CLAUSE 35. — (Highways.) (Hansard, 25 February 1941)

§ Sir K. Wood
I beg to move, in page 29, line 35, at the end, to insert: and (b) a place of refuge in a highway, a lamp, lamp post, or other materials or apparatus affixed on or near a highway for the purpose of illuminating it and a traffic sign (as defined by Sub-section (9) of Section forty-eight of the Road Traffic Act, 1930) placed on or near a highway either by a highway authority or in accordance with the provisions of a scheme under Section eighteen of the Road, Traffic Act, 1914. This Amendment provides that street lamps and traffic signs shall be deemed to be part of the highway for the purposes of the Clause.

§ Sir K. Wood
I beg to move, in page 29, line 42, to leave out Sub-section (13). 429 This is the Sub-section which makes the necessary adaptation for the application of the Clause to Scotland, and the proper place for it is in the Scottish Clause.

§ Mr. Harvey
I beg to move, in page 32, line 12, at the end, to add: (4) It shall be an obligation on the competent authority, which has exercised emergency powers on behalf of His Majesty, to notify the owner of the requisitioned land of any war damage occurring during the risk period immediately after such occurrence. I do not know whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer takes the view that an Amendment already accepted covers this point, but it would be very satisfactory if it could be made quite clear that there is an obligation on the requisitioning authority to inform the owner of damage done. It is easy to see that there may be cases where the owner has, in consequence of the war, removed to a considerable distance. He will have no means of knowing about the damage, and his position will be materially prejudiced if there is not an obligation on the requisitioning authority such as is indicated in the Amendment.

§ Captain Crookshank
The same point was raised earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Liddall) who was satisfied with the assurance then given, so I was rather perturbed when I saw that the question was being raised again. The short point is that, of course, it is everybody's interest that the damnified person should be notified as soon as possible if anything has happened to his property, and that is the administrative practice now. The Office of Works make every effort to get into touch with everybody concerned, and as recently as last November the War Office sent out special instructions to the same end. Generally speaking we all want to let people know 430 if their requisitioned property is damaged. No doubt the Committee and the hon. Gentleman will accept our assurances on that point. It is rather different, however, to put it as an obligation in the Bill. You might get the complication that this would be an obligation against the Crown.
There is the further point that in certain circumstances—I do not say that it has yet occurred— damage might be done to property which is under requisition when it would be in the public interest that nobody should know that the damage had been done. It would have to be repaired quickly and secretly, but if there were an obligation on someone to go running round to find out to whom he should notify the damage, it would not be long before it got out that there had been damage. I hope the Committee will rest content with the Government's assurance as to our intention, but we cannot accept an obligation to do it in all cases. We are at war, and it might sometimes be against the public interest, upon security grounds, to do it.

§ Mr. Harvey
On the last ground mentioned by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, that the public interest might be involved, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.