HC Deb 29 July 1946 vol 426 cc702-6

Lords Amendment: In page 16, line 29, leave out "Subsection (1)" and insert "Subsections (1) and (3)."

Mr. Ivor Thomas

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This Amendment and the omission of Subsection (6) which is the next Amendment I propose to move are interdependent. It is a rather complicated subject, and I doubt whether the House would wish me to go very fully into this at this late hour. The point is that land not needed immediately for the purposes of civil aviation might come into the possession of the Minister and it might be necessary for him to take it on lease and manage it or to assign the lease. Upstairs in Committee I dealt with this point, but I find that we did not deal with it with complete satisfaction. The point is this. We thought then that Subsection (3) of the Air Navigation Act, 1920—as it is amended, of course, by Section 25 of the Air Navigation Act, 1936—would be unnecessary in view of Subsections (4) and (5) of Section 26 of this Bill and we provided in Subsection (6) for its repeal. We now find that repeal may cast doubt on the powers of management and disposal of land available to the Minister after this Bill becomes law. It is accordingly proposed by the omission of Subsection (6) to restore Subsection (3) of Section 15 of the Air Navigation Act, 1920, to the Statute Book. If it remains on the Statute Book it will, however, require Amendment, because under the Subsection the Minister can take land on lease only for purposes of civil aviation. Those purposes must be extended to cover such matters as the lease of a portion of a farm severed by the perimeter of an aerodrome, which it is necessary for the Minister to manage in order to keep it in good condition, or to cover land which is not required directly for an aerodrome but for rehousing persons displaced in the construction of an aerodrome. Accordingly it is proposed to provide in Subsection (3), as in Subsection (1), of Section 15 of the Air Navigation Act, 1920, that the expression "purposes of civil aviation" shall include any "purposes connected with the discharge of the functions of the Minister."

12.50 a.m.

Mr. Turton

I regard this as a most unsatisfactory Amendment. I also regard the Parliamentary Secretary's speech as extremely ingenious, but I do not think he has got at the dangers which would ensue if this Amendment were accepted. I gather that in another place it was passed over as rather a complicated matter that required no discussion. Under Section 25 of the Air Navigation Act, 1936, Subsection (2), the Secretary of State has full power to manage the land that is vested in him; that Subsection (2) is now retained and always has been retained in Clause 26, and there has been no issue between any part of the House as to that fact. But I have always hitherto taken the view—and we have agreed on this— that Subsection (3), which gives the Secretary of State additional power to take land on lease and to trade in that land, is highly undesirable at the present time when land is urgently required both for housing and for food production. I thought we were here in complete amity and agreement, and now suddenly, for some reason, we have this new Amendment brought down to the House on the ground that the Minister requires more power to manage land he has taken over.

Mr. Thomas indicated dissent.

Mr. Turton

I am only trying to quote the speech the Minister made, and I paid very careful attention to what he said in order to ascertain what was meant by this sudden proposal to delete a Clause of the Bill, which, from Second Reading to Report, has been supported without challenge by him. I would wish that the House might realise that at the present time there are 253,000 acres of land that are sterilised because either he or one of his colleagues who deal with travel by air have their clutches on them. If those acres were growing wheat they would provide a bread ration for 21 days on the present scale. I should be very reluctant at this hour of the night to agree to additional powers to sterilise land and to empower the Minister, when he has it in his clutches, to trade in it and use it for other undesirable purposes. If the Government want to nationalise land let them bring in a Bill to do so and we will deal with it properly. [Interruption.] I am glad to find that there are some hon. Members who even at this hour are alive to their opinions, but I think that this Amendment, brought in at a very late hour and aimed at altering the whole purpose and provisions of this Bill, is highly undesirable. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will reconsider this and if he re-reads the speech his colleague made he will see that his colleague did not understand the wording in Subsection (3) of the original Bill. For those reasons, I hope the House will not agree with the Amendment.

12.54 a.m.

Mr. Ivor Thomas

With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I will speak again, since this is a subject of great importance and complexity, as the hon. Gentleman has said. I think there is a misunderstanding. It is not intended to give the Minister power to manage land on any extensive scale; the provisions are limited to purposes connected with the discharge of the functions of the Minister. I have told the House exactly the objects in my noble Friend's mind, and I am sure the House commends the objects. If a portion of a farm, not needed for the purposes of an aerodrome, comes into the Minister's possession, clearly it is in the interest of agriculture that the Minister should be empowered to farm it until he can dispose of it. Again the Minister might require land for the purpose of housing people who are displaced on account of the building of an aerodrome. These are the only two purposes we have in mind, and the Amendments proposed are only machinery for achieving those objects. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have taken the very best legal advice we can on this subject.

Lords Amendment. In page 16, line 40, leave out Subsection (6), and insert: (6) Where any person having an interest in land (hereinafter referred to as 'the grantor') grants or agrees to grant to the Minister any right (whether in perpetuity or for any other period and whether capable of subsisting as a legal estate or not) in or in relation to that land (including a right to enter upon that land, a right to carry out and maintain works on that land, a right to instal or maintain structures or apparatus on under over or across that land, and a right restrictive of the user of that land) the grant or agreement shall be binding upon any person deriving title or otherwise claiming under the grantor to the same extent as it is binding upon the grantor, notwithstanding that it would not have been binding upon that person apart from the provisions of this subsection.

Mr. Ivor Thomas

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

Though this appears as a new Subsection in place of Subsection (6) it is in fact a new subject and deals with a rather technical point of conveyancing. The object is to enable a person who voluntarily grants to the Minister a right over land to bind the land in the hands of his successors, notwithstanding that he could not do so under the ordinary law. Certain of these rights, such as the setting up of radar beacons, are not known to the ordinary law, and unless a proviso of this kind is in the Bill, he would not be able to bind his successors in title. It is not unreasonable that he should be able to bind them, because this fact would be taken into account in the consideration which the Minister would pay for the right.