HC Deb 10 March 1971 vol 813 cc472-86
Mr. Bob Brown

I beg to move Amendment No. 8, in page 14, line 11, leave out 'six' and insert 'eight'.

Mr. Speaker

With this Amendment it will be convenient to take Government Amendments Nos. 9 and 10, Amendment No. 73, in Schedule 1, page 69, line 31, leave out 'six' and insert 'eight', Government Amendments Nos. 74, 75 and 76, Amendment No. 77, in page 69, line 42, leave out 'six' and insert 'eight', and Government Amendments Nos. 78, 79, 80, 81, 85, 86 and 87.

Mr. Brown

I do not propose to take much time over this matter, because the substance of the Amendment has already been argued ad nauseam on Second Reading and in Committee.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) has already paid tribute to the Minister and his Department for having been most generous in readily amending the Bill in line with objections which we made on Second Reading and in Committee. It therefore astounds me that the Minister did not see fit to table the Amendment standing in the name of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself. Clearly this is a most reasonable Amendment. The facts have been widely argued. I am quite shocked that the Minister has not read in depth the speeches made on Second Reading and in Committee. Otherwise, there would be no need for me to move the Amendment.

The point has already been made that chartered surveyors and others who would represent people are worried about the reduction in the objection period from 13 to six weeks. My right hon. Friend made the point in Committee that 13 weeks reduced to six weeks for objection might not be too bad at normal times of the year. But July-August is a heavy holiday period, as are Christmas and New Year, so this reduction to six weeks is not reasonable. As people might be on holiday for two or three weeks of the six weeks' objection period, the Minister should readily appreciate that this reduction is cutting down the period to possibly a fortnight or three weeks. This is not good enough. It might be all right for the bigger organisations—the National Trust, the C.P.R.E., and others—which are well represented and have adequate staff. There would be no hardship involved for them.

The Minister must already have experience, when a public inquiry is about to take place, of local solicitors, representing many of the objectors, asking for an adjournment as they would be busy at the assizes for possibly two or three weeks. This was certainly the case when I occupied the Under-Secretary's position in the old Ministry of Transport. We often had to adjourn a public inquiry because of such a plea from local solicitors. I suggest that matters will get much worse with this reduction to six weeks for the objection period.

I cannot understand why the Minister—usually a most reasonable individual—is adopting this dogmatic attitude. It is not a party point; it is a principle point. It is a case of the individual's rights as against the right of the State. Hon. Members opposite have made pleas on behalf of the individual so many times in this House, on election platforms throughout the country last June, and on many other occasions. I am sure that hon. Gentlemen opposite did, because I did. However, I meant what I said. I did not mouth platitudes about the rights of the individual as I am now moved to accuse even the most moderate and generous Minister of doing.

I was not happy when my right hon. Friend said that he was prepared to accept a period of eight weeks. I thought that ten weeks was as short a period as was needed, but I accepted the argument that eight was reasonable.

6.0 p.m.

The Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary gave the game away on Second Reading and in Committee by pointing out that this reduction would mean nothing to major schemes, since no major scheme would go through with only that objection period. So this leaves the point which I made in Committee—a case for John Citizen, rather than the major firm or organisation or preservation society, the little man who has to rely on reading some statutory notice in the local press, couched in legal jargon which he seldom understands.

The local press will give the big scheme a good spread and make people aware how their property will be affected, but with a small scheme, a small man, unless he is an assidious reader of the local press, will not see the notice. He may hear of it two or three weeks later in the pub, or his wife may hear of it at the W.I. meeting at the end of the month, but by then it is much too late for him to prepare his alternative.

All such a man has at stake is his house or his little shop. He will have to find a professional colleague to draw up alternative plans. This is not very easy for John Citizen. It would be eminently reasonable of the Minister if he accepted the Amendment, even at this late stage. We are not asking much—only the addition of a fortnight for individuals to be briefed, to present their brief and, if necessary to be represented. I hope that, after further consideration of what has been said, the Minister will accept the Amendment.

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim (Gloucester)

I am grateful for this opportunity to oppose the Amendment. I am very loath, in a debate which has been notable for its accord, to introduce even a muted note of discord, but I would draw attention to a point which has not been raised either on Second Reading or in Committee, in favour of doing everything possible and reasonable to speed up the processes of new highway construction where this may be urgently necessary. I have a great deal of sympathy with the purpose of the Amendment and with the view that the rights of individuals and amenity societies to raise objections should be protected, but there is another serious consideration.

Where existing roads are totally inadequate and inappropriate to the load and type of traffic which they are forced to carry, any undue or avoidable delay in the starting date of construction of an urgently needed highway can result in a number of deaths and injuries, which I am sure all hon. Members would agree is a very high price to pay for any extended period for objections.

If some hon. Members think that I am exaggerating, I can give an example from personal experience. I travel about 100 times a year to and from my constituency on that section of the A40 over which there was a major row with regard to the proposed construction of the M40 motorway on the Chiltern Escarpment. Although I dearly love beauty, I love life even more. On that short stretch of road, only a few miles long, between May, 1969 and December, 1970, since the public inquiry into the scheme, no fewer than 88 accidents have taken place, including seven fatalities, 30 serious in- juries and 51 slight injuries. Some of these I actually witnessed, and I passed the remains of others on my journey—a circumstance which hardly enabled me or any other motorist to enjoy the beauty of the scenery which the objectors were so anxious to preserve.

It is all very well to give individuals, amenity societies and other groups a generous amount of time in which to make their case, but a main arterial road which is suffering from arterial sclerosis can kill a motorist just as surely—

Mr. Bob Brown

I am grateful to the hon. Lady because she is supporting my case. The reduction in the period would have made no difference to the type of case which she quoted, the M40. The reduction from 13 weeks to six weeks would not have saved one life or prevented one accident. I take second place to no hon. Member on the question of road safety.

Mrs. Oppenheim

I accept the hon. Member's sincerity in this matter, but there was 20 months' delay, during which these accidents took place. It is as yet hypothetical whether this amount of delay will occur after the Bill becomes law.

As the Minister said in Committee, in the context of Clause 14, six weeks is a minimum period. In this period—an assizes might be sitting, as the hon. Member said—objection need only he raised. The whole case does not have to be put or argued in that period. Under Amendment No. 10, the Secretary of State and the local highway authorities would be empowered to extend the period if necessary, thus affording considerable flexibility, without the need of Amendment No. 8.

This will result in a fair balance between the need to give property owners and other bodies adequate opportunity to ventilate their case and the need to speed up the processes and procedures for the construction of urgently-needed new roads. Any measure which helps to bring this about has my wholehearted support. It is on these grounds that I oppose Amendment No. 8.

Mr. Graham Page

These Amendments deal with a matter which was fully discussed in Committee, the period allowed for objections when the Secretary of State publishes an order relating to the line of a road. However, in that full discussion, we perhaps missed the point which my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim) has now put to the House. It is a point which we should not miss—that the purpose of better roads is twofold. The first purpose is communication, to get the traffic more conveniently from one place to another, but the second, surely, is to provide safe roads and avoid the accidents which we suffer on old and winding roads which are overloaded with both the private motor car and commercial traffic. When one studies the accident records of some older roads one realises how necessary it is to speed up the construction of new roads.

It is the accident statistics by which we justify the construction of new roads. Hon. Gentlemen opposite who have held office will know that the first thing put in front of a Minister when a new road is considered is the accident statistics on the road as it is, or on the road which the new one will supplant, to show that a new road is necessary, not only from the traffic but from the safety point of view. It is important, therefore, that we consider this aspect as part of the preliminaries to building a new road.

It sometimes shocks people outside the Ministry when I say that it takes perhaps six, seven or eight years between thinking that a new road should be built and actually getting the traffic flowing on it. All that time, if that new road is justified by traffic and safety conditions, we are suffering a greater accident record on the old road.

Mr. Bob Brown

If it takes between six and eight years to get a major road proposal from the thought to the operational stage, how can the hon. Gentleman justify shortening the objection period from 13 to six weeks? Does he consider that it is worth penalising people by withdrawing their rights in this matter, thereby saving a paltry seven weeks in a process that may take anything from six to eight years?

Mr. Page

Every day is important in the preparations for the construction of a new road, and whenever we can cut delay we should do so—that is, if it is not injuring the public. I do not believe that it will injure the public to make this period flexible.

The present period for objections is fixed at three months. This could be too short in some cases but obviously too long in others. We are trying to make a flexible period, with a minimum of six weeks. It may be that in some cases the period set will be longer than the present fixed period of three months, but where there are only a few objections—where the road is acceptable to the general public, the residents of the area and the owners of the property—then we want the shortest possible barrier to ensure that we get on with the planning, designing and construction of the road.

The first Amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) would alter the minimum period for receiving objections from the six weeks mentioned in the Bill to eight weeks. The argument for the Government's variable objection period, as opposed to the present three months' fixed period, is that our new system would give flexibility. I wish to give the maximum possible reasonable amount of flexibility.

I appreciate that there is not much difference between six and eight weeks, but we know of the period of six weeks from other similar cases in which the public is given an opportunity to object to some proposition from the Government. For example, there is six weeks in planning and housing legislation. This period is also accepted in the Roads (Scotland) Act, 1970. If we were to accept eight weeks for an English Measure, there would be an anomaly, not that I necessarily always follow Scottish precedents.

Where there are likely to be many objections the longer period will be specified. In many cases much longer than eight weeks will be required and, in some, longer than three months will be necessary. With a major scheme where there are bound to be many objections, a long period would obviously be chosen.

I draw attention to the Government Amendments which are being discussed as part of this group. These are an effort to meet the argument that we should give sufficient objection time. I would have thought that Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 standing in the name of the Government would satisfy hon. Gentlemen opposite who have argued from this point of view. Amendment No. 9 would enable the Secretary of State or local highway authority, when publishing a scheme or order showing the line of a road, to give whatever additional publicity is in their opinion desirable, over and above the statutory requirement.

6.15 p.m.

One of the main points made by the critics of the shorter objection period provided in the Bill is that people affected by a road proposal might not hear about it until it was too late to make an objection. Late objections are, of course, always considered, but the Department is, in any event, as I said on Second Reading and in Committee, introducing wider publicity arrangements, including the individual notification by circular of all occupants of properties likely to be directly affected by a scheme. Since we have decided to do that, I want to write it partially into the Bill.

Mr. Mulley

Is the Minister indicating that he intends at a later stage to write that into the Bill as an obligation, or is it to be just an administrative intention, though I would welcome even the latter?

Mr. Page

I am deliberately not writing it into the Bill because it might, if one put it in such a form, eventually cause serious delay because if, for some reason, we missed out an unknown occupant, that might invalidate the whole scheme and we would have to go back to square one. I want, therefore, to leave it flexible and merely to write in the wish that there should be such wider publicity as the Secretary of State or local highway authority considers desirable. We will give guidance as to what that publicity should be.

Mr. Bob Brown

We were under the impression from what the Minister said on Second Reading and in Committee that this would be more or less obligatory on either the Department or the local authority. I am not suggesting that the Department would not deal fairly and squarely with those concerned. The hon. Gentleman must appreciate, however, that we are dealing with county borough councils, borough councils and various local authorities throughout the country. Many of their engineers are testy at the idea of anybody even suggesting that their schemes may not be quite right. Many local authorities will certainly not bend over backwards to go through the motions which the hon. Gentleman is suggesting they should follow.

Mr. Page

I appreciate that. I am aware that there are many occasions when the officers of local authorities who have studied and worked on a scheme for perhaps a period of years feel that the scheme has become their baby. They believe in it and may be rather impatient of criticism. I am eager not to place a statutory obligation on anybody to engage in any form of publicity or to serve any particular notice on any specified people, because it is so easy to slip up through lack of knowledge of everybody concerned and perhaps not to serve one person, thereby delaying the whole proceedings.

I am sure that the Secretary of State and local highway authorities can be relied upon to give the greatest publicity possible. This procedure is normally carried out by the Ministry's Road Construction Unit and then, on behalf of the Road Construction Unit, by the county authority acting as sub-unit. So at Whitehall, in the Road Construction Unit in the region, and when the local authority is carrying this task out as agent for the Road Construction Unit, we shall all be concerned to see what is the right publicity for the scheme. I hope that hon. Members will feel that in some way we have satisfied the desire that we shall to ensure that everybody knows about these schemes at the earliest possible stage.

The effect of Amendment No. 10 with all the Amendments to Schedule 1, which is the machinery for carrying out what is secured in Amendment No. 10, is to allow the Secretary of State or a local highway authority at any time to extend the objection period for a scheme or for an Order relating to a new road. The Amendments to the Schedule have the effect of introducing considerable flexibility into the objection procedure and are intended to meet as much of the criticism which was made in Committee by the Opposition and by my hon. Friend for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) as we are able to meet. My hon. Friend strongly argued that we should give as long a period for objection as might be appropriate if a major scheme was in hand.

Amendment No. 10 would amend the Clause so as to pave the way for the consequential Amendments in Schedule 1 and, taken together, these Amendments would permit the Secretary of State or the local highway authority to extend the local objection period whether or not the original statutory period has already expired. If a period of two months were set originally in the notice, the period could be extended if many objections were received. It could either be extended by another two, three or four months, as the case may be, during that period of two months or, even if the first two months had expired, it could still be extended.

I am sure that this will meet the case where at the outset we may have misjudged the kind of objection there is to a particular line of road. It meets the case where the engineer is convinced that he has the right line of road, will not listen to any argument, and perhaps persuades the Minister that there will be no objections, that everybody wants that line for the road and that it is a proper line. When we publish it, several hundred objections may come in. So we can think again and extend the period. It enables us to think again as the public become aware of the line.

Therefore, first, by Amendment No. 9 we intend to increase the publicity and try to ensure that everybody concerned knows. Then, by Amendment No. 10, if we increase the publicity and it has produced a large number of objections we can think again about the period for objections and, if necessary, extend the period. I hope that this will be acceptable to the Opposition. We have gone as far as we can. We appreciate the arguments which were advanced on both sides in Committee and hope that Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 which are associated Amendments to the Schedule will be accepted.

Mr. Mulley

I make no apology for pressing the Minister further. We debated this question at some length in Committee but as you, Mr. Speaker, will have observed in considering your selection, the outcome of the debate in Committee was a tie and the Minister was saved only by the vote of the Chair.

Behind this rather simple Amendment there is a matter of some substance and principle. Indeed, the Minister has recognised this, because he has gone much further now and seeks, by Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 and the associated Amendments to Schedule 1, to make, as far as is reasonably possible, provision for the greatest possible publicity of schemes which will affect the ordinary Citizen.

Our concern has been that someone who might be adversely affected by a proposal for a new road would not know about it in the period allowed. With respect to the hon. Lady the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim), this point is not in any way related to schemes like the M40.

Incidentally, I am very disappointed about a matter arising from that scheme. I encountered a certain amount of odium through having taken an early decision. I now learn that only recently the new Minister was still receiving objections and deputations about it, as though he has allowed the question to be reopened.

Mr. Graham Page

No, I have not allowed it to be reopened. I have wholeheartedly supported the right hon. Gentleman. However, I have not been obstinate and have received deputations and tried to explain how very good the right hon. Gentleman's decision was in this case.

Mr. Mulley

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I heard of the robust and very proper line that he had taken, but I was disturbed to learn that deputations were still coming, because I agree with the hon. Lady the Member for Gloucester about the urgency of getting on with the work.

However, it is likely that people who will be affected by smaller schemes will not know about them, despite all the extra steps that the Minister and his officials will take. It is true that if he sends a circular to everyone who will be affected by a scheme this will go a long way to meeting the case, but there is no statutory requirement for this. As Members of Parliament representing our constituents we can only concern ourselves with the legal rights of the citizen against the legal rights of the Executive.

As I said throughout the Committee proceedings although I have no doubt that the Department will continue to behave most responsibly and considerately in its dealings with the public, on every issue the whole legal weight in the Bill is behind the Secretary of State, who can do no wrong. Of course, the proper function of officials in drafting legislation is to ensure that, if any difficulties arise, they have a cast iron case and their Secretary of State cannot be called to account for anything. At every point the rights of the citizen are non-existent.

Whether six weeks is a sufficient period depends on the time of year. Six weeks is much less sufficient if a scheme is published on the first day of August than it might be if a scheme were published today. In August people affected might well be away on holiday; they miss their local papers then, even if when they are at home they read it through diligently from front page to back page. There are not many people in my constituency who are regular readers of the London Gazette. I myself do not read that publication often. The legal obligation always is to publish these matters in the London Gazette, but we do not read it.

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim

How many of the right hon. Gentleman's constituents take six weeks holiday?

Mr. Mulley

I am not concerned about my own constituents, because we have very good daily newspapers and I am certain that they would be aware of any scheme which might affect them. I do not think that a place like Sheffield would try to get away with a minimum of six weeks. It is not a problem of their being away for six weeks. The problem is when they become aware of the fact that a road is to be built. They might not be away at all, but they are not necessarily familiar with highways legislation and they may not include reports of our proceedings in the House and in Committee in their everyday reading, or in their public discussions in public houses in the countryside.

6.30 p.m.

The first thing they have to do is to find out what their rights are. The local solicitor may be away, and when he comes back the surveyor may just have gone away, and it is then extremely diffi- cult for local people to get the kind of advice they need. Money is involved if there is to be a public inquiry, and the objectors may want to get together a group, and that may be difficult in August or September. That is why six weeks as a minimum is too short. I am astounded by my own moderation in suggesting only eight weeks, because the present legal position is a minimum of 13.

I fully accept the need for speed and flexibility, which is why it is proposed to have a reduction to six weeks, and I accept that in any scheme where there is controversy, the period will be much longer in practice. But the Minister destroyed what case he had when he said that the provision for six weeks did not mean that the Minister would not consider late objections, for the ordinary county solicitor, having got a copy of the Act from the Stationery Office—and that will take him a fortnight—will read that the minimum period is six weeks, and he will tell his clients that, according to the Act, no objections may be made, as the notice was received more than six weeks previously. The objectors in such a case will not know of the Minister's magnanimous attitude and will not know that he explaned that he would always consider late objections.

That is why I do not understand his attitude and that is why I still ask him to reconsider. I excuse his doctrinal prejudice about the functions of a local authority, the other blemish in the Bill, but I do not understand his attitude in this connection, and I have to put it down to bureaucratic obstinacy, because the real reason for this provision is that some planning legislation provides for a minimum of six weeks and, if you please, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so does a Scottish Roads Bill. What has that to do with it? Have we no rights in England and Wales? If it is in a Scottish Roads Bill, do we have to have it in an English Bill? With respect to my Scottish friends, six weeks may be enough in Scotland, because they are quick off the mark with their objections, and perhaps in England and Wales we have been too easy-going with the Executive, which has got away with things with which it ought not to have got away. But this is the real reason—bureaucratic tidiness.

The planning legislation which the Minister mentioned concerns housing appeals. In that instance, there is no question of people not knowing, because if their land is to be taken over compulsorily, they have to be served with a notice, and so there is no question of their missing a notice in the local newspaper, or of the man delivering the circulars forgetting to put one in their house. Many of the people who will object to road proposals are not local residents, but are people who visit the area at holidays and weekends to enjoy the amenities. It may be that the Minister feels that if some of these people do not know about the proposals, he can be less worried, but that is not a proper attitude.

Cutting the period from 13 to eight weeks would be a considerable step towards getting more speed. I greatly regret that the hon. Lady the Member for Gloucester was not a member of our Committee, for I am sure that she would have supported a new Clause of mine which the Minister turned down a little sharply. It proposed, as there was an enormous desire for speed, that the Secretary of State should be under an obligation to determine all objections and take decisions after public inquiries and try to wind up the whole matter within a year. If six weeks were allowed for objections, why should the Secretary of State not be under similar pressure? However, there was no question of the Secretary of State being tied to considerations of time.

The appeal which I put to the House is that the citizen has problems—he may be away on holiday, or it may be inconvenient, or it may be necessary to have discussions with others and investigations—which are similar to the considerations which the Secretary of State has to bear in mind, and I accept the Minister's objections to my proposition. I ask him to reconsider. We are glad that he has gone some way to increase the amount of publicity and I accept that administratively he has gone even further, and for that we are grateful, but I still think that the minimum period should be slightly longer than six weeks.

I do not believe that there will be one instance when two weeks will be crucial. I know that there are problems, but if the Minister were to allow an extra two weeks for objections, the time could be made up by administrative arrangements within the Department. I should not have thought that the sense of grievance of a number of people about the cutting from 13 to six weeks made the proposal worth while. I do not believe that there will be one case a year when it is essential for a decision to be made within six weeks from notice being given. If there ever is such a case, I hope that the Minister will make a statement at the end of Questions, for it will be a matter of history.

Amendment negatived.

Amendments made: No. 9, in page 14, line 12, at end insert: () If, on or after publishing such a notice as is referred to in subsection (1) above in connection with the making or confirmation of an order or scheme, it appears to the Secretary of State or a local highway authority desirable to do so, he or they shall take such steps, in addition to those required by the said Schedule 1 to be taken, as will in his or their opinion secure that additional publicity is given in the area affected by the order or scheme to the proposals contained in it.

No. 10, in page 15, line 27, after 'being', insert: 'amendments designed to empower the Secretary of State or a local highway authority to extend the period within which the draft of an order or scheme, or an order or scheme, to which that Schedule applies may be inspected and within which persons may object to the making or confirmation of the order or scheme and'.—[Mr. Graham Page.]

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