New Clause. — (Amendment of Rule 8 of NO. V. in Schedule A.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Finance Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 15 July 1924.

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Photo of Mr George Spencer Mr George Spencer , Broxtowe

In my opinion the Chancellor of the Exchequer is justified in protecting himself only with regard to that class of landlord who would carry out these improvements on purpose to sell. If this Amendment made provision for protecting the revenue against such a landlord, who improves his cottages in order to sell them and not to benefit the tenant, I would go into the Division Lobby against my own Government. As the Amendment stands it means that the landlord who has cottage property belonging to farms might put them in repair and immediately sell them, and there would be no guarantee that afterwards the rents would remain the same. That is the failure of the Amendment. I am not over-concerned about the revenue; that is the Chancellor's look-out. But I do say that if you have cottage property in a rural area, and the landlord is prepared to spend money upon it and to put it in order, even to the standard of requirements of modern cottage property, whether it is capital expenditure or not, so long as he is going to let the tenants stay in the cottages at the same rent, I shall support the proposal. But I would not support it if the improvements were made with a view to the sale of the houses. That would be simply deceiving the Chancellor of the Exchequer and everybody else. If an Amendment can be designed by the other side making possible the improvement of property on behalf of the tenant, and giving the landlord no chance of selling the property so as to evade his responsibility, I would support such an Amendment.