I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

This is an eminently reasonable request to make to the Government because it involves, after all, a once-and-for-all payment in what is a once-and-for-all expenditure for the new metropolitan county authorities.

The new metropolitan counties and the three new non-metropolitan counties have what we consider to be a completely unreasonable burden in the initial provision of accommodation for their staffs. The existing counties have the advantage of their own established buildings. Many of the existing counties, such as Durham, for instance, have magnificent county halls where, in a great number of cases, rather than being subject to increasing pressure many are being relieved of pressure because the counties are contracting rather than expanding.

It may well be argued that some of the existing counties, because of the new geographical borders of the new non-metropolitan counties, may wish to relocate their county headquarters. But I would strongly contest that wish. In any event, even in the case of a county which finds that its existing headquarters is far removed from the new geographical centre, it has at least the advantage of great realisable assets, which is something which the new metropolitan counties do not have.

In addition to the problem of making immediate provision for their staffs, the new metropolitan counties must also make provision for the police and fire services. The allocation for locally-determined schemes is very small—certainly for the Tyne-Wear county, in which it is hardly enough to meet existing commitments. I doubt very much whether that does not apply also to the other metropolitan county authorities. This means that the cost of providing accommodation for the staffs of the new metropolitan counties would have to be met from revenue, which compounds the problem.

I can speak with authority about only one area, but I have no doubt that my hon. Friends will speak about other metropolitan counties. I speak with some authority about the new Tyne and Wear metropolitan county. It has had a dreadful problem in finding office accommodation anywhere. That is fairly well spread out in a number of buildings and it is a costly proposition. The staff have one piece of temporary office accommodation which is costing £52,000 per year. They also have what I would call semi-permanent accommodation at Sandyford House, which they have rented for five years. The rent of that accommodation for eight months of this year is £193,150. There are two other buildings fairly close in which there are staff and the rent for three months for those two buildings is £67,350. In a full year, therefore, the cost of renting buildings for the Tyne and Wear staff will be £611,125.

The new Tyne and Wear authority has had something of a bonus in that it has been able to purchase for £300,000 the old NCB headquarters at Ashington. Mercifully the necessary adaptations to the building will be reasonably small. The fire service in the Tyne and Wear area will adapt a temporary building at a cost of £56,400.

To add to the costs which I have mentioned, the furnishing, fuel and lighting for the next year will be £181,600. Further, the unfortunate ratepayers of the new authority will be lumbered this year with a bill of £1,149,100. That is to get the new authority off the ground.

I think that I have established firmly a case for the Tyne and Wear authority. I have no doubt that other hon. Members will establish equally strong cases for other authorities. I anticipate that other Members will speak about the three newly created non-metropolitan counties.

I think that I have said sufficient to persuade the Government that this is a worthwhile new clause which they should not have any difficulty in accepting. If I were insisting that a new clause should be accepted which would burden the Government with an annual expenditure, I could understand that the right hon. Gentleman would want to resist its inclusion. As I have said, this is a once-and-for-all payment. I hope that the Government will give it sympathetic consideration.

Tyne and Wear will much appreciate the points whioh have been put forward by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Robert C. Brown). I find that in general Governments find it awfully difficult to adopt a particular case. They are good at dealing with an overall plan which fits into their concept—for example, when we were told yesterday what they would do about the city centres. Governments are not so good at dealing with the matters which have been raised by the hon. Gentleman.

We should have thought out this matter before. I have said on several occasions relating to other aspects concerning the North that during the last war the North was allowed nothing because the assessment was that it was no good to give it anything because it was more than likely to be bombed. That assessment happened to be wrong. No one is complaining about the assessment because it was the correct assessment at the time. However, when we begin a new local government operation we should not be faced with a situation in which Tyne and Wear will not be in a position to build some of the fine buildings which have been built in other areas. It would not be right for the authority to be faced with that expenditure when the Government have decided, for good or ill, that we shall have a reorganisation of local government.

I am worried that my right hon. Friend does not appear to have realised the difficulties which will arise when authorities have to find suitable accommodation. I do not see why authorities such as Tyne and Wear should have to put up with such difficulties. It was right that from the national point of view of winning the war that the North had to put up with all sorts of difficulties because of its geographical situation, but I do not see why, when we are starting something which is new, we should have to put up with inefficient, crowded or unsatisfactory accommodation. Those of us who represent areas in the North will expect action from the Government.

I agree with the hon. Member for Tyne-mouth (Dame Irene Ward) that the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment have not fully grasped the problems which face the counties which are being established by the local government reorganisation. The House has spent a lot of time on that reorganisation. Some areas have had little change and they accepted it willingly. Other areas have had substantial change and they have been extremely unwilling to accept it.

I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the problems facing a new county which has to start from scratch. I expect that hon. Members will have seen the article which appeared in The Times on 21st January about the building or renting of office accommodation. The article referred to the impact on the office market last year resulting from heavy demand in provincial cities, much of that demand resulting from the restructuring of local government. Apart from accommodation, there is the need to acquire furnishings and equipment. In that regard great difficulty has been experienced.

There is also the difficulty, which I have tried to raise with the right hon. Gentleman over some months, about the staffing of the new authorities and the appointment of senior officers. The appointment of those officers at inflated salaries has aroused a great deal of anxiety. On 25th October I had an answer from the right hon. Gentleman. He said:

"The determination of salaries for chief officers is a matter for local authorities— … and … the Pay Board."[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th October 1973; Vol. 861, c. 633.)

So great has the concern become about the appointments of senior officers that on 20th December the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House admitted in response to an inquiry from myself that the Government were finding that local government reorganisation was resulting in some local authorities greatly expanding the size of their bureaucracies. The right hon. Gentleman later said:

"expectations have gone wrong … in connection with staffing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th December 1973; Vol. 866, c. 1729.]

Such matters are placing a burden on the ratepayers of the new authorities.

In an attempt to find out what the Government were prepared to do about the matter, I asked about estimates which were made for the new authorities. The right hon. Gentleman, on 10th December 1973, said that £15 million was included in the relevant expenditure forecasts for 1974–75 to take account of the cost of establishing new authorities and of paying new members' attendance allowances. He went on to say that the forecasts were prepared nationally and not on an authority-by-authority basis.

4.0 p.m.

I probed the matter further. On 15th January I asked him how the £15 million was broken down between the cost of establishing the new authorities and paying the new members' attendance allowances. The right hon. Gentleman replied that the local authority associations, in discussions with his Department, had produced a broad overall assessment of cost and this was not broken down into separate parts.

That is so vague that I do not think that the Department is thoroughly seized of the problem. This vagueness was repeated yesterday in the rate support grant, where in Annex B on page 9 there is merely the mention that

"Particular provision has been made, where appropriate, for additional costs arising from local government reorganisation".

We do not even know what is covered by "where appropriate". We do not know what sum is being made available. We do not know how it is being divided up between authorities or on what basis it is being divided up between authorities. The right hon. Gentleman must explain more fully.

In answer to the hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen), who asked

"What special measures has the Secretary of State in mind to help those county authorities whose provision has been drastically cut in size"

the Secretary of State said this:

"… it will be necessary to look at the position county by county, but we have borne in mind the difficulties which arise when entirely new authorities are created. Some will receive an additional percentage of the total grant available."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd January 1974 ; Vol. 867, c. 1476.]

We are still in the dark about what sort of action the Government are prepared to take. We need reassurance.

I will now speak briefly on the question of one of the non-metropolitan counties mentioned in the clause. When Avon, where I am now a representative, began there were no premises ; the authority possessed nothing. There was not even a desk or a typewriter. The problems of setting up this authority and the costs involved have been very closely followed and documented in the local Evening Post, which from time to time has given the general public glimpses of costs.

In December there was a report about the leasing of Avon House—a large office development on the Haymarket—at a rental of £100,000 a year plus rates and a service charge of £26,000. This month we are told that a further phase of the Copthall development there is to be rented at a cost of £250,000 a year plus rates, and it is freely reported that the cash situation will mean that the Avon accounts will be in the red in January.

I have heard only today that a report is going to the council tomorrow asking for overdraft facilities to borrow up to £5 million—it must be borne in mind that this will be at interest rates of approximately 14 per cent. to 17 per cent.—to cover expenditure in the next five months. The whole thing appears to be proving far more expensive than was at first thought, because my understanding is that only about seven to 10 days previously the discussions were centring round a sum of about £3 million and it has now risen to £5 million.

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what support we are to get? It is a great tragedy that probably the Minister's mind is now made up on the support we are to have. I submit that his mind has been made up on inadequate information.

The Secretary of State talks about looking at things county by county. I believe that we should have had more chance to explain our position before a decision was taken. Only yesterday I tabled a Question to the Secretary of State asking when he would see a deputation of Members of Parliament and civic leaders from the County of Avon to put this problem to him.

The Government insisted on Avon, and many Bristolians are beginning to ask what was the point of reorganisation ; what benefit are we supposed to be getting from it? They can see no benefit. The Government, having willed the existence of the new authority, should at least will the means to get it off the ground.

I have quoted the Minister's words at him before. I will repeat them. When he opened Avon House he described the new county as "a bonny bouncing baby". Bristolians feel that they have been left holding the baby. I ask the Minister to give the new county a good start. We would like things to be ship-shape and Bristol fashion, and I say to the Minister, "Please do not spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar."

I want to address myself to you, Mr. Speaker, rather than to the matter under discussion. The House has become more and more a specialist forum for more and more specialist debates. This afternoon we are debating a highly boring, tedious and specialist matter—[Hon. Members: "No."]—though it may be very interesting to the 12 hon. Members besides myself who are present.

We are told that this is a matter of grass roots democracy. The Liberal Party keeps telling us that Liberals are the people of the grass roots democracy. There are no Liberal Members present. There are six members of the Liberal Party, four of them on, as it were, the shadow pay roll. There are six members of my party present, two of them on the real pay roll. There are 12 hon. Members in all.

I know that it is out of order to refer to the Gallery, but looking through the back of my head I can count a good many more than 12 people up there. Looking in front of me I can count about six reporters, although two of them are on the pay roll of the OFFICIAL REPORT. The point I seek to make to you, Mr. Speaker, is that through your Conference which deals with the affairs of this House we should review our procedures for dealing with Measures of this sort—they are of great importance but are purely technical and are of only limited interest—and change things.

I am not speaking from a constituency point of view. The reorganisation of local government in my part of the world is small compared with what the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks) has just said about his part of the world. I quite appreciate that the new County of Avon is a matter of great importance to the hon. Gentleman and his area. To us in our part of the world the reorganisation is not so vast. I am very concerned about where the House is going and what is to be the position in the future.

Order. I have allowed the hon. Gentleman considerable latitude. I do not think that he is addressing his argument to the new clause. He has made a reference to the Conference over which I am presiding. That is a conference about election to the House, not about how the House conducts its affairs. How the House conducts its affairs is for the Select Committee on Procedure. If the hon. Gentleman has any further remarks to make, he should address them to the new clause.

In conclusion, I hope that the Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure will read tomorrow's Hansard.

May I on behalf of my colleagues welcome the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) to our deliberations. It is not often that we see him here. Whenever he is here he endeavours to make a contribution, if only it is eating an apple on the benches. I do not take the same view as the hon. Gentleman. I know that many of my colleagues are at present engaged in a number of committees of my party upstairs considering important matters such as trying to get this country back to a more stable industrial base by bringing about a settlement of many of the things that have occurred.

I turn to the new clause very quickly, Mr. Speaker, because I can see that I am causing some agitation. As a London Member I listened with increasing sympathy and understanding to the case presented by my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Robert C. Brown) and Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks). London was reorganised 10 years ago and the fears of my hon. Friends about local authorities—anxious about the increased costs, growing bureaucracy, the absence of any dramatic improvement of services to compensate at least for the dramatic increase in rates and costs—having come to pass in London, I, too, support the new clause because if the Government of the same complexion who forced upon London an unwanted reorganisation have now decided to take some action on the rest of the country they surely, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South, ought to will the means to enable their own policies to be implemented.

The new clause calls for the special one-off grant to enable the new county authorities to provide buildings, furnishing and equipment so that they can discharge their duties. It is an essential requirement. My own local authority, the London borough of Bexley, is still suffering because in the London reorganisation the Government of the day failed to make the kind of provision which my hon. Friends are now requesting through the new clause. In Bexley we are still split into four town halls with an enormous extra cost thrust upon our local ratepayers. Indeed, in the first year of full authority of the new London borough there was a rate increase of about 14 per cent. due entirely to the effects of reorganisation. I have no doubt whatsoever that the rest of the country will face a similar serious financial burden as a direct result of the reorganisation.

The least that the Government can do is to accept the new clause to enable local authorities, by the grant, to try to bring together their departments into one place and to ensure that the accommodation is such that the extra costs are kept to a minimum.

I do not believe it right that the ratepayers in the rest of the country should have placed upon them the burdens that London has had to bear without the lessons of London being taken into account by the Government. The Government can learn those lessons and take them into account if they accept the new clause, thus enabling new local authorities to start without the burden which we have had to bear in London.

I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) that the facts which have been aired about the effects of the existing legislation on local authorities are of great value and show the usefulness of a debate of this type. Whether one calls it "technical" or "of limited interest", it is important that the facts should be known and should be considered by the Government. I cannot say that I can be optimistic about the result, but I appreciate that the argument is that this is a once-for-all grant towards the initial costs of office accommodation, furnishing and equipment due to the difficulties of a number of new county councils.

Would my right hon. Friend not agree, however interesting this may be to a handful of hon. Members' that it might be better if the procedures of the House were altered in some way so that debates of this sort do not occupy the Chamber at great cost to the nation and with the negligible attention of hon. Members?

It is important that all aspects of local government should be discussed in the House since local government is the second biggest spender of national income. It is important that these problems should be examined.

I was a little piqued when I was told by my hon. Friend and Opposition hon. Members that I did not realise what was happening or that I did not know anything about the subject, especially by the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks). I opened the Avon County Council offices on the 4th August. Having seen those offices, I cannot say that I would be happy at the quality of the accommodation, but at least it is adequate. In my frequent visits to other parts of the country I have discussed the problem of the standard of accommodation with other county councils. The position is that all new local authorities will face some special administrative problems in their first year, which are likely to require some degree of special expenditure.

Even an authority, whether county or district, which inherits unchanged geographical areas from its predecessor will have a different range of services to cope with and the period of transition will involve a degree of dislocation and expense. Boundary changes may involve further transitional problems concerning either a sudden expansion of services over a wider area or contraction of services within a smaller area. Indeed, strong representations have been made by new county councils, which will inherit a reduced area from predessors, about the difficulty in the short term of scaling down their services in proportion to loss of population.

There are problems not only for those who have been selected for assistance in the amendment but problems for almost all the new local authorities during the transitional period.

The new clause singles out a particular class of authority as being deserving of special treatment, the once-for-all payment this year to help them over the transitional period. The problem of Avon, for example, and some other authorities, is that they will not, for general purpose property, be the legatees of existing authorities. On the other hand Humber-side and West Yorkshire, both included in the new clause, directly or indirectly, will be general purpose legatees of the East Riding and West Riding County Councils respectively. There are different problems even for those authorities included in the new clause.

It would be impossible to give special transitional grants to one class of authority without doing justice to others. That was the principle on which the Government worked in deciding, in consultation with local authority associations, the amount of rate support grant. The best we have been able to do is to include in the forecast of relevant expenditure on a percentage of which the rate support grant is paid a national expenditure total for next year in respect of the transitional period.

The figure was raised by the local authority associations. We asked for their views about what would be a reasonable figure to include in relevant expenditure for the transitional period. It includes more—£15 million has been mentioned—than perhaps merely office accommodation, but it is intended to cover, in an overall way, the expense of the transition of local government from the existing authorities to the new authorities on 1st April.

It is reasonable to say that reorganisation has not increased the total sphere of local government administration. Fewer functions than before will be administered. It is true that they will be administered by different authorities but they will be administered through 400 authorities where 1,400 exist at present.

We have reduced, or should have reduced, administration by the reorganisation of local government, but I appreciate that the transition stage, setting up new authorities, means moving house, which is expensive. The rate support grant, based on the relevant expenditure, which included the global sum of £15 million for this, will, I hope, be sufficient when the distribution is announced, which will be as soon as possible. The formulae have of course been announced.

It is not a question of the new metropolitan counties having to move house. I hope that the Minister is not missing the point. They are in fact in the position of first-time house buyers. In view of what has been said about first-time buyers, he might think in the same terms about these councils.

The hon. Gentleman is right to pick me up about that. I agree that in many cases they will be "buying a home" for the first time. But I would ask the districts, who should have some accommodation to spare, to assist in these cases. In many areas, they have done so. Some counties have been able to use accommodation provided by the districts. That is right, because, if the rate support grant figure when distributed is not sufficient, the cost will fall on the precept made by the counties on the districts. So it will be to the benefit of the districts to assist. I am sure that ratepayers will be grateful if their districts and their counties can get together in that way.

Without the reorganisation of local government finance under the Bill, Avon and many other counties would have been much worse off. I can assure the hon. Member for Bristol, South that Avon and its districts should, overall, get a significantly greater share of grant than if we had kept the 1966 Act in force for another year. The same goes for the metropolitan counties. In fact, under the new formulae, it will be a good thing for them to replace the 1966 Act with this Bill.

I cannot hold out any hope for a special grant. We will keep a close eye on whether the distribution is sufficient for county authorities. I have been only too willing to discuss this with the authorities concerned. The hon. Member for Bristol, South has asked to bring a deputation to me on the matter and I have already said that I am only too happy to receive it. I have discussed this with other counties.

I do not finally close the door ; I simply say that I cannot do anything about it at present. But during the next months, let us discuss the position and see whether it is a serious matter, in which case I could possibly make representations in some other way.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the new clause was supported by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Robert C. Brown)? All that my right hon. Friend has done is talk about Avon, about which he seems to know quite a lot. He has not addressed one remark to the problem on Tyne and Wear. As for the reference to dealing with the matter "county by county", Tyne and Wear is two counties. Will he not address any comment at all to this point? It is impolite to the hon. Member, who did a very good service to our area, when he is not really affected himself. I am not going to vote for the Government, let me tell you that.

I regret it if my hon. Friend considers me discourteous. I acknowledged, I thought generously, the facts brought forward by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West. I know the district quite well and I have discussed these difficulties with the county and with representatives from that area. There was no intention of discourtesy. I picked on the hon. Member for Bristol, South because he was sitting glaring at me in front and I thought that I had better calm him down. My hon. Friend is behind me, and I do not always see her.

The comments of the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) are understandable. The Minister spoke of authorities coping by scratching around the districts for accommodation—a most unseemly way for new councils to begin life. There are some areas—I understand that the area of the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Robert C. Brown) is one—in which there is no accommodation which could be taken from the districts. Tyne and Wear authority has had to establish new premises in Newcastle at considerable expense. I can therefore understand the hon. Lady being unwilling to vote with her own party when her constituency is affected.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks) graphically described the difficulties of the new Avon county. I should like to talk to the Minister about the county that we know best, the new metropolitan county of Merseyside. That is in the same difficult position as Tyne and Wear. It has had to go to the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo to hire office premises. It will have to hire furniture, equipment, typewriters and, presumably, computer time. This is all costly. Authorities might be financing these things out of revenue at the moment, but in the long term they will have to precept for this expenditure.

In his closing remarks the Minister gave me some encouragement when he said that the Government will be sympathetic if the plight of these new authorities becomes evident. But the clause says that that plight is evident now and that aid must be given now since we are getting nearer to 1st April, the magic date when the new metropolitan counties and the three non-metropolitan counties mentioned in the new clause will have to start their statutory duties. If they are already in these dire straits concerning office equipment, furnishings and so on, surely now is the time for the House to decide that since we created them—the metropolitan counties are certainly creatures of the Government—we shall start them off in life with the equipment necessary to carry out their duties.

4.30 p.m.

The clause is not concerned with the frills of local government, with the maces, the council chambers and the members' retiring rooms. It is about the bread-and-butter issues of typewriters, desks, copying equipment and all the things that a local authority needs to get on with its work. There is a big difference between the authorities mentioned in the clause and those in being. I instance the case of Lancashire, an authority I know well because my wife served upon it, and that of Cheshire, on which she now serves. These authorities will face difficulties but they have a county hall, office equipment, computers and the wherewithal to continue, although they may be much smaller authorities than they were previously.

However, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, Avon and West Midlands all have to start from scratch. They are in a very different position from the luckier county council, the shire county or possibly, to a limited degree, the counties of Humberside and West Yorkshire which have better provision in that they at least have premises which they inherited from shire counties. The Minister knows that we spent this morning in Committee discussing an order which will transfer the administration of superannuation funds from the districts to the county councils. As I said this morning, most of the county councils are concerned that they have no computers to operate that scheme. They will have to go back to the district councils to borrow computers to carry out the essential work of compiling statistics for the funds.

This is a reasonable clause. It asks the Government, on a once-for-all basis for the year 1974–75 only, to provide the wherewithal for the babies they created—the new metropolitan counties—and the three non-metropolitan counties which did not exist before the Local Government Act came into operation. Those authorities desperately need these facilities. The Minister well knows how much Merseyside in particular needs them. Merseyside has no district council accommodation that it can inherit in Liverpool, and Liverpool is the obvious centre for the new Merseyside County Council.

It is unseemly for the authorities to have to start off by trapesing round the district councils trying to locate spare rooms. It is also far more costly to have office accommodation scattered all over the county, with all that that involves, instead of having it located in one building. If a central building is to be used, however, it will have to be rented because the authorities will have no capital to buy their new town hall. Even if they had the capital, the Government probably would not let them build it because of the emergency restrictions and the state of the economy. Therefore, a central building must be rented, probably at very high cost. There is also the hire of furnishings and equipment.

Although I welcome what the Minister said in the concluding part of his speech

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it correct that the names printed above new Clause 10 are the only ones that were handed in? You will see that both names are those of Opposition Front Bench Members, and in virtually every other case there are three names to our amendments. I wonder whether this is a printer's error. Could it be checked with a view to its being corrected?

I am prepared to have this matter checked, but I have no reason to think that other names were handed in.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With new Clause 10 it will be convenient to discuss new Clause 11—Officers and servants of London Transport Executive not to be disqualified from serving on Greater London Council.

We can also discuss the following Government amendments:

No. 40 in Schedule 7, page 65, line 40, at end insert:

'9A. In section 81 of the Local Government Act 1972 (exceptions to provisions about disqualification in section 80) after subsection (3) shall be inserted the following subsection:—

• "(3A) Section 80(1)(a) above shall not operate to disqualify any person for being elected of being the chairman, vice-chairman, deputy chairman or an alderman or councillor of the Greater London Council by reason of his being employed by the London Transport Executive or any subsidiary of theirs."'.

No. 42, in page 65, line 41 leave out 'the Local Government Act 1972' and insert 'that Act'.

No. 53, in the Title, line 16, after 'amendments', insert 'of or'.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks) for his convenient and timely point of order. I do not know why his name is missing from this new clause. It may have been an oversight when submitting the clause because, as he suggests, his name has usually been included.

I understand from the Government amendments that at least the substance of new Clause 11 has been agreed to by the Government. This concerns London. London Transport Executive was concerned whether its employees could be members of the Greater London Council because of the effects of Section 81 of the Local Government Act 1972. The Minister for Local Government and Development gave an undertaking in Committee that he would look into this. As always, he has honoured his undertaking and has produced an amendment which deals more satisfactorily than my new clause with the position in London.

Although the Government have conceded the position in London, they have not done so for authorities elsewhere. The same problems will still arise when employees of a passenger transport executive may be prevented from serving on the relevant county council. We have discussed this on many occasions and one Friday we spent most of the day debating a motion on this subject introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) dealing with the overall question of the rights of employees of councils to serve as members if they were below a certain grade. Obviously, one would not imagine that a town clerk or a borough treasurer would wish to do so.

There seems to be no reason why a clerk or a bus driver or conductor should not sit as a member of a council. The 1972 Local Government Act, unintentionally rather than wilfully, disfranchised a further section of the community from sitting as members of a local authority. They were employees of passenger transport authorities. The Government have conceded the position regarding London, which I greatly welcome, because it would have been a glaring anomaly if the Bill had taken away existing rights of employees of the London Passenger Transport Executive who were serving on the authority. However, I regret that the Government have not seen fit to amend the law generally with regard to passenger transport employees throughout the country, as envisaged in my clause.

I shall not ask the House to divide on the clause, possibly out of gratitude for Amendment No. 40 and for the Government's acceptance of the substance of New Clause 11. However, I ask the right hon. Gentleman and the Secretary of State to reconsider the matter. I do not think that the Government intend for one moment to prevent bus drivers, conductors and inspectors serving on county councils and local authorities. I am certain from what the right hon. Gentleman said, in particular his replies to debates, that this is an accident of the Bill. With transport having been brought under the control of county councils, these other spheres of local government have been dragged into the net and employees have been deprived of serving on local authorities, because in theory there is a possibility that a passenger transport executive would decide that the county council would personally appoint each bus driver and conductor. That could not happen in practice.

I ask the Government to look into the whole question of disqualification of the more ordinary employees of local authorities from serving on them, which neither side of the House wants. Possibly it should be dealt with in a separate Bill. I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's amendment, tabled in accordance with his undertaking in Committee, which will at least relieve the position in London.

I emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) said. I have in mind colleagues who can now stand for election to the metropolitan district authority in the Tyne-Wear area but cannot stand for election to the county authority in that area, for the reason which my hon. Friend has mentioned. That is ludicrous. There is no reason why they should be denied the opportunity of standing for the metropolitan county.

I understood that in Committee we had reached an understanding that if we could broaden the range to enable such people to stand we might need to consider that they might not be able to vote on certain subjects. It is wrong to prevent those who could make a valuable contribution from doing so. In this day and age we should look at the matter again.

So far as the clause deals with the London Transport Executive and the Greater London Council, the ground is covered by Government Amendment No. 40, which I shall come to in a moment. But so far as it seeks to extend the same principle to passenger transport executives outside London, the situation is different.

The existing disqualification rule applicable to employees should continue to operate here, as elsewhere in local government, until the Redcliffe-Maud Committee has reported. What I said in Committee is still relevant. The Redcliffe-Maud Committee has to consider:

"qualification or disqualification for service as a member of a local authority or of any of its committees."

That clearly includes disqualification by virtue of employment. I accept that part of the clause which refers to the London Transport Executive, because it merely clarifies the existing law. That part is repeated in new Clause 11, and I have tried to put it in clear language in Amendment No. 40. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not mind if we substitute the parliamentary draftsman's edition for his own in new Clause 11.

In Committee I undertook to look again at the need for a provision specifically declaring that employees of the London Transport Executive were not disqualified for membership of the Greater London Council. The legal advice I received after the Committee remained exactly the same as I had previously, namely that the provision is strictly unnecessary, but I realise that the employees concerned had also received legal advice which was exactly contrary. There is, therefore, a risk. In these circumstances I am willing to resort to the dubious device of a declaratory provision, if it will satisfy all parties. I shall ask the House to accept it when I move Amendment No. 40.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The clause is on the very old question of Crown rating. Crown property—by which I mean not only Windsor Castle and the property under the ownership of Her Majesty the Queen, but also any Government property, and any property held by nationalised industries, with few exceptions—is rated in an entirely different way from the ordinary rating system. All other industrial property is rated by a valuation officer. A valuation is fixed which can be argued between the owners of a property and the local authority involved. The matter can go to the valuation court to be argued, and ultimately to the Lands Tribunal, if there is a dispute between the local authority and the occupier of the premises. For Crown property the compensation figure in lieu of rateable value is not fixed by the district valuer, but by the Treasury. There is no appeal to any court or body against the figure which the Treasury fixes.

Local authorities have long felt aggrieved at this situation, which has continued for hundreds of years. I understand, from historical research, that it arose as long ago as the time when a petition was presented from the villages surrounding Hampton Court Palace. When the palace was being built they were aggrieved at the fact that when the men building it were laid off the parish rates had to suffer, by providing what was then the equivalent of supplementary benefit for the builders who were no longer being paid. It was a grievous burden on the parish. The then monarch gave a grant of £50 to the parish council for the relief of those labourers. From those innocent seventeenth century beginnings the whole edifice of Crown rating has arisen and persists even to this day.

5.0 p.m.

It is interesting that 100 years ago, on 30th March 1874, the Minister's right hon. and deceased Friend, Mr. Disraeli, told the House that he would shortly be able to give a definite reply on the anomaly of Crown rating. We on this side of the House have indeed been patient. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will now tell us, 100 years later, that the Bill is the most convenient vehicle to get rid of this ancient, anachronistic anomaly of our rating system, which bears grievously at times on local authorities.

Local authorities are understandably irritated by the fact that there is no appeal against a Treasury decision. The Treasury fixes the sum and the local authority has to accept it.

In the days when the Post Office was under the control of the House, and Goon-hilly Down in Cornwall was therefore Crown property, it was rated at a ludicrously small sum. After the passage of the Post Office Corporation Act, about £40,000 was added to that rateable value, when a proper valuation was made by the valuation officer on its ceasing to be Crown property. There must be many other instances throughout the country.

Some of the effects are seen in my constituency at a level of local government that we rarely discuss in the House, important though it is, the parish council. In my constituency there is the parish of Halewood, within which there is a Ford Motor Company factory. It is probably one of the richest parishes in the country, because its 1p rate when levied on the Ford Motor Company produces sufficient for the parish to have two parish halls and all sorts of amenities. Yet other parishes within my constituency and within the same rural district of Whiston, one of them, Cronton, having a coal mine and another, Bold, having an electricity power station as well as a coal mine, are unable to gain benefit from those Crown properties, apart from the grant they receive from the rural district council, a subvention paid to the rating authority because the properties are not rated in the ordinary way. As a result there are great inequalities, which are nonsensical in this day and age.

There is no reason why all property, industrial, commercial and otherwise, whether or not in the ownership of the Crown, should not be rated in the ordinary way by the valuation officer. Valuation officers have very difficult rating assessments to carry out today in regard to aspects of industrial property that is not nationalised and is not Government property. They do their difficult calculations successfully. I see no reason why this major Bill, which will affect local government for a number of decades, should not be the instrument whereby the anachronism of Crown rating is abolished, so that each property in each local authority area would be valued in the ordinary way, and at least the local authority would feel that it had been properly dealt with and had a body to which it could appeal.

There should be no loss to the nationalised industries. If there was a loss, it would mean that they were being unfairly rated now. Local authorities would have the satisfaction of knowing that they could appeal to a proper court, as they can with regard to any other valuation of other hereditaments in their areas.

A hundred years after Disraeli's promise to the House, I ask the Government to give sympathetic consideration to doing away with this anachronism so that all properties, whether Crown properties or not, pay their just and fair share of rates to help the local authority in whose area they are situated.

The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) gave us some very interesting historical facts. He said that an amendment was promised 100 years ago, on 30th March 1874. Perhaps I should tell him to wait the hundred years, and that then we shall reconsider his amendment.

I cannot go even as far as that. The purpose of the clause, which I acknowledge is sponsored by local authority associations, is to make the Crown liable to rates on the property it occupies. As I read the clause, it would not affect properties such as those belonging to the National Coal Board, including the coal mines in part of the hon. Gentleman's constituency, because the board pays on a formula in the same way as the gas and electricity undertakings and other public enterprises do.

I know the great advantage which the parish of Halewood derives from the presence of the motor manufacturers there. It was only on Monday of this week that, very early in the morning in order to catch a plane for a speaking engagement, I drove through Halewood and the village of Hale, of which the hon. Gentleman is a Freeman as a result of the 1972 Local Government Act.

If the clause were accepted we should also have to repeal Section 37 of the General Rates Act 1967, which deals with entries in the valuation lists of property which is occupied by the Crown and on which contributions in lieu of rates are paid.

Currently, property occupied by the Crown is not liable to rates, though the Crown makes a contribution in lieu of rates calculated on the basis of a valuation placed on the property by the Treasury Valuer. The valuation itself is not subject to review by the courts. During the consultations on the Green Paper on the finance of local government the local authority associations were unanimously of the view that Crown property should be assessed and rated in the same way as other property. But in any case the associations considered that the assessment of Crown property should be open to appeal in the valuation courts and the Lands Tribunal in the same manner as other assessments. They considered that this change would be facilitated if responsibility for making the assessments were transferred from the Treasury Valuer to the Valuation Office of the Inland Revenue. I agree that if these suggestions were adopted, the present delay in the revaluation of Crown property, in the view of the local authority associations themselves, would be avoided. Certainly, that delay is an inconvenience, to say the least, to local authorities.

I know that local authorities have in the past consistently criticised the arrangements for contributions in lieu of rates on Crown property, but in practice the number of individual complaints about valuations placed upon Crown properties by the Treasury Valuer has been minimal.

The procedure is perhaps illogical, but it seems to work quite fairly. The case hitherto made by the local authorities in support of the full rating of Crown property is based mainly upon the proposition that the system should not only be fair but should be seen to be fair. In practice, it seems to be fair, and the Crown makes by way of contribution in lieu of rates the same sort of payment that it would make if the property were subject to rates.

This was shown in the recent change of status of the Post Office. In some cases the local authorities did not do so well out of Post Office property as they had when the Treasury Valuer was valuing it. Moreover, for security reasons it is not possible to bring all Crown properties, including defence establishments, within the present rating system. For these reasons the rating of Crown property has been resisted not only by this Government but by previous Governments of different parties.

We have not casually disregarded the representations made to us by the local authority associations. We have looked to see, first, whether there is a case for altering the system of valuation and, secondly, whether there are any grounds for the complaint that there is no appeal. We have sympathy with the point made by local authority associations and by the hon. Gentleman that there is no appeal. I am considering whether we can provide any form of arbitration or review if the contribution in lieu of rates seems to be unfair in any particular case. Such a procedure would be extra-statutory. It does not need statutory provision. I give the assurance that we are looking into it, although I cannot give an undertaking how the consideration will turn out in the end. The matter is not being disregarded, and I am in sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman said about the absence of any form of appeal.

I appreciate what the Minister has said about the inquiry that is being made into the possibility of an appeal procedure. May I go a little wider, to ask whether comparable consideration can be given to the related matter of agricultural rerating which, for understandable reasons, is not raised formally by an amendment but which still worries local authorities. A good deal of agricultural land is also Crown property. Local authorities are concerned about this, although the difficulties are well understood.

The operative word is "hereditament", but I am prepared to overlook that if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to reply.

With the permission of the House, I merely say not in this Bill and not by this clause.

It could be dealt with otherwise than by the clause. I am very encouraged by what the right hon. Gentleman said about the review that the Government are making of the amount of contribution in lieu of rates paid by Government Departments and nationalised industries to local authorities.

The figures, which I have just received, concerning the satellite station in Cornwall, are sufficiently dramatic to give to the House. The valuation placed by the Treasury in 1969 on the Goonhilly Downs earth satellite station was £17,135. When the Post Office became a corporation and the satellite station was valued in the normal way, the valuation given to it was £40,070. Similar changes must have been repeated throughout the country. I therefore welcome what the Minister said about the Government's looking again at this question, and I ask them to do so urgently.

The right hon. Gentleman said that there are very few complaints, but when one is faced with a fait accompli and there is no one to whom to complain there are no complaints. The local authority cannot go to the valuation court or the Lands Tribunal. It must sit back and accept what the Treasury says. There is no formal channel for complaint unless it is to the Minister or the Chancellor of the Exchequer to complain about the conduct of civil servants in undervaluing a particular property. To say that there have not been complaints from local authorities is not a valid reason for saying that the procedure is satisfactory.

It is rare for all local authority bodies to be united on one object, but they are certainly united on this one. The towns and the countryside together all want assistance. I understand the right hon. Gentleman's argument about security at Army and Air Force bases. If the Government are not prepared to accept the cause, will they consider introducing a small Bill to give a right of appeal to the courts. It would be highly satisfactory to the local authorities concerned to know that there was an independent arbitrator to decide their claims.

I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman went through Halewood and Hale. He knows that he will always be royally received in those two parishes because of their deliverance at his hands from the fate they feared under the Local Government Bill.

Many parishes are losing out. This may not arise directly from the clause, but it arises indirectly. In addition to considering appeals, I should like the Government to find a way in which parish councils could, directly and not through the district council, receive some form of assistance from the nationalised industries by way of a subvention in the same way as they can claim a parish rate from the industries established within the parish. Industries that create the greatest environmental difficulties in an area are sometimes the ones that do not pay a penny to the upkeep of the parish.

As the Government are prepared to look at the figures, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 4, line 22, at beginning insert 'Except as provided by subsection (3A) below.'

With this amendment, it will also be convenient to take Government Amendments Nos. 2 and 3.

These amendments follow the undertaking I gave in Committee to consider introducing an amendment to enable the Secretary of State to provide in regulations for a proportion of the needs element otherwise payable to a non-metropolitan county to be paid instead to a non-metropolitan district. This does not indicate any intention of making any such regulation at present, but it is right to give the Secretary of State that power so that it may be considered as a possibility at some future date.

I welcome these amendments introduced by the Government, as the Minister said, in accordance with undertakings given in Committee. We accept that it will be exceptional for a part of the grant to be given direct to the non-metropolitan district and not to the county council. It was to meet exceptional circumstances that in Committee we asked for the power at least to be given because the Government had no power previously in this respect. I appreciate that in the main this will go to the non-metropolitan county, but there could be circumstances where the Government could consider giving part of the grant to the district council.

I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 6, line 46, at end insert:

'(4A) If, in a case where the Secretary of State proposes to make an order under subsection (1) above in respect of any year, it appears to him that, apart from any provision made by virtue of this subsection, the effect of the order and of any other order under subsection (1) above which he considers likely to be made in respect of that year would be that the ratio between the actual aggregrate amount of the resources element for that year and the aggregate amount of the needs element for that year would be significantly different from the ratio (in this subsection referred to as "the expected ratio") between the estimated aggregate amount of the resources element for that year, as fixed by the relevant rate support grant order, and the aggregate amount of the needs element, as so fixed, he may in the order under subsection (1) above—

(a) specify as the aggregate amount of the resources element for that year such amount as, in his estimation, will secure that (taking account of the effect of any further orders likely to be made under subsection (1) above in respect of that year) the ratio which the amount so specified will bear to the aggregate amount of the needs element for that year will be the expected ratio ; and

(b) in order to secure that the total amount paid in respect of the resources element to local authorities entitled to payments in respect of that element does not exceed the amount specified as mentioned in paragraph (a) above, make provision for a corresponding variation in the amount payable to each such authority in respect of that element'.

With this amendment, it will also be convenient to take Government Amendments Nos. 5 and 28.

The purpose of the amendment is to enable the Secretary of State, in the course of redetermining the grant amounts for any particular year, to adjust what would otherwise have been the actual aggregate amount of the resources element, and the part of it payable to each authority, to secure that, ultimately, the ratio between the aggregate amounts of the needs and the resources elements will be the same as the ratio between the amounts of those elements originally prescribed in the rate support grant order for that year.

This, perhaps, is not an easy matter to explain in short sentences in words of one syllable, but the position is that the resources element is calculated on the deficit in rateable value in any particular area below a standard line. To a great extent the authority itself can decide the amount of the resources element by its rate poundage. What happens is that the taxpayer comes in as ratepayer upon the deficit in rateable value in that particular area and the taxpayer comes in at the rate poundage decided by the authorities.

It was pointed out in Committee that the provisions of the Bill relating to the resources element as they stood threatened to work to the unfair disadvantage of authorities entitled to little or no resources element. The amount of the resources element payable to an authority was to be determined simply and solely by reference to its local deficiency in rateable value and its rate poundage for the year. The latter will not be known at the time of the original rate support grant order. Therefore, in distributing it we have to assume an average rate poundage.

For any authority which is not entitled to resources element because its total rateable value is above the standard line such authority may well suffer if there is a very high rate poundage so that it collects a considerable amount of resources element and unbalances the distribution of the rate support grant.

Let us suppose that a number of authorities were to set their rates unexpectedly high, whether because of over-allowance for the effects of inflation in the coming year or in the hope of accommodating a spending programme higher than could be tolerated by Government policy. The result would be to inflate the aggregate amount of the resources element. When the Secretary of State came to increase the grant total to take account of pay and price variations during the year, most of that increase would already have been pre-empted by the unexpected size of authorities' resources element entitlements, leaving little or nothing to be added to the aggregate of the needs element. In this situation the extravagant authorities which have overbid would gain at the expense of the others, and in particular of those which qualified barely if at all for resources element.

By the provisions of these amendments the Secretary of State would first consider whether the ratio of the aggregate of the needs and resources elements was, at the end of the day, going to be significantly different from the "expected" ratio that was assumed when making the distribution of the rate support grant—that is to say, the ratio between the amounts as originally prescribed in the rate support grant order. If so, he would be able to specify in the increase order an aggregate amount of the resources element which he judged would bear the "expected" ratio to the ultimate aggregate amount of the needs element.

5.30 p.m.

If there were likely to be a further increase order for the year, which we frequently have, the Secretary of State could allow in this calculation for the effect of that further order. Obviously, it would be needlessly disruptive to local authorities' financial planning if, in a first increase order, usually laid in November or December, the Secretary of State were to restore the "expected ratio" at the current level of prices by sharply reducing the resources aggregate, only to have to increase the resources aggregate again in a second increase order related to price increases that had taken place in the last three months of the year.

Finally, to round off the job, the amendment would require the Secretary of State to translate any change he had made in the aggregate amount of the resources element into a corresponding change in each authority's entitlement.

Inevitably, the consequence will be to remove the absolute certainty which the calculation method for the resources element would otherwise have given authorities as to their entitlement for the year. As any reduction in the aggregate amount must be followed by pro rata reductions in each authority's entitlement, it may be that authorities which have shown commendable restraint in setting their rates will suffer equally with those whose rating decisions have been responsible for the threatened upsetting of the "expected ratio". But, setting that disadvantage against the advantages of being able to restrain the authority or authorities which is or are getting an unfair advantage against the others, we must put up with that possible disadvantage of uncertainty to some authorities. The Government consider that any inequities on that score would be less serious than those which would follow from any serious distortion of the "expected ratio".

I apologise to the House if I appear to have stuck rather closely to my notes, but I think that local authorities will wish to consider what is said in support of the amendment. I hope that I have given an intelligible explanation.

I have listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman and I think I follow what he said. I am delighted that his hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) is not present in the Chamber, because he thought that it was boring when we had what in these debates is the high drama of a discussion on resources to newly created counties. What he would have thought, having listened to this debate, I shudder to think.

The one difficulty that I foresee is that of uncertainty. I realise that the right hon. Gentleman has had to weigh the balance between an unfair distortion, on the one hand, and creating uncertainty, on the other.

At present, local authorities are uncertain not only about this Bill but about many other things. To add another uncertainty in future may not be regarded too happily by treasurers and local authority associations. However, we must see how it works out in future. The right hon. Gentleman has rightly given a very full statement which can be considered in detail by local authorities and their associations, but, as I say, we must see how it works out. My only regret is that some element of uncertainty, albeit small, is created to get rid of what might be an unfair distortion to a particular authority. That uncertainty may be inevitable. We abide by the amendment and will wait to see how it works out.

I beg to move Amendment No. 68, in page 7, line 24, at end insert:

"(c) is of the opinion that the local authority is excessively staffed in relation to its size, functions, delegated responsibilities and agencies".

The purpose of the amendment is to give the Secretary of State power to control local authority expenditure on the staffing of the new local authorities. It has been said that the local authorities, under the previous Act, have created what is now unkindly called the greatest growth industry in the country. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Development is fully aware of the abnormal limits to which certain local authorities and county councils have extended their staffing. In some cases they are employing between two and three times the number of personnel required at greatly inflated—I use that word intentionally—salaries.

My right hon. Friend has had considerable correspondence with me on this matter and has made certain points. I am sure that he will not mind if I quote from the Under-Secretary's letter to me of 30th December, in which he implies that these matters could be regulated by reference to the Pay Board. With due deference to the Minister, I draw his attention to the fact that the Pay Board may be only transitory, whereas we hope that this measure will continue for a considerable number of years. The Under-Secretary wrote:

"In particular, the Board have made it clear to the local authorities that they need to be satisfied that the complements and grading of staff bear a proper relationship to the volume and level of work taken over from the old authorities."

I pose the simple question: is the Pay Board competent to determine this matter? The Department of the Environment created many of these local authorities and they should have the requisite expertise to effect this work. I refer my right hon. Friend to a quotation from the late President Harry Truman, "The buck stops here."

There is every reason for the amendment being included in the Bill. One question may be: is the Minister competent? In this respect I draw attention to subsection (1)(a), the first words of which are "is satisfied", and (b), the first words of which are "is of opinion". The amendment starts on the same basis, "is of the opinion". I suggest that it is well within the capacity of the Department of the Environment to keep a reasonable rein on the staffing and expenditure of local authorities. As matters stand, they would put the law created by the well-known Professor Parkinson to absolute shame.

I commend the amendment to my right hon. Friend and sincerely hope that he will accept it.

I must disappoint the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray), because the Opposition do not feel able to support the amendment. Nevertheless, it expresses quite a lot of widespread public disquiet about what may be happening as a result of local government reorganisation. At a time when we face a certain situation—I do not expect right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite to agree with my views on this matter—it is ironic to see advertisements for very junior posts in local authorities at salaries in excess of £50 a week compared with a particular claim that I will not attempt to discuss for fear of being ruled out of order. However, one can understand the annoyance of people who do a hard, dirty and dangerous job when comparatively easier jobs seem to be prolific.

We disagree with the hon. Gentleman because it is often too easy for those who are not connected with local government and do not, as hon. Members do, know how extremely hard local authorities work to be critical of everybody in the town hall and assume that all they do is drink tea all day—the old view of civil servants. That is not true of 99 per cent. of local authority staffs, who work extremely hard.

Because of the reorganisation of local government and the increase in size of authorities, the creation of new posts—or perhaps one could say the giving of new names to old posts—has provided a convenient method of avoiding phase 2, phase 3, or any other phase that may be introduced. There is a duty on local government authorities to prove conclusively to their electors that the new posts are necessary. That is why I disagree with the amendment. Basically, the decision ought to be taken by electors in the area if they think that their local council is being too lavish in the appointment and payment of its officers.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman up to a point, but any action taken by the local electors must, of necessity, be historical. They will be shutting the gate after the engagement has been effected and the staff have been employed for perhaps 18 or 24 months.

Local authorities cannot be expected to have the expertise available to the Department. I think the hon. Gentleman will accept that members of local councils can be blinded by the scientific jargon of officials, and that must be borne in mind.

I agree that there is that difficulty. Many of these are new councils dealing with new areas which they do not fully understand, and therefore they have to rely on what is normally the impeccable decision and judgment of their officers. On some occasions they have to rely too much on that advice because, due to the reorganisation of local government, they are not sure of the new area. They are accustomed to an urban district or a borough. When two or three areas are merged, with the resultant increase in population, those in charge do not necessarily know how many officers they will need or what their titles should be.

These new posts are being advertised not only for local government, but also to meet the proliferation of staff following the setting up of the water boards, the National Health Service reorganisation, and so on. What the hon. Gentleman said strikes a chord in me, as I am sure it does in many others. Some of these new posts provide a means of escaping the provisions of phase 2 and phase 3 at the expense of other workers in the community who have to abide by the rules of those policies.

Although the action may be historical, I maintain that this is a matter for the local inhabitants. Both sides of the House are concerned to ensure that local government is kept local. We want to give local government its head and its own powers. It would be tragic if the words in the amendment were added to the Bill, because the clause is already regarded with some suspicion by local authorities. They think that the Government are saying, on the one hand, that local government should be local and rule itself and, on the other, that the interfering busybody of Whitehall should tell local authorities what to do. It would be a severe curtailment of local freedom if local authorities had for ever to look over their shoulders and wonder whether the Secretary of State might come to the conclusion that they were over-staffed. If the amendment were accepted, that would have to be a judgment of the Secretary of State and not of the authority concerned.

5.45 p.m.

The hon. Gentleman has raised a problem that is in many people's minds. I hope that local authorities will consider the matter that he has raised and either give an explanation for what they are doing or solve the problem themselves. The last thing that I want to happen—and I think that in essence the Minister will say what I am saying—is for Whitehall to be given added power to tell a local authority what staff it should have or what its establishment should be. Therefore, although the hon. Gentleman was right to introduce the amendment, I must tell him that the Opposition would oppose it if it were put to a Division.

I agree almost entirely with what was said by the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes). There is considerable public disquiet about the apparent growth in the staffing of the new local authorities, and I hope that they will pay the most careful attention to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray), the hon. Member for Widnes and anybody else who emphasises the problem. I have no doubt that many members of the public are beginning to feel that the rates which they will have to pay and the grants which will be received from the Government will be used to far too great an extent on administrative manpower, rather than on the provision of services which they require.

There is a difficulty from the local authorities' point of view. As my hon. Friend said, many local authorities are covering new areas and there are many new councillors and councils who have not had a chance to shake down. They are still looking round and finding their feet, and have not had adequate time in which to assess the situation. On the other hand, senior council officers are often planning for the ideal number of staff for their departments, or perhaps for more than what would otherwise be the ideal number because they do not know the potential of their new staff, or what any given number of them will be capable of doing, whereas they did know what their old staff could do. Local government officers do have a problem.

The best that we can do in this House is to emphasise to locally elected representatives that they should exercise their responsibilities for the employment of new staff with the maximum care, remembering perhaps above all that almost never is there a cut in staff. They should remember that they will have opportunities in future, if it proves necessary, to increase their staff, but we all know that it is almost impossible to obtain a reduction in the staff employed. I hope that local authorities will remember that, and that when my right hon. Friend sums up this brief debate he will emphasise what has been said.

I share the strong feeling on this subject. I welcome the fact that the amendment has appeared on the Order Paper, although I am more disturbed about the upgrading of posts and some of the problems arising from early retirements than I am about excessive staffs. In many cases the responsibility for excessive staffs lies here.

In passing the Local Government Act and making provision for the reorganisation, we imposed certain requirements on local authorities which they have to meet. I am thinking particularly of planning requirements. There are now far more planning authorities than there were previously, and the demand for planning staffs, at any rate, is enormous. They are competing against each other in a very unhappy way. But I am particularly disturbed about the upgrading of posts which seems to be occurring. This is a particularly unhappy matter at present in industrial areas, where comparisons are being made with the position of many other people who do a very valuable and useful job in the community. This excites a great deal of criticism.

I am worried about very remunerative early retirements. A number of senior officers are retiring when one would have expected them to be able to contribute a great deal more of great value in local government. They are relatively young people and have great and valuable experience ; yet they are retiring on very advantageous terms, which are far better than the terms which many industrial workers have enjoyed, and they will, I suspect, be able to take up other work in the community with the advantage of the retirement provision that they have been able to acquire.

These matters need to be examined. There is a great deal of unhappiness and dissatisfaction in some of our industrial areas.

There is a great deal of force in the criticism made by the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray). Much of what he said is correct. However, the amendment is unnecessary. The hon. Gentleman is seeking to say that if it is

"the opinion that the local authority is excessively staffed in relation to its size, functions, delegated responsibilities and agencies"

that is a matter to be considered. But one finds in the wording of subsection (1)(a) a duty on authorities to

"maintain a reasonable standard in the discharge of any of their functions."

If they offended in any of the directions mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, it may well be said that they did not

"maintain a reasonable standard in the discharge of any of their functions."

Therefore, with great respect, I suggest that the amendment is unnecessary.

I accept that there is some alarm about some of the upgradings and some of the increases in salary of the new posts following the reorganisation of local government, but the amendment gives a job to the Secretary of State which his Department is not able to perform. I know the difficulties which the Department had in trying to monitor rates last year. I do not believe that it is possible for the Department at present to examine all the local councils and metropolitan counties and districts, and other counties and districts, to ascertain whether, in the Departments opinion, they have the right staff at the correct rates of pay. The Department does not have the staff to enable it to do that.

This is a job for local government. If local councillors get it wrong, they will pay the penalty as well as ratepayers.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will reconsider what he said. He is suggesting that if the local councillors get it wrong it is they who will have to face the consequences. With great respect to the hon. Gentleman, local authorities are having to meet only approximately 20 per cent. of their expenditure, the rest of it being provided by the Treasury and by industry and commerce. Therefore, local authorities would not have to face the consequences of their own wrong doing.

I think that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. When I said "the penalty' I meant the consequences that we and councillors face periodically when we get matters wrong, that is, the consequences of the choice of our electors.

The problems are too variable for us to agree to the amendment. It is difficult to judge what is the right staff, particularly for new metropolitan districts. The metropolitan counties have been accused of empire building in their departments. But what are they to use as a guide? The only previous metropolitan county is London. Shall they take London as a guide as to the size of their departments and to the salaries of their officers? They must make up their minds on their own experience and knowledge of the district, and very often on their knowledge of how difficult it is to persuade officers of high calibre—not only in terms of salary—to come to areas which may not be as salubrious as others.

One-third of my constituency is in the City of Manchester. Two-thirds of it will be in the new Tameside Metropolitan District. Manchester hardly changes under local government reorganisation. The lord mayor puts his other hat on and he is the chairman of the district council—at present, at any rate. The departments have hardly changed. It is true that some of the council's offices have moved upstairs to the county. But reorganisation has not presented great difficulties.

Tameside consists of nine non-county boroughs and urban districts, none of which has had its own education officer or director of social services previously but all of which have had treasurers. Having to start from scratch, they have a much more difficult job. In proportion they probably need more able officers than the more settled authorities in this situation

That is the kind of authority which is coming in for criticism. Ratepayers who are used to seeing urban district standards of pay for their chief officers get a slight shock when they see the salary of a chief officer of a metropolitan district with a population of about 350,000 people. There have been difficulties in the past when there have been shortages of particular officers, for instance, chief public health inspectors. At one time an auction took place among local authorities which were trying to obtain enough well qualified health inspectors.

We have presented ourselves with a difficulty regarding early retirement. In the main, officers are not retiring but moving on to private enterprise, and so on—probably at higher salaries, whatever phase 3 says about that. In the case that I have mentioned, nine treasurers will be superseded by one treasurer, and I should think that six or seven of them will elect for early retirement.

I cannot support the amendment. I know the worries involved, but the local authorities, particularly the new authorities with different problems, should be encouraged to tackle their problems and, if necessary, to get the right officers to do the job.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray) on his ingenuity in finding a place in the Bill in which to discuss this important subject. It has resulted in some assistance to me in that I have been able to assess the atmosphere and the general feeling. I have had a large postbag on this subject. Some of the opinions which have been expressed are exaggerated and some are ill-informed, but some cannot be disregarded. Therefore, I have considered what can be done.

My hon. Friend will not be surprised when I say that I cannot advise the House to accept the amendment. I say that for two reasons. The first reason is that the basis of the reorganisation of local government, which comes into effect in a few weeks on 1st April, is that local government should be more independent of central Government and not less so. Local authorities have certain functions placed on them by statute and they have the statutory power to employ such officers as they may think necessary for the proper discharge of their functions. For central Government to take over the task of assessing whether local authorities are excessively staffed would be a fundamental encroachment on the discretion of authorities in a vital sphere. It would inevitably shift from local government to the Secretary of State the responsibility to judge a local authority's staff requirements and, in the last resort, its ability to provide local services.

The second reason for having to resist the amendment is that even if my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment thought it right to take over this function from local government which, as I have said, he does not, central Government are not in a position to reach conclusions regarding the precise numbers of officers who should be employed in each grade by every one of the 400-odd new authorities in England. That is a task which each authority must consider and settle for itself. The authorities are in a position to do so.

Having explained those two reasons, I must say that I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend and other hon. Members who have spoken for having raised this matter, on which I and my ministerial colleagues have received so many letters and oral representations. The Press has carried a number of allegations about the extravagant staffing proposals of the new authorities. It would be true to say that there has been public uneasiness, to put it in the mildest terms. I have referred to it in fairly strong terms in recent public speeches.

Over the years the number of local authority employees has steadily risen to meet the needs of expanding services. People expect local authorities to provide wider services and to achieve higher standards. To do so requires staff who are trained and skilled. That is the basic reason why the number of those who are employed in local government has risen over the years. It is proper that that should have happened as local government services have increased.

That is the long-term view, but recent uneasiness is not connected so much with the long term, or the increase in local government services and the administration of them, but with the short-term transitional problems which have been raised by reorganisation. Reorganisation produces an upheaval. The administration of staff is a great responsibility.

When the new system has settled down, the larger authorities should mean a much more economic use of manpower. I am sure that that will be the position. In the short-term transitional period there are conflicting influences at work. The new authorities making a fresh start have understandably considered what staff they will need to provide the range of services to which they and their electors aspire.

In some areas—and the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) mentioned planning—the new allocation of functions has given responsibilities to all district councils whereas at present they are chiefly in the hands of counties and county boroughs. Both influences tend towards a demand for extra staff. On the other hand, when we look at the hard realities, whatever plans there are on paper, we know that reorganisation will not lead to a sudden and dramatic rise in local government employment. Many existing authorities are operating below the complement which they think desirable. There are shortages in some of the professions on which the local authorities rely.

The staff who will man the new authorities after 1st April will be essentially the people employed by the existing authorities who have either already accepted appointments with the new authorities or will be transferred by order on 1st April. I do not expect any sudden increase. It is true that many officers are timing their retirement to coincide with reorganisation. That is a factor in the other direction which must be taken into account.

There have been complaints of salary increases. Salary scales are settled through the established negotiating machinery. Salary movements are governed, like other salaries, by the Government's counter-inflation policies. Attention has been directed towards the salary scales of chief executives and other chief officers. The first point which I must make is that reorganisation will lead to the establishment of more large authorities and that there will be more posts carrying greater responsibilities and, therefore, higher salaries. That is because grading depends so frequently upon population. If the size of the authority is increased the chief officer will get into another grade.

The second point is that the scales for chief executives and other chief officers have been examined by the Pay Board, which indicated its satisfaction, in general terms, that the scales had been devised with proper regard to the pay code. There are detailed applications for some posts which may still be the subject of investigation by the Pay Board. I should like the House to understand that fully. My Department is not the right authority to inquire into any breach of the pay code. If such a breach arose the Pay Board would be the right authority. For some posts there may be such investigation by the board.

I have been attempting to consider the situation dispassionately and to point to some of the pressures at work. I believe that the allegations of over-staffing may turn out in many cases to be exaggerated. However, allegations have reached me and my Department on a scale which requires that they should be examined authoritatively as quickly as possible. What are needed are firm facts and figures against which the rumours and allegations can be tested.

My right hon. Friend is casting some doubt on the question whether there is evidence of over-staffing. He may be right. However, it cannot be overlooked that the largest growth industry in my constituency is local government. Is my right hon. Friend aware that not one of the urban district authorities that have been embraced within the metropolitan county district has given up its local offices? In fact, those offices have been used as sub-offices for various departments. In addition, offices have been built costing millions of pounds to accommodate the staffs. For years past the town hall has been reasonably adequate, coupled with the establishment of the urban district offices, but now not only are we keeping the urban district offices, and nearly doubling the size of the town hall, but renting offices on a long-lease basis which have been built for speculative purposes. All I am suggesting is that if we are having all that accommodation we inevitably must put bodies into it.

It might have been better if my hon. Friend had sought to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, and make that as a speech. I was coming to very much the point that he raises. He is repeating the sort of facts that I have received many times in correspondence. It is these very facts that I want to check. It would be irresponsible of any Minister to accept them without an authoritative examination.

Therefore, I am glad to be able to tell the House that the collection of comprehensive information is proceeding and that this exercise is being undertaken by the Local Authorities Conditions of Service Advisory Board—commonly known as LACSAB—upon which are represented all the employing local authorities and their associations. I believe that it is right that local government itself should provide the facts on this.

The advisory board will be sending a questionnaire to all old and new authorities ; and on the basis of the answers it should be possible to obtain a true comparison of the general staffing situation and the wages bills both before and after reorganisation. When the facts have been received and analysed by LACSAB, the local authority associations and the advisory board will be able to identify whether there are problems and, if so, where and what the solution may be.

I welcome what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I wonder, when the investigation takes place, whether it should not be only of local authorities but whether the regional water boards and the regional health boards should be considered also, because it would appear from the newspapers that their proliferation, multiplication and enhancement of posts is even greater than has occurred with the local authorities. So I should like this to be an investigation, not only into local authorities, but also into regional water boards and the National Water Council and the regional health boards, if that were possible.

This does not arise on the amendment. I will certainly consider what the hon. Gentleman has said.

I want to concentrate at the moment on a very definite step which has been taken. Work is being carried out in the collection of this information. It is entirely right that this move should be undertaken within local government by a body which is part of local government. There is a long tradition of joint negotiation on staffing matters in local government. I welcome this move, not only because it is being taken by the body which is best placed to carry out the formidable task of collecting and analysing the very complicated information which will flow in, but also because it is evidence of the ability and desire to tackle local government problems through local government machinery.

The Pay Board also has a statutory interest in salary levels. I do not want to trespass on the Pay Board's territory or inhibit the exercise of its separate and independent powers. However, I am told that the information needed by the Pay Board for its functions will be made available to the board by LACSAB.

So this carries through the whole process by which LACSAB collects the information for an authoritative examination. It will submit the information to my Department and, more important, LACSAB will be prepared to submit the information to the Pay Board. LACSAB is, however, independently of the Pay Board, carrying out its own inquiry into staffing levels and costs, and it is this initiative which I am welcoming today. I hope that authorities will co-operate fully in this review.

Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with the short point which I raised? If, as the amendment postulates, the evil is that a local authority is excessively staffed, does not that come within the words in Clause 5(1)(a) which refers to the authority having

"failed to … maintain a reasonable standard in the discharge of any of their functions."

Therefore, has not the power already been put into the Bill in that provision?

The provision which the hon. and learned Gentleman quotes is repeated from previous legislation and I do not think that it has ever been applied to overstaffing as being something not within the standards. I should have to take some legal advice on that, perhaps from the hon. and learned Gentleman himself. I have not seen it applied in that form before. Therefore, I think that it is necessary for us to carry out this investigation and to leave the matter then to the Pay Board to consider.

6.15 p.m.

I hope that local authorities will regard it, not as an implied criticism of the preparations they have been making, but as part of the much wider exercise now facing central as well as local government—that of carrying out a realistic appraisal of plans in the light of current economic constraints and the general shortage of skilled and experienced staff.

So, to sum up, I have attempted to set out some of the background pressures which will influence the level of local government staffing in the long run. The allegations which have been made in recent weeks are primarily associated with the transitional period of reorganisation. The Advisory Board—LACSAB—will be collecting the information on which a realistic appraisal of the present situation can be made and a comparison drawn between the pre-reorganisation period and the post-reorganisation period. I urge local authorities to co-operate with this investigation.

I could not advise the House to accept an amendment which would drastically reduce the responsibilities of local authorities in this vital field. In view of the way in which the problem is about to be tackled by local government itself, though I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and thank him for initiating the debate, I invite him to consider withdrawing the amendment, in view of what I have said.

I rarely speak twice in the course of one debate, but on this occasion I should like to do so, with the leave of the House, because in effect what the right hon. Gentleman has just made to the House is a major statement. I am not criticising him for this, but he gave it in reply to an amendment tabled by his hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray) whereas it would be more usual for a statement of this magnitude to be made at half-past three as a ministerial statement. I have a number of questions which I should like the right hon. Gentleman to answer, as he has made this statement on a matter which will be of very deep concern to local authorities and to the public at large.

First, will LACS AB's investigation apply to all local authorities, or will it be restricted to a number of authorities? If it is to be a selected number of authorities, on what criteria will they be selected? In other words, will LACSAB investigate only those authorities against which complaint has been made to the Minister or to LACSAB itself, or will it investigate all local authorities to see in what way they have structured their staff, their pay and so on?

I am certain that most local authorities will agree to this investigation on a voluntary basis. Secondly, however, what statutory authority—indeed, what authority at all—has LACSAB to obtain information from local authorities if those local authorities are recalcitrant and will not give the information to the advisory body?

This does not strictly arise on the amendment, but it arises from the statement the Minister has made. Thirdly, I earnestly ask the Minister to ask LACSAB, if it is within its purview—or, if it is not, to ask some other body—to investigate the regional water boards and the regional health boards as well as local authorities. I ask LACSAB to look at the appointments which those bodies are making and the salary structure they are offering and to report back to the Minister, to some other body or to the Pay Board.

Finally, having taken that action, when LACSAB has this information what action can it thereafter take? Will it report to the local authority associations, to the Minister or to the Pay Board? In other words, LACSAB having armed itself with this information, what use will it make of the information that it has obtained?

I am sorry to have intervened in the debate again, but I think you will appreciate, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister has made a major statement.

On the first point about whether LACSAB will be making an inquiry of all local authorities, the answer is "Yes". Both existing and new authorities will be helping because a comparison is necessary to judge what is happening.

On the second point about LACSAB s authority for making the investigation and what it can do with a recalcitrant authority that refuses to answer, I should stress that LACSAB is a voluntary body of local authorities. It is, so to speak the trade union of employers—that is, local authorities. I would not expect any revolt among local authorities on a matter of this kind. If a local authority refused to give information, I should have thought that it was suspect right away, but one does not look at it from the point of view of statutory authority when asking local authorities to co-operate.

As for regional water authorities and area health authorities, I will consider the former as it is within my Department's jurisdiction, but I cannot answer in respect of the health authorities.

One has not the same voluntary employers' union in the new body of regional water authorities as with the local authorities under LACSAB. It may be that the National Water Council could get such information. However, I promise the hon. Gentleman that I shall not ignore the matter.

The fourth question was about what would be done as a result of the investigation. The important point is that LACSAB will make its information available to the Pay Board. It is the Pay Board that should, in present circumstances, look into the subject. Beyond having been supplied with information, I want to avoid my Department acting as a kind of "big brother" or ombudsman to local authorities. I am deeply interested in the result of the inquiry but I should not like to forecast any action upon it from my Department in the form of monitoring or orders to local authorities to do anything. The publicity that will come from such an inquiry will bring its own results.

I have two points to raise about the investigation. First, will there be any opportunity for councillors or those concerned with local government to be heard by the inquiry, because there are policy matters to be considered? I am concerned about overstaffing where a number of boroughs are telescoped into one district council. Will accountants take part in the investigation, people well versed in deciding what is the appropriate ratio of staffing? I do not know what is the composition of the inquiry, but there are both the policy and accountancy aspects in considering the proper outcome.

LACSAB is a body concerned with the conditions of employment by local authorities, such as the wages and salaries offered to officers. It is a body well suited to the subject. I hope that I did not use the word "inquiry". I fear that in using that word my hon. Friend may have got the wrong impression. The exercise will be the collection of information by means of a questionnaire. The information will be studied by a body which has perhaps the best knowledge of the functioning of local authorities. But it is in no way an inquiry, and people will not be cross-examined. Once the information is collected, the proper conclusions may be drawn.

I thank my right hon. Friend for a positive and satisfactory reply. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move Amendment No. 6, in page 8, line 22, at end insert:

'(1A) To the extent that it would not otherwise be so included, there shall be treated for the purposes of this section as included in a council's estimated expenditure in connection with transport matters their estimated capital expenditure in connection with the provision by any person of facilities for or in connection with the loading or unloading of freight carried or intended to be carried otherwise than by road'

The purpose of the amendment is to extend the scope of Clause 6(1) to ensure that capital expenditure by local authorities in providing handling facilities for freight carried or intended to be carried by means other than by road will be taken into account in determining the transport supplementary grants.

We discussed fully in Committee the transport supplementary grants and what might be included in them. The point about freight was raised and I promised to examine it to see whether we could introduce an amendment of this kind. The amendment carries out that undertaking. I am grateful to the hon. Members who raised the matter in Committee and I hope that the solution is satisfactory to them.

I beg to move Amendment No. 7, in page 15, line 41, leave out 'is the tenant of, and'.

With this amendment it will be convenient to discuss Government Amendment No. 8.

The object of these amendments is to extend the rebate scheme to sub-tenants. The matter was not raised in Committee, but sub-tenants have the benefit of rent allowances and it was thought only right that they should have rate rebates.

I beg to move Amendment No. 74, in page 15, line 46, at end insert:

'Provided that a residential occupier shall not be eligible for any benefit under this Part of this Act in respect of any part or all of a hereditament for which a claim for an allowance against tax has been accepted'.

With this amendment it will be convenient to discuss new Clause 17, Duty to notify local authority when a tax allowance is granted.

The amendment's effect is limited to Clause 13. I should also like to draw attention to the purpose of new Clause 17 which applies the same principle universally across the whole area of residential premises. The object of both is that, where premises are residential in appearance but are partly commercial, professional or business in use, they should not be eligible for the favourable rating assessment which is rightly applied to premises which are genuinely residential.

The problem is felt acutely not only in South Kensington but throughout central London and probably in areas of all our great cities where there are active business communities. The effect is felt in rapid rises in rents for flats, particularly because agents find that they are able to obtain much higher rents by letting flats to companies which require to use them for their executives than if they stick exclusively to applicants wanting genuine residential occupation.

Companies may want accommodation in central London for direct business or professional use of a social or entertainment character, or they may be willing to set up their executives at company expense in what they deem to be prestige areas because they think it to be in the interests of their business.

The effect of this type of competition is often to establish sensational rents for blocks of flats where a number of leases have to be negotiated and which can be used by the agent as an example in dealing with existing occupants when their leases expire. Those occupants then find themselves obliged to compete because it can be shown that if they leave the premises the owners can readily obtain the figure demanded by the agent.

6.30 p.m.

We need to find a solution to this problem. It could be done if we could identify these quasi-comercial properties by their treatment for tax purposes. Obviously one does not want the Inland Revenue to have to make disclosures of confidential information to local authorities, but it would not be wrong to require ratepayers to declare to their local authorities whether they can get assistance in paying their rents through the tax system by declaring them as wholly or partly a business expense.

It is necessary to emphasise the word "partly", because hon. Members will know of cases in which professional or business people use one or two rooms of their houses as offices—and one can not object to that. But one also knows of cases in which a tax concession can be obtained, and it would not be wrong for the principle that I am seeking to apply to accommodation which was wholly devoted to entertaining for business purposes to apply in part to that part of a house or flat which was used as business or professional premises.

One could make it a duty of the ratepayers who are able to establish a claim for a tax allowance in respect of part or all of the premises for which they have to pay rates to notify their local authority of the facts. The authority may then require that a fresh assessment should be carried out, taking into account the way in which the premises are deemed to be used for tax purposes.

This device of using the tax system is a useful recommendation because it is obviously difficult, if not impossible, from outward observation to detect that business is creeping into a block of flats which is outwardly purely residential. My right hon. Friend might reflect that the effect of a proposal of this kind, if it were accepted, might be perhaps even to double the rates on the part or the whole of the premises which was identified by this means. I do not want to suggest exactly how the reassessment might be tackled, but, if the effect were to double the rates, that would not be inordinate. The local authority would then have the benefit of the higher income which was thought appropriate from commercial premises.

Another effect, I hope, would be that the tendency to bid recklessly for vacant premises would be somewhat checked and that some property which had effectively gone out of residential use might return to meet genuine housing need. I appreciate that the precise form in which my amendment appears may not be acceptable for technical drafting reasons, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider this idea seriously and favourably none the less.

It seems equitable that people who get help with their rents through the tax system should not also be able to get help with their rates from the taxpayer. The real argument is the housing cost problem which manifests itself particularly in areas which business people consider prestige areas but also more widely. Possibly my right hon. Friend, if he feels that I have made a useful point, will consider amending the Bill to this effect in another place.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) for raising this interesting point. With his usual acumen he has described an area of some difficulty. For the reason that he has himself given, I cannot accept his amendment because there are considerable drafting difficulties in it—particularly the use of the phrase "commercial premises", which is not defined in any legislation. There is some case law on the point, but this is an area of great uncertainty.

It would not be for me at this stage even to go so far as to give an undertaking that it would be possible at a later stage to define the matter precisely enough to give effect to what my hon. Friend is seeking. He has made a point about a problem which, I feel, is possibly limited to Kensington and is not very prevalent in the rest of the country.

The national average domestic rate payment in 1973–74 is estimated at £65. If an occupier uses, say, one-eighth of his accommodation for business purposes and gets an allowance, his rates will rise to £65·64, which is an increase of only 1p per week. In Kensington, where properties are rated more highly, there would be a more serious difference, but, having regard to that kind of figure, it seems to be a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut which possibly exists only in Kensington.

My hon. Friend has mentioned the other problem that tax allowances are personal to the taxpayer but a rate assessment is made on property. It would require information possibly to pass between the Inland Revenue and the rating authorities to bring forward the kind of scheme that my hon. Friend has in mind. Also, Amendment No. 74 goes contrary to amendments that the Government accepted in Committee, when a case was made by hon. Members to give a rate rebate to the small shopkeeper or the seaside landlady.

When talking in terms of rent rebates, what we are saying is that relief should be given to classes of people whose income is below certain limits. Those limits may be more generous than those allowed by the Inland Revenue for tax threshold purposes, but that is another matter altogether. I do not think hon. Members should complain when we are being as generous as we possibly can be when dealing with rate rebates.

Although it is possible that people in this category are living in highly-rated property in Kensington, nevertheless when applying for rebates, we are having regard to their ability to pay and income within the criteria laid down by the rate rebate system. I therefore hope that my hon. Friend will not press his amendment.

With leave of the House, I am grateful for my hon. Friend's remarks and I am glad that he appreciates the extent of the problem in South Kensington. However, I think that it he could examine this problem he would find it was more widespread than he thinks.

I am not concerned with the problems of part business or professional use of premises which are genuinely residential. What worries me is the increasing number of flats in London which are not being used for residential purposes at all and which have therefore been withdrawn from the housing market by embassies, multinational companies and organisation which like to have an address where they can entertain visitors, and which they can use as a letterhead and where they exploit the character of the neighbourhood to enhance their business without thinking of the needs of the residential population. They seem to be willing to bid recklessly when accommodation becomes available in the areas they fancy, and this is very hard on people who are genuinely seeking to renew their leases and cannot compete.

In view of my hon. Friend's remarks it would be futile to press the amendment at this stage. I hope he recognises that there is a real problem here and that he will not allow the matter to drop. If he does not accept my recommendation, I hope he will make his own.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for elaborating his point of difficulty. We will certainly consider it and write to him.

I am glad to have that assurance and I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move Amendment No. 65, in page 16, leave out lines 1 and 2.

It will be convenient to discuss at the same time Government Amendments Nos. 66 and 67.

This is a simple matter of bringing the residents of the Temples into the rate rebate scheme. Under Clause 10 the Temples are deemed to be local authorities for the purpose of the domestic element. At one time it was thought not necessary to extend the rebate to residents of the Temples because at this point they did not charge and have never charged a rate. They charge inclusive rent. But it is foreseeable that in future the Temples might wish to charge a rate, so it was felt necessary to make these amendments now to save the need for amending legislation in future.

I beg to move Amendment No. 70, in page 18, line 33, at end insert:

'(5) The owner of an unoccupied and nonresidential hereditament may apply to the Courts for a remission of up to three-quarters of the rates payable to the rating authority if it can be proved that every effort has been made to find an occupier for the hereditament and that hardship would be suffered'.

The clause seeks to rate unoccupied property irrespective of whether it is residential or industrial. My amendment refers more specifically to industrial properties and whether they should be rated when they remain unoccupied after a certain time. It reverses the procedure which is conventional when rates are not paid. As I understand the position —and I hasten to add that I have not been sued for non-payment on either private or industrial premises—the rate demand note is sent to the owner or occupier. If he fails to pay he is in due course summoned, appearances are entered and in due course a judgment may be obtained and so on.

Under the Bill if the local authority wishes to reduce the incidence or impact of the rate it may do so at its discretion bearing in mind the situation which is represented to it by the ratepayer as and when he comes to court, on the ratepayer's ability to pay and on the efforts he has made to find a tenant for the unoccupied industrial premises.

However, another factor enters into the matter where an industrial estate is being developed and a number of factories are being built on speculation. With the best will in the world there is no guarantee that all these factories will be let overnight. It might take a week, a month or, in many cases, even a year or two before all the factories are let. Is it fair to expect the individual who has taken the risk of building these factories to pay the full rateable value at the whim of the local authority? On the other hand, whether he occupies the premises or not he must accept that they are subject to certain rating services. The police must protect the premises from vandalism, and the fire services and, to an extent, the public health services are involved. Therefore, the clause provides that the ratepayer may receive only up to 75 per cent. rebate on his assessment. The 25 per cent. is seen as a contribution towards the cost of these essential services.

The proposal embodied in my amendment is far more clear-cut. Under it a ratepayer would receive a demand for the unoccupied property and he would then apply immediately to the courts for the remission of up to 75 per cent., stating that he has used his best endeavours to let the premises—or hereditament, as it says in the Bill—and that having to pay the rates in full would cause him or the company severe financial embarrassment. If the court decides that the ratepayer has no ground for deferring payment there is no excuse thereafter for the rates not being paid. That is the substance of the amendment.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will bear another point in mind. The Bill enables a local authority to decide whether or not to press for the rates. When a ratepayer applies to the court, however, he is dealing with a wholly impartial body which will decide on the merits of the case, and according to the facts presented by the ratepayer, how much rate must be paid.

By accepting the amendment my right hon. Friend will be taking a great step forward in encouraging the continuation of industrial development.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray) has explained, the amendment would give the owner of unoccupied non-residential property the right to apply to the courts for remission of up to three-quarters of the empty property rate on the grounds that he had made every effort to find an occupier and that hardship would be caused by the imposition of the full amount. Clause 15(4) would already allow a rating authority to remit or reduce the empty property rate on grounds of hardship.

In effect, the amendment would operate as an appeal against the authority's decision not to remit or reduce the empty property rate on grounds of hardship. My hon. Friend said that the ratepayer who wished to avail himself of that would apply to the court but if the right to apply to the court were given in such cases those cases might never come before the court. It would be a matter of, perhaps, exerting a little force on the local authority to reconsider the decision not to remit and thus a settlement might be reached.

It is easy to think up a number of arguments against the proposal embodied in my hon. Friend's amendment. It applies to unoccupied and non-residential hereditaments, but it could be said that the owner of residential property suffers just as badly. Some residential property is hard to dispose of and the owner might be put to financial hardship in that case. Hardship is interpreted as financial hardship and my hon. Friend has argued his case from that point of view.

Another argument against the clause is that one of the main reasons in favour of rating empty property is that such property makes some call on local authority services, as my hon. Friend pointed out. Normally, 100 per cent. rating properly recompenses the local authority for the services which it must have ready to deal with vacant property, so that it is possible to criticise the figure of 75 per cent. remission in those cases. Nevertheless, one might have sympathy with the principles of the amendment.

One of the purposes of Clause 15 is to make empty property rating more attractive to rating authorities and therefore applicable more widely than at present. Complaints at present from local authorities have been that the law relating to empty property rating is not flexible enough, that they are too tied down and therefore they are frightened to apply it. For example, we have provided in Clause 15 that the seven-year period need not apply. This provides increased flexibility and from that point of view my hon. Friend's amendment is constructive. However one wishes to leave as much discretion as possible to the local authorities, some of them might not use their power to reduce or remit empty property rating on grounds of hardship, or they might exercise it capriciously, and it may be that we should give the ratepayer the right to bring a decision quickly. This is the important point. The ratepayer can then take the initiative to get a decision and not have the full rate hanging over his head for a long time.

On those grounds I ask my hon. Friend to let me look at this further, because it seems to be an attractive course to follow. I shall try to see whether anything can be drafted on these lines. I will not promise the 75 per cent. I will not promise anything firm. I should like to look at it, accepting the principle, to see whether some amendment on these lines can be introduced.

My main worry is the time-tabling of the Bill. I should not like to overload another place with complicated amendments. Whatever assurance I give, any amendment introduced must be simple and must be one which gives a person suffering hardship the right to get a quick decision on the question whether he has to pay the full 100 per cent. or can get some concession.

I thank my right hon. Friend for being so co-operative. This issue concerns me greatly from the point of view of redevelopment taking place in North-West England, particularly in the Greater Manchester area. With that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move amendment No. 10, in page 21, line 21, at end insert:

"(f) any structure within the hereditament provided or adapted exclusively to assist a disabled person."

The Minister will remember that in Committee I moved an amendment seeking to exempt from rates those parts of a household that had been provided as a result of adaptations specifically for the use of a disabled person. That amendment was favourably received by the Minister. There were technical objections to it in that I had mentioned equipment provided under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, which was incorrect because the equipment is provided under other measures. I have endeavoured to be even more simple in this amendment. Its object is clear and I do not need to spend a great deal of time explaining it. I feel sure that all hon. Members will give it support.

Under Clause 19 and under the principal Act—the 1967 General Rate Act—certain exemptions can be made, for example for a garage or a garage site provided for the use of a disabled person. That is right and proper. Since 1967 we have considered many other matters which are not amenities but which are essentials for a disabled person. I have in mind such things as a lift which enables a disabled person to move up and down stairs. Under current legislation such an installation would add to the rateable value of the house because it is an improvement.

When such an improvement is made exclusively to help a disabled person, it is wrong that that person should be penalised through having to pay higher rates. There are many other such adaptations which are made exclusively to assist disabled persons. Under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act applications can be made to the local social services department for a downstairs room to be made into a bathroom and toilet for the benefit of a disabled person who cannot use stairs. Adaptations can be made to widen doors enabling wheelchairs to pass through them. Sometimes sliding doors are fitted in place of doors with knobs which an arthritic person cannot turn. All of these may be minor matters but they can amount to an upward revaluation of the property.

My hon Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) is well known for his concern for the disabled and no doubt, if he succeeds in catching your eye, Mr. Speaker, he will be able to speak with detailed knowledge of such improvements. I am sure he will want to talk about central heating. Sometimes a doctor may recommend that it is essential that some form of central heating is provided for a disabled person. That is a classic example of how there can be a revaluation of the property, even taking into account the provisions of the Bill.

We say that when such an adaptation is made exclusively for the benefit of a disabled person, it ought to be excluded from rating calculations. Since the passage of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act we have shown a greater concern for the need to provide adaptations which make the life of a disabled person worth living. It is wrong that, having made such adaptations, a disabled person, who can least afford it, should be penalised by having to pay increased rates.

I know that the Minister is sympathetic to this. I appreciate that my amendment is rude and homespun. It may not meet the legal requirements of the parliamentary draftsmen. If it does not and if the Minister will say that he is prepared to introduce an amendment in another place embodying the spirit of my amendment, I will willingly withdraw it. In view of his own sympathy and concern for disabled persons, which is shared by all hon. Members, I hope that he will be able to make some provision so that such persons can at least be relieved of an increased rate burden as a result of making adaptations to their homes. This is the time to take such a step.

My hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) has put forward a good argument. I want to refer specifically to one organisation which could obtain considerable benefit from the amendment. It is called Habinteg and it represents the Spastic Society's attempt to obtain housing for disabled people under housing association provisions. It is responsible for building 20 to 30 homes, a limited number of which are made available to the disabled. Such schemes would be helped tremendously if the amendment were accepted.

My hon. Friend called it a homespun amendment which came from the heart. It is basically a good amendment. If the phraseology is not acceptable to the Minister, I hope he will indicate that he is prepared in another place to have this point included in the Bill.

The people from Habinteg have assured me that all too often improvements and adaptations to property can send up the rateable value. I am sure that the House never intended to put double burdens on disability. Disability is itself sufficient handicap to a person's capacity to earn or conserve money.

7.0 p.m.

congratulate the Minister on what he has included in the clause. He has gone a long way to deal with this point, and the proposal will be welcomed by the Opposition. We ask the hon. Gentleman to accept the amendment or give an assurance that a similar amendment will be made in another place, so that the whole range is covered. My hon. Friend the Member for Widnes has tried to embrace all categories. In an age of advancing technology it will be possible to modify homes in such a way that at a valuation thereafter the rateable value will be increased substantially. It would be dreadful if, as a result of modifying a home to enable a disabled person to live freely, away from hospitals or institutions and with his family, the value of the property was enhanced, thus increasing the burden on those living there. I am sure that that is not what the Minister intended.

I make a plea from the heart to the hon. Gentleman to accept the amendment. The wider the provision is, the better. I appreciate that Governments hate making provisions too wide, because it is felt that unscrupulous people will, so to speak, drive horses and carts through the regulations. But the amendment, or a redrafted version, would provide much relief for people who are suffering unnecessarily.

Provision of heating in a property is needed for not only the disabled but the elderly and aged. Everyone is deeply conscious of the threat to the elderly from hypothermia. We should not do anything to restrict local authorities, housing authorities, charities or individuals from improving properties to make life easier for the elderly and disabled, so that they do not have to live in institutions and can thus be independent of society. Anything which can be done to assist them would be welcomed on both sides of the House.

Although this is not the basis of my argument, I believe that the Minister, if he accepts the amendment, will be saving substantial sums of money for the Government. If people can be kept out of institutions and hospitals, vast sums will be saved. The disabled would not be the only people to gain. We must think also of those who look after, nurse or sustain the disabled. Such financial relief would be of great benefit to them.

I urge the Minister to accept the amendment or give the undertaking for which my hon. Friend has asked. It would be an honest gesture on the part of the Government. It would be welcomed by the disabled, voluntary societies and local authorities at a time when social services departments are becoming increasingly worried about the impact of cuts in spending to help the disabled. A gesture tonight would be very welcome and would give a reassurance that the Government have in mind the interests of a substantial number of people.

The cost of modifying homes will rise rapidly from time to time. Environmental controllers when installed in homes are so valuable that they are bound to enhance the value of the properties. It would be terrible to impose double taxation on those least able to pay. I urge the hon. Gentleman to accept the amendment or give an assurance that he will introduce a modified version of it in another place in a way acceptable to the House.

The hon. Members for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) and Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) have raised a matter of great importance, which strikes chords of sympathy throughout the House. The Government would not be slow to respond to such pleas to help the disabled and would agree with the amendment if it were necessary. But I have been advised that it is unnecessary because instances such as those mentioned, in which no account should be taken of improvements or adaptations for rating valuation purposes, are covered by Section 45 of the General Rate Act 1967. This gives rate relief in respect of certain facilities for disabled persons by providing that no account shall be taken of those facilities in ascertaining the gross value of the hereditament.

I am advised that the wording of the section is sufficient to cover exemptions for matters such as provision of lifts, wider corridors, special doors and other special facilities which the disabled may require. Therefore it seems unnecessary to bring in additional legislation to meet a provision which already exists.

Does that mean that the legislation to which the hon. Gentleman has referred will cover heating as well? That was one of our valid points. As I understand it, installation of heating facilities tends to attract revaluation. Can the hon. Gentleman give an assurance about this?

The test in that case, as in all the instances I have mentioned, must be that the adaptation is for the benefit of the disabled. If particular heating requirements were recommended because of the disablement involved, I am sure that the legislation I have mentioned would cover it. If there are any individual questions of doubt as to whether a particular matter falls within Section 45, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be prepared to consider them and see that relief is given. I give that assurance on behalf of the Government.

The problem about the amendment is that it is drawn in such wide terms and goes far beyond the case which has been made out. If implemented, it would enable a theatre, for example, to gain rating relief if it installed a ramp for wheelchairs for the disabled. One hopes that theatres are sufficiently public-minded to provide that facility without having to be given the inducement of escaping rating. The amendment could lead to complications which I am sure the Opposition would not wish to see introduced into our rating system, involving the granting of exemption to commercial property——

Am I correct in assuming that under other legislation theatres would have to install ramps to permit access by the disabled, as would other premises used for commercial purposes?

There is provision for such a requirement to be made, I believe, particularly under byelaws. If such a requirement were applied, it would be unnecessary to give the owners or occupiers of premises the incentive of rating relief, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the point.

Having been told that Section 45 is so wide as to cover disablement, hon. Members may ask why we have the clause, giving an exemption. The reason is that Section 45 refers specifically to garages for invalid cars. The exemption there relates to the garages but not to the sites on which they are built. Until the revaluation last year that created no problem, because the sites were of such little value that they were of no consequence in the valuation. But since revaluation some of the sites have too high a value to be ignored, and the valuation officer would have to take it into account in his new valuation unless we provided an additional exemption. That is the object of the clause. It is in line with the Government's wish to extend exemptions to the disabled wherever they appear necessary.

We have been advised by our legal advisers that the amendment is unnecessary because it is already covered by Section 45.

I should like to consider in much greater detail what the Minister has just told us. I was under the impression that Section 45 of the principal Act related almost exclusively to garages and garage sites.

When I moved a similar amendment in Committee I received a different reply from the Under-Secretary who was dealing with the Committee stage. The hon. Gentleman told me on 4th December:

"The other limb is to extend the exemption to any other structure within the hereditament provided for the disabled person. The difficulty here is that we are all together in spirit, but the provision extends the scope widely."

To judge by what the Minister has told us tonight, however, nothing could be wider than Section 45. His hon. Friend also said in Committee, on a different but kindred matter:

"I should like to look into the matter and I will do so, but if it is put that way, a concert hall or theatre, or any other public place providing, as I hope they all will provide, facilities for the disabled person, such as a ramp or a toilet, would be out of rating. That would not be right for large places. We ought not to be providing incentives to theatres and concert halls to put in help for the disabled ; it should be regarded as an absolutely normal part of the design."

If concert halls, theatres and other places put in assistance for the disabled, they, too, should not be rated on it, any more than a dwelling house should be, because they are providing a public service at their own cost, for very small return as a general rule. They do it out of public-spiritedness, to assist disabled people. I agree that one would expect them to do it anyway, but, having done it, they should not be rated for performing a public service.

The Under-Secretary also said in Committee:

"The hon. Gentleman"—

he was referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Denis Howell)—

"is absolutely right. The problem is to draw lines. Manifestly a lift adds materially to the value of the property and when a disabled person ceases to live there it would be a real asset for another person. It therefore cannot be right to exempt lifts as such. It depends on what the lifts are used for but here again there is a difficulty. There may be times when the hon. Gentleman and I wish there were a lift instead of stairs which we have to walk up to the Committee, but I do not think we would regard that as a reason for derating a lift in our own homes."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 4th December 1973 ; c. 297–9.]

Of course, I would not regard that as a reason for derating a lift in someone's own home, but do valuers argue that although a moving staircase is provided for the assistance of a disabled person you and I might use it as well, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and that therefore it must be rated? Are they interpreting the spirit as well as the letter of Section 45?

7.15 p.m.

Organisations for disabled people are not at all happy about the operation of Section 45, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) knows, having gone into the problems of disablement a great deal more than I have. He can reflect the concern of those organisations on the matter.

Although I thought that Section 45 related almost exclusively to garages, and not such things as lifts, the Under-Secretary has the benefit of advice from the Box, and I do not have a copy of the Act with me. If central heating is provided to prevent hypothermia, as a medical requirement to cater for the person who cannot have a gas, coal or oil fire because of the possible fumes, I suppose that it could be argued that other members of the family also enjoy the heat and that therefore the central heating should be rated. But basically it has been provided for the disabled person.

I am not happy about the dichotomy of reply on the same point between one Under-Secretary and another. If my amendment is so harmless and states only what the present law is, there will not be the slightest harm if it goes into the Bill as well as being in the 1969 Act, for the sake of clarification.

In the clause the Government have made various amendments to the 1967 Act. It was apparently necessary to spell things out in this omnibus addition to Section 45. Let us spell out the amendment as well, so that there is no doubt in the minds of valuation officers, councils or anyone else that any equipment provided for a disabled person is derated because it is so provided. I see no harm in the amendment being included.

With the leave of the House, I should like to speak again.

What causes me great concern is that valuation officers tend to be independent people. When we make inquiries we are told that they are completely independent and can do what they like.

The National Health Service supplies Possum equipment which allows disabled people, even those who are paralysed, to draw their curtains or lower the window from their bed. The official mind of a district valuer is such that he will say that such equipment is an absolute luxury, but for a disabled person it is a necessity. If the district valuer assesses it for valuation purposes and thus increases the valuation of the house, the disabled person, with what the majority of hon. Members would describe as a necessity, will find himself paying more rates.

The hon. Gentleman was helpful and forthcoming but a little hesitant when he talked about heating for the disabled and the elderly. Heating is essential for the elderly. Is the Minister prepared to say that central heating installed for an elderly person to prevent hypothermia will be exempted?

There is no real difference of intention between the two sides of the House. Hon. Gentlemen wish for adaptations to the homes of the disabled not to be taken into account for rating purposes. That is our wish also. The difference between us is that. I have, as a Minister, received advice that that desire is already met by legislation. I must follow the advice that I am given and urge the House to accept that advice. That is what I am doing, no more and no less.

The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) asked what was the harm in accepting the amendment if the point was

I beg to move Amendment No. 11, in page 25, line 7, leave out from 'represent' to end of line 9 and insert:

'authorities in England to which this Part of this Act applies, or as the case may be such authorities in Wales'.

This amendment slightly varies the wording of Clause 23(2) which describes who the representative bodies for England and Wales are to be. Under the present wording the representative bodies are to represent local authorities and to be concerned with administration in local government. The revised wording puts it beyond doubt that they can also represent other types of authority within Clause 24(1) of the Bill, particularly water authorities. Obviously there will be consultation with all the interests concerned.

I beg to move Amendment No. 59, in page 25, line 25, at end insert:

'(6A) Where, in accordance with subsection (6) above, a representative body arrange for the publication of a report submitted to them under subsection (4) above, they may also arrange for the report to be published with an annex containing such comments on the report as they think appropriate.

(6B) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (6A) above, comments made by a representative body by virtue of that subsection may relate to particular classes of authorities to which this Part of this Act applies'.

With this amendment, it will be convenient to take Amendment No. 13, in page 25, line 25, at end insert:

'and shall add to such reports their views thereon which shall be taken into account by the appropriate commission in the execution of their functions under this Act'.

and Government Amendment No. 14.

The purpose of these amendments is to increase the powers of representative bodies in relation to reports of the two commissions. Amendment No. 59 deals with reports under subsection (4) and Amendment No. 14 deals with the recommendations and conclusions which the commissions may reach in their annual financial reviews under Clause 22(2). These amendments are chiefly intended to meet points put forward by the local authority associations. I hope the House will accept them.

We agree with these amendments. In fact Amendments Nos. 59 and 14 do a better job than our Amendment No. 13. I thank the Government for taking this point in Committee and in implementing it on Report.

I beg to move Amendment No. 15, in page 25, line 37, at end insert:

'(e) any rent scrutiny board, rent assessment panel or rent tribunal'.

The purpose of the Ombudsman, as I see it, is to protect the public and give them access to an independent inquiry in cases where there may have been maladministration in a Government Department or, in the case of this Bill, a local authority. The public have other means of complaint direct to the Departments or through their Members of Parliament, and they use that channel. They may also make a complaint to local councillors, and they also use that channel. They also have some sanction in the fact that they elect their Members of Parliament and councillors.

One of the great sources of grievance at present is not Government Departments or local authorities. It is true that they are part of the establishment which people have a natural tendency to grumble about, since they affect their everyday lives in great detail. Another source of suspicion and grumbling relates to the quasi-judicial bodies concerned with rents. I refer to rent scrutiny panels, rent assessment boards and rent tribunals. In a sense the rent scrutiny panel is an overlord of a council and its tenants. Under the Housing Finance Act local authorities decide on fair rents for their council houses. These can be discussed in committee, with the Press present, and in open council.

The tenants may not agree that rents are fair and may say that they are too high—in other words, they may object to those rents. But whether or not the tenants object, the rent scrutiny boards will examine and decide on fair rents. Those boards do not meet in public. They may give reasons for their decision to the local authority, but they do not give them to the tenants and the local authority can ask them to think again. This appears to be a surprisingly secret operation for a body against whose decision there is no appeal.

Who are these rent scrutiny panels? Frankly, I have not seen a list of their members and I do not know whether one is published. According to the Minister in Committee, they are people

"qualified to exercise a judgment on this sort of matter."

He continued

"They are not all property developers or anything of that sort."

They are apparently chosen from members of rent assessment panels, the group that looks into rent rises in the private sector. But certain members of rent assessment panels cannot become members of rent scrutiny boards, namely, councillors and tenants. There is a deep suspicion of the rent scrutiny boards among both local authorities and tenants.

In regard to the rent increases which we have seen so far, it would appear that the idea of fair rents as adopted by the rent scrutiny boards is on a higher level than that adopted by tenants and certainly higher than the level local authorities have in mind. I believe that the intervention of the Ombudsman would be helpful in easing suspicion in the minds of the public and in examining cases of possible maladministration. Can the Minister say whether the Parliamentary Commissioner will be able to investigate the appointments made by the Secretary of State?

When this matter was raised in Committee the Minister resisted a similar amendment, on the ground that the decisions of these bodies were judicial and not administrative. He said

"it has emerged from today's discusssion that there is concern about the matters. I still retain the view that the commissioner is not the right person to look into the administration of these tribunals, boards or committees. But I am puzzled as to why the board, as opposed to the rent assessment committees and rent tribunals, conduct their business in private. This is not the right Bill to correct the matter. There will be, I hope, a housing Bill before the House soon and, in that connection, it may be right that we should look at this point again. I will certainly have words with my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction on this worrying point."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 6th December 1973 ; c. 337–9.]

I hope that the Minister will enlighten us on the words that he had with his hon. Friend. The Housing Bill 1974 is now, presumably, drafted. We have been promised that we shall see it in print in a few days. Are rent scrutiny panels and the other bodies mentioned in that Bill?

I believe that the issue is bigger than that. More and more the private citizen and the councils that he elects, and for that matter, the trade union officers and the Consumer Association officers whom he elects, are coming under the domination of non-elected bodies meeting, often in private, and deciding on his rent, his pay and the prices that he pays. He does not regard them as his protectors. On the contrary. If the Ombudsman is to be regarded as the protector of the citizen's rights, he should have power to investigate these bodies.

I urge hon. Members on both sides of the House to support the amendment.

should like to reinforce briefly what was said by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) and to ask the Minister to look again at the position of rent scrutiny boards. Many tenants are not yet aware of the extent of the effect of the boards on their future rents, but local authorities are aware of it.

The Secretary of State has received representations from Amble Urban District Council concerning the lack of any appeal procedure against decisions by the rent scrutiny boards. Other local authorities are also anxious about the matter and are aware of the difficulties of getting any comeback against rent scrutiny boards in cases of bad rent judgments.

I should like the Minister to put from his mind any idea that concern is necessarily part of any general attack on the Housing Finance Act. Many of us are critical of the Act, but the specific point concerning rent scrutiny boards and the lack of appeal against them has aroused a great deal of concern among local authorities which involve all parties. I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that his hon. Friends take much the same view as I am putting forward. I hope he can offer some hope or, if not, that he will defer to the pressure from this side of the House to deal with the lack of any appeal procedure against rent scrutiny board decisions. In the absence of any alternative, the Local Government Commissioner seems to be our best hope.

I want briefly to reinforce what has been said and to make one comment on what my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) said. He implied that the secrecy of the rent scrutiny boards was mandatory. I understand that that is not so. The secrecy in which the rent scrutiny boards operate is to a great extent self-chosen. They could meet in public if they wished. To be more accurate, this secrecy is not laid upon them by statute, but they are encouraged to meet in secret by the Department. If a particular rent scrutiny board decided in its discretion that it wanted to meet in public or to admit representatives of the tenants whose rents were being decided, I understand that there would be no statutory bar to that being done. It would be useful if the Minister could confirm this. While the Department might, and I think does, encourage the boards to meet in secret, it has no statutory right to enforce them to do so.

Many members of rent scrutiny boards are most unhappy about the manner in which they are bound or have chosen to meet. Most members of the boards are also members of rent assessment panels, as my hon. Friend said. It seems to them that they are meeting with less regard for natural justice in their rent scrutiny capacities than in their capacities as members of rent assessment panels, when parties can be present and individual flats and houses are visited and their facilities looked at in great detail. By contrast, the rent scrutiny boards look at an occasional flat and compare it with flats in the private sector. They cannot possibly get round to all the flats and houses whose rents they are determining.

There is great dissatisfaction even now among tenants about the likely result of the rent scrutiny boards. There is likely to be much more dissatisfaction when the results are formally brought out.

I hope that the Minister will take account of the great, though largely unexpressed, dissatisfaction on the part of members of rent scrutiny boards.

The Rent Act 1968 and the Housing Finance Act 1972 together give the Secretary of State power to appoint rent assessment panels, which form a pool of talent, as it were, for the personnel of the three bodies referred to in the amendment. The panels consist of lawyers, valuers and laymen from whom are chosen the members of the three types of body mentioned in the amendment: rent assessment committees, to hear objections against rent officers' assessments of fair rents for private unfurnished accommodation ; rent tribunals, to determine reasonable rents for private furnished accommodation ; and rent scrutiny boards, to consider rent assessments made by local authorities for council housing. The rent scrutiny board is the one that has received most criticism in the debate.

All members of the panels are appointed either by the Secretary of State or, on his recommendation, by the Lord Chancellor. This differentiates them sharply from the bodies to which Part III of the Bill is intended to apply—namely, local authorities, joint boards of local authorities, police authorities and water authorities, all of which are wholly or largely composed of locally-elected councillors. I must stress the independence of the panels from the control of either central or local government.

The authorities to which Part III may be extended by subsection (2) are those established under Act of Parliament and having the power to levy a rate or issue a precept. Of course, rent assessment panels and the bodies constituted from them are outside the letter and the spirit of these provisions.

Rent assessment committees and rent tribunals do not operate in the public sector at all. They act as independent arbiters between private landlords and their tenants. Therefore, they would be outside the intention of Part III for submitting local government matters to local commissioners. An appeal against alleged misdirections by such bodies, and, indeed, against rent scrutiny boards, may be taken to the courts. The rent assessment committees and the rent tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies in function as well as in status.

Very quasi.

I do not think it is right for the hon. Gentleman to say that about the rent assessment committees and rent tribunals. The argument on the rent scrutiny boards is quite different.

indicated assent.

But I will dispose of these two first. They are quasi-judicial bodies in function as well as in status. Parties may appear before them to state their cases, and they are subject to regulations by the Council on Tribunals.

The main point of objection to including these bodies within Part III is one of considerable substance. It is that they bear no relation to the bodies for which Part III is intended, and I do not think that it would be possible to accommodate them in that part of the Bill. To add them in the place suggested by the amendment would turn them into local authorities for the purpose of this part of the Bill, which again seems rather ridiculous, and they would be part of the representative bodies set up to co-operate with the commissioners.

During the debate in Committee on a similar amendment I undertook to consider the possibility of allowing rent scrutiny boards to meet in public. That was the main point on which I thought I could assist the hon. Gentleman in the potent argument he put forward about some form of public hearing by the boards. It is a contentious question, but it is being considered by the Advisory Committee on Fair Rents at the request of my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction, and any recommendations which the committee makes will be carefully considered by my hon. Friend.

I remind the House that my hon. Friend is responsible for the Bill that was presented to the House today on the subject of housing and planning. There will, therefore, be an opportunity to take into account the recommendations of the advisory committee. I was asked whether there was anything in the Bill about that now. The answer is that there is not because we are awaiting the advisory committee's report.

Is it permissible under the statutes for a rent scrutiny board to meet in public if it wishes?

Yes. That could be done. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is a matter of practice that the boards have chosen to meet in private, I think mainly because of the question of the rents payable by individuals.

I must emphasise and acknowledge the difference in argument between the two bodies which I have discussed so far, the rent assessment committees and the rent tribunals, and the rent scrutiny boards.

May we take it that not only has a rent scrutiny board no statutory obligation to meet in secret but that it is not under any departmental pressure or persuasion to do so?

I was trying to duck that question from the hon. Gentleman, because I cannot answer it off the cuff. I shall endeavour to find out whether any instructions on this subject have gone out from my Department to the boards or whether they have been given any guidance on how they should conduct their affairs. I should be sorry if we were to direct them on this subject from the centre, but I repeat that I cannot give an answer off the cuff.

Rent scrutiny boards are appointed from the panel. They are independent bodies. They are outside local government, and therefore it would be wrong to bring them within the jurisdiction of the local commissioners established by the Bill.

It is not true to say that there is no appeal from them. The Housing Finance Act requires a rent scrutiny board to allow a period of two months between the publishing of its report on a local authority's provisional assessment of fair rents and the final determination of those rents. Within that period the tenants are asked for their views by the authority, which should then co-ordinate its views and those of the tenants before resubmitting its assessment to the board. There is a form of appeal against the board's first decision which can be made by representations by tenants during that period of two months when the report lies before a final decision is made upon it.

In addition, if the authority—or the tenant—believes that the board has misdirected itself in reaching its decision, it is at liberty to ask the court to decide the matter.

As the rent scrutiny boards meet in secret and do not disclose the reasons for their decisions, how is it possible for tenants or local authorities to submit an appeal to a higher court on the question of misdirection?

There is the preliminary report which lies for two months. The tenants can consider the effect of that report and make representations upon it. Therefore, at that stage they can see whether there was a misdirection. I appreciate that this is a difficult matter to bring before the High Court. There has to be a definite breach of natural justice, as it were, before one can take the matter to the High Court.

I ask the House to await the report of the Advisory Committee on Fair Rents on this subject, with the knowledge that there is legislation in which an amendment could be made to the procedure of the rent scrutiny boards. I still feel that the right way to meet the complaints that have been made during the debate is to deal with the procedure of the boards rather than to bring them within the purview of the local commissioners.

All three boards have to decide measures in a quasi-judicial way. I therefore do not think that it is right to bring them within the jurisdiction of the commissioner who is dealing with the administration of local affairs by elected councillors. I think that this is the wrong Bill to do that, even if the complaints against the boards are justified.

I am encouraged by the Minister's statement that the Advisory Committee on Fair Rents is to examine the desirability of the proceedings of rent scrutiny boards being held in public. Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that there is a line of demarcation between the rents of public authority houses and those occupied by private individuals? It is right and proper that rent scrutiny boards should have reservations about public hearings involving private tenants, but surely the situation with regard to council house rents is completely different.

Let me illustrate the point by telling the House what happened in Manchester. The city has 90,000 council houses. The housing and finance committees examined the whole question of the level of council house rents and came to the conclusion that it would be fair and proper to increase rents by 5p per week. The provisions of the Housing Finance Act oblige the authority to increase them by 50p per week. Naturally, the city council said, "Let us send our proposals to the rent scrutiny board."

There was no public access to the proceedings before the board and, regrettably the board did not examine those proposals soon enough to prevent the 50p increase being imposed. Quite naturally and understandably, council house tenants in Manchester and the Greater Manchester area thought that they were entitled to know what happened in the proceedings involving the board on this subject. In a matter of individual tenants or houses it is not unreasonable for people to hesitate about making the proceedings open to the public, but when 90,000 council house rents are involved rent scrutiny boards should be required to allow access to the proceedings by the public and the Press. Why should there be this conspiracy of secrecy about the levels of council house rents?

I want to reinforce the points made by my hon. Friends. Although the Minister says that, technically, this matter comes without the general provisions for the commissioner, because rent scrutiny boards are not local authority bodies, our whole point is that they deal with matters which are local authority matters and have always been at the discretion and determination of local authorities. Therefore, from a common-sense point of view, they come within the broad compass of events which are dealt with by the commissioner. We need the commissioner even more in these circumstances than in other matters normally dealt with by local authorities, because of the issue of secrecy which has been mentioned.

It is not very satisfactory to be fobbed off with the offer that a body will look into the matter of the secrecy of hearings at some indeterminate date and that, perhaps, another Bill will take cognisance of its findings. Why should we not make sure that there is at least a glimmer of light here to which hon. Members with constituencies like those of myself and my hon. Friends who have spoken this evening can look?

It is not only the determinations of the board which are in question. We cannot even get determinations from some of the boards. There is utter confusion about rents in many of our constituencies. We can understand neither on what basis the boards work nor when a determination will be made.

I shall not detain the House for long. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) has made the case in an excellent manner.

In matters of social security or unemployment benefit, an aggrieved individual has the right of first, second and third stages of personal appeal. The Minister made great play of the fact that the members of rent assessment panels and rent tribunals are appointed by the Secretary of State or by the Lord Chancellor, as though that gave them some divine right or some personified decency. The Minister then referred to the quasi-judicial status of rent assessment panels and rent tribunals. The fact remains, however, that there is a recourse to appeal against even judicial decisions. I fail to see, therefore, in what circumstances the Minister's argument applies.

The Minister opposes our amendment on the basis that the commissioner deals purely with local authorities, but I should have thought, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) said, that the fixing of rents, particularly local authority rents, is one of the most important of functions. Surely that is the major thing which the commissioner should have the right to investigate. If an individual citizen has a right of appeal where he feels that a Government Department has done him down or where he has received bad treatment from the National Health Service, he has recourse to appeal to an ombudsman. But in this most important aspect of an individual's life he has no appeal.

The three bodies referred to in the amendment are extra-parliamentary bodies, and there is no recourse to a true appeal of any sort. Clearly, they are a complete anathema in a democracy. Unless we have the protection sought in the amendment and unless the Minister is prepared to concede on this matter, I must invite my right hon. and hon. Friends to oppose the Government in the Lobby.

With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to reply to the points which have been raised.

I think that there is a misconception as to the duties of the commissioner. The commissioner is not appointed as court of appeal to deal with the merits of an issue. He is not appointed to decide whether a tribunal of any sort has reached the right decision or the wrong decision. He is not a court of appeal, nor, indeed, is the Parliamentary Commissioner. The commissioner is there to see whether there has been any maladministration, which is something very different.

I am very sympathetic to the argument that there is apparently no form of appeal, no way of reviewing the decision of a tribunal of this nature. In many other cases we have provided machinery for reviewing decisions. This is a matter which is not part of the Bill or of this part of the Bill. I do not know where we should get to in the Bill if we started appointing courts of appeal for all tribunals of whatever kind they might be.

We are considering here the appointment of the person who is familiarly called the ombudsman to look into administration—not to look into judicial issues and to decide the merits of those issues. If a proper court of appeal or some form of appeal is provided from these tribunals, that may be the right solution. I have sympathy with that argument. But it is not something which I can introduce into the Bill, certainly not into this part of it.

I should like to direct the Minister's attention to a comparison with what is often called the quasi-judicial function of a Minister when he is considering a planning case, a compulsory purchase order or something of that kind, which has been investigated in a quasi-judicial way by a public hearing and which is then submitted to the Minister for his decision. The Minister's activities there are not subject to appeal in the judicial sense, but the manner in which he discharges his function is subject to the ombudsman's investigations in respect of maladministration. Surely it is that comparison which one should seek to apply in this case. As there is no other way of finding out whether a rent scrutiny board has administered its activities properly, it would be right to provide an ombudsman-type operation to give exactly the same oversight of that action as that to which the Minister is subject in his planning decision.

A Minister is part of the central Government administration, which is within the jurisdiction of the ombudsman. In this case a local commissioner is appointed to look into the administration of local government. T do not consider these tribunals as part of that administration. They are separate bodies.

The Minister has referred to the distinction between local government and the central Government on this issue. But local government also exercises other quasi-judicial functions, for instance the quasi-judicial function of a planning authority. Does this mean that if quasi-judicial functions are applied the ombudsman will not be able to investigate the function of a planning authority?

The ombudsman can investigate the functions and the administration of the functions, but he is not there to decide as an appeal court whether the planning authority has made the right decision. If the planning authority has not administered the application properly, that is maladministration into which the local commissioner can investigate.

This has been a worthwhile debate in that it has brought out the discontent and the complaints about the present procedure. It is not a subject which we have ignored and disregarded. It has been put to the advisory committee and I suggest that it would be advisable for the House to wait for the information which will come forward. That is not fobbing off the matter in any way because there is the right vehicle—namely, other legislation—in which to put such amendments as the House may see fit. At this stage it would be wrong for me to include such appeals within the jurisdiction of the ombudsman.

With the leave of the House——

Order. I must make it clear that the hon. Gentleman has an absolute right of reply. He does not need leave to reply. Whoever moves an amendment has the right of reply. Other hon. Members who may have their names on the amendment have not that right. The Government, who are in charge of the Bill, generally speak after the mover and they also have the right of reply because it is a Government Bill. Similarly, if it is a Government amendment, the mover has the right of reply but no other Member on either side of the House would have that right. The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) has an absolute right of reply and need not ask for leave.