§ LIMIT OF DURATION OF PLANNING PERMISSIONS PAST AND FUTURE.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this it would be convenient to discuss Amendment No. 125, in page 45, line 38, leave out 'five' and insert 'ten'.
§ Amendment No. 128, in page 46, line 31, leave out 'two' and insert 'five'.
§ Amendment No. 129, in page 46, line 36, leave out 'five' and insert 'ten'.
§ Amendment No. 130, in page 46, line 38, leave out 'three ' and insert 'five'.
§ Amendment No. 131, in page 47, line 5, leave out 'two' and insert 'five'.
§ Amendment No. 132, in page 47, line 10, leave out 'five' and insert 'ten'.
§ Amendment No. 133, in page 47, line 12, leave out 'three' and insert 'five'.
§ 4.0 a.m.
§ Mr. RossiClauses 54 and 55 place arbitrary time limits on the lives of various planning permissions. The object of this group of Amendments is to extend those time limits.
Under Clause 54 a time limit of five years is put on all existing planning permissions where development has not been started before the publication of the Bill on 20th December, 1967. The same time limit of five years is being put on all future planning permissions, except that local authorities can vary it. The Amendments seek to extend the period of five years to ten years in all cases.
Linked with these proposals are the time limits contained in Clause 55 relating to outline planning permissions. For existing outline planning permission, where a development has not been started before 20th December, 1967, any detailed approval which is required must be sought within two years of the Clause coming into force, and the development must begin either within five years of the Clause coming into force or within three years of detailed approval being finally given to the matters for which permission has been sought. We seek to extend these periods to five years.
During the debate in Standing Committee the Minister gave two reasons why he felt it necessary that a time limit should be placed on the lives of planning permissions. The first reason was administrative convenience. It was found that, with local planning authorities, unused planning permissions were cluttering up the files, and it was desirable that these should be brought to an end if they were not to be used.
770 The second, and perhaps the far more important, reason was that he felt that land might be hoarded by speculators. He felt that by putting time limits on their planning permissions they would be compelled either to carry out their development or sell off the land.
Because we recognise that there is merit in the administrative convenience point, we consider that time limits should remain, but that they should be considerably extended. This is what we seek to do in this group of Amendments.
We do not accept the validity of the Minister's contention in Standing Committee that builders and developers are hoarding land. The experience of the Land Commission, which has been raking round the country trying to find hoarded land, is that it does not exist. This has been a matter of public statement. It has also been a great disappointment to the Land Commission that one of the bases upon which it was created was found to be completely false. Hoarding has not been taking place. It is true that builders have been compiling stocks of land, in the sense that they have to collect together parcels to develop them as a unified whole; but this is something that the Land Commission itself would expect to do.
I seems quite wrong that, by forcing arbitrary time limits of this kind— relatively short time limits—a builder or developer should be required to carry out his development out of time scale. This could easily ruin a comprehensive development of land in any particular case, and hardship could arise. The builder often buys land with an existing planning permission, whether detailed or outline. Under the Government's proposals, it is possible, for reasons beyond his control, that he might find, after having bought that land, that there were difficulties of access or delays in providing services like sewerage and that the time limit had run out. He would then be left with land for which he had paid a price reflecting the betterment levy but which no longer had that value.
It would clearly be unfair to cancel the planning permission when that price had been paid and the Land Commission had collected its 40 per cent. If the builder sold his land, he would do so at a considerable loss, whereas the Land 771 Commission would have got the betterment levy once and possibly twice if someone else applied for a fresh planning permission for a different type of development.
If the Minister's object is to prevent the hoarding of land, the Land Commission is his avowed instrument, charged to seek out land which is being hoarded. I remember great speeches by the Parliamentary Secretary on this subject in debates on the Land Commission Bill—
§ Mr. MacDermotDoes the hon. Gentleman want to keep it?
§ Mr. RossiNo, this is a Government programme, not mine. I am simply asking why, having one instrument which was to do these wonderful things, they now produce another which will create many difficulties for people trying to carry out proper and necessary developments.
§ Mr. MacDermotThe Amendments propose merely to increase the standard time limits in Clauses 54 and 55, which I described in Committee as a "norm" for planning authorities, a guide to the normal period, but there is complete flexibility, and in any case it will be open to them to grant either a longer or a shorter period. That applies not only to the standard limit for a full planning permission but also to the period between grant of outline permission and the submission of the application for full permission.
The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) suggested that our case for this limit was based on administrative convenience. Nothing of the sort. These unused planning permissions are clogging up the planning machine, in the sense that planning authorities are not able to deal as they should with new planning applications because they do not know how many of the old planning permissions are real, subsisting permissions which are ever likely to be exercised, and how many of them were obtained for other purposes to increase land values at the time of the sale. Instances were given of this in Committee. I think it is a problem which particularly applies in coastal areas and in certain other areas of high amenity value.
§ Mr. LubbockIs not one of the consequences of the shortness of this period going to be that people who have not been able to build in five years will immediately apply for planning permission again for another five years and so increase the number of applications with which the local authorities have to deal?
§ Mr. MacDermotI do not know why the hon. Gentleman assumes they. will get planning permission again. They may or they may not, and it depends.
This leads me to the point which the hon. Gentleman was making about the builders. We are, of course, well aware that some builders require at times to stock land for many years ahead. We quite accepted that, and made it perfectly plain that this is the sort of case where we perceive that it will be reasonable for a planning authority to grant a longer period of planning permission, but I do not accept the suggestion that there is no evidence of any land hoarding.
Of course, it all depends on what we mean by "hoarding". I think it is clear that there is not a lot of land with planning permission for development other than in small plots where the owners are not prepared to release that land to builders, but I think there is a considerable amount of land in the hands of builders, both large and small, some of whom have stocks of land far beyond anything which will be needed for just the next, say, five or six years. It does not follow that when land is in the hands of a builder it will necessarily be brought forward for development at the time which is the right time from a planning point of view, and this, again, is one of the reasons why it is wise for planning authorities to impose proper time limits for planning permission. Many have adopted this practice for some considerable time past. What is new now is the universality of this practice.
We accept that there may be arguments for particular cases, be they by builders or be they by private individuals. There may equally be a case where a limit is properly imposed for a certain number of years, but then new circumstances intervene which make it not possible to develop in that time. If 773 they require a renewal of planning permission and it is obvious that they intend to develop, then that is the kind of circumstance in which they would get fresh planning permission. This does not indefinitely affect their position.
They are not going to pay a fresh development levy on renewal of planning permission.
I found the argument based on the powers of purchase of the Land Commission splendid coming from hon. Members opposite when they keep trying to threaten everybody with their intention to abolish the Land Commission even when they may never be in a position to do so. I am quite certain that if the time comes—many years ahead—when they do get into office again, they will find the functions and the usefulness of the Land Commission will have proved themselves to the builders, and will have proved themselves to the planning authorities, above all in this role of seeing that land is brought forward for development at the time and in a way which will be of benefit to the planning authorities and the builders.
§ 4.15 a.m.
§ Mr. Graham PageIn another place and at another time I shall be delighted to debate: the Land Commission with the hon. and learned Gentleman. Perhaps our chance will come on a later Amendment at an even later hour. Meanwhile, we are dealing with the important subject of the limitation of the duration of planning permissions.
The first difficulty is that the Bill imposes an automatic duration; a statutory condition which applies to a planning permission if the local authority does nothing to remove that condition. This means that if the local authority makes no alteration in the five years, there will be no appeal by the applicant to the Minister to ask for that five years to be varied. I understand that only if the local planning authority imposes some other period than the five years will the applicant be entitled to approach the Minister in this matter.
There may be many cases where the five-year period, or any statutory time, is wrong, yet the applicant will have to abide by the local authority's decision, without appeal. One should, therefore, 774 give the longest reasonable period, and we have doubled the five years to 10 in the Amendment, which should normally cover the position.
The second difficulty is the question of bringing stocks of land forward. By limiting planning permission, will this really bring land forward for development? After all, it is only relieving the local planning authority from paying compensation for revoking planning permission. It will be getting that permission statuiorily revoked instead of itself revoking it and paying compensation for so doing. I cannot see the effect that this will have on bringing stocks of land forward.
Suppose a developer is forced to start his building just as the five years is coming to an end. Do we really want partially completed buildings? If not, local planning authorities will be put to the task of serving completion notices all over the place. Not only will they have the burden of extra planning applications, as the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) has pointed out, but they will also have the job of serving thousands of completion notices, since people will start building in an effort to avoid losing their planning permission.
§ Mr. MacDermotI must correct the hon. Gentleman. He suggested that there would be a right of appeal only against a time-limiting condition, if that was something other than the standard period. That is not correct. This condition, like any other condition, can be the subject of an appeal.
§ Mr. PageI am pleased to learn that, but why not write it into the Bill? I am not the only one who has interpreted this in the way I described. Many people experienced in these matters have apparently misinterpreted this. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will look at the wording of the provision to see whether it is necessary to make the position abundantly clear in the Bill.
This is an important change in the law, a change which my hon. Friends do not find acceptable. We see no real reason for it and we believe it to be ill-conceived in thinking that it will either bring forward land for development or save any administration on the part of local planning authorities. Instead, they will be 775 overburdened with the renewal of applications, and where applications are not being renewed but work is being started, we will get the same sort of situation as we had when the Land Commission was coming into operation, with thousands of people digging silly little trenches all over the country merely to say that they have started developments and are proceeding with them. Now, if
§ they do not proceed with them, I assume that the local authorities will have to serve completion notices. The whole system as conceived in these provisions is wrong and we cannot accept it.
§ Question put, That the Amendment be made: —
§ The House divided: Ayes 29, Noes 121.
775| Division No. 162.] | AYES | [4.19 a.m. |
| Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash) | Higgins, Terence L. | Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby) |
| Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead) | Hordern, Peter | Silvester, Frederick |
| Baker, Kenneth (Acton) | Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford) | Smith, John (London & W'minster) |
| Bruce-Gardyne, J. | Lubbock, Eric | Temple, John M. |
| Clegg, Walter | Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh) | Winstanley, Dr M. P. |
| d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry | Murton, Oscar | |
| du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward | Page, Graham (Crosby) | |
| Eden, Sir John | Peyton, John | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Fletcher-Cooke, Charles | Pink, B. Bonner | Mr. Reginald Eyre and |
| Goodhew, Victor | Quennell, Miss J. M. | Mr. Bernard Weatherill. |
| Grant, Anthony | Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey | |
| Hall, John (Wycombe) | Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey) |
| NOES | ||
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale) | Moyle, Roland |
| Archer, Peter | Forrester, John | Murray, Albert |
| Armstrong, Ernest | Freeson, Reginald | Newens, Stan |
| Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham) | Garrett, W. E. | Ogden, Eric |
| Bagier, Gordon A. T. | Gourlay, Harry | O'Malley, Brian |
| Beaney, Alan | Gregory, Arnold | Orbach, Maurice |
| Bence, Cyril | Grey, Charles (Durham) | Orme, Stanley |
| Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood | Griffiths, David (Rother Valley) | Oswald, Thomas |
| Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton) | Griffiths, Will (Exchange) | Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn) |
| Blackburn, F. | Hamling, William | Page, Derek (King's Lynn) |
| Blenkinsop, Arthur | Hannan, William | Palmer, Arthur |
| Booth, Albert | Harper, Joseph | Parkyn, Brlan (Bedford) |
| Bray, Dr. Jeremy | Harrison, Walter (Wakefield) | Pavitt, Laurencee |
| Broughton, Dr. A. D. D. | Haseldine, Norman | Pentland, Norman |
| Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper) | Hazell, Bert | Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.) |
| Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan) | Heffer, Eric S. | Reynolds, G. W. |
| Brown,Bob(N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,W.) | Horner, John | Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.) |
| Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & F'bury) | Hoy, James | Rose, Paul |
| Buchan, Norman | Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.) | Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.) |
| Chapman, Donald | Hunter, Adam | Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford) |
| Coe, Denis | Janner, Sir Barnett | Silverman, Julius (Aston) |
| Coleman, Donald | Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.) | Skeffington, Arthur |
| Dalyell, Tam | Leadbitter, Ted | Slater, Joseph |
| Small, William | ||
| Davidson, Arthur (Accrington) | Lee, John (Reading) | Spriggs, Leslie |
| Davies, Harold (Leek) | Lever, Harold (Cheetham) | Taverne, Dick |
| Dempsey, James | Lewis, Ron (Carlise) | Tinn, James |
| Dewar, Donald | McBride, Neil | Urwin, T. W. |
| Diamond, Rt. Hn. John | MacColl, James | Varley, Eric G. |
| Dickerrs,, James | MacDermot, Niall | Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley) |
| Doig, Peter | Macdonald, A. H. | Walden, Brian (All Saints) |
| Dunnett, Jack | McGuire Michael | Walker, Harold (Doncaster) |
| Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter) | Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglon) | Wallace, George |
| Dunwoody, Dr, John (F'th & C'b'e) | Mackintosh, John P. | Wellbeloved, James |
| Eadie, Alex | MacPherson Malcoim | Whitaker, Ben |
| Edwards, William (Merioneth) | Mallalieu, e. L. (Brigg) | Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin) |
| Ellis, John | Marks, Kenneth | Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A. |
| English, Michael | Marquand, David | Woof, Robert |
| Ennals, David | Mendeison, J. J. | |
| Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley) | Millan, Bruce | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston) | Miller, Dr. M. S. | Mr. J. D. Concannon, and |
| Fletcher, Ted (Darlington) | Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire) | Mr. Alan Fitch. |