HC Deb 18 November 1949 vol 469 cc2383-8
Mr. Hare

I beg to move, in page 3, line 28, to leave out from "for," to "or," in line 31, and to insert: any temporary purpose which will be beneficial to the amenities of the neighbourhood. This Amendment is designed to ensure that the amenities in a neighbourhood are properly preserved. All of us realise that local authorities, like individuals, are not above criticism on this question. Local authorities have been known to be guilty of reducing amenities in certain cases instead of improving them. This Amendment would show local authorities that they must not run into the danger from the point of view of expediency of producing something rather worse than what already exists when they take over a site. It is designed to prevent local authorities from removing certain detrimental aspects and replacing them with something rather worse. It would prevent them from jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

It is clear that owing to the temporary nature of the Bill, which has been stressed continuously by the Minister, there may be erected on these sites temporary buildings which after a short time may prove to be a nuisance detrimental to the people who live in the area. I do not say that coffee stalls, sandwich stalls or ice cream kiosks are necessarily in themselves detrimental, but there are occasions when such temporary buildings, which used to supply what may at one time have been a steady demand, may prove uncongenial to the people who live near the blitzed sites.

I suggest that local authorities should be kept on their toes. If this Amendment is accepted, it will be laid down clearly that when they take over a site which they consider to be detrimental to the amenities of a neighbourhood, they will be told by this Bill that in doing so they must ensure that they use it temporarily, as is laid down, to improve its amenity value. I think that the Minister will be sympathetic to the idea behind this Amendment.

Mr. Bevan

The view that stands behind the Bill is that the local authority is a better guardian of the amenities of a district than is the owner of the property concerned. Otherwise, there would be no need for the Bill. Therefore, the judge of this matter must be the local authority and the Minister. Even hon. Members opposite have considered that the public authority is a better guardian of the public welfare than any private interests. Therefore, the body to decide whether what they have done is better than what would have been done by private interests, is the local authority.

If, however, the hon. Member wishes to import these words into the Bill so that the local authority can do something rather more than it has a statutory right to do, I would ask him to remember what that involves. Would he consider that under the words proposed the local authority would have the right to put up shops?

Mr. Hare

No. The right hon. Gentleman knows that under this Bill it would not be for a local authority to put up permanent buildings.

Mr. Bevan

I did not say permanent buildings.

Mr. Hare

Temporary shops are not provided for under the Bill.

Mr. Bevan

They would be under the terms of this Amendment. The word "amenities" would cover that. The Amendment would enable a local authority to put up shops because the word "amenities" could be held to cover a variety of subjects, as was pointed out during the Second Reading. The Amendment would widen the powers of local authorities, and we do not want to do that. Also, it would be held that perhaps an amenity would be a positive and not a negative thing. In other words, if a local authority cleared a site and left the matter at that, it might be satisfied, but it could not be said that a cleared site was in itself an amenity. In that case in every instance the local authority would have to do something about the site in addition to clearing it. We want the local authority to be free. We want it either to clear the site in such circumstances and to leave it alone, or in other cases to clear the site and do something about it, such as laying it out as a garden or a playing field or something of that sort. These words would be more constructive but more expensive than the words in the Bill.

Mr. Walker-Smith

The difficulty is a simple one. It may well be, as the Minister said, that the precise words of this Amendment cannot resolve it. I rather sympathise with what he said about the use of the word "amenities." I think that I drew attention during the Second Reading to the very little interpretation which exists as to the precise meaning in law of the word "amenities." The difficulty as I see it, has nothing to do with the will of local authorities to do well by the amenities. It is simply related to the comparatively short term of their lease.

The trouble is that the word "work" can embrace a very wide range of activities. Every hon. Member would be in agreement that it is a good thing that they should normally do upon those sites that part of the work which is defined in the interpretation Clause as "the laying out and cultivation of gardens." That is obviously a good thing and beneficial to the amenities of the sites, but, when it comes to the erection of buildings, we are bound to ask what kind of buildings local authorities are going to erect under these powers. The object of the Amendment is to try to ensure that such buildings as are erected shall be only the types of buildings which will add to and not detract from the amenities.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about erecting shops. I do not know that there would be any objection in principle—I am not talking about the law—if such a proposal was for the good of the community, but it would be a shop which would come down after five or 10 years, and the local authority would have no benefit or goodwill or the right of a new lease under the Landlord and Tenant Act, because that case is excluded from the Statute.

Mr. Bevan

What about prolonging the Act?

Mr. Walker-Smith

We are bound sometimes to attach weight to what the right hon. Gentleman says, though we do not always do so. That being so, any shop erected under these provisions would be a temporary shack or structure, and the experience of hon. Members is that these buildings, so far from adding to the amenities, normally detract from them. That is the difficulty which we have in mind, and the Minister has not resolved that difficulty by what he said. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out the difficulties of our Amendment, but did not meet the difficulties of his own case, and if he could be a little more helpful we would be obliged to him.

Mr. Bevan

I will help the hon. Gentleman at once. He has informed us, in an unnecessary passage earlier on, that he is a vice-president of the Urban District Councils' Association. Why does he not display more confidence in the local authorities? Why on earth does he assume that the local authorities are going to put up unseemly structures? That is the whole point. The hon. Gentleman cannot lay down any better definition of amenities than a local authority itself would be able to apply to itself in a particular case. We cannot make generalisations about amenities, and, in fact, the hon. Gentleman said so and reminded us of it on Second Reading. Therefore, what is an amenity must be left to the local authority in any particular set of circumstances.

If it is not amenity, and if the local authority has in fact done something on the site more disfiguring than the site itself was before the local authority entered upon it, the local citizens can be relied upon to bring the local authority to book. There is nothing at all here that we can do other than waste the time of the Committee. If the term "amenity" is brought in, it might mean an extension of the powers of local authorities being put upon the Statute Book, and hon. Members would not want us to do that here.

1.15 p.m.

Commander Galbraith

I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman saying that he thought more power should be given to the local authorities, because I entirely agree with him, but he was a little naughty earlier when he replied to my hon. Friend who sits behind me. I do not know whether it is that the lunch hour is drawing near or what it is, but to make the suggestion which the right hon. Gentleman did was not only ungracious but unfair. It is perfectly obvious that the words in the Amendment to which his attention has been drawn particularly are, "will be beneficial to the amenities."

Mr. Bevan

Who is to decide that?

Commander Galbraith

The local authority will decide it, and we do not desire to take that power away from them. If the Minister will read the Amendment, he will see that it allows them to put down any works which they are entitled to do in accordance with their statutory functions. There is nothing here to say that it has to be something which will improve the amenities; of course, not.

Mr. Bevan

If he will allow me, the hon. and gallant Gentleman is quite wrong here, and, if he persists, I shall have to accept these words in another place, but he will be very sorry. What we are afraid of is that, if these words are imported into the Bill, it will not be possible in some circumstances for local authorities to clear a site and leave it, because it may be that their interpretation of it would be that they had to do something more than that. The hon. and gallant Gentleman will know that in some instances it would be sufficient to clear a site and leave it as an open space, and do nothing more positive about it. In another case, if the local authority has the power to do anything which adds to the amenities of the area, that would add to their existing statutory functions, and we do not want that in a small Bill of this sort, though, if insisted upon, we are prepared to consider it.

Commander Galbraith

We are trying to make certain that nothing is erected which takes away from the amenities which now exist, and when I said on Second Reading that I hoped this would not mean a whole lot of unsightly temporary erections, the House generally was with me. I hope the Minister will think over the matter once again in order to see if he can strengthen the existing provisions of the Bill.

Amendment negatived.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.