Local Audit and Accountability Bill [HL]

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, in June, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee published its report on the Local Audit and Accountability Bill. The report made a recommendation regarding the provisions in the Bill to prevent local authority newsletters unfairly competing with local newspapers. We have considered the recommendations in this very useful report carefully, and this group of amendments is the result of those considerations.

The committee said that in certain circumstances it is inappropriate for powers to make the code mandatory to be exercisable by directions rather than by statutory instrument, and subject to no parliamentary procedure. The committee recommended that, where the Secretary of State wishes to exercise his power to issue a direction to all local authorities in England or to a specified description of authorities, the affirmative resolution procedure should apply. While recognising that there can be circumstances where it is appropriate for the Secretary of State to be able to give directions to a class of, or to all, local authorities, we accept the committee’s recommendation that the exercise of this power in relation to classes of, or to all, local authorities, should be by affirmative statutory instrument.

We also agree with the committee’s implicit view that, where the power is exercised in relation to a single authority that the Secretary of State believes is not complying with the code, it would be appropriate for this to be by way of direction. However, we do not agree with or accept the committee’s recommendation that, where the power is exercised in relation to a single authority otherwise than where the Secretary of State believes the authority is not complying with the code, this should be by negative statutory instrument.

Our aim is simple: to be able to take effective action against those authorities that are giving rise to concern about their publicity, particularly relating to the publication of newspapers. Above all, in the case of such authorities, quick and effective action needs to be taken. These amendments ensure that the Secretary of State can continue to take that quick action against individual authorities. In cases where groups of authorities or all local authorities in England are being required to comply with some or all of the publicity code, we agree that this should be by order, subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, we are now coming to that part of the Bill that reflects several of the obsessions of the Secretary of State, not necessarily of the Minister. It is interesting that the draft Bill committee had, of course, no opportunity to consider these matters because they were not part of the original Bill; they were tacked on to the Bill at a later stage. I suppose we should be grateful that at least the Delegated Powers Committee has had an opportunity to comment on it. In fairness, I am grateful to the Minister and to the Government for accepting at least part of its recommendations, the part that referred to directions given to all local authorities. However, I find it difficult to follow the reasoning for the rejection of the second recommendation about directions to an individual authority.

The committee indicated that a power does not merely afford a specific and targeted enforcement mechanism but could—and would, if the relevant subsection is relied on—have the character of a legislative power. It took the view that it is inappropriate for powers of this kind, to make the code mandatory, to be exercisable by directions rather than by statutory instrument. Hence the two recommendations it made; in fairness, the Government have accepted one of them, although they did not accept the other. That decision was communicated to the committee and is reported in its sixth report, which was printed as recently as 11 July. In fairness, the report was written in June, but it does not indicate exactly when. However, it was considered by the committee only a matter of a few days ago—or at least, its report was published only a few days ago.

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[The Earl of Lytton]

My Lords, I willingly gave my name to the amendments in this group. Like the noble Lord, Lord Tope, I did not feel that this was the right stage of the Bill to argue about whether Clause 38 should stand part, although I am aware of the LGA’s concern on that. It leaves hanging the question of justification, to which the noble Lord, Lord Tope, referred. The rule seems to be designed to deal with the very few, to the potential disadvantage of the many. That is a questionable approach. The purpose of Amendments 25 and 28 is to address this.

On Amendments 30 and 36, the period of 14 days is manifestly too short for the sort of notification and response that is required in this situation. I am advised that 28 days is regarded as appropriate and the norm. Will the Minister be kind enough to explain why the norm must be cut in half?

Amendments 33 and 35 concern the basis on which the Secretary of State will inform an authority—perhaps he might choose to do so by text message to the chief executive, or something like that—and the clarity of the procedures for that confirmation, which are worthy of being tightened up. I hope that there will be a favourable response to that suggestion as well.

On Amendment 37, it seems that the present code allows for latitude in what the authority shall “consider” or “have regard to”. It might be a value-for-money consideration or something like that. The question is whether, in transition from the current voluntary code to the proposed statutory code, the latitude will continue to be there. That is the nub of the question, and the bit that has not yet been answered satisfactorily. Having said that, I very much support the thrust of the amendments in this group.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, as I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, moving his amendment—which, given an opportunity, we would support, faute de mieux—I was reminded of the remarkable film of the man who walked on a high wire between the Twin Towers in New York. It was an extraordinary experience. With this amendment, the noble Lord is navigating the gap between the Bill and the coalition agreement. I do not recommend that he emulates the high-wire artist, because he is very likely to fall precipitately to the ground, judging by what he has advanced tonight.

To begin with, the noble Lord assumes—he may be right—that the Government’s proposals are directed at unfair competition. That is the term used in the coalition agreement. It may be the case, but what constitutes unfair competition is far from clear. What the evidence is for unfair competition existing is even less clear. I will quote, as I did in Committee, from material supplied by the National Union of Journalists. One might have thought that it would be fairly sympathetic to the Government’s point of view, since journalists’ jobs are presumably more at risk if there is unfair competition in the newspaper industry than are the jobs of a handful of local government press officers. The NUJ pointed out:

“The last select committee charged with investigating the matter, observed that there was no evidence of a link between high-frequency local authority publications and the decline of ad revenue, circulation etc of the local press in the local authority catchment area”.

It also pointed out that the Audit Commission—perhaps this is one of the reasons that it is being abolished—in 2010,

“effectively debunked the assertion of newspaper proprietors that local authority publications represented unfair competition and were commercially damaging to other local newspapers”.

The Audit Commission found that the money spent by councils was not unreasonable, that few council publications were published sufficiently frequently to be a viable media for most local advertising, and—a matter to which no doubt we will return—that the current accountability framework would ensure that any misuse of public money could be dealt with.

Those are fairly strong views by an interested party that, one might have assumed, would be sympathetic to the Government’s position but is not. Its evidence is substantial in that respect. It also points out that the press began reducing its workforce many years ago, and that already something like 61% of local newspapers in the area it contacted had closed or struggled. One reason was the decline in advertising revenue, but it was not to be attributed to local authorities including advertising in their publications, because, as the Audit Commission pointed out, in almost all cases the publications were too infrequent to have that impact. Some 55% of newspapers cited competition from the new media.

It does not stop there. There are free newspapers in circulation. The Evening Standard is a free newspaper. I am not sure about the new paper launched by the Independent. It may be free, or cost a nominal amount. Some of the newspaper groups themselves publish freesheets. Metro is published by a newspaper group and carries advertising. Therefore, the notion that somehow local authorities are responsible for the difficulties is ludicrous.

Even if local authority publications constituted competition, to what extent would it be unfair? Is it unfair because the publication is free, or in some other way? Are advertisers not able to make a commercial judgment about what would suit them better? I should have thought that that was central to government policy. The proposal to dismiss the Government’s suggestions here would not constitute a breach of the coalition agreement because there is no evidence that the unfair competition part is at all relevant to what the Government are trying to do.

There is another issue. The Government’s proposals would apply to the code, but the code can change. We do not know what restrictions the next code will bring in. Most of the code, as it stands, is fairly reasonable and acceptable. I dispute the necessity to limit titles to four publications a year, but most of the rest is fairly balanced. What is to stop the Government tightening the code and deciding on a range of things beyond those that they now say should not be published—or, conversely, should be published—in local newspapers? This would give a blank cheque to a Secretary of State to tie the hands of democratically elected local authorities in terms of how they communicate to their electorate, who, after all, should have the final say in what is done locally.

Of all Secretaries of State, the present one is the last person I would like to see entrusted with those powers. I would be quite happy, or relatively happy, for the noble Baroness to have that power but I would not be at all happy to have the present Secretary of State exercising it. Nothing in the Bill would prevent him tightening up the code and using this mechanism to ensure that it is enforced. My preference is for the whole clause to go. I am anticipating what may be said, perhaps rather more briefly, in a subsequent debate. The noble Lord’s amendment would moderate the damage but in my view he should have stuck to his guns and his party’s principles and recognised that he would not breach the coalition in so doing. Then we could have perhaps exercised a bit more leverage on his coalition partners, for the time being, and improved the Bill rather than allowing it to go forward to the statute book in its present form.

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Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

40: Clause 38, page 24, line 46, at end insert—
“(3) In section 4 of the Local Government Act 1986 (codes of recommended practice as regards publicity) after subsection (8) insert—
“(9) In respect of the characteristics set out in section 4 of the Equality Act 2010, nothing in section 38 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2013 shall restrict the rights of authorities in pursuance of their obligations under section 149 of the Equalities Act 2010 to publish at any time factual material by way of correction or rebuttal of inaccurate statements which promote discrimination, harassment or promotes or constitutes other unlawful acts.””

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this amendment stems from concerns raised at a meeting of the all-party group inquiry into electoral conduct, to which I referred in Committee. Doubts have been expressed about whether it would be possible for local authorities at any time, but even during elections—perhaps especially then—to correct mis-statements of fact that could give rise to problems in relation to the Equality Act, such as racist or discriminatory statements that might apply to particular groups.

The noble Baroness said that she would look into this and write to me to clarify the position. I am grateful to her for doing that. She confirmed that it is permissible for local authorities to do exactly that, even during an election period, which is probably the most urgent time, provided that it is a factual statement. The purpose of the amendment is simply to allow the Minister to repeat for the record and Hansard the assurance that that is the position. That would be of some comfort to electoral officers and local authorities that might be confronted with this situation. Given some of the things that are being said up and down the country by various groups, it is likely that at some point local authorities will feel constrained to issue material of that kind, perhaps during an election period. It would be good to have that assurance on the record. I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness and indeed to the Government for acknowledging that perhaps there was a doubt and for clearing it up so comprehensively.

[Baroness Hanham]

I am happy to confirm what I have written to the noble Lord and I will read it out. The publicity code explicitly provides for a local authority to correct or rebut misinformation, making explicit provision in the sections about objectivity and care during periods of heightened sensitivity. Moreover, it contains provisions about equality and diversity, specifically allowing local authority publicity to seek to influence the attitudes of local people or public behaviour in relation to matters including equality, diversity and community issues.

During an election period, for example, local authorities may publish factual material. A local authority should take care when issuing publicity and should not be issuing publicity that seeks to influence voters. However, this does not prevent an authority from fulfilling its role in seeking positively to influence people in terms of equality and diversity. Hence if there is disinformation in circulation promoting harassment, a local authority may take action to correct it at election time or indeed any other time. The provisions in the Bill do not change the contents of the publicity code that have been agreed by Parliament. Rather they give the Secretary of State the power to ensure that taxpayers’ money is not being wasted by local authorities by disregarding the publicity code. Nothing in the publicity code prevents local authorities addressing issues of discrimination or harassment and tackling them head on. No local authority can claim that the provisions in the Bill to tackle non-compliance with the publicity code prevent them complying with the Equality Act.

In short, this amendment is not necessary and I hope that, with the reassurance that I have given the noble Lord and what I have said in the House today, he will be willing to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

Indeed, I am, and I repeat my thanks to the Minister for making the position clear. Now it is on the record. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 40 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

41: Clause 38, leave out Clause 38

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, in the parallel universe occupied by the Secretary of State, Pulitzer prize-style municipal correspondents can no longer haunt the corridors of town halls, rigorously holding local authority leaders and councils to account. They have now been supplanted in his imagination by what he describes as “town hall Pravdas”. To adapt a phrase, it seems that the local authority devil wears Pravda. In so doing, the local civic newspapers disseminate propaganda at public expense.

As I have demonstrated, there is very little evidence to support any of that, still less that the effect has been damaging to the local media. On the contrary, local media have very consciously and over many years withdrawn from reporting local government. I remember in the early 1980s, when I was leader of Newcastle City Council, urging the BBC to appoint a local government correspondent. They had a very good reporter there who has now made a national reputation, Mr Michael Blastland, who covered local government and much else. That was rather unusual for a local television and radio station, but it was not by any means a full-time job and the idea did not seem to catch on.

Furthermore, at a later point, the local papers in Newcastle, the Journal and the Evening Chronicle—which, strange to say, my constituents and those of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, when he was a councillor and leader of Newcastle City Council, were able to distinguish from the city council newspapers occasionally distributed, contrary to what the Government appear to think happens in the real world—apparently decided that they would reduce the amount of coverage of local affairs. They attended meetings and contacted members of the council, me and others, less frequently.

I raised the point with them and made it nationally as well. The Journal in Newcastle, the morning newspaper, said that it had conducted a survey and its readers were not interested in local affairs. Therefore, it ceased to be to any extent a paper of record, which is what good newspapers ought to be. It did this not because of competition from half a dozen issues of Newcastle City News but because, in its judgment, the readers were not interested. Some of us like to think that the virtue of local media is that they seek to educate and inform the local community. They have abdicated that responsibility; they have done it of their own volition and it is ridiculous to suggest that that has been caused by local authorities.

The conflation of a variety of issues that have been adduced to support the Government’s position on the whole issue of a code of publicity is entirely unconvincing. There is no significant cost to local authorities. There is no evidence, as I have already reported, via the National Union of Journalists, that it has had an impact on the circulation of local papers and the decline of revenue. On the contrary, there are many other explanations, which I will not rehearse again. As for the other main argument, that there is a danger of political abuse by some of these papers advocating a party line or support of the authority in control of the local council, of course that can and should be dealt with without a code, because it would be unlawful as matters stand to conduct propaganda in that way.

We have debated at considerable length the role of the auditors. The auditors have a responsibility in this and other matters. They are entitled to look at whether council expenditure, in the area of publicity, for example, is lawful and appropriate. In addition, there are other sanctions that can be applied, including, in extremis I suppose, judicial review. Therefore, both props of the Government’s case fail. It is not necessary to emulate the man on the wire to deal with these matters. It is simply the case that the Government are overreaching themselves.

I have to comment on the hypocrisy of a Government who allow, possibly promote, their Civil Service spokesman to make statements using the personal pronoun. Therefore, government spokesmen—not Ministers, or even MPs or Peers—in the form, presumably, of press officers or civil servants are all too often quoted as saying, “We are taking action on it”. It might be on welfare benefits or whatever. That is a politicisation of the Civil Service that is a step too far. It happens all too regularly. I do not say that it did not happen under the previous Government. I cannot recall such events, but it may still have happened. Under any Government, it is wrong for that to happen. If that were to happen in local government, there would be a legitimate outcry. It would be quite wrong for a chief executive or an officer of an authority to use the personal pronoun on a political issue, as opposed to saying that it is the council’s policy.

In addition to all the other grievous sins of omission and commission that the Government commit in this area, this is something that they ought to look at on their own account before they descend on local authorities in the way that they propose in the Bill. Again, I remind your Lordships that the draft Bill committee was given no opportunity whatever to discuss matters of this importance. It is not surprising that the Local Government Association is completely united across the political divide about this, hence my amendment opposes that the clause should stand part.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, the trouble with clause stand part debates is that they tend to come after everything else has been said. The danger is that one says it all over again. As I said, three groups of amendments have all covered more or less the same ground. I must ask the Chamber to forgive me if I cover some things that have already been said. It is clear that the Government do not see the situation in quite the same way as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has laid out tonight, nor as the Local Government Association has seen it in wanting all these provisions removed. We do not believe that should happen. We accept, as I said, that the great majority of local authorities will never breach the code. They will always do, and be guided by, the right thing.

I shall not say which local authorities we already know are breaching the code. I have them. I could do it, but I think it is probably not helpful. I hope noble Lords will accept my assurance that at least a dozen are breaching it at the moment. Either they are publishing publications, very frequently, outside the terms, or they are including propaganda or their own political statements. It is there and it is wrong; that is not what was meant to happen. As I say, with legislation the opportunity comes to try to put that right. Once again, it is putting it right for a minority—I totally accept that—but put it right we must. The Secretary of State is not taking very draconian powers. If the Secretary of State would have to put a broad direction out to a whole lot of authorities, we would be very worried about what local authorities were doing. That provision is there in case it is needed, but we are much more concerned at the moment about the individual authorities doing individual transgressions.

There are two elements of this, as I have said right from the outset. The provisions are necessary to make sure that taxpayers’ money is not abused; to see that local authorities produce publicity, not propaganda; and to ensure that local newspapers—which the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, slightly downgrades—hold local government to account. They are often full of what is going on; they are the proper means by which that should be done. The provisions do not change the publicity code itself; the guidance remains the same, allowing local authorities to communicate effectively with their communities. However, the clause provides the Secretary of State with the power to direct one or more authorities, as I have said. The clause also sets out the procedure to be followed, as we discussed—14 days’ notice in writing—and provides for a direction to be modified or withdrawn in writing.

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We believe that these provisions are necessary, even though they are for a small group of authorities at present which may very well, by the time the Bill is passed, be complying automatically. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment and leave the provisions in the Bill, where we believe they belong.

[Lord Beecham]

I thank the Minister for her reply, of course, but I simply do not recognise the world she describes. I am in my 47th year as a councillor in Newcastle and have seen very successful journalists, now on the national stage, cutting their teeth as municipal correspondents on both the morning and evening papers in Newcastle. I have seen them coming to council and committee meetings and telephoning and speaking to members of the council, leaders and opposition leaders over the years. There was then a gradual decline, from about the late 1980s. Journalists now very rarely attend council meetings and hardly ever attend a scrutiny meeting—a function that ought to be made more of in local government and in the local media. As I understand it, they rarely contact officeholders.

We all agree that the local broadcast and print media should be informing people and helping to hold local government, and indeed other public organs, to account. However, the fact is that they are not doing it and they are not doing it because they are facing a cyclical decline as they are overtaken by other forms of media, to which I fear most of us are contributing these days on our BlackBerrys or iPads. The world has moved on, which is unfortunate, and it seems entirely wrong that the Government should seek to restrict what councils themselves can do to explain what is happening to their communities in the way that is being described. It would of course be wrong for them to use these publications for political purposes; as I have already indicated, that can and ought to be dealt with under existing audit procedures or otherwise. However, it is clear that the Government are not going to move on this—the entire Government, as the coalition partners are unfortunately united—and, in that case, there is no prospect of this amendment carrying. I therefore beg leave to withdraw it.

Amendment 41 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

42: Clause 39, page 26, line 14, leave out subsection (15)

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this amendment refers to the Government’s proposal—which, again, was not subjected to scrutiny by the draft Bill committee—to introduce, effectively, an element of retrospection into the question of whether a referendum should be held. The Bill affects councils that have set council taxes for 2013-14 that would have been excessive if the clause becomes law, by virtue of the change that the Government are imposing in relation to levies by other organisations. Fortunately, it turns out that only a small number of authorities would be affected by the Government’s proposals. Those authorities are Wandsworth—an authority well known to the noble Baroness and other noble Lords—Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport and Tameside. There is clearly a clutch around the Greater Manchester area, which presumably relates to some joint organisation in that area which collects a levy. Why Wandsworth should be affected, I really cannot say, although that does not really matter.

In Committee, the Minister indicated that councils had been notified by, I think, 31 January, that this might happen. However, that is a very late stage in the budget-making process, and it would have been very difficult at that stage to have reduced their council tax to the level which, if the Government were to apply the new rules, would have been operative. I repeat that the problem is not about the council’s own budget, it is about the levy imposed by other organisations. Had it been a precepting authority, the precepting authority itself could have had to call and finance a referendum on its own budget.

Many of us are extremely unhappy about the whole concept of these compulsory referendums, which of course do not apply when the Government increase taxes, with a considerably greater effect on the household budget than a corresponding increase in council tax. A 2% VAT increase takes a lot more out of people’s pockets than a 2%, or even slightly higher, council tax increase. Be that as it may, the effect is curiously different between a levying body and a precepting body; a levying body simply passes the cost on. The total amount of money is not enormous and would seem to amount to some £7.3 million. If the councils had been able to reduce their council tax to match the levy that they have had to impose, that would have been the cost to them, to be taken out of services. Nevertheless, it is a significant encroachment and, of course, if that were now to trigger a referendum—because the referendum limit becomes lower in future and councils may feel that they have to go for one—the cost of that, across these authorities, is likely to be pretty much the amount of the total levy across all those authorities. It is a bizarre situation. Given that it is now clear that it applies only to a very small number of authorities, in one particular cluster—in what, by the look of it, must be the special circumstances of Greater Manchester—I hope that the Government will reconsider this matter.

I suppose the Government do not have to apply the provisions of the Bill. If they do not want to amend the Bill and they want to reserve the power, so be it, but I strongly urge the Minister to think again about imposing this. It is wrong in principle, and it is an unnecessary reaction to what turns out in any event to have been a pretty small problem in terms of the number of authorities and the cash affected. It would be a statesmanlike move on the part of the Government to accept that perhaps, in the circumstances, they rather overreacted, fearing worse than has actually transpired, and to indicate that at the very least they would reconsider whether to proceed with the implementation of the clause, if they insist on its standing part of the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 43, and will be brief. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I think it is bad policy to backdate the definition of an excessive council tax rise so that it includes a levy from April 2013. I understand that in January this year letters were sent out to local authorities suggesting that the Government might take this course of action. I will say two things about that. The first is that it is simply not enough notice. Council tax-setting takes much longer than just a few weeks. There is a requirement that council tax is effectively set by the beginning of March, so that bills can be sent out. In my view, given the lengthy periods of consultation that local authorities are required to undertake, a period of six months would have been more reasonable.

My second reason for objecting to the Bill as it stands is that one should have respect for the law at the time at which the law is applied. I believe that councils and levying authorities abided by the law at the time. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, quite rightly pointed out, it is a comparatively small problem. Retrospective change, whether or not there was a warning, seems to me to be wrong in principle, and should therefore be resisted. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said that he felt that the Government were overreacting. I concur with that, because I believe that it is an overreaction to backdate in the way the Government propose.

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[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, it comes to this, it seems to me: you have a system which takes no account of levies, you change that system weeks before the statutory date for the budget so that the levy in that year can be taken into account in settling a referendum limit for the following year—and yet that is not considered retrospective. I seem to speak a different language from the Minister and the Government, and the dictionary speaks a different language as well. It is simply a semantic quibble to say that it is not retrospective.

It is a complicated matter for authorities. The noble Baroness referred to the city deal in West Yorkshire. This was entered into months before the budget. The Minister, with respect, rather airily dismisses the impact of the potential application of the principle in terms of the referendum limit. She quoted Bradford. Leeds is the largest authority in the area. It will gradually build up a contribution until it reaches £15.5 million. That represents a council tax increase of 0.2%, then 1% in 2015-16 and 0.7% per annum right up to 2022-23; 0.7% is a third of the referendum increase threshold. That is quite a substantial chunk, given the pressures that we all know are—and will continue to be—visited on local authorities, as envisaged by the LGA. The Minister’s successor by one or two as leader of Kensington and Chelsea is, of course, the LGA’s chair. As a percentage it does not sound large, but as a percentage of what is committed by way of an increase, it is very large; and that is in the case of a group of authorities of roughly comparable size, function and budget.

It gets worse than that if, for example, one looks at the position of the Lee Valley Park area. This runs along the Lee Valley, through east London and the Hertfordshire-Essex border. It gets its money from 32 London boroughs, the Corporation of London—which will probably not miss a few bob here or there—Hertfordshire County Council, Essex County Council and Thurrock unitary authority. So there is a vast number of authorities there, not all of which are represented on the board.

In fact, the riparian authorities are limited to Essex, Hertfordshire and other councils and only one member from six of the London boroughs—whereas the total cost is met by 32 London boroughs. Two of their representatives sitting in this Chamber tonight can confirm that. So here is a levying body which individual authorities cannot really influence, yet what it does will have an impact on their referendum.

That is objectionable in principle, but I urge the Government to realise, particularly in relation to the levies that accrue as a result of a deal entered into by the Government—the city deal proposal—that a transitional arrangement would be desirable. I hope that the Government will revisit that. They may not need legislation to do it—I would not imagine that they would—but I hope that they will look at this again. It seems unfair that an arrangement with the Government could precipitate difficulties of that kind. However, in the light of tonight’s debate, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 42 withdrawn.