HC Deb 24 July 1931 vol 255 cc1908-10

".The provisions of sections six, seven and eight of this Act, and, so far as they confer power upon the Minister to provide allotments or to acquire land therefor, of section fourteen of this Act, shall have effect for the period of four years from the commencement of this Act and no longer: Provided that the expiry of the said provisions shall not—

  1. (a) affect the previous operation thereof or of anything duly done or suffered thereunder; or
  2. (b) affect any right, privilege, obligation or liability acquired, accrued or incurred thereunder; or
  3. (c) affect any legal proceeding, arbitration, remedy or investigation in respect of such right, privilege, obligation or liability as aforesaid;
and any such legal proceeding, arbitration, remedy or investigation may be instituted, enforced or continued as if the provisions aforesaid had not expired.

Mr. SPEAKER

I should point out that this Amendment raises a question of Privilege.

Dr. ADDISON

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in line 5, to leave out the word "four" and to insert instead thereof the word "ten."

This Clause proposes to set a term to the operation of the Bill. I propose to accept the principle that it shall run for a certain number of years and we will do our best in those years and then it will be subject to the review of Parliament but we cannot agree to a period of four years.

Mr. GUINNESS

It is true that in form the right hon. Gentleman is making a concession but in substance it seems to amount to very little. Surely it is not unreasonable that Parliament should have an opportunity of reviewing the necessity for continuing this very extensive provision after a shorter time than 10 years. I agree that it will take three or four years to get it going, but surely a shorter period than 10 years might be accepted. It is not as if it were a matter bringing the whole thing to an end. If it is a success, at the end of the time it will be easy to continue the provisions in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. I do not at this time in the afternoon propose to move any Amendment to the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment, as I think another place can look after its own interests in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman has made a concession, but I think it would have been wise to go a little further.

Mr. C. WILLIAMS

I should like to remind the Minister that when he originally brought in the Bill he said to the House—and he obtained special permission from the House to force this Bill through Committee upstairs—that he must have it before the spring, and for the first time to-day, as far as I am aware, he has made the excuse that he cannot do anything for two or three years. In other words, the whole of the reasons given by him, and especially by the Prime Minister for the special procedure upstairs were absolutely untrue. I point that out because the Prime Minister made a special point of it, and now we are told that the Minister, even on the question of allotments, cannot possibly bring a lot of it in for two or three years. The House has been deceived the whole way through by the Minister and the Prime Minister on this particular point.

Dr. ADDISON

I am not touchy, but I think that the accusation of the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) is a bit too bad. As a matter of fact, there was talk about allotments, and I am only too sorry that we have lost a season, but it is not my fault. As far as smallholders are concerned, it is true that it will take a couple of years to get machinery into operation. That applies to smallholders and not to allotments, and I have never said that it did.

Sir BASIL PETO

Although the period of four years may be unduly short, I hold the view that 10 years is too long a period to impose as a restriction. Of course, Parliament can review anything at any time. Ten years is a period so far ahead that any question in the nature of trying out those new and varying proposals really does not occur. I hope that before this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament a reasonable period will be put in, and I suggest that a reasonable period would be six, or at the most seven, years.

Amendment to Lords Amendment agreed to.