TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

HL Deb 16 November 1949 vol 165 cc713-66

3.4 p.m.

LORD LLEWELLIN rose to call attention to the administration of the Town and Country Planning Act; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I do not suppose that any of your Lordships will take exception to the House spending an afternoon seeing how the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act are working out in practice. I am reminded that the Financial Times of March 31 last described this measure in the following terms: It is al Act which has descended on a bewildered public and left it gasping at the financial losses it imposes on ordinary private owners and industrial concerns alike, and gasping also at the delays and vexations it sets in the path of all who, four years after the end of the war, still wish to start building. I would sum up the difficulties of the Act as having too cumbersome a machinery, as causing injustice in its compensation provisions, as taking away any inducement to owners to develop, and as setting up this completely centralised monopoly, charging 100 per cent. on all development values, which is completely unfettered in its decisions and whose decisions are subject to no appeal.

I will take first the question of the cumbersome working of the administration of the Act. Many instances could be cited, but I wish to take only one; it is, however, in a sphere which is vital to our very existence—namely, that of proper industrial progress and development. As your Lordships who are familiar with' the Act will remember, under subsection (4) of Section 14, planning permission for the erection of an industrial building having an aggregate floor space extending to 5,000 square feet cannot be obtained without a certificate From the Board of Trade. This provision was designed to secure a proper distribution of industry. I would instance the experience of an industrial undertaking who in February of this year wished to erect a new factory of some 40,000 square feet floor space, with permission to increase that later to 80,000 square feet. A site haft been found in the north of London five miles from Marble Arch, outside the London County Council area and somewhere in Middlesex. Before starting the prospective development, this industrial firm had to ensure that planning permission would be granted and that the purchase price of the site was reasonable, bearing in mind their liability to development charge.

Of course, the purchase price would be affected by the area of the land upon which the buildings would be erected, by the use that would be permitted and the amount of the development charge. The first two amounts could not be ascertained until planning Permission had been granted, and the amount of development charge must remain unknown until the preliminary plans and estimates had been prepared.

The firm applied to the Board of Trade on February 17 for an industrial development certificate. They did not receive that certificate until June 21. That was a delay in the Board of Trade itself of some four months. Having obtained the certificate, the firm went to see the borough town planning officer, but he could not say definitely whether or not any industrial building would be allowed, and he could give no indication at all of the building lines that would be permitted. Next day the firm's representatives went to the county council engineer, who could give no more information, because, as he said, the building lines were decided by the Ministry of Transport, who had not yet determined them. However, the firm sent in their official application, and in August an acknowledgment was received from the borough council stating that if no decision had been communicated to the firm by October 23 the application could be considered as refused.

That period from February to August (nearly seven months) having gone, even then the firm could not have worked out their quantities or their building plans, which cannot be prepared until permission is given to start the work. Further, they would not have had the development value ascertained, so that obviously it could not have been paid; and the building licence still remained to be procured. These people waited, but by October 23 they had still heard nothing from the borough planning officer. They had waited all this time and, to use a short, simple expression, they became "fed up" and decided not to go on with the scheme. Since the building of the factory had been approved by the Board of Trade, it must have been considered necessary. Surely, that is not the way to encourage proper industrial development at a time when we ought to he doing everything we can to push ahead with it. I earnestly hope that steps will be taken to convince those responsible that these are pressing matters and ought not to be left lying about in the "pending" file. If that is not done, this Act will have a worse name than it deserves.

The next point with which I want to deal is the injustice of the compensation provisions. We discussed this matter when the Bill was before the House, and I do not desire to take up much time on it to-day. No global sum ought to have been fixed. The Act should have provided that all properly admitted claims would be paid in full; anything short of that becomes confiscation. And that is one of the reasons why this Act is so unpopular in the country. The Labour Party can say that they have put aside £300,000,000. But if that means paying only a shilling in the pound, or something of that nature, to a number of the claimants, that is no very great compensation, as a number of creditors in bankruptcy proceedings have found from time to time.

LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE

When the noble Lord suggests that only one shilling in the pound will be paid, has he any data on which to make that suggestion?

LORD LLEWELLIN

I was coining to that. I would merely ask to-day how much is the amount of the total claims so far submitted. I know that by July 935,000 claims had been made; that was apparent from Circular 21 of the Central Land Board. I would like to know from the Minister how many claims have been made since. I would also ask whether the attitude of the Central Land Board in trying to discourage sales of land inclusive of a future claim on the £300,000,000 is not in reality prompted by the fact that they thus hope to get rid of a number of what will obviously be hardship claims. I hope the noble Lord appreciates the point I am making. If a man has bought a small plot of land and paid more than the present user value for it, taking into account that thereafter he will have a claim on the £300,000,000, the Central Land Board may think he will not be so easy a person to brush off on the ground of "no hardship" as a bigger land owner would be. I believe that if the admitted claims came to, say, £600,000,000 as against the £300,000,000 allotted to meet them, any Government other than a Socialist Government would say that henceforth any owner who had not been paid in full would get 50 per cent. of the development value, and the Central Land Board would get only the other 50 per cent. That would be dealing fairly with the owners of land, and at the same time would be giving them some inducement to develop their land.

This brings me to my next point, which is the lack of inducement to owners to dispose of their land at all. There is no incentive whatever to sell a piece of undeveloped land. You can get only its present user value for it, and you can probably make more by continuing land in its present use than by selling it for the user value. That has been quite obvious since the Government decided—certainly contrary to my expectations—to take the full 100 per cent. value of the development charge. Since that was done, any incentive or inducement to the owner to sell a plot of land has gone completely by the board. It has also discouraged many would-be developers from continuing with projects they had in mind. To take a small example, your Lordships may have seen in the Sunday newspapers the Sunday before last that in a small tow n a man wanted to start a sub-station for a post office in the front room of his house, to give extra postal facilities to neighbours who would otherwise have to walk to the other post office some distance away. It is true that he was not charged very much, but he was told that he had to pay £20 development charge. Nothing was going to be done to the house. It would remain the same except that the front room, instead of being unused except on Sundays, would be used for the sale to people from the village of postage stamps, postal orders and things of that sort. The man was very annoyed at this idea of paying £20 and abandoned the project, and now the people will have Ito walk the further distance for their postal facilities.

I heard of three cases from Southampton, all of which concerned small building plots. One plot was bought in 1938 for £150, a figure which really included the development value. On that there is now a development charge of £290. On another plot, bought in 1941 for £160, there is a development charge of £210, and on the third, bought for £225 in May, 198—which was before the appropriate date of the Act—the development charge is £375. Therefore, before any of the people who bought these plots to build their houses can even start building, the first has to pay £440 for his building site, the second £375, and the third £500. It may he said that these are people who will receive a refund from the £300,000,000. But that is a dim and distant prospect, and these people of small means have to raise these sums now, before they can get permission to build the houses for which they bought the sites with that laudable ambition in mind.

Then there is the case of Mr. V. M. Crook, a chemist and sub-postmaster at Parkgate, Liverpool. For his customers' convenience, he was anxious to move next door to rather bigger premises. The Central Land Board asked for £100 for the change of user of that premises into a post office. Mr. Crook took the matter up with the General Post Office, who told the Central Land Board that, in the interests of the public service, it was considered imperative that the post office should be transferred to more suitable accommodation, and they asked that the £100 charge should be waived. The Central Land Board said that there were no provisions whereby it could be waived, and, so far as I know, the post office is continuing in the same small accommodation next door. The imposition of this extra charge on people who want to build their own houses may suggest that some persons do not like a man to build and own his house.

A similar state of affairs exists also in regard to local authority schemes. A local authority which I know quite well in Beaminster, Dorset, are building houses at Great Nosterton, and the cost of the land for those houses was £110. That, they thought, was the total cost. Not a bit of it! The Central Land Board came along and asked in addition a development charge of £50. At Solway Ash, in the same rural district area, a piece of land sufficient for eight houses and which was bought for £125, now is subject to a development charge of £75 which is levied against the rural district council. This is for houses which one Department of the Government, the Ministry of Health, are subsidising in order to keep the rents down, while this other Department of the Government, the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, are exacting these charges through the Central Land Board, in order, I suppose to put the rents up. It is a mad sort of world in which we are living when that kind of thing takes place. Of course, there must in both Departments be accounting officers and people handling all the tiles. That is probably the reason for such a large number of additional civil servants at the present time—sonie taking off charges and, at the same time, others putting them on. If we are to be frank about this Act, we must admit that the whole thing has become much more an instrument of taxation than an instrument of planning.

A number of complications are arising. If a man dies who has put in a claim on the £300,000,000, his estate cannot be wound up because the Inland Revenue—the death duty authorities—say to the executors, "There may be something coming to this man out of the £300,000,000. You cannot wind up the estate until we see what it is and aggregate it with the rest to ascertain whether or not a higher duty will have to be paid." Therefore, because this £300,000,000 is not payable for several years, there is an enforced holding-up of the executors of any man who has submitted a claim against this fund, and the estates cannot be wound up until His Majesty's Government are graciously pleased to assess the claim and pay the people out of this £300,000,000.

There is another matter to which I should like to draw the attention of the House and which I think is extremely bad for the reputation of that very reputable body of people, the district valuers. They have been held in great repute in the past, and I think they are doing their best to work this Act. What happens—and somebody must have told them to do it—is that they begin in almost every case by assessing an unduly high value, so that they may have sonic elbow room for bargaining with the man before the development charge is finally settled. I know of three cases in the Reading area. Originally, the development charge asked was £2,300, which was reduced after very little bargaining to £1,600. On another £300 was asked, and they settled that for nil. On yet another £875 was asked, and they settled that for £300. As noble Lords know, that kind of thing is going on all over the country, and I believe it is had for the reputation of this highly respected body of men that they should put on a figure which they do not expect to get and reduce it when they are pressed.

In that connection, let us realise that the man who can afford to employ the right kind of solicitor or estate agent to do the bargaining for him—a solicitor or estate agent who understands, or, at any rate, partially understands this Act, which I should think is about the most that can be said of anybody—benefits. By employing such a person who partially understands this Act to plead his case, the man who can afford it may well have some success in getting these high figures reduced; whereas the man who cannot afford it or does not know to whom to go probably has to pay that high figure.

It is appalling to find how dictatorial and how lacking in the ordinary courtesies people in official positions are inclined to become. I had a letter to-day from a gentleman whom I have never met, but who seems to have a genuine cause for complaint. The gentleman is Dr. Oxley of 135, East India Dock Road, Poplar. With your Lordships' permission I will read his letter. He says: As your Lordship is calling attention to the Town and Country Planning Acts, you will be interested to hear of individual cases. The first I heard of the 'acquisition' of my house made under those Acts was the notice I received on Friday last from the Chief Land Registrar, saying that the L.C.C. had made a declaration on the 26th August vesting the property in themselves. This is the first I have heard of the purported acquisition. I now know that as long ago as May the L.C.C. had put a scheme before the Minister. They have, however, served me with no notice whatsoever and I am advised that, notwithstanding the provision in paragraph 3 (3) of the Sixth Schedule of the 1944 Act, the fact that I have had no notice can probably not be challenged if, if as is not unlikely, they have given a certificate as mentioned in paragraph 3 (4) and that the falsity of the certificate makes no difference. I should perhaps add that I am a general medical practitioner, who has been practising in Poplar for fifty years and at this address (the 'acquired' property) for the last seventeen years. It is fortunate for me that I am retiring at the end of this year, but, apparently there is no guarantee that my house will not be pulled down about my ears before then. Surely, my Lords, the Minister when preparing this scheme, or the London County Council, can let a man know before the whole thing is settled in this manner. I think this is a rather highhanded way for these people to act.

I spoke earlier in my speech about the numbers of schemes so far submitted, and I want now briefly to raise one point in this connection. The date for putting in mineral claims has been postponed where the minerals are being worked or are already subject to a lease. But the time has not been extended for minerals which are not yet being worked and are not on lease. It is just as difficult to fill in a claim properly for minerals that are not subject to a lease as for minerals subject to a lease. I would ask the Minis- ter whether the time cannot be extended for claims for minerals which are not under lease. Another matter which is working out unfairly is that minerals on the surrounding estate are now combined in one unit, which, in many cases, means that under the de minimis rule of Section 63 of the Act they may be put outside the area in which the people can claim. I do not think that that was ever intended. The de minims rule dealt with small amounts, but some of these may run into fairly substantial sums.

There is a further matter to which I wish to refer. Your Lordships will remember that when the Bill was before this House we inserted an Amendment providing that there should be no undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to one applicant over another. I believe, however, that discrimination is beginning to creep in. Let me give one instance. Corner premises used as a chemist's shop were wanted by a bank for use as one of their branches. No structural alterations were required, even though the premises were to be put to a different use. The district valuer agreed that the rental value was identical, whether the premises were used for a bank or for ordinary retail purposes. But he claimed a development charge of £6,000, representing two years' purchase of the agreed rental value, on the grounds that a bank had a higher value than a chemist had—in other words, I suppose, that more reliance could be placed on a bank, because there was less likelihood of its defaulting, than on an ordinary retail trader. That, I suggest, is discrimination, and I am sure that the Amendment we passed was not intended to achieve that sort of result. It is true that the district valuer subsequently came down to £1,000, and that the owners paid it. All the arguing and delay was costly to them, and they thought they might as well pay the £1,000 and get their rent. Nevertheless, I think it was wrong; and it is the kind of principle which we do not wish to creep into the administration of this Act.

Another class of case also arose out of an Amendment originally moved in your Lordships' House. Your Lordships will remember that we inserted a provision that there should be a 10 per cent. Tolerance—that is to say, if a man increased the size of his house by only 10 per cent. he could do so without paying any development charge. We had considerable discussion on this point in your Lordships' House, but finally the Amendment was accepted by the Government and by another place, and is now part of this Act. But what is happening now? Let me give your Lordships an example. I heard recently of a man who put up a new building. A development charge of £x, if the building was erected, was agreed with the district valuer. But the district valuer said that with this permission to erect, the man automatically obtained the right at some future time to have this 10 per cent. tolerance, and that therefore he was going to charge £x plus 10 per cent. That illustration is absolutely true; these facts are authenticated. Therefore, the principle of a 10 per cent. tolerance works far more harshly than if your Lordships had never moved this Amendment providing for it. A man proposes to erect a new building, and he has to pay an extra 10 per cent. because of the prospect that some years hence he may extend the building. This is a matter that I would earnestly ask the noble Lord to look into, because I think that when we were passing that Amendment there was no intention in the minds of anyone in your Lordships' House that it should work in that way.

It only goes to show, I think, that someone has given instructions that the utmost farthing is to be exacted out of the provisions of this Act. The tax-gatherers for the Romans in Palestine at the time of Our Lord could have learnt lessons from the Central Land Board and their myrmidons. Indeed, there is only one distinction between them—that in those earlier days, whatever may be said about those tax-gatherers, there was at any rate an "appeal unto Cæsar." That we do not now have, under the present administration of this measure; the Board can go on demanding, from small men and great men, such sums as they wish. If you want to develop land in this country, there is no one else to whom to go. In the old days, if you could not strike a reasonable bargain with one landlord there were many more to whom you could go and from whom you could buy your land much more cheaply. But now there is this omnibus body, with its umbrella covering the whole land of the country. The Government have said that they are against monopolies. Indeed, during the present Parliament we passed an Act to enable inquiries to be made into private monopolies, should they be necessary. The Government should do a little inquiring into the working of their own monopolies; and this is as bad a one as ever there was.

I do not know whether any of your Lordships has read in the Journal of the Town Planning Institute the views of six experts on town planning in regard to the first year's working of this Act. It was referred to in a leading article in The Times of November 7 last. The article said: The general impression given by the review is that the development rights scheme runs the risk of breaking down completely, and the constructive parts of the Acts, which enable local authorities to determine the future and character of their communities, have a chance of succeeding only if planning can be simplified, conducted with imagination, and promoted in such a way as to carry public opinion with it… Public opinion is rightly rising against this Act and its administration, it is rising against it because, by taking the full 100 per cent. of development charge, the Board are holding up all voluntary sales of land. Opinion is rising against the Act because it causes far too much delay in the necessary industrial development; because it is imposing increased charges on our industrial undertakings at a time when we must produce cheaply or go under; and because it places unfair and unnecessary burdens on men and women who wanted to build their own houses and had already bought land for the purpose but who now, although they bought it at building site values before the Act was thought of, have to pay a large development charge on top of the purchase price. That being the case to-day I ask the Government whether they are just going to sit back and view this matter with complacency, or whether they are going to do something about it. I beg to move for Papers.

3.45 p.m.

THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR)

My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I intervene at this stage. Let me make it plain, however, that it is not for the purpose of dealing fully and finally with the many points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, that I rise now. I know that it will please your Lordships when I say that those points will be attended to at the end of the debate by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, you will forgive me for a moment. Your Lordships are laughing. This is not at all funny. It is absolutely impossible to deal with specific instances if one had not heard about them before. If I had known about these specific questions beforehand, I would have found out the facts and details about them and tried to deal with them. As it is, I cannot possibly do such a thing.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount anticipated my next sentence. It will not be expected of him or me, or of anyone on behalf of the Government, that such specific cases of which we have no knowledge will be dealt with to-day. I have been to seek the knowledge since the debate opened, and there is no knowledge of the specific cases referred to. But I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, that they will be looked into and attended to. He will not expect the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack or myself to deal with these specific cases to-day.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I was merely instancing the position.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

I know; quite right. When I first saw this Motion on the Order Paper on July 27, naming November 17 as the date, I wondered why. A number of reasons passed through my mind, but the reason that stayed in my mind was that it was due to the fair-mindedness of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, which those of us who worked with him in another place years ago appreciated then and appreciate now. No doubt, he was anxious that the Ministry—and maybe the Minister in particular—should know before the Parliamentary Recess that things were not as they should be regarding the working of the Town and Country Planning Act. There are certain Members in another place whom I would have suspected of bringing this matter forward on the eve of the Parliamentary Recess in order that the Ministry or the Minister should be disturbed by these comments. But that is the last thing I should consider about the noble Lord.

Like the noble Lord, I have been reading The Times. In The Times of October 14 there was a reference to the Conservative Party Conference, at which a resolution was discussed and carried. Perhaps your Lordships have forgotten it, though many of your Lordships were no doubt present when it was discussed in private. However, let me refresh your Lordships' memories. The resolution, which was carried on October 13, was: That this Conference urges the Party to include in its election programme a specific pledge to repeal the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, and when elected "— I thought that was a tremendous assumption— to introduce an entirely new Bill which, while preserving the good features of the present Act, will be understandable and workable and not injurious to national recovery; and that, in the meanwhile, this Conference urges the Party to inform the electorate of the dangers of the existing Act. It is not for me to compare the Motion on the Order Paper in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, and this resolution, but I am sure the noble Lord will agree with me when I say that in many ways I think his Motion is much wiser. I felt from his peroration that his course had been influenced a little by this resolution, but until then he did not allow this resolution to influence his calm, fair-minded attitude to the question he has raised.

It is my difficult task to try to review, in a general way, the different points raised. I may not deal with the subject in the same itemised way that Lord Llewellin did, but I noticed he feared—I thought he rather emphasised this fear to-day—that discrimination might have been shown here and there in the assessment of a development charge. As I have said already, it has not been possible for me to make inquiries into the specific cases referred to, but I would point out that a shop, let us say, is in Class I and an office in Class II of the Uses Classes Order, 1948, and planning permission is required for a change from a shop to an office. When valuing this permission for the purpose of a development charge, the valuer has to determine whether the value of the premises for office purposes is greater than that for shop purposes. In some cases, it will be greater and a charge will arise; in other cases, it will be less and no charge will arise.

LORD LLEWELLIN

May I interrupt the noble Lord? The point of my case was that the district valuer had agreed that the rental value was the same for a bank as for a shop, but the extra charge was put on only because the credit of the person running the one was thought to be greater than the credit of the person running the other.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

Yes. I was rather surprised and rather disturbed when I heard the noble Lord make that statement. I have no knowledge of that specific case, but it wilt be looked into. But it is notorious that at the present time, in many cases, premises used for office purposes are retching exceedingly high prices. In cases where the value as an office is greater than the value as a shop, the development charge is the same-whether the office is used by a bank (to take the noble Lord's point) or an insurance company, or anyone else, and no discrimination whatever is made against banks in such circumstances. That, I think, deals with the point, although the noble Lord did mention that the credit of the bank may be higher than that of the chemist.

Here I turn to the other points he raised. He was good enough to give me notice of some of the cases he has mentioned to-day. That is the reason I can give more or less an official reply to many of them, but not to all. As regards the case quoted by the noble Lord where planning permission was granted to erect a new building and The district valuer, when valuing the permission, had in mind the fact that no development charge will be payable in respect of further planning permission authorising the extension of the building by 10 per cent., it is not easy for me at so short notice (roughly 24 hours), to deal with the specific case. It may be possible to deal with it in this debate, although I am afraid it will not be so. However, I know that the noble and learned Viscount will be glad to deal with it if possible. The noble Lord referred to his possessing some knowledge of this Act. I would certainly credit him with having some knowledge of the Act, and that knowledge will help him to realise that the Act does require the Board to have regard to the value of the land with the benefit of planning permission to erect the building. The right to extend the building by 10 per cent. free of development charge if further planning permission is subsequently obtained is a benefit that flows from the permission to erect the building and therefore should be taken into account in the valuation when assessing the value of the land with the right to erect a building. Whether, in any particular case, the right has any value is a matter of valuation as the noble Lord will agree.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I am rather surprised. That shows that there was nothing wrong with my case, and that represents what they are doing. But I would ask the noble Lord to see whether the Minister himself thinks it is right, because I do not. I would like him to get the Minister to look into that point and see whether this procedure is right, and, if he does not think so, to give the necessary direction so that a man has to pay a development charge only for that for which he has planning permission.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

I think that is a perfectly reasonable request, to ask the Minister to look into this point and state his views, and to act on those views. There was a further complaint in regard to the effect of the Act on the upkeep of large estates. Again, before the Act a land owner could lease part of his land for development and use the money so gained to improve the agricultural use of the remainder. This complaint, as Lord Llewellin is fully aware, is inherent in the Act. It is quite clear in the Act. I thought, however, that we were dealing to-day with the administration of the Act. However, what he may possibly have overlooked is that the large land owner has a claim against the £300,000,000 in respect of the parts of his land which have development value, and when the payments are made he will receive a lump sum which he can, if he so wishes, devote to improving the agricultural use of the remainder of his land in the same way as he did before the Act was passed. A lump sum payment of this kind will often be more useful to him than the annual sums which he could otherwise have collected by way of higher rent. Moreover, in those cases where the land owner has made improvements in parts of his land which increase the development value without increasing the existing use value, the claim on the £300,000,000 will be increased pro tanto. I can assure your Lordships that this is the type of case which will receive further consideration when the scheme of distribution of the £300,000,000 is being drawn up by the Treasury.

Now with regard to the figures, I have asked for them and I have been given them. The numbers have increased a little since June or July. The figure for the number of claims up to date against the £300,000,000 is now 937,034. As to the amount of money involved in these claims, there is no information available at the moment. A point was raised by the noble Lord (he did not raise it in the same specific way to-day, but perhaps I had better refer to it in brief because it may be mentioned by other noble Lords later) regarding excessive charges. Your Lordships will not expect me to go into details.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

May I interrupt the noble Lord about this number of claims and the amount involved? I appreciate that it is difficult to find out the amount involved, because I understand that a number of claims are being made in blank. But surely, claims have been made which are not in blank. The number of such claims that have been put in and the total amount which is involved in those claims, must be known. Would it not be possible to have that sum?

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

That is a different question but quite a relevant one, and I will have inquiries made about it. There are a number of claims where the amount of money involved will be known. Is the question, whether we know the number of such claims and the amount of money involved in them?

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Yes. Obviously, the full figures cannot be given, but it would be interesting to the country to know what these are.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

The quesion will be looked into and a reply, I expect, forthcoming; but it may not be in this debate. With regard to the question of excessive charges, looking at the experience of the sixteen months since the Act came into operation, I should like to refer to two facts. The first is that in over 50 per cent. of the applications for assessment of development charge it has been found that no charge at all is payable. Secondly, where development charge is payable the amount has been agreed by the developer in over 95 per cent. of the cases. This makes it clear that the system as a whole is working smoothly. Whenever a developer objects to the assessment as such, the case is referred to the headquarters of the Board, where it is carefully reviewed in order to ensure that the charge has been properly assessed in accordance with the regulations approved by your Lordships' House.

Now with regard to the first complaint in the noble Lord's speech, and possibly the complaint which he emphasised most—and I agree with him in emphasising it—namely, that the procedure is rather slow and too cumbersome, your Lordships will know that the initial application for planning permission is, as a matter of convenience, left to the district council. The planning authorities, however, are the county borough councils and county councils. In the early months following the coming into operation of the Act a certain number of complaints reached the Department from developers who thought that planning authorities were requiring too many copies of plans. Authorities are being encouraged where-ever possible to dispense with detailed submission of plans, and it is known that many applications are disposed of in three weeks or a month. This, I feel sure your Lordships will agree, is not unsatisfactory, especially when we remember that other interested local authorities have to be consulted and also the Ministry of Transport, if road proposals or road safety are affected, or the Ministry of Agriculture, if agricultural land is in question and so on. Here may I add that two months is a maximum period within which the planning authority must consult those other bodies or persons whom the proposed development may affect. Two months may seem a long time, but so long as planning remains a local government function it is unavoidable, since time must be given for the elected representatives to consider the matter. If the development affects a trunk road, the maximum period is three months instead of two, to allow for consultation with the Ministry of Transport.

The other point which was raised was rather a technical one. Lord Llewellin put the matter very clearly, and I will try to reply as clearly as I can. With reference to his point about industrial premises, no doubt he has in mind the fact that the developer has to obtain a certificate from the Board of Trade, as well as a planning permission. Given the distribution of industry policy, this is unavoidable. The noble Lord himself indicated that the question of distribution as between different parts of the country is essentially a national one, which must be considered by the central Government; yet the exact siting of industrial premises is a local question which must, subject to overriding national requirements, be left to the local authority.

With regard to the point made by the noble Lord concerning claims in respect of minerals I am afraid that I may not be able to satisfy him. May I put the position as seen by the Minister with reference to claims in respect of minerals owned by or leased to a mineral undertaker on the appointed day? The formulation of such claims was complicated by a number of factors including, first, the effects of the three years moratorium; second, the existence of profit royalties and minimum rents under existing leases; and, third, the dividing line between the winning and working of minerals and the processing of minerals. The time limit for making claims for such live minerals was therefore extended from June 30, 1949, to December 31, 1949. The extension has become all the more necessary because a second set of regulations affecting the making of such claims had to be made, and these did not receive Parliamentary approval unlit last month.

As to the noble Lord's specific question concerning what are known as "dormant" minerals, I would say this. These difficulties in formulating claims did not exist in the case of dormant minerals (the noble Lord gave a better interpretation of that word—namely, minerals in which no mineral undertaker had an interest, or the right to acquire an interest) on the appointed day, and so there was no sufficient reason to treat them differently from other claims. An extension of time for claims in respect of dormant minerals would almost inevitably have meant a general extension of time for all claims. For that reason the Minister did not feel that he could go any further than he has gone.

I think I have covered fairly well the whole of the points which have been raised by the noble Lord. Any points which I have left untouched will, as have already indicated, be dealt with at a later stage in the debate. No one would suggest or expect that an Act of this kind would work smoothly in the initial stages. We should all expect that difficulties would be experienced. I should be the last man in the world to suggest that the Act has worked satisfactorily in every instance; from personal experience I know that it has not. At the same time, I do not think that the Minister or the Ministry, or anyone who has responsibility for this Act need be reminded that this is not a time for complacency. But I have seen no indication of complacency at all. I may have noted that certain decisions have been taken which have not always been acceptable to certain people. The conclusion to which I have come is that, while no one could deny that there may be minor imperfections in the administration of planning control, they are not of a serious character and are mostly curable by minor amendments in subordinate legislation which is already under consideration. I have tried to deal as briefly as possible with all matters raised and, as I have suggested, the necessary action to make the Act work as smoothly as possible is receiving constant and daily attention. The late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, made frequent use of a phrase which perhaps is not inappropriate in this debate, nor to the working of this Town and Country Planning Act. That sentence was: If it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.

4.6 p.m.

LORD MESTON

My Lords, I am pleased to support this Motion in whatever way possible, and at the risk of being out of order may I express the hope that the present Government, or at all events the next Government, will seriously consider the desirability of modifying development charges or even abolishing them altogether. The national income is £10,600,000,000, and of that sum 40 per cent. is taken away in central and local taxation. On top of that enormous burden, comes development charge, which is a form of tax, whichever way one looks at the matter. Instead of facilitating and encouraging dealing in land it has the opposite effect. I am not a constitutional lawyer but I should have thought that the opening words of Section 69 of the Act were constitutionally objectionable. They provide, in effect, that there shall be paid to the Central Land Board a development charge of such amount (if any) as the Board may determine. I speak subject to correction in your Lordships' House which abounds with juristic giants of every calibre, but I feel that it is remarkable to pass an Act imposing a tax that is indefinite in amount, liable to fluctuation and generally incapable of ascertainment with precision. However that may be, development charges are being levied, and I understand that one of the objects of those charges is to offset the sum of £300,000,000 that we all hope to touch in 1953 or 2053 or 2153 as the case may be.

That leads me to ask for information from the Government as to the manner in which claims for depreciation of land values are being dealt with by the Central Land Board. The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has already referred to what he calls the de mitdmis section, Section 60 (3) of the Act. It is a section which has given me considerable anxiety. Section 60 (3) provides in substance that no payment for depreciation of land value shall be made in respect of an interest in land in respect of which a claim is made unless:

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

So much for the Act of Parliament which we all passed and understood!

I will now read from a pamphlet which is well known as S.1 A, and which was published by the Central Land Board in June, 1948. Paragraph 10 of that pamphlet postulates this: What unit of land should be taken for the claim? Then the answer is given as follows: Any unit selected at the claimant's discretion. For instance, he may claim in respect of the whole or part of his land or, if land includes buildings, in respect of a building, a group of buildings, or a part of a building. If he claims in respect of several units, separate claims must be made in respect of each. The Board have power, however, to aggregate separate claims by the same person for the purpose of their decision and will do so in cases where aggregation is in their view proper to arrive at a fair result under the Act. That power to aggregate claims is not to be found in the Act of Parliament, and it may have the effect of defeating the claims altogether. How does it work out in practice? Take the case of a person who has a house and ten acres of land, of which the restricted value is £7,000. One tenth of £7,000 is £700. If the owner of that land is unable to prove a loss of development value of more than £700, he can make no claim against the £300,000,000. On the other hand, it may be that he decides that the building and six acres are not likely at any time to be developed, and that the other four acres have potential building value of considerable importance. He puts in a claim in respect of these four acres and proves to the satisfaction of the authorities that the loss of development value is £500. What is the attitude of the Central Land Board? If the Central Land Board aggregate these four acres with the rest of the land, the Board are justified in saying that he has proved a loss of less than £700 and is therefore not entitled to make a claim against the £300,000,000. But if the Central Land Board are prepared to regard the four acres as a separate unit, and not to aggregate them with the rest of the land, then the owner has justified the payment of a claim out of the £300,000,000. I feel that in 1953 or thereabouts a great number of people will have their claims rejected because of this method of aggregation, which is stated, by a paragraph in a pamphlet published after the Act was passed, to be within the power of the Central Land Board.

The last question I wish to ask is one which the Government cannot answer, but I wish them to consider it seriously. I am Scottish myself, and I have a great aversion to spending any money if I can help it—I know that the noble Lord who has spoken for the Government takes exactly the same view. That being so, let me ask him what is the cost of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning and Central Land Board to-day, and how it compares with the cost of the Ministry in 1938? Let me go a step further and ask him what is the cost to the local authorities of their duties and functions under this Act and how that cost compares with the similar cost to the local authorities in 1938. I feel that the enormous amount of money which is being spent to-day on expensive offices and staff for this Ministry would be far better employed in building houses—but that is another story. As many of your Lordships wish to ask questions about the administration of this Act, I will end by saying merely that I agree with everything that has beer said by the noble Lord who proposed the Motion.

4.15 p.m.

THE EARL OF HALIFAX

My Lords, I have no right, and I certainly do not intend, to keep your Lordships long in what I have to say, because I frankly admit that I am no expert on this Act. There is a great deal in it that, through incapacity of one sort or another, I am not at all prepared say I fully understand; but I think that if the full truth were told there are not a few people concerned in the administration of the Act of which the same might be said. I was greatly impressed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, in opening the debate. I do not suppose for a moment that he expected, or that it would have been at all reasonable if he had expected, the noble Lord who replied for the Government, or the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack, to produce at a moment's notice answers to the particular cases he instanced. I suppose that the purpose he had in view (as indeed would be the object of anyone else who produced specific cases) was to show the broad tendency and lines on which the Act was working, with the object of drawing the attention of those concerned to the flaws and weaknesses in the Act in order that the objectionable features may be removed.

Probably most of us who have not followed this subject closely in detail have not had any great difficulty in understanding and appreciating what was the broad purpose behind the promoting and passage of the Bill. I have always supposed that the broad principle its supporters had in view was to ensure that no individual should reap a benefit of increased value that he had done nothing to create. Those of us in the political world have known for some time that, though it has always been a matter of sharp argument, that broad case has generally been made. I would have supposed that the principle so laid down, although one difficult of enforcement and involving inevitably a certain amount of hardship in individual cases, had on the whole established its victory in the political field, irrespective of Party. Although I appreciate the difficulty of its application in hard cases, I personally would not quarrel with that principle.

If this Act had contented itself with that, half the present complications that are embarrassing the country would have been avoided. With all respect to the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, who, as he always does, made a speech that charms your Lordships and wins your sympathy, I cannot help thinking that he is very optimistic when he talks about the operation of the Act being embarrassed merely by minor complications that we can improve as we go along. What most people throught was to be the main object of the Bill could have been secured without great difficulty if it had been confined to the appropriation of development rights on undeveloped land, including agricultural land, and such control as was required and would have been adequate over the further development or the important change of user of developed land could have been secured under existing planning and housing Acts. The attempt to apply the kind of detailed control with which the Act deals and of which the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin spoke, to every change in the use of developed land, is bound to act as a profound discouragement to all development. It will inevitably involve injustice to individuals and, from the point of view of the State, will involve it in a great welter of administration which is very burdensome and which, to my mind, is also dangerous at the present time.

What happens? Change is one of the prime laws of life. In any community that is alive—especially in these days of economic readjustment—changes of greater or less importance in the user of land that is already developed must continue all the time. All those changes have to be subject to administrative decision. This appears to me to be the inevitable consequence. Owing to the volume of that work, decisions have to be taken at a comparatively low level of the administrative hierarchy. Therefore, rigid instructions have to be issued and acted upon in order to avoid any appearance or suspicion of improper preference. The result is that in a matter which in itself is of infinite variety and, therefore, requires some elasticity, you tend to get a wooden treatment that ignores the great variety of adjustments that ought to be made.

I would like to quote a personal case. I do not quote it because I think it is a gross case, but it just does not seem to me to add up. Nor do I in quoting it make any reflection on local administrators, who I am sure do their best. Like many other noble Lords, I have had occasion recently to abandon a fairly large house in which my family have been accustomed to live, and I desired to instal myself in a smaller dwelling that I proposed to construct out of a derelict coach house in the stable-yard. While I was unable to get the permit for that work, I lived in the village in a very pleasant workman's cottage that happened to fall vacant. In due course I obtained my permit, and I proposed to convert my derelict coach house into a flat for myself. On that, the valuing authority's representative came to those who advised me and said: "Here is a change of user from a coach house to a dwelling house. The site value will be greater. What about the development charge?" Those who advised me politely said: "Stop talking nonsense." The valuer then said: "What about £150 or £200?" After a friendly exchange of argument, the matter was settled for £20. I do not quarrel with that at all—£20 one way or the other is not the end of the world—but I am concerned with the principle. There was I, living in a cottage which as soon as I had my coach house converted became available for a good British working-class family, in an area where mines, agriculture and industry are crying out for labour and where the Minister of Health is presumably crying out for houses. He ought to push me with both hands to convert my coach house, instead of trying to fine me £150 to £200 to do it. It just does not make sense, and I cannot begin to understand it.

It is clear that the authorities do not know what they ought to charge. Again they cannot be blamed, because nobody else knows. One of the forms that have to be filled in says: If you wish to make an offer of the development charge you are prepared to pay, state the amount you offer. I came across a' case the other day of a proposal to change a house into a shop for the sale of fish and chips. Let me hastily add that this has no connection whatever with the constituency which Mr. Shinwell represents. The district valuer assessed the development value at about £750. That was objected to, and it was reduced to something over £300. That is exactly like the cases quoted by my noble friend. It is pure guesswork: you bandage your eyes, take a pencil and point at a figure. Who is to know what is the principle under which all this is done? It is clear that the administration have no firm canons of judgment, but are feeling their way and trying to probe the tolerance of individuals to see how much they can get away with. All this time the owners, purchasers, would-be developers and everybody else concerned are snowed under with forms that have to be dealt with. Incidentally, I know the Government are trying to reduce this paper work. I have seen some evidence of that, although, so far as I know, it has not proved itself. I would like in passing to tell the Government of one incident that came to my notice when I was in Washington. The then Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral King, was greatly disturbed at the amount of paper work that went on in the United States Navy. He told me that he had issued order after order to reduce its bulk, but these had no effect. His final act, which was effective, was to call in to stores 50 per cent. of the typewriters in the Navy. I commend that to His Majesty's Government.

What is more serious, as my noble friend said, is that there is no appeal whatever from the decision of the district valuers. They are overworked and, as I have tried to show, they have very insecure principles on which to work. In view of the great pressure on the Department, many decisions have to be taken lower down, with less experience, and they are likely to involve hardship and injustice. I feel that the Government could cut free from half these difficulties and reduce the spate of regulations which flood the world if they would add one more, which could he quite short and which I would like to see issued. By that regulation, the operation of the sections which apply to developed or partly developed land would be postponed until further notice. Meanwhile, the Government would take advice from those who know what the difficulties are and how the thing is in fact working, in order to produce some plan which would be simpler and less hampering. I do not think for a moment that the Government will do that, although it is true that to-day we live in a world of surprising accommodation in many large political matters, and, therefore, perhaps it is not quite hopeless to suggest it. I do say, without fear of being proved in error, that it is only by some such action that we shall avoid a growing paralysis in this side of our national life—a paralysis which, at this moment of all others, we cannot afford.

4.32 p.m.

THE LORD BISHOP OF TRURO

My Lords, it is plain that there are many deficiencies in the working of the new planning system, especially in connection with the compensation and betterment sections of the Act. Noble Lords who have already spoken have this afternoon effectively put their hands on some of these deficiencies, and they certainly call for inquiry and examination. When the Government make this inquiry and examination, I would ask that certain other points might be looked at as well. I speak from the point of view of those who are particularly concerned with the preservation of the beauty and of what are commonly called the amenities of our countryside, and my remarks are based on my own observations in the part of the country with which I am most familiar—namely, the county of Cornwall. However, I feel sure that what I want to say has a general application.

In Cornwall, where, if I may say so, we have a particularly wise and experienced group of planning officers, the actual work of surveying and planning is being carried out with smoothness and efficiency. Co-operation with the local authorities and the public is being well maintained, and in three years from July I. 1948, the area will have been surveyed, examined and covered with development plans, which will be of great assistance in preserving the natural beauty and amenities of the county. There are, however, two matters to which I should like briefly to call attention. Compared with points dealt with by noble Lords who have spoken hitherto, they are minor matters, but I think they deserve fresh consideration by the Government. The first concerns the preservation of woods and groups of trees. At the moment the position is extraordinary, and cannot be regarded as at all satisfactory. By Circular 66 it is left with the area officer of the Board of Trade to determine where outstanding amenity interests call for consultation between his Department and the Ministry of Town and Country Planning. But the primary aim of the area officer of the Board of Trade is, and must be, to secure as much timber as possible for trade. Therefore it is neither fair nor reasonable to make him the judge of whether the beauty or the amenity value of certain trees is so great that he must raise the question of their preservation. The whole matter requires reconsideration.

I understand that in the New Year the Forestry Commission will assume the responsibility of issuing tree-felling licences. When that happens, should not the Forestry Commission in all cases consult the county planning department? In Cornwall, at all events, such consultation would not involve a long delay. These cases could be given high priority by the county planning officer, and could be back in the hands of the Commission within two or three days. In Cornwall the matter is extremely important, because we have far too few trees, and during recent months and years we have been losing those few far too fast. No doubt similar considerations apply elsewhere.

The other point to which I want to refer is connected with camps and caravans. Last June, in your Lordships' House during the Committee stage of the Town and Country Planning Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, moved an Amendment with regard to the use of land as a site for movable dwellings. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, pointed out at that time, that particular Amendment was far too wide, and Lord Addington did not press it. But I do not remember any other Amendment being suggested to take its place, and I would ask the Government to consider whether the Act sufficiently covers the matter. The use of sites for caravans and camps should, to some extent and in a suitable manner, be brought under planning control. In future years, camping and the regulation of camping sites will become more and more important. Casual camping, in succession after succession, through the summer months might go far to spoil stretches of some of the finest coast land in England. Moreover, at present not only are there too many loopholes allowing evasion, but there is a considerable overlapping of the functions of the planning authority and of the local authorities. I hope that when the Government make the searching inquiry, which is so much to be desired, into the effects of this Act, they will include in that inquiry the two matters which I have mentioned. No doubt there are a number of other points as well.

In many ways it is very regrettable that we have to live under an increasing load of small regulations, but I am afraid that it is inevitable. Living in this island becomes more and more like living in a ship, and unless there is discipline in details we cannot avoid stepping on one another's toes. I would conclude with a more general appeal to the Government. In this matter of planning, let Government Departments themselves take special care to set a good example. When they acquire an area and develop it by erecting buildings and so on, let them make a point of consulting and co-operating with the planning authorities, just as a private citizen is required to do. A good example attracts willing imitation, and it is important not merely to issue regulations but to persuade and win public opinion.

4.38 p.m.

VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER

My Lords, I fear that I regard this Act as typical of the mass of ill-considered and ill-digested legislation which the Government have seen fit to pass. It comprises —I speak in approximate terms—200 pages. In addition, there have been thirty-three regulations, covering a further 200 pages. There have also been thirty-nine letters to local authorities. We have to remember that rather more than fifty clauses of this Act and six of its Schedules were never even partially discussed in Committee or on the Report stage in another place; they were never even looked at. Is it surprising that cer- tain difficulties in the administration of a piece of legislation such as this have been brought to your Lordships' notice to-night?

As your Lordships are aware, I have some interest in this matter, but I think it right to say that it is a very slight one. I have no personal knowledge of the working of this Act. I am not one of the anxious and expectant queue waiting for a mythical share of the £300,000,000a share which, moreover, if a Government of the same persuasion as the one now in power, and if the treatment which the unhappy gas stockholders have received, is any criterion, will be but a modest and materially diminished proportion of their claim. Having listened to the powerful and comprehensive speech of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, I feel sure that your Lordships will not wish me to do more than touch briefly on some of the reasons why I feel that this Act cannot work.

I would like to say at the outset that with the purpose of this Act I have no quarrel; but I do quarrel with the manner in which His Majesty's Government are seeking to achieve this purpose. They are, in fact, lost in a legislative maze from which there can be no escape, a maze in which myself should be involved if I attempted to take your Lordships through the many sections and Schedules of this Act. If one remembers the multitude of problems that arise, it is difficult to know where to begin. There is one point upon which the noble Marquess the Leader of the noble Lords among whom I sit, touched, and that is the question of the ascertainment of development value and the amount of the claims for the loss of value which have already been lodged. As the noble Marquess knows, a large proportion of these claims are yet in blank. I should like to put this to your Lordships in all seriousness: that it is all but impossible, in the case of built-up areas, to assess these claims. It must be appreciated that each building needs special consideration, and there are many factors to be taken into account: planning, zoning, restrictive covenants, rights to light, and so forth, which make an actual assessment almost an impossibility.

Take a block used as flats. How does one know whether at a later date it may not be possible to use that block for offices or business premises? And if it is possible that it may at a later date be so used, how are we to compute the loss of development value in such a case? Or, supposing that his imaginary block of property is already in an area zoned for development as business or office premises, how are we to know when consent for such development will actually be given, or how many years there will be to wait? If we have no certainty as to time, how is it possible to assess development value? I appreciate that noble Lords opposite may not have much sympathy with a problem of this kind. But it is the district valuer whose time is occupied with these things; and all these elaborate, exacting calculations, speculative to a degree, are bound to impose a yet heavier burden upon people whose hands are, as your Lordships are aware, already over-full.

The purpose of this Act, as I understand it, is to secure that land shall be freely bought and sold at existing use value. But I do not believe that that purpose has been achieved, or that it ever can be achieved under this Act. I cannot conceive that any one of your Lordships who owns a plot of land with a low existing use value and a high development value could be so unwise as to sell it at the lower of hose two figures. If he did he would receive a comparatively trifling sum in money and he left with an utterly uncertain claim on a fund, payable at a comparatively remote date, a claim, moreover, which it will be extremely difficult to agree; and, even if it is agreed, the owner has no guarantee that he will receive the whole, or indeed any precise part, of the sum that might be assessed. It is not likely that in those conditions land be transferred at existing use value. It is true that, under the Act, local authorities are in a privileged position. They can buy at existing use value of course, and they are relieved of the burden of compensation for refusal to develop. Even this has not operated quite in the way in which one might have hoped: there are cases—I could give examples if your Lordships desired it—in which local authorities have made compulsory purchase orders and served notices to treat over the greater part of a small, or even a large, town, and then negotiations for development have been entered into and have proved abortive, with the result that development over a large area is frozen.

I should like to turn for a moment to the question of development charge. As your Lordships are aware, this was fixed, in effect, at 100 per cent. From a charge of that nature many unfortunate consequences must flow. It is plain that a charge which absorbs all the added value which may accrue is bound to deter any potential developer; and I would remind your Lordships that as development is controlled, since it is subject to planning permission, it is not wild, rash, unsatisfactory development which is prevented: it is orderly, planned, controlled development which is checked, development of the very kind which one would suppose that His Majesty's Government would be anxious to encourage. It follow s, also, that a penal development charge increases the cost of development—in other words, the cost of building rises. All that can happen then is that the cost of that building must be passed on; and in the last resort it is of course borne by the community. There is another way in which the community suffers under this Act. It was brought to my notice recently that a small firm, a private company, manufacturing woollen goods for export, who were working to capacity, wanted to build an extension to their factory. Immediately they attempted to build they found themselves exposed to the crushing blow of a penal development charge: and this development charge, added to the existing burden of taxation which the shareholders in such a company must bear, made the proposal to enlarge the factory utterly unattractive and unremunerative. It was decided that expansion was inadvisable—a most unfortunate decision considering the export business that might have resulted. In this particular case loss to the export trade is being caused under the Act; in other words, the very trade which His Majesty's Government have declared it their business to foster and encourage is being restricted.

Even if a developer is not deterred by the penal charge, there is much else which may well daunt him. There are many actors in this play; the sanitary officer, the medical officer, the planning officer, the surveyor. And there are consents, permits and licences to be obtained. In such circumstances, he is a bold and courageous person who embarks on development, though I believe that in another place the Minister said that in special cases he would allow some modifications of this charge. I cannot feel that this possibility of negotiation in any way diminishes uncertainty or, indeed, tends to increase respect for the authority of the district valuers. I have tried to relieve your Lordships of the burden of listening to a number of examples.

The case which I shall put before the House is a short one. A district valuer produced figures to substantiate a charge of £9,700. At a second interview the amount was reduced to £4,700. Further figures reduced the charge to £185. The district valuer then said he would accept £150 and, finally, agreed that no charge whatever was necessary in the matter. If we have these difficulties and uncertainties that I have mentioned, it is not surprising that the Act is not successful in its operation.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Will the noble Viscount allow me to have the details? If I can obtain some information, I can check up on these cases.

VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER

Certainly. If the noble and learned Viscount will allow me to digress for one minute, I usually make it a practice, when I know I shall have the privilege of hearing his answer, of giving him a note of what I intend to say. In this case, probably through my own fault, I was unable to ascertain that the noble and learned Viscount was to reply. Therefore, I was unable to observe the rule which I usually adopt. As I was saying, however, with a position such as that, it is not surprising that the Act is unsuccessful in its operation. I believe that one of our younger authors has said that: To taste the sweets of life to the full one should live in a state of uncertainty, anxiety and suspense. In such a case, the potential developer owes a great debt to Mr. Silkin!

I would say to the noble and learned Viscount that in regard to this Act I stand before your Lordships not as an executioner but as a surgeon. The noble and learned Viscount seems to think that my operation will be almost lethal in its nature. At any rate, I hope it will be painless. The noble Earl, to whom your Lordships listened with such interest, suggested that we should appoint an in- dependent committee to inquire into the workings of the Act, and that pending the findings of the committee we should delete those Parts of it which refer to developed and undeveloped land. This could be done, of course, by passing a simple Act in another place. I believe that if this were done we should at least restore in part that orderly development which is essential to our economic life.

4.54 p.m.

LORD CLYDESMUIR

My Lords, your Lordships will agree that this has been a most interesting and valuable debate. Our desire is to examine whether this Act is fulfilling the intention which Parliament had when it passed it into law. If the intention of the Act is to plan our towns and our country properly, to avoid the mistakes of the past, to restrict speculation and to obviate such things as congestion and ribbon development, we can have nothing but praise for it and I believe that was the main intention of Parliament when the Bill was passed. Your Lordships will recollect that this House gave an unopposed Second Reading to the Bill, but on that occasion my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition, in agreeing to give an unopposed passage to the Bill, pointed out the dangers that he saw in the development charge. In the course of his speech, the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said this about the development charge: It looks unexceptionable. The development charge gives the impression of being a charge in aid of development but, in fact, it is a charge in restraint of development. It is a tax, pure and simple. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to be congratulated on an astute stroke of business, but it has nettling whatever to do with planning and it will not assist development, but it will rather tend to hinder it. In the light of a little over one year's experience we come to look at the working of the Act, and I feel that every word which was said on that occasion by the noble Marquess is proving to be true. The Part of this Act which deals with development charge is working out as pure taxation; it is not assisting development but rather is tending to slow it up.

I do not propose to range over the whole scone of the Act as it affects private owners, but I shall say a few words particularly about industry. My experience of the effect of the Act on industry relates mainly to one part of the country—the West of Scotland—but I think the same is true of all parts of the country. First, I should like to pay tribute to the officials who are attempting to work the Act. The experience of those I have consulted has been that these officials are attempting to give a liberal interpretation to the Act, and that they have done their best to meet the difficulties with which they have been faced and to ease the strain which has been put on industry and on individuals by this charge. Most of them will admit that they have been given an extremely difficult task, in some cases an almost impossible task. Sometimes, when the element of haggling comes in, it is a distasteful task.

I have lately spent a few years in India, and one of my less pleasant duties as Governor there was to suspend local authorities at times For "hanky-panky" in the collection of their taxes. This nearly always arose because the collection of taxes was based on no exact lines but on how much mild be got from an individual or how much you could settle with him for. Now the collection of this charge is no exact science. The Central Land Board have issued for guidance a booklet called Practice Notes, and it is on these notes that the officials up and down the country are endeavouring to work. But they have been left such a wide latitude that they have the task, which is an extremely difficult and distasteful task, of bargaining and haggling in an almost oriental manner quite alien to normal practice in this country. I regard this feature of administration as so important that it would be wise for us to pay close attention to it. Having said that, I reiterate that I believe these officials have been doing their best to give a courteous hearing and reception to all those who have had to contact them.

I do not wish to weary your Lordships with many examples but I will just touch on one or two cases where it seems to me that the charge acts particularly unfortunately. I know of a steel rolling mill in Scotland which had been operating for some years in a building where it was thought that the roof was too low for the comfort of the workers. A scheme was prepared before the Act was passed, for raising the roof over this steel mill. The floor space was not to be enlarged, the mill itself was not to be altered, and the earning capacity of the mill was not to be increased, but the roof was to be raised. That attracted a considerable charge because it was a big building and the enlargement was over the 10 per cent. tolerance. I do not complain that the charge was wrongly imposed in this case, but I instance the unfortunate working of the Act. The owners were informed that the charge could be avoided only if the scheme was modified and the roof raised by a much smaller amount or left as it was. Surely there is something wrong in that attitude towards beneficient development which brought no more earnings. In another case of which I know, a store was destroyed by fire, and the owner, in proposing to rebuild, thought he would improve on his store by enlarging it, but again tax was attracted. He was told that if he rebuilt the store exactly the same size as the old one, he would avoid the development charge. I believe he did so, but who was really the loser? Surely the country which prevented the reasonable progress which this industrialist intended.

Let me touch on another example—the case of a brickworks. As your Lordships know, there is a process for making bricks out of what are known in Scotland as "bings" and elsewhere in the country as "spoil heaps." They are heaps of waste material which in the past it has been thought to be beneficial to remove, even at some expense, and I have known of unemployment relief works being started at considerable cost to remove them in order to improve the amenity. The process of using this material and making it into bricks is being increasingly used now. Now in addition to anything that is charged by the owner, these brickmaking firms are being subjected to a new State charge for the use of this material. I have known it to be as much as 7½d. per ton. It takes two or three tons of this waste to make a ton of bricks, so it increases the charge of bricks at a time when it is desirable to keep down house-building costs by every possible means. Is that fulfilling the original intention of the Act? It seems Ito me to be very much against the wishes of His Majesty's Government when they passed the Act.

In the past, planning was not carried out by the State. Sometimes planning was badly done by private individuals, but sometimes it was wisely done with foresight, by industrialists who acquired land adjacent to their works for the specific purpose of enlarging their works and developing their business. I know of land which has been owned for over one hundred years for the definite purpose of the extension of works. Now if since the war a scheme had been started, those buildings which were completed or were started before the 'appointed day in July, 1948, escaped the charge, but all buildings which had not been started will bear the development charge, although they are an integral part of the original scheme the plans of which had been approved as a whole. Again, I do not complain that anything improper has been done by the officials concerned, but one effect of the working of the Act has been to produce this anomaly. I suggest that the Government should consider the setting up of a tribunal to hear claims, and I would hope that if such a tribunal were set up it would be proper for an industrialist to represent that a scheme which was developing on a plan which had already been approved before this Act commenced Ito operate should wholly escape charge in respect of that part of the scheme which had been started after the 'appointed day. That, of course, is only one point that could be considered by such a tribunal; there would be many others.

It has been suggested that perhaps the amount of the charge is not so much to worry about after all. I do not know about that. The charge can be very considerable. As I am speaking of industrial practice, I would remind your Lordships, that steel works buildings, for example, are immense buildings. Some of them have roofs a thousand feet long, and they cover acres of ground. Therefore, industrialists who build on a large scale—and some of them are doing it at the present time—will be called upon to pay a considerable new tax. It should be possible to ease this charge considerably if industrial development is to be encouraged. It is not only the amount of the charge, it is the diversion of effort, the amount of time that is spent in the drawing offices, the technical offices, and the clerical offices of companies, working on the preparation of claims for compensation, on the one side, and on questions relating to the development charge on the other. It is a pity that we should have to divert effort at this time to such an extent when united effort is wanted in industry.

I have made my points briefly. I would add only that I very much hope that the Department which is charged with looking after trade and industry, the Board of Trade, and its Minister, will earnestly look into the working of the Act. We are urged at this time to get every ounce of production that is possible. We shall go to that with a will and with unity, and I hope will get the greatest possible measure of production. At the same time, I am strongly of the opinion that the working of this Act is militating against the development of schemes which would give us greater production, and I hope that the Board of Trade will he vigilant and active in the defence of industry in this matter. My Lords, other members of your Lordships' House have stressed other aspects of the working of the Act. I have spoken particularly of its effect on industry: I hope that great care will be taken of this, and that the noble and learned Viscount in his reply will be able to say something which will give us hope that this particular aspect will be carefully looked into.

5.6 p.m.

LORD HYLTON

My Lords, I do not propose to quote any more examples of development charges which seem to have disturbed many of your Lordships in their incidence. From the cases stated this afternoon, it is perfectly clear, first, that in this process of determining what the development charge shall he there is in the view of many of your Lordships too much elasticity. That, I think, flows from the principles enunciated by the Central Land Board in their Practice Notes. I would draw your Lordships' attention to those Practice Notes, because they are the instructions issued directly to the district valuers by the Central Land Board. It is clearly stated that the Central Land Board view their own functions as those of a seller; they have something to sell and they propose—no doubt with the sanction of the Treasury—to sell at the highest price.

The result of this, of course, is that the district valuers—and I admire them and the work they do—have a tendency always to start their negotiations many hundreds of pounds above the figure that they will finally accept. That may be all right in dealing with developers who are able to employ highly trained surveyors, and to take legal advice and so on, but it operates hardly and harshly against people of small means who have not the knowledge of how to tackle a district valuer when he comes and says he wants £500 development charge. Many of your Lordships know how to deal with this question, but the average citizen does not, and that is where the shoe pinches. The noble Viscount on the Woolsack 'told us on a former occasion that this was part of the Niggling of the market. It is perfectly proper, so long as it is a fair higgling between two equally balanced parties, but it operates extremely harshly when one of the parties is ignorant of how to defend himself.

The greater part of the debate this afternoon has turned on this question of development charge, which is a new feature in any legislation. It was referred to by my noble friend Lord Clydesmuir, as a feature which should be looked into extremely carefully, because the Practice Notes which are issued for the guidance of valuers are not subject to any criticisms or Resolutions in either House of Parliament. They are issued by this willing seller as part of his everyday practice. But there is nobody who can say whether the principles laid down are the right principles, or whether the procedure laid down is such that Parliament should agree with it. That is a material point, and I hope that it will be raised later in a rather different form by my noble friend Lord Gage.

Many of your Lordships will remember the debates that used to take place years ago on the question whether the betterment of land values was a matter that could be dealt with equitably, and whether it should be a charge on sellers of land in cases in which land had been improved by public expenditure. That, as your Lordships know, was the basis of the Uthwatt Report. But to that fairly simple formula, which itself proved difficult to administer, there has been added a completely new conception, a conception of development charge on any change of user. That, I think, is what is disturbing the minds of the public and the minds of the many speakers who have spoken in this debate this afternoon. If we take the case of the corner shop which became a bank, the question naturally arises: What justification has the State for making this charge? No further public money has been spent. At one time, I gather the shop in question was a chemist's shop—at any rate, medical comforts were sold there. Subsequently it became a bank. What justification is there for the State, in such circumstances, to say: "We claim £500"—though in that case it was not £500 but £6.000, a figure which was subsequently reduced to £2,000. I am certain that the public cannot see the justification for such an imposition.

I do not wish to detain your Lordships, but when this Act was before your Lordships' House in the form of a Bill, we were told that this 100 per cent. development charge would never be charged. We were told that the actual amount would be less. That has now been changed, much to the detriment of the working of this Act; and, as a consequence, there is now reluctance on the part of owners of land to deal in it. Naturally, if the whole of any advantage in selling land is to be withdrawn from the seller, he asks himself: "Why sell?" Certainly that is clear to everyone in the House this afternoon, and I think it is clear to people in general. Some incentive must be left. In many cases the owner of a field who is drawing an agricultural rent has a much better security in his agricultural rent than he has if he sells the field at existing use value and invests the proceeds in any of the investments which are open to him to-day. That being so, there is bound to be a great reluctance on the part of owners of land to part with it.

I conclude by saying this. There has been little comment on the administration of this Act in other respects. Almost all criticism has been concentrated on the development charge. As one who has to carry out the day-to-day administration of this Act, I am rather surprised that that has been so, because the machinery of the Act is in itself extremely cumbersome. A case was cited by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, illustrating the intolerable delays caused by the crisscrossing of what we call consultation. Before they can issue planning consent or permission to develop, the local planning authority have to consult the Board of Trade, or any other Government Department concerned. Your Lordships no doubt realise that this takes months and months, and often at the end of the time no conclusive answer is received from the Government Department concerned. And what happens in the meantime? Development, good or bad, is held up indefinitely, and a complete feeling of frustration is engendered in the minds of would-be developers. As this country must depend on development for its life-blood, it seems lamentable that there should exist this immense bureaucratic system, leading to what I consider to be intolerable delays in the development effort. I hope that the Government will do their best to simplify, to quicken and to shorten the process which is now employed.

5.16 p.m.

VISCOUNT GAGE

My Lords, I wish to make only two short comments on the administration of the Town and Country Planning Act. Some hard things have been said about development charge this afternoon. I believe that however justly and however competently the Central Land Board carry out their functions, they will always be accused of arbitrary conduct until such time as the particular principles on which they work are sanctioned by Parliament after proper debate. My submission is that the Central Land Board, armed with an almost unintelligible formula and also with a theory that they have something to sell, are, in fact, making law—law which affects the ordinary person to a considerable degree and which has none of the usual Parliamentary safeguards.

I should like to quote one paragraph of the Practice Notes—paragraph 95. This states that: The Board in assessing Consent Value will allow the developer (the person who constructs the road) the proper allowance for his effective (that is producing value in the land) capital investment, including any statutory liability for road or similar charges, together with a reasonable return for profits and risk on his investment. That is a policy statement of the highest importance. The policy embodied in it is very different from the policy that was announced when we were discussing this measure before it received the Royal Assent, and I consider that it is a considerable improvement on it. But, clearly, a great deal will depend on what the Central Land Board consider to be a reasonable profit and a proper allowance. And still more turns on whether this policy will be allowed to stand or not, because there is nothing to prevent its being altered at any time. I believe that Parliamentary debate on general principles, presented in an orderly way, would do a great deal to clarify the issues that have been brought out this afternoon. I suggest that it would be well if the general principles could be separated from the mass of technicalities with which any matter of valuation tends to become involved. Therefore, I would ask the Government to consider once more setting out in a White Paper or some other statutory document the main principles on which the Central Land Board are to work. That statement could be debated and aproved by Parliament, and it should be binding on the Central Land Board until some other document is substituted for it.

The other matter which I wish to raise has not so far been mentioned. It is a common criticism of any Service Department at any time that they are preparing for the last war. However that may be, judging by recent developments the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, and the authorities working under them, might well be accused of planning for the last peace. Before the war, great numbers of private houses were erected, many of them of unsuitable design and in unsuitable places. I agree that the 1947 Act would be an effective instrument for controlling that sort of development, but since the war the problem has been quite different. The size, the price, the materials and the numbers of all private houses put up are strictly regulated by the Ministry of Health and so, though less directly, is the location of these houses, because of the insistence that new council houses shall be built before private houses.

Despite all these restrictions, people continue to be incurable optimists and still think that some day they will be able to build and live in a house in a place of their choice. The result is that they are continually applying for consents, despite the fact that owing to the operation of the quota system they will not be able to build for two or three years. That was true up to a week ago. These people believe that we are living in emergency conditions. Certainly the emergency has not passed; it has become worse than ever. In the latest circular issued by the Ministry of Health, all new private house building will be virtually brought to a conclusion. I wonder whether the Government can give any guidance to the planning authorities in this matter. Are we to go on considering applications which cannot be implemented now, or within two or three years—and perhaps not for five or ten years? Are the Central Land Board being instructed to give a determination in these cases?

Sometime I wonder whether this restriction on private enterprise building is dictated solely by emergency considerations, especially when I read that the Minister of Health has publicly stated that in future we must look forward to a time when the privately-occupied small dwelling will Abe the exception rather than the rule. I sometimes wonder whether 75 per cent of the work which the planning authorities are doing is not a gigantice waste of time. It may be that the Government are so confident about a Conservative victory at the next Election, that they do not see any necessity to introduce any modifications in planning practices. I hope the Government will not be deterred by that consideration. I hope that we shall be able to come to some agreement between Parties about the modifications which ought to be introduced into this planning procedure. In spite of what my Party has decided, I think that it would be a great mistake, so far as the continuity of policy is concerned, if the basic principles on which the 1947 Act was built up have to be abandoned and we have to start all over again.

5.26 p.m.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, I think it would be generally agreed, as my noble friend Lord Clydesmuir said just now, that we have had a valuable debate. It must have been a formidable debate for the Government, and made, the more formidable by the moderate way in which speakers on this side have stated their case. I had not intended to intervene, and I rise to make only one point. It is in answer to something said by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor. At the end of his speech, almost in his last words, the noble Lord gave the impres- sion—I hope I am not misinterpreting him—that we may be worried about the appalling cases that have been quoted today, but they are merely teething troubles. The noble Lord said that the first operation of an Act could not be expected to work very smoothly, but with practice the machinery would get into swing and all would be well. Our contention is that that is not the position at all. We feel that this Act is being operated for the wrong purpose altogether. It is not the Act in itself that is necessarily wrong, but the way in which it is being operated both by the Ministry and by the Central Land Board.

As your Lordships know, the original purpose, and the only original purpose, of this Act was to facilitate the town and country planning of this country. That was the name of the Act and the purpose of the Act. That was why we did not oppose the Second Reading, and indeed, why we gave it a sympathetic reception. After listening to the debate this afternoon, can 'anyone now conclude that that is the primary purpose of this Act? It has become a new method of collecting money for the Exchequer. There is practically no secret about it. It has become an additional indirect tax upon the owners and developers of land.

If the purpose of levying a development charge had been to assist planning, surely, first of all, the Central Land Board ought to be under the Ministry of Town and Country Planning and not under the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as I understand they are; and secondly, the charge ought to be varied according to the desirability or otherwise of the development. In a place where development was thought contrary to the public interest, a high development charge might be levied; in a place where development was thought desirable, by either the Ministry or the local planning authority, the charge would be low in order to facilitate it. But now development charge has been fixed at an all-over rate of 100 per cent. What object could there be in that, except to bring into the Exchequer as much money as possible? I am not surprised at that. The Chancellor of the Exchequer certainly needs money and he will get all he can if that machinery is put under his control. But that is not the purpose of a Town and Country Planning Act. In such circumstances as these, how can good planning possibly be achieved, apart altogether from the individual injustices to British citizens which may be involved?

When the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor intervened at the beginning of the debate, he said he could not possibly answer with regard to individual cases of which he had no notice. We all understand that he could not be expected to answer to-day, but I think my noble friend Lord Llewellin gave those cases, not to get an answer, but as instances of points which he was making in his speech. The Lord Chancellor, the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, and other noble Lords on the opposite Benches must have been impressed by the volume and the nature of the instances that have been quoted this afternoon. The injustices under this Act, as it has been operated, are many and varied. I quite agree with what has been said, that they are not the fault of officials, who are doing their best to make a success of this measure; but they are the fault of the Minister and the Central Land Board, working under the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As one who lives in the countryside, I would assure noble Lords that there, at any rate, they are causing increasing indignation up and down the country.

The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, as I understood it, thanked my noble friend, Lord Llewellin, for not disturbing the holiday of the Minister of Town and Country Planning by initiating an earlier debate. I personally feel that the present complacency of the Government over this measure ought to be disturbed; I would even be willing to disturb the Minister's holiday for this purpose. The present state of affairs really cannot go on. It is causing cases of injustice such as have not been known in this country for a very long time. I assure the Government that we on this side of the House believe in town and country planning, if it means real planning. That is why we did not oppose the Bill. But I would repeat that at present this is not a planning Act at all, but is merely a method of extracting taxation, irrespective of its effect on real planning.' Until the Government bring the Act back to its original purpose it will be a blot and not an ornament on the Statute Book.

I beg the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor who is to reply, and who I am certain is opposed to these injustices just as much as anybody else, to give us a sympathetic answer this evening, and the promise of a searching inquiry into all the cases that have been raised and similar cases which are known to exist in many parts of the country. I beg him and his colleagues, too, not to close the door to drastic amendment in the administration of this Act if their inquiries show it to be necessary. Let the needs of planning, and not the needs of the Exchequer, be the ultimate criterion in this particular case. That I believe to be a solemn obligation on the Government, not only to us in the Opposition who supported this measure, but to Parliament and the country. I urge on the Government that it is an obligation of which they cannot divest themselves.

5.33 p.m.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, for a considerable time in the days of the Coalition Government and for a considerable time in the days of this Government I devoted myself to the question of planning; and of all questions to which I have ever devoted myself, I found it the most difficult. At the same time, I found it most important, because there was no doubt at all that the existing planning system had largely broken down. If we want to make this country effective (we have precious little room here) we must plan it as well as we can and take every step towards that end. I am always consoled by the thought that, speaking by and large, with the exception of the question of the 80 per cent. and the 100 per cent., the conclusion to which the Coalition Government came was substantially the conclusion to which we came. That should always be remembered.

May I remind your Lordships that this is a debate: To call attention to the administration of the Town and Country Planning Act. Occasional remarks have been made in the course of the debate dealing with administration. For instance, one noble Lord said that the machinery was much too rigid, and another noble Lord that it was much too elastic. No doubt that can fairly be said to be administration. But nine-tenths of the discussion has been concerned with the amendment of the Act, and, whatever else that may be, it is not administration. I say this quite frankly to your Lordships. In introducing a new Act, covering a vast field and new topics, I should not be in the least surprised if difficulties and emergencies were thrown up which might require an amendment of the Act itself. Nor, if I thought that was the case, should I hesitate to come to your Lordships to bring about that result. I should not feel in the least apologetic I would say that experience had shown that the Act was not working well here, there or somewhere else. But that is not administration.

Neither should I feel in the least surprised or apologetic if I found that the administration was defective in various respects. I will certainly do what I can to see that all these matters, whether they are mere matters of administration, with which alone this debate was supposed to be concerned, or whether of amendment of the Act, with which this debate was, in fact, concerned, are brought to the notice of the Minister and inquired into. For my own information and my own interest I shall ask to have sent to me the explanation of some of these extraordinary cases which have been cited. I call them extraordinary, because the case which the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, cited is to my mind absolutely baffling. Although I am certain he told us what he believed to be the fact, and took steps to verify it, I cannot understand it.

LORD LLEWELLIN

Which case?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The case of the bank and the chemist's shop. If the rental value of the bank and the chemist's shop is the same, then, on the face of it, there should be no development charge. I would very much like to look into that case to see whether there is or is not some other explanation, because it so often happens, in my experience of life, that when one gets the other side of the picture explained one gets a wholly different point of view put forward. I do not commit myself at the moment.

I would like to say this, because it bears on a good many of the observations that have been made. I believe there are certain principles which are essential to any planning Act—and here I am dealing with the point which the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition put to me. If I may say so, he missed the consideration of this point. I do not believe you can have a Planning Act that is going to work unless you try to achieve this result. First of all, you must treat the man who is refused permission to develop, the man who is given permission to develop, and the man who has his property compulsorily acquired, on the same basis. The refusal or the granting of permission to develop should be based on public grounds. You should not, by refusing permission to develop, penalise a man; and equally, by granting him permission to develop, you should not allow him to reap large rewards. I am sure that everybody on both sides of the House who has considered this question of planning—I feel that I can speak with some little authority on this point—has come to that conclusion. If you are going to do that, then you must have some such system as we have here.

What is that system? It is a system in which we base ourselves upon existing use, and we consider what is the value of the property as it is to-day, without permission to alter, to extend or to build, as compared with what it would be if that permission were granted. We must have some differentiation between the two cases. It may be it is wise, for reasons which appealed to us in the days of the Coalition Government, to take only 80 per cent.; or it may be it is right, as we thought when considering this Bill, to take 100 per cent., lest the other 20 per cent. which a man is allowed to keep creeps back into the value of what, in the jargon of planning, we used to call "the float," and increases the value of the land.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

The noble and learned Viscount says that the Government take 100 per cent., as was provided in this Bill. But we did not provide that in the Bill when it was before Parliament. That was a regulation made subsequently, and Parliament never knew that it was going to be 100 per cent. when the matter was before them. I agree that some portion of the value must be taken, but in the interests of good planning it seems to me that the important thing is that development should be facilitated. Therefore, the charge ought to be elastic, so as to allow that development to take place. I think 100 per cent. must be wrong.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I do not agree with the noble Marquess. I see his argument on that, and my recollection is that during the course of the debates in this House I was asked to pledge myself that we should not go beyond 80 per cent. My recollection is that I declined to do so. I do not think that the fixation of 100 per cent. came as a great surprise to anybody. The principle upon which we must base this is the existing use value. If a man has a right to change that use, he must pay a development charge for that privilege.

The noble Earl, Lord Halifax, explained to me that he had to go, and he will be able to read what I say about this matter to-morrow morning. Let us take the noble Earl's case. He was going to convert a coach-house into a small residential house. The house, when completed, would he much more valuable than the coach-house. Had he been minded to sell it, lie would obviously have been able to get much more money for it than he would have done for the coach-house.

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

Why not?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Why should he not?—I agree. But it is right that if you are going to grant him the right to develop, you should exact from him a development charge, unless you are going altogether to differentiate his case from the case of the unfortunate man to whom, on some public ground, you decline the right to develop and whom you send away with nothing. Therefore, to have the system fair, you must exact a development charge from one in order to put the two things on an equation. Then you compensate everybody who has not development rights out of this fund, which may or may not prove enough. That is the setup, and I believe that that scheme is right. It is, of course, only too possible that in the administration of this scheme there have been delays, but whether they are due to undue elasticity or undue rigidity I am not sure. We must do everything we can to improve the administration so far as we can, and I am not so foolish as to imagine that in this short space of time, with a wholly new concept, we can get this thing working perfectly.

I would like to answer the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, who suggested that the Central Land Board had had instructions from somebody to exact the uttermost farthing. I have had some experience of the workings of the Central Land Board, and I have been immensely impressed by the way they are trying to do their work. I do not believe for a moment that they are trying to exact the uttermost farthing. I believe that they are trying to be fair, and I think that by and large they have succeeded. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, say that in 50 per cent. of the applications there had been no development charge, and that in 95 per cent. of the other 50 per cent. the development charge had been agreed. That does not seem to indicate that there is great hardship in this matter. Of course, in some cases it may be that the small man is unduly oppressed. But I am certain that the Minister will he the first person in the world to endeavour to avoid that result or the subjecting of him to pressure.

It has been said that this is holding things up so badly that no one can develop land. I only regret to say that at the present moment there is little substance in that contention, because, owing to the difficulties and the stringency of our financial position, unfortunately NA, e cannot build anything like so much as we should wish. The Central Land Board were most anxious to see how this scheme was working in this respect. They sent out a notice last autumn in which they asked anybody who had permission to build, or who wanted to build and could not obtain permission, and who found it difficult to get the land required, to come to them for help. They would secure that he obtained the land at existing use value, if necessary using their powers to prevent his being squeezed and made to pay twice over. In the twelve months since then there have been 1,100 applications made over the whole of Great Britain. On investigation it transpired that in many of those cases the applicants stood not the slightest chance of getting a building licence for many years to come so they could not build even if they bought the land at once. The Board went into every one of these 1,100 cases and came to the conclusion that only in eleven cases was it desirable for them to act and secure the land at the existing use value. It is rather idle, in the light of those facts, to tell me that people are desperate about the inability to get land, and that there is great need to give the land owner an inducement or anything of the sort. It simply is not working in that way. There is now available—though I do not say in every county in the country—all the land, and more, required for building any building which receives or is likely in the near future to receive a building licence.

Now I come to this question of the higgling of the market. Of course, it is true that this development value has some of the attributes of a tax about it, but it is also true that it has some of the attributes of a sale. The scheme is this. The owner is left with his land, but he is confined b the existing use of his land. He is paid his share of the £300,000,000 for the development rights. That is the scheme, and subject to errors of administration—which there may well he—that scheme works, and should work, well. Lord Clydesmuir's illustration about the rolling mill is a criticism of the Act itself. It is legitimate to raise it in this House, where we are not unduly bound by rules of older, but if he or I had done anything of this sort in another place we should have been properly called to order, because it is a question arising out of the Act itself.

With regard to all these matters which have been discussed, I am not so foolish as to imagine that is this short period we have developed a perfect system. I am not so foolish as to imagine that the Act itself cannot be improved in some respects, and I can assure your Lordships that all the criticisms which have been voiced to-day will be looked into. On the other hand, I greatly deplore some of the criticisms which have been made, and which to my mind strike at the very vitals of the Act. I do not believe for a moment that we can have a Planning Act unless we are 2repared to have a system of development charge, and I do not believe we can have a system of development charge unless that development charge is based on the distinction of the existing use and the value of the land with the right to develop. I believe that to be fundamental in any system of planning.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

That is not the point we were making, if the noble and learned Viscount will allow me to say so. The point is that it is a rigid development charge of 100 per cent. I now have before me the noble and learned Viscount's words on the Second Reading. This is what he said: I submit that it is much better to leave matters with the Central Land Board who can take into account all the facts of a given case, and in particular, at the instance of the planning authorities, can have regard to the need for encouraging development in some areas and not in others, and so on. It is because we are convinced that the inflexibility of the arbitration machine is much more likely to be harmful and discouraging to developers that the Bill avoids it and relies upon flexibility—flexibility not only in amount, but also in the method and time for payment. That is what we relied upon when we gave this Bill a Second Reading.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

It is encouraging to know that the noble Marquess relied so fervently upon any observations of mine. My impression is that this matter was developed at much greater length at a later stage of the Bill, but I cannot pretend to remember all I have said on all the Bills that have come to your Lordships' House in the last four and a half years.

The right reverend Prelate asked me about trees. The difficulty here, as the right reverend Prelate knows, is to balance the material need for timber, on the one hand, and, on the other, the aesthetic value of trees, which causes us to preserve all the trees we can. I will certainly see that the suggestions which the right reverend Prelate made are conveyed to the Forestry Commission, with whom I am closely associated, and I know that wherever they can preserve the trees they will do so. With regard to caravans, that is a matter which, of course, comes under two sets of powers: planning and public health. The public health function regulates sanitation; it is not concerned with the use of the land. However, I have long thought that we ought to consider the whole matter. It came up in acute form in our discussions on the New Forest Bill. The problem is that everybody wanted to get rid of these caravan dwellers, but that nobody knew where to put them.

That is all I can say, except that I wish that if noble Lords have any specific complaints they will let me have them beforehand, so that I may go into them and see what can be done. It may be that there are cases which need looking into. I particularly hope that I shall obtain further information about the case of the bank and the shop, of which Lord Llewellin spoke. I can assure your Lordships that these matters that have been raised will be looked into most carefully. I aim not going to attempt to answer them on the spur of the moment, but I will see that they are all carefully considered. And if we come to the conclusion that some alterations are necessary, whether in administration or legislation, we shall not hesitate to deal with the matter.

5.53 p.m.

LORD LLEWELLIN

My Lords, we have had a worth-while debate, and I thank the noble and learned Viscount for saying that he will have these cases looked into. In regard to the bank case, this went to the Central Land Board; and I should like to quote from a letter subsequently written by a reputable professional man acting in the case: …the district valuer assessed a development charge of £6,000 stating that this represented two years purchase of the agreed rental value for the ground floor and basement, to which only a change of user applied. He admitted that the rental value was identical whether for a bank or ordinary retail user, but argued that a bank's covenant had a higher value 'by two years purchase to that of a retail trader. My late firm argued that this involved discrimination in the value of the personal covenant for the user involved and stated a case—on this principle—to the Central Land Board. I gather that this case received close consideration at highest quarters but without any ruling. The district valuer subsequently intimated that he would be prepared to modify his views and offered to settle at an arbitrary sum of £1,000. In spite of strong recommendations against acceptance, and obviously with much reluctance, my clients agreed to pay the development charge of £1,000, purely on economic grounds that an appeal would involve much delay and therefore considerable loss of revenue. That is the particular case. I am much obliged to the noble and learned Viscount for saying he will look into it.

I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald for saying that he will have this matter of the extra 10 per cent. looked into. It is as if the Inland Revenue authorities, on your sending in a tax return—they knowing, perhaps, that you have an investment which has not yielded a dividend for last year—say to you, "You must pay another surtax on that dividend this year because in future years you may get it again" That is what the Central Board are saying, in effect, with regard to proposals to erect buildings at some future date.

I am certain that no one in this House—not the noble and learned Viscount, not the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, not myself, whose Amendment it was—ever thought that the matter was going to work in that way. I hope that the inquiry that is going to be made into these cases will result in something being done, whether it be a matter of administration or otherwise. I gathered from what the Lord Chancellor said that it was a matter of ad ministration.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Some of it.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I suggest that there is not much difference between us.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

A hundred per cent!

LORD LLEWELLIN

But, whatever the reason is, it is rather absurd that a firm should have to pay all immense development charge for installing in the roof of their factory a new and better ventilation system for their employees, which did not involve any extension of floor space or of manufacturing capacity. It is also absurd in the instance given of Lord Halifax's converted stable. It is no doubt true that there was an improvement and that the noble Earl got some value out of it. But who paid the money to improve it? Not the State. It was the noble Earl who put his money into making those improvements. He spent perhaps two or three hundred pounds on the conversion. It has nothing in common with betterment that was originally obtained from the expenditure of public money. The position now is this: if a man spends money on trying to improve his property, whether industrial or residential, and thus improves the value of property in this country by putting up a building that will attract greater rates he is told that he has to spend something more, because the Government will charge him for making this improvement to the countryside. That is the kind of way in which, in practice, this Act is not working out as it should.

Referring again to the speech of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, and going on a little further, I find these words at Column 273 of Volume 148: First of all, instead of saying that the land owner was to have to pay only 80 per cent., so that he shall have some inducement in developing, we have this idea of the Central Land Board, which gives very much greater elasticity; instead of a rigid 80 per cent. in each case you get mole elasticity, which I think is good. Now we have a rigid 100 per cent, in every case, which we think is bad. At any rate, we have had a worth-while debate. I hope that this matter will be fully looked into by the Government, and I am obliged to the Lord Chancellor for saying that it will be. On that assurance, I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

House adjourned at five minutes past six o'clock.