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15. I would have liked to make an announcement and to lay a White Paper before the summer recess. I am being pressed daily for a statement of the Govern- ment's intentions; and some people will not start building themselves houses until they know. But I do not think it is now possible to settle the White Paper, and have a debate on it, before Parliament rises.
16. In any event, it will be necessary that the gap between announcement that we propose to abolish charge, and abolition, should be short. Once it is known that charge is to go, nobody will start building until they are clear of the liability to pay. Under the Act I can, with the consent of the Treasury, make regulations exempting development of any kind from charge; and it may be that the Law Officers will hold that this power is wide enough to exempt all development by Regulation. But it seems quite wrong virtually to suspend a whole Part of an Act by Regulation; and I think that we must wait till we can legislate.
17. But we cannot wait longer than the autumn. The expectation of an early announcement which will give at any rate some relief is now general. The effect is that some prospective developers are waiting for it; while it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Central Land Board to collect charge. I propose that I should publish the White Paper as soon as Parliament reassembles in October (or possibly two or three weeks before, if that is thought appropriate); and should at the same time introduce a very short Bill--two clauses at most-which will defer the date for paying claims under Part VI and will suspend the operation of Part VII (development charges). It is in any event necessary to legislate for the deferment of payments before 1st July next, so that we have got to have a short stand-still Bill whatever we do. Indeed, even if we kept the Act intact we should have to have an autumn Bill to regulate the payments, and to defer the date of pay-out, since we could not now get it all done before 1st July.
18. The debate on the White Paper and the Second Reading of the Bill could be taken together. I do not think that the whole business should take more than two days in the House of Commons. Committee and Report stages should be very brief. I do not believe that there would be acute controversy on the stand-still measure; it is even possible that there will be very little controversy on this- although there would no doubt be a long debate on the White Paper. Many members of the Opposition will be glad to see development charge go.
19. I would then propose that the main measure should be ready for intro- duction in the early Spring. That would allow time for discussion of the detailed scheme, after the broad principles had been approved.
Ministry of Housing and
Local Government, S.W. 1,
17th July, 1952.
H. M.
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