HC Deb 29 January 1964 vol 688 cc461-85

Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. R. W. Elliott.]

8.15 p.m.

Mr. John Mackie (Enfield, East)

The subject I have to raise tonight is stated on the Order Paper to be the Lavender Hill allotments, Enfield, and the Minister's decision thereon.

There have been several cracks at me today to the effect that it should not be the Lavender Hill allotments but the "Lavender Hill Mob," which, if I remember rightly, was a picture concerning some fairly pleasant crooks who got away with a fair amount of somebody else's gold. The two subjects are not unlike, because tonight I have to put to the House a question of a perfectly respectable company, run by one or two gentlemen whom I do not know but who are no doubt perfectly honourable men, which is trying to get away with a quarter of a million pounds of Enfield's ratepayers' money. So there is some similarity between the two subjects.

I should like first to supply some background to the case. The main background is the price of building land. In 1947 Enfield paid £1,200 an acre for building land. I am glad to see that the Minister is present now, because what I have to raise is a very important point. For the most recent land Enfield bought in 1963 it paid £20,000 an acre. As hon. Members will appreciate, this makes every acre or plot of land which can be said to have a development value or a potential development value a target for speculators. I do not think that anybody would deny that.

The position in the green belt and in a town like Enfield is simply this. It is extraordinary that I have to put it in this way. Enfield Council would be better off, rather than buying land, if it knocked down all its immediate pre-war houses and its immediate postwar houses, which were built at a fairly low density, and rebuilt at the density which is allowed today. It would be better off, because of the price of land. I see that the Minister agrees with me. I hope that he agrees also that it is an extraordinary and quite ridiculous situation. It has arisen because of the legislation for which he or his predecessor were responsible to allow the market value to be paid for a commodity which was originally controlled—in other words, land in the Greater London area, the green belt, and so on. If a commodity such as land is to be controlled, I maintain that the price also should be controlled.

That is the background of the case. I am not blaming people who take advantage of this legislation. They are in business for that reason. It is the legislation I am against and the decision that the Minister took in this case.

I do not to pad up what I have to say by going over the history of these 12 acres, but I must pinpoint one or two stages in its recent history. First and foremost, it used to belong to Hundred Acres Charity. It was held by Enfield Council for permanent allotments for over 60 years. Therefore, there is no doubt about the use to which the land has been put.

In 1954 the charity received £16,000 for the loss of development value. So already £16,000 of public money has been paid on this land. The land was zoned for permanent allotments up to 1959. Then the Minister of Agriculture, in pursuit of his policy in regard to land which did not belong to councils but was leased by them for allotments, released this land and classified it as temporary allotments.

This did not worry Enfield Council too much at that date, because of the long history of the land being used as allotments and the fact that about five times in the last 10 years or so various bodies such as Middlesex County Council who had the planning of this land had absolutely refused to change its use. In 1960 the charity was offered £5,000 for the land and, because of the use to which it was being put and the likelihood that it would remain open land, it considered that this was such a good price that it notified the council about the offer.

I do not know from whom the offer came or how it was originally made. The Charity Commissioners must give a charity like the one which held this land permission to sell. When that permission was granted the Commissioners insisted that the land be advertised for sale. That took some time to do and, in the autumn of 1960, the land was advertised.

At that time a company was formed, called Lavender Garden Properties, as far as one can see to do nothing except to investigate the possibility of buying the land. The extraordinary thing was that it was on 11th May, which was election day for the local councils, that it was insisted that offers for the land should close. A sort of Dutch auction had gone on until that date and it was sold to the highest bidder—curiously enough for only £250 above the council's offer—which was the Lavender Gardens Property Company.

The council was in duty bound to provide allotments. It is worth remembering that the council has lost a lot of allotment land for building and other uses in recent years. Despite this, the council was determined to keep land for allotment purposes and in December made a compulsory purchase order, which was confirmed following an inquiry by the Minister, supported by the National Allotments and Gardens Society and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

There is another important point to bear in mind. One acre of the land has since been built on and it now contains luxury maisonettes which are being advertised to let at £5 to £6 a week each. Remember that the company paid less than £1,000 an acre. This shows that at least £19,000 profit has been made on one acre.

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

Did the hon. Member refer to the density of that acre?

Mr. Mackie

I do not have the exact figures with me but I understand that 22 small maisonettes were erected on the one acre, which is a fair density. As I have shown, £19,000 profit was made at that stage on one acre. Meanwhile, the charity had had £16,000 about seven years ago. This shows that the land had certainly done well enough from the profit point of view to the two owners who have held it.

Following the confirmation, application was made by the company under either the 1959 or 1961 Act, but this was refused. The owners appealed and, despite the inspector's recommendation, the Minister upheld the appeal. It is interesting to note what the inspector said. He put down in a long and well-catalogued report his fidnings and then his conclusions, one of them being: In my opinion the appeal site fulfils a valuable function as an open space amid a mass of high density houses". This is particularly of importance, for he continued: It serves art evident need for allotments conveniently placed for these houses which could only be met elsewhere at the expense of public open space. Though physically suitable for housing, I consider that development of this land would be undesirable and that an open space use such as playing fields is the only appropriate alternative use which could reasonably have been expected to have been permitted". The inspector then recommended that the appeal be dismissed and the certificate confirmed. The Minister turned down that recommendation and I quote from the letter which the Minister wrote to the solicitors of the company which appealed: The Minister accepts that the site has value as an open space but he is not satisfied that if it were not being acquired for the continuation of the allotment use it would not appropriately be developed residentially. He cannot see that the appeal site is any differently placed as regards its relationship to the Green Belt than the disused nursery land to the east which is to be developed residentially by the borough council. He does not think its open space value is so clearly established as to justify differing treatment as compared with that other land, and he has therefore decided not to accept the Inspector's recommendation". In another part of the letter it is stated: This decision is given solely in the context of an appeal under Section 18 of the Land Compensation Act, 1961, and does not imply any consideration of or conclusion on any proposals for the actual development of the land concerned". What did that mean? It meant that straight away the value of this land to the council was put up. I can only take the figures charged for land in the vicinity, but it is reasonable to say that it is now worth about £20,000 an acre. This means that any district valuer is bound, under the Act, to specify a figure for this land of up to £240,000. This is over £¼ million, including the £19,000 which has already been paid to the owners of the land for having done virtually nothing.

I am not saying that this is sharp practice. It is business under the law of today. I am not in any way condemning the people who are doing this. I am blaming the Minister for allowing it to go on under his legislation. The council has two courses open to it. It can leave the whole thing alone and allow the owners to have it, and can try to retain a lease of the land for use as allotments. An application to build houses on the land has not yet been submitted, although there have been suggestions in the Press that something along those lines is to happen.

Earlier today we debated the question of Stevenage and it was pointed out that, however many houses were built, it would not relieve the housing situation of any given area. The same applies in this case It is more likely that the number of houses anyone is prepared to put up will attract, say, 600 people into the area but will not relieve Enfield's housing problem. A review I made in Enfield showed that 90 per cent. of the people came from outside to a new private housing scheme, very many from the Greater London area, so there is not much help there. If it is the intention to build flats to let at the rents they are charging for the 22 flats I have mentioned, it will certainly not help ordinary working people to get houses.

The council's other course is to proceed by way of compulsory purchase order and, if it wishes to develop, the land there will not be dearer than the other land the council has been buying, but that is not the point. The point is that the Minister's reasoning is wrong. I am no lawyer to argue the legal side, but I should like to make this point. Because the nursery site next to this land is used for housing, and the land immediately below has been used for a school, and because there is one acre devoted to high-density housing, this area … fulfils a valuable function as an open space amid a mass of high density houses.' That is what the Minister's own inspector said.

In the face of that, how can the right hon. Gentleman say that he has made his decision because he is … not satisfied that … it would not appropriately be developed residentially … to justify different treatment"? Surely, the facts I have read out justify different treatment, because the areas round about have recently been built up. One might as well say that because Hyde Park is built up round about it should be treated as an area for residential development. His inspector refers to this mass of high-density housing around this site, so it is reasonable that it should be left for an open space and allotments.

The Minister cannot possibly justify this statement about different treatment, and I must ask him to give a better reason, or to reverse his decision, in this case. I do not know whether he knows, but the Enfield Council is sending an all-party deputation to see him. I hope that he will see the members of that deputation, because they will put the case as well as I can, or better, but we shall not let the matter rest until we get more satisfaction than we have had in the past.

8.31 p.m.

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

This is an important and relatively complex matter, and I am grateful for this opportunity of explaining my point of view. It is necessary, first, to clear our minds about the statutory background. Until fairly recently—in fact, until the efforts made by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, before he joined the Government—there was a two-level system of land purchase. Local authorities were entitled to buy land compulsorily at a figure often very far below the market value. In 1959, Parliament decided that this two-level system was intolerable, and the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959, established that all purchase of land by compulsory purchase should be on market value basis.

During the passage of that Measure, the Opposition criticised the general position about the betterment system for procuring some of the rises in the value of land for the community, but, subject to that, it accepted that legislation without Division or Amendment. I hope that I am not mis-stating the position. We are, therefore, faced with the background that when a local authority uses its compulsory powers to buy land, it buys, since the passing of the 1959 legislation, at market value.

I come now to the rather awkward procedure known as the certificate of appropriate alternative development. When a local authority buys by compulsory purchase land that has no established planning use—that is, has an open space or another planning use of very low financial value—it is open; indeed, it is open at any stage—for the unwilling vendor of the land, the owner from whom the land is being bought by compulsory purchase, to apply to the planning authority for a certificate of appropriate alternative development.

The reason for that procedure is that it is really unfair between one vendor and another of neighbouring pieces of land, both of which fall to be acquired compulsorily by an acquiring public authority, that the price received by one of the neighbours, whose land happens to have a planning use of a relatively high value, should be higher than that received by his neighbors whose land happens to have a much lower planning value. It is, of course, always open to the planning authority to give, as it were, a negative reply to the application for a certificate.

Let me give an example. Suppose that a public authority wishes to acquire a piece of agricultural land in the heart of the country for a sewerage works. The owner of the piece of agricultural land may say, "You are going to use it for a sewerage works. You are using powers of compulsory purchase. I think that I deserve more money than the agricultural value. I want a certificate of appropriate alternative development." The planning authority may reply, "No. Agricultural use is what this land is, and what it should be. We will pay agricultural value." I give a hypothetical example.

But when we come inside a highly developed urban area, it is really fortuitous whether a particular piece of land happens to be labelled or desired by the planning authority for open space, or for a cemetery, or for a crematorium or a sewerage works, or something like that with virtually a nil market value, or whether the land might be allowed for residential development.

I am not saying that all land in towns can expect to get a certificate covering residential development if an application is made. I am very far from saying that. There are all sorts of situations which one can imagine in which the land which is used as an open space, which is in the development plan as an open space, and which the acquiring authority wishes to acquire in order to keep as an open space, would not have a certificate of appropriate alternative development for anything but an open space.

It is the duty of the Minister to consider the merits of the case if, after the applicant has unsuccessfully asked the planning authority to give a certificate of a higher value, the applicant appeals to the Minister. In this situation the Minister has to address his mind to whether the land is such that the Minister cannot imagine its being used for a purpose of higher value than that to which it is proposed to put it. This is the Minister's duty. It is an invidious procedure. It is not an easy one. One has to consider hypothetical circumstances, but it is the way that Parliament has decided is fair as between one landowner and another.

In this case, as the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Mackie) says, the land has been used for many years for allotments. Applications, which the hon. Member did not mention, have been made from time to time for housing and have been refused, and the authority has refused to give a certificate of appropriate alternative development. The applicants, that is the owners of the land, appealed to me and I held an inquiry. The hon. Member for Enfield, East has referred to the inspector's report. It was a thorough report of all the facts, but the hon. Member will not question that it is the Minister's prerogative to come to a different conclusion on the facts, and that is what I came to.

Why did I come to a different conclusion? I have here air photographs of the area. What I had to consider in this case was whether it was possible to imagine within good planning that the land in question should have any other use than that of open space or allotments. I had to consider the planning merits, the need of the local authority for allotments and open space, its prospects of satisfying that need elsewhere, and I had to take into account also the overriding needs of the community. The one thing I did not have to take into consideration, under the law, is whether my decision happened to lead to a profit, even a big profit, by the landowner.

In considering these various factors, I did take into account that this particular land did not offer the only opportunity to Enfield of getting allotments and open space. There is plenty of room for disagreement about where the land for open space and allotments should ideally be found, but, faced with the map and with these air photographs which show that this piece of land lies adjacent to hundreds, if not thousands, of acres of open space, much of it in the green belt, I could not convince myself that this particular piece of land had to be used for allotments and open space.

I am not required to prove to my satisfaction that other places would be better than this. I have only to satisfy myself that, if I gave a certificate for something other than for allotments and open space to this land, and if the result was that the price of the land went up, then the local authority would not be finally barred from getting allotments and open space somewhere else.

I had also to take into account the need, which we all recognise, for more housing land in London. It may be quite true as the hon. Member for Enfield, East said, that Enfield itself is satisfied that it has enough land in hand—I congratulate it—for its own immediate needs over the predictable future. I hope that, in judging its need, Enfield has taken into account the rapidly accelerating rise in the rate of household formation, which means that any given population, even a static population, requires 1 per cent. more houses each year because of younger marriage, greater prosperity and more survival beyond retirement age.

I have to look beyond the needs of Enfield. Enfield is part of Greater London. Under our new Greater London legislation, at will be open to one borough to build houses for its own needs in the land of another borough, and it will be open to the Greater London Council, operating under the consent procedure, to build houses for Greater London needs in individual boroughs. Therefore, I have to look at the Greater London context, not just in the Enfield context.

I was faced, therefore, with a situation in which the facts thrown up by the inquiry held by my inspector revealed that this land was not indispensably and inevitably the only answer for Enfield's need of allotments and open space, and that there is an enormous need for housing land in London.

Both these views which I formed, about other possible allotment land and about the need of land for housing could, of course, have been overriden in my own mind [...]f these were some planning reason against making residential use of this land If, for instance, it lay next to a permanently noxious place or if, for some other good reason connected with transport or other planning factors, it would not be sensible to allow pepole to live there.

Nothing like that can be argued against this land being used for residential purposes. It is perfectly good land. It is the same sort of land for housing as the land to the east and west which has housing on it. It looks to me no different in quality, in neighbourliness or in environment from the land which has been used by the council on one side for housing. Therefore, I had all the ingredients of a decision that it would not be proper under the statutory procedure to deny a certificate of appropriate alternative development for residential purposes.

That is the explanation of my decision. I now come to the implications of that decision, which are of great interest and importance. It can be said—and I mention this only because I want to face up to it—that this decision has potentially put into the hands of the owners a much more valuable asset. I cannot say more than "potentially" because there might be processes which would require me to make a quasi-judicial decision. It might be that this could come back to me by way either of a purchase notice or of a planning appeal. Therefore, I must not be considered to be making a decision on the proper use of this land.

I was addressing my mind under the Section 17 procedure of the 1961 Act, not to a planning appeal or to a firm decision on what the land could be used for, but to a different question, namely, the certificate of appropriate alternative development. May I put it in this way. Under the certificate procedure, what I was required to address my mind to was not the decision which I would have made had the case been brought before me on appeal, but whether any other use of the land was, within good planning criteria, conceivable.

But let me accept that the decision may, by implication, have increased the value of the land, without presuming in any way to judge what the ultimate planning decision on that land will be. Here we come to the big issue between the parties. Hon. Members opposite will maintain no doubt—and the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) is present—that it is practicable so to deal with land values as to secure for the community at least part of the enhanced value of the land that such a decision might lead to.

The original method used by the Opposition when they were in power, namely, the development charge system, was not altogether satisfactory, to put it mildly. Since 1951, the Opposition seem to have deserted the idea of a development charge—at least, they have not featured it strongly in their recent propaganda. Now, the favoured method of the Opposition, so far as I can understand it, is a land commission, with funds which would buy land at existing use value, plus a factor for disturbance, plus a sweetener. But, of course, the Opposition are as keenly aware as I or any of my right hon. Friends of the desperate need for land for housing in the big cities, particularly in London. Consequently, I think that any Opposition spokesman would sympathise with my view that, in these circumstances, residential use is certainly not unthinkable.

But suppose that the Opposition were trying to acquire this land. Having said, as I think the hon. Member for Fulham probably will say, that the residential use for this land is not in the circumstances unthinkable—and I am passing the air photographs to the hon. Member for his interest—I wonder how far the Opposition would go if they sought to acquire this land by their favoured process. The hon. Member for Enfield, East, has told us that residential land in the neighbourhood in question fetches £20,000 an acre. I am not taking that as relevant to this particular site, because that is a matter for the district valuer and not for me, but it is an index.

Suppose that in the light of that knowledge the land commission proposed by the party opposite said to the owner, "We will offer you existing use value for an allotment". That is not very much. Suppose that it then says, "We will give you something for disturbance". No disturbance is involved here since the owner of the land is not living on it. Suppose that it then says, "We will give you a sweetener". I wonder what sort of sweetener would have to be paid to get that land. In the light of the 1959 decision of the Opposition not to vote against the market value basis for compulsory purchase, I wonder whether they would feel free, if they used compulsory purchase, to acquire it forcibly by State action, State tyranny, under the market value basis.

If they did that, they would dry up all the voluntary supply of land. By drying it up, they would increase the value of existing houses. Neither the Labour Party nor the Government wish to do anything deliberately to increase the value of houses, but that would be the by-product of any action that the Labour Party took.

Suppose that by a combination of State action of a high-handed nature, putting this as objectively as I can—[Laughter.] That is what I am doing. It is rare that one gets leisure in an Adjournment debate. Suppose that by a combination of these actions the State secured land below the market value and allowed housing upon it, and provided that that housing could not be the source of profit for the first or second rank of tenants or owners, what a cat's cradle of controls they would have to weave to stop the profit that they had quelled, from the viewpoint of the landowners, seeping through to the occupiers or the inheritors of the purchasers from the landowners.

Mr. Charles Loughlin (Gloucestershire, West)

The Minister is thoroughly enjoying himself and I appreciate his taking advantage of this Adjournment debate. In reply, however, to a specific case raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Mackie), the right hon. Gentleman is developing a full-dress debate on the question of land values in the context of existing legislation. Is he prepared to let us have a debate of a general kind and reply to it later?

Sir K. Joseph

Gladly. I enjoy debates on land values every time, but that is not for me; it is for the usual channels to arrange.

I hope that the House and the hon. Member for Fulham will not misunderstand me. I am open to criticism from the hon. Member for Enfield, East, but I answered carefully and fully the case for which I am responsible, namely, the decision on the certificate. I anticipated, however, that I might then be told by the hon. Member for Fulham that, while within the statutory procedure my decision was something for me to take and something which I have a right to defend, nevertheless the result only shows how sadly and badly the country needs some such system as the land commission. Had the hon. Member for Fulham spoken first and I spoken now, I should have had his speech to answer. I am only imagining it and trying to answer it in anticipation. He would do the same.

Mr. Loughlin

The Minister cannot discuss legislation in an Adjournment debate.

Sir K. Joseph

I am coming to my final remarks—

Mr. Loughlin

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. It is essential to clear up this matter. Do I understand that henceforth we shall be able to talk about legislation in Adjournment debates, in view of the fact that the Minister has been allowed to develop this theme for the last 10 minutes.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston)

The Standing Order which refers to legislation being discussed on the Adjournment states that it should not be discussed. The rule has, however, recently been slightly relaxed to allow not much more than a passing reference to legislation on the Motion for the Adjournment.

Mr. Loughlin

Further to that point of order. Can you tell me, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, why a passing reference to matters involving legislation has been allowed for seven minutes?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I considered that it was a passing reference.

Mr. Michael Stewart (Fulham)

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. It should be certain that if I and some of my hon. Friends pass this subject at similar length we shall have the same licence.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The hon. Gentleman may be assured that he will get a fair deal from the Chair.

Sir K. Joseph

I make no excuses, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I thought that I was referring to propaganda and not legislation. I hope that the hon. Member for Enfield, East will not think that I have tried to avoid the point he was making about my decision. I think that I have explained all that I am called upon to explain in this case and I hope that he now understands the considerations in my mind.

Mr. Mackie

The right hon. Gentleman has given a very much fuller explanation in the House then he did in correspondence, but he has still given the same reasons as he gave in his letter. I did not quote the sentence: Having considered all possible forms of appropriate alternative development he is satisfied that it would have been appropriate for the land to be developed residentially. Over the past 10 years, five attempts have been made to obtain this land and yet we now have the situation where this property company gets the benefit while a charity loses.

Sir K. Joseph

I do not know whether any appeals against refusal of housing development were dismissed by my predecessors. But the hon. Gentleman will be aware of the pressing need for more housing land which has become more obvious since the rate of growth in the number of households became obvious in the 1961 census. That must be borne in mind.

8.57 p.m.

Mr. Michael Stewart (Fulham)

I want to clear up first of all the point raised by the Minister about the attitude of the Opposition to the legislation in 1959. The position before that legislation was that, if a private person owning land sold it to another private person, he could get the full market value and did not have to pay a development charge but that if he sold it to a local authority he got very much less. Everyone would accept that that was not a tenable position and not equitable as between one person and another. That is why we did not oppose the 1959 legislation. But we must ask why that situation arose in the first place.

The situation with which that legislation was designed to deal arose because of earlier legislation by the Government in 1953, which destroyed the vital provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947. Under that Act, there was the general provision of the development charge, which ensured that the increased value of land due to the community's increased need for it went into the public purse. After that was destroyed in 1953, we got the two-tier system to which the Minister referred and that unsatisfactory position persisted until 1959.

The great evil the Government caused was not by anything that they did in 1959 but in 1953, when they abolished the development charge. I concede at once that, if the Government had come forward in 1953 with a proposal to reduce the development charge to some figure like 75 per cent. instead of 100 per cent., there would have been much to commend that proposal. If the Government had done that our whole position today would have been very much happier.

However, they preferred to create a complete vacuum and that is what the nation is paying for now. I wanted to make that point clear about the attitude of the Opposition towards the 1959 Act, which dealt simply with the narrow issue of whether we wanted a two-tier system and was not concerned with the much wider general issues of whether increases in land values ought to accrue in whole or in part to the community.

Now I turn to the particular case my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield. East (Mr. Mackie) raised and which we are all grateful to him for raising. I did not attempt to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, before the Minister, because, as my hon. Friend had stated the case so fully, I thought that it would be helpful to us to hear the right hon. Gentleman's view first.

I think that I shall carry my hon. Friends with me when I say that we are also grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for stating so clearly what is his view of the matter, but one is left with the impression that the treatment of this case was rather like the trial of Joan of Arc. Everything was done with the greatest possible care. There was an immense attempt to secure strict legality and there was careful consideration of all the rights of the matter. Indeed, there was nothing wrong here—except for the fact that the decision in the end was wrong from start to finish. That seems to have been what has happened in this case. The Minister argued much about the care with which he had considered, it and his interpretation of the law on the matter. From the point of view of the national welfare, the result is overwhelmingly wrong.

I want to examine the narrower but interesting issue of whether, granted the law with which we put up at the moment in the use and price of land, the Minister acted rightly. On that matter he had to decide on the question of alternative use of land. He himself stated the matter very well when he said that if what were in issue was a piece of land right in the middle of an agricultural area, no one could seriously maintain, if it were proposed to buy that land from him, that it had as an alternative use the building of a block of luxury flats. But, said the Minister, when we are considering land in a built-up urban area, it might be purely fortuitous which piece was regarded for residential development and which was not.

However, we cannot conclude from that that we can regard any piece of land, or all pieces of land, in a mainly built-up area as land of which it can be said that residential development is a proper development for it. The Minister accepted that when he said that not all urban land could expect to have a profitable alternative use applied to it. That means that we cannot justify allocating a profitable alternative use to one piece of land in a town area simply by reference to what has happened to comparable pieces of land in the neighbourhood.

If it is said that because a neighbouring piece of land has been allowed to be used for residential purposes, a piece of land which before it was built on was very like this, therefore we must assume that residential development is a proper alternative use for this piece of land, one is obliged to say in the end of every square inch of land in the town area that residential development is a proper use for it, and that is an untenable position.

There is, therefore, bound to be at some stage something which somebody can say was an arbitrary decision when it is finally said that a piece of land cannot be given a profitable alternative use. It therefore does not help us to say in this case that neighbouring pieces of land had been used for residential use. That does not help us to reach a decision as to whether this piece of land could have that highly profitable alternative use applied to it.

The Minister said that the way in which he must look at it was that he must accept the more profitable alternative use, unless he could not imagine the land being used for a higher value purpose than it was being used for.

Sir K. Joseph

By good planning criteria.

Mr. Stewart

I had that note in the margin. The first time he said it was without that qualification, and a very horrifying statement it was, because one could imagine land being used for almost anything.

Taken in the qualified form, the question which he must ask himself is what can he imagine within good planning criteria. The Minister invited me to express an opinion on whether this land ought to be used for residential purposes.

Sir K. Joseph

I interrupt the hon. Member because there may be a planning appeal later and he might put us all in an embarrassing position. I asked a slightly different question, which was whether he could say that planning criteria, visible and known to him, were such that the residential use of that land would be unthinkable. That is slightly different.

Mr. Stewart

The answer to that is an answer which should not embarrass anybody. It is simply that I do not regard myself as in any way qualified to pronounce on that question one way or the other. My hon. Friend is qualified to pronounce on it because he knows the area and no doubt has gone into all the facts and perused the necessary documents.

I accept that the Minister's inspector is in a position to express an opinion. I am prepared to believe that the Minister has studied the facts so that he is at any rate entitled to express an opinion, whether we agree with it or not. But it seems to me that nobody ought to express an opinion on this question until he has gone into it, and actually visited the area, which my hon. Friend is in a position to do, and which the rest of us are not. I do not propose to pronounce on that, but I propose to mention certain things which are relevant.

The first is the history of this land. For a long time it had been used as allotments and as an open space. If I heard my hon. Friend rightly, it changed hands in 1960 at a price which apparently would lead anyone to suppose that that use was to continue. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend mentioned the price at which the charity sold the land in 1960.

Mr. Mackie

Thirteen acres were sold for £7,500.

Mr. Stewart

That is about £600 per acre. There appeared to be in everybody's mind at that time an assumption that the land would continue to be used for the open space purpose for which it had been used for so long.

I think that we are entitled also to notice the inspector's judgment. As the Minister knows, I am not going to dispute that he has a legal right, and the power, to overrule his inspector. I do not think that the House, or anyone, would want the final decision in these matters to lie in the hands of a civil servant who is not answerable to this House, rather than in the hands of a Minister who is, but we are entitled to notice that the inspector was of the view that this land performed a valuable function as an open space, and, what I regard as very important, that it could reasonably be expected by people who had been buying and selling this land in recent years that it would continue to be so used.

In those circumstances, therefore, it seems to me that the local authority is justified in feeling a great sense of shock if it is suddenly told that this land is now to be regarded as land to which this highly profitable alternative use is to be given, with the startling result for the local authority if it proposes to buy the land for public purposes. That is as far as I am going, and as far as anyone who has not been to the site can go, in expressing an opinion whether or not this land ought to be used for that purpose.

I notice that the Minister has been asked to receive a deputation. I hope that he will do so, and that, in view of the points which I have just quoted, the history of this land, the opinion of his own inspector, and the views that will be put before him when he sees the deputation, he will realise that his judgment in this matter was not necessarily infallible.

I turn now to what, from the nation's point of view, is an even larger and more important question. Suppose the Minister—and I say this purely for the sake of my subsequent argument—is right in his judgment that this land ought to be used for residential purposes, or that that is a reasonable alternative use for it. The startling thing is that if he is right, the result of that under our present law is that this land, which a few years ago was changing hands at about £600 an acre, is now worth about £20,000 an acre. If anyone is going to build houses on it that is what he will have to pay for the land, and that price will be reflected in the prices of those houses or in the rents paid for them. That result follows even if the Minister's decision in this matter is right.

It was on that point of mine that the Minister proceeded to argue whether we could do anything to remedy that situation. He proceeded to that part of his speech which raised certain questions of order. I have heard previous attempts in Adjournment debates to try to refer to legislation which the existing Government might possibly introduce, but I have never before heard in an Adjournment debate an attempt to refer to legislation to be introduced by the next Government. But I shall be very careful not to abuse any indulgence you may show to us, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I shall do no more than reply to the points made by the Minister. Since he has made them, I think it permissive, under the rules of order, for me to reply to them.

He asked us to consider what would happen under our proposals. He referred to the situation that would arise if the owner of the land at some stage obtained the necessary planning permission to develop it and to build residential property on it. Under our proposal, the Crown Land Commission, with the granting of that permission, would step in to buy the land, and would pay for it a price containing three elements—the present use value; anything appropriate for disturbance, or for contingent losses, and what the Minister reasonably referred to as a "sweetener".

A figure would be settled on somewhere between the present use value and the full market value that the owner could obtain at present, which would give the desired result that part, at any rate, of the increased value of the land due to the fact that the community needs it would go into the public purse. The Minister was worried because he felt that the owner, seeing what would happen, would decide not to apply to have the land built on at all, so that the land would remain undeveloped. The Minister asked what sort of sweetener would be enough. I would point out that the owner would have to remember that if he obtained permission to develop he would obtain the present use value and the sweetener, whereas if he did not he would never get any more for the land than its present use value. Therefore, it would still pay him to develop the land.

It would not pay him quite as much as it pays him under the present arrangements, but are we seriously going to say that it is impossible to make legislative arrangements to enable land to be brought forward for development without permitting a man to sell in 1964 a piece of land for 40 times what he paid for it in 1960? I cannot believe that this country is so bankrupt of legislative genius as to think that we have to pay these enormous sums of money. That is the answer to the Minister's question. It would still pay the owner, under our proposals, to allow the land to be developed. It would not pay him the fantastic amount that, admittedly, it pays him at present.

The Minister then inquired, "Let us suppose that the owner, realising that fact, allowed the land to be developed and the Land Commission bought it". Under our proposals, the Land Commission would then lease the land to somebody who would build houses on it, and who might be the present owner, although not in every case. Here again I speak without prejudice, because there are various ways of handling the problem, each of which has something to be said for it.

The State, acting through the Land Commission, could say, "When we lease this land we shall lease it at full market value." That would mean, as the Minister was quick to point out, that the houses would cost as much in price as at the present time. But, of course, a revenue would be coming to the State which is now going into private pockets. With that happening in many parts of the country the State would have a fund to help it, for example, to enable people who wish to buy houses to borrow money at a lower rate of interest. In that way, therefore, the purchasers of houses—people looking for homes—would be helped. It would not be done directly by helping particularly particular persons on one site. But none the less it would be a very real help.

The alternative method would be for the Land Commission to lease the land to the developer with a condition in the lease governing the price or rent to be charged for the houses to be built on the site. In that case some at any rate of the gain which the State has got by not allowing wholesale profiteering in land is passed on to the persons who would live in the houses on that site.

Admittedly, that requires a certain amount of thought and consideration, but I cannot see that it can be ruled out as an impracticable proposal. If the Minister is going on trying to argue that everything we propose is impracticable, where is he left? He is left either with the situation that, despite the present housing need—the right hon. Gentleman spoke most eloquently of the housing need in London—he is still saying, "I am still prepared to allow to continue, without lifting a finger to stop it, an arrangement whereby the land needed to supply this housing need can multiply 40 times in value in less than four years." Surely, for a Government which claims to be energetic, and for a Minister who is energetic and imaginative, that is a dreadful confession of failure.

The other alternative is this. We have put forward proposals starting on the assumption that if we give the landowner something which the Minister called a sweetener, there will be a large volume of voluntary transactions. The Minister gloomily assumed that there would not, and said that therefore we should be driven to the State tyranny of compulsory purchase—

Sir K. Joseph

I said below the market value. I did not call compulsory purchase itself tyranny.

Mr. Stewart

All I would say is that if the market value of something is 40 times what I paid four years ago and the State says that I cannot have quite all that because there are public needs to be considered, I cannot feel that that is accurately described as an act of tyranny.

If the Minister rejects our proposals which work on the assumption of many voluntary transactions, and if he says that any attempt compulsorily to purchase below the market value is tyranny, he is left with a situation in which he himself will allow profiteering to go completely unchecked. The right hon. Gentleman knows better than that, because in an expansive moment, towards the end of last year, he drew attention to the fact that if we are really to deal with the housing problem, there has to be a good deal of advance purchasing of land by public authorities. How does the Minister imagine that that is to work?

If whatever agency of Government is dealing with it makes a survey of a region and decides, in order to meet the housing need, that a good deal of land now undeveloped will be required for development and then proceeds—whether it is the local authority or the central Government—to set to work to buy it, does the Minister imagine that the owners of the land will calmly sell voluntarily to him at the present market value? They will know perfectly well why he is in the market and will simply wait until they can get the kind of prices which they get at the moment.

The Minister's method of dealing with this will work only on the assumption that we give to the public authority power to say, "This land may well be needed in order to help to solve the housing problem at any time during the next 10 years. We are prepared to buy it from its present owners for a price probably well above what it is worth now, its present use value, but very distinctly below what he would get if we waited until some public authority was obliged to buy it because of pressure of housing development on it."

The Minister's proposal will not work unless there is power of compulsory purchase. His approach to the problem relies very much more than ours does on the use of the weapon of compulsory purchase. I beg the Minister not to join with the more absurd nonsense talked by some of his hon. Friends about our proposals, because he lives with the housing problem. He knows that if there is not to be an even worse scandal than there is at present the nation has to find some answer to this arrangement. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East naturally, as we understand, has a constituency interest in this matter, but many of us are obliged to look at the wider issues. I hope he will accept what I said earlier. It is not for me to say whether this particular piece of land ought to be built on or not. The vital thing is that what has happened there illustrates the appalling profiteering which can go on at present.

Mr. William Baxter (West Stirlingshire)

When the development plan was made by the local authority, land speculators got to know as quickly as possible what land was designated for housing within the development plan. They plunged in and bought those lands which were designated. Now people desirous of building a house or a cottage are held to ransom by those who purchased the land. They must not only get the land from them at a very high price but must also have the house or cottage built by the person or organisation concerned. This is a complete racket from beginning to end and the quicker it is stopped the better. This is another instance of land speculation. The church authorities hold on to this land and speculators will get 40 times more value in four or five years. It is a disgrace.

Mr. Stewart

I am obliged to my hon. Friend. That is the position. This is the profiteering which is going on at the moment. We have put forward a remedy. The Minister has suggested certain objections which, I have pointed out, are not valid. I have pointed out that if he rejects our proposals he hangs round the neck of the housing programme a fearful problem of unnecessary expenditure. If he goes on with his proposals he may find himself pilloried as a far more drastic tyrant and the instrument of an all-powerful State, more than anyone on this side of the House.

One regrets that if this land is to be the subject of so much profiteering the original charity did not manage it more properly. I still do not understand how on the evidence it—or whoever advised it—made what seems to be something of an error of judgment. That illustrates an important point. We do not get anywhere in this problem by holding up to personal execration the people who profit from this situation. The nation should blame itself for allowing this to happen.

Mr. W. Baxter

It should blame the Government.

Mr. Stewart

The Government at the moment, but the nation as a whole before long will have an opportunity to change the Government. The responsibility will then lie on the nation as a whole. It is not the least use allowing a legal situation in which a man can legally sell land in 1964 for forty times what he paid for it in 1960, and then calling him a villain when he takes advantage of it. In the lottery which land prices are today some of the beneficiaries are private persons, but every now and again it happens that the beneficiary is somebody with whom one would sympathise—a charity, a trade union, a working men's club, even a local Conservative association, if one could extend the meaning of a charity that far. It may be anybody.

The point is not an attack on the particular persons, but a criticism of the system which allows this to happen. It is because attention has been focused on this that we are all so grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East for raising the matter tonight.