AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACT (AMENDMENT) BILL. (Hansard, 28 June 1923)

§ LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, this small amending Bill, which I venture to introduce to your Lordships' notice, has passed through all its stages in another place without meeting any opposition there, and I am hopeful that it may receive equally favourable consideration at your Lordships' hands. The purpose of the Bill is to make watertight certain leaky provisions in the Agriculture Act, 1920, and to give to tenant farmers certain compensation rights which Parliament determined to give them through that Act but which have been found, after a test case in the Courts, to be unobtainable by them in certain circumstances.

I fancy that many noble Lords will agree with me that the Act of 1920, shorn as it has been of that part of it which established some form of stability in agriculture and dealt out equal treatment to all classes engaged in that industry, now remains only a bad piece of class legislation and a blot upon the Statute Book. Probably, the majority of noble Lords would prefer to support me in making an effort to repeal that Act altogether rather than give it their tacit assent by agreeing to the passage of an 694 amending Bill. But I hold the view, and I feel confident that many noble Lords share it, that it is both unfair and improper to take advantage of a technical flaw in an Act of Parliament in order to confound the purpose of Parliament, particularly when such action is bound to stir up bad blood in the rural districts where good relations between landlord and tenant are of paramount importance.

The flaw in the Act of 1920 can be very briefly explained. Under the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908, a tenant farmer quitting his holding is entitled to compensation for improvements effected by him. Under the Act of 1920 it was intended that compensation for disturbance should be awarded to a tenant farmer quitting his holding under certain conditions. It has been found, in a test case recently tried in the Courts, that a loophole is afforded to landlords whereby they can avoid paying this compensation. The tenant farmer is compelled, under the Act of 1920, to give certain specific notice to the landlord of his intention to claim compensation under the two Acts, but if the landlord wishes to sell his land and to give vacant possession, and withholds from the tenant to whom he has given notice the name of the purchaser, he can thereby, in certain circumstances, escape the liability of paying the compensation which is the tenant farmer's due. That is really the whole case which it is proposed to put right. It does not seem proper that a loophole of this character should be afforded, and I desire to commend this Bill to your Lordships' favourable notice in the hope that it will be passed without any opposition. I beg to move.