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1.38 pm
Mr. Brazier: I shall be brief. I am grateful to all the hon. Members who have come along on a Friday morning to support the Bill. I failed to mention that the benefits my children obtained from scouting first started my thinking about the matter.
There has been a string of excellent speeches. The right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) brought terrific experience to the debate. He has done a lot of work with his working group, and some of its concerns could be addressed through the Bill.
The hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) rightly focused on the Vowles case, which is at the heart of what has recently gone seriously wrong and is frightening the sector.
My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) combined a lifelong commitment to volunteering, on which he has written several pamphlets, with a string of interesting constituency cases.
I reassure the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) that it is envisaged that people will normally sign one form, but organisations such as the scouts or the CCF might get the form signed annually when children go to particular camps involving particular activities.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Brent, North (Mr. Gardiner) for volunteering to serve in Committee. I am happy to repeat my reassurance on the Data Protection Act, and that provision could not go on to the statute book as drafted. I discussed that point until the last moment, and I accept that I have still not got it right. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) for the strong support that she promised as Opposition spokesperson and for her interest in the Bill.
The Minister was extremely gracious in her reply. She and I were both suffering with raging colds when we met two weeks ago and I am extremely sorry that while I have got over mine she, perhaps through overwork, has not yet got over hers, and she has been terribly brave. I look forward very much to working constructively with her in Committee. It may help the House and hon. Members who will serve on the Committee to know that, as I have made clear throughout—the Minister has echoed this—the latter parts of the Bill are negotiable. Clause 2, including subsection (2), needs to be tightened up and re-examined, but the underlying principle of the Bill, which the consortium of volunteer organisations
supports, is that we need a solid mechanism for raising the barrier for negligence claims against volunteers. There is not a single organisation that wants a single act of negligence to be committed against a single child or adult, but volunteers are worried about the threat to adventure-training and sporting organisations posed by cases such as Vowles. It is not acceptable that because there was a serious accident as a result of what most volunteers providing sport and adventure training would regard as an acceptable bending of a rule—the Minister was right: although it was called a law, it is in fact a rule—a referee should be declared negligent. His decision was based on the individual player's wishes and the game would otherwise have had to be abandoned.I shall end where I began. I thank all members of the consortium and colleagues on both sides of the House who have assisted with the Bill and made Second Reading possible. I look forward to working with the Minister and colleagues who agree to serve on the Committee, including my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham.
Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills).
Town and Country Planning (Enforcement Notices and Stop Notices) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
1.42 pm
Mr. Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
When I was preparing my speech yesterday, I did so in the almost certain knowledge that I would not have an opportunity to speak. I therefore thank my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who is a fine advertisement for eating a Mars a day, for allowing us time to debate an important issue. I put on record my gratitude to the Bill's sponsors, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) and for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), as well as Baroness Hanham in another place.
The subject of the Bill is substantially the same as that of amendments tabled in Committee to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, which were not debated because of the guillotine that the Government ruthlessly impose on Bills. The subject was debated on 5 February in the other place, which is more civilised and confident. My Bill is designed to address the serious and growing problem of landowners abusing and flouting the planning system by constructing unauthorised caravan parks, often in the middle of the green belt. But it has wider use against developers who routinely ignore planning controls. I notice that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister produced a consultation paper on the management of unauthorised encampments. My Bill has nothing to do with unauthorised encampments where, for the most part, the Travellers are trespassing, but deals specifically with the case where the Travellers own the land.
Before I describe the measure in detail, I shall start—unusually, perhaps, for an Opposition Member—by praising the Government. Whether that will help my sensible and modest proposals get onto the statute book remains to be seen. I was somewhat cheered and felt rather optimistic about my chances when I received a chatty and friendly note from the Government Whips Office dated 14 January. It starts pleasantly with the words "Dear Eric", and continues:
- "re: Fridays—Assistance Request
Thank you for being able to assist on 5th March, 23rd April, 14th May, 18th June and 16th July.
I will have briefings for you the week of your Fridays.
Best wishes
Jim"
The reason why I am so pro-Government at present is their announcement of 25 February that they will table amendments to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill currently in another place, allowing local authorities to issue a new kind of stop notice. That is very welcome and goes some way towards meeting the demands in my Bill.
Ministers have suggested in the past that the existing planning laws and regulations are more than adequate to deal with the problem of blatant disregard of planning laws, despite evidence to the contrary. Given their dramatic change of heart, I shall draw a veil of discretion over past misjudgments.
According to the announcement by the Minister for Housing and Planning— what a pleasure it is to see him in his place today—
- "Local authorities will be given more powers to stop unauthorised development and protect the environment".
- "As a result of the 'Review of the Planning Enforcement System in England', the Government has tabled an amendment to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill to enable local planning authorities (LPAs) to issue a 'temporary stop notice' at the start of unauthorised development, before an enforcement notice is served."
- "When someone starts damaging the local environment by breaking the planning g rules we want to ensure local authorities can act more effectively. The temporary stop notices could be used across a wide range of circumstances such as to stop the setting up of a scrap yard or haulage business without consent in the Green Belt."
- "Communities must have confidence in the planning system, which will only be the case if the rules are enforced."
It is precisely because communities have lost confidence in the system as a result of its slowness that I bring the Bill before the House today. Communities also feel powerless and abandoned by authority. Many thousands of taxpaying, law-abiding people feel a mixture of bewilderment and anger that the present system allows, and even enables, blatant breeches of planning control that will take months and probably years to remedy. I suspect that many hon. Members on both sides of the House have stood alongside local councillors and planning officials in an angry public meeting, explaining why nothing can happen immediately and that patience and restraint are required, and saying that there will eventually be an inquiry and a decision. At such meetings, one describes the lengthy and tortuous process and watches the audience's demeanour change from anger to frustration to incredulity, and then back to anger again. When one finally gets up enough courage to tell the audience, as one must, that the outcome is far from certain, one can almost taste the feeling of abandonment in the air. To
take the Minister's words to their logical conclusion, communities have lost confidence in the planning system because the rules are not enforced.When the rules are enforced, it is always years down the line, after Travellers have lived on a patch of land and regard it as their home. I have seen that happen in my constituency, and I see it daily in the village where I live. The eventual decision is rarely happy or harmonious for anyone. In events not far from my constituency, my constituents got a taste of what might be from the eviction of Travellers from a Travellers' caravan site at Meadowlands, near Chelmsford. The eviction, which occurred on the morning of 26 January, made a lengthy item on the regional television news, with footage of blazing barricades, 100 police officers with riot shields, tearful women and rocks being thrown at 40 bailiffs hired by Chelmsford borough council as the Travellers tried to keep their homes.
The Travellers had bought the ground; they moved their caravans on to it three years ago and called it Meadowlands, but their four planning applications to live there had been rejected. Chelmsford borough council has rightly said that no Travellers were hurt during the eviction, and it insists that the eviction was carried out purely on planning grounds, after the Travellers had failed to comply with two enforcement notices and an injunction ordering them to leave the unlawful site, which was zoned for agricultural use only. Four bailiffs were injured during the operation, which cost a staggering £150,000. This is not an isolated incident. We saw on our television screens pictures of similar sieges in Warwickshire this year. Both Brentwood and the Epping forest part of my constituency have about five sites awaiting a similar fate.
I do not want planning controls to be routinely decided on the basis of riot shields, with each scrap of land fought over as in some mediaeval battle, but that is the position that this House has forced on hard-pressed councils such as Chelmsford, which must take such action in order to enforce the rule of law.
I note with approval the words spoken in Westminster Hall in January 2002, when the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), as the Minister responding to the debate, stressed that Travellers
- "should be accorded the same rights . . . as others".
- "However, within the context of what I have just said—that all people's rights are equal in our society—if people behave in an antisocial or criminal way, or in some of the ways . . . outlined, the full force of the law can and should be brought to bear."—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 15 January 2002; Vol. 378, c. 67WH.]
For hon. Members who are lucky enough not to have experienced such events at first hand in their constituencies, let me briefly explain how they usually turn out. The first thing that one notices is that a previously greenfield site is fenced. When inquiries are made, assurances are given that the land has been
purchased for grazing a few horses. In reality, that is a lie that is meant to be seen through—these are but the opening moves of a ritualised dance.Village meetings are hurriedly called and the planning officers get a taste of what life will be like for the foreseeable future. Next, earth-moving equipment arrives to strip away the topsoil, which is quickly disposed of. Even the most trusting now realise that it is about more than just a few horses. Then come the tonnes of hardcore, which are quickly pounded into the earth. Next, caravans towed by top-of-the-range 4x4 vehicles move in, usually over a weekend to minimise the council's interference.
Let us remember that a lot of money changes hands: the conveyance and purchase of the land cost thousands of pounds. The plot is sub-divided and re-conveyed and there is a rapid churning of ownership, which makes the accurate serving of documents difficult.
Agents make a nice living acting as middlemen in identifying and negotiating the purchase of the land. The new owners of the land purchase it in the full knowledge that it is without planning permission. However, after a period of years has passed it is uncertain whether that fact is passed on to subsequent purchasers, so some injustice, not to say fraud, may be perpetrated.
The arrival of the caravans is just the start of the difficulties. Nervous planning enforcement officers are sent to serve notices and to erect official notices on the site, which, if the officer is particularly forceful, will remain intact throughout the duration of his visit. Mains drainage and electricity are connected in dangerous and unauthorised ways. Negotiations are started to regulate those services, much to the annoyance of local residents. If one is lucky, the matter can be resolved within a couple of years, but it can sometimes drag on for up to seven years.
We should not make the mistake of assuming that such people accord with the stereotype. By and large, they are not penniless, oppressed people who depend on benefits—on the contrary, they are an industrious community with an outward display of wealth, including modern caravans, expensive all-terrain vehicles and smart, well-maintained commercial vehicles. The sites bristle with activity and with TV satellite dishes.
None of those problems would occur without an original vendor. Sometimes, people feel that the provision of Travellers' sites is inadequate and sell off their own land to increase the supply, but that is rare. Most vendors have one driving principle, apart from the money—payback. The land usually has a history of repeated planning refusals, and is often isolated from other land holdings and difficult to develop. It is an act of cocking a snook at authority and lining the pockets at the same time.
The practice is widespread. It has created a new type of blackmail and a modern kind of danegeld. My attention has been drawn to cases where objectors to a development receive a polite call pointing out that if the development does not go through they might find a Travellers' site there instead. I am also aware of cases where the local solution is to buy back the land—in effect, making a payment to export the problem to
another community. All that is usually achieved is the identification of a community that is a soft touch, and where a repeat visit would be profitable.Sadly, the lawlessness is not all one-sided. I am aware of criminal damage and arson committed against Travellers to frighten them into moving off. As the sites usually house families, that is a despicable act. One day, somebody will die as a result of the inadequacy of our planning system.
Direct and illegal action, corruption and blackmail are operating within previously law-abiding communities because people have lost confidence in the planning system as the rules are not enforced.
The Bill is intended to address the inadequacy of local authority enforcement powers to achieve a rapid cessation of the use of land in breach of planning controls. It is especially designed to tackle the problem of use of land for stationing residential caravans with the consent of the owner or tenant of the land.
Under the current system, two notices can be served against development carried out without planning permission. Enforcement notices require steps to be carried out or activities to cease. There is a minimum period of 28 days before they take effect, and usually a period for compliance thereafter. The notices can be appealed to the Secretary of State and do not take effect until after such an appeal has been finally determined. Breach of an enforcement notice after the period for compliance has passed is a criminal offence. If the steps have not been carried out within the required period, the local planning authority may enter the land and carry them out.
Secondly, there are stop notices. If an enforcement notice is issued, the local planning authority may also serve a stop notice that prohibits carrying out any activity that is required by the enforcement notice to cease, and any action that is part of that activity or associated with it. For example, if the enforcement notice prohibits the use of land for residential caravans, a stop notice can also prohibit that activity. A stop notice takes effect from a specified date, which can be immediate, cannot be appealed and is not suspended by an appeal against the underlying enforcement notice. Breach of the stop notice is an offence.
The Bill would give local planning authorities a power to remove from the land objects, not including buildings, that are used for a prohibited activity, if that activity is a breach of an enforcement or stop notice. For example, caravans could be removed, or when the activity is the unlawful construction of a building, the builders' equipment could be removed. It would apply only in circumstances in which criminal offences are committed, although there is no need to bring a criminal prosecution. If caravans are moved on to a site in breach of planning control, the local planning authority could serve an enforcement notice and a stop notice. That amendment to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 would allow the authority to remove the caravans if the notice is not complied with.
The Bill would allow entry only when a criminal offence was being committed. It builds on existing section 178 powers, and I am advised by counsel that they are compatible with the Human Rights Act 1998.
When a similar measure was debated in another place, stress was placed on the shortage of official sites for Travellers. I have sympathy with some of the views expressed, but they have nothing to do with the Bill. Current provision is determined on the basis of neglect, money, corruption, blackmail and intimidation. That is no way to make decent provision for those who seek a permanent settlement for their caravans.
The Bill would make an important shift to make the system work. It would discourage the unauthorised occupation of land as a tactic to bump the planning system; allow proper applications for planning permission; enable Travellers to purchase land for sites in the normal way; place Travellers on the same basis as the settled community; and discourage unscrupulous people from making money out of the sale of land, which offers no long-term security. Above all, it would restore to communities confidence in the planning system through effective enforcement.
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