(1)Where any Minister is authorised by this Act to determine any difference, to make or confirm any order, to frame any scheme, or to give any consent, confirmation, sanction or approval to any matter, or otherwise to act under this Act or under any other enactment, or where the Secretary of State is authorised to hold an inquiry, either under this Act or under any other enactment relating to the functions of a local authority, he may cause a local inquiry to be held.
(2)Except as otherwise provided in any enactment, the Minister may appoint an officer of his Department or any other person to conduct the inquiry and to report thereon to him.
(3)The person appointed to hold the inquiry shall cause notice of the time and place of the inquiry to be given to the bodies and persons appearing to him to be interested.
(4)For the purpose of any such local inquiry, the person appointed to hold the inquiry may by notice in writing require any person to attend, at a time and place stated in the notice, to give evidence or to produce any books or other documents in his custody or under his control which relate to any matter in question at the inquiry, and may take evidence on oath, and for that purpose administer oaths:
Provided that—
(a)no person shall be required, in obedience to such a notice, to attend to give evidence or to produce any such books or other documents, unless the necessary expenses of his attendance are paid or tendered to him ; and
(b)nothing in this subsection shall empower the person holding the inquiry to require any person to produce any book or document or to answer any question which he would be entitled on the ground of privilege or confidentiality, to refuse to produce or to answer if the inquiry were a proceeding in a court of law.
(5)Any person who refuses or wilfully neglects to attend in obedience to a notice under this section to give evidence or who wilfully alters, supresses, conceals, destroys or refuses to produce any book or other document which he is required or is liable to be required to produce for the purposes of this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £20 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or to both.
(6)The Minister causing the inquiry to be held may, if he thinks fit, pay such expenses of witnesses and such expenses of or concerning the production of any books or other documents as to him seems reasonable, and such expenses shall be deemed to be part of the expenses of the inquiry.
(7)The expenses incurred by a Minister in relation to any such inquiry (including such reasonable sum as he may determine for the services of any officer of a Government Department engaged in the inquiry) shall, unless he is of opinion having regard to the object and result of the inquiry that the expenses should be defrayed in whole or in part by him, be paid by such local authority or party to the inquiry as he may direct, and the Minister may certify the amount of the expenses so incurred, and any sum so certified and directed by him to be paid to him by any authority or person shall be a debt due by that authority or person to the Crown and shall be recoverable accordingly.
(8)The Minister causing an inquiry to be held may make an award as to the expenses of the parties at the inquiry, and as to the parties by whom such expenses shall be paid.
(9)This section shall not apply in the case of a local inquiry held under any enactment where the enactment contains provisions with regard to such inquiries.