103. Mr Drabble did not seek to rely on the extract for his primary case but submitted
that, to the extent that the Court considered it necessary to resort to external aids, the
reference in the extract to the land ‘being kept as a garden for the use of the public for
ever” supported his interpretation. Mr Mould submitted in response that the absence
of any reference to ‘for ever’ in the Act indicated that Parliament had not accepted the
Committee’s aspiration that the garden should be forever. The Trust was, he
submitted, asking the Court to infer that, notwithstanding that those words are notably
absent from s.8(1) of the 1900 Act, nevertheless they are to be read into that
enactment as representing Parliament’s true intention. That contention was, he said,
simply unsustainable.
104. Both Counsel were, at this juncture, using pre-legislative material to elucidate
meaning, rather than context. In R(O) v Secretary of State Lord Hodges expressed the
view that “none of these external aids displace the meanings conveyed by the words
of a statute that after consideration of the context are clean and unambiguous and
which do not produce absurdity” [30], Lady Arden was however prepared to consider
that: “There are occasions when pre-legislative material may, depending on the
circumstances, go further than simply provide the background or context for the
statutory provision in question. It may influence its meaning.” [64]. She considered
the benefit of doing so as enabling the Court to reach a better-informed interpretation
of a provision [66]).
105.
The difficulty in the present case is that the material relied on to elucidate meaning is
the minutes of a Committee of the Promoter of a private Bill, a category of material
not in the contemplation of Lord Hodge and Lady Arden in R(O) v Secretary of State.
The parties did not address me on the admissibility of the material. My conclusions
on the construction of section 8 of the Act, do not rely on the pre-legislative material.
However, to the extent the Court is able to rely on the pre-legislative material to
elucidate meaning (in addition to context) then, in my view, it provides strong support
for the interpretation I have arrived at on the basis of the wording of section 8.
106.
Finally, I address briefly, the submission by Mr Mould and Mr Katkowksi that the
Gardens had accommodated a number of structures over the years, including the
Buxton Memorial, which had not been considered to be contrary to the 1900 Act. I do
not consider factual developments since the passage of the Act to be of assistance to
my task of ascertaining the meaning of the wording of section 8 of the 1900 Act.
The 1900 Act as a material consideration
107. Mr Drabble submitted that the existence of the 1900 Act makes the Holocaust
Memorial effectively undeliverable. Deliverability was a material consideration which
the Inspector failed either adequately, or at all, to take into account. This failure has
led to an error of law. Mr Mould disputed this analysis. Restrictions in other statutes
are ordinarily not material considerations which the planning decision maker is
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