HC Deb 02 August 1951 vol 491 cc1661-71

1.45 p.m.

Lieut. - Colonel Bromley - Davenport (Knutsford)

I want to draw the attention of the House to the dreadful devastation which has been and is being caused in Cheshire by subsidence of land due to brine pumping. I wish also to ask the Minister of Local Government and Planning and the Minister of Agriculture to interest themselves in this fearful problem and to aid, in every way they can, the local authorities to take action under the Brine Pumping (Compensation for Subsidence) Act, 1891.

The county of Cheshire, particularly that part of it which lies within the boundaries of my constituency, is seriously affected. There may be other cases elsewhere in England, but I propose to confine my remarks today to those areas which I have visited. The sight of the devastation is pitiful. There are heaps of rubble which used to be homes where happy families once lived. There are vast lakes where once cattle grazed and corn grew. The tops of tall trees appear above the water level of flooded wastes where once the land was fertile.

Only last year I walked across a 10-acre field at Rode Heath in my constituency. The stubble of harvested corn still remained, but the field had borne its last crop. In the short time which had elapsed since the gathering of the harvest the field had begun to slip. Great ridges ran across the full length of the field to show how it was falling in. The drainage system was destroyed. The field was no longer of use to man or beast. poor farmer faces hard times in the future. These 10 acres are lost to him for ever and the balance of his farm has gone. Worst still, the subsidence is encroaching day by day and week by week across his land taking more and more of his livelihood from him. What compensation does he get? Absolutely nothing. He just waits for the end of his living. He can either sell now at a huge loss or go struggling on trying to avoid bankruptcy. The case which I have cited is not the only one; it is just one tragic example. I have spoken to people whose houses—the bricks and mortar representing a lifetime of saving and thrift—are now heaps of rubble.

One poor man—I have his letter here —whose house collapsed was fined 12s. 6d. for owning dangerous property due to subsidence and was ordered to remove the rubble which was once his home. This cost him£55. Was there ever such a gross injustice? Could there be a better example of adding insult to injury? He received no compensation whatsoever for having his home destroyed and was threatened with a heavy fine if he did not clear away at his own expense the devastation that remained.

That poor man still owes the money he borrowed to buy the home that has now been destroyed. I also know farmers whose land has gone so far that their dairy herds have sometimes had to be reduced by half because the land which once fed their cattle is now under water. These men and women are left without a penny compensation for the tragic losses which they have sustained.

The Brine Pumping (Compensation for Subsidence) Act, 1891, provides machinery for the formation of compensation districts where subsidence is caused by the pumping of brine and for the establishment of compensation boards for such districts. These boards form and maintain compensation funds by levying a maximum rate of 3d. per 1,000 gallons of brine pumped by each brine pumper during the preceding 12 months. I understand that the Act applies to any county but it is in Cheshire where it is most operated? This is not surprising, since some 2,500,000 tons of solid salt were taken out of the ground in Cheshire in each of the years, 1949 and 1950, making a total of five million tons.

But heavy subsidence has taken place outside these compensation districts. How are people affected as regards compensation inside the compensation districts? Compensation is paid provided that the person concerned makes a claim within six months of the damage starting. I understand however, that the trouble is this. In several cases, through ignorance of the law claims have not been made within six months, and, as a result, they get no compensation. These are poor people. They do not understand the law, and have no knowledge of the 1891 Act. They have never even heard of it; therefore, they get nothing.

Those who live outside the compensation districts get absolutely nothing, whether they apply or not. Brine pumping in one area can cause subsidence miles away from where the brine is being pumped, and there can be endless argument as to which brine pumper has caused the damage. Professor Edgar Morton, in his report on subsidence, has stated that subsidence due to the solution of salt beds tends to occur at ever increasing distances from the pumping centres.

What can these poor people do to get compensation for all they have lost? I asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning, on 30th January this year, when his local inquiry into the question of considering compensation for subsidence in Cheshire would take place. His reply was: I cannot hold a local inquiry until I have received an application under the Brine Pumping (Compensation for Subsidence) Act, 1891. I then asked him the following supplementary question: Owing to the widespread anxiety which is being felt all over Cheshire on this question, could the Minister use his influence to have this inquiry held as soon as possible, particularly so that the question of retrospective compensation can be gone into? His reply was: I am only waiting for the local authorities to apply. Under this Act, either the local authorities or private property owners can apply, and until they apply I can do nothing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th January, 1951 Vol. 483, c. 706–7.] I acted on this information and informed the Odd Rode Parish Council, who immediately applied for a local inquiry. Their application was refused on the grounds that they were not a sanitary authority. The point is this: Who is to bear the cost of such an inquiry, the payment of expert witnesses, the employment of counsel, the weeks and months of consultation before a report can be drawn up? This procedure can be even more expensive when they came up against industry. These people again employ counsel. A company can afford to pay the highest in the land. Expense means little to them, as it either comes out of company fund or, I believe, can be set off against profits, in which case the costs are paid for indirectly by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Minister said that private property owners could apply for an inquiry. That is quite true, but he omitted to add that only those can apply who own property of a minimum rateable value of£2,000. But the bulk of this damage has been done to the very poorest people; those who have saved all their lives and bought a small cottage and who have now lost everything. It applies also to farmers with smallholdings. Further, the application itself for those with property of a rateable value of£2,000 must be in the form of a memorial.

I understand that this is a very expensive legal business. Barristers have to be briefed, expert witnesses called, and a general expensive legal procedure has to be followed. What authority, what individual, can afford that these days, particularly when there is the fear that in the end he may lose the cause for which he is fighting, or the Government of the day may do nothing about it, even if the inquiry goes in his favour'?

The alternative, I understand, is a Private Bill. The cost of this, if opposition is not abnormal and the Bill is of average length, is about£2,000. But there may be expensive opposition from the companies concerned, in which case the cost may be much heavier.

Mr. Donnelly (Pembroke)

Hear, hear.

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport

I will get off that danger point. Can subsidence be prevented? There are, I understand, two methods of brine pumping—controlled brine pumping and wild brine pumping. Imperial Chemical Industries have, I understand, spent a fortune in perfecting controlled brine pumping. They have found that, as a result of this method, subsidence has decreased each year until today, when hardly any subsidence occurs.

In brief, this method, I understand, fills a large cavity under the earth about the size of St. Paul's Cathedral, from which the salt has been removed, with saturated brine, the whole of this enormous cavity underneath the earth being held up by large pillars of salt. I hope that Imperial Chemical Industries will forgive me if I have given an incorrect description, but, right or wrong, the question is this: Will this system of controlled brine pumping stop subsidence for ever?

There are different views about this. Professor Edgar Morton, who is one of the greatest experts in the country on this subject, has given as his considered view that one day the salt pillars will give way, and that the resultant collapse will mean a disaster comparable only with that of an earthquake. Therefore, should there not be an immediate inquiry into this, and, pending a decision, should not these areas be fenced off as highly dangerous? Wild brine pumping, on the other hand, is, I understand, the cause of nearly all the subsidence now occurring. No attempt is made, apparently, to prevent subsidence. The salt is removed, there is no control, the damage is done, others are left to suffer, and good agricultural land is destroyed for ever.

It is always difficult to understand illness or disease until we see it for ourselves, unless someone we love is seriously ill or we ourselves are stricken. In just the same way no one can appreciate the suffering and damage that is being caused by subsidence until he sees it for himself. I have visited these stricken areas, and I have sent to both the Minister of Town and Country Planning and the Minister of Agriculture albums of many photographs giving detailed examples of the destruction of land and homes.

I ask hon. Members on both sides of the House how they would feel if the homes they live in were suddenly to crack and start falling down, and they were then fined for owning dangerous property and ordered to clear away the rubble at their own expense, if they had nowhere to go and received not one penny piece of compensation. What have these poor people done to deserve this? There is one hon. Member—the hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Vosper)—whose house in Knutsford is now starting to crack. I hope that the Minister will use his influence to institute a full inquiry into this matter.

Many questions are being asked in Cheshire, but the main ones are these. What compensation is to be paid in future for damage to land and property outside the compensation area, and who is going to pay it?

Mr. Nally (Bilston)

Hear, hear. Who is going to pay?

Lieut. - Colonel Bromley-Davenport

Will compensation be retrospective, whether or not claims were made in time? Or are these unfortunate people, who have suffered so terribly and lost all through no fault of their own, to get nothing?

Can subsidence be stopped altogether? Is controlled brine pumping the answer? Is Professor Edgar Morton right in his opinion about the nightmare of possible future subsidence comparable to that of an earthquake? If so, will these danger areas be carefully marked and fenced off for all to know? If controlled brine pumping will stop subsidence for ever, are wild brine pumpers to switch to controlled brine pumping, or are they to continue as they are now, destroying land and property?

The final question which people are asking is. What action can the Government take to help them? What action will they take, and how soon?

Mr. Nally

Why the Government?

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport

I thank the Minister for listening so patiently and sympathetically. Goodness knows, this is no party matter. In 1937 and 1938, I understand, an inquiry was to have been held, but the war came and everything lapsed. Still nothing is being done, and the damage goes on at an ever-increasing scale and pace. There is no time to be lost. This subsidence is now breaking down the banks of the Trent and Mersey Canal and is heading straight for the Mill Mead housing estate. What experts are looking into this matter, and who is to pay for the damage if this canal and estate are destroyed?

Subsidence is taking place as far afield as Mobberley, Swettenham, Hulme War-field, Tabley and Bechton. Only the other day, a farmhouse kitchen collapsed without warning in Mobberley. That is where the Minister's predecessor wanted to build a new town.

Mr. Nally

He did not.

Lieut. - Colonel Bromley-Davenport

Cheshire is a lovely county, but across those rich and fertile fields is blowing the chill wind of fear. Whose home, whose property, is to be destroyed next? Unless something is done, and done soon, to prevent this appalling destruction, the beauty and fertility of a large part of our county will be destroyed and the face of Cheshire will be scarred for ever.

2.3 p.m.

Mr. Scholefield Allen (Crewe)

I listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport), and with a great deal of what he says I entirely agree. There are heart-breaking cases, but they are no new thing at all. Brine extraction has been going on in Cheshire for 150 and more years. The hon. and gallant Member says that he has visited this area. I remember visiting it when I was very small indeed, and that is quite a long time ago. That was in the days when Governments represented by the hon. and gallant Member had ample time and opportunity to deal with this matter, but they did not bother. The Act of 1891 is no real solution to the problem.

Representing, as I do, the Crewe constituency of Cheshire, I am often thought to be the representative of a railway town, and of only a railway town. My constituency is about 30 miles by 20 miles in extent, and the majority of it is agricultural land in urban and rural districts. Many of those urban and rural district councils have been affected by brine subsidence.

What surprises me this morning is that the hon. and gallant Member, who is very familiar with the district, has entirely failed to point out what the local authorities in the area have done and are doing now. The sanitary authorities are endeavouring to promote a Bill, the object of which will be to remedy a large number of these injustices, but I expect that, as the hon. and gallant Member has said, it will meet with great resistance from Imperial Chemical Industries, Limited, who are one of the chief extractors of the brine, and of other extractors. I have no doubt that the Bill could be promoted and passed in a very short time provided that the extractors would back it with reasonable compensation. At all events, a great amount of injustice could be remedied with their co-operation.

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport

I very carefully abstained from making any party points or sneering at any particular section of the community. Will the hon. and learned Member please try to continue the debate in that manner?

Mr. Allen

I am not endeavouring to make party points. I am pointing out that this thing has gone on for 150 years and more, and that the hon. and gallant Member's tears are, I suspect, crocodile tears, and have been for a very long time.

In June of this year, the suggestion was made by the Cheshire County Council that a Bill should be promoted on behalf of the Cheshire local authorities who are interested in the compensation arrangements for the extraction of brine pumping. The Parliamentary Committee of the Cheshire County Council recommended that if they got the support of 75 per cent. of the local authorities, they would go ahead with the Bill. The object of the Bill is to set up a new comprehensive board and district for the area and to increase the amount of payments by the extracting companies.

Mr. Nally

Hear, hear.

Mr. Allen

In fact, a meeting was taking place in Crewe at 10.30 this morning, to which representatives of all local authorities had been invited, for the purpose of pledging the authorities by resolution to the support of this matter, which will very largely carry out the desires and wishes of the hon. and gallant Member when it is put into effect. It is strange that the hon. and gallant Member seems to be entirely ignorant of what is happening, because I am instructed that Mr. R. S. Redmond, who is the hon. and gallant Member's agent—whether his political or his estate agent I do not know—is attending the meeting and knows all about it.

Lieut. - Colonel Bromley-Davenport

indicated assent.

Mr. Allen

When the local authorities get together and agree, as I have no doubt they will do this morning, to promote the Bill, I hope the Government Departments concerned will do everything they can to assist the local authorities. I am sure that the Minister is willing to take up this matter and to assist the local authorities to remedy these injustices. I am surprised that the hon. and gallant Member did not mention the activities of the local authorities during his speech.

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport

My object was not to answer for what they were doing but to call the attention of the Minister to the devastation that is taking place.

Mr. Allen

I think that the local authorities were a little disturbed when they heard what the hon. and gallant Member proposed to do.

Mr. Nallyrose—

2.8 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planing (Mr. Lindgren)

Perhaps I might now intervene. I am sorry to cut out my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. Nally), but the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport) has taken the Adjournment debate and I think that in the last few minutes of the time allotted to him he is entitled to a reply. I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member on his excellent speech. Like myself, he has been in the House since 1945. It was the best speech I have heard him make, and I am sorry that more of his colleagues were not him.

I must emphasise the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Crewe (Mr. Scholefield Allen). Subsidence is a problem which has been in existence in the area for well over 250 years, and, to put it bluntly, this is really capitalism or private enterprise—whatever one likes to call it—"in the raw." The people who are exploiting the minerals of the earth take the minerals and make the profits. They have not troubled much about the effect of the extraction of the minerals for profit upon people who are completely innocent victims and who have suffered as the hon. and gallant Member quite rightly said, quite serious damage to their property, and damage also to industrial property and to agricultural land.

As the hon. and gallant Member said, there are two types of pumping—wild brine pumping and controlled pumping. The wild brine pumping takes advantage of the natural streams which flow underground washing the tops of the beds of salt. They are tapped and the brine is pumped up and evaporated. The problem arising from that type of pumping is that, although the bore-hole may be in one area, subsidence may occur many miles away and no one can determine that any individual wild brine pumping extractor has caused that piece of damage. All that pumping, with one exception, is done by a large number of small firms.

The other method of pumping has been practised for 25 or 30 years, but only by I.C.I. They are practically the only people who have the "know-how" of this work. In view of what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Crewe said, I must make the point that all the evidence I have points to the fact that the controlled pumping of I.C.I, does not bear the risk of subsidence as does the wild brine pumping. The activities of I.C.I., all the evidence shows, cause the least risk of subsidence to anyone and I wish to acknowledge that I.C.I, engineers and technicians have been most co-operative. The firm is anxious to do everything it can to prevent any damage arising in the area. But, equally, I would not like to say that the claim of I.C.I. that controlled pumping will in fact prevent all subsidence in the future should be admitted. Time alone will prove.

I have no time to deal with the matter fully, much as I would like to, so I must turn to the question of compensation. The problem was recognised by legislation in 1891. In 1896 a Northwich area compensation board and compensation fund were set up and ever since there has been an opportunity for other local authorities in the area to get together and make application for a board to be set up to deal with this problem in their areas.

The first legislation was put forward by the old Local Government Board before the Ministry of Health was set up, and under that legislation the Minister cannot move until he is requested to do so. If he is approached by local authorities, there has to be a local inquiry, a Provisional Order and a Bill in this House. I have made some slight inference that might be taken as meaning that the local authorities in the area may not have been as enthusiastic and active as they ought to have been.

That is true of years ago, but in fairness I ought to say that the local authorities in the area, as my hon. and learned Friend pointed out, have been quite active during the past few years. They have been holding local consultations and getting the facts, and achieving local agreement as far as they can, before coming to the Minister with a request for an inquiry. It might seem that they are delaying, but I do not think they are. They are doing the right thing and the more they can get local understanding and agreement the easier it will make the inquiry and other steps to be taken by the Minister. I can give the pledge that the Minister knows of the activities of the local authorities and that they have been in consultation with our regional officers.

From our point of view all the machinery is ready and, as soon as we get notification from the local authorities, we are prepared to go forward with the local inquiry and, if justified, the Provisional Order and other stages. The initiative rests with the folk in the area. We have information about the problem and we are most sympathetic with those affected by it.

Reference has been made to damage, but I should point out that, on the other hand, the industry plays a great part in our general national economy. In the salt extraction industry there are about 3,500 people employed, and in the chemical industries dependent upon it there are a further 17,500. Glass-making, the chemical industry and the paper-making industry are all dependent on this work and it plays a very important part in our national economy. But, important as it is, it ought not to be the means of innocent people suffering damage for which they get no compensation. We are prepared to rectify that and I think the industry will co-operate with us. As soon as we get a request from the local authorities, we shall be able to play our part.