asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Buildings whether he will take powers to amend the regulation under the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939, so as to ensure that payments made by the Government for railings, etc., taken from houses for scrap, shall go to the people who erected and paid for them, and not to the freeholders as at present?

The regulation provides that payment shall be made to the person or persons in whom, in fact the legal ownership of the fixture is vested; and I feel that it would raise most difficult questions to divert the payment elsewhere.