HC Deb 27 May 1965 vol 713 cc1022-32

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

12.37 a.m.

Mr. Michael Jopling (Westmorland)

I am glad to have this opportunity of raising a matter concerning the Westmor-land County Council (Milnthorpe) Compulsory Purchase Order, 1960. This is a matter which gives rise to a serious injustice to one of my constituents. Briefly, the history of the case is that early in 1959 the Westmorland County Council approached the Dallam Tower Estate to purchase land at Birkett's Farm, Milnthorpe, with a view to building a new school there. In May 1959, the estate replied demurring with the request and they suggested that Owlet Ash smallholding, already owned by the county council, should be used instead for this development.

A month later, in June, 1959, the county council replied to the estate and said that this proposed site at Owlet Ash was unsuitable for a school because it was badly placed for Milnthorpe, the levels were difficult, there was bad drainage and there was the possible line of the Milnthorpe bypass that might pass through the estate. The result of this was that in February, 1960, the county council issued a compulsory purchase order to the estate to acquire Birkett's Farm, which was the original proposal.

Subsequent to this a public inquiry was held in June, 1961, and this was followed later in October, 1962, by a second public inquiry, which was held later. I do not think it relevant to the case tonight to refer too closely to the conduct of those two inquiries. There were obviously passions roused, bad temper and ill feeling. It is no concern of mine to become involved with the rights and wrongs of those matters. I am concerned tonight with the Minister's action over the granting of costs to my constituent. The result of the public inquiry over this order was that the inspector did recommend at both inquiries that a compulsory purchase order be not confirmed by the Minister, and on both occasions he said that the Owlet Ash site was the best site in Milnthorpe for the proposed new school.

The inspector, having made this recommendation in both his reports, this was upheld in May, 1963, by the Minister of the day—the Minister of Education—refusing to confirm the order. The fact is that in a short time the building of the new school will begin on the original Owlet Ash site. It was very unfortunate that there were two inquiries. The fact was that the second inquiry was called after the Minister had directed, or suggested, that the county council had not fully considered the planning aspects of the Owlet Ash site. This was a very unfortunate matter for my constituent, because, as I have said, in his original letter to the county council of May, 1959, he had suggested this alternative site, and also before the first hearing he had given notice to the county council that he would suggest at the inquiry that the Owlet Ash site was the best.

This was, in fact, borne out by the inspector, who said in his report later that it was no fault of the owners that the council was insufficiently prepared for the first inquiry. This implies that the inspector was firmly of opinion that it was no fault of my constituent that the costs in which he was involved over the second inquiry should have arisen at all.

I turn now to the matter which is of such importance to me and, I suggest, to the House, the matter of costs. I have made the point about the second inquiry, and I have said that the inspector's report stated quite firmly that the fact of having to have a second inquiry was no fault of my constituent. As regards the question of the costs of the first inquiry, the inspector at the second inquiry recommended that, if the Minister, after receiving the two reports and all the other relevant information on these matters, decided not to confirm the order, the costs of the first inquiry also should be granted to my constituent. The Minister did refuse to confirm the order, but, in September, 1963, he refused to grant costs to my constituent and suggested that he did not think that the council had been unreasonable.

I shall not base my argument about the Minister not granting costs at that stage so much on the evidence and opinions up to that point as on the facts up to date and the opinions which have come out since, which are of the utmost importance. The decision of the Minister not to grant costs when that course had been recommended by the inspector is surprising. I was not present at the inquiry, and it would be wrong to base my case entirely on that evidence, but I am anxious to pay a great deal of attention to what has been said by other outside independent bodies since the decision was made.

Soon after the Minister refused to grant costs, my constituent referred the case to the Council on Tribunals, an independent body above all suspicion and held in high esteem. As the House knows, the Council on Tribunals has, since that time, reported and suggested that successful objectors in compulsory purchase order cases should be granted their costs automatically. This report was accepted by the previous Government, and, to judge from answers given by the present Government, they also have taken up and accepted that expression of view by the Council. It is clear, therefore, that if the inquiries in this case had been held today, costs would have been granted.

I do not wish the Minister, to whom I am most grateful for being here this evening, to base his answer purely on the point that it would be necessary to make a retrospective decision because of the Report of the Council on Tribunals. I want him to consider the matter in the light of the discretion which he has under the Local Government Act, 1933, under which he could have granted costs at an earlier date. Apart from the evidence of the report of the Council on Tribunals. other strong pressure can be brought to bear. Last December, the council wrote a letter to my constituent about this matter and stated that this was the type of case in which costs should have been awarded. The council said quite clearly that it felt that costs should have been given in this case.

There is further support in the fact that the Council on Tribunals wrote another letter only yesterday to confirm its decision and stating: There is not much I can add to my letter of 31st December last. In reply to the question in the fourth paragraph of your letter I can say, however, that the Council's view was certainly not based solely on the fact that the objection was successful but resulted from a very careful consideration of all the circumstance of the case. The only other circumstance which made the council take this view was that it felt that my constituent was put to unreasonable expense by the way in which these inquiries were conducted; and I think it is very apt to note that, when my constituent did ask for costs at the inquiry, those costs were not in any way resisted by the county council; there was no resistance at either of the inquiries.

I have also had a message from the Country Landowners Association; and I know it may be said that that association may have an axe to grind, but in the type of evidence which they have provided there is no question of any axes being ground. In October, 1963, long before the matter of the Council of Tribunals came up, the association wrote a letter stating that it was difficult to imagine … when the Minister would award costs to a successful objector when he refuses them in such a case as this, where the successful objector not only suggested the alternative site at an early stage, but was put to unnecessary expense by the conduct of the acquiring authority … I do not want to get involved in the rights or wrongs of this case, but there has been injustice in that my constituent has not been granted his costs. I believe that the Minister might well say that if he changed his mind on this matter it might bring forward a flood of similar applications, but again, to quote the Country Landowners Association, which comes across many similar cases, this one is the only one they know about where the Inspector has recommended that costs should be awarded and the Minister has declined to award them". This is a very serious matter because there has been a basic injustice. If I might be forgiven for saying so, the Ministry of Education has been particularly mean in the matter of withholding costs. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government, on the other hand. has, in connection with inquiries on compulsory purchase orders, given costs on 10 occasions.

Costs alone, however, are not of primary concern to my constituent, although they amount to over £1,000. I do not believe they will begin to cover the expense which my constituent has been put to on this matter. He is fighting this as a basic right. I believe his action of fighting this and resisting this is well in the manner and the tradition of the Crichel Down affair. He is fighting for a basic right where, I believe, there has been a serious injustice.

The inspector said "Yes" to costs; the Council on Tribunals said "Yes" to costs; but the Minister, so far, has said, "No." I hope that tonight he will consider changing his mind in view of the very important evidence which I have brought forward. This compulsory purchase order was about a place called Birkett's farm. That word "Birkett" in the north-west of England implies memories of the great Lord Birkett, a name standing for justice, and for standing up for one's rights. I hope the Minister tonight will tell us he will look at this matter again and reconsider it, and will understand the justice of the case.

12.52 a.m.

Mr. F. V. Corfield (Gloucestershire, South)

I want very briefly to support my hon. Friend. I am fully aware that the initial decision was taken by my right hon. Friend, but here is a case, I think, where we have got to look at first what the facts are and secondly, and what is supremely important, what is right. We have here a case in which the inspector has made a recommendation for costs. As I read the report he based that recommendation in part at least on pretty severe criticism of the way in which one of the officers of the county council gave his evidence, and, indeed, on the background history as it revealed the conduct of the county council.

I am very well aware, of course, of the previous policy—previous, I mean, to the adoption of the Council on Tribunals recommendation. The previous policy was always that costs should only be awarded where one of the parties behaved unreasonably, as was apparently the case here. The inspector was the only person who heard the evidence, unless the Minister made other inquiries, which he could not do under the compulsory purchase order rules without making those inquiries available to the other side, so it is difficult to see how he overruled the inspector.

However that may be we have a separate recommendation of the Council on Tribunals and that Council was set up by the previous Government, in the words of Lord Butler at the time, as a watch dog of the interests of the private citizen. I hope—I feel sure they do—that the present Government do accept that Council in that capacity. I very much hope that the Minister will look at this case again. There is the question whether or not the citizen has been fairly treated. It is not a question of apportioning blame to anybody. It is a question whether we have treated the citizen fairly, and it is, after all, the function of the Council on Tribunals to investigate these things, and represent public rights, which, I suggest, the Minister should consider very seriously.

Let us forget about apportioning blame. If in the light of events the decision turns out to be a wrong decision, let the Minister take time to take it back and consider what is right in regard to the private citizen. It looks as though here the county council said, "Here is large landowner", and as a result of not looking at the planning considerations it led to a second inquiry and to the extra expense.

12.55 a.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Denis Howell)

I appreciate the concern of the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) in raising the matter, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield) for making it perfectly clear that the matter, except on the question of representations on costs now, has nothing whatever to do with the present Government. It was entirely decided by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle.) and the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) when in office, and, therefore, all the strictures of the hon. Member for Westmorland ought really to be directed to his own right hon. and hon. Friends. But it is part of the business of government that government goes on in spite of elections, and, therefore, I find myself in the unique position of defending the record of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite who are now being criticised.

I must say a word about the accusation that the Department of Education and Science is mean about costs. The hon. Gentleman said that 10 Ministry of Housing and Local Government cases have been awarded costs but none in the Department of Education. In the five years from 1960 to 1964 there were only 12 such cases in the Department of Education, and none, I agree, was awarded costs, but there were 381 cases in the Ministry of Housing. There are about 6,000 housing and planning appeals a year, as the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South knows, which far outweigh, thank goodness, the numbers that I have to deal with at the moment in the Department of Education. Therefore, there are likely to be more orders for costs in the Ministry of Housing cases.

This is one of the most complex, difficult and rummy businesses that I have ever had to untangle. Although the hon. Member for Westmorland says that he would like to disregard the conduct of the inquiry—I am sure we all would—one cannot do so if one wishes to find out exactly what happened. The inquiry was conducted by the inspector in the first place as to whether the school should be built on the site where the local authority said it should, the farm, or whether it should be on the smallholding, which was the contention of the farmer. Looking at the evidence, it is clear that the inspector got himself bogged down in the first case in asking questions about agricultural policy. He was concerned about smallholdings and, in particular, a technical matter, about full-time smallholders and part-time smallholders. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth, rightly said that if the inspector was going to deal with agricultural policy he ought to hear witnesses from the Ministry of Agriculture, and he sent the case back to the inspector for him to do so.

An even odder thing happened at the second inquiry. I agree that, unfortunately, tempers seemed to become a little frayed. But in the middle of the second inquiry the inspector declared that he happened to be a smallholder—and it is clear that he had very strong views about the difference between full-time and part-time smallholders—and he again involved himself in passionate arguments with witnesses from the Ministry of Agriculture as well as the local authority.

This seems to have been the most peculiar business that I have ever heard about and in that connection I have considerable sympathy with the constituents of the hon. Member for Westmorland, who obviously wondered what was going on—as he rightly said, probably at their expense. At the end of the day the inspector said that for reasons of agricultural policy the balance of advantage lay in building the school not on the farm but at Owlet Ash, the smallholding site. But the Minister absolutely categorically rejected that contention of agricultural advantage. This is very important. The two Ministers—the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth, and the hon. Member for Lewisham, North—both said that they disagreed that the balance of agricultural advantage was in favour of building the school on the smallholding rather than the farm, and that was certainly the view of the then Minister of Agriculture. But another remarkable thing that happened was that the tenant of the smallholding had died so the Minister decided that he would uphold the appeal, not on the grounds that the inspector had promulgated, on the balance of agricultural advantage, but because fortuitously the owner of the farm was still alive and the owner of the smallholding had died, and the Minister felt it could not possibly cause personal hardship if he agreed to the inspector's recommendation. That is the reason why he did it.

One can see the logic of that in this most illogical situation. Nevertheless the Minister felt that he could not agree in those circumstances to costs being awarded. The hon. Gentleman's constituents, having won the day in this remarkable business, were complaining of delay, although in the end delay was to their advantage because they would not have won the case had the delay not been long enough to take in its compass the unfortunate death of this tenant. But they started to campaign for costs. One can understand them asking for costs. But clearly the right hon. Member for Handsworth decided that they could not have costs because he 110 taken his decision from a most unique and remarkable standpoint.

There is also the question of retrospection. I am happy to confirm, on behalf of my Department and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the view which the previous Administration took, that when a person wins such an appeal he should automatically get his costs; it is a view which finds favour with the present Administration. Nevertheless, while one respects the views of the Council on Tribunals, a line has to be drawn somewhere.

There is, in fact, a draft circular about the Government's intentions on costs, which is at the moment being studied by the appropriate authorities and it is proposed to implement it as soon as possible, but provisionally we have to say that the new policy will apply to inquiries that take place after the date when the circular is published. One can see the logic of that when one realises that there are over 6,000 planning appeals in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government every year; 113 in the Ministry of Transport; 50 to 60 in the Ministry of Power; two to three each in the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defence; and between two and six in my own Department. There is, therefore, a vast number of these appeals.

Over the last 20 years a lot of people, particularly in the field of housing, have had their appeals upheld and, therefore, whilst I can understand the hon. Gentleman saying, "Do not bother about retrospection", the fact is that one cannot ignore it. If today I were to announce that in this one case we would agree to retrospection, it would cause many people to say, "What about us? If there is going to be any retrospection at all, what about our case?"—a case which may have occurred five. 10 or 15 years ago.

On present considerations, at any rate, the Government do not feel that retrospective payment of these costs is something which they could possibly countenance, because it would create tremendous administrative inconvenience, necessitating searching back into all the cases. That is so especially in this case. I think I have made clear the cogent reasons on which the right hon. Member for Handsworth and the hon. Member for Lewisham. North based their decision in these very peculiar circumstances; they specifically had regard to costs, but felt that in all the peculiar circumstances of the case they could not award costs.

If the hon. Gentleman wants to see me I will certainly agree to see him. If he has any additional views or evidence that he would like to put before me I will agree to consider them, as well as anything that the Council on Tribunals might like to say about the case. But it is the oddest and most difficult and complex thing that I have ever seen.

I can appreciate the difficulties of the previous Administration, and, agreeable though it would be for me as a Socialist Minister to say that the previous Ministers were wrong and I shall go back on their decisions, having looked at the thing from scratch, I cannot say that. I shall be glad to discuss the matter with the hon. Gentleman, but I cannot promise to reverse the decision which I have announced to the House.

Mr. Jopling

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind offer to look at this again. I shall take the matter up with him and I hope that in the meantime he will bear in mind that in this case there was a specific recommendation that it was unique.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at six minutes past One o'clock.