DECISION ON APPLICATION UNDER TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING ACT, 1962 (Hansard, 20 January 1970)

§ Mr. Ridley

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

The Clause puts a limit on the time which the Minister shall take to reach his decision on an application for industrial development certificates. There is a genuine grievance in this connection.

411 There has been a series of delays in the administration of regional policy, both industrial development certificate grantings and grants of all sorts for aiding regional development.

There was a damaging report in the Financial Times of 27th November dealing with a firm which wished to move to Cornwall and which was baulked by the excessive amount of time taken by the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Technology. I quote: It kept asking for further information from us. Ten days ago it became clear this could go on no further. As a result of the prevarication and the endless questioning of the Ministry, 800 jobs have been lost to Cornwall.

Doubtless there are two sides to cases such as that, but the six months over which the haggling apparently went on was far too long a period. Business is in no position to be able to wait while officials get round to making up their minds on these matters. If officials are overworked, that in a way is a healthy sign, because it means that there are plenty of applications for I.D.C.s and grants. Parliament should have the right to require that the administration of regional policy has some sort of time limit. This would greatly help the distribution of industry, because as much as the fear of being refused an I.D.C. businessmen fear the delay before they know what the answer will be.

All the surveys and investigations which have been made into this subject show that there is very marked reluctance on the part of businessmen to apply for industrial development certificates, and though the causes are manifold one of them certainly is the delay and frustration involved in these applications, because they very much fear it. So I hope that we can hear something from the Minister of State as to the speeding up of giving grants and of telling firms what their grants will be. Also I hope that he will accept that there should be some speeding up in the granting of industrial development certificates.

It may be that the period I have suggested, three months, is not entirely appropriate, but it seemed to me to be plenty long enough for the Ministry of Technology to make up its mind whether an application should be allowed or not. Of course there are facts to be found out 412 and investigations to be made, but, nevertheless, it would be a help to the whole of this policy, and certainly it would be a very great help to business, if the administration of the scheme could be greatly speeded up. The reports we have from business all point in this direction.

I hope that the new Clause will prove acceptable to the Government, because I think it would improve our procedures if the Ministry were to have the discipline of a time limit on its own deliberations. I hope the Government will respond favourably to this Clause and to the suggestion that the grants be speeded up.

§ Mr. Varley

Perhaps I may refer immediately to the Press report which the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) mentioned concerning a firm in Cornwall. I think I can identify the firm because I was involved, in part, in that case. For normal commercial reasons and our practice, I cannot go into the details, but I can tell him that in that case it was not a question of an industrial development certificate; it was a question of assistance under the Local Employment Acts.

The Ministry of Technology recognises, as formerly did the Board of Trade, the need to give quick decisions on applications for industrial development certificates. In development areas, the proposed intermediate areas and elsewhere where the control is operated liberally, applications are normally decided within a week or two. Even in congested areas where control is rigorously applied—and the House understands the reason for this rigorous application—and all the applications are looked at critically, the great majority of cases are determined well within three months of the date of application. In a few cases where large and complex applications are involved decisions may not be given within three months. This may happen, for example, where detailed discussions with the applicant company are needed, perhaps about a number of related projects, or where, as a result of discussions, the company agrees to submit revised proposals. I would emphasise, however, that the number of applications which are not settled within three months is very small indeed.

I have the greatest sympathy with the view that delays in determining industrial 413 development certificate applications must be minimised, and the Department will do all it can to achieve this, but I do not believe that the time limit as proposed would make a useful contribution to this objective. It would always be possible to refuse within a three-month period all those applications which did not appear to be consistent with the proper distribution of industry, but this proposal in the new clause would be completely rigid, and I believe that the imposition of a time limit leads to that kind of rigidity. I am sure that rigidity would occur if the new Clause were accepted.