HL Deb 02 May 1977 vol 382 cc849-68

5.5 p.m.

Lord AVEBURY

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. As your Lordships may possibly have observed, the question of motorway and trunk road proposals has been before the House on a number of occasions in the last couple of years. Most recently we had a debate on 15th December 1976, on a Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, calling attention to the need to reform highway inquiries. That was, in fact, the third debate that we had on a related subject during the course of 1976, but to the surprise and delight of the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, it still excited a great deal of interest. If there are not quite so many noble Lords present this afternoon as there were on that occasion, it may well be because the Bill that I am about to propose is so uncontroversial that your Lordships felt that it would go through with very little difficulty as I believe will be the case.

I believe that the number of debates that your Lordships' House has had on this matter reflect a growing concern among the public as a whole that the Government—and I do not particularly mean this Government but successive Governments—have been committed to a major road programme of an inflexible character, far in excess of what could in the end be justified by the amount of traffic, and which has caused unnecessary disruption to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people living on or adjacent to the lines of these roads.

The motorway programme has been based on a series of forecasts undertaken by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory which were made in 1960, 1962, 1965, 1969, 1972 and 1974. The remarkable feature which those six forecasts have in common is that in every case if one looks at the estimates for 1975—the most recent year for which complete data are available to me—the actual number of cars and of vehicles in total was lower than the figure predicted by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. Therefore, in every one of these six forecasts the Laboratory had predicted more vehicles—in particular more cars—than we had during 1975. I believe that in the future its estimates will also prove to be unjustifiably large.

In theory, members of the public who are or may be affected by these road proposals, justified on the basis that I have outlined, have extensive rights. Since 1973 there has been consultation on alternative routes before publication of a formal scheme. The Secretary of State has to publish information about the general effects of a proposed scheme and must allow time for objections to be lodged. After that a public inquiry is generally held. The inspector who has been appointed for the purpose makes his report and finally the Secretary of State accepts the recommendations of the inspector, varies them or turns them down.

However, as one has seen, the contest between the objectors and the transport planners at these inquiries is extremely unequal because the Department has its computers, engineers, statisticians and other experts who are employed full-time solely for the purpose of pushing a scheme along, while the lay objector, who in general cannot afford to employ professional advisers, struggles to formulate his case in his spare time. Therefore, in consequence of this enormous disparity in, if I may use the phrase, "fire power", the objectors have generally been completely overwhelmed in the past at these inquiries and the road schemes have gone through against the opposition of members of the public.

At some of the recent public inquiries there have been more encouraging signs—at any rate to me they are encouraging. I have in mind what happened at the Aire Valley inquiry, the Winchester M.3 scheme and now the Archway inquiry, which has mostly been due to the work of my good friend, the formidable Mr. John Tyme. But we are in fact saddled with a number of road projects which had been agreed before Mr. Tyme began his labours and which are unlikely ever to be required.

One such scheme of very great importance to the people living in the area is the extension to the M.23 between Hooley and Mitcham, the proposals for which go back over 10 years. I am informed that the latest estimates of the cost of this scheme total £41 million; that in order to carry it out it would be necessary to demolish no fewer than 500 homes and that an even larger number would be severely affected by the proximity of the motorway. Apart from the destruction of homes, 130 acres of public and private open space, much of it including land in the Green Belt, would be lost. The people in this area got together and formed an action group under the extremely vigorous leadership of a lady called Mrs. Iris Loraine. She is one of these invaluable people in our society who staunchly defend the freedom of the individual and who are prepared to Give almost unlimited amounts of their time to organising in their locality, to writing hundreds of letters, attending meetings up and down the country and, in short, devoting themselves single-mindedly to a cause which is of benefit to many hundreds, if not thousands, of their fellow citizens.

The people of this area under the leadership of Mrs. Loraine decided, I think very wisely, that they were not only going to lobby everyone they could persuade to listen to them about this particular scheme but they were going to think also about the remedies which might be provided in general for householders whose properties had been blighted for many years by schemes of a similar nature.

I should like to quote one other example to show that the M.23 extension is not the only one of its kind. This example relates to the construction of a proposed motorway by-pass through the Moseley and King's Heath areas of Birmingham, which I understand has now been deferred until 1987, no less than 10 years away from now. In the area the county council have allowed it to become known that the scheme has a very low priority and may eventually be scrapped, but in the meanwhile this road, if it was ever built, would cut through a sensitive area of the city where there are problems of old housing which are accentuated by the blighting effects of the knowledge that this road might at some time in the future be constructed.

The people up there are unable to sell their houses. They may find great difficulty in raising mortgages. The households in housing action areas are disqualified from receiving loans; there are tenants with landlords reluctant to invest in doomed properties; empty shops: property bought up and left vacant by development speculators. All these problems, I am informed, are now evident in that area, and yet the local authority refuses to accept responsibility for the blight because the scheme is over 10 years distant, and perhaps it may be also because they do not wish to acquire property that they may never in any event have need of. So this Bill would benefit certain other areas apart from the area in the neighbourhood of the M.23 extension for which it was originally desired.

Among those to whom Mrs. Loraine drew the attention of these proposals were a number of national organisations, including Transport 2000, who are fully in support of the Bill. I quote from a letter which I had from them recently: Recent events have shown that circumstances can change dramatically due to changes in Government policy, bad traffic forecasting, and/or revised road capacities. A combination of these factors may mean that the construction of a road is no longer justifiable but there is no statutory provision for this to be tested. The matter is left in the hands of the Secretary of State who, if there is no time limit within which work must commence, may defer taking a decision for years. This Transport 2000 believes to be inherently wrong. Property along the route is blighted, landowners can suffer severely financially, and the visual appearance of the authorised alignment deteriorates. We also have the support of the Council for the Protection of Rural England, with whom Mrs. Loraine and I have had discussions on the Bill, and many other local and national organisations which are too numerous to mention but for whose support I am extremely grateful.

I ought to mention one other supporter, and that is the noble Lord, Lord Carr, who was formerly Mrs. Loraine's Member of Parliament. He has written to me to say that he would very much like to be associated with these proposals, as would also the present Member of Parliament for the area, Mr. Nigel Forman. The organisations which have written generally make the point which I have quoted in Transport 2000's letter, that in principle they cannot see any reason why the Secretary of State should be treated differently in respect of road proposals from any other developer under the town and country planning legislation. The principle behind this Bill is to try to assimilate the position of the Secretary of State to that of the other developers by requiring him at least to come back to Parliament after five years and obtain the approval of both Houses for a renewal of the authorisation to build a road, and that the renewal itself would also last for up to five years.

During our discussions on the Bill we agreed that if contracts had been let and works already started at the end of the five years, the Secretary of State should be allowed to proceed and complete those works. I am afraid that in tabling the Bill I put down a slightly earlier version, and if the Bill goes into Committee I shall therefore be seeking to amend Clause 1(8) by replacing the word "completed" by the word "begun"—as I have explained to the noble Baroness who will be answering. Clause 2 makes provision for any land acquired for the road and not used for that purpose to be disposed of by the Secretary of State. Here again it can be a matter for discussion in Committee how far we need to go in safeguarding the rights of the individual, or the original holders of an interest in the land, and just how this should be expressed. I do not pretend that we have got Clause 2 into its final form, and I hope that the Department of Transport will give their invaluable assistance in the drafting. I am not sure whether Clause 3 is necessary or not, but some experts advise that if an order is made under Section 286 in the absence of any provision of this kind it would have to authorise the construction of an alternative road.

This Bill raises the major issue of the rights of the individual whose property may be permanently and substantially downvalued, supposedly in the interests of the community of which he forms a part. Over the country as a whole there must be many thousands of people who have suffered, or are suffering, financial hardship or who have been immoblised by motorway and trunk road blight. To ask the Department of Transport either to drop schemes which have been authorised more than five years ago, or at least to obtain Parliamentary authority for their renewal, is a modest demand but one that would give to the victims of blight new hope and very great satisfaction. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Avebury.)

5.20 p.m.

Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON

My Lords, for the second time in a week we must congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, on his endeavours to raise an important matter of transport policy in your Lordships' House. I fear I shall not please him so much on this occasion as I did last week. There is no doubt that in recent months no single issue in the sphere of transport has raised more controversy than our present system of organising road construction. I have said before that it seems to me that the motives and tactics of those most deeply involved in this controversy can be questioned, to say the least. On the other hand, those tactics would not have been so successful, and the ugly scenes of disruption which have accompanied some recent inquiries would have wholly discredited their perpetrators, had there not been certain widespread public disquiet about the present method of conducting road inquiries.

The review of inquiry procedure which is now taking place under the auspices of the Council on Tribunals will, it is hoped, succeed in restoring public confidence in the inquiry system, but there are undoubtedly problems to be overcome on the way and some of them are of a most fundamental nature, and, with the indulgence of the House, I will review briefly some of these problems before coming to a more detailed consideration of Lord Avebury's Bill. Indeed, I feel it is necessary to do so to give full consideration to the Bill, for it seems to me that the criterion by which we should judge the Bill is the contribution it will make to the solution of these problems.

In our debate on seat belts last Tuesday I expressed the view that we had not yet fully come to terms with the motor car. I was there referring to road safety, but the point could equally apply to road construction. The question is simply how are we on this small island to ensure the maximum personal mobility for all our citizens, and where wanted goods, and yet also ensure the preservation of the countryside and of our ancient towns and villages? By a sad paradox, it is the urban motorist's very flight from the city in search of rural solitude and bucolic tranquility which is contributing so largely to the eradication of those qualities in the countryside. If current projections are even approximately right, there will be 50 per cent. more cars on our roads within 20 years.

It was to deal with that kind of problem that the last Conservative Government set up the Department of the Environment, and I think we were right to do that. However, it is far easier to come up with Ministries than answers and I would not pretend that we got very far in dealing with this problem. Nor do I have an answer to give today. But leaving aside the imponderable and insoluble, there is also a practical day-to-day problem concerning road construction: how are we to reconcile the interests of those who live in the areas directly affected by proposed road schemes with the wider interests of the whole community?

With this problem we come to matters which are directly affected by Lord Avebury's Bill. The noble Lord provided the House with an eloquent description of the problem of blight and the affliction which it can visit on whole communities. Indeed, his account of the travails involved in constructing the M.23 made it sound more like a punishment from God than a new road scheme. However, there is a basic question which the noble Lord did not consider and which in my opinion vitiates his argument.

If a decision in principle is taken on the construction of a new road and a line order is laid, then indeed the given area affected is threatened by blight. I accept that. However, if the powers concerned with the line order lapse due to the passage of time, the blight is in no way removed; if the road is necessary, then sooner or perhaps later it will be built. If one line order lapses, a new one will have to he laid. Therefore instead of the blight being restricted to a specific site—in which case, however long a delay may be involved, there is no question of uncertainty —the blight and the threat of a future road scheme is spilt over the whole area through which the proposed road might possibly travel. In other words, whereas previously a given route had been designated so that the persons living along that route might make plans (about which more in a moment), under the system proposed by Lord Avebury half a county might well be affected.

The noble Lord's suggestion in Clause 1 that the powers would lapse in every case after five years unless the Secretary of State laid an Affirmative Order—meaning, I take it, that we should have to have a full-bloodied debate in each House of Parliament—would be surely impracticable. Indeed, it seems to show that the Bill might become, from some of the allies whom the noble Lord mentioned as his friends on the Bill—perhaps not only the inadvertent but the conscious, too—the "No new roads at any price" lobby; those who would claim that Parliament should debate every new line laid. If Ministries had to come to Parliament on every detail which was to be implemented, seekers of greater social welfare spending would, on the same principle, be able to come and question the Defence Department on every new ship, plane and weapon, and the expenditure of every other Ministry would be similarly questionable. I do not think it would be very practicable for Parliament to have to do that.

It is inconceivable in the present economic circumstances that any road should reach the stage of a line order without there being overwhelming justification, indeed necessity, for it. If the road is going to have to be built, it is surely better to arrive at a route after due public consultation—I accept that—to compensate fully those persons whose property will be affected by the new road, and then to build the road in as expeditious a manner as possible, and I will deal with these questions in turn.

Regarding public consultation, I mentioned earlier that it is hoped that the present review will ease these problems. I do not wish to re-open the whole question of road inquiries now; I spoke at some length on the subject in this House last year and my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross spoke again on the subject this year, but it is important that a system of road inquiries be devised which does three things. First, it must secure public confidence in its procedure and this should be seen to be fair and impartial; secondly, every step should be taken to ensure that those whose interests are directly affected by any new road are given every opportunity to state their case and that decided efforts be made to redress the balance of forces—as Lord Avebury said recently, so heavily in favour of the big battalions of the Department of the Environment—so they are weighed more in the interests of the private individual; and, thirdly, once these reforms have been put into operation, it is necessary to ensure that future inquiries are able to take place without distruption and undue delay.

As regards compensation, this is perhaps the most important issue raised by the Bill. It is only fair and just that where compensation is due, it should be paid promptly and generously and that where there is doubt the question should be settled in favour of the property holder. The last Conservative Government, in their Town and Country Planning Act 1971, made provision for increased compensation payments and widened the terms under which compensation could be paid; that was in Sections 192 to 207 of that Act. I should be interested to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, whether she thinks that these compensation arrangements are adequate or whether they need to be improved. If such improvement is necessary, I can assure her that we on this side of the House will give her every support in doing so.

I know, as Lord Avebury said, that my noble friend Lord Carr of Hadley thinks that not enough has been done at the present time. Lord Avebury's friend, Mrs. Loraine, has indeed been extremely hard working, as he said, in drawing the attention of many people to this matter. I, too, have been briefed by her and one thing that she sent me was some Press cuttings in which I noticed that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration—the Ombudsman—found a Mr. Kelsall (this was reported in The Times on 15th March this year) to have suffered some loss. In this case, it was £1,000, and the Department made some excuse not to do anything about it. In dealing with these large capital sums on road building, I find it slightly upsetting that the Ombudsman should be able to say that a person has been unfairly treated and that a Department can make excuses. I did not see what appeared in The Times, but, if that sort of thing is happening, it is wrong.

Having said that, the third point is that there is the actual process of construction itself. There is no doubt that roads take a long time to build. Twelve years is not by any means unusual and what we need to establish is why that should be so. Having seen at first hand some of the problems involved in road construction, I should need to be convinced that negligence or dilatoriness played a significant part in this process. The two most difficult problems faced during road construction are, first, the uncertainties and delays caused by Government cutbacks, and secondly, the need to consult the public at every stage, including the various side road orders. It is very difficult to curtail this process without also curtailing the rights of those affected by new road schemes, which I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, would be reluctant to do. It looks to me to be a kind of Morton's fork: on the one hand, I want more time to make my protest; on the other hand, you have spent too long arguing this, it must now proceed. I do not see how we can have it both ways.

The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, discussed the problem of the M.23, but he should recognise that throughout most of its tortured history this has, for the most part, been a vague proposal. It has only comparatively recently become a definite road scheme with specific proposals for an actual route. In view of the magnitude of the difficulties involved in building the M.23—conflicting local authorities, public disquiet on a large scale—it is not a truly typical road scheme.

Therefore, it seems to me that the most crucial priorities in assuaging public anxiety on the subject of road construction are, first, the form of public inquiries, secondly, the compensation and, thirdly—which the Wallington Motorway Action Group has itself asked for—prompt action one way or the other in building or not building. Incidentally, Governments should beware of putting aside the single big scheme instead of the fifty or so small ones, for probably the one big scheme which is delayed will cause more uncertainty and consequent blight, not to mention the delayed implementation of long-term strategy, than will the postponement of the lesser schemes. On the other hand, I believe that the noble Lord's Bill, however well intentioned, would only exacerbate this problem by increasing the area of uncertainty.

I therefore reluctantly advise the House not to grant the Bill a Second Reading, on the grounds that it is, frankly, irrelevant to the real problem which we face. When the report of the Council on Tribunals is published, we shall have an occasion to debate the whole matter. In the meantime, I would pay tribute to the good intentions of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, but would regretfully recommend to the House that we should reject the Bill.

5.35 p.m.

Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE

My Lords, I am sorry that I did not put down my name to speak, but I never really know what will happen on Bills such as this or what will be brought up. I find that it is very difficult in this establishment to know on what occasion one can raise matters. I am not quite certain whether what I intend to raise now falls within the Bill, but I feel that it is quite important.

A very long time ago we in the North of England produced a plan to by-pass Gosforth, which is the place where I live. The project was all gone into. There was no problem about it. It was all settled. There were no arguments. Everybody was happy, really. As regards road building, we always remember what an immense amount of support we had from my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham when the Conservatives were in office. We did very well indeed. However, here was this piece of road which had not been covered because the matter all had to be gone into. It was gone into and the plan was agreed. There was no argument. There was no need to have the Ombudsman or anything. It was all absolutely agreed. Even Her Majesty's Government gave the project priority. I raised the question once or twice and I was told that the scheme had priority and that it was perfectly all right. I believe that that was about two years ago, but nothing at all has happened because of something which is not mentioned in this Bill; the difficulty of finding finance. If one cannot find the finance, I do not see any point in a Bill which says that one must build something within five years, ten years, two years, three years or whatever it may be. If the finance is not available, one cannot build it at all.

I feel that all the points that may or may not have been made about the Bill are worth discussing, but the point here is the situation on this particular bit of the A.1, for this is part of the A.1. It has all been arranged and we are just waiting—having waited for about two years; and whenever I have asked a question, I have been told by Her Majesty's Government that the project has to be financed. In the North of England, we have not the money to finance it. Suppose that all these places which have much more finance than we have get their schemes properly arranged; the priority given to our bit of the A.1 will probably go down to the bottom of the list. So what I want to know is this: If a scheme has all been passed and arranged and nobody is in any state of uncertainty about that scheme except when it is going to be built, we still cannot know when it is to be built because we are told that the Northumberland County Council will have to find the money, which they have not got. What is the use of having gone through all the schemes and made all the arrangements, of having had no arguments and nobody unhappy, except for the fact that they are all waiting for the road to be built? I should like to know from the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, when the road is to he built. I thank the Government for giving it high priority; but what good is having high priority if we still cannot get the road built?

So, arising out of the Bill I should really like to know when we are to get any money and whether the Government mind about road building? What is the good of settling all the things that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has brought out in this Bill if we still cannot build the road? I just want to know when we are going to be able to build that road which is part of the A.1 and which has been promised.

5.39 p.m.

Baroness STEDMAN

My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for providing the occasion for further discussion on this matter, which is of great importance, though it may not be quite so uncontroversial as he had at first supposed.

The noble Lord has expressed his concern at the time taken to carry out road schemes. He was especially concerned at the anxiety and frustration which this causes to private individuals whose homes and property are threatened by major road schemes. I should like to say to the noble Lord, and others who share his view, that I also share their concern. Any suggestion aimed at relieving the anxieties of these people about their homes deserves, in my view at any rate, close and sympathetic consideration.

The suggestion that a time limit should be imposed on the carrying out of a road scheme is not a new one. It has been raised recently, both in this House and in another place, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, raised it himself in the debate we had on 15th December last on the subject of highways inquiries. He had particularly in mind on that occasion, as today, the M.23, where, because of exceptional circumstances, plans for building the road already authorised North of Hooley have not yet been put into effect. My noble friend Lady Birk was not able to reply to the noble Lord in the course of that debate, but she wrote to him afterwards giving our views on the suggestion which he had made. This was that so long as the need for a road existed, it would not help people living along the line of the route if a scheme were to lapse after a specified period. The Government have not changed their view since that time.

Lord Avebury's Bill before us today would limit the validity of a road scheme or order to a period of five years from the date that the scheme or order was made and came into effect, with the minor alteration that he has suggested, as a result of getting an earlier draft printed today than he originally intended. I understand and sympathise with the reason why the noble Lord wishes to make this provision. Difficulties have arisen over the termination of the M.23 where it approaches London, and that scheme has not been proceeded with for many years. But that is a special case. I do not propose to go into detail on the M.23, except to say that decisions on any extension of the motorway Northwards from Hooley must await the completion of the study into the various possibilities for terminating the M.23, and of the subsequent discussions with the local authorities concerned, and these are not yet completed.

I need not remind noble Lords that road planning is, of necessity, a lengthy process. Very large amounts, in terms of capital and resources, are committed in their preparation and construction. It may help the House if I give a brief account of the various stages. Once the requirement for a road has been established, the Department explores the practicable alternative routes and their advantages and disadvantages. When viable routes are established, the views of the public are sought in a public consultation exercise. Such exercises, which are non-statutory, were introduced in 1973. The decision on the preferred route taken by my right honourable friend takes account of the public's views, and of such other matters as engineering, economics, and the environment. Once the preferred route is announced by my right honourable friend, the statutory blight provisions—to which I shall refer later—begin to apply.

When the preferred route can be worked up to the point where it can be clearly defined, a draft scheme is published in the case of a motorway, or a draft order in the case of an all-purpose trunk road. There are then provisions in the Highways Acts for objections by landowners and others, and for all major schemes an inquiry into the objections is invariably held under an independent inspector appointed jointly by my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Transport and the Secretary of State for the Environment. The inspector's report is then considered and a decision is taken as to whether or not the proposals should be proceeded with, or whether some other route should be chosen. This necessarily takes time, and rightly so if objections are to be given a close and a fair consideration.

When the scheme or order fixing the line of the road is finally made, it is still not possible to proceed straightaway to the stage of construction because further orders are normally required. As the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, reminded us, these orders provide for the side road connections to the existing road system, and provide the Secretary of State with the necessary powers of compulsory acquisition of the land needed for the road. There are similar safeguards for objectors, and probably more public inquiries.

I am sure that your Lordships will understand that my right honourable friend is in a dilemma. Ire expressed his concern at the length of time taken up in road planning in a debate on transport policy in another place on 20th January, and at the legitimate worries of those whose homes or businesses are blighted by proposals for a road scheme. But the more one consults, and the more one seeks to carry people along with the proposals—and it is right that the public should be fully consulted—the greater the length both of the planning process and of the time that properties are subject to blight.

The democratic process requires that the rights and interests of the individuals are respected. The road scheme could be put into effect more quickly if the Government acted in an arbitrary way, but that is not the way in which we do business. Nevertheless, if a way could be found of reducing the time taken at one stage—namely, that between the making of the scheme or order fixing the line of the road, and its construction—it would be of great benefit to the owners along the route and would call for support. It is such an objective, I believe, that the present Bill has in mind. But I suggest to your Lordships that it would in fact do little to reduce the uncertainty and, indeed, would, as the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, said, in some cases perhaps even prolong it.

If the proposed five year limitation on the validity of schemes or orders fixing the line of a road were applied, the authority of the Secretary of State to build the road would lapse at that time, and the whole process would have to be gone through again unless the order was renewed by Affirmative Resolution procedure proposed in the Bill. I must in any case ask your Lordships to consider in what way the imposition of a time limit would help those who live under the threat of having their homes taken for road construction. Their period of uncertainty could in fact be lengthened and their position would be worsened. The need for the road would not be removed by introducing an arbitrary period after which the statutory powers expire. Nor would the blight be eliminated by these means; indeed, it would last longer.

So long as the underlying need for the road exists, the threat of blight exists. My right honourable friend would almost certainly feel obliged to continue to safeguard the line of the road against new development by exercising his powers of directing the local planning authority to control development, thus giving a clear indication of his intentions, and so blight would therefore continue.

So far as blight is concerned, your Lordships are aware that blight in this context means that the property owner is not able to sell on the open market, except at a price substantially lower than that for which the property might reasonably have been expected to sell. The price at which a property is valued for blight purposes does not take account of the blight caused by the road proposal, and I can reassure your Lordships that the Department will pay the open market price as assessed by the district valuer, as if no proposals for the road existed. It may not, even so, be quite the price that the owner had anticipated getting; when we have property to sell we do not always get quite the price that we anticipate it ought to fetch. But the Department will pay the price agreed by the district valuer that the house or other property would have fetched regardless of the fact that a road was to be constructed there. If the person who is selling is then not satisfied, he has the right of appeal to the Lands Tribunal. Therefore I think that the Department, and the Government through the Department, are acting fairly in these cases.

An analogy has been drawn in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill between a scheme or an order authorising the construction of a road and an outline planning permission for development, which is subject to a five year limitation. I do not think that this analogy is helpful. Trunk roads and motorway's are part of the national system of through routes. My Lords, surely the closest analogy is with a development plan to which no time limit applies. The scheme or the order is only a first step towards providing the road. There have to be further statutory procedures, with orders subject to public scrutiny, and generally public inquiry. Construction cannot start until my right honourable friend has the right to purchase the land. At this stage there is, rightly, a three-year time limit on the exercise of compulsory purchase powers, and it would be unreasonable to give notice that a particular property was required but to set no limit on the delay before negotiations for entry and compensation must begin.

Your Lordships may wonder why the period of five years should in practice be overrun. Is it not reasonable, it will be asked, that road works should at least have started, even if they are not completed, as this Bill, as it stands, appears to require? Let us look at schemes which were authorised in 1972, and how they have progressed. Looking at 29 line orders made during that year, 19 of the roads concerned are now open; a further seven are under construction; and the work on the remaining three has not yet started. The historic average suggests that this is typical, but, nevertheless, on occasion problems arise which make it impossible even to start construction in five years; and in these cases it is not going to help anybody to have to start the process all over again. Nor is it particularly helpful to anyone to have to continue in uncertainty while Parliament decides whether to approve a proposal by my right honourable friend to extend the period of validity of an order. As I have already explained, the line for the road is likely to continue to be protected whatever the outcome, and the people concerned could find that their rights to demand that their properties should be purchased could he diminished.

My Lords, I have dealt with the principles underlying the Bill. I do not propose to dwell on the technical points where it falls short of meeting its purpose, but I know the noble Lord will forgive me if I mention a few. Clause 1 appears to include the period of construction within the five-year period, and he has advised us that at Committee stage he would want to amend this; but as it stands we could arrive at the absurd position where roads were left partly constructed because the period had run out during construction. Again, motorways are included, but all-purpose trunk roads would appear to be excluded as the Bill is drafted. Also, the Bill does not cover local authority roads. There are also deficiencies in the arrangements in Clause 2 for the disposal of properties acquired but not used for the road; and Clause 3 would appear to be unnecessary.

My Lords, the Government do not wish to withhold support for the Bill because of its technical deficiencies. Our argument against it is twofold. In the first place, the Bill's main provisions would not help those they are designed to help. Their difficulties would in fact be increased. The Government will continue to treat road schemes with the urgency they deserve, and my right honourable friend will continue to apply sympathetically the powers given to him by Parliament to relieve hardship where it arises. Secondly, in its present form the Bill would wreck any meaningful roads programme for the foreseeable future, and I am sure that this is not the intention of the noble Lord or of other noble Lords. So far as the noble Baroness, Lady Ward, is concerned, I am not able to give her any information about her road off-the-cuff, but I am prepared to inquire into what is the present position. I am sure her explanation is right: that we are short of money and that we have not the money to do everything we want. But I give the noble Baroness the assurance that I will look into it and will let her know exactly where it stands at the moment. But in the light of what I have said, my Lords, the Government cannot give their support to this Bill.

5.54 p.m.

Lord AVEBURY

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Baroness will not wish me to argue with her across the Floor of the House about the technicalities, which, as I admitted myself when introducing the Bill, would need some tidying up at Committee stage; and I am glad that she does not rest her opposition to the Bill on any defect in its wording, but rather that she concentrates on the principles, which I think are of some importance. After listening very carefully to everything that she has said, I must still beg to disagree with the attitude that she takes. I think that what is really fundamental here is the assumption that both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, make that if an order lapses in respect of a particular road it does not remove the threat of blight because the underlying growth of traffic will still continue and, therefore, sooner or later a new order will have to be made; and if it is not made by Affirmative Resolution at the end of the five years, the noble Baroness and the noble Lord on the Opposition Front Bench can envisage (although they did not put it into these words) that the Department of Transport would have to go through the whole caboodle of procedures again, from scratch, as traffic built up in the area and it became necessary to revive the scheme.

My Lords, I do not believe that, and at the risk of harping too much on the M.23 I will quote, if I may, some other views which have been expressed, particularly by Mrs. Lilian Gilles, who is the chairman of the Southern Area Region of the Greater London Council. Mrs. Gilles is quoted as having said that she was writing to the Department asking for this road to be dropped altogether. That is the view of the Greater London Council as a whole, and they have been in communication, I understand, with the noble Baroness's Department. Surely, they would not have taken this view if they had not decided that there was no possibility in the foreseeable future of the proposals for the M.23 extensions being revived. Otherwise, as the noble Baroness said, it would have precisely the effect that she had in mind; in other words, although there was no scheme waiting to be implemented, people purchasing houses in the area would say to themselves: "All right; the order has been withdrawn, but at any moment the Department of Transport might descend on the area and revive it, so we will be jolly careful not to pay the going rate for the property". But if, as I say, the GLC, in its wisdom, is asking the Department to withdraw the scheme, it must be absolutely certain that there is no possibility of reviving it in the foreseeable future.

I think one must say that the attitude of the noble Baroness and of the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, rests on what I believe to be the false assumption that traffic goes on increasing for ever. Even the Transport and Road Research Laboratory (which, asI have said, has made some rather ridiculous forecasts over the years) do not believe that. They think there is what is called a saturation limit, above which the number of cars per person will not continue to rise because everybody who wants to have a car will have been able to purchase one, and that that peak will have been reached, I think, speaking from memory—it has been discussed in other debates, like the one on December 15—in about the year 2020 at 0.45 cars per person. When everybody who wants a car has got one and roads have been constructed to cater for that volume of traffic, then it will not be necessary to build any more roads; the matter is as simple as that. So there comes a point when the motorway system and the trunk road system is complete, and in the opinion of the experts of the GLC the M.23 extension will not form part of that system.

Here we have a fundamental disagreement, I am afraid, which we cannot very easily resolve by argument on a Second Reading debate. It would be necessary, I think, to go into the matter in a great deal of detail, and that could be a possibility only if the Bill is allowed to go into Committee. So I would suggest, with great respect to the noble Baroness and to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, that this is not the right moment for us to test the opinion of your Lordships' House. I think we ought to see what happens with the Bill in Committee, get rid of the technical defects of which the noble Baroness has spoken and then bring it back for a more thorough discussion on Third Reading. If at that stage, with a fuller House than we have at the moment, I cannot convince noble Lords on either side that my proposals are correct, then I should be willing to admit defeat; but at the moment I think it would be far better if your Lordships would allow this discussion to proceed, and it can do so only in Committee.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.