HL Deb 15 July 1957 vol 204 cc1101-10

3.46 p.m.

Debate resumed.

LORD LAWSON

My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity of joining with my two noble friends in giving a welcome to this Bill. It gives me peculiar pleasure to do so, because I think that this is the first time I have had the chance of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Mills, upon any Bill or suggestion which he has put forward up to the present time. It is true that the Committee stages of this Bill in another place have been almost unparalleled in the spirit that was shown in the discussions on the many occasions upon which the Committee sat. I have read a good deal of the Report of the Committee, and as one who has now been in Parliament for getting on for forty years, I must say that it was an exhilarating experience to read such a Report. It would have been exhilarating with a Committee dealing with any subject, but it was still more so with a Committee dealing with this subject—the undermining of houses and buildings generally. But it must be said that that spirit would have been quite impossible had it not been for the fact that the mines are nationalised.

Those of us who have known this problem over our lifetime have seen woeful cases. Over the last century or two there must have been a great mass of people who have had to submit quietly to conditions which, very often, ruined their homes and houses which they owned and for which they could obtain no redress because they had not sufficient money to take the matter into the courts, and because it was almost impossible to get legislation dealing with the subject. I remember particularly one case in which the business premises of a great company were undermined. I was working in the mines at the time. The company, as I have said, was a great one. It had money and it was in an organisation which included others in the same position. They were, of course, in a position to go into court. They did so, and they got such handsome redress that those of us who had to produce were not quite so happy as we are going to be about the results of this Bill. I know of no instance in which it could be said more appositely, in the words of the old text: For unto everyone that hath shall be given;…but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. I know of no instance where that could be said so appositely as in relation to the subject we are discussing to-day.

It is a good thing to know that there has been unanimity on this matter—in fact there has been almost rivalry amongst the various representatives of the Parties represented on the Committee in the other place to do justice to those who have suffered. In recent years, I have lived in a very old coalfield which had been worked for something like two centuries, and I am not sure that, in some parts, the Coal Board may not have to pay the price for what has already been done. Coal has been taken out in the past, and there has been undermining. The Coal Board may start operation some distance off, and no-one knows anything about the roof and the make-up of the rock generally. I am not at all sure but that the Coal Board may have to pay for something that happened many years ago and in relation to which there are no plans. Plans were not allowed voluntarily until 1870, and they were not made compulsory until 1921. So sometimes it happens that there is an old coalfield or a working in an area in which the Coal Board operates, and once the Board reopens one of these areas it may well start something for which it will have to pay, even though it is not directly responsible for what has happened.

One other point I want to deal with is the part which the planning authority have to play, as they have to be considered now in connection with this matter. The older coalfields were those chiefly hit by subsidence, because originally the shallow seams nearest the surface were worked first. It is just in these older coalfields that it was found necessary to establish the light industries, because, as is fairly well known, they were the first to be hit by the depression, because they relied on coal, steel and heavy industries and there were no light industries and factories in their areas. I hope that, when the planning authorities and the National Coal Board are negotiating on questions of subsidence, their conclusions will not interfere with the establishment of light industries in the coalfields. The decision to provide for negotiations is well meant and right, but delicate handling by the planning authorities and the National Coal Board will be needed if light industries are to be attracted to the area.

My noble friend Lord Hall referred to the fact that the material which was brought to the surface might be used to support the roof in coal mines, particularly in the shallower seams. Those who go by road or rail from King's Cross to the North and to Scotland will have observed that we have our own "Himalayas" up there, which have grown no less in recent days. It is said right and left by the people in these areas that something should be done to use the material in these heaps for shoring up roofs, particularly where there is undermining of the surface and damage to homes and business premises. I am glad that my noble friends Lord Hall and Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor have dealt with this matter, because I believe that no opportunity should be missed of emphasising the fact that this material could be useful below and should be used for shoring up the roofs, instead of being sent to the surface to be piled into innumerable heaps which grow greater and greater until they become little mountains of rock reaching to the heavens.

That is all I want to say, but I am pleased indeed that at last there has been found some solution of this problem which has affected the homes of good people, and sometimes damaged and ruined their property, for which they have had little opportunity of getting relief. I am glad that all Parties have come to a definite agreement upon this matter; and although some problems remain—problems which will test the good will of those concerned—at last justice is to be done, and there is a fundamental settlement of this serious problem.

3.56 p.m.

LORD SILKIN

My Lords, I should like to join with those noble Lords who have already spoken in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Mills, upon the clarity with which he has introduced this rather complex Bill and upon introducing a measure which has received so warm a welcome. I do not propose to destroy the harmony of the proceedings by being critical of this Bill, though it has not solved one problem with which I had been confronted when dealing with this matter as a Minister—that is, the exact pronunciation of "subsidence". The noble Lord who introduced the Bill said "subsidence" and my noble friend Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor called it subsidence," while my noble friend Lord Hall used both pronunciations. I propose to stick to subsidence", which is the pronunciation we arrived at in the Ministry after a very exhausive examination.

I want to emphasise as strongly as I can the importance of the proposal which my noble friends Lord Hall and Lord Lawson made on the prevention of subsidence. I hope that the passing of this Bill will not merely give the National Coal Board freedom to go ahead and deal with this matter simply by way of compensation. In other countries subsidence is dealt with by putting back the rubbish into the old seams, and although there is bound to be a fail in the level of the land, it can be so dealt with that the fall is even, in which case no great harm will result. It would remove a great deal of the cause of damage if it were possible, in some cases at any rate, to restore the rubbish to the land.

My own interest in this matter goes back to the time when we decided to build a new town at Peterlee, in County Durham. Peterlee was an ideal area in which to build a new town, from the point of view of the convenience of the people who were going to live in it, but unfortunately it was subject to heavy subsidence. There was a great deal of discussion between the National Coal Board and the Development Corporation on the best way of dealing with it. At one time it was thought that the National Coal Board should dictate the plan of the new town, stating where the main buildings should be and where the housing should be, but that was regarded as most unsatisfactory and as likely to result in an uneconomic town. In the end, an estimate was arrived at that by means of taking certain precautions the cost of the new town would be increased by about 5 per cent. but that it should go forward in the same way as a normal new town. However, it was a serious problem at the time, and I certainly thought it quite wrong that the planning of a whole area should be dictated by this question of subsidence. If this were to happen today, I imagine that the Coal Board would be responsible for at any rate a great deal of any damage that might be caused, but that it would still be incumbent on the planning authority and the developers to take reasonable steps to minimise the damage, so far as they possibly could—and I think that is right.

The noble Lord, Lord Mills, dealt with the question of retrospection. I think it is reasonable that there should be a certain amount of retrospection, although I should have liked to see it go a little wider. My difficulty is to know where the evidence of subsidence begins. It is going to be exceedingly difficult for anyone to prove that on a certain day subsidence begins. The onus of proof will be on the small man. It will mean calling expert evidence to establish whether a particular piece of damage is due to subsidence or to, say, settlement—and, after all, they are very much the same thing, certainly in their effects. Generally, it is going to be difficult to establish that damage in its early stages is due to subsidence rather than to ordinary settlement, of which we all have experience. Much will depend on the spirit with which this Bill, when it becomes an Act, is administered by the Coal Board. I hope that it will be administered in a generous spirit, and that any doubt will be given to the claimant rather than to the Coal Board; because the claimant will usually be a small person, and it will be extremely costly for him to have to establish a claim. This Bill can be rendered quite nugatory if it is administered in an ungenerous and niggardly spirit, and I hope that the Minister, so far as he can, will see that the Coal Board are impressed with the idea of dealing with this matter in a generous way.

I feel that I must complain about the complexity of the language of this Bill. I find it the most difficult Bill to follow in its language since the Town and Country Planning Act of 1954. That really was a "teaser," and I find this almost equally difficult. I tried to understand Clause 9 of this Bill all the way from Horsham to Victoria, but I am afraid that I was no wiser when I got to Victoria than I was at Horsham. I do not suggest for a moment that the obscurity is deliberate, but obscurity in a measure can mask a good deal of injustice which is discovered only at a later stage, when the Act has to be implemented. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mills, when introducing his Amendment (I think he mentioned an Amendment to Clause 9) will see whether the language cannot be simplified. In addition, there is in this clause an enormous amount of legislation by reference: all kinds of Acts of Parliament and sections are prayed in aid with no explanation of what they are. They might or might not be of great importance, but the claimant can hardly be expected to have available all these various Acts of Parliament in order to see what his rights are; and even his legal advisers may find themselves in some difficulty. Therefore, I hope that some effort will be made—and I know it can be—to simplify the language of this Bill.

Finally, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he has in mind to do anything about other forms of subsidence. This Bill relates only to subsidence caused by coal-mining, but he will know that there are serious forms of subsidence in the county of Cheshire, where salt mining is carried on. If he will only go to Nantwich he will see some shocking examples of subsidence caused as a result of this salt mining. It seems to me anomalous that we have reached the stage of requiring the nationalised coal industry to pay compensation, but that those who mine for salt are still free to inflict damage on their neighbours with impunity, and that no action is taken on that point. In one part of Cheshire an enormous lake has been brought about by subsidence. I hope that during the Long Recess the noble Lord will try to make it convenient to go to Nantwich (I do not suggest it would be a holiday trip, but he would find it interesting) to see the evidence of subsidence that is going on all round there, and to see whether something cannot be done for those people, who are suffering as seriously from this type of subsidence as those for whom this Bill is being provided as a remedy. There are one or two Amendments that we shall wish to put down on the Committee stage, but in principle we welcome the Bill and we shall do everything we can to give it a smooth and rapid passage.

4.8 p.m.

LORD MILLS

My Lords, when I started to address your Lordships I said I hoped to have the help of noble Lords in dealing with this technical and somewhat complicated Bill. I am encouraged by the speeches of noble Lords to think that I have got that help and that this Bill is welcomed. Perhaps your Lordships would permit me to deal with the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, as to whether it is "subsidence" or "subsi'dence". I think the noble Viscount, Lord Hall, is right—he used both forms of pronunciation. I am told that there are two Latin words, one "subsĪdo" and the other "subsideo", and that, therefore, "sub'sidence" or "subsi'dence" is right, whichever you prefer.

I was encouraged by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor. I should like to thank him for his support and deal with one or two matters he raised which were also raised by other noble Lords. He said he thought I was not enthusiastic about the possibilities of methods being found of reducing subsidence damage. I am quite prepared to be very enthusiastic. I am sure the National Coal Board are not lukewarm in this matter, and if they were ever—and I do not believe it—inclined to neglect that side of the problem, they certainly now have some urge to solve it because it is going to cost them a lot of money if they do not. That, added to the natural inclination to consider the human aspects of this matter, should ensure that the matter is pressed forward.

The question of retrospection was dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, the noble Viscount, Lord Hall, and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. This question of retrospection is always a difficult matter. It is never very easy, even when the facts are more apparent than they are in this case, and the further back you put the period, the more you add to your difficulties. The Government have tried to deal with this question of payment in respect of house property on a realistic basis. As I said, there will be certain Government Amendments to put forward, and noble Lords have told me that there may be Amendments from the other side. I shall be only too happy to consult with those who have put forward Amendments in another place and those who wish to put them forward here, in order that we can expedite the passing of this Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, also regretted the fact that we wished to relieve the Exchequer and to put the burden on the Coal Board. He advanced the argument that the taxpayer and the coal consumer were the same people, That is, of course, largely true. But they are not the same people so far as amounts are concerned. It does not follow that the people who consume the most coal are the people who pay the most taxes and vice versa. I am anxious that we should look to the Coal Board to take into account the whole of this expenditure. But I welcome the noble Lord's suggestion that there should be a separate item in their accounts, and I will certainly put that forward.

The right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Derby, raised the difficult question, to which I had referred, of structural precautions in new buildings. This is a matter to which we have given earnest thought, because obviously if it is desired to put a new place of worship in a mining community it is a little hard that the members of that place of worship might have to bear the cost of reinforcing their building. But, unfortunately, that is not the only case. It might not even be the only case so far as the Church Commissioners are concerned. There are all kinds of buildings which make up a mining community, and, as I have said, it would place an intolerable burden upon the Coal Board if we tried to legislate that they should bear the cost of strengthening all new buildings. Therefore I am afraid that I cannot hold out any hope that we can legislate in this respect, and I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for saying that he did not propose to put down an Amendment concerning it.

The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, referred to the question of the establishment of light industries in mining areas. I am grateful to him for reminding me of that matter, and we will certainly give it every thought, to see how light industries can still be attracted to where they should go. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, referred to the complexity of the language. I suppose, as the Minister responsible for the Bill, I am also responsible for the complexity of the language. But I can assure the noble Lord that I was not responsible for putting down the language, although I take the responsibility for it. I think the matter will probably best be met—it is a highly technical Bill, and the legal language is not easy in this respect—if we decide to issue a leaflet in popular terms describing the, Bill and what it does. The noble Lord also referred to other forms of mining, and invited me to spend any vacation I might take in Nantwich. I am informed that there is already a statutory scheme for subsidence damage caused by brine pumping in the Brine Pumping Subsidence Act, 1952. I have so far seen no evidence that subsidence damage caused by the working of other minerals has given rise to serious hardship in the way that coal mining subsidence has. But I will be watchful about it, and will certainly give the matter every consideration.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.