My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and am a signatory to this amendment. I commend him for his succinct explanation. I also have land interests and some professional familiarity with compulsory purchase.
I have very little to add, but I simply say that the use of CPO powers, and the number of bodies exercising them directly or indirectly, is expanding. It risks subsuming the interests of the individual owner from whom rights are being compulsorily wrested. Some acquiring bodies have overriding commercial objectives, possibly only indirectly aimed at the promotion of public best interest, and I think we should be aware of that. Moreover, many of the safeguards built into the processes when they were used by what I will call the traditional acquiring authorities—for instance, government agencies, local government and so on—seem no longer to be entirely honoured in spirit. That is very important, particularly as we have an expanded use of CPO powers.
The amendment is thus a natural, logical and necessary safeguard for owners who are subject to these powers. They would, inter alia, deal with the evils of entry and taking of land without concurrent payment of compensation. That arrangement leaves a claimant on the back foot in negotiations, prejudiced financially and reorganising their affairs. Failure to adhere to the principles behind this amendment suggests a material erosion of the protocols that are familiar to us under the Human Rights Act—for the reasonable enjoyment of a citizen’s property not to be deprived without due process and for the rules-based system. That is why I support this amendment.