DISPOSAL NOTIFICATION AREAS (Hansard, 11 November 1975)

§ Mr. John Silkin
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With that we may also take Lords Amendments Nos. 134, 135 and 136.

§ Mr. Silkin
I congratulate you on your energy at this hour of the morning, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
These amendments would enable the Secretary of State to revoke all or part of a disposal notification area declared by an authority at any time rather than within the time limits at present specified—that is, 28 days from receiving the copy resolution from the authority, or longer if it requires more time.
There may be instances—for example, where a new or revised local plan is drawn up—where there is a change in the planning strategy for the area such that the land concerned is no longer allocated for relevant development. In this situation there may be a case for terminating all or part of a DNA which was justified against the earlier planning background.
As the Bill is drafted, there is provision in paragraph 4 of Schedule 8 for the authority itself to terminate a DNA, but none whereby the Secretary of State can initiate such action once the initial right of "veto" has expired. It seems desirable that there should be control over this situation, and the purpose of the amendments is to enable the Secretary of State to have a continuing power of revocation instead of just the initial power, which is all that is provided at present.
The amendments achieve this aim by removing those provisions in paragraph 2 of the schedule which relate the Secretary of State's functions—his right of "veto"—to the initial declaration of a DNA. The effect of these changes is to 1452 allow the Secretary of State to require all or part of a DNA to be terminated at any time.

§ Mr. Graham Page
I wish to raise two matters. First, will the Secretary of State have power to revoke a disposal notification area without consulting the local authority? Judging by the way in which the Minister introduced this matter it looks as though there is a complete right of veto given to the Secretary of State to revoke a DNA at any time without telling the local authority or consulting anybody. It seems rather high-handed of the Secretary of State to take such an attitude.
Although I am not in the least in favour of DNA resolutions, I at least wish to point out that if the Secretary of State wishes to override the resolution of a local authority, we should be certain that he consults the local authority in question before he takes that step.
Secondly, when a local authority has passed a resolution, will it be registered as a local land charge, and is there any obligation on the Secretary of State to remove that charge? I believe that it is important that he should do so. The DNA registered as a LLC—or, in simpler language, the disposal notification area registered as a local land charge—will be an encumbrance on the property. When the owner comes to sell, the purchaser will make his local search and, if the property is within a DNA, that will reduce the value of the property. If that property is removed by the Secretary of State, It should be removed as quickly as possible from the local land charge registry. I am not sure whether a local authority when it revokes a DNA has to remove the matter from the registry. If that is not the case, I hope that the Secretary of State will see that that procedure is followed.

§ Mr. Silkin
I have to admit to the right hon. Gentleman that there is no obligation on the part of the Secretary of State to consult. In practice I can give him the assurance that the Secretary of State would do so. With regard to the question of the local land charge, I agree that it is an important obligation that the entry should be removed. There is an obligation under the local land charges rules to do this.

§ Mr. Silkin
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment, as amended.
I move this motion on the strict understanding that our old friend, Lords Amendment No. 127 is also a paving amendment for Lords Amendment 140. I very much regret that, but I gather that the reason for this grouping was that it seemed better to have separate debates on these two different amendments rather than to have the same paving amendment leading in. Perhaps, after all, it did work out on the first debate.
1454 The amendment excludes from the requirement to notify the disposal of a private dwelling-house which is the owner's only or main residence on a plot of up to one acre or such larger area as the authority may decide as reasonable having regard to the size and character of the house. The amendment is acceptable, including the paving amendment, in so far as the exclusion from the requirement to notify disposal of a house relates to a house on a plot of up to one acre. What is not acceptable is the added qualification dealing with such larger area as may in any case be required for the reasonable enjoyment of the house as a residence. I hope to explain why. It will take me a little time and I hope that hon. Members will bear with me.
As I have explained, one aim of disposal notification areas—there are others—is to enable an authority to endeavour to buy land at an early stage once it has made its development areas, so that the cost is not increased by the build-up of high base values for development land tax purposes. It makes no difference to the vendor but it makes a great deal of difference to the local authority because the lower the base value the cheaper the authority gets the land, since it gets it net of tax. For the vendor it is exactly the same.
At the same time a declaration of a disposal notification area can be helpful to owners of land in an area where an authority is proposing to acquire because it provides them with the opportunity, if the land is blighted and if they qualify on the basis we have talked about—within the terms of Sections 192 of the 1971 Act—to acquire the authority to purchase. If an owner does this the amount that he gets is protected, as in other blight situations, by Section 9 of the Land Compensation Act 1961, which provides that the compensation in circumstances of this kind is not to be reduced by the fact that values on the open market may be affected by the threat of compulsory purchase.
Now that substantial progress has been made with the drafting of the Development Land Tax Bill. it is clear that it is unlikely to be of any benefit to the authority in terms of avoiding the build-up of high base values if it is informed of sales of owner-occupied houses which are the sole or main residences of the 1455 owners and stand in up to one acre of ground. This is obvious because there is no net of development land tax applicable in this instance since the house standing on one acre of ground is exempt from development land tax. At the same time, it would not be right to take away from the owners of such houses the potential remedy for blight that is inherent in the declaration of a DNA.
The Lords amendments, therefore, exclude from the notification provisions the sale of such owner-occupied houses, but they leave the owners of such houses the option of notifying if they wish to do so. This will not only provide the opportunity of serving a blight notice if acquisition is intended, but it will also enable the local authority to reassure a prospective purchaser when it does not wish to acquire, even though the property lies within a DNA, and serve a counter notice accordingly in response to a disposal notification.