COMPENSATION FOR LOSS DUE TO STOP NOTICE (Hansard, 29 April 1977)

§ Mr. Dudley Smith
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
When I introduced it, I ventured to suggest that it was a modest but not 1706 unimportant Bill which, by making some urgent and necessary changes in our planning law, would go a long way in helping to protect the quality of the environment, or at least in preventing the deterioration of the environment.
Many people today are, rightly, extremely conscious of the need to protect the environment. Though I had appreciated the urgent need for such a measure, I had to some extent under-estimated the interest that would be aroused. I have been particularly encouraged by the amount of unqualified support that has been given to me not only from those responsible in various ways for administering planning control, but from all the eminent bodies and associations that have taken the trouble to contact me, in some cases to come to see me and certainly to write to me, that are concerned about and take such an interest in these matters. They have all been extremely helpful, even if there has not been entire agreement on every point.
I am grateful that there has been support at a local level in my constituency. It is no secret that my interest in this subject and my decision to make it the subject of my Private Member's Bill, having won the Ballot, comes about because of abuses that had been going on in my constituency. I referred to these matters in my speech on Second Reading.
I am glad that the publicity that has been given to the Bill has had a welcome response from those who live in mid-Warwickshire who are very much concerned with protecting the environment generally and their local environment.
I am also very grateful for the helpful comments which led to improvements being made to the Bill in Committee, and grateful to those hon. Members who served on the Committee. I am grateful, too, for the encouragement and support that I received from the Department of the Environment, from the Minister and from his officials. It has been extremely useful.
There were two improvements made in Committee that come readily to mind. We have made certain that the stop notice procedure cannot be invoked against a caravan dweller so as to make him homeless or to compel him to move his caravan elsewhere while enforcement proceedings are continuing. In relation to requests for 1707 information about uses of land, we have removed any threat of prosecution where someone runs into difficulty in providing the information within the time allowed, by giving the local authority discretion to extend the period set for reply in the notice requiring the information to be furnished.
As the Bill now stands, it achieves the object of strengthening those existing procedures which have proved over the years to have been neither flexible nor speedy enough to give the local planning authorities the right degree of control over unauthorised uses of land, which in many instances cause severe disturbance and discomfort to people living nearby. I doubt whether there is an hon. Member who has not encountered in his constituency the kind of difficulties that arise and that we seek to remove by this small but important measure.
The new powers will act as a positive discouragement to people to contravene planning controls, because they will know that they can be required to cease their anti-social and un-neighbourly activities straight away and they will not he able to benefit from the considerable time bound to elapse before the enforcement procedure is completed.
The problem that the Bill tackles is not confined to England and Wales, and I am fortified by the knowledge that similar provisions are embodied in a Scottish Act that has recently gone on to the statute book. I am sure that in some ways this may have accounted for the motion that appears on the Order Paper on Third Reading, tabled by some Labour Members who sit for Scottish seats. They are not present today but they have given me an opportunity under the rules of the House gratefully to make a few comments on Third Reading. Otherwise, presumably, we should have had a formal Third Reading.
I am convinced that the Bill is necessary and is a welcome measure that gives the necessary extra powers to planning authorities but at the same time protects the individual who can show that he has a perfect right to carry on the activities in question. It is very much in the interests of the public at large that the Bill should be placed on the statute book as soon as possible, and I look forward to its becoming law.

§ Mr. Tony Durant (Reading, North)
I rise to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Smith) on bringing his Bill forward and on getting it through to this stage. With Private Member's Bills there are always hazards in getting them as far as this stage.
I also thank my hon. Friend for dealing with the query that I raised in Committee about change of ownership during the 12-month period. My hon. Friend sent me a very full reply, which I believe he got in consultation with the Department of the Environment. Having read that reply very carefully, I am satisfied that the point is well covered in the Bill.
I wish to make only one point to the Minister. I assume that the Department will issue some guidance notes to go alongside the Bill should it become law. My point is that the Bill should be used as sparingly as possible. We have had letters from Justice and the Multiple Shops Federation. They are anxious that the Bill should be a last resort rather than something that an authority immediately uses instead of using the normal processes where it can. I think that the Bill should be regarded as almost the long stop rather than just a stop notice used indiscriminately.
With that small point, which I hope will be noted by the Department and will be put in the guidelines, let me say that this is a useful measure which I am sure will help communities, particularly those areas just on the edge of urban areas where the problem concerned tends to arise when junkyards and similar establishments are set up. The Bill will also help those little villages on the edges of towns where this tends to be a problem.
I congratulate my hon. Friend and wish the Bill success in another place.

§ Mr. Roger Moate (Faversham)
I wish merely to add my congratulations to those already given to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow—

§ Mr. Dudley Smith
Warwick and Leamington.

§ Mr. Moate
I beg my hon. Friend's pardon: times change.
1709 I am becoming increasingly cynical about Private Members' Bills and rapidly disenamoured of the majority that come before us. However, this Bill is an exception. It is fairly modest, in some ways, in its size, but it has very considerable implications for areas such as mine.
The Bill that my hon. Friend has introduced and is now about to carry successfully through to Third Reading has been welcomed by many bodies in my constituency. It has been welcomed by the planning authorities, which have the very difficult task of enforcing planning procedures. It has also been welcomed by amenity societies, which so often have expressed frustration that when the citizen sees an abuse of planning procedures, he often feels impotent to do anything about it.
Nothing frustrates the citizen more than being told by a planning authority that an undesirable activity, or indeed, many activities, are obviously and blatantly in breach of the planning regulations but that the authority can do nothing in a hurry about the matter. People are told that it can take years to put right. It is the knowledge that it can take years to put right that has given the strength to those who have abused planning procedures in the past.
One of the greatest achievements of the Bill will be that it will undermine the position of those who in the past have felt that they could defy society and say "I might be in breach of planning regulations, but I know that it will take you years to put it right and I shall carry on regardless." These added powers of enforcement, the extra strength of the stop notice, will deter many of those who think that they can defy the law and get away with it with impunity. For that particular reason I very much welcome the Bill, and I congratulate my hon. Friend.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Guy Barnett)
I should like to add my congratulations to those that have already been expressed by the hon. Member for Reading, North (Mr. 1710 Durant) and the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) to the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Smith), who has piloted the Bill very successfully through the House and the Committee. I admire the skill with which he has done that, because, as he said this morning, this is a technical Bill.
The House may not perhaps realise that a number of reservations and doubts were expressed in Committee. The hon. Gentleman dealt with them extremely well and I think that he has gone a very long way to reassure all of us that the Bill is rightly balanced.
The hon. Member for Reading. North expressed concern, as he has done previously, about the possibility of indiscriminate use of the powers that would be granted under the Bill if it became law. I do not fully share those doubts, because I think that the Bill has got the balance right and that, for reasons that I think those who have studied the provisions will understand, it would be unlikely that local authorities would use the provisions indiscriminately.
Nevertheless, I take the hon. Gentleman's point. We shall certainly be looking at the operation of these provisions if the Bill becomes law and we shall take on board the hon. Gentleman's point. Though I myself doubt whether it will require guidance from the Department, obviously we shall watch the matter. If guidance is needed, it will be issued.
For the reasons that have already been given, I am very glad that the Bill is now well on its way through this House and to another place. As the hon. Member for Faversham and the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington have said, the Bill is designed to deal with widespread abuse of the planning system which has caused endless complaints from those who come across these abuses, which have taken place to the annoyance chiefly of neighbours and others living in the area concerned.
I have already welcomed the Bill. I welcome it again and wish it well.