Sitting of 27 June 1955

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  LIVERPOOL CORPORATION BILL [Lords]
    MILFORD DOCKS BILL [Lords]
    Read a Second time and committed.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

  VULCAN AND VICTOR AIRCRAFT
  Mr. Wiggasked the Attorney-General whether he will take proceedings against Captain K. Bartlett, a director of the Bristol Aeroplane Company, who, in breach of the Official Secrets Act, on Sunday, 19th June, 1955, announced at the Le Bourget Air Display the speeds and ceilings of the Vulcan and Victor aircraft.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): No, Sir. I have had inquiries made into this matter and I cannot accept the statement in the Question that Captain Bartlett acted in breach of the Official Secrets Acts.
  Mr. Wigg: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman satisfied that there has been at no stage any breach of security
  2
  and that no secret information has been divulged?
  The Attorney-General: I am afraid that I could not hear all of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. With regard to the first part of it, I have no evidence which leads me to suppose that there has been any breach of the Official Secrets Acts.
  Mr. Shinwell: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman disclose to us whether this gentleman did at any time reveal the speeds of these aircraft?
  The Attorney-General: This gentleman did make some statement about the speeds of these aircraft. I understand that he was then engaged in translating the comments made by a French commentator.
  Mr. Wigg: As the right hon. and learned Gentleman has given the House some information which he did not give in reply to me, may I ask if he has inquired how the French commentator got the information which enabled Captain Bartlett to reveal to the world the speeds and ceilings of these aircraft?
  The Attorney-General: No, Sir. That is hardly a matter for me.

  PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE

    Facilities, Aberdeen (Northfield and Mastrick)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he is aware that many Aberdeen old age pensioners live in the newly

    3
    developed housing estates of Northfield and Mastrick; that these estates are hilly and remote from the pensions office in the City of Aberdeen; that it is difficult and expensive to old age pensioners to travel to and fro to collect their pensions; and if he will provide facilities for old age pensioners to collect their pensions in Northfield and Mastrick accordingly.
    The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Osbert Peake): There have been very few complaints from retirement pensioners in these areas. At Northfield, I understand that two days ago a new sub-post office replaced the temporary counter service which for the last four months has enabled pensioners to cash their orders locally. As my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General indicated in his reply on 15th June, he hopes to invite applications for the sub-postmastership at Mastrick early next month.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister realise that old-age pensions were granted on the implied condition that they would be paid to pensioners at places reasonably near their homes; and as the present situation in these two districts is imposing expense and injustice on these old-age pensioners, what does the Minister propose to do to recompense them?
    Mr. Peake: As my answer pointed out, there will be a new sub-post office available very shortly in each of these two suburbs of Aberdeen. In the meantime, any pensioner can, of course, authorise a friend or relative to draw his pension for him.
    Mr. Hughes: Does not the Minister realise that these pensioners have been already put to expense out of their small pensions, which is very unjust and unfair, and can he say what compensation or recompense it is proposed to make to them?
    Mr. Peake: No, Sir. Places are always available in the shopping centres where pensions can be drawn, and I am quite sure that a number of good Samaritans who are prepared to help these people can be found in Aberdeen, as, indeed, elsewhere.

    Old-Age Pensioners
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will now take steps to ensure that old-age pensioners will be given free transport from their homes to the places where they receive their pensions and back to their homes.
    Mr. Peake: No, Sir. If through infirmity a pensioner cannot call at the nearest post office to draw his pension, he can nominate someone to do this for him.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister not realise that these pensions were fixed when conditions were different and that new conditions have been introduced by the present Government increasing the cost of fuel and transport? Therefore, there is a real case for old-age pensioners being given free transport.
    Mr. Peake: I hesitate to draw the right hon. and learned Gentleman's attention to the fact that the Conservative Government increased pensions very substantially as from about 24th April.
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance how many old-age pensioners in receipt of National Assistance allowances did not have their incomes increased by 7s. 6d. for single pensioners and 11s. for couples when the basic pension was increased in April; and the saving in payments by the National Assistance Board when the new basic scales became operative.
    Mr. Peake: The answer to the first part of the Question is about one million. The estimated saving in Assistance over a full year, after taking account of all the changes this year in both insurance benefits and Assistance, is about £13 million.
    Mr. Dodds: Would the Minister not agree that the figure he has just given gives some idea of the meanness of the present Government, in that one million old-age pensioners, the poorest of the community, have been denied this increase? Would he not also agree that the saving of the National Assistance Board has been achieved at the expense of putting up National Insurance contributions by 1s. a week to the workers and employers?
    Mr. Peake: No, Sir, I cannot agree to any of that. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"] I would remind the hon. Gentleman that all pensioners have derived benefit from the increases made this year, and that when the Socialist Government carried out a similar operation in 1946, some 600,000 pensioners got no increase at all.
    Mr. T. Williams: Is not the Minister aware that certain persons were net losers, because when they received the increase in their old-age pensions their National Assistance was reduced?
    Mr. Peake: I cannot agree that anybody has been a net loser as the result of the combined operation carried out this year. If the right hon. Gentleman knows any case, perhaps he will send me particulars of it.
    Mr. Gower: Can my right hon. Friend give the number of people who received the maximum benefit of the recent increases?
    Mr. Peake: The number is approximately 3¼ million.

    Central Advisory Committee
    Mr. Simmonsasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will reappoint his Central Advisory Committee on War Pensioners' Problems.
    Mr. Peake: The Central Advisory Committee is still in existence, and I look forward to its continued assistance. Following the General Election, there will need to be one or two changes in that part of its membership drawn from this House.
    Mr. Simmons: Will the Minister arrange that there shall be representatives of the Scottish Office and of the Ministry of Health on the Committee in order that the whole of the problems of the disabled ex-Service men can be considered, as responsibility is divided between those Ministries?
    Mr. Peake: I think the hon. Gentleman is aware that the composition of the Committee is fixed by statute and that legislation would be required to effect any alteration. I will, however, look at the suggestion he has made.
    Mr. Simmons: Can the right hon. Gentleman suggest to the Minister of Health that he also should have an advisory committee to deal with ex-Service men's problems, as his own Ministry now has?
    Mr. Peake: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would put that question down to the Minister of Health.

    War Pensioners
    Mr. Simmonsasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will give immediate consideration to the problems of the ageing war pensioners of 1914–18 war and announce his findings early this Session.
    Mr. Peake: I am always ready to consider individual cases where the war disability has worsened, but I cannot hold out any expectation of a change in the basis of the war pensions scheme so as to vary assessments according to age.
    Mr. Simmons: Could not the Minister stretch the regulations for the benefit of the aged war disabled? For instance, could he stretch the regulation that applies to comforts, so that the aged war pensioners will benefit?
    Mr. Peake: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that we stretch the regulations as far as possible in the interests of the war disabled, and that the administration is extremely sympathetic.
    Mr. Haleasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance to state, at the most convenient date, the number of persons in receipt of disability pensions due to war service and the number who are in receipt of constant attendance and hardship allowance, respectively; and if he will give the corresponding figures for the two previous years.
    Mr. Peake: Since a number of figures are involved, I will, with permission, circulate them in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Hale: While I appreciate that, will not the right hon. Gentleman have a look at this matter of the constant attendance allowance and these two major allowances, because there is a feeling that too few pensioners are in receipt of these benefits, which are intended for the worst class of case? Will he bear in mind that

    7
    many of these pensioners' problems seem to get more acute and need more consideration?
    Mr. Peake: No doubt the hon. Gentleman will study the figures when they are circulated. The number receiving an

    ——

    At 31st March

    1955

    1954

    1953

    Number of war disablement pensioners

    634,100

    655,600

    668,500

    Number of pensioners receiving allowances for constant attendance

    10,670

    10,840

    10,550

    Number of pensioners receiving allowances for lowered standard of occupation

    16,470

    17,410

    17,860

    Byssinosis
    Mr. Holtasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will ease the qualifications of 20 years' minimum employment in a card room and 50 per cent. disability before compensation can be paid to those suffering from byssinosis in the cotton industry.
    Mr. Peake: These are among the questions that are being considered by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council who are at present reviewing the provision made for Byssinosis under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts.

    Personal Case
    Mr. Wadeasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance why Mr. D. B. Lamb, 5, Sunny Bank Road, Edgerton, Huddersfield, was disqualified from receiving sickness benefit from 1st October, 1954, to 24th November, 1954, although his doctor and his wife had been advised by the local office of his Department that he would not be so disqualified.
    Mr. Peake: I am glad to be able to inform the hon. Member that payment has now been made to Mr. Lamb in respect of the period in question. I regret the delay.
    Mr. Wade: While I appreciate what the Minister has said and am informed that my constituent has received a cheque—although without a covering letter—may I ask whether it was absolutely necessary for Mr. Lamb to undergo the strain of the very lengthy and somewhat harassing procedure of unsuccessful appeal
    allowance for the lower standard of occupation is about the same proportion today as it was about two years ago, and the proportion in regard to constant attendance is somewhat greater.
    Following are the figures:
    before amends could be made for this error?
    Mr. Peake: Yes, Sir. Anyone with a knowledge of the work of the Public Accounts Committee will know that it is very unwise for a Minister to interfere while a case is sub judice.

    Sickness Benefit
    Mr. Wadeasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance under what circumstances and for what reasons a person otherwise entitled to sickness benefit is disqualified from receiving it whilst temporarily abroad under doctor's orders for the purposes of recuperation.
    Mr. Peake: Section 29 (1) (a) of the National Insurance Act, 1946, provides that, in general, an insured person shall be disqualified for receiving benefit for any period when he is absent from Great Britain. This provision is modified in the case of sickness benefit by regulations which provide that the disqualification shall not apply to a person whose absence abroad was for the specific purpose of being treated for incapacity which commenced before he left Great Britain.
    Mr. Wade: Is it correct that if a patient is sent abroad on doctor's orders on a sea voyage and there is a doctor on the ship in attendance, the patient is entitled to his sickness benefit, but if, as in the case referred to in my previous Question, he goes on a cargo boat and there is no doctor in attendance, he is disqualified from sickness benefit? Is there not some anomaly that should be looked into?
    Mr. Peake: That may well be the case, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. It has to be drawn so that the Minister can say with certainty whether the conditions for the receipt of benefit are being fulfilled.
    Mr. B. Taylorasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance the number of persons in the North Midland Region who have been receiving sickness benefit for six months or longer and have been referred for medical examination by his Department during the past 12 months.
    Mr. Peake: I regret that this information is not available.
    Mr. Taylor: The Minister says that he cannot obtain this information. Cases have come to my knowledge where the references for medical examination by his Department are causing apprehension to the long-term sickness cases. Surely he can get the information.
    Mr. Peake: There is, of course, no longer a distinction between cases of sickness which have lasted for more than six months and those which have lasted for less. Figures are therefore not available on that basis. I can give the hon. Gentleman global figures of references in particular periods, if he would care to have them. I should be happy to discuss any particular case with the hon. Gentleman if he has a particular case in mind.

    Appeals
    Mr. Wadeasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance by what authority a claimant who has appealed to the National Insurance Commissioner is not allowed to appear in person or to be represented at the hearing of his appeal; and whether he will amend his regulations so as to remedy this state of affairs.
    Mr. Peake: The statutory regulations provide that the National Insurance Commissioner shall grant a request for an oral hearing unless, after considering the record of the case and the reasons put forward in the request for a hearing, he is satisfied that the appeal can properly be determined without a hearing. The claimant will always have had an opportunity of a hearing before the local appeal tribunal, and I think it is best to leave the Commissioner with his present discretion.
    Mr. Wade: Is it not contrary to the generally accepted principles of British justice that the National Insurance Commissioner, from whom there is no appeal to a court of law, should have the right to decide, not merely to arrive at his decision in private, but also to refuse to allow the appellant to appear before him and plead his case?
    Mr. Peake: The existing practice regarding the discretion left to the Commissioner whether there should be an oral hearing or not springs from a decision of the Liberal Government in 1911, when unemployment insurance was first introduced. I would also refer the hon. Gentleman to the findings of the Donoughmore Committee on Ministerial Powers in 1934, which said:
    "There is no natural right to an oral hearing."
    Mr. Wade: Should we not improve on what was done in 1911?
    Mr. Peake: This point might well be discussed by the committee which in their Election Manifesto the Government promised to set up, and which was mentioned in the Gracious Speech.

    Retirement Pensions (Earnings Limit)
    Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance on what basis the earnings limit for old-age pensioners was increased from 20s. to 40s. per week; and if he will now take steps to increase the earnings limit to a figure which may be deemed appropriate today.
    Mr. Peake: I cannot add to what was said in Parliament at the time as to the basis of the change made by the 1951 Act. As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Sir I. Clark Hutchison) on 20th June.
    Mr. Gower: While appreciating that to remove the earnings limit altogether would militate against our efforts to persuade people to work voluntarily beyond retirement, is it not a fact that reasons similar to those which prompted the Administration a few years ago to increase the limit from 20s. to 40s. now appear to call for some modest increase today?
    Mr. Dodds: The increase in the cost of living.
    Mr. Peake: I am sure we all regret that it is no longer possible to put a Question to the right hon. Lady the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) about her motives for making this change in 1951, but I must draw my hon. Friend's attention to the findings of the Phillips Committee on this point and say that it is one which obviously will fall to be considered when we come to undertake the non-statutory review of the National Insurance Scheme.
    Mr. Hale: Are we to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's constant reference to the events of 1911 and thereabouts that he does not consider it his duty to apply any independent considerations to any of these problems?
    Mr. Nabarro: Would my right hon. Friend have regard to current circumstances? Is he aware that in the Midlands area around Birmingham, which is only one of 13 areas in the country, there are 52,000 vacancies for employment at present and that many of these would be filled by old-age pensioners were it not for the operation of this pernicious rule respecting their earnings?
    Mr. Peake: I am sure my hon. Friend knows that the purpose of the rule is to encourage people to stay in full-time employment rather than to retire on pension and seek half-time employment. We have the findings of the Phillips Committee, which went very carefully into this matter, but, as I have said, the whole matter will fall to be considered, along with a great many other points of principle, in the non-statutory review of the Scheme.

    Non-Contributory Pensions
    Mr. Blenkinsopasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance whether he will propose alterations to the present regulations governing the payment of non-contributory old-age pensions in view of the inadequacy of present scales of benefit.
    Mr. Peake: No, Sir; I see no reason for departing from the policy followed in this matter by all recent Governments. These pensions are paid by the National Assistance Board which supplements them when necessary.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Will the Minister not look at this matter afresh, with other matters? Does he not realise that a pensioner over 70 years of age, perhaps receiving about 34s. a week, is able to get only 2s. extra on the basis of the non-contributory pension and that many of them do not want to go to the Assistance Board for supplementation?
    Mr. Peake: The hon. Member says that many of them do not want to go to the National Assistance Board, but all these non-contributory pensions are paid by the National Assistance Board, which is, therefore, in touch with each individual who is receiving a pension of this character. The non-contributory pension is an obsolescent type, the grant of which will, broadly, come to an end in 1961. I think it would be unreasonable, therefore, to make any alteration in the conditions affecting the drawing of the pension by those at present entitled to it.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: As the Minister admits that this is in any case a steadily reducing charge, is not that a good reason for something fresh to be done about it?

  FUEL AND POWER

    Oil Prices (United Nations Report)
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Fuel and Power what consideration has now been given to the Report of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe which alleges that the oil companies are charging unreasonably high prices; and what action is contemplated to deal with this problem.
    The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): This study was undertaken by the Secretariat of E.C.E. on their own initiative and has not been endorsed by Governments. Her Majesty's Government have examined it carefully but do not consider that further action is warranted. In their opinion the forces of world competition are more likely than Government intervention to ensure the proper pricing of oil.
    Mr. Dodds: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that this Report has

    13
    been studied and that the Government think there is no truth whatever in the assertion that oil and petrol are too expensive? Will he get up and say that the Government are fully satisfied with the situation and protect the oil racketeers?
    Mr. Lloyd: No, Sir, but there are implications in this Report which have been very much misunderstood, more particularly by the right hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes), who gave the impression that the price of crude oil was only about £1 a ton in the Middle East——
    Mr. Dodds: That is not the Report.
    Mr. Lloyd: —whereas if the Report is carefully read it will be seen that, although it gives an impression that the net profit was applied entirely to the oil companies, in fact 50 per cent. of it was paid to the Middle Eastern Governments, and therefore the real cost of the oil to the companies is not £1 a ton but almost £3 a ton.
    Mr. Stokes: That is all very well. May I ask the Minister whether he is aware that crude oil from the bowels of the earth in the Middle East costs only £1 a ton into the tanker, whereas it is £3 10s. more from Texas into the tankers in the Gulf of Mexico? I am perfectly well aware that the royalties are now shared, but even so the profits made by the oil companies in the Middle East are more than double those made by the oil companies in America.
    Mr. Lloyd: I am glad the right hon. Gentlemen has now put himself right on this point. The impression which he gave was that the cost of oil in the Middle East was £1 a ton, whereas in fact it was £3 a ton. The right hon. Gentleman was therefore only 200 per cent. out, a rather slender margin for him.
    Mr. Stokes: The Minister wilfully misunderstands me. What I said was that the cost of oil into the tanker in the Middle East was £1 per ton. That price then becomes £4 10s. a ton. I agree that under the new arrangements the royalty owners—in other words, the countries concerned—get 50 per cent. of the profits. That is perfectly true. There is
    14
    still £3 10s. a ton to be divided between the two of them, and the half which the oil company gets is still a great deal more than any American oil company gets.
    Mr. Lloyd: In any case the right hon. Gentleman also gave the impression that this country got no advantage from the import of oil from the Middle East, whereas in fact crude oil imported into this country from the Middle East is obtained at £2 a ton less than that from the United States.
    Mr. H. Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman, instead of misrepresenting my right hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes), tell the House what he has to conceal on this question? In view of the prima facie indictment of the oil companies in this Report and in view of a whole series of independent comments, such as those of the "Economist," saying that Gulf prices are now totally irrelevant to conditions in this country, will the right hon. Gentleman not at least have an independent inquiry into this subject so that we can know what are the facts?
    Mr. Lloyd: I think the right hon. Gentleman is being very unfair when he talks about a prima facie indictment of the oil companies based on exactly the kind of misunderstanding that I have mentioned, which is 200 per cent. wrong.

    Methane Gas
    Mr. Hastingsasked the Minister of Fuel and Power what experiments have been made by his research officers in the use of methane gas derived from sewage purification for heating or lighting in England and Wales; and to what extent such experiments have proved successful.
    Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Such uses of methane gas are already well known, but the collection of the gas appears to be an economic proposition only in works dealing with populations of 50,000 people or more.
    Mr. Hastings: Have not some of the results been very discordant? Would not the right hon. Gentleman think it perhaps right to have an inquiry on this subject, or at least to issue a memorandum, as its importance seems to be increasing?
    Mr. Lloyd: I will consider that.

    Electricity Transmission Line, Borrowdale
    Mr. G. Jegerasked the Minister of Fuel and Power what letters he has received objecting to the proposals of the North West Electricity Board to erect masts, wires and overhead cables in Borrowdale; and what reply he has sent.
    Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: The North Western Electricity Board has now announced that it will lay underground the whole of the new line as far as Rosthwaite, including the circuit of Derwentwater. The Board has stated that the remaining section of the Borrowdale line is receiving further examination.
    Mr. Jeger: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this pronouncement has been received with general acclamation and that we would like to congratulate the North Western Electricity Board on its change of mind and its decision to preserve the beauty of Borrowdale?
    Mr. Anthony Greenwood: As the effect of this very welcome decision will be to protect an area of great national importance, could the right hon. Gentleman tell us how the cost will be borne? Will it be spread over all the undertakings of the Electricity Authority? If there is any difficulty, could he have a word with the Chancellor of the Exchequer about using the National Land Fund for a purpose of this kind?
    Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that I need bother my right hon. Friend on this occasion, because when I received a letter from the National Parks Commission I sent an officer to the Lake District. He walked over the route of the line and, following discussions with the North West Electricity Board, the present course was adopted. It has been stated that on this occasion there will be no increase in the cost of electricity to people who are to be connected as a result.

  COAL

    Subsidence
    Mr. Warbeyasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is yet in a position to state the policy of the Government in relation to the recommendations of the Turner Committee on Mining Subsidence.
    Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I have nothing to add to the reply which my hon. Friend gave the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) on 13th June.
    Mr. Warbey: If the Government cannot find time for legislation during the present Session, can they at least find time to make up their minds on this subject? They have had five years in which to do so. When shall we have a statement of Government policy on this matter?
    Mr. Lloyd: I explained early in the life of the last Parliament that, owing to the economic position left to us by our predecessors, we were not in a position to take action.
    Mr. Bartley: Is the Minister aware that the recommendations referring to agricultural land do not appear to require legislation? Will he take action as Minister by direction to the National Coal Board to implement those recommendations?
    Mr. Lloyd: I will examine that point.
    Mr. Holtasked the Minister of Fuel and Power in how many areas property is being extensively damaged by subsidence due to coalmining; and what is the total number of houses at present damaged.
    Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Damage is caused through subsidence in most coal-mining areas. According to statistics for 1954, which are the latest available, the number of houses damaged was just over 12,000.
    Mr. Holt: People living in these houses would greatly appreciate it if they could get better recompense for damage done, but does the Minister realise that they would far prefer not to have any damage done at all? Would he say what is the policy of the Coal Board in new developments in pits—whether the fact that damage may take place extensively to property is taken into consideration before development?
    Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir. Of course, mining Members know that solid packing is a remedy for this, but it is not applicable in all cases and, in fact, is not usually applicable. All the 12,000 cases have been fully compensated by the National Coal Board.
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the disastrous policy of opencast coalmining will add to this subsidence on a colossal scale in years to come?
    Mr. J. T. Price: Is the Minister also aware that, in addition to the damage to houses and other forms of property, the local authorities responsible in the mining areas have to meet an ever-increasing bill for damaged public services, sewers, mains and all kinds of things underground, which is a burden on the local rates that they ought not to be carrying at all?
    Mr. Lloyd: Yes, but the last Government thought the most urgent part of the problem was dealing with small private houses.
    Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Will the Minister again take into consideration what my hon. Friend has said and at least make an inquiry into how much it would cost the Exchequer to bear the cost, on national funds, of putting right damage caused by subsidence?
    Mr. Lloyd: Yes, we are examining that, but when the right hon. Gentleman brought in his Bill, he departed from the Turner Committee's Report and thereby created a rather new situation.

    Fuel Office, Osgoldcross
    Mr. G. Jegerasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware of the dismay caused in the Osgoldcross rural district by the proposal to close down the local fuel office; and whether he will accept the counter proposals of the rural district council that the office be continued for the convenience of the public and at no cost to the taxpayers.
    Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: When the time comes to consider this question, I shall take full account of the views of the council.
    Mr. Jeger: Will the right hon. Gentleman also take into account the views of seven local parish councils which have been protesting against the proposal? Will he accept from me the statement that the local authorities really know what are the best local services? Will he accept the advice of some of his colleagues that the gentleman in Whitehall does not always know best?
    Mr. Lloyd: We have already abolished about 700 of these local fuel offices without, I think, any substantial diminution in the value of the service to the public, but at a very considerable saving to the Exchequer. We have to deal with several thousands of parish councils, and I think we shall be able to deal with this one in a reasonable way.

    Supplies and Grades
    Mr. V. Yatesasked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he is satisfied that the arrangements that have been made for the supply of domestic coal to Birmingham for next winter will be adequate; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he is satisfied that there will be adequate supplies of domestic coal in Barry next winter; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: As I advised the House on 20th June, all possible steps are being taken to build up adequate supplies of coal for next winter, but it is too early to make any statement on the prospects for any one type of consumer.
    Mr. Yates: Is the Minister aware that right up to date in Birmingham there has been practically no stocking-up by merchants, and even before the railway strike they were planning on the basis of only 20 cwt. in the summer? Is not that an alarming situation in Birmingham? Will the right hon. Gentleman examine the matter and give a reassuring statement in the very near future?
    Mr. Lloyd: The fact is that we cannot have an unofficial stoppage in the Yorkshire coalfield which loses one million tons of coal and, thereafter, a railway strike which disrupts distribution of coal throughout the country without there being a disturbance to stocks of coal afterwards. A great deal of work has to be done by the National Coal Board, merchants and distributors to put that situation right. It will be got right, but some time will elapse before it is got right.
    Mr. Gower: Whilst thanking my right hon. Friend for his last assurance, may I ask him to direct particular attention to the possibility of avoiding any shortage in schools, such as occurred in one or two instances in Barry last winter?
    Mr. Lloyd: Most certainly, but my hon. Friend will remember that we picked up the difficulty in a school in his constituency some weeks before he did.
    Mr. V. Yatesasked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he will give a general direction to the National Coal Board to improve their arrangements for the supply of suitable grades of coal for domestic consumption and making known to householders what grades are available.
    Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: No, Sir. These matters fall within the responsibility of the National Coal Board and the coal merchants.
    Mr. Yates: Why cannot the Minister take some steps to enable householders to have some choice in the coal which is being delivered? Why should they be compelled to accept some of the shoddy stuff that is being sent to them? Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman issue instructions that there should be some list by which the various grades of coal can be known?
    Mr. Lloyd: I am surprised that the hon. Member should be so critical of the work of the National Coal Board, which is doing its very best in this matter.
    Major Anstruther-Grayasked the Minister of Fuel and Power the present level of coal stocks in Scotland compared with the figure 12 months ago.
    Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Distributed stocks at 11th June totalled 962,000 tons, compared with 1,043,000 tons a year ago.
    Major Anstruther-Gray: Is my right hon. Friend confident that he will be able to maintain adequate stocks for the winter?
    Mr. Lloyd: I said something about that earlier, and I explained the amount of work that has to be done as a result of the railway strike and the Yorkshire unofficial coal stoppage. Taking that into consideration, the stocks in Scotland at the moment, compared with those of a year ago, are not unsatisfactory.
    Mr. Hamilton: Is the Minister aware that his answers to many of these Questions seem to confirm the prophecy made by "Cross Bencher" in yesterday's "Sunday Express"?

    Mines Inspectorate, East Midlands
    Mr. B. Taylorasked the Minister of Fuel and Power the number of Her Majesty's Inspectors for Mines in the East Midlands Division; and to what extent the number of inspectors in the division is below establishment.
    Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Sixteen and five, respectively.
    Mr. Taylor: What steps is the Minister taking to remedy this very unsatisfactory situation and to bring the number of inspectors up to proper establishment?
    Mr. Lloyd: We have recently increased the salaries of the inspectorate and are taking other steps. I am rather concerned at the increase of accidents in the East Midlands Division, and I am making special inquiries into that matter.
    Mr. Pickthorn: Can my right hon. Friend tell us at what date he began to be aware of this very tragic increase in fatalities during recent months?
    Mr. Lloyd: I was assisted in that matter by a letter from my hon. Friend, as well as by the Question.

    Imports
    Mr. Collinsasked the Minister of Fuel and Power the approximate total tonnage of coal which will be imported during the year 1955.
    Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: At present rates, about 12 million tons.
    Mr. Collins: Is the Minister aware that the anticipated £25 million lost on this imported coal will completely distort the accounts of the National Coal Board and result in a completely disproportionate increase in the cost of coal to industry and to domestic consumers, quite apart from the effect on the cost of living? Does he not therefore think that, as this coal is imported on Government account, the loss should be borne on Government account?
    Mr. Lloyd: No, Sir. I think that if the National Coal Board is unable to meet the demands of the country it is reasonable that coal should be imported in the way it is being imported.
    Mr. Attlee: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to apply the same principle to farmers? Are they to pay for all the corn they cannot grow? Surely it is a ridiculous principle?
    Mr. Nabarro: Is it not a fact that the National Coal Board has a responsibility under the Statute of 1946 to provide an abundance of coal at economic prices? If it cannot do that, why should it not bear the whole cost of importing coal?
    Mr. Warbey: In order to put the matter in its right perspective, would the Minister give reasons why the National Coal Board and the miners are not able to produce sufficient coal, particularly in view of the fact that output per man-shift is at a record high level?
    Mr. Lloyd: It would require a long time to go into that problem.
    Mr. Robens: Has the National Coal Board now to bear this enormous sum of money for imports? Would the Minister agree, then, that the Coal Board may take every step to conserve the coal it is producing, which would be sufficient if a proper fuel policy were applied by the Government?
    Mr. Lloyd: I think that the Coal Board does that—indeed, it has a good record—and also the Government's measures with regard to the National Fuel Efficiency Service are being very successful.
    Mr. Robens: If the Coal Board has to pay for the importation of coal, is it not entitled to ration manufacturers who are wastefully using this coal day after day?
    Mr. Lloyd: No, Sir. We cannot have a system of authoritarian rationing of every industrial consumer simply because of the difficulties of our coal position. Let it be remembered that the cost of this ultimately is borne not by the Coal Board, but by the consumer.

  MINISTRY OF SUPPLY

    Iron and Steel Companies (Price Fixing)
    Mr. G. R. Straussasked the Minister of Supply what directions have been given by him under the Iron and Steel Act, 1953, to the Iron and Steel Board to prevent iron and steel companies participating in price rings, such as the recent identical quotations to various local authorities for the delivery and erection of structural steel.
    The Minister of Supply (Mr. Reginald Maudling): None, Sir. As regards structural steel, I would refer the right hon. Gentleman to the reply given to the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) on 20th June.
    Mr. Strauss: Is the Minister aware that these identical quotations contain items for delivery and erection of structural steel? If the Minister is not taking any action, does that not mean that he is giving silent approval to this practice of identical quotations to local authorities?
    Mr. Maudling: The supply of structural steel for buildings is not within the responsibility of the Iron and Steel Board and is being investigated by the Monopolies Commission, which is the right way to do it.
    Mr. Strauss: Would the Minister agree that it was within the responsibility of the old Iron and Steel Corporation?
    Mr. Maudling: I would be very loth to agree with that. I do not think it was so.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that under nationalisation the Tory Minister was able to intervene to put up prices of steel against the advice of the chairman of the nationalised board? If the Government could intervene then to put up prices, why are they so reluctant to intervene now to keep them down?
    Mr. Maudling: The prices of steel products which come under the Iron and Steel Board are fixed by the independent statutory body at a reasonable level, and a level which is much below the levels of competing countries. As to the position under nationalisation, I find it hard to believe, even if he had the power, that a Minister would order different units of the nationalised industry to quote different prices for identical products.

    Vulcan and Victor Aircraft
    Mr. Wiggasked the Minister of Supply whether he is aware that at the Le Bourget Air Display on Sunday 19th June, 1955, the speeds and ceilings of the Victor and Vulcan aircraft were announced; and how much of this information is still restricted.
    Mr. Maudling: I am aware that unofficial estimates of the performance of

    23
    the aircraft were announced. The correct figures are secret, but my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Air informed the House on 10th March that the Vulcan and the Victor have already flown in development flights at over 50,000 feet, within a small fraction of the speed of sound.
    Mr. Wigg: Was this information correct or not? If it was correct, quite clearly there has been a serious leakage of vital information. If it is not correct, somebody is being hoodwinked.
    Mr. Maudling: The figures were taken from a French publication. As I have said that the correct figures are secret, clearly I cannot say whether these figures are correct. There was, however, nothing to prevent any commentator from making an estimate of this kind based on the information already given to the House, which I have quoted.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is it not strange that this information, however limited in character, was given in France but was not available in this country? Can that be explained?
    Mr. Maudling: I do not quite understand what the right hon. Gentleman means about its not being available. It was published in the French paper; an estimate was made by a French paper. As I said, the correct figures are secret, and will remain secret.
    Mr. A. Henderson: In view of the fact that the announcement by the Under-Secretary of State indicated that the speed of these aircraft was within a fraction of the speed of sound and the statement made in Paris was, therefore, not materially inaccurate, would the Minister not consider revising the rules with regard to secrecy in relation to these aircraft, performances of which are published very accurately in many magazines in this and in other countries, and make a statement giving the performances in detail, because they are extremely satisfactory and this might have a quite useful political effect if it were done?
    Mr. Maudling: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for pointing out that the performance of these aircraft is very encouraging. It is our policy to try to give the House as much information as we can, as my hon.
    24
    Friend has done, but if we went beyond that and gave the information, it would assist other people more than this country.
    Mr. Wigg: Will the Minister give an assurance that this information was not supplied by the Air Ministry? As everybody knows, these figures are fantastically high, and it might suit the Government's policy to put out figures, not to deceive the Russians, but to deceive the British public and, of course, to deceive hon. Members on the benches opposite?
    Mr. Maudling: I do not think that that question really calls for a serious answer. That is not the sort of policy in which any Government of this country would indulge.

    Government Orders (Calico Tenders)
    Mr. K. Thompsonasked the Minister of Supply why his tender form, No. 5533, calls for delivery of 525,000 yards of calico over a period of three months, which limits the number of mills able to submit offers.
    Mr. Maudling: A delivery period of three months was necessary to meet the War Office's requirement. Tenders have been received from 29 of the 31 firms invited.
    Mr. Thompson: In the event of some of these tenders being for less than the full amount, will they nevertheless be considered in the allocation of the total?
    Mr. Maudling: Yes, certainly.
    Mr. K. Thompsonasked the Minister of Supply in what circumstances he authorises the purchase of imported cotton cloth, when similar material can be produced in this country.
    Mr. Maudling: No purchase of imported cotton cloth has been made by the Ministry of Supply during the past few years. My Department is fully conscious of the importance to the home industry of Government orders.
    Mr. Thompson: Would my right hon. Friend add to that assurance the assurance that, in the event of the tenders referred to in Question 32 not reaching the total figure required in the limited time stated, he will not include purchases of some imported material?
    Mr. Maudling: That seems to be a hypothetical question, particularly as 29 of the 31 firms invited to tender have tendered.

  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Fishing Industry (Distribution Costs)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is aware of the difficulties experienced by the fishing industry in the distribution of fish from the ports to the consumers; and what are his plans to solve these difficulties and improve the distribution of fish.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. D. Heathcoat Amory): Supplies of fish are plentiful in the shops and I am not aware that the fishing industry is experiencing distributive difficulties.
    Mr. Hughes: Will not the Minister address his mind to the real injustice which is indicated in the Question: namely, that all ports are not treated equally and that that is an injustice not only to the ports but to the consumers, and particularly to the fishing industry in the North-East of Scotland? Will he consult his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport with a view to instituting either a flat rate or an extension of the tapering rates at present in force with a view to obviating these difficulties?
    Mr. Amory: I am not aware of any injustice such as the hon. and learned Member indicates, but I certainly will consider what he has said.

    Slaughterhouses
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made by the Interdepartmental Committee on Slaughterhouses; and when the necessary information is likely to be available.
    Mr. Amory: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, Central (Sir F. Medlicott), on 20th June.
    Mr. Dodds: Does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that last
    26
    October we were told that this information would be available at the turn of the year and that in April he told me it would be ready in two months' time, which has now passed? Can he not now say when this long-delayed information will be available?
    Mr. Amory: Yes. I have indicated the fresh complications that arose after I had expressed the hope that the Report would be available early this year. The reply I gave recently to my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, Central was to the effect that I expected the Report to be available next month, and that is about the two months I mentioned.

    Pigs and Bacon Reorganisation Commission
    Mr. de Freitasasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why he has delayed announcing the membership of the Pigs and Bacon Reorganisation Commission which was set up in March and the Chairman of which was appointed in April.
    Mr. Amory: The Secretary of State for Scotland and I expect to complete our appointments to the Commission very shortly.
    Mr. de Freitas: Why do the right hon. Gentleman and the Secretary of State not get a move on in view of the very grave problems facing pig producers at the moment? The Government have brought the problems on the pig producers and should get the Commission going.
    Mr. Amory: I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's allegation that the Government have brought these difficulties on the pig producers. The Commission has a very important job to carry out, and that is why I am so anxious to ensure that we have on it men of the very highest calibre who can spare the considerable amount of time that will be required for this inquiry. I can assure the hon. Gentleman I am not wasting a single day.
    Mr. T. Williams: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many of the persons who have been invited to accept this duty have refused?
    Mr. Amory: No, but I expect no difficulty whatever in satisfactorily completing the appointments to the Commission.

  MINISTRY OF HEALTH

    Motor Cars and Invalid Tricycles
    Mr. Simmonsasked the Minister of Health the number of borderline cases of war pensioners applying for motor cars that have been rejected in the years 1951, 1952, 1953, and 1954, respectively.
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Iain Macleod): As these cases cannot be defined, I regret I am not able to supply this information.
    Mr. Simmons: Could the Minister then supply this information? Are all the 2,000 cars that were provided under the Labour Government still available to ex-Service men? If any of them have become unavailable owing to mechanical defects, have they been replaced? How many cars have this Government themselves provided?
    Mr. Macleod: The limit of the number has remained where it has always been, the figure of 2,000 which the hon. Member mentioned. I gave detailed figures of the supply in HANSARD a month or two ago. Perhaps the hon. Member would put that question down, when I will give him the latest information we have.
    Mr. Page: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider the whole policy of supplying these glorified bath-chairs for disabled people? Would it not be better and cheaper to supply them with a normal type of car properly adapted?
    Mr. Macleod: There is another Question on the Paper a little later more closely concerned with that matter.
    Mr. Haleasked the Minister of Health the number of cars for disabled persons provided by his Department in the last 12 months to the most recent convenient date for computation and in the corresponding three previous annual periods, showing the numbers allotted to persons disabled by war injuries and the numbers allotted to persons disabled by industrial and other injuries.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: Cars, as distinct from invalid tricycles, are supplied only to disabled war pensioners, and 82 were supplied during the year ending 31st May, 1955. The numbers issued in the corresponding periods from 1952 to 1954 were 247, 96 and 73, respectively.
    Mr. Hale: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is aware of the need for extending this service to other seriously disabled people. In view of the very small number that were issued and the very large number which remain unallocated, would the right hon. Gentleman reconsider the Government's policy and whether these cars could be supplied to people on the basis of the severity of their disability without regard to the origin of the disability?
    Mr. Macleod: It has always been accepted that cars should be allocated to disabled war pensioners, and that distinction has always been maintained. The numbers were naturally higher in the earlier years of the scheme when claims were first made. As far as I know, the number of cars we have is adequate to meet that need on the present basis.
    Mr. Rees-Davies: Are these cars solo cars or are they cars in which passengers can be taken? I ask because I have had a number of cases brought to my notice of these war-disabled men who have solo cars and who cannot drive with their families. The other conveyance, the tricycle, is also a solo vehicle. It would seem that there is a case here to be looked at, to see whether vehicles could be supplied which will accommodate three or four persons so that the family of a disabled man who has one can go with him. There is a circular outstanding saying that these cars are not allowed for use by any other members of a man's family. Would my right hon. Friend look at that question at the same time?
    Mr. Macleod: I know of these points. I think it is fairer to the hon. Member who has Question 43 down to take them on that Question.
    Mr. Gibsonasked the Minister of Health whether he will consider in suitable cases providing two-seated invalid motors in which the man's wife can ride with him.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am not satisfied that the additional expenditure involved would be justified.
    Mr. Gibson: Will the right hon. Gentleman look at this further? There cannot be a large number of cases. However, it causes a man who has an invalid car, which is a solo one, very great unhappiness if he is never able to go out in it

    29
    with his wife and family. It seems to me that the provision of a little additional accommodation in these cars to enable a man to take his wife out with him sometimes would be a piece of humanitarianism, which, I should have thought, the right hon. Gentleman would at least have been prepared to consider.
    Mr. Macleod: Indeed I am prepared to consider it, but successive Ministers have looked at this problem and have always turned this down on the ground of cost, not only the initial cost but, more important, the maintenance costs.

    Lung Cancer
    Mr. Hastingsasked the Minister of Health what advice he has received from the Standing Medical Advisory Committee of the Central Health Services Council on cancer of the lung; and what action he proposes to take.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: The Standing Medical Advisory Committee has advised that appropriate action should be taken constantly to inform the public of the known connection between smoking and cancer of the lung and of the risks involved in heavy smoking. This advice has not yet been considered by the Central Health Services Council, and I am awaiting its views.

    Hearing Aids
    Mr. Hastingsasked the Minister of Health what arrangements he has made for the provision of hearing aids for bedfast patients, where aids have been ordered by specialists who have seen such patients in their homes.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: Some hearing aid centres arrange domiciliary visits by technicians. Others give the aid and instruction in its use by proxy. If the hon. Member has any particular difficulties in mind, I shall be glad to consider them.
    Mr. Hastings: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that consultants visit people in their homes at public expense and supply hearing aids for them, but that a hearing aid is not provided unless a person attends at a centre to have a cast taken of his ear, and that some of these patients are too ill for that? Would the right hon. Gentleman arrange that in such a case, in which the patient cannot attend the centre,
    30
    technicians at the centre should visit the patient in the same way as the consultant has done?
    Mr. Macleod: I shall be very glad to look into that. I made inquiries, of course, about the position in the area in which the hon. Member is particularly interested, Barking. I found that that area is served by the London Hospital, which issues these aids to general practitioners. However, I shall be very glad to look into the other matters raised by the hon. Member in his supplementary question.
    Mr. Hastings: I am not referring to Barking, where the service is good, but to other parts. May I send to the right hon. Gentleman particulars of a case I have in mind and ask him to look into it?
    Mr. Macleod: Yes.

    Hospital Beds, Balderton (Mental Defectives)
    Mr. B. Taylorasked the Minister of Health if he will make a statement on the progress of work on the mental defectives hospital at Balderton, Nottinghamshire; and when the building will be ready for occupation.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: It is expected that the first phase to provide 252 beds and central services will be completed in October, 1957. It is planned to start a second phase, which will provide a further 670 beds, in 1957, and this should be completed in 1961.
    Mr. Taylor: Could not this be speeded up? It is really an urgent matter for Nottinghamshire. There is a long waiting list of urgent cases of the type particularly referred to in the Question. Cannot the Minister give any hope that it will be completed or nearly completed before the date he has given?
    Mr. Macleod: That is the date that has been given to me. I am quite ready to look at the progress to see whether we can possibly make it sooner.

    Chiropody Services
    Mr. Freethasked the Minister of Health if he will consider introducing during the present Parliament a Measure to extend the National Health Service to cover the services of chiropodists to those whose occupations require lengthy standing and to the aged.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): Legislation is not necessary. The services of chiropodists are already available in hospitals in the National Health Service for the purpose of treating or preventing a disability. Financial reasons have so far prevented my right hon. Friend approving any extension of this service by local health authorities.
    Mr. Freeth: Would my hon. Friend please remember the very large amount of pain and discomfort felt on this account, particularly in the rural areas, and remember, too, the number of working days there are lost in the rural areas, and will she realise that here is possibly the largest gap in the National Health Service?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: My right hon. Friend has considered the matter. It is a question of priorities, and we have felt that the overriding claim so far on the finances of the Service has lain with other items in that Service.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Would the hon. Lady consider it from the point of view of economy? It may be a help to make old people ambulant and so save a number of hospitalisation cases later.

    EUROPEAN ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION (DISCUSSIONS)
    Mr. E. L. Mallalieuasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on the invitation to Her Majesty's Government to take part in discussions between the Benelux and other European Governments with a view to further European economic co-operation and on the intentions of Her Majesty's Government with regard to these discussions.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. R. H. Turton): Her Majesty's Government have not yet received the formal invitation. In the meantime they are giving the matter careful consideration. My right hon. Friend has, therefore, no statement to make at the present time.
    Mr. Mallalieu: Would the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that the Government will obtain representation on the relevant committees at an early stage, rather than wait until decisions which may vitally affect our industry are taken in our absence?
    Mr. Turton: I think it is proper first to await an invitation, which has not yet been received.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  RATING AND VALUATION (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the law as respects rating and valuation for rating, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  (a) any increase attributable to the provisions of the said Act in the sums payable out of such moneys under Part I or Part II of the Local Government Act, 1948, or under the Local Government (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act, 1954;

  (b) any increase, attributable to the provisions of the said Act of the present Session relating to property occupied for the purposes of a police force, in the sums payable out of such moneys under section three of the Miscellaneous Financial Provisions Act, 1950;

  (c) any increase, attributable to provisions of the said Act of the present Session relating to Gas Boards, in the sums payable out of such moneys under any other enactment.

  Resolution agreed to.

  RATING AND VALUATION (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

  Clause 1.—(NEW VALUATION LISTS.)
  3.31 p.m.
  The Chairman: I imagine that it will be for the convenience of the Committee if we take with the Amendment in page 1, line 5, the two following Amendments in line 8 and line 11 in the name of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) and also the Amendments in the name of the hon. Member to Clause 11, page 13, line 21, and in line 24, which go together, and the new Schedule in the name of the hon. Member.
  Mr. G. Lindgren: I beg to move, in page 1, line 5, after "made" to insert:
  "on or before the first day of April, nineteen hundred and fifty-six."
  If it meets with your approval, Sir Charles, that we should take the Amendments which you have mentioned together, it certainly meets with mine, and
  34
  I think that it will be for the convenience of the Committee.
  This Amendment deals with the very vexed question of the abolition of the draft valuation list, and the other Amendments are on the same point. On Second Reading, on 17th June, and on Second Reading of the Bill which was before the House before the General Election, the virtue or otherwise of disposing of the draft valuation list came in for considerable discussion. Therefore, the general principle having been discussed, I intend to be comparatively brief on this occasion. Although perhaps all of my hon. and right hon. Friends would not agree, I think that the Minister made a case for the abolition of the draft list on this occasion.
  We have conceded to the Minister the fact that the ordinary ratepayer would not really appreciate the incidence of revaluation until he had also seen his rate poundage, the fact that the Inland Revenue Department, for reasons which are no doubt very good, has had its staff dispersed on other work and, generally speaking, that it would be impossible to give full effect to the Local Government Act, 1948, on this occasion. Having conceded all that to the Minister, I make the point that, while we would agree to all that on this occasion, it cannot apply in the case of further revaluations.
  During the next five years, before we get the next revaluation, there is plenty of time for the Inland Revenue Department to reorganise and deploy its staff and make arrangements, there will be opportunity for the local authorities to take these matters into account, and there will be full opportunity to perfect the appeals machinery and to get ready for what might happen on further revaluation. In addition, much of the principal work, particularly in connection with shops and business premises, which under this valuation are to be on current values, will have gone through by the next valuation.
  In brief, the point of the Amendments is that we accept the Minister's case for the present occasion and accept the machinery which is set out in Clause 1, but we provide in the Amendments that we shall revert to publication of the draft list on the occasion of any future revaluation.
  The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Duncan Sandys): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. G. Lindgren) for the clarity and brevity with which he moved the Amendment and also for making it clear that the party opposite accepts, at any rate on this occasion, the desirability of abolishing the draft valuation list. The question raised by the Amendment is whether the list should continue to be abolished for the subsequent valuations, that is, in 1961 and thereafter. The hon. Member makes the point that the arguments for the abolition of the draft list on this occasion, which he accepts, will not be valid on future occasions.
  The main argument has been that the procedure by which people are informed of their revised assessments, which are usually in an upward direction, about six months before they are told what the rate poundage is, which determines how much they would eventually have to pay, has two effects. The first is that it tends to result in a great number of appeals by people who would not have appealed if they had known the extent to which the rate poundage was to be reduced. The other, which is much in the same point, is that it creates anxiety among ratepayers, even though they do not actually decide to appeal.
  I cannot altogether accept that the conditions on the next occasion will necessarily be different from those on this occasion. One of the main reasons we have feared the possibility of a very large number of needless appeals—appeals made under misapprehension as to the extent to which rate poundage is likely to be reduced—may very likely repeat itself on the next occasion.
  The reason we expect so many appeals on this occasion is that there has been a period of 20 years between the last and the present valuation and consequently there is no doubt that assessments in general will go up very substantially. At first sight, it might be thought that that would not repeat itself in the case of the next revaluation in another five years, but we must not overlook the fact that dwelling-houses are now being valued at pre-war values and, as the Local Government Act, 1948, laid down, that is to apply only to the present revaluation.
  It is expected that between now and the 1961 revaluation it will be possible to
  36
  arrive at a fair current value basis for dwelling-houses. That, of course, means that they will be revalued for the first time. Their change of assessment will be as from pre-war to 1961, which will again be a period of 20 years. Therefore, there is no reason to suppose that in respect of dwelling-houses there may not be a situation very similar to the one which arises in respect of other property on this occasion. But I shall not try to lay down whether or not the new procedure which we have set out in the Bill will be wholly satisfactory. It is the best that we have been able to work out.
  I hope that it will prove satisfactory, but I think that it would be better to keep an open mind on whether or not the abolition of the draft list has been a good idea. That we shall be able to judge from the experience gained from the revaluation next year. If that experience shows that it is desirable to reintroduce the draft lists, there will be—I am sorry to have to tell the Committee, but there will undoubtedly be—at least one, if not more, opportunity to do so in connection with further rating and valuation legislation.
  It is too much to hope that we shall get through a period of five years without another Rating and Valuation Bill of one kind or another. Quite apart from the major question of the rerating either of agriculture or industry, there will certainly be need for further legislation on such matters as the compounding limits for houses; the improved basis for the valuation of water undertakings—a matter which, as the Committee knows, is now under discussion between the Government and the water undertakings; improved permanent pool arrangements—the present are only temporary—for the valuation of electricity and railways and, possibly, other nationalised industries to which some reference has been made in the earlier debates.
  I would further say that even if it were decided—and I have an absolutely open mind about this; we must see how it works—that it was desirable to restore the draft valuation lists, the procedure for their publication and for the appeals to be made is not very satisfactory—as I think those familiar with it will agree—and, undoubtedly, it would be necessary to improve and simplify it in a number of ways. I suggest that the Amendment would not by itself provide a satisfactory

  37
  method of restoring the draft lists for future valuations, even assuming that that was desirable. That being so, I would ask the hon. Member for Wellingborough to accept my assurance that the Government will keep an absolutely open mind on this issue, that we will consider the effects and working of the new arrangements set out in the Bill and will then consider whether any change should be made and whether it has been a good plan to abolish the draft valuation lists.
  My own belief is that their abolition will be found to have been satisfactory, and I do not believe that there will be any demand whatsoever for their restoration. Again I say to the Committee that, if thought desirable, there will be ample opportunity, in the course of further legislation between now and 1961, to reintroduce those draft lists; and that, in any case, the present procedure for the draft lists is far from satisfactory. In those circumstances this Amendment, by itself, would not be a final or complete method of bringing the lists back into operation if that were desired.
  3.45 p.m.
  Mr. Douglas Houghton: The Minister's reply, although sympathetic, is, nevertheless, disappointing. He is aware that a great many people are apprehensive about this change and feel that, somehow or other, some rights which they previously had are being taken away. We fully appreciate the reasons why, on this occasion, the Government have proposed the abolition of the draft valuation lists, but it is typical of bureaucracy, if I may say so, that when making a change to deal with a specific occasion it thinks that it would be better to keep it on against the possibility of another occasion when it might come in useful.
  That is not the way in which this Committee should deal with such matters as this. I suggest that there is one quite important principle which we should respect—that when a charge is levied against a ratepayer or taxpayer he should have an interval to appeal against it, and have that reasonable time for it to be settled before the assessment becomes operative. That is an important principle. It is not wholly satisfactory for an assessment to be made as from the date of operation, even though a safeguard is provided against paying any more in total rates while the
  38
  appeal is under consideration. An appeal may take months to dispose of, and there is still the matter of arrears of rates to be paid if the proposal is rejected and the reduction in the assessment not made.
  It is not satisfactory to leave things as they are. I should have hoped that the Minister would have been prepared to deal with further difficulties—if they arise—when we come to them; to regard the specific circumstances on this occasion as justification for withdrawing the draft valuation lists, but to leave the future to be reconsidered in the light of whatever circumstances may arise at the time of the next revaluation.
  I still hope that the Minister will make a better start in Committee on the Bill by accepting this Amendment. It is put forward in perfectly good faith, in a helpful spirit and in a desire to safeguard ratepayers for the future against a change of procedure which, at the moment, they view with some suspicion. It will take a little time for them to get used to this idea, and even now we do not know whether it will be wholly satisfactory from their point of view or from that of its administration.
  Mr. James MacColl: I should like to say how much I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton). I do not often agree with him on such matters, but here he has, I think, put the case in an unanswerable way. Had the proposed administrative change been something which was widely accepted as necessary, fair and just there might be a case for saying that we should leave it in the Bill until the time comes to introduce a further amendment. The fact is that this proposal, rightly or wrongly—and that is a matter of opinion—is regarded over a very wide area with great suspicion as taking away from the ratepayers certain rights which they have had for some time now. To some extent it is regarded as "pulling a fast one" over the people who are to suffer from increased assessments.
  The pros and cons have been debated on Second Reading and are not relevant here. What is relevant to the present discussion is that, in that atmosphere, accepting that that is the attitude which many people take, surely the wisest and most statesmanlike thing would be to state precisely what has been said

  39
  about the changed basis of valuing residential property; namely, that we are to try it out for one valuation, see how it works, see whether there are, in fact, all these widespread effects which are expected. Then, when, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, we have later to look again at the problem of valuation the House of Commons can, if necessary, be given a further opportunity to decide what should be the final solution of the difficult problem of draft lists.
  If the Government are resting their case merely on the immediate crisis caused by resuming valuation after a long time—if that is the main ground for abandoning the draft lists—surely they should accept the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren). Some hon. Members take the view that it is necessary to abandon the draft lists. Others do not. Whatever view one takes on that, surely the one compromise on which we can all agree is to see how it works for the one valuation and, on the good old British principle of looking at what happens and deciding how it works in practice and not in theory, we can, if necessary, then look at it again. If people felt that we were making a change only temporarily, and that we were keeping the old procedure as a general principle until we had an opportunity of seeing how these changes work, that would be a sensible compromise.
  I do not think that the Minister was quite fair to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough. Whatever were the arguments about the draft list, we are prepared to be reasonable. We do not want to rehash Second Reading arguments, because we are anxious to make a reasonable suggestion on which it is possible to reach agreement.
  I am surprised at the Minister. If he is sincere in wanting merely to deal with this pressing and practical problem in an empirical way, I am surprised that he is not willing to accept the Amendment. His reluctance to do so will revive in the minds of people, both on this side of the Committee and outside this House, the feeling that there is something more involved than the mere question of administrative pressure arising from the circumstances of this valuation. It will revive a great deal of reluctant hostility among those who were well disposed towards the
  40
  proposal, because they will feel that there is something more here which prevents the Minister from making this concession. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is not ready to meet us in this matter.
  Sir Ian Horobin: In the circumstances, this is really a small point. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the shopkeepers in particular are extremely worried about the result of this legislation, and with some reason. Most of what they have to say to us and ask us to pass on to the House is, I am afraid, either irrelevant or too late. But the fact remains that they are worried.
  I should have thought that the Minister might, between now and the end of this Bill, consider whether there was not something in the point that it might be worth while assimilating their position to that of the private dwelling-house, making the inevitable and necessary change for this list and, since he says that we have to consider it all again, to consider it again from the old position and not from the new.
  I do not think it is a very important thing and, frankly, I do not believe it will greatly help the people who are excited; but it cannot hurt the Government. It is not as though it would necessarily mean new legislation. Perhaps, therefore, my right hon. Friend might think it worth while to have second thought about it as the Bill goes through Committee.
  Mr. Leslie Hale: It is rarely that a Committee of the House of Commons has the privilege of hearing the collective wisdom and voice of Oldham and I am happy that this should be so today. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) that the Minister was a little ungenerous to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren), who moved this Amendment with ability and conciseness. The right hon. Gentleman would certainly be under a misunderstanding if he thought that the agreement of the party on these benches to these proposals has been given with acclamation or in any spirit of wholehearted approval. We have accepted with some reluctance a position in which the administrative difficulties appeared to impose upon the House the duty of accepting proposals which are obviously open to considerable objection.

  41
  I suggest to the right hon. Gentlemen that there has been a failure of public relations in this matter. Most of us have been inundated with letters from people who are not conversant with what happened during the Second Reading debate, or with the explanations, and are not fully conversant with the nature of the proposals and with the protections that exist in the Bill.
  Yet it is right to say, too, that people who pay rates have a great deal of empirical knowledge about rates. I was born into a world when the idea that rates would reach 20s. in the £ would have been regarded as fantastic and impracticable. Twenty years ago it would have been said that no one could pay rates of 20s. in the £ because in that case there would be no income from the property. Today, any shopkeeper who hears that he is to be revalued on the new basis, and fears that this will certainly not be to his obvious benefit, may have well in mind also that this is an expedient by which the rateage in the £ would be reduced because the assessments have been increased, and the rateage in the £ will rightly catch up in the years to come with reductions that have been made for the moment by the immediate effect of increasing the assessment.
  Speaking seriously, I think that the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Sir I. Horobin) will have these problems very much in mind. When one considers the magnitude of the housing burden; when one knows that the Oldham Corporation is now saying that 10,000 houses will need to be condemned in our slum clearance scheme whereas, under a new scheme, it would mean more than 50,000; when there are miles of streets in the town which have never been made up, and in respect of which the burden is colossal, it is obvious that the shopkeepers of Oldham have real and justified apprehensions.
  I will try to explain the position to them and to carry to them the assurance given by the Minister, but the arguments which the right hon. Gentleman put forward a few moments ago seem to me to be arguments for accepting the Amendment and not for rejecting it. The Minister said that we shall have to consider this matter again in the course of this Parliament—I am not sure whether
  42
  he meant in the course of this Session or in the next year or two but, in any event, before the question of a second revaluation would develop under existing law, before the five-year period has expired.
  In those circumstances, I should have thought that it would give a great deal of assurance to the public if the Minister would accept this Amendment. Then, when the Minister came to the House with his new proposals, he could say, "I accepted the Amendment, but in the light of the experience we have now had I shall now legislate on this matter."
  Why should the Minister not accept the Amendment now? How can it harm him to do so? It would be a considerable reassurance to people who are worried if he would say that the protections they have had in the past are not being abrogated wholly but are being suspended for the purpose of a large and difficult and collective valuation for the moment, after a lapse of twenty years and at the end of a war period. I can see no reason why the right hon. Gentleman should not get up and say that he will accept the Amendment.
  Mr. Angus Maude: Refreshing as it is to hear the collective wisdom of Oldham, I am not convinced that the argument advanced about the special case of the shopkeepers is wholly relevant to this Amendment. If it be alleged that the shopkeepers are being singled out for unfavourable treatment by this legislation, it does not make it any more favourable to say, "We are going to abolish the draft valuation list in respect of your case but, when we come to deal with houses we shall give them more favourable treatment and reverse the process."
  I should have thought that if it be true, as it must, that we shall take up the question of the valuation of dwelling-houses at a subsequent stage, probably within the next five years, from the point of view of the shopkeepers it is much more reassuring to know that they are to be put, as regards the draft list, in the same category and on the same basis as the owners of residential property, rather than to feel that they have been singled out now for special treatment.
  Nor do I follow the argument of the hon. Members for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) and Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) that

  43
  because the Minister can come back during subsequent legislation, perhaps in this Parliament, and say, "We have found that this was a good plan and we want to keep it going for the next valuation," he should accept the Amendment now. I should have thought that the possibility that he could change his mind was an equally valid reason for not accepting the Amendment now. If it be true that we are bound to have more legislation in respect of this matter, it is equally true——
  Mr. Hale: I was making the simple point, which I thought was a constitutional one, that, in general, the view is taken that we should not alter the law permanently until it has been found that it is the wise thing to do.
  4.0 p.m.
  Mr. Maude: The law is being altered permanently in respect of a number of other things, and it is thought right, because of the circumstances now arising, where there may be a large number of appeals, that the draft valuation list should be abolished in this case.
  However, my right hon. Friend said—I entirely agree with him—that there is no reason to suppose that the next valuation or the next but one, when the question of dwelling-houses comes up, will not produce at least the same magnitude of potential appeals as this one. Therefore, we are singling out a certain class of property owners for unfavourable treatment if we say specifically that this is not a permanent change in the law but merely something for this occasion.
  I should have thought that even the arguments which have been advanced from the other side of the Committee were arguments for rejecting the Amendment.
  Mr. F. Blackburn: I take it that shopkeepers are given as an example merely because they are the ones who are suffering under the Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "They are not the only ones."] It is mainly shopkeepers.
  The Minister seemed to think that the Opposition had abandoned their objection to the dropping of the draft valuation list. He was being very optimistic in making that assumption. I have not abandoned my opposition to it, and the only argument that I can see for dropping
  44
  it is the shortage of time. That argument need not apply in the case of future legislation, and I do not think it need have applied in this case. If the draft valuation list had been published, it would not have been very difficult for local authorities to work out what the rate poundage would be, assuming the new valuation, and, therefore, it would not have affected in any way the total number of appeals made. The Minister seems to think that when the rate poundage is published next April, the number of appeals will be fewer than would have been the case. I do not think that that will be true at all.
  Consequently, I should like the Minister to have another look at the matter. He is not only dealing with it in respect of this Bill, in regard to which there may be a shortage of time, which is the only valid argument that he can put forward; he is also abandoning a principle. I hope he will have another look at the matter, when, I trust, he will be able to say that he is willing to accept the Amendment.
  Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: I should like to put a short question to the Minister in supporting, first, the arguments which he has adduced for the abolition of the draft valuation list. I believe that it is time the law was permanently changed, but the fears which are undoubtedly in the minds of shopkeepers, in particular, at present arise not out of anything which is done by the procedure in this House but out of the suspicion that they will have to pay more money next April. Therefore, it is far more satisfactory to have a system where the assessment and the rate poundage are known at the same time so that individuals will know what they have to pay. I hope that that will become a permanent feature of our law.
  What concerns all shopkeepers is the feeling that they will have to pay a rate which they find too heavy. In my part of the country, certainly, where there is considerable seasonal trade, it is very important to know exactly what rates one will have to pay before the season commences. It is obvious that the assessment will in almost all cases go up, though perhaps less in my area than in other areas because it is already very highly assessed. On the other hand, I believe that in most cases the rate poundage will go down.

  45
  However, what is to stop a local authority next year making a very handsome profit on the deal? How will the Minister ensure that a local authority does not make a very good thing out of it next year when the assessments go up? A local authority has merely to do nothing at all on the rate poundage, and it will then get a great deal of extra money in the kitty. [Interruption.] I seem to have stirred up a hornet's nest. Nevertheless, I think it is true. A local authority which does not like the Government very much could make things very awkward next year if it decided that it wanted to get on with a few beneficial schemes. How will the Minister keep the situation in view at the time local authorities fix the rate poundage when the assessments are known?
  I suggest that if shopkeepers are to have to pay a good deal more, it is time they knew it. If they have not to pay a great deal more, then it would be a good thing for them to know it now, for then a good deal of the discussion which is due to take place within the next few hours would become unnecessary.
  Mr. Ede: The speech to which we have just listened illustrates the way in which we may very well proceed from one bad state to a worse one as a result of the Government's decision to abandon the draft valuation list. Let it be quite clear that there will be no support from this side of the Committee for the suggestion of the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) that the Government should be responsible for determining the rate in the £ to be levied by local authorities. That would be control from Whitehall with such a vengeance that we should feel bound to go to the support of any local authority, good, bad or indifferent, which incurred the displeasure of the Government in such a way.
  I listened to the speech of the Minister with considerable foreboding. It is clear that what is happening to shopkeepers now is nothing to what will happen to private house occupiers in 1961. The right hon. Gentleman is using the Bill to escape from the wrath to come, something which is well known by all theologians to be quite impossible.
  The anomalies which exist in respect of shop premises are small compared with
  46
  those which have grown during the last thirty years in respect of private dwelling-houses. In the far-off days when the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, was passed, I became chairman of a county valuation committee. One of the rating authorities in my county passed a resolution, as soon as it saw the terms of the Act, to the effect that it should not apply to the Hambledon Rural District, and the county valuation committee was compelled to undertake the work for it—and we found a considerable number of cottage properties which, somehow or other, had never been discovered by the old assessment committee.
  In another area we had a ratepayer who was chairman of the local county assessment committee. We had his property valued by a professional valuer, but the committee chairman said, "You must be wrong, because you are putting me up 95 per cent." We had another set of properties, four farm cottages built in a terrace on a farm, which we were asked to assess individually and equitably. The first was a cottage let by the farmer to one of his workers. The farmer was entitled, in those days, to get a rent of 3s. a week. The next, a quite similar cottage, was not in the occupation of a person employed on the farm, but was subject to a controlled rent of 15s. a week. The other two had been joined into one here-ditament which was occupied by one of the minor female lights of the variety stage at weekends, when she entertained some of her admirers. There was no de-rating on that ground. For that cottage she paid £3 10s.
  Mr. Charles Pannell: How much did they pay?
  Mr. Ede: We had no power to inquire into that; they were not sub-tenants.
  For those who live in private dwelling-houses the claim cannot be made by the right hon. Gentleman that he does not have time now to consider their cases before the draft valuation list is published. It is highly desirable that, while we accept, by the right hon. Gentleman's exercise of force majeure, the claim that for this list the draft valuation list shall not be published, in view of the far larger number of people who will be concerned with a far wider range of anomalies, we ought to agree to the Amendment. I sincerely hope that if the right hon. Gentleman does

  47
  not feel that he can accept the Amendment after the speeches which have been made in its support, we shall go to a Division.
  Mr. W. T. Proctor: I hope that the Government will have second thoughts on this matter. I am against the abolition of the draft lists. It does not seem to meet the situation in any way. The business community and shopkeepers would like to have the information necessary to allow them to decide whether or not to appeal, and the abolition of the draft list will not give them that information and we shall not be in any better position.
  The very basis of calling the list a draft valuation list is that it is not final. Everyone has the opportunity to see it and appeal against it. Although a case can now be made out—a case I do not accept—for making this permanent, I appeal to the Government to give this matter further consideration.
  Mr. C. W. Gibson: I hope that the Minister will reconsider this matter. It is a peculiar situation—especially just after an Election during which many things were said about freedom and protection of the rights of the minorities, and so on—in which to find Members on this side of the Committee. They are trying to preserve a very old right of the people to see what are their assessments for rating purposes before the rates are levied. I find it very difficult to understand—except for purely administrative reasons—the Tory argument that it is right and proper that this Clause should go through unamended.
  4.15 p.m.
  I can understand the officers of the Department wanting to push this Clause through in order, as they think, to save themselves a great deal of work in considering appeals, but I have a feeling that they will get appeals in any case. It is true that they will not get appeals on the draft list, but I am sure that as soon as the new assessments are seen, there will be a mass of appeals all over the country. Indeed, other hon. Members and I received letters only yesterday from an organisation representing small shopkeepers claiming the right to enter their appeals before the rate is levied. Under
  48
  the Bill, they will have to wait until they are actually charged their rates. That has been decided apparently in the vain hope that, because in most cases there will be no increase in the rate poundage and even a reduction, people will accept the new assessment figures.
  My local newspaper last week—and this affects the Minister's constituency as much as mine—published a speech by a rating authority saying that rates on business premises in South London are likely to go up by anything from 300 to 400 per cent. I can imagine the number of appeals likely to be made, not only by shopkeepers, but also by business people in South London who find themselves with that enormous increase in their assessments.
  I think that every house, every shop and all business premises should be assessed at their proper value. I am not in favour of fancy and sometimes untrue values being put in the list. Everybody ought to have his property assessed at its full value for rating purposes. It is altogether to be regretted, however, that we should find the Tory Party taking away a right which has existed for many years, and which was included in the Local Government Act, 1948, of seeing the draft list so that representations could be made about it. I hope that the Minister will have another look at that point. That will save the Department a good deal of trouble later on.
  Because of the way in which the Clause is drafted, we shall not get a change in this valuation period, but let us make quite sure that in the next valuation period the draft list is issued so that people can see it and make appeals if they want to do so. In view of the fact that the next list will deal with ordinary residential property, it is essential that there should be a chance of seeing the list before rates are levied, in order that there may be appeals against the assessment. That would be giving to the people a right which they have not only had for many years but which is fair and reasonable, and which not only intends justice, but appears to be giving justice. I hope that the Minister will reconsider this matter, or, if he finds himself unable to do so or refuses to do so for administrative reasons, that the House will reject the Clause.
  Mr. Donald Wade: Would it be in order for the Minister to indicate his view on the Amendment to delete subsection (6), because that would appear to have some bearing on the decision which we should reach on the Amendment under discussion? There are two matters about which ratepayers, and shopkeepers in particular, are concerned. One is the abolition of the draft lists, and the other is the right to see the new valuation lists before the date when the rate is levied.
  If it were the intention of the Minister to accept the Amendment to delete subsection (6), there would not be so much weight in the arguments which have been advanced in favour of the Amendment which we are discussing. It may not be in order for the Minister to indicate his views on that later subsection, but it would be helpful if he were able to do so.
  Mr. G. R. Mitchison: We have had draft valuation lists for 87 years now. They started under a different name, but they have always served the purpose of giving to the ratepayer a right of appeal before the rate was actually levied. We are, by the Clause, depriving the ratepayer of that right of appeal. It is true that later the ratepayer has the same rights as he has previously had, in a slightly modified form, but it still remains the fact that, having had two rights of appeal before, he is now to have only one.
  We on this side of the Committee have objected, not only during this Session but during the last Parliament too, to the removal of one of two rights of appeal. For that objection we have had considerable support. The Minister justified the change today, as he has justified it on other occasions, by one consideration only—that it was administratively imperative. He has made it administratively imperative by bringing in the Measure at such a late stage. There is no doubt that, unless the draft valuation lists are to go on this occasion, there will be very serious difficulties in the timetable.
  We do not accept that it is proper to deprive ratepayers of that right. We have not accepted it, and we do not accept it now, but the Bill has had a Second Reading and the main point in it, as we have been told by the Government, is this matter of valuation lists and draft valuation lists. We have no wish to argue
  50
  again the question of principle. What we are considering now is this: if, for particular reasons for which the Government themselves are largely to blame because of their delay in introducing the Bill, it is now necessary to abolish a right of appeal on one occasion, does it thereby follow that it is necessary to abolish that right forever?
  It is time that, from this side of the Committee, we reminded right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite of one or two of the principles which from time to time they have claimed as their own. One of them was—and here we too could support them—that if a Minister has to be given powers by Parliament he shall be given only such powers as he clearly requires and needs for a public purpose. Here we have the right hon. Gentleman saying, "I need this power this time. I need it for reasons peculiar to this occasion and then it does not very much matter"—I hope that I am not misrepresenting him—"whether I also take the powers for the indefinite future or whether I restore to the ratepayer the right which he has had for so long of a second appeal."
  It does not very much matter because, as the right hon. Gentleman explained, there is bound to be further legislation about rating fairly soon. It lies with the Government of the day what are to be the sort of terms and scope to that Bill, if and when it is introduced; by what sort of Money Resolution it is backed; and, therefore, within what limits Amendments can be put forward. Are we to have an undertaking that if any rating Bill whatever is put forward it will be open to us to reintroduce the draft valuation lists and the second right of appeal which are being removed now?
  The matter is made even worse, as my venerated right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has just explained, because the next Bill will deal with the valuation and the rating of private houses. Those ratepayers are the very people who will be most concerned with preserving to the full their rights of appeal and exercising them. If the draft valuation lists are to stand abolished for as near Parliamentary eternity as one can manage, they are the people who will suffer. On what principles do the right hon. Gentleman and other right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite justify giving to a Minister

  51
  powers for which he himself has made no case whatever? What is the position as regards the powers beyond this first occasion?
  There is another question. I understood that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite were concerned with the rights of private citizens to go to some court or appeal tribunal as against the Executive—the administrative authority. This matter concerns exactly that. It has remained for the Tory Party, with that magnificent departure from its professed principles which always seems to characterise its actions, to be the one to remove one right of appeal; and, not content with removing it on the one occasion when it is admittedly required because of their time-table and their own default, the Government now insist, by refusing to accept the Amendment, on removing it indefinitely.
  Surely right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have been professing these principles so recently on the hustings that they might at least show some decency in maintaining them for a month or two more instead of taking the first available opportunity to throw them overboard. Some of them will remember that in the last Parliament we had something to say about Election pledges. They have avoided that difficulty this time by making no pledges and issuing as their programme the woolly and wordy document with which we are all well acquainted.
  Being unable to abandon pledges, they prefer to abandon principles, to give to a Minister indefinite powers for which he scarcely asks and for which he finds no justification, and to deprive the ratepayers, for no particular reason, of a right which has served them well for eighty-seven years and has been used to safeguard them against the consistent encroachments of the Executive. I suggest to the Minister that it would be more sensible, more dignified, more high-minded and more in keeping with his better self if he accepted the Amendment and did not reject it.
  4.30 p.m.
  Mr. Sandys: I am sure that my hon. Friends on this side of the Committee would like to congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) on his promotion to the Opposition Front Bench. His eloquence
  52
  and forthrightness have certainly not suffered any official restraint which might otherwise have been imposed upon him. The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the wordy document issued by the Conservative Party during the General Election. All I would wish to say is that we did not follow the example of the party opposite who, I believe, issued a document of about thirty pages a year before, setting out in very great detail what was their policy, and then reduced it to a document of four pages when it came to the Election.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman said again and again that during the Second Reading debate his party had objected strongly to the abolition of the draft lists. I know that when the hon. and learned Gentleman sat on the back benches he did object very strongly to their abolition. But his hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, commended the decision to abolish the draft valuation lists. The hon. Gentleman said that he recognised that appeals on them would clog the administrative machine, and he repeated again today the arguments in favour of their abolition, at any rate on this occasion.
  The hon. and learned Member for Kettering cannot make his promotion to the Opposition Front Bench retrospective to apply to what has been said at that Box. All the same, the hon. and learned Gentleman seems already to have exerted a certain influence since he arrived on the Front Bench, in that though the party opposite could not catch up with what has been decided, now—no doubt guided by the hon. and learned Gentleman—they wish that the abolition shall apply only to the first revaluation and not on a future occasion.
  The main point made from the Opposition benches is a very important one, but I believe that it has little foundation in fact. It is the suggestion that by abolishing the draft lists we are removing a right of appeal against the decision of the Executive. Were that the case, I should not be standing at this Box recommending this proposal; and I certainly would not support hon. Gentlemen opposite in their acquiescence in the abolition of these lists, even on this occasion. If this would result in the removal of a right of appeal in 1961, the effect would be just

  53
  the same in 1955, and all the arguments against the abolition of draft valuation list would apply with equal strength on this occasion.
  What is there in the suggestion that there has been a removal or a withdrawal of some right of appeal? The fact is that it is not so. Under the Bill, a ratepayer has twelve months, in most cases, in which to decide whether to appeal against a new assessment. If he proves successful in his appeal, the decision is made retrospective to 1st April, when the new rate came into operation. In addition, from the moment a ratepayer lodges his appeal, he no longer has to pay more than he did in the previous rating year. Until his appeal has been settled, he is protected from having to pay any more than he was paying.
  I cannot see that any fuller or more complete safeguard of the rights of the individual could be applied than is here given. I consider, therefore, that it is wholly misleading to suggest that the Bill withdraws a right of appeal from the ratepayer. It alters the procedure, but that I believe to be to the advantage of the ratepayer, because in the end it will result in appeals being dealt with far more expeditiously than otherwise would be the case were the whole machinery clogged with thousands of altogether misguided and needless appeals.
  The point which I have answered was made by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering, the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) and by other hon. Members opposite. I now wish to deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn). He said that the only argument advanced by the Government in favour of this change on this occasion was the shortage of time. I have spoken in two Second Reading debates on this subject in the last two months, but I have never in any sense suggested that it was shortage of time and administrative convenience which led to this proposal.
  Mr. Blackburn: I think that the right hon. Gentleman is misquoting me. I did not say that the argument had been put forward. I said that it was the only argument which could be put forward. I do not accept the argument for the abolition of the draft valuation lists, but I said that the only argument which could be advanced for that abolition in this case was
  54
  the shortage of time. I did not say that that argument had been advanced.
  Mr. Sandys: I cannot remember the words used by the hon. Gentleman—HANSARD will record them—but I accept that that is what he intended to say.
  Mr. Lindgren: Surely the right hon. Gentleman will agree that on this occasion it is the machinery and the time-table of that machinery which makes such an abolition necessary. The 1948 Act set out the machinery, that the draft lists should be published in October. That just cannot happen now—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"]—because the Inland Revenue Department could not get them to local authorities by that time. It could not be done, so it is a question of time.
  Mr. Sandys: I do not really think that that is so, though I cannot answer precisely, because the issue has not arisen. But there is no doubt that when we introduced the Bill, two and a half months ago, there certainly was no lack of time. The procedure could perfectly well have rolled forward.
  Mr. Lindgren: But there has been a redeployment of Inland Revenue staffs. Surely the right hon. Gentleman knows that.
  Mr. Sandys: I am sorry. I could verify the position, but I do not think it is pertinent to the argument, because it is not the reason for the proposal. I think I am right in saying that when we introduced the Bill there would still have been time for this to have been done according to the old procedure. I am not making any point about it because that is not the ground on which this proposal has been put forward at any time whatsoever.
  The main reason we have proposed the abolition of the draft lists is the one accepted by the hon. Member for Welling-borough. I am sorry to go on wearying the Committee by saying this over and over again, but I am obliged to do so because it is raised over and over again by hon. Members opposite. The reason is that under the present arrangement we fear—and our fear is based on the experience of previous revaluations—that if these greatly increased assessments are published six months before the rate poundage is fixed, there will be many thousands of appeals put in which otherwise would not be; and that, to use the

  55
  hon. Gentleman's own words, would clog the appeals machinery.
  It follows that it is desirable that ratepayers should be told of the revised assessment of their property at the same time as they are told of the rate poundage; in other words, they should be told so far as possible at one and the same time what they will have to pay as a result of these recalculations of the valuation and of the rate poundage. After experience has been gained of the working of the new valuations, I do not believe that anyone will wish to see the reintroduction of the draft lists. I believe that the arguments in favour of abolishing them on this occasion will be equally valid on future occasions.
  The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) said that hon. Members opposite had been very reasonable in their approach, and I agree. I think that they have been very reasonable indeed, and I hope that they feel that I have been equally reasonable in the attitude which I have adopted in trying as far as possible to meet their arguments.
  The hon. Members for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) and Oldham, East (Sir I. Horobin) referred to the position of shopkeepers. I think that the points which they made were very adequately answered by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, South (Mr. Maude) and, to some extent also, by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies). The criticism of the shopkeepers of the revaluation is that they are to be revalued on a present-day basis whereas dwelling-houses are to be revalued on a pre-war basis. That is a very understandable criticism, but nothing in the Bill alters that provision or affects the basis of valuation in any way.
  I do not believe that on a future occasion shopkeepers would be in the least interested whether there were draft valuation lists or not. Neither do I believe that the abolition of the lists will in any way prejudice the review of the position which I have promised that the Government will undertake as soon as the full effects of revaluation can be properly measured.
  The question is really whether we feel that this should be a temporary or a permanent change. As I explained earlier, I do not believe that the House is really being called upon to take that decision for the simple reason that between now
  56
  and the next valuation, which will be in about six years' time, there will be other opportunities for considering the matter. Then, as has been said by certain hon. Members and by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), the issue will be the position not of the shopkeepers, but of the occupiers of dwelling-houses.
  In a typically witty speech this afternoon, the right hon. Member for South Shields said that he had a foreboding about householders in the future, and that I was trying to escape from the wrath to come. To be quite frank, I say to the right hon. Gentleman that I am more concerned with the wrath today. If I can get over that, I shall be prepared—if I am still here to deal with it—to face the wrath in five or six years' time.
  As I say, the issue is really whether this should be a permanent or a temporary Measure. I ask the Committee to support me in the view that the best thing to do is to see how the thing works out on this occasion and to keep an open mind on the matter. I repeat the assurance that the Government will undertake a full review of the working of the appeals machinery in order to see whether, in the light of experience, a change is necessary.
  If we feel that experience shows that this was a mistaken step, we shall not hesitate, in one of the various Measures which will probably have to be brought before the House on the subject between now and the next revaluation, to propose the reinstatement of the draft valuation lists. Of course, changes would be necessary, because, as I explained, it would not be satisfactory simply to restore the draft valuation list procedure in its present form. Alternatively, if the Government did not feel able to do so, I am sure that there would be opportunity in such Measures for hon. Members opposite to propose an Amendment of that kind.
  With those assurances, I hope that the Committee will not press the point which, to my mind, is largely an academic one, because there will be plenty of opportunity during the next six years to make adjustments if they are thought necessary. I trust that the Committee will not press the matter to a Division.
  4.45 p.m.
  Mr. Lindgren: What the Minister has said is most unsatisfactory. I will first deal with the point, on which the right

  57
  hon. Gentleman was quite right to make play, that on the Second Reading of both Bills I said that as a local authority man I was very attracted to the proposal to abolish these draft lists for the following reason. The 1948 Act laid down the basis of valuation for both domestic and business premises. In 1953, the Government said that, in their view, the basis of valuation for domestic hereditaments was not workable. They therefore proposed that the basis of valuation for such premises should be the 1939 value, but they left the valuation of shop premises at its 1948 Act basis.
  Because of the delays and because of the changes and problems inside the Department of Inland Revenue, further and further away has become the actual application of the revaluation. The basis of revaluation proposed at the present time is that ordinary domestic properties will change their valuation from that of 1934 to that of 1939, and that shop and business premises will change their valuation from that of 1934 to the 1954 basis, which is likely to be considerably higher than a change of value from 1934 to 1939.
  Very few local authorities have more than 25 per cent. of rateable value in shop and business premises. Generally speaking, 75 per cent. of the rateable value is in domestic properties. Therefore, on both Second Readings I said that one would be likely to get a maximum number of appeals from that 75 per cent. if, in fact, the ratepayer at the time did not know what his rate poundage was to be.
  Under this Bill, the domestic ratepayer gets a slight advantage over the shopkeeper because shop premises will pay more and domestic hereditaments will pay less. I do not like a 1939 value even for domestic property. I do not envy the valuer who will have to enter the 1939 values, particularly when he has to take into account what were the transport facilities, and so on, in the area in which he makes the valuation. The nearer we can come to a valuation for both types of property, the better.
  When we deal with the matter in the next Bill, it will mean shifting the weighting away from the shops on to domestic hereditaments. But there is a considerable difference between the two types of
  58
  owners. Every owner of shop or business premises charges his rates not against his income but against profits, whereas the ordinary domestic ratepayer can only pay his rates out of income. In his case, the tax authorities will not take the payment of rates as a charge against Income Tax. In other words, he has no offset at all. Therefore, the draft valuation list gives the domestic property owner, and, from that point of view, also the business property owner, the opportunity of looking at the equity of his own valuation compared with that of someone else and equally an opportunity of entering into discussions with the valuer as to what the basis should be. If they can agree before the list becomes operative, so much the better.
  We know that it is very often much easier to secure the alteration prior to a list becoming operative than it is after it has become established. After it is in the rate book and has thereby been set down as the opinion of a valuer or a local authority, although it is possible to alter it—and it is very often altered by appeal committees—it is much more difficult to do so. We have accepted the Bill as an instrument which makes it possible for local authorities and the Inland Revenue to carry through this revaluation and make it effective. Local authorities need the income which is likely to be derived from this revaluation. They do not like to see the rates going up to 25s., 26s. or 27s. in the £; they want a revaluation in order to reorganise their rate poundage.
  Domestic hereditaments are not likely to be injured in any way by the Bill, and the owners of shop and business premises can employ valuers to look after them very effectively on appeal, but if we abolish the publication of draft valuation lists for ever—and once they are abolished by this Measure it will always be quoted as a precedent—the domestic ratepayers will be facing a serious situation. I advise my hon. Friends not to accept the arguments of the Minister, and to press this matter to a Division.
  Question put, That those words be there inserted:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 201, Noes 238.

  Division No. 2.]

  AYES

  [4.51 p.m.

  Ainsley, J. W.

  Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

  Oram, A. E.

  Albu, A. H.

  Grey, C. F.

  Oswald, T.

  Allaun, F. (Salford, E.)

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Owen, W. J.

  Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)

  Allen, Soholefield (Crewe)

  Grimond, J.

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Anderson, Frank

  Hale, Leslie

  Parker, J.

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

  Hall, John T. (Gateshead, W.)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Paton, J.

  Balfour, A.

  Hannan, W.

  Pearson, A.

  Bartley, P.

  Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

  Peart, T. F.

  Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Hastings, S.

  Popplewell, E.

  Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Probert, A. R.

  Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S. E.)

  Healey, Denis

  Proctor, W. T.

  Benson, G.

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)

  Pursey, Cmdr. H.

  Blackburn, F.

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Rankin, John

  Blenkinsop, A.

  Hobson, C. R.

  Reid, William

  Blyton, W. R.

  Holman, P.

  Rhodes, H.

  Boardman, H.

  Holmes, Horace

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Holt, A. F.

  Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

  Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S. W.)

  Houghton, Douglas

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Bowles, F. G.

  Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

  Ross, William

  Boyd, T. C.

  Howell, Denis (All Saints)

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Brook way, A. F.

  Hubbard, T. F.

  Short, E. W.

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Hunter, A. E.

  Skeffington, A. M.

  Burke, W. A.

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Slater, J. (Sedgefield)

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Irving, S. (Dartford)

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Callaghan, L. J.

  Janner, B.

  Sparks, J. A.

  Carmichael, J.

  Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

  Steele, T.

  Champion, A. J.

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Chetwynd, G. R.

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena(Holbn & St. Pncs. S.)

  Stones, W. (Consett)

  Clunie, J.

  Johnson, James (Rugby)

  Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)

  Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

  Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech (Wakefield)

  Stross. Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  Collins, V. J. (Shoreditch & Finsbury)

  Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

  Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Kenyon, C.

  Swingler, s. T.

  Cove, W. G.

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Sylvester, G. O.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Cronin, J. D.

  Lawson, G. M.

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Ledger, R. J.

  Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Cullen, Mrs. A.

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Tomney, F.

  Daines, P.

  Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Lewis, Arthur

  Viant, S. P.

  Darling, George (Hillsborough)

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Wade, D. W.

  Davies, Rt. Hon. Clement (Montgomery)

  Logan, D. G.

  Weitzman, D.

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

  McColl, J. E.

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Mclnnes, J.

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Deer, G.

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  West, D. G.

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  McLeavy, F.

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Dodds, N. N.

  Mahon, S.

  White, Henry (Derbyshire, N. E.)

  Donnelly, D. L.

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)

  Mann, Mrs. Jean

  Willey, Frederick

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C,

  Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Williams, Ronald (Wigan)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Mason, Roy

  Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Mellish, R. J.

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)

  Messer, Sir F.

  Williams, W. T. (Barons Court)

  Evans Albert (Islington, S. W.)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Wilson, Rt Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

  Monslow, W.

  Winterbottom, Richard

  Fernyhough, E.

  Moody, A. S.

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Fienburgh, W.

  Morrison, Rt. Hn. Herbert(Lewis'm, S.)

  Yates, V. (Ladywood)

  Finch, H. J.

  Moss, R.

  Younger, Rt. Hon. K.

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Moyle, A.

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

  Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Gibson, C. W.

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Mr. J. Taylor and

  Cooch, E. G.

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. (Derby, S.)

  Mr. J. T. Price.

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Oliver, G. H.

  NOES

  Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

  Balniel, Lord

  Bishop, F. P.

  Altken, W. T.

  Barber, Anthony

  Black, C. W.

  Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

  Barlow, Sir John

  Body, R. F.

  Arbuthnot, John

  Barter, J. W.

  Bossom, Sir A. C.

  Armstrong, C. W.

  Baxter, Sir Beverley

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  Ashton, H.

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Astor, Hon. J. J.

  Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

  Braine, B. R.

  Atkins, H. E.

  Bidgood, J. C.

  Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

  Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.

  Biggs-Davison, J. A.

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  60

  61

  Bryan, P.

  Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

  Pilkington, Capt. R. A.

  Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G, T.

  Howard, John (Test)

  Pitman, I. J.

  Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.

  Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

  Pitt, Miss E. M.

  Burden, F. F. A.

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.

  Pott, H. P.

  Campbell, Sir David

  Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Hulbert, Wing Cmdr. Sir Norman

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Channon, H.

  Hurd, A. R.

  Raikes, Sir Victor

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H.

  Ramsden, J. E.

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Rawlinson, P. A. G.

  Cole, Norman

  Irvine, Godman (Rye)

  Redmayne, M.

  Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Renton, D. L. M.

  Cooper-Key, E. M.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Rippon, A. G. F.

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Kaberry, D.

  Robertson, Sir David

  Corfield, Capt. F. V.

  Keegan, D.

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Craddook, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Kerby, Capt. H. B.

  Robson-Brown, W.

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hn. H. F. C.

  Kerr, H. W.

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Kershaw, J. A.

  Roper, Sir Harold

  Crouch, R. F.

  Kirk, P. M.

  Russell, R, S.

  Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)

  Lagden, G. W.

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

  Cunningham, s. K.

  Lambert, Hon. G.

  Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.

  Dance, J. C. G.

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Sharpies, Maj. R. C.

  D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, w.)

  Deedes, W. F.

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.

  Leavey, J. A.

  Soames, Capt. C.

  Doughty, C. J. A.

  Leburn, W. G.

  Spearman, A. C. M.

  Drayson, G. B.

  Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.

  Speir, R. M.

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

  Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)

  Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

  Linstead, Sir H. N.

  Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

  Duthie, W. S.

  Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Storey, S.

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Lloyd-Ceorge, Maj. Rt. Hon. G

  Studholme, H, G.

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Longden, Gilbert.

  Summers, G. S. (Aylesbury)

  Fell, A.

  Low, Rt. Hon. A. R. W.

  Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)

  Fisher, Nigel

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

  Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

  Lucas, P. B. (Brentford & Chiswick)

  Teeling, W.

  Foster, John

  Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe & Lonsdale)

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Freeth, D. K.

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Mackie, J- H. (Galloway)

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Glover, D.

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, S.)

  Godber, J. B.

  Maclean, Fitzroy (Lancaster)

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.

  Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

  McLean, Neil (Inverness)

  Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

  Cough, C. F. H.

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

  Gower, H. R.

  Maddan, M.

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Grant, w (Woodside)

  Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)

  Touche, Sir Gordon

  Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R.(Nantwich)

  Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)

  Turner, H. F L.

  Creen, A.

  Marples, A, E.

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Mathew, R.

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

  Maude, Angus

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.

  Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.

  Vickers, Miss J. H.

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Mawby, R. L.

  Vosper, D. F.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)

  Maydon, Lt.-Comdr, S. L. C.

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Medllcott, Sir Frank

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)

  Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)

  Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.

  Walker-Smith, D. C.

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Morrison, John (Salisbury)

  Wall, Major Patrick

  Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfd)

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)

  Harvey, John (Walthamttow, E.)

  Nairn, D. L. S.

  Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.

  Harvie-Watt, Sir George

  Neave, Atrey

  Watkinson, H. A.

  Hay, John

  Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)

  Webbe, Sir H.

  Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.

  Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. &Chr'ch)

  Whitelaw, W. S. I.(Penrith & Border)

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Nield, Basil (Chester)

  Williams, Rt. Hn. Charles (Torquay)

  Heath, Edward

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Oakshott, H. D.

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

  O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

  Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

  Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

  Wood, Hon. R.

  Hill, John (S. Norfolk)

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Woollam, John Victor

  Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Hirst, Geoflrey

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)

  Holland-Martin, C. J.

  Page, R. G.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Horobin, Sir Ian

  Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)

  Mr. Legh and Mr. R. Allan.

  Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence

  Piokthorn, K. W. M.

  Mr. Graham Page: I beg to move, in page 2, line 1, to leave out subsection (4).
  I understand that the procedure, once the valuation list has been prepared by the valuation officer, is that it will be dispatched to the local authority at the end
  62
  of December. Between that time and the announcement of the rates in April, the only people who will know what is in the list are the valuation officer and the local authority; the ratepayer will be in ignorance of his assessment until 1st April, when he sees it on the rate demand note.

  63
  During the period of January, February and March next year the valuation officer, according to subsection (4), may alter the list.
  The wording of the subsection is to the effect that if it appears to the valuation officer that the list in any particular requires alteration, the valuation officer may make that alteration. I presume that the words in the subsection if
  "… it appears to him …"
  must relate to representations made to the valuation officer by the local authority. No one else knows anything about the list, so one presumes that the local authority will, during January, February and March next, make representations to the valuation officer that the list should be altered if he sees good cause for such action.
  Mr. Blackburn: The subsection says that there has to be
  "… a material change of circumstances. …"
  Mr. Page: Certainly. If there is a material change in circumstances since the valuation was made. The valuation may have been made a considerable time ago.
  Let us take the example of a shopkeeper who has recently installed a new shop front. That is certainly a structural alteration which would come under the definition of "a material change of circumstances." He may have installed the new shop front since the valuation officer entered the assessment of that property on the list. The local authority would then be entitled, during January, February and March next, to go to the valuation officer and say, "This ratepayer has installed a new shop front since you assessed his property. We think that the valuation ought to be increased." The ratepayer will know nothing about any alteration, because he is not entitled to see the list. The alteration of the valuation will be on the representation of the local authority.
  One might argue that the local authority could ask for an alteration in favour of the ratepayer. That would seem very unlikely, because in most of these disputes over assessments it is the ratepayer versus the local authority. This subsection gives one of the parties to a potential dispute the right to go before the
  64
  valuation officer and ask for the assessment to be changed in that party's favour.
  There is little doubt that, as a result of the representation of the local authority, there will be a change in the valuation list and an increase in assessment by reason of a material change since the assessment was entered on the list. That does not seem to me to be doing justice to the ratepayer—at least, justice is not seen to be done. That seems to be an undesirable procedure. Would it not be better if a representation of that sort on the part of the local authority were to wait until the ratepayer himself could take part in the proceedings and put forward his case on any proposed alteration of the assessment?
  Mr. Sandys: Perhaps I might be allowed to answer briefly. The subsection, as was pointed out, is governed by the words:
  "… by reason of a material change of circumstances which has occurred since the time of valuation, …"
  There is no question of the valuation officer having second thoughts about the valuation which he has put on a particular property. This provision is in order—and I think that it is now understood by all concerned—to ensure that the valuation lists, when published, shall be as up to date as possible.
  Incidentally, I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) is right in saying that a change of this kind made by a valuation officer will very likely be as a result of information given to him by the local authority. There is nothing improper in that. It is the statutory duty of a local authority to bring to the notice of the valuation officer any change in the circumstances of a property at all times, not only in connection with a revaluation, but between times as well.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: Is it not a little anomalous, not to put it any higher than that, that where there are two parties to a matter like the proper assessment of a particular piece of property, one party, the rating authority or local authority, should have knowledge of what the valuation list contains which is not equally available to the citizen who is to be charged with the rate? I take it that that is the hon. Gentleman's point,

  65
  and that he sees unfairness in letting one side to a two-sided transaction get in first with the quasi-tribunal and reach some arrangement with it, before the ratepayer gets any chance even to know what the valuation list has against him, still less to question it or to appeal against it.
  Mr. Sandys: I do not think that there is a disadvantage to the ratepayer. I do not suppose that the valuation officer will, if the change in circumstances occurs, be able to make a change, in practice, much after November. If a material change takes place in November or December, or perhaps a little earlier, in the character of a property, it is much better for the ratepayer that when he sees the list published on 1st April or thereabouts he should know that that is the list he has to consider in relation to whether he wishes to appeal against it or not. It would be very annoying for him if, subsequent to the publication of the list, he were told, "Owing to something which has happened before the publication of the list a further change will be made in your assessment. You can consider your appeal in the light of that."
  There will undoubtedly be cases where these changes are not caught up with in time, but the more up to date the list the better it will be for all concerned. I do not think that there is a point of justice or principle involved in the Amendment but a matter of practical common sense. It is in the interest of the ratepayer that he should know as far as possible the assessment which he has to consider in deciding whether or not to appeal.
  Mr. Lindgren: The Minister will surely agree that this point arises because of the abolition of the draft lists. The Minister said that the ratepayer was at no disadvantage. If an extra wing has been attached to a property it is only right that, as soon as the valuation is made, the local authority should inform the Inland Revenue Department of the addition, and that the property should be revalued. Under the procedure of the 1948 Act, which provides for the draft list, the local authority and the ratepayer would know the original valuation and of the proposal of the local authority to make an addition to the rateable value. He would know what that addition was, as between the old property and the new, on account of the addition made to the property.
  66
  The Amendment shows that even among the Minister's own supporters there are misgivings. The Government's majority dropped very seriously on the last Amendment, although not quite seriously enough. Hon. Gentlemen who ought to have been voting were in some other place. It is very convenient, if one wishes not to register a vote on something, to be somewhere else when the vote is taken. We can only take that as the reason Government supporters were not present when the vote was taken. We do not want to see the Minister getting into a worse position. This is one of the cases where the abolition of the draft lists puts the ratepayer at a disadvantage as compared with the local authority, when it comes to a knowledge of the valuation.
  5.15 p.m.
  Mr. Houghton: The hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), who moved the Amendment, having swallowed a camel is now straining at a gnat. I do not think that there is anything wrong with the subsection, which seems to follow automatically from the abolition of the draft lists.
  It is obvious that the local authority must have the new valuations some time in advance of the date upon which they have to issue the combined notices of assessment and rate demand. Therefore, they must have time to copy out all the particulars in the ratebooks in readiness for delivery to the ratepayers. One cannot deprive them of information which they must have if they are to do their job. In the meantime, the ratepayer is kept in ignorance of the new valuation; but that point is dealt with in another subsection.
  It is the duty of the valuation officer to see that the values are up-to-date and he is altering them all the time. If changes take place he alters the lists as he goes along, until the time comes when he must deliver. The provision here tells him to go on altering if there is a material change in circumstances. It is a mistake to think that he will rely only on the local authority when material changes take place in circumstances. He is round about all the time, and he will notice some of these material changes himself. He is not dependent on the local authority to supply him with this information.
  This is a practical way of dealing with the matter and, with great respect to

  67
  opinions to the contrary, I do not think it puts the ratepayer at any disadvantage because, whether there have been material changes or not, he will get the combined notice of assessment and demand note like everybody else. In the light of what he believes to be the circumstances of his case and of the property, he will know whether to appeal or not.
  Mr. Page: Having ventilated this subject and heard the Minister's explanation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  The Temporary Chairman (Major Anstruther-Gray): Is it the Committee's pleasure that the Amendment be withdrawn?
  Hon. Members: No.
  Amendment negatived.
  Mr. Page: I beg to move, in page 2, line 24, to leave out subsection (6).
  Would it be for the convenience of the Committee to consider, with this Amendment, the next one, in page 2, line 38, to leave out paragraphs (a) and (b) and to insert "immediately upon receipt thereof."
  The Temporary Chairman: The hon. Member may deal with both Amendments, with the leave of the Committee.
  Mr. Page: The two Amendments would provide that the ratepayer has the same information about valuation lists as the local authority will have, and at the same time as the local authority will have it. I explained in the discussion on my previous Amendment that the local authority would receive the valuation list at the end of December and that the ratepayer would not know the contents of it and would not know how he was assessed until approximately 1st April, when the rate demand notes were issued.
  I am not asking in the Amendments for the restoration of the draft valuation lists. It seems to me that the procedure laid down in the Clause, in effect abolishing the draft lists, is satisfactory, but I do not think it is satisfactory that only the local authority should know the contents of the valuation list and that the ratepayers should not at the same time know how they are assessed so that they can consider those assessments before the monetary demands are made upon them when the rates are fixed.
  68
  If the right of appeal, or the right of proposing an alteration to the assessments, is restricted until after 1st April, then the Minister will have achieved his object, as he expressed it, of preventing the appeal machinery from becoming clogged by misguided and needless appeals. At the same time, if the ratepayer has three months in which to consider his position and to consider the new assessments, he is less likely to put in an appeal than if the demand is suddenly made upon him.
  I do not think the ratepayer who sees that his assessment has gone up will necessarily think that he will have to pay treble or four times the amount in rates that he is paying now. Surely he is intelligent enough to understand that a great number of assessments have gone up in his district and that he has to take the new total rateable value of his district and consider what his local authority needs to raise on that new total rateable value, compared with the rate which it had to impose on the old total rateable value, which was a much lower figure.
  If the ratepayer is given time to consider the list, I am sure the result will be to reduce the number of appeals and not to increase them. If the lists are published and made known on 1st January, not only to the local authority, but also to the ratepayer, it will overcome a great deal of the suspicion which many ratepayers, and particularly the organised bodies of ratepayers, have felt about the whole business of the new assessments.
  To have a hole-and-corner business between the local authority, the valuation officer and the Ministry during this period of three months will only increase that suspicion so that, when eventually the time comes for putting in appeals, those appeals, I feel, will come as a flood more as a matter of principle than because of a good reason after the rate demand notes have been seen. I do not think that the delay in giving information to the ratepayer about the lists will prevent a flood of appeals. It will probably increase the number of appeals by increasing the suspicion that something is going on between the local authority, the valuation officer and the Minister.
  Mr. C. Pannell: I think it will be difficult for the Minister to resist the Amendment, which meets all the points he has put up so far. He has argued, "I have nothing up my sleeve. I have never

  69
  argued that the time factor has anything to do with it. I have always said that this will show the local ratepayer how his assessment marries up with the rate call. "It seems to meet everything he has argued and I shall be interested to see how he reacts to it.
  The Liberals are bound to support it, for justice seems to be done in this Amendment. I have always admitted—although it has seemed to me that the Minister has made very heavy weather of it in attacking my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren)—that on the mechanics of the case, especially in the present context of time, it would be very difficult to go back on the proposals in the Clause, but when we have reached the point where there are to be no draft lists, when, in effect, everybody knows that the assessment will be divulged at the same time as the rate call, surely nobody can argue that there will be any harm, if the local authority is having the information on 1st January, in the ratepayer also having it on 1st January. He ought to have it then.
  The assumption running through the Clause is that the ratepayer is a moron, who will not understand the simple calculations which have been done.
  Mr. S. Silverman: They fear that he will understand them.
  Mr. Pannell: My hon. Friend is mistaken. The trouble is that the Minister is judging this issue from the intellectual level of the hon. Gentlemen behind him. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Well, I listened to Second Reading speeches, including that from the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). I have experience of local authorities—I have been on four. The other day the hon. Member gave us an example of local authorities chasing charitable institutions out of business. Discussing a Clause which we shall debate later, he said——
  Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: Order.
  Mr. Pannell: The Chair will correct me, not the Chairman of the 1922 Committee.
  Mr. Page: If the hon. Member refers to HANSARD, he will see that he is misquoting my words. I did not say that any local authority was chasing charities out of business.
  Mr. Pannell: I read the hon. Member's speech with interest but no profit, and I
  70
  know what he said then. I can only assume that he did not know what he was saying when he said it and would not understand it if he read it. But I will deal with this matter if I catch your eye, Mr. Anstruther-Gray, or the Chair's eye, whoever is in the Chair, when we come to Clause 6——
  Sir I. Horobin: There is nobody in the Chair's eye.
  Mr. Pannell: To get back to the Amendment, it seems to me that justice seems to be done under it. I have always been in favour of giving local authorities the maximum time in which they could inspect the lists and see where they are going. It seems to me that it is reasonable, particularly from hon. Gentlemen opposite who always claim that they will preserve the rights of the individual against the machine, that the ratepayer should have the same facilities as we are asking should be given to the local authorities. That seems fair enough to me and I hope it will seem fair enough to the Minister; but I have a suspicion that it will not.
  Mr. A. C. M. Spearman: Earlier in the discussions on the Bill the Parliamentary Secretary said that rating experts were born and not made. I was certainly not born that way and it is, therefore, with great diffidence that I express any views on the Bill.
  I understand the Minister's objection to the situation in which there could be a flood of appeals which might never have been made had it not been possible to make them before full information was available, but it seems to me that the Amendment makes a very reasonable request and I hope that my right hon. Friend will see his way to accept it. As I understand, it merely asks that the ratepayers shall know some months earlier than otherwise would be the case the information which, in any event, they are to be given later.
  5.30 p.m.
  Mr. Wade: I hope that the Minister will accept this Amendment. In the Second Reading debate the Parliamentary Secretary said, when winding up:
  "At this, the culminating point of eight years' work, we should be careful not to provoke too many doubts in people's minds about

  71
  the fundamental soundness and justice of the system."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th June, 1955; Vol. 542, c. 992.]
  I am very sceptical about the "fundamental soundness and justice" of our rating system. There are a great many anomalies which it would be out of order for me to elaborate now. Whilst we cannot discuss those anomalies, I think we can endeavour to ensure that the right of appeal is not impaired.
  I am quite well aware that if the Bill reaches the Statute Book the ratepayer will have a right of appeal. There is considerable misunderstanding, and it is our duty to make it as clear as possible that ratepayers will still have a right of appeal. Many shopkeepers have been concerned about that. I am not doubting or questioning that for a moment, but I think there is a strong argument for giving ratepayers the opportunity of seeing the new valuation list some time before the rate is levied.
  It is certainly arguable in this case that appeals should not commence until after the date on which the rate is levied, when ratepayers will know what they have to pay, but what they have to pay is not the only point that concerns ratepayers. I agree that the ratepayer is perhaps primarily worried about how much he will have to pay, and he will not know that until the rate is actually levied, but that is not the only consideration.
  He will wish to make comparisons with other properties, particularly if he is considering an appeal. I think it reasonable that he should have a period of time in which he may make comparisons with occupiers of other properties to see how their assessments have been affected. That would go some way towards meeting the very serious concern felt by ratepayers, particularly shopkeepers. For those reasons, I hope that the Minister will accept this very modest Amendment.
  Commander Agnew: I should have thought it was to the advantage of the authorities that this Amendment should be made. Many people foresee that, if the Bill remains unamended, on the day when the lists come into force many ratepayers, particularly of the shopkeeping type, will hurriedly read their assessment and automatically proceed to lodge appeals. Then the very clogging of the administrative machinery
  72
  which the Minister seeks to avoid will come about.
  On the other hand, if those ratepayers are given a chance of knowing what their valuations are to be at a time which, if the Amendment were accepted, would enable them to read through their assessments thoroughly, many would not see fit to lodge appeals. The advantage would be that there would be no panic rush of appeals. For those reasons, I hope that my right hon. Friend will reconsider this matter and see fit to accept the Amendment.
  Mr. MacColl: I rushed to put my name down in support of the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) on the second Amendment which we are considering because that was my last despairing effort to make the Bill reasonable. The Minister could accept the Amendment. There has been no attempt to meet any of the criticisms from either side of the Committee or the misgivings and objections felt throughout the country. This seems to be an entirely reasonable suggestion, which has overwhelming support on both sides of the Committee. There has not been one speaker on either side of the Committee who has not supported it.
  The only possible argument that could be put against it is the concern of the right hon. Gentleman for the blood pressure of the ratepayers. He has said in the past that if the ratepayer saw his assessment had gone up he would have coronary thrombosis before he discovered that he had not to pay more. I think that question could be left to those who know how rates are worked out. They could see what their assessment was and would have enough sense to know that that did not necessarily determine how much they were to pay.
  This is not just a question of how much they have to pay, but of value, and there is still a faint tradition that assessment of rateable value is based on some kind of objective test and some way of measuring it, which people can examine and on the correctness of which they can decide. What possible objection can there be to ratepayers knowing at the earliest possible moment the assessment to be placed on their hereditaments so that they can look at the assessment and decide whether it seems reasonable in all the

  73
  circumstances and take professional advice about it?
  As has been said by other hon. Members, the more ratepayers are able to do that in advance of putting in an appeal the less will it be necessary to put in a protective appeal to safeguard their position whilst they get advice. If the Amendment were carried, most ratepayers would have been able, when the time for appeals came, to have obtained professional advice on whether or not the assessment seemed a reasonable one.
  That applies not only to shopkeepers, who have been mentioned a great deal in the discussion. Shopkeepers have a fairly well established and easily understood basis of valuation, but for people in residential premises there is the most extraordinarily cock-eyed basis, as was disclosed during the Second Reading of the Bill. It is particularly important that they should be able to go to someone and ask, "What does my 1939 value mean under 1955 conditions?" There will be gentlemen prepared to charge fees to explain what it means. If the ratepayer wishes to take advantage of the advice of those who, no doubt, will be queueing up to assist him, he should be able to do so. What conceivable reason can there be for not letting the ratepayer know the likely rateable value of his property on which he is to be taxed so that over a period he can decide whether to employ professional advisers to brief him on how to proceed.
  I am glad to notice that the hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Mr. Walker-Smith) is about to intervene, because I know he is the king-maker. At the lifting of his little finger the Government will tremble. Here is a concession which the Minister ought to make. I hope that the hon. and learned Member will give that little wink or nod which will convey his wishes to the Government so that we shall get one concession which will enable those of us who are so anxious to be reasonable and to attribute the best possible motives to the right hon. Gentleman, and not to oppose him on this matter, to act accordingly.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: Not twenty-two, but twenty years ago, the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) and I were pupils in chambers together and studied law. The hon. Member has learned a lot since then, but not very much, I fear, in
  74
  the sphere of law. I should like to be able to say that it is in response to his invitation, couched in such felicitious phrases, that I rise to intervene. I have always made it my first rule of conduct to adhere scrupulously and literally to the precise truth in every respect in the House of Commons, and I cannot make that pleasing observation in response even to the hon. Member. It is my intention to join my voice with those who have urged the Minister to consider accepting the Amendment.
  When the present Bill's predecessor was introduced in the last Parliament on 6th April, I drew attention to the distinction which was made between the rights of ratepayers and rating authorities in the Bill in regard to the lists. I ventured to suggest at that time that the gulf could be closed or reduced by giving rather less information to the rating authorities at that early date. My suggestion then was that it might be sufficient for their purposes that they should have the global totals instead of prior inspection of the entries for the individual hereditaments. Effect would have been given to that suggestion by an Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) and others of my hon. Friends, which the Chair, in its wisdom, has not seen fit to call.
  For administrative reasons, that suggestion did not at that time commend itself to my right hon. Friend. That being so, it seemed to me that if this problem could not be met by reducing the amount of information to be made available to the rating authority at that stage, we must seek a solution along the other line of approach and try to increase or expedite the amount of information to be made available to the ratepayer. The simplest method of doing that is to do what my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) suggests—take away this limitation on the ratepayer's right of inspection of the list and accelerate that right, so that he is aware at the first possible moment of the proposed revised assessment of his individual property.
  I share, and I am sure all the members of the Committee share, with my right hon. Friend the desire to avoid a flood of ill-considered appeals, but, as the Committee will appreciate, there should be no connection whatever between rate poundage and an appeal against an individual assessment of a rating hereditament;

  75
  because, of course, the appeal is within the limits of a statutory formula which has nothing to do with the rate poundage as such. It may be that when people know that they will be paying less by way of rate poundage, they will not be so eager to appeal; but strictly, of course, it should not affect the question at all. One would assume that most ratepayers are able, at any rate, to make some sort of rough and ready calculation of their own.
  As my right hon. Friend knows, in case ratepayers are not able to do that and in case my hon. Friend's Amendment does not commend itself, I have sent him a memorandum in the past week setting out a further suggestion whereby additional information could be given to the ratepayers by way of a statement to be made by the rating authorities which would show, in effect, a cross-section of the level of new rating liability whereby the ratepayers could see by example how they were likely to be affected.
  We can, however, save the complication of a further statement to be made by the rating authority together with the submission of the list if it is possible, quite simply, as is suggested, to give this earlier right of inspection of the valuation list. If my right hon. Friend is not able to be sympathetic to this Amendment, it may be that, subject to your acquiescence, Sir Rhys, I shall have to seek to trouble the Committee again on the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" with rather fuller details of the alternative scheme which I have in mind. If my right hon. Friend—this may be the final argument to topple the scale—is able to accept the Amendment, I shall be able to deny the Committee what would otherwise, in their view, no doubt, be that pleasure.
  5.45 p.m.
  Mr. Sandys: I have had the nod from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Mr. Walker-Smith), but I think that I ought to explain the Government's position in regard to the Amendment. I quite understand the reasons which have prompted my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) to put forward the Amendment, but the fact remains that the principle and the considerations which led us to abolish the draft valuation lists do apply, though
  76
  perhaps to a lesser extent, to the publication of the lists in January.
  It has been said that it is right that the ratepayers should know in January what they will in any case know in April; but one could say that it is right that they should know in October what they will in any case know in April. We have accepted the principle, and only a short while ago we have taken the decision in regard to the future—and in the speeches which have been made it has been indicated that the Committee has accepted the decision—that the draft valuation lists are at any rate not to operate in regard to the present revaluation. We will see what the experience is and it will be decided afterwards whether to reinstate the draft lists for the valuation in 1961.
  An additional argument has been put forward that it is not right that this information should be in the hands of the local authorities for three months during which it is denied to the ratepayers. In addition, it has been said, either outside the House or during Second Reading, that leakages would no doubt take place as from January onwards, when these matters came to be discussed.
  I feel that the arguments which led us to do away with the draft valuation lists, the arguments that they would tend to create unnecessary anxiety and alarm, which the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) described as high blood pressure, needlessly early among the ratepayers, apply to the proposition that is before us now. I must recognise, however, that they apply to a lesser extent. There is a difference between three months and six months, and there is also a difference between a period in which a great number of people will know about these lists as compared with the period when they are in the very secret hands of the Board of Inland Revenue.
  I wondered whether the right thing would be for me to say to the Committee that I would reconsider the position before the Report stage. I think it is only right—certainly it is my way of working—that when the Committee expresses itself, without any contrary voice whatever, in support of a certain proposal, then, unless there are very strong objections, the Government ought to take some notice of what the Committee says. Therefore, I have decided, in listening to the debate, not to say that I

  77
  will reconsider the matter, but that I will accept the Amendment as it stands. That is what I recommend my hon. Friends to do.
  Mr. S. Silverman: I am astonished at this performance. I am sure that the Committee generally will be equally astonished. We noticed in the last Division that the numbers on the Government side were substantially fewer that might have been expected considering the result of polling day, but one did not think the sands would be running out quite as fast as they have done.
  What has the right hon. Gentleman said? He has said that the reasons for having had the Clause drawn as it is without the Amendment are exactly the reasons which led the Government to withdraw the draft list altogether, and he said at the beginning of his argument just now that he could not distinguish between the arguments in the one case and the arguments in the other. He having rejected them in the first case, we expected him then to reject them in the second case, too, because, he said, in principle they were exactly the same. However, then he went on to say there was a difference and the difference was that between three months and six months.
  Mr. Gibson: Not in principle.
  Mr. Silverman: No difference in principle at all: absolutely none.
  Mr. Sandys: If the hon. Gentleman had made that speech earlier, I might have not accepted the Amendment.
  Mr. Silverman: That is exactly what I was explaining to the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman, by his intervention just now, has shown that he has been influenced in his acceptance of the Amendment by not having appreciated the force of his own earlier argument against it. He certainly did not, until I pointed it out to him, and then he felt a new wave of confidence in the earlier argument which induced him to draft the Clause in this way, and he is beginning to have second thoughts about whether he ought to accept the Amendment or not. However, I do not want to delay the Committee. The 1922 Committee has won a triumph, and far be it from me to belittle it or stand in its way. However, it does seem to be a very frivolous way
  78
  for the Government to approach a very serious matter.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 2, line 38, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b) and insert "immediately upon receipt thereof."[Mr. Page.]
  Mr. Blackburn: I beg to move, in page 3, line 11, to leave out "the year" and to insert "three months."
  I hope the Minister is in the same cooperative attitude and that the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) has not hardened his heart. I hope I shall not be considered inconsistent because I objected very strongly to the abolition of the draft valuation list and am now moving an Amendment which reduces the period during which appeals can be made. I would make it clear that I do oppose the abolition of the valuation list, that I do not accept any of the arguments put forward by the Minister, and that I do not accept even the argument on the time factor that the Minister said he did not put forward.
  Now, however, I am looking at this problem from the point of view of the local authorities. I do not think the Amendment would be any disadvantage to the ratepayers, because I am quite convinced that every ratepayer will decide almost immediately after seeing the list whether he will make an appeal or not. He certainly will not need to delay 12 months. He will certainly be able to decide within three months.
  This proposal is an outcome of a question I asked the Minister during Second Reading. I ask him to make a statement with regard to the financial position of the local authorities. I think the Minister under-estimated the problem, because he said:
  "I do not think there will be any substantial difficulty for local authorities."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th June, 1955; Vol. 542, c. 916.]
  Under the Bill local authorities are not to be able to levy a higher rate than there would have been in the previous year if there had been no re-assessment, once an appeal has been made, and that means that in many cases local authorities will not know how much money they will be able to take. It is quite reasonable, of course, that until a proposal has

  79
  been settled the amount recoverable shall not exceed the total amount of the rate levied on the hereditament for the last year for which the list came into force. That is reasonable.
  However, let us consider the position of the local authorities. If at any time during that year ratepayers can make appeals against the assessments, it will not be until the end of the year that the local authority will know exactly what appeals are being brought forward. It is quite reasonable to expect ratepayers within three months to have made their appeals if they are going to appeal. I hope the Minister will realise the financial difficulty in which the local authorities will be placed and will have another look at this matter and will bring to bear upon this problem the same sympathy he extended to his hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page).
  This Amendment does not affect a vital principle of the Bill, but it would give considerable help to the local authorities. I am certain many Members on both sides of the Committee have had this matter put to them by their own local authorities. I hope the Minister will be prepared to accept the Amendment.
  Mr. Sandys: Frankly, I do not feel as sympathetic towards this proposal, for the simple reason that it would remove what may be regarded by many ratepayers as a very considerable advantage. People may be away at the time a list is altered. There may be some delay in their hearing about these things. Contrary to what one would think from listening to this debate, owners of property do not spend their whole time waiting for valuation lists to come in and waiting to go to the valuation offices to make inquiries about other people's property. People have other things to do. I think that three months is an unreasonably short time for ratepayers to consider their position and to make their appeals.
  Mr. Blackburn: Make it four months, then.
  Mr. Sandys: The purpose of the Amendment is to shorten the period of uncertainty for local authorities and to avoid the difficulty of their perhaps being short of revenue during some months in the early part of the year, a difficulty
  80
  which might, conceivably, cause them to raise a loan on which they would have to pay interest. However, as I have said before, I do not think that the sums of money that will be involved will be appreciable. Nor do I believe that the anxiety or the uncertainty in the minds of local authorities will be very great.
  As I have indicated to the Committee, these proposals were fully discussed with the local authorities, and the local authorities' associations raised a number of points about them, but this was not one on which there was difficulty. [Interruption.] As far as I am aware, the Government have not received representations from any of the associations of the local authorities in regard to this matter since the publication of the Bill. In any case, I would not think it right to deprive the ratepayer of a right which, I think, might be of considerable importance to him. I hope that the hon. Member will not press his Amendment.
  6.0 p.m.
  Mr. Lindgren: The Minister has forgotten that the progress of the Bill has been as rapid as it has been. He has just given to the ratepayer, quite rightly—and we commend him for it—the right of inspection of the list for three months. Those three months, plus the three months suggested in my hon. Friend's Amendment, make six months. That is a considerable advantage to the ratepayer. The Minister has made an excuse about people who go away for holidays. He knows some who go away for three months' holiday, but they are not the majority of the ratepayers.
  It should also be remembered that rates are payable on demand. I do not suggest that everybody pays them on demand, but they are so payable and should be so paid, otherwise local authorities tend to get into difficulties in meeting the wages of their staffs, and so on. If the Minister is not prepared to compromise on the period of twelve months, which is too long and leaves the local authority in suspense for longer than is necessary, and is not prepared to extend the three months to four or six, I must advise my hon. Friends to vote for the Amendment.
  Mr. Kenneth Thompson: I hope that my right hon. Friend will not be lured by smooth assurances or by the somewhat savage threats

  81
  of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren). The Committee has a duty to the ratepayers to see that their interests are protected. It is not long since hon. Members opposite worked themselves into a synthetic lather about the rights of ratepayers being filched from them by the Tory Party. We settled all that and the will of the House of Commons was expressed satisfactorily on my right hon. Friend's proposal. The Committee would be departing altogether from its proper care of the interests of the ratepayers if it were to shorten the period of time in which they can make an appeal.
  We must remember that we are not always dealing with clever or well-advised people. Ratepayers are often simple or ordinary people. On the other hand, they do not go away for three months' holiday and certainly not between December and March. They are, however, often very slow to appreciate where their interests lie and what jeopardy they might be in.
  The Committee has to consider the interests of people like that, but if we accept the Amendment and reduce this period to three months or accept the somewhat oddly termed "compromise" of four months, suggested in an interjection by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn), the local authority would still not know with any precision what its rate would be.
  The very nature of the Bill, and the fact that it enables the ratepayer to appeal and not to be prejudiced in his financial position until his appeal has been resolved, means that the local authority will not know precisely until all the appeals are out of the way what its rate will be. I think that this is a manœuvre on the part of hon. Members opposite and I hope that my right hon. Friend will not fall for it.
  Question put, That "the year" stand part of the Clause:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 248, Noes 190.

  Division No. 3.]

  AYES

  [6.5 p.m.

  Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

  Corfield, Capt. F. V.

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Aitken, W. T.

  Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Hare, Hon. J. H.

  Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hn. H. F. C.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

  Alport, C. J. M.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

  Crouch, R. F.

  Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)

  Arbuthnot, John

  Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Armstrong, C. W.

  Crowder, Petre (Ruislip-Northwood)

  Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfd)

  Ashton, H.

  Cunningham, S. K.

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Atkins, H. E.

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Harvie-Watt, Sir George

  Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.

  Danoe, J. C. G.

  Hay, John

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Balniel, Lord

  Davies, Rt. Hon, Clement(Montgomery)

  Heath, Edward

  Barber, Anthony

  D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Barlow, Sir John

  Deedes, W. F.

  Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

  Barter, J. W.

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. MCA.

  Hill, John (S. Norfolk)

  Baxter, Sir Beverley

  Doughty, C. J. A.

  Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Drayson, G. B.

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Holland-Martin, C. J.

  Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

  Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

  Holt, A. F.

  Bidgood, J. C.

  Duthle, W. S.

  Horobin, Sir Ian

  Biggs-Davison, J. A.

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence

  Bishop, F. P.

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

  Black, c. W.

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Howard, John (Test)

  Body, R. F.

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

  Bossom, Sir A. C.

  Fell, A.

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.

  Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)

  Fisher, Nigel

  Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  Flcetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

  Hulbert, Wing Cmdr. Sir Norman

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Foster, John

  Hurd, A. R.

  Braine, B. R.

  Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe & Lonsdale)

  Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H.

  Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

  Freeth, D. K.

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Irvine, Godman (Rye)

  Bryan, P.

  Garner-Evans, E. H.

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.

  Glover, D.

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.

  Godber, J. B.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Burden, F. F. A.

  Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

  Jones, A. (Hall Green)

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Cough, C. F. H.

  Keegan, D.

  Campbell, Sir David

  Cower, H. R.

  Kerby, Capt. H. B.

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Graham, Sir Fergus

  Kerr, H. W.

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Grant, W. (Woodside)

  Kershaw, J. A.

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)

  Kirk, P. M.

  Cole, Norman

  Green, A.

  Lagden, G. W.

  Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Lambert, Hon. C.

  Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert

  Grimond, J.

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Cooper-Key, E. M.

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Leavey, J. A.

  Oakshott, H. D.

  Summers, G. S. (Aylesbury)

  Leburn, W. G.

  O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

  Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

  Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

  Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)

  Teeling, W.

  Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Linstead, Sir H. N.

  Page, R. G.

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

  Lloyd-George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G.

  Pitman, I. J.

  Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Pitt, Miss E. M.

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Lucas, P. B. (Brentford & Chiswick)

  Pott, H. P.

  Touche, Sir Gordon

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Raikes, Sir victor

  vane, W. M. F.

  McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

  Ramsden, J. E.

  Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Rawlinson, P. A. G.

  Vickers, Miss J. H.

  McLean, Neil (Inverness)

  Redmayne, M.

  Vosper, D. F.

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Wade, D. W.

  Maddan, M.

  Ronton, D. L. M.

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)

  Ridsdale, J. E.

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)

  Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)

  Rippon, A. G. F.

  Walker-Smith, D. C.

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

  Robertson, Sir David

  Wall, Major Patrick

  Marlowe, A. A. H.

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)

  Marples, A. E.

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)

  Mathew, R.

  Roper, Sir Harold

  Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.

  Maude, Angus

  Russell, R. S.

  Watkinson, H. A.

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

  Webbe, Sir H.

  Mawby, R. L.

  Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.

  Whitelaw, W.S.I.(Penrith & Border)

  Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.

  Sharpies, Maj. R. C.

  Williams, Rt. Hn. Charles (Torquay)

  Medlicott, Sir Frank

  Shepherd, William

  Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

  Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.

  Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Morrison, John (Salisbury)

  Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

  Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Soames, Capt. C.

  Wood. Hon. R.

  Nairn, D. L. S.

  Spearman, A. C. M.

  Woollam, John Victor

  Neave, Airey

  Speir, R. M.

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)

  Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)

  Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch)

  Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Nield, Basil (Chester)

  Steward, Sir William (Woolwich,W.)

  Mr. Studholme and

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Storey, S.

  Mr. R. Thompson.

  NOES

  Ainsley, J. W.

  Deer, G.

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Albu, A. H.

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Hunter, A. E.

  Allaun, F. (Salford, E.)

  Dodds, N. N.

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Donnelly, D. L.

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Anderson, Frank

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)

  Irving, S. (Dartford)

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  Janner, B.

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Balfour, A.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Jeger,Mrs.Lena(Holbn & St.Pancs,S.)

  Bartley, P.

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Johnson, James (Rugby)

  Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

  Jones, Rt. Hon.A.Creech (Wakefield)

  Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S.E.)

  Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

  Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

  Benson, G.

  Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

  Jones, Frederick Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Blackburn, F.

  Fernyhough, E.

  Jones, James (Wrexham)

  Blenkinsop, A.

  Fienburgh, W.

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Blyton, W. R.

  Finch, H. J.

  Kenyon, C.

  Bcardman, H.

  Forman, J. C.

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

  Lawson, G. M.

  Brockway, A. F.

  Gibson, C. W.

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Gooch, E. G.

  Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

  Lewis, Arthur

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Grey, C. F.

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Burke, W. A.

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Logan, D. G.

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  MacColl, J. E.

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Griffiths, William (Exchange)

  Mclnnes, J.

  Callaghan, L. J.

  Hale, Leslie

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Carmichael, J.

  Hall, John T. (Gateshead)

  McLeavy, F.

  Champion, A. J.

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Mahon, S.

  Chetwynd, G. R.

  Hannan, W.

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Clunie, J.

  Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

  Mann, Mrs. Jean

  Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

  Hastings, S.

  Mason, Roy

  Collins, V.J. (Shoreditch & Finsbury)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Mellish, R. J.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Healey, Denis

  Messer, Sir F.

  Cove, W. C.

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly-Regis)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Cronin, J. D.

  Hobson, C. R.

  Monslow, W.

  Cullen, Mrs. A.

  Holman, P.

  Moody, A. S.

  Daines, P.

  Holmes, Horace

  Morrison,Rt.Hn.Herbert(Lewis'm,S.)

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

  Moss, R.

  Darling, George (Hillsborough)

  Howell, Denis (All Saints)

  Moyle, A.

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

  Hubbard, T. F.

  Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  84

  85

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. p. (Derby, s.)

  Ross, William

  Warbey, W. N.

  Oliver, C. H.

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Weitzman, D.

  Oram, A. E.

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Wells, Peroy (Faversham)

  Oswald, T.

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Owen, W. J.

  Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

  West, D. G.

  Padley, W. E.

  Skeffington, A. M.

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne valley)

  Slater, J. (Sedgefield)

  White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Panned, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Sorenson, R. W.

  Willey, Frederick

  Parker, J.

  Sparks, J. A.

  Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)

  Paton, J.

  Steele, T.

  Williams, Ronald (Wigan)

  Pearson, A.

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

  Peart, T. F.

  Stones, W. (Consett)

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Popplewell, E.

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Swingler, S. T.

  Williams, W. T. (Barons Court)

  Probert, A. R.

  Sylvester, G. O.

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Pursey, Cmdr. H.

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Winterbottom, Richard

  Rankin, John

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Reid, William

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Yates, V. (Ladywood)

  Rhodes, H.

  Tomney, F.

  Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Viant, S. P.

  Mr. A. Allen and Mr. Short.

  Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
  6.15 p.m.
  Mr. Houghton: I wish to comment on the administrative consequences of the acceptance by the Minister and by the Committee of the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). That Amendment gives the ratepayer the power of inspection of the draft lists when they are delivered to the local authorities—which will he at the end of the year—but the ratepayer will have no statutory right of appeal until the lists become effective on or about 1st April.
  I am sure that the Minister will have considered what will happen as the result of this change. I foresee that many rate-payers will inspect the draft list; they will have knowledge of the proposed new assessment, but will still be without knowledge of the proposed new rate poundage. The Minister himself explained that they will then possess information about assessment without possessing the equally material information about the rate poundage. What is to happen to local authorities, and more especially to the rating officers of the Inland Revenue during this period of three months?
  My hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) drew a moving picture of ratepayers hurrying to their professional advisers to be told what to do about these new assessments. I can tell him at once that they will not run to their professional advisers at all—they would have to pay them. They will run to the local rating officers of the Inland Revenue for information about assessments. No fees will be charged and all available information will have to be given.
  86
  Has the Minister decided how he intends to safeguard the administration from the new imposition of considerable representations from ratepayers before the time for a statutory appeal has arrived? The Committee will probably realise that, although the draft lists will be open for inspection at the council offices or at the town hall, representations regarding the assessment will be of no avail there. They will be made only to the rating offices of the Inland Revenue, and there are many fewer rating offices than there are council offices and town halls. In fact, many ratepayers will be twenty-five miles from the nearest rating office, and there will be difficulties about travelling and about access to the rating office for the purpose of making representations.
  Frankly, I believe that the Minister, by accepting the Amendment, has imposed a serious additional burden upon the valuation officers and both he and the Committee should know that. Despite the fact that I had strong representations from local authorities in my own constituency, I did not rise to oppose the Amendment of the hon. Member for Crosby. It seemed to be the mood of the Committee that this right of inspection of the list should be given to the ratepayers before it came into operation and before they had the right of appeal. The Committee should realise, however, that this change may mean some slowing down of the work of the rating officers of the Board of Inland Revenue when this critical time comes.
  No one really knows what will happen when the new list comes into operation. There are no exceptional preparations for dealing with a flood of appeals. This

  87
  work has been going on quietly behind the scenes for several years and the public have had no access to the results of this work, and they will not have it until the draft list is published.
  The Board of Inland Revenue has undoubtedly a severe testing time ahead in receiving appeals and in dealing with them expeditiously so that not only ratepayers but also local authorities will know where they are. If, as I strongly suspect, local chambers of commerce advise their members en masse to appeal against the assessments on commercial premises, the situation from the point of view of the Inland Revenue will be grave. It will not be easy for local authorities either, because an appeal, when submitted, immediately protects the ratepayer against paying more rates next year than he is paying this year, pending the settlement of his appeal.
  So there could be quite a crisis confronting the rating officers of the Inland Revenue, and I am bound to voice the disquiet which I feel about the consequences of accepting the Amendment. When the time comes the Minister should make it clear to ratepayers that the right of inspection is given so that they may reflect on what they discover about their assessments, and so that they may take suitable advice about what they should do; but that they should refrain from exercising their right of appeal until the date for appeal comes round, which will be several weeks or months after the draft list is available for inspection by them.
  I hope sincerely that if any problems arise from this, as I feel sure they will, the Committee will be made aware of them and that the Minister will do his best to ensure that this new right of inspection of the list before the right of appeal arises is used by ratepayers with common sense and in a reasonable spirit, so that they do not clog the machine before it is ready and available to deal with appeals arising on the list.
  Mr. Sandys: There is always the other side to the penny, but I would like to say to the Committee that, whilst naturally I was influenced by what was said during the discussion, I had obviously taken the precaution in advance of consulting the Board of Inland Revenue regarding the administrative consequences
  88
  were I to decide to accept the Amendment. I can assure the Committee that they look upon the consequences of the adoption of the Amendment with equanimity.
  There is no question of a crisis or of this Amendment having been accepted without due reflection as to its consequences. The only danger that I see is that there may be a possibility—and I look to hon. Members on both sides of the Committee if that should arise—that certain sections of the community may, when they see their increased assessments before hearing of the rate poundage, make last-minute attempts to get yet a further postponement of the revaluation. I do not think that would be in the interests of anybody. We must get this new valuation out of our system, see where we stand, and then consider any changes that may be necessary in the light of any injustices which may reveal themselves when the full facts are known.
  Apart from that, I do not know of any serious administrative or other difficulties which are likely to arise. I feel sure that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) is unduly alarmed in this regard. However, he has made a useful suggestion that when the new list is published we should, by one means or another and as far as possible, bring to the notice of ratepayers the desirability of not taking hasty action. It would be better if they wait until they know what has bitten them before they decide whether to take action. I assure the hon. Gentleman that his suggestion will not be overlooked.
  Mr. F. H. Hayman: I think the Minister and the Board of Inland Revenue are surprisingly complacent about this matter. If they think that the millions of ratepayers in the country and the large number of trading organisations which will be affected will sit down quietly for two or three months after they have inspected the draft valuation list, the right hon. Gentleman is sadly mistaken.
  I believe that all hon. Members will find their post-bags doubled or trebled when the list comes out, and the Board of Inland Revenue ought to see seriously about increasing its staff to cope with these difficulties when they arise. I speak as a local government officer who has suffered from the complacency of local

  89
  authorities in thinking that their existing staffs can cope with any emergency at any time and no matter how long it lasts.
  Mr. Proctor: The Government are bringing a greater difficulty upon themselves in attempting to avoid a difficulty. I believe, with my hon. Friends, that we shall be faced throughout the country with a huge number of appeals, since it has been carefully explained in the House of Commons that people cannot possibly lose anything by appealing. Having explained that to them, what argument can we offer to them not to appeal?
  What was required was information so that the business community could find out how much would be the rateable value increase in the area as well as how much their own valuation had increased. The Government, however, have given them no measure for arriving at that information. All they have been told is to keep quiet until they know what has bitten them. Well, they have a pretty good idea of what will bite them, and that is the possibility of valuations going up two, three or even as much as four times their present valuations. That has been stated definitely.
  I have asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give us information, from the samples that have been taken, as to what percentage increase has taken place on the valuation. So far I have received no reply, but the Minister could have got all that information if he had wished and could have had it laid before us, because the Government have all the necessary information from the valuations that have taken place up to the present. So they could have placed before the House of Commons a full report indicating the position.
  This is tinkering with the problem, and I hope that my hon. Friends will express their disgust with this procedure by voting against the Clause.
  Mr. J. A. Sparks: I have listened with a great deal of perturbation to what the right hon. Gentleman has said, and I feel that he has given away the basis of his case for the abolition of the draft lists. I am not impressed by the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has been advised by people who, as far as I can understand, have never yet had to handle this procedure. It is an entirely
  90
  new venture for the Board of Inland Revenue to be handling valuation. I do not know that they are competent to advise the right hon. Gentleman upon this matter. The people who really are competent to advise him are the local authorities who had to handle the problem before the Board of Inland Revenue took over.
  6.30 p.m.
  I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Proctor) that if the Minister is going to permit ratepayers to inspect the list three months before the rate is levied, he is asking for an enormous amount of trouble and difficulty. Does he think he will appease ratepayers by telling them, when their assessments are anything from 20 per cent. to 100 per cent. higher than they were, "It is quite all right. You just keep quiet for three months, and then you will find that everything in the garden is lovely"? They just will not believe that tale. Even if they wait until 1st April until they know the rate poundage, they will still have had stored up in their minds for three months the suspicion that they are going to be "done." The net result of the new procedure will be that, for safety's sake, they will all appeal against their assessments.
  This is to some extent a psychological problem. It would have been far better if the right hon. Gentleman had adhered to the procedure laid down in the Bill and permitted ratepayers to have knowledge of their assessments at such time as they became aware of the amount which they would have to pay in rates, for that would be sensible. However, if the Government are now going to give ratepayers three months for their resentment, anger and suspicion to boil up, all that cannot be dispelled in a day or two when people get their rate demand.
  The Minister has completely thrown away the case that he had for the abolition of the draft valuation list. The basis of his case for abolishing that procedure was that not to do so would overcrowd the valuation courts as it would invite a great flood of appeals. It was said that, in order to avoid a flood of appeals, it was necessary that ratepayers should not be aware of their reassessments until such time as they knew the actual amount they would have to pay in rates, it being

  91
  suggested that when ratepayers knew how much they would actually have to pay they would be more or less satisfied with their assessment, provided that the increase, if there was an increase, was not unreasonable. However, the right hon. Gentleman has completely thrown that away, and he might just as well return to the principle of the draft valuation list, because the net effect will be precisely the same.
  As I said, this is a psychological problem. It is not one for the Board of Inland Revenue, with all its vast knowledge, sitting away up at the top of Mount Everest, divorced from the feelings of ordinary men and women who have to battle with these problems and do not understand the intricacies of our rating and valuation system.
  Mr. Houghton: Perhaps my hon. Friend will permit me to say how much I agree with him.
  Mr. Sparks: I am very pleased that my hon. Friend agrees with me. With all due respect to those gentlemen, I do not think they are in a position to give an accurate assessment about what they are advising the Minister to do. I feel that the Minister is making an awful lot of trouble for himself and for local authorities by giving way on an issue like this, which was the basis of his case for putting an end to the principle of the draft valuation list.
  Mr. Pannell: This really shows that the Minister has not known what he has been doing. The Minister came from the Ministry of Supply to his present office, and the previous holder of the office went from local government to a foreign field. I often twitted the previous holder of the office to the effect that the problems of local government would never be left to him. Although he never said anything, I often thought he was saying under his breath, "Sez you!", or something like that.
  The present Minister came into this job, and almost the first thing he got hold of—[Interruption.] I heard a very interesting comment then. What I am saying is far more interesting than the sort of infantile lisping that I often hear from the benches opposite.
  Mr. G. R. Howard: "Sez you!"
  Mr. Pannell: The first job the Minister took hold of was the Exchequer subsidy for housing. The House was pretty generous to him on that occasion. Now he has come here with this matter. We have had a long exposition from him—we have had not one Second Reading but two Second Readings—and now we have heard him speak again, presumably from a brief prepared in his Department, and it has shown that he has given way on the second issue. He did not know what he was walking into.
  I can speak with some knowledge of the curious history of rating and valuation, because I was the chairman of a rating and valuation committee as far back as 1929. [Interruption.] We always hear the dark brown voice of the barrow boy when people are speaking on subjects they know something about. In those days we used to find that the rating committees were full of builders, and, generally speaking, local authorities had to make their way through a maze of local vested interests. Eventually the matter was put on a county basis. I sat for some time on the valuation committee of the County of Kent, which had very great difficulty in marrying various assessments, even in the case of such a common denominator as the prefabricated house. One would have thought that such houses would have had similar valuations throughout the county, but they did not. Assessments in respect of even small properties used to become a matter of concern and controversy.
  As a result of what the Minister is proposing to do, I foresee chambers of commerce advising their members to go to the inspectors, who will then pass the cases on to the Minister, and we shall have Conservative Members of Parliament subject to pressure towards the time of the municipal elections.
  I remember an instance which exemplifies the extent to which such matters as these can rock local authorities. Many years ago in Eastfield Road, Waltham-stow, there was a dairy at which there was so much noise during the night that the tenants of adjacent properties had £2 taken off their assessments. In addition, they obtained a writ in the High Court on the grounds of nuisance. The people

  93
  who had paid out twice, to the solicitors representing them in connection with the assessments and to the lawyers in the High Court case, somehow thought they were double-crossed.
  Mr. K. Thompson: What has this to do with it?
  Mr. Pannell: The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. F. Harris), who has an Amendment down to the Bill, apparently has not even a nodding acquaintance with the subject.
  Mr. Frederic Harris: I am wondering what the hon. Gentleman was doing on the rating and valuation committee in 1929.
  Mr. Pannell: I was the chairman.
  Mr. Gerald Nabarro: Was the hon. Gentleman a shopkeeper or a builder?
  Mr. Pannell: I was practising the qualities of impartiality which have characterised me before and since. I remember, too, the time when Sir Rowland Blades was Lord Mayor of London——
  Mr. K. Thompson: On a point of order. I wonder if you will tell us for the record, Mr. Hoy, how much of this is in order.
  The Temporary Chairman (Mr. James H. Hoy): We are discussing the Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," and the discussion can go a little wide but, I warn the Committee, not too wide.
  Mr. Pannell: I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman who represents Walton Gaol in the House is an authority on keeping people in order.
  I was referring to a gentleman who is now in another place from which we have much of our case law. Sir Rowland Blades was Lord Mayor of London, and he decided that he would celebrate his Lord Mayoralty by presenting a sports ground in the borough of Walthamstow. Merely by his presenting a sports ground which allowed an uninterrupted view over two miles, all the assessments of the houses backing on to that ground increased by £2. Cases like that and like Eastfield Road cause a terrific uproar in the local Press.
  94
  This will be magnified many times if the procedure is to be taken out of the hands of the local authorities and handed to the Board of Inland Revenue. The Board of Inland Revenue having taken it over, with its record of impartiality and the fact that it has terrific authority in this matter, I can see the Minister in for a very bad time indeed. He should not expect us to rescue him from the wrath to come. He must not expect us to do that when the Conservative majority so easily gained at the recent Election comes tumbling down.
  Mr. Arthur Skeffington: Before the Committee leaves this Clause, I should like to express my own regret that the Minister has not thought fit to secure for the future the possibility of returning to draft valuation lists. Some of us might agree that on this special occasion it might be worth while, purely on the grounds of administrative convenience, to dispense with draft lists. Even if that be the argument, and I do not think the case has been made out, I still cannot understand why the Minister has been so obdurate about the future, particularly when he made a concession on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), which makes the list available to the ratepayer at the same time as the local authority receives it.
  I should like to place on record my own opposition to the abolition of the draft lists. I am certain that chambers of trade and ratepayers' associations and others who in the past have been able to render very great services to ratepayers by contrasting valuations, will not be able to do so until a very much later date, and then only as a result of piecemeal inquiry. I am not at all convinced that the flood of appeals which it was hoped to avert by the Minister's abolition of draft lists will be stopped. Any ratepayer who reads the deliberations of the Committee will know what it is best for him to do when he gets his first notice of assessment. Ratepayers' associations are bound to advise appeals.
  We already know from the Sheffield case that, although rate poundage will come down under the new valuations, the actual cash demand is bound to go up. In the case of part of a shopping area in the centre of Sheffield where valuations—much against the advice of the

  95
  Minister's own Department, I understand—have already been made on current valuations, the actual rates paid have doubled in the case of shops of which I have personal knowledge. Quite obviously therefore, whether one takes the actual poundage that will be paid or the increased assessment, I am certain that there will be a large number of appeals.
  6.45 p.m.
  There is one case with which the Minister has not dealt, although I raised it on the abortive Second Reading on 6th April, where groups of ratepayers will be placed at a serious disadvantage. Under Section 11 of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, it is possible for a local authority, if it passes the requisite resolution, to obtain the payments of rates in respect of certain dwellings—I believe the limit of rateable value as a result of the Local Government Act, 1948, is now £18—from the owner. Under the procedure which is now being adopted, the first time that some occupiers will know that they are now responsible for the rates, because of the revaluation which has taken place, will be when they actually get their rate demand. They will have had no opportunity of looking at the list.
  Because of a later Amendment, it may well be that a higher rateable value for this procedure will be secured. In that case there will be a number of owners who will be paying rates for the first time and whose first intimation will be when they get the rate demand. The absence of lists in these two cases will confer very great hardship on both those types of ratepayers. I referred to this topic on 6th April and asked the Minister to give me an answer, but he did not do so and I have had no answer since. I should be very grateful if even at this stage he would tell me what the position of these people will be, because they will certainly be under an even greater hardship than that suffered by the ordinary ratepayer.
  I conclude by saying that the Clause and the discussion we have had on it, and the fact that when we are about to have the first general revaluation in a quarter of a century the Government have felt obliged to withdraw the draft lists, is an impressive commentary on the complete muddle and chaos of our rating
  96
  and valuation law. We on this side hope that the time will come when some of these anomalies can be swept away and a better and more just system produced.
  Mr. Lindgren: I intervene in order to facilitate the Minister in getting the information for which he has been asked and to put before the Committee the difficulty in which the Minister has placed us. A little earlier we were prepared to be very generous to the Minister about the acceptance of the Amendment. It is not unknown for an Amendment to be judiciously accepted when it does not matter, because it makes people happy and often helps to get a Bill through much quicker.
  I was prepared to think that the Minister knew the feeling of the House; in fact he said he was taking the feeling of the House and was surprised that there was not a voice raised against the Amendment, and that he was bound to take notice of that and accept the Amendment. We were prepared to be generous to him, but later, to meet the castigation on my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), the Minister let the cat out of the bag and said that he knew he was going to accept the Amendment because he had consulted the Board of Inland Revenue. One does not consult the Inland Revenue Department unless one is thinking of accepting an Amendment. One looks at the Amendment on the Order Paper in relation to the general principle of the Bill.
  The general principle of the Clause is abolition of the draft valuation lists and the withholding from the ratepayer, whether domestic, business or shopkeeper, the knowledge of his property's rateable value until the rate poundage is known to avoid clogging the machinery of appeal. On the Second Reading on 6th April I said that, from a local government and an administrative point of view, it was a very attractive proposition; but now all that has gone. Now, instead of a person being in a position to know his new assessment in October, as he would have been under the 1948 Act, he will be in that position in January. The difference is that, instead of being able to consult the Inland Revenue and its valuers as to the basis of valuation and to discuss whether there has been any excess as between one property and another, instead of being

  97
  able to go into these semi-official consultations between October and April, he now cannot make anything but a definite appeal after 1st April.
  The whole case for the abolition of the draft lists has gone. Perhaps it has been obvious to the Minister that there has been a difference between many of my colleagues and myself about whether or not, even for this time, the draft valuation lists ought to have gone. Many of my colleagues have said that we should have stood by the 1948 Act all the way through. I did not take that view, but the Minister has now supported them.
  The Minister has made it even more difficult. The first series of Amendments, which the Chairman at the opening of our proceedings suggested that we should consider together, would have agreed that the abolition of the draft list for this valuation was acceptable but that for the future we must bring back the draft lists. In opposing these Amendments, the Minister said, "While we agree that this machinery is put in for this time, we have to have other Bills on valuation. Domestic properties must be revalued and we must deal with electricity and transport pools in further rating Bills. We ought to leave the pro-
  posal to do away with the draft lists until we come to these future Acts of Parliament, and we will look at the question again then."
  In reply to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), the Minister, as near as a Minister can give an undertaking, said that the titles of the Bills that were to come forward would be wide enough to permit the Amendment of the Rating and Valuation Acts to allow of the reintroduction of draft lists. We have had something even worse than the draft lists accepted by the Amendments made today. Therefore, from an administrative point of view, the Clause is much worse than it was when first introduced. The objection to it is now much more vivid. In view of the lack of assurance from the Minister guaranteeing the reintroduction of draft lists in future Bills, and in the light of the Amendments which have been accepted, I must advise my hon. and right hon. Friends to vote against the Motion.
  Question put, That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
  The Committee divided: Ayes 252, Noes 203.

  Division No. 4.]

  AYES

  [6.55 p.m.

  Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

  Campbell, Sir David

  Fisher, Nigel

  Aitken, W. T.

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

  Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Fletcher-Cooke, C.

  Alport, C. J. M.

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (portsmth, W.)

  Foster, John

  Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

  Cole, Norman

  Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe & Lonsdale)

  Arbuthnog, John

  Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

  Freeth, D. K.

  Armstrong, C. W.

  Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Ashton, H.

  Cooper-Key, E. M.

  Garner-Evans, E. H.

  Atkins, H. E.

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Glover, D.

  Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.

  Corfield, Capt. F. V.

  Godber, J. B.

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Craddook, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

  Balniel, Lord

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hn. H. F. C.

  Gough, C. F. H.

  Barber, Anthony

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. C. E.

  Cower, H. R.

  Barlow, Sir John

  Crouch, R. F.

  Graham, Sir Fergus

  Barter, J. W.

  Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)

  Grant, W. (Woodside)

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Crowder, Petre (Ruislip-Northwood)

  Green, A.

  Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

  Cunningham, S. K.

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Grimond, J.

  Bidgood, J. C.

  Dance, J. C. G.

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

  Biggs-Davison, J. A.

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

  Biroh, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Davies,Rt.Hon.Clement(Montgomery)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Bishop, F. P.

  D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Hare, Hon. J. H.

  Black, C. W.

  Deedes, W. F.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

  Body, R. F.

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. MCA.

  Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)

  Bossom, Sir A. C.

  Doughty, C. J. A.

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)

  Drayson, G. B.

  Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macolesfd)

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

  Harvie-Watt, Sir George

  Braine, B. R.

  Duthie, W. S.

  Hay, John

  Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

  Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Brooman-White, R. C.

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Heath, Edward

  Bryan, P.

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

  Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

  Burden, F. F. A,

  Fell, A.

  Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Finlay, Graeme

  Hill, John (S. Norfolk)

  Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

  Maitland Cdr.J.F.W.(Horncastle)

  Sharples, Maj. R. C.

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)

  Shepherd, William

  Holland-Martin, C. J.

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

  Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)

  Holt, A. F.

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

  Horobin, Sir Ian

  Marlowe, A. A. H.

  Soames, Capt. C.

  Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence

  Marples, A. E.

  Spearman, A. C. M.

  Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)

  Mathew, R.

  Speir, R. M.

  Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

  Maude, Angus

  Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)

  Howard, John (Test)

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.

  Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

  Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewieham, N.)

  Mawby, R. L.

  Steward, Sir William (Woolwich,W.)

  Hughes, Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.

  Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.

  Storey, S.

  Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

  Medlicott, Sir Frank

  Studholme, H. G.

  Hurd, A. R.

  Molson, A. H. E.

  Summers, G. S. (Aylesbury)

  Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H.

  Morrison, John (Salisbury)

  Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

  Irvine, Godman (Rye)

  Nairn, D. L. S.

  Teeling, W.

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Neave, Airey

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Jones, A. (Hall Green)

  Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch)

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Keegan, D.

  Nield, Basil (Chester)

  Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

  Kerby, Capt. H. B.

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

  Kerr, H. W.

  O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Kershaw, J. A.

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

  Touche, Sir Gordon

  Kirk, P. M.

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Lagden, G. W.

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Lambert, Hon. G.

  Page, R. G.

  Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.

  Lambton, viscount

  Panned, N. A. (Kirkdale)

  Vickers, Miss J. H.

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Vosper, D. F.

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Pitman, I. J.

  Wade, D. W.

  Leather, E. H. c

  Pitt, Miss E. M.

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Leavey, J. A.

  Pott, H. P.

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)

  Leburn, W. G.

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Walker-Smith, D. C.

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Wall, Major Patrick

  Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)

  Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

  Raikes, Sir Victor

  Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)

  Linstead, Sir H. N.

  Ramsden, J. E.

  Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.

  Llewellyn, D. T.

  Rawlinson, P. A. G.

  Watkinson, H. A.

  Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Redmayne, M.

  Webbe, Sir H.

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Whitelaw, W.S.I.(Penrith & Border)

  Lloyd-George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G.

  Renton, D. L. M.

  Williams, Rt. Hn. Charles (Torquay)

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Ridsdale, J. E.

  Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

  Lucas, P. B. (Brentford & Chiswick)

  Rippon, A. G. F.

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Robertson, Sir David

  Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool,S.)

  Wood, Hon. R.

  Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Woollam, John Victor

  McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

  Roper, Sir Harold

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Russell, R. S.

  McLean, Neil (Inverness)

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.

  Mr. Oakshott and

  Maddan, M.

  Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

  Mr. R. Thompson.

  NOES

  Ainsley, J. W.

  Champion, A. J.

  Fienburgh, W.

  Allaun, F. (Salford, E.)

  Clunie, J.

  Finch, H. J.

  Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

  Coldrick, W.

  Forman, J. C.

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Anderson, Frank

  Collins, V. J. (Shoreditch & Finsbury)

  Gibson, C. W.

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Gooch, E. G.

  Awbery, S. S.

  Cove, W. G.

  Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Grey, C. F.

  Balfour, A.

  Cronin, J. D.

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Bartley, P.

  Cullen, Mrs. A.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Daines, P

  Griffiths, William (Exchange)

  Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S.E)

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Hale, Leslie

  Benson, G.

  Darling, George (Hillsborough)

  Hall, John T. (Gateshead, W.)

  Blackburn, F.

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Blenkinsop, A.

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Hannan, W.

  Blyton, W. R.

  Deer, G.

  Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

  Boardman, H.

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Hastings, S.

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Dodds, N. N.

  Hayman, F. H.

  Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)

  Donnelly, D. L.

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)

  Boyd, T. C.

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Brookway, A. F.

  Dye, S.

  Hobson, C. R.

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  Holman, P.

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Edelman, M.

  Holmes, Horace

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

  Houghton, Douglas

  Burke, W. A.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Howell, Denis (All Saints)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

  Hubbard, T. F.

  Callaghan, L. J.

  Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Carmichael, J.

  Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Castle, Mrs. B. A.

  Fernyhough, E.

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  100

  101

  Hunter, A. E.

  Mort, D. L.

  Slater, J. (Sedgefield)

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Moss, R.

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Moyle, A.

  Sparks, J. A.

  Irving, s. (Dartford)

  Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

  Steele, T.

  Janner, B.

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. p. (Derby, S.)

  Stones, W. (Consett)

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena(Holbn&St.Pncs, S.)

  Oliver, G. H.

  Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)

  Johnson, James (Rugby)

  Oram, A. E.

  Swingler, S. T.

  Jones, Rt. Hon, A. Creech(Wakefield)

  Oswald, T.

  Sylvester, G. 0.

  Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

  Owen, W. J.

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Jones, Frederick Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Padley, W. E.

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Jones, James (Wrexham)

  Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Kenyon, C.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Tomney, F.

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Parker, J.

  Turner-Samuels, M.

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Parkin, B. T.

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  Lawson, G. M.

  Paton, J.

  Viant, S. P.

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Pearson, A.

  Warbey, W. N.

  Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)

  Peart, T. F.

  Watkins, T. E.

  Lewis, Arthur

  Popplewell, E.

  Weitzman, D.

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Logan, D. G.

  Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)

  West, D. G.

  McColl, J. E.

  Probert, A. R.

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Mclnnes, J.

  Proctor, W. T.

  White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Pursey, Cmdr. H.

  Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.

  McLeavy, F.

  Rankin, John

  Willey, Frederick

  Mahon, S.

  Reid, William

  Williams, David (Neath)

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Rhodes, H.

  Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

  Williams, Ronald (Wigan)

  Mann, Mrs. Jean

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Williams, Rt, Hon. T. (Don Valley)

  Mason, Roy

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Mellish, R. J.

  Ross, William

  Williams, W. T. (Barons Court)

  Messer, Sir F.

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Winterbottom, Richard

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Monslow, W.

  Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

  Yates, V. (Ladywood)

  Moody, A. S.

  Skeffington, A. M.

  Morrison,Rt.Hn.Herbert(Lewis'm,S.)

  Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Short.

  Clause 2.—(ALTERATION OF, AND PROCEEDINGS RELATING TO, VALUATION LISTS.)
  Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, in page 3, line 28, at the beginning to insert:
  (1) In section forty of the Act of 1948 (which enables proposals to be made for the alteration of valuation lists) the following subsection shall be inserted after subsection (2):—
  "(2A) Without prejudice to any right exercisable by rating authorities by virtue of subsection (1) of this section, where—

  (a) it appears to a rating authority that a hereditament in their area, which is not included in the list, ought to be included therein, and

  (b) the valuation officer gives notice in writing to the rating authority that he does not intend to make a proposal for inserting that hereditament in the list,

  the rating authority, at any time within twenty-eight days after the date on which that notice was given, may make a proposal for the alteration of the list by the insertion of that hereditament therein":
  Provided that this subsection shall not apply for the purpose of altering any valuation list in force at the passing of this Act.
  I hope that the Minister will accept this Amendment. It is not often that the occasion arises for such an Amendment. If, for some reason, the Inland Revenue officer declines to put a property into the
  102
  draft valuation list—and such occasions do sometimes arise—there is no power for the local authority to make a proposition that the property should be included. In this Amendment there is authority for the local authority's rating officer to make such a proposal within twenty-eight days. That gives an opportunity for testing the difference of opinion which may exist between the Inland Revenue officer who has declined to include a property and the rating authority which desires that property to be put in and valued in the normal way.
  That is the simple point covered by this Amendment, the inclusion of which local authorities desire. I am fairly certain that the local authorities will have made their desire known to the Minister, and I hope that he will be able to accept the Amendment.
  Mr. Gibson: I wish to emphasise, in connection with the final point made by my hon. Friend, that local authorities in London desire the acceptance of this Amendment.
  I do not think that the Minister can adopt the attitude that an Inland Revenue officer is an extremely wise person whose opinion may not be disputed. There are

  103
  bound to be occasions where local authorities will possess special knowledge about properties which the Inland Revenue might desire to leave out of the lists. We consider that local authorities should have an opportunity to put their views.
  Mr. Sandys: After what happened in regard to Clause 1, I hesitate to accept any Amendment. It seems to me, however, that this is a reasonable proposal, which I trust will not receive treatment from the Opposition similar to that accorded to my acceptance of an earlier Amendment. I recommend the Committee to accept the Amendment.
  Mr. Lindgren: I should like to express my appreciation of the Minister's acceptance of the Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I beg to move, in page 3, line 36, at the end to insert:
  (2) The proviso to subsection (2) of the said section forty-one (under which in certain cases a copy of a proposal need not be served on the occupier) shall cease to have effect.
  In Clause 1 (8), it is provided that in certain circumstances where a proposal is made, the rates levied in respect of the hereditament to which the proposal relates shall remain at their old level until the proposal is finally determined. Therefore, the occupier of that hereditament, who is liable for the rates, is clearly very interested in the fact that such a proposal has been made.
  Under Section 41 of the Local Government Act, 1948, however, the circumstance can arise that an occupier of a property is not informed that a proposal has been made, namely, where the proposal is not made by the valuation officer and where the proposal is for a reduction in the valuation. Thus, in just the type of case where the occupier is particularly interested to know that, for the time being at any rate, he will be rated on the old basis, he may well not learn that a proposal relating to his premises has been made which entitles him to that advantage.
  That applies not only to the occupier, but, in certain circumstances, to the owner as well; for where the owner collects the rates from the tenant and pays them over to the local authority, he is treated for
  104
  the purposes of Section 41 of the 1948 Act as being in the position of the occupier. Thus the two persons who in the case of such a property are most interested in the fact that a proposal has been made, namely, the occupier and the owner who collects the rates, may remain in ignorance of such a proposal being in existence. The object of this Amendment is to prevent that occurring by providing for the automatic notification to both those parties of the existence of a proposal.
  Mr. Sandys: I recommend to the Committee the acceptance of this Amendment which seems to fill a gap that it is necessary to fill.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 3, line 37, leave out "preceding subsection" and insert "two last preceding subsections".—[Mr. Powell.]
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I beg to move, in page 4, line 1, to leave out subsection (4).
  The Temporary Chairman: It might be for the convenience of the Committee if we discussed this Amendment together with the following two Amendments: In page 4, line 35, at end insert:
  (6) On the institution of any valuation proceedings (as defined in subsection (2) of this section) the rating authority shall be entitled to inspect any relevant documents in the possession or control of the valuation officer, including (but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing) any return made under section fifty-eight of the Act of 1948 in relation to any hereditament which is the subject of those valuation proceedings.
  and in page 4, line 35, at end insert:
  (6) Section sixty of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, as amended by section sixty-one of the Local Government Act, 1948 (which relates to inspection of documents by ratepayers and valuation officers) shall apply in relation to any return or document made admissible as evidence in valuation proceedings by subsections (4) and (5) of this section.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: My purpose in putting down this Amendment was to draw attention to an innovation in the law relating to the evidence in regard to valuation proceedings which may have very considerable consequences for ratepayers as a whole.
  Under the existing law, the valuation officer can demand from owners and occupiers of premises returns
  "containing such particulars as may be reasonably required for the purpose of enabling him accurately to compile the list."

  105
  That is the provision of Section 58 of the Local Government Act, 1948, which was, in fact, a re-enactment of provisions previously contained in the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925.
  It is obvious that those words give very wide powers. The definition of "particulars" is very wide and would, or might, normally include returns relating to trade figures, profits, and so on. On the assumption that this Clause was not translated into law, the present position is that these returns are private documents as between the valuation officer and the ratepayer. That being so, there is, of course, no power in other persons to inspect those returns. Indeed, there is no reason why there should be, because in any event as the law stands those returns could not be used in evidence in proceedings relating to other premises on the ordinary principle that what is done between other persons is not admissible in evidence in such a transaction as this. Therefore, these returns are not included under the present law in the category of documents which a ratepayer has the right to inspect under Section 60 of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925.
  7.15 p.m.
  That is the present position which this subsection, which has caused a good deal of concern, seeks to vary. Some hon. Members may have seen the letter to "The Times" on this subject by Mr. Scott Henderson, Q.C. on the day when the House debated the Second Reading of the Bill. Subsection (4) makes these returns admissible on the initiative of the valuation officer in proceedings relating to other premises without the necessity of calling the person who made the return as a witness.
  In practice, as the Committee will appreciate, only the valuation officer can produce the returns to support his case in any given proceedings, because only he has any knowledge of them. Under this subsection the valuation officer would, of course, be able to make his own selection of the returns, and if necessary, or if he were so disposed, be able to choose and put forward only those returns which seemed to support his own case. The ratepayer, on the other hand, has no power to inspect the other returns, that is to say, those not put in as evidence by the valuation officer, to see if they might perhaps assist his case in rebuttal.
  106
  It seems to me, as it seemed to Mr. Scott Henderson in the letter which he wrote to "The Times," that, on the face of it, this provision is out of keeping not only with our traditional rules of evidence, but with accepted notions of fair play, in that it gives a clear advantage to one party to the proceedings, the valuation officer, who is able to select the documents which he will put forward, and denies to the other party any right of inspection of these returns so as to be able to pray them in aid in rebuttal.
  It appears, therefore, that one of two courses of action are appropriate in these circumstances. This Amendment and the third of the three Amendments which are being taken together, that is to say, the Amendment in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe) and myself, are, of course, alternative Amendments, each directed to one of the two possible solutions. This Amendment seeks to omit subsection (4) altogether, to leave the position as it was, and to deny to valuation officer and to ratepayer alike the right of inspection of these returns for purposes of litigation between each other.
  The third of this set of Amendments, to which I referred a moment ago, would take the other alternative solution on the assumption, if it were proved, that it is necessary or proper that these returns should be in evidence in valuation proceedings. If that assumption were accepted—and at the moment I am not minded to accept it until we have heard why it has been considered necessary to vary the old procedure—then this Amendment is intended to put the two parties to the litigation on an equal footing. It would give a right of access to the documents to other ratepayers as well as to the valuation officer.
  Though these Amendments are being taken together, it seems to me that on the balance of advantage it would probably be better if the first simple solution of dropping this new power altogether could be followed because of the difficulties which it creates not only on the question of putting one of the parties to litigation at a disadvantage as compared with the other, but also because of the position of those persons who have made the returns which would become admissible in evidence in proceedings to which they themselves are not parties.

  107
  One is forced to wonder where that would end. At the moment a ratepayer can put in returns relating to the trade figures of his undertaking which are private documents as between himself and the Inland Revenue, but if those are to be made public documents, canvassed in proceedings to which the person making these returns is not a party, a new principle and some rather alarming possibilities are created, because it would not seem to be a very long step from there to the principle that a person's Income Tax return might be disclosed, in certain circumstances, in order to assist the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to arrive at assessments in regard to other persons.
  It therefore seems that some very powerful reasons will have to be adduced for the granting of these powers. If those reasons are adduced, and the Committee and my right hon. Friend are satisfied that some further power is necessary, they should turn sympathetically to the third of the Amendments which we are now discussing together. That Amendment would at any rate put the parties upon an equal footing and remove the possibility of inequality of treatment between parties in litigation, in contradiction to the general practice of British law.
  Mr. Granville West: I understand that three Amendments are now being discussed together. I propose to move the Amendment standing in the names of my hon. Friends and myself——
  The Chairman: That Amendment cannot be moved; we can deal with only one at a time. The hon. Member's Amendment can be discussed now, but it will not be called.
  Mr. West: I do not wish to move it now, but I propose to do so later on.
  The Chairman: I do not know what arrangement was arrived at in this case, because I was not in the Chair at the time. I understand that three Amendments are being discussed together, and that if the one which has been moved is negatived the other two will not be further discussed.
  Mr. West: That does not follow. Although my Amendment deals with some of the points to which the hon. and
  108
  learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Mr. Walker-Smith) has referred, it is directed to a rather different point. I do not want to move my Amendment now, but I hope that I shall be at liberty to put forward the views which my hon. Friends and I hold with regard to it.
  The Chairman: Certainly. I was merely saying that that Amendment will not be called.
  Mr. Mitchison: On a point of order. I do not know whether this is a case of selection, but my hon. Friend's Amendment raises quite a different point from that covered by the other two Amendments.
  The Chairman: If there is any confusion, I shall allow Divisions to take place on the other two Amendments. What I, personally, arranged—and the arrangement has apparently been altered—was to call, by itself, the Amendment which has been moved, and the two following ones together. I understand that that arrangement has been altered and that the three Amendments are being discused together. In that case there can be a Division upon the one which has been moved and also upon the other two, but there can be no separate discussion of them.
  Mr. West: The Amendment to which I have referred deals with a rather more limited point than that covered by the other two Amendments. The hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East has a case of great substance, and we shall be very interested to hear what the Minister has to say about it.
  As the hon. and learned Gentleman stated, under the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, provision was made for the inspection of documents by any rate payer. That inspection of documents extended to valuation lists, notices of appeal, records of totals, valuations made by valuers appointed by assessment committees, and minutes of the proceedings under the Act of any such committee or rating authority. The powers of inspection were very wide.
  I suggest that rating authorities have been deprived of their powers by reason of the 1948 Act but that, nevertheless, they have many obligations, and many duties to perform. They have the right

  109
  to make proposals for the alteration of current lists; the right to receive copies of proposals where they are not the proposers; the right to object to proposals; the right to appeal against objections to proposals and to receive notices of appeal. A rating authority is entitled to appear and be heard at any appeal before a valuation court, and to appeal to the Lands Tribunal from a decision of that court.
  Section 59 (2) of the 1948 Act imposes a duty upon a local authority to transmit information to the valuation officer in the event of such information affecting the valuation list. The duties of a rating authority are clearly set out, but under the present law it has no power to call upon the valuation officer to produce all the documents in his possession so that it can exercise those duties. As a local authority is a democratically elected body, the duty of which is to see that the ratepayers in its area are being fairly and equitably treated, it should have the right to inspect all the documents in the possession of the valuation officer in the event of an appeal to appeal tribunals.
  This is a very modest request. The local authority is not asking for the right to inspect property; but it should have the right to require a valuation officer to give it the information which is necessary to enable it to see that its ratepayers are being dealt with fairly as between one another.
  The Amendment would not have any serious effect upon the present situation, because I am given to understand that in some districts valuation officers already supply as much information as a rating authority would reasonably require. In other districts the valuation officers refuse to give such information. As the basis of the reform of the rating law is the need to create uniformity throughout the country, there should certainly be uniformity of treatment of rating authorities by valuation officers. We suggest that a rating authority should be statutorily empowered to require such information and to inspect such documents in the hands of the valuation officer, and I hope that the Minister will be able to accept the Amendment.
  7.30 p.m.
  Mr. M. Turner-Samuels: I should have thought that, prima facie, this was a matter which would not cause
  110
  the Minister any trouble at all. Indeed, he should be rather in haste to put right what, on the face of it, appears to be very wrong.
  This matter, which was dealt with by the hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Mr. Walker-Smith), is fundamental, because it deals with proceedings that are intended to arrive at a just decision as to what the valuation of a particular property should be for the purposes of rating. I emphasise the word "proceedings," because involved in the matter is an element of justice. It is not right that the persons involved should merely be told that justice is being done; it is absolutely essential that it should appear that justice is being done.
  It is very difficult to understand how it is going to appear that justice is being done if relevant and vital documents and data are covered up. If there is no access by one of the primary parties to the proceedings either by way of inspection or discovery in order to determine what is being put forward—probably to his detriment and certainly to his cost because he will have to bear whatever the valuation is—at least he should be able to peruse, to examine, understand, see and be told what the document or return is.
  He is, however, told by subsection (4), quite summarily and arbitrarily, "You are not entitled to see the document." That document may be the lynch-pin of the result which he is to be under an obligation to meet. Yet he is told he is not entitled to see the document but has to take the word of an interested party on the other side—a party seeking to impose upon him a figure with which he may not agree and which certainly he is entitled to challenge and, if necessary, to seek to have altered into a more favourable position for himself. I should have thought that, prima facie, that would have been a very simple matter for the Minister to resolve.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. West), who has spoken on a more humble and modest Amendment than the one put forward by the hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East, has advanced another suggestion, that of inspection. He did not put that on any general grounds but called in aid a statutory provision already existing. I cannot see why this discrimination between that

  111
  and subsection (4) should be made in a very delicate matter where the rights of the subject are concerned.
  I ask the Minister, or the Parliamentary Secretary if he is to reply, to bear in mind that this impinges on a very well known practice in our procedure in the courts. There never is a proceeding or litigation of any kind in which a party is not entitled to proper discovery. If there is a material document of any kind it would outrage the judicial sense completely to be told that one of the parties cannot see what may be a very important document. It does not matter whether it is an important document or not; the fact that it is a document is sufficient and the parties are entitled to see it. The judge of whether it is important or not is the party affected by it, not the court, unless it happens to be a very private or irrelevant document or one which affects the State and about which great care has to be exercised whether discovery should be allowed.
  In all those circumstances, it seems that to say that a return or relevant document is to be admissible in evidence arbitrarily, willy-nilly, without giving the other party a chance of challenging it, seeing it, or doing anything about it, must be wrong. I do not think that is arguable; it speaks for itself. In those circumstances, I cannot imagine that the Minister will not be prepared hastily to do what is right and to follow the conjoint advice given him from his own benches and benches on this side of the Committee.
  Mr. John Hay: I intervene to support the Amendment moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Mr. Walker-Smith). When I first saw subsection (4), I thought it much too widely drafted. It occurred to me that it may have been so drafted for administrative convenience. There is a horrible technique in use in rating for trying to obtain an assessment value for a property by having what is known as "the tone of the list." That involves the examination of rateable and gross values of other comparable properties. In looking at the subsection which my hon. and learned Friend wishes to be left out, it occurred to me that the Revenue might have thought it desirable to have the opportunity of investigating returns made in
  112
  respect of other comparable properties and thereby avoiding a lot of expensive evidence in regard to other properties in the list.
  I strongly urge my right hon. Friend to reconsider this subsection. I do not think it is one which we ought to pass without very serious objection. As has been said from both sides of the Committee, it involves people having their private affairs—which may have been decided upon in other proceedings—dragged out and used when dealing with other people's affairs. I hope my right hon. Friend will not thrust this matter aside and feel that it is of no importance. If he cannot accept this Amendment now, I hope he will look carefully at what has been said and, in the light of that, that he will amend the Clause at a future opportunity.
  Mr. Harold Finch: I desire to support the observations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. West) in connection with the Amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) and other hon. Members. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool put a very strong case for that reasonable Amendment.
  All that Amendment seeks to do is to allow the local rating authority to inspect documents or obtain necessary information in the possession of the valuation officer so that the officer himself may be properly equipped to consider and deal with an appeal which goes before the valuation court in connection with the valuation of a property. That is the short point we are trying to establish by the Amendment, and I think it a very reasonable proposition. It has to be borne in mind that, under Section 41 of the Local Government Act, 1948, the right is given to the local rating authority to be heard in connection with any valuation that appears before the valuation court. If the local rating authority has a right to be heard, surely it has the right also to have all the necessary information to enable it to put forward its case according to how it thinks fit in the circumstances.
  Very often at one of the valuation courts the chairman invariably asks the rating authority officer for his observations. He asks for his opinion about the property that is being considered.

  113
  If the rating officer has no detailed information and is not in possession of essential details of measurements and structure, and, very often, the rent, he is not in an adequate position to give the necessary information or to make his decision and give evidence before the court. In these circumstances, all that we are asking is that the rating authority should be allowed to inspect the documents which are in the possession of the valuation officer.
  Let me give an illustration. A case is now coming before the tribunal in my constituency of Bedwellty. The valuation officer seeks to increase the rateable value of a scrap yard because there have been certain structural alterations. The rateable value is sought to be increased from £6 to £90 because of the alterations in connection with the yard.
  The rating authority is interested in the property, but all the information that will be given is as follows. The valuation officer states "that structural alterations have been made and that the existing assessment is incorrect." The ratepayer states, "That expense incurred in improving the property has been very heavy. The condition of the ground is very boggy and useless for other purposes. There is no cover and it is exposed to all weathers. Therefore, I consider the proposal excessive." That is all the information. The rating authority, which may know something about the structural alterations, has no knowledge of the details and the rating officer does not have sufficient information to be able to give his views to the chairman of the tribunal when the case is heard. In these circumstances, it is surely reasonable that this information should be available to the rating officer.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool has pointed out, an endeavour is made to work in co-operation with the Inland Revenue in this matter. Section 59 (2) of the Rating and Valuation Act imposes certain functions upon the rating authority, but if the rating authority has insufficient knowledge of structural alterations which have been made in the district, it is unable to bring the facts to the attention of the Inland Revenue Department. For these reasons, we on this side say that the rating authority should be allowed to see the documents and should have the relevant information to deal with appeals of this kind which may come before the valuation court.
  Mr. Sandys: This is an important set of Amendments. It is not so much a question of any controversy as of trying to find the best way of dealing with a practical problem. On the first Amendment, moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Mr. Walker-Smith), I would say that up to now rent returns have been legally accepted by valuation courts and courts of quarter session, by agreement, as evidence of the amount of rent actually paid. Unless the statement on the return is disputed, the courts have hitherto not required witnesses to be called to verify signatures. That is the real point, and the purpose of the subsection is to give legal effect to that position.
  7.45 p.m.
  Mr. Turner-Samuels: The subsection goes far beyond that. Had it contained reference to agreement between the parties, obviously this point could not cause any controversy or objection. It is because that is not contained in the subsection that the objection arises.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: Of course, there are interested in this matter not only the two parties to the litigation—the valuation officer and the aggrieved ratepayer—but there is also the position of the person making the return. These returns cannot possibly normally be admissible evidence in the proceedings between the valuation officer and another party altogether.
  There are, therefore, two things to bear in mind. There is the position of the aggrieved ratepayer who is exposed to evidence that he does not have an opportunity to deal with, and there is the position of the person who has made the return and who finds his confidential information being canvassed about in proceedings to which he is not himself a party.
  Mr. Sandys: That is the difficulty. I will be quite frank with the Committee. In this next year or so, we are going to have a difficult problem in the valuation of houses It is not so difficult in regard to shops and commercial premises, which are to be valued at current values. The difficulty will arise in the valuation of houses when it is necessary to refer back to ascertain the pre-war rents. There is no doubt that it will be extremely difficult and irksome to have to trace people, who, perhaps, have moved to a quite different

  115
  part of the country, who signed particular returns, and to bring them forward as witnesses to verify their signatures on the returns.
  It seems to me that we may find very great difficulty in practice in ascertaining what those rents were if in all cases it is necessary to trace witnesses and to bring them to verify their signatures. That is the problem with which we are faced.
  Mr. Turner-Samuels: If there will be dubiety about a matter of that kind, surely there is all the more reason why the persons who are to be affected should be able to look at it and to raise that point if necessary.
  Mr. Sandys: Look at what?
  Mr. Turner-Samuels: To look at the return, about which, the right hon. Gentleman says, there may be difficulty or dubiety. That will be fastened on to somebody without him being able to challenge it in any way.
  Mr. Sandys: That is not really the point. The problem is not the actual return which is brought in evidence before the court. On that, there should not be any difficulty about allowing the ratepayer concerned to see the evidence which is being brought before the court. The question arises when the evidence which has to be brought is about a rent which was payable in 1938 or 1939 and the individual concerned is no longer living in the house.
  Whenever we do the kind of thing which has been done by the 1948 Act, which is to refer back—I do not say that it was avoidable—to a period long ago and try to work out assessments and calculations on a basis which is long out of date, we always encounter practical difficulties of this kind. I accept the fact, however, that in this instance there is a case to answer. The letter which was quoted from "The Times" and the arguments which have been put forward during the debate raise a problem, but they do not provide the solution.
  We have to proceed with valuation on some basis, and we must be careful not to remove all the means by which these valuations can be established. I think we should have a complete breakdown in the machinery of the valuation courts if, in every case, it was insisted upon that
  116
  the individual who made a return in 1938 must be produced, or that there must be some evidence that the signature was his, and so on. There is a very serious practical problem to solve.
  I should like to consider that Amendment further between now and the Report stage. I have heard the views of hon. Members expressed in regard to it. They have shown me the difficulties of the proposal, though, as I have said, they have not indicated in any way how we can more efficiently and equitably solve the problem with which we are faced.
  There are two other Amendments. First, that of the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards), which would permit the rating authorities to inspect documents in the hands of the valuation officers; the other, in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Mr. Walker-Smith), contains, as it were, the other half of the same proposal. That would give ratepayers the right to inspect rent returns at the offices of the Board of Inland Revenue.
  So far as the first of those two proposals is concerned—to give the rating authorities the right to inspect documents in the hands of the valuation officers—I must say that I am not attracted by it. I think there is serious danger, if it were done, that some—not all—rating authorities would begin gradually to set themselves up as alternative boards of inland revenue, and, at the cost of a considerable amount of public money and of much annoyance all round, would begin to duplicate the work which Parliament has decided should be done by the Board of Inland Revenue.
  Mr. West: I think that the right hon. Gentleman has not read that Amendment, because it is restricted to a right of inspection when there are valuation proceedings. Therefore, it could deal only with a case being heard on appeal. Only then would the rating authority have the right of inspection. How, then, can it be said that the rating authority would be taking over the functions of valuation officers?
  Mr. Sandys: It is a question of degree, of course. The rating authority can itself be a party to the proceedings. It

  117
  would be a questionable practice to give the rating authorities the run of the offices of the Board of Inland Revenue.
  Mr. Finch: After an appeal has been made.
  Mr. Sandys: There is no limit proposed here on what they could ask, or upon any inquiries they could make.
  This proposal is to some extent linked with that of the other Amendment dealing with the other part of the problem—the question of the ratepayers having access to the documents. I will deal now with the position of the ratepayers. It can be said, of course, that the valuation officer is able to use the rent returns of comparable properties as evidence to support his assessment and, that being so, the ratepayer ought similarly to have access to the same information to support his case for a revision of his assessment. That is the case for the Amendment, as I understand it.
  The procedure proposed by the Amendment would result in the general disclosure of people's rents to anybody who liked to visit the offices of the Board of Inland Revenue. This right would, I think, be liable to abuse by people whose interest was merely curiosity, or by people who wanted the information for professional purposes unconnected with the valuation.
  Again we are faced with the problem of seeing that the ratepayer—and in the case of the other Amendment, the local authority—is not put in a position of serious disadvantage in arguing his case before the valuation court. That is the problem. I could not accept in their present form these two Amendments for the reasons I have given, but I would suggest to the Committee that we explore a solution on these lines as an alternative to the proposal which is contained in these last two Amendments, namely, that the ratepayer and the local authority should have access to the files of the Board of Inland Revenue.
  It may be possible to give to the ratepayer or to the local authority in some way the right to call upon the Board of Inland Revenue to produce in court rent returns of comparable properties. Exactly how we should limit the number of comparable properties the rent returns of which might be asked for is a matter to be considered. I know that in a case the
  118
  other day the representatives of the ratepayers named 1,200 comparable properties which, they said, they would like to have taken into account as samples by which to judge the tone of the list. That sort of thing obviously would cause the whole of the machinery to break down. It is the sort of practical problem to which I referred just now.
  However, if the Committee thought it offered some hope of a useful solution, I should like, instead of giving the local authorities and the ratepayers the run of the offices and the files of the Board of Inland Revenue, to explore the possibility of finding some way in which they could, within reasonable limits, require that information about comparable properties—not just ones selected by the Board of Inland Revenue—should be produced in court to assist them in making their cases. I would suggest that to the Committee. In any case, I will undertake to consider the problem raised by these three Amendments between now and the Report stage.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I should like to express appreciation to my right hon. Friend for what he has said, and add just this. He said that we did not suggest a solution. It is a little difficult to suggest a solution until the problem has been defined. Now that my right hon. Friend has defined the problem, it appears that he is concerned mainly with those 1939 rentals in respect of the basis of the tone of the list in regard to the valuation of dwelling-houses.
  If that is what concerns him, I would suggest that subsection (4) is far too widely drafted, because it gives power to call for returns far beyond that. If that is all my right hon. Friend wants, I respectfully suggest that he should consult with his advisers and draftsmen before Report, for it may be that that would result in a form of words which would not give rise to the apprehensions which are certainly felt about subsection (4) as it is.
  8.0 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Marlowe: I do not wish to prolong the discussion in view of what my right hon. Friend has said. He has shown willingness to consider the problem, but he did less than justice to the Amendment in my name, which would add a new subsection (6), when he said that it did not suggest any constructive

  119
  alternative. It may well be that the complete deletion of subsection (4) might raise the difficulty to which my right hon. Friend referred, but I do not think it is a satisfactory way of dealing with a matter which amounts to a judicial inquiry to say that we cannot really meet the problem because it would lead to administrative inconvenience. That is what my right hon. Friend was saying. In matters of this kind justice must come before administrative inconvenience. My Amendment suggests a constructive alternative in the sense that it suggests that if we must have these documents capable of production on behalf of the valuation officer we must give the same right to the aggrieved party.
  I have in mind a case in which this difficulty has arisen. As my right hon. Friend said, these things are sometimes dealt with by agreements between the parties, but there was a case in Sussex of the rating of caravan sites. It was sought to produce a return which showed the rents which occupiers of the caravan sites were willing to pay in respect of one particular site, and it was sought to make that one a comparable case for the valuation of all the other sites in question.
  Counsel who appeared on behalf of one of the parties tells me that he insisted upon the production of all documents relating to the matter and it transpired that the one return which was being produced related to a caravan site which was owned by the manufacturers of caravans, and they were willing to let the site to anybody who bought one of their caravans. That had a material effect on the rents which people were willing to pay for sites on that ground, but it had no relation to other sites, and yet it was sought to say by production of that document that it was a comparable case. That shows the type of danger which arises. If my right hon. Friend finds it necessary to have power to have a return produced in that way, it is only just that the other party should have no less a right.
  Mr. Mitchison: It seems to me that we are dealing with two sets of matters in these Amendments. One deals with what can be inspected and the other with what can be admitted in evidence as proof of the statements in it. I have no particular wish to enter into any controversy that
  120
  there may be about the first and third of the Amendments. I would simply say that we must all appreciate the practical difficulty which the Minister has pointed out in connection with matters of 16 years ago, and possibly it is a case where mere horse-sense may be required in preference to too much insistence on forms which in other circumstances are very dear to us.
  I would have preferred the second of the two Amendments in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Mr. Walker-Smith), to insert a new subsection (6), to the first to delete subsection (4), but I should like to say a few words in support of the second of this series of Amendments in the names of my hon. and right hon. Friends. That Amendment to insert a new subsection (6) has had its merits somewhat overlooked because of the other two Amendments which we are discussing with it.
  It is really a very reasonable proposition. The present position is that the rating authority which will be actually concerned in the appeal, and is anyhow concerned as the rating authority for the area, has no right to inspect and look at the return which has been made by the ratepayer to the valuation officer. Surely that is rather nonsensical. I see no possible ground for objecting to the rating authority having the right to see that document, and it is the rating return in relation to the particular hereditament which is the subject of the proceedings.
  The only addition to that provision, in the Amendment in the names of my hon. and right hon. Friends, is "relevant documents." That is a thing to which one is accustomed, and I should have thought that if it was sought to enforce a right by the rating authority, not by the ratepayer, to have a look at 1,200 other documents, the question might arise as to whether all that was relevant. One must remember, however, that one is dealing with a responsible authority and, however much a peeved ratepayer might desire the rating officer to be snowed under by pink and blue and other coloured returns, a responsible rating authority is not likely to abuse the provision in that way.
  This matter concerns the rights of responsible local authorities, and they

  121
  should not be prejudiced by the fact that the business of valuation has been taken out of their hands and put in the hands of Inland Revenue officials. The local authorities have their duties to perform and can he relied upon not to abuse their powers in this matter. If they are to discharge their duties, both in the question at issue at the moment and as a rating authority for the area, they surely must have a right to see the return rendered in the matter and other "relevant documents."
  I beg the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider his attitude to the Amendment in the name of my hon. and right hon. Friends, because we feel that the refusal to accept that Amendment is most unfair to the rating authorities. We would wish to manifest our disapproval of that attitude by dividing the Committee on the Amendment, but still the right hon. Gentleman may be able to say that he accepts that Amendment, or at any rate that he accepts it in principle.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. West: I beg to move, in page 4, line 35, at the end, to insert:
  (6) On the institution of any valuation proceedings (as defined in subsection (2) of this section) the rating authority shall be entitled to inspect any relevant documents in the possession or control of the valuation officer, including (but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing) any return made under section fifty-eight of the Act of 1948 in relation to any hereditament which is the subject of those valuation proceedings.
  Mr. Sandys: I gave an assurance earlier that I was going to consider the problems raised by the three Amendments between now and the Report stage.
  Mr. Mitchison: Could not the right hon. Gentleman go one further and say that he would accept the Amendment in principle?
  Question put, That those words be there inserted:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 200, Noes 249.

  Division No. 5.]

  AYES

  [8.10 p.m.

  Ainsley, J. W.

  Deer, G.

  Hunter, A, E.

  Albu, A. H.

  Dodds, N. N.

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Allaun, F. (Salford, E.)

  Donnelly, D. L.

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)

  Irving, S. (Dartford)

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Dye, S.

  Janner, B.

  Anderson, Frank

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

  Edelman, M.

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena (Ho'bn & St.Pnos,S.)

  Awhery, S. S.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

  Balfour, A.

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Jones, Frederick Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Bartley, P.

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

  Jones, James (Wrexham)

  Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S.E.)

  Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Benson, G.

  Fernyhough, E.

  Kenyon, C.

  Blackburn, F.

  Fienburgh, W.

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Blenkinsop, A.

  Finch, H. J.

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Blyton, W. R.

  Forman, J. C.

  Lawson, G. M.

  Boardman, H.

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Lee, Frederiok (Newton)

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Gibson, C. W.

  Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)

  Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S. W.)

  Gooch, E. G.

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Boyd, T. C.

  Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

  Logan, D. G.

  Brockway, A. F.

  Grey, C. F.

  McColl, J. E.

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Mclnnes, J.

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Griffiths, William (Exchange)

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Hale, Leslie

  McLeavy, F.

  Burke, W. A.

  Hall, John T. (Gateshead, W.)

  Mahon, S.

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Hannan, W.

  Mann, Mrs. Jean

  Carmichael, J.

  Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

  Mason, Roy

  Castle, Mrs. B. A.

  Hastings, S.

  Mellish, R. J.

  Champion, A. J.

  Hayman, F. H.

  Messer, Sir F.

  Chetwynd, G. R.

  Healey, Denis

  Mikardo, Ian

  Clunie, J.

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Coldrick, W.

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Monslow, W.

  Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

  Hobson, C. R.

  Moody, A. S.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Holman, P.

  Morrison, Rt.Hn.Herbert(Lewis'm,S.)

  Cove, W. G.

  Holmes, Horace

  Mort, D. L.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Houghton, Douglas

  Moss, R.

  Cronin, J. D.

  Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

  Moyle, A.

  Culten, Mrs. A.

  Howell, Denis (All Saints)

  Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

  Daines, P.

  Hubbard, T. F.

  Oliver, G. H.

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Oram, A. E.

  Darling, George (Hillsborough)

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Orbach, M.

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Oswald, T.

  Owen, W. J.

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Watkins, T. E.

  Padley, w. e.

  Short, E. W.

  Weltzman, D.

  Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Wells, Peroy (Faversham)

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  West, D. G.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Parker, J.

  Skeffington, A. M.

  White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)

  Wiloock, Group Capt. C. A. B.

  Paton, J.

  Slater, J. (Sedgefield)

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Pearson, A.

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Willey, Frederick

  Peart, T. F.

  Sparks, J. A.

  Williams, David (Neath)

  Popplewell, E.

  Steele, T.

  Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)

  Price, Phllips (Gloucestershire, W.)

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Williams, Ronald (Wigan)

  Probert, A. R.

  Stones, W. (Consett)

  Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Pursey, Cmdr. H.

  Sylvester, G. O.

  Williams, W. T. (Barons Court)

  Rankin, John

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Raid, William

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Winterbottom, Richard

  Rhodes, H,

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Yates, V. (Ladywood)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Tomney, F.

  Younger, Rt. Hon. K.

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Paneras, N.)

  Turner-Samuels, M.

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Viant, S. P.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Ross, William

  Warbey, W. N.

  Mr. J. T. Price and Mr. J. Johnson.

  NOES

  Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

  Doughty, C. J. A.

  Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H.

  Altken, W. T.

  Drayson, G. B.

  Irvine, Godman (Rye)

  Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Alport, C. J. M.

  Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

  Johnson, Eric (Blaokley)

  Arbuthnot, John

  Duthie, w. s.

  Jones, A. (Hall Green)

  Armstrong, C. W.

  Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

  Kaberry, D.

  Ashton, H.

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Keegan, D,

  Astor, Hon. J. J.

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Kerby, Capt. H. B.

  Atkins, H. E.

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Kerr, H. W.

  Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr, J. M.

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Kershaw, J. A.

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Fell, A.

  Kirk, P. M.

  Balniel, Lord

  Finlay, Graeme

  Lagden, G. W.

  Barlow, Sir John

  Fisher, Nigel

  Lambert, Hon. G.

  Barter, J. w.

  Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

  Lambton, Viscount

  Baxter, Sir Beverley

  Fletcher-Cooke, C.

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Fraser, Sir Ian (M'ombe & Lonsdale)

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

  Freeth, D. K.

  Leather, E. H. C.

  Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Leavey, J. A.

  Bidgood, J. C.

  Garner-Evans, E. H.

  Leburn, W. G.

  Biggs-Davison, J. A.

  Glover, D.

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Godber, J. B.

  Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

  Bishop, F. P.

  Gough, C. F. H.

  Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

  Black, C. W.

  Gower, H. R.

  Linstead, Sir H. N.

  Body, R. F.

  Graham, Sir Fergus

  Llewellyn, D. T.

  Bossom, Sir A. C.

  Grant, W. (Woodside)

  Lloyd, Ma). Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)

  Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)

  Lloyd-George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G.

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  Green, A.

  Lucas, P. B. (Brentford & Chiswiok)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Braine, B. R.

  Grimond, J.

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

  Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Bryan, P.

  Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

  McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

  Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Burden, F. F. A.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

  McLean, Neil (Inverness)

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Campbell, Sir David

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Maddan, M.

  Carr, Robert

  Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfd)

  Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Harvie-Watt, Sir George

  Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Hay, John

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Cole, Norman

  Heath, Edward

  Marlowe, A. A, H.

  Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Marples, A. E.

  Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert

  Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

  Marshall, Douglas

  Cooper-Key, E. M.

  Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

  Mathew, R.

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)

  Maude, Angus

  Corfield, Capt. F. V.

  Hill, John (S. Norfolk)

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.

  Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Mawby, R. L.

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hn. H. F. C.

  Holland-Martin, C. J.

  Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Holt, A. F.

  Medlicott, Sir Frank

  Crouch, R. F.

  Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.

  Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.

  Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)

  Horobin, Sir Ian

  Molson, A. H. E.

  Cunningham, S. K.

  Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence

  Morrison, John (Salisbury)

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Dance, J. C. G.

  Howard, John (Test)

  Nairn, D. L. S.

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

  Neave, Airey

  D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Hughes, Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.

  Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)

  Deedes, W. F.

  Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

  Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch)

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.

  Hurd, A. R.

  Nield, Basil (Chester)

  124

  125

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Russell, R. S.

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Oakshott, H. D.

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

  Touche, Sir Gordon

  O'Neill, Hn. Phellm (Co. Antrim, N.)

  Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

  Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)

  Sharpies, Maj. R. C.

  Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)

  Shepherd, William

  Viokers, Miss J. H.

  Page, R. O.

  Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)

  Vosper, D. F.

  Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)

  Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

  Wade, D. W.

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Soames, Capt. C.

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Pitman, I. J.

  Spearman, A. C. M.

  Wakefield, Sir Waved (St. M'lebone)

  Pitt, Miss E. M.

  Spelr, R. M,

  Walker-Smith, D. C.

  Pott, H. P.

  Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)

  Wall, Major Patriok

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

  Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)

  Price, David (Eastlelgh)

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.

  Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)

  Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.

  Ralkes, Sir Victor

  Storey, S.

  Watkinson, H. A.

  Ramsden, J, E.

  Studholme, H. G.

  Webbe, Sir H.

  Rawlinson, P. A. G.

  Summers, G. S. (Aylesbury)

  Whitelaw, W.S.I.(Penrith & Border)

  Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)

  Williams, Rt. Hn. Charles (Torquay)

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

  Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

  Renton, D. L. M.

  Teeling, W.

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Ridsdale, J. E.

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

  Rippon, A. G. F.

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Wood, Hon. R.

  Robertson, Sir David

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Woollam, John Victor

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, S.)

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Roper, Sir Harold

  Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

  Mr. Redmayne and Mr. Barber.

  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  Clause 3.—(PROVISIONS AS TO MAKING OF RATES.)
  Mr. K. Thompson: I beg to move, in page 6, line 5, at the end to insert:
  (5) Where, immediately before the coming into force of the first new valuation list for a rating area, a resolution of the rating authority (in this subsection referred to as "the old resolution") is in force under subsection (I) of section eleven of the Act of 1925, the rating authority may by resolution under this subsection ditect that hereditaments which—

  (a) were included in the class defined in the old resolution immediately before the new valuation list came into force, but

  (b) have ceased to be included in that class by reason that, in the new valuation list, there have been ascribed to them rate-able values higher than the rate-able value by reference to which the class was defined, but not exceeding such maximum amount (whether within or above the limit imposed by subsection (1) of the said section eleven) as may be specified in the resolution under this subsection,

  shall be treated as included in the class defined in the old resolution while the resolution under this subsection remains in force:
  Provided that a resolution under this subsection, if not previously rescinded, shall cease to have effect on the rescission of the old resolution, or when the first new valuation list for the rating area is superseded by a subsequent valuation list, whichever first occurs.
  (6) While a resolution under the last preceding subsection is in force, paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of the said section eleven (which requires an allowance to be made to owner-occupiers in certain cases) shall apply with the substitution, for the reference to the rateable
  126
  value mentioned in that paragraph, of a reference to the maximum amount specified in the resolution under the last preceding subsection.
  Our present legislation requires that the occupier of the property shall pay the rates levied on that property except in so far as the Act of 1925 allows that a local authority may, by resolution, provide that the rates of properties below certain limits may be paid by the owner of the property, he recovering them from the occupier in due course, and in weekly instalments. That is known as compounding of rates. If the prognostications of my right hon. Friend about the effects of the present valuation come about, and valuations on house property as well as other property are raised considerably, many of the dwelling-houses which at present enjoy the somewhat questionable benefits of compounding will be raised above the limits at present in operation in various local authority areas.
  The purpose of my Amendment is to enable a local authority to pass a resolution which will raise the limits for the payment of rates by compounding, so that all those properties which are now below the present limit may be included in the new limit. I am sure that the Committee would not wish that there should be any great change in the way in which rates are levied, particularly on small residential property. I hope, therefore, that my right hon. Friend will accept this Amendment, together with a somewhat consequential one which appears on the Order Paper in connection with a Schedule to which I shall refer later.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. W. F. Deedes): As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. K. Thompson) has indicated, there is a need for this Amendment, which I advise the Committee to accept, due to the fact that the compounding arrangements may very well be altered by the higher valuations.
  The effect of the Amendment is to enable the local authority, by resolution, where compounding is now taking place, to continue it at the higher rate. The consequential Amendment which follows in the Schedule and is supplementary to this provision, and which will raise the future limits for compounding on property not at present compounded, together with this Amendment, will have the following effect. Neither the owners nor the tenants will have to rearrange the existing arrangements, which many tenants possibly know nothing about but which we wish to avoid disturbing, both from the point of view of the owners and of the tenants.
  It will mean that for the period of the first new valuation list these arrangements can continue undisturbed as provided by the 1953 Act. Of course, when the basis for assessing dwelling-houses is changed, compounding arrangements will have to be reviewed, but that will be a separate matter. Between now and then, this ensures that arrangements now in being can continue without disturbance to the parties concerned.
  Mr. Skeffington: We on this side of the Committee welcome the Amendment because many of us feared that, as a result of the abolition of the draft list and revaluations, there would be a change in the person paying rates in a number of cases. At any rate the question of keeping the position unaltered for the new valuation is secure. We shall then have to look at the position in the light of what happens in future valuations, but this seems to be a useful Amendment keeping the status quo for existing compounding arrangements.
  Mr. Ede: I join with my hon. Friends in welcoming the attitude of the Minister towards this Amendment, particularly because it means that the same kind of property is to be treated in the same way
  128
  in future as it has been heretofore. I hope that it will also extend to a point which was raised in the Second Reading debate on the Bill when the hon. Gentleman was replying about percentage reductions between gross and net. At that time he did not seem to be quite aware of the point that I was making, which was precisely the principle now adopted here. I welcome its admission because I hope that even this Government may show some little consistency in the application of principles.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  Clause 4.—(ASCERTAINMENT OF RATEABLE VALUE.)
  Mr. Deedes: I beg to move, in page 6, line 26, to leave out from "buildings" to "there" in line 29 and insert:
  "with or without any garden, yard, court, forecourt, outhouse or other appurtenance belonging thereto, but without other land."
  This is really only a drafting Amendment, which does three things. It adds the word "outhouse" in Clause 4 to the list of appurtenances, and removes a possible source of doubt. It then deletes as unnecessary the reference to land
  "other than that on which any such house or building stands."
  Finally, it alters the order of the words. That is necessary in view of the first reason for this Amendment which I have mentioned; and, as redrafted, lines 26 to 29 in Clause 4 (2) will read:
  "… houses or other non-industrial buildings, with or without any garden, yard, court, fore court, outhouse or other appurtenance belonging thereto, but without other land …"
  There is no other significance to this Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, in page 6, line 30, after "amount," to insert:
  "being the larger of the two following amounts, that is to say,—
  (a) an amount."
  The Deputy-Chairman: It may be for the convenience of the Committee to take together this Amendment and the Amendment to the Second Schedule, in page 18, line 2, at the end, to insert:
  "UNDER PARAGRAPH (a) OF SUBSECTION (2) of SECTION FOUR OF THIS ACT."
  Mr. Lindgren: I accept that suggestion, Sir Rhys, and agree that it would be for the convenience of the Committee to do so.
  It will be within the knowledge of hon. Members who sat through the Second Reading debates that I called attention, particularly in the debate on 6th April, to the effect of revaluation on smaller properties, and the difference between gross and net rateable value. I instanced a house with a gross rateable value of £20 and a net rateable value of £12, and said that if its gross rateable value was doubled, becoming £40, its net rateable value would become £30. I also spoke of a house with a gross rateable value of £50 and a net rateable value of £40 and said that if its gross rateable value went up to £100 its net rateable value would become £40, the gross and net rateable value going up in ratio.
  8.30 p.m.
  The fact here is, as I said on Second Reading, that while the gross rateable value is doubled, the actual net rateable value goes up two and a half times in the case of the house with a gross rateable value of £20. If we take as an example a council house, which is a reasonable one, in the outer London area at any rate, with a gross rateable value at the moment of £20 and a net rateable value of £12, its gross rateable value will probably go up to £30 and its net rateable value will become £22. These properties are out of ratio.
  I am prepared to hear the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister say that the wording of the Amendments does not meet the position which I want to rectify. I want to keep the ratio between gross and net rateable value a little more in line than will at present be the case under the Second Schedule, which, as I said on Second Reading, is a re-enactment. I appreciate the difficulties about attempting to amend the Schedule, for we should then have difficulties in respect of previous legislation, such as the Housing (Rent and Repairs) Act, in that factors arising from that Measure are tied to the same Schedule.
  The point about what we are trying to do has been made, and I move the Amendment so that we may ascertain whether it is possible to come to some agreement about giving effect to a principle which, I think, has been admitted
  130
  on both sides of the Committee, that we should not get out of ratio between one type of property and another.
  Mr. Deedes: The hon. Gentleman made this point on Second Reading, and I undertook that we would look into it. The difficulty which, I think, the hon. Gentleman has not appreciated about the Amendment, or any Amendment on these lines, is that there can be two reasons for a low rateable value. One might be the size of the house, the point stressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) when we debated the matter earlier. The other might be that the house was under-assessed, as we know a great number of houses are.
  We are, after all, dealing with changes in value—I think I ought to remind the hon. Gentleman of this, because he has given one or two very extreme examples of what might occur under the Schedule in the five-year period between 1934 and 1939. I take issue with the hon. Gentleman in that we cannot now fairly judge a comparison between the present lists and the new lists in this respect because we know that the old lists are full of anomalies. The effect of the proportionate arrangements which his Amendment seeks to make would be to continue those anomalies in the proportion in which they now exist. This would perpetuate anomalies which we know exist and which have to be rectified.
  We are satisfied, and have good evidence, that the assessment of the cost of repairs in 1939 is fair and about right. In 1951 the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors carried out a considerable inquiry into the matter and was satisfied that the assessment of the cost of repairs was about right. It may well be the case, in fact it will be, that before the next revaluation this schedule will have to be reconsidered. Of that there is no doubt at all, and there may then possibly be a change in its basis. But there is not, for the reasons I have given, a sound case for doing that now, simply because—and this is the heart of the matter—there may be two reasons for an old rateable value, one being the size of the house and the other because it is under-assessed. I am sorry that we cannot accept the Amendment.
  Mr. Lindgren: While thanking the hon. Member for what he has so far said,

  131
  I want to press him a little farther. I would expect that small properties would vary in different parts of the country. I agree that there are properties in one area valued at £12 gross and another area at £20 gross. But that does not apply so much with large groups of properties with which local authorities are concerned.
  I do not suggest that here has been no variation between one authority and another in their standard of valuations of council houses for rating purposes. But those variations have been much less than with older type properties where previous valuations have had something to do with the standard of the next valuation, and that we all know. Where we have perhaps one-third of the properties owned by the local authorities, as we have in a large number of towns, the incidence of the increase will be different between one ratepayer and another. That was not the intention of revaluation, because in all these cases one can see that the old valuation and the new valuation are still in line. Although we have a valuation of 1934 and another in 1939, one can see that the incidence of value differs very considerably between one area and another.
  I know that it is a bad thing to quote cases, but one is naturally biased by one's experience. As the Committee knows, I have been associated with local government and the development of Welwyn Garden City. Rearmament and the fear of war and that sort of thing in the period from 1936 to 1939 made a considerable difference to rentable and purchase values in that town. That is a fact which will have to be taken into account by the valuers. Values in 1939 were considerably higher in such areas than in the whole of Hertfordshire, or any area which bordered on the London area, because they were safer than London and the outer London area.
  In those circumstances, it is unfair that this type of property should bear an unfair proportion of an increase. I do not say this as a threat, because I would not do such a thing, but unless the hon. Gentleman can indicate that he is prepared to look at this again, I will ask my hon. Friends, in fairness to authorities in outer London, to divide.
  Mr. Powell: When I saw the Amendments of the hon. Member for Welling-borough (Mr. Lindgren) on the Order Paper, I was at first inclined to feel that they were justified. They certainly would be justified if the increase in valuations of dwelling-houses in the new list as compared with the old were due to a decline in the value of money, or to a general rise in the cost of building and repairs. But, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, apart from the local exceptions, to which the hon. Member referred in his second speech, such changes will be attributable to the placing of valuations on a uniform basis over the country at large.
  Between 1934 and 1939 there was very little variation in the purchasing power of money in relation to the articles and services which are involved in the value of a house. There were, of course, wide variations in valuation as between one part of the country and another. But since the new valuation lists will only place all houses upon the 1939 standard of values and since we know that the proportion of the statutory deduction to the gross value at present prescribed in the Schedule is broadly correct for 1939, I feel that no unfairness arises, so far as the present list is concerned, through these proportions being maintained. It seems to me, therefore, that further consideration does tell against the Amendment and in favour of my hon. Friend's contention.
  Question put, That those words be there inserted:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 196, Noes 246.

  Division No. 6.]

  AYES

  [8.40 p.m.

  Ainsley, J. W.

  Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S.E.)

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Albu, A. H.

  Benson, 0.

  Burke, W. A.

  Allaun, F. (Salford, E.)

  Blackburn, F.

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

  Blenkinsop, A.

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Blyton, W. R.

  Carmichael, J.

  Anderson, Frank

  Boardman, H.

  Castle, Mrs. B. A.

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Champion, A. J.

  Awbery, S, S.

  Bowden, H. w. (Leicester, S.W.)

  Chetwynd, G. R.

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Boyd, T. C.

  Clunie, J.

  Balfour, A.

  Brockway, A. F.

  Coldrick, W.

  Bartley, P.

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

  Bence, C. R. (Dumbartonshire, E.)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Cove, W. G.

  Irving, S. (Dartford)

  Pursey, Cmdr. H.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Rankin, John

  Cronin, J. D.

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena(Holb &St.Pnce.S.)

  Reid, William

  Cullen, Mrs. A,

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Rhodes, H.

  Dairies, P.

  Johnson, James (Rugby)

  Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Darling, George (Hillsborough)

  Jones, Frederick Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Panoras, N.)

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Deer, G.

  Jones, James (Wrexham)

  Ross, William

  Dodds, N. N.

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)

  Kenyon, C.

  Short, E. W.

  Dye, S.

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

  Edelman, M.

  Lawson, G. M.

  Skeffington, A. M.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)

  Slater, J. (Sedgefield)

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

  Logan, D. G.

  Sparks, J. A.

  Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

  MoColl, J. E.

  Steele, T.

  Evans, Stanley (Wednesday)

  Mclnnes, J.

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Fernyhough, E.

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Stones, W. (Consett)

  Fienburgh, W.

  McLeavy, F.

  Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)

  Finch, H. J.

  Mahon, S.

  Sylvester, G. 0.

  Forman, J. C.

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Mann, Mrs. Jean

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Gibson, C. W.

  Mason, Roy

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Gooch, E. G.

  Mellish, R. J.

  Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

  Messer, Sir F.

  Tomney, F.

  Grey, C. F.

  Mikardo, Ian

  Turner-Samuels, M.

  Griffihs, David (Rother Valley)

  Mitohison, G. R.

  Viant, S. P.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Monslow, W.

  Watkins, T. E.

  Griffiths, William (Exchange)

  Moody, A. S.

  Weitzman, D.

  Hate, Leslie

  Morrison, Rt.Hn,Herber(Lewls'm,S.)

  Weils, Percy (Faversham)

  Hall, John T. (Gateshead, W.)

  Mort, D. L.

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Moss, R.

  West, D. G.

  Hannan, W.

  Moyle, A.

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

  Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

  White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Hastings, S.

  Oliver, G. H.

  Wilcook, Group Capt. C. A. B.

  Hayman, F. H.

  Oram, A. E.

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Healey, Denis

  Orbach, M.

  Willev, Frederick

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)

  Oswald, T,

  Williams, David (Neath)

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Owen, W. J.

  Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)

  Hobson, C. R.

  Padley, W. E.

  Williams, Ronald (Wigan)

  Holman, P,

  Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)

  Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

  Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

  Panned, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Howell, Denis (All Saints)

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Williams, W. T. (Barons Court)

  Hubbard, T. F.

  Parker, J.

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Paton, J.

  Winterbottom, Richard

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Peart, T. F.

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Popplewell, E.

  Yates, V, (Ladywood)

  Hunter, A. E.

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Younger, Rt. Hon. K.

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Probert, A. R.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Mr. Pearsoo and Mr. Holmes

  NOES

  Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  Dance, J. C. G.

  Aitken, W. T.

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Alport, C. J. M.

  Braine, B. R.

  D'Avlgdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Arbuthnot, John

  Braithwalte, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

  Deedes, W. F.

  Armstrong, C. W.

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.

  Ashton, H.

  Bryan, P.

  Doughty, C. J. A.

  Astor, Hon. J. J.

  Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.

  Drayson, G. B.

  Atkins, H. E.

  Burden, F. F. A.

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Campbell, Sir David

  Duthle, W. S.

  Balniel, Lord

  Carr, Robert

  Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

  Barber, Anthony

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Barlow, Sir John

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Barter, J. W.

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Baxter, Sir Beverley

  Cole, Norman

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

  Fell, A.

  Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

  Cooper-Key, E. M.

  Finlay, Graeme

  Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Fisher, Nigel

  Bidgood, J. C.

  Corfield, Capt. F. V.

  Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

  Biggs-Davison, J. A.

  Craddock, Beretford (Spelthorne)

  Fletcher-Cooke, C.

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hn. H. F. C.

  Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe & Lonsdale)

  Bishop, F. P.

  Crosthwalte-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Freeth, D. K.

  Black, C. W.

  Crouch, R. F,

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Body, R. F.

  Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)

  Garner-Evans, E. H.

  Bossom, Sir A. C.

  Cunningham, S. K.

  Glover, D.

  Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

  134

  135

  Cough, C. F. H.

  Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

  Robertson, Sir David

  Gower, H. R.

  Linstead, Sir H. N.

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Graham, Sir Fergus

  Llewellyn, D. T.

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Grant, W. (Woodside)

  Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Roper, Sir Harold

  Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr.B. (Nantwich)

  Lucas, P. B. (Brentford & Chiswick)

  Russell, R. S.

  Green, A.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.

  Grimond, J.

  Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Abans)

  McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

  Sharpies, Maj. R. C.

  Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Shepherd, William

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  McLean, Neil (Inverness)

  Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Scames, Capt. C.

  Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)

  Maddan, M.

  Spearman, A. C. M.

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)

  Speir, R. M.

  Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfd)

  Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)

  Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)

  Harvie-Watt, Sir George

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hon. Sir R.

  Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

  Hay, John

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Marlowe, A. A. H.

  Steward, Sir William (Woolwich,W.)

  Heath, Edward

  Marples, A. E.

  Storey, S.

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Marshall, Douglas

  Summers, G. S. (Aylesbury)

  Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

  Mathew, R.

  Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)

  Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

  Maude, Angus

  Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

  Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)

  Maudllng, Rt. Hon. R.

  Teeling, W.

  Hill, John (S. Norfolk)

  Mawby, R. L.

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Holland-Martin, C, J.

  Medlicott, Sir Frank

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Holt, A. F.

  Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.

  Thompson, Lt.-Cdr.R.(Croydon, S.)

  Homsby-Smith, Miss M. p.

  Morrison, John (Salisbury

  Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

  Horobin, Sir Ian

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

  Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence

  Nairn, D. L. S.

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Howard, Hon. Creville (St. Ives)

  Neave, Airey

  Touche, Sir Gordon

  Howard, John (Test)

  Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

  Nicolson, N. (B'n'mth.E. & Chr'ch)

  vane, W. M. F.

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J,

  Nield, Basil (Chester)

  Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.

  Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Vickers, Miss J. H.

  Hulbert, Wing Cmdr, Sir Norman

  Oakshott, H. D.

  Vosper, D. F.

  Hurd, A. R.

  O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co.Antrim, N.)

  Wade, D. W.

  Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H.

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)

  Irvine, Godman (Rye)

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)

  Johnson, Or. Donald (Carlisle)

  Page, R. G.

  Walker-Smith, D. C.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)

  Wall, Major Patrick

  Jones, A. (Hall Green)

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)

  Kaberry, D.

  Pitman, I. J.

  Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)

  Keegan, D.

  Pitt, Miss E. M.

  Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.

  Kerby, Capt. H. B.

  Pott, H. P.

  Watkinson, H. A.

  Kershaw, J. A.

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Webbe, Sir H.

  Kirk, P. M.

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Whitelaw, W.S.I.(Penrith & Border)

  Lagden, G. w.

  Prior-Palmer, Brig 0. L.

  Williams, Rt. Hn. Charles (Torquay)

  Lambert, Hon. G.

  Raikes, Sir Victor

  Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

  Lambton, Viscount

  Ramsden, J. E.

  Williams, Paul (Sunderand, S.)

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Rawlinson, p. A. C.

  Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Redmayne, M.

  Wood, Hon. R.

  Leavey, J. A.

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Woollam, John Victor

  Leburn, w. G.

  Renton, D. L. M.

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Ridsdale, J. E.

  Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

  Rippon, A. G. F.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Mr. Studholmc and Mr. Godber.

  Question put and agreed to.

  Mr. Deedes: I beg to move, in page 6, line 37, to leave out "and."
  This is a paving Amendment to the next Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. Deedes: I beg to move, in page 6, line 39, to leave out from beginning to "premises" in line 40 and insert:
  "with the exception of factories, mills and other premises of a similar character used wholly or mainly for industrial purposes and of."
  This is a drafting Amendment, but perhaps I should say a word or two about it. It removes a certain ambiguity in Clause 4. As the Clause now stands, it could be read to mean that premises
  136
  valued as part of any of the undertakings previously mentioned are not within the exception. The words which are ambiguous are:
  "except a mill, factory or other premises of a similar character …"
  This Amendment, I think, removes any possible misunderstanding.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. Deedes: I beg to move, in page 6, line 45, at the end to insert:
  "and the expression 'appurtenance' in relation to a dwelling-house, or to a school, college or other educational establishment, shall be taken to include all land occupied therewith and used for the purposes thereof."
  This Amendment also is designed to clear up a possible ambiguity. It arises

  137
  out of the part of Clause 4 which, as redrafted by the previous drafting Amendment, now reads, in lines 26 to 29,
  "houses or other non-industrial buildings, with or without any garden, yard, court, forecourt, outhouse or other appurtenances belonging thereto, but without other land."
  I am advised that there are two categories of property which might be affected by the words "without other land." One would be country houses with parkland and the other would be schools with playing fields which are within their boundary. Both those categories of property have hitherto been valued to gross value, that is to say, in accordance with the valuing of domestic hereditaments.
  The Inland Revenue authorities advise us that unless we alter it by means of this Amendment, the form of words would result in both country houses and schools being valued to net annual value. This, I may tell the Committee, has already arisen in one instance, which I will not specify, but which involved quite considerable sums of money. That is how we know that it may come about.
  Because parkland and playing fields cannot be regarded as
  "garden, yard, court, forecourt or other appurtenances …"
  that could easily be anomalous. We might have country houses with parks and country houses with huge gardens treated separately. Schools with playing fields inside their perimeter and schools with playing fields some distance away might easily be treated on a different footing. It is desirable that there should be no ambiguity, that the matter should be made plain, and that this category of property should be assessed to gross value. That is the object of the Amendment, which has no other significance.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. Mitchison: I beg to move, in page 8, line 14, to leave out subsection (8).
  The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): I think that it would be to the convenience of the Committee if we discussed with this Amendment the next Amendment but one standing in the name of the Minister, that in page 8, line 24.
  Mr. Mitchison: As you please, Sir Rhys.
  Subsection (8) deals with, among other things, the rating of waterworks. It includes other matters, but a very serious question has arisen in connection with the rating of waterworks. If the Amendment in the name of the right hon. Gentleman is accepted, the effect of the subsection will be that the provision of a notional or actual sinking fund which has been common practice in rating these bodies for very many years past will no longer be allowed, and that in its place an estimate of the annual expenditure actually incurred by the authorities in renewing parts of their property will be allowed as a deduction.
  That estimate is a somewhat artificial figure, for, according to the Government Amendment and the Schedule to which it refers, it will be either the actual expenditure over a period of three years; the average expenditure over a period of ten years—in both cases before the material date—or, alternatively, treble the average annual amount of expenditure in a prewar ten years, ending at the end of March, 1939. The sum is trebled, presumably, to allow for the additional cost of replacements and renewals now as compared to the pre-war figure.
  At first sight that suggestion appears reasonable, but when one looks into the matter a little further one finds that in practice it involves waterworks bodies—many of which are local authorities—in some very grave difficulties and exceedingly unfair discrimination. I hope that I am being fair in taking as an illustration a point which arises in the case of an undertaking situated near my constituency. At the moment, the Mid-Northamptonshire Water Board is engaged in building a large reservoir and pumping station and in laying down mains, and so on—which involves a very large capital expenditure—for the purpose of supplying water to a number of areas to which local authority arrangements have not succeeded in bringing water before.
  As a result of that expenditure the Board will no doubt borrow in some form or another. In the same way, if a new town embarks upon water arrangements of its own it incurs very considerable

  139
  capital expenditure, and borrows in some form or another for the purpose. Those bodies will not be allowed to make a deduction, from their year to year basis of assessment, either by way of a notional sinking fund in respect of the investment they have made in putting up the water works originally or in respect of the annual cost of borrowing. In consequence, by reason of their capital expenditure at this time, they will be faced with a large increase in their rate liability at soon as the Bill comes into force—if it is in its present form—and that increase will continue year after year.
  Moreover, they will get into further difficulties, because this is to some extent a cumulative process. In order to avoid some wholly impossible rise in the rates which they are charging for water they will have to borrow again and, in consequence, to incur exactly the same difficulty. The long and short of it is that they are being driven to accept a replacement or renewal basis calculated upon an average estimated in one way or another, instead of following the ordinary and sound practice of any public or private business concern which is undertaking a capital expenditure of this kind.
  That is by no means the whole story, because waterworks, like other undertakings of this character, do not incur a regular, year to year, more or less constant expenditure upon renewals and replacements. What happens is that for some considerable time they have quite small bills for repairs and replacements and, after a time, large ones.
  9.0 p.m.
  It has been sought to meet that position by allowing an average annual charge to them, but that does not meet the case in the least. It is obvious that the three years' average does not meet the difficulty when one considers the practical side of replacements and renewals of that kind in such an undertaking as a waterworks. It is obvious that a ten years' average is little if at all better. As for taking the pre-war average and trebling it, I say to the right hon. Gentleman that at best that is a chancy process when dealing with large sums of money.
  What is the reason for putting in this provision at all? I will tell the Committee what the reason is, and right hon. and hon. Members will have seen it for
  140
  themselves. It is that most of these large water undertakings will not have been able to incur any large capital expenditure, whether originally or by way of replacement and renewal, during the years since the war. For that reason it has been necessary to go back and take the pre-war average as one alternative and provide it with a multiple of three to do some sort of rough justice; but there is another side to this matter.
  What is the result of water undertakings having been unable in recent years to incur considerable expenditure? They have been unable to do so for a variety of reasons which I need not go into now but which are obvious to any right hon. or hon. Member. The result will be that in the coming years, apart from new undertakings such as the Mid-Northampton-shire Water Board, even an old established water undertaking is bound to incur considerable capital expenditure and, therefore, to suffer from the quite unfair penal effect of this change in rating law.
  We have been told that there have been discussions between the Minister or his Friend and the water undertakers, but they appear to have led to no conclusion. Until the next Amendment comes forward there is in the Clause a short paragraph (b), which is almost unintelligibly vague. It speaks about "the average annual amount" without saying over how many years it is to be averaged. That paragraph, which I would refer to as a draftsman's stop-gap, is to be replaced by the Schedule to which I have referred.
  I can assure right hon. and hon. Members opposite that those responsible for waterworks do not regard this as a matter between a short and ill-drafted proposal and a longer and better-drafted proposal but as one involving a change which will ruin their undertakings. When I say "ruin their undertakings," I am perhaps speaking metaphorically because we do not ruin an undertaking but ruin the people who pay for the water. In some instances it would go so far as to make the undertaking financially impossible. That is what could happen if this Clause were put into effect in its unamended form.
  One can get a measure of comparison and perhaps some indication of what has been in the minds of the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend in this

  141
  matter by remembering that this proposal appears to represent a very rough and ready attempt to bring water undertakings in some way or other into line with pool payments now made in respect of gas and electricity. That may or may not be the position, but it occurs to one as a possibility. But its operation is entirely different.
  I have with me a calculation that has been made about the gas industry. The sum of it is that the gas industry pays about 1·8 per cent. of its total revenue by way of rates. The water industry would pay, at any rate under the Clause, between 13 and 14 per cent. of its revenue. Surely, any logical or apparently logical consistency that may be obtained in that way would result in grave injustice. It seems to us that this is a hasty proposal, that it has not been fully considered in all its implications, and that the possibility of agreement between the right hon. Gentleman and the water undertakings has been far from exhausted.
  We know that a Bill is to be introduced in the comparatively near future to deal with gas and electricity—we have been told so. That being so, I have a suggestion to make to the right hon. Gentleman and to his hon. Friends opposite. I suggest that the legislation dealing with the valuation and rating of the water industry should be postponed until it can be dealt with in conjunction with, and perhaps in the same Bill as——
  Mr. Nabarro: It is no recollection of mine—I have followed all the proceedings right through this Bill and the previous Bill—that any undertaking has ever been given to bring in a Measure to deal with the electricity and gas undertakings, both of which are nationalised. On the contrary, all that my right hon. Friend has said is that at some future indeterminate date—he did not use the word "indeterminate" but I do—he would review the arrangements under the 1948 Act. Certainly, there has been no promise of legislation. I should be much happier if there were.
  Mr. Mitchison: I am glad to hear that I shall have the invaluable support of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) in pressing for legislation about the immediacy of which he appears to be in some doubt. But I understood that it was definitely proposed to reconsider, and
  142
  to legislate, if necessary, about, the gas and electricity industries. I will give the hon. Gentleman an opportunity of correcting me if I am wrong.
  Mr. Deedes: It is important that we should get this matter straight. The assurance that I gave in the Second Reading debate on the Bill was that the pool arrangements which affected electricity and the Transport Commission, and which we would not preclude including the gas industry, notwithstanding what is in this present Bill, would be reviewed immediately this went into effect. I specifically stated that the year 1956—it was not an indeterminate date, if I may correct my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro)—would see that work beginning.
  Mr. Nabarro Mr. Nabarro rose——
  Mr. Mitchison: I am sorry to have interrupted this very interesting quarrel that appeared likely to brew on the benches opposite, but as between myself and the Parliamentary Secretary there seems to be very little difference. The fact is that the pool arrangements are to be reviewed next year. It does not matter whether there is or is not a specific promise of legislation. What I am asking is that the water arrangements and this particular subsection should be reviewed at the same time.
  There is an obvious answer to that. If it is left at that, the local authorities will say, "Yes, but the effect of this Bill will be to make very considerable changes in the rates levied on water undertakings, and we want to be assured that we shall at least be able to preserve the same rate revenue as we are now getting from water undertakings for the comparatively short period before the review" to which the Parliamentary Secretary has just referred. I would say to the hon. Gentleman and to his hon. Friends that we on our side of the Committee have no objection whatever to that.
  If the omission of this subsection is to be agreed to on a statement that the right hon. Gentleman will at a later stage move an Amendment to the Bill to preserve the present revenue of local authorities from water undertakings, we should have no objection; nor, I may say, would the water undertakings have any objection. What they are afraid of is that for lack of sufficient exploration

  143
  of the possibilities of this Clause, for lack of sufficient exploration of the possibilities of agreement between themselves and the Minister, there should be a Clause which as at first drafted showed every mark of inaccurate haste and as now drafted contains provisions which, though far more complicated and far more detailed, will not meet the real difficulty, and which will work for two purposes.
  Those provisions will penalise the water undertakings that are incurring or are about to incur heavy capital expenditure now; therefore, they will hinder the development of the provision of water in the towns and in the country districts. They will, of course, put the water undertakings into such financial difficulties that there will be one of two consequences, either a large increase in the water rates chargeable in some areas, or a deliberate cutting down of expenditure which is long overdue and which ought to be carried out. Those are the risks that are being run by a provision in the Bill which, I suggest to the Committee, merits much further consideration.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: In the debate on Second Reading of the similar Bill in the last Parliament on 6th April, I made some reference to the subsection the omission of which is now moved by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). He has confined his argument to the effect on water undertakings, but, as the Committee will appreciate, though water undertakings are, perhaps, the principal ones concerned, the effect of this provision is not confined to water undertakings but extends to all hereditaments which are valued on what is called the profits basis, and that includes not only water undertakings but, amongst other sorts of activities, horse races which interest hon. Members and their constituents sometimes.
  I am going to follow the hon. and learned Gentleman in this way, in addressing my observations to the matter of water undertakings as being the ones mainly affected and as being the largest single type of undertaking which is still rated on the profits basis. Perhaps it is right that, before so doing, I should say again, this being a new Parliament, what I said in April, that I am, as it happens.
  144
  President of the Water Companies' Association. I have no interest to declare in the technical sense, because it is not an office of profit and I have no financial interest in the water industry. [HON. MEMBERS: "In beer?"] No financial interest in that sense. I do not receive any pecuniary emolument myself: though, like other hon. Members, I contribute to the revenues of water undertakings in two ways. No doubt, at the end of this exacting cerebral exercise on which the Committee is engaged a good stiff glass of water would be very welcome.
  9.15 p.m.
  I have referred to the water companies because the Committee should have in mind in connection with this matter that the water companies, which represent about one-fifth of the providers of water in the country, are on all fours with the local authority and other public undertakings which represent the major four-fifths. It is of course true, as I said in April and as the hon. and learned Member for Kettering said just now, that the effects of this provision in connection with the terms of the sinking fund in relation to water undertakings has occasioned great apprehension amongst them. But, of course, the Committee, though concerned for the good fortune of water undertakings, is even more concerned with the effect on consumers and with the rise in water rates which may occur if the cost of this provision has to be passed on to the consumer.
  I fully recognise that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary have been engaged constructively in discussions with the water undertakings and their representatives in the last few weeks, but unfortunately, as I understand it, the position is not yet one which is agreeable to the water undertakings, nor one which frees them from the apprehensions which they feel. We must be clear on all sides of the Committee, that no outside interest, be it a water undertaking or any other, can insist to Parliament that a provision concerning it should be exactly as it desires. It is for Parliament to say and for the Minister to make up his mind as to what he can conscientiously recommend to Parliament in the interests of the public as a whole. That is clearly the constitutional principle upon which we proceed, but it is, of course, desirable that the Amendment which now

  145
  stands in the name of my right hon. Friend, and which is clearly an improvement on the provisions of the Bill as originally drafted, should be one under which water undertakings can reasonably and economically function.
  The hon. and learned Member for Kettering has defined with his customary clarity the various methods which the proposed new paragraph will provide. I do not pretend in this short time to have been able to make a very precise evaluation for myself of what the effects of this would be, but there appear on the face of it to be certain disadvantages. Taking the first method—the three-year actual period—even in the last three years there has been difficulty in water undertakings, by reason of shortages of materials and labour, in doing the amount of work and thereby incurring the amount of expenditure which the undertakings might have wished to incur. If we take the second method—the period of 10 years, 1944·54—that argument is very considerably reinforced because of the licensing machinery which governed materials and so on during that time. Both alternatives have the additional disadvantage that the expenditure incurred in recent years is for the renewal and replacement of assets incorporated in the undertaking some 50 years ago. It would therefore appear to be clear that neither really takes into account the growth of undertakings over that period of 50 years.
  That particular consideration is even more present in regard to the third method, which is to take a 10-year average from before the war. If that period is taken, the assets which are being renewed are even older and reflect a more out-of-date position in regard to the undertaking, and, of course, what the position was 26 years ago does not really necessarily bear very much relation to the position of the undertaking now. I repeat that these are complicated matters, and I shall certainly listen with great attention to what my hon. Friend—who is a participant in these discussions and has this matter very much in mind—has to say. It would appear that there are valid objections to each of the three means now put forward in substitution of the previous arrangement.
  I should like to put two questions to my hon. Friend, because in this context I think that they are very important. The
  146
  first is this. What assessment has been made of the effect upon water undertakings in the making of capital extensions of the possibly deterrent effect of the proposals put forward in substitution of the old sinking fund procedure on the profits basis of rating? What assessment has been made of the deterrent effect on capital extensions at a time when, as the hon. and learned Gentleman observed, most water companies are seeking to make suitable capital extensions in the climate of the present day?
  The second question I put separately because it is one which concerns me very closely as a Member for a partly rural constituency, and in this context concerns many of my hon. Friends and many hon. Gentlemen opposite. What is the estimated possible deterrent effect on the extension of the provision of water supplies in rural areas? We are now all very concerned to get this broad, sustained advance on the rural front towards the provision of water as part of the rural amenities which we are anxious should be provided. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would have those considerations in mind, and if he could address himself specifically to the two points I have ventured to put to him.
  Mr. Denis Howell: I support the Amendment, because we in Birmingham certainly think it extremely important. The water industry in general believes itself to be overrated, and the figures I have certainly lend weight to that contention. The present estimated annual revenue of the water industry is some £60 million, of which £8¼ million is the estimated annual payment in rates. That is a percentage of 13·7. The comparable figures for the gas industry are a present annual revenue of £219 million and a rates payment of £4 million—1·8 per cent. It therefore seems most inequitable that in this and the following Clause we should have different systems of rating for water and for gas—and for electricity also—the effect being, as I have just described, one of great inequality.
  I want, too, to protest against the monstrous way in which the Birmingham Corporation had been treated by the Department. We have just had a prolonged and costly case before the Lands Tribunal which we were invited to take by the Inland Revenue and by the

  147
  Department of the hon. Gentleman opposite. That case took ten days to hear. It started on 21st February and the hearing of evidence went on until 4th March. Then there followed three days of legal submissions between 19th and 21st April. The judgment will not be made known until Friday of this week. We were invited to take this case in order to test the law, but mid-way through it——
  The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): I understand that the argument of the hon. Gentleman is about a case which is under considertion——
  Mr. Lindgren: On a point of order, Sir Rhys. You will remember that during the Second Reading of this Bill I called attention to the fact that there was an attempt by the Inland Revenue to value the City of Birmingham Water Undertaking on this basis and that was contested by the Birmingham City Council. The council was invited to go to appeal. I would suggest that the changing of legislation while that appeal is under consideration—the findings of the tribunal are to be made known this Friday—is somewhat material while that appeal is still under consideration.
  The Deputy-Chairman: I do not know about this case, but the argument is advanced while the case is before the courts——
  Mr. Lindgren: It is finished.
  The Deputy-Chairman: —and the judgment has not yet been made known. So it is sub judice and that case cannot be discussed.
  Mr. Howell: With respect, Sir Rhys, and further to that point, I was not discussing the case but the fact that the Government, having invited Birmingham to take a case, have themselves, before the judgment is announced, introduced entirely new legislation in the same field. I would have thought that was a pertinent point, but I have made the point and will leave it there.
  It has for many years been the practice in the water industry, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) has said, to have a notional sinking fund in which all the assets and the question of replacements
  148
  can be taken into consideration. There was not any discussion about this Bill with the British Waterworks Association until 11th May, although of course there were discussions with the Association of Municipal Corporations by the Government. One would have thought that in a matter of this seriousness, certainly as regards municipal water undertakings, the Government would have consulted them more than has been done and at a much earlier stage in the proceedings.
  We have been told by my hon. and learned Friend and also by the hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Mr. Walker-Smith) of the three systems which the Government now propose, and I do not want to go over them again, but I must mention that Birmingham pays out 25 per cent. of its income in rates to other local authorities. That is an extremely big proportion of what those local authorities receive. For example, 60 per cent. of the income of the Radnorshire county authority comes from Birmingham Corporation.
  That is, of course, as it should be, but I hope to demonstrate that if this Clause is passed this might come to an unsavoury end at some time in the future if the assets of the Birmingham water undertaking—the dams and the terrific cost of replacing mains—were put on the basis suggested by the Government. For example, there are two projects in Birmingham which might come quickly to hand. One is the replacement of a complete reservoir and the other is the replacement of 500 miles of water mains. If those two things came together on the basis of what has been put before us, it would make chaos of the income of the County of Radnorshire. Therefore, apart from the effects of the Clause upon the consumers of water in Birmingham, there could be an extremely serious effect upon the county councils involved. I hope the Government will bear that in mind.
  9.30 p.m.
  With regard to the case to which I have referred, we were hoping that Birmingham would obtain a renewals allowance in the region of £300,000. We have examined the Government's three proposals very carefully, and the best from our point of view is the 1930–39 proposal trebled: but we do not accept the contention that it should be trebled because we believe that building costs have risen more than three

  149
  times since pre-war. This proposal would give us an allowance of £114,120. I ask the Committee to consider that figure in relation to the fact that we were given an allowance of £102,938 in 1934 at the time of the last valuation, which itself makes the new proposals of the Government quite absurd.
  Apart from that, Birmingham's capital value has increased from £l1 million in 1934 to £18 million today. The effect of the Government's proposal would, we estimate, mean an increase for Birmingham from what we consider to be the proper figure as assessment, about £285,000. to £378,000, representing an increase of £93,000. If we take the average rating as 20s. in the £, which is reasonable, it is clear that the proposals will cost the water consumers of Birmingham, at a very conservative figure, £93,000 in any one year, and the figure may well be over £100,000.
  It will be seen that this is a very serious matter for municipalities with water undertakings and also for county councils with water undertakings in their area, for they might at any time lose the value of rates because a water undertaking decides to do works on a very large scale. With my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering, I plead, in the name of common sense and logic, and because the Clause in its present form is discriminatory, that the Government have another look at the Clause and re-introduce it in the Bill which we know to be forthcoming. I also complain most bitterly of the monstrous treatment of the Birmingham Corporation by the Government in that it was asked to undertake a test case and the Government acted before the legal decision could be given.
  Sir I. Horobin: I intervene to support the views which have been expressed that the case has not been made out for the change proposed by the Government in the method of rating water undertakings. It is rather remarkable to me that in his speech earlier the Minister went out of his way to point out to the Committee that further legislation for permanent arrangements for the rating of water undertakings would be necessary in the comparatively near future. In these circumstances, it seems to me rather difficult to justify putting into legislative form in this Bill a very recent attempt by the Inland
  150
  Revenue to alter the method by which for years water undertakings have been rated.
  Many of the arguments have been deployed, but as this concerns my own county borough, which, I am glad to say has lots of very good water, I feel that I must add my voice to those of hon. Members who feel that water undertakings, whether municipal or private, are being hardly treated. I am not a lawyer, but I feel that the Government cannot in any case rest themselves upon a strict legal interpretation for the very reason, given by the hon. Member for All Saints (Mr. D. Howell), that the Government have stepped in and taken the very words out of the mouths of Her Majesty's judges who have been asked to determine a case on strict law. I do not base my case, therefore, on a strict legal interpretation, which, in any case I am not competent to give, but on the principles involved, which are comparatively simple, although their application in this special case presents certain admitted difficulties.
  What we have to determine in this case is, in fact, as with our old friend the hypothetical tenant, the net worth of these properties. What the Government are saying, and what the Inland Revenue Department is attempting to have put in the law, is the extraordinary proposition that if, for reasons good or bad, the owner of a hereditament, in this case a water undertaking, has spent less than would be the normal, average amount necessary to keep the hereditament in the condition to command the rent, that is a reason for increasing, not for decreasing, the amount the hypothetical tenant may be expected to offer.
  Put in that form the proposition is completely ludicrous. There may be good reasons why the owner of any hereditament has not spent as much as he should, taking one year with another, to keep the hereditament in good condition. Nobody trying to let a house with dry rot and telling the tenant to pay a bigger amount because the house has not been kept in good condition would get away with that argument, and I do not see why the Inland Revenue should get away with it.
  Of recent years the Board of Inland Revenue has been endeavouring to carry into the valuation of these undertakings a completely new method of valuing. I do not know if the Board is basing itself

  151
  on a correct legal construction of the Statute. I am not competent to give an opinion on that. The Government apparently do not think that the judges are competent, because they want to give them an interpretation.
  The principle involved, however, seems to be perfectly clear. It is that what has been done for over a century is, roughly speaking, correct: namely, that these things should be averaged out and that an amount should be put aside which, taking one year with another, will be sufficient for repairs and renewals, and that that amount should be taken as the deduction from the gross rent to arrive at the net annual value. That has always been done. It may be true that clever, legal gentlemen have discovered that that ought not to be done, but it has been done. For all we know they may be right. No doubt we shall hear in the next day or two, when it is too late, when judgment is delivered.
  However, the general principle in our rating procedure seems to be quite clear, and it is a deduction from the gross value, taking one year with another, of what will be necessary for the purpose. If a particular water undertaking has spent only £3,000 when it ought to have spent £300,000, that is not a reason for giving it more value, but a reason for giving it less.
  It is extremely unfortunate that private or local authority owners of water undertakings—the only public utility of this kind which has not wangled for itself any special provisions for rating; everybody else has—should find themselves in that unfortunate position, with all the consequences which have been pointed out. The inclusion of the owners of these water undertakings in the Bill until only next year, or until some proper system can be worked out, is a totally new and unexpected way of calculating their rating liability.
  Unless the Minister can give a much more satisfactory explanation of why it is necessary to do this—this is not the sort of issue on which even in the early stages of a new Parliament one can feel justified in voting against the Government—I shall certainly, if I am forced into the Lobby, go there and continue the argument with the Parliamentary Secretary. I hope, however, that my hon.
  152
  Friend will find some better arguments than those we have heard so far.
  Mr. John Hynd: Sufficient has been said from both sides of the Committee to indicate to the Government that the wisest course they can pursue at this stage is to accept the Amendment and withdraw the subsection. Like my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), I was concerned when I read the Clause and found from subsection (8, a) that for the purposes of the Bill the expenses of a water undertaking and certain other concerns would not include the provision of a sinking fund, whether such a sinking fund was provided or not.
  I need not go into the reasons why I was concerned, because the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Sir I. Horobin) has given the complete case why that practice which has existed for so long, should not be interfered with unless and until the Government had sound reasons to advance for some new formula which could take the place of this practice in the interests of all concerned. That the Government have completely failed to do.
  I should not object to some new method which would give a greater equity in the rating of these concerns and which would enable subsection (8, a) to stand, but when I read subsection (8, b) I find there a completely impossible and impracticable alternative. My hon. and learned Friend has already explained the uselessness of this subsection which provides that "the average annual amount" of the expenditure incurred by the occupier should be included as the basic amount of the expenses without defining the period on which such "average" should be based.
  When I saw that an Amendment was now proposed by the Government in Clause 4, page 8, line 24, containing a lot of new words, I thought that that might be some answer; but the Government, having realised that the original paragraph (b) was quite impracticable and inequitable—which, of course, is the reason for this mass of words on the Notice Paper—have not, in fact, proposed an acceptable alternative. This Amendment proposes that the expenses:
  "… shall be treated as including a sum … representing expenditure incurred in replacing or renewing hereditaments, or parts of hereditaments, occupied for the purposes of the undertaking."

  153
  That might not be so bad, were it not for the fact that paragraph (a) still stands. That still provides that a sinking fund shall not be taken into consideration.
  I do not want to go over the arguments which have already been advanced, but I should like to draw attention to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. D. Howell) about the impact that this provision will have if it is included in the Bill in spite of the arguments advanced against it from both sides of the Committee. In Birmingham it will make a difference of about £100,000 to the rates, and in Sheffield it will involve the city in an additional £85,000 or thereabouts, much of which will go to local authorities outside the city.
  That would not in itself be an argument if the Government had provided a substantial, reasonable and logical basis upon which the old practice could have been altered, but they have not done so. I submit that before we embark upon a Clause which imposes such tremendous burdens upon local authorities, we should consider whether or not there is a better alternative, and whether or not this is the right answer. I have a suspicion that the Minister is likely to try to get away with it by telling us that he is prepared to consider a further alteration to this formula in due course, either in the legislation which he proposes to introduce in the course of time governing other public utility concerns, or in some other way.
  9.45 p.m.
  If the right hon. Gentleman is going to tell us that Clause 4 (8) as he proposes to amend it, or as it already stands, is to be regarded only as a carry-over arrangement; that it is not the final answer; that it is not permanent—and if he uses such arguments, he will be admitting that it is not satisfactory, even in the view of the Government—then, in view of the tremendous dislocation which it will cause among these undertakings, and among local authorities which in many cases are responsible for the undertakings, I suggest to him that there is no justification for including Subsection (8) in the Bill at all.
  So long as there is a lack of certainty that this is the answer; while there exists an opposition which cuts across parties; while there is a considerable dissatisfac-
  154
  tion among water undertakings and the local authorities concerned, and in view of the burden imposed on local authorities—and therefore upon the constituents of hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the Committee—the Bill will not suffer if subsection (8) is withdrawn altogether until the Government have considered what is the right answer, and how best to bring water undertakings and other similar hereditaments, or hereditament-owning bodies, within this new conception of rating and valuation. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will consider the arguments advanced from both sides of the Committee and that he will seriously consider accepting the Amendment moved by my hon. and learned Friend.
  Mr. Deedes: I do not think that we should allow my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Sir I. Horobin) to sleep upon the decision he announced a few moments ago. It may be convenient if I now attempt to meet some of the points made during the debate on this Amendment.
  My right hon. Friend appreciates that there is considerable concern felt by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee about this matter and that this arises from the fact that, as was said by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Mr. Walker-Smith), we are not here concerned only with water undertakings, although they bulked largely in the remarks which have been made. In fact, we are concerned with all industries falling into the category of being assessed on profits method. That covers a considerable field, including the categories mentioned by my hon. Friend and by others. Therefore, the concern which has been expressed is understood by my right hon. Friend who is, and has shown himself to be, anxious to attempt to meet it.
  The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) and, if I may say so, everyone else who spoke on either of the two Amendments made light of the background of this problem and the reason we decided to take the action which is now proposed. No one touched on the problem confronting the Government when they came to making this provision. It is known that the idea of a notional sinking fund has, during recent years, led to what I can only describe as quite unrealistic results. I think that is a fair way of putting it.

  155
  It is quite clear from the figures in our possession that, as matters stood, there was, under the notional sinking fund arrangement, a likelihood that, at a time when it was known and accepted that the assessments of everyone else would be rising, the assessments of a large number of these undertakings would, in fact, fall. I do not think that is in dispute as a generality. I have particulars in my possession, but I do not think that I should give names. Here I have details of specific instances. In one case there would be a reduction from a pre-war assessment of £185,000 to £110,000. In another case the reduction would be from £341,000 to £227,000. Those are reductions envisaged under the arrangement which we have sought to meet.
  I do not have to stress to the Committee the fact that reductions of this kind in the case of public utilities may be a serious matter for other ratepayers in the area. A certain amount has been said about the effect on payers of water rates, but the other ratepayers may be concerned at the considerable fall in the assessments of public utilities.
  Dr. Horace King: The Minister has talked about some companies which would benefit by this. The only company which could benefit would be one which had not put enough into its sinking fund with which to meet the annual repairs which it had to undertake.
  Mr. Deedes: The point I am making is that the notional sinking fund had reached a point when it was leading, and would lead on this occasion, to a reduction in the assessment; in other words, an assessment below the previous assessment. That is not a situation——
  Mr. Mitchison: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that more people wash than pay rates?
  Mr. Deedes: I am not going to quarrel with the hon. and learned Gentleman on that point at this stage.
  Both the hon. and learned Gentleman and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East were critical about the provisions of the alternative Amendment we have offered.
  Mr. D. Howell: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the fact that the
  156
  water industry pays 14·7 per cent. of its income in rates as against 1·8 per cent. in the case of gas and electricity undertakings might tend to show that they have been overrated in the past?
  Mr. Deedes: If the hon. Gentleman will wait, I am coming to that point.
  As I was saying, both the hon. and learned Member for Kettering and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East were a little critical of the provisions which we have made. May I clear up the point raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman on the question of the pool payments? I think I made it clear that any comparison with gas or electricity—I do not think that a comparison can be made with the British Transport Commission—is not really a reliable comparison for two reasons. The most important is that we accept the fact that there is a need for revision. The local authorities are pressing for it, and one will take place immediately on revaluation in about a year from now. Once that has taken place, I do not think that the comparison which the hon. Gentleman seeks to make with water will arise. We cannot do it any quicker, and that review will involve gas as well.
  Both hon. and learned Gentlemen, as I say, were a little critical of the provisions which we made. Perhaps I might attempt to meet two or three of the points raised by my hon. and learned Friend. He spoke, first, of the point which we accept, that is to say, that the 10-year average can work unjustly in respect of businesses which were kept back during the unnaturally restricted years following the war.
  The object of the second of the three provisions, the idea of the three-year average, is principally to meet the difficulty of the post-war, 10-year average. Whether it does so or not to the satisfaction of my hon. and learned Friend, is another matter, but that was the object of the provision. My hon. and learned Friend asked two specific questions. He asked what assessment, if any, had been made of the deterrent effect on capital extension. On that I can only say that such assessment as we have made does not lead us to adopt the apprehension felt by my hon. and learned Friend.
  My hon. and learned Friend then asked what was the estimated deterrent effect on water supplies in rural areas. They

  157
  are in a rather different category because they get their supplies from wells and rivers and they are equipped with pumping plant which has been provided on short-lived capital.
  Mr. Lindgren: Many rural water supplies have long mains with no hereditaments on either side of them for many miles and their loans were for 60 years. Surely that was not short-lived capital?
  Mr. Deedes: They have much shorter capital and are not on a par with that to which my hon. and learned Friend was referring.
  Mr. Mitchison: Will the hon. Gentleman deal with the case not only of the Mid-Northants Water Board, to which I referred, but of the other water boards in rural areas which are incurring considerable capital expenditure for purposes which I should have thought would commend themselves to the hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. Deedes: Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will wait for a moment. I should like to say something about the Birmingham case, and also to reply to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East. I hope it is not suggested that we have in any way attempted to prejudge the issue which was before the courts, or that any attempt has been made to take unfair advantage of the situation which has arisen.
  There is a long history to the Birmingham case, which arose in 1952. The hon. Member for All Saints (Mr. D. Howell) is not right in saying that Birmingham was invited to bring a test case. In fact, the initiative was taken by the Corporation.
  Mr. D. Howell: I have here the extract from a speech of counsel to the Birmingham Corporation, in which he says:
  "I can only talk of my own client, the Birmingham Corporation, and I can say this categorically, that had we known at the time we were invited to take this case before you and find out what the law was"—
  and he made some very pertinent comment about the people who invited Birmingham to take the case. I stand by that statement.
  Mr. Deedes: All I am saying is that the Corporation was not invited by the Inland
  158
  Revenue to undertake the case. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be acquitted of seeking to take any advantage, bearing in mind the fact that the judgment was in relation to past transactions, while the Bill is concerned only with what will happen in the future. It will not militate against a judgment given in favour of the Corporation.
  My right hon. Friend is personally ready to examine, in conjunction with industry and local authority associations, the whole question of the assessment of water undertakings. The talks that we have had with the industry have not got us beyond the point which we have now reached. There is no reason why there should not be an examination, by the industry and local authority associations, into the future of the assessment of water undertakings. My right hon. Friend is prepared to review the position of all undertakings assessed by the profits method—upon the lines of the undertaking which he gave earlier on to the shopkeepers—when the full effect of the revaluation is known. When we know what the incidence will be my right hon. Friend is prepared to undertake a review of the method of assessing all undertakings on a profits basis.
  Mr. Mitchison: Does the hon. Member seriously mean that this devastating and ruinous change will be introduced into the assessment of water undertakings, pending a review of the whole question?
  Mr. Deedes: We do not accept the hon. learned Gentleman's Amendment, which would leave the position as it was when we found it, because it makes no contribution to the problem which has to be met. We put forward our own Amendment as a reasonable alternative, which I hope will go some way to meet the Committee's wishes.
  Mr. Lindgren: The statement to which we have just listened is particularly unsatisfactory. Reference has been made to drawing up a comparison as between shopkeepers——
  It being Ten o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

NATIONAL SERVICE
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Colonel I. H. Harrison.]
10.1 p.m.
Mr. Norman Dodds: I am grateful that time has been allocated to me to enable me to deal with anomalies applying to National Service which could not be adequately dealt with at Question Time. The reason for this Adjournment debate on anomalies in National Service is my deep concern about the unsatisfactory answers given by the Prime Minister when I asked a Question on the subject last week. I refer to last Thursday, 23rd June, and the Question which I then put to the Prime Minister, as follows:
"MR. DODDS asked the Prime Minister if he is aware of the growing dissatisfaction at the way the National Service scheme is being operated because of the anomalies which exist; and if he will therefore cause an investigation to be held designed to ensure that this compulsory scheme will give the maximum confidence to the public and a greater degree of satisfaction to those who are required to serve."
In a supplementary Question, I asked:
"Does the Prime Minister appreciate that there is deep concern that so many of the most active young men in this country are finding it possible to evade National Service?"
The important point is that in answer to the supplementary Question, the Prime Minister said:
"… I have read very carefully the series of Questions and supplementaries which have been asked in this House in connection with this matter for some time past, and I think that the particular case about which so much has been said is one where the verdict was clearly the correct one,…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd June 1955; Vol. 542, c. 1501–2.]
If this Adjournment debate serves only one useful purpose it will be well worth while. I want to make it crystal-clear that it is not my concern whether or not a well-known cricketer is asked to do his two years' National Service, but it is my concern and the concern of many other people that if that well-known cricketer can be exempted because of his physical limitations no other man who is as bad or worse in the physical sense should be called up to serve in the Armed Forces. A yardstick has been disclosed, and it is essential that in this compulsory scheme it should be applied whether a man is a prominent athlete or not.
160
The substantial evidence that I have, which I am passing to the Prime Minister for his consideration—and I still ask for an inquiry into this scheme—shows an unsatisfactory state of affairs which cannot be allowed to continue. In one letter I have received it is summed up as follows:
"If he is not fit for duty, there must be hundreds of such fellows doing duty who have the perfect right to be out of the Services."
Another extract from a letter says:
"Although I am a Tory, I have completed my National Service, I feel as you do that the whole principle of the National Service Act is at stake in this case."
I have raised this question of the anomalies because great principles are at stake.
One important facet of the evidence is that many young men who perform fantastic feats of physical endurance do not seem to be well enough to share the burden of compulsory service. I have a long list of boxers, tennis players, jockeys, racing motorists, cricketers and footballers who so far have "dodged the column" in a most blatant way. In other words, there seems to be one law for the athletes and another for the not-so-athletic. I am sure that an inquiry would reveal a shocking state of affairs.
The public are concerned because of the way in which this evidence is getting over. On Saturday, 16th April, in an interview with Max Robertson on television, a well-known top-ranking tennis player was asked how he managed to play tennis while serving in the Royal Air Force. He replied that he was conveniently posted near London and was able to get away at 3 p.m. each day and at weekends in order to practise and play. Asked how the R.A.F. would react should he be chosen for the Davis Cup Team, he again replied that he thought that he would be allowed time off to play.
This sort of thing, going into the homes of people, often where mothers and fathers are quite happy that their sons, even with physical limitations, should attempt to do their bit in this compulsory service, only tends to upset, not only the parents and their relations, but the people in the Forces. I have many letters from people in the Services who feel that some are being excused duties when they are much more able in the physical sense to do them than these young men who have

161
never achieved any great fame on the athletic field.
In many cases the men concerned are brilliant youngsters who have great academic honours and who in this great competitive age could do much good for the country if they themselves were being given some of the facilities which are afforded to the athletes. I think that if an investigation took place at Woolwich—I mean at the Royal Artillery depot—it would be found that quite a big percentage of men in the athletic field never move further away from London than Woolwich. All this seems to indicate that there is need for an inquiry into this aspect of our national life.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary, who knows that I have put these queries to the Prime Minister, will explain, when he replies—because the explanations so far given do not seem to be convincing—why in the case of the well-known cricketer his Department sent that man to the Royal Air Force. Was there any difference of medical opinion when he got into the Royal Air Force, where, it is suggested, he could not serve? Was it a fact that the Ministry of Labour gave the grading as Grade II(a) feet? If so, if that is an unacceptable grade, why was he sent to the Royal Air Force? We should clear up the question why there is this disagreement between the Ministry of Labour medical board and the Royal Air Force, which within a few days found that that man was not fit enough for service.
I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service to bear in mind that his Department is sending out many letters to men who are being called up, and about whom submissions are made that they are not fit enough. I quote a typical letter, showing what is going on:
"National Service Acts. I am writing in reply to your letter of"—
there comes a date—
"regarding the medical grading of your son and to inform you that at the beginning of 1951 it was decided that the Services must make use of more men in the lower medical categories. Since May, 1951, men of certain medical assessments placed in Grade III have been considered available for call-up."
If it is part of the policy to call up men who are in Grade III and to retain them, why are men of not such a low grade able to get out? I know of cases of men who
162
are even Grade IV, men who would like to get out of the Services. Why are they being retained when other men of not so low a grade are able to get out—men who, afterwards, show by their physical achievements that they are probably very much better than other men who are retained? I have many cases I could quote, but time does not allow me to mention them all individually. I can mention only one or two as examples.
Many men who volunteer for the Royal Air Force are told that they will be accepted if they sign for three years, but, having signed for three years, they are told that they do not reach the medical standard required for Regular service. In that respect Grade II (a) feet is looked upon by the Royal Air Force as not being a suitable grade for overseas service. Yet young men of that grade, when compulsorily called up, are directed to the Army, and within three months find themselves posted overseas to Japan or Malaya. Why should one Service refuse men of Grade II (a) feet and then another Service not only accept them but even send them overseas to Malaya or to Japan?
In the case, for instance, of the well-known cricketer, he said he was only too happy to serve in National Service. Why, then, could he not be accepted for one of those jobs which Grade II and Grade III men have to do in the Army? Why, if people are happy in the Army, are they turned down or rejected even when they express a desire to be in the Forces?
It is not only a matter of the men with Grade II (a) feet. Here is another letter:
"My son has not only bad feet but has had chest trouble all his life and eye trouble which at times blurs his sight. When the ophthalmic surgeon who has treated my son for his eye heard he was in the Army doing his service he was surprised."
A man with all those physical limitations is now in Cyprus. It is because of this yardstick which has been so prominently brought to the notice of the public that the parents of many of the boys feel upset, because they feel that their sons are not getting a square deal.
Last Wednesday, I asked in the House about a young man who, it is obvious, was not fit to be in the Royal Air Force.
The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. George Ward): Who said it is obvious?
Mr. Dodds: It is my submission that it is obvious.
The yardstick for a well-known cricketer is that which we know. Another man who has been taken into the Service has two broken toes, a leg fractured in two places, no movement in the centre joint of his big toe, and walks with a limp. I would suggest that it is obvious that there is something wrong. This young man has been sent to Iraq. He has not even been kept in England to do his service. The answer to a Question I put last week was that he was being brought back to England.
Mr. Ward: It had nothing to do with his feet. He was brought back to this country because he is suffering from dyspepsia.
Mr. Dodds: That may be so but, in addition to trouble with his feet, he has other complaints which indicate that he should not be in the Service.
There is case after case of men being retained in the Services for no other reason apparently than that they cannot reach the top flight in athletics. It appears that the future of the country depends on being successful in athletics. Men who have great academic qualifications and whose services are badly needed in civilian life have not an earthly chance of being released if they are not also in the top flight in athletics.
In a case which arose last week, the Minister said in the House that the man in question was being discharged. I would have said that it was obvious that he should never have been in the Forces. That man has great ability. The British Standards Institution has accepted his plans for atomic shelters. He was engineer in charge of the building of great blocks of flats, yet for eight months attempts have been made to get him out of the Service, whereas a cricketer is in the Service for only a few days and is then released.
Mr. Ward: The case which the hon. Member has just quoted is one that I have been watching very carefully, as a result, not of representations from the hon. Member, but of representations from his own Member of Parliament, who happens to be our Chief Whip, by right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Buchan-Hepburn).
Mr. Dodds: That may be so, but the man's father has written to me to say,
"I do not know how to start thanking you for all you have done for me and my son. After months of trying to get him out, you have got him out in a few days and we owe you a debt of gratitude which we shall never be able to repay."
Months and months of effort have been needed to get this man out of the Service, whoever got him out, but athletes are either not taken into the Services at all or are out in a few days.
The Under-Secretary of State for Air may be smiling tonight but I have a great deal of evidence from all parts of the country which clearly indicates that many people are deeply concerned. The Minister who now smiles cannot appreciate that sooner or later this will be brought home to him.
At the Co-operative Congress held recently in Edinburgh a delegate said that a son of his, a National Service man, had been informed that he would be sent to Germany instead of to Malaya if he signed on for seven years. That statement made quite an impression. His Member of Parliament has taken the matter up, and the War Office has admitted that that point was put to the man.
The father, who feels in this matter very much like many other fathers do, is trying to form an association which will have an organisation to concern itself with taking up anomalies of this kind and bringing them to notice in the right quarter.
He said:
"We have societies for the protection of dumb animals and wayward and backward children and this and that, so why not a protection society for National Service men?"
We have reached the stage where an inquiry is necessary to show either that these allegations or insinuations are totally unfounded or to make changes which will provide a deeper sense of justice and fair play all round, not only among the men who serve, but among parents, many of whom feel that their sons are not having a square deal.
10.20 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service (Mr. Harold Watkinson): It is a very good thing that hon. Members on both sides should occasionally give us the

165
opportunity of looking at National Service. In fact, I do not think the House would be doing its duty if it did not keep this particular Service—which takes so many of our young men away from their jobs for two years—very closely under review. That is quite a different matter from making a lot of detailed observations on a number of cases which are quite microscopic compared with the number of men doing their National Service, and from those cases drawing broad conclusions which are not justifiable at all. I shall endeavour to answer as many of the broad conclusions of the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) as I can in the ten minutes he has left me.
First of all, may I say that I am replying for the Government and that, whatever Questions the hon. Member may have put to or whatever answers he may have received from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, it is the Government's view that there is no reason at all for the kind of inquiry into National Service which he has been advocating. There is no growing dissatisfaction with National Service. Why? Because it is fair, and because it is the outstanding determination of my right hon. and learned Friend, of the Prime Minister and of all the Service Ministers that it shall continue to rest on the only possible basis of being fairly and equally applied between one man and another, whatever his calling, whatever his social background. Whether a man is good at tennis, cricket or football does not enter into it at all.
How do we apply the necessary medical and other tests that have to be applied? In any scheme such as this that takes in hundreds of thousands of young men there are bound to be specific cases where there is a conflict of medical or other evidence. I do not blame the hon. Member. I am very glad that he has raised this. As I have said, he is doing his duty in raising it, but we really must not draw broad conclusions on hundreds of thousands of young men from a very few specific cases.
Therefore, the first point I want to make—and I must make it for the sake of the parents of the men who are called up, and to show that those men are fairly and properly called up—concerns medical standards. The hon. Member—
166
I think back in 1953—quite rightly spent a lot of time and energy in attacking the efficiency of the National Service medical boards.
Mr. Dodds: Will the Minister agree that I did get four young men from my constituency out of the Forces?
Mr. Watkinson: I think all of us in our constituencies endeavour to do our duty to our constituents—I do not regard it as more than my duty in doing other than that—but those four young men have nothing to do with the broad question of National Service as a whole. They may show the efficiency of the hon. Member as a Member of Parliament towards his constituents, but they have nothing to do with the broad question of National Service.
There is an appeal procedure from the National Service medical boards, and I think that it shows how fair they are when I say that out of some 300,000 medical examinations which have been made since the appeal procedure was started they have been only 2,671 appeals, or 0·8 per cent. of the examinations. Even in those appeals the original grading was confirmed in 42 per cent. of cases—and indeed in 11 per cent. the gradings were raised. That clearly shows that although everyone knows that there is this right of appeal—and it is very proper that there should be—the number of cases that go to appeal is fractionally small, and even in those cases more than half of the gradings are either confirmed or raised.
As an example of how easy and quite natural it is to fall into error, the hon. Member mentioned jockeys. They are quite a good example, because they are deferred for training, as I think they should be. If an apprentice in the engineering industry can get deferment, why not a jockey? As far as we are concerned, one trade is as good as another as long as there is a proper training scheme, and there is.
At the end of that two years' training a man is called up if he is found fit for service. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, with his great energy, could find some jockeys who, although apparently fit, have not been called up. The reason is that the smaller jockeys are the better they are for their trade and some do not measure up to the minimum height

167
required by the Services. Therefore we cannot call them up however much we might wish to do so. That is a clear example of how easy it is to misjudge a man who is apparently fit and should have been called up, but yet cannot be called up because of a proper requirement on the part of the Service concerned. If there were time, I could give a great many examples of that kind.
The hon. Gentleman has made much play with specific cases. I understood that he was raising the general question, and therefore I am not proposing to reply to specific cases, except to say that again the medical requirements of differing Services are bound to vary. For example, the medical standard for a fighter pilot or, indeed, any pilot in the R.A.F. is bound to be very different from the medical standard of a man in the Royal Army Pay Corps who will do nothing but sedentary home duties. So again, if one tried to compare the medical standard of the man in the R.A.F. with the man in the Royal Army Pay Corps, while each is doing an equally useful job, there would be some odd comparisons if we tried to apply the medical test of one to the other. That is another reason why I am not prepared to answer specific cases in this House without a prior knowledge of exactly what is to be raised. We cannot generalise because, if we do, we are being grossly unfair to individual people. A lot of play has been made about racing motorists, for example. I will not go into those cases again, except to say that my right hon. and learned Friend and I are entirely satisfied that on proper medical grounds the action taken was correct.
I have applied the same test to the other gentleman mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. I am satisfied there too after two consultants' examinations that the grading of this man was such that he should not have been retained by the R.A.F. Again, however, it is no use going into——
Mr. Dodds: Is the hon. Gentleman referring to the cricketer?
Mr. Watkinson: We are talking in generalities. If the hon. Gentleman has a specific case to raise, I will answer it, but only if I know exactly what I am dealing with. We can all be overenthusiastic. The Press—and I am only quoting the Press—claims that the hon. Gentleman even wants to get people out of the Army who want to stay in it. If he wants to do that, good luck to him, but we can be over-enthusiastic in these things.
Mr. Dodds Mr. Dodds rose——
Mr. Watkinson: I am sorry but I have not time to give way. For the sake of the hundreds of thousands of young men who do their Service, it is right that on behalf of Her Majesty's Government I should say that the medical tests are as accurate as medical science can make them.
Mr. Arthur Lewis: Would the Minister give way?
Mr. Watkinson: I am sorry but I cannot do so at this stage. We do not differentiate in any way—and we are the people who call up these boys—between them except on proper medical grounds, except on grounds of deferment, where they are entitled to it, except on grounds of their own choice of Service, which we give them as far as we can. Therefore while any hon. Member has a perfect right to raise individual cases, it is wrong to draw a general conclusion that National Service is either unfair or is bearing too hardly on one man as against another. It is for this reason that I, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, entirely reject any question of an inquiry as being in any way necessary under the circumstances.
Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.

PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE
  Pensioners, Cardiff (Hospital Spending Money)
  Pensioners, Cardiff (Hospital Spending Money)
  Beney Committee (Report)
  Beney Committee (Report)
MINISTRY OF SUPPLY
  Aircraft Production
  Aircraft Production
ELECTRICITY
  Underground Cables (Amenity Preservation Cost)
  Underground Cables (Amenity Preservation Cost)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Bacon Imports
  Bacon Imports
HOSPITALS
  Aged and Chronic Sick
  Aged and Chronic Sick
  Convalescent Homes
  Convalescent Homes
  New Programme (Bed Deficiencies)
  New Programme (Bed Deficiencies)
  Nurses (Domestic Duities)
  Nurses (Domestic Duities)
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Standing Pharmaceutical Advisory Committee
  Standing Pharmaceutical Advisory Committee
  Health Visitors (Pay and Conditions)
  Health Visitors (Pay and Conditions)
  DETAINED BRITISH SUBJECTS, SOVIET UNION
  DETAINED BRITISH SUBJECTS, SOVIET UNION
  MAURITIUS (EMIGRATION AND POPULATION)
  MAURITIUS (EMIGRATION AND POPULATION)
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  X-ray Dental Film
  X-ray Dental Film
POST OFFICE
  Park Telephone Exchange
  Park Telephone Exchange
  Facilities, Hartsholme-Swanpool
  Facilities, Hartsholme-Swanpool
SCOTLAND
  Renfrew Airport (Development Scheme)
  Renfrew Airport (Development Scheme)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Wear and Tear Allowances (Horticultural Industry)
  Wear and Tear Allowances (Horticultural Industry)
TRANSPORT
  Farm Tractor Trailers (Registration Marks)
  Farm Tractor Trailers (Registration Marks)