SERVICE DEPARTMENTS' LAND, PLYMOUTH (Hansard, 31 March 1953)

§ Mr. Michael Foot (Plymouth, Devonport):
I am sure that one of the reasons which must have persuaded the Leader of the House to agree to postpone the Lords Amendments on the Transport Bill is his recognition of the importance of the matter to be raised on the Adjournment tonight. Therefore, whatever criticism we may have to make about the right hon. Gentleman, I wish to express my gratitude to him for doing so.
I also wish to say that the people of Plymouth have been waiting some 300 years for this matter to be raised in the House, and that, therefore, it would have been most regrettable if we had had to wait a few hours longer. I am sorry to see that there is no representative of the War Office on the Government Front Bench at the moment. I gave notice to that Department that I proposed to raise this matter, and it may be that the Minister has been delayed for a few minutes. However, I hope he will be here shortly.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Ernest Marples)
May I say that my hon. Friend has asked me to take his place for a few moments and to make a few notes of the no doubt lucid and cogent speech which the hon. Gentleman is about to make?

§ Mr. Foot
I am very glad to see the hon. Gentleman. I have had arguments with him before about the City of Plymouth, but, as I have said, we have been waiting for 300 years to say this to the War Office, and I think it is a bit thick that they should not be present to hear it when the time comes.
The question I wish to raise is that of the land held by the War Office within the boundaries of the City of Plymouth. It comprises a total of something just under 1,000 acres. Another 1,000 acres are held by the Admiralty, but partly because it is a good principle of military 1170 strategy and partly because the land held by the War Office is the most precious of all, I thought it wise to start the attack on the War Office because, if we succeed with them, then, no doubt, the campaign can be transferred to the Admiralty.
I hope that when he arrives the Minister will agree at least on one simple proposition. The Service Departments owe a special obligation to the City of Plymouth and, indeed, Plymouth has a special relationship with the Service Departments. Not only is it the fact that the Service Departments hold many military establishments in the city, not only is it the fact that the dockyard is the main industry, but it is also the fact that whenever war comes the people of Plymouth have to bear the brunt of it, more perhaps than those of any other city in the land. We have to pay a heavier price than almost any other city and, therefore, we are entitled to ask that when we make requests to the War Office or other Government Departments they should treat them with genuine concern.
Ever since the days when the Black Prince came to Plymouth the Service Departments have been increasing their demands upon us. They have taken more and more, and they never give anything back. I can only recall one exception to that rapacious rule. That is the case of some forts built outside the City of Plymouth in the middle of the last century. Owing to some brilliant military contrivance on the part of the War Office it was only discovered that they were obsolete after they were completed. They were known as "Palmerston's Follies." Some 80 years later the War Office discovered their mistake and were then prepared graciously to sell them to the people of Plymouth.
Apart from that, the War Office and the Admiralty have never given back to the people of Plymouth one inch of the land upon which they have been able to lay their hands. The process has gone on for many years and we people of Plymouth think that it is time to call a halt. Indeed, we believe that something further should be done and that we should reverse this process which has.gone on for so long.
When the War Office informed Plymouth Corporation a few weeks ago that they were going to close off the area along the Stonehouse foreshore facing 1171 Plymouth Sound, it was only natural that Plymouth should be alarmed. This area is known as Eastern Kings and Western Kings, and for many years the people of Plymouth exercised recreational facilities there. There was a slight interruption in that state of affairs during the war but otherwise, ever since 1905, the people of Plymouth have been able to use these facilities.
Now we are told that the agreement made in 1905 is to be terminated by a War Office diktat. No negotiation has taken place; indeed the demand so far presented to Plymouth is unconditional surrender. The reason given is security, but I do not think that anybody can really pay much regard to that claim. Are we really to believe, in this atomic age, that the safety of the kingdom would be put in jeopardy if the people of Plymouth continued to do some of their courting along the foreshores where their fathers and grandfathers practised the same art? I do not believe that anybody can pay much regard to that excuse on the part of the War Office.
My first demand is that this diktat should be withdrawn and that proper consultation with Plymouth Corporation should be started; and, if necessary, an independent inquiry appointed to decide on the issue. The ease with which the War Office have believed it possible for them to take over and take exclusive control of Eastern and Western Kings along the foreshore of Plymouth only gives us greater anxiety about the claims which they may make in the future.
That brings me to the main issue of the ownership of Plymouth Hoe. I must apologise if I go back into history, but I challenge the Under-Secretary of State for War, who is to reply, to deny any of the historical facts which I shall present. Plymouth Hoe faces what is probably the most famous strip of water in the whole world. If it had not been for the exploits of those who sailed from Plymouth Sound in years gone by there would never have been a War Office at all. Plymouth Hoe is also one of the most beautiful natural promenades in the world, and the earliest plans and charts, dating from the middle of the 15th century, show without any possibility of doubt that the whole of the area once belonged to the people of Plymouth. The 1172 principle of the public ownership of Plymouth Hoe was thus established before the first Queen Elizabeth came to the throne.
The question arises: how did we ever lose this property? The first great Queen Elizabeth never thought of tampering with the rights of the people of Plymouth. She never had any quarrel with them. Indeed, she was wise enough to know that a large part of her own fame and the fame of England was owed to the people of Plymouth and their enterprises. Unhappily, later monarchs did not follow her example. During the Civil War Plymouth fought on the side of Parliament, against tyranny, and the fight of the town of Plymouth, as it was then, transformed the whole aspect of that war in the West Country and played an essential part in defeating the chances of the Stuart Monarchy.
At the time when the siege of Plymouth was lifted, towards the end of the Civil War, Prince Charles Stuart was in the West Country and could see exactly what effect the successful fight of Plymouth had had on his chances. He therefore resolved that if ever he got a chance he would have his revenge on the people of Plymouth. That is the real reason why Plymouth Hoe does not belong to the people of Plymouth today.
When Charles II came to the throne, in 1660, a vicious counter-revolution was unleashed against Plymouth. One prominent resident had his head stuck on a spike above Plymouth Guildhall. Others were thrown into jail on Drake's Island. The town's charter was taken away and transactions were immediately started for the seizure of Plymouth Hoe. The main agent in that deal was a Royalist—the first Quisling—by the name of Sir Edward Hungerford. He sold a large part of Plymouth Hoe to the Crown, although it was not his to sell, and the people of Plymouth never received a penny piece for what had once been their undisputed heritage.
I challenge the Under-Secretary of State for War to deny any of the historical facts which I am putting forward. Not only was Plymouth Hoe transferred to the Crown by the manoeuvres which I have described, but one of the first acts of King Charles was to build a citadel on Plymouth Hoe, and the guns were carefully pointed, not towards the sea but 1173 to dominate the liberty-loving people of Plymouth.
I am not quite sure about your political ancestry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but if Mr. Speaker had been in the Chair I should have summoned to my aid his Covenanter ancestry. I am not sure whether you have a Covenanter ancestry, but I hope that the facts which I am now reciting will excite some sympathy in your breast, as I as sure they would in the breast of Mr. Speaker if he were here tonight.
The fact is that this deed of depriving the people of Plymouth of their Hoe was done almost exactly 100 years after the battle of the Armada, and the enemy it guarded against was not the insolent Spaniards or the obstinate Dutch—the enemies of that King were the people of Plymouth. To add insult to injury, this citadel—this symbol of despotism—was erected on the very place where Drake had played bowls when awaiting the Spanish fleet. The citadel still stands on Plymouth Hoe. What military purpose it serves nobody has been able to say, so far as I know. If the Under-Secretary of State can tell us exactly what is its military purpose today he will at any rate have given us one piece of information.
I am told that today, when a senior officer pays a visit to the citadel, the cooks have to be called to mount guard. The whole situation is farcical. Among the claims I am making to the War Office this evening is one to hand over the citadel and Drake's Island to the people of Plymouth.. The claim has been made by many spokesmen from Plymouth over the past 200 years and I think it is high time that the War Office listened to these requests.
Ever since the days of King Charles II, the ownership of Plymouth Hoe has been disputed. The people of Plymouth have always sought recompense for this piece of Stuart robbery. It is true that agreements were reached between the Government and Plymouth Corporation in 1821 and 1886, and it is upon those agreements, I gather, that the War Office base their present claim. But both those agreements were no better than feeble compromises. They were not agreements which the people of Plymouth regarded as settling the problem.
1174 I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for the copy of the 1821 agreement which he sent me some months ago at my request, but I think it is a matter of some significance that there is no copy of that agreement in Plymouth, so far as we have been able to discover. We have been unable, therefore, to check exactly what was their account of the proceedings, but what we have in the City of Plymouth Library and in the archives of the City of Plymouth in reference to the 1821 agreement is the record of the many protests about it at that time by the people of Plymouth.
What is a fact is that in 1823, two years after the agreement was signed, the same mayor who signed the agreement with the War Office had to take steps to beat the bounds on Plymouth Hoe in order to establish our claim to a large part of it. Certainly if any one examines the records they will see that the agreement of 1821, which is the entire basis of the War Office's present claim, was not considered valid by a large section of the people of Plymouth.
As for the agreement of 1886, it leased to the people of Plymouth from the Crown a considerable part of Plymouth Hoe. The Under-Secretary of State may claim that that agreement, too, settles the matter. In view of what I have described of the way in which the War Office have taken back from the City of Plymouth land which was available to us under an agreement of 1905, and in view of the fact that they took back this land without consultation with the people of Plymouth, we cannot rest satisfied when our claim to a large part of the most important section of Plymouth Hoe rests on a lease which will run out in some years' time; and rests, therefore, on the grace of the War Office as to whether we shall be able to retain it.
I do not believe that either of those agreements—either the 1821 agreement or the 1886 agreement—in any way invalidates the main argument which has been put forward by all the Plymouth historians that Plymouth Hoe was stolen from the people of Plymouth and that the War Office, therefore, are in the position of a receiver of stolen goods. What I am asking tonight is that the War Office should make an effort to remedy that situation.
1175 Even if they dispute our legal claim, as the Under-Secretary of State has disputed it in the letters which he has sent to me on the subject—although not one scrap of evidence has yet been produced to invalidate the recital which I have given of the events which led to the stealing of the Hoe—surely the War Office should have sufficient magnanimity to approach this matter in a rather more open fashion than the hon. Gentleman has done in the letter which he sent to me. He sent me a letter which I have here—a very politely written letter, but one in which he said that while he recognised that it would be a welcome gesture for the Hoe to be restored to the people of Plymouth, he did not think it would really be necessary.
I think the hon. Gentleman should show a more magnanimous spirit this evening. I ask the War Office to appoint an independent inquiry which can examine, first, the question of the disputed ownership of the Hoe; and, next, the question of whether the citadel can be given to the people of Plymouth as a show place. One of the most wonderful panoramas any one can see in the whole wide world is that from the precincts of the citadel. Further, the citadel serves no military purpose which can be defined. I ask that this inquiry should consider giving access to the citadel as a show place in Plymouth. Next, I ask that it should consider giving public access to Drake's Island, and consider also the question of returning Eastern Kings and Western Kings to the people of Plymouth. And this independent inquiry should be given the chance to look at all the land which is held by the War Office in the City of Plymouth and make recommendations as to how it should be restored to the public ownership.
That is a perfectly reasonable request. It is not one that would do any damage to the War Office. The War Office would be able to state to such an inquiry the security grounds on which they wish to retain some of the land. They would have made a gesture to the people of Plymouth and they would have shown recognition of the services which the people of Plymouth have rendered to the War Office. It would be a fine gesture if, in Coronation year, Plymouth Hoe could be restored by the second Queen Elizabeth to the same status which it held in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. I believe 1176 that this request would be greeted with enthusiasm in the City of Plymouth, and it would inflict no damage whatsover on the War Office.
I ask, therefore, that the Undersecretary shall not reply by turning down these proposals. I ask him to say that he will carefully consider these proposals, that he will examine the historical and legal claims and also recognise the moral claims. I ask him to realise how wise it would be for the War Office to show this spirit and recognise that it would be a fine thing for the City of Plymouth to regain titles which they held 500 and 600 years ago.

§ Mr. Glenvil Hall (Colne Valley)
I do not know what reply the Undersecretary is to make to my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot), who has just made what seems to me a very clear and cogent case for handing over Plymouth Hoe and the citadel to the people of that great city, but in case he is going to plead that this would set up a precedent I should like to remind him that 20 years ago it fell to me, as one of the representatives of Portsmouth, to put forward to the War Office—true, there was then a Labour Secretary of State in charge—a similar claim on behalf of the people of Portsmouth.
I am delighted to remember that Lumps Fort and the earthworks and buildings which then comprised that old fortification were made over to the City of Portsmouth and it has since been a great amenity for the people of that great city. Therefore, I hope that, following that precedent, the War Office on this occasion will see fit, in Coronation year, as my hon. Friend has said, to let the people of Plymouth once more enjoy what undoubtedly has in the past belonged to them.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison):
In spite of the rather sensational touch which the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) gave to this matter, we are anxious to examine the various aspects of this question, dispassionately and to do all that is possible to give effect to what the people of Plymouth want. Indeed, I think that a detached and objective view of what has passed between the Service Departments and the City of Plymouth would lead one 1177 to the conclusion that we had, in fact, tried, in difficult times, to follow that precept.
I must say straightaway that I am indebted to the hon. Gentleman for the letter which he sent me telling me, broadly, the points that he proposed to put forward. There is certainly one point of agreement between us. Nobody will dispute the great historical interest and importance of the City of Plymouth and of the parts which have been the object of the hon. Member's survey. The relationship between ourselves and the citizens and the Corporation of Plymouth are, we think, good, and there has really been no issue between us for a very considerable time.
As time is rather short, I should prefer to treat my remarks in a rather unorthodox way by saying what we think we can do and then coming back to a number of points to which I should like to bring the hon. Gentleman's attention, because I thought he put a gloss upon them which is not entirely fair. We are not prepared to have an independent inquiry—the Service Departments must really be the judges of whether the defence of the country requires something—but we are prepared to meet the hon. Gentleman and representatives of the Corporation of the City of Plymouth to discuss any site about which they want to make further representations. We can then sit down and explain why a certain area is required by us and see whether anything can be done about it.
Having said that, I want to go a little into other aspects of the problem. I believe that before I had time to come into the Chamber the hon. Gentleman said that the War Office were holding too much land and land which is too good. We hold 600 acres and other Government Departments about 160 acres of War Department land between them. For a port of the importance and the vulnerability of the City of Plymouth, I do not think that that is an excessive amount if we are to provide the defences which are necessary.
I should also like to point out that, even if we wanted to, the War Office could not hand certain of the disputed land back to the City of Plymouth, because it belongs to the Crown Commissioners of Lands. Consequently, if any such step as the hon. Gentleman has suggested were possible, the procedure would 1178 be that we should have to hand this land back to the Crown Commissioners. So the hon. Gentleman would have to start his attack all over again upon the Crown Commissioners.
Turning to the question of the Hoe itself, the hon. Gentleman referred to an agreement made in 1821. I would point out that the agreement was a very serious document and not by any means the sort of ramshackle affair it appeared to be from his remarks. The agreement ended by saying that it was entered into for the purpose of putting an end to … discussions and disputes and for quieting the title of the respective parties to the said several pieces of land. This was the very purpose of the agreement. Of course, there are always dissentients to any agreement between cities and Government Departments, but the whole purpose of the agreement was to achieve amity and to iron out and cause to disappear the disputes which had taken place until then.
The hon. Gentleman challenged me once or twice to deny his historical facts. I should not think of doing so. I have no doubt that they were correct, and his was an interesting historical survey. But it is not possible for Government Departments to go far back into history of that kind, and then to hand over the land because of some doubt way back in early history as to somebody's title to the land. We should have to go back to "1066 and all that." Where that would finally stop, I tremble to think.
May I say that I think it is important to note that the public have access for recreational purposes to all parts of the coast owned by the War Department except the area of Western Kings. I have examined that area with care, and found it would have cost a substantial amount of money, because of the installations there, for security measures to be taken so that access could be given without there being interference by passers-by. I was also told that, in fact, it was a rare occurrence for people to want to use the pathway on this site.
The present position of the Hoe is that the Corporation of Plymouth has undisputed ownership of the Hoe itself, and, in addition, have a 99 years' lease dating from 1885 originally of about 28 acres, including Hoe Park, of adjoining 1179 land, subject to the right of the War Department to resume occupation for military purposes. From time to time small areas of the land have been resumed for these purposes, but 25 acres still remain under lease. So, really, it is an exaggeration to say that the people of Plymouth have been deprived of the amenity of this area and, indeed, of the Hoe itself. The great majority of what is generally regarded as the Hoe is in the undisputed ownership of the Corporation and, therefore, of the people of Plymouth.
I was asked what was the mystery about the citadel. The answer is that at 1180 present it is used partly as a Territorial Army establishment and it is also to be modernised as part of the general coast defence services of Great Britain.

§ Mr. Foot
I am sure the hon. Gentleman does not want to give a misleading impression about the ownership of the Hoe. The area which—