operation of the scheme. We have to get that fact firmly in our minds. All the talk about the recommendations of the Uthwatt, the Scott and the Barlow Reports are to some extent beside the point. We would all like to see a full-blooded Bill which would invest the Minister with power to deal with the questions of compensation and betterment, the acquisition of development rights, and the best utili- 569 sation of country areas, but he could not very well do that in what is really an interim development Bill, Even so, it is an exceedingly important Bill, and there are some very important provisions in it. Most of the speakers have missed the importance of this Bill. Take Clause 2. Under the 1932 Act the local planning authority was compelled to agree to certain applications for interim development unconditionally. I, as one who has spent a considerable number of years on a local authority and have had to deal with that kind of thing, know how difficult it was for them. If application to develop a site on which the building already existed was sent to the local authority, and that was in a town planning area, the plan had to be granted unconditionally. I want the House to put itself into the position of the local authority for a few moments and see how that particular thing has affected local authorities. There are in the city from which I come 25 acres of industrial development in an