TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING BILL. (Hansard, 2 July 1947)

HL Deb 02 July 1947 vol 149 cc787-892 787

§ 3.34 p.m.

§ House again in Committee (according to Order).

§ [The EARL. OF DROGHEDA in the Chair.]

§ Clause 58:

§ Ascertainment of development values of land.

§ (5) For the purposes of this section, the restricted and the unrestricted values of interests in land shall be calculated by reference to prices current immediately before the seventh day of January, nineteen hundred and forty-seven, and for that purpose any such interest shall be treated as if it had been subsisting on that date with all incidents to which it is subject on the appointed day (being incidents which are relevant to the calculation of the restricted or unrestricted value of that interest, as the case may be), and the land shall be treated as having been on that date in the same state as it is on the appointed day:

§ Provided that in computing the restricted value of an interest in land, no account shall be taken of the provisions of this Act except in their application to that land.

§ (6) In computing the unrestricted value of the interest of any person in land which, on the appointed day, was held by him with other land, there shall be deducted— (b) in so far as the unrestricted value of the land depends on the prospect of development which would injuriously affect that other land, an amount equal to the compensation (if any) to which that person would be entitled for such injurious affection if the first-mentioned land were compulsorily acquired as aforesaid for the purpose of that development.

§ LORD CHORLEY
The first is purely a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

788

§ Amendment moved— Page 68, line 39, leave out ("on") and insert ("immediately before").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
The next is also a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 68, line 43, leave out ("on") and insert ("immediately before").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER moved, in subsection (5), at the end to insert: and the development value of any interest in land upon which Estate Duty has been paid on the excess principal value thereof as defined in the Finance Act, 1925, shall be assumed to be not less than the amount of the excess principal value of such land upon which duty has been paid. The noble Viscount said: This Amendment covers a point which I hope is a simple one and can be shortly put, and in regard to which I hope to convince your Lordships that it is not without substance. I would like to say that I personally am not in any way affected by this Amendment; it does not touch me personally at all. I would like further to say that the Amendment does not touch or affect taxation in any way. Although Estate Duty is referred to, there is no suggestion that the incidence of Estate Duty should be in any way affected. The purpose of this Amendment is perfectly plain. It is to ensure that, if in regard to the development value of land, taxation is paid on one basis, then the Government should not be allowed to assess the basis for compensation on any lower value. It is a perfectly simple and plain point. Estate Duty has been paid on development value as one value, and I say that the Government should not base compensation for the development value which they take away on any lower figure.

§ This point really arises through the Finance Act of 1925 which increased the Estate Duty payable where there was a development value. By that Act development value was called the excess principal value, which is in fact the same thing as the development value under this Bill. When that Act of 1925 provided that the excess principal value—the development value, that is—on agricultural land should carry a higher rate of duty, I suggest to your Lordships that it 789 did another thing: it made it plain that in this development value the owner had a right of property. He had an asset and, if he is to be deprived of that asset, then I say he is entitled to compensation on a basis which is just.

§ As the Bill stands, the owner has no protection at all. There is nothing to provide that the basis for compensation will not be a lower value than the basis on which Estate Duty was paid. One can readily see what great hardship may result. On Second Reading I brought to your Lordships' notice an actual case in which—I need not quote the exact figures—the agricultural value of the land was in the neighbourhood of £40,000 and Estate Duty was paid on approximately £500,000 on excess principal value. Supposing the heir in such a case had no other assets, supposing he is wedded to his land—and why should he not be?—and he borrows money in order to pay these duties, a very unfortunate position he will find himself in when the Bill is passed. Not only will he be deprived of his development value, but he will be left with a security worth approximately £40,000 and he has no protection, as the Bill now stands, against the contingency that the basis of his scanty compensation may be lower than the basis on which the Government mulcted him by way of tax.

§ I have sought to see whether any cogent argument can be adduced against this point, and the only one which I can see—no doubt the noble and learned Viscount may have others—is to say that the value of the land may fall and therefore may ensure that the owner shall not have a lower basis than the Estate Duty basis, 'but may secure an advantage. I believe that to be an entirely nugatory idea. The fact is that over the last twenty years the values of land have risen and it is most unlikely that this would be the case. But that is not, I suggest, the real point. The real point is that you are taking away from a man against his will that which belongs to him, and you are giving him by way of compensation a promise of what? Of a participation in a fund which in my view is, as I have endeavoured to show your Lordships, totally inadequate. You are not even promising him that he will receive any compensation at all. You take away what he has on the one hand and on the other hand you promise him nothing certain in return. You do not 790 even promise that if he receives anything it will be adequate to the value of that of which he has been deprived. I suggest to your Lordships that the least we can do in a case of this kind is to say that the basis upon which this compensation is to be fixed, the basis for this man's claim, shall not be lower than the basis upon which he paid tax. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 68, line 47, at end, insert the said words,—(Viscount Buckmaster.)

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
I rise only to say that having considerable knowledge of matters of Estate Duty, I fully support the argument which has been put before your Lordships, and I do so on the plain simple argument that it is a just proposal.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
This seems to be quite a fair proposal and at the same time a moderate one. It does not go so far as to ensure that the man will get by way of compensation part of what he paid in estate duties. It does not go so far as that. It merely says that if, since 1925, when this excess principal value assessment has been made on estates passing upon death, the value has been made at so many pounds for the purpose of Estate Duty, it shall not be taken to be less than that for the purposes of this Bill. That is clearly fair. In most cases I fancy it will be put at about the same, and as the value of land has increased, it is very unlikely that it will be put above what it was five or ten years ago. The value of the land has not increased so much because there is a shortage of land —because the amount is the same—but by reason of the unfortunate decline in the value of the pound. This is surely an eminently fair provision. It would go against all ideas of conscience if one department under the Treasury—which is what the Central Land Board are to be—were to take a different view from another department under the Treasury which had done the same thing perhaps only two or three years ago. This seems to me a very fair Amendment, and one that has justice in its support. That is why I wish to add my words to the words of my noble friend who so ably moved this Amendment.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I am sorry to tell your Lordships that I cannot accept this Amendment. Frankly, I do 791 not feel disposed to quarrel with the statement that this is a moderate Amendment, and at first blush I think that what is here proposed is fair. But, having ascertained the views of the valuers about this, I am assured that it is really quite impracticable. If, as the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, said, the excess principal value was the same thing as the development value, the difficulties would in part be surmounted. Unfortunately they are not the same thing. If you look at the matter at all technically you find that they are arrived at on two different bases. For instance, take agricultural land. The Estate Duty formula—that is in the Act of 1925—is this: The value which the property would bear if it were subject to a perpetual covenant prohibiting its use otherwise than as agricultural property decreased by the value of any timber, trees, wood, or underwood growing there. "Agriculture" is defined quite differently from the definition in this Bill. This Bill, on the other hand, contains the formula in Clause 54 which imports the assumption that planning permission will be granted for what I may call Third Schedule development. Further deductions for possible severance and injurious affection are also, as we pointed out yesterday, provided for in Clause 54 (4). Moreover, the value of the timber in this case has to be included, and I am assured by the valuers that to ask them to accept as the basis a figure which is arrived at on what is really quite a different set of assumptions, and translate the figures so arrived at from those assumptions to the present assumptions, is to ask them to do an impossible task.
Assuming that that difficulty could be surmounted—and they assure me as valuers that they cannot do it—there is, to my uninstructed mind, a much greater difficulty. It is this difficulty which leads me to think that the proposition which, as I have said before, has much to commend it, is not practicable. The unit for the purposes of a claim under Part IV of the Bill may be, and in most cases will be, quite different from the unit valued for Death Duty purposes, so that the two values would not be capable of comparison. Let me give a few illustrations. Take part of an area which was agricultural at the time of the death—and this relates to any town since 1925. 792 It has by now been developed, and the claim under the Bill may, and generally will be, confined to a particular area of the land. Whereas for Death Duty purposes you look at the land as a whole, and without allocating a value to any particular piece of land, consider what is comprised in that estate of excess development value, when you are claiming under this Bill you will confine yourself to a particular strip of land—a strip of land for instance adjoining a road or something of that sort—and make your claim in respect of that strip of land. It is, therefore, impracticable and impossible, I am assured, to identify the unit in the one case with the unit in the other. I submit to the noble Viscount that if he comes to think it out, that is really a very great practical difficulty.
There is this further difficulty. How would the noble Viscount deal with the situation if the estate, as would often be the case, has been divided up? The father died and the property was divided between his two sons, each of whom is going to make his claim. How can you make this work in relation to an undivided share of the duty which was paid under the 1925 Act? It cannot, I am assured, be done. When the Treasury scheme for the distribution of the £300,000,000 is drawn up it is quite certain that we shall have to consider this type of case very carefully. The noble Earl, Lord Munster, moved an Amendment yesterday which rather suggested that everybody was to be on the basis of what I call for short "ordinary shareholders." I pointed out that I thought there may be a case for having some "preference shareholders" for the £300,000,000. It is, I think, a fact that the Minister has suggested that it should be so with regard to builders and their land. There may be a case—I put it no higher than that—with regard to minerals which are being worked; and I think there may a case for saying here that when you come to work out your scheme there might be some sort of preference claim against the fund in cases such as the noble Viscount has in mind. But I do not think that the noble Viscount's Amendment, which I frankly agree is moderate and on the face of it quite fair, is practicable. That is the view which I hold, and I have taken some trouble about this. I have taken 793 the advice I am given by those skilled persons who have advised me; and I regret to say that I cannot accept this Amendment because I do not believe it to be practicable.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
There is no doubt that the object which the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, sought to achieve is one with which nobody could quarrel. It is perfectly simple. It is that a man should not be taxed at one value for Death Duties and then be compensated at a lower value for the same article if and when that article comes to be compulsorily acquired. A man may have two fields; for the purposes of Death Duties those fields may be valued at x pounds; then when he comes to be compensated the value suddenly turns to x minus ten pounds—for exactly the same article. That is repugnant to the principles of justice in this country.
The noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, has put forward with great force and persuasive power certain extremely intricate technical arguments which are the result of consultations he has had with valuers. I feel that those arguments ought to be carefully considered. There ought to be some way by which what the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, sought to achieve can be achieved. Some method ought to be evolved. But at any rate the noble and learned Viscount's arguments, which are extremely intricate, do deserve consideration; and I suggest to the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, that his wisest course would be to consider them with those who are interested in these questions and who have expert knowledge of them, and then if he feels unconvinced he can put forward proposals in an Amendment which would get over the Lord Chancellor's difficulties.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
If the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, takes that course, I shall be very glad to put him in touch with the experts who advised me in order that he can find out for himself.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
For my part I am more impressed with the arguments that the noble arid learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, has invented for himself than those for which he depended on the valuers, because I am not sure that I take the same view of what the Amend- 794 ment means that the valuers seem to have taken. I can quite understand that there is considerable difficulty in getting over the noble and learned Viscount's second point as to the units not being the same. With regard to that, I would suggest that in many cases you may not be able to establish the proposition on which the Amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, depends. I think, however, that that clause might be so amended as to make provision that if it can be established that the development value of any interest in land upon which Estate Duty has been paid is less than the amount of the excess principal value of such land, the consequences mentioned in the Amendment shall follow. I do not know how often that could be done, but there are a number of cases where it would be quite a simple proposition and where difficulties of the sort which have been so ably urged upon this Committee would not arise.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
As to that part of the argument of the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, regarding the impossibility, owing to the method of valuation, of separating individual parcels of land, it is quite true that the valuer generally values the land and at the end of his valuation will give you a figure to cover the whole of the land which he is valuing. On the other hand, I know perfectly well that they have in the process of arriving at that figure made an individual valuation of every piece of land concerned in the total. They have notes of those individual pieces of land and those notes, generally speaking, are available. After all, a valuer's valuation figure is rather like a solicitor's bill, or even a lawyer's bill. I have no doubt that the noble and learned Viscount in his early days has submitted such bills —a foolscap sheet of writing which could be reduced to "For services rendered" and the figure at the end; he has totted the various items of work he has done to arrive at the figure at the end. So does a valuer. It is, I think, not desirable to concede in an Act of Parliament the fact that the valuer does not value individually.

§ THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY
I am sorry I did not clearly understand whether the Government fully accepts the principle of this Amendment, and in view of the anxiety 795 which many people feel on this point I think we deserve to know how far they do accept the principle. I hope that they do really accept it. Surely there must be a great many cases known to the Chancellor of the Exchequer where large sums in Estate Duty have been paid in the excess values on different subjects over agricultural value. I understand that the Treasury were always very particular about fairness in taxation and the avoidance of double taxation on the same subjects. It does seem that the Government might consider going further, and that any repayment or payment when the time comes ought to be entirely outside the global figure.

§ VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER
I do not feel that it would be treating your Lordships fairly to press this matter to a Division, as I must confess it is my instinct to do. I explained to your Lordships that I have no personal interest in the matter and, therefore, it is right, of course, to say that I have no technical knowledge of valuation. I am not competent to deal with the technical points which the noble and learned Viscount, with great courtesy and in a most helpful way, if he will allow me to say so, put before your Lordships. I confess that until the noble and learned Viscount spoke I had supposed that the prime mover in resisting this matter was not the Valuation Department but possibly the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I cannot altogether divest my mind of an uneasy feeling that he, at least, will be happy to see the Amendment defeated. However, be that as it may, the noble and learned Viscount was good enough to say that in principle it was not an unfair Amendment. As when I first spoke on this Bill, I cannot weigh my powers of persuasion against his, and I will end this matter by asking leave to withdraw the Amendment. At the same time, I would like to reserve my right to consider whether some appropriate Amendment, meeting the noble and learned Viscount's difficulties, can be put down on the Report stage.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ 4.3 p.m.

§ LORD HYLTON moved, in subsection (6), at the end of paragraph (b), to insert: 796 provided that where the payment to be made in respect of the development value of an interest in land to which this subsection applies is less than the amount of the development value as ascertained in accordance with this part of this Act, the deduction to be under this subsection shall be decreased proportionately to the amount by which the said payment is less than the amount of the development value and the payment to be made shall be increased in the same proportion of the amount of such decrease. The noble Lord said: In the absence of my noble friend Lord Saltoun, I am moving this Amendment in his name. The effect of this Amendment is, I think, quite simple, and it is as follows: If the amount of the compensation to be paid should be scaled down from the amount of the claim, that is to say the whole of the amount of the claim, then the deductions in subsection 6 (a) and (b) should be scaled down in equal proportion.

§ Amendment moved— Page 69, line 16, at end insert said new proviso.—(Lord Hylton.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
This is an exceedingly technical and complicated Amendment, and I regret that we are not able to accept it. The Amendment is wrong in principle; it is also quite impracticable to work. It is wrong in principle for the reason that we are, of course, dealing with a situation, where this particular subsection of the clause applies, in cases where the development value is, so to speak, broken down for the reason that, in order to claim it, the claimant would first of all have to spend a certain amount of money, possibly on the removal of a house or something of that kind. In those circumstances, to take a concrete example, if we are dealing with a figure of £1,000, some amount has to be taken off, and the proposal in the Amendment is that that amount to be taken off should be dealt with in such a way as to reduce the amount of the deduction. If that were done over the whole field, of course, it would mean that all the claims on the £300,000,000 would be equally increased and that the £300,000,000 would be to that extent less adequate, and therefore you get into a sort of vicious circle, a sort of Achilles and the tortoise system. Therefore, on that basis, it really could not be accepted.
But from the practical point of view the proposal is also not feasible, for the reason that until the scheme has been worked out it is not possible to ascertain the amounts in question, and the scheme 797 of payment, of course, depends on the first fixing of all the individual development values. It is extraordinarily difficult to deal with this complicated question without taking a rather elaborate example and pursuing it right through. Mr. W. S. Morrison, in the Committee in another place, on this particular Amendment said that it is one of the difficulties of using human speech that it is too difficult to express in statutory language what is often quite a simple idea. If your Lordships would like me to do so, I can take a concrete example, and show how the thing works out in detail. In that way I am quite sure that your Lordships would, in fact, be convinced that not only is this matter not reasonably right from the point of view of principle, but also when it comes to be dealt with on a practical basis it is not really possible to put it into practice.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
On the whole perhaps the noble Lord is right. It would get into a very complicated formula, and it would lead us into all sorts of things, even making comparisons, if it is done, between Achilles and the tortoise. I must say that I have not heard of Achilles and the tortoise. Achilles I have heard of in connexion with a heel, and I know that the hare had the heels of the tortoise, but I think I follow the allusion from what my noble friend has said. I think that this Amendment would make the matter too complicated, and for that reason I should advise my noble friend not to press it further.

LORD HYLTON
May I thank the noble Lord for his answer. Although I, too, like my noble friend Lord Llewellin am not familiar with Achilles and the tortoise, perhaps at another stage the noble Lord will let me know about it. Perhaps when my noble friend Lord Saltoun returns from the north he may wish to have a word about this with the noble Lord, but in the meantime I will withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 58, as amended, agreed to.

§ 4.9 p.m.

§ Clause 59:

§ Supplementary provisions as to development values.

§ (3) The restricted and the unrestricted values of an interest in land which is subject 798 to a mortgage shall be computed as if the mortgage had been discharged.

§ (4) It is hereby declared that the restricted or the unrestricted value or both the restricted and the unrestricted values, of an interest in land may be a minus quantity.

§ VISCOUNT GAGE moved, after subsection (2), to insert: (3) Where land in respect of an interest in which a claim for a payment under the scheme made under this part of this Act is made, would, but for the provisions of the Tenth Schedule to this Act, be subject to an agreement for restricting the planning, development or use of that land under Section 34 of the Act of 1932, or to an agreement with any such authority a is mentioned in subsection (2) of that section, the unrestricted value of that interest shall be treated as if such agreement had not been subsisting immediately before the appointed day, excepting in so far as any consideration has been paid or made to the owner thereof in respect of that agreement.

§ The noble Viscount said: This Amendment is designed to remove what I think is a genuine grievance from a small but deserving class of owner. In the past some owners have come to agreements with local planning authorities whereby they have voluntarily giver up a lot of their development value for reasons of local patriotism. Other owners have not done that; they have claimed compensation in respect of those agreements; and have either got compensation or have got some corresponding advantage. Those who did forgo their compensation seem to be really badly treated by this Bill because, though the Bill may bring these agreements to an end for purposes of planning, when we come to compensation they are assumed not to have come to an end. I think that subsection (6) (b) of Clause 58 says that the value of land shall be what it would have been if this Bill had not been passed. In other words, the value shall be calculated as if the restrictions of this agreement remained in force. It seems to me that if for planning purposes the agreement comes to an end and the planning authorities can deal with the land how they like, while for compensation purposes it is to be assumed that the agreement is still in force, then the owner loses on both the swings and the roundabouts. It is only just that if you are going to scrap an agreement you should scrap the whole thing. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 69, line 39, at end insert the said new subsection. —(Viscount Gage.)

799

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
This is a complicated little matter, and may I at once, before I come to the details of it, remind the Committee of this fact? It arises really out of something which the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, said in his short reply on the last Amendment but one. It is a complete fallacy to suppose that it matters to the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether that Amendment is accepted or not. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has to reconcile himself to the fact that he has got to pay£300,000,000, and the question as to how that £300,000,000 is divided among the various claimants is not a matter that affects him. What affects him is whether that figure of £300,000,000 is going to be increased directly or indirectly; directly, for instance, by moving that for the figure "3" you should read "4," or, indirectly, by reducing the number of claimants on the fund, and resolving that claimants left out of a claim on the fund are compensated before the fund operates.
I think it is essential that this point should be borne in mind. It has some relevance to the Amendment. The effect of this Amendment is to ensure that the special restrictions on land resulting from agreements made under Section 34 of the Act of 1932, shall be ignored in calculating the development value of the land. My noble friend put the Amendment on the Paper before I had put down an Amendment to the Tenth Schedule. He will now see that by my Amendment all subsisting agreements of this kind are kept in force after the appointed day, subject, of course, to the Minister's power to revise them. That, of course, does affect the Amendment, and makes the necessity for it very much less than it was before my Amendment was put down. The noble Viscount's Amendment is confined to those cases in which no consideration was received by the owner either in malt or meal, that is to say, putting it another way, either in money or in alternative covenants, for the restrictions or obligation under which he voluntarily put him-self. Doubtless it was done—as many landowners have done it—in a public-spirited way, to preserve the public interest, and no consideration was received.
800 The case for the Amendment is that in those circumstances the effects of the agreement on the development value of the land ought to be disregarded whether or not the agreement remains in force. That is an attractive argument, but I submit that it does not stand examination. The true position is this: if the landowner, albeit for public-spirited reasons, has already deprived himself of some part of the development value of his land, the loss of that development value is not due to this Bill at all. He has given it up. He has consented to restrict himself in the way in which he is going to deal in land. He has, to use a piece of jargon which is now popular, voluntarily sterilized a piece of land. That land is not sterilized by this Bill but by the voluntary act of the man which, no doubt, as I have said, is a public-spirited act. The question therefore is whether some part of the £300,000,000 fund which is provided for the owners of land who are damaged by the Bill ought to be utilized to compensate those owners of land who are not damaged by the Bill, but who are already affected because they have made this covenant. That is the question we have to consider. I emphasize that this is not a matter that affects the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I cannot think it right to withdraw or diminish that fund which is available for those owners of land affected by the Bill to compensate those owners who, ex hypothesi, are not affected but have already before the time of the Bill, voluntarily restricted their rights. Therefore, though the Treasury have no sort of interest in this matter, it does seem to me that it would be wrong to diminish the fund available for those who have suffered by allowing some part of the fund to be expended to compensate those who have—voluntarily no doubt and for public-spirited reasons —already, quite apart from the Bill, entered into a covenant restricting the user of the land.

VISCOUNT GAGE
It may be due to my stupidity, but I do not think that the noble and learned Viscount dealt with the case which I really have in mind. That is the case where an agreement is brought to an end by reason of a Ministerial decision. It seems to be quite plain that if an agreement is brought to an end by Ministerial action, the value of that agreement to the owner is lost, and he is deprived of the opportunity of taking his 801 chance with other owners of getting compensation. I should have thought that that would have been an argument which the noble and learned Viscount would have thought might possibly be taken into account by the Central Land Board when assessing a claim under hardship provisions. I do not wish to press this matter. These individuals gave their land freely, and I do not suppose that they would wish to make a fuss about it now. But I must confess that I think they have had shabby treatment, and I feel that it may lend some colour and force to an expression which is sometimes used by cynics to the effect that "it is no use doing anything to help the Government unless you have to." In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ 4.19 p.m.

§ LORD SAVILE moved to leave out subsection (3). The noble Lord said: I think it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I discuss the two Amendments which stand in my name together. They arc to leave out subsections (3) and (4). My only purpose in moving them is to try to get a little information from the Government about some rather weird legal phraseology. As regards subsection (3), I do not quite see what the existence of a mortgage has got to do with this Bill at all. Surely the restricted and the unrestricted values are quite independent of the existence of a mortgage, and so I think it would be very much better if that subsection were deleted from the Bill.

§ As regards my second Amendment, I am bound to confess that the wording of subsection (4) is absolutely beyond my understanding. This is how it reads: It is hereby declared that the restricted or the unrestricted value, or both the restricted and the unrestricted values, of an interest in land may be a minus quantity. It might be a minus quantity. What is the meaning of that? Surely if it is a minus quantity, it cannot have any value. Again, I submit very humbly that it would be very much better if this subsection were left out altogether. I beg to move the first Amendment standing in my name.

§ Amendment moved— Page 69, line 40, leave out subsection (3).

The EARL OF RADNOR
May I adduce, as a further argument for leaving out the absurd subsection (4), that the 802 Forestry Commission, when they purchase land which comprises plantable and unplantable land, do not put down the unplantable land, which is of no value to them whatever, as a minus quantity, but leave it at nought, which is neither minus nor plus.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I regret that I cannot accept this Amendment, although I am really not in a position to give the noble Lord any reasons which he will regard as satisfactory, or I myself regard as very satisfactory. I frankly admit that I thought this Amendment was consequential on the Amendment moved by Lord Llewellin yesterday in relation to Clause 57, in which he dealt with the question of mortgages. In the circumstances, I feel just as baffled as the noble Lord. What I should like to do, if he will agree, is to discuss it with him after I had an opportunity of advising myself further. Perhaps he would be prepared to withdraw his Amendment this afternoon and submit it at a later stage if, after discussion, he is still unable to appreciate the exact meaning of the subsection.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
I am sorry my Amendment evidently appears to have led those who provide information to my noble friend to put down against this Amendment that it was consequential, but we really do want to know the effects of the existence of a mortgage. That might be extremely relevant, and that was the point which the noble and learned Viscount dealt with yesterday when he referred me to the provisions of another Act which are to be incorporated, but I do not see why either the restricted or unrestricted value of any piece of land valued under the terms of this Bill is affected one way or another by a mortgage. That is why we wondered how this subsection had got in here at all.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Let me have a try. Just ignore the mortgage. The first part of the clause says it is to be treated as if it were not there. The second part is this. Perhaps the noble Lord is a tenant at the tail-end of a lease which. has heavy repairing costs. The tenancy might be worth nothing at all; it might even involve a big minus quantity. The restricted value might be minus two and the unrestricted value minus one. Where that happens the owner of that interest is given the right to 803 claim the difference between the minus quantities.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
I am beginning to wonder whether the reply from the Government is not a minus quantity.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I do not see why the noble Lord says that. This is to extend the clause to cover further claims on the fund.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
Now for the first time I understand it, and I am obliged to the noble and learned Viscount for telling us why it is in. I think subsection (3) is put in out of excessive caution, because I do not see that anybody would ever think the mortgage would be included. The other reason is the exceptional cases which the Lord Chancellor has explained.

§ LORD SAVILE
I have asked a great number of people in the last few weeks what is the meaning of this subsection, and now I understand I am very ready to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 59 agreed to.

§ 4.27 p.m.

§ Clause 60:

§ Exclusion of small claims.

§ 60.—(1) Without prejudice to any provisions which may be included in a scheme made under Section fifty-five of this Act for prescribing the cases in which payments are to be made thereunder, no such payment shall be made in respect of an interest in land unless—

(a) the development value of that interest, when averaged over the area of the land, exceeds the rate of twenty pounds per acre; and
(b) the development value of that interest also exceeds one tenth of its restricted value.

§ (2) In determining for the purposes of paragraph (b) of the foregoing subsection whether the development value of an interest in land exceeds one tenth of its restricted value, those values shall be calculated—

(a) in the case of a leasehold interest, as if the rent payable under the lease were a rent of a peppercorn;
(b) in the case of an interest which is subject to a rent-charge, as if the interest were not subject thereto.

§ LORD CARRINGTON moved, in subsection (1) after "land" to insert "in respect of which a claim is made." The noble Lord said: As the Bill now stands, 804 no payment will be made under Clause 55 unless "the development value of that interest, when averaged over the area of the land, exceeds the rate of £20 per acre." I agree that the object of this is to prevent petty claims, but on larger properties where a claim is made in respect of a comparatively small amount of land, although it may be that quite a large sum is at stake, the development value averaged out over the whole estate may be much less than £20 an acre. I do not think that is fair, and I do not believe it is the intention of the Government, because the clause is headed "Exclusion of small claims." Therefore to safeguard this position it is proposed that subsection (a) shall apply only in respect of land about which the claim is made. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 70, line 5, after ("land") insert the said words.—(Lord Carrington.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I think this is reasonable and I accept it.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
Before that happens, I suppose it is in the right place. Perhaps it ought to be in paragraph (a) of subsection (1).

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I will look at that, and if I am told it should be in another place I will make the Amendment on the Report stage. One place or another, I will give the noble Lord the Amendment he wants.

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY moved, in subsection (1), at the end to insert: Provided that this subsection shall Lot apply to any interest in land upon which Estate Duty has been paid in respect of the excess principal value thereof under the provisions of the Finance Act, 1925.

§ The noble Duke said: The purpose of this Amendment is to ensure that the Government cannot take money for values on the one hand, and on the other hand say they are too small to bother about. Even if it is a great convenience not to overload the machinery with a mass of small claims, surely there is no justification for not meeting the small claims as fairly as the larger ones. What may seem to be a very small claim may be much more to one person than to another. If these principles are disregarded when assessing Estate Duty, it at 805 least should be acknowledged that an owner of values upon whom the State has levied duties should be eligible to make a claim for payment under this part of the Bill. It seems unfair if in the course of elimination of small claims for payment the loss of values is not there to balance on the other side. I am not sure what the effect of the clause is. I do not know whether anxiety is groundless, or whether the owners of farms and land with small excess difference in value have cause for feeling that they may suffer loss without having a claim for compensation. If possible, I would like an assurance on these matters. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 70, line 10, at end insert the said proviso.—(The Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
This is very much the same sort of point that I was discussing with your Lordships in regard to the first Amendment to-day which was moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster. The real difficulty which prevents me from accepting this proposal is the difficulty of the unit. That presents an insoluble problem. The noble Duke will appreciate that when you are comparing valuations made at different times, all sorts of changes may have taken place in the interval: buildings may have been put up, plots may have been sold off, values generally may have gone up, or gone down, leases may partly or wholly have run out, and new leases may have been granted. Those factors make it virtually impossible to provide a statutory comparison of the two things, which in their essence, if your Lordships will look at them—I will not repeat what I said to the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster—are essentially somewhat different.
A further difficulty is that the assessment of excess principal value for Death Duty purposes, so I am informed by the valuers, is frequently not related to a particular plot of land at all. Suppose you had a large estate of, say, 2,000 acres. The normal valuation process will be this. You have to estimate the demand for building land in the area, and the part of the 2,000 acres likely to be realized for building purposes in the near future. So you estimate the amount likely to be realized. It is really a sort of microcosm of the national scheme. It is a problem of -floating value on a small scale. I am told 806 it is in practice impracticable to specify the particular plots that are likely to be sold for development and to attach to them the excess principal value.
I am advised that this Amendment would only work given two circumstances: first, that the unit of claim under Part VI of the Bill was identical with the unit of land that had been valued for Estate Duty; and, secondly, that with regard to that unit there had been no relevant change—that is to say, no building land had been sold, no leases had expired, no new leases had been granted, no new agricultural building had been erected, and so on. It is only in those cases—and they would be very rare cases —that this Amendment would be practicable. I suggest to the noble Duke that the real answer to the problem, and, I think I may say, the real safeguard to the owner, rests in this: that for the purposes of his claim under Part VI he need not claim in respect of the whole of his estate, but he can choose what particular part of his estate he wants to claim for. Much of his estate would obviously be of only agricultural value, but he can select and put forward parcels of his land and say that he wants to claim in respect of those particular parcels, and so build up his claim.
If, of course, he included large virgin agricultural land with no possible development value, then the percentage calculated under Clause 60 might exclude his claim. The purpose of leaving him to choose his own unit is to enable him to avoid doing this, and also to avoid imposing on the valuers the task of valuing much more land than is necessary. In these circumstances, it is highly improbable that any land in respect of which a development value had been claimed by the Board of Inland Revenue for death duty purposes would be less than 10 per cent. of the agricultural value, for, after all, valuation is not an exact science. If the point of principle raised by this Amendment were to be met, it would have to be conditional on the Unit of land being the same for both purposes (and, therefore, for this purpose, including far more land than is really necessary, which might have a prejudicial effect if you are considering whether it exceeds the 10 per cent.); and it would have to be hedged around with so many qualifications and exceptions that most cases would in reality be ruled out. In the result I do not think the pro- 807 vision would be of any practical value. To embark on this wider and further task might be to rule out a good many cases which otherwise would come in. For those reasons, I am unable to accept this Amendment.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
I gather from what the noble and learned Viscount has said that he is not unsympathetic to the principle that anyone who has paid Death Duties on an area of land should get back, through the compensation, the amount he has paid. But he has made very clear on this Amendment the difficulty the valuer is in. This Amendment, of course, deals only with small claims, but I can envisage a case of an area of land, say, 100 acres in extent, which at the time of the death was suitable for development of a particular type involving a sale in quarter acre plots. By the time this Bill comes along, half that area may have been sold. The 100 acres originally would have been valued as a whole, and it would present an impossible task, with all those imponderable, and, to my mind, very indefinite and unreal factors, such as shift and float. In the light of that, while I feel that we want the same treatment for the man who has been charged Death Duties, and he should get 'back that value when he has it removed from him compulsorily by His Majesty's Government, I appreciate, equally, that, certainly so far as the small plots of land are concerned, there are serious physical difficulties in the way.

LORD HYLTON
I think we all see the difficulty to which the noble and learned Viscount has referred, but, although the problem is difficult, surely it is not impossible. Those of your Lordships who know these skilled valuers will know that they can undoubtedly find, and have found, methods of assessing questions of this kind. I do not think it is impossible to apportion the amount among the units, even if the whole estate has been broken up. It is well known that these valuers do value each unit separately, and, although the noble and learned Viscount tells us that the floating value is apportioned over maybe a considerable area, yet they know very well where that shifting value will sink, or where it will fix. Therefore, I suggest that, in justice to these small claimants— 808 we are dealing with small claims now—who have already paid excess principal value to the Treasury, they should not be excluded from receiving compensation under this scheme.

§ LORD HARLECH
I would like to say a few words on this matter. I do not think we can do much about this point in this Bill. The real grievance arises under the Finance Act. I only hope that when this Bill is an Act attention will be paid to this particular point in some Finance Bill of the future. I remember my own extreme personal grievance when I had to pay Death Duties in respect of a portion of my property in North Wales, which matter, incidentally has been raised in this House in other connexions —namely, military occupation round Harlech. For years past, my predecessors, the local authority, local societies, and the National Trust have all been concerned with preserving the amenities of that part of the Welsh coast, and I remember being particularly aggrieved at having excess value to pay for Death Duties on areas which we particularly wished to prevent being built over. It is quite true that the bulk of the Royal St. Davids golf course is on my property, and no doubt the whole of that golf course would be extremely valuable building land. There is all that to be considered, I agree. I only hope that when this Town and Country Planning Bill has become an Act the future owners will not have some of these arbitrary excess duties to pay on land which obviously ought to be planned and preserved for public amenity.

§ THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY
I thank the noble and learned Viscount for his statement, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY moved to leave out subsection (2). The noble Lord said: To the layman, and I understand not to the layman alone, this subsection seems slightly obscure. It is difficult to see how a leasehold interest is to be valued without regard to rent, and this would seem to apply also in the case of a rentcharge. I would be grateful if the noble and learned Viscount could give me an explanation of the exact meaning of this subsection and also whether it would be possible to devise words to make it a little clearer to those who will have to operate the subsection. I beg to move.

809

§ Amendment moved— Page 70, line 11, leave out subsection (2). —(Lord Amherst of Hackney.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
The noble Lord has my sympathy if he has been trying to understand this matter. I have a completely unfair advantage over him in that I have expert advisers to tell me what it means, and I confess that, if I had not had those expert advisers, I should be in a sorry plight at the present moment. This is the position: You are endeavouring, under this clause, with all due regard to fairness, to rule out small claims on the de minimis principle, and to say that you must have a difference as between restricted and unrestricted value of at least ten per cent. before you can have a claim. Of course, if the restricted value is nil—and I can assure your Lordship that it may be nil —then sixpence is more than ten per cent. of nil, and, therefore, you must, if you are dealing with it at all, try to presuppose that there is some value in the restricted value. Of course, as we said just now, if you have a leasehold interest and the leasehold interest has a number of onerous covenants—it may be particularly when the leasehold is coming to an end—it is very often in those cases that the leasehold is not only a nil value, but a minus value. Where you have a leasehold interest which is let at a very full rack rent, there you would say that the value of the leasehold is nil, and then, to guard against that sort of case, you disregarded the rent in valuing both the unrestricted and the restricted values.
I am told, further, that the valuers take the view that, whether you are dealing with the purchase of an estate for a capital sum, or with an estate where you have paid a premium and then got your leasehold interest at a very low rate, or whether you are dealing with a case where you have paid a rack rent for your lease, you are valuing the land, and all the valuations should be made on the same basis. I am assured that the only practical way to make that operate and to eliminate those very small claims which may arise because they exceed ten per cent. of nil, small though they are, is to adopt the scheme which we have here adopted. I hope that this explanation has made it plain to the noble Lord. I confess I was in exactly the same difficulty until I had this explanation.

810

§ LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY
I am very grateful to the noble Viscount for his statement.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
I think the ruling may be convenient. It also seems to me that it is purely artificial. I do not think any principle of justice is at the bottom of it. I conceive, as I have said, that it would be convenient, and I am not quite sure that there is anything but a very difficult and troublesome alternative to the view of the Government that the subsection must remain where it is.

§ LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY
I am very grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for his reply. I think I understand it better than I did, but I shall study Hansard with great care to-morrow. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 60, as amended, agreed to.

§ Clauses 61 to 65 agreed to.

§ 4.47 p.m.

§ Clause 66:

§ Levy of development charge in respect of certain development

§ (2) This Part of this Act applies to all operations for the carrying out of which planning permission under Part III of this Act is required, and to all uses of land for the institution or continuance of which such permission is so required:

§ Provided that—

(a) this Part of this Act does not (except as hereinafter provided), apply to operations of any description specified in the Third Schedule to this Act or to any use of land so specified:
(b) regulations made under this Act with the consent of the Treasury may provide for exempting from the provisions of this Part of this Act operations or uses of any description specified in the regulations.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
I hope that this Amendment will be accepted. It is quite a small Amendment which offers a certain amount of flexibility; that is to say, it leaves it to the discretion of the Central Land Board to allow a house to be started or continued without the payment of the relevant charges. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 74, line 35, alter ("continued") insert ("except with the consent in writing of the Central Laud Board")—(The Earl of Radnor.)

811

§ LORD HENDERSON
I am very glad to accept this Amendment.

§ On question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN had given notice of two Amendments to insert new paragraphs in subsection (2), after paragraph (a)—namely: (b) This Part of this Act does not apply to the use as two or more separate dwelling houses of any building previously used as a single dwelling house. (b) This Part of this Act does not apply to operations for the development or use of land for educational purposes.

§ The noble Lord said: I am not going to move these Amendments. With regard to the first, I have since been convinced that Clause 83 covers the kind of institution that I had in mind when I put the Amendment down. I was not quite clear how far this charitable clause covered these educational establishments, but I have ascertained that it does, and, therefore, I do not move.

§ Since I put the second Amendment down I see that the noble and learned Viscount has put down an almost identical Amendment in the Third Schedule. It is obviously the better place for it to be in the Third Schedule, and all I rise to say is that I am very much obliged to the noble and learned Viscount for thus accepting my Amendment, which I shall not move here.

§ LORD HYLTON moved, after paragraph (a) in subsection (2) to insert: (b) This Part of this Act does not apply to the use of any buildings or other land or the erection of any buildings within the curtilage of a dwelling house for any purpose not incidental to the enjoyment of the dwelling house as such, where the cubic content of any such building does not exceed 1,000 cubic feet.

§ The noble Lord said: This is another Amendment that my noble friend Lord Saltoun has asked me to move, in his absence. It is perfectly simple and merely asks that the Bill shall say that a small building used, for instance, for the storage of bicycles, or a small house used for keeping prams or coal in and so on, shall not be deemed to be subject to development charge if it does not exceed one thousand cubic feet in size.

§ This is such common sense that I cannot believe it will not be accepted. I beg to move.

812

§ Amendment moved— Page 75, line 5, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Hylton.)

§ LORD HENDERSON
This Amendment would allow a man to use his garage as a workshop or, provided he could get planning permission, to put up a kiosk for the sale of tobacco or ice-cream in his front garden and pay no development charge, however profitable those operations might be. It is unlikely that the local planning authorities would encourage haphazard development of this kind, but if in any case permission is granted and the development is such as to enhance the value of the land, there is no reason why it should be exempt from development charge simply because it happens to be within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse. The reason for exempting from development charge the operations and uses of land specified in the Third Schedule is that these are regarded as falling within the general category of existing use, but it can hardly be maintained that the existing use of a dwelling-house includes the right to use is as a shop or place of manufacture.
If a case could be made out for exempting the small home trader from development charge, I suggest that the proper place for such an exemption would be the regulations which can be made under paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of this clause. As the noble Lord is aware, these regulations are subject to Parliamentary approval. I hope, therefore, that he will not press his Amendment.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
I know that the only case which was of great concern to the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, was the case of a small man who had a little tool shop in his garden. It may well be that that kind of thing can be dealt with in the regulations. In fact, it is not the kind of thing which would in any event attract a large development charge. It was just the case of a little man doing a little bit of repairing in a tool shop at the back of his garden that my noble friend had in mind. I think if this point could be remembered when the regulations are being drawn up, that would probably satisfy my noble friend.

LORD HYLTON
I thank the noble Lord for the information. All the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, was thinking about was a bicycle shed, and he was not think- 813 ing of putting up kiosks and other trading concerns. If the noble Lord will consider this, then I should be pleased to withdraw this Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN had given notice that he would move in subsection (2), at the end to insert: (c) This Part of this Act does not apply to the winning and working of minerals.

§ The noble Lord said: I believe it would be for the convenience of your Lordships that we should discuss this minerals question on the Minerals Clause, Clause 79. If, of course anything were to happen to Clause 79, there might have to be a consequential Amendment. But as this Amendment is purely consequential to the main clause, I do not propose to move it now.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I think that would be a more convenient course.

§ 4.55 p.m.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN moved, in subsection (2), at the end to insert: (c) this Part of this Act does not apply to the winning and working on land forming part of an agricultural estate of minerals required and used on any land forming part of that estate for the purposes of that estate. For the purposes of this sub-paragraph the expression agricultural estate means an estate consisting of agricultural land and agricultural buildings, as defined in the Rating and Valuation (Apportionment) Act, 1928, together with any lands on which minerals are for the time being worked as aforesaid and land occupied together with a house as a park which is used for grazing, and includes dwelling houses used as the dwelling house of a person who is primarily engaged in carrying on managing or directing agricultural operations on the estate or any part thereof, or is employed in agricultural operations on the estate or in the upkeep thereof, in the service of the owner thereof or of any tenant of the owner.

§ The noble Lord said: The point of this Amendment is to bring any question of development charges on small mineral workings connected with agricultural estates into the same category as agricultural land in the Third Schedule. The idea of this is that if a man is digging chalk out of some field on his farm, no development charge should be levied for his continuing to dig that chalk and spread it over his arable fields or grass fields. Similarly, with regard to gravel and things ordinarily used on farms, where there is no question of sale, I think it is quite in accord with the general principles of the 814 Bill in regard to agriculture that these should be excluded, as other things have been. Therefore, I beg leave formally to move my Amendment.

§ Amendment moved— Page 75, line 9, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Llewellin.)

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
I should like in one sentence to support this proposal, which does not seem to me in any way to affect the provisions of the later sections which are of a serious character.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I am going to accept this Amendment in principle. It seems to me a reasonable Amendment and one we ought to accept, but I am a little inclined to think, as I think the noble Lord is inclined to think, that is probably finds its place better in one of the schedules—Part II of the Third Schedule—and we think that the phraseology of it needs redrafting. What I am going to ask the noble Lord to do is to withdraw the Amendment now. I do not promise that I shall be able to put it down by the time we get to the Schedule—which I hope will be fairly soon—but I do promise that I will introduce some Amendment to meet this point on the Report stage. If the noble Lord will be good enough to accept that suggestion of mine and withdraw the Amendment as it stands, I will give him the undertaking that I will deal with the matter on the Report stage, it being understood, of course, that the concession which I shall make must be strictly limited to materials necessary for the day-to-day work connected with the farm. I hope the noble Lord will accept my offer.

§ THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY
Before the Amendment is withdrawn, I would like to ask if, at a later stage, the definition might be considered to include the getting of road metal from quarries, hillsides, or streams, as otherwise it might mean that in order to make a road to an outlying Shepherd's cottage on a hill farm, a permit would be necessary. I would also like to ask if the limestone quarries and the making of tiled bricks would be considered.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I shall certainly see that both the matters which the noble Duke has mentioned are con- 815 sidered. I have not considered them heretofore, and what the result will be I cannot promise. I can promise that I will bring it to the notice of those who advise me and see that they are both considered.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
I fancy that the first point the noble Duke mentioned is included both in my Amendment and in the one which the noble and learned Viscount accepted, because it will be stone for agricultural work which, no doubt, will include sheep farms. I am obliged to the noble and learned Viscount for the attitude he has taken upon this Amendment. I certainly would like to see it drawn as widely in the definition as possible because in quite a lot of these small gravel pits nothing is for sale. They are merely used for the purposes of an estate and it is just as well that they should go on being used for the purposes of the estate. It is a very reasonable thing. I am very much obliged to the noble and learned Viscount and with that assurance I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD HENDERSON
This is purely a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 75, line 12, leave out ("Part II") and insert ("Part III").—(Lord Henderson.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD ADDINGTON moved, in subsection (3), at the end, to insert: Provided that where the refusal of planning permission for development of any class specified in the said Third Schedule to this Act, or the granting of such permission subject to conditions was made or given in consequence of a direction by the Minister, the Central Land Board shall pay to the local planning authority by whom the permission was refused or granted subject to conditions as aforesaid, the amount of the development charge payable upon the granting of the planning permission, or so much thereof as will reimburse the local planning authority for the compensation paid by them. The noble Lord said: Subsection (3) of this clause provides that the Central Land Board may make a contribution towards the compensation paid by a local authority under Clauses 19 and 25 of the Bill. That is to say, it is entirely for the Central Land Board to determine whether, or not, they make the contribution, and also to decide the proportion of the compensation 816 paid which they might contribute. It occurs where the action giving rise to liability for compensation has been directed by the Minister; and it is only right that the local authorities should be compensated in full for the moneys they have had to disburse on his instructions. I therefore beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 75, line 35, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Addington.)

§ LORD HENDERSON
I am afraid I must resist this Amendment. Clause 66 (3) is concerned with the levying of development charge on Third Schedule development. Development in this category is normally exempt from development charge. Development charge is, however, payable where permission for the development is first refused or revoked (and compensation paid under Clause 19 or 25) but is subsequently granted. Clause 66 (3) provides that in such a case the Central Land Board may pay to the local planning authority by whom compensation has been paid a contribution not exceeding the amount of the development charge. That is a simple and readily understandable provision. The effect of the original refusal was to reduce the value of the land below its normal existing use value, and the owner therefore received compensation equal to 100 per cent. of the reduction. On the subsequent permission to carry out the development for which permission had been withheld he will be charged a development charge taxed on the potential increase in value above the present reduced existing use value. As a result of the original refusal the Board will collect more than they would otherwise have been able to collect, and it is therefore fair that some or all of this excess should be handed over to the local authority which has paid the compensation.
The Amendment would do something quite different. It would insert in the Bill the principle that where a local authority has to pay compensation because of something done by the Minister it should be reimbursed in full. The Bill meets this point in a different way, by enabling the local authority to claim grant under Clause 92, under which the cost of compensation will be shared wth the Exchequer. No distinction is drawn or thought to be necessary between cases 817 where the compensation becomes payable as a result of action by the local authority or those where action by the Minister is responsible. I think the noble Lord will probably recognize that action by the Minister may be taken in the interest of local planning. In other cases it may be taken in the interest of national planning. Provision is also made for other local authorities and statutory undertakers for the Minister to contribute in suitable cases; so that there is provision for the local authority to be substantially reimbursed. I am unable to accept the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, which lays it down that the Board shall reimburse the local planning authority to the full amount of the development charge payable on the granting of the planning permission.

§ LORD ADDINGTON
I should have thought that the fairest way would have been this. These restrictions imposed by the Minister are mainly for the advantage of national planning and for the advantage of the Ministry concerned—often the Ministry of Transport. Individual local authorities pay directly, and therefore since the payment has been made in the interests of the Minister, that payment should be reimbursed as such, rather than left to be shared or treated in some other way. I think my principles are right but am unable to press the Amendment, and I beg leave to withdraw it.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 66, as amended, agreed to.

§ 5.8 p.m.

§ Clause 67:

§ Determination of development charge by Central Land Board.

§ 67.—(1) Subject as hereinafter provided, the Central Land Board shall, on application being made to them in the manner prescribed by regulations under this Act by a person having an interest in land sufficient to enable him to carry out any such operations as aforesaid or to make any such use as aforesaid, or by a person who satisfies them that he is able to obtain such an interest, determine whether any and if so what development charge is to be paid in respect of those operations or that use:

§ Provided that— (a) where planning permission under Part III of this Act has not been granted for the carrying out of the said operations or for the institution or continuance of the said use, the Board may postpone the determination of the development charge to be paid 818 in respect thereof until such permission has been granted;

§ (2) In determining whether any and if so what development charge is to be paid under this Part of this Act in respect of any operations or any use of land, the Board shall have regard to the amount by which the value of the land with the benefit of planning permission for those operations or that use (calculated without regard to any charge payable in respect thereof under this Part of this Act and on the assumption that the operation or use can lawfully be carried out or made apart from the provisions of this Act) exceeds the value which it would have without the benefit of such permission.

§ (3) Subject to the provisions of the last foregoing subsection, regulations made under this Act with the consent of the Treasury may prescribe general principles to be followed by the Central Land Board in determining under this Part of this Act whether any and if so what development charge is to be paid there-under in respect of any operations or use of land, and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provision, such regulations may in particular provide for securing that the amount of the said charge shall be determined on different principles in relation to operations or uses of different classes, or in relation to operations or uses carried out or begun at different periods.

§ LORD ADDINGTON moved, in subsection (1), at the end, to insert: (d) It shall not be necessary in making an application under this section to furnish plans and drawings other than a site plan in any case where the proposed development is sufficiently described by the particulars together with the site plan. The noble Lord said: I have several Amendments on this subject but I do not think I need move them if they are all covered by regulations. In order to get that assurance I beg formally to move the Amendment standing in my name.

§ Amendment moved— Page 76, line 37, at end add the said new paragraph.—(Lord Addington.)

§ LORD HENDERSON
I think that the position as stated by the noble Lord is correct. He can take it that the Board will not call for more details than they really need in making proper determinations of the development charge.

§ LORD ADDINGTON
In view of what the noble Lord says, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ THE EARL OF MUNSTER moved, in subsection (3), at the end, to insert: and such regulations shall provide that the amount of the said charge shall be determined 819 without discrimination or preference as between applicants for the same class of development.

§ The noble Earl said: All I wish to ensure by this Amendment is that powers should not be used to favour one claimant as against another when both are undertaking the same type of development in the same or similar localities. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 77, line 12, at end insert the said new words.—(The Earl of Munster.)

§ LORD HENDERSON
I can assure the noble Earl that there will be no such discrimination as he seems to fear and against which he seeks to secure a safeguard.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
One quite realizes that for different classes of development there will have to be different scales of charges. One also realizes that for different areas there should be different scales, because it is obvious that this is going to be used in the case at any rate of factories, to try to encourage the putting up of a new factory where otherwise there might be a very large number of unemployed; and to discourage it where there is not sufficient labour available. That is clearly one of the purposes of the Bill. What we seek to do here is to prevent any discrimination between the same kinds of traders dealing in the same kind of goods. One does not want to see any difference of that sort. I should like to see an instruction in the Bill that "such regulations shall provide that the amount of the said charge shall be determined without discrimination or preference as between applicants for the same class of development"; and, for myself, I would add "in the same area." We shall probably find that is what we should all like.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I have been asking my advisers, and I have been asking myself, whether I could devise a form of words to meet this point. I think I know what the noble Lord has in mind, and if he has this in mind I agree with him. It would obviously be grossly improper for this Central Land Board to take a prejudice against some people and, because they took that prejudice, charge them more. A classical instance is the case of the red-haired man. Supposing you were to charge more to a red-haired 820 man than to a black-haired man, that would be grossly improper. On the other hand, if I were to use the words "no discrimination or preference," it seems to me I might be using words which would make it impossible for the Board to do the very thing they are expected to do.
One of the things they have got to do is to get the best price they can having regard to all the circumstances, including the owner's ability to pay. Supposing a man comes along and says: "I want to build a factory. What is the development charge?" and the Central Land Board say: "It is x," and the owner comes and says: "I think that is too much. I will give up my factory rather than pay x, but I will pay you x minus one hundred." Then the Central Land Board, if they think that is the best price they can get, may say that it is a deal. It is very difficult not to apply the principle which the good estate owner today applies to his own estate, because the Central Land Board are in that sort of position. The good estate owner does not of course dislike the red-haired man, or put difficulties in his way particularly, but, on the other hand, he does exact from his estate the best price he can, bearing in mind that he wants a desirable class of tenant. And that is the sort of thing the Central Land Board have got to do. If I succeed in finding a form of words which satisfies me that they must not show discrimination in regard to preference of the first class without prejudice to their being duty-bound to observe the preference of the second class, I will put it in the Bill, but at the present moment I say quite frankly that I and, what is much more significant, the very ingenious people who advise me in this matter, have so far failed to find any form of words which bring this about. If they do I will put it in the Bill.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
I would remind the noble Viscount that these were the words that we all agreed upon to put in the Coal Act, and he will find that we did so so that they could not discriminate between persons. They are words that we have already considered in this House and put into the Coal Act, and so they are not just new words. At any rate, perhaps the point could be looked at again, bearing in mind the fact that we did insert these words in this House when the Coal Act was passing through.

821

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I will certainly consider that. I was myself responsible for the suggestion that these words should go into the Coal Act, or I accepted the suggestion made from the other side. I do feel, however, that the functions of the Central Land Board are, in essence, so different from the functions of the Coal Board that it is very difficult to apply them here, but if I can do that I will.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
If I may say a word, I quite agree with the Lord Chancellor that you cannot have an absolutely rigid standard of charges, because clearly any landlord would do exactly the same thing. He finds a desirable tenant, the sort of man he wants to Occupy a particular position, and then, if he puts his price up too high, he loses that man to the estate, and the Central Land Board I quite understand would not do that. But you may conceivably have a Minister—I do not say in this Government—who has a passionate affection for co-operative societies to the exclusion of other people. That is the sort of case I have in mind. He might say: "I will let these co-operative societies, who are better members of society, and so on, take this land at a cheaper price than the others will pay." I am not saying that this Government or that Minister would do it, but that is a type of discrimination which is undesirable. I have not discussed this matter with my noble friend, but it is to avoid that type of thing—which is not a justifiable method of land management—with which we are concerned.

§ THE EARL OF MUNSTER
Perhaps I may say that I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount and, on the assurance which he gave that he will look for words between now and some stage of the Bill, I will withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER moved to add to subsection (3) the words "and that the amount of the said charge shall have relation to the cost of, and the need for, the provision of housing accommodation in any area." The noble Viscount said: The purpose of this Amendment is to avoid as far as possible restriction on development. The noble and learned Viscount on the Second Reading, I think, took the view that this Bill would tend to encourage developers. I am afraid I take an entirely converse view. If I may 822 put this to your Lordships—and those of you who are experts in this matter will correct me if I am at fault—the normal process in the development of land is that the developer makes his profit out of the land; he creates a ground rent, and by such means he is able to sell the building at little more than cost. If you are going to fine him heavy development charges it follows, ipso facto, that you reduce his profit, and it follows also that you increase the cost of the building, and automatically increase the rent that you charge the tenant. That is one of the features of this Bill which I dislike. I am of opinion that the Bill tends to increase the cost of housing, and the purpose of this Amendment is not to eliminate but to reduce that probability by ensuring that where there is a real shortage of houses the development charge should bear some relation to the need of the community. In other words, if houses are badly needed the developer should not be tined a heavy development charge, but should be assessed on a lower basis, so that development may be encouraged and the cost of housing may not rise. The Amendment appears to me to be not unreasonable, to be moderate, and I hope it may commend itself to your Lordships. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 77, line 12, at end insert the said new words.—(Viscount Buckmaster.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
For myself I think that this Amendment indicates one of the matters—and I think the noble Viscount will agree only one of the matters—to which the Central Land Board should have regard. Obviously if the Central Land Board were to have no regard to the cost of housing, and were to regard themselves as a mere instrument of taxation, to get as much as they possibly could, that would depress the building of houses and would defeat one of the objects of the whole Bill. But there are many other things which I think they should also take into consideration. I give your Lordships an illustration. I think they should take into consideration the existence of either boom or slump conditions. If there are slump conditions they would probably be wise to cut their development charge right down to the bone so as to do everything they can to encourage building of all sorts; and if there are boom conditions, they would probably be wise to put their development 823 charge up. They should also consider certain areas particularly—I think you now call them development areas. They may well take a different line, and exact a much lower charge in those particular areas where they want housing to go. I think they may well have regard to such things as the level of wages and the cost of building materials. Both of those matters obviously affect the building of houses. But you do not want to pile Pelion on Ossa by adding still further costs to the already severe costs of these things.
All these factors would be taken into consideration by a good landlord of a large estate. My conception is that the Central Land Board, which, as I have said before, must be a very powerful body and in regard to which we must be careful in selecting a personnel that commands confidence in all quarters, would consider all such matters My objection to the Amendment is this. It is unwise to single out one particular factor. I agree that it is an important factor but there are many other factors equally important. I think it is unwise to single out one because to do so often has the effect of making people who have to consider that one matter think that others need not be considered. Although they obviously should have regard to the cost of and the need for housing, I feel it is unwise to single out one consideration like this from all the other matters to which the Board should have regard.

§ VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER
The noble and learned Viscount, by his answer, appeared to me to be supporting my Amendment, if he will allow me to say so. Indeed, he was so convincing that I was more that ever persuaded that I was right, and I hoped that he had convinced himself in that regard. I must say—I do not know what the feeling of other members of the Committee is—that I myself have not such complete and absolute confidence in the Central Land Board. I am not satisfied that they will at all times and in all ways do the best thing. I cannot see any objection to putting a moderate restriction or restraint of this kind upon them. The Amendment seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable and moderate one, calculated to achieve the very purpose which the noble and learned Viscount has intimated that he feels to be desirable. That being so, I 824 find myself in some difficulty as to what to do. I do not wish to press the Amendment to a Division, but on the other hand, I feel scarcely justified in withdrawing an Amendment to which there seems to be so little objection.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
Will the Government agree to consider this further? I must say that I listened carefully to the speech of the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, and it did seem to me that the Amendment expressed very much what he said. The Amendment states: and that the amount of the said charge shall have relation to the cost of, and the need for, the provision of housing accommodation in any area. The noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, I think, mentioned the position in boom periods and slump Periods. Clearly, I should have thought "the need for" would take account of both those considerations. After all, if there were a need for the provision of building and there were a slump period, that would go against the normal course. The need would counterbalance the normal course. I should have thought that those two balancing considerations gave a possibility of taking into account any considerations whatever, at any particular period. I do not think that they are limited to two considerations. I think that between them they cover any conceivable situation that might arise.
One would have hoped that the Government might be willing to consider the matter a little further before coming to a definite decision. I rather share the view of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster about the Central Land Board. It is no criticism of them to say that they are not perfect. No one is perfect in this world, and they have to do what is, after all, a new job, a job of which they have no previous experience. The average landlord is probably more experienced than the members of the Board will be to begin with, and one would think that to give them a little guidance would not do them much harm.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
There would be no objection to accepting the Amendment if at the end were added something like: "and all other relevant considerations."

§ VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER
I am quite willing to accept that.

825

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Perhaps I may be allowed to finish. I was going to say that I could not possibly agree to such an Amendment because it seems to me that it would have no effect whatever. It seems to me that it is quite obvious that the Board would have regard to all relevant considerations, and to single out one and then to add some words covering all the others, just as a matter of drafting would, I think, have no meaning at all. If you say that regard shall be had to A, and to all the other letters, you are including the whole alphabet; there is no point in singling out A as a matter of drafting. It seems to me that it would have no effect at all. But as I have been asked to do so I will gladly look at this and see whether there is anything that can be done on those lines. At the present moment I do not think that there is.

THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR
Will the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, tell us whether it is the intention of the Government to issue regulations to the Land Board, more or less laying down the policy which they are to follow? If so, would he undertake that a provision like this will be included in their instructions?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I would refer the noble Marquess to Clause 3 (1) of the Bill. This states: The Central Land Board shall, in the performance of their functions under this Act, comply with such directions of a general character as may be given to them by the Minister. I should think that the Minister, if he considered it was necessary to do such an obvious thing, would certainly say that the Central Land Board must consider these and all the other factors which I have mentioned in fixing the amount of charge.

THE EARL OF PERTH
Would the noble Viscount's case be met if some such words as "among other considerations" were put into the proposed Amendment? The Lord Chancellor said that if we mention one particular point it is apt to exclude the others. I believe that to be good law, if I may say so with respect. If you put in something like "shall have relation among other considerations to the cost of …" perhaps that would meet the case.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I will consider it.

826

§ THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY
I would like to ensure that there is included and remembered among other considerations the fact that houses do have to be built by certain industries and employers—particularly such industries as agriculture and forestry at the present time. That building of houses will have to be continued for many years in order to make good requirements which local authorities will not be able to make good. These houses are not built for profit but to make good a need. I hope that this is a matter which will be considered amongst any other considerations.

§ VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER
I am much obliged for the various suggestions which have been made by noble Lords. I am sorry that I was once more at fault in thinking that the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, had accepted my point of view. In the light of the assurances that he has given I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ 5.29 p.m.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN moved, after subsection (3), to insert: (4) Any person by whom an application for a determination as to whether, and if so what, development charge is to be paid in respect of any operations on or use of land shall, if required by the Central Land Board, furnish to the Central Land Board a statement setting out such particulars as the Central Land Board may require in order to assist them in the determination of the amount of the charge and any facts and contentions relevant thereto, and the Central Land Board shall, at the request of such person, furnish to him a statement setting out particulars of the grounds upon which they propose to assess a development charge, and of the grounds upon which the amount of such development charge is assessed by them, together with any facts and contentions relevant thereto. The noble Lord said: In a way this and the succeeding Amendment hang together, and perhaps I had better address my remarks to both. The first lays down that any person by whom an application for a determination as to whether, and if so what, development charge is to be paid in respect of any operations on or use of land shall, if required by the Central Land Board, furnish to the Central Land Board a statement setting out such particulars as the Central Land Board may require. … On the other hand, by the terms of the Amendment, 827 the Central Land Board shall, at the request of such person, furnish to him a statement setting out particulars of the grounds upon which they propose to assess a development charge, and of the grounds upon which the amount of such development charge is assessed by them, together with any facts and contentions relevant thereto.

§ In another place the Minister intimated that it was his desire that the Central Land Board and members of the public should deal with each other fairly and openly. He agreed that each side should put its cards on the table. The purpose of my Amendment is to give statutory effect to that. The provisions I have put down are based on paragraph 9 of the War Damage Valuation Appeals and Results Rules, 1946. They are rules which the present Government have laid down in practically similar circumstances to this. It is no good having all this paraphernalia, if I may term my Amendment that, if it does not lead to something else. My second Amendment provides that an aggrieved person may go to a tribunal. It may be said there is no such tribunal in the case of a man trying to rent a bit of land from an existing landowner and that is true, but in the future we have all to realize that there is to be a monopoly. There may be some extremely hard cases.

§ If my Amendment on Clause 79 is not accepted or at any rate does not find its way into the Bill, even an existing person who has put up a very large amount of machinery to get iron ore or gravel out of his land will in future have to pay a development charge on any iron ore or gravel he gets out. There he will be, with his machinery, which may have cost him hundreds or thousands of pounds and a great deal to take down and erect somewhere else. He is the only person who can usefully use these minerals. At the same time it is known by the Central Land Board that this man cannot move his works. That man before he put up his machinery was fully secure because he had, in nearly every case, a long lease. These leases now are all going into the melting pot and he does not know what he may have to pay in future.

§ The second kind of case is where the owner of a factory has bought an adjacent piece of ground on which he has always intended to put up an extension. Here also the Central Land Board can easily get out of a man more than they ought because he wants to remain there. 828 If he goes anywhere else, he will have to provide additional offices or canteens or other facilities, so the contiguous site has all the greater value to him. When he bought that piece of ground for an extension very likely he erected his own factory and paid the full development rights when he bought it. Now he will be able to claim some part of this £300,000,000 but in future any sort of development charge may be levied on him and levied without any sort of appeal.

§ The more I listen to these debates, the more I come to the conclusion that this is not a Planning Bill but a Bill which is largely backed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to bolster up his revenue. When we discussed yesterday the Amendment providing that the Central Land Board could use its own freehold land for its own building, Lord Henderson said there will be no need for this; it will be a Government Department and the Ministry of Works will provide the building. He is quite right. This in fact is going to be another Department working under the Treasury, exactly in the same way as the Board of Inland Revenue to-day. So far as I can see the two things are completely similar, the one assessing development charge and the other assessing Income Tax. For years and years anyone aggrieved at the assessment put on him by the Inland Revenue has been allowed to appeal to the Special Commissioners. In future, if one is aggrieved with the decision of the Central Land Board he should have a similar tribunal to which he can appeal. I hope that principle will be accepted.

§ I am not sure that in my Amendment I have adopted the right tribunal. I am being frank, as I usually am with the House. But I think I have adopted one which has the merit of being set up by the present Government, and this is some advantage when putting a case. It was set up largely by the noble and learned Viscount opposite and I am told it is doing extremely satisfactory work. I think he selected, as one would have expected him to do, a very able tribunal and it is dealing with exactly the same class of cases, assessment for compensation for war damage. I am throwing bouquets to the noble and learned Viscount for his tribunal and that is the one I have put in my Amendment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 77, line 12, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Llewellin.)

829

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Here we come right up against a real collision of principle. The view I commend to your Lordships is that the Central Land Board—I have used the analogy often before—is like a large landlord who has something to sell, and they have not infrequently to arrive at the price they are going to charge for what they have to sell, the right to develop, by the process commonly known as the higgling of the market. It is quite different and quite fallacious to compare this case with a case of Income Tax payment, where you have statutory rules which lay down that if you have received a certain amount of income, you have got to pay a certain amount of tax. It is quite fallacious to compare it with the war damage, where equally it is laid down that you receive certain rates of payment, depending on the amount of damage you have sustained, and there is involved an ascertainment of the damage. This, to my mind, is wholly and fundamentally different. This is a question of the ordinary negotiations between a willing buyer and a willing seller, the seller concerned to get as much as he can, just as a landlord is, not completely disregarding other factors. He wants to get desirable tenants, and all that sort of thing, but he does not want to exploit the situation. It is the case of the ordinary good landlord, which is what I want the Central Land Board to be. In those circumstances, it is quite impossible for me to accept any scheme of arbitration.
Having said that, I make this qualification. I want the noble Lord's very careful attention to this, because I am now telling him as far as I can go. It may be no good to him, but it may be some good. Where a man has a factory with some vacant land alongside it, and he wants to utilize part of that vacant land to develop his factory in a way which is really essential for the continuance of his business, it may be said that the Central Land Board are in a position where they can literally blackmail that man, because there is no other potential user of that land. The man has to go and say: "Please may I use this vacant piece of land for building a new wing to my factory? What will the development charge be?" He may be in such a position that he will have to pay almost anything. 830 Plainly, that would be wrong. In cases of that nature, where there is substantially only one applicant for the land, I am prepared to concede that there may be an appeal to the Minister. I am not suggesting a tribunal, but an appeal to the Minister.
I will tell your Lordships at once why I do not suggest a tribunal. If you have any question as to the ascertainment of facts, then I believe a judicial tribunal is the finest tribunal you could have in the world. But if you have got to ascertain something which is not regulated or canalized by definite rules of that sort, then the more the Judges are kept away from it, the better I like it. If you have got some decision which, for instance, borders on politics—politics in the best sense of the word; politics about the desirability of developing this area at the expense of that—those do not seem to be questions upon which we ought to ask the Judges to embark. They are not in such a good position to embark upon questions of that nature as a Minister, who has available to him all the trends which, unfortunately, we do have to consider. That is why I am not willing to have any arbitration at all in the present case. I am, however, willing to grant an appeal to the Minister, if the noble Lord is willing to accept that solution, broadly speaking—I am not able to define it with precision at the moment—in those cases where by reason of the circumstances there is only one potential person who can own the land.
The noble Lord has conveniently talked of the two Amendments as if they were one. Turning to the first Amendment, which is the one now actually under consideration, the first part provides that the Central Land Board may request that they shall be furnished with a statement setting out particulars such "as the Central Land Board may require in order to assist them in the determination of the amount of the charge and any facts and contentions relevant thereto." That, the noble Lord will find, is now put in the Amendment which I am proposing to move. After Clause 99 I am moving to insert a new clause, which takes the place of the present Clause 72. Embedded in that clause the noble Lord will find that the Central Land Board have that right to demand such facts and particulars as they want to enable them to assess the charge.
831 When we come to the latter part of the noble Lord's Amendment, I think that is objectionable. That Amendment says that the Central Land Board shall furnish a statement setting out particulars of the grounds upon which they propose to assess a development charge, and the grounds upon which the amount is assessed. That seems to be quite inappropriate, where you are selling something and arriving at a figure by the "higgling" of the market. It would be very difficult to say on what grounds you assess the charge if the conversation were something like this: "We think you ought to pay something like £500." "No," says the fellow, "I think that is far too much. Make it £200." Then the landlords say: "Tell you what, we will make it £350." That is rather a caricature of the thing, but if it is anything on those lines, it would be quite inappropriate thereafter to say: "On what grounds did you arrive at 350?" I object to arbitration, and I object to having to state the grounds, for the sole and simple reason that it makes the whole proceedings much too rigid, and prevents that sort of give and take, and meeting half way, which is the essence, I understand, of the dealings of a good landowner. I am certainly not one myself, but I understand that is what they do, generally through their agents. That is as far as I can go.
I am not prepared to accept the Amendment we are discussing, because the first part is already in the Bill, and the last part seems to me to be wrong. I am not prepared to accept the Amendment which follows it, although I am grateful that the noble Lord has paid his tribute to the way in which the particular tribunals are working. I am quite satisfied that what he says is true. They are doing their work very well, but their work, after all, has nothing to do with selling. I do not think that tribunal, or another tribunal, could possibly cope with the situation. I do not think they should be asked to, when what is being considered is: "How much will you pay me for something I have to sell?" I do not think that is a matter for a legal tribunal at all. Therefore, I am not prepared to accept any form of tribunal, except in those limited cases which I have indicated, where a man is really in a position where if he does not develop no one else can, and where it may 832 be vital to him that he should have the right to develop. In cases of that sort, I think there should be the right of appeal to the Minister from the decision of the Central Land Board, and the Minister, of course, is exposed to control by all those Parliamentary sanctions which do operate upon Ministers. I have dealt with the two Amendments as though they were one, which is what the noble Lord did, and I hope I have been able to show your Lordships exactly where the Government stand.

VISCOUNT GAGE
The noble and learned Viscount has on one or two occasions now referred to the position of the Central Land Board as being analogous to that of a good landlord. I must confess that I have some difficulty in understanding that analogy, in that at no time do the Central Land Board ever hold the freehold of land. They have one function which is that of dealing in land. It seems to me that the instincts of a good dealer are not always the same as those of a good owner. One of the things that my noble friends are afraid of is that these deals will be conducted for the benefit of the Chancellor of the Exchequer rather than for the benefit of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning. Regulations may, of course, help to put that right, but I really think they will have to be very remarkable regulations.

§ LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY
The noble and learned Viscount who rose to speak on this Amendment said that we should come up against a question of principle. I agree with him on that. We are in the process of setting up a great monopoly in land development, and I would say that it does not seem to me a justifiable analogy to speak of the Central Land Board as an estate owner; it is only an estate owner in development rights.
In creating a monopoly, I should have thought we might have turned a little to precedent and seen what Parliament in its wisdom has done in the past when it has created a monopoly. Surely, these considerations were in the mind of Parliament in the days when railway companies were being floated and they provided appeals to the Railway Rates Tribunal against railway rates. There was an element of monopoly there. There was not this higgling about the market, about the maximum amount 833 which they would like to spend. There was a safeguard for the consumer, and there should be a safeguard to the consumer of land in the same way. There can hardly be a market when a monopoly is one set up. It is not a market in that way; it is an entirely different state of affairs when you have several buyers and several sellers. In this case, the Central Land Board is armed with very extensive powers. The use of land is restricted by local planning authorities and in my submission the price which will be extracted from the buyer does not represent, and in many cases will not represent, a market price. If Parliament is agreeing to set up a monopoly, it should also at the same time, in my view, see that it sets up suitable machinery to prevent the abuse of that monopoly.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
It seems to me that it would be curious if the Central Land Board, who are to determine the development charge which is to be paid to that Board, should have an exclusive right to fix the amount of the charge without appeal and, if that is a question of principle, I am glad to think that the noble Lord who sits on the Woolsack does no longer contend that the very Board who are going to get the money—it is true, for different purposes—should be the only people to have a voice in the amount which the developer has to pay if he wants to be allowed to make his development. Therefore, I think there is an overwhelming case for some form of appeal, though I agree there may be the greatest difference of opinion as to who are the best people to determine a question that arises as to the amount of the charge.
I follow quite readily that the first part of the first Amendment is no longer necessary because of the new Amendment after. Clause 99, and I think perhaps there is a strong case for an alteration of the second part of the first Amendment, because it might be too much to expect from the Central Land Board that they should give a long account of the grounds upon which the amount of the development charge was assessed, together with any facts and contentions relevant thereto. That might perhaps be amended. But, when we come to the question whether there should be an appeal or not by any person aggrieved by an assessment, I confess I think the ground for an appeal in such 834 a case is perfectly overwhelming. In a case like this, we have to consider the question not only whether the Land Board will exercise their powers in a judicial and kindly spirit. We have also to consider whether the general public, consisting of people who are seeking leave to develop a particular piece of land, are going to be fairly treated by disinterested people in fixing the charge. You cannot pretend to me that any members of the public who desire to develop will regard the Land Board as people who are disinterested in the matter. Prima jacie they are interested in getting as much as possible and, although for my part I would trust the Land Board to act perfectly fairly in the matter according to their lights, it seems to me that the Land Board must be advised as to the proper procedure. I do not know that they are going themselves to be expert valuers. They will be people who will take advice from people they employ, and they may very possibly get wrong advice. It may very likely be only reasonable that there should be somebody to check the views which they have exposed in connexion with the matter. Accordingly, I think there should be an arbitration tribunal.
Now comes a point on which, like the question of principle that I mentioned at first, I am entirely at one with the noble and learned Viscount who replies for the Government. I would strongly object to a Judge having anything to do with the appeal that the person aggrieved ought, as I think, to have. There are the strongest possible objections, and I always held them when I occupied a post of importance; I have the strongest objection to Judges, whether of the High Court or of County Courts, being roped in to determine a question of values. It is quite out of their ordinary line. Some of them have, or have had in their youth, experience of valuation. Some of them have never been concerned with a question of valuation in their lives. Moreover, it is not their function to determine a matter of that sort. I would say no more than that I entirely agree with the noble Viscount on that point. There are many other forms of tribunal that can be suggested other than the Minister.
I only object to the Minister—not, I may add, the Minister who is now the Minister within the meaning of this subsection—as a person to go on being the tribunal to whom such a question as this 835 should be submitted on the ground that he is tarred with the same brush, if I may use the ordinary cliché in that matter, as the Central Land Board themselves. He is a person whom the public will regard as there naturally to support the conclusions of the Land Board. It should be somebody who is really perfectly disinterested and independent. Accordingly, if I may venture to express my opinion on the matter, I think the right course would be to reconsider this clause. The question of whether there should be an appeal is one of vital importance, and one upon which the House is entitled to its opinion. I would add that the precise form of the tribunal is one which the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, would do well to consider and one upon which it might be possible to come to an arrangement. For these reasons I very warmly support the present Amendment, with the possible modifications that I have suggested.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
I do not want to deal in detail with these two Amendments but would prefer to deal more particularly with the second, because the central core of the two Amendments, and the matter upon which there is a genuine and fundamental difference of opinion, is the question of whether there should or should not be an appeal against any suggested charge by the Central Land Board. The noble and learned Viscount has made a small concession with an appeal to the Minister in certain circumstances. If I understood him aright, the circumstances were those in which there was virtually only one applicant for a piece of land and therefore there might be an appeal against the Central Land Board to the Minister.
The noble and learned Viscount has said, on more than one occasion, that he hoped that the Central Land Board would behave like a good landlord. The cases upon which he is offering an appeal—although I am grateful for that small concession—are those two cases where there could be no appeal if the Central Land Board behave like a good landlord and not like a rapacious dealer. So it is a very small concession. With regard to appeals generally, it is true, as has been said, that the Central Land Board virtually have a monopoly, and if I understand the intentions of the Government aright it is their intention through varia- 836 tions in these charges to encourage or discourage development in this place or that. That is to say, where they want to encourage development the charge will be lower, and where they want to discourage it the charge will be higher—possibly even prohibitive. That is a very powerful weapon which, in the hands of the Central Land Board, will be subject to the general directions of the Minister.
We have seen something of that sort through the necessity there is in these days to obtain licences for any building put up. At different times I have had brought to my attention two cases—and I have no doubt there are a number of other cases—where a factory has been desired or an extension planned in order to increase the production of a particular form of agricultural machinery which was necessary and in fairly common use then, and which is in increasingly common use now. The original factory, which was quite small, was in the Eastern Counties; the authorities, through the licensing authorities, were anxious that that development should take place not in the Eastern Counties but in South Wales. The whole scheme very nearly foundered because the man who was going to produce that particular agriculture implement said, "I will produce it in the Eastern Counties or I will not produce it at all." He had a patent so that it would not have been produced had he not been allowed to expand in his own district.
In other cases you may well find that the factory owner will say, "Well, I am not going into that part of the world, not because there is not enough labour but because there is not the kind of labour that I require." General directions will not cover this kind of case: they cannot. They will be directions more of a social nature than anything else. They will not cover those cases, but the Central Land Board will be bound by them. It is in those cases more particularly that there is a genuine need for an appeal to a tribunal. I personally do not mind what kind of tribunal it is. I was rather interested to notice that both the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, and the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, had grave objections to Judges being involved in this. As a layman I have not quite the same sort of objection, because I have a considerable respect for His Majesty's Judges.

837

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I hope the noble Earl does not mean that I have not respect for Judges. It is because I have such a profound respect—and I know the public have a profound respect—that I am so anxious the Judges should not find themselves in a position where they might lose that public respect.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
I am quite certain that the noble and learned Viscount has a respect for thorn even greater than I have, because of his greater knowledge. But so far as the constitution of the tribunal is concerned, that is a matter of detail which can be settled subsequently. I hope most sincerely that His Majesty's Government will agree to there being an appeal against undue charges or unfair charges which may affect more particularly cases such as I have mentioned. There must be many other instances where an appeal against the Central Land Board's charges is clearly necessary, because the Central Land Board will be guided by general directions and therefore will not be able to deal with the particular circumstances of the case.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
The House has no doubt listened to this debate with very great interest, and I think in one respect it has been slightly different from those which have gone before. As I listened to these other debates I thought that the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, if I may say so with all deference, had Shown such extraordinary skill in selling this Bill to your Lordships that he almost qualifies for the Central Land Board himself. I thought that there was evidence from his last speech that he realized that the Government refusal to grant the right of appeal to a tribunal in this particular case was something that even he could not sell, because really he said quite straight out at the beginning of his speech, "We are up against a direct principle." He did, it is true, try to persuade your Lordships that the Central Land Board were analogous to a good landlord. I am getting almost embarrassed by the fulsome praise which is being showered from the Government side of the House upon good landlords. It appears that they are to be the model upon which the Central Land Board are to operate and upon which this great tradition is to be 838 carried on. One almost wonders why they are making all these changes!
As a matter of fact. I thought it was fairly easy for noble Lords who followed the Lord Chancellor to show that there really is no true analogy between the Central Land Board and an ordinary landlord, because as we all know the ordinary landlord is open to competition. He has a commodity to sell, and if he asks too much for that commodity the buyer can always go elsewhere, and there are plenty of other places for him to go. The Central Land Board will have a monopoly, not merely in those cases which the noble and learned Viscount has mentioned, where a man wishes to extend a factory, but anywhere, because it is always open to them, if a buyer comes along, to put on exactly the same development charge for that man wherever he wants to go.
They have absolute control of his action, and that is a completely different position from that which the buyers of land have had to face in the past. Moreover, in any case, as we have explained on this side of your Lordships' House ever since the Second Reading, we frankly do not believe that the Central Land Board will always be actuated by exactly the same considerations as a landlord, because they will be the agents, not only of the Minister, but of the Chancellar of the Exchequer. He will have behind him the tax collector, anxious to extract the utmost he can. If that is not true, if I am libelling the Government, it is easy for them to prove it by agreeing to an independent tribunal. If I have been misinterpreting them, let them take that way, and reassure your Lordships and the country.
The noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, said a tribunal would be inappropriate because it would not have to deal with questions of fact but of opinion. Surely that is equally true of the war damage tribunal. The question of site value is not a matter of fact but of opinion and assessment and expert knowledge; it is a question on which people can differ. That would be equally true about a cost of works payment at the present time. Surely if a tribunal were fair in the case of war damage it would be equally fair here. It is true that the noble and learned Viscount did go so far as to offer an appeal to the Minister in special cases; but that is 839 something we really cannot regard as adequate. The Minister is not the actual master in this case; he has to negotiate and discuss with his colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If it were really the Minister it might be an easier matter; but we know something about this dual control. The only way to give people a sense that justice is being done is to have an appeal to an independent tribunal.
It is a great mistake, from their own point of view, for the Government to try to grab too much power in their own hands. If they want to give that confidence which has always been enjoyed by Governments in the past they must allow the independent judgment of experts to be called into play. That is all we ask for in this Amendment, and the Amendment is one we shall press to a Division.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
On the first Amendment or the second?

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
On the second; the first is unimportant from this point of view.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
In view of the discussion I wish to say only one or two words. I am about to withdraw the first Amendment, which is consequential on the main point of principle. In regard to that, for long centuries now this country has disliked bodies working behind closed doors. The Board are not even going to issue a statement setting out particulars of the grounds upon which they propose to assess a development charge. What you are in effect doing is to set up a tribunal which, just like the Star Chamber, will act behind closed doors, without giving any reasons for any of its decisions. That I believe to be wrong and contrary to the whole tendency of our people.
In regard to the particular tribunal, we have had a discussion in which the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, took part, saying that he did not like a tribunal of Judges for this particular matter. The tribunal for which I am asking is not a tribunal of Judges; it is a tribunal set up by the Lord Chancellor, of which only

840

§ the President has to be a barrister of seven years' or more standing. It is within the discretion of the Lord Chancellor how many of the others are barristers. They are to be appointed, in the words of the Bill, "after consultation with the President of the Chartered Surveyors' Institution. "The people whom the President of that Institution is likely to appoint are, it seems to me, the best experts on every matter of this sort. I say these things only because we were getting slightly away from my Amendment when we discussed whether it was to be composed of Judges or not.

§ We do lay considerable emphasis here in not having the tax-gatherer—for that is what the Central Land Board are going to be—also the assessor, also the Judge, as the final Court of Appeal. That is what the Board are, as set up in the Bill; that is what we object to, and that is why, in withdrawing my first Amendment I think I must press the second one to a Division.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
The next Amendment is the one which we have already debated and on which I propose to divide the Committee.

§ Amendment moved—

§ Page 77, line 22, at end insert— ("(5) Any person aggrieved by any assessment or determination of the amount of a development charge may appeal to a Tribunal consisting of a member or members of the panel constituted under Part I of the Schedule to the War Damage (Valuation Appeals) Act, 1945, selected in accordance with the provisions of Part II of that Schedule, and the provisions of Part III of that Schedule shall in so far as they relate to appeals to a Tribunal have effect in relation to appeals under this Act as if for any reference to the War Damage Commission there were substituted a reference to the Central Land Board and as if for any reference to the War Damage Act, 1943, there were substituted a reference to this Act and the Lord Chancellor shall make rules for regulating, subject to the provisions of that Schedule appeals to a tribunal under this Act.").—(Lord Llewellin.)

§ On Question, Whether the said subsection shall be there inserted?

§ Their Lordships divided: Contents, 59; Not-Contents, 22.

841

CONTENTS.
Aberdeen and Temair, M.	Abingdon, E.	Drogheda, E.
Cholmondeley, M.	Craven, E.	Fortescue, E. [Teller.]
Reading, M.	Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)	Iddesleigh, E.
Salisbury, M.		Lucan, E.
Macclesfield, E.	Addington, L.	Hatherton, L. [Teller.]
Munster, E.	Ailwyn, L.	Hawke, L.
Radnor, E.	Amherst of Hackney, L.	Hylton, L.
Selkirk, E.	Bingley, L.	Kenilworth, L.
	Brand, L.	Llewellin, L.
Bridgeman, V.	Broadbridge, L.	Lloyd, L.
Buckmaster, V.	Carrington, L.	Luke, L.
Chaplin, V.	Cherwell, L.	Mancroft, L.
Falmouth, V.	Croft, L.	O'Hagan, L.
Hailsham, V.	De L'Isle and Dudley, L.	Rankeillour, L.
Lambert, V.	Denham, L.	Rea, L.
Maugham, V.	Fairfax of Cameron, L.	Rochdale, L.
Ridley, V.	Gage, L. (V. Gage.)	Roche, L
Samuel, V.	Grenfell, L.	Savile, L.
Simon, V.	Greville, L.	Teynham, L.
Templewood, V.	Hampton, L.	Tweedsmuir, L.
		Wolverton, L.
NOT-CONTENTS.
Jowitt, V. (L. Chancellor.)	Chorley, L.	Morrison, L. [Teller.]
	Dukeston, L.	Mountevans, L.
Huntingdon, E.	Foley, L.	Nathan, L.
Addison, V.	Henderson, L.	Piercy, L.
Hall, V.	Holden, L.	Rusholme, L.
St. Davids, V.	Kershaw, L.	Shepherd, L.
	Lucas of Chilworth, L.	Trefgarne, L.
Ammon, L.	Marley, L.	Walkden, L. [Teller.]

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.

§ Clause 67, as amended, agreed to.

§ Clause 68:

§ Payment and security for payment of development charges.

§ 68.—(1) The amount of the development charge payable under this Part of this Act in respect of the carrying out of any operations or in respect of any use of land may be determined either as a single capital payment or as a series of instalments of capital, or of capital and interest combined, or as a series of other annual or periodical payments, of such amounts, and payable at such times, as the Central Land Board may determine.

§ THE EARL OF RADNOR moved in subsection (1) to leave out "capital" where that word first occurs. The noble Earl said: This Amendment is quite a short Amendment. I think its purpose and that of the next Amendment is quite clear. It is to take the word "capital" out of the way in which charges may be assessed, without in any way preventing the Central Land Board from choosing the way in which they assess their charges, whether it be by single payments, a series of payments, or annual payments. The purpose of deleting the word "capital" is quite clear. It is to enable Income Tax to be recovered in some cases on the payments so made. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 77, line 29, leave out ("capital"). —(The Earl of Radnor.)

842

§ LORD HENDERSON
I am advised that if the charge took the form of a capital payment it would normally rank as capital outgoing on Income Tax principles and would not be deductible in computing the profits chargeable to Income Tax. If the charge took the form of other annual or periodical payments, it would depend on the facts whether they would form payments from which Income Tax would be entitled to be deducted. These are matters which really affect the Finance Bill. I do not think there is anything that I can add at this stage, except to express the hope that, in the light of the explanation I have given, the noble Earl will not press his Amendment.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
I am afraid that I did not anticipate very much help on this question from the noble Lord, though I must say that when one realizes that the Treasury are to a very considerable extent behind this Bill one is a little apprehensive that, perhaps, all payments may be levied in the form of capital payments rather than income payments. In view of that fact that this is a matter rather more for the Finance Bill than for this Bill perhaps the noble Lord would draw the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the point and see whether he can do anything. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

843

§ LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY moved, after the last "may" in subsection (1), to insert "at the request of the applicant." The noble Lord said: I think this Amendment is quite simple. Its purpose is merely to allow the applicant the choice of which method of payment is adopted. I do not think anybody would dispute that he should have that choice. To some extent, but I am advised not completely the point is covered by the provisions of subsection (2) of this clause. But I do not think it is completely covered because, under the proviso, the applicant may discharge any outstanding liability for sums payable by virtue of the determination by the payment of such amount as may be determined by the Board to represent the value of those sums subject to such discount as they consider appropriate.

§ This means, surely, not that the applicant can pay off the outstanding balance of the development charge, but that he can pay back the outstanding sums, that is the balance of the development charge plus interest thereon but that the Board can accept a smaller amount than this because they will be receiving the payments at an earlier date and, therefore, it is only fair that the amount of the interest which will be payable over the whole period of the instalments should be discounted. But supposing the Board decided that this sum should be paid in ten equal instalments of capital and interest? The applicant then decides that he wishes to pay off the sum outstanding. What would, in fact, be the sum outstanding? It would be the remaining instalments which had been decided by the Board comprising both capital and interest. I agree that the Board can make deductions. But I think that it must be ensured that the man has the right to choose the method of payment, as it seems possible that the man might be called upon to pay a sum in addition to the development charge. Even if he wanted to pay it straight away, the Board might decide that it should be paid in instalments. He might want to pay it straight away, and he might be saddled with the payment of an extra sum, which would obviously be unfair. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 77, line 33, after ("may") insert ("at the request of the applicant").—(Lord Amherst of Hackney.)

844

§ LORD HENDERSON
The Amendment as I understand it means that the method of payment of the development charge is to be decided by the applicant himself in every case. This would be inconsistent with the obligation placed upon the Central Land Board to collect development charge revenue for the State. As drafted, the clause leaves it to the Board to decide what is the best method of collection after taking into account not only the interests of the State but also the method most appropriate to the development carried out and also to the convenience of the applicant. I can assure the noble Lord that the Board will have regard to the wishes of the applicant in these matters, but it would be most undesirable to place on the Board a statutory obligation to comply with them in every case.
For example, as the Amendment stands, it would be left to the applicant to apply for periodical payments of whatever amounts he chose, payable at whatever times he cared to select—no matter how far in the future—and the Board would have to determine accordingly. This clearly cannot be admitted. Indeed I do not think that that is what the noble Lord has in mind. As he has rightly said, the point is partly met by subsection (2) of Clause 68, so I think that I should be right in saying that taking the case which he refers to—the case of ten instalments—the ten instalments would be arranged in lieu of a capital payment. If at some stage, the developer wanted to pay up at once the remaining instalments, they would be looked at by the Land Board in order to reduce whatever amount of interest had been included in the instalments, because it was an instalment payment and not a single capital payment. In the light of that explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will not press his Amendment.

§ LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY
I do not think that the reply is completely satisfactory. I noticed that the noble Lord when he spoke of the various reasons which might make the Land Board decide as to how the payment was to be made, mentioned the convenience of the applicant last. It was for the Central Land Board, he said, to collect development charge revenue for the State. Would it be possible for the noble Lord to try to put in something to strengthen the proviso in subsection (2) to give a little more freedom of choice to the applicant?

845

§ VISCOUNT SIMON
Perhaps I may be allowed to say a word or two upon this. I appreciate the explanation which has been given by the noble Lord opposite, but I cannot help thinking that my noble friend Lord Amherst has really got a point which is not completely met by what the noble Lord said. Lord Henderson assures us that the Central Land Board, in determining how these payments are to be made, will have consideration for various things. I think he gave a list of those things. I do not see anything in the Bill which says that when the Central Land Board may determine, they shall have regard so far as may be to the interests or the desires of the man who is going to pay. It is very reassuring to be told that the Central Land Board will look at this thing all round, and I am not doubting the sincerity with which that is said, but there is nothing whatever—is there? —in Clause 68 (1) which says that the determination of the Central Land Board will be made after considering, let us say, the representations of the individual. As it stands, the matter is simply like this: "I decide; you may not like it but that has got nothing to do with you."
I am wondering whether, consistently with what the noble Lord has said, and in sympathy with what the noble Lord has put in moving this, it may not be possible to consider—not now perhaps but maybe when we reach the Report stage—adding some words after the word "determine." We might perhaps add some such words as: "having regard to the representations or requests made by the landowner." The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, I know, does not profess to be in these matters a lawyer, but perhaps I may be allowed to say that if you put in a phrase like "having regard to" that does not mean that you have got to follow it either 100 per cent. or at all. In fact, here, in this House, a decision has been given that when you are satisfied that real regard has been had to something or other you are in your rights in saying: "I have regarded it, and the answer is nought." That is a point which, to my knowledge, was decided here. It is not as though we were to say "according to" the request, but merely "having regard to." I cannot help thinking that my noble friend is right in saying that this does in terms say the Central Land Board decide and that is all 846 there is to it. I am sure what Lord Henderson said was not said in that spirit and I think my suggestion is on the lines of what my noble friend has said. Perhaps the Government will consider adding after "the Central Land Board may determine" such words as "having regard to representations made by the applicant."

§ LORD HENDERSON
I am always very glad to consider any suggestion made. I thought the matter was covered—

§ VISCOUNT SIMON
By the language of the Bill?

§ LORD HENDERSON
Yes, by the language of the Bill as it is at present. But in the event of it not being covered I am very willing to look into the suggestion made by the noble and learned Viscount.

§ LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY
I am much obliged to the noble Lord. Perhaps my Amendment did go rather further than I originally intended, and I beg leave to withdraw.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ 6.42 p.m.

§ LORD CARRINGTON moved, after subsection (2), to insert: (3) The amount of the development charge payable under this part of this Act may, at the option of the applicant, be satisfied in whole or in part by the transfer to the Central Land Board of stock issued in accordance with the provision of Section 62 of this Act of a nominal value equal to the amount of the development charge or the part thereof a the case may be. The noble Lord said: This Amendment is self-explanatory, and I cannot see that there can be any objection to it by the Government. All I am asking is that a man who has had development rights taken from him and has been compensated with Government stock under Clause 62 should, if he has to pay a development charge on another property, be allowed to use that stock with which he has been compensated, at its nominal value. If he has not received cash from the Government for his development rights, it seems to be a little unfair that the Government should demand cash from him for his development charge. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 78, line 5, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Carrington.)

847

§ LORD HENDERSON
I regret that I cannot accept this Amendment. It seeks to enable developers to pay development charges by surrendering at par any stock they receive on the distribution of the £300,000,000. There are two important issues of principle involved. The first is that charges due from citizens to the State are payable in cash. The second is that the Government cannot agree to a system which, if operated at all, must always be operated to the detriment of the Exchequer. If stock stands at a discount it will always be tendered; if at a premium, never. The market value of the stock may, of course, fluctuate after issue. There is no particular reason for making up any nominal capital loss to the holder at the expense of the State at the time when he develops his land. It would be at least logical for the State to demand payment in stock to the profit of the Exchequer if the stock stands at a premium. The citizen may withhold his stock, or may sell it, and may sell it at a high or at a low price. If he chooses to hold it until development, there is no reason for any adjustment of the financial effects to him of that choice. In the light of that explanation I am unable to accept the Amendment and I hope it will not be pressed.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
Just one comment on what the noble Lord has said. He said it was a question of principle that charges on citizens should be paid in cash. The corresponding position in this Bill is that compensation paid by the State is paid in stock which may vary quite considerably.

§ LORD HENDERSON
May I say that the .300,000,000 is not compensation but hardship payment. I think there is a distinction between compensation in the ordinary sense and payments for hardship.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
Use whatever word you like. If it is a hardship payment surely it ought to be even more secure than compensation. I think it ought to be compensation because I have always thought the policy of all political Parties, except one or two Communists that we have, was compensation and not confiscation; but I do not mind what word we use to describe this payment. The principle seems to be that payments by individuals must be in cash, while payments for hardship can be paid in variable 848 stocks. If the Government had real confidence that the stock would remain at par, they would have no hesitation in accepting this Amendment, but as they have not that confidence and think they might have to accept some stock at below par, they oppose this Amendment. From that point of view I think they may well be wise.

§ VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER
I would like to support my noble friend. I confess I am rather shocked, if that is not too strong a word to use, at the point of view taken up by Lord Henderson. I do not wish to introduce extraneous matters but what seems to have escaped his attention is the extremely uncertain position in which home railway stockholders find themselves. They were promised stock, the interest rates of which are uncertain and which may or may not have a redemption date. Already the Government's promise to redeem these unhappy stockholders stands at 8 to 9 points discount, if I may so express it. If the unfortunate landowner is to be foisted off with some stock of uncertain interest and uncertain date of redemption which will stand at a discount in the opinion of the City before it is ever issued, I do not think it is unreasonable to say the noble Lord's proposal is a fair one. The position as it now stands is a most unhappy and unfortunate one, and I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will address his mind to it, because the depreciation, to which I have referred, is very substantial. There is no reason to think that in this Bill that depreciation will be any less, and it might be greater than in the case of home railway stocks. What will happen on January 1 when the railway compensation stock is issued I cannot tell; I can only say what common opinion is. In the light of that opinion this Amendment is far from being unreasonable.

§ LORD CARRINGTON
I must confess I find it all very odd. Lord Henderson really said he thought it quite probable that Government stock would depreciate in value.

§ LORD HENDERSON
No.

§ LORD CARRINGTON
He thought it possible.

§ LORD HENDERSON indicated dissent.

§ LORD CARRINGTON
Well, I thought he did say that. I should have thought 849 the Government's credit was the Government's concern and it is a little hard on an unfortunate man given the stock that he should suffer for the Government. It must also be remembered that if the man had still got his land it would not have depreciated in value as the stocks would have done. I do not wish to press this Amendment, and beg leave to withdraw.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 68 agreed to.

§ 6.49 p.m.

§ Clause 69:

§ Scope and effect of determinations of Central Land Board.

§ 69.—(1) Subject as hereinafter provided, a determination of the Central Land Board under this Part of this Act in respect of any operations or use of land shall have effect in relation to the carrying out of those operations, or, as the case may be, in relation to that use of the land, by any person for the time being interested therein and the question whether any and if so what development charge is to be paid under this Part of this Act in respect of any such operations or use shall be determined accordingly:

§ Provided that the Board may, if they think fit, direct that any such determination as aforesaid shall cease to have effect if, before the operations to which the determination relates are carried out or completed, or, as the case may be, before the use to which it relates is instituted, any interest in the land is transferred or created (otherwise than by operation of law), unless the determination is confirmed by the Board with or without modifications, on a subsequent application made to them in that behalf.

§ THE EARL OF RADNOR moved to leave out the proviso in subsection (1). The noble Earl said: This Amendment is one which has a certain amount of substance, although it is not easy to explain. Under the first subsection of Clause 69 if, before the works for which permission had been given had either been begun or before they have been completed, the land on which they are being carried out is sold, a fresh application has to be made in respect of development, except in those cases where the land has changed hands by the operation of the law, which I understand to mean by a testamentary disposition—

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Or bankruptcy.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
That means to say that in the event of land on which works are proposed, or have been begun, that land, if it is sold for any other 850 reason, is sold with the burden upon it of having to make a fresh application for an assessment of the development charge. It will be a deterrent to a prospective purchaser that that should be so, and there will be many cases where, for one reason or another, the owner of the land will have to sell before he has completed the work. I can quite imagine that the idea is to prevent a certain amount of speculation but there will be a lot of genuine cases where a man, for one reason or another, possibly to avoid a bankruptcy, may have to sell.
It will be very hard on him that he should have to sell his land with the burden of having to apply for a fresh assessment of the development charge, which might well go up, because we have to remember that nobody knows what the development charge is going to be until the Central Land Board have assessed it. When a man has got his assessment, he knows what it is, and if he has to sell the land in the meanwhile, for some reason or other, he will be able to sell it to somebody and will be in a position to tell that person what the development charge is; whereas, as it stands at the moment, he will not be able to do so. I should very much like to know what the Government view is on that particular aspect of this rather difficult and important point. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 78, line 40, leave out from beginning of line to end of line 3 on page 79.—(The Earl of Radnor.)

§ LORD HENDERSON
The noble Earl has put his finger right on the purpose of the provision. It is there to prevent speculation in development rights. That is the real object we have in mind. On occasions a development charge may be fixed on the low side, for special reasons. Where this is done, the developer, if he is left free to dispose of the land with an irrevocable determination attached, could get a proportionately higher price than an ordinary seller could expect. In effect, he will be able to sell the right to develop at a price higher than that fixed by the State, whereas the principle on which the Bill is based is that State has a monopoly of development values and the price is fixed by reference to the public interest.
I would only add—and I think this is important—that the power of the Central Land Board to rescind a determination is 851 discretionary, and there is no reason to expect them to use it in an unreasonable manner. In the case the noble Earl mentioned, where there is a genuine sale of the land and a new determination has to be made, I think he can take it that it would be part of what I might call the routine of the Board to renew that determination without any change, because the only change in the circumstances would be a change of owner, and that change would be due to some very proper motive, and not to any intention of selling in order to exploit the lower development charge that might have been fixed, or of putting the land in the hands of a speculator. I think that case would be adequately safeguarded and, in the circumstances, I hope the noble Earl will not press the Amendment.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation. It does not, of course, really get over the difficulty that I see, which is that a man who has to sell for some very good reason still has to sell subject to a possible increase in the development charge. I do not think the renewed assessment of the development charge can take place until the sale is completed, and the new owner has a sufficient interest in the land to be able to go to the Central Land Board and ask for the development charge to be assessed. There is that difficulty about it. There is one other point that I want to make before I withdraw the Amendment. It is one that has struck me more than once throughout the discussions on this Bill. It is that the unfortunate law-abiding citizen is going to be somewhat bewildered and regimented in order that the few who are not so law-abiding may be roped into the Treasury net. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 69 agreed to.

§ [The sitting was suspended at two minutes before seven o'clock and resumed at half past eight.]

§ Clause 70:

§ Variation of determinations and repayment of development charges in certain cases.

§ 70.—(1) The Central Land Board may at any time, on application made to them in that behalf in accordance with regulations under this Act by the person entitled to an interest 852 in land to which a determination under this Part of this Act relates, vary their determination in such manner as appears to them to be appropriate having regard to any change of circumstances since the determination was made, and may amend, discharge or release any covenants or charges made or given in respect of the determination, or repay any sums previously paid thereunder, so far as may be required in order to give effect to the variation:

§ LORD HYLTON moved in subsection (1) after "made" where that word occurs a second time to insert "or if for any other reason the development in respect of which the determination was made is not carried out." The noble Lord said: The object of this Amendment is to provide that if, for any other reason, the development in respect of which the determination is made is not carried out, there shall be a repayment of the development charge. Although in Clause 70 the Board has power to remit development charges for certain purposes, it is not clear to my mind whether the payer of the development charge can withdraw from carrying out the development and, at the same time, be refunded the development charge. I think it is an important point, because there may be a variety of reasons why a developer should cease or give up his project and therefore if, for certain reasons—and of course there may be a very great number of reasons—he determines not to carry out the development, then this Amendment provides that the development charge should be repaid to him. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 79, line 37, after ("made") insert ("or if for any other reason the development in respect of which the determination was made is not carried out.")—(Lord Hylton.)

§ LORD HENDERSON
I think the Amendment is unnecessary since it is already covered by the wording of the clause which provides that the Board shall exercise their power having regard to any change of circumstances since the determination was made. In fact the change which was chiefly in mind when these words were included was the change in the circumstances of the applicant which made it no longer possible for him to carry out the development. But since it may sometimes be necessary to vary the determination for other reasons, the clause has been drawn in terms wide enough to cover any change of circumstances.

853

LORD HYLTON
I thank the noble Lord for his explanation, and so long as the developer is covered by the words "to any change of circumstances" and these circumstances apply to the developer, I shall be very glad to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to omit subsections (2), (3), (4) and (5) and insert: (2) Where, after the amount of the development charge has been determined under this Part of this Act in respect of any operations or in respect of any use of land, and before the amount so determined has been fully discharged—

(a) planning permission for the carrying out of those operations or for the institution or continuance of that use is revoked by an order made under Section twenty of this Act; or
(b) an order is made under Section twenty-four of this Act requiring the removal of any buildings or works erected or constructed in carrying out those operations, or requiring the discontinuance of that use; or
(c) the whole of the land to which the determination relates is compulsorily acquired under this or any other Act,

the determination, and any covenants or charges made or given in respect thereof, shall thereupon cease to have effect, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder. (3) Where, after the amount of the development charge has been determined as aforesaid, and before the amount so determined has been fully discharged,—

(a) planning permission for the carrying out of the operations, or for the institution or continuance of the use, to which the determination relates, is modified by an order made under the said Section twenty; or
(b) an order is made under the said Section twenty-four requiring the alteration of any buildings or works erected or constructed in the carrying out of those operations, or imposing conditions of the continuance of that use; or
(c) any part of the land to which the determination relates is compulsorily acquired under this or any other Act,

the Board shall, on application made to them in accordance with regulations under this Act, vary the determination and amend, discharge or release any covenants or charges made or given in respect thereof, so far as may be just in consequence of the modification, order or purchase, as the case may be. (4) Where compensation is payable under Part III of this Act in consequence of any such order as mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (2) or subsection (3) of this section, then in calculating for the purposes of the compensation any depreciation in the value of the land to which the order relates, or any other loss or damage sustained by a person interested in that land, 854 regard shall be had to the foregoing provisions of this section and to anything done by the Board thereunder. (5) Where compensation is payable under the said Part III in consequence of any such order as aforesaid, or where land is compulsorily acquired as mentioned in paragraph (c) of subsection (2) or subsection (3) of this section, then if any sums have been paid to the Central Land Board by way of development charge in accordance with the determination referred to in those subsections, the Board may pay to the authority or person by whom compensation is payable in consequence of the order or, as the case may be, in respect of the compulsory acquisition, a contribution towards that compensation not exceeding the sums so paid by way of development charge. (6) Subsection (3) of Section twenty-one of this Act shall apply for the purposes of this section as it applies for the purposes of that section, and shall accordingly have effect as if the reference therein to the foregoing provisions of that section included a reference to the foregoing provisions of this section; and any reference in this section to the compulsory acquisition of land shall be construed as including a reference to the acquisition of land by agreement by any authority or person who has power or can be authorised to acquire it compulsorily.

§ The noble and learned Viscount said: This looks a very formidable Amendment but, as a matter of fact, the wolf is dressed in sheep's clothing—or the reverse; I am not quite sure which. It really is not formidable at all. Indeed it is mainly drafting. I will indicate to your Lordships the real points in the Amendment, which are as follows. Subsections (2) and (4) of the clause as it now stands, apart from the Amendment, deal with a case where after a development charge has been determined in respect of any development, either planning permission for that development is revoked or modified under Clause 20 of the Bill or steps are taken under Clause 24 for the removal of the development in question. The effect of these provisions is, in substance, this, that in so far as any of the development charge still remains to be paid, it is automatically cancelled and, in so far as the development charge already has been paid, the Central Land Board contribute towards the compensation which is payable under Part III by the local authority in respect of the action which is taken by them.

§ So much for the clause as it stands. The clause as revised extends the same principle to another case: that is to say, the case where land is compulsorily acquired. Any future payments in respect 855 of development charge are therefore cancelled in this case also, and the Central Land Board are authorized to contribute towards the compensation payable on the compulsory purchase in so far as that compensation in effect represents a development charge already paid. Therefore, to put it in simple English, it means in so far as subsections (2) and (4) are concerned, we are extending the provisions of the clause relating to the Board to another case—namely, the compulsory acquisition of land.

§ So far as subsection (3) of Clause 70 as it stands is concerned, it provides expressly that on the revocation of planning permission the owner can recover anything which is previously claimed by way of development charge as abortive expenditure under Clause 21. This proviso is no longer required, because Clause 21, as amended by us, now gives the owner the right to compensation for depreciation in the value of his land where he has paid the development charge in respect of a planning permission which is subsequently revoked. Your Lordships will remember that the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin's, Amendment to our Amendment in Clause 21 was withdrawn, subject to the noble Lord being satisfied that the point was covered by the Government Amendment. This is dealt with under this new clause and I accordingly beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 80, line 1, leave out from beginning to end of line 16 on page 81 and insert the said new subsections.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
I thought that my noble friend Lord Addington, who has Amendments down to the original clause but which equally fit into this, was going to take this opportunity of moving them.

§ LORD ADDINGTON moved, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, in subsection (5), to leave out "may" where that word first occurs, and insert "shall." The noble Lord said: I was not certain whether the noble and learned Viscount wanted to refer to the whole clause before I asked leave to move this Amendment. Page 80 having been deleted, my Amendments can now refer to the clause as now moved. Therefore the word "may" referred to in my Amendment will now be the word 856 "may" in the seventh line of subsection (5), for which I want to insert "shall." In the last line but one I shall move another Amendment to leave out after "compensation" and add "a sum equal to the amount of such compensation."

§ The point of this is that where permission has been revoked the local planning authority must pay compensation under Clause 21, as now amended, which will include any sum paid by the person to whom permission was given by way of development charge. The local planning authority, therefore, has to pay out the same amount as the Central Land Board have received by way of development charge. The original clause and the Amendment now moved by the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, merely state that the Central Land Board may refund a contribution to the local planning authority which may be less than the amount they have had to pay out. I think this is a little stronger case than the previous one, but it does seem reasonable and fair to provide under this clause that it is the Board who shall make the payment, and that the payment they shall make shall be the full amount the local authority has had to pay out. I hope I have made that clear. It is a little difficult owing to it being an Amendment to an Amendment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment to the proposed Amendment moved— In the proposed new subsection (5), line 7, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").(Lord Addington.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I confess that we are in a slight muddle about this, but so far as the first Amendment is concerned I think I had better accept it on the principle which I apply; if in doubt, always accept Amendments. But having applied that principle once I cannot be asked to apply it twice. What I will do about the second Amendment is to look into it, and I will let the noble Lord know, in due course, whether I accept it or not. I am a little hopeful that I may be able to do what he wants, but I do not promise. The position is that I understand that the Scottish Office are putting down Amendments to the comparable Scottish Bill which will probably be on the lines that the noble Lord wants; and in order to avoid an injustice to England I will see that we correspond with the Scottish 857 position. Therefore, whilst I make no promise about the second Amendment, I will accept the first, and with that, having got a deal, the noble Lord must rest content!

§ LORD ADDINGTON
I am very grateful to the Lord Chancellor.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
We are indebted to the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, for accepting this Amendment. I think that the word "may" may have crept in in error. The word probably appropriate in the case of the Board is "shall." In regard to the second Amendment, I hope the Lord Chancellor will be able to accept that too, because these local planning authorities incurred this expense only on the orders of some higher authority who ought, in justice, to pay them. That perhaps has appeared more quickly in the Scottish Bill than in the English. At any rate, we are indebted to the noble and learned Viscount for his partial promise as to the Second Amendment. In regard to the Lord Chancellor's Amendment we have no objection to it on this side. I think it does cover the point I wished it to cover when. I was discussing my previous Amendment to one of the Lord Chancellor's Amendments.

§ Clause 70, as amended, agreed to.

§ Clause 71 agreed to.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to leave out Clause 72. The noble and learned Viscount said: This Amendment is preliminary to a new clause to be inserted after Clause 99. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Leave out Clause 72.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

THE EARL OF RADNOR
I have had a communication recently—I have not had time to give warning to the Lord Chancellor—from the docks and harbour authorities who are rather exercised in their minds as to the effect of this Bill upon docks and harbour undertakings. There are a number of cases to which my attention has been drawn; and some of them, from my own knowledge are developed areas adjacent to docks and areas. In such cases the development 858 value is undoubtedly due solely and entirely to the presence of the docks or harbours—and, more particularly, to the enterprise of the docks and harbour board concerned in making that land suitable for development. And that development is likely to be quite a long-term business.
There is a certain development of which I know, which does not strictly come within this because it is a railway undertaking—the Southampton Docks—where there is a matter of 400 acres reclaimed front the sea at the expense of the railway company. That area is now available for development for industrial purposes. I am not taking that as an actual case which is concerned in this Bill, but it is that type of point that is concerned. I think the docks and harbour people feel that they may well not come within the terms of ripe land, and yet they feel that their enterprise which they have undertaken is solely the reason for the value which attaches to this land. And they are somewhat exercised in their minds, not over Clause 72 but over the whole Part of this Bill; that is to say, development charges. I do not know whether the noble Lord is in a position to give any reply to this but, if not, I might perhaps take the opportunity of raising it more clearly on the next stage.

§ LORD HENDERSON
I think it would be better if the noble Earl would defer the matter to the next stage. I am not in a position to give an answer off the bat to that point, upon which I have not had previous notice.

§ LORD RANKEILLOUR
I see an Amendment by the Lord Chancellor to omit this clause. If it is to stand, I should have thought the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Addington was a very suitable one. Do I understand that the Government will vote against this clause standing part of the Bill?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
That is so.

§ Clause 73:

§ Exiting development contravening previous planning control.

§ (2) Where any such works as aforesaid were carried out or any such use as aforesaid was begun, during the war period as defined by the Buildings Restrictions (War-Time Contraventions) Act, 1946, then—

859

§ THE EARL OF RADNOR moved to add at the end of subsection (2): (c) Where the works were carried out or the use begun either by or on behalf of the Crown or of a local authority and the compensation payable in respect thereof, or the claim for such compensation was assessed or considered without regard to any requirement that the land would be required to be restored to its condition before such works were carried out, or that further works would be required to be carried out in order that the works would conform with planning provisions, any person who carries out works in compliance with an enforcement notice in respect thereto shall be entitled, on a claim made to the local planning authority within the time and in the manner prescribed by regulations under this Act, to recover from the local authority compensation in respect of any expenses reasonably incurred by him on that behalf.

§ The noble Earl said: This again is rather a difficult point of detail. There are a number of cases in this country where buildings have been erected during the war by various public bodies—they may have been Government bodies in their various forms or even a local authority—and which remain in situ and have been taken over by the owner of the land on which those buildings stand. But those buildings are contrary to planning permission, and the man who owns the land may be compelled by the planning authority to remove them. I seek to ensure in this Amendment that any loss incurred through such an order for removal will be reimbursed to the owner of the land. I think the Amendment says what I want it to say, but it is somewhat involved, and I would not be quite sure. It is rather a difficult problem, but probably the noble and learned Viscount knows the point at which I am driving and understands it. There are, or will be, cases where buildings have been erected during the war, and which are contrary to planning permission, which the planning authority wishes removed. The removal will involve the owner of the land in expenditure, and it is an expenditure which ought to be reimbursed to him. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 84, line 4, at end insert the said new paragraph.—(The Earl of Radnor.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
It is a rash assumption that I understand the point of all these Amendments; however, I believe in this case I do, and I will explain in a few moments what I think is the point the noble Lord has in mind. If my description is right, it is a point 860 that I ought to try and meet, and, though I am not satisfied with his wording, I will, if I state the point rightly, undertake to try to concoct a clause for the Report stage. I think his point is this. It frequently happens that a piece of land—usually a piece of land of rather low value—has been requisitioned by a Government Department, and there has been placed upon that land a building which was not removed when the land was handed back to the owner. No doubt, the owner has received the appropriate compensation under the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939, and has been content for his part to let the work remain where it is.
Now suppose that at a later stage the planning authority come along and require the building to be removed. What the noble Earl wants to secure is that the owner, who has thrown upon him the obligation to remove this offending work, should be entitled to recover, over and above any compensation which he may have received, the expense to which he is put in so doing. Probably some of these works can be dealt with in other ways. If they are temporary defence works they can be removed probably by the Ministry of Works, if it is in the public interest that they should be. But I feel that there may be a residuum of cases which cannot be so dealt with, and it is to meet those cases that, I understand, the noble Earl has put down this Amendment. I shall have to consider very carefully the wording of the Amendment which I propose to move in the light of the existing legislation. The noble Earl's wording, quite frankly, will not do, if only because it makes no provision for the deduction from the "expenses reasonably incurred" of any compensation which may already have been paid in respect of the diminution in the value of the land by reason of the continued presence of the offending work or building. So I cannot accept his wording. But if he is content to withdraw his Amendment and leave it to me to do what I can between now and the Report stage to find a proper form of words, I am willing to meet him.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
I am most grateful to the noble and learned Viscount. I indicated I was not too satisfied with the wording of my Amendment. It is a rather involved question. I would like to ask for enlightenment on one point. 861 There may be such things as concrete roads—a great many were made in remote places—and it may be that these are required to be removed in order to avoid unnecessary access by motor cars, and so on. I do not know whether that kind of thing could be included in any Amendment which the noble and learned Viscount may propose?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I hope and believe that such a thing might be included. I remember addressing your Lordships a year or so ago on the question of the removal of concrete runways on aerodromes. I pointed out that the cost involved was prohibitive, and I said that I hoped that the authorities would have the good sense not to require removal. But if it should be that a man is placed in the position of having to incur the expense of removing them, I am inclined to think, speaking off-hand, that that ought also to be provided for. At any rate, I will consider it.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
I again thank the noble and learned Viscount, and I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 73 agreed to.

§ Clauses 74 and 75 agreed to.

§ 8.55 p.m.

§ Clause 76 [Unfinished Buildings]:

§ LORD CHORLEY moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "those works, so far as carried out before that day, were carried out" and insert "immediately before that day those works could have been completed." The noble Lord said: This is really one of a number of drafting Amendments which I hope the Committee will agree to consider together. The other related Amendments are at page 88, lines 22, 24, 29 and 31. As the Committee are aware, this clause deals with the position of buildings which are already in process of erection, and provided that they fall within the limits of a plan, the erection is allowed to go on without any further consent being necessary. This is one of the concessional parts of the scheme. As the Bill is at present drafted, there are certain weaknesses. Although it envisages that there should have been a planning consent it does not consider planning under the Ribbon Development Act, 1935, which clearly 862 ought to be brought in. Therefore these next Amendments have been tabled to get over that difficulty by framing a rather more suitable form of words. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 88, line 21, leave out from beginning to ("in") in line 22 and insert ("immediately before that day those works could have been completed").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
As I understand it, this Amendment widens the clause to include work to be done under the Ribbon Development Act and certainly we have no objection on this side of the House.

§ Amendments moved—

§ Page 88, line 22 at end insert ("or of permission granted thereunder")

§ Page 88, line 24, after ("order") insert ("and if any permission required under the Restriction of Ribbon Development Act, 1935, for the carrying out of those works was granted ")

§ Page 88, line 29, after ("thereto") insert ("by or")

§ Page 88, line 31, after ("be") insert ("and to any conditions imposed by the permission granted under the Restriction of Ribbon Development Act, 1935").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ Clause 76, as amended, agreed to.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN moved, after Clause 76, to insert the following new clause:

§ Road and oilier works.

§ ".—(1) Where any works for the making or laying out of roads or the laying of sewers and drains in connection therewith have been begun or carried out before the appointed day, then if those works were carried out in conformity with the provisions of a planning scheme, or in accordance with permission granted by or under an interim development order, planning permission shall, by virtue of this section, be deemed do be granted under Part III of this Act in respect of the completion of those works.

§ (2) For the purpose of calculating the restricted and the unrestricted value of any interest in that land the works referred to in the preceding subsection shall be deemed to have been completed immediately before the seventh day of January nineteen hundred and forty-seven, and no development charge shall be payable under Part VI of this Act in respect of those works."

§ The noble Lord said: This is much on the same lines as the Amendments which the noble Lord has just moved. My Amendment is to continue roads for which permission has been granted and where the work has been begun.

863

§ Under Clause 76, where works for the erection or alteration of a building, begun but not completed before the appointed day, have been carried out in conformity with the provisions or a planning scheme or in accordance with planning permission, the permission is deemed to have been granted under the Bill. No compensation then will be received nor will any development charge be payable. I am suggesting that the same situation arises where estate developers have laid out roads on an estate, with a view to selling off the land on either side to persons building for their own occupation or for sale. This type of development is quite common and has proved of great assistance to builders who have not had the necessary capital to sink in the building of roads and laying down of sewers. It is far better to have these roads developed than have houses springing up, as we have often seen in country towns, with unmade roads between the houses which later have to be paved and sewered by the local authority and taken over under the Private Street Works Act.

§ The question of development charge in cases of this sort is one of difficulty, because one of the most expensive parts of development is the laying down of roads and sewers and a considerable amount of capital normally laid out in that is recouped by the person developing the road by selling adjoining land which has increased in value because of the road works. One of the bases of this Bill is that the landowner, when he is fortunate in having a public authority make a road through his land, shall not be able to recoup the whole of the development value. In this case the value has been created by the man who has made the road.

§ My Amendment merely says this: Where any works for the making or laying out of roads or the laying of sewers and drains in connection therewith have been begun or carried out before the appointed day,"— that excludes anything afterwards— then if those works were carried out in conformity with the provisions of a planning scheme, or in accordance with permission granted by or under an interim development order, planning permission shall, by virtue of this section, be deemed to be granted under Part III of this Act in respect of the completion of those works. The Amendment then goes on: For the purpose of calculating the restricted and the unrestricted value of any 864 interest in that land the works referred to in the preceding subsection shall be deemed to have been completed immediately before the seventh day of January … So that it has the same effect as with the building works and other works referred to in Clause 76. I do not see a great distinction between building work and the making of roads and sewers to service the buildings. I think these people, when their works have been begun before the appointed day, and when they have the planning permission for them, ought to be allowed to go on and complete those works without being charged any development charge on them. Otherwise I think we shall be hampering developments which have been very valuable to the building of houses up and down this country. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— After Clause 76, insert the said new clause. —(Lord Llewellin.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
With all due deference to the noble Lord, I do not think the problem raised by this Amendment is quite so simple as the problem of the uncompleted house. I think there is no doubt that there is a case here in relation to these uncompleted roads and sewers. It is an exceedingly difficult problem, and perhaps one of the most difficult of the transitional problems involved, at any rate in this particular Part of the Bill. I would submit to your Lordships that it is more satisfactorily dealt with by means of regulations. The Minister intends to cover it by a set of regulations, or an appropriate regulation, in the first general development order, which will be issued, of course, shortly after the Bill becomes law. On the other hand, a great deal of thought has been given to this problem, and it has been elucidated to some extent, if I may say so, by the remarks of the noble Lord in moving his Amendment. We are very anxious, if possible, to meet this difficulty, and if in the light of what the noble Lord has said, and on further consideration, we are able to find between now and the Report stage a form of words which can meet the difficulty, without, of course, going too far, we shall be pleased to do so.
I do not know that it is necessary at this stage to go into some of the obvious difficulties between a case of a building in process of erection, and where just a part 865 of a road has been laid down, or a sewer commenced. Obviously there is all the difference in the world between completing the building and carrying sewers and roads over a substantial area of land. I think the noble Lord will see that there is considerable difficulty. It may be almost impossible to deal with that difficulty in an Act of Parliament, whereas it may be possible to deal with it by regulations. Perhaps the noble Lord will accept my assurance that we will do our best to deal with this in the Bill itself, and any assistance which he can give us in so doing we shall be glad to have. If, on that assurance, he will withdraw his Amendment, I shall be obliged.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
May I say this? I hope it will be possible to frame a proper clause and insert it in the Bill. I have several times stated the very great objections which there are to leaving a matter of importance like this to be dealt with by regulations, because of the different results which follow. There are certain difficulties, I agree, but I cannot help thinking that with the ingenuity which has been displayed by the people concerned in drafting this Bill it should be possible to put in a clause which will substantially carry out the designs of this Amendment.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
I am much obliged to the noble Lord opposite for the way he has replied to my Amendment. I think we both agree, at any rate, that here is a problem to meet, if we can meet it. I am not asking that people who are making roads and have started to make them should be allowed to continue them, in one way to Land's End and in the other way to John o' Groats, or anything like that. It would, of course be only a continuation for which planning permission has been granted, and on which this whole thing is based; in the normal way, only another couple of small streets on a small estate. I think the Amendment can limit it in that way as you can limit the building of a particular house. I do not want it to go one whit beyond the planning permission which has been granted, and that is the limit in every case. I feel that there is a problem to be met here because the unfinished house and the unfinished road fall roughly into the same category. I am much obliged to the noble Lord and I will certainly consult with him or with anybody else to see if we can do anything 866 to meet this on the Report stage. On that assurance, I am prepared to withdraw the Amendment.

§ LORD BRAND
May I point out that there is under my name, and under the name of my noble and learned friend Viscount Simon, an Amendment on the next page, Page 90, line 35, the object of which I think is the same as that of the Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Llewellin:—namely, to insert: that roads or sewers had been constructed or were in course of construction at the expense of the owner before, the appointed day. We proposed to put it in the clause dealing with land ripe for development. Our object was to extend that clause—we thought it was extremely narrow—by including land developed in this way. If our object is met by Lord Llewellin's Amendment, I could, when the other Amendment comes to be moved, ask leave to withdraw it, but I am not absolutely sure about the matter. Perhaps the noble and learned Viscount can tell me whether it is covered by Lord Llewellin's Amendment or whether it is best left for the later clause to which I have referred.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
It is certainly better left because it deals with a wholly different topic. Lord Llewellin's Amendment deals with the planning permission; the noble Lord's Amendment deals with an explanation of dead ripe land. Nothing that my noble friend Lord Chorley has said about his willingness to look into Lord Llewellin's point must be taken as any concession to the noble Lord because, if and when he does move his Amendment, it will regretfully be my duty, to the best of my ability, to oppose it.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
I was in the course of asking leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 77 agreed to.

§ Clause 78:

§ Land ripe for development before the appointed day.

§ 78.—(1) Where planning permission is granted under Part III of this Act in respect of any development consisting of the erection, extension or alteration of buildings, or is deemed by virtue of Section seventy-six of this Act to be so granted, then if the Minister is satisfied, at any time before payments have 867 been made under Part VI of this Act in respect of any interest in the land—

(a) that the development values of interests in the land, as ascertained in accordance with the provisions of the said Part VI, were wholly or mainly attributable to the prospects of that development at the appointed day; and
(b)that a building contract made in relation to that development within the period of ten years before the seventh day of January, nineteen hundred and forty-seven, was in force on the appointed day, or that a byelaw submission or a building application had been made in respect thereof within that period,

he may direct that no payment shall be made under the said Part VI in respect of any interest in the land, and that no development charge shall be payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of the said development.

§ (3)For the purposes of this section the expression "building contract," in relation to any development, means a contract made between a person for the time being interested in the land and any other person, under which that other person undertakes to carry out the whole or substantially the whole of the building operations to be carried out in the course of that development.

§ (4)For the purposes of this section—

(a) the expression "byelaw submission," in relation to any development, means the submission by a person for the time being interested in the land of plans of the buildings proposed to be erected, extended or altered in the course of the development to the proper local or other authority in order to comply with the requirements of any byelaws or other enactment requiring plans to be so submitted, and
(b)the expression "building application" means an application including such plans as aforesaid and made by any such person as aforesaid to a local or other authority under the Town and Country Planning Acts, 1932 and 1943, or under any byelaws or other enactment requiring the consent of that authority to be obtained for the construction, extension or alteration of buildings.

§ LORD CHORLEY
The next Amendment is a drafting Amendment intended to correct a wrong reference. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 90, line 21, leave out ("seventy-six") and insert ("seventy-five").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ LORD CHORLEY moved to leave out "at any time before payments have been made under Part VI of this Act in respect of any interest in the land—", and insert: on application made to him within one year after the appointed day or within such extended period as the Minister may in any particular case allow.

868

§ The noble Lord said: This is the first of a number of Amendments which I think your Lordships will wish to take together. The others are in lines 26, 27 and 36 of page 90. As your Lordships are aware, this is the clause dealing with land dead ripe for development. It has been considered that a more satisfactory method of dealing with the situation is to enable the Minister to issue a certificate that the specified land is within the clause, and the main object of this series of Amendments is, so to speak, to change it over in that way so that in fact the Minister will, provided the necessary conditions in the clause are satisfied, be able to issue his certificate that the land is within the clause.

§ There are various subsidiary matters, and perhaps I might just mention very shortly to your Lordships the most important of them, which is that before issuing a certificate in this way the Minister may decide to review the whole planning position in relation to the particular piece of land. Normally speaking there will be no need for such review and the position will remain, but there are occasional cases where consents have been given to developments. A good example is in areas which have become Green Belt areas under later arrangements, and where obviously it would be very useful that the Minister should look at the problem and see whether, in the light of the general requirements for a Green Belt around a particular town or urban district, a consent given in the past should be revoked. Of course, if such a revocation takes place, the land which previously had the permission will immediately qualify to apply for an award, and it is important that the owner of the land should know as quickly as possible which type of condition is going to apply. Those, I think, are the main matters which arise in connexion with this series of Amendments, and I think your Lordships will probably agree that the present method of dealing with the problem is a more satisfactory one than that which is contained in the clause as it at present stands. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 90, line 22, leave out from ("satisfied") to end of line 24 and insert ("on application made to him within one year after the appointed day or within such extended period as the Minister may in any particular case allow").—(Lord Chorley.)

869

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
I would like to know the effect of this Amendment. Is this period of a year likely to cut down the time, or does it enlarge it? When is it that payments might start to be made under Part VI?

§ LORD CHORLEY
I think the one year is inserted as the normal period, in order to enable the owner to know his position as quickly as possible. It was really to that point that my remarks were addressed. It seems a reasonable period in which the matter should be settled. But, of course, it may happen that an occasional case will be satisfactorily dealt with within a period of a year, and that is obviously the reason why a little latitude is granted.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
That was not quite the point to which I addressed my remarks. I asked the noble Lord whether it was thought that Part VI would begin to come into operation before the year, and whether the period of a year was cutting down, or enlarging, the time that a man has within which to make a claim for inclusion in this category.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I cannot give a categorical answer. It may well be so, but I do not think there will be a great deal, one way or the other.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
It is a pity, but I do not very much mind. I think they ought to make their claims within a year, or in exceptional cases longer.

§ LORD CHORLEY
It would obviously be dangerous for me to try to tie my right honourable friend down.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 90, line 26, after ("as") insert ("required to be.")—(Lord Charley.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
This is another drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 90. line 27, leave out ("the said Part VI were") and insert ("Part VI of this Act and without regard to the provisions of this section would be.")—(Lord Charley.)

§ LORD LLEWELLIN moved in subsection (1) (b) after "application," to insert "or a licensing application." The 870 noble Lord said: Before I discuss the actual Amendment, I should like to say that it is interesting to see what is going to happen to licensed houses under this Bill. Many of them, at the behest of the licensing justices, have to make alterations to their premises when the accommodation is not large enough to put on an extra lavatory, or something like that. Quite a number of the alterations that have to be made to a licensed house are done at the behest of the licensing justices. Another point which it is just as well to remember is that in each case, if you enlarge a house and make it better, or if you get a new licence, you pay what is called a monopoly value. That goes into what I may perhaps be allowed to refer to as the "kitty," and is taken out when some other licensed house has its licence extinguished and receives compensation from that fund. If we are not very careful, we shall be making these people pay in two ways, perhaps compelling them to pay a development charge in cases where they are bound to do the work at the behest of the licensing bench.

§ I am asking for the words "or a licensing application," to be inserted in this clause, but indeed, I do not mind adding the words "or a licensing application that has been granted", where the building is not completed. I am quite prepared to put in those extra words because I see the force of the argument with which I may well be met: that brewers apply for a licensing application some years before they expect to get it. By that method they get a kind of lien (if that be the right word) on the site, and a kind of prior claim in the queue before the licensing justices of that area to be considered for a house when it is thought right that a new house should be erected. I may well be met with that point, so I am quite prepared, if it will meet the case, to put in the words "or a licensing application that has been granted"; that is to say they have then got what amounts to planning permission to come from the licensing justices.

§ It is just as much an earnest (if that be the test) of doing the work, as any of the other things which I see in this clause, such as a by-law submission or a building application. This is a licensing application which has been granted. Perhaps it is only because of the circumstances 871 arising out of the war that they have not been able to complete the work, but it is dead ripe. In fact, once a licensing application has been granted by a bench of licensing justices, the brewers will have to be summoned and asked why they have not carried out the work. As your Lordships will know, when a licensing application of this sort has been granted, then the licensing justices can properly inspect to see if the work they have approved has been properly carried out. I am quite prepared to put in "or a licensing application that has been granted," which seems to me to put them in an exactly similar position to that of a person to whom a building application has been granted. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 90, line 34, after ("application") insert ("or a licensing application").—(Lord Llewellin.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
The suggested Amendment to the Amendment which the noble Lord has put forward is, of course, as he appreciates, a very different kettle of fish from the one which appears on the Order Paper, and he has himself indicated, perhaps not quite so forcibly as I should have attempted to do, the objection to the words as they at present stand. I quite agree that if the application has actually been granted by the Bench, it might well be of equal value with other licences, but I am not prepared to commit myself upon that point. Clearly, on that basis, this point will have to be looked into very carefully. If, on an assurance that that will be done, the noble Lord will consent to withdraw his Amendment, I will gladly give him such an assurance.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
I am much obliged. I think the most convenient course will be for me to put the Amendment down at the Report stage in the form which I have indicated. I appreciate that I have altered my Amendment substantially while standing on my feet. There may well be a case to be looked into here, and I am much obliged to the noble Lord for the way in which he has received this matter. I now beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ 9.26 p.m.

§ LORD O'HAGAN moved at the end of subsection (1) (b) to insert "or that an 872 application under section ten of the Act of 1932 for permission to develop land had been made within the period of ten years before the seventh day of January nineteen hundred and forty-seven." The noble Lord said: In the regrettable absence of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, it falls to me to try to put before you the case for this Amendment. This is an effort to deal with the border-line cases where steps were taken before January 7, 1947, in connexion with contemplated industrial development, but no actual building application has been made. In the case of new works, such as a cement works, their siting is controlled by the availability of the necessary raw materials. Having secured ownership of the minerals, the first step is to obtain planning consent to the working of the minerals. As the method of working is to be by surface operation there are inevitably very material questions of amenity to be settled before plans for the utilization of any site can be considered in detail. Only after determination of the amenity issues are detailed plans prepared showing the lay-out of the industrial buildings within which manufacturing operations will be conducted.

§ Following upon the preparation of layout plans of a works, a further planning application is lodged for consent to the proposed lay-out. This two-stage procedure is understandable when it is realized that a modern works may cost up to £2,000,000. There is a very heavy burden of work and expense involved in the preparation of detailed plans for industrial developments of this magnitude. It is accordingly desired in the first instance to establish the right to the user of the land for mineral extractive purposes before proceeding to the second stage of obtaining approval to a proposed lay-out plan of the industrial buildings. In addition, as a result of the application in relation to the user of the land, restrictions on the working areas may be imposed which affect this lay-out of the plant.

§ Of necessity, consideration of much potential industrial development had to be postponed until after the termination of hostilities. Industries linked to quarrying for the sources of their raw material supplies have had, therefore, only limited opportunity to complete their plans, and there may be many cases where a proposed development has reached only the first stage of seeking, 873 or having obtained, consent to the potential quarrying operations. It appears reasonable, therefore, that where an application to develop land has been made before the publication of the Bill, the Minister should also be given power to exercise his discretion in relation to compensation and development charges. I have endeavoured to put the case for this Amendment before the Committee. I frankly confess that I am not an expert on this matter, which is a very complicated and difficult matter, But, in any case, I have felt it my duty to make the case as it has been presented to me, and I hope that it will receive careful consideration by His Majesty's Government.

§ Amendment moved— Page 90, line 35, at end insert the said words.—(Lord O'Hagan.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I can only assure the noble Lord that anybody listening to him would have thought he had spent a lifetime in studying this particular problem, but all the same I am sorry I cannot accept his Amendment. Perhaps I may make a few general observations about this. The noble Lord realizes, of course, that he is seeking to make an addition to the category of land which is dead ripe and your Lordships will realize the importance of this. We are contemplating that there should be a fund of £300,000,000 to compensate those who are affected by this Bill, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer has gone further than that, and has said that the people who own dead ripe land shall be dealt with altogether outside the £300,000,000. And although they have no cut of the fund they have a corresponding advantage in that they do not have to pay any development charge.
You can deal with this problem in one of two ways. You can either move to increase the £300,000,000 or to reduce the number of participants in the fund. Any extension of the dead ripe principle is in effect the same as moving to increase the £300,000,000. What you are doing is reducing the amount of development charge, which is the somewhat inadequate quid pro quo the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to get in return for contributing this. £300,000,000. That being so, it is quite right to say we have quite deliberately drawn strictly and narrowly our test of dead ripe land. Not so strictly, 874 be it observed however, as it was drawn in the Uthwatt Report. Your Lordships will remember that the Report said this, I am quoting from paragraph 90: We recommend that no land or interest in land should be considered as 'dead ripe' land unless either plans for its development had been deposited with the local or town planning authority before 1st September, 1939, or it had been part of land for development shortly before the outbreak of the present war. That was the Uthwatt test. The noble Lord's test of dead ripe land is, in my submission, quite inadequate. To enable a direction of the Minister to be given where the only qualification was, in the words of the Amendment, "that an application under Section ten of the Act of 1932 for permission to develop land had been made within the period of ten years before January 7, 1947," would be inconsistent with the whole principle of the clause. The clause limits its application to cases where the development value of the land at the appointed day is wholly or mainly attributable to the prospect of the particular development being carried out. Subsection (4) (b) admits a planning application if it is a "building application"; that is, one that includes plans of the buildings. We consider that nothing wider than that would be consistent with the conception of dead ripe land. A planning application, as opposed to a building application, is much wider and much more vague, and might be submitted long before land is even beginning to ripen.
This clause is based substantially on the Uthwatt Committee's recommendations, although not quite so strictly, with the object of giving special treatment to land on the point of being developed when the Bill was published. We have a series of Amendments on this. I cannot help feeling that this one is most important, with the exception of that moved by the noble Lord, Lord Brand, which is the most extreme illustration of them all. But in order of demerit, if I may say so with due respect, I would put Lord Brand's first, Lord O'Hagan's second, while Lord Llewellin's would be placed third in the "rogues' gallery." It is not to be thought, however, that I am approving even of the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. That is the 875 position I am bound to take in regard to this consideration of dead ripe land.

LORD O'HAGAN
I only trust that the order of winning may bring my noble friend Lord Llewellin's Amendment past the post first, and that it will remain there! However that may be, I do not feel that I can press this Amendment on the House at the present time and, with the permission of the House, I will withdraw the Amendment for the time being.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ 9.37 p.m.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN moved, after subsection (1) (b), to insert: or, (c)that the land together with any land contiguous or adjacent to such land was on the seventh day of January nineteen hundred and forty-seven, or would then have been but for circumstances arising out of the emergency which was the occasion of the passing of the Courts (Emergency Powers) Act, 1939, in the course of development as a residential commercial or industrial estate and that the proposed development is or would be immediately practicable but for such circumstances as aforesaid and that there is a demand for such development. The noble Lord said: One of the principles of Clause 78, as I understand it, is to exclude dead ripe land from paying the development charge, and from obtaining anything from the fund. This Amendment does not in any way seek to contravene that principle.

§ It all depends what we mean by "dead ripe" land. According to the draft in the Bill, as the noble and learned Viscount has said, dead ripe land has been drawn very narrowly: that a building contract made in relation to that development…was in force on the appointed day, or that a byelaw submission or a building application had been made in respect thereof within that period. I submit that the words of the Amendment which I am now moving are more apt. I am moving it quite frankly, intending to extend, though not very widely and in my usual reasonable style, the area of dead ripe land. That is why I suppose I was termed the lesser rogue—if that is what I was termed.

§ Let us see what my Amendment says. First, it comes in this clause as paragraph (c) and is preceded by the words, "if the Minister is satisfied" so the subsection would read: 876 If the Minister is satisfied…that the land together with any land contiguous or adjacent to such land was on the seventh day of January nineteen hundred and forty-seven"— I pause there— in the course of development. Can anything be riper than that? I do not think you can get any definition of ripe land that is more clear than that. I have a second category to deal with: the people who would have developed but for the war— or would then have been"— and if I may leave out the next words, because I prefer to say "but for the war" rather than "but for circumstances arising out of the emergency"— in the course of development as a residential commercial or industrial estate. That is the first test—that the proposed development is or would be immediately practicable but for circumstances arising from the war. The second test is that such development, either started or which would have started but for the war, would be immediately practicable now, but for the war and circumstances arising out of the war—for instance, a shortage of bricks or timber or whatever it may be. Thirdly, the test is that there is a demand for such development.

§ Those are the three tests. I think they are all quite reasonable. The Minister has to be satisfied on all three and then, having been satisfied on all three, that land is considered ripe land. If that is not ripe land, I do not know what the word "ripe" means. If I may reply in the same strain to the "rogues' gallery," I think the Government's provision is a rotten provision. What they consider is ripe is so ripe that it is rotten, and rotten from our point of view. I am quite certain that we ought to consider this ripe land. Reasonable men would, and do not let us try to alter the definition just to save the Chancellor of the Exchequer or somebody else a mere few thousand pounds. The Budget is unfortunately far too big for that at the present moment, and I do not suppose, when this is worked out, that it will cost much to the Exchequer in extra development charges. On the other hand, it is quite clearly ripe land, in my submission. I think, as most reasonable men do, that, if we had been unhampered by the fact that this had gone through another place, 877 perhaps we in this House could all have sat down and said, "Perhaps that has provided quite a good definition of what really is ripe land; and in our heart of hearts we all know what it is." With these words, I hope that the Government will be able to accept this Amendment.

§ Amendment moved— Page 90, line 35, insert the said paragraph. —(Lord Llewellin.)

THE EARL OF RADNOR
I would like to support my noble friend, Lord Llewellin, in this Amendment, which I think even the noble and learned Viscount admits is, in the circumstances, an extremely moderate one. My own preference some time back on this particular point was to have a much simpler Amendment, to Clause 78—namely, in subsection (1), between paragraphs (a) and (b), to substitute the word "or" for the word "and"; because that subsection of Clause 78 gave a very narrow definition of what is ripe land. It seems to me that His Majesty's Government have somewhat reluctantly conceded that there is such a thing as ripe land, and it is under the stimulus presumably of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that they have narrowed it down within these limits so as to get as much revenue as possible, or, conversely, to save that inadequate sum of £300,000,000, from as many claims in this way as can be saved. That is the feeling that I have about it, and from what the noble and learned Viscount says, I think that is virtually what went on in the course of discussions behind the scenes with his own colleagues. In drafting the clause as it now stands, they have already narrowed down the definition as much as possible
They have conceded the principle of ripe land, and although the noble Lord may say that it is wrong to make inroads upon the £300,000,000 by a side road—if I may so put it—I do not think it is. After all, the £300,000,000, as I have said more than once in the course of the passage of this Bill, is a guess, and the submission of Amendments whose effect will be to make fair inroads on it, or additions to it, in this way, shows that in my opinion, and in that of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, the guess of the Government as to the value which they are expropriating is wrong, and we think the figure ought to be more. The objection of His Majesty's Government to this 878 Amendment and similar Amendments is probably a Revenue one and not one based upon fairness, rightness and justice.

§ THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY
From all parts of the country we receive disturbing reports of the loss of confidence and the grave uncertainties which this clause has created in the minds of builders and others to whom we look to provide us with the new houses, the new offices and the new factories which are so urgently required. Only this morning one of the most prominent builders in Scotland, a man whose firm have provided many thousands of houses, told me that under the terms of this clause he did not know how he would stand in relation to the land he already owns as his stock-in-trade, both in the heart of our big towns as well as in the outer ring, and that the uncertainties created in his mind by the clause were so many that he could attempt neither to build nor to formulate any programme of operations.
It is timely to remember what happened in 1910 and succeeding years, after the introduction of the Lloyd George Land Taxes. During the six years 1904 to 1910, the average increase in the number of new houses built for the poorer members of the community was 115,260 a year, but during the four following years, 1910 to 1914, the average increase in the number of those houses had dropped by over 53,000 a year to 61,850. These figures are revealed in the annual reports of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. I am sure it is correct to say that that drop was due to uncertainty and lack of confidence, and that it was those two factors, even more than the war of 1914–1918, which created the housing shortage from which this country has never really recovered. The same conditions are forecast again, only even more so, by the most knowledgeable men in the building and development world. Now, when housing needs are so desperate, the owners of building land and the builders themselves are being thrown into complete confusion, and unless the Government do something at the eleventh hour to widen the definition of ripe land, forecasts in the building world are to the effect that private building will stop. I am sure noble Lords on all sides of the House do not contemplate such a position with complacency. I believe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would lose 879 very little indeed in the long run by so relaxing the development charge that all land that has clearly been bought for development purposes in the reasonably near future would escape its incidence. Would not some action of that kind help the housing programme, and would it not be worth the small cost?
I would like to say one other word about vacant sites in our big towns, and to ask about sites, even such sites in London, which are empty not only because of war damage but because of demolition that took place, before the war. I would like to inquire how the Government will regard the existing use value of those sites. Does it mean that such sites may not be classed as ripe land for development unless the two or three conditions in the clause as it stands have been fulfilled? Consequently, will the owners' plans, which have been held up by the war and subsequent shortages, now be thrown into the melting pot? It seems strange that any land in the, heart of London can fail to be regarded as land ripe for development, and I hope, in the interests of providing houses, office, and other accommodation so badly needed in our big towns, that the scope of this clause will be so amended as to remove this damaging uncertainty and anomaly.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
I should like to point out that there can be no answer to the contention of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, that the land pointed at by his Amendment is in truth ripe land within the meaning of the word as known in the English language; and there is, in my opinion, no doubt that paragraph (a) in Clause 78 covers the land to which Lord Llewellin is referring. Paragraph (a) says: that the development values of interests in the land, as ascertained in accordance with the provisions of the said Part VI, were wholly or mainly attributable to prospects of that development at the appointed day. Here we are dealing with land which, together with land contiguous or adjacent thereto, on January 7, 1947, was or would have been, but for the war, in the course of development as a residential, commercial or industrial estate, and where the proposed development is immediately practicable. To my mind it is certain in that case that the development values of interests in the land are wholly or mainly attributable to the prospects of 880 that development. But that is not enough, because the Minister has to be satisfied that there has been a building contract or a bye-law or a building application made in respect of that land. The question whether such an order has been made is simply and purely a question of accident. Some buildings would be much farther advanced really than those in respect of which one of those three conditions of a building contract, bye-law or building application, applied.
What the Amendment seeks mainly to do is this: instead of those accidental things having happened, in addition to the fact that the development values of interests being wholly or mainly attributable to the prospects of development, there should be another factor taken into consideration, namely—and this is the principal part of the Amendment—that the war intervened and prevented those things being carried out. I have known cases where developments of this sort were stopped because it was impossible to get the necessary labour as the men had been called up, or something else happened, which made it perfectly impossible, during the events of this war in which we were fighting for our lives, to carry out these things. I most strongly submit to this Committee that the accident of war stopping such developments is just as strong a ground for the Minister to exercise his power as the three events which I have already referred to.
I would add this: that the alteration of the word "satisfied" makes it still less a thing to which the Minister should object, because, instead of the word "satisfied," we now have the words "on application made to him within one year after the appointed day, or within such extended period as the Minister may in any case allow;" he "may" do these things. It is permissive, and why the Minister should not be allowed to do something which is obviously in favour of justice to respectable people who were starting to make what might be great or expensive alterations or improvements in the development of land I do not see. Such a man should be regarded with great leniency, and in every case where the Minister thinks fit to allow this concession, it should be allowed.

§ VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER
I feel bound to rise and say something in support of the Amendment of my noble 881 friend, Lord Llewellin, as this is one of the points to which I addressed myself on the Second Reading of the Bill. To my mind, not only is this a sound Amendment, but it is in the interests of the community that this land on which development has begun should be fully developed. With the housing situation as it is, it is essential that everything that can be done should be done to stimulate the solution of the problem, and this Amendment clearly tends towards that end. It is reasonable and I feel it is just, and therefore I have pleasure in supporting it.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
May I, before I answer the main point of the Amendment, answer the two questions which were asked by the noble Duke, the Duke of Buccleuch, with regard to the bomb damaged sites in London? He will find that the first paragraph of the Third Schedule enables those buildings to be reconstructed without any question of a development charge; so those are expressly dealt with. I am surprised to hear of the uncertainty which the very experienced Scottish builder expressed about the position, because I should have thought that such an experienced builder would have followed rather closely what the Minister had been saying on this topic in another place. If he referred to the Report of the Nineteenth Sitting of the Commons Committee he would find at column 806 what the Minister said. Putting it quite broadly, it was this. The Minister pointed out that there was a narrow definition of dead ripe land, but he was proposing also to deal with what he called near ripe land. He proposed to deal with near ripe land in this way. Near ripe land should get a preferential claim on the £300,000,000, and be entitled to 100 per cent. of its claim. With regard to land owned by a builder, he said that that would be limited to land required for a planned area programme at the firm's pre-war rate of building.
Of course this proposal about near ripe land is a matter which is not in the Bill; it is a matter for the scheme. I do not conceal from the Committee that the more you give preferential claims on the £300,000,000 and say that they are to be satisfied in full, the less there is left for the other claimants. So far as the noble Duke's builder is concerned, I should have thought he ought to have been comparatively happy, though I can understand 882 that other people who have claims would probably be less happy. That is the position with regard to near ripe land and that is the proposal of the Minister. It will be for either House of Parliament to approve or not the scheme when it is promulgated. The Minister has made it plain that so far as he is concerned that is what he proposes to put into the scheme. That is the way he proposes to deal with these places that do not come into the category of dead ripe land but at the same time need some preferential treatment.
To come to the Amendment itself. I am not at all surprised to find that this is the Amendment which the noble Lord has preferred to move, because this is manifestly the better of the Amendments. It is not like the next one. It would not be sufficient at any time, even to-morrow, if anyone were to start digging a hole for a drain, to say that the whole of the building estate concerned qualified as dead ripe land. This is a much more severe test. Even so, it really does not do. We have all known building estates, and have known people who have started developing estates hoping that their various plots would go like hot cakes, and as a matter of fact they have hung fire very badly. They sell one plot and get building permission for one plot, hoping that someone will come along for the next plot. But he never comes. It is a complete fallacy, I submit, to say that because any particular piece of land forms part of a building estate, therefore all the plots on that estate are dead ripe.
What we want and have tried to get is a real test of dead ripeness. It is notorious that development of an estate may be spread over many years. I submit that it is a complete fallacy to say that because the land is part of an estate which is in course of development, therefore the whole of the land on that estate is dead ripe land. That is the fallacy which I submit underlies this Amendment. For the rest, the other test which the noble Lord propounds is that but for the war it would already have been developed. It is of course the fact that the Minister has to be satisfied, and I frankly admit that that is so. But even so, the test that is propounded is not sufficient. The Minister will have quite honestly to make up his mind as best he may. But is it a really feasible proposition to say that but for the war this, that or the other would have 883 been done? It is something which it is quite impossible to say. That is why we want a concrete, definite and simple factual test, and an answer of "Yes" or "No" to the question: Does this building position or by-law position actually demonstrate that land is really dead ripe? It is no use concealing that here again we have come to a conflict of principle on an Amendment which is as well drafted as it could have been. I am not being critical of the Amendment as such. It is not unreasonable, but it does substantially extend the definition of dead ripe land, and we must decide to stand definitely on the clause and leave it to your Lordships to test the feeling of the Committee.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
I listened with great attention to what the noble and learned Viscount said and I would like to say one or two things in reference to his speech. He said it was idle to suppose that because an estate had been started the development was going on. There I agree with him. But he completely overlooked the last words of my Amendment, that the Minister has to be satisfied "that there is a demand for such development." So, if I may say so with respect, the first argument of the Lord Chancellor does not carry a great deal of weight. The second point is whether it is within the power and

884

§ capacity of the Minister to decide whether, but for the war, something would have happened. I should not have thought that was too difficult a test. Where there is an application from a builder who normally was building houses before the war, you can easily suppose that but for the war he might have gone on developing the estate he had started. If he is just an upstart who has never built a house in his life, of course the Minister could say that he would never have completed anything, whether the war had happened or not. But I am talking about the regular man who was building houses at a regular rate before the war. Noble Lords on this side think it is a very fair test of what really is ripe land. We think it is the kind of thing that the Government and, if necessary, another place, should be asked to think over again. It is a function of this House occasionally to send things back for another place to look at again and see whether, in the light of a new Amendment, they are able to alter the previous form. It is only with that view that I ask the Committee to support me in the Lobby on this Amendment.

§ On Question, Whether the said paragraph shall be there inserted?

§ Their Lordships divided: Contents, 52; Not-Contents, 25.

883

CONTENTS.
Aberdeen and Temair, M.	Maugham, V.	Fairfax of Cameron, L. [Teller.]
Reading, M.	Ridley, V.
Salisbury, M.	Samuel, V.	Gage, L. (V. Gage.)
	Swinton, V.	Grenfell, L.
Abingdon, E.	Wimborne, V.	Hampton, L.
Craven, E.		Hatherton, L.
Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)	Addington, L.	Hylton, L.
	Altrincham, L.	Llewellin, L.
Dundonald, E.	Amherst of Hackney, L.	Lloyd, L.
Fortesoue, E. [Teller.]	Bingley, L.	O'Hagan, L.
Iddesleigh, E.	Brand, L.	Rankeillour, L.
Munster, E.	Broadbridge, L.	Rochdale, L.
Perth, E.	Carrington, L.	Roche, L.
Radnor, E.	Cherwell, L.	Savile, L.
Bridgeman, V.	Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)	Teynham, L.
Buckmaster, V.		Tweedsmuir, L.
Chaplin, V.	Craigmyle, L.	Waleran, L.
Falmouth, V.	De L'Isle and Dudley, L.	Wardington, L.
Harcourt, V.	Denham, L.	Wolverton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.
Jowitt, V. (L. Chancellor.)	Chorley, L.	Mountevans, L.
	Foley, L.	Nathan, L.
Huntingdon, E.	Henderson, L.	Pakenham, L.
Addison, V.	Holden, L.	Quibell, L.
Hall, V.	Kershaw, L.	Rochester, L.
St. Davids, V.	Latham, L.	Rusholme, L.
Stansgate, V.	Lucas of Chilworth, L.	Trefgarne, L.
	Marley, L.	Uvedale of North End, L.
Ammon, L.	Morrison, L. [Teller.]	Walkden, L. [Teller.]

885

§ Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.

§ LORD BRAND had given notice to move at the end of subsection (1) (b) to insert: or (c) that roads or sewers had been constructed or were in course of construction at the expense of the owner before the appointed day.

§ The noble Lord said: Perhaps you would allow me to say one word with regard to my Amendment. I know that my noble friend, Viscount Simon, would be perfectly prepared to see included in the Amendment instead of the words "before the appointed day" the words, "on January 1, 1947." That being so, I think my Amendment is now covered by my noble friend, Lord Llewellin's, Amendment that has just been carried. Therefore, I am perfectly satisfied, and do not move my Amendment.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This is the last of the group of Amendments moved a minute or two ago, and it is merely a consequential drafting Amendment on the first of those Amendments. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved—

§ Page 90, line 36, leave out from beginning to end of line 44 and insert ("he shall certify accordingly: Provided that if it appears to the Minister that proceedings should be taken with a view to the revocation of the permission granted or deemed to be granted as aforesaid, he may postpone the issue of a certificate pending the taking of such proceedings, and if the permission is revoked he shall not be required to issue the certificate. (2)Where a certificate is issued under this section, then—

(a)in calculating for the purpose of Part VI of this Act the development value of any interest in the land to which the certificate relates, no account shall be taken of any Value attributable to the prospects of the development specified in the certificate; and
(b)no development charge shall be payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of that development if carried out within such period, if any, as may be prescribed by the certificate."—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This Amendment and the next in the name of the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, are drafting Amendments with the object of simply rearranging the clause. I beg to move.

886

§ Amendment moved— Page 91, line 1, after ("section") insert ("(a)").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY moved in subsection (3), after "means," to insert "a building lease or an agreement for such a lease or." The noble Lord said: As subsection (3) now stands, it is doubtful whether a building contract would include a building lease or agreement for such a lease, but the fact that such a lease or agreement has been entered into is, of itself, real evidence of ripeness, because such a lease or agreement usually provides that the development must be carried out within a specified time, otherwise the lease would lapse. A person would not enter into such an agreement unless there was an immediate possibility of development. With those words I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 91, line 2, at end insert ("a building lease or an agreement for such a lease or").—(Lord Amherst of Hackney.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
I am afraid I cannot accept this Amendment. It falls within the mischief which my noble and learned friend has described to your Lordships. It is intended, of course, to widen the definition of ripe land. As my noble and learned friend has explained, the object of this clause is to get at a perfectly definite fact, such as a building contract, an application, a by-law submission or something of that kind The Amendment falls very much short of that. It might easily be that a man might be a building lessee for a very substantial period of time —there are numerous cases of that sort—and if he has not come to the point of either letting a building contract or making his application under the by-law scheme, or as the case may be, then really, according to the position which the Government have taken up on this matter, the land cannot be regarded as ripe. The noble Lord's Amendment falls within the mischief which we have already described.

§ LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY
I am sorry that the Government will not accept this Amendment, but I shall not press it. I beg leave to withdraw it.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

887

§ LORD CHORLEY
This Amendment is the second of the drafting Amendments to which I referred a moment ago. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 91, line 8, leave out line 8.—(Lord Charley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This Amendment is also a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 91, line 18, after ("application") insert ("in relation to any development").(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ 10.25 p.m.

§ THE EARL OF MUNSTER moved, in subsection (4) (b), to leave out "means an application including such plans as aforesaid and." The noble Earl said: This Amendment does not widen the definition of "ripe land"; or if it does I should be grateful if the noble Lord would explain to me where. This Amendment and the next are designed to improve an Amendment which was moved by the Minister of Town and Country Planning to this clause in another place, by which he introduced the making of a building application as evidence of ripeness. But the definition which is contained in paragraph (b) of Subsection 4 removes all the advantage which it was thought was given when the right honourable gentleman introduced his Amendment.

§ As it stands now, it provides that an application must include plans which would have had to be submitted under she by-laws or Buildings Act. This is a somewhat technical point, but I am advised that in the past hardly anyone ever submitted such a plan without applying for building permission. These Amendments, therefore, are designed to bring the Minister's Amendment into line with what has always been the case in the past. The actual facts of the case are, as the noble Lord will see in my second Amendment, that I lay down that such plans will have to be furnished if they are required under the Acts mentioned in subsection (4) (b). That is all my Amendments seek to do—to restore what was intended, as I understand it, by the Minister. I sincerely hope that if the noble Lord cannot accept my Amendment he 888 will look into it between now and the next stage of the Bill. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 91, line 18, leave out from ("application") to ("made") in line 20.—(The Earl of Munster.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
I regret that I cannot accept the assumption as to what was in the mind of my right honourable friend in another place. The Amendment which the noble Earl has moved quite clearly extends the definition of conception of ripe land within the terms of the clause as drafted in the Bill. It is quite common to find a man who is proposing to develop an estate presenting to the planning authority, so to speak, a block or layout plan which simply deals with the siting of roads, sewers, and matters of that kind. This type of application must obviously be passed at an early stage, before any of the practical side of the matter is undertaken; and it may well be a purely speculative process intended simply to provide a basis for all sorts of things that might happen over months or years, before the actual concrete step of making an application—whether a building application, a submission, or letting contract for the building of houses and other works on the estate—takes place. Obviously the difference between the two takes the noble Earl's Amendment quite outside the conception of ripe land within the meaning of this clause. In these circumstances, I am afraid I cannot accept the Amendment.

THE EARL OF RADNOR
This is not a very large Amendment, and I think it is designed to bring the terms of the Bill within the compass of the ordinary practice of the submission of plans. The noble Lord, however, is so obsessed with what he chooses to call "the mischief referred to by the noble and learned Viscount" that he cannot see beyond that point. I think it is quite clear that this is within the ordinary practice and the plan as suggested to be defined by my noble friend the Earl of Munster would, in almost every case if not every case, come well within the category of dead ripe land. I feel rather strongly on this point, because it has been made abundantly clear on more than one occasion that His Majesty's Government look at the possibility of adding to ripe land as though it were stealing from the Treasury money 889 which they ought to have. That is practically what has been the argument all through the discussion on the question of dead ripe land, the argument that it is taking from the Treasury land which they ought to have.
Nothing in any of the Amendments, first of all, will increase the sum of £300,000,000 which the Treasury have to find. All that will happen is that there may possibly be an addition to the amount of land which will not attract a development charge. I have never been brought up to believe that you can steal from anybody, even the Treasury, something which they have never had. It may merely reduce to some extent the income that they will derive from development charges. This Amendment, in my view, will probably not do even that small thing; but surely in the interests of fairness, there should be some extension, even if minor, in the definition of dead ripe land.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
May I venture to suggest that you should just consider this matter, which is largely one, I think, of drafting. The expression in the Bill is "building application means an application including such plans as aforesaid." When you look at what the aforesaid plans are, you find these words in lines 10 and 11— the submission by a person for the time being interested in the land of plans of the buildings proposed to be erected, extended or altered in the course of the development. So far as I know—and I think my noble friend the Earl of Radnor is much of the same opinion—when you merely make a building application, you do not necessarily make plans of the buildings proposed to be erected, which are details required for the purposes of by-laws. The Amendment does not in the least say that there need be no plans at all, because if you look at the end of the Amendment you see that my noble friend the Earl of Munster says, in regard to the application— which has been supported by such plans or particulars as were required to be furnished under the said Acts or the said bye-laws, or other enactments as the case may be. Accordingly, all he is seeking to say is that the requirement that buildings are proposed to be erected need not necessarily accompany the building application. I 890 do not suppose the provisions as to building applications are all the same in all the districts concerned; but I do strongly believe that a great many of the building applications, though they may require plans of the lay-out, do not require plans of the building. All I would suggest is that the Government should reconsider that, and see if they are not here giving to building applications a meaning which they really ought not to bear.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
May I add just one word? It seems to me that if a man has put in an application, supported by such plans as the local by-laws or the local authority call for, he has indicated quite as clearly as anyone can that he intends to build. That is what this building application means—that he intends to build. The fact that he has not the whole plans of his building prepared and that that is not the normal procedure in that particular place may be a good reason why at that stage he does not submit those plans. I suggest that the noble Lord might look at this again. It is meant only to try to bring a building application into line with the facts of what happens in ordinary day to day life, and not, if I may say so, what is thought in Whitehall to happen. I ask the noble Lord if he will be so good as to look at this before the next stage, and to see if we cannot bring this more into line with the facts of ordinary life.

VISCOUNT RIDLEY
I would like to add just a word on the question of plans. As the Committee are doubtless well aware by-law applications, as a rule, concern sanitary matters and things of that sort, and the plans in such matters are usually drawn up with a certain amount of detail. They have to show the proposed sanitary arrangements, drains and so on. On the other hand, in. practice, plans which are submitted for planning development are plans showing the outside and the general appearance of the building, (which, in fact, is what is required for planning purposes). Often they are of a much more sketchy nature even than that, merely showing the site plan with, let us say, a proposed block upon it. I can assure, the Committee that in certain parts of the country that has been the usual practice for some time. Indeed, often the plans have not shown enough to satisfy thug proper demand of the planning authority for sufficient material on which 891 to form a judgment as to whether or not a building looks right in the place in which it is proposed to be put. I mention that just to show that there is a great difference between these two kinds of plans. I think that it is certainly enough to justify an alteration in the wording here.

THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR
Anyone who has served on the Committee of the London County Council, dealing with applications under the Building Act, as I did for a number of years, realizes that applications which come before that Committee are real applications, live applications. If they were not they would not come before the Committee, because the Committee would not pass them. That does mean that an application under the London Building Act has to be a real application and has to show that the land is ripe. People who come before the Committee submit their applications in a form indicating that they do mean to have them passed if possible.

§ LORD CHORLEY
The noble Lord has asked me to look at this again in the light of the discussion. I shall be very glad to do so, but I cannot hold out any hope to him. I must say that as the result of the discussion which has taken place, the view I have endeavoured to put before your Lordships has been reinforced. The form of words in the noble Earl's Amendment does not in fact cover evidence of actual intention to start building. If it did I should be much more likely to be able to accept Lord Llewellin's suggestion. These are the sketchy type of plans to which the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, has referred. They are sketchy plans which give just the site and the roads and that sort of thing. It is not until a later stage that more detailed matters are dealt with, and that is really what we are concerned with. I shall be very glad to look at the matter again as the noble Lord has suggested, and if I am convinced that the noble Earl's Amendment does in fact deal with the case, then no doubt we shall be able to put something down.

§ The EARL OF MUNSTER
I am obliged to the noble Lord for his remarks in concluding 892 the discussion. It is true, as I said at the beginning, that this deals with a somewhat different point and I do not know a great deal about it. I feel sure, however, that the noble Lord and myself have learned much more from the debate, and I hope that between now and the next stage we may have some discussion together to see whether the remarks which I made in point of fact represent a general practice. Perhaps the noble Lord will take it to the Minister to see if he can put in an Amendment somewhat on the lines of mine. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 78, as amended, agreed to.

§ House resumed.