Derbyshire Miners' Welfare Committee v Skegness Urban District Council
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Viscount Simonds,Lord Reid,Lord Keith of Avonholm,Lord Denning |
| Judgment Date | 30 April 1959 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1959] UKHL J0430-2 |
| Date | 30 April 1959 |
| Court | House of Lords |
[1959] UKHL J0430-2
House of Lords
Viscount Simonds
Lord Morton of Henryton
Lord Reid
Lord Keith of Avonholm
Lord Denning
Upon Report from the Appellate Committee, to whom was referred the Cause Skegness Urban District Council against Derbyshire Miners' Welfare Committee, that whereas Monday the 15th day of December last was appointed for hearing Counsel upon the Petition and Appeal of the Urban District Council for the Urban District of Skegness in the County of Lincoln (Parts of Lindsey), praying, That the matter of the Order set forth in the Schedule thereto, namely, an Order of Her Majesty's Court of Appeal of the 26th of November 1957, might be reviewed before Her Majesty the Queen, in Her Court of Parliament, and that the said Order might be reversed, varied or altered, or that the Petitioners might have such other relief in the premises as to Her Majesty the Queen, in Her Court of Parliament, might seem meet; as also upon the printed Case of the Derbyshire Miners' Welfare Committee, lodged in answer to the said Appeal; Counsel were accordingly called in, and Counsel were heard, as well on the said Monday the 15th, as on Tuesday the 16th and Wednesday the 17th, days of December last; and whereas on the said Wednesday the 17th day of December last, Counsel were informed that the Cause would be adjourned so that Counsel might be heard on behalf of the Charity Commission; and whereas Counsel were heard for the said Charity Commission on Tuesday the 24th day of March last; and due consideration had this day of what was offered on either side in this Cause:
It is Ordered and Adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in the Court of Parliament of Her Majesty the Queen assembled, That the said Order of Her Majesty's Court of Appeal, of the 26th day of November 1957, complained of in the said Appeal, be, and the same is hereby, Affirmed, and that the said Petition and Appeal be, and the same is hereby, dismissed this House: And it is further Ordered, That (except for the Costs incurred in respect of the resumed further hearing of the 24th day of March last) each party do bear and pay their own Costs of the Appeal to this House: And it is further Ordered, That the Respondents do pay, or cause to be paid, to the said Appellants the Costs incurred by them in respect of the said resumed further hearing, the amount thereof to be certified by the Clerk of the Parliaments: And it is also further Ordered, That the said Charity Commission do bear and pay its own Costs of the said resumed further hearing.
My Lords,
The short question in this case is whether the Respondents, a body known shortly as the Derbyshire Miners' Welfare Committee, as the occupiers of a certain hereditament in the urban district of Skegness, which I will describe later, are entitled to the benefit of the relief against rates provided by section 8 (2) of the Rating and Valuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1955. This question has been decided in their favour by the Court of Appeal affirming a decision of a Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division. The contrary had been decided by the General Court of Quarter Sessions in and for the County of Lincoln (Parts of Lindsey).
It will be convenient to refer first to the relevant statutory provision, but I will remind your Lordships that previously no charitable or kindred institution (with certain immaterial exceptions) could as of right claim exemption from any general rate. Some rating authorities had, however, been accustomed to make sympathetic assessments on charitable organisations as a matter of grace. Uniformity was introduced by the subsection to which I have referred. It provided as follows:—
"(2) For the purposes of the making and levying of rates in a rating area, for the year beginning with the date of the coming into force of the first new valuation list for that area (in this Section referred to as 'the first year of the new list'), and for any subsequent year, the amount of rates chargeable in respect of a hereditament to which this Section applies shall, subject to the following provisions of this Section, be limited as follows, that is to say:—
( a) for the first year of the new list, the amount so chargeable shall not exceed the total amount of rates (including any special rates) which were charged in respect of the hereditament for the last year before the new list came into force."
Subsection 1 ( a) of the same section was as follows:—
"(1) This Section applies to the following hereditaments, that is to say:—
( a) any hereditament occupied for purposes of an organisation (whether corporate or unincorporate) which is not established or conducted for profit and whose main objects are charitable or are otherwise concerned with the advancement of religion, education or social welfare;"
Uniformity was further secured by the fact that by the Local Government Act, 1948, the duty of making and amending Valuation Lists was transferred from the rating authority to the Valuation Officers of the Commission of Inland Revenue. The first general revaluation undertaken by them became effective on the 1st April, 1956, from which date also the present claim to relief took effect.
My Lords, though I have been able to state the question very shortly, I find the facts extremely obscure.
In the Rate Book for the year ending 1st March, 1956, the Respondents were shown as the occupiers of the hereditament in question described as "Holiday Camp and Premises" with a rateable value of £1,476 and the rate payable was £1,758 18s. 0d. In the following year they were shown as occupiers of the same hereditament but the rateable value was shown as £3,800 and the amount of rate as £3,040. Against this assessment they duly appealed to Quarter Sessions and I have already stated the result of the proceedings up to the appeal to this House.
So far all is clear, but, when I come to the Case Stated by the Justices, upon which the appeal proceeded, I find a great deal of confusion. I do not seek to apportion the blame for this state of affairs except to say that it would not be fair to lay any responsibility for it upon the Justices or their clerk. In paragraph 8 of the Case it was said that the following facts were proved or admitted (I paraphrase them) (i) that the Respondents were in fact the trustees of a trust known as the Derbyshire Miners Welfare Convalescent Home and Holiday Centre; (ii) that "the Derbyshire Miners' Welfare Committee" was the short name by which they were generally known; and (iii) that they at all material times occupied the hereditament in question (and a further hereditament used as a convalescent home) for the purpose of a convalescent home and holiday centre for the use of workers in and about coal mines in Derbyshire (exclusive of South Derbyshire). Details of the hereditament with particulars of the buildings upon it were then given and it was stated that the camp was provided by the Social Welfare Organisation set up under section 13 of the Miners' Welfare Act, 1952, which obtained the necessary funds from the National Coal Board. It was further found that the organisation only made grants for capital expenditure and that it had always been their practice in doing so to make it a condition that the trustees would be responsible for maintenance and operational expenses. They further found that it was being run by trustees who sought to make neither a profit nor a loss on their operations. It is to be noted that this finding has not been challenged. They found also that the Trust was the subject of an Order made by the Charity Commission on the 20th February, 1953, and they referred to various admissions of which I may mention these, that the only persons attending the Holiday Centre were workers in or about coal mines in the District of Derbyshire (excluding South Derbyshire), their wives and children, but that, if all the vacancies were not filled by these persons, they were filled by applicants from other coal fields, that generally there were no vacancies left to be filled by applicants from other coal fields, that a charge varying from £5 15s. 0d. for an adult to £1 10s. 0d. for a small child was made for a week's holiday accommodation and full board, which charge included the return rail or omnibus fare from the visitor's home to Skegness, and that drinks and other refreshments were sold to persons staying at the Holiday Centre, alcoholic drinks being acquired by such persons as members of a club and in the winter by local residents who became members of the club and that a substantial profit was made out of the supply of drink but that the charge for accommodation was so fixed that taking all the operations together the trustees made neither a profit nor a loss.
I need not state the contentions of the parties before the Justices beyond saying that the Respondents contended that the purposes of the trust were charitable or alternatively) were concerned with the advancement of social welfare while the Appellants denied both contentions.
The Justices were of opinion that the purposes of the trust were not charitable and were not otherwise concerned with the advancement of social welfare.
I call attention to the fact that the Justices proceeded on the footing that the trust upon which the hereditament was held was that created by the scheme made by the Charity Commissioners but nevertheless thought that they were not thereby precluded from saying that it was not charitable.
But, my Lords, when upon appeal the case reached the Divisional Court, for the first time it was said and not denied that the governing document was not the scheme made by the Charity Commissioners but a lease of the 6th December, 1940, which had not been produced at the hearing before the Justices, and it was upon the...
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