Draft Housing and Planning Act 2016 (Compulsory Purchase) (Corresponding amendments) Regulations 2016

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 General Committees

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.