POST OFFICE SITES (RE-COMMITTED) BILL. (Hansard, 16 July 1906)

§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD
said he had always objected to special powers being granted to the Crown to the detriment of private individuals. Whenever a corporation or a railway company sought to acquire land for any purpose the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act came into operation and said they must take the whole and not part of the property of the individual whose land they sought to acquire. It appeared to him that the Post Office was just about the last public department that should seek to take advantage of any private owner of property. If the Post Office took property for public purposes it should be bound by the general law of the land and be compelled, if the owner wished it, to take the whole of the particular property and pay a fair market price for it. He objected to the Post Office being relieved from the obligation of the general law under Section 92 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act of 1845.

§ THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON,) Tower Hamlets, Poplar
said he thought in all previous Bills of this description the clause had been inserted, and there was no dispute between the owner and the Post Office in this case.

§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD
said that Section 92 of the Lands Clauses Act simply provided that the owner, part of whose property was taken, could demand that the whole should be taken, and if there were no complaint there was no reason why the general law should be departed from.

§ MR. SYDNEY BUXTON
said there were difficulties with regard to title.

§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD
thought the right hon. Gentleman must have been misinstructed in regard to this matter, because if there were difficulties with regard to title they were dealt with in the earlier clauses of the Bill. This was not a question of title, but whether the Post Office was to take a piece of land instead of the whole. A question of the title of a piece was the same as a question of the title of the whole.

§ SIR E. CARSON (Dublin University)
thought that the right hon. Gentleman must be mistaken in saying that this concerned questions of title, which were regulated in quite a different way.

§ SIR FREDERICK BANBURY (City of London)
said the Postmaster-General had made two replies. One was that this clause was introduced because it was a question of title, and the other was that there was no dispute. He submitted that if there was no dispute there was no necessity to introduce the clause which did not in any way solve any dispute that might arise out of the title. He would tell the right hon. Gentleman why the clause was introduced. It was introduced in order to save the Post Office money, because they thought, and rightly from their point of view, that it would be cheaper to buy part of the property when they only required part than to buy the whole. From the point of view of the Post Office that, was a good object no doubt, but from the point of view of the individual holder of property it was exceedingly bad. He suggested to the right hon. Gntleman that the best thing for him to do was to report progress, and he moved accordingly.

THE CHAIRMAN
said he could not accept the Motion.

§ MR. SYDNEY BUXTON
said there was nothing new about the clause, and no one would suffer by it. The whole of the property in question was not required by the Post Office and it was only proposed to take a portion of it. They could 1449 not, however, take it if material detriment was caused to the whole. That point was left to the arbitrator, but there was nothing new about the clause. In many of these cases there were difficulties in regard to various interests of owners and the question of title had to be cleared up.

§ MR. T. L. CORBETT (Down, N.)
appealed to the Attorney-General to give the Committee some advice on the legal point that had been raised.

§ THE ATTORNEY - GENERAL (Sir JOHN WALTON,) Leeds, S.
said he had been taken by surprise and had had only a slight opportunity of reading the section. But there would not be any difficulty in dealing with the clause. It frequently happened in the compulsory purchase of land under the Land Clauses Act that the undertakers wished to take a portion of a section of land which could not be severed without damage to the remaining portion. The landowner then had the right to insist upon the whole being taken, and that was often felt to be a hardship upon the undertakers, who contested the question whether or not the remainder would in fact be damaged by the severance. This clause provided that where the Postmaster-General only wanted a portion of land, and where the landowner insisted that the whole should be taken, the question whether the remainder which was not taken was in point of fact damaged by the severance, was left to the arbitrator.

§ SIR E. CARSON
agreed with every word the hon. and learned Gentleman had said, but asked if he would tell them what the question of title had to do with the clause.

§ MR. SYDNEY BUXTON
said he apologised if, as a layman, he had made a mistake in a legal technicality.

§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD
said the observations of the Attorney-General would be very much to the point if it were proposed to make this the law of the land; but Section 92 of the Land Clauses Consolidation Act of 1845 still remained the law of the land. Why 1450 should the Post Office enjoy an exception from it? If it were a proper amendment of the law, why not make it general? Section 92 of the Land Clauses Consolidation Act provided that in all cases—

THE CHAIRMAN
said this was that fourth time the hon. Gentleman had said so, and he must remind him that he was guilty of repetition.

§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD
said he had never been allowed to complete the sentence yet. A Member should not be bullied in this way. He was entitled, at all events, to complete a sentence, and he proposed to begin it again and complete it.

THE CHAIRMAN
said he had already told the hon. Gentleman that that was a repetition of what he had said, and he must not defy the Chair by repeating that sentence.

§ MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD
If you say you cannot permit me to finish a sentence which I have several times begun, well, then, Sir, I cannot submit to it.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member must not address the Chair in that way.

§ SIR E. CARSON
said that this was a serious and unusual clause. If there were precedents for it, they should be cited.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
said he did not find himself in agreement with his hon. friend behind him on this occasion. He supposed that the Bill was drawn in accordance with precedent, but the Committee had not got that assurance from the Government. His impression was drawn from the fact that this Bill was substantially the one introduced last session, and which was then objected to by hon. Gentlemen who were now so desirous of seeing it passed. It was owing to their opposition alone that it now required to be passed. Had they shown on that occasion the unanimous enthusiasm with which the Committee were now blessed none of this difficulty would have arisen. He suspected that 1451 the Bill was correctly drawn, and that it should be passed in the form in which the Government had brought it in. The clause seemed to him to be substantially fair, and probably it would do adequate justice to the owners of the property. The question whether this was or was not the first time that a modification of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act had been brought in was an important one. If it was not the first time then this Bill was according to precedent, and it seemed to him that the Committee would be well advised to pass it into law. Speaking from experience he could assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that nothing was gained by allowing the debates to get heated. There was a great deal of other Government business to get through, and it could not be got through in a House where there was much heat. He would suggest that a courteous hearing should be given to objectors, and above all that the Government should give an adequate defence of the Bill.

§ MR. SYDNEY BUXTON
said he had not previous Acts before him, but he was confident that this Bill was drawn in accordance with precedent in the matter.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
Is it framed on the old precedent?

§ MR. SYDNEY BUXTON
As far as I know it has been.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
said he would take the hon. Gentleman's word for it.