STOP NOTICES (Hansard, 29 April 1977)

§ Mr. Dudley Smith (Warwick and Leamington)
I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 21, leave out 'and' and insert '(A)'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 2, in page 2, leave out lines 25 to 29.
No. 3, in page 2, line 34, at end insert 'and a stop notice shall also cease to have effect if or to the extent that the activities prohibited by it cease, on a variation of the enforcement notice, to be included in the matters alleged by the enforcement notice to constitute a breach of planning control'. No. 4, in Clause 2, page 3, line 43, leave out subsection (2) and insert— '(2) For subsection (1) there shall be substituted the following subsection— (1) A person who, when a stop notice under section 90 of this Act is first served, has an interest in or occupies the land to which the stop notice relates shall, in any of the circumstances mentioned in subsection (2) of this section, be entitled to be compensated by the local planning authority in respect of any loss or damage directly attributable to the prohibition contained in the notice (or, in a case within paragraph (b) of that subsection, so much of that prohibition as ceases to have effect)".'.

§ Mr. Smith
Better technical experts than I found a couple of technical but 1704 none the less quite important flaws in the drafting of Clauses 1 and 2. The Bill as drafted makes inadequate provision for the variation of a stop notice on appeal and the consequences of that for compensation.
This is a rather technical matter but it is important that the explanation should be on the record in view of previous discussions. The new Section 90 substituted by Clause 1 into the Act of 1971 makes provision in subsection (3) for the time at which a stop notice is to cease to have effect.
If the enforcement notice to which the stop notice relates is varied on appeal, so that matters alleged to constitute a breach of planning control cease to include one or more of the activities prohibited by the stop notice, the present provisions terminate the stop notice at the time when the decision on the enforcement notice appeal is given where the variation has excluded all of the activities specified in the stop notice. But where some of the activities named in the stop notice are still included in the enforcement notice, the stop notice will remain effective in respect of all the activities named in it until the period allowed for compliance with the enforcement notice expires.
The purpose of the amendments is to ensure that in such cases the stop notice shall continue to have effect during the period for compliance with the enforcement notice only in respect of activities which continue to be included in any matters alleged to constitute a breach of planning control in the enforcement notice as varied.
The first three amendments to Clause 1 have the effect of providing that, where an enforcement notice is varied, the stop notice will at that time cease to have effect to the extent that the activities prohibited thereby cease to be covered by the enforcement notice. If there are other activities specified in it, however, which are not affected by the variation of the enforcement notice, the stop notice will remain in force in respect of those activities until the period for compliance with the enforcement notice expires.
Section 177 of the Act of 1971 would, as amended by the present provisions of Clause 2, provide for compensation to be payable in respect of loss or damage attributable to all of the prohibitions in the stop notice, even in those cases where 1705 the enforcement notice on which the stop notice depends is varied otherwise than on ground (a) of Section 88(1) of the Act of 1971, so that the matters alleged to constitute a breach of planning control cease to include only some of the activities prohibited by the stop notice. This was not the intention, and the new subsection (2) of Clause 2, which I hope to substitute with the agreement of the House by the fourth amendment, remedies the situation by providing that compensation will in such cases be payable only in respect of loss or damage attributable to the particular prohibition or prohibitions in the stop notice that cease to have effect by variation of the enforcement notice.
That is all rather technical but, I submit, very necessary.