HC Deb 29 June 1951 vol 489 cc1808-30
Mr. Dalton

I beg to move, in page 31, line 11, to leave out from "ironstone," to "is," in line 19, and to insert "which."

The provision which we leave out here is superseded and made redundant by the Amendments already accepted.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Dalton

I beg to move, in page 31, line 46, to leave out "becoming due," and to insert: rent or other payment becoming due under the lease. This Amendment, together with the next Amendment in page 32, line 2, enables an ironstone operator to recover contributions from any payments becoming due under the lease. I think that will clarify the position.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 32, line 2, leave out from "and," to end of line 4, and insert: in any such case the amount so apportioned in respect of each such royalty may be deducted in accordance with paragraph 5 of this Schedule from any royalty, rent or other payment due or becoming due to the person entitled to receive that royalty, or recovered from him or his successors in title."—[Mr. Dalton.]

1.25 p.m.

Mr. Dalton

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—[King's Consent, on behalf of the Duchy of Lancaster and of the Duchy of Cornwall, signified.]

I do not think that at this stage it is necessary for me to say much. It is the general view of all parts of the House, as it was of the Committee upstairs, that this is a very valuable Bill, that it will do much for the restoration of a part of our country which has been sorely devastated in the past and not yet fully restored, and that it will make provisions to avoid any repetition of such evil incidents in the future.

The Bill has been considered in a nonparty spirit, both upstairs and in the House today. It has been much improved as compared with its original shape by Amendments which have been moved and accepted, or accepted in a modified form, at all stages. I do not think that at this time of the day it is necessary for me to do more than commend this Bill to the good wishes of the House.

1.27 p.m.

Colonel Lancaster

I do not want to take up very much of the time of the House, but I think it appropriate to make one or two observations at this stage. It is evident to everybody here today that the problem is now being tackled in a much more restrained and rational manner than might have been visualised from the way in which it was discussed on Second Reading. 1 think that anybody listening to the debate on that occasion would have gained the impression that generations of rapacious iron-masters had devastated great areas of our country, and, having exploited the countryside, had, in the words of the Minister, "gone off with the swag." Of course, that is very far from the truth.

Until recent years full restoration was the general practice. Indeed, up to quite recently, over 90 per cent. of the iron workings had been fully restored, and, as we have seen in the process of this Bill, two factors then began to operate. Some of the less valuable iron ores in eastern Northamptonshire were mined, and it was not found possible in the economic circumstances of the time to mine and restore the land satisfactorily. There was also, as we have seen again this morning, a certain clause in leases which enabled the operator to dispense with the full restoration by payment of a lump sum to the owner of the land. In certain cases, that clause operated, and in most cases, I think, the small owner-occupiers were so placed at that time owing to the condition of agriculture generally in the country that they found themselves forced to accept payment, and the land remained derelict.

It is in regard to those two aspects of the matter that this Bill has really come into being. I wish to say straightaway that we on this side of the House are fully in sympathy with the purposes of the Bill and are hopeful that it will fulfil the expectations of the Minister. We have, of course, certain misgivings. Throughout Part I of the Bill, we find a lack of that sense of incentive and competition without which we have felt all along that restoration, or, at least, the methods employed in mining ore, so that restoration should afterwards take place, are not likely to be of the most economic nature.

It has been shown, I think, that various methods have been adopted in the past regarding restoration, and there has been a fairly wide gap between the most effective means and those which have been, if not so effective, at any rate more expensive. We have heard a good deal during the Committee stage of variations between the main figure of about 3d. a ton of output and that of 1s. a ton. The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) made some play with the fact that we were approaching this problem from rather different aspects, and that there was this wide variation. The variation was not as peculiar as it may have sounded. As I say, it has been a difference in cost between those companies who were most expert in the general process of restoration and those companies who, perhaps, had not the experience or technical ability to do it in that manner.

We had hoped that this Bill would have placed emphasis on the necessity of both mining and restoring by the most efficacious means. But the Minister has very rightly, in our opinion, placed considerable emphasis on the advantage he will obtain from the advisory committee which will lend him its help in advocating the best means of carrying out this restoration and bringing the land back to some form of fertility. We look on that as an important matter.

Restoration is, in a sense, a technological problem. It is not just a question of levelling the land and leaving it. What really is involved in the whole process is extraction in the first instance and replacement of the various over-burdens extracted in the second. It has to have regard to the whole system of drainage which may operate on a piece of land being mined, and, when the levelling processes have been completed, it has to have regard, of course, to what purposes the land can then be put: that is, whether agriculture in the sense of green fields or ploughed land should be restored or whether—as we have advocated in a great many cases—possibly the best and most efficacious means of bringing it back to fertility is, for a generation or so, a system of afforestation. We say that that should be done particularly where it is intended to attempt to restore old workings.

In those cases it is a certainty that the surface soil will have disappeared and although it will be practicable to level out those old workings there will be an almost insoluble problem of turning that land into a productive condition. Particularly in those cases, we advocate most strongly that afforestation should be the order of the day. As this problem is in great measure connected with Northamptonshire, it is worth recording once again that a great proportion of these areas which have been left derelict formed originally part of Rockingham Forest and Gedling Chase. They were two well-known afforested areas. Although some part of these areas have been devoted to agriculture from time to time, I think it is fair to say that a great proportion of that land was originally, and up to recent years, an afforested area.

The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), quite properly, has taken a keen interest in this Bill. He is concerned with the interests of his constituents who live in a large mining area and are thereby affected. But I think in his efforts to appear to be a champion of the countryside he has gone rather too far in suggesting that Corby, in particular, and other parts of his constituency should be now surrounded by belts of green fields when, in fact, that is not necessary in the best interests of the countryside and where, indeed, that could not be carried out without disproportionate expense.

However desirable it may be to have green fields round Corby and elsewhere, if it can be shown—as I think it can be shown that the more sensible approach is by afforestation I hope the practical approach to the problem will hold sway over any matter of sentiment. I speak with some personal feeling, and I think this will appeal to the closed shop of old Etonians who have been responsible for handling this Bill at various stages. I have shot and hunted, and in more serious moments studied afforestation, in these areas for many years. On the other hand, the hon. and learned Member for Kettering has, I hope politically, had a transitory interest in this matter. I feel, and so do my hon. Friends strongly as I do, that if restoration should occur it should occur within reasonable limits.

I should like to refer to one other small matter. We are glad that the Minister saw his way to making a small concession to that body of landowners—a larger body than I think he possibly recognises—who all along have been anxious to see full restoration and have insisted on it. I think I should say once again in fairness that the iron-masters who have mined the iron ore, whether in Northamptonshire or in other countries in the Schedule, have carried out restoration in the overwhelming proportion of cases. I have already mentioned the particular cases where that has not occurred, but we should not be doing justice to what has occurred in the past if we did not allude once again to the very public-spirited attitude which has been adopted by a great proportion of iron foundry companies who, in great measure, were the original extractors of iron ore up and down the country.

There are certain defects in the Bill. particularly in Clause 12 to which I know one of my hon. Friend's will refer in a moment or two. There are defects also in Clause 26 to which some reference has been made already. But, in general, we are in complete sympathy with the attitude of the Government in this matter. We are hopeful that as a result of this Bill both restoration of old iron workings and current restoration will be carried on efficiently and intelligently. We wish the Minister well in the task that lies ahead of him and we support the purpose and intention with which the Bill has been presented to the House.

1.36 p.m.

Mr. Molson

Like my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Fylde, South (Colonel Lancaster), I feel that as a result of the educational effect of the Standing Committee the Minister has moved the Third Reading of this Bill in a more conciliatory manner than he moved the Second Reading. I am also inclined to think that he is now better informed on the past record of those who have been concerned with the exploitation of iron ore in the Schedule area.

I want to confine myself only to three main points. In Committee my hon. Friends offered certain figures of the cost of restoration which were substantially different from those upon which the Government have been acting. I believe the explanation of that is that different companies have used very different methods. It is most important that in the restoration which is to be financed by the fund set up under this Bill the newest and best and most economical practice shall be followed by all those concerned.

I have an uneasy feeling that the wide variation in the figures that have been given, and which have been used in perfectly good faith both by the Government and by the Opposition, is due to the fact that some of those concerned have been carrying out restoration at their own expense. They have been doing it with a keen desire to make the land good behind them, but naturally they have done it as economically as possible. It may also be that there are others concerned in this area who a long time ago made up their minds they did not want to carry out restoration. If that were the case, it would not be surprising if the figures which they quoted as showing the cost of restoration should be extremely high, because the higher the cost of restoration the more excusable would be the fact that they were not carrying out that restoration.

After I had given some figures during the Committee stage I looked at them again and I was a little troubled to find that there did not seem to be that great difference which I should have expected between the cost of restoration if it takes place as a single part of the operation of getting the ore, and the entirely different problem of restoring land which has been worked in the past and abandoned for 10 or 20 years and where I should have expected the cost to be immensely greater. It would mean, of course, obtaining the heavy equipment needed and sending out that equipment and the men on to land that had been abandoned, which had become hardened under the rains and frosts and sun of 10, 15 or 20 years, and which had in fact become caked and solidified.

I have been at some pains to check the figures. From the source from which I have obtained my information, and who are actually engaged in this restoration, I am advised that in many cases it actually costs no more with modern equipment to restore the land as the working is taking place than to leave it in the form of hill and dale. The difference in cost is really negligible. In the case of old workings—these figures relate to the last few weeks—I am advised that a figure of £50 per acre is a fair and practical figure of what has been achieved in bad limestone areas. If it is necessary for the topsoil to be removed and then replaced, it is likely to cost something in the neighbourhood of £70 to £80 per acre, or in particular cases a maximum of £120 per acre.

Therefore, we arrive at these figures: £50 per acre for levelling, £70 as a minimum up to £120 as a maximum per acre for soil covering, and then £10 per acre for fertilising which may also be necessary. Therefore, in the case of these old workings we arrive at a figure of £130 as a minimum or £180 as a maximum as the cost of restoration. It is further pointed out that in some cases it is not necessary for the topsoil to be replaced, but if it is not, then there would have to be discing and heavy fertilising in order to make up in the matter of the topsoil, and that might amount to £25 or £50 a ton. There again, with this alternative measure we arrive at a figure of £100 per acre.

I referred to that particular subject because I think there is complete agreement that we are anxious that this legislation shall result in the most efficient and economical restoration of these lands; and it is, therefore, vitally important that those interests which have quoted very high figures shall know what is being done by some of their competitors with perhaps longer experience and perhaps a greater measure of good will, who say that is what, in fact, it is costing to restore at the present time.

Now that a fund is being raised and everybody concerned is being compelled to contribute towards it, this ceases to be a matter that can be left to private individuals to be economical or extravagant, but if they are going to be subsidised then all those who are benefiting under this Bill must be required to bring their practice up to the most efficient standard possible. It is for that reason that my hon. Friends have attached so much importance to the Advisory Committee which is being set up, and we are most anxious that it shall consist not only of administrators but of technicians who have practical experience of restoration by methods which have been found to be effective and economical in order that the same may apply in all cases where subsidy is being paid under this Bill.

I pass to my second point. I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary is not here, although I know that he has been on the bench for a long time, and I make no complaint of that. He misunderstood a point which I made on the Second Reading and which was emphasised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) during the Committee stage. It is a point of considerable importance which I think ought to be repeated now. Under the 1947 Act, development charge is determined by the Central Land Board. There is no right of appeal, and therefore what is paid in development charge is a matter for negotiation between the Central Land Board and the developer.

It has never been denied by the Government that as a result of the negotiations that take place the development charge ultimately charged is frequently only a fraction of the development charge that has been first asked for. I happen to be a member of the executive committee of a certain non-profit making concern which has been having an argument with the Central Land Board about development charge for a residential house which it is now using as offices, and it is just on the point of agreeing to a development charge of £12,500 in comparison with an original proposal by the Central Land Board of £30,000. I still think that is inclined to be on the high side, but as a result of many months of negotiations it has been brought down to substantially less than one-half of the development charge that was first asked for.

Under Clause 26 mineral development in the case of near-ripe land is being exempted from the payment of development charge and whatever is the development charge agreed upon is going to be set off against the £300 million of compensation set up under the 1947 Act. I need not emphasise to the right hon. Gentleman that this means, in fact, that yet another class of persons are going to receive 100 per cent. of payment out of this £300 million, because he advanced that as a reason against an Amendment which I moved earlier today.

These mineral undertakers who come within the benefit of Clause 26 are going to have the whole of the development charge set off against the £300 million fund. They therefore have no incentive whatsoever to try to beat down the development charge for which, in the first place, the Central Land Board will ask. Why should they carry on long negotiations, as I and my colleagues have been doing for many months, with the Central Land Board in order to get the development charge reduced, as we have had it reduced by more than 50 per cent.?

But the people who will suffer through the development charge being too high are not the mineral undertakers under Clause 26 but all the other landowners in the country whose compensation under the Act of 1947 is limited to £300 million. I say, therefore, that this provision for a 100 per cent. priority slice being taken by all the mineral enterprisers with near ripe land will mean that the Central Land Board will get away too easily with the initial assessments which they make, and that that set-off will be made at the expense of all the other landowners in the country. That I regard as being a very great injustice likely to result from the Bill.

I come now to Clause 12. It had been our intention to deal with this matter at some length on the Report stage but, as our Amendment was not selected, it is necessary to deal with it on the Third Reading. I am glad to see that the Parliamentary Secretary has returned to his place. He has a way of making speeches in the country, which no doubt commend themselves to his supporters amongst the electorate but to which, as they are made out-of-doors, there is neither time nor opportunity for Members on this side of the House to reply. Speaking on 14th April about the Opposition's attitude towards this Bill, he said: They fought us on behalf of the landlords and royalty owners to avoid their having to make a contribution towards the land from their future profits. In all the discussions which we have had, mostly I think of a quite amicable kind, we have made a helpful contribution towards improving the Bill, as the Minister has been good enough to recognise. I do not know whether, after all these discussions, the Parliamentary Secretary is still of the same opinion and whether he is disposed to repeat a charge of that kind when next he is speaking out-of-doors. But in our attitude to Clause 12 we have sought to relieve the nationalised steel industry from a burden which will be imposed upon it under the Bill and which we consider to be quite unfair and quite unreasonable.

Under the old land tenure of this country, the owner of the land was the owner of the development rights to the minerals; he received his royalty and the operator received his profit. It was rational enough that the broad conception of the Bill should be that in order that the land should be restored, the royalty owner should make a contribution of 1⅛d. out of his royalty, the operator should make a similar contribution out of his profits, and the Exchequer should make a contribution of ¾d., in respect of each ton of ore produced. This is, in fact, the system which applies to near ripe land under Clauses 2 and 5.

When we come to dormant minerals the situation is different because of the principal Act which was passed by the present Government. Under the 1947 Act the State has bought from the landowner the development rights in his land. Surely it would be only equitable that when the State is acquiring the benefits it should also accept the liabilities of the ownership of the development rights. The benefit which the State has acquired is the right to impose a development charge which, at 100 per cent., will be approximately the same as a full royalty which might have been charged by the private owner in the past. The liability which the State should accept is the obligation under this Bill to pay 1⅛d. per ton, which normally would have been paid and which is being paid out of the royalties received by the private individuals who are owners of land which is near ripe.

When the State has bought the development rights in the land, I submit that the State should also accept the obligation to pay the contribution which previously the royalty owner was paying. By Clause 12, which the Opposition wish to omit from the Bill, the State seeks to put the whole of that liability on to the operator. He is being asked to pay twice. In the first place, he pays his own contribution of 1⅛d., and he is also being required to pay again because no account is taken in assessing the development charge of the fact that in future he is to be under an obligation to make this payment.

How much better off were the operators under the old system when they paid royalties to private individuals! Then the royalty owner was obliged to pay his contribution out of the royalty which he received. That is what still happens under the near ripe scheme, but in the case of the dormant minerals, the minerals which are to be developed in this country in the future, the operator will have to pay 2¼d. per ton instead of 1⅛d. because, when it takes over the development rights from the private owner, the State refuses to take over at the same time the obligation to make a contribution towards the restoration of the land.

I want to address two arguments to the Parliamentary Secretary. He dealt with this matter in the Standing Committee. He suggested that if the Clause were omitted it would be the State which would be required to pay twice. If the hon. Gentleman wants to arrive at a fair conclusion he ought not to confuse the Central Land Board with the Exchequer, in spite of the fact that any surplus remaining in the hands of the Central Land Board will ultimately be paid over to the Exchequer.

Under the scheme contained in the Bill there were to be three parties: the landowner, the operator and the State. All three were to make a contribution to this fund—and so they do, in so far as the land is near ripe. But what has happened is that the Central Land Board has stepped into the position of the private owner of land, and it must surely be unreasonable for the Parliamentary Secretary to say that because the Exchequer has undertaken to pay a grant is a reason why, when it is receiving development charge in lieu of the royalties that were previously being paid to the private owners of land, the Central Land Board should not pay a contribution similar to that which was previously being paid by the royalty owners.

The second point I wish to address to the hon. Gentleman is this. As I have mentioned before, he has accused hon. Members on this side of the House of being concerned only with the interests of the landowner. This particular point does not affect the landowner at all. In this case it is the nationalised steel industry which is having thrust upon it a two-fold burden. It might quite well be able to pay out of its profits the same contribution which it would pay under the near ripe scheme, as provided for in Clause 26, but it seems to us to be most unreasonable that this additional burden should be thrust upon the nationalised steel industry. The only effect of it must be to reduce the competitive powers of the British steel industry.

On its general principles we are supporting this Bill. We believe that its intention is benevolent. We hope that it will be administered in such a way as to restore to agriculture or forestry land which is at present devastated or is likely to be devastated in the future. We do, however, consider that there are these fundamental defects of the Measure, and we wish that the right hon. Gentleman, who has kept his mind open and accepted so many Amendments proposed from this side of the House, had rectified the various defects in the Bill, to which I have sought to draw attention

2.3 p.m.

Mr. Powell

I intend to address my remarks entirely to Clause 12. I do so fortified by the assurance of your predecessor in the Chair, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that this would be the appropriate opportunity for doing so, and undeterred, despite the remarks which fell from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Fylde, South (Colonel Lancaster), by the fact that I did not have the advantage of an education at Eton College—a misfortune which I believe I share with the Parliamentary Secretary.

The strength of the arguments against this Clause are such that I shall find it necessary to traverse hardly any of the ground which has just been covered by my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson). Although we cannot at this stage make any alteration in the Bill, it seems important that the very weighty arguments against this Clause should be put upon record for its later stages elsewhere, because this Clause makes innovations of principle in the principle of the 1947 Act, of practice in the procedure of the Central Land Board, and of precedent for the future.

I should like to begin by correcting a misapprehension which, I am sure unintentionally, was created during the Committee stage by the Parliamentary Secretary. In answering my arguments and those of my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak, the hon. Gentleman said that the authorities concerned had had nothing to say against Clause 12. His actual words were: it is fair to say there have been discussions over a long period of time, and during those very detailed discussions no objection has ever been raised by them on the basis of this proposal. They made many other objections, and had they objections to this it is fair to assume that they would have raised them. Whilst there has been no actual agreement, I think that by silence they have indicated agreement and consent."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A: 5th June, 1951; c. 134.] I am sure that on that ocasion the Parliamentary Secretary was merely drawing bow at a venture, and that it had escaped his recollection that representations, and strong representations, had been made, and have since been repeated, by the negotiating bodies on the matter of this Clause. I have in my hand a letter dated 21st March from the Federation of British Industries addressed to his Department, which contains a number of observations on the Bill, including a strong criticism of Clause 12. Therefore, the argument ex silentio which the Parliamentary Secretary sought to draw from the progress of the negotiations on the Bill can be set aside.

Now I come to the actual merit and content of the Clause itself. The Clause enacts very simply that, in the assessment of development charge it shall be assumed that the developer does not have to bear a burden which he has to bear. That is the effect of Clause 12. What repercussion will that have upon the assessment of development charge? Development charge purports to be the collection by the State of the development rights which it has previously bought, and which are being released by virtue of a permitted development. It purports to be merely the collection or reaping of an increase in value due to the permission of certain development, of development values arising out of permission to carry out a particular development. In other words, it purports to be tied to a matter of fact—to the actual amount of development value created or released by a particular operation.

The development value arising out of any particular operation is, of course, partly dependent upon the burdens which the developer will have to bear. Every extra burden which he has to bear auto- matically diminishes pro tanto the development value created or released by that operation. Consequently, the obligation to pay 1⅛d. per ton placed upon an operator automatically diminishes to that extent the development value released by his permission to extract the mineral.

It must follow that, as a consequence, the development charge to be collected by the Central Land Board is that much less. On the face of it, Clause 12 enacts that an assumption shall be made which is not only untrue but which conflicts logically with the underlying principle of development charge.

By this Clause the State is attempting to have its cake and eat it. It is attempting to reap in full a development value which it has reduced by an enactment. It is reducing development values in that it places burdens upon development and diminishes the profitability of a given development; and, at the same time, it is asserting that the development values remain intact and unreduced.

Very different is its behaviour when the development value, or the claim to compensation in lieu of it, is in the hands of private persons. There, the State behaves in exactly the opposite way. Under Clause 4 it reduces the compensation for loss of development rights which has to be paid to the individual, by assuming that a legal obligation existed in 1948 which was not created until 1951—exactly the opposite way round. So the State is trying to have it both ways.

We were told by the Parliamentary Secretary that it was untrue to say that as a result of Clause 12 the operator would be paying twice over. He argued, on the contrary, that unless Clause 12 were enacted and this burden were ignored in the assessment of development charge the operator would escape altogether from that burden.

Mr. Lindgren

indicated assent.

Mr. Powell

I am fortified that I am not misquoting him.

Yet this is a ludicrous misrepresentation. Let me illustrate that by taking the analogy, with which we are more familiar, of Income Tax. Income Tax is assessed upon the profits which are earned by a business. Let us suppose that Parliament enacts a statute which imposes some obligation to make a payment upon the firms engaged in a business. Their profits will be reduced in consequence, although I do not say to what extent. Are we then to argue, "Oh, but that is to be ignored for purposes of Income Tax; when you assert that as your profits have been reduced you should pay less Income Tax you are trying to escape from the obligations that Parliament intends to place upon you."

If we pass an Act which has the effect of reducing profits we accept the inevitable consequence that there are less profits to be taxed. Here we are making an enactment which reduces the value of development rights and at the same time pretending that they retain undiminished their pristine amount. The developer no more escapes from the burden of this l⅛d. per ton by its being taken into account along with all his other burdens in the assessment of development charge, than he escapes from the fulfilment of an obligation which reduces his profits. He bears them both, even though we only tax him upon his actual income and levy development charge on development values as they are.

This Clause is of a type with which we have been very familiar in the last four or five years and which has been described before as a "Canute Clause"—an attempt by the Government to escape from the economic consequences of their own legislation.

Mr. Mitchison

Was he the king who did not know how wet he was being?

Mr. Powell

He was the much maligned monarch whose name is taken to stand for an argument exactly the opposite to the one which he was really putting to his courtiers.

The effect of this Clause is to insist that the real economic consequences of this Bill, which are to reduce development values arising out of the extraction of minerals, shall be ignored. Like Horace's "Nature," economic consequences may be expelled with a fork but they will still return; and the economic consequences of this Bill will be felt in spite of Clause 22.

It is worth remembering for a moment who is to feel them. The extractor is to pay the equivalent of l⅛d. per ton twice over. He is to pay it in development charge and he is to pay it in levy. He will seek inevitably to transfer part of that burden in two directions. In the first place, he will—and this is the only point upon which I take issue with my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak—try to transfer part of it to the landowner; and he will no doubt successfully transfer part of it to the consumer. The landowner, of course, in the assumed circumstances is only the owner of the land without benefit of permission to develop. He can only receive for it theoretically a rent or royalty representing its value for its existing use.

But the operator who has to pay a development charge more than the development value which he actually reaps will try to beat down the landowner on the price or the rent to a figure lower than will make it worth the landowner's while to enter into the transaction. Thus we shall be involved in the familiar consequences of litigation and use of compulsory powers. On the other hand, part of this burden is inevitably going to be transferred to the consumer. We are imposing on the process of extraction a double burden which will be passed on through the iron and steel monopoly to the consumer, direct or indirect, of everything that involves the use of iron and steel.

Serious as these consequences are in themselves, I believe that the most serious aspect of this Clause is that it is a breach in the principles of the 1947 Act. It is a precedent for the future which can be immensely harmful. If, whenever a new obligation is imposed upon development, Parliament is, at the same time, to enact that for the purposes of development charge the existence of this new obligation shall be ignored, then we shall get into a cycle of events in which development charge will be a potent factor in the raising of costs all round. This Clause, unless it is taken out of the Bill, will be a cause of harm to the iron-ore extracting industry itself and will have very harmful repercussions far beyond.

2.16 p.m.

Mt. Walker-Smith

I did not intend to say anything on the Third Reading. I intend only to speak about Clause 12, and I am doing so now because Mr. Speaker indicated, when he did not select the Amendment dealing with that Clause, that hon. Members could have their say on Third Reading.

We have had some interesting and full speeches about this, and I intend to confine my observations at the outside to about four minutes. I do so the more easily because I think that the real case in connection with this Clause is a short and comparatively simple one. What the Clause does is. in effect, to prevent the Central Land Board, in computing what is called the consent value, taking from it the amount of contribution made under this Bill to the Ironstone Restoration Fund. In my view this constitutes a rather serious deviation from the main statutory principles of the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act.

There, as the House knows, the principle of a development charge is fixed as being, roughly speaking, the increased value of the land due to the benefit of planning permission; and, thereafter, it is really a matter of valuation to determine what the respective values are. There is the consent value—that is, the value with planning permission—and the refusal value, which is the value without it; the difference between them represents the amount of the development value.

In regard to minerals, the Minister's own Memorandum in paragraph 210 says: Its effect in relation to mineral working is, very broadly, that the development charge for working the mineral will be equal to the value of the unworked mineral covered by the permission. I think that in applying the normal processes of valuation to this problem any valuer will take the view that if the benefit, which can be got from the planning permission is necessarily limited by the burden of a contribution imposed by statute, the amount of the contribution must automatically fall to be deducted from the consent value.

Quite clearly, that would be so if it were not for Clause 12. The effect of Clause 12, therefore, is to impose a statutory contradiction to the important and fundamental principle of the 1947 Act. In effect, it imposes a tax upon a tax, and that, in my submission, must be wrong. The right way to look at this is suggested by the last sentence of the Ministry's own Memorandum, paragraph 210, which says: Any particular permission may, however, and often will, be qualified by conditions which will reduce the additional value of the land due to the permission, and account will be taken of this fact in assessing the development charge. The liability to contribute to the Ironstone Restoration Fund may properly be viewed in the light of a general condition, universally attached to this particular form of planning permission. It should, therefore, be treated in exactly the same way as any individual provision, and the amount of the contribution should be deducted in aiming at consent value.

2.21 p.m.

Mr. Assheton

I am certain that the House will be glad that we have got to the last lap of this Bill. It has not been a flat race, but a steeplechase, particularly in Committee upstairs when we met a great many obstacles, some of which we never succeeded in getting over. Several hon. Members on this side of the House assisted the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary in getting over some of the obstacles, and they made very helpful suggestions.

Only one hon. Member on the other side of the House, who is here even to the end of the race, contributed to our discussions on the Bill. I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman and the Parliamentary Secretary for the cooperative way in which they have examined the proposals and suggestions we put before them from time to time. I know that the Minister feels that they have been of assistance to him in the course of the Committee and Report stages.

There were two objects of the Bill. The first was to form a fund to deal with the restoration of ironstone working; and the second was to make statutory provision for this near ripe mineral scheme. What we have to ask ourselves is whether they have been satisfactorily effected. There are a great many criticisms that one could make, and we all listened with great interest to the several criticisms of Clause 12.

I do not propose to add to those criticisms, but I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to give particular attention to the speeches made on the subject by my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), because owing to the Ruling of Mr. Speaker it was not possible to move my Amendment on the Report stage, which would have omitted this Clause. Thus the House has not had an opportunity of deciding whether it ought to be in the Bill, and we can only comment on it as it stands. The Minister is in the fortunate position, however, of being able to reconsider the matter, because the Bill will go to another place and he will have an opportunity of deciding whether he should recommend any alteration in that place.

The part of the Bill which will need the most attention from the Minister from an administrative point of view is that which deals with the restoration of the worked ironstone land. Owners of land will be anxious to know, having contributed to its restoration, whether that restoration is satisfactorily done. They will want to know if the Fund will be made readily available for achieving that end, and that the best expert advice will be given to ensure that the levelling and replacement of the soil on top and all that sort of thing will be carried out, so that the Owner will be able to put the land into a state of cultivation and fertility once again. That applies particularly to the better quality land and to shallow worked land.

The House is aware that in the case of opencast coal mining quite an amount of successful restoration has been achieved, largely as a result of the constant watch being kept upon it by the agricultural executive committees' restoration officers. We do not want to find that an operator hands the land back after extraction, allegedly levelled and resurfaced, but, in fact, in a wholly unusable state for ordinary farm purposes. We do not want to find land in such a state that every plough that goes into it is broken because boulders have not been removed.

I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary would explain what supervision there will be, and what exactly will be the powers to supervise such work. What would be the position, for instance, if there is a conflict of view between the operator and the supervisor, for example, as to whether certain action is to be taken or is not to be taken. I suppose if such a situation does arise, an operator would not be given his certificate to enable him to receive payment for the work he has done. That, in itself, is a penalty on the operator, but it does not achieve the aim of the Bill, namely, to restore the land for agriculture or for forestry.

This matter was discussed in the Committee and the last words uttered by the Parliamentary Secretary on Clause 10 were these: But we agree that agricultural executive committees ought to be closely associated with this and I will look at the matter. But before that he said: We rely on the supervision which we are assured we shall obtain from the county council planning committees in conjunction with the planning authorities, who will work closely with the advisory committee and the agricultural executive committee for the area. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A; 5th June, 1951, c. 126–127.] If such an array of persons is to act in concert it seems rather excessive, and it might well result in no one really being the person to accept responsibility for the proper and orderly return of the land to its former state as far as that is possible. I hope that the Minister will give the most careful consideration to that practical point. I am sure that he will, because he really has this matter at heart.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Fylde, South (Colonel Lancaster) made some very useful observations about the doubtful wisdom of putting to agricultural use, and at great expense land, which, perhaps, was not fit for it, some of it was land which at one time had been forest. That is a very strong point, and I sometimes thought during the passage of the Bill that the interests of forestry had not been so firmly presented to the House as the interests of agriculture. I know that the Minister is aware that the Forestry Commissioners are planning to take away a great deal of agricultural land. Here is an opportunity to satisfy that extremely rapacious demand for land without so great a sacrifice as might be the case in other circumstances. I am rather sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Vane) is not able to be here today. He was with us during the Committee stage, and this is a point on which he would have made a valuable contribution.

Clearly, there must be some ceiling to the cost which this very hard pressed generation can afford to reach on behalf of future generations. With that limit in mind—and it must be a very real limit—we on this side consider that every effort ought to be made to restore the land to the best possible condition, either for agriculture or for forestry, whichever is most suitable. We want the cost to be as low as possible, so that as many acres of land as possible can be restored.

I do not propose to say anything more about Clause 12. I hope that the Minister will read the discussion that took place during his brief absence from the House this morning on Clause 21, about the question of the length of notice in the compulsory acquisition of land. We had an interesting discussion, and the Parliamentary Secretary said he was willing to look at the matter again before it got to another place. I hope that the Minister will be good enough to consider it carefully.

All that we have been talking about so far relates to the ironstone areas of the country, but Part II of the Bill, in which are Clauses 26 to 29, is of more general application. There is not very much that I need add in this direction. I made it quite clear on Second Reading that we on this side had never approved of minerals being brought within the financial provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act, an Act which was designed primarily to deal with the development of property for building and so on. We are, however, very glad that the Government have recognised what we told them in 1947: that that Act would not work as far as minerals were concerned.

They have, in effect, by a most ingenious and complicated device, now taken near-ripe minerals out of the scheme. If the right hon. Gentleman had not done so, mineral development would have been held up and the price of all minerals would have been raised. That, no doubt, was a very powerful consideration when he reached his decision on the matter, and I am sure that it was not absent from his mind.

I fear that owing to the ingenuity and complication of this scheme, it may provide still further scope for those highly skilled gentlemen of the law who have already reaped such a very rich harvest from devoting their attention to the Town and Country Planning Act, and without whose assistance none of us would be able to make any sense whatever of these very complicated laws. I hope that the Bill, which is a very complicated one, will be studied in another place, where, perhaps, there are even more Members than here who are familiar with the problems with which the Bill is so particularly concerned.

We on this side have been as helpful as possible. We have tried to improve the Bill, and have been glad to work closely with the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary in trying to do so. The fact that we do not think the Bill is wholly satisfactory now is not our fault, because one cannot amend so imperfect a Bill and make it perfect. We have, however, been able to deal with some of the problems which have been raised, though there are still many opportunities for improving the Bill in another place. We shall certainly not oppose its Third Reading.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.