Wednesbury Corporation v Ministry of Housing and Local Government (No. 2)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE SELLERS,LORD JUSTICE RUSSELL |
| Judgment Date | 29 July 1965 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1965] EWCA Civ J0729-2 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Date | 29 July 1965 |
[1965] EWCA Civ J0729-2
Lord Justice Sellers
Lord Justice Diplock and
Lord Justice Russell
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
(From: Mr. Justice Widgery Middlesex)
Mr. J. T. MOLONY, Q. C., Mr. F. H. B. W. LAYFIELD and Mr. DAVID WOOLLEY instructed by Messrs. Jaques & Co.) appeared on behalf of the Appellants (Plaintiffs).
SIRJOHN HOBSON. Q. C. and Mr. NIGEL BRIDGE (instructed by The solicitor, Ministry of Sousing and Local Government) appeared on behalf of the Respondents (Defendants).
The five plaintiffs in this action, who are now appellants before this Court, axe separate local authorities for areas in the Black Country lying to the north and west of Birmingham. They are aggrieved that the Local Government Commission has recommended to the Minister of Housing and Local Government a re-alignment of boundaries and functions of administration which, if adopted, would mean the extinction of these five authorities and their absorption in other administrative areas.
Their complaint, pursued jointly, is that the Minister has not complied with the statutory procedure imposed upon him and they therefore seek a declaration that the Minister cannot lawfully make an order under section 23 (3) of the Local Government Act, 1958, setting up the new areas on the basis of the Commission's proposals with or without modifications with the consequence that no order can be laid before Parliament.
It is alleged that an inquiry, which in the circumstances it was necessary for the Minister to direct, was not valid and lawful as it failed to fulfill the requirements of the statute; that it was not a "local inquiry".
Mr. Justice Widgery found against the plaintiffs and in favor of the Minister. The judgment sets out so clearly and completely the relevant facts and circumstances, the relevant provisions of the Local Government Act, 1958, and the submissions on behalf of the claim that I find no occasion to repeat them in detail. The facts and the nature of the present claim were further summarised in the judgment of Lord Denning, Master of the Bolls, when this matter was before the Court of Appeal on an interlocutory appeal (1965 1 Weekly Law Reports page 261).
Shortly, the Local Government Act, 1958, Part II, made provision for a Local Government Commission for England to review the organisation of local government in England, exclusive of the Metropolitan area, which was dealt with in a different way. It became the duty of the Commission to make proposals for effectingchanges which in its opinion would he desirable in the interests of effective and convenient local government.
The scope of proposals is dealt with by sections 18 and 19 of the Act. Section 19 deals with Special Review Areas. The appellants are within a Special Review Area and this area was in fact the first task of review undertaken by the Commission after its appointment.
In May, 1961, they produced a Report setting out their proposals. It is not suggested that their investigation and procedure was not proper and in accordance with the statutory requirements. The Commission consulted with the local authorities, including the five plaintiffs, and put their draft proposals before them and they were considered in conference as required by section 21 (4).
Their Report went to the Minister and in accordance with the requirements of section 22 was duly furnished to all the local authorities in the area to which the review related (including the five plaintiffs) and a time was fixed within which representations could be made with respect to the proposals by the plaintiffs and others concerned.
The Minister was minded to give effect to the proposals of the Commission and therefore section 23 (2) of the Act had to he complied with. It provides: "If within the time fixed under sub-section 5 of the foregoing section an objection is made by any local authority, parish council or police authority concerned, and is not withdrawn, the Minister shall cause a local inquiry to be held into the objection: Provided that, except where the objection is one made by a local authority to a proposal that the area of the authority should cease to be a separate area of local government, or should become a county district, the Minister may dispense with an inquiry if he is satisfied that for the purpose of considering the Commission's proposals he is sufficiently informed as to the matters to which the objection relates".
Then section 23 (3) provides: "Subject to compliance withthe foregoing sub-section, the Minister may if he thinks fit by order give effect to the proposals of the Commission either as submitted to him or with modifications; and any such order shall be laid before Parliament after being made, together with the report of the Commission".
The plaintiffs made objections (which they did not withdraw) against the Commission's proposals. On the 16th September, 1961, the Minister gave the plaintiffs notice that a local inquiry would be held at Wolverhampton. Sir Edward Ritson and Sir Laurence Watkinson were appointed to hold the inquiry and were later joined by Mr. Tetlow. There was some short overlapping of the three, after which Sir Laurence Watkinson ceased to sit at the inquiry.
These gentlemen did not sit continuously but the objections were heard on nearly 40 days between the 18th October, 1961, and the 2nd February, 1962. The Inspectors published their Report on the 26th March, 1962, and on the 30th July, 1962, the Minister informed the plaintiffs that he had decided to give effect to the Commission's proposals and to make an order which would he laid before Parliament.
This action was brought to prevent the Minister so acting without a further inquiry which should be a proper and sufficient local inquiry as the plaintiffs contend that such an inquiry has not yet been held.
The nature of the plaintiffs' objections to the Commission's proposals is not strictly relevant to this action or the appeal but there is one matter which has had a considerable bearing on the plaintiffs. grievance and on the arguments advanced on their behalf.
The whole of the Special Review Area in which the plaintiffs are located and which was the subject-matter of the review and the Commission's proposals is a built-up area with a high proportion of industries and with drab disused areas, the aftermath of the first industrial revolution in our country. The Commission in their Report said that they had to consider "how to deal withthose defects in the local government structure which stem from the multiplicity of authorities and the complexity of the structure". One major defect of the local government structure of the Black District, the Commission held, is that many of the local government areas are too small for full effectiveness.
Prompted, it would seem, by a recognition of the necessity of larger groupings and in an attempt to defeat the Commission's proposals, the appellants produced a scheme of their own without any statutory requirement or it would seem sanction. The scheme, as the Inspectors put it in paragraph 76 of their Report, "first saw the light of day some time about 11th October, 1961, that is a few days before the start of our Inquiry".
The scheme was for the formation of a new central county borough which had not been placed before the Commission in that form and would require completely fresh consideration. The Report continues: "It seemed abundantly clear to us that in these circumstances it would not be possible for the Minister to consider this scheme at this stage as a substantive proposition. There had been a complete absence of that preliminary public consideration, discussion and investigation which he would consider essential before committing himself to a decision. Nor were we body competent to conduct the comprehensive inquiry and to make recommendations, even if all the authorities concerned the county, the county boroughs and county districts and other public bodies and individuals had had time, which was not the case, to marshal their considered views".
The appellants, it is true, did not put the Inspectors' failure to give full consideration to their scheme as such in the forefront of their argument against the adequacy and propriety of the local inquiry but it was clearly I think the basis of their grievance. The appellants' alternative scheme, elaborately Prepared by a firm of Consultants to Local Government, made the scheme comprehensive in that it dealt with the whole of the areas with which the Commission had dealt and proposed alterations far outside the boundaries of the five appellants, as can be seen from a comparison between the maps shown side by side appended tothe appellants' alternative scheme.
How right it would appear were the Inspectors in taking the view they expressed in paragraph 76 of their Report cited above.
As sustained objections were raised to the proposals of the Commission by the appellants, amongst others, it was obligatory that the Minister should cause a local inquiry to be held into the objections.
The long inquiry held at Wolverhampton is said to have been defective in Few and insufficient in the way objections were probed and investigated. The major complaint on which in substance the other complaints depended has been that the terms of reference given by the Minister to the Inspectors precluded the Inspectors from making any recommendations to the Minister as to the comparative merits of the Commission's proposals and other competing proposals,...
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