HC Deb 15 June 1948 vol 452 cc247-51
49. Mr. Skinnard

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider giving a direction to the War Damage Commission that, in the cases of claims which fall to be dealt with on a cost-of-works basis, they should not seek to exclude from such claims the costs incurred by reason of conditions imposed by local authorities which require the execution of works which did not originally exist.

Sir S. Cripps

No, Sir. The War Damage Act specifically provides that the amount of a cost-of-works payment shall not exceed the cost of making good the war damage by reinstating the property in the form in which it existed immediately before the occurrence of the damage.

Mr. Skinnard

But is it not a hardship to some of those who have had their property destroyed when local authorities make it a condition of the licence that extra work shall be put in?

Sir S. Cripps

That is an extra capital expenditure no doubt, but one cannot vary the terms of an Act of Parliament for that reason.

53. Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the hardship caused in a large number of cases by the refusal of the War Damage Commissioners to consider late claims, he will set up a small independent body to review the decisions of the Commission on this point.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall)

No, Sir. Discretion to extend time limits in particular cases of notification of war damage has been deliberately entrusted by Parliament to the independent decision of the War Damage Commission. The lines on which they are proceeding and will continue to proceed were discussed in somewhat difficult circumstances in the House last Friday and are accurately set out in a letter dated 28th May, which I addressed to the hon. Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Mrs. Middleton), a copy of which I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT. As hon. Members will see, the policy is endorsed by my right hon. Friend and myself.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Is the Financial Secretary aware that the cause of discontent is the manner in which the Commission have exercised this discretion? Is he aware that they have, by their very legalistic interpretation of the relevant provisions, inflicted a great deal of hardship on a number of very small people?

Mr. Glenvil Hall

Of course, the Commission would not accept that as true, and I must repeat that they are an independent body.

Later—

Mrs. Middleton

I tried to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, on Question 53, but failed to do so. May I draw your attention to the fact that there seemed to be a discrepancy—

Mr. Speaker

I do not quite understand. We have got to Question 58, I did not call the hon. Lady for a supplementary question on No. 53, and therefore she cannot raise it now.

Mrs. Middleton

On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker; the right hon. Gentleman referred in his reply to a letter which he had sent to me, and also to the Debate which took place in this House on the Adjournment last Friday. There seemed to be some conflict between the reference to the letter and the reference to the statement made in that Debate.

Mr. Speaker

I am sorry, but we are beyond that Question.

Following is the letter:

"H.M. Treasury,

Treasury Chambers,

Great George Street,

S.W.1.

28th May, 1948

MY DEAR MRS. MIDDLETON,

When I saw the members of the Blitzed Areas Group recently on the subject of the late notification of war damage, I explained that in the War Damage Act Parliament had imposed on the War Damage Commission the responsibility for deciding whether or not a late notification of war damage should be admitted in any particular case. I promised, however, to discuss with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and with the Chairman of the Commission the various points raised by the Group and to let you know the outcome. I have now done this.

I gather that the Group are mainly concerned with two classes of case—(i) cases where the local authority have repaired some, but not all of the war damage, and the house-owner, in the expectation that the Authority would sooner or later complete the job, has not troubled to notify the damage to the Commission; (ii) cases where the owner, having informed the local authority of the damage, considered it unnecessary also to advise the Commission.

The Chairman of the Commission does not contest the suggestion that there may be some cases where house-owners were genuinely in ignorance of their obligation to notify the Commission if they wished the Commission to meet the cost of repairs. He has explained, however, that the Commission have felt themselves unable to disregard the fact that over 3,400,000 notifications have been sent to the Commission's offices and that of this number nearly 3,200,000 relate to houses. The great proportion of these houses have been repaired in whole or in part by local authorities. These figures demonstrate not only that the notification procedure was well known to the public, but that the public were also generally aware that notification to the Commission was necessary even in cases where the local authority were carrying out repairs.

The Commission take the view that it is not unreasonable to expect property-owners to take some interest in a scheme devised for their financial benefit, and they do not consider that a plea of ignorance of the procedure, advanced some years after the occurrence of war damage, is in itself a sufficient ground for admitting a notification given long out of time.

In applying their late notification procedure the Commission have paid full regard to the point that as long as local authorities were carrying out war damage repairs, house-owners in the areas concerned might reasonably have assumed that their houses would be repaired by the local authorities, and in cases where a late notification has been submitted while the local authority were still ordering repairs, and for a reasonable time afterwards, it has been the Commission's practice normally to admit the notification if the outstanding damage was clearly war damage. Apart from a few special areas, however, local authorities have ceased to carry out war damage repairs for a long period, and the Commission, who have a duty, not only to the war damage claimant, but to the taxpayer at large, would have exposed themselves to serious criticisms if they had taken no steps to limit the acceptance of notifications given some years after the occurrence of the damage, and in complete disregard of the Regulations.

It is the Commission's experience that it would not be in the public interest to accept the records of local authorities as evidence of outstanding war damage. These records were often prepared at high speed tinder conditions of extreme pressure, without inspection of the damage by qualified persons, and often on the unsupported statements of owners and tenants, and the conditions under which repairs had subsequently to be carried out, with inadequate technical supervision, made it impossible until well after the end of the war to maintain adequate records of the work done or the work remaining to be done.

There is no doubt, however, that local authority repairs included a large amount of repair of ordinary dilapidations as well as war damage, and one of the Commission's main difficulties in dealing with late notifications has been the tendency of property owners, sometimes acting in good faith and sometimes not to regard as war damage any defects in their properties not apparent at the outbreak of war, and to ignore the fact that over a long period of years little or no maintenance work has been carried out. The difficulty of distinguishing between war damage and dilapidations due to ordinary wear and tear, particularly where the damage is of a minor character, increases with the passage of time, and the Chairman of the Commission has advised me that he and his colleagues on the Commission can see no practical alternative to the policy they have adopted after the fullest consideration, if the Exchequer is to be adequately protected. Indeed, although the Commission are still accepting notifications in exceptional cases within the limits of their policy, that is to say, in general only cases of substantial structural damage which has not been repaired and is beyond doubt war damage, they consider that the time will shortly arrive when they must refuse in the public interest to accept any belated notifications whatever.

The Commission will for the time being continue to consider each case on its merits, and the Chancellor and I have agreed that in view of the difficulties inherent in the problem, and of the long lapse of time since the last damage occurred, it would be wrong to expect the Commission to modify their policy.

Yours sincerely,

(Sgd.) W. GLENVIL HALL."

Mrs. Lucy Middleton, M.P.,

House of Commons.