High Hedges Bill

HC Deb 09 March 2001 vol 364 cc532-78

Order for Second Reading read.

9.50 am

Mr. John M. Taylor (Solihull)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

In 18 years in the House, this is the first time that I have come high enough in the ballot to have the privilege of promoting a private Member's Bill. I believe that, in this Bill, I have the responsibility of gaining some redress for those people whose lives have been made miserable by the excessive hedges of their immediate neighbours.

I reminded myself the other day that the first words attributed to God in the Bible are "Let there be light." There was light and God saw that it was good.

Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst)

But his neighbours did not.

Mr. Taylor

His neighbours at that time were unidentified.

Soon after, he created man and woman, and some say that it has been downhill ever since.

In one Roman poet's version of our negative impact on creation, it was a sorry sign of the times when: The ground, formerly free to all As the air or sunlight, Was portioned by surveyors into patches, Between boundary markers, fences, ditches and, one might say, hedges. We are comfortable with living on ground that has been portioned into patches by surveyors. We like to mark the boundaries of our ground with fences, if not ditches. There is nothing wrong with that. An Englishman's home is his castle, as the adage goes. The problem lies with some of the fences that we choose and how we manage them.

I can find no specific biblical reference to link the creation of fast-growing conifer hedges with an act of God. However, we can be sure that such a thing has been created because a curious darkness has fallen across some of our suburbs. God saw the light and saw that it was good, but now countless householders peer into their gardens and cannot see much light at all, let alone appreciate just how good it is.

The Bill offers a lifeline to thousands of people in England and Wales whose quality of life has been seriously hit simply because they cannot persuade their neighbours to keep their garden hedges to a reasonable height. Hon. Members will be all too familiar with the problem that I am trying to address today. We have read about it in the press, we have seen it on television programmes—one of which was called "Neighbours at War"—and we have received countless letters and sometimes facsimile communications from our constituents. I have the permission of Mr. and Mrs. Evans of Yoxhall road, Shirley and of Mr. M. J. Hawker of 44 Whitefields road, Solihull to mention their names in this context. I have also received representations from many others.

Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham)

The matter is of the greatest importance, although not one with which Burke, Pitt, Fox, Gladstone, Salisbury or Disraeli would necessarily have preoccupied themselves. Will my hon. Friend, who is an exceptionally assiduous and diligent Member of the House, confirm that he has had discussions on the subject with, and received support from, the august members of Solihull borough council?

Mr. Taylor

I believe that I have the support of that council. It is significant that, although the Bill places an obligation on local authorities, during the consultation procedure conducted by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, a surprising 70 per cent. of local authorities said that they wanted to have the powers that the Bill would confer, despite the fact that it would probably saddle them with obligation and some cost.

Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East)

Many hon. Members will have received representations on the problem and we congratulate the hon. Gentleman on raising it in the House. However, as we are probably near the end of this Parliament, has he received assurances from the more disruptive of his colleagues that they will recognise the intense anger and frustration that is felt by so many people and will allow the Bill to make progress?

Mr. Taylor

l have neither sought nor received any reassurances. I would not demean myself by doing so. The Bill's merits stand by themselves. I, meanwhile, stand here entirely vulnerable to whatever disruptive element there may be and I am effectively defenceless against that prospect. I throw myself entirely upon the mercy of the House and the good will of Conservative colleagues and, more particularly, of Labour Members, among whom I probably have more friends.

Mr. Forth

Knowing that my hon. Friend is a student of parliamentary matters, he will have watched closely Friday proceedings on other private Member's Bills. He will know that the problem is not whether Members obstruct a Bill but whether 40 of the 660 Members of Parliament bother to turn up on a parliamentary day to express their view. That may turn out to be his main problem.

Mr. Taylor

My right hon. Friend correctly analyses the problem that has been encountered on previous Fridays by other hon. Members. However, I should tell him that in the various reaches of the Palace, I have legions in my support.

Mr. Forth

Probably disguised as hedges.

Mr. Taylor

I hope that you will assist me in making progress, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am struggling in the face of a number of interventions.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord)

It is entirely up to the hon. Gentleman whether he gives way.

Mr. Taylor

I am probably suffering from my accommodating good nature

Mr. Bercow

And generosity of spirit.

Mr. Taylor

I thank my hon. Friend for assisting me.

I remind the House that leyland cypress—a hybrid tree developed towards the end of the last century and, by culture, a forest tree commonly known as leylandii—has become increasingly popular as a hedging plant over the past 30 years or so. It is cheap, readily available and quickly provides a dense screen that grows well in a wide range of soil and weather conditions. It is widely used in residential locations along the boundaries of domestic gardens to provide privacy. It grows at a rate of 1 m a year. For maintenance purposes, it should be trimmed two or three times a year. If it is not, it can reach heights of more than 30 m. Other conifers such as Lawson cypress and western red cedar are also commonly used as hedges. Although they are not as fast growing as leylandii, they can also become too big if not maintained. Non-coniferous species such as laurel and privet are also used to form dense, evergreen hedges, which if left unchecked can grow to significant heights.

I am sure that we can all appreciate the benefits of a good boundary hedge as a durable provider of shelter, privacy, amenity and security for people and of shelter and food for wildlife. However, hedges in residential areas require a commitment to regular maintenance. Without maintenance, they get out of hand and begin to affect the quality of life of those living on the other side of the fence. They block out light and interfere with views, their roots deprive other plants of water and nutrients and they intrude on garden space.

It is well established that one can lawfully trim a neighbour's hedge back to the line of one's boundary, but there is no clearly defined right to reduce its height. At present, if one cannot persuade the neighbour to reduce the height, there is little that one can do. It seems that going to the civil court is simply not a practical option. The costs and uncertainty involved clearly deter people from that course of action, and they are left feeling pretty helpless.

We should make no mistake: this is a problem faced by thousands of people who are desperate for the House to provide a practical remedy. The response to the consultation paper issued by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions was measured in thousands rather than hundreds, and included almost 3,000 from private individuals.

My Bill, which I have chosen to call, in soundbite terms, "Height and Light", will provide the remedy that is overwhelmingly called for by the vast majority of people and organisations who responded to the consultation exercise. It will give people the opportunity, when all reasonable avenues of negotiation with their neighbours have been exhausted, to refer their high hedge disputes to the local authority. It will give local authorities the power to investigate disputes and, if necessary, to order the hedge to be cut back to a reasonable height.

The Bill might run to 20 clauses, but the basic ideas behind it are simple. Clause 1 clarifies the type of complaint that we are dealing with, which is that made by the owner or occupier of a domestic property who believes that a high hedge on another person's land unreasonably obstructs light to the property, which affects reasonable enjoyment of it. The Bill can help that person if their efforts to persuade the owner of the hedge to cut it back have failed, because they will be able to complain to their local authority.

Hon. Members will have noted that the Bill is limited to complaints about obstruction of light. I have mentioned already that high hedges can be the focus of other problems, such as blocked views and worries about roots. At this stage, the Bill deliberately concentrates on the main problem, rather than trying to solve all the difficulties that people encounter.

Mr. Stephen Pound (Ealing, North)

I assure the hon. Gentleman that he has many friends in all parties, and especially in this one. When regaling us with his litany of horrors, will he bear it in mind that the difficulties of many of my constituents and, I am sure, of his, relate not only to light, privacy and outlook? I speak as a fellow suburbanite, and I think of my constituent, Mrs. Shaw, who bought a house and chopped down a leylandii only to find that the soil was so acidic as a result of the needle droppings that she was reduced to growing camellias and rhododendrons for three or four years. That problem often occurs, and the normal suburban gardener, with whom the hon. Gentleman and I are very familiar, is at a great disadvantage.

Mr. Taylor

I accept the hon. Gentleman's analysis of the problem. In the 1983-87 Parliament, I served on the Environment Committee, which published a report on acid rain. One of its interesting conclusions was that trees are essentially alkaline and that as they grow, by contrast, they turn the ground in which they are rooted increasingly acidic. Of course, in nature, the tree eventually dies, falls to the ground and restores the alkalinity. In tree cropping, however, the alkalinity is removed when the tree is harvested and the environment becomes increasingly acidic. That is a serious problem.

I must, in all honesty, point out to the hon. Gentleman that the Bill does not address that problem. Notwithstanding the scepticism of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), the Bill is conceptually simple and deals with height and light; it does not deal with roots, acidity or other blights caused by high hedges, which are, in fact, screens of trees.

Mr. Forth

My hon. Friend says that the Bill is conceptually simple. That may be true, but so that the House gets a full picture of the measure, I am sure that he will be telling us, perhaps only briefly, that it contains references to fees, remedial notices, appeals to the Secretary of State, regulations, enforcement, offences and many other items. My hon. Friend is an honest chap and he will want to ensure that the House, in judging his Bill, will not be carried away by its conceptual simplicity but will want to consider the underpinnings.

Mr. Taylor

My right hon. Friend is right to say that the Bill goes on to employ the method of remedial notices. In the name of fair play that, I trust, informs our society to this day, there will be an opportunity for the person complained of to appeal against the remedial notice. I would not wish it to be otherwise. The person who has grown the high hedge has some rights.

Mr. Bercow

I am genuinely sorry to trouble my hon. Friend, but he will be aware that I, in common with many hon. Members, have received many letters on the subject from constituents. I am having to consider the Bill carefully to decide what I should do. I am immensely impressed by the extent of my hon. Friend's ecological sophistication. Will he take it from me that it is probably of such a scale as to impress an arboricultural consultant, one of whom sits in the House and is currently in the Chair?

Mr. Taylor

My hon. Friend flatters me. I do not wish to persuade the House by the merits of the arguments in my humble address. I believe that the arguments and merits of the Bill stand by themselves and commend themselves. As I said, my Bill is conceptually simple because it deals with height and light. I know that the Building Research Establishment, or BRE, in association with the Tree Advice Trust, has been asked by the DETR to develop an objective way of assessing obstruction of light by hedges. The aim is to come up with a test that will show whether a particular hedge is the cause of an unreasonable obstruction of light, and if so, how much it needs to be reduced to remedy the problem.

At the end of the day, most people are looking for a mechanism that will lead to the height of the hedge being reduced because views might incidentally be restored and worries about roots allayed. If the Bill's obstruction of light criterion provides a remedy in a high proportion of cases, it might be possible to rely on that one measurement. If not, clause 16 will allow the Government to bring other grounds of complaint within the scope of the legislation. The Bill therefore provides flexibility to extend the complaints system if experience shows that that is either necessary or desirable.

Clause 1 concentrates on complaints about high hedges that, it is claimed, obstruct light unreasonably. However, it is important to understand what is meant by high hedges, so clause 2 provides a definition: evergreen hedges more than 2 m in height. That covers leylandii and other coniferous hedges such as Lawson cypress and western red cedar, as well as non-coniferous evergreen species such as laurel and privet. The Bill is not intended to apply to individual trees; although they can be the focus of disputes between neighbours, I have not set out to remedy all perceived problems with trees, nor to discourage the planting of suitable trees in gardens. My Bill concentrates on the main problem: tall, dense screens of foliage.

A complaint can be made to the local authority only if the hedge in question exceeds 2 m in height. That does not mean, nor should it be inferred, that hedges more than 2 m in height are necessarily problem hedges that should be trimmed. Whether or not such a hedge causes unreasonable obstruction of light will depend on the circumstances of the case, according to the objective tests being developed by the BRE. The effect of the Bill is to provide a starting point with some degree of certainty. One cannot put a complaint to the local authority unless the hedge exceeds the 2 m threshold. That approach is consistent with that adopted in respect of garden walls and fences under the town and country planning system: the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995 provides that one is free to erect fences up to 2 m in height without planning permission.

Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet)

I assure my hon. Friend of my full support for his Bill, but one aspect of clause 2 requires further explanation. Subsection (1) states: 'high hedge' means two or more adjacent evergreens and subsection (2)(b) states: a line of trees of shrubs is to be regarded as forming a barrier, despite the existence of any gaps, if the gaps do not significantly affect its overall effect as a barrier. The key word is "adjacent". How large would a gap have to be to be regarded as having a significant effect? Will my hon. Friend leave that to the local authority's discretion when a complaint is made, or does he have in mind a clearer and less ambiguous definition?

Mr. Taylor

rose—

Mr. Forth

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have just obtained from the Vote Office the Hammond report. Have you received any request or notification from the Government that a Minister intends to come to the House to make a statement at 11 o'clock this morning, or that the Government are making some provision to allow Members of Parliament to ask questions about the report? You will know that there has been widespread reporting in the media regarding the document's contents. Now that we have the report itself, I wondered whether you had had any hint, nod or wink from the Government indicating whether they intend to come clean about its contents.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The answer is that I have had no such request.

Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I think that I have already dealt adequately with the point of order.

Mr. John M. Taylor

To respond to the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir S. Chapman), who asked me whether the screen had to be continuous—whether, if there were gaps it could be treated as comprising separate items of shrubbery—and whether, in the final analysis, it would be a matter for the local authority's judgment. My view is that it would probably be for the local authority to judge, although the old adage about the elephant comes to mind—it is hard to define, but you recognise one when you see one. The same is true of an obstructive and oppressive high screen—you recognise one when you see one.

Clause 3 defines the reference to domestic property in clause 1. It makes it clear that one can make a complaint under the Bill if one believes that the high hedge in question is causing an unreasonable obstruction of light to one's garden or home. One person might be concerned only about the effect of a hedge on the garden, whereas another might be concerned about lack of light in the living room. In both cases, a complaint could be made under the Bill.

Clause 4 sets out the procedure for dealing with complaints. A complaint goes to the local authority—that is, the district, borough or unitary council or their Welsh equivalents. The authority may charge a fee if it wishes to. The Bill provides for the Government to set a maximum fee and enables local authorities to refund fees in appropriate cases. The local authority is given a power to reject a complaint if it believes that the complainant has not taken all reasonable steps to resolve the matter without involving the authority, or if it considers that a complaint is frivolous or vexatious. If the local authority decides to reject a complaint, it must inform the complainant as soon as it can and explain the reasons for its decision.

If the local authority proceeds with a complaint, it must decide two matters which are set out in clause 4(3). First, it must decide whether the hedge is causing an unreasonable obstruction of light to the complainant's property so as to affect the reasonable enjoyment of that property. I envisage the authority applying the objective tests now being developed by the Building Research Establishment. If the authority finds that the hedge is causing an unreasonable obstruction of light, it must then consider what action, if any, should be taken to remedy the problem and prevent it from recurring. The Bill requires the authority in making that decision to take into account all relevant factors, including the extent to which the hedge contributes to the amenity of the neighbourhood and affords privacy to its owner, as well as any legal obligations relating to the hedge.

It is clearly desirable that local authorities handle complaints made under the Bill in an objective and broadly consistent manner. In addition to the BRE tests, I know that the Government propose to provide local authorities with guidance on the legislation. Many cases will boil down to a question of balance: the authority will find that a hedge is causing an unreasonable obstruction of light to the complainant's property; it will consider whether there are any relevant factors that might lead it to decide against requiring the owner to cut it back; then, if there are none and the authority decides that action should be taken, it will issue a remedial notice under clause 5.

Mr. Forth

My hon. Friend is being characteristically generous in giving way. Does he envisage that the Bill will be cost neutral to local authorities and that the fees that it allows local authorities to charge will cover the costs? If so, can he give us his ideas as to the general scope or scale of the fees, so that we can judge whether the Bill will provide people with an attainable remedy in terms of the fees that they might be asked to pay?

Mr. Taylor

I shall not pretend that the measure will necessarily be cost neutral. There will be fees chargeable by the local authority to the complainant, probably of the order of £100 per complaint. Most local authorities are likely to require one full-time member of staff to supervise the activity. I suspect that there will be a net cost to local authorities, albeit not necessarily a large one; I do not intend to estimate how much it might be. None the less, I believe that a money resolution may be necessary and, if I am successful this morning, that money resolution will have to be laid before the House very soon.

Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South)

I shall try to help the hon. Gentleman and to answer the question asked by his colleague, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). Initially, there could be a cost, even after the fee is levied, but it would start to drop as the number of cases pending increased. In other words, there might be initial costs to local authorities, but, as I interpret clause 4, the scheme will ultimately become self-financing.

Mr. Taylor

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I agree with his analysis. I do not pretend to the House that in the initial period of backlog, which might even last for three years, the Bill would be cost neutral. There would be a cost in the early stages.

Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak)

My constituent Mr. Michael Jones, who has campaigned for such legislation, spent more than £100,000 on legal costs in trying to deal with his problem. I expect that most people who are currently suffering from the problem will be very grateful that there may at last be a remedy that costs as little as £100.

Mr. Taylor

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. I have a constituent whom the exercise cost £24,000—not as much as it did Mr. Jones, admittedly—and whose opponent had the benefit of legal aid, so that even after a successful civil action, there was no possibility of obtaining costs from the other side, so I share the hon. Lady's sentiment.

I am conscious of the fact that, according to the clock, I began to speak half an hour ago. Of course, my speech has been considerably extended by interventions, which I have been happy to take, but I shall shortly move to a conclusion.

Mr. Bercow

My hon. Friend will know that I am concerned, as many hon. Members are, that the House should get what it wants. He will be aware of my perhaps anorakish interest in the procedure by which the House hopes to get what it wants. In view of the provisions on orders and regulations in clause 13 and my uncertainty about subsections (2) and (3) of that clause, will my hon. Friend advise me as to whether any regulations subsequently introduced by the Secretary of State to give effect to the Bill would be subject to the negative or the affirmative resolution procedure?

Mr. Taylor

I am prepared to return to my hon. Friend on that matter, but as I understand it, the regulations would be subject to the affirmative procedure. In fact, this is a moment for candour. I have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the affirmative and negative procedures, but I have satisfied myself that the higher hurdle will apply.

The remedial notice would be drawn up by the local authority, setting out the action that had to be taken to remedy an obstruction of light caused by the hedge. In practice, we are talking about a specific requirement to reduce the height of the hedge and, possibly, an on-going requirement to maintain the hedge to prevent any further problem from arising in future. The local authority could not require the removal of the hedge or its reduction to below 2 m in height.

Clause 5 sets out in detail what must be included in the remedial notice, as well as specifying the work that must be carried out on the hedge. Among others things, it must state when the remedial work should be carried out and explain the consequences of a failure to comply with the notice. The remedial notice would be registered as a local land charge and be binding not only on whoever owned or occupied the land when it was issued but on his or her successors.

Clause 7 provides rights of appeal against the local authority's decisions under the Bill. If, in dealing with a complaint, the authority issued a remedial notice requiring work on the hedge, an appeal could be made to the Secretary of State. Similarly, if the authority decided not to issue a remedial notice, the complainant could appeal. Those provisions are intended to ensure that the people affected by the Bill are guaranteed a fair and impartial hearing before the determination of their respective civil rights.

Under clause 8, the Secretary of State would be allowed to set down in regulations the procedure for dealing with such appeals. He would be required to appoint "another person" to hear and determine appeals under the Bill. I believe that the intention is to delegate all appeals to the planning inspectorate.

Clause 9 describes the Secretary of State's powers in determining appeals. He may allow or dismiss appeals, either in total or in part. He may quash or vary remedial notices. He may also issue such notices in cases where the local authority has decided not to do so. Under clause 10, failure to comply with the remedial notice would be an offence, punishable on summary conviction by a fine not exceeding £1,000. There is also provision for daily fines if the requisite work remains outstanding following a court order. People will not be prosecuted simply for growing hedges. Those provisions would come into play only if someone refused to comply with the local authority's remedial notice.

Under clause 11, the local authority would have the power to go on to land and carry out the work specified in the remedial notice if the owner or occupier of the land failed to comply with its requirements. The authority could exercise those powers whether or not criminal proceedings were brought under clause 10. The costs of the work could then be recovered by the local authority from the owner or occupier of the land.

Under clause 16, the Secretary of State would have the power to extend the scope of complaints covered by the Bill and to alter the definition of the term "high hedge" by regulations. That is necessary in case experience shows that the Bill does not cover particular high-hedge problems.

I believe that we are addressing a genuine grievance that has brought misery to the lives of a number of our constituents. In conclusion, I should like to thank all those who have supported and encouraged me in introducing the Bill, not least my sponsors. I thank Clare Hinchliffe, the president of Hedgeline, for her help and encouragement, too. I commend the Bill to the House.

10.27 am

Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) on using his discretion after being so fortunate in the ballot. The Bill is long overdue. On a number of occasions, I have tried to get a similar Bill through the House, although I take no credit away from the hon. Gentleman. I have appreciated the support of hon. Members from all the political parties that compose the House on the occasions on which I have tried to get such a Bill through the House. I certainly appreciate and acknowledge the work that my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) has done in Birmingham. She has put in a tremendous effort in a number of ways, from tabling early-day motions to holding consultations with members of various groups and individuals who face the problem of high hedges.

When the problem was first brought to my attention, I thought that someone was trying to set me up. I found it incredible that high hedges or high trees could create so many emotional—sometimes neighbour is set against neighbour—and practical problems. The more research I did, the more serious I found the problem to be. With the exception of one or two politicians, people had certainly not taken it particularly seriously before, and its dimensions had not been appreciated.

When I consulted the public on my Bill, I was utterly amazed to be approached by people from the Japanese embassy who wanted copies of it because, as I discovered, Japan has problems similar to those we face here. I was equally amazed to be approached by people from Germany, where a similar problem exists. When Governments were opposing the introduction of a Bill such as this, we were told that everything on the continent was all right. We found out that is was not. The more I explored it, the more I realised the importance of the problem, about which I have had thousands of letters from all over the British isles.

I certainly welcome those things in the Bill which safeguard individual freedoms; that is always the basis of things which sometimes do not seem important. There are adequate safeguards and, at any stage, the notice can be withdrawn. The Bill gives the Secretary of State a say in how it will be operated; at the end of the day, one can go to him. The Bill includes many safeguards and, in some ways, it is better than my Control of Hedgerows in Residential Areas Bill. However, there are certain similarities, such as the right of local authorities to implement the provisions, which was part of my Bill. The present Bill makes considerable effort to provide for conciliation between parties—also in my Bill. There are one or two indications that the draftsman has listened to different opinions on both sides of the House and has tried to cover various points of view. The hon. Member for Solihull touched on the big problem of the considerable costs incurred under the old planning regulations and the fact that one was never sure whether one would get justice. There have been some very expensive cases. I know of a group captain who had to mortgage his house but, at the end of the day, got no justice. He is in his 80s and has a considerable war record of which the country should be proud, yet he is going to spend the rest of his days in debt. That provides an indication of the Bill's social consequences, which, as I said, I welcome.

In my view, local authorities are the only bodies adequate to police the Bill because they are publicly accountable. If there is any threat of injustice, it would be easy for constituents to go to their local councillor and have the matter raised in the council chamber.

Mr. Forth

Surely the hon. Gentleman concedes that, although the initial stage of the proposed procedure is a matter for the local authority—one can argue that it carries the reassurance of local accountability—the appeals mechanism envisaged by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) in his Bill is dealt with by the Secretary of State? Is the hon. Gentleman uneasy about the fact that the decision on an appeal would therefore be far removed from local circumstances and that the initial reassurance of local authority accountability would disappear or be reversed by the second stage of the procedure?

Mr. Cunningham

No, because the notice can be withdrawn at any point. All that is needed is for the local authority—the planning officer or the designated officer—to be satisfied that there has been a change in circumstances. If the right hon. Gentleman studies the Bill, he will find that there are adequate safeguards in the procedure. I do not have a major problem with that.

On that point, I appreciate the fact that, for the first time, the Secretary of State is to appoint an impartial individual to adjudicate on the Bill. That does not happen at the moment.

Mr. John M. Taylor

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) is correct that the appellate jurisdiction rests with the Secretary of State. However, the Secretary of State will employ the planning inspectorate, which is represented at a relatively local level and conducts appeal procedures in the immediate locale. The hon. Gentleman will be familiar with planning appeals that come before inspectors appointed by the Secretary of State in Coventry, as I am with those in Solihull.

Mr. Cunningham

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; I could not have put it better myself. As he is aware, if the Secretary of State were to consider an appeal, a planning officer or other officer would visit the site and take evidence from all concerned parties and even the public. So, to answer the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), the Bill's provisions on safeguards are pretty well drafted. Even the most cynical of people cannot help but be struck by the fact that there are adequate safeguards for both sides.

On the question of cost, the Bill includes reassurance. Initially, there will be a fee and it has been said that that could be £100. In the initial stages, there will certainly be a cost to the local authority, but as the backlog is dealt with, in theory, we would get to the point where the process was self-financing.

Sir Sydney Chapman

May I invite the hon. Gentleman to comment on this point? I would not be particularly fazed if a cost fell on a local authority, for two reasons: first, it has the right to return or refund the fee, which is at its discretion; secondly, the complainant has to pay the fee—unlike in the planning system, where the fee is paid by the person making the application, who obviously stands to benefit financially if the application gets through. Because the complainant—the person who, through no fault of his or her own, has been moved to make the complaint—pays the fee, the local authority should, as a matter of form, return the fee if the complaint is upheld.

Mr. Cunningham

I agree. I know that the hon. Gentleman has a considerable planning background and is speaking from a position of experience.

It has been said that an additional officer or officers could be employed to police and enforce the Bill. Again regarding costs, such posts are probably already there in planning departments, in which case it is just a question of giving people additional responsibilities, so there may not be an additional cost.

To conclude, may I once again congratulate the hon. Member for Solihull and everyone who, over the years, has tried to a get a Bill on this subject through the House? Certainly local communities and individuals would certainly welcome such a measure. In Coventry, the Styvechale ratepayers association would certainly welcome it, as would the Fryern residents association and constituents who have written to me individually. Last but not least I would mention Hedgeline which has campaigned for years on the issue. The Bill will be most welcome throughout the country, as it addresses a problem in our society which can cause nervous breakdowns, set neighbour against neighbour and sometimes lead to violence. There are reports of cases in which individuals have gone to their neighbour's house with guns. There are considerable costs for those who want to bring a case against a neighbour causing a nuisance or whose property is threatened by the roots of those trees, so devaluing it. I welcome the Bill, and I am sure that many others do, too. Once more, I congratulate the hon. Member for Solihull on introducing it.

10.38 am

Mr. Don Foster (Bath)

Like the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham), I congratulate the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) on introducing an important Bill. At the same time, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Coventry, South, who has worked on the issue over many years. I, too, pay tribute to the organisations that have worked on the issue, especially Hedgeline, which recognised its importance many years ago and has worked to give the House this opportunity today.

I am delighted to see that the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) is in his place. I do not know whether his constituents, friends or family ever see him, but such is his diligence in the Chamber that, ever since his election, I cannot recall an occasion when I have spoken without his being present and intervening on me. I look forward with great anticipation to his intervention. He intervened earlier on his hon. Friend the Member for Solihull and referred to the large number of former Prime Ministers who chose not to address the issue; he implied that he considered it trivial. That is simply not the case.

As the extremely well prepared guidance notes provided by the Department, with the agreement of the hon. Member for Solihull, clearly demonstrate, there is a known backlog of more than 10,000 cases in the United Kingdom. That is probably just the tip of the iceberg, and represents only those members of the public who have chosen to raise the matter with the various authorities.

Mr. Forth

Has the hon. Gentleman mused on why the first and second Bills on the Order Paper today are accompanied by explanatory notes kindly provided by Her Majesty's Government, but none of the other Bills have explanatory notes provided by Her Majesty's Government? I invite the hon. Gentleman to speculate for a moment why that might be the case.

Mr. Foster

I will indeed speculate—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. It would be helpful to the House if we stuck to the Second Reading of the Bill before us.

Mr. Foster

I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In connection with the guidance notes provided for the Bill under discussion—lest I stray further and incur your ire—I believe that one of the reasons why the Government have helped in the drafting is that they are keen to see the Bill through as quickly as possible—

Mr. Forth

Ah!

Mr. Foster

—as are the vast majority of hon. Members of all parties represented in the House. They all recognise the importance of the issue. It is likely that at least 20,000 people are victims of the problem of high hedges—often, but not always, hedges of leyland cypress. As the law stands, if we do not take action today, where hedgerows cause a nuisance, victims can only take out a civil action against their neighbours. Such disputes tend to drag on for many years, causing great distress, and are, as the hon. Member for Coventry, South reminded us, likely to lead to serious illness in some cases, and even violent assaults.

All hon. Members who are interested in the matter recognise the difficulty of obtaining satisfaction in the law courts, not least because of the extremely large sum that actions can cost complainants. Typical legal costs have ranged from £25,000 to £40,000 for each case. So severe is the problem that a number of insurance companies refuse to get involved in such cases.

Mr. Bercow

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me?

Mr. Foster

I knew that at some point I would have the great privilege and pleasure of giving way to the hon. Member for Buckingham. I thought that that might come a little later in my contribution, but it has come now and I welcome it.

Mr. Bercow

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether he was planning to traduce members of my family, but I assure him that they all have better things to do with their time than watch me on television. If he is suggesting that one of the consequences of the Bill would be less resort to litigation, and therefore decreased expenditure on legal costs, I think that he and other supporters of the Bill ought to make much of that, for I am not a lawyer—I say that as a matter of pride.

Mr. Foster

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for two things: first, for pointing out that his family joins the rest of the nation in having no desire to watch him on television, and secondly, for enabling me to say that I had intended to refer to the point that he has raised later in my remarks. One of the enormous benefits of the proposals in the Bill is that they will significantly reduce the need for complainants to resort to the legal process, which involves such high costs; as I said, those are typically £25,000 to £40,000.

The great advantage of not having to resort to that procedure is that for the many people who suffer the problem of high hedges in silence because they have chosen to take no action, there will be a relatively simple, swift and painless process by which they can end the dreadful blight of high hedges on their lives.

I hope that the hon. Member for Buckingham will bear in mind not only the legal costs, but the significant other costs associated with the problem of high hedges. Many examples have been brought to my attention of the building costs of repairing the damage caused by high hedges, such as repairs to walls that have fallen down and—much more costly—underpinning work on buildings that have been affected by such hedges.

Mr. Forth

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. A moment ago he used the phrase "relatively simple, swift and painless". Does he believe that that is likely to be the case? The clause headings refer to procedure for dealing with complaints, remedial notices, variation or withdrawal of remedial notices, appeals, appeals procedure, withdrawal of appeals, offences, remedial action, orders and regulations, and so on. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that in that jungle of well-meaning procedure, the term "swift and painless" can apply?

Mr. Foster

I am certain that it can. If the right hon. Gentleman reads the report of his intervention, he will note that nearly all the procedures that he mentioned will come into play only on appeal, or following suggestions for variation of the legislation. In the vast majority of cases, the simple procedures set out in the first part of the Bill will pertain.

Mr. Jim Cunningham

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when the planning officer visits the site, he will determine whether a complaint is frivolous or serious? That safeguard is provided.

Mr. Foster

The hon. Gentleman is right. Having diligently read the Bill, he will have seen that there is provision for vexatious accusations to be dismissed early in the proceedings.

I return to my response to the hon. Member for Buckingham, who mentioned legal costs. I pointed out that in addition to savings in legal costs, there may well be significant savings in building costs. There is a further financial benefit and a benefit to the nation as a whole. One of the issues that has not yet been touched on in our deliberations is the effect of hedges blocking out light. That affects people's homes in terms not only of appearance, but of heating.

One study that I have seen shows that the reduction of passive solar heating results in people having to keep their heating systems on longer and to a higher temperature. That represents a significant additional cost, which may be comparable to the cost of adopting the procedure proposed in the Bill—£1 million to £2 million a year. There would thus be savings in legal, building and fuel costs.

Mr. Bercow

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, with whom it is always a great pleasure to joust in this place. He seeks to offer the House, and me, reassurance; to all intents and purposes, he says that the Bill is simple in conception, benign in principle and, in respect of its likely roll-out, seamless in practice. If that is so, will the hon. Gentleman further reassure me that I need not be unduly perturbed by clause 13(4)(b), which refers to making different provision for different cases"? Why is it necessary for regulations to be rolled out subsequently in order to cater for those eventualities? Why can we not be told in the Bill exactly what it portends?

Mr. Foster

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Unfortunately, however, it suggests that I was slightly over-generous in referring to his diligence in the Chamber; had he been as diligent as I had assumed, he would have heard his hon. Friend the Member for Solihull answer that point in his introductory remarks. The hon. Member for Solihull correctly pointed out that, in the early stages of his consideration of the measure and in the work previously carried out by other organisations and by other hon. Members, it was clear that the key issue was the fact that high hedges blocked out light from people's houses. That was what he wanted to address. However, he noted that subsequently, when complaints are made to local councils, other issues may need to be considered. The proposed legislation thus has the scope to take such problems on board if they become apparent at a later date. That is a sensible approach. It is clear that the key problem is the one identified by the Bill, and I am delighted that it is to be addressed.

Mr. Bercow

rose—

Mr. Foster

I note that the hon. Gentleman is keen to intervene again, and although I shall be delighted to give way, I must point out that I am well aware that other hon. Members want to speak in the debate.

Mr. Bercow

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I did listen to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor), and I am slightly wounded by the gratuitous unkindness of the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster); I am not oblivious to the Bill's potential to cover issues that have not yet been anticipated. My point is simple. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if matters have to be dealt with by regulation, they should be subject to full debate on the Floor of the House?

Mr. Foster

The hon. Gentleman will have no difficulty in obtaining the answer he seeks; he will see from my record both on the Floor of the House and in every Committee on which I have served that I have always argued that regulations must first be given the approval of both Houses of Parliament, after debate whenever possible. My record on that issue is clear—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says that he is much happier; I am glad about that and I hope that we will have his support if there is a Division.

Urgency is important. I read with some interest the press release issued by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions on 10 August last year. The Minister for the Environment himself stated: We recognise that over-grown garden hedges have caused distress to thousands of people and we take these problems very seriously. Our consultation has confirmed the overwhelming support for tougher controls. And that is why we will work up new laws to give local authorities in England powers to intervene in neighbourhood hedge disputes. Legislation will be introduced as soon as Parliamentary time can be found. It has taken a little time and it has had to be based on a private Member's Bill, but I am glad none the less that in the meantime the Welsh Assembly has asked for similar measures to apply in Wales, and delighted that the DETR was prepared to help the hon. Member for Solihull in the preparation of the Bill, and by producing the extremely good guidance notes.

The problem is extremely important; it deserves to be addressed as quickly as possible. That view is shared by many people throughout the country and, sadly, by far too many of my constituents. I have received numerous letters on the subject. As I bring my remarks to an end, I remind the House of what the problem is like for the individuals who suffer from it.

A constituent living in Upper Weston, in Bath, refers to an 81-year-old widowed mother who suffers from the problem. My constituent states:

The trees are now approximately 40 feet high. They overhang the garage roof and garden by about 8 feet. They have drawn moisture from the ground beneath the garage and have caused its wall to subside close to the boundary. They are constantly dropping dead material which clogs the garage gutter, blows around the paths close to the house back door, clogs drains. Much of the back garden which once formed a useful vegetable plot and also gave innocent pleasure is now shaded and cannot be used for growing. The tree closest to the house and kitchen window has grown to about 15 feet. It is taking light from the kitchen and my mother has to arrange for it to be clipped back from her path (obviously, she cannot do this herself). She is constantly expressing her concern about the height of the trees as a danger to her property…As matters stand the only redress we have is to take the owner to court for loss of light and for root trespass for damage to the garage, this would possibly stop some of the nuisance but would involve costly litigation which an elderly widow does not wish to incur. Two of my constituents from Lower Swainswick wrote:

We would like to support all those people, who are in the same situation as ourselves, that require a change in the law, to control the height of leylandii trees. There are three 80 foot leylandii trees on boundary line in neighbours garden, which is trespassing and cutting out light from our house, putting it at risk and devaluing our property. We would welcome a law that would make people control these trees. Finally, a constituent from Combe Down wrote:

I am an unfortunate victim of the "Leylandi, Cypress scourge'. My neighbours persistently and gloatingly overgrow my garden. The biggest problem is the height of these monsters. The government has at last promised legislation, which is required now and not at some distant future—hopefully before the election…Swift action is required. Today, with the Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Solihull, we have the opportunity to provide that legislation and to take the swift action that should have been taken many years ago. We should at least do that today; I hope that the House will support the Bill.

10.58 am

Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak)

The hon. Member for Selly Oak had the good fortune to be successful in the ballot for private Members' Bills. I congratulate him not on that, but on having the good sense to use that opportunity to introduce the Bill.

Mr. John M. Taylor

I chide the hon. Lady not at all, but she has the good fortune to be the hon. Member for Selly Oak; I happen to be the hon. Member for Solihull.

Dr. Jones

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon—that was a grave error on my part. Our constituents will no doubt know who we are.

I also congratulate my constituents, Michael Jones and Clare Hinchliffe, and their organisation Hedgeline, who have done so much to change the attitude of hon. Members towards the problem of high hedges. The Bill, if given a fair wind today, will end the battle against what the Daily Mail described as the "curse of the leylandii". My constituents and the people throughout the country who have been in touch with them have been instrumental in changing the attitudes of Members.

When I first took up the issue shortly after being elected for Selly Oak, the response from Ministers in the then Department of the Environment suggested that they regarded it as a frivolous and unimportant matter, which did not warrant any special attention. I therefore pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), who, during his tenure as Under-Secretary for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, will have done much to ensure that officials apply themselves properly to the measures necessary to combat the nuisance that hon. Members have so ably described this morning.

Indeed, my hon. Friend accompanied my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell—Savours) and me in October 1997 as part of a delegation to the DETR. He subsequently sent a letter saying: It was apparent to me then from the attitude of officials that this would be an uphill struggle. "This" referred to introducing legislation to tackle high hedges.

The process has been slow, but we have arrived. A consultation paper was issued in November 1999, when the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green), who is in his place, attacked it as half-hearted. He said: The people most affected will regard this as passing the buck. It will be another two years at least before there is any chance of any legislative solution. It has not quite been two years, but he was almost right.

I tabled early-day motion 133 of the Session 1999-2000, which welcomed the publication of the consultation paper, but emphasised that only legislation would provide a solution to the complaints that hon. Members received throughout the land. I am pleased that it had the support not only of the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman), who is currently shadow Secretary of State, but of the hon. Member for Mid—Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), who said: I've had quite a lot of letters—many from Daily Mail readers—about this…I am not terribly fussed what solution we choose. But it cannot be beyond the wit of man or woman to devise a solution that would make people's lives better. The Bill that the hon. Member for Solihull has promoted will deal effectively with the problem. I hope that if there is a Division, the hon. Members for Tunbridge Wells and for Mid—Worcestershire, who are in the House but not the Chamber, will support the Bill.

The consultation paper gathered an unprecedented number of responses from members of the public. I do not believe that so many ordinary people have ever responded to a consultation paper. More than 2,700 people responded, and 93 per cent. of respondents supported legislation. There is a clamour for the introduction of the Bill. Given the cross-party support for the measure, I hope that it will pass on to a Committee stage, when it will receive detailed scrutiny. If that happens, many people throughout the country will breathe a sigh of relief at the prospect of a solution to the nuisance and distress that they have suffered because of oppressive high hedges.

11.5 am

Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst)

Recently, a Labour Member said that he supported a private Member's Bill because he was one of the promoter's oldest and dearest friends. I am in a difficult position. I freely confess my long-standing affection and admiration for my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor). He and I go back further than perhaps either of us would care to remember, and we have undergone adventures and episodes together. I must struggle not to allow my affection for him to get in the way of my judgment about his Bill. That will be difficult because I face not a dilemma but—perhaps—a trilemma about the Bill, its provenance and its aim.

It is clear from our debate that several people throughout the country have written to hon. Members about the subject of the Bill. So far, more have written from Solihull than from Bromley and Chislehurst, although I have received one or two letters on the matter—one this week. I therefore agree with hon. Members who have mentioned constituents' letters. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) read out a moving letter on the subject. The problem therefore exists, but should we feel obliged to legislate to deal with it?

A recent tendency, which probably arises more in consideration of private Members' Bills than other measures, has emerged. However, it also arose on the Bill on the disqualification of clergy. In that case, an individual wanted to be a candidate for election to the House, and the Government felt moved to change the law of the land. I had difficulty with that. I do not agree that because several people have a problem, we must legislate in a hurry or even slowly. It is not a sufficient reason.

My second difficulty is that the Bill is substantial. My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull described the Bill, in a typically elegant phrase, as "conceptually simple". The hon. Member for Bath said that the measure was straightforward and painless. I take issue with both descriptions. The Bill demonstrates the difficulty that arises when we try to find a simple solution to a simple problem. The Bill contains 20 clauses—a reasonably large measure by any standards. Of course, it is not the sort of mammoth Bill that the Government produce almost weekly and try to shove through Committee in an untimely manner. The House dealt with such a matter earlier; we shall have to return to it next week. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull would not disagree with the description of the Bill as "substantial".

My hon. Friend is trying to deal with an apparently simple matter: people feel upset and irritated or have their health affected by the actions of their neighbours. That is not new territory. Let us consider the phenomenon of suburbia. My hon. Friend's constituency is an elegant and outstanding example of that, as is Bromley and Chislehurst. They are similar. Suburbia, with its detached and semi-detached houses, can demonstrate the difficulty of neighbours living cheek by jowl, sharing party walls or boundaries and fences. The problem of hedges is a further example of that, albeit relatively recent and, it emerges, fairly extreme.

In seeking to solve the problem, we must be careful to strike a balance—here I defer to my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull, who is a solicitor of some eminence and great experience—between what we call, in layman's terms that my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) would probably understand, the traditional sanctity of private property and of the domestic dwelling, whereby the Englishman's home is his castle, and the reasonable behaviour of neighbours. That is what my hon. Friend's Bill seeks to do. I fear that, in seeking to do that, things might have become somewhat over-complicated.

The Bill helpfully sets out to define high hedges.

Mr. Bercow

The House has to decide whether the Bill satisfies the criterion of proportionality. That criterion must be satisfied for Parliament to judge it right to legislate. In that context—I make no valuation; I am simply asking the question—does my right hon. Friend agree that we would do well to bear in mind the words of Walter Lippman, who observed a long time ago that, in a free society, the state does not administer the affairs of men, but administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs?

Mr. Forth

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I wish that that were so. He and I share a longing to return to the age when such ideas prevailed. My fear is that we are now too readily moving—if we are not already there—into an era in which people expect and demand that their every problem should be dealt with by someone else: the local authority, the Government, or the European Union, God help us.

We are losing, if we have not already lost, the idea of robust, responsible, free citizens, which we have striven to protect for centuries in our common law and in all our customs and traditions. People are no longer prepared robustly to look after their own interests, but look constantly to someone else to solve their problems

Mr. John M. Taylor

My right hon. Friend makes his case in a principled way, and I thank him for his earlier kind remarks about me. He prayed in aid the English common law as part of our robust framework of affairs. Does he accept from me, speaking as a lawyer, that one problem is that some parts of that common law are worse than others—and one of them is the law of nuisance? The aggrieved citizen, in circumstances such as those we are discussing, hardly dares go to court citing the English law of nuisance because it is so uncertain.

Mr. Forth

Of course I defer to my hon. Friend on that matter. I acknowledge that, largely because of that, we are seeking a process of administrative redress, such as that proposed by the Bill, in which we try to circumvent the courts. I do not want to digress into what would be an interesting—and, I might even claim, relevant—debate about the relative merits of remedy through the courts and what I would call administrative remedy. I do not wish to push my luck in that direction, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall stick to the thrust of the Bill, while acknowledging what my hon. Friend has said.

We find ourselves, of necessity, having to define high hedges, which the Bill does. It would not be appropriate at this stage of the proceedings to raise too many questions about whether the definition is sufficiently sound—I am not an expert in the matter—but when one sets out, in a Bill such as this, adequately to define what one means by anything, never mind high hedges, there is always potential for getting into difficulty. I can envisage that, if the Bill becomes law, some people in the horticultural or arboricultural business might look at the definition and ask themselves whether they could circumvent the provisions. I wonder, therefore, whether the definition is adequate. However, I am on dangerous ground, so I shall say no more on that matter. I merely flag it up as a potential problem.

The meat of the Bill lies in the succeeding clauses, one of which deals with Procedure for dealing with complaints". Some hon. Members appear to envisage a halcyon era in which innocent victims of ghastly hedges will go, light-footed and light-hearted, through a rather easy complaints procedure. I think that they are being over-optimistic.

First, the complainant must approach "the relevant authority", which will be the local authority. It has been helpfully pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull and the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham) that the complaint will probably be dealt with by an expert officer. At the outset, the authority will have to decide whether to proceed with the complaint. That is an initial hurdle, at which the complaint's seriousness or frivolity will be judged by someone. I foresee, even at that stage, the possibility of the aggrieved citizen saying, "You are not taking my complaint sufficiently seriously." Right at the beginning, it will be possible for the citizen to feel that their case is not being properly dealt with by the authority.

Clause 4(4) provides that the authority must take into consideration all kinds of interesting matters, for example: the extent to which the high hedge in question is capable of affording (or, if reduced in height, would still be capable of affording) privacy to an occupier of the neighbouring land". Although my hon. Friend has said throughout that he was concentrating on the matter of light—height and light, as he put it—the matter of privacy is also written into his Bill as a relevant consideration. The hon. Member for Bath mentioned solar panels on roofs, but the matter is not as simple as that, because it is a requirement of the Bill that a judgment is made on whether privacy is a consideration—and, in my view, rightly so. Right at the beginning of the Bill, therefore, there are provisions for matters involving difficult judgments. It is not just a question of asking, "Are these hedges? How high are they and do they block someone's light?" No, the matter of privacy also has to be taken into consideration.

The Bill goes on to state that the authority must take into consideration the extent to which the hedge contributes (or, if reduced in height, would still contribute) to the amenity of the neighbourhood". We are introducing an aesthetic element. Not only must someone go round with a light meter saying, "Let me see, does this hedge block the light?", but the authority must consider whether privacy is properly protected and make a judgment about the amenity of the neighbourhood.

Finally, the clause contains a measure that I suspect my hon. Friend slipped in out of amusement—I will not say self-interest, because he no longer practises as a solicitor, which is a great loss to the legal profession. That provision states that the authority must take into consideration any legal obligation…relating to that hedge. My hon. Friend is therefore admitting to the possibility that there could, in some circumstances, be legal obligations relating to the hedge, or its location, function or purpose.

Mr. Pound

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Building Research Establishment is working on precisely such objective criteria—whether out of prescience or anticipation of his making these remarks, I do not know—in order to address that issue? Would not that go some way towards satisfying his tortured, anarchic soul?

Mr. Forth

It may or may not. The hon. Gentleman is asking me to buy a pig in a poke, and I am not inclined to do so. Moreover, I will suspend my judgment on whether so-called experts at some institute or other—no matter how eminent—will be able to produce objective criteria to deal with matters such as privacy and amenity, to say nothing of light. The hon. Gentleman is obviously a more trusting soul than I am. We shall beat that out of him if he spends considerably more time in the House, as I hope he will. I simply flag up the point to show that the matter will not be as simple as hon. Members suggest.

Dr. Lynne Jones

Are not those issues regularly dealt with by planning officers when dealing with planning applications?

Mr. Forth

Yes, and that is what I am afraid of. The hon. Lady says that such matters are already dealt with by planning officers so that is okay. I do not know how many constituency cases involving how planning officers handle such issues she deals with, but I deal with a lot. Although I always have a struggle with my conscience as to whether I should deal with them at all, I usually give in and try to help my constituents. To my mind, saying, "Don't worry folks, it will all be dealt with by these expert planning officers" is not a convincing argument.

Perhaps the planning officers in the hon. Lady's constituency or in her local authority area are so expert that they are proof against complaint and dissatisfaction. Perhaps her postbag is devoid of letters about local planning matters. All I can say is that I suspect that in Solihull, Buckingham, Ashford and Bromley and Chislehurst, to say nothing of Bath, the odd letter about such matters pops up in the odd postbag.

Dr. Jones

Of course I occasionally deal with such cases, but I deal more with complaints about nuisance hedges. From the logic of the right hon. Gentleman's argument, is he suggesting that we should have no planning procedure whatever and that people should be able to erect buildings whenever they like without involving planning regulations?

Mr. Forth

In an ideal world, yes. I have in mind the image of an ideal world in which there are no planning officers, no local authorities, almost no government and a lot of responsible, happy, free citizens living together in responsible relationships, but we have not quite got there yet. My task is to judge whether I believe that the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull moves us in that direction. Indeed, we all have to make such a judgment.

I want briefly to refer to certain proceedings. I have said that I believe that the front end of the process is in no way as simple as hon. Members suggest. Variation or withdrawal of remedial notices would also be involved and any appeals against remedial notices would be very important. It has been pointed out that the Secretary of State would not personally be involved in appeals. I am rather grateful for that, given the current incumbent of the post, although my hon. Friend has told us that he believes that the Secretary of State would probably appoint experienced inspectors to undertake the appeals process on his behalf.

The suggestion is helpful because it would bridge that gap, which worries me, between the localised initial stage of the process, which would ultimately be the responsibility of the local authority and its elected members, and the Secretary of State, who would be too remote to provide a degree of reassurance that the appeals process could be properly conducted. 1 accept my hon. Friend's assurance that the mechanism that he suggests would almost certainly fit the requirement, but we get back into difficulty in clause 8, which states: The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision with respect to examples of where regulations would be required. Let us not imagine that the matter would be free of bureaucracy. Everybody craves a simple, quick and easy solution from the Bill, but they may end up somewhat disappointed.

I pass over determination or withdrawal of appeals. The enforcement of remedial notices of course raises another series of issues such as fines. Let us not imagine that the process would be pain free. If such matters sadly and regrettably became a point of bitter dispute between neighbours—one or two letters that I have received suggest that they can do so—the initial complaint, the likely appeal, the need for remedial notices and perhaps a degree of obstinacy that might not otherwise have been expected may all render the process a lot more difficult than might be imagined. We are being way over-optimistic if we are simply saying, "It is okay folks, we will put a new Act on the statute book and this will all be resolved fairly easily." I fear that the Bill may not produce the anticipated results.

The hon. Member for Bath used a phrase that those of us who are in the Chamber every Friday have come to recognise. He said that the Bill has the support of a large number of Members of all parties and of all shapes, sizes and descriptions. Although he did not say so, I should not be surprised if it is supported by Members of all genders as well. The problem is that every time this Session Members have claimed widespread support for a Bill among other Members of Parliament, they have usually cited an early-day motion, which is a piece of political wallpaper that pleases a lot of MPs because it enables them to sign a bit of paper and feel that they have done their job properly.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that the real test is the attendance of Members of Parliament at the House of Commons. They must hold themselves ready to support a Bill by voting in the Lobby. Frankly, I am not otherwise impressed. I am not remotely impressed when I am told that so many Members have signed an early-day motion. I am not even impressed if I am told that all sorts of people have pledged their support. The pledge of support that matters in the legislative process is a Member of Parliament walking through the Lobby—showing support in the only way that counts.

Mr. Bercow

My right hon. Friend always and rightly poses an exacting test for his parliamentary colleagues. Does he agree, however, even if one were rather less rigorous in one's demands and expectations and did not insist or expect that a Member should attend the Chamber for a debate on a Bill before deciding whether to support it, that it would not be unreasonable to ask how many of those who supported a Bill on Second Reading had read it?

Mr. Forth

That would be an exacting test. I suspect that the only person—not just present, but perhaps throughout the House of Commons—who would pass would be my hon. Friend.

Mr. Pound

There are at least two.

Mr. Forth

I hope that hon. Members are not volunteering to be put through a rigorous examination of their knowledge of the Bill.

Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon)

rose—

Mr. Forth

Except for the hon. Gentleman, to whom I give way.

Mr. Dismore

If I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall show that I have read the Bill, as I have detailed comments to make on some of the principles behind it.

Mr. Forth

I exonerate the hon. Gentleman from my remarks.

I want to make two final observations. First, the Bill might be in an interesting position regarding the passage of time and the possible calling of an election should it be given a Second Reading and be considered in Committee. Let us bear it in mind that this Parliament has another 14 months to run. The Leader of the House, no less, verified that for us yesterday at business questions; in fact, she boasted about it. So, should the Prime Minister cut and run, either because he is disappointed by the Chancellor's Budget or because he is in a panic about foot and mouth or any other matter, the premature calling of an election would bring the private Member's Bill procedure to an abrupt and unfortunate end, and we should all remember whose fault that would be.

Secondly, were the Bill to be given a Second Reading, it would require considerable scrutiny in Committee and on Report. I deliberately have not dwelled at any length on the detailed provisions. As you know, it is not my practice to do so, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, I have highlighted examples that might create difficulty and I have mentioned, just in passing, some issues that might require further attention. I go no further than that. Some Members have suggested that the Bill deals with a small, narrow matter, but I believe that it deals with an important one. I think that it has the potential to go much wider in its effects than focusing on a specific problem.

With those brief comments, I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull well. He has chosen an interesting subject, given that he came so high in the private Members' Bill ballot. He has made good and proper use of the time available to him, and has judged the Bill well and interestingly. He must some time give me a little tutorial on how to write explanatory notes.

11.30 am

Mr. Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) on introducing the Bill, which I support. It covers important principles with which I strongly agree, and would help to avoid some of the neighbour disputes that every Member has to deal with from time to time.

In Britain, we are often happy to allow people to do something, but are reluctant to legislate to prevent them from doing things. We are too slow in producing legislation to restrain people from infringing their neighbours' liberties. A big question of liberty underlies the Bill, and the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) touched on it. He is perhaps a spokesperson for the libertarian right, which would allow people to do what they like with as little intervention by the state as possible.

I am drawn to some of the great writers on politics. Hobbes talked about life in the state of nature being "nasty, brutish and short". He said that imposition of a state and regulation of human life was important, and I agree with him.

Mr. Pound

I thought Hobbs was a cricketer.

Mr. Hopkins

It was another Hobbes.

Other great writers on liberty have dealt with these subjects at length, such as John Stuart Mill and, more recently, Sir Isaiah Berlin, who spoke of liberties conflicting and said that the liberty of the pike does not mean liberty for the minnow. A pond with one pike has many unfree minnows.

Mr. Bercow

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hopkins

Yes.

Mr. Pound

Speaking of minnows.

Mr. Bercow

As the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) observes entirely correctly, we are speaking of minnows, so I thought it appropriate to rise to my feet. On first principles, will the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins) explain the pertinence of Isaiah Berlin's conception of positive and negative liberty in so far as it applies to the Bill? It is important not to misrepresent anyone in these matters. Will he confirm that the key point about Mill's advocacy was the distinction between self-regarding and other regarding acts? The erection of a high hedge would probably be regarded—certainly by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor)—as an other regarding act.

Mr. Hopkins

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I should like to debate these points. J.S. Mill agonised about whether one could intervene to prevent someone from damaging himself, and it was Isaiah Berlin who referred to liberties conflicting. The point about positive freedom is that the state intervenes to promote the freedom of the weak against the strong. I believe that the state, by choice and by careful legislation such as we promote in the House, can protect the liberties of the weak against the strong. I entirely agree with that proposition, which is why I sit on this side of the House rather than on the other side.

I have had some experience of neighbour disputes about arboreal matters. When I was young, I lived in a flat with an elderly landlady, who asked me to cut a branch of a neighbour's tree that was overhanging her garden. I made the rash assumption that she had consulted her neighbour and I got on my step-ladder with a saw. The neighbour came out of his house in a state of extreme agitation. He was very angry and tried to push me off the step-ladder. I was not a lawyer at the time, but I can think of several laws that could have been invoked. I felt that something had to be done to regulate relations between neighbours. Time and again, neighbours in my constituency have fallen into conflict with each other for various reasons, resulting in bitter disputes for which the law is often inadequate. Therefore, I support the principles underlying this important Bill.

I should declare an interest, because I may be the only Member present who has a leylandii hedge next to his garden. My neighbour keeps it trimmed at a reasonable level. We are extremely good friends, and he has not caused any dispute. If he were to allow his hedge to grow to a height of 30 ft or 40 ft, or whatever height they can grow to, 1 am sure that it would cause difficulty between us. I may be able to afford a lawyer, such as the hon. Member for Solihull, to take my side, but if I were an old-age pensioner living on a state pension I would not be able to do so and would be in extreme difficulty. If people could call in the local authority to help, that would be a good use of a local authority. That is how it should be.

Mr. Dismore

Presumably, if my hon. Friend were an impecunious pensioner, the community legal service would give him assistance. However, that would not be possible if the £0.5 billion package of cuts proposed by the Opposition were to go through.

Mr. Hopkins

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The community legal service is promoted by the Government.

My neighbour's fence was attractive when it first grew, because the row of cypress trees reminded me of my holiday in Tuscany some years previously. Sadly, my back garden's likeness to Tuscany ended at that hedge, and there is no other similarity. He chopped the tops off the trees, so they are now beheaded and less pretty. The hedge is an agreeable barrier between our gardens. I am not sure whether he is trying to keep my garden out of his garden, but it is agreeable because he keeps it trimmed at a reasonable level.

My neighbour's hedge does not exclude light, as it points south-west and my garden gets the best of the sun in the afternoon, so it is not a problem. The Bill is rather more nebulous about how I could deal with the situation if it were much higher. I suggest that consideration be given in Committee to an absolute height limit of 3 m or 4 m—I think that 3 m is reasonable—to prevent, for instance, the obstruction of one's view of the neighbourhood.

Mr. Pound

I do not want to disagree with my hon. Friend in the generality of his comments, but does he agree that the noble cypress standing alone can present a wonderful picture? In my garden, with the advent of spring, fornicating frogs are frolicking in the pond in the shade of a noble Lebanon cedar. Were there a row of cedar, that would constitute a problem, but where one stands alone it can be a landscape feature. I urge my hon. Friend to row back from a height limit, because we should consider spatial location rather than crude geometry. Height can be all right, if the tree is in the right place.

Mr. Hopkins

My hon. Friend makes a good point, but I shall leave judgment on these matters to the Committee. There is a difference between a noble cypress standing alone and a dense row of them blocking light or blocking the view. In my garden, the only view that the hedge blocks is that of the aircraft taking off from our local airport, and I am not worried about losing that view. However, in other cases a view of attractive hills may be hidden by a high fence that does not exclude light, but makes the view from the garden much less pleasant.

I believe that there is a case for a height limit on hedges, perhaps at a higher level than the 2 m proposed in the Bill to avoid cutting out light. In Committee, I hope that consideration can be given to tightening up the Bill on overall height for other reasons besides blocking out light.

I cannot claim to have a background in the promotion of the Bill, but I congratulate all who have. I have an interest, however, and I hope that what I have said will be of some benefit and assistance.

11.40 am

Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon)

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor). I think it is the fourth attempt to legislate after the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid—Kent (Mr. Rowe): there were two attempts by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham), who spoke earlier, and one in the other place by Lady Gardiner of Parks—an apposite name and title in this context. Regrettably, having heard what has been said today, I suspect that this Bill's prospects are limited.

I want to cite some cases referred to me by constituents, which highlight not just the need for the Bill but one or two problems caused by its current drafting. Mr. Brazil, of Garrett road in Edgware, wrote to me at the end of last year to say: My neighbour has a 'hedge' consisting of Leylandii conifers. These trees are 40 feet high and will eventually—I am told—reach 100 feet. My neighbour—despite repeated requests—refuses to keep them under control in any way. The trees mean that our garden is constantly in shade and is spoilt both for pleasure and beauty. There is also a very adverse effect on the value of my property should I wish to sell. The Bill does not provide for that consideration, but I think that what Mr. Brazil tells me constitutes the fundamental reason why it is necessary.

Mr. and Mrs. Cullinan, of Rushden gardens in Mill Hill, wrote to me on behalf of half a dozen constituents. They raised similar but slightly different problems, again related to leylandii trees planted as a hedge. They wrote that the London borough of Barnet—when it was under Conservative control, I hasten to add—planted the trees some 15 years ago, when the property belonged to them; the responsibility for their maintenance is that of the present owner. The house has recently been sold and we think that it is being rented out. We have written to the owners asking for the trees to be removed or trimmed to a reasonable height and maintained. The trees have grown steadily over the years and are still growing. Their estimated height is now 30 ft. The previous owner was willing to trim the trees but not enough to make any difference to us. These trees have caused damage to the shed of no. 13. Blocks out sunlight from the majority of the gardens and prevents plants from growing. The roots must be huge to support trees of this size. As council taxpayers and voters we feel we are entitled to your support and at least somebody could even look at the trees. We will seek legal advice but do not see why we should bear the cost of this, as they are not our trees. The couple's problems relate to whether the local authority is responsible for the trees, the damage caused by tree roots and the issue of light, as well as the question of obtaining legal advice under the present system. I am happy to report that the property involved has a new owner who seems a little more sympathetic, but time will tell. Mr. and Mrs. Cullinan have had to put up with the problem for more than 10 years.

Mr. Prendergast of Deansbrook road in Burnt Oak, whom I met when I was doing the doorsteps a few weeks ago, raises a slightly different problem. He has a very small garden, but there is a single large conifer on the next-door neighbour's property, which completely blocks out the light in his kitchen. Having seen the property, I can vouch for the problems that Mr. Prendergast is experiencing, and I think that they illustrate one of the drafting problems to which I referred. The House of Commons research paper on the Bill sets out the problem succinctly. It refers to the difficulties that trees and shrub hedges frequently cause, threatening roofs, gutterings and drains, depriving unwilling sufferers of light in their houses, and depriving them of the right to use their gardens in the way that they choose. The paper states: Small gardens can be completely dominated by the high neglected hedge at the bottom of someone else's large garden. Keen gardeners may be prevented from growing the plants they wish to grow by untopped and unmaintained fast-growing hedges. The burden of that continuing hazard can fall on people who are prevented by law from intervening to reduce the height of hedges.

I am pleased that the Government have seen fit to act. They have issued a consultation document, and have indicated that they would like to legislate when time permits. I am also glad that the hon. Member for Solihull has been able to take on the Bill. However, we need to be aware of the scale of the problem.

A 1999 survey of local authorities estimated that there could be as many as 17,000 existing problem hedge cases in England and Wales. The problem tends to occur when a hedge is not suitable for its location, and is not properly maintained. Once a well-maintained hedge is neglected and becomes overgrown, it too will create problems.

Much of the debate has focused on leylandii cypresses, which tend to be singled out for blame because they can grow by 1 m a year and reach heights of more than 100 ft. It is not the only culprit, however. People considering what to plant in their gardens should bear in mind the fact that other trees can also have a serious deleterious effect on their neighbours' properties. The Lawson cypress can grow by 60 cm a year, to 20 m, the western red cedar can grow by 75 cm a year, to 25 m, and even the common-or-garden privet grows by 60 cm a year and can reach a height of 13 m. I found that staggering. The yew tree can grow by 20 cm a year, to 13 m, and even holly can grow by 30 cm a year, to 10 m.

The 1993 report "Trees in Towns" found that the most common type of tree in urban areas, constituting 22 per cent. of the total, was the cypress type, such as leylandii. More important, cypress-type trees accounted for 50 per cent. of hedges that were higher than 2.5 m. People may assume that if they have a tree that is not a leylandii these arguments do not apply to them. They should understand that other types of tree can cause similar problems, and that what may be a dwarf now may become a giant triffid in a year or two.

Mr. John M. Taylor

The hon. Gentleman has clearly done a great deal of research. Does he agree that the inappropriateness of some trees lies in the fact that their genetic make-up has made them forest trees whose survival requires them to drive for the canopy as fast as they can?

Mr. Dismore

That is a valid point, although there is a right place for hedges consisting of such trees. Anyone who has visited a stately home on an afternoon off will have seen wonderful avenues of cypress trees or yew hedges—but that is the right place for them: they are not appropriate for people's back gardens, particularly in built-up urban areas where the trees may be striving for light. They are effectively competing with the houses for light, and, by definition, competing with the neighbours as well.

The Bill is welcome because it demonstrates that existing procedures are not adequate. Of course, the best solution is co-operation with the neighbours. A hedge owner simply might not be aware of the effect that his hedge is having on his neighbours. As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins) suggested, a polite request for the hedge to be kept properly trimmed and maintained might be all that is needed. I am glad to hear that my hon. Friend has a good working relationship with his neighbour. Ultimately, that is obviously the best way in which to avoid disputes and prevent what is often a problem that can be solved relatively easily from escalating into one of the "neighbours from hell" wars that we see on television all the time.

The initial focus of the dispute can turn into a much greater problem involving many other issues.

It is important to stress the need for mediation. It is regrettable that mediation services are not available more widely. If both parties are willing to reach an amicable solution but differ over what that solution should be, mediation by an independent third party could help them reach an acceptable solution. Even if the hedge is part of a wider dispute, mediation could get to the root cause of the dispute. Of course, mediation requires both parties to act in good faith. It requires their good will if it is to succeed. The House will understand that it is not a legal solution, but a situation in which two parties are trying to reach agreement. There are 150 mediation groups throughout the country, but they obviously do not provide a solution to the problem nationwide.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) referred to the civil courts. I am a solicitor, but as far as I am aware I have not done a tree case. I regret to say, as my hon. Friend said, that the civil courts do not provide a viable solution to these detailed problems. The cost and time and effort involved in mounting a legal challenge constitute an unattractive option for many private individuals who have limited resources, regardless of whether they have the backing of the community legal service. If that service were abolished—the Conservatives would abolish it if they came to office—that support would not be available to individuals.

Mr. Hopkins

My hon. Friend is making the point strongly that we need a strong and simple law that can be invoked if necessary, but legislation that underpins mediation. If a neighbour knows that he is likely to go to court and is likely to lose, he will not grow his trees high in the first place.

Mr. Dismore

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Part of the problem, as I said when I was talking about the types of tree involved, is ignorance. Once someone has planted a tree, he or she often becomes territorial: it is an example of an Englishman's home being his castle. If someone thinks in advance about planting trees there may not be a dispute, but thereafter the issue can become the focus of real problems. With court cases, the lack of certainty of a successful outcome makes people unwilling to risk legal costs. Such cases can become extremely expensive, and really do not provide a viable solution to the problems.

There is also the matter of easements. I studied the law of property nearly 30 years ago, although, not having practised in property law, I do not claim to be an expert. As I understand it from my legal research, easements of light do not extend to people's gardens. There can be a remedy only if the property itself is affected, and then only if the light in question has been enjoyed uninterrupted for at least 20 years. The common law right is not much help.

It has been suggested that statutory nuisance provisions in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 might provide a potential remedy for disputes over high hedges. Section 79(1)(a) states that keeping Premises in such a state as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance amounts to statutory nuisance. However, to bring a case under the Act, there must be a direct risk of disease or illness. The problems that we are discussing can cause all sorts of stress, unpleasantness and unhappiness, but in many instances it would be difficult to show that there was a direct risk of disease or illness. It might be argued that people's mental health might be affected in certain extreme circumstances, but it would be difficult to show that there was a statutory nuisance within the terms of the 1990 Act. The existing remedies are not adequate to deal with a real and growing problem.

I was pleased that the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions issued a guidance leaflet, with the assistance of the horticulture and landscapes industries, which sets out alternatives to fast-growing species. It was designed to help people when they come to plant in their gardens. Again, however, it does not seem to have solved the problem. That is why I am pleased that the Government conducted the consultation to which I referred. Given that there were more than 3,000 responses, it is clear that such consultation was not only long overdue but welcomed by the population. The results of the consultation showed that 94 per cent. of respondents believed that new laws were needed to control hedges. The Bill meets that demand. Also interesting is the fact that 77 per cent. of local authorities support new laws. Some 72 per cent. of respondents chose the option of allowing local authorities to deal with the problem, and 67 per cent. of local authorities shared that view, although they wanted mediation to be introduced alongside new laws.

I shall flag up a problem that has been identified by the Local Government Association, which has welcomed the Government's proposals and, by extension, the Bill. There is a need for mediation that involves the disputing neighbours, and there is a potential cost. The LGA and all local authorities are anxious that the net result of the proposed legislation should not be to increase the burden on the local council tax payer or result in an impact on services. If legislation comes forward, they have a case in saying that they should be able to recover the costs that they incur in dealing with complaints. That prompts the question of who the costs should be recoverable from. If we do not deal with that, the local authorities will not thank us for giving them additional concerns without providing them with the necessary resources.

I have concerns about various parts of the Bill. Clause 2 has already featured, but I wish to emphasise some other aspects. First, there is the requirement that a hedge should have two or more evergreens adjacent to it. I have mentioned one of my constituents, Mr. Prendergast, who has suffered as a result of an evergreen tree—and it is only one, because his garden is very small, as is his neighbour's. The impact of that one tree on his property is probably greater than the impact of an entire hedge on other properties. I hope that the hon. Member for Solihull will reconsider the definition to ascertain whether we can find a way in certain circumstances, at the very least, to provide for a situation where one tree is causing real distress. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will consider whether that one tree could be caught within the definition.

I am concerned also about the 2 m above ground level provision and the height of the tree. That may seem petty, but there is a point to be made. I shall give an example. I have a small garden at the back of my Westminster flat. Behind my garden is a neighbouring garden, where the level of the ground is nearly 4 ft higher than that in my garden. Is the 2 m measured from the level of my garden or from the level of the other person's garden, because a tree may be only 1 m high in my neighbour's garden, but it will be far more than 2 m high on my side of the fence? That issue needs to be addressed, because a tree may not cause any problem to the person who owns it.

I wonder whether we should consider the problems caused by deciduous trees as well as those caused by evergreens. People like to use their gardens more in summer when deciduous trees are in leaf and block the light. In winter, they are less of the problem. There is a tall deciduous tree in my next-door neighbour's garden. In the winter, it does not cause a problem, but it blocks quite a lot of light in the summer. I have not been involved in a dispute about it, because it is a nice tree. However, we should consider what we could do about the faster-growing deciduous species. Instead of using the generic term "evergreen", perhaps a schedule could specify the species that are covered by the Bill. Will semi-evergreen trees be caught by its provisions? Certain fast-growing trees lose half their leaves in winter and are therefore classed as semi-evergreen.

Clause 4 refers to complaints being made to the relevant local authority. What happens if the landowner causing the problem is the local authority? I highlight that point because, in the case to which I referred earlier, the trees in question had been planted by the local authority.

Mr. Jim Cunningham

My hon. Friend will find the answer to that question in the explanatory notes, which show that the local authority could be liable.

Mr. Dismore

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention and I do not dispute that the local authority could be liable. My concern is that the local authority would be judge and jury in its own cause. That is potentially a breach of the Human Rights Act 1998, to which I hope to refer shortly.

Mr. Cunningham

Again, that point is taken care of in the explanatory notes. The Bill provides for an appeals procedure and an adjudication. My hon. Friend's point has already been answered.

Mr. Dismore

I am afraid that my hon. Friend has not convinced me that the point has been answered. By definition, an appeals process suggests that the decision should have been taken fairly in the first instance. An appeals process cannot correct in law a defect in the original procedure. That is trite law. There might be infringements of the Human Rights Act, and I shall expand on that point when I get to that part of my speech.

Mr. Cunningham

I shall describe to my hon. Friend a situation that often arises in local government. A planning authority may give a planning permission that is objected to by a member of the public. The case goes to a planning appeal and, if necessary, if someone want to take it to extremes, to a public inquiry. That parallels the position under this Bill.

Mr. Dismore

A judicial review is going through the courts at the moment. The whole process and, in particular, the involvement of the Secretary of State has been called into question under the human rights legislation. I shall refer to that point later, but I hope that the Bill would not add to the problem by giving a local authority jurisdiction in its own cause. That point will have to be considered as the Bill progresses. It is not a hypothetical problem. As one of my constituency cases shows, it has arisen before. In that case, the land had been sold on but if it had been owned by the local authority at the time, budget pressures might have led the local authority to decide that it would not cut its trees. Where would that have left the people involved?

Is the current provision for the complaints procedure fair? The Bill's phrasing suggests that, when a complaint is made and a local authority adjudicates on it, no provision will be made for a fair hearing for the owner of the trees in question. He can appeal and ask for a review, but that is not the same as being given a right of hearing before the decision is taken. Under clause 4, the authority will simply have to consider the complaint: it will not be required to consider any representations. Indeed, before the complaint is decided, it will not even be required to give notice of the complaint to the owners of the trees. That is a fundamental breach of natural justice, which I hope will be addressed if the Bill proceeds. I support the Bill, but certain problems may arise from it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) referred to the work done by the Building Research Establishment at the request of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The BRE is working with the Tree Advice Trust to come up with an objective test for light. I have problems with the definitions because the phrase "unreasonable obstruction of light" is a subjective test, yet we are also asking for objective criteria to be set. Perhaps that, too, could be dealt with more effectively in a schedule to the 1990 Act. Including concepts of reasonableness in the Bill will only create a field day for the profession of which the hon. Member for Solihull and I are members.

On the issue of light, the height of the trees, how far they are from boundaries and the point of the compass at which they are situated in relation to the house are relevant considerations. The time of year should also be taken into account because shade varies according to the season.

Page 3 lists a series of matters that the local authority must take into account, but the Bill does not specify how it should do that. There is no requirement for a site visit by local authorities or for them to consider photographs. If they are to get involved, they cannot merely take the complainant's word, which seems to be what is provided for in the Bill as drafted. They should at least pay a site visit—preferably when the sun is shining—so that they can see whether the problem is genuine.

Whether the hedge is in an urban, countryside or suburban environment should also be considered. What is suitable in the countryside is not necessarily suitable in an urban environment, where avenues of cypress trees or yew hedges can cause problems.

There is a difficulty in defining "neighbouring land." What if the land is not neighbouring? I mentioned a case that was referred to me by half a dozen constituents. The trees were not just a problem for the immediate neighbours. The shadows that they cast were so large that four or five other properties were also affected. Does the definition cover people who are further down the street?

Local authorities should consider whether tree preservation orders are attached to the trees, because there may be a good reason for some of them to be allowed to survive. There is no reference to the responsibility of local authorities in that regard.

Mr. John M. Taylor

Clause 4(4)(c) states that the local authority is obliged to take into account any legal obligation (whether imposed by or under any enactment or otherwise) relating to that hedge. That would include tree preservation orders.

Mr. Dismore

I am grateful for that clarification. It is an important consideration, and I am happy with the definition if it covers it.

On wildlife, I know from research that I have conducted that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds thinks that there is a problem with enforcement. It says that between October and April birds may well be nesting in the trees concerned. If we are going to issue orders for people to cut down trees or reduce their height, the Bill should ensure that the interests of wildlife are protected. What might be a valid order in the summer months may not be valid in the winter months if it has an impact on birds or other wildlife. I hope that we can incorporate some protection. I do not think that that would be a major change, but local authorities should bear that important consideration in mind.

We also have to consider the health of the trees. Although I am not an arboriculturist, I know that there are times of the year when it is not sensible to prune a tree because it is not good for its health. Another time of the year might be far better. I do not know whether the seasons when it is necessary to protect wildlife and the season when it is necessary to protect trees coincide. No doubt the hon. Member for Solihull has the answer.

Mr. Taylor

I do not have a pat answer, but as a long-standing parliamentary friend of the RSPB, I thoroughly accept the hon. Gentleman's point.

Mr. Dismore

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

I turn now to the health of the trees. As I said, I am not an arboriculturist, so I am not sure whether the tree-cutting season coincides with the season when concerns about protecting birds are paramount. My point is that local authorities should take into account the protection of the health of trees and wildlife in deciding when their orders should take effect,

The Parliamentary Under—Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Robert Ainsworth)

It is my understanding that the important point raised by my hon. Friend is covered in the Bill. He will know that there is a minimum period for the enforcement of remediation, but no maximum period, and discretion is given to the local authority. It can therefore take into account issues such as the health of the trees and of wildlife when insisting on enforcement.

Mr. Dismore

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification. If the Bill becomes law, his comments can no doubt be taken into account in any proceedings under the Pepper v. Hart rule which may follow. It would be helpful if that protection were incorporated in the Bill.

We have all, from time to time, heard of officious local government officers who take the letter of the law to extremes, not necessarily because they have been told to do so by their political masters. Indeed, their actions are often entirely to the horror of their political masters, who do not know what is being done in their name.

I turn now to the 28-day period before the operative date of a remedial notice. As my hon. Friend said, there is no maximum period—that is left open-ended. Perhaps there ought to be elasticity in the other direction as well, because if the nesting season were approaching or if pruning at a particular time would endanger the tree's health, the people involved in a case might have to wait six months or more before it could be cut back.

I am also concerned about the problem of the continuing maintenance of trees. I am not sure whether any order made under the Bill could be continuous or whether it would be a one-off. No doubt the hon. Member for Solihull can clarify the point. The local authority could order a tree to be trimmed to a height of 2 m once, but the problem might recur the following year and in the years after that.

Mr. Taylor

There would be a continuing obligation to cut down a tree and maintain it at the reduced height. Furthermore, the obligation is registrable as a local land charge and would therefore bind a successor in title as well.

Mr. Dismore

I am grateful for clarification on that important point.

I also want to explore the relationship between the owner and the occupier of the land. There are potential problems where the occupier is a tenant or leaseholder who wants to comply with a neighbour's request, but the absentee freeholder, of the kind we find throughout the country, takes a different view. Such a freeholder does not have to get on with the neighbours, and if he feared that the value of his property would go down if trees were removed, he might object to the occupier taking action.

That relationship needs to be explored further so that the person with the obligation—and, indeed, the power that overrides contractual relations between the tenant or leaseholder and the freeholder—acts in accordance with orders made under the Bill. It is all very well ordering occupiers to do something, but if they do not have the legal power to do it because of their contractual relationship with the freeholder, they may find themselves in a cleft stick. Should they comply with the order, which could result in the forfeiture of their lease, or should they do as the freeholder says, and thus run the risk of being fined? That aspect needs to be examined and corrected so that the tenant of the property has not only the obligation but the power to act, even if doing so is technically in breach of the lease.

It strikes me that clauses 6 and 4 should be transposed, because clause 6 deals with the notice being varied or withdrawn after, for example, representations have been made by the owner of the land affected. That is the Bill's first reference to the owner of the land on which the trees are situated having a say. We should be doing things the other way around: the owner of the land should have the power to make representations first, before consideration is given to varying or withdrawing the remedial notice.

Problems may arise from the 28-day notice rule. What happens if an application for a variation is made within the time limit, but the time limit expires before the application is heard? The Bill contains no reference to preserving the status quo pending the outcome of an application for review or an appeal. As the Bill stands, a person ordered to cut back his trees could subsequently succeed in a hearing on his variation request or appeal, but it would be too late because the trees would already have been cut back.

That is a potential breach of natural justice. The Bill should contain powers to preserve the status quo pending the outcome of a dispute, a review of a notice or an appeal. Otherwise, we risk being unfair to those on whose land the trees are situated—even though such people do not have my sympathy. It is part of normal planning procedure that the status quo prevails while an appeal is under way, pending its outcome. The same should apply under the Bill, subject to the appeal's proceeding.

If an appeal is successful but the trees have already been cut down, there is a risk of an action for damages being brought against the local authority. Under planning law, local authorities have to meet some compensation claims if they take remedial action to force compliance with planning law but it is ultimately found that their action was unlawful. The local authority and thus local council tax payers end up having to foot the bill. We must address that problem.

The points made by the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) lead me to the subject of appeals. We appear to be creating a Clochemerle-type arrangement. Is it appropriate that the Secretary of State—whether or not he acts through his inspectors—should decide the height of a tree? I do not think so. That is a heavy-handed approach to problems that arise within local authority areas from time to time.

Often, such problems could be dealt with through a separate appeals committee of the local authority, with members who were not involved in making the original decision hearing appeals. Alternatively, such decisions could be taken by council officers using delegated powers, with appeals permitted to elected members. It is better to keep decisions local and ensure that the people dealing with the problems are elected representatives and therefore accountable for their actions in a way that the more remote planning inspector is not. Alternatively, appeals could be made to the magistrates courts in the same way as licensing appeals against local authority decisions are currently permitted.

We risk creating a superstructure around the Secretary of State that could create our first tree martyrs, who chain themselves to their leylandii when the Secretary of State's inspectors come to cart them off to the magistrates court. We must retain our sense of proportion and keep such issues within the scope of the local authority. A local authority appeal committee might well provide a better and more local means of dealing with the problem.

I should like to deal with some of the Bill's human rights aspects. We seem frequently to deal with the Human Rights Act 1998 on Fridays, because much of the legislation that we debate has a human rights dimension—none more so than this Bill, which could involve three different articles in the schedule to the Act. I am afraid that we often find that the articles could be mutually in conflict.

First, article 6, on the right to a fair trial, is involved in the procedures outlined in the Bill for the reasons that I have given. Under clause 4, the person who owns the trees would not be given a hearing when the decision was being made and possibly further down the line as well. The Bill contradicts article 6, and we must keep a close eye on the progress of the case currently going through the courts involving the judicial review of the Secretary of State's involvement in the overall planning procedures. That will have an impact on the arrangements in clause 4 if the decision in that case stands and is not overturned by the Court of Appeal or House of Lords. Given the case law at first instance in that case, which was heard at the end of last year, the Bill would infringe article 6.

The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst also referred to the need to respect privacy. That is dealt with in article 8, on the right to respect private and family life. There are conflicts on both sides because such hedges are usually grown to protect the privacy of the owner of the trees, but they may infringe the family life of those who live in the shadow of the trees and the way in which they conduct their affairs. So we need to consider article 8, and we have had a similar debate in relation to other private Members' Bills.

Mr. Hopkins

My hon. Friend makes a valid point about privacy, but surely that could be covered by achieving the right height—above the eyeline of most normal human beings.

Mr. Dismore

My hon. Friend makes a valid point, but being overlooked from upstairs windows is also a problem. There are rights and wrongs on both sides of any neighbour dispute. Although my sympathies very much lie with those who suffer from the problem of living in the shadow of high trees, we must reflect on the rights to privacy of the owner of the trees.

Mr. Forth

There is potential for a straightforward conflict, on one hand, between the right to light, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) referred, and on the other, the right to privacy of the owner of the trees. That introduces an element not only of conflict but of judgment. We are trying to judge which should have the greater weight—one person's light or another person's privacy. I think the hon. Gentleman agrees with my suggestion that the matter is by no means straightforward.

Mr. Dismore

The right hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. My sympathies lie with those on the receiving end. Perhaps that goes back to the philosophical discussion between the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North, but in the end, it is the job of the local authority either to mediate or to arbitrate on the issue. As with any planning decision, someone has to make a decision in the end. There are rights and wrongs on both sides, and the local authority should make a decision on them.

Mr. Bercow

May I take this opportunity to inform the hon. Gentleman that about a week or two ago, my mother was talking about writing to him on the subject of trees? Has she yet done so?

Mr. Dismore

So far as I am aware, she has not. However, her letter may have arrived at my constituency office in the past day or two and, obviously, I have been at the House for the past few days. I shall certainly keep an eye out for her letter when I go to my constituency office tomorrow morning. I am always very interested to hear from the hon. Gentleman's mother.

Mr. Miller

I hope that she is a good Labour voter.

Mr. Dismore

I am afraid that she is not a Labour voter, but the hon. Gentleman has endorsed, on behalf of his mother, one or two of the things that I have been doing in my constituency.

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North, my final point on human rights legislation concerns article 1 of the first protocol, which deals with the protection of property. It makes an overwhelming argument in support of those on the receiving end and deals with the right of everyone to the peaceful enjoyment of their possessions. In these circumstances, that would include the right to a pleasant afternoon in the back garden.

I shall draw my arguments on the Human Rights Act to a conclusion by asking the hon. Member for Solihull whether his Bill is compliant with it. We have had this debate in relation to private legislation, particularly the City of London (Ward Elections) Bill, when there was vehement dispute about whether or not it was compliant. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can deal with that point when he responds to our debate.

12.25 pm

Mr. Damian Green (Ashford)

May I join those on both sides of the House who have congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) on introducing the Bill? It involves serious practical issues and, as we have heard in our fascinating debate, important matters of principle, philosophy and religion. I was struck by the way in which my hon. Friend opened his speech with the biblical provenance of his endeavour. Where I agree that legislation is necessary, and where I slightly part company with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), is in recognising that behind the Bill is the existence of original sin. We are all attracted to my right hon. Friend's ideal society of freeborn men and women interacting without any interference from the state—but sadly, that is made impossible by original sin and human behaviour.

The hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins) and my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) had interesting exchanges about which form of moral philosophy can provide a basis for the legislation. I was struck by their exchange about Berlin, Mill and the utilitarian philosophers. I trust that they both agree that if one accepts a moral philosophy based on deontological, Kantian principles, the Bill has a degree of validity. I therefore hope that the House can bring itself to support it.

Moving from the philosophical to the practical plane, many hon. Members have pointed out the widespread nature of the problem. Clearly, it is serious; anything that embitters relations between neighbours must be deprecated by the House. Many hon. Members have numerous correspondents on this matter and the main pressure group, Hedgeline, has 3,500 members. Hedgeline is probably right to say that tens of thousands of people are affected by the problem, so it is legitimate for the House to seek to act.

Many Members have said that they have had letters on the subject. I shall quote from one which I received from Mrs. Lucy Smith, the Devon and Cornwall co-ordinator of Hedgeline. I should be interested to hear the Minister's comments, as Mrs. Smith fears that the DETR … appear to be out of touch with the feelings of the very ordinary people who ask nothing more than to be able to sit in their gardens and see sunlight during the all too short summer months. In many ways that is the nub of the problem which many of our constituents face and which the Bill seeks to address.

Hedgeline was founded by a constituent of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones), and I am extremely grateful to her for pointing out that some years ago, I said that it would be a long time before the Government took decisive action—if they ever did. It would have been immodest of me to point out that I had been exactly right in that prediction, but as the hon. Lady had the generosity to bring it up, may I say how much 1 endorse her analysis?

It is worth examining the Government's record. This is the first opportunity that I have had to welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box since he was appointed, but I am afraid that as the new boy in the team, he has been left with a difficult issue to handle. The Government's record is one of dithering and delaying. They seem to have adopted the principle of consult and ignore, as though they had said, "This is a big problem. We are very concerned, but we do not propose to do anything about it."

I have done an audit trail of the Government's words and actions. Ministers accept that since they came to office in 1997, they have received many thousands of letters and representations. They apparently spent some time thinking about those representations and, after only two and a half years in office, they managed some action: they produced a press release, which no doubt gave much hope to those concerned about the matter.

The press release, dated 12 November 1999 and headlined, "Meacher announces new initiatives to tackle nuisance hedges", begins: Making garden hedge disputes between neighbours a thing of the past is the subject of an information initiative and consultation exercise launched by Environment Minister Michael Meacher today. I am sure that those who were concerned about the problem thought that all was well, but after the press release, nothing happened.

Following a gestation period of nine months, another press release was issued—this time in the middle of August, always a time that arouses the suspicion of those of us who are naturally cynical about Government's intentions. The second press release is even more decisive. It is headed, "Nuisance hedges to get the chop—Meacher", and announces:

The scope for neighbourhood quarrels about overgrown garden hedges should be cut, following new measures proposed today to give local councils powers to intervene". Anyone reading that would have thought that, three years into their term, the Government were taking action. Sadly, the second paragraph rather gives the game away: The Government is to work up new laws to be introduced in England as soon as there is space in the parliamentary timetable. Specifically designed to tackle nuisance garden hedges …". I am sure that whoever wrote the press release was subsequently promoted for that creative use of the weasel words, work up new laws to be introduced … as soon as there is space".

Dr. Lynne Jones

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it has taken a long time to reach this stage. I hope that the next stages will be faster. Nevertheless, does he accept that the Government were at least prepared to put some effort into dealing with the problem, unlike their predecessors, who consistently refused to accept the existence of the problem and did nothing at all?

Mr. Green

I do not accept that. The Government have not yet done anything. We are discussing a private Member's Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull. The Government have done nothing to redeem their pledges to take action. The hon. Lady's constituent, Michael Jones, recognised that. After the decisive-sounding press release in August, by November last year Hedgeline was becoming suspicious.

Mr. Bercow

As my hon. Friend is dealing with consultation, and in order to complete the equation, can he offer the House a synopsis of the views of the Association of District Councils and the Local Government Association?

Mr. Green

Local authorities generally have welcomed the idea of legislation, but they have some reservations about the costs that local government will incur as a result. I shall deal with that shortly. The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) read out the statistics of the response to the consultation exercise, which show not only that the overwhelming majority of local authorities welcome legislation, but that they regard it as urgently needed, as does Hedgeline.

Last November, Hedgeline's newsletter stated: It is possible that the new law may not appear before 2002, or later. This is too long a delay. Hedgeline wanted a guarantee from the Government—the article was written before the Queen's Speech last year—that legislation would be introduced before the election and would appear in the Queen's Speech. The organisation was disappointed again. After all its efforts, I am sure that its members are happy that they can rely on my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull to promote this measure, which has been widely welcomed on both sides of the House.

In parenthesis, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is not unreasonable to point out that some of the parliamentary time since the Government's consultation exercise and the announcement of their determination to act has been spent on Bills that should not have detained the House—such as Bills on hunting, for which the Government have managed to find time during two Sessions of this Parliament. Furthermore, one of the differences between that measure and my hon. Friend's Bill is that Hedgeline does not have the resources to make a £1 million donation to the Labour party—as the anti-hunt lobby has done in its time.

In considering the Government's approach to the matter, I agree with The Times editorial which states: Much less encouraging is his— the Minister for the Environment's— failure to will the means. Now that sensible proposals are in place, swift action is needed. Yet he has promised legislation only when parliamentary time allows, and admitted that it might be left to a Private Member's Bill. It could be many years before nuisance hedges get the chop. That is right.

Mr. Pound

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that leylandii planted in the spring of 1979 would have been more than 50 ft tall when the Conservatives left office in 1997? Is he not therefore being a little ungracious in criticising us for aiming to lop our humble four-metre-high growth when he ignored that vast tree during the 18 years of the previous Government?

Mr. Green

I am not sure whether there were that many leylandii around in 1979. I repeat the point that I made to the hon. Member for Selly Oak: throughout this Parliament, the Government have said that the issue was urgent and that they would do something about it, but they have miserably failed to do anything. They have produced consultation documents and press releases, but in the end they are relying on a private Member's Bill promoted by a Conservative Member. The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) pointed out that he represents a slice of suburbia, where I dare say hedges are a big problem. The hon. Gentleman will have problems defending his Government's record on the matter.

The broad approach taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull in his Bill tackles a difficult problem seriously. Various detailed difficulties have been described in speeches from both sides of House. I merely add a few comments and questions.

It is right that the action to be taken will have a local authority basis. I suspect that anything more prescriptive nationally would prove inflexible. We need a balance between fairness—so that people know the rules—and flexibility. Those of us who have received letters on the subject realise that each case is different. To try to prescribe rules that are too detailed would lead to unfairness in individual cases.

The issue of costs has been raised, not least by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham. The helpful guidance notes, prepared either by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull or by others—that distinction is not clear—state that the costs will be relatively low, and will fall quickly after the current backlog of 10,000 cases is cleared. It would be worth while if all those who engaged in further discussion of the Bill were to question that comfortable assumption. It is likely that as the Bill proceeds, and consciousness of its existence spreads, more complaints will be made. The comfortable idea of falling costs over time may not be right.

Mr. Jim Cunningham

Costs may be difficult to quantify, but, as I said earlier, a good indicator exists. Most planning departments have an adequate number of staff to police the measure. There may be isolated cases of additional staff having to be taken on, but the major local authorities have planning officers who are already constantly called out to examine such problems, but cannot do anything about them. The cost may be high initially because of the backlog of cases, but it will probably drop.

Mr. Green

The hon. Gentleman is partly right, but the view that the number of cases will fall may be wrong. Even if, as he suggests, planning officers already go out to advise people, they will have more work when they also have to make a judgment, and perhaps carry out an enforcement procedure. It is unrealistic to expect the Bill not to create more work for them.

Mr. Cunningham

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; I know that time is precious. Planning officers make a judgment now. They advise people to go through the civil courts, but they also tell people that they cannot do anything about the problem.

Mr. Green

Precisely. If the Bill becomes law, they will not be able to say, "We can't do anything about it." They will be obliged to do something about it. That obligation will increase their work load. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether the Government have made an overall estimate of the effect of the Bill on local government finance and whether there are any plans to compensate local government for the extra work.

A similar problem may emerge for the planning inspectorate. Again, the various guidance notes for the Bill imply that the measure can be implemented with a minimal increase in numbers. I should be grateful if the Minister would explain that, and state whether the Bill will necessitate more planning inspectors when the appeals process gets going. The sort of bitter neighbour disputes that precede legal action mean that legal differences tend to go to appeal. When people feel strongly enough to embark upon a legal process, they are likely to take it to the end, whoever is winning at various stages.

I also draw the Minister's attention to the role of the Building Research Establishment. Other hon. Members have alluded to the confusion about whether the tests will be subjective or objective. The guidance notes suggest that, ideally, the BRE will be able to establish an objective test that can be applied by individuals, so that they can look at their hedge, or their neighbours' hedge, and tell that its height breaks the law.

Mr. Forth

Does my hon. Friend agree that it will be challenging for the no doubt excellent and expert people involved to devise objective tests or criteria for privacy, amenity of the neighbourhood and light? How confident is he about obtaining the validity, objectivity and utility that the Bill's supporters would like?

Mr. Green

That is a genuine issue. I suspect that some areas are easier than others. I understand that the BRE will principally consider light; it may be able to establish some objective measures. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether that is the aim, and if so, explain the way in which it can be achieved.

My second question is about the timetable.

Mr. Don Foster

May I suggest that the hon. Gentleman is making rather heavy weather of this issue? Does he not accept that the officers working in planning departments have much more difficult and complex decisions to address in their normal planning application considerations? For example, they have to take into account highly subjective matters such as the aesthetic qualities of buildings. The question of how one measures beauty is clearly far more testing than the issues that the hon. Gentleman is discussing in relation to the Bill.

Mr. Green

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is right. However, the provisions will place an additional burden on the inspectors. It is interesting that Labour Members think that nothing extra will be needed in terms either of expertise or of sheer numbers.

A further point relating to how the Building Research Establishment's work will be completed is the timetable. I understand that the draft guidelines will be produced by Easter, and the final version by the summer. If this Parliament runs its course, no doubt that timetable will be satisfactory. I would be grateful for the Minister's comments on whether the House will have the opportunity for full and proper investigation of the BRE guidelines when they are produced.

The Government have provided support for the Bill. Will the Minister tell us why they think that this way of addressing the problem is better than using the planning law? I think that I agree with the analysis that we have heard, but I would like to hear what the Government have to say. Will he also tell us why this method was thought preferable to adding the problems caused by high hedges to the list of statutory nuisances, which was the approach adopted by the private Member's Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham)?

Those are legitimate questions that will need to be addressed as the Bill goes through its further stages, as I hope it will. Costs, the level of parliamentary scrutiny and the sheer practicality of the legislation must all be examined. Nevertheless, my underlying point is that high hedges are a continuing serious problem worthy of the attention of the House, and I hope that my hon. Friend's Bill can make further progress.

12.47 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Robert Ainsworth)

He that plants trees loves others besides himself—or so says the proverb. If that were universally true, we should not be here today.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) on introducing the High Hedges Bill, and am pleased to confirm that the Government welcome and support the measure. Unfortunately, some of the stories that we have heard today suggest that not everyone who plants trees has good intentions towards their neighbours. We have been told about the terrible conditions that have been inflicted on people by ill-advised planting or the lack of maintenance of boundary hedges. Leylandii have been mentioned frequently, but they are by no means the only culprits.

The old saying that an Englishman's home is his castle aptly captures the jealousy with which we tend to defend our territory and privacy. Our castle walls are the panel fences that we put up or the hedges that we plant. To ensure that our green defences are immediate, the fastest growing plants are selected. However, in putting up these barricades, we do not always think about the effects on those living on the other side of the hedge.

The effects will vary from case to case, but the most frequently mentioned problems are reduction in light to homes and gardens; the blocking of cherished views, especially of the countryside or coast; the difficulty of growing plants near to the hedges; and worries that roots might lead to property damage through subsidence. All those factors can lead to a general sense of oppression and being hedged in, or to a feeling that enjoyment of one's home and garden has been spoiled. A quiet word with the owner to point out the harmful effects of the hedge may be all that is needed to resolve a problem, but if such an approach is rebuffed, there is little that the person affected by the hedge can do to force his neighbour to negotiate or to obtain any relief.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) said, the Government have responded to pressure from her and many other hon. Members. In particular, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham), my constituency neighbour, on all the work that he did over a long period to organise consultation. The response was overwhelming, and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions received more than 3,000 replies. To put that in context, the Department's consultation exercises usually generate hundreds rather than thousands of responses. As might have been expected, there was much public interest, and 91 per cent. of responses came from members of the public. A significant proportion of local authorities—about 40 per cent—took the time to let us know what they think.

There are striking similarities between the views expressed by local councils and the public. The vast majority of respondents, including 95 per cent. of individual members of the public who responded and 77 per cent. of local authorities, believe that new laws are the answer to the high hedge problem. As to what form such laws should take, a new complaints system run by local authorities is the clear favourite; it is supported by 73 per cent. of the public and 67 per cent. of local authorities.

The consultation shows enormous support for tougher controls on high hedges. The Government take such neighbourhood problems seriously, so last summer we announced that we would prepare legislation to give local authorities in England the power to determine complaints about problem garden hedges. The National Assembly for Wales decided that any new legislation should apply to Wales.

On territorial coverage, I should add that the Bill deals with devolved matters, so it is for the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly to decide whether to take action with respect to problem hedges. Following a separate consultation, the Scottish Parliament announced on 31 January that it has decided in principle that a statutory remedy of last resort is required. That would involve complaints to local authorities and enforcement action in appropriate cases. No commitment has been given as to when legislation will be introduced. I understand that Northern Ireland has no plans to legislate.

Mr. Bercow

Many people will enthuse about the principle, but, almost inevitably, the devil is in the detail.

Accordingly, and given that there has been constructive dialogue between the Government and my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor), can the Minister offer the House information about the Government's basic thinking on the regulations that are intended to accompany the Bill? Specifically, I refer to clause 13, on which I made a few remarks.

Mr. Ainsworth

The hon. Gentleman asks about regulations, which are a worry for hon. Members when they consider all sorts of Bills, not only this one. I can confirm that the regulations that would be made under clause 13 to extend powers would be subject to the affirmative procedure. Therefore, as the hon. Member for Solihull said, the hon. Gentleman should have no worries in that regard.

Unfortunately, despite the Government's commitment to introduce new laws to solve hedge problems in England and Wales, we could not find room for such a Bill in this Session's legislative programme. We are therefore pleased that the hon. Member for Solihull is pursuing the matter and that the Bill would apply to England and Wales. The hon. Gentleman has explained the contents, how the complaints system would work, how a local authority would be able to require an owner to cut back a hedge and what enforcement action would be available should he fail to comply. I do not want to cover the same ground, but I should like to outline a few reasons why the Government support the Bill.

First, the Bill is targeted at the types of hedge that are the main cause of the problem. Our consultation suggested that the vast majority of concerns relate to evergreen hedges that form tall, dense screens of foliage. It also showed that obstruction of light is the most frequent cause of complaint, and that the effects are primarily felt in residential properties. All those points must be satisfied before the procedure in the Bill can be triggered.

Another reason why we are attracted to the Bill is that it encourages people to resolve matters amicably. The best way to settle hedge problems is, without doubt, for neighbours to talk to each other and to agree a solution. The Bill proposes that local authorities need pursue complaints only after all other avenues have been explored. I listened with interest to the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), as I have done many times before. He believes that there should be little or no government, and that that would make men free. That state existed a long time ago, when people had to carry spears and clubs, so such a state of affairs was not ideal then and I doubt that it would be now. I do not share the right hon. Gentleman's philosophy.

The Government will consider whether we can help people to achieve a negotiated outcome through advice and information on the new complaints system. One idea is for local authorities to have a pack to send out when anyone asks them for help with hedge problems. It could contain advice on steps that people could take to settle disputes between themselves, and could perhaps also include a sample letter for people to send to their neighbour asking them to reduce the size of their hedge, and a leaflet about any local mediation service.

In addition, the intention is to have an objective system for assessing obstruction of light, comprising a few simple tests that householders could use without specialist input.

That is being developed for my Department by the Building Research Establishment, and would be incorporated in departmental guidance on the legislation. It may include facts such as the height of the hedge, its distance from windows or from the garden boundary, and whether the property faces north, south or east. We hope that that report will be available around Easter. If the Bill proceeds, as I hope it will, we will keep the House informed of developments on the report.

Mr. Forth

The Minister has been helpful in telling us that he expects guidance on the obstruction of light, but the Bill also refers to privacy and neighbourhood amenity. Is he hoping to provide guidance on those matters, or will we leave them to people's judgment, bearing in mind the fact that there is an appeals process, which may complicate the issue further?

Mr. Ainsworth

These are important issues, and the problems cannot be solved purely by objective tests. However, if we can get some objectivity into the tests—the obstruction of light may be a proxy for many of the other problems caused by these trees—we can give local authorities the same discretion as they have on planning matters. By and large, the proposed procedures are the same as those that local authorities already run through under the planning system. That is our intention. With a degree of common sense and discretion for local authorities, we are convinced that the overwhelming majority of these cases could be settled. The lobby groups and the hon. Members who have been raising this issue for a long time are also convinced of that.

In this way, hedge owners will be able to take a view on the possible outcome of a complaint to a local authority. If the result was not in their favour, such information would provide powerful encouragement for them to talk to their neighbours and agree on a solution, rather than facing the prospect of having one imposed on them by the local authority. If all else fails, however, the Bill ensures that the hedge is cut back when circumstances justify such action, thus providing the relief that hedge sufferers have long sought. It also provides effective enforcement powers to make certain that that happens.

The Government support the Bill because it could well alter general assumptions about what constitutes a reasonable hedge height. That might lead to a greater willingness to settle matters amicably. Owners might be more inclined to co-operate with their neighbours if they knew that the local authority could force them to cut back their hedges. People might also voluntarily reduce the size of their hedges. We hope that the Bill will help to prevent problems from arising in the first place, and that it will have a lasting effect.

Many hon. Members have expressed worries about costs. We estimate— we have tried to make estimates, as far as practicable—that a fairly high proportion of cases will go to appeal. We believe that there will be costs to the Department—a money resolution will be needed to cover those—and that there will be costs over and above what local authorities can charge complainants. We will have to try to settle that in the usual way when drawing up the revenue support grant settlement.

Mr. Bercow

I thank the Minister for giving way. He has been exceedingly generous.

I hope that the Minister agrees that the worst-case scenario today would be the House giving the nod to a Bill after inadequate consideration, or having missed something, only to be obliged to return to the matter later. Accordingly, although the Minister said that I should be reassured, may I ask for a further assurance on the subject of the regulations? Will he assure me that they will be subject to a consultation period of not less than three months, and that there will be proper notice of the requirement to give effect to whatever regulations subsequently flow?

Mr. Ainsworth

I have given the hon. Gentleman the assurance that I think he sought. Any regulations that flow from clause 13 will be subject to the normal affirmative procedure, involving a vote in the House, if that is called for by the hon. Gentleman or any other Member. I do not know how much further I can go. I would expect that to satisfy the hon. Gentleman; it satisfies most people in such circumstances.

As for our being expected to rush the Bill through, this is a Second Reading debate, and there will be a Committee stage. No doubt the hon. Gentleman can talk to the Whips if he wishes to be a member of the Committee, where his company and input will be appreciated as much as they are here.

The Bill represents a careful, measured and proportionate response to the problems caused by high hedges. It strikes a proper balance between the rights of hedge owners and those of their neighbours. Such issues of balance and proportion are central to any consideration of the human rights implications of the Bill. I am sure that Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), will wish to note that we have taken advice, and consider that the Bill will be compatible with the European convention on human rights.

We have had a full debate, in which many have taken part. That serves to show the concerns about the high-hedge problem, and to demonstrate that those concerns are widespread. The Bill is essential to bring relief to those who live in the shadow of high hedges, and I commend it to the House.

Mr. John M. Taylor

With the leave of the House, I will respond to the debate.

I thank all those who have taken part in the debate, not least my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), who resolved the dilemma of his principles versus our friendship in favour of his principles.

I warmly thank the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham), who is in his place, for constantly encouraging and supporting me. The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) conducted an extended examination of the Bill. I think that he will be kind enough to concede that I was able to deal with some of his problems by way of interventions. He asked whether a neighbour of a neighbour could complain—in other words, if an even longer shadow could be cast. I am advised that such a person could also complain. The complainant does not have to be the actual next-door neighbour. He will have heard the Minister, with the authority of speaking from the Dispatch Box, deal with the point about compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998.

I do not think that there is anything more for me to say. I commend the Bill to the House. I am bound to say from a rather self-indulgent point of view that I have rather enjoyed the debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills).