HC Deb 28 April 1908 vol 187 cc1059-60
SIR RANDAL CREMER (Shoreditch, Haggerston)

To ask the hon. Member for the Crewe Division, as Ecclesiastical Commissioner, whether the Commissioners, when refusing to renew leases of their property, are under any statutory Obligation to compensate publicans, shopkeepers, manufacturers, or any other persons, who may be doing a profitable business, at the expiration of their leases; and if they are under no statutory obligation to do so, whether it is customary for the Commissioners voluntarily to compensate those whose business may suffer or be ruined by the non-renewal of their leases.

(Answered by Mr. Tomkinson.) The Commissioners are under no statutory obligation of the nature referred to, being in the same position as any other absolute owners of real property, and it is not their practice to compensate lessees for the non-renewal of their leases.