HC Deb 22 November 1954 vol 533 cc791-6

Lords Amendment: In page 3, line 46, leave out from "for" to end of line 2 on page 4 and insert: treating the claim holding as divided into two or more claim holdings and extinguishing any of those holdings or reducing the value thereof.

Mr. Deedes

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

This, again, is a drafting Amendment. The words in the Bill which it is proposed to replace are inadequate as a description of the scope of the Second and Third Schedules.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 4, line 34, leave out from first "the" to end of line 38, and insert: amount credited for the purposes of the pledge by reference to the holding;

Mr. Deedes

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

This is again, in the main, a drafting Amendment. To fix the value of a claim holding by reference to the development charge which is due, as the present text requires, would not be practicable. Under the Second Schedule to the Bill, the amount of the deduction to be made from a claim holding depends on the value of the holding. The value of the holding cannot, at the same time, depend on the amount of the development charge which gives rise to the deduction.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 6, line 14, at end, insert: (5) References in this Part of this Act, other than in this section, to the value of a claim holding are references to the value of that holding immediately before the commencement of this Act.

Mr. Deedes

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

This is a drafting Amendment. Its object is to put it beyond doubt that for the purposes of Part I of the Bill the value of a claim holding is its value after the operation of the Second and Third Schedules.

Mr. MacColl

Would the Parliamentary Secretary help us by explaining in a little more detail the exact meaning of this Amendment, and, in particular, why there is in it the exception References in this Part of this Act, other than in this section.…"? I found that exceedingly difficult to understand.

The Clause referred to as "this section" is Clause 2. That is one of these jolly little Clauses which we have become used to finding in this Bill. There are 147 lines in it, and 28 references to-claim holding. What I do not understand is what the meaning of "claim holding" or "value of claim holding" now is in this Clause. When the Parliamentary Secretary was moving to agree with the Amendment, he said that its purpose was to make clear beyond doubt what was the meaning of "the value of the claim holdings" in this part of the Bill. If he could help us on that, it would be easy to see how this drafting Amendment works.

4.0 p.m.

Mr. Deedes

By leave of the House, I think that the element of doubt which was in the hon. Member's mind has been cleared by the Amendment. There was an element of doubt, before this Amendment was included, what the value of a claim holding was for the purposes of Part I. The purpose of this Amendment is to remove that doubt, and I think that it does so.

Mr. MacColl

I do not want to heckle the Parliamentary Secretary, but the whole burden of my remarks was to ask what was the meaning of the words in the first line of the Amendment, "other than in this section." In other words, for some reason or another the words, "the value of a claim holding" in this section—I see that there are 28 allusions to claim holdings in the section—are taken out of the general definition by this Amendment. That is what puzzles me.

Mr. Deedes

By leave of the House, I hope that this may assist the hon. Gentleman. In subsection (3) reference is made to the value of a holding at any time. I do not know whether that helps to elucidate the point.

Mr. Turner-Samuels

With respect to the Parliamentary Secretary, the process is now in operation that we anticipated, namely, making this confusion more confounded. A very proper question has been asked on a point of deep obscurity. It was obscure before, but this addendum to the obscurity has made the fog a thousand times worse: … references in this Part of this Act, other than in this section, to the value of a claim holding… There is not a single word in the whole of that phrase that does not increase the chaos and difficulty. Certainly, it is quite incapable of interpretation. Are we not entitled, in a matter of this kind, to ask the Parliamentary Secretary—who must have been briefed on it; there must be some intelligent meaning to be given to this—to elucidate the meaning of this enigma of expression and obscurity of idea embodied in this sentence? It is absolutely impossible to follow it.

Unlike my hon. Friends, I am a lawyer and I hope that I am a lawyer of some experience and many years' practice. In trying to fit this in the most carefully tailorlike way into the Bill, I find that I cannot make it fit at all. It does not suit the garment. It is just nothing and means nothing and is a perfectly shapeless thing. Surely we are not asking too much of the Parliamentary Secretary when we say, "Give us a simple explanation of this. Define it. Let us in the House of Commons know what it means, so that those whom it will affect outside may also have some inkling as to its meaning."

Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Wolverhampton, South-West)

I wonder whether there is as great a difficulty as hon. Members have felt. If, for example, they look at page 5, line 3, which is part of the existing section, they will find the words: … the value of the claim holding immediately after the relevant disposition… If the words "other than in this section" were not in this last Amendment, a contradiction would be created. These words are necessary, if we are not to introduce doubt into the existing section.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

Can we not have an answer to this? We are anxious to get on with the Bill as quickly as we can. It is not our object to hold it up. Throughout the various stages of the Bill, we have from the start co-operated most fully and amicably with the Minister. But, in return, we are entitled at least to have a full explanation of the difficulties which we have in the Bill. My hon. Friends have raised a perfectly valid point—if I may say so with respect—and really a very simply understandable one.

The point they make is whether the reference in this part of the Bill, other than in this subsection—the material words are "the value of a claim holding "—is a reference to the value of the holding immediately before the Bill. Why are references to the value of a claim holding in this part of the Bill not references to the value of that holding immediately before the commencement of this Bill? We want a full explanation from the Minister of the difficulties in which we find ourselves. It is a very simple' point that we raise and all we ask is an explanation.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Harry Hylton-Foster)

I hope I can help. I do not think that the matter is at all complicated. Subsection (3) of Clause 2, as hon. Members will see, requires a pledge to be valued at a date which is quite inappropriate to the rest of the working of Part I. That is why this process of definition is required—in order to see that for the rest of Part I working, value is to be ascertained after the Second and Third Schedules have been applied. It arises from that. I hope that makes the matter clearer than it was before.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 6, line 44, at end insert: or whose interest has subsequently become merged in that interest.

The Solicitor-General

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

I hope to deal with this point now for the convenience of the House, because it is really one of a group of Amendments which deal with a quite distinct point. The point is that it is necessary to consider the effect of these provisions where there has been a merger of the interests involved occurring between 1st July, 1948—that is, the date by reference to which claims on the £300 million have been or are to be assessed—and the qualifying act, or event, as it were.

I hope that I can put it in a manner that will deserve praise, even from the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels). Subsection (1, b) of Clause 3 says that the entitlement to a payment is dependent upon the development charge having been paid by the person who was the predecessor in title of the claimant. That is the point. That works perfectly well in all cases where the previous owner was the freeholder who paid the development charge and then caused his interest to be sold to the present owner and assigned his claim on the fund to the present owner. That works all right.

But supposing the person who paid the development charge was a tenant or a lessee who, after the 1st July, 1948, and before the material matter, had gone through this history: he had surrendered his lease and assigned his claim to the landlord. It is obviously right in equity that the assignee of the claim, now the freeholder, should be entitled to the claim. Without the addition of these words he would not be able so to be.

That point I would propose, in future, for the convenience of the House, to call the point relating to merger of interests. I hope I need not explain it again. This is, of course, where that happens in relation to case A under the Bill, but it happens in relation to the other cases as we go through.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

I am obliged to the Solicitor-General for his comparatively forthcoming explanation, which he has given in the way we expect of him. It is a simple point which is clearly explained, and we accept the explanation and the need to have this done. I would only say by way of adverse comment that this is an instance of the kind of very simple proposition which is so easily overlooked in a Bill of this complexity. It is rather absurd that the Bill should have come back to us with the Lords Amendments before the point is raised or dealt with at all. This is an illustration of the complexity of the Bill; the Bill will be full of little difficulties and complexities of this kind which will make its working out extremely intricate and difficult.

Mr. Turner-Samuels

As the hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned my name, I want to tell him that I accepted his explanation entirely, for it was very simple and very clear, but what I cannot understand—it shows how bad a Bill this is—is why this was left out at the very beginning.

Question put, and agreed to. [Special Entry.]