DERBY ORDER 1968 (Hansard, 28 February 1968)

§ LORD CHAMPION
My Lords, I do not know whether it is necessary for me to ask leave to speak again in this adjourned debate. If it is necessary I seek that leave, but only for a minute. Last night we adjourned the debate on my Motion in order that the Minister in 890 charge of it might go back and consult the chief Minister in the Department as to whether or not this Order should be withdrawn. The House agreed to that, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, has, I am sure, taken advantage of the opportunity which has been presented to him to consider this matter afresh with his senior colleague. I think that the House must at this stage be looking to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, to tell us the result of his reconsideration and of the reconsideration of the Department and the Minister. So, my Lords, I do not propose to rehearse the case for this, but rather to ask my noble friend to tell us what has transpired since the House adjourned this matter last night.

§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET)
My Lords, I have indeed consulted with my right honourable friend about this Order, and shall report to the House in a moment the results of that reconsideration and consultation. We had a full debate on this matter yesterday, and I do not wish to go over Mound which has already been traversed, but there are one or two points that I would wish to add to those which were made yesterday. I think it is important to do this because the debate yesterday was a full and fundamental one. The delay of twenty-four hours which has been imposed on the passing of this Order has, in fact, resulted in certain inconveniences to the very fabric of local government in that part of the world, which will become apparent in time and with which I shall not detain the House at the moment.
There are certain points that I wish to take up from yesterday. I mentioned housing as a service in which the present boundaries and the subdivision of this area are hampering the solution of urgent problems. Let me add something to what I said then. The town of Derby, yes the House knows, has this enormous problem of redevelopment in order to replace their very high proportion of old houses and replan the centre of the town. There is no land left for housing within the borough's present boundaries. Any more houses built inside this central area can be built only on sites cleared by demolition, though some of that land must be 891 used in the future for roads and other town centre needs. Because of their shortage of sites, the Corporation of Derby will be able to complete fewer than 100 houses a year during the next two years. They will, moreover, not be letting any new house building contracts within their boundaries for the next two years—none at all, my Lords. This is the position to which the opponents of this Order would condemn that town. There is no land to build on.
It is true that negotiations have been going forward to allow the Corporation to purchase another site outside the borough boundaries, at Sinfin, for their next large housing estate. I understand that these negotiations are going well, and might eventually permit the building of some 2,500 houses outside the boundaries. But, my Lords—and this is something we tended to forget in the debate yesterday—no work can proceed without drainage, and this must be provided by the South-East Derbyshire Rural District Council, who, perhaps understandably, have been reluctant to commit themselves on this while the boundary problems are unsettled. It is not an unreasonable attitude to take. There is only one way to remove these uncertainties, and that is by extending the borough boundaries, as the Order proposes. If the Order does not come into effect, the boundary problems will still be there, but will merely be postponed while the authorities wait next for the Royal Commission's Report and, after that, once it has been published, for the Government's decision on it—a process of several years. All this we discussed yesterday.
I also referred yesterday to planning, and I should like to say another word under this heading. An important aspect of this is the replanning of the central core of this single built-up town. This is a town of about a quarter of a million population, and the needs of the central area arise from the requirements of the town as a whole, and not simply of the part which by history happens to be included within the town boundaries, from the point of view of traffic, of car-parking, of employment, of offices, of shops and of all the other aspects of town centre planning. This planning must be for the needs of the town as a whole. But in 892 fact nearly 40 per cent. of the population of this single town live outside the boundaries of the authority which is responsible for the planning.
Let us look also at the procedures which are needed when the Corporation want to build beyond their boundaries—when they want to build houses, or when they want to build schools, as they have already had to do. Planning applications for those houses and those schools must be laid before the rural district council concerned. The County Council will certainly have to be brought into the picture. Proposals that a county borough should build in the area of a neighbouring rural district would naturally be scrutinised very closely, and maybe with some suspicion. Again, I do not blame the county and rural authorities for that but it is totally unrealistic to suppose that the suspicion which is natural in these circumstances does not exist when county boundaries are expanding into county districts. Noble Lords who have in the past sat on Private Bill Committees considering the proposed extension of county boroughs will not need to be reminded of this fact.
I understand that it has on occasions taken as long as four years from the initial planning application to the granting of the final approval on appeal to the Minister and, while I do not say that this is typical, it is against this possibility that your Lordships should recall the passage in the County Council's statement which says that there is no urgent need to alter existing arrangements because these include—and I quote: adequate opportunity for consultation on planning and housing programmes". It is no part of my case to cast doubts on the normal consultative arrangements between neighbouring authorities. These are the very stuff of local democracy. But I would say to the House that in a situation like this, where a single town is divided for local government purposes by the survival of archaic boundaries, "opportunities for consultation" are not a sufficient framework for the solution of these urgent problems.
My Lords, the debate was adjourned yesterday to give me time to consult with my right honourable friend about this Order. This I have done, and as a result of our consultation we conclude 893 that the process carried out under regulations approved by Parliament of recommendations from the Local Government Commission, of hearings by an inspector appointed by the Minister, of Ministerial decision and of approval by the House of Commons is not something which at this late stage should be upset by an unrepresentative Chamber. I cannot tell the House that there is any better course to take than to approve this Order. That being so, and in view of the further discussions that I have had, and the extra information I have been able to bring to the House this afternoon, I hope that my noble friend will agree not to pursue his Prayer against this Order.

§ LORD CHAMPION
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for having gone back to the Minister to discuss this Order again. I must say that I was a little disturbed by the beginning of his speech, when he seemed to be passing some strictures upon me and upon this House for having dared to delay this matter for 24 hours. I find this rather disturbing. If there is any point at all in this House having anything to do with these Orders, it must be permitted to do so up until the last day upon which a Prayer can be laid, which is to-morrow. So if any fault at all lies anywhere, it must be with the Government of the day for having laid the Order so late as January 23 last. I should not have risen to say that but for the fact that my noble friend prodded me a little into repudiating, on my own part, and I am sure on behalf of the House, any suggestion that we had done something that we ought not to have done by delaying this Order for another 24 hours.
My Lords, by its decision yesterday upon the Motion, the House has in my opinion gone just about as far as the House should on a Motion of this sort, or on a matter of this sort. The House yesterday made it quite clear, I think, that there were certain aspects of this Statutory Instrument that we were considering that the majority of those who spoke did not like. What should be done in these circumstances? I think the position of the House ought to be made perfectly clear. I hope it will be, even after we get a new constitution—if that is the right word—after 894 the considerations that have been going on are terminated. I hope this House will always have the opportunity on Instruments of this sort to say to the Minister, "Look at them again." That is what this House did last night. It said virtually to the Minister of the day that this House has, by a majority of those who have spoken, said that it thinks there are some factors about this Order which ought to be looked at again.
That, I understand, has been done. Now, having regard to all the circumstances, I must thank all those who spoke yesterday, whether they were pro or con. The "cons" were very few, the "pros" were many; nevertheless, the subject was fully debated. I am grateful to all those who took part in the debate which enabled the House eventually to come to its decision to let the Minister have another look at it. Having regard to the fact that few, if any, in your Lordships' House would want to see the matter of Statutory Orders become a constitutional issue between the two Houses, I ant fairly sure that the House will permit me to do what I seek now to do; that is, to withdraw the Motion for the Prayer. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.