§ Report from the Select Committee considered (according to Order).
§ LORD HALSBURYMy Lords, your Lordships will remember the position in which the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees and the Committee of your Lordships' House which has been sitting on this subject were placed by a Resolution which was passed last Session, that the House desired to express its opinion that the proposal for assessing capital values instead of annual values, and for creating new and arbitrarily defined areas of taxation, such as was contained in Clause 41 of the Bill, ought not to be embodied in a Private Bill, but if found just and equitable should be dealt with by the whole House. Although, as a matter of fact, that Resolution was neither a Standing Order nor a Sessional Order, it would have been impossible for any Committee of this House, after it had been passed, to have felt themselves justified in treating any Bill coming within the ambit of that Resolution, and containing such a clause, as one which could be entertained. Accordingly, that course was pursued. The Chairman of Committees, as your Lordships will remember, brought the matter to your Lordships' attention again this Session, and accordingly a Committee was appointed which, in the absence of any General Order dealing with this matter, it was thought ought to have, at all events, the means of dealing with this system of taxation if it could be found practicable to do it, provided certain safeguards were established with regard to 337 the principle contained in such a Bill. With one slight exception, to which I will refer presently, I am happy to say that the Committee have unanimously arrived at a conclusion which will be satisfactory to your Lordships, and without attempting to go through any of these difficult theories of betterment I think I may say that the general principle of obtaining, if possible, for a Local Authority some part of the profit which is made out of their own expenditure, has been affirmed as not only possible but as not being unjust. I think it only right, my Lords, to say that I think the alarm created by the principle which was originally put forward has been to a great extent mitigated by the evidence placed before the Committee, and as shown by the conclusions at which they have arrived. No doubt there was a certain alarm felt at first at the notion that large areas were to be taxed, and that there might be possibly some evasion of that taxation by persons within that area without incurring very serious expense or responsibility. I think the London County Council, who have been foremost in this matter, have explained, by their authorised officer, that it was a mistake to suppose that they were desirous of having any area of taxation. What they desired was that they should have a power to tax owners, but that each individual owner should himself have the right and be entitled to contest the additional taxation placed upon him before some tribunal. Whether the particular tribunal suggested was one which your Lordships would entirely approve of is not to the point; but at all events that was the explanation in view of there having been such an alarm as was undoubtedly felt at one time, because they had drawn certain areas on the maps which, according to their explanation, were not strictly areas of taxation at all, but were rather areas of exclusion—that is to say, that no person outside the lines drawn could be made to pay this additional taxation, but that their intention was—and they desired Parliament to give effect to that intention—that each particular person whose property was affected or involved in this Betterment charge should himself have individually the right to contest it. That, I think, removed a difficulty in the minds of some of the noble Lords who 338 formed the Committee; at all events, they have formed the conclusions which your Lordships will see set forth in the Report, and accordingly it is my duty to move that your Lordships do now agree with those recommendations. My Lords, I should say one word with reference to the phrase which occurs in the Resolution, and which I believe the Duke of Argyll took exception to; it is that in which the Committee have professed to define what Betterment really is. I think I may say on behalf of the Committee that it was not proposing to lay down any theoretic view or enunciation of what Betterment was, but that it was using that word in its ordinary recognised sense. They used that language in reference to a proposal which they were about to make, but I shall certainly not suppose that any noble Lord would be bound by the exact definition of Betterment which they have given. The Committee understood I think thoroughly what they were dealing with, and I do not consider that the word as used by them was intended to be an exhaustive definition at all. At all events, it will probably be enough for practical purposes to say that that word should be used in reference to the precautions now recommended by the Committee, and with the exception of the one point which I now propose to say a word upon the Committee have unanimously agreed to the rest of these resolutions. That point was with reference to what your Lordship will understand by the term "worsement." I am glad to say that no definition of that has been attempted, but there is one passage in the Report recommending that when a man's property has been to some extent injured or "worsened" that in such circumstances the question whether the property had been bettered or "worsened" should be taken into consideration in respect of the Betterment Tax. Two noble Lords, Lord Cowper and Lord Tweedmouth, objected to that, and upon it took place the only Division which occurred in the Committee; in respect to all the other recommendations the Committee was entirely unanimous. There have been, as your Lordships are aware, two Committees sitting on this subject. One has disappeared. Those Committees have already dealt with this very question, and I hope your Lordships will think it 339 right now to agree with this Committee in their Resolution.
§ Moved, "That the House do agree with the Report of their Select Committee."—(The Lord Halsbury.)
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HERSCHELL)My Lords, the House is, I think, very much indebted to the Committee which has been sitting in reference to this matter for the Report which they have made. But it is a serious matter to ask the House to adopt this Report en bloc, considering that we have not the evidence before us on which they acted. If it is to be treated as having been adopted on the judgment of this House, I think your Lordships will agree that before adopting it we should have some knowledge of the evidence which came before that Committee. I may say that I have endeavoured to obtain a copy of it, but have not been successful. I say that a knowledge of that evidence is desirable, especially in reference to one proposal in this Report. The matter of Betterment has, no doubt, been much discussed, and one knows much of what has been said on one side and the other. I do not suppose one would be likely to find much that is really new in the evidence which came before the Committee. But there is one point in this Report which it seems to me is open to considerable question, and that is the power given to the owner, if any claim for Betterment is made, to insist that the Local Authorities shall purchase the premises. I should certainly, before committing myself to such a proposal, like to have seen the evidence on which it is founded. I think that is a very serious question of public policy, whether it is expedient to insert such a provision for Local Authorities to become, to a greater extent than they are at present, landowners, because the proposal is that they should buy out the occupiers and owners subject to the existing penalties. The effect of it certainly will be this. Of course, the price to be paid to the owner in that case will have to be ascertained by arbitration, and the expenses of the arbitration will have to be borne by someone. In my experience in any contest of this sort between an individual and a public body the individual invariably gains. I think it is 340 certain that if a local body have to buy they will have to give the owner something more than the value of his property. The result will be that they could only claim Betterment, the principle of which is here accepted on the terms of being obliged to buy the property in respect of which that Betterment is claimed at something beyond its value, and, of course, subject to the risks which are incurred by a person who proposes to buy property and sub-let it, but which risks it is not desirable always to impose upon local bodies. Upon that point there is a good deal to be said on the one side and the other. All I wish to say is this: Of course, it would be useless to oppose the proposal for adopting this Report; but I would point out that we are adopting it without the necessary information, and therefore one cannot under those circumstances feel that the House would be bound exclusively by it.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMy Lords, there is nothing in the recommendations of the Committee that would compel the local body, whatever local Authority it might be, to keep the property when they had bought it. They could always sell it again, and I quite concur with the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that it is a very serious question of policy how far you should encourage local authorities to remain the possessors of land. But the mere fact that you allow them to buy the land does not conclude that question at all, because, as your Lordships know very well, local bodies do constantly buy land and sell it again. The condition on which the noble and learned Lord has placed his finger is very important in the interests of owners. The noble and learned Lord used, I think, a somewhat extreme expression when he said we had accepted the principle of Betterment. That is hardly so. In admitting that in certain circumstances Betterment may be just, we, at the same time, point out the extreme difficulty of appraising and ascertaining the improvement on which the charge is to be made; and by adopting the particular provision to which the noble and learned Lord has alluded we practically made this provision the present condition on which a local authority may try to get for the Public Purse a portion of the benefit of the improvement which has 341 resulted from the work carried out. That is attained by what is called the principle of recoupment—that is to say, by buying more property than is wanted for the absolute construction of the work, and using the improved value of that property by subsequent sale for the purpose of repaying the expenditure of the local authority. That plan has not been found generally economical, in London at all events, though I believe it has been adopted in other parts of the country, because there has been followed in London a practice of buying up at the same time the actual trade interests of the occupiers or tenants who were following their vocations, a practice which necessarily involves destroying and throwing into the sea the goodwill of those trade interests, and thereby implying a considerable waste of money. We have recommended that that practice should cease, and I believe that with that precaution recoupment may now be made a profitable operation. But what I wish specially to point out to your Lordships is this: We are passing from the practice of recoupment to the principle of Betterment. There is great doubt indeed whether Betterment can be levied without danger of injustice to the private owner on whom it is levied; and, therefore, what we practically say is this: That if an owner is not prepared to admit that the value of his property is enhanced to the extent of the Betterment charge which is made upon him, he may have recourse to the principle of recoupment, and require that his property shall be bought by the local authority at its value previous to the execution of the work, and that the local authority may rely upon that purchase for the recoupment of expenditure which they desire. I think that is a fair and just compromise, and that it will protect private interests from any danger of injury. But it would be impossible to take the rest of our recommendations without that one recommendation which is vital to the rest. The only difficulty in such delay in the matter as the noble and learned Lord suggests would be this, and it is a serious difficulty: that Lord Onslow's Resolution still stands, and until it is withdrawn no Bill containing Betterment proposals can pass through Committees of this House without dropping those provisions. This 342 provision, therefore, will practically remove the obligation which Lord Onslow's Resolution now imposes upon Committees in dealing with this question. I, therefore, hope your Lordships will accept this Motion for the purposes of expediting the present Bill. Your Lordships may, I think, trust to the unanimous conclusion of a Committee appointed from all parts of the House, and comprising numerous distinguished members of the London County Council upon its body; and I think if you accept the Motion of the noble and learned Lord this will become the guiding principle of Select Committees in dealing with the question, and the principle of Betterment will have a fair chance of being tried without any danger of doing injury to owners.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNMy Lords, I am sure the House will feel greatly indebted to the Committee for the patient consideration which they have given to the investigation of this question. The difficulty lies not so much in the principle of Betterment itself, but in the manner in which it is to be applied consistently with justice. As the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has said, we have not the evidence before us, and therefore it is a little difficult for us to realise the case which was laid before the Committee. We can only judge of the case which was presented to them as far as we see it stated in the Report. If I had not heard the statement of the noble and learned Lord who was Chairman of the Committee I certainly should have been under the impression that there was to be an area of Betterment, and I should have been inclined to ask whether it was intended that within that area there should be a uniform or a graduated rate. The old practice of recoupment would clearly have pointed to a graduated rate, but as I understand now the question of Betterment will merely be raised in individual cases. Whenever it appears, either to the London County Council or to any other municipal body that the property of some individual has profited to such an extent as to make it desirable that a special charge should be made upon him, they will give notice to him and his case will then be heard. If that conception is right, of course Betterment 343 is a much smaller question than it would appear if there had been an area defined over which it was proposed to levy a rate either uniform or graduated. I merely make this remark in passing, but I presume the noble Lord will in some form or other move a Resolution so as to form a guide to the Committees who may have to deal with questions of this sort, so that they may deal with them in an approximately uniform manner.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY)My Lords, I venture to think the House ought to feel much indebted to the Committee for the care and attention which they have given to the consideration of this very difficult subject. After the Report has been agreed to there will be, I think, no difficulty in proceeding with the Bills now before your Lordships embodying the Betterment principle. I do not think there can be any serious difficulty in framing proper clauses dealing with most of the recommendations of the Committee. But, as some responsibility will rest upon me for the drawing of the clauses, I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord opposite for some explanation of Clause 7, which has been referred to by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. That clause introduces questions certainly of great importance and perplexity. For instance, the word "owner" is used, and I am a little doubtful as to what is meant by that word. If it includes the leaseholder, as I presume it should, what would happen if the freeholder considered that a Betterment charge was a fair one, and did not contest it while the leaseholder did? In that case, is it the opinion of the Committee that the local authority should be bound to buy up the interest which the leaseholder has? Because, as I understand it, the Betterment charge is to be spread over the different persons who have an interest in the property in proportion to the interests which they have in it. Therefore, in that case I presume the interest of the leaseholder would be bought without there being a necessity for buying up the freehold property. Then, my Lords, another point would be this: What would happen assuming the Betterment charge should be assessed say, 10 years from the time when the Act was passed as regards 344 the reversions, the immediate interests having possibly 20 years to run? Is it desired that the Betterment charge should run for those 10 intermediate years, that is the 10 years after the work was completed? and if the charge is made (your Lordships will understand that I am, of course, using arbitrary figures here) would it be at the end of the 20 years that the property would be bought by the local authority? Then the last point is that the local authority should not be compellable to dispossess the occupying tenant. I am not aware that that is the case at present—that they are bound to dispossess an occupying tenant. Of course, as soon as the local authority serves on the tenant this notice to treat—that being a contract—the tenant can compel him to buy, but it is not necessary for the local authority, if they do not want a property, to serve notice to treat at all. I have brought these points before the House with the view rather of eliciting from the noble and learned Lord information, because it is desirable, when the clauses come to be drawn in Committee, that they should be drawn as accurately as possible in order to represent the views of the Committee.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord TWEEDMOUTH)My Lords, the noble and learned Lord and the noble Earl opposite have laid great stress on the unanimity of the Committee; but I wish to say one word with regard to that unanimous expression of opinion, as I was a Member of the Committee. My own opinion was, and I think it was shared by noble Lords on this side of the House, that while we accepted these recommendations as a great advance on the Resolution of Lord Onslow of last year, and so pro tanto altering it, we could not at all commit ourselves to the exact wording of the conditions attached by this Report to the principle of Betterment, and especially as far as I am concerned would that remark apply to the sixth and seventh conclusions of the Committee. As to the sixth conclusion, which allows the owner to claim for worsement as well as betterment, I took very strong exception to that proposal in the Committee, but I am sorry to say I found myself supported by only one other Member of your Lordships' House on the Committee. I was quite 345 ready to take an equally strong objection to Clause 7, which enables the owner to force the local authority to buy rather than submit to the Betterment charge. But I am bound to confess that I believe if I had taken that course I should have found no support at all on the Committee, and therefore I thought the wiser course to pursue was to endeavour to introduce mitigating words. Those mitigating words to a great extent are the words of which the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees (The Earl of Morley) has just asked an explanation. My point is that in supposing an owner were allowed to force the local authority to buy, the local authority should then be able to buy under the best and most favourable circumstances. It was clearly proved to us, as I think we should all agree upon the Committee, that where local authorities suffer in purchasing property is from their not being able to carry on the leasehold or trade interests, but were obliged, or, at all events, that it was the custom that the tenants should at once be dispossessed, the local authority having to pay compensation to those various interests as well as to pay the freeholder or long leaseholder. Now that was the meaning of the first clause of those mitigating words, which runs thus—
Under such circumstances, a local authority purchasing a freehold or long leasehold interest shall not be compellable to dispossess the occupying tenants.Following under that is a note that the local authority should be allowed to take the position of the existing landlord or vendor under the proposal, and allow the intermediate interests to run out, taking what benefit it can from the proceeding. The second proposal was alternative. What I endeavoured to propose was that the local authority should have the option of not becoming responsible for the intermediate interests at all, but should, instead of that, merely purchase the reversion, leaving the present owner, the vendor, to dispose of the existing interest—to carry on the leaseholds, and do all that was necessary in order to work out the existing intermediate interests. I believe that both those proposals if carried into effect would have great advantage for the local authorities, and would have great effect in mitigating the 346 proposal, which I believe to be very undesirable, and one which has the great disadvantage to which the noble Earl has referred—namely, of offering inducement to local authorities to become large owners of property and to carry on a variety of businesses which are altogether outside their duty. That, my Lords, is all I need say, I think, with regard to the Report. I accept it as an advance, but I cannot myself at all, so far as I am concerned, say that I agree to many of the conditions which have been attached to the recognition of the principle of betterment in the Report.
§ LORD HALSBURYMy Lords, I somewhat regret to hear from the noble Lord what he has just said, because when Members of a Committee meet and adopt a Report without having even divided upon its recommendations they are supposed to agree in the recommendations of that Committee. For my own part, I may have my own views as to the principle of betterment, but am I to be at liberty to say hereafter that I do not agree with it? I was Chairman of the Committee, and I did not divide against it, and I should regard myself as bound by it—as being my opinion at that time, at all events. But I should never be able to be bound or to act upon the finding of any Committee if a noble Lord might afterwards say, although I do not divide upon it, I must not be regarded as agreeing in or abiding by the decision of the Committee. That would be a very odd result indeed. My Lords, I am in the singular position of being called upon to explain the Amendment which the noble Lord himself introduced. Without entering upon any criticism of it, I may say that we agreed in Committee in terms which I will not repeat here. We are dealing with the practice of Parliament, and the practice of Parliament has been, except in cases which I will mention in a moment, only to allow the particular work, or whatever it may be that has to be done, to be done under this condition, that when the local authority or body concerned has purchased land for the purpose of an undertaking it has no right to acquire and hold other land. That has been done in the case of railway companies; after a certain time they are obliged to offer the land not required to adjoining 347 owners, and unless the land should be wanted for a station in the future, or for some other purpose after a certain time, the land actually goes back to the former owner. I only give that as an illustration of the policy of Parliament with regard to such bodies not holding land except for the purpose of the undertaking or improvement itself, and when you are dealing with street improvement the ordinary rule would be that you should only permit the local authority to hold so much land as is necessary for making the road or whatever the improvement may be. Parliament has to some extent departed from that, and has enabled many local authorities to hold land adjoining the road or improvement, and to get back by recoupment their expenditure by becoming the owner of land. We were in fact informed upon the Committee that the London County Council held rents to the extent of some £90,000 a year, which I think your Lordships will agree is rather an invasion of that principle of Parliament, whether that was the right figure or not, that was what was intended by the noble Lord's Amendment, and certainly I assented to it in that sense that instead of taking the ordinary course and compelling the local authority to have only what was necessary for its purpose that it should be permitted instead of pulling down the house and re-erecting others on the site not occupied by the improved street—that it should be permitted to hold the property for the purpose of allowing the leases to run out. But the great point made on behalf of the London County Council was that where you have to deal with trade interests there is an extraordinary expenditure necessarily incurred in getting rid of them, and, so far from its being an advantage to the County Council, they have been compelled to buy out trade interests at an extravagant price. The result has been disastrous to those who have adopted that course, and that has in a great measure injured the recoupment principle. The noble Lord's Amendment was a great improvement upon that. Now, as regards the meaning of the word "owner," as I understand that word, here it means the owners respectively; that is to say, the owners of the premises of the lease and of the reversion. I was a little startled at hearing Lord 348 Morley speak of the rate being imposed 10 years afterwards. I will take one typical instance which was given before us. It was a lease of 40 years, where the Betterment charged could not operate for that time. It was only with regard to certain improved buildings by the side of the road, and it was held that as there was a 60 years' lease, which meant a 40 years' occupation of the premises as vinegar works, the improvement could not have any effect upon it for that period, because it was bound to be held in its then condition of vinegar works. However, my Lords, I am aghast at the notion of the assessment rate being withheld for 10 years. It was impossible for the Committee to lay down any fixed number of years, as each case, of course, differed in its circumstances, and while it was pointed out that you should not have it too soon in some cases, in others you should not delay too long while the occupation of the property was held in suspense. Certainly no Member of the Committee imagined that that was what was proposed.
THE EARL OF MORLEYMay I be allowed to explain what I meant from the passing of the Act? I gave the instance, of course, as hypothetical, purely.
§ LORD HALSBURYI do not know, my Lords, that it is necessary for me to add anything to what I have said; I merely wished to answer the noble Lord's question.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY AND LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of ROSEBERYMy Lords, I do not know that it is necessary for me to add very much to what has been said from this side of the House. But I feel bound to enter a prompt caveat to the doctrine which has been laid down by the noble and learned Lord opposite, that unless you divide against a proposition you are supposed to agree with it. Is that true of a Committee? I do not know that I am a great authority on the practice in Committees, but my recollection in no respect agrees with it. But if such a principle would not apply in Committees, does it apply to this House—that we are to be taken as agreeing with every proposition against which we do not divide? We 349 certainly do not agree with every Bill and Motion against which we do not divide. My Lords, I am completely at a loss at the prospect opened up by the assertion of such a doctrine. I have not yet had time to realise it; but pending that realisation I would ask time to consider it, and in the meantime I enter my emphatic protest, even if I do not divide against it. With regard to this Report which, after all, was not so unanimous as the noble and learned Lord would make out, the conclusion of the Committee was not so clear as would appear on the face of it. It may possibly be of great advantage to the Chairman of Committees, but the great point of it is this—that it marks an enormous advance since August of last year. In August last we had two Debates in which the principle of Betterment was spoken of as some new and nefarious principle only to be handled with tongs; that even if accepted at all it must meet with only a very limited acceptance, but that it was hardly possible for the House to consider it at all. Now we have a much larger view taken, and we have it practically accepted as a doctrine by this Committee. The noble Marquess says he is not to be taken as accepting it quite fully, but at any rate he allows a Committee to consider the principle of Betterment in a Private Bill without protest or criticism, and that, to my mind, is a considerable advance.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYAs far as I am concerned, as the noble Earl has been good enough to mention me, he will find nothing in my speech at the end of August last at all inconsistent with the finding of the Committee or with my action now.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERYI do not apply that remark as to advancing to the noble Marquess. I do not say that the noble Marquess has moved an inch; he very seldom does. I only point out that the House has moved, and it is always a pleasure to know that it has even been temporarily advanced. Now, my Lords, I pass to a consideration in this Report of an educational kind. The Report contains this principle of purchase, which, I confess, seems to me open to considerable question. The noble Marquess 350 has described it as giving the option of recoupment to the tenant who is about to have this charge imposed upon him. But then that is a one-sided option—it does not give the public local body any option in the matter at all, and that does not seem to me entirely fair. What will he the option of such a provision? You will have the tenant able to put considerable pressure on the body by saying, "If you do not estimate your betterment at something considerably less than the sum at which you have estimated it, I will force you to purchase." You may say that the compulsion to purchase is not a very severe compulsion, when, as the evidence seems seems to show, the London County Council owns considerable property already; but recoupment as hitherto understood is a very different thing to what is contemplated by this clause. When for the purpose of making a great improvement it is a very different thing if you have to buy a great estate, and if you are to be compelled to purchase a number of scattered properties all over the region over which the improvement may be made. It may be very expensive work, and one which will be by no means a source of profit. I will carry the matter further; with regard to the London County Council, there is one very grave inconvenience which may arise. Take the case of a public-house. In carrying out an improvement, a public-house might be made to face a thoroughfare, and instead of being in a dark, narrow lane, might flare with all its gas-jets on some great open avenue where it would exercise great attraction. The amount of betterment assessed by an arbitrator on such a property might not unfairly be a considerable sum. The owner of the public-house might thereupon say he was not obliged to pay that sum, and the London County Council would be compelled to buy the property I presume at the price set upon it by the arbitrator. What would be the result? The London County Council have laid down for themselves a hard-and-fast line that they will not possess a licensed public-house, and the moment they acquire such a property at probably a fancy price they will be compelled to let the licence drop and to lose the whole advantage of its value to the ratepayers. Some of your Lordships may think that 351 is a principle they ought not to have laid down. It is possibly a principle which all the Members of this House might not accept without reservation, but it is a principle upon which they have acted at some cost since they have been a Council, and from which they would not be inclined very willingly to depart. Then there is another point. The noble and learned Lord says this question of purchase would apply to all the interests involved: those of the tenant, of the reversioner, and of the freeholder. That, I think, might produce a very difficult position, because one interest might elect to be paid off by the London County Council while another might not, and the position of the property in question might be so complicated, the interests might be so vast and varied, that it would be extremely difficult to ascertain what they were. The Council might possess different interests in several houses in one street, and I do not think that is a fair position for any Council to be placed in. I am not one of those who think that it is very desirable to confer upon municipal authorities the power of holding a considerable amount of house property. It overloads them; it oppresses them in the exercise of their more immediate and natural functions; and I think there are other obvious objections to it which will occur to any one who has had practical dealing with this question. But there is no doubt that these objections do not occur to the advanced school of municipal reformers. Their wish would rather be that municipal authorities should possess all the property in a town, that they should possess the right to all the increment that may accrue in rents; and, therefore, as far as you are altering the law, if you do alter it in this direction, on the recommendation of your Committee, you are by no means serving Conservative interests by promoting rather than resisting those daring municipal views to which, I think, many of your Lordships would be sorry to give support. But when all is said and done, we on this side of the House cannot but rejoice that there is no impracticable objection offered to the adoption of this principle of Betterment in the presentation of Bills, to even a small extent, and, so far as that goes, we are prepared to accept the Report as, at 352 any rate, an instalment, showing a better state of mind.
THE EARL OF ONSLOWMy Lords, I rise to express my surprise that the noble Earl the Prime Minister should have said it was the opinion of the majority of the House that the principle of Betterment was unjust. My Lords, I have a distinct recollection of the Debate to which the noble Earl has referred. In the first place, there was the Resolution which I put upon the Paper and to which your Lordships agreed. There was not a single word in that Resolution which said that where property was improved the owners should not pay a special contribution. All that the Resolution said was that the question of Betterment should be settled by the whole House rather than by a Committee considering a Private Bill. I fail entirely to agree with the noble Earl that any noble Lord on this side of the House did in the abstract resist that principle.
THE EARL OF ONSLOWI was just about to say that the noble Duke (who is not in his seat to-night) did say that in his opinion a special contribution for property specially benefited was already made by the increased contribution to the rates which that property must necessarily bear after the improvement had been effected, but I do not think that even the noble Duke denied that where a special benefit was conferred upon property a special contribution should be made in respect of it. All he argued was that that special contribution was made at present under the existing law. I think the noble Earl has a little misapprehended the intention of the Committee with regard to the principle of recoupment. I do not think the Committee at any time anticipated that the local authorities should acquire property here, there, and everywhere, for the purpose of recouping themselves. All the Committee have recommended is that where a local authority acquires property, as it now does, which has been required for the purpose of improvement they should not be compelled to purchase the trade and leasehold interests in the property, but should also be empowered to buy only the right of the owner or of the 353 reversioner to the land; that they should let the subsidiary interests run out, and then they would come into possession of the property with the full advantages of the improvement they had themselves effected. If, as the noble Earl said, it should chance that such property should be licensed property, of course one cannot help admiring the self-abnegation of the London County Council in refusing to hold public-house property. At the same time, I would point out to the noble Earl that it would be quite within the powers of the London County Council to dispose of any licensed premises they may acquire, and so obtain all the advantages of the improvements which they have carried out.
§ Motion agreed to.