General Nursing Council for England and Wales v St. Marylebone B. C
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Morton of Henryton,Lord Tucker,Lord Cohen,Lord Keith of Avonholm,Lord Somervell of Harrow |
| Judgment Date | 28 January 1959 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1959] UKHL J0128-2 |
| Court | House of Lords |
[1959] UKHL J0128-2
House of Lords
Lord Morton of Henryton
Lord Tucker
Lord Cohen
Lord Keith of Avonholm
Lord Somervell of Harrow
Upon Report from the Appellate Committee, to whom was referred the Cause General Nursing Council for England and Wales against Mayor, etc. of Metropolitan Borough of St. Marylebone, that the Committee had heard Counsel, as well on Monday the 8th, as on Tuesday the 9th and Wednesday the 10th, days of December last, upon the Petition and Appeal of the General Nursing Council for England and Wales, of 23 Portland Place London, W.1, 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 Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Metropolitan Borough Of St. Marylebone, lodged in answer to the said Appeal; 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 the Appellants do pay, or cause to be paid, to the said Respondents the Costs incurred by them in respect of the said Appeal, the amount thereof to be certified by the Clerk of the Parliaments.
My Lords,
I shall hereafter refer to the Appellants as "the Council".
The only issue on this appeal is whether the Council is entitled to partial relief from rates pursuant to section 8 of the Rating and Valuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1955. I shall refer to that Act as "the Rating Act of 1955". The material part of section 8 is as follows:
"Provisions as to rates payable by charitable and other organisations.
8. (1) This section applies to the following hereditaments that is to say—
( a) any hereditament occupied for the purposes of an organisation (whether corporate or unincorporated) 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;
( b) any hereditament held upon trust for use as an almshouse;
( c) any hereditament consisting of a playing field (that is to to say, land used mainly or exclusively for the purposes of open-air games or of open-air athletic sports) occupied for the purposes of a club, society or other organisation which is not established or conducted for profit and does not (except on special occasions) make any charge for the admission of spectators to the playing field:
Provided that this section shall not apply to any hereditament to "which section seven of this Act applies, or to any hereditament occupied by an authority having, within the meaning of the Local Loans Act, 1875, power to levy a rate."
The remaining subsections grant certain reductions in the rates chargeable in respect of any hereditament to which the section applies.
The Council is a body corporate established by the Nurses Registration Act, 1919, and now has the powers and duties conferred and imposed on it by the provisions of the Nurses Act, 1957, which consolidates the Act of 1919 and certain subsequent Acts. It is common ground between the parties that the powers and duties of the Council under the Act of 1957 do not differ in any material respect from its powers and duties at the time when the Rating Act of 1955 became law.
It is also common ground between the parties that the Council is "an organisation which is not established or conducted for profit, but it has to be determined, on this appeal, whether its "main objects" are such as to bring it within section 8 (1) ( a) of the Rating Act of 1955. The Council is, and was at all material times, the rateable occupier of premises known as Nos. 17 and 23-25, Portland Place, in the Metropolitan Borough of St. Marylebone. These premises are occupied for the purposes of the Council. The Respondents, who are the Rating Authority for that borough, refused to recognise the Council as an organisation such as is mentioned in section 8 (1) ( a) of the Act. Danckwerts, J. granted the Council a declaration that it is such an organisation, but his decision was reversed by the Court of Appeal.
Having regard to the decision of the Court of Appeal in ( General Medical Council v. Commissioners of Inland Revenue 1928) 13 T.C. 819 and to the decision of the Court of Session in General Nursing Council for Scotland v. Commissioners of Inland Revenue, 1929 S.C. 664, 14 T.C. 645, it was not contended before Danckwerts, J. and the Court of Appeal that the Council can be regarded as an organisation whose main objects are charitable, and the judgments of Danckwerts, J. and the Court of Appeal were solely concerned with the question whether the main objects of the Council are otherwise concerned with the advancement of social welfare In this House it was contended on behalf of the Council that its main objects are charitable or, in the alternative, are otherwise concerned with the advancement of social welfare.
My Lords, it is thus apparent that in order to decide the issue between the parties it is necessary to decide the following questions: —
(1) What are the "main objects" of the Council within the meaning of section 8 (1) ( a) of the Rating Act, 1955?
(2) Are these main objects charitable?
(3) If not, are these main object "otherwise concerned with the advancement of social welfare"?
It is, of course, possible that the Council has only one main object, but if it has more than one it will not be an organisation within section 8 (1) ( a) unless all its main objects come within that subsection.
In order to answer the questions just stated, it is necessary to consider the provisions of the Nurses Act, 1957, in some detail, since, in accordance with modern custom, there is no preamble to the Act, and the objects of the Council can only be ascertained by a study of these provisions. I must, therefore, refer to them in some detail.
Section 1 (1) of the Act is as follows: —
"The body established by section one of the Nurses Registration Act, 1919, by the name of the General Nursing Council for England and Wales shall continue in existence by that name and shall have such powers and duties as are conferred and imposed on them by the following provisions of this Act."
Section 1 (2) and the First Schedule state what the constitution of the Council is to be.
Section 2 is as follows: —
"(1) It shall be the duty of the Council—( a) to maintain, in accordance with rules in that behalf made by them, the register of nurses established in pursuance of the Nurses Registration Act, 1919, which shall consist of—(i) a general part containing the names of all nurses who satisfy the conditions of admission thereto; (ii) a part containing the names of nurses trained in the nursing and care of persons suffering from mental diseases; (iii) a part containing the names of nurses trained in the nursing of sick children; and (iv) such other parts as may be prescribed; ( b) to maintain, in accordance with rules in that behalf made by them, the roll of assistant nurses established in pursuance of Part I of the Nurses Act, 1943.
(2) Where a person satisfies the conditions of admission to a part of the register other than the general part, his name may be included in that other part notwithstanding that it is also included in the general part.
(3) A certificate under the seal of the Council duly authenticated stating that a person is, or was at any date, or is not, or was not at any date, duly registered or enrolled shall be evidence in all courts of law of the fact stated in the certificate."
Under section 3 (1) the Council is to "make rules for regulating the conditions of admission to the register and to the roll respectively and the conduct of any examinations which may be prescribed as a condition of admission thereto and any matters ancillary to or connected with any such examinations, and any such rules shall contain provisions—
"( a) requiring, as a condition of the admission of any person to the register or the roll, that that person shall have undergone the prescribed training, and shall possess the prescribed experience, in nursing; and
( b) requiring that the prescribed training shall be carried out either in an institution approved by the Council in that behalf or in the service of the Admiralty, the Army Council or the Air Council."
The section also provides for the payment to the Council, in respect of applications for examination, registration or enrolment, such fees as the Council may, with the approval of the Minister of Health, from time to time determine.
In section 4 there is provision for the registration of nurses trained abroad, and in section 5 there is provision for a list of persons neither registered nor enrolled, who completed a course of nursing in a satisfactory institution before 1st July. 1925. Section 6 deals with the admission to the register of certain persons there specified.
Section 7 provides for the Council making rules concerning removal from, and restoration to, the register, roll and list. Under section 10:
"The Council shall make rules providing for the issue of certificates to persons...
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