Lords Sitting of 21 October 1975

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich.

AIRCRAFT APPROACH HEIGHT OVER CHELSEA
Lord KINNAIRD:My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the height below which aircraft approaching Heathrow are prohibited from flying over Chelsea.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of INDUSTRY (Lord Beswick): My Lords, the height of aircraft approaching Heathrow is controlled by Department of Trade noise abatement regulations and by Air Traffic Control procedures, on which I have been advised by the Civil Aviation Authority. Chelsea is about 10 miles from the touchdown point for aircraft approaching Heathrow from the East, and the Air Traffic Control require aircraft making such approaches to intercept, at a distance of between 8 and 12 miles from touchdown, a radio beam which is projected by the airport's instrument landing system. Aircraft over flying Chelsea before intercepting the radio beam are required by the Department of Trade not to fly below 2,000 feet. Aircraft making an interception before or over Chelsea will be at a height of 2,500 feet and 3,000 feet.
Lord KINNAIRD: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for his helpful reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that I am a very light sleeper? Is he also aware that frequently between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m., and nearly always on Sundays, residents are literally frightened out of their beds by low-flying aircraft? Is the noble Lord further aware that I have had two letters from the Chairman
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of the Civil Aviation Authority, each stating different things? One said, as the noble Lord has just remarked, that aircraft flying over Chelsea are not supposed to descend below 2,000 feet, and the other said 3,000 feet. Which, if either, is correct? In view of this, and bearing in mind both the comfort and safety of residents and passengers alike, is the Minister able to say whether there are any effective means of ensuring that the correct instructions are given, and that those instructions are carried out?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I was not aware that the noble Lord is a light sleeper. I was aware, however, that this is the noble Lord's first Question in this House, and I congratulate him on the way he has put it. As to the situation over the noble Lord's house I sympathise with him to some extent because having made inquiries I find that Durham Place, where the noble Lord lives, lies approximately one-half to three-quarters of a mile North of the extended centre line to runway 28 right; that aircraft approaching from the North and East of London must fly over Durham Place to intersect the ILS beam; and that traffic from the South will pass about half a mile South of Durham Place. So there is quite a Clapham Junction over the noble Lord's house. But it still remains the fact that aircraft should not be below 2,000 feet at the minimum, and are normally between 2,500 and 3,000 feet.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what steps are taken to ensure that air traffic instructions are complied with by aircraft approaching Heathrow from the East? Can he say, for example, whether the flight data recorder traces are ever analysed to ascertain the correct performance of the aircraft; and also whether any secondary radar is available to the approach controllers at Heathrow for this purpose?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, with his technical knowledge and technical curiosity, had better see me outside, when I will give him all the facts. But, briefly, the position is that captains are instructed at what height to fly and they report that they are at that height, as the noble Lord knows. Monitoring is possible and is usually done, and there are penalties for those who contravene the regulations.
Baroness HYLTON-FOSTER: My Lords, could the noble Lord give any indication of the height at which an aircraft will be flying when its markings can be read? Further, does he know that I live very near the noble Lord, Lord Kinnaird?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I imagine that it would depend, first, upon the eyesight of the observer and, secondly, upon whether or not the observer is a light sleeper.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, if I may return to my original question, can the noble Lord please say how many infringements of the height regulations have occurred recently, and whether any successful prosecutions have resulted?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, it depends upon what the noble Lord means by infringements. There have been infringements, and the airline company concerned has been warned. The Department of Trade have power to instruct the Airports Authority to withdraw facilities from those airline companies which appear not to observe the regulations. As to prosecutions, the answer is, None.

SOVIET SHIPPING: FREIGHT CHARGES
2.43 p.m.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it has come to their attention that vessels operating under the control of the Soviet Union are carrying freight at substantially reduced charges to the detriment of British shipping and whether any action is contemplated to prevent unfair competition.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, we are aware of the concern felt by the British shipping industry, and those in some other countries, about the activities of the Soviet Merchant Marine. We are urgently investigating the matter with the interests concerned. I cannot speculate at this stage upon what, if any, action might be required.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, when my noble friend speaks about investigating the matter—which he regards, quite rightly, as urgent—does he mean that there have been consultations with other maritime countries, for example, West Germany and the Scandinavian countries who are adversely affected? Is he aware that the wage rates of Russian seamen are only one-tenth equivalent (in British currency) to the wages paid to British seamen? Is that not detrimental to the interests of the British Mercantile Marine?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, the answer to the first part of my noble friend's supplementary question is that there are consultations between the countries concerned with this trade. I am not aware of the wage rates of Soviet seamen, but the question is whether there is free and fair competition according to the principles of the Anglo-Soviet Merchant Shipping Agreement. We are endeavouring to establish whether or not this is so.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, when my noble friend speaks of consultation, can he say what has happened as a result of the consultations that have already taken place; or are they only being contemplated?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, the countries are in the process of consultation. Nothing has as yet taken place.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he can tell us how long these consultations have gone on, whether there has been any response from the Soviet Union or whether they have still to go on in accordance with the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, as the noble Baroness and my noble friend will appreciate, there are certain difficulties in establishing the facts in this case. I cannot say exactly how much longer these consultations will take. I have said that that they are being pressed with a degree of urgency.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, why does my noble friend speak of investigation into the facts? Is not the Minister

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responsible—whoever he happens to be—in consultation with the Council of Shipping? Is he not aware that the Council of Shipping have related the facts and presented them?—I have a copy in my possession. Does he not regard this matter as urgent and does he not agree that something must be done about it?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, it is possible for some people to make assertions which they allege to be facts, but it is not always easy to prove whether or not they are facts. Although I have said that there is a degree of urgency about this matter, I do not believe that we should overestimate the damage being caused. I am informed that Soviet ships carry only some 1.2 percent. of the total United Kingdom trade—that was the figure in 1973. We, for our part, carry approximately 1 per cent. of the trade of the Soviet Union. I cannot think that the damage, as of now, is excessive.

H.M.S. "PRINCE OF WALES" AND "REPULSE"
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take to protect the wrecks of H.M.S. "Prince of Wales" and H.M.S. "Repulse" in view of the imminent departure of the Royal Navy from Singapore.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, although the wrecks of Her Majesty's Ships "Prince of Wales" and "Repulse" are lying in international waters over 50 miles from the Malaysia coast, they remain Crown property and as such we are concerned to safeguard them. You will appreciate the difficulties of trying to prevent any unauthorised interference with the wrecks, particularly small isolated instances; but since salvage of these two ships would be a major and lengthy operation any attempt could hardly escape notice even in its preparatory stages. While our presence in the Far East may have had a deterrent effect on would be salvors, I believe that the withdrawal of the Royal Navy from
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Singapore should not affect in practice our ability to take action should the necessity arise. The position will, of course, be watched carefully.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that the huge bronze propellors, one of which is already missing, the other non-ferrous metals and the armour plating which, as pré-Hiroshimametal, is in great demand for shielding nuclear reactors, make these ships a salvage bonanza? Would it not add insult to injury to the relatives and survivors for Japanese salvage firms—and it could be one of them—to profit from British ships and British war graves?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble Lord has raised what is the important issue. These ships are the tombs of nearly a thousand British sailors. I am certain that the House will agree with the noble Lord that they should not be desecrated.
Lord BALFOUR of INCHRYE: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us in what depth of water the wrecks lie?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, all that I know is that it is just within the capacity of modern diving techniques.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that it is Admiralty policy not to give salvage rights in such circumstances? Furthermore, would he not agree that any attempt to disturb the graves of these honourable and gallant men would outrage public opinion in Britain?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: Yes, my Lords, that is the position.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that our own Black Rod, as Far East Fleet Commander, was responsible for the 1966 diving operation which attached to the propellers of the two ships a line and float from which a White Ensign was flown? Will he, on this Trafalgar Day, guarantee to the House that the "powers that be" will not sweep this problem under the carpet?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: Yes, my Lords, I can give that guarantee.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, if the noble Lord is considering sweeping matters under the carpet, would he remind himself that at the time HMS "Repulse". HMS "Prince of Wales" and HMS "Singapore" were lost, the British nation was promised an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the building of HMS "Singapore" and the circumstances of the loss of these ships? That inquiry to this day has never been held. Perhaps it would be as well, if we are going to sweep things under the carpet, that we should remember the circumstances under which they were swept under the carpet.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, that is another question but I did not say that Her Majesty's Government were going to sweep it under the carpet.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I ask for clarification? The noble Lord replied to the effect that any attempt to disturb these wrecks would outrage public opinion. Does the noble Lord extend that to salvage by British firms for British purposes?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, that is extending the Question. Her Majesty's Government would consider salvage, provided the bodies of the dead were reverently treated.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that if that decision were taken the Commonwealth War Graves Commission would carry out that task and see that the remains were adequately, properly and decently buried?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, if that situation arose, the War Graves Commission would be consulted.

FURNESS WITHY SHAREHOLDING
2.52 p.m.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether any action is contemplated to prevent the Furness Shipping Line being taken over by a Bermuda company whose largest shareholder is resident in Switzerland.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, purchase by Eurocanadian Shipholdings Limited of a substantial minority shareholding in Furness Withy and Company Limited falls within the scope of the merger provisions of the Fair Trading Act 1973. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection will consider whether a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission would be appropriate in the light of any advice from the Director General of Fair Trading who is obtaining information from all the principal parties, including the trade unions, and others who may have a relevant interest.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Eurocanadian shipping company has not infiltrated financially into Furness Withy, but into one of its subsidiaries, Manchester Liners? Is he also aware of the fact that Furness Withy—which is probably one of the largest shipping companies in this country and in the world—is of the utmost importance to this maritime country of ours, both in the carrying on of trade and from a security point of view? Will the Government treat this matter with the utmost urgency in order to ensure that this British shipping company remains British?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, we are aware that the Canadian owned company has an interest not only in Furness Withy but in one of its subsidiaries. However, we need to have a report from the Director General, because it is not yet clear that it is a relevant case for the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Much will depend upon the report which is given to my right honourable friend by the Director General of Fair Trading. In the meantime, there are precautions and safeguards against a takeover of either company. First there is the safeguard that exchange control permission would be needed for acquisition of a holding exceeding 29.9 per cent. Secondly, under the City Code on Takeovers, when a shareholding exceeding 30 per cent. is acquired, the holder is required to make a bid on the same terms for the rest of the shares, which would obviously take time. Thirdly, if and when a reference is made to the Monopolies and Mergers Commision, the Secretary of State has order-making powers to prevent any further acquisition of shares during the

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merger investigation. We believe that the position is adequately safeguarded.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, does the noble Lord realise that the answers to these questions savour of the utmost complacency? The attitude of the Government in matters of shipping indicates that they regard shipping as a Cinderella of our industries and services. Is he aware that this Eurocanadian company is a very mysterious affair and that there is no question about one fact; namely, that the principal shareholder is not in Bermuda or Canada but is resident in Switzerland and concerned solely with the financial interests? Will the Government take care that the British maritime industry is protected against infiltration of this kind, which cannot do the shipping industry of this country, or Great Britain itself, any good?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I have very good reason to believe that the Government are not complacent on this issue, and that, if necessary, they will take action, either under the Fair Trading Act or the Exchange Control Act. The Government know exactly what they are doing.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether official representation has been made to the Government on this issue? This is of the greatest possible importance before any action is taken by Her Majesty's Government.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, there has been communication between Furness Withy and the Government; and the trade unions concerned have made it known that they are against the takeover. In the meantime, the Director General is getting detailed information from these and other parties.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that these references which he has made to safeguards, the Fair Trading Act, et cetera, are not worth the paper that they are written on? Unless something is done about this the Government are in for a lot of trouble, and I am going to take part in that trouble.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, from the footnotes on my brief, I know that the Government are aware that my noble
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friend is likely to make trouble on this issue. I will tell him that the Government are not only fully aware of that but are prepared for it, and they will be able to justify their position in the end.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENT
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell will repeat a Statement on abortion.

AIRPORTS AUTHORITY BILL [H.L.]
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is a straightforward Consolidation Bill, and it consolidates the Airports Authority Act 1965, which established the British Airports Authority, with nearly all the subsequent enactments relating to the Authority. The Bill will be referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills in the usual way. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

COMMUNITY LAND BILL
2.59 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Birk.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (The Earl of Listowel): Before I call Amendment 1A, I should point out to the Committee that if this Amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendments Nos. 1, 2 or 3.
Baroness YOUNG: Before speaking to Amendment 1A, at lunchtime today I received from the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, a suggested grouping of Amendments. I am very happy to agree to the proposals which were made yesterday in the House, and indeed to future proposals that she might make in this respect. But it is very difficult for us, at approximately one hour's notice, to take all the Welsh Amendments as a start, particularly as some of them apply to the later Schedules. I wonder therefore whether the noble Baroness would agree that it would be better to take the Amendments in the order as they are on the Marshalled List rather than as suggested in this letter.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: We are at the disposal of the Committee on this matter. It was thought convenient, to avoid repetition, that we should discuss the associated and consequential Amendments following the main Amendment; but if the noble Baroness thinks that would be unduly burdensome—and I am bound to say she has my sympathy because there are a multitude to consider—we shall be quite happy to fall in with what is proposed. That does not mean that I want to encourage any repetition of arguments, but I know that noble Lords opposite will always seek to avoid so unworthy a charge being laid against them.
Baroness YOUNG: I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I think there will be plenty to discuss in this Bill without having any repetition at all! In this instance my suggestion really is very much to the convenience of this side of the Committee. If at a later stage it is found possible to reach an agreement on the grouping of Amendments, we should be very glad to do so.
Clause 1 [Definitions]:
3.1 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD Lord SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 1A:
Page 1, line 10, leave out paragraphs (a) to (c) and insert—
("(a) in relation to England means the council of a county or district, the council of a London borough, the Common Council of the City of London and the Greater London Council, a development corporation as defined in section 2 of the New Towns Act 1965, or in section 2 of the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968, the Peak Park Joint
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Planning Board, the Lake District Special Planning Board;
(b) in relation to Scotland means a regional, general or district planning authority within the meaning of Part IX of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, or a development corporation as defined in section 2 of the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968;
(c) in relation to Wales means the Land Authority for Wales established under Part II of this Act or a development corporation as defined in section 2 of the New Towns Act 1965.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 1A. Noble Lords opposite will already know that we very much dislike this Bill. We very much dislike the procedure we are being asked to adopt in discussing it and, I am sorry to say, we very much dislike the layout of the Bill as well. This Amendment is a probing Amendment, to see whether or not we can extract from the noble Baroness or the noble and learned Lord some undertaking that this Bill will be looked at while we are handling it in this Chamber and before it goes on to the Statute Book, if it does go on to the Statute Book, to see whether or not it would be possible to tidy up the definitions, expressions, interpretations and soon in the kind of way which is illustrated by this Amendment. Other places where these strictures apply are in Clauses 4 and 6, which both contain whole sets of definitions. I can see there is some distinction between them, but it really would be very much easier if, rather than their being broadcast all over the Bill, they were set together in one place.
Baroness BIRK: As I understand it, this Amendment seeks to produce a consolidated definition of "authorities" for the purposes of this Bill. It does this by deleting most of the contents of Clause 1(1) and substituting revised definitions which also incorporate the substance of subsections (3), (5) and (7) of the same clause. I do not think the purpose is entirely clear, since the clause at present starts with three simple definitions of the authorities who are to operate the scheme related to England, Scotland and Wales respectively. Further definition of some of the terms used in subsection (1) is provided in the later subsections of the clause, in particular definitions of "local authority'' in England, which is found in subsection (3), and in Scotland, which is in subsection (5). There is a definition

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of new town authorities in subsection (7). I agree it would seem possible to reorganise the definitions in the way suggested, but frankly I find it difficult to see that very much would be gained. In any case, I would draw the attention of the noble Lord to the fact that the Amendment cannot be accepted as it stands, because it is defective, paragraph (a), dealing with England, containing a reference to the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968. Therefore I must resist the Amendment.
Lord SANDFORD: I have already explained that I do not intend to press the Amendment, so that is all right. I had thought not to get an explanation from the noble Baroness as to how Clause 1 would work—because with a good deal of care and toil one can find out—but I was seeking to get from her an undertaking to look at the Bill to see whether or not it would be possible, during its passage through this Chamber, to carry out some consolidation of the kind which is illustrated by this Amendment. Perhaps the noble Baroness could go just a little further before I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, and say that she and her noble colleagues will bear this point in mind, to see whether the Bill can be made just a little easier to read and to grasp.
Baroness BIRK: Any point that is raised will certainly be kept in mind; but I am sure the noble Lord will agree, particularly in view of what the noble Baroness said, that it is probably better if we deal with these points as they come up. I will certainly put the point to the Parliamentary draftsmen, to see whether a different approach to the definitions might be made.
Earl FERRERS: We should be very grateful to the noble Baroness if this could be looked at, because one of the problems that has always been pointed out regarding this Bill is the difficulty of understanding it, even in the case of a professional. To a layman, it becomes almost intolerable, because if one looks at the definition clauses, definitions appear in Clauses 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 15. For those people—and there will be many—who are not professionals in these matters, the mind will almost burst trying to find a way through the Bill. I should have thought that the Amendment moved by my noble friend had
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some substance to it, because Clause 1(1)(b) says:
"in relation to Scotland means a local authority or a new town authority,"
and then that is described in the same Amendment without one having to turn over the page to discover what "the local authority "or "new town authority" mean.
Baroness BIRK: In order to save time, since we have a long way to go, I have just said that I will look at this again. I hope that noble Lords opposite will be satisfied with that.
Lord FOOT: Before the noble Baroness takes it back for consideration, may I say from these Benches that we shall seek every opportunity of trying to support the Government over this Bill. There may be many occasions when we shall be unable to do so, so I should like to seize this opportunity to say that it seems to me that, although I fully understand the wish to shorten this definition clause, looking at the two together, setting it out in extenso as has been done in this clause is rather more understandable to the layman than the way in which the thing has been compressed in the alternative which is offered by this Amendment. Therefore I hope the noble Baroness will be able to consider that aspect of the matter, and it may well be she will eventually come to the conclusion that the original version represents the better drafting.
Lord SANDFORD: We have registered the point, I think, and therefore I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.9 p.m.
Lord ABERDARE Lord ABERDARE moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 10, after ("England") insert ("and Wales")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 1. In order to meet the point made by the noble and learned Lord and avoid being repetitious, I should like to couple Amendment No. 3 with No. 1. My noble friend Lord Balfour has put down a similar Amendment, which is No. 3. It may well be that this ties in with other Amendments of his, but so far as I am concerned Amendments Nos. 1 and 3 were put down specifically

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for the purpose of exploring the Government's reasons for treating Wales differently from England and Scotland. For that reason, I put down these Amendments rather than pursuing the matter by putting down innumerable consequential Amendments which I should have done had I been anxious to press this matter. It is really only in an endeavour to get some information from the Government that I move Amendment No. 1.
We have never had any real reason given by the Government as to why, in the case of Wales, there should be a Land Authority, while in England and Scotland the provisions of this Bill are envisaged as being carried out by the local authorities. In an endeavour to see what was in the Government's mind, I went to what I thought was the most authoritative source in this Chamber, which was the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, during the first of our two Second Readings. There I found her in full praise of the local authorities and giving many reasons why the functions should he given to local authorities. This was the debate on 4th August, at col. 1319 of the Official Report. The noble Baroness said:
"If you want to use a pair of scissors you need two blades for it to work. Planning is one blade, ownership the other. The marriage of planning and ownership is not a new idea."
This argued strongly in favour of the local authorities. The noble Baroness went on to speak of democratically elected authorities who should carry out these functions and said that a key advantage of making use of local authorities is that we can build on what is there. All this was in praise of local authorities which were carrying out the functions in England and Scotland, and not a word of justification for setting up a Land Authority in Wales in contradiction to all she was giving such kind words to.
On that occasion, the noble Baroness, Lady White, sought the reasons why Wales should be treated differently, and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, said—and I am quoting from col. 1364:
"… because it is a much smaller area than the whole of England, it seemed possible to operate through a Land Authority."
That would seem to imply that the Land Authority was the better means of dealing with this matter but it was only because
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Wales was a smaller area and it was practically possible in Wales that it had not been applied to England; but that, again, seems to contradict what she was saying before about the merits of leaving it to local authorities. So I am left in complete confusion. I cannot understand for a minute why there should be a Land Authority in Wales and why in England and Scotland the matter should be left to the local authorities. We have never, as I have said, had a straightforward reason. It has been said that this is a more flexible way and the Government are being flexible in treating Wales differently. I am all for treating Wales differently if there is a good reason for doing so. Flexibility is an admirable virtue, but it surely has to be justified and there would have to be good reasons why Wales should be separately and differently treated.
Certainly in conversations I have had with people in Wales the only explanation that has been given is either that the Secretary of State for Wales did not consider that local authorities were capable of handling these responsibilities, which I can hardly believe would have been the Government's reason; or, much more likely, that it was in line with their proposals for an Assembly in Wales. Some functions had to be found for the Assembly and here was a chance to set up a body which eventually could be put under the general guidance of a Welsh Assembly. Certainly this has a certain verisimilitude if we are to believe the Paper that was leaked from the Cabinet Committee in which it was allegedly said that for Wales the picture is of a system devolving wide Executive powers but within a constitutional framework much more akin to a major regional authority and in much more evident and practical subordination to Westminster. If that is the Government's thinking on the Welsh Assembly, then of course the Land Authority fits neatly into the picture despite the fact that it is completely incompatible with all the other protestations that have been made from the Government side about the merits of leaving this matter to local authorities. So I hope that the Government will be able to give us a rather more solid justification for treating Wales differently.
May I go on to ask one or two specific questions because, since the Land

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Authority has become more or less accepted as inevitable in Wales, a number of conversations have been taking place between the Government and the local authorities. The Government have sought to appease some of the annoyance of the local authorities at being overlooked in this case in Wales, by saying they will devolve certain powers from the Land Authority on to the local authorities and the local authorities will act as agents for the Land Authority. I should like to put three fairly specific questions on this matter of the agency agreements between the Land Authority and the local authorities. First, does the Land Authority have to give separate approval for every transaction that is undertaken by an agent authority, or will the Land Authority give an agent authority general directions and then allow the local authority to proceed on its own initiative?
The Welsh Office recently issued a document, dated October 1975, on arrangements in Wales in connection with the Community Land Bill. That document seems to envisage the need for separate approval by the Land Authority of each proposed acquisition of land by a local authority under agency powers. Paragraph 7 of the document says:
"Agency arrangements will not involve delegation of executive responsibility";
and paragraph 8:
"The identification of such sites for acquisition could hardly be delegated to an agent authority".
From those two quotations it would appear to me that it is the Land Authority which will decide what land is to be bought and all that will be left and delegated to the agent authority will be the mechanics of purchasing that land. I wonder also whether this will apply to the disposal of land. Will the local authority under its agency powers be able to make its own decisions as to the disposal of this land, or will it have to seek in every case the approval of the Land Authority for Wales? That is my first question.
The second is that there may be cases of local authorities who find themselves unable to accept an agency arrangement or, having accepted such an arrangement, are unable to carry it out. In such circumstances we have been told the Land Authority could take over responsibility
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from the agency authority. The assurance I should like to ask for is this. If the agency were a county, before the Land Authority took over that agency would it be offered to the appropriate district? Or, in the case of the district being the agent, would a new agency first be offered to the appropriate county? This would seem to be a straightforward and sensible way of proceeding: that if one or other, the county or the district, for one reason or another is not able to accept an agency arrangement, then the appropriate district or county that could take it on would have a chance before the whole responsibility was taken back by the Land Authority.
The third and last question I should like to ask is this. Although it is clearly implicit in what has been said, I should like a further absolute assurance that in a case of an agency arrangement being made between the Land Authority and a local authority the full cost of carrying out the functions under this Bill would fall on the Land Authority itself and not on the ratepayer. I beg to move.
3.20 p.m.
The Earl of BALFOUR: I should like to take this opportunity to support my noble friend. At the same time, I should also like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, for having sent me various papers on the Community Land Bill in connection with Wales. In the general principles issued by the Government—and it is something which immediately causes concern—is this statement:
"Possible disputes between a local authority and the Land Authority as to who would acquire land would be settled by the Secretary of State."
Immediately, we realise that this kind of problem could arise. If your Lordships will look at Schedule 4, paragraph 7, on page 59, that indicates that disputes have already been foreseen by the Government.
My noble friend has already referred to paragraph 8 of this document but I should like to take it a little further, purely on the grounds of my experience in the past as a county councillor in Scotland. It states that:
"The Land Authority shall have power to buy land which they consider suitable for development. The identification of such sites for acquisition could hardly be delegated to an agent authority."
As I stressed at Second Reading and can only stress again, it is very important that

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before any land is acquired by any form of local authority or even by a statutory undertaker it should be reasonably well surveyed, and a determination made, that that land can be supplied with all services—water, sewerage, drainage, electricity and whatever else may be involved. To divorce planning, which is clearly the indication here, from land acquisition seems to me to be very serious indeed and is something about which I feel absolutely convinced the Government are wrong.
The paragraph continues:
"Any purchase of land must also have regard to the authority's budget so that the Land Authority will need to take into account from the outset the financial viability of any development in mind for sites to be acquired."
Before anybody goes ahead and buys land, it is most important to make quite certain that it is wholly suitable for the development that is anticipated. I should have thought that in that field no better people exist than the local authorities in Wales. Again, I should like to refer to paragraph 12, which states:
"Consideration is being given to the future relationship between the Land Authority and the proposed Welsh Assembly. Though the Government have yet to take final decisions on a detailed devolution scheme, it is possible that the Assembly might be given powers in the field of housing and planning."
This alarms me even further.
When your Lordships' House discussed the local government Acts, as they are now, of 1972 for England and 1973 for Scotland, it was realised by all sides how very important it was to leave the function of housing at district level. In the case of Wales it is now, perhaps, to be taken out of the hands of the district council—it is not even to be left in the hands of the county council—and put into the hands of an even more remote body, the Welsh Assembly. I must be fair to the Government, for they state:
"However, the Government have made clear their intention of issuing a White Paper setting out detailed proposals on devolution in the autumn."
I do not believe that that has yet come out.
May I now refer to various clauses in the Bill and take extracts from them in respect of the Land Authority which is proposed to be set up for Wales. I will begin by asking your Lordships to look at Clause 16 on page 15, which states that
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for the whole of the United Kingdom, except for Wales:
"(1) There shall be a land acquisition and management scheme for the area of each county authority.
(2) The scheme shall be prepared, and from time to time revised, by all the authorities in the area of the county authority acting jointly.
(3) The scheme shall be for the performance by each of the authorities in the area of the county authority of the following functions—
(a) the acquisition by those authorities of land with a view to"
development. I am sure that this is something which should apply to the whole of the United Kingdom if this Bill becomes an Act. However, if your Lordships will turn over the page you will see that subsection (12) says that:
"This Section shall not apply in Wales …"
Clause 17 deals with general duties, and subsection (1) reads:
"In exercising their functions … every authority shall have regard to—

(a) the desirability of bringing development land into public ownership, … and

(b) the desirability of securing the proper planning of their area."

Subsection (2) states:
"In considering whether any land is development land, an authority shall have regard to—
(a) the provisions of the development plan …"
and, in paragraphs (b) and (c), to planning permission and any other considerations. Subsection (3) reads:
"In considering whether any land in Wales is development land, the Land Authority for Wales shall (except in a case where planning permission is in force for the carrying out of relevant development on the land) consult the council of the county, and that of the district, within whose area the land is situated."
I should have thought that one of the most important things to be considered was whether planning permission had been granted.
Subsection (2) of Clause 18 says that:
"It shall be the duty of all the authorities … to arrange between them for all outstanding material interests in land which is needed for the purposes of designated relevant development to be acquired by one of those authorities (including a local authority in Wales whose area includes the land)."
Unfortunately, if we turn over the page, the Bill says:
"An order under this section—
(a) shall not he made before the land acquisition and management scheme for the

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area of the county authority has been prepared;"
except, again, that subsection shall not apply to Wales. So Wales is left out in the cold. I am greatly concerned about the separation of the whole region of planning.
I should like briefly to refer to Clause 41. There it says:
"Except with the consent of the Secretary of State, a principal council shall not dispose of a material interest in any land."
So far as I can see, that means disposing of it even to the local authority, or vice versa; and in the case of Wales, with a local authority housing development which has been completed, I am wondering whether or not in future local authority tenants there will be paying a rent to the local authority for the house that the local authority built, and another sum, perhaps somewhat like the ground rent that exists in England, I understand, to the Land Authority. There is certainly nothing clear in this Bill in that respect.
Then Clause 44 says:
"The Secretary of State may direct a local authority or the Peak Park Joint or Lake District Special Planning Board to dispose of … any land …".
But, so far as I can see, not land connected with Wales. Then, if we turn to Clause 47, dealing with reserve powers, we sec there:
"The Secretary of State may act under this section in a case where it appears to him expedient that an authority should cease to be responsible for exercising"—
any function under any Act. The Secretary of State may by order transfer any such function to himself or to another authority or to a body corporate. Yet, once again, if we turn over the page we find the words:
"This section shall not apply in Wales."
In other words, these special powers of the Secretary of State clearly do not apply in Wales. Schedules 5 and 6 again do not apply to Wales, and whereas I feel strongly that the local authorities, with their elected councillors and with all the local knowledge of those elected councillors, should be dealing with very complicated procedures of planning and land acquisition, to create a Land Authority for this relatively larger area of Wales and to have that handled by a mere 6 to 9 people is, as I said at Second Reading, the most perfect example that I have ever come across of sending a boy to do a man's job.
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May I ask your Lordships now to look at the Marshalled List of Amendments—
Lord HENLEY: May I interrupt the noble Earl for just a moment? Do I understand that he is speaking not only to Amendment No. 2 but to all the other fifty or so Amendments which are tabled in his name?
The Earl of BALFOUR: I want to save time but I want to sense the feeling of your Lordships' Committee. I must make it perfectly clear, I think, because Amendments start to fall fairly quickly, that there are many other Amendments on which I have separate points that I should like to raise, but at this early stage I think it would be as well for us to be clear on exactly what is happening to Wales which is creating an entirely different situation from anything else that exists in the United Kingdom. I am most concerned. I have no axe to grind; I have no connection with Wales. I am putting this forward from sheer local authority experience. I do not wish it to be considered as a political point or because I happen to be on the Back-Benches. That has nothing to do with it. I am interested purely from the point of view of efficiency and management of what I consider so strongly to be a field that, to a great extent, should be managed by a district authority in England, and the fact that things that require so much local knowledge are being handled by this very remote body, causes me the greatest concern.
I will not waste your Lordships' time but I am going to put forward the basic ideas at this time. I should like to refer to Amendment No. 43, which completes my argument, and also briefly to explain why these Amendments are tabled and what is being done.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: I wonder whether it would be convenient for me to suggest that at this stage we should confine the debate on Amendments Nos. 1 and 3 to the question of the need and desirability of a Welsh Land Authority, and then perhaps at a later stage deal with the Amendments tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, suggesting that it would be to the benefit of Wales to enjoy the arrangements existing in Scotland. With great respect to the noble Earl, I think if we keep

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those matters separate we may have a tidier debate.
The Earl of BALFOUR: I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, and I should like to accept his suggestion; but I should like to support my noble friend Lord Aberdare in his Amendment as well.
Lord FOOT: I wonder whether I might make one or two observations of a more general nature than those which have fallen from the lips of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and the noble Earl, Lord Balfour. I confess to being bewildered by some parts of this Bill and how it is going to work out in relation to Scotland and to Wales. When we come to the Question, That Clause I shall stand part of the Bill?, I would like to say a word or two about Scotland, but for the moment I will confine myself to Wales. The general observation that I want to make is this: I think we are getting ourselves into great difficulties in this Bill because here we are carrying out a great radical reform of the land law, not only of England but of Wales and of Scotland, and we are carrying that radical and very detailed reform through before we have made up our minds upon the problems of devolution of power of Government to Scotland and to Wales.
In the past in this country we have often got wrong our priorities in timing. I suppose the most remarkable example of getting wrong our order of priorities in timing was the way in which we set up a Royal Commission to consider the whole problem of the reform of local government prior to the setting up of the constitutional Commission to consider the problem of devolution, and in particular, of course, devolution to a regional level of government. It would have been logical to do it the other way round, or to have done it all at the same time. In this Bill, I am wondering whether we are not making that same error: that is, we are setting up in Wales a structure of a particular kind, with a Land Authority and then the local planning authorities below it, each performing different functions. We are setting all that up before we know what the Government have in mind, except in the most general terms, for devolution to
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Wales. What we do know is that the Government have in mind a form of what is called "executive devolution". We know that much, but we do not know what the relationship is to be between that Welsh Assembly exercising those executive functions and the local authorities below it. We do not know whether the local authorities will be subordinate to the Welsh Assembly, or whether they will still be responsible to Central Government at Westminster and Whitehall. None of these things do we know, yet here we are creating a very detailed system of reform of the land law, and conferring precise powers upon the Welsh Land Authority and upon the local authorities.
The question I want to ask is this: in carrying through this great measure of change, are not we pre-empting decision about the form devolution will take when it is carried through in Wales? I should have thought it would be very much more satisfactory if the Government had first made up their minds what measure of devolution is to be conferred on Scotland, and what measure of devolution is to be conferred upon Wales. Then, the Government could have considered whether it would have been appropriate, for example in the case of Wales, to confer on the Welsh Assembly the powers now being conferred on the Welsh Land Authority. We are doing this the wrong way round. I do not want this Bill to go wrong, but I am afraid that we are doing it the wrong way round. We should make these decisions in the field of land law, before making the vital decisions as to what is to be the future relationship for a long time to come between the Welsh Authority, or call it what you will, and the Welsh local authorities, otherwise we are courting disaster. I suppose it is now far too late to hope that the Government might hold back this Bill in order to deal first with the problem of devolution, but I certainly think that would be a wise course for the good government of this country in the future.
Lord STRABOLGI: For the purpose of hearing the Statement at present being made in another place, I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

ABORTION
3.44 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission it might be convenient if I were now to repeat a Statement on abortion made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. The Statement reads as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make, in association with my right honourable Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales, a statement on abortion. Since March of this year a Select Committee has been considering my honourable Friend the Member for Glasgow Pollok's Abortion (Amendment) Bill. The Committee made nine recommendations in its Third Special Report to the House on 5th August most of which follow up proposals made last year by the Lane Committee on the Working of the Abortion Act. I am glad to tell the House that the Government accept in principle all the Select Committee's recommendations.
"My intentions, announced earlier this year, to strengthen the safeguards which apply to abortion in the private sector are similar to those recommended by the Select Committee. Action has already been taken following consultation with the medical profession with a view to requiring private nursing homes which concentrate on abortion to give me an assurance concerning the total fees charged to patients. Assurances have also been sought from all approved nursing homes about financial arrangements with referral agencies. Only those private nursing homes with adequate facilities will be authorised to carry out terminations of pregnancy after the20th week. I have also written to those nursing homes which concentrate on abortion asking for information on the number of foreign patients treated during the 18 months to 30th June 1975, and I shall be seeking such information from all approved nursing homes at quarterly intervals in future. I am reviewing the arrangements which are made by the nursing homes for the reception, counselling and after care of foreign patients on the lines proposed by the Select Committee and I will
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require changes in these arrangements where necessary. The Committee recommended that the Health Ministers should produce a list of approved bureaux and refuse to approve clinics which accepted patients from unlisted bureaux. We are proposing to implement this change shortly and application forms have been issued to bureaux and agencies. I am, moreover, concerned to ensure that adequate counselling facilities are available for all women who indicate that their pregnancies are unwanted and a draft paper as proposed by the Select Committee giving guidance on counselling will be circulated for consultation to bodies representing the medical, nursing and social work professions.
"In the National Health Service the Select Committee's recommendations that terminations after the 20thweek of pregnancy should be carried out only in hospitals possessing appropriate facilities, including resuscitation equipment, has been accepted and discussions have been held with Regional Medical Officers who will be responsible for the implementation of the recommendations. I have issued a circular to health authorities on the Report of the Peel Advisory Group on the Use of Foetuses and Foetal Material for Research asking for the adoption of their recommended Code of Practice where not already in use and I put a similar requirement on private nursing homes.
"Some of the other recommendations of the Select Committee will require amendment of the Abortion Regulations 1968. My Department is undertaking a study of the procedures and forms set out in the Regulations as proposed by the Select Committee and in the light of their report I shall be considering the whole question of the procedure for the certification and notification of abortions. Another recommendation which would require amending the Regulations is to allow the disclosure to the General Medical Council of information taken from the notification to the Chief Medical Officers of the Health Departments. This recommendation is accepted and the Regulations will be amended to permit disclosure to the President of the General Medical Council at his

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request. A further change in the Regulations recommended by the Select Committee is designed to ensure that the doctors who certify that the conditions of the Abortion Act are met in a particular case should examine the patient. The Regulations will he amended to ensure that a question asking whether the patient has been seen and an examination has been carried out will be put on all forms.
"I think the House will be glad to know that action is being or has already been taken on all the recommendations made by the Select Committee in their Third Report and on many of the major recommendations of of the Lane Committee. I have issued guidance on day care systems to health authorities and hope to authorise day care services in some private clinics with a record of high standards. The most important preventative action which the Government have taken is to introduce as part of the NHS a comprehensive family planning service which started to function fully this summer. I can only regret that this was not introduced a decade or more ago.
"During the Second Reading of the Abortion (Amendment) Bill in February 1975 a commitment was given by the Government that if the Bill were withdrawn the Government would propose the establishment of a Select Committee to examine and report on the proposals contained in the Bill: and would also propose its re-establishment for the 1975–76 Session if this were necessary. In the event the House did not allow the Bill to be withdrawn but instead committed the Bill itself to a Select Committee. Under this procedure the Bill and the Select Committee lapse at the end of this Session. The Government feel that the House, in the light of the Committee's Reports already published and of this Statement, should be given an opportunity to decide whether the Select Committee should be reestablished as the Committee itself has requested, and a Motion will be tabled early in the next Session."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, I am sure the House will be grateful to the noble Lord for having repeated that Statement, and I should like to thank him for it. It is a very detailed Statement, and it will require a lot of careful study before we can say very much about it, hut the noble Lord will remember that it was the last Conservative Government which established the Lane Committee and we certainly welcomed the recommendations that it produced. Some of those recommendations have now been followed up and reinforced by the Select Committee, and certainly T very much welcome the Government's intention to accept those recommendations, especially to strengthen the safeguards for women who undergo abortion both in the private sector and in the National Health Service. This is a subject which arouses a great deal of feeling among individuals on all sides of the House, but I am sure that for the present we are wise to continue to follow the advice we are given by these expert committees on the administration of the present Act.
Lord AMULREE: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord for repeating the Statement, which is a very important one. I have very little to add to what the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has already said. I hope that the counselling will be available to patients in both the private sector and the public sector, because I think all women need help and counselling in these matters. I was wondering whether it would be possible for the medical officers of health departments to tell the local health authorities some of the figures which come to them showing the numbers of abortions which occur in their areas. The only other point which I should like to make is that 1 am very pleased that a Motion is to be introduced in order to continue the Select Committee during the coming Session.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether it would not be true to say that this Select Committee was completely unnecessary it has not produced anything that we did

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not know already, or that is new, after the Justice Lane Committee sat. It has produced nothing. The Government's weakness for spawning Select Committees and Commissions is simply a waste of money. The counselling, one of the recommendations of this Select Committee, has been done and is being done by the Family Planning Association and by the Brook Advisory Centres. When Sir Keith Joseph was the Minister of Health he put family planning on a very good basis and was very far-seeing. It seems to me that another Select Committee simply to produce a state of affairs which will deal with some abuses by private nursing homes is completely unnecessary.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, before the noble Lord rises to answer that, is it not correct that the formation of a Select Committee of either House is a matter for that House and not for anybody else, and would it not, therefore, be inappropriate for your Lordships to comment upon it?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, because I wanted to make precisely the same comment and observation myself. This is a Statement about what has been done by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. I had hoped that your Lordships would be prepared to accept it and leave it there. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for his comments and I will certainly convey the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, to my right honourable friend. In view of the Statement, I do not think I can take this matter any further.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I apologise to the House for being out of order? I was ignorant of the fact that we cannot comment on a Statement of this kind, and if I had known it I would not have done so.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I would hate my noble friend to feel that she was not entitled to comment on a Statement. Every one of your Lordships is entitled to comment. I think what the noble and learned Lord said, which I would have said if he had not done so, is that it is not wise for us to comment
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on the practice and, perhaps, the right of another place.
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend what principle governs the Government's reluctance to terminate the pregnancy of a foreign woman in the private sector, provided that the same conditions apply as for a British woman?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I think there is a responsibility upon us to see that a person coming over from another country is treated in precisely the same way as our own nationals, and if she is going into a clinic where they specialise in abortion we ought to be satisfied that the standard there is of the highest.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether this Select Committee has heard a single one of the very many women's organisations which have asked to give evidence before it?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I do not have before me a list of the bodies, individuals or organisations which the Select Committee heard.
Viscount BARRINGTON: My Lords, in view of the fact that so many comments have been made, against the advice of both Front Benches which seemed to me in this case very sound, surely this is not a matter to be debated in your Lordships' House at the present moment. It should be left until we have heard the Motion which is to be introduced in another place, and leave them to debate it. We will, I hope, have ample opportunity to debate this question later, and I hope I shall be allowed to intervene in that debate then as I did seven years ago, when this subject was discussed here. I do not propose to do so now. As a Back-Bench Liberal with a minority point of view, who is perhaps better fitted than others to represent the point of view of a "foetus", I should like strongly to support the proposal put forward that matters for the other place are matters for them, and matters for your Lordships' House are matters for us. Having said that, I will sit down and say no more for the present.
Lord PANNELL: My Lords, there seems to me to be a misunderstanding about the Select Committee. Following

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the Second Reading of Mr. White's Abortion (Amendment) Bill, the Government agreed to set up a Select Committee. There was a great deal of dispute about that, because we had just had the Lane Committee (referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare) and the Department itself was in the process of bringing Amendments in the light of that Report. At the present time there is no Bill before the House of Commons, and the procedural Motion is whether a Select Committee elected in another Session should be continued. I agree entirely with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, has said about its setting up, but it would be a misunderstanding to think that this is another Select Committee; it is the continuation of a quite useless one.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, may I just for clarification ask one question? Most of us have not yet had the opportunity of reading this Statement, and it may be that I did not hear the necessary information. Could the noble Lord tell us what is to be disclosed to the President of the General Medical Council, and whether this will include doctors' names or patients' names or both?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, as I understand the situation, the President of the General Medical Council will be entitled to ask for information relating to abortions which have been undertaken by members of the medical profession.
Lord PLATT: I beg your Lordships' pardon, but that does not answer my question. Will it include the names of patients or doctors?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I really do not know. But I should have thought that the information may well do so, bearing in mind that special precautions have been taken to safeguard privacy by disclosing it only to the President.
Lord SUDELEY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether consideration might be given to the elimination of sex education from schools, as a very satisfactory method of reducing the rate of abortion?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I do not think that really comes within the terms of the Statement which I made this afternoon.

COMMUNITY LAND BILL
4.3 p.m.
House again in Committee on Amendment No. 1.
Lord SHINWELL: I regret that I was absent when the noble Lord, Lord Foot, began his speech, but I had to receive a telephone call. I had the opportunity of listening to the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, and I am bound to say that I not only sympathise with his point of view but entirely agree with it. I presume that that was the view taken by the noble Lord, Lord Foot. The fact is that the Government have their priorities all wrong. We had an example the other day which illustrates the point. We were informed that the Government proposed to set up a Royal Commission to deal with affairs associated with the National Health Service but that a fundamental issue, one of extreme importance, was to be excluded from the deliberations of the proposed Royal Commission. That struck me as extraordinary, and I ventured to ask a question about it. I received of course a Ministerial answer which I regarded as wholly unsatisfactory. Now we have another situation not unlike the one to which I have just referred.
The Government have decided to proceed shortly (how shortly we have not been fully informed) with the subject of devolution. Of course I have not been furnished with intimate details of it; nor has anybody in either your Lordships' House or another place. All we know is that the Government have some vague idea about the creation of an Assembly in Scotland and another Assembly in Wales, presumably to deal with domestic affairs. The term "domestic" can range very widely. It is subject to a variety of interpretations.
Here is the situation: we are to deal with the subject of the acquisition of land. I put it very simply. Of course even that statement is surrounded by a number of considerations, speculations, conjectures and so on. There is the question of administration; how it is to be implemented and the like. The Government

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have pre-empted, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, rightly said, considerations involved in devolution. Indeed they have come to some conclusion—that is what the subject of the debate is about—on the acquisition of land in Wales and Scotland. It seems to me all wrong, farcical, absurd, just an utter nonsense.
Therefore, the Government should be asked to do one of two things: either to give an assurance that the proposition now before the Committee should, as it is, be debated, and that no decision should be reached until the subject of devolution comes before another place and subsequently is transferred to your Lordships' House for consideration. We can then discuss all these matters pertaining to administration, what the Assemblies in Wales or Scotland respectively are going to be called upon to undertake and so on. There should be an assurance of that kind, or they could decide to accept the Amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, and agree that Scotland should have a regional organisation set up—because I understand that that is the proposition—to deal with this question associated with the acquisition of land.
When subsequently we decide about devolution, we may have to expunge the decision reached this afternoon, That of course ought not to present any Government with any difficulty. It happens over and over again. In our political history it has happened far too often. In other words, a Government have come to a decision only to regret it subsequently. It is part of our political history. I am bound to repeat what I ventured to say at the outset: the Government have their priorities all wrong. If they have decided about devolution in principle. then they should not have introduced something that is bound to be considered when devolution is implemented. It is as simple as that.
How are we going to deal with this matter? I suggest that the Government should be told what to do; namely, to accept the proposal of the noble Earl, Lord Balfour. They may dislike it, but it is the only decent thing to do in the circumstances, and I advise it accordingly.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, said almost what I wanted to say, which means that I can be brief. He summed it up absolutely:
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the Government have their priorities all wrong. All I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to do, if he can, is to clear up the position regarding the comments of the noble Lord who spoke from the Liberal Benches. I thought he made an unanswerable case when he said that if we are to have devolution, anything applying in this Bill should be delayed until we know what is to happen to devolution in Wales and Scotland. But the noble Lord went on to say that it is too late for the Government to withdraw this Bill in order for that to happen. I ask the Lord Chancellor to say that it is not too late and that the Government could withdraw the Bill. Indeed, it may be desirable for them to withdraw it. In any event, it would be good to have it clear, on the authority of the Lord Chancellor, that the Government could withdraw the Bill if they so wished.
Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY: Do the Welsh district councils like the idea of a Welsh Land Authority? Is it true that there was a certain amount of estrangement between the district councils and the Secretary of State for Wales over this matter? If so, has the breach been healed? Otherwise I do not see the scheme working well, if the Government are going against both the district councils and the individual.
4.12 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: May I first make the assertion that the Government certainly have not missed or forgotten their priorities? They attach priority to the importance that the principles underlying the Community Land Bill should be given effect to as soon as the legislative procedures are possible and are achieved, and I will come shortly to the implications of the link between it and the devolution proposals, which are still under discussion. There is no question of withdrawing the Bill and I hope I will be able to persuade even my dear and noble friend Lord Shinwell of the rightness of what I am submitting.
I turn, first, however to the basic question which the Committee is debating; namely, the case for the Land Authority for Wales. Naturally this question was considered with great care by the Government before the White Paper was issued and since, and the view of the

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Government is that there is a clear case, from the point of view of practicality above all, for the existence for Wales, with its special conditions, of a Welsh Land Authority. The fact is that conditions in Wales justify and call for a different system from that which is to be applied to England and Scotland. When the appointment of a Secretary of State for Wales was established this was in itself a recognition of the fact that Wales is entitled to look for uniquely Welsh arrangements where the special circumstances in Wales justify this. And it was an inevitable consequence, and one indeed which was welcomed in Wales, that in some matters Wales would be different and would be differently treated. In the case of the Community Land Scheme, the Government have recognised the advantage of—and the Bill gives effect to it—a system which recognises that the compactness of Wales permits a unique solution to be adopted which was quite reasonably not regarded as appropriate in the other parts of the United Kingdom.
In seeking the best and most practical system for Wales, the Government have sought to do two things; first, to make the best use of what already exists and, secondly, to create in the Land Authority for Wales a body capable of giving a purposeful central drive to the new scheme and of ensuring that its objectives would be achieved through Wales as quickly as possible. What exists at present are, of course, the local authorities and the new town corporations. Both will have important new roles under the Community Land Scheme. The powers of the local authorities to acquire land and to develop it for their own purposes will continue and are not affected by the proposals in the Bill. And lest any suspicion may exist that it should be thought to be influencing Government opinion, it would be quite wrong to infer that the Government's proposals reflect any lack of confidence in or alleged inadequacies in Welsh local authorities. It is true that local authorities in Wales would, as in England, have different capacities to undertake the scheme quickly. Many of them have already carried out land assembly schemes promoting compulsory purchase orders for this purpose, though these are generally on a smaller scale than the new system will require.
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What the Bill proposes for Wales is a flexible system which we believe will combine the advantages of a central organisation able to operate purposefully throughout Wales with making the maximum use of the local knowledge, skill and experience of local authorities, while at the same time fully involving the local authorities as planning authorities in securing the positive planning benefits which we believe the Community Land Scheme will permit. In that way the benefits will be introduced through Wales in the quickest and most complete way. Local authorities will be involved in the scheme in at least three ways. First, the Bill provides for four members of the Land Authority to be appointed after consultation with organisations representative of Welsh local authorities. Secondly, the Land Authority will be empowered to enter into agency arrangements with local authorities, and to that I will come shortly in the light of the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. Thirdly, local authorities as planning authorities will work very closely with the central body in operating the scheme in the interests of positive planning.
Discussions have taken place with Welsh local authority associations and whatever resistance there may have been initially—in reply to the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley—there is an atmosphere of willingness to co-operate now prevailing in regard to these matters. But, as I say, discussions have taken place with the local authority associations concerned about the form which agency arrangements might take and further discussions will be held when the Authority has been established. Working parties have been set up on a county basis, involving both county and district councils, to review the local authority manpower situation in each area in relation to the various functions which will have to be undertaken by the Land Authority and to assess the willingness and capacity of each authority to undertake an agency function in part or in full for some or all of the duties which will be involved. The Government have received a report on these studies—for which they are grateful—from the Welsh county councils. The objective is that the agency arrangements shall be real and efficient. They cannot, of course,

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detract from the overall responsibility and the central role of the Land Authority for the operation of the scheme. They can, however, be developed in the light of experience.
The merits of these arrangements and of using local authorities as agents—and I did not apprehend any opposition to that idea, at any rate, in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare—are these: first, the Land Authority will want and thus will have a local presence in all parts of Wales. Secondly, local authorities can help to get the scheme working quickly. Thirdly, it is desirable to involve local authorities to secure cooperation between them and the Land Authority. As I have said, details of the arrangements are still being worked out in the way I have indicated. We wish to leave as much discretion as possible to the Land Authority and we do not want local authorities to have to recruit staff who could be more effectively employed by the Land Authority. Agency arrangements will not involve delegation of executive responsibility to local authorities. Actions will be in the name of the Land Authority and it must retain responsibility for the operation of the scheme and be answerable to the Secretary of State, who will in turn be answerable to Parliament.
The questions which the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, asked were, first, whether the Land Authority will have to give separate approval for each transaction by the agent local authority when the local authority is the agent. As I have indicated, the Land Authority will be in charge of the scheme, the local authority will be its agent and the relationship will be that of principal and agent. The same arrangements will apply in the field of disposals. The Land Authority must be clearly seen to be in charge of the scheme if there is not to be doubt and confusion. It will be under the control of the Secretary of State, through directions, and he will be answerable to Parliament for its undertakings.
Land acquisitions and disposals will affect the Authority's finances and this is one of the reasons why it must be able to control day-to-day acquisitions and disposals, but it will work throughout, we believe—and we see no reason to anticipate great difficulties in this—in close harmony with local authorities in what it
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does. In respect of public inquiries in regard to compulsory purchase orders, they will fall to be defended by the Land Authority and it is right that that should be so and should be a consequence flowing from the responsibility of the Authority for deciding what land to buy.
I was asked what is the position if local authorities are unable or unwilling to accept or carry out agency functions. If the Agent is a county and there is inability or refusal at that level, it will be offered to the district, and vice versa. The Authority will make agency arrangements with whatever local authority will, in its view, be able to do the job. It is not anticipated that there will be refusal to co-operate. As to the costs of carrying out by the local authority of agency activities, they will be borne by the Authority and not by the ratepayer.
A question was raised with regard to the possibility that the Land Authority might be deemed to be an undemocratic institution. However, as I have said, the Secretary of State will be answerable for it and, to that extent at any rate, there will be public accountability through the watchdogs in the other place and in this House, to say nothing of the ever watchful eyes of the Press.
I come to the matters that were raised in regard to the link between these proposals and the devolution proposals which are now being actively worked upon by the Government, who have undertaken to produce a White Paper. May I assure the House that the Land Authority proposal and, indeed, the whole of this community land scheme stands on its own merits and that we do not believe that to go ahead with it now will pre-empt the devolution proposals. Indeed, our present thinking is that a resolution of this matter and the setting up of the Welsh Land Authority will fit in quite satisfactorily with the ideas which are being studied with regard to the role of a Welsh Assembly. The Assembly could well have powers in the fields of housing and planning which might usefully be linked with the responsibilities of the Land Authority at an all-Wales level and we see an advantage, indeed, in disposing of and finalising these community land proposals and, in Wales, the setting up of the Land Authority before the scheme of devolution for Wales matures. However, these are matters which will

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of course be considered in great detail when those fundamentally important proposals come before Parliament and after the publication of the White Paper. I should like to tell my noble friend Lord Shinwell that we do not regard the decision on this matter as pre-empting in any fundamental way the nature and extent of devolution of political responsibility to Wales.
Lest it may be thought that local authorities are being snuffed out of the scene by the appearance of this new and large political object on the horizon, it may be helpful to indicate how the local authorities in Wales will not be affected by the Bill's proposals. They will retain their continuing local planning functions. They will lose none of their existing land acquisition powers for planning purposes and they will still be able to buy land for public purposes such as roads, schools and houses. They will also have the power to buy land for a wide variety of private and mixed purposes such as housing and industrial sites and to acquire land to improve it for planning purposes. They will secure the same advantages as local authorities in England and Scotland, of being able to buy all this land net of development land tax during the transitional period and at current use value in the final scheme.
On a further financial point, Welsh local authorities will not lose from the scheme compared with the authorities in England and Scotland. A 60 per cent. share of surpluses on the land accounts of the Land Authority will be distributed to Welsh local authorities and the Government will, as elsewhere, take 40 per cent. Any surpluses on the accounts of Welsh local authorities who use their existing powers to acquire and dispose of land for private development will he treated in the same way as elsewhere; that is to say, 30 per cent. will be kept by the local authority concerned, 30 per cent. will be distributed among other local authorities and 40 per cent. will be kept by the Government.
Local authorities will be given a further measure of protection under paragraph 7 of Schedule 4 to the Bill by being given the status of statutory objectors if they wish to oppose compulsory purchase orders proposed by the Land Authority. These orders, like many other compulsory
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purchase orders, will come before the Secretary of State for confirmation, and he will be able to take into account any opposition from a local authority before deciding whether to confirm an order. The Land Authority itself, like all authorities, will be required to have regard to planning matters in carrying out all its responsibilities. The cost in terms, either of manpower or money, of the scheme in Wales, will be no more expensive, it is believed, than the comparable costs in England and Scotland of the arrangements prevailing there. We have been able to make comparisons on various bases and they all indicate that the Land Authority will be as cost effective as the arrangements proposed elsewhere.
I have taken a good deal of your Lordships' time in dealing with this matter in some detail. I have done this in response to the complaint—if that is the right word—of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, that these matters have never been fully explained. I trust that the explanations and assurances that I have given may satisfy the Committee that the Land Authority for Wales is the best means of securing what is proposed, and that to have a central body working in co-co-operation with local authorities in a flexible way, so that Wales as a whole benefits from the scheme, is the best arrangement for Wales. Accordingly, I hope that these Amendments will be rejected.
Lord ABERDARE: I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his having taken so much trouble to answer my Amendment, but I am sorry to say that I found his arguments totally unconvincing when it came to the reason why there should be a Land Authority for Wales. The noble and learned Lord spoke of the differences in Wales. I am the first to agree with him that Wales is different, and that in certain circumstances it should be treated differently. But regarding local authorities, there is no difference whatsoever between Welsh local authorities and English local authorities. They have the same powers and duties, and they were reorganised under the same 1972 Local Government Act. The Welsh local authorities operate in precisely the same way as the English local authorities. Therefore in this respect there is really no difference, and it is, I believe, impossible, in regard to

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this Bill, to claim that different treatment is required for Wales from what is required for England.
The noble and learned Lord said, in terms of Wales being different, that he thought that Wales was compact; he spoke of the compactness of Wales. But if that is so, then he is arguing that everybody should have a Land Authority but that it is practicable only in Wales because Wales is compact. If that is so, the Government could have had Land Authorities for the English regions and for Scotland. I find the explanations given totally unsatisfactory. The difference in the treatment of Wales, and the fact that there is to be a Land Authority—rather than the matter being left to the local authorities—has naturally given rise to questions about what will happen when there is a Welsh Assembly. I have great sympathy with the point of view put forward by the noble Lords, Lord Foot and Lord Shinwell; if there is to be a Land Authority this raises all sorts of questions about the powers of a future Assembly. Like them, I think that these matters would be much better postponed until there is an Assembly. Perhaps at a later stage we can move an Amendment on that matter, but for the moment we can leave that for another day.
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for having at least given detailed answers to the three specific questions I asked. I will consider these answers. There is one other point I should like to make, although it would probably be better to return to it at a later stage. It concerns the costs of the whole operation. The noble and learned Lord assured us that it would be just as economical to work through a Land Authority as it would be to work through the local authorities; but I am advised that the estimated requirements of manpower, which have been arrived at by the county councils in conjunction with their district councils, are considerably less than those initially outlined by the Welsh Office. That would lead me to believe that it might be more economical to work through the county councils than through a Land Authority. I should like to return to that matter later. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.36 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 2, line 29, leave out from ("situated") to end of line 31.
The noble Baroness said: With the leave of the Committee I should like, in moving Amendment No. 6, to speak at the same time to Amendments Nos. 162, 164 and new Clause 27A. These Amendments are designed to correct a minor drafting error in the Bill. Subsection (8) of Clause 1 makes it clear that any reference in the Bill to an "authority" refers to that authority operating within their area, but the subsection goes on to provide that a reference to a given class of authority (for example, a reference to "local authority"), is also to be interpreted as referring to the authority of that class within whose area the land is situated. This general provision could produce unwanted effects in some provisions of the Bill; for example, Clause 26, dealing with the compensation payable when one local authority buys from another, and Clause 39, dealing with grants when a local authority buys from the Crown. Amendment No. 6 therefore deletes the words at the end of the subsection dealing with classes of authorities.
However, there is one place in the Bill where a provision of the kind at present included in the subsection is required for a specific purpose. This is in Clause 21, where subsection (6) requires an authority issuing a certificate to send a copy of that certificate "to the district council". It is clear, that, in this case, "the district council" must be interpreted as the district council in whose area the land lies; and Amendment No. 164 therefore inserts a new subsection (10) into Clause 21 on the lines of the words to be deleted from Clause 1(8). There is then a consequential Amendment in subsection (8) of Clause 21, the final words of which are now otiose in view of the general provision in the new subsection (10). Amendment No. 192 accordingly deletes them.
These are essentially drafting Amendments designed to overcome a defect in subsection (8) of Clause 1. This subsection restricts the exercise of functions by authorities to operations within their own areas. For some of the purposes of the Bill it was necessary, also, to provide that a reference to a class of authority (for

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example, to a district council or a county council) should be interpreted as referring to the authority in whose area a particular piece of land was situated. Words to this effect were accordingly included in subsection (8), but they turned out to have effects that were not intended; for example, Clause 39 gives the Secretary of State power to make grants to local authorities (a class of "authority") when they buy land from the Crown. We want this to apply whether the Crown land which is being bought is inside or outside the area of the particular local authority, but the second half of Clause 1(8), which it is proposed to delete, would have restricted the power to give grants only to cases where the land was in the area of the local authority. Similar considerations occur to Clause 26 dealing with the compensation payable when one local authority buys from another.
These Amendments accordingly delete the general reference to classes of authorities in Clause 1(8) and insert instead a provision in the clause where this point needs to he made. In short, it is really removing the words from a place where they do not strictly apply (or where, if they do apply, they are misleading), and putting them in the right place in the Bill. I beg to move Amendment No. 6.
Lord SANDFORD: I wonder whether I may ask the noble Baroness a question. I did not know until she mentioned it that she was going to speak to a number of other Amendments as well. If I am right in thinking that she is attempting to cover Clause 21 as well, then I have something to say. Could the noble Baroness confirm that she is, in fact, doing that?
Baroness BIRK: They are really consequential. It is being deleted from one place and put in another, so it would not have been sense if they had not been dealt with together.
Lord SANDFORD: I am quite happy with that but, if that is so, I wonder whether the noble Baroness is sure that she has got it absolutely right, because Clause 21(6) says:
"If the authority issuing the certificate are not a district council, the authority shall as soon as practicable send a copy of the certificate to the district council".
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This applies in the great majority of cases, but there are one or two cases, particularly the National Parks, where this passing of a certificate from one authority to another will need to operate the other way as well, and I should have thought that if that was so this group of Amendments was the place in which the noble Baroness ought to try to put it right.
Baroness BIRK: I think I am right in saying (but. if not, I will immediately let the noble Lord know) that this does not apply to National Parks. We are talking here about local authorities, and also the Crown. We are not referring to National Parks in this Amendment. As I have explained, this is really a drafting Amendment which is quite a minor one, although I am afraid the explanation is very wordy. It is merely removing a provision from one part to another part and, as the noble Lord will see, the question of National Parks is not involved.
Lord SANDFORD: We can leave it at the moment. It may be a minor Amendment but it is, nevertheless, important to get it right. But we will return to it, if necessary, at a later stage.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 1, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Baroness YOUNG: Before we leave Clause 1, I think the length and the content of the debate we have had upon it illustrates that it is extremely difficult for the lay person reading this very complicated Bill to understand why the Government have arranged it in the order that they have adopted. The Bill starts with a number of definitions which go on through the first six clauses of the Bill. Perhaps this does not matter so much if one is a lawyer, but, after all, this is a Bill which will have to be understood by thousands of people in this country. All owner-occupiers, all those who through pension funds will be affected by it indirectly, and the millions of people who own little pieces of land here or there will have to understand the difference that it will make to them. Not only will they have to understand this; they will have to understand the Welsh Land Authority and what relationship, if any, it will have to the Assembly, let alone to Westminster or anything else. I should therefore like

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to ask the Minister why the Bill has been arranged in this way.
For example, if we take these major definitions which we have been dealing with, we have already had a very long debate on the Welsh Land Authority and it is perfectly clear from the statement that the Government make in the Notes on Clauses which have been sent to me (for which, perhaps I may say in passing, I am most grateful, because they help one to understand the Bill) that they have not worked out the relationship between the Welsh Land Authority and the Welsh Assembly; so first we have a sequence of half-definitions. There is a reference in these definitions to new towns, and of course one of the difficulties about this is that, whereas new towns are quoted as excellent examples of local authorities being planners and developers, by definition a new town is new and there are very few people to be consulted, because, of course, it is just being set up from the beginning. So the whole position becomes quite different when we consider other places where people have been living for a very long time.
Turning to what seems to me the heart of the matter, the key definitions, and indeed the centre of the Bill, are not in Clause 1 at all but appear in the later clauses, perhaps beginning with Clause 15, and certainly in Schedule 4; and one has to look a very long way indeed before one knows what is happening. One of the most important definitions, of course, is that of "relevant development", which appears first in Clause 3. But then we turn to Clause 4, and we get one definition of "development" and one of "development land". But then we need to turn further into the Bill to find the important difference, which occurs in Clause 15, in which we have the first statement of what local authorities are supposed to be doing, which is to exercise the power to acquire land on the first appointed day. The definitions are made much more confusing because they are empowered to acquire land "suitable for development", which of course is not the same as "relevant development", from which the exceptions are made.
My point in raising these complicated matters is to ask the Government whether they really believe that this kind of legislation is intelligible to the ordinary members of the public. It is exceedingly difficult for those of us who are not
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lawyers but who try to understand legislation to follow it, and it is not just an academic exercise which one should do because it is perhaps quite useful to try to sharpen one's wits on trying to understand it. This is, as the Government themselves have said, a major matter of land reform which will apply to everybody who owns any land at all anywhere, and I am bound to say that I think it is extraordinary that the Bill should be so arranged that no one can find out what it means until they have read about the first 15 clauses. Perhaps this would not matter so much, but I notice that Justice, in the interesting memorandum that they have circulated, make this comment, which seems to me very important:
"The Committee would like to make the general comment that the Bill is not arranged in a way which assists the ordinary person to understand it. The Bill starts with a conglomeration of definitions, proceeds to consider the special arrangements for Wales and then sets out the substantive powers and duties".
It does not seem to me that it is too late to put the Bill into a more intelligible order. Enormous Amendments have been made to the arrangement of the clauses since we had our debate on 4th August, and I should have thought that in the interests of getting public understanding, in the interests of getting the Bill to work at all, it would be better for the Government to look again at the arrangement of the clauses. As it stands, it seems to me to make a mockery of talking about this Bill as being somehow in the interests of democracy, let alone of the community, when I am doubtful whether more than the most minute percentage of the community would have any understanding of it at all.
Lord FOOT: I threatened earlier to intervene briefly at this stage to say a word or two about Scotland, and I should like, if I may, to put that threat into effect. We were previously discussing—and I raised the matter in the first instance—the unfortunate way in which the Government are dealing with this matter, in that they are dealing with this major scheme of land reform before they make up their mind about what they are going to do in the way of devolution either for Scotland or for Wales.
If I may revert for a moment to the matter of Wales, I do not think that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has got the point that I was trying to make and that the noble Lord, Lord

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Shinwell, was making: that is, that land law is a highly domestic matter. Looking at Wales, you could scarcely think of anything more domestic to the Welsh people than the problem of the land, if you carry through this great radical reform at this stage before making up your mind what to do about future subordinate government in Wales, take what form it may. The objection to that is that the Government, when they come to consider what form of devolution they are going to give to Wales, will be inhibited and will be unable to pass down to the Welsh Assembly power to make its own land laws because they will have already made the law for them in this Community Land Bill. That is the way in which the inhibition works in Wales. When you turn to Scotland there arc even greater difficulties in the path of the Government if they carry through this major reform and apply it to Scotland before deciding what to do in the way of devolution for Scotland.
I say it is more important because, so far as I know, the Government are more or less committed to a form of devolution for Scotland which the Kilbrandon Commission called legislative devolution. That is the sort of devolution we have had for 50 years in the Stormont Parliament whereby the Parliament at Westminster passed down to the subordinate Government a wide range of functions and in the exercise of those functions the subordinate Government have complete legislative and executive autonomy, subject only to the veto of Westminster in the last resort. That, as I understand it, is the sort of devolution which is now being contemplated by the Government for Scotland. If that is the sort of devolution that is to be given to Scotland, what powers will that place in the hands of the Scottish Legislature and the Scottish Government? We disagreed about many things, but everyone on the Kilbrandon Commission agreed that if you were to give legislative devolution to some subordinate Scottish Parliament, the first candidates in the way of functions are the functions of the Department of the Environment. Those are the things which are clearly of the most domestic concern to the Scots or to the Welsh.
Among the functions of the Department of the Environment the first is
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local government. If, therefore next year we are to give to Scotland a measure of devolution which will enable them to legislate in the whole field of local government, then the Scottish Assembly will be able if they wish to dismantle the whole of the present system of local government in Scotland and can set up, if they want to, a different system of local government of their own. What is more, they can dismantle completely this Bill (if it ever becomes an Act) and they can tear it up. They can nationalise the land in Scotland, if they have a mind to do so, or they can do nothing about it and leave the land law as it stands at the moment.
That is the reason why I suggest that we have got our priorities all wrong here, and that to try to carry through this piece of legislation and, as it were, to pin upon the Scottish people this framework of the Community Land Act, to pin that upon the Scottish system and then to create a Scottish Parliament which can tear up the whole thing and throw it away is an absurd way to try to achieve good government.
The Government are in a dilemma, if they suggest doing something different. There is another solution: what you could do in the case of Scotland when you come to devolution on the matter of local government is that you could pass down certain legislative and executive functions to the Scottish Parliament at Edinburgh and pass down quite different functions to the local governments in Scotland, and then the regional Government or the national Government and the local governments and act in parallel, each exercising full autonomy within the functions given to them in the same way as district councils and county councils now work in parallel under our reformed local government system.
But the difficulty about that is that the Scottish people would not put up with it. The Scottish people would not be prepared to accept an Assembly which has not got control over its own local authorities or over its own land law. Whatever the feelings of the Scottish people may be—and they cover a wide spectrum—there is no Scot who would be satisfied with that kind of Parliament. For those reasons I suggest that when the Government come to consider the question of devolution for Scotland, if

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this Bill is then an Act, I think the Government are going to be in a terrible difficulty in deciding how they are to manage the situation. It may be that all we are doing today, so far as Scotland is concerned, is something of an entirely temporary nature which will be washed away as soon as an effective Scottish Assembly and Parliament are in existence.
Lord SHINWELL: There was a great deal of common sense in what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said about Clause I but perhaps there was some exaggeration when she complained about the framing of the Bill. After long experience—somewhat longer than that of the noble Baroness: but that is purely accidental, I did not arrange it—I can say that I never could understand the legislation that was framed by the experts in Whitehall. Indeed, when I was a Minister, a long time ago, I found great difficulty in understanding some of the Bills that I piloted through the other place. On what happened subsequently perhaps the less said the better.
I have drawn one conclusion from this debate. It is that when devolution is presented to another place and comes to this House it will be discovered to be a sham and a delusion. My reason for saying that is based on the speech of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor who described me as his "dear friend". I respond by saying that he is also dear to me. I have known him for a long time; I have great affection for him and admiration for his forensic qualities. But when I was listening to him narrating all the functions that were to be superimposed on the Welsh local authorities and the great variety of organisations that are to be created, I could not help asking myself what, at the end of the day, is going to be left when we deal with devolution? It will be much of a skeleton. After all, he informed us that the agencies in Wales would deal with land acquisition; and, of course, if you deal with land acquisition, you cannot ignore housing accommodation; and if you deal with that it is not easy to exclude transport and roads and the like. Having listened to that narration, delivered in his usual impeccable fashion, I am bound to wonder, as I have earlier remarked, what devolution will really
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mean. I therefore respond to what the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has been saying.
Obviously, what the Government should have done was to decide that at some stage they were going to proceed with devolution for Wales and for Scotland and, at the same time, not ignore devolution for England. After all, there is no reason why we should be excluded. It will be discovered before very long when we arc dealing with devolution proposals, that many people in England, on this side of the Border, will have a great deal to say about it, and will want to know what their rights are. I am all in favour of devolution for Scotland. When I first stood for Parliament way back in 1918—a long time ago—I failed to win, but that was the fault of Lloyd George. He decided to have an Election; he was rather rigid and doctrinaire in his propositions and I could not accept them entirely. In my Election address I had two items. Perhaps I had better mention them both, although I do so with some trepidation. One was Scottish Home Rule and the other was prohibition. Prohibition is the one which worries me a little, because since those days I have somewhat redeemed myself, although it may be a kind of redemption one should not brag about.
I have always been involved with some kind of devolution for Scotland: domestic affairs, local affairs, housing, roads and, in particular, sanitation. When I think of the kind of sanitation we had way back in those early days, there is much need for Scotland having a say in the matter. So I do not discard devolution at all, but it seems to me, before we come to any definite conclusion about the implementation of all those proposals which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor presented to the Committee earlier on on the Amendment under consideration, that it would have been far better to decide to adjourn, to postpone this Bill and wait until the Government introduced their proposals for devolution. Then we can take into consideration every aspect of the question: land acquisition, land development, roads and the like—exclude nothing. That is what I understand by devolution. The Government have decided to adopt a different method; in other words, they are putting the cart before the horse. That is a cliché but it is one which should not be entirely ignored, and that is what is

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happening in connection with this legislation.
I am in favour of land reform. I do not want any misunderstanding on that. I do not want anybody on the opposite side of the Committee to imagine I am departing from any principle or ideological objective which 1 have held for many years. I am certain that some kind of land reform is required. I do not want to enter into the terms of that; this is not the occasion to do so. But to proceed in this ridiculous, absurd fashion, going into the details before deciding about the principle, is wrong. One should decide about the principle of devolution and surround that principle with a number of details according to the fashion of the people in another place and the Members of your Lordships' House, and then decide what should happen in Wales, Scotland and, as I remarked, on this side of the Border.
What is to be done? To vote against Clause 1 would be of very little value. I do not advise that we should vote against Clause 1. I do not want to be placed in the difficult situation of having to abstain. The last thing I want to do is to sit on the fence. I would rather vote for one side or the other, but not sit on the fence. I beg the noble Baroness, Lady Young, not to press this matter too far. She has expressed her point of view, and, as I said, I agree with a great deal of what she has said. She always speaks with remarkable common sense. I hope that I shall not be expelled from the Party for having indulged in compliments, but that is true. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, speaks with a great deal of common sense too; but we have been presented with a piece of legislation which could have been postponed until a later date. We have to deal with it, and what can we do? I suggest that we accept Clause 1 and make the best or worst of it.
5.6 p.m.
Baroness WARD of NORTHTYNESIDE: My Lords, having listened to all the complications of this Bill which seem to be coming out of Clause 1, the complications which have to be decided, nobody seems really to agree with anything. All have different ideas; all want to put forward different points of view. That is right in a democratic system of
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government; we all have a right to put forward our own points of view. But these matters are so widespread. There has been reference to the arrangement of the clauses, to the position of Wales and Scotland—no one has really had anything very much to say about the position of England. Most people seem to disagree altogether with the Bill. I am rather keen on precedent, and perhaps, so that everybody could have a right to say what they feel about land reform and the whole Bill, it would be a good idea if we voted against every single clause; then the Bill will be out, and those who want to do anything can introduce another Bill which could embody at any rate some of the very sensible suggestions that have come from all sides of the Committee. I hope that the Party I support will have the good sense to vote against some of the clauses. I think we ought to vote against the lot. The Bill is not very popular and, as the months go on, it will become less and less popular. By voting as I suggest at least the country will understand that my side of the Committee felt the best way to let the country know how difficult everything was, was to eliminate the Bill altogether. Then everybody can start all over again. That is my recommendation: I am willing to vote against every single clause.
Lord HALE: My Lords, may I differentiate? I agree entirely with every word said by my noble friend Lord Shinwell—a rare thing for me. Although I admire my noble friend greatly, we have never been quite on the same side of the Party. This Bill embodies many important principles but, as luck would have it, I too happen to be in favour of Scottish devolution. I am not so old as my noble friend Lord Shinwell, but he anticipated me by only eight or nine years. I declared my adherence to some measure of Scottish Nationalism in the Leith By-Election in 1926 or 1927, and although that declaration might have owed a little to the waters of the Liffey rather than the waters of the Forth, since then I have had increasing sympathy with the aspirations for a measure of devolution for Scotland. If the Committee will allow a Sassenach without a kilt to intervene, I propose to do so.
I agree with the encomiums which were passed upon the noble Baroness,

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Lady Young. My noble friend raised the question of your Lordships dealing with this Bill. I intervened at that time because it seemed to me that this was a matter of great complexity. I agree substantially with the general purport of the Bill—though it would have been much more sensible in 1945 than now, and of course land is at the highest price it has ever been. Whatever compensation arrangements are made can succeed, from the Government's point of view, only if somehow or other we manage to give less compensation than the land is really worth at this moment.
I was rather criticised for expressing some apprehensions as to whether the Bill had been fully discussed and was fully understood. I spent the weekend trying very hard to understand what it means. The noble Baroness said that of course a lawyer would understand it. I was not much of a conveyancing lawyer and I have not been in practice for the last 24 years or so, but I would beg to inform the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that every lawyer in England is trying to find out, with an almost complete lack of success, despite a series of lectures and so on, what is the present law of this country under our membership of the European Economic Community. I have still the privilege of being a member of the Select Committee, and we are also trying to find out. As I say, I expressed some doubts as to how long this Bill would need to be discussed and as to whether we should be able to understand it in time. Subsequently, undertakings were given that we should be given time. Today in the Vote Office I was handed 400 excellent and, so far as I can see at a glance, admirably informative pages, which I think make a very real attempt at explaining what the drafters of the Bill had in mind. Therefore, I do not propose to intervene further in this debate, but I shall do what I have done almost invariably up to now and vote in support of the Labour Government who are doing very great work under very great difficulty. I shall read the400 pages carefully between now and the Report stage, and at the Report stage I shall vote according to my conscience, because then I believe that I shall understand something of what the Bill is about and what it is intended to do.
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That still leaves us waiting for another Bill to explain other aspects of this Bill. This mass of legislation is going through under difficult conditions, when everybody knows that only a small percentage of Members of this Chamber have been able thoroughly to understand it; that is much better than the Silkin Bill which, it was said, only Lord Silkin understood and later on I believe that quite a number of people were questioning even that! It is a very serious, comprehensive, and Socialist-minded measure, the principle of which I agree. However, at this moment I hope that the advice of the noble Baroness will not be taken. I shall continue to support the Government throughout the Divisions and then try to inform my mind about this Bill. When I have done that I hope that I may come to love it and to understand it.
Earl FERRERS: One of the excitements and hazards of speaking, on Whether the clause shall stand part of the Bill?, is that one never quite knows what will come up. I shall restrict my observations to one specific point. I believe this is the right moment at which to do this, because this is the definition clause and therefore it covers the full gamut of the Bill. On Second Reading I gave notice to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, of a question that I intended to raise. I did indeed ask the question but unfortunately she did not give me the answer in full, and therefore I thought I would give the noble Baroness the opportunity of doing so today. In order to help her to be fully possessed of the necessary information, I warned her beforehand.
The Bill requires 14,000 people to operate it, and the question which I asked the noble Baroness was whether it would be possible for the Government to describe how many of those people would be estate agents, how many would be lawyers, how many would be planners, surveyors and valuers, and how many would fall into the category of administrative staff. It is a colossal figure, and I should like the noble Baroness to understand that I am not trying to ask a "funny" question or trying to trip her, or anything like that. But it is vital that we should know how this figure is arrived at, because if this

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Bill, when it reaches the Statute Book, is to be operated properly, it will have to be operated largely by professionals. Therefore I should like to ask: where are they coming from?
As I see it—and probably the noble Baroness may say "This all comes into account after the second appointed day"—at present these people are not in public employment, because otherwise they would not be additional to the Bill. So they must be in private practice and, if that is the case, how are the professionals who will be required for the operation of this Bill to be drawn from private practice? If this were to happen, there is bound to be competition for their services, in which case inflation will be given a further spiral. If those in private practice at present are not prepared to undertake the work which this Bill will require, then the work will be done presumably by what one might describe as the "dross" of the professions. If that were to be the case, then the Bill is not going to work at all well, and if the Bill is to work at all it is vital that it should work properly.
When I asked the noble Baroness about this on Second Reading, she said:
"It is quite impossible at this stage to give that information. If I gave some arbitrary figures, noble Lords would be quite right in asking how I was able at this stage to say that there would be so many lawyers needed and so many land agents needed. That would be the most extravagant and wrong way to go about it."—[Official Report, 16/10/75; col. 1136.]
I could sympathise with that view and understand it, except that it is contrary to what the Government have said. If one looks at page vii of the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill, your Lordships will see that the Government, in order to assist people to understand the Bill, say there:
"It is estimated that when the scheme is in full operation, … total staff increases will be of the order of 12,000 in local authorities in England and Scotland and 750 in Wales, …".
Then it goes on to give an estimate that when the scheme is fully operative the increase in Central Government staff will amount to some 14,000, including staff of the Valuation Office of the Inland Revenue. That is the figure which the Government have given: 14,150. It is essential for us to know how that figure is made up. The professions require to
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know how it is made up, and I have a horrible fear which is that these people are not there. If the noble Baroness were to say, "We really cannot give you a breakdown", I am then bound to put the question to her: how then have you arrived at the figure of 14,000? Has somebody used a slide rule? There must have been some method by which this figure was arrived at; and it really is not good enough for the Government to give an overall figure and say, "You have to accept it." This figure is made up of professionals and these people will want to know how this figure is arrived at, so that it really should be put on record.
Baroness STEDMAN: If I may follow the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, I was one of those who in connection with the Community Land Bill No. 2 had reservations about how we were going to find the staff and where they were coming from. Since that time my worries have decreased. My county has started consultations with a view to setting up their land management scheme with the six district councils within our area. What has come out of that is that at the present moment within my county area, within five of the districts and the county itself, we already have 19 solicitors, 17 legal executives, 12 conveyancers, two estate surveyors, one partly qualified surveyor, one chartered surveyor, 11 valuers, six assistant valuers and two unqualified valuers, plus the various planning people within the county and the districts and also the staff which is available to us who work in co-operation with us from the new town development corporation of Greater Peterborough.
My county, in their initial look at it, feel that for the immediate future, at any rate, we can do the job that will be given to us with the staff that we now have; that we shall have our finance and our legal officers who will be keeping a very close watch on the resources of the county and the district; that we shall not go outside and employ any other staff until we are confident that all those throughout the county and the district are being fully utilised in the jobs which they are now doing and the new duties that we are laying upon them. That does not answer the question of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, as to where we got 14,000 from, or how we are to get them. I say only that, so far as my own fears are concerned, with

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the work that we have done in the intervening months my fears are considerably fewer now than they were when we had the Second Reading of the No. 2 Bill.
Earl FERRERS: May I say to the noble Baroness that what she has said is extremely interesting and if that covered the country it would seem to indicate that the 14,000 was far too high a figure. If the 14,000 is a correct figure, then of course there must be people outside those who are already involved on whom, presumably, the Government expect to claim.
Viscount RIDLEY: It does look as if Cambridgeshire is rather overstaffed.
Baroness STEDMAN: I do not think so.
5.23 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: We have ranged quite a long way in this debate on the Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill? I must say immediately that I have great sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, when she speaks about the complications of this Bill. It is extremely complicated. Most pieces of legislation are complicated, but anything that has to do with land law is particularly so, especially for those of us who do not happen to be experts in it or lawyers with that particular specialisation. The Bill was arranged in this way because in the opinion of Parliamentary Counsel it was the kind of Bill which the average reader would not be able to understand without knowing the definitions. One example of what Parliamentary Counsel had in mind was that it is not possible to understand what authorities can do until those authorities are defined.
This again is a matter of opinion. It is perfectly true that when we were earlier discussing the Bill I was considering—and at some point had a word with the noble Baroness about it—whether it would facilitate discussions if we turned the Bill round. The same criticism can be directed at almost all Bills. There is no easy way of dealing with a very difficult group of subjects. If one is realistic one realises that those who might be called average or ordinary readers who attempt to find out what is going on by reading through a piece of legislation must be quite minimal.
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After a Bill is passed is the time for the explanations to be put forth in a more simplified form. Because we are doing this through the local authorities, they will themselves be in a position to put out information about the Bill. There are all kinds of provisions to which we are coming later, in the area of more open government, where information has to be made available and where, again, there are opportunities for explaining what the Bill is about. To do something of this kind, to make an enormously radical change in our land system, at the same time including as much public participation as possible, doing it in as democratic a way as possible, makes for complications. Nobody is pretending otherwise. This is why it is difficult, I agree, to take this Bill through this Committee stage. I do not think there is any easy way out. It is a matter of opinion whether what Parliamentary Counsel decided in their wisdom is easier for the lay reader: but certainly we on this side and from this Bench are trying to do our best to make it as comprehensible as possible.
On devolution, the second large area on which questions have been raised and doubts expressed, I think that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor dealt with the subject in quite considerable detail when replying to the Amendments on Wales. But I here part company with my noble friend Lord Shinwell and some of the other speakers on the view that one should have to wait until the devolution plans, which are still under discussion, have evolved, not only into a White Paper but into legislation before we set about land reform of this kind. The basic principles to which I would draw the attention of the Committee, which are the combination of planning and ownership within the community, exercised through the local authorities in England and Scotland and the Land Authority of Wales, still remain basic. As to whether in the future a regional superstructure is put in, the situation may alter—who can say? I do not think this is the moment to prophesy what will happen. But it does not alter the fundamental principles and objectives of the Bill and I think, and we on this side of the Committee all think, that it would be a great mistake, and in any case quite impossible now and quite wrong, to hold up this Bill which is dealing with land

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reform. As I have explained on two Second Readings now, it can only be quite catastrophic and destructive to the whole structure and to everything anybody is trying to do to wait on some very much longer-term plans on devolution. On this point we really have to wait and see.
I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Ward, although I do not agree with her, was consistent in her comments of, "Vote against, vote against …" It seems to me to be slightly against the raison d'être of this Chamber, which is to advise and amend. Nevertheless, she of course has freedom to do as she thinks.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: Certainly.
Baroness BIRK: The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, gave me notice of a question he raised again. He said that I did not give him an answer in full. The trouble is that I am unable and certainly cannot give him the answer that he probably wants. The answer is—and I will spell it out in more detail as I gave it on Second Reading; and it has been supported by what my noble friend Lady Stedman said—that the projected number of around 14,000 in England and Scotland is, first of all, for when the scheme is fully operational. This was based on studying the staff needed by some of the well-organised authorities to process the annual acreage they acquire and dispose of. The local authorities' associations accepted that this figure is about right, although opinions naturally vary about the detailed breakdown of the total.
I repeat what I said on Second Reading the other night, that in our view professional staff—that is, lawyers, planners, valuers—will account for about one-third of the total, and administrative and other support staff will comprise the rest. I would again point out that this number relates to the period after the second appointed day, some years ahead when the scheme is in full swing. Furthermore, the noble Earl is not taking into account the time factor which would allow for training and for the opening up of careers in this area. If what my noble friend Lady Stedman has said proves to be correct, the numbers required will be less than those which have been guessed at. If that is so everybody will
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say, "So much the better". Also, this does not take into account the fact that authorities are being asked to deploy their existing staffs. There are authorities which already have plans under way whereby they will share expert staff. To go further than that would be not only impossible but quite wrong. This is the best and soundest basis upon which we can prognosticate what will happen in the future. We cannot go beyond that.
I have dealt with the main points that have been raised on this clause and I hope that now we may move on.
Lord KINNAIRD: May I ask the noble Baroness one question? She said that she was trying to make this Bill as comprehensive as possible. Surely a Bill ought to be comprehensive. If it is not, it ought not be passing through Parliament.
Baroness BIRK: I said "comprehensible".
Lord KINNAIRD: I thought I said "comprehensible".
Lord SANDFORD: I am afraid that we cannot finish with Clause 1 because I have one or two other points and questions to put to the noble Baroness. First, I am sure that all my noble friends on this side of the House will find entirely unsatisfactory the answer of the noble Baroness to my noble friend Lord Ferrers. The Government cannot put into the manpower memorandum of the Bill the figure of 14,150 without having made some calculations. We have just had it from the noble Baroness's own mouth that the Government made some calculations and undertook some surveys. Of course, the points that were made by her noble friend Lady Stedman are of interest so far as the initial stages of the Bill are concerned. We know that Cambridge can manage with the staff that they already have. That is good. We know, however, that a large number of authorities cannot manage with the staff that they already have, and we must be concerned with the training of the staff who will be needed. It may be that they will be needed only in five years' time, but their training must begin now; and if their training is to begin now we must know the answer to my noble friend's question: how many valuers, how many estate agents, how many of this and how many of that? It is most

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unsatisfactory to be left in this position for the second time and we shall have to return to it.
I am afraid that the noble Baroness is having a rather sticky start. I am also afraid that it is going to get stickier, but I should like to console her by saying how grateful we are to her for her help and that of her office in providing us with notes on clauses. This is considerably expediting matters.
I wish to comment on three matters. They are Wales, the Peak Park Planning Board and the new towns. Wales has already been amply discussed. I should like to commiserate with the people of Wales who will be disenfranchised by the setting up of the Welsh Authority, but I console myself with the thought that by establishing it the Government are building into the Bill in respect of Wales the two basic ingredients which caused the Central Land Board of 1947 and the Land Commission of 1967 never to get off the ground and eventually to founder. To that extent this arrangement is welcome to those who sit on these Benches.
If I may turn to my questions, the first relates to a point made in the notes which the noble Baroness has furnished on Clause 1, particularly paragraph 9, which states that no special provisions arc needed for the National Park Committees. Later it states that they are to exercise planning functions and to do so as committees of the counties concerned. That is true in respect of eight of the ten national parks but it is not true in respect of the Exmoor National Park which straddles two counties that have to make special arrangements. I am satisfied that they can make adequate arrangements between themselves without anything being imported into the Bill, but I am quite certain that the Peak Park Planning Board, which straddles several counties and even more districts, cannot function without special provisions being made. There was an indication at Report stage that the Government have this matter in hand. In the first set of marshalled Amendments there is no sign that the Government are taking it on board. Therefore, I myself have moved certain Amendments. I should be grateful if the noble Baroness could indicate whether she has any Amendments of her own in mind.
My next question relates to a matter to which my noble friend Lady Young
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has already alluded. It is in paragraph 3 of these notes where it is said that the new towns have their own planning powers and that they represent the approach to positive planning which it is the Bill's intention to extend to all significant private development. As my noble friend said, the characteristic of new towns—and I am familiar with quite a number of them—is that they do not have to operate under any kind of democratic control. They do not have communities, at any rate when they start to operate. And just what are the powers that the new towns have that make the noble Baroness and her colleagues feel that they so well represent an approach to positive planning that is apt for this Bill?
Baroness BIRK: If I may deal with the first point of the noble Lord relating to the Peak Park Planning Board, he said that he had certain Amendments in mind. Since this matter arises under Clause 16, may I suggest that we wait until we get nearer to that clause and discuss it in that context? It would then make more sense than it does now. So far as the new towns are concerned, they have been very successful and in many areas their development and planning procedures have been operating in the way which will be required by this piece of legislation. Therefore, there is no reason why they should not be treated as any other authorities would be treated. Again, may I suggest that any specific points ought to be discussed when we are dealing with the powers on acquisitions? We are now dealing with the definitions and the basis of the main clause.
Lord SANDFORD: It appears that the noble Baroness does not know whether she is to move any Amendments of her own regarding the Peak Park Planning Board, and that she cannot tell us what are the powers of the new towns that are relevant to this Bill. She has described well the way in which they operate, but they operate on virgin or green field sites without a community and without an electorate. That seems to me to make them totally inappropriate for consideration in the context of this Bill.
Lord SLATER: When the noble Lord referred to the new towns, his remarks showed a lack of knowledge of history of the new towns which were established

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by the Labour Government of 1945. Six new towns were established then, and the smallest was in my constituency when I was in the other place. It was called Newton Aycliffe and it was designed for 10,000 people. The Bill was led by a Scotsman when it was going through its Committee stage. May I inform noble Lords that the Leader of the Opposition at that time was known as Mr. "Shapes" Morrison. The policy of the Government was that the new towns should be developed as rapidly as possible and that their own administrative powers ought to be granted to them as quickly as possible. This was thrown out when the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor (as he now is), became Minister for Housing and Local Government, and reversed that decision and set up a commission. I sat on the committee, and a member of that commission had to sit upon the management board of the new town, within the terms of reference.
Returning to the subject of the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I was moved by what she said. I thought it was an effective speech, and I was also interested in what the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said. I also found the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, interesting, when she produced figures as to how the Government have taken into consultation the national bodies of local government up and down the country on this issue. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, was trying to tie my noble friend down to a specific figure, but may I say in all good faith to the noble Earl, and without any displeasure towards him, because I have the highest regard for him, that he ought to initiate a conversation with members of his own side in another place, who have had plenty of opportunity in the Scottish Grand Committee, which has its own forms of debate in regard to such matters as this. Probably he would get his replies from his own friends.
My noble friend has endeavoured to reply to the best of her ability, but noble Lords who have not had experience in the drafting of Bills and in the setting up of committees for discussion should understand that we have what are known as Parliamentary draftsmen. These are the people whom Ministers must convince
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about the views of Members of this Chamber and of the other place on what ought to appear in the Bill, and about interpretation and phraseology. I give credit to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, and my noble friend who is leading for the Government, and, in view of the consultations that have taken place, I hope, as a past member of local government administration, that we shall not vote against this clause and that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, will not press it that far. Otherwise, we may regret it.
Earl FERRERS: Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Slater, that I take his rebuke in the way in which he meant it, and I certainly take no offence. Equally, I hope he will not take offence if I say that, in my view, that was a most extraordinary intervention, if by that he meant that had I addressed my questions to honourable Members of another place who sat on the Scottish Grand Committee I should have got the answer from them, as opposed to the noble Baroness who is in charge of this Bill for the Government. If the members of the Scottish Grand Committee know the answer, I am quite certain that the noble Baroness knows it.
I was not trying to tie the noble Baroness down to a figure. The figure which has been mentioned, and which has been tied down is that which the Government themselves have produced of 14,000. As I tried to explain earlier, I was not doing this in order to try to embarrass the noble Baroness. I believe it to be a very real problem and if this Bill is to operate properly it must he with the advice of the professionals. My fear is that the professionals are not there, but if they are there they are likely to be already engaged and those who are already engaged are not likely to be withdrawn from their private practice. Then you will get the dross of the professions and those who are bad and unskilled and whom private practice does not want to employ. That would be a disaster for the Bill. I hope that in the course of the passage of this Bill the noble Baroness will be able to give some more detailed and, if I may say so in the broadest sense, helpful figures, because this is an important point; it is not just a Committee point.
Baroness BIRK: I should like to add one small point and to thank my noble friend Lord Slater for his intervention. It becomes a circular argument, because it is said that we must have these breakdowns of figures. But once the Bill becomes an Act, I should have thought it more than likely that a number of people will come in from private practice when land goes into public ownership through the local authorities. Noble Lords are saying what should be the logical cut come and that is what I have been saying all the time. Let us get on with the Bill and get it on the Statute Book so that people know where they are, not only from the point of view of planning and ownership, but also from the point of view of staff as well.
Baroness YOUNG: That is rather a dangerous argument to adopt because it suggests that we ought not to discuss the Bill at all. In fact, I think this has been a worth while discussion on the Question, Whether the Clause shall stand part of the Bill?, and I sympathise very much with the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and her colleagues in trying to explain this piece of legislation. I should have thought the numbers of her own colleagues on the Benches behind her, who clearly have not understood it at all and have the deepest sympathies with our constructive suggestions about the rearrangement of clauses and so on—which would make it more intelligible and workable from their point of view—would have indicated to her that there is some question on all sides about this piece of legislation. As it is, we have had no real answer to the point about Scotland raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foot; we have had no real answer about Wales, the final irony being that we are setting up a non-elected, non-democratic Land Authority to implement something for the benefit of the community, which seems to me to be a total contradiction in terms. Also, I do not believe that my noble friend Lord Ferrers has received an answer to his very important points on staff.
I think it only fair to give notice to the Government that we shall press these points and that we shall expect a proper answer before the Report stage. We shall return to this at other stages of the Bill. It simply is not good enough to have such answers on something as important
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as this. As it is, we will leave this matter where it is now but we hope that the Government will give more satisfactory answers as the Bill proceeds.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Joint boards]:
5.49 p.m.
The Earl of BALFOUR The Earl of BALFOUR moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 2, line 42, at end insert—
"(1A) If two or more local authorities in Scotland agree that a joint board should be established as an authority under subsection (1) above, they may with the consent of the Secretary of State, combine for any of the purposes of this Act on such terms and conditions as may be agreed between them and approved by the Secretary of State."
The noble Earl said: Most of what I wish to say on Clause 2 was said during my Second Reading speech. Briefly, I would point out that Clause 2 is one of the unique pieces of legislation which creates an entirely different situation in England, Scotland and Wales. If the Government want to keep it that way it is up to them. The reason for this Amendment is to allow two or more authorities in Scotland at least to approach the Secretary of State with a possibility of setting up a joint board. I must apologise to your Lordships. Perhaps I was a little slow, but I should say that the words at the side do not mean that it is intended to be another clause. I am sure noble Lords will realise that the Printed Paper Office, the Public Bill Office, the printers, and everyone else have been under considerable pressure. Those words do not actually affect the Amendment; it is intended as a subsection to the Bill.
I should like to stress that Part I and Schedules 1 and 2 to the Scottish Act of 1972 were repealed. May I say once again that I am very grateful to have the notes on clauses. The notes on Clause 2(3) make reference to Section 1(3) of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1972, which has been repealed. The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, said that in the very last clause there was provision that authorities should be able to share expert staff. There is no longer provision in Scottish legislation, under the planning laws and so on, for them to be able to do this. Therefore, my Amendment is

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intended to be constructive and to fit in with the principle here.
In order to save time, I shall say a few words on the reason for leaving out subsection (6) under Amendment No. 10. It seems to me very strange that the Secretary of State should wish to exclude himself from setting up a joint board in Wales. There is nothing whatever to stop two or more authorities under the planning Acts of England setting up a joint board in Wales, as Part I and the relevant Schedules to the English planning Acts were not repealed when the English Local Government Act went through Parliament. This is somewhat technical. However, to some extent I have already spoken on this point, so I beg to move.
5.53 p.m.
Lord MELCHETT: Clause 2 of the Community Land Bill is exactly similar in its application in both England and Scotland. Thus, the Secretary of State is the only person who can set up a joint board. Two English authorities acting alone cannot do so. I think the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, possibly may be confusing this with the position under the local government legislation where there are powers under Section 1 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 for the formation of joint planning committees or two or more authorities in England. but in Scotland these powers were repealed, as I think the noble Earl said.
However, the powers under Section 1 of the Town and Country Planning Act are in exactly the same terms as those in Clause 2 of this Bill; in other words, there is no legal power in existing legislation for local authorities to initiate the setting up of a joint board. The Amendment would make Scotland out of line with England. which I think is exactly what the noble Earl is trying to avoid, if I have his purpose right. In our view, in practice there is nothing to stop any local authority approaching the Secretary of State and asking him to set up a joint board for the purposes of the Land Scheme. In practice this is how it is envisaged that the provision will normally work. Clause 2 in no way prejudices any scheme for co-operation which two or more authorities may agree to in the Land Acquisition and Management Scheme, but the fundamental difference
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is that a Clause 2 board is a separate legal entity. In the light of that explanation, I hope that the noble Earl will reconsider his Amendment No. 7.
As I understand it, the later Amendment to this clause, No. 10, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, would delete the subsection which omits Wales, and is really consequential on any changes which might have been made to the status of the Land Authority for Wales. While the Land Authority remains in the Bill, there will be no need for the setting up of joint boards in Wales because the Land Authority, as it were, will be a joint board for the whole of the Principality.
Viscount GAGE: May I ask a question not exactly related to this Amendment, although it might be? I hope it is a simple question which will admit of a simple answer. Does anything in this clause permit the Secretary of State to alter the boundaries or composition of established national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty?
Lord MELCHETT: No, my Lords.
The Earl of BALFOUR: I am very grateful for the answer given by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.57 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD Lord SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 3, line 2, leave out from ("inquiry") to ("and") in line 3 and insert ("unless no person affected by the order has objected to it").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 8 and to speak briefly at the same time to the other Amendments relating to this clause. As the Committee will see, this is a clause in which exception can be taken from a number of different points of view. The setting up of joint boards ought to be undertaken not on the initiative and at the discretion of the Secretary of State, but at the initiative of the two local authorities concerned. That is one defect.
Another defect is that the powers of the Secretary of State in setting up the board and adapting other legislation so as to give powers to it, are far too sweeping at subsection (5)(b). That is a matter

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we shall come to in a moment on Amendment No. 8A. Thirdly, it is a provision which ought only to be used as a last resort, when the normal co-operative arrangements between local authorities, provided for in the Local Government Act at Section 101 et cetera, have been invoked, tried and found lacking. Amendment No. 10A, in the name of my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross, will deal with that point. At the moment, 1 am just dealing with a further point with my Amendment No. 8, which is that arrangements between local authorities and orders establishing things like joint boards ought not to be undertaken by reference only to the authorities concerned.
The setting up of a joint board is something which affects the enfranchisement of two electorates. There ought to be provision not only for authorities concerned to object to the making of an order having that effect, but also for individuals to object. The purpose of my Amendment is to find out from the Government why they think it is at all appropriate in a matter as important as this for the individual citizen, for individual communities—after whom the Bill is named—to have no say as to whether or not it is right for a board of this kind to be established.
Lord MELCHETT: It is our view that this Amendment would make the right of objection to an order under this clause very wide indeed. It is misguided, because the setting up of a joint board for an area is effectively only a decision about how the authorities in the area should exercise their functions. This is a matter between the authorities and the Secretary of State. That is why the Bill limits the right of objection to these authorities. This follows precisely the precedent of Section 1(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, which in turn goes back to the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. Frankly, I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Sand ford, should now want us to depart from that well-established precedent.
The noble Lord argued that individuals in an area should have a right to object to the setting up of a joint board. As I have said, this is, in our view, a mechanical decision about haw the functions of
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authorities should be exercised. There is no need for individuals to become involved in such a decision. It should be emphasised that a joint board set up under Clause 2 would not be any less answerable to the local electorate than a local authority. Subsection (3) provides that all the members are to be appointed by the constituent authorities and the board will remain responsible to the local electorate through those authorities. I hesitate to emphasise to the noble Lord, with his background in these matters, that it is all the members of the joint board under this clause who will be elected members of local authorities. I hope I have said enough to the noble Lord to induce him to withdraw the Amendment.
Lord SANDFORD: I am afraid the noble Lord has said enough to make me think that he has not seen the point at all. What is the relevance of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, which has to do with planning, to the function we are talking about, which has to do with land acquisition? It is an entirely different matter. If you want to refer to a previous Act, you must go to the Local Government Act, and when I come to say some more about this Bill on Clause 2 that is exactly what I shall be doing. If the noble Lord will follow me then, he will see that reference to the general provisions for co-operative arrangements between local authorities, and particularly the use of orders by the Secretary of State, does require provision for citizens concerned to object. I am afraid that answer confirms our worst suspicions: namely, that in making the provisions that are in the Bill the Government have a great deal of regard to the powers of the Secretary of State and how he is to exercise them, some, but much too little, regard to the powers of the local authorities, and no regard at all to the communities after whom the Bill is named. I shall return to this in a moment when we deal with the whole clause. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Nugent of Guildford): Before calling Amendment No. 8A, I should explain that if it is agreed to I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 9.
6.5 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG moved Amendment No. 8A:
Page 3, leave out lines 27 to 29.
The noble Baroness said: On behalf of my noble friend, 1 should like to move Amendment No. 8A, and I think it might be for the convenience of the Committee if we discuss Amendment No. 9 at the same time. We on this side of the Committee regard this as a very important Amendment. It is important because I think it should identify exactly what the Government have in mind in this subsection (5)(b) and what kind of purpose they expect it to be put to. When this Bill was first published, and indeed at intervals since its publication there was a great deal of criticism of it on two main constitutional grounds, the first one being that so much is left to be dealt with by regulations which we have not yet seen—a point, of course, to which we shall be returning when we discuss Clause 3 particularly—and, secondly, that so much has been left to the discretion of the Secretary of State.
Nothing illustrates better that second criticism than subsection (5)(b), in which the Secretary of State:
"… may adapt or modify any of the provisions of this Act or of any other enactment concerning the acquisition of land."
I am, of course, well aware that there are instances precedented in which it is necessary to make provision for the Secretary of State to modify an Act in order in a subsequent Act to make the powers in the previous Act apply to the subsequent legislation. Therefore, there are reasons why it might well be necessary to include the first part of (b), and I can see why that would be necessary. But I find it very difficult to see why the second sentence of subsection (5)(b) is necessary at all. I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, whether he can give some examples of what kind of future proposals the Government have in mind when this subsection might be invoked, so that we could see what it is they want to do.
As it stands, it would appear, that this subsection could remove the jurisdiction of Parliament as it empowers the Secretary of State to make an order adapting or modifying any of the provisions of
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this Act or any other enactment concerning the acquisition of land. The order would be subject to annulment only by Parliament if any of the authorities concerned had not consented to the making of this order. Therefore, so far as Parliament is concerned, or so far as individuals are concerned, the order could be made and there would be no right of objection or discussion. It seems to us on this side a very important matter of principle. It is a quite extraordinary power. I hope that the Government will be able to offer examples of how they expect it to be used and why they think it should be necessary in this Bill, because unless we have a satisfactory explanation we shall find this very difficult to accept. I beg to move.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: I wonder whether I could add a word to what my noble friend has said. It is, of course, very important that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, should give us some instances of the powers he would expect to be modified or adapted by an order made under this heading in the subsection. What I think we would also like to know is what the Department see as the limits of the jurisdiction. This is really a matter of legal powers. If you draft a subsection in the way in which it has been drafted, you attach a certain implicit restriction by its phraseology. If you say, "and in particular", the purpose, as I understand it, must be such as really falls within the first two lines of the subsection. But what sort of limitation does the Department see being placed upon such orders. If the noble Lord could give us, as it were, the ring fence in which we shall be operating if any orders under this paragraph are made, I think it would do a great deal to clarify it; we shall be able to see what the powers are which the Government are seeking to arrogate to themselves.
Lord HENLEY: This subsection has given great cause for alarm to my noble friends, because even if the noble Lord can give a ring fence, as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, suggested, it still leaves it open merely to set up a joint board to change completely the whole legislation. That obviously must not be the Government's intention. Can we have an explanation?
The Earl of BALFOUR: Could I say a few words, partly speaking to Amendment No. 9 which has been coupled with this one. I should like to show your Lordships exactly what is being said here:
"An order under this section may adapt or modify any of the provisions of this Act or of any other enactment concerning the acquisition of land".
I tried to see whether I could improve this drafting, which is far too wide, and really gives a joint board very much wider powers in the field of anything to do with the acquisition of land than the authorities that make up that board. I will quote briefly from what the right honourable gentleman Mr. Oakes said in another place in reply to Mr. Clegg. He said:
"all the Amendments as drafted …"
and I suspect that mine comes into the same category—
"… would be unacceptable. … Our aim in giving these powers to joint boards was to achieve considerable flexibility because of the wide-ranging and different kinds of things that different boards might be required to do."—(Official Report, Commons, Standing Committee G, 20/5/75, Col. 193.)
He goes on in the same column:
"However, the hon. Gentleman has convinced me that, although we should not delete subsection (5)(b), the powers within this subsection give a joint board powers considerably greater than those of a constituent authority, and that cannot be right. Although we cannot accept the wording of the amendments, I give an undertaking to the Committee that we shall consider the matter."
As nothing happened at Report stage in another place and nothing here yet, if my noble friend decides to go to the Division Lobbies to leave out paragraph (b) I shall support him wholeheartedly.
Lord MELCHETT: I am sorry to have to correct the noble Earl, but he is not right in what he just said, and I hope he will withdraw it because he has misled the Committee. An Amendment was brought forward by the Government at Report stage in another place, and I will spell out in some detail what happened there because the noble Earl has it completely wrong. What happened was that the Bill was introduced providing power for an order under Clause 2 to adapt or modify legislation, as the noble Earl said. This was the subject of a debate in Committee, and he read out an extract of what my honourable friend said in that debate.
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The Government undertook to consider the point further after the Committee stage. At the Report stage in another place the Opposition again put down their Amendment, but the Government brought forward an Amendment of their own which had the effect of limiting the exercise of the power to modify legislation by providing that provisions included in an order by virtue of subsection (5) must be "incidental, consequential, transitional or supplementary".
The noble Baroness read out the provisions of paragraph (b) twice without referring back to these vitally important two lines which her noble friend Lord Colville said must govern the application of paragraph (b). I am sure that the noble Baroness did not intend to mislead anybody by doing this, but she did mislead her noble friend Lord Balfour, who proceeded to read the same thing again without these vital first two qualifying lines. I should like to stress the importance of these two lines and the fact that they were introduced at the Report stage in another place, and welcomed by Mr. Rossi in extremely generous terms. He gratefully accepted the Amendment and acknowledged that the Government had met the Opposition objection to the clause, and I am frankly surprised at the somewhat extravagant language used by noble Lords opposite in view of that full and generous acceptance of what the Government have done to meet some real doubts raised at the Committee stage.
I have been asked to give some indication of how we see this working, and I am certainly happy to do that. As my honourable friend explained at Commons Report stage, there needs to be provision for the modification of other legislation because the Bill does not include any new powers for local authorities to manage or dispose of land. Land which they acquire under the Bill will be managed and disposed of by virtue of the general powers in the Local Government Act. Any joint board would need power to manage and dispose of land, and it might therefore be necessary to modify the 1972 Act.
Beyond this general point, the extent to which the power in subsection (5)(b) would need to be used would depend on the precise functions and the role of a joint board. In some areas the local authorities might want a board to take

1311
on the whole function of making land available for private development. In another area the local authorities might want to continue to operate their Housing and Planning Act powers while leaving the major job of handling land for private development to the joint board. Another possibility would be for land acquisition to be handled by authorities, and for the joint board to be responsible only for management and disposal. It was to provide this sort of flexibility that Clause 2(1) was drafted in terms of "all or any" for the purposes of the Bill.
The noble Baroness asked me for an example of how we see this working. I shall attempt to give her one. It would be essential for an order setting up a board which was going to be the main acquiring authority for the land scheme to modify the present scheme. If local authorities handed all their functions over to a board they would no longer be "authorities" for the purposes of the Bill, because they would have handed all their functions over to a joint board. They would thus not be able to dispose of land with the right to carry out development under Clause 21(3). Clause 21(9) might need modification so as to give the local authorities in the area of the joint board the same treatment as local authorities in Wales. Similarly, the Bill might need modifying to ensure that the joint board received copies of planning applications, as the Land Authority for Wales will do.
May I end by making a general point about this clause; that is, what kind of orders we are talking about in any event. These are orders which the Secretary of State shall not make unless all the authorities who are concerned agree, and this is in subsection (2) of the clause. Either we have to have the agreement of all the local authorities who are involved—and after all it is their powers which are affected—or alternatively there has to be what I understand is one of the main planks of the Opposition's objection to this Bill, a public inquiry. If there is a public inquiry held, whatever the Secretary of State then does has to be brought before Parliament. I should have thought that in this clause the Government are being as open and as generous in going to public participation and inquiries as could possibly be expected in view of
1312
what is actually being done, which is setting up joint boards with the agreement of the local authorities concerned.
Lord SANDFORD: May I ask the noble Lord whether he is quite sure that he is right on one small point before my noble friend answers? Is not the position that unless all the local authorities agree the Secretary of State has to hold an inquiry, but the joint board can be set up without the agreement of all the local authorities?
Lord MELCHETT: Yes, it can after an inquiry, as I said; and once a Resolution has been taken, subject to annulment in both Houses of Parliament.
The Earl of BALFOUR: May I just raise one more point? I am grateful for what has been said so far. Subsection (5) says:
"An order under this section may make … supplementary provision as appears to the Secretary of State to be necessary …and, in particular—
(b) may adapt or modify any of the provisions of this Act or of any other enactment concerning the acquisition of land"
I am concerned with "supplementary provision" as much as anything else. I feel that that is extending the powers here beyond what a single local authority might be able to do in the acquisition of land.
Lord MELCHETT: Perhaps I can reassure the noble Earl that, as I understand it, a modification to an enactment to give greater powers to a board than its constituent authorities would not in fact be consequential, supplementary and so on. The main purpose of this is not to give powers to the board but to preserve the position of the constituent local authorities.
Viscount GAGE: Could the noble Lord say where in this Bill there appear the limiting words which pleased Mr. Rossi?
Lord MELCHETT: They appear on page 3, lines 19 and 20.
Baroness YOUNG: I am grateful for the explanation given by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, and in any observations we make we are of course grateful for many of the Amendments which have been made as the Bill has proceeded through Parliament, certainly on the recommendation of my noble friends in

1313
another place, and this is one Amendment which has arisen as a result of extensive debate there. I am not altogether satisfied with the explanation that has been given, because it still remains stated in very general terms and it does not seem to me that we know precisely the circumstances in which this could be used. We are being asked to decide an issue without really understanding all the circumstances in which it could be used and we are, therefore, justified in the criticisms
we have made of it, in that we are being asked to accept part of this Bill without knowing fully the kind of commitments into which we are entering. At this stage, I do not feel inclined to withdraw my Amendment.
6.21 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 8A) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 111; Not-Contents, 67.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Ferrier, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Gage, V.

Onslow, E.

Alport, L.

Gainford, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Atholl, D.

Garner, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Balfour, E.

Glasgow, E.

Pike, B.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Glendevon, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Belstead, L.

Grenfell, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Berkeley, B.

Gridley, L.

Redesdale, L.

Blake, L.

Hanworth, V.

Rhyl, L.

Bradford, E.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Ridley, V.

Brecon, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hawke, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Caccia, L.

Hertford, M.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Camoys, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

St. Davids, V.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Salisbury, M.

Carrington, L.

Inglewood, L.

Sandford, L.

Cathcart, E.

Killearn, L.

Sandys, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Kilmany, L.

Savile, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Kinnard, L.

Sherfield, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Long, V.

Slim, V.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Loudoun, C.

Somers, L.

Cornwallis, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Stamp, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Lyell, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Cowley, E.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Mancroft, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Daventry, V.

Mansfield, E.

De L'Isle, V.

Margadale, L.

Strathspey, L.

Denham, L.

Merrivale, L,

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Digby, L.

Mersey, V.

Sudeley, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Middleton, L.

Swansea, L.

Dundee, E.

Monck, V.

Tenby, V.

Ebbisham, L.

Monson, L.

Vickers, B.

Ellenborough, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Vivian, L.

Elles, B.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Netherthorpe, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Elton, L. [Teller.]

Newall, L.

Windlesham, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Northchurch, B.

Young, B.

Ferrers, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Amulree, L.

Cudlipp, L.

Hoy, L.

Arwyn, L.

Darwen, L.

Jacques, L. [Teller.]

Balogh, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Janner, L.

Banks, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Feather, L.

Leatherland, L.

Beswick, L.

Foot, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Birk, B.

Gaitskell, B.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Blyton, L.

Gardiner, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Brockway, L.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Lyons of Brighton, L.

Champion, L.

Hale, L.

Maelor, L.

Collison, L.

Hall, V.

Mais, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Melchett, L.

Crook, L.

Henley, L,

Meston, L.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Segal, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Pannell, L.

Shepherd, L. (Lord Privy Seal.)

Taylor of Mansfield, L

Peddie, L.

Shinwell, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Phillips, B.

Slater, L.

Walston, L.

Platt, L.

Stedman, B.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Raglan, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Wigoder, L.

Rhodes, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Winterbottom, L.

Rusholme, L.

Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
6.30 p.m.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS moved Amendment No. 10A:
Page 3, line 32, leave out ("one") and insert ("three").
The noble Viscount said: I draw the attention of the Committee to subsection (7) of this clause. It sounded to me, listening just now to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, as though the Government did not have at present in contemplation urgent orders for the setting up of joint boards, which they are simply longing to bring into existence. I am a little surprised to see the necessity to put in subsection (7). It does not seem to me, unless there is great urgency and the Government feel that they should perhaps have a certain modesty and restraint in their actions—so that they leave a month between the passing of the measure and the bringing into force of an order setting up a joint board—that there is any necessity to have this subsection at all.
So the first thing I should like to ask is why we need the subsection. If we did not have the subsection, what difference would it make and why would it not be possible for the Government to bring into force at such time, if ever, as they wish to set up a joint board, the order doing so? Would they in any way be inconvenienced if we took this out? If they would, I am sure they will say so; but, in that case, would they please say why they wish to specify the period of a month? It seems indecent haste. I did not hear the noble Lord suggesting that they were going to have an order of this sort in a month, but perhaps they are. Perhaps there are recalcitrant local authorities which they wish to coerce by joining them together with others which are less unwilling to carry out the provisions of this Bill. Is that what they have in mind? At any rate, if either the noble Lord or the noble Baroness will explain this, I believe that we shall be greatly reinforced in our understanding, because
1316
none of the research that I have been able to do seems to suggest the necessity for having it at all and certainly not for having a period of one month. Perhaps three months would give sufficient time if we have to have a period specified at all. I beg to move.
Lord MELCHETT: The reason for having a period of one month is that a delay of one month after Royal Assent is frequently used in legislation. This is a standard period which is designed to allow time for the printing of the Act and for all those concerned to familiarise themselves with its provisions. There is, in our view, no logical reason for extending the period to three months in this particular case. Noble Lords opposite have made it very clear that they do not like the joint board provisions in Clause 2, though I confess that I cannot for the life of me understand why. However, if Mr. Rossi cannot convince noble Lords opposite that there is nothing to worry about, I am quite sure I cannot. But, if, Clause 2 is to stay in the Bill, there is really nothing to be said for making arbitrary amendments which would limit its usefulness, and I suggest to the noble Viscount that that is what his Amendment will do.
If there is a case for a joint board in any area—and this is a matter for the local authorities concerned and for the Secretary of State—it would clearly be desirable for the board to be set up as soon as possible, so that it can make the necessary preparations for beginning to operate the scheme when the first appointed day arrives, which will of course be fairly soon after the passing of the Bill. The Amendment would simply make those arrangements more difficult and protracted.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: That will not do at all. The passing of this Bill will now happen within a few weeks, I assume, because I have no doubt that the Government will ensure that in the other place everything is whipped

1317
through. But the noble Lord says that, within a month of that, they might want to set up a joint board. What I want to know is, which one? Let us hear the details. We shall be delighted to know what are the arrangements that noble Lords opposite wish to incorporate in an order. The noble Lord says blithely that one month is the standard period to allow everybody to get used to and to understand the contents of a Bill after it has been printed. But what about the regulations under this Bill? There will be thousands of regulations under this Bill. They will not be printed in a month. They will not be available, let alone understood, within a month. Is the noble Lord really going to say that all the regulations—for instance, those under Clause 3 and all the other very important regulations without which the legislation will not work—will be available within a month of the passing of this Bill? If so, he can show us a draft of them now. They must be ready for printing as well. Will the noble Lord show us drafts of the regulations which are going to be made under Clause 3 if he wants to bring this power into force and be as flexible as all that? I hope that the noble Lord will think about this again and produce a more convincing answer.
Lord MELCHETT: Would the noble Viscount mind telling me something for a change? If two local authorities want to set up a joint board, why does the noble Viscount want to stop them for three months?
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: Precisely for the reason I have given. Within the period of a month after the Bill has been passed, I do not believe that half the subordinate legislation which will fall to be made under it will be available to anyone. It will not be there.
Lord MELCHETT: If I could interrupt the noble Viscount before he goes off into the question of regulations, which, if I may say so with great respect, has nothing to do with the clause, all local authorities in England will be operating the Bill. They will be preparing to operate it and getting their land acquisition and management schemes ready once the Bill becomes an Act. If, in one particular area, authorities want to set up a joint board, why does the noble
1318
Viscount want to stop them? It has nothing to do with the regulations and whether they are ready at all.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: The noble Lord justified the period of one month by saying that that was the ordinary period of time within which, after the Act has been passed, it may be printed and its contents made known to and understood by the public. What I am saying is that that is a wholly unreasonable suggestion to make in relation to this Bill. It is perfectly true that those who have followed it may know what is in the Bill and that it may have been printed; but it will not in any way follow that they will know what are the real details of these schemes and, indeed, I venture to suggest that none of the regulations will be ready to be seen by the public.
Lord MELCHETT: But this has nothing to do with the regulations.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: The noble Lord suggests that the period of one month is to enable members of the public and others concerned to know what is in the Bill. It has always been one of the complaints of everybody that there is virtually nothing in the Bill. It is all being done by subordinate legislation, by regulations and orders and things of that sort. A month after the passing of this Act nobody will be any the wiser than they are now, and I venture to suggest that they will still be relying on non-statutory explanation documents and upon things called "the scope of the Bill". Those are very helpful to Parliament, but they offer no sort of guidance to people in local authorities who are concerned with the arrangements, nor to the people who will be having to deal with joint boards, or people who are concerned with all sorts of aspects of this matter. The noble Lord really cannot say that it will be possible for anybody to understand this within a month after the Bill has passed. I suggest that we should extend this period so that at least we may get some basic details to be laid by different forms of subordinate legislation clear before us all before there is any question of a joint board being set up.
Baroness STEDMAN: I do not believe that my noble friend was saying that all the authorities would know all they

1319
should about the Bill within a month. What he was asking was, what objection is there if any two or more authorities want to get together before then and establish a joint board in order to operate the scheme? That would be perfectly proper and perfectly possible. All authorities are now looking at setting up their land management schemes and how they are to implement the Act when it gets on to the Statute Book, and no doubt some of them by this time have ideas as to whether they will work within their own county area or whether they want to co-operate with others and set up a joint board.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: I entirely appreciate that but, with respect, I should have thought that even the most bold local authorities, before they make that decision finally, would like to see some of the subordinate legislation. In any event, I covered the possibility which the noble Baroness has just mentioned by inviting the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, to tell us which were the authorities for the purposes of whom one month had to be put into the Bill. Which are the ones which are urgently wanting to set up joint boards? Let us know, and then we shall know whether it is necessary to put this into the Bill.
Lord MELCHETT: With great respect, I think that this is making a great nonsense out of nothing. We are passsing an Act of Parliament—I am very grateful for the noble Viscount's assurance that it will be an Act of Parliament in a few weeks' time, and I am sure that my right honourable friend will be much relieved to have that assurance from him—which will be operated by local authorities throughout England. As my noble friend said, all of them—or at least a great many of them—are already preparing land acquisition and management schemes. Authorities are already working. The fact that there is much subordinate legislation to be produced in future is not affecting, that work, which is already going on. If the noble Viscount wants an example, I can say that it is possible that the docklands area in London will be one instance of where a joint board would need to be set up fairly quickly once the Bill becomes an Act. But this is a matter for the local authorities,
1320
not for me or for the Secretary of State. Our intention is that if the local authorities come to the Secretary of State and say that they want to operate by way of a joint board, then they should be able to do so, if they are all agreed about it. It is not for me to say that there will be a joint board in this or that area. But the local authorities will be getting down to operating the Act, after it is passed.
So far as I can see, the noble Viscount is saying that in cases where local authorities themselves want to act jointly with a joint board they should be delayed; all the other local authorities in the country can get on with the job, and indeed are getting on with the job. But for some mysterious reason if they want to operate jointly—and it is up to them—there has to be a mysterious delay for three months. I really cannot see any justification whatsoever for that.
Lord FOOT: Has not the noble Viscount got himself into an impossibly illogical position? He started by saying that there was no need for this clause. In other words, he is saying that there is no need for any delay to be imposed in bringing a joint board into effect, but that if there is to be delay let it not be for a month, but for three months. One would have thought that the argument would be that the period was too long and thus perhaps it should be shortened, to bring it down to, say, a fortnight. But the noble Viscount says, No, there is no need for any delay at all, but if there is to be delay let us have a lot of it.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: I can answer that point with the greatest of ease. I suggested that there was no necessity for it because what it provides would probably have the effect in law if there were no such subsection. However, my suspicions are aroused that there is some specific need for it, which has caused it to be put in, because there is some great rush in setting up a certain joint board. I am interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, said. He kindly gave me an example of this. I will leave him with a very serious thought on this matter. An order under this provision, as we have just been discussing, may call for various consequential rearrangements of powers. I do not in any way suggest that there is anything wrong

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with that. But the noble Lord must remember that citizens—not just local authorities—will be involved in this, and people will want to know with whom they are to deal, and upon what terms. They will want to know which are the functions that are being exercised by a joint board, or by the old local authority—a district council, a county council, or whatever it may be; and they will want to know what modifications, if any, there are.
They will need to know these things because the land acquisition and management schemes will have an effect upon every individual who wishes to deal and transact in land. I do not think it unreasonable that they should be given a fairly good opportunity to understand this and to be able to see how it affects them. I hope that in view of what the noble Lord said there will be no orders made within a month of the passing of this Bill. But if there are, and if they are not brought before Parliament, I hope that they will be printed as Statutory Instruments so that at least people can obtain them. I also hope that the noble Lord will see that the terms of the order are made widely available in the locality where the joint board, if any, is being set up. It will be necessary for people to understand how this will work, and they will not necessarily have any easy access to the information unless it is made available locally. I believe that if the noble Lord thinks upon this matter he will see that it is one not just for the local authorities but for the citizens as well in the area concerned. The noble Lord really ought to take some account of that.
Lord MELCHETT: I accept that that is a serious point, but no noble Lord opposite has raised it before in any debate on this clause. It is the first serious point raised on this clause, and I shall certainly consider it.
Viscount COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Will the noble Lord do more than consider it? Will he see whether something can be done about it? I am sure that the noble Lord will consider it, because he is very courteous and always considers everything that we say. But very often he does absolutely nothing about it. Will he ensure that on this occasion he does something about it?
Lord MELCHETT: I will consider it and then decide whether or not anything should be done about it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 2, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
6.47 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD: I want now to make two points, looking at this clause as a whole. First, I take exception to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, saying that nobody had yet raised the question of the citizen's interest in all this. This was the very point that I made on my Amendment relating to Clause 8. But if I have to speak with more emphasis than I then did in order to register a point with the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, we may take rather longer than I had hoped. But I am not talking about that now. I want to talk about the general question of joint boards. The noble Lord remarked, in answer just now to my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross, that if local authorities find it necessary to have joint working arrangements, why do they not get on and set them up? Indeed, that is the main burden of my argument. There is provision in the Local Government Act, at Sections 101, 102, 103, and elsewhere, for many joint working arrangements between local authorities, involving joint committees, sharing staff, agency arrangements between local authorities, and sharing of costs and so on.
Therefore the first question is: what is there about all this which makes it necessary for the Secretary of State to take powers to interfere in the co-operative arrangements of the local authorities? My belief is that they have enough powers; they can get on with them. They will be involved in establishing the land acquisition and management schemes, and I need to be convinced that there is any need for the Secretary of State to have power to intervene at all. That is my first point.
My second point is this. If there are circumstances in which it is necessary for him to intervene in order to establish proper joint working arrangements between local authorities, surely it ought to be at their initiative. This does not square at all with the terms of subsection (1), which starts off roundly with the phrase,

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"If it appears to the Secretary of State expedient that a joint board should be established.…"
If it is the wish of the Government that these boards should be established only on the initiative of a majority of the localauthorities—and I believe that that probably is the case—then why on earth is it not in the Bill? I really see no reason why the clause should not be rephrased to make that clear. It would be far less offensive to local authorities if that were so.
My third question for the noble Lord is this. If he can say that the existing standard arrangements in the Local Government Act for joint working are unsatisfactory, and that therefore we have to have joint hoards, and that even though we might amend the clause so that the initiative for the setting up of one should come from the local authorities, then I should agree with him that an order is necessary to establish them. But if an order is necessary, why are not the standard procedures that are normally involved with provisional orders, and which are laid out in Section 240 of the Local Government Act, not adhered to in this case? The standard arrangements provide that a provisional order has to be advertised—there is no advertisement provision here—and that if there is any objection by individual citizens (and I stress, once again, that that was the very point I was making, and I am glad to know that the noble Lord agrees that it is important) that should be sufficient to cause a public local inquiry to be held.
Then there should be provision, as there is now, for the order to be subject to annulment in pursuance of a Resolution of either House of Parliament. Even that factor was not in the Bill when originally drafted. Perhaps the noble Lord could deal with those points before we decide whether Clause 2 is to form part of the Bill.
Viscount RIDLEY: I wonder whether I could say a little about this clause, having had some experience of joint boards in the field of local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, said that there is nothing to worry about because the members of the joint boards would be appointed entirely by the local authorities
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and therefore democracy was entirely enshrined and secure. I would put it to your Lordships' Committee that this is by no means the case. Very often the greater absorbs the lesser in a joint board, and a member of an authority, once he becomes a member of a joint board, ceases to have a direct relationship to his electorate. This one remove is absolutely important in the operation of these sort of things, and I am therefore not in favour of a joint board situation. However, I can see that it could happen. The question I should like to ask the noble Lord. Lord Melchett, is: Is there anything in this (because I am still not clear from what has been said so far tonight) as to whether or not any authority could be compulsorily amalgamated with another authority? Because, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware, this has tremendous political overtones, and if it were possible then I believe it would be totally wrong.
Lord MELCHETT: The Government's general approach to the operation of the land scheme is that there should be maximum flexibility for local authorities to determine the arrangements which best suit their situation. Normally, this will be resolved within each county through the land acquisition and management schemes to be prepared under Clause 16 of the Bill. We know from our consultations with local authorities that some are considering setting up joint committees using their existing powers to do so, which the noble Lord, Lord Sand ford, spelt out in some detail. Normally, we would think that the setting up of a joint committee is as far as authorities will wish to go. But we deliberately intend to allow authorities the option to go further if they wish, so that they can put these joint arrangements on a formal statutory basis by setting up a joint board; and I mentioned the one instance, of which we know, of the London docklands, where serious thought is being given by all the authorities involved to setting up a joint board, and I should have thought that this was an area which was ideally suited to the operations of a joint board if one is set up. The power should also be Available, in particular, to deal with a situation in which there is a need for joint action across the county boundary: for example, for a major growth area which straddles two counties. Clause 2 may therefore serve a useful purpose in

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certain circumstances, and it should in our view be retained in the Bill.
As the noble Lord, Lord Sand ford, said, the ability to set up a joint board is a well-established feature of local government law. The provisions of Clause 2 basically follow those of Section 1 and Schedule 1 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1971. It may be said that the clause gives the Secretary of State the power to decide whether or not to set up a joint board, and that one could be set up in the teeth of opposition from the authorities involved. That is, of course, equally a feature of the 1971 Town and Country Planning Act, the provisions of which go back to the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. I hope that noble Lords opposite, and particularly the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, who has great experience in these matters, will accept that that Act has not in practice worked so that joint boards have been set up in the teeth of opposition from the local authorities involved. Indeed, when we come to the clause in this Bill, at the Committee stage in another place my right honourable friend gave a firm assurance on the use of the clause (Hansard of the 13th May at col. 102) when he said:
"As with the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, our aim is not to foist joint boards on local authorities. We cannot use our powers without their views being known, and generally the local authorities would themselves be the ones to press for joint boards. But if we did not have this right, I hope the Committee will consider how inflexible it would all be … if one small authority could upset that, it would upset the whole planning and the whole basis not only of this Bill but of the 1971 Act."
To answer the noble Viscount, it is the case with this clause, as it is with the 1971 Act, that a joint board can be set up overriding the wishes of one, or it may be more than one, of the constituent authorities of the board, but only after a public inquiry and only after the order has been the subject of the Negative Resolution procedures in both Houses of Parliament. It would be very unsatisfactory, of course, to set up a joint board in the teeth of opposition from a local authority, and I hope the noble Viscount will accept that in practice this is not how similar powers in the 1971 Act have worked, that an assurance has been given by my right honourable friend that the powers will he operated in the
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same way, but that it is necessary to have the reserve powers so that one local authority cannot completely wreck the attempts by all the rest of the local authorities in that area to set up a joint board.
Viscount RIDLEY: I thought the noble Lord's Party believed in democracy. I now see that it is otherwise.
Lord MELCHETT: If the majority of the local authorities in an area want a joint board, that is a perfect example of democracy in action, I should have thought. An absolute assurance can be given that the Government do not intend to set up a joint board except where the authorities in an area, or at least a majority of them, want it. I hope that that answers the noble Viscount's question about democracy. As I have said, if any authority objects there must be a public inquiry, and the order will be subject to scrutiny by Parliament.
Lord SANDFORD: That does not answer the point at all. The noble Lord has now said that his right honourable friend the Secretary of State agrees that it would be unthinkable for him to establish a joint board without the request having come in the first case from the majority of the local authorities concerned. If that is so, why on earth can we not redraft Clause 2(1) so that it reads, for example:
"If, following representations from the local authorities concerned, it appears to the Secretary of State expedient that …"?
What possible harm would that do? What it would do, beneficially, is remove suspicions, which I must say have not been dispelled, that this power is here for the Secretary of State to impose his will on local authorities whether or not they like it and whether or not they ask for it. What possible harm could be done by an Amendment of that kind? I do not ask the noble Lord to accept an Amendment while he is on his feet—that would be very rash and unwise, and I have not drafted one in that sense—but I hope he will say now that in the light of what he has himself said and of what I have just pointed out to him he will consider an Amendment on those lines. It could not possibly do any harm, and it would do a great deal of good by removing these suspicions.

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The noble Lord has not answered one little bit the question I raised about an objection from individual members of the electorate. The normal provision in the case of orders by the Secretary of State is that a public local inquiry should be held, unless there is no objection from any of the people affected. This is the Community Land Bill. It is not being enacted for the benefit of the Secretary of State or of the local authorities, but for the individuals who make up the community. I cannot for the life of me see why the normal procedure should not be followed. I do not set so much store by the first point, but if it is the Secretary of State's intention to exercise these powers only when a request for that exercise comes from the local authorities concerned, because they have found for some reason or another that the joint working arrangements provided for in the Local Government Act are not sufficient, then for heaven's sake let us say so in the Bill.
Lord MELCHETT: I omitted to say when I was on my feet earlier that I did not agree with the noble Lord when he said that he and his noble friend Lord Ridley were both speaking about the same point, so far as individuals are concerned. The noble Lord, as I understood it, wanted individuals to have the right to object when an order was being made; the noble Viscount raised the point with me as regards individuals having the information about what order had been made. It seemed to me that these were quite different points, and I said that the noble Viscount had raised a new point when I thought he had. The noble Lord took strong objection to that, but I hope that having explained what I said he will see that I was right.
The noble Lord has now raised another point, if I may say so, not one that has been raised in the debates on any of the Amendments so far, and that is that the Secretary of State should wait until authorities approach him, as I understand it, before considering setting up a joint board. This is certainly, as I have said, our intention. It is not our intention to foist these boards on local authorities, and this is something which I would be prepared to consider. I would point out to the noble Lord that it was not found necessary
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to write this into the 1971 Act, that joint planning boards are very important and that they affect people's lives. I am sure that people living in the Peak District, if they were told that this is something which is not as important as the joint boards being set up under this Act, might well disagree. They find the planning restrictions imposed on them very onerous. It was not found necessary to write it into the 1971 Act. However, we are always open to sensible suggestions, and I will take it away and consider it.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Lord STRABOLGI: It may be for the convenience of the Committee that we break here for45 minutes—that is, until 7.45 p.m.—to take other business. I therefore beg to move that this House do now resume.
House resumed.

WHITE FISH AND HERRING SUBSIDIES (UNITED KINGDOM) (No. 2) SCHEME 1975
7.1 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI Lord STRABOLGI rose to move, That the White Fish and Herring Subsidies (United Kingdom) (No. 2) Scheme 1975, laid before the House on 31st July, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that the White Fish and Herring Subsidies (United Kingdom) (No. 2) Scheme 1975, which was laid before this House on 31st July, be approved. The purpose of this Order is to provide for payment of aid to the fishing fleet in respect of the third quarter of this calendar year. Details of the Government's proposals in this respect were announced in another place on 29th July and the requisite Order, before us today, was laid shortly before the Recess. Your Lordships will note that this is a No. 2 Order, indicating the existence of a predecessor. Perhaps it will help if I briefly describe the reasons leading up to it.
Earlier this year the Government became convinced, from the evidence available to it, that the United Kingdom's fishing fleet was suffering severe economic hardship, the result of rapidly mounting costs, principally of fuel and

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fuel derived products, unmatched by prices and overall returns obtainable for its catch. In short, fishing was unprofitable leading inevitably to retrenchment. Some prudent restructuring of the fleet was both inevitable and right but the pace of change was gathering an unhealthy momentum which, if not arrested, could have led to permanent structural damage. It was decided therefore to give temporary aid to the industry and details were announced on 27th February. Subsequently Parliament gave its approval by way of the White Fish and Herring Subsidies (UK) Scheme 1975, S.I., 1975, No. 970.
The Scheme was, as I have indicated, intended as a temporary measure only to allow the industry time to adjust to changed circumstances. However, as the period drew to a close the industry made strong representations, backed up by economic data, about the need for continued help. We found, from our close examination of this evidence, that while, during the period of respite provided by the aid, the industry had continued to rationalise its operations, particularly by the removal from service of a number of old, high-cost vessels of outmoded type, prices at port auctions which are the key to effective stability had not recovered significantly from the levels to which they had fallen 12 months previously. The industry continued to be squeezed therefore by factors largely outside its control.
The Government decided that circumstances were such as to justify the continuation of aid until the end of the year. But, as my right honourable friend said on 29th July, the actual rates of aid would be fixed in the first instance only for the quarter ended 30th September, the requirements of the final quarter being decided later in the light of circumstances then obtaining. We are today concerned with the instrument permitting payment of aid for the period July-September for which purpose the Government have set aside £2¼ million being additional to the sum of £6¼ million provided for the first half year.
The continuation Scheme follows very closely its predecessor except, of course, that it covers three not six months and the qualifying provisions are scaled down accordingly. The only change of substance is that the daily rate of aid payable
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to the two larger-vessel categories has been reduced by £10 per day, in line with the improved prospects for this type of vessel.
My Lords, as a result of the Recess we are past the closure date for the second Scheme. Claims for that period are being submitted and payments will commence as soon as Parliament has given its approval. I beg to move.
Moved, That the White Fish and Herring Subsidies (United Kingdom) (No. 2) Scheme 1975, laid before the House on 31st July, be approved.—(Lord Strabolgi.)
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, those of us who comprise the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for having introduced and explained this Order. I think he said that early this year the fishing industry was facing an economic disaster. There is no doubt that 18 months ago the fishing industry was doing reasonably well and that suddenly there came a down turn, both of catch and of costs—if that is not a contradiction in terms—because the cost of oil sent the fishermen's costs roaring up; and this made a great inroad into the profitability of fishing. The Government were right to come to the aid of the fishing industry and to introduce a measure of support for it. The noble Lord, Lord Lovell-Davis, introduced a similar Order in June which allowed the Government to pay out to the industry, as I understand it, for six months up to the end of June. The Order which the noble Lord has introduced today allows the Government to pay a subsidy for the three months—not six months— up to the end of September. Of course, we are now in October.
My Lords, there are two major worries in this connection. One of them is that the first Order was for six months and the second for three months, from which it might be concluded that the Government were thinking of phasing out their support for the fishing industry. The other major worry—and I am sure there is a good reason for this although I cannot quite see it—is why it is necessary to do these things in retrospect. On the whole, if a subsidy is to be paid those involved in fishing operations would wish to know in advance whether it is to be paid. As I understand it, those people

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who are out fishing at the moment do not know, whether their operations are going to attract a subsidy. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, will be able to explain why it is necessary to do things in this retrospective way and whether it is not possible to look forward.
Further, is he able to say whether another Order will be introduced allowing the Government to pay a subsidy for the current period? If so, will that Order be for three months or six months? Is the noble Lord also able to say what the level of payment will be? I think that the answer to my last question will be, "No!" But I would point out that the difficulty about this is that those engaged in fishing at the moment do not know whether a subsidy will be payable. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether the Government will pay some subsidy. Is there any element of doubt whether they will pay anything at all? If the noble Lord could answer that, it would be helpful.
I wonder why it is that the Government do not indicate whether they are prepared to pay a subsidy in advance, and I wonder whether it is because the Government are watching the returns for the fishing industry. If that is so, one might conclude that if the returns during the current period go up, the Government may feel that this is an inappropriate time at which to pay a subsidy. I would appreciate that argument if the noble Lord used it, but I do not believe it is fair on the fishing industry because those going out to fish now ought to know whether or not there is a subsidy. If they felt that if their prices went up that would exclude them from subsidy because the Government were watching the situation, this would not be fair. If the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, is able to throw any light on those few questions, I should be grateful.
7.11 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for welcoming this Order. I thought the points he raised were very fair, reasonable and important, and I will do my best to answer them. Before answering the point he made about why the Government are giving aid on this ad hoc basis, perhaps I could deal generally with the first point
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he made about the downturn of catch and costs due to oil and other factors. Of course, there were other reasons for the depressed fish prices.
In 1972 and 1973 the first hand prices of fish rose sharply along with the prices of other food commodities due to circumstances in world commodity markets which no one could have foreseen. In Western Europe food processors hastened to build up stocks of frozen fish, because they thought prices might rise further. The result was that heavy stocks were accumulated which overhung the market and depressed prices. I am glad to say now that the stock position is beginning to improve. Additionally, over the past two years the market in North America, which has traditionally taken substantial supplies of West European and Scandinavian cod, has been taking instead heavy supplies of Alaskan pollock. So the cod supplies which normally go to the United States of America and Canada have also been depressing prices of the West European market. The result has been that first-hand prices of fish have been static or even falling since the middle of 1974. But the American market, I am glad to say, is showing signs of return to traditional preference which should help a general recovery in prices.
With regard to the ad hoc basis, the original intention was to give aid for six months only. But recognising that difficulties remained, the Government undertook to continue aid until the end of the year. But, in view of the changeable situation, we felt it expedient to retain scope to adjust action as required by events. A lot of people would have liked us to ban imports as a means of helping the industry, but that proposition is not realistic. First, it would mean taking action against friendly nations like Norway and Iceland. Secondly, it would mean taking action against the housewife because we need those imports to help satisfy the demand from the consumer. The problem was much more one of price than of supply. After informal discussions at official level, the Norwegian Government unilaterally set up a minimum export price scheme which was aimed at avoiding disturbance of the market in the United Kingdom. This was a great help.
The Council of Ministers in Brussels had also recognised the serious nature

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of the problem affecting the market for fish, and at its meeting last April a package of measures was made up. The package was aimed at alleviating the depressing effects on the fish market of the heavy stocks of frozen fish. For us in the United Kingdom the most important measure was the introduction of reference prices for frozen fish. It is worth saying more about this point very briefly. First, it is a permanent system under the control of the Community itself and applicable to the whole Common Market. Secondly, if supplies of frozen fish enter from third countries below these reference prices, then the Community can restrict or even ban the imports.
These are wide powers but they are powers that will have to be used with an eye to balancing the needs of consumers and of producers. Then, of course, the level of the prices can be reviewed in the light of experience. Fourthly, the prices are broadly comparable with those in the Norwegian scheme. Some are a little higher, some are a little lower, but the general effect is the same. The important point, I suggest, is that the system is now on a permanent and Community-wide basis and under Community control.
Regarding the Government's long-term policy, what I can say at this stage is that this long term policy can be determined only in the light of the fishing opportunities open to us once the series of discussions on access to waters have reached a satisfactory conclusion. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, and other noble Lords will no doubt be aware that this coming Thursday there will be talks in London with the Icelandic Government. But, in general, our policy must be to secure for the nation, through the efforts of the United Kingdom's fishing fleet, as large a proportion of the fish resources open to it as is practicable and consistent with demand. This will require a viable industry of the right size and the Government will stand by an efficient industry capable of achieving this objective.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, if I may have the indulgence of the House for one moment, may I ask the noble Lord whether he answered one of my questions? I think he did so, though not directly. I think he said that the subsidy
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was payable until the end of the year. Does one infer from that that the Government will be bringing forward another Order in three months' time to cover the current period?
Lord STRABOLGI: Yes, my Lords. The Government wished to ensure that the aid promised for the second half was geared to actual needs, and related of course to any changes which may occur. We shall certainly introduce another Order.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn until 7.45 p.m.
The Sitting was suspended at 7.18 p.m. and resumed at 7.45 p.m.

COMMUNITY LAND BILL
House again in Committee.
Clause 3 [Meaning of relevant development]:
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 3, line 40, after ("single") insert ("or semi-detached").
The noble Baroness said: On behalf of my noble friend Lord Balfour, I beg to move Amendment No. 11. I think it would be helpful, in moving this Amendment, if we could find out the Government's intention on subsection (3)(b). It is quite clear from the Amendment of my noble friend that he seeks to widen the exemption of the single dwelling-house so as to include a semi-detached house; and it may well be that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, will tell us that a single dwelling-house in fact includes a semidetached house. If that were the case, it would be useful to know because it would widen this exemption. Perhaps I might start, at any rate, by asking that question and we will see where we go from there.
Lord MELCHETT: I do not know whether the noble Earl has anything further to add to what has been said by the noble Baroness, but the answer to the question that she put is, "Yes". It is already included in the term, and the Amendment is unnecessary.
The Earl of BALFOUR: I am sorry to be a few seconds late, but I am very pleased to have that assurance, particularly since in Scotland we shall not have semi-detached houses that are divided horizontally as well as vertically: so that if two people separately can build a house, in semi-detached portions, this is a great comfort. I am sure that all the persons concerned will be pleased to have this assurance. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.48 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG moved Amendment No. 11A:
Page 3, line 42, at end insert—
("and
(d) replacement development as defined in Schedule (Applications for Replacement Development Certificate) to this Act.").
The noble Baroness said: I beg leave to move Amendment No. 11A and to speak at the same time to Amendment No. 15C. One group of people who are very concerned about the effect of the Community Land Bill are those who are responsible for pension funds. It must be apparent that pension funds and also insurance company funds, which come from personal or life assurance policies, need to be invested. In many cases they are invested in land or property. Clearly, the money accumulates and something must be done with it. In order to maintain the value of the pension at the end, or indeed that of the superannuating fund, it is necessary that the value of the money invested should keep up as far as possible with inflation. It has been estimated that about 12 million people are covered by occupational pension schemes. That figure includes just single people and not wives and families. So we are talking about enormous numbers of people, and for their sake I hope the Government will sympathetically consider this Amendment because it is their long-term future and, quite particularly, their retirement that we are talking about, together with the ultimate value of the pensions that they may receive.
This particular Amendment and the new Schedule that goes with it are to a very large extent concerned with the future. Because of the continuing nature of the obligations of pension funds and of insurance companies, those concerned with the management of these funds must
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take a very long view in framing their investment policies. Generally speaking, they look to a property investment as having a life of at least 150 years. They are concerned not merely with the buildings which may be on a site or even on part of a site at the time the investment is made, but of course in the redevelopment or rebuilding of the buildings when those buildings become obsolete. It must therefore be clear that if pension funds are to continue to invest in industrial and commercial buildings, their right to renew and to replace the buildings on the land as and when the investment criteria demand it must be preserved.
Under the Bill as it stands renewal and replacement of existing buildings will fall within the definition of "relevant development". If it does, then any planning consent granted for such renewal would be suspended and the work carried out, if at all, after the Authority had acquired the land. Although the Authority would have the power and eventually the duty to acquire, the Bill as it stands, except for some of the transitional cases, provides no mechanism by which the landowner can oblige the Authority to make up its mind or, having done so, to act. Moreover, there would be no certainty that the pension fund investor successful in such a planning application would receive back an interest in the land. The Authority may undertake the renewal itself or have someone else to do it, or simply sell with consent for it to be done by the purchaser.
The Government have announced over the last few weeks that there would be a new category of development to be defined. This comes as excepted development. This development is to be outside the scope of the suspension of planning permissions and indeed outside the acquisition duty. One of the types of excepted development is described in the Annex, Annex A, as:
"rebuilding or enlargement of a building so long as the floor space in the building as rebuilt or enlarged does not exceed by more than 10 per cent. the floor space in the building before rebuilding or enlargement".
I would be the first to acknowledge that this is a concession, an important concession and one that is appreciated. It therefore seems churlish to cavil at what is already a concession and ask for more. But the reason why I question the limit of 10 per cent., is that 10 per cent., which

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is excepted development, in effect becomes the maximum tolerance permitted, not as it is at the moment, the minimum tolerance. Those who are knowledgeable on this subject will say that in order to replace an obsolete building with the kind of up-to-date standards that would be expected by way of fire precautions and central heating and all things of this kind, it might well be necessary to go over the 10 per cent. tolerance, and therefore of course the excepted development would not apply.
Lord MELCHETT: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, but she said something I did not understand. In what way is the 10 per cent. currently a minimum level?
Baroness YOUNG: Perhaps I should explain it more clearly. At the moment, as I understand it, one can redevelop within a tolerance of 10 per cent. under the planning Acts without seeking further planning permission. If you wish to redevelop and exceed the area by more than 10 per cent. then you must seek a new planning permission. To that extent the 10 per cent. at the moment is a minimum. Under this Bill it would become a maximum, because no more than 10 per cent. is excepted development and therefore 10 per cent. is automatically a maximum.
The purpose of this Amendment is therefore to produce a more flexible and realistic test of what is replacement as opposed to new development and to have this concept written into the Bill rather than leaving it to regulations. It is, as I say, an Amendment which is concerned with something in the future, but as I believe it would make a great deal of difference to future investment of pension funds particularly, and to insurance companies, I hope very much that the Government will consider it. I do not necessarily expect an answer today. I should be quite happy if they would like to write to me about this, or consider it at a later stage. I beg to move.
7.55 p.m.
Lord MELCHETT: These Amendments are concerned with replacement development and although they refer to alteration and enlargement the main issue at which they are directed is clearly, as the noble Baroness said, the question of rebuilding. The concept of the right to
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rebuild within specified tolerances is already enshrined for valuation purposes within Schedule 8 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, as modified by Section 278 of that Act, where the tolerance is 10 per cent. on cubic capacity subject to a 10 per cent. increase in floor space in any given use. This floor space restriction was of course specifically introduced by the Administration of noble Lords opposite in 1963. This is a clearly defined and well-established tolerance and it is carried through both for acquisition and for valuation purposes by the proposed inclusion in excepted development of any rebuilding or enlargement up to a 10 per cent. increase in floor space and by the reference in Clause 25(3)(b) to development within Schedule 8 to the 1971 Act, because the 10 per cent. limit is also present in that Schedule.
The present Amendments are designed, as I understand it, to replace this tolerance by what I regret to say I can only describe as a rather vague and woolly definition of what is "reasonable". It is so vague that we have found it quite impossible to make any judgment as to what it would in practice achieve, except of course that there is no doubt that it would widen the limits at present in the Bill; and that is what I understand the noble Baroness intends. However, I would hope that the noble Baroness would accept that in any event it would be unacceptable to include this provision in legislation because of its vagueness. Indeed, one of the criticisms of the Bill which noble Lords opposite have made quite frequently is that the Bill is vague and unclear. I hope that at least we can avoid adding to that vagueness, if it in fact exists in the Bill at the moment.
In considering the issues involved it might be easiest if I separate two points: the planning issues involved in the attempt to widen the exclusion from relevant development, and the compensation issues involved in the proposed change in Clause 25. On planning, the Amendments are obviously framed with the intention of achieving maximum benefit for owners of existing buildings, rather than having any regard to the achievement of good planning. The point is that in urban areas an enormous amount can be achieved under the heading of replacement development with a small tolerance. We have already large

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urban buildings; substantial redevelopments can take place, and have taken place, within the 10 per cent. tolerances prescribed by Schedule 8 to the 1971 Act. The redevelopment of the buildings facing on to Victoria Street, which may not be everybody's favourite redevelopment, and is certainly not mine, is a case in point where the redevelopment took place—I am not concerned with who occupies the buildings; I am speaking about the facade. The fact is that the redevelopment took place within the 10 per cent. tolerance. So, obviously, very major redevelopments can take place within this, and for planning purposes it is important to be aware of that.
What, as I understand it, the noble Baroness is saying is that we should now go very much further than this and allow all "reasonable" rebuilding with enlargement normally to take place without public acquisition. The result of that would be, frankly, to drive a coach and horses through planning. Similar arguments apply to the Amendment which affects issues of compensation; that is, the Amendment to Clause 25. Again, the Government accept the compensation after the second appointed day shall include the value of the right to rebuild within Schedule 8 tolerances. Perhaps, in case there is any misunderstanding about this, I might emphasise that we must be clear that "current use value" means the value including the value of the right to put up a new building on the site, and that right to put up the new building includes the 10 per cent. tolerance. It has been my impression that there may have been some misunderstanding about this because of discussion about churches.
The Churches' worry, as I understand it, is not that they cannot rebuild a new church on the site but that nobody wants a new church on the site, so that is valueless. The fact is that in normal terms—in every case—the current use value will include the right to rebuild within the tolerances as I have said. In the case of large urban buildings, of course, such compensation may already be very substantial. What the Amendments are now proposing is that the owner of a building shall receive compensation determined on the basis of reasonable rebuilding, whereas I said that
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the definition of "reasonable" does not appear to be related to any concepts of good planning, whether or not the owner would ever stand the slightest chance of getting planning permission for this rebuilding within reasonable tolerances and, indeed, regardless of whether such development could even be justified in planning terms. The result would be to drive up the compensation payable by authorities to such an extent that it would never be viable for them to acquire a site in order to develop it in accordance with proper planning objectives. In the context of the Bill, and indeed in the context of proper planning generally, this must be wrong in principle.
The noble Baroness mentioned the case of pension funds. I am aware that the Amendment is introduced with pension funds very much in mind. I accept that it is true that in the past pension funds have tended to invest largely in freehold properties, but in principle there is no reason whatsoever why they should not invest in suitable leaseholds. It is my understanding that many funds have already invested in leaseholds and, indeed, in not exceptionally long leaseholds. Funds have been invested in leases of 99 years. What is important—and the Government fully accept this—is that where a pension fund invests in a leasehold they should be able to get an adequate return from their investment. Contrary to the mythology that has been put about, we intend that this should happen and are taking it into full account in considering both the length and the terms of leases that will be allowable. Therefore, there is no need to take rebuilding out of relevant development for this reason.
Secondly, there is the compensation argument. It is said that pension funds mut be able to receive compensation on the basis of the right to unlimited rebuilding in order to maintain the position of their investments. This is not accepted by the Government. The Government of noble Lords opposite introduced the 10 per cent. floor space limitation on the original right to rebuild, simply because in urban areas, and particularly in London, the right to rebuild within a simple 10 per cent. cubic capacity was proving too generous. This further limitation does not seem to have caused major problems for the pension funds, even though in London they have been living

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with this system for over 10 years. They know that planning permission will not be given for any rebuilding over and above this limitation. In other words, what is being asked for on behalf of the pension funds is, in effect, the removal of the limitation introduced by the Conservative Government and the substitution of a much more lenient limitation. Indeed, it may not be any limitation at all. In our view there is no justification for widening the limitation and I cannot accept that this Bill justifies such change. After that fairly lengthy explanation I hope that the noble Baroness will reconsider this Amendment.
8.5 p.m.
Lord CORNWALLIS: I do not know whether or not I am wide of the mark, but the noble Baroness included, I believe, Section 1 of her new Schedule in this Amendment. I should like to stress its importance and, if I may, to give the Committee one or two instances of what has happened to me. Please do not think that I do not agree with local government or that I am antagonistic towards it. I have been chairman of a county council, chairman of an education committee and chairman of goodness knows how many other things in local government. I should like to point out the importance of Section 1 of the new Schedule that has been put forward by the noble Baroness.
When I had to sell my own estate because of death duties 1 had a most beautiful cottage that was occupied by a poor old widow. Then I received an instruction that it was to be pulled down at once because it was unfit for human habitation. I said that I could not turn out the lady on to the street—anyhow, not until she was dead! Next, some Americans arrived at my door and offered me £10,000 for it. They wanted to take it to Carolina. That would have been lovely if they could have done it, but no, the cottage was to be pulled down at once.
I made two applications for the cottage to be put into order, both of which were refused. Then I let the farm to my son who is a working farmer. He made two applications, both of which were refused. I am making this point not because I am against local authorities but because I think it is quite unsuitable for them to have the authority to buy and sell land if they can take it over and then sell it at
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a higher price. This is what the Bill will allow them to do.
The next thing that happened was that they put a preservation order upon it. This was done by the old council who had not sent any of the papers to the new council. That finished it. I was so angry that I had to sell it at a loss. A builder bought it for practically nothing. It is now worth £30,000 to £40,000 and the builder's son is living in it.
In another case I wanted to put a new kitchen, lavatory and bathroom into a lovely cottage. Unfortunately, it is made of Tunbridge Wells stone. The same council said to me, "You can't do anything to the cottage unless you do the whole lot in Tunbridge Wells stone." I pulled down a wall which was made of Tunbridge Wells stone, so I tried that. But we found that we could not put in a damp course, so the whole project went by the way. I had to attend another meeting in that district where I met one of the councillors. I said, "You're a nice lot". He said, "What about?" and I told him. He said, "Oh, my Lord, they haven't tried that one on you, have they?" I said, "Yes, they have—very much so", whereupon he said, "My God!" He went straight back to the council. I do not have the remotest notion what he said to them, but within two days I received a telegram to say that I could do what I liked. So we go on.
I mentioned earlier that I had to sell my old home because of death duties. At that time it had 52 bedrooms. The people who bought it cannot live in it, although it has been reduced to 18 bedrooms, and they have asked whether they may build a small brick house in the garden in which to live. Their application has been turned down because my ancestors built 40 or 50 houses in that village, with no rent above a shilling a day, of Kentish ragstone. These people have been told that although the centre of the original mansion is of red brick the wings being covered with other stuff, they may not build a brick house in the garden because all of the houses in the village are of Kentish ragstone. I am going mad because of that kind of thing.
The muddle we shall get into on account of this Bill will be quite appalling, and that is why I make this point. The regional Councils are far too

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big to result in intelligent local government. Like the Greater London Council, they are completely out of hand. My other point is that we simply must have something like this to protect the unfortunate people who wish to improve their property. They must not be treated in the way I have been treated. I apologise if I have spoken too personally, but I thought that I should bring this situation to your Lordships' notice.
Lord MELCHETT: In response to the noble Lord, may I say that in so far as his first case was a criticism of the reorganisation of local government carried out under the previous Administration, I accept everything he said. In so far as the second case was an appalling example of how Members of your Lordships' House can" pull strings" with local authorities, I deplore it as much as he did. So far as the third case was concerned, I am afraid I thought that the council were absolutely right.
The Lord Bishop of LONDON: The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, caught me a little by surprise by making an unexpected reference to the churches in their relationship to current use value. If I heard him aright, I do not think he was correct in expressing the real grounds for our concern about this. Our concern is that when there is a redundant church its current use value as a redundant church is nothing. Therefore there may be a church standing on a valuable site, although if it is sold you can get nothing in respect of its value. In the London diocese we have quite a number of churches built of Kentish ragstone which after a hundred years are returning to the sand from which they came. They are redundant churches, and it would be a very serious thing for us if we were not able to develop the site simply because there was no value on the building which stood on the site. That is the reason for the concern of the churches about the current use value.
Baroness YOUNG: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, for his reply to my Amendment. I do not think the analogy he has given is an exact one. I entirely accept that the 10 per cent. floor space was introduced in the 1963 Act and has been used since then but, as I said, it is
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always open to somebody wishing to redevelop to apply for a further planning permission and to increase their floor space. Therefore, the difference between the situation as it exists now and as it will exist under the Bill is that 10 per cent. is the upper limit for the accepted development. I think the consequence will be that a certain amount of redevelopment will simply not take place at all. This would be unfortunate from everybody's point of view, and, therefore. I hope that the Government will look yet again at this matter.
The second distinction is that there is a difference between those (dare I say it?) developing in Victoria Street, or indeed commercial developers, and the type of people to whom I am referring, the pension funds, because the money that they are putting into land and property is not, as it were, their own money. It is somebody else's money and therefore it has to be looked after carefully and is a different proposition from a Government Department or somebody carrying out some commercial form of property development. So for that second reason I think this matter ought to be looked at.
I am quite prepared to accept that the drafting of this Amendment and the Schedule that goes with it to make it workable may be vague and wrong, and I entirely accept that it could be clarified and tightened up to meet some of the objections to it. But this is not an Amendment which I should lightly move if I did not feel that there was some real substance and grounds for fear on the part of pension funds that they will not be able to undertake the redevelopment that they think is right and so keep up the value of their investments. This is important, because so many people arc involved, and it would be a mistake to think that what was written into a planning Act in 1963 ought to be used on what the Government have called a major reform for land in 1975, as the same basis, because I do not think they are quite the same. I wonder therefore whether the Government would look at it again.
Lord MELCHETT: May I first say that on the question of churches, it was probably unwise of me to anticipate the debates that we shall have in a short

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time. I entirely accept everything that the right reverend Prelate has said, but the point I was making is that it is no good for the churches to be told that they can rebuild the church on the site where there happens to be a redundant church. It was from that position that I felt there might be a misconception about the basis of current use value for housing—where, of course, if you have a house which has fallen down it is very useful to be able to rebuild one on that site, assuming that anybody wants to live there.
Turning to the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, we have given this careful thought and the figure of 10 per cent. at the moment for planning purposes is not either a minimum or a maximum. One has to have planning permission to redevelop both within and without the 10 per cent. tolerance. If I have it right, the 10 per cent. is there for valuation purposes and it is this conflict between the planning aspects of writing this into the Bill and the valuation aspects which make the framing of the Amendment particularly difficult. I have said that pension funds have nothing to fear and we shall particularly bear in mind, as the noble Baroness has said, that they are investing other people's money and also the importance, when they are investing in leases, that they should receive an adequate return on their funds. I will look at everything the noble Baroness has said and will see whether there is anything we can do to meet this point.
Baroness YOUNG: I am grateful for that offer and also for the point about leaseholds. This is a very important matter. The length of the lease is obviously extremely important to anybody investing in land or property and that is certainly a matter to which we shall return at later stages of the Bill, With that assurance I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.19 p.m.
The Earl of BALFOUR The Earl of BALFOUR moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 3, line 42, at end insert—
("(1A) Where a particular class of development, which is not relevant development,

(a) is subject to a compulsory purchase order. and

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(b) becomes relevant development by regulation under this section, a person having a material interest in such development may then object to the compulsory purchase order.").

The noble Earl said: Where there is a change of development there is a problem under Clause 3(1), which reads:
"In this Act' relevant development' means any development except—"
and I will now read paragraph (c)—
"development of such class or classes as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State by regulations."
Also I am a little concerned about Clause 25(3), which reads:
"For the purpose of assessing the compensation"—
and then paragraph (d)—
"no account shall be taken of—
(i) any change, …"—
affecting development under paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Bill.
What concerns me here is that a person may have had a compulsory purchase order served on him for, say, a statutory undertakings provision (or something like that) and then suddenly the order has been changed by the Secretary of State in respect of the class of relevant development, but by that time it is too late for the poor chap to appeal.
I am arguing in this Amendment that where a class of development which at the present moment is not relevant development and is subject to a compulsory purchase order, then becomes relevant development because the Secretary of State has changed his mind, the person concerned should then have a right to object to the compulsory purchase order, which he might not otherwise have bothered to do. This is very technical. Where the Secretary of State has changed his mind I feel that the individual person concerned should have a chance to object although he might not have tried to object before. I beg to move.
Lord MELCHETT: The noble Earl says that it is very technical, and I certainly agree with him if that was a reference to his explanation of the Amendment as well as to this Part of the Bill. I must confess, I am afraid, that I did not really follow what the noble Earl said in explanation. However, it may be helpful if I try to tell him what I think is the effect of the Amendment, and we can see

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whether there is any meeting between us. As I understood it, the Amendment was based on a misunderstanding. There is no power under the Bill to acquire land for exempt development, and here we are dealing with exempt development. It is specifically excluded in Clause 15(2). Secondly, where the land is being acquired for excepted development, then paragraph 1(2) of Schedule 4 specifically excludes the application of the modifications to compulsory purchase procedure in Schedule 4. This means that the normal compulsory purchase procedures will apply, and the owner will have the right to object as he would normally.
From what the noble Earl said, I think he was possibly talking about changes in the categories of relevant development. I do not think the Amendment of the noble Earl would necessarily affect that, but, on the other hand, changes in relevant development do not affect either compulsory purchase powers or compensation, so I do not think the point arises there either. I hope that with that explanation, the noble Earl will be satisfied.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, has entirely followed my noble friend Lord Balfour. With the greatest respect to my noble friend, I am also not sure that this is quite the right place in the Bill to put this, but the point is a real one. As I understand it, what my noble friend has been saying is that there is at the moment, or there would be when the Bill became law and the necessary regulations were made, a kind of development which was specified as being in some form or another not relevant development. Therefore, as the noble Lord rightly says, there would be certain provisions in Schedule 4 which did not apply. It is perfectly true that if in the course of a compulsory acquisition the general development order, or one of the other development orders, was changed so that it became relevant development, an objection could be dealt with under Schedule 4 on the merits of the case. I think that is what the noble Lord has said so far.
But I do not believe that it would be possible for the Secretary of State to entertain any objection which arose on the grounds that because there had been
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in the period of time between the making of the compulsory purchase order and its confirmation, a change in the general development order, there had been a change in the compensation code which applied to that particular compulsory acquisition. I do not believe an objection would be able to be heard upon that matter, because it would be a matter of law, and something which only the tribunal dealing with compensation could deal with. It would be excluded by the terms of Schedule 4 to this Bill.
I think I am right in saying that my noble friend has said that where someone is put in that position, because there has been, in the middle of a transaction, a change in the law, he should have some sort of protection. If that is right, and if that is what he is suggesting, it seems to me possible that this might be a subject for the financial hardship tribunals, and should be drafted into that provision rather than being dealt with here. I think it is a real point, and one which at the moment the machinery of the Bill does not begin to cover.
The Earl of BALFOUR: My noble friend Lord Colville of Culross has put the matter much better than I. This is exactly the point. The law has been changed in the course of its procedure on a compulsory purchase order. That is it in a nutshell.
Lord MELCHETT: I take that point. I think this could arise on the borderline between relevant and excepted development, but I do not think it applies in this Part of the Bill, as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, says, where we are talking about the difference between" exempt" and "excepted", where any change would not affect either the compensation code or the right to object to a compulsory purchase order. But I take the point. I am advised that in order for the Schedule 4 modifications to apply, the order must say that the land is development land. Any changes in relevant development after then would not affect the position of that land, nor would any changes in a general development order affect the position. I think the answer is that the order must apply to the piece of land, and the development for which it is being purchased. Any changes in the order are not going to affect that bit of land for that bit of development,

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although in future they might affect the land for a different development.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: It may not affect the compulsory purchase order, but does it affect the compensation that would then be assessed on the basis of that compulsory purchase order? I think that is the missing link in the information that the noble Lord has been given.
Lord MELCHETT: I do not think it would affect the compensation. However, if I am wrong perhaps I can write to the noble Viscount and the noble Earl.
The Earl of BALFOUR: Perhaps we may leave this extremely technical point for the moment. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.27 p.m.
Lord MIDDLETON Lord MIDDLETON moved Amendment No. 12A:
Page 4, line 5, at end insert—
("( ) Relevant development shall not include a material change of use of land where the proposed use is, or will be, wholly or mainly by persons who participate in physical recreation on that land by means of organised games, sport or leisure recreation.").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment is to ensure that when land is developed from, say, an agricultural use state to a sport or leisure use state, then that development should not come under the heading of relevant development. The meaning and interpretation of the term "relevant development" in this Bill will also have to be interpreted in like manner for the purposes of the Development Land Tax Bill. Therefore, it seems to me to be desirable to make exempt from public acquisition and taxation a material change of use that results in the use of land for physical recreation. I beg to move.
Lord CORNWALLIS: I should briefly like to support this Amendment, as one who started the playing fields movement some 50 years ago, and who started the counties movement at the same time, where thousands of acres have been given to recreation. We now find some encroachment. If this perfectly ordinary Amendment to safeguard that could be made, it would be a very wise thing to do.
Baroness BIRK: The effect of this Amendment would be to exclude from
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the definition of "relevant development" a material change of use of land where that use is wholly or mainly for sport or recreation. The intention of the Government is that development for the purposes of sport and recreation should not normally come within the operation of the land scheme. The only exception would be major developments such as major sports complexes which are clearly significant in planning terms, and thus ought to fall within the scheme. In any event, these are nearly always ventures in which the local authority is closely involved. But the normal run of recreational development should normally be able to go ahead without public intervention, and the category of excepted development is designed to cover just this sort of case.
There is really no difference between the Government and Opposition on objectives. It is simply a question of how those objectives are to be achieved. The view of the Government is that the right way to exclude development from the definition of relevant development is, in general, by the use of the regulation-making power in Clause 3 of the Bill. We have already indicated the intended scope of these regulations in Annex A to the Paper on the scope of the community land scheme. The two exceptions, of buildings up to 10,000 square feet in floor space and all material changes of use, taken together will except all but major recreational development from the land scheme. It is important to stress here that the Central Council for Physical Recreation and the Sports Council have declared themselves broadly content with this approach. Of course, there will be further consultations with interested bodies on the draft regulations.
The present Amendment is designed to write some exceptions into the Bill itself. This we do not feel is necessary or desirable, although I take very much the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Middleton. First, the power to make regulations has been put into the Bill precisely to cover this kind of situation. It would be wrong to ignore it and instead to write everything into the Bill. In this way we would do away with the flexibility, which is one of the reasons for doing a great deal of this by regulations. Secondly, it is important to get the exceptions right, and here the Opposition Amendment, if I may say so, falls down.

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Take, for example, the case of a golf course. The Amendment would bring the course outside relevant development because it is a change of use of the land, but the building of the club house, so far as the Amendment is concerned, would still be within relevant development. I would not have thought this was the result that we want to achieve. Again the right answer is to leave the exceptions to the regulations; in this way there is time, in consultation with interested bodies, to get it right. The position of Parliament will be fully safeguarded as the regulations will be subject to approval in draft by both Houses of Parliament. If some of the exceptions were in the Bill and some in regulations, this could be even more confusing. It is true that the bodies which are concerned would be far more unhappy than they are with the present situation, in which they feel perfectly reassured at the present time.
Lord HYLTON: I do not know what happens in other counties, but I do know that in Somerset and Avon it is almost unknown for the local authority ever to have to go to compulsory purchase in order to obtain, perhaps, a school playing field. I think the Government ought to be very careful, before they go relying on regulations, that they do not dry up the supply of land for playing fields. If something could be put in the Bill which is reasonably clear, then I think owners would be reassured and would continue to make land available. If, on the other hand, the Government rely on unpublished regulations, owners are likely to take fright and the supply is likely to be cut off.
Lord MIDDLETON: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her explanation that most recreational development will be covered by the Secretary of State's regulations in due course. As I understand the noble Baroness, it will become excepted development. I have no doubt that we shall be hearing other references to the term "excepted" very shortly. Much criticism has been levelled at this Bill on the grounds that there is so much uncertainty at present while we wait for the many regulations that will have to be made under Clause 3(1)(c). May I take this opportunity of asking the noble Baroness whether she can assure
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us that draft regulations will be available in due course for consultations with interested bodies. We can only hope that the regulations that will cover recreational use such as we have been discussing will be made available before too long. Would the noble Baroness like to reply to the question about consultation?
Baroness BIRK: Perhaps I could first reply to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. The regulations will not be unpublished; they are Statutory Instruments and will be published. In many ways the situation will be far better than at the moment from the point of view of recreational development.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, consultations have already taken place. I feel very strongly about this point in any case. Perhaps I might just read something from the Central Council for Physical Recreation, which might reassure the noble Lord. The chairman of the Major Spectator Sports Division reported that at the recent meeting between my Department and the CCPR he had received a full explanation of the intention of the background document, and from what he heard it seemed clear that sport and recreation had very little to fear from the implementation of the Bill, which did not in any way change or override the existing planning rights of the national or local authorities in acquiring land for development purposes. Consequently, it was seen that the Bill should serve as an instrument to alert governing bodies and individual sports clubs to the need under the present law to safeguard their positions by watching carefully any attempts on the part of local authorities through their existing planning rights to acquire land. In short, the Bill supplements the existing planning system. I think that really does tic it up.
I would only repeat that I think one has to realise the disadvantages of trying to spell out everything in the Bill, because one might find one has left out something which perhaps in the near or distant future it becomes very important to include in the Bill, whereas with regulations it would be flexible. As well as what I have just read, the Sports Council is quite satisfied with this. I hope that with this explanation the noble Lord will withdraw this Amendment.
Lord HAWKE: I gather from what the noble Baroness has said that the regulations are likely to be sympathetic to the provision of new golf courses, of which there is a great shortage in this country, both private and municipal. Can she confirm that?
Baroness BIRK: I do not think I ought to go out on a limb, or a club, for one sport or another. I was using it as an example. I think we can take it that the legislation is sympathetic to the provision of sport and the conservation of sport and recreational facilities.
Lord MIDDLETON: I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. I think the Sports Council will be all the more satisfied if the regulations are forthcoming at a very early stage. In view of what the noble Baroness has said, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 3 shall stand part of the Bill?
8.38 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: This is a most important clause in the Bill, and I feel bound to say, in moving a debate on Whether the Clause shall stand part of the Bill?, that a great deal of the difficulty the Government have found in answering questions and in dealing with this Bill has been due to the fears aroused because so much is left still to be determined by regulations which we have not yet seen, of which the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, has quoted very good examples, as has the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. I think these are very real fears, and I think they will have a consequent effect upon peoples' willingness to sell land, because they simply will not understand what the position is. We are, of course, grateful for the crumbs that have been put before us by way of the exceptions to relevant development, and of course the very short explanation that has been given in Annex A, which was circulated shortly before our Second Reading. Nevertheless, a memorandum is not the same as seeing the regulations.
It is important that we should know as much as we can at this stage as to what is to be included in the regulations, what advice the Government are to take on framing them. Apart from
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anything else, they are not going to be in the same category, as I understand it, as the exempted development in Schedule 1. Even if something is an excepted development it will still be possible for a local authority compulsorily to acquire it under Clause 15. It, therefore, is in a very different and a much weaker position. I think everybody should know where they stand on it.
I feel certain that my colleagues will return to subsection (1)(c), but I should like to press the noble Baroness much more on what is meant by subsection (1)(b). One of the great changes from the No. 2 Bill that we had in the House is the complete disappearance of the old Clause 4, which gave an exemption for single plots which were owned on White Paper day. That has all gone. I should like to be quite sure that subsection (1)(b) covers all the instances originally in the Bill under the old Clause 4; that is, the single plot, with all the detailed Amendments that were put into the old Clause 4 as to who might own it and to whom it might eventually be left or be sold.
I should like to be sure that any type of single dwelling is covered by this paragraph. We have already had the answer that a semi-detached house is covered by it. Does that mean that terraced houses are covered? Is a line of terraced houses owned by owner-occupiers also excepted from "relevant development"? If someone owns a single plot, can he sell it to somebody else, and that still be excepted? It does not seem to me that the Bill anywhere makes clear what this means, and as approximately 51 per cent. of the population are owner-occupiers it is essential that they should know where they stand.
It is essential because if we look at Clause 15, the powers of an authority to acquire, again the wording has changed from the No. 2 Bill, where, in the former clause, the reference was to, "relevant development", whereas in this clause we have." land which … is suitable for development," which of course is entirely different from "relevant development".
may be misunderstanding this, but it seems to me that the assurances which the Government have given are not nearly as sound as they would first appear. I should like a clear answer on this point, and I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to supply one.
8.42 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: I should like to support my noble friend Lady Young on this. As it is the first time during this evening that I have contributed to the Committee, I should like to begin my remarks by thanking the noble Baroness and her staff for the lists of notes on clauses which she and her staff have prepared and sent to us. This is much appreciated, and it follows in line with what the noble Baroness said earlier this afternoon from our side and from this Bench:" We have tried to make this as comprehensible as possible. "I appreciate that, but I would point out what a different situation it is from the year 1968. I would draw your Lordships' attention to this particular year because it was the year in which the noble Baroness's previous noble friend on the Front Bench, the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, stood at the Box and introduced an important Bill, the Town and Country Planning Bill of that year.
When he introduced that important Bill to this House, I should like to remind the noble Baroness of the degree of trouble which he and the then Secretary of State, the present noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, took in informing Members of your Lordships' House and of another place on the intention of the Government on two important matters, both the Town and Country Planning Bill and other legislation. It is important to recognise the value of the consultation which then took place. We had certainly long but friendly discussions on those Bills which took place in that year. It is important to stress one further aspect in that the noble Baroness, in bringing before us the list of Amendments and the Schedules under which she believed we should discuss them and which were tabled at such a late hour this afternoon, introduced a somewhat difficult problem for your Lordships.
I turn from that to the essence of this clause. It is on the definition. It is a definition of "relevant development". I base my remarks largely on the terms used. We have recurring throughout the Bill the phrases, "relevant development", "exempt development", and "excepted development". I suggest that these are unfortunate choices of words. I take first the two, "exempt development" and "excepted development"; two English
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words as like, as one might expect, two peas—" Tweedledum development" and "Tweedledee development". The point is that they are similar except at their extremities. One is equipped with shoes, the other with boots, and they both kick. I believe that the terminology suggested by the Government is misleading and difficult for those who have to interpret and use the Bill, and I sincerely believe—though it is not for the Opposition to recommend terms—that the Government ought to think again about the respective terms they use. We believe that "relevant development" in this case is a bad choice; we believe that "excepted development" is a bad choice; and we believe that "exempt development" is a bad choice. We suggest to the noble Baroness that she "throws six" and starts again.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: I do not know whether I should be allowed to make a third speech from the Front Bench, but it is a narrow point. The noble Baroness may know that when I am not occupied on debating the Community Land Bill in your Lordships' House I am doing so outside. One of the disadvantages of the method of legislating which the present Government seem to be so entirely devoted to—which is by introducing a White Paper and some years later producing legislation to implement it (or one year at least), and then subordinate legislation to follow—is that people get a little confused about what is to be the law at the end of it all.
The point that my noble friend Lord Sandys has made about the helpfulness of some of the ancillary documents which have been produced is entirely endorsed by me, and they have been very helpful to me in this House and elsewhere. However, I wonder whether, in the course of answering this short debate, the noble Baroness could help me on one specific point. In the White Paper there was an arrangement whereby building land, land owned by builders on White Paper day, was to be exempted from most, if not all, of the processes in the Bill. It accords with my recollection that it was not only land in the freehold ownership of a builder on White Paper day but land which was subject to a binding contract by the builder to buy on White Paper day; that too, was to be exempt from the processes of this Bill. And so it says in

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various learned commentaries and journals which have discussed this matter. Annex A to the document The Scope of the Community Land Scheme, produced for the purposes of your Lordships and, I think, for those in another place, does not mention binding contracts, and those who have all this time thought that land which was subject to a binding contract on White Paper day are now faced with paragraph (2) which simply refers to freehold ownership on White Paper day.
As we are talking, among other things, about what is going to be in the regulations, I believe that a number of people would be greatly aided if they knew whether it was still land subject to a binding contract or only land which has actually been transferred and was in freehold ownership on White Paper day. It is only a small point, but I suppose it has caused me, and a number of people who have come to talk to me, about five or six hours of consultation and discussion. I have no idea how many other thousands of people in Britain have been equally perplexed by the discrepancy, and I think perhaps even now it would be a very good thing if we could get it cleared up.
8.50 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: As this Committee stage goes on and on I begin to think that I was too generous in the way in which I handed out all these papers; perhaps we have been too helpful to noble Lords opposite. I will begin by answering the point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and, not being a planning lawyer, if I do not get it right I will write to him and let him know the answer. I think he used the word "exempted", but what he is I believe referring to is any case that is "excepted" and not "exempt".
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: I did, and I am sorry; I should have said "excepted".
Baroness BIRK: What is excepted from the scheme is the development and not the land itself, and we have to keep this in mind all the way through. I accept that it becomes confusing and this is understandable because the word "land" is used when we are talking about development. In the case of categories which depend on the ownership of land and buildings, ownership is
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to be taken as extending to being under a binding contract to purchase, which I think answers the noble Viscount's question.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: That, therefore, should be interpolated into the paragraph in the very helpful Annexe—"Freehold includes land where there is a binding contract to purchase." I am very much obliged to the noble Baroness.
Baroness BIRK: If the noble Viscount will look at the general notes he will see there is a note which says:
"… any development carried out on land which was in the freehold ownership of a builder or of a residential or industrial developer on 12th September 1974. This exception"—
not exemption in this case—
"will continue if the land is subsequently sold to another builder or developer."
I hope that that is satisfactory and not only helps with the understanding of the Bill, but also helps the noble Viscount in his other, more remunerative, work outside.
I turn to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. She and the noble Lord, Lord Sandys—and I will deal with these points together to save time, because the questions they asked are closely bound together—asked about relevant development and exempt and excepted development. "Relevant development", as the noble Lord pointed out, is the key definition which determines the scope of the land scheme, and it is intended to cover all development which is significant for the purposes of the scheme and where, when the full duty finally becomes operative, development should not he allowed to take place until the land is in, or has passed through, public ownership. This is the factor which determines the scope of the initial duty under Clause 17. I will not go further into that at this point because we will be considering the way it works out when we come to the later parts of the Bill, from Clause 17 onwards.
The definition in Clause 3 works by exclusion. In other words, it takes out of relevant development all development which is not significant for the purposes of the land scheme and which leaves all other development to fall within relevant

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development. The exclusions from relevant development are of two types. First, there is "exempt development", which is set out in Schedule 1 to the Bill. This is development which does not fall even within the acquisition power under Clause 15 and which is therefore unaffected by the land scheme. Given the objectives of the scheme, it is clear that this must be limited to relatively minor development.
When we come to excepted development, this is the category which covers the building, mentioned by the noble Baroness, of a single dwelling house and also any other development included in regulations made under Clause 3. What is excepted here is the building of the house. I hesitate to say that the noble Baroness was not clear about this, but it did not come over very clearly to me. In any event, it has nothing to do with excluding existing houses from acquisition, nor indeed did the former Clause 4. What is excepted is the building of a house. Clause 3(1)(b) covers all the circumstances of the old Clause 4 and goes much wider, because it covers any type of single dwelling, single detached, semi-detached, terraced or a self-contained flat.
Excepted development is development which will normally be able to go ahead without the land having to pass through public ownership and is therefore outside the general duty under Clause 17, the full duty under Clause 18, and all the provisions relating to the suspension of planning permission in Clauses 19 to 22, and no doubt we shall hear much more about that when we reach those clauses. This is, I think, the important point about which the noble Baroness was asking. Although excepted development is within the acquisition powers under Clause 15, there is a very strong presumption that this power will not normally be used, and in line with this, paragraph 1(2) of Schedule 4 specifically disapplies the changes in compulsory purchase procedures in Schedule 4 from any proposed acquisition for the purposes of excepted development. Excepted development will be defined in regulations subject to the Affirmative Resolution procedure, and, as I pointed out previously, these will be published and will be Statutory Instruments. The Government's
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proposals for what should be included in those regulations have now been made public and are contained in Annex A of the Paper Scope of the Community Land Scheme, but the precise definition of these will need further consideration in consultation with interested parties once the draft regulations are available.
The presumption with excepted development is that public acquisition will not normally be needed for such development. There will, however, be cases where it is right that authorities should intervene. An obvious example is where they could use their powers, perhaps buying by agreement, to facilitate recreational or small industrial development which would not otherwise take place. The powers would also be available for reasons of positive planning; here the authority would have to show that satisfactory development could not be achieved without public acquisition.
Both exempt and excepted development relate solely to development, and not to the land on which the development is proposed to take place. There will, of course, be nothing to prevent an authority from acquiring land for relevant development, even though there may be proposals for development which fall within excepted development. For example, an authority might want to buy land for a larger, more comprehensive scheme even though these were individual proposals for piecemeal development which would be within the excepted category. This is clearly essential if the necessary flexibility that the "excepted development" approach provides is not to lead to a highly undesirable distortion in the pattern of development.
Any development which is not excluded from relevant development by these exclusions will then fall within relevant development. But this definition must then be read in conjunction with the definition of "development land" in Clause 17(4) of the Bill, which defines development land as land needed for relevant development within 10 years. Only when all these definitions are satisfied will the development fall within the land scheme. I am sure that this is all quite simple and clear to noble Lords!
Several Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness BIRK: This is an important point and I thought noble Lords would

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welcome a full explanation of it, although we shall no doubt be discussing it at further stages of the Bill. The important point about the excepted part of the scheme is that there is the power to acquire but not the duty, and acquisition will be agreed to only in exceptional circumstances. Indeed, there may well be sale by agreement in some cases. If this is not so, then there may have to be a compulsory purchase order but there would always be an inquiry. As for the specific inclusion of the single dwelling house in the Bill, the point to which the noble Baroness drew attention—it being in the Bill rather than being put in regulations with the various other exceptions—we thought it right that this should be put into the Bill, because it was the result of a promise in the White Paper.
So far as the rest is concerned, once again, by putting it into the regulations we get the flexibility we consider desirable. Noble Lords have concentrated on the worry of restrictions, but they should also put their minds to the point that we may one day want to add to what is proposed now, and they would not want to constrict the future by writing everything into the Bill. If there are regulations, they can be added to. As I have pointed out, those regulations would have to be put before Parliament. It is surely better to have something flexible which can be added to, rather than make definite decisions now which would be binding for the future.
As to the situation of the owner-occupier with which the noble Baroness is very concerned, I would point out that we on this side of the Committee are also extremely concerned. The percentage of owner-occupation in this country has gone up progressively and has risen considerably more under successive Labour Governments than under Conservative Governments. As well as considering as we do that this is socially necessary, we must recognise that it would be very politically inept not to be conversant with this and very concerned about it. I feel that, as a result of consultations with outside organisations, and consideration of points put forward in another place we have now got the relationship between relevant development and exempted and excepted development right. I hope that the noble Baroness and noble Lords opposite will now be
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satisfied on this point of the Bill. If there are further points of detail, and points to be picked up which were raised on other clauses, perhaps we can save them for the clauses concerned when we reach them.
Lord SANDFORD: I think we are getting on rather well. When the noble Baroness started, I thought that we were doing particularly well, but she rather spoilt it when she read the last three pages of her brief. It is a great gain to have got rid of old Clauses 4 and 5, with all the qualifications and cautions which they contained, but, if I understood her earlier remarks aright, we have reached a happy position if she is correct in claiming that, like us, she is in favour of owner-occupation. I wish all her Labour colleagues in councils up and down the country were as much so, but it seems to me, leaving that to one side and to sum up for her, that we have now reached a position—and I hope that she will be able to confirm this—in which there is nothing in the Bill at present and will be nothing in regulations in the future to stand in the way of anybody who wants to build a single house anywhere and at any time. If that is the situation, it would be very helpful if the noble Baroness could say so roundly.
Baroness BIRK: As I understand it, that is clear, unless it came within the regulations made for agricultural land or specific recreational facilities, in which case I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Sand ford, would find that his noble friend Lord Middleton, who moved a previous Amendment, would take issue with him. On the question of the single dwelling-house, that is certainly in the Bill and I would go further and make it clear that exceptions include also up to an acre of ground and that this means that the small infilling plot of 10,000 square feet floor space and 15,000 square feet of industrial floor space also come within these powers. I must say that I feel there has been not only a great deal of panic but also a considerable amount of bogey-making in all this. It is absolutely wrong to behave as though individual houses are being snatched away from people or as if they will not be able to build homes for themselves. This is quite wrong. It is not in the Bill and it never has been.
Lord MIDDLETON: Would the noble Baroness confirm that the single dwelling house will be excepted but not exempted?
Baroness BIRK: The single dwelling house is actually within the Bill; it is excepted. What would matter in a particular case would be planning permission, but the general permission to develop a single dwelling house is in the Bill now. Also, a small group of houses or flats is now within the excepted provisions. It is quite untrue that the owner-occupier of his own home is at any risk at all from the Bill.
Lord MIDDLETON: I should like to make the point—because surely the only exempted development is that within Schedule 1—that therefore the single dwelling house which is not in Schedule 1 must be excepted and therefore liable to compulsory purchase.
Baroness BIRK: It is excepted, but whereas in the Bill it says that the other exceptions will be made under regulations, the Bill itself refers in subsection (1) to the building of a single dwelling house. It is specifically mentioned in the Bill and for the reason I gave. It is excepted. It is not exempt, but nevertheless it is there and written into the Bill, and I am sure the noble Lord will understand the point I have made about planning permission which applies today as well.
Baroness YOUNG: I feel that this has been a very useful discussion. Apart from anything else, we shall be able to read the noble Baroness's explanation and decide what it means. I am sure that this will throw a great deal of light for her noble friends who, I am sure, listened intently to what the legislation means and it will give a great deal of point to our later Amendments when we come to consider the individual's rights in compulsory purchase procedures and in other matters, in understanding which bit of development he falls into—relevant development, excepted development, exempted development or the development of the building plot for a single dwelling house.
The confusion is made considerably greater because we now have it quite clear that subsection (1)(b) replaces old Clause
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4. It is not at all concerned with owner-occupied houses which are not excepted or exempted from the Bill; it concerns only the plot of land. If fears have been raised, they have been entirely justified. Nobody has been going around scare mongering. But in the original Bill any one who had a single plot, unless he owned it before the White Paper day, was not excluded from the provisions of the Bill. It would be entirely fortuitous as to whether or not the purchase of land was completed before this extraordinary date of 12th September 1974; an entirely arbitrary decision.
If one considers the Bill as a whole, it is perfectly clear that the proposals mean that increasing amounts of land will be brought into public ownership. Nothing which the noble Baroness, or any other Member of the Government Front Bench, has said can lead one to any other conclusion. Therefore to suggest that no one has anything to fear is of course untrue. We have added to that the fact that much of the Bill is very unclear and very difficult to understand. I am at least grateful that the exemption for building plots, as a result of Opposition activities, has been extended at least to include all of them—those post-White Paper day as well as those before White Paper day.
Lord SANDYS: I wish to reinforce what my noble friend said. I do not wish to embarrass the noble Baroness, or cause her too much further anguish at this rather late hour, but I wish to ask her whether she is aware that when my noble friend Lord Middleton asked whether a house was exempted or excepted there was a moment's hesitation in verbalising. This is the point we find complicated on this side. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross will not mind my saying that he finds it difficult; indeed, all of us find it difficult to choose which it is, exempt or except. This will recur again and again. Thousands of people will be worrying about these two words. They are far too similar, far too close in length, and far too similar in size and in pronunciation. Anyone who is a student of the problem of speech will agree with me that there is a great problem here.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Exempt development]:
9.12 p.m.
The Earl of BALFOUR The Earl of BALFOUR moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 51, line 7, at end insert—
("1A. Development falling within Schedule 8 to the Act of 1971 or in Scotland falling within Schedule 6 of the Scottish Act of 1972.
1B. Development falling within any of the classes specified in paragraph 7 and 8 of Schedule 3 to the Finance Act 1974 as read with paragraph 10 of that Schedule (but not already exempted by virtue of paragraphs I and lA above.").
The noble Earl said: I wish to explain briefly that this Amendment is an attempt to extend slightly in legislation some of the provisions of the exempt development. The clause which we have just been through refers to the development of,
"such class or classes as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State. …"
Although I understand that papers will be issued on what is included, the Secretary of State still completely has the right to change his mind. Paragraphs lA and 1B in my Amendment are intended to allow for cases where there is rebuilding or improvement of property, development not constituting new development which comes into the Schedules to the Acts of 1971 and 1972, and also in paragraphs 7 and 8 of Schedule 3 to the Finance Act. There are developments such as those involving the small shopkeeper. Bearing in mind changes that have taken place, such people as the small shopkeeper need some protection. He is a tremendous asset to the community, and we are concerned here with a rather important point. I beg to move.
Lord FOOT: Apart from any other objection, there is now general agreement in the Committee that this Bill is already extremely complicated, and I am absolutely horrified by the suggestion that we should introduce into Schedule 1 these two paragraphs which refer to other legislation, and which, I suggest, would reduce the Schedule almost to a state of complete meaninglessness. If the noble Earl wants to achieve his purpose, I suggest that he might translate this into language which ordinary people could comprehend, and not frame his Amendments by reference to the Act of 1971, the Scottish Act of 1972, and the Finance Act of 1974.
Lord MELCHETT: I should like to echo what the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has said. I am afraid that once again the noble Earl has caught me out, because I think I misunderstood the effects that his Amendments we reattempting to achieve, so I should like to study what he has said. Basically, however, we talked at some length on a previous Amendment about the problem of rebuilding within certain limits, and what I said about it then applies, if that is what the noble Earl is wanting to achieve here, in much the same way. We accept that there must be some rebuilding within the limitations of Schedule 8, but we do not think it would be wise to extend this any further than it is already in the Bill because of the problems on the two fronts, both on the grounds of planning and on the grounds of the compensation which will be payable when we come to the second appointed day. But, as I say, I had misunderstood what the noble Earl's Amendments were attempting to achieve when he first put them down, so I should like to look at them and at what he has said since, and perhaps we could return to this at another stage.
The Earl of BALFOUR: I wonder if I may add one other word and ask the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, whether he will have a look at this, too. For the first time in the discussion on the Bill I think I should declare an interest, though it is a very small one even now. Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 says:
"The carrying out, on land which is used for the purposes of agriculture or forestry, of any building or other operations required for the purposes of that use, other than operations for the erection of dwelling houses"—
that is fair enough; they are covered—
"or operations for the erection, improvement or alteration of buildings used for the purposes of market gardens, nursery grounds or timber yards …".
I do not have a market garden but I have a tiny nursery, though that is almost immaterial. However, I feel that market gardens, certainly, are quite important food producers. When the noble Lord looks at the rest of it I wonder whether be will consider why these have been excluded, as I feel that they really come into the same sort of class as farming.
Lord MELCHETT: Here I am on stronger ground. We come to a discussion of this on, I think, Amendment No.

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14A, which the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, and his noble friends will be moving, and it may be sensible if we discuss the point at that stage of the proceedings.
The Earl of BALFOUR: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of BALFOUR The Earl of BALFOUR moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 51, line 9, after ("agriculture") insert (",fish farming").
The noble Earl said: Very briefly, I want to include fish farming, which is now developing into quite a major food producer in this country. Again, I am wondering whether or not this is something that should be introduced as an exemption, because it is food producing. I beg to move.
Lord MELCHETT: I sense the absence of the noble Baroness from the Back Benches opposite as we come to discuss this Amendment. However, I can tell the noble Earl that it is not necessary. Agriculture is defined in Section 290 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, and this definition is specifically included in Clause 4(1) of the Bill. The definition includes,
"… the breeding and keeping of livestock (including any creature kept for the production of food …)",
and thus extends to fish farming. I hope that that reassures the noble Earl.
The Earl of BALFOUR: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.18 p.m.
Lord MIDDLETON Lord MIDDLETON moved Amendment No. 14A:
Page 51, line 11, leave out from ("dwelling. houses") to end of line 15.
The noble Lord said: Clause 3(1) says:
"'relevant development' means any development except—
(a) development of any class specified in Schedule 1 to this Act".
One of our complaints when we looked at the No. 2 Bill in August was that although the Minister had indicated that agricultural and forestry development would be exempted development, and that the land on which it was to take place would not be liable to public acquisition,
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there was nothing in that Bill to say so. We now have an altered Clause 3 accompanied by this Schedule 1, which says in paragraph 2:
"The carrying out, on land which is used for the purposes of agriculture or forestry, of any building or other operations required for the purposes of that use",
will be exempt development. I am sure that for this the agriculture industry would be duly grateful, were it not for the wording of the rest of this paragraph. If we turn to the definition, to which the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, has just referred, in Clause 4 of this Bill, we find that,
"agriculture' has the meaning assigned to it by section 290 of the Act of 1971";
that is, the Town and Country Planning Act 1971. In this definition "agriculture" includes "horticulture" and also the use of land, not only for fish farming but for market gardens and nursery grounds among many other uses. It therefore seems extraordinary and wholly inconsistent that when we go on to read the rest of paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 we see the words:
"… other than operations for the erection of dwelling-houses or operations for the erection, improvement or alteration of buildings used for the purposes of market gardens, nursery grounds or timber yards …"
and so on. This means that the erection of houses on agricultural land will not be exempt development. I should like later to refer to houses. It also means that what will also fall outside the category of exempt development will be certain forms of horticultural development even though they are agricultural development, as defined earlier in the Bill.
What seems to have happened is that the words in this paragraph have been lifted out of the Planning Acts. This paragraph is word for word the same as paragraph 4 of Schedule 8 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 and also was included in the 1947, 1951, 1954 and 1962 Planning Acts. But in the Planning Acts these words were used in connection with the payment of compensation for the refusal of planning permission in certain circumstances. We feel strongly that the definition is being wrongly used in this Bill in the context of the scope of public acquisition of development land. Surely the Government do not intend to leave general agriculture alone and yet to purchase sites

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for horticultural development! This Amendment seeks to treat horticulture in the same way as general agriculture. If the erection of buildings for general farming purposes is to be exempt, it seems quite wrong that buildings for market gardens and nursery grounds should not also be exempt.
With respect to houses that might be built on agricultural land, this Amendment admits the exclusion from exemption of the erection of farm dwelling houses in paragraph 2 of Schedule 1; but, having said that, the treatment of houses properly to be built for agricultural occupation seems in this Bill to be vague and uncertain. From the discussions we have just had on Clause 3, I suppose that a new farmhouse or farm cottages could be excepted under Clause 3(1)(b). If the Secretary of State decides to make an appropriate regulation, such a building could also be excepted under Clause 3(1)(c). I do not want to confuse the main purpose of this Amendment, but if some clarification can be made about housing I know that the agricultural industry will be most grateful. The main purpose of this Amendment is to remove what seems to be a glaring anomaly affecting horticulture. I beg to move.
Earl FERRERS: We are concerned over this because, as my noble friend said, Schedule 1 hives off horticulture from agriculture. It is also complicated by the fact that it excludes horticulture from the exemptions; so that when people talk about this Bill being complicated, that is the first complication because it contains a double negative. In the last two hours three noble Lords who are not renowned for being stupid have come to me to say: "Why are you doing this? You are excluding horticulture from the Bill. "I try to explain that by this Amendment we are trying to include horticulture with agriculture. If agriculture has the protection which it has under the Schedule and under Clause 3, we think it wholly appropriate that horticulture should have the same protection. If the requirements of agriculture are important—and nobody should or would underestimate the necessity of agriculture and the importance that should be given to it in this Bill—then this applies equally to horticulture. Under the Bill as it is at the moment the small market garden buildings get less of a protection
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than large agricultural buildings. If we look at Schedule 1, at the beginning of paragraph 2, it says:
"The carrying out, on land which is used for the purposes of agriculture …"
If we try to find out what "agriculture" means, we turn to Clause 4, and we see that agriculture is defined as follows:
""agriculture" has the meaning assigned to it by Section 290 of the Act of 1971 …".
If we look at the Act of 1971 it says that "agriculture" includes "horticulture". So the very definition of "agriculture" which is included in Schedule 1 includes "horticulture". Yet, the same paragraph proceeds to exclude it. That is wrong, and I hope that the Government will agree that it is wrong.
If we go on a little further, we see that paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 exempts agriculture or forestry. It goes on to remove from that exemption buildings used for the purposes of market gardens, nursery grounds or timber yards. In that Schedule you have the fact that "forestry" is not excluded from the exemptions, but "forestry buildings" are. You have the situation where "agriculture" is exempted, "agricultural buildings" are exempted and "forestry" is exempted, but "forestry buildings" are not exempted. In other words, if forestry and agriculture are both to be exempted, and if you wished to put up a building under 5,000 sq. ft. in size, such as a cow shed or barn, you are entitled to do so. But if forestry is exempted and you wish to put up a building in connection with forestry of under 5,000 sq. ft., you cannot do so. I think this is an anomaly and I hope the Government will agree that it is.
The Earl of BALFOUR: Paragraphs 2 and 3 of Schedule 1 are almost identical, word for word, to paragraphs 4 and 5 of Schedule 6 to the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1972, which is almost word for word the same as Schedule 8 to the 1971 Act. Obviously, it has been taken from there, and I respectfully think that the draughtsman has got it wrong. That Schedule refers to development not ranking for compensation, and a few things like that.
Lord SANDYS: I should like to support my noble friends Lord Middleton and Lord Ferrers. I believe this Amendment to be very necessary. I come from

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a part of the world where market gardening and agriculture take place side by side and are almost indistinguishable from one another because there is such a haze between the two. I should like to declare an interest, as I have already done, in that I am an owner. I believe it very misleading to suggest that horticulture is precisely definable. The Parliamentary draughtsman believes it is; but in our part of the world, in the Vale of Evesham, it is perfectly possible to have a cabbage farm. One can speak about a market garden holding and imagine something between one acre and 50 acres, but surely in this Bill, or indeed in other legislation, the words "farm" or "holding" are not necessarily defined according to their size in acres or hectares. For that reason alone. I believe it is important to bring horticulture into the same ambit as agriculture.
With regard to forestry, and the point made by my noble friend Lord Ferrers, there are many instances where enterprising small companies have set up saw-mills and other timber buildings with the intention of making forestry a manageable and satisfactory industry in quite small circumstances. This is not in opposition to the Forestry Commission but it is a private element of industry which is very badly needed by the farmer—for instance, to produce stakes, rails and every type of timber material which are so frequently needed in the countryside, made from home-grown materials. Perhaps here it is relevant to quote the Government's White Paper, Food from our own Resources. If the Government are still unconvinced by what my noble friends have said on this matter, I hope they will take into account what my noble friend Lord Balfour has said, because although he said he was going to add a few words, his words are usually long and particularly pertinent.
I do not think it should be left out of account, either, that glasshouses, with regard to horticulture, are not an insignificant matter. Your Lordships will remember that the Scilly Isles are included in the ambit of the Bill, and a very important horticultural industry exists in that part of the world, with very large areas of glasshouses producing a very valuable income. In some cases this involves the export of flowers, fruit and vegetables. Here is an instance of an industry where
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a vast amount of capital is tied up with a great deal of equipment and the expenses incurred over heating and constant repairs. They are extremely expensive buildings to erect and very expensive to maintain. It seems particularly unfair on a horticulturalist, shall I say, in the Isles of Scilly to exclude him from the situation, as against someone in Hampshire who runs a holding of a somewhat similar size which is a farm. It appears to me that the Government have made a mistake and I hope that by accepting this Amendment they will remedy that.
Lord DIGBY: I too declare an interest. I have a farm, and connected with it is a small sawmills and small market garden. Under the terms of this Bill, it seems to me that I shall be exempted, as my horticultural operations arc connected with general farming, whereas my next-door neighbour, who has only a small market garden, will be caught by the provisions and will not be exempted. This seems to me to be an anomaly and to be very unfair.
Lord SOMERS: I should like to support this Amendment and to ask the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, whom I do not think probably has ever indulged in forestry, whether he is aware that when one cuts down trees in forestry lands one is bound to plant others to take their place. Where is one to get them if there are to be, apparently, no nursery gardens? What is the point of taking part in forestry at all if there are to be no timber yards? As to nursery gardens, is this another attempt on the part of the Government to do away with the small man? The small market gardener is absolutely essential to the horticultural and agricultural life of the country.
Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY: I think the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, will remember that I raised this particular point on Second Reading and she said she would write to me, or maybe she said she would consider it, but at least she seemed very sympathetic. I hope therefore that she is prepared to accept my noble friend's Amendment. I should like to ask her two questions specifically on this subject. First, if I, for instance, take a chicken shed on a general farm, that I assume is exempt; but if, on the other hand. I live down the road on a small horticultural holding it is only

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excepted. I hope she will confirm that because it seems to me a bit of a muddle.
Secondly, I should like to ask about compensation. As I understand it, the effect of the exclusion of horticulture, its not being classified as "agriculture" in this sense, means in fact at the end of the day, I think after the second appointed day, less compensation for the horticulturist as opposed to the general farmer. If this is so, I cannot see the sense or indeed the fairness of it. It may be that noble Lords opposite will not mind paying extra money for their vegetables to make up for this discrimination against the horticulturist, but somehow I feel that their wives might not quite take that line.
9.37 p.m.
Lord MELCHETT: Perhaps I should start by replying to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Somers. I am not a forester but I am a farmer and, as it happens, currently engaged in felling and replanting an area of trees. That applies to that question. He asked me whether this was—I think he said—another part of the Government's programme to do away with the small man. The answer is, no, it is not. He then asserted that there would be no nursery gardens and no more timber yards. The answer to both those assertions is that they are not the case at all. This does not affect the provision of nursery gardens or timber yards; we are talking basically about a compensation point here.
The noble Lord, Lord Stanley, asked whether a building on a farm would be exempt but a building on a horticultural holding be excepted. The answer to that is, yes. He then went on to say that this meant less compensation for horticulturists. I do not think that is so. I think that if the Amendment which has been moved by noble Lords opposite is carried we should be in the anomalous situation of giving far more compensation in regard to certain types of land than to others, but I will come to that point in a minute.
As I have said before, the definition of "exempt development" is used for two purposes in the Bill: to define the scope of the acquisition power in Clause 15—that is the first purpose—and, together with Schedule 8 to the 1971 Act,
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to set the level of current use value in Clause 25. So it has both the purpose of defining the extent of the power and setting what are the things to be included in the current use value when that is calculated. To take first the latter point, the current use value point, the definition used in paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 to the Bill is taken, as the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, said, straight from paragraph 4 of Schedule 8 to the 1971 Act. This definition has been used ever since 1947 to define what is included within the current use value of land.
I discovered during the proceedings of the Committee stage today that it is difficult to think of anything more calculated to upset noble Lords opposite than to tell them that something was in the 1971 Act. Indeed, the only thing that seems to upset them more is to tell them that their honourable friend Mr. Rossi agreed with something the Government had done—and they then immediately march into the Division Lobby against us. I have no doubt that, as it is agricultural interests which are being defended tonight, we are about to see another Division regardless of anything I have to say. The Government believe that it is right to stick to this definition, the definition taken from the 1971 Act, for the purpose of defining the level of current use value after the second appointed day. It would be strange if the bringing in of the second appointed day led to a raising of the existing value floor which has been in existence since 1947.
So far as the scope of the acquisition power is concerned—and this may be what is mainly concerning noble Lords opposite; I am not sure—there is always room for argument about the precise definition to be adopted; but whatever view is taken of the definition of "exempt development" it has been made clear that any agricultural development which is within the powers will be covered in the excepted development regulations and that compulsory powers will not generally be available for buying such development. What that means is that, so far as agriculture, horticulture and forestry are concerned, in practice it confers the power to acquire the land used for that development. Do not let us forget that it is the land which is to be developed in a certain way which matters and not the land itself because the power applies to the

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development, not to the land. In practice, it makes very little difference because either it will be exempt or excepted.
While it is true that the bulk of the development covered by the words that Amendment No. 14A proposes to admit could scarcely ever be the subject of acquisition by an authority the possibility cannot be completely ruled out. For example, an authority may be able to use their powers to make land available for a timber yard in or near an urban area. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Somers, is noting that I am saying that the authority might want to make land available for a new timber yard, not to close down one that is at present run by a small man. A large timber yard may be much more akin to an industrial than to an agricultural use. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, used the words "industrial development" when referring to timber yards.
Lord SANDYS: No, I did not.
Lord MELCHETT: The noble Lord certainly used the word "industry" when he was talking about small timber yards. He agrees with me on that point, because I see that he is nodding.
Earl FERRERS: Would not the noble Lord agree that agriculture is an industry?
Lord MELCHETT: Yes, I would: I am saying that this is an industrial development, not that it is not. That is a double negative which I know the noble Earl is not very keen on! For these reasons we think it best to stick to the wording in the 1971 Act which is well tried and well understood. The Government's intentions are that general farming operations and forestry proper should be right outside the scope of the scheme, and this is what paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 achieves. To widen the field to cover more intensive operations and ancillary developments like timber yards could mean that the acquisition power would not he available in cases where its use could be helpful and justifiable, and I understand that it would have unacceptable implications for the definition of current use value after the second appointed day.
9.43 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, for what he has said but I do not think he has addressed himself to the arguments which were advanced. The arguments were based on one point—that horticulture has been deliberately excluded from agriculture. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, based his argument several times in his last speech, and also in the previous Amendment of my noble friend Lord Balfour on fish farming, on what appears in the 1971 Act. The definition of agriculture which appears in the 1971 Act says that agriculture includes horticulture. If the noble Lord bases his argument on the 1971 Act, he must surely accept that that includes horticulture. With the greatest respect, he has not made one convincing argument why horticulture should not have the same protection as is given to agriculture.
Lord MIDDLETON: Nor can I find anything remotely convincing in what the noble Lord has said. If he says that the reason why horticulture has been excluded, completely illogically, is on the ground that less compensation should be paid to horticulturists than to agriculturalists, I find this quite extraordinary. If it is a matter of assessment of the current use value, the fact that compensation and the matter of assessment of the current use value for horticulturists should not be on all fours with ordinary farmers seems to me to be quite extraordinary. I object to the noble Lord's remark about agricultural interests. We are talking about the nation's food production. Horticulturists produce a most important part of the nation's food. I should have thought that it was the duty of this Committee to ensure that this production is done economically and that horticulturists are not put under an unfair financial burden. They will be if this Schedule is left unaltered.
The noble Lord referred to the wording of the 1971 Act. I have already pointed out that the wording here is completely inappropriate in the context of public acquisition, and I find his arguments entirely unconvincing. I see no reason to withdraw my Amendment and I think that the Committee should decide.
Lord COLLISON: I have carefully listened to my noble friend Lord Melchett and other speakers, and I must confess that I am not fully conversant with the intricacies of the Bill and its antecedents. But the simple question was put by a number of noble Lords of whether horticulture would be covered, and I did not understand my noble friend Lord Melchett to say that it would be so covered. I am sorry that I have to say this of my own people, but for the life of me I cannot see why horticultural holdings should not get the same treatment as agricultural holdings.
Lord MELCHETT: If I may interrupt my noble friend, I think he has picked up a misconception that was relayed in one of the remarks made by noble Lords opposite. The land is not affected; it is the development on the land that is affected. So horticultural land is treated in exactly the same way as agricultural land. What we are talking about is horticultural development or agricultural development.
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
The Earl of BALFOUR: I wonder whether I may just prove for one moment that this is not the case. If we go back to Clause 3(1)(a), it says,
"In this Act 'relevant development' means any development except—
(a) development of any class specified in Schedule 1 to this Act,"
Let us now look at the middle of paragraph 2 of Schedule 1, which states,
"other than operations for the erection, … improvement or alteration of buildings used for the purposes of market gardens, nursery grounds or timber yards or for other purposes not connected with general farming operations".
If that is not excluding it, I cannot see how more clearly I can show that we on this side of the Committee are right.
9.48 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 14A) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 62; Not. Contents, 26.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Falkland, V.

O'Hagan, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Ferrers, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Ferrier, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Atholl, D.

Gage, V.

Redesdale, L.

Balfour, E.

Gainford, L.

Ridley, V.

Belstead, L.

Glasgow, E.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Berkeley, B.

Gore-Booth, L.

Salisbury, M.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Gowrie, E.

Sandford, L.

Carrington, L.

Gridley, L.

Sandys, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Savile, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Somers, L.

Colwyn, L.

Hylton, L.

Stamp, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Inglewood, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

De L'Isle, V.

London, Bp.

Strathclyde, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Long, V.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Digby, L.

Lyell, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mansfield, E.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Dundee, E.

Margadale, L.

Sudeley, L.

Elles, B.

Merrivale, L.

Vickers, B.

Eliot of Harwood, B.

Middleton, L.

Vivian, L.

Elton, L. [Teller.]

Northchurch, B.

Young, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Gardiner, L.

Maelor, L.

Birk, B.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Melchett, L.

Brockway, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Champion, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Shepherd, L (L. Privy Seal.)

Crook, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Elwyn-Jones, L. (Lord Chancellor.)

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Lovell-Davis, L. [Teller.]

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Foot, L.

Lyons of Brighton, L.

Winterbottom, L.

9.55 p.m.
The Earl of BALFOUR The Earl of BALFOUR moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 51, line 21, at end insert—
(". Development for the erection or alteration of any building, which when erected or altered would be eligible for reduction in rates under sections 39 and 40 of the General Rate Act 1967 or in Scotland sections 22 and 23 of the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act 1956.").
The noble Earl said: This is the first of two Amendments of a similar nature that I have put down. The reason behind this Amendment is to try to exclude the development for the erection or alteration of buildings like churches, village halls, places for recreational or educational purposes, which at the present moment are normally eligible for a reduction in rates, certainly under the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, and I believe and I hope I have got the correct sections applying to the English Act in the same field. Buildings like village halls have almost no rates levied on them, and certainly are eligible by law to a 50 per cent. reduction in most cases where exerciseable liquor is not consumed on the premises; also churches are exempt under the rating laws.
I feel this is important. I feel very strongly about this. Populations move from place to place and there are new town developments. I feel it is very important that buildings such as churches and church halls should be built without having to pay the development tax provided for under the Bill. They are being built for the benefit of the community, and this is to be a Community Land Bill. That is the reasoning behind this Amendment, although perhaps the drafting is not perfect. Nevertheless, that is the object of the exercise. I beg to move.
9.56 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: The effect of the Amendment which has been moved by the noble Earl would be to take all development for the purposes of churches, charities and other institutions and organisations listed in subsection (5) of Section 40 of the General Rate Act 1967 out of the land scheme. It goes considerably beyond the special provisions for churches and charities which were announced by the Minister on 15th July in another place. It would include developments by such institutions and organisations as are mentioned in subsection
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(5)(b) and (c) of Section 40 of the General Rate Act 1967; namely,
"any other hereditament which is occupied for the purposes of one or more institutions or other organisations which are not established or conducted for profit and whose main objects are charitable or are otherwise philanthropic or religious or concerned with education, social welfare, science, literature or the fine arts; and
(c) any other hereditament which is occupied for the purposes of a club, society or other organisation not established or conducted for profit and is wholly or mainly used for purposes of recreation."
Such a definition as in subsection (5)(b) would include bodies whose purposes could go far wider than strict charities; for example, ones with the aim of changing the law in one way or another. They would therefore be regarded as too political to be treated as charities in the ordinary sense. Such a definition as is to be found in subsection (5)(c) would include clubs which are not truly public, since their rules are sufficiently exclusive to prevent their membership from being available to the general public, which, if I may say so, is at the heart of the concept of charity. I imagine that many noble Lords could identify some clubs in that category which, to be regarded as carrying out charitable purposes, would give their members cause for some surprise.
The special provisions announced for churches and charities acknowledge the unique services which these bodies provide to the community—and church halls would be excepted from what is proposed—and have been made in order to help them to make the change to the ultimate stage of the land scheme. We shall be discussing this matter if we arrive at that point in the course of this night; otherwise, the pleasure of doing so will have to be postponed until the morrow. It was never the intention of the Government that development by churches and charities should be completely excluded from the land scheme, since such an exemption would lead to the establishment of a particularly privileged class of land owners.
The Government have been willing to give special treatment to land in respect of which churches and charities had entered into commitments for development before they had any knowledge of the land scheme, but would not be prepared to prejudice the operation of the scheme by excluding permanently all developments that would be carried out

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at any time not only by churches and charities, but also by any of the large number of organisations that would be included under Sections 39 and 40 of the General Rate Act 1967. I hope that what I have said will not promote a discussion now on the position of the churches. In view of the explanation that I have given, I hope that the noble Earl will appreciate that the wide extension which he proposes would go far beyond anything that is reasonably contemplated in the provisions of the Bill.
Lord SOMERS: Before the noble and learned Lord sits down, might I ask him about schools? How do they stand so far as the Bill is concerned?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: Does the noble Lord mean church schools or schools at large?
Lord SOMERS: Schools of any variety.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that I should like notice of "schools of any variety". Perhaps I can revert to the matter before I fall into some dreadful trap which I fear is being laid for me.
The Lord Bishop of LONDON: This is the second time that I have been taken by surprise during the course of this debate. I had not appreciated the significance of the Amendment moved by the noble Earl, Lord Balfour. However, I am grateful in a sense to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for what he has said. Obviously I have to hold my fire, but at least the target at which I am to fire when my Amendment comes along is a little clearer than I had expected, or even feared, that it might be. Therefore, I think that I had better contain my remarks on this issue until my Amendment is called.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: I fully understand that the restraint which has just been indicated is wholly without prejudice, and we shall look forward to the debate on the matter. As I apprehended, the answer to the question I was asked a moment ago is that church schools would be exempted, other schools would not.
The Earl of BALFOUR: I will, of course, need to study what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said and I will make only one final
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remark at this stage, although I may wish to return to the matter on Report. Perhaps I should have used the words, "eligible for a reduction in rates of 50 per cent. or more" because I did not realise that my wording extended quite as wide as to clubs and the like, although I am reasonably certain that most such places would not be eligible for a reduction in rates in the ordinary sense, and I say that from my experience of local authority affairs. I was concerned with organisations run wholly for recreational and purposes entirely for the benefit of the community, such as libraries, squash courts and church halls; places used by the general public. At this point, however, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.7 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG moved Amendment No. 15A:
Page 51, line 21, at end insert—
". All sites smaller than 2 hectares, outside the area of the Greater London Council or the areas of Metropolitan Counties.
. All land owned by builders as stock-in-trade. All land for which a planning application for residential development has been made prior to the first appointed day."
The noble Baroness said: I will, with permission, speak at the same time to Amendment No. 15B; the two go together. The purpose behind these Amendments is to try to define those categories of development which we believe will come within the excepted category and will be defined in regulations, only to have them written into Schedule 1 and therefore to bring them into the exempted category from relevant development. The Committee has heard a great deal about the advantage of regulations—that they provide flexibility, that they can be altered at some future date and that they can be added to—but while they may provide flexibility, they create uncertainty, and they have already created a great deal of uncertainty because the regulations referred to in Clause 3(1)(c), which we have just debated, have not yet been defined and all we have is the paper, Annex A, setting out some of the proposed exceptions. I should therefore like to find out what the Government's intentions are and this Amendment is designed to include in Schedule 1 some of what I hope will be the kind of matters which will be included in the regulations.

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Under Amendment 15A I have included all sites smaller than two hectares—which I find slightly easier to think of than five acres—which is what the builders have asked for quite consistently throughout the passage of this Bill as being a site which would enable a great many smaller builders to continue in business as they have done for many years, and thus contribute in a very real way to the housing supply of the country. They are people who are well versed in being able to build on relatively small sites. The Amendment goes on to indicate that not only would there be sites smaller than five acres but also land that is currently owned by builders on which they are intending to develop. Amendment 15B adds to this exemption:
"Any material change of use in land or buildings".
This is, of course, not extending the area at all but is allowing a change to be exempted from the provisions of relevant development and development which would be in accordance with a planning permission that had been inforce since 12th September 1974—
"Any development carried out on land which was in the ownership of a builder or a residential, commercial or industrial developer on 12th September 1974."
The last point is also concerned with industrial development. The point of these last two exemptions would be not simply to help the builder who is building houses but to help industrialists. We are all very concerned about the position of the economy at the moment, and very strong representations have been made by industrialists on the difficulty they will find in expanding their factories once the Bill becomes law. A great many of my noble friends have already had representations made to them, sometimes couched in terms to the effect that the only future expansion will be overseas because of the difficulties of the Bill. This kind of minor increase in the exemptions is designed to help industrialists and I feel that it is worth consideration at a time of rising unemployment. I hope I have made clear the reasons for the Amendments. I beg to move.
Lord GRIDLEY: In rising to support my noble friend on these Amendments, I shall confine my remarks to Amendment No. 15A. In my introduction to what I wish to say, I should like to explain
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on Second Reading I declared that I was a director of a development company. I declared my interest and I tried to convey to your Lordships the great powers given to the Government under the Bill to acquire land in circumstances which have never before been seen in this country. I appeared to be completely misunderstood by the Government. When the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, replied, she referred to me as stating that the present position was due entirely to the economy. She completely misunderstood my speech, in which I was trying to convey that this Bill was causing a great deal of uncertainty. We on this side of the Committee are trying to rectify that uncertainty and it is unfair to charge us with scare-mongering outside your Lordships' House. We are definitely trying to improve the Bill, much as we dislike it. I felt that I must say that as an introduction to my remarks on the Amendment.
What we wish to achieve by referring to all land owned by builders as stock in trade is to let the builders know that any land, about which they may have entered into contracts, or have owned prior to the appointed day when these provisions will come into operation, may remain in their possession. It is clear—and I am sure noble Lords will agree with me on this—that builders have to plan ahead. It is absolutely essential for them to plan four, five or six months ahead and if there is a feeling that the Government may take this land off them, that is bound to bring about unemployment and not achieve the development of any new housing at all. Clearly, it will not achieve what the Government wish to achieve with the Bill. Therefore, I strongly support Amendment No. 15A and I hope that the Government will give some consideration to it.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: I should like to support my noble friend in these Amendments, because for many years I represented an area where we had new, young and enterprising industries coming in. Over the years, firms like Morphy-Richards, Klingers, ITT, the Telephone Manufacturing Company and the like started off as comparatively young firms in a new area after the war, without capital to go for the maximum until they had established their markets and got their exports. It was a very highly-rated export area for its size. However, these firms had the prudence to keep

1385
that extra area of land on which to expand and develop subsequently. At more than one of those factories I was privileged to open extensions during the period when I was a Member.
Bearing in mind that the Government are asking for expansion in industry and for people to endeavour to find more employment and the like there is here a very real deterrent to companies with these modest two hectares. It will be prudent to provide such an area of land if a firm is going into a development area or is setting up a new factory—possibly at Government request—in an area of high unemployment. Whereas, initially the plant would take perhaps only half the area, it would be prudent for a firm to plan for extensions. But there is a great deterrent in the suggestions made by the Government in the Bill. I hope that the Government will see their way, as an encouragement to firms when they increase production and when they have more export orders, to ensure that those firms have no fear that they will not be able to develop on land which they have acquired, and no fear of an alternative claimant coming along and jumping the gun on them, by applying to the local authority to develop on the land. Two hectares is not such a vast area.
Planning authorities at present frequently require a firm to provide twice as much space for car parking as for a plant or factory; and this means vast expense for the company. Bearing this in mind, I hope that the Government might reconsider these very modest five acres, which a prudent and expanding company would think it worth taking if it were opening up a new factory in an area.
Lord MELCHETT: The noble Baroness called this a very modest change in the Bill, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, called it a minor increase in the provisions for exempt development. But I have to tell noble Lords opposite that the extensions proposed by these two Amendments are quite unacceptable to the Government, in particular in so far as the implications to the definition of current use value are concerned. The only exception to that general point is, so far as the current use value is concerned, reference to Schedule 8 to the 1971 Act in Amendment No. 15B, which is not
1386
unacceptable because this is already imported directly into Clause 25 by virtue of subsection (3)(b).
But it is not the intention that the definition of current use value should be the more generous one that is included in the Finance Act 1974, and it would certainly be quite unacceptable for value attributable to the hope of obtaining permission for, say, development on the site of up to two hectares to be included in current use value. So far as the acquisition power is concerned, the Government have made it clear that they consider it necessary for authorities to have wide powers even though the scope of the duty can be more constrained.
I have made the point before that exemptions carry with them two implications. One is the implication of the current use value of land; and, secondly, there is the implication of the power of the local authority to purchase the land. But the noble Baroness, Lady Horns by-Smith, seemed to me to be missing the point, which is the fact that the land is never exempt. It is no good adding in five acres or 3,000 acres to Schedule 1. The land is not exempt; it is the development that takes place on the land. Therefore it would make absolutely no difference to an industrial concern which buys land prudently—as the noble Baroness puts it—to develop in the future, because, presumably, it would not necessarily have planning permission or be applying for planning permission at that stage. So at that point the land would not be development land and the exemption in Schedule 1 would not apply to the land at all.
If the land fell within a large development scheme and the local authority intended to take the land in that development scheme into public ownership, whatever Schedule 1 said would not make any difference. The industrial concern would have to sell the land to the authority if the relevant procedures under the Bill were gone through. That is an important point. We are talking about two limited areas here. One is the limitations on the power of the local authority to buy development land, and the other is the implications for the valuation of the land when we come to current use value. The Amendment is quite unacceptable to widen this into that valuation.
Lord GRIDLEY: Could the noble Lord explain this further to me? Is he saying that if it wants it a local authority has the power to take land from a development company which has acquired and owned that land? This is just the point which is causing so much uncertainty in the building industry at the present time. They cannot make their plans. If this is what the noble Lord is telling us it is just the sort of thing they fear, and it is causing a stagnation and a paralysis in the building industry. It is just this point, if I am right.
10.21 p.m.
Lord MELCHETT: If planning permission has not been granted for land the local authority can acquire it under this Bill, just as they can acquire it now for the purposes for which they have a duty to acquire the land. If the land is needed for roads, for example, they can acquire it now, so in that respect the position is not affected. Certainly, as the noble Baroness said earlier—something welcomed by all noble Lords on this side of your Lordships' Committee—more development land will be coming into public ownership. But the answer to the noble Lord is that if no planning permission has been granted and the land is not at that stage development land, and if either the local authority gives planning permission or it falls within a development plan or one of the other planning constraints which exercise themselves on the local authority's power to acquire, certainly the local authority could buy the land.
To return to the effect of this particular Amendment, to convert, as I think the second of the noble Baroness's two Amendments does, "excepted" development into "exempt" development completely undermines the whole basis of the Government's proposals for defining the scope of the land scheme. The absurdity of this approach can be most clearly seen by considering the proposals that two hectare sites should be excluded from the scope of the power. In suggesting this exclusion it is presumably accepted that it is reasonable for there to be public acquisition where large-scale development is involved. But in assembling a site of, say, 100 acres, an authority might well
1388
have to buy some quite small bits of land. Moreover, they might well be able to make such purchases by agreement without the use of compulsory powers.
The effect of Amendments Nos. 15A and 15B would be to make it impossible for authorities to use the Clause 15 power to achieve such useful land assembly schemes. The effect might be that an authority would be able to use the power in the Bill to buy most of the land they needed in this large 100-acre site, but would have to proceed under other powers (for example those in the Housing or Planning Acts) to buy a few scattered small plots. This makes no sense at all. There may be objections to the Bill in principle, but I hope your Lordships will not arbitrarily make the mechanics of the scheme inefficient.
The Government agree that rebuilding within the limits of Schedule 8 should be "excepted" development, but it must remain within the scope of the power. This is something we spent some time on earlier. A good deal of commercial development, as I said then, especially in Central London, takes place within the limits set by Schedule 8, and it would not be acceptable for this to be outside the power—that is, to be "exempt" development—even if it is thought that there would only rarely be a case for the use of the power in such instances.
As I have said, these Amendments are unacceptable to the Government because they would vastly increase the level of current use value and because they would, taken together, make major inroads into the broad scope of the acquisition power which is in our view an essential feature of the scheme.
10.19 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: The reply which we have had is not altogether unexpected, although naturally it is disappointing. One of the extraordinary features of this Committee stage has been the unwillingness of the Government to consider anything. I think they have undertaken to look at two points in a rather half-hearted way, but that really is as far as we have got. I would not agree with the general

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thesis on Lord Melchett's second point. I do not believe that this would in fact make that great an inroad into the Government's desire for local authorities to acquire the maximum amount of development land. What I do think would be its effect is to make both house-building and minor industrial developments more likely, more effective, at a time when both are required by the country as a whole.
It is extremely short sighted of the Government not to look at these exceptions. Nobody is moving an amendment to take out Clause 15, to take out the power of local authorities to acquire, to go against the major principle of the Bill that the councils are to be enabled to acquire development land. But we are trying to identify areas where it seems to me that, keeping within the principles of the Bill, we would make it more workable and be helpful to builders to build houses and to industrialists, particularly industrialists with expanding businesses to get on and expand their businesses. That is what would be the effect of these Amendments. It is very disappointing that the Government do not wish to consider them. It was the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who said he thought that the Bill would be unworkable. A lack of consideration of any of the kinds of Amendments that would help it to work will hardly help the Government. At the end of the day it will be the ineffectiveness of much of this legislation from which the country will suffer. However, I will ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: We have reached an hour which may indicate, after the intellectual rigours of the day, that it would be appropriate for the House to turn to another matter which no doubt has its own rigours. Perhaps we can proceed tomorrow with this Committee stage. It is unfortunate that we have made so little progress. Perhaps it is a little ungallant of me to say so at this hour but, with great respect, I hope that we can press on with greater speed tomorrow.
Baroness YOUNG: My colleagues are anxious now to make one or two points
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on Schedule 1. We should be happy to conclude the business of the day after that. We do not want to go on after discussion of Schedule 1, but I think that would be a more sensible place to stop than to leave the Schedule incomplete. We could then go on to Clause 4.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: If it is the wish of the noble Baroness to do that, then certainly the wish to prolong the matter may be less tonight than tomorrow—not that I am suggesting for a moment that anyone in the Committee seeks to prolong the matter. If it is the wish of noble Lords opposite, then let us deal with and put an end to Schedule 1.
On Question, Whether Schedule 1, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
10.28 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: This Schedule that we have been discussing has dealt with exempt development. I am bound to say that we have had "exempt development" and "excepted development" and that anyone wishing to muddle up anyone could not have chosen a better way to do it than to use the words "exempt" and "except" and then to throw in the word "excluded"; so that we have excepted development which is that which is exempt from development. Those words were ill-chosen; quite apart from the fact that one is defined in the Bill and the other is not. "Exempt" is defined and "excepted" is not. One of the worries of the agricultural community is the fact that they do not know, or are not certain, whether, if they were to build a building—for instance a cow man's house to enable them to carry on their profession—they would be able to do so without having it purchased by the local authority and then sold back to them, or whether the fact of not applying for planning permission would itself enable the local authority to turn around and buy the land off them or to buy the land off them and use it for other purposes. I think I know the answer to that, and if I am right in so thinking, I am a very lucky person. A great many people do not know the answer to it. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, or whoever is to reply, will be able to provide the answer perfectly clearly. I admit that anyone who would build a cowman's cottage or, indeed, three or

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four houses, would be nothing other than mad at the moment. So helpful has the Government's legislation been towards agriculture that, of course, that kind of building has now momentarily come to a halt. It is an important point which a lot of people do not know about. I think the answer is that it is excepted development. If that is the answer, I may well be told, "Oh! you will find that in Annex A". My reply will be, "That is fine, but where does one get Annex A from?" Your Lordships—some of you—are lucky enough to have been given it, others will have found it at the Printed Paper Office. But where does the average person find this? Exempted land is specifically defined in the Bill. Excepted land is not. That is a cause for a real confusion.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: I should like to add a footnote to the Amendment which has been made to this Schedule. I do so in very great perplexity, because I wonder whether your Lordships have achieved anything. I wish to draw this to the attention of the Government when they come in due course to consider what they are to do in another place, if anything, about the decision that the Committee have reached.
Exempt development is sub-divided in this Schedule into three—and I may say that if this is to be followed by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, he will need to consider it with some care, and I should be grateful if I could have his attention. The first of the paragraphs in the Schedule says:
"Development for which planning permission is granted by a general development order for the time being in force and which is carried out so as to comply with any condition or limitation subject to planning permission so granted."
In paragraph 2 we have reference to the agriculture and forestry or building and other operations, which have now been dealt with by way of the Amendment. But I should like to ask the noble Lord this: are not the two as they were originally put into the Bill mutually contradictory, and have we not by means of this Amendment merely produced the same in paragraph 2 as was, in any event, the law under paragraph 1?
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If one looks at the General Development Order 1973, planning permission is deemed to be granted by that Order for all the things that are set out in the Schedule 1. Class 6 of Schedule 1 allows with deemed planning permission—in other words development for which planning permission is granted—"The carrying out on agricultural land" of a certain size, "and comprising an agricultural unit of building or engineering operations requisite for the use of that land for the purposes of agriculture". It excludes dwellings. You have to comply with certain conditions. If you look at the definition of" agriculture" for the purposes of the General Development Order, it is not the one in the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, to which we have been referring, because under Article 21 of the General Development Order "agricultural land" and" "agricultural unit" have meanings respectively assigned to those expressions in the Agriculture Act 1947.
The Agriculture Act 1947 deals with it in this way: "In this Act the expression 'agricultural unit' means land which is occupied as a unit for agricultural purposes including a dwelling house" and so on, and in this Act the following expressions have meanings respectively assigned to them:
"agriculture includes horticulture, fruit growing and so on."
I suggest to the noble Lord that the General Development Order attracted by paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to this Bill allows development for the purposes of horticulture, because it is done under the attraction of Class 6 of the General Development Order. Exactly the same thing applies to forestry under Class 7, because there you have the carrying out on land used for the purposes of forestry building and other operations other than dwellings requisite for the carrying on of those purposes, subject again to two small conditions.
I cannot understand how the Bill could have been drafted in this way in the first place. It may be that I have wholly misunderstood it, but may I ask the Government and noble Lords opposite to please consider this, because I can see the most paramount difficulties arising under the two different attractions: first, regarding the General Development

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Order, and then Schedule 8 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, which appear to be mutually contradictory. If it is put back to the way in which it stands in the Bill—that is until we amended it just now—I can see the greatest possible confusion arising.
10.36 p.m.
Lord MELCHETT: I can assure the noble Viscount that I always find everything he says so fascinating that it is impossible not to listen to him, even at this hour of the night. There is some overlap, but I am advised that the two things do not overlap entirely. For example, paragraph (1)(a) of Class 6 in the General Development Order puts a limit of 465 square metres on a development. So I think the Government, in our usual careful and considerate way, have put both in. There is some overlap but not a great overlap, and it may be that even after the Amendment which noble Lords opposite saw fit to press, there is still a use for paragraph (2). But we do not know what another place will do with the Amendment.
The noble Earl again raised the question of "exempted" and "excepted". I am in a little difficulty in replying to this point, because if one says one finds no difficulty in distinguishing between the two it sounds as though one is pretending to be much cleverer than one is. But I certainly think it is simpler than permanently non-designated relevant development which we have lost as a result of the introduction of "exempt" and "excepted". The noble Earl also asked about the status of excepted development and how people would know what it was. Of course, it will be published in the Regulations. We have been over the ground as to whether Regulations are a desirable way of doing this earlier in the day and I do not think I should go into that again at this hour, except to say that the overriding advantage is the flexibility. We have on one or two Amendments today seen that some thought still needs to be given to the categories of excepted development, and we shall be able to do this because it will be included in Regulations and not in the Bill. With regard to the noble Earl's question about building a cowman's cottage, that, as he suspected, is excepted
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development. Indeed, if one could get planning permission for it, one could build ten cowmen's cottages, which would still be excepted development.
LORD SANDFORD: I wonder whether I might ask the noble Lord a question which also relates to the General Development Order, which is important here. The Committee will see that in Schedule I exempt categories of development are defined by reference to the General Development Order, and the General Development Order lists those developments that are normally and in most cases exempt from development control under the Planning Acts. In some places, such as, for instance, national parks, conservation areas or areas of outstanding natural beauty, and on some occasions when a particularly offensive or incongruous intrusion is threatened, an Article 4 Direction can be used. An Article 4 Direction is used to exercise tighter control over development than is normally used or generally applied. This is done to preserve or enhance the character of a place such as a national park or conservation area, or to ward off a specific threat.
Article 4 does this by bringing under control, exceptionally and locally, forms of development normally exempt from development control. I should like the noble Lord to explain how, in cases like these, such use of such exceptional powers for planning purposes does not have the effect of bringing exempted developments within the scope of this acquisition Bill. It would not, of course, be the purpose of an Article 4 direction to do this, to have any effect on the local authority's powers of acquisition or on a citizen's rights against acquisition. But at present I cannot be sure—perhaps the rest of the Committee can be but I cannot—that there is anything in the Bill to prevent this unintended and unwanted effect when an Article 4 direction is employed.
LORD MELCHETT: I am not sure that I know the answer, but I think it is that anything included in a general development order is exempt development—and I will soon see whether I am right. I was going on to say that an Article 4 direction would not bring those developments into the Schedule. That is what I suspected the answer was. An Article 4

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direction, which will be a planning direction, will not have any effect on the category of exempt development. But if I may, as the noble Lord has raised this point rather late at night, I will check that what I have told him is right and if I am wrong I will write to him about it.
LORD SANDFORD: That is fine, but of course there is not much time for an exchange of correspondence. I am sure the Committee would be satisfied with that assurance tonight, but we must know not only that that is what happens but how it is that that is effective.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: It is very difficult because, instead of the planning permission being granted by the development order, an Article 4 direction expressly requires permission to be granted on an application. Therefore, any permission that is granted under an Article 4 direction for something covered by it is not granted by the development order; it has to have a specific application. I should have thought that at the present moment paragraph 1 of the Schedule is not apt to cover it.
Earl FERRERS: May I ask the noble Lord one question, because he was kind enough to answer my question but not in fact in the way I hoped? He kindly told me that any farmer who applied for planning permission for either one cottage or more would in fact find it as excepted development. The question which I intended to put to him was this. If a farmer applies for planning permission, could that in any circumstances trigger off in the local authority's mind the thought that here is a place for which planning application has been made, and could it result in the local authority buying that land off the farmer and either selling it back to him or, alternatively, using it for other purposes?
Lord MELCHETT: If it is excepted development it is within the scope of the power of the local authorities.
Earl FERRERS: That means, yes?
Lord MELCHETT: That means, yes. But it is not quite as simple as that, because of course we have made it perfectly clear that we should not expect local authorities to involve themselves in
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excepted development except in exceptional circumstances where, there are good planning reasons for them to do so. I should also point out to the noble Earl that where they wanted to acquire land which was being developed for excepted development, the compulsory purchase procedures would be unaffected by the Bill and the position of the farmer would be as it is now.
Earl FERRERS: Which, means that if he applies for planning permission he could find that land taken off him or used for other purposes?
Lord MELCHETT: Farmers lose land to local authorities at the moment.
Earl FERRERS:That is not the answer to the question. Of course they do, but I am asking about a specific application. I am not trying to put the noble Lord in a spot; I genuinely want to know. If a person applies for planning permission, is it possible that he will find that his application will remove the possibility of his own building being put up, and he may find the land used for another purpose or he will have to buy it back at a different price from the price he is paid for it?
Lord MELCHETT: I think that in almost all circumstances and in almost all situations the answer will be, no.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Lord STRABOLGI: I beg to move that this House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

MALAGASY: GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATION
10.45 p.m.
Lord MERRIVALE Lord MERRIVALE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider appointing a resident United Kingdom-based career Consul in Tananarive, in view of the recent decision to close the British Embassy in the Malagasy Republic, and the desirability of retaining a permanent presence. The noble Lord said: My Lords, before going into the question of a resident United Kingdom-based career Consul in Tananarive, may I apologise for delaying your

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Lordships, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, at this late hour.
May I refer very briefly to the historical and lasting friendship between Madagascar and this country which started early in the last century, no doubt from the time when our Governor in Mauritius, Sir Robert Farquhar, sent from 1816 onwards such envoys as the English Captain Lesage, James Hastie and the Reverend David Jones of the London Missionary Society. It was he who founded the first school in Tananarive in 1820. Two years later, four English workers—Brooks, Rowlands, Chick and Canham—were received by King Radama I. In 1824 the three schools of the English missionaries Jones, Jeffreys and Griffiths were merged into the Royal Missionary College. In 1836 appeared the first Anglo-Malagasy dictionary.
To move on, in 1862 a British Consulate was established and in 1865 a Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Commerce between Her Majesty—that is, Queen Victoria—and the Queen of Madagascar was signed in Tananarive on 27th June in the English and Malagasy languages by Her Majesty's Consul, T. C. Pakenham—a distant relative, I understand, of the noble Earl, Lord Longford. Article 1 is interesting, for it reads as follows:
"Peace, friendship and good understanding shall from henceforward and forever subsist between Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Her Majesty the Queen of Madagascar and between their respective heirs, successors and subjects".
Again to move on, in 1891 a Britisher, the Reverend Peake, founded the Centre for Lepers at Manankavaly. In the same year a new hospital was opened at Isoavinandriana which had been erected by the Friends Foreign Mission Association. And, of course, in 1896 on 16th September General Gallieni of France arrived in Tananarive.
It was not until 1960 that a British Embassy was established there upon Malagasy Independence. Only 15 years later the decision was taken to close the Embassy as part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's contribution to a cutback in public spending for 1976–77 of £1,100 million. I shall therefore now try to convince your Lordships that it is
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desirable to retain a permanent presence in Tananarive and that the cost would be low and the benefits high.
First of all, let us consider what property Her Majesty's Government own or rent in Madagascar and what has been the cost in foreign exchange of running the post in Tananarive. A reduction in cost could certainly be achieved should Her Majesty's Government be willing to consider maintaining one United Kingdom-based officer, with some supporting staff, and maintaining Villa Elizabeth for residential and office accommodation. The noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, will know that Villa Elizabeth, the Ambassador's residence, at Ivandry near Tananarive was bought in 1966. He knows, as I do, the price paid for it then. Since that date, £14,000 has been spent on alterations and maintenance and over £3,000 on furnishings. In 1972 Villa Concorde, the First Secretary's residence, was bought and since then £3,000 has been paid out in alterations. Thirdly, Her Majesty's Government own a plot of land of 7,221 square metres in a residential area of Tananarive. Finally, there is the rented office accommodation.
Over the past year, 1974–75, the cost in foreign exchange of running the complete post at Tananarive was £34,300; that is. £37,053 less certain receipts and recoveries. It is my considered belief that with a reduction in staff, in accommodation, in communications, journeys and local transport, a local saving of up to £20,000 could be made, with a corresponding reduction in the United Kingdom.
In spite of the arrival today in Tananarive of two Department of the Environment experts, the property market is not good at the moment in the Malagasy Republic, and that is why, too, I would most sincerely urge Her Majesty's Government to retain Villa Elizabeth. From recent photographs I showed the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, I trust he will agree that it is suitably situated, adequate for residential accommodation of a United Kingdom-based career Consul and for a non-resident Ambassador when visiting Tananarive; most suitable for him for entertaining purposes, even on a reduced scale, and totally satisfactory for office accommodation. No extra security arrangements

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need be called for as all ciphered messages could be handled through the nonresident Ambassador's office in a neighbouring country.
I should now like to put forward what I consider to be valid reasons for retaining a permanent presence in Tananarive. First, the new Head of State, President Didier Ratsiraka came to power on 15th June last and the new Government was set up on 16th June. A few weeks later Her Majesty's Government announced their decision to close the British Embassy for reasons of economy—even before the appearance of the President's Socialist Charter, which was published by Madagascar presse on 13th September last. This charter refers to aid as being supplementary rather than complementary and it draws attention to the fact that 85 per cent. of the population live in rural areas and that there is a need to raise the standard of living of the peasants so that they may also become consumers of the products of the country's light industries in the future.
Paragraph 102 of Cmnd. 6223 An Account of the British Aid Programme reads as follows:
"It is a central objective of U.K. aid policy to give a greater emphasis to rural development."
There would appear, therefore, to be no divergence of opinion. I press Her Majesty's Government to make a greater percentage of aid available to the Malagasy Government than in the past. In 1973, the amount of aid was only about 0·1 per cent. of the United Kingdom's bilateral aid for Africa as a whole, and only 1·2per cent. for non-Commonwealth Africa. However, with regards to rural development, I understand that Her Majesty's Government are prepared to consider an "integrated package of technical assistance in a self-contained project", or are very willing to consider other possibilities if the Malagasy authorities have other ideas in mind.
When recently in Tananarive, I had the pleasure of being received by Mr. Pierre Rajaonah, the Minister for Rural Development, and I mentioned this to him. It might, therefore, be apposite to mention that he is to visit the United Kingdom this month at the invitation of a British finance company, appertaining to a joint venture to grow sugar cane
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and build a refinery in the Mandrare Valley area. The capacity is to be up to 80,000 tons per year, with the possibility of extending it to 150,000 tons.
Another principal activity in the aid field so far as we are concerned—since about 1970, I understand—has been English language teaching. May I add, therefore, that the learning of English by Malagasy students is one of the top priorities of the Malagasy authorities, as confirmed to me when I saw him by Mr. Razakaboana, Minister for Finance, and for the Plan. I was therefore very pleased that nine students should have arrived at the Colchester English Study Centre on 5th October last, but nine students is not enough. Another priority is the sending to the City of London of their insurance or re-insurance personnel and banking personnel, to study our ways and methods in other words, a recyclage, as they said to me in Madagascar. Such priorities do not seem to be in conflict with Government policy, and ought therefore to be actively pursued. There are other needs, too, but these can be mentioned on another occasion.
With regard to trade, the figures are no doubt small, but they could certainly be increased to some degree. Our exports to Madagascar in 1974 totalled £1,870,000, and our imports from Madagascar totalled £3,183,000, in which, of course, butter beans played a significant part. Recently when I called upon the Minister for Economy and Trade, Mr. Justin Rarivoson, until fairly recently general manager for Shell in Madagascar, he mentioned two areas where they would like to import more from this country. I hope, therefore, that we will reciprocate. I might add that 8,000 tons of sugar are waiting in storage—and there is a shortage of storage there—to be shipped to this country. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, may be able to use his influence to see that the sugar is brought over here fairly soon. I am also authoritatively informed that Malagasy cotton is more or less on a par with Egyptian cotton with regard to quality. My visit to the Minister for Trade followed a successful Press conference which he gave, and which was reported in the Press under the heading "Rarivoson unshrivels the economic life of the country". During the course of

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this Press conference he announced, too, that anew investment code would shortly be forthcoming.
On a government-to-government level (but through, too, the good and effective services of our well-liked Commercial Counsellor Mr. Marcelin) there has been a fairly recent tendency for the Malagasy authorities to seek in this country equipment which they had previously bought from France. For instance, in March last year they took delivery of a Britten-Norman Defender aircraft (which is based on the Islander 12.seater turbo-prop). Might I add that Lt. Col. Rakotonirina (a member of the Comité Militaire de Developpement—CMD) who visited this country several times regarding the acquisition of this aircraft, like many influential Malagasys, studied under an English missionary.
Finally, I believe there are other reasons, too, why we should retain a permanent presence in Tananarive, apart from the historical past, friendly ties, the cultural aspect, the British aid aspect, and the trading aspect. Regarding this last consideration, I think it should be borne in mind that the Malagasy authorities are very keen to develop their relations with Anglophone East Africa, too.
During the course of my 12-day visit to Tananarive, I had the pleasure of meeting the Head of State, members of his Government, members of the Armed Forces, business people, and old Malagasy friends, members of the legal profession, doctors and peasants, too. I can truthfully say that I am quite convinced that there is a genuine desire that we should not lessen our interest or presence in Madagascar. I am well aware that the new charter calls for a policy of "opening all azimuths", thus diversifying their international relations. This means, for one, a greater Chinese presence and influence, but it is not to the detriment of, or directed against, our country. On the contrary, there is a continuing desire for having close and friendly contacts with the United Kingdom.
Might I mention at this point that during the course of a reception kindly given by our Chargé d'Affaires and Mrs. Rex Hammond for Malagasy personalities and foreign diplomats, the question of the closure of our Embassy arose in discussion with Eastern and Western representatives
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at Ambassador or Chargé d'Affaires level. Her Majesty's Government's decision, I must say, was certainly not understood. I think we should not minimise the political influence of Madagascar, arising partly from its geographical position and partly from the policies which the government intend to pursue. The Russian fleet, too, is still in the Indian Ocean, and the Americans are consequently occupying the Diego Garcia communications base.
In conclusion, I should have thought that the various factors, outlined during the course of my speech, might warrant—and I sincerely pray so—that a permanent presence in the Malagasy Republic be maintained, not just an honorary Consul who is not even empowered to issue visas; and I understand that these were delivered over the past year to the tune of around £2,500. I therefore plead for the appointment of a resident United Kingdom-based career Consul in Tananarive.
11.5 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, I am sure that I should first pay tribute to the contribution which the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, has made to Anglo-Malagasy friendship, and the interest which he continues to show in the relations between the two countries, and indeed in the relations between Francophone Africa and the United Kingdom. Her Majesty's Government are also anxious to preserve the friendly relationship which has marked the long historical association between our two island peoples.
The decision to close our Embassy in Tananarive was taken after much heart-searching, and it was entirely due to economic pressures. As the noble Lord quite fairly pointed out, Her Majesty's Government have found it necessary to reduce public expenditure in the financial year 1976–77 on goods and services, including manpower, by 1½ per cent. The Diplomatic Service, no less than any other Department of Government, must share the load. In view of the high proportion of the Diplomatic Service Vote which is devoted to staff salaries, the only way in which it is possible to achieve

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a sufficient permanent saving of expenditure is to cut out actual jobs. Every effort was made to avoid the need to close overseas posts. But some closures have been forced upon us, not for the first time of course. We are constantly reviewing the viability and the efficacy of our posts abroad, and from time to time closures become logically necessary. I am sure that noble Lords will recognise that staffing at individual posts must be maintained at a level which makes the maintenance of such a post reasonably viable. There is a line below which posts cease to be adequately operated.
The Embassy in Tananarive employed three United Kingdom-based officers of diplomatic rank at a cost of approximately £80,000 per annum. It was not thought practicable to maintain an Embassy with a smaller staff.
Lord MERRIVALE: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I do so with humility. Is the £80,000 which I have heard as being the cost of maintaining our Embassy the actual cost, or is it in effect, as I understand it is, a pro rata cost of a worldwide basis that does not bear a true relationship to what it costs to run it at a particular point, taking into consideration also the cost in London?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that interjection. It enables me to explain and clarify a point which he made in his introductory speech. We are not primarily concerned with foreign exchange costs. We are required to achieve a total saving in public expenditure as a whole, and the costs of the Mission in these terms was £78,000, which is nearly £80,000. I think that is the distinction that the noble Lord wished to clarify in his speech and in his interjection. As I was saying, the cost, according to the definition that I have given, is approximately £80,000 per annum. For very much the same reasons as I have given, our Embassies at Lomé, Managua and Tegucigalpa are to be closed and some Consulates, such as those at Miami and Valencia, are to be closed.
Perhaps I may at this point address myself to the meritorious point the noble Lord made about British exports to Madagascar. Quite rightly, he quoted our 1974 exports as £1.87 million and indeed this year, between January and July, they were £1.1 million, which indicates that at least
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the level of last year should be maintained. The noble Lord's figures are correct on that point. At the same time, our exports to Honduras, Togo and Nicaragua are greatly in excess of our exports to Madagascar and these are countries where we have to close our representation. We do not want to close any Embassy anywhere but, as I have said, from time to time it becomes logical and necessary to do so. Madagascar is not the only instance at this point where we have to reduce our diplomatic representation. There are other countries about which conceivably an Unstarred Question debate could with equal logic and force be raised in this House. Tananarive is not, therefore, in a unique position, and I must emphasise again that our decision was entirely governed by economic considerations.
Coming to the noble Lord's second point, having decided on the closure of a post the question arises of how to provide adequate residual representation both diplomatic and consular. In the case of the Malagasy Republic, we are currently discussing with their Government the accreditation as non-resident British Ambassador of one of our Heads of Mission from a nearby country. This, as noble Lords will appreciate, is a practice commonly adopted around the world and indeed there are already several nonresident Ambassadors accredited by other countries, some of them neighbours of ours, in Tananarive. So there will still be a British Ambassador to Madagascar, though he will not be resident there and will be visiting this country occasionally. The Malagasy Government have accepted such a proposal in principle in our case, as indeed they have accepted and implemented a similar position in regard to other countries which have proceeded very much as we are proceeding now.
The noble Lord's Question is, I think, directed specifically towards the future nature of our consular representation. I listened carefully to what he said on this point, as I did to his entire speech, but our community in Madagascar is small, there being only 66 people of United Kingdom origin amid a total British community of 238. Given the happy circumstances which characterise our relations with Madagascar, I feel that an honorary consul would be adequate to provide essential services on behalf of such a community. We must necessarily ensure

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that the economies which have been affected are not eroded.
A career Consul would require housing, allowances and office space and that would be pretty considerable compared to the small honorarium payable to an honorary Consul, plus the necessary expenses which he would need to be paid, including some limited secretarial assistance. However, the real question is whether there would be a proper job for a full-time Consul here. This is especially so when we are under strong pressure to economise and when there are other countries with what is clearly a stronger claim on our resources.
On the merits of the case, an honorary Consul would be capable of the job which remains. The appointment of a career Consul may seem a drop in the ocean of Government expenditure. The Diplomatic Service Vote itself is not a very big drop. It is 0·25 per cent.— a quarter of one per cent.—of our total public expenditure last year. I should like to say that I hope our country and people appreciate the quite extraordinary range and quality of service which our Diplomatic Services render to this country for this very tiny percentage of our gross national expenditure. It is only a quarter of one per cent. of everything we spend.
So the amount itself is only a drop in the ocean, but it is a drop which is made up of a number of still smaller drops. When we are asked, like other Government Departments, to effect economies, it may be that your Lordships will agree with me that it may bear specially heavily on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as compared with the mammoth Departments with which we are surrounded and which outbid us in size and expenditure, if not in quality. We have faced similar situations in other countries where we have had to close a post. This is not for the first time. We have closed Embassies before now and always there has been a proper objection and outcry. In nearly all of the other closures, our community is larger and our trading interest, present
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and potential, is larger. But we must be prepared to cut our coat according to the cloth available.
There is a strong demand that public expenditure should be reduced. We are doing that. I hope that people are not generally in favour of reducing public expenditure, but particularly objecting to one or the other item within that reduction. This is what my Department, like others, must bear as part of the burden. We should also remember that the revolution in communications and modern travel has allowed us to vary the nature of our diplomatic activity. In the days which the noble Lord mentioned in his very interesting speech, weeks and months were required to complete one exchange of correspondence with London. Nowadays, communications need take only hours or, at the most, days.
I am afraid that I cannot in honesty hold out to the noble Lord any possibility of this decision being reconsidered in the way he wants. What I can tell him is that no one could have put the case with greater fairness and more cogency than he has done tonight. He has placed on the Record a very good case for our watching the position very carefully in regard to this old and valued friend of this country. Beyond that I cannot go. I mean it when I say that the noble Lord rendered a service by setting out the case in the way he has, and I can assure him that what he has said will be borne in mind in the immediate and in the longer term future, because we agree with him that the closer our relations are with Madagascar the better for both countries.

INHERITANCE (PROVISION FOR FAMILY AND DEPENDANTS) BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
IRON AND STEEL BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.