House of Commons Hansard Debates for 12 Mar 1991

Mr. Anthony Steen (South Hams) : It falls to me to wind up for Members on the Back Benches. I shall try to do so in the next eight minutes.

This Bill provides us with a wonderful opportunity to deal with planning law. We have not had a planning Bill for 20 years. This one is supposed to tackle the faults of the planning system, but it does not do the whole job. It is really a very modest, tinkering Bill, which increases compensation for compulsory purchase. Although it incorporates some of the Carnwath recommendations, it does not make building without planning permission an offence.

I wonder whether the Minister has any idea of the scale of this problem. In 1988, there were 64,381 complaints about unlawful development. In 1989, the number went up to 74,979--an increase from 380 to 405 in the number of complaints per authority. Where else can people cock a snook at the law and, as often as not, get away with it?

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Other hon. Members have concentrated on whether it should be a criminal offence to build without planning consent. I propose, in the brief time available, to dwell on two matters that the Bill should, but does not, deal with. The first is the national scandal of vacant derelict public land. The register that was set up 10 years ago lists, even today, 82,400 acres of vacant public land--and that is just the tip of the iceberg. The register is already limited by a number of categories, and estimates from reliable sources suggest that the amount of vacant land is nearer 150,000 acres. The documentation of land in the register is as extensive as a large London telephone directory. Public authorities are not property developers ; few know how to market the land, and there is little incentive for them to do so.

While all that public land lies waste, however, developers are constantly exerting pressure for the building of more houses that will encroach on green-field sites--because, they say, no other land is available. That constant pressure on the countryside causes outrage and concern in the shire counties represented by a vast number of Conservative Members, which is understandable in view of the vast tracts of publicly owned land that are lying idle in urban areas.

I know that not everyone wants to live in the inner city, but inner London alone contains 136,000 "homeless households". The damage being done to those people and their children is incalculable, and it is a disgrace that so much good land should lie idle for want of Government action.

For the past 12 years, I have campaigned for such action. I have proposed the auctioning of public land, and I have also suggested that the land should be transferred to regional property development companies which could market and sell it, in a scheme affectionately known as PLUMS. The idea is that the land bank will not be reduced without new initiatives from the private sector, with the possibility of profits to spur the companies involved into action.

Mention of the need to help the homeless brings me to the issue of housing and local plans. The Bill will make local plans compulsory everywhere in Britain. That is a welcome move : only 25 per cent. of rural areas, in regard to population, are now covered by local plans, which can enable future housing needs to be discussed and incorporated into an area's development plans. England alone contains 1.25 million "homeless households" ; surely one of the chief purposes of the planning system is to facilitate the provision of sufficient homes in the right places.

Household formation forecasts are made by four people at the Department of the Environment, and are based on population forecasts provided by six people at the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. The forecasts are then handed down to the counties, which then draw up structure plans in, as it were, tablets of stone. The counties apportion the figures among the districts.

However, by the time that the houses are being built in those districts, the Department is revising its forecasts. In my county, Devon, 32 per cent. fewer households will be formed in the last five years of the 1990s than in the first five years of the 1980s ; England will experience a total overall drop of 45 per cent. The earlier forecasts, however, have already been incorporated in the Devon local plans,

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and the districts are already building houses to suit the earlier projections based on the 1980 figures. The entire programme has been distorted.

Surely it would be more sensible to base local house building plans on local, rather than national, figures. The district council in Totnes has a far better idea of how many houses will be needed in Aveton Gifford, in my constituency, than anyone in Holborn or Whitehall. Local plans should also take into account the state of the infrastructure : that is more important than the simple issue of development. No houses should be built unless planning applications explain how the extra infrastructure is to be provided.

It is not just sewerage but gas, electricity, water, hospital beds, doctors, police cover and so on. No new estate should be given the go ahead until the infrastructure to support the increased population is in place. In Roborough in my constituency, for example, a new estate was built but no extra school places were provided. In South Milton, so many new houses have been built that the sewage now backs up into the village. In Stokeham, so many houses have been built that the local electricity substation is frequently overloaded and the pub regularly plunged into darkness.

Not only must we get numbers and infrastructure right ; it is just as important to get the houses to look right. Often it is the shape and design of buildings that offend people. There are quite a few monstrous carbuncles on the face of well loved Devon villages which caused an outcry when first built and which still appear intrusive and out of scale. When I mention design, I am always told that it cannot be regulated, that it is too subjective. That is a cop-out. Aesthetics and design must be discussed and guidance given in local plans, so that local people and local officials have at least some say in the way in which new buildings affect their area, especially when these are specially designated conservation areas.

I have mentioned some of the glaring omissions from the Bill, but they can easily be amended. With my suggestions and the good will and the drafting of the Government team, we can make positive and constructive progress. The planning system is crying out for improvements, and we have the opportunity in this Bill to put things right.

9.26 pm

Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North) : I suspect that, when the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) entered the Chamber this afternoon, he expected a somewhat warmer welcome for the Bill. In the speeches at the various stages of consideration of the Bill in the other place, there was a much more comprehensive welcome for the legislation than we have heard today. I will come to a general welcome for some aspects of the Bill in a few moments. I will just say now that no one speech from the Government Back Benches has welcomed the Bill in its entirety ; in every case, the speeches have been critical not of what is in the Bill, which we all welcome, but of the omissions from the Bill and the faults in the current system that right hon. and hon. Members feel will not be put right by the Bill as it now stands.

We generally welcome the Bill, particularly clauses 1 to 11, which improve the enforcement procedures arising out of the Carnwath report mentioned by several hon. Members. The publication "Enforcing Planning Control"

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was widely welcomed and well consulted on and, on the whole, we think that the Government have translated it intelligently into legislation.

There has been some discussion about criminality and whether transgressions against planning law should be criminal offences. On the whole, the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) is a good one--that, where the development without permission is irreversible, as in the case of open-cast mine workings or listed buildings, it should be a criminal offence. There is a logic in that. In other cases it should be a matter of simply returning the site to what it was before. The Minister of State took some interest in that suggestion. If he wanted to co-operate with us in bringing in an amendment in Committee, we would want to co- operate with him on it.

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith (Wealden) : Will the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) not go further than something which is "irreversible" and look at the question from the point of view of blatant breaches of planning control? They are perhaps not irreversible but, by golly, the way things are now, it takes years to get anything done, and the way in which the Government have phrased the Bill does not improve it as much as we would like.

Mr. Howarth : I am always more than happy to accept an invitation by the hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith). I think that he is referring to the rate at which things can be changed. If the development can be reversed, we should concentrate on speeding up the process by which it can be reversed rather than going for criminalisation. However, if the hon. Gentleman differs from his ministerial colleagues, I have no doubt that he will take up those differences through the other channels available to him.

In response to an intervention, the Minister confirmed in his opening remarks that the Government intended to move towards a plan-led system rather than a development-led system. We welcome that. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) took us on a perambulation of the heinous crimes committed by developers in his constituency and he will also welcome the Minister's remarks. The points that my hon. Friend was trying to make were dealt with because a plan-led system is better than a development-led system. Having uttered those brief words of welcome, I shall spend some time dealing with the issues which we feel that the legislation as drafted does not cover in sufficient detail or covers in a way which does not make the best use of the potential available.

One body of opinion feels that a general duty should be placed on local authorities to ensure that planning controls are properly and fully complied with. Certainly, the abuses mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East would be better dealt with in that context. With regard to enforcement, we accept by and large that complete criminalisation of the process would not be the best method. However, we believe that an exception should be made in the case of irreversible developments. We shall seek to deal with that in Committee.

The Bill should also increase the importance given to development plans. They should be a major consideration, especially during the appeal stage. I have some sympathy with that idea because of what I have seen in my own constituency. At the moment, the problem is often that

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local authorities' planning committees and the councillors who sit on them have to act on the advice that they receive from officers. That advice--certainly in my constituency--is sometimes based on the likelihood of the plan going to appeal. It is not straightforward planning advice about what would be good for the area and about what would fit in with the local plan. It often takes into account what would happen if a lawyer took the plan to appeal and if various statements were made. That is wrong--local plans should be the major consideration. I hope that the Bill will give inspectors a stronger context in which to consider recommendations and that the process of strengthening local plans can be developed more fully in Committee. That would answer some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara).

My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay) talked about the opportunities for and the justice of greater public participation in the planning process. We should like to see more thought given to how people can have more say in the planning process, not because of any NIMBY sympathy but simply because we believe that there are many vested interests in development, not least those of the people who live in the area. I should like to be convinced of the case for a third-party appeal system because it would be an obvious route for public objections.

I know--and it is fairly evident from the speeches made by Conservative Members--that although when I was first elected to the local council in 1971, planning was usually not a matter of great concern, if one wants to fill a public meeting these days, one should have a meeting about a planning proposal. On one occasion in my constituency 1,000 people, unbelievably, turned up at a public meeting to discuss a planning proposal about an incinerator. There is widespread public interest, and we must take account of that as we deal with legislation and the reform of the present system. We believe that a new used class should be included in the planning system and we will raise that matter in Committee. We will raise especially the question of social rented housing, which could have significance in urban and in rural areas. It is unquestionably true that there is a widespread demand, which is largely recognised, for an increase in the supply of affordable rented housing. It is estimated that we require between 100,000 and 150,000 new units a year. Let us take the conservative estimate and say that the figure is 100,000.

The affordability of land is an issue in trying to achieve those objectives. We believe that creating a new class of social rented housing would identify the land available that the local authorities felt could be used for the purpose, and would stop the escalation of value which occurs when land is turned over for general housing use, which means that social rented housing has to compete with other forms of development. We hope that that issue can be taken up in Committee.

My hon. Friends the Members for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) and for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) fully covered the lack of green issues and of environmental impact assessment in the Bill. Given the shortage of time, I will not detain the House on that in detail. The potential exists for taking a more comprehensive look in the planning system, at green issues, but that does not seem to be covered in

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detail in the Bill. The Opposition will seek to realise that potential in Committee. There is considerable potential for green issues to be taken into the planning system, and the planning system should be used as a positive tool in that respect. We hope to use the opportunities available to us to table amendments through which to raise those issues.

In parenthesis, I want to give one reason why green issues are important, and I speak on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Benton). I invite all Ministers, before or during Committee, to look at the coal dust problem in the docks at Bootle. They would then realise the enormous problems with which people are confronted. Ministers would have to recognise that something should be done in the planning system. At present, the local residents, the Member of Parliament and Sefton borough council are frustrated in their efforts to do something about the problem.

My hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, South spoke about home loss payments. We accept that the Bill proposes a fairer system of payment for tenants and for owner-occupiers. In the case of tenants, the maximum payment would be £1,500. It is unjust that an owner-occupier, apart from the compensation that he is paid for the property, could expect to receive up to £15,000 whereas a tenant of any description would receive a maximum in home loss compensation of £1,500. There is little difference in the distress suffered by a tenant and by an owner-occupier. It does not justify a tenfold difference in the payments, and the matter should be considered again.

In common with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson), I believe that retrospection is important and we will raise it in Committee. The Minister is committed to going back to 13 November which is, I accept, the publication date of the Bill, so the decision is not entirely unreasonable on the surface. However, some cases that have been going on for some time before that date remain unresolved. We should consider including some such cases in the Bill. My two constituents, Mrs. Reid and Mrs. Davidson who were thrown out of Whitefield square in Kirby, would be grateful if we included retrospective measures to help them.

The Bill's limitations have been so graphically portrayed by hon. Members that the welcome that my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and I gave to the Bill almost pales into insignificance compared with the grievances and complaints highlighted in the debate. I hope that even if Ministers do not listen to Opposition Members in Committee they will at least listen to their hon. Friends, who feel that many grievances are as yet unresolved. I suspect that it will take a Labour Government to sort out those grievances. 9.40 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tim Yeo) : This has been a stimulating and wide-ranging debate, whicI interpreted in an entirely different way from the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth). My hon. Friend and I welcome many of the constructive and useful suggestions from our hon. Friends, and the overall atmosphere of the debate could hardly have been more positive. It is gratifying to know that the wide acceptance that the Bill enjoys outside the

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House has been reflected on both sides of the Chamber tonight. Many points have been raised, and I shall try to deal with as many as I can in the time available.

I shall start with the issue of enforcement and

criminalisation--making unauthorised development a criminal offence. The subject has been raised by a great many hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle), in a ferocious speech, for South Hams (Mr. Steen), whose views are well known, and for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone), most of whom prayed in aid the report of the District Planning Officers Society.

Criminalisation was opposed in the debate, not only by Opposition spokesmen, to whom I am grateful, but by some distinguished practitioners, including my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Ground). The issue was looked at closely by Robert Carnwath, who concluded :

"the margins between lawful and unlawful development are simply not sufficiently clear-cut to form an acceptable basis for a new criminal offence".

The Government believe that there are serious and specific objections to criminalisation. Supporters of criminalisation make two conflicting claims. They argue that planning authorities would use the draconian measure only sparingly, in the most serious cases, but in the next breath, they maintain that the deterrent effect of such a power would be widespread. If planning authorities were to use the power so rarely, how effective a deterrent would it be?

Criminalisation will not provide a quick remedy. An information may be laid quickly in the magistrates court by the planning authority, but there may then be a waiting period until the case can be heard. Throughout that period, the allegedly unlawful development would continue.

Criminalisation would impose a heavier burden of proof on planning authorities by requiring them to show "beyond reasonable doubt" that a breach of control had occurred. At present, in enforcement appeals, decisions are taken on the basis of the civil standard of proof, which is the "balance of probability".

Criminalisation does not provide any remedy. Even if an offence were successfully prosecuted, the breach of planning control would remain. Therefore, in practice, planning authorities would have to take formal enforcement action as well as prosecuting for an offence, so they would be involved in parallel proceedings in serious cases, involving considerable extra cost and complication.

Mr. Bill Michie rose--

Mr. Yeo : I am sorry, but I cannot give way ; I have too many points to answer.

If the other provisions in the Bill were properly used by local authorities, they could prevent much of the unauthorised development to which hon. Members understandably object.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) raised some environmental issues. I should remind the House that it is already an offence to knock down a listed building. Making irreversible, unlawful development a criminal offence has a superficial attraction but involves serious problems of definition. In any event,

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if we could define that category satisfactorily, we would find that only a small number of developments could be classified as irreversible.

As for my right hon. Friend's question about restitution costs, existing legislation provides, under certain circumstances, for authorities to take action to enter a property and then to charge the owner for the cost of remedial action.

Many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) when he opened the debate for the Opposition, the hon. Members for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti) and for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien), my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) and others, have mentioned environmental considerations. An environmental impact assessment is already required for nine categories of major development, as provided under European Community directive 85/337. An environmental impact assessment is also required for a wide range of developments that are likely to have significant environmental effects.

An amendment was moved in another place to enable that list to be extended. It is already pretty comprehensive and includes, for example, many projects on agriculture, the extractive industry and the metal processing industry. It includes aspects of the fruit industry such as the manufacture of dairy products, brewing and malting and infrastructure projects such as oil installations, yacht mariners and projects for hotel complexes and holiday villages. All such projects can already have an environmental impact assessment if the proposed development is likely to have a significant effect. However, we agreed to consider the amendment made in another place, and will report on our conclusions in Committee.

The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) mentioned environmental assessments for private Bills. We have just issued a consultation paper on the implementation of the recommendation made by the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure that there should be a requirement for environmental assessment for such Bills. The consultation paper was prepared in conjunction with the authorities of both Houses.

The possibility of third-party appeals was mentioned by the hon. Members for Hammersmith, for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) and for Eastbourne. Allowing third- party appeals would take more decisions out of the hands of local authorities. That is exactly the opposite direction to the one in which the Government are now trying to move. We should like more decisions to be taken locally. My experience leads me to believe that, were the third-party appeals procedure introduced, a significant number of such appeals would take place. If only one tenth of the applications now granted permission went to appeal as a result of that procedure, the number of cases appearing before my right hon. Friend for determination would immediately double. Therefore, the consequences of third-party appeal in terms of the extra cost and delay in reaching decisions are horrendous.

Mr. Cohen : Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Yeo : No, I shall not give way, as we are short of time, and I would rather deal with the other points that were raised. In a characteristically robust speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sir H. Miller) took exception to the approach outlined by my hon. Friend the

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Minister for Housing and Planning for a planned philosophy in terms of determining planning policy and planning decisions. There has been no weakening in our policies for the protection of the green belt. One of the key functions of the development plan process is to work out, through a process that involves wide public consultation, how the need to provide new housing and other development is best reconciled with the need to protect green belts and other vulnerable areas. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State takes account of those factors in determining housing requirements for a particular area.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove also mentioned the quality of the urban fringe. Again, I draw it to his attention that only last week my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State stressed that we need to seek ways of improving the green belt by dealing with land that is too often brown rather than green, thus improving amenity and increasing the opportunity for quiet enjoyment. I hope that my hon. Friend is much reassured.

The development plan system will be at the heart of our planning process in future. The provisions of up-to-date structure plans and local plans will guide the deliberations of local authorities and the decisions of inspectors and of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I hope that the development plan system will help to promote the consistency that was so eloquently advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson) in a forceful speech. I can also confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton that local authorities can refuse to determine identical applications that are made within less than two years of the date of the previous identical application. My hon. Friend suggested that local authorities might be intimidated by applicants. That is not an issue which is easily dealt with in legislation.

Many hon. Members, notably my hon. Friends the Members for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice), for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones), for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne), for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) and others, made it clear that they favoured bigger home loss payments. Let us be clear that our proposals in the Bill are considerably more generous than the present provision. We are increasing the maximum from £1,500 to £15,000. My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks referred to the French system, but that is not as generous as it seems. Although it involves a figure of 25 per cent., it is subject to a maximum of FF100,000, which at the current exchange rate is just over £10,000. The maximum figure that can be claimed under the 25 per cent. rule is only £2, 500--only one sixth of what we propose in the Bill.

Our proposals will lead to a doubling of the payments for home loss from £47 million a year to £97 million a year, as my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning said when he opened the debate. Of course, it has been difficult for us to decide on the right level for home loss payments. It is impossible to measure objectively the personal distress involved in the loss of a home, but our proposal is reasonable. We could make a choice only on the basis of a judgment of what was reasonable from the point of view of the claimant who loses his home, but we also had to take into account the burden that the taxpayer or local charge payer could be expected to bear.

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My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South mentioned delays in the payment of compensation. Claimants are entitled to an advance of 90 per cent. of the estimated compensation as soon as they move. The precise amount then has to be negotiated. I am not aware that problems have been caused by payment being withheld after the amount of compensation was agreed. If my hon. Friend would like to draw any specific cases to my attention, I shall certainly follow them up. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson) and others made a point about tenants. It seemed to us that the home loss payment for owner-occupiers should be higher than that for tenants. After all, tenants are statutorily entitled to be rehoused by the local authority. They do not face the problem of searching for another home. They also stand to benefit from other aspects of our proposals. In particular, many tenants will be eligible for the home loss payment as a result of the reduction of the qualifying period of residence from five years to one year. Many people who would previously have been excluded from the scheme will now be included.

Mr. George Howarth : The point that I made has not been adequately covered. I accept that there are differences between tenants and owner- occupiers, but the effect on home owners is not 10 times that on tenants. It is not the difference between £1,500 and £15,000.

Mr. Yeo : The home loss payment is different, but not every owner- occupier will qualify for the maximum £15,000. The majority will have a much smaller figure--10 per cent. of the value of their house, which may be only £4,000 or £5,000. The difference is much less than the hon. Gentleman suggests. In addition, a tenant or an owner-occupier can claim complete removal costs, which nowadays can amount to a substantial sum.

I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West that, under clause 53 and schedule 12, we are providing for additional compensation to be paid in future if, within 10 years of a compulsory purchase, there is further development on the land that has been acquired.

In reply to an important point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley), I can confirm that the extra power contained in the Bill can be used by authorities to help in cases of hardship. In reply to his request for news of when an announcement may be forthcoming about possible compensation for the intensification of existing railway lines, I can only say that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State hopes to come to a conclusion soon.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) rightly drew attention to our important proposals regarding interim development orders. His views on the need for conditions to accompany the registration process have been noted and, as he knows, the current consultation exercise ends on Friday.

I assure my hon. Friends the Members for Wyre Forest and for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Boscawen) that we have recently commissioned research on the important subject of whether performance bonds are needed to cover the cost of restoration schemes. I also compliment my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Somerset and Frome on his powerful speech ; he drew attention to the impact of environmental disturbance resulting from mineral extraction in the Mendips and I assure him that my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning and I will take his

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points on board extremely carefully. I am acutely aware of the sensitivity of the issues he has raised, on which he has been in correspondence with me.

I must apologise to hon. Members whose points I have not had time to answer in detail. I hope that many of them will take part in our deliberations in Committee, when I have no doubt that a number of the issues that have been covered briefly today will be explored at much greater length.

I am sure that all hon. Members receive frequent requests for help about planning applications, planning appeals and even planning decisions, and in relation to the planning process generally. Long before I had any ministerial responsibility for planning matters, I concluded that the more certainty and coherence which could be injected into the process of reaching planning decisions and the decisions themselves, the easier life would be for all hon. Members and, much more important, the happier most of their constituents would be.

The Bill is designed to promote that certainty and coherence. I know that many hon. Members and members of the public are worried about specific aspects of planning policy. Those anxieties frequently centre on the possibility that unwelcome or allegedly inappropriate development will take place. No legislation can remove such fears, but it can provide a framework within which planning decisions are made and enforced and in a way which promotes the formulation of policies designed to reflect the best long-term interests of the community. The Bill is a valuable step in that direction. The Bill is certainly varied, as the wide range of points with which I have just been dealing shows. It is also an important Bill. On many of the issues with which it deals, especially compensation, we have had no opportunity to update the law for many years. Efficiency and fairness require that the details of legislation are carefully looked at from time to time, but that does not detract form the importance of the new measures in the Bill.

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I recognise that not everybody likes everything in the Bill. Many hon. Members have suggested that, in one respect or another, they do not think that it goes far enough, but I invite the House to consider the Bill as a package of measures which together strike just about the right balance ; a balance which we have to strike between the needs of applicants and those of authorities, between the interests of conservation and the interests of development, between the reasonable demands of claimants and the protection of the public purse. I welcome the general support for the Bill. I look forward to a full discussion in Committee of the many issues raised. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

PLANNING AND COMPENSATION BILL [Lords Money] Queen's Recommendation having been signified --

Resolved,

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Planning and Compensation Bill [Lords] ("the Act"), it is expedient to authorise- -

(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of

(a) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums so payable under any other enactment, and

(b) any sums required by a Minister of the Crown for making payments by virtue of the Act of interest on compensation payable under any enactment or of amounts on account of such compensation or interest, and

(2) extinguishing any right to recover any amount under section 148 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1972, or section 133 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, including interest on any such amount.-- [Mr. Kirkhope.]

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War Crimes Bill (Procedure)

9.59 pm

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John MacGregor) : I beg to move

That if the War Crimes Bill is read a Second time, no order shall be made for the committal of the Bill and it shall be ordered to be read the Third time upon a future day ; and upon a motion being made for Third Reading the Question thereon shall be put forthwith and may be decided, though opposed, after the expiration of the time for opposed business.

The House will recall that the War Crimes Bill was first introduced on 8 March 1990, following debates on the principle of legislation, which had taken place in both Houses of Parliament the previous autumn--

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Ordered,

That, at this day's sitting, the Motion in the name of Mr. John MacGregor relating to War Crimes Bill (Procedure) may be proceeded with, though opposed, until half-past Eleven o'clock or the end of a period of one and a half hours after it has been entered upon, whichever is the later.-- [Mr. Kirkhope.]

Mr. MacGregor : The House voted decisively in favour of action to implement the principal recommendations of the war crimes inquiry, and that support was sustained on Second Reading on 19 March, when the Bill was passed by 273 votes to 60, on a free vote. The Bill subsequently passed through its remaining Commons stages, and was sent unamended to another place. The House will also recall that the Bill was refused a Second Reading in another place, again on a free vote, by 207 votes to 74.

My predecessor made clear, once the Government had had a chance to consider the implications of the debates and votes which had taken place, that we would be reintroducing the Bill this Session. That decision was reaffirmed in the Gracious Speech. We concluded that it was right for Parliament to give this matter further consideration. The Government recognise and respect the strongly held views, here and in another place, on the issues raised by the Bill, but the strength of support in this House was such that we believe that an opportunity for further reflection has to be provided.

It would not be right for me to go over the issues again ; that is for Monday's debate. I will deal solely with the procedure we propose.

In bringing the Bill back before Parliament, we have inevitably kept in mind the provisions of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949. My predecessor made plain the Government's hope that the Bill would secure the support of both Houses. That remains our clear objective. The Parliament Acts exist, none the less, as an instrument for the resolution of intractable disagreements between the two Houses of Parliament, and we believe that the possibility of their use should be preserved in this case. The view of this House was unequivocal on the last occasion, and if that remains the position this time, I believe that hon. Members will in the last resort expect their views to prevail.

But the Parliament Acts place certain constraints on the freedom of action of this House in considering a Bill the second time. To attract the provisions of the Parliament Acts, for example, Bills must not pass this House until a clear year has elapsed since the earlier Second Reading. Moreover, and most immediately relevant to the motion before the House, a Bill returned to another place on a

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subsequent occasion must do so in precisely the same form as before. A Bill cannot be amended beyond the purely technical changes necessary to reflect the passage of time since it was considered before. Thus, the Bill which has now been reintroduced, and to which we shall be giving substantive consideration next week, is the same Bill as the House considered last time, which it passed unamended. The House should not attempt to amend the Bill in any respect, if it wishes the Parliament Acts provisions to remain in reserve, in the event of unresolvable conflict.

The Parliament Acts make provision for the House of Commons, if it thinks fit, to put forward suggested amendments which are not actually inserted in the Bill, but which the House of Lords is required to consider. If accepted by the House of Lords, such amendments would be treated as amendments made by the House of Lords and agreed by the House of Commons, but, if not accepted, the offer of suggested amendments would not prevent the Parliament Acts from being used to secure the enactment of the Bill in its original form, should the Lords reject it.

The Government have carefully considered whether it would be appropriate to offer suggested amendments in this case and they have concluded that it would not. The Government's aim is that the Bill should implement the recommendations of the war crimes inquiry and should ensure that any prosecutions are well founded and well prepared, and that any defendants have proper and effective safeguards. We believe that the Bill, as originally presented and as reintroduced this Session, achieves that aim. As I have said, it was approved in this form by a substantial majority of this House last Session.

Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland) : Although I have been a Member of Parliament for a long time, I have not often experienced this procedure. Therefore, it would help me, and perhaps other hon. Members, if the Lord President were to say what method is used to ascertain whether the House agrees with any specific suggested amendment.

Mr. MacGregor : We are not proposing any suggested amendments. However, it has to be done on a motion that is outside the normal scope of debate. In other words, amendments to the Bill cannot be tabled. In this case, however, we are not proposing suggested amendments. The hon. Gentleman was probably not right when he said that he had not been here on a previous occasion.

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