ACQUISITION OF CEMETERY (Hansard, 14 June 1976)

§ Mr. Hugh Rossi (Hornsey)
I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 13, line 4, at end insert: '(3) In the event of the Camden Council not exercising its powers as aforesaid, the Greater London Council may exercise such powers from 1st January 1980 and on their so doing their shall be substituted the name of the Greater London Council for that of the Camden Council (wherever this appeals) for the purposes of the operation of this Part of the Act'. I emphasise that this amendment and subsequent ones in my name are not put forward in a party political spirit. Nor are they tabled with the intention of delaying the House. If there is an issue, it lies not between the parties but between the London borough of Camden and local residents in the adjoining constituencies, various amenity bodies in the area and organisations concerned with the preservation of Highgate Cemetery as a national monument.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine)
Order. If hon. Members were quieter we might reach a conclusion sooner.

§ Mr. Rossi
The clause gives Camden power to enter upon and make use of the cemetery and eventually to purchase it compulsorily. The clause does not impose a duty upon the council to do that. It is permissive and it is a power which lasts only until 31st December 1979. If the power to enter and acquire is not exercised by the local authority within the three-year period stipulated by the Bill, the powers will lapse and no public body will have the power to enter upon the cemetery and look after it.
The House must consider what that would mean. The cemetery, which was fully described on Second Reading, is regarded by many as an important national monument containing the graves of many renowned people and as a unique example of Victorian funeral architecture. 190 The Royal Fine Art Commission considers it to be worthy of preservation and conservation.
In 1969 the cemetery was bought by the company which now owns it, and since then it has been allowed to fall into dereliction and become overgrown and vandalised. Virtually no security exists. People who have relatives buried there make protests daily and complain about the way in which the cemetery has been allowed to fall into disuse. That is a matter of grief for them. The cemetery is also of interest to the nation as a whole. If Camden decides within the three-year period, not to do anything, that unhappy and unfortunate state of affairs will continue.
The object of the amendment is to give a long-stop power to the GLC to take over, if Camden decides to do nothing within the three-year period. It does not impose any obligation upon the GLC to do that if it does not so wish, and it does not give the GLC the power to interfere with Camden in any way. The amendment would give rise to this power should Camden decide not to exercise it within the three-year term that the Bill gives it. Therefore, the GLC would have power from 1st January 1980 to enter in and take over the management, maintenance and upkeep of the cemetery in the national interest.
Camden can have no objection to the amendment, for the reasons I have given, but there is possibly one minor objection. That is, that the GLC is not a cemetery authority. Generally speaking, we have given the powers to look after cemeteries to the London boroughs and not the GLC, but to give the GLC the power in this Bill will not make it into a cemetery authority. Its powers will be limited to this cemetery if Camden does not wish to exercise the powers itself. What the GLC can then do is circumscribed and defined by the Bill.
I hope that in those circumstances the House will accept the amendment.

§ Mr. Ronald Brown
On Second Reading I gave undertakings on behalf of the promoters that they would do their best to meet the objections advanced by the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. 191 Rossi). There has been a series of meetings between the hon. Gentleman, Camden Borough Council and the promoters, who have moved a long way to meet the objections that he put forward on behalf of the amenity groups. Hon. Members will see in the statement circulated to them a long list of amendments brought forward by the promoters to meet the hon. Gentleman's requirements.
I was surprised that this amendment was selected, as it seemed that it would extend the Bill and could, therefore, be construed to be out of order. As it has been selected, however, we must accept that.
The GLC has made it abundantly clear that it does not wish to be involved in the matter, which was initiated by Camden Borough Council. That council believes that the cemetery should be its responsibility. It has seen the two societies involved—the Highgate Society and the Friends of Highgate Cemetery—and has tried to put forward their view of what can be done to put the cemetery back into good order and use the land surrounding it.
The promoters have honoured their undertaking to do everything possible to ensure that the safeguards asked for were given, and I therefore hope that the House will reject the amendment.

§ Mr. Rossi
With the leave of the House, I should like to say that I accept that the promoters and Camden Borough Council have gone a long way to meet a number of original objections to the Bill. We can deal with these matters on other amendments, because that meeting of objections in no way relates to the amendment, which was not the subject of the earlier discussions to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
11.45 p.m.
This is a novel proposal, in case of what may happen because of prevailing economic circumstances, among other reasons. Camden will be under pressure from the Government. It is £1½ million overspent in the current year, and will be asked to cut back on its expenditure. The taking over of this cemetery may involve the council in an initial cost of £350,000 and thereafter continuing expenditure of £50,000. That expenditure 192 might be found to be unacceptable to Camden in the next three years. A burden of that nature is not of such great significance to the GLC as it is to a single London borough.
Although the GLC may not at this point have contemplated taking over this burden, it could well be that in the three-year period in question during which Camden has to make up its mind, if the Bill is amended as we suggest, it will be possible for Camden and the GLC to discuss the matter to see how the cemetery can best be looked after. We hope that the amendment will afford an opportunity for a discussion of that kind to take place.

§ Mrs. Millie Miller (Ilford, North)
I can understand the hon. Gentleman's concern about this matter, particularly as he appears to be representing amenity societies rather than the general population of the borough of Camden or of the whole of London. However, it seems to me to be somewhat incongruous that he should be pressing for this addition to the contingency expenditure of the GLC at a moment when the House has just finished counting the votes in a Division in which the Opposition voted against such a contingency.

§ Mr. Rossi
I assure the hon. Lady that the representations I have received come not only from amenity bodies but from ordinary citizens in Camden as well as in my own constituency. I assure the hon. Lady that there are many people in those amenity bodies who are deeply concerned about the future of the cemetery and the graves of their relatives in it.
In regard to the second part of the hon. Lady's intervention, I accept that any increase in public expenditure by local authorities at this point in time involve great difficulties indeed, but if the amendment were accepted by the House it would not impose on the GLC any financial burden whatever. This is simply an enabling amendment to entitle the GLC to take over the responsibility in four years' time if in the meantime Camden decides not to take it over. It could still happen that neither Camden nor the GLC decides to spend the money. In that case, no public expenditure at all would be involved. If the amendment is accepted, in four years' time the GLC, 193 with the greater resources available to it, may find itself in a position to undertake a burden which, in the immediate future, Camden may find itself unable to undertake.
Frankly, I fail to understand why Labour Members seek to resist the amendment. It can do absolutely no harm to anybody. It is an insurance in the likelihood of certain events happening, and that is all. Surely Labour Members should welcome an opportunity of seeing that the cemetery, which is a national monument, is preserved, if that is at all possible, rather than be allowed to fall into dereliction and be vandalised.

§ Mr. Ronald Brown
I cannot understand what the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) is getting at, because that is exactly what Camden Council wants to do but the hon. Gentleman is making it impossible for the council to take that action. He has already been told that if this situation continues Camden Council will withdraw from the whole matter. There is no reason why the people of Hackney should be involved in this awful cemetery because the hon. Gentleman has been playing politics with it.

§ Mr. Rossi
I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's point. How can it inconvenience Camden in the slightest if power is given to another body to take over this responsibility if Camden decides that it does not want to take action? The amendment says that Camden is completely free for three years to decide whether it wants this responsibility. In the Bill as it stands if Camden decides to do nothing, nothing will be done or can be done. With the amendment added, if Camden makes that same decision and does nothing there will be the possibility of someone else doing something—merely a possibility.

§ Mr. Phillip Whitehead (Derby, North)
May I, as a member of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Society, say that one of the fears that some of us have about the hon. Gentleman's position is that it looks as though the amendment would be an open invitation to Camden Council, under present or future control, to do nothing, whereas the purpose of an amendment such as this should be to express the concern of Parliament that something should be done?

§ Mr. Rossi
It would not be an open invitation to Camden to do anything at all, because there would be no guarantee that ultimately the GLC would do anything. It is merely an enabling provision. I can see that I have not persuaded Labour Members. I believe that they have come here determined not to be persuaded. I have set myself an impossible task. I shall not detain the House further.