HL Deb 16 July 1957 vol 204 cc1213-21

6.20 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

LORD MILLS

My Lords, I beg to move that the Winfrith Heath Bill be now read a second time. This Bill has two main purposes: first, to extinguish rights of common and similar rights, in so far as any such rights subsist, over an area of heathland comprising about 700 acres, which forms part of a site which has been chosen for a new atomic energy research establishment in Dorset; and secondly, to provide machinery for determining the existence and nature of such rights, and for compensating anyone who is deprived of those rights.

The Bill is not concerned with the question of planning permission for the research establishment. Such permission was given some months ago by my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, after a public local inquiry, and with the support of the local authorities concerned. Nor is the Bill concerned with questions of amenities or of public right of access to the area. No such right exists, although the public has for a long time had access to the area by tacit consent of the owners.

The existence of common rights on this land is indicated in two Enclosure Awards, dated 1771 and 1839. By the first of these, part of what was then common land was enclosed, the remainder being allotted "for the preserving of furze, turf and other fuels" and for the grazing of cattle. The owners of some fifty-five cottages and tenements in Winfrith Newburgh were held to be entitled to share these rights. Unfortunately, the map attached to this award has been lost and cannot be traced. In its absence it is extremely difficult to determine either the area of land to which the rights attached or the identity of persons who may now be entitled to exercise the common rights referred to in the award.

The position under the second award is even more obscure, because no reference was made in the award to the nature of the rights to be exercised over the residue of the commons which was not enclosed. Whatever the rights under the two awards may have been, it seems clear that little or no use of them has been made for a very long time, and it will be a matter of considerable difficulty to find out what they are and who is entitled to them. I need hardly remind your Lordships that common rights axe preserved and protected very strictly by law. Parliament itself is always extremely vigilant in this matter; and any person entitled to rights of common can apply to the courts for an injunction to restrain any interference with the enjoyment of his rights. No one has yet come forward to tell the Atomic Energy Authority that he owns common rights in this area, but it is always possible that someone might do so. And it is obviously necessary that such common rights as may exist should be extinguished before the Atomic Energy Authority take any physical steps towards setting up their establishment.

The Winfrith Heath Bill provides that anyone who has a valid claim to common rights shall be adequately compensated for his loss. To this end, the Bill looks after the interests of claimants by providing for their claims to be thoroughly investigated without putting them to any expense or to much trouble in proving their title. It may quite possibly be that the procedure prescribed under the Bill will result in the discovery of common rights for persons who have hitherto been unaware of them.

It will be the duty of the valuer, who is to be appointed by the Lord Chancellor under Clause 2 of the Bill, to investigate, as his first task, whether any common or other rights have been extinguished by the Bill. This is likely to involve a good deal of research and inquiry on his part, and to impose a task which would be quite beyond the resources of individual commoners if they had themselves to establish what the rights were. If the valuer finds that there were such rights, it will be his duty to determine what they were and over what part of the heathland they were exercisable. He will then publish his findings so that persons who think they were entitled to any rights may either lodge an appeal against his decision on the existence or nature of rights or put in a claim for compensation for having been deprived of rights found to exist.

If, for example, the valuer were to find that no common rights existed, anyone who wished to dispute this decision could, within three months, give notice in writing to the valuer, requiring him to refer the decision to the Lands Tribunal for arbitration. Alternatively, anyone who is satisfied with the valuer's decision as to the existence and nature of rights, and Who wishes to make a claim for compensation for having been deprived of such rights, is entitled to put in such a claim within six weeks. The valuer then has to examine the claim and give a decision on it. Once again, if the claimant is dissatisfied with the decision, he may appeal against it and his appeal will be heard by the Lands Tribunal. The same rights of appeal to the Lands Tribunal against decisions of the valuer will be available, of course, to the Atomic Energy Authority, who will be responsible for payment of all compensation arising out of those decisions.

The valuer is given complete independence under this Bill. He will make and publish his decisions without reference to any Government Department, and his findings on any claim for compensation can be questioned only by the parties directly affected—the claimant and the Atomic Energy Authority. As I have said, if either of these parties appeals against the valuer's decision, the appeal will be heard by the Lands Tribunal, a completely independent body.

Your Lordships will see, therefore, that the interests of owners of common rights are very fully protected under this Bill. Claimants will be treated at least as well as if any of the other methods of extinguishing common rights had been selected. The great value of the Bill is that it will permit the Atomic Energy Authority to make an early start with their preparations on the site for setting up the research establishment, leaving questions of rights and compensation for adjudication by the valuer while this work is going on.

By this means the research work which is to be carried on at this new establishment will not be unduly delayed. This is the essential feature of the Bill. Its whole object is to avoid unnecessary delay to scientific work of the highest national importance and urgency. The new establishment is intended to accommodate reactor experiments which cannot be set up at any other of the Atomic Energy Authority's establishments. And the results of those experiments will be of prime importance. I commend the Bill to your Lordships and beg to move that it be now read a second time.

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

6.32 p.m.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

My Lords, we shall not obstruct the passage of this Bill at all. The Minister has, in his full description of it, adequately covered every point, and, for myself, I am quite satisfied. But I beg to detain your Lordships for a few minutes to focus attention upon the serious question which this Bill pinpoints. If it had not been for the fact that somebody thought that a cow might stray on the heath, and that that cow might be owned by somebody with common rights, this matter would never have come before Parliament. I am not blaming the Minister, but it really focuses attention on the fact that all atomic power stations which are in the programme which the Minister fully described in the debate we had some little time ago, when he was giving us full details of how the Government were going to spend £3,350 million upon the development of power supplies in this country, can be sited and erected, and Parliament does not have to be consulted at all.

The Minister has just said, quite truthfully, that a planning permission and everything else necessary has been given by administrative action. I do not so much object to that, but I am sure I shall carry the Minister with me in the criticism that I intend to make of this principle. Here we have Winfrith Heath, one of the great beauty spots in the Dorset hills. Six hundred and eighty-eight acres of that virgin land is going to be raped—there is no other word for it. Only 400 acres are necessary for the purpose for which the Minister wants it, but, by that happy knack which Government Departments have, they are going to keep in cold storage 288 acres because they might want them in twenty years' time.

In October, 1955, I asked the Government a Question in this House as to how many airfields there were that had been abandoned by the Air Ministry, no longer used for the purpose for which millions of pounds of the taxpayers' money had been expended, and I was told there were approximately 150, of which 47 were going to be sold or handed back or disposed of. I do not know what the number would be to-day, but I would suggest that there might have been one of the hundred or more airfields that were built, hundreds of thousands of acres covered with building and concrete for which the taxpayer has paid, that might have served the purpose for which Winfrith Heath has now been desecrated. I know the Minister will agree with me that at the present time, when we are faced with a recurring financial crisis, the responsibility resting on his shoulders is not only to provide power, but to provide it with due regard to the taxpayers' money. I know he will agree with me, because he is now a director in (if I may put it that way) John Bull Limited; he has to watch the shareholders' money, and the shareholders in John Bull Limited are the taxpayers

I am apprehensive. It always appears to me that when the Government want land for a project they never go and see what land there is in the possession of another Government Department; they must always have some virgin site. Take the case of the Bradwell Atomic Station: Foulness Island, in the Thames Estuary, within a mile of Bradwell, was taken over by the Government as a gun-site in the 1914–18 war; it has never been used for anything since. But that, for some reason, was not acceptable; they had to acquire something else within a mile. At a time like this, when all of us, irrespective of the political Party to which we belong, are fearful of this thing called inflation—and one of the greatest incentives to inflation is Government expenditure—I wonder whether the noble Lord would think it opportune to review whether some of these other places, upon which, as I say, the taxpayers' money has been expended, could not be used in future.

I know that Winfrith Heath is supposed to have every virtue desired by the Atomic Energy Commission. These places always have. I always suspect that these sites are chosen, and that the reasons for choosing them are then built round the site, after it has been chosen. I understand that one of the reasons why they cannot have a site I have suggested is because they cannot risk water pollution from the effluent. I live not far from Harwell, and Winfrith Heath is supposed to be the twin sister of Harwell. When the local angler complains that the effluent from Harwell is polluting the river and that he cannot fish properly, all the experts deny that there is any such thing as poisonous effluent coming from Harwell. Harwell is situated in a somewhat populous area—or at least within a mile and a half of it—and so I am not entirely convinced by the arguments that these virgin spots of great beauty are the only spots upon which places like this can be built.

I hope the Minister will find some way to meet this point. In the Electricity Bill, which we have just disposed of and which covers this particular subject, he has gone a long way to meet the desires from the amenity point of view. I want to impress upon him the seriousness of this matter from the taxpayer's point of view. I suppose that a huge amount of money will be sunk into this site; yet there are already hundreds of sites up and down this country, already owned by Government Departments, which are not being used at all and are lying derelict. There are about one hundred aerodromes belonging to the Air Ministry. That was the simple point I wanted to make.

I am quite prepared for the Minister to say: "Well, of course, everything you have said is nothing to do with this Bill." But the point I want to impress again upon your Lordships is that if somebody had not whispered to the Ministry that there might be such a thing as commoner's rights on Winfrith Heath, and that they had better be abolished in case the cow got in the way of the atomic station, Parliament would never have had this matter brought to its notice. Even in the Bill we have just passed, although the Minister may in future have to hold public inquiries on these power station sites, he does not have to consult Parliament. I wonder whether that is wise. I wonder whether it would not be wise for the planning for these atomic power stations to be looked at again. Question and answer at Question Time in your Lordships' House drew an answer from the noble Lord which I welcome very much—that he has it under constant review. I feel certain that the noble Lord does not need prompting on this subject, but perhaps the expression of opinion that I have given in your Lordships' House may help him in future, when he has to tackle this matter with some of his colleagues. I am not going to obstruct the Second Reading of this Bill. We have no point to raise upon it whatsoever. We agree with the noble Lord. He has covered everything that it is possible and right that he should cover, and we shall have nothing more to say on any of the remaining stages.

6.45 p.m.

LORD MERTHYR

My Lords, I should like to make one point in connection with this Bill. Normally, in enactments of this kind it is customary, though not, I admit, necessary, to compensate in some form or another the public for the loss of the access to the common land which is taken away. I admit straight away that, legally, the public have no rights in the matter. There is no argument about that; and in this particular case they have not. But this is, I am informed, the first Bill of its kind, or at least the first within living memory, which does not provide some form of compensation to the public for the loss of their de facto access which they have enjoyed, as I understand, upon this particular common. I thought it right to point out that fact to your Lordships, which I think is an unfortunate omission from the Bill.

LORD LAWSON

My Lords, I want to ask a question. Did I understand that there had been no protest about this matter? Have the local authorities not raised protests about it? I think it would be rather surprising if they had not, because there have been many public protests about it. I do not know whether I am right or not, but I think this is supposed to be the famous ground covered by Hardy in his Return of the Native. If that is so—I know that that is questioned—then I think the noble Lord can expect that there will be some protests, even if there have not been any already. I should like to know whether the local authority have made any objection, or whether there have been no objections at all.

6.48 p.m.

LORD DIGBY

My Lords, in reply to the last speaker, I might say that I, as chairman of the Dorset County Council, have been thoroughly into all the points about which he has some doubts. We have taken a considerable time in doing so. At our meeting last November we passed a resolution that the Winfrith Heath scheme should go forward at the earliest possible moment. Unfortunately, this was further delayed by a public inquiry which took place early in the year. The only effect of that public inquiry, so far as we personally are concerned, is that many of the provisoes which the County Council had received from the Atomic Energy Authority were washed out because the Minister took the matter into his own hands. That, of course, was not the Minister of Fuel and Power so much as the Minister of Housing and Local Government. Since then this Bill has been brought forward before your Lordships' House. The Bill was supported by the members of my County Council, at the last quarterly meeting, and those who were most vociferous in its favour were the members of the Party opposite. I am quite certain that this matter should go forward. We have had no protests whatsoever about this locally, and I think that the sooner we get this Bill enacted the better, in order that we can push forward with the research station in Dorset and so carry out the research we so vitally need for the future.

6.50 p.m.

LORD MILLS

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Digby, the Chairman of the Dorset County Council. I think he has answered the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson. I am not going to plead that these questions which noble Lords have put forward have nothing to do with this Bill. That is the last thing that I would do, because I am very interested and keen to assure your Lordships that this site has not been carelessly chosen. The search for a site for a new establishment began in 1955, and more than seventy sites were examined. Many authorities were consulted in the search for a site—I have here a list of twenty-six of them. They included the Ministry of Supply, the Air Ministry, the Admiralty, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Ministry of Health, the War Department, the Ministry of Works and so on.

The essential requirements which had to be satisfied were as follows. It was felt that the establishment must be some distance from any large centre of population. The site must have the right kind of subsoil to permit the erection of the reactors. There must be a plentiful supply of fresh water for cooling purposes. The site should not be in a main catchment area for drinking water. The site must permit the safe disposal of effluents, preferably into the sea or a tidal estuary. There must be the minimum encroachment on agricultural land and, for operational reasons, the site should not be too far away from Harwell. Winfrith Heath was the site which met these points, and that was the reason for selecting it.

I should like next to say a word or two in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Merthyr, about what is intended to be done with this site. The land in respect of which planning permission has been granted does not comprise the whole of the land which is subject to planning permission. The reactors themselves will be built on isolated sites of about three acres each, which will be fenced off and screened with trees. The land between will be left open, and it is not proposed to have a fence enclosing the whole site. It is not intended to close existing foot-paths or roads, but it cannot be guaranteed that some diversion of footpaths may not be necessary. For a number of years all development will be to the East of the road which crosses the Heath from North to South, and present planning permission is restricted to this area. Trees will be planted at suitable points, in compliance with the wishes of the Dorset County Council. I think your Lordships will see from this that it is intended, so far as is possible, to preserve the amenities of this land and not to interfere unduly with the rights of public access to it. I hope that what I have said will satisfy your Lordships that this site has not been hastily chosen but that it has been chosen with every consideration for the public good.

On Question. Bill read 2a, and referred to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.