Orders of the Day — Compensation for Subsidence Bill.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 30 May 1919.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Peter Raffan Mr Peter Raffan , Leigh

He takes no exception to the law. He says that if a man suffers from subsidence it is quite right that he should be able to go to the Law Courts or some proper authority and say that the working of the minerals under his property had destroyed his house, ox injured his business and that he desired a remedy. The right hon. Baronet quite agrees that that is fair and reasonable, but he goes on to say, "Yes, but if the owner of the land comes to you and says, I shall not lease you the land under these conditions, but if you will agree to contract out of the protection that the law gives you, then I will lease you the land, but under no other conditions." The right hon. Gentleman says, "You agree to that with your eyes open and you have no protection." I wonder if he ever visits the Welsh mining valleys represented by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Brace). I have lived there for nearly thirty years, and have taken part with my right hon. Friend and those associated with him in local public work there. These narrow valleys are enclosed by high ranges of mountains and you have mining villages about a mile apart from each other, and as a rule both the surface land and the minerals underneath are owned by the same owner. What is the resource of the people who desire to build houses? They go to the owner and say, "Here is a great body of men engaged in hewing coal, not merely for their own pocket but to meet the needs of the people of this country, and it is necessary that they should be housed." Whatever criticism may be brought against the miners I am sure that if it were not for their labours, not only should we be entirely unable to maintain our population, but we should be unable to maintain our great industries. It is agreed that it is necessary they should be housed. Is it suggested that they should live in some nomadic fashion, in tents or something of that kind, so that when subsidence occurs, and the tent goes, they should live somewhere else? If they are to be housed, where are they to be housed other than near their work, where they can take advantage of their legal rights? Supposing their landlord says, "I will grant you a lease on these conditions and on no others"? The right hon. Gentleman says that we build at our own risk, but we can build nowhere else. You cannot convey these men twenty or thirty miles, as many of them would have to be conveyed, before getting out of the region where subsidence is usual. What happens in my own Constituency in Lancashire—though I understand that it is common in South Wales, too—is this. I took the trouble when my right hon. Friend's Bill was introduced to ask for information, and I was told that throughout my Constituency, in Atherton, Astley, and Tyldesley, there are cases of subsidence all over these towns, but that in the great majority of the hardest cases compensation has been paid. But the compensation was paid under old leases, and when the owner had paid compensation in a few cases he altered his whole system and said, "I will grant no lease in future under which compensation will be payable."