Passenger Transport Policies in County Areas

Part of Orders of the Day — Transport Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 17 May 1978.

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Photo of Mr Ian Gow Mr Ian Gow , Eastbourne 12:00, 17 May 1978

Under the provisions of subsection (6), where a sum of money is due from a county council to a district council there can be a delay of six months from the time at which a notice is served by the district council on the county council before the sum in dispute can be referred to arbitration. The amendment's purpose is to reduce the period of six months to three months.

Amendment No. 8 provides for the Secretary of State to deal with any dispute not about money but about other matters between a district council and a county council. Amendment No. 7 relates only to the question of the time limit which should expire before the dispute can be referred to an arbitrator.

To take a specific example, in my constituency there is the Eastbourne District Council. If the Bill should reach the statute book, the council, a district council for the purposes of the Bill, may be required to carry out transport policies in accordance with the provisions of the clause. If in carrying out its duties it incurs expenditure which it would not have incurred unless there had been a requirement laid upon it by the county council, the district council could be seriously out of pocket. The purpose of the amendment is simply to say that where a district council in accordance with instructions given to it by a county council incurs expenditure, and there is a dispute as to the amount, we should shorten the time scale for reimbursement of the district council.

I come before the House to make a plea on behalf of district councils, which are almost always less opulent than county councils. I do not see why the Government have selected a period of six months. Surely Ministers are as keen as those of us on the Opposition Benches to try to speed up administration. Why should a district council be out of pocket, getting no interest on the money it has laid out, for a period of six months before it even goes to arbitration?

My Amendment No. 7 is modest. Had I been a little bolder, I should have proposed that the period be two months, but, out of deference to the Government Front Bench and with the customary modesty that the House has come to expect from the hon. Member for Eastbourne, I have merely halved the Government's period.

Mercifully, the Secretary of State is in his place. He will tell us why he has chosen the period of six months, and he will, no doubt, say why he thinks it reasonable that a district council which has laid out money should be precluded from going to arbitration for a period of six months.

Who is the arbitrator? The Government suggest that the arbitrator should be the president of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. I confess that that is a gentleman—or a person, as I suppose we have to say nowadays—of whom I had never previously heard. I am sure that that person is immensely distinguished, but I wonder where to find him. If one is a lowly district council, having laid out thousands of pounds at the request of the county council, to whom does one submit one's claim for arbitration?

I do not have with me the telephone directory. Perhaps one of my hon. Friends could go in search of it so that we might see whether the president of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy is to be found listed there.

It is relevant to ask who appoints this person. Presumably this is another area of Government patronage. I do not know who appoints the president of this body. But we may be fairly certain that if a dispute is referred to him he will not be a person who will arbitrate at once. If I know anything about arbitrators, they sometimes take a great time, and, if there is to be a great deal of time in resolving the arbitration once it is referred to him, that is all the more reason for cutting down the initial time from six to three months.

I regard Amendment No. 7 as of considerable importance, and I move it solely in order to protect the district council and, of course, the ratepayers of the district council.

Amendment No. 8 also is a plea on behalf of the district council, to provide that where a duty is laid upon a district council as provided in Clause 1, and the district council finds itself in disagreement with the county council, the district council shall have a right of appeal to the Secretary of State. I have always been under the impression that the Government Front Bench would be in favour of appeals to Ministers where there is a dispute between a district council and a county council.

Again, I give an example from my constituency. The Eastbourne Borough Council happens to be the owner and manager of the oldest municipal bus undertaking in the world.