§ 7.0 P.M.
§ (1) Neither Increment Value Duty, Reversion Duty, nor Undeveloped Land Duty shall be charged in respect of any land whilst it is held by a statutory company for the purposes of their undertaking, and cannot be appropriated by the company except to those purposes; but nothing in this provision shall prevent the collection of Increment Value Duty when any such land is sold or ceases to be so held.
§ This provision shall not be construed so as to exclude from the benefit thereof land held by a statutory company which is intended to be ultimately appropriated for the purpose of works forming or to form part of the company's undertaking but, pending the carrying out of those works, is used for other purposes.
§ (2) The Commissioners shall not require-a statutory company to make any returns-with respect to any such land for the purpose of the provisions of this Part of this Act as to valuation other than as to the actual cost to the company of the land, and that cost shall, for the purposes of this Part of this Act, be substituted for the original site value of the land.
§ (3) For the purposes of the Lands Clauses Acts, as incorporated with any special Act, the amount (if any) payable by the transferor as Increment Value Duty shall not be treated as part of the costs or expenses of a conveyance of land, and shall not be taken into account in assessing the compensation to be paid to the transferor.
795§ (4) For the purposes of this Section the expression "statutory company" means any railway company, canal company, dock company, water company, or other company who are for the time being authorised under any special Act to construct, work, or carry on any railway, canal, dock, water, or other public undertaking, and includes any person or body of persons so authorised; and the expression "special Act" includes any Provisional Order or order having the force of an Act of Parliament.
§ Mr. RENWICK moved, in Sub-section (1), after the word "company" ["held by a statutory company"], to insert the words "or company registered under the Companies Acts."
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The object of the Clause is to exempt land held by a statutory company, but I cannot see why this should be limited to a statutory company. I should have thought, if it were necessary to exempt any company, it should be a stock company rather than a statutory company, because a statutory company is more or less of a monopoly, and I cannot imagine why the Government should be so solicitous to help a monopoly. Generally, when Members of the Government are speaking outside the House they condemn monopolies, but inside they seem to go out of their way to help them. I have come from the North of England to-day, and at Darlington I saw locomotive works belonging to a private company and a large amount of land round them for future extension. No doubt that undeveloped land will be liable, not only to Reversion Duty, but to Increment Duty and Undeveloped Land Duty. Then I saw another locomotive works at Darlington belonging to the North-Eastern Railway. I looked at my newspaper and found that the shares of the North-Eastern Railway Company, one of the companies for which this Government is so solicitous, stood at 126. The £1 shares of the private company were 1s. 9d. I should have imagined that if any company ought to have been helped it ought to be the private company, at any rate in a case of this sort. I know the struggle that private companies have to keep their heads above water. If there is any money to be given away in connection with the Budget, private companies are at any rate entitled to a share of it. It is very extraordinary that these statutory companies should compete in the way they do with private companies. Here is a case of a public trust in Swansea
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for working the docks and harbours there, and here is an advertisement that they have issued:—
The trustees own a considerable area of spare land which they are prepared to let on lease at a low rental for the erection of blast furnaces, creosote works, and for commercial purposes.
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The land belonging to this trust is free of all these duties, but land alongside of it, belonging to private individuals or joint stock companies, is subject to the duty. Let us take another case The Newport Dock and Railway Company also advertise:—
There are excellent vacant sites on the docks available for the location and development of manufactories, works, and other industrial enterprises.
§ There is another of these monopolies which is favoured by this Bill exempt from the duties while the unfortunate private companies have to pay them. That is unfair. In the Attorney-General's own constituency there is a large portion of riverside property belonging to a railway company. One of the tenants to-day told me he had a shipbuilding yard, and had rented it from the North-Eastern Railway Company for 50 years. That shows that these great railway companies are doing exactly the same work as a joint stock company or a private owner. Surely if one sort of company is to be favoured the other ought to be. I thought when the Chancellor of the Exchequer was giving away a certain amount of the proceeds of the tax he would have had in view the struggling company rather than the monopoly, and I cannot imagine why they should go out of their way to help these companies. If ever there was a time when joint stock companies and other enterprises required help, now is the time. Notwithstanding the attacks which are made on property by right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench—I see two of them now—they generally forget another monopoly with which they are connected, one of the greatest monopolies, that of the law, which is not affected by these duties.
§ Amendment not seconded.