CLAUSE 1.—(Designation of areas of extensive war damage, and of land needed for providing for replacements in redevelopment thereof.) (Hansard, 3 October 1944)

§ Mr. Molson (The High Peak)
I beg to move, in page 1, line 9, to leave out from "Where" to the end of line 20, and to insert: in the opinion of a local planning authority it is necessary, for the purpose of dealing satisfactorily with extensive war damage in a part or parts of their area, to lay out afresh and redevelop as a whole land which has sustained war damage, including (if they deem it desirable) other land adjacent thereto, they may within five years from the commencement of this Act make application to the Minister of Town and Country Planning (in this Act referred to as "the Minister"), for an order under this section and if the Minister is satisfied that such redevelopment is desirable, he may make an order declaring all or any of the land specified in such applications to be land subject to compulsory purchase.

§ Mr. Reakes (Wallasey)
Would it be possible for you, Major Milner, to give guidance as to what Amendments are likely to be called? I am sorry if I am premature, but the trouble is that there are so many important Amendments, and we would like to know whether they are to be called.

§ The Chairman
I am afraid it is not possible to offer general guidance, but if any hon. Member interested in any particular Amendment or Amendments will be good enough to see me, I will do my best to indicate what Amendments will be called.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower (Penrith and Cockermouth)
On a point of Order. This Amendment raises the point "within five years" which is to be the subject of 786 another Amendment later. Will this prevent the other Amendment from being called?

§ The Chairman
No.

§ Mr. Molson
This is a purely drafting Amendment. It takes words contained in the Bill and turns them round, in order to make clearer exactly what the procedure is intended to be. On the Second Reading of the Bill a number of questions were asked, and criticisms were made, to which the Minister replied by pointing out that the whole initiative in this matter rests with the local authorities. I have therefore tried to re-draft the Clause in what, I think, is a more logical order.

§ The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. W. S. Morrison)
I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) for his assistance in attempting to improve the drafting of the Measure. I must say that when I read the Amendment at first I was at a loss to understand the precise change which its wording would import into the Bill. Having heard him, I see that his point is purely a drafting one and an attempt to improve the language of the Bill. It has the disadvantage that if it were accepted it would require a number of consequential Amendments throughout the whole structure of the Bill, in particular, in regard to that part of the Bill which gives the grant in aid of the acquisition of land for planning purposes. I will certainly consider whether it improves the drafting, but I hope my hon. Friend will let me stick for the present to the words which have been put in, after much care and thought, so that the Bill as it appears before the Committee will have a consistent aspect.

§ Earl Winterton (Horsham and Worthing)
My right hon. Friend has said that the Bill has been drafted with much care and thought, but, if I may say so with respect, I should not have thought that was so, especially in this particular Clause. The Amendment seeks to alter the wording so as to carry out the intention of the Clause and to make it clear that it is the local authority and not the Minister which institutes and instigates, so to speak, the proceedings. The official draftsman has, if I may use a common phrase, put the cart before the horse by 787 putting in the Minister first. It may be that acceptance of the Amendment would require a number of drafting Amendments but I should have thought that, as the effect would be that the wording would carry out the effect of the Clause and it has been pointed out that the clear intention of the Clause is not sufficiently expressed in the original drafting, my right hon. Friend might be prepared to go a step further and say that if that is so he would accept the Amendment.

§ Mr. W. S. Morrison
Certainly, if the intention of the Clause is not carried out; but, in the subsequent Sub-sections, it is made clear that the impulse comes from the planning authority. I will certainly look into the matter again, and if the Amendment is an improvement of the drafting I will adopt it.

§ Mr. Molson
In view of the friendly undertaking given my right hon. Friend, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Mr. Silkin (Peckham)
I beg to move, in page 1, line 12, after "damage," to insert: or with conditions of bad lay-out and obsolete development, or with an area the development of which is needed for proper planning. The Clause deals with the redevelopment of areas which have suffered extensive war damage and of land adjacent or contiguous thereto; but, in all the towns which have so suffered there is a great deal of other land which is badly in need of redevelopment and which ought to be considered, when the replanning of the town takes place. On this side of the Committee we have criticised this Measure from time to time because it does not provide the comprehensive planning which is desirable and necessary. We have taken the view that the planning proposed is piecemeal. It separates areas of extensive war damage from other areas which are equally in need of planning. Indeed, the finances of the Bill, which have been approved, appear to have the deliberate intention of dealing with areas of extensive war damage to the exclusion in practice of other areas.
Effective planning will not be possible unless the whole of an area is planned. Speaking on the Financial Resolution one 788 of my hon. Friends gave as an example the case of Plymouth. I have studied the proposed development of that city, and I agree with him that unless the Minister is extremely generous—and I am going to ask him about this later on—there is grave danger that its redevelopment will be hampered and it will not be possible to carry out the imaginative plan which has been prepared. Plymouth will be forced to deal with the area of extensive war damage together with such other land as is adjacent. The same will apply to mast of the other areas which have suffered extensive war damage, including London, where there are certainly areas which cannot be said to have so suffered. As the Bill stands, it will be necessary to apply to the Minister for a series of Orders in respect of half of London. In the case of some towns there may possibly be a dozen or more different areas of extensive war damage in respect of each of which separate Orders will have to be made, while other areas, which have not suffered extensive war damage, are just as much in need of redevelopment.
The purpose of the Amendment is to enable local authorities, if they desire, to deal with their areas comprehensively—areas of extensive war damage, areas which are in need of redevelopment—for reasons laid down in Section 9, and other land which is required for planning purposes as laid down in Section 10. It is proposed to permit all the different types of area to be combined in the representation to my right hon. Friend that he should make a redevelopment Order, a new type of Order which is not at present provided in the Bill. I submit that only in that way can we get effective planning. I have to face the argument that in any event it will be necessary to give preference to the areas of extensive war damage and that other areas will, therefore, have to wait. I am prepared to face the argument.
Suppose my right hon. Friend makes a Redevelopment Order as is laid down in the Amendment, and permits a local authority to acquire the whole of the land comprised within the Order; the local authority will still have to exercise a certain amount of priority in deciding which part of the area will have to be dealt with first. In practically all cases, the area of extensive war damage will naturally be selected to be dealt with first, but the local authority will be operating a com- 789 prehensive plan and will know that when they have finished one area they can proceed to the next as part of a plan, and not in piecemeal fashion. Moreover, they will have the certainty from the begining of knowing that they will be dealing with their whole area and will not run the risk that my right hon. Friend or his successor may not make an Order in respect of other areas in regard to bad lay-out or obsolete development.
I am satisfied, from all the plans that I have seen of blitzed towns, that unless it is possible to deal comprehensively with all land requiring redevelopment, regardless of the reason, there will not be effective planning. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will recognise that areas which have suffered extensive war damage will be replanned—the Bill provides for it; but that is not the replanning of the towns. Some such Amendment as I am moving is essential, for the purpose of dealing comprehensively with every area. I could have understood a Bill with powers limited to blitzed towns, and my right hon. Friend coming to the House and saying that for a number of years it would not be possible to deal with areas other than those which have been blitzed. If he had given local authorities of blitzed areas full powers to deal with those areas comprehensively that would have been much more satisfactory and understandable. In fact, local authorities have the power in the Bill to acquire land which is the subject of bad lay-out and obsolete development, but they are not given the finances to deal with it, and they are given a pretty broad hint that they will not get any priority but will be discouraged in every possible way from dealing with such a matter.
Even at this late stage if my right hon. Friend could see his way to say to the blitzed towns: "You have suffered, at any rate, and your area obviously requires redevelopment. We will give you all the power necessary to redevelop comprehensively, imaginatively and fully," that would be much more satisfactory than this piecemeal legislation and the pretence that we are conferring powers on local authorities to deal with, areas of bad planning and obsolete development. My right hon. Friend knows perfectly well that under the Bill that will not be possible.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to give some words of encourage- 790 ment to local authorities whose areas have suffered extensive war damage and who have been encouraged to plan imaginatively—asked to do so by, I will not say my right hon. Friend's predecessor, but his half-brother, the Minister of Works. They were encouraged to get out imaginative plans and were given every hope that legislation would be introduced to make them possible. Having thus been led into sight of the promised land, suddenly they are not allowed to enter it. I very much hope that something will be done for those areas.

§ Mr. Lewis (Colchester)
On a point of Order, Major Milner. May I submit to you, from what the hon. Gentleman has just said, that his Amendment will greatly enlarge the scope of the Bill, so that it will no longer come within the terms of the Money Resolution? Looking at the Resolution, where it refers to "war damage," it appears to me that those words limit it, whereas the Amendment, put in after the words "war damage," will apply to cases where there is no war damage at all.

§ The Chairman
I am obliged to the hon. Member but I gave consideration to the point which he raised and I formed the opinion that I ought to select the Amendment.

§ Sir Percy Harris (Bethnal Green, South-West)
I think this is a most vital Amendment, and, if my right hon. Friend could see his way to accept it, it would very much facilitate the passage of his Bill. Public opinion is thoroughly stirred by the appalling tragedies caused by enemy action, but it has been some comfort to many people all over the country in our badly developed cities to think that we are now to have a golden opportunity to redevelop these old towns on modern lines. Obviously, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, if it is to be done piecemeal and if blitzed areas are to be planned irrespective of the rest of a city, this opportunity will be missed for ever. We have, of course, the historic case of the great fire of London. Everybody thought that London was going to be rebuilt and become a city worthy of its history and prestige. Owing to financial interests, however, the City Fathers let that opportunity go by. If we are not very careful 791 that will happen again in 1945, when we start to rebuild our towns.
The area I represent is long overdue for redevelopment, quite apart from the blitz. It has narrow streets, badly-planned slum areas, and factories, not in proper relation to the homes. Everything, in fact, is unsatisfactory. Now, it seems, we are to be told to pick out those bits which have been destroyed and develop them, irrespective of the general lay-out of the rest of the district. I do suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he has a great chance to make his name famous as a great planner and to go down in history as a man who modernised our cities. There is a great chance now, and it is not yet too late. It is never too late to mend. I know the right hon. Gentleman's heart is in the right place. I have known him for many years. He should take his courage in his two hands and stand up to the Treasury, if the Treasury is the obstacle. If the Treasury is not the obstacle—if he, himself, is to blame—well, we have got a very wrong impression of his character and personality. His is one of the most attractive and charming of personalities, but it is no use having charm, if he does not utilise his powers to good purpose. I am sure this Amendment is drawn on the right lineq, and the right hon. Gentleman will have not only the Committee but public opinion behind him if he accepts it. The local authorities, architects, town planners, and all those societies and organisations who have been calling out for this great opportunity will be behind him. I do appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to accept this Amendment. It is not a very alarming one. If he does not I must say, as far as I am concerned, I will give him very little help in the passage of his Bill.

§ Mr. Bossom (Maidstone)
I am going to draw a simile. How could you lay out a room like this in which we are seated and deal only with one corner? It is really an impracticable arrangement not to give the local authorities the full area they have to replan. It may take them 20 years, but they have the right to know what they are to do. If you do not recognise it you will be curtailing the work very seriously.

§ Mr. Hugh Lawson (Skipton)
I have an Amendment on the Order Paper which widens the scope of this Clause even more than the Amendment we are discussing. 792 As I understand that my Amendment is not to be called, I am glad to be able to support the Amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood). I do feel that if this is to be a Town Planning Bill at all, this Amendment must be inserted in it. Even if the Bill is going to deal only with the post-war problems of blitz and blight, I am quite sure that this Clause needs extending along the lines of the words on the Order Paper. We cannot plan or redevelop our blitzed and blighted areas, unless we plan the towns on really comprehensive lines. Whatever one's view may be on the desirability of nationalisation of the land, I have yet to find the town-planner or architect, who would not rather consider the whole area of a town, instead of considering little bits of it, and it is very easy to see why that is so.
The two main problems of the redevelopment of our towns are, first, density and, secondly, open spaces. Normally, a town has in it sufficient lana to rehouse the whole population if properly used. If we start rebuilding blitzea areas in such a way that it fits into the long-term plan, there has to be an evening out of density over the whole area of the town. You have to be able to plan the whole of an area of a town, if you are going to deal with any portion of it. If you are going to plan on these lines, it means that the persons who draw up the plans have only to consider a plot's suitability regarding position, the contours and so on. If they are tied down to considering the cost of the land, or in whose ownership the land is, it is going to make things very difficult, and I therefore appeal to the Minister to accept this amendment. It is not going to force local authorities to purchase the whole of the land in their areas, but to give such progressive local authorities as desire to do so, the necessary powers. This is a permissive power; it is not a compulsory nationalisation of the whole of the land in each town. Further, I think the words "proper planning" could be interpreted to mean also the collection of betterment. There is no doubt that the only way in which a local authority can collect the increased value of a particular plot of land, due to their planning and development, is by the purchase of that land. The problem of betterment is fundamental to town planning, and local authorities should be allowed to purchase land 793 for the purpose of recouping themselves, and I think that could be read into the words "needed for proper planning."
As my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) has said, this is a tremendous opportunity for the country. The wheels of the Juggernaut Car of the building industry are now at a standstill, but very shortly we are going to set them moving again, and the direction in which they move will determine the sort of planning and development that takes place during the next 20 years. Therefore, we have a great responsibility in seeing that the Car is set moving in the right direction. I am sure the right direction is comprehensive planning and not patchwork and small-scale planning, so I hope that my hon. Friends who have put down this Amendment will persist with it and, if the Minister does not accept it, they will press it to a Division. If they do that, I will support them.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower (Penrith)
I rise only for a few seconds to say that I sincerely hope my right hon. Friend will reject this Amendment. I have not yet heard anything said in this Committee about those people who are to be the subjects of the planning. A great deal of anxiety is felt by people, who have been very disturbed for the last four or five years, that they are going to be unnecessarily disturbed. It seems to me that one should look at this question in the light of what the words "proper planning" mean. If they mean the pulling down of whole areas of houses, there is going to be a grave shortage of accommodation. If whole areas are pulled down it will mean that houses will be destroyed which will be very badly needed for a long time after this war. I think that we should look at the question from the other point of view as well. Whereas I would give wholehearted support to the planning of the large areas devastated by war and of the obsolete areas which are unhealthy in every way, I do not think we should try to reach for the moon. We have to come to earth and realise that if certain areas are not too bad to live in, the houses should not be pulled down. We shall be fortunate even if we get houses of that nature after the war. For that reason I hope my right hon. Friend will not listen to the too-advanced idealists. We shall be 794 lucky if we get only a little bit well-planned after this war.

§ Mr. Mack (Newcastle-under-Lyme)
The hon. and gallant Gentleman who last spoke seemed to indicate that he is concerned primarily with people who are likely to be disturbed by the planning of a city which has been badly blitzed. I represent a ward which, apart from the war altogether, has a tremendous amount of slum property. In the years before the war it took us many years before we could get the necessary powers on the city council, in order to deal adequately with the problem. In this Clause the Minister refers to the fact that his purpose is to deal satisfactorily with extensive war damage. It has to be extensive. The local planning authority concerned must show to the satisfaction of the Minister that part of the area has sustained war damage. The question arises how much contiguous land adjacent thereto the Minister would regard as being necessary on these lines. For example, in an area of extensive war damage, which contained certain smaller areas interspersed, all of which had received heavy bombing, would the Minister suggest for a moment that items of development should take place leaving all the intermediate property, slum areas though they may be, undisturbed? Obviously, any idea which is progressive must have a complete scheme for development, a schemè which improves the whole and not only the bombed parts. The Minister will earn the gratitude not only of Members on this side of the Committee, but of progressive Members throughout the country and of municipal corporations, if he has the courage, the foresight and the perspicacity to deal with this problem in a real manner.
12.45 p.m.
My right hon. Friend may say that he is prepared, after visiting the areas or causing some of his officers to visit the areas, to take a broad and comprehensive view, and that the terms regarding "land adjacent thereto" may cover the land which some of us have in mind; but we are entitled to an assurance which is unequivocal and which gives us complete satisfaction, and which says that the municipalities may go ahead. What is the question of money when one has to take into consideration the development of a city which, in turn, will produce 795 more wealth to the nation? I am amazed at the Treasury being superimposed upon these discussions. I believe, as many others believe, that given the will and the desire, now is the opportunity to reconstruct our cities. What other epoch in our history has given a better opportunity? This is, in spite of the horrors and cruelties of war, a splendid opportunity. I hope that my right hon. Friend, who is earnest and sincere about this, will do what he can to interpret in the broadest possible way the words in this Clause, and will see if he cannot include the words of the Amendment in order to broaden the whole basis of the Bill and to give satisfaction to all concerned.

§ Major Thorneycroft (Stafford)
I think we are becoming a little unrealistic about this. I hope that my right hon. Friend will resist this Amendment. The right hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) urged my right hon. Friend to gain the reputation of being one of the greatest planners of history. I think that if my right hon. Friend followed the right hon. Member's advice he would go down in history as the man who started pulling down houses while a number of people in blitzed areas had no houses at all. I understand that the purpose of this Clause, and indeed the purpose of the Bill, is to deal with a desperately urgent problem and to give priority to those towns which have borne the brunt of the enemy's attack. I was astonished to hear the right hon. Gentleman who represents South-West Bethnal Green and the hon. Gentleman who represents Peckham (Mr. Silkin) seek to do away with that priority.

§ Sir P. Harris
I know that my hon. and gallant Friend desires to do the right thing. May I explain to him what is in my mind and, I am sure, what is in the mind of my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin)? It is not to sweep away whole blocks of buildings, but to allow authorities to make their plans, and then, gradually, as they pull down those blocks, to build others. It does not mean wholesale destruction, but a comprehensive plan.

§ Major Thorneycroft
Perhaps we need not pursue this discussion very much further. It is plain that there is nothing to prevent Bethnal Green or any other 796 place from making a comprehensive plan. What this Clause does is to enable the Minister to designate an area of war damage—and it includes areas of blight and obsolete development—for compulsory purchase. That broad right is given to those areas where immediate development has to take place. It is on those areas that we have to concentrate our greatest energies in the years immediately succeeding the cessation of hostilities. To put into this Clause words which would give the same powers as are given to Plymouth, Peckham and other blitzed areas, to Newcastle-under-Lyme, Merthyr Tydvil, or Bromley, would be to take away what it is essential to retain if we are to keep the realities of the Bill before us. I represent Stafford, and I would like a beautiful planning Bill to rebuild Stafford as early as possible; but I would say realistically to my constituents that Plymouth should have priority.

§ Mr. A. Bevan (Ebbw Vale)
Will not priority be determined by building licences?

§ Major Thorneycroft
No doubt there will be many things, such as labour and materials, in respect of which there will be priorities, but there will be certain places which obviously require, immediately, wide powers of compulsory purchase. Do not let us do away with the whole purport of the Bill, by putting in at the start words which would widen the scope of the Bill far beyond what was originally intended.

§ Mr. Moelwyn Hughes (Carmarthen)
This is an astounding series of propositions that we have just heard from the hon. and gallant Member. He is one of the members of the Tory Reform Committee, who are in the van of progress, but one would have thought that he was qualified for membership of the old guard. The fact is not what he suggests. The Bill falls into definite stages. First there is the stage in which an area is planned for redevelopment, and the qualification for that planning is that it should be a bombed area together with certain territory around it.

§ Mr. Lewis
Does the hon. and learned Member realise that if this Amendment is passed, that 'qualification will no longer exist?

§ Mr. Hughes
That is just what I am going to point out. The first qualification 797 is that it should be a bombed area. So far you have done nothing but plan and delimit. With that qualification, under the terms of the Bill, goes the right of the local authority to acquire land, subject to the authorisation of the Minister. Then comes the stage when, for that acquisition, the Treasury will give assistance by way of paying the charges on the money raised for that purpose. That cannot be extended at all, within the terms of the Resolution which the House has just approved. Then comes the physical job of actual building on the land. The plea has been put forward that, if this Amendment is passed, we are going, in some way or another, to stop giving priority to the badly-blitzed areas of the Kingdom. Nothing of the kind. This Amendment is not to deprive them of that priority, but to bring the work down under that priority within the scope of a more comprehensive plan. It is true that the terms of the Amendment will also carry with it the rights of a town which has not. been blitzed to plan, but not to get priority. Why should not the towns of bad lay-out be allowed, at least, to plan? They will not get any money.

§ Major Thorneycroft
Is there any provision in any Bill which prevents them planning?

§ Mr. Hughes
There is.

§ Major Thorneycroft
They have power to purchase land.

§ Mr. Hughes
Yes, there are town and country planning provisions; but they are ineffective. They have been proved to be ineffective. This proposal, as buttressed by the provisions enabling the local authorities to acquire land, is the only thing which will help the authorities in blighted areas. Otherwise, the authority will be defeated at once by the cost that it has to meet. The problem, therefore, is only that of enabling planning to be done, and to exercise the thought and foresight which is put into the general plan to secure the progress that we want to see, and not to deprive any town, such as Plymouth, of the power to deal immediately with war damage. I do not think the question could be better put than it was by the Royal Institute of British Architects: It was emphasised that unless such immediate acquisition of land for the various urgent purposes arising from the consequences of the 798 war is also related to needs beyond this temporary emergency, any attempt at creating a rational, constant and continuous development in respect of the use of land will be irretreviably lost. By this Amendment we are giving the Committee an opportunity of saying, not that it is not going to do the best thing by the blitzed towns, and to do that first, but that it does believe in planning, and in planning as a whole. As has been pointed out, planning which is not planning as a whole does not deserve the title of planning at all. This is supposed to be a planning Bill. I, therefore, hope that the Minister will not accede to the blandishments of his reforming friends, but will prefer to give some hope and encouragement to those who want to design our cities to make them worthy of our country.

§ Major Sir Derrick Gunston (Thornbury)
The hon. and learned Member has charged my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft) with being a Tory Reformer. A Tory Reformer stands for progress, coupled with being practical as well. It is because we are practical that the country has always returned the Conservative Party, and not the Labour Party, when it wants to get on with rehousing. I think the hon. and learned Member will agree with me that if we pass this Amendment the whole of this Bill will have to be drastically recast. I urge my hon. Friends opposite to come down to earth, even for a minute or two. Do they, or do they not, want to rebuild cities which have been bombed? It is no good my hon. and learned Friend talking in that airy way: he knows that this Bill was intended for that one purpose, and that if it is enlarged into other spheres it will not be concentrated where it is wanted. I am convinced the Minister is quite right to give priority to the bombed cities, because the houses are not there at all; they have gone. The authorities want this Bill to get on with their schemes to put the people into houses where they can live. I hope the Minister will on no account give way.

§ Mr. Cocks (Broxtowe)
Surely, the answer to my hon. and gallant Friend is that the Amendment, and the Clause, rest on the words "five years from the commencement of the Act"? You cannot say that an application, which can be brought 799 to the Minister in five years' time, means that priority is being given for the blitzed areas, for, in five years' time, I hope that we shall have got on some way in dealing with the blitzed areas. My second point is this. We have to consider that the local authorities have some commonsense. It is not to be supposed that the municipalities are going to start pulling down houses at the beginning of their re-housing plans. They are not going to pull down houses already standing if they can help it, until they have got other houses ready for the people. It is true they can have these palaces to be built by the Ministry of Works—these different Portal bungalows—which will enable them to re-house people while the slums are being pulled down. I think some hon. Members, including the hon. and gallant Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Colonel Dower), argued that some people would be disturbed by these proceedings in an area of bad layout or slum conditions.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
I was referring to a large number of people in an area of bad lay-out, not an area which would come under the provisions of this Amendment.

§ Mr. Cocks
But the words are: Bad lay-out and obsolete development needing proper planning. I think the experience of most people would be that a shopkeeper in an area badly planned would be amply compensated as the result of planning if he was given a shop in a fine, broad street linked up with the main shopping centre of the town. The blitzed towns want this as part of their plan. They do not want it to be confined to the part of their town which has been bombed by the enemy. Look at Plymouth. I am rather surprised that the Noble Lady the Member for Sutton (Viscountess Astor) is not sticking up for her city, and her Noble Lord in this matter.

§ Viscountess Astor (Plymouth, Sutton)
Give me time.

§ Mr. Cocks
I ask, what is the good of a city authority planning for a blitzed area, and planning for a main thoroughfare leading out of that area and facing up to a row of slums, where the road comes up against a blank wall?

§ Viscount Hinchingbrooke (Dorset, Southern)
Is not the hon. Member mixing 800 up planning and reconstruction? The plan has been prepared and we all know about it. It is a question of reconstruction.

§ Mr. Cocks
If you reconstruct, you do it according to plan. If an improvement in these blitzed areas is not to be linked up with another part of the area, what is the good of proceeding with the centre part if the road suddenly stops 150 yards from a slum area?

§ Mr. A. Bevan
What the Tory Reformers mean is to be practical without having a plan.

§ Mr. Cocks
I think my hon. Friend is wrong for once. I think the Tories have a plan, but they are afraid to disclose it to the public. I emphasise the point I made earlier, and, as an instance, I would ask if the road from the North Road Station at Plymouth to the centre of the city will come under the Bill or will it not?

§ Captain Prescott (Darwen)
I have listened very carefully to all the speeches on this question and I cannot help thinking that there is some confusion between planning and the acquisition of land. So far as I know, there is nothing to prevent Plymouth, or any other town, taking steps to make such plans as it considers desirable for reconstructing the town in the most beneficial manner for the population. Clause z of this Bill is concerned with the compulsory acquisition of land in a city which has suffered extensive war damage, or land which is needed for replacing people who formerly lived on that land, and I really think' that, while all hon. Members want to make speeches saying how our cities must be replanned in a better way than ever before, and while, like the right hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris), I could make a most impressive speech in that direction, we should look at this Clause and the Bill in the cold light of facts, and not let our natural ambition to make favourable speeches run away with us.
Let us take a town which has suffered damage as a result of enemy operations. As I understand it, the Government say that in an area, so much of which has been devastated that it is impossible to define the actual boundaries of the properties previously existing, and to say to whom they belonged, it is necessary, in 801 the interests of good planning in that city, for the whole area to be acquired by the local authority, and that the local authority should be in a position to impose a master plan for that particular area. Quite obviously, in imposing a master plan for that particular blitzed area, they will, or should, and if they are reasonably efficient they will, take into consideration the plan for the whole of their ity, and I can think of no local authority in this country which would plan a little part of its own district without considering the effect which that planning would have on the area as a whole.
Clause 1 of 0this Bill, as I understand it, when read with Clause 2, gives an expedited procedure for acquiring land which has suffered extensive war damage, the object being that, with regard to areas of that nature, it is necessary that the ordinary precautions and safeguards which existed for many years to protect owners, even very small owners, should be pushed on one side, and a considerably expedited procedure should be available to the authority for acquiring that land. Let us assume that they are acquiring under that procedure, and that there is, a 'street or two away, another area the lay-out of which has become obsolete and which requires replanning as a whole. Surely, the local authority, having acquired the land which suffered extensive war damage, will consider to what use it is to be put-residential, at eight or four houses to the acre, or utilised as a public open space, or used for public buildings—and, in considering the use to which it will be put, it will consider the nature of the surrounding property and the use to which they consider that property also should, in time, be put. Later on, it may well be that they will wish to acquire property to redevelop it because of bad lay-out and obsolete development in that area, and, so far as I can see, there would be nothing to stop them doing that under Clause 9.
What my hon. Friend wants is that the local authority shall be enabled, at one and the same time, to acquire the blitzed area and also to acquire the area which is obsolete because of bad lay-out. Is that a reasonable proposition or not? I have addressed some remarks to the Committee to try to show, as I think rightly, that any local authority, when 802 considering the rebuilding of its city, will consider the blitzed area in relation to the areas of bad lay-out. Surely, no one would consider one part without the other, but this must surely be true—that the local authority will first wish to deal by way of actual reconstruction of the blitzed area. The manner in which they deal with it will relate to the other part of their area. If it be a fact that the part of their town which they will wish to reconstruct first is the blitzed area, surely it is right that they should acquire tit first, and that there is a special case for expediting the procedure of compulsory acquisition? If you are not going to deal with obsolete areas at one and the same time, what reasonable case is there for giving the expedited procedure and the provisions of Clause I?
It is not a question of planning, but of the method of acquisition of land, and, while I sympathise most fully with the sentiments of hon. Members in all parts of the House as to the necessity of planning as a whole, and while I subscribe to them, I myself cannot see how the provisions of Clause 1, as it stands, prevent the planning as a whole. If hon. Members opposite, or on this side of the House, can show me how wrong I am, or how incapable of appreciating the provisions of the Bill, I will most wholeheartedly subscribe to their proposition that their Amendment is necessary. At the moment, I cannot see it, and I say, with great respect to all who have spoken, that I think they are confusing compulsory acquisition and planning. There is nothing to stop full, comprehensive planning; there are different methods of acquisition. In view of the statement by several hon. Members that reconstruction of the blitzed areas must come first, surely there is also a case for expediting the procedure for acquiring those areas first? When you have acquired them, you will, of course, plan as a whole.
I hope, in view of the very great importance of these matters and the sincerity with which hon. Members have spoken, that they will show me, if they can, the errors of my ways, but, at the moment, I cannot see any case at all for this Amendment.

§ Mr. John Dugdale (West Bromwich)
This Amendment seems to me to be absolutely vital. If the Committee passes 803 it, we shall plan; if it is not passed, we shall simply patch up. The so-called Tory Reformers are in favour of patching but not of planning, so that we know where we stand. [Interruption.] I would like to use a simile. Supposing a man came into hospital having been wounded in the arm, and also suffering from appendicitis, what would anybody think of the doctor who said "You must deal with the arm, because it is a war injury, but on no account must you deal with the appendicitis, because it might just have well have been contracted in peace-time"?

§ Viscountess Astor
Is that not rather a good simile to apply to the blitzed areas? The hon. Member has just made the point which I want to make. They are the worst.

§ Mr. Dugdale
I am not at all certain that a wound in the arm is worse than appendicitis. Hon. Members have been confusing the matter, because of making it an issue of bombed versus unbombed areas. There is no competition between them in this respect. Take an area which has suffered very heavy bombing; it may be in the centre of London. There may be unbombed, parts in and around that area which it would be useful to develop in connection with the re-planning of the bombed area, and if the Bill is not passed, it will be very difficult for such sites to be acquired. Hon. Members say that there is no-difficulty about planning.

§ Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks (Chichester)
Where in this Bill is authority given to local authorities to plan?

§ Mr. Dugdale
That is not the issue here. This Amendment asks that local authorities may have powers to deal with conditions of lay-out. An hon. Member said that they can plan; there is nothing to prevent planning at all. Anybody could produce a plan for the whole of England. I could sit down and produce a plan for my own constituency.

§ Viscountess Astor
I doubt even that.

§ Mr. Dugdale
The Noble Lady could no doubt produce an admirable plan for Plymouth.

§ Viscountess Astor
I would not be such an idiot as to think that I could.

§ Captain Prescott
I endeavoured to make the position clear, that not only could a local authority plan, but under the provisions of Clauses 1, 2 and 9 it could effectively carry out the compulsory acquisitions necessary, and these Clauses are acquisition Clauses and not planning Clauses.

§ Mr. Dugdale
I maintain that planning is not enough and must be coupled with acquisition. In order to get planning at all, you must have the two together, and that is the essential point of this Amendment. I want to know the reason for resisting the Amendment. Is it in order to help the bombed out? It is not anything of the kind. There are areas—as I tried to convince the Minister recently, but I regret to say that I failed—where it is impossible for the time to get enough builders together in order to get on with development. Yet there may be builders in other places that could be used if they were available, without in any way interfering with building in a bombed area, and the local authority might usefully acquire sites and get on with the development there. But it will not be able to do so if it cannot acquire the sites.
There is no question of rivalry between bombed areas and other areas. For the bombed areas, as for the unbombed, proper planning is necessary if we do not want to get a patchy mess when we have finished with the whole thing. It would be unfortunate if we turned this country into a series of patches laid out for us in advance by the Luftwaffe, which is what I understand certain hon. Members want us to do it other areas, not so prepared by the Luftwaffe, are to remain untouched, for a long period. What is the object of opposing the Amendment? I can only think that it is to help landed interests. One hon. Member asked why pull down houses already there. We should certainly use these houses, but it is not only houses that are in question; it might be that other business premises or shops must be pulled down in order to house people in a proper co-ordinated plan. Some hon. Members will resist this because they want to keep the land as long as they can so that it can be sold to the highest bidder later on.

§ Captain Prescott
I do not own an acre of land.

§ Mr. Dugdale
The hon. and gallant Member for Darwen (Captain Prescott) may possibly not own any land, and I do not want to be personal.

§ Captain Prescott
How much does the hon. Member own?

§ Mr. Dugdale
Not very much. I am not talking personally about hon. Members. I mean that hon. Members as a party are standing for landlords and for the Landowners' Association, and I challenge them to say that they do not support those interests. I do not intend to get involved in personalities in this matter. I am simply talking of the principle whether, in resisting the Amendment, hon. Members are actuated by the desire to help the bombed out, the local authorities or the landlords. I say specifically that the one thing by which they are actuated is the desire to help the landlords.

§ Mr. Reakes (Wallasey)
I wish to be brief, and therefore will not become involved in an academic discussion of what is planning and reconstruction, and whether we could have one without the other. I am not going to be guilty of introducing personalities. I am here to stress the claims of a blitzed area. I happen to be a member of the municipal authority of a badly blitzed area—part of Merseyside. It is a great surprise to me to find that the Minister is cold and hard-hearted towards this reasonable Amendment. When I was experiencing, along with many of my colleagues, weeks and months of bombing and saw the hopeless destruction and loss of life, I did not dream that it would ever be necessary for any Member of Parliament to get up and make an eloquent appeal for assistance on behalf of bombed areas. I thought that it would be automatic.
The reception given by Members of the Government to this vital Amendment proves that all the sacrifices and sufferings of the bombed areas are already forgotten. It is the considered opinion of authorities of blitzed areas that this Bill is totally inadequate to help them to solve their vital problem. It has been put forward by a body that cannot be challenged for fairness and experience, knowledge and ability—the Association of Municipal Corporations. It has been considered by the Town Planning Institute and other bodies, and they are unanimous that the 806 provisions of the Bill are seriously short of what should be found possible to help these authorities. If the right hon. Gentleman would like to accompany me on a tour of Merseyside and talk to men of all political opinions upon whom rests the responsibility for facing up to the problem, he would see evidence to prove that the Amendment is possible, if we are to get down to planning and reconstruct areas on a total planning and reconstruction basis. [Interruption.] I am not talking nonsense, I speak from 22 years' experience as a member of a planning and reconstruction committee. If this Bill is to be worthy of my support and the support of those representing the authorities more directly concerned, some drastic Amendments will be necessary.
I voted against the Second Reading of the Bill, with the proviso that I would vote for the Third Reading, if during the Committee stage a change of heart was shown by the Government and a desire to face the real and true position. But this is a bad start to a three days' consideration of this Bill in Committee. If the right hon. Gentleman had shown that breadth of vision and spirit which we all expected of him, he would have said, "I accept the Amendment." It has been described as a vital Amendment and I have not heard a speech during the Debate in the interests of the people who have been bombed and who are concerned, that has shown the Amendment to be anything other than a most sensible one. I hope that there will be a Division and that we Shall vote according to the merits of the Amendment and will not allow ourselves—I am a free man, thank goodness—to be driven into the Government Lobby against this reasonable and essential Amendment.

§ Lieut. - Commander Joynson - Hicks (Chichester)
I really think that the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Reakes) has not recently considered the terms of the Amendment. The Amendment falls clearly into two sections. The first section of the Amendment deals with conditions of bad lay-out and obsolete development, and the second, which deals with the areas which are required for proper planning, is redundant if it means anything at all. I cannot understand at all how any court of justice which might be required to give an interpretation could possibly arrive at a meaning of what is "proper planning."

§ Mr. Silkin
Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that these are the exact words used in Clause 10 of the Bill?

§ Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks
I am aware of that too. With regard to the first section of the Amendment, we have fallen into this category. The Clause he is seeking to amend deals solely with, and gives priority to, property which has been bombed—the devastated areas. He is seeking to incorporate into that Clause a provision to give equal priority to the acquisition of land and the redevelopment of obsolete areas. As the Committee is well aware, a provision almost identical with that proposed in the Amendment occurs later in the Bill for dealing with that very matter in its fit and proper place, but that fit and proper place is after reasonable time and reasonable priority have been given to do what the hon. Member required, namely, to give consideration to the bombed and devastated areas. Therefore, if the Amendment which he advocated is possible in any way, it is directly contrary to the interests of those living in the devastated areas. I most urgently hope that the Government will not accept the Amendment and that the devastated and bombed areas, which I think we all agree should have priority, will have priority and will not be delayed by the introduction of this Bill.

§ Mr. A. Bevan
There are two considerations of time and of practice which are opposed in this problem. One is planning in general and the other is priority for the blitzed areas. There was no reason why that proper distinction should not have been imparted into the Bill in the first place. All the requirements for urgency on the part of the blitzed areas could be met if the Bill had been a comprehensive planning Bill. There was no reason why the proper claims of the blitzed areas should necessarily have brought about a dichotomy in the structure of the Bill. Exactly the same provisions which would have enabled general planning to be carried out, would have conferred on the authorities in the blitzed areas the necessary powers to proceed with the construction. My hon. Friends opposite, who are continually trying to argue that the reason why they cannot accept this Amendment is because it is imported into a Clause which purports to deal primarily with 808 the urgent necessity of rebuilding blitzed areas, are entirely at fault because what they would have to show if that were the case would be that these words imported into the Clause would hamper, impede, and retard the authorities of the blitzed areas in getting on with the job.

Mr. Malson
They could use their priority.

§ Mr. Bevan
Priority for the blitzed areas is not necessarily a matter of the statutory powers conferred upon blitzed areas. Priority for rebuilding blitzed areas is primarily a matter of allocating available material first of all to the blitzed areas, and is a matter of practice, of administration; it is not a matter of legislation. My hon. Friend shakes his head but. I think that is the conclusion, and without desiring to impute motives, is the deliberate conclusion in the minds of hon. Members opposite.

§ Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks
Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to iuterrupt? Surely it is no good granting priority until the land has been acquired?

§ Mr. Bevan
Certainly, but our Amendment would allow the acquiring of the necessary land as well as additional land. If the Amendment were carried, it would not restrict the powers of the blitzed area authorities to acquire land, it would enlarge them, so that in point of fact the power of other authorities in other parts of the country—not blitzed—to acquire land for preparing comprehensive plans for obsolescent and bad areas would include the narrower powers to acquire land at once for the blitzed areas.

§ Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks
But my hon. Friend has not taken into consideration the terms of Clause 9.

§ Mr. Bevan
But Clause 9 would be redundant if this Amendment were carried. My argument is this, that the opposition in practice which necessarily exists between dealing with the obsolescent areas and the blitzed areas is a distinction which ought never to have been imported into the structure of the Bill, because the larger would have included the narrower.

§ Captain Prescott
Would the hon. Gentleman allow me? Is there not a very great physical distinction? In the case of a blitzed area, you are acquiring land with 809 no, or practically no, buildings on it, but in the case of an obsolescent area, although the buildings may be old and badly laid out, there are in fact people living there who would have to be taken away and put elsewhere.

§ Mr. Bevan
If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will permit me, I am dealing with that point. The first point which I have been trying to make, and which I think I have made, is that the larger powers which would be given to local authorities if our Amendment were carried would include, enlarge, and fortify the narrower powers now conferred by the Clause upon authorities in blitzed areas. So there is no opposition in principle between the needs of the blitzed area and the need for wider planning. However, we understand very well why the distinction was made in the structure of the Bill—that is perfectly clear. We were hoping on this side of the Committee that the greater public attention to and urgency for planning by blitzed cities would have acted as a motive power in the public mind to confer larger and wider powers of planning. Hon. Members are perfectly correct in saying that we are asking for powers to acquire land which go beyond the necessity for the reconstruction of blitzed areas. We do not deny that. In fact we were hoping to get the support of my hon. Friends the members of the Tory Reform Committee in this. We were hoping that the sense of urgency about rebuilding and planning imported into the public atmosphere would have been used for wider powers of general planning. But what do my hon. Friends opposite want? They want to take the edge of the public agitation by dealing with the narrow issue of the bombed cities in the hope of indefinitely postponing the powers to reconstruct the rest of the cities and towns. Their desire is a political one, pure and simple.

§ Viscountess Astor
Oh.

§ Mr. Bevan
I do not want to repeat myself, and I hope the Noble Lady will subdue her groans. She. will probably have an opportunity just now of giving a rational reply instead of producing barbaric noises.

§ Viscountess Astor
I wish the hon. Gentleman could hear himself instead of me.

§ Mr. Bevan
The fact is that the idea in the minds of hon. Members opposite is to try, if they possibly can, to tide over the present emergency by limiting as far as possible the powers of public authorities to acquire privately owned land. We do not conceal it from ourselves that we wanted to use the crisis in housing in order to enlarge the powers of the public authorities to acquire land. So there is between us a very important point of principle, arising out of the fact that my hon. Friends opposite think it is always a bad thing for public authorities to acquire land—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]—and that they should only be allowed to acquire. that land in circumstances of the utmost emergency. My hon. Friend opposite has said that there is nothing at all in the Bill which prevents local authorities, under Clause 9, from planning, but the point at issue is, that if the acquisition of land is not limited any longer—and it would not be limited if the amendment were carried—the approach of local authorities towards planning the amenities of their areas would be revolutionised, because they would then be allowed to regard the amenities and requirements of the land as over-riding the claims of any private property owners within the area. Indeed, under Clause 9, they could acquire the land.

§ Captain Prescott
It is only a difference in procedure.

§ Mr. Bevan
Yes, I know, but the Minister's sanction would have to be obtained.

§ Captain Prescott
Under Clause 12.

§ Mr. Bevan
And within five years the Minister would quite properly say, if the Bill is left as it is at the moment, "Why do you need to acquire this land, which you will not be able to make use of for some years to come, because all the resources of the Building Industry will be absorbed for four, five or six years in the rebuilding of the blitzed areas?" He might also say, "Make your plans, there is nothing to stop that; but do not acquire the land because, in the meantime, you will not be able to carry out your plans, and it is undesirable to take land from private persons until a public authority is able effectively to carry out its plans." What may happen when the five years are up? All the land which will not have been acquired will have been very sub- 811 stantially raised in value by what the local authorities will have done in the meantime.
That is what my hon. Friends have at the back of their minds. Why, indeed, have the five years limit at all? In point of fact they are saying, "Let us use the public anxiety about houses to try and convince the country that the opposition of the Socialists is holding up the building of houses in the bombed areas," although it does not hold up a single house. In order to get public opinion to agree upon an emergency measure of this sort, it takes the edge off the public agitation and then leaves the landlord in the possession of land that will be enhanced in value on the expiration of five years for which the public authority will have to give higher compensation when they come to acquire it. That is what is behind my hon. Friend's opposition to this Amendment. If that is not behind it, I ask them to show us how, in any practical meaning of the term, the building of houses in the bombed areas would be in the slightest degree retarded if the Amendment were carried. Unless my hon. Friends can do that, all that they have been doing this morning is simply putting on a mask to conceal intentions which are too disreputable to mention.

§ Mr. Molson
The hon Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) on this occasion, as on so many others, has made a contribution to the Debate of quite outstanding interest, although it is not entirely in harmony with the speeches made by other Members sitting around him. He said early on his speech that he did not wish to attribute motives, but he departed from that good intention very soon—

§ Mr. Bevan
Intentions.

§ Mr. Molson
Intentions and motives are very similar.

§ Mr. Bevan
Oh, no. Motives are not Parliamentary, but intentions are.

§ Mr. Molson
He did, however, in some degree redeem himself because he proceeded then to exclaim to the whole world that the attitude of the Labour Party in moving this Amendment was not that they really believed that it would be helpful from a practical point of view, but that they wished to take advantage of the present public interest in the bombed areas in order to obtain a larger control of land 812 for the public authorities than would have been possible under different circumstances. I make no complaint. It is a policy they have put forward in their general election speeches on previous occasions without ever being successful in persuading the electorate—

§ Mr. Bevan
And the electorate have been conspicuously unsuccessful in getting the houses they need from the Tories.

§ Mr. Molson
I could make a plain answer to that.

§ Mr. George Griffiths (Hemstworth)
They did in West Derbyshire just lately.

§ Mr. Molson
If I may be allowed to resume and not have to deal with a lot of interruptions at the same time—during the twenty years' truce, half as many houses have been built in this country as existed in the whole country in 1914. That is not a bad record when it is remembered how much other construction took place at the same time.
However, I will return to the speech of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale. His speech differed from that of other hon. Members opposite who have spoken because he did not suggest that Clause 9 was inadequate to the purpose of acquiring the land and of carrying out rebuilding in blighted areas. What he put forward was this proposition, that it would have suited him and his friends very well if the same expedited procedure had been made available in the case of Merthyr Tydvil as is going to be made available in Plymouth. [HON. MEMBERS: Why not?]If the hon. Member had studied some of the Amendments that have been put down on the Order Paper, he would have seen that the Government intend, as a result of the representations of the local authorities, to assimilate more closely the procedure under Clause I, Clause 9 and Clause 10 and, to a very large extent, that point—in so far as it is a legitimate point—is being met in the subsequent Amendments. Where the hon. Member's speech differed so widely from that of, for example, the speech of the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale), was that he had familiarised himself sufficiently with the Bill not to make the charge against us that we desired patchwork planning. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale proposed to retain the priority for the blitzed areas but to exercise it administratively. 813 1.45 p.m.
He was going to offer to the whole of the country the procedure under Clause 1 and then he was going to exercise an administrative discretion and say that the rebuilding of Merthyr Tydfil has to wait until the blitzed towns have been rebuilt. There is a great deal to be said for the attitude of the Government, which makes it plain that they are going to give legislative precedence to the blitzed areas and deal with that problem first.

§ Mr. Bevan
Where, in the Bill, is the priority?

§ Mr. Molson
In the Clause we are discussing at the present time. I thought that was the ground of the complaint. I am sorry if I have misunderstood the general criticism of hon. Members opposite. Under the Clause we are now discussing there is power for acquisition not only for an area of extensive war damage but for land adjacent to it, land such as is necessary for the redevelopment of the whole of that area. If I understand the purpose of the Amendment at all, it is to give the same accepted procedure not for planning but for compulsory land acquisition to towns which have not had extensive war damage.
The hon. Member for West Bromwich said that we were admitting that we wanted piecemeal planning and my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. Bossom) said that if you took this Chamber, for example, it was impossible to plan it effectively if you were only going to plan one part of it. But, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Darwen (Captain Prescott) pointed out, this Bill does not prevent any local authority from planning. When the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hughes) was taxed upon the point, and was asked what there was to prevent any local authority from planning, he was not able to answer that question. He said it was well known that the present planning Statutes were ineffective for that purpose, which was not an answer to the question which was put to him. There is nothing to prevent any town from replanning itself. All that is dealt with in this particular Clause is the question of the acquisition of land which is extensively war damaged and the land adjacent thereto. Therefore, the only point of the argument of the hon. Member for West Bromwich is this: that he 814 had confused the question of planning and the acquisition of land—

§ Mr. John Dugdale
I thought I had made it clear that there is no point in just being able to plan if you cannot acquire land as well. Planning in vacuo will not help anybody.

§ Mr. Molson
As the hon. Member for Ebbw Value pointed out, in Clauses 9 and 10 there is power to acquire land and if the hon. Member will read the Amendments which have been put down he will find that the procedure for the compulsory acquisition of land has been, broadly, assimilated as between those Clauses but is merely varied in accordance with the size of the area. Therefore, I hope the Minister will not depart from the accepted structure of his Bill. It gives legislative priority to blitzed towns and enables them, if they are bold and imaginative, to acquire not only areas which have been destroyed by bombs but also all the land adjacent thereto and in the case of the blighted towns, which will have to wait until the acute housing shortage has been overtaken, this Bill provides adequate power for them in Clauses 9 and 10.

§ Sir John Mellor (Tamworth)
I hope my right hon. Friend will resist this Amendment. We should apply the maxim of putting first things first and thereby apply the proper priority. Having regard to the provisions of Clause 9, which seem to provide adequate procedure for dealing with the subject-matter of the Amendment, that is to say, areas of bad lay-out and obsolete areas, I really believe that the motive behind this Amendment is financial, the idea being to extend over a far wider field the financial facilities given by Clause 5. I think those facilities should be limited to the purposes of Clauses 1 and z as they now stand. In order to secure the application of the proper priorities by the local authorities I do not think we should extend those financial facilities more widely. With regard to the motives of those who resist this Amendment, I hope Members of the Labour Party are now more satisfied that we really are concerned with getting the right priorities and not with holding anything up, and with seeing that people are not turned out of houses, whatever they may be like, until there are other houses in which they can live.

§ Mr. W. S. Morrison
Perhaps it might suit the convenience of the Committee if I replied now to the very interesting and varied speeches we have had on this Amendment. I was promised all sorts of historical consequences by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) if I were to accept it, but I believe that the effect of accepting this Amendment would be really to weaken the powers of the Bill to deal with the twin problems of blitz and of blight. Already in the Bill, in Clause 9, there is ample provision for dealing with obsolete development and bad lay-out. In. Clause 10 powers are given for acquiring land for certain planning purposes. Hon. Members may say that they are not wide enough, but a case ought to be made out. The Bill contains powers for acquiring bomb damaged land, blitzed land, and other land for certain other purposes. If I accepted the Amendment it would mean that the provisions of Clause 9 would become redundant because under Clause 1 the procedure would be applied to blight as well as blitz. The position would be that the Amendment carries with it a five year time limit within which applications for powers must be made, a limitation appropriate in the case of blitz, where the urgency is apparent, but what would be the position at the end of five years with regard to blight? You will not be able to deal with blight in five years.

§ Mr. Bevan
We have not imposed that restriction upon the Minister.

§ Mr. Morrison
I have imposed that limitation for the sake of the damaged areas. I say it is appropriate to those areas, but there is no time limit in Clause 9 as it stands. Powers will be available when the Bill is passed, and will continue for the period of acute urgency into the second priority.

§ Mr. Silkin
If the Minister accepts the Amendment, there will have to be a consequential Amendment to put that right. It is quite easy to put right.

§ Mr. Morrison
I do not think that is worth while; I do not see where the hon. Member would gain. There is no point in assimilating the two procedures to the extent suggested in the Amendment. The powers in the Bill are ample. The whole difficulty that arises on this question is due to a misconception which seems hard to 816 eradicate, namely, that it is necessary to acquire land if you are to plan it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Bethnal Green made a historical reference to the Great Fire of London; but at that time no code of planning powers was in existence. Now there is, and local authorities in the bombed cities are busy making plans, if they have not made them already, for the whole reconstruction of their cities as and when time permits. So there is no limitation of powers of purchase which affects the powers to plan under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1932.

§ Mr. Hugh Lawson
Would the Minister reply to the point which I made, that it would greatly facilitate planning if a planner could consider the suitability of a piece of land and was not tied by knowing that the cost of the land was high or that it was in the ownership of a certain individual?

§ Mr. Morrison
I do not think that question is germane to this Amendment. Consideration of the cost arises when you acquire land, but does not always arise when you impose planning restrictions. I hope local authorities will exercise their planning powers in such a way that when this Bill becomes law they can exercise the great new powers which are being given to them for the first time in conformity with good planning for the whole of their districts. The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks) asked whether it would be possible, in acquiring land under Clause 1, to acquire land for the necessary roads for proper reconstruction. That is provided for in the Bill. The necessary land can be acquired and also such adjacent land, even if it is undamaged, as is necessary to make a satisfactory project of the whole position. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale seemed to read into our attitude on this matter some desire to prevent local authorities from reaping any financial gain that would arise from buying land now. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent them from acquiring land for blighted areas, and thus there is no substance in the point he made on that count.

§ Captain Prescott
If one assumes that a local authority did not now exercise its powers under Clause 9 but exercised them, say, 10 years later, would it be 817 correct to say that the authority might then have to pay increased compensation under Clause 9?

§ Mr. Morrison
The proposal in the Bill is to stabilise the price of land for five years. It might be that the price would go up, or it might be that it would fall. My hon. and gallant Friend is asking me to forecast a hypothetical market in land, which I cannot do.

§ Mr. A. Bevan
As the right hon. Gentleman dismissed my argument so summarily, would he answer this question, because I am certain that it will influence Members very much? If the local authority of a blighted area put a plan before him for the acquirement of all the land they might need for the carrying out of a scheme, would he agree to it although the scheme might not be carried out for seven or 10 years?

§ Mr. Morrison
There is nothing in the Bill to prevent them doing so; each scheme would have to be considered on its merits. I cannot answer a hypothetical question, but there is nothing in the Bill to prevent me from giving assent to such a proposition.

§ Mr. Woodburn (Stirling and Clackmannan, Eastern)
There is one thing which is worrying people. If limitation of the purchase were confined to planning of an area that might affect an outside area, and which might benefit from that planning, how would that be prevented?

§ Mr. Morrison
That again raises the question, which is outside the Bill, of compensation and betterment. Certain proposals have been put before the House by the Government in a White Paper for dealing with these development values which might be created by such action. That is the next step on the road which

§ Mr. Silkin (Peckham)
I beg to move, in page 1, line 12, after "that", to insert "the whole or ".
The Clause provides that a local authority may deal with part or parts of their area consisting of land which has suffered extensive war damage. The right hon. Gentleman on a number of occasions has admitted that there may be areas where the whole of the land ought to be dealt with as an area of extensive war damage. It would appear that the wording of the Clause, as it stands, would prevent a local authority from coming along with a scheme for dealing with the whole of that area.
2.15 p.m.
I imagine that probably an area like Hull or Plymouth might very well wish to put up the case to my right hon. Friend that the whole of their area is an area of extensive war damage or the whole of the area of adjacent or contiguous land. The Amendment is put down to clarify the position so that it will permit a planning authority to plan the whole of the area rather than do it in part or parts. I think that my right hon. Friend may very well accept the Amendment because it carries out the intention that he has expressed on a number of occasions.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Henry Strauss)
The case mentioned by my hon. Friend, where the whole area would have to be acquired under the procedure of this Clause, might arise, but I am advised that it is not very likely and that the words as they stand are sufficient to enable the whole area to be acquired in such a case. If my hon. Friend will withdraw the Amendment, I will undertake to look into the point and make certain that in a proper case the whole of the area could be acquired.

§ Mr. Silkin
I shall be glad if my hon. Friend will look into the matter, and on that understanding, and on the understanding that he will let me know the result of his investigations, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
I beg to move, in page 1, line 13, to leave out "shown to his satisfaction to," and to insert: whereon a large proportion of the buildings have been destroyed or. 822 The purpose of the Amendment is to obtain a better definition of what is meant by "extensive war damage." The Debate that has taken place in the Committee has clearly shown the differences between large numbers of Members on both sides. We are anxious to see war damage and obsolete areas reconstructed as soon as possible, but we are not anxious to see the planner let loose all over the country to such an extent that no one will be able to say "This is my own little home." One of the best safeguards is to relieve the anxiety in the minds of a great number of people as to whether they will be permitted to stay in their homes or shops after the war. One of the first things people will ask is whether they are living in or adjacent to an area of extensive war damage, and if we could obtain from the Minister a definition of an area of extensive war damage, it would set the minds of many people at rest and they could feel they would not be interfered with. I am not suggesting that the words of my Amendment are the best that can be obtained, but they do give an idea of what an area of extensive war damage is. I want to know, first, what the word "extensive" means. Does it mean blocks of houses which have been destroyed? Suppose four or five houses are down, are the occupiers entitled to any reasonable belief that they can rebuild them? Such owners are worried and want to know whether they will be able to rebuild under the War Damage Act or will have to go somewhere else. I wish the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks) were here, because he said. in all good faith, how nice it must be for a person to be told that he is to be taken out of his shop and given a more luxurious place when planning has been carried out. If, however, you asked the average man whether he would rather stay in his shop, or have a more luxurious shop produced by the planning authority elsewhere, you would find that he would rather stay in his present place.
I would also like a definition of "war damage." A great many people are worried whether they are going to have a cost of works payment or a value payment, or, indeed, any payment. Some are saying that they will be lucky if they get anything. I think they are wrong, for they will get a certain amount, but nothing near the value of their property. When they get a cost-of-works notice, 823 they will say, "Thank goodness, for it means that we shall be able to repair our houses or shops after the war." Now comes this Bill with the best of intentions, but it will create a great deal of anxiety, and these people will say, "We have been put put of our worries so far as war damage is concerned, but now comes the planning authority which says it is going to acquire the area of extensive war damage, and we wonder whether we come under that area or not." If the area is blitzed completely, they obviously come under it, but there are large areas in London of which it can be said that they are areas of extensive war damage, but they are all repairable and the areas are well designed. Will they be regarded as areas of extensive war damage under the Bill? I do not think that my right hon. Friend wants to give greater anxiety to a greater number of people than he is bound to give anxiety to, and he should, therefore, make some attempt to define the words.

§ Commander Bower (Cleveland)
I wish to support the Amendment, though I am not convinced that its wording is the best that could have been devised. At the same time, I think that it goes a long way to removing certain uncertainties in the Bill. I support the Amendment, not only for the reasons advanced by my hon. and gallant Friend, but because I am not enamoured of the words of the Bill, which say of the Minister that it "must be shown to his satisfaction." In the last year or two we have had too many of these "Ministerial satisfactions. I fail to see why Bills of this sort, which are, after all, Measures to bridge the time between war and peace, should perpetuate these Ministerial satisfactions, of which many people have had unpleasant experience. The reason why most of us are here to-day is the satisfaction of the Home Secretary that we ought not to be shut up in the Isle of Man. It would be equally open to him to see that we were put away. I suggest that on every occasion when this phrase appears in a Bill it should be challenged and always omitted unless it is proved, to be absolutely necessary. I know it will be said that it has been used before, but I see no reason why it should be perpetuated.

§ Major Thorneycroft
Does my hon. and gallant Friend mean that the 824 Minister should have nothing to do with it at all, or that the whole thing should be subject to the courts?

§ Commander Bower
That is exactly the point I am making. The case might arise where an individual who has been expropriated might consider that his property was not damaged within the meaning of the Act, and the Minister might take the opposite view. Only in the most exceptional circumstances should the Minister be the judge in cases of that sort. I am all for people having free access to the courts of law and the independent judiciary. There is too much of making Ministers judges in their own cases.

§ Mr. Moelwyn Hughes
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will reject the Amendment, if only for the reasons which have been adduced. It is true, as the hon. and gallant Member for Cleveland (Commander Bower) said, that the phrase "shown to his satisfaction" has been employed in other Acts of Parliament and that in some connotations it has been subject to criticism, but it seems to me that it is the right and proper form to adopt here. We have set up a Minister of Town and Country Planning, and it is his job, having been appointed, to have something to do with town and country planning. The Clause deals with areas of extensive war damage, and if we omit the words to which the hon. and gallant Member objects the claim of a planning authority that an area was an area of extensive war damage will be enough. The Clause is designed to say that that shall not be enough, but that the authority must not only claim that an area is an area of extensive war damage, but it must be shown to the Minister that it is so. There must be some kind of central control in a Bill of this kind. The complaint that we have on this side is that there is not nearly enough of it. It is essential here in order that this shall be a planning Clause.
I take no objection to the wording of the Amendment. One could easily make some comment on the fact that both the hon. and gallant Members who have spoken have confessed to the weakness in the language, but I will not pursue it. Both the Amendment and the arguments which supported it would reduce, not only this Clause, but the whole Bill to 825 a nullity. We were given an example earlier to-day of the fatuity of planning where it was done in pieces. If we accepted the argument of the hon. and gallant Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Col. Dower), the only planning we should have would be of those parts of towns which have been completely flattened out.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
I cannot have the hon. and learned Member putting words into my mouth which are not correct. I do not agree with him in the least. I want to have planning in all the areas of extensive war damage, or in what we understand to be areas of extensive war damage, and in obsolete areas, but I do not want planning all over the country.

§ Mr. Hughes
Planning all over the country has been effectively prevented by the rejection of the Amendment we discussed prior to this one. We are dealing now with areas of extensive war damage, and the suggestion is that we have to add the limiting provision: whereon a large proportion of the buildings have been destroyed. That means to say that you have to limit your planning to places where a large proportion of the buildings have gone. The Minister may consent to allow the planning authority to acquire an old building here or there where it is surrounded by rubble, but when it comes to a bigger extension than that, unless the proportion is large, you cannot include it in an area of extensive war damage. That was the whole purport of his speech.
I commend to his attention some of the replanning schemes which have been elaborated for places like Plymouth and Swansea, where one can see exactly what damage has taken place, and exactly how the planning authority proposes to rebuild. If the Amendment were accepted, very little of Plymouth and Swansea would get the benefit of Clause 1. All that would get it would be an odd patch here and there. It is bad enough for it to be limited to the area of extensive war damage but when, inside that, you have to limit your planning to places where a large proportion has been completely destroyed, you cease to have even a semblance of a plan or an approach to the rebuilding of a city as it should be 826 done. I hope that the Committee will reject the Amendment.

§ Mr. Mack
When I look at the names of the hon. Members who support the Amendment, I am almost forced to the belief that they have a suspicion that the Minister will be inclined to be too broadminded and tolerant in respect of this part of the Bill. The words employed relate to land shown to the satisfaction of the Minister to have sustained war damage: who are the people who will show the Minister? I suggest that they will be the authority of the town or city concerned, and will be comprised of people of all political opinions, and various interests, business and otherwise. Because of their local knowledge and close, understanding of the situation they will be well equipped to pass a general judgment on the matters concerned and, in turn, to pass that judgment on to the Minister. Is it suggested that the Minister will be very narrow or, alternatively, too wide, in his application of his powers?
Then there is the question, What constitutes "a large proportion"? The Amendment proposes to insert words relating to a large proportion of buildings which have been destroyed, but the proportion may be over a half in some cases and only a quarter in others, or, in the centre of some blitzed cities, it may be even more than a half, anything up to 80 or 90 per cent. of the property, damaged extensively or destroyed as a result of enemy operations. I think we ought to have sufficient confidence in the Minister to give him power to act with the local people who can not only present him with a scheme of redevelopment but can acquaint the Minister with all the details appertaining thereto. The Amendment seems to cast a reflection on the Minister. If the Minister is to carry out this work successfully, he will do so only after the closest consultation with the local people, who are much better qualified even than he is to understand the needs of their localities. I do not feel there is any point in the Amendment or that this Committee would be well advised to support it.

§ Major Sir George Davies (Yeovil)
A good deal of what we have been discussing is not really germane to the Amendment. The mover said that he was not wedded to the wards, but he is certainly wedded to the cutting out of certain words. The 827 Amendment does not cover the extent of the "large proportion," whether it is a half or only 25 per cent. of the places that have been destroyed. The real point is: Who is to decide whether an area has suffered extensive war damage? The mover of the Amendment has merely put up a warning sign that he has no use for this sort of decision being left in the ħands of the Minister. But the Amendment takes it from the hands of the Minister and leaves it in the air, like Mahomet's coffin. It does not say who is to decide, and whether we are to hold the Minister responsible for saying what is or is not an area of extensive war damage. I have no more use for bureaucracy on the Front Bench than have other hon. Members, but is seems to me that it is only common sense on this issue, to leave it as the Clause provides, which is that the Minister should be responsible. It is unthinkable that he would say that a space of five acres in the centre of London in which only two small buildings were damaged was an area of extensive war damage, and it is also unthinkable to leave a decision of that sort to the courts. It should be left to the commonsense provisions of our own constitution which hold the Minister in charge responsible for these things. We shall make a mistake if we accept the Amendment.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
Is it not advisable that the Minister should give some final indication in the Bill of what is an area of extensive war damage?

§ Sir G. Davies
That is a counsel of perfection, because it is impossible to decide in advance. Each matter must be decided on its merits. There might be a place full of little narrow streets which you would be only too glad to get rid of, and, as there is substantial damage there, you declare it to be an area which should be opened up. We have to leave the decision somewhere and I think that it should be where the Bill provides, and that is, with the Minister.

§ Mr. Manningham-Buller (Daventry)
For once, I am able to say that I am in agreement with the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Moelwyn Hughes). It seems to me that the Amendment is misconceived. The words "an area of extensive war damage" are only a label to be attached as a description, 828 and I do not think they can be improved upon. War damage is defined by the War Damage Act, 1943. The local authority has to show that part of their area has, to the satisfaction of the Minister, sustained war damage and should, together with other land adjacent thereto, be laid out afresh and re-developed as a whole. If those conditions are satisfied, then that area is labelled "an area of extensive war damage." I must confess that I do not think there is any need to alter the Bill at all, and it seems to me that this is one of the best drafted parts of the Bill. I therefore hope that the Amendment will not be accepted.

§ Mr. Henry Strauss
I cannot advise the Committee to accept the Amendment, and I find myself in substantial agreement with the two fellow-lawyers who have spoken from opposite sides of the Committee. It was frankly admitted by the seconder that the effect of the Amendment would be to transfer the decision as to what constituted extensive war damage to the courts, but the reason why that would be most unsatisfactory was given by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Yeovil (Sir G. Davies) and others. It would be impossible to leave this question to the courts with the possibility that if the courts took a different view from the Minister, the whole Clause 1 Order could be upset. My hon. Friend who moved the Amendment said that he was not wedded to his own words, but I think whatever words of the kind he tried would have the same effect. It is not only the extent of the war damage which matters, but its distribution, which has a vital effect upon the area to be declared under the Clause. He did not suggest any possibility of defining what he meant by "a large proportion" and I do not think that the courts, if it were left to them. would find the words easy to construe.
Let me point out what the Minister has to be satisfied of, before an order can be made under the Clause. He has to be satisfied that three conditions have been fulfilled. The first is that the area defined by the order contains land which has sustained war damage. Secondly, he has to be satisfied that any other land in the area must be adjacent thereto, or contiguous as the result of an amendment which will later be moved to the Clause. The third requirement is that 829 the Minister must be satisfied that it is requisite for the purpose of dealing satisfactorily with extensive war damage that the area designated should be laid out afresh and redeveloped as a whole. Whether the damage is extensive has to be determined by the Minister. I suggest to the Committee that it must be the Minister alone who can make that determination. I do not know whether I can comfort my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the amendment by drawing his attention to a later Clause which is very relevant to one of the things which he had in mind, namely, the uncertainty in the mind of the owner of war damaged property.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
The owner including a leaseholder?

§ Mr. Strauss
I do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend had Clause 27 in mind in moving his Amendment; if he had he would know that it modifies the hardship very considerably for the owner of war damaged property. The only other matter to which I would allude before I advise the Committee to reject the Amendment is the supposition that seems to underlie some of the speeches made in support of the Amendment, that there would be no opportunity for anybody to object to a Clause I order. That is, of course, not the case at all. I think the Committee as a whole is satisfied that it is not practicable if we are to make good progress in dealing with war damaged areas, to have the main question settled, not by the Minister but by the court. For the reasons I have given, and which were given by hon. Members who preceded me, I would invite the Committee to reject the Amendment.

§ Mr. Nunn (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West)
There is one question which disturbs me a little, and I think a satisfactory answer might go some way towards satisfying my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Colonel Dower). It will be observed in line 14 that the Minister has to be satisfied that the area has sustained war damage, but the marginal note, which is not operative in law, refers to "extensive war damage." I wonder whether the Parliamentary Secretary could explain why there is that curious difference between the marginal note and the matter in the Clause?

§ Mr. Strauss
I think the answer is simple. If the hon. Member will look at line 23, he will find that the areas which we have been discussing are there defined as an "area of extensive war damage," and it is an area so defined to which references are made in the Bill, and therefore though the marginal note will not affect the construction, I would add in defence of the marginal note that I think it is quite right.

§ Mr. Nunn
May I then—

§ The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams)
I am not sure we can discuss marginal notes here. I think we had better get on with the Amendment.

§ Mr. W. S. Morrison
I beg to move, in page 1, line 15, after "land," insert "contiguous or."
I understand this is a matter which has caused a certain amount of hilarity among some of my hon. Friends on account of the language difficulty, but the point of it is really quite simple. As it stands in the Bill the word used is "adjacent," and it is thought that, perhaps, on a very strict and meticulous interpretation of the word "adjacent," one would be prevented from adding to these areas a piece of land which was separated physically from the main body by some such thing as a road, or a little park, or open space. By adding the word "contiguous," which does mean "touching," another and wider meaning is given to "adjacent," and consequently it is a more apt description of the power which is sought to add land necessary to make a proper project of the whole reconstruction.

§ Mr. Pickthorn (Cambridge University)
The late Mr. Arthur Balfour was once reproached for making fine distinctions and he explained that distinction, like anything else, was all the better for being fine. I think that is true; and in this fine distinction I should have thought the Committee ought to have been a little clearer on which side of the line either of the two words lies. If I understand my right hon. Friend's remarks, he seemed to be making a distinction which is the opposite of the natural one, and I really think we ought to have the point perfectly clear. In the ordinary use of language, and with all due respect to anyone who 831 has a dictionary in his pocket, it would appear to me that "contiguous" means something actually touching, and that "adjacent" means something near, though there may be some small rift between it and the point of reference. My right hon. Friend seemed to take exactly the opposite line. I think if we are to put these words in the Bill, we ought to be quite sure of their meaning and intention.

§ Sir Joseph Lamb (Stone)
How will this affect the Amendment which is down in my name to leave out "adjacent there to," and insert "in the vicinity thereof"? I did raise the point with your predecessor in the Chair, Mr. Williams, and he said that it would be convenient if both questions were discussed at the same time.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
The hon. Gentleman's Amendment is not selected, but I suggest that as it is merely a question of wording, he might discuss his point here and the grounds on which he thinks he has the better words.

§ Sir J. Lamb
I am much obliged. I do not think there is much difference between us with regard to the object we have in view. It is a question of the selection of words. Words are used to convey meaning but they do not convey the same meaning to all minds. Particularly, I understand, all legal men do not attach the same meaning to the words "contiguous" and "adjacent," and there has been a considerable amount of litigation on this particular question. Consequently, if legally trained minds can find differences which are material in the construction of these words, we should give consideration to what words we use. The Minister is proposing to put in the Bill "contiguous or adjacent thereto." I am told that the legal men now say that will cause difficulties, and I am assured it would be much better if the words suggested in my Amendment were put in. I am rather strengthened in this by what the Minister is proposing to do in an Amendment he has down to Clause 10, I must not discuss the Amendment, but I think I am entitled to refer to words he is using in his Amendment in page 15, line 27. The words are "in the neighbourhood of." I think" in the vicinity thereof" is not much different from that. We have not 832 had the advantage of knowing what the legal men say against that, but we have the advantage of knowing their objection to the word which it is proposed to put in. If the Minister would care to use my words as against his I should be perfectly happy. I have paid him the compliment of copying him as nearly as I can without infringing any copyright.

§ Sir P. Harris
If my right hon. Friend wants to put in the two words I am satisfied, but "contiguous" is no adequate substitute. I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) that "adjacent" is wider than "contiguous." If he likes to keep both words I shall be satisfied.

§ The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell)
I think this is all right. Let me explain what we are doing, and why we are doing it. The Bill, as originally drafted, contained simply the word "adjacent." It was suggested in some quarters that that might be narrowly construed as meaning ".touching" when in fact it stood alone. We, therefore, decided to add the word "contiguous," and the Bill as amended will read "contiguous or adjacent." In that context it is quite obvious that "adjacent" must have its normal wider meaning and could not be considered as simply meaning touching. This has been looked at carefully by the draftsmen from the point of view of the legal decisions to which my hon. Friend has referred. I think it is all right. My hon. Friend said that legally "contiguous or adjacent" might still cause difficulties. If he will give us the benefit of that advice and the grounds upon which it is based we will certainly look at it again, but we are certain we are right. It is purely a drafting point.

§ Mr. Manningham-Buller
Has not the word "adjacent" been considered in the courts? I seem to remember a case which went before the Lord Chief Justice where it was held that "adjacent" meant touching, if my recollection is right. It does not seem to me that the meaning of the word "adjacent" will be in any way altered by prefacing it with the words "contiguous or," which seem to me to mean the same thing.

§ The Attorney-General
That is where I differ from my hon. Friend. It is because the word "adjacent" stands alone, that it might be considered, not in 833 its ordinary sense but in a narrow sense "touching," that "contiguous" should be put in. I hope the Committee will let us have the Amendment, and I will look at it again to see if there is any doubt about it.

§ Sir J. Lamb
Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman not reconsider his decision and accept the words which I suggest make the position quite clear? If he did so he would have an opportunity to give further consideration to the matter.

§ Mr. Erskine-Hill (Edinburgh, North)
Would my right hon. and learned Friend consider whether it might not be a good plan to adopt the suggestion in the Amendment of the hon. Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb), but instead of leaving out "adjacent thereto," put in "adjacent thereto or in the vicinity thereof"? That seems to get both points and settle the matter satisfactorily.

§ The Attorney-General
I think the words suggested are not the best, but I will undertake to consider all the various permutations and combinations of the words on the Order Paper.

§ Mr. Woodburn
Can we have an assurance that the Minister will not interpret the words too strictly when he comes to decide on a case?

§ Mr. W. S. Morrison
I beg to move, in page 1, line 19, to leave out "within," and to insert "before the expiration of".
The object of the Amendment is to take the period of five years in which local authorities must decide whether to submit Orders under Clause 1, not from the passing of the Act but from a date to be appointed. I hope the Committee will agree that this is a wise precaution. We are legislating in a period of war for peace. The date of the passing of the Act, and the time when it is appropriate for local authorities to commence these applications, are both unknown to us, and local authorities themselves are very hard pressed with all sorts of work at the moment, and I think it would be better to have the appointed day instead of merely the effluxion of time taken to pass the Bill. The intention is, of course, to call upon local authorities as soon as is reasonably possible for them to set about the work of submitting these Orders, so 834 that when the time to rebuild comes the work can proceed as rapidly as possible.

§ Mr. Woodburn
I would like to ask the Minister how he explains that the change of words will accomplish the object of his Amendment of extending the time.

§ Mr. Morrison
This is introductory to another Amendment which says "before the expiration of a certain period."

§ Mr. Craven-Ellis (Southampton)
This is a Clause which provides that the local authority shall acquire land within five years. The point I want to raise is this. Supposing Mr. A. has a plot of land upon which his property has been destroyed, which is adjacent to or contiguous to other land, which is also to be acquired; if he desires to proceed with the development of his site, will he be prevented from doing it for five years, because the local authority have not made up their minds regarding the adjacent plot?

§ Mr. Morrison
The date which we are proposing in this Amendment deals with the time limit within which a local planning authority must submit one of these Class 1 orders for confirmation. It is the duty of the local authority to make it run from the date to be fixed instead of from the passing of the Act. That is all it is.

§ Mr. Craven-Ellis
I am sorry, but that is not a reply to my question. It does not remove the uncertainty of Mr. "A." Mr. "A" is still liable to be held up for five years. He may submit his plan to a local authority who may disapprove of it on the ground of the hypothetical case that within five years they may desire to purchase the site.

§ Mr. Morrison
That is dealt with in Clause 27 of the Bill, which gives the owner certain rights against the local authority—to make the local authority make up its mind about purchasing a property.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
As the next two Amendments deal with the question of time I suggest that we now have a discussion on the number of years to cover both.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
I beg to move. in page 1, line 20, to leave out "five," and insert "two." 835 This is an Amendment of some substance and it is one about which a great many hon. Members feel very strongly. I have not yet heard once from my hon. Friends above the Gangway a single doubt expressed of the very serious anxiety which a large number of people will feel as to the scope of this Bill. Whereas they have shown that earnestness which I admire in the brave planning which they would like to see carried out, they have avoided completely saying how much, and in what way, they are concerned with those unfortunate people who will unquestionably be displaced and for whom there will be no alternative accommodation. It is all very well to say that you are going to clear an area, and take an overspill area for the people who are displaced, but in nine times out of ten, you would displace those people who, in turn, would displace somebody else, and so it would go on like a rolling stone. Therefore, I feel that I am justified in saying that this period should be limited in conformity with the object that the Minister has in mind.
I do not intend to repeat my arguments on the desirability of this, but one or two points may have escaped hon. Members above the Gangway. Not only is there the doubt and uncertainty of the business man whether he can build up his goodwill after the war. He has probably been called up and has lost everything. He has to start all over again, and the first thing he is going to say is "Now that the war is over, perhaps they will leave me in peace." But his worry will be immense, if the next day, or a few days after, he is told "I do not know whether your shop is going to be acquired, but I have heard a rumour that there is a plan in some back room which will have the effect of sweeping you away." That raises all kinds of issues. Is he entitled to give notice under his lease? Is he entitled to look for other premises? The first thing that man will want to do is to get away to an area where he will feel safe, where he will be left alone and where he can get on recovering all the damage the war has done to him. These are reasons why I want to see the period of uncertainty limited to as short a time as possible.
Then, again, we are told that we have to encourage enterprise after the war. We are told that the State is going to 836 encourage all kinds of enterprise, that private enterprise is to be made healthy and that it will play an important part in the new world. I can tell my right hon. Friend that it will play an important part in this country after the war. We believe in individual enterprise. Under this Bill, there will be doubt for five years in a large number of areas whether they will be included in its scope, and there will be no development. There will be no extension of businesses, and no risks will be taken if the people concerned cannot feel security behind them. Hon. Members, I am sure, will agree with me that to have a long lease behind one gives one security, and enables one to get on with the job. With a short lease, one does not feel like doing anything. Nobody knows where they will be in a short time. Unless this period is limited to the shortest possible space of time, a lot of harm will be done, not only in homes and businesses, but by paralysing the development of industry and of trade.
I think I would also be justified in saying that there will be a hold-up in the repair of bomb damage work. I do not know whether hon. Members above the Gangway will agree with me, but I am told by people who have done a lot of bomb damage work that they seldom get all the repairs paid for out of the War Damage Commission. Owners have to put their hands into their own pockets. I do not think that householders who feel that their homes are going to be taken under this Bill will be inclined to get on with repairs. I think they will let them go, and will not maintain the property. They are not going to take the trouble to put the property into good condition, when it is to be knocked down in a short time. There will be a feeling of uncertainty in every big area in this country. The least the Minister can do is to reduce that period of uncertainty—which is created just at a time when we do not want uncertainty—to the very minimum.
The object of my right hon. Friend's Bill, I gather, was to get on with the job. Is it encouraging to the planning authorities to get on with their job if there is uncertainty for five years? It is an exaggeration to suggest that for five years they should do nothing, but a lot of planning authorities will have that in mind. They will say that on the last day 837 of the fifth year they will be able to say "This is the area we want." We want to see these areas designated at the first available moment, so that the people who are to be affected will know where they stand and will be able to make alternative arrangements, and so that the planning and reconstruction of these particular areas can be brought about as soon as possible. I do not want to take up the time of the Committee unduly, and I think I have made my points. I know that other hon. Members of this Committee feel with me that this period should be reduced and that the shorter the period the less harm it will do the country. I would ask my right hon. Friend to see whether he cannot consider this Amendment. We want private enterprise to be able to get on with restoration after the war, and we want planning as quickly as we can get it. Above all, we want to finish with this period of paralysis and uncertainty which is bound to arise after the cessation of hostilities.

§ Mr. Lewis
On a point of Order. You intimated, Mr. Williams, that you thought it desirable to discuss this Amendment and the following one together. I submit that it might be helpful to the Committee if we also discussed the Amendment after that, in the name of the Minister, which deals with the date for making applications. That would give my right hon. Friend an opportunity of telling us what he has in mind about appointing a day. If he had in mind a day two years after the end of the war, that would make the period of five years one of seven years. It is very difficult to discuss the length of the period, when we do not know when the period is going to begin.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
I am in the hands of the Committee, but it strikes me that the length of the time and the day are quite separate points, and I think it would be better to discuss them separately. That would seem to me a more practical method.

§ Mr. Manningham-Buller
I desire to support the Amendment of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penrith (Lieut-Colonel Dower), although not for exactly the same reasons as those which he advanced. It seems to me that five years is a very long time to allow a local authority to put forward an application for an Order from the Minister that an area should be treated as one of war 838 damage. We all want to get reconstruction effected as speedily as possible. It is my experience that if you give people a long time in which to do things they are not apt to move very speedily. It is from that angle that I support the Amendment. I am in favour of the period being cut down to two years. It seems to me that in that period any efficient, able, and industrious local authority can do all that it is required to do under the Clause. Let us consider what it has to do. It has to make an application for an Order that an area is one of extensive war damage, which requires to be laid out afresh. It has to submit that application with maps and plans, showing the lay-out and what is required to be done. I should have thought that the majority of local authorities would be in a position to submit such an application to the Minister within one year with regard to any area of extensive war damage That is one ground on which I support the Amendment.
Such a long period as five years seems to me likely to defeat the real object of this part of the Bill. It would be likely to result in delaying reconstruction. Looking at it from the angle of private enterprise—assuming that Members will agree that private enterprise must be allowed to, play some part in rebuilding—what is likely to be the effect of this five years on the development of land which is adjacent to or contiguous to areas of war damage? Will any owner of such land do anything to it between now and 1949 if he thinks that there is a possibility that an application may be made in 1949 to have that land treated as an area of extensive war damage? It seems to me that the chance of the owner doing anything to such land is slight, and, therefore, the effect of making the period so long is likely to be considerable sterilisation and not reconstruction in the areas where action is most needed.

§ Mr. Hugh Lawson
As we are discussing the two Amendments which relate to the question of time, I would like to say that my Amendment, which proposes to leave out "five" and to insert "twenty," was, intended to be consequential upon a previous Amendment in my name being carried. If this Bill had been turned into a real Town Planning Bill, providing comprehensive powers, I would have thought that a longer time was necessary, but, 839 seeing that it is not going to be a real Town Planning Bill but a Bill of very limited scope, I am quite satisfied to see five years maintained as the period, because by the end of that time people will have to have another Bill.

§ Sir P. Harris
The two speeches which we have heard in favour of curtailing the time contained rather different arguments. One was based upon the argument that the Amendment would speed up the authorities and leave no hang-over. The other contained the argument that it was rather hard upon the owners to have to wait this length of time before they saw whether they could develop their property. I would remind both hon. Members that the period of five years begins from the commencement of the Act. Hon. Members seem to forget that the war is not over, and, although I do not like to say it, neither even is the danger of a blitz. I hope that I am wrong—I am on the whole an optimist—but I must say that there is a danger of this war dragging on for quite a considerable period. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs have both warned us not to be unduly optimistic. Apart from that, it would he fatal for owners of property to prejudice the redevelopment of blitzed areas by rushing forward to develop their property, thus spoiling the whole replanning of the area. I believe that the period that my right hon. Friend has proposed in the Bill is the right period. I like to support my right hon. Friend sometimes, because of my personal admiration for his character, and on this occasion I support him in retaining the words in the Bill, which I think meet the case.

§ Sir J. Mellor
I would like to support the Amendment. It seems to me that five years is an unnecessarily long time to allow for making applications, and that this would be a far better Clause if it provided for more speed in making applications and less haste in considering them. There is an extraordinary contrast between the period of five years allowed for making applications and the hasty procedure that follows. The Bill does not even provide for notice to be given as a right to the owners of the property affected.
I really think that, if there is to be so much hurry in dealing with applications, 840 there should be a shorter time for making applications. The limit will be slightly extended—we do not know how much—by the next Amendment in the name of the Minister, substituting an appointed day for the passing of the Act as the basis on which the five years will run. I think it is very undesirable that the possibility of application being made should be hanging over the heads of people affected for so long a period as five years. I support the Amendment.

§ Mr. Silkin
I think the Committee will agree that it is desirable that areas of extensive war damage should be redeveloped as quickly as possible. On the other hand, it is equally desirable that the proper preparation of schemes should not be interfered with, and the question which this Committee has to decide is what is the proper time to meet both requirements. In my view, five years is a reasonable period. It seems to me that those who advocated a shorter period have not considered seriously what is involved in submitting a scheme to the Minister. It is very easy to draw a line round an area and say "This is an area of extensive war damage," and draw another line and say "This is an area of replacement," but I think the local authorities will require to have more responsibility than that, because they have to show which area needs to be dealt with at once and have to satisfy the Minister that the hest way of dealing with it is by re-development.
Furthermore, this submission has to be accompanied by particulars showing how the area is to be redeveloped. It is not sufficient merely to say that we think it should be redeveloped; we have to show how we propose to develop it, and it is not a simple procedure. Some authorities may have quite a number of such areas to deal with, and I imagine they will want to deal with them consecutively. They will start with one area, make up their minds about that, and go on to the next and so on until they have dealt with them all.
We have also to bear in mind that the governing factor is that of staff. To prepare an area and show how it is proposed to develop it, means that a considerable staff of technical persons, who are certainly not available now and who may not be available for a long time to come, will be the governing factor, and 841 I think it ridiculous to suggest that, because they have five years, local authorities will all wait until the five years are nearly up, and submit a host of schemes to the Minister.
There is another thing. Suppose they were forced, by the acceptance of this Amendment, to submit a large number of half-baked schemes to the Minister. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]Oh, yes, half-baked schemes, without proper consideration of the way in which the area has to be redeveloped. Suppose they submit these schemes. What then? They would still not be in a position to carry out the succeeding stages. After all, it is not sufficient merely to submit a scheme to the Minister and even for the Minister to make an order. After that, you have to get your Compulsory Purchase Orders and carry out the acquisition of the properties, and may I say that, in some areas, it will be a very considerable task merely to acquire the property? I understand that, in the central area of Coventry, there are about 1,000 separate owners of property, and to have a large number of schemes prepared in this half-baked way to be dealt with by the local authorities, and for them to have to deal with the enormous amount of acquisitions involved, would not be an advantage to the property-owner, who would still have to wait until the local authority was able to deal with him. It is far better to give them a reasonable amount of time.
I am satisfied that five years is not excessive, on the assumption that the local authorities do carry out their work right throughout the period and do not wait until the last day. It will be the job of the Minister to jockey them, and to see that those authorities proposing to put up schemes do so right throughout the period. I am satisfied that it is not too long; that local authorities could not properly discharge their duties under this Bill if the period was shortened and that, in the long run, it would not be an advantage to those for whom the Movers of the Amendment speak. They would still be left in uncertainty. You might, it is true, get the scheme advanced to a certain point, but you would not get a decision any sooner, because the position is still governed by the available staff, which would still be short. I hope that, in all the circumstances, the Committee will accept the Clause as it stands.

§ Mr. Erskine-Hill
I think I could not disagree more profoundly than I do with the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin). I think he does less than justice to the local authorities, who have, after all, been studying this question for years and who have, or ought to have, plans in their minds and who ought to be perfectly willing to put their plans into operation in two years.

§ Mr. Silkin
Could I ask my hon. and learned Friend if he does not realise that, in this Clause, the local authorities are limited to areas of extensive war damage, and, until the war is over, they could not say what are the areas of extensive war damage?

§ Mr. Erskine-Hill
That may well be, but the hon. Gentleman takes a pessimistic view. He may be right or wrong, but, at any rate, the broad lines of it must be in being now and could be adjusted from time to time if further damage takes place. This Committee must recognise that, and expect the local authorities to speed up these measures as far as possible, and if, by any chance, we are wrong in making the limit two years, the Minister can easily come back to the House and say, "We find by experience that two years is not enough" and get a short amending Bill passed through the House. I think it is a perfectly reasonable limit of time.
I disagree entirely with the right hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris), who said there was nothing in the argument of the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller). What is there contradictory in saying that you must try to speed up the operation of this Bill and get the necessary work done as soon as possible and saying that the effect of putting too long a period may be to sterilise private business enterprise? In this work you want to have the local authorities working full out and business enterprise working full out, too. You want to work for every possible means of remedying the disastrous effect of war, and you can only do it if you have both business enterprise and the local authority. I think the effect of allowing the local authorities to have too long a time will be to sterilise private enterprise, because, as long as any person, who is anxious, individually, to proceed with the work, has hanging over him the possibility of compulsory acquisition by the 843 local authority, he will not be able to work with the same freedom or interest, and for that reason I support the Amendment.

§ Mr. Colegate (The Wrekin)
This Amendment brings before the Committee a very real dilemmna with which we are faced and I do not think certain hon. Members opposite have altogether realised that dilemma. Practically every manufacturer has now received from the Board of Trade an invitation to state what his factory requirements are and whether he wishes an extension or to build a new factory and in what locality. Private manufacturers, after being asked by the Board of Trade to get to work and to decide where they want the sites of their factories, are to be placed in an impossible position if they are then told "Unless you go to a non-blitzed area your plans are subject to interference during the whole of the next five years." That is a very serious position. It is important for the blitzed areas to get on with the building of new houses, but it is no good building houses for the people if there is no work for them to go to. The two things go pari passu—the house and the factory. The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) did not seem to realise that fact. He drew a picture of the difficulties of local authorities who have no prepared scheme. I am in full sympathy with him. It is difficult, but what is the position of those authorities to be if in three or four years' time they put down their plans and say, "These are dwellings, here is a church, and here is an area where factories are to be," and they turn round and find that the manufacturers want to put their factories elsewhere? It will be during the next five years, or even the next three or four years, after the end of the war that the great period of factory building will be needed, or the taking over of existing Government factories, which already the Government, through the Board of Trade, are pressing upon us now to decide. This may be a dilemma and I have not heard a suggestion of how it is to be met.
I see the very grave danger that many blitzed areas will find, too late, that factories which might have come there have already been placed elsewhere, be- 844 cause they had received a guarantee that they would be left there to develop in an undisturbed way. I ask the Minister to deal with that point and see whether some compromise is not possible on the words of the Amendment, perhaps if not two years, three years, so that when we answer the Board of Trade and give them particulars of the new factories which we want, we shall at the same time know that our work has not been wasted, and that, if we plan for a particular factory, we shall have the chance of putting it down and developing it.

§ Mr. Cocks
The last two speakers are under the impression that five years is a minimum instead of a maximum. It was suggested that every local authority who wanted to rebuild should take the maximum amount of time before they sent in their plans to the Ministry.

§ Mr. Erskine-Hill
We want to decrease the maximum time so as to ensure that the work is done in the shortest time.

§ Mr. Cocks
I am aware of that, but the assumption is that local authorities will be sluggish, slow, deliberately slow. While some people would wish to delay in improving their cities as long as they are allowed under the Bill. surely, the attitude of most local authorities—I should say all local authorities—would be to get on with the work as quickly as possible and to repair their blitzed areas. They do not want to have gaps in the middle of their town or city year after year.

§ Major Woolley (Spen Valley)
There would be an element of uncertainty over the whole period of five years even with these local authorities.

§ Mr. Cocks
Is it not the fact that local authorities would complete their plans in one or two years?

§ Mr. Colegate
They might produce a plan in one or two years, but there is nothing under the Bill to prevent them extending that plan during any of the remaining period of five years, and therefore, uncertainty would continue.

§ Mr. Cocks
In certain cases. The hon. Member is assuming that it would be five years, and I suggest that in a great many cases it would be less than that. It would be as short a term as it takes local authorities to get their plans through.

§ Sir Herbert Williams (Croydon, South)
Will it be as long as the Government took to consider the Uthwatt Report before they introduce the Bill?

§ Mr. Cocks
I do not think so. Local authorities want to rebuild their towns. It is not a question of political action, but of getting sites and rebuilding. If hon. Members would turn to Sub-sections (3) and (4) of the Clause, they will see the number of things that the local authority has to do. It has to decide what is a war damaged area and exactly how it is to be laid-out or developed. It has to produce a complete plan of internal arrangements or the intended lay-out of the surrounding locality. There is a lot of work there. We all want to see layouts and decent planning. There will naturally be a limited number of architects and expert planners who can do the work. I saw it suggested the other day that an institute should be set up to train people to help in this work. That would take a long time. I suggest that in five years, when local authorities find they cannot get their plans laid before that period, they would be allowed to do it, because they would have tried to produce their plans at an earlier period. The hon. Member opposite introduced the point about industries and said that those concerned would find, in planning a city, that there was to be an industry here, or an industry there, and the industry would have gone somewhere else. Planning is not to be done that way. The local authority would have a clear point of view as to what the industry was to be and who would occupy the factory.

§ Mr. Colegate
Surely, the hon. Member knows that many plans have already been submitted. There is the celebrated case of Letchworth, where a whole area was designated as suitable for factories and other areas where they were not allowed to put factories. They did not know at Letchworth what factories would come to them.

§ Mr. Cocks
Letchworth is a Garden City built on a countryside, but there are old and well-established towns like Coventry, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Plymouth and Bristol all of which have their industries. In most cases there is no reason to suppose that those industries would go elsewhere. Plans will no doubt be allotted to paper mills which have been there before.

§ Sir H. Williams
If the plan has not been made, they cannot do it.

§ Mr. Cocks
But do you not suppose that when the plan is being made they will be informed about the suggestions, so that they can make observations of their own on this point? That is how these things are done. If, say, the Corporation of Plymouth were to draw up their plans, they would consult local industries as to their views on the matter. All that would be brought in, together with the general plan as drawn up by the architect. It is only a matter of commonsense and, therefore, I think the five years should stand.

§ Viscount Hinchingbrooke
I hope that the Minister will take account of the powerful arguments of the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) and decide against this Amendment. There seems to have been a thread running through the Debate on this Amendment of something amounting to distrust and hostility between local authorities and industry. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate) talked about uncertainties between industry and local authorities. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Colonel Dower), who proposed the Amendment, talked rather in that vein too. I cannot understand why there should be this supposed antagonism. It is obviously going to be the case that when local authorities start planning and developing their schemes they will take into account all the industrial needs of their own community. I had a case in my constituency last week where a local body is considering plans for the future of the constituency after the war. The first thing they do is to invite industrial representatives to come and consult with them as to whether they will take sites, what prospects there are for putting up factories, and so on, and all this planning which will take place will take into account all the needs of industry. Therefore I do not understand the fear that their needs will not be satisfied.

§ Mr. Colegate
I do not hink we have any distrust of local authorities. I do not think my Noble Friend has quite got the point. Let me take a case. The Board of Trade is offering particular factories. Will anyone give us an assurance 847 that if we take a particular factory, it will not be affected by town planning? There is no distrust of the local authority, it is just a fact that the uncertainty is there, as it must be under this Bill.

§ Viscount Hinchingbrooke
My hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment used words like this, "We want the period to be as short as two years so that the local authority's plan can be completed and the least harm is thus done to the country." There is a kind of fear on the part of some hon. Members that the planning must be done as soon as possible to get rid of the idea of local authorities having anything to do with planning—

Hon. Members
No, no—

§ Mr. Colegate
Answer my question.

§ Viscount Hinchingbrooke
—and then let private enterprise come in and take over. That is a most unhappy state of affairs. The two things must go hand in hand. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham in what he said about the complexity of all this planning. We have only to look at the second page of the Bill to see the various stages which have to be gone through in very great detail before anything can be done. There is no doubt of this; it is laid down there at great length, and we shall debate it in due course. Obviously these things are going to take a great deal of time. Many local authority officials, architects, builders and town planners are still in the Forces and are unable to be released.

§ Mr. Manningham-Buller
May I ask the Noble Lord one question? He said that all these things will take a long time, but I understood from his previous remarks that there was some area of extensive war damage in his constituency in respect of which planning was almost complete at the present moment.

§ Viscount Hinchingbrooke
It is not what could be described as extensive damage, although I am happy to say that Weymouth claims the honour of having received the first blows of the blitz in the summer of 1940. However that may be, I want to say that I support my hon. Friend and those who press the Minister to see that this period is not reduced to two years.

§ Mr. Pickthorn
It seems to me that the Committee is getting into a rather ironic situation. I, myself, have never had any very great passion for the van of progress. Fond as I am of pigs, the first of the Gaderene swine was never my prime favourite; but to-day we have had all the spokesmen of the van of progress, one after the other, not so much urging us to whip up their van, but urging us that they must take longer and longer before even they decide whether they wish to put the horses in facing North or South. Everything that has been said by those who urge progress and revolution upon us has been along the line that we really cannot expect even local authorities to begin making up their minds about the sort of plan they want for a very long period. One hon. Gentleman opposite even seemed to suggest that the thing was going to take generations, because as far as I could gather from him, you could not expect the local authorities to do it until Professor Abercrombie had trained young gentlemen to come and tell them how to do it. As one who has spent much of his time trying to train young gentlemen to do much easier things than planning England, I can tell the hon. Gentleman opposite that it cannot be done in five minutes; it wants very much longer.
The Noble Lord the Member for Southern Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) seemed to find and hostility and controversy in the oddest places. He seemed to find it among those who suggest that the figure "2" is a smaller figure than the figure "5." I do not know how he worked it out in his own mind, but that seemed to him to be evidence of a most regrettable state of hostility to local authorities—that two years should be thought a shorter period than five years. I am very sorry for the Noble Lord's proclivity for finding reprehensible motives in the minds of others. The fact is that two years is a shorter period than five years, and it is quite clear that, if for five years owners and persons interested in land and buildings in a particular district cannot be sure of what is to happen to that land and buildings, there will be a longer period of uncertainty than there would be if the period of two years were taken. I cannot really demonstrate this now to the Noble Lord because that would be taking up the time of the rest of the Committee perhaps 849 excessively, but I do beg him to believe that that is the fact.

§ Viscountess Astor
May I ask what is the fact?

§ Mr. Pickthorn
That two is less than five.

§ Viscountess Astor
No wonder the hon. Gentleman never taught the boys anything.

§ Sir H. Williams
I cannot understand why it is that people who dub themselves "progressive," are always in favour of dilatoriness. All the support for five years so far comes from the young Pinks and the old Reds. After all, we had an intolerabe period of delay before the production of this Bill. The situation is tragic, and if this Bill became law tomorrow, over wide areas of our country nobody could build anything, either factory or house. Unless we force people, by giving them a time limit, to make decisions, the tragedy will continue. It is true that many wise local authorities Lave been thinking out what they propose to do, and the foreseeing ones will be able to do it, I think, in two years, because, after all, it is not requisite in the two years to come along with the complete plan. However, you should come along with what I will call the negative part of your plan, that part in which you say "Thou shalt not build a factory here" and "Thou shalt not put a road there." The primary decisions of town and country planning are the negative decisions, leaving people free to get on with the rest. But if we are held back by people who think they are progressive we shall have vast unemployment in this country and no houses.

§ Captain Cobb (Preston)
My right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) was under a complete misapprehension when he expressed the view that if the period were reduced from five years to two it would lead to a great deal of hasty and ill-considered development. That fear is completely unfounded. The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) appeared to think that within this period of two years a local authority will be expected to present detailed schemes of development, but that is not my reading of the Bill. I imagine that the sort of schemes for which the Minister's approval will be sought will be schemes very much like those which my 850 hon. Friends and I who served on the London County Council Housing Committee for many years used to present to the Minister of Health before having areas scheduled as slum clearance areas. But when we submitted those schemes for the Minister's approval, and obtained it, they were not in any sense detailed schemes; they were schemes showing the general plan which the authority expected to carry out and that, surely, will be the procedure which will be adopted for the blitzed and blighted areas. Many hon. Members appear to think that this reduction from five years to two constitutes an attack on the local authorities.
Some Members have gone so far as to infer that every local authority walks about with a halo over its head and never does any wrong. That may be true of a great number of local authorities—I was a member of an extremely good one for five years; it is not such a good one now, because it has changed its party colour—but we know that there is a number of local authorities in the country which cannot possibly be considered good, progressive or efficient. A great number consist of members who, without knowing it, have been dead for many years and it will be in the hands of those local authorities to carry out these schemes. I cannot see why there should be such a violent difference of opinion between Members as has been shown in this Debate. Surely we all have the same object in view. We want to enable these areas to return to the sort of life which they led previously, or rather, to return to a better laid-out life, with the least possible delay, and it would be good value to insist that those local authorities shall make up their minds more quickly. It is because I want these schemes to be presented as early as possible that I support the Amendment.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Sir Cuthbert Headlam (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North)
I would like to ask the Minister what are the powers, if any, that he has to hurry up a local authority which has been dilatory? I think a good deal depends upon that. I do not believe that local authorities are likely to be dilatory; I think they will try to get their towns going again as soon as possible and, therefore, I do not view with any real fear this period of five years. But, as has just been said, there may be some local authorities who are dead without knowing it, and it should 851 be possible for the Minister to remind them that they are alive.

§ Mr. Lewis
The hon. Member for Peck-ham (Mr. Silkin) laid great stress on the difficulties in which local authorities would find themselves in attempting to prepare schemes owing to the shortage of skilled staff. The Noble Lord the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) was impressed by the same argument. No doubt that would be a very powerful argument if the Bill were to remain as it is now printed but the Minister has intimated, by an Amendment which he has placed on the Order Paper, that he does not propose that the Bill should remain as it is. He proposes to substitute for the words the commencement of this Act, the words such date as the Minister may by order appoint … That completely disposes of that argument. The Minister will not choose the appointed day until local authorities have their skilled staffs. If it is practicable for them to make applications it seems that two years is not an unreasonable time. I think two years will not be reasonable if it was from the commencement of the Act but with the intimation that the Minister has given that he proposes to move an Amendment later the case for the Amendment we are now discussing is immensely strengthened.

§ Mr. Molson
My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) has frequently referred to one of the Government's difficulties being that there are lunatic fringes on both sides of the House, and by a strange coincidence when one looks at the Order Paper one sees two Amendments standing together—one in the name of Members representing the Common Wealth Party, and the other in the name of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Colonel Dower) and some of his friends. I think the Government on this occasion should stand on their original intention which, I think, represents the happy mean between the two points of view. [An HON. MEMBER: "Between what?"]The happy mean between the two lunatic fringes.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
May I ask, Major Milner, to whom the hon. Member was referring when he said "lunatic," 852 and whether it is in Order to refer to an hon. Member as a lunatic?

§ Mr. Molson
I was referring to fringes, Major Milner. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) made quite plain his own attitude towards this Bill when he talked about the Gadarene swine. I think the Government will realise that as regards a considerable number of supporters of this Amendment it is intended to be a wrecking Amendment.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
I can assure my hon. Friend that it is not intended to be a wrecking Amendment in any sense of the word. It has two objects—to get rid of slothfulness in planning and to reduce the period of anxiety.

§ Mr. Molson
In that case I apologise to my hon. and gallant Friend. I had not previously associated him with zeal in the cause of planning. I fully accept, and welcome, the explanation he has given. I say to him that some of those who have been interested in this matter for some time, and who are not ashamed to call ourselves "Progressives," do not believe that it is necessarily a good thing to be in too much of a hurry and to ask local authorities to prepare effective plans for the whole of their blitzed areas, and areas adjacent thereto, and do it within two years. What is being asked for in this Amendment is that plans shall be prepared and laid before the Minister.

§ Sir H. Williams
No, read what it says. No precise plan is required but the general nature of the development. It is quite different.

§ Mr. Molson
I would ask my hon. Friend to read Sub-sections (3) and (4) of the Clause that he is proposing to amend. When an Amendment is moved which is going to require the local authorities to make this application to the Minister of Town and Country Planning within two years, it is necessary for them to comply with the various requirements of this Clause. Therefore it is necessary for them to have made the plans and prepared maps before they make applications to the Minister. As my Noble Friend has pointed out, these blitzed areas were blitzed in the course of the war. During that time a very large number of officials who would be concerned with the replanning of the 853 town have been in the Army, and it is only fair and reasonable to allow these local authorities a reasonable time in which to make their plans. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will resist the Amendment, which would only have the effect of limiting the discretion of the local authorities. I do not believe there is any need to limit their discretion in order to bring home to them the urgency of the task that has been forced upon them by enemy action.

§ Mr. Craik Henderson (Leeds, North-East)
I think it is unfortunate that the last speaker, in discussing an Amendment which many of us support because we believe it will be to the advantage not only of the planning authorities themselves but to the people for whom they plan, should have felt justified in making the charge that he did against those who support the Amendment. There is always the danger with planners that they get so obsessed with planning that they forget that the plans are on behalf of people. The persons here on whose behalf they are planning are those in the blitzed areas. These people want to know where they can erect factories and houses. The areas also want to attract new industries. You cannot attract new industries with five years' uncertainty hanging over their heads; they will not know for five years where they can go and what they can do. I hope my right hon. Friend will carefully consider this Amendment, because we shall be doing a grave injustice to the blitzed areas if we do not reduce the period to as short a time as possible.

§ Mr. W. S. Morrison
Perhaps it will assist the Committee if I intervene in this brisk and interesting skirmish to try to indicate how the argument has appeared to me. What we are dealing with are areas of extensive war damage, and it is to them that we are applying the procedure outlined in Clause 1. I think my hon. Friends have to some extent concentrated only on one aspect of the Clause 1 procedure but it really tries to achieve two things at the same time. It tries, by dealing with an application for the area as a whole and settling the project for good and all, to effect a certain amount of expedition in the necesary compulsory acquisition. The other feature of the process is equally, if not more, important, that when the battered cities are restored they shall be 854 restored upon a proper plan which makes it a more worthy place to live in, and it is from that point of view that I would ask the Committee seriously to ponder the position we are in. The limit that the local authority is given is five years, during which time it shall submit its application with all the particulars required. If you reduce that to a period too short for them to make a proper job of it you will very often get applications for too much land, because they have not had time to work out how the roads and everything else should go, and you will get in some cases an ill-digested application which will not result in a proper plan owing to land having been taken and people dispossessed and then being given back by the local authority, whereas if they have adequate time you will achieve something of great interest to private as well as public enterprise, that is to say a certain amount of precision in planning.

§ Sir H. Williams
If some local authority goes on till four years after the appointed day when not one brick has been laid on another, there will be a riot in the town.

§ Mr. Morrison
I am coming to that aspect of it very soon. I ask hon. Members, in the interests of enterprise and business security, not to barter precision for time. Let us have a definite plan which will be coherent and will really serve the interests of the community. The central difficulty which has confronted hon. Members during this discussion is this period of five years, which covers every local authority that is affected by the Clause. If you think of the varying problems of those local authorities you can see at once that, whereas two years might be in some cases a not unreasonably short period, there are other cases in which it will be hard work to get the job done in five years. Think of London, whose war damage may not yet be over and which has suffered so severely. I cannot conceive of the task being accomplished in two years or anything like it. If you imposed such an arbitrary limit you would render the whole procedure largely nugatory.

§ Commander Agnew (Camborne)
Has not London very great resources both in personnel and money, with many local authorities to assist in the work?

§ Mr. Morrison
London, with its constituent local authorities, has, like all others, given generously of its staff. They are all suffering from lack of staff for this purpose. Men have gone into the Army and into Government service and I ask the Committee to reflect on that position. The irony of the situation is that between myself and my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment there is really no difference of opinion as to what is desirable. He said we all want this task to be completed in the shortest possible time. With that sentiment I am in entire agreement, and I do not believe there is a dissentient voice in the whole Committee. What we have to ask is "What is the shortest possible time?" That is the problem.

§ Dr. Russell Thomas (Southampton)
Is it not a fact that most authorities have had plans for construction as long as two years ago? My own constituency produced an elaborate brochure two years ago, and they are only too anxious to put it into effect now.

§ Mr. Morrison
A brochure is a very different thing from an application in accordance with this Clause. I grant at once that many authorities have made a great deal of progress with the preliminary work, but to limit them all to two years would be to impose too short a period upon them.
There is a general fear in the minds of hon. Members, and I appreciate it, that a long period like this would perhaps put the owner of property in an unfair position of prolonged uncertainty. We have, however, taken in the Bill special steps to secure that no unfair uncertainty is allowed to prevail so far as we can secure it. It will be seen that under Clause 27 the owner of a war-damaged property who wishes to repair it or reconstruct it applies to his local planning authority for an interim development permission, and if that is refused, because it does not conform to the ideas of the local authority as to how the place should be developed, and if they have no alternative development of a similar kind to which they can direct his energies, they are forced to purchase it.

§ Mr. Manningham-Buller
Is there any safeguard for the owner of land which is adjacent or contiguous to war-damaged land?

§ Mr. Morrison
Is my hon. Friend referring to the owner of beneficially occupied property?

Mr. Manninghain-Buller
I am referring to land which is described in Clause 1— land shown to his satisfaction to have sustained war damage or of such land together with other land adjacent thereto. I take it that the "other land" is land which has not sustained war damage, and I would like to ask the Minister if there is any safeguard for the owner of land which is not damaged by war but which is adjacent to an area of war damage. Is there any safeguard against his land being made subject to an order under Clause 1 at the end of five years?

§ Mr. Morrison
As regards the owner of war-damaged property, the operation of Clause 27 is quite general. What I said was that Clause applies to the owner of war-damaged property in any area comprised in the Clause. As regards the owner of property which is beneficially occupied, that is to say, a house, shop or factory where a man is actually living or working, if my hon. Friend will turn to Clause 2, Sub-section (4), he will see a general provision which limits the power to purchase under a Clause 1 order or in any other way, for the period I have mentioned. What I think is the general view of the Committee is that nobody wants the five-year period to act as a dilatory influence upon local authorities in forming their plans and submitting their applications. On the other hand, we do not want to have such a period as would render the greater tasks of reconstruction nugatory. Therefore, I could not possibly accept two years as a dead limit for the whole country. I am certain that it would result in the larger problems of reconstruction under this Clause 1 procedure not being dealt with effectively.
4.15 P.m.
The case has been put to me of the dilatory authorities who will not do anything until the end of the five years. Let the Committee remember that the interests of a local authority in a reconstruction area are to get building going as soon as possible. Great revenue depends upon it if nothing else, and the pressure of public opinion on members of the authority will be such that I think the danger is of small proportions. I do not, however, intend to ignore it. I will re-examine the matter 857 between now and the Report stage on the understanding that the five-year period must remain open to the authorities who have this task to do. I will see whether there is any way in which I can take powers to secure that there is no dilatoriness in the actions of local authorities, and that where the problems that they have to encounter in reconstruction are relatively simple and there is evidence that they are not getting on with it, whether there should be power to shorten the period. My undertaking to reexamine the problem rests on these two assumptions—first, that I cannot accept that two years is enough for the greater tasks of reconstruction properly formulated, and second, that I will see if there are steps that I can take to make sure there is no waste of time consistent with good planning.

§ Brigadier-General Clifton Brown (Newbury)
May I ask my right hon. Friend also to consider the difference between town and country and to look at this problem from the point of view of the countryside? I appreciate that in the towns it may take about five years to make plans and to get them under way, but it need not take so long in the country. We have lost a great many farms and dairies, as a result of which agricultural production has gone down; and unless the Minister accepts some of the later Amendments and excludes agriculture from these provisions, the necessary development in the countryside will be held up. The Minister should consider the difference between the time needed in the town and the time needed in the country for the drawing up of plans. A great many counties, including my own, have town planning schemes which were passed under the Act of 1935. How will those schemes be affected by this Bill, and how will the Bill affect the security which we have enjoyed under such schemes? If there is a standstill order, will that hold good? Will this Bill enable the planning authority to upset the town planning schemes already in existence and stop any further building development until the five-year period has expired?

§ Mr. W. S. Morrison
On the first Question which my hon. Friend asks me I will undertake to consider the point which he makes. I think the second one is somewhat outside the scope of the present Amendment, but I will bear it in mind.

§ Sir Irving Albery. (Gravesend)
The Minister made a proposal which certainly shows that he is sympathetic, but I cannot help feeling that it would be more satisfactory if he considered the possibility of shortening the period and then taking power, in exceptional cases, to give a longer period.

§ Mr. Bowles (Nuneaton)
I think I speak on behalf of my hon. Friends on this side of the House in saying that we think five years is too short a period. I hope that the Government will resist the pressure that has been brought by older Members of the Conservative Party who seem to be in such a hurry. The hon. and gallant Member for Preston (Captain Cobb) reminded the House of the length of time he had been a member of the L.C.C. We all remember that, and we all remember also that it took the Conservatives on the L.C.C. 10 years before they produced any plan for the rebuilding of Waterloo Bridge.
The figure now proposed is a maximum. It does not mean that plans have to be pushed into the Ministry on the last clay of the five years. If the Committee will consider that point for a moment they will see that if the Minister is reducing the period to two years, there is obviously a risk that he will be overloaded with work. Plans are much more likely to come in in the last few weeks of a two-year period. There is no reason why local authorities, especially those who have already got on well with their planning, should not send the plans to the Ministry as soon after the appointed day as they can. That will show whether the planning has gone so far as to justify the Members of the Committee who are pressing for a two-year period. I am sorry that we cannot have a longer period, but I ask the Minister for goodness' sake to let it stay at least as long as five years.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
I should like to thank the Minister for giving real consideration to the Amendment. Unkind remarks have been passed by hon. Members but they have been withdrawn. I should like my right hon. Friend to appreciate that there is a deep and real support behind us which really wishes to see this matter carried into effect. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give it his attention. I gather that he will produce on the Report stage some procedure or 859 provision to bring this about. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh no!"]Some shortening of this period, where it would otherwise be unreasonable—[HON. MEMBERS: "He did not promise."]If that is so, may I have my right hon. Friend's assurance on this matter? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]

§ Mr. Morrison
I think I have already given my assurance. I told the Committee what I proposed to do, and to the terms as I then expressed the matter I adhere.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
That being so, I accept my right hon. Friend's assurance, of course, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Mr. W. S. Morrison
I beg to move, in page 1, line 20, to leave out "the commencement of this Act," and to insert: such date as the Minister may by order appoint as being the date when the making of such applications has become practicable. This Amendment is consequential upon the words inserted earlier in the Clause. Its purpose is to make the period of the powers run from an appointed day instead of from the passing of the Act. I reminded the Committee that we are legislating for a period of peace in a period of war of the end of which we cannot see definitely the date. It is better to make the powers run from an appointed day because we are sure that they can then be operated. I do not think there has been any comment on the earlier words which I moved and I hope therefore that the Committee can accept these words.

§ Mr. Craik Henderson
We ought to have a little more information from the Minister about what he means by this appointed day. What criteria are to be taken of what is to be the appointed day in each case?

§ The Attorney-General
It is an appointed day for the whole Measure and not for each application.

§ Mr. Craik Henderson
We ought to have some indication when the appointed day is to be. Can the Minister give us some indication as to how he will arrive at it? Is it to be two years after the war or 860 is it to approximate to the passing of the Bill? This provision might extend considerably the five years period under the Bill.

§ Mr. Henry Strauss
It is certainly intended that the appointed day shall be as soon as possible. Relevant considerations will be when we have reason to think that war damage has come to an end and that further war damage will not be suffered, and when there is some reasonable chance of local authorities getting on with the work they have to do under Clause 1. It is not intended that it should be long after the cessation of the war with Germany; on the contrary, it will be as soon as the authorities can get on with their work.

§ Mr. Manningham-Buller
I am not. sure that we have really had a very strong case made out for the alteration of what is in the Bill. Whatever may be the appointed day, it will obviously add something, probably a considerable period, to the five years which we have been discussing. I would like to know why the change has been made from what was originally in the Bill. It may be all right and convenient to the planning authorities, but for those affected by the planning it may increase the period of uncertainty by the indefinite addition to the five years. The Minister was very accommodating with regard to the last Amendment, and I would ask him to consider whether, between now and the Report stage, the Amendment might not be recast, together with the other, so that the period within which each application should be made should be specified in the Bill, and that he should retain power to extend that period in particular cases, if the grounds for so doing exist.

§ Mr. Bowles
The hon. Member is so worried about the uncertainty of certain people who will be affected. Supposing we put down an Amendment in the next two days to freeze the value of land from now for the next 20 years, will he accept that as removing the uncertainty?

§ Mr. Manningham-Buller
That is purely hypothetical. If the hon, Member had heard the earlier part of the Debate he would have understood the reason for my statement.

§ Captain Prescott
I am not at all happy in my mind that this Amendment should be allowed through quite so quickly or easily. As I understand it it must presuppose one thing, that at the date when this Bill becomes law it will not then be practicable for any local authority to get an Order through the Minister under Clause 1, Sub-section (1). We all want these schemes for reconstruction and compulsory acquisition of land in blitzed areas to be effective at the earliest possible moment. If this Amendment is allowed to go, through no local authority, Plymouth, Southampton, or anywhere else, will be able to submit a scheme to the Minister for the compulsory acquisition of land unless and until he says they can do so. Surely, the time has now come when we can say with reasonable certainty that there are areas in this country which have suffered extensive damage and which it is fairly reasonable to suppose will not suffer any more damage or very little more, in the war. Why should these authorities here and now not make application under Clause 1, Sub-section (1) for power to acquire the land right away? If we give the Minister this power we are giving him power to defer indefinitely the date of the coming into operation of this Measure so far as Clause 1 is concerned. I do not base my objection to this Amendment on the ground my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) put forward. It may well be that it will, in effect, extend considerably the period of five years but that is not necessarily the ground upon which I object to the Amendment. My objection is that it is giving the Minister carte blanche to estop local authorities from acquiring land compulsorily in the blitzed areas. It may be that I have misunderstood the effect of the Amendment, but as I see it if it goes through no local authority can put into effect a scheme to buy land until the Minister gives permission. I think we should have a clear statement from the Minister as to why he wishes that.

§ Mr. Moelwyn Hughes
As the Clause now stands, the application on their behalf is made to the Minister by the authorities before the expiration of a given date. The date is now five years but if the Amendment is carried it will be five years after such date as the Ministry may appoint. An application which is made immediately upon the morrow of this 862 Measure receiving the Royal Assent will be an application made to the Minister by the authority "before the expiration of" and it seems to me quite obvious and clear that there is no such danger as the hon. and gallant Member for Darwen (Captain Prescott) has-envisaged. I hope that the Committee will accept that reading of the Clause without even burdening the right hon. and learned Attorney-General for an explanation.

§ Captain Duncan (Kensington, North)
I should like to support my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) in his suggestion that this part of the Clause should be recast. If this Amendment is carried it is quite obvious there will be additional delay if the Minister is going to declare an appointed day after the date on which this Measure becomes an Act. The Minister is insisting upon five years as a maximum but I would like him to consider a suggestion that the maximum might be reduced, in view of this Amendment, but that the Minister should be given power to extend the period in cases such as that of London, where there may be particular difficulty. Personally, from my knowledge of my own borough, I do not think there will be any difficulty whatever in producing a scheme within two years, but there may be other cases.

§ Mr. Silkin
Is the hon. and gallant Member's borough a planning authority?

§ Captain Duncan
The hon. Member realises that the L.C.C. will have to cooperate with the boroughs. I hope they will. If not there will be trouble.

§ Mr. Silkin
I asked the hon. and gallant Member whether his borough is a planning authority.

§ Captain Duncan
I agree that the borough council is not a planning authority, but under the County plan the borough councils must be consulted. If they are not there will be trouble, I will say no more than that. I hope my right hon. Friend will consider the suggestion I have made, and the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry.

§ Sir J. Lamb
As I understand it the proposal would. extend the five years' period to a maximum by whatever period elapsed between the passing of the Act and the date selected by the Minister, but 863 that would in no way limit the time—that people could send in schemes when they were made.

§ Mr. Henry Strauss
I think my hon. Friend who has just spoken has stated the matter correctly. I hope the Committee will not, on this minor Amendment, renew the main discussion. The question of whether five years is or is not the right period is a point of substance of which we have disposed. The minor question is when the period should begin. It is hoped there will be only a small interval between the passing of the Act and the appointed day. I should like to confirm what has been said. In the opinion of those far better qualified than I to construe the Clause there is, as a matter of construction, nothing to prevent an application being sent in before the appointed day.

§ Commander Bower
I beg to move, in page 1, line 20, at the end, to insert: Provided that no such application shall be made unless the authority shall not less than two months before the making of the same have published by local advertisement a notice in the prescribed form announcing their intention to make the application and describing the land to which such application is to relate. I think this Amendment explains itself. It is proposed entirely with the object of enabling the local inhabitants and every interested person, of whom there may be very many categories, to have adequate notice of the areas which a local authority designates for redevelopment and compulsory purchase. We have heard a lot about the Minister and the authorities, and a lot about planning, but not so much about the human problem, of the people who are to be dispossessed and who have already suffered from being blitzed and burned out. It is only reasonable they should be given as much notice as possible of the intentions of the local authority. All of us who have had experience of local authorities know well that people take a great interest in what the people up at the town hall are doing. I am certain that in this case they will take an even more fervent interest than usual. This seems to me a reasonable Amendment, which might appeal even to the Gadarene fringe of our own party.

§ Mr. W. S. Morrison
I wanted to hear what the rest of the Committee had to say 864 about this Amendment. The proposition of my hon. and gallant Friend, in the terms of his Amendment, appears to be confined merely to the publishing of a local advertisement announcing the local authority's intention to make an application, describing the land, and so on. I wanted to hear the argument for it. I suppose, that it will be said that the sooner the intentions are known, the sooner the uncertainty will end. The only objection is that this seems to hold out the temptation to local authorities not to start consultations with the interests involved until two months before. In my view, they should be going on now.

§ Commander Bower
I said, in my short speech, which I cut short with the object of saving the time of the Committee, that I was thinking not only of the Minister and the planning authority but the people concerned, who have suffered so much.

§ Mr. Morrison
Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will let me look at the Amendment from the drafting point of view. In principle I accept his Amendment.

§ Mr. Silkin
Does the right hon. Gentleman really mean that? If he will look at his own Clause, which possibly he has forgotten, he will see that it provides that, when the local authority have submitted the application, there is provision, if he is satisfied that the application is in order, for the scheme to be published. Surely that is the right time for the public to be informed. It is no good notifying the public in advance of a scheme which my right hon. Friend may say is quite inappropriate, and about which he wants more particulars. As soon as he has agreed with the scheme, the particulars appear automatically, and the public are informed. In my submission, for one notice to appear before the application is submitted and for another to appear after the application is approved will be redundant, and will obstruct the scheme. I hope that the Amendment will not be pressed.

§ Mr. W. S. Morrison
I do not think that there is much in this Amendment. It merely asks the authority to put an advertisement in the local newspaper, saying that it intends to make an application. My hon. and gallant Friend would not expect them to have to go into great detail, or do anything burdensome.

§ Mr. Silkin
It compels the advertisement of an application which my right hon. Friend may regard as quite unsuitable. It will merely confuse the public. First, two months' notice has to be given of an application which is going to be made, and then my right hon. Friend may modify the application, after which there must be another advertisement. Surely one advertisement is enough, either before the application or after it. If this Amendment is accepted in principle, it will confuse the public, by causing the same thing to be advertised twice.

§ Earl Winterton
I view with the greatest suspicion the speech of the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin). We are indeed getting on in the process of adopting the terminology of public ownership. It appears that any private individual who wishes to put forward views as to why an application should not be accepted is obstructing the scheme. Let me give some advice to my right hon. Friend. When he accepts an Amendment from one of his supporters, I hope he will not haver if somebody else opposes it.

§ Mr. W. S. Morrison
I did not haver.

§ Earl Winterton
I thought that my right hon. Friend said that he had accepted it.

§ Mr. Morrison
I have known my Noble Friend in Parliament for some years, and I do not take offence at what he says. But what I said was that I accepted the principle of the Amendment, and I asked my hon. and gallant Friend to let me look at the drafting before finally accepting it.

§ Earl Winterton
If I did any injustice to my right hon. Friend I am sorry. I thought that in his second speech he was too conciliatory. It is all very well to be conciliatory, but it can be overdone. I thought that he was giving way. Surely we have not reached the point that people affected, whether as ratepayers or as owners of land, should not be informed of a scheme. What is the objection? Is it that members of the London County Council and others do not want the public to know what they are doing? I think it is as well that these facts should be put rather strongly. This is a reasonable Amendment, which is accepted by 866 the Minister; and no sooner is it accepted than representatives of public ownership get up and say, "This is an awful thing; you are actually going to tell the public in advance what you are going to do."

§ Mr. A. Bevan
My Noble Friend has forgotten the argument that we have been having. We have just had the argument, advanced exclusively by Members on the other side, that it was very desirable to get these schemes in operation speedily, and that, therefore, the period of five years should be made less, to encourage the local authorities to get on with the job. [Interruption.] My Noble Friend did not hear that argument, but I am quite certain that if he had it would not have interfered with what he has just said. He has said that the local authority should first make certain tentative proposals—because there cannot be a fully-fledged scheme at that stage. There is a fully-fledged scheme for submission to the interests concerned only after the Minister has declared his position. My Noble Friend says that, after having drafted a tentative scheme, the local authority should then invite as much opposition as can be secured.

§ Viscountess Astor
Hear, Hear. That is what would happen.

§ Earl Winterton
I must interrupt my hon. Friend the Member far Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan). He is a most fair protagonist, and we occasionally find ourselves on the same side. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman and to his Socialist supporter, the hon. Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor), that I said that the local authority had, in my opinion, an obligation to notify the ratepayers of their intentions in the fullest possible manner.

§ Mr. A. Bevan
I was a member of a local authority for 20 years. [Interruption.] Will these two wings of the Conservative Party adjust their differences so that we may discuss this thing? I will not be drawn into those matters. May I suggest quite seriously that the Amendment, if accepted, is going to impose a very limited period for the preparation of these schemes. In the first place, the local authority will, normally, be conducting its business in public, and the local Press will normally be carrying to the local ratepayers information about those discussions. It is the duty of ratepayers, as 867 citizens, to take an interest in what the authority is discussing in their neighbourhood. In addition to that, after the local authority has had this preliminary discussion, its scheme is drawn up. What is the suggestion? Before application can be made to the Minister, notification must appear in the local Press so as to add another stage in the defence of private vested interests against the proposals of the local authorities.
I know it is no business of mine, but what the noble Lord is inviting us to say is that, if you have got schemes in places like Plymouth and London and Swansea, where the local authority is going to be subjected to other interests, convening meetings to prevent schemes for houses—if that is the sort of thing we are to have, you are going to have trouble and very serious trouble at that. The time has come for us to say to hon. Members opposite that the country is beginning to realise the extent of the sympathy of these property-owner vultures with the public. They have already got a second stage after the scheme has been accepted by the Minister. There are stages where individual interests can make their objections now. There are inquiries to be held, but, before that, my Noble Friend and his friends want every single party to have their chance of working against the local authority.
I speak with experience, I was for 20 years on a local authority. We used to be under an obligation to hold a town's meeting to promote a Bill, and we had to placard the town and put advertisements in the local newspapers. A great deal of that still remains, so as to provide that every single individual interest shall have an opportunity of making its objections. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, No."]I have no objection at all to it being made known to them that their interests are going to be affected, but that will be made known in the procedure under the Bill. There is no need to interpose this stage at the very beginning, the only purpose of which is to excite every vested local interest against the plan. We know the lobbying that goes on, because local councillors do not live in a vacuum. They are subject to all kinds of pressure, and it is intolerable—and, quite frankly, the Committee should realise this—that the actual technical difficulties of a scheme being prepared 868 in the first instance might be prejudiced by lobbying pressure brought to bear upon them by vested interests.
That is exactly what occurs. We know that all over this country Tory estate agents cramp local authorities in these matters, and evidence of it can be found in every local authority in Great Britain. Do you think we do not know what happens, and do not know of the real estate vultures who got themselves elected, and have got themselves elected in the last few months, in order to exploit the situation? If it is necessary for us to do so, we will show details and particulars of where local estate agents have already got themselves elected to local authorities in order to prejudice these schemes, and, invariably, they are Tories. I suggest to the Minister that, in yielding to this demand, he is puting an obstructionist stage in the development of local authorities' schemes and giving another chance for people to obstruct national development.

§ Viscountess Astor
We can see the good old Tory Party divided once more. I have never been ashamed of being a social reformer, and I am not one day on the extreme Left and the next day on the extreme Right. I agree with nearly everything which the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) said, except when he talks about the Tory estate agents being the only people to obstruct, which is ridiculous. What he said is true, and it is happening in town planning areas already. This is a Bill to deal with blitzed areas, and I can assure the Committee that these blitzed areas will never get replanned or reconstructed if you give time for objections to be made by certain vested interests, which does not mean landowners alone, but, more often, speculators or people who do not want replanning at all. It is hard enough to ask us to get our plans drawn up; it is a very dangerous thing to add this.
I would like to remind the Committee that these people living in the blitzed areas have one idea in their minds—to get the area replanned and rebuilt as quickly as they can and that no vested interest, whether of the Right or the Left, is going to stand in the way. The hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) talked about revolution and reaction. He ought to come to Plymouth and talk about it there. I hope the Minister will say that people who have got 869 plans will not have to notify everybody and get them to meet together in their small interests. It is an impossible thing; an advertisement is exactly the same thing. Every town planner in this country knows what happens. There are vested interests in all communities, but this country will want to see these blitzed areas rebuilt as quickly as possible and rebuilt on a new plan. I commend the Plymouth Plan to hon. Members of the Committee, but, already, we have got people in our community who want to pull it down, though they dare not come out in the open and say what they are going to do.

§ Dr. Russell Thomas
As the proceedings are going on very late, is the Noble Lady in Order in going into these points?

§ The Deputy-Chairman
I have not noticed anything wrong. Of course, we all ought to show consideration for fellow Members.

§ Viscountess Astor
I was talking about the difficulties we have in this replanning. If people are against replanning, why do not they come out and say so? But they do not do it. Bring in a plan—

§ Earl Winterton
The Noble Lady makes these charges, but the sole purpose of this Amendment is to give two months' notice of certain intentions. In what possible way is that giving an advantage to vested interests? What on earth does she mean?

§ Viscountess Astor
You have to let the whole of the people know what is going to happen. You get them all coming together and small vested interests begin to show. It happens everywhere. [Interruption.] All hon. Members know it.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
rose—

§ Viscountess Astor
The hon. and gallant Member knows it perfectly well.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
I can assure the Noble Lady that is untrue. She comes to this Committee and makes violent statements all over the place and then walks out again. She really should be more careful what she says.

§ Viscountess Astor
I am used to reforms in the Tory Party.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
This is a very simple Amendment and we really must 870 not go into the history of the Conservative or any other party. We should try to avoid personalities.

§ Mr. A. Bevan
On a point of procedure. The Minister has said that he is not prepared to accept the Amendment in its present form but he wants to consider incorporating the Amendment at a later stage in different words. What do the mover and supporters of the Amendment propose to do?

§ Commander Bower
I have been waiting for some 20 minutes and, in view of the fact that the Minister has accepted the Amendment in principle and I presume will take steps to embody it at a later stage, I beg to ask leave to with-dram the Amendment.

Viscountess Aastor
I beg the Minister, in the name of the blitzed areas, not to accept the Amendment, because we know how difficult it will be to get our plans through.

§ Mr. Woodburn
I would like to put this to the Minister, though not in any heated fashion. This is, on the face of it, a very simple proposition. There are a number of simple propositions in other Amendments and if many simple propositions are introduced the cumulative effect of this might be to make the Bill unworkable. If every simple Amendment is accepted then before we get to the end of the Bill, there will be so many obstructive points that he will not get the work done. Therefore I would like to recall some of the statements of the mover and supporters of the Amendment that they are definitely against planning. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who said that?"]They have said that in earlier Amendments to-day to those who were present. They have introduced some Amendments with the object of restricting the planning to the smallest possible area and helping to make the Measure unworkable. I ask the Minister not to accept the Amendment.

§ Sir J. Lamb
As one who has his name down to the Amendment, I deny the statement made by the hon. Member for East Stirling (Mr. Woodburn). That is not my intention. I am not against planning and I absolutely deny the imputation made against me. I put my name down to the Amendment with the 871 intention, as I believe, of protecting the rights of the individual. I am surprised to hear some of the statements with regard to the rights of everybody else but the individual. Individuals still have rights.

§ Mr. W. S. Morrison
All I accepted, which seemed to be quite reasonable, was that the local planning authority should publish in a newspaper in simple terms a notice to make the application clear.

§ Mr. A. Bevan
We do not know at all what the right hon. Gentleman has said. He said he accepts the principle of the Amendment but will consider the words later on. We are resisting the Amendment because we do not really know his intention. If he accepts the principle of the Amendment, the local authorities will have to describe in the local newspaper the parcels of land supposed to be taken, and one might well have the whole newspaper filled.

§ Mr. Morrison
When I accepted it I was careful to exclude such a possibility. I am certain that my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment does not mean that the Amendment should carry with it onerous or multifarious particulars so as to make it difficult. I have safeguarded that.

§ Mr. Bowles
Will not an ordinary report in the local Press be sufficient? What is the notice to be about?

§ Sir J. Lamb
My right hon. and learned Friend said he would like to reconsider the wording and I thought that he had accepted the principle that there should be a statement describing the land to which such application relates, because that is what I really want. [Interruption.]. Yes I do, and I am not ashamed of saying so. The owner has rights as an individual and should have some opportunity of knowing whether his rights are to be infringed or not. That is the principle here. I have been a member of a local authority and I am vice-chairman of one now, and I do not see why a local authority should object to it being known if they propose to take action of any description against individual rights. It is on those grounds that I put my name to the Amendment. The individual has the same right to have his rights protected as a community of individuals.

§ Mr. Moelwyn Hughes
Without going into the question of the intention of those who moved the Amendment or those who are opposing the Minister accepting it in spirit, it is right to reflect upon one thing. The effect of this Amendment is bound to be to cause delay in getting plans into operation. Take the case of those authorities which have plans now ready. Those plans have been well publicised. Do hon. Members think that the people of Plymouth do not know what Plymouth intends to plan, or indeed the people of Swansea and various other authorities up and down the country? The plans have not only been publicised in the town itself but they have been published all over the Kingdom. There has. been ample publicity and discussion in those cases and the only result of this Amendment, if accepted, would be delay. If the Minister accepts the spirit of the Amendment, I do not see how he can come back to the House at a later stage without something which would carry delay, and his readiness to accept that is to me incomprehensible.
I have read further Amendments on the Order Paper, to be moved in due course by the Minister, all designed to meet the requests of local authorities, of planning bodies throughout the Kingdom. that the procedure in the Bill, as it now stands unamended, should be speeded up, and he will concede, when he moves those Amendments and the Committee accept them, a more expeditious procedure. Yet, on the first day of the Committee stage, we find the Minister accepting a delaying Amendment. The question of delay will not apply to those authorities who are ready already with their plans but it will operate in general as a form of delay.
What is the form of notice which the Minister suggests? If it is a purely general description, showing that the local authority proposes to replan, say, the bombed parts of Coventry, with convenient pieces adjacent or contiguous thereto, with a nice little picture, that would be giving notice that planning is going on, but it would not achieve the object of those who supported this Amendment, which is to give an opportunity to individual property owners to start obstruction at that early stage. If it does not do that, then it must be a particularised one. Of two things, one: It is either in general terms—n which case there is no information of a particular 873 character to anybody: or it is particularised. Now imagine the L.C.C. complying with a request to describe meticulously the boundaries of the schemes it has in mind, so described as to enable the property owners concerned to see how they are affected, as the supporters of this Amendment have said. You would find that a week's issue of "The Times" would not be enough. I do ask the Minister to reconsider it. It is either useless, and therefore achieves nothing at all except slight delay, or it provides a cumbersome additional step which every authority will have to face. Take it another stage. Whatever form the Minister designates for this purpose means that the local authority has not only to get ready to put out a plan or a description for the purpose, later on, of submission to the Minister, but it also has to use its staff to provide this other form of publication of its plans. It is bound to cause them additional work and delay. Therefore, I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to say that he does not accept anything in this Amendment which involves a second's delay in the procedure.

§ Sir J. Lamb
Does the hon. and learned Gentleman suppose that any planning authority will send forward a scheme not knowing themselves what area is covered by this scheme? If they know what area is covered, I think it is very easy for them to publish that knowledge.

§ Mr. Hughes
I do not suppose the hon. Gentleman appreciates what he is asking for, When the local authority submits its plan to the Minister it must be specifically delineated and described. Is he now asking that that plan should be published two months before this is sent to the Minister? That would mean the publication of the whole document. I wonder if the hon. Member has ever seen one of them? If so, he must understand perfectly well that such a thing is not possible. To advertise particulars of the same nature as those which the Minister has to approve is impossible.

§ Mr. Critchley (Liverpool, Edge Hill)
Is it not a fact that with all local authorities such schemes as those proposed now are laid in the office of the Town Clerk and are available for inspection?

§ Mr. Hughes
That is all right.

§ Mr. Critchley
That is all that need be published. It is all right as long as it is available to everybody.

§ Mr. Hughes
There is nothing in the objection which I am raising that interferes in the slightest degree with the excellent practice followed by all proper planning authorities in publishing their proposals at the earliest possible moment in the manner suggested by my hon. Friend, but it is an entirely different thing to ask that that shall be reproduced in the local Press.

§ Mr. Critchley
On a point of Order, Mr. Williams—

The Deputy Chairman
The hon. Member has asked a question, but it is hardly in order for the hon. Member to do so unless the hon. and learned Member who is speaking, gives way to him.

§ Mr. Hughes
The crux of the matter is contained in the last phrase: "describing the land to which such application is to relate." It is not describing in general terms to the people of the district what kind of town you are going to give them, not the type of brochure to which the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. Russell Thomas) referred, which will interest the townspeople and the ratepayers and make them enthusiastic for a new type of town, not a thing of public interest. No, it is "describing the land to which such application is to relate"—in other words, giving an opportunity to every property owner who wants to obstruct and cause difficulty to do so at the earliest possible moment. That is the substance of the Amendment.

§ Earl Winterton
I think we have now narrowed down the argument to this, that while this information will be available in the Town Hall where everybody can see it, because the hon. and learned Gentleman objects to private ownership, the private owner and the public shall not be informed although the information is available. Is not that the point?

§ Mr. Hughes
The public is already informed and, in that case, why does the noble Lord want this additional bit of information? It is because he knows perfectly well that it is not good enough just to have the plan at the Town Hall—you have to whip people up through the Press in order to collect the biggest possible number of objectors to the scheme that 875 you can. Therefore I say that this is a blocking Amendment designed to prevent planning, and to put obstacles in its way. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will not accept even the spirit of it, and nothing which will act in the least as an obstacle.

§ Mr. Quintin Hogg (Oxford)
I did not intend to intervene on this Amendment, and I hope that what I say will be so dull that the temperature of the Committee will drop considerably when I have said it. I do not associate myself with any of the charges which have been thrown across the Floor, because I believe that both sides are sincerely anxious to do justice and see that no wrong-doing will result, either to those who want to be accommodated as a result of replanning or to those who have to be dispossessed. I must confess that starting, as I did, from all the presuppositions of my hon. Friends on this side I was, none the less, a little surprised that the Minister should. have gone so far as he did to accept this Amendment. May I explain why? It is rather dull and technical. I have not sat for many years on a local authority, although I have had a little to do with the public acquisition of land in another capacity. The first thing to understand is that this Bill starts with the intention of trying to acquire land in war damaged areas rather more quickly than the existing procedure does, but still on the basis of the existing procedure. This procedure has been in existence since 1845 and it has never been found yet—I say this without fear of contradiction—that under it a preliminary notice, before a town council meets to pass its originating resolution, has been required in order to give owners ample notice. I want to see owners have just as ample notice as anybody, but it is still true that since 1845 this particular notice has never proved necessary, and it is a little hard in a Bill which is designed to accelerate procedure, to introduce this additional step, which may be gilding the lily but has not been found necessary in a period of 99 years. There needs to be a stronger case for the Amendment than seems to have been put forward on purely Conservative grounds.
The second thing is this: Let us look at it from a practical point of view. In order to make its application to the Minister the local authority has to pass a 876 resolution in order that the application should be made. According to this Amendment, before it passes its resolution it has to put a notice in the "London Gazette" and in newspapers, describing in broad and general terms the area of land to be covered. Supposing the local authority wants to debate the resolution, which it is well entitled to do, supposing some members of the local authority want to alter the area of land to be covered by the proposed application, that means that the authority has to start all over again, if the Amendment is carried, with its notice. Supposing it wants to have another debate two months later in order to make another application to the Minister, it is quite possible that there might be further delay. I suggest that for that reason, leaving aside altogether the heat which this matter has engendered—many hard things have been said—there is sound reason for regarding this Amendment as not only unnecessary but as also containing the seeds of danger and delay. I want to add that in the ordinary course of events the proceedings of a local authority are published, and the agenda is published, in the local Press. It is the business of the owner of property—and I am not one—to take sufficient interest in the management of his affairs to discover from the published agenda of his local authority whether there is something which affects his interest. If any prudent property owner did not take that precaution—

§ Mr. Critchley
The reports of the proceedings of a council are very much abridged. There is much detailed matter which does not appear in the newspapers.

§ Mr. Bevan: The resolution to which my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg)
has referred would have to be carried in a statutory meeting of the council, properly advertised beforehand, and, therefore, made available to everybody.

§ Mr. Hogg
I appreciate what my hon. Friend the Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Critchley) bas said, but I introduced this point only after having pointed out that there is a danger in this matter of urgency of additional delay. It has to be considered that this takes place at a public meeting of a public body, which has previously advertised its agenda.

§ Sir J. Lamb
The agenda is not always previously advertised.

§ Mr. Hogg
I think I am right in saying that the agenda of a local authority is generally fairly well known beforehand. I, certainly, without any particular interest in the matter, know fairly well what is coming before the Oxford City Council, without having either business there or any property which I own. But even if that were not so I would ask my hon. Friends to consider whether this really arouses great principles of Conservatism when they reflect that the whole procedure has gone on for over 90 years in matters which are not urgent.

§ Earl Winterton
My hon. Friend is rather convincing me, but I would like to put this point. What relevance is there between what happened nearly 100 years ago, when operations on this scale were never contemplated, and the present time? Surely he would agree—and. I say this with great diffidence in view of his special knowledge—that if a small shop-owner wanted to know what was going to happen he would be much more likely to take an interest in the matter if there was to be a published statement in the newspapers, than if he had to listen to what was taking place in the council chamber?

§ Mr. Hogg
I do not want to take up the time of the Committee too much, but my Noble Friend has put forward two legitimate points. It is not, however, a question of what took place 100 years ago. I would not be prepared to accept what my Noble Friend said about things being wholly different then, because the whole of the railway development was taking place. The Lands Clauses Consolidation Act is far from being the obsolete Measure which some people think. The public acquisition of land is not something which took place 100 years ago; it has been taking place continuously, on the largest possible scale, for many years. The compulsory acquisition of land is familiar to us all. I say that this additional notice has not proved necessary for nearly 100 years of experience which is really comparable. We are asking for an abridged procedure to meet an urgent need in particular cases and to ask the Committee to insert something which would be, at best, an addition to the normal procedure is a little unreason- 878 able. I do not, for a moment, suggest that hon. Members are doing it in order to cause delay—I am sure they are not—but I think they are, being a little unreasonable in insisting upon it.

§ Mr. Silverman (Nelson and Colne)
If there ever was any case for this Amendment I think most Members of the Committee will agree that it has been utterly demolished by the last two speeches. I am not going to be guilty of the impertinence of seeking to add any further argument to a case that has been established in the minds of all reasonable persons. What I get up for is to ask the Minister what he now proposes to do. The Debate has been rendered necessary almost entirely because at an earlier stage he indicated that he was prepared to accept the principle of the Amendment. He was not prepared to accept it in its present form, but it is clear that what he intended was that the Amendment should be withdrawn and that he would at a subsequent stage move an Amendment in different words designed to implement the same object. I am certain that, if he was ever sympathetic to the Amendment at all, the grounds of his sympathy must have been struck from under him by the speech of the hon. Member behind him and the Committee, I am sure, would now like to hear what his present intention is.
We should like to know whether he still believes that the principle of the Amendment is right. We should like to know whether he still intends at a later stage, if the Amendment is withdrawn or defeated, to introduce a new Amendment implementing exactly the same principle. If he does, I think that would cast, in the minds of most of us, a most prejudicial atmosphere over the Government's attitude to the whole Measure. It is clear now, whether it was the intention or not of those who moved it and supported it, that if the Amendment were carried it would only have an obstructive at the best and, at the worst, a highly mischievous effect. If the Minister is still inclined to introduce a principle of this kind many of us will have to reconsider our attitude to the Measure as a whole. I ask the Minister now to let us know whether he accepts the view of the case as it appears after the last two speeches, and if he has been converted by them, as the Noble Lord has apparently been, to let us know it at an 879 early stage so that we can get rid of the Amendment and the principle of it and get on with the Bill.

§ Commander Bower
The only reason why there have not been speeches in support of the Amendment is that a long time ago the Minister accepted the principle.

§ Mr. Vernon Bartlett (Bridgwater)
I think it would help the Committee if this could be clarified. The Minister said he did not intend that this advertisement should go into great detail. Will he tell us a little more what sort of thing he has in mind? In what way would the advertisement that he has in mind go beyond the reports that appear in the local Press of the local authority's meeting?

§ Mr. Henry Strauss
May I try to explain what it is that the Minister is prepared to do, why he has accepted the principle, and what on the other hand he does not intend to bring about? The principle that he is accepting is that, when a local authority is going to make an application under Clause 1, it shall give by advertisement notice of that fact. The reason why he accepted the principle, but did not accept the Amendment, was precisely because he was anxious to secure that it should not be made a burdensome or cumbersome requirement on the local authority, but should help to secure what is already the practice of the best local authorities, namely, consulting all proper interests in advance, so that it comes in an informed way to make the application to the Minister. We do not wish by the amendment which we shall propose in due course to change in any way the good practice of the best authorities in this matter. I believe they have every intention of having proper consultations to make certain that their planning, as far as possible, has complied with the varied requirements of their community. Our only hesitation in accepting the Amendment in principle was lest the mention of any time limit might give the impression that the local authority should not consult anyone even earlier. I do not say now what description of the land proposed to be included in the application should be included in any such advertisement, but we certainly do not intend that any small failure, or any subsequent alteration in the details of the proposal, shall affect the validity of the application or 880 involve the dangers which were rightly pointed out in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford City (Mr. Hogg).
The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) said that the attitude of the Government in giving some sympathetic consideration to the Amendment frightened him as to the attitude of the Government to the whole Bill. I am bound to say in reply to that that some of the speeches which have been made against the principle may well have caused alarm as to what may be in the mind of some hon. Members. It is not intended by the Amendment to give any new right of objection to anyone. The only thing that it is designed to do is to give some notice. Even if what the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) said were true, if some people might be tempted to obstruct at the earliest possible stage, is he quite convinced that it is worse to obstruct at an earlier stage than to obstruct later? Does it necessarily mean any greater delay? It does not follow at all. I thought there were many very contradictory arguments brought forward against the principle which my right hon. Friend has accepted. It is said on the one hand that everyone knows what is in the mind of their local representatives.

§ Mr. G. Griffiths
Will the hon. Gentleman tell us who made that statement?

§ Mr. Strauss
I am afraid I have not got it on my notes.

§ Mr. A. Bevan
I think the hon. Gentleman got somewhat astray on this. It was tentatively suggested by more than one speaker that probably the citizens in most blitzed cities are aware that their council will be trying to rebuild their cities.

§ Mr. Strauss
I thought it was more definite, but perhaps I am mistaken. What I am anxious to do is to make clear what is and what is not being accepted. What is being accepted is the provision of reasonable notice. What is not being accepted is a new and onerous requirement which will hamper local authorities in getting on with their work.

§ Mr. Silverman
Will the hon. Gentleman say whether he is accepting the principle that before any application is made there shall be an advertisement of the intention to apply and of the land to 881 which the application is to relate? That seems to be the crux of the whole matter. Is there to be a prior advertisement of that before ever an application is made?

§ Mr. Strauss
That is precisely what is to be done. There is to be a notice by the local authority of its intention to apply for a Clause 1 Order. As to the description of the land, I am not prepared to answer that now, but obviously the notice must be in sufficient detail to be useful. On the other hand, it is important it should not have what the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) feared might be the effect, if it were carelessly worded or there were some subsequent Amendment, of causing further delay or invalidating the proceedings.

§ Mr. Silkin
Is it proposed to give notice that it is intended to make an application for an order and to give another notice that application has been made?

§ Mr. Woodburn
And is it also intended that two months must intervene?

§ Mr. Strauss
I thought I made it clear that my right hon. Friend has made no promise as to the details of the notice. In fairness to my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment, I should point out that he has never asked us to accept the details of it.

§ Mr. Silkin
The Clause already requires that notice should be given when the application has been made. Is there to be another notice that it is intended to make an application?

§ Mr. Strauss
I do not know if the hon. Member is speaking of the notice in the prescribed form mentioned later but all subsequent rights which are given, such as the right of objection, are not being done away with. Of course it is something additional, but it is not intended to be an onerous new step. It is intended to encourage all local authorities to do that which the best of them already do, that is, to have consultations in advance.

§ Mr. Bowles
Is this notice to be made early in the planning by the local authority, or when they have completed their plans, or is it to be made over and over again until the plans are about to be submitted to the Minister?

§ Mr. Strauss
It is obvious that the idea is that it should be a condition precedent 882 to their making an application for an Order that they should give notice of the application. If the hon. Member wants some details of matters dealt with later in the Clause we shall come to them later. I am now trying to deal with the Amendment, with what is meant by accepting it in principle, and with what my right hon. Friend is determined to secure, namely, that this shall not be an onerous new step causing delay in the whole proceedings.

§ Mr. Silverman
It is important that we should understand what the Parliamentary Secretary means. I confess that I do not. He says that the purpose is to encourage local authorities to do what the best authorities do now, that is, to have consultations with people interested before they prepare their plans. I follow that very well, but I do not see how you are going to encourage people to consult interests before the plans are made by laying it down by statute that they shall give notice after the plans are made. What this Amendment asks for, and what the Minister has accepted, is that the local authority shall decide first to do something, that it shall decide what it wants to do, and, having decided what it wants to do and the application it wants to make, it shall then, before it applies to the Minister, advertise the fact some time in advance. That cannot be in order to consult the interests, because the plans will have already been made. If it is in order that they shall consult, it must prolong the procedure.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
May I suggest that it would be well to allow the Minister to finish? We have had a long discussion, and I would remind the Committee that this is a long Bill and that this is not a very big point.

§ Mr. Silverman
I wanted to get from the Minister whether he really intended that the local authority should give notice after its mind had been made up in order that it should begin once more to consider the whole thing by taking other people into consultation.

§ Mr. Strauss
That was a somewhat lengthy question and I doubt whether, if I have not explained it to the hon. Member already, anything further I might say would convey it to his mind. I have made it clear that my right hon. Friend has made no statement as to what the period 883 will be in the Amendment which he will propose. I think I have substantially dealt with the points that have been raised. My hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment declared his willingness to withdraw it on the terms that my right hon. Friend has stated and which I have endeavoured to explain. If he is granted that leave, well and good. If hon. Members in any quarter refuse to allow the Amendment to be withdrawn, I suggest that we should be unanimous in rejecting it, on the undertaking of my right hon. Friend that he will bring forward an Amendment to provide for adequate notice of the intention to apply for a Clause 1 Order, and will take every step in his power to safeguard a local authority from the imposition of any onerous or delaying new step.

§ Mr. Bevan
That is one of the most original suggestions I have ever heard, and it pre-judges the Chair in a singular manner, because what the hon. Gentleman has now suggested with unprecedented impudence is that the whole Committee should reject an Amendment containing a principle so objectionable that everybody rejects it, and that later on the Chair should select an Amendment containing something similar, on which we should have another Debate. I suggest that the Minister too hurriedly accepted the principle and that it would have been better if he had permitted the Parliamentary Secretary, who was much clearer in his mind then than he has become since, to handle the Amendment in the first instance. Then, probably, it would have been rejected on very safe grounds, but the Minister having accepted the principle, the hon. Gentleman found it necessary to go on batting on what became a stickier and stickier wicket. I suggest that the Committee reject the Amendment and that no further steps are taken to reintroduce it.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
I beg to move, in page 1, line 20, at the end, to insert: Provided that where in any case all the land in an area of extensive war damage is held by one owner and he is able and willing to develop or redevelop the land consistently with the proper planning of the area of the local planning authority nothing in this Act shall authorise the local planning authority to purchase the interest of the said owner compulsorily. 884 The Amendment illustrates the point that planning can be carried out without the acquisition of land, in certain circumstances. Where all the damage is on the land of one owner and he is willing and able to co-operate with the planning authority to develop or re-develop the land, consistent with the scheme of the planning local authority, the Amendment proposes that he should be given the opportunity to do so. I should like to draw attention to the policy of His Majesy's Government on the use of land in the White Paper which I have here before me. At the top of page 10, referring to future development, it says that although purchase, that is to say, compulsory acquisition, will be necessary in some cases, the Government's proposal is that control shall be operated, in the main, through the granting of consents or licences to develop; that is to say, that development shall take place in the main by private owners obtaining licences from the planning authorities and carrying out their own development in accordance with the scheme.
My right hon. Friend has said that one of the reasons for introducing the Bill is the difficulty of dealing with the multiplicity of owners and cutting through what he called the tangle of ownership, where it is necessary to deal with an area as a whole. In this instance, I would draw attention to the fact that he would have only one owner to deal with in one area. Is it not right and proper that, before the planning authority says: "We are going to take power to acquire your land under the Bill," the owner should be given an opportunity to carry out the work first? If the authority can prove that he is not able to do it or can show that he is unwilling or would take longer to carry it out than they would do, there is a good case for the compulsory acquisition of the land, so that the planning scheme can be carried out at the earliest possible moment. It is inconsistent with the expressed policy of His Majesty's Government that owners of land should not be given an opportunity to develop their land and I hope that my right hon. Friend will give this matter his consideration.

§ Mr. Bowles
I listened with very great interest to the arguments of the hon. and gallant Member. If the owners of large 885 estates are so much in advance of their local authority in regard to planning, why have they not carried it out already?

An Hon. Member
This relates to war damage.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
Surely my hon. Friend knows that it is practically impossible to carry out any kind of work now, and since the damage has been caused during the war the landowner has had no opportunity to do the work.

§ Mr. Bowles
Nevertheless, the time will arrive. On this side of the House we know, and the hon. and gallant Member knows too, that these private owners do not operate their properties in the public interest.

§ Mr. Hugh Lawson
In moving the Amendment the hon. and gallant Member referred to an owner of land being prepared to develop much more quickly than the local authority, but I do not see any reference to that matter in the Amendment. I hope that the Minister will resist the Amendment, because if it were carried it would make it possible for the owner of a plot of land to offer to develop it and then to delay progress for a large number of years. That is the meaning of the words in the Amendment.

§ Sir J. Lamb
It relates to an area of extensive war damage.

§ Mr. Lawson
The point I am making is that the owner can, if he likes, delay redevelopment.

§ Sir J. Lamb
He can offer to do it.

§ Mr. Lawson
Yes, but under the Amendment there is no obligation upon him to carry it out, because the offer is sufficient. The Amendment would lead to dual control, the owner and the planning authority both doing the same thing at the same time. Taking the broad view of the requirements of a whole town, I cannot see how the owner of a piece of property can possibly work just on his own.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Dower
I am not suggesting that he should only make an offer to the planning authorities. The Amendment states clearly that he must be able and willing to carry out the work. I say that the owner should be given an opportunity first, before the land is acquired.

§ Captain Prescott
I support the Amendment. It may not apply in a great number of cases but I think—

Division No. 33.]	AYES.	[2.2 p.m.
Adamson, Mrs. Jennie L. (Dartford)	Cluse, W. S.	Green, W. H. (Deptford)
Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)	Cooks, F. S.	Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Barr, J.	Cove, W. G.	Grenfell, D. R.
Barstow, P. G.	Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)	Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Beaumont, Hubert (Batley)	Dobbie, W.	Gruffydd, Professor W. J.
Bonson, G.	Driberg, T. E. N.	Guy, W. H.
Bovan, A. (Ebbw Vale)	Dugdale, John (W. Bromwich)	Hardie, Mrs. Agnes
Bowles, F. G.	Dunn, E.	Harris, Rt. Hn. Sir P. A.
Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)	Edwards, Walter J. (Whitechapel)	Harvey, T. E.
Brown, T. J. (Ince)	Foster, W.	Hayday, A.
Brown, W. J. (Rugby)	Frankel, D.	Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Burke, W. A.	Fraser, T. (Hamilton)	Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Charleton, H. C.	George, Mogan Lloyd (Anglesey)	Hollins, J. H. (Silvertown)
Chater, D.	Glanvilie, J. E.	Horabin, T. L.
Hubbard, T. F.	Montague, F.	Thorne, W.
Hynd, J. B.	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Thorneycroft, H. (Clayton)
Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)	Naylor, T. E.	Tinker, J. J.
Kendall, W. D.	Neal, H.	Walkden, E. (Doncaster)
Key, C. W.	Oldfield, W. H.	Watkins, F. C.
King-Hall, Commander W. S. R.	Parker, J.	Watson, W. McL.
Kirby, B. V.	Poole, Captain C. C.	White, C. F. (Derbyshire, W.)
Kirkwood, D.	Quibell, D. J. K.	White, H. (Derby, N.E.)
Lawson, H. M. (Skipton)	Reakes, G. L. (Wallasey)	White, H. Graham (Birkenhead, E.)
Lawson, J. J. (Chester-le-Street)	Riley, B	Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)
Lipson, D. L.	Ritson, J.	Wilmot, John
Loverseed, J. E.	Roberts, W.	Windsor, W.
Mack, J. D.	Salter, Dr. A. (Bormondsey, W.)	Woodburn, A.
Mckinlay, A. S.	Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)
Maclean, N. (Govan)	Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:—
Manning, C. A. G.	Thomas, I. (Keighley)	Mr. Silkin and Mr. Moelwyn
		Hughes
NOES.
Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.	Goldie, N. B.	Paling, Rt. Hon. W.
Agnew, Comdr. P. G.	Gower, Sir R. V.	Peat, C. U.
Apsley, Lady	Greenwell, Colonel T. G.	Peto, Major B. A. J.
Assheton, Rt. Hon. R.	Gretton, J. F.	Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P.	Gridley, Sir A. B.	Plugge, Capt. L. F.
Beattie, F. (Cathcart)	Grigg, Rt. Hon. Sir P. J. (Cardiff, E.)	Prescott, Capt. W. R. S.
Beaumont, Maj. Hn. R. E. B. (P'tsm'th)	Grimston, R. V. (Westbury)	Porbrick, R.
Beech, Major F. W.	Guest, Lt.-Col. H. (Drake)	Raikes, Flight-Lieut. H. V. A. M.
Beechman, N. A.	Gunston, Major Sir D. W.	Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)
Bennett, Sir P. F. B. (Edgbaston)	Hacking, Rt. Han. Sir D. H.	Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)
Berry, Hon. G. L. (Buckingham)	Hammersley, S. S.	Roes, Sir R. D. (Londonderry)
Blair, Sir R.	Hannon, Sir P. J. H.	Ross Taylor, W.
Boles, Lt.-Col. D C.	Henderson, J. J. Craik (Leeds, N.E.)	Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.
Boulton, Sir W. W.	Hinchingbrooke, Viscount	Salt, E. W.
Bower, Norman (Harrow)	Hogg, Hon. Q. McG.	Sanderson, Sir F. B.
Bower, Comdr. R. T. (Cleveland)	Hopkinson, A.	Schuster, Sir G. E.
Brabner, Comdr. R. A.	Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.	Scott, Donald (Wansbeck)
Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. J. G. (H'dern's)	Horsbrugh, Florence	Scott, Lord William (Ro'b'k & Selk'k)
Brooke, H. (Lewisham)	Howitt, Dr. A. B.	Selley, Sir H. R.
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)	Jeffreys, General Sir G. D.	Shepperson, Sir E. W.
Bull, B. B.	Jewson, P. W.	Shute, Col. Sir J. J.
Burton, Col. H. W.	Johnston, Rt. Hon. T. (St'I'g & C'km'n)	Simmonds, Sir O. E.
Butcher, H. W.	Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)	Smith, T. (Normanton)
Cadogan, Major Sir E.	Jones, Sir L (Swansea, W.)	Snadden, W. McN.
Campbell, Sir E. T. (Bromley)	Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A.	Somervell, Rt. Hon. Sir D. B.
Castlereagh, Viscount	Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Comdr. Hon. L. W.	Spearman, A. C. M.
Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)	Keatinge, Major E. M.	Storey, S.
Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)	Keir, Mrs. Cazalet	Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)
Cobb, Captain E. C.	Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)	Strickland, Capt. W. F.
Colegate, W. A.	Kerr, Sir John Graham (Scottish U's)	Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Colman, N. C. D.	Kimball, Major L.	Studholme, Major H. C.
Conant, Major R. J. E.	Knox, Major-General Sir A. W. F.	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.
Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)	Lamb, Sir J. Q.	Suirdale, Viscount
Courthope, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.	Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.	Summers, G. S.
Craven-Ellis, W.	Lancaster, Lieut.-Col. C. G.	Sutcliffe, H.
Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.	Leach, W.	Thomas, Dr. W. S. Russell (S'th'm'tn)
Crowder, Capt. J. F. E.	Lewis, O.	Thorneycroft, Maj. G. E. P. (Stafford)
Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)	Llewellin, Col. Rt. Hon. J. J.	Thurtle, E.
De Chair, S. S.	Lloyd, Major E. G. R. (Renfrew, E.)	Tomlinson, G.
Denville, Alfred	Longhurst, Captain H. C.	Touche, G. C.
Dodd, J. S.	Lucas, Major Sir J. M.	Turton, R. H.
Doland, G. F.	Lyle, Sir C. E. Leonard	Ward, Col. Sir. A. L. (Hull)
Donner, Squadron-Leader P. W.	Mabane, Rt. Hon. W.	Ward, Irene, M. B. (Wallsend)
Dower, Lt.-Col. A. V. G.	MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.	Watt, F. C. (Edinburgh, Gen.)
Drewe, C	McCallum, Major D.	Watt, Brig. G. S. Harvie (Richmond)
Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)	MacDonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)	Wayland, Sir W. A.
Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)	Macdonald, Captain Peter (I. of W.)	Wells, Sir S. Richard
Eccles, D. M.	McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.	Westwood, Rt. Hon. J.
Edmondson, Major Sir J.	Maitland, Sir. A.	White, Sir Dymoke (Fareham)
Elliston, Captain Sir G. S.	Mander, G. le M.	Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W. (Blaydon)
Emmott, C. E. G. C.	Manningham-Buller, R. E.	Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.
Emrys-Evans, P. V.	Marlowe, Lt-Col. A.	Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)
Entwistle, Sir C. F.	Mathers, G.	Willink, Rt. Hon. H. U.
Erskine-Hill, A. G.	Mayhew, Lt-Col. J.	Windsor-Clive, Lt.-Col. G.
Fildes, Sir H.	Mellor, Sir J. S. P.	Womersley, Rt. Hon. Sir W.
Fraser, Lt.-Col. Sir Ian (Lonsdale)	Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)	Wright, Mrs. Beatrice F. (Bodmin)
Fyfe, Major D. P. M.	Molson, A. H. E.	Young, A. S. L. (Partick)
Galbraith, Comdr. T. D.	Morrison, Rt. Hon W. S. (Cirencester)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:—
Garro Jones, G. M.	Murray, J. D. (Spennymoor)	Mr. Pym and Mr. Buchan-
Gates, Major E. E.	Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.	Hepburn.
George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G. Lloyd (P'broke)	Nunn, W.