HL Deb 21 December 1964 vol 262 cc634-7

2.40 p.m.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Highland Development Board promised in the gracious Speech will be an official body like the Planning Boards described in the Parliamentary Statement on regional planning of December 10, or whether it will be a non-official advisory body like the planning councils described in the same Statement, and in either case, what will be its relationship to the Scottish Planning Board and the Scottish Planning Council respectively.]

LORD HUGHES

My Lords, the Highland Development Board will be an executive body with statutory powers able to effect measures for the development of its area. It will be responsible to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, and through him the necessary links with the Scottish Planning Board will be secured. The means by which the Highlands will be represented in the deliberations of the Scottish Planning Council have not yet been finalised.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

My Lords, will the Highland Board be subordinate to or parallel with the Scottish Planning Board? I am asking for information only. I am sure the noble Lord will agree that it is difficult enough to get sufficient people who are both public-spirited and competent to serve on all these bodies, and if we have too many Boards with overlapping functions we are sometimes obliged to appoint people who are not any use; and I do want to make sure that the relationship between them has been properly worked out.

LORD HUGHES

My Lords, I think it would be wrong to say that the Development Board will be parallel or subordinate. It is a completely different body. It is a body with a job to do not merely with the planning of things, which may be carried out by local authorities or other Government Departments. It will itself be an executive body. While I think it would be wrong to try to find an exact parallel, its powers would not be dissimilar from the powers that are possessed by a New Town Development Corporation. It will be charged with that kind of executive task.

LORD CRAIGTON

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we welcome the setting up of this Highland Development Board? Does he envisage that it will have finance it can spend on purposes in the Highlands in spite of the fact that those purposes might also be grant aided from other Departments of State?

LORD HUGHES

It is not the intention that the Highland Development Board should be a means by which bodies already having power to do things and spend money may be able to transfer their responsibilities somewhere else. The Highland Development Board will be provided with the necessary funds in order to do jobs in the Highlands which cannot at the present time be carried out adequately by existing bodies.

LORD CRAIGTON

As a supplementary to that, I should be grateful if the noble Lord would give an example of the sort of job they could do in the Highlands if they cannot match or help work already grant aided. The other point is this. As the justification for the Highland Development Board can be based only on the findings of the Committee now looking at the development plan for the Highlands, can the noble Lord help us on the timing? I feel that this House, and indeed Parliament itself, would not like to look at this Highland Development Board except in the perspective of the plan we have been promised fairly soon for the development of the Highlands. Is he going to bring in legislation for the Board or, in a White Paper, proposals for the Board, in addition to the plan for the Highlands? It would be very helpful if he could tell me.

LORD HUGHES

I have no doubt it would be, but nevertheless I cannot be so helpful. To go into much detail in reply to what the noble Lord has said must inevitably be to anticipate the contents of the Bill for setting up the Highland Development Board, which my right honourable friend has stated will be brought before the other place early in the New Year. I think your Lordships must wait for publication of that Bill.

LORD CRAIGTON

I will be pressing the noble Lord that we should see this plan for Highland development at the same time as we see the Bill. I notice he did not give an example of something which was not already grant aided on which the Board could spend money.

LORD HUGHES

I did not do so for the reason I gave, that I might be tempted to anticipate something in the Bill. I have not the slightest doubt that when the noble Lord sees the Bill he will not criticise it on the score that the body lacks power.

LORD DRUMALBYN

My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord can clear up one point. In spite of the intention to set up the Highland Development Board; will he confirm that the Scottish Planning Board is to be responsible for the whole of Scotland, including the Highlands?

LORD HUGHES

Yes, I can confirm that.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

My Lords, would the Government publish a White Paper on this rather complicated set-up which the noble Lord has been explaining so that we may all know what the respective executive and advisory responsibilities of these various bodies are?

LORD HUGHES

My Lords, I think that if the House is a little more patient in this matter the pattern will quite clearly emerge. I do not think it will prove necessary to publish a White Paper in order to make the proposals clear. At the moment your Lordships are seeing only the general picture. The details will be etched in a little more clearly. I think your Lordships, from your own knowledge, will know just as much about it as anyone else will do.