LAND, DITTON PRIORS (SHROPSHIRE) (Hansard, 22 February 1967)

§ Mr. Jasper More (Ludlow)
On 10th January last, my constituent, Mr. William Radnor, who farms at Ditton Priors, Shropshire, and who for 23 years has rented from the Government a three-acre field, was doing his morning milking at first light. He suddenly, to use his own words, heard a "racket" in the lane. Going out to see what was happening, he saw a number of lorries and bulldozers, which were already beginning to move the field hedge. They cleared away about 30 feet of it. When he asked what they were doing, he was told that they were making a lorry park in the field. A large number of loads of stone were taken through the field, and two acres of it was covered with stone. In a very short time, the two acres had been made into a lorry park, while another area had been covered by a large tent. What remained of the field had been completely churned up so that, in Mr. Radnor's words, the whole field was of no use to either man or beast.
Mr. Radnor's tenancy was a grazing tenancy with a rent payable monthly in advance, and I understand that the rent for January had been paid. The tenancy included a provision that the Government might resume possession in emergency, but no warning of any kind had been given to Mr. Radnor. It soon became apparent what was happening. His field, plus a large adjoining area which had once been the Admiralty Ditton Priors Depot, was taken over by United States military personnel as an 1920 ammunition depot. That is still the position today.
The first thing that needs to be said is that no conceivable blame has been laid on the U.S. Forces. Everything that I am challenging was done, and I think admittedly done, by our own Ministry of Defence. The American troops have been shown a welcome in South Shropshire, and I want to take this opportunity of making it clear to them that, whatever I may have to say about our own Government, the Americans are guiltless in this matter, and that while they are with us I shall be only too anxious, both as their neighbour and as M.P. for the constituency, to do all I can to help them.
The second thing that needs to be said is that this is not a witch hunt after a particular Minister or even a particular Government. We in South Shropshire have lived so long with Ditton Priors that we have long since ceased to blame any particular Government or particular Minister. What we wish to criticise and have exposed and reformed is the whole system, or lack of system, of the whole administration, or lack of administration, in the Ministry of Defence under which such things can happen.
Mr. Radnor's experience is only the small tip of the iceberg of everything that has happened at Ditton Priors. To look at this case, it is hard to believe. If one is conducting a high powered, high speed operation to make a lorry park in a remote part of Shropshire, a fair amount of preparation and organisation is involved. Plans have to be made, contractors approached, estimates asked for, stocks of suitable stone identified and lorries and bulldozers collected. 1921 Is it conceivable that in any properly conducted Ministry, with all these preparations in train, no one should have thought of asking the permission or even of informing the farmer on whose field all this apparatus was to descend? For it was not the case that the Defence Ministry were in any way out of touch. On the contrary, for months if not for years past their officials had been in negotiation with a number of my constituents for the sale to them of various areas of the depot. The negotiations were complicated, in some cases expensive and, as I shall show, long drawn out. They were also, in a number of separate cases, in an advanced state on the date I have mentioned, 10th January.
The local council, the Bridgnorth Rural District Council, was in negotiation for the sale of the former depot sewage works. The sale would have been long since completed but for the dilatory conduct of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, whose duty it was to fix the price. In the event, the negotiations were abruptly terminated.
My constituent Mrs. Morton, of Newton Hall Farm, was negotiating to buy back 20 acres which had originally formed part of her farm. These negotiations were also terminated. My constituent Messrs. Tom and Brian Colebatch, of Birches Farm, were negotiating for 20 or 30 acres. In their case, also, the negotiations came to an end.
In the case of yet another constituent, the negotiations were terminated by the Chief Surveyor of Defence Lands in a letter dated—I ask the House to note the date—12th January. This was in spite of the fact that, on 4th January, a meeting had been arranged with the district valuer for 17th January in order to finalise the price.
In yet another case, my constituent Mrs. Cains had 230 acres of her farm compulsorily purchased in 1942—and in a way I think that this is the most diseraceful case. The land had been offered back to her and then before the events I have related she was informed that the land would be put up to public auction. Mrs. Cains naturally asked what was being planned for her land, and other cases of the same kind have arisen in regard to the railway by which this depot was served.
1922 A number of my constituents have tried for months, and in some cases for years, to get satisfactory answers from the Minister's Lands Branch in the matter of what land had been sold and at what price. It seemed impossible to make any progress, and it is hard to believe that this Admiralty depot was closed as long ago as 1963. As long ago as July 1965, I was informed that there was no Government requirement for the land and that it would be sold. The conclusion must be that if there had been any elementary efficiency in the Ministry, the land would have been re-transferred to the previous owners, and all this trouble would have been avoided. That is one conclusion to which one must come, and another conclusion is that there must have been no proper "chain" of responsibility in the Ministry. The Minister who has come here tonight—and I want to thank him for coming at such short notice and at such an hour—has already apologised to me and, I think, to one of my constituents. I express the hope that, if he has not done so, he will apologise individually to all of them.
Apart from apologising, the Minister will no doubt be saying shortly that he takes the responsibility for this, but I cannot even then accept that this would be an end to the matter. What has happened here could not have happened if there has been proper organisation at official level. What has happened here could not have happened if every official had been properly informed and had exercised quite elementary judgment. What has happened here could not have happened if the Ministers concerned had been properly informed and had been properly in control of their Departments.
These are three separate charges, and they must be investigated. If the fault was identifiable as that of particular officials, the public should know what has happened to them. If it was simply because of major official bumbledom and muddle, then the public should know what reorganisation has taken place and what new instructions have been issued. If, which I am reluctant to believe, this was a Ministerial decision taken in defiance of official advice, then there are precedents as to the course which the Minister should take. 1923 I do not like the phrase in one official letter signed by an official of the Minister's that "the decision was taken on the authority of Ministers". Clearly, what is neeeded is an inquiry, and if this could be made public—I suggest it should first be in the form of a departmental inquiry —and made together with a statement of the new arrangements made, this could possibly be sufficient. Much more satisfactory would surely be a public inquiry as was held in the Crichel Down case twelve years ago.
I ask the Minister for an undertaking that one or other course will be taken to clear up this disgraceful case.

The Minister of Defence (Administration) (Mr. G. W. Reynolds)
I was approached about five o'clock or thereabouts this afternoon by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) who told me that he was going to raise a case of inconvenience caused to some of his constituents by the disposal of the depot at Ditton Priors. I want to make it quite clear that I accept the responsibility for any inconvenience which has been caused. I have admitted that inconvenience has been caused to some of his constituents because of the sudden requirement—I emphasise that it was a very sudden requirement—to bring this depot back into use for ammunition storage for American forces.
The hon. Member spoke of "a rather ominous phrase" in an official letter to the effect that the matter had been before Ministers. I do not find this ominous. The American requirement, which covered not only the use of Ditton Priors but that of a number of other establishments too. most certainly was before Ministers, and properly so. It covered a number of establishments for a number of different purposes which the Americans put to us at short notice, and Ministers were involved in trying to find a way of providing such facilities as we could to assist the American forces in the difficulties which they experienced at that time.
In answer to a Question by the hon. Member on 1st February, 1967, I apologised for any inconvenience which had been caused to his constituents. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for 1924 the Air Force wrote to him on 25th January apologising for the inconvenience which had been caused to his constituents and to the hon. Member himself in other matters which were dealt with in this letter. By chance—and there is no connection with the Question—I was visiting military units in the area not very far from Ditton Priors on Friday, 3rd February. This matter being in the news because of statements made by the hon. Member to local newspapers and because of the general interest in the matter in the area, I was interviewed by B.B.C. television, West Midlands Regional News, and I took the opportunity once again in the course of that interview publicly to apologise to everybody who had been inconvenienced in any way by the sudden need to stop the disposal proceedings of this depot and to bring it back into use for the American forces.
The hon. Member mentioned Crichel Down. I am sure that he well knows that there is no connection whatever between what happened in Crichel Down and the sudden, necessary decision by the Government to bring negotiations, which had been going on for some time, as I willingly admit, for the disposal of this land back to the former owners concerned, in some cases—not all cases—to a halt. There have been a number of emotive articles in the Press making a comparison with Crichel Down, but if those who wrote the articles would look at the two cases they would quickly find that they have made a serious mistake and that there is no relationship between the two.

§ Mr. More
I do not want to argue the point, but I must make it clear that I can in no way accept what, the hon. Member has said.

§ Mr. Reynolds
Crichel Down was a question of selling a piece of land not to the former owner but to somebody else. In this case negotiations were taking place with the former owners to sell them back their land, as well as some additional areas in several cases. This new Government requirement arose and the sale was terminated before it had been concluded.
I have done as much as I can do in offering my personal apologies and those of my right hon. Friend to those whom 1925 I willingly admit have been inconvenienced because of what happened. The hon. Member mentioned the sudden appearance in a field of vehicles carrying out work, turning it into a vehicle park. That incident was the subject of a personal apology from the area land agent to the farmer on the day following the incident. This was a very urgent and very sudden requirement. We wanted to do our best to meet the request put to us by the American forces to give them this storage space. We had little time to reach a decision. I admit that we slipped in that after the decision had been reached, arrangements were still going on in another branch of the Government—I accept responsibility—for negotiations with one of the former owners concerned to try to fix the price which he should pay for the land which he was entitled to purchase back and for an additional area which we were negotiating to sell to him.
I once again apologise to everyone who has been inconvenienced, but I must point out that a writ has been issued against the Ministry of Defence by one of the former owners concerned. A large part of the argument on this writ depends on dates, some of which the hon. Member has mentioned, and how far certain processes had gone with that former owner by certain dates. In the circumstances it would be most unwise of me to comment on many aspects of what the hon. Member said. The mistakes that have been made, and there were one or two, have only been, in my view, a question of not informing at the appropriate time individuals affected by the decision which had to be made very quickly.
I do not think that there is any case whatever for accepting what the hon. Gentleman has said about making inquiries of any kind in this matter. I would be only too willing to discuss this with him, once the legal action has either 1926 gone through the courts, or been withdrawn in any way. In view of the fact that a writ has been issued, I would not at this stage be prepared to discuss this particular course of action. Once that has been settled, if the hon. Gentleman can find some way of raising it again with me, either in correspondence or on the Floor of the House, I would be pleased to deal in detail with the points that he has in mind.
All that I can do at this stage is to repeat the apologies I have made on behalf of my right hon. Friend and myself on several occasions for the inconvenience which has undoubtedly been caused to a number of individuals. I am sorry that it has happened, but, in the circumstances, most of what happened could not be avoided. So far as an inquiry is concerned——

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman has exhausted his right to speak, but he can ask a question before the Minister sits down.

§ Mr. More
Before the Minister sits down, I would like to ask him to reply to a demand I made that there should be an inquiry, either departmentally or a public inquiry, about the maladministration.

§ Mr. Reynolds
I have inquired into what happened in this case, and as a result of that inquiry I have admitted that there was a very short delay between the actual decision being taken that we could not proceed with the resale of the land, because it was still required for Government purposes, and the informing of the owners. I apologise for the mistake.