moved the following Clause:—

( Dispensing with statutory obligations in connection with works under Part III. of the principal Act. )

"Any local authority in connection with the exercise by them of their powers under Part III. of the principal Act may, with the consent of the Local Government Board and subject to such conditions (if any) as the Board may impose on giving their consent, dispense with any obligation of the local authority or any other person to comply with any local Act, Provisional Order, or Order having the effect of an Act, or any bye-law, regulation, or other provision, under whatever authority made, which is in operation in the area in which the local authority are exercising any of their powers under Part III. of the principal Act, but nothing in this Section shall confer upon any local authority power to dispense with the provisions of the London Building Acts, 1894 to 1905, or any Act amending the same, or any bye-laws or regulations in force there-under without the consent of the London County Council."

The new Clause which I propose respecting the statutory obligation in connection with the work under Part III. of the principal Act is put forward at the instance of the London County Council. Clause 23 of this Bill allows the Local Government Board, in an improvement scheme under Part I. of the Act, or in a reconstruction scheme under Part II. of the Act, to dispense with the obligation to comply with any local Act, Provisional Order, or Order having the effect of an Act or bye-law. These clearance schemes are so costly that they are becoming more and more uncommon, and it is gradually becoming recognised that the solution of the housing problem is not to be found in the enormously costly demolition of insanitary properties, but rather in the provision of new housing in the outskirts of towns. For this reason Part III. of the original Act is gradually obtaining far greater importance than it has had in the past. In the case of London the county council has acquired large estates in the suburbs, and is thus coping with those parts of the housing problem which are not satisfactorily dealt with by private enterprise, and I think that it is doing a very good work in providing cheaper accommodation. But, of course, in providing this kind of accommodation three pence a week in rent makes a very large difference, and unfortunately the task of the central authority in London is very much hampered in providing this accommodation in the outskirts of London, owing to the conflicting bye-laws which are found in force in the various urban districts which surround London. Apparently some of these urban districts are anxious to prevent the working class accommodation being put up in their areas. They find that the working class accommodation is of only a very low rateable value, and they wish to avoid those services, educational and otherwise, which are necessarily far more costly where you get a large amount of working class accommodation. I would like to impress upon the President of the Local Government Board that there is a very strong tendency in a great many of these communities to discourage by every means in their power the erection of working class dwellings. I could give you instances not only of bye-laws but of other methods which have been adopted to try to prevent any property of a low rateable value being put up in different districts. These outlying districts are too often ready to share in the prosperity of London, but they are anxious to shirk their part in meeting the cost of providing for the large industrial population which is seeking accommodation. I can give two instances of how these bye-laws discourage building. In the case of Croydon there is a bye-law which lays down that the minimum space in the rear of a working class tenement must be 500 square feet. At Edmonton where the county council have also had experience of housing, the regulation is only 150 square feet, and 150 square feet is allowed under certain conditions under the London Building Act. The result of the Croydon bye-law, in regard to a great many plots of land makes it absolutely impossible to build working class accommodation at reasonable rents. If you get a shallow plot of land you cannot get 500 square feet at the back, except at the sacrifice of an enormous frontage, making the cottage so wide that the frontage value increases and makes remunerative houses absolutely impossible at rents which are paid by the working classes. I can give you another instance of the effect of these bye-laws in hampering building. At Tottenham, and also under the London Building Acts, if there is only one opening in the external wall, the separation between the pair of lettings, the pair of separate cottages, may be a half-brick wall. Of course, it is becoming more and more common to build these cottages in pairs. You cheapen your construction very materially by having these half-brick walls and having one entrance through the external wall and by building the roof in one. But in the Croydon district this provision is impossible, because the regulation there lays it down that every cottage must be separated from the neighbouring cottage by a nine inch brick wall, which is to be carried up not only to but through the roof. Of course that means an enormously increased cost in building besides meaning an increased frontage owing to the larger width of the wall. I could point to very extraordinary discrepancies between building bye-laws with regard to drainage, with regard to the width of the streets, with regard to the distances between cross roads, and with regard to the making of the roads. All those enormously hamper the building in certain districts round London.

The new Clause which I have put down would give power to the Local Government Board to suspend those bye-laws, and to allow the local authority to dispense with them in cases where the Local Government Board thinks it necessary, subject to any condition which they may impose. I have copied the wording from Clause 23, which applies to Parts I. and II. of the Act of 1890. If this provision is considered safe in those parts, which are of far less importance, I think we may safely ask that the same provision be extended to Part III. The real object is to get the building bye-laws relaxed. As originally drawn Clause 23 would also have allowed the Local Government Board to suspend general Acts of Parliament, but I think that is going too far. It is quite enough even if the right hon. Gentleman will take the power to relax the building bye-laws in special cases. Those bye-laws have to be approved by the Local Government Board, and as that authority is trusted to make them I do not think it is too much to ask that they should also be trusted to vary them where it is proved to be in the interests of cheap housing. When I moved this Clause in the Standing Committee I think the right hon. Gentleman hardly appreciated its real object. If he had, I do not think he would have opposed it in the way he did. The Clause did meet with a certain amount of support in the Standing Committee, and I hope, now that the right hon. Gentleman has had time to think it over, he may see his way to accept it. I think he would have accepted it at the Standing Committee if he had realised its object, because the whole tendency of the Government on that Committee was to greatly increase the powers of the Local Government Board. In the Bill the Local Government Board have been made the arbiters of the rights and privileges of a very large section of the population, and I think in this case the Local Government Board can safely be entrusted to vary those bye-laws which they themselves have set up, and that the right hon. Gentleman would be very well advised to accept this new Clause. I can assure him by so doing he will very much facilitate the provision of cheap and healthy accommodation in the outskirts of London and other large towns.

I beg to second the Clause. I do urge this provision upon the Government, because, of course, the right hon. Gentleman knows the enormous difficulty there is in providing a cheap class of houses for those persons least able to provide for themselves and least able to take advantage of private enterprise. It is, of course, true of all local authorities, as it is of landlords, when they are building houses for the working classes, that their natural tendency is to slip in a provision for better class houses with a higher rent, for several reasons. First of all, the natural desire of either landlord or local authority is to have an attractive set of buildings to which they can point with some sort of pride, and also to have tenants of a higher class, and far better and more reliable tenants than the lower class tenants who change and shift more rapidly; and also so that they can show a better balance sheet at the end of the year. As my hon. Friend has suggested, in London, as in other great towns, it is practically impossible to provide this sort of housing accommodation within the area of London itself. The building of working class houses, either under Improvement Acts or under Parts I. and II., is becoming more and more impossible as more and more land is being cleared in the centre and other parts for manufacturing and other purposes. This enthusiasm of course for housing Londoners is not shared, and is very naturally not shared, by local authorities outside London. Take the area for instance of what is called Greater London. There are something like 140 local authorities within that area. Their building bye-laws vary enormously, and moreover they themselves have no desire to have within their areas or localities great masses of working class houses at a low rent for which they have to provide very large sums in schools and in other ways. It is not, I think, unfair to suggest that they are not, anyhow, likely to go out of their way to place facilities in the hands of the London authority to set up rows of working class houses in large areas in their particular localities. I quite admit that at first sight it seems rather a large order to ask for this suspension. One can only do it because of the pressure of necessity, and because of the situation in which a large city like London is placed of having to plant out or migrate its people beyond its own borders. After all, the whole tendency, both of Government legislation and of the efforts of local authorities, in locomotion and otherwise, is to carry people outside there own areas; but it is no use doing that if proper accommodation cannot be provided for them. Hence, although I feel that it is possibly asking a great deal, yet, when it is remembered that in the proposal itself the rights of local authorities are safeguarded by the Local Government Board, that the discretion for the suspension rests with the Local Government Board, that, as we know from the mouth of the right hon. Gentleman himself, the Local Government Board can do no wrong, and that, in the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman, all matters connected with local government had better be entrusted to the President of the Local Government Board than be dealt with by such inferior bodies as local authorities, I feel that it will be impossible for the right hon. Gentleman to deny that his Department would only exercise the right of suspension with great discretion, and that those interested in local authorities outside London would be perfectly safe in placing this power of occasional suspension in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman. I trust, therefore, that this request will be granted, in order to facilitate the end of cheap housing for the poorest people outside London, with which I know the right hon. Gentleman deeply sympathises, but which is constantly made more difficult by the varying, tiresome, and hindering regulations of many local authorities. I beg to second the Clause.

The Government cannot accept this Amendment, generally for the reasons stated before the Standing Committee when the matter was there discussed. Apart from those reasons, which it is unnecessary to go into to-day, the hon. Member (Mr. Guinness) stated that this Clause was moved practically for the relief of the London County Council. I have listened to a number of speeches on housing which he has made in this House and in Standing Committee, but I never heard a claim put forward with so few arguments and so little evidence in its support as the hon. Member has adduced to-day. The proposal is that the London County Council shall, subject to the Local Government Board, be able to suspend all the existing bye-laws and regulations which are very properly imposed upon it and all other local authorities. The reason suggested is that in one or two instances—it only applies to London—where the county council has been allowed to build outside its own administrative area, namely, at Norbury, Tottenham, and Edmonton, it has come into conflict with the local authority for doing things which in the judgment of the local authority were not in the interests of public health, safety, and protection from fire. The hon. Member does not suggest that the action of Tottenham was unreasonable, nor that Croydon had been arbitrary to any great degree. He asks that immediately the London County Council goes outside its own administrative area it shall, subject to the consent of the Local Government Board, set aside all bye-laws and regulations. Having asked that, which I think is unreasonable, the hon. Member does a thing which really surprises me, seeing the hon. Members sitting around him. He wants to put upon the Local Government Board the arbitrary power, which I have been accused of accepting too often, not only of being the confirming authority, which we are now, for bye-laws when drafted, not only of being the advisory body, which we now are, before the bye-laws assume their final shape, but also of being the supreme authority to veto all bye-laws and regulations affecting the public health whenever a powerful body like the London County Council asks us so to do. Let us see the danger of that.

What is the London County Council doing at this moment? Through the hon. Member it is asking that the Local Government Board should suspend all bye-laws and regulations when it goes into the area of an outside authority. Recently it had done another thing: it has asked me to dispense with its obligation to build on land which it had acquired through Parliament for the purpose of properly housing people of the working classes who could not be accommodated within its area. I say that that is unreasonable. The reason adduced by the hon. Member is that in one or two instances there have been objections taken. Let me deal with those objections. The hon. Member surprised me. He belongs to a body of Gentlemen who have been associated with some fairly good schemes for housing the working classes. To-day he suggests almost with horror that it is unreasonable for a local authority to demand that a 4½ineh wall should be abandoned and a nine-inch substituted. It is not re-housing the working classes either in or outside London to take them from the mean streets of Shoreditch or Hoxton to equally mean streets in Tottenham, Norbury, Edmonton, or elsewhere. It is merely reproducing the evil in a worse form, without the justification of dear land which prevails in London, to house these people under cheap and nasty conditions, with 4½ inch brick walls, and the wall not going through the roof as it ought to do. I was a member of the Fire Brigade Committee of London for 18 years, and, from the point of view of fire alone, in my judgment, when you are beginning to house the working classes de novo, where land is relatively cheap, you have no right to ask for a 4J-inch partition instead of the one brick which the Totten- ham, Norbury, and Edmonton people have very properly demanded.

So much for the diminution of the brick and the matter of the roof. What is the objection they have? It is a trivial objection. Any architect knows that for fire the wall right through is an advantage, as everybody knows that for the sake of comfort and of hearing too much of what a neighbour does in these days of cheap pianos and those instruments that are mechanically propelled, to the anger of people who like quietude and repose, we ought not to have a four-inch wall. I should like to see some of the hon. Members after they had been working, say, 16 to 18 hours a day on a London omnibus or in an underground bakehouse, going home to Tottenham, Edmonton, or Nor-bury, to hear one of these gramophone instruments going with only a four-inch wall between! The hon. Member objected to as arbitrary that every letting should be separated by a nine-inch wall.

I had the pleasure of seeing some of these places on Saturday and Sunday at Walthamstow. In these days of every convenience for the working classes, where two tenements with one opening—but two doors, a separate entrance to each—where, as a matter of convenience and economy, you have these arrangements, it is advantageous that the partition between the two, where there is one front door, you should have at least a 9-inch brick wall. Now I come to his last objection—as to procedure. The hon. Member begins at the wrong end. He should have read the lesson from the history of past Local Government Boards. He wants such regulations to be issued and to be suspended. But is it not a better way to do what we are now doing? That is that when a local authority plans out a new area for building under this Bill—I am glad to say that it will be a Town Planning as well as a Housing Bill—when that local authority roads a district, drains, make streets, and lights it, what happens now is this: The local authority prepares a set of model bye-laws. Rural areas have rural bye-laws; Urban areas have urban bye-laws. The County Council, under both their Building Acts and special housing conditions, plus the Act of 1890 as amended, has also wider powers than either of these two. What happens is this: These bye-laws and regulations setting out the thickness of the walls, the size of the lamps, the fall of the drainage, the construction of the roof, the protection from fire, and for safety generally, are submitted to the Local Government Board. The Local Government Board can either approve or refuse to approve of them. When the refusal is sent the local authority probably adapts itself to the suggestions offered. Now what my hon. Friend wants is that the whole of this procedure should be abandoned, and that regulations, accounted reasonable and effective, should be set aside at the whim or caprice of the President of the Local Government Board, who, anxious though he is in some matters where whims and caprices are not concerned, where the safety of the public, and the health of the community is, is not disposed to undertake such arbitrary power. I would ask the House of Commons to support us in this view.

If the London County Council is so fond of housing as has been suggested, it should be a model and exemplar to outside authorities in its regulations for building, for safety and protection from fire, and immunity from disease. And it is because in one or two instances there has been a conflict between Norbury and another local authority and the county council architect, that this is suggested. The better view is that the Local Government Board ought—as in both instances they have done their best to do—not by exercising arbitrary power that is sought to be imposed upon them, but by distributing sweet reason to the local authorities, bring about a much more harmonious feeling than has recently prevailed. I can assure the House that this proposal would put upon the Government an immense amount of extra work. Plans and estimates that should be left to the local authorities would have to be examined, and the individual merits of each house, and the local circumstances of every housing scheme would necessitate a large increase in staff, and such a possible exercise of arbitrary authority that I, for my part, think that Parliament has no right to trust us with. I rather suspect that that is not altogether the reason, but because there has been a paltry little disagreement between Norbury and the county council, which might have been got over in a better way than that suggested by this Amendment. Anxious as I am, and as our Department is, to do its very best to leave to the local authorities, including London, in the important matter of housing all possible powers, I believe this Amendment would not have that effect, but that it would be the means of reproducing the mean streets and cheap and nasty houses which have not only prevailed in London, but in many of the outside parishes. Instead of encouraging good houses it would tend to make suburban slums, and therefore we cannot support the Amendment.

On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. May I inquire whether it will be possible for me to move the Clause standing in my name, beginning "If the Local Government Board is satisfied by local inquiry or otherwise," if this Clause is negatived? If so it would possibly be more convenient for me to make such observations as I have to make on the present Clause.

The two Clauses seem to deal with matters somewhat similar, but I think there is a very clear distinction between them. Therefore I will call upon the Noble Lord when his Clause is reached.

I am extremely glad to be able to agree with the right hon. Gentleman in what he has said, that the whims and caprices of the President of the Local Government Board should not have effect over the lives and property of his fellow-citizens. I do not know whether his sudden conversion to that doctrine has anything to do with the few remarks that I happened to make nine or ten days ago. I have no desire or wish to be offensive to the right hon. Gentleman, but I ventured to point out that he was constituting himself emperor over the lives and property of his fellow subjects, and that the whims and caprices—though I did not venture to put it in those words—were really going to be, if this Bill became law, all-powerful over the members of the community. Now the right hon. Gentleman comes down, and, in response to the new Clause moved by my hon. Friend, says, "Oh, no, I cannot accept this new Clause, for, if I do, the whims and caprices of the President of the Local Government Board would have effect over every Act of Parliament, and over every other authority; and it is a bad thing. The President of the Local Government Board ought not to be entitled to such power." Very well; but I regret that I cannot support this Amendment. What does this new Clause do? It is a further example of the evil effects which will result if this Bill becomes law. If this Bill becomes law the President of the Local Government Board will have very great powers. What has been the result of that suggestion? The London County Council, seeing that this great power is going to be conferred on the President of the Local Government Board, says, "Why should not we have the same powers?" There you have the force of bad example!

My hon. Friend says he copied his Clause from Part II. of the Bill, but that only emphasises what I am saying about the evil effect of the legislation proposed by the right hon. Gentleman which is bearing fruit. Even before the Bill has become law the county council, following the bad example set by the right hon. Gentleman, are saying Acts of Parliament are all very well, but the will of the London County Council must prevail. The county council are superior to the House of Commons, and know much more about the people, and anything they desire to be done should be done without further bother. It is true they say there is a controlling authority, and that they must get the permission of the President of the Local Government Board, but how long would it be if this Clause were carried before my two hon. Friends came down to the House, and said. "We have come to the conclusion that the London County Council know more about these matters than the President of the Local Government Board. After all, if we desire that there should be four-and-a-half-inch brick walls between different houses, who is to say nay; we know better than anybody else." Four-and-a-half-inch brick walls are excellent things, provided no one leans against them. Hon. Members on the Labour Benches would support that because it would make work for the unemployed; the walls having fallen down they would have to be built up again. I would ask the House of Commons to learn something from this lesson before them. From the moment this pernicious Bill came before the House everyone who wants to do something comes down and says, "Let me do this thing without any controlling authority from anybody else." I believe one of the great events of the age is that people, to whatever class they belong—I make no invidious distinction—desire to be free from authority, and desire to work their own sweet will. We begin with the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, then we come a little lower down to the London County Council. Later we shall have the district councils, and later on again it will be the parish councils. I hope the House will pause before sanctioning a Bill of this sort, and that in voting against the Clause of my hon. Friend they will also vote against all similar clauses.

I congratulate the President of the Local Government Board that he did, with his usual robust common-sense, like Julius Cæsar, to whom the hon. Baronet compared him, putting away a kingly crown. Having regard to the right hon. Gentleman's official station and his position in regard to this class of legislation, it is all the more creditable that he declines to take upon himself those arbitrary powers. I do think the Clause put forward by the hon. Gentleman opposite is distinctly a large order, and however meritorious the object of the London County Council, this Motion would give it a power which I think is rather beyond anything it ought to claim.

It is not the power it claims; the power is with the President of the Local Government Board.

Yes; but the result would be the county council would be able to get greater power into its hands as compared with other bodies. I understand the President of the Local Government Board so stated, and for my part I so understood it. That is a state of things which is viewed with considerable alarm. It is felt that the local bodies around Greater London would be much better able to manage their own affairs than the London County Council or the Local Government Board, however great their confidence in the President might be. I think these powers should be restricted as far as possible. The hon. Member for Hackney complained yesterday that the House is sitting into September, which he very much depreciated on account of the plague of lawyers. The grasshopper becomes a burden at this time of year, and the Session becomes an obsession. We should, I think, all combine to let the President of the Local Government Board get his good Bill through, and the last thing we ought to do is to enter upon new clauses and new legislation. I could not understand fully what the President of the Local Government Board said about repeating these street slums in Greater London. It seems to me there is a disposition on the part of the local authorities to build houses that are far too expensive and grand for the people who are to inhabit them. I have often seen slums pulled down in which people could afford to live in order to put up other buildings in which they cannot afford to live, and as the object is to enable people to live that does not seem to me to be providing satisfactorily for the housing of the working classes. I am very strongly of opinion the President of the Local Government Board exercised the robust common-sense he always displays in refusing to accept the new Clause.

Question, "That the Clause be added to the Bill," put, and negatived.

moved, latter Clause 63, to insert the following Clause:—

Saving of Existing Rights.

"Subject to the provisions of any scheme made under this part of this Act, all powers given by this Act shall be deemed to be in addition to, and not in derogation of, any other powers conferred by Act of Parliament, law, or custom, and such other powers may be exercised in the same manner as if this Act had not passed."

The object of this Clause is to save existing rights. In most great cities, like Manchester and Liverpool and other places, they have special power in regard to town planning, and it is very desirable that there should be no doubt that these powers given by Parliament should be left intact. I beg to move that the Clause be read a second time.

I second the Motion.

The hon. Member probably did not notice when he put this Amendment down that it applies both to housing and town planning. In no case could we exempt housing. When this Bill becomes law I trust that the consolidation of all the housing of the working classes Acts, including this Bill, will be placed, so far as housing is concerned, in a general statute. Therefore we cannot accept this Amendment. The hon. Member suggests that we should accept the latter portion of this Amendment, so as to safeguard the rights of local authorities who have already secured town planning Acts of Parliament. The hon. Member represents himself one of the Divisions of Liverpool which I believe is the only authority which has promoted what, by any stretch of the imagination, can be called a town planning scheme. Consequently the general reasons he advances for the acceptance of this Amendment, on the ground that existing rights should be secured, are not quite so universal as he implies. Even with regard to town planning, we do not think that this is at all necessary, because when this particular Bill becomes law and the various Clauses and Schedules are set into operation, it stands to reason that any town planning scheme that might he put forward under this Bill would in no sense invalidate Liverpool's rights, and I see no reason why we should make this a Liverpool relief Bill any more than we should make it a London relief Bill by the acceptance of the previous Amendment. I hope the hon. Member will not press his Amendment, and if he is under the impression that the rights of Liverpool are in any way assailed by this Bill, although I do not think they are, I shall be pleased between now and another place to consult with the hon. Member to consider whether he has not exaggerated the effect of this Bill upon Liverpool. This measure in no way invalidates the rights of Liverpool, and it would be a dangerous precedent to establish a special exemption departing from what we consider to be a good common-sense plan adapted to the growth and improvement of our large towns and cities. For these reasons I ask the hon. Member not to press his Amendment.

1.0 P.M.

Apparently the right hon. Gentleman has made up his mind not to accept any Amendment, however reasonable it may be. Surely the Clause suggested is one which cannot interfere with or militate against the objects of this Bill. This Clause merely provides for what is almost a common form in legislation of this description, namely, that the rights conferred by this Bill should be in addition to and hot in derogation of rights and powers already conferred. Surely the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues must see that provision ought to be made to prevent this Bill interfering with schemes which are already in operation. I hope the Government do not desire to interfere in that way. It is better to provide on the face of the Bill that the rights conferred by previous legislation shall not be invalidated by this Bill. I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman refuses to accept this proposal. The President of the Local Government Board began his speech by saying that he desired to consolidate the Housing Acts. Of course every Minister desires to consolidate Acts, but it takes an immense amount of time to get consolidating Acts through Parliament, because the the moment you attempt to consolidate the opportunity will be seized in order to make various improvements which are desirable in the interests of the public in the Housing Acts. It is quite possible that there will be no further consolidation of these Acts for another 10 or 15 years, and I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me that that has been our experience in the past. I press upon the House the desirability of accepting this Clause. It will effect a clear improvement of the Bill, and no kind of reason has been given by the Government against it. Let me ask hon. Members to read the terms of the new Clause which has been proposed by my hon. Friend. The words are: "Subject to the provisions of any scheme made under this part of this Act, all powers given by this Act shall be deemed to be in addition to, and not in derogation of, any other powers conferred by Act of Parliament, law, or custom, and such other powers may be exercised in the same manner as if this Act had not passed." Can anything be more reasonable or more desirable in the interests of good housing legislation? I hope the House will accept this proposal, and, if not, I trust my hon. Friend will proceed to a Division.

In so far as this Amendment applies to town planning, I am prepared to accept the substance of it, and between now and another place I will take care that, so far as it relates to town planning, I shall be pleased to meet the hon. Member.

With that assurance, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The next two Amendments, standing in the names of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) and the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Summerbell), are beyond the scope of this Bill. With regard to the first Clause, standing in the name of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), the words, "shall be exempt from the operation of this Act," seem to be rather wide, and might exempt them from rating. The second Amendment, in the name of the hon. Baronet, is beyond the scope of the Bill.

I understand that unless the Clause I propose is carried, the Bill would amend the law as to rating, and my Amendment is to leave the law of rating in the same position as it is now.

In that case the hon. Baronet's Amendment is in order.

moved the following Clause:—

Abatement of Bate Payable by Occupiers of Land Used for Public Purposes or of Land Covered with Water.

"As regards any rate levied under or for the purposes of this Act, or any increase made under the authority or for the purposes of this Act in any rate, the occupier of any land used as a canal or towing-path for the same or railway constructed under the powers of any Act of Parliament for public conveyance or the occupier of any land covered with water shall be assessed in respect of the same in proportion of one-fourth only of the annual value thereof."

This new Clause would leave the matter of assessment for rating as it is now, and my belief is that unless it is adopted an alteration will be made in the manner in which railway and canal companies are assessed. If I am wrong in that there is no reason why this Clause should not be adopted, because it will leave the law exactly in the same position as it was before the Bill was introduced. Hallway companies in many rural parishes own the greater part of the property assessable for rating, and, in some oases, 80 and 90 per cent, of the rates are paid by railway companies. They have, however, no power over the expenditure in the different areas in which they are rated, having no persons to look after their interest, either upon the district council, the county council, or the parish council, and it seems to me hard that the President of the Local Government Board, especially with regard to the enormous expenditure which will be entailed by this scheme, should propose to alter the law which says a railway company shall only be charged on a fourth of the assessment. I do not want to gain any advantage for railway or canal companies, but merely to have the law left in the same state as it is now. We have for many years been promised a Bill dealing entirely with the law of rating all over the country, and when that Bill comes it may be right to deal with the present manner of assessing railway companies; but, until it does come, it is not just that one particular form of property should be singled out and an alteration made in the law of rating as regards it.

Would the hon. Baronet kindly explain which Clause in the Bill proposes to alter the form of rating of railway companies?

I am sorry I cannot tell my Noble Friend for the moment. The solicitors of the railway companies who are managing the matter are of opinion that the Bill would alter the law; but, if they are wrong, this new Clause would have no effect, and it cannot therefore be held to be a bad Clause.

seconded the Clause.

I am sorry I cannot accept the new Clause. I will tell the House briefly why we cannot support it. The new Clause moved by the hon. Baronet does not affect the law either of assessment or rating in respect of railway companies except in rural areas, but it would, if carried, confer a partial exemption in favour of land in rural districts used for railways, canals, etc. They would only be assessed at one-fourth of their value. The existing law is briefly this: Under Section 65 of the Act of 1890 the expenses in connection with housing are defrayed as follows: The London County Council defray the expenses out of the Improvement Fund, levied upon all ratepayers, including the railways, which pay their full share. If there is any deficiency, it comes out of the county fund, to which the railways also contribute, with other ratepayers, on their proper scale. In London, therefore, any deficiency or expenses incurred by the county council practically comes out of the poor rate. In the City of London it comes out of the general rate, and in the Metropolitan boroughs it comes out of the general rate, which is equivalent to the poor rate. In boroughs and other urban districts railways and canals pay on a fourth towards expenses incurred under the Public Health Act. The expenses of a council of a rural district are defrayed as special expenses under the Public Health Act, and the railways pay on a fourth, but the county council can make those special expenses general. The Bill proposes to repeal—

Would the night hon. Gentleman say to which Clause he refers?

Clause 32, Sub-section (1). The Bill proposes to repeal the provisions of the principal Acts as regards the ex- penses of rural district councils, and make them general expenses, unless the Local Government Board declare them to be special. It is well that we should go a little further, because I think we may come to a rough agreement. The general expenses of a rural district council are paid out of the poor rate. The special expenses are met by a special rate, to which the railways pay on a fourth only. We think the proposal in the Bill to make what are special expenses general expenses and to give to the Local Government Board power in rare instances to make them special, is the best way out of the difficulty. We have to face this fact, and it is well railways should recognise it. Railways, I am glad (to say, are increasing, owing in no small way to competition, adapting themselves to cheaper and more rapid transit all over the country. For everything that makes for that desirable end the House of Commons and the public generally, I think, are grateful to the railway companies. But the effect of doing that is this: Very frequently when a railway constructs a branch line or an extension, and carries it into a new area, any housing scheme carried on in that, new area cannot be confined to one special area. The special expenses in that case I think should be allocated generally. It does seem unfair that where a railway company goes into a new area and is interested commercially in the development of that area it ought, to the extent that it goes into that area, to meet public demands and convenience and be put in precisely the same position as any other ratepayers in the area in meeting the public health expenses of that area. We consider that where you have a growing township made by a railway which is deriving benefit, where it is divided into four or five parishes with rateable or assessable units it ought to be a general expense, and not a special expense on any one particular parish, and it is because of that we ask for this amendment of the law. We follow it up by frankly saying that where circumstances are such that the general should be converted into the special the railway company have the knowledge, ability and experience to represent their views in the right quarter, so that the idea that they are likely to suffer under this provision is purely illusory. Because we want to make the expenses under this Bill generally applicable to everybody we cannot see our way to give the railway company that exemption from the general law which the hon. Baronet so soundly backed me up in refusing to the London County Council. For this reason we must resist the proposal of the hon. Baronet.

I quite recognise that this is a very difficult question to settle: the question where, and to what extent, there should be an exemption. But I am not quite sure the right hon. Gentleman has given sufficient weight to the general grounds on which railway companies are exempt in rural areas. As the right hon. Gentleman knows quite well, it constantly happens that an enormous proportion of the rates are paid by railway companies which happen to have a line running through a parish. It may be as much as seven-eighths or nine-tenths of the whole rate is paid by a company. Under these circumstances there is something to be said for the railway company, seeing that if a rural district council is going to launch out into expense of an experimental character, which may or may not be of advantage to the district, there ought to be some limitation of liability on the part of the company. I suppose that was the original reason why

the one-fourth was allowed. As a matter of fact, owing to anomalies in the conditions of rating, it constantly happens that while the railway company pays the great bulk of the rates in a rural district, it has no voting power and no control over the expenditure; therefore it is not unreasonable, under these circumstances, that it should be, to some extent, exempted from the rating. There is, too, the other reason-to be advanced, and that is that the railway company is discharging a duty to the public as much as the rural district council. While I am ready to support my hon. Friend in many of his proposals, I hope-he will not press this to a Division, because I am sure the President of the Local Government Board will give the matter careful consideration on its merits, and, should he come to the conclusion that some modification is desirable, will deal with the question between now and the appearance of the Bill in another place.

Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time."

The House divided: Ayes, 27; Noes, 95.

moved the following Clause:—

Power to Local Government Board to Revoke Unreasonable Bye-laws.

"(1) If the Local Government Board is satisfied by local inquiry or otherwise that the erection of dwellings for the working classes within any county district is unreasonably impeded by the building bye-laws and regulations in force in the district, the Board may require the local authority to amend the same. And if the local authority does not within three months after such requisition amend such bye-laws and regulations so as to render them free from unreasonable restrictions, the Local Government Board may revoke the existing bye-laws and regulations and put in force within the district bye-laws and regulations in accordance with the requirements of this Section.

"(2) In bye-laws and regulations to be made under the Public Health Acts or this Act with reference to the erection of dwellings for the working classes, reasonable latitude shall be allowed as to materials and methods of construction, having special regard to the materials or method of construction available or ordinarily employed in the district. But it shall be essential to provide therein for protection against damp and the risk of fire, for the free access of light and air, and for the licensing of temporary detached structures to meet special local requirements in connection with small holdings or otherwise."

The object of this Clause is twofold. In the first place it gives the Local Government Board, after a local inquiry, power to revoke unreasonable bye-laws—that is to say, bye-laws which unreasonably restrict the erection of dwellings for the working classes. The second part of the Clause provides that in bye-laws and regulations reasonable latitude shall be allowed as to materials and methods of construction, but that it shall be essential to provide for protection against damp and risk of fire, for the free access of light and air, and for the licensing of temporary detached structures to meet special local requirements. As to the first part of the Clause, I venture to think that the President of the Local Government Board will not be altogether without sympathy with that proposition. A somewhat similar sug- gestion was made at an earlier stage of the Bill, but this is essentially different from that in several respects. In the first place, it is not urged particularly with respect to one particular local authority; and in the second, it does not provide for an exemption for existing bye-laws, but for the revocation of any unreasonable ones, which will then have to be re-enacted according to the existing statutes. I do think that there really is a very serious grievance to be met with reference to existing bye-laws. At present the condition of the law is this: Bye-laws once made cannot, so far as I know, be revoked at all by any means, except possibly, I am not quite sure, whether they can be revoked by the authority that made them, but there is no other means of getting rid of them at all, and that has turned out to be in several cases a very serious impediment to the building, particularly of cottages for labourers in country districts. We are all familiar with the kind of dispute which has taken place. There was a celebrated one in which one of the learned judges was concerned, and in which the bye-law required plans to be deposited before any such building was erected. The learned judge, I think, himself drew upon a bit of paper what he conceived to be necessary for what was proposed to be done, but the local authority said they were bound under their bye-laws to have proper plans prepared by a builder or architect. It is obvious that that kind of impediment will enormously increase the cost of building in rural districts.

It is not really a desirable thing at all, and there are cases of a serious character where such bye-laws are deliberately kept in force and acted upon for the purpose of benefiting individuals who have special influence with certain members of the local authority. Of course, that does not happen in the case of a big local authority, and I do not suggest for a moment it does, but there are scattered up and down the country certain local authorities who deliberately use their power under their bye laws in order to take care that a particular person or a particular trader shall be employed for the benefit of those who have influence with the local authority. I do not want to labour this unnecessarily, but I remember another case which came under my own notice, where it was pro- posed to build a row of four or five cottages in a field hundreds of yards away from any other habitation. The cottages were to be built in order to secure cheapness, and they were to be of only one storey. No objection was raised, and they were perfectly satisfactory in construction, but it was insisted that every one of those cottages should have a wall carried to the roof with the result that four or five cottages were stuck down in a rural district in that form. It was obvious that the cottages, all having but one floor, if any fire took place all the inhabitants could escape, and that was an unreasonable bye-law enforced unreasonably. It is desirable that there should be some kind of appeal to prevent that kind of unreasonable action on the part of local authorities. I think the President of the Local Government Board has had brought before him, by an association with which he is acquainted, a considerable number of instances of unreasonable bye-laws of that description, and I cannot help thinking that this is really rather a good opportunity to extend the power of the Local Government Board, because it is only extending a power to revoke bye-laws which is already in existence. Of course, when the bye-laws are made they have to receive the assent of the Local Government Board. That is the law at present. Some of these bye-laws have been enacted many years ago under conditions which no longer prevail, or under a state of knowledge which is quite different from the present, and when you get a recalcitrant local authority it seems very desirable to give the Local Government Board power to hold a local inquiry, and after hearing everything that can be said, to revoke the bye-law. In regard to the second part of the Clause it is of much smaller importance, though I should have thought it was desirable generally to lay down some such rule.

seconded the Motion.

I trust the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to accept the Clause. It meets the point which I have urged in a far more satisfactory way than my new Clause, because it will not only relax building bye-laws in favour of local authorities, but of private enterprise as well. That is most necessary if the housing problem is to be solved, The right hon. Gentleman, in objecting to my new Clause, said I ought to have blamed previous Local Government Boards for having created those bye-laws. I think the case of the revision of bye-laws does not necessarily mean that the bye-laws, when first made, were inadvisable, but only paints to the fact that there have been very great improvements in building methods. At present the London County Council is seeking for very large and important alterations in the London Building Act owing to methods of building which had never been heard of at the time when these Building Acts were first passed. It is, no doubt, the same with many bye-laws which have been passed by the Local Government Board, and no President of the Local Government Board can be so far-seeing as to foretell at the time of approving the bye-laws how construction will be carried out in future, and what modifications may be necessary. Quite apart from that, there are very great advances which have lately been made in the science of town planning, and it is ridiculous now to have to lay down wide pavements in all cases, instead of having green verges and trees by the side of the road. It is an absurdity that in some parts of the suburban districts you must have 50-ft, roads, however short they are and however little importance they may have as means of communication. In Wood Green you must have 50-ft. roads, whereas in the neighbouring districts of Tottenham and Edmonton, where there is already far more traffic, you need only have 40-ft. roads. I believe, if the right hon. Gentleman will accept the Clause, it will do far more to encourage the building of houses than all the rest of the Bill put together.

It is essential that steps should be taken to modify bye-laws which unreasonably interfere with the building of houses for the working classes. I agree that the first paragraph of the Clause is really the important one, and I am not sure it would not be better to omit the second paragraph, altogether, so that the Local Government Board may have the power in a general way to deal with bye-laws which are thought unreasonable and which interfere with the construction of cottages, and that it should not be laid down in the Clause that there are any special matters to which their attention should be directed. The questions of material and the methods of construction are important, but there are several other points in which it would be a very good thing if the bye-laws were modified. With regard to protection against damp and the risk of fire, these would be taken as matters of course, and it would continue to be the duty of the Local Government Board, as at present, to see that such matters as these are properly dealt with in the bye-laws. I think it will be much better to leave general power to revoke bye-laws which are unreasonable, and which interfere with the building of reasonably good cottages at a reasonable cost in both town and country districts.

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be very careful before he makes a concession on this point, because, whilst there may be some districts where the bye-laws handicap the builders in erecting houses, there are other districts where it would be well if the bye-laws were tightened up considerably. Speaking as one with some practical knowledge of the building trade, I know that in many of the rural districts there is not that careful inspection of houses that there ought to be; and I hope, before accepting the Amendment, the Government will carefully consider the matter. I know that in some of those places where it is suggested that there might be some relaxation, and I do not deny that bye-laws are sometimes extremely harsh, it would simply mean the erection of a cheap and nasty kind of dwelling.

That is not the object of the Clause, nor do I think it will be the effect. It only comes into operation where the erection of buildings is unreasonably impeded, and that has to be ascertained by local inquiry and the decision of the Local Government Board, but it does not give power to anyone to build what he likes.

Unreasonable is not a very good word to introduce into legislation, because different views may be taken of the meaning of the word. Whilst agreeing that it is necessary that some relaxation might be made in some districts, the wording of any alteration of the Bill will have to be very carefully thought out, otherwise people who like to take advantage of the bye-laws will do so.

I agree with the view of the Noble Lord (Lord R. Cecil). My hon. Friend (Mr. Tyson Wilson) on the whole supported the Noble Lord, because the question of inspection does not come in. The official mind is always at war against any new experiment, and the local official mind in the country districts ap- pears to me to regard any new departure from old-established custom as almost high treason. Confronted with a set of bye-laws, which have been all right under certain circumstances, a person comes along who has got a new idea as to cottages. He is quite prepared to conform to all reasonable conditions required of him. I am sure we are all agreed about that, but he wants to erect the cottages in a different way. There is no possible means by which the official can allow that to be done. The work must be done on the approved lines. He must go along the old path, because the bye-laws are dead against him. I take it that under the new Clause the President of the Local Government Board, whoever he might be, when he had satisfied himself that the fundamental requirements of health were to be observed, would say that it was worth while making the experiment. I believe that experiments are of great value in rural life. The labourer is poorly paid, and we should all like to see that remedied, but still, under present conditions, we want to give him healthy house accommodation at the cheapest possible rate. There may be some obstacles to prevent the President of the Local Government Board from accepting the Amendment, but if there are I hope they will not be the stereotyped Departmental objections. Unless there is some real, good objection, I shall be obliged to support the Noble Lord.

The hon. Member for the Westhoughton Division (Mr. Wilson) expressed himself in favour of tightening up the bye-laws passed in some country districts, and I associate myself with that view. But the hon. Member forgets that this particular Clause would enable the Local Government Board to do that where the tightening up of the bye-laws was necessary to the carrying out of a scheme. The advantage of this Clause would be that it would standardise to a large extent the modern requirements for working class dwellings throughout the country. The difficulty with a great many local authorities is that they have their own stereotyped ideas as to the erection of buildings, sanitary arrangements, and the construction of drains. Take, for instance, the bye-law which insists that all cottages or dwellings must have a nine-inch brick wall between two buildings. Since that bye-law was introduced concrete has come to be used largely in the construction of such houses. Many people consider that it affords a better protection against the spread of fire. Indeed, as regards strength it is superseding the nine-inch brick wall, and yet under the bye-laws in operation in certain localities concrete would be barred out. The inspectors visiting the various localities would be able to see for themselves what were really the most satisfactory forms of sanitary and drainage arrangements, and by keeping in close touch with the whole country they would naturally be able to render most valuable assistance to local authorities in framing new bye-laws or altering old bye-laws. As the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Maddison) has pointed out, local authorities in some cases have got into a groove, and no amount of local pressure is sufficient to get them out of it. I have in my mind several instances where localities adhere to old-fashioned methods of carrying off sewage. I know a case where a private individual had a system of drainage put in according to the bye-laws sanctioned by the local authority, and later on he engaged the same contractors to put in a new form of drainage. The very people who did the work 10 or 15 years ago told him that the old system was absolutely out of date, and yet under the bye-laws then existing it would have been impossible for him to have the work done in the up-to-date form. It happens sometimes that bye-laws are approved in local councils by very narrow majorities. The whole council will be only too glad if under this Clause the Local Government Board had power with the knowledge they have at their back to abrogate some of these bye-laws with the view of bringing the arrangements up-to-date. I would suggest to the Noble Lord that he should drop out Sub-section (2) giving details of the subjects in regard to which bye-laws are to be made. It appears to me that the sub-section would render it difficult if not impossible to make bye-laws in future in regard to other matters which might be discovered to be equally important.

The subject now before the House is one of general interest. Speaking generally, the Local Government Board associate themselves with the objects sought to be secured by the various Members who have spoken, and it may be well, before I deal with the precise Amendment, that I should ask the House to realise that during the last three or four years, owing to the publicity given to the discussion of this matter in the Press, and particularly in the technical journals, the local authorities are more reasonable in the matter of preparing bye-laws, and, above all—and this is more important—in abolishing bye-laws which are shown to be unreasonable than they were eight or ten years ago. The question was raised in a most judicial way a few years ago, and I think the general public are extremely indebted to the judge who raised it in a celebrated case, and pointed out very clearly that it was possible for a local authority, in the arbitrary exercise of their powers, to make bye-laws which are not adaptable to the materials used or capable of being assimilated to the local circumstances. It is possible for a local authority to abuse their position, and, not only to impose unnecessary expense, but to inflict on the working class in a locality itself considerable disadvantage by the pedantic way in which they adhere to archaic and what ought to be obsolete rules. This brings us to the practical difficulty which I am as anxious to avoid as any Member who has spoken. Speaking generally, I have done my best, so far as the local authorities are concerned, to suggest to them that the past conditions, to a great extent, have got to be reviewed, that owing to the growth of knowledge and the incoming of new methods and new materials, the existing bye-laws and regulations have got to be reviewed, and that it is necessary to adapt themselves to the new conditions. I am glad to say, and I think that the Noble Lord will agree with me, that great progress has been made in that direction by the Local Government Board taking that particular line. That brings me to the method we shall adopt to bring unreasonable local bodies, and, above all, recalcitrant local bodies, to a sense of justice and reason. That is one of the difficulties that have been disclosed by various speakers. For instance, the hon. Member for East Hertfordshire (Mr. A. H. Smith) has appealed to the Noble Lord, and I trust not without success, not to press Sub-section (2), on the ground that it goes beyond what the Noble Lord seeks to secure; and I think, if he refers to this stage of the Bill, it would be unreasonable to press it, even if there were a chance of accepting it. That was supported by one of the Irish Members. Further diversity was shown by my hon. Friend below the Gangway, who speaks with direct personal knowledge of house building by virtue of his trade as a carpenter. He urged the Government, whilst meeting proved hard I cases, not to adopt a general rule with regard to the relaxation of bye-laws; that if such a policy were adopted it would encourage people who wanted bad conditions and cheap and nasty houses with insanitary regulations that have not prevailed for a long time, and to restore conditions the very opposite to those which the Noble Lord desires. It was suggested by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Maddison) that the Local Government Board should take some action in the matter and not adhere too strictly to local rules. To me that advice, though welcome at all times, is rather belated, because immediately I went to the Local Government Board my practical knowledge of building bye-laws and regulations demonstrated to me three or four years ago the need for some action of this kind, and, so far as we can take it by confirmation and approval of bye-laws, we have done so. But though on this point I am rather in advance of many Members who have spoken, yet while providing for cases that it is desirable to deal with I do not want to provide exemptions that will be followed in a large number of bad cases that might occur if a general exemption from bye-laws and regulations were resorted to. What is the way out? The Noble Lord has suggested one or two ways. I do not think that the Noble Lord will admit that public inquiry alone is the only means by which the unreasonableness or otherwise of bye-laws or regulations could be proved. There are about 25,000 local authorities in this country, and nearly everyone of them have something to do with sanitary or public health or building bye-laws and regulations, and obviously we cannot have a public inquiry in every case; and therefore it means that we must have it in a certain number of cases.

Wherever a prim â facie case is first made out.

2.0 P.M.

The Noble Lord then limits the inquiry to cases in which a primâ facie case is made out for intervention by the Local Government Board for the revision or the revoking of the building bye-laws. There is a great deal of difficulty now as to local authorities revoking their bye-laws. If model or other bye-laws are issued by a local body within two months, it is possible, if exception is taken to them and it is proved to be feasible and reasonable, to revoke them. That is a considerable advance upon the past practice. I admit it is possible that in some cases provision not only for revision but probably for veto by the central authority might be desirable, and I have done my best to look at this sympathetically. I would like the Noble Lord and others who have spoken to recognise the complexity of this matter, because we should have not only to deal under bye-laws with building regulations, but with public health, and that is a matter for a Public Health Act, which this does not pretend to be. I trust that I may carry the House with me when I make this suggestion, that between now and this Bill reaching another place I will see whether any other process than a public inquiry can be adopted, and I will go even further than that, and if some form of words can be adopted to meet special cases of bye-laws, by giving some additional power to the Local Government Board to revoke or refuse, or if some special method can be devised, to deal with bodies who subject owners, and, incidentally, themselves, to great inconvenience. I will pledge my word to see whether something of that kind cannot be done. The reason I cannot go further than that now is that I am very reluctant in providing for exceptionally bad cases in which owners and the community suffer for the mistakes of their own local authorities, to adopt any rule that will encourage other people to use the exemptions granted as a means of breaking through the building bye-laws and regulations generally. If the Noble Lord will agree to that suggestion I will be only too pleased to carry out the view which I have indicated. Apart from that, there was a Bill brought in in another place by the Noble Lord, Lord Hylton, with whom I had a number of conferences and whose Bill in the main I agreed to support. But we cannot put these matters into this Bill, because the Noble Lord, in another place, agreed with me that if we were to meet this case fully we should have to amend the Housing Bill and run side by side a Public Health Amendment Act dealing with bye-laws and regulations to meet all the cases that the Noble Lord suggested; But beyond what I suggest, I will go so far as to see whether it would not be possible, this Bill pointing the way, to have an Amendment of the Public Health Act and building bye-laws, in so far as they are not touched by this measure, in order to meet a number of other points, apart from those mentioned this afternoon. If the Noble Lord will accept my pledge, I think it will foe the best way out of the difficulty, which I admit to be apparent, and which ought to be dealt with. I pledge myself to deal with it in the most practicable and efficient way that can be found.

While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his sympathetic reference to my Noble Friend's Clause, I venture to submit that he has not read it with sufficient closeness. It is a Clause which has been most carefully drawn by the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Pretyman), and it gives no powers in regard to exceptional cases. The character of bye-laws and the evil which the Clause is intended to meet are recognised by both sides of the House. Private owners are the best people to build houses on their own estates, but they have been subjected to oppressive and unreasonable bye-laws. The right hon. Gentleman spoke as if we would be bound to have a local inquiry.

I am quite aware that a public inquiry may be supplemented by information obtained by private representation or otherwise; but in a case like the Grantham case, a public inquiry would have to ensue after the reception of the complaint. I am thoroughly conversant with what the Noble Lord seeks to secure, and it is because I am in hearty sympathy with him that I do not want to be bound by the exact words he proposes, in view of difficulties not contemplated by those words, and which I should not be able to provide against if the Noble Lord's proposal were incorporated in the Bill.

I quite accept what the right hon. Gentleman has said, though I am bound to say his remarks sounded as if he thought a local inquiry necessary.

No.

The right hon. Gentleman's second point as to total exemption does not occur in the proposed Clause. It simply gives power for a local inquiry "or otherwise." This Clause simply gives power to the Local Government Board, if they are not satisfied by local inquiry or otherwise, with the unreasonable restrictions imposed by local bye-laws, to deal with the matter themselves. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will accept this Clause either here or in another place. I quite agree with him that this Bill goes a long way to meet the evils with which it is intended to deal, but in regard to other evils which exist, I submit that, with the incorporation of this Clause, the measure would afford a much better chance for the passing' of an amending Bill.

I desire to speak a word of warning against holding local inquiries. I have had considerable experience in dealing with these bye-laws and the housing of the working classes. A local inquiry held publicly involves the advertising of a public meeting in connection with the inquiry, and it is a bad way in which to collect local information. If you are going to give these powers to the Local Government Board, I think they ought to proceed by way of private inquiry. In the case of a local inquiry accompanied by a public meeting you get all the wordy people of the district to come and give their evidence. I think that is a bad form in which to get information, and, if the Clause is accepted—and I do not see any reason why it should not be—I trust it will be with these words, as to a local inquiry, left out.

I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Courtenay Warner) that a publicly advertised notice of a local inquiry is a futile operation, but there is this advantage in a public inquiry—that people cannot say that they have not been afforded the opportunity to be heard. Apart from that, if the right hon. Gentleman tells me that he cannot accept the Clause now, then, of course, I do not wish to press it. But I would suggest that he might take the first part of it and drop the second. If the first part is put in the Bill the principle stands, and if he thinks, after Departmental consideration, that it requires some alteration or amendment, that could be done in another place. We have every confidence in the right hon. Gentleman and his good wishes in the matter, but we feel that it is a great thing to get the principle into the Bill, so that it shall not be overlooked or crushed out. Once it is in, then we are satisfied that something is going to be done; and if this be not the right way;, some modification could foe introduced so that the proper machinery might be introduced. I venture very respectfully to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to grant the insertion of the first paragraph, on the understanding that the matter will be reconsidered by the Department, and that they are not in any way bound to the wording of the machinery, but only to the general principle that some such Clause should be inserted. I think I may say that such a course would meet with the general acceptance of those who approve of this Clause, and I believe would be a source of great gratification.

I trust the Noble Lord will not press me in this matter and ask me to go further, after the full and sympathetic response I have made to speeches from all quarters of the House. To insert those words in the first Section of the Bill would prevent my doing what hon. Members are seeking to accomplish, and would retard, if they did not prevent, my effecting that which hon. Members below the Gangway opposite desire. I can assure the Noble Lord I will endeavour to meet the points he has raised.

After the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, I ask leave to withdraw.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

moved to omit the Clause.

We had considerable discussion upon this question, and I very much regret I was unable to move the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Burns) from the position he took up. The argument which I used, and in which, after careful consideration, I fail to see any defects, was that the local authorities in the urban and rural districts should be able to gauge the wants and requirements of their districts, and that having come to a proper conclusion as to the wants and requirements of the ratepayers and voters in the particular district, that they should act accordingly. We have always considered that the creation of local authorities elected by the people on a particularly wide franchise—from my point of view a franchise which is very much too wide—was one of the chief platform planks in the platform of the party opposite. It was in their opinion a good thing that the in- habitants of a district should elect from amongst their own body certain people to guide them in the administration of the district in which they dwelt. This Clause is a complete reversal of that policy. Unless this Clause is omitted the local elected bodies will not be able to exercise their own discretion as to whether Part III. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, shall or shall not be adopted. They will be compelled under this Bill to adopt that part of the Act of 1890. The Act of 1890 was passed by a Conservative Government, and was meant to deal chiefly with urban districts. The conditions between urban and rural districts are very different. This Bill compels the adoption of an Act in rural districts which was intended to apply to urban districts. It is not at all, I believe, for the welfare of the people in a rural district that the proceedings and the bye-laws and regulations, which are good and proper in an urban district, should be adopted. I will give an instance. A short time ago some cottages were built in the country, and, in accordance with the conviction of the owner that drains in the country are bad things, earth closets, and not drains, were provided. The cottages stood in three or four hundred acres of land. The experience of the owner showed that drains were always getting stopped or clogged. Of course, that could not be done in an urban district, but in the interests of sanitation it was thought to be the best thing in the rural district. Down came the district authorities, who had adopted bye-laws made for the town, and they said, "Oh, no; there must be a drain. We recognise it is much better not to have it, but the bye-law says a drain is to be made." When the drain was made it would probably be blocked up and unused, and much more offensive and insanitary than if there was not a drain. That is a good example showing the great mistake of passing these hard and fast rules which may be good in one instance, but which are not good for every case. The only result is that evils must arise because you cannot alter the mind of the official. He knows there is a set of regulations, and he acts by those as a sort of automaton. He has no freedom of action, and is not able, apparently—and I do not blame him—to depart from the rules and regulations laid down.

There is another strong reason for moving the omission of this Clause, because, later on in the Bill,' it is provided that any four inhabitants of the district may petition the Local Government Board, and may induce them to compel the local authority, which has adopted these particular provisions, to put them in force. If, after the local authority had adopted these provisions, it was left to them to decide whether or not they should act upon them, I do not know that I should have had very much to say against this particular Clause. I still think it is a great mistake, because I do not believe in putting compulsion upon the local authority to do such things. This Clause, taken in connection with the rest of the Bill, provides that four people may go to the Local Government Board, and the Local Government Board may hold an inquiry. After having held the local inquiry, which has been instituted by those four people, the local authority practically disappears and the Local Government Board practically takes its place. I think that is agreed. Earlier in the Debate to-day the President of the Local Government Board refused to accept a proposal on the ground that it would subject the local authority to the whims of the President of the Local Government Board for the time being. This particular Clause does exactly what the right hon. Gentleman said earlier ought not to be done. Therefore I have hopes that the right hon. Gentleman has seen the errors of his way and will be logical and consistent, and will continue in the attitude which he took up previously in the Debate. I fail to see what is to be gained by this Clause. Its omission would not interfere with the carrying out of Part III. Local authorities could still carry out its provisions if they wished to do so; but there would be no compulsion, which is apparently so dear to the hearts of the party opposite. They are always saying, "Trust the people." I do not remember a Government who did not justify their deeds on the ground that they were desired by the people, that the people ought to be masters in their own house, and that you should trust the people. But that is exactly what this Clause does not do. It says, not "Trust the people," but "Trust the President of the Local Government Board." That may be a very excellent thing to do, but it is not democratic. The present President of the Local Government Board is a Radical, but it does not follow that he will always be a Radical. In fact, if he remains much longer in office, I am not at all certain that he will not adopt in their entirety the views held on this side of the House. I am glad to Kay that he is tending that way, and I give him every credit for it. But this Clause does away with all the professions the party opposite have made. If the right hon. Gentleman denies that, let him accept the Amendment, and then the will of the people, as exemplified in their own elected authorities, will prevail. I beg to move.

I beg to second the Amendment.

It is impossible for the Government to accept this Amendment, as its acceptance would strike a serious blow at the Bill. When that view is confirmed, as it was unmistakably by the House a week ago, by 132 to 19, it is superfluous to adduce many arguments against the Amendment.

Why have a Report stage?

I agree. When the hon. Member submitted his proposal through his Friends on the Standing Committee, that body unanimously declined to have anything to do with it.

That was last year.

When the Committee of the whole House confirmed that decision by rejecting the Motion to delete the Clause by 132 to 19, it seems to me that that is sufficient evidence against the Amendment. If the hon. Baronet's views in this matter prevailed, I am afraid the conditions of the housing of the working classes would be infinitely worse than he, to his credit, would like them to be. He spoke of leaving local authorities alone. That is not a case of leaving them alone; it is a case of enabling all local authorities to have what at present only a few of the larger authorities have. By our proposal we confer upon the 671 rural district councils of the country a power which many other authorities at present possess, and in exercising which they do a great deal of good.

Could not these 671 authorities adopt Part III. of the Act of 1890 if they desired to do so?

Yes; but the hon. Baronet ought to ask further, why, having the power to adopt Part III., they do not do so. Out of 671 rural district councils who have power to adopt that part of the Act, only nine or ten have done so. Why? Because they have to get the consent of the county council, and they are deterred from adopting that dilatory course. Many of these councils have to look after areas where cottages are more needed than in districts whose authorities enjoy this privilege. If there is a case to which Part III. ought to be extended, it is the case of these 671 authorities, of whom only ten have put it in force. The hon. Baronet suggested that if the power to build new cottages were conferred upon, and Part III. applied to, rural district councils generally, these bodies would be interfered with in the exercise of their local judgment, knowledge, and experience, in the making of bye-laws. Let us put that to the test. What have these authorities done in the matter of bye-laws, regulations, and inspection? Two hundred and fourteen have no bye-laws at all. That is a position of things we cannot allow to go on any longer, especially as in some rural areas we find, relatively speaking, worse housing conditions than exist in the slums of our great cities and towns. When out of 671 rural district councils, 214 have no bye-laws at all, and 208 have only the rural model, in many cases the most elementary of regulations, it seems to me that we ought to insist upon these provisions applying generally. I believe that these authorities will use the powers reasonably, so far as owners of both land and houses are con-

cerned, and by so doing do a great deal to remove the scandal which now exists in regard to rural housing. The existing condition of things can be best met by the authoritieis building more and better cottages, under proper sanitary conditions, in accordance with new bye-laws with which it is the intention of the Local Government Board to provide them.

I am in general agreement with what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman, but may I point out one not quite accurate suggestion, that the state of things which undoubtedly exists is due merely, or mainly, to the fact that the rural councils at the present time have to get permission from the county council before they can adopt Part III. of the Act. There have been singularly few applications to county councils, but to these permission has been given. There is really, therefore, no need in this controversy to reflect upon any local authority. It is sufficient to support, as I trust every Member of the House, except, perhaps, the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) will do the insertion of Clause 1 in the Bill. It makes universal what is now partial, and it is a step in housing reform on which I trust we are all agreed.

Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 120; Noes, 27.

moved, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words from "Act" ["Part III. of the principal Act"], to the end of the Sub-section.

This Amendment is to be followed by a consequential Amendment to leave out certain words in Sub-section (2). The object of my Amendment is not in any way to interfere with the aims and methods of the Bill. It will not alter in any kind of way the powers of the Bill, or the results which may be expected to occur from the Bill. All it does is to alter the method by which the land, or house, or whatever property can be compulsorily acquired under the provisions of the Bill, shall be paid for. It substitutes for the present system Section 176 of the Public Health Act of 1875. The reason I move this, and the reason I attach very great importance to the Amendment is, because I think, unless it is adopted, the method and manner by which land can be compulsorily acquired, and the price settled, will be extremely unfair, and will be very much against the owners of property who are brought into the meshes of the net laid out by this particular Bill. I must ask the House to turn to the first Schedule to see what Clause 2 really provides. The omission of the words which I move to leave out would practically mean the omission of the first Schedule to the Bill, as that schedule says, "An order under this Schedule shall be of no force unless and until it is confirmed by the Board," and the Board may confirm the order with or without modifications, but "the order so confirmed shall become final, and have effect as if enacted in this Act." I think that is a very strong order. The Local Government Board shall have power to say of their own sweet will that certain property shall be taken away from the owners without consulting Parliament or without even having a Provisional Order or allowing the Order to lie for 40 days upon the Table of the House. For these things the will of the President of the Local Government Board is substituted. That may be a very excellent thing, but if we are going to do it let us do it with our eyes open, and let us admit that the advantages and privileges and functions of Members of Parliament have disappeared. All the executive power and the legislative power goes with the first Schedule, "An Order so confirmed shall become final and have effect as if enacted in this Act." It is not enacted in this Act or any other Act, and therefore we are placing the President of the Local Government Board above all authority, which is subversive of all Parliamentary Govern- ment, and is a greater alteration in the Constitution than if the Finance Bill is rejected in another place. Who appoints the arbitrator? Is it the county council or the district council or the persons whose property is to be affected that are to meet and appoint him; and if they disagree is there an arrangement by which the Lord Chief Justice or some court of the realm is to appoint the arbitrator? No, the arbitrator is to be appointed by the Local Government Board, who are to be judge, jury, and everything else in their own case.

I really do trust the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider his position in this matter. If he accepts my Amendment he will not be interfering with his Bill in the least. I frankly admit I am not very much enamoured with the provisions of the Bill, but my Amendment would not prevent the Bill carrying out all it desires to carry out, the only effect would be that where there is compulsory acquisition of property there must be a Provisional Order. These Provisional Orders are not expensive, but it is only right and just that when you are acquiring other people's property you should do it by Provisional Order. My Amendment provides for that, and Section 176 of the Act of 1875 contains provisions for the appointing of the arbitrator to consider and determine the compensation to be paid. On the Committee stage I moved an Amendment which would exempt corporations that acquired their property under Acts of Parliament from having that property taken away and having their Acts of Parliament overridden by the decision of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman would not look at that Amendment. I have an Amendment down on the Paper now which I hope to move in that direction, but I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman is adamant. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will accept this Amendment, because I cannot believe that he will rise in his place and say, "I consider I ought to have power to override other Acts of Parliament." In the last Debate I likened the right hon. Gentleman to Louis XVI.; it should have been Louis XV. He, I think, was the monarch who, when asked about the State, said, "The State is me." The President of the Local Government Board says, "The Local Government Board! The House of Commons! Certainly not! It is me!"

It was Louis XIV.

Oh, Louis XIV.! He was a very great man. The President of the Local Government Board is a great man, but, notwithstanding that, I doubt whether it is wise to put such power into his bands. In France the result was the Revolution. I hope this will not lead to a revolution.

The President of the Local Government Board never loses his head.

I second the Motion. This is parallel to some cases we have in Ireland in reference to the extraordinary power which is delegated to the Treasury, though not to the Local Government Board. Anyone who has read the Act of 1875 will be able to follow very easily what will be the effect if the Amendment of the hon. Baronet is accepted. Every fair-minded man will agree that the Amendment, if accepted, would provide a much greater safeguard than exists as the Bill stands. As the Bill stands Parliament parts with a great deal of its prerogatives, and hands over privileges which it has always jealously guarded to the President of the Local Government Board and his successors. If it were some trifling question of way-leaves or the widening of streets or some pettifogging thing of that sort there would not be so much objection to it, but when it confers a wide power all over the country to exercise these compulsory powers by the President of the Local Government Board who makes himself all through the authority for initiating schemes and arbitrating on them, he is undermining to a large extent the authority of the local bodies. The party in power have constantly been advocating the extension of self-government, and declaring that whatever else Parliament does it should trust the local board or the guardians, and place the greatest reliance upon them. What will be the effect in the case of any largo undertaking in which it is intended to use the powers of the right hon. Gentleman of compulsorily acquiring a large tract of any part of the country to carry out his scheme? The whole thing, instead of being threshed out in the House, will resolve itself into a matter of political pressure. I do not say that that pressure would be brought upon the right hon. Gentleman, but it might be brought upon some of his colleagues. I can imagine some local body coming to an individual Member of the Cabinet and saying, "The President of the Local Government Board has it in his power to carry out by a side wind what the House of Commons has refused." The powers conferred in this Clause are an abrogation of the powers which have hitherto been held by Parliament. I think the powers which are already in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman conferred by the Act I have referred to are sufficiently wide, and furnish all the machinery necessary for the carrying out of the objects of this Bill. I hope the House will take the earliest opportunity of reverting back to that part of the Act to which I have referred, which has worked satisfactorily in the past. I have much pleasure in seconding the Motion.

Upon the Amendment which my hon. Friend has placed before us, I feel bound to say one or two brief words. I regret the new mode which is being adopted of dealing with property which is to be acquired compulsorily. The new provisions dealing with this question which have appeared in several Bills recently are harsh and unjust, and I am glad to have an opportunity of raising my voice against a system which I believe is justly open to this criticism. It is quite true that Schedule I was discussed somewhat imperfectly and hurriedly by the Standing Committee. I have the records of that Committee before me. I think my point is a strong one. Here we have Schedules altering the conditions under which property changes hands by virtue of compulsory purchase. One would imagine that a Clause involving the interests of so many poor people would be discussed fully in this House. In that Committee it was closured out. It is again closured out now. This is legislation by coercion. This is one of the many instances in which tyranny, hardship, injustice, and almost persecution is being inflicted upon innocent people who have invested their savings in property. You now propose to take those savings from them by these proceedings, which I venture respectfully to denounce.

3.0 P.M.

The President, of the Local Government Board having now been compared with Louis XVI. among other monarchs, I wish to point out that, whereas Louis XVI. lost his head in the process of political revolution, the right hon. Gentleman never loses his head in the process of political evolution; therefore, they afford no basis of comparison.

I do not think that this Clause ought to be allowed to pass without a protest. The right hon. Gentleman takes power to act in cases in which he may be a party, because under Clause 10 he may be acting as the force behind the local authority, and, therefore, he has the power to act as arbitrator upon a question to which he may himself be a party, and in which he is the principal moving influence. Under the Schedule he takes power to himself to nominate the arbitrator. No doubt the arbitrator will act in a fair and honourable manner, but all these things should be done in order. The right hon. Gentleman is continually telling us that he relies upon the precedent of the Small Holdings Act, and that he has taken his procedure bodily from that Bill. I do not think he is quite correct in that. Under the Small Holdings Bill there are a great many restrictions upon the sort of land that may be taken which find no place in the present Bill. Moreover, if the right hon. Gentleman will look at Clause 43 of the Small Holdings Bill he will find that it is there provided that all questions which are referred to arbitration are determined by a single arbitrator. Sub-section (2) also provides that "Where an order has been made and confirmed authorising the compulsory acquisition of land by the Commissioners acting in default of the county council, the arbitrator, or the valuer, as the case may be, shall be appointed by the Lord Chief Justice of England instead of by the Board." This is absolutely a parallel case. It is obvious that in a great many oases the Local Government Board, and not the local authorities, will be the main parties; and we ask, and ask with absolute right and justice, that the right hon. Gentleman shall give us some such safeguard as that to which the Board of Agriculture consented in the Small Holdings Act. I cannot understand how the right hon. Gentleman can refuse. It is true, acting under the guillotine, he told the Committee he had adopted the procedure of the Small Holdings Act; but now it is pointed out to him that the procedure under that Act is not as he stated, but otherwise. I think we are entitled to ask for some satisfaction on this point. In other instances the request has been demanded and conceded. The Government took power in the Finance Bill to be both parties and judges in their own case, but, under pressure from all sides of the House, they have now withdrawn from that posi- tion, and agreed that these cases shall be sent to a Committee of Referees; and in the very last Bill they brought before the House—the Development Bill—these cases are referred to an outside arbitrator. With all these precedents I think the right hon. Gentleman can scarcely hold out and claim that he and his Department alone should be above and untrammelled by restrictions Parliament rightly imposes upon every other Department of the State.

I desire to point out that the precedent just now quoted is not entirely by any means on all fours with the proposal we have before us. That is a case where the local authority is in default; but here the local authority is backing up and, indeed, initiating the proposal to compulsorily acquire land. It is not a case so much for comparison as for contrast. You have a double safeguard here. First of all, you have the local authority proposing it. That is abundantly confirmed by reference to the Schedule itself.

If the hon. Gentleman will look at Clause 10 he will find it provides for the overruling of the local authority; and, if it is overruled, the same procedure applies under the first Schedule.

I am talking of the first Clause and the Amendment to it. Where you have a local authority proposing to purchase land compulsorily and you have a public inquiry, with every opportunity given of witnesses who thoroughly know the local circumstances coming forward, it is not going behind the backs of the local authority, and still less is there any defiance of the local authority. You do go in for the maintenance of local government in that sense. We all know how warm an advocate the Noble Lord is of the maintenance of the local authority in its proper sphere, and I heartily sympathise with a great deal he has said on that subject, but I think he has not sufficiently studied the case in regard to this particular point.

An immense amount of responsibility and labour will be thrown upon the President of the Local Government Board, and whilst we all know the right hon. Gentleman, who the hon. Baronet described as the Sultan of Turkey, is such a hard worker and is, in fact, greedy for work, he may have successors who may not be able to fulfil the very onerous duties which will be thrown upon them if this Clause is passed without the proposed Amendment.

It is not my fault that this question of the compulsory acquisition of land under the Housing and Town Planning Bill has been discussed so frequently in the House during the past fortnight and at great length in the Grand Committee upstairs; but this much I must say of the hon. Baronet: He never loses an opportunity, whatever the Bill may be, of pointing the moral and adorning the tale of his method of how land should be acquired by public authorities, whatever the purposes may be. I notice, however, that he is not quite so considerate when railway companies are anxious to acquire land. He admits, I know, that they should proceed by private Bills and by Provisional Orders; but, when they have bought more than they need and happen to have surplus land, he is exceedingly anxious that they shall not be subject to the same powers of the Local Government Board with which he would like to see the local authorities confronted. I confront the hon. Baronet with the precedent of his own party. This method of acquiring land has in the main become general under all political parties and both Governments. If the hon. Baronet will look at the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, he will see the following sensible method, but which in these exciting days is described as a revolutionary method:—

"Where land is acquired under Part III. of the principal Act otherwise than by agreement, any question as to the amount of compensation which may arise shall, in default of agreement, be determined by a single arbitrator to be appointed and removable by the Local Government Board."

I go from that to one or two other Clauses, which I do not intend to read at length, because we have had these almost ad nauseam in the Grand Committee. Section (41) of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, lays it down that the amount of compensation shall be settled by an arbitrator to be appointed and removable by the Local Government Board. The second Schedule of the same Act says: "It shall be lawful for the confirming authority, upon the application of the local authority, to appoint an arbitrator between the local authority and the persons interested in such of the scheduled lands, or lands injuriously affected by the execution of such scheme, so far as compensation for the same has not been made the subject of agreement."

These are two instances from Conservative administration. I now come to the last precedent, which I consider the more applicable to the discussion to-day. We have adopted, I think very wisely, the method of the Small Holdings Act, in so far as such a method can be applied to this particular subject. What is it? It is not a process by which the local authorities get the land for nothing, or at an improper price, or in an unjust way from the present owner. We have the test of experience on our side. Under this Bill the local authority can acquire land for housing, and it proceeds to do that in this way. It makes an order of its intention so to do. That order is not withheld from the landowner or the public. It has to be advertised, and to be served on the owner of the land to be acquired. That order, after being made by the local authority, advertised and served, is submitted to the Local Government Board with the object of guaranteeing that, if the local authority were anxious to expropriate without compensation, the Local Government Board, like reasonable dispensers of justice between contending parties, will see that justice is done to both. When the order has, in due course, been submitted to the Local Government Board, that body, if no objection is raised, orders its issue. But if objection is raised by the owner, then a public inquiry is held by a Local Government Board inspector. If the result of that inquiry is to prove to the inspector that injustice is being done to the owner, then the original decision of the local authority, as formulated in the order, will be tempered and qualified by the Local Government Board.

Roughly, this plan has been adopted by the Small Holdings Commissioners and by the Board of Agriculture, with the result that in the last 18 months no less than 31,000 acres of the land have been either bought or leased by the Commissioners, acting through the Board of Agriculture, by a single arbitrator, on an Order issued and confirmed by the Board. The hon. Baronet should do what I have often asked him to do, i.e., produce any cases of injustice—and they should be numerous— under the Conservative Act of 1890, amended by the Act of 1900. But, in the absence of that evidence, I submit we are perfectly justified, on the precedent of previous Housing Acts, in adopting this particular course for an equally worthy public purpose, namely, the acquisition of land for housing. Does the hon. Baronet think that if this power is exercised the local authority is going—

Have any powers of compulsory purchase been put in force under the Small Holdings Act?

I have heard no cases of injustice, even if they have; and can a greater testimony be paid to the equity of this procedure than the fact that the hon. Baronet is incapable of proving in one single instance that there has been injustice during the last 18 months?

My point was that, under the Small Holdings Act—I am not quite certain I am right—the compulsory powers of purchase have never actually been put in force.

Oh, yes; there have been cases, and if there were not, that, surely, is a strong argument in support of our case, and shows that the object of a Bill such as this is not to promote litigation between contending parties, except as a last resort, where there is occasion in which it should be done. There are 47 cases of compulsory powers under the Small Holdings Act, and if what I have said is true of small holdings, it is true of small housing, and there is not much difference between the local authority, which wants to build 50 or 100 cottages upon a small area, and one which acts under the Small Holdings Act. As to their scheduling the home farm or the best land or dispossessing people of the actual manor house, a number of things can be done in this country; but, thank heaven, we are a sensible people, and we do not pursue the line of greatest resistance in carrying out a public purpose. Under this Bill, what would be the general practice in regard to building 50 or 100 cottages by a small urban or rural authority? What would the local authority do? From the point of view of making the best bargain for themselves, they would get the cheapest land, and they would avoid any inconvenience, either to the rich or poor, in the district; and, in 99 cases out of 100, I am convinced that under the procedure of the present Bill you will find the landowners, to their credit, co-operating with the local authority to enable them to acquire land at the cheapest possible price to build cottages in localities where they are badly needed. I put it thus to hon. Members opposite: No improvement of the condition of the working classes, speaking broadly or generally, can be secured in any, either rural or urban, centre unless land is the chief factor in the means of their improvement, and they are not doing justice to their own social instincts, which in one or two cases have been demonstrated and have been quoted to show that they are in favour of providing houses for the working classes—it is not doing credit to their human instincts, when we have got a common-sense, cheap, prompt and just method, that all this talk about expropriation and confiscation and revolutionary method should be imported into the discussion, in regard to what, after all, is an elementary concession and an act of justice to those who are deprived of decent houses and cottages.

I think better of the hon. Baronet than his speeches indicate, and I really believe that if there was any demonstration in his own neighbourhood that there was a demand for cottages, he would avoid litigation and would be content with a public inquiry. I do not think he would go as far as that. Immediately his local authority issued the order, he would ask the chairman of the urban district council to come down, and when he did and explained to him the necessity for the cottages, he would say, "I will not go to the local inquiry stage; these cottages are wanted. I will drop all this talk about expropriation and revolutionary methods. I will give you all the help I can in promoting this housing scheme; go on, and God bless you and your methods, and may you succeed."

The right hon. Gentleman might say, "God bless you," but as to what his meaning might be that is another matter. Let us look at this from a business point of view. We have got to deal not only with the landowner, who has other resources than land, but people who hold land as trustees and others. The right hon. Gentleman has challenged my hon. Friend to produce an instance of injustice in procedure under a particular Bill. I am surprised at the right hon. Gentleman making that challenge. He has had two cases brought to his notice by a deputation of alleged injustice under this procedure. The deputation brought before him a case from Wales where great injustice was alleged to be done. I am speaking subject to correction. It was land owned by a widow lady or trustees on behalf of some children whose land was about to be taken. They only had a young, solicitor to represent them, who was ab- solutely unskilled in this particular branch of compensation, and applied that they might employ counsel at the arbitration of the Local Government Board. Leave was refused, and their case was presented by a young man utterly unversed in this particular branch of work, and who was unwilling to conduct it. The case was decided against the landowners, and injustice was done.

I do not want the hon. Member to devolve upon my shoulders the general responsibility of my colleague the President of the Board of Agriculture for what was done in this particular case, and he was wrong when he attributes to the Local Government Board the course which he suggests the President of the Board of Agriculture took. I know nothing about this, because I was not in it, and it concerns the President of the Board of Agriculture.

The procedure under that Bill is exactly the same as this, and this particular case of injustice was brought to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman by a deputation who told him that the landowners thought they bad been unjustly treated, and they themselves thought an injustice had taken place. It makes no difference whether it was the Local Government Board or the Board of Agriculture which did not allow counsel to appear. There was another case—that of the county council for Northampton, who were anxious to have someone appear in one of these cases, and the same course was followed. When the right hon. Gentleman makes this distinct challenge to the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, I think it is very unfair that he should do so when he has had two cases of injustice brought before him. Apart from what has happened in the past, I venture to submit that this method generally is an unjust one of acquiring land compulsorily, assuming that it is necessary to do so. I agree it would be somewhat harsh to apply the Lands Clauses Act to every case of the acquisition of land compulsorily, and I have suggested by an Amendment that in this Bill we should adopt the procedure copied from the Development Bill now before the House, and which is less favourable to landowners. It is that a single arbitrator should be appointed by the Lord Chief Justice of England, and by certain other people in Ireland and Scotland, who should have full powers as regards the costs of witnesses and counsel. That is a modified form of the Lands Clauses Act, and the Government put it before the House as a fair way of dealing with matters of this kind. Under this Bill the Local Government Board, who are to a certain extent in the first instance promoters of the Order, if it becomes necessary to take land compulsorily, themselves appoint the impartial man to deal with the question. Surely it would be better than that one of the parties should appoint the arbitrator, that the Lord Chief Justice should do so, and I see no reason why this Clause in the Development Bill should not be adopted and some impartial person should appoint the arbitrator. The right right hon. Gentleman, to disarm our suspicion, said that a counsel or ex-counsel would be sent down, and when he is sent down to do this piece of legerdemain under the Act what would he do? He has never been in the district before, he is appointed and remunerated by the Local Government Board, and he has no local knowledge. Assuming the right hon. Gentleman trusts me, and I am sent down under Clause 8, I am to act as arbitrator, and as far as possible in assessing compensation it is indicated that local knowledge would be rather a useful thing. It goes on:— The persons holding the inquiry or arbitration shall hear by themselves or their agents any authorities or parties, but shall not. except in such cases as the Board otherwise direct, bear counsel or expert witnesses. So that you are sending counsel down to a locality he knows nothing about, and he is not to hear any expert witnesses to tell him the value of the land at all. Is it not really a travesty of a judicial tribunal if you send down counsel, however eminent, and deny the parties interested the right to appeal by counsel, and the arbitrator is not to inform his mind by expert witnesses unless the Local Government Board give their permission? It is not just to the landlord or to anyone else that land should be compulsorily acquired in this way.

I think the right hon. Gentleman was somewhat unfair in his reply to the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury). Both my hon. Friend and hon. Members on this side will entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman when he says practically all this land acquired for building and housing will be acquired by agreement, and no compulsory powers of purchase need be put into force. But that is not the point. The point is to be found in the right hon. Gentleman's own speech. He claims the Local Government Board as the dispenser of justice and as having to fulfil a quasi-judicial function. It is that that we object to, and surely, in the interests of the Local Government Board and of the country at large, it is far better for the right hon. Gentleman to adopt Section 43 of the Agricultural Holdings Act and allow these arbitrators to be appointed by the Lord Chief Justice. It is appealing from Cæsar unto Cæsar and the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge, in the interests of himself and the Local Government Board that it is essential that everyone should have absolute confidence in the arbitrator appointed. No one on this side would ever dream of suggesting that an arbitrator appointed by the right hon. Gentleman would be in any way biassed, but it is essential for the public at large to have complete confidence in the arbitrator, and I do not believe they would if the arbitrator is appointed by the Local Government Board. May I again appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to reply to the question why he will not adopt the procedure of Section 43 of the Small Holdings Act?

My right hon. Friend gave an absolutely conclusive answer on the point of the appointment of the arbitrator. He quoted in the first instance from the Housing Act of 1890, where in the second Schedule it distinctly provides that in Part I. cases the arbitrator is to be appointed by the Local Government Board itself. That was an Act passed by a Unionist Administration. By Section 41 of that important Act, which is regarded as the Magna Charta of housing, the Local Government Board is expressly empowered to appoint an arbitrator who is to determine this question of compensation. Ten years later, by the Act of 1900, when these cases had actually been decided over and over again, another Act was passed by a Unionist Government, and in Part III. cases under the Act of 1890 the Local Government Board, with 10 years' experience, was again empowered to appoint a single arbitrator to determine these questions. Under these circumstances, how can hon. Gentlemen opposite turn back the clock in this way? We are not travelling upon any unexplored Polar regions. We are on the well-trodden path of Unionist policy. This policy has not only been initiated by a Unionist Government, but approved by a Unionist Government after 10 years' experience. It is absolutely necessary for us to have these new and important provisions for the compulsory acquisition of land which the Amendment would cut out. The Select Committee upon Housing said: At present one of the chief obstacles in the way of local authorities who desire to put the Housing Acts in operation is the complicated nature of the machinery by which the land may be compulsorily acquired. Not only does this tend to make a local authority reluctant to take any action at all, but in cases where action has "been decided on it almost necessarily increases the expense of their scheme since local authorities will often be prepared to pay more than the market value for the land required rather than undergo the uncertainty and delay which the resort to compulsory powers now involves. There can be no doubt that in some cases at least the price given has been far beyond the real value of the land. I turn to the cases in which applications since 1896 for Provisional Orders for compulsory powers to purchase land for the purpose of Part III. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890 have been made. There have been, owing to the circumstances described in the Report of the Select Committee, only seven such cases, such has been the deterrent effect of the law as it exists at present, and in only one case was a Provisional Order issued. The other applications were chiefly withdrawn, or failed on the ground of the considerable expense involved. If the Amendment is carried we shall simply be relegated to that unsatisfactory and unhappy position, and I appeal to the Committee under the circumstances to endorse these provisions, which we believe to be absolutely necessary for the compulsory acquisition of land upon fair terms, provisions which in their essence very largely have been approved and adopted by the party opposite.

I am sure the House is very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Herbert Lewis) for making the point clear. I should like to make one observation as the hon. Gentleman has quoted the Report of a Committee of which I was a member. That Committee reported that there had been considerable difficulty in acquiring land, but I would remind the House that that Report was made before the Small Holdings Act was passed two years ago. I believe the hon. Member will satisfy us if he will say that the Government are prepared to adopt the procedure under the Small Holdings Act. He is aware that while the Board of Agriculture are parties to the procedure under that Act the Lord Chief Justice is empowered to appoint the arbitrator. Therefore the whole difference between the two sides of the House is on the question of appointing the arbitrator. I think more would have been heard of this point in the Grand Committee if it had not been that the form of procedure proposed was so wrapped up in legislation by reference that it was difficult for everybody except lawyers to realise what it was. The Committee were thoroughly weary of the whole business, and the matter was never fully considered. It is a very good thing that vie should have this discussion. It should not be considered that because this proposal passed through the Grand Committee we should accept it now without question. By the time the Committee got to this proposal we had not time to give it the consideration which so important a matter ought to have received. I hope the President of the Local Government Board will not find it too late to accept the other procedure which has been proposed.

I cannot help thinking that the Parliamentary Secretary laboured under a slight misapprehension in reference to this matter. There are really two quite independent inquiries under the Schedule, and they ought to be kept quite distinct. The first inquiry is as to what advice the inspector is to give to the Local Government Board as to the confirmation of the Order. The local authority asks to acquire compulsorily certain land. Thereupon, under the provisions of the Schedule, an inspector is sent down to make inquiry as to whether they shall be allowed to acquire that land. Then an Order is made—assuming that he reports in favour of the acquisition—confirming the application of the local authority, and they are allowed to acquire the land. Then comes the question what price is to be paid for the land. That is a matter which has to be determined by the arbitrator. The discussion this afternoon has been mainly concerned with the first inquiry relative to the confirmation of the Order, and that is an entirely novel procedure, which was never heard of at all in legislation until the present Government came into office. Therefore, when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board refers to precedent, he is entirely mistaken. I am certain I am right in saying that there is no precedent in any legislation before the present Parliament for land being taken by Administrative Order after inquiry, whether by an official of a Department or by anybody else.

I want to say a word about that change in policy. I, personally, have a little altered my opinion. I used to think that it was wrong to take land at all, except by Provisional Order or Act of Parliament. I have come to the conclusion that that is not a sound position, and that it is really too expensive a procedure, and an exceedingly unsatisfactory kind of machinery where you only desire to acquire small plots of land of an unimportant character. I think it is very important that some alternative machinery should be set up to that procedure. I, personally, have always wished to see something on the lines of the Light Railways Commission — that is to say, an independent tribunal which should consider these small applications and provide a cheap procedure by which the public and other interests would be safeguarded. The Light Railways Commission has worked to the satisfaction of everybody concerned. It seems to me that the procedure which the Government favour is thoroughly unsound. Their proposal is that a nominee of the Department itself should make a Report, but the Department is not bound by that Report even. The Board are left entirely free either to accept or reject the Report. I think that is a thoroughly unsound and mischievous proposal, and I am not in the least moved to the suggestion that it is in accordance with what was done under the Small Holdings Act; I object altogether to that part of the procedure suggested by the Government. There is also the question as to the way in which compensation is to be awarded under the Government scheme. I do not attach much importance to that. I do say it is very unfair to people whose property is being taken away and who are asking for a fair price that they should not be allowed to be represented by a skilled advocate. The local authority have a skilled advocate in their official, whereas the owner of the land will have to appear personally or by some less skilled person. He is therefore put at a disadvantage. I deeply regret that the Government insist on adhering to that provision, and I shall vote against it. The Parliamentary Secretary says the effect of the Amendment will be to restore the machinery. Well, we must first of all get rid of the Government machinery. When we have got rid of that, I shall support the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University, or some such Amendment as he has given notice of, that the price should be determined by an arbitrator appointed by the Lord Chief Justice. As for the duty of confirming the Order that ought to be done after independent inquiry, either by some body like the Light Railway Commission or some body with the same procedure as is adopted in the Port of London Act last year, by some person who shall have no connection with the Local Government Board. The really essential part of the inquiry is that the decision shall be final as against the central authority, and that it shall not be allowed to be overruled by a Government Department, which may be subject to all sorts of political pressure, and quite unfit to exercise judicial powers of that description.

The Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890 lays down in Section 85 that the Local Government Board may hold inquiries under the Public Health Act, according to all the conditions of the Public Health Act of 1875, and. in that respect the Amendment of my hon. Friend is strictly right in following the lines that have always been laid down in. legislation. It is provided that an arbitrator may be appointed by the Local Government Board to settle disputes which may arise between the local authority and persons interested in land, and to fix the amount of compensation But the power of the arbitrator under that Act is not absolute, because it is provided that parties who are not satisfied may appeal. That appeal may also be brought before a jury for decision. That is a very different thing from what is proposed in the present Bill. The Government have failed entirely to make a case for the particular procedure adopted in this Bill. They have not shown that the procedure to which I have referred has broken down, or resulted in any injustice or undue expense. My hon. Friend is entirely right in his contention, and I will support him.

It is within the recollection of the House that the Noble Lord, speaking of the existing method of acquiring, land, said he had not much love for the process by Provisional Order or by private Act, and he thought that there was a better method of acquiring land.

I do not wish to correct the right hon. Gentleman unnecessarily, but I do not want it to be understood for a moment that I am against the procedure when you are dealing with any considerable acquisition of land. It is only when you are dealing with small plots of land that I think it is expensive.

4.0 P.M.

That helps me considerably, because the plots of land likely to be acquired under this Bill are small plots. They are not like pieces of land that would be acquired under the Development Bill or a port authority, or by the Railway Commissioners. But I think that the Noble Lord will agree with me that the present method is not only cumbersome and costly, but provokes delay which is often the real reason why the housing schemes are not carried out. The Noble Lord says that the present method of acquiring land by Provisional Order, or by private Act, for housing purposes is not the best. I congratulate the Noble Lord on the advance in his views. Neither was he particularly enamoured of the Lands Clauses method of apportioning compensation for small plots of land. That indicates that the present method of obtaining small plots of land for houses and cottages, particularly in rural areas, is costly, cumbrous and dilatory, and we have got to adopt a better method than those which I have mentioned. That being so, the difference between the Noble Lord and myself is as to whether we shall have his alternative proposal. "We prefer small holdings' terms. With regard to the point raised by several hon. Members that we have not

adopted the small holdings conditions absolutely with regard to the Housing Bill, the answer is simple and direct. The Local Government Board for this Housing Bill was to purchase land and own land as the Small Holdings Commissioners do for the Board of Agriculture. We are not parties to the purchase of land in that sense. The only reason why the Lord Chief Justice is brought in under the Small Holdings Act is that the Commissioners appointed bought the land and held the land acquired in default of the county councils who should initiate the purchase of land. We are in no such position. We are not a party in that sense. We are a party only in this sense, that we hold the inquiry and see that rough justice is done both to the local authority and the owner, and as we have to put all these things to the test of difference which can only be measured by revision, we are sorry we cannot abandon our method in the Bill or adopt the method advocated by the Noble Lord. I therefore ask the House of Commons to stand by the Government.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

The House divided: Ayes, 133; Noes, 41.

moved, at the end of Sub-section (1), to insert the words: "Provided that where the capital value of land shall have been ascertained for the purpose of taxation the same shall be taken to be its value when purchased by any local authority under this Act, subject to the allowance for buildings and agreed damages as the arbitrator shall decide."

When this Bill was introduced last year I made some observations in the course of the second reading Debate, and put down this Amendment with a view to guarding against certain evils and certain difficulties which I said then would be precarious to the working of the Bill. This Bill is a very excellent one, more especially in the town planning part, but if these reforms are carried out, and if these towns are planned in the way that is suggested in the Bill, the inevitable effect must be that the land in the neighbourhood of all these improvements will rise in price. The consequence will be that any future development in a town that was planned will be attended with very much more expense, and, in fact, it would be almost practically a bar to any extension of the town planning scheme. In those days last year when I put down my Amendment, I had no idea that there would be any proposal which would fix the value of land by a State valuation. I thought there was no chance of it in those days. Since then we have had the Budget introduced, and provision has been made for a State valuation. The effect of this Amendment, if the right hon. Gentleman approves of it, would be that when the land is taken up for any town planning or housing scheme the local authority would know exactly where they stood; they would know the value of the land, as all they would have to do would be to look up the valuation, and they would know bow much their scheme would cost. They would be spared all the trouble of valuing the land and the trouble of dealing with the extremely exorbitant claims that are always set up when the Government propose to take land. I think it would simplify the working of the Bill a great deal, and would render it very much cheaper. I should think that the local authorities would certainly welcome a provision of this sort in the Bill. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Burns) views this Amendment with approval, but I should think he would. I think it improves the Bill. I think it makes the Bill simpler and cheaper, and the local authorities would probably welcome it.

I beg to second the Amendment, because I think it is framed in the spirit of the following very strong recommendation of the Select Committee on the Bill of 1906:— In the opinion of the Committee no solution will be satisfactory which does not enable a local authority to purchase land compulsorily for any public purpose (including housing, drainage, small holdings, etc.) on the basis of its rateable value. The present system under which land is rated by a local authority upon one valuation but can only be purchased by the same authority upon another valuation having no necessary or recognised proportion to the first, seems to them most complicated and unjust. If the procedure is to be simplified, and land made easily available, these two values must be brought into relation, so that local authorities can ascertain beforehand not merely the value upon which rates will be paid, but the capital value at which the land can be purchased. I have seen so much in my own Constituency of the urgent need for the immediate erection of more houses and cottages that to anything which tends to that end I cannot help giving my support. At present in Newbury there has been for many years an urgent demand for more houses. At present a local inquiry is in progress before a Local Government Board inspector under the Act of 1890, and no less than five ex-mayors of the borough have given evidence as to the urgent need of new houses they have found during their mayoralty, which they have not been able to meet because of the expense of carrying out a scheme. Constantly men have been ejected from their houses, not because they were bad tenants or because they could not pay the rent, but because the houses were wanted for somebody else who happened" to be in the employ of the owner; and the men themselves, unable to get other houses either in the borough or in the district, have had, in some cases, to go into the workhouse, and, in others, to leave the district. In the country districts the same difficulty is found, owing to the prohibitive cost of building cottages. If a cottage falls vacant there are a number of applications for it. On one large estate in my division it has been the policy for a large number of years to pull down cottages and not to build any in substitution for them. I believe that if the method of obtaining land could be cheapened and the proposal of my hon. Friend given effect to, one source of expense would be removed, and we should have got one step nearer facilitating the erection of cottages. On that ground I beg to second the Amendment.

I feel sure my right hon. Friend will not resist this Amendment, for it embodies a very important principle, and one which the party as a whole is already committed to by the Finance Bill. One of the main parts of the Finance Bill, in the opinion of many of us, will give us this valuation of the land about which there has been so much discussion already this afternoon. It will surely stultify the utterances of the House of Commons if, having arrived at this valuation at great expense and trouble, we do not use it as the basis of the purchase of land. The only ground on which my right hon. Friend can resist this Amendment is that it is really superfluous and unnecessary. I am inclined to think that when the arbitrator comes to compulsory purchase that he will be bound to regard the valuation of the Finance Bill, and take it as his basis for assessment. At any rate, it will be as well to have it stated clearly in the Bill that it is his duty to do so. It will be a matter of common-sense that you should take this valuation; and, what I want, is to be quite sure that no arbitrator should so far depart from the ordinary rules that he will attempt to fix some other value which is quite different to this valuation of the Bill, on which the owner is required to pay his taxes. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Mackarness) has referred to the very strong recommendation of the Select Committee in this matter. That recommendation, drafted by myself, was founded on a very exhaustive inquiry into the difficulty which the local authorities have in acquiring land for housing purposes. We had returns from 150 local authorities in whose view cottages were required. The principal reason given why the Act was not put into force and the cottages built was the difficulty of acquiring land. The very plainest way, therefore, to get over that difficulty is by adopting the valuation that we shall get in the Finance Bill if it becomes law.

The Amendment before the House is not so interesting from the point of view of this particular Bill as from the light thrown by it upon the Finance Bill, and the valuation at the back of it. The hon. Member who seconded the Amendment and the hon. Member who has just sat down really hardly did full justice to the Amendment. The hon. Member who seconded the Resolution read out the recommendation of a Committee that the owners of rateable property should be liable to be bought out at a price based on the rateable value. That is not this Amendment at all. The Amendment is much more ingenious. You are going back here to the capital value of the land. Supposing a man occupies a house or premises, he is rated on that house or premises at the present time. The hon. Member who seconded said the rateable value should be taken as the purchase price; that was what he referred to as common-sense, but that is not this Amendment. By this Amendment you would take the site value of the house and land which always before was regarded as one—you take that wonderful abstraction which some of us are wondering why it was inserted in the Finance Bill, and you capitalise that, and then you are to make such deductions for buildings as the arbitrator may determine. If you were anxious to purchase Westminster Abbey, as was said the other day, you would first take the site value and then make such deduc- tions for the value of the buildings as the arbitrator might allow. That is to be the basis of the purchase price of the land, and it is so far an illustration of the use to be made of the site valuation. Why is it necessary to value all these houses, and property, which are not the subject of taxation. It is by small beginnings in a Bill of this kind that this extraordinary new theory of valuation is to be introduced. The next step will be that any municipal authority should have power to purchase land, and the third step will come soon, when the State will have power to nationalise land at the capital sum of the site value, with such allowance for buildings as the arbitrator may determine. We are not talking of the Finance Bill to-day; we are talking practical business. Is it practical business to arrive at the value of the ordinary house and land—

For housing purposes you do not generally take house and land.

That is the distinction between practice and theory, and in theory the hon. Member is quite right, but you buy the land with the house upon it.

It is the general practice if you buy land for housing purposes to buy vacant land.

That is not necessary by any means. Otherwise it would not be necessary to put in the words "subject to the allowance for building." The material point is to take the capital site value of the land as the means of valuing for purchase. I venture to suggest the Amendment gives greater power than the innocent speech of the hon. Member seems to suggest.

I am very glad to support the Amendment of my hon. Friend. In my own Division there is a village where the land is rich and where the men can earn good wages, and there they can afford to pay a fair rent. The local authority, under the existing Acts, is willing to build houses for these men, but when they go to the landlord he demands £250 an acre for his land, although he is only rated for the same land at £40 an acre. When the local authority want land to build these cottages the landlord demands six times the value of the land more than he is rated. The maximum value for agricultural land in that locality is £80 an acre, but they cannot buy it for less than £250 an acre. That, of course, has put a stop to house building in that district. The landlord pays rates upon the land on one basis and sells it upon another basis. This provision is to enable local authorities to buy land at a reasonable price where houses or playgrounds are required, and where land is required for the social development of the social life of the village. In such cases they ought to be able to purchase land at the same price at which it is rated. It does not matter so much whether the land is rated high or low, or whether it is worth £2 an acre or £20. It It is the same thing to the local authority so long as it buys it at the same price. A proposal of this kind is absolutely necessary for real rural development. In the case of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Poor, which sat in 1886, of which the King was a member, His Majesty signed the Report, and he amongst others of the greatest and noblest men in the Kingdom—

The hon. Member is not entitled to introduce the name of His Majesty in order to influence the House.

I will withdraw that statement. There were many Noble members of that Commission, and this proposal is in accordance with the lines of that Report, which was signed by both Conservatives and Liberals, and there were only two dissentients.

If I understand the hon. Member for Sleaford aright he has addressed himself to discussing the advisability of rating rural property on its capital value and not on its annual value. That, at any rate, was the purport of his speech, and I do not think that question arises in the least on this Amendment. Certainly, three other speeches to which I have listened have not contained anything about this Amendment. I think hon. Members realise that this Amendment can hardly be taken seriously, because it would work an amount of injustice which nobody could possibly contemplate with equanimity. This Amendment does not say that the valuation of land under the Finance Bill of this Session shall be taken as merely the basis of the valuation. The valuation for the purposes of taxation is to be taken as the actual value whenever any local authority choose to buy land. Is this one factor only going to be taken into account? Where land has been valued for the purposes of taxation, is that value to be taken by any local authority without protest? According to this proposal, if it has been valued 30 years before it has to be taken at that price when the local authority buys the land. That is absolutely unjust. I imagine that the hon. Member who moved this Amendment would be the first to demand that the man who sells his land to a local authority should get a fair price for it. This proposal would only allow a fair price being paid on the assumption that land never changes in its value.

The London County Council at this time own hundreds of acres which will not be ripe for development for 30 or 40 years; and, if a local authority buys land not ripe for development, it may not be valued for any purpose for 40 years. Yet under this Amendment that would be taken as the actual value. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment does not agree with the Prime Minister, who told us that land does change in value. He stated that there are certain classes of land where the rise is normal, regular, continuous, and progressive. If so, I cannot believe the hon. Member seriously thinks his Amendment is a just one. As it is drawn, compensation would be given for buildings and agreed damages; but, so far as I can see, no compensation would be given for roads. If an owner was laying out an estate for development, and the local authority came and said they wanted a certain amount of it, he would get compensation for buildings and agreed damages; but, so far as I can see, he would get nothing whatever for roads. The only effect of the Amendment would be to enable local authorities to buy land at a price very much less than its real value, and it is another instance of the attempt of those who assume mistaken ideas of housing reforms to give local authorities enormous advantages over private enterprise. If you want to assist the housing problem, you must encourage private enterprise, and anything which enables local authorities to buy land at less than its fair value and to compete unfairly with private enterprise will not only create injustice, but cause so much discouragement to private enterprise that it will retard the cause you wish to advance.

My hon. Friend who moved the Amendment did our Bill the honour of saying it was a very good Bill, and was excellent in its object so far as town planning was concerned. I am sure a Bill which secures his approval, and, I trust, his support, ought not to be jeopardised by a proposal which can only be adequately discussed in its proper place in connection with the Finance Bill and the various aspects of ownership and land taxation which have engaged the House for the last few months. I sincerely put it to him, friendly as he is to it, not to make the Housing and Town Planning Bill the corpus vile of our Budget discussions, because if he does he adds a quill to our porcupine that will make the remaining stages of its passage rather difficult, and will evoke opposition probably elsewhere. The House of Commons has not had time to consider to what extent the Amendment moved by the hon. Member is applicable to this particular measure. I put it to him. For three years this Bill has been, in one form or another, before the public and before the House of Commons, and never once in its history have we had an Amendment or Clause of this description moved in Committee, either of the whole House or upstairs in Grand Committee. And why? Because every hon. Member who is interested, as I am, in the spirit and substance of the hon. Member's Amendment realises that if we are to have these different forms of rating and these different forms of taxation, if we are to deal with undeveloped land and with the process of holding up the land, the proper place to discuss that is not on the Housing and Town Planning Bill which was prepared long before the Budget was thought of, but can be much better discussed, and is, indeed, being adequately discussed, on the Budget in a form which gives hon. Members a much bolter opportunity of getting their way than is possible in the eight or ten minutes left before the guillotine falls on the last stage of this Bill I ask hon. Members to remember that this measure gives cheaper land, cheaper money, longer periods for loans, and simpler methods of inquiry. We are now asked to go into a fiscal question of admittedly great magnitude, and to incorporate into a Housing Bill vexed questions which are being discussed on the Finance Bill at a moment when we have only a few minutes at our disposal. We are asked to discuss, for instance, such questions as capital value, site value, annual value, and the best methods of determining the price of land. I say it is hardly fair to us who have borne the heat and burden of this Bill that we should be subjected to this when we really have no time to deal with it. The subject cannot possibly receive adequate consideration today. I therefore hope the hon. Member will not press this Amendment. Let him remember that the questions of value and prices to be paid will be for the arbitrator to take into consideration, and if the Budget Bill passes and the land taxes are imposed those will be among the matters to be borne in mind by him. I hope my hon. Friend will not endanger this Bill by pressing his Amendment, which is far more applicable to the Budget Bill Debates.

I should like to point out to the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Walter Guinness) that a valuation is worth nothing unless it is continuous.

It is to be brought up to date every five years in the case of undeveloped land under Clause 18 of the Finance Bill. All other land is only to be valued once for all.

I am well aware that this subject cannot be taken at this stage, and in response to the appeal of my right hon. Friend I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Leave to withdraw withheld; Amendment negatived.

moved, at the end of Sub-section (1), to insert the words "but this provision shall not apply to any land which, at the date of the order, has been acquired by the owners there of under any local or special Act, Provisional Order, or order having the force of an Act of Parliament, for the purposes of a railway, dock, canal, water, or other public undertaking."

This subject may be viewed from the standpoint of principle, precedent, or practical effect. As regards the question of principle, it is this, is the authority of Parliament to be overridden by a Government Department which is carried on under a title derived from Parliament? The authority of Parliament is certainly superior to the authority of any Government Department, and that authority which Parliament has given Parliament alone can take away. These various commercial undertakings acquire land for the purpose of their business under powers given by Parliament, and when they have acquired it under this Bill that land is liable to be taken from them by some local authority, supported by the Local Government Board. The precedents are entirely in favour of the Amendment which I move. Under what is called the principal Act, proposals of this kind will have to take the form of a Provisional Order Bill, and under the last piece of legislation on this subject, the Small Holdings and Allotments Act, the case of canals, railways, and similar undertakings is specially exempted, and it is provided that no land shall be acquired compulsorily which is acquired by any corporation or company for the purpose of a railway, dock, canal, water, or other public undertaking, or constituting any ancient monument or other archaeological object. I should like to know why the President of the Local Government Board follows that Act when it is in his favour and does not follow it when it is against him? Why should the Government depart from all precedent and take away from these great commercial undertakings the protection which Parliament has given them under previous legislation? It is said that it is a very important matter to house the people of this country, but there is something far more important than housing, and that is that a man should work for and receive wages in order to pay his rent and to keep up his house. These undertakings provide work for the working classes enabling them to do that. If you cripple these undertakings by taking away the power which they possess, you are doing the workpeople a great deal more harm than good. It may be said that the local authorities may be trusted to act prudently in the matter. Perhaps they may in most cases, but it is the exception we have to deal with. Why should it be in the power of the Local Government Board to interfere with these important commercial undertakings which carry on their business under Acts of Parliament? The case seems so clear that only one reason for the refusal of the Amendment commends itself to me, and that is that the right hon. Gentleman wants to reserve something now that he may give it away in another place. Would it not be better to accept it here?

I beg to second the Amendment. I think there is a strong case for excluding land acquired under the provisions of this Amendment, because in a great many cases those lands will be acquired under the approval of some other Government Department than the Local Government Board. The provision in the Bill allows the suspension of local Acts and bye-laws, and I think there is something to be said for that when there are Acts dealing with Local Government or Bye-laws which have been sanctioned by the Local Government Board. But in this ease the Local Government Board will be taking into its hands power to acquire land which is used for purposes which do not in any way come under the control of that Department. How is the Local Government Board to judge whether land is really required for the purpose of a railway, dock, or canal? That is a matter which obviously affects the Board of Trade. A Provisional Order will have been obtained with the sanction of the Board of Trade, and it is most undesirable to allow one Government Department in this way to have arbitrary powers of suspending the work of another Government Department. A great deal of injury may be done to public interests in this way, and minor interests may be preferred' to greater ones. For this reason, because it will lead to a great deal of friction between one Government Department and another unless this exemption is made, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will accept it.

Judging by the speeches made, the assumption underlying the remarks of the Mover and Seconder, one would think that the local authority, with the approval of the Local Government Board, would look around their area, and where they found a railway company with only a small portion of surplus land or a deck or canal company with land which was not immediately going to be used, acquire it for housing purposes. The very converse is the case, because if there is any land required by the local authority in whose jurisdiction there is a railway, deck, harbour or canal corporation, the very conditions of price, of situation and convenience would exclude the local authority from going for any of that land except under very exceptional circumstances, and for hon. Members opposite to ask that in the case of railway companies who own 25,000 miles of railway, and have acquired small or large pieces of surplus land which may not be necessary for their immediate or prospective use, only a few yards, rarely an acre, should not be acquired at a fair price, is to ask for railway companies a privileged treatment and an exceptional consideration that the Housing of the Working Classes Act never gave them, and which in this Bill we cannot see cur way to adopt. If the hon. Member's proposal were accepted we should find that the London County Council would not be able to deal quite as well with one or two railway companies, notably in St. Pancras, in the interest of public health as they otherwise will be. We would also find that the surplus land belonging to water companies and local authorities in large water sheds which they are unable to use because of the existence of sources of pollution could not be appropriated if the Amendment were accepted. I think a more inequitable proposal, so far as the public interest is concerned, has not been brought forward. This matter has been many times discussed at considerable length, and I sincerely trust that the House will not accept the Amendment.

I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has really given a satisfactory reason for objecting to the Amendment. He has told us of the circumstances under which local authorities may wish to take land in the possession of railway companies and dock companies. But surely, if the circumstances are as he states, he might as well allow the Amendment to be put in the Bill. No harm could be done by putting it in. The right hon. Gentleman referred to land in watersheds which cannot be used for the purposes of water supply, but in such cases it is not conceivable that the municipalities concerned would wish to go on holding the land. They would be only too glad to sell it for housing or for any other purpose. This is a question of acquiring land compulsorily and not by agreement. I think it would be exceedingly hard on these corporations if their land was to be subjected to these, compulsory powers. It is impossible for anybody but themselves to know what their projects are, and to what purposes they are going to devote the land. If it appeared to a local authority and the Local Government Board that a piece of land was absolutely necessary for a scheme, the corporation would be brought before the tribunal of arbitration, and it would be necessary for them to disclose their projects. I think that is an extremely unfair demand to make upon them. I do not see why they should be required to disclose their schemes and secrets until the time comes for carrying them out. It is not worth while setting up unnecessary machinery and putting people to unnecessary trouble.

And, it being Five of the Clock, Mr. Speaker proceeded, in pursuance of the Order of the House of 15th June, to put forthwith the Question on the Amendment, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 35; Noes, 127.

Mr. Speaker then proceeded successively to put forthwith the Questions on any Amendments to the Bill moved by the Government, of which notice had been given, and the Question for the Third Reading of the Bill.

moved, to leave out the words "the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1900, and" ["provisions of the Housing of the Working Classes Act," etc.].

Question put, "That the Amendment be made."

The House divided: Ayes, 124; Noes, 28.