CLAUSE 1.—(The Central Land Board.) (Hansard, 7 July 1947)

§ Mr. Westwood
I beg to move, in page 1, line 10, to leave out Subsection (2), and to insert: (2) The Board shall have an office in Scotland and shall maintain there such staff as may be necessary for the proper performance of their functions under this Act. If it meets with your approval, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and with that of the House, it might be convenient if we discussed at the same time the next Amendment on the Order Paper, in the name of right hon. Gentlemen opposite, in page 1, line 11, leave out, "have an office," and insert: appoint a Committee for Scotland which shall consist of members of the Board, not less than three in number, who shall reside in Scotland, and the Board may delegate, subject to such restriction or conditions as they think fit, any of their functions to the Committee so appointed and the office of the Committee shall be.

§ Mr. J. S. C. Reid
My hon. Friends and I have no objection to these two Amendments being discussed together.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont)
The second Amendment has not been selected.

§ Mr. Westwood
The Amendment which 1 have moved is designed to comply with an undertaking which I gave in Committee that I would consider the wording of Clause 1 with a view to making it clear that the Scottish office of the Board would handle the ordinary run of Scottish business without reference to the headquarters of the Board in England. I take this opportunity of pointing out that in carrying through their work in Scotland the Board will be under the instructions of the Secretary of State for Scotland and not the Minister of Town and Country Planning who will be responsible for giving instructions as regards the operations of the Board in England. We have not yet determined the precise number to be appointed to the Board, a matter which is still under consideration, but we have decided that the Board shall include at least two representatives from Scotland. These members, of course, will be available for consultation as necessary by the Board's Scottish staff. I suggest that by these arrangements the Amendment would achieve what we all want—namely that Scotland should have a real say in the policy of the Board and that Scottish busi- 1854 ness should be handled expeditiously from the Board's offices in Scotland.

§ Mr. J. S. C. Reid
I rind it very disappointing that after a considerable interval the right hon. Gentleman has not been able to be any more definite than he has been. To begin with, to take the words of the Amendment, all that he seeks to do is to leave out a provision under which the Board were to have had an office in Scotland and to substitute a provision that they shall have an office in Scotland and shall maintain a staff there. I should have thought that it was a very odd thing to have an office without a staff, and therefore it seems to me that the Amendment adds absolutely nothing to what is in the Bill already. We frequently express the view that on important matters of this character we ought to have something in black and white in the Bill, and ought not to be dependent on the mere assurance of a Minister who may or may not survive for a long time, and who may be followed by some one with different views. Even assuming that the right hon. Gentleman's views will continue to be held by his successors for all time to come—or at least until we have an opportunity of putting the matter right— what has he said? All that he has told us is that the Edinburgh office is to handle the ordinary run of business and that two members of the Board will be available in Scotland for consultation—not that the two members of the Board will be stationed at Edinburgh and will themselves conduct the business. Of course he has not said that, because if it were so, they would be absent from the Board in London and would really cease to be members of the Board at all.
Unless we have a committee or a subdivision of the Board sitting in Edinburgh it necessarily implies that all policy questions which have to come up to the level of decision by the Board must be decided in London. If we are only to have individual members of the Board who are kind enough to travel to Edinburgh and explain to the Edinburgh officials the decisions which they have taken on the Board in London, that is falling a very long way short of having a body in Scotland with executive powers. The Secretary of State has said that he has power to give directions, but he has pointedly refrained from saying what directions he intends to give.
1855 I do not think that it would be possible under the Bill as it stands, for the Secretary of State to give the only direction that would satisfy me, at least—namely, that Scottish members of the Board, sitting in Scotland, shall decide all such Scottish questions as do not require joint decision from the United Kingdom. That cannot be done by direction, because if there is no provision for the Board setting up an executive department or committee in Scotland then all Board decisions must be taken in England. The Secretary of State describes the position accurately when he says that there can only be members of the Board proceeding from the boardroom to Scotland to explain to Scottish officials what the Board have decided or think about a question. There is, therefore, a very sharp conflict in principle between the two views.
Is the business to be conducted in Scotland only the ordinary run of business? That is to say, is it to be only the routine carrying out of policy decisions reached in London, or is to be the actual executive decision on all such questions as do not require joint action between the Boards of the two countries? The right hon. Gentleman has some experience of forestry, for example, where there is one organisation sitting in two parts, one of which is responsible to the Minister in England and the other to him. I cannot see how, as a matter of practice, a board sitting in London can at the same time obey directions from two different Ministers, and it necessarily follows that so far as general questions are concerned the Secretary of State will not be able to give directions to a board sitting in London. All he will be able to do is to give his directions as to what the Edinburgh people are to do once they have received the London decision on principle. That seems to us to be wholly unacceptable.
I cannot understand—and the Secretary of State has not given one word of explanation—why he will not allow a separate Scottish Committee at least, if he will not allow a separate Scottish Board. I should have thought that the conditions in the two countries and the legal and other questions which arise were so different as to make it essential that anybody, dealing with Scottish questions should have a pretty free hand, and that 1856 is quite impossible under the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman He says, "Well, we may have two people who may consult." I suppose one comes down one week and one another. Scotland will not be fobbed off with something of that kind if we can prevent it, and therefore I am bound to say that I think that Scotland has been extremely shabbily treated in this matter, and that the method which the Secretary of State insists upon inserting into this Bill will merely lead to delay and frustration and to decisions being taken not on special knowledge of Scotland and of Scottish conditions but on a view which may be prevalent in London 400 miles away. The result in practice at the end of the day will be extremely unsatisfactory.

§ Mr. Thornton-Kemsley
The concession which we have had today from the Secretary of State is an example of how concessions have to be wrung from the Government by sheer hard work in this matter of town and country planning. It reminded me that when the English Bill was first introduced it covered Scotland in only two respects—in the fact that there was a Central Board for England and Scotland and there was a certain global sum of £300 million which was divided between England and Wales on the one hand and Scotland on the other as compensation for loss of rights. I had the honour to be a member of Standing Committee D which in detail examined the English Bill, and I further had the honour of moving in it—and, if I may say so, I think this is strictly in Order—that there should be a separate land board for Scotland, the point about which we are speaking here.
I was astonished to have a statement from the Minister in charge of the Bill that at no period had any Minister representing Scottish interests ever asked for a separate board or a separate committee for Scotland. That seemed to be a most extraordinary thing—so extraordinary that my right hon. and hon. Friends put down an Amendment in the Scottish Committee to secure that we could have a separate committee in Scotland if we could not have a separate land board. That was refused, and now at last on the Report stage we have had an announcement made by the Secretary of State, not in the form of an Amendment, but an announcement on the Amendment on the Order Paper, that there will be at least two members 1857 of the Board who will concern themselves with Scottish matters. It does seem to me that this is an extraordinary way of going about the administration of Scottish affairs.
We have in this Bill a complete planning code. We have everything necessary to deal with the development of town and country in Scotland, except that we have to go to a Board sitting in Whitehall. It has got at least three things to do. It has to allocate to Scotland a share of the £300 million compensation for loss of development rights; it has to examine individual claims from Scottish owners of lands and buildings who consider that they have lost development value; and it has to adjudicate between them how much they are to receive. It has, in the second place, to assess development charges. When landowners in Scotland want to develop their land they have to go to an English Board sitting in Whitehall to have the development charges assessed and determined. Finally, this Board has, under one of the Clauses of the Bill, to act as a middleman in holding land which has been compulsorily acquired, and reselling it with the addition of the development charge. All of these functions should, in our view, be undertaken by a board of Scotsmen sitting in Edinburgh. There is no need to allow these peculiarly intimate Scottish matters to be determined by Englishmen in London, and it is scandalous that Scotland should be treated in this way. All we can get is this concession that two members of the Board of nine, who will give their consent to matters determined by the Board, should come from Scotland. It is a disgraceful way to deal with this matter.

§ Sir William Darling (Edinburgh, South)
I share the feelings of my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeen (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) in this matter. I am profoundly disappointed that the Secretary of State should bring forward such a tenuous proposal before this House. We hope that we will convince our English friends that we have a very considerable case irrespective of party. I would remind the House that the problem of the redevelopment of Scotland is not a problem which can well be solved from an office in Edinburgh with one or two persons. In England there are 59,000 1858 square miles to develop and in Scotland there are 33,000 square miles to develop, which is nearly half, I admit, but surely every Scotsman will agree, as will Englishmen, that there is a much greater field of development in Scotland than there is in England, and, on business grounds, we should have something more than a small office to deal with what is half of the amount of land to be developed in these islands.
If that development of land were an industry, it would not be effectively carried out from what is described as an office. What kind of an office has the Secretary of State in view? He has not condescended to give us any details. Is it a postal box or a box number, because that is what the proposal indicates to me that it may very well be? It seems to me that it is a matter of business arrangement, but if the object of this Bill is only to make provision for the development of Scotland on a semi-effective basis—

§ Mr. Hector Hughes (Aberdeen, North)
The hon. Member has asked what kind of an office this is and whether it is to be a post box. Obviously, he has not read the Amendment, because it says: The Board shall have an office in Scotland and shall maintain there such staff as may be necessary for the proper performance of this function under this Act.

§ Sir W. Darling
A post box, I should inform the hon. and learned Gentleman, might well be just exactly what he describes.

§ Mr. Hughes
Could it contain a staff?

§ Sir W. Darling
It could be one or two persons directing and redirecting letters. If you ask the Postmaster-General, he will inform you what a post box is, but if you do not wish to approach your right hon. Friend, buy yourself a copy of the Post Office Guide and you will see it there described for yourself.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
It is very kind of the hon. Gentleman to recommend me to do something with which I am not concerned.

§ Sir W. Darling
I am sorry, but the advice was intended for and necessary for the hon. and learned Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Hector Hughes). He might well consult the Postmaster-General and the Post Office Guide and learn something in regard to a post box. I should 1859 like to ask the Secretary of State to elaborate his views as to what kind of an office this will be. I would be satisfied with an office of the same type and magnitude as the Department of Agriculture in Scotland. I would be satisfied with the example of separating education in Scotland from education in England. I think it would be quite in order if the Secretary himself looked after town and country planning as he has looked after other Departments. I would be satisfied if the office would deal with planning in the same way as the Scottish Office deals with health and housing in Scotland. There is nothing in the Bill to indicate what kind of an office it is, or if it would be an office of the character which 1 have described. I am inclined to think that the Bill enables the Secretary of State—I am impressed more by his modesty than his manliness—to carry out the statute by asking two or three persons to be in an office somewhere in Scotland. The Amendment does not even say that the office is to be in the capital of Scotland The Secretary of State may take it down to one of the new towns, shortly to be baptized after him by name. That might very well be within the scope of the Amendment, which is quite unnecessary
This Bill is an important Measure, with a far-reaching effect on our fives. To relegate it, and to delegate it, to a minor office somewhere in Scotland is not seriously meeting the situation. I have said before that the Secretary of State for Scotand suffers from a quality from which I do not suffer myself, and therefore I can identify it more easily in others. He suffers from an overweening modesty and a simplicity of character, which may be commendable in private life but are detestable in public life. He should acquire a greater degree—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Member knows very well that what he is now saying is far away from the subject of the Amendment.

§ Sir W. Darling
I am grateful, Sir, for your guidance, but I should have thought, upon a proposal to set up an office—and I was speaking to that proposal—I should be entitled to refer to the office director or managing director and his personnel. I was saying that the office manager has many outstanding 1860 eminent qualities, but that in this direction he has taken an over-mean conception of—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
In that direction the hon. Member is going too far from the purpose of the Amendment to be permitted in this discussion.

§ Sir W. Darling
Well, I will return to a place nearer home, where I hope at least I shall not be out of Order, and that is Whitehall. I will return to Whitehall, which is the place from which the operations of the proposed office will be directed. In Whitehall, the Scottish Office has a significant place. In Whitehall, they executed a Scottish king.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Member had better get away from Whitehall and back to the Amendment.

§ Sir W. Darling
I will get away from it very readily. There, they executed a Scottish king—these are my last words, Sir—and I am afraid that other Scottish interests will be executed in Whitehall, and that the office which is offered to us somewhere in Scotland will give no satisfaction to the people of Scotland.

§ Mr. N. Macpherson
The hon. Member for West Aberdeen (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) has referred to this Amendment as embodying a concession, but I cannot see much about it in the way of a concession. There is additional provision for a staff, but I should have thought that one of the first things the Board would do would be to make sure there was a staff in Scotland

§ Mr. Thornton-Kemsley
What I said was that in proposing his Amendment the Secretary of State announced, as a concession, that we are to have two members on the Central Board who will represent Scottish interests.

§ Mr. Macpherson
I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend. His intervention clarifies the point, but I still feel that there is no concession in the Amendment. If there is to be a staff in Scotland, it seems to exclude the possibility of any kind of committee or board. The staff will be employees. What was suggested from this side of the House was that there should at least be a committee, but I do not see why there should not be a board. I cannot see 1861 why the Secretary of State for Scotland should not have pressed for a separate board. We have learned that the Lord Chancellor in another place did not object to it, and I see no objection to it. I see no reason why there should not be two boards. The right hon. Gentleman himself said what he will do. He will give instructions to the office. In other words, he will become a sort of branch manager. He will give instructions to the office, but the principal instruction will obviously have been laid down by the Central Land Board, on the instructions of the Minister of Town and Country Planning.

§ Mr. Westwood
I would direct the hon. Member's attention to the fact that instructions to the Central Land Board are to be given by the Minister of Town and Country Planning, and the Secretary of State for Scotland. I will be inferior to no one in connection with this matter.

§ Mr. Macpherson
I quite understand that the right hon. Gentleman wishes to take a full part in promoting the welfare of Scotland, but we say that he will not be in a position to do so. After all, he will not represent anything like the same population as will the Minister of Town and Country Planning, who is to give the broad directives to the Central Land Board. At best he will be the junior partner. Subsection (3) says: The Board shall, in the performance of their functions under this Act, comply with such directions as may be given to them by the Secretary of State. Are the Board to receive two separate sets of instructions, one for England and the other for Scotland? If so, why have one single board? There should be two boards. If, on the other hand, the whole object of having one Central Land Board is that there should be uniformity of policy throughout the country, obviously it is the Minister of Town and Country Planning who will give the instructions, and not the Secretary of State for Scotland. Therefore, the Amendment is wholly unacceptable. We are in this Bill establishing a broad new principle. The Bill represents possibly the greatest amendment in the law of land tenure for a very long time. No one can say how far-reaching this change will be. Surely, we should bring it into line with past procedure, and have different beards for England and Scotland 1862 to deal with the different land system. It is wholly unacceptable that we should be fobbed off with a sub-office and a staff to run it.

§ Colonel Gomme-Duncan
It has after been our habit to describe Scotland as being in the position of an office boy to the managing director, England. Now it is proposed to set up an office for the office boy. The trumpery Amendment which the Secretary of State puts forward today is an insult to Scotland. I am surprised that no Scottish Member on the other side who is really interested in Scottish affairs has stood up to say so.

§ Sir W. Darling
Not yet; give them time.

§ Colonel Gomme-Duncan
I certainly think that no one interested in Scottish affairs would consider that Scottish interests are being properly met. Of all the things which are bad in this thoroughly bad Bill, the Central Land Board is the most disastrous, from the point of view of Scotland. It is not the least bit of good for the Secretary of State for Scotland to say that he will fight for Scotland and that everything will be all fight. We have heard that promise about several other Bills which have gone through this House, and we know where Scotland has gone as the result of them. There is not much chance of the right hon. Gentleman getting his way over the other seven members of the Board who are to say what shall be done. It is tragic that we should have to put up with an Amendment like this and be told that it is a concession which will do all that is necessary for Scotland. It is an absolute travesty of government for Scotland.

§ Mr. Stephen (Glasgow, Camlachie)
I take a very definite view with regard to Scotland's place in legislation. After listening to this discussion, I cannot see that there is any material difference between what is proposed by the Government and what is proposed by the Opposition. There is a Central Land Board which is to be responsible for general policy throughout the United Kingdom. Hon. Members above the Gangway suggest that there should be a committee of that Board in Scotland under the direction of the Central Land Board. If that committee is to be under the 1863 direction of the Central Land Board, I cannot see that there is any fundamental difference between the two sides in this matter. With the Minister of Town and Country Planning, the Secretary of State for Scotland is giving instructions to the Central Land Board, and in doing so he will be seeing that the particular circumstances of Scotland are adequately dealt with. Having listened to what hon. Members said about Scottish interests, the Government are seeking in their Amendment to make it plain that this office in Scotland will be a very responsible one with a full administration in Scotland for carrying out this Bill.

§ Sir W. Darling
Why do they not say so?

§ Mr. Stephen
The hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) asks why they do not say so. Let me read the Amendment: The Board shall have an office in Scotland and shall maintain there such staff as may be necessary for the proper performance of their functions under this Act.

§ Sir W. Darling
What are those functions?

§ Mr. Stephen
The administration of the town planning programme which the Government have put forward. Those words give the hon. Member exactly what he said would satisfy him—a fully responsible administrative office in Scotland for the co-ordination of this work. My own point of view is that we shall never get proper planning in Scotland until we have a separate Scottish legislature. I do not think that my hon. Friends above the Gangway would help me to get that, but that is the point of view I take.

§ Sir W. Darling
Does the hon. Member visualise an office of the same character as the Offices for Education, Agriculture and Health, with a permanent secretary.

§ Mr. Speaker
That is another question.

§ Mr. Stephen
I do not know whether there will be a full permanent secretary, but I am quite sure that the office will be very important—

§ Sir W. Darling
What about the status?

§ Mr. Stephen
—with full status for carrying through this policy. The words 1864 of the Amendment can mean nothing else except that this will be a responsible office which will meet the needs of Scotland in this respect. I wish, however, that, instead of giving us this Measure, the Government had given us a Measure for Scottish Home Rule.

Mr. McKie
I cannot agree with the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) that there is no substantial difference between this Amendment and the one which will not now be called. I am very disappointed at the manner in which the Secretary of State for Scotland submitted his Amendment. He seemed somewhat unhelpful. This point is vital to Scottish interests. In Committee the Secretary of State expressed himself as fully seized of the matter, and I should like to recall the actual words in which he resisted a similar Amendment upstairs. He said: I am entirely in agreement with the statement that has been made that we require more than an office in Scotland, and I have tried to keep that in my mind in all the discussions in which I have taken part in seeking to frame the Bill now before the Committee."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee on Scottish Bills, 17th April, 1947; c 13.] If the Secretary of State really thought and felt that, he has not done very much this afternoon to make good the intentions he told us he had in mind in Committee and to which he promised he would give effect on the Report stage. He has proposed only that the office shall be enlarged so as to ensure that there shall be an adequate secretarial staff always there, but that goes no way towards ensuring that there shall be permanently in Scotland, not employees of the Board, but people of independent mind and judgment, having special knowledge and care for the interests of Scotland, who shall decide questions relating to the very special interests of Scotland when they come up for decision before the Central Land Board as a whole. The land area of Scotland is rather more than one-third of the United Kingdom, and there is, possibly, more litigation over land questions in Scotland than over any other matter. Surely, the Secretary of State for Scotland realises that it will be impossible to deal with Scottish land interests by the mere addition of these words regarding the secretarial staff. Independent people with special knowledge of land tenure and agriculture as prac- 1865 tised in Scotland should be permanently in Scotland for this purpose. There is nothing in the Amendment to ensure that.
We are setting up a great new landlord in Scotland. A lot has been said about the smaller landlords of Scotland in the past. I should have thought that hon. Gentlemen opposite would have sympathised with the spirit underlying our fears and would have supported us, if necessary, in the Division Lobby, against the Secretary of State for Scotland, not on the grounds that this Amendment is in itself contrary to Scottish interests, but from the point of view that it does nothing at all to ensure that there shall be permanently in Scotland, people with special knowledge of land tenure and agricultural conditions.

§ Commander Galbraith
The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) informed the House that he could see no difference whatsoever between what the Government proposed and what the Opposition proposed.

§ Mr. Stephen
No fundamental difference.

§ Commander Galbraith
The hon. Gentleman will no doubt realise that in view of the Financial Resolution, it would have been completely out of order for us to put an Amendment on the Order Paper to deal with the solution which we put forward—a separate board. What do the Government give us in this Amendment? The Board will have an office and a staff. Arc any decisions to be taken there, and, if so, what? That is the real point at which we want to arrive. It is no good having an office and a staff unless one has someone there in a position to make decisions, and that does not seem to come from the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment. Would the Under-Secretary be good enough to tell the House what functions this staff will perform. I do not know what they are, and I am quite certain that very few hon. Members could say what they are.

§ Mr. Rankin (Glasgow, Pradeston)
The Central Land Board is chiefly a revenue collecting body.

§ Mr. Stephen
If the hon. and gallant Member will give way to me, may I ask him this: if there were a committee of the Central Board there under instructions, how would they be able to give decisions, 1866 any more than one of the permanent officials who would be in the office?

§ Commander Galbraith
If there were a separate committee sitting in Edinburgh, they would be able to deal with everything that came within these principles and take decisions. These matters could quite well be passed over to them. I want to know who is to take decisions? Is every decision to be taken in England, or is there to be someone in this office in Edinburgh to make decisions so far as Scotland is concerned? Unless we can get absolute clarity on that point and be convinced that there is to be some person or persons in Scotland who can take decisions on their own, without referring every matter to England, then we shall require to divide against this Amendment.

§ Mr. Westwood
If I may, I will reply briefly to the points raised Certainly the decisions will be taken by the Board. It is perfectly true that the Board may be sitting in London, but on that Board of, shall I say, seven—because that is what I have roughly in mind—there has been no final determination as to the number—Scotland will have its two representatives. When the decisions are arrived at, there may be, in the application, principles which will be common to both countries. Incidentally, I have over-run the point that the decisions will be made by the Minister of Town and Country Planning and the Secretary of State jointly, and in the operation of the Board in Scotland, the Board will be under the instruction not of the two Ministers but of the one only, the Secretary of State for Scotland. He is the one who will be empowered to give instructions in the operation of their work inside Scotland.
I have all along resisted the idea of two boards. The Central Land Board will be dealing with principles of valuation common both to England and Scotland, and in amplifying what was already in the Bill by the Amendment I have moved I thought I was meeting some of the points raised in Committee that it would only be a post box, that it would only be an office boy, and charges of that kind. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite did not seem to understand in Committee that when one used the. Term "office," it meant the necessary staff to carry through the work, and the pledge I gave the Committee was that I would seek to amplify that, and 1867 the Amendment now before the House does so and guarantees that there will be an adequate staff to carry on the day to day administrative work in Scotland. One of the functions will be the distributing of Scotland's share of the £300 million available to the United Kingdom. Any proposals for the constitution of a separate Board or, indeed, for a separate Scottish Committee of the Board, would imply that the Board or the Committee might proceed on entirely different principles in Scotland. That I am not prepared to accept; that I am resisting, and that I will continue to resist because I think it cannot be to the advantage of Scotland when we are dealing with general problems of valuation or of revenue or of the collecting of the moneys necessary in connection with the development charges.

§ Commander Galbraith
Would the right hon. Gentleman answer one question before he sits down? He referred to the division of the £300 million. What we are particularly anxious to know is this. When planning permission is asked for, and that necessarily involves a development charge, is the decision to be given

§ Mr. Westwood
I have already decided that when the general principles are accepted, the administration of those principles—particularly in view of the fact that Scotland has a distinct system of land tenure as compared with England—will be under the instructions of the Secretary of State. That is what I set out to achieve. If anyone says I did not, they are wrong. I will argue for what I think is right on the part of Scotland; if I am wrong, it will be for this House to turn it down and, ultimately, for the country to turn it down, but I am sure that will be a long time ahead. I am perfectly sure that the proposal now before the House is all to the advantage of Scotland, giving me what I set out to achieve, and I hope the House now will accept the Amendment.
Question, "That the words proposed to be left out, stand part of the Bill," put, and negatived.
Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

§ Mr. Buchanan
I beg to move, in page 2, line 3, at the end to insert: (4) The report made by the Board for any year under Section two of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, shall set out any direction given by the Secretary of State to the Board during that year unless the Secretary of State has notified to the Board his 1870 opinion that it is against the national interest so to do. This Amendment means that it is incumbent on the Central Land Board to set out any arrangements come to during the year at the direction of the Secretary of State, unless they are quite definitely 1871 informed by the Secretary of State that in his opinion it is not in the public interest to do so.

§ Mr. J. S. C. Reid
I do not object to there being disclosure of directions but I do object very strongly to the Secretary of State having power to suppress some directions on such vague grounds as "the national interest." When we are dealing with security considerations, the Armed Forces, or something which affects foreign countries, or as in the Health Bill when we were dealing with information premature disclosure of which might be extremely hurtful to certain people who are rather hypochondriacal, I consider there is a need for concealment of certain matters. But I cannot imagine a possible class of direction with regard to anything which happens under this Bill, which it is contrary to the national or public interest to disclose. I hope that whoever replies will tell us the kind of case they have in mind. Then, possibly at a later stage, we can get a more restricted word to cover it.
The national interest may appear quite different to people on different sides of the House. A Secretary of State may some day consider it in the national interest that his party shall remain in power, and not be discredited, and therefore take the view that some direction, publication of which he thought might bring his party into discredit, ought not to be disclosed in the national interest. That is a process of argument which might very easily be followed. There is no check, and if a Secretary of State took it upon himself to do that, no one would ever know. We had an argument about this subject on the National, Health Bill and it was pointed out that there were a number of people serving part-time on that body, and if they thought that the Secretary of State was misusing his power they could say so. But here we are dealing with a small body, the Central Land Board, everyone of whom is indebted to the Government in one form or another, and however much a member of that Board may feel that the Secretary of State's direction is bad, he will have too great a personal inducement to allow him to open his mouth, and there will never be any disclosure of a suppressed direction. 1872 People will then begin to wonder whether the Board—who have been acting in a very political way—have been influenced by some underhand direction which the Secretary of State has decided to suppress. There is no doubt that that sort of thing will get about. It may be that no responsible person in this House, and no responsible person outside, would say it, but some irresponsible people would say it, and it is very wrong that they should have an opportunity of saying it. I hope we shall be told what the Government have in mind; that they agree that this limitation is not necessary, and that Amendments will be introduced to make certain that everything is square and above board, and all directions are published.

§ Mr. Buchanan
The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that this might be used for a party purpose, but as I read the words, not being a lawyer, that would not be the case, because it says, "in the national interest." Certainly, a party interest, as I understand it, would not be described as the public interest. This is a provision which has been in many other enactments If I am asked what I am guarding against, I say frankly, "Nothing at all at the moment, other than that in other enactments similar to this one, this power has been taken by all Cabinets and Governments in the past, in case an emergency arises in which the public interest may be involved." We are doing nothing more than has been done over a long period of years. If I am asked whether we propose to use this Subsection now, my answer is definitely and decidedly, "No. 'We take this power for one reason only, namely, that a set of conditions may arise in the future in which, in the national interest and the public interest, such a direction should not be stated in the Board's report

§ Mr. Henderson Stewart
The Joint Under-Secretary of State has given us a pathetic and inept reply. He says, "I do not want this power for use now. I am thinking of the future, of some terrible thing ahead." By that I presume he means, for example, war. If a Government were to find themselves in the middle of an emergency, in which they need special powers, the hon. Gentleman 1873 knows as well as I do that this House would give the Government all the emergency powers they wanted in a matter of a few hours. Therefore, this proposal is pure humbug. If a Government require powers in an emergency, they can get them. If the Government do not need any such power as this what right have they to ask for it? Let us consider the case of the small man. There will be tens of thousands of small claims upon this Board. The small man will come to the Board, which will issue a decision. Who is the dominating character in the Board? The Secretary of State says that the Board acting in Scotland takes its orders from him. Therefore, he is the boss. This little man makes his claim and is turned down; he loses all his possessions, his land or his property for a mere pittance, or he is obliged to pay a heavy development fee.

§ Mr. Buchanan
That is not an issue raised by this Amendment. All that is raised is that there will be an annual report published, and any direction which has been given by the Secretary of State must be published in that report, unless it is not in the public interest to do so.

§ Mr. Stewart
That bears on the case of a small man whose appeal is turned down by the Board and who applies to his lawyer for help His lawyer looks at all the published regulations and advises him that there is nothing in them to cause the Board to come to that decision. The man goes to law. But is it then disclosed that the Board is working under the secret direction? Apparently not. Is that justice? Are we to hold in this country that Ministers are to act on secret powers which not even a court can discover? It is rank Hitlerism—[Laughter.] No wonder hon. Members of the Labour Party laugh. They want rule by central direction, but this country has not fought and won the war for that; it has done so to defend the essential liberty and law of our land, which is that rules and directions issued by Parliament, and by Ministers through Parliament, shall be given the fullest public notice. Since that is not ensured here, we must oppose this Amendment.

§ Mr. Buchanan
What is involved here is not the small man but merely the directions of the Secretary of State. He gives broad general directions Long 1874 before I held office this provision was in the hands of Governments with which the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. H. Stewart) was associated. If the theory be that Governments with which he has been associated can be trusted with this power but this Government cannot, I strongly reject it.

§ Mr. Stewart
The Joint Under-Secretary of State has offered a challenge. Let me throw it back. Let him give the House a single example of an Act before the war comparable to this Measure in which such a secret power was taken. I say there is no such Act.

§ Mr. Buchanan
Oh, yes, there is.

§ Mr. Stewart
The hon. Gentleman must give us an answer—

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member has exhausted his right to speak He is not entitled to speak again.

§ Colonel Gomme-Duncan
Like my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. H. Stewart) I think that the statement of the Joint Under-Secretary is deplorable. It is accepting, in principle, pure Hitlerism. When my hon. Friend said that, hon. Members on the other side of the House laughed. So did the German Socialists when Hitler first appeared, but hon. Members know what happened to them afterwards. This is a step forward towards the totalitarian State. It is a very bad one, and I hope the House will divide against it.

§ Mr. N. Macpherson
The Joint Under-Secretary of State said that this provision has been included in several Bills lately. He is quite right. It has been, and in each case, I recall, it was a matter of national security which was involved. In the case of a Bill which we have just passed on to another place the Solicitor-General stated that national security was what the Government had in mind when he said, "in the national and public interest," and an Amendment was accepted substituting "national security" for "national interest." It is in that sense also that the words "national interest" have been interpreted in relation to the Civil Aviation Act, for example. Surely, the Joint Under-Secretary will tell us that he means that; that he does not mean what the Minister of Food means when he says that it is not in the national interest to disclose the prices of foreign bulk purchases.

§ Mr. Buchanan
That is what I mean. The only consideration here is the national interest—no personal interest, no party interest, nothing but the interest of the nation, and the interpretation of that is the one which the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson) has given.

§ Mr. N. Macpherson
If the hon. Gentleman means "national security," cannot he put it into the Bill, in the same way as it has been put into the Electricity Bill?

§ Mr. Buchanan
I will look at the matter between now and the time when the Bill goes to another place I am strongly advised that these words cover the point, and that that is the only interpretation that can be placed upon the Amendment. The hon. Member for Dumfries has asked whether the national interest means what he interpreted it to mean. I say, "Yes, in its best sense, the security sense." That is all that is meant, and I am advised that that is all that would be allowed by the terms of the Amendment. I will, as I said, look at the matter again, and see if anything further is necessary on that point.

§ Mr. Buchanan
I beg to move, in page 2, line 6, at the end, to insert: (5) Regulations made for the purposes of Section two of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, shall provide for requiring members of the Board who are interested in any land which is the subject of a claim or application made to the Board under this Act to disclose to the Board the nature of their interest, and may for that purpose apply any of the provisions of Section one hundred and forty-nine of the Companies Act, 1929, subject to such modifications as may be prescribed by the regulations. This Amendment provides that under the regulations made by the Secretary of State and the Minister of Town and Country Planning, Section 149 of the Companies Act, 1929, shall apply, namely, that members of the Board will be required to disclose their interest in any land in respect of which a claim is made.