HC Deb 23 April 1963 vol 676 cc157-77

10.3 p.m.

Mr. James MacColl (Widnes)

I beg to move, in page 5, line 6, to leave out: by more than ten per cent. The purpose of the Amendment is very important. The Amendment is in no sense of the term a wrecking one, because it would strengthen rather than weaken the Bill. The point was discussed in Standing Committee, and I should like to move it in a slightly different way from that in which it was then moved by my hon. Friend because I have had an opportunity of thinking carefully about some of the pertinent points made at that time by the Government.

We are all agreed on the object of this exercise. We want to prevent the abuse of ordinary planning control in general, and abuse referring to the building of offices in particular, by people being able under the Schedule of the 1962 Act to claim the right to increase the cubic capacity of an existing building by 10 per cent., either by rebuilding it altogether or by enlarging it. The London County Council, which is probably the planning authority most concerned in this matter, has made it quite clear that it dislikes the whole of the Third Schedule to the 1947 Act. It thinks that it is out of date, and should go altogether.

The Government now accept the principle that the cubic capacity case has played ducks and drakes with good planning control in London. I do not think that there is any great argument about it. I believe that it is now generally agreed that it is desirable to substitute floor area for cubic capacity as the test. There is no challenge of that. We entirely support it and we are anxious to see the Bill go through.

The difference of opinion arises on whether the test should be 10 per cent. of the capacity of the floor area or whether it should be just the existing floor area. This is not primarily a question of what one may or may not build. It is a recurring theme which comes up in discussion on this complicated Bill that it is not concerned with stopping people from building something which they ought to be allowed to build. There is nothing to stop the planning authority giving them planning permission to build 10 per cent. or even 50 per cent. beyond the correlated capacity. If it is a good thing that it should be done and everybody agrees that it is a good thing, it can be allowed. On the other hand, if the planning authority thinks that it is a bad thing and the Minister thinks that it is a good thing the right hon. Gentleman can allow it to be done on appeal.

This is not an argument directed to saying that it is a good thing that we should have more accommodation and therefore people should be allowed to build. If that is relevant, planning permission is given. What we are concerned with is the different point: if this is not allowed to be done and it is generally agreed that it is a bad thing to be done, what is the basis upon which compensation is to be assessed? Is it right that the developer ought to be able to come forward and say, "I have inherent rights to build on a site where there is an existing building and go beyond the 10 per cent."? There cannot be any inherent right, because in the Bill we are altering the basis by the very drastic alteration from cubic capacity to floor area. This considerably alters people's rights to compensation and, therefore, there is no argument in principle upon it.

I do not care to move very surely in these complicated matters, but I understand that there are two main reasons for saying that this provision in the Bill is out-of-date and ought to go. The first is that the tolerance originally got into the Schedule because of the assessment of development charges, and because by development charges a charge was being placed on all development. In other words, in taking development value away from the owner one ought to leave him some room for manoeuvre and therefore 10 per cent. was just a rough-and-ready assessment of the tolerance which would cut out more stringent financial controls. Even if we did not have the 10 per cent., there would still be a development charge on any development, even if that development were desirable.

This was the first reason why the 10 per cent. provision got into the Bill, but as development charges have now gone and compensation is based not on existing use value but on full value, the case for keeping the 10 per cent. on that side of it seems to me to be severely shaken. The second, and technical, argument is that in view of the great change in building methods, especially in the building of big structures, a tolerance is not needed because within the existing area one can get a much more capacious building. Since a great many corridors and walls can be cut out it is possible even on the same floor area to have a more effective and useful building which will take more people. Therefore, even without the 10 per cent., there is more room for manoeuvre.

Without an addition of 10 per cent. there is potentially a different and a more capacious building. On those grounds, there is no point in keeping the figure of 10 per cent. It is not a question of whether or not we think it is desirable to retain the 10 per cent. It is a question of the basis on which compensation should be assessed. When it is generally decided that one does not want to have an office building in a large town or city —taking London as the obvious example—and when one calculates what is the loss to a person who is told that he cannot rebuild, are we going to calculate it on the basis that he would otherwise have been able to produce a building of the same floor area, or is he to be allowed the 10 per cent?

Once we retreat from the Third Schedule to the 1947 Act and we introduce the floor area consideration, we are surrendering the main point. We are recognising that the situation has changed. I recognise that this reliance on the Third Schedule, with the tolerance as a basis of assessment, is becoming an abuse. Therefore, there is no need for keeping it. The sensible thing is to get rid of the 10 per cent. and to take the common sense standpoint, that if one is rebuilding, the assumption is that one is rebuilding a building of the same size as the existing one, and that should be the basis of the assessment of compensation. That seems to me to be a simple and practical way of dealing with the problem.

Mr. Arthur Skeffington (Hayes and Harlington)

I support the Amendment, and I am glad to have a second chance to ask the Government to look at this problem once again. Admittedly, this is a much mare radical Amendment than the Government's solution, but since we had our discussions in Standing Committee further professional and expert opinion outside the House has considered the matter, as exemplified by the Town and Country Planning Association's memorandum, which I am sure the Minister and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will have noted.

The memorandum says: We are convinced, however, that these measures are inadequate for coping with the facts set out in the Government's own White Paper. One of the specific proposals that the Association makes is that the Bill should be amended so that planning authorities can prevent (without liability to compensation) any increase in the floor space of redeveloped offices. That is precisely what the Amendment would do, although it would extend to any building, whether an office building or not.

I want to make it absolutely clear that were the Amendment accepted it still would not take away from the planning authority the right to permit extension. If in all the circumstances—overcrowding, traffic, communications, availability of services, and so on—an office extension, or an extension of any other building, could be contemplated without creating further difficulties, then the local planning authority would be free so to grant the extension whether by 10 per cent., 20 per cent., or 30 per cent.

As we pointed out before, the Government would lose nothing. No development would be stifled automatically by accepting this Amendment. It would merely give the planning authorities a much more powerful instrument, particularly in the centre of great towns, for controlling this development of offices, which is undoubtedly one of the causes of so much congestion.

10.15 p.m.

It has been pointed out—the Committee should bear this in mind again—that, in the seven years 1953 to 1960, the net increase in daily commuter traffic into London has been 116,000. At the same time, we know that there is now in what is called the central London area a working population of 1¼ million, very largely, though not exclusively, of course, people working in offices. Judged on previous average yearly figures, the number of new office jobs has been growing by about 15,000 a year, and in the last four years the increase has been much higher, nearer 30.000.

Some very effective action must be taken, not only in this Bill but in other Measures which, no doubt, the Government have in mind to prevent this expansion of offices in London, with all the dislocation and unbalance of life which such development brings about.

We welcomed the Bill as far as it went. True, the Government had many years' warning about it. The figures began to be significant from 1950 onwards. The London County Council did its specific survey in 1956, and it warned us of the developing situation. We had to wait seven years before any action was taken, and, in our view, what is proposed is still inadequate. That is the view also of the Town and Country Planning Association which does have some specialised knowledge of the subject. Between 15 million and 20 million sq. ft. of office accommodation is being built at present. This will not be affected by the Bill. It is going on now in London, and there will thus be, I suppose, capacity for about 130,000 more office jobs in the centre of London.

An Amendment of this kind would permit development to take place in particular parts of the inner London area or, certainly, in the outer London area in accordance with the sort of ideas which the Government may have in mind. It would not prevent that development taking place, but it would, without the threat of compensation, allow the planning authorities to take vigorous action where necessary in central London, Birmingham, Glasgow, and elsewhere.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) said, this 10 per cent. tolerance originally had nothing to do with planning considerations. It was put in to stop a vast number of collections of development charge for minor building operations. That is how it came to be in the Third Schedule to the 1947 Act. It seems extraordinary, the Government having decided that they must take action to prevent this expansion, that they should not go a little further. In Standing Committee, the Minister used what I thought was an extremely weak argument, that we must allow some expansion or tolerance at any rate within 10 per cent. of gross floor space.

If the Amendment were accepted, a planning authority could, if circumstances permitted, allow an extension, but in other cases, if the scope of the Schedule is restricted as the Bill has restricted it, one would still be able to achieve on rebuilding a quite considerable expansion. Even with the 10 per cent. limited to gross floor space, this will often mean an increase of office capacity to the tune of about 20 per cent. of those working there. True, it will not be as great an extension as under the existing law, but it is, I suggest, in the places where we need to apply some control and restriction, a great pity not to accept the Amendment as it stands.

In view of a good deal of expert opinion outside, I hope that the Government will realise that there is great strength in these arguments and will, even at this stage accept the Amendment.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield)

I think that the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) realises that the Amendment goes a good deal further than the scope of the Bill as outlined by my right hon. Friend on Second Reading some time ago.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) stated thin the object of the tolerances of the 1947 Schedule was purely to save a large number of small claims for compensation against the £300 million fund. I challenge him on that, because my recollection of the debates, which I read carefully when we came to deal with the Bill, is that there was equal reason for feeling that some rights should be left with the owner.

There is also the very clear reason that there should be some degree of incentive to redevelop to modern standards. I am well aware that in London the incentive is probably in the rents which modern offices will command, but I think that we do the whole set-up of planning a disservice by looking at the position over the whole country from the viewpoint of London.

We also make a mistake if we are mesmerised by the difficulties which we have had over offices and apply the rather Draconian restrictions which hon. Members opposite have in mind to the whole range of tolerances of the Third Schedule which would include the 10 per cent. to the ordinary householder, and the 10 per cent. to a block of flats in respect of which I think most of us would feel it desirable to leave some form of incentive; and the Amendment departs from the basic idea of leaving some tolerance which was written into the 1947 Act.

It is all very well for hon. Members opposite to say that the object of this tolerance has gone with the development charge, but it lingers on under the code of compensation both for the revocation of planning permission and for refusal of planning permission when there is a Part VI claim. We are, therefore, cutting across a much bigger series of acquired rights than we have been led to believe.

As I said earlier, it was never the intention of the Bill that this should be more than one of the weapons of the Government in dealing with the office problem. It would be quite wrong to extend this restriction and to take away all tolerance not only for offices and not only in London, but over the whole field of planning and over the whole country. I cannot advise the Committee to accept the Amendment.

Mr. MacColl

I do not propose to divide the Committee on the Amendment, but I will not withdraw it because of the complete illogicality of the Parliamentary Secretary's answer. He spoke about wanting to keep an incentive to rebuild or to improve one's property. If someone wants to rebuild or to improve a property, planning permission is given and no argument arises. We are dealing with cases in which planning permission is refused If that is done, we do not want property to be redeveloped.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Skeffington

I beg to move, in page 5, line 22, at the end to add: 5 In the case of any building to be rebuilt or altered, the building as rebuilt or altered shall not infringe any planning standards for the time being laid down by a local planning authority. In determining far the purposes of this paragraph whether planning standards are infringed, a local planning authority shall have regard to its requirements imposed for the purpose of controlling—

  1. (a) the bulk and the floor space of buildings;
  2. (b) the amount of residential accommodation to be provided;
  3. (c) the shape and disposition of the building on its site;
  4. (d) the amount of daylight to be available to the building in question and to the surrounding property; and
  5. (e) the provision of proper car parking facilities.
The object of the Amendment is to enable local planning authorities to take into account when giving permission the factors which are known generally as "good planning conditions", so that the main purposes of the Bill will not be defeated by those who are enlarging a building or rebuilding on the original site. Section 12(2,a) of the Town and Country Planning Act. 1962, refers to the carrying out of works for the maintenance, improvement or other alteration of any building, being works which affect only the interior of the building or which do not materially affect the external appearance.… If rebuilding or redevelopment can take place in the context of the words of subsection (2)(2,a), the planning authority, unless it is prepared to pay heavy compensation. has no right to affix conditions to the rebuilding or redevelopment which is about to take place. It is felt by many, certainly by those who handle these matters on the London County Council, that that would provide an escape clause whereby the major object of the Bill could in certain circumstances be defeated.

I can best illustrate my point by giving an example which, I hope, will clarify the point. The example in question is one that is exercising the minds of those who deal with these matters at the present moment. A developer of an old seven-storey block of flats has proposed redevelopment of them so that there would be seven new units of accommodation on the top storey. I do not want to be thought as saying that any developer who can provide additional accommodation in that way is to be discouraged. It depends where the development is situated. If development is allowed in an area which is short of services, where the services—whether railways, school or hospital services, for example—are already overstrained, this is something which good planning should take into account. In the case in question, if the development were allowed by the local planning authority, the density of population, which for the area is 100 per acre, would be of the order of 229 to the acre on this site.

It is difficult to have any general standard of densities if a departure on that scale can be allowed within existing legislation and a planning authority can refuse only if it is prepared to pay heavy compensation. Insertion at the end of the Schedule of the words proposed in the Amendment would give to the planning authority the right, without incurring heavy compensation, which the ratepayers would have to bear, to add what the planners broadly term good planning conditions.

This is an essentially civilised Amendment if we take town and country planning seriously. As the Minister knows the argument, because he has heard it before, I leave it with him and hope that he will be more responsive than on the previous occasion.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Sir Keith Joseph)

This Amendment, like the previous one, misunderstands the purpose of the Bill. The Government are not suggesting that the Bill involves any vast and major or revolutionary change in the town and country planning system. It seeks simply to correct some anomalies that have emerged from previous legislation. It is not, therefore, the occasion either to remove altogether the proper rights of developers, as the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) proposed previously, or, as is now proposed, to give local planning authorities powers to diminish the rights of developers without paying compensation.

It may be that these are things which should be done, but I am not addressing myself to the merits. I disagree strongly with the proposition that they should be done, however, although no doubt a case could be made for them. But this Bill is not proposing to take any such steps. It seeks to remove anomalies which would add ten million to twenty million square feet to the office space of London over the next twenty years. It has no revolutionary objectives, but it will have quite sizeable and signicant results.

10.30 p.m.

I must, therefore, advise the Committee against anything so drastic as what is proposed by the hon. Gentleman. He suggests that his proposal is a civilised step, but it would also involve taking away rights without compensation. Some of the things he wants to do can already be done by local planning authorities without paying compensation, such as affecting the distribution and layout of a new building or the rebuilding of an existing building. No doubt there are ways of encouraging residential accommodation which can also be used without paying compensation. But, on the main issue, I must firmly advise the Committee against accepting this Amendment.

Mr. Skeffington

If this were in fact a new development the planning authority would have a considerable right, but why is it that when there has to be a substantially new building on an old site there is a difference in treatment?

Sir K. Joseph

Because, since town planning was introduced into this country, there has been this great gulf between existing buildings and new projects. With new projects, the local planning authority is all-powerful, subject to Ministerial backing of its decisions. But with existing buildings the local planning authority has to accept them for better or worse and can only alter them by reducing the rights of the owners or occupiers, when compensation is paid. That has been the basis of our planning legislation. The rebuilding of an existing building preserves the rights of the existing building. And the sort of development we are discussing here is in the nature of an existing building rather than in the nature of a new building.

Mr. E. G. Willis (Edinburgh, East)

Once again I am amazed by the skill and dexterity with which my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) handles these very complex matters and it is with some trepidation that I venture once more into the debate. Having listened to the Minister's reply, I am not very convinced. He says that the Bill sets out to make certain provisions in respect of town and country planning relating, in the main, to office building.

On the other hand, my hon. Friend says that here is something which should also be dealt with. I cannot see why, if it is thought by this House to be right to deal with it in this Bill, it should not be so dealt with. Therefore, the Minister's argument was not very good. My hon. Friend suggested that we should include a new provision which would give the local planning authorities certain powers which would avoid bad planning for the future, and that they should have regard, in the case of any building being rebuilt or altered, to considerations enumerated in the Amendment.

The right hon. Gentleman said that we must not accept the Amendment because that would diminish the right of developers. Surely most of the legislation which we pass tends to diminish the rights of somebody, but if something is against the public interest we consider it right to diminish the rights of an individual to do this, that, or the other. I was not much impressed by that argument.

On both counts the right hon. Gentleman did not advance a very persuasive argument against the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington. On the first count, there is no reason why, if the House so wishes, we should not include this provision in this Bill, and we ought to get that quite right. On the second count, the argument that we would diminish the rights of the individual is not a good argument because the House is continually interfering with the rights of the individual

Mr. Skeffington

And is doing so in this Bill.

Mr. Willis

And is doing so in this Bill, as my hon. Friend says. There is no reason why the principle of interfering with the rights of an individual should not be taken a little further. In the case which my hon. Friend quoted—and there must be a number of others—what was being done was against the public interest and against good planning. If we were to accept the right hon. Gentleman's argument, we would continue many of the evils which we are trying to wipe out by town and country planning. As we are trying to achieve the goal of eliminating these abuses, I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give us something more substantial before we part with this Amendment.

Mr. Charles Doughty (Surrey, East)

I did not intend to take part in this debate, but I feel that I should support the Minister, because, as he so clearly stated, whatever be the merits or demerits of the Amendment, they are not relevant to this limited Bill which is for very limited purposes. There is nothing more dangerous than suddenly, at the last moment, slipping into a limited Bill some sweeping Amendment on a different matter, even though it be a good matter. There is even a criticism of the drafting, for the Amendment says: In the case of any building to be rebuilt or altered … Is it suggested that if it is proposed to make some small alteration to a building, the planning authorities should be able to order sweeping changes to be made?

It may well be that we shall be able to deal with some of the matters raised by the Amendment when we have a later town and country planning Bill. For example, I believe that in the centres of cities like London and Birmingham office buildings should have residential accommodation, often at the top, not simply for caretakers, but so that people may live nearer their work. I believe that there should be far stricter regulations for the provision of proper car parking facilities and so on.

But these are wide and general questions which cannot be dealt with in this Bill but must be fully considered on some other Bill. That is why it would not be right to accept this Amendment to this Bill on this occasion. No doubt on some other occasion we will have to consider what are the rights of property owners and what are the duties of property owners and other matters of that kind, but it would be quite wrong for me or anybody else to waste time by going into them on this occasion on this Amendment on this limited Bill.

Mr. Willis

That is the most absurd argument I have heard for a long time—that it would be a waste of time to discuss this matter now. If that is true, it is a waste of time to discuss it at any time.

Mr. Doughty

On a point of order. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) made his speech, I then replied, and the hon. Member is now speaking again. If I reply to him, will he be entitled to reply again, and so on? Is it in order for an hon. Member to speak twice to the same Amendment?

The Chairman

The House is in Committee and there is no limit to the number of times that hon. Members may speak.

Mr. Willis

If the hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) attends Committee meetings as often as I do he will learn the procedure adopted in Committee, and one of the procedures which Scottish Members adopt is to reply to points which are made.

I found the hon. and learned Gentleman's intervention most provoking. He said that this was not the time to discuss the point raised in the Amendment. Why is this not the time to discuss it? The Amendment gives the Committee an opportunty to discuss this point, and we would be failing in our duty if we did no* take advantage of that opportunity.

One of the first things that I was told way back in 1945 when I first entered the House was that it was up to Members to find opportunities to discuss those points which they thought were important and should be dealt with. This is what Members have to do all the time. This Amendment provides us with an opportunity to discuss the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington), and would not have been selected had it not been in order.

The fact that only half a dozen Members are present is not the fault of my hon. Friends who tabled the Amendment. Other hon. Members ought to have been present to discuss it, but the fact that so few Members are present does not mean that we have no right to discuss it, and, if we like, to accept it. The hon. and learned Gentleman's argument that this is not the time and the place to discuss the Amendment does not stand up to examination for a moment.

The hon. and learned Gentleman then said that to discuss this Amendment was a waste of time. Surely we are not wasting the Committee's time if we discuss something important? This doctrine that we must not discuss something which we think is important because we might be accused of wasting the time of the Committee is a new one. My hon. Friends might not be successful in persuading the Minister to accept the Amendment, but that does not mean that we must not use this opportunity to put forward relevant arguments, and I hope that the Minister will not be persuaded by the foolish arguments advanced by the hon. and learned Gentleman but will accept the case put forward by my hon. Friends.

This is a good Amendment. It suggests certain things which ought to be done, namely, that we should give local planning authorities these powers to enable them to control developments along the lines which we think are desirable, and I hope that the Minister will reply to some of the points which have been made and advance better arguments than he has done so far.

Sir K. Joseph

I am always grateful for support, and I am particularly grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty), who has sometimes not seen eye to eye with me.

Let me try to explain briefly the reasons why I cannot advise the Committee to accept the Amendment. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) does not yet apparently recognise the distinction that I am trying to draw. Under the principal existing town and country planning legislation certain abuses, obscurities, and anomalies had crept in. As a result of these, and the use of cubic capacity as limiting the rate of enlargement or rebuilding, instead of the use of floor space, an unexpected and unwelcome increase of office building in London had become practicable, and had escaped the control of local planning authorities unless they were willing to spend large sums in compensation.

10.45 p.m.

It is and always has been the declared policy of the Government, in connection with the Bill, simply to remove those anomalies, stop those abuses, and clear up those obscurities. What the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) now suggests—and I appreciate the reasons for his suggesting it—is that we should go considerably further than this and attack the existing rights of owners without paying them any compensation. That is quite a different matter. That is why I cannot advise the Committee to accept the Amendment.

Finally, in reply to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East, there is no question of a lack of power in the hands of local planning authorities. They can do any of the things that the Amendment would permit them to do, but they would have to pay compensation in respect of some of those things. It is because the Amendment would enable them to do these things without paying compensation, and because it goes far beyond removing the anomalies, stopping the abuses and clarifying the obscurities that I must ask the Committee not to accept the Amendment.

Mr. MacColl

The Minister has made characteristically clear what his view is on this question, and I think that the issue between us is also clear. He says that local planning authorities can stop this being done. He says that the old cubic tolerance permitted an abuse, and that it is, therefore, something in respect of which he is entitled to bring in legislation to remedy and to prevent people claiming compensation for being refused permission to build office blocks which are undesirably large. The right hon. Gentleman accepts the principle that it is right to do that by legislation.

Sir K. Joseph

The hon. Member is going a little further than I indicated. Some of these rights are very obscure and difficult for a local planning authority to pin home. The hon. Member should take that fact into account in what he is saying.

Mr. MacColl

I agree. Some of these rights are very obscure, and because of that they are a very good negotiating instrument. They can be used as a threat. Because nobody is very clear what the compensation rights are it is very difficult for a planning authority which is dealing with the large sums of money which are likely to be involved in compensation to call the bluff of a developer and say, "All right; we will refuse you permission, and you can try to get compensation if you can". Developers can get away with an interpretation of the Schedule which goes far beyond the correct one. We would not quarrel with that.

My point is that it is right for a planning authority to be able to interfere with the powers of a developer to claim compensation in order to avoid the abuse involved either in the building of large office blocks or in the payment of compensation for the refusal of permission to build them. We say that the Amendment extends that power to refuse permission by only a comparatively small amount.

The right hon. Gentleman is proud of the fact that by getting rid of cubic tolerance he has won three-quarters of the battle, but planning authorities fear that they will not be able to enforce this provision to the extent that the right hon. Gentleman hopes because of the limit placed on their power to stop development which is contrary to good planning without paying compensation.

The hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) quoted a good example in parking. Someone may have a proposal under the provision in the Third Schedule to redevelop a site or alter a building. It may be found that the parking arrangements are inadequate. The planning authority is told that if there is an attempt at enforcement there will have to be the payment of compensation.

Another example which may be quoted is the interference with the light of neighbouring buildings. Some people have confirmed, and secured planning permission and have built in such a way as not to interfere with other people's access to light and air. The developer, protected by the provisions in the Third Schedule, says, "I do not have to bother about that, and you cannot make me do all these things. I have the right to take the building to a certain size within the provisions of the town planning legislation. I have rights, and if you take them away you must pay compensation."

We get back, therefore, to the old point about cubic tolerance. Is it possible to prevent this development without paying heavy compensation? That is the issue of this Amendment. This is not an attempt to extend the scope of the Bill to deal with something different, although I wish that the scope of the Bill could be extended. This refers to the purpose of the Bill, which is to allow planning authorities to control Third Schedule development in the interests of the community without being stopped by the threat of having to pay compensation. That principle is accepted in the Bill and this is merely a logical development of it.

It is not right that people should have the protection of the Third Schedule and get all the benefits of good planning and not have to conform in the same way as other people. That is the disadvantage of the present arrangement. We are winkling out certain people and giving them rights, while other people have to conform to good planning conditions Because they are making pleasanter cities in which to work, they are getting an accretion of value far beyond anything contemplated in the original Act. The right hon. Gentleman is shutting his eyes to the logic, morality and good sense of the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment; not amended (in the Standing Committee) considered.

Order for Third Reading read—[Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified].

10.53 p.m.

Sir K. Joseph

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

This Bill has been generally welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House and in most quarters outside, although it is true that there has been a weight of opinion which expressed the wish that its provisions had gone further. The Bill is short but complex, and I think it to the credit of the Standing Committee, which I should like to thank, that we got through the Committee stage proceedings in one sitting. The Bill comes to its Third Reading without amendment. Proposals for widening its scope have been fairly fully discussed, and I do not want to take the House through them again. We feel that the Bill succeeds in its purpose of enabling planning authorities to control office development more effectively without unnecessarily interfering with established rights.

I ask the House to remember that this is not the only weapon the Government have deployed in the last few months for dealing with the over-concentration of offices in London. This is only one part of a four-fold attack on the problem, including the urgent review of Government employment in London, the inauguration of plans for providing offices both outside the centre of London and outside London altogether. There is also the setting up of the Location of Offices Bureau which will do what it can to reduce the demand for offices in London, which after all is the cause of the supply of which we are at the moment complaining. Taken in this context, I am sure the Bill will be found to be a useful Measure.

I have already given in early debates some measure of the achievements it is hoped this Bill will bring about. Office building will be reduced over the next twenty years by something between 10 million and 20 million square feet. The Bill, measured in that way, cannot fail to be a useful Measure and to strengthen the Government's policy of making it possible for planning decisions to be taken on a more sensible basis without the threat of compensation where compensation is not justified.

10.56 p.m.

Mr. Skeffington

There is a very old saying about looking a gift horse in the mouth. I feel about this Bill that, as I called it in Committee "a mouse of a Bill", I think we should not look a gift mouse in the mouth.

At long last the Government have recognised that some action had to be taken in regard to office building, particularly in the centres of cities such as London and Birmingham and elsewhere. As the Town and Country Planning Association memorandum said, the Bill should go further or some other Measure should be introduced in the not very distant future by this or some other Government. Nevertheless, this Bill removes an anomaly which has existed for far too long and which should have been removed before.

The only plea I make to the Government now that we have completed dis- cussion of the main points at issue is this. As the Minister knows, there are 15 million or 20 million square feet of office building for which permission has been given. I hope that by negotiation it might be decided to spread out the building period rather longer than was originally envisaged. That by negotiation would form some relief in relation to what else the Bill may be able to do.

So far as the Bills goes, we welcome it and, although inadequate, I am glad that it will go on to the Statute Book.

10.59 p.m.

Mr. MacColl

The House has spent the greater part of today discussing a long and complicated Bill. As the Minister said, this is a short and complicated Bill. Personally, I prefer a long complicated Bill because, like an examination paper, if one has many questions that always increases the possibility that one will understand one of them, whereas with a small Bill like this it is pretty hopeless if one does not even understand that amount.

I must confess that I find it extremely difficult to follow how this Bill fits into the general framework of planning legislation and the extremely complicated problem of compensation which arises from the Third Schedule. I hope that the Minister is right in saying that this Bill will in fact make a substantial inroad in preventing the continuing growth of office building in London. Everyone wants to see that done. If the Bill will help to do it we certainly should not hold up its passage but see that it very quickly gets on to the Statute Book, and comes into force quickly so that the right hon. Gentleman may encourage planning authorities to use its powers very vigorously indeed and give them inspiration and encouragement to do that. The need for quick action is very great. I do not want to elaborate the point that we have said that the Government have been late in introducing the Bill. Oppositions always claim that Governments are too late in introducing legislation of which they approve. We have complained that the Bill ought to have been produced earlier and that if it had much damage could have been avoided.

It is here, and we welcome it and hope that it will be passed. I do not think that it will solve all the problems. My suspicion—and I hope to be proved wrong—is that the fertile mind will find other ways round in getting what they want. Be that as it may, I welcome the Bill and I invite the House to give it a quick passage.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.