§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McBride.]
§ 11.8 p.m.
§ Mr. Jasper More (Ludlow)I am grateful for the opportunity of raising in the House a matter which has left the inhabitants of the village of Astley Abbotts with a great sense of grievance and injustice.
This village is a scattered one of about 300 inhabitants. Like other such villages, it had a village school which, as happens in these times, was recently closed by the local education authority. The school had been provided by a private family. It has trustees and has a trust deed. The trust deed provides that, in the event of the closing of the school, it shall be sold and the proceeds devoted to the benefit of the village.
Such provisions are not always put into practice, but in fact after a lengthy period of negotiations a scheme was agreed between the trustees, the Ministry of Education, the Hereford diocesan council, the education council, the parish council, the parochial church council, and such of the descendants of the original donor as it had been possible to trace.
1549 The scheme provided for the investment of the proceeds of the sale of the school and for the application of the income for the provision of facilities for the religious, educational, social, moral and physical well being of the young people resident in that parish. All that remained was to sell the school.
That is one side of the story. The other side concerns the local council, namely, the Bridgnorth Rural District Council. This council had been attempting for about four years to solve the problem of housing a large family for which it had responsibility and for whom it required a site and housing accommodation outside the immediate confines or a village. The council had experienced many frustrations, having made attempts with a number of sites, all of which had failed to secure planning permission.
The matter appeared to become urgent in July 1965, when the family in question was burnt out by fire from its existing accommodation. The school of which I have spoken was outside the confines of Astley Abbotts village, and the council took the view that if it could be adapted and converted into living accommodation it might solve the problem of housing this family. The council therefore approached the trustees of the school. It asked, in July, 1965, that the district valuer should inspect and report. The reply by the trustees' agents was that they had no permission from the Ministry of Education for such an inspection to be made.
The council was concerned that the school premises should be made habitable before the winter. Accordingly, in August it made a further approach. The trustees were informed by the clerk that the council had given authority for compulsory acquisition but would be willing to negotiate for private sale. The council was informed in reply, on behalf of the trustees, that the Minister of Education had asked for a valuation and report by an independent valuer; that he had required the valuer to make a recommendation as to the method of sale; that the valuer had definitly advised a sale by public auction: that the trustees were awaiting the Minister's instructions, and that in the meantime they could not advise the trustees to negotiate a private sale to the council or anyone 1550 else without the Minister's authority. Fourteen days later the council served a compulsory purchase notice.
The trustees, not unnaturally, protested at this proceeding. The situation became known in the village and much criticism was expressed. The council scheme was criticised on the ground that the proposed conversion could not possibly be economic. It has also been asserted that the scheme was opposed because the villagers objected to a scheme for housing this family, but I am informed that this was never a principal cause of criticism. What was criticised was the proposal to spend public money on housing in the village a family from outside when no money had been spent on providing houses in the village for the inhabitants themselves. But the main object of criticism throughout was the compulsory purchase.
In October, 1965, a parish meeting was held. More than 70 people attended. This is a remarkable number for a Shropshire village meeting—certainly more than a Member of Parliament would hope to draw for a political meeting. Since this may appear to be undue self-criticism, I should point out that within the last month a political meeting in a much larger village in my constituency, addressed by a Minister of the Crown, drew an audience of less than 25 people.
The result of the meeting was a unanimous resolution that an objection should be lodged by the trustees. The trustees accordingly lodged an objection with the Minister. I am informed that about six months elapsed before any action was taken by the Minister, and I invite the Minister specifically to explain this delay. One inevitable result was to render nugatory the main purpose of the compulsory purchase order, namely, to get the school premises into habitable condition before the winter of 1965.
A public inquiry was eventually held by one of the Minister's inspectors on 21st June, 1966, and the inspector made a detailed report of the contents, of which the Minister will be aware. The inspector treated the issue of the compulsory purchase order as the principal ground of objection. He recorded his opinion that, despite the lack of merit in this principal ground of objection, the council had failed to substantiate its case for the 1551 compulsory acquisition of the property. He considered its proposals to be generally unsatisfactory and uneconomic.
On 13th October, a letter was sent by the Ministry. It stated that the Minister accepted the inspector's view that there was little merit in the principal ground of objection concerning compensation, but declared his view that the council had proved its need to acquire the property, and stated that he had, therefore, decided to confirm the order. In so doing, of course, he overruled his inspector.
What is the position now in this sorry story? The position must surely be that two winters have now been lost. The trustees are still willing, as they have throughout been, to sell the property at public auction. But the Minister, first, by his inaction held up any solution of the problem, and, finally, by his action in confirming the compulsory purchase order, he has decided it in a way that must give the greatest possible dissatisfaction both to the trustees and to the local inhabitants.
The important thing in a case of this kind is surely not only that justice should be done but also that justice should be seen to be done. Nobody in Astley Abbotts will be persuaded that the district valuer's valuation will be as much as the price that could have been secured by public auction in 1965. Thanks to the Government's economic policy and to its effect on land values, there is now no prospect that either the district valuer's valuation or a public auction held now could result in as large a price as would have been realised by public auction in 1965. In fact, we now face the position, thanks to the Ministry, that full justice never can be done, and it will for ever be seen that justice has not been done.
We shall probably shortly be hearing from the Minister the stock reply that there is no injustice in a compulsory purchase order since the district valuer's duty is to value at a public auction price. But if it is true—certainly no one in Astley Abbotts would agree with it—that the compulsory value is the same as the auction value, it must be equally true that the auction value is the same as the compulsory value. Why not, then, have the public auction?
1552 The inspector found that on this issue the objectors' case was "devoid of merit". This finding alone should have alerted the Minister. While the inspector was clearly entitled to decide in favour of the compulsory purchase, his funding that the contrary argument was "devoid of merit" was contradicted by every circumstance of the case, both by the fact that public auction had been recommended by the Ministry of Education's own valuers and by the consideration of public feeling so cogently expressed by the inspector himself in paragraphs 28–34 of his report.
What has happened will always be regarded by local opinion as a wrong—a wrong of arbitrary decision, arrived at for mistaken reasons, to achieve an object which now can never be completely achieved. Surely now a second winter must already have been lost. The unfortunate family on whose behalf this quarrel began cannot, one would think, benefit from the scheme before the spring. There could have been no objection to a public auction except for the few weeks' delay involved, and that delay would surely have been a consideration of little relevance in the case. What is and will always be relevant is the local feelings and the principle at stake.
The Minister's action on his inspector's report is hard to comprehend. He overruled his inspector on the technical and economic question which the inspector had investigated in detail on the spot, but declined to over-rule him on the matter of principle which was crystal-clear from a reading of the report. There may be nothing which the Minister can do now to redeem the errors perpetrated in this case. I can only hope that this Astley Abbotts case will be remembered by him as an example of how not to deal with cases of this kind.
§ 11.21 p.m.
§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Robert Mellish)I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) for raising this case, because it is an unusual one and because he has given me the opportunity to make it clear that neither my right hon. Friend nor I have any doubts about the sincerity of purpose of the Bridgnorth Rural 1553 District Council, which made the compulsory purchase order, or of the objectors who opposed it.
The council, in common with every housing authority, has a duty imposed upon it by Section 91 of the Housing Act, 1957, to provide housing accommodation to meet the needs of its district. Under Section 92 of the same Act it may provide that accommodation by erecting houses, converting any buildings into houses, acquiring houses, or by altering, enlarging or improving any houses or buildings.
These powers should be read in conjunction with those in Section 96, which set out the purposes for which housing authorities may buy land and the buildings upon it. They may, for example, acquire houses or buildings which may be made suitable as houses, together with any lands occupied with the houses or buildings. To complete the picture, I must explain that a housing authority may, under Section 97 of the Act of 1957, acquire by agreement, or it may be authorised to purchase compulsorily by the Minister.
This then is the context in which the Bridgnorth Rural District Council acted, and, if the case is an unusual one, the purposes it had in mind, the powers it used and the procedures it followed are those generally available to housing authorities and are, indeed, the day-to-day tools that enable them to do their job.
I turn now to the case itself—the case of the Bridgnorth Rural (Astley Abbotts) Compulsory Purchase Order (No. 3), 1965. It is a pleasing feature that nobody disputes that the council was faced with a particular housing need which it alone seemed to be in a position to satisfy. There were in the district six families who, in the council's opinion, would best benefit from a gradual introduction to the full standards of local authority accommodation. The needs of one family were particularly urgent.
Another part of the council's case that is generally accepted is that over a period of years it had tried to no avail to purchase vacant properties capable of renovation that could be made suitable for one or more of these famalies. But where the premises were suitable negotiations had broken down when the council's purpose became clear.
1554 The council turned its attention to the former school and school house on a site of rather more than one third of an acre at Astley Abbotts. The land had originally been given to the Parish of Astley Abbotts by Sir Henry Tyrwhitt in January, 1873, but in July, 1962, the school was closed by the Shropshire Education Committee. The school house and the school accordingly fell vacant and were vacant when, nearly three years later in 1965—I give no undue emphasis to the period—the council sought to negotiate their acquisition. These negotiations, which extended over three months, proved unsuccessful. Accordingly, on 30th July, 1965, the council made an order for the compulsory acquisition of the property.
The owners were the churchwardens of the parish, as the surviving trustees. They were anxious to dispose of the property and would have been quite ready to sell it to the council, provided the sale was by public auction and, of course, provided that the council was the highest bidder. The trustees did, I believe, seek the necessary approval of the Department of Education and Science to this course, but their application was submitted early in August 1965 after the council had made a compulsory purchase order.
In September 1965, the Department of Education and Science informed the trustees that the Secretary of State would be willing to authorise a sale by public auction, if that was a course in which the council was agreeable to co-operate. In a nutshell, therefore, the question was whether the council would decide not to proceed with its compulsory purchase order and be prepared to bid at a public auction or whether it would go ahead and seek confirmation of the order by the Minister: the decision was for the council to take. The council went ahead with the order.
As I understand, the trustees' view was that they stood to get a better price at a public auction. This was the essence of the case they developed at the public inquiry into the order, held by one of the Minister's inspectors. The hon. Member asked a fair question, why was there delay? He must understand that there is tremendous pressure on my Department when compulsory purchase orders are made, because we have only a certain number of inspectors. I am sorry that it 1555 took so long, but that was the best we could do. The parish council objection was in fact based on the amount of compensation it thought it would receive, but questions of compensation are quite outside the scope of the Minister's jurisdiction when coming to a decision upon a compulsory purchase order. It is not surprising, therefore, that the inspector in his report referred to the lack of merit in the principal ground of objection to the order.
The basis of compensation payable and the procedure to be followed are laid down by Statute. In the case of the Astley Abbotts, compulsory purchase order compensation is payable at full market value; no account may be taken on account of the acquisition being compulsory; and the value is to be taken essentially to be the amount which the land if sold in the open market by a willing seller might be expected to realise. Appeal against the amount of compensation offered lies not to the Minister but to the Lands Tribunal.
The owner trustees might well prefer the quick realisation of market value by means of a public auction but they should not, I submit, quarrel with the basis laid down for the compensation.
The owners also protested at the inquiry at the length of time, which the hon. Member mentioned, that had elapsed since the making of the compulsory purchase order. The inquiry was held on 21st June this year, and accordingly it was implied that the council's wish to rehouse the family in greatest need before the winter had been frustrated by the making of the order. Much of this argument could have been resolved if the trustees had consulted the council. I make little of the possibility that the property could have been sold to the council by agreement at any time. Rather I regret the fact that it was not possible to hold the inquiry until nearly 11 months after the order was made, but there were good reasons for the apparent delay.
As I said at the outset, this was an unusual case and necessarily a number of technical questions relating to ownership and interests in the property had to be cleared up before an inquiry could be held. But a point of more substance was that planning permission for the 1556 change of use of the school, as opposed to the school house, was not available before the middle of March 1966. This is a fact of some relevance also to the trustees who must, I should have thought, have welcomed this approval.
I turn in more detail to the public inquiry and to the inspector's report. The owners were supported in their objections by the parish council and other local bodies. Some 250 parishioners had also signed a petition opposing the compulsory purchase order.
Apart from those matters that I have already mentioned, there were two main and related points at issue. These were the suitability of the premises for their intended housing use and the economics of the conversion of the existing buildings. The inspector found that the property was physically capable of conversion and that main water and electricity services were available within a reasonable distance. The site is isolated from any existing community and, on that account, would appear suitable for the purposes that the council had in mind. The hon. Member knows all about that.
Yet the Inspector recommended that the order be not confirmed despite, as I have already remarked, lack of merit in the principal ground of objection. He came to this view because he considered the council's proposals to be generally unsatisfactory and uneconomic.
The Minister naturally gave the inspector's report and his recommendations the most serious consideration, but he did not share the inspector's view that the council had failed to substantiate its case for acquisition. Its housing need is not disputed, nor did the owners object to the proposed use of the property.
It is accepted that the works which the council will need to undertake will prove expensive and that the buildings may have only a limited life. But the Housing Acts do not say that a local authority should make a profit or break even on every scheme they undertake. Indeed, the chances of profit or of avoiding a loss are usually least where the social need is greatest. Whether social needs outweigh straight economics in any particular circumstances is a question of judgment. The council came to the conclusion in this case that the expenses that it was likely to incur were justified 1557 by the housing need it sought to satisfy. The Minister, in confirming the compulsory purchase order on 13th October, has upheld that view. Now that he has issued his decision he has no further authority to intervene.
Nevertheless, I can hope—and I am sure that the hon. Member will join me in 1558 this—that the necessary work will now go ahead to provide accommodation as quickly as possible, at least for the family with the most urgent need.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Twelve o'clock.