My Lords, my noble friend Lord Greaves has spoken to his amendments. I want to outline the Government’s position because we will be resisting them. However, he said that they are probing amendments. I also take on board his final point. I will refer to his comments when I get to Amendment 57D.
Before I respond specifically to the amendments in detail, it might help the Committee if I set out briefly what Clause 7 is intended to do. Local authorities have wide powers to acquire, appropriate and dispose of land. The main constraint on disposals of land is that if an authority wishes to dispose of land at less than the best consideration reasonably obtainable, it must obtain the consent of the Secretary of State. In order to avoid having to give decisions on minor disposals, the Secretary of State has the power to give general consents for specified classes of disposal for housing land and other land not held for planning purposes. However, there is no power under Section 233 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to give a general consent for the disposal of land held for planning purposes at less than best consideration. So local authorities must apply to the Secretary of State each time such consent is required.
Before I continue, I remind the Committee that this clause had the support of all parties in the other place. The shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government stated at Second Reading in the other place that the clause was sensible—I am sure that he did not say that about other clauses—and he supported the removal of the anomaly on disposal of land for less than best consideration.
Amendment 57B will stop the power of having a general disposal consent by preventing consent being given for a particular class of disposals. Perhaps I may illustrate this by reference to the general disposal consent under the Local Government Act 1972 for all land not held for housing or planning purposes. The class of disposal in that consent is all those disposals where the difference in value between the open market value and the selling price is less than £2 million, subject to certain conditions.
Amendment 57C will also wreck the point of having a consent by preventing it applying to local authorities generally or those of a particular class. I do not want to anticipate how a new general consent might be worded but I might speculate that the Government would want to give consent under this new provision to all local planning authorities, or all authorities to which Section 233 of the 1990 Act applies. Amendment 57C would prevent this.
My noble friend Lord Greaves referred to the deletion by Amendment 57D of subsection (3), which he said he did not quite understand. Here is my attempt to explain it and I hope he is clearer at the end. Subsection (3) adds a new subsection (9) to Section 233 to directly apply the protection set out in Section 128(2) of the 1972 Act. I am sure that that is clear but I will nevertheless continue to explain. The protection set out in Section 29 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1959 will no longer apply. This will mean that disposals of planning land and “other” land under the 1972 Act will be subject to the same procedures. The
amendment would therefore remove a convenient provision for local authority users who are accustomed to using the Local Government Act.
I accept that that last point may require some re-reading of Hansard and some technical points may arise, but we will, if we can, between this stage and Report make any other clarifications that are sought. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his amendment.