§ Mr. Channonasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware of the growing anxiety of many owners of houses in evacuated areas in the East and South-east of England, whose mortgage payments and interest thereon are accruing under the Possession of Mortgaged Land (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1939; and whether, as many of these persons have had to take up war work in other parts of the country or join the Services, he will review the operations of 31W the Act so as to ensure that at the conclusion of hostilities these mortgagors will be able to reoccupy their houses on reasonable terms, so far as mortgage payments and interest are concerned?
§ Colonel CrookshankThe hon. Member presumably refers to the moratorium imposed by the Defence (Evacuated Areas) Regulations, 1940. Steps to deal with the resulting situation have already been taken in the Liabilities (War-Time Adjustments) Act, 1941, which gives the court certain powers to relieve the mortgagor. It is impossible to foresee the precise circumstances which will arise at the end of the war and the current legislation goes as far as is reasonably possible at the moment.