HC Deb 04 December 1975 vol 901 cc2019-31

7.47 p.m.

Mr. Ian Stewart (Hitchin)

I beg to move, That the Arbury Banks Preservation Order 1975, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th October, in the last Session of Parliament, be annulled. Arbury Banks is the name of an early Iron Age settlement, consisting of an area of about 15 acres situated on high ground about three-quarters of a mile south-west of the village of Ashwell, in North Hertfordshire. Originally—20 centuries or more ago—the monument was surrounded by an outer ditch and bank. With the effects of agriculture and weather in the intervening period, most traces of the ditch have disappeared. Nevertheless, around most of the perimeter the bank remains, up to a height of 6 ft. at certain points. Settlements of this type are rare in this part of England, and it was scheduled as an ancient monument in 1923.

Most of the monument is situated on Whitby Farm, near Ashwell, with a narrow strip of not more than one acre situated on the west side on the adjacent Farrows Farm. It is the part on the Whitby Farm that is the subject of the preservation order and of this debate. It is in the ownership of Mr. Angell of Ashwell, his sister, Mrs. Mack, from Bedfordshire and other members of the family. Since objections to the draft Order had been made by Mr. Angell and Mrs. Mack, the present order is subject to the Statutory Orders (Special Procedures) Acts of 1945 and 1965 and, accordingly, the owner of the land on which the monument is situated is entitled to petition against the Order. On behalf of her brother and two other members of the family, Mrs. Mack presented a petition of general objection to the Order and at the start of this Session of Parliament I tabled a motion signed by a number of hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Sir N. Fisher). All these colleagues have, or have had, personal or constituency interests in North Hertfordshire or on behalf of the petitioners.

The case of the petitioners will in due course be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses, but in the meantime a special procedure allows for debate on the Floor of the House on a motion to annul the Order.

I shall now endeavour to explain why I have felt that this case is of sufficient importance and general relevance to be treated in this way. I should say first that there has been no exact precedent for such a debate on the Floor of the House since the Statutory Orders (Special Procedures) Act 1965 was passed. I therefore wish to express my gratitude to the Clerks of the Private Bill Office for guiding me through the intricacies of procedure, and also to my Chief Whip for obtaining time for the debate and to the Government Whips for agreeing to it.

The history of this case goes back some five years, and I shall attempt to summarise factually what has happened in order to set my remarks in context. They are based on the report of an inspector who held a public hearing in Hitchin in February of this year. In 1970 it appeared that damage was being done to the bank on the south side of the monument by the uprooting of shrubs and small trees. Soon afterwards, early in 1971, an inspector visited the site and he described the removal of trees and the ploughing which was taking place as a deliberate attempt to remove this section of the bank and finally the whole camp. That suggestion is strongly contested by the petitioners. Probably as a result of this, and no doubt influenced by the terms of the inspector's report, an interim preservation notice was issued and a draft preservation order was proposed in 1972. Objections were made to this, and a public hearing was held. The draft order was found to be technically defective and, as a result, had to be abandoned. In the spring of 1973, Mrs. Mack wrote to the Department of the Environment seeking permission to rotovate the interior of the monument, with a view to autumn sowing. Certain correspondence took place at that time between herself and others of the petitioners and the Department, but the upshot was that in September 1973 an interim preservation notice was issued by the Department and in April 1974 it gave notice of a proposed preservation order. Objections to these were lodged by the present petitioners.

The public hearing was therefore held in Hitchin in February, and a number of points emerged which are relevant to the case. First, only part of the site is subject to the preservation order. A neighbouring farmer ploughs up to the bank with impunity, while the Angells have scrupulously avoided doing anything to damage the monument since its future was put in doubt. They would like to see parity of treatment for themselves with the other owners. The inspector, in his report after the hearing, made a similar point. He said It is not very satisfactory that the Order as dratted covers only part of the site leaving the area of the ditch (and presumably the footing and side of the bank) on the NW/SW quadrant uncovered. It was explained that legal technicalities would prevent the extension of the Order to this part of the site and I must accept this. On the evidence, however, it is the whole monument which merits protection and not just that part of it within the boundary of Whitby Farm. This is an anomaly and is not central to the case, but it is worth mentioning.

The next point concerns the best method of preserving an earthwork monument of this kind. The soil in this part of North Hertfordshire is only 6 in. to 8 in. deep, and rests on a bed of chalk. Various technical opinions have been put forward, and Mr. Sherlock, an inspector of ancient monuments, emphasised at the hearing that continued ploughing, especially by modern methods, even if it avoided the bank, would do irretrievable damage to the interior features. This is accepted by everyone concerned with the case. Mr. Chamberlain, from the Ministry of Agriculture, proposed that the interior of the monument should be put down to grass. That, he said, would be the best means of preserving it. In a telling comment he said This land is beginning to return to natural vegetation and in time the scrub and trees that are beginning to take root…are likely to cause greater damage…than the earlier agricultural operations. This is in sharp contrast with the report of the inspector in 1971, who complained about the removal of trees and bushes. Mr. Angell explained that no trees had been removed, only a few hawthorn bushes which had been undermined by rabbits and the wind, and given the shallowness of the soil it is not surprising that that should have happened.

There is no question in anyone's mind that the petitioners are either incapable or unwilling to preserve the monument as best may be. They have always, in the past, been anxious to protect the site and at no public cost, and they are proud of their association with it. Their attachment and concern for it are grounded in generations of family occupancy of the farm. When the War Agricultural Committee proposed, a number of years ago, to plough out the monument, the petitioners strongly and successfully resisted. Had it not been for that action the monument would not exist even in its present state today. That demonstrates the practical concern of the petitioners for its preservation. In his report the inspector accepted the good will and co-operation of the petitioners in the best interests of the future of the monument.

I now come to the crux of the whole matter, which is that the intentions of the petitioners have always been, so far as I have been able to understand, entirely at one with those of the Department of the Environment. However, an apparent misunderstanding arose and subsequently developed. I believe that the anxieties of the Department were undue in the first place, influenced by the inspector's report in 1971 with its allegation of a deliberate attempt to destroy the monument. The events of 1973 can be seen in the light of the perpetuation of this sort of misunderstanding. The petitioners assert—and all their behaviour bears this out—that they had no intention of damaging the monument. They quite accept that ploughing would do this, and they asked only to rotovate, which would disturb only the top two or three inches of the soil. It is impossible to sow grass on a field of this kind unless those steps have been taken. The petitioners believe that to cover the monument with grass would be the best way to preserve it, but they cannot see how to do it unless they are first allowed to rotovate. They feel that they should follow Mr. Chamberlain's advice on this.

The whole case for this Order is based on the false premise that an application to rotovate with a view to sowing grass was the same as the intention to plough, and this is reflected in a comment contained in the 1974 annual report of the Ancient Monuments Board which said We welcomed and endorsed the use of compulsory powers in the following cases the fourth of which was (4) IRON AGE SETTLEMENT, ARBURY BANKS, ASHWELL, HERTFORDSHIRE. As we noted in our Annual Report for 1973, it was essential for the preservation of this important prehistoric site that ploughing should stop and the land be taken out of arable use. This seems to me clearly to demonstrate how the original misunderstanding has been perpetuated.

It so happens that under the previous Government an Act was passed which was specially designed to deal with such cases. I refer to the Field Monuments Act 1972. As was explained on the Second Reading of that measure and in Committee by my hon. Friends the Members for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) and Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre), who were then Ministers in the Department of the Environment, the object of the Act was to secure protection of earthworks where—to quote from Section 1(1) of the Act— in the opinion of the Secretary of State there is a danger that the monument will be injured in the course of agriculture or forestry". It was clearly explained in the debates then that the methods of modern farming, including, in particular, deep ploughing, were those which the Department most had in mind.

At the public hearing, in February, the petitioners offered to enter into an agreement under the Field Monuments Act. In paragraph 37 of his report the inspector drew the attention of the Secretary of State to this offer. No acknowledgement has been received from the Secretary of State. Is he aware of the offer? Has he considered it? If not, why not? If he has considered it and has decided not to proceed with it, I should like to know his grounds. At the very least, the petitioners might have been notified of his thoughts on the matter.

I hope that I have demonstrated not only that the case for the Order was based on a misunderstanding but that in practice it is unnecessary, and that an alternative procedure, which is available, would be more appropriate. The inspector admitted in his report that there were conflicts of evidence on a number of points. I accept that there was probably a series of personal misunderstandings between the petitioners and officials in the Department. That sort of thing can happen only too easily, but surely it is not too late to put it right.

In summing up the public hearing, the inspector said in his report: there now seems to be general agreement about the value of the monument and the need to safeguard it…There is, therefore, an assurance of co-operation in the best interests of the monument…Nevertheless, the Department has to take a longer view to a future that extends beyond the good intentions and co-operation of the present owners and occupiers. Given the importance of the site and the potential interest of the internal features, I agree that permanent protection is necessary and can be best secured by making the proposed Order. I cannot accept that.

There are two points to be made. First, it is up to Parliament, and therefore to each of us as representatives of our constituents and responsible for their rights and freedoms, to demonstrate that, just because the machinery of government has been set in motion, it is not necessarily bound to grind relentlessly on its way if it can be shown that the starter need never have been pressed. Secondly, the Government have enough on their plate. The Department of the Environment, the members of the Ancient Monuments Board and the whole system of preservation orders are no exception. They should be used sparingly, and only when necessary.

There are more than 100,000 field monuments consisting of earthworks in this country. Some of them may be in North-West Durham, the Minister's constituency. Certainly, there is hardly a rural constituency in the land which does not contain earthworks of this kind. It would be impossible for the Department to place preservation orders on 100,000 monuments, or even on the most important 10,000. Therefore, if this procedure is to be used, it should be used only where it is necessary. The Department cannot and must not use its resources of time and money, which are limited, in cases where they are not needed, not only because such use means an infringement of the rights of private citizens but because it will reduce the resources that the Government can devote to what is essential.

To end on a personal note, I am a member of the Council of the Society of Antiquaries and a member of the Legislation and Government Committee of the Council for British Archaeology and, as such, I hope that it is self-evident that I am concerned as much as any other Member is about the preservation of our national heritage of ancient monuments of all kinds. But there are ways and means of preserving them, and all the evidence suggests to me that in the case of Arbury Banks the right way is not by preservation order.

8.5 p.m.

Mr. Richard Luce (Shoreham)

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mr. Stewart), who presented the case on behalf of the petitioners excellently. My only interest is that I was the parliamentary candidate for the Hitchin constituency. I was my hon. Friend's predecessor, without having his success in being elected for that constituency. Ashwell is part of the constituency, and I came to know the area well.

My hon. Friend has put the case clearly. We have here an example of bumbling bureaucracy. There was no need for the confusion and series of misunderstandings that have been going on over the past three or four years.

I do not wish to enter into an argument about the exact meaning of rotovating and ploughing. Clearly, there is a difference. It seems to me, from what my hon. Friend said, that the Secretary of State has been under the impression that the petitioners intended to plough up the land, whereas all along their intention has been not to enter into any form of arable farming but, as they say, simply to rotovate the first inch or two of the topsoil, preparatory to putting it down to grass. Therefore, they have every intention of preserving the monument, with the full support of the Ancient Monuments Board.

For those reasons, I support the case so excellently presented by my hon. Friend.

8.7 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)

I thank the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Stewart) for the constructive and helpful way in which he has presented the case for the petitioners, and I acknowledge the support he was given by his hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Luce). I believe that the preservation of ancient monuments is a matter about which all hon. Members are concerned and that the debate is really about how best to ensure that that is done.

Before dealing with the petition against the order, I should like to say something about the archaeological background and the working of the ancient monuments legislation. The legislation seeks to protect monuments by scheduling them, which obliges the owner and occupier to give three months' notice to the Secretary of State of intention to do work affecting a monument. In the case of field monuments—earthworks and buried remains—cultivation has been tolerated in many cases by the Department and its predecessor, the Ministry of Works.

There has been a reluctance to interfere with agriculture over the years, while until the last decade or so it was believed that cultivation, such as ploughing to moderate depth, did not do serious damage. It is now known—and we are advised by those who know about these things—that even shallow cultivation is potentially destructive in the long term. It gradually erodes the shape of monuments. It destroys buried ancient structures and, by disordering the sequence of soil layers built up by man's continued use of the ground, removes any opportunity for the archaeologist to study and interpret the history of that particular monument. I am sure that the House will share our concern for the protection and preservation of ancient monuments.

I turn now to the position when the Secretary of State receives notice of intention to do work to a monument. He has no power to give or refuse consent, or to make any conditions. He either lets the three months elapse, after which the giver of the notice can do what he wishes, or he has to invoke the compulsory preservation procedure of the Ancient Monuments Acts. This consists, first, of the serving of an interim preservation notice, which brings any work to the monument under the Secretary of State's control for a period of up to 21 months. This notice must be followed by a preservation order which, once finally made, has permanent effect. If the interim notice expires or is revoked before a preservation order has come into effect, the monument is not protected, and no further preservation action can be taken for five years. There is an exception to this rule, to which I shall come later.

I turn to the case of the Arbury Banks Preservation Order 1975. To enable the House to appreciate it fully I must go back a little further in time than the petitioners have done. Arbury Banks is the site of an early Iron Age settlement, about 15 acres in extent, contained originally within a ditch and earth bank. The ditch is no longer visible on the ground but much of the bank survives. The monument was scheduled in 1923.

The area inside the bank was ploughed for many years by the petitioners' family. This was accepted by the Department until it was noticed in 1970 that trees and scrub—I noted what the hon. Gentleman said about hawthorns and so on, but my information deals with trees and scrub—had been removed from part of the bank by uprooting them. This left the earthworks exposed to erosion and caused the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments to fear that further damage might be imminent. No notice of the work done had been given to the Secretary of State. A letter was sent to Mr. G. Angell drawing attention to the damage and inviting his observations on what had been done. No reply was received despite two reminders.

An inspector of ancient monuments visited the site in January 1971 and was disturbed by what he saw. He asked to talk to Mr. Angell but the latter refused to see him. The inspector was able to inquire, through Miss Angell, about the letters which had been sent by the Department. Mr. Angell admitted receiving them but said that he was not interested. He ordered the inspector to leave.

The situation was referred to the Ancient Monuments Board for England—the Secretary of State's statutory advisers—which reported that the monument, including the interior, was in danger of destruction or damage from injudicious treatment. An interim preservation notice was accordingly served. Attempts by the Department to reach an amicable agreement with the Angell family were met with hostility. A draft preservation order was made by the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker). Objections by Mr. and Miss Angell asserted that the interior of the site grew good crops of barley and that normal farming should be allowed to continue.

A hearing was held and the inspector recommended in favour of the order. However, a minor procedural defect then came to notice within the Department. Proper notice had not been given in the London Gazette, and, although this had not been prejudicial to the objectors, the order was therefore withdrawn.

At the end of March 1973 the Department received from Mrs. Mack, who the Department understood, had become a joint owner of the land, a request for permission to rotovate the site. After some correspondence the Department concluded that a fresh formal notice of intention to cultivate had been given. The Secretary of State's power to protect the monument was thereby renewed and a further interim preservation notice was served in September 1973.

I must unfortunately add that some of the statements in the petition, which we have read carefully, are not in accordance with the facts. In paragraph 3 the petition says that nothing in Mrs. Mack's letter of 25th June 1973 indicated an intention to undertake arable cropping. In fact the letter said: I would like to serve notice of intention to carry out rotovation work in order that the land may be ready in time for autumn sowing. An assurance is given that no encroachment will be made on the banks themselves, nor the soil within the banks disturbed more than is necessary to give a shallow seed bed which is all that is required for corn on this type of land. Equally there is no record in the Department, and no personal recollection, of any statement being made that rotovating would be acceptable, as claimed in paragraph 3 of the petition.

In response to an inquiry by Mr. Angell, representatives of the Department and of the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service met him and Miss Angell on the site in November 1973. In December the Department advised Mr. Angell that neither ploughing nor rotovating was acceptable. Mr. Angell replied asking for the interim presentation notice to be revoked. The Department could not agree to this and proceeded to make a draft preservation order.

A hearing into objections to the order was held in February 1975. Miss Angell asked at the outset that it should be adjourned as Mr. Angell was now prepared to enter into an acknowledgment payments agreement. The timing of this offer is interesting, since more than a year had been available for such an offer to be made. The Department took the view that a voluntary agreement, which runs for only a year at a time, was no substitute for lasting protection of the monument. In view of the limitations upon the Secretary of State's powers under the legislation, I believe that the House will endorse that decision.

The report of the hearing recommended in favour of the order while acknowledging the evident concern of the objectors not to harm the monument. The order was duly made in June 1975, and in the letter notifying Mr. Angell the Department expressed its intention of getting into touch with him and the other owners and occupiers in regard to the future maintenance and management of the monument. Attention was also drawn to the possibility of claiming compensation.

In paragraph 10 of the petition reference is made to a part of the monument in other ownership which is not subject to a preservation order. This land is a strip outside the bank, and the owner has agreed to plough it in such a way that soil is thrown towards the bank, while the bank itself is not eroded. This arrangement was explained to Mr. Angell in letters of May and June 1974 in which he was also told that the Department would be willing, subject to periodic inspection, to allow similar cultivation of the corresponding land covered by the preservation order.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State welcomes the assertions of the petitioners that they are concerned for the well-being of the monument. He cannot agree, however, that a promise by the petitioners to consult him about the future management of it would justify him in revoking the preservation order and leaving the monument without statutory protection.

Mr. Tim Sainsbury (Hove)

One question to be considered is in what form the monument would be best preserved. I think we can take it from the evidence of the Ministry of Agriculture expert that the best form of preservation would be for the inside area to be put down to grass. My hon. Friend the Member for Hitching (Mr. Stewart) suggested that that would require rotovation. If this is a delicate issue, will the Minister consider, when the rotovation has been carried out, the area seeded and a form of permanent vegetation established, whether an agreement under the Field Monuments Act such as the inspector recommended in paragraph 37 of his report is appropriate?

Mr. Armstrong

That is a very fair suggestion, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall consider it. There is no question of trying to lay down rigid regulations and rules. In view of the assurance given by the petitioners of their desire to preserve the ancient monument, we shall consider the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman.

There is no incompatibility between the existence of the order and the reaching of an understanding about the future management of the monument between the Department and the petitioners. There is no question of bumbling bureaucracy. We are anxious to achieve the preservation of ancient monuments. I emphasise that the order does not preclude cultivation or any other work to the monument. All that the order does is to ensure that the owners must have the agreement of the Secretary of State to whatever work they wish to do to the monument, and we are anxious to achieve that aim.

I ask the House not to annul the order and leave the monument at the mercy of persons who, however well-intentioned they might be, are not archaeologists and who hitherto have strongly opposed every attempt by the Department to influence the preservation of the monument.

I am grateful for the way in which the matter has been raised. I share the hon. Gentleman's concern for the preservation of the monument with the reasonable agreement of those especially involved. In the light of what I have said, I ask the House not to annul the order.

Mr. Ian Stewart

Although the Minister has not given me all the encouragement I hoped for, his response to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) was sufficiently encouraging for me to feel it right to withdraw my motion, bearing in mind that the matter stands referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.