I am ready to give way to anybody who wishes to interrupt but I hope the interruptions will be relevant, because I have a considerable amount of material to get through. Frankly, the hon. Member disappoints me.

In the old days it would have required a Private Bill to dispossess a man of his property. Today, when time goes helter-skelter, that is too long and perhaps too expensive a process, so new machinery has had to be devised. These are highly technical matters which the ordinary man in the street cannot be expected to understand or to follow. When he is affected by them, he does not know what has hit him.

I do not want to be too technical this morning, and I particularly do not wish to burden my speech and the House with chapter and verse from the many Statutes and regulations which govern this matter. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury who is to reply to the debate for the Government, because, alas, so many Departments are involved, will know quite as much as I do about how this thing works. Nor do I want to harass the House by citing examples of the injustice and misery which are so often inflicted upon the subject as a result of our present system. Only a few of these cases hit the headlines, but these few are the visible part of the iceberg.

I want to remind the House of the methods used compulsorily to acquire land, of the evil results which follow from the designation of land for planning purposes and the means which Parliament in its wisdom has laid down for compensating those whose private interests have to be submerged beneath the public interest. First, as to the methods. In some cases, the Minister, the acquiring authority, may appoint an inspector to inquire into objections. In other cases there may be an administrative tribunal set up for the purpose. In others the Minister may make an order without a preliminary hearing.

All the objections to the former two methods apply a fortiori to the latter. This was well exemplified during war time by Greene's case, in which a wretched citizen was deprived of his liberty on false information. Habeas Corpus was refused; I suppose the excuse was that there was a war on. If anything similar happens when I am a Member of Parliament there will be another war on, with me on one side and the Government on the other.

When there is a preliminary hearing it may be by administrative tribunal which both hears and decides the issue. There, again, the procedure varies. Sometimes the tribunal may state the facts which are found and the reasons for coming to its decision. At other times it may merely give a bare decision. In the case of an inspector, that is to say, when the hearing is done by a person other than the ultimate deciding authority, again the procedure differs, as when it is done under the Town and Country Planning Act.

Sometimes the facts found at the inquiry may be set out and may or may not be accompanied by recommendations. These reports may or may not be published, but the Minister in announcing his decision may state his reasons, and if he does then it may be found that they are based partly on facts not adduced at the hearing, or he may make—and generally does—an announcement of his bare decision. I am afraid it is all too true that the preliminary hearings are often regarded by officialdom as a tire- some formality, a necessary ritual which has to be gone through before the end in view can be achieved.

It is often claimed that our Civil Service is, by any criterion, the best in the world, and I myself would wholeheartedly support that claim. But not since Wolsey's day has it had so much power, and power does tend to corrupt. I do not think there are many hon. Members in the House who, if they were given the powers which officials have been given today, and if both the legislature and the judiciary were to be deprived of, or were to neglect, the use of their constitutional power of checking and supervising, would not become at best benevolent despots. But a civil servant in a democratic country is not meant to be a benevolent despot.

Also, with the best will in the world the senior Civil Service is apt to get out of touch with the needs and feelings of the ordinary individual. The danger is that the public interest may all too soon become equated in the Departmental mind with administrative convenience, whereas the true public interest demands that justice to the individual shall always prevail over mere administrative convenience.

What does this justice require? I think it requires, first, full publicity before, during and after a hearing. Before a hearing so that all concerned may be warned that their interests may be affected and can take steps to do something about it if they so desire. Before hearing so that the case to be met can be fully formulated and in good time; and so that during the hearing the Press and the public should always be admitted. Professor W. A. Robson, in his "Justice and Administrative Law" speaks of the "thick mist of secrecy which has helped to encourage unnecessary mystery-mongering" by administrative tribunals.

Secondly, I think that justice requires that the hearing authority should be independent of the appointing authority. Nobody should be judge in his own cause, because very often a Minister appoints someone in his own Department. Thirdly, the objecting party should be entitled to be legally represented if he desires. Perhaps at this point I should declare an interest, but I repeat, he should be entitled to be legally represented if he so desires.

Fourthly, the ordinary rules of evidence should be followed. For instance, very often there is no cross-examination, no compulsory disclosure of relevant documents and very often no power to subpoena witnesses. I think that justice requires that the decision when reached should be supported by facts and reasons and that these should be published to all concerned. Lastly, I think that justice requires that there should be a right of appeal to an independent and impartial tribunal.

Some of these elementary canons of justice are observed in some cases. For example, it is the practice of the Ministry of Education to appoint independent persons, generally surveyors but sometimes barristers, to hold local inquiries into compulsory purchase orders, and it is the practice of that Ministry to send a copy of the resulting report to the objector and to the acquiring authority at the time when it communicates the Minister's decision.

That is very good, but, if I may say so, it would be even better to send the report before the Minister announces his decision so that the objector may see for himself that all the relevant facts proved at the hearing have been before the Minister and that any fact not so proved is not, and make representations accordingly.

Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say that in the public view these tribunals are not open, are not impartial, but rather they are like the new mayor who promised he would strive to strike a happy mean between partiality and impartiality. The rule of law, said Dicey: excludes the existence of arbitrariness or even of wide discretionary authority by the Government.… It means he said: the equal subjection of all classes to the ordinary law of the land administered by the ordinary law courts. I hope that there is no one on this side of the House or, indeed, in the House at all who intends, by constant dripping, to wear away that buttress of liberty. Every new-fangled practice of the Executive for by-passing the judiciary and the legislature are dangerously close to coming within Maitland's definition of the Star Chamber, which was: A Court of Politicians enforcing a policy, not a Court of Judges administering the law. I hope that no one will advance against me—