HC Deb 15 July 1965 vol 716 cc929-45

Lords Amendment No. 1: In page 4, line 18, after "3,000" insert: but not less than 1,000".

Read a Second time.

10.50 p.m.

Mr. Peter Emery (Reading)

I am rather surprised that on this Amendment we have not had something from the Government about—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Dr. Horace King)

Order. It is impossible at this stage for the Government to accede to the hon. Gentleman's request. The hon. Gentleman must first move his Amendment to the Amendment.

Mr. Emery

I am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

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

I was rather surprised to find that the Bill had come back from consideration in another place with a new principle introduced by the Government. During the Committee and Report stages in this House, we had obtained no consideration, only a complete generalisation on the bottom limit which might be applied to both I.D.C.s and O.D.P.s.

So that hon. Members may be quite clear about it, our Amendment deals particularly with the exemption of any development in which the office floor space to be created, together with the office floor space in any related development, would be below a limit of 3,000 sq. ft. It was made quite clear in Committee that the Government wished to take powers to ensure that they had the facilities to come below this level if it was considered necessary by them.

What the Lords Amendment does is to stipulate this level at 1,000 sq. ft., and what our Amendment attempts to do is to make certain that there shall be a level not as low as 1,000 sq. ft. but of 2,500 sq. ft.

It is highly sensible that any industry or office that has to be expanded should have the right to know that the level can be somewhat greater than the present suggestion. The House might like to know that it would amount to an extension of about 4½ times the size of the Clerk's Table. It is nonsense for the Government to allow by right an extension of that size only, even in the most overcrowded areas of the country. We therefore hope by the Amendment to ensure that industry will know definitely that the level will not be below 2,500 sq. ft.

We shall be moving an Amendment to deal with the industrial side later on, and therefore I deal for the moment only with office use. Bearing in mind the provisions of the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act, the extension of an office by only 1,000 sq. ft. means that one can provide working space for an extra 15 or, perhaps, 20 people.

This is no proper extension. Surely the President of the Board of Trade will realise that if he holds to a minimum level as low as this his Department will be inundated with applications for office development permits and will be unable to refuse any application for a permit that is made. The Government will never get a firm to move its office to a less crowded area than London if it wishes to expand by only 10, 15 or 20 persons. It would not be sense for any business with an office staff of 200, 100 or even 50 to move out of a crowded area merely so that it could extend by another 30 or 40 people.

This makes good common sense. It has nothing to do with the desire of both sides of the House to ensure that more office jobs and more office accommodation are provided outside the conurbations. We are all united in that desire. But what we do not wish to do in achieving that is to have regulations which mean that offices will have to be kept sterile or moribund in any form of expansion. So we believe that it makes sense to have the figure of 2,500 sq. ft. for offices. We have chosen that figure because we have tried to tie it up with our later Amendment to deal with the industrial side. It seemed to us to make sense that there should be consistency about the bottom level for both the office development permit and the industrial development certificate.

I must press my point that if every firm in an office which would be controlled by the Bill runs the risk of having the Board of Trade lower the limit to 1,000 sq. ft., it can do nothing but ensure that many businesses will cease to expand. Whether the Government like it or not, office work has to be carried on for every form of business enterprise. Because of its integral part in business activity, we believe that every firm in the country has the right to know that at least a modicum of expansion can be carried out in its present premises, if it can get planning permission and meet all the other requirements of local authorities.

11.0 p.m.

It is purely because of that that I and my hon. Friends thought it right and proper that this Amendment should be put down. I hope that the Government will accept the principle that a minimum should be placed in the Bill. Indeed, we are concerned that the minimum is as low as we find it.

Although I accept that the Amendment was moved by some of our noble Friends in another place, I was surprised that the principle was accepted by the Government. Now that the principle has been accepted for goodness sake let us make some sense of it by having the figure at a level which businesses and offices can understand and with which they will be able to deal.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Douglas Jay)

The Government have decided on this issue to accept the substance of the Amendment moved by the Opposition in another place. When the Bill left this House we had set a figure at which O.D.P.s would be required of 3,000 sq ft., with permission for the Board of Trade to go either below or above that figure in a particular area at any time it wished. The Opposition in another place moved an Amendment to allow the Board to go below that figure but that it should not be permissible to go below 1,000 sq. ft. This was regarded as a reasonable minimum. We have decided both in the case of O.D.P.s and I.D.C.s to accept that proposition put forward by the Conservative Opposition.

I think that it is a little odd for the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Peter Emery) to describe the proposition as nonsense as his noble Friends put it forward and voted in favour of it.

Mr. Peter Emery

Of course it would not pass the comprehension of the President of the Board of Trade that the original Amendment put forward in another place was for a level of 2,000 sq. ft. and the Amendment which was accepted was for a level below that figure. I thought that I made it plain that a principle which we have been unable to get accepted in this House was therefore accepted and I congratulate my noble Friends. Now we should make more sense of the size.

Mr. Jay

Nevertheless, the proposal to make it 1,000 sq. ft. was made by the hon. Gentleman's noble Friends, and I should have thought that he would have felt some satisfaction and gratitude that we had accepted it. There is no need to go below 1,000 sq. ft. for O.D.P.s or for I.D.C.s. We then reach a state of de minimis non curat lex.

Now the hon. Member wishes to put the figure back to 2,500 sq. ft. for both O.D.P.s and I.D.C.s. I take it that I am in order, because the argument refers to I.D.C.s as well as to O.D.P.s. We do not feel that we can go as far as that. It is surprising that when we have gone as far as we have to meet the Opposition they should not be satisfied. We started with 2,500 sq. ft. as meaning the net area and we then accepted an Amendment to make it 3,000 sq. ft. gross. That, of course, contained a certain amount of latitude for those proposing extensions.

We have now gone a good deal further and agreed to make 1,000 sq. ft. the minimum. If we were to go to 2,500 sq. ft. for both offices and factories it would then be possible to put up a building with 2,500 sq. ft for one and 2,500 sq. ft. for the other, and experience in recent years has shown that a series of small buildings of this kind can be erected. Minor trading estates in the South-East based on this principle have been erected and we have no doubt, on the basis of that experience, that to increase the minimum to 2,500 sq. ft. would constitute a considerable loophole in the control.

Therefore, I think that we have gone a long way to meet the Opposition both here and in another place and I regret for the reasons I have given, that we do not feel that it is possible to go further.

Captain Walter Elliot (Carshalton)

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider. The Bill will otherwise lead to decisions being made by firms not based on economic grounds from their point of view. We sympathise with the objective of the Bill, which is to get people out of London, but nevertheless it will lead to firms taking decisions not based entirely on economic judgment.

I am better acquainted with London than with other conurbations and I believe that extensions of the size we propose would not be, as a general rule, for the purpose of accommodating extra office staff. It may be that a firm will want to accommodate drawing boards or other equipment and I do not believe that allowing a space four times the size of the Clerk's Table to a firm would mean a lot more office staff.

The objective of the Bill is to curb office jobs but it is drawn in such a way that it will operate very rigidly. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that he could not conceivably succeed in stopping increases in office jobs entirely and if he did it would have very undesirable effects.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Mr. Peter Emery) pointed out the position of small, growing companies. It is probably true that some companies starting up probably will never grow except in the London area and permission to use an extra space four times the size of the Table, utilising a site which otherwise would not be economically utilised, might be just enough to get them off the ground to growth and prosperity. Then would be the time to get them to move away and when they could possibly afford to move.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider this in relation to the rigidity of the Bill and how it is to help just those small firms starting off—firms which are so important now and will be more so in the future.

Mr. H. P. G. Channon (Southend, West)

I am very disappointed with the attitude of the President of the Board of Trade so far in respect of this Amendment to the proposed Lords Amendment. I welcome the fact that the Government have decided to make a concession in this matter. I also welcome the concession itself, although I support my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Mr. Peter Emery) in the view that they have not gone as far as they should have. It is true that in response to a plea by Lord Drumalbyn the Government made this concession in another place. It was a curious and short debate, and very few reasons were given for the concession.

I have no idea what the history of the matter was, although I recall—somewhat dimly after this passage of time—a rather lengthy debate in Committee on 11th March on the question whether or not the President of the Board of Trade should take powers to reduce the figure of 2,500 sq. ft. as it then was, in certain areas. At that time we argued as strongly as we could that it was very difficult to see under what circumstances it would be necessary for the Board of Trade to reduce this figure. It was then quite impossible to persuade the right hon. Gentleman to remove this low limit, or change it at all. He had the power to reduce it to one sq. ft. if that was his wish.

If we accept the Lords Amendment the Bill will provide that the area should not be less than 1,000 sq. ft., but in our discussion of the Bill we must remember two things. First, the Bill will last for many years without being reviewed by this House. I thing that it will last for seven years. I cannot pretend to be as familiar with the Bill's provisions as I was a few months ago, but that is what I recall.

Mr. Peter Emery

It is a temporary Bill.

Mr. Channon

Yes—and "temporary" in the terms of the Board of Trade is a difficult thing to define—like the surcharge. The second thing that we have to remember is that the Government are taking powers to regulate the control of office building not only in the London area—and many people would think that that was a proper thing to do—but in any area of the country as they think fit. All they need to do is to make an order designating a certain region as coming within the control of the Bill. Curious though it may seem, I still think that after all the long months of debate on this matter the general public have not realised what wide powers the Government are taking here.

It is arguable that the Government should have these powers, but if they are to have them we should make them as realistic as possible. I seriously ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is resting his case on the ground that there are possible circumstances, in some area of the country in which it will be necessary for him or his successor to say that an exemption limit of more than 1,000 sq. ft. would lead to abuse. He or the Minister of State should tell us what those circumstances are. I would think it extremely unlikely that if we increased the exemption limit from 1,000 sq. ft. to 2,500 sq. ft. we should weaken the provisions of the Bill.

11.15 p.m.

I have always been of the opinion that the whole area covered by the Bill, as originally applied, was highly unsatisfactory, highly anomalous, and full of difficulties. To some extent the right hon. Gentleman has recognised that there are many anomalies as to the area with which the Bill will deal. I seem to remember also that during the Committee stage of the Bill we had some sort of assurance from the President, or it may have been the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, because on that occasion so obvious was the strength of the Opposition's case that the Minister of State lost his voice and was not able to reply to us. So we had the pleasure of listening to the Parliamentary Secretary, and I seem to recall that we had some sort of assurance that this provision would be applied flexibly and that we should not have an unreasonable lower limit in a particular area.

Naturally none of us expects that the Board of Trade is going to be unreasonable in applying a lower limit, but it does seem to me that it is not giving anything away if it makes the minimum figure 2,500 sq. ft. rather than the 1,000 sq. ft. which is now written into the Bill. I am grateful for the 1,000 sq. ft., but I do not think that it goes far enough.

At one time there was some dispute as to how many sq. ft. it was necessary to have per office worker in the near future. I think the President of the Board of Trade is on record as saying that one should have about 150 sq. ft. per office worker. I have not got the reference, but I think that he said that during the Second Reading debate.

Mr. Jay

I do not think that I laid that down as what one ought to have. That was the basis of a calculation on a figure I had just been given.

Mr. Channon

I am sorry if I went too far, but I do not think that destroys my case. I think the right hon. Gentleman is saying that that is a reasonable figure to have per office worker, and that that is the basis on which his calculation has been made.

On that basis, 1,000 sq. ft. provides space for six or seven office workers before one has to get an O.D.P. If one goes up to 2,500 sq. ft. as the lower limit one is making it about 14. I do not think that the President of the Board of Trade would be doing anything to destroy the effective provision of this Bill if he accepted that.

Mr. John Hall (Wycombe)

I am sure my hon. Friend will realise that in dealing with this he is really talking about gross footage, and that the smaller the area one is allowed the less net footage one will get. Therefore, one would not have space for the number of office workers which he was calculating.

Mr. Channon

I must confess that I am not an expert on exactly what physical effect the difference between gross and net will have. We had a long discussion about gross and net, and if I recall we were offered 2,500 sq. ft. net and we have now got 3,000 sq. ft. gross. The President of the Board of Trade is, I think, under the impression that that makes very little difference. I cannot pretend to be an expert on gross and net as applied to this Bill, and I hope that my hon. Friend will enlighten us.

I think that the President of the Board of Trade has gone on record as saying there shall be 150 sq. ft. per office worker, and all I am saying that if he were to extend this limit to 2,500 sq. ft. I do not think he would be giving much away. I think he is going to allow it to be that area anyway. Whether it is the London area or any other area he has in mind, I do not think it is going to make any difference. Surely his intention is at the moment that the exemption limit should be 2,500 sq. ft. I am not asking him to reduce or weaken this Bill. He will be giving very little away, he will save himself a great deal of administrative work, I do not think he will weaken the provisions of the Bill, and he will go a long way towards satisfying those who think that the Bill is too tightly and inflexibly drawn.

There was a very short debate in another place. I wish it had been longer because I like to know why this figure of 1,000 sq. ft. was chosen. I am still firmly convinced that 2,500 sq. ft. is the right figure. It is difficult to see why the President of the Board of Trade would like to lower it. If he has cases in mind perhaps he will let us know. Neither on Report, in Committee nor at this stage of the Bill, has he given us an example of the sort of extensions in which he is likely, genuinely, to need a figure lower than 2,500 sq. ft. At the moment he is taking 3,000 sq. ft. for the London area. Does he think that in the London area, or some regions of the country, the situation is likely to get so acute during the next seven-year period that he will have, to avoid difficulties, to reduce the figure to 1,000 sq. ft.? If that is his case he can tell us and we can, perhaps, accept it. I think that in this, as in so many other Bills introduced by all Governments, a figure is put in, in order to protect civil servants in case of wholly unlikely circumstances taking place, when they would have to take wholly unlikely measures.

The Ministers who have to justify their case to this House ought to point out what is likely to happen in the future; what is the probable result of what they wish to achieve and whether that will give them the extra powers they are seeking. I ask the President of the Board of Trade to make a small addition to the modest concession which was made in another place. I hope that he will not have a closed mind and will be prepared to accept our Amendment.

Mr. A. R. Wise (Rugby)

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Mr. Peter Emery) that we are in sympathy with any effort to reduce office building in London, and to persuade people to move their offices outside this particular conurbation. Anyone who has the pleasure of watching the abundantly good relations which now exist between the management, employees and passengers in one of the major sections of our communications will realise that this is becoming necessary. It is being done without the Government doing anything at all because soon no one will be able to get into London at all.

The Government were moderately forthcoming when they drafted their Bill, but what I cannot see is why the right hon. Gentleman thinks that this concession is a concession at all. I cannot agree with him that we must assume, merely because certain persons in another place happen to share the same political views as ourselves, on broad principles, that they are invariably right on all questions of detail. That is a doctrine that I think can be applied only by those who enjoy the full principles of Socialism. We might just as well leave the Bill unamended.

Before amendment the Bill said that the prescribed exemption limit should be 3,000 sq. ft. In the next subsection it said that the Board of Trade could make a nonsense of that whenever it felt like it, and there need be no prescribed exemption limit. This extra thousand sq. ft. is very little. It is enough to put one lavatory on the end of an office, with washing facilities, but it is of no practical value to anybody who is trying to make a modest extension to an office, which may be very necessary.

Presumably the object of this limit was to prevent the President of the Board of Trade being swamped by thousands of applications for these very small alterations. We were told during the Committee stage that the Board of Trade already had a waiting list of applicants for office development which was the size of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I assume that the object of the course was to reduce the number of applications which would have to be considered by the Board. In my view this 1,000 sq. ft. will not reduce it at all. It should be said firmly by the Minister that while this Government are in power there will be no extension of any office premises at all.

I hope that during this last debate on this Bill we shall hear something from some supporters of the Government other than Ministers. We sat in Committee looking day after day at what became known to us as "the Silent Six"—

Mr. Speaker

Order. Debate on Lords Amendments and Amendments to Lords Amendments is very tight. However nice it may be to look at these persons, it does not arise on this question.

Mr. Wise

I accept your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. But I hope that at least one of them will utter something in the course of this debate and that we may hear more from them in support of their Government than pathetic silence.

Mr. Stephen Hastings (Mid-Bedfordshire)

I intervene with some diffidence, and very briefly, since I was not on the Standing Committee. I have been impressed with the reasonableness of my hon. Friend's arguments in moving this Amendment and with one particular point that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Captain Elliot) made. He mentioned that there are a large number of small firms in the City of London whose businesses would be virtually impossible, or at least half as effective, if they were required to move out arbitrarily. Here, I suppose, I ought to declare an interest since I belong to a firm definitely in this category. It is not, however, a firm that is thinking of enlarging its offices and therefore that case is not applicable to this Bill. But, where there is one firm of this type, there will be many others to which the Bill will apply.

I would ask the President of the Board of Trade to recognise that this is a serious argument and, for instance, firms such as those I have mentioned could not carry on if they had to remove their offices in the City away from easy access by customers, manufacturers from the north of England, possible importers from abroad, who could all meet in the heart of London. It would be no acceptable invitation to them to say that if they wished to expand they must go off to Harrow, or beyond into the suburbs, or to some town on the outskirts of London, and carry on their business. It would not make sense. This is part and parcel of having the City of London.

I think that the Amendment is really most reasonable. An increase of an office from the size of the Clerk's Table to four times the size of the Table is not adequate. It is perhaps the difference between having one secretary or having an extra executive with the two extra secretaries to go with him. One extra secretary is a virtually meaningless expansion, but if a firm such as the one which I have in mind—[Laughter.]—I see no reason why I should be causing this ribaldry on the Treasury Bench. A meaningful expansion of a firm of this kind would always be another executive. This means, not one person, but two at least, if not more. To expect that addition to be squashed into something the size of the Table and to work effectively is nonsense.

11.30 p.m.

If my premise is accepted that to function effectively firms of this kind must operate in the City of London, expansion must be at least of the magnitude suggested in our Amendment and not squashed into 1,000 sq. ft. For this reason alone, I ask the President of the Board of Trade to think again. I cannot see why, this small concession having been made, it should not be translated into a practical concession instead of a figure which is virtually meaningless. I hope that we shall hear further from the right hon. Gentleman and that even at this stage he will see fit to agree with us.

Sir Richard Thompson (Croydon, South)

I intervene only briefly, my reason being that I have heard practically every word that has been spoken on the Bill, having been a member of the Standing Committee which considered it. I accept that the President of the Board of Trade has made some gestures—rather faint ones in my view—towards alleviating the position. There was the small Amendment in Committee upstairs. As the right hon. Gentleman has rightly pointed out, we have had another little inch forward in another place. For that we are grateful.

Having listened to the right hon. Gentleman's speech, however, I wonder what is his real objection to accepting our Amendment. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say—and perhaps his hon. Friend the Minister of State will spell it out for us in a little more detail when he replies—that if a lower exemption of 2,500 sq. ft. gross, not net, were written into the Bill, there would be a distinct chance of being faced with a regular chain of small developments just inside the exemption limit which, taken in the aggregate, would have the effect of setting the Bill's purpose at nought.

If I am right in that, I wish that the right hon Gentleman would work that one out a little bit more for us, because that kind of fear seems to me to be quite unnecessary. A development of that kind, if it occurred at all, would surely be grossly uneconomic. I cannot imagine that anybody would exercise his ingenuity simply to try to circumvent the Bill. It would be a costly and futile way of trying to do it. That appeared to be the only point on which the right hon. Gentleman hung his rejection of our Amendment.

As I said in Committee, the President of the Board of Trade need not be quite so meticulous in this matter. The real deterrents on office building are not mainly in the Bill. They are in the economic climate which is developing within the country by means of the credit squeeze and the high Bank Rate. As time goes on, the right hon. Gentleman will find that these powerful deterrents do a great deal of the work of the Bill for him. That, however, is another argument.

The right hon. Gentleman finished his opening remarks with the old Latin tag de minimis non carat lex. I wonder whether we cannot turn that against him. The difference between what we are proposing as a lower limit and the figure which the right hon. Gentleman wishes to keep in the Bill is a matter of 1,500 sq. ft. gross.

I think that it is a very small difference. I also think that the administrative convenience of the right hon. Gentleman's Department, and also that of people seeking to make small additions to their office premises, would be served by choosing the higher rather than the lower figure. I therefore urge the right hon. Gentleman to make a treble of this. He gave us a crumb in Committee upstairs. We had another little bite in another place. This evening he has his Finance Bill. Why does not he make a job of it and agree to our Amendment?

Mr. John Hall

The right hon. Gentleman, with his long experience of this Bill in Committee upstairs, and indeed on Report, will not be surprised to hear me say that his first reply was disappointing. I say "disappointing", because it was not the reply that we expected from him. However, I am fairly confident that, having listened to the powerful arguments which have been advanced by my hon. Friends, whoever winds up the debate will give us a more encouraging reply.

I think that the right hon. Gentleman was a little mistaken, or perhaps he misheard what my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Mr. Peter Emery) said when moving the Amendment. He gave the impression that he thought we were in some way criticising the noble Lords in another place for moving this Amendment and indeed getting a small concession. My hon. Friend was doing nothing of the kind. He was paying tribute to the fact that the noble Lords had succeeded in doing in another place what we had not succeeded in doing here. They at least breached the principle on which the Government had taken a firm stand, namely, that they would not state that there should be a minimum below which it was not necessary to be given exemption, and what was done in another place was a step in the right direction.

We were a little surprised and sorry that the noble Lords were not able to extract a rather more worthwhile concession from the Government, and it is a little hard to discover why, because the debate was very short. It occupied less than three-quarters of a column of the OFFICIAL REPORT, and indeed the reply of the noble Lord who spoke on behalf of the Government was so brief that it was obvious that he was anxious to accept the Amendment before an attempt was made to move another one asking for a little more.

We are asking for a little more. In fact, we are asking the Government to be realistic about this. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that we debated this at great length in Committee upstairs. We were trying to get the Government to accept an Amendment which would have fixed the figure at 2,500 sq. ft., which was the figure put into the Bill by the Government, though this was later increased to a gross figure of 3,000 sq. ft. We were seeking to make the then exemption limit the minimum or base figure which could not be reduced. That seemed to us then, and it seems to us now, to be the sensible way of approaching this problem.

Perhaps I might read part of the argument that I advanced in Committee upstairs. I said: We have already heard that the present figure of 2,500 sq. ft. is calculated on the basis that it will provide accommodation for about 20 to 25 office workers. This was on the basis of 150 sq. ft. per worker, which was the basis of the right hon. Gentleman's calculation. If that were cut very drastically—to half or below—the concession which would be given would be a very small one and would, in effect, bring to a stop all office building in the area concerned. I am sure that this is not the intention. I am sure that this has been put in as one of those drafting points which one puts into a Bill to provide flexibility in the legislation so that the Government can change their minds at some time or another and vary the amount of floor space. In this case, however, it is almost inconceivable that the amount now allowed would be still further reduced. It might be stopped altogether, but this is another matter. We would all regret that very much, but in some ways it would be more logical. But to reduce the amount drastically below the present level makes the present concession valueless and makes it difficult for people to plan ahead."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 9th March, 1965; c. 397–8.] For any normal development, 2,500 sq. ft. is about the minimum one could expect. Anything below that is almost not worth thinking about.

Mr. Channon

The number of 20 or 25 workers would be much lower than the 150 sq. ft. provision; there could be only about 16.

Mr. Hall

That reinforces the point I am making. It is extremely difficult to understand why the Board of Trade, in what is now subsection (7) of Clause 2 and was originally subsection (6), should take power to vary the 3,000 sq. ft., even though it has accepted this minor Amendment providing a minimum of 1,000 sq. ft. below which the Board will not go. It would be sensible to be reasonable and logical and to accept that anything below 2,500 sq. ft. is not worth considering. I am certain that the Board has not in mind at the moment introducing a figure below 3,000 sq. ft. gross. This curious trait of wanting to play absolutely safe in case an extraordinary situation should arise to make it necessary to reduce would bring a development to a halt. The lower limit is neither logical nor reasonable.

It is a little early in the evening to divide the House. We do not want to do so on this comparatively minor issue, the logic of which, I am sure, is apparent to all hon. Members opposite. I am prepared to sit down and to give an opportunity to the President of the Board of Trade to say that he accepts the logic of our proposal. Then we can proceed to consider the next Amendment. I have heard no logical or sound argument why the Board should have this power.

Mr. Jay

I speak again with the leave of the House—indeed, at the invitation of hon. Members opposite to reply. I deplore the comments of hon. Members opposite about the wisdom of those in another place and also the suggestion that no concession is involved. Of course this is a concession. If there were no such minimum, it would be within the power of the Board of Trade to accept a figure of below 1,000 sq. ft.

The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) expressed fears about firms in the City of London and elsewhere which perhaps would not be able to put in hand useful and valuable extensions if this control were too rigidly applied. I remind the House that even if at any time the Board were to lower the minimum below 2,500 sq. ft., which we have no intention of doing at present, it is still perfectly open to grant permission to firms in such cases where a good, convincing case is made.

The hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon), who has the distinction of representing an area within the Metropolitan region as defined by the Bill, asked what reason there was to think that it would ever be necessary to go below 2,500 sq. ft. The answer is quite plain. This has proved necessary in the case of I.D.C.s. In that case the minimum for a great many years was 5,000 sq. ft. Incontrovertible evidence has accumulated in recent years that that had led to evasion and, as a result, we had to decide to lower it in certain congested areas to 1,000 sq. ft.

It does not necessarily follow, because this has happened in the case of factories, that it will immediately follow in the case of offices. Therefore, I think we are sensible in starting with 3,000 sq. ft. It would be imprudent to assume that even though it has happened in the case of factories, it is only a remote possibility that it might happen also in the case of offices. That is really the answer to the hon. Gentleman.

11.45 p.m.

In those circumstances, I think we are merely showing reasonable prudence and foresight in taking the power to go down at least as far as 1,000 sq. ft., although, as I say, we have no present intention in the case of O.D.P.s of doing so.

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

Lords Amendment agreed to.