HL Deb 20 November 1973 vol 346 cc905-27

3.8 p.m.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of the Land Registry Bill, the effect of which is to enable the Land Registry, which now operates as a branch of the Lord Chancellor's Department, to continue in being as a public board with an independent life of its own but under the general sponsorship of the Lord Chancellor. As your Lordships will see from a perusal of the Bill, it is a technical one. I shall not weary the House on Second Readinct with its details, but the object of the Bill is not technical. The two objects are twofold: the first concerns a ground of principle, to which I will refer later, and the second is more practical. That one consists in my hope (be it well or ill-founded) to succeed where many other Lord Chancellors, with one exception, have tried and failed, in their attempts to bring to a successful conclusion the long and hitherto unsuccessful campaign for universal land registration in this country. There is one exception to the melancholy procession of Lord Chancellors who have attempted this labour of Sisyphus in vain, and that was the attempt of my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne. But, as I shall attempt to show, his praiseworthy and, at the time, glitteringly successful foray, proved ephemeral and illusory in its effects.

But before I begin, there is one matter I should like to make abundantly clear. The failures to which I shall shortly draw your Lordships' attention of successive Lord Chancellors (including myself) to consummate land registration in this country have been at the political level. The Land Registry itself is extremely well run. I should not like any noble Lord in this House to go away with the idea that this Bill in any way involves a criticism, express or implied, of the devoted staff of the Land Registry, especially in recent years when they have been grappling with an accumulation of work and a considerable manpower shortage. So I say again that the Land Registry is, I believe, extremely well run, and I do not doubt, whether or not this Bill is passed, it will continue to be as well run in the future.

What the Bill seeks to do is to identify and, if possible, remove the political causes of political failure. If I may paint for a moment the background on the Bill, it will not be beyond your Lordships' knowledge that there are two separate methods of transferring land in this country. One is the traditional method which has been going on since I supose the time of the Paston Letters and before, consisting of a conveyance cunningly drawn by a solicitor or counsel. The other system is based on a simple transfer in a public register in the Land Registry, as happens, and as has happened in one form or another, in almost every other country in Europe.

I do not propose this afternoon to canvass the rival merits of the two systems. I consider that that question—if there ever was a question—was finally laid to rest in 1951 by the Gray Report. Briefly, there are two advantages in land registration. The first is simplicity and therefore relative cheapness. The second is that the Government guarantee the registered title and pay compensation if for any reason a registered title proves to be defective. It may be there are other advantages; I will content myself by stating those two. There are few cases in which the title proves to be defective. Both these advantages will remain untouched by the passage of the present Bill. They are perhaps advantages less strikingly apparent than in former times. It is true that a defect in title is only one of the pitfalls against which prospective purchasers must take precautions; and even with registered land there a great number of new pitfalls about which a wise solicitor will warn his clients. The advantages are still significant and are still worth striving for.

What is astonishing is that after more than a hundred years the process of land registration in England and Wales (and of course this Bill is concerned only with England and Wales; we can ignore Scotland for this purpose) is still so very far from complete. The Land Registry first came into being somewhere about 1862; the state of the law has been considered adequate since 1925. Yet now, in 1973, there are still about 27 million persons in England and Wales who live in areas not covered by compulsory registration. I hope to reduce this figure by 2 million next March under an Order I have recently made, but that Order was justified only by a rounding off of the local government areas consequent on local government reorganisation. But, bearing in mind that there are 49 million inhabitants of England and Wales, land registration will then still cover less than half the country on a population basis. On an acreage basis it covers only 8.3 per cent. of the country, and of course in addition voluntary registration has been suspended. Personally I regard this as a scandal. It is a minor scandal so one must not overdo it; but I thought it my duty since I was Lord Chancellor to try to identify and remove the causes of it.

The recent history of the matter derives, of course, from the Cave legislation of 1925. After that, there was a waiting period of 10 years before the introduction of Government sponsored compulsory registration to see whether the new Law of Property Act 1925 had so simplified conveyancing, as everybody hoped, that it would make compulsory registration unnecessary. So there was a 10-year waiting period. That brought us to 1936, and at that stage Middlesex and Croydon were brought in. In 1939 came the War. The addition of Surrey had been proposed but by the War it was not effected. In 1943, Lord Rushcliffe reported that after the War, when resources became once more available, compulsory registration should proceed more quickly. In 1951, Surrey was added, 13 years after it had been proposed. At that stage three local law societies then demanded a public inquiry as to the advantages of the system in general. This led to the Gray Report to which I have already referred. Between 1952 and 1964 Kent and Berkshire were added together with 11 county boroughs. By this time the system applied only to areas in which 14 million people resided. Then the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, then Lord Chancellor, announced at last a real expansion programme which thereafter came to be known as the 8-year plan. This was designed to cover all built up areas of the country with a total of 40 million inhabitants by April, 1973.

My Lords, what happened to the 8-year plan? Why is it that by April, 1973, only 22 millions were covered and not 40 millions as planned? The answer is to be found in the Hansard of this House of July 31, 1968, when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, then Lord Chancellor, made an announcement. I want to hasten to say that I put no blame on the noble and learned Lord. The 8-year plan was, however, laid to rest by the noble and learned Lord, in spite of the protests from the Liberal Party and my own. The reason given by the noble and learned Lord was the need not to increase the number of civil servants and therefore Government expenditure, although it was pointed out to the noble and learned Lord at the time, as perhaps he may well point out to me when he comes to make his eagerly awaited speech this afternoon, that in fact the Land Registry has always paid its way, and has even paid for its own Land Registry.

We cannot inquire what travails the noble and learned Lord had suffered within the Labour Government which drove him to make this sad announcement. What in the corridors of power led to the ultimate defeat on July 31, 1968, of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner—Agonistes—a dedicated law reformer, at the hands of his colleagues, is decently veiled from the public view. No Tory bug, no Labour Watergate, has yet penetrated the Cabinet Room in Downing Street, or the secret conclaves of Permanent Secretaries elsewhere in Whitehall. Perhaps that is a good thing. But as I must have undergone something not wholly dissimilar, it is relevant to this Bill for me to tell the House at least my owl conclusion, which, if it is not proved, is at least corroborated by the Hansard extract to which I have referred.

Make what allowance you will for the conservative character of the legal profession in both its branches, since 1925 at least all Lord Chancellors that I have known—and I think I have known most of them—have been ardent registrationists. I expect the noble and learned Lord is an ardent registrationist. Why then have they not succeeded in making better progress? The answer is that though it pays for itself, the Land Registry adds to the gross total of Government expenditure, and its manpower budget forms part of the so-called army of civil servants. In my view, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, himself admitted as much in his statement in July, 1968. So long as this is so, it has occurred to me that the Land Registry will suffer, albeit unjustly, from the ups and downs, irrelevant as these may be, of successive turns in Government policy.

At this point, in all candour, I must explain the part which I have had to play in this matter. A by-product of recent economic changes has been the vast increase in the number of conveyancing transactions. This has meant that even the modest increase in staff that I have been able to achieve has been eaten away by current transactions and that there has been no room for expansion of the programme, and will not be, until the modest extension I referred to a moment ago takes place next Spring. In addition, I have been subjected, I suppose, to at least as much pressure on the manpower and expenditure front as was the noble and learned Lord in his turn. It is clear to me at least that the work of the Land Registry and its legitimate extension over the whole of England and Wales has been hampered in the past and will continue to be hampered in the future by its present incorporation into central Government. I believe that the present organisation is also wasteful of scarce resources, since forward planning is both intricate and costly and is easily dislocated by delay.

My Lords, I now come to the question of principle to which I referred. I believe it is wrong in principle that the business of land registration should be regarded as one of the functions of Government for whose day-to-day operations a Minister is directly responsible. It is wrong, I would submit, that the business of the Land Registry should be liable to be interrupted by constraints on manpower which may be appropriate, or at any rate inevitable, in the normal functioning of a Department of State, but it is surely out of place in what is essentially a self-supporting business whose activities have to be planned for a long period ahead. This approach is consistent with the Government's general view that it is not sensible for them to undertake functions or perform services which may be performed just as satisfactorily, or perhaps more satisfactorily, by a body not subject to detailed ministerial supervision and is thus freed from the "Stop-Go" policies which have bedevilled the Land Registry for the last ten years or more.

I believe that the present arrangements are wasteful of scarce resources because forward planning is both intricate and costly and is easily dislocated by delay—and I quote here from the Chief Land Registrar's report of last year, 1972–73, in which he says: The slowing down and subsequent halting of the programme have created difficulties which will be accentuated when we are called upon to start again. Thus, when the eight-year plan was in full spate many index map sections were prepared for proposed new compulsory areas, but these have never been used and, with each passing year, the maps become increasingly out of date because of continuous development or redevelopment; so that, if and when compulsory registration is introduced to these areas, there will be a substantial increase in the number of ad hoc surveys. I do not think I need to labour that point. A shelved plan soon becomes an obsolete plan.

My Lords, the Government consider it both necessary and urgent to arrange matters so that the Land Registry can resume, and this time I hope carry through without interruption, its expansion programme. I do not think there is anything wrong with the quality of the staff or its internal organisation. It is its relationship to central Government which has hampered its advance. It is this which, if I am right, the present Bili sets out to alter. It would be objectionable if it were likely to cause difficulty in the longer term; and I do not think that is so.

Under the Bill, my Lords, I am retaining control df the questions hitherto reserved to the Lord Chancellor by Statute, such as the making of fee orders and amendments to the rules and questions of general policy. Apart from this, under the Bill the Land Registry will run itself as it is very competent to do. There will be, of course, as there are now, some complaints about day-to-day matters. These will be dealt with by the independent Board, which I contemplate may contain part-time members representative of those who have an interest in the problems of land transfer, as well as the present Registrar and his senior staff.

I have explained what I regard as the advantages of the proposed hiving off. Against that one has, of course, to consider whether there would be any disadvantages to any section of the community, and I consider these now. First of all there is the customer; that is to say the people transferring land, the proprietor of registered land whose title has hitherto carried the label of "State guaranteed". From now on the guarantee will be continued, and although the strict label of "State guarantee" may not be appropriate I cannot see any practical question arising. The public will retain the existing advantages, and if I am right in hoping and even anticipating that the barriers to expansion will be removed, these advantages will be extended to new areas of the country. Secondly, we have to consider the interest of the practitioners. I believe that I can dispel any fear that practitioners will be adversely affected by having to learn new law or new practices. The Bill is concerned with the administration of the Land Registry and not with the system of land registration, so the technical provisions of land registration will remain substantially unaltered. The worst that can be said from the practitioners' point of view is that conveyancing will be simpler and therefore I hope relatively cheaper.

Naturally the staff of the Land Registry have been concerned to know what their position will be under this legislation. My Lords, all staff at present serving with the Land Registry will be transferred to the new organisation on the appointed day. They will cease to be civil servants, but we are prepared to guarantee that the terms of employment offered will be the terms on which the staff were serving on the day before the transfer. Moreover, it is the Government's intention that after the change Civil Service terms and conditions should continue to apply to the staff of the new organisation so that there will be freedom of transfer between the Land Registry and Government Departments. The staff of the Land Registry will continue to belong to the Civil Service superannuation scheme. All new conditions of service and pay agreed for civil servants will apply automatically to the staff. There will be detailed discussions with the Staff Side on the arrangements necessary to bring all this about.

My Lords, may I now pass very quickly to the contents of the Bill. Clauses 1 and 2 give the new structure of a public authority which will run the Land Registry in conjunction with a Chief Land Registrar. He will be chairman of the authority, as well as retaining his judicial functions, and he will he an experienced lawyer as his predecessors have always been. Clause 3 transfers general responsibility for the business of the Land Registry to the new authority and Clause 4 lists the powers and duties which it will need as an independent body. I should mention that Clause 4(1)(c) includes the power to establish a code of practice which will remove some matters of detail from the ambit of the rule committee; and subsection (3) makes it clear that the privacy of the register which is to continue is not to be a screen behind which criminals can hide their identity or conceal the profits of crime. I hope that no one will quarrel with that.

Clauses 5 and 6 provide for the appointment of the Chief Land Registrar and his deputy. Clauses 7 and 8 give the Lord Chancellor the degree of ministerial control which we think is required. It gives him power to give directions on policy matters, and he is to receive an annual report which will be laid before Parliament so that the Houses may keep an eye on the general conduct of the business.

LORD SLATER

My Lords, in regard to the setting up of this particular board and the chairman who is to be a lawyer, do I take it that the position of the new chairman will be a full-time post and that he will have no other outside interests?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Yes, he will be the Chief Land Registrar. I am much obliged to the noble Lord for his query. At this point I should like to say something about the membership of the board. The first thing I have to do is to appoint the Chairman who will be the Chief Land Registrar and, in consultation with him, the other members. The Land Registry's business is, of course, highly technical and it seems to me inevitable that the full-time members of the board should be drawn from the senior members of the present management who are civil servants with great experience and knowledge of the system. Whether there is advantage in having outside members in addition is a point on which I have an open mind. I certainly do not rule out part-time members representative of other interests and I shall of course listen to any representations made to me about that. The remuneration and terms of service of the board members are left at large in the Bill, to he determined by agreement with the Minister for the Civil Service.

Clauses 9 to 15 contain financial provisions of a kind with which I think the House has become familiar in similar legislation. Clause 9 requires the Land Registry to break even, taking one year with another, and to comply with other directions. Clause 10 requires the authority to assume any initial debt in respect of property transferred to it from the Crown, and that is a common feature of this type of legislation. Clause 11 gives it the necessary borrowing powers which I hope will be needed to finance its expansion. Clause 12 provides for surplus revenue to he paid into the Consolidated Fund for the benefit of the general body of the taxpayers; but I must emphasise that it is not intended that this should be a profit-making body on a significant scale. Clause 13 enables the Treasury to guarantee the borrowing; that will give it the advantage of lower rates of interest. Clause 14 requires audited accounts to be submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor-General. Clause 15 ensures that the power to prescribe these is exercised so as to give the Registry the revenue it needs, and covers some other points of detail. That is under my control. Clauses 16 to 20 are miscellaneous and supplemental. Clause 16 enables the Lord Chancellor to designate areas for future compulsory registration and cuts out the previous system of Orders in Council. Then there are four Schedules.

My Lords, I do not pretend that this Bill makes particularly exciting, popular reading, but for the reasons I have given I hope the House will consider, as do the Government, that it is quite an important measure and that it will produce a substantial benefit in the form of a smooth expansion, as I hope. of the compulsory registration system. On that basis, my Lords, I commend it to the House and beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

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

3.32 p.m.

LORD GARDINER

I am sure that the House will wish me to thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for the trouble he has taken to explain this Bill to us. Perhaps the first two things that I should say about it are, first, that it is a silly Bill, and secondly that I could not put my hand on my heart and say I was certain that, if I had still been in the place of the noble and learned Lord, I should not myself he introducing the same silly Bill. There is of course no question of Party politics here, and a great deal of common ground. As late, I think, as 1925 there were still some who did not support compulsory registration of title. I doubt now whether, with our experience, there is any informed opinion which does other than support it, for the very simple reason that, although a first registration is more expensive than an ordinary conveyance, every subsequent transfer of the land is quicker, simpler and cheaper.

It is right to record at once, as indeed the noble and learned Lord has done, that it was two months before the General Election of 1964 that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, announced that he was instituting a crash programme for pressing on with compulsory registration of title which would cover all the built-up areas of the country within eight years; and, if my recollection is right, it was then thought that it would take another seven years to apply it to the outlying areas. I introduced a Land Registration Bill on May 24, 1966, when I explained that the purpose of it was merely to clear away one or two things which were holding up the development of the eight-year plan. I said how much I supported the plan, and would wish to see it carried out as soon as possible, and I paid tribute to the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, who had started it in August, 1964. Up to that time it had been going well.

Then, two years later, came devaluation. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor rather suggested, I thought, that I had informed the House that, for some reason which I did not explain, land registration was going to be slowed down. But, in fact, on devaluation it became necessary to restrict Government expenditure. There were, as your Lordships will remember, cuts all round, and one of the cuts took the form of a pledge that the number of civil servants would not be increased for a period of 12 months. It was in the course of an economic debate explaining the Government's then economic policy on devaluation that I explained this, and said that one of the unhappy results, from my point of view, would be that it would inevitably lead to a slow-down in the eight-year plan.

The trouble all the way through here has been that politicians tend to make promises—not always. if I may very respectfully say so, wisely; and, in particular at Election times, a promise not to increase the number of civil servants is always popular. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, two or three months later, asked a Question putting his finger on the real point. This was on July 31, 1968, when he asked Her Majesty's Government: why it has been necessary to suspend the extension of land registration, and how long this suspension is likely to last."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 296, col. 306.] In reply, I said (cols. 306–7): …in spite of increased efficiency and productivity, the introduction of new areas of compulsory registration of title to land inevitably leads to the need for more staff in Her Majesty's Land Registry. In consequence of the Government's decision not to increase the number of civil servants during the present financial year, as announced by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in another place on January 16, Her Majesty's Land Registry have been unable to recruit more staff and have thus been unable to accept further areas of compulsory registration of title to land. I hope that before very long it will be possible to continue with the plan to extend the compulsory registration system throughout the country. Then the noble Earl, I thought, put his finger on the real point when he said (col. 307): My Lords, can the noble and learned Lord confirm that this registration is self-supporting from the fees of registration, and that the last five years have shown a surplus of some £1,250,000? In these circumstances, does this really constitute a charge on the public purse, and could this registration not be proceeded with rather more quickly or more steadily than in the past? As I had to explain, when the pledge had been given—and, indeed, when it generally is given—no such exception was allowed for. Of course, what, if I may respectfully say so, leaders of political Parties ought to do, if they are going to give a pledge about civil servants, is to add: but that will not of course apply to those who do not cost the country anything. That has always been the position here because the fees are charged so as to break even, taking one year with another. There is always continual inflation—I suppose there has been throughout this century. The situation continues until a year arrives when the Land Registry makes a loss, and that perhaps runs for a year or two. Then the fees are put up. Then it makes a profit, when it ought to break even, and the profits gradually grow less each year. When I was in office the state of accounts between the Land Registry and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was that the Chancellor of the Exchequer owed me £4 million because the Land Registry at that time had over the years made a profit of £4 million.

May I come now, before returning to that question, to a few points on the Bill itself? The first is on Clause 2, which provides: There shall be established a public authority. to be called"— Surprise, surprise!— the Land Registry". Under Clause 2(3) the Chief Land Registrar is to be chairman; and there are to be not less than four nor more than ten other members. So it is a board of from five to eleven. May I ask the noble and learned Lord whether I am right in thinking that they are to do exactly the work which the Chief Land Registrar has so far done perfectly well all on his own? I gather that the noble and learned Lord is still in doubt whether or not there will be outsiders. If they are simply junior members of the Land Registry staff I suppose they will say whatever the chairman says: or it will be an unhappy office if they do not, If they are outsiders, how exactly they are to help I do not know. I see from Schedule 1 that they are to be paid. I should have thought, with some respect, that this is all really rather a waste of money.

Then there is Clause 9. That very properly begins by re-stating the present position, that the Land Registry should make ends meet taking one year with another; but subsection (2) says—and I view it with some suspicion: The Lord Chancellor may, with the approval of the Treasury and after consultation with the registering authority, give a direction to that authority that it shall exercise and perform its functions during any period specified in the direction with a view to securing that it achieves in respect of that period a rate of return on the value of its net assets (as for the time being defined for the purposes of this subsection by the Lord Chancellor) which is not less than such rate as the Lord Chancellor specifies in the direction as the rate of return which he considers it is reasonable for the registering authority to achieve. I confess that whenever I see in any legislation the words "the Treasury", I am somewhat suspicious. If the Land Registry is under a statutory obligation to make both ends meet taking one year with another, why is it necessary to have a provision that the Lord Chancellor, with the concurrence of the Treasury, shall in effect (if I have read it rightly) order them to make a profit?

Let me take from the Chief Land Registrar's last report the results of the last six or seven years. In 1966–67 there was a loss of £19,000; in 1967–68 there was a loss of £17,000; in 1969–70 there was a loss of £483,000 and in 1970–71 there was a loss of £908,000. At that point the fees were put up. Unfortunately, they were put up too much because for the year 1971–72 a profit was made of £2,300,000 and for 1972–73 there was a profit of over £6 million. All that represents gross overcharges on the unfortunate people who used the Land Registry. If I say that that ought not to have taken place I quite understand the difficulties of the Lord Chancellor and the Chief Land Registrar in seeing what would happen in relation to transfers of property at a time of inflation.

The Chief Land Registrar said in his report: The preponderance of estimated revenue over estimated expenditure is unwarrantably large. Then he explained: The Land Registration Fee Order 1970 was made, after about two years of careful research, upon the basis of events which were then conceived to be likely to produce a break-even financial situation. He could not have foreseen, I think, that even two years of Conservative Government would have shown the enormous extent of property speculation and the devastating effect which it has had on the whole of the property market. Of course he did not put it that way himself; what he actually said was: No one could then have envisaged the prolongation of the enormous upsurge of conveyancing transactions, let alone the wildly inflated prices that real property now commands". He ended by saying: However, it is clear that we must use our best endeavours to avoid a comparable disparity between revenue and expenditure for the future. So I should like to ask for some further elucidation of Clause 9 and of what appears, on the face of it, to be a power of the Lord Chancellor not to compel the Registry to reduce its fees but to compel it to increase them.

My third point is concerned with Clause 10–and again I am sure it is my own fault that I do not understand it better. Subsection (1) reads: The registering authority shall assume, in accordance with the following provisions of this section, debts to the Lord Chancellor (in this Act referred to collectively as the initial debt') in respect of the property and rights. transferred to the registering authority by virtue of paragraph 1 of Schedule 3 to this Act. As I believe I am right in thinking that the London Land Registry was built entirely out of the fees of the people who used it and that the Government of the time never had to pay for it at all, if there are registries elsewhere which belonged to the Government and have been transferred to the Land Registry it might be proper to allow for that fact. But may I ask what is to happen to the £11 million (I think that is the figure now) that the Chancellor of the Exchequer owes to the Lord Chancellor at the moment? I am quite clear in my recollection that it was £4 million when I was in office; then, as we see, in the last two years they made a profit of over £8 million, so the figure is something like £12 million. Are the Treasury going to give credit for that sum?

The fourth point refers to the staff, and here I am really rather concerned because these, after all, are civil servants. They presumably took their Civil Service examinations, decided that they wanted to be civil servants in life, looking forward to completing their years of service in the Civil Service, able to transfer, of course, from one Department to another. As I understand the position they are safeguarded as to superannuation and as to redundancy pay, so that for the purposes of redundancy pay their time with the Government will count; but although the noble and learned Lord says that their terms of service are guaranteed to continue I cannot find anything about that in the Bill. Of course I may have missed it. However, if that is to be so, ought it not to be in the Bill? At the moment. of course, they are employed by the Crown; now they are going to be dismissed, and I suppose they will have an ordinary contract of employment with the Land Registry. There does not appear to be any provision in the Bill that their terms of employment by the Land Registry are to be no worse than their terms and conditions of service in the Civil Service. Of course, in practice in the Civil Service there is a great deal of security of tenure, but whether that will happen at the Land Registry I do not know.

Then may I ask whether I was correct in understanding the noble and learned Lord to say—although, here again, I am not absolutely clear from the Bill—that they will be transferable to other Civil Service Departments? As it happens, a leading article in The Times yesterday dealt with those extraordinary people, the Crown Agents, and in the course of that article there appeared something that I did not know. It reads: At the moment, the Select Committee on Overseas Development is prevented from conducting its own study of the Crown Agents as is the Public Accounts Committee, even though the Comptroller and Auditor General conducts an annual audit and presents his findings to the Foreign Office". Then it says: The 1,800-strong staff enjoy transferability with the Civil Service and operate similar gradings, but constitutionally M.P.s are debarred from looking at its personnel policy and spending decisions". I did not know that there was in existence any outside body which had transferability with the Civil Service. Am I to take it that it will in fact apply to the staff of the Land Registry?

The last point I should like to raise is whether this register of land will be open to public inspection. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord is a very much better comparative lawyer than I am, but as he rightly says, this system of compulsory registration of title forms part of the law of nearly every Western European country. Am I not right in thinking that in most of those countries this public register is, as a matter of course, open to public inspection? This is a point which has been raised many times in the past. Property owners always objected; everybody else wants it. Only in England is it thought to be something indecent that anybody should want to know who owns a particular piece of land. Obviously, property speculators welcome the position because nothing is more difficult than to find out who is doing the property speculating, and there are a great many tenants who find difficulty in discovering the identity of their landlord. May I ask the noble and learned Lord whether the Government have a policy on this, and whether they would welcome or regret an Amendment at the Committee stage of the Bill to provide that the Register, which at present, is open only to those considering buying a piece of land or, I believe, to the Director of Public Prosecutions, should be open to the general public?

The sole cause of this Bill is the unhappy disposition of budding Prime Ministers to make unwise electoral promises about the number of civil servants. I have sympathy with the noble and learned Lord in his difficulty. In a sense, this is an ingenious way of getting round it: let us make them not civil servants, and then we shall not have this trouble again. The difficulty about these promises is the question of how one can possibly tell, when starting in Government for five years, whether or not one will need an increase in the number of civil servants. To some extent—and this applies to local government, too—an increase in population must require an increase in civil servants; and similarly with an increase in prosperity. If there are more motor cars, there have to be more clerks to see to the taxation and licensing of those motor ears, and so on. One may have to have petrol rationing. One cannot tell five .(ears in advance. It would not have mattered if only the persons making the promise had added a proviso to say that this aught not to apply to civil servants whose remuneration does not increase Government net expenditure.

My Lords, on the subject of the above points I do not intend to ask my noble friends to vote against the Second Reading of the Bill. But, apart from the points to which I have ventured to refer, my present intention is to move a short Amendment at the Committee stage. Subject to what the noble and learned Lord may say in reply (naturally, I hope lie will say, "Yes; that is a good plan, and if you will move that Amendment I will certainly accept it.") my short Amendment would be to omit Clauses 1 to 20 inclusive, and Schedules 1 to 3 inclusive, and to insert instead: 1. Any promise by the leader of any political party as to any number of civil servants shall be deemed not to apply to or include any civil servants employed in the Land Registry. This would have exactly the same effect as this Bill. It would enable an 8-year plan to go forging ahead; it would save a Bill of 20 Clauses and 3 Schedules and the Bill would become a one-clause Bill; it would save the staff any embarrassment and retain their civil servant status. It would save all this upheaval and would save the remuneration of the body of four to ten people who are going, as I think is conceded, to be there to do what the Chief Land Registrar has done all by himself for very many years.

3.53 p.m.

LORD WADE

My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor replies I have two short questions. I recall very well the statement of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, about the Code in the Civil Service and am in sympathy with his comments, but I am under the impression that the Code of Recruitment of civil servants was intended as a temporary measure at that time. I should be interested to know, as a matter of history, whether the hold-up in the extension of the Land Registry lasted considerably longer than that temporary measure. But to come to the Bill, as I understand it, this is intended to be self-financing.

LORD GARDINER

My Lords, if the noble Lord wishes to know subsequent history, there was a document called, A Better Tomorrow, which said, "We will reduce the number of civil servants."

LORD WADE

I am much obliged to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner. I do recall that document, and must reread it. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has made it clear that this Registry is intended to be self-financing. Does that mean strictly on a year-to-year basis? If so, is there a prospect of charges bobbing up and down, year by year? I am well aware that charges generally bob up rather than clown, but there is surely a point in this question of land values referred to by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. If there is a surplus, and if in addition there is a prospect of the values at which land will change bands rising over a period of years, it would seem to me that one could reasonably accept that the fees will remain at roughly the same amount over a period of years and will not change year by year.

3.55 p.m.

LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH

My Lords, I should like to welcome this Bill to a slight extent. So far as it will achieve the object of speeding up land registration, I am sure it is a good thing. I have been a believer in land registration ever since I became qualified as a lawyer, and in the past I have had many contacts with the Land Registry, to whose efficiency I would certainly pay very high tribute. I am a little surprised to discover from the speech of the noble and learned Lord that this new board is going to consist probably of employees of the Land Registry. This is certainly a new development in public boards, but I do not complain about it. Perhaps it is a good thing. But it ought to be made clear that that is the position and that it is not intended to introduce into the management of the Land Registry some external influence which is not familiar with its working; because the work of the Land Registry is very difficult and highly technical. It has been developed to a point of very great expertise and should not be disturbed. It ought to continue along the lines on which it has been so successful in the past. However, if this measure is going to expedite land registration, then it is a good thing. But may I ask the noble and learned Lord, after this Bill is passed, to introduce into law as soon as possible a consolidating measure dealing with land registration, because the law stands now in different Statutes and it is getting quite complicated and difficult to find.

3.57 p.m.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I am grateful for the various questions and comments which have been put. I hope that in the course of my few remarks I shall answer most cf them. If I do not, no doubt noble Lords will take them up with me at some time. To begin with, I am able to give a certain pleasure to the noble Lord, Lord Wade, and what I say may have a certain relevance to one of the questions put by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner. Charges were reduced by 20 per cent. in June this year, and that was, I think, the result of an action by the Lord Chancellor's Department. It was, of course, due in part to the surplus which was made. It was also a contribution, so far as I could make it, although a small one, to costs in a period of rising prices.

In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Wade, may I say that we do not intend that self-financing should work in every twelve months. In answer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, yes, in principle, of course, all the money goes back into the Consolidated Fund. That is provided for in the Bill. But if one finds a surplus going back into the Consolidated Fund, it is at any rate legitimate for the Lord Chancellor to reduce the charges, and therefore for Parliament to bully the Lord Chancellor into so doing. That is the idea, and that is what I did whilst I was still responsible fot the day-to-day affairs of the Land Registry. It will be continued in the provisions of the Bill. We do not visualise this as a profit-making concern, bringing in revenue to the Consolidated Fund. It is true that in assessing what is and what is not a profit, the Land Registry must conform to the general policy executed by hived-off bodies in regard to interest charges. It also must pay a charge on its capital assets, even though, as a matter of history, the noble and learned Lord is quite right. If my memory serves me, I also said in my opening speech that as a matter of history the Land Registry itself—which must be worth a good many millions; I do not know how many; I am not good at that kind of thing—was originally paid for out of the various fees charged in the past, though a good time ago now, by previous conveyances.

The Land Registry has been and remains, and is intended to remain, a self-financing body under the new scheme. As a matter of mechanics the money has to go back into the Consolidated Fund. Obviously, the rate of interest is something which will have to conform to general Government policy. I should like to accept the noble and learned Lord's implied confidence that a Conservative Lord Chancellor will remain in office for a very long time and that I should therefore be able to give a complete guarantee as to future policy. That, however, is in the lap the gods. The Bill says what I have said the Bills says and our policy remains what I have said our policy remains.

The noble and learned Lord began by saying that this was a silly Bill, but he was not at all sure that he would not have done the same thing himself in my place. I think that was a fairly generous tribute. I do not think it is a silly Bill. I think I have been able to identify one of the reasons why land registration has not progressed. I may be proved wrong, but only time will show. If I am right, it is not a silly Bill. Moreover, I must tell him that it is not pure chance; it is not simply due to promises about numbers of civil servants that has led me to this identification. It is part of the policy of this Government to hive off self-sufficient organisations of a public character where hiving off can be clone without detriment to long-term policy or to the staff or to the customers who may be using the service. We think this leads to greater efficiency, and it enables us to insulate self-sufficient bodies from the ups and downs of day-to-day Government policy. Although I appreciate that the noble Lord's proposed Amendment may have been in part a jeu d'esprit—I do not know how seriously he meant me to take it—I should think that the principle upon which the Bill is based is one which can be justified better than the rather cynical principle upon which his proposed Amendment would be confessedly founded.

It is not quite true that the new board will do only what the old branch of the Lord Chancellor's Department did and has been doing, and is doing. As the noble and learned Lord must recollect, there are a great number of day-to-day criticisms which come in relating to the Land Registry, about delay in the registering of a particular title or difficulty about a battle concerning a particular conveyance, to which, in the ordinary course of events, the Lord Chancellor has to write a reply in his own hand now, as the old Postmaster-General used to have to write in the past when the Post Office was a Government Department. This is probably better done by a day-to-day management board. It is precisely for that reason that it might be advisable—I am tempted to think that it would be advisable, but, as I said, I keep an open mind—that one or two part-time lay members of the board might represent the consumer interest perhaps a little better than a staid old lawyer who wears a wig and gown on the Woolsack every afternoon. It may or may not be so, but at any rate the case is arguable and I think it probably is so.

As I say, I sympathise with the noble Lord's difficulties in 1968 and I hope I have identified one of the causes. Indeed, in his own way I think the noble and learned Lord confirmed my diagnosis. I should like to reflect; and I should like the House to reflect that it may be that his and my misfortunes are an example of a general proposition: that these self-sufficient bodies are better organised by what you might call the buffer principle of administration, leaving the Minister in general charge of policy by giving him a power of direction and cutting him off from day-to-day management, so that the thing may develop of its own dynamism.

I think I have dealt with the noble Lord's point about the Treasury, and I will not enter into his political point about two years of Tory government putting up the price of land. We have dealt with that in economic debates, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, pointed out in a very striking speech about a year ago, one of the consequences of inflation, whoever is responsible and whatever is responsible, is that people losing confidence in money tend to invest in land and push up the value of land beyond what any person of any political persuasion would like to see. That is not a thing we want to see. It had the byproduct, of course, that the profits of the Land Registry were rather higher than had been calculated, and it was for that reason, though I do not claim much credit for it, that I was able to put down the fees last June, and of course if the situation should recur I would try to put down the fees again. I am one of the very few people who can claim honestly to have reduced charges in the last 12 months.

As regards the staff, I think I covered the point the noble and learned Lord raised in my original speech, and what I actually said had been agreed verbatim with the unions concerned. I should prefer, if I may, not to embellish it now, for fear of giving an alternative text to that which has been agreed. I do not think it is convenient in these cases to spell out the staff conditions; I do not think it is usual to spell them out in an Act of Parliament. I believe the unions are best left to negotiate with the Government in a matter of this kind; I think they have done so to the advantage of their members, and I have tried to play my part in it, equally with a due sense of their legitimate anxieties. I do not think I should like to see it written into the Bill.

The noble Lord also asked a question about public inspection. This raises a much more difficult question. I do not want to enter into it in any detail now. It is true that titles in land are confidential in this country. It may be true, for aught I know, that in some other countries they are not. But it does not seem to me that there is a case for making registered titles non-confidential and unregistered titles, which still represent more than half, confidential. Indeed it might impede the principle of the extension of land registration which I want. I should not welcome a change for registered titles in this Bill, leaving unregistered titles confidential. It is a general issue, but I would say here and now that I personally sympathise with the rather separate point the noble and learned Lord made about the difficulty a tenant feels in identifying his landlord, and I am trying to see at this moment what I can do about it; but, of course, this involves more Departments than my own, and I am not in a position to make an announcement at the moment. However the noble and learned Lord may be assured that I am seized of the point and I sympathise with what he says about it, though I should not like to see it in this particular piece of legislation.

The noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, gave me welcome support for the general principle. I take what he says about the desirability of consolidation. We are pressing on with our consolidation measures as fast as we can. As he will have noticed, earlier this afternoon I proposed, and the House passed, the Second Reading, of another Consolidation Bill, relating to Slaughterhouses, and not Land Registration. I simply would take on board what he says about consolidation of Acts relating to land registration. There are many other Acts which require consolidation. He is pushing at an open door so far as I am concerned. I hope that we get on with consolidation as fast as the shortage of Parliamentary draftsmen will allow us to do. In the course of my remarks I have answered his other point about employees.

As I say, I am attracted by the suggestion that there should be others on the Board apart from full-time members of the office, and largely because I hope that some of the day to day duties of the Lord Chancellor may be hived off on to the board and its representatives. I think that members of the public should also be on the board in order to represent the consumer interest. Having said that, I am grateful to all three noble Lords who have spoken. I hope that the House will now be prepared to give the Bill a Second Reading.

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