HL Deb 03 February 1976 vol 367 cc1232-46

3.8 p.m.

Baroness STEDMAN

My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time. The Maplin Development Authority was constituted in accordance with the provisions of the Maplin Development Act 1973 specifically to reclaim land at Maplin and Foulness Sands for the establishment of an airport and seaport. When the project was abandoned, the Authority was directed to cease further activity and to discharge its remaining obligations, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment promised to seek powers for its dissolution as soon as was convenient.

My Lords, the Authority now consists of a caretaker board of three unpaid members. It has a capital debt of £2.3 million made up of an initial debt of £1.2 million, covering expenses incurred by the Secretary of State before the establishment of the Authority, and subsequent borrowing by the Authority amounting to a further £1.1 million. The 1973 Act requires that the Authority shall repay this debt to the National Loans Fund. But, without the Maplin project, it has no possible means of meeting this obligation, and unless something is done, further borrowing will have to continue indefinitely to meet interest charges on an ever-mounting debt. The Authority has to prepare annual accounts, which involves expenditure on auditors' fees, and the Secretary of State is required by the 1973 Act to continue each year to lay these accounts and an annual report before Parliament, in just the same way as if the Authority were carrying out the job it had originally been set up to do. This Bill, therefore, deals with these anomalies. I shall briefly outline its provisions.

Clause 1 is a normal form of provision which would enable the Secretary of State to dissolve the Maplin Development Authority by Order exercisable by Statutory Instrument which shall be laid before Parliament after having been made. Clause 2 provides for the necessary writing off of the Authority's total indebtedness. Other financial provisions define the Authority's final accounting period and enable the Secretary of State to meet any winding up expenses. Clause 3 provides for the consequential repeal of the enactments listed in the Schedule. These include the whole Maplin Development Act 1973.

I might add that the repeal of the 1973 Act removes from the Statute Book provisions for compensation or payments to those who might have been affected by the reclamation works or by the development of the reclaimed land. Lest it be assumed that this would remove any effective rights of protection, I should make it clear that the project was halted before the Authority had carried out any of the works authorised by the 1973 Act. Consequently, no claims for compensation under that Act could arise. Finally, the necessity for the present measure is in no way a reflection on the members and staff of the Maplin Development Authority. Under its first Chairman, Sir Frank Marshall, and his Board—all of whom resigned as soon as it was clear that their energies could no longer be effectively employed—the Authority discharged its duties vigorously and to the full. I beg to move.

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

3.12 p.m.

Baroness YOUNG

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, for introducing this Bill to us and for explaining its provisions so clearly. It is, as she has said, a short Bill of only three clauses. Nevertheless it is important, and, as is so often the case, has rather more to it than might at first be apparent. The Bill clearly follows from the Government's decision to abandon the Maplin project. But that decision has never been fully debated. One of the reasons for abandoning the project, as I understood it, was its cost and, indeed, in the serious economic situation in which we find ourselves today this must be a matter of major importance. But are not the proposals in the consultation document the Government have issued equally expensive? It is exceedingly difficult to find a correct comparison, but I hope that before this Bill completes its passage in the House we may have an answer to that question.

As this is a Second Reading debate I would say that the implications of the siting of a new airport or the alternative policy of building up and increasing the use of present airports is important. As I have already indicated, we now have the consultation document, Airport Strategy for Great Britain, and the principles underlying the conclusions ought to be fully debated. What I fear is happening is that airports, like Topsy, are to be allowed to grow, because this is the easiest solution, perhaps even the most expedient, but without any consideration of the environment or those who have to live in the vicinity of airports. I was glad to see that noise, as an issue, has been included in the document. I wonder whether safety, which was once regarded as a matter of importance in view of the extensive build-up of Heathrow, is to be considered at all.

The planning problems following upon a large increase of employment at four airports seem to be dismissed in the consultation document almost as if there is nothing at all to worry about. Yet people require houses and a new community requires all the infrastructure necessary to support it. I hope the Government will give us an opportunity to debate these principles fully, and time to find out what the people living near Stansted think about their future. It is, after all, ironic that those who fought the battle to prevent the third London Airport being sited at Stansted, and imagined that they had won, now find that, almost by stealth, the Government are proposing a large build-up of air traffic in their neighbourhood. The same argument could be applied with equal force to the build-up at Luton. The final irony is that in the course of the very long debates that we had in this House on the Community Land Bill we were told over and over again that the reason for it was the need for positive planning. If ever anything illustrates planning by expediency, the sequence of proposals by the Government does just that.

My Lords, it is not enough to say what the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, said to me, in answer to a Question on 21st May, 1974, with regard to the abandonment of the Maplin project. I asked: is the decision simply concerned with aircraft traffic and movement and will the decision about Maplin be based exclusively on that and not on any environmental considerations at all?"—[Official Report; col. 1323.] The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, replied: My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right. The review now taking place is concerned with aviation matters; but of course if nothing is done at Maplin the environment will not be affected. My Lords, that really is not good enough for an answer. Whatever happens in the future, the environment at Maplin will be affected, and the environment in a good many other places will be affected too, and we ought to know in what way. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Government consider that in the parlous economic state in which we find ourselves today we can no longer afford the luxury of considering the environment at all. When my Party was in office we made our policy on Maplin absolutely clear, and I think it would be helpful to the House today to say that we must reserve our right to reconsider the matter when we are returned to power.

To turn now quite specifically to the Bill, I would ask the noble Baroness six questions about it. I shall quite understand if she is not able to answer them all at the conclusion of this debate, and I shall be quite happy if she will write to me before we begin the Committee stage of the Bill. The first question is based on the decision to abandon the Maplin project and to put the Authority's powers into the hands of the Secretary of State for the Environment. I would ask what the Secretary of State proposes to do with those powers. If he has no plans for the future of Maplin what is their purpose and if he has some plans will the Government say what they are? Secondly, now that the Government have issued a consultation document and, at the end of it, given a very long list (which I was glad to see) of people and authorities to be consulted, will the Government explain why they have decided to wind up the Maplin Authority before anybody has had a chance for consultation and not after consultations have taken place, and what is the role of the Secretary of State for the Environment in this matter of consultation?

Third, perhaps the noble Baroness will also let us have a full account of the assets the Authority has at the present time, in terms of both land and resources, so that we may see what is being vested in the Secretary of State. The fourth question is: what is the present state of the firing range? When last we heard anything about it at all it was being cleared up at quite considerable expense. If this operation has now been concluded, what do the Government propose to do with the firing range? If it has not been completed, will the Army be asked to use it again; and does it now fall under the Department of the Environment rather than the Ministry of Defence?

There are, I believe, two other matters of major importance arising from this small Bill. The first is what is the Government's attitude now towards the Seaport? After all, the Maplin Bill was concerned with reclamation of land for an airport and also for a seaport. Are we to understand that this, too, has been completely abandoned, and what consultations have the Government had with the Port of London Authority on this matter? What effect does this have on other British ports, because presumably the whole of the policy on seaports has now been altered?

My last question concerns what was the proposed new town. Of course, not only did the Maplin Bill propose a new airport and a new seaport, but they were to be serviced by a new town and all the infrastructure which went with that development. It is true that there is to be consultation with local authorities on future airports, but what about consultations with local authorities on the decision to abandon the new town proposals at Maplin? What are the implications of this decision for London and for the South-East? Has this decision been fully discussed with all the local authorities concerned and, in particular, the South-East Regional Economic Planning Council which must, of course, have a major interest in the outcome of any planning decisions for this area?

I have said as much as I have today in outline only because all the matters upon which I have touched are in themselves matters for extensive debate and major issues of policy. But I do not believe that it is right to have a small Bill like this—which purports simply to be something of relatively little importance but which in fact is a key part of a sequence of events—and let it go without proper debate on where we are going. I may have criticised the Community Land Act when the Government talked about positive planning, but I believe that those in positions of public responsibility ought to tell people what they are intending to do and what the consequences of their actions will be for those who will be directly affected by them.

3.22 p.m.

Lord BALFOUR of INCHRYE

My Lords, we conic today to bury Maplin. There are few mourners, and no pall bearers even among its most ardent fans, to whom I have listened in debates for many years. We have had a brief funeral oration from the Minister, without any tribute to the late lamented except perhaps one from the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who, it seemed to me, had hopes of some form of resurrection in the future. Maplin had its supporters. I have looked at Hansard from April 1971, and—as the costs escalated until a cost of £825 million was envisaged in 1973, and from that to some new totally unknown and unacceptable figure—Maplin supporters from all sections of this House have fallen one by one until, when I look at the speakers' list today, I can find no one who will speak up for that dead project.

Before the corpse of Maplin is interred, we ought to think for a moment what lessons we can learn from its history. It seems to me that the main lesson we can learn is how wrong all experts can be in their prophesies and their calculations, and how wrong these firm and brave Ministerial declarations can be as the time passes. I was a critic of Maplin from the very beginning and I have always doubted the need for a third London airport. I have had my share of being knocked about by Ministers over a period of years. More in sorrow than in anger, my fellow opponents of Maplin were often rebuked, as it were, "Oh ye of little faith; you ought to believe in this great project".

I cannot help recalling a call I made on 5th February 1973, supported by other noble Lords, for an urgent reconsideration of the project. I was put in my place very firmly by a pontifical Minis- terial declaration. This was the declaration: We"— noble Lords will, of course, note the big "We" and all it stands for— 'are satisfied of the need for additional airport capacity to serve the London area at the end of the decade… Maplin will meet this need…".—[Official Report, 5/2/73; col. 829.] Some of "we wicked infidels'' were still unconvinced, and on 26th June of that year we again challenged the project. The Minister again slapped me down rather sharply at column 1850 with this rhetorical question: What happens when our patched-up London airports finally burst at the seams? More capacity: …can only be sensibly provided at Maplin. There was a junior Minister in the last Conservative Administration—I never knew him personally, and I have nothing against him personally—Mr. Eldon Griffiths. He was really the cabin boy who climbed up the mast to nail the Maplin flags on the Conservative Party mast. For a long time, in and out of Parliament he said that the Party was pledged to Maplin. Our political system has lots of battle honours, and when one comes to look at the battle honours of the various Parties since the war I think that two will stand out. One is groundnuts, and the other is Maplin. In almost the last debate we had in your Lordships' House, I had my final rebuke when I said that Maplin was a dead duck. Civil air transport has its airport problems, of course, but I would ask the Minister officiating at the final farewell to this project: is it buried for all time? Can she give an assurance that there is no similar project for a third London airport being hawked around within the Ministerial corridors of power? Let the ghosts of Maplin be laid at rest, and the lessons of Maplin learnt.

3.28 p.m.

The Earl of CORK and ORRERY

My Lords, I must write a small footnote to the most able speech of my noble friend Lord Balfour. I was a supporter of Maplin, and I mourn its demise. However, as he has said, we are here to bury Maplin and not to praise it. I had not in fact thought of it in terms of a funeral so much as the inking in of a full stop at the end of a chapter. This is a better simile to me because one chapter leads to another. This is not the end of civil aviation or of the airport problem, and the next chapter comes to us in the form of this orange coloured document, to which my noble friend Lady Young has referred, Airport strategy for Great Britain. I am interested to note that it has no date. It says very early on in its pages that about six months will be allowed for consultation. Anybody picking, it up might wonder when that period ends. There, is no date on the document itself or on the foreword by the Secretary of State. It is possible to discover when it was published by looking at the bottom of the last page where there is some small print saying that it was printed in England by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, and so on, on 11/75. This may give a clue to when it was published.

I rather suspect that this slap-happy attitude to publication is not altogether uncharacteristic of the whole document. These magic words appear on page 1: The Government have not reached any conclusions on the various possibilities for the existing London airports nor on possible measures for regional diversion. This is some 20 years after it was said that we needed a coherent, long-term airport development, and nearly two years after the abandonment of the great Maplin project, which itself had been hailed three years earlier as one of the very greatest urgency.

My Lords, what comes next? I detect in this new plan, or rather non-plan, to which we are looking forward, a total incoherence, a lack of decision, or even thought, and a great deal of misleading talk, on the part of the Government. With your Lordships' permission, I should like to give one example which I think is germane to this debate. It is to do with Gatwick; and I speak on Gatwick because I live within its sound range, and I am the president of the Haslemere Aircraft Disturbance Action Group, which co-operates with the county councils concerned, and whose activities and professional technical reports on aircraft noise are well known to the Department. This Airport Strategy for Great Britain forecasts at Gatwick 25 million passengers a year by 1990, that is with the second passenger terminal built, and 168,000 air transport movements per year. That gives an average of 147 passengers per aircraft, which accords well enough with the 1990 forecast of 180 to 200 passengers per aircraft.

But the figure of 168,000 air transport movements includes an unspecified number of cargo-only movements, which do not involve the carriage of passengers. I cannot tell what this number is for Gatwick, because one is not told. But the proportion of all cargo movements to all air transport movements at all four London airports is given as over 8 per cent.; and such a proportion at Gatwick would reduce the air transport movements there to 106,000 passenger transport movements, which gives about 150 passengers per aeroplane. Now, 150 passengers per aeroplane is 75 per cent. of the passenger carrying capacity of a 200 seater, and 85 per cent. capacity of a180 seater. Those are the kind of aircraft that are forecast. Thus the forecast is supposing that in 1990 an aeroplane will carry on average between 75 and 83 per cent. of its total capacity, which is surely a liner operator's dream. Should we be a little less optimistic and a little more realistic, and suppose an average passenger load of 60 per cent? This will be found to produce between 208,000 and 231,000 passenger transport movements per annum, which is wildly in excess of the runway capacity at Gatwick as estimated; that is to say, 168,000 movements.

We have been assured that runway capacity is not the limiting factor again. But why is it supposed that the passenger carrying capacity of an aircraft would be as high as 180 to 200 by 1990? Taking the service life of an aeroplane as being 20 years, quite a lot of those now using Gatwick will be flying there still in 1990—such as BAC 111s, with a capacity of 89: and a larger number of Boeing 727s, which carry 130 to 160. Even if we add some Boeing707s, which can carry 189, these three types between them have an average capacity of between 136 and 142 which pushes the number of passenger transport movements higher still, in fact well above 100 per cent. of the declared maximum capacity of the single runway at Gatwick. Since I have no way of checking this figure, let us call it 100 and x per cent. Where is that extra x per cent. of runway capacity at Gawick to be found? By a resumption of night flying? By building a second runway? I see no third possibility.

What are we to expect my Lords, if all we have to go on is such misleading stuff as this? I have quoted this one example from the so-called consultative documents, solely to give an idea of why it is that many people most closely affected by the future development of London airports suspect that a good deal of wool is being pulled over their eyes.

3.35 p.m.

Lord LEATHERLAND

My Lords, I do not want to try to dot the i's and cross the t's of the valuable statistical dissertation we have had from the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery. But for well over a quarter of a century I have been very deeply involved in public affairs in Essex, including at one time the chairmanship of the county council. One thing I know —and it has been pointed out by the South-East Strategic Study on more than one occasion—is that some considerable development is needed in that South-East corner of Essex. I believe that at one time it was suggested that an extra 60,000 or 70,000 was needed in the population, and that an industrial infrastructure capable of sustaining those people was also needed.

The Bill before us today, which I support, finally buries Maplin so far as Her Majesty's Government are concerned. This means that the industrial and the housing planning of that corner of South-East Essex can go ahead in the knowledge that the ghost of Maplin is no longer hovering over that part of the country. But, sad to say, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has revived the uncertainty that was created a few years ago when Maplin was first thought of. She has suggested that if her Government come back into power, they may revive Maplin. That would prevent the authorities from getting down at this moment to the future planning of the area with any feeling of certainty.

I feel that it was right to kill Maplin at the time it was killed. At that time we were confronted with three major schemes, each costing well over £1,000 million. There was Maplin, there was the Channel Tunnel, and there was Concorde. In the state of our economy as it existed then, and as it was likely to continue to exist, I believe that this would have been a terrible strain on the economy of the country. Therefore I welcomed the cancelling of Maplin and the cancelling of the Channel Tunnel, but Concorde had gone too far ahead for any cancellation to be thought of in that case. At the time we were discussing Maplin, I supported it. I did not support it because of any intrinsic merits that it might have had, although it would have had some, but rather I supported it as a counterbalance to the suggestion that was then being made that a major third London airport might be built at Stansted.

I thought that was had. I thought it would ruin the peace and quietude, and the agricultural land of a very tine stretch of country in the Saffron Walden area; and I still feel the same. That leads me to say that I am rather disturbed at the suggestion made in the document quoted by the noble Baroness that there may be, as a result of the killing of Maplin, some expansion of a certain number of airports, one of which is Stansted. If there is any attempt to bring about any major expansion of Stansted, I can promise that there will he a feeling of outrage among the people in that corner of Essex, and I shall be among those who will be outraged. There will be a very strong agitation against any major expansion of Stansted Airport. I am not saying that a few little trimmings or a few little improvements here and there would not be acceptable. We have to face that fact, but to attempt to create a third major London Airport at Stansted would be a menace to that neighbourhood, and it would be a very bad thing which would be very widely opposed. Therefore when she replies, I hope that my noble friend can tell us exactly what is proposed in, perhaps, the next 10 years regarding the future of Stansted Airport.

The Maplin Development Authority achieved something during its short life. It gathered up thousands of shells that had been fired from the Shoeburyness Experimental Establishment and which had landed in the water and in the sand. Many of those shells had not exploded and from the point of view of public safety Maplin did something to earn the money that has been spent upon it.

There remains the question of the Maplin seaport. As my noble friend said, the original Bill provided not only for a Maplin airport but for a Maplin seaport as well. I understand that the Port of London Authority is now actively discussing this question. I do not know to what extent it has consulted the Government; I hope there will be close consultations. I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that the building of the new seaport at Maplin might have an undesirable effect upon other ports. This is merely another chapter in the moving of shipping on the Thames down from London to Tilbury and the outer reaches of the estuary. We have to face the fact that London docks as we knew them are out of date and that shipping does not require to use them. Shipping is increasingly using Tilbury, partly because of the fashionable introduction of containers and container ships, and it seems to me—although I do not speak with any expert knowledge—that perhaps it would be a good idea to build the seaport. Perhaps my noble friend will tell us how the seaport aspect of this Maplin Development now stands. I support the Bill.

Viscount AMORY

My Lords, I have only one subordinate question to ask the noble Baroness. The Bill refers to the properties of the Maplin Development Authority. Will she tell us whether any of the Authority's expenditure to date will have any residual value of any kind, apart from the elimination of the shells to which the noble Lord, Lord Leather-land, has referred?

Lord COLERAINE

My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Baroness one question and also to make one observation. First, I must apologise to the noble Baroness that I was not present for her opening speech, and she may have answered the question already. It is simply this. The Maplin Development Authority is to be dissolved. Why cannot the ashes be scattered in a decent way on the sea? Why do they have to return to the custody of the Secretary of State? Does that mean, as my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye suggested, that at some time this grisly project may be revived? The observation I have to make is to my noble friend Lady Young. If it is true that my leaders are considering, on their return to office—which I expect in the fairly near future—reviving Maplin, I for my part hope very much that they will have second thoughts.

3.43 p.m.

Baroness STEDMAN

My Lords, I am grateful to those noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. The questions have been fairly wide ranging and gone somewhat beyond the context of the Bill. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for giving me notice of her six questions and for her appreciation of the fact that I may not be able to answer at this time in such a detailed way as she would like, but any that I do not answer this afternoon, or do not answer in sufficient detail, I will read in Hansard tomorrow and will certainly write to the noble Baroness in further detail. Several noble Lords raised the question of the disposal of the Maplin Development Authority's assets. This Bill provides for the Maplin Development Authority's liabilities and rights and also for any property that is to be transferred to the Secretary of State. I would assure the noble Baroness that this is the usual practice. It is a conventional contingency provision and it is not expected that at the transfer date there will be any property to transfer.

On the question of finance and the need to write off the Authority's debt, the Maplin Development Authority have disposed of any realisable assets and these have been taken into account when calculating the present debt that your Lordships have been told about today. It was intended that the Authority should in due course recoup their expenditure on investigatory and design work, and the very much larger expenditure which they would have incurred on land regulation and development, from the proceeds of the sale of land to the Civil Aviation Authority and the Port of London Authority and other organisations, but without a Maplin Authority of course we have no such assets to sell off to help to pay the way.

The activities of the Authority were confined to surveys, to site investigations and to hydraulic, engineering and planning design studies. In May 1974 the Authority were directed to take steps to bring to a useful conclusion all the work that was then in progress and, as I have stated, in July they were directed to cease all further activities. This Bill automatically flows from that. However, the Secretary of State has directed that the Maplin Development Authority shall make all the technical findings available to him and comprehensive reports on the engineering studies have been deposited in the library of the Department of the Environment and with the Department's Directorate of Civil Enginering Development. So we may have something to look back on when perhaps some work is being done on another project.

On the question of the Maplin motorways, the rail links and the new town and the seaport, the London-Maplin motorway and the high-speed rail link with its town terminal at King's Cross and the local rail and road connections to Maplin and the new town in South East Essex were essential components of the Maplin project. But they were not the responsibility of the Maplin Development Authority and therefore they are not relevant to the present Bill. In fact, none of these proposals had reached the statutory stage by the time the reappraisal of the project was ordered by the Government. Statements that have been made since by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment have made it clear that none of these proposals remains extant or is being safeguarded.

On airports policy the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, asked whether Maplin was dead and buried and were we really attending a funeral this afternoon; and the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, also drew attention to the need for the details to be displayed and for people to know what was happening about our airports policy reviews. Following the decision to abandon the Maplin airport project the Government have carried out this wide-ranging review of airport policy and I apologise to the noble Lord if he could not find the date in it. We understood that it had been published in November 1975 and that was verified by his searching through the document. I will certainly draw the attention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to the need for having dates on such important documents as this easily accessible to those who want to read them.

The detailed consultations on the basis of the document that has been referred to this afternoon are currently being undertaken with local authorities, with airport authorities, with airport employees, with amenity organisations, wild life conservation people and with all others who are affected by airport development. After the completion of these consultations the Government will put proposals before Parliament on future airport policy, so that there will be an opportunity for a further debate on these consultation documents, and I look forward to it in this House with interest because of the comments which it has aroused this afternoon.

We were also asked whether we had really closed our options on having an airport at Maplin. The present consultations have taken place in the light of a firm decision by the Govornment to abandon the Maplin project for a third London airport. That decision was generally accepted and from that flowed the Government's subsequent review of airport policy which is reflected in the first of the consultation documents which was published last November, and we believe, from a preliminary reading of that document, that it confirms the correstness of the decision to abandon Maplin.

Baroness YOUNG

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, but can she confirm that all the planning procedures that will be connected with the extension of the four London Airports will be subject to the statutory planning procedures as understood by local authorities and individuals?

Baroness STEDMAN

My Lords, to the best of my knowledge that is the case, but I shall check on it and shall confirm it with the noble Baroness. In view of the present economic circumstances, I believe that it is quite inconceivable that the Maplin decision could now be reversed. Of course, no one can predict the long-term future and far be it from me to say what will be done by a future Government. I can give an assurance at this point of time that there is no idea of resurrecting Maplin, but I cannot commit any future Government, whether of my own or another political hue.

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