HC Deb 29 May 1956 vol 553 cc97-105
Mr. Powell

I beg to move, in page 4, line 14, at the beginning to insert: (1) For the purposes of this Act, a house which might have been the subject of a demolition order but which has, without the making of such an order, been demolished in pursuance of an undertaking to that effect given to the local authority shall be deemed to have been vacated at the date of its demolition in pursuance of a demolition order made and served at the dale when the undertaking was given. The proposed new subsection meets a request which was made by the Association of Municipal Corporations who, as slum clearance widens, are able to make use on an increasing scale of the voluntary procedure of demolition by agreement rather than demolition by demolition order. It seemed right that the same compensation should be made available to an owner-occupier who demolished his house by agreement as to an owner-occupier who demolished it as the result of an order from the local authority to do so. That is the effect of the proposed new subsection.

Mr. Mitchison

I told the Parliamentary Secretary when we debated the Financial Resolution what I thought of him and of his right hon. Friend in connection with this Amendment. We entirely agree with it. We wanted to do it. We knew about it, because exactly the same point arose on the Housing Subsidies Bill.

We knew all about it for another reason, which is that progressive Labour-controlled authorities have very largely done this; and, of course, it is a sensible and right thing to do. Those authorities ought to be given every support in carrying it out. Therefore, while regretting the matters of form, which it would be entirely out of order for me to dwell on now, in connection with the Financial Resolution, I say that we welcome wholeheartedly this Amendment. We hope that the Government will think of it at the beginning instead of at the end next time.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Powell

I beg to move, in page 5, line 1, after "Act", to insert: and paragraph 2 of the Fourth Schedule to that Act had not been passed". Unlike the matter with which we have just been dealing, this is one which, within the rules of order, hon. Members on both sides of the Committee raised, both on the Second Reading and in the Committee. The general object of Clauses 1 and 2 is to provide for the classes of persons defined in those Clauses compensation assessed as though their property were not being compulsorily acquired as unfit. Immediately one provides that the property shall be acquired otherwise than as unfit the code which comes into force is the code of compulsory acquisition laid down basically in the 1919 Act, the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act, but as applied by Section 40 of the principal Act of 1936 read in conjunction with the Fourth Schedule to that Act.

The Fourth Schedule provides, in paragraph 2, that where houses are ... in a state of defective sanitation, or not in reasonably good repair, the compensation shall be the estimated value of the premises if put into a sanitary condition, or reasonably good repair, less the estimated expense of putting them into such condition or repair. In practice, paragraph 4 of the Fourth Schedule has been very rarely invoked in arriving at assessment of compensation for the purposes to which it applies, the acquisition of houses under Part III other than unfit houses and the acquisition of houses under Part V. In practice, also, there is no greater difficulty—if the Committee will forgive me using the jargon in—valuing at market value "pink" houses than "grey" houses. It is as easy in one case as in the other to find analogous properties which have changed hands and to draw deductions of value from one to the other.

It might, therefore, well be the case that paragraph 2 of the Fourth Schedule would remain as ineffective in its application to the valuation of "pink" houses as it has hitherto been in its application to the valuation of "grey" houses and houses under Part V. Nevertheless, by this Bill we are applying the code of valuation designed for fit houses for the first time to a new purpose, namely, to the valuation under this Bill of houses which are recognised to be unfit, and which are being dealt with as unfit houses under Part III of the principal Act.

There is, therefore, some risk, which has been referred to by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, that this new application of the old code might revive—I might almost say might bring into use for the first time—this provision of the Fourth Schedule of the 1936 Act. The effect in certain cases might be to reduce the sum payable to the dispossessed owner-occupier to a figure not greatly in excess of site value, and possibly even less than site value.

It is to obviate that risk—no one at this stage can assess what the dimensions of the risk would have been—to eliminate that risk altogether that this Amendment is now proposed in the application of the 1936 Code to make the specific provision that paragraph 2 of the Fourth Schedule shall not be invoked and shall not be available.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Mitchison

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on arguing for some time a wholly unarguable case. The case he was putting forward was that the Government had behaved with moderate sense in this matter. Unfortunately, they have done nothing of the sort. They deliberately put into this Bill a reference to two subsections of one of the Sections of the Housing Act and imported in that way the Schedule that provides for compensation. We are now to leave out paragraph 2.

Let us remember what an insanitary house is. It is a house which is so defective that it is not fit to live in and cannot be made fit at any reasonable cost. That has always been taken to mean that it cannot be made fit at any cost which would make the result worth the money spent on it. It is what in the insurance world is called the constructive total loss. That is exactly what is meant by an insanitary house. Let us look at subsection 2: If the arbitrator is satisfied that any premises are in a state of defective sanitation…compensation shall be the estimated value of the premises if put into a sanitary condition…less the estimated expense of putting them into such condition… That would be a nil and minus figure. It arises from the nature of an insanitary house—

Mr. Powell

indicated dissent.

Mr. Mitchison

The hon. Gentleman may shake his head, but there is really no way out of that.

Worse than that, he is now trying to tell us it is quite true it is on the Statute Book, it is part of the law of the land and an arbitrator is bound to follow it, but, in practice, arbitrators always break the law. That, really, is what the hon. Gentleman said just now. He said that this provision is never applied. If it is not, somebody had better see what arbitrators are doing. The job of arbitrators is to carry out the law; it is ours to make it and the job of the Minister is to see that it is carried out administratively. The Minister should be the last person to say, "Here is a schedule on compensation. I am leaving out something now which is part of the law, but it does not really matter very much because no one ever kept to it before." That is about the worst sort of argument that could possibly be brought forward.

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman one or two things. As he knows perfectly well, we started this on Second Reading. We could not remedy it within the rules of order because it would mean that local authorities would have to pay more compensation and, therefore, there would have to be an addition to the Exchequer equalisation grant. A Money Resolution would have been required and has, in fact, been required to put it right. The matter was raised on Second Reading, but neglected entirely by the Government, who did not listen to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) or by their own supporter, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Rippon). They paid no attention but went on with the Money Resolution and then found that they had to introduce this Amendment.

There was another reason. I have always said that this Bill was very closely tied up with municipal elections. There was the pamphlet, "Local Elections 1956 Q. and A." It costs Is. 6d.—rather dear at the price and comes from the Conservative Research Department. We should remember that it came out before the supplementary Resolution, because this provision was made to put right what obviously was wrong before. It came out at the time when no arbitrator, therefore, could possibly have given the full market value for an insanitary house.

I hope that right hon. and hon. Members opposite will not object to being collectively described as a dog, but here is the tail and the tail is wagging the dog this time. The Conservative Research Department told us just before the local elections that under the Slum Clearance (Compensation) Bill, owner-occupiers of unfit houses who bought their houses since the outbreak of war in 1939, would, subject to certain qualifying conditions, get compensation based on current value for existing use.

They would not have got it if this Amendment were not there. They would not have got it at the time when this pamphlet was issued. They would not even have got it when the elections were held. Now steps are being taken to carry it out. The tail—the Conservative Party Research Department—has wagged that enormous dog that I see opposite me.

The hon. Gentleman knows all about the Conservative Party Research Department. I think that some of his past was spent there, and he knows all about quoting from the publications of the other side. He used to do it quite a short time ago. I will now tell him what is happening. He read this to see how his successors were doing, and he said, "That is what I wanted to do in the Bill." He looked at the Bill at long last, and discovered that he had not done it, and then perhaps, at long last, he remembered the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes, which he had so sadly neglected, and those of the hon. Member for Norwich. South.

At long last, there is another token of repentance following out the tail. The dog has moved, and the Amendment is at last introduced to do what the Conservative Party's Research Department, before it was introduced, said the Bill could then do. Well, well, what a state of affairs. What a bit of machinery. What a bit of a muddle. What an exhibition of hurried incompetence, just in time to catch "Questions and Answers" for the local elections of 1956, in which they did not do very well, after all, but that is not the subject matter of this Amendment.

Who can say that they did not try? They certainly did. The Research Department comes out in intelligent and hopeful anticipation, and the hon. Gentleman gets up today and moves the necessary Amendment. Of course, it is right. It is what we all want to do. I would only say to him that the next time he brings in a Bill and blows the trumpet, he should make quite certain that, at any rate, the Bill can do what he wants it to do before he moves the Second Reading. For the third time, I would say to him that he should never neglect the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes, who knows a great deal about local government, because the hon. Gentleman would be very foolish to neglect them.

Mr. James MacColl (Widnes)

I do not rise to thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) for his entirely unsolicited testimonial, but because I think that here there really is a very shocking state of affairs. It is wrong that a party pamphlet, if pamphlet it be, should apparently foreshadow legislation in this House.

Mr. Powell

Why is that wrong?

Mr. MacColl

Because I have always understood that we who are elected to this House were supposed, in the light of our own judgment, to pass our opinions and make our own decisions on these matters. I thought we were supposed to make perfectly clear what we thought, and, certainly, I was not under the impression that, at any rate on this side of the House, instead of being free and independent people, we were the lackeys of any party organisation. Nor are we accustomed to take our points of view from the election literature which anticipates what is going to happen.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I think that my hon. and learned Friend was a little too charitable to the Parliamentary Secretary. My hon. and learned Friend said that the hon. Gentleman had ignored my humble contribution upstairs, but the hon. Gentleman did not do that. He uttered words which I think deserve a wider public than they got, and, therefore, with permission, I will read them. The hon. Gentleman said: The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) was quite right "— That ought to be underlined. It ought to be known that the hon. Gentleman conceded that. He went on—

"in denying, and it has never been claimed, that the effect of the Bill is to make market value payable for these houses."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 19th April, 1956, c. 88.] The hon. Gentleman, with that unfortunate clarity of mind which so ill equips him to be a junior Minister in a Conservative Government, had seen through the facade of political bunkum which has surrounded this Bill. He saw quite clearly that it amounted to very little indeed, and that it did not do what people generally said it was intended to do—provide market value compensation. The hon. Gentleman knew on 19th April that the Bill did not provide market value compensation, although apparently the Conservative Party Research Department was under the impression that it did, and no doubt even the printing machines were grinding out the nonsense which was subsequently pushed on to the unfortunate electors.

It must have been subsequently that somebody, reading through the proceedings of Standing Committee B, discovered that what the hon. Gentleman had said, or the explanation of the Bill which was being given, was quite different from what, in fact, the Conservative Party was trying to pretend to the electors that it was doing. Therefore, one or the other had to give way, and it was not the Conservative Party outside which gave way, but the Government who gave way—the same Government who had been quite indifferent to the pleas of the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Rippon) and quite indifferent to pleas made by hon. Members on this side of the House both on Second Reading and in Committee, and which had refused to budge on this question at all. Suddenly, something happened which caused them to change their minds so quickly, and one could have a shrewd suspicion that my guess as to what happened was about right.

I do not know how this is going to work. My hon. and learned Friend, with his great wisdom and experience, thinks it will work well, but the Government are floundering about in an extraordinary mess. Somebody in the nineteenth century produced a very apt remark, which every student who has to answer a paper on the British constitution trots out in his answer, to the effect that Parliament can do anything except turn a man into a woman. The hon. Gentleman is not trying to turn a man into a woman, but I think he is trying to do something equally arrogant. He is trying to turn pink into grey.

I do not see how we can alter the colour of property simply by changing legislation in this way. "Grey" property under a clearance order is property which is fit to live in; "pink" property is unfit to live in. Therefore, we cannot change the property itself simply by saying that, for the purposes of this Act, pink will be grey, that if an owner-ocupier happens to be in possession of a house we shall call it "grey" property, whereas the house next door, where we have not got an owner-occupier, will be called "pink" property. It will cause the most extraordinary administrative problems. Would it not be so very much simpler and straight forward and honest to tell these people that they are to have an ex gratia payment which will not be wrapped up and represented to be the value of the property, because it does not, in fact, represent the value of the property?

In the discussion upstairs, the hon. Gentleman quite clearly said that it was impossible to talk about the market value of the property. It is not the market value that is being given, but an ex gratia payment, and it would be much simpler to call it that, and not try to mess up and distort legislation which is already complicated enough to deal with special cases which are recognised as unlikely to be very numerous, but which, I gather from what the hon. Gentleman said on Second Reading, will be cases which will require sympathetic help.

The hon. Gentleman said that it was possible to find out the market value of "pink" property by looking at the transactions which were taking place, but what sort of transactions are taking place in "pink" property? We are at once in an atmosphere of black market, of "spivs," of the person who tries to take advantage of an innocent purchaser, because nobody consciously and willingly buys slum property unless he is a rogue trying to get something out of it for himself, or an innocent person who is being deceived by somebody who is hiding the essential facts about it.

7.0 p.m.

Is the valuer going to dig about in this somewhat murky market of rather bogus transactions in slum property and try to get a fair price out of them? It will not only be an extraordinarily degrading occupation but it will also be an extraordinarily unfair one, because it will create widely different prices in different parts of the country. In some cases, where there is a lot of "pink" property, presumably there will be different levels of prices from those in areas where there is tight control and where there are not many dealings in such property.

It seems to me that the Government will get themselves into very great difficulties. However, that is their look-out. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that the general principle and motive behind the Amendment are good, as far as they are not linked simply with the more ineffective side of local party politics. The idea of giving fair play to owner-occupiers is reasonable, and, therefore. I will not resist the Amendment, although I must say, in conclusion, that it will lead to considerable complications.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported. with Amendments; as amended (in the Standing Committee and on recommittal), considered.