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

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 General Committees

[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.