HC Deb 17 March 1976 vol 907 cc1497-514

10.30 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Gordon Oakes)

I beg to move, That the Chairman do now report to the House that the Committee recommend that the Maplin Development Authority (Dissolution) Bill [Lords] ought to be read a Second time. The need for this Bill derives from a decision in July 1974 to abandon the Maplin project for the third London airport. The Maplin Development Authority was set up under the Maplin Development Act 1973 to reclaim land at Maplin and Foulness Sands for the establishment of an airport and a seaport. On the abandonment of the project my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment directed the Authority to cease further activity and to discharge its obligations. He also promised to seek powers for its dissolution as soon as this was convenient.

The Authority has complied with my right hon. Friend's direction and is left with no useful function but with a capital debt of £2.3 million. Of this, £1.2 million is the initial debt in respect of expenses incurred by the Secretary of State before the establishment of the Authority, and £1.1 million is subsequent borrowing by the Authority. It now has no means of repaying this money to the National Loans Fund, as required by the 1973 Act, and unless action is taken to cancel the debt, the Authority will be compelled to increase the debt even further by borrowings to meet interest charges.

In addition, the Authority must prepare annual accounts and the Secretary of State must lay these, and an annual report, before Parliament even though the Authority no longer does the job it was set up for.

This Bill removes these anomalies by dissolving the Authority, writing off the accrued debt and repealing the whole of the 1973 Act. The Bill can be simple because no order was made under the 1973 Act, enabling the Authority to start the works authorised by the Act, and the Authority's operations did not go beyond the survey and design stages. There is, in particular, therefore, no need to continue any of the compensation provisions of the 1973 Act or any of the protection which the Act afforded to various authorities and interests.

Clause 1 is a normal form or provision which would enable the Secretary of State to dissolve the Maplin Development Authority by order, exerciseable by Statutory Instrument, which shall be laid before Parliament after having been made. The Authority's property, rights and liabilities are transferred to the Secretary of State for a period during which the final accounts are prepared and audited; following this, the Authority is dissolved.

Clause 2 provides for the necessary writing off of the Authority's total indebtedness. It defines the Authority's final accounting period and enables the Secretary of State to meet any winding up expenses.

Clause 3 provides for the consequential repeal of the enactments listed in the Schedule. These include the whole Maplin Development Act 1973.

This is a formal and functional Act, but in view of comments made when the Bill was in another place I should, perhaps, also explain that, flowing from its firm decision not to build a major new airport at Maplin, the Government embarked on a wide-ranging review of airports policy. A consultation document "Airport strategy for Great Britain: Part 1 The London area" was published last November and a companion document, dealing with airports in the rest of the country, will be published some time after Easter. The consultations are being carried on jointly by the Department of Trade and by my Department to ensure that planning, access and environmental, as well as the aviation aspects, are properly taken into account.

The local authorities, airport authorities, amenity groups and other organisations affected by airport developments are all being consulted; and at least six months will be afforded from the date of publication of each document. After completion of all these consultations, the Government will put proposals before Parliament and there will therefore be a considerable opportunity for debate both inside and outside the House. But it would be premature and inappropriate for the Government to express substantive views on airports policy in the future during the proceedings on this Bill which, I repeat, is a functional Bill dealing with the dissolution of the Maplin Authority.

10.35 a.m.

Mr. Terence Higgins

There are few more hackneyed phrases in the English language than that of T. S. Eliot's, that things end with a whimper rather than a bang. Going through the various debates which we have had on the subject of Maplin over the years, and having discovered that the bound volumes are something over a foot in height, I could not help feeling that this Bill is very much a whimper at the end of a considerable number of almost supersonic bangs.

The Minister's speech was in much the same tone as the Bill itself. I think that perhaps I should make clear one or two points, because the policy of the Conservative Government was made clear between 1970 and 1974 and we had many debates on the subject, in which strong views were expressed on both sides of the argument, not necessarily on a partisan basis. The Labour Government took a decision on the issue 18 months or more ago, and as with all such matters the element of time is important. There is the old adage about economists not changing the questions but the answers. I suggest that that is true. It may be that with changing circumstances one needs to re-appraise the position.

The Secretary of State for Trade, in his statement on 18th July 1974, pointed out that the beneficial effects on the environment which we foresaw as far as Maplin was concerned would not be likely to be significant before 1985. Since then, we have had a further period of delay so that the date is now presumably the late 1980s. In addition, it is clear that, as a result of the Government's complete failure to control inflation in their first 18 months in office, the enormous wage explosion we experienced, and the fact that a great amount of resources and money were used up in that period, we now find, within the context of the public expenditure White Paper, a situation necessitating massive cuts in public expenditure. It is probable that a great many more cuts may be necessary in the light of the policies we have experienced over the past couple of years.

From the point of view of what, in the technical sense, one might call discounting—that is, that the benefits are deferred and that the expense would be immediate—plainly that affects our views on the priority which should be given to such a project in relation to the overall requirements of various groups, from pensioners through to other individual categories of desirable public expenditure.

In his statement on 18th July, 1974, I notice that the Secretary of State himself pointed out that we should need to review the position as time went on in the light of changing technology. On that issue, I am sure that that is the right approach. It would be wrong to take a firm view on the project as a possibility at this stage. At all events, the Government are pressing on with their own proposals, which is the reason for the Bill.

We need to ask the Minister, who is concerned with the environment, precisely what consideration was given to the environmental effects of the change in policy announced by the Secretary of State, which the Bill takes a stage further. There can be no doubt that, from an environmental point of view, there is still great concern about the effect of aircraft noise, a subject to which the hon. Gentleman made no reference today. He certainly did not deal with the question in any depth.

There is certainly considerable cause for concern about the growth of London Airport and the development at Gatwick. At Gatwick, not only aircraft noise but also the development around Gatwick, particularly combined with Crawley New Town, may continually erode upon the very precious areas of countryside which surround that area. If we get both the build-up of the airport and the build-up on the commercial and industrial side, the implications for the environment there are very serious indeed. This problem weighed heavily with the Conservative Government in considering the alternative project at Maplin.

Therefore, what further views has the hon. Gentleman from an environmental point of view about the growth in aircraft noise? Clearly, we are now reaching a period—and this brings me again to the importance of timing and the impossibility of taking any firm view at this stage—when the present generation of aircraft is obviously getting towards the end of its useful life in many cases. I was rather surprised to discover recently that the Boeing 707, which is a noisy aircraft, had been in operation since 1959. This is a considerable length of time and, obviously, with the new generation of aircraft we ought to be able to make progress.

What consideration has the Department given to an idea to which I have been giving some thought—I have not reached a firm conclusion on it but it does seem to have some helpful aspects—namely, whether there is a case for airlines, as far as noise is concerned, having a fleet limitation imposed upon them? In addition to there being limits on individual aircraft, one should give some incentive to airlines to move towards quieter aircraft by saying that there is a maximum amount of noise that the airline can make in relation to its total traffic load over a given period of time. I believe that this idea has something to recommend it. If the Government are determined to pursue the course which is embodied in the Bill, and in the light of the delay which has already arisen, it is vitally important that they should give the greatest possible attention to the idea.

I am aware that the Under-Secretary of State for Trade is concerned about this issue, but in the context of the Bill it would be helpful to have an initial view, as far as the environment is concerned, from the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment. The hon. Gentleman referred to the document "Airport strategy for Great Britain". Part 1 of this has been published on the London area and deals, of course, with a number of the points which I have just mentioned. However, we understand that there are further parts to come and perhaps the hon. Gentleman could tell us how he sees their timing.

Many people feel that one must look at airport strategy overall. There is a certain parallel with motorways. People in some parts of the country want motorways desperately. Conversely, there are other parts of the country where people would do anything to avoid having motorways. Motorways and airport noise are emotive subjects.

However, I should have thought that in some areas there has been a move towards industrial and commercial development. For example, the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, is close to London for rail travel—indeed, in travel time it is not much further away than Gatwick. It would be helpful to know when the Government's proposals on that part of the country in particular are likely to be available to the House. Can the Minister give us an assurance that we shall have an opportunity to debate the airport stategy overall when the documents have been presented?

On 18th July 1974, the Secretary of State stated: I am sure that the House will wish to debate the matter of London air passenger traffic as soon as it has had a reasonable time to consider the review." [Official Report, 18th July 1974; Vol. 877, c. 676.] That was back in July 1074, but to the best of my knowledge no opportunity whatsoever has been provided by the Government. From July 1974 to March 1976 is probably sufficient time to consider the review. The House certainly has not had a chance to deal with these wider issues. As the Minister said, the Bill is a narrow one and has been taken upstairs for that reason. We have not had a chance to debate this matter overall. The clear implication of the Secretary of State's remarks that we would have an opportunity to do so has not been fulfilled. It is important, when consultation has taken place, that we should have an opportunity to debate the matter.

I should like to ask a couple of questions, one specifically concerning the Bill and the other on a broader point about Maplin itself. An interesting addition was made to the Bill in the House of Lords, namely, Clause 3(3), which is said to be concerned with the question of privilege. It was not clear exactly what that meant in this context. Clause 3(3) states: Nothing in this Act shall impose any charge on the people or on public funds, or vary the amount or incidence of or otherwise alter any such charge m any manner, or affect the assessment, levying, administration or application of any money raised by any such charge. That is a remarkable paragraph in many ways.

I have seldom seen anything drafted quite as widely. It seems to be saying that nothing in the Act should have any effect on anyone anyhow. If that is so, it is a little difficult to reconcile with the rest of the Bill, which obviously writes off part of the accrued debt of the authority. If the accrued debt is written off, I presume it has some effect on the National Debt, which in turn has some effect on the interest which the Government have to pay, which in turn presumably has some effect on the tax which you, Sir Thomas, have to pay, though it may not be very significant in this context. Therefore I should have thought that this Bill imposes if not a charge, a variation of such a charge on you, for example, Sir Thomas. I therefore have a little difficulty, from a technical point of view, in understanding exactly how it is that your income tax is to some extent reduced, albeit very slightly reduced, whereas the subsection apparently says that it cannot be.

Mr. Oakes

I am sure the hon. Gentleman must be joking. As a former Treasury Minister, he knows that this is the standard form which is put in all Bills introduced in another place that involve money. It can then be removed in the Commons, but that is the traditional wording on all such Bills introduced upstairs.

Mr. Higgins

I understand that point, but I thought it might be helpful to establish that it is the Government's intention to eliminate the provision at a later stage. I presume that in Committee the Minister will delete it.

The Chairman

Perhaps I may be of help. I understand the procedure to be normal and formal, and that, during consideration in this House, the provision will be deleted.

Mr. Higgins

That is most helpful, Sir Thomas. I do not want to be pedantic about it. It is just that it is important that we should get our legislation in proper form. I was puzzled as to why it was not being done in the first instance. I assume, from what has been said, that it was a straight drafting error in the first place, and what their Lordships have done is correct the drafting error in order to enable us to knock it out at a later stage. If that is not so, perhaps the Minister can clear up the matter. I am very anxious that we should not have legislation which—given the welter of legislation we have to consider at present—subsequently, in some horrible technical manner, has nasty repercussions in the courts.

Finally, I recall that there was a great deal of discussion, when the Maplin proposal was under consideration, about Maplin Sands and the firing range. I think a great deal of clearance took place with regard to various shells and other explosive objects which had been left in the Sands from the firing range. I am not clear what the position is now. Has the work now been completed? If so, what do the Government intend to do about the future of the Sands?

Alternatively, if that is not the position and the work has not been completed, do the Government propose simply to exclude the Sands from future use and to leave such explosive objects there for the indefinite future? I do not recall precisely the details but, on balance, I think it would be helpful if the Minister could clarify the position.

Given the Government's decision and the implications of the delay which has taken place, I would not recommend my hon. Friends to vote against the Bill, but, at the same time, the Government's present proposals for airport strategy give considerable cause for concern. As the Secretary of State himself said—and I think he was right—we need to look at all the possible alternatives for airport development as time goes on in the light of the developing situation, both economically and technically.

10.51 a.m.

Mr. John Wakeham

My constituents would wish me, I think, to wish this Bill well and to bid farewell to Maplin Airport. Two years ago, when elected, I pledged to do all I could to stop the building of the airport at Maplin. It would be presumptuous of me to claim a great victory when in fact I had little to do to further that cause, other factors having taken control. The only thing I did was to get very cross with British Rail in its attempt to build a rail link before the Maplin project received the final approval of the House.

I always took the view, as I think did most of my constituents, that if there was to be a third London airport there was a very strong case for it to be located at Maplin. But the initial case for it was weak and got weaker as time went by. Therefore, now that the Maplin airport plans have finally been laid to rest—obviously, no one can foretell the future or be sure that circumstances will not arise to necessitate resurrection of the plans—I am very pleased that, so far, nobody has suggested that there is any likelihood of the plans being resurrected. The area has suffered considerable delay in developing normally because of the uncertainty over Maplin, and we now have a very important job in thinking out our new plans and developing them. We want to get down to that in south-east Essex without any future possibility of resurrecting the Maplin plan as there are important and difficult problems to deal with. Also, from a national standpoint, we have considerable problems of airport strategy, particularly for the regions.

Did any of the expenditure covered by this figure of £2.3 million in fact cover anything other than plans and survey work, and so on, because a view has been expressed in my constituency that some part of the trial island constructed off Shoeburyness by the Port of London Authority was in some way paid for from this expenditure? I gather this is not so from what the Minister said, but can he confirm it?

Finally, I know that all the plans and so on for the airport are secure in the the Department of Environment library, but lessons that cannot be put into any library should also be learned from this exercise particularly as far as the seaport project is concerned, and I hope that the fullest possible consultations will take place with everybody involved before any plans for that go ahead, not merely with the Port of London Authority, as the seaport is as much part of a national strategy as airports. I support the Bill.

10.55 a.m.

Mr. Norman Tebbit

The gift of prophecy is given to very few people, as the events of the past week have underlined. Those who have forecast various dates upon which Heathrow Airport would be filled to over-capacity lacked the gift of accurate prophecy.

I was amongst those who opposed this project, but, in fairness, it offered hope that, if built, it would give relief to those living near Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and Southend, if, of course, those airports had been either closed or restricted upon the opening of Maplin. But the Government, having brought work on the project to and end, have effectively put the date on which Maplin could open—if someone were to take the decision to restart the project—back to the 1990s rather than, as was hoped, about 1980. It is clear from the figures produced in the Department of Trade Document "Airport strategy for Great Britain: Part I" that by then substantial relief will have come to residents near the existing airports from the technical developments which are not merely promised but in being in the new aircraft in service.

Even with an opening date of 1980, I feel that the balance of advantage to residents near airports, as against the disadvantages of the Maplin scheme, caused the unbiased observer to find against Maplin, though, of course, a number of other unbiased observers came to exactly the opposite conclusion. But with a 1990 date the balance is decisively against the Maplin project.

The public expenditure argument is now completely overwhelming. I am not sure whether even the Tribunites want greater public expenditure on Maplin, or whether the Secretary of State for the Environment still holds the view that all public expenditure is essentially good, but he realised fortunately that the Maplin expenditure did not fit into his general thesis.

We should be given a better idea of the Government's attitude toward the protection of the environment, in its broadest sense, around the existing airports. We should certainly have in the House the long-promised debate on the subject. When it takes place, I will make my speech then—not this morning, to the relief of everyone in the Committee.

I should like to ask a few questions. First, does the Minister know what Ministry of Defence expenditure was incurred in the search by the Ministry of Defence for a new range to replace the Foulness range? Is that expenditure written off under past or even future defence votes, or is any part of it involved in the sums of money we are writing off today? The Minister may not know the answers to those questions.

I refer to the Schedule entitled "Enactments repealed". I find difficulty in guessing, though perhaps I should have looked it up before now, how the Bill involves the repeal of part of the land Land Drainage Act 1930. I am sure that no one, when legislating that Act had Maplin in mind. Perhaps the Minister could satisfy my curiosity on that point.

Having put those questions, I do not want to delay the Bill in any way.

11.0 a.m.

Mr. Oakes

There is remarkable unanimity in the Committee today.

The hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) rightly brought with him massive tomes containing the history of Maplin from its early stages and the long Committee sittings that we had. If my tone today in opening this debate was somewhat funereal, it was fitting and proper, because if one has acted as executioner, when the funeral of that which has been executed takes place, one does not expect joyous hilarity. Therefore, for the burial of Maplin, the tone had to be appropriate.

I turn to some of the general points made by the hon. Member for Worthing and the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbitt) on general environmental questions. This is not the time to go into them, but I will correct the hon. Member who said that the Bill arises purely from the Government's approach to public expenditure. I remind him that the decision made by my right hon. Friend was made within weeks of the Government taking office. It was a decision made on principle, because most of the environmental arguments that led us to the decision to abandon Maplin were rehearsed over and again in Committee, to which previous Governments chose to keep their ears totally closed.

We have frequently pointed out that even were Maplin to proceed, it would have no major impact on Gatwick or Heathrow airports. We pointed out then—and these are environmental considerations that led us to the review of airport strategy, and it was known when Maplin was going through—that aeroplanes were becoming quieter, and that larger-bodied aircraft were carrying more people and therefore there were fewer aircraft.

Those were major considerations in deciding whether to build a third London airport or whether to use the maximum potential at existing airports—not only the London airports but regional airports. The hon. Member for Chingford knows from experience that aircraft are becoming increasingly quieter—with one exception, which I shall not go into.

I found quite startling the figures, graphs and NNI contours that are shown in the London document on airport strategy, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman did also. I knew that we were going in this direction, but when I saw the revision of the figures—hopefully fewer people would be affected by aircraft noise compared with the numbers affected at present—I was convinced that we were right. The massive public expenditure on Maplin that would have taken place would have been wasted expenditure in the light of developments in reduction of aircraft noise, on the one hand, and reduction of aircraft movements because aircraft are becoming bigger, on the other.

A further factor in the situation—and this may be temporary, but one does not know—is that there is a decline, because of the world-wide recession, in the number of people using airports. I think that all these points coincide with the view of both sides of this Committee that in this burial service today there is no question of a resurrection of the Maplin project.

Secondly, I am certain that the House will debate this matter. Indeed, I said this in my opening speech. Hon. Gentleman may say, "When?". The proper time to debate it will be soon after we get the regional document. A debate in the House now would be a false debate, because it would cover only the work done so far, with the one document available to hon. Members. Regional airports may have a considerable rôle to play in this; we do not yet know.

It is taking time to find out, but I think that the proper time for a full debate on airport strategy would be as soon as the Leader of the House could arrange it, after the regional document, which is coming out shortly after Easter, has been made available, printed and digested and consultations have taken place on it. That would be the proper time to do it.

Mr. Higgins

Would the Minister indicate the exact scope of the document? I was not clear whether a third document was to come later on.

My other observation, so that we may look at the matter in an overall manner, concerns the first document. There is a map of the regional context in relation to the various London airports. I find it horrifying that large areas of Sussex, for example, are not described as areas of outstanding natural beauty when, in my view, they certainly are. Leaving that on one side, would it be possible for the second document to include an all-Britain map, or an overall United Kingdom map, giving the various journey times by rail and road? That would be helpful. It will not be easy to bring the two together unless the whole thing is set out in a single map. We need journey times by rail or road rather than distances. The rail service to Birmingham, for example, is a vastly different proposition from the rail service to other parts of the country.

Mr. Oakes

I shall certainly take note of the hon. Gentleman's suggestions in the preparation of the regional document. I am certain that information of the kind that he wants will be in the document, because the main concern of the airports strategy is to study the regions, not only from the aspect of those which generate their own traffic, but to consider whether the traffic from the regions which at present comes into London Airport might be better dealt with by the regional airports.

Time is important. The hon. Gentleman is right. Distance in miles does not matter. It is distance in time from the airport into London that is the crucial consideration. That, too, will be a major concern of those preparing the document I agree that it is essential to have the two documents together, but I take note of what the hon. Gentleman said about the map and the train times, and so on, as distinct from distances. I feel fairly certain, however, that those preparing the new document will bear those factors in mind.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a third document. There will not be a third document. When the two documents have come in and we have considered them, and had consultations on them, there may be a Government response to them. That response would bring in a third document, but that would happen after extensive debate inside and outside the House.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the firing range. The clearance of buried ordnance was started at Maplin but confined to the areas on the periphery of the ranges. Firing has continued while that work was in progress. The Ministry of Defence did not give up possession when work on the project was halted. It remains in ownership, and I understand that the use of the range is continuing.

The trial bank was not included in the money under the Maplin Development Authority. It was included in the initial debt for work on the trial bank.

Mr. Higgins

I apologise for backtracking on one point, so to speak. Is the Minister, being responsible for the environmental side, content with the position he has just described of the firing range? In Committee, will the hon. Gentleman provide estimates of what the cost of alternatives would be, because I notice that this area in the South is quite important and is something of a loss to the environment? Often we do not go into these matters in as much detail as we should. We tend to look at the broad question. Clearly, the issue must be seen against the background of the public expenditure aspect. I was not clear what were the hon. Gentleman's views in respect of the environment factor.

Mr. Oakes

The hon. Gentleman may be right, but I am certain that it would not be proper to debate the matter at length on Second Reading or in Committee on the Bill. There is always this dilemma. I took part in a debate in the House last year on Ministry of Defence land, a matter which always has an environmental effect. On the other hand, we need defence, we need firing ranges, and we need practice. The secret is to put defence areas in the right place. There has been a firing range at Foulness for decades.

Mr. Wakeham

I should like to draw to the Minister's attention that the considerable number of people living in the area believe that the environment is protected by the range being there, considering the alternatives that might happen in the vicinity. While I agree that matter is outside the scope of the Bill, I wanted to make that comment.

Mr. Oakes

It is a two-edged weapon. The hon. Gentleman is right. But there is the fact, too, that many people say that the obvious place for such defence areas is the Highlands of Scotland and so on, especially for firing ranges. But defence of the realm is necessary. Practice is therefore necessary. It has an environmental impact, and the secret is to get the right thing at the right place. There has been a range at Foulness Sands for many years, and from my knowledge and memory of the situation when Maplin was being discussed, the hon. Gentleman's constituents preferred the firing range to the airport at that time.

Mr. Tebbit

So would the wild life prefer it.

Mr. Oakes

We have not had many complaints about the Ministry of Defence's use of the land. But it would not be proper in Committee to go into that aspect on this Bill, nor is it proper for me to do so now.

The hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) raised a matter concerning repeal of Section 61(1)(i) of the Land Drainage Act 1930. This is to remove an amendment to the 1930 Act which was made in the Maplin Development Act 1973. It added the Maplin Development Authority to the list of those undertakings enjoying certain protections under the Land Drainage Act 1930, dealing with works carried out by drainage authorities. The provision is a purely technical result of an amendment to the Act.

Mr. Tebbit

Can the Minister help at all with the question I raised about the expenditure on the search for the range to replace Foulness, which was undertaken by the Ministry of Defence?

Mr. Oakes

I am fairly certain that it would not be included in the expenditure with which we are dealing. That would be the Ministry of Defence expenditure under another head and another Vote. The search for an alternative site would not come into any of the figures that we have discussed today. No doubt in Committee, the proceedings of which should not take long, we can deal with points arising under particular clauses.

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  1. THE FOLLOWING MEMBERS ATTENDED THE COMMITTEE: 65 words