Mr Peter Pike (Burnley, Labour)

Although I am prepared to allow a free stand part debate, the amendments that were listed against this clause were debated in the last group, because there was a close relationship between the two clauses.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

We do need a little clarification. Whereas, under the previous clause, we were dealing with the basic loss payment, which was 7.5 per cent. of the value or a maximum of £75,000, in this clause we are dealing with the occupier's loss payment, which is 2.5 per cent. of the value of his interest, capped at £25,000. The same arguments apply, so I would press the Minister again about updating the maximum amount. We are to debate amendments on the matter later, but it would be helpful if the Minister would tell the Committee whether she anticipates updating the figure annually or in some other way.

I slightly pre-empted the clause stand part debate on this clause by saying that whereas the basis loss payments given in clause 74 are reasonably generous, particularly to those in low-value properties, those in clause 75 are not. In layman's terms, the proposal in subsection (8) of new section 33B of the Land Compensation Act 1973 of £100 per hectare not exceeding 100 hectares amounts to £10,000 for 250 acres, or £15,000 for 750 acres. That is £40 per acre and £20 per acre respectively. Considering that the

current value of land is probably in excess of £2,000 per acre, it is minimal.

The Minister spoke earlier about compensating for the costs of removal. Some of the unreimbursed costs that I mentioned this morning, in terms of having to acquire a new farm and to build new buildings, will be far greater than £10,000 or £15,000. The payment is not very generous, and I do not think that it will encourage property owners to agree compulsory purchase arrangements quickly—nor does the National Farmers Union. However, we shall see whether the Government's judgment is correct.

The further that we move into the clauses, the less generous they become. The buildings amount given in subsection (9) of £25 per sq m or part of a sq m of the gross floor space of any buildings on the land is probably what a relatively low-cost building would achieve in rent in the city, where rents are—even in today's depressed market—currently between £20 and £60 per sq ft. That puts the capital value at between £2,400 and £7,200 per sq m. The building loss payments would amount to between 1 per cent. and 0.3 per cent. Considering that the acquisition costs of a compulsory purchase project are typically less than 25 per cent. of the total cost of the scheme, those payments are less than generous. It would be helpful of the Minister to show how she arrived at the figures and what she thinks that they will compensate for.

Mrs Barbara Roche (Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Hornsey & Wood Green, Labour)

Clearly we will want to keep this point under review and will update provision when necessary. The hon. Gentleman questioned the figure of 2.5 per cent. for the occupier's loss payment. That derives from the current home loss payment, under which owner-occupiers can claim 10 per cent. of the value of the interest that is being acquired. It complements the 7.5 per cent. payable as a basic loss payment on a ratio of 1:3 to give owner-occupiers a freehold interest in non-residential property, and makes a total loss payment of 10 per cent. of the value of their interest. It is based on the current home loss payment regime, which most people agree should stay as it is. It also seems right on the basis of fairness and equity.

Subsection (8) of new section 33B specifies that the basis for calculating the land amount is to be £100 per hectare for the first 100 hectares taken, and £50 per hectare for the next 300 hectares or part of a hectare, bringing the maximum payable to £25,000. As the occupier's loss payment is intended to compensate occupiers for the compulsory nature of the acquisition and the inconvenience of having to move at a time not of their choosing, the land amount is intended to provide a fair balance in the amount payable between freeholders and protected and other tenancies, which are of value, and farm business tenancies, which are not. It ignores differences in the values of different types of agricultural land, because the additional payment is intended to relate to the distress and inconvenience of being obliged to relocate farming operations rather than the intrinsic productive value of the land.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

I must press the Minister about how she arrived at the figures. Under clause 74, the maximum payment might be £100,000. There does not

seem to be much equity between that—it would relate to a property worth £1 million—and the maximum of only £25,000 for the disturbance to somebody obliged to sell a farm.

Mrs Barbara Roche (Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Hornsey & Wood Green, Labour)

I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but we cannot use the extra loss payment as a basis for capitalising on the value of the land. He referred to subsection (9) of new section 33B and city prices, but it deals with agricultural land. The sum of £25,000 to which he referred is additional to the £75,000 that is available for owner-occupiers in a special position. I hope that I have assisted the Committee.

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

The hon. Lady may have assisted some members of the Committee, but she has not helped me very much. I am old-fashioned; I still think in acres. I have difficulty with hectares, so I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I talk in a language other than that used in the Bill. My arithmetic is probably not much good, but my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold said that we were talking about an extra 1 per cent. of the value of the property that had been confiscated. That maximum figure does not strike me as generous or fair, but parsimonious in the extreme.

An example comes to mind. It has nothing to do with Heathrow, except that it could be close to it. When talking about the price of agricultural land, those who come from the city are tempted to think that the rolling countryside is about £1,000 or less per acre and say how wonderful that is. I come from the edge of a great city, where the price of agricultural land is astronomic. A lot of the land outside cities can be small areas and used for market gardening and specialist production. It tends not to have agricultural holdings, huge farms and so on.

At one time, I had six acres of land, which had been a smallholding, used for agricultural purposes. It had attracted EU money—before I owned it, I hasten to add. If two acres from the six had been wanted for road widening, for example, the sheep that had been kept on the land could not have been moved a long way from the smallholding. If such an owner loses a couple of acres, he will be in serious difficulty. He could put a value on the two acres that had been compulsory purchased and confiscated, but he would still have to put the animals somewhere else because a certain number of them per acre would be unsustainable.

The land that had been confiscated might have been medium-grade agricultural land that was worth £2,000 an acre, given that it was the edge of the city, but to keep the sheep close to the owner's home so that he could deal with them at lambing time, he might have to buy land immediately next door to make up for the two lost acres. It could be that top-grade agricultural land was the only land available. The person had been compensated at £2,000 an acre, but the only other land that he could buy was at £3,000 per acre. The figure of 1 per cent. added to the value of the land that had been confiscated will not help him. He will end up with a

holding that is not viable, because no cheap land is available.

The maximum additional compensation of 1 per cent. is not fair. The Minister has not dealt with such matters. She said that she was referring only to agricultural land and that some of the values used were city values. Let us consider buildings. A clapped-out barn in the middle of Northumberland might be worth only a small amount, but I assure the Committee that any sort of structure on agricultural land in places such as Surrey has an enormous value. Some of the prices paid are ridiculous. If compulsory purchase powers had been used on parts of my six acres, my barn would have gone. I would have been given the value of the barn, but the chances of finding another—certainly the chances of being given planning permission to put something up—would be virtually zilch. I would have lost my barn and have been paid 1 per cent. more as an attempt to solve a problem that I could not solve.

A 1 per cent. uplift is not much use, and if the figure of 1 per cent. in relation to buildings is correct, it is not much use either. The Minister has failed to convince me that the provision is sensible. I do not know whether she can add anything further, but I am full of reservations. I think that the provision is mean to the point of being utterly unreasonable.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

While my hon. Friend was talking, I was reading the Government's Green Paper ''Compulsory Purchase and Compensation: delivering a fundamental change''. I thought that I had read that the Government were going to clarify the fact that, under compulsory purchase, when only part of a property is acquired, the owner has the right to require the acquiring authority to purchase the entire property. Will my hon. Friend press the Minister to tell us the Government's intention on that?

Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)

Of course I shall press the Minister. If she comes back and her defence to my objections is to say, ''If you're going to lose part of your property, you have a right to say that they take the whole lot'', that makes things worse. Just because two acres of six are taken away, to use my example, why should a person's only realistic option be to leave his home, go somewhere else and start over again? It is crazy if that is the Government's so-called way of solving the problem. A better way to solve this real problem would be to say that the value paid—whether uplift or the actual value of the land—will be the replacement cost.

I realise that I am in danger of repeating myself from our previous sitting, but if two acres are taken away from somebody, which makes the six-acre unit unviable, and if the only alternative is for that person to buy better grade land so that he can continue to live and to earn a living, the obvious solution is not to use artificial figures such as 1 per cent. or to use ceilings. If two acres have been confiscated and a person can demonstrate that land is necessary to continue what he was doing, the Government should say, ''All right, we will replace that two acres and if it costs us more, so be

it. We will respect the rights of the individual rather than trampling all over his rights with jackboots.''

Mrs Barbara Roche (Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Hornsey & Wood Green, Labour)

I shall operate one more time my self-imposed rule of responding only once to those points. First, in response to the hon. Member for Cotswold, the power already exists. It is in section 8 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that, although I was aware of it. There is confusion about the operation of the section. I understood that the Government were going to clarify the matter by bringing forward new proposals on compulsory purchase. Are there still any proposals to clarify the matter?

Mrs Barbara Roche (Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Hornsey & Wood Green, Labour)

I have already said to the Committee—we also made it clear on Second Reading—that we shall have to consider other issues surrounding compulsory purchase. I will examine whether there is confusion, and that will be considered when we address other measures.

There is confusion about the point raised by the hon. Member for Spelthorne. The additional payment is 10 per cent. The 1 per cent. figure about which he talked is the estimated increase of the total scheme cost to the acquiring authority. I have already said that the figure of 1 per cent. was estimated in the regulatory impact assessment.

Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)

The Minister said that people would be entitled to claim the basic loss payment and the agricultural loss payment. However, will they also be able to claim the occupier's loss payment? If they claim the agricultural loss payment, are they precluded from claiming the occupier's loss payment?

Mrs Barbara Roche (Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Hornsey & Wood Green, Labour)

It is either/or.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 75 ordered to stand part of the Bill.