§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. R. Thompson.]
§ 11.30 p.m
§ Major Sir Frank Markham (Buckingham)After the wide-ranging debate today, in which the Parliamentary Secretary has been fully occupied from Question time until 11.30 p.m., I feel almost a sense of contrition in bringing to your notice, Mr. Speaker, and to his notice, yet another matter which impinges on his Ministry. But I do this knowing full well that I am obeying one of the great traditions of Parliament, which is that if any citizen of Her Majesty has a grievance, he can call on his Member to express that grievance in the House of Commons, and initiate a debate on the subject.
It is with that great tradition in mind that I raise tonight the question of the treatment of Mr. Mark Williamson, of Pitstone, Bucks. Mr. Williamson is a well-respected farmer, a member of a farming family who have lived for generations in that neighbourhood. The village of Pitstone, in which he lives, in my constituency, lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, and has immediately around it some of the finest agricultural land in the country.
This village is in the Wing Rural District Council area, and in the last few years the rural district council has been faced with the problem of catching up with arrears in housing. May I add that I have not been behindhand in pressing them to face up to those grave responsibilities which have been thrust on them, because, in addition to the ordinary shortage of housing, the council had to face in these post-war years a formidable squatter problem, of families invading the old airfields and Army camps and staying in the Army and Air Force huts.
The Wing Rural District Council has been trying to meet this problem by arranging to build blocks of houses in various villages throughout the rural district council area. I do not wish to make any criticism of the Wing Rural District Council, for it has had 345 tremendous difficulties, and I should like to think that it is within measurable distance of meeting those difficulties now, after making so much effort in the last few years.
In the process of carrying out its policy it became evident that in addition to existing demands, the Cement Tunnel Company of Pitstone wanted more houses for its workers. The company might have thought that as it had large areas of land in Pitstone it should provide an area of its own land and perhaps build its own houses. For some reason or other that policy was not followed, and the Wing Rural District Council decided to go ahead with the building of a dozen houses, and for this purpose, in conjunction with the Ministry, investigated several alternative sites.
From my point of view, I would say that the wrong site was chosen, and I speak now without any reference to Mr. Williamson. I know the village well, and it was not unknown to me in my boyhood days. The 1½ acres site that has now been chosen is, first, at the wrong end of the village, that is to say, while the main village lies to the south of the Luton-Dunstable road this new housing estate is to the north of that road. Not only is it at the wrong end of the village, but it is almost a mile from the school, the church, and all the normal activities that go with the village, including, of course, one of the "locals." Children in this new small housing estate will, therefore, have to go nearly a mile to school or church.
In addition to that the land is first-class agricultural land and capable of becoming really good market gardening land. There is also what can only be described as very definite tendency towards bogginess, and I am quite sure that houses built on this site will not stand as well as houses built where the land is less boggy, that is, on one of the other sites which could have been selected.
Moreover the land is at least 50 yards from the nearest sewer, and this may add point to my appeal that public opinion in the village, whether voiced by the vicar, parish and other local councillors, or the local representatives of the National Farmers' Union, states that this is not the best site. I am sure the Minister has a map before him, and if he looks at it he will see on it Nos. 3 and 4 sites and, 346 knowing these various sites I would say that either of these is preferable to the one chosen. Another site, No. 5, which was not seen by the Ministry's inspector when he went down, is probably better still.
I come now to Mr. Mark Williamson. Although he and his family had been farmers in this neighbourhood for generations, it was only in November, 1953, that he acquired this land. At that time there was no compulsory purchase order on it, and as far as I am aware there was no thought of one. He bought the land hoping to be able to develop it as orchards and for market gardening. Two months later, as it were out of the blue, came this order to dispossess him of 1½ acres of the best of that land. I know the Ministry has met him to a small degree by altering the shape of the land that it wants to take, but the point is it is taking 1½ acres out of 50 acres, which is severe punishment.
My point is that the Ministry have not only taken a site unsuitable in several ways but, secondly, they have taken a site the loss of which inflicts undue hardship on the owner. I do not think the Ministry, when investigating this through its inspector, gave full effect to the harm likely to be done to this small farm.
The sequence of events was this. I have already mentioned that Mr. Williamson bought the land in November, 1953. The first indication he had that a compulsory purchase order was likely to be served was in January, 1954, two months later. It may be said that that was unfortunate for Mr. Williamson. It was distinctly unfortunate. An objection was lodged by him on 20th January, 1954. In April, a public inquiry was held. The objection was overruled and the order was again served, on 6th July, and a Press notice was published on 17th August. There was some delay there which has never been satisfactorily explained.
I know that it means that Mr. Williamson has got the use of the land, possibly for a year or six months longer than he would have done. But the point is that the Press notice and order should have occurred as near together as possible, and this was not done. Matters have gone on. Mr. Williamson has made every conceivable protest without any effect. He is not a wealthy man, but he 347 has gone to the expense of consulting solicitors and even counsel, on the point. He is up against that most extraordinary situation which we in this House deplore, that is, when citizens find themselves up against a Ministry which is at once counsel for the prosecution and judge and jury. That is the situation here.
Mr. Williamson was aggrieved by this decision. I have already said that he asked for a public inquiry. But the public inquiry is conducted by the Ministry whose decision he is opposing, by the Ministry's own officials, and when it comes to the final decision, it is the Ministry of the Crown against which the little man is protesting which is the last court of appeal. And there is left only the traditional right of raising in this House the case of the little man against the Ministry.
The Minister must have read these documents, of which there have been many. I have a great portfolio of letters dealing with the case. Frankly, I should have raised it long before in the House but for the fact that I was told by the Minister of Agriculture that as it was sub judice nothing could be done. That was in February, 1954. And from many points of view it might still be regarded as sub judice, because the district valuers have not yet come to an agreement, and there is still the question of the final decision of the Lands Tribunal.
The point I want to make tonight is that when a man who is not a wealthy man is up against a Ministry, then everything is in favour of the Ministry and against the little man. The very men who are sent down to investigate these cases are officials of the Ministry concerned, and I do not like that. I think it is one of the less likeable things about the system under which matters like this are dealt with in this country.
Therefore I appeal to the Minister, who has shown so much brilliance and pertinacity in the few weeks that he has been in office, not to give me the cut-and-dried answer tonight that this is going through the usual channels. I want my hon. Friend to look into this matter personally, to take it up as he would if he were an independent judge—to go into this case root and branch. I ask him to do two things. The first is to quash this compulsory purchase order. 348 The Minister himself did this with the Bletchley Compulsory Purchase Order that I opposed only a few months ago. Strong as the arguments were that the order should be quashed in the case of Bletchley, there is a stronger case for the quashing of this order on the land of Mr. Mark Williamson in Pitstone.
Secondly, if because of the law my hon. Friend finds that he is prevented from doing that, then let him see to it that this small farmer, my constituent, gets adequate compensation. One of the greatest grievances of farmers, when land is taken from them by compulsory purchase, is that the compensation paid is a mere pittance compared with what the land would have fetched had it been freely sold as potential building land. The position then is that, in the first place, the man does not get justice when he is up against a great Ministry and, secondly, when the Ministry has exercised its rights and expropriated him, he does not get adequate compensation.
That is my case regarding Mr. Mark Williamson at Pitstone, a small man up against a tremendous Ministry, with all its ramifications. I ask that justice be done so that this man shall have a fair hearing by an independent tribunal, and not be judged by the same Ministry which has taken his land from him.
§ 11.44 p.m.
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. W. F. Deedes)Since last midsummer, when this order for the land held by Mr. Mark Williamson was approved by the Minister, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Buckingham (Sir F. Markham) has shown close interest— I might almost say vigilance—over this case. I can assure him that I fully appreciate his motives, and I have no quarrel with them. Certainly his constituents will not have, for they will have reason to be grateful to him. I can assure him that my answer will not be a cut-and-dried one because I have read all the available documents on this case and I can now claim to know almost as much about them as my hon. and gallant Friend.
It is inevitable that a great many orders of this kind are necessary for public housing. I do not accept the strictures on the system made by my 349 hon. and gallant Friend. The fact is that all these orders receive careful and conscientious scrutiny—much more than many people are inclined to believe. However it is not a bad thing that from time to time one of them, such as this, should be hauled up into the light of day and subjected to very searching criticisms to which answers have to be found.
It is a very good thing. I welcome the opportunity, and I will try to find the answer. It is thirteen months since Wing Rural District Council made a compulsory purchase order on about 1acres of arable land in the parish of Pitstone, on land which was the property of the Williamson Brothers. Both Mr. Mark Williamson and his brother Humphrey, objected to the order, and there was a public hearing on 1st April, 1954. In June the order was confirmed by the then Minister, with a small modification.
My hon. Friend raised one other small point, which was that in July last year, notice of appeal was given in the High Court on the ground that the order was invalid because the acquiring authority had failed to observe the Statutory Rule of advertising in a newspaper. But this notice of appeal was withdrawn by the owners, and I do not think there is need for me to make any further comment on that.
After the Minister had confirmed the order, Mr. Williamson felt that a great injustice had been done to him, and both he, and my hon. and gallant Friend, have written to the Minister on more than one occasion. I have no dispute with most of what my hon. and gallant Friend has said, and I should like to enumerate some of the facts. Wing Rural District Council had, when the count was made last June, 260 applicants for housing, and Pitstone has at present 22 on the waiting list. The council made the order with the object of building 12 houses on the site, which is the subject of the dispute, and I should like first to say something about the alternative sites, about which much was said at the inquiry, and which my hon. Friend has mentioned.
Pitstone is a fairly open village with no definite centre, extending perhaps a mile between Pitstone and Pitstone Green, and rather less between the rail- 350 way station and Ivinghoe. The council had been in search of a site since October, 1952, and decided on this one only after much deliberation. It had considered four alternatives and what happened to those was as follows; one was ruled out because of the possible future new by-pass; planning authority was refused for housing. Two were turned down on grounds that they were too near the cement works, and on the fourth, which was church land—and that has no immediate bearing on this matter —'the cost of sewer connection would have been more expensive than 12 houses warranted.
None, I might add, were put to the test of a compulsory purchase order, and therefore, we do not know if there were any significant objections by owners; but there may have been. All this may be arguable, but I mention it because it does indicate that the council did give great thought to the matter, and it was all gone over when the inspector held his inquiry.
My hon. Friend then mentioned the distance of this site from the local school which is, in fact, nine-tenths of a mile. It is a highly controversial question nowadays as to how far juniors should be expected to walk to and from school, and I am not entering into that aspect of the matter; but I must say that if nine-tenths of a mile distance from a school ruled out a council estate, then many which have been built would not have been built, and many in course of erection would not have been started. Then there is the statement that the children have to cross the Luton—Aylesbury road. But there is another estate on that same road —on the same side as this proposed site— and I have no evidence of any accidents having occurred.
A third point—it is a difficult one—was the question of dust from the cement factory. The site was said to be within the dust belt spread by the Pitstone Cement Works. To some extent the whole village suffers, and some administrative action is being taken to reduce that nuisance. When the inspector saw the site on 1st April, 1954, there was very little trace of dust.
There is a feeling, which Mr. Williamson expressed in a letter which he wrote to the Minister, that these houses will be used for cement factory workers. 351 He felt that the cement company should build its own houses on its own land. There are three answers to that. The first is that the company is in fact already building. The second is that there is a need for houses in Pitstone apart from the need of the cement workers. Thirdly, the Council could not have insisted that the cement company should build houses for its own people.
Now I come to what the hon. and gallant Member said was the most important part of all, which is Mr. Williamson's position, because he is the aggrieved party. He feels a great injustice is being done, and certainly feels, in fact he has suggested it, that the inquiry was biased. That certainly was not the case. I have read the whole proceedings, and the inspector has obviously done his job fairly and with marked objectivity. These inquiries are held in a manner prescribed by law, and everyone is entitled to feel that the provisions are adequate, or otherwise. I will not argue that point. But any suggestion that there has been an avoidable miscarriage of justice must be faced squarely. I can assure my hon. Friend that there has been nothing of the kind.
Mr. Williamson also has natural feelings about the ground belonging to his family 100 years ago and being bought back in only November, 1953. The answer to that briefly is that the owners were aware of the council's intention before they completed their repurchase.
My right hon. Friend's predecessor, who had to consider this order, at once noted a point made by Mr. Williamson at the inquiry, namely the difficulty 352 created for ploughing by the shape of the site covered by the order. As a result of his action—and I stress that, because when I say these orders are looked at, I mean that they really are—the order was changed to cut off a corner and make the field an easier shape to plough. That answers one point, urged by my hon. and gallant Friend, which is that small affairs of small men are not given sufficient consideration. Another result was that only the poorest part of the land was taken.
My hon. and gallant Friend will realise that the taking of any site in a small village is always unpopular and always a very difficult business. All kinds of considerations have to be weighed—agricultural land, alternatives, hardship, and so on. The result is seldom approved by all, least of all by the owner. I understand that the compensation has not yet been settled, but there is really no reason to suppose it will be unjust. I think that it will be found that the compensation in this case will be competently and sympathetically worked out. I do not want to prejudge it, because it is still under discussion. What we have to decide in this case, as indeed in the case of all orders, is whether the balance is fair and sensible, not whether the decision is popular.
I hope that what I have said tonight will go some way towards satisfying my hon. and gallant Friend that a good deal of trouble was taken over this matter, and that, on balance, what was done was fair and sensible.
§ Adjourned accordingly at six minutes to Twelve o'clock