Clause 5.—(Works.)

HC Deb 30 May 1945 vol 411 cc253-7

Mr. Turton: I beg to move, in page 3, line 13, to leave out "any of."

I have great hopes that this Amendment will be accepted, because I notice that the Financial Secretary was so charmed by my Amendment that he repeated it on a later Sub-section. It would make it clear, if paragraph (a) had these words omitted so as to read "the value of the works" instead of "the value of any of the works." It is a small point, little more than a drafting point, but it might give the Government Department an indication that, if it wanted to acquire a very small portion of a very large works, it could take a great deal of the land. For that reason I think that the Bill would be better if the words "any of" were left out.

Major York

I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. Peake

As my hon. Friend has said, this is very little more than a drafting Amendment, and we are pleased to accept it.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Peake

I beg to move, in page 3, line 15, leave out from "or," to "or," in line 16, and insert: the said other person, his legal personal representatives or his successor in the carrying on of a trade or business in connection with the carrying on of which he incurred the expense in question. Some of my hon. Friends were a little anxious on the Committee Stage with regard to the words in paragraph (a) of Sub-section (1) of this Clause: or for some other person having no interest or a limited interest in the land. These same words appear in the governing words of the first Sub-section and it is in order to tie up the person referred to in paragraph (a), with the person referred to in the governing words of the Subsection that these words are included. My hon. Friends were afraid that a case might be made before the Commission for the acquisition of property constructed at the expense of one aircraft manufacturer being preserved for the benefit of one of his competitors or something of that kind. At any rate, the introduction of these words does tie together the person referred to in paragraph (a) of the Sub-section with the governing words of the Clause.

Mr. Turton

This entirely meets our case and we are grateful to the Government for having given way on this important point.

Amendment agreed to.

Consequential Amendment made.

Mr. Turton

I beg to move, in page 3, line 24, to leave out from the first "the," to end of line 26, and insert: works should be available as war potential. Paragraph (c) of Sub-section (1) of this Clause has given rise to a great deal of concern in the country. At the present time the Sub-section reads: Where there are Government war works on the land, the power of acquisition shall be exercisable if…in the opinion of the Minister, the right to determine the use to which the works are put…ought…to be secured for the Crown. The country generally feels that this will give the Government Department concerned far too wide a power to determine the use to which buildings will be put in the country as a whole. The Government, however, in the Committee stage, made it clear that these words were wider than was their intention. The Financial Secretary on 12th April said: The value of the works may be comparatively small—and the object of (c) is really connected with our war potential."—[Official Report, 12th April, 1945; Vol. 409, c. 2092.] These are the very words that we have to put into this Amendment. Nobody will deny the Government the right to secure that works which are quasi defence works, which are not under the Defence Acts but might well be of use to our defence in any inter-war period or in any other war which we hope we shall never have after this one. No one would deny the right of the Government to take these but it would be very wrong if a Government Department could dictate to an industry what use they should make of their works, especially as war works have been erected very largely at the expense of the private firms concerned. I ask the Government, therefore, to accept these words, which were their own words on the Committee stage, and I hope that with that explanation the Amendment will be accepted.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke (Dorset, Southern)

I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. Peake

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for raising this matter on the Report stage, because on looking at my remarks during the Committee stage I think that perhaps they were unduly brief and perhaps a little too limited in their application. It is true that one of the purposes of the inclusion of paragraph (c) is to meet cases which are truly cases of war potential. Paragraph (e), of course, gives the Government the right of acquisition where: the right to determine the use to which the works are put…ought,…to be secured for the Crown. It goes on to say: and the case is not one where the land can be acquired under the Defence Acts…

4.0 p.m.

War potential, of course, is rather an indefinite phrase and I think, for that reason alone, the Amendment suggested by my hon. Friend would be unacceptable. When I spoke of "war potential" in the Committee stage I had in mind not only immediate use for war production but the possible conversion of a factory many years hence to a form of war production at a very quick pace. There may be cases, as I pointed out then, where it is undesirable that a given factory should be completely transformed, the machinery removed from it, and the character of its production altered. At the same time there may be a good case for a change in the production of the goods being produced at the time. Radar, I think, was the example I cited. Such a factory might well be turned to the production of ordinary civilian peace-time radio appliances, but it might be undesirable that that factory should be virtually dismantled and should begin to produce silk stockings or something of that character. That is one type of case where the Government want the right to determine the use in the future. There are, of course, other cases, to which I ought to have referred during the Committee stage, connected with the distribution of industry. These are factories which have been erected not at the expense of the land-owner on whose land they stand, but at the expense of the Crown or possibly of some other person who has no interest in the land. It may very well be desirable in the interests of diversification of industry, both in the development areas and outside, that the Government should have a say in the purpose to which these government controlled and government-erected factories should be put in the future. There may be no case for acquisition on the ground that the Government wish to consider the use themselves.

4.3 p.m.