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5.45 pm
Mr. Burns: Presumably, on that basis, the Minister assumes that the majority of the land and property will go to the Home Office, with only a relatively small proportion being sold off to the private sector.
I wonder, on reflection, whether it is all worth it. I am unaware that the probation service has encountered the worry and concern of managing its estate, among the many pressures on its time, duties and functions. It seems slightly pointless and a waste of time to shuffle around the ownership of property and land. I suppose that it is the Government's desire for modernisation that leads them to tidy up the system and concentrate the ownership at the centre, rather than around the country. However, as the Minister said about another aspect of this debate, that is Government policy. We may not like it, but they are perfectly entitled to do so. Whether it works is another matter.
Presumably, there will be sufficient staff and trained people to ensure that the land and property that is shuffled to the central Government estate is managed properly. Does the Minister anticipate conflict between the probation service and the management at the centre? Are there proper procedures by which to ensure a smooth transition and the effective and smooth management of the estate, without leading to friction and, ironically, distraction? If the probation service is no longer directly responsible for its estate, any conflict or problem could become extremely distracting.
I understand that the Minister does not want to sort out all my points as we go along, but I would be grateful if he could enlighten us in his winding-up speech.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): I rise to make a very short speech, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I am sure you will be pleased to hear. I simply want to question the Minister on one point. He referred to the reversion of land at present held by the probation service to a local authority--a county council or metropolitan authority. I am not clear what mechanism would apply for that purpose. I looked carefully at clauses 18 and 19, which contain a mechanism whereby land that is at present vested within the probation service can be taken into the ownership of the Crown Estate Commissioners or the Home Office. That extends further in that land owned by a local authority can, by the same mechanism, be moved directly to the Home Office.
I am not clear about land that has been acquired by a probation committee. Such a committee is not cognate with the local authority; as I know to my cost, having been leader of Somerset county council, it is a precepting authority. There seemed to be an ever-increasing bill from the probation service which the local authority was powerless to amend and it was simply a question of paying whatever the probation committee decided. That money, whether it was revenue or capital, was then entirely within the province of the probation committee, to spend as it saw fit. I am not aware that land that was then owned by the probation committee was retained in the ownership of the local authority. Therefore, how could land that was owned by the probation committee revert to a local authority that had never owned it? If land had been acquired for the specific purposes of such a committee, would the metropolitan authority or county council ever have had any title to enable the land to revert to its ownership? If that were not the case, the Bill would need to provide a specific mechanism. I see no such mechanism.
I see the Minister nodding confidently. I am sure that he will give me a satisfactory answer in his reply.
Mr. Clappison: The issue before us is whether probation boards, as they will be, will be allowed to own land or merely to manage it. The Minister's explanation of the Government's reasons for pursuing that course, and of why they are reluctant to allow the boards to own land, takes some swallowing. The Government are trying to prevent probation boards from being distracted by the ownership of land. That would seem a strange explanation if it were given in any other walk of life, with any other organisation in the public or the private sector. It is made even more strange by the fact that, under schedule 1(13)(2) the probation boards can hold property other than land, enter into contracts, invest sums and accept gifts. They can do all those things, which are apparently not distractions, but they are not allowed to own their own property--their own land.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) made a fair point when he said that, in legal terms, this is a confusing use of the word "property", since property is usually synonymous with land: indeed, the law relating to land is the Law of Property Act 1925. For the purposes of the Bill, however, the word does not apparently have that meaning.
Why are the probation boards not to be allowed to own land? The Minister gave us the real reason when he referred to clause 19 and schedule 3, which make the matter a little clearer. The Minister wants to put in place a scheme whereby the land owned by probation committees will be transferred to him. That is the scheme referred to in clause 19.
Schedule 3 deals with the way in which the scheme will operate, although it does not spell out what is being done. Taken in conjunction with what the Minister has told us about schedule 1, it makes it clear that we are talking simply of grabbing land held by the probation committees--a land grab by the Minister.
Some considerations need to be scrutinised. When the Minister refers to property held by a probation board, what does he mean by the word "held"? What legal interest does that encompass? In response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford, the Minister said that probation committees would be allowed to lease land but not to own it and that they would not be able to take out a long lease. What sort of lease will they be able to take out under the provisions? We need to know more about the meaning of the word "hold".
Will the Minister tell us how he expects probation committees to deal with their properties when they do not own them? If they do not own the property, will they have to go to the Home Secretary whenever they want to alter it? Will the committees be deterred from investing in their properties? Clearly, they will not want to invest in something that they do not own. Will the Minister deal with that? What happens when the Home Secretary decides that he wants to act at variance with the probation board? Whose wishes take priority? Can the Home Secretary simply tell the board that the Government think that there is overcapacity, and that they want to sell the land or do what they like with it? What happens if the probation board takes a different view?
I was surprised to hear the Minister's justification on overcapacity; what he said did not relate to my experience or to that of the Hertfordshire probation service. Members of that service are crying out for additional places for young people in trouble. Sometimes, such young people have had to go into custody because there was not enough space for them in probation hostels. In Hertfordshire, there is tremendous pressure on places owing to the lack of land and property available to the probation service. The Minister tells us that there is overcapacity; that will come as a surprise to many people involved with the criminal justice system.
What if there is a difference between the probation board and the Secretary of State concerning the use of the board's land? Will the Secretary of State simply tell the board what to do? On what basis will the proposed transfer take place? Will there be compensation? Paragraph 3 of the schedule is relevant because it deals with the transfer of ownership that must occur if probation boards are not allowed to own land. What compensation will be paid under that provision?
Under paragraph 2(2) of the schedule, what would happen to a person who might have a legal interest in property or land that is currently owned by a probation committee? For example, what would happen to the legal rights of someone who benefited from an easement or a covenant on such land? Will their rights be transferred away along with the committee's ownership of the land? We need to hear more about that matter from the Minister.
A host of issues lie behind this seemingly innocent, technical amendment. They arise from the Government's reluctance--even hostility--to the idea that probation committees should own their land. I suspect that, in future, probation boards will be put at a legal and commercial disadvantage by this measure; it will affect their operations. Far from the ownership of land causing a distraction, they will suffer from the distraction of not owning land--they will have to manage it and make various arrangements. They will experience a series of distractions because they do not own their land and thus cannot make decisions about their property. A further distraction could be provided by the intervention of the Secretary of State, who might decide to do something else with the land.
Given that the transfer will go ahead, will the Minister tell us how the matter will be dealt with in the Government accounts? Will it be counted as an asset to the Government--as a future windfall? Will it be classed as repayment of debt?
The provision gives rise to many important issues. The Minister will have to say far more; he cannot merely claim that ownership of land by probation committees is a distraction that prevents them from carrying out their functions and suggest, in addition, that there is overcapacity. He must spell out the answer to all the legal questions--as regards probation boards and other people who may have an interest.
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