Clause 85. — (Amendments of Small Dwellings Acquisition, Acts.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Housing Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 16 May 1935.

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Photo of Mr Donald Somervell Mr Donald Somervell , Crewe

The new Clause, as has been common with other Bills, has been the subject of a number of Amendments proposed by the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams). As we told him, the subject matter of the Clause was being discussed between my right hon. Friend and the public utilities undertakings and I gave him to understand, although we could give no undertaking, that we hoped the result of the discussions, when it came before the House, would be accepted as reasonable. The subject matter of the Clause is damage done to apparatus, pipes, installations, and so on, of water, electricity or gas companies, as a result of the special powers conferred on local authorities for the widening or the diverting of streets, in furtherance of the objects under the Act of 1930and under the Bill. The Clause is formidable in length but is simple in structure. Perhaps I might mention the Sub-sections shortly, and point out what they deal with. Sub-section (1) empowers local authorities to move, alter and substitute any pipes or wires, in the making of new thoroughfares. Sub-section (2) provides that if any dispute arises, the housing authority saying that a job ought to be done and the undertakers saying "No," it shall go to arbitration. Sub-section (3) provides that the local authority shall make reasonable compensation for damage sustained by undertakers by reason of the execution by the housing authority of works under Sub-section (1). Sub-section (4)enables the undertakers to call on the authority to remove pipes, wires, etc., and substitute others where it is necessary to remove pipes or wires and lay down some new ones. Subsection (5) is machinery and Sub-section (6) is an arbitration Clause. Subsection (7) deals with the position of statutory undertakers who may be similarly affected and gives them similar rights.

Before I sit down I may say that the principle of this Clause is that full compensation may be given either by way of money payment or by way of local authorities substituting new pipes. The general principle is that there should be no compensation for loss of profits, and that in so far as a local authority do no more than a private individual could do, namely, pull down houses which belong to them, they ought to be in no worse position than the individual. It follows from this that the obligation to carry outworks of alteration should be limited to cases where the authority are exercising powers, not open to an individual, of stopping up or altering streets. The argument was that a local authority ought not to be under a greater obligation than private persons. Then it would seem to us that if, as a result of the special powers devolving on local authorities damage was done to those undertakings, compensation should be awarded. Those are the lines on which the Clause is framed.