My Lords, I follow that interesting speech by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, which explained his amendment clearly. It may be that the amendments in my name in this group, Amendments 93A and 106, are not necessary—but I am not certain yet, because it is a complicated subject, shrouded in mystery and secrecy sometimes. So I should like to speak to those two amendments as well and hope that we can have some good discussions, meetings and so on, between now and Report with the noble Baroness the Minister to see whether there is a solution.
My amendments refer only to the Duchy of Cornwall: let us be quite clear about that. That is partly because I do not think that the other two members of the Crown need it in the way that I am speaking, because they do not have lots of residential properties. Secondly, if one reads the Law Commission report, which went into some detail, one sees that the Crown Estates and the Duchy of Lancaster both agreed to comply with what the Law Commission recommended, whereas the Duchy of Cornwall did not. So we need to we need to consider some special legislation to cover just the Duchy of Cornwall’s ownership of land.
The other reason for saying this is that the Duchy of Cornwall, unlike the other two Crown groups, is in the private sector. It states quite clearly on its website that it is in the private sector. The argument is that it should be treated differently from other big estates, such as Cadogan, Richmond, Devonshire, and so on. They are all in the private sector and my understanding is that, whether they like it or not, they are going to go along with whatever happens with this legislation when it is accepted. But the Duchy of Cornwall will not do so.
I live in the Isles of Scilly, as noble Lords probably know, and I have a number of friends who have been trying to enfranchise and have been turned down. It is not a question of them looking for a 99-year or 999-year lease. Some of them want 50-year leases and they cannot have them, either, because the Duchy does not like it. So nobody who leases from the Duchy of Cornwall at the moment can enfranchise. That is unfair on the people who live there. The population is about 2,500 and they should be treated like everyone else in this country. Whatever the legislation says, they should do it.
The duchy’s argument, which goes to some length and is repeated in the Law Commission’s report, states all the wonderful things that the duchy does as a kind of landlord in Scilly. Well, it is not really true. The Scillies have a council, a local authority, like any other area. They have a Member of Parliament, water services and national landscape designation. I could go on with a long list of all the organisations, but the environmental concerns are properly looked after and there are even marine protected areas around there. I think the people of the Isles of Scilly would say that they are well set up to manage themselves, just like any other part of the UK. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me and for the correspondence we have had, but trying to find some solutions is important.
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The Law Commission published one solution that suggested enfranchisement should be possible for all the properties, apart from one or two very critical ones. I always use the example of Carlton House Terrace. Nobody would expect that to be sold off to a bingo hall: it is part of the nation and its palaces. But on the Isles of Scilly it is not really like that. They are pretty standard properties most of which were built in the past 100 years.
The letter from the duchy to me, dated 21 December last year, confirmed that the duchy believed that the status quo can be maintained through
“a ministerial undertaking that will be provided at an appropriate time in the Parliamentary process”.
This was repeated, more or less, in the letter the Minister kindly sent me.
However, none of it says when this would happen, on what grounds, to which properties—and how much. Unless one gets that information, in my experience of dealing with the duchy—I have had several attempts at a Private Member’s Bills, which I do not need to go into now—there is no appeal. This is what you are going to get and you can like it or lump it. At least until this Bill becomes law and reaches Royal Assent,
we can have a debate with the duchy, but there is nothing we can do about it if the residents do not like it.
The other matter that is, frankly, irritating is that the duchy claims special privileges that have been subject to many attempts to cut down, such as voluntary tax payments, free legal advice, treasure trove and many other things. That rather leaves the Isles of Scilly as a rather feudal and medieval structure, which is totally inappropriate today because, at the end of the day, these residents do not have any alternative.
Worse still, as a result of a freedom of information request, Dr John Kirkhope, who is a notary public and an extreme expert on this, discovered that the duchy had had meetings with Ministers about how to phrase this legislation so as not to affect the duchy. Now here we have an unelected and unaccountable body engaged in policy formation when that body is exempt from the legislation that it wants to change. That is all wrong. So the alternative to accepting my amendment, which I hope the Minister will do, although I suspect she will not, is to come up with a solution, before we stop having the ability to debate, which may get the Duchy of Cornwall to accept that all properties it owns should comply with the Act, apart from a small list of very important ones, such as a 300 year-old castle.
Unless we have that, the simplest solution is my amendment, which would include the Duchy of Cornwall within the whole scope of the Bill. It is quite simple, and I cannot see why the Government should object, but they probably will. We shall see what the Minister says, and I look forward to having a meeting with her afterwards.