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8.52 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford): I congratulate the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) on securing this debate. The House will know that the Government place a high priority on the need to modernise our planning system. As part of that process, we are undertaking a thorough review of compulsory purchase--the most thorough review for a generation--to which the hon. Lady referred.
The hon. Lady made a number of specific points on compulsory purchase orders and wayleaves in her constituency, which I shall address in turn, although I should point out that responsibility for those matters under the Electricity Act 1989 lies, as she knows--we have debated this previously--with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Indeed, responsibility for coastal protection and flood defences lies with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The hon. Lady will understand that I
cannot comment on the merits of individual cases, but she and the House may find it helpful if, before I address her specific points, I set out briefly the context in which they should be considered.
It is always agreeable when one secures a consensus. We certainly have a very broad consensus on compulsory purchase and compensation laws: everyone, it seems, is critical of them. The trouble is that the consensus does not extend to agreeing what precisely we should do to make such laws better. Indeed, opinions on the matter are extremely polarised. There are those who maintain that the expropriation of land is draconian; that too many bodies have compulsory purchase powers; that compensation is inadequate; and that acquiring authorities can be heavy handed and inconsiderate in their deployment of such powers. I have some sympathy with those people.
Miss McIntosh:
Does the Minister agree that part of the problem, as he has explained, is that three different Ministries are involved and that there is no co-ordination between them? A landowner in my constituency is attempting to negotiate with the National Grid Company, but he is faced not just with the might of a large company, but with three Departments which each pass responsibility to another.
Mr. Raynsford:
If the hon. Lady will bear with me, I shall highlight specifically the issues that are relevant, especially to electricity pylons and cables, which are often very different from those that apply to compulsory purchase in an urban context. She will equally appreciate that Departments that have a particular interest in a subject--for example, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has a particular interest in coastal and flood defences--should be involved. However, I shall return to those points.
I was explaining that some people regard the whole compulsory purchase procedure as draconian. Others view compulsory purchase as an essential tool for the achievement of publicly beneficial work, such as the regeneration of run-down urban areas. They argue that compensation often rewards land or property owners whose neglect has contributed to the very dereliction that the regeneration seeks to reverse, and that the achievement of our target of 60 per cent. of new homes to be built on recycled land can be achieved only if there is wider use of compulsory purchase order-backed land assembly in appropriate development sites in cities. I have some sympathy with those views, too.
Having set out those two viewpoints, I should say that there is a third viewpoint--that of those who, putting to one side the questions of the adequacy of the powers or the quantum of compensation, point to the mind-boggling complexity of the law. There are hundreds--probably thousands--of statutory references to compulsory purchase and compensation, spread through dozens of statutes going back as far as 1845. Add to that the accretion of 150 years of case law, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and you have a behemoth of a system.
The House will readily appreciate that when the lawyers complain that the law is too complex, it is almost certainly too complex, and it is time for action to be taken
to tackle that. That is what we are seeking to do. The Government are aware of the problems, and our overriding objective is to create a simplified, consolidated and codified law, which is efficient, effective and fairer all round. That is what we are trying to achieve.
In June 1998, we established a fundamental review of the laws and procedures relating to compulsory purchase and compensation. Because the system is so convoluted and the opinions of the protagonists are so divided, we constituted an advisory group to help us undertake that task. I place on the record my gratitude for the work that that distinguished group of lawyers, academics, planners, surveyors, landowners, local authority officers and representatives of the major developers has undertaken so far.
The interim report, presented by that group in December, has been widely welcomed and praised for the thoroughness with which it has approached the issues and for the balance of its conclusions. I am confident that the group's continuing work will deliver the results that we wish.
My confidence that the review is proceeding along the right track was boosted following the first ever national symposium on compulsory purchase and compensation, which the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, in partnership with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Royal Town Planning Institute, sponsored in February 1999. Discussion at the symposium--which I was privileged to have the opportunity of attending and speaking at--and correspondence since then confirms that we are addressing the key issues, and that we are doing so pragmatically.
Now is not the time for a detailed critique of the group's report nor of its work programme for the months to come, but two linked findings are of particular importance. The first is that, allowing for some exceptions in the detail, the current compulsory purchase order framework is essentially sound and does not need reinventing in its entirety. The second is that the system is not always operated "efficiently, effectively or fairly"--a consequence, the group believes, of the infrequency with which the powers have been used in recent years. To put matters right, the group recommended--we have been quick to act on that recommendation--that a compulsory purchase guidance and best practice manual be devised, guiding acquiring authorities through all the twists and turns of the process. I might add that this apparently modest initiative has been widely welcomed, even by some authorities that view themselves as highly competent in that area.
I have given the House a brief overview to demonstrate that we recognise that the current system of compulsory purchase and compensation is widely perceived to be deficient, and that we are actually doing something about it. I have also sought to show that there are no simple solutions to any of the problems--or, at least, that what are sometimes presented as simple solutions are, as often as not, fiercely resisted by those whose perspectives differ.
The hon. Lady she spoke at length about the electricity pylons in the Vale of York. She will doubtless appreciate that had that featured in the title of the debate, my hon. Friend the Minister for Small Firms, Trade and Industry would probably have responded, as he is in a far better
position than I am to give a detailed answer on matters relating to wayleaves and electricity. I shall try to give as helpful a response as I can, albeit from a less authoritative position than my hon. Friend.
Miss McIntosh:
May I put on record the fact that I had a detailed conversation with the Minister's office about the nature of the debate this evening, so I am slightly stunned by that remark?
Mr. Raynsford:
As the hon. Lady will recognise, the choice of Minister to respond to the debate had already been made by that time, because the title of the debate related to compulsory purchase and compensation, without reference to electricity. As we established in a previous debate, responsibility under the Electricity Act 1989 lies with the Department of Trade and Industry.
The hon. Lady spoke about the National Grid Company's proposed electric line from Lackenby, in Cleveland, via Picton to Shipton in North Yorkshire--the North Yorkshire line. An electricity company usually obtains access rights to install a line over or under a particular piece of land by obtaining either a wayleave or a permanent easement from the landowner. If the company is unable to obtain such agreements voluntarily, it may apply to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for the grant of a compulsory wayleave, or to confirm a compulsory purchase order in respect of the required access rights.
In 1994 and 1995, the National Grid applied to the Secretary of State for the grant of a number of compulsory wayleaves to authorise it to install its proposed North Yorkshire overhead line. Following hearings into the applications, most of the wayleaves applied for were granted in March 1998. Since the Secretary of State's decisions on these matters, further wayleave applications have been confirmed relating to various sites along the route of the power line.
I know that the hon. Lady has written to DTI Ministers on several occasions on the subject of compensation and access rights granted under a compulsory wayleave. As she will now know, the Secretary of State has no powers to prescribe any financial conditions in any wayleaves that he grants.
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