HC Deb 04 December 1916 vol 88 cc767-9

The provisions of the Town Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1906, shall apply to any house or building, or part of a house or building, destroyed or damaged as aforesaid as respects compensation for improvements and disturbance, notwithstanding that the rent may exceed one hundred pounds per annum or the premises be held on a contract of tenancy for less than a year, or under lease for more than twenty- one years, or for a life or lives made after the twenty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and six, and on any application under that Act as so extended, regard shall be had to any expenditure by the tenant not being expenditure incurred in pursuance of a covenant in the rebuilding or restoring of any such house or building or part of a house or building.— [Mr. Field.]

Clause brought up, and read the first time.

Mr. FIELD

I beg to move 'That the Clanse be read a second time."

It is not necessary to make any speech with regard to this, because it is a matter which crops up in connection with this whole business, and is more or less connected with the Town Tenants (Ireland) Act. I understand there is practical agreement on all the points.

Mr. DUKE

The Town Tenants (Ireland) Act, to which the hon. Member has referred, contains Clauses no doubt which give tenants who may remove during the term of their tenancy certain rights of compensation by the lessors. It is very strictly limited, whereas the Clause which is proposed here is of the most wholesale character, and extends to tenancies quite outside the contemplation of that Act. Owing to the Amendment being a manuscript Amendment, I have not had the opportunity of considering it. I cannot accept it in Committee, and I do not see the prospect of being able to accept it on Report, because of the reasons I pointed out to the hon. Member. In Committee, however, it is impossible to consider it.

Mr. FIELD

The prospects may improve when the right hon. and learned Gentleman has a better acquaintance with it. Of course I must accept the suggestion. I will therefore bring it up on Report stage.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. CLANCY

There are four new Clauses in my name, unfortunately, not on the Paper, and although the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows the substance of them, I do not intend to move them on this occasion, but I hope they will appear on the Paper on Report. I want to know whether it is necessary to hand them in again?

Mr. DUKE

I am sorry to interrupt. but it is impossible of course to discuss these new Clauses without consideration. I promise the hon. Member that they shall not be prejudiced by not having been discussed now. If the hon. Member puts them on the Notice Paper before the Report stage, I will have them carefully considered, and, whatever opportunities there are for debate now, will arise then.

Mr. CLANCY

That is exactly the declaration I rose to get from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I will hand the Amendments in again, though I do not know whether that is necessary.

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