HL Deb 30 May 1968 vol 292 cc1231-51

3.5 p.m.

BARONESS SEROTA

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Kennet, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Your Lordships will see that the Bill is a wide-ranging one and that its provisions will considerably affect the quality of life of the people of this country for many years to come. It is therefore an important Bill and one which we must have if the present planning system is to evolve in a way which is both effective and acceptable in a society in process of rapid social and economic change. In this context I would particularly draw your Lordships' attention at the outset to the quite novel provisions in Clause 3 and Clause 7 of the Bill, which give the opportunity for ordinary people to have a right to make their views known when structure plans and local plans affecting their daily lives are still at a formative stage. Too often nowadays people feel that whatever representations they may make to the planning authorities are brushed away because the planning authority feels that it will lose face if it changes the plan which it has announced, and the only effect of their objection to particular proposals is to harden attitudes. The Bill gives opportunity for the public to be involved and participate at an early stage before the planning authority is in any way committed, and in breaking this new ground the Bill creates the means to develop a more positive and effective partnership between planners and planned, between Government and governed, which could do more than anything else to improve what perhaps has not always been a happy relationship in this particular field.

Not only in this respect does the Bill look to the future. In other ways it proposes valuable developments of the structure established by the noble Lord. Lord Silkin, in 1947. I am sure that we should all like to acknowledge the great debt which we owe to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for the legislation which he introduced into Parliament over twenty-one years ago and which became the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. Nowadays planners are frequently a target for complaint. We complain because we know full well that the country enjoys a planning system which has been the envy of most other countries and we are rightly intolerant of less than the best results. Our standards in this matter are high and in part they are high because the noble Lord, by his legislation twenty years ago, put into our hands an instrument of the utmost importance and value. Those whose memories go back to the late 'twenties and the 'thirties will recollect the devastating spread of development which caused so much alarm in those years Were it not for the town and country planning system inaugurated by the noble Lord in the legislation which he brought in so quickly after the end of the last war, we should have much less to be proud of in our towns and in our countryside to-day. The fact that it is our business to consider amendment and improvement of the law on town and country planning is no reflection upon what was done in 1947. The Bill is not concerned to sweep away that system, but to adapt and build upon it in order to meet problems of an intensity and nature which could not have been foreseen at the time of the earlier legislation.

There are two main problems that now require attention. The first of these is that we are confronted not only with an unexpectedly large increase in the population, but also with a vast growth in traffic. The development plans required to be prepared under the current Act of 1962 are directly concerned with providing for the use of land in the planning authority's area, and although they may set out on paper the intended road network of an area, they do not give us a means of receiving into the development plan the now vital element of traffic and highway management policy which must go hand in hand with the sharing out of the land for particular uses if the full interactions of these policies are to be properly appreciated and dealt with. The second problem arises from the detailed nature of the development plan, which reaches right down to the allocation of particular sites, and presents all this detail for the Minister's approval. The burden of his involvement, I would submit, in settlement of this detail has grown almost beyond endurance. It is impeding the taking of the more important decisions presented by the plan. In the same way, too, many planning appeal decisions relating to cases of no significance outside their immediate area have to be taken as part of the main stream of business in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in Whitehall, and delay out of all proportion to the importance of the decisions, damaging in its effects, is far too common. The main objects of the Bill are therefore to make planning more relevant to the needs of a rapidly developing society, more flexible and, by reconsidering levels of responsibility and procedures, to make it much speedier in decision. These themes run through the successive parts of the Bill dealing with different aspects of the planning machinery. I do not intend to weary your Lordships to-day with a detailed explanation of all the 89 clauses and 8 Schedules to the Bill, but shall deal at this stage with only the main principles which it seeks to introduce.

First of all, the Bill establishes, on the basis of the recommendations of the Planning Advisory Group set up in 1964 by Sir Keith Joseph, a new development plan scheme. Its first characteristic is the distinction drawn between the "structure plan", that is, the policy document, the strategic element of the plan, which is submitted to the Minister for his approval, and the local plan, whose function it is to fill in the local detail in conformity with the broad policy and general proposals of the structure plan. In the ordinary case these local plans will be a matter for local adoption, and will not have to be referred to the Minister for his specific approval. The second characteristic of the new system is the breadth of the structure plan. It will embrace, within its statement of policy and general proposals, measures for the improvement of the physical environ- ment and the management of traffic and will be framed with more realistic attention to the resources likely to be available for carrying it out. The structure plan will be the bridge between regional economic planning and the detailed consideration of the use of land in towns and villages.

The local plans will be of various kinds. Some, flowing directly from the structure plan, will be concerned with the comprehensive treatment of "action areas"—areas in which within a few years of the approval of the structure plan a start will be made on comprehensive development, or redevelopment or improvement. These plans will deal with the core of the local authority's investment in urban renewal. Other types of local plan will deal with the general arrangement of uses of land in neighbourhoods within towns, as an aid to development control: and yet others will be designed to present particular policies, such as policies for the growth, or restraint of growth, of villages, for mineral working, and for provision for the recreational use of the countryside.

The devolution to local planning authorities of responsibility for these plans is accompanied by a number of safeguards. They will need to conform to the structure plan initially approved by the Minister, and the Minister has power to call in any local plan for his own consideration. The appointment of inspectors to hear objections to local plans will be a matter for the Minister in the first place. But as experience of the new development plans is gained, it may be considered right to turn to the power to be conferred by the Bill and to prescribe circumstances in which the planning authorities may make their own appointments, subject to the requirements of the regulations. A list of approved names should be established by the Minister, from which they have to make their choice. At every stage of the local plan procedure, the Minister, through his regional officers, and by receipt of cc pies of documents, will keep himself informed of the local situation.

There flow from the requirements, of the development plan a number of consequential changes which the Bill incorporates. The powers of compulsory acquisition under the Planning Acts have previously been dependent upon prior designation of the land, and the development plan is subject to compulsory acquisition. That procedure, envisaged as a means of giving public warning in advance of the probability of compulsory purchase of land, has not, however, brought the benefits expected of it. Part IV of this Bill accordingly abolishes the designation procedure and reshapes the compulsory powers under the Planning Acts so that they are not bound up with the plan as a document. It does not, of course, sever them from a direct link with the planning of the area. The case for acquisition will need to be demonstrated in the light of the plans which the local planning authority prepare, or of the planning objectives to which they are working, even though those plans do not in themselves state a need or an intention to use compulsory powers.

I now turn, my Lords, to the question of blight, for where there is forward planning there is always the difficult question of planning blight. The Bill provides for detailed alterations in the blight provisions of the 1962 Act in order to reflect the changed way in which the published proposals will be presented, through the new style of development plan. These alterations are consequential, but the opportunity is taken to make some other improvements in the working of the blight provisions in the light of experience over the last twenty years. What the Bill does not do is to make any change in the principles upon which the blight provisions are based, or in the basis of assessing compensation for any acquisition under the Planning Acts. These matters are the subject of review at the present time. The Chartered Land Societies and the Greater London Council have lodged with the Minister statements of their views upon the existing provisions and recommendations for their alteration. These, of course, affect a wide range of Government Departments as well as local authorities. Changes resulting from their consideration would be proper for a Bill devoted to compensation or compulsory purchase, but not to a Planning Bill of the kind we are considering to-day.

There are also a number of matters, important in themselves, but not consequential upon the new development plan provisions to which I must refer. The Bill gives the opportunity to seek means of speeding up the decision of planning appeals, which I hope will be generally welcomed. Under Part III the Minister may select classes of appeal for transfer to inspectors for determination. Two-thirds of the 9,000 or 10,000 appeals settled by the Minister each year involve no issue which it is important that he should himself determine. To transfer the determination of these straightforward cases to inspectors will relieve the main departmental channels of much business and should bring quicker decisions after the inquiry to some thousands of appellants.

Part V of the Bill concerns buildings of architectural or historic interest, and its proposals incorporate much of the thinking of the Preservation Policy Group of which my noble friend Lord Kennet is Chairman. The aim here is to simplify the present procedure for controlling works to listed buildings. Hitherto, anyone who proposed to demolish or alter a listed building has merely had to give notice of his intention and then wait to see whether the local authority or the Minister made a building preservation order to bring the works under control. The Bill will, in effect, put a blanket building preservation order on all listed buildings, by requiring express consent to be obtained from the planning authority for any demolition and for any alterations which would affect the building's character. And there will, of course, be the usual right of appeal to the Minister against a refusal of consent.

Another important provision in Part V is Clause 48, which removes the financial incentive that sometimes tempts people to allow historic buildings to fall into such a state of disrepair that their demolition becomes inevitable and thus makes room for a profitable redevelopment. In future, if a person deliberately neglects a listed building with this end in view the local authority will be able to buy it from him compulsorily at a price which ignores the prospect of profit from redevelopment. Here again, there will be a right of appeal against a proposed acquisition of this sort.

I turn now to Clauses 53 to 55 of the Bill. These clauses introduce a new means of investigating development proposals which are of national or regional importance or which raise unfamiliar technical questions. Public complaint is increasingly heard that the normal system of public inquiry does not enable a sufficiently through-going investigation of such cases to be made, and that the report reaching the Ministers who must take the decision is frequently insufficiently broad in its content and deep in its argument to give the Ministers a really sound basis for decision. The Bill would permit a case of this sort to be sent to a planning inquiry commission whose function it would be to carry out a two-stage process, first of investigation in depth and then of consideration of objections. The terms of reference of a commission of this kind can be made to include both the question of alternative sites in general, and also the examination of specific alternatives nominated by Ministers or brought in evidence by witnesses.

It is intended that the first phase of a planning inquiry commission's work will be conducted rather in the manner of a Royal Commission or a departmental committee. The second phase will be like the present local inquiry and the local planning authority, the applicant for planning permission, and the owners or tenants of agricultural land affected will have a statutory right to be heard. Of course, the commission will have power to hold an inquiry even if, in fact, none of these persons wishes to be heard. This second phase presents the advantage, as compared with the ordinary local inquiry, that it will be conducted in the light of the evidence which the commission have gathered in the first phase of their inquiry, and of their assessment of the realistic range of alternative possibilities for the siting of the development. All this material will be available to objectors, who will be able to frame their objections in what they regard as the most telling way. It is hoped that these two-stage proceedings will be altogether more to the point than has sometimes been the case with the large protracted local inquiries which have taken place into some major proposals in recent years. I should perhaps stress here that a planning inquiry commission is not empowered to decide cases. Its function is to investigate and enquire, and it will report to the responsible Minister or Ministers with whom decision continues to rest as at present.

I will not detain the House to-day with detailed comment upon the improvements in planning law and procedure made in the Bill. There will, I hope, be adequate opportunity for full discussion at a later stage of our deliberations. But I should comment, in passing, upon the greater effectiveness of planning control that will follow from Part II of the Bill, which improves the powers of enforcement available to local planning authorities. I believe it will be generally agreed that the present system tends to be cumbersome and slow-acting, in fact, offering many opportunities for procrastination, and an undesirably large proportion of justifiable enforcement cases, founder on technicalities. By the partial withdrawal of the four-year rule (which precludes enforcement action more than four years after the start of a contravention) and the introduction of the "stop notice" procedure to hold the ring while enforcement action is considered on appeal, the code can be usefully improved without creating insuperable difficulty for those wishing to convey land.

I also wish to draw your Lordships' attention to Clauses 61 to 63. These will be of particular interest in that they narrow the definition of what is the "operational land" of statutory undertakers and abolish certain rights previously enjoyed by statutory undertakers to be compensated as a result of adverse planning decision. I need not remind the House of recent instances in this field which have caused concern and difficulty.

My Lords, I hope I have not trespassed on your patience too long, but as I indicated at the outset this is an important Bill which I hope will be generally acceptable to the House in that it provides great opportunities to shape the Britain of the future by building on the firm foundations established by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, in 1947. I hope that he and all your Lordships will think this Bill a worthy and acceptable successor to that legislation. I am told by those who are in the happy position to know that being a grandparent is an even greater pleasure than being a parent, in that you have all the joy and none of the work. May I conclude by expressing the hope that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, together with other noble Lords here today, will assist us in bringing his grandchild into the world by giving this Bill a Second Reading.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Baroness Serota.)

3.21 p.m.

LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR

My Lords, we all are glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, back in his place after his illness, and for his sake we regret that he did not have the privilege of introducing this important Bill; but I hope he will not think it in any way discourteous of me if I say that he could not possibly have done so with greater charm than the noble Baroness. This, I believe, is the first major Bill which the noble Baroness has presented to the House, and she has set herself and all her male colleagues a very high standard to live up to.

Indeed, she introduced the Bill so delightfully that some of your Lordships may have been led into thinking that it is an easy Bill. Believe me, that is a mistaken view. If any noble Lord is disposed to quarrel with me over that, I invite his attention to subsection (4) of Clause 74, for example—because I will not go into any of the complex provisions which will be found in the Schedules. Subsection (4) says: The said condition is that the use of each one of the buildings (excluding any which are exempt from this section) shall be restricted so that (whether in consequence of a change of use or otherwise) it does not at any time contain office premises having an aggregate floor space which exceeds the limit for that building specified in the condition, which limit shall (subject to subsection (5) below) he a floor space bearing such proportion to the building's total floor space as the prescribed exemption limit bears to the aggregate floor space of all the buildings (excluding any which are exempt from this section) for whose erection the planning permission is granted. I doubt whether even the noble Baroness could accurately summarise that subsection in a few words, even with the help of algebra. No, this is not an easy Bill. I am not criticising it on that account, but it requires considerable background knowledge if one is to understand and interpret its provisions.

My Lords, this Bill received its Third Reading in another place at 6.56 a.m. on Thursday last—just a week ago. It had been extensively amended during its Report stage last week. In fact, five new clauses were inserted into the Bill and many other Amendments were made. It was not unnatural that I asked the Printed Paper Office to be sure that I received a copy of the Bill before the weekend because I knew I would have to speak about it to-day. Now the Printed Paper Office always shows all of us the utmost courtesy, but they had to inform me that it would not be possible for them to comply with my request because the Bill would not be available in the Printed Paper Office itself until Monday. My Lords, I really must register a protest against the pressure that is put upon us in ways like this. It is yet another symptom of the overloading of Government business which is so apparent this summer, and of the consequent pressures on all concerned. I spoke on the Countryside Bill about the pressure on the Parliamentary draftsmen, and I suspect that there is equal pressure on the printers. I must say with all the force that I can command that this is not the way to produce sound legislation. That is what we are all here for, in both Chambers of Parliament: to do our utmost to produce sound legislation. I submit that at the present time we are not getting the assistance and co-operation which we all are entitled to receive in that respect from Her Majesty's Government.

I am prepared, though with reluctance, to assist the Government to obtain a Second Reading of the Bill today; but I fancy that its late availability may well be the reason why comparatively few noble Lords, have ventured to put their names down to speak to-day. I really do not blame them, because it was almost useless working on the Bill as reported from the Committee in another place, so extensive were the changes made on the Report stage. This late availability will certainly be the reason why some speeches to-day, including my own, will not cover the whole of this important Bill as fully as one would wish.

As I say, I am prepared to help the Government to obtain the Second Reading of this Bill to-day, but my noble friends and I will not be prepared to start on the Committee stage until Amendments—important Amendments—foreshadowed by the Government on the Report stage in another place have been tabled here and we have had proper time to consider them before the Committee stage begins. It will be within the recollection of a number of your Lordships that our proceedings on the Countryside Bill were gravely handicapped by the necessity to consider lengthy Amendments and new clauses at virtually no notice. That, indeed, is the reason why a number of Amendments on Third Reading appear in respect of that Bill to-day. I urge the Government most strongly to avoid a repetition on the Town and Country Planning Bill of the difficulties under which they compelled us to work on the Countryside Bill.

My Lords, despite all the frustrations involved in planning, and all the popular abuse which is often hurled at the heads of planners, I want to pay tribute to-day to the general quality of the results achieved by the planning system in this country. The person who is first and foremost responsible for that system is the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and in my opinion we are extremely fortunate to have him with us on the consideration of this Bill, because his opinions and his suggestions will, I am sure, be of value. My praise for his 1947 Act does not extend—I know he will understand—to the development charge provisions of that Bill, but, much as I disliked those, I have no doubt at all that a great deal that is good in our countryside, and to some extent in our towns, to-day is due to his initiative and persistence in 1947.

I wonder whether he would agree with me—I think that possibly he might—that in these last twenty years our country planning has been more successful than our urban planning. We have a tight hold on the preservation of the countryside. I know that complaints are made from time to time about detailed mistakes or aberrations, but having had some experience in administering planning I, for one, realise that there is stricter planning control on building or development in the open country than the vast majority of people realise. So often one received complaints from somebody who could not understand why he was not allowed to build a house in the country in a place where there was no other house within sight. One had to explain to him that the reason why there was no other house in sight was that twenty-five other people had wished to do what he was wanting to do and had had their planning applications refused. We no longer have advertisements appearing in the papers like that famous, though possibly mythical, one: Modern red brick bungalow with asbestos roof on unspoilt hill-top". I think that the reason why the application of planning has been more effective in the countryside is that there it has been rather in the nature of static control; and as it turned out—I am not criticising the noble Lord, Lord Silkin—the 1947 Act system turned out to be better at its static control than at its dynamic planning. In these years of swift change it is dynamic planning which our towns and cities have needed. The most obvious illustration of that is that virtually nobody twenty years ago visualised the speed of growth of cars or the intensity with which traffic problems would build up in the cities. I remember when development plans were before the Ministry how clear it became that hardly a single big local planning authority, when it was submitting its first development plan, had had the slightest conception of the extent of the provision which it would be necessary to make for car parking in its builtup areas within the next five or ten years.

So, my Lords, we have Part I of this Bill, which is largely founded on the Report of the Planning Advisory Group set up by Sir Keith Joseph as Minister some four years ago. I am sure that it is right, at any rate for the towns, to seek more of a flexible system, more of a running system, than the development plans which tended to receive Ministerial approval some years after their submission and which were then supposed to be brought up to date at five-year intervals. We cannot, in our modern situation, plan by fits and starts in that manner. There is a story of two caterpillars. One was young and the other was old. The young caterpillar looked up into the sky and saw a butterfly. He said to the older caterpillar, "You don't catch me going up in one of those things." The older caterpillar replied, "It's little you know about development plans."

My Lords, it is little that most people know about development plans. That is the reason why one welcomes the provisions to which the noble Baroness referred in Clauses 3 and 7 of this Bill for trying to bring the public more into partnership with the planning authorities. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, desired that in his mind when he was producing his planning system. But practically all of us would say that that has not worked out as successfully as one would have wished, and that the "we and they" relationship at arm's length has become too fixed. Certainly my noble friends and I will welcome all efforts that can be made, in the Statute or by administrative action outside the law, to bring it about that the local authority will explain, and explain continuously, to the public what they are doing in matters which affect the neighbourhood and will give the public as full an opportunity as possible to react favourably or unfavourably and to make their views and suggestions known.

In passing, I think I should say that not only Clauses 3 and 7 but also Clauses 4 and 6 were among those which appeared as new clauses at the Report stage in another place. That fact alone will make it appropriate for your Lordships to examine these important early clauses of the Bill with particular care in Committee. We all know that clauses which appear for the first time at the Report stage of a Bill in either House cannot get the same detailed examination in that House as those which were in the Bill originally and which have passed through Committee scrutiny.

For my part, I accept the value of the survey conception in Clause 1, and of the structure plan and the action area plans. All these are developed—and put into legislative language—arising out of the Report which I mentioned. I would invite the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, in winding up this debate, to explain precisely in what circumstances the Government think that local plans are going to he necessary outside the action areas. This is something certainly into which I should wish to go further in Committee. If we could have an early statement from the noble Lord on behalf of the Government I think it would be helpful. One of the reasons underlying this whole effort to change and improve planning procedure is to streamline it and to avoid the overloading of which everybody nowadays is conscious—certainly, everybody who has had to wait for a decision on a planning appeal. For that reason we ought not to put anything into the Bill which is not proved to be necessary. Everybody can see that the local plan for an action area is imperative. It seems to me that we should ask ourselves to what extent local plans are going to be necessary except where early development or re-development is expected—and that, of course, is in an action area.

My Lords, I welcome the improvements made in another place in defining the categories of persons who should hold inquiries into local plans. In the Bill as originally introduced they might be members of the staff of the local authority concerned. The Minister has now been brought into this. Although those persons will not be officials of the Ministry, nevertheless the Minister will have power to ensure that they are not persons under the control of the local authority itself which is submitting its own plan to the inquiry and exposing it to examination and objections. What I am not wholly clear about is this. What happens to the report of that person who conducts an inquiry into objections to a local plan? It goes to the local planning authority, presumably. Is the local planning authority then required to publish it? Is the local planning authority required to submit it to the Minister? It will be a key document in all this. I should think that full publicity was required for it.

I pass on to Part II, the enforcement provisions, on which I think that all the points which I have to make can be reserved for the Committee stage. I have no Second Reading observations, except to say how much Clause 15 was improved by the action of the Standing Committee in another place which insisted broadly speaking, on a differentiation between breaches of planning control on the constructional side and breaches on the user side.

Part III concerns appeals, and here I fully accept that some change is necessary. A few years ago appeals to the Minister were running at the rate of 14,000 a year. I believe that now they are down to 10,000 or so a year, but the overburdening of the Ministerial machine causes quite intolerable delays, and I am inclined to think that this is the principal single cause of the frustration which people feel about planning, and against planners, at the present time. During my time as Minister I was concerned to see whether I could find a solution for this, and that was seven years ago. It appeared to me that if one was going to make a change, one must aim at a system which would combine speed with absolute impartiality. The virtue of the system of appeals to the Minister is that it has maintained a splendid reputation for impartiality. I remember discussing the possibility of other forms of appeal with various professional people, and in a sense it was reassuring to find how many of them, while cursing the delays in getting planning appeals settled, were reluctant that we should switch to any other form of appeal, such as a regional appeal tribunal, simply because in their view it might not always sustain the reputation for absolute impartiality which appeals to the Minister had gained.

I know that my noble friend Lord Ilford wishes to probe some of the principal provisions in Part III. I shall want to question the Government closely about how they propose to draw the line between those appeals which will be settled and finally determined by a person appointed by the Minister and those which will come to the Minister himself. I understand that over 97 per cent. of appeals are determined by the Minister now in accordance with the recommendation of the inspector who has heard the appeal. That certainly suggests that it should be possible to find a system which would give equal satisfaction while cutting out the very grave delays which result from all these inspectors' reports having to be processed in the Ministry. Yet quite clearly the fact that in some 3 per cent. of the cases the Minister does not determine in accordance with the inspector's recommendation proves, at any rate to me, that there is a part for the Minister to play; and some of these appeals involve matters of such major controversy that I am sure public opinion would not be prepared to settle for anybody determining them except the Minister. Therefore the task before the Government is to decide what criteria they will apply in sending certain classes of appeal to somebody appointed by the Minister. I trust that they will go slowly in the first instance and choose only the obvious categories, such as single houses, until they have more experience of how it works.

It will be a new task for those we have hitherto described as the Minister's inspectors. Hitherto they have simply been hearing the case and making a recommendation; it is the Minister who has had to act in a quasi-judicial capacity. I have heard a person acting in a quasi-judicial capacity described as one who is midway between being as sober as a judge and as drunk as a Lord. I am not sure whether I should have quoted that in your Lordships' House; after all, it is a cynical description of those who have to perform quasi-judicial functions. I think that we shall have sufficient people capable of doing this, but, as I say, it will be a new job for them. I understand that their actions will be subject to investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner, the Ombudsman; I gather that that was stated in another place. I assume there will be no degree of Ministerial responsibility, and thus, where a planning appeal is determined by somebody other than the Minister, it will not be possible to ask questions in Parliament about the decision, as is, of course, possible now in all planning appeal determinations by the Minister himself.

My Lords, if there is no degree of Ministerial responsibility the Government must take care not to pass on to these independent persons the determination of appeals which, though seemingly quite small, are going to be highly controversial locally. I recollect that in my time there was an appeal about whether a line of private garages should be built somewhere. One might think that a small and minor appeal, but the issue had become a kind of local cause célèbre on which the most violent feelings were roused on both sides, not on Party lines but between two groups of local people who thought either that it should or that it should not be done. For my part (this is perhaps masochistic on the part of an ex-Minister) I do not think it is right that the odium of decision in that kind of locally controversial case should fall on anyone but the Minister himself.

I pass to Part IV—"Acquisition and disposal of land." This is a Part of the Bill which we certainly shall wish to examine searchingly in Committee, particularly Clause 26, which gives a pretty wide list of cases where the Minister may authorise a local authority to acquire compulsorily any land within its area, and Clause 27, which empowers the Minister of Public Building and Works to acquire compulsorily any land necessary for the public service. This is extremely wide, and to the best of my knowledge up to the present the Minister of Public Building and Works has not had powers to acquire compulsorily.

Clause 28, as I read it, extends to all local authorities possessing compulsory purchase powers the opportunity to use the vesting procedure which hitherto has been available only to the Land Commission. We shall certainly want to inquire why this is thought to be necessary, because there are considerable objections to that vesting procedure. In this part of the Bill we come also to blight, which was referred to by the noble Baroness. Clause 30 purports to widen the conditions under which a householder can protect himself against blight on his property by requiring a public authority to purchase. I cannot help asking, does Clause 30 go far enough? I do not think it does. It refers to blight caused by a structural plan in force or a local plan in force. But do not the Government realise that blight settles long before that? Blight settles on a property the moment a public authority publishes, or even mentions, development proposals affecting a certain area of land. We saw that very clearly in London in the case of the motorway box where, the moment it became known that the Great London Council were planning the motorway box and were clearly thinking of demolishing a large number of houses in the indicated area, blight settled onthosehouses straight away and has caused considerable suffering.

On Tuesday last in your Lordships' House the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, answering a supplementary question of mine, said: … there is existing legislation by which owner-occupiers of houses which are on the provisional line of a 'box' may serve purchase notices on the local planning authority when they cannot sell except at a reduced price, …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28/5/68, c. 1033] I know that he was answering a supplementary question outside the scope of his own Department, but I think that it is not correct to convey, as his statement appeared to me to convey, that the moment a local authority indicates provisionally that a new road may come somewhere, the blight provisions in the 1962 Act come into operation instantly. I am not aware of any compulsion on a local authority to accept a purchase notice until the plan has been confirmed. What worries me is that here again Clause 30 does not seem to me to guarantee protection against blight to householders until the structural plan or local plan is actually in force. This, of course, though related, is a separate matter from the question of compensation. The noble Baroness said that there was a study going on of that. I can only say that the sooner it is completed and we have fresh compensation legislation the better, because I have no doubt whatever that in certain respects our present compensation arrangements operate unfairly to individuals.

Part V of the Bill relates to buildings of architectural or historic interest. I take it that a listed building means a building in Grades 1 and 2, and does not extend to buildings in Grade 3. I hope that at some stage the Government will explain to us what recourse is available to the owner of a building which he thinks ought not to be included or to have been included as a listed building. This Bill can make matters more onerous for the owners of Grade 1 and Grade 2 buildings than they have been before, and therefore it is right that the interests of the owner, as well as those of the public, should be considered.

I remember when I was responsible receiving a letter of complaint from no less a person than Lord Beaverbrook. It was a typical forthright letter about some farm buildings of his which he thought had been unreasonably listed as being of historic or architectural interest. He fundamentally disagreed and wanted to know why money was being wasted on this listing. Fortunately, I had a good and convincing answer. Whether it actually convinced Lord Beaverbrook I do not know—one could never be quite sure about that. But just that recollection of mine brings home to me how strong might be the feelings, not only of the Beaverbrooks but of all kinds of people, if they discover that by owning a building of architectural or historic interest, they will, under this Bill, have incurred obligations greater than they thought.

We all agree that the preservation of important buildings must be secured. I have known of one or two quite astonishing cases of fine buildings which have been deliberately neglected by their owners. That is a shocking thing. I welcome therefore the provisions under the Bill which will make it less easy to allow a fine building to decay. If one has been inside some of these buildings which were well worthy of preservation, had they been caught in time, and seen what decay can do to beautiful rooms and ceilings, one must welcome the additional powers granted here.

I think that noble Lords in all quarters of the House will welcome the provision for planning inquiry commissions. It is this kind of inquiry that we ought to have had into the Stansted problem from the very beginning. I submit that it is this kind of inquiry that we ought to have as quickly as possible into the London motorway box. And I see no reason why these new provisions should not enable us to have for the first time far-ranging inquiries under proper statutory procedures, whereas hitherto we have had to investigate matters much too individually, and out of the general context which is relevant to the problem.

Incidentally, Clause 54(3) provides for a single inquiry into development on different sites by a public inquiry commission. I cannot for the life of me understand how, if sites are at a distance from one another, the public inquiry commission will be able to fulfil its duty under Clause 55(1) to hold a local inquiry in these circumstances, unless the word "local" is going to be extended rather surprisingly. The Bill also provides for the delegation of planning functions to officers of the local authority, and I think that this is right. I do not think that the whole of local government in the planning field can be carried on without that kind of simplification, though clearly the nature and scope of the delegation needs to be examined.

The Bill sets limits for the duration of planning permissions. I know that this is a controversial matter in some quarters, but I think it is proper to do so. The Bill does something—but only something—to avoid a repetition of the Abingdon gas-holder case. Perhaps I go too far in saying that—all it will do is to lessen the intolerable expense to a local authority. I think that in Committee we shall want to know from the Government why statutory undertakers should be placed in any privileged position as compared with others, and why they should have the power, if they are refused permission to do what they want to do, to put 50 per cent. of the hypothetical loss they incur on to the local rates.

There are a good many other minor points that I welcome in the Bill, but there is one major point on which, in conclusion, I should like to press the Government—that is, in relation to footpaths. The Government's White Paper, Leisure in the Countryside, said, in paragraph 47: … in the Government's view a more radical reform may well be needed, to provide a legislative framework which would permit the development of a system of footpaths and bridleways, some based on existing routes, but others newly created, which would to more suited to modern needs. My Lords, I entirely agree. The Government appear to have done half the job, but not the other half. They appear to have taken steps to transfer responsibility from the highways authorities to the local planning authorities, but seem to me to have shirked the further action which is recommended by the Gosling Committee for creating a new and more effective system for doing this. I understand that the Government's explanation is that the Gosling Committee's recommendations are unworkable. In my view, considering that the general purpose is accepted by almost everybody, it is now up to the Government to think out a workable system, because I am quite sure that we ought not to leave the footpath arrangements where they are. The time has come to get rid of some old footpaths which in modern times are no longer serving any useful purpose, and maybe to create other new footpaths which are really needed. I think that the farming community would be willing to co-operate if they felt that both aspects of this matter were being seriously tackled by the Government.

The Government are in a difficulty with this Bill in relation to the Royal Commission on Local Government. They have created that difficulty for themselves by not being willing to settle the future of local government themselves, and by referring it to a Royal Commission. We all know that there may be a good many years before legislation follows, arising out of the Report of that Royal Commission when it is received later this year. I think the Government would agree that it makes the timing in this Bill strangely difficult, when none of us can foresee what the future pattern of local government will be. Well, we must make the best of it, and we, for our part, will try to help to improve the Bill in Committee.

I should like, in conclusion, to pay tribute to the hard work which was clearly done by Ministers in Committee and on Report in another place to meet suggestions and criticisms put forward by the Opposition. It is a shining example of how the work of this House can be facilitated if there is a proper Committee stage in another place. What we are going to see, I fear, in the next few weeks is how the work of this House is hampered and protracted when the Government have not allowed time for proper consideration of other Bills in Committee elsewhere. But, for my part—and I feel sure that I can speak for my noble friends—I want to see this Bill on the Statute Book. We shall have a number of suggestions and criticisms to put forward in Committee, but we are anxious to continue to examine the Bill in the co-operative spirit that was so apparent on both sides in another place.