THE TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING ACT

HL Deb 22 March 1950 vol 166 cc383-444

2.55 p.m.

LORD LLEWELLIN rose to call attention to the manner in which the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act are working out in practice, to ask His Majesty's Government what conclusions they have reached in regard either to the necessity for an amending Act or to an improvement in the administration of the present Act; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. On November 16, 1949, I drew your Lordships' attention to the administration of the Town and Country Planning Act. On that occasion the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack drew attention to the fact (as he put it) that nine-tenths of the discussion had been concerned with the amendment of the Act itself, and only one-tenth with its administration. I feel that the proportion he gave is a little high, but I must admit that there were grounds for that comment. Therefore on this occasion I have drawn my Motion much wider, and I hope it is wide enough to keep us all in order, whether we discuss the possible amendment of the Act, the administration under it, or the regulations to be made under it.

I raised on the last occasion two matters which were left outstanding and to which I again wish to refer. I make no complaint that they could not be answered last time, as I had not given any notice of them, except in the one case to the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald. I refer, first of all, to the case about the bank and the chemist's shop, about which the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor said: 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 do not refer to that case with the object of its being reopened, because the owners of the premises, rather than go on losing rent and in order to get the matter settled, paid £1,000 to the Central Land Board, who had originally asked for £6,000. All I would like now is an assurance that where the rental paid by one lessee is the same as that paid by another, the development charge will be the same. In this House we made an Amendment to the Bill which read that there should be no undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to one applicant over another. For the life of me, I do not see why a man should pay a bigger development charge because his credit is thought to be better than that of other persons, or perhaps because he happens to have more means. I pass shortly over that point, because I raised it fully when we last discussed the matter.

The second matter, into which the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, said he would get the then Minister of Town and Country Planning to look, is the position taken up by the Central Land Board in relation to granting planning permission. If planning permission is given, for instance, for a new building of, say, 1,000 square feet (I am not quoting a particular case), they levy a development charge, not only on the 1,000 square feet for which planning, permission is asked—but for an extra 100 square feet, because of the 10 per cent. tolerance Amendment which your Lordships will remember we inserted in this House. The Amendment was to the effect that a man could increase the size of his cottage or house by 10 per cent. without incurring a development charge, in order to allow minor alterations, which in many cases ought to be carried out and which are de minimis in any event. Unfortunately, the Central Land Board now say that by getting permission to build, say, 1,000 square feet of floor space you automatically get permission for 10 per cent. additional sometime without incurring development charge. Therefore they say, "Although we know that you do not intend to build it now, and although we know that you are not asking for planning permission for it now you have to pay the full development charge plus the 10 per cent." The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, said that he would take up that point with the Minister. I am certain that, when we were discussing that Amendment, there was not a single noble Lord in this House who thought that its effect would be that we should be charging people development charge and 10 per cent. extra on the area for which they were asking planning permission. I should like to be assured that the view we held is the view which the Ministry now take and that it is the instruction they have given to the Central Land Board.

I now leave the previous debate and the two points which I hope will be cleared up, and come to some further criticisms of the working of this Act and, indeed, of the Act itself. My first is a fundamental point which goes to the root of what is, it seems to me, wrong with the present system. It is that we have set up a kind of robot in this Central Land Board. Unfortunately, we cannot prevent scientists inventing Vl's and V2's, atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs, but we can, when it is a matter internal to our own country, see that we do not ourselves set up human robots such as we have in the Central Land Board. It s appears that, except for giving the Board general directions on matters of principle, the Minister either thinks he has not, or if he has will not use, control on individual cases. In the course of my career I have served in a number of different Ministries, and I always found that one of the most effective things a Minister could do was to go into individual cases every now and then, to give his ruling on them and thus keep a fairly close check on what his Department was doing. If that is not done, the Department is inclined to run the Minister and not the Minister the Department, and that is an extremely bad position for any Minister.

On this matter, I should like to refer to a case about which the Lord Chancellor knows, and in which, if I may say so, he has been as helpful as possible, within the limits of the powers that he and the Minister think they have. This was a case of a man, in a small way of business, a Mr. Tomlin, of Port Trewen, near Fowey, in Cornwall. When he came out of the Forces, he wanted to use the front room of his mother's house for a small greengrocer's shop, which would be a valuable asset to that small village in Cornwall. Instead of the room being used, perhaps, only on Sundays and Christmas Day, or on other occasions of that sort, it was to be timed into a small greengrocer's shop where this fellow could not only earn a small livelihood but could also supply a need to his neighbours in the village. That, of course, was a change of user of the room, and the Central Land Board said, "In order to do that, you will be charged £45." There were no structural alterations, and just to change the use of a front room to provide a service for the locality there was to be a fine—because in a way, is what it was—of £45.

I took the matter up with the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack after his assurance during the last debate, and he was good enough to go into it with the Ministry. It appears from his reply that the Minister will not interfere with decisions given by the Board in individual instances in the exercise, as it is put, of their statutory discretion. With your Lordships' leave, I should like lo read an extract from a letter 'A/filch I have received about this very case. After thanking me for my letter the writer says: I delayed to answer it until I had seen the Chairman of the Central Land Board who had arranged to so: me. I saw him to-day and, though the Board are obdurate about the amount of the development charge "— that is, the £45– assessed on Mr. Tomlin, they are considering methods of making it possible for him to pay monthly by amounts which he can save from his earnings. This concession which will at least make it possible for Mr. Tomlin to continue his little business is. I have no doubt, due to your intervention, and he will I am sure be most grateful to you for it…The Central Land Board are, of course, in a difficult position, for their duty is simply to carry out the Act in the form in which it was passed. But what an Act it is! A charge payable to the Exchequer for 'permission ' given to a man to use his property (at his own expense) as he wills. A charge 'justified' on the ground that the Exchequer has bought' the right to control the use of the property. Yet the Exchequer having taken that right have not paid for it and do not contemplate paying for it for several years…The Government 'assess' the charge by sending a district valuer to make his own arbitrary guess at it, and thereafter the whole solemn hierarchy proceed to back up the guess of their own agent, the district valuer, without hearing the other side or seeing either the premises or the persons concerned. Yet there is no appeal to any impartial tribunal, and when Ministers are asked to look into the justice or injustice of what has been done, the answer is ' We cannot interfere'. That letter, my Lords, seems to me to sum up the position pretty accurately.

One of the first things we ought to do about this procedure is to see that the Minister is able to interfere and tell the Land Board—who are, after all, working under him—what they should do, and give them directions, even on individual cases. I reiterate that we shall get no contentment under this Act until we can have some tribunal to which anybody who has a grievance can take it. People should be able to go before somebody who will hear their case and who will give a decision upon it, as has always been done throughout the history of this country. It should be a hearing in open court and not done by writing letters which are answered by somebody in the Ministry of whom the person has never heard and never seen, and who has probably never seen the site or done anything but take the report of the district valuer as it stands. I hope that something can be done on those lines.

I should like now to take another instance to show how this matter is affecting a great number of small but independent and worthy citizens. I take the case of a man—an ex-police constable—whom I know personally and who lives in the next village in Dorset to that in which I live. When he retired from the police force sometime before the war, he bought from a local landlord an acre of land, abutting on the main Poole—Wareham road, for £25–that is what the "rapacious landlord" charged him for an acre of land on that road. His intention was to erect a petrol station, with a house next door, and to run the petrol station and live in the house until such time as he grew too old to want to do even that work. He was then going to build a bungalow on the other half of the site, sell his petrol station and the house attached to it, and so settle down.

The first part of the plan went perfectly well—because this Act was not in existence. But now he has reached an age when he wants to try to sell the petrol station and the other house, and to build a small bungalow for himself and his wife. He gets planning permission and makes inquiries of the Central Land Board concerning the charge for this bungalow. My Lords, the figure given was £300–£300 to develop this extra half acre, when he bought the whole thing from a private landlord for £25! The Central Land Board want twelve times the price of the land to allow him to build a bungalow on the other half of the site. I do not think he can afford that figure, and probably he will not be able to go on with his plan. Thus rateable value is lost, land value assessable for Schedule A or Schedule B income tax, and very proper development, is lost. What a shortsighted policy—and what an oppressive policy! I am not at all surprised that the ex-Minister of Town and Country Planning was unable to find a single constituency association to adopt him as a Parliamentary candidate. Something really must be done about the administration of this Act.

I should like to quote another Dorset case. It is the case of Mr. Saunt, of Upwey. This gentleman is the owner of a small building estate. Under the Town and Country Planning Act of 1925 he contributed to his local authority by way of betterment (your Lordships will remember that you could do so under that Act), a sum of £500 and three or four acres. He was given planning permission. He then also contributed to the building of the road through his property, which was connected with water, lighting, and sewerage. The war came, and he was prevented from beginning his house building. The land was requisitioned by the War Office, and when it was de-requisitioned he wanted to resume his very proper and fully-approved operations. But when he arrived on the scene he discovered to his horror that, although he had paid this betterment charge and contributed to the road which made the site worth building on, he was now liable a second time and had to pay a development charge under the new Act.

That surely is an impossible situation. If the Government had accepted one of the Amendments which I moved during the passage of the Bill a situation of that kind would not have arisen. I believe it is demonstrably unfair that this man should have paid twice—once a betterment charge under the 1925 Act, and now development charge under the present Act. In my submission the Act ought to be amended so as to prevent that kind of thing happening. Perhaps a new clause could be put in for the purpose, providing that a man who has already paid contributions under the previous Act should be exempted from paying another charge under the present Act. I have no doubt that in these cases the Central Land Board are right, according to the letter of the law, in insisting on the charge, but something ought to be done to amend the Act. It is obviously wrong to have a double charge like that.

I am told that once a planning authority have zoned a particular area for industrial purposes a district valuer normally assesses development charge at the highest price obtainable. When once that charge has been fixed for a factory requiring, say, a small plot, it remains the same for an undertaking that needs a much larger area of land, which will not be so intensively developed and for which a company cannot afford to pay the same price as one which can confine its works into a smaller area of land. In the past one could usually find a landlord who would sell such a site at a cheaper rate, but I am told that once some frontage in this zone has been put before a district valuer for industrial purposes, the charge has to be the same for every type of development upon it. The result is.that because of the administration of this measure the price of land for industrial undertakings has been put up.

I want now to touch upon a slightly different type of case. This concerns a modern block having offices on six floors and a caretaker's flat on the top floor. For the purpose of development charge, if we assume the conversion of the caretaker's flat into offices—which is what is desired to be done—the unit for development charge is the seventh floor only, because that is the only part that is to be converted. When it comes to claiming for loss of development rights, the building is taken as a whole, the whole seven floors together. Then the seventh floor, being much the most unattractive and only a very small part of the whole, comes under the de minimids rule. One cannot claim for loss of development rights because the assessment is on the building as a whole, and the seventh floor is too small a part of it.

I do not want to keep your Lordships much longer in an opening speech. Speeches in this House tend to be too long, and I try not to offend in that regard. I must, however, say one word about delay. Let us take, for instance, the London County Council. I am not selecting them particularly as being any worse than any other authority, but I know something about some of their working. As the planning authority for London they always take the full two months, and then there is a month extra for appeals. There is always a three-months' delay in getting anything through the London County Council. I have no doubt that this applies to a large number of other planning authorities up and down the country. Two months is the time within which they have to do it. but it does not mean that in every case they must take the two months. As so often happens, it is a case of the maximum becoming at the same time the minimum, and the person having it in his file saying: "This has to be dealt with before two months from now." It only comes up for his attention, perhaps, two days before the two months are up. I should like to have that system altered.

Let me take a case that I have here. An application was made on February 27, 1947, for premises to be used for the manufacture of chemical products. Permission was not received until May 17, by which time the prospective lessees were no longer interested. That sort of thing does happen if people want to push on with their business. 11' they find there is an interminable delay they go elsewhere or abandon the project altogether. On October 7, 1948, a further application was made for the premises to be used for the storage and distribution of tyres and rubber goods.. Permission was not received until February 16, 1949, and the Central Land Board's decision on the development charge was not received until March 18. In that case an industrial undertaking, which quite properly wanted to carry on its business, was held up for over five months. I am convinced that those times can be shortened, and somebody ought to see that they are.

Let me give another example. An application was made on December 14, 1949, for premises used as a club and zoned for general business purposes to he occupied as a photographic studio. Town planning permission was not received until February 15, 1950, and the development charge, if any, has not yet been determined. I think things could be done far more quickly than that. I have another absolutely glaring case. It concerns a well-known firm of paint manufacturers called Paripan Limited. Your Lordships may have seen their advertisements or, for all I know, may buy their paint. At any rate, they have been established in a factory at Egham since 1855. Apart from supplying a great many of the paint requirements for the South-East of England, they supply Service Departments such as the Admiralty and the War Office, and also do a considerable export trade.

In 1937, they put forward a long-term plan for rebuilding the whole factory. It was passed by the planning authorities, and the first phase was completed by May, 1939. When war ended, the company again went to the Egham Council for planning permission to continue the Test of the work for which they had obtained consent prior to the war. The Council pointed out that various Government Departments were interested, and that the firm must have a location of industries certificate from the Board of Trade. In March, 1946, the company applied to the Board of Trade. There was a protracted correspondence. Representatives of no fewer than four different Government Departments went down to see the site. Representatives came from the Surrey County Council, on one side of the river, and the Buckinghamshire County Council on the other. They also had representatives from the Society for the Preservation of Rural England. In June, 1947–that is, fifteen months later —the Board of Trade said that approval in principle was granted in respect of the three main blocks, which are to be placed only on the same site which this factory has occupied, a site of four acres. Some time was taken in getting out the necessary plans, and even longer to obtain the certificate from the Board of Trade, which they received in March, 1949. In May, 1949, the Egham Council notified them that planning permission would not be given. They had had it approved in principle by the Board of Trade after these consultations, but now it was turned down.

The company immediately appealed, and then, after considerable delay, in November, 1949, a public local inquiry was held. There was further delay until February 28 last, when the Minister rejected the company's appeal. There was first five months' delay in order to find the appropriate person to deal with the matter; then fifteen months' delay for the Board of Trade to give a decision; then sixteen months' delay through inability to obtain licences: then later the local authority's refusal of planning permission because of a minor alteration: seven months for the local authority to consider and reject plans; five months to hear the appeal, and three months for the Minister to notify his decision on the appeal. That is really frightful. Here is an extremely well-known firm. They ought not to have suffered this great delay. This factory is within a mile of Runnymede, and Runnymede is one of the historic places in this country, but the factory has been there for a hundred years and it has not prevented anybody from seeing Runnymede. In the Greater London plan, the area round about Runnymede is scheduled not to have any industrial undertaking.

What is the position now? The planning authority refuse to put a "life" (I think that is the right term) on the factory under Section 26 of the Act, because then the company might be able to obtain compensation under Section 27 of the Act. So they merely refuse to let the new buildings go up which will improve the company's manufacturing capacity and will enable them to cheapen their prices, I would add that part of the buildings consist of a better canteen for the welfare of the workpeople. That is all denied them. So far as I can see, nobody is going to pull this factory down and nobody is going to let it be modernised. Surely that is not the way to encourage industrial effort in this country, especially in a firm which has a considerable export trade.

In conclusion, let me say that I do not expect comment on the individual cases that I have quoted. I have quoted them more as instances than as cases in regard to which I particularly want an answer. But I do say that the principles which lie behind cases of the kind I have quoted need careful investigation and I believe, as to many of them, an alteration in administration. It is my belief that we must bring this huge monopoly, even in individual instances, under direct ministerial control, and so under Parliamentary control. We must have less rigidity and more cornmeal sense in the administration of this Act. It is my view that there must be far less delay, and that matters will never he satisfactory until we have an impartial tribunal to which a man can appeal if he feels thoroughly aggrieved. It is also my view that we ought to do something to enable the Central Land Board not to exact the full development charge or, indeed, any development charge at all, where it is proved that a man has already bought the site for his house at building value. If it is entirely a question of undeveloped land not bought at building value, that is a different matter, but people ought not to pay like the wretched man to whom I have referred.

It is also my belief that this Act will never work satisfactorily until we drop entirely the development charge on buildings, and keep it only in the case of the development of undeveloped land. If we altered this to do that, then I believe it would have the assent of the vast majority of people in this country. I can assure your Lordships that it has not that assent at the present moment. When I mentioned this on the Election platform and said that something pretty drastic had got to he done, I received more cheers for that than for almost any other subject with which I dealt. I believe also that we shall never get free development so long as the Central Land Board or the Government insist on taking the full 100 per cent. of any development charge. There is no incentive whatever to any land owner to sell a single piece of land, and if it is to be acquired recourse will have to be had to compulsory purchase in almost every case. If we do not do something along the lines I have suggested, prices will go up and delays and difficulties will occur just when, both in housing and industrial development, the urge of us all ought to be to see that both go ahead as fully and as freely as they possibly can. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

3.34 p.m.

THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD MACDONALD OF GWARNVSCNA)

My Lords, I do not suppose many noble Lords who intervened in the last debate on a similar question, or who were present at the debate, were surprised to find another Motion on the Order Paper within a few days. Most of us were very uneasy at the end of that debate. For myself, I was far more uneasy at the end of the debate than when it opened. I have been trying to find out why we were all so uneasy at the end of the debate. It did not seem to have got us anywhere, and most noble Lords were asking, "Where do we go from here?" The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has given us some idea as to why the whole House was so uneasy at the end of that long debate. In the main, I should say, it was because of the inconclusive character of the debate. Then I asked myself: why was, it inconclusive? A number of reasons have been given by the noble Lord opposite, one being that so many cases were quoted by noble Lords, the facts, of which were not known to anybody else, and the whole facts of which were not known to the noble Lords quoting them. There was also a tendency to discuss the Act, rather than the administration of the Act. There the responsibility lies for the inconclusive character of the last debate, and I hope that in this debate we can avoid that.

The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has tried to help us. He has widened his Motion, and the most disorderly noble Lord, whoever he may he, will have a job to get out of order to-day—the noble Lord has made sure of that. And at the end of to-day's debate the Lord Chancellor will not be able to say that 90 per cent. of the speakers were going beyond the terms of the Motion; he will not be able to say that 1 per cent. were doing that. It is well widened, and I appreciate the need for the widening. I shall have something to say on both aspects of the Motion before I sit down, but I want to mention that in the last debate I felt—and I have already felt it again in this—that it would be difficult to satisfy noble Lords about the administration of the Act when they do not like the Act itself. I noticed that when Lord Llewellin read a sentence from the lady's letter to which he referred—namely, "what an Act it is—" noble Lords were prepared to cheer, the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank among them. Why? Because the Act, or some sections of it, is unacceptable to some noble Lords.

VISCOUNT ELIBANK

As the noble Lord referred to me, may I say that the administration of the Act is perfectly impossible for those who have to deal under it. The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has given examples of that to-day, and that is why the Act is disliked.

LORD LLEWELLIN

Perhaps I should say that the letter did not come from a lady, but from a gentleman.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

Whoever made the statement, all I am saying is that that statement indicated to.me that this Act is not very popular in some parts of the House. Knowing that, I know how difficult it would be for anyone to administer the Act satisfactorily in the eyes of those who do not like it. it always is. It is not too difficult to administer an Act which is liked, but if it is disliked it is very difficult. That feeling ran through the last debate and, if I may suggest it, I do not want it to run too much through this debate. This is the Act we are administering. A number of cases were raised on the last occasion—nineteen in all. I think it would he a good thing if in this debate I went into the whole nineteen, but it would take time to go into the details. But those nineteen cases were quoted, and the reply to them has not been given. There is a reply to every: one of them, so far as the facts are available. There are other cases to which reference has been made by the noble Lord to-day, involving similar points and similar principles.

I have been trying to classify the cases which were raised on the last occasion. I think they fall into two classes—first those concerned with what I would call "haggling"—that was the word used—and those dealing mainly with the 10 per cent. tolerance, which has been referred to this afternoon by the noble Lord. Lord Llewellin. Perhaps it would be better if spent a little time on these two questions, before coming to individual cases. With regard to haggling, so-called, there was undoubtedly general uneasiness on the last occasion. I think it is fair to say that haggling, as indicated in many cases that were raised, amounts to nothing more than the disclosure by the applicant of further facts relating to the case which affect value but which were not disclosed to the valuer when the application was made by the developer. The facts were not, of course, deliberately withheld. No one would for a moment suggest that the developer deliberately withheld information, but in a number of cases it has happened that information which was not available in the first instance became available later on, and the information which became available later affected negotiations which were then proceeding. It always does.

I myself have had acquaintance with haggling from a very different point of view. The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, who was introduced in your Lordships' House only this afternoon, with myself acting as one of his sponsors, has been concerned with me in negotiations carried on with a view to obtaining lump sum settlements for injured workmen in the coal industry. If you want to see haggling at its best, that is the sort of matter in which you will see it, when people are trying to deal with insurance companies and with some colliery companies. But that was haggling in an entirely different sense from the haggling which has been referred to in connection with this matter. The people from whom a settlement was sought would perhaps begin by suggesting a payment of £10, £20 or £30, and it often happened that in the end the cases were settled for £200 or £300. But the haggling which is meant here is not haggling in the sense that someone who is concerned wants to do an injustice. It is simply that very often each step brings further information and, consequently, each step may bring a variation in the figures which are suggested by each side. That is inevitable. It is not the fault of the Central Land Board, nor of the district valuer. It is not in the smallest degree the fault of the developer himself. We just cannot avoid that kind of thing.

I noticed when I was reading some of the papers dealing with haggling several important factors bearing upon this. For example, prospective developers often need to know, and are naturally anxious to know, before they incur the cost of preparing plans for the development they have in mind, and sometimes at an earlier stage, what the development charge is likely to be. Sometimes at quite an early stage they want to know the likely charge that they will have to bear. To meet this need arrangements have been made for the district valuer to discuss development charges informally with prospective developers. Since the discussion will take place before planning permission has been obtained, and often before precise plans of the proposal are available, it is in the nature of the case that information about it will be scanty. I am sure noble Lords will appreciate this. It is therefore to be expected that the informal estimate of the charge will be an outside one; indeed the prospective developer wants to know what his maximum liability is to be. It will be seen that The district valuer is put into a dilemma. On the one hand, he is criticised if, when he formally assesses a development charge the amount is less than his informal estimate. On the other hand, if his formal assessment were greater than his informal estimate I can imagine the words which the developer would use being such as would not be printed in the OFFICIAL RIPORT of this House. That is the difficulty. The district valuer tries to oblige the developer who naturally wants to know what the amount of his liability is going to be, and in doing that he puts it at the maximum figure. Later, as more material facts emerge, he gives a different figure. I do not think that haggling in the sense in which it was referred to last time need trouble us any further. There must be a certain amount of bargaining.

Let me now come to the matter of the 10 per cent tolerance which was referred to on the last occasion, and which has again been spoken of to-day. When Lord Llewellin spoke on this subject it seemed to me that he showed a little more feeling than he usually does. I would like to remind your Lordships of what he said during the debate on November 16 last. He said: Your Lordships will remember that we inserted a provision that there should be a 10 per cent. tolerance…"— "we" in that connection meant this House— 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 with his 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. Those are very very strong words. When the noble Lord uses such words as "That illustration is absolutely true" and "these facts are authenticated," your Lordships know well that he means it, and take note of what he says. I would inform your Lordships that the so-called "true illustration" and "the authenticated facts" are so much at variance with the usual practice that one finds it difficult to believe that the noble Lord was correctly informed. Let ire say at once that the Central Land Board have been unable to trace the case to which the noble Lord refers. Also, so far as the Board are aware, no district valuer acting on their behalf has ever fixed a charge of £x and then added 10 per cent. to it as representing the value of this exemption. If any district valuer die anything of the kind he must have been quite wrong.

I have been refreshing my memory over the week-end. I spent a little time reading the reports of the discussions of the House, and I went into the history of this so-called 10 per cent. tolerance. I notice that what the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin said is not entirely in accordance with the facts. I find in the first place that this right to extend an existing building free of charge by 10 per cent. of its cubic content was not introduced by an Amendment in your Lordships' House, but was in the Bill as originally introduced. What happened in your Lordships' House was that as an alternative to the 10 per cent. a tolerance of 1,750 cubic feet was given if that happened to be larger than the 10 per cent. In the second place, I also find the tolerances given by the Bill as introduced did not apply to new buildings at all, but only to buildings in existence on the appointed day. The analagous tolerances given to new buildings erected after the appointed day were afforded by the Development Charge Exemptions Regulations made on April 29, 1948.

But may we see what has been happening? In cases where a developer has been extending a building by more than the 10 per cent. permitted free of charge by the Third Schedule, he has been given full credit for the fact that he could extend by up to 10 per cent. free of charge and any development charge due from him has been abated accordingly. In the case of new buildings, the Exemptions Regulations not only give freedom from charge in respect of a 10 per cent. extension at a later stage; they also give a number of other rights, including the right to rebuild when the building wears out or if it is destroyed by accidental fire, the right to put up toolsheds, hen-houses and so on in the garden, and to put up fences, boards and gates, It has not been the practice to arrive at a charge and then add to it in respect of these various rights; still less has it been the practice to add a straight 10 per cent. to what would otherwise have been the charge because of the right to a free extension. All the Board have done in the case of a man with planning permission to build a house on a particular plot is to estimate what the market would pay for that plot with planning permission to build that house—that, and no more. I thought I would give those general views on these two important questions.

LORD LLEWELLIN

Before the noble Lord leaves that point, may I apologise if I was wrong? I was advised that people were being charged the extra 10 per cent. Although I still believe that may have happened in the particular case to which I referred, I am glad that the noble Lord is now in agreement that it should not happen. I would suggest to him that we were both wrong last time. The words the noble Lord used were: 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. By that I thought the noble Lord meant that the 10 per cent. is to be taken into account. I am obliged to him for having cleared the matter up and assuring the House that in future the 10 per cent. will not be added and that it will not be proper to charge it.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

I turn now to these nineteen cases. Like the noble Lord, I believe in short speeches, and as it is difficult to give the full facts briefly without being unfair to the case of the Central Land Board, I hope the noble Lord will allow me to select one or two of the cases which illustrate what has been happening. The first case is the one referred to by the noble Lord in the last debate, reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 165, Col. 717. The case was that of a man who was asked to pay £20 development charge for using the front room of his house as a sub-post office. I think this case fits in with the case of the greengrocer in Cornwall who wanted to turn his front room into a greengrocery. This man obtained permission to use his front room as a sub-post office and applied to the Board for the determination of development charge. The proposal involved a material change in the use of the room and a charge must be assessed under the Act. The Act may be right or wrong, but under it a charge must be imposed. This would apply to the greengrocer in Cornwall.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I know that before this Act some landlords used to impose that sort of charge when they gave consent. I always thought it was wrong, and as I thought it wrong that they should do that I still think it wrong when it has to be done under the Act.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

It would surprise the noble Lord and the House if I were to enter into that argument and agree or disagree on that issue. What I am saying is that a charge had to be imposed. There was no choice. The district valuer opened negotiations with Mr. Howard and suggested a charge of £20, and at the same time invited Mr. Howard to discuss the matter with him if he could not agree. Meanwhile the Post Office drew the Board's attention to certain special factors attaching to sub-post offices generally which might affect the assessment of charge, quoting this particular case in illustration. In view of these representations, the Board found it necessary to discuss the assessment of charge on sub-post offices with the Valuation Department, to ensure that the special features would be properly taken into account. These discussions resulted in a "nil" assessment.

The next case to which I would refer is number five, reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 165, Col. 717, in which the noble Lord referred to the case of Mr. Crook, chemist and sub-postmaster, who proposed to transfer his business to the house next door. The conversion of part of a dwelling house to a shop and sub-post office is a development for which permission is required under Section 12 of the Act and there is accordingly a liability for charge under Section 69 of the Act. Mr. Crook asked his Member of Parliament in January, 1949, if the charge provisionally assessed at £100 could be waived on the grounds that he planned the development before the Act came into force and because the Post Office considered the development desirable. The Board have no power to waive a charge on such grounds. They told the Member of Parliament this, and added that the district valuer would be willing to consider an objection on valuation grounds to the assessment of the charge. Negotiation between the district valuer and Mr. Crook continued, and on August 25 Mr. Crook agreed to a charge of £90. Let me add, however, that he agreed with some reluctance.

In regard to case number eight, which deals with three instances in the Reading area, to my surprise tile noble Lord again used rather strong language—not strong for some noble Lords, but strong for him. In the three cases the charges as first assessed have been considerably reduced. The noble Lord suggests that the district valuers start with a high assessment—and have been told to do so—in order that they may have room to bargain. It should perhaps be stated at this point that negotiation between the district valuer and the applicant is probably the only way of ensuring that 211 the factors which in the particular case affect value are uncovered. It is clearly desirable that this should happen, and the Board attach great importance to it. If it so happens that, as a result of such negotiation, the district valuer revises, in the light of new facts, the opinion he first formed on the facts then available, it seems quite unfair and unreasonable to criticise him because he does so, especially when it is borne in mind that he is often asked, perhaps on the telephone, to give at a moment's notice an informal opinion in order that a prospective developer can know what his maximum liability will be. If the district valuer did not revise his opinion in the light oaf additional and relative information, there would be very serious ground for complaint. I do not want to deal with the three cases individually, unless the noble Lord thinks it necessary, because I have covered the point.

LORD LLEWELLIN

Unless in each case they have not had an improved charge, in which event I should be very much obliged if the noble Lord would do so.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

I will let the noble Lord know what happened later. In regard to the case of the bank, I feel that the noble Lord was pinning his case entirely on one consideration, by no means an unimportant one—I think it is very important—which was that there had been no increase in rental value. It is true that it was not suggested that the rent to be paid for the premises would be increased: none the less the district valuer found that there had been an increase of value arising out of planning permission to use the shop as a bank. It is essential to keep in mind that development charges are based not on annual value but on capital value. This planning permission, applicable as it was to a property which in the nature of things must be suitable for use by a bank, increased the range of the market for it and introduced the possibility—not to say the probability—that a new class of occupants might want it either as tenants or as purchasers. This, in the opinion of the district valuer, appreciably increased the capital value of the property now that it had the benefit of the new planning permission. It will be noted, however, that his final estimate of the increase in value was quite small in proportion to the former value restricted to use as a shop—namely, £61,000 as against £60,000. That is the case as regards the hank. The noble Lord made a further suggestion which merits consideration—namely, that the principle here involved should be investigated very carefully to see if it is a principle that ought to apply elsewhere. That I can promise him will be done.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I want to make only one comment. I can hardly believe that there are more potential customers for a bank than for a retail shop. That reason given by the district valuer cannot hold water.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

I come now to a case raised by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. He quoted from a pamphlet issued by the Central Land Board dealing with the power of the Board to aggregate separate claims by the same persons. He first of all denied that the power referred to is in the Act at all; he then described it as a power to aggregate land claimed for with land not claimed for at all; and he wound up by saying that a number of claims will be rejected in view of the de minimis provisions because of this method of aggregation. The noble Lord will be pleased to learn, especially coming from me, that he is wrong on all three points. First, the power of aggregation is in the Act—it is to be found in Section 60 (4); secondly, it does not extend to land not claimed for at all; and thirdly, it will not be used with the object of ruling out claims on de minimis grounds, but only "to arrive at a fair result under the Act"; that is to say, to prevent a totally artificial splitting into several units.

The noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, referred to a case first assessed at £9,700, then at £4,700, then at £185, then at £150 and eventually at nil. On this matter there is rather too much in my brief to read to your Lordships, but I would tell the noble Viscount that what happened was the usual process. The first figure was given provisionally on a hypothetical case; the second figure was given after some information; the third figure was given after additional information; and the nil assessment was given after final information.

I should like to deal briefly with the three cases mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Clydesmuir. He dealt with cases from over the Border, and it would ill become me not to deal with them. On second thoughts, I will deal with one case on which he laid particular stress. It is the one where he referred to the process of making bricks out of "bings" or spoil heaps. A development charge of 7½d. per ton is said to have been levied for the use of "bings." The facts are that Messrs. Colville's Limited are considering the purchase or the lease of a "bing" at Auchentibber Farm, Blantyre. As they will not start working before 1954 at the earliest, the near-ripe mineral arrangements will not apply. Colville's asked the mineral valuer for an informal estimate of the development charge. It was difficult to give a reliable estimate so far in advance, having regard to possible changes in the circumstances. In consequence, his estimate was not likely to be a minimum figure. That is all that happened. I am pleased to see the noble Earl, Lord Halifax, here, because he also raised two cases. If I may say so, I think his personal case was dealt with fairly well by the Lord Chancellor. I hope it was dealt with satisfactorily. On the fish and chip shop case, the noble Earl was good enough to tell us where we should not find this fish and chip shop—he told us not to go to the Seaham Division for it; it would not be there—but he did not tell us where we should find it. Our difficulty is that until we find where the fish and chip shop is, the matter cannot be investigated and will remain undisturbed. We do not know anything about the fish and chip shop except what the noble Earl told us. I do not think I need refer to any more cases, but if any noble Lord would care for information on an individual case I shall be pleased to provide him with the facts as I have them here.

Knowing the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, as I do, I am sure the main purpose of this debate is to try to get further information regarding the cases given previously and, if possible, the cases given to-day. With regard to today's cases, I am afraid I cannot help the noble Lord, but I promise that they will he looked into, and I will see that he is informed of the result of the investigations. On the question of delay, frankly I have much sympathy with the noble Lord. For my part, I am unable in some cases to understand the terrible delay. All I can promise is that inquiries will be made into individual cases to see what has happened to cause cases to be delayed so long. I promise also that every effort will be made—as is being made now—to speed up the local authority machinery and to see that appeals are dealt with more speedily.

This Motion allows us to consider legislation. On that I would say that I do not think your Lordships would expect that legislation should be introduced to deal with the subject in this Session, in particular—and I am not sure about this Parliament. The reasons are obvious. I do not mind accepting Lord Buckmaster's description of himself. He told us that, so far as the Town and Country Planning Act was concerned, he is not an executioner, but a surgeon. He then went en to say that what we needed was a simple Bill in order to put right what he thought should be put right. Both the noble Viscount and I have had experience of these simple Bills, and it is amazing how much Parliamentary time can lie taken up with them. Certainly the available Parliamentary time of this Parliament is not likely to afford any scope for amending the Act.

VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER

I am Grateful to the noble Lord. I also suggested the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the working of the Act.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

I was about to deal with that. It must be borne in mind—and here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin—that much can be done without amending the Act. We have been administering a very cumbrous and difficult Act for a short period and it is not to be wondered that weaknesses and shortcomings should be found here and there. It is the intention to go into the possibility of improving the administration. Some of us think that it can be simplified and improved, and that matter is going to be examined very carefully.

Reference was made to the fact that we have a new Minister of Town and Country Planning. I have sometimes heard it said that new brooms brush cleanly. I can assure your Lordships that we have a substantial broom this time. It has not begun operating yet, but it will. I cannot agree that the ex-Minister is absent for the reason given by the noble Lord. I am amazed when he tells me that he received cheers when he referred to the Town and Country Planning Act in his speeches in the Election. I never heard that Act mentioned in the whole campaign—maybe I was in the wrong part of the country. The new Minister has been able to get an arrangement with the Chairman of the Central Land Board that the Central Land Board will go into the whole question of administration. My right honourable friend has given them fairly wide terms of reference on this issue. They will be able to submit such proposals as the Board consider practicable for changes in administration calculated to reduce criticism of the method of assessment of charge. Possible changes which may involve amendment of the regulations, particularly the exemption regulations, will be included in the Board's review. It is considered that such a Report will be most helpful to all concerned. I do not think I need appeal to the noble Lord not to press his Motion, but may I appeal to him and to his colleagues to make this debate an opportunity for putting forth constructive suggestions which can be considered during this investigation? We are anxious to receive all the constructive suggestions we can. The House now know that there is to be no legislation in this Parliament, but they also know that the Minister himself is anxious to do all that can be done under the administration. I would beg noble Lords to put forward constructive suggestions, which I can assure the House will be thankfully received and given serious consideration.

4.11 p.m.

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

My Lords, I have great hesitation in intervening in this debate, for it raises questions of a highly technical nature and the pitfalls for the inexpert are many. I hope that I may avoid them if I keep my eyes fixed rather closely on my notes instead of on the ground. I welcome the speech which has been made by the noble Lord who has just told us that an inquiry is to be made into the administration of the Act. I want to reassure him at once on two points. First, I am not adding to any of the cases which have been brought forward—in fact, after I heard the way in which the noble Lord has dealt with the cases, I am thankful that I am not bringing forward any specitic case, or fish and chips might be soon thrown on the floor of the House! I want to assure the noble Lord that I am a wholehearted supporter of the Act. I was glad the Act was passed, and I think it is a good Act. But it is just because I feel that it is a good Act that I have been gravely concerned over some of the criticisms levelled at its administration. There are many other supporters of the principle of the Act, besides myself, who are troubled by the undoubted unpopularity which has now been created by its administration.

This year I am President—a very amateurish president—of The Town and Country,Planning Association, a nonpolitical society which for many years has worked vigorously for planning. I know that many of the most experienced members of that Society are convinced that some changes are necessary in the administration of the Act if the whole Act is not to be endangered by popular irritation at its working. I support the Act because I believe that, in a small island like our own, planning is essential if the land is to be used to the best possible advantage. Only through national planning can industrial and rural needs be most wisely met. It is necessary to prevent the waste of good agricultural land, to check the sprawl of great cities, to prevent overcrowded development and to secure the preservation or the creation of green belts, so that the townsman is able quietly to enjoy the country for his health and recreation. Without national control of the land, our cities would grow larger and larger; industries would be started in the wrong places, and would be exposed dangerously to attack from the.air in time of war; rural amenities and agriculture would be destroyed. But while I believe there is general agreement on both sides as to the purposes of the Act, some of the criticisms directed against its administration seem to me to be fully justified. I was going to say a good deal about the delays, but the noble Lord has himself acknowledged that these delays are serious, and that every effort will be made to bring them to an end.

One of the really serious matters is that it is assumed that there will always be delay when any question of development is raised. From time to time, when I have been speaking to people on this matter, they have taken it for granted that there will be weeks or months of unnecessary delay before anything is done. No doubt that is partly due to the difficulty of working a new Act, but I think also, perhaps especially on the national scale, it may be due to the very large number of other Ministries with whom the Ministry of Town and Country Planning have to consult. They may have to consult with the Board of Trade for granting location certificates for new factories and extensions; the Ministry of Health for granting approval of locations and standards and the amount of building in various areas; the Ministry of Agriculture for advising upon the advantages, as well as disturbance, of development affecting farm land; the Ministry of Transport about the siting of roads in certain cases; the Ministry of Works to approve the allocation of building licences, and also Defence Departments in yielding up areas for military purposes. Above that, again and again the Treasury have to be consulted. It does therefore look as if the Town and Country Planning Ministry ought to be given rather greater powers so that they can act more rapidly in certain ways.

There are, however, three fundamental changes in administration for which a strong case has been made, and with which I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, has dealt fully. First, I think, there is clear evidence that desirable development is being held up because of the operation of the development charge, which takes away incentive from land owners to sell. The Central Land Board, by fixing the development charge at 100 per cent. of the development value has obstructed the sale of land. The Uthwatt Report, the White Paper of 1944 and the debates on the Act in this House and in another place, all assumed that in general a percentage of the value would be left to the selling or developing owner. There was some demand for a percentage to be stated in the Act, but it was thought that if the percentage was left open it would be possible to vary it from time to time, to encourage or deter development as national policy demanded.

The noble Marquess who leads the Opposition stated that if the development charge had been intended to assist planning it 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 by the fixing of an all-over rate charge of 100 per cent., all elasticity has been destroyed. It is in the interest of the working of the Act that many of its strongest supporters feel it essential that by an amending regulation a reasonable percentage of the assessed development value should be reserved for the selling landlord. This would help to remove an existing sense of injustice, and would restore an incentive to sell.

The noble Lord dealt to some extent with the problems which arise over the change of use. There is a widespread feeling that development is now being hampered by an over-rigid interpretation of what constitutes a change of use. Some striking examples were given of this, but after the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, I am not prepared to press any of those cases I think it is indispensable for good planning that consent to change of use should be required in every case. Without it all kinds of difficulties would arise. But here again elasticity and common sense are required. It seems absurd and obstructive when in certain cases demands are made for such payments for change of use and then, after long bargaining, are greatly reduced. A more liberal interpretation is required if the Act is to work smoothly without causing unnecessary resentment. Some tribunal, to which appeal may be made in disputed cases is, I agree, required.

There is another real hardship which ought to be remedied. This is in connection with the Land Fund of £300,000,000, and the development charges. To enable the planning authorities to prohibit or restrict building where necessary, the Act cancelled building rights and allocated £300,000,000 as compensation to be divided in 1953 among all owners who had established claims to building value. But the waiting period causes difficulties to those who bought the land before the beginning of the Act and paid full building value for it. If the owner is given permission to build he has to pay the full building value or give security for it before he builds. Thus he will have paid the b Aiding value twice. True, he has a claim on the Land Fund; but he does not know how much of it he will receive as compensation, and at any rate he can receive nothing until 1953. This is a serious hardship for many. They are left in a state of doubt and suspense. Certain single-plot owners have been given the concession that the estimated amount of their claim will be set off against the development charge. Could not this principle be extended? If the Central Land Board could assess at an early date some minimum percentage of what the owners will receive and set this off against the development charge, it would help to remove a legitimate grievance felt in a large number of cases. Some doubt is expressed—and was expressed on the last occasion on which we debated this subject—whether the £300,000.000 will prove sufficient. I have not so far read anything which justifies this fear, but I hope the Government will make it plain that they will see that all admitted claims are eventually fully paid.

I hope that I have made it plain that I am not criticising, the Act itself. I believe it to he a good Act, long needed if our towns are to be developed wisely, if agricultural land is to be protected, and if rural amenities are to be preserved. But an over-rigid administration of the Act may make it so unpopular as to endanger it. The noble Lord has given us considerable reassurance on this question of careful consideration of the administration. But unless some change is made in the administration there is a danger that the Act may be hated as an unexpected instrument of fiscal exaction rather than welcomed as a means of hindering uncontrolled development and preventing individuals from reaping unearned values. If we can remove unforeseen hardships and grievances which have arisen in the administration of the Act, I believe it will increasingly commend itself to the nation.

4.25 p.m.

LORD HADEN-GUEST

My Lords, I am very glad, on this first occasion of my rising in your Lordships' House, to be- able to speak in connection with a Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. Lord Llewellin and I have often crossed swords before in the political conflict and we have always done it according to rules and regulations. I hope that if I introduce anything out of place in this debate it will be understood to be due to a lack of knowledge of procedure, and that I may be granted the indulgence always given to the newcomer.

I was very much interested in the noble Lord's intervention in this matter on November 16 last. I took the opportunity of going through all his remarks in order to get some understanding of the line he was likely to take to-clay. What rather amazed me was that lie saw so many of the small defects of the Act and did not deal with some of the larger and very important matters with which the Act is concerned. The noble Lord will remember, perhaps, that we met first, I think, on opposite sides at an election in North Southwark many years ago; and when considering these matters of land development and of town planning I have always in my mind the terrible and appalling conditions of that part of London and of other portions of our great cities which have been in such a frightful condition of neglect for I do not know how many years. The noble Lord, from experience which he gained then, if he had not gained it previously (though I am sure he had wide experience of these matters), will know those conditions to be very terrible indeed. It is only by the operation of an Act such as this that we can escape from these very bad conditions. I quite agree that in administration and valuation mistakes may have been made. The noble Lord himself would have been very surprised if mistakes had not been made and if there had not been difficulties.

With regard to what he said in connection with electioneering in the last Election and as to the Act being hated, I should have thought that that depended largely on what kind of platform and in what kind of places the noble Lord was speaking. So far as my own experience went, I was unfortunately unable to do any electioneering, but I went about the country a great deal. I did not find anybody hating and detesting the Act, but I found very large numbers of people, both in the countryside and in the towns, looking forward to immediate benefits flowing from the Act. When I read reports of the debate on this subject in another place (I did not take part in it because I was at that time abroad on Government business for a considerable period) I found on all sides a real understanding of the importance of this matter and of the great benefit which would be brought to this country's administration and life by the provisions of this Act. The Minister in opening said that the Bill was the most important of the century, and many speeches after that—not on the one side only—echoed the Minister's feeling. The Minister spoke of the great importance of dealing with sporadic building and ribbon development. I wish Lord Llewellin had dealt with some of these matters and with the great improvements that the Act has brought in many respects.

With regard to the figure of compensation, it seems to me that £300,000,000 is a just and reasonable sum. As to difficulties which have arisen in cases such as those quoted by Lord Llewellin, I think it might also be found that in many other cases difficulties have not arisen at all. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, when he spoke on the last occasion, said that in a very large proportion—I think it was 95 per cent.—there had been no difficulty at all with regard to payments. In order to have some up-to-date information of my own, I made some inquiries this week from an acquaintance of mine who is the manager of one of the development areas in which a new town is being built. He has had no complaint and no difficulties at all with any of the claims that he has had to arrange. That is most important. I did find in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, that while he put up, as it were, a preliminary—I will not say camouflage—hut a preliminary advance of his forces dealing with particular claims, the real point of the speech seemed to be the suggestion that the development charge should be reduced from 100 per cent. to 80 per cent., and that therefore there should be left a larger amount of money in the hands of the landlord. The same suggestion was made by the most reverend Primate who spoke last.

I hope that there will be no question of going back upon that 100 per cent. We have had in this country a terrible history of the abuse of land in its development, of the appalling overgrowth of towns and slums. I think it is time that we took the value which the community makes by its work and by its life, for the use of the community, and did not pay it out to others. Some small concessions may have to be made. I am certainly one for compromise in reaching an agreement if it is possible to do so, for it is always the best way to conduct political and, indeed, economic affairs. But I hope that on that matter there will be no going hack and that we shall use the whole of this value for the helping of the country, to improve and put in the foundation of a much better regulated and properly growing economic development in the future, instead of the sporadic booms and slumps we have had in the past. I believe that by the control of the land in this country and by the taking of the land for all practical purposes into the ownership of the people as a whole, we are doing something which will be of the greatest value to the whole of the country for generations to come.

4.33 p.m.

VISCOUNT GAGE

My Lords, it falls to my lot to follow the noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest. I hope that it will not sound presumptuous of me to congratulate so well-known a Parliamentarian on his maiden speech in this House. I do congratulate him, however, and I hope that he will place the benefit of his wide experience in so many fields at the disposal of this House as often as possible.

On the last occasion that this subject was discussed, I ventured to ask whether there was any possibility that the Government might be willing to put into statutory form the principles upon which the Central Land Board are supposed to work. I did not receive.much of an answer on that occasion and I venture to ask that question again, because I feel that if we are going to be taxed we ought to be told the basis upon which the tax is levied. Of course, there is a theoretical basis—namely, the difference between two valuations—but, chiefly owing to the restrictions on building that exist to-day, the valuation of building land is largely a matter of guesswork. It was described in a paper read to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors recently as "an attempt to assess the unpredictable by reference to the unknown"—not, one might have thought, a very good basis for tax on all new enterprise. Presumably, the fact that it is an unsatisfactory basis is the reason why the Central Land Board have invented a whole additional series of rules of assessment, all of which may be sensible but which seem to have the force of Statute Law without any of its safeguards.

Even after having produced these additional rules, the Board have not been able to do away with some of these bargaining examples which have interested, and indeed diverted, the House. I cannot believe that private enterprise is likely to settle down contentedly to such an arbitrary system. I should have thought that it was possible to produce some sort of statutory code which would afford to the development charge payer something of the same degree of protection which the ordinary taxpayer derives from the Finance Act accompanying each Budget There is another reason why I hope it may be possible to codify the principles on which the Central Land Board work. It is largely, if not entirely, because of the way this development charge is being levied that town planning seems to be in a fair way to 'becoming one of the accepted Party issues to-day. If that is inevitable it means that we shall get to the position where, whenever there is a new Government, if we do not have a new Town Planning Act we shall have substantial changes in tie Town Planning Act. That is a prospect which fills Inc with gloom, and I think it will fill with gloom the many hundreds of people of all Parties who are working to make this Act a success.

I wonder whether it is inevitable that there should be this Party conflict. There seems to be a great deal of support among all Parties for the general principles of town planning. I am optimistic enough to believe that even in this vexed question of the development charge some accommodation between the Parties may be found, provided that it really is the intention of His Majesty's Government to use this compensation and betterment procedure for the furtherance of town planning, and not for some ulterior motive. There is a suspicion to-day that the principal pre-occupation of the Government is to ensure that, if any profit is derived out of a transaction in land, it shall go to the Government and not to the private individual. That suspicion has been rather borne out by what the last speaker has said. Whether or not it is true, there is a good deal of evidence to show that the way this charge is being levied in some respects does injure and prejudice town planning.

The most reverend Primate provided evidence from the Town Planning Association. I, too, should like to read something that was said in another paper read to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. This is an extract from a paper by the chief town planning officer of Middlesex. He gave first a most eulogistic account of the Act as a whole. Then he came to the development charge, and this is what he said: Although I consider that the general structure of the Act in these respects was praiseworthy, because it was bold and logically conceived, the actual effects, particularly during this transitional stage, are singularly unfortunate. What seems to me to be essential from the public point of view is (a) a scheme which maintains and creates the incentive to develop land rightly and (b) allows the planning authority to prevent without injury to the owner, the developing of land wrongly. By 'rightly' and 'wrongly' I mean by reference to proper and satisfactory development plans. And I think that unless these essentials can be secured, whether by reduced development charges or by graded development charges, or by a different form of pay-out or otherwise, the realisation of our common objectives will be gravely jeopardised. That speech seemed to receive general assent among the Chartered Surveyors.

These are not statements made by the Conservative Central office; they are made by professional people whose whole tradition is to keep as far out of Party politics as they can. When one reads such statements one wonders whether the Government are set against taking any further action, whether they are moved to do so by administrative reasons, or whether there is some sacred principle of Socialism involved. I gather from what Lord Macdonald said that he is of the opinion that the difficulties are chiefly administrative. I am dad to hear of that, because I think we can reach a possible basis of agreement there. But it seems to me that the trouble arises mainly from the fact that the present regulations governing the Central Land Board are almost unintelligible, and from reading them it is impossible to discuss or to discover in any matter of detail what the policy of the Government really is. It seems urgently necessary that they should be redrafted in a much clearer and fuller form. We should then be able to distinguish what was controversial from what was not, and it seems to me that that would be much better than jeopardising the whole Act, which I think is in danger of happening now.

4.42 p.m.

LORD CHORLEY

My Lords, I should like to address some observations to your Lordships on this matter, because I had a part in passing this Bill into law through your Lordships' House. I entirely agree with what has been said by the last speaker and by the most reverend Primate as to the great importance of the Act we are discussing. Undoubtedly it is one of the most important Statutes which has ever been put upon the Statute Book. It is a difficult Act to administer, and I think nobody expected that it would be administered with perfect smoothness from the start. The criticisms which have been levelled at it this afternoon, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, have been aimed especially at the development charge and the difficulties of assessing it, and I agree that there is a good deal of feeling in the country on the subject. Nevertheless, it was always expected—it appeared throughout the discussions on Second Reading and in Committee—that there would have to be fairly careful negotiations between the proposed developer and the district valuer. It is interesting to see how hostile emotional reaction can be obtained by using such a word as "haggling." When one hears that word one feels immediately that something rather low is going on, whereas if one uses the word "negotiation," which after all is really what has been taking place, it becomes much more respectable.

I do not want to say much about that, except that I think that in a substantial number of cases the development charge is being levied where many of us did not expect anything, more than what one might call a formal or prima facie development charge. The main object of this Act, as it appeared to many of us, and as I think was envisaged by both the Barlow and the Uthwatt Reports—and indeed the Scott Report—was partly the need to control the location of industrial buildings and industrial development in this country and partly the need to protect the rural countryside against encroachment from that sort of development. Those two objects are, I think, the main aims in this Act. We did not expect that when a private house was turned into a nursing home, or when a man turned the front room of his house in a business area into a shop, substantial development charges would be made. Obviously, as I think the most reverend Primate pointed out, it was necessary that that sort of thing should be controlled, but it was not expected by most of us that a heavy development charge of the kind that has been mentioned would be levied: a token payment should be enough. If it were possible it would go a long way to relieve people's minds if it were made clear, in that type of case, where nothing very different is happening from what happened before, in so far as the alterations in the building are concerned, that in future this type of charge would not be levied.

A far more serious criticism of the Act, to my mind, is that it is seriously holding up development altogether. Some people have even gone so far as to say that it is bringing it to a standstill. It has caused, as it has been called in an exaggerated phrase, a strike of property owners, many of whom will not dispose of their interests in their land for the sort of price which they can get because the purchaser is not prepared to give more than the undeveloped value of the land, since he knows he will have to pay a very heavy development charge. There is, therefore, no incentive to a land owner to sell unless he can find some person who does not know of the existence of the Act, or who is prepared to take a very considerable risk—and that is likely to happen in only a small number of cases. So property will not become available for development until either this strike is broken by the widespread exercise of the compulsory purchase powers which exist under the Act, and which I believe have been little used so far, or there is some greater inducement held our to land owners to sell.

My Lords, if the strike cannot be broken it may be necessary to undertake a much more heroic remedy—that of nationalisation. Your Lordships will remember that in paragraph 45 of the Uthwatt Report, nationalisation is described as the logical solution to this difficult problem of arranging the development of land in this country. But the Uthwatt Committee came to the conclusion that in the circumstances it was not a very practical solution. Your Lordships will probably think that the widespread use of compulsory powers would not be a very practical solution either. It would be a sort of piecemeal nationalisation, which would be much less satisfactory than going all out for nationalisation proper. I think that, on the whole, public opinion is in favour of trying to make the Act work, rather than to adventure into the sea of nationalising the land. We have therefore to look further at this question of inducement.

It is a difficult question. The Archbishop has pointed out that both in the Uthwatt Report, where I think the suggestion was that 75 per cent. of the development value should be taken by the State and 25 per cent. left to the land owner, and in the White Paper which was issued by the Coalition Government, where I think 80 per cent. and 20 per cent. proportions were taken, it was expected that there would be an inducement to the land owner to sell. When the matter was discussed, both in another place and here, it was thought that it would be unwise to fix a definite proportion of that kind, because by charging a little more on one occasion and a little less on another, good types of development could be encouraged and had types of development could he kept down. A land owner proposing to do something which would be a really useful development in the view of the Committee, could be encouraged to do so by being given a rather larger inducement.

LORD LLEWELLIN

That has not happened.

LORD CHORLEY

Naturally it has not, because when the regulations were published, instead of it being left in that form which the Minister himself had led us to expect, the 100 per cent. arrangement was adopted, It was credibly reported at the time that that was largely due to representations made to the Minister by the Central Land Board as to the extreme administrative difficulties which would arise, and, I think, to some extent also it may have been influenced by the Amendment to prevent undue preference which was put into the Bill in your Lordships' House Clearly, if the matter were left fluid there would be a possibility of arguing that undue preference had been given in one case because a land owner had been left with 25 per cent. and in another case of a rather similar kind the land owner had been left with only 15 per cent. A more important reason which would probably have prevented this type of elastic administration was provided in the Act itself, under which where compulsory purchase takes place there is no possibility of this extra amount being left to the land owner whose land is being taken by compulsory purchase, because he would not be allowed to receive anything of the kind: he is limited to the bare restricted value. That, clearly, would be exceedingly unjust and it may well have been an important reason why the 100 per cent. rule was laid down in the regulations.

The Act, in addition to providing this veto on development in the wrong place, could, as I have explained, be used for offering an incentive to the land owner for the right development of his land. This difficulty about the 100 per cent., which, I think, is undoubtedly holding up sales by land owners, was explained by the noble Lord, who spoke just now and whose maiden speech we are all so glad to hear. It is perhaps difficult to remove it, because if the £300,000,000 compensation proves to be an adequate figure, it would mean that the land owner would be getting his cake and eating it at the same time, because he would get his 20 per cent. or 25 per cent. inducement, or whatever the figure might be, and, at the same time, he would be able to recover his compensation out of the £300,000,000 allocated by Parliament for that purpose. That would, obviously, be very unfair. It might he possible to arrange some sort of a scheme under which, if it turns out that the £300,000,000 is not an adequate amount, something in the way of this 15 per cent. or 20 per cent., or whatever may be regarded as a right figure, could afterwards be recovered by the land owner. If he could be given an assurance on that head, it might well be that he would he prepared to dispose of his land. At the present time it is undoubtedly the case that many land owners are just sitting pretty in effect, waiting to see what will happen when the £300,000,000 comes to be divided. That is a very important reason why the Central Land Board should press on with the allocation of the £300,000,000 as quickly as possible, because until that has been done there will be this snag in the way of the successful development of the land of this country.

There is another reason also why this question of further inducement to land owners should be seriously considered by the Government. Undoubtedly the middleman in dealings with land in years gone by, though he often took a profit out of his speculations which was out of all proportion to the value of the service he was rendering to the community, nevertheless did, in fact, render a service to the community by making land available for development. Sometimes I am afraid that noble Lords who sit on these Benches do not appreciate the value of the services which the middlemen can perform in connection with the business of this country. The argument should be not so much against the middleman as such, as against allowing him to take too large a profit. Now that we have a system operating under which development charges are fixed by the district valuer—that is, we have a fair method of fixation, subject to the difficulties about negotiating which have been discussed this afternoon—there is no longer the possibility of the middleman making undue profits out of his speculative dealings in land. Therefore there is now a case for having a controlled profit of this kind as an inducement to land owners to sell their land and to enable development to take place. I think that this matter is very important, and I hope that the Government will be able to give consideration to it.

A great deal has also been said in regard to delays, and I think that this matter, too, is of great importance. In my view there is not only delay in getting assessment of the amount of development charge, and in getting permits for development; but there is also a good deal of delay in getting the planning authorities to say whether or not they regard a particular proposal as being a development at all. This leads to sales of land being unduly held up. I believe that is due to the fact that the matter has to come before the planning committee of the local authority, which may meet only at rather long intervals—perhaps at intervals of a month or even two months in some parts of the country. Therefore the whole thing is held up from one meeting of the planning committee to another and long delays take place. I am informed that in Northern Ireland this matter is delegated to the planning officer and in consequence a considerable reduction in the delays has been effected. It may well be that the Government will think that that is not altogether a satisfactory method of dealing with the matter. If that is so, I would suggest that some small sub-committee of the planning committee should be set up, and that this sub-committee should meet with the experts at least once a week and deal with these cases as they come forward. In that way, it would be possible, I am sure, to improve the situation very substantially.

There are already, quite clearly, a number of weaknesses in the Act which sooner or later will have to be remedied by legislation. The enforcement provisions in Sections 23 and 24, for example, need tightening up a good deal in more than one respect, but we have been told that there is no possibility of legislation in this Parliament; therefore I do not propose to pursue that matter any further. I should like to conclude on the note so eloquently struck by the most reverend Primate when he insisted that this is fundamentally a most valuable Statute and that in a small country like ours, where the amount of land at our disposal is so extraordinarily restricted, it is possible for the great mass of the public to have a fair and decent life only by reasonable planning of,and uses Therefore, as the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, appealed to us all, I hope we shall be able to sink Party differences over the administration of this Act and ensure that it shall be administered as efficiently as possible.

5.1 p.m.

LORD CLYDESMUIR

My Lords, on the last occasion that we debated this subject, in November, I was one of those who incurred a gentle rebuke from the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor for straying from the field of order, abut on this occasion that has been made less likely.by the widening of the Motion. The Government have been specifically asked whether they will be able to introduce amending legislation, I was disappointed when the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, said he could not promise any such legislation in this Parliament.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

But not surprised.

LORD CLYDESMUIR

We can understand the noble Lord's position. If I may take the noble and learned Viscount up, I was indeed a little surprised, because we understood that this was to be a Parliament in which, if possible, non-contentious matters were to be dealt with, and there is such wide agreement in the country that this Act needs amendment that we had hoped this would find its place among the generally non-contentious measures to be dealt with in this Parliament. Be that as it may, anxiety has been expressed by every speaker today about the working of the Act, and although they did not all ask for amending legislation, all suggested that administrative examination and changes were necessary.

We shall all agree that the gravity of the times calls for the utmost effort in production. On the last occasion I devoted most of what I said to the hearing of this Act, and particularly of the development charge, on industrial production. I am still of the view that the working of this Act is a not inconsiderable brake on production at a time when we should be making every effort to increase it. Its worst features appear to be delay in getting decisions, and the arbitrary nature of the development charge. I instanced several cases within my own knowledge where industrial concerns had experienced difficulty, and the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, has replied to me to-day on one case. I do not propose to enlarge on the cases that I mentioned last time except to say that I believe they are all, in one form or another, outstanding and not wholly settled yet, which goes to prove my contention that delay is one of the things we are experiencing. In the case with which the noble Lord dealt I claimed that waste heaps used for making bricks should be released from the payment of development charge. I believe that the charge has gone down from 7½d. a ton, which was what I quoted, to 6d., so that the movement is in the right direction, but I doubt whether there should have been any charge at all on these waste heaps. It is surely in the interests of amenity that they should be removed, and in the interest of brick-making for housing and other requirements that they should be utilised; so that any fresh charge on the use of these heaps seems to me to be a retrograde step.

It would appear that officials working this Act regard themselves as having been given something to sell—namely, the right of development. That is their attitude, and they hold it as their duty to secure as high a price as is reasonably possible for their wares. They are guided by Practice Notes issued by the Central Land Board, but so long as their attitude is that they have something to sell, surely there must be some addition to costs wherever development charge is attracted. I fail to see how such an attitude can be anything but a brake on all improvement. I do not blame the officials, as I was careful to say on the last occasion. They are carrying out the policy of the Government as loyally as they can, and to some of them the element of haggling must be very distasteful indeed. It is true, as the noble Lord says, that haggling often arises through discussion on fresh information brought in. None the less, it is haggling, and that is rather foreign to the practice of tax collection in this country. I will not say that it is entirely new, because in income tax, for example, when new facts are brought to light further discussions and alterations are suggested. But this is being done on a scale, and with such a wide variation between the price originally asked and the amount finally fixed, that I contend that it is quite alien to the principles of taxation in this country. I think a number of officials are finding it very difficult to collect.

As time is short, I do not wish to expand on the subject on which I spoke last time—namely, the industrial aspect of the working of this Act—but will treat more generally with its working and with the feelings of those who have to work it. It has been said today that it is no wonder opposition to this Act comes from the property owners; their interests are affected, and that would naturally cause them to resent it. But now I speak not of the property owners but of officials who have to work the Act. What I am going to say refers to Scotland, but I am fairly sure that its application is wider, and that it is true of the country as a whole. Within the last few weeks, a conference was held, in the good air of Peebles, of The Scottish National Housing and Town Planning Council. It was held in March, so what I have to say is quite fresh.

As your Lordships know, that Council has done pioneer work in planning. It is a non-Party, perhaps I should say all-Party, body, with no relation to politics, and is composed largely of those who do planning work in local authorities in Scotland. This conference provided a sounding board for a number of speeches on the working of this Act. The general view expressed was that the Act was not working happily and satisfactorily. A number of trenchant criticisms that seem to me to be well founded were uttered. I should like to give one or two examples of what was said. Delay was described by the planning officer of one of the more important Scottish authorities as "one of the first and ripest fruits of the new Act." He added that opportunities for delay were countless. That is my experience. In certain types of application, consultation is required with many bodies, and when Government Departments have to be consulted planning authorities have no idea at all when they will receive an answer. If anything could be done to speed up decisions, that would be valuable, indeed. One case was referred to at that conference where an industrial firm in Paisley wanted to erect a factory chimney to increase production. From the time of the original application until its ultimate refusal fifteen months elapsed. I will not go into the question of why it was refused—but fifteen months! I hope that the question of delay will be looked into very closely.

Then at the conference the development charge also came in for heavy fire. Your Lordships will recollect that the Uthwatt Committee said they regarded it as a fundamental principle that the increase in value due to the enterprise and expenditure of owners should be excluded from charge, and that there should not be a tax on improvement. The Act has not held to this principle, and there is resentment on that score. The taxing 100 per cent. of the assessed development has left the owner no economic incentive to dispose of his land for development, and the official view held by the Government, that land would change hands on existing use value, is certainly not being fulfilled. The view was expressed at the conference that land is not readily being sold, and one reason is that the incentive appears to have been removed. There is an unhappy and unfortunate tendency to slow down the change of ownership of land.

It is true that there is a global sum of £300,000,000 for compensation, but no one has any idea how his personal claim will work out: it cannot be related closely to assessment for development charge. I think it was said that the £300,000,000 was conscience money on the part of The Government. I am glad to know that the Government have a conscience, but the compensation is not in any way related to the assessment for development charge. I should like your Lordships to consider the psychological effect of a development charge m a person disposed to develop or improve his property. His enthusiasm has to be considerable to carry him through the many vexatious frustrations that he will meet on the way, and I am afraid that many cases never come forward at all and we have no record of them. I voice that view, and it is also the view of many planning officers. They feel that there is hesitation to come forward with proposals for improvement, manly because of the difficulties with which an owner has to contend.

I have something to say now on the five-yearly survey. As your Lordships know, there is provision in the Act for a five-yearly survey to be carried out. This is a meticulous requirement, and translated into man-hours the work involved is immense. Since the passing of the Act there has been little development, if any, resulting from it. It seems to me, however—and it seemed to certain of the officers at the conference—that the problem of the survey is being approached from the academic aspect rather than realistically. Professional planners are consuming their time and labour on the work of this survey to a greater degree than would appear to be necessary. I hone your Lordships will follow up this point. If a survey has to be made—and I think it is necessary—it should not be overloaded; the local authorities who have to make the survey should not be required to give too meticulous replies, and it should be realistically carried through. To give an example that has come to my notice, in one town in Scotland the local authorities made inquiry of a certain firm for a return of the number of employees, male and female, for each year since its foundation. The firm has been in existence for nearly eighty years. It is difficult to appreciate why such information should he necessary. It may be that such information is in excess of what is required by the Minister, but it seems to me that there is a great risk of the survey being overloaded. I commend to the Minister and to the Secretary of State for Scotland the deliberations of this recent conference in relation to delay, to the operation of the development charge and, particularly, in relation to the quinquennial survey.

In conclusion, I would say that if planning is to be successful it must have behind it the will and approval of the public. There can be no doubt that the success of any planning venture will ultimately depend on the force of public opinion. Experts can make plans, and dictators can enforce them; but the only planning that will succeed is what the people want and what the people know to be good. Judged by that test, I cannot feel that all is well with this Act. It received an unopposed passage in this House, but warnings were uttered of certain dangers inherent in its structure. I feel that these warnings are being justified at the present time, and I hope that the Government will change their view and bring forward an amending Act, for without it I can see little possibility of betterment.

5.17 p.m.

LORD MESTON

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, for answering the points I raised on the last occasion. It appears that I was wrong in all three respects. Therefore, instead of speaking now, perhaps I ought to be standing in the corner wearing a dunce's cap. However, let me say at once that I was wrong in one respect—namely, in saying that there was nothing in the Act which permitted the aggregation of small claims. There is clearly statutory power in that connection. Then I have been criticised for aggregating a unit of land in respect of which a claim was made and a unit of land in respect of which no claim was made at all. There is nothing in the Act or regulations which prohibits such an aggregation, but assuming that such an aggregation is prohibited, let me proceed shortly to give an example which I think will be on a different basis. Shortly, the position is that Section 63 of the Act provides in terms that no payment from the £300000,000 shall be made in respect of an interest in land unless the development value of that interest exceeds one-tenth of its restricted value. Paragraph 10 of a pamphlet published by the Central Land Board in June, 1948, raises the question of what unit of land should be taken for the purposes of making a claim, and gives the answer as follows: Any unit selected at the claimants' discretion. For instance, he may claim in respect of the whole or part of his land, or, if the 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, a separate claim must be made in respect of each. The Board have power, however, to aggregate separate claims by the same person for the purposes 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. To come to the point, I will take the case of a man who owns a house and ten acres, and the restricted value of the entire property is £7,000. Prima fade, in order to qualify for a claim against the £300,000,000 he must prove satisfactorily a loss of development value of at least £700–that is to say, one-tenth of £7,000. Suppose he divides his property into two units. Suppose he makes a claim in respect of the house and seven acres, and succeeds in obtaining an award of only £50. Suppose he makes another claim in respect of the other three acres, and succeeds in obtaining an award of, say, £300. If you regard those three acres as a separate unit, he has proved sufficient loss of development value in respect of them to entitle him to make a claim against the £300,000,000. If, on the other hand, you aggregate those three acres with the rest of his property, he has proved a loss of development value of only £50 plus £300, which is £350, and which is less than one-tenth of the restricted value of the whole of his property. Therefore, in the last mentioned case, he will not qualify for any payment out of the £300,000,000. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, wanted to know in what way we could assist the Government by suggesting matters for their consideration. I have been told in terms this afternoon that I am a congenital idiot and, therefore, I do not suppose the Government will pay any attention to the suggestions I make. If they do, let me suggest that they should consider very carefully the manner and method in which separate claims by the same person should be aggregated. So much for that point.

I shall not say anything about development charges, because sufficient has been said about them, but let me say one word about the remarkable effect of restricting the value of land to its existing user. I expect most people read the Star newspaper. If they do not read the front page, perhaps they read the page which is one from the end, in the hopes of obtaining information which may or may not lead in a few days to winning £74,000 or thereabouts. If any of your Lordships read the first or second pages of the Star newspaper about a fortnight ago, you would have seen the sad case of Mr. Tuck, who lives somewhere near Bournemouth. Mr. Tuck was a sailor, and like all sailors he gave up the sea and bought a small piece of land for the purpose of building a house thereon in order to house himself and his wife and, he hoped, his future family. He paid £160 for that land. The local authority in the Bournemouth area are desirous of buying that piece of land, and they have told Mr. Tuck that the restricted user value of the land is £1. It has been hinted to him that that is all he is going to get, and they have gone further and said that if he is inconvenienced by having to move, he can buy other land nearby of similar acreage for £176. They then go on to say that Mr. Tuck's remedy is to make a claim for loss of development value against the £300,000,000 in respect of which he may or may not get something by the year 1953.

If those facts are right, the whole transaction is completely within the terms of the Act and, indeed, as the Act stands nothing else could be done by the local authority. If the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, cares to look into that case—and I will send him full particulars—it may be instructive for the purpose of making suggestions with regard to the administration of the Act. In my view, the best thing for Mr. Tuck to do is to die, because when he dies the Inland Revenue are going to assess his property for purposes of estate duty at £1!

Now that raises the last question which I wish to ask, and I hope the Lord Chancellor will be able to give me an answer, as I am sure he will, because I know he is a great mathematician. What is the basis of assessment of property in this country for the purposes of estate duty? The position has been entirely altered by the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, and buildings and land in this country are, generally speaking, subject to that Act. Therefore, when a person dies, I presume that his property must he assessed for the purposes of estate duty at its restricted value. Of course, that may be a small value, but, on the other hand, the Inland Revenue are always quite prepared to assess property at a small value if they know that the Government or local authority are desirous of purchasing the property in the near future. The reason for that is obvious. I will not say any more, but I hope that it will be possible for the Government, if they do not amend the Statute, to investigate very carefully the way in which the Statute is being administered.

5.24 p.m.

VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER

My Lords, in winding up this debate on behalf of my noble friends on these Benches, I am sure that I shall not be expected to give any detailed analysis of the operation of this Act or, indeed, an exhaustive review of the speeches to which we have listened. I am happy to think that the powerful and persuasive speech of my noble friend Lord Llewellin has relieved me of the necessity for making any very great personal contribution to-night. There was one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, which I hope to reinforce in a few words at a later stage, and that is the question of delay which is restrictive of our industrial effort. That was also a point made by my noble friend Lord Clydesmuir with, if I may say so, great effect. I also support the proposition of my noble friend Lord Gage that the Central Land Board should be issued with statutory instructions as to how they are to carry on their duties.

I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, for the very frank and generous way in which he answered the question which I put to him on the last occasion when this matter came before your Lordships. It was an answer which was not altogether advantageous to his cause, and which he might quite reasonably have avoided giving. I appreciate it very much. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, mentioned a certain sense of unease. If it is any comfort to him, I never approach this matter without a considerable sense of unease, because I never feel that I fully understand or appreciate it. There may be some excuse because, as your Lordships know, this Act was never fully discussed in another place; less than half the clauses were considered in Committee or on the Report stage.

I am not an opponent of this Act. That there should not be unbridled and uncontrolled development of land is a principle which has been established and, indeed, accepted by previously existing legislation. But I do not feel that to achieve control of this kind and secure the other objects which this Act has in view it was necessary to introduce a cumbrous and complex piece of mechanism by which every change of user, large or small, is subjected to detailed and exact control. As a result, great industrial concerns are gravely hampered in the transaction of their business, and even the humblest citizen is hindered in the conduct of his everyday affairs.

We have had many examples of that to-night, and I will give only two. The first is very short, but on the other I shall have to spend a few moments because it illustrates, I believe, many of the undesirable consequences which flow from this Act in its present form. Both of these examples were given to me by one of our great industrial concerns. In the first case a company leased to a taxi driver a plot of land 20 ft. by 13 ft. Your Lordships can imagine that great industrial concerns do not in the ordinary way trouble with transactions of such a nature. The taxi driver had to pay a development charge of £50. Not unnaturally, he therefore asked that the lease should be cancelled, and declined to build a garage, the purpose for which he had taken the site. That is a simple and clear illustration of the way in which the small man is prevented from carrying on an occupation not only in itself harmless but entirely helpful to the community in which he lives.

The other matter is a larger one. The company in question, in order to build a new production unit needed three acres of waste land owned by the then L.M.S. Railway. This land was taken over by the Transport Commission and subsequently transferred to the Docks and Inland Waterways Executive, with whom in the end negotiations were completed. On the advice of the Chairman of the Central Land Board the Company, not unnaturally, said to the Docks and Canals Executive: "We will pay only the existing user value; that is what the Chairman of the Central Land Board told us we were to do." "No," said the Docks Executive, "We insist on our pound of flesh." Here we have the curious position of the State in two different guises in conflict with itself. We have a nationalised Dr. Jekyll prescribing physic for a Mr. Hyde who is unwilling to swallow it. It is as well that noble Lords who wished to extend nationalisation did not have their way, because the company might then have been nationalised, and the State would then have been in conflict with itself in three different guises.

The company then appealed to the local office of the Central Land Board, with a view to obtaining a compulsory purchase order. They were advised that long delay would result, with little likelihood of success. They then paid £3,750 for land of which the existing user value could not possibly exceed £200, and a development charge of £2,300. Then, after the negotiations to which I referred, this sum was reduced to £1,600. So we have this very unhappy situation: that, after negotiations which took three years, this company, one of the great dollar-earners in our country, are prevented all this time from erecting a new production unit to earn the dollars which are indeed our life blood. When at last they buy the land, they have to pay many times the proper value, and a heavy development charge on top of that. All they are left with is a claim on the £300,000,000, which means they do not know what—if anything—they will get or when, if ever, they will get it. I feel that that example shows many of the unhappy and unfortunate consequences of this Act. Land will not change hands at existing user value. No private individual with any capacity or competence in the conduct of his own affairs would sell on such a basis. Still less would he do it if he found that the Docks and Canals Executive declined to do it themselves. This again, I suggest, illustrates the injustice of people being forced to pay a development charge if they are unable to obtain a compulsory purchase order, paying this on top of a high price for the land and being left utterly uncertain about what they will receive.

Then again we have this element of negotiations. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, smiles—I must say that I consider him one of the most difficult of noble Lords opposite with whom to deal, because his method always completely disarms me. I hope he will not mind my saying that this bar- gaining savours to me rather of haggling. It is rather like the transaction of buying I and selling a motor car or a horse. And when he says that each step discloses a further fact affecting value I am indeed reminded of buying or selling a horse.

Not the least important feature of the illustration I have given is the factor of delay which is restrictive of production. Another most unsatisfactory thing is that in this case, as in any other, there is no appeal. And, finally, a factor which I might have developed earlier is that all these negotiations, all this delay and frustration, can result only in inflating the cost of the finished product, which means that the buyer in the home market or, in this case, the people overseas to whom the manufacturers are selling, are forced to pay more. I am not one who wishes to see this Act repealed. I believe that much of what we seek to achieve can be accomplished under previously existing legislation. Be that as it may, all I have asked—I ask it in a spirit of moderation, and I ask it again—is that we should think a little more about the working of this Act, that we should appoint a Committee to inquire into its working and not merely demand a Central Land Board report on their own progress or their own conduct. I suggest that pending the findings of the Committee we should delete those portions of the Act relating to developed and partially developed land. I make this proposal, as I say, in a spirit of moderation. I believe it to be one which the debate has shown to have much reason behind it. In any event I hope that it is a proposal which His Majesty's Government will not find it easy to resist.

5.37 p.m.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Meston, suggested that because he had been convicted—I think on his own confession—of some misunderstanding of a particular section of the Town and Country Planning Act, therefore he must be classed among the group of people known as congenital idiots. I should be very sorry if that were a satisfactory test, because if it were I myself should, I am sure, also be amongst that group, and I suspect that everybody else would too, in the sense that none of us can possibly remember every single detail of this complicated Act. There are a great many points on which we should hesitate to express an opinion. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, when I went round during the Election period I confess that I always dreaded that somebody would ask me one of those difficult questions about the Town and Country Planning Act, and I thought I should be expected to expound it with authority. Fortunately, it was a question which was never discussed; at not one meeting to which I went did anyone touch on the Town and Country Planning Act. It is true that I held my thumbs, and it may have been for that reason. I do not think there is this burning indignation about which we hear.

The particular illustrations which we have been given are very valuable, because they enable us to get down to and see the real points. I suggest that it would be very useful if we had before the debate comes on the particular illustration which is going to be used. The noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, was good enough to send me particulars of the case he referred to last, in order that I could have it looked up. I will deal with it in a moment. I want to answer the question which the noble Lord, Lord Clydesmuir, raised on the last occasion, because it shows the value of having what I may call advance information. I am not complaining, because I know people come to your Lordships and state their side of the case. If you have not heard the other side of the case, you are apt to accept what is put before you and then offer it to this House. In that way, the Act gets a bad name. You "give the dog a bad name and then seek to hang it." I will show your Lordships what I mean from these two illustrations. On the last occasion the noble Lord referred to a specific instance. He said: 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 spice 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. Let us look at the facts. The steel rolling mill which the noble Lord had in mind was, I assume, that of Clyde Alloys Ltd., of Craignouk Works, Motherwell. The facts are that the enlargement quoted, and four others which have since taken place, are all within the 10 per cent. tolerance, and no charge has been paid on any of them.

LORD CLYDESMUIR

My Lords, I do not know whether it is within the noble and learned Viscount's information, but it is quite true that the assessor said that this case, taken in relation to other parts of the works, could come within the tolerance. But he first of all assessed it for charge and the firm held that a charge should not apply where the productive capacity of the mill was not increased. I believe the question is still in abeyance. The firm has held the view that a point of principle is involved. That is my information.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I think it would have created rather a different impression upon the minds of your Lordships had we been told that in fact no charge had been levied. I come to the next example. The noble Lord told us the story of a store which had been destroyed by fire. He said …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. I presume that that referred to a store in Airdrie which was burned down. The store was about 40,000 cubic feet in area. It was rebuilt to about 58,000 cubic feet and a development charge of £10 was assessed in January, 1949, which was paid without any complaint.

LORD CLYDESMUIR

If I may interrupt again, I do not think the noble and learned Viscount is citing the case with which I was dealing. I gave him information about the cases to which I referred, If we are speaking of the same case, I am certainly unaware that these were the facts. I think we are at cross purposes.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

That I cannot say, but it all goes to show how valuable it would be to have the information before-hand, so that it can be checked. I am not complaining.

LORD CLYDESMUIR

Is the noble and learned Viscount quoting from the information which I gave him?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I passed the information on to my advisers, and the paper from which I am reading now and which I have in my hand is the answer which my advisers have given me, based on information which the noble Lord gave me.

LORD CLYDESMUIR

It is not quite correct, if it is the same case.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

By all means let it be looked into, but I cannot think that the noble Lord would have raised that case had he the information of those facts. I am not making the smallest complaint. My experience about these matters, which is very long, is that you do get complaints of this sort from one side and, unless and until you hear the other side and check up the facts, you have no idea what is the position. I am not making the smallest complaint. I welcome the citation of these cases. If they are to be of any value, they must be checked, and if, through inadvertence, some wholly inaccurate cases are put, it is quite wrong that on the strength of those cases the Act should get a bad name.

Let me take another specific case, to which the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, referred just now. We need not mention the name involved. The noble Viscount and I both know the name of the company because he was good enough to send it to me. The surveyor of that company wrote to the Central Land Board in October, 1948, stating that before the coming into operation of the Act the company had agreed to purchase the land at full development value. He complained that despite the Act the Railway Executive—that is their proper title—were still insisting on the full price. He asked how the company could get the land at existing use value. The Board, in replying, asked whether the land could be regarded as operational or non-operational. Your Lordships will remember that, for the purposes of the Act, land of statutory undertakers is divided into two classes—operational and non-operational. If the land were operational, no development charge would be payable by the company, and the Executive could then ask the full development value.

At the end of November a similar inquiry was received from the company themselves. They appeared to be unaware of the letter which had already been sent to their surveyor, and they were sent a copy of the letter previously sent to the surveyor. Then, in December, the company sent the Board copies of the correspondence with the Executive, which suggested that the land was not operational. At the request of the company, the Board took up the question of price with the Ministry of Transport, which is the Department concerned with canal undertakings. Early in January, 1949–this complicated matter had started only in October, so there was not a very long delay—the company were advised to reopen negotiations with the Executive. The Board heard nothing more until the middle of June, 1949, when an official of the company telephoned saying that he was to sign the contract that day at the original price, and he suggested over the telephone that the Board had been unhelpful. When pressed, he denied that he had any complaint to make but, this having been said, the Board took the matter up with the British Transport Commission. After an investigation, the Commission replied that the Executive had twice offered to re-open negotiations, but the company said they were content to adhere to the price already agreed. Moreover, the secretary of the company had stated that the company were quite satisfied with the contract. The price of the land, incidentally, which was £3,750, with an assignment, of course, of the claim against the £300,000,000 fund, is a very small item against the cost of the factory to be erected on it, which is of the order of and probably exceeding £250,000.

It was never suggested in the correspondence that the Board should seek to acquire the land compulsorily. The question of compulsory purchase was, so far as can be remembered, raised in the June telephone conversation, but it was pointed out that compulsory purchase was out of the question if the company insisted on completing the purchase immediately. I have given your Lordships those facts rather thoroughly, thanks to the courtesy of the noble Viscount who gave me the opportunity of making these inquiries into the case. Your Lordships will see that the facts I have stated put a different complexion on this case.

VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER

My Lords, may I interrupt to say one thing? I am most grateful to the noble and learned Viscount. In the first place, negotiations were started in this matter three years ago, but I think it fair to say that the subsequent delay is certainly not entirely due to the Town and Country Planning Act. In regard to my main point, that the Chairman of the Central Land Board advises—I have heard him advise it myself—that land should be bought only at existing user value, I feel, with respect, that. what I said is in substance sound because I have here a copy of a letter from the Docks and Inland Waterways Executive suggesting that negotiations should be reopened, that the claim for land and development value should be assigned, adding that the land was more valuable to the company than it would be to others, and that the Executive might consider it desirable to retain it rather than to dispose of it at a sacrificial price. That is my point: that the Docks Executive will not accept the advice of the Central Land Board.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I can well believe that that may be so, but that is in no sense the fault of the Central Land Board; nor does it cast the slightest slur on their administration. I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, about the problem of estate duty. As I understand it, the value of land for estate duty is existing user rate, unless it is dead ripe land, in which case it takes the rate appropriate to the land.

Lord Macdonald dealt with the problem of delay. We are most anxious to try to improve the administration of this Act. We have a new Minister who, like the new broom, is very anxious to sweep clean. He is very anxious to simplify things, and to shorten the length of time involved—and I will certainly see that he and his advisers have this debate brought to their attention—and to do what he can in the way of administration to improve the working of the Act.

The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, I think Lord Gage, and, to a certain extent, the most reverend Primate, suggested that we were being placed in a rather embarrassing position to-day by what Lord Charley called a strike of land owners. This is the first I have heard about it. The trouble to-day is that we are restricted as to the amount we can afford to expend on building. That, I say frankly, is a most unfortunate fact; but it is a fact. Your Lordships will remember that we made our cuts the other day—cuts which were criticised as being wholly inadequate. One of the cuts we had to impose was a cut on building because, if we are to avoid inflationary pressure, we have to cut down as far as we can on this sort of expenditure. We were criticised then for not having cut off enough. Shortly afterwards, we were criticised for not having a larger housing programme. One of these criticisms must go. Unfortunately, with our restricted programme, it is a fact that we have all the land we want at present, and I am not aware of any worth-while development being held up at present by reason of difficulty in getting land. We already have sufficient land to build all that we can afford to build, and more. I do not say that that always will be so. Obviously, I hope that it will not always be so. But that is the situation at the present time and, therefore, if there is a strike, a more inauspicious time to have it I cannot imagine, if the particular commodity they have to sell is not wanted.

I have told your Lordships before that, even though the 100 per cent. is continued, there is, in practice, what there ought not to be in law—namely, an inducement to a land owner to part will-his land. After all, if the land is going, to be dealt with in the market by higgling or haggling, or whatever the term is, he will specify a price which is a good deal higher than the agricultural land price, and he will generally get it from the purchaser, who is put in the position of saying "Either I must pay this price or I must go to all the expense of a lot of lawyers and a big arbitration." As I have always said, and as I think everybody who has worked on this matter with me in two Governments now has always recognised, that was likely to be the fact in practice. I fully understand the point of the demand for the reduction of the 100 per cent. development charge to 80 per cent. though I am doubtful whether that comes within the ambit of administration. I am not sure whether that would not involve legislation.

LORD LLEWELLIN

It may be a question of regulations.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I am not sure; it may be so. Anyway, if it is a question of administration the matter will certainly go before the Minister. The scheme of the Act is plain enough. We do not intend to increase the price of land over what was paid before. We merely split it up into two component parts. If previously you gave £200 for a plot of land on which to build a house, that £200 was composed of its present use value and the right to build. All we suggest is that that £200 should now be paid in two parcels. First of all, you pay to the landlord the existing use value, and you pay to the Central Land Board the development value. The existing use value and the development value should together come to the £200. Of course, as so often happens with human nature, everybody likes a thing except when they have got to pay for it. Inevitably, I am afraid, these payments must be exacted. By all means let us see that they are fair and reasonable; but they must be exacted. We cannot have the benefits of the scheme without the disadvantages, but we will certainly do what we can to see that the administration is made more satisfactory.

With regard to the question of appeal, for which no doubt, there is a great deal to be said, I am bound to say that in my view provision for an appeal would tend to make the whole scheme more rather than less rigid. If we are to have an appeal I think we must have an exact code. We cannot leave it to the higgling of the market. If we are to have an appeal we must ask the judges or the tribunal to act on more or less set and established principles. That is what we do in our income tax law. We cannot ask that one fellow should pay a bit less or another fellow a bit more, according to whether he proposes to devote the money left to him either to a meritorious or an unmeritorious cause. The rate is settled by the Act, and no discretion is left to the tribunal. The Minister, of course, cannot interfere; it is a judicial matter, and it is a different set-up altogether. I am not saying that there is not much to be said for an appeal,. but your Lordships must realise that if we have it, and if we give a fellow a chance to go and argue his case, it will mean greater rigidity in a matter in which we want very considerable flexibility.

My Lords, haggling has been thus described to me. The district valuer has to fix two figures in order to arrive at a figure. He has to fix the consent value and the refusal value. If the consent value of the land with the right to develop is £36,000, and the value of the land as it is—not with the right to develop but with its buildings on it—is £30,000, one arrives at the figure of £6,000, by way of subtraction between the two. Of course, the subtraction figure is very much smaller than the other two figures, and an error of 1 or 2 per cent. in either of those other figures will vitally affect the resultant figure. What happens is that the district valuer, to the best of his ability, fixes the consent and refusal values and then is visited by the surveyor acting on the other side, who, it may be, says to him: "You have got this wrong. I know of several instances, which are exactly comparable, of places being let at such-and-such a price, whereas you have worked it out at this price. Here are the illustrations. You ought to reduce your figure." So the £36,000 comes down—possibly by 10 per cent. That, of course, has a tremendous effect on the resultant figure. It may be that the other figure, the refusal value, goes up. Therefore we find these big alterations, which are really due to new facts being brought to the notice of the district valuer.

All these points will be considered, though they involve—at least to my mind—not merely administration but legislation. We cannot contemplate legislation, but there is no reason why we should not look into the matter and get to know the relevant circumstances, so that some future Government may benefit by the researches which are made to-day. Change of use, I think, is a matter which should be considered. I agree that we do not want to have too much rigidity about this, or to descend to ridiculous lengths.

I have dealt with incentives to sell, and I should like now to say a word about the £300,000,000. The most reverend Primate spoke of paying what I can describe only as a kind of interim dividend. That is impossible at the present time. Only about one-fifth of the claimants have indicated to any extent the value of their claims. It is clear that we cannot begin to pay out sums, even on a provisional basis, unless we have a rough idea of what the aggregate is going to be. Therefore, although we must do the best we can to cut down delay in that matter, I am bound to say that the proposition to which I have referred is an impossible one.

I have dealt briefly with these different flatters, and I can assure your Lordships that all these points will be looked into. For my own part, I do not favour the idea of a Committee. I have seen a great deal of the work of committees. I would rather that we started with the existing system, under which the Land Board report to the Minister, see what defects there are in the existing administration and, so far as we can, remove them. I never apologise for saying this: when you start some great new scheme you are almost certain to find that there are respects in which it can be improved. You cannot tell where the shoe pinches until you begin to wear the shoe. I never hesitate to come to your Lordships' House and say: "I think we have made a mistake in setting up this or in doing this, that and the other. Let us put it right." It is in that spirit, and from that angle, that we shall approach the problem here. I am grateful to your Lordships for having given further illustrations of what may perhaps be defects in the working of the Act.

6.4 p.m.

LORD LLEWELLIN

My Lords, in rising to close this debate, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, for the trouble he took in investigating the cases which I quoted on the last occasion. I thought my cases came rather well out of the investigation. I had a reduction in one, complete abolition in another, and further, an assurance that the 10 per cent. was not going to be a charge. The only difference I have with the noble Lord concerns the idea of the district valuer—I cannot believe that Lord Macdonald himself shares it—that there is more demand for property for banks than for retail shops. I believe that the noble Lord would agree that there is more demand for property for retail shops. I confess that I am one of the offenders who fail to give notice of cases which they are going to raise, and I say frankly it is due to my idleness. I get particulars of many of these cases, and I push them into an envelope. I admit that I did not start thinking of what I was going to say to-day until about half-past nine last night. That does not allow much tithe for sending information to the noble Lord. For my shortcomings in this respect, I apologise.

I should like, if I may, to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest, on his maiden speech. I remember the first time we met. It was in what had been and what still remained his constituency, despite my assault upon it. The first time I saw him A as when I was addressing an open air meeting. He was at the back of the crowd, and I saw him open his mouth to ask me a question. Then he closed it again and walked away, which I thought was very decent of him. I am certainly very glad to congratulate him on his speech to-day. The fact that I did not mention such matters as the curing of ribbon development does not mean that I am not just as keen on getting rid of ribbon development as anyone else. That was evident when we had our many debates or this Town and Country Planning measure. What we have been particularly devoting our attention to in this instance has been the way in which this Act, either in its administration or in its provisions, has been working out. After all, that is what Parliament is for. I think we have had a valuable discussion to-day.

I should like to thank the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, for the trouble which he has taken, and also to express my gratitude for the promises which both he and Lord Macdonald have given me, first, in regard to seeing whether these delays, or many of them, can be eliminated (on this we have had a thorough assurance), and secondly, to the effect—though I must say I am much more doubtful about this—that the Central Land Board are going to investigate these matters which are their concern. We are now in Lent and we are told that in Lent we should look into our own selves and into our own conduct. Sometimes that works out all right, but normally better results are obtained if someone from outside does the looking in. That is especially so when a Government Department or a public Beard are concerned. I feel it would have been better if some arrangement to this end would be agreed upon and there could be some investigation from outside to see which matters ought to be brought to the Minister's attention. One of the things which rather surprise me is that the Minister himself has not more direct control over the Central Land Board. I certainly think that he ought to have.

In regard to the tribunal, I agree that if one were to be set up legislation would be needed for the purpose. But such a tribunal would have no more difficult a task than the tasks which face those tribunals which have to deal with rating appeals. Such tribunals have been operating for ages in this country. They have frequently to consider what a hypothetical tenant would give in the way of rent for a property. This tribunal which it has been suggested should be set up would have to consider only what a hypothetical buyer would give for land with consent value or land without consent value. That would be no more difficult than the work which rating tribunals have done for many years in this country. I am obliged to the noble Lords who have spoken on behalf of the Government for saying that these matters will be looked into, and I am grateful to the whole House for the way this Motion has been received. Now with your Lordships' consent, I will withdraw it.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.