Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Williams of Elvel Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I am not in a position to make any guarantees this afternoon, but I will certainly include all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and copies will be placed in the Library of the House.

I turn to the compulsory purchase policy elements and Amendments 103BC to 103BF. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and the noble Earl for raising these important matters, again spoken to by the noble Duke, the Duke of Somerset. They concern the matter of ensuring that advance payments of compensation are not only paid, but paid on time. This links to the equally important question of the way that acquiring authorities should treat claimants when land is being purchased by compulsion.

Starting with Amendment 103BC, having considered the responses to the spring 2015 consultation, the Government think that penal rates of interest on outstanding advance payments are the most appropriate sanction, and we are providing for this in Clause 174. Taken together with the new arrangements for making claims and obtaining further information in Clauses 172 and 173, we think that the prospect of a penal rate of interest will sufficiently concentrate the minds of acquiring authorities, so that advance payments will be made on time.

I now turn to Amendments 103BD and 103BE. The Government think that setting interest rates in a Bill is too restrictive. Provision to set both rates is available in secondary legislation. Coming to the detail of the amendments, the Government think that it is premature to decide on the punitive rate of interest for late payments of advance payments of compensation—as proposed in new subsection (1A) of new Section 52B in Amendment 103BD. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, will know that the Government published our consultation paper on phase 2 of our compulsory purchase reform programme on 21 March. The good news is that the paper proposes that 8% above the base rate should be the punitive rate for late payments of advance payments.

The second part of Amendment 103BD—proposed new subsection (1B)—would overtake the existing provisions in Section 32 of the Land Compensation Act 1961 to set the rate of interest for compensation unpaid at the date of entry. This rate is not punitive, as there are often legitimate reasons for some compensation to be unpaid at that date. The final claim for many businesses, for example, cannot be finalised until their relocation has been completed.

Noble Lords will recall from the spring 2015 consultation that the Government consulted on increasing this rate of interest from 0.5% below the base rate. The Government confirmed in their response to consultation that the rate would be increased to 2% above the base rate. The Committee will be interested to hear that new regulations are in preparation by the Treasury and will be published in due course.

The new rate of 2% above base is intended to achieve an equitable and fair settlement between the claimant and the acquiring authority. The interest on unpaid compensation from the date of entry is not the same as the interest on commercial lending. It may be helpful if I say that it is more likely that it will be based on a formula which will compensate the claimant for interest which he or she would otherwise reasonably be receiving, had the money been otherwise invested. We can have a separate debate on that, I am sure.

I now turn to Amendment 103BF, which focuses on introducing a statutory duty of care to be owed by acquiring authorities to claimants. There is no doubt that claimants should be treated with fairness and courtesy and kept up to date with developments. This is best practice, and all competent professionals should be advising their clients to act in this way. The Government believe that a new statutory duty of care for compulsory purchase is not necessary and would not help relations between acquiring authorities and claimants. The kind of assistance which should be provided by an acquiring authority may differ depending on the circumstances. A broad duty of care may be imprecise in nature and difficult to enforce. The professionals working in compulsory purchase suggest that clear guidance on good practice would be a better way forward.

The recently updated compulsory purchase guidance, published on 29 October 2015, makes it clear that acquiring authorities should make reasonable offers of compensation in the context of overall project costs. Acquiring authorities should also be prepared to engage constructively with claimants about relocation issues and mitigation and accommodation works where relevant. The guidance also urges acquiring authorities to offer those with concerns about a compulsory purchase order full access to alternative dispute resolution techniques, from the planning and preparation stage to agreeing the compensation payable for the acquired properties. With these explanations, I ask the noble Duke to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Williams of Elvel (Lab)]

My Lords, I cannot see what attitude the Minister is taking towards the CLA amendments, as was raised by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. Will he please set it out very simply ?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Of course, I believe it will be best for me to include the technical details in the letter that I am already writing and will place in the Library of the House.

Parliamentary Privilege (Defamation) Bill [HL]

Lord Williams of Elvel Excerpts

Friday 27th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williams of Elvel (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, for introducing this Bill. I voted against the Hoffmann amendment on Third Reading in May 1996. I did so for two reasons. First, I was persuaded by the arguments used by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and others that this was tampering with Article 9 of the Bill of Rights and that that should not be done by simply tacking an amendment onto some Bill or other going through this House but should be properly considered. I was less impressed by the conduct of the Government of the day on the procedure. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, has described how it all started, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, has confirmed that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, was put up to this by the Government. To have a serving Law Lord, even in those days, putting forward an amendment of extreme constitutional importance seemed slightly exaggerated.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I did not say that he was put up. The idea of putting the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, up to anything is quite remote from my idea. It struck me that it was a constitutional matter. It was a matter on which the Privy Council, of which he was a member, had made a decision, and in those days it was perfectly reasonable for a Law Lord to move amendments to legislation. I asked him whether he would be willing to consider doing that, and after some time, he decided he would. That is the answer. If I was wrong in asking him, I am extremely sorry, but I do not think I was. It was perfectly reasonable to ask him. I could not do anything more than ask him, and it was for him to decide whether he wanted to do it. He decided to do it, and I well remember the circumstances in which he did it.

[Lord Williams of Elvel]

The noble and learned Lord has accepted responsibility for the intervention by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann. I am quite happy to accept that it was up to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, whether he accepted the Government’s remit.

Nevertheless, to follow the narrative of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, at Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, referred to this problem. I shall not go into the basis of the problem because that has been well aired and discussed. I want to consider further the procedure of this House in April and May 1996 and to see just how far this amendment should have been on the statute book in the first place. In Committee, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, moved his amendment. It was discussed and withdrawn. On Report, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, was not in his place to move his amendment. It was then taken over by Lord Finsberg, who moved the amendment, and then the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, came in and spoke to it. It then became the Finsberg amendment. Lord Simon of Glaisdale had put down an amendment of a slightly different nature, but the Lord Chancellor of the day quite rightly pointed out that it had to be considered as an amendment to the Finsberg amendment. The problem was that the Public Bill Office had advised Lord Simon of Glaisdale that his amendment was out of order as it was not relevant to the Bill. Indeed, the Lord Chancellor of the day stood up and said that he had to advise the House that the amendment was not relevant to the Bill. Lord Simon of Glaisdale then said that he had not realised that, but he was still going to move his amendment and have it discussed. The Lord Chancellor of the day then said that he was perfectly entitled to do that and that in that sense the advice of the Clerk of the Parliaments was academic.

The debate went on around the Simon amendment. Then Lord Simon of Glaisdale said that he could not divide on the amendment because it was out of order, so he withdrew it. The House then came to the Finsberg amendment, and at the end of the debate on that amendment there was a question of whether there should be a Division. I remember that Lady Seear said that the House was too thin for that. Nevertheless, Lord Finsberg said that he was going to push the amendment. He did so. Nobody went into the Division Lobbies. The House was vacant and, at this point, the then Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, got up and quite rightly said on the second question that the amendment was negatived.

The Companion tells us clearly that when an amendment is negatived, having been discussed and decided upon, it should not come back at Third Reading. Nevertheless, Viscount Cranborne got up after a few days and said that he had been advised that many noble Lords wished to have the matter ventilated again at Third Reading. How and why he had been so advised, because there had been endless discussions on the matter, I know not; if I look again at the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, I may see a little twinkle in his eye. The Leader of the House was advised that he should get up and say, in spite of all that the Companion says, that we should have this again at Third Reading.

That was therefore done. At the end of Third Reading, we had a Division. By that time, the Hamiltonians—if I may refer to them as such—had got their act together, and it was passed. I do not believe that that is a proper and right way to introduce an amendment that may be tampering with Article 9 of the Bill of Rights.

I welcome the noble Lord’s Bill. We have to move on and find some way, if there is a mischief, of doing proper justice to those Members of the House of Commons or Members of this House who have a problem. However, that was not the way to do it, and I hope that we will never repeat that. Of course, what happened was that Mr Hamilton sued the Guardian, lost, and went to join UKIP.