HC Deb 22 November 1954 vol 533 cc796-8

Lords Amendment: In page 10, line 30, at end insert: (7) Where an interest in land is the subject of a compulsory acquisition or sale such as is mentioned in subsection (3) of this section and—

  1. (a) on or after the first day of July, nineteen hundred and forty-eight, but before the date of the compulsory acquisition or sale, another interest had become merged with that interest; and
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  2. (b) the person entitled to the interest compulsorily acquired or sold was at the date of the compulsory acquisition or sale entitled to a claim holding or claim holdings which related to either or each of the merged interests,
this section shall apply as if those interests had not merged but had been separately acquired from or sold by the person entitled to the interest acquired or sold; and the compensation payable in respect of the compulsory acquisition or, as the case may be, the sale price shall be treated as apportioned between those interests accordingly: Provided that nothing in this subsection shall prejudice the operation of the proviso to subsection (4) of the next following section.

The Solicitor-General

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

I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas) will forgive me if I decline to play badminton with him. If this was missed in the many days in Committee, it is very strange that the hon. and learned Gentleman himself missed it. This Amendment is on the same point of merger of interests, but in this case in relation to case B.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

We have made extensive repairs in the Bill, but we do not suggest for a moment that we have filled up every little gap in it. I am not blaming the Government for overlooking this; I am blaming them for introducing a Bill of such abstruse complexity that this sort of thing inevitably happens.

Mr. MacColl

I wonder whether the Solicitor-General could give me an explanation about something which, on first reading of the Amendment, seems to be a little peculiar. At the end of this long Amendment there is a proviso: Provided that nothing in this subsection shall prejudice the operation of the proviso to subsection (4) of the next following section. Any hon. Member who has investigated this and has turned to the next following section will have had a chill run through his bones to discover that there is no proviso to subsection (4). I believe the answer to be—before the House passes the Amendment we ought to know whether this is right—that the proviso will be inserted later by an Amendment to page 13, line 5. We ought to be told whether that is so before we pass what appears, on the face of it, to be a silly Amendment.

The Solicitor-General

The hon. Gentleman's deduction is right.

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

Lords Amendment: In page 10, line 45, at end insert: (9) Without prejudice to section ten of this Act, paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section shall not apply in relation to a sale in consideration wholly or partly of a rent-charge.

The Solicitor-General

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

A different point arises here. It seems that in many parts of the country it is the custom to dispose of land in consideration wholly or partly of a rent-charge, a charge of rent issuing out of the land. What has been done in this series of Amendments is to transfer the cases relating to a rent-charge to Clause 10, and for that reason the reference here is deleted. The Amendment is consequential upon Amendments which we shall ask the House to agree to in relation to Clause 10.

Question put, and agreed to.