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4.31 pm
Mr. Moore: Who would have believed it? We have held a major debate on a significant development in Europe and we have cross-party consensus. Indeed, there was a spectacular result on Second Reading, when the House supported the Bill by 491 votes to nil.
In that debate, there was much talk of remarkable political transformations, which referred mostly to the spectacular progress made by the accession states, whose membership we endorse today. However, we should not let this moment of cross-party unanimity on this subject pass without reflecting on the positive pro-European signal that our votes sent out on that occasion. Alas, as the speech of the shadow Foreign Secretary has just indicated, and as we may find when we have the announcement—or non-announcement—about the euro on Monday, the moment will prove to have been brief. Let us enjoy it while we can. Liberal Democrat Members wholeheartedly endorse the Bill and support its Third Reading.
Within a year, we must hope that the existing 15 member states will be joined by 10 new members. Given the extremely positive results of the referendums so far, that seems highly likely. As the Minister for Europe pointed out in Committee earlier, referendums in Malta, Slovenia, Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia have given strong endorsement for accession to the European Union. The indications in countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic, which are due to hold referendums shortly, are that they, too, will endorse accession.
Those results are important and, hopefully, in September will be further enhanced by the addition of Estonia and Latvia to the accession process. They represent a symbolic break with a past that, for so many, was characterised by conflict, invasion and totalitarian rule. The shackles are completely broken. The promised brighter future is taking a new and tangible form.
Each of those former communist countries has made decisive strides away from its past during the last decade. It would be insulting and naive to suggest that only the lure of EU membership created that change. Each has fast been developing its own democracy and modern market economy, and their desire to join the EU and part of our enthusiasm in welcoming them is based on the entrenchment of their new democratic principles, creating more prosperity and bolstering their security.
In recent months, opinion polls in the accession states have highlighted what the people of the new members see as the benefits of membership. Greater economic stability, improved competitiveness, human rights protection, rights for workers, environmental protection and common action on drugs and other forms of trafficking are just a few examples and positive
reasons why they wish to join the EU. We in this country will benefit as well, with access to an increased market with up to 500 million people, which is about twice the size of the United States of America. We, too, will enjoy the benefits of enhanced security, finally, we hope, putting behind us centuries of conflict in Europe.Not all will be plain sailing, and it would be remiss of us to ignore some of the problems that still face us. Indeed, in today's proceedings, right hon. and hon. Members have talked about the problems in Cyprus and we share their disappointment that it is not yet possible for the island to join in a united form. However, as has been said today and in previous debates on the subject, the fact that the people of Cyprus are voting with their feet and crossing between the north and the south is a positive development. I hope that the politicians will reflect on that and that a settlement will be reached.
Similarly, we must not ignore the problems of the need for reform within the EU. We, too, agree that the common agricultural policy, among other policy areas, needs to be examined seriously and overhauled from its present form. As the shadow Foreign Secretary highlighted, we can also look ahead to the outcome of the Convention and the intergovernmental conference and to a whole new way of operating in the EU. We will return to that debate on another occasion. No doubt, the arguments will be vigorous.
For now, we should continue to recognise the scale of the historical achievement that the Bill marks and that accession represents. Liberal Democrats wholeheartedly endorse the process and support the Bill.
4.37 pm
Ann Winterton: I rise briefly to support the Bill's Third Reading, not least because its brings into focus once again the importance to Parliament of the European Communities Act 1972, which has to be amended each time European legislation is introduced in this country. It is important that Members and people outside appreciate the importance of that Act. To date, it has been a one-way journey, in that we have amended the Act to introduce European legislation, but it can be amended the other way—for example, to bring back national control over British fisheries policy. That could be done if this Parliament had the political will so to do.
I welcome the countries that are joining the EU, but the Second Reading debate was amazing because of the themes that ran through it. I have flicked through Hansard and I wish to quote a couple of remarks made in that debate. The first is by my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), who said:
- "Enlargement requires decentralisation and flexibility".—[Official Report, 21 May 2003; Vol. 405, c. 1040.]
Later in the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) said:
- "The EU is in drastic need of reform. A large proportion of hon. Members agree broadly on the agenda to deal with it. We want a looser EU with the supranational element stripped out. We want the application of subsidiarity, or whatever one wants to call it. We want much greater scrutiny of EU activity by national Parliaments."—[Official Report, 21 May 2003; Vol. 405, c. 1108.]
With that word of caution, I join hon. Members on both sides in welcoming the Bill and supporting its Third Reading.
Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.
PETITION
Post Offices
4.40 pm
Ann McKechin (Glasgow, Maryhill): It is a great honour to present to the House a petition from the west of Scotland seniors forum. Its headquarters is based in my constituency but, as its name suggests, it campaigns on behalf of the elderly over a wide area of Scotland.
Tremendous concern has been reflected throughout Scotland and the United Kingdom about the effect of the current post office closure programme on our local communities and, especially, the elderly. Many older people, including a significant percentage of older people in my constituency, rely entirely on their local post office to obtain their pensions and pay their bills. Many elderly people rely solely on public transport and many suffer from mobility problems. In addition, many live a considerable distance from alternative banking facilities. Such closures are likely to hit our elderly the hardest.
The west of Scotland seniors forum has collected a magnificent 9,076 signatures from post office users in many parts of Scotland. It calls for the current closure plan to be stopped and hopes that its appeal will be taken seriously.
- To the House of Commons
The petition of the West of Scotland Seniors Forum
Declares that Consignia/Post Office Ltd is wrong to consider closing 3,000 local post offices as this will lead to poorer services for older people who rely on their local post office for many transactions. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to intervene and stop the closures.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
Sub-Plot Land Sales
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Caplin.]
4.42 pm
Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling): My debate has been triggered by a horrendous chain of events at a location in the green belt in my constituency called Deer's Leap. I shall return to that but the House and the Minister should be in no doubt that the events that I shall describe have a significance that goes far wider than only my constituency. They have relevance to the south-east region and beyond, because they call into question the integrity, credibility and enforceability of the entire development control system.
Deer's Leap is—or rather was—an area of lush, open meadow in the beautiful parish of Hever, near the town of Edenbridge in my constituency. It is in an area that is designated as both green belt and of local landscape importance. Those who bought homes in the vicinity of Deer's Leap did so on the basis of local authority searches, some of which I have seen, that assured them that the surrounding land was designated as green belt. The prices that they paid for the homes reflected that designation. Sadly, the name Deer's Leap today carries a somewhat bitter irony. It is the name of an area in which no self-respecting deer would venture to tread; and no deer, or indeed anyone who saw what is there today, would leap for joy.
It was on 2 September last year that the officers of Sevenoaks district council, who should be commended for their alertness, first became aware that a land speculation company called Parker Fields Ltd., which had acquired Deer's Leap, was offering it for resale in a series of sub-plots. On the following day, 3 September, the council immediately fired a warning shot across the bows of Parker Fields. They told the company that the council would strongly resist any attempt to develop Deer's Leap for non-agricultural purposes and that it would monitor the site closely and consider taking any enforcement action that became necessary. Regrettably, the warning shot proved to have no deterrent value whatsoever for that land speculation company.
With all the danger signs flashing over Deer's Leap, the officers of the council as quickly as possible sought and obtained from the members of the council authority to apply to the Deputy Prime Minister for article 4 directions. As the House knows, article 4 directions are the strongest forms of protection that can be obtained for a site such as Deer's Leap under existing planning law. The council applied for not just one article 4 direction, but three, supposedly to protect the site against the incursion of caravans, the arrival of hardcore for hard-standings or roadways, and the erection of fencing.
The council applied to the Deputy Prime Minister's Department on 13 November last year. It took the Department a total of four months to process those straightforward applications, which was far too long. Finally, on 12 March the three directions, signed in the name of the Deputy Prime Minister, reached Sevenoaks district council. Ironically, the letters and approval of the three article 4 directions arrived on the day on which the invasion of Deer's Leap began.
The invasion of Deer's Leap was no ordinary minor infringement of development control. It was a carefully planned, determinedly executed military-style operation. Caravans started to arrive on 12 March. Hard on their heels came lorry after lorry loaded with hardcore to create hard-standings and roadways. That in turn was followed by the removal of the topsoil and the erection of huge lengths of fencing to fence off the sub-plots. In a very short space of time, the lush open meadow of Deer's Leap in the green belt had become an environmental eyesore of a caravan encampment with all the trappings of permanence. In the process, the article 4 directions of the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom had, frankly, been torn up in shreds in his face.
Equally well organised in that carefully planned attempt to smash the development control system was the planning application. Lo and behold, it arrived in the offices of Sevenoaks district council on 13 March, just 24 hours after the invasion of Deer's Leap began. The planning application was for a retrospective change of use of Deer's Leap to be used as a site for the permanent positioning of 12 caravans and mobile homes, together with hard-standing and fencing. In other words, it was an application to get planning consent on a permanent basis for a change of use that had already been brought about by force and by occupation.
In such circumstances the local authority has only one place to go—to the High Court for an injunction—and to the High Court Sevenoaks district council went. Unhappily, though, the legal system is no better able than the planning system to protect areas such as Deer's Leap from gross breaches of development control. The practice of the High Court is not to issue an injunction saying that the land is to be restored to what it was before the gross breach of development control took place, but merely to issue an injunction to stop the breach getting any worse than it has become by the time the injunction is issued. That means that the legal system gives every possible incentive to those carrying out a gross breach of development control to make the maximum possible breach in the shortest possible time, before the injunction takes effect. That is precisely what happened at Deer's Leap.
Despite the serious limitations of the legal process, Sevenoaks district council had no alternative but to go down the High Court injunction route. An ex parte injunction was obtained on 3 April, three weeks after the invasion started, followed by an inter partes injunction confirming the ex parte injunction on 11 April. By the time the ex parte injunction was issued on 3 April requiring the maintenance of the status quo as at that date, there were a total of 12 caravans on the site. However, following the injunctions of 3 and 11 April, additional caravans continued to arrive on the site, additional hardcore was laid out and additional fencing continued to go up. As a result, Sevenoaks district council has had to go to the extreme lengths of making a further application to the High Court for a committal order to prison for contempt of court. That is set down for hearing on 27 June.
As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I took advice from the Clerk of the House this morning on the application of the sub judice rule. In accordance with the advice that I received, I shall make no comment on the
merits or otherwise of Sevenoaks district council's application for a committal order set down for hearing on 27 June.In the meantime, the planning application lodged on 13 March has been determined. It was determined last week, on 30 May. Sevenoaks district council refused planning consent and the council members gave authority for the taking of enforcement action to try to restore Deer's Leap in its entirety to an unfenced grazing area. However, that is not the end of the planning story. Planning refusals can be appealed. Enforcement notices can be appealed. If there are appeals, months will elapse while an inquiry is set up, a public inquiry is heard, the inspector goes away to consider the inquiry's evidence and produce his report, and final determination of the appeals takes place. It could be a year or more from the start of the invasion before the planning outcome is determined.
I earnestly hope that the outcome, which will appear in the name of the Deputy Prime Minister, will ensure that the gross breach of development control is reversed in its entirety. All that can be said at this stage—this is a grim situation for my constituents—is that the final outcome is unknown.
What can be done about situations such as that at Deer's Leap? Prior to this debate, I put the case in writing directly to the Deputy Prime Minister, on 28 March and again on 14 April. When I wrote, I illustrated the situation with photographs taken before the invasion and after it, which were kindly supplied by one of my constituents. I found the reply dated 7 May that I received from the Minister of State in another place, Lord Rooker, totally inadequate. It contained the, to my mind, hopelessly over-optimistic sentence:
- "I should point out that controls already exist to tackle unlawful development in the countryside."
In exploring what should be done, I start with what I thought was a very pertinent observation put to me by the planning director of Sevenoaks district council, Mrs. Jean Morgan, in a letter to me dated 30 May. She says:
- "It is difficult not to conclude that planning only works when people follow the rules: the current system is based on consent and compliance. Although it works successfully to protect the environment and the interests of the wider community in the large majority of cases, when it does not work it can fail spectacularly."
I want to take this opportunity to put the record straight on one point relating to Parker Fields Ltd. I have examined the company's website very closely. Parker Fields Ltd. operates out of suite 113 of the Park Royal business centre in London NW10. On the first page of the website is a quotation in which the company is described as the
- "Robin Hood of the Land Industry".
- "robs the Rich and gives to the Middle Classes".
In doing so, I am most grateful for the assistance that I have received from the chief registrar of the Tunbridge Wells district Land Registry office for the following information. He has assured me that in all cases it can be put into the public domain. These are the transactions in relation to Deer's Leap conducted by Parker Fields Ltd.
On 19 April 2002, the company bought the area for £60,000. It got its money back in five months flat by re-selling part of the site to Susan Armitage for £60,000. From then on it was profit all the way for Robin Hood, and the profit came in three separate tranches. There were two sales to Mr. William Kennedy in September 2002 and February 2003 for £19,000 and £10,000 respectively. Finally, there was a sale to four members of the Doran family in sub-plots for £22,500 in February 2003. So as a result of the land speculation of Parker Fields Ltd., for the initial outlay of £60,000 it got back £111,500, effectively nearly doubling its money in 10 months flat. The one person who has clearly become significantly richer is Mr. Robin Hood.
Let us consider the other side of the financial equation. The local home owners in the vicinity of Deer's Leap have found that hundreds of thousands of pounds have been wiped off the value of their homes. Indeed, one or two of the local residents have told me that their homes are now, to all intents and purpose, unsaleable.
In addition, the luckless council tax payers of Sevenoaks district council are picking up an ever increasing bill. I have seen the costs for the district council so far. In terms of legal fees and the cost of officers' time, the bill for the district council's council tax payers already runs into tens of thousands of pounds. I suspect that that is only the start of the overall bill for council tax payers. There will be further legal costs and High Court appearances. There is no doubt that further costs will be incurred—officers' time and legal costs—as a result of a public inquiry if the enforcement notice and planning refusal are appealed.
Perhaps most significantly of all, at the end of the process, if the Deputy Prime Minister ensures that the site is returned to its original state, as I trust he will, there will be the cost of removing all the hardcore, some of which may be contaminated, putting back the topsoil and restoring the site to what it was. Ultimately, the bill could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, which might become a liability of the council tax payers of Sevenoaks district council.
On the basis of this illustration, which I am glad I have had the opportunity to recount to the House in detail, it is evident that although only a small minority of people are determined to bust the development control system, the present civil basis of planning law and enforcement law is ineffectual. It clearly provides a wholly insufficient deterrent for those who are effectively seeking to take development rights into their own hands.
I believe that the Government have to consider introducing wholly new legislation in respect of such people, who create major breaches of development control. In speaking of major breaches, I am not referring to homeowners who push their luck with extensions that are rather larger than is appropriate under the general development order or even to travellers who pitch camp at the roadside and who intend to move on, but do so only when they are required to—irritating, vexing and costly though the associated processes are. I am referring to those who breach development control in a major way and then seek to establish permanent development rights on the basis of their breach.
I want to put a particular proposal to the Minister. I believe that there is now an unanswerable case, given the weakness of the civil law, to make a small but necessary extension of the criminal law into this area. The proposition that I put to her is that where companies, partnerships or individuals knowingly connive in, are associated with or give effect to major breaches of development control, they should be brought within the ambit of the criminal law. Happily, the Government have in the House at the present time a legislative vehicle that would make that possible—the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, on which I understand a carry-over motion is being debated next week. I ask the Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister to consider most carefully the proposal that I have made, as I believe that it is absolutely essential, on the basis of what has happened at Deer's Leap and elsewhere, to make a significant change in the development control system and to introduce the criminal law into this area.
Finally, I stress to the Minister the fact that the problem is growing. If she is in any doubt about that, I suggest to her and her officials that they scrutinise the website of Parker Fields Ltd., as well as those of other companies that may be involved in the speculative sub-plot land sale process. That website should be studied not only by the Government, but by local authorities and solicitors firms advising clients as to whether they should buy a house in a particular location. Indeed, a large number of existing house owners may wish to satisfy themselves as to whether Parker Fields Ltd. is active in the vicinity of their homes. If that is the case, all that I can point out is that the activities of that company have had a disastrous impact on house prices in the immediate vicinity of Deer's Leap.
It may assist the Minister and the House if I indicate the locations where Parker Fields Ltd. has land up for sale, as featured today on its website. There are two sites in south Buckinghamshire, at Denham and Beaconsfield. A site is up for sale in the Chiltern district of Buckinghamshire, and another site in the Three Rivers district of Hertfordshire. There is also a site near Maidstone in Kent, which I am sure will dismay my neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for
Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), and a site in the Mole Valley area of Surrey. Only today, a site appeared on the website that is described thus: "Surrey. Coming soon—nine and a half acres south of Dorking." That will please people who live just south of Dorking. Lastly, there is a site in east Sussex in the Wealden district.I make these points to the Minister so that the Government are in no doubt that the significance of the problem goes much wider than my constituency. The Government must act. They must produce further legislation, and they must do so fast.
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