BASE VALUE OF OWNER-OCCUPIED DWELLING HOUSE (Hansard, 14 May 1969)

§ Mr. Peter Walker
I beg to move Amendment No. 17, in page 54, line 41, leave out from 'paragraph' to 'if' in line 42 and insert: '5 above "the market value of the relevant interest" shall be substituted for all the words after "equal to"'. This Amendment may appear complicated, but it is simple in its effects in that it removes from betterment levy the owner-occupied house. There is no need for me to recite the many hardship cases which are involved, since we have heard about them in earlier discussions.
1532 I refer to one particular case which has been previously mentioned by the Minister. The Minister has said that so far an assessment has not been made by the Land Commission. This case has been given prominence in both the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express. It involves a Mr. Dutt, who sold his house for £15,000. He now expects, if an assessment made by the district valuer is upheld, to pay a betterment levy of £1,160.
Mr. Dutt's property occupies only five-eights of an acre, and the new owner has give a written assurance that he does not intend to carry out development. The borough council has indicated that any application for planning consent will be refused. Despite these facts, Mr. Dutt is to be charged, or could be charged if the district valuer's assessment is upheld, a betterment levy.
This shows the absurdity of the effects of the Bill on the owner-occupier. The Minister has quoted in his defence the example of the man with a large estate with large gardens consisting of many acres which may be developed as a housing estate. Later in the Bill we hope to move Amendments to establish one acre as the limit which would apply.
The Committee would be wise to agree that owner-occupiers with an acre or less of ground should be totally exempt from betterment levy. If this is not achieved, many owner-occupiers will remain in an uncertain position.
The Minister has said that perhaps eventually Mr. Dutt may find that he will not have to pay betterment levy. It is appalling that an owner-occupier who has sold his house for £15,000 to somebody who does not wish to develop it, with the local authority having refused planning permission, must go through months of doubt before he knows whether or not he will have to pay betterment levy. Therefore, I suggest that the Minister and the Committee would be wise to support this simple Amendment which seeks to exclude the owner-occupier from the provisions of the betterment levy.

§ Mr. Murton
I should like to reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) said about the owner-occupier. So far this evening I have refrained from quoting actual cases, but I am sure that the 1533 Committee will bear with me if I mention one, because this strikes at the root of the problem which we are discussing.
I have in my constituency an old-age pensioner aged 76. He has recently moved into the Borough of Poole from another part of the country, Waltham Abbey, Essex. He wrote to me, saying: I was contacted by the Greater London Council to purchase our seven-roomed detached house and quarter-acre of land in a very beautiful condition"— he underlines the words "very beautiful condition"— for demolition to make a road into a council estate of 12,000 houses (to be built). I imagine that he means 1,200 houses. Nevertheless, he continues: We did not want to leave Waltham Abbey, but, being afraid of the compulsory purchase order which they hand out, we settled for £8,000 in November, 1967. He wrote to me in considerable distress. He has bought a bungalow in Poole—I know from the address that it must have cost practically all the money which he obtained by what one can only call the forced sale of his original house—and he is now faced with a demand by the Land Commission for a considerable sum by way of betterment levy.
This has been going on for some time. He had the good sense to consult a solicitor, who has been in negotiation about his case, and eventually he wrote to me. I wrote asking whether he allowed a compulsory purchase order to be made. He replied: No; but the threat of it was in my mind as the negotiations were going on for two or more years. It is disgraceful that a man of 76 years of age, living with his wife perfectly happily in a house for most of his life, should have the threat of a compulsory purchase order hanging over his head for two years, with a great local authority breathing down the back of his neck wanting to destroy his house, possibly for the benefit of an estate which it intended to build, and then, when he eventually gives way, accepts what he considers a good price, moves away and spends the money settling down again, should be faced with having to pay a levy.
I instance this as one of many cases which hon. Members on both sides of the Committee could produce to reinforce my hon. Friend's argument and to show 1534 how important it is that the Amendment should be accepted by the Government, even at this late hour and after the obduracy which they have shown on previous occasions to exempt the owner-occupier from this dreadful threat which hangs over his head. Some people call it a tax, others call it a levy, but in any event it means taking money out of the pockets of people who can ill-afford to spare it.

§ Mr. K. Robinson
As the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) rightly said, the Amendment would give complete exemption from levy to residential owner-occupiers on sales of their main residences within the limitation of size and prices. The argument that all sales or leases of owner-occupied dwelling houses should be exempt from betterment levy has been raised on many occasions.