HC Deb 15 July 1965 vol 716 cc965-7

Lords Amendment No. 9: in page 19, line 44, at end insert being not less than 1,000 square feet".

Read a Second time.

Mr. Peter Emery

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, to leave out "1,000"and insert "2,500".

I do not intend to go over the arguments that I deployed in moving a similar Amendment to Clause 2, because the present Amendment affects the industrial side rather than the office side. But I must make it quite clear that the Government are reducing from 5,000 sq. ft. to 1,000 sq. ft. their ability to limit the extension of an industrial development.

It is a serious matter and, after the Report stage, at about 2.27 a.m. on 15th April, I hoped that we had seen the end of the Bill, with the assurance that we would not find the Government considering that they would want to limit industrial development below a figure of half what it is at the moment; in other words, 2,500 sq. ft. We have the minimum, which was not then spelt out, accepted in another place.

I hope that the President of the Board of Trade will not try to suggest that we are being ungrateful for what my noble Friends in another place have been able to achieve. Certainly, we are grateful: my noble Friends were able to get put into the Bill something which we had not been able to do.

If we are attempting to ensure that industries shall be encouraged by the Board of Trade to expand and to be progressive in their whole outlook, it is proper that large firms who will need large expansions should have industrial development certificates for them. But, as the President of the Board of Trade is only too well aware, for the tens of thousands of small firms that make up British industry, an expansion means something below 5,000 sq. ft.

If the right hon. Gentleman really believes that a small or medium-sized firm will move away from its present factory in order to put up just another shed or another extension amounting to 2,499 sq. ft. or below, I suggest that he is crazy. If that is so, why cannot we give this assurance to industry that it is now, and will always be, safeguarded. Up to this moment industry has been completely in the knowledge that it would be able to build anything up to 5,000 sq. ft. without an I.D.C.

I accept that the President is concerned about the matter of people getting round the regulations. I believe that the powers remain under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1962, to enable the matter to be dealt with without this regulation. I will not go into that argument again. I accept that the President is concerned about this, but I would have hoped that we could have dealt with it without this Amendment.

Although, in Committee, the Minister of State gave an assurance that every co-operation would be afforded in the light of the link that exists in regard to applications, I do not consider that that is good enough. No criterion of sympathy or understanding is laid down. As we know only too well, sympathy expressed in Committee may have very little to do with the application of the Act when it is in regional offices and the actual words in the Act have to be spelt out.

We believe that it would be in the Government's interest and particularly in the interests of industry for it to be clear that the Government would at no time consider limiting the industrial development that any firm may want to a level under 2,500 sq. ft. It is for that specific purpose that we move the Amendment.

Mr. Jay

In an earlier speech I fully explained to the hon. Gentleman why we felt that it was not possible to reduce this limit other than to 1,000 sq. ft. Experience has shown that in the case of the I.D.C.s there has been a tendency, not over the whole country but in the more congested areas, for buildings of less than 5,000 sq. ft. to be put up in such a way that over a period of time the control could be considerably evaded. I would not suggest that this has happened or is likely to happen on a mass scale, but the evidence definitely is that it has happened on a scale which might have endangered the effect of the control. Therefore, we think that it is necessary to have the power that we are proposing in the Bill. I fully recognise that there is a difference of opinion between us on this issue. I think that we have reduced it to a very small compass, and I only regret that I cannot go all the way to meet the hon. Gentleman.

Question, That "1,000" stand part of the Lords Amendment, put and agreed to.

Lords Amendment agreed to.