I should like to express appreciation, on behalf of myself and some of my colleagues who worked in the Committee upstairs, and on the Recommittal stage, at the fact that the Government have decided that where joint planning boards are formed by regulations those regulations must now be laid on the Table of the House so that they can be prayed against if necessary. This point was resisted with some considerable force upstairs, and again on Recommittal, but in another place better counsel prevailed, and I should like to express my thanks to my right hon. Friend for accepting the arguments which have been adduced.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Drake (Mr. Medland), in paying that tribute to the Minister and pointing out the work done by himself and his colleagues, did not also acknowledge the fact that in pressing for this Amendment there was a coalition with Members on this side who, I think, pressed it even more strongly.

I am sorry; I am very pleased to acknowledge it.

I am very glad to be able to satisfy everybody except, possibly, the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams), but I would point out that this Amendment was offered on the Committee stage and rejected by my hon. Friend the Member for Drake (Mr. Medland). He wanted an affirmative Resolution; I offered him a negative Resolution, and that is what he has got.

The right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to infer that I might not be satisfied. I can disillusion him; I am satisfied with this Amendment. I would like, at the same time to congratulate the hon. Member for Drake (Mr. Medland) on having joined with the right party so as to get good things done; it is indeed a hopeful omen. I have known the hon. Member for a long time, and I have great respect for him, and I know that in his remarks a few moments ago he intended to give credit all round. In spite of the provocation of the Minister, I hope that we may go on quietly with our consideration of these Amendments, and that the right hon. Gentleman will take the advice of the Chief Patronage Secretary and not make his speeches too long.

It is a point for the draftsman, rather than for the Minister, but I should have thought that this provision was included in the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946, and, that being so, it is a question whether it is necessary for these words to be set out in full in this Bill.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, to leave out "seven," and to insert "four."

In dealing with Lords Amendments in a Bill of this kind one has to keep in mind several documents at the same time, and perhaps I would be in order if I refreshed the mind of the House on the subject matter of this Amendment. This Clause deals with development plans, and a feature of these plans, which is referred to in Subsection (4), is the power to designate land as subject to compulsory purchase. This was the subject of controversy in earlier stages of the Bill, when we took the general view that designation was apt to be a blight on the land, that the threat of ultimate compulsory purchase would prevent its due development, and, in the case of agricultural land in particular, would inhibit long-range plans for improvement of the land and its fertility, which are essential if the agricultural industry is to prosper.

11.30 a.m.

In the Bill as it left us there was a safeguard in the proviso in Subsection (4), which stated that the Minister shall not approve designation of land for compulsory purchase if he is satisfied that the acquisition of the land is not likely to take place within 10 years of the approval of the plan. This Amendment deals with agricultural land, and in another place they have said that in the case of agricultural land, the period should be reduced from 10 years to seven. We seek to improve upon that improvement. I acknowledge that it is an improvement, but we still think that the period of seven years of suspension for agricultural land is too long.

This is an argument difficult to condense, but, in general, as is well known to the House, agricultural operations must be mapped out for years ahead. There is the rotation of crops to be considered, what land is to be pastured, not next year but five years hence, and that brings in its train complicated plans for the provision of drainage, and, in the case of livestock, for the buildings necessary to house them, for water supplies, and for a host of other ancillary operations to the proper use of agricultural land for food production. That is, in brief, the contention which I put before the House that this seven years, although it is a shorter period, and, therefore, better than 10, is to long a period for agricultural land to be suspended, as it were, from full agricultural planning.

It is always difficult to agree on the precise period. We on this side of the House do not wish to be unreasonable in saying that there should not be some period during which the land should be designated pending the plan being perfected; but I urge on the House in these difficult days, when food supply is one of our main preoccupations, when we are anxious to import as little food from other places as we can and to supplement our rations from our own soil to the greatest possible extent, that in those circumstances, we should regard our agricultural land as very precious to the whole nation, and we should be very chary to do anything which would check its proper development for agricultural purposes. It is with that object in mind that I and my hon. Friends have put down this Amendment.

The Lords Amendment which is before the House represents a compromise. It was arrived at after a good deal of discussion and conference and, I think, was accepted by all Members of another place as a reasonable compromise in the circumstances. I do not say that everyone was satisfied, but it is in the nature of compromises that most people are not entirely satisfied. Seven years, it was thought, was the minimum period that would be of value in carrying out the purposes of designation. The right hon. Gentleman rightly said that the purpose of designation was one which was accepted. It is to put on notice to the owner of land that his land will probably be required for public purposes within a certain period, and the Minister has to be satisfied that there is a reasonable probability that it will be so required within that period.

The object of the Amendment to the Lords Amendment is to reduce the period of designation to four years, and I submit that it is quite impossible to carry out effective planning if local authorities are enabled to look only four years ahead. It is fortunate that there will not be a great deal of agricultural land that will be the subject of designation, but where it is the subject of designation, it will be important and may involve fairly long-term projects, and if local authorities were limited to four years, the result would be that they could not carry out their planning effectively.

I see all the points which the right hon. Gentleman made about the value of agriculture and the importance of preserving agricultural land, and I think that the Minister, whoever 'he may be, could be safely entrusted to use the powers in the Bill wisely to ensure that not more agricultural land is acquired or is designated than is absolutely necessary; but when it is, I put it to the House that local authorities ought to be able to look ahead for a longer period than four years. I think that seven years is the minimum, and the Government have gone a long way to meet the views of the agricultural industry. For those reasons, I regret that I cannot advise the House to accept the Amendment to the Lords Amendment.

The Minister has said that local authorities ought to be able to look ahead for at least seven years; and perhaps it is desirable that we should explain from this side of the House why we think the period should be four years and not seven. The House will recollect that development plans have to be revised in quinquennial periods. A plan lasts for five years and then a review is held, and it is revised as necessary. We think that in the case of agricultural land the local authorities should be able to look ahead for five years, and say, "If we desire this land within five years we will designate, or if it is desired for a public purpose or for purposes of enforcing a plan we will take it." We say that if they have not taken it as they approach the end of the five-year period, the owner should have the right to extricate himself from the difficulty in which he is placed—and it is a very real difficulty—by this act of designation.

The Minister said in effect—I am not using his exact words—that only in very rare cases would agricultural land be designated. That seems to me to be a most surprising statement, and I hope sincerely that it is correct. I have envisaged all along that local authorities will go pretty quickly about designating agricultural land because, after all, it is the only vacant land open to them to designate for public acquisition. It is unlikely that they will designate land which is already developed, and I should have thought that the most fruitful source of designation by local authorities, either on their own behalf or on behalf of Government Departments or statutory undertakers, would be land which is already uncovered by buildings and used for agricultural purposes.

We ought not to overlook the human aspect of this project. It really is a great difficulty which we are placing on individuals. First of all, there is the difficulty of the owner-occupier. He sees that his land is designated, and so he says, "I must find another farm." He can afford only one farm, and he is in occupation of that; and yet he has this threat hanging over him that within a space of seven years, in the present case, it is likely to be acquired for public purposes. He is unable to take steps to find another property; at any rate he is unable to make an offer for another property, unless he is a very rich man and can afford two farms, until he is certain that his farm will in fact be taken.

All this time—for a period of seven years—this uncertainty is hanging over him. It is not only hanging over the farmer but hanging over all those whose ways of life are dependent on the farmer. It is hanging over his foreman, cattlemen and farm servants who are all dependent on him, and who may have been working for him for years, living upon the farm, wondering, as he is wondering, what their future is to be. If the objection were only on personal grounds we might not feel so strongly, although we feel that it should be strongly pressed, but it is on national grounds, against the gloomy background not only of world food shortage but of the need in these islands to look inwards and to make the most of our natural resources that we feel strongly; for this House is bound, in these days of economic crisis, to look to the farmer and to the importance of not doing anything that can be avoided to injure the national industry of agriculture.

Many of these men whose land will be designated for public acquisition will want to launch out into new ways, improved methods, different methods, perhaps, under the stress of the need that will be placed upon all of them in the coming years to do all that they can to produce as much food as possible from their own soil. They may want to turn a mixed farm into a dairy farm to produce more milk. It will not be worth while for them to start altering the farm buildings, building perhaps a milk parlour, and making all the alterations that are necessary. These points have been brought to the notice of the House before, and I think that the House is fully seized of the importance of the question, but I suggest from these two points of view—from the personal point of view of hardship to individuals and from the national point of view of the sovereign importance of agriculture at the present time—that this Amendment should be supported.

I felt rather inclined to sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman when, in his remarks on this Amendment, he laid down quite fairly and clearly the fact that this was the result of a compromise in another place. He said, of course, that it was a compromise in the circumstances. Well, the circumstances of one week ago are not the circumstances of today, as we know very well, and that changes the whole position so far as compromise is concerned. The change of position in the last few days emphasises what the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison) and the hon. Member for West Aberdeen (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) have been urging—that it may well be that very quickly there may come from the Government an enormous demand on the agricultural industry. I have no doubt that agriculturists will stand up to it and do their best, but in view of the very great change that has come about in the last few days, and in view of the fact that the Minister is coming nearer to the position some of us take up, I should have thought that it would have been wise of the Government at the present time, with the things which they have to do in the immediate future, to say to the agriculture industry, "We wish to encourage you." I should like to emphasise particularly not only the case of the farmer and the owner as some of the people affected today by the uncertainty as to the future, but also the young men who are now coming into industry and whom we shall want in industry. When the hon. Member for West Aberdeen mentioned the cattlemen, I notice a smile spread over the Law Officer's face and he generally does not smile without reason.

I understood that the hon. Member for West Aberdeen (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) was referring to cattle, and it did strike me as a little amusing to think of the cattle labouring under a burden of apprehension as to what would happen to them.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman may not know the difference between cattlemen and cattle, but in spite of his interruption, I will continue my sentence. I gave way quite readily to him because he was labouring under one of his many delusions. [Interruption.] I am glad to have support for that from the other side of the House. I want to emphasise the fact that as far as we are concerned we are representative of the whole of the industry and we suggest it is necessary to encourage the owners and the farmers and to do everything to draw men permanently to that industry. From that point of view, I should have thought that this Government, which calls itself a Labour Government—it is only so in name—would have some interest in the workers.

Many times while this Bill has been going through its various processes in this House the Minister has told us that he has sympathy for our point of view, but added that we could rely on the common sense of the Minister. Of course, we do not doubt, as far as this Minister is concerned, that that is so, but we do not know what Ministers there are going to be in the future, and, in so far as decisions having to be taken are concerned, everybody is not agreed on what is common sense and what is not. I do not think the Minister really expects the industry of agriculture to rely merely on the assertion that they should be happy with a common- sense decision being taken. I am sure they would much sooner have something in the Bill, and for that reason I would urge the Minister to accept this Amendment.

I am glad that at long last the right hon. Gentleman has recognised what I argued on the Second Reading, namely, that the effect of designation when subject to compulsory purchase would be to throw a blight upon the agricultural industry within the area so designated. Now that he has recognised it—and it is an important fact—the only question that lies before us is as to the period during which this blight can hang over agricultural land. The blight will deter all long-term and short-term improvement and might prevent the proper and best use of the land. The right hon. Gentleman's argument for resisting our Amendment to reduce the period to four years can really be stated in one sentence. He says that to reduce the period to four years would be to limit unduly the local authorities' power, and that local authorities could then only look four years ahead. With the greatest respect I suggest to him that that argument is entirely fallacious.

This Amendment does not in the least prevent the local planning authority from making a long-term plan. What it does ensure is that whatever may be the plan for the whole of this area, we cannot impose this blight upon a particular part of the plan by designating it as subject to compulsory purchase for more than four years. That is all. If the right hon. Gentleman will agree with that, the fact of not being included in the area subject to compulsory purchase and designated as such does not, in fact, in any way free the land and exclude it from designation and the liability to compulsory purchase. The development plan is subject to quin-quennial review and it may be varied and amended from time to time. Within that five-year period the local planning authority can make its plan and can say, "That is what we are going to do in four years. We are going to designate this area." If, however, after two years they want more land, more speedily they have ample powers under this Measure to designate that fresh land. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that this is the case, and if that be the case, it is quite erroneous to argue that the powers of local authorities will be in any way limited by this provision. They are not. The local authorities at any time can get the Minister's assent when adding to the Order to designate, and, of course, there is this further safeguard that this Amendment does seek to ensure that the blighting effect of designation on the subject of compulsory purchases shall only be imposed for the shortest possible period.

I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that, bearing in mind the quinquennial review and the powers of amendment with regard to area designation, the planning powers and the powers of local authorities will not be handicapped in the slightest

I beg to move as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in line 28, at the end, to insert:

"and thereafter the land shall not be so designated again until after the end of five years from the expiry of the said six months."

This Amendment concerns the subject that we were discussing earlier, the designation of land for compulsory purchase under a development plan. I have acknowledged the improvement effected by the Amendments moved in another place, and I am sure that this Lords Amendment is also intended as an amelioration of the lot of the owner whose land is designated for compulsory purchase. What it does for him in effect is to give him a remedy if his land is designated but is not acquired within 12 years after such designation. If that period of 12 years elapses without the designated land having been acquired he can demand that it should be acquired and, if it is not, at the end of six months it is automatically free from designation altogether under the proposed new Clause. The intention of that is obvious and beneficial, but I am moving my Amendment in order to make sure that the purpose of the Government in agreeing to this new Clause is not rendered nugatory in this way.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) drew the attention of the House to the machinery which exists in the Bill for the amendment of development plans. One feature of that power of amendment is that it can add land not previously designated for compulsory purposes to land which is already in that category. The short point which my Amendment seeks to secure is that if it is desired to make this new Clause a real safeguard for the man whom it affects, then it is necessary to provide against an authority which has designated the land, and against whom the 12 years and six months have run—the land thus being free from designation—amending its development plan in order to redesignate the land on the following day, to take an extreme case. If that were done it is clear that the machinery for freeing the land which is laid down in the new Clause would be quite worthless. No doubt some control could be exercised by the Minister, but we consider that it is better to have the posi- tion of that land stated in the Bill. The Amendment proposes that if land has been designated and has not been acquired within 12 years and at the end of that period the owner invokes the procedure of this new Clause and the land is free from designation when six months have elapsed, then there shall be a period of grace of at least five years during which the land shall not be redesignated.

I submit to the House that this is an eminently reasonable suggestion. Hon. Members will remember that the 12 years have run and that the local authority has had the power to acquire the land for 12 whole years. It has not done so at the end of that period, its attention is drawn to the fact that the land is designated by the owner's application, six months go by and nothing is done. The land having once been free, who can say that there could be a case for such an authority amending its plan and redesignating the land? There can be no case for it, and I conceive that the Minister will tell us that if he himself were exercising the power of Minister—although we have to look 12 years hence and it is impossible to prognostigate who will be in his place then—he would be very reluctant to approve the redesignation of the land in circumstances such as those which I have described. Something similar was said by his colleague, when this point was raised on a similar Bill applying to Scotland, but I think his reluctance should be so great as to make him agree that, if land has run on in this way for 12 years, and if all the appropriate steps which he himself is indicating have been taken, then there should be a period of at least five years of grace for that particular land. Otherwise, if the power of amendment of development plans makes the power to reimpose designation a perpetual one, then, although this provision seeks to lift the shadow, the shadow will be there unless my Amendment is accepted.

The right hon. Gentleman has made the best of what I think is a bad job. I presume that he is seeking to protect the owner of land, but is he really protecting him by, this provision? Is it of any value to an owner to have five years' grace and to feel at the end of that period that he may once more—in the words of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller)—have his land blighted for a further period of 12½ years? If that were the intention of the local authority he is no better off in having this five years' grace than if the land were designated afresh immediately. The five years would me merely five years of agony and anxiety, and all the arguments that are put forward indicating the evil of designation would apply almost to the same extent because the owner would merely be waiting five years until his land was designated afresh. Therefore, I submit to the House that even from the point of view of the right hon. Gentleman's own argument this Amendment does not meet the case. If he were really logical he ought to say that this land ought never to be designated again. One can understand that, but five years' grace is of no value at all. It is not even better than nothing.

The right hon. Gentleman seems to imagine that redesignation can take place merely at the whim of the Minister. He says that he does not know who will be sitting in my place in 12½ years' time, but, of course, he knows who will not be sitting there. It is unlikely to be either the right hon. Gentleman or myself. It is quite true that we do not know, but is redesignation really going to depend upon the kind of Minister? I would remind the House that in order to redesignate this land the local authority would have to make a fresh plan, they would have once more to hold a public inquiry, at which the owner would no doubt be represented, they would have to satisfy the Minister that the land was reasonably required to be purchased within 10 years, and any Minister knowing that they had had 12½ years already in which to purchase it but had failed to do so would need a great deal of satisfaction before making the Order. Unless the right hon. Gentleman assumes bad faith on the part both of the local authority and of the Minister, I feel that he can rest assured that nobody would wish to redesignate the land merely for the sake of being awkward. There may, of course, be circumstances in which redesignation is really necessary in spite of the fact that the land has not been acquired within the 12½ years. I can conceive such circumstances although I hope that they will be very rare. The very fact that the land had been designated in the plan once would be an indication that it was neces- sary. It is true that the authority would have been dilatory, or there might have been changes in their priorities or other circumstances which prevents them purchasing the land, but its acquisition might, still be urgently necessary in the public interest. Local authorities ought not to be prevented from acquiring land or held up for five years in such a case, rare as it might be.

I believe that the owner is amply protected by the fact that a local authority wishing to redesignate—which would be a very unpopular course—would have to go through the whole procedure of a new plan, a public inquiry, advertisements and satisfying the Minister. I can imagine no local authority doing such a thing except under dire necessity, but if that dire necessity did arise, they ought not to have to wait five years. In these circumstances I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not press his Amendment.

The argument used by the right hon. Gentleman against the proposed Amendment is almost identical with that which he advanced in the Committee when hon. Members on this side of the House originally asked that there should be the kind of safeguard which is provided in the Lords Amendment and which the right hon. Gentleman is now accepting. The argument at that time was forcible, but whatever force there was in it was against the acceptance of the additional Clause which the right hon. Gentleman is now accepting. If it were, in fact, the case, that there was no serious danger of the blight of designation hanging indefinitely over land, there would not be any need, as in various stages of the Bill the right hon. Gentleman has said there was, to apply the provision for re-designation or for giving to the owner of land the right to call upon the local authority for compulsory acquisition.

Since the right hon. Gentleman is accepting the proposed new Clause in order to meet the criticism that was made that the blight of designation could be extended over land indefinitely without the owner of the land having any power to call upon the local authority to acquire it compulsorily, and since the right hon. Gentleman now agrees that the Clause is desirable for that purpose, it surely must also be desirable that it should not be pos- sible for the local authority if it wishes to do so to evade the right of the owner to call upon the local authority compulsorily to acquire by just neglecting to do so, and then applying for re-designation afterwards. All that the further Amendment seeks to do is to make fully operative the new Clause which the right hon. Gentleman is accepting, and which he regards as necessary for the legitimate defence of the landowner.

The right hon. Gentleman said in his reply that if we had wished to be logical we should have put down an Amendment to secure that the land should never be designated again. That would not really be practicable, for the reason that there would then be certain portions of land after 12½ years that could not be designated in the future. That is not our purpose. The real purpose of the Amendment is that we should not apply a sort of "Cat-and-Mouse" Act to the owner and occupier of the land. At the end of the 12½ years it would be possible to begin the whole designation process right over again, in exactly the same way as letting a man out of prison and then sending him back next morning. It would handicap the development of the land to treat it in that way.

Let me give a simple and clear illustration. Suppose there is a co-operative society, with a farm very near to a town, developing that farm to serve the society's shops. For 12½ years they have been uncertain how far they could develop but, at the end of that time, if our Amendment is not accepted that land is able to be designated again almost at once. Surely, it would be better to give the society a period of grace during which the land could not be designated again? I would not say that the land must never be re-designated. Surely, we might say to the co-operative society, "You have five years' grace in which you can go on and make your developments." I could extend this illustration to other sections of the community. On occasions such as this the Minister has been rather hard. I appeal to him to believe that we are trying to be fair to the man as well as to make the Bill work, and not to leave in the Bill something which is reminiscent of the "Cat-and-Mouse" Act.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in line 52, to leave out "eight" and to insert "five."

If hon. Members look at the new Clause proposed by the other place they will see that whereas 12 years is the limit for land, eight years is to be substituted for 12, by Subsection (5), in the case of agricultural land, which then comes within the operation of Subsection (1) four years earlier than ordinary land. We are suggesting by the Amendment that the term of eight years should be reduced to five. No doubt you would consider it in Order, Mr. Speaker, if I repeated the arguments in favour of agriculture which I put before the House a moment ago, but I will not abuse the House in that way. I will content myself with suggesting that as agricultural land plays such a vital part in our economy, the remedy for the owner of agricultural land which has a designation shadow upon it should be accelerated in the way which I suggest. He should be able to call the powers of the Clause into force if the land has not been used for five years.

I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would not seriously press this Amendment. The House has now agreed that the appropriate period of compulsory purchase in respect of agricultural land is eight years. What is now suggested is that at the end of five years the owner should be in a position to serve a notice requiring the local authority to buy, presumably at six months' notice. The Amendment would nullify the provision to which the House has already agreed and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not press it.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, to leave out from "to," to "that," and to insert:

"the purpose for which the land is to be purchased."

This is an attempt to improve upon the Minister's drafting. It raises no divergence of principle between us. The Clause of the Bill to which it relates is that covering the case where the owner of land is refused planning permission and the effect is to render his land incapable of reasonably beneficial use. He may in certain cases require the local authority to purchase the land. The Lords Amendment which I am seeking to amend says that one of the things the Minister can do is to secure that a local authority, other than the one which originally served the notice on the man, shall have power to take over the land. Perhaps I had better read the exact words. It says:

"If it appears to the Minister to be expedient so to do, he may, if he confirms the notice, modify it by substituting any other local authority for the council on whom the notice is served, and in any such case the foregoing provisions of this subsection shall have effect. …"

By the Amendment the Minister is directed, when he exercises this power, to have regard:

"…. to the probable ultimate use of the land.…"

We think that the purpose for which the land is acquired is a more objective test than mere speculation as to the ultimate probable destination of the land. It is a very small point and I do not propose to push it very hard, but as the Clause now reads, the Minister's mind is directed to something which is rather too nebulous to form an accurate test:

"…. the probable ultimate use of the land.…"

"Ultimate" is a long way away. No one can forecast the ultimate use of the land. To the speculative word "ultimate" is added the still more speculative word "probable." The criterion there is of so nebulous a character that it will not enable the Minister to stand upon any firm ground of judgment. I agree that power to vary the authority is necessary, but it should be done on a firm test which can be apprehended not only by the Minister but by everyone. The purpose for which the land is acquired is a thing known to everybody and the Minister can assess its value by a common standard, but if it is to be:

"…. the probable ultimate use of the land. …

that is a matter of pure opinion and guesswork, and consequently I am moving this Amendment for the purpose of getting a more objective material test for the operation of this Clause.

I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has moved this Amendment in the interests of clarity and good drafting, but that there is no difference in principle between us. I have very carefully considered the words he proposes to substitute, and I am bound to say that in my judgment he would add confusion to confusion rather than add clarity. May I remind him of the reasons leading to the acquisition of this land? First, planning consent has been refused. Secondly, by reason of the refusal, the land has been rendered capable of beneficial use. The owner can then call upon the local authority to buy the land. The purpose for which the land is to be acquired is not for any particular function of the local authority. It is a purchase which is being imposed upon them by the owner because of the refusal of planning permission. The local authority may have no particular purpose in mind. In a sense this is something they would have to do to remove hardship on the owner. Therefore, to insert,

"… the purpose for which the land is to be purchased.…"

is to make a false criterion. On the other hand, once the local authority has this land, it has to consider what should be done with it. It may be that when the Minister takes into account the possible use of the land, he may decide that the probable use will justify purchase by some other local authority than the one which has refused the planning consent. It seems to me that the right criterion is

"… the probable ultimate use of the land.…"

rather than

"… the purpose for which the land is to be purchased.…"

I recognise that the term

".…the probable ultimate use of the land. …"

is vague and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, but even more so I say that

"… the purpose for which the land is to be purchased.…"

has no real meaning. While I would not necessarily stand by every word of the phrase

".…the probable ultimate use of the land.…"

if something better can be devised, the decision to substitute another authority must be related to what is to be done with the land rather than with the reason for the original purchase. In those circumstances, I regret that I cannot accept the Amendment.

This is the Clause to which the right hon. Gentleman referred in the first speech he made today as reinstating Section 34 of the 1932 Act with regard to agreements regulating the development or use of land. We are glad to see that he has to some extent acceded to the arguments we put forward at the earlier stage of the Bill, but I want to ask one or two questions which call for an answer. Perhaps the Attorney-General can answer this? What is now the position, if this Clause goes through, with regard to an agreement by deed made under the 1932 Act by a local planning authority? There is nothing, so far as I can find, in this Bill to declare that those agreements under Section 34 of the 1932 Act shall be null and void. On the other hand there is nothing, so far as I can see, in this Bill to say that those agreements shall still remain in effect. Before we part with this Clause, we ought to be told what the position is now with regard to those agreements, particularly when those agreements are entered into, as many have been, by a local authority by deed under seal in the most solemn and binding fashion in which a local authority can make a contract.

I apprehend that this raises a question of some substance. There have been cases where agreements have been made which have served a useful purpose from a town and country planning point of view. We have had some instances where those agreements have not been so beneficial but where a man has voluntarily entered into an agreement subjecting his land to restrictions and limiting his powers to use the land, and the agreement has been made by deed. What will now happen to that deed made by the local authority under powers conferred by the 1932 Act.

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman mean agreements for private open spaces?

Agreements regulating the development or use of land under Section 34 of the 1932 Act, which empowered authorities and owners to enter into agreements restricting the use of land. There are a variety of agreements of that sort. No matter what the particular, agreement related to, we ought to know before we pass from the Clause to what extent such an agreement made under powers conferred by Parliament will remain valid and in force. We really do get into a rather astonishing position if we say that an agreement made under the 1932 Act which is valid up to today ceases to be valid because Section 34 of the 1932 Act goes, so that the whole field is reopened and fresh agreements have to be entered into. I hope the Attorney-General will answer this quite clearly: Is it the case that the effect of the repeal of Section 34 is that a deed made by a local authority such as the London County Council is also to be treated as null and void?

I want to speak about the words of this Clause. I do not propose to comment upon Subsections (1) and (2). They are very similar to Section 34. But Subsection (3) is something quite new, and, as I read it, its effect is that although the owner is empowered under Section 34 to enter into a binding agreement with a local planning authority and the local authority is empowered to enter into a binding agreement with him, power is reserved by Subsection (3) for the local authority to say at any time it wishes, "This agreement is not binding on us and so far as we are concerned, it is merely a scrap of paper." That is the real effect of Subsection (3)—

"Nothing in this Section or in any agreement made thereunder shall be construed as restricting the exercise, in relation to land which is the subject of any such agreement, of any powers exercisable by any Minister or authority under this Act…"

"Authority" would include the local planning authority, the party to the agreement, so notwithstanding what was in the agreement which the local planning authority had voluntarily agreed to, this Clause, as I read it, would permit the local planning authority to tear up the document to which it had signed its name. If that view of the Clause is right, I can only say that, if it goes into the Bill, I hope that local authorities will not exercise the powers which it clearly gives them of repudiating documents they have signed. On the other hand, I cannot believe that if this power of repudiation is allowed to exist, local authorities will find many people willing to enter into fresh agreements under this Clause. It can be summed up in one sentence. If any man makes such an agreement, under the terms of this Clause the local authority can say "Heads I win, tails you lose."

There is really nothing startling in the provisions of Subsection (3), to which the hon. and learned Gentleman has alluded. That Subsection makes it clear that an agreement made under this Clause cannot permanently over-ride the planning powers of the Bill. It may be that, subsequently to the Agreement, circumstances have changed, a new situation has developed, and that action has to be taken by the Minister or the authority under the Bill in order to secure certain other planning objects.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman said, that it could not permanently over-ride the powers of the Bill. Does it over-ride them at all, even temporarily?

It is a matter of degree. One would assume that a local authority, having entered into an agreement, would not immediately thereafter seek to vary it or depart from it. It might be, however, that the circumstances might change in a very short time and, if so, the authority would have to discharge its duties. It is one of the best known, most elementary and, I respectfully venture to think, important principles of our constitution that executive authority of this nature vested in a Minister, or vested by a Parliamentary Statute in a public authority, cannot be fettered or contracted out of by contract. The Crown, the Minister and the authority in which certain obligations are reposed under this Statute must be free to discharge their duties if the circumstances do change. Those who enter into contracts of this kind do so in the full knowledge that, if the circumstances change, it may be that the powers conferred by this Clause will be exercised, and the agreement will be modified or departed from. There is no compulsion on them to enter into the contract, and they do so in the full knowledge that that is the position which may arise under them. They will be safe in practice if the circumstances remain as they were at the time of the agreement being entered into, but if there is a change of circumstances which makes it necessary to pro- cure other planning objects, then the local authority must be left free to do so.

On the other point, we may have an opportunity of discussing that on the Tenth Schedule, but the position is that under one of the Lords Amendments to that Schedule, in page 157, line 38, provision is made for retaining the existing agreements and modifying or revoking them in case of need. The matter has not been lost sight of, and machinery is there established in regard to it.

I am astonished at the general doctrine which the learned Attorney-General has brought to bear to justify this, that under no circumstances must the executive be allowed to make a binding contract in case it chooses to change its mind next week. I thought that in the Crown Proceedings Bill we had been trying to bring the executive, as far as we could, into line with the ordinary law. Now we are told that the executive must have an overriding discretion to change its mind whenever it wants to do so, which I should have thought was making hay of the whole thing. What possible inducement is there for anybody to take advantage of this Clause if it is purely one-sided? Why should anybody bind himself to a certain course of action if he knows that the other contracting party is free to change his mind tomorrow? I should have thought that the whole purpose of this Clause, which is indeed an admirable Clause, intended to make landowners co-operate in these difficult matters, would be destroyed by this Subsection.

I would have no objection to a provision which said that the parties might put in a timetable 5, 10 or 15 years, or a provision which said that in any event no agreement was to be binding for more than 15 or 20 years. Surely, planners can see a little ahead? I agree that after some recent experiences that is perhaps an unwise assumption, but surely planners can see some small distance ahead and, if that is the assumption, I should have thought you were entitled to make an agreement to last at least for that duration, which people are normally expected to see ahead. But even that does not apply.

One would trust the local authority not to break the agreement unless for good cause, but there are at least two other people who can step in and cause trouble. One is the Minister and the other is the Central Land Board. One may perhaps assume that the Minister will behave reasonably in these matters, though that may be a rash assumption, extended over too many years, but I do not see that anybody at this moment has any ground for supposing that the Central Land Board will behave reasonably, because we have not yet the slightest idea of what it will do, and I view a board of this kind with the gravest apprehension, as I have said in the course of the corresponding Scottish Bill. Nobody making an agreement of this sort can be happy about the discretion of the Central Land Board or even the Minister, whatever he may think about the local authorities. Therefore, I suggest to the Minister that, even at this late stage, he might do something to modify this Clause to make it of some use. Speaking as a lawyer, if anybody came to me and asked whether he should enter into a contract under this Clause, I should say, "Don't touch it with a barge pole."

I hope the Minister will respond to the appeals to look at this matter again. I am well aware, as I am sure the Minister is aware, of the great anxiety felt by the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, and other bodies, on the treatment of these agreements. Section 34 of the 1932 Act has been of great benefit to planning authorities because, under it, they have been able to secure the preservation of open spaces. There was, however, a defect in the law from the point of view of the central planning authority in that agreements under Section 34 could be entered into without the consent of the Minister, and that is why, when we revised the law in 1943, we provided that thereafter an agreement of this kind would need the approval of the Minister. From inquiries made at that time it was clear, however, that Section 34 agreements taken as a whole were very much to the public advantage.

I admit that circumstances may arise where it may be necessary on public grounds to interfere with almost anything, but, surely, in circumstances of that sort, what may be required is legislation. To say that one party to an agreement can simply ignore it is to make a most startling proposition, and is bound to have the effect that a private land- owner will simply not enter into an agreement of that kind. It will not help the Minister in the least to have this Subsection in the Bill; it will defeat the very object which the right hon. Gentleman has in mind. If it is desirable that these agreements should continue at all—and certainly the view of the amenities societies, so far as I know, remains what it always has been, that such agreements are desirable—then I hope, while a great deal of this new Clause is admirable, that the Minister will restrict the powers at present appearing in Subsection (3).

With the permission of the House, perhaps I might add a word. The right hon. and learned Member for Hillhead (Mr. J. S. C. Reid), with his usual ingenuity and skill, has succeeded in introducing a red herring in this matter. The Central Land Board is not really concerned or affected in any way by the provisions of this Clause, which deal with agreements between the local planning authority and a person interested in the land, and whilst an agreement between the local planning authority and the person interested in the land could not fetter the duties which are imposed upon the other bodies which are not parties to that agreement. This Clause seeks to say that, notwithstanding any agreement which may have been arrived at, these authorities which are specified in Subsection (3) of the Clause are to remain free. I agree that it includes the party to the agreement—[An HON, MEMBER: "Ah!"]—certainly, it includes the party to the agreement, but that is the local planning authority. Any agreement made by that body would not in the normal course fetter the jurisdiction of the Minister or the powers of the Central Land Board; but the purpose of this Clause is not only to preserve that situation but to preserve it also in relation to the local planning authority. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has suggested that this somewhat novel principle is in some way inconsistent with the provisions of the Crown Proceedings Act, but he will remember the Amphitrite case, where it was laid down in the clearest terms that it is not in the public interest for the executive, the Crown to fetter its future execution action by contract.

The Crown cannot contract out of obligations. It has to forward the public interest and that is, in effect, what this Clause ensures. It provides that although there may have been contracts, if circumstances change and the public interest otherwise demands, then,

"so long as those powers are exercised in accordance with the provisions of the development plan or in accordance with any directions which may have been given by the Minister"

those powers can continue to be exercised. There is nothing far-reaching or startling in this provision, and I hope that hon. Members opposite will recognise that it is consonant with ordinary principles.

Is not the point of the addition of the words in the Clause, which do not exist in Section 34 of the 1932 Act:

"with the approval of the Minister"

precisely to secure that each of these agreements should in the view of the Minister be in the public interest? The point I wish to put is that notwithstanding those words, if Subsection (3) is left as it stands, the Minister can approve a development plan which simply ignored the view he had expressed, perhaps two days previously, in approving an agreement.

I agree that is the legal position. It might be that within two days the circumstances would dramatically change. I do not think that is likely, but if the circumstances had not changed and the Minister was guilty of such astonishing conduct as to approve a development plan in complete contradiction to something he had approved the day before, no doubt suitable action would be taken against him in this House. Ministers do not act in that way as a rule, and it is not necessary or desirable to provide by legislative provision against the risk that they may do so. This preserves the power of any authority to act and carry out planning functions if circumstances change and the necessity arises.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman said I was wrong in referring to the Central Land Board. A development plan may be made, and following on that, an agreement may be made under this Clause, with the approval of the Minister, restricting a development of certain land which might otherwise be permissible under the plan. Now the Central Land Board can buy with the object of re-selling to other people for the purposes of developing. The Land Board ought to be bound in that case, but as far as I see this Clause does not hamper them taking such steps as they think fit to buy the land and re-sell it in defiance of the covenant. Whether that is to be revoked, I do not know, but I do not think it matters. If the Central Land Board had a good customer and convinced the Minister that a good customer was a change of circumstances, they could get rid of the agreement.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Mr. J. S. C. Reid) is quite wrong. A prospective purchaser from the Central Land Board would still have to apply planning provisions. It would be a revocation, not by the Central Land Board, but by the local authority. The fact that the Central Land Board come into it is irrelevant.

If I may, as a layman, enter this discussion in which, so far, no person has been permitted to take part unless he is a distinguished lawyer, I would like to ask a question which worries me considerably. Is the Minister seriously saying that if I am a person interested in this land and enter into a contract with the local planning authority, the local planning authority under certain circumstances can say "We can no longer carry out our part of the contract as circumstances have arisen which make it no longer possible for us to do so"? Supposing that involved me, as an ordinary layman, in very great hardship and loss, would I have some remedy? I am not asking whether I could hold them to the letter of the contract, but this change of mind on the part of the planning authority might have involved me in very great loss. Would I have some means of getting compensation for what had occurred, or would my only consolation be that I ought to have realised when I entered the contract that they could not be held to the letter of the law if the occasion arose?

I think it is true that so far we have only had arguments by learned counsel, in which I am interested, but do not pretend to be able to take part. But looking at it, like my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penrith and Cockermouth (Lieut.-Colonel Dower) from the outside, I should think that the contention of the Attorney-General is wrong, because I should think "any authority" under this Act would include the Central Land Board.

In order to see what contracts are contemplated, one has to look at Subsection (1) which is quite explicit in mentioning a local planning authority which may enter into contracts, and contracts into which it enters, even with the approval of the Minister, cannot affect third parties.

I got that point, but what confused me was the subsequent intervention of the Minister. I can understand the argument on a high legal basis, or the argument on a lay basis, but I do not see the two flats joining at any point. What the ordinary man in the street would like to know is why anybody should want to enter any of these contracts. The object of the Clause is that such contracts should be entered into, but all the explanations have been directed to proving that no such contract is worth the paper upon which it is written. I now understand that point. That is the point to which the Attorney-General is directing his argument and he has fully convinced me of that. I do not then understand why the Government have taken the trouble to put this into the Bill, and I was hoping the Minister would explain that. But all he explained was that the Central Land Board could act only in accordance with directions from the Minister, if it intervened in such a thing. That did not quite square with the explanations of the Attorney-General that the Central Land Board was not concerned, because it could not be bound. We agree that these contracts can be altered at will. I still do not understand, and I appeal to the Minister as one layman to another. I know he is learned in the law, but if he could dismiss his legal knowledge for a moment and approach this as an ordinary citizen, I would like to know why anyone should enter a contract, in view of the explanations given by the Attorney-General.

Perhaps as man to man I can try to answer the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. One enters into the con- tract accepting the good faith of both parties, and I think that normally one can do so. Neither party is obliged to enter into the contract, the local authority or the individual. They enter in good faith, believing that it is for the public interest, and in the interest of the individual. We are accepting the position that planning is something flexible today. In the past it has been static, as no one knows better than the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. But circumstances do change, and less than every five years there is provision for review. On the occasion of such a review it may turn out that, looking at the best interests of the area, it may be desired to make some changes. That cannot be done at will, by a stroke of the pen, but there has to be a public inquiry. The owner can state his case, and if at the end of the day it is in the public interest that a change should be made, that change is made, and of course the Minister has to approve. On the assumption that everyone is acting in good faith, is not that the right thing? Subsection (3) will cause every one to be prudent in entering these things——

Suspicious.

They will not enter lightly into a thing knowing there is a possibility that they may have to revoke. It would be quite in conflict with the conception of flexibility, in planning to have an agreement which in no circumstances could be revoked.

As one who has had administrative experience, I can quite understand the right hon. Gentleman's point. We know that the Crown does not wish to bind this House by something which can never be revoked. But what about having some shorter period? It would be wrong for the Crown to bind itself for all time in a perpetual bargain. It is true that the contracts are entered into in good faith and foresight by either party. The five-year review period is for the local authority and the higher authority, and it would not be unreasonable if the Crown assumed responsibility for, let us say, a period of five years. That would lead to prudence being exercised on the part of the Crown. If one enters a contract which one can rub out at any moment, it is entered somewhat more light-heartedly than a contract which is to run for some time. The Minister says that he can be called to book on the Floor of the House, but a Minister who is going to have an awkward question asked, turns up his coat-collar and watches the clock and says, "My invariable ally will see me through." It is quite a different matter if he has entered a contract on which he can be challenged in the courts. I asked the Minister to consider the possibility of such a period. I put it no higher than that.

I understood the Attorney-General's point to be that the Executive should not be expected to bind itself in future. By that argument he is really missing the point of what it is to which we take exception in this Clause. What we do not like about it is that a local planning authority should be authorised to enter into an agreement which it can revoke the following day. That has nothing whatever to do with the Executive binding itself for the future.

Surely the hon. Member is overstating his case, which I am sure he would not wish to do. It cannot revoke it the following day. This is an operation which must take a long time. It must be by way of a fresh development plan and a public inquiry.

The wording of Subsection (3) of the proposed new Clause says:

"… powers exercisable by any Minister of authority under this Act, …"

As I understand it, an authority under this Act would certainly include a local planning authority.

If the hon. Member would continue reading, he would see that the Subsection goes on to say:

"… so long as those powers axe exercised in accordance with the provisions of the development plan …"

That must mean that there must be a fresh development plan, otherwise the agreement could not have been entered into at all, and a development plan does assume a public inquiry and opportunity for objections. It cannot be done by a stroke of the pen.

I think that there is some misunderstanding between the two sides of the House. Certainly, as I understand these words, they will mean that any powers which are exercisable under an existing development plan could be brought in aid to revoke at any date whatever an agreement which had been made. If that were the position, it would be open to any local planning authority which had entered into such a contract to say at any period, "In order to carry out our plans we shall have to revoke this agreement, because we have the powers to do so under the existing development plan." In other words, it would not mean having to bring in aid any new machinery whatever. If that is the correct interpretation of this Subsection, I think it is wrong. I understand from the Minister's interpretation that he is on the whole disposed to agree with that. If, of course, the Subsection means that before any revocation can be made some machinery has to be called in aid which would involve the exercise of powers by some outside person, in that case I should be perfectly willing to accept the decision of the Minister upon it. If it means that, I think there is really little difference of opinion between the two sides of the House.

rose——

I do not wish to curtail Debate, but I must remind the House that we are not now in the Committee stage, and that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen cannot make a second speech without securing the leave of the House

I was about to say, with the leave of the House, that I am willing to give an assurance that this provision will not be operated except after the procedure of a fresh development plan.

If I may speak again, by leave of the House, I would say that I think that what the Minister has just said really meets the point we have raised. I am not quite certain as to what extent it provides that an agreement made under Subsection (1) will be reflected in a development plan. I am not satisfied that the revocation of an agreement by a local planning authority must necessitate the alteration or revision of the development plan. After all, there is an agreement which says that this land must not be used for a particular purpose, and then that agreement can be revoked by a local authority, without necessarily meaning that the local authority has to get a revision of the local plan. That is the point which worries me. We have had a valuable Debate, which I do not wish to prolong. I would ask the Minister to consider the matter again carefully to make quite certain that the local authority cannot have it both ways the whole time, that it is not "Heads I win, tails you lose." Perhaps the Minister will look at the matter, and try to meet the serious point that a local authority which has entered into an agreement should at least be bound to it for five years, subject to getting the approval of the Minister if a reduction of that period is desired. One does not like the idea of a local authority being able to repudiate its signature the next day. If the Minister says he will consider it again, I do not think we need pursue this matter any longer.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in line 2, to leave out "of Subsection (1)."

This is an exploratory Amendment which I can explain in a very few words. The object which we seek to accomplish, though our Amendment may not be necessary for that purpose, is one which I think the Minister will approve. It will be observed that Clause 40 not only gives power to acquire the building compulsorily under Subsection (1), but also provides, under Subsection (4), for the acquisition of a building by agreement, if it is a building

"as respects which a building preservation order could be made by the local planning authority.

The Amendment that has come from another place secures that where a building is acquired under the provisions of Subsection (1) of this Clause, the acquiring authority shall observe the provisions of the building preservation order relating to that building. We want to be certain about what the position will be where a building is acquired by voluntary agreement under Subsection (4). Is the Minister satisfied, first, that if there is a preservation order in force in regard to that building it will be binding on the local authority; and secondly, if there is not a building preservation order in force, he will, if necessary, be able to make one after the voluntary acquisition? It is for these two contingencies that we have endeavoured, I am not certain whether effectively, to provide by this proposed Amendment. I should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman whether he is satisfied that without the Amendment I am moving the position is satisfactorily secured.

I beg to second the Amendment to the Lords Amendment.

This Amendment, as the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) has said, has been put down out of an abundance of caution. I can assure him that that is the case. If he will look at Clause 98 (2) of the Bill he will find that there is provision for the Minister, after consultation with the local planning authority, to make a building preservation order, or, if he regards it as necessary, he can give directions to the local planning authority to make a building preservation order or an order amending or revoking a building preservation order. I am advised that that meets the case.

As I seconded formally the Amendment moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss), I believe that I have technically already spoken. Perhaps, with the leave of the House, I might put this point. Is there any objection to this Amendment which we have moved? It gives these powers only in the case of any acquisition under this Clause as a whole. I would ask the Minister whether there is any object in including the words which we are seeking to leave out. If those words are left out, the provision will operate in respect of all acquisitions under the Clause as a whole.

I am advised that the words of the Amendment proposed by the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities would not do what was necessary.

On the assurance of the Minister, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment to the Lord's Amendment.

I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman one question in regard to this new Subsection. Under Subsection (1) of this Clause, the Central Land Board may acquire land for the purpose of disposing of it for development on terms inclusive of any development charge payable under those provisions in respect of that development. This proposed Amendment prescribes the keeping of a register containing particulars of land acquired and disposed of under this Clause. In that register will a development charge which may be included under Subsection (1) be shown separately? I think it should be. Provision is made by Subsection (1) for what I call an inclusive transaction. When we come to the register, persons inspecting it should be able to distinguish between what has been received in payment for any development charge and what in fact has been received for the land. I only raise this point quite shortly because I feel hopeful that this time the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give an undertaking that the register will be kept in that form.

I am not able to give an undertaking on this point because I am not sure at the moment whether it would involve a separate examination. I am quite prepared to examine the point, and if it will not involve either any disadvantage to the public interest or any undue amount of work, certainly I will agree that it should be done.

May I put one other point? Surely, it would be to the advantage of the Central Land Board and to the public to keep the two things separate from the point of view of looking back to see what the development charge was and what the price of the land was?

I will take that into consideration.

Again this is a small point, but it is not without some importance. Under Subsection (1) of Clause 47 it is stated that:

"… the Minister of Transport may, it he is satisfied that it is necessary so to do in order to enable development to be carried out in accordance with planning permission granted under Part III of this Act, by order made in accordance with the provisions of the Sixth Schedule to this Act authorise the stopping up or diversion of any highway."

By the addition of these words, one is giving the Minister of Transport power by order to stop up footpaths in the countryside, highways, and country roads where the development is to be carried out by a Government Department. I venture to suggest that the granting of that power to a Government Department really wants a little investigation. Will the development to be carried out by a Government Department be in conformity with a development plan, or can a Government Department carry out development not in accordance with the plan? Apparently, under this Clause a Government Department wanting to make any development will not have to get planning permission under Part III of this Act, and will not, in fact, have to refer the matter to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning. All it will have to do is to satisfy the Minister of Transport that it wants to make a development and then the Minister of Transport may, by Order, close highways, country lanes, footpaths, and things of that sort. It may, be right, but I think we ought to have a little explanation upon how this Amendment will operate.

This will operate in the same way as all other Government operations do operate. There is co-operation between the Departments. It would be quite unthinkable for one Government Department to commence operations without consulting the Minister of Town and Country Planning and getting agreement. If they fail to get agreement, the matter would have to be settled in the usual way. I can assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that Government Departments will not act arbitrarily. They will conform with the plan. I have said this over and over again in Committee and, of course, the hon. and learned Gentleman knows exactly what I do say about these things by now. In 999 cases out of a thousand the thing works, and once in a thousand cases there is a slip up. The normal procedure is that the approval of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning is sought and obtained in these matters.

This seems to be a rather fuller Amendment than some of the others. Could we have some explanation of it? If it is one of the 200 drafting Amendments, it is fairly considerable. I would like to know where we stand, especially in regard to the last three or four words.

Could the hon. Gentleman say what is his difficulty?

My difficulty is that I want an explanation of what the words mean, if it is possible to have one.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in line 5, after "granted" to insert:

"or has been granted since the first day of January, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1932."

If it is agreeable to the hon. and learned Gentleman, it might be convenient to take the two other Amendments to the Lords Amendment at the same time.

Of course, I am only too glad to do that. The first and third Amendments really seek to deal with different points from those of the second Amendment. Therefore, I propose to start what I am afraid may be a fairly lengthy speech by dealing with the first and third Amendments and then I shall come back to the point of the second Amendment. The third Amendment is, at the end of line 12, to insert:

"or would have been payable if the planning permission granted since the first day of January, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, had been granted under Part III of this Act."

The second Amendment is, at the end of line 12, to insert:

"or would have been so payable if that permission had not been revoked."

These Amendments raise a rather complicated and difficult point which I shall try to state as clearly as I can. The Amendment from another place is an endeavour to meet a point I raised on Report stage and to some extent it meets it successfully. However, it still contains what I regard as a rather grave flaw. I hope that after he has heard the argument the right hon. Gentleman will promise to do his best to meet it. The point I raised on Report stage was that in Clause 78 as it now is, ripe land was excluded from liability to pay a development charge and the right to obtain compensation. I suggested that that may be all right, but when ripe land is acquired compulsorily, then wholly different circumstances apply, and, unless some alteration is made, the owner of ripe land will be penalised by the fortuitous fact that a local authority seeks to acquire it. The Amendment from another place sought to deal with that point, and to some extent it succeeds.

If I am going to make my point clear, I must ask hon. Members to look at Clause 78. Under Clause 78, to consti- tute ripe land, it must be shown that the development values are wholly or mainly attributable to the prospects of development at the appointed day. Also it must be shown that a building contract has been made since 7th January, 1937, and is still in force, or that a bylaw submission has been made since that date. I draw the attention of the House to that. It also provides that a building application should have been made since then. The third condition which must be satisfied before land can come within Clause 78, and before the owner of land compulsorily acquired can receive the benefit of the Amendment from another place, is that planning permision for the development is granted under Part III of the Bill or is deemed to be so granted by Clause 75. In the Bill as it stands, it is Clause 76 but there is an Amendment on the Paper to alter it to Clause 75.

Probably, I can make my point more clear by putting an imaginary case to the House. Suppose there is a site in a town where the development is clearly attributable to the prospects of development on the appointed day. Suppose there is a cleared site which would have been built on but for the war, a site which was cleared for building before the war. That satisfies the first condition. Let me assume also that a building contract in relation to this site was made on 10th January, 1937, and is still in force. That satisfies the second condition. Suppose that this building contract was for building for industrial purposes, with the approval of the local planning authority, in an area zoned for industrial purposes. I think that in those circumstances the right hon. Gentleman would say that it really would be the intention that that land would come within Clause 78 and that where there was compulsory acquisition of that land it should come within the Amendments from another place, but it will not. It is only under Clause 78 that planning permission is given under this Bill.

1.45 p.m.

Following on my argument, let us suppose, that, because of the war, that particular site is now wanted for housing and that the local planning authority want to acquire it for housing purposes. They would then refuse planning permission for industrial purposes, and that would mean that this land would not come within the terms of this Amendment made in another place. The second point one has to consider is that it could not come under this Amendment because planning permission would not be given now, although the use of the site for industrial purposes was with the approval of the local authority and in conformity with their plan in the past—because of the damage done by the enemy and the need for housing—because of the provision in Clause 78 that permission shall in certain circumstances be deemed to be given. That throws us back to Clause 75, and there one sees that permission will only be deemed to have been given where application has been made after 21st July, 1943, and before the appointed day under an interim development order.

May it not happen that a man, who satisfied all the other conditions, but did not, in war-time, apply for permission to develop since that date in 1943, who has got his building contract from January, 1937, who has his site cleared and whose plan is in conformity with the local authority's plan as it existed before the war, with the definite approval of the local authority, will now find that, because the land is now wanted for housing, and because he did not apply in wartime since that date in 1943, he will be deprived of the benefit of this Amendment? I cannot believe that that is really the intention of the right hon. Gentleman and the Government.

It is interesting to see that, under Clause 76, another criterion is imposed, in addition to the permission under the interim development order. Clause 76 provides for the carrying out of works in conformity with the provisions of a planning scheme, or in accordance with permission granted by or under an interim development order, and, in Clause 77, we find these words again:

"in conformity with the provisions of a planning scheme."

I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he really is restricting the operation of this Amendment too narrowly by limiting it to a particular class of case where actual permission given under this Bill, or where permission has been given under an interim development order since 1943, and I suggest to him as strongly as I can that, if he wants, as I imagine he does, to do equity in this matter, he should insert in this Amendment words to the effect that where, before 1943 the development was in conformity with the provisions of a planning scheme, the other conditions, of course, being satisfied, the owner of the land might get the benefit of this Amendment.

So far as I can see, no reason has been given for differentiating between the owner who has applied since 1943, the other conditions being satisfied, and the owner who failed to do so. That really does not distinguish between what is and what is not dead ripe land. I hope I have made my point clear to the right hon. Gentleman. I might say to him straight away that I am not at all certain that the first and third Amendments now under discussion are really effective for carrying out the purpose which I have in mind, and I hope he will not, as I am sure he will not, take up any time in discussing the wording of these Amendments, but will merely deal with the serious point at issue.

The third point is dealt with by the second Amendment. In Clause 78, if it is amended by an Amendment which has come from another place, the local authority will have power to revoke permission for development granted under this Bill, and that means that, supposing we have—and this may happen, because the Minister cannot watch every local authority—supposing we have a local planning authority which has given permission under Clause 78 and then says to itself, "Well, we want this land for housing. We have given permission under Clause 78, and, because we have given that permission, it is dead ripe land, and, if we buy it now under this Clause, we shall have to pay a great deal more than we would pay if we revoked the permission." If these Amendments are carried, that can be done, and, that being so, it will be in the interests of local authorities to revoke permission in certain cases.

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would not like that action to be taken, but it may be very difficult to find out what are the real motives for the revocation of permission, and I suggest to him that, while the land may be ripe from the planning point of view, when revoking the permission, at the same time, from the compensation point of view, that revocation can have no effect, and that is the purpose of the second Amendment. If the second Amendment is carried, it will provide that, while the local authority has power under the Clause to revoke permission, yet, at the same time, when the local authority does want to acquire that land, it will not gain any financial advantage by that revocation. It means that ripe land which comes within Clause 78 shall not cease to be ripe land by the mere fact that the local authority seeks to acquire it. I have put these two points as shortly as I can, and I hope I have made them clear to the right hon. Gentleman.

I beg to second the Amendment to the Lords Amendment.

I certainly will not take up time in criticising the wording, effective as it may be, of the Amendments, because the hon. and learned Gentleman made quite clear what it is that he seeks to achieve. I think that, to put it in a sentence, he wants to secure for owners of land coming within the category which he described the advantage of full compensation if their land is acquired for public purposes, rather than that they should be paid on the basis of the existing use value. I should like to thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for having drawn attention to this point, I believe, during the Committee stage. It was a point of substance, and we have endeavoured to meet it. It was intended to apply to all land which was defined as dead ripe, and not to any other.

I am not seeking to apply it to any other.

Well, we are on common ground there. The particular instances which the hon. and learned Gentleman gave, and the cases that would fall under his Amendments, are cases which do not come within the dead ripe provision. They are not cases of dead ripe land, and, therefore, they do not qualify for the full compensation, which is the reason for his Amendment. In other words, in a sense, the hon. and learned Gentleman is really seeking to extend the definition of dead ripe land laid down in Clause 78.

May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman? He said these are not cases of dead ripe land. In any instances which I gave, I was seeking to give the case of land which was, in a colloquial sense, as dead ripe as possible—cases where land was dead ripe for development and would have been built upon, where there was a building contract in January, 1937, and where planning permission had been given, but where there was no consent under an interim development order and no consent under this Bill, because the land was now wanted for another purpose.

Yes, I think I quite understand what the hon. and learned Gentleman is saying, but the fact remains that the particular case to which I was referring does not come within the confines of Clause 78. It is a case that comes outside that Clause. What the hon. and learned Gentleman seeks to do is to give the benefit of the Lords Amendment to Clause 78 to this type of case which goes outside it, and to the other types to which he referred in his further Amendment, and I am saying that that is really equivalent to extending the definition of dead ripe land. It would be unthinkable to treat this land as dead ripe for the purpose of compulsory acquisition and not to treat it as dead ripe for the purposes of dealing with Parts VI and VII. Therefore, indirectly, it is seeking to widen the definition of dead ripe land, and that I am unable to do. The definition which we have in the Bill has been carefully worked out, and I think it covers all proper cases, and that other cases will qualify for a share of the £300 million.

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point, may I ask him a question? I am surprised at the argument which the Minister is using. If I have followed the argument of my hon. and learned Friend, it is that, owing to the actual wording of this Amendment, certain land, which will be excluded from this benefit, cannot logically be differentiated from land which is going to gain that benefit, and, therefore, while the Minister is right in a purely technical sense, of course, this Amendment is going rather too wide in the definition of dead ripe land. Would the Minister address his argument to what I think is the point of my hon. and learned Friend—that we cannot fairly draw a distinction and say that land is dead ripe because the permission to develop has been given under subsequent legislation, and to exclude from the defini- tion of dead ripe land cases where the permission was given under earlier legislation?

It is simply that one has to draw the line somewhere, and that, in this case, the line has been drawn in Clause 78 of the Bill. I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman would agree that some date ought to be put in, as, otherwise, a consent obtained in 1930 would——

I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but this is very important. The word "ripe," as applied to land, is derived from the analogy of fruit, and one can quite understand that a time limit has to be imposed, because all fruit will, ultimately, become ripe. But if fruit has become ripe, then, presumably, it does not cease to be ripe at some subsequent time. Surely, a great injustice is going to be done to owners of land where permission has been given on a previous occasion, but does not happen to have been given under this subsequent legislation. The argument is that land which was ripe in the past is going to be ripe in the future. This is land which has been ripe for some time past.

One must make up one's mind as to the proper definition of "ripe," and, having done that, land which does not conform to that definition must be regarded as not ripe Land which was once ripe need not always conform to that definition. In the case of land, in respect of which a consent to develop was obtained many years ago, and, which, in fact, has not been developed—and ex hypothesi, nothing will have happened to that land—it does not follow that such land is necessarily dead ripe for the purpose of Clause 78. Before it becomes dead ripe something must have been done to the land to make it dead ripe, and if the necessary requirements have not been complied with it will not be dead ripe. I do not think I can put it higher than that. A recent planning consent is all right, but a consent obtained a long time ago is not.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about a recent planning consent. Supposing that land was cleared at the outbreak of war and that the owners wanted to resume building on that land, which was stopped by the war, and that then, in conformity with a planning scheme, it was zoned for industrial purposes, would the right hon. Gentleman consider that as a recent consent? If he did, he would have to amend this Lords Amendment.

If the hon. and learned Gentleman means that a consent had been obtained, and not merely that the land was zoned, "Yes."

In 1939?

Yes, a consent obtained in 1939.

With the leave of the House, I would say that is just my point. A consent obtained in 1939 would not bring that land within this Amendment, because it could not be brought within it unless planning permission is given under this Bill.

There is no reason why planning consent should not be given under this Bill if the land is properly zoned. After all, land is not ripe for development if the development proposed is inappropriate. It cannot be ripe for development if the developer wants to do something which is wrong, and, therefore, he would get no consent. I now come to the next Amendment, and I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman realises the dilemma he is in. He has assumed that when such a person applies for consent, the local authority is dishonestly going to refuse him.

I did not suggest that there would be any dishonest refusal. I said that, because of war conditions, the purpose of the site required might well have altered, and that the effect of the alteration of the purpose would mean that ripe land which was, ex hypothesi, completely ripe in 1939, and until the end of the war, is automatically made not ripe.

I thought that the hon. and learned Gentleman had said at one stage of his argument that a local authority might revoke a consent in order to save compensation. I should say, if that were; done, it was dishonest, and so would the hon. and learned Gentleman. We are dealing with land as it is today, and not as it was in 1939. Is it ripe today? It cannot be ripe today if the development which is proposed is development which is not appropriate, or which would not be permitted by the local authority. But, in the normal case, where a person acquired land in 1939, and got a valid consent in 1939, and the development which he proposes to carry out is appropriate today, he will get his consent from the local authority for that development. If he fails to get it, he has the right of appeal to the Minister, who will, in proper cases, allow the appeal. Therefore, the only hardship which the hon. and learned Gentleman visualises is in the case where there is a planning refusal. I say that, in that case, the owner has not discharged the onus on him to establish that his land is dead ripe. It cannot be dead ripe if he is unable to carry out the development he wishes to carry out.

On the question of revocation of consent, I take it that comes under Clause 20 of the Bill, which provides for compensation. In proper cases, the owner will be compensated. Indeed, the provision of compensation has been considerably widened, as the hon. and learned Gentleman knows. Compensation is now being paid for all consequential loss flowing from the revocation—a plea which he himself made during the Committee stage of the Bill—and, therefore, that should go a very long way, if not the whole way, towards meeting any loss flowing from the actual revocation itself.

Under Clause 58, as it is going to be amended, the Minister will get power to revoke. It will not be under Clause 20. Will that carry the same right for compensation?

It will carry the same right for compensation. On the main question, I very much regret that it would, in effect, be widening the definition of "dead ripe" land, and I do not feel that it is possible to go further in that respect than we have already done.

Would the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to say exactly under which Subsection compensation would be payable in the case of revocation to which he refers? I was just looking for it, and I should like to be assured about it before we proceed further.

I had rather assumed that revocation, whether by a Minister or by a local authority, of planning consent, would carry compensation. I do not imagine that there could be any difference, in principle, between the two, but I will let the hon. Gentleman know who is the exact authority for dealing with compensation.

The right hon. Gentleman has indicated that he stands by the principle. If revocation would deprive the owner, would he regard that as being a matter in which compensation ought to be paid?

If it is compensation which, if carried out by a local authority, would have entitled the owner to compensation, then I see no reason at all why, if it is done by a Minister, he should not equally get compensation. I assumed that was the case, but if it is not, and if there is still time, as I believe there is, I will look into the matter.

I would like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for his last remarks, but I think that when we are dealing with what is almost the most vital provision in this Bill, that is to say the provision defining when land is dead ripe, we should have a rather clearer understanding of what the actual words mean than we have at the present time. The right hon. Gentleman defined "ripe" land as land ripe for the proper type of building, and as ripe in the opinion of his Department, or the local authority. That is as I understood him, and he will contradict me if I am wrong. Yet there might be land which, in 1939, was ripe for building, but because the local authority, or his Department, considered it was not ripe now for the proper kind of development, it can be claimed that it is not ripe at all. Surely, that is a rather arbitrary procedure.

Let me give a case in point. Suppose that the owners of a river bank in 1939 thought it ripe at a certain time to put in a dock and harbour, if, at the present time, the same people thought some development was proper, the powers that be can come along and say, "This land is not ripe. We think it should be used for piers and jetties, and we are not going to allow it to be used for a dock as well. If you want to use it in this way, we shall declare that it is not ripe." That seems to me to be placing an extremely arbitrary power in the hands of the Minister. It means that whatever a person may think he can do by way of development, the Minister has merely to say that the land is not ripe, and that he wants it for some other purpose, and he can stand continuously in the way of development. It seems to me that is the only possible interpretation that can be placed on the matter from the remarks made by the Minister earlier in the Debate. I say, quite frankly, that it makes one all the more sorry that this Bill was not properly worked out in the first place.

The short answer is that it is not for the local authorities to determine whether land is dead ripe or not. The hon. Gentleman is assuming that local authorities will carry out their functions dishonestly, and will revoke consents—that is the supposition behind what he says—already given, in order to save their ratepayers, from paying compensation. I can only say that, on that assumption, the whole Bill might make nonsense. If everyone is going to act dishonestly, and give consents or allow appeals on the basis of whether compensation becomes payable or not, all the safeguards in the world are of no value. I hope we are all assuming that everyone will act in good faith, and that local authorities will not improperly revoke consents which they have given, merely to prevent the payment of compensation.

I did not say that I thought local authorities would do that: I merely said that it was possible.

I hope my hon. Friends on this side of the House will carry this matter to a Division. It is essential that we should protest against the activities of the Government in this respect. There has been considerable argument, and a number of points have been raised. As I understand it, the right hon. Gentleman refuses to accept this Amendment which is designed to deal with the case where revocation takes place, because elsewhere in the Bill there is provision for compensation for such revocation. I have been studying the Bill to see how far that provision goes, and it is quite clear that the only power of compensation in those circumstances is in Clause 21 which, in effect, only gives power of compensation for abortive expenditure and matters of that kind. Where there is revocation, the result of which would be to deprive the owner of the land in question of fair compensation, which he would get if the land were treated as dead ripe, as it should be treated, the owner will be very seriously damnified by the refusal of the Government to accept

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in page 58, line 12, at the end, to insert:

"or would have been payable if the planning permission granted since the first day of January, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, had been granted under Part III of this Act."

We have already had some discussion on this Amendment, and therefore, I will not detain the House any longer.

As the right hon. Gentleman has said, we have had a long discussion embracing this Amendment, and, for the reasons which I have already given, I hope the House will not accept it.

Could we have some explanation of this new Clause and of the effect of it?

I think I fairly well understand the effects of the new Clause, but I should like to press the Government to explain it, and I should like to ask one or two questions about its pedigree. Can we be told how it was that this obvious piece of justice, dealing with compensation for war damage, was left out of the original Bill? I have had, and some others of us have had, considerable sections of war damaged property in our divisions, and it does seem rather negligent that this provision was not inserted earlier; that is why I should like to ask that first question. The second question is, Who thought of this new Clause? Was it the Government? Was it the Opposition? Was it thought of in another place? Or did it descend from Heaven? I think an Amendment of this kind is one many of us can welcome as being an improvement to the Bill, but I think we ought to have the privilege of knowing, when we are asked about it, to whom we have to give the credit for it. I have a lot of war damaged property in my constituency, which may benefit by this. Other hon. Members may be in the same position. I want to know what I am to say about it, and whether I can give the credit to the Minister or not. I should not like to give the credit to the wrong people.

I think that when the hon. Gentleman is asked in his constituency, he can give the credit to the Minister This particular Clause deals with war damaged property which is to be compulsorily acquired, and which comes within a special category. It is the case of such kinds of property as schools, churches, etc., which come within Rule 5 of Section 2 of the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act, 1919. In those cases, when a local authority is acquiring land—war damaged land—it would not be appropriate to pay a market value: there is no market value for churches, schools or colleges. The new Clause provides that in that case they should pay reinstatement, as if the property had been undamaged.

May I ask one other question on that? Why was it left out of the original Bill?

Because at that time, when the Bill was introduced and subsequently, there was a good deal of discussion and consideration about the War Damage Act: and the hon. Gentleman may remember that the War Damage Commission were asked to make certain recommendations. This Amendment flows from those recommendations.

I beg to move, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This is an Amendment to meet a case which was put forward on the Committee stage by hon. Gentlemen opposite to the effect that there should be no undue preference by the Central Land Board to particular individuals. As the Amendment stands, it is made contingent upon the making of regulations for the conduct of the Central Land Board, and it provides that, if regulations are made, then such regulations shall contain a provision that the Central Land Board shall show no preference. It is felt—and I am sure that the House will feel with me—that if we are to have such a provision at all, it ought not to be contingent upon the making of regulations, but that it ought to be stated fairly and squarely in the Bill itself. The purpose, therefore, is to disagree with the Lords merely for the purpose of putting the same thing in a subsequent Amendment to be moved in lieu of the Lords Amendment.

I find myself in the curious position of agreeing to disagree on this occasion. I think that the draft to be proposed by the right hon. Gentleman carries, out in a more convenient manner, the purpose which, no doubt, their Lordships had in mind.

I am sure that hon. Members on this side of the House will be glad that the Government have, at last, agreed to insert in the Bill the general principle of equity for which we contended upstairs. I confess I am a little bit surprised to find that the right hon. Gentleman is altering the actual draft of the Amendment that was carried in their Lordships' House. I note that the Lord Chancellor, the senior Law Officer of the Crown, paid a tribute to the ingenuity of the noble Lord who had secured a draft that had exceeded the ingenuity of himself and his advisers. However, the Government have now tried their ingenuity once more, and I welcome the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman is to move to the Lords Amendment.

I should like to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the Amendment which he is to move, because it does seem to me that he has climbed down from his usual pedestal of self-righteousness and accepted the common fairness point of view, which is, and has been throughout this Bill, that of the Opposition. I am a little concerned about the technical legal position. Apparently, one of the Law Officers of one place thinks it is right and in another place another Law Officer says something else is better. Perhaps, we shall have a new Lord Chancellor before long. I congratulate the Government on following the Opposition with such wisdom

I beg to move, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

The effect of the Amendment is to enable a developer upon whom a development charge is being served to appeal to the tribunal set up under the War Damage (Valuation Appeals) Act, 1945, against that determination. This was a matter which received a good deal of discussion, and there is very little now that I can add to what has already been said as to the reasons why I think that an appeal is inappropriate in a case of this kind. I will summarise them, without going into them at any length. I think, first, it misconceives the relationship between the Central Land Board and the developer. The Central Land Board are the agents for the Government, and in whom, virtually, the development rights are vested. They are in a position analogous to that of the Crown Commissioners, who have land to sell or to lease which they are offering to the public, and they determine the price, or the development charge, in accordance with principles laid down in the Bill, and in accordance with regulations that will be made and approved by the House; and having done that they are in exactly the same position as a good landlord governed by the principles of good estate management combined with the public interest. Therefore, it seems to me inappropriate that there should be an appeal against a determination of that kind.

2.45 p.m.

Secondly, the Bill does give the Central Land Board a good deal of elasticity. I think hon. Members opposite have accepted that principle as a sound one; that is to say, that the Board should be able to have regard to special circumstances. The Bill gives the Central Land Board a good deal of discretion, and the trend of our discussions in Committee was that they ought to be given more discretion rather than less; that they ought not to be tied too much to the Minister. But the exercise of discretion cannot be regarded as a suitable juridical matter. It is very difficult to say to a person who has been entrusted with the right to exercise discretion that he has exercised it wrongly, or to substitute for that exercise of discretion some other exercise of discretion. Therefore, again I submit it is inappropriate to permit an appeal of that kind.

My third reason is that to have appeals against determinations of this kind might make the whole administrative machine unworkable. No doubt a great many determinations will be made, and if every owner, or a substantial percentage of owners even, went to appeal it might make the work of the Central Land Board impossible, because every appeal not only involves administrative work, but takes up the time of that very scarce body of men, the valuers. The valuer would have to be taken off his work of making determinations on behalf of the Board, and put on to the preparation of cases of appeal, which would very much tend to slow down the work of the Board itself. One of the criticisms which has been made about the development charge is that it will slow down development. But to permit of appeals would tend to slow down development very much more, because valuers would be taken off their normal work and put on to the work of preparing and attending these appeals.

We have gone a very long way towards ensuring that the Central Land Board does not act arbitrarily, and does not make a determination which the owner has to take or leave. The Central Land Board will give the owner or his agent information to enable him to see for himself how the determination has been made, and on what basis. The Board will be willing—in fact, they will be required—to discuss with the representative of the developer the basis upon which the charge has been assessed, the agent knowing in advance what that basis, is, and there will be discussions as between one valuer and another. I believe that is a much more effective and satisfactory method, even from the point of view of the developer, than the right of appeal to an arbitrator. I am satisfied that with this safeguard, with a full disclosure of the basis of the charge, with the register which will be made public, and with the right of discussion and negotiation between the parties, no injustice will be done, and the proposed developer will have the fullest opportunity of making his case known to the Central Land Board.

There is only one other thing I should like to say, and that is that the Central Land Board, like every other body, will naturally and necessarily want to make a succcess of their functions. It may be said that the measure of their success will be the amount of development charge which they can level. I can assure the House that that will not be the case. The measure of their success will be the amount of development that takes place, and the Central Land Board will be told in no uncertain terms, and left in no uncertainty, that development is required much more than development charge. Moreover, there is, of course, a limit to the amount of development charge which they can extract, because if they go beyond a certain amount they are deterring development rather than encouraging it. They will very readily ascertain, if they have not already done so, that the kind of development charge they are levying is calculated to have the opposite effect from that which they are required to secure. For all these reasons, I feel that it would be wrong and inappropriate and not in the best public interest, to set up the tribunal which is contained in the Amendment sent from another place. Therefore, with very great regret, I invite the House to disagree with the Lords in that Amendment.

The Minister has moved the rejection of this Amendment, and in doing so the main burden of his remarks has been that an appeal in a case such as this would be inappropriate. He has told us that the Amendment is based on a misconception of the relationship between the Central Land Board and the developer. He went on to say that the relationship which would, in fact, exist would be such a relationship as that between the Crown Commissioners and the purchasers of land from them. Of course, the fact is that that argument is sheer nonsense. The Crown Commissioners are, in no sense of the word, monopoly owners, either of the whole of the land or of any complete set of rights in land. They are merely one landlord among a large number of landlords in this country. If we were here setting up a body to control a limited amount of land, or a limited right in land, it might well be that the machinery of appeal would be quite unnecessary. The reason why, during the passage of this Bill through this House, we pressed for a right of appeal was because the Central Land Board are to be a complete monopoly. That is the reason we support this Amendment today; indeed, it is really the only reason.

In another place the Lord Chancellor objected to this Amendment—which was there carried against the Government—on what he described as grounds of principle. I am bound to say I find it very difficult indeed to see what grounds of principle can possibly be adduced against giving the subject some right of appeal, or someone to whom he can go to decide whether or not he is getting fair treatment, when he is being confronted with a monopoly institution which has complete power in the field over which it can operate to deal with him exactly as they please.

I am very glad that we have an opportunity of discussing this Amendment today, because owing to the operation of the Guillotine when the Bill went through this House, I think I am right in saying that this main question of principle—and it is perhaps the largest question of principle which arises in the Bill—was never brought to an issue, either in Standing Committee or on the Floor of the House. It was discussed, of course, in relation to other Amendments, and it was discussed during Second and Third Readings, but I think I am right in saying that the House has had no opportunity of deciding this particular question, standing by itself, in the course of our discussions so far. Therefore, it is essential that we should give it very full consideration at the present time.

I cannot help feeling that the country at large—it is certainly my experience from discussing this matter outside the House—is wholly unaware of the effect of this Bill, and of what the powers of the Central Land Board will be under the Bill. Abstruse terms such as "development charge" and "development value" are used, and people tend to shy off those terms, and to think that this is a technical matter which does not affect them in the least. I am quite certain that the country does not yet realise that this Bill sets up a complete monopoly in the right to buy land for development; that, from the time this Bill becomes effective, anyone wishing to do on land anything which has not been done on that land before will not only have to get planning permission, but "will have to pay to the Central Land Board precisely what that Board like to demand from him. If a man wishes to start up in business in a shop which has been used for some other business than that which he wishes to conduct, it will be possible for the Board to demand any sum of money they think fit For example, the Central Land Board will be within their legal rights in demanding £100,000 from a small greengrocer if he wishes to set up in business in a shop where previously a shoemaker had been carrying on his trade. That is what this Bill does.

Of course, I am not suggesting that it will be exercised in that way; but I suggest that before such powers are given to an organ of the executive, something should be done to ensure some right of appeal, so that the citizen who complains that his personal rights have been injured can go somewhere and ventilate his objection. It is true that the Central Land Board are directed by the Bill, as it now stands, after considerable amendment, to comply with certain injunctions regarding the assessment of the charge in particular cases. In the first place, the Board are to have regard to the increase in value of the land which it is proposed to develop. They are merely to have regard to that. When the Bill begins to operate it will not be very difficult for the Central Land Board to be able to assess fairly accurately what such increases may be. But this is a Bill which it is intended will operate not for a year or two, but for all time. When this monopolistic Board has been operating for a number of years they will themselves, by demanding a high or a low price, be able to regulate the increase in value of any particular form of development. To begin with there will be some yardstick, but as time goes on that yardstick will cease to be effective, because it can be altered by the policy of the Board itself.

3.0 p.m.

The Central Land Board are now directed to give "no undue preference," as a result of the Amendment we have passed, and are also to comply with certain regulations, which are to be made by the Minister, in carrying out their duties. My own view is that these are pretty poor and pretty thin safeguards, so far as the subject is concerned. I do not believe they will amount to anything, when it is a question of a subject acquiring development rights from the Central Land Board. If we take the Government at their word, and assume that these safeguards are binding on the Board, is it not the strongest possible argument to say that there should be some right of appeal to ensure that they are operating in the subject's favour?

At the moment the Board are given these more or less vague directions, but there is no sanction to ensure that they are carried out, and, whatever the charge the Board may make, the subject will have either to accept or refuse. The subject will have no right of appeal, because nothing of the kind is provided for in the Bill. I submit that if the Government's intentions are to be properly carried out, and this Board are to be guided by general rales or regulations, that is the best possible reason for giving a right of appeal, so that if the subject says that undue preference has been exercised, or that the regulations have not been properly complied with, he will have some redress. In these circumstances, I hope that this matter will go to a Division, and that we shall protest against what I regard to be a piece of tyrannical legislation.

I wish to say a word or two in support of what has been said by the hon. Member for South Hendon (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth), which, among all who have considered this question, must have struck a note of reason. The Minister said that one of the reasons why he could not accept this proposal was that there would be no time if extensive appeals were made. That reason could apply to almost every other case which could be put forward. For instance, the Chancellor of the Exchequer could well say that we cannot have appeals against Income Tax assessments, because if every taxpayer appealed against his assessment, it would be impossible to carry on. It is really not an argument at all, and I cannot believe that there would be this vast number of appeals.

I do not wish to impute that the Board will act in any immoral way, but if the Board know there is a right of appeal, there will be a better check to make them carry out their duties in the interests of all concerned, than would be the case if they knew they had complete arbitrary powers. The hon. Member for South Hendon gave a case which sounds ridiculous. He said that £100,000 could be charged on one shop. Is that so, or is it not? I do not believe it will ever happen, but the question remains whether the Board should have that power without there being a right of appeal.

The right hon. Gentleman said the regulations would provide that the Board should consider developments and not the development charges. That is a really valuable statement, but there is nothing in the Bill to that effect, and nothing on record, other than what appears in HANSARD. Is it not possible to have that valuable statement incorporated in the Bill, so that it can be recognised by the authorities? Whenever HANSARD is produced as evidence to show the intentions of a Minister or of an Act, it is merely brushed aside. It is always said that Debates or arguments in the House should not be taken into consideration in interpreting an Act. Hon. Members opposite are anxious to give great and sweeping powers to boards, executives and officials. That is their policy, but I wonder whether they really want to set up all these boards without having some kind of appeal. They would get their policy accepted by a far greater number of people in the country in that way, than would be the case if there is no check against these unlimited powers.

The Minister, in asking the House to reject the Lords Amendment, advanced three reasons, with which I should like to deal quite briefly. He said that the Amendment suggested from another place misconceives the relations of the Central Land Board with the would-be developer of land. He then went on to talk about the position of the Central Land Board being analogous to that of a good estate landlord. When a good estate landlord is offering land for any particular kind of development, the would-be developer, if he is dissatisfied, can go elsewhere to buy land. There is hardly ever a condition where it is impossible for a man who wants to build a house, develop a small estate, or erect a factory to find the right kind of land upon which to carry out that development. The point was dealt with completely by my hon. Friend the Member for South Hendon (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth), when he pointed out that the great difference in the Central Land Board was that it was a monopoly owner. It will be in a position to dictate the terms and the developer, if he is dissatisfied with the development charge, will not be able to go elsewhere, because he will be dealing with the one and only landlord. The second point he made was that under the Bill and, presumably, under the regulations, about which we do not know, the Central Land Board will be allowed a great deal of elasticity. By that, I understand the Minister to mean that if the developer meets the representatives of the Board, and advances certain reasons why, in his view, the determination of the development charge is too high, they will be able to say to him, "We put in that figure because, in our view, certain circumstances arise, but we are inclined to agree with what you say, and think that we can reduce the figure." That must be what the Minister meant by "elasticity." They can put the charge up or down in accordance with the circumstances in each case. But that is no reason why there should not be an appeal on the part of the developer if he is dissatisfied. It is an additional reason why an appeal is desirable. If the would-be developer is dissatisfied with the determination, and if he had the right of appeal, it would be open to the representatives of the Central Land Board, just as it would be open to him, to appear before the tribunal, and say why the charge was fixed as it was. So I see nothing in the second argument of the Minister which is valid in his attempt to disparage and discredit the need for an appeal tribunal.

The third and final reason which the right hon. Gentleman advanced against it was that the whole administrative machinery might break down. That is an extraordinary admission for the designer of that machinery to make; it is extraordinary that the right hon. Gentleman should say that the machinery will be under such stress, that valuers will be so exercised, that the danger of an appeal here and there will upset the whole thing. It is an extraordinary condemnation of the administrative machinery which the Minister himself has created. I think it possible that the administrative machinery may break down; I have never hidden my view that there is a great danger that even without an appeals tribunal, that machinery may break down—there are not enough valuers in the country to deal with all the claims that will be made—but to say that an occasional appeal here and there would cause the whole machinery to break down will not bear examination. It might be said, with equal force, that there is no need for the House of Commons to examine legislation, that it wastes a lot of time, and that it would be better to accept it as it is. I often think that that is the attitude of right hon. and hon. Members opposite.

The Minister said that the most desirable thing was safeguarded, that there should be frank discussion, that the officers of the Board will be able to meet would-be developers, and tell them the basis on which they have worked in assessing a development charge. The right hon. Gentleman said that that is much more important than an appeal. I do not dispute the desirability of conversations face to face. It is highly desirable that a man should be able to meet the assessors of the charge, say why he thinks it too high, and negotiate in exactly the same way as representatives of a deceased owner can negotiate at present with the district valuer of the Inland Revenue. That is the kind of thing we all want to see, but, in reserve, there must be the right of appeal. There is this right in the case of determination of Estate Duty.

The fact that the appeal is there will help people to feel that the machinery is fair. These things have a great psychological effect. If a man feels that he is faced with something against which he cannot appeal, he is inclined to believe that the State machinery which is being erected against him is a soulless and heartless robot. The man who feels that he is free, as a sovereign individual, likes to think that there is some court of appeal to which he can turn. I do not know whether we have the right tribunal in this case, but if the Minister does not like it—although he did not advance any reasons against it—let him accept the principle and suggest another kind of tribunal The fact remains, however, that we attach the greatest importance to the right of appeal.

I do not wish to detain the House for long after the excellent speeches we have just heard from my hon. Friends on this matter, and also because the Minister said—and this is the only point on which I agree with him—that most of this ground has been covered in earlier stages of the Bill. Like my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeen (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) I was shocked and surprised at the Minister's denial of the possibility of an appeal because of the administrative inconvenience that would cause. I admit that he put it higher than administrative inconvenience. He said that there would be a danger, if appeal machinery was introduced, and multiplication of appeals followed—and they would not necessarily follow—that the whole scheme might become unworkable. As has been said, we do not dissent from the general principle that there will be great administrative and staff difficulties in putting the whole of the project of this Bill into operation. But we do say that these are things that must be taken into account-in the initial design of the project.

We pointed this out on the Second Reading, and the right course to take, if that fear is entertained, is generally to limit the objectives of the Bill, and not immediately to jettison the interests of natural justice and equity. I know that the Attorney-General does not care for the phrase, "natural justice," but I am sure he will agree that it applies in dealings between man and man, and more particularly in dealings between the citizen and what amounts to a monopolistic, bureaucratic, machine. I suggest that the interests of natural justice or equity are involved in this way, that an appeal is essential if either of two things apply: There is a substantial possibility of errors in determination of the charges, or, as between the two parties, one may be put in a position of unfair balance against the other or, indeed, placed in the position where he could exercise an arbitrary pressure.

In this case, I think it is clear that both these considerations apply, and, therefore, it is not enough to say that because it would be administratively' inconvenient there should be no appeal. The Minister has stated that, in any case, an appeal is not necessary, because the terms of the Amendment misconceived the relationship between the parties. With great respect, I think that the Minister, if he does not misconceive the relationship, is, at any rate, on this occasion rather misrepresenting it to the House. The hon. Member for South Hendon (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth), in his most admirable speech, has exposed the obvious fallacy of the comparison between the position of the Central Land Board and the Crown Estate Commissioners. He has exposed that fallacy, which was the example which the right hon. Gentleman took to point out that no appeal was necessary to guide the actions of the Central Land Board in these cases.

The suggestion is made, and was made in another place, that an appeal was not only unnecessary but unsuitable because this is a commercial transaction—the right hon. Gentleman has, in fact, repeated it this afternoon with his talk of the principles of good landlordship and the principles of good estate management—and, therefore, not a question which lends itself to the judicial decision of an appeal tribunal. But it is a tainted commerce, a commerce tainted with monopoly, and that at once puts it right outside the ordinary dealing which the Lord Chancellor suggested as the method by which these development charges could be discussed, regulated and agreed. He said that these things should be left to the higgling of the market, and it is a new doctrine that the new Socialism prefers the higgling of the market to the principles of natural equity. Even though in ordinary transactions one might feel there is a good deal to be said for the higgling of the market—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman wants to interrupt——