HC Deb 09 October 1944 vol 403 cc1529-40

1.—(1) The following provisions of this Schedule shall have effect where an objection is duly made to—

  1. (a) an application for an order under Section one of this Act;
  2. (b) a proposal to make an order under Section nineteen thereof;
  3. (c) the making of an order under Section twenty-two or twenty-three thereof;
  4. (d) an order authorising a compulsory purchase submitted by a local planning or highway authority, or prepared in draft by a Minister, in accordance with the provisions of the First Schedule to this Act;
and is not withdrawn. (2) An objection shall not be deemed for the purposes of any of the said enactments or of this Schedule to be duly made unless—
  1. (a) it is made within the time and in the manner specified in the notice required by the relevant enactment referred to in the preceding sub-paragraph, and
  2. (b) the objection comprises, or there is submitted to the Minister therewith, a statement in writing of the grounds thereof.
(3) In this Schedule the expression "the Minister" means the Minister or Ministers having jurisdiction to make or confirm the order in question. 2. Unless the Minister decides apart from the objection not to make or confirm the order, or decides to make a modification agreed to by the person making the objection as meeting the objection, the Minister Shall, be- fore deciding whether to make or confirm the order, or what modification if any ought to be made, consider the grounds of the objection as set out in the statement, and may, if he thinks fit, require the person making the objection to submit within a specified period a further statement in writing as to any of the matters to which the objection relates. 3. In so far as the Minister is satisfied, after considering the grounds of the objection as set out in the original statement and any such further statement—
  1. (a) that the objection relates to a matter which can be dealt with by an arbitrator by whom compensation is to be assessed, or
  2. (b) in the case of an objection to an order authorising a compulsory purchase of land as to which an order under Section one of this Act is in force, that the objection is made on the ground that the purchase is unnecessary or inexpedient,
the Minister may treat the objection as irrelevant for the purpose of his deciding as aforesaid. 4. If after considering the grounds of the objection as set out in the original statement and any such further statement, the Minister is satisfied that he is sufficiently informed, for the purpose of his deciding as aforesaid, as to the matters to which the objection relates, or if where a further statement has been required it is not submitted within the specified period, the Minister may decide as aforesaid without further investigation as to those matters. 5. Subject as mentioned in the two last preceding paragraphs, the Minister shall, before deciding as aforesaid, afford to the person making the objection an opportunity of appearing before and being heard by a person appointed for the purpose by the Minister, and if he avails himself thereof the Minister shall afford an opportunity of appearing and being heard on the same occasion to the authority or other person (if any) making the application or representation or submitting the order in question and to any other persons to whom it appears to the Minister to be expedient to afford it. 6. Notwithstanding anything in paragraphs 2 to 5 of this Schedule, if it appears to the Minister that the matters to which the objection relates are such as to require investigation by public local inquiry before he decides as aforesaid, he shall cause such an inquiry to be held, and where he determines to cause such an inquiry to be held any of the requirements of those paragraphs to which effect has not been given at the time when he so determines shall be dispensed with.—[Mr. W. S. Morrison.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. W. S. Morrison

I beg to move, "That the Schedule be read a Second time."

This Schedule represents the results of our reflection upon discussions we had in the House, and in other places with the associations of local authorities on one aspect of our procedure, namely, objections to orders and public inquiries or other methods of hearing. I took the line and I think I speak for all the local authorities concerned—they agree with it—that no man should be deprived of land without the opportunity of being heard, so that his case can be considered by some impartial person.

The only method known to the law, until this Schedule, was what is generally known as the public inquiry. Although they are useful things in most cases, such an inquiry has still clustered around it a lot of dilatory features which are taken advantage of, not in order to air the case and arrive at a conclusion as to where justice lies, but by people who, I regret to say, like to advertise themselves and use the inquiry for purposes for which it was not intended. The position we took up was: Supposing we can arrive at procedure which will ensure for every case a hearing, or some method of having the matter decided or reported upon by an independent person. I promised to go as far as I could to remove from public inquiry procedure those dilatory features, which I felt were not justified in order to secure adequate protection for the individual. That was agreed upon by both sides.

In the new method of dealing with objections, the right to hold a public inquiry in any case still rests with the Minister and in any issue where public interests are involved, or where a large number of objections have to be heard, a public inquiry would still be the appropriate and the best method of having the whole matter threshed out before an independent person. But there are cases where an order is objected to by someone who feels that he wants his case heard, but does not feel that a public inquiry is the appropriate way of setting about it. There may be a point at issue between him and a small number of persons with identical interests where the public interest would be better served by bringing the parties together, not excluding the Press or friends, by trying to substitute for the formal, longwinded process of the public inquiry the atmosphere of the conference table presided over by an impartial person selected by me. We feel that these narrowly defined issues can be better dealt with in that way, and accommodation reached between the parties, than if the matter is put to a public inquiry where it can be indefinitely prolonged and there is a great deal of waste of time and expense.

In order that the Minister should be able to judge what is appropriate to meet an objection, we introduce a new feature here, with which I am sure the Committee will not quarrel. It is that the objector, if his claim is to be heard, must say in writing why he objects. Under the law as it stands it is sufficient to say "I object," and then, when the public inquiry comes along, for the objector to put his case without the authority knowing beforehand what are the grounds of the objection. Consequently, the whole inquiry is swollen by rivulets of all sorts of extraneous matters, and it is desirable that the objector should be obliged to state in writing the grounds of his objection. That will enable the Minister to decide what is the most appropriate form of dealing fairly with the objection. There are only two cases provided for by this Schedule where the public inquiry and hearing can be dispensed with. Sometimes I find people have put in an objection to a proposed order not because they want so much to object to it but because they want to exact, through their continued pressure, a better price from the purchasing authority. The prices at which land should be obtained, and what should be paid for compensation, are essentially matters for the arbitrator, and not for the public inquiry. I was saying that if the grounds of objection submitted by the objector show clearly that he has no real objection against the body of the order, but is because he fears that he will not be adequately compensated, that is a matter for the arbitrator and there is no necessity to have two inquiries—firstly, the public inquiry and, secondly, the arbitrator dealing with exactly the same point.

8.30 p.m

The last case is a little more difficult. The Minister could exclude the holding of a public inquiry if satisfied that he is really sufficiently informed of the issue involved. It sounds a little "wiseacreish" and "know-all-ish," but I can see no other way of expressing it. One kind of case is the case where, already, the question at issue has been a matter of inquiry and the facts are all known. It sometimes occurs in cases which arise with an authority operating the powers of Slum Clearance Acts, where the question at issue is whether the buildings are in such an insanitary condition that they should be relegated to the class compensated for only at clear site value. In these cases, if there is a dispute, the Minister of Health may have power to hold an inquiry and the matter may have been inquired into, on such questions as to the condition of the houses. If, as may well happen under this Bill, in dealing with blitzed and blighted areas, the same property is to be acquired, and the question arises what is the correct price to be paid, the man may again raise a matter previously determined, and we think that, if he has had a public hearing under another Statute, it is a proper case for dispensing with another inquiry.

The last case which comes under this sub-head is that these public inquiries are apt to be infested, from time to time, with what I may call the professional objector. He is a gentleman who turns up, no doubt with the best intentions, because he generally suffers from a monomania about some wonderful panacea which will put the world to rights in a moment, if only it was incorporated in a town and country planning scheme. Of course, he is entitled to a hearing, but whether his being heard advances the cause of knowledge at all is very difficult to say. His desire for litigation can only be satisfied in this way, so we take, under this heading, the power to deal with what, in less exalted surroundings, I would call the crank objector.

Those are the results of our attempt to combine the two essential elements, and they are both present—first, that every single individual who is being made the subject of one of these orders shall have the right to be heard before an independent person, and secondly, that the previous procedure for a public inquiry as operated for the purpose is a dilatory, time-wasting and money wasting procedure, which in many cases hampers its effectiveness and delays the execution of good will.

Sir J. Mellor

I think the Minister is trying to dismiss this matter rather too lightly. It seems to me that the provisions of this new Schedule for dealing with objections are most unsatisfactory, as compared with the provisions in the Bill as it received its Second Reading. The Bill, as it received its Second Read- ing provided for a public local inquiry as a right—certainly under Clauses 1, 9 and 10—and I think that, at the time of the Second Reading Debate, both the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary affirmed that. I am sorry to detain the Committee but I must remind hon. Members of the very strong attitude which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary took up upon this point at that time. I want to ask my right hon. and learned Friend exactly what has occurred since that time so completely to change his view. He has told us that the local authorities are unanimous in their approval of this new Schedule. That may well be, but local authorities are not everyone, and the rest of the community should have their point of view considered as far as it is possible for us to to estimate it in this Committee. On 11th July on the Second Reading Debate, my right hon. and learned Friend, referring to Clause 1, said: Local (authority) executives dislike both the publicity and the delay.… The ordinary citizen likes to know what his rulers are about. … He likes to be able to have his say in public before his friends and neighbours and before an independent person."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th July, 1944: Vol. 401. c. 1596.] On the same day his Parliamentary Secretary said: If important projects were carried into effect without public inquiry, indignation would be aroused and obstruction would be provoked, quite out of proportion to any possible saving of time. It is therefore desirable that the objections anybody might have should be aired at a public inquiry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th July, 1944; Vol. 401, c. 1689.] And again on the following day, presumably after he had heard the views of hon. Members of the House, during the second day's Debate, my right hon. and learned Friend said: It is very important to the man who is overruled that he has been overruled after having had his say and then he does not feel the same bitterness as if he had been overruled by some procedure with which he does not agree."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th July, 1944; Vol. 401, c. 1849.] That was the attitude of my right hon. and learned Friend and the Parliamentary Secretary during the Debate upon the Second Reading of the Bill and at that time there was a very extensive procedure providing for a public local inquiry as a right. My right hon. and learned Friend, at the very last moment in the Committee stage of this Bill, asks the Committee to agree to a new Schedule which completely reverses the policy on that point.

Mr. Morrison

No.

Sir J. Mellor

That is debatable. I maintain that it completely reverses the policy on that point, which was the policy sustained by the Government on the Second Reading of the Bill. I want to know what discussions my right hon. and learned Friend had on this matter. We know that he had discussions with the local authorities and satisfied them. What discussions has he had with other people concerned with regard to the provisions of this new Schedule? I am prepared to concede to my right hon. and learned Friend that in many cases a public local inquiry may not be the best method. Where one wants to proceed with great urgency, I agree, it may give opportunities for dilatory behaviour, but while that may well apply to proceedings under Clause 1, it certainly would have no reasonable relation to procedure under Clause 10.

I do not want to repeat what I said a quarter of an hour or so back on that point because I think the Minister appreciated my point. But a sharp distinction should be drawn with regard to the degree of urgency under Clause 10 and procedure under the other Clauses, because Clause to relates to the normal procedure and I cannot see that there is sufficient need for hurry in proceeding under Clause 10 to justify the elimination of the right to a local public inquiry and the substitution of the discretionary procedure laid down in the New Schedule.

My right hon. Friend in moving the new Schedule said that everyone had the right under this new procedure to be heard by an independent person. It is rather a slender kind of right if one looks at the Schedule closely because the Minister, if he is satisfied of certain things, can treat the objection as irrelevant. Again, if he thinks he is sufficiently informed of the nature of the objection, he may decide without further investigation. Also he can decide whether he thinks it is appropriate that an objector should be heard by a person appointed by him or heard in the course of a local public inquiry. But there is no right about it, it is entirely in the discretion of the Minister and he can do exactly as he pleases. When one compares the provisions of this new Schedule with the Bill as it received the assent of the House on Second Reading, this is a very poor business indeed from the point of the view of everyone except the Minister and the local authorities.

Mr. Manningham-Buller (Daventry)

Even at this late hour I would like to say a few words with regard to this new Schedule, and I regret that I was not here to listen to the opening of the Debate with the Minister in regard to it. I may say, having listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir J. Mellor) has said, I find myself in disagreement with him. I have never found, in my experience, a public inquiry serving a very useful purpose, for I have never known a case where the proposal put forward was not carried through in consequence of a public inquiry being heard. I think the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) on one occasion said his experience was the same, although recently he said that he would quote a case where public inquiry had some effect. However, I see no radical difference between the proposals in this Schedule and the content of the Bill. It seems to me there is some advantage in having in one Schedule the procedure to be followed by objectors but, radically, there is very little practical difference between allowing an objector to be heard by a person appointed by the Minister and in appointing a public inquiry to be held.

The only point on which I feel some doubt is this. These interviews with officials are held presumably for the purpose of deciding whether objections are well founded or not, and also to satisfy the objectors that they are not well founded if that be the case. I would ask the Minister to consider, if he can, whether some method can be found by which this fact-finding tribunal—as the Attorney-General referred to it earlier in the Debate on the Committee stage of this Bill—could announce its decision to the objector to satisfy him. It is very little satisfaction to an objector to come and make what he thinks to be a strong case before a little man who sits absolutely silent at the end of a table and then hears nothing more about it. Although that may relieve him to some extent by allowing him to blow off steam, I think it would be much happier if, at some stage, the reasons why his case had been dismissed could at least be declared to him. It may be that he would go away far happier and realise that it really was in the national interest that his property should be acquired, a matter which he was quite unable to appreciate before. Would the Minister consider whether there is some way in which that could be done and, if possible, insert an Amendment to the Schedule on the Report stage to carry that into effect?

Lieut. - Colonel Thornton - Kemsley (Aberdeen and Kincardine, Western)

In this informal procedure which my right hon. Friend proposes, and with which I am in wholehearted agreement, is it open to the person making the objection to be represented by an expert witness? So often an objector would like to have with him a solicitor or valuer or surveyor, and it seems desirable that he should be allowed to have such an expert witness to represent his views, if he so desires.

8.45 p.m.

Lieut - Commander Joynson - Hicks

I wish to draw the Minister's attention to one point, and to support very earnestly the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller). If something on the lines my hon. Friend suggested could be provided, it would relieve a great deal of potential misunderstanding. My minute point is in connection with Sub-section (2, b), which says that an objection shall not be deemed, for the purposes of any of the said enactments or of this Schedule, to be duly made unless … the objection comprises, or there is submitted to the Minister therewith, a statement in writing of the grounds thereof. The object of that was fully explained by the Minister, and it is admirable; but when this matter gets to the machinery stage, I am afraid that, being told that they have to set out their grounds of objection in writing will be a terrible bar to most potential, genuine small objectors. If that phrase could be made rather less comprehensive, or less formal, it would be a comfort to the proposed objector, and would prevent it being used, perhaps unfairly, to limit the scope of the objection if, notwithstanding notice which has been put in, an inquiry is held.

Mr. W. S. Morrison

In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sir J. Mellor), I wish to say that I am sorry he thought I treated the matter too lightly. I tried to explain it shortly, and, when he attempts to find a great contrast between my attitude on the Second Reading and the present result, in the form of this new Schedule, he must remember that what was then being urged in certain quarters of the House was the recommendation of the Uthwatt Committee, that the Minister should have discretion in every case to dispense with the public inquiry; and I took the line that that general discretion should not form part of this Bill, but that there should be these ameliorative and accelerative provisions, so as to rob the public inquiry of its offence as an instrument of policy, and leave these forms of inquiry, modified, though, I think, still efficacious, as a remedy to the individual. He mentioned Clause 1 orders. I think I can say without fear of being a false prophet, that in that case there will be public inquiry, because there big projects, affecting many interests, will be decided. As regards Clause 10, the same procedure is open. If there are many objections there will be a public inquiry. If there is only one man affected, it would be better, and he would like it better, if an impartial hearing were given with the local authority opposite him so that he could argue his case and a decision be arrived at by the Minister. The Minister has to arrive at the decision and not the officer who hears the inquiry, which gives me trouble about accepting the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller). It is difficult for a man to make a report if he knows that it is going to be published.

Mr. Manningham-Buller

Will my right hon. Friend remember the procedure adopted under the Food and Drugs (Milk and Dairies) Bill?

Mr. Morrison

I do not remember it off hand but I will look into it. My hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) asked whether a man could be assisted at the hearing by an expert witness or anyone else. Yes, he can. He can be assisted by counsel or a solicitor, or anyone he likes. With regard to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Joynson-Hicks), the words in the Bill "a statement in writing of the grounds of his objection" are about as tenuous and free as I could make them. I do not think they are likely to deter any objector with grounds for a statement from putting them in writing. There will be no effort to hold a man strictly to what he puts in his letter, after the manner of formal pleadings in the High Court. As long as we can get enough information to judge the weight and the nature of his objection, that is all that is required.

Sir J. Mellor

There are two points that my rt. hon. Friend has not answered, why it, is necessary to assimilate the procedure with regard to objections under Clause 10 to that of the other Clauses, as there is no urgency under Clause 10, and what steps he has taken since the Second Reading to consult persons interested other than local authorities.

Mr. Morrison

One of the criticisms about the Bill as originally produced was that the procedure was too multifarious. There were too many procedures for different purposes of acquisition, and it was in attempting to meet that that the whole objection procedure is in this Schedule. The weight that should be given to an acquisition under Clause 10 is that in a proper case, where there is no hurry, there would be no hurry about trying to get a more expeditious procedure than was adjudged necessary in the case. As regards consultation with other persons, I consulted with my friends and other members of the Government in deciding what I should recommend as the Government policy. The discussions with local authorities to which I referred took place in pursuance of a pledge that I gave on the Second Reading.

Question put, and agreed to.

Schedule read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Bill, as amended, to be reported.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, to be considered To-morrow, and to be printed [Bill 47.]

ADJOURNMENT

Resolved: "That this House do now adjourn."—[Commander Brabner.]

Adjourned accordingly at Eleven Minutes before Nine o'Clock.