HC Deb 26 May 1919 vol 116 cc921-2

(1)Where money is borrowed by a county council for the purpose of the provision of houses for persons in the employment of or paid by the council, or of acquiring land for such houses, the maximum period for repayment shall be eighty years, and as respects money so borrowed eighty years shall be substituted for thirty years in Subsection (5) of Section sixty-nine of the Local Government Act, 1888.

(2)When a loan is made by the Public Works Loan Commissioners to a county council for any such purposes as aforesaid, it shall be made on the same terms and conditions as a loan to a local authority for the purposes of the Housing Acts.

(3)A county council shall have power and shall be deemed always to have had power to provide houses for persons in the employment of or paid by the council.

Sir F. BLAKE

I beg to move, at the end, to add the words and for that purpose a county council may be authorised to acquire land in like manner as a local authority may be authorised to acquire land for the purpose of Part III. of the present Act. 7.0 P.M.

This is the logical conclusion of 'the acceptance by the Government of the words that a county council shall be deemed always to have had power to provide houses for persons in the employment of the council. The Government accepted that in Committee. It is said that a county council has power now to acquire land, but, as far as my experience goes, the process is painful, prolonged, and expensive, and what we ask here is that we should have had the same facilities for acquiring land, when it is required for the purpose set out in the Sub-section, and the same facilities and the same machinery as local authorities have.

Dr. ADDISON

I am glad to accept the Amendment. It meets an oversight in the Bill. A county council is not, in the ordinary way, a housing authority. We may declare it to be a housing authority for the purpose of housing their employés or contributing towards their housing, but at present the powers they possess otherwise than conferred upon them in this Bill do not entitle them to acquire and hold land for that purpose. It is clearly necessary that they should have houses for the people to live in; therefore I accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.