§ (1)Where a council, or a landlord at the written request of a council, terminates a tenancy of land by notice to quit, with a view to the use of the land or any part thereof by the council for the provision of small holdings, the tenant upon quitting shall be entitled to recover from the council compensation for the loss or expense directly attributable to the quitting which the tenant may unavoidably incur upon or in connection with the sale or removal of his household goods or his implements of husbandry, produce, or farm stock on or used in connection with the land:
§ Provided that no compensation under this Act shall be payable—
- (a)unless the tenant has given to the council a reasonable opportunity of making a valuation of such goods, implements, produce, and stock as aforesaid; or
- (b)if the claim for compensation is not made within three months after the time at which the tenant quits.
§ In the event of any difference arising as to any matter under this Section the difference shall, in default of agreement, be settled by arbitration.
§ (2)The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries shall, out of the Small Holdings Account, repay to a council any compensation paid by the council under an award or with the consent or approval of the Board, and also any expenses which, in the opinion of the Board, have been necessarily or reasonably incurred by the council in relation to any claim for compensation under this Act.
628§ (3) This Act shall apply where a tenancy is terminated after the commencement of this Act, whether the notice to quit is given before or after such commencement.
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Edward Strachey)I beg to move, in Subsection (l), to leave out the word "written" ["at the written request"].
On the Second Reading of this Bill I was asked from various quarters of the House if I would consider Amendments to improve the Bill, and I very gladly acceded to that wish. I was glad to note that in the Debate the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand Division (Mr. Walter Long) said:—
I think the hon. Baronet will rind that whether our requests are met favourably or not, there is no intention whatever on our part to offer anything in the form of opposition which will put him in a difficulty.I should at once like to say that hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House, to whom I have pointed out that some of their Amendments clearly do not improve the Bill, have very kindly undertaken either not to move them or to take them off the Paper. As regards the Amendment which stands in my name, I have given notice of it after full consideration. The object is to prevent any hurt to the tenant by any possible neglect of the county council to approach the landlord with a written request instead of merely verbally asking him to induce his tenant to go to enable them to take possession of the farm or holding. It would, it seems to me, be certainly very unfair that the tenant, or the landlord, by the neglect of the county council to make a written request merely to give notice to the landlord to get the farm for the purposes of small holdings, should thereby be damnified, and should not come under the provisions of this Bill for compensation. I beg to move.
§ Sir F. BANBURYI should like an explanation of this. It is a very important matter. The hon. Baronet tells us that he does not want either the landlord or the tenant to suffer because there has been neglect on the part of the county council or on the part of the landlord. How can the council request the landlord unless they write? How otherwise is the landlord to know that the council has made a request? How, I ask the Solicitor General, in a court of law can you prove that a request has been made if that request has not been written or indicated? 629 We will assume that the County Council of Somerset meets, and requests a certain landlord to give up his farm. No further notice is sent to the landlord, and the tenant gives up his farm. Is that tenant to be compensated? There has been no request made to the landlord, and the farm may be given up for some other reason. I can see a great deal of complication arising from this deletion of the word "written." Supposing the word is left out a request must be made for the land. And supposing a verbal request is made to the landlord, either by the clerk of the county council calling upon him, or someone else, and the landlord says he must have it in writing, the result will be disputes and differences, and the legal profession will have to be called in. Everyone desires that this Bill, when it becomes an Act, shall not be difficult of interpretation. A written request is a simple thing, and I can see no reason why a written request should not be given.
§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Rufus Isaacs)There is no difficulty in carrying out the Section without the word "written." If you leave the word "written" in it is a condition precedent to the right to compensation of any tenant. The reason it is proposed to leave out the word "written" is because representations have been made to the hon. Baronet in charge of the Bill to the effect that the councils might omit on some special occasion to write the request, and because the council had forgotten to write the request the tenant would not get compensation. It seems to me, whenever a council is going to make a request, it will make it in writing, but it is not essential.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSIt is not done to protect the council; it is done to protect the tenant, who otherwise will suffer for something for which he is not responsible.
§ Sir F. BANBURYWould the hon. and learned Gentleman say how he supposes the council would make a request?
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSThere would be no difficulty in the council making a request through some person deputed to make it. A special minute might be made deputing some one to make the request. There is no difficulty in giving authority to some one to make the request. I agree that in most cases it will be made in 630 writing, but for some reason or other the request, instead of being in writing, might be made verbally, and if the word "written" is retained the only effect will be to penalise the tenant. My hon. Friend, in deference to representations made to him, proposes the Amendment to delete the word "written" in order that the tenant may not suffer.
§ Mr. HICKS BEACHBy this Amendment you are inviting the county councils to conduct their business not in a businesslike manner. How should a county council give notice to a landlord or a tenant except by a form of written notice sent by the council or else by word of mouth by one of the small holdings committee or by the agent of the county council? Surely it is not in the interest of local administration that the county council should be allowed to give notice about the taking of farms by word of mouth? Anyone who conducts any estate on ordinary business lines would not act in such a way. He would not give a tenant notice to quit except in writing. I do not see why the county councils should be allowed to adopt a different procedure. I quite appreciate the point made by the hon. Baronet that the tenant should not suffer, but surely these cases would be very rare indeed, and they could only possibly occur when the county council had not conducted its business properly. In such cases the tenants would appreciate the fact, and at the next election they would take good care to impress upon candidates the necessity for conducting their business properly.
§ Sir E. STRACHEYI do not know whether the hon. Gentleman who has spoken is himself a member of a county council or a small holdings committee. If he were he would appreciate the difficulties very often these bodies have in such matters. They are anxious to satisfy the demands for small holdings, say in a date close up to Lady Day. They must give notice at once, and I am sure the hon. Member will see the advantage of the chairman of the small holdings committee or a member of the council being able to say to the landlord, "We are anxious to get this land; we give verbal notice now in order to save six months, or perhaps twelve months." I was very much surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman say there might be a few hard cases, but that they would be so few it did not matter.
§ Mr. HICKS BEACHNo, I did not say that.
§ Sir E. STRACHEYIf only one man did not receive compensation because the word "written" was in the Clause, it would be sufficient reason for taking it out.
§ Lord BALCARRESThe hon. Baronet is rather extending the scope of his Amendment. In his original statement he pointed out that this was to make up for any carelessness on the part of the councils. His advisers, not without good reason, I think, put the word "written" into the Bill. The hon. Baronet said, a few minutes ago, that the Amendment was intended to meet any oversight on the part of the local authorities, but now he says things are done in such a hurry that in order to get them through by Lady Day there is no time to give written notice, and therefore verbal notice is to be substituted instead. If a man has time at the meeting of a small holdings committee to give verbal notice to quit a farm surely he has time to give notice in writing. If the committee can find the necessary time to authorise some particular person to give verbal notice to a tenant or to a landlord then the committee ought to find two minutes or one minute to make the official record of that transaction. I wonder who has asked the hon. Baronet to omit this word? I do not think it is any hon. Member on this side of the House.
§ Sir E. STRACHEYYes, it is.
§ Lord BALCARRESThen I confess I am surprised. By striking out this word you are taking out something which involves a simple business transaction on the part of the county council. I think it h objectionable from many points of view that transactions of this kind should take place without any record.
§ Mr. MOUNTI think notice should be given in writing. Supposing by any laxity in the proceedings that is not done, I think it would be rather hard that the person to suffer will be the tenant. If you have to punish anyone punish the county council, but under this Bill you cannot do that, and you can only punish the tenant if the word is omitted.
§ Mr. CARLILEThe hon. Baronet says he proposes to remove this word as a protection to the tenant. The only security to the tenant really lies in the minute of 632 the county council unless some written notice is kept. A good deal of the business of a county council must necessarily go through with extraordinary rapidity, and it would be the simplest thing in the world for anything of this kind to be omitted. The tenant has no security at all, and his entire security rests in some written record of the transaction being recorded in the minutes or else that some written notice has been sent. The county council is itself the body that has to find the compensation. The Bill says that the council shall provide the compensation out of some fund administered by the county council. My point is that there is not an extreme interest on the part of the county council to see that the thing is done in absolute order. I do not suggest that any county council would be lax because it did not want to pay compensation, but that difficulty might easily arise, and I hope the hon. Baronet will see his way to let this go through, as in any other Bills of this kind, where proper provision has to be carried out in connection with such undertakings. Otherwise the tenant might find there was no documentary evidence, and, therefore, he would lose his compensation.
§ Mr. GEORGE ROBERTSI apprehend that these words may give rise to some trouble. I think there is every desire in all quarters to safeguard the tenant. As to what has fallen from the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Carlile) I am not in any way impressed by his statement that the business of a county council is done with such rapidity that matters of this kind are likely to be overlooked. My experience leads me to believe that county councils are business authorities, and in connection with land purchase or land acquisition the giving of proper notice is a matter which is not likely to be lost sight of. I understand that the tenant has to give notice at least three months after the notice to acquire his land has been given in regard to his claim for compensation. If he has no written notice, some question might arise as to whether the three months have elapsed or otherwise. The tenant has to be made aware of the fact that he must give notice of his claim for compensation within three months, and it seems to me it would involve no hardship if he has to make his notice in writing.
§ Sir F. BANBURYI agree that no one wishes to put the tenant in a worse position. All I want is to make quite certain that the tenant should thoroughly understand what is going to happen to him, and that there should be no possibility of any legal quibble as to whether proper notice has been given. The hon. Baronet says the hon. Member for Gloucestershire has probably not been a member of a county council or a member of a small holdings committee, or he would have known that the chairman of a small holdings committee or a county council might in all probability go to some landlord and say, "You have to give your tenant notice." Everyone knows how difficult it is for two people, both desirous of understanding each other, to come to a clear interpretation of what has passed in a conversation. Over and over again two people, absolutely honest and sincere, hold a conversation together, and within three or four days they both put a different interpretation upon that conversation. A small holdings committee may give notice to a landlord that they have considered the taking of a farm. It is not always confirmed by the county council. Supposing a verbal communication is given by the chairman of the small holdings committee, say, to my hon. Friend, he gives notice to his tenant, and the tenant takes another farm. The county
§ council do not confirm this notice or the chairman of the committee says, "I did not mean we were going to do that. I only told you we were going to consider it." Then there comes a legal suit as to whether or not the tenant is entitled under the terms of this Act to compensation. Take the reverse case. Is there any landlord worth anything at all who would not before giving his tenant notice say to the county council, "You must give me written notice"? I cannot conceive any man giving notice to his tenant unless he has a written communication from the county council. I do not say it is very probable, but it is possible a small landlord might enter into a fraudulent transaction with his tenant. He might say, "If you are going I shall pretend I have had notice from the county council. You will get something, and you can give me a portion of it." Here you open the door to any quantity of litigation. I do not think it is possible for the tenant to suffer, because I cannot conceive it likely any landlord would give notice which was not written or unless he was quite certain the county council had passed the resolution.
§ Question put, "That the word proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 46; Noes, 73.
635| Division No. 81.] | AYES. | 12.40 p.m. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Grant, J. A. | Rawson, Col. Richard H. |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) | Guinness, Hon. Walter Edward | Rice, Hon. Walter Fitz-Uryan |
| Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks | Hancock, J. G. | Roberts, George H. (Norwich) |
| Brackenbury, Henry Langton | Hanis, H. P. (Paddington, S.) | Rolleston, Sir John |
| Calley, Colonel Thomas C. P. | Henderson, Major Harold (Berkshire) | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Jowett, Frederick William | Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood) |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University) | locker-Lampson. G. (Salisbury) | Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) |
| Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W. | Mackinder, Halford J | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire) |
| Clay, Captain H. H. Spender | Markham, Arthur Basil | Stewart, Gershom (ches., Wirrall) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas | Talbot, Lord Edmund |
| Croft, Henry Page | Morpeth, Viscrunt | Wheler, Granville C. H. |
| Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. S. | Newdegate, F. A. | Willoughby, Major Hon. Claude |
| Edwards, Enoch | Newman, John R. P. | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Falle, Bertram Godfray | Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A. | Worthington-Evans, L. |
| Fletcher, John Samuel | Paget, Almeric Hugh | |
| Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S.W.) | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir F. Banbury and Mr. Carlile. |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Rt. Hon. Sir Alex. F. | Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness) | Hooper, Arthur George |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley) | Hunter, W. (Govan) |
| Baker, Joseph Allen (Flnsbury, E.) | Elverston, H. | Illingworth, Percy H. |
| Barnston, Harry | Ferguson, Ronald C. Munro | Isaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel |
| Beale, William Phipson | Ginnell, L. | Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvll) |
| Bentham, George J. | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | King, Joseph (Somerset, North) |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Grenfell, Cecil Alfred | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Buxton, C. R. (Devon, Mid) | Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. | Lincoln, Ignatius T. T. |
| Cameron, Robert | Harcourt, Robert V. | Lyell, Charles Henry |
| Chancellor, H. G. | Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.) | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Haworth, Arthur A. | M'Callum, John M. |
| dough, William | Higham, John Sharp | M'Laren. F. W. S. (Line, Spalding) |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Hindle, F. G. | Millar, James Duncan |
| Crawshay-Williams, Eliot | Holt, Richard Durning | Montagu, Hon. E. S. |
| Mount, William Arthur | Primrose, Hon. Neil James | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Murray, Caot. Hon. Arthur C. | Pringle, William M. R. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Muspratt, Max | Rattan, Peter Wilson | Watt, Henry A. |
| Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Nolan, Joseph | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire) |
| Norton, Capt. Cecil W. | Soames, Arthur Wellesley | White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E.R.) |
| Parker, James (Halifax; | Soares, Ernest Joseph | Whyte, Alexander F. |
| Partington, Oswald | Strachey, Sir Edward | Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow) |
| Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) | Younger, W. (Peebles and Selkirk) |
| Pointer, Joseph | Verney, Frederick William | |
| Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | Wadsworth, J. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Master of Elibank and Mr. Gulland. |
Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.
§ Sir E. STRACHEYI beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the word "Act" ["compensation under this Act"] and to insert instead thereof the word "Section."
The reason for this Amendment is that if the new Clause which I have on the Paper is carried, this alteration will be required, otherwise the Act cannot be made retrospective.
Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSI desire to move, in the same Sub-section, to omit the words "opportunity of making a valuation of such goods, implements, produce and stock as aforesaid, or," and to insert instead thereof the words "information to admit of a proper assessment of the amount of such loss or expense." These are merely drafting Amendments, to ensure that the tenant shall give the council reasonable information.
§ Sir E. STRACHEYThe hon. and learned Member for Wycombe told me yesterday that he was perfectly satisfied, and did not intend to move his Amendments. I do not know if the hon. Member is aware of that.
§ Sir E. STRACHEYThe hon. and learned Member told me he would not move the Amendment.
§ Lord HUGH CECILMy hon. Friend is, of course, quite entitled to move the Amendment.
§ Sir E. STRACHEYI did not say he was not entitled. I only informed him of what he had told me.
§ Mr. CARLILEWill it be in Order to move to omit Sub-section (3), of which notice has been given by the hon. Member for the Ashford Division of Kent (Mr. Laurence Hardy)?
§ The CHAIRMANI think the object of the proposal of the hon. Member for Ashford in moving to omit Sub-section (3) was really to deal with a point which is now to be dealt with in the new Clause of the hon. Baronet in charge of the Bill. It is clearly consequential on the hon. Member's other Amendment, and I therefore did not call it.
§ Mr. CARLILEThe point is that if certain Amendments are carried, this Amendment may be desirable, and I was only desirous of knowing if the opportunity would be given to omit the Sub-section, as that would be a necessary consequence of adopting the Amendments of the hon. Member for Ashford.
§ The CHAIRMANI have a letter from the hon. Member for Ashford asking that all Amendments in his name on the Paper should be withdrawn from the Paper.
§ Clause 2 added to the Bill.
§ Sir E. STRACHEYI beg to move to insert after Clause 1 the following:—