HC Deb 22 November 1954 vol 533 cc817-9

Lords Amendment: In line 33, leave out from Board to end of line 46 and insert: on determining any such application, to give notice of their findings to the applicant, and, if their findings include an apportionment, to give particulars of the apportionment to any other person entitled to an interest in land which it appears to the Board will be substantially affected by the apportionment.

Mr. Deedes

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

The Amendment is designed as a simplification, and I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will see it in that sense. It brings the provisions of Clause 13 (2) into line with similar provisions in Clause 28 (1). At present Clause 13 (2) contains an additional requirement by which the Central Land Board has to give notice to all concerned of any proposed apportionment. The apportionment, as hon. Members know, is the process of breaking down the claim on the fund to decide how much relates to a part of the original area of land.

It has been found that this additional requirement might delay the settlement of claims, as well as being unnecessary. In practice, the assessment of what is payable will be carried out by the district valuer in negotiation with those concerned. If paragraph 13 (2, c) were preserved, it would be necessary to serve a fresh series of notices whenever the district valuer proposed to vary an apportionment in deference to arguments put to him.

All concerned in this arrangement will be able to dispute his figures, if dissatisfied, before the Lands Tribunal at a subsequent stage. That is dealt with in Clause 13 (3). It is thought that this additional hurdle would be better out of the way. In other words, this makes a formal arrangement into an informal arrangement.

Mr. Turner-Samuels

Would the Parliamentary Secretary tell the House where the notice of the findings is given to the applicant, as provided by the Clause, and whether the applicant will have had any opportunity whatever of submitting what he thinks that finding ought to be? Or is it left to the authority quite arbitrarily to decide as he likes?

Mr. A. J. Irvine (Liverpool, Edge Hill)

It is quite true that the Amendment is a simplification, and in terms of drafting it is in many respects a valuable simplification, but it appears to me to affect not so much the persons who shall receive notice as the persons who shall have the opportunity to make representations to the board.

I am in some difficulty to discover what advantage is gained by eliminating the entitlement of persons who have an interest in land, and who are substantially affected by the apportionment, to make their representations to the board. It seems a barely sufficient safeguard that they may later have the opportunity of putting their points to the Lands Tribunal. I should have thought it was manifestly desirable that, if they are to have an opportunity of making these representations at all, they should have the opportunity of putting them to the court or board of first instance.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

We do not want to detain the House on this Amendment because it is a machinery point, although not an unimportant one. I am not persuaded by the considerations which the Parliamentary Secretary has put before the House. It is all very well to say that the Amendment makes matters simpler because if there are variations then every variation does not have to be notified, but I should have thought that the subsection as it stands provides the remedy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) indicated. It requires notice only to those who are "substantially affected" by the apportionment.

If they are substantially affected by the apportionment surely it should follow that they should have notice of what substantially affects them, and therefore they should have the opportunity of putting it before the district valuer, or whoever it is, before the final determination is come to—not dealing with every trifling apportionment made in the course of negotiations—for his consideration.

I should have thought that that was the only just thing to do instead of leaving a person by the elimination of Clause 13 (2, c) to go to the Board where, maybe, he would find himself stung for costs and all the rest of it in order to do so. I should have thought that this was not an improvement of the Bill, and I personally cannot accept it as such.

Question put, and agreed to.