Orders of the Day — Local Government (Pecuniary Interests) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 26 June 1964.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Frederick Corfield Mr Frederick Corfield , Gloucestershire South 12:00, 26 June 1964

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Sir H. Ashton) on introducing a Bill which, as he and my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn) have said, deals with a difficult problem. There is general consent that the principle of the existing provisions of Section 76 of the 1933 Act is an important one, and one that we would hesitate to breach. It implies that where there is real abuse, the sanction must be relevant to the seriousness of the abuse. At the other end of the scale, and it is that with which we are now mainly concerned, there has been considerable anxiety amongst local councillors, and the officers who have to advise them, lest some apparently extremely insignificant interests—interests that few people would consider as likely to influence a man's decision on a wider matter—were covered by Section 76, and put the councillor concerned at risk of the penalties provided.

As my hon. Friend has said, this modest Measure aims at giving a little clarity and comfort on this point to councillors. If I may say so, it can only be a modest Measure, without breaching a basic principle which I am sure that none of us would wish to do. As my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham has said, at his instigation the Committee had to consider whether, in providing a largely subjective test, we had not made it almost impossible to enforce the law in regard to serious abuse, but my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has made it clear that this matter will be considered in another place after we have consulted the local authority associations which, from the very start, have been closely associated with the principles behind the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford has spoken of the devoted and disinterested service given by the vast majority of councillors. We are here principally concerned with the disinterested part of that service rather than the devotion. We hope that this Measure will make clear to councillors that they need not fear where their interests in a particular matter are insignificant and unlikely to influence anyone in making a decision. I congratulate my hon. Friend once again on introducing the Bill, and on the trouble he has taken to do so so ably. I hope that the House will give the Bill its Third Reading.