Clause 3.—(SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS.) (Hansard, 4 July 1957)

§ Mr. Ede
I want to express my thanks to the Prime Minister for some information he has given me in the course of correspondence which I have had with him about the Bill. I hope that I shall not be expected to apologise to the House for raising the matter, for, as I said when we were in Committee, this is a very important Bill indeed, inasmuch as, whether we like it or not, being the first Bill of this kind that we have had before us, it must in some way or other influence any future Bills which may be brought forward in circumstances that may not be quite similar to those in this case.
I am sure that no one wishes to hinder the Atomic Energy Authority in getting on with its task of creating this station at Winfrith Heath. I notice in the Preamble that we are told that the Ministry at the time they drafted the Bill were desirous of acquiring certain land in the parish of Winfrith Newburgh. I understand that that desire still subsists, unless it has been gratified in the meantime. Can the Minister give us any indication of the time when conveyance of this land from the present owners to the Government will be completed? I think that is information which we should have, because when he came before the House on Second Reading he held this matter out as one of urgency, and I think he will agree that no matter what other criticisms may have been made of the Government, no one doubted the urgency of the matter. I think we should now be told, on the assumption that he gets the Bill, when he expects that the land will be acquired by the Authority.
The other point with which I want to deal is a statement which occurred in the letter which the Prime Minister wrote to me, in which various matters were raised, one of which we have already dealt with by the Amendment moved by the hon. and gallant Member for New Forest (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre), which has been accepted by the Government and 1456 put into the Bill by the House. Another was what is to happen to the whole of this vast tract of land when it passes into the possession of the Authority. I was somewhat surprised to learn from the Prime Minister's letter, although I greatly welcome the intimation, that although in Clause 1 (2, b) this land will in future be capable of enclosure without any further proceeding, it is not proposed to enclose the whole of this land and, in fact, a very considerable part of the 850 acres will remain open for people to roam about on as they have done, whether they had the legal right to do so or not, hitherto.
I mention it because I think that that assurance should appear in the record of our proceedings, because in view of the occasional scares which we get about the necessity of having these places so sealed that no security risks are run about them, it might be possible at some date in the not-too-distant future for some Minister or some servant of the Authority to make representations that in the circumstances a ring fence should be put round the two areas on either side of the road which divides the site. I am bound to say that if this land is to remain physically unenclosed to a very large extent, no matter what its legal position may be, some of the objections which some of us feel to the proceedings as a whole will be removed.
It is a very dangerous position when land is legally capable of enclosure but is left physically unenclosed. I know of several such commons in Surrey, including that vast common near Wisley Hut on the main Portsmouth Road. That is physically unenclosed, but it was legally enclosed over a hundred years ago. A considerable amount of public money had to be spent some few years ago, when I was Chairman of the Surrey County Council, to buy the freehold of the land so as to ensure that, in public ownership, it would not be enclosed.
To have covered the whole of that tract of land, which is even larger than the amount of land now under consideration, would have meant very considerable destruction of one of the great amenities of the county, and would have robbed the drive along the Portsmouth Road of the considerable amount of enjoyment which can be had by those who do not drive along it too fast. They, unfortunately, are a rapidly diminishing minority.
1457 I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that, at the moment, it is not proposed to put the whole of this great acreage into two enclosures, one on either side of the main road which runs across the site; that, while they behave themselves reasonably, the public will be allowed to roam across it, and that no steps will be taken to hinder that approach, beyond the necessary enclosures for the various buildings that are part of the project. Having accepted the Bill, we cannot object to that, but if, in fact, these buildings are to cover only a portion—and, I understand, a comparatively small portion—of the total acreage, I hope that we may have an assurance of that kind.
I would even go so far as to hope that at some time or other the Government will take powers, if they need them, to frame the necessary regulations for the use of the land by the public—powers such as those which have been obtained by the National Trust and some local authorities which have these large open spaces under their control. We can be quite certain that once the buildings begin to go up they will be objects of interest to great numbers of people.
One does not desire to see these places regarded as the homes of mysterious processes from which the general public had better keep away. Nobody, I am quite sure, desires other than to get people to understand that these institutions will be part of the country's make-up for the next two or three generations, and the more we can get the people to familiarise themselves with them in that way the better it will be for all concerned.
I should like to express my thanks to the Prime Minister for the very courteous reply that he sent to my representations made on behalf of the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society. I hope, however, that next time the Authority is trying to acquire land it will be quite certain, before it desires it too much, that the land is not subject, even in theory, to any rights of common, because the destruction of common land over which the people can roam is not a thing to be encouraged in these days.
There is just one other thing that I should like to say. I understand that a town of some considerable size will be built in connection with this scheme. 1458 May I be allowed to express the hope that the municipality which will be responsible for providing recreation grounds and playing facilities within that town will not be ungenerously treated by the Government should it have difficulty in acquiring land for that purpose?
I want to make it quite plain that, as this land is subject to Section 193 of the Law of Property Act, 1925, there is no claim unless compulsory powers are used to acquire the land and that an equivalent area shall be added to the common, but where, in addition to enclosing a part of an open space, a Government also bring close to that site a new town, I hope that the Government will feel that they have some responsibilities towards the inhabitants, and particularly towards the younger inhabitants, of that new town.

§ Mr. Anthony Greenwood (Rossendale)
Like my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), I shall not detain the House very long at this stage, but I think it would be a pity if we let the Bill go to another place while there are still misgivings in our minds which the Paymaster-General can, perhaps, dispel when he comes to the Dispatch Box to reply. On Second Reading, we expressed a number of apprehensions and doubts which we had about the Bill, although, of course, we allowed it to have a Second Reading without opposing it in the Division Lobby.
The doubt that I have in mind tonight is really an extension of the last point made by my right hon. Friend. Earlier in his speech, my right hon. Friend asked the Paymaster-General whether the land had yet been acquired, or when it was going to be acquired. I read through very carefully today the debate on Second Reading, and it looked to me from my study of HANSARD as if the Paymaster-General on that occasion rather carefully avoided referring to whether the land had or had not been acquired at that stage or giving us any indication when it would be acquired.
What we really want to know is how the land is going to be acquired by the Atomic Energy Authority. If, for example, it is going to be acquired compulsorily, then I think the provisions to which my right hon. Friend referred ought to apply, because it is, I understand, the normal practice where a public 1459 authority acquires land by compulsory purchase that it should provide an alternative amount of land in compensation.
It is, of course, possible for the Atomic Energy Authority under Section 5 of the Atomic Energy Authority Act, 1954, to acquire this land by compulsory purchase, and it might, I think, be held by the cynical observer that the Government have, first of all, extinguished the common rights in this land and that, by having done so, have put the Atomic Energy Authority in a position in which, if it acquires the land by compulsory purchase, there is no need for it to provide alternative land because the commoners' rights have been extinguished by this House before the acquisition takes place.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I think that the Bill merely deals with common rights, their ascertainment, extinguishment, compensation, and so on. I do not think that it contains in its four corners any provision for the acquisition of land at all.

§ Mr. Greenwood
I fully appreciate your point, Mr. Speaker. I was seeking to prove, of course, that we should not allow the Bill to proceed if we thought that any injustice to the local inhabitants was going to be caused in consequence of it.
However, I have made that point, and I should now like finally to put to the Paymaster-General the suggestion which my right hon. Friend made. It is that, although it may be too late for the normal procedure to be applied in this case, if at a later stage it is found necessary for the growing population of the area to have open spaces provided, there will be a generous gesture either by the Government or by the Atomic Energy Authority to give some sort of undertaking that they will help the local inhabitants with the acquisition of the open spaces that will be required.

§ Mr. Maudling
I hope I did not give the impression in moving the Second Reading of the Bill that the land had actually been acquired. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South 1460 Shields (Mr. Ede) pointed out, the Bill begins by saying: Whereas…the…Authority are desirous of acquiring… We have been negotiating for some time, and I hope, now the difficulty about commoners' rights has been removed, the negotiations will soon be completed. They are still continuing, and, having provided this Bill, there should be no delay over any rights. But I hope that the negotiations will not be protracted and that they will be concluded shortly. I do not think they have any relevance to the slightly sinister point of the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood). There seems to be some misapprehension about this.
This is not a matter of open spaces. On this common, the public at large have no right of entry. The only common rights in question are those of the commoners to cut turf and pasture cattle in the area. The public generally has no right of access. Members of the public can and, in fact, do walk over the area, but by tacit consent of the owners.
For the future, I am glad to give the assurance for which the right hon. Gentleman asked. Certainly the Atomic Energy Authority will not want to cover the whole of this large area with buildings. I understand that the practice is to build these reactors, which, although expensive and very heavy, are not very large, with the maximum amount of open space between them. I understand that the Authority's intention is to leave the rest of the land unoccupied by buildings and as open spaces for the public to walk over.
The Authority is not likely to change that intention, and I cannot conceive that it will want to fence in the whole of the area. The cost alone would be prohibitive and the difficulty of maintaining security around the entire area would be much greater than maintaining security around a small number of smaller areas. There is no intention of enclosing this large area, and in practice the public will have as much right of access to the area as in the past.
I will deal finally with the question of a new town coming into being. I do not think that the influx of scientific staff to this new extension of Harwell is likely to bring about the creation of anything 1461 remotely resembling a new town. Problems will arise with the influx of population into the area, problems which the Authority will have to settle in conjunction with the local authorities concerned. I will certainly see that the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman and of the hon. Gentleman are conveyed to the Authority and brought to its attention.