House Of Commons
Friday 25th January 1974
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
Prayers
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Three-Day Working Week
11.5 a.m.
With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the electricity restrictions.
As the House knows, last week's energy figures showed that the sharp decline in power station fuel stocks had slowed down. This improved stock trend enabled us to restore full electricity supplies for steel production which was threatening to be a more severe constraint on output than electricity, and it held out the prospect that, if this trend was sustained, it might soon be possible to announce a more general easement of the restrictions on industry. Yesterday's figures confirmed the trend, so that, following the consultations which we had had during the week with the TUC, the CBI and representatives of commerce and of retailers, we were preparing to announce a significant relaxation of the restrictions. These would have enabled industry to get much nearer to normal working. But yesterday's decision by the executive of the National Union of Mine-workers has introduced a new dimension. In face of this further threat to power station coal supplies, the Government consider that it would be imprudent to introduce the easements we had hoped. After the most careful consideration we have decided that we must maintain the three-day electricity week. We have, however, decided to make one change in the arrangements. The burden for half of industry and commerce—for employers and employees alike—in having Saturday as one of the three days on which electricity could be used has been considerable. To remove the need for Saturday working at these firms, from next week those previously using electricity on Thursday to Saturday may now, at their option, use electricity on Wednesday to Friday. My Department is considering certain limited variations in exceptional circumstances where the benefit to industry generally would be considerable.Is the Minister aware that his warnings about the consequences of strike action on the working week should be addressed not to the miners but to the Prime Minister, because his stubbornness is responsible for the escalation of this unnecessary conflict? What the House and the country will find utterly amazing from this statement is that the Minister can give the House a grave warning and make a grave statement without saying a single word about a new initiative by the Government that will be taken to end the dispute. By a new initiative we mean not a lecture but genuine negotiations aimed at a settlement.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that even the rearrangement of the working week will still cause anomalies in social security and unemployment benefits? Will he consult his right hon. Friends about the way in which these can be adjusted? Is he aware that the readjustment that has been announced comes nowhere near solving the problems of the steel industry, whose under-production affects wide sections of industry? Will he be specific and give us the figures of coking coal stocks? Will he consult his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry about the serious shortage of ferrous scrap, because of electricity restrictions in that industry, which is cutting its output of special steel by one-third. May I ask the Minister about the unnecessary, petty and misery-minded 10.30 p.m. curfew on television? Is he aware that the electricity saving is little more than one-tenth of 1 per cent. of the total and that it is not only depriving people of their entertainment—the Minister's antics are no substitute for that—but is now seriously beginning to inhibit freedom of expression in the country? The question still remains: are we to have a positive and new initiative to end this confrontation? We do not mean a sanctimonious letter from the Prime Minister which tells the miners nothing new. If the Government continue—[Interruption.]Order. I remind the House that this is a Private Members' day.
Do the Government intend to brush aside all the initiatives that have been taken that would bring about a settlement of this dispute? Even newspapers as wide apart as The Times and the Daily Mirror today are advocating that it is possible to have a settlement of this dispute. If the Government do not move in these next few critical days but stand idly by, the country will conclude that they have now opted for confrontation instead of conciliation, and they will be judged accordingly.
That was a singularly unhelpful response. How anyone who heard my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when he made his statement in the House on Tuesday could possibly have made the charges which the hon. Gentleman has laid against him passes my understanding. It is not the Government who have sought the confrontation. Let that be clearly understood.
The letter which my right hon. Friend wrote to Mr. Gormley before the meeting of the miners' executive yesterday made perfectly clear that the Government were prepared to go on talking to the miners with a view to reaching a settlement of the dispute, and I am afraid that it got a very dusty answer. I come now to the various questions which the hon. Gentleman asked. As regards steel, I recognise that the electricity relaxations can go nowhere near to restoring full production of steel, because the main reason for the shortage of steel is the shortage of coking coal, on which deliveries are down to about 60 per cent. of normal. The hon. Gentleman asked about stocks of coking coal. On 13th January, assuming full production, stocks stood at about four and a half weeks' supply; at 50 per cent. production, it would be about nine weeks' stock of coking coal. The British Steel Corporation has been producing at rather higher rates over the last couple of weeks—at about three-quarters—so the hon. Gentleman can make his own calculations. Next, the question of scrap. This point has been raised and we are studying it. It may be that this is one of the significant bottlenecks on which something could be done to the advantage of industry generally. On the other points which the hon. Gentleman made, I wish to make the position clear to the House and the public. It is now all the more necessary that we achieve savings in the home. The message is that every little counts. For this reason, I believe that the public would not understand if at this stage we lifted the restrictions on television hours. It would be a move in the wrong direction. In kindness to the hon. Gentleman, as I had hoped that he would avoid personal attack, may I say that if anything that I may have said in the past few days is the worst mistake that my Department makes during the next few months, we shall not have much to complain about.Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the position is as follows? The Trades Union Congress has genuinely undertaken that, if the miners' claim were to be settled outside stage 3, no other claimant would use that as an argument for preferring its claim, but that does not stop other claimants from preferring other arguments which, if they were to prevail—the Trades Union Congress has said that it would not oppose them—would mean that we should be back to where we were before stage 1, with no policy against inflation whatever?
If that be the position, will my right hon. Friend make it clear to the country, since there is wide misunderstanding about the whole situation?I welcome the opportunity to make this clear. First, I remind the House of what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in the course of his statement on Tuesday:
I must make it abundantly clear, as we have already both in the House and outside, that the Government are seeking to protect the people of this country against the ravages of inflation, and one of the major causes of inflation—this has been recognised by successive Governments—has been the pressing of pay claims far in excess of what can be afforded. That has been and remains the essential policy of the Government, and I agree with my hon. Friend that we should lose no opportunity to make that abundantly clear to the people."But the fact remains, and the TUC representatives agreed, that in present circumstances their initiative would not protect us against the use of industrial power, by those who might be minded so to use it, in pursuance of settlements at a level which the country cannot afford. That is a risk which in present circumstances we cannot run."—[OFFICIAI. REPORT, 22nd January 1974; Vol. 867, c. 1447.]
The right hon. Gentleman has made clear that he has now rejected the advocacy of leading employers and the trade unions that there should be a percentage reduction rather than an order for a three-day week. Why has he rejected this view, put forward by the trade unions and leading employers? Does he think that his decision will help to reduce the balance of trade deficit, or in what way is it designed to help in terms of inflation?
The possibilities of relaxing the electricity requirements were put forward by the Government, and we discussed them with both sides of industry. The hon. Gentleman is quite right; they urged that we should move to a percentage reduction rather than three-day working. We had hoped that we might be able to move in that direction, but we have not been able to do so because the threat to fuel supplies at the power stations is now looming very much larger, and it would be most unwise and imprudent if we were to relax at this stage.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, just as Mr. Gormley has now become the lackey of Mr. Daly, the Labour Government, from 1966 onwards, gave into the Trades Union Congress in the battle between the Labour Party and the TUC and thus became a lackey of the Trades Union Congress? Will my right hon. Friend invite the Opposition to state what they will do if it happens that the ballot results in a full miners' strike?
The last part of my hon. Friend's question is hypothetical, so perhaps I may leave that. But I put it to hon. Members opposite—especially to right hon. and hon. Members on the Front Bench—that in 1969 they were given—were they not?—a solemn and binding promise which the country recognised was intended to lead to the voluntary curbing of wage claims, but in fact it did not. I do not doubt the sincerity of the TUC, but, as my right hon. Friend said on Tuesday, it recognises that there is nothing that it can do to prevent individual unions using industrial action to press their claims. Nothing would do more to resolve the present dispute than if the Opposition were to use their influence and friendship with the miners to persuade them to accept the offer and to return to normal working.
Is it not clear that from the word "go" the Government have refused to negotiate genuinely with the miners, they have rejected the TUC's efforts, they have rejected the proposals put forward by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, and they have rejected the proposals of the chairman of the miners' group in this House? Is it not clear, therefore, that the Government want a confrontation, they want a strike, in order to con the people, as the people were once conned on the Zinoviev letter, and that is the strategy behind their policy? Is it not clear also that it is time we had an election, since we are sick and tired of the abdication of real responsibility by this Government?
I am absolutely astonished at the hon. Member. The Zinoviev letter happened before I was born. It just shows how the Labour Party lives in the past. It is totally untrue for the hon. Member to allege that the Government have refused to negotiate. On the contrary, the provisions of the code for stage 3 have provided a very much better deal for the miners than for almost any other group of workers. The vast majority of those who are now reaching settlements within stage 3 are doing so within the terms of the code. Four million workers have had settlements up to last week and there have been three more settlements in the last week. But how can it conceivably be fair to those who have settled within stage 3 that they should see the force of industrial power being used to break the code? It is untrue for the hon. Member to say that we do not want a settlement. The dispute is doing grave damage to the nation's economy, and the sooner it is ended the better.
May I remind my hon. Friend that the great majority of the country today want the Government to stand firm——
Test it.
—but equally they recognise that the miners are a special case. When we hear talk in this House of stubbornness and of the need for a new initiative those complaints should be addressed not to the Prime Minister but to the miners.
The Government have always recognised that the miners are a special case. The provisions of stage 3 were specifically designed to recognise that. It is a matter of great regret that the miners have not yet felt able to accept the settlement which they have been offered. There are other longer-term proposals which could recognise still more the special case of the miners and the offer lies on the table to look at the pension provisions, to look at the long-term position of coal and the part of the miners in winning that coal.
I am sure that it is in the context of the long-term guarantees, underwritten by last year's Coal Industry Act, that a settlement must be found.Many Labour Members are violently opposed to the political claims of certain militants within the trades union movement and some of us have fought them for many years. Will the Minister explain whether, when the Prime Minister wrote his last letter to Mr. Gormley inviting the executive to see him, the Prime Minister had anything further to offer the miners or was it simply a political exercise?
If the miners had accepted the invitation to come and talk they would have found out.
What is the matter with this Government? What sort of an answer is that?
Is the Minister aware that the three-day week has already cost the country £1,000 million in lost production for ever? We have lost exports worth £300 million which are badly needed to pay for oil. Will the Minister say how much more damage the Government intend to do to the British economy before the Prime Minister is removed by his colleagues and we have a fresh start?
The country is perfectly clear that the Government cannot yield to the brute force of industrial power to override the expressed policy sanctioned by this House. Of course the right hon. Gentleman is correct that grave damage is being done to the economy and to exports as a result of the three-day week. However, these restrictions are vital if we are to maintain essential services to the community and if we are to maintain our endurance.
rose——
Order. We cannot debate this matter further today.
Complaint Of Privilege
I shall now make my ruling on the complaint of privilege. I have considered the complaint of breach of privilege made yesterday by the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) and I am satisfied that it is a proper case for me to allow a motion relating to the complaint priority over the Orders of the Day.
In view of your ruling, Mr. Speaker, I beg to move,
In view of the business to follow—it is a Private Members' day—I hope the House will decide that no further debate should take place at this stage."That the matter of the complaint be referred to the Committee of Privileges."
Question put and agreed to.
Private Members' Bills (Procedure)
Before calling upon the Clerk to read the Orders of the Day, I have a statement to make about the procedure at 4 p.m. on Private Members' Fridays for the deferment of Private Members' Bills.
As hon. Members will remember, the House approved, on 20th November last. the recommendations contained in the Fifth Report from the Select Committee on Procedure of last Session on this subject. The effect of that decision is as follows. Today and in the future, whenever objection is taken to proceedings on a Private Member's Bill, at the moment of interruption, one of four things may happen. First, the Member in charge of the Bill may himself name a further day for consideration of the Bill. Secondly, another Member, acting on behalf of the Member in charge of the Bill, may name a day, but in so doing he must state publicly that he is acting on behalf of that Member. Thirdly, the Member in charge of the Bill or another Member on his behalf may have given written instructions to the Clerks at the Table—which must be freshly given for each occasion—in which case the Clerk will advise the Chair of the day to which the Bill should be deferred. Fourthly, no day may be named by any of these methods, in which case the Bill becomes a dropped order. Finally, the House has also approved the recommendation that it should no longer be permissible for a Member, not being in charge of the Bill and not being nominated to act on his behalf, to name a further day for consideration of a Bill. I hope that this is clear.Orders Of The Day
Town And Country Amenities Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
11.28 a.m.
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
After 24 years in this House I was naturally delighted at long last to secure first place in the Private Members' Ballot. Obviously I had to think quickly but carefully about the choice of subject of my Bill. The range of possibilities was enormous, but I decided quite early on that perhaps the best course was to try to sponsor a Bill which was likely to advantage everyone in our society by adding a fragment to our planning legislation with the aim of facilitating creative improvements to our surroundings. This is an environmental Bill. I know that "environment" is a fashionable in-word but it is not too bad a term to use. Our environment and our surroundings have a powerful and deep effect upon us. The works of man, expressed in his architecture, can uplift his spirit and enhance his dignity, or they can depress his very soul and reduce him to ant-like proportions. Such is the pressure of new development today that we are in danger of seeing much of our architectural heritage reduced to rubble and dust. Our town centres are rapidly changing; vast new shopping complexes and office blocks are obliterating familiar and well-loved scenes; our towns begin to look like each other and even one country is beginning to look like another. Our great cathedrals and castles and our splendid country houses, many beautifully maintained by the National Trust, are reasonably safe. However, our market squares and our High Streets, our gracious crescents and gentle peaceful villages, are all part of our great architectural and historic heritage. Unless these are safeguarded our children and their offspring will be bereft of the legacy handed down to us from previous generations. Our trusteeship of the environment demands that we exercise our responsibilities with the greatest care and with understanding on behalf of future generations. We must constantly be aware that every historic building which collapses before the bulldozer is lost for ever. No little plaque saying "On this site stood …" is an adequate substitute for the three-dimensional building which stood there and which delighted all who knew it. I sometimes think we should require any developer to show cause why a development should be given permission by the planning authority. At any rate within conservation areas we should try even harder to establish a system of retention rather than redevelopment. Eight years ago, my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) introduced his Civic Amenities Bill and established the idea of the conservation area. Until then we had concentrated our energies on protecting individual buildings, either through the old building preservation order or by listing those buildings held to be of architectural or historic interest. My right hon. Friend's Bill sought to extend the frontiers of preservation by recognising that whole areas may be of special architectural or historic interest, and provided accordingly that local planning authorities should designate such areas. Since that Bill became law, about 2,750 conservation areas have been so designated. Some are sleepy hamlets, some are busy market towns, and some are cathedral cities, steeped in history. Others are bold and vigorous places, reflecting the drive of the Victorian era. All hon. Members should be grateful to my right hon. Friend for his dedication to the conservation cause over many years. His founding and subsequent leadership of the Civic Trust have contributed a great deal towards raising the level of interest in environmental affairs. My right hon. Friend has not only raised his conservation banner in Great Britain but is crusading at the European level, as Chairman of the Council of Europe's International Organising Committee for European Architectural Heritage Year in 1975. Yet he has found the time to give me a great deal of help and encouragement in the preparation of my Bill. I greatly appreciate his interest and his presence here today. The Bill has the backing of all three parties. I am grateful to my sponsors for allowing their names to be associated with it and for their support. Here at least is a measure that is non-party political and which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called divisive. I also express my gratitude to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, who I am delighted to see with us today, and to members of his Department, particularly in the Historic Buildings Division, for help in discussions on how to attain my objectives and translate them into legal language. Without their co-operation, the Bill in its present form would not have been possible. Consultations have also taken place with the local authority associations. I should like to place on record my thanks for their constructive approach. They readily responded to an invitation to discuss the Bill in its formative stages. I do not expect them to agree with every one of the provisions of the Bill without occasional reservations, but the way in which they gave the Bill a fair wind encouraged me greatly. There are also the national preservation societies, such as the Georgian Group, the Victorian Society, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and the Ancient Monuments Society, whose secretary, Mrs. Jennifer Jenkins, has been indefatigable in her support and help. I have also been helped by the Council for the Protection of Rural England, the Garden History Society, and others. They have all aided and abetted me in the preparation of the Bill, and I am deeply indebted to them. Finally, I must express my debt to Mr. Peter Robshaw, of the Civic Trust, for giving generously of his time, knowledge and enthusiasm. He has put in enough work to be considered almost a joint architect of the proposals I present to the House. Parts I and II of the Civic Amenities Act, dealing with conservation issues and the planning and preservation of trees, were consolidated in the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 and are as much an integrated part of the planning process as the system of development control. Since 1967, not only have an increasing number of conservation areas been designated, but additional powers and resources have been made available to local authorities to enable them to make conservation more effective. For example, Section 8 of the Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Act 1972 gave powers to local authorities to make directions to control demolition in conservation areas, while Section 10 provided grants and loans for the preservation and enhancement of the character and appearance of conservation areas. In spite of our economic difficulties, £750,000 is available from the Department of the Environment, on the advice of the Historic Buildings Council, to support local improvement schemes in the outstanding conservation areas, and a further £150,000 has been provided to grant-aid other schemes in the non-outstanding preservation areas for European Architectural Heritage Year 1975. It is my belief—that is why I introduced the Bill—that the time is ripe, and that public opinion is in step with us, to make a further modest advance. A great deal of experience has been gained in the past six years on which we should now seek to build. Defining an area on the map and saying proudly, "This is our conservation area" will not of itself save a single building, although it may succeed in raising the level of public interest. The designation of conservation areas must be joined with determination, determination to take action to safeguard the character and appearance of the areas, for that is why they were designated in the first place. Conservation is not simply preserving everything as it is; it involves a dynamic and positive approach, aimed at enhancing and improving our architectural inheritance. I hope that the Bill will provide at least a framework to facilitate such an approach. I now turn to the Bill, to describe briefly what is intended in each of the clauses. Clause 1 concerns the control of demolition in conservation areas. One of the most important elements in conservation is the extent of control which local authorities have or do not have over the demolition of buildings. In our planning law, demolition is not normally regarded as development. As a result, consent is not required before a building can be demolished, unless the building concerned is listed by the Secretary of State as being of special architectural or historic interest. The only other way in which demolition control can be secured is for local planning authorities to make a direction under Section 8 of the Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Act 1972 in respect of such unlisted buildings as it chooses within a designated conservation area. We all know of buildings which, while not of listable quality, make a pleasing visual contribution to the street scene by the way in which they relate to each other and the way in which the scale and texture of individual buildings make up a harmonious view of a street, square or crescent. The uncontrolled demolition of such buildings or groups of buildings within a conservation area can at least diminish the character of the street scene or at most render designation of listed buildings pointless. Local authorities have not been slow in using their Section 8 powers to control demolition. I understand that more than 200 directions have been made to bring non-listed buildings under control. In some cases, all the buildings in a conservation area have been included in a direction. In others, a direction has been sought in respect of a single building that appears to be threatened. But there are about 2,750 conservation areas, which means that many areas and buildings within them are totally unprotected.Does the Bill contain provisions to prevent the deliberate running down and deterioration of buildings, which is one of the devices which has been used in recent years?
I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for raising that matter. I shall come to it a little later.
Making directions by local authorities is a time-consuming process, involving the carrying out of surveys, identifying the buildings which are to become subject to a direction, submitting the direction to the Secretary of State for confirmation and, at a later stage, notifying each owner and occupier of the effect of the direction. I believe that we have now reached the stage when we should establish the assumption that if it is worth while to designate a conservation area to safeguard its qualities, the buildings within it should all be regarded, initially, as being of sufficient merit to be worth preserving. By making all buildings in conservation areas subject to planning control for their proposed demolition, we are not insisting that permission to demolish should be withheld. All that I propose is that the local planning authority should have the opportunity to consider a building in its wider setting and be able to grant or withhold consent to demolish in the circumstances of each case. All too often in the past it has been possible for the appearance of a conservation area to be adversely affected, because a non-listed building can become a heap of builder's rubble overnight. Clause 1 is intended to remedy that by making the demolition of any building in a conservation area subject to the specific consent of the local planning authority. People talk about spin-off in these days, and the spin-off in Clause 1 is that local authorities will be relieved of the administrative burdens which Section 8 of the Planning Amendment Act 1972 has imposed upon them. Provision is made in the Bill for the Secretary of State, if he should desire, to make directions excluding either individual buildings or categories of buildings from the scope of Clause 1. I am sure that we do not want to burden the planning authorities with having to consider applications, for example, for the demolition of coal bunkers or corrugated iron sheds.Clause 2 deals with the designation of conservation areas. The contents of the clause are offered in the light of our national experience over the past six years. I have already referred to the fact that 2,750 conservation areas have so far been established. That is a good overall record. I am glad to say that my own county of Kent has designated as many as 224 conservation areas. That is, I think, more than any other county in England outside London.
I am not convinced that every place which merits attention has yet received it. The results, plotted on a map, are patchy. With the reorganisation of local government giving designation powers to the district councils, it would now be right to require all planning authorities to take stock of what has or has not been designated. With European Architectural Heritage Year in 1975 it would be fitting for the process of designation to be speeded up so that by the end of 1975 we could have a comprehensive national list of those places which are worthy of our care and attention.
Further, there is a case for giving reserve powers to the Secretary of State to designate after consultation with the local authority concerned. It may be that such powers will not need to be used be-because the local authorities have done their work so well. So be it. But if for various reasons an area which should be designated has not been so designated, it would be open to the Secretary of State to take action himself.
Clause 3 deals with proposals for the improvement of conservation areas. The designation of a conservation area, important as it is, is no more than an administrative preliminary to action. It is only a declaration of intent. What determines whether the environment is upgraded depends less on the delineation of the conservation area than on the action which is taken within it.
Much can be done within existing powers—for example, the restoration of buildings and the finding of new uses for them, the planting of trees, the creation of small gardens, the regrouping of traffic notices and, where possible, dispensing with some of them altogether. Especially do I commend the creation of traffic-free precincts and other traffic measures, such as excluding heavy lorries, repaving and resurfacing, getting rid of overhead lines, getting street furniture of good design and stimulating private conservation initiatives. Those matters are all within the competence of the local authority.
Then there is the question of development control in conservation areas. We should not aim to preserve these places as if they are in aspic. I have no desire to see England turned into a museum. We should positively encourage higher standards in modern architectural design where appropriate, paying close attention to the scale of new development. We should pay close attention to the colouring and texture of the materials which are to be used and consider how they will relate to the existing scene.
I confess that, personally, I am not greatly enamoured of most modern architecture. To my mind a lot of it is cold and formless. Our architects seem to be obsessed with the rectangle. There are no curves, circles, semicircles or ovals, and no exciting skylines. There is little variation. On top of that, we have boring flat surfaces and the over-use of acres and acres of glass.
Like the new parliamentary building.
I am not pleading for a dull uniformity, or arguing that we should try to stifle the creativity of modern architects; far from it. However, we should try to curb the intrusion of arrogant and self-conscious design in our conservation areas. We should try to encourage a scale and standard of design which, without compromising modern ideas, will enable new buildings to fit more gracefully into long-established and long-loved surroundings.
All these matters naturally depend upon informed public opinion. To help in establishing that opinion I propose that local planning authorities, following designation, should draw up and publish detailed proposals to enhance the character and appearance of conservation areas. When the public can see that the local authority is taking conservation responsibilities seriously by publishing its action plan for conservation, it will be easier to secure a public response. That is important, because conservation is a matter that concerns us all. It is no use expecting local authorities to do everything. There is plenty of scope for private initiative. I believe that the publication of the local council's proposals would help to stimulate voluntary co-operation in that important area.Clause 4 deals with the duty to consider the making of special orders in relation to conservation areas. At this stage I must declare an interest. From 1967 to 1969 I was President of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. However, I am sufficiently unbiased to admit that there are many places where unrestrained advertising diminishes the quality of the environment. We readily accept curbs on advertising in the countryside and we
should now consider advertising control in relation to conservation areas. I suggest, in the interests of amenity, that local planning authorities should consider applying tighter controls on advertising which is allowed in conservation areas by making such areas come within an "area of special control" under Section 63(4) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971.
Some of my hon. Friends believe that conservation areas should be deemed to be areas of special control and that, in consequence, advertising should be severely limited. They believe that it should be restricted to election notices, statutory advertisements, traffic signs, advertisements displayed within buildings, functional advertisements, temporary advertisements, advertisements on the forecourt of or on business premises, advertisements relating to travelling fairs and circuses and in no other circumstances.
Will my hon. Friend's Bill enable us to deal with the garish advertisements that appear in shop windows, which are often totally incongruous, and possibly with advertisements on shop fronts which we see in conservation areas?
That is a matter which we will be able to discuss in Committee if the House is willing to give the Bill a Second Reading.
This is a detailed matter, as the intervention of my hon. Friend has just proved. I shall content myself with saying that there is a strong case for reducing the amount and type of advertising material in conservation areas.Clause 5 deals with the extension of special publicity requirements to planning applications affecting settings of listed buildings. Section 28 of the Planning Act 1971 provides that any proposed development which, in the opinion of the local planning authority, is likely to affect the character or appearance of a conservation area, shall be advertised to enable public representation to be made. Section 29 of the same Act requires the authority, in deciding the application, to take account of any representation it has received on the application.
Where a listed building is within a conservation area, any proposed development nearby would be advertised and the plans made public under Section 28. But if an application is filed which may affect a listed building which is not, I repeat not, in a conservation area, there is no legal obligation at the moment to test public opinion.
Successive Governments have sought to increase the level of public participation and interest in planning matters. If a new development appears likely to overshadow a listed building or to mask it, or to intrude upon the landscape surrounding the listed building, or to conflict with it visually, or in any way to affect its setting, I believe that is just as much a matter for public concern as if that listed building were within a designated conservation area. Clause 5 makes provision accordingly and extends the Section 28 mechanism to listed buildings.
There are many glaring examples, both in London and elsewhere, of buildings that have been allowed to be erected which completely dwarf, spoil or even ruin the appearance of a listed building. There is, of course, All Souls, Langham Place, which has been dwarfed by office blocks and an hotel. There is the Prudential Building in Nottingham, which adjoins and overshadows a splendid eighteenth century house. Then there is the much criticised office block that prevents one getting the full view of St. Paul's Cathedral when approaching it from Fleet Street. Further, there is Trinity Hospital, Greenwich, which is completely overshadowed by a power station. I could give many more examples, but I think that the clause will help to alert people to these dangers.
Clause 6 deals with the cost of urgent repairs to unoccupied listed buildings. Powers already exist, having been first introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham in the Civic Amenities Act, and are now contained in Section 101 of the 1971 planning Act for local authorities to carry out urgent works necessary for the preservation of unoccupied listed buildings. These powers were envisaged only for first-aid works to prevent or slow down further deterioration of the fabric. Such works as making the roof or a wall proof against wind and water, securing premises against the ravages of vandals and the elements are obvious examples.
However, no powers exist to enable a local authority to recover any costs incurred in carrying out such work. It is possible that if provisions were available whereby the local authority could recoup its expenses, Section 101 would be activated more than it is and the ultimate costs of restoration might be reduced. Clause 6, therefore, makes provision for the recovery of costs of carrying out urgent works at the discretion of the local authority and with a right of appeal from the owner to the Secretary of State.
No diminution of personal freedom is involved. But the conservation conscious local authority might find its path a little smoother by the application of a "stitch in time" principle which the clause is designed to facilitate.
Does the hon. Gentleman think that this is enough? The clause deals with unoccupied listed buildings and only with urgent repairs. The mischief which has become apparent is a deliberate design by developers in some instances to occupy premises and to allow them to fall into disrepair while they are in occupation by the convenient missing of roof slates which gradually causes a decline of the building as a whole. Ought not there to be imposed a duty on the owner of a listed building, whether or not it is occupied, to maintain it in a state of reasonable repair? I hope that my interventions are not thought by the hon. Gentleman to be obstructive. The contrary is the case.
Not at all. I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. To some extent his intervention is dealt with in Clause 7. But I have thought a great deal about this division between occupied and unoccupied buildings, and I have come to the conclusion that I can see many cases where a person living in a historic home, for example, could not afford to do the repairs himself and would need help. This is a matter which can be considered carefully in Committee. It may be that I have not gone far enough and that the Bill should be strengthened in this regard.
I hope that my hon. Friend will not follow too closely the suggestion of the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones). When the original lists of buildings were made, far too many buildings which should not have been put on the lists were included. If there were dogmatic repair obligations, the burden upon the owners of such buildings would be intolerable. Although I understand the thought behind the right hon. and learned Gentleman's wishes, we might get into a great deal of trouble if we followed his advice.
I should like to leave that to the Committee stage, assuming that my Bill is given a Second Reading. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has raised a point which requires further thought.
Clause 7 provides for the compulsory acquisition of listed buildings. Local authorities already have powers under Section 114 of the planning Act to acquire compulsorily, with the consent of the Secretary of State, any listed building for the purposes of preserving it, if it is clear that reasonable steps are not being taken to preserve it by its owners. Section 116 of the same Act sets out the basis for assessing compensation on such acquisition.
Section 116 contains an absolute presumption in that in assessing compensation it shall be assumed that listed building consent would be granted for its alteration, extension or demolition. It seems odd that when the building is being acquired out of public funds with the object of preserving it, the compensation is to be calculated as if consent would be granted for its demolition. The redevelopment value of the site, following an assumed demolition, may far exceed the market value of the building being acquired by public funds.
If a listed building has not been properly cared for, with the result that the only remedy for its preservation is its purchase by the local authority, it seems unjust that the authority should be penalised for its public spiritedness and the owner rewarded for his lack of concern.
Clause 7 is intended to reverse that situation by deleting the presumption that listed building consent for demolition would be granted. The result will be that in acquiring listed buildings in order to preserve them, local authorities will only have to pay for what they acquire, and not some inflated and arbitrary sum based on a false premise.
Clause 8 deals with grants for historic gardens. The Secretaries of State may already, on the advice of the Historic Buildings Councils, under powers contained in Section 4 of the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953, make grants for the upkeep of any land attached to buildings of outstanding architectural or historic interest. If, however, the original house has been demolished, or is not of outstanding quality, no matter how splendid the gardens, even if designed by Capability Brown, Humphrey Repton or Paxton, under the present rules no grant may be paid.
Clause 8 is quite simple and would enable grant to be paid towards the upkeep of a garden—on other land—which was considered by the Secretary of State to be of outstanding historic interest. The clause would afford—I think for the first time—official recognition to historic gardens in their own right. I am advised that there may be as many as 200 such gardens in Britain, and I believe that this simple clause, costing nothing, will bring pleasure to many lovers of our historic gardens and man-made landscapes.
As Members will expect, Clause 9—the citation—is a technical clause which relates this Bill to existing planning legislation and, by excluding its provisions from Northern Ireland, establishes that the Bill is intended to apply only to England, Scotland and Wales.
I turn now to the schedules. They contain detailed proposals for the way in which the control of demolition will operate in conservation areas and they replace broadly similar schedules contained in the Planning Amendment Act 1972 dealing with the operation of Section 8 directions. The new schedules are different, in so far as they are in a simpler form as a result of my proposal to make demolition control universal in conservation areas, subject to any directions which may be made in respect of any exclusions.
So much for the Bill as it stands. Being first in the Ballot, the Bill has had to be prepared in a great hurry. I had a clean sheet of paper when the result of the Ballot was announced and I discovered that I was first on the list. There are one or two important points that I would have liked to include, but time was not on my side. However, I am hopeful that if the House agrees to give the Bill a Second Reading, it will be possible to improve the Bill in Committee and to add a few additional items.
Very briefly, I mention some of the ideas that I should like to introduce or see introduced to improve the Bill in Committee. There are three main elements at present not covered—trees, archaeological research and the living theatre.
As the author of a book on the English woodland, I should like to see greater protection afforded to trees generally, but especially in conservation areas. What I have in mind is that in conservation areas the consent of the local authority should be required for the felling of any tree—subject to any reasonable exclusions which the Secretary of State may wish to make. Damage to trees and the moving of trees which are the subject of a tree preservation order are other matters which may need some legislative attention, and I hope that it might be possible to make it an offence to damage a tree and prevent the removal of a healthy tree on which a preservation order exists. My right hon. and learned Friend may himself have other ideas for improving our tree protection legislation and, if he is willing, I shall be delighted to co-operate with him in Committee in fathering appropriate additions or amendments to my Bill.
In my hon. Friend's definition of "trees", will he include hedges in conservation areas?
That is a matter more for the Committee stage. The clause itself has not been drafted, so I cannot go into any detail about what it might contain.
We should also be concerned with what is below the ground as well as what is built on it. I should like to see provision made for opportunities to be afforded for archaeological research prior to building work starting on sites which are to be redeveloped where it is reasonable to suppose that important archaeological remains exist.In that respect, would the hon. Gentleman introduce the mandatory requirement that developers must give time for archaeological investigation and that if something is found, or is suspected to be under the ground, they should provide a proportion of the funding of the operation, and perhaps some of the funding of the publication of the results of such excavations?
The clause is not yet drafted, so I cannot say in detail what it would contain, but that is plainly something that would have to be taken into account. Obviously, time must be given before building is commenced if any archaeological research is to be undertaken.
In conclusion, I turn to the subject of the living theatre. I hope that in Committee it will be possible to introduce a clause affording help to the live theatre. The theatre is subject to the same economic pressure for redevelopment as any other type of building. Generally, those who manage and perform in theatres do not own or control the buildings in which they work. I am attracted to the simple idea that if a building has been in constant use as a live theatre for more than 50 years, in view of its almost inevitable historic associations, it should to all intents and purposes be made a listed building, with all the safeguards against demolition that listing affords. Of course, a considerable number of London theatres are already listed. The probability is that the problem cannot be resolved by the use of a simple expedient such as I have put forward and which I realise introduces a totally new criterion in the selection of listed buildings. I am open to receive better ideas, but I should like to feel that if the House gives the Bill a Second Reading, we can try to make some provision to foster and nurture the cause of the living theatre, surely a major part of our cultural heritage.I am sorry to interrupt again, but does not the hon. Gentleman agree that in this respect it is essential not just to preserve the fabric of the theatre in any district, but to give support to the theatrical industries around, to the wigmakers and to those who move scenery, and so on, because unless they can be retained in the area there will not be any theatre?
I appreciate the importance of that, but helping to keep wigmakers in business is a little wide of the scope of the Bill.
I entirely agree that steps must be taken to preserve the theatre, as such, but not necessarily the individual building, which in the course of time may become quite unsuitable for use as a theatre and which ought to be replaced by a modern building. Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that that raises a difficult and important question that may involve the use of public funds in the way that he suggests they be used for historic gardens
The hon. and learned Gentleman may be quite right. That is obviously something that we shall have to consider in Committee. Here again, however, the clause has not yet been drafted and so I cannot go into details.
Looking for a moment at the Bill as a whole, I believe that if we can take it successfully to the stage of Royal Assent, with whatever improvements may be wrought in Committee and in another place, it will add something to the dignity of our surroundings and bring more pleasure to people up and down the country in their daily round and common task. We shall also make a permanent advance in the frontiers of conservation as we approach the European Architectural Heritage Year in 1975. I therefore commend the Bill to the House and hope that it will have a Second Reading.12.3 p.m.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Seven-oaks (Sir J. Rodgers) on his luck in the Ballot. After 24 years he deserves to be successful. Clearly, the first 23 years are the hardest.
I trust that the Bill will be given a Second Reading. As one of its sponsors, I am encouraged by the presence of the Minister—I am sure that it is a good sign. Obviously, many improvements and changes will be made in Committee and I am encouraged by the way in which the hon. Member for Sevenoaks has indicated some of the matters that he thinks we ought to consider. For example, we all recognise that the planting of trees and their preservation are of especial importance in conservation areas. We may have to consider substantial fines for the felling of trees—perhaps penalties going into thousands instead of hundreds of pounds. Although at times it may be possible to reconstruct a building, it is almost impossible to reconstruct a tree or woodland. More trees should be planted in the towns. I was sad to read recently that during last year, Tree Planting Year, six boroughs in London spent no money or less than £1,000 on trees.I am glad to hear what the right hon. Member says about the need to plant more trees. He will know that last year there was a special tree-planting campaign. Would he agree that that campaign should be a continuing campaign and that we should plant more trees in 1974? Is he aware that there are fewer than 15,000 tree preservation orders? Does he not agree that a way round the problem would be to make every tree in every conservation area subject to a tree preservation order?
I should like to consider the full implications of that in Committee, but the hon. Gentleman knows from our private conversations that I thoroughly support what he says about planting trees in the cities, for it is a project with which I am much concerned.
I was glad to learn that the County Councils Association is willing to support a proposal—to lend assistance in its drafting and so on—dealing with trees and woodlands in the countryside. It is not only in the towns that tree planting is important. However, I am reminded by another committee with which both the hon. Gentleman and I are concerned—which deals with the consequences of Dutch Elm disease in the countryside—of the importance of considering the type of tree and how to ensure that the right trees are planted and how to encourage replanting. We must remember that this is primarily a conservation Bill, however, and that the first thing to do is to conserve what we have. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks mentioned archaeology. It is intolerable that in order to avoid a delay of only a few months, we may often destroy for ever part of our history. With his special knowledge and special views on the subject, which we shall have to explore in Committee, the hon. Member mentioned advertising hoardings and placards in conservation areas. It is a feature of our countryside that foreigners always note that it is almost entirely free of advertising hoardings and there are many towns and cities where they do not matter, for the hoardings, alas, are better than what they hide, but in conservation areas especially they must be severely restricted. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the theatre. This is a Town and Country Amenities Bill and I would not go as far as was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Faulds) and help wigmakers and others to retain their establishments. It is important to remember that the living theatre is directly affected by the problem in London. There can be an assault on the theatres in London, many of which are listed and which have a unique rôle in preserving what must be not necessarily the most creative but certainly the most active theatre in the world today. At present it would be too easy to buy a theatre and to encourage it to decay and then to tear it down and build offices, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) suggested could happen. That leads automatically to my next point, which is that I wonder whether we are now ready—I do not know—to prevent applications for demolition from being even considered unless accompanied by applications for planning permission, so that we know what we are likely to get if a building or series of buildings is demolished. Part I of Schedule I refers to demolition in conservation areas. I agree that there is a strong case for historic towns of great national importance to be so dealt with that central Government rather than the local authority have the ultimate responsibility for the control of demolition. I do not want this to distract us from another problem that arises in towns which are of little historic importance and are not well known but in which there are one or two buildings of distinction. Because there are only one or two such buildings they are even more important in that area. In Bath, for example, one could demolish a building in a particular place and it would not be missed. I am not suggesting that it should be done. I said that it could be done. However, in a town which has only two buildings of distinction, once one is demolished it is gone for ever and it is missed. I hope that the Bill will receive a Second Reading and a thorough examination in Committee. It has certain financial implications about which not everyone is happy. We should improve it. Many of the points raised by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks should be examined. We must be careful to remember that it is a town and country planning Bill and we must think in those terms.12.12 p.m.
I warmly welcome the initiative taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) in introducing this Bill; and I very much appreciate the extremely generous references which he made to me. We are all pleased to see the Secretary of State for the Environment here in person, not withstanding his many other heavy responsibilities. He has shown keen interest in questions of this kind over a number of years. I shall never forget the help he gave us initially when we formed the Civic Trust.
Mention has been made of the "backroom boys" who have helped in the preparation of this and previous measures. Mr. Peter Robshaw has been mentioned, and I should like to add my word of thanks. We should, however, remember not only the "back-room boys" but also the "back-room girls", and I should like, in particular, to express my thanks and appreciation to Mrs. Jennifer Jenkins, the wife of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), who, as Secretary of the Ancient Monuments Society, has played a major part in the drafting of this Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks explained that prior to the passing of the Civic Amenities Act 1967 attention had been concentrated on the provision of special protection for individual buildings of outstanding quality. The 1967 Act extended this protection to whole areas of architectural or historic interest. Local planning authorities were asked to designate such areas as conservation areas; and with certain exceptions, they have in most parts of the country responded well, although there are certain notable exceptions, where less has been done. To date, no less than 2,800 conservation areas have been designated. My figure on this is a little larger than that quoted by my hon. Friend. It is of course not enough to designate a conservation area by drawing a line on a map. That is of little value unless positive action follows. Where necessary, local authorities must be stimulated. I therefore particularly welcome the proposal to give the Secretary of State powers to take the initiative to designate conservation areas, where it has not already been done by the local authority, and to call for plans.Clause 3, requires local planning authorities to give the fullest publicity to their proposals for the protection and improvement of conservation areas. This is absolutely essential if we are to secure the vitally important co-operation of local civic societies and other voluntary organisations, local commercial and industrial concerns and private citizens. Their active involvement is an indispensable element in the task of upgrading the quality of the urban environment.
The planting of trees, the cleaning up and painting of shoddy streets, the tidying up of scruffy sites, restraint in advertising, improvements in the design of shop fronts and other such measures, which individually may not appear to be very important, can, taken together, totally transform the appearance of a neighbourhood. These are all matters which require the active collaboration of the local people.
Undoubtedly the most important provision in the Bill is the proposal to make it obligatory to obtain permission for the demolition of buildings in a conservation area, whether or not they are listed buildings. I consider that the procedure for obtaining permission to demolish as set out in Clause 1(2) needs to be clarified and strengthened. There are many buildings in conservation areas which are individually of no exceptional interest, but which by reason of their style and proportions fit well into their surroundings. The demolition of such a building and its replacement by another of incongruous design can all too easily destroy the unity and character of the whole scene.
The planning authority has power to refuse permission for the construction of a new building which will spoil the appearance of the area, but that power is not as effective as might be thought. Once a building has been demolished, the hole which it leaves constitutes an eyesore in itself. Since this cannot be allowed to remain indefinitely, the planning authority will often find itself obliged to give permission for the construction of some new building, the design of which may pay scant respect to the character of its older neighbours. That is why I should like to see Clause 1 amended so as to provide that anyone applying for permission to demolish a building in a conservation area should be obliged at the same time to submit his plans for the new building which is to take its place.
I do not feel that the Bill effectively provides for that. Permission to demolish would thus be linked with permission to rebuild. That would enable the planning authority to withhold permission to demolish, if it did not approve of the proposal for subsequent redevelopment. There would of course have to be some redress against a person who obtained permission to demolish a building and thereafter failed to rebuild in accordance with the plans approved by the local authority. In such circumstances I suggest that the local authority might be given the power to acquire the site compulsorily with compensation based on its value prior to the grant of permission to demolish.
The other improvement which I wish to suggest relates to the control of advertisements. Clause 4 requires local planning authorities to "consider" establishing what is called an "area of special control" of advertisements in conservation areas. But, as far as I can see, this is already provided for in Part VII of the Control of Advertisements Regulations which came into operation in January 1970. Under Section 63(3) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 "areas of special control" are defined as:
"areas which appear… to require special protection on grounds of amenity."
Since a conservation area is, in the words of the 1967 Act,
"an area of special architectural and historic interest".
it would seem to be self-evident that a conservation area, by its very nature,
must be an area requiring special protection on grounds of amenity.
I therefore urge that, instead of asking local planning authorities merely to "consider" the desirability of exercising advertisement control, the law should provide that all conservation areas shall automatically be deemed to be areas of special control unless they are decontrolled, in whole or in part, by direction of the Secretary of State on the application of the local planning authority.
Having made those two specific suggestions, which I hope will receive consideration in Committee, I should like again to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks on making such excellent use of his good fortune in the Ballot and to express the hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will give the Bill an unopposed Second Reading.
12.24 p.m.
I join the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) in expressing warmest congratulations to the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) on using his good fortune in the Ballot to introduce such a desirable and timely Bill. I assure him that he will receive the full support of the Opposition today and later in Committee if the Bill receives a Second Reading.
This is a timely Bill because in the latest year for which figures are available—1972—the number of applications to demolish listed buildings doubled. A responsible body, the British Council for Archaeology, recently made a survey of our historic towns which showed that, in England and Wales, two-thirds of them were threatened by some form of development scheme within the next seven years. Some towns, astonishingly, are not listed as conservation areas—for example, in England, Ipswich and Halifax; in Scotland, Jedburgh and Dumfries; and in "Wales, two towns which I know very well, Denbigh and Llangollen, both of which depend not only on the tourist industry and the beauty of their surroundings, but almost entirely on their historic content and the wealth of historical houses in them. Further, the council—an academic body not given to wild exaggeration—has concluded that most important towns of all historical periods will be lost to archaeology in 20 years, if not before, if the present rate of development continues unchecked. Therefore, this is not only a desirable but a timely Bill. It will in no small way stem the tide against the board room vandal who sends in his men and bulldozers and who is an even greater menace to society than his humble counterpart who goes in with an aerosol paint spray. However, basically, they are both irretrievably damaging our historic heritage. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks rightly puts at the forefront of his Bill the problem of demolition, which is increasing and will increase unless there is a check, particularly in conservation areas. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) has raised with me the question, not only of demolition in conservation areas, but of demolition generally. I hope that if the Bill receives the Royal Assent it will pilot the way for us to consider whether we should make not only demolition in conservation areas but major demolition in any area subject to planning consent. There are many forces which persuade property owners to demolish their property. If they do not receive planning consent to use it in a certain way, often they will knock it down and present local authorities with an empty site. It is then very difficulty for the local authority to resist a planning application to use it in a way which originally it would never have envisaged had the building stood on it. This tendency may increase, unwittingly, as a result of the Local Government Bill, with the multiplier of rates on unused commercial property. In the case of older property which is empty, the owner may knock it down rather than pay double, treble or quadruple rates. There is, therefore, an unwitting but added danger, and if the Bill prevents it arising at least in conservation areas it is much to be welcomed. Turning to Clause 3, I go all the way in spirit with the hon. Member for Sevenoaks who wants local authorities to improve conservation areas by getting rid of the unsightly street furniture which often clutters up such areas, which is completely out of keeping with the historical period and downright ugly. I agree with the hon. Member in his wish to do that, but I urge on hon. Members a little caution. The clause makes this a duty rather than a discretion on the local authority and we might kill with kindness the concept of the conservation areas. They will be so tarted up and improved that they will cease to have the value which they would have had if they were left in peace but firmly protected by the local authority. I am sure that the hon. Member for Sevenoaks knows what I mean. We must watch this point carefully in Committee. However, I agree completely with the spirit of the clause. I particularly welcome Clause 7. It is ridiculous that where a conservation order is made in an area the assumption should be that if the local authority had acquired the property compulsorily it would have given planning consent for major extensions, improvements or developments. Of course it would not, but that is the theory behind payment of compensation. It is based on the theory that the owner is entitled to the maximum remuneration. If a person takes on a listed building, he takes on the burdens and responsibilities of it as well as the assets and delights of it. Therefore, Clause 7 will put an end to a very strange anomaly in the law because I am sure that it was not intended that people should be paid the full rate of compensation for a planning consent which almost certainly would never have been granted. As the hon. Gentleman said, the Bill is amenable to improvements in Committee. I warmly welcome what he said about trees and archaeology and, if he catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) will equally welcome what the hon. Gentleman said about theatres. When the Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Bill was in Committee the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hands-worth (Mr. Sydney Chapman) and I tried to include in it provision for historical and archaeological sites as well as buildings, but, although the Minister was sympathetic, we were not successful in that. I hope that archaeological sites and buildings of interest to industrial archaeology will be included in this Bill. Industrial archaeology is a subject of growing interest, and the country has a wealth of industrial as well as domestic heritage. I hope that in Committee we shall be able to add other desirable features to this desirable Bill. I am in no way criticising the Bill. We shall seek in Committee to attempt constructive improvements to a very fine and timely Bill.12.31 p.m.
It is with great pleasure that I follow the speech of the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) and join him in welcoming the Bill. I add my congratulations to those which have been expressed to my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers). The Bill is a valuable measure which, in his words, could advantage everyone, and that is not altogether easy to achieve these days. My hon. Friend has had valuable support in introducing the measure from both sides of the House and from any individuals and bodies outside who have made their contribution.
If I have any criticism of the Bill, it is the criticism that has been expressed by several hon. Members, that it should perhaps go a little further, and none of us will be regretful if it can be strengthened in Committee. As my hon. Friend acknowledged, the Bill carries forward the good work which my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) initiated with the Civic Amenities Act, some of whose provisions are now incorporated in the Town and Country Planning Act 1971. I thank my right hon. Friend for his observations about my own interest in these matters. I think everyone on both sides of the House acknowledges the enormous contribution that he has made as founder and President of the Civic Trust and in the support he has always given in these matters. Some conservation areas are national and some are international, but I have a good deal of sympathy with what the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) said about the quite small areas that can be of local concern and also need to be protected. They all have something in common, and merit special care and attention because of the contribution they make to the life and character of the local community. The Bill will greatly assist conservation in what I regard as several important ways. Thus, I am sure that it is right to bring all demolition in conservation areas under control, whether or not the individual buildings are listed. Demolition can be just as destructive of the environment as redevelopment, and sometimes perhaps more so. It is right that it should be strictly controlled in areas of acknowledged environmental quality. I hope that in Committee it will be possible to give further consideration to the strengthening of Clause 1 on the lines suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and by the right hon. Member for Kettering. Secondly, I particularly welcome the proposals in Clause 6 which are designed to help to prevent listed buildings being allowed to fall into such a state of disrepair that demolition becomes almost inevitable. This can often be a deliberate tactic. In his brief intervention the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) showed that this concern is widely shared. At present a local authority, on giving seven days notice, may carry out emergency repairs to an unoccupied listed building but cannot recover the cost of the repairs from the owner or occupier. That deficiency in the powers has acted as a deterrent. Clause 6 enables the cost to be recovered subject to the safeguards which are rightly inserted in subsection (3). The Government are happy to accept that improvement in the law. Here again, we may possibly be able to go further, as the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South suggested. There has been a great deal of interest lately in the unfortunate plight of some theatres, and reference has been made to that subject this morning. Many suggestions—some of them very ingenious—have been made on how they can be protected. I must declare my interest in doing what we can to protect the living theatre. Some of what we want to do goes beyond the scope of the Bill, however it may be amended, but I shall be able to assist in the task of protecting the living theatre with the help of the recently appointed Advisory Committee on Theatres under the chairmanship of Lord Drogheda. Some matters may be outside the scope of the Bill, but there may be others that can be brought within it. The Bill's provisions may go some way towards helping theatres indirectly, and I will consider what further might be done to extend the provisions of Clause 6 to theatres and other buildings which may not be of special architectural or historic interest but which are of importance to the character of a conservation area. I have in mind, for instance, buildings in conservation areas which, as a result of a direction made by a local authority and confirmed by me, are already treated as though they were listed buildings under Section 8 of the Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Act 1972, for example, the Shaftesbury Theatre. Thirdly, the Bill remedies a deficiency in the existing conservation provisions by enabling the Secretary of State himself to designate conservation areas where the local authority for one reason or another has been reluctant to act. My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks is right in hoping that that might be regarded as a reserve power to be used only after careful consultation and consideration. Nevertheless, it is a useful addition to the armoury of powers.The Minister rose a little early, so I was unable to put this point to him before. We are in difficulty in York in energetically pursuing conservation because we are unaware how much we can claim for conservation from the Minister under the 1972 Act. No help is given to us to quantify that amount. If the Minister is now taking power to designate conservation areas, will he say where the money will come from?
First, one must have the powers and then, under any administration, discussions always have to take place with the Treasury from time to time about what can be made available. Considerable grants are made to Bath, York, Chester and other cities, and I am not adverse to proposals from any quarter on how we can help to draw people's attention to the powers they possess and to see that they use them effectively.
Equally helpful are the provisions in the Bill designed to require authorities to produce and to publish plans for the improvement of conservation areas. I am sure that we all acknowledge the widsom of what my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks said about the need for a positive approach. Equally, I am sure that it is important, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham said, to see that we give publicity on planning applications in the vicinity of the listed buildings. I agree with my right hon. Friend that that is an essential point. We are equally sympathetic to the proposal for the control of development in such areas. Equally, I welcome the proposed change in the law relating to compensation which my hon. Friend has explained. This will not destroy the owner's right to a proper measure of compensation. He will still get the market value and he will still have the safeguards that the law provides. What he will not have, as the hon. Member for Widnes pointed out, is this undeserved bonus. What the provision will do is to correct an anomaly in the law. The scope of the Bill is wider than just amendments to the law relating to conservation areas. I am grateful for my hon. Friend's proposals to give the Secretary of State some wider powers in relation to the upkeep of gardens in circumstances which are not now possible under the existing law. There are other matters which have been raised by my hon. Friend and other hon. Members today and which are not in the Bill as drafted, but we all appreciate the timescale within which my hon. Friend had to operate. I welcome in general terms my hon. Friend's proposals to strengthen the law on the protection of trees.Will the Secretary of State comment on the prospect of making it a mandatory requirement on developers that they would give time for archaeological investigation and possibly provide some of the funds necessary for such excavation?
As I said, I welcome the proposals to strengthen the law for the protection of trees. It would probably be helpful if there were discussion in Committee on the question of including provision for the protection of archaeological remains before development. We ourselves are working on proposals for legislation along these lines. We may have to put these provisions into a general ancient monuments Bill, but we will certainly pay careful attention to the ideas which may be raised in the course of discussion on the Bill.
I am sure that it is important to protect trees as well as to plant new trees. I share very much the view expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Sydney Chapman) that the Tree Planting Year campaign needs to be a continuous effort. I am sure that the possibility of a new general control over the felling of individual trees in certain designated areas deserves to be considered very carefully. From our contacts with the local authority associations and others I believe that the time is ripe now for us to introduce further legislation. Certainly we need to close certain loopholes in the tree preservation legislation and I hope that in Committee it will be possible to include an additional clause on this subject. Possibly we shall seek to introduce one or two Government amendments relating to trees. My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks indicated—I am sure that he was right—that this is a very appropriate measure for European Architectural Heritage Year 1975. My hon. Friend's contribution in the form of the Bill may be proved to be not the least of the positive achievements that will follow. We in Britain are making great efforts to make European Architectural Heritage Year a success. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing our attention in the Bill to the importance of preserving for future generations what is best in our architectural heritage.12.45 p.m.
I join others in welcoming the Bill and congratulating the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) on introducing it and on the work he has put into it. The hon. Gentleman must count himself fortunate in having such strong support from the Secretary of State.
Today it is indeed a very fortunate circumstance that we have with us the promoter of the earlier measure—the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys). We have been greatly encouraged by the interest which has been taken in trying to implement some of the provisions of the measure for which the right hon. Gentleman was responsible. That measure has been of enormous value in encouraging a great deal of effort on the part of voluntary groups who have come forward to help in the definition of conservation areas. This has become a popular and vigorous industry of its own and one which is greatly to be encouraged. There is also the fact that, although it has its importance for some of our great historic towns and famous cities, the measure is important also for small towns and villages all over the country, including a great number of our industrial towns. The right hon. Gentleman's measure has encouraged, as the Bill will encourage, the inhabitants of those places to realise how much there is of historic and amenity value within their neighbourhoods. There is a great richness throughout the country in small places as well as in places which have no particular great international fame, perhaps, but which nevertheless have points of quality and importance within them. This Bill, like its predecessor, will encourage those living in small towns. I think of some of our industrial centres on Tyneside which are also historic centres but whose names are perhaps better known for some grim aspects of their recent industrial history. I think of areas, too, where with the use of facilities granted under the right hon. Gentleman's measure, and with the encouragement of the right hon. Gentleman, trees have been planted and new hopes and possibilities created for lasting beauty in the areas. Hon. Members may well have received representations from the local authority associations. I, like many other hon. Members, am a vice-president of the Association of Municipal Corporations. The association has expressed anxiety about parts of the Bill. It need not worry. I think that the Bill will not prove to be quite so onerous as some may fear. In some cases it might be a good thing if it were more onerous. There are plenty of cases where stimulus for action is needed. Any points that the association may wish to raise are more suitably dealt with in Committee. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks said that he would consider the possibility of adding provisions relating to the preservation of trees. I welcome that. I have what might be regarded as a split mind about trees. I am revolted by some of the mass planting which has taken place in Britain, particularly by the unimaginative way in which the great Kielder Forest in my part of the world—the biggest forest in the United Kingdom, if not in the whole of Europe—was originally developed. For that very reason I am happy to support the reservoir proposal that will drown some of those trees and bring in some variety. I am sorry that the Secretary of State is not in his place, because that forest is within his constituency and there have been arguments about it recently. That does not detract from my great anxiety and keenness to see more tree planting of various species, both in the countryside, in the form of copses, shelter breaks, and so on, and in towns and villages, and measures for their preservation and protection. In those terms we are not so well off compared with other countries in Europe—for example, France. It seems that they have a greater richness, particularly in varieties of tree, which adds enormously to the appearance of the countryside. It is worrying that so many of the small groups of trees that we used to see are in danger. We need to protect what we have, to replant, to redevelop, and to offer encouragement to tree planting in towns and villages of all characters throughout the countryside. Nothing but good can come if some provision of this kind can be made. I unhesitatingly support the Bill. Many questions will rightly arise and will have to be gone into in Committee. Again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Sevenoaks on his good fortune and the Secretary of State for his helpful intervention.12.53 p.m.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) on bringing forward the Bill. Having had the good fortune to draw tenth in the Ballot last year and eleventh the year before and having introduced, on the first occasion, a Bill of great simplicity but much controversy and, on the second occasion, a Bill of great complexity, which fortunately did not arouse much much debate, I can understand the problems faced by my hon. Friend in producing a complicated Bill in the short time that is available to private Members who wish to legislate.
I hope that I am not alone in feeling that this is a matter of substantial complexity, because the Bill constantly refers to other legislation. I confess that I am not an expert on the planning legislation that has grown up over the years, which to the layman has frequently become bogged down in legal niceties that leave one gasping. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon), if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will enlighten us on some of those matters. I speak with a good deal of feeling about conservation areas, since I live in one. I believe that my house is a listed building. The little town of Axbridge, which unhappily may be in the public memory as a result of a tragic air disaster last April, is a special gem. It was the first conservation area in Somerset and a great deal of time and trouble has been spent on that little town—it has only 1,100 inhabitants, but it is and always has been referred to as a town—during the past few years. When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister came to Weston-super-Mare he stopped off on his way home to open a building, restored by the National Trust and known locally as King John's Hunting Lodge, which dominates our little square. Unhappily, I have been involved in a good deal of controversy with the local authority about a scheme for doing up part of the town under the Civic Amenities Act introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys). I have no wish to revive the row that took place in that part of the country, but some of the experience that I gained at that time may be useful during the passage of this legislation. I particularly welcome the principle of the Bill and shall certainly support its Second Reading. Indeed. I hope that I shall have the privilege of serving on the Committee, as there are a number of detailed points that I feel should be raised. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will convey to our right hon. Friend my feeling about the way that the financing of improvements in conservation areas should be carried out. My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks is precluded by the rules of the House from introducing a Bill under the Private Members' procedure that involves the expenditure of public money. However, it is within the capacity of the Government, if they wish, to move a money resolution to be attached to a Private Members' Bill. I take the view that conservation areas, as a philosophy, are national treasures to be preserved and tied up for the benefit of the whole community. The fact that those who live and work in those areas already benefit is by the way. It seems a fair principle that at least some part of the cost of the improvements about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham spoke should be borne by the Exchequer. I appreciate that this is not perhaps the most propitious time to suggest an increase in public expenditure, but I do not think that we can expect our heritage to be preserved across the nation at the expense of private individuals who wish to live and work in these places. That is why so many other things have deteriorated so badly in the past. Even after the passage of this legislation, I fear that many local authorities will be either unwilling or incapable of taking action without some financial help from the national exchequer. The control of demolition is accepted as the most important principle in the Bill. I entirely endorse that view. We have a very bad case in Axbridge, where a developer pulled down a building and tried to get permission for, of all things, a fish-and-chip shop. That application has been persistently refused by the planning authority and, two and a half years after the building was pulled down, a gaping hole still exists in a line of houses in a beautiful old street. There is at least one other example of that kind of thing in this small conservation area. It is intolerable. It is therefore right and proper that we should legislate to put the matter right. If people choose to go ahead without permission they should be forced to rebuild as near as possible to the original line, size and design. I am a little more cautious about Clause 2, which relates to designation. In an earlier intervention I commented on the number of listed buildings in this country. When the original proposals for listing buildings came in I understand that parish councils were asked to suggest which buildings in their parishes should be listed. In some parts of the country where there was little or nothing worth preserving, parish councils, with obvious local pride, placed on those lists buildings which, frankly, in the judgment of many people, ought not to have been included. If we have too many conservation areas there is likely to be a temptation to ignore the overall picture, and the worthwhile places will lose out because of the desire to count total numbers rather than quality. The proposal in Clause 3 is that local authorities should be obliged to produce a scheme. I hope that something will be added here so that local public opinion may express itself formally. In the instance which I mentioned, the local authority prepared what I thought was an over-ambitious scheme for the improvement of that street, a street, incidentally, in which the local authority itself was responsible for one public convenience and for a large modern Dutch barn in which it kept its refuse lorries, the refuse tip being at the end of the lane. The local authority's solution was to close the whole road and build a service road round the back, part of which was to pass through my garden. I should not have been so upset about this had it not proposed that the road should cross the site of the old rifle range, built by the inhabitants of the town before the Napoleonic wars, at a time when the local home guard turned out at the back of the town hall—no doubt, after their deliberations—and practised their musketry down that unique little passage. Because it neither knew of that fact nor had inquired about it, the local authority prepared its scheme to build a road through that historic little place. Public opinion could easily have told the authority about it. Public opinion opposed the scheme, saying that it was extravagant, and in due course, I am glad to say, the proposal has been arrested. As I say, I hope that public opinion will have a big say, particularly where an overall scheme covers a large part of a conservation area. Next, I turn to the question of advertising. I am nervous about the restrictions on commercial property internally. I entirely accept that hoardings and the like are of no benefit. But in Axbridge for example, we have several grocers' shops, all competing for the trade of a small population. They are there because, historically, people came from miles around to this little area. Businesses of that kind find life difficult enough, and I should be worried if we were to restrict them overmuch in carrying on their trade. The very fact that they carry on makes it a conservation area and not a museum. I realise that this argument has been put many times in the past, but it is the fact that people live, work and trade in a little village such as Axbridge that makes it the gem it is. I have been round a mediaeval town in France which the French authorities have restored from top to bottom, and a very beautiful job it is. But it would be no more than a museum if they had not allowed people to continue to live in it. I hope that we shall not forget that and try overmuch to preserve our conservation areas. It is easy, in the enthusiasm of blocking up loopholes, to forget some of the lessons already learned. For a long time, I have been asking my hon. Friends for more publicity for planning applications. In the three years I have been in Axbridge, I have suffered a ladies' hairdressing shop opposite my own front gate, also separately listed, I have been threatened by the road about which I spoke a few minutes ago, and a local farmer, although he did not need to apply, consulted the local planning authority about the erection of a barn, which was moved into the viewpoint of my own and some of my neighbours houses. Had we known about any of these things—there are other complaints—our quite sensible representations could have been considered. There is a circular—I do not recall the number—which directs local authorities that they should advertise planning applications relating to places near historic buildings. On taking this matter up with my local authority, I was informed that, in its opinion, it did not see why it should conform to that circular because it considered that the development was neither material nor near to a historic building A local authority is perfectly entitled to say that, and I hope that the Bill will put that matter right, not a moment too soon. I am worried about Clauses 6 and 7 because, by its very nature, my little town has within it a number of people who have been living there for many years, having been born and brought up in small cottages of great beauty. Naturally, they have not always been able to do up their cottages. I have in mind one place where there is a dear old lady, who happens to own the cottage next door as well. This cottage has been allowed to go into substantial disrepair because she has no money to tackle repairs. I am reluctant to approve legislation which would allow local authorities to make life difficult for such an old lady. I reiterate what I said earlier, that Government money could and should be spent on the external appearance of buildings in conservation areas. In due course, no doubt, these matters will be considered in detail, and my hon. Friend will have an opportunity to advise me if I am under some misapprehension.I remind my hon. Friend that in the Bill I refer to unoccupied premises, not occupied premises.
I understand that, but in the circumstances prevailing in that particular street, for example, quite a lot of the buildings are unoccupied, though owned by neighbours of families in the town, and they are unoccupied because, admittedly, they have in some cases fallen into a bad state of repair. However, that is a Committee point which we can discuss later.
I am a little reluctant to think that the tree preservation order procedure is as inadequate as has been suggested. I am not aware that any of the important trees in our conservation area—I have one in my own garden—has a TPO on it. I feel that the procedure could be used without becoming overweighted. At all costs, we must avoid passing legislation which is too overpowering so that people are discouraged from living in conservation areas. That would be a tragedy. I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) with us today, because she was one of a group of us who recently went to China, where the tree planting programme is one of the most impressive achievements of the present Government. Tree planting need not be excessively expensive. If produced properly in large numbers, trees by themselves need not be costly. Many private owners of land would be only too glad to find space for trees if they were encouraged to do so. I know that in Worcestershire, which was particularly badly ravaged by Dutch elm disease, the county council has given a grant for the replacement planting of a large number of trees—an excellent thing to do. On theatres and archaeology, I am substantially in agreement with my hon. Friend, and I hope that he will have the good fortune to be able to add provisions to the Bill to deal with those matters. I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me at an early stage, and I apologise to the House for now having to leave. The distance to my constituency, especially with the 50 mph speed limit, leaves me little time, and I have a vital engagement there tonight.1.8 p.m.
Before the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) leaves, may I assure him, since he referred to my legal acumen, that I find as much difficulty in following the Bill as he did.
Some years ago, when I was a member of a sub-committee of the Statute Law Revision Committee, under Mr. Justice Scarman, it was recommended that in future all amendments to Bills should be textual amendments, and that we should have loose-leaf Bills so that one could simply take out the appropriate page and put in another one. I was asked how this would meet the needs of Members of Parliament when they came to consider amendments, and I said that I thought that we could manage. However, having looked at this Bill, I have some difficulty, and I feel that what we ought to do in these circumstances is what is done in the law itself, that is, to print the original provision, cross out the words which are amended, and then write the amended words underneath. Then we could at least follow it from the text. My speech will be short because I am anxious that the next Bill should be considered, but it may be a little carping, not against the intentions of the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) but against the Government. The hon. Member is a son of York and we share the distinction of being members of the Civic Trust, the founder of which is sitting here with us. We share a common devotion to the interests of that city and it is that which brings me into these matters. I have lived through eight years of trying to deal with the problems of conservation of one of the great cities of Europe, and in that time I think I have been beset by most of the problems which face us in this matter. An amazing difference has overtaken our consideration of the problems since 1967 when the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) was introducing his Private Member's Bill. There has been a complete revolution in the attitude to these problems not only by Government and local authority but, more important, by the public in general, and there is a new forceful body of public opinion in every area that is conscious of these problems and anxious to do something about them. In that time we have produced a great many pieces of legislation to give us the power to deal with them, and I welcome the addition of this Bill. There are some interesting matters in it and I have no doubt that by the time it leaves the Committee there will be even more which will help us in tackling the job. However, in the final analysis, I am met, I fear, by the somewhat dour assessment of the leader of my Labour group who, viewing these problems and the aspirations of this lobby and the great pretentions of Government when it comes to legislation like this, as witnessed by the words of the Secretary of State today, says, "Yes, but how are we going to pay for it?" At first I thought this was simply the entrenched conservatism of a local councillor and that he should rise to the great visions we can display here on a Friday morning when we have no question of financial resources in our minds. However, I am afraid that after a number of years of trying to push first the Government and then the local authority into implementing the recommendations of the Esher Report for York, with its imaginative proposals for dealing with the conservation areas in the city, I begin to share his scepticism. Esher recommended three action areas, and all of us—the local authority, the Government and everybody else concerned—agreed that Aldwalk should be the first, as an example to show how it would all work. Nothing has yet been built in Aldwalk to substantiate even the beginning of the action area which was recommended four or five years ago. I was therefore a little surprised when Lord Sandford came in his capacity as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry to look around the conservation area. He said all the proper things that should be said on these occasions, just the kind of things the Secretary of State was saying today. When we were closeted together with the councillors and when we began to discuss the nuts and bolts of how we were going to tackle Aldwalk, I was particularly interested to know how much the Government would contribute. Esher recommended in his study certain proposals as part of the four towns scheme. That scheme was considered by a sub-committee of the Ministry under the chairmanship of Lord Kennet, and just before the 1970 election it recommended that there should be a conservation grant of 50 per cent. so that local authorities, having weighed up how much it would cost to implement the proposals, would be able to cost it out and see exactly where they stood. The Government abandoned these proposals when they came into office and then in 1972 during the Committee stage of the Town and Country Planning Bill, when no one on the Committee as far as I could gather was interested in this aspect of the problem, because the Bill was concerned with something quite different, the Government put in a clause allowing the authorities to make conservation grants. There is no reference in that section of the Act to how much would be paid and the Government have never committed themselves to a figure. Therefore, we asked Lord Sandford how much he was prepared to pay. His answer was most evasive. It amounted to saying that the Treasury had difficulty in finding resources for implementing that section. Therefore, he suggested we should make use of all the possible grants which were available under the housing provisions, the town and country planning provisions, and so on, and then see how the amounts worked out. Then we should go to see the Government with the deficit and they would try to meet us. We cannot run a local authority like that. A local authority must know how much it will have to pay, particularly when it is under a squeeze in local authority financing, as authorities are at the moment. This is all so silly because under the improvement grant, procedure which applies in an intermediate area such as mine we can at present claim 75 per cent. for the improvement of houses. Therefore, a substantial amount of the cost of certain improvements could be met. We can also get 75 per cent. for some expenditure on roads, and 50 per cent. in relation to other amenity improvements. However, the total amount, if it were within the resources of the local authority to do it, would still leave the Government with a substantial amount to pay under existing legislation. Why cannot the Government simply say that they will pay 50 per cent. or 75 per cent. of the total cost of conservation, because in the end the sum would not be much different? Therefore, I suggest to the Government that during the course of discussion on the Bill they should commit themselves to some kind of percentage grant under the 1972 Act. They already have the power to give such grants and to persuade the Treasury to make it clear to local authorities that conservation areas will be treated in toto for this kind of percentage grant. That would perhaps be the best thing that could happen as a result of the Bill. However, I welcome the general proposals contained in the Bill. I am a little sceptical about Section 2 for the reasons I have indicated. It is all very well for the Minister to have the power to designate conservation areas, but it is not much good unless he intends to provide some money. As the right hon. Member for Streatham said, designation of conservation areas is merely the first step. Then one has to tear down the buildings which disfigure the area and put money into the buildings which need conserving. It is necessary to put up new buildings which have the distinction of being alive to the general shape and status of the area. This is a vastly interesting process but a vastly expensive one. In this one action area in York we are talking in terms of £10 million. The local authority's total rate yield is about £2 million per year so that £10 million is well outside our resources. We desperately need Government help and we need it in a coherent way which allows us to take coherent steps to deal with the problem. I agree with much that has been said about the other matters that can be put into the Bill. I want to keep my speech short and I will not adumbrate them, but I wish the hon. Member for Sevenoaks well and I am sure the Bill will be of great assistance to us all.1.19 p.m.
May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) on producing the Bill. I have taken a particular interest in it because as a member of the Council of Europe I was a chairman of the European Committee for Conservation in 1970. I was then speaking as a European and I am now speaking as a Briton. I should like to draw attention to the Split conference. I mention it now because the Bill has worldwide interests, which is another reason why I congratulate my hon. Friend.
The European Symposium on Towns of Historic Interest, held in Split in October 1971, was attended by representatives of more than 100 historic cities, not just from countries belonging to the Council of Europe but from Yugoslavia, Finland, Tunisia and Canada. Today we are joining a group of other historic cities to help preserve the gems in this country. It is fairly easy to decide which buildings are of historic interest. What will be difficult, because opinions differ so much, is to decide which buildings are of architectural interest. It is essential to consult local authorities, and particularly bodies such as the Victorian Society and the Georgian Group. I think soon that we shall also need an Edwardian Society to preserve buildings from that period. There are still many buildings that are unlisted. Perhaps there are too many insignificant buildings listed, but it appears from the documents of a number of societies that too many which I would consider worth preserving are scheduled to be destroyed. I understand that the final decision on preservation will be with the Department of the Environment, unless the Bill alters that situation. I am rather disturbed by the fact that the Department can refuse, stating that a building is not up to standard. What is meant by that? Is there any consultation with the local experts, who may have better knowledge than the Department? One thing in our favour is that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has great local government knowledge, having been a very important person in the local authority world. But I should like to know what is meant by "standard" and who sets the standard. Next year is European Architectural Heritage Year. I hope that we shall be in the forefront in putting forward ideas that will be helpful. In Lord Kennet's Preservation Policy Group's report in 1970 he spoke of the need for more expenditure on conservation and stressed the regrettable effects of inflation and VAT on grants. Recently Appendix IV of Council of Europe Resolution No. 6, DELA/ MS(71)1, pressed the Councilprivate associations concerned with conservation, so the Government might consider not charging VAT, because it hinders a great deal of the work. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks include railway stations and bridges within the provisions of the Bill? In my constituency a beautiful railway station was pulled down and was replaced by a hideous building. Throughout the country we have some beautiful bridges. In the dockyard at Devonport, and perhaps in other dockyards, certain buildings have been scheduled by the Defence Department and there are buildings that have nothing to do with the local authority. For example, there is a ropewalk at Devonport in which there is a gallows that was used to hang French prisoners of war, and there is also a hideous office building with enormous chimneys. It may be said that we must preserve the ropewalk because it is of historic importance, because rope is no longer made in the same way, and those with an interest in hanging may like the gallows to remain, but the ropewalk takes up a great deal of room in the dockyard. The office building inhibits modern construction, but when I was visited recently I was told that it had to be kept to show how people used to work. I do not see much point in preserving a building which shows the bad conditions under which people used to work. What, then, should be the object of preserving monuments and buildings? I think that it should be their re-animation to give them a true function in modern times. That could be undertaken by the local authorities with the help of specialists, including architects and sociologists. In the city of Plymouth we have the Stonehouse Association. The community has got together, and we have helped reorganise the Stonehouse area, and people are living in all the houses concerned. The Defence Department helped by re-establishing and refurbishing to modern standards a beautiful building for the Royal Marines, the Royal Marine Barracks, which was built in the 1700s. The interior has been reconstructed to bring it up to modern standards for the services concerned. The outward appearance of some buildings have been kept while the inside has been modernised, and in some cases this has been detrimental. I think, for example, of two interesting buildings built on the Egyptian style by Foulston, both in the West Country. The architecture of the inside, which was especially designed, has been destroyed, although the outside has been kept in its original state. I hope that the Bill can also help to protect interiors. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) mentioned the gardens and trees we saw in China. The Chinese have done a very interesting job in the old mandarins' gardens, which are beautiful, and they have made flower pictures. Into the walls they have built beautiful shapes—moon shapes, triangles and other shapes—and they have planted flowers on the far side to make a complete picture, so I hope that we, too, may think of constructing beautiful gardens of that kind. It is important to carry out investigations into what was previously on sites being used for new purposes. I was horrified when I found that no archaeological survey had been carried out before work started on the House of Commons car park. It is possible for the Defence Department both to preserve buildings and to give buildings to a local authority. The Palmerston Forts, formidable buildings in the South-West, have been well used, so when a building is reinstated, it should be put to use. Although the Army still have one or two of the forts, there is a youth centre in one and another provides winter quarters for a travelling show. There is also a youth club in the Drake's Island Fort. Those are wise measures taken to preserve buildings and to put them into modern use. My hon. Friend mentioned the question of land. Gardens are mentioned in the Bill, but I have not seen the word "land". I should like to know whether the Bill includes the restoration and preservation of tumuli which are regrettably being destroyed by animals grazing, and as a result, the interesting examples of the ancient forts will be gradually trodden down. My last point concerns the outward appearance of the cottages in some villages. In a village which I know well all the houses had been thatched. Of course, thatching is expensive. The houses are now to be tiled. When I put in a protest I was told that some fairly old tiles were to be used, but the tiles will spoil the whole appearance of the village. Is there any possibility of making a preservation order for the roofs of individual houses so that the character of the village concerned can be kept? I welcome the Bill and I hope that I shall have the privilege of being on the Committee. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks for the trouble which he has taken. It is appropriate that the Bill should come before the House when the whole of Europe has an interest in the preservation of historic buildings."to recommend to all member governments the introduction of legislation to ensure fiscal exemption for charitable funds donated to or collected by such associations "—
1.32 p.m.
I hope that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) will forgive me if I do not follow the points which she made. I think that they will probably be dealt with at a later stage.
It gives me great pleasure that my first appearance at this Dispatch Box should be for the purpose of welcoming the Bill. My interest in it will be well known. It is a self-imposed duty because I wanted to be here for the purpose of saying how valuable the Bill is likely to be for the theatre. I give the Bill a general welcome. The Bill has been subjected to one or two detailed criticisms, but in general hon. Members have said that it is an important and valuable measure. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) is to be congratulated and thanked. I shall not usurp his function by making detailed references to what has been said. I shall refer to the Bill in general terms. It has been suggested that it will not enable us to undo the damage which has been done in the past. Of course it will not. However, it will enable us to prevent the sort of thing which should not have happened in the past from happening in the future. I can give an example within my own constituency. Putney is not a place which has a wealth of historic and architectural background such as York and other places. As a result, the few things which Putney has are especially precious. For me it was a disaster when the historic parish church of St. Mary's, Putney, was overshadowed by the huge building which is now occupied by International Computers Limited. ICL cannot be blamed. It occupies a building which was built for another purpose. If the Bill had been an Act at that time the overshadowing building would not have been permitted to be built on the south bank of the Thames at Putney Bridge and a vista would not have been lost. Unfortunately, the church has been gutted by fire. I know that it will be rebuilt in exactly the same form. There may be some changes in the use which is made of the rest of the site, but the building will be reconstructed in the same form. It is a pity that it will have to be reconstructed against the background of the ICL building. I see no hope of losing the huge ICL building although some people would be glad to see its presence removed. The Bill will not do everything but it will do a great deal. I thought that the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) made an extremely good point. It is a continual surprise to discover that I think similarly on these matters with hon. Members with whom I thought I had nothing in common. To make that discovery in no way decreases the firmness with which I hold my convictions. It causes me to be surprised that hon. Members who are so enlightened in some respects should be so unenlightened in others. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman made a very good point when he was talking about replacement. He was right to express the hope that in Committee we shall be able to do something to ensure that when a building is demolished—that may happen when it is decided that for the preservation of one building another one must go—the matter of replacement will be considered. An example which can be used is the Shaftesbury Theatre which used to be known as the Prince's and which is at the top of Shaftesbury Avenue. As hon. Members will be aware, it has recently been acquired. Part or all of the roof happened to fall in and the building is unoccupied. The Bill will be of great value in such circumstances. The local authority had to go through the procedure of getting a Section 8 order and so forth. If the Bill were now an Act, the local authority would be able to act much more speedily. The new owners of the building do not look at the matter from a theatrical point of view. They might have had some doubts about acquiring the theatre if the Bill had been an Act at the time of acquisition. If it had been an Act the profit which they seek to make as a result of the acquisition might not have been so readily apparent to them. The further use of the building would not be in question if the Bill had been an Act. I believe that the consequence of the Bill passing through the House may be beneficial to the future of the theatre in that consideration must be given to whether a building is to be preserved in its present form or to be replaced by a new theatre. In the circumstances the point which was made by the right hon. Member for Streatham is of relevance. If we were satisfied that the Shaftsbury Theatre was to be replaced by an approved theatre, we would know that such a building would be a valuable addition to the existing London theatres. In those circumstances our reluctance to see the end of the Shaftesbury Theatre would be reduced. At the moment we have no control over what happens when a theatre is demolished. I have in mind that when the old Stoll Theatre disappeared it was replaced by a theatre which was built originally as a cinema and which has occasionally been used since for some relatively undistinguished performances. In other words, the old Stoll was not replaced by a theatre which made a valuable contribution to the theatrical life of London. The same applies to the Shaftesbury. Many of us still feel that it would be far better if the Shaftesbury were to remain and were to be restored in its present form. Many people would take that view, unless they could be assured that it would be replaced by a theatre which would be approved and known by theatre people to be workable and usable. That brings me to a suggestion which we might look at in Committee. Recently the Secretary of State set up an advisory committee to advise him on theatrical matters. I warmly welcome his decision not only because I am a member of the committee but because he was good enough to say that I had something to do with promoting the idea. I am very glad that the committee exists. If the committee could be given statutory recognition in this Bill it would be the right body to make sure that any theatre which was intended to replace one which had been pulled down was the right sort of theatre. That is the kind of advice which could be tendered to the Minister, and an amendment to give the committee statutory recognition in the Bill is one that we might wish to look at in Committee. The same applies to a suggestion made by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks that it might be possible to strengthen the Bill by giving special recognition to theatres with an existing life of, say, 50 years. Of course there are a number of theatres which have a lesser life than 50 years. But someone has to decide whether a theatre is theatrically viable. The existence of a committee and its statutory recognition in the Bill would provide a group of people to whom such questions might be referred. It could be asked, "Is this a theatre which is viable in itself? Is it one which should be replaced, and, if so, what sort of theatre should replace it?" These are all matters which can be dealt with in Committee. I hope that the hon. Member for Seven-oaks will suggest or will welcome amendments along these lines when we come to our more detailed discussions. My pleasure in welcoming the Bill is very real. I hope to be able to participate in the discussions in Committee both generally and on the special matters of interest to which I have referred. It is my great hope that we shall see this measure on the Statute Book. Recently I was asked whether I wanted to see a General Election. I said that for myself I did not mind when it came but that I should prefer it not to come too soon because I wanted to see the Town and Countries Amenities Bill on the statute book. For that reason I hope that we shall have a quick Committee stage and come back to this House for Report and Third Reading so that this measure may pass to another place and become the law of the land.1.44 p.m.
I, too, welcome this most useful Bill, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) on introducing it. In my view it will be an even better Bill if he is able to include the three amendments that he suggested dealing with trees, with archaeology and with the theatre.
The Bill should help further to strengthen the hand of local authorities in dealing with conservation areas and the preservation of historic buildings. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) said that the Bill was a very good forerunner to Heritage Year 1975. I was very pleased to hear the Secretary of State for the Environment give Heritage Year such warm support. I trust that he will follow it up with active participation next year when I hope that we shall all make a special effort to halt the steady loss of irreplaceable historic buildings and the steady erosion of character in many of our historic towns and villages. We have still to get it over to the nation that we all have a moral obligation to preserve many more historic buildings for future generations and, whenever possible, to leave them in a better condition than we found them. I can cite a very good example of what I mean. If legislation of this kind had existed, an area of which I know could have been saved as a conservation area with an ancient monument called Sutton Walls near the City of Hereford. It is one of the most outstanding examples of early English earthworks. It is said to have been the legendary seat of King Offa. The perimeter of the hilltop fortress is preserved by what was the Ministry of Public Building and Works as a national monument. But the inside area was allowed to be turned into a dump. It should have been made a conservation area years ago as it is of great interest to antiquarians. But somehow permission slipped through the various local authorities, and now it is used as a refuse tip for industrial effluent. We have had all sorts of problems there, including fires and explosions. It is a danger to children. In the summer it exudes a foul smell. I trust that between the Protection of the Environment Bill, which is now in another place, and this Bill such pollution will never be allowed again in what ought to have been a conservation area. The Bill touches upon what I call "visual" pollution. I agree readily that there must be tighter control of advertisements and garish posters. What is more, advertisements must be in better taste, especially in or near conservation areas and near our historic buildings. There is a great surplus of signs, notices and advertisements—even neon signs. There is far too much clutter, ugliness and bad taste in the countryside, especially near our historic buildings. Industry must have the opportunity to advertise, but I believe that it can do it in a more civilised and subtle manner. A more civilised method would be for an industry to restore an old listed building in a beautiful village or to repair a distinguished old historical town house. This could be recorded on a large plaque placed on the building saying, "By the generosity of Bulmer's Cider"—or Cadbury's or BP. Many sporting events such as car and speed-boat racing are sponsored today. I can see nothing wrong in this type of constructive, responsible and harmless advertising. At the same time it would be improving and helping our historic buildings and saving public funds. Tourism is a growth industry. It is Britain's fourth and most important export trade. Many areas want to encourage visitors to come to see and enjoy historic buildings and gardens of outstanding historical interest. Therefore it is vital that local planning authorities do not allow the vicinity to be spoiled by bad taste or villages to become "cute" as a result of a rash of tea, souvenir and craft shops, old waggon wheels and mock-stone cider presses to spring up near historic buildings. The village of Broadway in South Worcestershire is a very good example. It has managed to keep its advertisements and notices down to the minimum, and those which are visible are in good taste. I hope that this Bill will reach the statute book. There is still a great deal which can and must be done to protect and to preserve our heritage.1.50 p.m.
I should like to begin, as have colleagues on both sides of the House, by warmly congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) on both his luck and his initiative. He has brought before the House today a measure of far-reaching and considerable importance, and it is refreshing, after all the problems with which we have been confronted over the past few weeks, to be able to get back to what I consider to be the normal Friday scene of worthwhile Private Member's Bills with all-party support dealing with important problems. I very much echo the remarks of the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) and hope that we shall not have an election until this Bill is on the statute book.
The conservation area concept is one of the most considerable achievements of the considerable career of my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) and is now accepted throughout the country, but the public in general are not sufficiently aware of the existence of conservation areas. Those who know and care are, of course, aware but I like to think—and I trust that this will be suitable for inclusion in the Bill later—that we shall be able to consider how to bring home to the public the importance of conservation areas—perhaps by an extension of the old LCC and current GLC blue plaque idea at the entrance to a conservation area, or the sort of sign that is used in a national park. It must be brought home to people that they are in a conservation area and that it is precious and of importance to the district. There has been too much unthinking and unfeeling development, and I regret to say that some of it has taken place in conservation areas since they were designated. There are incongruous lamp posts, for instance, and I know of a village where there was a horse trough that had stood there for more than a century and that was the focal point of the village square, but it was carted off and a rubbishy little island was put in its place. Fortunately, we were able to get it back, but that is the sort of thing that happens. Just as things like that happen in charming rural hamlets and villages, so they happen in the great towns and cities. Anyone who knows what has occurred in Canterbury, Winchester, Norwich, Bath, York, or any other great city, will shudder with horror both at what has happened and what is threatened. The big guns have been brought to bear in this context, but there are gems less famous and therefore in a sense more vulnerable. I am to spend part of the weekend in the lovely eighteenth century town of Louth, in Lincolnshire. It is unspoilt and one of the most remarkable examples of an English country town. Towns such as Louth can be threatened if we are not careful of their existence, just as a neighbouring town—my own home town of Grimsby, which did not have much to boast of—has been totally mutilated and destroyed by unthinking development. It had a charming character of its own and was a very individual town, but now it is what one could vulgarly call a one-off job, with precincts and shopping areas, just like any new town in the country, and with a vast supermarket literally within feet of the ancient church at the centre of the town. These are the things against which we must stand four-square, and if the Bill will give us fresh determination it deserves the support of everybody who holds the English heritage dear. I want to concentrate on one aspect of the subject and that is churches, but before doing so, I should like to pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. He has come in for much criticism from time to time, and I have criticised him myself, but I draw the attention of the House to something that he has done in my constituency deserving more widespread recognition than it has had. We were threatened with the awful M54 motorway. I did not want it and my constituents did not want it. Sensible of the local feeling and determined to do something about it, my right hon. and learned Friend has accepted suggestions that were made to him, and a landscape consultant is to come and talk to local people and we are making sure that every local interest is fully considered and properly deliberated upon before the exact route is finally settled. In a debate of this nature it is appropriate to make a passing reference to that. I said that I wanted to concentrate on churches. I hope that something can be done in Committee to make our ancient English churches eligible for some help from the State. I am not now talking about redundant churches and the Pastoral Measures, and other things with which we are all familiar, but about churches still regularly used for worship —and there are some 8,000 mediaeval examples alone in the country. The church is often the focal point of the landscape or the townscape, often the only building of intrinsic merit and of historic association and character in the area. Yet today we have the ludicrous sitution that if I live in a listed building, as in fact I have the pleasure of doing, in certain circumstances I may apply for and properly be awarded grants—and that is now to apply to gardens; splendid, I am glad of it—whereas a church, faithfully supported and rigorously maintained by a worshipping congregation, perhaps only a handful, is not eligible for any sort of assistance from the State. This is an anomaly that must be put right. I know that in a sense this is special pleading. I had a Bill on this very subject about three years ago and it reached the Committee stage, and I hope that a corresponding Bill of mine will have its Second Reading next week. I would willingly sacrifice that Bill and allow its provisions to be incorporated into this one if it were possible to make churches eligible. One of my most refreshing tasks is to serve on the Grants Committee of the Historic Churches Preservation Trust, a very worthy body. It is refreshing, but also depressing. We meet every six or eight weeks and have before us lists of applications from all over the country. I went to see one church to vet it for grant a little while ago. It was a church in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More), who has done so much in this respect. Here was a church, with a tiny congregation serving a very small parish. So much had been done by the congregation, which had raised hundreds of pounds by its own efforts, and yet the sum was just not enough. In that instance the Historic Churches Trust has been able to help with a grant of £1,000 and that will be all right, but this sort of example is repeated all over the country particularly in counties such as Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire and Herefordshire. One thinks of my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Sir Clive Bossom) and the glorious gem in his constituency. What happens if it is affected by major structural faults? It will be beyond the means of local people adequately to repair it. Cathedrals can always get their money through appeals, one may say, and generally they succeed, but parish churches are in danger, and the most significant contribution to European Heritage Year that we could make would be to ensure that our churches were eligible for some sort of State subsidy and support where necessary, not as a sop to lazy vicars or negligent congregations—for it is always right that they should make the first efforts themselves—but to ensure that future generations enjoy what we are privileged to enjoy. If such a provision could be incorporated in the Bill, I, for one, would be heartily thankful. Whether or not it is, the Bill still has great merit. Even if my own special pleading goes unanswered, although I should be sorry I should still believe that this was a Bill deserving of the support of us all. I wish my hon. Friend every success in his endeavours and I hope that the Bill will soon be on the statute book, and then Sevenoaks may stand, with the Streatham Act as one of the landmarks in conservation history.1.57 p.m.
I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in support of the Bill. I have the honour to be a sponsor of the Bill and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) on introducing it. I have noted very personally the criticisms that he made about modern architecture and architects and I must say that in the main some of his criticisms were justified. But I should also say that one of the heart-warming trends of political development in the past decade has been the way in which environment has become of increasing importance to people outside the House. I pay tribute to many of my professional colleagues, architects throughout the country, who are leaders and vigorous supporters of schemes for conservation.
I hope that Clause 1 will go through, but I hope that it will be strengthened somewhat. I remember that in Committee on the Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Act 1972 I unsuccessfully proposed that all buildings within conservation areas should become the subject of permission before demolition. My right hon. Friends were unable to accept that because they said that it would inhibit natural development in certain areas, particularly in such places as Chester and York where virtually the whole of the town within the city walls is part of the conservation area. I did not accept that but we moved a small step forward and my right hon. Friend accepted an amendment of mine stating that local planning authorities should have power to designate protected buildings within conservation areas, buildings which were not listed buildings. In reply to a Parliamentary Question of mine yesterday I note, sadly perhaps, that fewer than 7,000 buildings have been made subject to the need to obtain permission before demolition. I hope that that number will greatly increase. Obviously I am pleased with Clause 2. I hope that there will be at least 5,000 conservation areas throughout the country. I realise the difficulties of the numbers game. I know that in the administrative county of Kent there are 212 conservation areas whereas in the city of Birmingham there are, alas, only 12. It depends upon how large the area is. Unfortunately in Birmingham the conservation areas are very small. In the City of Chester there is only one area but that includes virtually the whole of the city within the walls. Unrestrained advertising is an important problem and not only in conservation areas. I hope we shall tackle not only this but the problem of the eyesores created by petrol filling stations with their garish lights. If the energy crisis has done nothing other than to dim some of those lights we ought to be grateful for at least that. Another eyesore is the so-called temporary advertisements in luminous paint but which are in fact a permanent blot on the townscape. The extra publicity for new development will be welcomed by all. In many cases people may not be able to afford the rather heavy costs of inserting notices in newspapers. I am still sufficiently old-fashioned to believe that the safest way of informing people about a proposed development is through the site notice. I very much hope that that will be extended. The right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) may care, before Committee stage—and I hope that he is a member of the Committee—to read the Committee proceedings on the Town and Country Planning (Amendments) Act, particularly the debate on recovering costs from owners or occupiers of listed and other buildings. The difficulties were discussed at great length there. My right hon. and learned Friend will know of my keen interest in trees, and I thank him for his kind remarks. There is one point which I hope the Government will earnestly consider. The problem of extending legislation to cover more trees is that it involves more work for local planning authorities. If every tree in a conservation area were to be automatically protected I can see that it would impose an additional burden on local authorities. What I suggest is that anyone who wishes to chop down a tree in a conservation area should give six weeks' notice of intention to the local planning authority. This would give the authority time to consider whether the tree had amenity value and to place an instant preservation order on the tree if necessary. There is no doubt that the hearts of our great cities and many of our historic towns, at least in large part, have been irreparably damaged in the name of so-called progress. The preservation, let alone conservation, of much of our achitectural heritage has been neglected and the characters of so many of the more pleasant parts of our towns have been sacrificed, to put it bluntly, to the short-term economic interest. We shall live to rue the day that we ever allowed so much of that heritage to disappear in the path of the bulldozer. Sadly, far too many of our cities and large towns have no adequate conservation policy. It almost appears as if there is a totally uninformed interest and lack of initiative among some of our civic leaders and local politicians. I must also include some criticism of my own profession. Many architects have failed to interest and encourage their clients or potential clients in important conservation schemes. We have to face up to one simple truth. Conservation costs money. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks pointed out the difference between preservation and conservation of buildings. I am afraid that the legislation we have at the moment, the optimistic speeches and the relatively meagre funds—which I acknowledge have been increased in recent years—are no substitute for proper conservation policies. We have to face that and be prepared to try to lead public opinion towards the granting of more money for conservation. Many buildings in a place such as Bath have been demolished due to the fact that the city cannot properly afford to conserve the buildings which it ought to. This must be a national responsibility, and it involves not only money. There is much more need for inter-professional teamwork to study, evaluate and over come the many problems of conservation, which is becoming a new science of building. Many more specialist staff are needed. In giving a warm welcome to the Bill, I suggest that we need to accept the necessity for a better balance between commercialism on the one hand and conservation on the other. I represent a constituency in the middle of Birmingham and know the importance of sound environmental policies. The only environmental problem I do not have is that of oil pollution on the beaches. Any measure that can assist in the conservation of the pleasant parts of our townscapes and our architectural heritage is to be warmly welcomed. I wish my hon. Friend every success with his Bill.2.13 p.m.
I very much welcome this Bill because I want to do anything possible to further the cause of conserving what is best both in the towns and in the countryside. I learned with regret this week that the last genuine Tudor house in Boxmoor, in my constituency, is about to be demolished. It is now too late to do anything about it. Unfortunately, it is not a listed building and permission has been given for it to be demolished so that redevelopment may take place.
I want to deal primarily with the countryside. The Bill involves town and country amenities and is toIt is a matter of worry that areas of outstanding natural beauty in the countryside are being destroyed or severely damaged under general development orders whereby farms with more than one acre do not require planning permission for farm buildings. On large farms it can mean that unsightly buildings are erected or that buildings are constructed in what is the wrong place from the point of view of preserving the countryside Even worse is the threat to smallholdings and the danger of fragmentation. There is a tendency for farms to be sold in small packets, and each new owner tries to make a farm of his own. That must involve the erection of farm buildings—possibly of objectionable farm buildings, such as piggeries—in unsuitable places, probably with the need to build a farmworker's house. That has led to the countryside being pepper-potted. Therefore, valuable green belt land can be made unsightly in an even worse way than when my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State gives planning permission for proper development in the green belt, as he often does. It is clear that some control is necessary. There are two methods of control. First, there is the Article 4 direction, under which the Minister may make an order to exempt land from the general development order, which means that planning permission must be sought. This system is used, rightly, very sparingly. It is used, in fact, only when the danger is imminent. That is only fair, because it is very unsatisfactory for this to happen to the farmer. He is put to the expense of applying for planning permission and having to submit detailed drawings and plans. Also, time is lost while the application goes through the planning machinery. Therefore, the farmer who receives an Article 4 direction resents it immensely because it takes a right from him and he feels that he is being subjected to unfair discrimination, because it is put on him and not on an area. The system does not always work. It may fail on account of time. Although the local authority may learn that a farmer intends to develop, it must apply for a general development order. The farmer, in turn, learns that the order has been sought and he may then start to try to win the race. If the building is under construction when the general development order is issued, compensation has to be paid if there is an order to demolish the building. The local authority will therefore tend to say, "Too late; the building is going up and will have to be completed". This method is not satisfactory, because the people caught by it are those who have played the game and have said, "We want to erect a building. Will you give us your advice about where it should be sited?". The local authority then says, "Very well" and then obtains a general development order, meanwhile saying to the farmer, "Stay your hand while we consider the matter", thus entrapping the fair-minded man, who feels aggrieved because, although he played the game, he loses most. There is an alternative method, which is operated in the Glemham Vale, in Suffolk. There is a voluntary understanding with the National Farmers' Union and the Country Landowners' Association under which members apply to the local authority for unofficial planning permission and obtain agreement to the siting and design of their farm buildings. This is an attractive proposition if it can work, but I do not understand how it can work, in view of the fragmentation to which I have referred. There are other possibilities. One is to revise the general development order so that in areas of outstanding natural beauty farms of more than 50 acres rather than one acre are exempt. I do not suggest that that should happen all over the countryside, but there must be an improvement in the system in order to preserve areas of outstanding natural beauty. It is likely that farmers with more than 50 acres will operate the voluntary system. An alternative method, or possibly a complementary method, in certain sensitive areas is to declare conservation areas in the countryside. This is already possible. In one village in my constituency a farm is within a declared conservation area. But it is fairly unusual. The general development order does not operate in conservation areas, so planning applications would have to be made. That has the merit that it brings in all the benefits of a conservation area. I have already mentioned the question of hedges. There is a general need to preserve hedges, but there is a particular need to preserve them in sensitive areas of outstanding natural beauty. There is no need for me to dilate on the value of hedges to the countryside. For the past 200 years we—at least those of us who are under that age—have grown used to seeing hedges in the countryside. They are valuable windbreaks in the matter of conserving the soil. They provide shelter for birds and encourage them to remain in the countryside. They also have a considerable historical significance, which we want to preserve. I appreciate that farmers will not like having greater control placed on their rights to erect farm buildings, but their rights may have to be curtailed in areas of outstanding natural beauty. If the situation is the same for every farmer in his area, he will understand the matter much more than if, as happens with the present system, certain people are picked on because a local habit has grown up of undesirable buildings being erected. I therefore hope that the farmer will appreciate the need for the suggested provision. I also hope that local planning authorities will remember that if this power is introduced it is given to them in order to preserve the countryside and not in order to indulge in their old habit of saying "No" to planning authorities as a matter of course. A new farm building may be necessary to a farm, and it is important to obtain agreement on the best place for it so that the beauty of the countryside is preserved. That is within the scope of the Bill, and I hope that my hon. Friend will feel it is a useful addition to it. I warmly congratulate him on introducing this excellent measure."Make further provision for the control of development in the interests of amenity;".
2.21 p.m.
With the leave of the House, I should like to address the Chamber for a second time. I shall be brief, because the business to follow is the Rehabilitation of Offenders Bill, of which I am a sponsor.
I express my gratitude to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House for the way in which they have received the Bill, for the constructive suggestions they have made, and even for some of the novel ideas that have been suggested from one or two quarters. If the Bill receives a Second Reading all these ideas and suggestions will be considered both before and in Committee. I very much appreciate the presence of Ministers from the Department of the Environment, in particular that of the Secretary of State himself, whose interest in conservation is well known and who has done a great deal for it. I am grateful to him for having spared time from his vast Department and all the tasks he has to perform to come to the House on a Friday to listen to the debate and to make such a constructive and helpful speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) asked me two questions. First, she asked who sets the standards. I understand that the standards are set by the Secretary of State for the Environment on the advice of the Historic Buildings Council, on which serve eminent and important people in whom she can have great trust. My hon. Friend also asked whether bridges and railway stations were included. If I am rightly informed, bridges, as buildings, are included in the existing legislation and would be covered by the Bill. As for railway stations, it depends on their historical or architectural significance. I thank the House again for the way in which it has received the Bill, and I hope that it will proceed to give it a Second Reading.Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 ( Committal of Bills).
Rehabilitation Of Offenders Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
2.23 p.m.
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) for his help and co-operation in ensuring that a debate on the Bill is being held today, and to the sponsors of the Town and Country Amenities Bill and other speakers for their brevity and reticence. I also thank the Minister of State, Home Office—who is to speak in the debate—for his help and co-operation, aware as I am of the reservations that he and Government Departments have about the Bill. The aim of the Bill is to lift a burden of injustice from more than 1 million people—people once convicted of an offence who have gone straight for some years, people who live under the shadow of their record. It is certainly not a criminals' charter. It is a charter for those who have rehabilitated themselves, who have become respectable and respected among their fellow citizens—people who have done their best. I am not a lawyer—and this is very much a lawyers' Bill—I am a teacher. I have spent most of my 20 years of teaching in elementary and secondary modern schools in a large city and I know the scrapes and troubles that boys and, to a lesser extent, girls get into in their latter years at school and in the years immediately following. Some of them are caught, go to court and are fined, or receive some other punishment. Some of those go on to a life of crime. They graduate—approved schools, borstals, prison—and in the intervals between sentences they continue their crimes. They present a tremendous problem to our society. But it is not this problem that we seek to solve in the Bill, although its provisions could perhaps provide encouragement to some of them to go straight. The Bill is concerned with a much larger number of people who offend once, or perhaps more than once, and then settle down to become hard-working and decent citizens. They have paid the penalty imposed upon them by the courts, but they serve another sentence—a life sentence. Their criminal record lives with them until they die, and at any time its disclosure can put an end to their rehabilitation, cause them to be unemployed, and cause misery and sometimes the break-up of their marriage and their home. In 1970 a joint committee to examine this problem was set up by the all-party lawyers' association, Justice, the Howard League for Penal Reform and the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders. It was under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, and its members were Louis Blom-Cooper, Who is a Queen's Counsel and a magistrate, Kenneth Cooke and Eric Crowther who are stipendiary magistrates, Mrs. Kate Frankl, also a magistrate, Hugh Clare, a former secretary of the Howard League for Penal Reform, and head of the Division of Crime Problems, Council of Europe. Of all the countries in the Council of Europe, which number considerably more than the nine of the EEC, ours is the only one without a law which ensures that a person's rehabilitation is accepted by society. Also on the committee were barristers Paul Sieghart and Eric Stockdale, Rupert Townshend-Rose, Martin Wright of the Howard League, and Tom Sargeant, the Secretary of Justice. I am sure that the country as a whole will be grateful to them for their work. The committee examined the problem and possible solutions, and reported in 1972. The cases which the committee cited as examples are known to a great many of us, thanks to the report, the Press and the other media. There is the young man who, after conviction for theft, worked and saved and wanted to invest his savings in a small business but could not get the necessary insurance. There is the 23-year-old who could not get a job as a postman because he had been reported for, but not charged with, selling eggs as a boy and was on the police records. There is the 62-year-old grandmother who, at the age of 18, was convicted for soliciting and for 40-odd years lived in dread that her family and her neighbours would learn of it. I could add many more from the cases I have received, and I know that other hon. Members have received many in recent weeks. There is the scientist, now in his 60s, who was convicted 25 years ago for an offence that is no longer an offence under our law, whose career has been thwarted and whose life has been made wretched ever since. There is the mother who is worried because her son wants to join the police and she has an old conviction that he does not know about. There is the woman whose husband cannot understand why she will not apply for certain posts, despite her academic qualifications. She was caught shoplifting 20 years ago, while still at school. I have mentioned only six cases. According to the Home Office research unit there are probably 1 million. When I was a teacher I used to illustrate large numbers like this by referring my pupils to a similar number of people that they could recognise. In those days 1 million meant 20 times the crowd at the Manchester football ground. I wondered how I could put this figure into a parliamentary context. If only one in 100 of those people lobbied their Members of Parliament at the same time there would be a crowd of 10,000 outside St. Stephen's entrance—and it would probably be the most well-behaved demonstration we have ever seen, because these are people who do not demonstrate—people who, from the very nature of their problem, cannot demonstrate. They do not usually write letters to their Members of Parliament. One million people is equivalent to the electorate of 15 parliamentary constituencies. It is more than the difference between the Labour and Conservative vote at the last election. It is 1,575 electors per constituency—more than the majorities, in 1970, of 37 Labour Members, 44 Conservatives, 3 Liberals and a Scottish Nationalist. I talked of six cases. Had I gone on at that speed night and day I would not have been able to talk of all of them before the next General Election, presuming that the Prime Minister called one in the first week in October. The committee's proposals were embodied in the Bill in its original form and presented in another place by Lord Gardiner during the last Session of Parliament. It had the support, in principle, of a great many organisations and people, including the Confederation of British Industry, the Magistrates' Association, the British Insurance Association, the Lord Chief Justice and his immediate predecessor, Lord Parker, and Vic Feather, and it had the unanimous support of the three organisations which had set up the committee. I am sure that Lord Gardiner, as well as those of us who have sponsored the Bill in this House, would want to pay tribute to Mr. Paul Sieghart for his work in the drafting of the Bill and his untiring efforts in its promotion. The Bill as we have presented it to this House is as it was in its amended form after the Report stage in another place. Here I confess to error. Further amendments were approved on Third Reading in another place and have not been included. This was new to me, but this can be put right in Standing Committee, when I expect that there will be other amendments. In the Lords the Bill went through all its stages with amendment but without Division, and there were four long debates.Clause 1 defines the rehabilitated person as one who has been convicted, has duly served or complied with his sentence, and has not been convicted of any further offence for the appropriate period, thus making a conviction a spent conviction.
The effect of this, as stated in Clause 2, is that no evidence of a spent conviction will be admissible in a court or tribunal in Great Britain, with specified exceptions, and any question put to a rehabilitated person about his past will be deemed not to relate to the spent conviction or to the offence.
It has been suggested that this is legalised lying. I think that the law would simply set a humane example. Rather than forbidding the asking of questions—a much more difficult matter—the law would treat the question as relating only to convictions which had not been spent. Endorsements on a driving licence provide a similar case.
Another approach can be seen in the Children and Young Persons Act 1963, Section 16(2) of which states:
"In any proceedings for an offence committed or alleged to have been committed by a person of or over the age of twenty-one, any offence of which he was found guilty while under the age of fourteen shall be disregarded for the purposes of any evidence relating to his previous convictions; and he shall not be asked, and if asked shall not be required to answer, any question relating to such an offence…".
Clause 3 of the Bill deals with the rehabilitative periods reckoned from the date of conviction, namely, a period of
"(a) five years where the sentence imposed was not a custodial sentence; (b seven years where the sentence imposed was a custodial sentence or a sentence not exceeding six months; (c) ten years where the sentence imposed was a custodial sentence for a term exceeding six months but not exceeding thirty months."
In the original Bill that maximum period was two years, and 30 months was added as an amendment in another place.
Clause 3 also defines the various terms with regard to sentences and states that where a person is under 18 at the time of conviction the rehabilitative period shall be halved.
Clause 4 provides for a certificate to be issued to persons when sentenced informing them when the conviction would become a spent one.
Clause 5 provides for certain exceptions to allow evidence of spent convictions in certain courts and in certain cases.
Clause 6 deals with defamation actions and is one on which the Standing Committee may wish to consider the recommendations of Mr. Justice Faulks' Committee on Defamation, if these are available.
Clause 7 refers to unauthorised disclosure of spent convictions, which would become a separate offence, so there would be no need to rely on the Official Secrets Acts. It also lists those who would have access to the records and gives powers to the Secretary of State to add to that list.
During the last few weeks I have heard and read many times the words, "I have sympathy with your Bill." We in this House have power to do more than sympathise. We have the power to act to help our fellow citizens. We can see the problem. The Bill provides a way to help. It may not be perfect. Few Acts of Parliament are. In common humanity I ask right hon. and hon. Members to assist me in this sincere attempt to help the Bill forward to its next stage.
2.37 p.m.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) on producing what I call a very "human" Bill indeed. For a legal Bill—I will not go into the legal niceties, not being legally trained—it is nice to find a Bill which is couched in such sympathetic language. I think that the hon. Member is seeking to remove from many people a second life sentence.
I come from a city which has special difficulties, because we have so many Ministry of Defence organisations. The Ministry of Defence will not accept anybody who has any blemish at all on his past record. Then there are the railways and the Post Office, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. This means, with defence lands as well, that it is left to private enterprise to re-employ these people, which makes it all the more difficult. If the Bill secures its Second Reading and then goes forward, the hon. Gentleman will be able to consider that he has given great happiness to many people and taken a great step to stopping them from committing crime again. Persons who have been continually unemployed, who have applied for job after job and been turned down, very regrettably—this has happened in more than one case—because they have disclosed their past, often turn to crime again. A more difficult aspect about Ministry of Defence establishments arises, for instance, when a contractor is doing only a temporary job of, say, rebuilding or building a new workshop. Such a case arose the other day. Contractors on a Ministry establishment employed a man aged 58 merely to make tea, and they paid him a very good salary. It was discovered that the man had not worked for over eight years. When questioned his record, not a good one, was discovered, and he was instantly dismissed. This is one of the reasons I have great pleasure in supporting the Bill. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman includes courts-martial, because courts-martial are, more often than not, held more for reasons of discipline than because any real crime, such as stealing molesting or assaulting someone, has been committed, although the offence charged may be regarded as crime in the eyes of the Service concerned. With a court-martial it can be a question of discipline only, so I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has included that provision in his Bill. Following the Street Offences Act, a woman can be convicted. The hon. Gentleman referred to this matter in passing. That Act, which I have been trying for several years to get changed—as I believe Lord Chorley has, in another place—makes it even more difficult for a woman, if she marries happily, who is perhaps before the court for shoplifting if her previous offence comes out in her past record. I hope that this will help in trying to get some further change in the Street Offences Act. If the Bill becomes an Act—I hope that it does—it will give new life and hope to many people. It will also help to reduce crime in future, which is what we all want, for the reasons that I have stated. Further, it will mean that many people will be able to obtain employment, which they have been unable to do hitherto and so raise their standard of living. I shall not raise any points of detail about the Bill because I shall hope to-do that and learn more about it if I serve on the Committee. I did not anticipate getting the chance to speak again, having spoken on the previous Bill, but I should like to add my support to the measure that the hon. Gentleman has so ably introduced.2.42 p.m.
I should like to join the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) on his luck in the Ballot and on his choice of this Bill. He is also to be congratulated on his skill in choosing the previous Bill which has enabled him to secure a Second Reading debate today and, I hope, a Second Reading.
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that his hon. Friend was even cleverer in picking the sponsor of the previous Bill as a sponsor of this Bill as well?
My hon. Friend sems to be a most ingenious man, which I hope will lead the Minister to agree that the Bill must be about as good a measure to meet this purpose as can be designed. No doubt we shall hear about that from the Minister at a later stage.
I was particularly impressed by the argument presented by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport on the way that the Bill can help to reduce crime. The object of removing from many people a tremendous burden which they should not have to carry so long after an offence is one to which the House should certainly address itself. There have been objections to the Bill, to some of which my hon. Friend has referred. I particularly wish to refer to an article in the Justice of the Peace of 19th January about the Bill which presented, I suppose, a reasoned objection to the method chosen by my hon. Friend for achieving his purpose. I think that we should consider what is set out in this article though, as I shall indicate, to a considerable extent its argument can be met. Indeed, when we come to the crucial question of how to meet what is considered to be a "commendable aim", the comments in the article fall down and we have to rely on the Bill and the work which has preceded it for an answer to the problem. Three points appear to be made in the article. The first is that there are many detailed points at which the Bill is faulty but these can be tidied up in Committee. My hon. Friend has already indicated some of the points that will arise only because he took what was perhaps not the final version of the Bill from the other place. The second objection in the article is that a discrimination is introduced into the Bill between the Crown court and the magistrates' court on the type of information that in certain circumstances should be available to the court before sentence. The attitude throughout of all those who have been associated with the Bill is that here is an objective to be fulfilled. If the Home Office suggests that certain improvements are necessary there is and has been a readiness to accept such proposals. I see no objection to meeting that particular criticism if the Minister thinks it right to recommend it to us. We then come to the main question raised in the article: how to deal with what it describes as a "commendable objective". It states:It criticises the Bill on the principle that it seeks to"The report ends up by proposing a remedy which goes far beyond what is necessary to achieve its commendable aims".
I appreciate that criticism, but I should like to know from the authors of this article and of this type of criticism, given that they accept that this is a commendable aim, what the alternative is. The weakest part of the article, which, for all I know, may be highly persuasive to a lawyer, is when it suggests that there is an alternative. It refers to the provisions of Section 12(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1948, under which certain types of what the layman would regard as convictions are to be regarded not as convictions—for example, an absolute or conditional discharge or a probation order. The article, suggesting that the solution to this problem is to extend the principle of Section 12(1) of the Criminal Justice Act in a significant way, states:"alter the law by forcing people to pretend that that which had been never was."
That would seem to enshrine into the law to an even greater extent than the Bill proposes the fact to which the article objects—that people will be pretending that that which had been never was. It cannot be put forward seriously as an alternative to the proposal in the Bill that, for example, convictions which led to sentences of imprisonment, should be regarded as not being convictions. From what date should they be regarded as not being convictions? If an alternative had been proposed which got over this problem it would have been worth considering, but I know of no alternative, and Justice of the Peace does not provide one. The Bill devotes itself to a most important objective, about which the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport so eloquently spoke. I have to compare it with any alternative that is put forward for meeting it. I know of none. Therefore, I think the House would be well advised to accept the approach in the Bill, with such amendments as the Home Office may wish to make, and thus remove this burden from the many people who are currently subjected to it. I should like to see some amendments to the Bill, but in a different direction from those proposed in Justice of the Peace. For example, Clause 3(9) provides:"Such reforms, coupled, perhaps, with a significant extension to a much wider range of sentences of the already mentioned principle enshrined in the Criminal Justice Act 1948, Section 12(1), would effectively eliminate almost all the evils to which the Gardiner report drew attention."
I should like the word "different" to be replaced by the word "shorter". When introducing a new principle into the law one has to be fairly careful and perhaps give rather long periods before a conviction becomes spent. But they are in many cases long periods. I wonder whether, after experience, they might be reduced from the periods specified in Clause 3. Similarly, I wonder about Clause 3(2)(e), under which a custodial sentence imposed as an alternative to a fine is to be treated as a custodial sentence, and the period before the conviction in such a case can be regarded as spent is defined in relation to a custodial sentence. Is that reasonable, bearing in mind the circumstances—such as those I was discussing with the Minister in the early hours of the morning last week—in which many people are sent to prison in default of payment of a fine? I should like to see some liberalising amendments in the Bill along those lines, but as a Bill to achieve an objective which the House ought to wish to achieve, I give it my whole hearted support."The Secretary of State may by order substitute different periods or terms for any of the periods or terms mentioned in subsections (1), (2), (3) and (5) of this section".
2.50 p.m.
I join my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) in warmly welcoming the Bill. It is both a human Bill, as my hon. Friend described it, and a humane Bill, which will make a great deal of difference to the lives of many people who have genuinely rehabilitated themselves. All of us have had constituency experience of some of the problems and burdens which the existence of a conviction, perhaps in youth, may place upon the citizen. This is especially true in relation to employment in local government, even in circumstances which have nothing to do with the conviction in question, for example, employment as a driver when the conviction was for dishonesty many years earlier. I hope that the House will warmly accept the Bill and give it a fair wind.
I come now to some points of detail on which I shall be glad to hear from my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State now, or when the Bill goes to Committee. I take, first, Clause 3(3). In the case of an absolute discharge, the sentence is to be treated as an effective sentence from which a person may be regarded as rehabilitated only at the end of six months. Often, in the mind of the court, there is the hope that an absolute discharge can be treated as just what it says, and a court is often very puzzled about what to do when a technical offence has been committed and it wishes to impose the minimum sentence. I hope that the House will find it possible to give the courts power to impose a genuine absolute discharge, which would carry no form of moral obloquy whatever and entail no period before which rehabilitation can be gained. There should be some form of formal penalty which the court may impose which shows that although the complaint was properly laid under whatever law may apply the defendant has no measure of moral obloquy to meet. Unhappily, courts often find their hands tied. They say that they wish to give an absolute discharge, the intention being that it shall bear no weight upon the individual, but inevitably it will play some part in his background. I am more unhappy about Clause 5(3)(b) and (g). Both these paragraphs touch on long-standing problems. If someone is giving evidence—this applies especially to a defendant giving evidence—and he is making an attack on the character of a prosecution witness, it is right that the court should have discretion to allow his character to be disclosed. In this context there is, however, one particularly distressing type of case with which most practising advocates will be familiar. Some one may have a serious conviction a long time back in his history—a conviction which is not known to his employers, his family or even anyone in the district in which he lives. The advocate is then faced with the problem of deciding either to present the case with his hands tied behind his back, not being able to make a head-on attack on a prosecution witness, although his instructions are that such an attack should take place, or to run the risk of damage being done to his client by that conviction being disclosed—possibly a far greater risk than the risk of conviction on the count on which the defendant is then charged. I hope that the House will consider whether, in such circumstances, it is possible to devise a system whereby convictions of that kind may not be reported by the Press in giving an account of the hearing. The situation under paragraph (g) is even more distressing, affecting as it does two rights of the citizen. It affects the right of an accused person to have previous convictions of a witness known. Every practising advocate knows how important this may be. Only a few months ago, I was concerned in a fairly serious case before the St. Albans Crown court, in which, through an oversight—this was the type of case often referred to as street-corner fraud—the previous convictions of the shopkeeper, for embezzlement and larceny as a servant, were not disclosed when the case started. He gave his evidence, giving the impression that he was a totally respectable citizen who, as he put it in his own words, knew about the law and the working of the courts only from watching "Softly, Softly" on television. When the time came, the officer involved very properly disclosed to counsel for the Crown that in fact he had those previous convictions, and the jury immediately stopped the case because they were not prepared to accept his evidence any further. That raises two problems. The insertion of the words in paragraph (g), "with his consent", mean that the rights of the accused person are diminished inasmuch as, if a person has, say, five serious previous convictions, perhaps even for perjury, they will not be admissible in evidence on behalf of the defendant if they have been covered by the rehabilitation period. The defendant will not be able to show that one of the prosecution witnesses may be a person of bad character in that respect unless that person gives his consent.It is not my Bill, but I must say that he would have to be a very elderly person to have five convictions for perjury and be rehabilitated under the terms of the Bill. It does not apply to anyone who has had a sentence of more than two and a half years, and if he has been to prison for more than six months there must be a five-year gap between the conviction and the conviction becoming spent.
I recognise that, and perhaps my figure of five was an exaggeration. Nevertheless, as my hon. and learned Friend well knows, it is possible for a person to be convicted for perjury and be sentenced to less than two and a half years. The risk is there that the rights of an accused person will be diminished. I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend accepts that.
The reason, on the other hand, is that very often someone who has a conviction of that sort, who lives in a fairly close community where there is a risk of these facts being disclosed, will not willingly come forward to give evidence. I would have hoped that the House might look at this matter again, perhaps putting some form of restriction on the disclosure of that sort of information in the Press or outside the court. It is evidence which it is perfectly proper for a court to have and for the jury to consider, but I should have hoped for some form of restriction to be placed on the use of that information in any other way outside the court. Having dealt with these points generally, I warmly support what the hon. Member for Gorton has done in the Bill in not only dealing with the case of the person who has genuinely tried to rehabilitate, and that is desperately important if rehabilitation is to mean more than merely a pious form of cant, but in making the working of the criminal courts a good deal fairer to all parties concerned, if the safeguards can be maintained. Equally important, it means that some sort of check can be put on the degree of blameworthiness that someone who has behaved possibly incredibly foolishly as well as dishonestly early in his youth has to carry with him for the rest of his life. Everyone who practices in the criminal court will have had experience of how often a person can genuinely change—a fact which can be ascertained simply from studying the record of previous convictions over a period. For example, someone may come up on a driving offence who might have a previous criminal conviction from 10 years before, yet nothing since. I hope that situation will be met in this way. The Bill also deals with two of the least attractive features which have developed from the over-free granting of credit in the last few years. Unhappily, a good deal of information has been leaked to organisations with no right to use it and which use it irresponsibly and very often on a basis that is pretty close to blackmail. I hope that the penalties in Clause 7(6), including the penalty of six months, or a fine of £400, or both, for anyone who commits an offence by obtaining specified information by fraud, dishonesty or bribe, will be taken extremely seriously by the courts if the Bill goes through, as I hope it will. It has been quite monstrous in recent years that information of that sort should have been obtained and pressure brought to bear for the settlement of civil claims, and that people should have been made to pay up other claims against them in connection with rent or other forms of civil debt because unscrupulous people can get hold of information of that sort and use it. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) and I wish his Bill every success.3.3 p.m.
I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) on his success in the Ballot. As his right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) pointed out, his careful attention to the procedures of this House led him to realise that even if one is fairly low down in the Ballot it is possible to take advantage over certain people who may be better placed by carefully choosing to be the second Bill on a day when one has already rigged the sponsors of the first Bill to be sponsors for one's own. For his ingenuity, if for nothing else, and for the courage he has displayed as a non-lawyer in venturing to take on this Bill, he deserves our congratulations.
The Bill, of course, is similar in all respects to the Bill which, having been introduced by Lord Gardiner in another place in the last Session, was discussed at length in that House. As the hon. Member has reminded us, that Bill was based on a report of a combined committee of Justice, the Howard League, and the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders. That distinguished committee was chaired by Lord Gardiner, himself a distinguished ex-Lord Chancellor. The Bill, therefore, certainly has a highly respectable parentage. It raises important issues. This is the first time the House has had the opportunity to express a view on them. The intention behind the Bill is that those who have committed an offence, or offences, and have lived them down for several years, should be able to resume their place in society without the fear that at any moment their past will be resurrected, to their detriment, whether by appearing as witnesses, or by a story in a newspaper or, in certain circumstances, by a wholly different type of conviction in a magistrates' court. That is a reasonable aim, which deserves the sympathy that it has received. The hon. Gentleman said that the best evidence the committee of Justice could provide, based on the research unit of the Home Office, was that there were perhaps 1 million people in that position. I understand that that was an assessment based on the number of people who had criminal records but who had not had a conviction over a period of 10 years. In view of the hon. Gentleman's comment, I should say that although the original offence must have been indictable, to have appeared on a criminal record, it does not necessarily mean that all those 1 million people were convicted of an offence the nature and gravity of which would necessarily be a grave embarrassment to them throughout the rest of their lives. But there are undoubtedly some people in that situation who have recovered and rebuilt their lives after the conviction. The figure of 1 million gives an impression of the size of the problem with which we are concerned. The aim of the Bill is admirable, and is one that has received a great deal of sympathy and wide support. It is one with which the Government have sympathy.Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that however trivial an offence may be in terms of the passage of a period of years there are many public organisations, particularly the Armed Services and the Government services, in which a conviction of any sort has the mandatory effect of stopping employment?
That is a relevant point, which I entirely accept. I made my earlier point only because the hon. Member for Gorton may have inadvertently given the impression that all the 1 million people to whom he referred were of necessity living under the fear of exposure.
The issue that must be decided by the House today is whether the means proposed in the Bill to achieve its desirable end are an acceptable method of dealing with the problem. The approach of the Bill received almost universal acceptance in another place, and there is no doubt that it has also had general acceptance outside the House, apart from the strong attack on it in Justice of the Peace. There is no doubt either, in view of the list of backers of the Bill, that it has weighty support from both sides of the House. All those who have contributed to this short debate have supported it. The Government support the intention of the Bill. We believe that it is important that the issue of principle should be fairly and fully stated to the House. If that issue is acceptable to the House, the Government will not wish to attempt to prevent further progress on the Bill or advise the House to reject it. The Government, however, have grave reservations about a number of matters within the Bill. Some of them are of a fairly major nature, and one such matter has been mentioned by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead. At the moment some of these matters are drafted in a way which the Government find unacceptable. Therefore, if the Bill is to proceed into Committee, and if it be the hope of its sponsors that it should proceed from Committee into the statute book, we would wish to see certain amendments made to it before giving it our enthusiastic support. I approach the Bill in a sense of constructive criticism, as I believe my noble Friend the Lord Colville did in another place. I shall spell out briefly some of the issues which we see arising and one or two of the major difficulties which will have to be faced in committee.The Minister has said that the Home Office would wish to see certain amendments made to the Bill. I would be with him in that, and if I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I hope to say so. Will the Minister tell the House whether the Home Office is prepared to give drafting help to ensure that such amendments are made, or will it be left to the Committee to do the best it can?
As the hon. and learned Gentleman will appreciate—certainly the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones), who is a former Attorney-General—I am not in a position to answer that question in a direct form. I have noticed with pleasure the co-operation which has been offered by the sponsors of the Bill throughout the proceedings in another place. The leading sponsors, if I may so describe them without disrespect to the other sponsors—namely, the hon. Member for Gorton and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster)—have already been to see me. I should be willing to discuss with them the types of matter which are important. However, I am not in a position to undertake that drafting assistance will necessarily be available. I take account of what the hon. and learned Gentleman says and I am grateful to him for raising the point.
The Bill makes an attempt to deal with rehabilitation by a legislative solution. It provides that a conviction should become spent after a certain period, that period depending on the seriousness of the penalty which was imposed. It provides that the offender should then be treated, for most purposes, as rehabilitated in respect of that conviction. A spent conviction is to be assimilated as one which has been quashed. That means that the conviction should be considered as if it had never occurred and one which the person concerned would not be bound to admit. It could not, except in certain circumstances, be referred to by other people. The critics of the Bill say, as was said by the hon. Member for Gorton, that it is establishing a group of people about whom the truth cannot be told. It seems to me that the issue of principle which this House has to decide is whether that is an acceptable way of approaching the problem. The Government do not wish in any way to persuade the House not to find that acceptable. We merely want hon. Members to realise the issue that they face. Since it works on convictions, equally, it sets out to help only those whose criminal behaviour has led to a conviction, and therefore ignores a great number who may have equally discreditable instances in their histories to live down but were never convicted. But it has to work through the criminal conviction, because the criminal conviction is the verifiable event which may in itself create difficulties in connection with such matters as applications for employment or insurance cover, or may even lead to dismissal from a job already obtained or invalidation of an insurance policy if, at a later stage, the conviction comes to the notice of the insurers. I shall not attempt to mention any Committee points, as such, but perhaps I may refer to some of the effects of the Bill, beginning with the effect that it would have on the civil law of defamation, which would clearly be extremely marked. I feel it my duty to say that the law of defamation is at present being examined by a committee under Mr. Justice Faulks, and its report will shortly be submitted to my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor. It is unfortunate that, due to the timing of these matters, we are having to debate this issue in principle on the Floor of the House without the advantage of that report. Mr. Justice Faulks has written to me, and feel that it is right to tell the House that his committee has grave reservations about the effect of the Bill on the law of defamation, and obviously the weight of that report and the detailed criticisms in it will be matters which the Standing Committee will wish to consider carefully should the Bill receive a Second Reading. I should be misleading the House if I did not say that Mr. Justice Faulks has made it clear that his committee is opposed in principle to the effect that the Bill will have on the law of defamation.I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will not leave it there. Will he tell the House why the committee is opposed to it?
I do not think that I can. The report has not yet been published. It is in the process of being published. However, Mr. Justice Faulks has written to me. Perhaps I may read the last few lines of his letter. He says:
However, the report also contains a more detailed criticism of individual parts of the Bill, and I am sure that the Committee will wish to take that into account provided that the report is published in time."However, for the reasons explained in our report, my Committee feel that the provision of the Bill which seek to change the law of defamation should be opposed; affecting as they do the principle that truth should at all times remain a defence to civil actions for defamation."
That is why I asked for the information. All that Mr. Justice Faulks is doing is raising the issue which the Minister of State himself has raised, namely, whether there should be privacy in relation to something which is a public fact in a person's life.
Mr. Justice Faulks is saying that his committee is opposed to the Bill on that issue. This is because of the Bill's provision that no evidence to the contrary should be admissible in any subsequent court proceedings affecting a person who is rehabilitated under the provisions of the Bill.
The net result of the provisions of the Bill is that in defamation proceedings the defences provided by Clause 6 of absolute and qualified privilege remain available in most circumstances but that all other defences, including those of justification and fair comment, may not be used, subject to the limited exceptions in Clause 6. The effect of this is to create a class of persons about whom the truth cannot be told once the rehabilitation period has elapsed. This will undoubtedly have an effect on journalists who report criminal trials long after they are completed and on historians, biographers and other writers who will have to take account of the provisions of the Bill. Hon. Members will have to ask themselves whether they find that desirable and acceptable. I turn next to the effect on criminal proceedings. In general, the Bill seeks to safeguard the present position in the Crown court as regards the admissibility of evidence of previous convictions both when that occurs in the trial as admissible through the rules of evidence and in the giving of antecedents prior to sentence. I think that that is essential. On the other hand, the Bill does not allow reference to spent convictions in the magistrates' court—and the House should bear in mind that magistrates' courts try about 98 per cent. of all criminal cases. I must tell the House that the Government and the Home Office have—and certainly I have—grave reservations about a system which would depart from the principle that the rules of evidence should be the same in both courts. On top of that, it seems odd to expect magistrates to reach a decision on the basis of restricted information when, apparently, the Crown court needs to know the full background of a defendant, rehabilitated or not. Obviously, this matter would have to be further considered in Committee. I am not suggesting that there is not a case for some form of control over the publication of past convictions on conviction in the magistrates' court, because we know that that is partly the evil—if that is the word—at which the Bill is aimed. But, as drafted, the Bill is too sweeping in its approach and the Government have grave reservations about whether it is right to limit reference to convictions in the magistrates' court in any circumstances. The Home Office has already given advice to magistrates' courts against citing in public old and irrelevant convictions, but we believe that the court should be in possession of all available information when passing sentence and should make public as much of that information as it thinks relevant. There are certain more detailed difficulties. For example, in certain circumstances the magistrates' court may commit an offender to the Crown court for sentence on the basis of his character and antecedents, but in such circumstances the Bill would not allow the lower court to hear about any spent convictions when deciding whether the defendants' antecedents required the court to commit him to a higher court. Although this might have been dealt with at a later stage, as the Bill is drafted there is also a serious problem about a probation order. I refer to these matters only because I think that this is one of the areas that the Committee will have to look at carefully and where the Government will probably ask the sponsors to consider some fairly major amendment. I come to the question of employment and insurance. The Bill's effect is fairly major in this respect. At the moment, it is a widespread practice for employers and insurers to ask applicants whether they have any previous convictions. Under Clause 2 questions put to rehabilitated people are deemed not to relate to spent convictions, so the answers that employers received would not be wholly accurate and truthful. But that is a principle of the Bill to which hon. Members on both sides of the House give strong support, and it has support from outside. That, too, is a matter to which we should have to return at a later stage.In certain industries and trades it is an increasingly prevalent system to have bonding, which often creates a special difficulty for someone who may have lived down a previous conviction of some age but finds himself refused a bond for a reason that is not disclosed to his employer but is merely on the basis that information is available to those who do the bonding that he has a previous conviction.
That is one of the matters with which this Bill is meant to deal. I have pointed out that the Bill will have a fairly major effect on the present practice. I should not be taken as saying that I believe its effect to be undesirable.
Turning to the question of employees' references, there is a clear intention to allow the defence of qualified privilege to apply here. In Committee we shall have to look carefully to see whether the provisions in the Bill meet what I know from my personal discussions with them is the intention of the sponsors, namely, the safeguarding of the existing defence of qualified privilege on a particular reference given on request.Clause 7 will make it a criminal offence to communicate information about spent convictions except in the circumstances specified as exceptions in the clause. It seems from the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner and his Committee that this clause is clearly aimed at the unauthorised supply of official information, for example, by police officers to private detectives, or anything of that nature. As drafted it would appear that the Bill could catch such activities as the preparation of social inquiry reports on offenders who had been previously placed on probation and the routine exchange of information by social workers and such administrators as prison staff.
I know that the sponsors will realise the importance of ensuring that the Bill is not so drafted as to affect the dissemination of necessary information of that kind. I know that they have attempted to meet this by Clause 7(4)( c) and ( d). This is another major area
where the Home Office will wish to be absolutely certain that the point is met.
I feel slightly embarrassed about Clause 4 because I am aware that it was as the result of comments made by the Home Office Minister in another place that this system of certification was put into the Bill. It was an attempt to provide clarity and a degree of knowledge as to what offences are spent convictions. On further reflection I feel bound to advise the House that this is not a feasible way of doing it. My doubts are shared by the Justices' Clerks' Society, upon whom the burden of certification would fall.
Before the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) laughs too long, I should say that we still believe that there is a problem but do not feel this is the way to meet it. When I remind the House that there were about 1,800,000 people found guilty of offences of one kind or another in 1972 the weight of the burden can be seen. Perhaps it is slightly ironic that the one way of avoiding these convictions becoming public knowledge would be by putting into circulation nearly 2 million pieces of paper a year giving full details of the convictions.
Does that not show the advantage of having drafting assistance from the Home Office on both sides?
It shows the wisdom of our system, which provides several stages through which legislation must pass and enables us to consider various aspects more fully.
There are other problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devon-port (Dame Joan Vickers) has mentioned those relating to courts-martial. There are also problems related to taking account of overseas convictions and the effect the Bill will have on applications by people seeking visas to go to other countries. We are in no way anxious to dissuade the House from giving the Bill further consideration, provided that the House decides, in its wisdom, to accept the principles involved. We believe that there are various major matters and will willingly look at them. I promise to look at them in conjunction with the sponsors to see if we can improve the Bill in Committee. Unless we are able to meet certain of these major concerns of Government, however we cannot promise to give the Bill unqualified support, although we support completely the Bill's principle. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gorton on introducing the Bill. I applaud its authors for their efforts in drafting it. A good deal remains to be done but, with good will, and if it is the wish of the House, I believe that we shall be able to make the necessary amendments to make the Bill a suitable vehicle for carrying out what the hon. Member said was a commendable aim.3.30 p.m.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr Marks) and those who have assisted in the Bill, particularly my noble Friend Lord Gardiner and the three organisations which, together, were responsible for the booklet "Living it Down", will be most gratified that all hon. Members who have spoken in this debate have welcomed the Bill and have expressed their sympathy with its objectives, even though there may be differences of view about matters of detail, which I do not underrate, which will have to be dealt with in Committee.
The Bill raises in a direct form the problem of society's attitude to the offender and the attitude of many people that an offender, particularly one who has suffered detention, is an outcast or that, having once offended, he will go on offending. I am convinced that that attitude must change and that it is changing, just as society's attitude has changed and is changing in the related field of mental health. I do not underrate the influence of legislation in guiding society's attitudes, but in the end it is society which must become more civilised, perhaps be willing to take greater risks and certainly refrain from branding a man for life because he has offended once against its laws or perhaps against those of its laws which, logically or illogically, provoke a strong response from society. If it does nothing else, the Bill will help to change society's attitudes to the convicted offender, perhaps not so much because of what it says and does as for the recognition by Parliament implicit in it of the principles behind it which have been explained so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Gorton and by the Minister of State. People are sent to prison as a punishment. The severest punishment may well be not the years spent in a prison or in some other form of detention but those which follow outside when the offender is seeking to rehabilitate himself in society. Society, although it seeks to assist the offender more and more in various ways which we welcome, imposes upon him on his release penalties and risks so great that the weak, the easily tempted and the easily disheartened—and even those who are not easily disheartened—may be unable to resist further temptation. The offender is handicapped in finding employment, in finding a place to live and in securing insurance. Those are just some of the vital areas of handicap. There are many others, many of which are so implicit in the working of society that we can only hope that they will disappear through the example set by the Bill even when the Bill does not directly touch them. The Bill's origin is the report "Living it Down", which might well have been called "Living in Fear". The Bill impinges not only on the criminal and penal law but also on our laws relating to privacy and defamation. I heard the Minister's criticism of the defamation clause. All those subject matters of legislation must necessarily be affected if the principle of the Bill is to be accepted by Parliament and by society, not necessarily in the precise form in which the clauses appear here but in principle. That is inevitable if the existing mischief is to be dealt with. I agree with the Minister of State that many matters will have to be fully considered in Committee and argued out on their merits so as to try to adjust the balance which is necessary in a Bill of this kind. I foresee a long and interesting period in Committee. Even if there were more time than there is, I would not wish to ventilate here many of the points which will arise in considering the detailed provisions of the Bill in Committee. I will, however, mention one or two. In paragraph 26 of the report "Living it Down" the committee draws attention to the necessity for having before the court the fullest possible details of the antecedent history of one who is convicted so that it may deal properly not so much with the offence as with the offender. The Bill gives effect to that in Clause 5(3)(a). That is a matter of the greatest importance, not merely for the protection of society but for the assistance of the convicted offender. From my experience of dealing with offenders in the courts, I have found that to have the fullest possible knowledge, perhaps going right back to childhood, of the convicted person often enables the court to deal more leniently rather than more severely with the offender, and certainly to deal with him in a way which more satisfactorily suits his character, temperament and temptations. I hope that when we examine that clause, particularly in relation to how far we should go within the court system, we shall bear this in mind. My hon. Friend the Member for Gorton used the expression "legalised lying". In view of the very wide terms of Clause 2(b), we must consider carefully whether there is not a better method of dealing with the problem than this present wording, which says that in the circumstances envisagedThat sounds very ingenious, but is it totally realistic to suggest, as that wording seems to suggest, that in any conversation taking place out of court, whether relating to an offence or anything else, the conversationalists can be bound to such a formula? The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) has drawn attention to a difficulty in relation to the vital exception clause, which is Clause 5. As I understand it, subsection (3)(b) is intended to preserve the rule that a defendant who allows to be cross-examined either a prosecution witness or a co-defendant in a manner calculated to suggest that that witness is of bad character must accept the penalty that he himself may be questioned about his own character. The subsection raises a rather wider point possibly than that which the hon. Member for Ipswich had in mind. The Bill seems to create the position, notwithstanding that and other provisions in Clause 5, that where a prosecution case stands or falls on the evidence of one vital prosecution witness, and where the defendant has nothing recorded against him, the prosecution witness cannot, if as a result of the terms of the Bill he is in the category of a rehabilitated offender, be asked any questions to show that he is a person who perhaps over a long period had been of bad character. We must consider very carefully before we accept that the protection of defendants should be reduced in that way. It may well be that this is inherent in the Bill as a whole. But I do not think that we can take that view. The Bill is a balance—that is its merit—and we must get the right balance. It provides exceptions to the general principle, which is right. In Committee we shall have to see just how far the exceptions should go, always seeking to provide the right balance between the basic principle upon which it is founded and other circumstances which must be considered. One of those circumstances is the relationship of the Bill to defamation. I have already said that that seems inherent in any Bill of this kind. We shall want to know what the Faulks Committee recommends and proceed to the extent to which its recommendation is consistent not merely with the defamation clause but with the whole basis of the Bill. If it is inconsistent I hope that we shall not necessarily say, for that reason alone, that the Bill or that particular clause must fall. These are important points of detail which in many cases have been considered by the distinguished people who drafted "Living it Down". It is in no sense a criticism of them if it should turn out, as I am sure it will, that the Standing Committee, looking at the Bill line by line and the way that it impinges upon matters not directly connected with it, brings to light matters which compel us to go in a somewhat different direction from the wording of the Bill. I hope that the House will give a Second Reading to this widely accepted Bill. Again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton on the way in which he promoted it and express the thanks of hon. Members on this side of the House to the Minister of State for his sympathetic approach and for the promises that he made of assistance in putting it into the best possible shape to realise the principles upon which it is based."any question put to a rehabilitated person or to any other person about him (whether in or out of Court) relating to his past and any answer thereto shall be deemed not to relate to his spent convictions or to the offences forming the subject thereof."
3.49 p.m.
I intervene with some diffidence since I am not a lawyer or legally trained but merely a layman.
I think that the Bill is just the sort of measure that justifies the Private Members' Bill procedure. I understand that it will affect about 1 million people, for whom no Government Department is responsible. They cannot write to the papers, they cannot march in the streets, they cannot demonstrate and they cannot even write to their Members of Parliament, except anonymously. At least, that is my experience. They live their lives in daily fear of exposure of something that happened many years ago which they have long since lived down. They have expiated their crimes. These people represent a frightened, silent minority with no organised voice. By introducing the Bill the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) has done a great public service. It is fortunate that we still have the Private Members' Bill procedure to allow him to do so. I appreciate that the Home Office does not like all the clauses in the Bill. I hope, therefore, that it will not block the Bill but will try to improve it in Committee. Should an offence which is no longer an offence in law be categorised as a spent conviotion however long the term of imprisonment or however high the fine? The law has moved on. Many people may be suffering because they once committed a crime which is no longer a crime. I should like that point to be considered in Committee. I commend the Bill to the House and hope that it will get a Second Reading. If so, as a sponsor of the Bill, I shall have scored a double barrel today.3.50 p.m.
As a sponsor of the Bill, I warmly endorse all that was said so well by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) in presenting it to the House. I intervene at this stage only because of the somewhat subdued enthusiasm with which the Bill was received by both Front Benches. I hope that, when it goes to Committee, that enthusiasm will be more tangibly expressed.
There should be no question about the Bill whatever. It is sane. It is sensible. We heard from the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle), speaking as Minister of State at the Home Office, the truism about the need for truth to be presented at any stage in civilised discourse. I had to meet criticism of that kind all the time I was trying to get through a Bill about privacy. I had to meet it for two years when I was a member of the Younger Committee on Privacy. It is about time the myth was exploded. In a civilised society, we recognise that the truth may be more harmful even than lies. In a civilised society, decent people refrain from expressing the truth on every occasion about every person. There is a sensitivity towards the feelings of others which a compassionate person believes ought to dictate to him that in a particular case the truth should be withheld. That is all that is being said on the Bill. If a man has for 10 years gone straight after a previous conviction, it ought to be said of him that he is substantially of good character and should be treated as such. The reservations which we have heard today about whether the Bill goes too far simply hark back to an out-dated attitude towards conviction. If a man has gone for 10 years without any other stain upon his character, why do we not now consider that the whole thing is dead and forgotten and should remain so? We could say just that in the Bill, except that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) said, we said it in relation to absolute and conditional discharge in Section 12 of the Criminal Justice Act 1948, and the simple truth, despite what the article in Justice of the Peace said, is that Section 12 never has afforded any tangible benefit. People continue to record convictions with absolute or conditional discharge, they go on repeating them in court, and they go on mentioning them in the currency of ordinary social intercourse. This is so because there was never any sanction against not repeating them. The Bill creates a sanction. It must do so, and because it creates a sanction it has to do so in a somewhat complicated way. But the object is to erase any mention of something long since dead which ought never to be held against a man again. This is a humane Bill. It should be approached as such, and no technical objection ought to be raised in an attempt to defeat its aims in Committee.3.53 p.m.
As has been said, there are technicalities to be ironed out in Committee, including some which were raised in the article in Justice of the Peace. I entirely disagree with the general conclusion of that article, that the Bill goes too far, that it is an inept measure, and should be rejected. It will be noted that the author of the article does not suggest any remedies of his own, although as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) said, he points out that the 1948 Act brought in this principle.
The Bill has been excellently drafted by those who describe themselves as laymen, that is, laymen inasmuch as they do not come from the stable of parliamentary draftsmen, but they had a lot of help from the Home Office when the Bill went through its stages in the other place. To turn for a moment to one or two matters which need clearing up, I refer, first, to the reference in Justice of the Peace to convictions for keeping a brothel, and so on. The interesting point was raised by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) about convictions in respect of an offence which is no longer an offence. One that leaps to mind is conviction for gross indecency between consenting males or for buggery. If Parliament has decided that that is no longer an offence, there may be an argument for saying that it should be regarded as a spent offence. It is bad luck on someone who was convicted of something a long time ago which should no longer be an offence. That may be met with the argument that it is not a spent offence because the sentence he got was more than two and a half years and that therefore the offence should not benefit from the exemption in the Bill. One interesting point which cannot be decided in Committee is the effect the Bill will have on other countries. The United States Government in a very thorough form asks whether one is entering America in order to blow up the President. Presumably the man who intends to blow up the President will answer "No", because if he is prepared to blow up the President he will be prepared to lie about it. It is rather like saying there is no bank raid today because there is a no parking notice outside the bank. I wonder whether under United States law a spent conviction is spent under the national law of the applicant filling up the form or spent under United States law. Inquiries might be made of the United States. It will not make any difference to the passage of the Bill, but it is an interesting point. The Bill sets up the question of defamation. I expect that it will be said that truth should always be a complete defence but that is entirely wrong. Our law is different from that of most other countries. In a prosecution for criminal libel we say that truth plus the public interest must be a defence. The reason in civil law why truth is a complete defence is that we feel that a person should not get damages for alleging something to be untrue which is true. However, in those cases I have always thought that the law should be that the defendant who states something which is untrue should not be made to pay damages but he should lose his case unless it is in the public interest or unless the public interest in those cases should be expressed in the form of a legal, moral or social duty. That is how I would criticise it, assuming that the Faulks Committee says what I think it will.Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 ( Committal of Bills).
Rights Of Women Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.—[ Mr. Robert C. Brown.]
3.59 p.m.
I agree with the sentiments behind the Bill but I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Robert C. Brown) has overlooked the fact that some of the clauses could discriminate against women.
This is a Bill of such major importance that we should be able to discuss it, even at this late hour. I wonder whether the sponsors have considered Clause 6 which says that where a woman goes on maternity leave for 52 weeks she may come back and take up her right of seniority. On the face of it that seems all right but this could be discriminatory against ladies who stayed in that job. They have no doubt been doing the job of the lady who left on maternity leave, but then have to step down in seniority to allow that lady to take back her place. Secondly——It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed upon Friday next.
Occupational Pensions (Equality Of Treatment For Women) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
Object.
Second Reading deferred till Friday next.
Mines (Working Facilities And Support) (Amendment) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
Object.
Second Reading deferred till Friday next.
Pet Animals Act 1951 (Amendment) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
Object.
Second Reading deferred till Friday next.
Anti-Harassment Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
Object.
Which day? No instruction.
Adjournment
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[ Mr. John Stradling Thomas.]
Brent (Housing Development)
4.1 p.m.
I wish to refer to the decision of the Secretary of State for the Environment to refuse housing development on the Pilgrims Way site in the London Borough of Brent. I shall have serious observations to make about the matter.
The first concerns maladministration, which may be defined as administrative action based on, or influenced by, improper considerations or conduct. I propose to show that the Minister has a case to answer on that with regard to his refusal of Brent Council's planning application for housing on part of the Pilgrims Way site. But first I wish to examine the planning and environmental implications of the Minister's decision. Perhaps more than any other borough in London, Brent encapsulates the problems and characteristics of the inner and outer city areas, for it physically bestrides just such areas within its boundaries—broadly, Willesden south-east of the North Circular Road and the Bakerloo-Stanmore line, and Wembley and Neasden north of the line. North of the line housing conditions are excellent. The density of people to the acre, less than 60, is good, and it is much lower than 60 in many areas of that part of the borough. There is one household to each dwelling in all but a few cases. Open space and playing fields, at six acres per thousand population, are above the standards laid down in the Greater London Development Plan. School playing fields are easily accessible. Most housing is modern and consists of single dwellings with gardens. Generally one sees a relatively new and spacious environment. South of the line which I have roughly described, is mainly Victorian Willesden, where the picture is quite the reverse. Housing is tightly packed and largely multi-occupied. Densities are 100–150 people to the acre. About 20,000 dwellings—45 per cent.—are substandard or slum. Nearly 40 per cent. of households have to share toilets, bathrooms or similar facilities. Thousands of children and parents are without gardens or any easily accessible open space. There are fewer than two acres per thousand people. We are over 30 acres short of school building sites alone, and 140 acres short of school playing fields. We have 10,000 more families than we have individual dwellings. The environment is riddled with overcrowded, decaying properties. There is a lack of adequate community facilities and of open space and visual relief. Tremendous efforts are being made by the local authority, as they were by the old Willesden authority, to improve housing, schooling, community and amenity facilities in the worst areas, but they can but partly relieve the situation when what is needed is radical improvement. The contrasts which I have described exist throughout London and every big city. They are also to be seen in much of the small town urban sprawl of the old industrial areas. It must now be faced that there has not been the radical environmental improvement in our inner city areas to which so much action has been directed during the past 25 years and more despite the massive improvement in housing conditions for many individual families during the growth of suburbia and the slum clearance of the past 25 years, and during the 1930s. There have to be major changes in our urban housing and land policies to ensure that conditions change much more rapidly in future than in the past. Today I shall refer to but one of those policies which is relevant to sites such as Pilgrims Way. I do not over-rate its importance in relation to other policies. Inner urban areas of the cities, in addition to providing poor housing, poor job opportunities and poor community services of a variety of kinds, will be short of open space and amenity land as far as we can see into the future on the basis of present facts and policies. That means that even new developments, such as housing, schools and various kinds of social services, will continue to be substandard well into the next century and beyond. Those are the facts of life, despite the constant reiteration of minimum standards at official level and in all planning circles. For example, I doubt whether there are more than a handful of the many hundreds of schools in inner London and similar areas which comply with the minimum standards of the Department of Education and Science for playing fields. That is because they cannot be complied with. The same position obtains in many other inner city areas. There must be improvement or redevelopment in future, but the standards provided will be substandard on the basis of present policies and facts. Meanwhile, in the outer suburbs there is open space provision which frequently exceeds minimum planning standards, and far exceeds the standards to be found in the inner cities. The renewal of our older areas, whether by redevelopment or modernisation and environmental improvement, should include the better provision of open space and requires the land to which to move people and services so that better conditions can be provided. Without such movement these areas cannot be renewed at a reasonable speed and decent modern conditions provided. The open space which they need will thus never be provided. An important contribution to such inner city renewal would be the introduction of selective "land swaps", involving the development of open spaces directly related to the renewal of particular building areas, including the provision of open spaces in such areas. That idea should also be applied to the 2,000 acres of non-amenity green belt land which the Secretary of State for the Environment is proposing to use for housing in Greater London. I have given much thought to planning and urban policy in the long term. I am now convinced that without that approach, inter alia, we are fooling ourselves if we think that we can push ahead rapidly with the upgrading of our inner city areas. I remain a defender of open space standards as established, but I want to see them more fairly spread in our lifetime. How do these matters bear on Pilgrims Way? It is a nine-acre site which, although it was bought for the purpose by the local authority over 40 years ago, has never been used as a public open space. For 25 years it has been occupied by 100 prefabricated bungalows. It is in an area of low housing density. It is adjoined by nearly 300 acres of open space at Fryent Way. That is much more open space in one site in Wembley, and Wembley has 700 acres more than that which is available in the whole of the old part of Willesden. Brent Council wants to use three acres of the nine-acre area for desperate housing needs. Its requirement affects 1 per cent. of the open space in Fryent Way. The Minister has turned down its request on grounds of the overall shortage of open space in the borough, although he recognises that in the vicinity there is a plentiful endowment of open space. He takes no account of the facts and considerations that I am putting forward today or of those which Brent put to him in its statements. On good planning grounds the Minister should have given conditional approval provided that the authority made available in a programmed way and in specific terms three acres of open space or playing fields in older parts of the borough. He should have approved of the application subject to that condition. This would have given proper responsibility to the local authority to protect and enhance the amenity and open space standards of the borough. Why did not the Minister do this? It cannot be because of the deficiency of open space overall in the borough. Recently he approved the re-zoning of a private open space of six acres not far from Pilgrims Way for residential development which the borough wanted to retain and to buy for open space and playing field purposes. I refer to Clarendon Gardens near East Lane, Wembley. Brent Council referred its proposal to the Department of the Environment in October 1972 because it involved a departure from the development plan. Four months later a planning inspector appointed by the Minister visited the site. The same month written statements were sent to the Department by the GLC and by Brent setting out their different views. Six months went by, and Brent sent a letter of inquiry asking what was happening. There was no reply. Two months later a telephone call was made, and two days after that, in October, a letter was received by Brent saying that the matter was receiving attention. During October and November, a year after the proposal was first put to the Minister, there were numerous telephone calls by Brent to the Department asking what was happening. I sent several letters to the Minister in November and December urging that the case be resolved. In January, a year and four months after the referral, the Minister made his decision and turned down the plan On this ground alone the Minister is to be criticised and condemned. He took more than a year to make a decision when he had the facts before him. I believe that party political pressure played an important part and led to the Minister's refusal. His planning advice inside the Department would have been in line with the advice given over the Clarendon Gardens site, that housing needs outweighed the need for turning the whole of Pilgrims Way into open space. The Minister delayed his decision week after week and month after month because he faced a dilemma involving political pressure on the one hand and Brent's housing needs on the other. In November 1973, more than a year after Brent submitted its original planning application, something worse happened. I am led to understand that the Minister put a proposal to the council that if it was prepared to build houses for sale on the site he would probably give planning consent. He must know that the nature of the tenure of houses is extraneous to planning considerations. The fact that houses are to be sold or to be retained by a council or any other owner of a site is irrelevant to a planning issue. If it occurred, such conduct was quite improper. There is nothing wrong in a Minister expressing a view to a local authority or to anyone else, directly or indirectly, that he thinks that houses should be sold, let or leased. But he has no right to let this view influence a planning decision on the rezoning of land use, let alone to seek to make it a prior condition. I realise the seriousness of what I am saying to the Minister, and I have no criticism of the Department's officials, for whom I have a high personal regard and many of whom I know personally. There are excellent relations between Brent and the Department's officials, and there have been for many years. They have always been very helpful. My criticism is a political one, and the Minister should clear up this matter today. In addition to replying to my points on planning grounds and on the points which I have just made about the posture that he adopted in this matter, he should undertake to make available in the Library and to the local authority his planning inspector's report and other relevant papers on the Pilgrims Way site. Failing a satisfactory reply or such an undertaking today, I shall have to consider asking the Parliamentary Commissioner whether such a case is within his authority to investigate on grounds of maladministration.4.15 p.m.
I wish briefly to add my plea to the case so eloquently made to the Under-Secretary by my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Freeson). We are pleading for open space as far as the Welsh Harp, an area which is wanted for residential purposes, while at the same time where we want residences the Minister wants us to have an open space.
I want to add to the housing facts given by my hon. Friend and to tell a little of the human story behind the statistics, which the Under-Secretary knows only too well because the housing problems of Willesden must have come before his Department time and again. The figures reflect the human stories that come to our constituency surgeries week after week. The first typical example that I give is that of a husband and wife who have only two children and who live in the kind of accommodation that my hon. Friend has mentioned, sharing a bathroom and lavatory and having only two rooms and a kitchen. They have two rooms and only two children, but the trouble is that the girl is 11 and the boy is 13, so that they have reached the age when accommodation becomes a difficult problem, and that intensifies the housing problem. The second example is that of a young couple who get married and who, because they have nowhere else to live, go to live with the parents of one or the other in Willesden. When their family begin to arrive, they are unable to find accommodation for themselves, and so one sees a marriage being potentially broken because the young couple cannot find adequate space. The third example concerns an elderly couple one of whom may be suffering from coronary thrombosis, for instance. Because they live in shared accommodation, either upstairs or downstairs, and because of the constant climbing of stairs, the illness means certain death, unless they can be accommodated elsewhere. I know that there have been a number of deaths in Willesden simply because of housing problems. I plead with the Under-Secretary to listen to the comprehensive case that has been advanced to him and, if possible, to change his mind about Pilgrims Way.4.17 p.m.
Before I answer the points made by the hon. Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Freeson) and the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) and explain why planning permission for this development was refused, I think that I should say something about the background of the case.
The three-acre site formed part of a much larger area of 270 acres at Fryent Way which was purchased between the wars by the former Middlesex County Council—with a contribution from the Wembley Borough Council—for open space purposes. The land was not, however, actually brought into use as public open space and in 1946 the county council leased about 10 acres of it to the Wembley Council, which built 114 temporary bungalows there. Then, in 1965, when local government in London was reorganised, the ownership of the whole of the 270 acres passed to the new Brent London Borough Council. The temporary bungalows ceased to be occupied and in January 1966 the Brent Council, as housing authority, sought from itself, as local planning authority, outline planning permission for permanent housing on the 10-acre site. Because the Brent Council regarded the proposal as a substantial departure from the initial development plan for Greater London—where the site is allocated as proposed public open space—it had to refer it to the Greater London Council as strategic planning authority. After considering the proposal, the GLC told Brent that in its view the proposed development had strategic implications and that the whole of the Fryent Way land should be reserved for public open space as the development plan provided. As is usual when there is a difference of opinion between the GLC and a London borough council, members of the two councils met to try to resolve the matter. Brent offered to reduce the housing area to three acres and it also promised to lay out the remaining seven acres as open space as soon as practicable, but the GLC adhered to its view that the whole of the land should be used as open space. Brent therefore put its proposals into cold storage for the time being. In December 1971 it again sought planning permission for residential development at the density of 90 habitable rooms to the acre—that is, 80 to 90 dwellings. The GLC, however, continued to take the view that the proposal should be rejected because—and here I quote from the report of its Environmental Planning West Area Board:The position was therefore that the Secretary of State was called upon to resolve this difference of opinion between the GLC and the Brent Council by deciding the application himself. Because the issues were quite clear cut, he suggested to both councils that the application should be dealt with by an exchange of written statements rather than the much longer process of an inquiry. Both councils agreed, and the Brent Council was asked to include in its statement the views of any local residents and others who might be affected by the development. The councils were told that an officer of the Department would visit the site though, in accordance with the usual procedure for cases dealt with in writing, his report would not be published. That is a well-established procedure in such cases."It is contrary to the provisions of the initial development plan wherein the site is shown as public open space and represents a loss of potential open space and a loss of visual amenity in that building would project into an area of open land."
The Minister should correct that. The information given to the council was that the councillors would not receive a copy of the report. It was never said that according to procedure it could never be published.
I must tell the hon. Gentleman that the report was a factual description of the site and its surroundings—one element only in the total decision. It is a long-established procedure not to publish reports of that kind.
I turn now to the merits of the proposal. I do not think hon. Members would wish me to go into the details of the representations made by the parties but I shall try to summarise them to show the main points. The Brent Council asserted that although the housing proposal was contrary to the provisions of the initial development plan, the loss in terms of open space and visual amenity would be minimal and would not, in its view, be sufficient to outweigh the advantages of providing 80–90 new dwellings. It drew attention to the shortage of housing land in the borough and the fact that there were 7,000 families on the waiting list many of whom were living in conditions of stress. I accept what the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend said about the difficulties of inner London boroughs. There is a serious problem. The Brent Council also said that there was no deficiency of open space in this part of the borough, where at present there are 4·60 acres of open space per 1,000 people, which should rise to 6·42 acres when all the proposed new open spaces are brought into use. The standard recommended in the initial development plan for the outer London boroughs, which include Brent, is five acres per 1,000 people. The borough council also pointed out that residents in those parts of the borough which are seriously short of open space could reach open space outside the borough more easily than the Fryent Way area. The GLC acknowledged that in its view the immediate locality was not deficient in open space but it pointed out that the figures of 3·15 acres per 1,000 people which at present obtain for the borough as a whole and the planned figure of 4·17 acres were both well below the recommended standard of five acres per 1,000. The proposed housing development would reduce the potential of one of the most important areas of public open space in Brent and was the more serious because the borough was particularly lacking in larger open spaces for the use of people of the borough as a whole. Furthermore, the application site was intended for walking and general enjoyment whereas most of the Fryent Way land was to be developed for organised recreation activities—playing fields, and so on. Local residents and conservation societies submitted representations supporting, on grounds of loss of open space, the Greater London Council's case against the proposed development. This clearly presented my right hon. and learned Friend with a difficult decision. He had to weigh two conflicting planning considerations—that is, the need for housing land and the importance of ensuring that people living in heavily built-up areas have adequate open space where they can find recreation and enjoyment. He accepted that there is no shortage of open space in the immediate locality of the site, but it is beyond dispute that there is a serious deficiency in the borough of Brent as a whole which is likely to continue—and this was supported by what the hon. Gentleman said—in the foreseeable future, which is why the land had been allocated for public open space in the development plan.
In the last five minutes of his speech, will the hon. Gentleman answer the debate?
It would be better if the hon. Gentleman allowed me to get on with my speech. I am dealing with considerations important to the decision.
In regard to the deficiency of open space, I can do no better than repeat the figures which I have already given and which the borough included in its representations. The borough as a whole at present has 3·15 acres of public open space per 1,000 people, and it is hoped to increase this, by 1981, to 4·17 acres—still below the recommended standard of five acres per 1,000. Furthermore, a great deal of the Fryent Way open space is earmarked for organised recreation and the loss of these three acres will reduce the remaining area available for walking and general enjoyment which the Secretary of State regards as a most important need. My right hon. and learned Friend therefore reached the conclusion that, notwithstanding the shortage of housing land in the borough, the greater need was to retain all the Fryent Way land for public open space, and decided accordingly. I stress that the Secretary of State's policy is well balanced. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the serious housing problems in London. I wish to remind him of some of the work of the London Housing Action Group. Since 1971 it has helped to produce no fewer than 700 extra acres from Government surplus land for use by the London boroughs. Between 1964 and 1972 800 acres of British Rail land have been made available to local authorities. I mention that to put the matter in perspective. The hon. Member has suggested that my right hon. and learned Friend would have reached a different decision had Brent Council made it clear that the land would be used for housing for owner occupation, rather than for local authority housing. I cannot accept that the decision was influenced by considerations of this sort. As I have made clear, it rested on the evaluation of the relative weight to be given to the two opposing considerations which I have outlined—the pressing need to retain every possible piece of land allocated for open space in a borough desperately short of this commodity, the arguments for which were presented on two successive occasions by Greater London Councils of opposing political complexions; and the need for additional housing land to meet the housing shortage in the borough, on which the council's own case was based. Both the 1966 and 1971 applications were considered by the Greater London Council. On each occasion, the political complexion of the council was different and on both occasions the arguments in support of the Secretary of State's decision were stressed. The arguments were finely balanced and it was not easy to decide which should have prior claim. The hon. Gentleman has alleged that there was something improper about the way in which the case was dealt with. If that was so, the council would have a remedy in the courts. Therefore, I cannot say anything on that subject.In making up his mind, did the Secretary of State consider that the North Circular Road makes Wembley one island and Willesden another? There are only three bridges between Wembley and Willesden. Therefore, the global figures mean nothing in terms of housing people and open space.
The Secretary of State took account of all the complicated matters relating to the circumstances in London. He made his decision very carefully and was supported by the opinion of the GLC on two occasions.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at half-past Four o'clock.