HL Deb 15 July 1957 vol 204 cc1084-98

2.44 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE MINISTER OF POWER (LORD MILLS)

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill now be read a second time. The Bill deals with the problem of damage caused by coalmining subsidence. It is very technical, but I believe that it is largely uncontroversial, and I hope to have the help of noble Lords on all sides of the House in dealing with it. When a seam of coal is extracted there is some sinking of the surface. This, of itself, need not cause damage. The main source of damage is the stretching and compression of the surface which occurs as the underground workings move forward. Unfortunately, the only way of preventing this damage altogether is by leaving solid pillars of coal large enough to protect any works on the surface. But if we maintain coal production at the high level we need, preventive measures can only rarely be used, and then for protecting some particularly important surface building or installation.

There are ways of reducing subsidence damage, but none of them is satisfactory and they are both difficult to work and too expensive for universal use. It follows that, if we are to get the coal the nation needs, we have to accept some subsidence damage on the surface. But we ought to alleviate the consequences by ensuring that properties damaged by subsidence are repaired whenever this is reasonable or economic, and that, in other cases, compensation is paid so as to relieve financial hardship both to individuals and to communities.

Under Common Law, the surface of the land has a natural right to support from the strata beneath it and to the side of it. This natural right has been modified, however, by contractual concessions going back in some cases for centuries. These concessions have been inherited by the National Coal Board from the former coal owners, and the natural right has been modified, to a lesser extent, by Statute. The result is that in mining areas there is a complex patchwork of surface rights. Some surface areas have a complete right to support. Others have no right to support but have a right to compensation if the property is damaged by subsidence. Others have a right neither to support nor to compensation.

This situation has given rise to many inequities between surface owners and has been the cause of much concern. As long ago as 1923 the then Government appointed a Royal Commission, which reported in 1927. The problem was again reviewed after the nationalisation of the coal industry by a departmental committee under Mr. Theodore Turner, Q.C., which was appointed in 1947 and reported in 1949. This Committee summed up its view of the present position as follows: Some of these deeds "— that is, deeds granting the right to work minerals— were made over 200 years ago; in many of them the original conditions have been altered as the property passed from hand to hand and the legal evidence presented to us leaves no doubt that in a certain number of cases it is now impossible, even after the strictest investigation of title, either to trace the original deed or to determine without litigation the present rights of the parties now concerned. It is obvious that such a situation can cause even the well-to-do a considerable inconvenience and to the poor man who can ill afford legal expenses, let alone litigation, an intolerable hardship. It also results in an uneven patchwork of surface rights which may well give the appearance of injustice where none, in fact, exists. The Turner Committee went on to recommend that every surface interest should be compensated for subsidence damage caused by the working of coal. Because of its financial implications this recommendation was not accepted by the Government of the day who did not think that they ought in the circumstances to impose so much additional burden on the Coal Board or the national Exchequer as the Turner proposals would involve. They did, however, start to tackle the problem in the Coal-Mining (Subsidence) Act, 1950. This Act made the National Coal Board liable for the repair of structural damage to small dwelling houses caused by coalmining subsidence. The present Bill completes the process started by the 1950 Act and removes inequities between surface owners by giving to all benefits similar to those which the general run of owners enjoy under agreement made with the Coal Board or their predecessors.

The key to the Bill is Clause 1. This clause makes the National Coal Board liable for repairing damage caused by coalmining subsidence to all land, buildings and structures, service lines and pipes. Alternatively, the National Coal Board can discharge their liability by making a payment. The clause thus goes very wide, but with some exceptions, which I shall mention later, it is limited to physical damage. This follows the precedent of the 1950 Act. The reason is that, in general, the rights which some surface owners enjoy under leases or agreements with the National Coal Board do not extend to compensation for consequential losses. To include consequential losses in the Bill, therefore, would go beyond the objective of removing inequities between surface owners and would mean giving something new to all surface owners, and this would multiply the cost of the measure several times.

During the passage of the Bill through another place, however, the Government have been able to make Amendments which cover the worst cases of personal hardship resulting from consequential losses caused by mining subsidence. Clause 1 and the First Schedule now provide that when people are rendered homeless by mining subsidence the National Coal Board must either provide or pay for alternative accommodation while the damaged house is being repaired or while the homeless people have an opportunity to seek a new home. In addition, Clause 11 provides that when a person is killed, or seriously and permanently disabled as the direct result of subsidence damage—fortunately these cases are very rare—and there is no claim against a third party, and the injured person has not contributed to the accident by his own negligence, the Board will be liable to pay damages to the injured person or, in the case of death, to his dependants as if the accident had been caused by their negligence.

We think these provisions cover the most difficult and hardest cases of consequential loss. If we went further it would be very difficult to draw a line, short of covering all consequential losses, and this would impose a financial burden on the National Coal Board, and consequently on the consumer, which I am afraid the Government could not contemplate.

Clause 1 also provides that the Bill, as a whole, will apply only to damage which occurs after the Royal Assent. To make the whole Bill retrospective would involve great difficulties. It would be very difficult, for example, to decide the cost, extent and cause of past damage: how much of it was due to subsidence and how much should really be the obligation of the National Coal Board. On this point too, however, the Government were able during the passage of the Bill through another place, to make a concession to meet the most difficult cases. Clause 8 now provides that in the case of damage to dwelling-houses which were not covered by the 1950 Act, because their rateable value was above the limits imposed by that Act, the present Bill shall be retrospective to 1st January, 1956.

The remaining clauses set out the detailed arrangements needed to give effect to Clause 1. I suggest that it is hardly necessary for us now to go through them in detail—there will be a later opportunity for that—but attention should be drawn to some of them.

Clause 4 is important. It will often be possible by simple preventive works, such as the strapping of buildings with steel bands, the shoring-up of walls and the strutting of windows and doors, either to prevent subsidence damage or to stop it getting worse. It is in the interests of both the National Coal Board and the owners and occupiers of property that this should be done. Accordingly, Clause 4 empowers the Board to execute, or pay for the execution of, these preventive works to existing buildings, and provides that if anyone unreasonably withholds his co-operation the Board will not be liable for any damage to that property which could have been avoided by the preventive works.

The clause does not extend to the incorporation of structural precautions in new buildings. This, I know, is a subject of some controversy, but the Government take the view that the incorporation of structural precautions in a building liable to be affected by mining subsidence is a matter of sound building practice and that responsibility for bearing the cost should rest with the builder. If the Board were to bear these costs, they would be involved in paying a large part of the cost of building in mining areas, and the burden on the coal consumer would be prohibitive. Various suggestions have been made for limiting this burden—for example, by providing that the Coal Board will pay only when a local planning authority requires the incorporation of structural precautions. But none of these suggestions is really satisfactory, and they would all lead to anomalies and inequities between surface owners. The Government see no satisfactory way of distinguishing between different buildings, and they have therefore decided that it is impracticable to cover this point in the Bill.

Clause 5 deals with the special problem which coal-mining subsidence creates in connection with land drainage. Not only may the subsidence damage drains, pumping stations and so on, but the mere fact of the lowering of the surface of the land may create a liability to flooding with which the existing drainage system, even though undamaged, cannot cope. It is essential that areas where this is likely to happen should be dealt with as a whole. So Clause 5, which is modelled on the successful Doncaster Area Drainage Act, 1929, provides that in England and Wales the National Coal Board must get together with the river board and internal drainage boards. They will have to agree on such measures for remedying, mitigating or preventing deterioration in the land drainage system through coal-mining subsidence which has occurred, or is likely to occur, as are reasonably necessary and are not unjustifiable on economic grounds. There is provision for arbitration if the various boards cannot reach agreement. This clause, in its present form, is the result of detailed discussions in another place and with the River Boards Association and the Association of Drainage Authorities. The Government have made substantial concessions to the views that have been expressed, and I suggest that the clause as it now stands provides a really sound basis for dealing with the land drainage problem.

Clause 6 provides that a person who has rights under the Bill, and also other rights arising from his agreements in respect of subsidence damage, cannot, in respect of the same damage, obtain benefits both under the Bill and under those other rights. It is up to the person concerned to decide which rights to pursue, and the Bill in no way detracts from existing rights. Moreover, if a person should choose to proceed either under the Bill or under existing rights, and then finds that he has no claim, he will have another chance of proceeding under the alternative remedy. All the clause does is to say that a person shall not benefit twice over for the same damage and that is, of course, fair.

That, my Lords, covers the main, provisions of the Bill, but there are two points on which the Government are departing from the recommendations of the Turner Committee which should be mentioned. The first is the question of an Exchequer grant to the National Coal Board towards the cost of this measure. The Turner Committee thought that it would be right for the Exchequer to bear the Board's additional costs. The 1950 Act did not go so far as that; it was a compromise under which the Exchequer contributed half the additional costs caused by the Act. The Government have given a lot of thought to this point, but they believe that since subsidence damage is part of the cost of winning coal, the cost should in future be reflected in the price of coal and borne by the nation as coal consumers rather than as taxpayers. A Treasury Grant towards the expenses of the new measure would, in effect, be a subsidy, and despite the precedent of the 1950 Act would run counter to the general principle that the nationalised industries should be rum on commercial lines and cover their costs out of revenues. The cost of the measure will be about £5 million a year, equivalent to 6d. per ton of coal mined. Any addition to the price of coal is unfortunate, but in relation to a retail price of about £7 a ton this is comparatively small. I hope the House will agree that it is not too high a price to pay for the sake of remedying these longstanding grievances and hardships.

The second point in the Turner Report not covered by the Bill is the law of support. The Turner Committee took the view that this law needed drastic amendment, and they proposed that existing rights to support should be swept away and that in future protection should be given only to properties included in a schedule of key points drawn up by Ministry officials, subject to appeal to a judicial tribunal. When the Turner Report was written, experience of the working of the new Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, was limited. Experience since then has shown that this machinery is, in fact, a satisfactory means of protecting key points from undermining. While the local planning authorities naturally have been reluctant to sterilise large quantities of coal, they have not hesitated to use their powers in those cases where it has been really necessary to protect vital surface interests.

The National Coal Board's Regional officials have established close contact with the local planning authorities, and we understand that in most cases the authorities have a good knowledge of the Board's proposed workings for twelve months ahead, and a broader indication of their plans for five years ahead. The Government think that these arrangements have, in fact, achieved the objective of the Turner Committee's proposals for protecting key points. Moreover, the implementation of these recommendations would involve substantial difficulty. For example, under the Turner proposals existing rights of support, perhaps purchased at great expense, could be swept away without compensation.

My Lords, in some respects, this Bill may not go quite so far as some of the surface interests would have wished, but it goes far enough to remove the anomalies and injustices caused by the present state of the law and to deal with cases of real hardship. As the result of the debate on Report stage in another place, the Government will be putting down a few Amendments of their own for your Lordships' consideration. I suggest that the Bill provides the basis for a final settlement of this problem of coal-mining subsidence which has caused so much trouble for so many years. I am glad to be able to commend such a constructive measure to your Lordships' House, and I now beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Mills.)

3.12 p.m.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

My Lords, my first pleasant duty is to express our appreciation of the very thorough manner in which, as we have learnt to expect from the noble Lord, Lord Mills, he has done his job. Those of us who were not well versed in the Bill before it was moved for Second Reading in this House certainly understand it far better as a result of his introduction of it. If he were a less experienced man, I would warn him not to look in the papers tomorrow morning for big headlines about the Bill which he has just introduced. This Bill will not get much attention from the general Press; it may not get any mention at all. I shall not be surprised if To-day in Parliament on the wireless at 10.45 tonight omits reference to it, and if The Week in Westminster makes no mention of it. But I do not want the noble Lord to think, because of all those things, that he has not introduced a very important Bill. He has.

There are thousands of miners and their families in this country, a section of the nation which has rendered great service to the country, who will be pleased with this Bill. For generations now they have lived in those drab and dreary dwellings. Some of them ventured out of their sparse earnings of the pre-First World War period to buy their own houses. The houses they bought were subject to mining subsidence, which can not only damage but destroy houses. Therefore they were very much concerned as to whether something could be done to safeguard their interests.

There are those in your Lordships' House this afternoon who have been critics of the nationalisation of the mines. In my opinion, this Bill would not be here were it not for their nationalisation. On many occasions we tried to get something done under private enterprise in this direction, but we failed miserably. The reason was that there were so many coal-owners in different circumstances: some who could have afforded it (and landowners who could have afforded it) and some who could not. The unification of the industry has enabled practical steps to be taken. I would extend to the noble Lord the Minister our thanks that the Government have gone as far as they have gone. They could have gone further, but I am not surprised that they have not; I think they have gone as far as we expected them to go.

As regards the recent discussions in another place, may I say that I have seen a number of Bills pass through another place, but I have never known a Bill dealt with in a better atmosphere than this Bill was dealt with during the Committee stage there. They had thirteen separate Committee Sittings, and in all except two some Amendment or another was accepted by the Government. That is a good indication of the right attitude on the part of the Government. But what I was most impressed with was not only the readiness of the Government to accept Amendments but also the readiness of the Opposition to amend Amendments to fit in with the wishes of the Government. That is, as a rule, how one gets a good Bill coming from another place. I looked at the Bill when it was before another place for Second Reading in January last. The Bill has had rather a leisurely passage, and it is now vastly different; and the difference represents a vast improvement in the Bill.

I am not going to refer to the separate clauses as did the Minister—as he should do, being the Minister—but I may say that I well remember introducing in this House the 1950 Bill and having to apologise almost at the outset for its smallness, for the little it was doing. I remember that a noble Lord who intervened from the other side—he is not present here to-day—chastised us for not going far enough, and said it was an inadequate Bill. Therefore we can depend not only on our side of the House but also on those sitting behind the noble Lord supporting this Bill. I was a little disturbed at the Minister's lukewarm reference to the reduction of subsidence damage. I agree that it is not easy to prevent it, especially over the years. You take a seam out: you take a second seam out, and you take a third seam out, and the whole time subsidence is taking place. To find an effective remedy, a way to prevent it, is not easy, but I hope the noble Lord's remarks did not mean that the National Coal Board have no intention of trying to take steps to prevent subsidence, so far as they can. Here is a case where prevention is certainly better than cure, and I think it is possible in some cases, though not, I agree, in all. I do hope that it is the intention of the National Coal Board, in their own interests, to try to avoid subsidence and not only to deal with it after it has been caused.

There were one or two references I wanted to make regarding the clauses. I welcome the clause which provides some retrospective payments: I think that was a good Amendment to accept. I do not want to press the Minister to-day, but I think we might try to press him to go a little further back. I do not know whether the noble Viscount, Lord Hall, intends to refer to the possibility, but if that can be done, it will be well accepted, not only here but generally throughout the mining community. I want to refer briefly to questions on Clauses 8, 9 and 11. I am not going into them in any detail, but these are the clauses of which the Minister, in another place, promised further consideration. All I am going to ask is this that, in drafting the Amendments for the Committee stage in your Lordships' House, the Minister should take consultation with those who discussed these Amendments in another place, because, after all, they put the Amendments forward and we are anxious to avoid unnecessary discussion here. We are quite satisfied that there can be some accommodation on the suggested Amendments, and if, before being placed on the Marshalled List, they are discussed in detail with those responsible in another place, we feel sure that this will facilitate the passing of the Bill through your Lordships' House.

With regard to the method of payment, we regret that the Government have decided to relieve the Exchequer of all responsibility regarding the payments for subsidence. It is not because we are not impressed with the arguments. I am not going to press alternative arguments today. In these days, nearly all coal consumers are taxpayers and all taxpayers are coal consumers, so that in a sense it does not matter much—the same people carry the burden in the long run. But what we are concerned about is loading the burden on the National Coal Board too much. The limit is expected to be one of £5 million. I hope it will be less, but I think it will be more than that. Even if it is not, it means £5 million to be borne by the National Coal Board. If we cannot avoid it, I would ask that it be shown as a separate item in the accounts, so that the country may know that this sum represents the cost of mining subsidence.

I do not think I need say much more about the Bill. I think it is a good Bill. I am pleased that the Government have gone as far as they have done. All I would say to those who do not understand and do not know much about mining subsidence is to suggest that they go through the mining areas and see what it means to those who, for generation after generation, have lived under terrible conditions. When we criticise the miner of to-day for demanding better pay and conditions, I think we have to realise that for generations past the mining communities have lived under difficult conditions. Part of the price they have had to pay is rot only running the risk of mining underground but also the danger to the houses in which the miners live. This Bill attempts, in a definite manner, to deal with those dangers, and I extend to it the warmest welcome.

3.23 p.m.

THE LORD BISHOP OF DERBY

My Lords, two years ago I had the privilege of introducing in your Lordships' House a discussion on mining subsidence. I asked that the proposals of the Turner Report might be implemented. To-day, I rise to say "Thank you" to the Government, both on behalf of the mining areas in my diocese and also, I am convinced, on behalf of mining areas throughout the country, for bringing in this Bill. I myself should have preferred that the undermining of buildings had been made illegal. We are told that in the necessity of getting out the coal that is an impracticable policy; but, at any rate, in this Bill provision is made that monetary compensation to the full value of the damage done; will be payable in all cases. That seems an elementary act of justice. It is strange that the country should have tolerated the present state of things so long. However, here, at last, is the Bill, and, like the noble Lord who has spoken for Her Majesty's Opposition, I am grateful for it.

I am grateful, too, on behalf of the Church of England, and the other religious denominations in the country, for the provisions in Clause 10, the ecclesiastical clause, which deals with damage to ecclesiastical property and provides that the compensation money should be paid to the central authorities of the denomination concerned. The one point on which I should like, if I may, to put some pressure upon the Government, is the point to which the noble Lord who introduced the Bill made reference as being controversial. It concerns the question of compensation for the necessity of structural precautions in new buildings. I understand that it was raised in another place.

It can happen that when new buildings are in prospect—it may be the case of a religious denomination desiring to erect a place of worship—the planning authorities, in the interests of security, if there be a risk of the building being undermined, may require reinforced and correspondingly expensive foundations as a condition of the grant of planning permission. I respectfully submit to Her Majesty's Government that the ends of justice would be more fully served if it could be found possible in this Bill to make provision for meeting that point. The noble Lord, Lord Mills, did refer to it, but said that, after careful consideration the Government had come to the conclusion, I gather with some reluctance, that it was impracticable. I still wonder whether it might not be possible for the point to be reconsidered, and I appeal to Her Majesty's Government to do their best in the matter, although it is not my personal intention to go to the length of moving an Amendment when the Bill is in Committee.

3.28 p.m.

VISCOUNT HALL

My Lords, I shall take up but a short time, because my noble friend Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor has dealt fully with the Opposition case. I welcome this Bill as a real effort further to deal with a grievance which many of the people living in the mining areas have suffered for generations. The extraction of so much coal from the earth of this country is bound to bring about subsidence. In the colliery in which I worked for some time, we had nine seams of coal, varying in thickness from two feet to nine feet. The total amount of coal, or the width or depth of coal which was taken out of that mine was something like 33 feet. Of course, when taking out 33 feet there is bound to be subsidence, and there is no real cure for it.

It should be remembered that for hundreds of years this extraction of coal has been going on in this country. Some time ago I made a statement in your Lordships' House that no less than 22,000 million tons of saleable coal have been taken out from under or in the coal-field areas, which represent a very small part of the total area of the country. As a result of this subsidence, the mining communities and populations have suffered great hardships. It has been ironical sometimes for a miner to know that he is digging out coal from under the very house which he himself has purchased, and that probably he is helping to let down his house by subsidence. This Bill goes a long way to deal with this problem.

I purchased my own house some years ago and had to take a risk over this question of subsidence. Fortunately, there was no subsidence which let down my house sufficiently to damage it, but the strange thing is that a reservoir only a mile away was so damaged, in relation to its capacity for holding the water which was necessary for the population, that it was beyond repair; and for some forty years that reservoir has not been used. I see the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, in his place. It is said that the house originally owned by the late Lord Aberdare had sunk, not through the earth but with the level of the earth, some seven or eight feet. That gives some idea of the subsidence and of the difficulties which the mining population and the mining communities have had to contend with over a very long period.

The noble Lord who introduced this Bill referred to the fact that the cost of the operation of this Bill is likely to amount to £5 million a year. That is an indication of the sort of cost which the mining population had to meet themselves—and they had to meet it over a number of years. The coal owners, and indeed the royalty owners, protected themselves in regard to the leases of property and the building of houses and doing other work; they escaped any liability, which fell mainly upon the miners and the local authorities. I should add, however, in fairness to some coal owners, some colliery owners, that it was possible to get them to recognise some part of the responsibility, and in many cases we were able to get some contribution, from them to assist in the repair of the property.

I should like to deal for a moment with the question of endeavouring to prevent, though not fully preventing, subsidence—that just cannot be done. Nevertheless, much more can be done than is being done at the present time. I am sure the mining engineers could tell the Coal Board of the practice that has been in operation in the coalfields of Germany almost from the commencement of the extraction of coal there—I refer to the tight stowing of rubbish in the waist after the coal has been brought out. That practice was followed for many years in some collieries in this country. Then a new idea came in, that there should be controlled falling of the roof, so that it was found much cheaper to convey the rubbish out and put it on the mountainside than to pack it in tight after the coal had been extracted.

I well remember, as a boy, seeing the officials coming round to test, in various parts of the face, whether the tight packing had been successful. But for some twenty or thirty years now, simply because it is cheaper to do it another way, and with an utter disregard of the consequences, a new method has been adopted. The new method not only let down a good deal of the surface but, at the same time, created those ugly pitheaps on the mountainsides of South Wales and in the fields of the Midlands and Scotland. When we consider the real value of coal, and, the fact that it was then being given away at something like 10s. or 12s. per ton, and the way the mining population suffered, I hope that the Minister of Power will discuss with the Coal Board every possible way of reducing the amount of subsidence, and particularly this question of the tight packing of the coal faces.

I am very pleased the noble Lord has dealt with the clause dealing with alternative accommodation. I hope that the Amendment proposed will be pretty wide, because some of us have seen houses literally falling down, and people staying on and living under conditions involving a good deal of risk of injury and sometimes death. The other clause with regard to which I was hoping he would introduce some Amendment is Clause 11, dealing with payments in respect of death or disablement caused as a result of this damage. I hope that the payments will be something like the compensation which a person would receive had his death been caused as a result of an accident in the pits. I should also like the noble Lord not to close his mind to the question of extending retrospective payments. It is true that in respect of some of the dwellinghouses the operation of the Bill will cover a period of eighteen months in retrospection. I entirely agree with him with regard to the inadequacy of the 1950 Act. That was just an experiment. I should like to see this Bill go back to 1950. I think it should go back at least, say, three years, instead of the eighteen months which is provided for in the Bill as it stands.

The Bill will be welcomed by the mining communities of this country: not only by the miners and other householders but also by the traders and the local authorities who hitherto have had no protection at all. I think that the Bill is a practical attempt to deal with a difficult and complicated situation. Its success will depend upon the manner in which it is administered, and the National Coal Board, which is now undertaking a great responsibility, should see that two things, in particular, are done. First, its technicians and engineers should apply their minds to the prevention of subsidence; and secondly, this legislation, when in operation, should be administered with understanding and great sympathy.