Padfield v Minister of Agriculture

Facts

Under the Agricultural Marketing Act 1958 the Milk Marketing Board fixed the prices paid to producers, and a producer or other person could complain to the Minister that the Board's operation was contrary to the interests of consumers or producers. The Minister could then refer the complaint to a committee of investigation. Farmers in the south-east of England complained about the way the Board fixed regional price differentials, and asked the Minister to refer the complaint. The Minister refused, giving reasons which included that a referral would raise a question that could lead him to be pressed to act on the committee's findings, and that the complaint was not suitable for such a committee. The farmers sought an order of mandamus.

History

The Divisional Court and the Court of Appeal refused relief, treating the Minister as having a discretion that the court could not control. The House of Lords allowed the farmers' appeal.

Issue

Whether the Minister had an unfettered discretion under the Act whether to refer a complaint to the committee; and, if not, whether the reasons he gave for refusing were legally permissible.

Held

Appeal allowed by a majority. The Minister's discretion was not unfettered: it had to be exercised so as to promote the policy and objects of the Act, as determined by construction of the statute. The reasons he gave were not permissible considerations, so his refusal could not stand and mandamus issued requiring him to consider the complaint according to law.

Ratio

• A statutory discretion, even if expressed in permissive terms, must be exercised to promote the policy and objects of the Act, and a decision-maker who frustrates that policy acts unlawfully.
• Where a minister gives reasons for a decision, the court may examine them, and a decision based on reasons that are bad in law, such as irrelevant considerations or the wish to avoid political embarrassment, may be quashed; the court may also infer error where no reasons are given and none can reasonably be supposed.

The judgments

Key reasoning

• The Act gave producers a right to complain and gave the Minister power to refer the complaint, and that power had to be read against the purpose of providing a means of redress for producers whose interests were harmed by the Board.
• The Minister said a referral would be embarrassing because he would face pressure to act on any adverse finding, and that was a reason that defeated the purpose of the investigation machinery and was not one the Act allowed him to rely on.
• The absence of a duty to give reasons does not prevent the court from reviewing those he does give, and a court may require a minister to explain a refusal where there is an apparent case that his decision defeated the Act's policy.

Obiter

• A comment that a minister who gives no reasons will find it harder to resist an inference that he has acted for a bad reason or without regard to the Act's purposes, because the court can infer unlawfulness from the absence of any reason that could justify the decision.

Where it fits in the module

On the Improper purposes topic, Padfield is the classic statement that a power conferred by statute may be used only to advance the purposes the statute was passed to serve, and that the courts decide what those purposes are. Candidates link it to Wednesbury [1948] 1 KB 223 and Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service [1985] AC 374 on illegality, to the cases on dominant and mixed purposes, and to Roberts v Hopwood [1925] AC 578. The FHS debate concerns whether implied purposive limits restrain the executive or whether the court is imposing its own view of what the statute is for, and whether the case shows courts becoming more willing to scrutinise reasons for refusal as part of a wider duty to give them.

Criticisms

• The decision lets the court identify the policy of the Act and treat deviation from it as unlawful, and critics say this puts judicial opinion about what a scheme is for in the place of the discretion Parliament conferred on the Minister.
• The Minister's concern about the political consequences of an investigation is plausibly a legitimate consideration for an elected minister, and the House treated it as irrelevant without much argument that the Act excluded political accountability.
• The court was prepared to review reasons given for a refusal while not imposing a general duty to give reasons, which creates an incentive for ministers to say nothing and leaves the inference of unlawfulness uncertain.
• The case offers no clear test for deciding which purposes are permitted when a power serves several objectives, an issue left to later cases on dominant purpose.