

LORD SILKIN

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has in my view raised a much bigger question than would appear from the speech which he has made. I fully agree with him that there exists to-day a very serious problem of local government. But that problem is not confined to the fact that there has been a certain amount of transfer of functions, or even of the fact—which I admit is true —that the quality of local representatives is deteriorating, although I doubt whether the sole, or even the main, factor is due to the transfer of functions. I believe that the increasing difficulties of our era—the greater difficulty which people find in giving up the time—is a very important factor in discouraging people from taking part in local government.

The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has rendered a great service in raising this question, because I feel that we are due for a reconsideration of the whole structure of local government. The last time that there was any considerable reorganisation of local government was in 1929, when the very process which Lord Llewellin condemns took place, when functions were transferred from the boards of guardians to the county councils and county boroughs. I remember the great outcry which took place at that time, but I doubt whether any member of this House to-day would be prepared to stand up and say that that transfer was not justified. But that was twenty-two years ago. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, that local government is the foundation of our democracy. Without a working system of local government our democracy would largely tend to disappear. It would be difficult to call ourselves a democracy without an effective system of local government. On the other hand, in order that local government may be vital, virile and alive, I think we have to ensure that it is flexible, and that its structure changes in accordance with the changes in the social and economic life of this country. I feel that the time has now come for one further step in the direction of modernising our system of local government.

There are many problems which face us in local government, and not least is the question of the conflict between efficiency and true local government. There is no doubt that in every case which the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, quoted, of functions having been transferred either from the smaller authority to the larger, or from local government to the central Government, the decision could have been justified on its merits.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I do not want to interrupt the noble Lord, but it is a fact that these municipally-run electricity and gas undertakings were making profits, and we have seen a great deal of loss in the nationalised undertakings since the local concerns were taken over.

LORD SILKIN

Of course the noble Lord will not expect me to embark upon a discussion on electricity or gas. What I say is that the decision was made on the basis of efficiency, and on the ground that it would increase the efficiency of the service; those who were responsible for making the decision were satisfied at the time that that would be the case. Whether in fact it has or has not worked out as expected is not material for the purpose of my argument. The point is that these transfers have always been effected on the ground that it was more efficient to make the transfer than to leave it in the hands of the smaller authority. One of the problems which we have to face in local government is to what extent, if at all, we are prepared to sacrifice efficiency in order to preserve the element of local government and to keep the ser-vice in the hands of the local people. That is a dilemma which we have not faced, and one of the results is that each service has been transferred on the merits, or supposed merits, of the case, without taking into account the effect on the whole structure of local government of the accumulation of these transfers. What we have found, therefore—and I want to emphasise this—is that while it may be possible to justify each transfer on its merits, the cumulative result is that local government may largely have disappeared. We have to weigh up the price which we are paying for the alleged efficiency—I use the word "alleged" to please the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin— and ask whether the price is worth paying, and what is the compromise.

There are many other problems which arise from this question. It is impossible to divorce functions of local government from units of local government. The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, referred to the Report of Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve. He was, of course, Chairman of the Boundary Commission, and his job was to alter boundaries. I always felt that his functions were much too limited and ought to have been far wider; and I am glad to be able to say that I said so at the time the Bill was introduced in another place. Nevertheless, Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve, possibly going beyond his principal terms of reference, found it necessary to present this Report drawing attention to the fact that functions and areas were intermingled, and that it was impossible to decide one without the other. He was being asked to change boundaries, and he felt he had to have regard to the functions which the new areas would have—which, of course, is perfectly true.

I think that to-day many of the local government areas are entirely unsuitable. Some of them are too small and some are too large. When these areas were set up they were very often determined by the means of transport then in existence and the time it would take to go from one part to another; but means of transport have changed, and what was truly local at one time is not necessarily so to-day. Larger areas may be quite as workable to-day as the small areas were some time back. In considering functions we have to consider also the question of the increasing technical difficulty of the services which are being rendered by local authorities. There is a need more and more for highly-skilled technical officers. For instance, to-day we have something like 1,400 or 1,500 housing authorities throughout the country. Indeed, housing is probably the most important function that councils carry out to-day: many of the district councils have little left but housing, and it would be regrettable if this one very important service were taken away from them. But the fact is that you cannot efficiently build houses unless you have the services of the skilled technicians—architects, surveyors, and so on—and these small authorities are not in a position to employ these skilled officers; they have to make do either with second best or with calling in people ad hoc to get their advice. These are factors which have to be taken into consideration when dealing with the question of functions.

But there are to-day a great many other conflicts which are undermining our sys-tem of local government. For instance, there is the conflict between the county borough and the county council. In the nature of things, large towns tend to grow, and they desire to be autonomous and to be all-purpose authorities. As these county boroughs grow, they feel a need to overflow into the area of the county council. They are reluctant to house their populations in areas which are not under their control, and therefore they desire to enlarge their area—and they can do so only at the expense of the county council. The county council is reluctant to agree because this means a reduction in rateable value. This conflict is going on all over the country. Every time a county borough desires to enlarge itself, legitimately or otherwise, it is faced, quite understandably, with the opposition of the county council; and very often the matter has to be resolved in this House or in some other way. More-over, as a result of this opposition by county councils, county boroughs are often forced to carry out developments in their own areas and. consequently, to carry out overcrowded development, less satisfactory development than if they had more elbow room. This is most undesirable, and creates many problems for the future. I suggest that one of the most important questions we have to face in local government is this one of conflict between the county council and the county borough.

There is another question which is due for review. Is the present two-tier or three-tier system really the best? We have the county council, the district council and the parish council. There is much to be said for this arrangement, I know; but it does seem to me to be somewhat cumbersome to allocate a diminishing number of functions among two or three different authorities. After all, we have experience of an all-purpose authority in the county borough. Why should we not divide up the whole country among the all-purpose authorities? That might be one of the solutions to the problems of function which the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has raised. It is possibly this division of function which is partly responsible for the lack of interest which local councils are taking in the administration of their area. More-over, the actual distribution of these functions is somewhat illogical. If we take Lancashire, for instance, which, with all respect to London even, is one of the most important county councils in the country and a very responsible one, we find that they have no housing functions: they are not entitled to build one single house for their population. On the other hand, hundreds of district councils in Lancashire are in a position to do so. It seems rather illogical that there should be this bad distribution of function. It has in the past been responsible for a good deal of ill-feeling. I remember that some years ago one of the county councils sought to obtain powers from your Lordships' House to enable them to build houses for a specific purpose, and that this House refused to give them the necessary powers.

I feel that the time has come when we might consider the setting up of a Royal Commission in order to investigate all these problems of local government, with a view to bringing the situation up to date. The question is a very great one: different types of authorities; whether it is possible to have a series of all-purpose authorities; whether there is any need for the two-tier system, and so on. I realise that we shall not get unanimity in any inquiry of this kind. I suppose that there is no subject which arouses so much controversy (and not along Party lines, for this matter strikes right across Parties) as local government. There are large numbers of vested interests which may have to go in any redistribution, and naturally any vested interest will defend its interest and resist any change. But it is vitally necesssary to-day, in the light of new and changing conditions, to get a fresh view of the whole picture, to see what changes can be made and to have all the varying opinions placed before us with a view to the Government making up their mind on the steps they should take. I realise that no Government are likely to do this except in the early days of their life. It would arouse too much conflict in the later years of the life of the Parliament and, therefore, there is not likely to be any major change in local government in the next few years. I realise also that there are a good many more serious and more urgent problems to be dealt with. Therefore a Royal Commission could function fairly leisurely and could take its time in getting the necessary evidence, so that one day, as early as possible, when conditions were favourable, a new charter of local government might be introduced.

There are two other points with which I want to deal quite shortly and which have arisen out of the discussion we have had. The first is in connection with the remarks of my noble friend, Lord Ammon, about London government. On the whole. I agree with him that the present structure of London government takes it entirely out of the category of local government. I was Chairman of the Housing Committee of the London County Council for some six years. We used to have weekly meetings of that Committee. At each meeting we had before us particulars of various areas which we were recommended to declare slum areas. It was physically impossible for members of the Committee to go round and see those areas for themselves. After all, the demolition of homes in the interests of slum clearance is quite an important thing for the people living in the area. At least, they are entitled to have the satisfaction of knowing that the people who are making the decision have seen the area for themselves and have formed a judgment. In practice, and particularly when we were dealing with small areas, this was impossible. The small areas were so large in number that we had to rely upon the advice of the officers—and that was when we were meeting every week. If we had met fortnightly or monthly, the position would have been much worse.

That is not local government. If, on the spur of the moment, I had to define local government, I would say that local government ceases to be local government when the people who are responsible for it are not able to acquaint themselves at first hand with the decisions that they are making. When the time comes that you have to rely on officers for things which you ought to see for yourself, it is no longer local government. That is the position on the London County Council. In the days when they were responsible for the hospitals, the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, said (I thought with some approval) that they were the largest hospital authority in the world. But does he realise that they owned seventy-four hospitals, that they were responsible for their management and that not one single member of the London County Council had ever visited them all or knew more than half of them? That, I imagine, was the case in regard to the Chairman of the Hospitals Committee as much as to any of its members. If he visited one hospital a fortnight—and many of the hospitals were out of London—it would take him nearly two years to get round. That is not local government.

As for the schools, there are thousands and thousands of schools for which the London County Council are responsible, and no single person, even if he devoted the whole of his administrative life to visiting them, could cover them all in the course of his life. If he decided to visit two schools a week, it would take him the whole of a long life to see them all. Therefore, I agree with my noble friend, Lord Ammon, that there is a need for reorganisation of London government, if it is to be truly local. I would put London government as one of the specific items for a Royal Commission to investigate. It certainly needs it, and I should not be at all surprised if one of their recommendations was much on the lines that the noble Lord, Lord Ammon, put for-ward—namely, of splitting up London into a number of different units.

My last point is one that was raised by the noble Lords, Lord Raglan and Lord Llewellin: the question of control by the central Government. It is not an easy question. After all, the central Government and the local authority are financial partners in an undertaking. The Government have a responsibility to see that the moneys that they provide are properly spent. They may, I agree, suffer from over-anxiety and not be willing to trust their partner to the extent that the partner thinks he ought to be trusted. That is one of the dangers. It exists in other affairs besides the relationship of Government and local authority. There must be some control, as I think every member of this House would recognise. We cannot have the Government pro-viding 50 per cent., 60 per cent., or 70 per cent. (in the case of housing, even more) of the money without exercising control. The greater the amount of money that is provided, the greater the amount of control.

The Committee on Man-power, to which the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, referred, had, for one of their purposes, the determination of the exact amount of control that ought to be exercised and the possibility of relinquishing a certain amount. It was one of the indirect results of considering man-power, because we must all recognise that the exercise of control is very costly in administrative man-power, and the more we can relax, the more the man-power required can be reduced. I should not like noble Lords to run away with the idea that this is a simple matter and that the Government are exercising control just for the sake of exercising it and in order to demonstrate their bureaucratic powers. It is because they feel a sense of respon- sibility for ensuring that the public money which is being provided for the services is being wisely spent that they find it necessary to exercise control. But I recognise that it may be possible in a good many cases to relax. It may be that the kind of case that the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, has mentioned, and possibly some of those that the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has mentioned, are cases where a certain amount of relaxation could take place. I am sure that my noble friend, Lord Macdonald, who is to reply, will be glad to hear of cases where, in the opinion of noble Lords, relaxation could take place in the extent of control.

My main purpose in speaking this after-noon was to indicate my own view that local government was in danger of breaking down; that in many instances it was ceasing to be truly local government; that there were considerable conflicts which were undermining the efficiency of the service, and that to-day there was once more a need for an objective examination of the whole question. My contribution to this debate is to put forward the proposal that as soon as possible there should be set up a Royal Commission to investigate all these problems, including, if you like, the question of the relation-ship between the central Government and local government in connection with control. I am satisfied that the sooner this Commission is set up the sooner we shall get back to the position to which we all wish to return, namely, of the foundations of our democracy being revived and restored, and the people in the varying localities once more taking a real part in their own destinies.

4.11 p.m.

VISCOUNT GAGE

My Lords, this question of the diminution of the powers of local authorities is one which all Parties are apt to find regrettable in principle but difficult to do anything about in practice; and in these days of political uncertainty those of us who are interested in local government will, I am sure, attach a great deal of importance to Front Bench statements from both sides of the House. As has been said by my noble friend Lord Llewellin, the present Government's main contribution towards solving this problem has been the setting up of the Local Government Man-power Committee, and as has been explained, one of that Committee's principal objects is to see how far unnecessary supervision can be avoided. I am well aware that that Committee has done some very useful work, but they are concerned principally with economies in administration, and I am afraid that something a good deal more fundamental must be done before the average councillor can be made to feel that he has real responsibility in local government.

Those of us who stand for local government elections make speeches promising this, that and the other, but we are very conscious that we shall be quite unable to do anything unless some regional officer happens to agree with us. No doubt it is a distorted point of view, but I think that the average councillor can be forgiven for feeling that regional officers have enormous powers, and that it might occasionally be a good thing if those officers could appear at the hustings and defend their policy before the angry populace, rather than get the councillors to do it for them. One factor which seems to have contributed a great deal to this state of affairs is the peculiar hypothesis under which all local government seems to be conducted to-day— namely, that there is a good time coming, but not quite yet. We are rather in the position of the gentlemen referred to in the moneylenders' advertisements that appeared before the war, which stated that gentlemen temporarily embarrassed for want of cash could be afforded large sums of money on very easy terms. In local government we always seem to be temporarily embarrassed in resources of some kind. That does not prevent the Government from encouraging us, and even enjoining us, to make the most ambitious and elaborate plans for the future. It is only when we try to carry out those plans that we come up against a very different spirit.

For example, my own county, in common with all other counties, submitted a fairly large programme of school building under the Education Act. We were supposed to built twenty-seven new schools by this year. Actually, we have built only thirteen and those are not entirely completed; and instead of taking fifteen years this programme may take at least fifty, if it is ever completed. That criticism applies in other directions too. We have been encouraged to think in terms of new motor-highways, of dual carriage-ways, and so forth; but when we come to try to put in hand new road works we are told by the divisional road engineer that we can do very little—indeed, with the resources at our command we can hardly maintain roads we already have.

This applies not only to the past; it is going on to-day. We are now busily looking for new smallholdings land. Under the Agriculture Act those small-holdings can be acquired at £10,000 each. We have not been told to stop doing this, but I am wondering whether, when our plans are submitted, we shall be told that we cannot carry them out except in a very modified form. The point I am trying to make is simply this. If the policy is to be one of unlimited "jam" tomorrow, and a very minutely calculated ration of "jam" to-day, all worked out in Whitehall, it is a little difficult to see how devolution of responsibility can take place. If we had more modest and more realistic basic schemes for roads and schools, and so forth, and if we were given a little more discretion as to how we carried them out, I wonder whether we should not in fact get more done for the expenditure of the same amount of money and materials.

The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, in a different connotation, rather identified centralisation with efficiency. He argued along the lines that we might have to sacrifice centralisation and the efficiency that goes with it because of the social benefits that would accrue from more local responsibility. He has had much more experience than I, but I should have thought that centralisation does not in-variably lead to greater efficiency. I often feel that if a little more discretion could be given within a general frame-work, there would be more efficiency and certainly a great deal less paper. It is a little illogical, if not ridiculous, that we should have one set of planners sitting in the provinces, planning for the ideal, and an entirely different set of planners sitting in Whitehall planning for what is practically possible. It would be more efficient if those functions could be combined. Another factor that has been referred to in regard to these diminishing powers concerns the varying sizes, re-sources and efficiency of the different local authorities. Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve's Report on this matter has been quoted. Your Lordships may perhaps remember that the Report goes on to say that the weakness of the smaller units has led to increased central control which "if carried much further would cut at the root of local government." Yet little by little, every year, that central control seems to increase. As we know, Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve and his Committee were liquidated, and his passing did not produce that Parliamentary protest which one might have expected, no doubt because attention was concentrated on his specific suggestions rather than on the principles which he was trying to protect. I myself feel that that was rather a pity. This point, again, was referred to indirectly by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. The Government did promise some major reforms of their own devising, but the exact nature of those reforms has remained until this day one of the most closely guarded of State secrets. I confess that I was a little surprised to hear Lord Silkin ex-pressing views very similar to those of Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve and not explaining why Sir Malcolm had to be so summarily dealt with.

I think that something will have to be done very soon. The present situation has led to a good deal of inconvenience, waste of effort and, indeed, unnecessary expense. In my own county of Sussex we have one of the new towns, and it is at present under the administration of no fewer than three different county councils. I entirely agree with Lord Silkin that this is not at all an easy problem. There is an increasing tendency to centralisation and it is difficult to stop it. The fact remains that the average councillor to-day, finding that all major decisions are taken by mysterious bodies of people whom he never sees, and for reasons which are never fully disclosed, is beginning to wonder what he is there for. He is tempted to get into the bad habit of "passing the buck" back to Whitehall, whenever anything difficult crops up. That, I think, is a serious matter.

Further, it seems to me that the electorate are ceasing to regard local government elections as having very much to do with local government issues. I think the electorate are beginning to regard those elections merely as a trial of Party strength, and to keep their eyes firmly fixed on the next General Election. Whether this is all inevitable I cannot say, but it does not seem to me to be an entirely healthy position. As for the remedy, I believe, as we have heard to-day, that some legislative and administrative changes are necessary. Fundamentally, however, a good deal depends on the outlook of individual Ministers, all of whom have such enormous powers to-day. If a Minister really believes that it is a good thing for the country that there should be responsible local government, he can do a great deal to build it up. But if, on the other hand, the Minister is of a more dictatorial character, if he believes in the sort of Politburo system of government into which we seem sometimes to be drifting, if he wants to keep all the limelight on himself, then he can do a great deal to kill local government. I am encouraged by the speech which has been made to-day by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. I feel that if ever he became Minister of Local Government and Planning—which I think would be a sound idea—he would belong to the first category of Ministers which I have just mentioned. I beg to support the Motion.

4.25 p.m.

LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH

My Lords, there is one thing upon which we may be agreed, and that is that local government in this country is something of which we may all be proud. It has grown up in a somewhat haphazard and piecemeal fashion, adjusting itself from time to time to the new needs which have arisen owing to the increasing urbanisation of our society and the general complexity of modern life. During the war it responded magnificently to the demands which were made upon it by Civil Defence. At that time I was a member of the civil defence committee of the borough in which I reside, and also of that of the County of London, and I saw on the spot how well, and with what courage, the Civil Defence services organised by the local authorities operated in that great emergency. That was a great test which should make us confident about the efficiency of this branch of our public service. Nevertheless, I agree that there is some cause for anxiety.

I was a member of the Council of the Borough of Battersea for twenty-six years, and of the London County Council for twelve years, and it seemed to me during my term of office latterly that interest in municipal affairs was diminishing. I do not entirely ascribe that, as some noble Lords who have spoken to-day have done, to the transfer of certain public services to the control of Ministers or of public boards: I detected that tendency before those events took place. It is probably due to a multiplicity of causes. The cinema, the wireless and, latterly, television have given people new recreations and interests in life which are entirely divorced from their local affairs. The popular Press, seeking sensationalism on the widest scale, seldom has anything to say about local government unless it discovers—and this is a very rare occurrence indeed— something which savours of scandal. Local weekly newspapers which used to report local government activities adequately are, in a number of cases at least, modelling themselves upon the journals of mass circulation, and reports relating to purely local affairs are disappearing from their columns. I think, therefore, that the public generally are less well informed of, and take less interest in, the proceedings of local authorities. Partly it may be that is a tribute to the efficiency with which these authorities conduct their business. It may mean that the public have no cause of criticism or complaint and. therefore, they do not feel to the same extent interested.

Whatever the reasons, however, this fact, in its turn, has led to the result, which has already been referred to in the debate to-day, that those who have the best talents for public administration show themselves less willing to run for public office; and I am afraid that, to a certain extent at any rate, the standard has fallen. Even if it be true that part of the cause of this lack of interest in local government is due to the transfer to other bodies of some of the powers and duties which local authorities used to exercise, I do not think that is the primary reason, or that a return of those powers, if that were possible, would appreciably alter the trend of events. I am not aware, and I did not gather from the noble Lord who introduced this discussion, that it is the policy of any Party to make a major reversal of the transfer of functions from local authorities to central and other bodies. One of the reasons why that appears no longer to be possible is that we cannot entirely separate financial responsibility from administrative ability. Whoever is responsible for providing the finance for running public undertakings must also be responsible for their conduct.

It is difficult to find a remedy for the situation with which we are confronted. For one thing, municipal governments might follow the example of the national Government and establish efficient public relations departments to try to evoke more public interest by diffusing greater knowledge of what local authorities are doing. It may be also that a radical reorganisation of local government would help. I agree with my noble friends Lord Ammon and Lord Silkin that there is a strong case for this. There can be little doubt that in many cases the areas are far too small for efficient administration in these days of greater expenditure and rapid communication. Unless we have authorities which are large enough to dispose of adequate resources, which are able to employ sufficiently qualified technical staff, and which are able to conduct their business upon a scale which is both economical and efficient, we are bound to have some local authorities who are not carrying out their functions as well as they could do. As a consequence, activities of these local authorities must be confined to the smaller municipal functions; the larger functions will inevitably gravitate to larger bodies, either the county councils or the county boroughs, by an extension of the boundaries of county boroughs.

There is a wide field for disagreement about the precise way in which a reform of local government should be brought about. But at any rate it is certain that the dispersal of functions of local government among such a large number of bodies—there are thousands of them, not only local authorities proper, but numerous ad hoc bodies and joint committees as well—leads not merely to a dispersal of public interest but to a total abolition of all public interest in what is taking place. This is a situation which demands the most careful study by the Minister of Local Government and Planning, as well as by local authorities themselves. If this debate leads to such an examination by those who are concerned, I think it will be well worth while our having had it.

4.35 p.m.

THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR)

My Lords, this is one of the debates which we so often have in this House in which a number of experts give us the benefit of their expert knowledge. All such debates are beneficial to the Government of the day. I became worried about the three "H's" of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, when he talked about local authorities being "hamstrung, hobbled and humbugged": I wondered whether he intended to try to hurry, hasten and harass this Government. This has not been a Party debate in any shape or form, and on behalf of the Government I should like to thank the noble Lord for having brought forward this Motion. I do not think I shall be expected to reply to the individual points raised. I hardly think the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, will expect me from this Box to give a specific reply to his question whether in future the body which looked after the Welsh Museum in the past, now that the finance is wholly provided by the central authority, will be able to continue as if they were continuing to provide for their own financial needs. I can hardly go as far as that, and I am not authorised to make that promise to-day.

I agree that the country generally has never appreciated its debt to the men and women who sacrifice both leisure and pleasure to serve on local government bodies. I agree also that there is a real danger in reducing the powers and functions of these bodies to such an extent that men and women will not want to serve on them. What we have to consider is how to find the happy mean. I have jotted down here an answer to the question: What is the essential need of local government? I have jotted down these answers only during this debate; therefore they may not be phrased in the right and proper way. First and foremost, I place men and women democratically elected. There is agreement among your Lordships on this point, Secondly. I put men and women with intimate knowledge of the needs and resources of the areas for which they are responsible. Again, we all agree. Thirdly, I put men and women serving in an area not too large to prevent them from acquiring the intimate knowledge referred to, yet big enough to provide the financial resources. Again, we all agree. Then I put as my fourth point: not too much interference on the part of those from outside the area—I thought that would draw a big cheer. Fifthly, when we find the right size of area to provide for the intimacy I referred to, if it is unable to find the necessary funds to cope with the work of the area and help must come from out-side, we should decide what degree of supervision must accompany outside financial assistance. I think that is the real problem.

It is generally agreed that the diminution of powers of local authorities may have been carried too far. But I wonder. I have not heard any indication of that this afternoon. It is possible that it has been carried too far, in the sense that a member of the local authority now has little to attract him, while, as my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch said, there are other attractions, outside local authorities, which were not in existence some years ago and with which local authorities have to compete. Therefore, to reduce their powers and functions too much is to invite the danger of not obtaining the right type of representative. I think there is general agreement on this question. I have here a list of the powers handed over to local authorities which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, but the list is so long that it would take me ten minutes to read it. In some areas more power has been given to them than they had before, and in others, they are exercising less power and functions. I do not think we ought to ignore the fact that additional powers and functions have been assigned to various local authorities.

If I am asked the Government point of view, I must say that I am not authorised to state that we can agree to a Royal Commission to-day. I noticed that my right honourable friend the Minister of Local Government and Planning, in answering a Question in another place on February 1 of this year, said that he was glad to hear that the local authorities' associations were discussing this question, and that he would await with interest their conclusions. I am able to say this, but no more: if and when that authority is in a position to make a report, that report will be received and considered sympathetically. I cannot go further to-day than to make that statement.

As I have already said, I see no need for me to go into the various changes that have been made. We agree that careful consideration should be given to the matter of whether we have not taken away too many powers. I cannot say whether we have or not. but we are prepared to have the matter fully considered in the way indicated. I believe it was the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, who made a suggestion about the Boundary Commission. When the Bill was discussed in this House we did not give a clear undertaking, but we did give the impression that some body would be set up to go into the question of functions and areas. The two things are inseparable. It is useless to try and determine functions before determining areas, because no regard is had to what the functions will cost and what the discharge will mean in the area. I do not think your Lordships' House is the place to agree that the central body should find the money and do nothing more. This is not the Assembly I know it to be if it agrees that all we have to do at the centre is to provide the money required in the various areas. I agree that nationalisation has meant a loss in revenue for certain townships. Some of the functions which they enjoyed before brought them in profits, and they now no longer enjoy them. I have not looked on this as a debate in which I have to defend every scheme of nationalisation passed since 1945. I have no intention of attempting to do that, though no doubt I could do so provided I had long enough.

We are in agreement here. I have never heard a debate where a subject has been better debated. There have been no set speeches to-day. I felt that my task would be an easy one, and that has turned out to be the case. We have great sympathy for the point of view that there is need for an examination of the question of whether we have carried too far the diminishing of the powers and functions of local authorities. We feel that we cannot go further with it until we have dealt with the various areas. The noble Viscount, Lord Gage, expressed the view that we did wrong in discontinuing the Boundary Commission. That may be so; but, having discontinued it, we feel that we cannot go any further on the question of powers and functions until we fix a limitation on the areas of the bodies.

The noble Lord, Lord Ammon, reminded us of the great size of the London County Council. I have never thought of the London County Council as a local authority: no authority which covers so large an area is a local authority, and it is a wrong use of a term to speak of local authorities when speaking of an authority responsible for the area of the London County Council. We were told by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that there are seventy hospitals for which they are responsible, and that many of the members of the Committee saw but few of them. All I can say is that the Government are sympathetic to the idea of this question being examined. They are pleased that some of the associations responsible are examining it, and are anxiously awaiting the result of that examination. But I cannot promise a Royal Commission to-day.

I felt that there was a tendency to over-emphasise the effect on people's willingness to become members of local authorities. I read in the newspaper this morning that there were 10,000 candidates standing for 350 councils in the forthcoming local elections. That does not indicate to me any unreadiness to serve. But a more pleasing feature is that the vast majority of those who have served for years are seeking re-election. It was the effect on those, and not on the new-comers, of which I was afraid. There is an attraction in becoming a member of a local council, but I was afraid that those who for years had been dealing with these extended responsibilities might now, finding them limited, feel no desire to continue to serve. I understand, however, that the vast majority of those who have previously served are seeking re-election. That rather refutes the argument that this diminution of responsibilities is affecting the quantity. It may possibly have affected the quality—one does not know. I have felt that on many local councils we were getting quantity sometimes with-out the quality, and it may be so this year.

I look upon serving on a local authority as a fine apprenticeship for a Parliamentary career. I remember my last conversation with the late Earl Baldwin in 1942. He had asked me to see him in London, and during the conversation he said: "What do you think of my successor?" I said: "I have not seen much of him, as he is in the Forces, and we do not see a great deal of him in the House." Earl Baldwin then said: "Quite a number of young fellows have come to see me and asked me for support when I resigned from the Commons. One young fellow told me that he had been to the same school and college. I asked him his age, and he said that he was twenty-three. I asked if he had served on a local authority, and he said that he had not." Earl Baldwin then said: "You know, Macdonald, I made up my mind that I would not support any candidate who was not over thirty, under forty, and had not served on a local authority. If I had my way I would make it compulsory that no man should serve as a Member of the House of Commons who had not served previously as a member of a local authority." Many of your Lordships would not subscribe to that view, but I look upon service in a local local authority as a good apprenticeship. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, will feel, as I do, that the debate he has initiated in that, if I may say so, reasonably-toned manner which we expect of him, has not been in vain, although I cannot possibly give him all for which he is asking; and I hope also that he will not feel it necessary to press the Motion to a Division.

4.48 p.m.

LORD LLEWELLIN

My Lords, as ever, the House is indebted to the noble Lord who has just wound up for the Government for the charming way in which he has dealt with the matter under discussion. This debate has certainly been worth while. Frankly, I did not expect to get much out of it by way of promises from the noble Lord, and I suppose that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, did not expect the promise of a Royal Commission. Some interesting topics have been raised, and I was greatly impressed when the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, referred to the London County Council and to the fact that they had seventy-four hospitals. The noble Lord said that the Chairman of the Hospitals Committee could not visit all the hospitals, and that the same remark applied in regard to the schools. If we view the L.C.C. in the right perspective, and realise that in their area there are about the same number of people as there are in Australia, we shall understand what a tremendous undertaking the L.C.C. is.

I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in this discussion. I had a great deal of sympathy with my noble friend Lord Gage, when he said that while, on the one hand, they were encouraged to put up grandiose schemes, when they worked out the scheme it often was extremely difficult to get anybody to sanction the expenditure involved. If we did not go in for all these grandiose schemes on paper, and went in for practical schemes coming within the limits of the financial resources of the country at this time, I think there would be less disgruntlement among local authorities and things would go along better. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, in winding up—and we agree with the propositions that he laid down—said that one of the questions was: What degree of supervision should there be when outside monies entered into the matter? That is a great part of the problem, but in some cases it has worked extremely well to have a general supervision of the way money is spent without too meticulous detailed supervision. Too much detailed supervision has grown up recently—I am not blaming anybody for that, because it is largely due to the scarcity of materials and to the need for control in saying, for instance, how much timber is going into a house. So far as we can, however, we want to get away from too much detailed supervision. If, for instance, we could devise some scheme like that operating in respect of the University Grants Committee (which has a discussion on how the grants are to be expended and then leaves it to the university authorities) we should be saving a great deal in administrative expenditure, and should not be getting less value for the public money than we are at the present time.

The only other thing I would say is that we have to deal with matters as they arise. The present policy of completely "freezing" everything until this close State secret to which my noble friend Lord Gage referred has been disclosed, is fatal. The noble Lord said that he was glad to think that the County Councils Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations and, perhaps, the Rural and Urban District Councils' Associations were all getting together, and if they could agree upon a plan the Government would carry it out. I did not feel that that idea carried us much further, because the possibilities of agreement between the Associations are about as good as the probable agreement of the four Foreign Ministers in Paris, even if the agenda can be agreed upon before they meet; and I doubt whether the noble Lord himself thinks there is much in that suggestion. On the other hand, I do not think that we should stop every sensible improvement in an area until this plan is agreed upon.

If I may end with one illustration, I heard that Market Rasen—a very small town in Lincolnshire, with a penny rate that produces £45, and rates amounting at the present moment to 25s. in the £— wanted to be amalgamated with the surrounding district council. They did not think they were in a position to do much with regard to their roads. They have one tar-spraying machine, which is described as obsolete, and they borrowed a garden roller from the local county council to do what road work they could. The district council were quite willing to have them in as part of their area, and the county council supported the request. It came up to the Ministry, where it was turned down because, until this great scheme matures, nothing can be done. I hope the noble Lord will mention cases of that description to his right honourable friend, and will see whether schemes of that sort cannot be proceeded with while we are waiting for this wonderful millennium in local government affairs which is coming as soon as agreement is reached between all the different bodies I mentioned. The noble Lord said that he hoped he would not be pressed for Papers to-day. As part of the object of this Motion is to see that less paper work goes on between central Government Departments and local government authorities, I can give him an assurance on that score: and with the leave of the House I now ask leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.