Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 227G, which stands in my name. This amendment would insert a new clause after Clause 106 that would require the Secretary of State, within one month of the Bill being passed, to publish a report on whether the exercise of compulsory purchase powers by local authorities remains compatible with the rights and freedoms protected under the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically Article 1 of Protocol 1, “Right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions”.

The issue relating to Clause 105 is that it allows acquiring authorities, when calculating compensation for compulsorily purchased land, to exclude hope value. That is so even where that hope value is genuine, long-established and grounded in realistic prospects of future development. This risks leaving landowners with compensation that does not reflect the true value of what they are losing. Indeed, it is not just a risk; it is more than that, and it will surely come to pass. There is also no statutory mechanism preventing acquired land later being disposed of at full value—potentially by a private entity—without redress to the original owner. This raises clear questions of fairness, proportionality and potential misuse of public power, and I look to the Minister for clarification on this.

Equally troubling is the absence of safeguards to ensure that land taken compulsorily is actually used for its intended purpose and not sold on later for profit, with no compensation or benefit to the original owner. This risks opening the door to misuse of state power; it diminishes public trust. This would be contrary to the principles of fair dealing that were established at least 70 years ago and have been acted on by Governments of all persuasions ever since.

In this, I refer to the Crichel Down affair, which should be etched on every Minister’s heart. This was a British Government scandal in the 1950s. It involved the compulsory purchase of agricultural land in Dorset for RAF bombing practice. The land was later transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture. The ministry then significantly increased the land’s price, making it unaffordable for the original owner’s successors. The ensuing public inquiry, which criticised the ministry’s actions, led to the resignation of the Minister of Agriculture—note that; the resignation—and the establishment of the Crichel Down rules. This requires government departments to offer surplus land back to former owners or their successors.

Although this situation is not exactly the same as the one my amendment addresses, the mischief is similar. The principles underlying it should be no different. It is called “fair dealing”. I invite the Minister to say plainly that, where property is taken by compulsion, there must always be fair dealing.

The Crichel Down scandal established that principle. Public bodies making use of CPOs should not later, if they change their minds, make a financial gain at the expense of the original landowner—so much for the English common-law position. As I have explained, those principles apply to a different but comparable position to that which this amendment addresses.

I turn shortly to Article 6 of the convention. This requires access to an effective remedy, yet the opacity around how compensation is assessed in the absence of procedural safeguards in some cases may give rise to a challenge under that provision.

This amendment does not seek to obstruct regeneration; it seeks legal clarity, transparency and reassurance that the Government remain committed to fair dealing and to honouring their obligations under the convention. I urge the Minister to recognise the importance of these protections and accept the need for a report when the Bill becomes law.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 325 in this group but, first, I would like to support the remarks made by my noble friends Lord Roborough and Lord Sandhurst. I echo what has been said about compulsory purchase orders. We live in a country that is meant to have property rights. What can be worse than forcibly removing property that someone rightfully owns? Which one of us would like our property to be compulsorily removed?

Generally, in the past, this has been done only for huge infrastructure projects—not that that makes it better for those whose property it affects. It has been rarely done, although we have just heard of a very awful example from the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. However, I am sure that many of your Lordships will have read about the property removed to make way for HS2: the family farms that were taken and the homes that people had to leave. Do the general public really think this is a good thing? Surely, it is a human rights abuse. The Bill incentivises this approach by allowing acquiring agencies to buy the land at agricultural prices and then sell it on for development. We are meant to be making life easier and better for people, not causing utter misery.

I thank noble Lords who have allowed me to insert Amendment 325 into the group. Amendment 325 would insert new subsection (2A) into Clause 83 to ensure that fields used by people to graze their animals and high-quality agricultural land that could be used for food production cannot be compulsorily purchased by Natural England as part of its environmental delivery plans.

I spoke earlier in the debate about how one of the advantages of living in a democracy is that we have these property rights. In the Bill, there are provisions to make compulsory purchase easier and for local authorities to be able to seize land more cheaply, as I just said, where it is required for new development.

I spoke last week about how high-quality agricultural land should be used to produce food, which is in proposed new paragraph (b) of this amendment, so I will not repeat all that we talked about then. I would like to focus on proposed new paragraph (a), which concerns

“land … that is in personal use for the grazing of animals”.

People who have a few fields, for horses, donkeys or maybe llamas, goats, the odd pet sheep or anything else, need those fields to keep their livestock and pets. These fields are often on the outskirts of villages or towns. They therefore look rather attractive for development but, if this land were removed, what would happen to the animals and livestock?

A while ago, the Prime Minister himself purchased a field, so that his mother could care for neglected donkeys. Sadly, she has now died and the field has been sold, but what would have happened if this field had been taken while it was being used for the donkeys? In short, as I have said before, I believe that compulsory purchase—seizing someone’s property—is against human rights and should be used by a Government in only the most extreme of circumstances, and that land that is being utilised for family animals should never be considered.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, of course there should be a Holocaust memorial in London; it is absolutely right that in London we mark properly the terrible events of the Holocaust. An appropriate memorial will be a much-needed bulwark against anti-Semitism—but this is not it. The site is inappropriate. The Westminster City Council planning authority was right: the proposed memorial is too large for this site, and the proposed education centre is too small and will not do what is required.

As Sir Richard Evans, a leading expert on the Holocaust, explained in his petition, we already commemorate and research the Holocaust most impressively at the Imperial War Museum just down the road. Not long ago, I spent half a day there. It was exhausting, moving and memorable. That exhibition apparently attracts some 600,000 visitors a year. It is linked to the museum’s significant archives and is an important centre of research and learning. The IWM exhibition centre is truly excellent. I speak as one who has also visited the exhibition in the House of the Wannsee. That was an experience which left me with a headache.

We have other education centres in this country: Beth Shalom in Nottinghamshire, the Huddersfield centre and the Wiener Holocaust Library in London. It is quite plain that the education centre proposed now is not the education centre of quality which the commission advocated. We should do better elsewhere, not in the bunker proposed.

I will move on to the memorial itself. On any basis it is large, which is appropriate, but it is of questionable artistic merit and, as we have heard, the design is one which was effectively booted out by Ottawa. It is far too large for this setting. The fact that it is to be sunken is at one and the same time a recognition of its inappropriateness for this site, yet it will detract from the impact that such a memorial should make. It should make an impact; it should not be hidden halfway down.

Of course, therefore, such a memorial should dominate. This one, notwithstanding its semi-sunken state, will dominate this confined site and detract from the other memorials already there. One, to me at least, is of particular importance and sensitivity: the Buxton memorial. It marks the 1834 abolition of slavery in the British Empire. The transatlantic slave trade was simply appalling. Over 12 million Africans were transported in the 350 years prior to 1867. Up to 2 million may have died in transit and millions more died of disease and ill treatment after arrival. That fact is that, up until 1807 and then 1833—the two abolition Acts—Great Britain was a significant party to that process, yet the charming and relatively modest memorial to Buxton and his supporters who brought that to an end will be diminished and overwhelmed by this proposed memorial. That is unfortunate. Context is important.

Finally, security on this site so close to Parliament must be a serious issue. To ground refusal in part on the basis of security risk is not to give in to the mob but to be grown up and rational. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and others have explained why. The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, enumerated important planning considerations. In short, this is the wrong proposal for the memorial which all good people want. We must start afresh and get it right.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, our Amendment 17 would enable the Secretary of State—or, in Wales, Welsh Ministers—to change the description of premises that are excluded from collective enfranchisement rights. Such a change would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, for all his time in discussing the Bill with me, and I acknowledge his expertise in this area.

Clause 28, which our amendment targets, makes changes to the non-residential limit for collective enfranchisement claims. At present, Section 4(1) of the 1993 Act excludes from the right to enfranchise buildings in which 25 % or more of the internal floor area, excluding the common parts, can be occupied or are intended to be occupied for non-residential use. The clause increases that non-residential use percentage to 50%. We welcome the change, which enacts recommendation 38 of the Law Commission’s final report on leasehold enfranchisement and was supported by the National Leasehold Campaign, among others.

Of course, if the purpose of the non-residential limit is to confine enfranchisement to predominantly residential blocks, the Law Commission determined that the existing 25% limit does not achieve that purpose. There is a significant amount of evidence that, instead, it regularly prevents leaseholders from undertaking collective freehold acquisitions because a sizeable proportion of buildings fall slightly above it and that 25% is a significant bar to the ability of leaseholders to undertake a collective freehold acquisition. The Law Commission further argued that

“the arbitrary nature of the limit makes the bar to enfranchisement a source of considerable frustration for many leaseholders”.

We accept that there is no easy or non-arbitrary way in which to determine where that bar should be. However, it is the stated intention of the Bill to bring as many leaseholders as possible into enfranchisement, and it is therefore questionable as to whether limits under 50% would feel inherently fair. We would hope that a 50% non-residential limit would mean that the number of genuine cases excluded would be small and would remove the opportunity for developers to play the system, because only a genuine split between commercial and residential would apply.

Our main concern on this clause is that there is no flexibility built into it, and we are keen to probe whether a review after a period of time to determine whether the non-residential policy as set out is working in practice could be undertaken, or another mechanism used, so that changes for the limit in respect of collective enfranchisement rights do not require primary legislation but can be enacted through regulations. Enacting small but necessary changes that may occur in relation to the Government’s proposed limit—for example, whether that relates to individual cases that fall just above the limit, or a change in the criteria on using internal floor area to determine the rights, or changing altogether the criteria on which the limit is based—may need alternative mechanisms to resorting to future primary legislation. That is the purpose of our amendment.

I will comment briefly on the other amendments in this group. We understand the reasons for the amendments of the noble Lords, Lord Sandhurst and Lord Thurlow, and look forward to hearing the comments of the Minister on those amendments. In relation to the Question on whether the clause should stand part of the Bill, to be put by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, we understand the Church position as a landholder, but we feel it would go against the spirit of increasing the enfranchisement through the Bill to retain the 25% limit.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 17A. I am sorry that I was unable to speak at Second Reading. I should also say that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, who is unavoidably detained, has added her name to that amendment. We therefore have her support as well. Amendment 17A is directed at Clause 28 on mixed-use premises with substantial proportions of business and residential tenants. Currently, collective enfranchisement and lease renewal is not permitted where more than 25% of the premises are business premises. That figure is going to be changed to 50%, thereby making it easier for residential tenants to go down the collective enfranchisement route.

That will introduce management issues—I do not say that they are necessarily problems, but they are certainly management issues. The Bill proposes that, if 50% of the occupants are residential, that will be enough. That will mean that, unless more than half of the building is occupied by business premises, all residential tenants will be entitled to be enfranchised. That will create issues for management and, in particular, problems where some of those residential tenants are overseas companies. We know that there are increasing numbers of those, particularly in London.

Mixed-use buildings pose greater management challenges than purely residential ones. Freeholders need to be responsive and active property managers. Business tenants require swift responses so that they can manage their businesses. If they want changes to the premises and so on, they need their landlord’s consent so that they can go ahead. If there are difficulties with obtaining that consent because, for example, some—or possibly a large number—of the residential tenants are overseas companies, then one can see how unattractive such premises will become as business premises for the business occupiers.

International Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, it is with some humility that I venture forth today, having listened to the speeches of those who have so much more to say. It is absolutely right that we mark the Holocaust with a day of remembrance and with this debate, and all the more so at a time of increased denial and distortion. Anti-Semitism is on the rise and must be put down. Holocaust denial is essentially, but not only, an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. It falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews and others, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, a fabrication, or an exaggeration. The danger of what happened lies now in the mundanity of so much. For example, I happened by chance upon platform 17 at Grunewald station in Berlin, from which so many left to their doom. One only has to spend an afternoon in the house on the Wannsee to see the astonishing murder organisation laid bare. The photographic history set out there also gave me an important insight into the long-standing anti-Semitism, I am afraid, in Germany, for 100 years or more before that. I left that afternoon with a headache; I am sure that others have left with worse.

In this context, we need to fight against so-called historical revisionists, or worse, who deceive and distort the truth. Friday 27 January is an important day for the focus it brings. We must argue against those who seek to introduce false equivalence with individual occasions in war of wrongdoing. Often, these are advanced under cover of apparent balance and objectivity. Perpetrators thereby lessen the truth of the genocide which was at the core of the Holocaust. We need eternal vigilance.

In this context, the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth is to be congratulated on its brand-new galleries dedicated to the Holocaust and the Second Word War. They are 20 minutes’ walk from here. They tell the tales of individual Jews murdered in this catastrophic event. They do so through photos, books, artwork and letters—ordinary lives, ordinary people; people like us. Those galleries occupy thousands of square feet. They won the 2022 Permanent Exhibition of the Year award.

Visible memorials remind and teach, but I hope that the Government will think again about putting such a very big memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens, as they previously proposed. I felt, and it is a personal view, that it was the wrong structure for that site. I will leave it there.

Holocaust denial is a poison. We must strive continuously to eradicate it. That is why this memorial day is so important. We must educate our young so that they and the generations who follow cannot ignore, let alone deny, the horrors of what happened. Only then can we prevent repetitions. We must remember them.