HC Deb 13 May 1947 vol 437 cc1327-8

5.0 p.m.

Mr. F. Marshall

I beg to move, in page 116, line 41, to leave out from the beginning to "including," and to insert: since the seventh day of January, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven. Paragraph I of this Schedule includes within the classes of development excepted from payment of development charge the rebuilding of a building which has been demolished within a period of 10 years before the appointed day. The significant phrase there is "the appointed day." The effect of the Amendment would be to substitute for the appointed day 7th January, 1937, that is to say, 10 years before the publication of the Bill. The Amendment has been moved because of an undertaking given in Committee to consider extending that period. The Schedule as it was originally was quite in line with the Acts of 1932 and 1934, but the hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) urged that an extension of the period up to 15 years should take place. This Amendment does not go the whole length of 15 years, but it will extend the period roughly by about one year, from 18 months to two and a half years, and, therefore, it goes a considerable distance to meet the desires of the hon. and learned Member and other hon. Members opposite. I hope that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite will accept the Amendment in that spirit as being a substantial concession towards what they desire.

Mr. W S. Morrison

I welcome the Amendment and acknowledge with gratitude that it goes some distance towards meeting the point we raised in Committee. Apart from the extension of time, the substitution of the fixed date is another element of improvement, because the original words dated from the unknown fixed point of the appointed day, and it is well that those concerned with the matter should know a definite calendar date from which it operates.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule, as amended, agreed to