Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to change the rules on the compulsory purchase of land for infrastructure projects such as HS2 so that farmers receive 100 per cent of the land value rather than 90 per cent.

The overriding principle of compulsory purchase compensation is ‘equivalence’, so that landowners are left neither better nor worse off (at least in monetary terms) as a result of their land being compulsorily acquired.

Compulsory purchase compensation is based on the open market value of the land acquired in the absence of the scheme, for example, regeneration project or railway line, underlying the compulsory purchase. This is known as the “no scheme principle”. Under the no-scheme principle, any increases or decreases in the value of the land attributable to the compulsory purchase scheme, or the prospect of the scheme, are disregarded when assessing compensation for the value of land acquired. The Government has no plans to change this principle.