HC Deb 29 May 1956 vol 553 cc92-7

6.25 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. Enoch Powell)

I beg to move in page 1, line 26, at the end to insert: (2) The foregoing subsection shall have effect—

  1. (a) where a person ceased to occupy a house or part of a house not more than one year before the said thirteenth day of December by reason only of a posting in the course of his duties as a member of the armed forces of the Crown or of a change in the place of his employment or occupation, as if that person had occupied that house or part on that day in like manner as immediately before he ceased to occupy it; and
  2. (b) where a house had been vacated before the said thirteenth day of December in consequence of the making of a compulsory purchase order in respect thereof or in pursuance of a clearance order, demolition order or closing order but the demolition of that house had not been started by that day, as if that house had been occupied on that day by the same person and in the like manner as immediately before it was vacated and, in the case of a clearance. demolition or closing order, as if it had been vacated immediately after that day.
This new subsection is designed to widen the scope of the improved compensation provided by the Bill in two distinct classes of case. I will deal, first, with those covered by paragraph (a) in the new subsection. As the Bill stands, it is necessary, in order that an owner-occupier may qualify for the higher rate of compensation, that he should be in occupation of the house on 13th December last, which was the date when the provisions of the Bill were announced by my right hon. Friend.

Generally speaking, where the owner-occupier quitted his house owing to a necessary move earlier than that date, as he bought the house with vacant possession he would have been able so to sell it again with vacant possession, and to recoup if not the whole of what he had paid, at any rate a substantial proportion.

In recent months, however, even before 13th December, it was becoming increasingly unlikely that he would be able to do so. Slum clearance was being resumed on an increasing scale and the dangers of purchasing houses which might shortly be dealt with by way of slum clearance were brought to the attention of the general public, through the local authorities, by my right hon. Friend in a circular issued last autumn.

Owner-occupiers who had to quit their houses in the months preceding 13th December might well find themselves in the position of being forced to let those houses and being unable to resell them with vacant possession, thus losing the benefits of the Bill and virtually the whole of what they might have paid for the freehold or for the leasehold of the house.

It is to meet that class of case that paragraph (a) of this subsection is designed. It provides that where an owner-occupier had to leave, either by necessity of service in the Armed Forces or by necessity of employment in the 12 months preceeding 13th December, 1955, and if otherwise qualified, he shall benefit by the provisions of the Bill although he was not in occupation on 13th December. The period of a year is necessarily arbitrary, as any chosen period must be. Clearly, k would be wrong to push this concession too far back into the past, and, equally clearly, it would be wrong to fasten on some very recent date such as that of the issue of my right hon. Friend's circular. There will still be cases which will fall on the other side of the dividing line, but I am confident that this Amendment will deal with the great majority of cases of real hardship arising from necessity on the part of an owner-occupier to quit his house in the recent past.

Paragraph (b) deals with an entirely different case. It is where a house, before 13th December was, as it were, part of the slum clearance operation and where the owner had left the,house although the house was still standing on 13th December last. In the course of the re-housing necessitated by the slum clearance operation there might be a case where two owner-occupiers, perhaps living in the same street, were both affected by the same clearance order or compulsory purchase order and where one had co-operated with the local authority and got out before 13th December, while the other had stuck it out as late as he could and was still in occupation on 13th December.

As the Bill stands, the first man would not benefit by the Bill and the second would. This seems quite wrong, and the effect of paragraph (b) is that where a house was unoccupied on 13th December, 1955, because it had been vacated in the course of slum clearance operations, the owner, if otherwise qualified under the Bill, should be able to benefit by the concessions which the Bill affords.

Mr. H. G. Randall (Gateshead, West)

I think it should be on record that the idea in paragraph (a) of the new subsection was voiced originally by the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger). The hon. Member moved a very restrictive Amendment which concerned only Service men. My hon. Friends indicated to the Parliamentary Secretary that we could not accept an Amendment which was confined to one class of person. Many industrial workers might have to move from one part of the country to another, and we believed that if there had to be a new rate of compensation, the benefit should go to the whole of the community rather than to one section.

The point of my intervention is to put it on record that the idea in the Amendment was originated upstairs in Committee. It was then a very restrictive one. I congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on his conversations with his right hon. Friend which have enabled us to have an Amendment which will cover the whole community and give an additional right of compensation.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison (Kettering)

This is a very illogical and haphazard Bill, intended to meet a hardship that we all recognise but all find rather difficult to define. The effect of the Amendment, at any rate of the first part of it, is a very good illustration. As the Parliamentary Secretary has pointed out, it substitutes one time-limit for another in certain cases and for some purposes, but it has another effect.

Take the case of a man who bought an insanitary house because he could not find anywhere else to go, and happened to do so in the last year of what is called the "material period," between December, 1954, and December, 1955. This shows how difficult it is to deal with this sort of case and what an illogical Measure this is. This man's rights will be completely different if he bought from an ex-Service man during that period from what they would have been if he had bought from anyone else. The ex-Service man possibly could not occupy it any longer because the exigencies of the Service made him move somewhere else. The effect of the Amendment is to deem the ex-Service man as continuing in occupation during the material period.

Since there cannot be two people in occupation and both entitled to compensation, it seems that the man who bought from the ex-Service man will not have qualified for the benefit that was intended. I am putting this point to the Parliamentary Secretary because he may have an answer. If he has, I shall be very glad to give way to him and hear what it is.

Mr. Powell

I think the hon. and learned Gentleman is under a misapprehension. If A is the ex-Service man and is the person who is not, and B buys the house from A in the last 12 months, will qualify for compensation because is the owner on the date when compulsory acquisition, or whatever the operation may be, takes effect.

The case in which A will benefit is where A lets a house of which he is still the owner of an interest at the time of compulsory acquisition, or whatever the operation may be.

Mr. Mitchison

I must ask the Parliamentary Secretary to look carefully at the paragraphs he has drafted. They do not require that the house should be occupied or let on a weekly tenancy or anything of that sort, on 13th December, 1955. If that is intended, paragraph (a) is far from clear.

Let the Parliamentary Secretary consider the effect of what he is now saying. Two people cannot be entitled to com- pensation. If the man who goes in, B, is to get it because he was there on 13th December, 1955, what about the ex-Service man? Suppose there is a division of compensatable interest between them, or a lease, or something of that sort. I am not clear that the Amendment may not result in unfairness and hardship.

We all recognise that there ought to be special provision for people who, by reason of Service requirements or of what I may more generally call "national requirements" during the war, had to move, either because of Service orders or because of the nature of their job. We are glad that some provision is being made to meet those cases, but this is a hit-and-miss Bill in this respect as in other respects. We are all trying to do the same thing and I hope that it will work out all right, but I have an uneasy suspicion that we may find that in some cases we have done a little injustice in this rather complicated Measure at the cost of doing a rough measure of equity rather than of justice in other cases. I trust that it will work.

The second point, in paragraph (b), shows that the Government had not thought out carefully enough what they intended to do. They have now recognised that they ought to have thought of it at the beginning instead of at the end. We are glad of the Government's repentance even at this comparatively late stage. Therefore, on both grounds, we on this side of the Committee welcome the Amendment.

Dr. Horace King (Southampton, Itchen)

I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will look carefully at what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) has said, which is obviously what the Committee would wish to happen; but it is just conceivable that there will be two people with a right to claim compensation in respect of the same property and they may both claim unless the wording of the Bill is altered in some way.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 2. line 1, leave out "the foregoing subsection" and insert: subsection (1) of this section."—[Mr. Powell.] Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.