HL Deb 14 November 1968 vol 297 cc569-81

3.19 p.m.

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES)

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. To many of your Lordships this Bill will look quite familiar. That is not surprising, because it is the Scottish equivalent of the Town and Country Planning Act 1968. The differences between the two Bills are minor. With few exceptions, they are differences which result from those differences already existing between Scotland and England, arising especially from the fact that we have our separate legal system with its own usages and terminology. There is also the fact that planning legislation in Scotland has remained unconsolidated since 1947, whereas the English Planning Acts were consolidated in 1962. This has naturally led to a difference in the appearance of certain of the provisions of the Scottish Bill, though not, of course, to any difference in the effect. We intend to put work in hand on consolidation as soon as practicable after we have got the present Bill on to the Statute Book.

The close resemblance between the two Bills does not mean that we are accepting an English dictate. Both this Bill and the English one are derived from sources for which my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Housing and Local Government were equally responsible. First there was the report of the Planning Advisory Group, published in 1965, and then the White Paper, Town and Country Planning, which set out the Government's legislative intentions in June, 1967. And, of course, there has been constant liaison between the two countries during the passage of the English Bill. It is natural therefore, that the two measures should look alike. Having said that, I should add that it is also of considerable importance that the legislation governing town and country planning should be uniform throughout the United Kingdom. This is needed from the point of view both of practitioners in planning and of parties and bodies concerned with development, many of whom have interests on both sides of the Border. From the point of view of all these people it would be intolerable to have unnecessary differences to cope with between the two countries.

It may occur to some of your Lordships to wonder why, therefore, in these circumstances it is necessary to have a separate Bill at all which, to all appearances, covers the same ground in largely the same language as a Bill upon which so much valuable time has already been spent. As to that, I should explain that it has always proved to be necessary to have separate planning legislation for the two countries. We proved this in 1959 in the wrong way. The experiment of legislating by a single measure was tried in 1959 with results so complex in terms of drafting and interpretation that it led to an outcry from the legal profession and other quarters which was stilled only by the re-enactment of the Bill in purely Scottish form. We decided, therefore, that we must continue the tradition of Scottish legislation and, since this particular Bill contains little of financial import and is intended to have a gradual and progressive commencement, that there was no need to complicate and overload Parliamentary business still further last Session by presenting both Bills simultaneously.

Turning now to the content of the Bill, I do not think that your Lordships will wish a clause by clause account of the provisions. The main feature of the Bill is the introduction of a new system of development plans more relevant to the needs and techniques of to-day. We all know that there is often a justifiable complaint about planning: that it imposes delay on desirable development, although everyone can see that it is essential in the public interest that development should be reasonably controlled. When one looks at this problem of delay, it is seen to result from a desire to be fair to all by consulting and giving opportunity for representations; from centralisation, because so many decisions have to be taken first by local authorities, then by Ministers; and, to a small extent, from cumbersome procedures. We must not cut down consultation, but we can introduce it earlier into the process and standardise it, which should reduce the delay it imposes while increasing its effectiveness. We can decentralise by providing for more decisions to be taken finally at local level; and we can in some cases make procedures more direct. These are the things this Bill seeks to do.

I turn now to the specific content of the Bill. Part I—Clauses 1 to 14—embodies the most fundamental change proposed in the planning system, namely, the abolition of the old style development plan and its replacement by two types of plan, a structure plan which will consist of a written statement, with appropriate illustrations, and which will set out policy and proposals; and local plans which will be on the lines of the traditional development plan. Only the structure plan will normally require to be submitted to the Secretary of State for his approval. Local plans will, after due process, be adopted by the local planning authority without reference to the central Government unless specially called for. By means of this important measure of decentralisation to the local level, the Government hope and believe that the production of development plans should be much quicker and more flexible. So far from there being a loss in the rights of the public and outside bodies to have a say in their formation, there should be much more opportunity for that than there has ever been.

Part II of the Bill deals with the enforcement of planning control. The provisions in this part make a larger change in the system of enforcement in Scotland than in England. In England it has hitherto been the case that an unauthorised use of land became immune from enforcement procedures four years after its inception. In Scotland the corresponding immunity is at present gained two years after discovery of the unauthorised use. In both countries the immunity will be abolished except in a few instances. In both countries the immunity, where it applies exceptionally, will do so from four years after inception of the use. We think that, where a time limit has to be placed on the right to take enforcement action, four years from inception is the more practical form of control. This part of the Bill also provides in Clauses 17 and 18 and Schedule 1 for the furnishing of certificates of established use to deal with cases of possible uncertainty created by the fact that enforcement action will now be possible for an indefinite period. I should mention that, under the Bill, the Secretary of State will replace the sheriff as appellate authority for enforcement. This squares with the position which has existed in England since 1960 and is analogous to the Secretary of State's existing power under Section 15 of the 1947 Act to determine whether or not planning permission is needed.

Part III of the Bill creates a new facility for dealing with planning appeals. In brief, power is given to delegate the right of deciding appeals of specified classes to persons appointed by the Secretary of State for the purpose. I should, however, tell your Lordships right away that it is not in the mind of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to exercise these powers in the immediate future. There are only about 200 appeals decisions a year in Scotland as against well over 10,000 in England. It has been found convenient and practical to have a panel of part-time reporters to take this small volume of inquiries. The delegation envisaged in the Bill would necessitate the creation in Scotland of a full-time trained body of inspectors such as exists in England. At present we do not see a justification for this, but it is desirable to provide the power of delegation in case the number of appeals rises considerably in the long run.

Part IV of the Bill deals with the acquisition and disposal of land and adapts the relevant powers to the new development plan system. This Part of the Bill also extends to local authorities the general vesting declaration procedure introduced in the Land Commission Act 1967 and adjusts the provisions for purchase of land blighted by planning proposals to take account of the new development plan system.

Part V of the Bill makes new provision for the protection and preservation of buildings of special architectural or historic interest. The main change contemplated is that in future the listing of buildings will have the effect of requiring express consent for the demolition, alteration or extension of the buildings in question. It is as if a blanket building preservation order was being applied to all listed buildings, Another valuable new provision in this part of the Bill—in Clause 52—is the power to restrict compensation payable on the compulsory acquisition of a listed building if it can be shown that the building has been deliberately allowed to fall into disrepair because the owner had his eye on the redevelopment of the site.

I should also mention here a change which we are proposing in the procedure for statutory listing. In the future this listing will be effected through lists deposited with local planning authorities, and it will no longer be a requirement to record the lists in the Register of Sasines. This will mean a very substantial saving in both time and manpower and should enable statutory lists to be completed for the whole of Scotland within the next two years.

Part VI of the Bill includes the provisions for Planning Inquiry Commissions (with which your Lordships will now be familiar), to enable proposed developments of special importance, or presenting very special and unusual features, to be considered more exhaustively than is possible under the present system. The remainder of this Part of the Bill contains a number of desirable changes in the Planning law. Clause 63 authorises local planning authorities to delegate certain of their functions to their officials Clauses 64 to 67 impose on all existing and future planning permissions a five-year time limit, causing the permission to expire if it has not been used.

Clause 70 abolishes the payment of compensation in many circumstances for statutory undertakers whose development of land is refused or subjected to conditions; and Clause 75 calls for the posting of notices on land in the case of planning applications for certain types of development.

My Lords, I believe that the Bill will be generally welcome to Scotland as a major contribution to the modernisation and improvement of planning processes and powers. It is because I believe that most of the information which will be sought in connection with this Bill will involve mainly Committee points that I have felt it right to-day to give your Lordships only a general outline of the Bill, in the expectation that it is the type of Bill upon which the most useful work will be done at the next stage of our proceedings. Therefore, I ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.

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

3.32 p.m.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for his most clear explanation of this Bill. He has contrived to put a great deal of information into a comparatively small number of words. I, too, need to say no more than a very few words on Second Reading. The Bill has the laudable object of making our public planning more efficient. The trouble with so much of our public planning for a long time has been that so often it is out of date before the planners have finished even making their plans. We all hope that future planning will be an improvement on the Government's National Plan, which was not even introduced until a year after the date on which it was supposed to begin, and which was rather ignominiously dropped three years before it was supposed to end. I do not think that it contained a single calculation which has not been falsified.

As for local planning, I still have in my possession, as I am sure has the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, the provisional plan which came out many years ago for the Tay Valley region. I still read it, although it is fifteen or eighteen years old. It contains a wealth of interesting information about the geological structure of the area, and in particular meteorological statistics which incontrovertibly prove that for the last hundred years the month of August has been the wettest month of the year, save only for February. It is not only interesting but sometimes useful to know this, but it is about the only piece of information in this report which is still relevant to our planning requirements in 1968.

I feel that the main requirement in planning is flexibility. The White Paper on which the Bill is based points out that the last planning Bill was based on the assumption about twenty years ago that our population would remain static for the rest of the century, whereas the authorities now appear to think that our population by the end of the century will increase by 17½ million. What is even more formidable is that the number of motor cars will increase by another 9 million. However that may be, planning must always be flexible. A good planner is not a man who makes a plan a long time in advance and sticks to it. A good planner is a man who is never taken by surprise. It is necessary to have continual consultation with individuals and local bodies about the development of planning in each area: it should not be left to public officials. The noble Lord was justified in claiming that the Bill recognises this need and, as the White Paper suggested, is making more provision for the participation in regional plans of every kind of local interest and activity.

I intend to say nothing now about Part III of the Bill. I had intended to ask the noble Lord whether he thought that it was necessary to introduce the English procedure about the hearing of appeals, in view of the fact that in 1966 there were only 302 altogether, of which 168 were withdrawn, compared with many thousands in England. But I think that the noble Lord in his opening remarks has already anticipated my question. I take it from what he said that the Government intend merely to establish the machinery, if necessary, to introduce this new method of hearing appeals. I hope that it will not be necessary to apply it. Nor do I intend to say anything about Part IV, on which there may be a good many points to be raised in Committee concerning compensation to which individuals may be entitled in the event of compulsory purchase.

Perhaps I will just mention the last clause in Part IV, Clause 38. I do not know whether or not I have read it correctly, but it seems to me that the clause would make it more difficult for local authorities to dispose of houses to private individuals. This would be a great pity, because in Scotland there is a much smaller proportion of owner-occupied houses than is the case in England. It is urgently desirable that we should have more people owning the houses in which they live, and anything which retards or discourages their doing so would be regrettable.

The noble Lord made some observations about the Committee stage. I know that the Government have consulted local authorities in Scotland about the Bill—in fact they have had a working party upon it—but I gather that some local authorities (I do not know how many) have been a little taken by surprise by the publication of this Bill and are rather worried about the time which they may take to digest it and how it will affect them. This may apply to other bodies in Scotland, such as the National Trust. In dealing with a Bill of this kind, it is always helpful to Members of either House of Parliament to have the advantage, before the Committee stage is reached, of considering representations from public or private bodies concerned. Therefore, I suggest to the Government that in the interests of local authorities or other bodies who may be affected (not in the interests of your Lordships, since most of us are anxious to expedite the processes of this Bill) we might, if it appears to be necessary in the next week or two, allow a little more time than is usual for representations to be made by those who will be principally affected, before we take the Committee stage of the Bill.

3.40 p.m.

LORD TAYSIDE

My Lords, I see this Bill as a complementary measure in the overall planning of the Scottish economy. The Scottish Economic Planning Council was set up a few years ago, and it, in its turn, set up regional study groups and regional consultative groups. These are now in the process of reporting and more reports are shortly due, and they are to help shape the physical and economic development of their areas. Then, too, the Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland is due to report in the early part of the year. In my view, this Bill can in some measure be related to these factors, as making it much easier in the future for the plans which arise from them to be put into effect. It is the Government's intentiton, then, to give more and more power to the local authorities, and at the same time, to allow St. Andrew's House to have a greater measure of freedom in certain aspects.

The only point which I should like to emphasise at this time is that care must be taken that the greatest possible publicity is given to all stages; in other words, to the structure plan and the local plan. It is so easy for people to avoid reading notices. Being aware of what may happen in the future, they tend to think that it does not matter to-day, and when they realise that something has affected them it may be too late. So I ask that it be made absolutely certain that the greatest possible publicity is urged on local authorities.

3.42 p.m.

LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL

My Lords, I also should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for the very clear, albeit short, way in which he introduced the Bill. By and large, it is undoubtedly a good Bill, which is required in Scotland. My noble friend Lord Dundee is quite correct in saying that there was a very short period between the publication of the Bill and this Second Reading in your Lordships' House. I know of local authority officials who have been in great difficulty in getting out before today any sort of informed comment on the Bill. In fairness to the Government, however, I must say that it is over a year ago since the Bill was first put before the local authority associations. After the publication of the White Paper in June last year, a working party was set up which went through the formative stage, as is always done, before the Bill was actually drafted.

I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tayside, about the importance of bringing individuals in. There is in the new procedure quite a serious danger that there will be a conflict of interests between the rights of the individual and the streamlining, or speeding-up procedure, and it is extremely important that that should be put right. It will not be easy to explain these very difficult matters in the Bill itself, so I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, that when the regulations are being drafted not only should the local authority associations be consulted, as always, but—since they are only human and, although the rights of the individual are very much in their minds, they are primarily interested in the streamlining procedure, and the working of their own councils is obviously a very important factor—other organisations such as the Scottish Landowners' Federation, and even completely unofficial organisations.

I do not know whether that is going too far, but perhaps a way could be devised to bring in such bodies as ratepayers' associations—who, after all, are the down-to-earth people who will be affected—as all this planning is going to affect more and more the ordinary private individual. It is of the greatest importance that he should realise that his views are taken into consideration and are not just steam-rollered over by a lot of remote officials. I say that in a spirit of helpfulness. It would be of enormous assistance if something like that could be done, because the Bill is undoubtedly sound and will be for the benefit of planning in Scotland.

3.47 p.m.

LORD HUGHES

My Lords, I am exceedingly grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, my noble friend Lord Tayside, and the noble Lord, Lord Stratheden and Campbell, for having given so friendly a welcome to the Bill and for having followed the example, which I am afraid I do not very frequently set, of making a short speech on Second Reading. I have frequently been aware of the fact that, very often, the only speech which was going to be made from this side of the House was my own, so I can thank my noble friend for having in a very few minutes doubled the contributions which are normally made from the Government side on a Scottish Bill.

The noble Earl asked about the timing of the Committee stage, and both he and the noble Lord, Lord Stratheden and Campbell, suggested that perhaps the local authorities and some others had been taken by surprise. I think the noble Lord, Lord Stratheden and Campbell, went on to qualify that by implying, though he did not go so far as saying it, that they ought not to have been taken by surprise, because the whole thing has really been on the way since the middle of 1967. I think most of the local authorities were very well aware of the fact that where it was reasonable and possible for it to be so, the Scottish Bill would be identical with the one which was going through Parliament last Session. Nevertheless, it is important that there should be adequate opportunity for consultation.

It must be quite clear from the Business which is already arranged that there is no prospect of the Committee stage starting next week. I hope, however, that it may be possible for it to start towards the end of the following week. But I remind your Lordships that this is one of the, perhaps regrettably few, occasions when a major Bill is starting in your Lordships' House. We must therefore not make the mistake of assuming, as would normally be the case, that this is the last opportunity that local authorities will have for making representations.

After your Lordships have finished with the Bill it will then go through all the procedures in another place, and we know that, by and large, local authorities as distinct from local authority associations tend to make use of their local Member of Parliament for representations, rather than your Lordships' House. So on this occasion there will be a great deal of opportunity for the local auth orities to make their representations. Naturally, I believe we should have an opportunity of considering as many of these as possible while the Bill is passing through this Chamber, and I certainly hope that the timetable which is worked out will give reasonable effect to the plea made by the noble Earl and the noble Lord.

The noble Earl was good enough to repeat that most of the points which could be raised would inevitably be Committee points, but he also commented on the question of selling council houses. A Planning Bill is not the context in which to discuss the desirability or undesirability of the sale of council houses, about which I have no doubt the noble Earl and I could have an interesting argument and both finish up, after prolonged discussion, each of the same opinion as that with which we started and still in violent opposition to each other. However, may I say that even those who think that local authorities should be encouraged to sell more of their houses rarely argue that the consent of the Secretary of State should not be needed. The effect of this clause in the Planning Bill is merely to put beyond doubt the fact that consent is needed by abolishing a possible loophole in the existing law.

My noble friend Lord Tayside tied in the Bill with the economic planning machinery which presently exists and also with the future reorganised local government structure. I think he was perfectly correct in both aspects. One of the things which has emerged clearly in recent years is that physical planning and economic planning go more and more together; and in this adaptation and alteration of the planning structure there is no doubt that we are creating a machine which will tie in more readily with what is being done in the economic planning field. I accept very readily the plea which he made, and which was reinforced by the noble Lord, Lord Stratheden and Campbell, for publicity at all stages. In this Bill we are seeking to involve the general public in planning to a degree which has not been possible tip to the present. This would be merely a pious expression of hope if we did not make certain that people knew what was going on. There is no point in giving people the opportunity to do things and then carrying them out in such a way that the opportunity is missed because they do not know anything about them. I therefore agree wholeheartedly that full publicity at all stages is an essential part of the procedure.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Stratheden and Campbell, asked about consultations when regulations are being drafted. As he said, consultations with local authority associations about procedural regulations are the usual thing. He had no doubt—and he was correct in that assumption—that this practice would be maintained for regulations under the Bill. What he asked was that we should go further than that, and that there should be consultations with bodies other than local authorities—and he named some of the bodies which might be consulted. I would not wish to forecast what could be done, because it must vary from one set of regulations to another; but I think the suggestion he made is one that it would be wrong for me to cast aside. I certainly consider that this should be kept in mind in the light of the prospective content of regulations from time to time.

My Lords, I should like to conclude on a personal note—but not a note personal to myself. If there is anyone in this country who might be given the title of the "Legislative father of town planning", it is my noble friend Lord Silkin. As he reflects on the battles that have taken place in town planning, he must be thinking that I am having a much easier passage than he could ever have foreseen for a major Bill of this kind. Perhaps he will take it as a sort of personal birthday present that we should be doing this so well on the occasion of his seventy-ninth birthday.

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