HC Deb 30 November 1914 vol 68 cc736-42

  1. (1) If the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries (hereinafter referred to as "the Board") are of opinion that the execution of any work of drainage, embankment, or defence against water is desirable for the improvement or protection of any area, and that provision for the execution of the work should be made tinder the powers conferred by this Act, they may by Provisional Order constitute a body (corporate or unincorporate) for the purpose and authorise the execution of the work by the body so constituted, and make such provision for the execution and maintenance of the work as the Board may think proper.
  2. (2) A Provisional Order under this Section may amongst other things—
    1. (a) define the area for the improvement or protection of which the work is executed;
    2. (b) define the powers and duties of the body constituted by the Order;
    3. (c) provide for the manner in which any expenses incurred by the body constituted by the Order are to be raised by conferring on that body such powers as to rating and borrowing as are exerciseable by Commissions of Sewers, or by requiring contributions from other drainage authorities exercising jurisdiction within the area defined by the Order, and may for that purpose vary and extend any rating and borrowing powers of any drainage authority so required to contribute;
    4. (d) enable the body constituted by the Order to acquire land by agreement; or to acquire land compulsorily, if so authorised by an Order of the Development Commissioners made in accordance with the provisions of the Schedule to the Development and Road Improvement Funds Act, 1909, and as if such provisions with the necessary adaptions were incorporated in this Act;

and the Provisional Order may contain any incidental, consequential, or supplemental provisions which may appear necessary or proper for the purposes of the Order.

(3) The provisions set out in the Schedule to this Act shall have effect with respect to Provisional Orders made under this Act.

Mr. J. O'CONNOR

I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), paragraph (c), after the word "sewers" ["Commissioners of Sewers"], to insert the words "and in Ireland such powers be exercised by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Education." It will be in the recollection of the House that two days ago, on the Second Reading of this Bill, I took occasion to complain that the terms and provisions of this very excellent measure were not extended to Ireland—a country which requires the operation of some such Act, when it becomes an Act, to a much greater degree than the countries to which it refers. If I may be permitted the privilege, I would say that the Amendment which has been read out by the Chair, is consequential upon an Amendment which I shall have to move later on. I was met on the last occasion of the Second Heading with the objection that this Bill could not be applied to Ireland because there is not a Commission of Sewers in Ireland. We have already forty-two or forty-three public boards in Ireland administering the law there, which is, I believe, a greater number than you have in this country. I do not ask that those boards shall be added to in any respect whatever, because my present Amendment is to confer powers on the Vice-President of the Agricultural Department in Ireland the powers which are conferred upon the Commission of Sewers in this country. I repeat the complaint I have already made, that the demands of Ireland in this respect should have been overlooked. We have been crying out for some such Bill as this for a long time, and within my own experience of the past thirty years we had a hardy annual Motion which called on the Government to turn its attention to this great grievance. We were crying in the wilderness, and we are still crying in the midst of a weary waste of waters in Ireland. There is a river running through my own Constituency which overflows its banks four times a year, and floods an area each time of no less than 48,000 acres. The health of the people is thereby impaired, agricultural operations are prevented, and in every respect the country is damaged. Is there any reason why we should not complain that the provisions of this Bill are not extended to Ireland? I am making no extravagant proposal at all. Bills were introduced into this House at one time by the late Prime Minister, the Member for the City. In 1888 he introduced three Bills, one the Shannon Drainage Bill, another the Barrow Drainage Bill, and the third, the Bann Drainage Bill, which river, although in the North, is to be found in Ireland.

Mr. BOOTH

On a point of Order. Is the River Bann mentioned in this Bill, and may I ask whether it is permissible on the Committee Stage to extend the operation of a measure like this, and will not my hon. Friend's very good proposals really require another Bill?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Harry Verney)

With every sympathy for Ireland and Scotland in this matter I have taken advice on it, and I was informed that such an Amendment would make the Bill impossible, and therefore, with every wish to do otherwise, I was prevented from doing so.

Mr. J. O'CONNOR

May I say, in reply, that the hon. Gentleman could not have asked for the advice of his legal advisers upon an Amendment with which he was totally unacquainted?

Sir H. VERNEY

It could not apply to Ireland.

Mr. J. O'CONNOR

This House can do anything in Committee or otherwise, and is paramount over its own actions. I submit most confidently that it is possible for this House to so amend and extend the Bill as to apply to any part of the country to which it is not intended by the promoters to apply. There is nothing in the Bill to indicate that it does not apply to Ireland, but it would be impossible to apply it to Ireland unless the Amendment I am proposing were accepted, because there is no authority like the Commission of Sewers in Ireland.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean)

While the hon. Member was speaking I was looking at the Bill in connection with his Amendment. It seems to me that if the Amendment were permitted it would be quite outside the Clause as at present drawn. The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries clearly means the English Board. To introduce an Amendment referring to Ireland seems to me quite outside the scope of the Clause. Therefore I am sorry, but I must rule the Amendment out of order.

Sir F. BANBURY

I beg to move, in Sub-section (2) (d), to leave out the words "Schedule to the Development and Road Improvement Funds Act, 1909," and to insert instead thereof the words "Lands Clauses Act."

I looked to see what the Schedule to the Development and Road Improvement Funds Act, 1909, was, and I found that, while that Schedule incorporated the Lands Clauses Act, it made important alterations, one of them being the abolition of the 10 per cent, for compulsory purchase. The object of this Bill is to provide for unemployment. It is to have a duration of only two years, and machinery is to be set up to deal with unemployment caused by the War, if such unemployment should arise. That is a most excellent object, with which I have no quarrel. But if the State is going to be charitable in this way, it should not be charitable at the expense of one person. If it is going to take a man's land for this particular purpose, it should not try to be generous at one person's expense. If land is to be taken to give employment to people, the provisions of the Lands Clauses Act should properly apply. The hon. Baronet may say that we cannot go against precedent. As I told him in a private interview, it is no argument to say that because we have made a bad precedent we are always to go on with it. This is an exceptional case, and although there may be arguments why the Lands Clauses Act should not apply in ordinary cases, in this particular case I certainly think it ought to apply.

Sir H. VERNEY

I am very much obliged to the hon. Baronet for having given me private notice of this Amendment. I can assure him that I have done my best to see if it were possible to accept it. I am inclined to agree with him that, if you have a bad precedent, that is no argument for going on with it. My difficulty is that it is not a bad precedent, but a very good one—the precedent of the Small Holdings Act and the Development Act. The tendency under these Acts, of which we have some experience at the Board, is not that the landlord gets too little, but that the landlord gets too much. Almost all the complaints that have reached us have been in that direction, and the arbitrator has proved very much on the generous side towards the landlord. My difficulty in accepting the Amendment is that I think it will be raising a very controversial subject, which is aside from a policy which has now become the settled policy of Parliament. As this Bill is entirely, I hope, non-controversial, it is hardly open to me at this period of the Session to raise a controversial point by accepting the Amendment.

Mr. POLLOCK

I am sorry for the answer that we have just heard from the Treasury Bench. The precedent quoted really has no bearing at all upon this Bill. This is a Bill to last two years. It is an emergency Bill. The War is without precedent, and the emergency, we hope, is also without precedent. Therefore it is no good to tell us that the Small Holdings Act or some other Act has adopted this system in times of peace for the purposes of peace. I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept this Amendment in the interests of his own Bill. I will show him how. The purposes of this Bill, as I understand it, is that there shall be some area taken to which it shall apply. If you follow out the procedure of the Bill as contained in the Schedule, if there is any sort of obstruction—in fact, if there is not a willingness on the part of the person whose land is to be taken—you will really never get any land at all under this Bill. You have to proceed by giving notice to the public authorities, then, if there is any dispute, you will require to hold a public inquiry, then a Provisional Order will be required with the Bill in contemplation. If you have any controversy with the landowner, will you, do you think, get any Bill through in the course of such time as will enable any real work to be done under the Bill? The only way in which you can do it satisfactorily is to tempt the person who owns the land to give any land you may require, and the one way to tempt him is to give him compensation under the Land Clauses Act, instead of in the Schedule of the development of land. That is the real point.

This Bill, I venture to say, is really already dead. You will never get any land. It is a very good idea, and I would wish to see the land taken, and the Bill become operative, and the way to achieve that would be to accept this Amendment. I think we may take it that no land will ever be secured under this Bill, and that all its powers will be worthless. You may be able to get some land outside the Bill by agreement: that is another matter. If you want to work this Bill you must make the terms attractive; if not you will get nothing in the course of the two years. On these grounds I ask the hon. Gentleman to try and reconsider this matter, and to deal with it upon Report.

Sir H. VERNEY

I would rather risk the death of the Bill. I do not think the hon. Gentleman on reflection will agree that in these times of emergency a landlord is not willing to part with his land without 10 per cent, temptation to make him.

Mr. POLLOCK

In that case, then, you do not want the compulsory powers of the Bill.

Sir PHIPSON BEALE

If the object of hon. Gentlemen opposite is only to ensure that the landlord gets his full compensation, I think their suggestion is wide of the mark. It cannot be got by simply saying that the Lands Clauses Act shall apply. The Lands Clauses Act only applies to specific land mentioned in the Bill which incorporates the Lands Clauses. If you have a right to take land you must have something in the nature of a Provisional Order, so that you can put your finger on the right land to take. I do not think you will secure any good purpose by putting in the provisions of the Lands Clauses Act into this Bill.

Mr. BOOTH

I certainly hope the Government will adhere to the declaration made by the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill. What I heard rather staggers me. The hon. Member for Leamington used the phrase that the landowner must be tempted. We hope to get through this Session without any Divisions, but rather than that legislation should go through for the purpose of tempting a landlord by money that he is not entitled to, I would go to a Division if I could only secure another Teller. Surely in this time, when men engaged in business are making enormous sacrifices and employing large staffs and keeping places open for men who have gone to the War and doing everything to protect the labouring population against distress, we ought not to be expected to tempt a ground landlord by 10 per cent. It is unthinkable! I am sure the hon. and learned Member opposite, when he comes here again on Monday will totally disavow what he has put forward now.

Mr. POLLOCK

The hon. Member entirely misinterprets and misconstrues the whole purport of my speech. Perhaps he is not familiar with the two Acts concerned here.

Mr. BOOTH

I am glad to have induced the hon. Member not to wait to disavow what he has said until Monday next, but to disavow it now. He admits that he used the phrase "tempting the landlord." The hon. Member must not expect me to agree that he correctly describes my knowledge, but I venture to say that the temptation in his mind and in that of the hon. Baronet was this 10 per cent, additional compensation. The landowners are not entitled to it, but they are in the habit of wanting it, and they sometimes get it. It is that I am against. I am not going to be put off with reference to these Acts of Parliament, and I hope this Amendment will meet with the strongest opposition.

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and agreed to.

Clause added to the Bill.