Second Schedule.—(ACQUISITION OF HOUSES AS BEING UNFIT FOR HUMAN HABITATION.) (Hansard, 23 March 1959)

HC Deb 23 March 1959 vol 602 cc1069-84 1069

§ Amendments made: In page 63, line 43, leave out from "paragraph" to "appropriate" in line 44.

§ In line 47, at end insert:

§ 3.—(1) The provisions of this paragraph shall have effect in relation to any compulsory acquisition to which section one of this Act applies where—

(a) the relevant land consists of or includes the whole or part of a house (in this paragraph referred to as "the relevant house") and, on the date of the making of the compulsory purchase order in pursuance of which the acquisition is effected, the person then entitled to the relevant interest was, in right of that interest, in occupation of the relevant house or part thereof as a private dwelling, and
(b) that person either continues, on the date of service of the notice to treat, to be entitled to the relevant interest, or, if he has died before that date, continued to be entitled to that interest immediately before his death, and
(c) the acquisition is under the Act of 1957, in such circumstances that any of the provisions of that Act as to compulsory purchase at site value have effect in relation to the acquisition, or is an acquisition, in connection with which an order is made and confirmed under the last preceding paragraph in respect of the relevant house.

In the following provisions of this paragraph any reference to "the dwelling" is a reference to so much of the relevant house as the person referred to in head (a) of this subparagraph occupied as therein mentioned.

§ (2) Subject to the next following sub-paragraph, if the amount of the compensation payable in respect of the acquisition of the relevant interest would, apart from this paragraph, be less than the gross value of the dwelling, the amount of the compensation payable in respect of the acquisition of that interest shall be an amount equal to the gross value of the dwelling.

§ (3) Where any payment to which this subparagraph applies is payable, any reference in the last preceding sub-paragraph to the amount of the compensation payable in respect of the acquisition of the relevant interest shall 1070 be construed as a reference to the aggregate of that amount and of the amount of the payment (or, if more than one, of the amounts of the payments) to which this sub-paragraph applies.

§ (4) The last preceding sub-paragraph applies—

(a) to any payment under section thirty or section sixty of the Act of 1957, in so far as it falls to be made to the person entitled to the relevant interest and is attributable to the relevant house;
(b) to any payment which falls to be made in respect of the relevant interest under Part II of the Second Schedule to the Act of 1957.

§ (5) For the purposes of this paragraph the gross value of the dwelling shall be determined as follows: —

(a) if the dwelling constitutes the whole of the relevant house, the gross value of the dwelling shall be taken to be the value which, on the date of service of the notice to treat, is shown in the valuation list then in force as the gross value of that house for rating purposes;
(b) if the dwelling is only part of the relevant house, an apportionment shall he made by the valuation officer of the gross value of the relevant house for rating purposes, as shown in the valuation list in force on the date of service of the notice to treat, and the gross value of the dwelling shall be taken to be the amount certified by the valuation officer as being the amount which, on such an apportionment, is properly attributable to the dwelling.

§ (6) Any reference in this paragraph to the compensation payable in respect of the acquisition of the relevant interest shall be construed as excluding so much (if any) of that compensation as is attributable to disturbance or to severance or injurious affection.

§ (7) In this paragraph "the valuation officer" has the same meaning as in Part III of the Local Government Act, 1948.—[Mr. H. Brooke.]

§ Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley
I beg to move, in page 64, line 25, at the end, to insert: 5. Where houses are acquired as being unfit for human habitation in pursuance of this part of the Act and the acquiring authority allows the tenants to remain in such houses pending demolition, the authority shall account to the owners of the land from whom the houses were compulsorily acquired for the net amount of the rents received after deducting the cost of repairs and insurance and a management charge not exceeding seven and a half per cent. of the gross rent. The Amendment provides that where a local authority has acquired houses as being unfit for human habitation and then allowed the tenants to continue living there while continuing to collect rents from them, pending the demolition of the houses, the local authority shall be 1071 required to account to the former owners of the property for the net rents it receives, after deducting the cost of repairs, insurance and rates.
My hon. Friends and I put down this Amendment because we have heard of local authorities which have condemned houses as being unfit for human habitation and have then allowed them to remain in habitation for one reason or another, while continuing to collect the rents and receive very much more in a single year than they paid by way of compensation to the late owners. I will not weary the Committee with too many details, but in regard to Birmingham many cases have been brought to our attention of houses which have been condemned, and where the confirmation of the order by the Ministry has resulted in the freeholder receiving the site value and the leaseholder having to transfer his interest in the property to the Corporation for a token payment of £1.
A specific case which has been brought to our notice of seven houses which were sold under a lease which had 23 years to run at the time of the service of notice to treat, which produced together a gross rent of £220 a year and a net rent of £121 a year, after deduction of the ground rent, rates and other outgoings. The Corporation acquired those seven houses compulsorily and has collected rents on them since November, 1957, although it has neither reconditioned them nor commenced to pull them down. The compensation offered was only £1. The district valuer has disallowed additional payments under Section 35 of the 1954 Act, on the ground that in 1947 it could not possibly have been foreseen that this type of property would have been condemned.
Another example comes from Stoke-on-Trent. Here notices to treat were served at the end of 1957 in respect of property comprised in a clearance area, and notices of entry were served at the same time. It is true that interest is payable from the date of the expiry of the notice of entry but, even so, the compensation and the interest together are less than the net rents which the local authority has received since it took possession. In this case, as in the Birmingham cases, the local authority is, in effect, profiting financially from its own delay in re-housing tenants.
1072 I do not think anyone would say that in those cases the local authorities should be allowed to do that. I hope that the Minister will agree that something ought to be done about it, something on the lines of the new clause standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Eric Errington) and myself.

§ Mr. Mitchison
Is it the intention and the effect of the Amendment that the profits to which the hon. Gentleman has referred should be handed over, after certain deductions, to people who are no longer the owners of the house, who have received compensation in respect of their acquisition?

§ Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley
What I seek to do is to say that the owners should require the authority which has taken the house compulsorily to act as agents for the former owners, and to account to the former owners for the net rents they receive, that is, for the gross rents after deducting insurance, cost of repairs and a management charge not exceeding 7½ per cent.

§ Mr. McInnes
I was somewhat surprised when I observed on the Order Paper the new Clause dealing with unfit houses. The hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley) represents a Scottish constituency, and I assume he has no knowledge of such conditions existing in Scotland. Therefore, I take it that the new Clause would apply only to England and Wales. I think that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland would confirm my submission that there is no local authority in Scotland which, having taken the necessary step in respect of these unfit houses, would attempt to seek to extract rents from the tenants for many months or, as in the case of Birmingham, for at least two years. I should like to know from the hon. Member if his intention is that this provision should apply to Scotland.

§ Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley
I do not think any harm would be done if the new Clause were applied universally.

§ Mr. Brooke
I am glad to hear that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) condemns the practice which my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley) is seeking to render illegal. If I cannot 1073 advise the Committee to accept the new Clause, it is not because I fail to recognise the importance of this issue. It is small in extent, but it is something which ought not to be ignored, and in a moment I will suggest what may be a better approach.
Subject to one proviso, the statutory position is that a local authority which acquires an unfit house has a statutory duty to cause it to be vacated as soon as may be, and to secure the demolition of the house. That involves re-housing the tenants. Whatever the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) may say, it is repugnant to the ordinary sense of justice for a local authority to acquire a house at site value and then proceed to collect £50 or £100 in rent from the house over a period without paying that money back into the house before it is demolished.

§ Mr. Mitchison
I do not know why the Minister mentions me. I said nothing about that aspect of the matter. I asked whether it was the intention of the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley) that the profits should be handed over to people who are no longer the owners of the house and who had received compensation for it.

§ 12 midnight.

§ Mr. Brooke
They would have received site value compensation.
If I understood my hon. Friend aright, he was not necessarily criticising an authority which collected rents and put them back into the houses by doing necessary repairs. He was concerned with the action of the authority—and there have been a few examples of this kind—in a case where, apparently, after compensation had been paid for the acquisition of the house, and paid on a site basis, so that there was nothing for the house, the authority proceeded to collect and pocket the rent for the house.

§ Mr. MacColl
Presumably that money went into the authority's housing revenue account.

§ Mr. Brooke
I think it would go into the housing revenue account. I was personalizing the local authority for the moment.
A practice of that kind—putting the rents into the housing revenue account after compensation had been paid for the 1074 acquisition—is certainly not necessary under the Housing Acts, nor, in my submission, is it justifiable. The right course is for the re-housing of the occupants to take place before the acquisition of the house.
Let me "come clean" and say that. although in a past existence I have criticised the London County Council—the largest housing authority in the country so far as I know—it invariably follows the course of rehousing the occupants before acquiring the property. As my hon. Friend has said, there have been a few cases where local authorities seem to have followed the other course. In fairness, I must say that since I have been Minister, when I have arranged for the attention of such local authorities to be drawn to the undesirability of the practice, they have in the main acceded to a suggestion of that kind and altered their practice to something more commendable.
After this debate I propose to send a circular to all local authorities in England and Wales setting out the views which I have been expounding to the Committee, explaining the proper procedure, and suggesting in firm terms that it should be followed. I think it justifiable to assert that when local authorities receive such a circular making perfectly plain what is the correct procedure, they will on the whole adopt that practice.
If I do not accept my hon. Friend's Amendment, one of my reasons is that I am doubtful whether it would be effective. Judging by the character of this property, I think that most local authorities would get round the plan of the Amendment by putting money back into the house so that in fact there would be no surplus. Though that would not be an undesirable result, it is not the aim of my hon. Friend in moving this Amendment. He wishes to induce local authorities to act as they should, and delay the acquisition of the house until it has been vacated. There is a further consideration. In the 1954 Act, and what is now Section 48 of the 1957 Act, provision is made for patching. Now local authorities have the power to defer demolition of houses which, in the opinion of the authority, are, or can be, rendered capable of providing accommodation of a standard adequate for the time being.
1075 It is common knowledge that Birmingham has been in the forefront of those local authorities which use the patching procedure, and when I heard my hon. Friend mention Birmingham, I was a little surprised. I should have thought it the normal procedure of the Birmingham Corporation on acquiring houses of this character not to demolish but to patch them, as that would be a reasonable course to pursue in the case of a local authority with such a large slum clearance programme. I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate that if one were to legislate on this matter, one would have to make provision for those authorities which adopt that procedure.
I hope that legislation will not be necessary; it would certainly be more complicated than this Amendment. If local authorities on receiving this circular were still obdurate and took no notice of it, but insisted on continuing to follow a practice which did not commend itself to the House of Commons, then, maybe, legislation would become necessary. But I do not think that situation will arise. I ask my hon. Friend to accept from me that I have every intention of sending out a circular on the lines I have indicated, and I sincerely believe that that will achieve the object he has in mind.

§ Mr. MacColl
The right hon. Gentleman used the phrase, "patching might he reasonable". In a Bill which is dedicated to wiping up as many blunders of the Prime Minister as can be wiped up, it is a little disingenuous for the Minister to describe one of the brightest jewels in the Prime Minister's crown—the inventing of patching—as a mere makeshift to be used only by local authorities after a careful examination by the Minister to see that they do not abuse it.
Why were local authorities invited by circulars to use the patching procedure? Surely it was because the Prime Minister thought it desirable that it should be done? I thought the right hon. Gentleman once again went out of his way to be offensive to local housing authorities in talking about them being obdurate. This is another example of his hostility to them, which comes out the whole time.
As far as I could see, we have no evidence at all that any of these authorities which have been criticised in this way are not in fact acting in accordance with 1076 powers under the Housing Act, 1957, particularly Section 48. If they are not acting under that Section, surely they are under a legal duty to demolish the houses and vacate the land under Section 47. I presume that it would be possible for the Minister or someone to apply for a prerogative writ to compel them to do so. Why does the Minister need any more powers than already exist? Does he know of any cases where action is not taken under Section 48?

§ Mr. Mitchison
I too want to say something on this Amendment. I can judge it only by what it purports to do. It purports to hand over certain sums of money, described by the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley) as profits, to people who have sold their houses and been compensated in full, adequately or inadequately, for those houses. To say one can act as agent for owners when the people whose agent one is supposed to be—but, incidentally, whose agent one is not—are no longer owners, betrays a confusion of mind I should never expect even in a chartered surveyor.
The Amendment makes a most monstrous proposition. It is the extension of a little more money at any time within five years to a case where that particular principle has absolutely no grounds of application at all. If I may say so, it is some Shylockesque Amendment in favour of the owners of slum property, and nothing less.
The Minister's proposed circular calls for a few comments. I agree with what my hon. Friend has just said about the fact that what has happened in Birmingham has happened under the famous "patching legislation" introduced by the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Prime Minister; but there is no hon. Member for Birmingham here at the moment. I looked for the people who are supposed to compose the "we" to whom the hon. Member for North Angus (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley) referred on several occasions during his speech and I can only assume that he was referring to those hon. Members whose names appear on the Order Paper. None of them, so far as I can see, is an hon. Member from Birmingham or Stoke-on-Trent. I cannot see who the "we," in quotation marks, are supposed to be unless what I assume is right.
1077 The Minister's proposed circular has some resemblance to that circular which was sent to local authorities urging them to try to re-house people who were unfortunate enough to have been turned out of their homes by the operation of the Rent Act. When, however, the right hon. Gentleman spoke of re-housing people, he should remember that he has made it very hard for local authorities to play their part. One of his achievements as Minister of Housing and Local Government has been to succeed in reducing, year by year, the number of houses which local authorities can build. He has entirely ceased to build, or even to designate, any new towns, and has lowered to an unprecedented level the building of houses by public authorities.
Having done all that as part of his functions, I hope that he will not now urge local authorities to re-house people whose re-housing has been made into a very difficult problem. I can only hope that the principles which he has in mind is right. There is no evidence that the local authorities have violated any of the Regulations which the Minister has issued, and what he now proposes, while doing no particular good, will I suppose do no particular harm.

§ Mr. Ross
It is interesting to hear a Scottish hon. Member advancing reasons for amending a Schedule which relates to England and Wales and particularly to places like Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent. I commend him for his researches, if not always for his accuracy. The fact is that hon. Members opposite really are showing a desire, whether they believe it or not, of being labelled as friends of the landlords. Of course, they deny it, but there can be no doubt about it if one looks at this Amendment. The Minister, I thought, gave a very generous and sympathetic interpretation of the wishes of his hon. Friends by saying that he hoped that local authorities would delay acquisition until the houses were actually vacated. I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that I have read and re-read the Amendment and, with all respect to him, it says nothing of the kind; and there was nothing in the speech of the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley), when he addressed himself to the Amendment, that had anything to do with delaying action.
1078 The hon. Member spoke of unfairness to the former owners of this property acquired because it was unfit for human habitation, and also drew attention to the fact that profits were still being made out of it; and incidentally added that, if there was a profit, it should go to the former owners. There was no word of consideration at all in respect of anything for the tenants. I thought there was a reasonable moral issue here that, if the house was unfit for human habitation, no one should be making a profit out of it.
12.15 a.m.
I wish that the right hon. Gentleman had been a little more forthcoming about that. He nearly got on to the right course, but he turned down the suggestion for all the wrong reasons. His wrong reasons were not related, I am sure, to his sincerity, but to his wish to let his hon. Friend down lightly. This deplorable suggestion is one which I certainly shall not forget, especially when I shall be addressing people shortly in Scotland about the activities of hon. Gentlemen opposite.

§ Mr. Page
Does the hon. Gentleman really think it is a deplorable suggestion that, if for a nominal sum a local authority has acquired property as unfit for human habitation, saying that it is unfit, and then continues to let it, in sheer hypocrisy over the matter of unfitness, collecting a rent from it for two years, in the example my hon. Friend gave—

§ Mr. MacColl
Surely, the point is that if that is happening, it is against the law. That is against the Housing Act, as the hon. Gentleman agrees. What he is really saying is that, provided the landlord has his share of the booty, it does not matter that the law is disregarded. That is a most astonishing morality. If it is wrong to have the houses occupied at all, steps should be taken to see that the law is enforced, but, the hon. Gentleman says, it is quite all right so long as the booty is shared with the old owner of the property. That is really quite amazing.

§ Mr. Page
The hon. Member is putting words into my mouth which I have not said. I have not said what I wanted to say yet. I was merely asking a rhetorical question of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross).

§ Mr. Ross
May I answer it, then?

1079

§ Mr. Page
It was a rhetorical question, and I had not even finished it.

§ Mr. Ross
Surely, if the hon. Gentleman objects to words being put, as he says, into his mouth by my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), I have a right to object to his asking me a question and then telling me it is rhetorical. He is obviously wanting to put the answer into my mouth. I thought I had made it perfectly plain that I am entirely opposed to profits being made out of houses which are unfit for human habitation. I am not concerned about who is taking the rent. It is wrong. The Minister is right to do what he can and to say clearly that that is how he feels about it, getting the people out, having them rehoused, and pulling the unfit houses down.

§ Mr. Page
I am very much in agreement with the hon. Member, and I was about to say that. If these houses really are unfit for human habitation, then the tenants should be found other accommodation and should be moved. It is quite wrong for the local authorities to continue to let really unfit houses to tenants.
But, of course, in many cases, the houses are not unfit as the ordinary person would understand that term, as I said earlier in discussing Section 4. The excuse is used under that Section to say that houses are unfit for human habitation, and the owner I use the word "owner" deliberately, not trying to hide behind "owner-occupier" or anything like that—is given site value. The local authority continues to let the houses, and it lets them because they are not really unfit.

§ Mr. McInnes
The owner has a right of appeal.

§ Mr. Page
Not after the compulsory purchase order is through and the authority purchases the property from him.

§ Mr. McInnes
Of course, the question of the compulsory purchase order arises, and, on the representation that a house is unfit, there is a certain procedure to be gone through by the local authority. At that stage, the owner has a right of appeal.

§ Mr. Page
I shall not quote Section 4 again. It has been quoted already. Very 1080 many of these houses can be said to be unfit under the wording of that Section, yet they do, in fact, provide very good homes. The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) talked about a confusion of mind on the part of my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley), but there was a shocking and complete confusion in his own mind. He spoke of compensation for the house. Of course, the owner is not given compensation for the house in these cases. It is taken from him as unfit, and all he is given is compensation for the site. That is what we complain about.
Compensation is given for the site. The house is then let as being fit and the local authority takes the rent. That must be unfair, and it is quite right that my right hon. Friend should tell local authorities, "Either you rehouse the tenants at once or else you should not take the property, and, if you do, then you should treat it as still being the property of the owner from the point of view of rent."

§ Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley
It would be great fun to continue this debate, but it would be even more fun to go home to bed. I am very satisfied with my right hon. Friend's answer. I do not care how the thing is done so long as it is done somehow. I think that my right hon. Friend's suggestion of a Ministerial circular with a threat behind it would be a very good thing. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Amendments made: In page 64, line 26, after "Schedule," insert "'house' has the meaning assigned to it by section one hundred and eighty-nine of the Act of 1957, and".—[Mr. Brooke.]

§ In page 66, line 1, leave out from "paragraph" to "appropriate" in line 2.—[Mr. N. Macpherson.]

§ Amendment proposed: In page 66, line 5, at end insert:

§ 2.—(1) The provisions of this paragraph shall have effect in relation to any compulsory acquisition to which section one of this Act applies where

(a) the relevant land consists of or includes the whole or part of a house (in this paragraph referred to as "the relevant house") and, on the date of the making of the compulsory purchase order in pursuance of which the acquisition is effected, the person then entitled to the 1081 relevant interest was, in right of that interest, in occupation of the relevant house or part thereof as a private dwelling, and
(b) that person either continues, on the date of service of the notice to treat, to be entitled to the relevant interest, or, if he has died before that date, continued to be entitled to that interest immediately before his death, and
(c) the acquisition is under the Act of 1950, in such circumstances that any of the following provisions of that Act, that is to say, subsection (2) of section twelve, subsection (4) of section seventeen, and subsection (2) of section thirty-six (which relates to compensation at site value) have effect in relation to the acquisition, or is an acquisition in connection with which an order is made and confirmed under the last preceding paragraph in respect of the relevant house.

§ (2) Subject to the next following sub-paragraph, if the amount of the compensation payable in respect of the acquisition of the relevant interest would, apart from this paragraph, be less than the gross annual value of the dwelling, the amount of the compensation payable in respect of the acquisition of that interest shall be an amount equal to the gross annual value of the dwelling.

§ (3) Where a payment falls to be made under section forty of the Act of 1950 to the person entitled to the relevant interest, and that payment is attribuable to the relevant house, any reference in the last preceding sub-paragraph to the amount of compensation payable in respect of the acquisition of the relevant interest shall he construed as a reference to the aggregate of that amount and of the amount of the payment.

§ (4) For the purposes of this paragraph the gross annual value of the dwelling shall be de-ermined as follows:—

(a) if the dwelling constitutes the whole of the relevant house, the gross annual value of the dwelling shall be taken to be the value which, on the date of service of the notice to treat, is shown in the valuation roll then in force as the gross annual value of that house for rating purposes;
(b) if the dwelling is only part of the relevant house, an apportionment shall be made of the gross annual value of the relevant house for rating purposes, as shown in the valuation roll in force on the date of service of the notice to treat, and the gross annual value of the dwelling shall he taken to be the amount which, on such an apportionment, is properly attributable to the dwelling.

§ (5) Any reference in this paragraph to the compensation payable in respect of the acquisition of the relevant interest shall be construed as excluding so much (if any) of that 1082 compensation as is attributable to disturbance or to severance or injurious affection.

§ (6) Nothing in this paragraph shall affect the amount which is to be taken for the purposes of section sixty-two of the Scottish Act of 1954 (which relates to the consideration payable for the discharge of land from feu duty and other incumbrances) as the amount of the compensation payable in respect of the acquisition of the relevant interest.—[Mr. N Macpherson.]

§ Mr. Ross
I was hoping that we should get some explanation of this Amendment. I know that there is a suggestion that it was touched upon earlier, but we did not have a full discussion.

The Chairman
Yes, we did. I was in the Chair myself when the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield) moved his new Clause, and this was one of the Amendments discussed then.

§ Mr. Ross
It was not mentioned.

The Chairman
It may not have been mentioned, but the hon. Member was there.

§ Amendment agreed to.

§ Further Amendment made: In line 36, at end insert: (3) In this paragraph "hereditament" has the same meaning as in the War Damage Act, 1943.—[Mr. N. Macpherson.]

§ Amendment proposed: In page 66, line 38, at end insert: 'house' has the meaning assigned to it by section one hundred and eighty-four of that Act".—[Mr. N. Macpherson.]

§ Mr. Ross
I wish to say—

The Chairman
This Amendment has also been discussed. I was in the Chair myself. If the hon. Member takes objection, it is not my affair.

§ Amendment agreed to.

§ Further Amendment made: In page 66, leave out lines 39 and 40.—[Mr. N. Macpherson.]

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Schedule, as amended, be the Second Schedule to the Bill.

§ Mr. Ross
I do not think that we have discussed this matter. I do not propose to make a very long speech, although I certainly could. Anyone who looks at the Second Schedule will appreciate that it constitutes a very considerable matter on which we could talk at very great length.

1083

§ Mr. Thomas Fraser (Hamilton)
Why not read it?

§ Mr. Ross
I could read it; I could do all sorts of things, but I only want to ask a fairly simple question which I thought might have been in order earlier. However, I can ask it now. I want to know what will be the effect of the Amendments we have passed to the Schedule and, in particular, in respect of subsection (6) which has been added in page 66, line 5, and whether or not what the Government have done there is consistent with their attitude to the land superior in all other parts of the Bill. I rose really to congratulate the Government, if I read the Schedule aright as it stands, on the fact that they have taken one case where they do not have the opportunity of assisting the land superior. I only want to know whether I am right in my assumption in that respect.
The Joint Under-Secretary went out of his way to deny improvement in the position of the land superior in the calculation whether the discharge of feu-duty and other incumbrances had been purchased. I should like to know whether I am right on that.
I should like to know, too, what exactly has been the effect upon the whole Schedule of the change made to the meaning of the word "house." It was defined by the Act of 1950, and now, as the Schedule has been amended, it is defined by the War Damage Act, 1943.
I have another 64 questions, but in view of the fact that it is fairly late I propose to leave it at that for the moment. We may have an opportunity on Report further to discover just exactly what this Schedule means.

1084

§ Mr. N. Macpherson
The reason why the superior is excluded—

§ Mr. Ross
He is excluded?

§ Mr. Macpherson
Yes, he is excluded—is because the whole purpose of the Amendment was to benefit the owner, and, therefore, the superior is excluded by the new paragraph 2 (6). Had the decision been to give assistance in this case by way of compensation, of course it would have been additional compensation for purchase of the house, and then, of course, that would have been liable to have been taken up by burdens of various amounts. That is why this procedure has been adopted, so as to make certain that the benefit goes where it was intended. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman's first point.
The answer to his second point is simply that the definition of the word "house" is transferred because this provision makes reference to houses within the meaning of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1950. It is appropriate to transfer the definition of "house" from paragraph 1 (6) where it is at present to paragraph 4 which contains the definition applicable to Part II of the Schedule.

§ Question put and agreed to.

§ Schedule, as amended, agreed to.