NEW CLAUSE.—(Reversion to Owner.) (Hansard, 5 November 1920)

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The object of this Bill, as we all know, is to give exceptional treatment to 797 holders of sites and buildings used for the purposes of religious worship. As a rule, it will apply to chapels rather than to other places of worship. No one objects to this exceptional treatment which is given to them. If they hold their land upon a leasehold tenancy, they can at any time that they like purchase from the owner of the reversion, the landlord, the site upon which their buildings are erected, and they can purchase it upon very favourable terms. The buildings on the site are not to be taken into account at all in assessing the value. In the ordinary case, of course, the owner of the reversion looks to make a substantial profit by reason of the buildings erected upon the site. No one objects to this very exceptional treatment given to lessees of sites used for religious worship, but there is a power put into the Bill—I am afraid intentionally put into it—which ought not to be there. I happen to have had a case in court to-day which provides exactly the illustration which I wish to put to the House. The trustees of a Wesleyan chapel owned a plot of land in the East End of London. It happened to be freehold, and this Act would not apply, but let us assume that it was leasehold terminable in a year or two. They used part of the site for the purposes of a chapel and a Sunday-school, and on the back part of it there is a cinema which is very prosperous. I have not the slightest objection to exceptional terms being given to leasehold property used for the purposes of a chapel and a Sunday-school, but I do think it is wrong that they should be allowed to enfranchise a cinema and, when the lease is determined a year or two hence, get the hall for nothing so far as the reversion is concerned.
That is the point which I want to meet. While it is quite right to deal with places of worship or Sunday-schools, we are not entitled to give any special consideration to that part of a site which is used in that way. That is the meaning of my Clause, and I hope that the House will support it. I put down some Amendments in Committee, but unfortunately, not knowing the room in which the Committee was sitting, I went to Westminster Hall instead of upstairs, and I arrived after all my Amendments had been passed over. I did not therefore have an opportunity of putting this before the Committee upstairs. I hope the House will 798 support me, because it would be unjust to the landlord not to give him these exceptional advantages. After all, the commercial side of the undertaking has nothing whatever to do with religious services, and when the premises are no longer used for religious purposes he should have the right of re-entry. I own no land, and therefore am in no way personally interested as a landlord; but I feel I ought, as a lawyer, to bring this matter before the House.

§ Mr. SEDDON
What about playgrounds attached to Sunday-schools?

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
Any land attached used for religious purposes, say, for graveyards, would not come under this provision. If the ground were let for football matches or to professional or amateur football clubs, then there should be a right to claim re-entry. I am not in the least against football. If the land is used for the purposes of a Sunday-school or place of worship I should not touch it, because then money would not be made out of it for commercial purposes.

§ Sir J. AGG-GARDNER
I beg to second the Motion.

§ Mr. BARTLEY DENNISS
Suppose a man had provided a site for the erection of a chapel for religious services and it was enfranchised, the landlord only receiving the value of the land for such purposes. Suppose, further, that a year or so later the trustees decided to sell the place for a picture show. Would the extra value of the land thus secured go to the original landlord who had been compensated only on the basis of the value of the land when used for religious purposes? Surely it would be unjust that he should not have the benefit of the increased value for commercial value.

§ Mr. TURTON
I have come down with the intention of supporting this Bill as heartily as I can. I think the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson) has overlooked Clause 3. I have the privilege of letting to the Wesleyans in my village a chapel at a purely nominal rent. But there is a Clause in the lease which provides that, if for twelve months that building is not used for the purposes of religious worship, then it shall revert to the owner. Under this Bill precisely similar provisions are enforced, and I take 799 it that if a chapel were diverted to the purposes of a cinema house it would be open to the original landlord to claim the right of re-entry.

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
I quite agree, but it is not everyone who has the foresight to insert such a clause in the agreement. I am only asking that the clause shall be assumed to be in every lease. I am afraid that in nineteen cases out of twenty there is no such power of re-entry under such circumstances. When the lease contains such a clause this Bill will not apply.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir E. Pollock)
Perhaps I may usefully explain some of the provisions of this Bill which seem to have been overlooked.

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER
We are now dealing with the proposed new Clause.

§ Sir E. POLLOCK
And I hope I am going to deal with it. The Bill has already passed the House of Lords on two occasions. As to the proposed new Clause I will not now attempt to dissect it as it can easily, later on, be put into a more perfect form if necessary. The object, however, is very clear. It is quite right that exceptional opportunities should be given for the enfranchisement of premises now held on lease for religious purposes, but I do not think that opportunity should be taken of enfranchising the premises to make a profit out of them by selling them for lay purposes. Under Clause 3, as has been pointed out, the land, when it has been enfranchised, still remains subject to the restrictive covenants which belong to and were inserted in the trust, and it will, therefore, be held upon these restrictive clauses. They run with the lease, as we lawyers say. The land will not be obtained free and independently of the purposes for which it is now held.
Then I come to the very important provisions of Clause 4, which really deals with the point which my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Rawlinson) has in mind. Clause 4 says that, if it is proved to the satisfaction of the Charity Commissioners that premises which have now become freehold are habitually used for any purpose or purposes other than those Specified in the trust, then, unless it appears to them that such use was due to inadvertence and will be discontinued, the Charity Commissioners may make 800 void all these contracts and may prevent that user. That means that all those persons who hold land at present on lease, and who hold it subject to a trust for using the land for religious purposes, will, if they enlarge their leasehold into a freehold, always have before them the powers of the Charity Commissioners under Clause 4. Referring to the interesting details which were given by my hon. and learned Friend as to how he was engaged this morning, if he had been thinking of this Bill when he was in Court, he would have said, "Ah, I remember that if the Bill had been passed this would be impossible, because the Charity Commissioners would immediately interfere," and the contracts for a cinema show, and so on, with which he was dealing this morning, would have perished. Under Clause 4 the Charity Commissioners are able to ensure, not only now but in the future, that those who hold leaseholds which are enfranchised shall hold and use them for the purposes for which they are enfranchised, and that, if they are not so used, contracts made in relation to them will become void. It does not stop there, for in paragraph (3) of the Schedule a provision has been made whereby, in the case of land which is ultimately sold, a right of pre-emption is given to the original holder.
As I have said, I do not criticise my hon. and learned Friend's Clause verbally, but I criticise its purpose. What does he propose in place of what is laid down in the Bill? He says that, supposing that at any time this land should be used for any other purpose than the religious purpose, then it is to revert—I am not dealing with the question of whether the whole or a part should revert, because he has quite fairly said that he would ask only that a particular part should revert—it shall thereupon revert to the original owner and become a portion of the lands from which it was severed. That perhaps is not very difficult to work out in the course of the next year or two, when the original owners can easily be found. But go on to, say, 20 or 30 years. Are you always going to hold over the titles of this land, this provision, that if eventually any portion—I am taking the Clause and not the scheme of the Act—was not used for a place of worship that it should revert to the original owner or 801 his successor in title and you have to find him? I do not know whether my hon. and learned Friend quite means it, but quite apart from any verbal criticism of his Clause, he does not give the money back. There is no what I may call change of position between the parties that the original owner or his successor is to give the money back in return for the land which he gets back. It is that there is to be a sort of blot on the title and after 20, 30, or any number of years hence, it may become necessary under this Clause to find out the original owner or his successor, and thereupon the land will revert to him. I suggest that that is a bad method of trying to do what my hon. and learned Friend wants to do and a far better method is that which is adopted in the Bill, that is to say, assume that the trusts are to be fulfilled and are still to be binding upon the land, as in Clause 3, and to hold over those who are exercising the trust, the powers of the Charity Commissioners, which can be invoked at any time, to secure instead of alienating part of this enfranchised land for a purpose which is not contemplated, that they may know that if they attempt to do that the contracts they made for such a purpose will be made void. After drawing the attention of the House to these safeguards, which have been carefully provided and which are very powerful indeed, I hope my hon. and learned Friend will not think it necessary to press the Motion.

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
My hon. and learned Friend in his able and helpful speech missed the point of my Amendment. I quite agree that if the trustees act outside their trust, of course, the Bill has ample safeguards, but the point is— and the whole point of my illustrating the case was that it is not a breach of trust—that in the vast majority of these cases they have the fullest power. For instance, it is a very common thing indeed, where they have a particular bit of land that they can cut off half of it and let is for a shop, make whatever profits they can and use them, properly, for the purpose of the trust and the excellent religious work which they are doing in the particular place. Therefore the whole purpose of my Clause is that they are acting within the scope of their trust, and in that case Clause 4 does not help me at all.

§ Sir E. POLLOCK
Oh, yes!

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
Not if they are acting within the scope of their trust. The hon. Member for Thirsk (Mr. Turton) put my point as clearly as anything could be. He said he had granted a lease to a chapel and had put in a Clause to the effect that if at any time hereafter you use this for 12 months for any other purpose than a religious purpose it is to-revert to me at once. That is exactly what I mean by this Clause, and, as the hon. Member has got it in his lease, it is a very wise and proper Clause to put in. So long as it remains used for religious worship, he is willing to do it, but no doubt his lease will have a power of reversion as regards the particular part used for other purposes. That is all I am asking by this new Clause, and I press very strongly indeed that my point has not been met in any way. There is nothing in Clause 4 which will assist me at all where they are acting within the scope of their trust. Clause 3 does not help me on this point, because it covers a case like that mentioned by my hon. Friend (Mr. Turton), where in the original lease restricted covenants are inserted. If I can get an assurance that words can be put in which would meet the case with which I have sought to deal, I would accept them willingly, but failing that I shall have to go to a Division upon this point, which is a very vital point.