§ Mr. Anthony Steen (Liverpool, Wavertree)I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 36, leave out '100 per cent.' and insert
'80 per cent. or such other percentage as may be prescribed by order made by the Secretary of State with the consent of the Treasury'.
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Paul Dean)With this it it will be convenient to take amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 43, leave out from 'case' to end and insert '100 per cent.'.
§ Mr. SteenThese amendments deal with similar matters. It worries some Conservative Members that the Government should favour the public sector at the expense of the private sector. The amendments seek to bring the private sector to the same percentage as the public sector so that there is no discrimination in favour of either the English Industrial Estates Corporation or the local authorities at the expense of private investors and developers.
Alternatively, amendment No. 2 proposes that if the Secretary of State cannot accept that the English Industrial Estates Corporation should be brought down to 80 per cent., on all fours with the private sector, he should consider increasing the private sector grant from 80 to 100 per cent. That would mean that local authorities, the English Industrial Estates Corporation and the private sector would all enjoy a 100 per cent. grant.
We must set the Bill in the context of the Government's initiatives in city regeneration and consider it in the light of the Standing Committee's comments, but I remind the House that the English Industrial Estates Corporation is a wholly owned Government agency. Its staff are paid at Civil Service rates and its prime aim is to build factories where private enterpise would not feel it financially advantageous to do so. The agency was set up to try to help declining areas by pumping in public funds to build factories and, by a series of subsidies, to persuade industry to set up enterprises in areas to which it would not normally go.
On Merseyside we have enjoyed help from the corporation for some time. It has built many factories of 520 all sizes, especially in Liverpool, during the past decade. However, it is to be regretted that about 30 medium-sized factories have remained empty, some for as long as two years. That is not the best use of public money. The corporation is making greater inroads by a change of policy and building so-called beehive units. They are smaller units of about 500 to 1,500 sq ft and are ideal for small businesses.
The English Industrial Estates Corporation has been given a 100 per cent. grant from the Government—although it has had some help from the private sector—to build its medium-sized and large units. It is nothing other than a public agency. Although my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State wished to introduce the private connotation in Committee, private money is used virtually exclusively to build the small beehive units that are springing up in various areas.
The English Industrial Estates Corporation is a public corporation, which has built a number of factories and many of them—Liverpool is only one example—are standing empty and idle. That is the background against which we must consider whether the corporation, which has enjoyed special help from the Government and a special relationship with the Government, should continue to enjoy discrimination in favour of its future developments as against the developments that private enterprise would wish to undertake in similar circumstances.
It is worth noting that the corporation does not build shops or houses. It builds only factories, and mostly they are for manufacturing industries. We are giving it 100 per cent. grant to reclaim derelict land and vacant land, which it presumably does not own, which it will have to purchase with public money. It then has to apply to the Government for more public money to reclaim the land that it has bought. Subsequently, it has to use more public money to build on the sites. Therefore, we are talking about three bites at the cherry. Public money will be used three times—100 per cent. grant to buy the land, 100 per cent. public money to reclaim it and again 100 per cent. public money to build on it.
The second amendment is aimed at increasing to 100 per cent. the amount of grant that is eligible for private enterprise. The purpose is to put the grant for private enterprise on all fours with what the corporation will enjoy. My hon. Friend was at pains, if that is the right phrase, to stress in Committee that a great step forward has been taken and that private enterprise, which had been restricted to a 50 per cent. grant, would be eligible for an 80 per cent. grant. However, he had some difficulty in acknowledging that, even though the Government were increasing the grant to 80 per cent., they were discriminating against private enterprise by 20 per cent. He had to accept that in spite of the generous uplift from 50 per cent. to 80 per cent. he still could not go the whole way and put private enterprise on the same footing as local authorities and the corporation.
My hon. Friends and I accept that local authorities may be in a special and privileged position because they own about two-thirds of the derelict and dormant land. That land is owned either by local authorities or nationalised industries. We accept that local authorities may need to have special consideration and 100 per cent. grant but we cannot stomach the fact that the corporation is to be given the same advantage. The House will appreciate that it is not a landowner and that it does not own derelict, dormant 521 or vacant land. Why should it be put in a special and privileged position when private enterprise, which owns so much of this land, will not enjoy the same privilege? Many of my hon. Friends felt that the Government, in a most curious way, were discriminating against private enterprise.
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The idea of reclaiming land has been talked about a great deal in the House and outside. A great deal has been done but it is important to distinguish between reclamation that means environmental landscaping and improving eyesores, coal tips and other industrial waste, and reclamation that means reclaiming wasteland and vacant land which could be used for private development, for building factories, houses, shops and new developments generally. In addition, there is land which at best can merely be grassed over or given some more pleasing appearance. It is important to make these distinctions.
In spite of all the efforts that have been made to reclaim land, according to the Civic Trust there are still about 250,000 acres of derelict land in the principal urban conurbations. Although the Civic Trust did not identify that land, it was principally within the urban conurbations. It may have been excluding spoil tips, coal tips and quarries. The aim of the amendment is to give private enterprise the sort of help that is being offered to the English Industrial Estates Corporation, to enable it to spend money on reclaiming land so that it can be put to beneficial use. That does not mean grassing over tips or giving spoiled land a more pleasing appearance. Beneficial use does not mean only building. It includes creating jobs and a new source of rate income. It is a way of presenting new opportunities. I note that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State is nodding his head vigorously and I know that he, too, believes in this concept.
It is true to say that the consultant attached to the inner urban area study—it was one of the Government-sponsored projects in the 1970s—estimated that 12 per cent. of our cities have unused wastelands within them. I am concerned that every city should be given every help, every device and every tool to turn the derelict land within its boundaries into productive use. I fear that the local authority track record is not especially good. Local authorities have had little incentive to spend their ratepayers' money on reclaiming land. Therefore, the Government's announcement that they will give up to 100 per cent. of Government money to reclaim the land is to be welcomed.
We must congratulate the Government on ensuring that the public sector will have no excuse in future for not reclaiming land. I hope that in the ensuing months, once the Bill is enacted, we shall be able to encourage the Minister to take a stringent line with local authorities by questioning him regularly on how many local authorities and which local authorities are reclaiming land, bearing in mind that the Government will have given a sizeable amount of money for that to happen.
Two-thirds of vacant, dormant and derelict land is in public ownership, including the ownership of nationalised industries—my hon. Friend may want to say something about nationalised industries and whether they will be 522 encouraged in the same way as local authorities—and one-third of dormant wasteland belongs to the private sector. Amendment No. 2 concentrates on that matter.
A 100 per cent. grant for the public sector might make local authorities revitalise and reclaim their two-thirds of public land, but the Government seem to be less enthusiastic about the remaining one-third of dormant land or waste land which is under private ownership. Why is it waste land? Primarily because the private owner can see no way in which he can release that land and make a profit. He cannot do so, either because he cannot get the right planning consents to build on the land or do whatever he wishes on the land, or because it would cost so much to reclaim it, to make the soil good and put in the infrastructure and services, that he has let it lie dormant rather than spend money that he knows would be lost as a result.
The Government have increased the grant for private owners of derelict waste land. They can now apply to the Government for an 80 per cent. grant, formerly 50 per cent. As has been rightly said by many professional organisations, including the National Federation of Building Trades Employers, although 80 per cent. is better than 50 per cent., local private owners of derelict land will not wish to reclaim their land if they still lose 20 per cent. Furthermore, not only will they lose 20 per cent., but unless my hon. Friend says something to local authorities about the stringencies and restrictions of their structure plans, which prohibit certain developments on such land, there will be no movement in the private sector.
In Committee the Minister said that £1 million of the £45 million set aside for land reclamation was for the private sector. Two per cent. of the public moneys that the Government are making available is available to 33 per cent. of the owners of derelict land. He also said that all the £1 million that had been put aside had not been spent. The reason was that there was little incentive for the private sector to spend it. Perhaps the Minister will explain how much of the £45 million has been spent by local councils and how much was used for the development and reclamation of land for productive use or just for landscaping and environmental purposes.
Therefore, the Government are committed to land reclamation, which is in order and supported by both sides of the House. The Government are committed to city revitalisation, which is supported by Conservative Members and, I am sure, by Opposition Members. Conservative Members are committed to supporting and encouraging private enterprise. The Bill helps private enterprise, but it does not help it enough.
§ Mr. Christopher Murphy (Welwyn and Hatfield)Does my hon. Friend agree that Conservative Members are committed to fair competition and that to have this discrimination between the public and private sector can only be described as unfair competition?
§ Mr. SteenI entirely endorse my hon. Friend's remarks. That is our concern. Conservative Members feel strongly about that matter. We are letting down the private sector when we are committed to support it.
My final point concerns the whole House and is about the amount of good agricultural land that is being used for urban sprawl. The Minister knows that I have been tackling that problem. I am not St. George and there are many dragons, but I have been tackling that problem for 523 some years because of its evasive nature. The most comprehensive statement on it came from the Minister in Committee. However, there are still many difficulties that the House has a right to reconsider. In the context of the Bill, which is aimed at releasing derelict land, if the private sector does not release its land, we shall continue to build and take green field sites beyond the city boundaries and eat away at agricultural land.
There is some dispute about how much agricultural land is being eroded. As I explained in Committee, the second land utilisation study by Dr. Alice Coleman suggested that as much as 60,000 acres of agricultural land had been lost in each of the past 10 years and that the amount was increasing.
I asked the Minister a question on 21 May this year, in reply to which he said that the amount of agricultural land that was lost had been reducing from 45,000 acres a year to only 23,000 acres a year between 1975 and 1980. Dr. Coleman thought that it had been increasing. Of course, 23,000 acres a year is still a hefty figure.
On 4 March 1981 the Minister's Department contradicted that statement and said that in the five years until 1979 the average annual loss was about 100,000 acres of which 30,000 acres a year was taken from urban development. To confuse the matter further, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, when asked a similar question on 16 April 1981, stated:
The average yearly loss of agricultural land to development or other uses, excluding woodlands, in England in the five-year period ending June 1980 was … 45,800 acres".—[Official Report, 16 April 1981; Vol. 3, c. 421.]No one knows how much land is being lost. The Minister accepts that it is necessary to ensure that we obtain information from the agricultural industry, but he does not have that information. On that basis, how can he say that 45,000 acres a year have been taken from agricultural land, and that the figure has dropped between 1975 and 1980 and is now only 23,000 acres? If my hon. Friend does not have the information, I do not see how the Ministry can say that the figure is decreasing.Dr. Alice Coleman is the person on the ground, who has done the utilisation study. She says that because derelict land is not utilised in inner urban areas, the number of acres of agricultural land being lost is increasing and will continue to increase. That is another reason why the amendment is so important.
Everything needs to be done by the Government and local government to persuade the public sector, nationalised industries, the English Industrial Estates Corporation and the private sector to utilise their derelict land and reclaim it. If the maximum effort is not made, green field sites and agricultural land will continue to be destroyed by urban sprawl.
One of the reasons why my hon. Friends and I tabled the amendment was to give my hon. Friend early warning that we think that the number of good agricultural acres outside city centres will increasingly be taken for development work until the Government made every effort to reverse a process that has been going on for decades. That is what is in our minds and that is the purpose of the amendments. We want to see the Government committed to the principle of encouraging private enterprise in a similar way to the way in which they are supporting the public sector.
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§ Mr. David Gilroy Bevan (Birmingham, Yardley)I shall not detain the House unduly, but I wish to emphasise some of the points that we tried to make in Committee.
In the West Midlands, in the city of Birmingham and in my own constituency of Yardley, there is great interest in the reclamation of derelict land and in ensuring that the process is maintained. I pay tribute to the progress already made by the public sector in land reclamation all over the country, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) as well as in my own. Nevertheless, Acocks Green in my area has one of the largest amounts of vacant land in Birmingham, so for me this is also a personal problem.
It should not be thought that the number of hon. Members here today in unserried ranks reflects the interest of the general public in continued progress towards the refurbishment of our cities, the sweetening of sour land, the pulling down of derelict buildings and the regeneration of the land. There is enormous interest among the general public and throughout the House. We have seen decades of the bulldozer in action. The city of Birmingham has cleared about 22,000 houses in 14 years. We must now see that starter homes are built for the people.
To carry out that process, we must use both arms—the public arm and the private arm. Jack the Ripper has ripped cities apart, and all the art and skill of the cosmetinc surgeon is now required to refurbish them. A one-armed surgeon is not sufficient. We must use not only the public sector but the private sector, in which people are often attempting to reclaim their own land. Some local authorities regard the amount of land in private ownership, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree quoted as 33 per cent., as minimal. Unfortunately, the figures, like the scriptures, can be quoted by the Devil for his own purposes. Many people believe that as much as 40 per cent. or 42 per cent. of the land remains in the private sector. I argued the case to the Under-Secretary of State in Committee and I pointed out that in the past there had been no incentive for the private sector to take part in the regeneration process because only 50 per cent. of the net loss incurred could be recouped. I am therefore grateful for the increase to 80 per cent., but it is still not good enough and it does not compare with the 100 per cent. that goes back to the public sector.
The builder or reclaimer in the private sector will not be interested in making a loss on what he does. Practical people or corporate bodies will not be prepared to enter into a reclamation formula that involves passing on to the eventual purchaser or user a non-viable proposition. If the site costs are high, all those costs might have to be passed on to the first-time purchaser of a starter home, who might not be able to pay so much. He might not be able to find the necessary deposit or have the status to match the repayment requirements. The National Federation of Building Trades Employers states that in Wakefield the extra cost in the reclamation of a difficult site for homes was £800 per unit. As it was not viable to pass that amount on, the project did not develop. There is therefore a risk that such areas of privately owned land may not be reclaimed and may stick out like sore thumbs or deserts of disprivilege among the areas being reclaimed by the public sector, many of which have been excellently dealt with.
I took careful note of the comments of the Minister when I raised this matter in Committee. He said that our 525 contentions were wrong and that we had not proved our case. That is why I seek once again to put to the Government—my own Government, I suppose—
§ Mr. J. W. Rooker (Birmingham, Perry Barr)We do not want them.
§ Mr. Bevan—the equal merits of the private sector as compared with the public sector. By this I do not mean the unequal merits and overriding demands of privatisation, which is often done at the expense of the public sector. In this case, it would not be at the expense of the public sector. The private sector would simply be brought up to parity and both sectors would retain their spheres of influence.
Therefore, I claim that there is still disprivilege to the private sector and that it will not be interested in doing as the Minister recommends and carrying out its share of the work. In this context, the Secretary of State said on 6 February:
It is my firm belief that all sectors have a role to play in reclamation and I want to make it possible for the private sector and the nationalised industries to bring forward schemes for reclamation of derelict land in their ownership without the necessity of having to dispose of it to the local authority.That is quite right, because such a process would have cost a great deal of extra money.Nevertheless, after the work of the Standing Committee, we still contend that those incentives do not yet exist and that there is a disincentive to the private sector in the net loss incurred, in the need to borrow money at high interest rates and in schemes involving costly site work such as deep piling or the sweetening of land on which gas has been stored.
The situation reminds me of that of the American in Niagara who left instructions that he be buried between his two wives, whom he loved equally, and this was written on his headstone. He said "I have loved both my wives equally and I want to be buried between them, but tip me a little towards Tessie". The same is true of the Bill. It is tipped a little towards Tessie. Tipping is certainly the operative word and Tessie in this instance is the public sector. Surely the Minister should be able to lie equally and at ease between both bodies—the private and the public.
The Minister was kind enough to say that he would look at this again within 12 months. Why does he not do so now? Why do not the Government embrace this within the framework of the Bill and give both sides the opportunity to proceed with this excellent work and reduce the likelihood of green field sites being developed as the only viable alternative?
§ Mr. John Heddle (Lichfield and Tamworth)One of the great privileges of securing the Adjournment debate on a Friday is that it concentrates the mind wonderfully. Today's business is of somewhat indeterminate length. I thought, therefore, that in order to answer the call from the Chair, whenever it may come, it would be appropriate to attend the House this morning. I am glad that I did. I rise to support in principle the tenor of the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen). I did not have the privilege of serving on the Standing Committee but I have read the Official Report of the proceedings. I do not wish to indulge in the auction involving my hon. Friend—there are few hon. Members 526 who know more in practical terms about the environmental problems of urban dereliction—but I nevertheless find myself in some sympathy with him.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will respond favourably to what I have to say about the overall problem of dereliction and waste land. The root of the problem lies in the provision of finance for urban redevelopment. It is not possible in Britain today to acquire areas of redundant land for redevelopment, to provide new infrastructure and to pass on the site either to the public sector or to the private sector owing to the complete lack of discretion given to local authorities, as the agents charged with redevelopment, over how the capital budgets can be used. This problem is a major cause of difficulties over comprehensive redevelopment. It has severely contained dockland redevelopment. It is difficult to co-ordinate capital spending if one has to hawk one's project around up to a dozen different Government Departments and local government departments and agencies for funds. It is little wonder that schemes have never been embarked upon with the speed that is necessary.
Another factor is the practice of local government land management. Complex and obstructive budgetary rules greatly hamper the transfer of land owned by one department and reserved for one use to another use and another department. There is little contact between higher tier and lower tier authorities. There is a strong financial disincentive for local authorities to dispose of their sites. To them the concept of land as a resource barely exists.
The situation of nationalised industry land not required by that industry for its own purposes is chaotic. Each board interprets its own statutory obligations in its own way. The overriding principle is to secure a commercial return on its assets. But the definition of operational land is completely arbitrary and differs between one nationalised industry and the next. It is left to the industry concerned. There is only minimal contact between industries and local authorities, which will be required to renew the land in any event. A great deal of land is left in an appalling condition or encumbered with conditions that make its redevelopment difficult.
What is required is a thorough Government sponsored industry-by-industry review of land management practice carried out at departmental level—
§ Mr. SteenAnother solution perhaps would be a large State auction where nationalised industries would choose 50 per cent. of the derelict land in their possession that they want to put up and so allow market forces to determine the price for the land.
§ Mr. HeddleI am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have read his excellent booklet in which he puts forward the proposition that there should be a nation-wide auction of surplus land owned by the nationalised industries. In principle, my hon. Friend may have a point. It is, however, necessary, in order to control the supply of publicly owned land, not to saturate the market at any one time. An auction would do just that. I caution my hon. Friend in his enthusiasm for a nation-wide auction.
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The dilution of the development plan system and the growth of a bargaining approach to planning is one reason why there is still so much derelict land. This is not so much owned now by the public sector. My hon. Friend the 527 Member for Wavertree mentioned that one-third of derelict land is owned by the private sector. It is because owners of land in the private sector wish to receive a planning gain that the bargaining approach to the development of derelict land is perhaps not too desirable. Unless the Government's initiative contained in the Bill, which I welcome, is successful, the air of dereliction that is already extensive will, I fear, only grow with the development of the microchip. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will be prepared to say in his Third Reading speech whether his Department is undertaking a national survey of the effect of the microchip—
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)Order. The hon. Gentleman must relate his remarks to the amendment.
§ Mr. HeddleI am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was, in fact, relating my remarks to the amendment in referring to the revitalisation of derelict land in the context of providing encouragement and incentive through grants of 75 per cent., 80 per cent., 85 per cent., 90 per cent. or 100 per cent. to the private sector. Dereliction will only increase with the development of the microchip. It is at least possible that the microchip will reduce the demand for office and factory space in inner cities. One way to encourage the private sector to provide accommodation that the market needs in the inner cities is by giving it as much grant as possible.
There are other means of encouraging the private sector to develop derelict inner city urban land, not so much by way of grants as by the provision of residential building allowances along the lines of the scheme of industrial building allowances introduced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his 1980 Budget to provide homes in the inner cities. Hand in hand with this initative might go the introduction of a commercial building allowance to enable small shops to be built on this derelict land. These initatives, along with the derelict land grant to which the Bill relates and to which the amendment refers, can breathe new life into old cities.
Local authorities should use their planning powers to stimulate the development of waste land rather than green field sites. They should also control the demolition of buildings on waste and derelict land in order to prevent the creation of further vacant sites. The town and country planning Acts should be amended to require consent for demolition not normally granted in the absence of planning permission for the use of that land. I commend to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State the proposition that land owned by the public sector in general and by nationalised industries in particular that is not required for one of their forward rolling programmes over the next five years should be subject to a vacant land rate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree referred, in moving his amendment, to tax relief. It is important that the cost of landscaping or other schemes designed to enhance the environmental value of vacant land should be encouraged by appropriate tax reliefs. I think that every incentive should be given, along the lines of the United States urn aid programme, not only to the public sector, as the Bill does, and not only to the private sector, as my hon. Friend's amendment does, but to the encouragement of voluntary initatives for the enhancement, by temporary use, of idle, vacant and derelict land.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Giles Shaw)First, I apologise to the House for the enforced absence of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts), who served on the Committee. I am sure that he would have wished to be here to hear my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen), Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Bevan), and Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle) discuss the amendment. However, he has engagements in the Principality, and I am sure that the House will understand.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree for the way in which he moved the amendment. I know how strongly he feels that the proposal in the Bill is, in his view and that of his colleagues, a disincentive to the private sector and, as he put it, a piece of unfair treatment. I tried to disabuse my hon. Friend of that in Committee, but I understand his argument that if the Government are committed to private sector development, as they are, steps should be taken to remove the differential in the rates of grant for the public and private sectors.
The main reason why we have produced these differential rates is that there is a differential problem. In most cases, local authorities, particularly in assisted areas and derelict land clearances areas, to which the schemes relate, own a large amount of the derelict land. My hon. Friends are well aware, representing constituencies in Liverpool and Birmingham, that the proportion of derelict land in the ownership of local authorities has steadily increased in recent years. In part, that is due to compulsory purchase having led to the take-over of sites that have long since lost their use, and in part to the fact that local authorities have been encouraged to clear urban dereliction. Of course, those who claim grant under the Bill will have to be the owners of the land, and local authorities own the largest share of derelict land.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree asked about the size of the derelict land market. Unfortunately, the last full figures that we have are for 1974. They show that at that time there were about 44,000 hectares of derelict land, of which approximately 33,000 were worth reclaiming. A new survey is being done, and by the end of the year we hope to have a preliminary picture of the up-to-date figures. However, although there has been some movement of derelict land into beneficial use, unfortunately much land has become derelict as a result of industrial decline.
The Government have taken a number of initiatives to try to bring derelict land into beneficial use, as my hon. Friends said. In the context of this Bill, our most important contribution has been to make it clear that grant paid by the Government under this Bill will mainly go to schemes for reclaiming derelict land and putting it into beneficial productive use, whether for industrial or residential purposes. So the Government have an opportunity to influence the way in which derelict land moneys are now spent. Traditionally, those moneys have been spent, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree said, on open ground policy, grassing over and improvement to the landscape. To date, the vast majority of the funds has been spent in that way. From December, there is the priority scheme, which we call the category A scheme, giving priority to land that is brought into beneficial use. This is where the public sector has a particular and possibly an additional role to play.
529 As my hon. Friend knows, we have land registers. They are solely public sector registers, whereby local authorities, statutory undertakings and nationalised industries have to declare their holdings of land that are not in beneficial use. There is also the category A scheme, which will operate under this Bill. I hope that my hon. Friends will accept that the intention is to bring derelict land reclamation very much to bear in the public sector. We are not ignoring the private sector; far from it. However, the main focus of our attention must be directed to the sector which has the largest share of the derelict land problem.
Secondly, I remind my hon. Friend that the private sector will benefit from the schemes that local authorities bring forward. As they involve development, we have asked local authorities to produce schemes which show that a private sector developer is lined up before the grant aid can be paid. In that way, the construction industry and the factory developer, if he is the end purchaser, can provide the real impetus and benefit from the grant aid at the 100 per cent. rate. It is paid to the local authorities as the owners, but we hope that the benefits going to the private sector, particularly to the construction industry, will be substantial.
The rate of grant that we set in the Bill is 80 per cent. for non-local authorities. Incidentally, that is the rate for nationalised industries, too. So the rate is 100 per cent. for local authorities, and 80 per cent. in the derelict land clearance areas and assisted areas for private sector operators and the nationalised industries. There is no difference for private sector operators and nationalised industries in those areas. In that way, we are lifting from 50 per cent. to 80 per cent. the incentive to reclaim.
I accept that the private sector may not find this the most attractive prospect, but we should bear it in mind that that sector has owned derelict land for a long time. It must accept that it has owned land that has fallen into dereliction, but has done nothing much about it. So the Government decided to do something about the grant rate. If it is not possible for the private sector to respond to this, as I said in Committee, we shall review the situation in due course, but I am not prepared to respond positively today to my hon. Friend's request to lift, as of now, the 80 per cent. level in the Bill.
§ Mr. SteenWill my hon. Friend clarify what he has said? Local authorities get 100 per cent. if they reclaim land which they own. The private sector gets 80 per cent. for reclaiming land in its ownership, and nationalised industries get only 80 per cent. if they reclaim land in their ownership. As nationalised industries own a great deal of land, why is the English Industrial Estates Corporation given 100 per cent. for reclaiming land, although it does not own any land?
§ Mr. ShawI said in Committee that the English Industrial Estates Corporation is responsible for regeneration in assisted areas for industrial purposes—in other words, for the building of factories in assisted areas. It is an agent of regional policy. In Scotland and Wales, development agencies have the same functions. The English Industrial Estates Corporation was included in the Bill so that it could have the same grant that is available in Wales to the Welsh Development Agency, and in Scotland to the Scottish Development Agency. I accept 530 that it is an agency of a different kind. It is a wholly owned Government agency, but its function is to assist in regional policy, whereas local authorities in assisted areas or derelict land clearance areas have a local function to try to deal with land in their ownership. I accept my hon. Friend's concern. This agency is not one of which he approves, but I believe that there are many agencies of which he does not approve.
§ Mr. SteenWhy, leaving the English Industrial Estates Corporation on one side, is there discrimination against nationalised industries? Why are they receiving only 80 per cent? Surely the Government are anxious for British Rail, the British Gas Corporation and the water boards to be rid of their derelict land. If they are given only 80 per cent., there can be no incentive at all for them to do so.
§ Mr. ShawMy hon. Friend cannot have it both ways. On the one hand, he says that we must give everybody the same rate of grant, but on the other he says that he does not want to give the public sector more cash if it can be avoided. We must try to strike a balance.
The nationalised industry operating in a derelict land clearance area has more incentive than previously. I told my hon. Friend in Committee, and I repeat it now, that if this measure does not result in a substantial improvement in the rates of derelict land reclaimed, we will, amongst other things, look at the rates of grant. I cannot tell my hon. Friend that that will be done soon because the major factor that will release derelict land on to the market will be the return of economic activity within the construction industry and the private sector. As has been cogently argued, the private sector or the nationalised undertaker will be least able to get rid of that land which has substantial costs attached before it can be brought into beneficial use.
There will always be the problem of creating the correct conditions in which a drive to return derelict land into beneficial use can succeed. While grant aid is important, it is not the crucial factor that will suddenly result in a major surge of development of such land.
§ Mr. Den Dover (Chorley)Is the Minister willing to look at the level of grant, whether it be 80 per cent. or 100 per cent., in the next 12 months? He said in Committee that he would but in the last few minutes he has created some uncertainty in my mind.
§ Mr. ShawI said in Committee that we would review this. I do not think that it would be sensible to review it within 12 months. If I told the House that an early review was intended, there would be an even greater delay in the private sector's response to the problem. If it felt that the rate embodied in the Bill would be increased, It would delay any scheme for reclaiming derelict land. Therefore, that would be unwise. The announcement by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor in his Budget speech that the rate of grant was to be altered probably delayed for some months any schemes that the private sector might have brought forward. My intention, and I trust that of my hon. Friend, is to see that schemes are brought forward as quickly as possible. Therefore, I do not intend to review the matter as quickly as I said in Committee.
I should like to hear from my hon. Friends the Members for Wavertree, Yardley and Chorley (Mr. Dover) how the measures are proceeding in their areas. They could provide 531 important evidence in that regard. I cannot help but feel that the energy that my hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree directs to these matters will allow him to provide me with such information.
I cannot accept the amendments that are before the House. I understand the extreme keenness with which they are supported and the principle that is at stake. However, the balance that has been struck in the Bill is right at this stage. It would be wrong to move further on the grant aid that is made available to the private and public sectors.
I hope that all my hon. Friends will agree that more should be done to bring derelict land into beneficial use and that the Bill will contribute towards that end.
§ Mr. SteenI am grateful to the Minister for his generous remarks. Had he been able, he would probably have made concessions. The amendment was tabled because it was felt that there were certain anomalies. The Minister's speech today has made us even more sure of those anomalies, and not only among the private sector, since the nationalised industries are now lumped together with private industry. The Bill will not go as far as it could usefully go. Although the Government have made a brave move in the right direction, it is not anywhere near far enough and, unfortunately, it will not help to reclaim the land that the Government and Conservative Members are committed to reclaiming.
None the less, there is little advantage in dividing the House, even though we feel strongly that an opportunity is being lost. Therefore, it would be in the best interests to withdraw the amendment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Mr. Giles ShawI beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 4, line 36, after 'where', insert
'application for the grant is or was made, or'.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 4 and 5.
§ Mr. ShawThese are technical amendents. As the Bill stands, the power to make a derelict land grant under the reoealed or superseded legislation is saved only in cases where actual expenditure is incurred before the commencement of the new Act. However, schemes will be approved under the former powers where expenditure will occur after the commencement of the new Act. Unless these amendments are made, fresh applications will have to be made. That is an important technical point which I wanted to put on record, to which I hope the Committee will agree.
§ Amendment agreed to.