NEW TOWNS (No. 2) (Hansard, 25 March 1964)

§ Mr. Martin Maddan (Hitchin)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide that orders designating new town areas or extensions thereof shall be subject to annulment by either House of Parliament. My opposition to the expansion of Stevenage over the motorway by-pass has caused me to examine carefully the procedure for designating new towns and, in particular, the procedure by which the Minister makes an order. But Stevenage is only incidental to the problem dealt with by my Bill, if the House grants my right hon. Friend, my hon. Friends and myself leave to bring it in. I want to acknowledge the courtesy of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government in letting me know that, unfortunately, he cannot be present at this moment.

A designation order is a most important matter, not only to the locality concerned but to the whole region in which the new town is to lie. If the Minister cannot convince Parliament about it he will not be able to convince local opinion about it, either. Therefore, the establishment, or enlargement, of a new town will be an act of bureaucracy and not of democracy. As a supporter of the new town idea I regard this as a pity.

There is no Parliamentary control over designation orders other than that the Minister, as a Member of Parliament, is responsible to Parliament in a general way. What the New Towns Act, 1946, says—and it comes straight to the point, in Section 1(1)—is: If the Minister is satisfied, after consultation with any local authorities who appear to him to be concerned, that it is expedient in the national interest that any area of land should be developed as a new town by a corporation established under this Act, he may make an order designating that area as the site of the proposed new town. Schedule 1 provides that if there are objections there must be a public local inquiry. That is all there is to that procedure.

In 1946, Parliament was clearly not fully alert to the need to retain some degree of supervision over the exercise 476 of delegated legislation. The question of these orders being subject to Parliamentary control, either under the affirmative or negative Resolution procedure, was never once raised during the passage of the Bill, either in this House or another place.

The nearest that we came to the subject was when, in another place, the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk, suggested that the Minister should, on completion of the inquiry, lay before Parliament a White Paper giving the reasons for his proposals. Presumably, the object was that those proposals could then be debated. But the noble Lord withdrew his suggestion on receiving from the Government an assurance that any point or objection could be raised at the inquiry, local or otherwise. There has been some change in our procedure since those days. Nowadays the Minister issues an explanatory memorandum when he lays the draft order, and the representative of his Ministry attends the local inquiry to explain the Ministry's point of view.

The Minister, in deciding whether to go ahead, considers what has been said at the inquiry in an administrative and not a judicial or quasi-judicial capacity. When Franklin and others challenged the original Stevenage designation order in the King's Bench Division, the judge ruled that the Minister did not consider the question: 'Aye or No should the Order be confirmed?' with an open mind, but that he meant to confirm it whatever the force of the objections might be. The judge added: This, in my judgment, involves a denial of natural justice. This is what can happen.

But the Minister appealed, and, finally, the House of Lords ruled that whether or not the Minister had been impartial was completely irrelevant. That may be a surprise to some hon. Members. This is what Lord Thankerton said in giving his judgment: In my opinion, no judicial, or quasi-judicial, duty was imposed on the respondent, and any reference to judicial duty, or bias, is irrelevant in the present case. The respondent's duties under Section 1 of the Act and Schedule 1 thereto are, in my opinion, purely administrative… This is, in fact, how the thing is done.

477 It is pertinent here also to quote what the Master of the Rolls said in a parallel case, Robinson v. the Minister of Town and Country Planning: How can this Minister, who is entrusted by Parliament with the power to make or not to make an executive order according to his judgment, and acts bona fide…be called upon to justify his decision?… Such justification, if it is to be called for, must be called for by Parliament… At present, Parliament cannot call for the justification of these designation orders. I wish to contrast for hon. Members the position of new town designation orders, where there is no Parliamentary control at all, as I have said—even when the local authorities concerned object—with the position of other forms of compulsory development.

Under the Town Development Act, 1952, if a receiving district does not agree to a proposal, but the Minister, nevertheless, decides that it should be proceeded with, his order must be approved by each House of Parliament under the affirmative Resolution procedure. Perhaps I may draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to that—the affirmative Resolution procedure. Under the Housing Act, 1957, which is mainly to do with slum clearance, if the Minister decides to compel a local authority to carry out certain developments against its will, the order is subject to parliamentary approved under the negative Resolution procedure.

The Bill which I seek to introduce is very modest. It would merely make designation orders subject to the negative procedure. This is because, if there is but little substantial opposition to a scheme, I do not wish to take up Parliamentary time with it.

It may be said by some hon. Members that the 40 days during which a designation order is subject to a negative Resolution will prove an unacceptable waste of time in getting a new town started. In reckoning this period of 40 days, no account is taken of any time during which Parliament is prorogued or dissolved, or during which both Houses adjourn for more than four days. In this way a short Recess may add on a couple of weeks to the 40 days, making perhaps two months in all.

478 As to the long Summer Recess, I do not think that this is relevant, because, in practice, I am certain that a Minister would take care to hasten the lengthy procedure leading up to the laying of a designation order, if there were any danger of it running into the Summer Recess. He would see that it was laid by mid-June, so that the 40 days would have expired before the Summer Recess began.

What can happen during this period of perhaps a couple of months in which a designation order is subject to annulment by Parliament? I will give two reasons why this period cannot be considered as time wasted. First, the validity of the designation order can, in any case, be challenged in the High Court at any time during the first six weeks after it has been made. Secondly, the first task of the Minister, after he has made an order, is to appoint the members of the new town development corporation. In doing this he has to consult the local authorities concerned. This must take up much, if not all, of the 40 Parliamentary days. Before it can do anything, the corporation has to select its staff. All this can go on while the designation order is subject to annulment.

For these two reasons it is inconceivable, to my mind, that making designation orders subject to Parliamentary control will, in practice, lead to any material delay in developing a new town. I therefore commend the Motion, which provides that orders designating new town areas, or extensions thereof, shall be subject to annulment by either House of Parliament, as one which, if I am given leave to bring in my Bill, will enable Parliament to do its job. I ask the House for leave to bring it in.