§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Gordon Hewart)I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The Bill in its original form was founded on the Report of the Town Holdings Committee, which, in 1899, recommended
That it is most desirable on public grounds that all religious bodies should be enabled to obtain a secure tenure of places of worship and schools, and they consider that the freeholder who has granted land for such a purpose has no good reason to object to its being so held in perpetuity on his receiving the value of his interest. They therefore recommend that all religious 183 bodies to whom land has been granted on lease by the freeholder for the erection of their places of worship and schools should be empowered to purchase the fee subject to the payment of fair compensation.Let me refer briefly to the history of this matter. A Bill having the same objects as this Bill was read a Second time in this House in 1891, by a majority of 108, with support from both sides of the House; and again in 1892, when the Second Reading was carried by a majority of 119. It was introduced once more in 1893, supported strongly by both sides of the House, and passed without a Division. It also passed through Standing Committee. In the year 1909 the Bill was introduced as a Government Measure. It was read a Second time, without a Division, in the House of Lords in 1910, and passed through all its stages in that House in 1911 and 1912. It was read a Second time, without a Division, in this House in 1914, and was carried through Standing Committee. It was then understood that the Bishoprics Bill and this Bill were to be passed pari passu, but in consequence of a misunderstanding the first Bill was passed, and the second was not.The grievance which places of worship exhibit when they are built on land of leasehold tenure is one that is felt by the Free Churches in all parts of England and Wales. When the Bill was introduced in the year 1903, it was stated that within the preceding half-century, in London alone, at least fifty Congregational chapels had ceased to exist, the land, and sometimes the buildings, having been devoted to trading purposes. I am informed that every other denomination has suffered in the same way. There is now a larger number than ever of chapels built upon land of leasehold tenure which will fall sooner or later into the hands of the ground landlords, unless the sites be enfranchised. There was mentioned, as an example of the chapels threatened with extinction, a large chapel in a densely crowded working-class quarter, erected 50 years ago at a cost of £5,000 accommodating 1,000 people, with a 60 years' lease, at a £50 annual ground rent.
Some years ago the Leasehold Enfranchisement Association took Carnarvonshire as a typical Welsh county, and an exhaustive inquiry showed that half of the total number of chapels in that county were built upon land of leasehold tenure. Evidence was given before the Town 184 Holdings Committee to show that 17 chapels at Blaenau Festiniog had been built on leasehold land at a cost of £37,000, but in some cases the landlords had refused to sell the freeholds of these chapels; that in the Holyhead district, out of 21 chapels, 16 were held on leasehold tenure, and that many chapels on one estate were held on a 30 years' lease. In a single Welsh parish 20 chapels and one schoolroom were built, at a cost of more than £45,000, on leasehold land. At least eight chapels were built on a 30 years' lease. In one case the trustees of a chapel, at a cost of £3,000, had been compelled to build on a 30 years' lease, and when a further sum of £2,000 had been spent upon it, the lease was renewed for a period of another 30 years only. The report of the General Assembly of the Calvinistic Methodists of Wales for the year 1883 Showed that 347 of their chapels had been built on leasehold land, and their total value was then £366,946. By the year 1900, seven per cent. of these leases were bound to expire, and the value of the chapels built upon that land was £15,000. The leases expiring in 1925 represented, according to that report, 17 per cent. of the whole, and the value of the chapels built upon the land was £45,000. The leases expiring in 1950 represented 29 per cent of the whole, the value of the chapels being £94,000. The value of the chapels built on leasehold land of which the leases must expire within 57 years from the date of the report was £154,000. Since that time a largo number of chapels have been erected on property of leasehold tenure, because no freehold land could be obtained for the purpose. The result is now that in the case of this body, only one of four religious bodies in Wales holds property to the value of £730,000 in buildings which are built upon land on leasehold tenure.
These figures show, I think, that the grievance this Bill is intended to meet is not diminishing, but that it is, on the contrary, a rapidly growing grievance, making the passage of this Bill, which has so often been approved on former occasions, a matter of urgent necessity. Parliament has repeatedly recognised that it is not just that the landlord should have the power of forfeiting these buildings at the end of the term, and, apart from the financial injustice involved, it is not fitting that any individual 185 should have any hold or undue influence over a congregation or its members, owing to the fact that he owns the land on which the chapel was built.
In many cases, I ought to add, landlords have acted generously and considerately, but there are also cases in which they have not; so acted. For example, at Newport, Monmouthshire, the trustees of a Wesleyan chapel, with 23 years of the term unexpired, on asking for a renewal were told that they must surrender the old lease, and at once begin to pay £100 a year instead of £8 4s. In Liverpool a large chapel was built over 40 years a go on a lease of 75 years, at a ground rent of £48 per annum. When the congregation approached the owner of the site with the object of purchasing the freehold, they were told that no such proposal could be entertained. At Sheffield there is a Wesleyan chapel where the landowner offered to grant a renewal lease provided that the people surrendered the old one fourteen years before it expired, and at once began to pay £100 a year ground rent instead of £8 16s.
There are no doubt many cases of this kind, and perhaps wonder is that there are not more. Where the 60 or 75 or 99 years of the lease have expired whatever priority there may have been originally between the leasor and lessees, has ceased to exist, and the owner may, and frequently does, regard the ownership of the place of worship in the same light as that of any other building. On a former occasion there was exhibited a list prepared by the Wesleyan Methodist Church, showing their leasehold properties, and indicating the urgent need for the Bill. In a large number of cases the leases have not much longer to run, and on many of the pieces of land valuable buildings have been erected by voluntary subscriptions, such as churches, halls, schoolrooms, ministers' and caretakers' houses, for which property the only security is, the short remaining term of the lease, and, beyond that nothing but good will. I ought to add that the trustees of the chapels could not help themselves, as the only terms on which they were able to get land at all were the leasehold terms. No doubt, to some extent they relied on the generosity of landlords to see to it that the buildings would not be diverted to other uses at the end of the terms. In this connection it ought to be remembered that estates fre- 186 quently change hands, and it is of course impossible to guarantee that the landlord into whose hands the sites come will necessarily be sympathetic. From those facts, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONIt is an odd thing to introduce a Bill of this importance at a quarter past eleven at this time of the Session. It could have been introduced earlier. The Attorney-General has put the matter from a somewhat one-sided point of view, but he must be aware that the question has been discussed in this House, not once, but dozens and dozens of times, and he has put forward no reasons why the landlords in these particular cases should be treated differently from any others. A very strong case can be made out against ground landlords at all when you have building leases of 50 or 90 years, or in the cases he has referred to of 30 years, and at the end of the term the building on the land becomes the property of the landlord. It is a great injustice, as everyone who advises tenants knows. I cannot be accused of lack of sympathy for religious denominations, but why should a schoolhouse, or hall, or minister's house be put in a different position from other people who take these leases? Of course the landlord when he granted the building lease could have chosen to give a longer lease, or if he thought right need not have done so; but in those cases the Bill says the landlord should not receive any payment for the buildings at all, but he should sell the land on the terms indicated in the Bill. There may be a good deal to be said against the landlord system, but a Bill of this kind deals piecemeal in this way with a subject which has been controverted frequently before. I should be sorry to be a protagonist in this discussion, but it is rather a strong matter to bring this before the House at this time of the Session. I do not know if the Government intends to take any further steps in this Bill before the end of this part of the Session.
§ Sir G. HEWARTWe shall not do more than take the Second Reading to-night.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONWhat I want to know is whether it is proposed to take more than this stage of the Bill before the adjournment for the Recess.
§ Sir G. HEWARTI should hope that we might get it before the House rises.
§ Sir F. BANBURYThere is a great deal which the Attorney-General has left unsaid about this Bill. In the first place, it breaks contracts. Certain people having entered into a contract to take a piece of land on a 50 years' lease, on the understanding that at the end of the 50 years the land and buildings on it are to be returned to the owner, that contract is to be broken to the advantage of one person and to the disadvantage of the other. Nothing could be worse than that. Then it must not be forgotten that under this Bill it may be very easy for a person entering into a lease for 20 years on the ground that he is going to build a place of worship, and then, having built the place of worship, he obtains the freehold. There is nothing in this Bill to prevent him using it then for quite another purpose. True, the supporters of the Bill have said that in Committee they will agree to a Clause which shall prevent that. It will be a difficult Clause to arrange, but as it stands at present, there is nothing to prevent people, under the disguise of purchasing property for a religious purpose, as soon as they have got the freehold, having broken the contract, from using the building for another purpose. The Attorney-General talked about the Bill not having been passed owing to a certain bargain with regard to the Bishopric of Sheffield Bill. There was no misunderstanding; there was a nefarious bargain entered into between certain members of the Church of England and certain dissenters. The members of the Church of England wanted to get the Bishopric of Sheffield Bill passed, but the Dissenters said they would not allow them to pass it after 11 p.m. unless they would give them the Places of Worship (Enfranchisement) Bill. I was appealed to and said I would not enter into any such arrangement, that the Bishopric of Sheffield Bill was either a good or a bad Bill and ought to be passed or opposed on its merits. The result was that eventually the Bishopric of Sheffield Bill was passed, and the other Bill, as the arrangement had never been carried out, was not passed. That is the true history of the Bill. Now at the last moment the Government have taken the matter up and starred the Bill. Whenever the Committee stage comes on 188 it will want to be carefully watched and Clauses put in to prevent what I have indicated as possible. I am sorry the system of a contract being entered into, and then, because it turns out disadvantageously to one of the parties, being broken by legislation in Parliament, is growing. This seems to be a process which appeals to the Front Bench.
§ Sir D. MACLEANI gather from the remarks of the right hon. Baronet that he does not intend to press his opposition to the Second Reading, and I only hope that the Second Reading will be carried, because the proposals in this Bill, subject, of course, as they will be, to careful scrutiny in Committee, are just proposals. With regard to what my right hon. Friend has just said as to the breaking of contracts, well, contracts are broken every day.
§ Sir F. BANBURYI am sorry for it.
§ Sir D. MACLEANMy right hon. Friend is not sorry that some contracts into which he himself has entered were broken. My right hon. Friend has treated this question exactly as if it were a commercial undertaking, and at the end of the time, having run its commercial career, it ought in all justice and fairness to revert to the original grantor of the lease. It is not at all the same thing. The lease was granted by the original lessor on the understanding that it was for religious purposes, and the lessor certainly never had in his mind that at the end of 50 or 90 years it should come into a commercial operation of that kind. I am certain in 999 cases out of 1,000 if the original lessor had the opportunity of dealing with that plot of land at the end of the lease he himself granted, he would renew it upon the old terms, and what he intended, and what public right and justice demand, is really what this Bill seeks to do. I quite agree the Bill is drafted in a form which quite obviously raises some points which certainly ought to be dealt with in Committee, but the question of compensation is clearly contemplated in the Clauses as they stand. I am quite sure that the sense of fairness in this House will not allow any provision to pass which, while giving what the Bill really asks for, ought not to do an injustice to the lessors or their representatives.
§ Sir R. NEWMANI agree it is very important that we should respect contracts, but I would point out to the right hon. Baronet that this is entirely different from an ordinary contract; it is really a question of the religious well-being of the people, and I really think we might all support the Second Reading without in any way compromising our position with respect to any secular agreement that might be arrived at between one party and another. I think the Attorney-General pointed out quite clearly and distinctly the only injustice which might arise would be the case of a landlord who really disregarded the spiritual well-being of the people. Personally, I do not think the average landlord would desire to divert a house or land from religious purposes to secure a commercial benefit out of it. I think landlords of that sort are very few and far between, and I think we might pass this Motion unanimously.
§ Major MOLSONWhile being perfectly in agreement with this Bill, I think we should understand from the Attorney-General whether or not it is going to be rushed through in the last two or three days of the Session.
§ Sir G. HEWARTNo, no; certainly not!
§ Major MOLSONThen I am quite content.