HC Deb 26 July 1935 vol 304 cc2217-8

"(1) In section nineteen of the Act of 1930 the following subsection shall be inserted, after subsection (1): '(1a) A person upon whom notice is served under the foreging subsection shall, if he intends to submit an offer with respect to the carrying out of works, within fourteen days from the date of the service of the notice upon him, serve upon the authority notice in writing of his intention to make such an offer, and shall, within such reasonable period as the authority may allow submit to them a list of the works which he offers to carry out.'

(2) The following proviso shall be inserted at the end of subsection (2) of section twenty-two of the Act of 1930: 'Provided that the judge shall not accept from an appellant upon whom such a notice as is mentioned in subsection (1) of section nineteen of this Act was served an undertaking to carry out any works, unless the appellant complied with the requirements of subsection (1a) of the said section nineteen.'

Sir K. WOOD

I propose to ask the House to agree with the Lords in this Amendment.

In the Bill as introduced there was a Clause which had somewhat the appearance of this new Clause. It provided that a person should not be able to raise, at the hearing before the County Court, any question which he might have raised at the prior consultation with the local authority. The object of the Clause was to meet a complaint made by some local authorities that owners ignore the notice of the local authority to discuss the question of making a demolition order, and wait until the proceedings before the County Court, before giving undertakings which, if they had been given to the local authority, would have kept the case out of the court. That Clause was withdrawn in Standing Committee. This new Clause is a reasonable proposition. It provides that where an owner receives notice from a local authority under Section 19 of the 1930 Act that they are prepared to discuss with him the condition of his house and any offer he may make as to its future user, the owner, if he proposes to offer an undertaking to carry out works to the house, must inform the local authority within 14 days. If he does not do so, and if the matter goes to the court, he will not be able to submit the undertakings at that stage to the county court.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in line 5, to leave out "fourteen" and to insert "twenty-one."

The period of 14 days is rather short and I submit that 21 days would be more reasonable.

Mr. LEVY

I beg to second the Amendment to the Lords Amendment.

Amendment to Lords Amendment agreed to.