HC Deb 22 July 1919 vol 118 cc1197-203

The landlord of a holding to which the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908, applies and which exceeds one hundred acres in extent shall, on giving or receiving notice to determine the tenancy of the holding forthwith, give notice thereof to the council of the county or county borough in which the holding or the greater part thereof is situate, and any landlord who fails to give a notice required by this Section to be given by him shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding forty shillings.—[Major Barnes.]

Brought up, and read the first time.

Major BARNES

I beg to move That the Clause be read a second time. This is a simple provision for enabling the county and county borough councils to become aware of any land that may be in the market suitable for this Act. It needs hardly any words to commend it. It would be a matter of very great facility to county councils and county borough councils who have to apply this Act, and it would inflict no hardship upon anyone.

Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMS

I beg to second the Motion.

Mr. T. THOMPSON

This Clause would meet a difficulty which the local authorities experience when they wish to acquire laud under the existing arrangements. If they had knowledge that certain laud is becoming vacant and that they might acquire the land without disturbing existing tenancies and without having to face the cost of compensation their work would be considerably facilitated.

Major WOOD

I have considerable sympathy with the intention in the mind of the lion. Member who moved the Clause, namely, that so far as possible there should be present to the mind of the county and borough councils information as to what land is available. My first point of difficulty is that the lion. Member wants that information for the county councils in order that tile county councils may be able to have the first right of choice of that land before it is relet. The first point on which I should like some explanation is that this Clause from their own point of view would not go nearly far enough. I should be inclined to say that they ought to have added further words to ensure that no landowner should relet land without the consent of the county councils, if they wish to achieve the object which I under stand they have in view. There may be arguments for that, but that is a proposal that could only be justified upon grounds of extreme necessity, and to which I certainly should be very strongly opposed. Their Clause will not achieve the object they have in view, and is, therefore, unnecessary, and I think it might even be come mischievous. I think it to be unnecessary for this reason, that a great deal of land is every day passing through the market and changing hands. It is not an exaggeration to say that there is a silent revolution going on every day in the matter of land up and down the country, and it is open to any county council that wants land to enter the market and buy it. That is indisputable. The further point I wish to put to the House, and to the Government, is this: Are we not, if he accept this Clause—I do not wish to prejudge it, because I have not tad full opportunity of considering it—running considerable danger of defeating the very object that we wish to secure? The object which we all have in view is to make land settlement as prosperous, easy, and rapid as may be. It was repeated ad nauseam on the Second Reading and the Committee stage that land settlement to be successful must be the right sort of land. What is going to be the result of passing this Clause? You will immediately create a presumption in the minds of all who interpret this Act that inasmuch as county councils would be supposed to have some prior right to claim all the land that is changing hands, be fore it was relet—although that is not in the Clause—that inasmuch as they have that prior right it would be unreasonable for them to exercise compulsion in regard to acquiring land that was not changing hands. Anyone concerned with land knows that what the county councils want, nine times out of ten, is a particular piece of land near a village, and you would be putting an obstacle in the way of their getting that land if you passed this Clause, because it would be said that it is un reasonable to turn out somebody when you have not exercised your right to reoccupy the vacant land of which you have had notice. Therefore, I hope the Government will not accept this Clause. So far as my experience goes—and it may be, at least, as wide as that of the hon. Member who moved this Clause—there is no difficulty in substance at the present time in a county council getting information from landowners and others concerned, when ever and wherever they want it. It should be very seriously considered by the House that they should not multiply the opportunity for offences by making new crimes by Act of Parliament, unless they can prove that a real public necessity exists.

Mr. PRETYMAN

I agree with every word said by my hon. and gallant Friend. As a practical matter, I do not think this Clause would work, and, if it did work, I think it would work to create even more insecurity than exists now. The one evil of all this good legislation is that it creates, and must create, a certain amount of feeling of insecurity in the minds of existing tenants. If a tenant can feel that he can not pass on his farm to one of his own family there will be much unrest. What my hon. Friends have in mind is the case where a farm is really vacant; but the im- mense proportion of notices given are given by arrangement between the existing tenant and the landlord, and the farm simply passes to another member of the same family. If a man feels that his farm can no longer pass down to his son or to any other member of his family without the county council being informed, and with the presumption that the county council would have a prior right to the farm rather than a member of the man's own family, you are wrong both ways. You are creating insecurity on the part of the tenant and you are creating a presumption as to the limitation of the powers of the county council. The county council have now the right, whether the land is occupied or not, to take it if it is required for a public purpose. There seems to be no reason in limiting that, and there is still less reason for limiting it in the way proposed. The suggested penalty is ridiculous. This Amendment deals only with holdings exceeding 100 acres. Imagine when a tenant farmer with 500 acres of land wants to pass it on to his son the landlord being fined 40s. if he does not give notice to the county council. The authors of this Clause show no practical knowledge of the subject, and I sincerely hope that the Government will not accept the Clause.

Mr. ACLAND

I am afraid that I rather take the other view. I think it is a very open question and a rather difficult one, but I do think that at the present time the more the county council know as to the possibility of getting hold of land for settling these ex-Service men on the better. Naturally, everybody does his best. I know several people who are trying to get their tenants to give up fields so as to make way for one or two little holdings for these settlers; and, naturally, when a farmer gives up his farm, it facilitates this work to let the county council know, so that they may see whether they would like to take the farm for this purpose. This is not going any further than a public-spirited and good landowner would do in the general public interests, in letting the council know whenever he has got land available which they might like to have a look at. And I do not think that there is any great hardship in asking all landlords to do what a good watchful landowner would naturally do in the general interests of getting as many as possible of these men settled satisfactorily on the land. I quite agree that where it is a natural thing that the son should succeed the father in the tenancy of the farm, it would go a little against the grain to run the risk of the county council stepping in and saying that they want to prevent that. But after all, county councils act reasonably in these things, and they have the powers to take land apart from any arrangements an owner may want to make with a tenant. But there are other cases. Sometimes there is the case of one brother wanting to succeed another, or the case of a nephew wanting a farm, but on the whole it seems to me to be in the general interests of the State now that county councils should be informed as widely as possible of any land which may be made available without actually taking it away from the present occupier.

The county councils have got a very difficult duty. In spite of all the land which there is in the market, they will not be able to acquire all the land they want in all districts simply by taking advantage of the land that comes automatically into the market. In most cases they must definitely exercise the power to provide the land for these men, who have done such signal service to the country. And it is very much better that instead of doing that they should take land which other wise would be changing its tenancy rather than turn the sitting tenant out of land which is actually in cultivation. This clause would give them full information of any pending change of tenancy, and I do not think it unreasonable that they should be informed of changes of tenancy so that they may have the power of saying, "This is a bit of land which we would very much like for our purposes, and having looked into all the circumstances of the case we do not think that the hardship to persons would otherwise let it is so great that we ought to desist from obtaining it for public purposes."

Sir A. BOSCAWEN

Like my right hon. Friend opposite, I also had a very open mind with regard to this Amendment. In fact when it was put down first I was favourably inclined towards it for this reason. The greatest objection that can be urged to this Bill is that it may involve, in fact I am afraid that it must involve, disturbing the sitting tenant in some cases, and it occurred to me that if every opportunity was given to the county council to act when they knew there was to be a change of tenancy it would reduce to a minimum the danger of disturbing the existing tenant. But I do not think that this Amendment goes very far. All it does is to make it obligatory for the land-owner to inform the county council, and to impose a somewhat ridiculous fine if he does not, and I cannot say that I contemplate altogether with pleasure the idea of landowners being haled before magistrates and fined 40s. because they omitted to inform the county council that Johnson, senior, was going to give up the land and Johnson, junior, was going to take it. That is very undesirable. If the House generally were in favour of the Amendment I would accept it. But that does not appear to be the case, and there are good grounds why I should not accept it. When there is going to be a change of tenancy in a village in the country it is pretty well known, and the county council would get to know of it. In view of the fact that it would effect the very minimum amount of good and create a somewhat ridiculous new crime, I think that, on the whole, that it is wiser not to accept the Amendment.

Major BARNES

I had rather hoped that the Government would have taken the view that this Amendment, which seems such a harmless provision and would be of great advantage to the county council, might be passed without objection. I attach coniderable weight to what the hon. Members opposite say on the subject of land. I am not at all in sensible to the arguments which they put forward with regard to the continuity of tenure. If I were lucky enough to possess a farm and had a boy to whom I could pass it on I should feel very sore indeed if the county council came along and prevented me from doing so. But I do not think that that is likely to happen. In most parts of the country I think that the county councils are fully alive to that sentiment and tradition. It may be that in my part of the world there are some county councils who would be rather ruthless, but I do not think that that would be likely to happen. What the Clause really does is to help the county council to make up a register. It does put them at once in possession of information that might be useful, and that I am quite sure they will not use in any arbitrary way.

As for the dreadful pictures that have been painted of landlords being haled before the local bench and fined 40s., I do not know whether that would not add a little to the gaiety of rural life, and that on that ground alone the hon. Gentleman as a sportsman might accept the Clause. After all, landowners themselves do inflict a good many fines of 40s. for offences which are not very much more serious than the one which is specified here, and it might give a little savour of gaiety to rural life if occasionally one saw one of them in the dock for an offence of this sort. I would be prepared to make the penalty a great deal heavier if that would ensure the acceptance of my Amendment. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was not very decided in his opposition, and would have accepted a lead from the House. And while there is no general feeling of unanimity on this subject, I think that that is because this side of the House happens to be rather less occupied than that side, and if the occasion had been a little different the view of the House would have been different. But I do not propose to take this Amendment to a Division if the Government persist in their opposition, and I will therefore withdraw it.

Motion and Clause, by leave, with drawn.