HL Deb 22 September 1943 vol 129 cc87-110

LORD LATHAM rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they have yet reached any decision as to planning and physical reconstruction and when they propose to introduce legislation to give adequate powers to planning authorities; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion which appears in my name on the Paper for consideration to-day was put down by me under "No day named" as long ago as May. From that time, from week to week and month to month, I have been hoping that the Government would do something positive with regard to at least two of the recommendations of the Interim Report of the Uthwatt Committee; but nothing at all has been done. Local planning authorities, and the public generally, are scandalized at the sustained delay on the part of the Government in this important sphere of domestic politics. It is the case, of course, that the interim development proposals have been carried into law, but they add nothing to the positive procedure which is essential if planning is to be done in a satisfactory way. Interim development is, of course, development which takes place before a scheme comes into operation, and, as I say, the Act which was passed in June of this year adds nothing to the permanent town planning powers of planning authorities. No one would dispute that the Interim Development Act is a good little measure. It tidies up one or two things. It, for instance, excuses by implication those authorities which had not passed a resolution by deeming them to have done so, but it adds nothing to the powers of the bulk of the planning authorities which has passed resolutions. Most of these are faced by the most acute problems of planning and redevelopment, for they are the authorities for towns and cities where the need is greatest.

I understand that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning said, as is the case, that "interim development" is a term of art. It is certainly not a term of heart, because the Government do not seem to have planning at heart at all, if one is to judge by the delay that is allowed to take place. Moreover, there was no need to wait for the Uthwatt Report before amending the law in regard to interim development. The most important section of the recent Act concerned, as I have said, deeming a resolution to have been passed. The Barlow Committee suggested that, and all town planners knew of its necessity long before even the Barlow Committee Report was published. Clause 8 of that Act which improves the machinery for the establishment of Joint Committees is of no value at all unless the planning authorities which are to constitute the Joint Committees have, in fact, effective powers, and the same is the case with regard to the extension of the powers to the Minister. The exercise of these Ministerial powers is dependent upon the local authorities being able themselves to exercise effective powers, and my submission is that, as the law at present stands, that cannot be done.

It is therefore idle to pretend that the Interim Development Act is a major improvement in town planning legislation. I do not believe, any more than President Roosevelt believes that Japan can be "inched" out of the islands of the Pacific, that our planning problem can be solved by "inching," whether by interim development proposals or otherwise. A thorough attack upon the problem is necessary if anything desirable is to be achieved. The Uthwatt Interim Report, which I would remind the House was issued as a matter of urgency, recommended, first, that public authorities should be enabled to acquire land needed for planning on a standard of values based upon March, 1939—what we refer to as the 1939 ceiling. It also recommended that the local authorities should be empowered to acquire as reconstruction areas areas which had either been "blitzed" or were blighted. Those were the two main proposals of the Uthwatt Interim Report. Both those recommendations were accepted by the Government. In July, 1941, the then Minister, Lord Reith, stated categorically that the Government accepted those recommendations. Again, in October, 1941, Lord Reith repeated that statement and went on to say that draft clauses, and indeed a Bill, were in an advanced stage of preparation in which those two declarations and certain other admittedly desirable reforms of town planning procedure would be given effect to.

Some of us know that this Bill was in existence, that it was in fact in print. I think one is entitled to ask, what happened to this Bill, who jettisoned it, what were the influences which led to the abandonment of that Bill and to requiring the present Minister of Town and Country Planning to introduce the emasculated interim development proposals? It is correct that upon the departure of Lord Reith and the succession of Lord Portal he (Lord Portal) said in your Lordships' House that he thought it would be desirable before proceeding further with this Bill to await the Final Report of the Uthwatt Committee. Well the Final Report of the Uthwatt Committee was issued in September, 1942; yet nine months after, in the Interim Development Bill, there is not a reference to them or any provision at all dealing with the two matters of policy which the Government had stated through the mouths of Ministers were accepted. It was said, I understand, in the United States during the difficult days of depression in the 1930's that cheques came back not marked "No account "but" No bank." Well, two promissory notes uttered by Lord Reith and Lord Portal by and on behalf of the Government were presented by the present Minister as the holder in due course and have come back marked "No intentions"—at least at present, because up to the present the Government have given no reliable assurance that after two years of accepting these proposals they intend to embody them in effective legislation.

I personally have some sympathy for the present Minister of Town and Country Planning. I feel that for one reason or another he is being prevented from doing what he wishes to do. It is true that on the occasion of his appointment it was stated by the Minister Without Portfolio that he was to be mounted on a racehorse. Well, as any punter knows, there are racehorses and racehorses, and if the horse upon which the present Minister is mounted is in fact a racehorse, if he wants to make any speedier progress he should get off it and get on a cart horse, because never was progress so slow. It is of course the case that the present Minister has stated that no delay is taking place, that what is happening is that there is a consumption of time. That is a new euphemism I think, but in any case judged by the results there is a much too large consumption of time and much too little production so far as this important matter is concerned.

I am sorry that the noble Viscount the Leader of the House is not in his place because I am bound to refer to some statements of his made on the occasion of the Second Reading of the Interim Development Bill. I regret that I was prevented by public affairs from being in your Lordships' House for that debate, but I have read the whole of the debate in the Official Report and I am bound to say that I am unimpressed by the feeble excuses put forward on behalf of the Government for the delay that is taking place. The noble Viscount the Leader of the House enunciated the trite constitutional doctrine that whilst Committees may report it is for the Government to decide. No one dissents from that. The fact is the Government have decided. The Government decided to accept the 1939 ceiling. The Government decided to accept that local authorities should be given power to acquire areas as reconstruction areas. It only remains for the Government to embody those two declarations in legislation. One is entitled to assume that any responsible Government would have assured themselves before authorizing their Ministers to make declarations of that kind that the particular project could be embodied in legislation and how it could be embodied. I should hesitate to assume that the present Government were so irresponsible as to authorize Ministers to make such declarations without having first assured themselves of the practicability of the proposals. If that be the case, why the delay? Why cannot local authorities be given these two powers which are essential if the preparatory steps to town planning are to be taken in good time? Are we to assume from this unbroken delay that the Government are having second thoughts about these two proposals, that they are in fact receding from their position, that in fact they do not intend to confer these powers upon local authorities?

In indicating these misgivings let me say quite frankly that there is growing up among the people of this country who are interested in planning a cynical disbelief in the intentions of the Government. They are openly saying that on this occasion, as with other matters on other occasions, the people will be dished again. I have had an opportunity in the last two or three months of being able to sound and register public opinion on this matter. There has been held in London an exhibition of the County of London plan to which over 1,300 people came each day it was open. I am glad to say that a large proportion of those who came were young people and a substantial proportion of those were men and women in the Services. They were interested in what the London of the future might be, but they were very cynical as to whether anything would be done and as to whether the Government really intended that anything should be done. I have received personally at the County Hall a large number of letters expressing the same misgivings, and in the last four or five weeks I have addressed a number of meetings in London on the County of London plan. At all these meetings these misgivings as to the Government's intentions have been expressed.

These misgivings reflect the doubt of the people in the honesty of intention of the Government. It is a serious and a disturbing circumstance. It leads to a disbelief in the spoken word and it leads to a deterioration in the respect that people pay to democratic government. It is no use Government speakers, whether in your Lordships' House or elsewhere, saying that the matter is being given consideration. Time is being consumed. People are demanding, and quite rightly demanding, that there shall be more action and fewer words. I observe that in the course of the debate on the Second Reading of the Interim Development Bill on June 10, it was stated that the criticisms of the Government's inaction were unjustified because in fact local authorities were proceeding to prepare plans. The London County Council, the City Corporation, the Cities of Hull, Bath and Plymouth were, I think, mentioned in that connexion. It is a novel excuse that Government inaction should be justified by the action of local authorities. But in fact the preparation of these plans is not planning. Nothing can be done with these plans in fact. Quite a number of cities in this country have, for reasons of protecting their own ratepayers, declined to publish their plans until they know where they will stand in respect of the March, 1939, ceiling and the ability to acquire areas as reconstruction areas. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, can speak with more particularity than I can about that.

Local authorities in most of the cities of this country are very concerned about this delay, and feel that, unless these powers are granted at once, they will be in a very difficult position as regards planning their respective areas. It is, I believe, a fact that outside London owners of sites are deliberately withholding them in expectation of a rise in value as a consequence of potential planning. It was stated by the Chairman of the National Building Society in August this year that his society had been asked for an advance on a property not further than twenty miles from London which cost £850 and which was to be purchased by the intending borrower for £1,200. We all know that outside the metropolis at all events, speculation is going on and that land prices are rising. For that reason, that very sound reason, local authorities are unable to publish their plans. It is true the London County Council has published the provisional County of London plan. The London County Council's area is a very large one, and damage in that area is more dispersed than in the case of the City of London or provincial cities. We do not perhaps run the same risk that intending speculators can easily identify certain, projects in the plan. I would like to utter this warning, that if there are any speculators who think they can make profit from an examination of the County of London plan they need to be careful. They will most likely burn their fingers and if they do they can expect no mercy from the London County Council. To quote words employed in another connexion by the Prime Minister, "we shall stoke up the fires" under them. But there is a real difficulty outside London with regard to possible speculation if plans are published.

We are often told in your Lordships' House, not without justification, that the Government are unable to take positive action because they have to consult the Dominions or they have to consult members of the United Nations. The Government are under no such obligation about planning. They need not consult the Dominions and they need not consult the United Nations. The Government can do what they will, when they will, if they will; but up to the moment they have refrained from doing anything. It is idle for the Ministry of Health to ask local authorities to prepare comprehensive and ample housing programmes after the war, because unless local authorities proceed to acquire sites as individual sites without relation to planning they cannot get the sites. It is idle to contemplate large extensions in the field of education unless local authorities are empowered to acquire the sites needed for the new or extended schools.

Unless these powers are conferred without any further delay there is a grave danger that after the war there will be no satisfactory planning. We must remember that much has to be done after these new powers are conferred—if they are conferred—and private enterprise and local authorities are entitled to know where they stand in regard to their quite proper desire to return to peace-time activities as soon as they can after the cessation of hostilities. This pressure to return to peace-time activities, the pressure of people returning to the large cities and requiring housing accommodation, will be such that unless the local authorities are enabled to be ready there will not be any planning, there will be mess, muddle and confusion, and to the extent that local authorities may be compelled to allow buildings to be put up without reference closely to long-term planning, we may find that within five years of the cessation of hostilities satisfactory planning has been defeated for more than a generation. That is the position in which the local planning authorities have been put.

It is of no real help to the solution of the problem to have elegant references to the Red Queen in Alice through the Looking Glass. What is wanted is action by the Government. I know that my noble friend Lord Snell has been asked to reply for the Government in this debate, and he will acquit me, I am sure, of any disrespect to him when I say that he will do so with that conciliation of phrase, charm of manner, and urbanity for which he is noted, and for which he is highly appraised. But, really, urbanity and conciliation in regard to this matter are not enough. The local planning authorities have waited for over two years, and I say with every respect that I think that on a matter of this importance the Leader of the House should have been present to say what the Government propose to do. The nation respects an answer. The need for planning has been admitted by the Government. The demand is clamant. The Government have the necessary power; what is restraining them? It is a fact that in the debate on June 10 some resentment was expressed by the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, at the reference by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, to "interests." Well, the people outside are being forced to the view that some interests are standing in the way of this legislation. They are not without recollection that, in the past, on quite a number of occasions, interests have thwarted the putting on the Statute book of adequate town planning legislation, and they are beginning to say, as I have already indicated, that interests, well-concealed, are standing in the way of these proposals being put on the Statute book, and local planning authorities being given adequate powers.

I have not indulged, nor shall I indulge, in factious criticism of the Government, whether in your Lordships' House or outside, but I think I am voicing the feelings of local authorities up and down the country and of all those who are interested in planning in our big cities and our countryside with a view to making both more worthy of the people of this country, when I say, with every respect, that it is time the Government stopped fooling about with this planning, and that they should get on at all events with embodying in legislation, at once, the two declarations to which they have been committed since July, 1941—namely, that local planning authorities can secure land with a ceiling of March, 1939, as to price, and that they shall be empowered to acquire, as a single unit, reconstruction areas whether property in those areas be blighted or be "blitzed." My Lords, I beg to move.

VISCOUNT ASTOR

My Lords, I am very glad to associate myself with the Motion and with the questions which have been put so lucidly by my noble friend Lord Latham. I speak as one who holds a responsible position in a local authority that has a great opportunity to plan but is, at the present moment, absolutely unable to take any proper step forward. This Motion is divided into two parts. I am not going to spend any time on the first question, that is the question as to whether or not the Government have made up their minds. I refuse to believe that the Government with all the talent, experience and intelligence which are available to them, have not yet had the opportunity of making up their minds.

The noble Lord, Lord Latham, indicated that as far back as April, 1942, legislation was almost ready. On April 24, 1942, it was stated that progress had been made in the drafting of the necessary legislation and that the Government were just awaiting publication of two more Reports. Those Reports have now been out for a year. The Government have members with vast experience of administration, nationally and locally, and they have officers and officials in the Departments with a great weight of experience and intelligence. I refuse to believe that at this date now, towards the end of September, 1943, the Government have not yet made up their minds what to do. So I think that we should devote ourselves to the question of when they propose to introduce legislation. As Lord Latham indicated, unless this legislation is introduced soon, it will be of no use. Local authorities have got to get ahead and pre- pare to meet the demand for houses. There is an acute shortage of houses, which cannot be dealt with unless we are given the powers which have been promised. I would repeat that I am not asking for a promise of Government intention, but for the naming of a date when legislation is going to be introduced. I see Parliamentary time being mortgaged for other great measures, and, without being unduly optimistic, one sees the end of the war within sight, and therefore we must be prepared for action.

There are only two points on which I want to touch, and they are two points which have been brought to the attention of local authorities. One is the need for the preparation of housing schemes for re-housing and for providing accommodation for Service men and women when they are demobilized; the other is the recasting of the lay-out of our cities to prepare for replanning. So far as our powers go for acquiring slum properties and for rehousing, the present Act is totally inadequate. The last time Plymouth had a slum clearance scheme, it was fifteen months from the day when the local authority passed the resolution until they were able to get hold of the property. Your Lordships cannot imagine Service men waiting fifteen months while we go through all the procedure of public notice, public inquiry and waiting for approval. Moreover, it is extraordinary how difficult it sometimes is to trace the owners of property; they go away and leave no address. We must have the right of quicker entry; without that we cannot possibly go ahead with the preparation of housing.

Then, as I understand the matter, it is the intention of the nation, and has been the express desire of the Government, that we should plan new cities and rectify the mistakes of the past, mistakes due to haphazard, unplanned growth. In the last century, arising out of the Industrial Revolution, enormous cities grew up haphazard. We now have an opportunity to re-plan and to rectify some of the mistakes then made. If it had not been the intention of the Government that we should do this, they need not have created a new Department; the Ministry of Health could have dealt with housing. The fact that the Government created a new Department shows an intention some months ago that we should in fact be given powers to replan. Replanning does not mean merely widening a street or straightening an elbow or rehousing. In the case of cities which are more fortunate than the one with which I am associated, the work will have to be carried out over the next generation, or perhaps the next two generations; but in cities such as Plymouth Hitler has given us an opportunity to remedy now the mistakes of the past and to start afresh.

In order to do this, however, we must have new powers. I have been in touch with my colleagues, the mayors and lord mayors of other cities, and I can assure the Government that a very strong feeling of indignation exists and is increasing. We have been asked to do a particular job, and we have not been given the powers to do it. We see time passing, and, unless the legislation is carried through quickly, it will be too late and we shall have missed the opportunity. As the noble Lord who preceded me has rightly said, the pressure of public opinion on local authorities to build houses will be so tremendous that, if nothing is done, they will have to go forward and erect houses without proper planning.

I expect that your Lordships have visited some of the cities which have been damaged by enemy action. I wish that you could come to Plymouth. I would take you to what used to be our main shopping centre—the main shopping centre of two counties—and you would see grass growing there; the whole place has been burned out. I cannot describe to your Lordships the plan that has been prepared by Professor Abercrombie and our surveyor, because it has not yet been published. Some of the reasons for that have been hinted at, and also there has been a shortage of paper—but I need not go into the reasons. You need not be a town planner, however, to see the enormous changes which can be made. If you walk about you will see the narrow, twisting streets which can be straightened out, and you will see the space at present wasted. A great opportunity is given to us. We cannot start either on housing or on the location of schools or on any of our other tasks, such as the provision of new avenues, new gardens, sites for community centres and so on, unless entirely fresh, drastic, constructive legislation is put on the Statute Book, and put there soon.

It is not merely a question of acquiring bombed sites. We want those powers, but we also want an opportunity to acquire tracts of land outside the bombed districts, adjacent to the building areas which have been destroyed; and we need these powers for a variety of reasons, which I have indicated. We also want power to acquire, if need be, a building which is intact in the middle of a burned-out area, and pull it down; otherwise we cannot straighten the street or replan. At present we cannot do those things, so that we have neither security nor power to go ahead and do what the Government have asked us to do. As men of experience and men of the world we know that on different occasions there have always been some people who were prepared to exploit public need by land speculation. That is why we are pressing the Government to introduce legislation now, and not to wait. The noble Lord has hinted that prices are going up. They are. Options are being obtained, I am told. I think it would be generally accepted that inflation in land values has started, and we know from past experience that that process tends to increase enormously as soon as public need becomes manifest. I refuse at this stage to believe that the Government are going to bow down to and be beaten by those interests. It is because I refuse to believe that the Government do not intend to implement their pledges and their promises, made repeatedly in this House and elsewhere, that I urge them to give effect to those pledges in the only way which is effective—namely, by passing the necessary legislation and putting it on the Statute Book.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, there is undoubtedly a widespread feeling that in one field of post-war reconstruction almost no perceptible progress is being made, and the two authoritative speeches to which we have just listened have given the plainest evidence of this sense of dissatisfaction. The lack of any substantial progress in this field is all the more striking in view of the really considerable advance which has been achieved in other directions. The Government have accepted the Beveridge proposals for security from want, and they mean to prepare the ground for a policy of full employment after the war. They have also a magnificent scheme of educational reform. In the no less vital field of physical reconstruction, however, on which a satisfactory environment for our whole urban population will depend, they have done little but appoint Committees of outstanding merit without paying attention to their excellent advice.

An unceasing conflict between national and sectional interests for the use of the nation's land is going on. Reference has been made to this in both the speeches which have preceded mine. While the Government will not assume themselves or confer on local authorities sufficient statutory power to control the use of land in the public interest, landowners, builders and speculators are doing just as they please, and multiplying existing misuses. The task of planned reconstruction after the war becomes harder and harder the longer the Government delay their decisions on matters of essential policy. If we are caught by the Armistice without any effective policy for controlled development the pigeon holes of the new Ministry of Town and Country Planning will be choked by paper plans, supplied and prepared at its own request by local planning authorities who will continue to lack the power and the money to put them into execution. The local and regional planners are themselves uncomfortably aware that their schemes will be futile without Government action on the broad lines suggested by the Barlow, Scott and Uthwatt Committees. For example, the authors of the now celebrated plan for the County of London, say in the preamble to their report that The proposals now presented are framed on the confident assumption that the new conception of planning implicit in the Report of the Barlow Commission and the Scott and Uthwatt Committees will be translated into law. And yet, save for the establishment of a central planning authority in the shape of a Ministry of Town and Country Planning, the basic recommendations of these admirable and far-sighted Committees have been ignored by the Government.

The net result of years of popular agitation and of a spate of expert advice has been a new Ministry without any effective powers. The Minister accepts in principle the desirability of the redistribution and decentralization of industry, but, although the Barlow Committee recommended unanimously that he should be authorized to refuse consent to new industries in London and the Home Counties, even this moderate and negative power of influencing the location of industry has been denied him. A gradual redistribution of industry to relieve the worst urban congestion is still a pious hope. Nevertheless, local planning authorities are dutifully drawing up their plans for post-war development. They have no adequate data for the population they will have to serve, and no certain knowledge of the use to which the land in their areas will be put. The inevitable result of leaving the location of industry to be decided by purely business considerations without allowing the Minister to use his influence or authority to safeguard the public will be a further increase in the size and density of our largest centres of population. This is exactly what all progressive opinion, including that of the Government, as frequently voiced by their official spokesmen, has come to regard as a serious menace to the health and happiness of their inhabitants.

Then there is the important recommendation of the Scott Committee about the reservation of certain areas of conspicuous beauty as national parks, an undertaking that has been begun by the work of the National Trust, which can never in the very nature of things be completed without statutory assistance. The Committee laid special emphasis on the need for saving what remains of our coastal scenery from further devastation by unplanned building development. But the Scott Committee reported in August, 1942—over a year ago—and there is still no sign of official action to implement its views on this and other matters relating to the future of the countryside. But the most formidable of all obstacles to planned development of urban communities, and the one that has been stressed by both the previous speakers, is the continued absence of any solution to the problem of purchase of land, of compensation and betterment. Serious as the effect of this obstacle to local authorities has been in the past, it will be positively disastrous if it has not been removed by the time that the great building drive envisaged by the Government immediately after the war begins.

If the Government cannot implement the main proposals of the Uthwatt Committee, the least they can do surely is to submit an alternative scheme to allow building enterprise to acquire land at a fair price and without unreasonable delay. To leave things just as they are now will vitiate the bulk of their post-war building programme. In this event we should be repeating the fatal mistake of the nineteenth century, when public authorities stood aside while towns grew up at random to serve the interests of individual firms and individual property owners. What we need, as my noble friend Lord Latham has said, is immediate legislation to give the Minister the new powers he must have to control the use of land, and to enable the local planning authorities to play their part in an effective partnership between central and local government. The Government surely cannot complain that they have not had plenty of time to consider the views expressed in these three Reports—over a year in the case of the Scott and Uthwatt Committees, and nearly four years in the case of the Barlow Commission. Every month of delay increases the chaos of haphazard development and adds enormously to the difficulties of an ordered social planning. My noble friends on these Benches have authorized me to say that unless we receive a satisfactory answer from the Government, we shall raise the subject again in the House at the earliest possible opportunity, because we regard the continued procrastination of the Government as the worst fault in their post-war domestic policy, and as threatening to saddle the community with a burden of misplaced development that it may take generations to throw off.

LORD SNELL

My Lords, the speeches to which we have listened in this very important debate have been in one definite sense highly encouraging. They have assumed that the war situation is such as to make planning and physical reconstruction a question of almost immediate urgency. It would of coarse be a definite calamity if when the right time comes the Government were unprepared with plans to meet the need, and my noble friend Lord Latham, in his important speech, urged that something should be definitely stated or done at the present time. So closely is my noble friend concerned with the position of local authorities in this matter that he showed a sense of grievance that was almost personal. To some extent this was supported by my noble friend Lord Astor. My first duty is to say that the criticisms and the sug- gestions that have been made will be noted and studied by those immediately concerned, but no one is entitled to assume because results have not been published that the matter is being neglected. The major charge that we have heard this afternoon is that of delay, of neglect of opportunity, and my noble friend Lord Latham said that people outside were even doubting the honest intentions of the Government in this matter. I have known English Governments for quite a considerable time, and I have never known a Government which escaped that charge, whatever might have been its political colour.

I should like, as fairly as I can, to approach this question of delay, trying to understand what it really means. I shall never permit myself, so far as I know, to become an apologist for delay which is due to neglect or complacency in the matter concerned; but here we have the allegation of neglect concerning something which has to do with the very nature of the case. The fact is that we are called upon to enter a field of adventure in which our past experience gives us no help whatever. We have relied upon an unplanned, an even thoughtless, prosperity, and we have now actually to discover and develop the art and science of planning; and the full development of it, we might as well make up our minds about it, will occupy a very great deal of the second half of the twentieth century. For more than a century we have, in the interests of the policy of laissez faire, discouraged most forms of State activity, and it is not the least use expecting that a complete plan of reconstruction on a national basis will appear suddenly, as the goddess Athene appeared, ready-made, perfect, ready for battle, and with a shout of victory. We have got to arrive at conclusions, I am afraid, in a different way.

My noble friend Viscount Astor said that this waiting, as far as local authorities are concerned, was highly embarrassing and even injurious, but let me see if I can find any advantage in delay. We know how irritating it is, but are there no advantages in thinking twice or three times about a matter? I suggest that time given to preparation is sometimes time saved. Francis Bacon tells as that he knew a wise man who, when he saw men hasten to conclusions, said: "Stay a little that we may make an end the sooner." In support of that theory, I suggest that if Mussolini had waited to verify his impressions before he struck at France, it might have been better for Italy and for the world, but he now knows that you should never kick a man until you are sure he is really down and that his friends are not looking! There are dangers in waiting and waiting, but let us look at the matter squarely with the desire to face all the difficulties. The right moment must be chosen for action. That is the essential thing. Opportunity has a habit of knocking at your door once and then passing on.

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!

LORD SNELL

It is rarely that she knocks a second time, so do not let us hurry before we know, but when we know, do not let us delay more than we must. I have belonged to a Society for more than fifty years to which most of my noble friends opposite, if not all of them, also belong. Its foundational motto happens to be: "For the right moment you must wait, as Fabius waited when warring against Hannibal, though many censured his delays." But' it also says: "When the right moment comes, you must strike as Fabius struck, or your waiting will be in vain." Irritating as delay is, it need not mean inactivity, and I want, if I can, to relieve the anxieties of my noble friend who introduced this Motion. The situation is not really so gloomy as he allowed himself to fear. In actual experience many a heart has been broken by troubles that either did not exist or were greatly exaggerated. My noble friend Lord Latham presented his case with force and skill, fortified by great experience as a local administrator. If your Lordships will permit me to say so, I consider your Lordships' House is greatly helped by the kind of experience that he brings to its deliberations. The Government have no sort of complaint that they should be called upon to say what they are doing. Indeed, one of the salutary duties of Opposition Parties in our admirable system of Parliamentary democracy is to prevent the Government of the day from putting too many beauty spots on themselves. If my noble friends in the Opposition find, as I am sure they do, that their style is somewhat cramped by the confederate position in which they find themselves, they must have consideration for others who are in a similar position.

Let us look at this criticism a little more closely. Let us acknowledge that the need is urgent, and let us sympathize with the local authorities in their perplexities and disappointments. Life is not all a picnic, and the hard fact which we have to face is that no quick and easy solution is possible. The problems to be faced are complex and interdependent. No one aspect of them can be treated in isolation, and a decision on one point involves decision upon others. The question of land has been mentioned. That is the root of the whole problem. Certain questions arise. Firstly, what measure of control is to be exercised over land use? That is one problem. The second is, on what terms is that control to be assured? The third is, in what manner and by what methods is control to be exercised? All these questions are very difficult to answer. They were partly answered, perhaps fully answered, in the Uthwatt Report to which considerable attention has been paid. In that Report these difficult problems are set out in language which is at once learned, simple and impressive. The very clarity of the Uthwatt Report makes the problems appear to be more simple than they really are, and it is natural that the attention of the Government should be concentrated upon the questions which the Report raises.

Let us look at the Uthwatt Report for a moment in relation to the problems concerned. In the first place it proposes two different methods of dealing with the landowners. The owner of urban land is to be treated differently from the owner of undeveloped land. The former is to receive in general the market value of his land and the scheme proposes to recover betterment from him by instalments, but the owner of undeveloped land on the other hand is to have his development rights purchased by the State and he is to receive for those rights a fraction, which amounts to from one-half to one-third of what those rights would fetch if he were given the full market value of his land. I express no opinion as to the equity of these proposals but it is obvious at once that the separation of developed from undeveloped land would be a task of considerable difficulty and one perhaps attended by a good deal of controversy. Secondly, the Uthwatt Report proposals are that when land is developed it is to be secured by the public and the lease of property is to be given to the developer. That would in the nature of the case arouse a good deal of controversy which might not expedite results. I mention these as examples of the administrative questions which must be settled if the scheme to be laid before Parliament is to commend itself as feasible. Much study has already been given to these problems and is being given now, and also to the method of overcoming these great administrative problems and no time will be wasted in arriving at a conclusion in regard to them.

I have said that some of these proposals involve intricate and highly controversial issues but that is no justification for not facing them. It may be some excuse that you cannot produce immediately a solution for them. They cannot be answered by a simple declaration. Exhaustive and perhaps prolonged examination will have to be given before a decision is reached. Let us remember that the fires of controversy once started may occupy a great deal more time in the act of extinguishing them than if time had been taken to avoid them. The position of the Government is indeed more difficult than that of impatient critics. The critics have only to demand action at once but the Government have to be satisfied that the legislation which they present to Parliament is both equitable and practicable.

Now let us look at the action of the Government in this matter. It is not really true that nothing has been done. Lord Latham felt that the Interim Development Act was a minor affair, but for what it was worth the Interim Development Act was passed, and in other ways steps have been taken to safeguard post-war reconstruction from being prejudiced pending the wider legislation which will be necessary. The Act, though small and not appreciated, implemented the recommendation of the Uthwatt Committee that planning control be extended to cover all land in England and Wales. It greatly strengthens powers in respect of interim development control, especially those of direction and control by the central planning authority.

Then my noble friend Lord Latham was rightly much concerned as to the position of the 1939 ceiling. The Government have accepted, as I think he acknowledged, the principles of the 1939 ceiling subject to the proviso that its detailed application would require consideration. The application of that principle is indeed by no means so simple as might at first sight appear to be the case. For example, to apply the ceiling only to the purchase of land by local authorities or by the Government while other purchasers are left free to find their current market level might well be to impose a special disadvantage upon those landowners whose land was selected for public purposes. Similarly many owners of revenue earning property have had their property destroyed by enemy action and have been compelled to acquire premises elsewhere often at a high scarcity value. If these latter premises should be selected for purchase by the planning authority it might well be that to pay only the 1939 value might impose a direct loss upon the owner. I mention these difficulties, which by no means cover the whole ground, simply by way of illustration of the problems which arise from the application of even so comparatively simple a recommendation as that of the 1939 ceiling. The difficulties of principle and of administration which arise, for example, in connexion with such questions as compensation and betterment are even more complicated and numerous. I do not mean by this that the Government intend to evade the difficulties by doing nothing but the detailed working out in practice of the recommendations of the Report does, I think, require most careful consideration.

I have done my best to meet the major criticisms which have been made. There remains only the difficult question of the conditions upon which the planning control for the use of land is to be exercised. With this, of course, is associated the recommendation in the Uthwatt Report on the subject of the acquisition of development rights in undeveloped land and of the recovery of betterment in built-up areas. My noble friend the Earl of Listowel asked about the Scott Report. A draft Government statement on the Scott Report is now under immediate consideration and the Government will be ready to make a statement about that matter, I hope, within the next two or three weeks. I regret not being able to say more than that the Government intend to reach such a solution of these problems that I have referred to as to enable the work of reconstruction to be effected in the interests of the community as a whole.

I hope that what I have said may have relieved some of the anxiety felt by my noble friends Lord Latham and Lord Astor and have mitigated some disappointments. After all, local authorities know that they can go ahead with their planning and they also know that the prices which will prevail will not be above the 1939 ceiling. It is not the case, I feel, that until a final solution of these problems has been reached and embodied in legislation local authorities are unable to proceed with the essential preliminary work that must precede reconstruction. That that is not so is evidenced by the admirable Report of the London County Council to which my noble friend Lord Latham alluded and the exhibition of the plans for the reconstruction of the London area prepared by Mr. Forshaw and Professor Abercrombie. I wish I had power to compel all your Lordships to visit that exhibition and see what a great local authority has in its mind for the future development of our capital city.

To sum up, legislation has already received the Royal assent which in all important respects safeguards the position until the major work of reconstruction can be put in hand. Furthermore, local authorities can proceed with the preparatory work for that reconstruction with full confidence that legislation will be introduced which will enable them to enter into possession of such land as may be acquired by them for the purpose of reconstruction. The major financial question which awaits solution, of which close examination has been and is being made, forms part of the general post-war financial problem as a whole but planning authorities can and should proceed with work on the assumption that a fair solution will be found for their difficulties. In other ways, too, the foundations of the new world which we hope to build are being well and truly laid and we can with both hope and assurance await the hour of the builder and the engineer.

LORD LATHAM

My Lords, I would wish first to express my appreciation of the references made by my noble friend Lord Snell to the County of London plan. If I may say so, if the Government had been half as assiduous as regards legislation as the London County Council has been in seeing to it that that plan was prepared, there would have been no need to discuss the Motion which is before your Lordships. I feel that I must also commiserate with my noble friend Lord Snell. He surely can never have had a poorer case to defend. He displayed in that defence all the ability of which we know he is possessed, but really he did not answer the case that was made in this debate and has been made on former occasions in your Lordships' House. We are not asking the Government to enter a field of adventure. The Government have entered. They entered in 1941. They accepted these proposals in 1941. They are not only at the gate but through it and in the field. They were there in 1941. Are they going to say that, as a consequence of the further submissions in the Final Report of the Uthwatt Committee, going into the field was an unwise act and therefore they should now be entitled to come out? In November, 1942, two months after the publication of the second Report of the Uthwatt Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Portal, in your Lordships' House, reaffirmed these promises.

Your Lordships' House was not invited, in this debate to press the Government to carry out the whole of the policy laid down in the two Reports of the Uthwatt Committee. I dealt principally with two recommendations in the Interim Report. Those recommendations were referred to as matters of urgency by the Minister. These proposals were submitted to the Government in July, 1941, and the Government stated that they accepted them. How it can now be said that dealing with them involves difficulties, that legislation affecting them may have implications and repercussions in other directions, I really cannot understand except on the assumption that the Government were so irresponsible in 1941 as to permit a Minister to say that they accepted these things and to promise moreover their implementation in legislation at an early date, and, later, to say that in fact draft clauses had been prepared without satisfying themselves that it could be done. Really I cannot credit such untidiness of administration and such irresponsibility of action as that would mean. I cannot therefore accept the plea that there are reasonable grounds for not giving effect to these quite specific undertakings given from July, 1941, to November, 1942.

With regard to the 1939 ceiling it is all very well for my noble friend Lord Snell to say that local authorities can go on with the assurance that they can acquire below that ceiling, but he has filled me with dismay because his words indicate that the Government are now proposing to modify their declaration with regard to that ceiling in special cases, and, if you please, as between property which may be selected by a local authority—out of need, not necessarily out of desire—for reconstruction as against property which will not be so selected. I can only say with the greatest respect to my noble friend Lord Snell that I view that statement with the utmost dismay, and I think no statement has yet been made about the 1939 ceiling which will more encourage the speculator than the statement made by my noble friend. If we are going to be told that the promise of 1941 is to be modified in that sense no self-respecting and responsible local authority will buy a yard of land. They will wait until they see it embodied in an Act of Parliament and therefore conferring a right upon a local authority before they proceed to commit their ratepayers or to commit the Treasury as regards grants.

Similarly, Lord Snell said that the view was taken that we could go ahead and acquire areas in the full assurance that we could go in when we wanted to. Well, there have been many things done, quite properly I think, under war conditions, but I say frankly that the L.C.C. are not going to run risks based upon that simple declaration of the Minister which has no force of law. They are not going to go into property before they get a title to do so. We want that title and that authority. It is the lack of that which prevents us from really getting on with the job. No doubt your Lordships will be interested to know that the Government expect to be able to make a statement on the Scott Report at an early date. It would, I am sure, be of value if the House could be told the form of that statement. I, personally, would like to know whether that statement is likely to have any greater value than the statement of Lord Reith in 1941 about the 1939 ceiling, or whether we are to regard dates when statements are made as being dates from which there will inevitably be two years' delay before anything is done. I am sorry to have to say this, but I think that Lord Snell has been put in a false position. His statement filled me with dismay. As an essay upon the advantages and the virtues of procrastination I could find no fault with it at all, but as a justification of the failure of the Government to implement their promises—promises not only to do something but to do it quickly—I find it most unsatisfactory.

I would merely add this. It is only with great reluctance that I refrain from seeking to divide your Lordships' House upon this Motion. I would like to confirm what my noble friend Lord Listowel has said, that unless something is done very quickly we shall seek to bring this matter before your Lordships again, and, not without reason I think, we expect that the Leader of the House will be in a position to make—if I may say so with every respect towards, and in all friendship to, my noble friend Lord Snell—a more satisfactory statement than that which has been made to-day. There is undoubtedly anger and impatience among the people at this delay. It may well be—and no one would regret it more than I—that there will be tumult against the guilty men who have let weeks, months and years pass by in Slumberland. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

House adjourned.