HC Deb 26 March 1958 vol 585 cc471-5
Lord John Hope

I beg to move, in page 11, line 1, after "of", to insert "any of".

Clause 13 enables the Secretary of State to make a varying or revoking order on the application of the authorised persons. The effect of the Amendment is to enable application to be made to the Secretary of State by any—not all, as at present drafted—of the authorised persons. Were the power to make a varying order or a revoking order to depend on all the authorised persons, it is obvious that a minority of owners, even a minority of one, would be in a position to prevent the making of an application for such an order, even if the majority wanted it.

Amendment agreed to.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Woodburn

I beg to move, in page 11, line 36, to leave out from the beginning to "and" in line 38.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

This Amendment and the next one to line 41, to leave out from "Commissioners" to the end of line 3 on page 12, may be taken together.

Mr. Woodburn

That will be convenient, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

The purpose of this Amendment is to delete the exclusion of Government Departments from the application of this Bill. The reason for this proposal is that Acts of Parliament have already been passed which have taken away the Crown inviolability of Government Departments for actions in the courts. We see no reason at all why the National Coal Board and all sorts of other people, mainly because they come under the Government and have charge of land, should not be involved in the necessary procedure required for the drainage of land.

The Government may have some reason which is not apparent to us, but, so far as we can see, there is every justification for Government Departments, especially the nationalised industries, and even the Secretary of State himself, to some extent, as well as the Department of Agriculture and the Forestry Commission, being included in the normal procedure for the purposes of this Bill. It may be that there might be objection taken if these bodies were going to take the initiative, but I do not see why they should not take the initiative if we want the land drained, provided that it brings everybody in. One of the defects of the Bill is that the initiative was restricted, and we would certainly welcome any extension to this great public interest in land, which includes a great many Government Departments.

As far as the Crown itself is concerned, we are satisfied—at least I am, having been one myself—that the Crown Estates Commissioners would never be so unreasonable as not to play their part in any necessary work of this kind. The nationalised industries and many of the public boards are relatively independent and might reserve to themselves independent judgements. It would be quite wrong if they handicapped very necessary work of draining land, and it would be a reproach on the Government if we were a party to it.

Mr. Willis

We had a very lengthy debate about this during the Committee stage of the Bill, and we did not get very far with it. I am bound to say that the arguments advanced by the Lord Advocate on our Amendments in the Scottish Grand Committee were not very good ones. They did not seem to convince anybody that it was right to leave Government Departments in this position.

A very large part of the land of Scotland is, in fact, held by public Departments, and the position of Government Departments under this Bill is such that a whole group of landowners or farmers might want their land drained for quite good reasons, while some Government Department, with a few acres in the area, could hold up the scheme. Why should these Government Departments be placed in this specially privileged position? Only three Departments might lay some claim to being placed in a privileged position, and those are the Defence Ministries. There might be quite good reasons, on grounds of security, why such a Department might not want a scheme to proceed, but even the chances of that happening would be remote.

As for the other Government Departments, there does not appear to be any good reason why the Board of Trade, the Department of Agriculture, the Post Office or the Coal Board should be in a position to prevent schemes for the benefit of the area being carried out. No other person is placed in this position. If he is in a minority he is compelled to take part in the scheme. That is how the Bill stands: the majority can compel the minority to take part in the scheme and share the cost. Why should Government Departments be placed in this specially privileged position?

The right hon. Gentleman went further than merely admitting that there was a case for placing Government Departments on the same footing as other citizens. He said it was even debatable whether the Crown lands themselves should be placed in a privileged position, but he left it at that. We are limiting this Amendment simply to the land occupied by Government Departments, and there seems no reason why a scheme which might benefit thousands of acres should be held up simply because some Government Department might, for a poor reason, say that it does not want to proceed with the scheme and that the Bill does not apply to it.

That cannot be in the interest of Scotland or of agricultural procedure and therefore I am glad to support the Amendment.

The Lord Advocate

May I correct what I am sure was a slip of the tongue on the part of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn). He referred to the National Coal Board as a Government Department; of course it is a nationalised industry.

In moving the Amendment, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Stirlingshire quite rightly referred to the fact that it was a practice from 1947 to assimilate the responsibilities of Government Departments and the like with the needs of private citizens. That was a healthy development, but when we come to these questions the position is slightly different. As the House knows, there is an undivided Government responsibility. I will give the House an example of the responsibility that could arise. Here I am only talking of Government Departments because Crown land proper is not involved in this Amendment.

Let us assume that the Secretary of State is considering a scheme and that a Government Department is the owner of land in an area in which the scheme is to take place. The situation under the Bill is that the Government Department could not be brought in unless it agreed. So in theory at least it could disagree. We will say, for the sake of argument, that the Secretary of State for War disagreed with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. Now we cannot have two Ministers disagreeing. They would have to thrash the matter out and at the end of the day the one who succeeded would be the one whose actions or intentions were in the greatest public interest.

So it is not right to say that any Government Department, merely by sticking in its toes and saying, "We disagree", could hold up the type of scheme with which this Bill is concerned, because at the end of the day the Minister in charge of that Department might well be coerced in accordance with his ministerial responsibility in order to bring him into line with the Secretary of State for Scotland. For this reason, it is desirable that the Bill should remain in its present form, and so I invite the House to reject the Amendment.

Mr. Woodburn

After hearing that explanation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.