High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-24
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my interests as declared at the Committee stage of the Bill and earlier. The subject of the amendment was discussed in Committee and the Minister made a helpful response at that time. The issue was also raised in the Select Committee of your Lordships’ House, as it engages the private interests of many petitioners, and that committee made a strong recommendation, to which I wish to refer. We also now have the Government’s response to the Select Committee, which raises the point that I want to raise with the Minister The Crichel Down rules have governed the selling of surplus land following compulsory purchase for over half a century. Although there are said to be problems with them—that is perhaps a matter for another day—they are respected as the rules of the game. This issue has great importance, as there is no real accessible right of review once land has been taken, as judicial review is effectively out of the financial reach of most landowners The problem is that HS2 Ltd has decided that, rather than simply follow the Crichel Down rules, as has been the established practice, it will introduce alongside those additional exceptions under which it will not offer, in the first instance, land that it has compulsorily purchased back to the original landowner. These exceptions include, it says, "where it makes sense to pool the land with adjoining ownerships in a joint disposal" What this might mean, of course, is that where HS2 Ltd thinks that it will be better for it financially to keep the land it no longer needs and sell it in a different parcel, it will. It will not be offered back to the owner whose land it was originally. The Lords HS2 Select Committee recognised this and recommended in its report: "We strongly urge the Secretary of State not to add further exceptions to what is already … a long list of cases … in which the original owner will not be given first refusal to reacquire the land at its then market value. Apart from other more principled reasons, which we need not repeat, it would be odd if one Department of State had its own version of the rules" The Government say at paragraph 122 of their response: "The Promoter is prepared to reconsider the additional exceptions set out in the Information Paper in the particular circumstances of each case" It is that phrase to which I would like a response from the Minister. Obviously, if that means that no decisions will be given in general but only in particular cases, there is no certainty for the landowner, who would have to wait each time for HS2 Ltd to decide, presumably towards the end of the time for which it needed the land, whether to keep it. HS2 Ltd would still have the power to keep any land it wanted—for example, for a development—which it would have acquired at much below the market rate. Is that fair HS2 Ltd has provided no details of what criteria it would use to undertake case-by-case reviews. If a case-by-case approach is used, these criteria should surely be in the public interest. That makes the case. I look forward to hearing from the Minister. If he cannot agree to review, perhaps he would be prepared to write giving examples of what criteria would be used. I beg to move.