§ Mr. PowellI beg to move, in page 2, line 8, at the end to insert:
Provided that, in relation to an interest which, at the date when the house was purchased compulsorily or, as the case may be, vacated, was held by virtue of an agreement to purchase by instalments, this subsection shall have effect as if the words "and any such payment shall be dealt with" were omitted therefrom, and the payment shall be made to the person entitled to the interest at the said date.(3) Where a payment falls to be made under this section in respect of any person's interest in a house and at the date when the house was purchased compulsorily or, as the case may be, vacated, that interest was the subject of a mortgage, or other charge or an agreement to purchase by instalments, either party to the mortgage, charge or agreement may apply to the county court who, after giving to the other party to the mortgage, charge or agreement an opportunity of being heard, may, if the court thinks fit, make an order—and in either case either unconditionally or subject to such terms and conditions, including conditions with respect to the payment of moneys, as the court may think just and equitable to impose.
- (a) in the case of a house which has been purchased compulsorily, discharging or modifying any outstanding liabilities of the person aforesaid by virtue of any bond, covenant or other obligation with respect to the debt secured by the mortgage or charge or by virtue of the agreement; or
106 - (b) in the case of a house vacated in pursuance of a clearance order, demolition order or closing order, discharging or modifying the terms of the mortgage, charge or agreement,
(4) In determining in any case what order, if any, to make under the last foregoing subsection, the court shall have regard to all the circumstances of the case, and in particular, in the case of a mortgage or chargeI do not know whether it would be convenient if we discussed at the same time the following Amendment, also in page 2, line 8, which relates to the same matter.or, in the case of an agreement to purchase by instalments, to how far the amount already paid by way of principal, or, where the house has been purchased compulsorily, the aggregate of that amount and so much, if any, of the compensation in respect of the compulsory purchase as falls to be paid to the vendor, represents an adequate price for the purchase; and for the purposes of paragraph (a) of this subsection the mortgagee or person entitled to the benefit of the charge shall be deemed to have acted unreasonably if, at the time when the mortgage or charge was made, he knew or ought to have known that the house did not afford sufficient security for the principal sum advanced.
- (a) to whether the mortgagee or person entitled to the benefit of the charge acted reasonably in advancing the principal sum on the security of the house; and
- (b) to the extent to which the house may have become unfit for human habitation owing to any default on the part of the mortgagor or person entitled to the interest charged in carrying out any obligation under the terms of the mortgage or charge with respect to the repair of the house,
§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris)If it meets the convenience of the House it seems to me that they can be discussed together.
§ Mr. PowellThe object of the Amendment, which stands in my right hon. Friend's name, is to deal with a situation which was discussed at some length in Committee and which my right hon. Friend promised to study. That is the situation where the owner-occupier of a house dealt with in Clause I of the Bill is either a mortgagor or else is buying the house under a tenant-purchaser agreement. In such a case, as the law stands and as the Bill stands, after the amount received by him under the Bill has been paid in part satisfaction of his outstanding liabilities, the remainder would still be a 107 personal debt owed by him, although he would not have the value of the property and although the security on which the money was lent would have ceased to exist. The object of the Amendment is to enable the courts to discharge or modify such outstanding liabilities.
If I might draw the attention of the House to the individual parts of the Amendment, the proviso with which it begins relates to tenant-purchase agreements. The effect of that proviso is that instead of the payment being dealt with under the Lands Clauses Acts, in which case it would fall to be shared between the purchaser and vendor, it is paid to the purchaser.
That is a necessary Amendment, because in the case of a tenant-purchaser the only interest which is compensated under the Bill is the tenant-purchaser's equitable interest; it is not the interest of the vendor. It is therefore obviously right that the entire payment should go to the owner of that equitable interest. That is the effect of the proviso.
In subsection (3) it is provided that where there are outstanding liabilities after the payment has been dealt with in accordance with the Lands Clauses Acts, the court may discharge or modify those liabilities. Subsection (4) then indicates the factors to which the court is to have regard in deciding whether, and if so how, to modify or discharge the liabilities. Those factors are, first, whether the unfitness of the house is in any way the fault of the owner-occupier and, secondly, whether the person who lent the money, if I may use the slightly inaccurate expression—whether the mortgagee—acted unreasonably in advancing the sum which he did advance upon that security.
In the case of a tenant-purchaser agreement, the court is asked to look at the relationship between what the vendor has got altogether and what was a reasonable price for the house. The effect is that where an owner-occupier, after a slum clearance operation, is left with outstanding personal liabilities, resulting either from the particular form of a tenant-purchaser agreement or from a mortgage or some other charge, the court is enabled to modify or discharge those personal liabilities, having regard to the circumstances of that particular case.
108 The effect of the Amendment differs from that of the Amendment which we are considering with it in this way; by the Amendment in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) the personal liabilities would be automatically wiped out when the payment was satisfied and dealt with in accordance with the Lands Clauses Acts. The difficulty about proceeding in that apparently simpler way is that there may well be cases where it would not be fair or proper for those outstanding liabilities to be wholly discharged. There is, for example, the case where the unfitness of the house may be due to the default of the owner-occupier himself. In that case it would clearly be unreasonable that the lender of the money should suffer by a default which was not his own.
There may also be cases where the lender of the money acted no less reasonably than the borrower of the money. There are hard cases, though they may well not be numerous, amongst the lenders of money, especially in friendly and personal arrangements, as well as amongst the borrowers.
It therefore seemed to the Government that it was better to entrust a discretion in this matter to the court rather than that, whenever a slum clearance operation resulted in Clause I operating, the outstanding liability should automatically be wiped out.
§ Mr. MitchisonI should like, first, to make it quite clear to the Parliamentary Secretary that we are grateful for an attempt having been made to deal with a position which, while it is not likely to occur often, may cause a very great deal of hardship. We on this side raised the point in Committee on an Amendment rather similar to that which stands in my name and which we are now discussing. The hon. Gentleman pointed out, quite rightly, to the Committee that to do anything of the sort involved interference to some extent in a bargain that had been made—compensation or repayment, whatever one cares to call it—in favour of one person at the expense of another, and in relations generally between citizens as distinct from relations between local authorities, on the one hand, and citizens, on the other.
He pointed out all that, and he is quite right in saying that all he and his right hon. Friend undertook to do was to look 109 at the matter. If I am somewhat critical of the method he suggests, let me assure him at once that I do appreciate the way in which the point we made has been taken up, and I do understand that a real effort has been made to meet it. Having said that. I want to remind the Parliamentary Secretary that this is—as I am sure he would admit, if he had not already done so—a rather illogical sort of Bill to deal with a general form of hardship, and that in all probability the particular cases with which we are concerned will be quite small in number. That is so, but they may be hard cases.
What the hon. Gentleman is really suggesting is that a man who has had to live in an unfit house and has had to buy it during the war because he could not find anywhere else to go, and has then not had enough money to pay for it and has had either to borrow, mortgage, or buy by instalments—which, I understand, is quite a fairly common practice in this sort of case—should be driven to the county court to get his remedy. I really do take exception to that.
We are dealing here, by the very nature of the case, with very poor people; people who have been in very considerable financial difficulty—they could not raise the money—and who may by no means be out of the difficulty yet. We are not dealing with large sums at all, but those people have to go to county court to get their remedy. If and when this or any other Government really make legal proceedings in a county court either free or very cheap, and thereby carry out the promise made, I think, in Magna Charta that no one should be denied justice—and people often are denied it now because of the cost—if and when that time comes, I shall have no objection to this Clause. I do say that at present—with all the respect I have for the profession to which I myself belong, and the particular respect I have for the people who carry out the rather difficult job of being county court judges, and do it very well—it is none the less wrong to drive poor people in difficulties to a court for a remedy if any other way of doing it can be found.
I give the hon. Gentleman this at once. He said that what I suggested might also cause hardship at times. I think that it may. It is a rougher form of justice than that which he suggests, 110 but I would say that the balance of the hardship that might be caused to lenders by what I propose is considerably less than the sum of the minor hardships that will be caused by driving poor people to county courts for their remedy. Therefore, on the balance of the matter, I would rather risk doing a little bit of rough dealing occasionally to the lender than to drive the rather more numerous class of people who want a remedy when they have borrowed—as it turned out improvidently—to the court to get the matter put right. That is the substance of the difference between us.
7.15 p.m.
I want to deal now with one or two broad points, and I shall not take long about it. First of all, what are we doing here? In effect, we are saying to the lender, "Here's the lot. Here's what you lent your money on. Here's the house in the form it has now taken"— that is to say, two kinds of compensation—"and there will be nothing left at the end of it." All we are forbidding the lender to do, or the man selling on instalments, is to go—which is unfair in this instance—for the balance he can get out of it after he has had all the compensation. That is not bad rough justice.
We are here dealing with people who had to go into these houses, had to buy them because they could not find anywhere else to live. That is the type of man we are considering, and all that is being done to protect him from afterwards having to pay out of his pocket the balance, which was beyond the real value of the security upon which the contract was made. Whether it was by mortgage or by sale by instalments, there can be no reasonable doubt that what the lender was really looking to was the bricks and mortar, the insanitary house or whatever it was. Whether it was a building society going too far, or some other lender, or a sale by instalments, the person or society that lent hoped to get the money back because the house, which was for the time being a man's home, was an essential part of the bargain.
I have always felt it unfair that in cases of this sort the personal liability should go on; that a man who had taken away from him, no doubt quite rightly, his home, upon which the advance or the 111 instalment sale was originally made, should still be chased on a personal liability for the balance. Therefore, I say that, considering that we are dealing with a smallish number of cases, considering that the basis of the whole Bill is to right a rather indefinable injustice that we do recognise, considering that the man whom the Bill seeks to look after is this particular type of person who has had to buy and to live in an insanitary house because he could not find anywhere else to go, I think that for once we would be right not to be too legal about the matter and to let a bit of horse-sense and a bit of—dare I say? —warm-heartedness have their way, and make the lender rather than the borrower suffer so far as there had been too much lent or too much handed over by way of an instalment sale on the house.
I believe that in the long run that would not really be doing much hardship to building societies, it would not really be doing much hardship to people who make a business of lending money, and it would not really be doing much hardship to people who have been selling these insanitary houses on instalments. All those people can look after themselves—or some supernatural power above or below will no doubt look after them. Our business is not to look too nicely at that if the alternative means driving this particular type of poor man to a county court for his remedy.
People are very afraid of the law. They are afraid of the cost of it. They regard lawyers, most unreasonably, as wicked and rapacious people. They do not like the law. I am not saying for a minute that they are right—I do not think that they are—but I do say that that feeling exists, and if these very long and complicated provisions, rather than the simple remedy we propose, are put on the Statute Book, a lot of people will be deprived of any effective remedy at all. In addition, they are singularly difficult provisions to follow. I agree that the Amendment does what it is intended to do, but think of the poor man who is in real difficulties with a building society and who is told that his remedy is in all that wording. It would be simpler to tell him, "Hand the lot over and then they cannot shoot you for any more".
112 Therefore, while we welcome very much the fact that some provision is being made for these cases, and we welcome it all the more because we raised this matter in the first place, we shall feel impelled to vote against the Minister's Amendment, not because we do not want something done—we do; we are the people who suggested it—but because we think that our way of doing it is simpler and fairer in the long run.
There is a procedural difficulty about this matter. The Parliamentary Secretary knows all about jumping the housing queue, I am sure. He would not be in the Ministry if he did not. But there is also this jumping the amending queue. We on this side of the House put down our Amendment first, and we should have liked to have voted on that, but Ministers have a prerogative right to jump the amending queue, so we have to vote on his Amendment before we get to our own. Therefore, when we vote against the Minister's Amendment, no doubt the Parliamentary Secretary and his hon. Friends will understand—and I hope the Conservative research department will also understand—that we are doing so not because of what his Amendment tries to remedy, but because we do not like the way in which the Minister wishes to do it.
§ Dr. KingWhichever of the two Amendments we adopt, I think it will be a good Amendment to a useful Bill. I want to thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) for having raised this matter in Committee, and I want also to thank the Minister for more than fulfilling the very non-committal promise which he made in Committee and which he has generously improved upon in introducing his Amendment.
Of all the owner-occupiers who suffer from slum clearance, surely those who are worst off are those who are to receive compensation which is so small that it does not pay off the mortgage which is left owing. Last week the hon. Member for Test (Mr. J. Howard), whom I am pleased to see in the House, and I attended a meeting of owner-occupiers in Southampton. They were angry and indignant and felt a sense of injustice. Among those owner-occupiers, the most angry and those who felt that they were 113 being treated most unjustly were those who will soon find themselves without a house and yet still having to pay interest on the mortgage of a house which they do not wish to leave, which will no longer be theirs, and which will not even be there.
The purport of both these Amendments is to make sure that the owner-occupier does not start on the day on which he leaves his house with a debt, with less than nothing. I know that in a number of cases this means shifting some portion of the burden to the building societies, but I think the building societies are wealthy enough to carry this burden as compared with the poor owner-occupier. Indeed, one might argue that the building societies were expert enough in housing matters to have known how much money to advance on property and ought to have known that the house value was low if it was potentially in a slum clearance area.
The Government have accepted the principle advocated by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering in Committee, but I believe that the Government Amendment has so many "ifs" and "buts" in it from the point of view of the owner-occupier that it will make his position very difficult indeed. As I read subsection (4) of the Government's Amendment, the county court judge will have to consider certain factors when deciding whether to relieve the owner-occupier of his debt. If the building society can prove that it was justified in lending as much money as it did, the owner-occupier will not be relieved of the burden of the remainder of mortgage after the compensation has wiped out some bit of it. Moreover, if the owner-occupier cannot prove that it was not his fault that the house became substandard, again the county court judge will have to decide that the owner-occupier must accept the liability of the remaining mortgage.
Let us remember that if the case goes to the county court, in that place there will be an argument between powerful and legally and technically well-equipped building societies, on the one hand, and a poor individual, on the other hand. Why should the owner-occupier have to go to the county court at all? Surely he is carrying enough on his shoulders at the moment. He is to be dispossessed. Even if the remaining mortgage is wiped off, the compensation he will receive he still 114 thinks is inadequate. Why add to his burden the expense and worry of having to appear in the county court before a judge to defend against powerful building societies his claim to have the mortgage cancelled?
Moreover, as I read the Government's Amendment, the owner-occupier will have to prove that when he borrowed the money he did not know that the property was not going to be worth the amount that was lent on it. This is asking too much of him. I believe that the Government Amendment ties the hands of the county court judge. I would rather that the matter were left entirely to the county court judge to decide on pure equity, instead of the provisos which the Government have put into their Amendment.
I beg the Government to have second thoughts. I think they have gone a long way to meet us. I appreciate the real concession that they have made to the Opposition in this matter, but I urge them to take the simpler and direct method proposed in the Opposition Amendment. I ask the Minister to accept the Opposition Amendment; even if the Government will not accept the wording, they might accept the principle and so ensure that no owner-occupier who comes within the terms of this Bill will have to face starting life afresh without a house and still carrying a burden of debt on that lost property.
§ Mr. C. W. Gibson (Clapham)I rise to correct what I think is a mistaken impression. This Bill does not apply to all owner-occupiers. It applies only to those who bought a house within what the Bill calls the "material period", which is 1st September, 1939, to 13th December, I955. The propaganda which has been going around to the effect that this Bill will do something for all owner-occupiers in slum areas is quite false. It would be quite wrong for anyone to get that impression. The property must have been bought within the "material period."
I have in mind a case which I think would support the plea of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) on behalf of the Amendment in his name. It concerns the widow of a railway worker who bought a house after the war started. I think she paid too much for it. It is in an area which will inevitably be declared a slum area 115 before many years are passed. If she is served with a notice, and if the Government Amendment is carried, before she can get rid of the additional liability, in spite of whatever compensation she will get, she will have to go to the county court and spend money and perhaps have a lot of worry and stress and then perhaps in the end she will not succeed in getting rid of the liability of paying for a house which she will no longer possess and will no longer live in. It seems to me, therefore, that much the better course to take is that suggested by my hon. and learned Friend in his Amendment of leaving the matter as one between the person concerned and the local authority.
7.30 p.m.
Although we are now at a late stage, I hope that the Government may, perhaps in another place, be able to think again and try to avoid the necessity for having to go to the county courts. If we had the benefit of the Legal Aid and Advice Act in full operation, that might help; but, as one who has had considerable experience of telling people that they must go to the county court to have rectified some legal trouble, and of the difficulties they always have in finding enough money to do so, I would suggest to the House that we would be wrong not to find some better means of solving this problem. In any case, this is a special matter which we are dealing with, something which arises out of the housing conditions which the war created, and the difficulties of people who bought these houses, not because they were buying something worth while but in order to have a roof over their heads. We ought, in these circumstances, to find some better, easier and less costly method which people can adopt. I have said time after time that I do not think much of the terms of this Bill, but at any rate if people are to be able to take advantage of what good there may be in it, they should be able to do so without having to spend a lot of money in the courts.
I am not a lawyer. It seems to me that the Amendment suggested by my hon. and learned Friend is one which would give people such an opportunity. If it will not, then I would ask the Government to have another look at the whole matter and, at a later stage, consider whether they might not adopt some 116 such procedure as is suggested in our Amendment.
§ Mr. Donald Wade (Huddersfield, West)I agree that this proposed Amendment will go some way towards meeting the criticisms put forward, but I also agree with some of the observations which have been passed upon it. It is clear it will affect only a limited number of cases. For example, it will affect only those who have bought within the material period. I submit, also, that there will be difficulties in interpretation.
May I give just one example of that, from the point of view of the lender rather than the borrower—not from any particular natural sympathy for lenders, but merely by way of illustration? In subsection (4) (a) there is a provision laying down the circumstances which the court must consider; the court shall, in particular have regard
to whether the mortgagee or person entitled to the benefit of the charge acted reasonably in advancing the principal sum on the security of the house.At the end of this subsection there is the following provision, thatfor the purposes of paragraph (a) of this subsection the mortgagee or person entitled to the benefit of the charge shall be deemed to have acted unreasonably if, at the time when the mortgage or charge was made, he knew or ought to have known that the house did not afford sufficient security for the principal sum advanced.There are cases where, as a friendly arrangement, lenders lend money on the security of a house, knowing that the house may not be adequate security. It would appear to me, on my interpretation of that Clause, that, if an application were made to the court, the fact that the lender knew that the security was inadequate would result in his losing any right to claim on the personal covenant under the mortgage. I do not know whether that was intended, but, if that is the effect of the Clause, it would appear to me to be somewhat unreasonable.
§ Mr. John Howard (Southampton, Test)The hon. Gentleman the Member for Itchen (Dr. King) has referred to a meeting organised by owner-occupiers affected by slum clearance, which took place in Southampton on Friday. While we are both sympathetic with the position of the people who are affected by slum clearance schemes, I made it clear 117 at that meeting—and I reiterate it now— that, in my view, the Government have gone as far as they can go in moving this Clause and that people are being compensated or are being absolved from their liabilities if they have been unduly misled.
On the other hand, if people have acted rashly, then the manner in which the Clauses leave the onus upon them provides, I feel, a wise protection so that public money is not cast away and due precautions are taken before mortgages, and so forth, are cancelled.
§ Mr. PowellIf I may say so, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) put very fairly the quite narrow issue on which the House is about to decide. In favour of the Amendment which stands in his name, it may be urged that it is simple and that it avoids, on the part of those who will usually be very small people, the necessity for an application to the county court. That is true. On the other hand, we must weigh in the other scale the undoubted unfairness and injustice which may in some cases arise from such an automatic procedure, and the advantages of giving a discretion to an authority which I think we are all satisfied will exercise it wisely and fairly.
There are at least two grounds on which, as I indicated before, such injustice could arise. There is the case, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman did not refer, where demonstrably the unfitness of a house and the necessity for a demolition order—I imagine there would be a demolition order in such circumstances—is the fault of the borrower of the money, who has not observed the terms of the agreement into which he entered in regard to the repair of the house.
§ Dr. KingWill the Parliamentary Secretary remember that he is talking about owner-occupiers who have bought their own houses? The general experience in this country is that the owner-occupier does take a pride in his house. The last thing that would be true of him is that he would allow his house to get into a slum-like condition.
§ Mr. PowellQuite so, but we also must remember that these houses are houses in slum areas. They are houses which, in 118 some instances, will have been in the ownership of the owner-occupier for periods up to 17 years, and therefore, the standard of maintenance over so considerable a period may well determine whether a demolition order can or cannot be made, now or for some years in the future. That is one instance we have to bear in mind.
Secondly, there is a very real likelihood of cases arising—the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) was referring to this—where the lender of the money, who is not a building society and who is not a shark, but who is an individual and has engaged in an individual transaction to facilitate the purchase of an individual house, may suffer hardship. In such cases, the hardship may very well lie either apportioned between the two parties to the agreement or more on the side of the lender than of the borrower.
I may say here that I will undertake to look into the wording of subsection (4), to which the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West referred. He recognised the existence of this type of case. Cases have actually been brought to the attention of the Department, and I would willingly give details of them to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kettering. It is not an imaginary case; it is a real case, where an individual lender may be liable to suffer at least as great loss or hardship as the individual borrower.
The hon. Member for Itchen (Dr. King) said that he would have preferred to see subsection (4) removed and the matter left in the discretion of the court. So the hon. Member is really agreeing that this is a matter in which there ought to be discretion—that this is a matter in which individual transactions and the circumstances of the individual transactions ought to be looked at fairly and intelligently rather than that there should be an automatic wiping out by virtue of the application of Clause I of the Bill.
That is the issue which the House has to decide—whether it is to do the very rough justice of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Amendment and thereby; imply for the sake of avoiding the necessity, which will not in all cases be a necessity, of application to a county court, perpetrate in a minority of cases what will undoubtedly be real unfairness. I would suggest to the House that the giving of 119 discretion and the giving of it in this form to the right course to take.
| Division No. 192.] | AYES | [7.41 p.m. |
| Altken, W. T. | Gresham Cooke, R. | Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R. |
| Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.) | Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans) | Monckton, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter |
| Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton) | Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury) | Moore, Sir Thomas |
| Arbuthnot, John | Hall, John (Wycombe) | Mott-Radclyffe, C. E. |
| Armstrong, C. W. | Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.) | Nabarro, G. D. N. |
| Ashton, H. | Harris, Reader (Heston) | Nairn, D. L. S. |
| Atkins, H. E. | Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon) | Nicholls, Harmar |
| Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M. | Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfd) | Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham) |
| Barber, Anthony | Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.) | Nicolson, N. (B'n'mth, E. & Chr'ch) |
| Barlow, Sir John | Harvie-Watt, Sir George | Nugent, G. R. H. |
| Barter, John | Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel | Oakshott, H. D. |
| Baxter, Sir Beverley | Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G. | O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.) |
| Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.) | Henderson, John (Cathcart) | Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D. |
| Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.) | Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W. | Osborne, C. |
| Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth) | Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton) | Page, R. G. |
| Bidgood, J. C. | Hill, John (S. Norfolk) | Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale) |
| Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel | HInchingbrooke, Viscount | Partridge, E. |
| Bishop, F. P. | Holland-Martin, C. J. | Peyton, J. W. W. |
| Black, C. W. | Holt, A. F. | Pickthorn, K. W. M. |
| Boothby, Sir Robert | Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P. | Pilkington, Capt. R. A. |
| Bossom, Sir A. C. | Horobin, Sir Ian | Pitman, I. J. |
| Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan) | Howard, John (Test) | Pitt, Miss E. M. |
| Braithwaite, Sir Albert(Harrow, W.) | Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J. | Pott, H. P. |
| Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry | Hughes-Young, M. H. C. | Powell, J. Enoch |
| Browne, J. Nixon (Cralgton) | Hulbert, Sir Norman | Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.) |
| Bryan, P. | Hurd, A. R. | Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L. |
| Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T. | Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark (E'b'gh,W.) | Raikes, Sir Victor |
| Bullus, Wing Commander E. E. | Hutchison, Sir James (Scotstoun) | Rameden, J. E. |
| Burden, F. F. A. | Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H. | Redmayne, M. |
| Butcher, Sir Herbert | Iremonger, T. L. | Renton, D. L. M. |
| Campbell, Sir David | Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) | Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.) |
| Carr, Robert | Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich) | Robson-Brown, W. |
| Cary, Sir Robert | Jennings, J. C. (Burton) | Russell, R. S. |
| Channon, H. | Jennings, Sir Roland (Hallam) | Schofield, Lt.-Col. W. |
| Chichester-Clark, R. | Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle) | Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R. |
| Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.) | Johnson, Eric (Blackley) | Sharples, R. C. |
| Cole, Norman | Johnson, Howard (Kemptown) | Smithers, Peter (Winchester) |
| Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K. | Jones, Rt. Hon. Aubrey (Hall Green) | Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood) |
| Corfield, Capt. F. V. | Joseph, Sir Keith | Soames, Capt. C. |
| Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne) | Joynson-Hicks, Hon. Sir Lancelot | Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard |
| Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. A. E. | Kaberry, D. | Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.) |
| Crouch, R. F. | Keegan, D. | Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.) |
| Cunningham, Knox | Kerby, Capt. H. B. | Stoddart-Scott, Col. M. |
| Currie, G. B. H. | Kerr, H. W. | Studholme, H. G. |
| Dance, J. C. G. | Kershaw, J. A. | Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington) |
| D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry | Kimball, M. | Teeling, W. |
| Deedes, W. F. | Kirk P. M. | Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury) |
| Digby, Simon Wingfield | Lagden, G. W. | Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, S. |
| Dodds-Parker, A. D. | Lambton, Viscount | Thornton-Kemsley, C. N. |
| Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA. | Lancaster, Col. C. G. | Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.) |
| Doughty, C. J. A. | Langford-Holt, J. A. | Touche, Sir Gordon |
| Drayson, G. B. | Leburn, W. G. | Tweedsmuir, Lady |
| du Cann, E. D. L. | Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H. | Vane, W. M. F. |
| Duncan, Capt. J. A. L. | Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.) | Vickers, Miss J. H. |
| Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West) | Lloyd-George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G. | Vosper, D. F. |
| Errington, Sir Eric | Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.) | Wade, D. W. |
| Farey-Jones, F. W. | Lucas, P.B.(Brentford & Chiswick) | Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.) |
| Fell, A. | Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh | Walker-Smith, D. C. |
| Finlay, Graeme | McKibbin, A. J. | Wall, Major Patrick |
| Fisher, Nigel | McLaughlin, Mrs. P. | Ward, Hon. George (Worcester) |
| Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone) | Maclay, Rt. Hon. John | Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C. |
| Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe & Lonsdale) | MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty) | Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.) |
| Freeth, D. K. | Maddan, Martin | Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter) |
| Gammans, Sir David | Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hon. Sir R | Wills, G. (Bridgwater) |
| Garner-Evans, E. H. | Markham, Major Sir Frank | Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro) |
| George, J. C. (Pollok) | Marlowe, A. A. H. | Woollam, John Victor |
| Gibson-Watt, D. | Marshall, Douglas | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Glover, D. | Mathew, R. | Mr. Leek and |
| Graham, Sir Fergus | Maude, Angus | Colonel J. H. Harrison. |
| Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich) | Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C. | |
| Green, A. | Medlicott. Sir Frank |
§ Question put, That those words be there inserted in the Bill:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 208, Notes 173.
121| NOES | ||
| Ainsley, J. W. | Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly) | Proctor, W. T. |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Hale, Leslie | Pryde, D. J. |
| Allen, Arthur (Bosworth) | Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley) | Pursey, Cmdr. H. |
| Anderson, F rank | Hamilton, W. W. | Randall, H. E. |
| Awbery, S. S. | Hannan, W. | Rankin, John |
| Balfour, A. | Hastings, S. | Redhead, E. C. |
| Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.) | Hayman, F. H. | Reeves, J. |
| Benson, G. | Hobson, C. R. | Reid, William |
| Beswick, F. | Howell, Denis (All Saints) | Roberts, Albert (Normanton) |
| Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale) | Hoy, J. H. | Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon) |
| Blackburn, F. | Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.) | Robinson, Kenneth(St. Pancras, N.) |
| Blenkinsop, A. | Hunter, A. E. | Ross, William |
| Blyton, W. R. | Hynd, H. (Accrington) | Royle, C. |
| Boardman, H. | Irving, S. (Dartford) | Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E. |
| Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.) | Jeger, George (Goole) | Short, E. W. |
| Boyd, T. C. | Jeger, Mrs.Lena(Holbn & St.Pncs,S.) | Shurmer, P. L. E. |
| Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth | Johnson, James (Rugby) | Silverman, Julius (Aston) |
| Brockway, A. F. | Jones, David (The Hartlepools) | Silverman, Sydney (Nelson) |
| Brown, Thomas (Ince) | Jones, Elwyn (W. Ham, S.) | Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill) |
| Burke, W. A. | Jones, T. W. (Merioneth) | Skeffington, A. M. |
| Burton, Miss F. E. | Kenyon, C. | Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.) |
| Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.) | Key, Rt. Hon. C. W. | Slater, J. (Sedgefield) |
| Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) | King, Dr. H. M. | Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.) |
| Champion, A, J. | Lawson, G. M. | Snow, J. W. |
| Chetwynd, G. R. | Ledger, R. J. | Sorensen, R. W. |
| Clunie, J. | Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock) | Sparks, J. A. |
| Coldrick, W. | Lewis, Arthur | Stones, W. (Consett) |
| Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead) | Logan, D. G. | Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E. |
| Collins, V.J.(Shoreditch & Finsbury) | Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson | Swingler, S. T. |
| Corbet, Mrs. Freda | MacColl, J. E. | Sylvester, G. O. |
| Cove, W. G. | McGhee, H. G. | Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield) |
| Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) | McGovern, J. | Taylor, John (West Lothian) |
| Grossman, R. H. S. | McInnes, J. | Thomas, George (Cardiff) |
| Cullen, Mrs. A. | McLeavy, Frank | Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.) |
| Dalton, Rt. Hon. H. | MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling) | Thomson, George (Dundee, E.) |
| Davies, Harold (Leek) | Mahon, Simon | Timmons, J. |
| Deer, G. | Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg) | Tomney, F. |
| de Freitas, Geoffrey | Mallalieu, J.P.W.(Huddered, E.) | Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn |
| Delargy, H. J. | Mellish, R. J. | Viant, S. P. |
| Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch) | Messer, Sir F. | Wells, Percy (Faversham) |
| Dye, S. | Mitohison, G. R. | West, D. G. |
| Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C. | Moody, A. S. | Wheeldon, W. E. |
| Edelman, M. | Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.) | White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.) |
| Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse) | Morrison,Rt.Hn.Herbert(Lewis'm,S.) | Wigg, George |
| Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly) | Mort, D. L. | Wilkins, W. A. |
| Edwards, Robert (BilatOn) | Moss, R. | Willey, Frederick |
| Edwards, W. J. (Stepney) | Neal, Harold (Bolsovor) | Williams, David (Neath) |
| Fernyhough, E. | Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon) | Williams, W. R. (Openshaw) |
| Fienburgh, W. | Oliver, G. H. | Williams, W. T. (Barons Court) |
| Fletcher, Eric | Oswald, T. | Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.) |
| Forman, J. C. | Owen, W. J. | Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton) |
| Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton) | Padley, W. E. | Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A. |
| Gibson, C. W. | Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley) | Woof, R. E. |
| Gooch, E. G. | Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury) | Yates, V. (Ladywood) |
| Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C. | Parkin, B. T. | Zilliacus, K. |
| Greenwood, Anthony | Paton, J. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R. | Pearson, A. | Mr. Holmes and Mr. J. T. Price. |
| Grey, C. F. | Popplewell, E. | |
| Griffiths, David (Bother Valley) | Probert, A. R. |