COMPREHENSIVE ACQUISITION OF DEVELOPMENT LAND (Hansard, 14 October 1975)

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Harry Ewing)
I beg to move Amendment No. 123, in page 18, line 30, after '(a)', insert 'land which is not needed for designated relevant development within ten years from the time at which they are acting, or (b)'.

§ Mr. Speaker
With this we are to consider the Opposition's proposed amendment to the Government amendment, Amendment (a), in line 2, leave out 'ten' and insert 'five'.

§ Mr. Ewing
These are drafting amendments which simply reverse the order of paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 20(3).
Subsection (3) spells out four categories of land which authorities will not have the absolute duty to acquire. Categories (a) and (c) were added by Government amendment in Committee, the original (a) and (b) being re-lettered (b) and (d) respectively. On consideration, it would seem more logical to have kept the old (a)—the 10-year restriction—as the first category. The amendment effects this by reversing the order of the first two paragraphs of the subsection.

§ Mr. Hugh Rossi (Hornsey)
I wish to speak briefly to Amendment (a), which seeks to remove from line 35 on page 18 of the Bill the term of 10 years and to substitute a term of five years. The reason for this has been debated already, both in Committee and on Report.
The Government have accepted the concept that local authorities will proceed with their land acquisitions on a rolling five-year programme, yet Clause 20 speaks of a 10-year period within which they must operate. We feel that it would be much more consistent with the scheme that has now been elaborated and explained in Committee by the Government to keep to the five-year period in the context of the Bill as well as in the declarations of policy that have been made in trying to explain what the Government are seeking to do by their scheme. It is a question of their intention and the words in the statute matching rather than being in conflict as they apparently are at the moment.
The object of the amendment would be to remove from local authorities the obligation to consider the acquisition of land as for 10 years ahead and limit their obligation to one of considering the acquisition of land within a five-year scale. That is entirely consistent with the Government's proposals that local authorities shall have to submit to them five-year rolling programmes of land acquisition and key sector borrowing requirements, all of which are to be geared, we understand, 1138 to a five-year and not a 10-year programme. We feel that the Government should accept this amendment, which is in accordance with their declared thinking.

§ Mr. Harry Ewing
If by leave of the House I may speak again, it is fair to say, as the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) has said, that we debated this subject at length in Committee. We regard the amendment as unacceptable. A similar amendment, No. 495, was tabled by the Opposition in Committee. As we explained then, 10 years is regarded as the maximum period needed to ensure orderly development and to create the required degree of certainty in the development industry and in agriculture and forestry.
This 10-year period is a limitation on the scope of the duty and does not mean that an authority must immediately set out to buy all the land needed for designated relevant development within that period. Authorities will, however, in putting forward their acquisition proposals, work on the basis of a five-year rolling programme and the Secretary of State will not normally give consent to acquisitions of land needed beyond this five-year period. To restrict authorities to a period of five years ahead at any time would preclude them from dealing with many major schemes where the assembly of the land and its disposal for development might well take more than five years to accomplish. The amendment ought to be rejected on that basis.

§ Mr. Michael Morris (Northampton, South)
Perhaps I could seek absolute clarification on this point. As I under-Stood the Minister for Planning and Local Government yesterday, there will be a circular or regulation or some form of communication to local authorities to tell them that they should in all normal circumstances buy for only five years ahead and that only in exceptional circumstances, when there is a particular development requiring some parcelling of land, should they go beyond the five-year period.

§ Mr. Harry Ewing
The position is as I have said, that we expect land authorities to purchase only five years ahead but feel that it would be wrong to restrict authorities to this five-year period because in circumstances of a major development it might be necessary to look at least 10 1139 years ahead to assemble the land for the development plan and to plan the development properly. It is for this reason that we use the 10-year period rather than the five-year period. The hon. Member is right to say that we would expect authorities to buy only five years ahead despite the fact that we are leaving this 10-year provision for the major schemes which we envisage arising from time to time.

§ Mr. Harry Ewing
I beg to move Amendment No. 303, in page 19, line 24, leave out 'Paragraph' and insert '(8A) Subsection (8)'.
The effect of the amendment is to insert a subsection to exempt Wales and the Isles of Stilly from the provision in Clause 20(8)(a) rather than leave the exemption as part of subsection (8). The amendment merely corrects a drafting error.