2620. MS LIEVEN: We are the authority. If we offer Mr Saunderson £10 million and the Lands Tribunal only gives him £5 million, then from the date of the sealed offer, or I think it is a few days thereafter, we would not have to pay his fees.

  2621. CHAIRMAN: Anymore fees?

  2622. MS LIEVEN: Anymore fees after that date. Indeed, the normal rule in the Lands Tribunal is that he would have to pay our fees. The very obvious reason, my Lord, is it would be unfair if we offered the person we were buying from a very generous sum, they insisted on fighting on with the Lands Tribunal for a wholly inflated sum and then they lost because they would have acted unreasonably. Effectively, it is the same as in most forms of litigation. As long as he acts reasonably, effectively we pay his fees, but you do have these particular rules in the Lands Tribunal. Given that I have been accused of misleading one Parliamentary Committee, I do not want there to be any danger of misleading this one. Again, it is not a blank cheque that we will pay all reasonable fees, it is subject in the Lands Tribunal to the normal Lands Tribunal rules.

  2623. CHAIRMAN: There are scales and there are also discretions.

  2624. MS LIEVEN: There is a discretion, my Lord, yes.

  2625. BARONESS FOOKES: If I have understood Mr Saunderson correctly, he has two concerns about reference to the Lands Tribunal. First of all, the length of time it might take before the case is heard and, secondly, the fact that he would need, as it were, money in advance to help with the cost prior to the case being heard and the cost awarded. I hope I have heard that correctly. Can you offer any assistance, perhaps not on the length of time but on the matter of the payment upfront of a certain of fees?

  2626. MS LIEVEN: I can deal briefly with both, my Lady. In terms of the timing, Mr Saunderson could have referred this case to the Lands Tribunal from about May 2007. There were various time periods but Mr Mould and I have worked it out, but it is about May 2007 he could have referred it. In fact on time, my Lady, he could probably have been in the Lands Tribunal by now and got the issue dealt with.

  2627. BARONESS FOOKES: It is hypothetical, is it not, because he did not?

  2628. MS LIEVEN: He did not, but that was a matter of choice for him, my Lady. My instructions from Mr Bailey, Mr Smith and Mr Mould are that it would be about nine months to the Lands Tribunal. So far as fees are concerned, him having to pay in advance, two points, my Lady. First of all, it is certainly very normal in many areas of litigation now to pay fees on a contingency basis so you only pay once the litigation is completed. Given that in this type of litigation there will undoubtedly be a large cheque at the end of it, I cannot speak for Jones Lang, I do not know the terms of their instructions and it would be inappropriate to ask, but I struggle to believe that it is not possible to find a reputable surveyor who is prepared to accept their fees at the end rather than the beginning because unlike some kind of litigation, they know in compulsory purchase compensation that the money is going to be there at the end because there will be compensation for the land.

  2629. That is the first point. The other point is that we would be very concerned about the precedent effect of being required to pay fees in advance because although few people will be in Mr Saunderson's precise factual situation, there will be many people who have suffered from blight who will say, "I'm in financial need and I don't want to go to the Lands Tribunal until I've got the money in my pocket for fees", so we would be concerned that it would have a very wide precedent effect in respect of blight compensation.

  2630. Your Lordships will be conscious of the compensation teach-in that Mr Smith and Mr Mould gave you a couple of weeks ago where issues about, for example, generalised blight and the impact of blight on people were closely considered both by the Law Commission and by Parliament in recent legislation. Parliament has not made a provision that would require fees to be paid in advance. I suspect for exactly the reasons I have just given, which is it normally could be arranged through the agreement with the relevant witnesses and legal advisers.

  2631. BARONESS FOOKES: Yes, I understand the legal position, but it is always possible to go beyond the legal position if one so chose.

  2632. MS LIEVEN: Of course it is, my Lady. Yes, it is possible.

  2633. CHAIRMAN: Anything else you want to say to us?

  2634. MS LIEVEN: My Lord, just to stress very strongly that in terms of the valuation this is appropriately a matter for the Lands Tribunal and very inappropriately a matter for a parliamentary committee. There would have to be significant amounts of evidence in order to determine a value here. Two things are obvious, one is that there would have to be comparable evidence about letting values for this type of property and this type of location and the other is the issue that has been touched on which is there is a dispute about the net developable space which gets into such gripping subjects as the width of the corridors, the size of the toilets, the area of the staircase. This is the kind of thing the Lands Tribunal has to battle with in order to come out with a net developable space that can be multiplied by the other variable, which is the value per square foot. I would strongly urge the Committee not to get into that. It would be a very poor use of Committee time and, indeed, Committee expertise.

  2635. CHAIRMAN: I am not sure that we have any expertise. The great advantage to the Lands Tribunal is it is made up of a number of people from different disciplines, all of whom have considerable experience in dealing with exactly these sorts of things.

  2636. MS LIEVEN: I would not want to say the Committee had no expertise, I felt that might be a little rude.

  2637. LORD SNAPE: It is more the time factor.

  2638. BARONESS FOOKES: Possibly, my Lord Chairman, you are the only one.

  2639. MS LIEVEN: I would suggest that the Lands Tribunal for a host of reasons is a much more appropriate forum for this type of dispute, and dispute there would be, there is little doubt about that. The other point to stress, my Lords and my Lady, is that Mr Saunderson will get compensation through this process and there is no doubt about that, that is what the whole scheme is set up for. Ultimately, he will get that redress and he will get it in an objective manner through an expert tribunal if it cannot be agreed and that should give the Committee the reassurance that perhaps it needs. My Lords, I think your Lordships probably have my other points unless there are any other questions.