Draft Housing and Planning Act 2016 (Compulsory Purchase) (Corresponding amendments) Regulations 2016
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Housing and Planning Act 2016 (Compulsory Purchase) (Corresponding Amendments) Regulations 2016.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley, for the first time, I think. The regulations may look rather complex—indeed, they are—but the principle behind them is straightforward. Before I launch into the detail, it may help if I briefly describe the scenario that has led to their being brought before the Committee.
Most compulsory purchase orders are made under the procedures set out in the Acquisition of Land Act 1981. Amendments were made to that Act by the Housing and Planning Act 2016, and corresponding amendments need to be made to those Acts that contain compulsory purchase powers but do not rely on the Acquisition of Land Act.
That is the principle; now for the detail. Schedule 15 to the 2016 Act amends the Acquisition of Land Act to require an acquiring authority to include additional information with the notice of confirmation of a compulsory purchase order. The notice is issued under the Acquisition of Land Act to those who have an interest in the relevant land. The acquiring authority must provide information about the effects of the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981; it must also invite any person who would be entitled to claim compensation if a general vesting declaration were executed to give the authority information on their name, address and interest in the land. The amendments are required because the preliminary notice to a general vesting declaration, which previously contained that information, will be abolished by the repeal of section 3 of the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act by paragraph 5 of schedule 15 to the 2016 Act.
To step aside from all the legal terminology for a second, the Government are doing this because the preliminary notice did not commit an acquiring authority to executing a general vesting declaration, so it served little use as a clear warning to a landowner of what was going to happen. We are getting rid of those preliminary notices and have instead increased the notice period for the general vesting declaration. That is the rationale for the change.
The changes introduced by schedule 15 will apply to the vast majority of compulsory purchase orders—as I have said, they are made using the procedure set out in the Acquisition of Land Act. There are, however, a number of other Acts—those listed in the schedule to these regulations—under which the procedure for obtaining compulsory purchase powers is not governed by the Acquisition of Land Act. We therefore need to amend those Acts accordingly; otherwise, owners and occupiers of land in orders made under those Acts will be denied the information about the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act that others would receive. In simple terms, that is what the regulations do.
If any right hon. or hon. Members are concerned that corresponding amendment regulations are an unusual way of proceeding, I hope that they will be reassured to hear that the procedure has a precedent. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, which was passed under the Labour Government, also amended the Acquisition of Land Act and corresponding amendments were made in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (Corresponding Amendments) Order 2007, SI No. 1519.
Finally, it would be legitimate to ask why the amendments to other legislation were not included in the original primary legislation and why we are making them via subsequent secondary legislation. Such amendments take time to research and prepare, and they could not be finalised until the main changes in schedule 15 had been settled definitely, so instead of rushing technical drafting through in the late stages of the Housing and Planning Bill, we decided that it would be better to take our time and draft them separately, with a view to bringing regulations into force at the same time as the substantive provisions.
I hope that is all clear and I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
May I, too, say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Paisley?
The Minister will know from our discussions in Committee on the Neighbourhood Planning Bill that we are supportive of changes to CPOs. There is a clear need to update legislation for them and to streamline and clarify existing legal guidance. We welcome the consolidation of the notice periods for general vesting declarations. We know that is a hugely complicated area, and anything that can simplify it is, as a generality, to be welcomed.
I thank the Minister for outlining what the regulations are about. That was reassuring on two fronts. The first is that I got the gist of what the regulations are doing right. I am not sure that I am quite as reassured by the second point, but it was probably useful for the Minister to say that the Government had not simply forgotten about all of the other Acts that contain CPO powers when they changed the legislation through the 2016 Act and that it was just that they needed more time to work it through.
If I have got this right, the regulations are concerned with the general vesting declaration procedure, and perhaps more specifically, the preliminary notice period before making a general vesting declaration. They seek to ensure that Acts of Parliament that contain compulsory purchase powers and are not subject to the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act, but are still used, are made subject to that Act. The regulations make provision for the amendments made by schedule 15 to the 2016 Act as well, so that they also apply to the earlier Act. The Minister will please correct me if that is not right.
We do not wish to oppose the regulations. We recognise that part 7 of the 2016 Act makes a number of changes to compulsory purchase procedures, including the notice period that an acquiring authority must give a claimant before entering and taking possession of land that it is authorised to acquire by compulsion. Authorisation usually takes place through CPOs, but can be through the Acts of Parliament—I will say something more about those in a minute or two—meaning that there are, I think, two ways of gaining entry and taking possession: first, by notice to treat, followed by notice of entry under the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965; and, secondly, by a general vesting declaration under the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act.
My understanding—again, the Minister can correct me if I am wrong—is that the 2016 Act standardises the minimum notice period for entry to three months, rather than the confusing 14 or 28 days that existed before, and states that clear information must be set out in the confirmation notice for a CPO issued under section 15 of the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act, so it did two things. I think it is worth noting as we go along that that information is quite important because, first, it gives a prescribed statement about the effects of parts 2 and 3 of the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act, and secondly, it provides the invitation to any person who is entitled to claim compensation under that Act.
The regulations seek to make corresponding provision in those Acts that enable compulsory purchase to take place but that have different authorisation procedures. Without the regulations, it would be difficult for the two provisions I have just outlined to apply. I think it is worth us putting that on the record, because when I saw the regulations I thought that there was quite a wide range of Acts that had something to do with CPO that probably passed most people by: the Harbours Act 1964; the Forestry Act 1967; the New Towns Act 1981, which is very important; the Transport and Works Act 1992; and so on. It is quite helpful to the Minister to have those outlined in the regulations, because we can now refer back to them.
This is a fairly technical set of amendments. We note that in the technical consultation on improvements to the compulsory purchase process, the Government confirmed that the reason they are making changes to general vesting declarations is that the process is uncertain, with conflicting case law, and they believe the law should be changed to provide greater clarity.
However, vesting conditions are far from the only area in which there is some sort of contradiction in CPO legislation. More than 100 years of law and case law have thrown up many contradictions. The plea I make to the Minister is that rather than continuing to change the CPO system bit by bit, will he introduce legislation that allows us to have a complete review of the CPO system in the country? We could then have a much more fit-for-purpose system that will allow us more easily to bring forward infrastructure projects and the big settlements that we so need to tackle our housing crisis.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I was impressed by the manful way in which the Minister dealt with this issue. Given my own experience in the past week or so, I definitely subscribe to the cock-up rather than conspiracy theory about any problems that occur in political life.
It was worth having a short debate on this issue. Compulsory purchase is critical, and it is important that the Government get it right. We understandably have a culture in this country that respects the idea of an Englishman or Englishwoman’s home being his or her castle. As a result, we do not have the rather roughshod approach that applies in much of the rest of the continent, and indeed across the world, to issues of compulsory purchase.
As has been mentioned, if we are to make infrastructure changes and to turbocharge our infrastructure development in this country, whether in housing or across a range of other areas, it might well be necessary to exercise compulsory purchase on others’ behalf—particularly utility companies. It is therefore critical that we get the law entirely on all fours.
It is right that the Minister has looked at a vast array of different bits of legislation, which seems to be slightly in conflict, but it is better to have a belt-and-braces approach than to let it be. This will be a controversial issue in the years to come if we are to have the infrastructure development that is of great national importance, particularly where it interrupts individuals’ rights.
Gavin Barwell
Let me start by confirming that the hon. Member for City of Durham is quite right to say that these are technical regulations. Indeed, without any offence to my officials, who serve me so well, when I start reading my briefing note and it says, “These regulations may look rather technical”—or complex—my heart sinks a little. The hon. Lady understood exactly what the regulations seek to achieve. When confronted with these things it is always good when one grasps them correctly.
The hon. Lady asked for clarification about why we are introducing this measure in secondary legislation, rather than in the original primary legislation. Both Government and Opposition Members—and, indeed, my officials—would probably agree that the process for the Housing and Planning Act 2016 was not ideal. A lot of amendments were introduced at quite a late stage, including by the Government. It is right that we took our time to get the complex regulations that we are considering right.
The hon. Lady mentioned the need for a wider look at CPO legislation and, with the exception of my hon. Friends the Members for Thurrock and for Taunton Deane, no other member of the Committee had the pleasure of experiencing the Neighbourhood Planning Bill Committee, during which we discussed these issues in more detail. The Government have already made some changes to the CPO process through the Housing and Planning Act. The Neighbourhood Planning Bill, which is currently on its way through the House and to which we will shortly return on Report, will make some further changes.
The hon. Lady is quite right that there is, if not consensus, at least a growing body of opinion suggesting that we might want to look at a more radical review of CPO legislation. I repeat what I said in the Bill Committee: the Government and I are not necessarily averse to that, but before we do anything we would need a greater degree of consensus about exactly what such radical reform might or might not look like.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster is right that CPO powers are critical. They are sometimes essential to drive major regeneration schemes that are clearly in the public interest. I see that in my constituency, where the third London Westfield scheme—the redevelopment of the Whitgift centre in the centre of Croydon—could have been enabled only by a CPO, which has been made. It is right that the state has such powers, and from time to time it is going to be necessary to use them if we are to make the kind of changes to our infrastructure and to get the homes built that we desperately need in this country. We are, though, a society that values property rights and that wants to ensure that when the state is using its power to force somebody to sell their property, the proper tests are applied to determine whether there is a clear public interest in the powers being used and that there is no other reasonable alternative way to secure the development.
On that basis, I shall draw my remarks to a conclusion. It has been good to have the Committee’s unanimous support for the regulations. We will clearly need to return to this issue, not least on Report of the Neighbourhood Planning Bill.
Question put and agreed to.