NEW CLAUSE.—(Maintenance relief in excess of Schedule A assessment.) (Hansard, 15 June 1944)

§ Mr. Turton

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The last of these three Clauses deals with the question of maintenance relief in respect of Schedule A assessment. The present position is that whilst it is true an owner can make a maintenance relief claim in respect of expenditure which is actually incurred and obtain relief on the average cost of maintenance for five years, it is limited by the amount of the Schedule A assessment. Therefore a small man who has in the course of the five years an average expenditure more than the Schedule A assessment which is incurred by using money he has from other sources than the land, he is prevented from recovering that maintenance relief. The larger state owner is all right because he ha a large enough capital under Schedule A to cover his maintenance costs. This seems to be an anomaly.

I notice that in the Budget Statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he acknowledged that, by saying, with regard to the depreciation allowance provision, that that point would be covered. It seems right that we should try to cover this anomally with regard to maintenance relief. I ask the Government to give this concession. It will not cost them very much, but it will enable more money to be spent on the maintenance of the land. It is vitally important that money should come to agriculture from other industries. There is nothing wrong in the town-dweller coming and spending his money on the countryside. One of the reasons, although a small one, why we have suffered a bleeding of money from the countryside, has been that the maintenance claim was bound by the amount of the Schedule A assessment. I ask for freedom, so that the maintenance claim relief can be given on what is actually spent, from whatever source the expenditure comes.

§ Mr. Assheton

As the Committee will remember, my right hon. Friend in his Budget speech did announce that the farmer would get the same relief as that to be given to the ordinary industrialist under the new scheme, and that the agricultural landowner would be treated as a co-partner, as it were. In so far as the landowner bears expenditure on agricultural development he will qualify for similar relief against not only the income drawn from the land, but against any other income liable to tax."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th April, 1944; Vol. 399, c. 675.] I think that the statement in the Budget speech was linked up rather with the initial expenditure allowances on plant, machinery and industrial buildings. I should like to make it clear that, following the recommendation of the Committee of Inquiry set up by the late Chancellor, it is proposed by my right hon. Friend in the forthcoming legislation for the postwar period to provide that in the case of expenditure on the development of the agricultural industry the present restriction of the relief to the amount of the Schedule A tax should be removed, and that, where the amount qualifying for relief exceeds the Schedule A assessments for the year of claim, the landowner should be allowed relief on the balance against any other taxed income that he has for that year, and, if necessary, a carry-forward against taxed agricultural income for the six subsequent years. That would give the agricultural landowner similar treatment to that which a trader can obtain in respect of a trading loss. I think the Committee will agree that this is reasonable. I should be obliged if the hon. Member would withdraw his Clause.