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Written Ministerial Statements
Monday 19 April 2004
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
St. Helena (Air Access)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. Gareth Thomas): On 16 September 2003, Official Report, col. 43WS, I announced in a written statement to the House that four expressions of interest had been received to last April's international invitation for private sector participation and potential investment in possible development of access by air for St. Helena. Since then, as anticipated in my statement, a full assessment of the four proposals has been carried out with the help of expert advice from Atkins Management Consultants and in consultation with the St. Helena Government.
That assessment is complete. After very careful consideration, and taking account of the advice provided in December 2003 and February 2004 by Atkins Management Consultants, we have concluded that none of the four outline proposals offers a basis upon which we might negotiate air access for St. Helena with DFID financial assistance as described in the invitation. The four respondents to the invitation have been informed. We have further decided, in the light of detailed scrutiny of the four proposals and subsequent analysis, to discontinue attempts to develop air access as part of a cross-linked package of private sector investment in which air access would be part-funded by proceeds from other private development. These decisions were based on our carefully considered conclusion that this approach presents unacceptable levels of risk and uncertainty to the St. Helena and UK Governments.
Nevertheless, we understand that air access still remains the preferred option of the people of St. Helena for maintaining physical links with the island after the present ship is withdrawn from service during or soon after 2010. We will work with the St. Helena Government to explore ways of providing air access and the value for money of these against other options. The costs are likely to be substantial. We therefore will conduct full feasibility and other investigatory work, which will take account of all costs and long-term impacts, in order to inform future decisions. The St. Helena Government and DFID expect to be in a position to take these decisions later this year.
Meanwhile, St. Helena has appointed its own local coordinator to assist in the process. We shall continue to ensure that, with her help, the people of St. Helena and others are kept as fully informed as possible of progress.
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DEFENCE
ECHR Judgments (Courts Martial)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Ivor Caplin): On 6 January 2004, I set out the main findings of the judgment of 16 December 2003 of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the cases of Cooper and Grieves and future conduct of courts martial. In particular, I stated the Government's intention to put a remedial order before both Houses under section 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 for the purpose of making the necessary changes to naval court-martial arrangements that would ensure compliance with the ECHR.
The Naval Discipline Act 1957 (Remedial) Order 2004 came into force on 16 January 2004, pursuant to the procedure prescribed in paragraph 4 of schedule 2 to the Human Rights Act 1998. To date, I have received no representations concerning the order. I am grateful to the Joint Committee on Human Rights for recommending that the order be approved. The Government therefore do not intend to amend or replace the order currently before the House.
TREASURY
OGC Buying Solutions: Performance Targets 2004–05
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Paul Boateng):
The agency will facilitate at least £300 million value for money improvements for the public sector in 2004–05.
The agency will continue to achieve levels of customer satisfaction above 90 per cent. as a headline figure and will demonstrate continuing improvements in customer satisfaction through other measures.
The agency will make a return on capital employed of 6.5 per cent.
The agency will reduce by 5 per cent. the ratio of internal costs over value for money improvements with the outturn for the same ratio in 2003–04 (excluding any new business e.g. WDS)
A copy of the agency's Business Plan for 2004–05 can be found on their website www.ogcbuyingsolutions.gov.uk.
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
Agricultural Land
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Keith Hill):
There has been a great deal of concern that agricultural land is being sub-divided into smaller plots and sold over the internet to purchasers who believe they may at some point in the future be able to build on the land. There are two issues of public concern surrounding the sub-division and sale of plots. Firstly, the erection of
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fencing and the installation of caravans and access roads using permitted development rights granted under the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995. This can lead to an unwelcome change in the appearance of open countryside, the loss of agricultural land and concern about the neglect of land split into different ownership. The other issue is whether buyers of the plots are being misled into thinking they will eventually be able to build properties on the plot and the fear from neighbours that development will be inevitable.
When the matter was debated at the Commons Report stage of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), undertook to keep Members informed on progress made in considering what could be done to prevent the unwelcome development of sub-divided agricultural land. This statement provides an update on he measures that we have been considering.
As the issue arises from the sale of land in agricultural use in a way that implies the potential for development we have looked carefully at consumer protection measures. We do not think this offers a way forward at present. Cooling-off periods are usually a way of protecting people against high pressure selling techniques and they would probably not be effective here as there is no evidence that buyers have been subjected to these techniques. Moreover many of the purchasers of these sub-plots see themselves as making a long-term investment. They are not deterred by the knowledge that there is no likelihood of the land being granted planning permission for development.
We have also considered ways in which control over development on sub-plots could be tightened either by amending or removing permitted development rights, perhaps by requiring prior approval for development on sub-plots, or by classing the division of land into sub-plots or unused land as development. It became clear that real difficulties arose in trying to distinguish between the development we wanted to prevent and legitimate development we did not want to hinder. We need to balance the needs of legitimate users of permitted development rights against the desire to prevent unwelcome developments. Any benefits would be greatly outweighed by the negative impacts of any changes and open to further abuse.
A number of other issues have been raised during debates on this issue which fall within the remit of our review of the planning enforcement system in England and these points will be considered alongside that review.
However there are measures we can bring forward which will enable local planning authorities to take more immediate action as soon as evidence of abuse is suspected or emerges. We will consult in the summer on changes to enable local planning authorities to serve article 4 directions on site rather than in a newspaper to bring them into effect more quickly and on changes to allow an article 4 direction to come into effect without the Secretary of State's approval on a wider range of permitted development rights than is the case at present. We have already taken steps in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill to introduce a measure to help speed up enforcement action following a breach of
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planning control that will enable local planning authorities to issue a temporary stop notice when a breach of planning control is first identified without first having had to serve an enforcement notice.
A large number of powers are already available to local authorities that some authorities use more effectively than others. We are also today issuing a letter to local planning authorities that sets out a summary of existing powers to deal with sub-plots. The letter encourages local planning authorities and amenity societies to advertise or use the Internet to give prospective plot purchasers a realistic idea of the likely development potential of their plots.
The Department of Trade and Industry and the Office of Fair Trading will investigate complaints about widespread misleading advertising or misselling of sub-plots. DTI's "Don't be A Mug!" website also provides a consumer's guide to scams and rip-offs and has recently been updated following a DTI campaign on investment scams. The address of the investment scams pages is http://www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/scams/page9.htm. Many of the points included on his section of the website are also applicable to sub-plots.
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