Orders of the Day — Leasehold Enfranchisement Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 March 1955.

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Photo of Mr David Grenfell Mr David Grenfell , Gower 12:00, 18 March 1955

I feel justified in saying a few words on this subject because of what I regard as a wrong perspective adopted by the right hon. and learned Attorney-General. He looks at the problem from the other end of the telescope. I look at it from the end to which the lessee has to accustom and accommodate himself to look, not from the point of view of the owner or of established privilege, but only of the merits of the case. I wonder whether some hon. Members opposite live in the same world as I do. Every day throughout my life I have been aware of this question of leasehold enfranchisement and the general social problem arising from it.

Not a word has been said by hon. Members opposite about the tremendous efforts which have been made by people with very limited resources—without liquid resources of any kind—to grind out in the mill of circumstances the material with which to build homes for themselves. This is a problem that begins with the small man, who has to move about according to circumstances—one day in a coal-mining area and the next in a sea-port area. The mobile population of this country has to create its own circumstances, or adapt itself with considerable skill to the circumstances in which it finds itself.

So far as this is a Welsh problem, it derives 100 per cent.from the industrial developments which have taken place in the tremendous area which is the centre of Welsh production and which has brought so much fame and power to Britain. There has long been a South Wales coalfield area, but there was not always a coal-mining industry. As a first step to make sure of the production of one's industrial resources one must bring in people to do the work. What is true of the development of the South Wales area is also true of other parts of Britain and a hundred development centres all over the world, in countries that once were new but now are old.

In South Wales the coal seams came out of the foot of the valleys and upon the slopes of the mountains. They showed themselves to passers by. It was soon recognised that here was a tremendous reservoir of power which could help in the development of the new industrial society that far-sighted men envisaged many years ago. One does not need to go back very far—merely the length of an ordinary lease of 99 years. When I was young we never referred to a lease as being one of 99 years, but as one of three lives or generations, and it is during the length of those three generations—less than 100 years—that the South Wales coal industry has been built up from nothing.

The pits were sunk, the headings were driven, and the railways and the roads were built. Many unreal references have been made to the homes of the people. The people made their own homes. There were no homes in the Rhondda Valley 100 years ago, and in Aberdare there were just a very few sheep. The people who came in had to find accommodation for themselves and their families. They owned no land or capital. They had only their powers of labour, and they gave that in exchange for the right to use the land and the materials.

One sometimes hears the phrase "a hive of industry."I remember the time when there were three-shift systems in theSouth Wales coalfields. There were three shifts of men changing over at the pits, and those three shifts also kept the beds occupied for 24 hours a day. In these terrible conditions of congestion the men played a creditable part in enabling that 1.000 square miles to make a greater contribution to Britain's fame at home and ubroad than any other 1,000 square miles in the world.

That is the origin of the leasehold problem, which is far more extensive in South Wales than it is in some of the other coalfields. It affects a large number of people, and if everybody who is opposed to leasehold enfranchisement had done work which is as useful as these men have done, I should be very happy. They are skilled and independent people, who are proud of their trades and,for men of small means, are willing to accept tremendous responsibility. They showed this in building houses which they could not guarantee to realise by sale or by any other means, and they have spent all their lives in paying for them week by week. They pay interest on their capital and for transport, as well as for their living conditions, food and clothing, right up to the coal mines.

Here is a story of which we can all be very proud. We may have been placed at a disadvantage in having never been able to acquire freehold possession of land, but we have hazarded our lives and we have taken leases which lasted for three generations of 33 years each—the 99-year leases. We have paid our ground rents, and paid for the materials, the roads and the schools. All these have been derived from the willingness of the individual small man to accept his responsibility and make his contribution to social welfare.

I wish I had time to tell the House more of this story. The Attorney-General is a wonderful lawyer. Sometimes, in spite of myself, I admire the way in which he walks around things. I do not think his intentions are entirely dishonest. I ask him and the House to have another look at the leasehold problem. Do not deny to the self-respecting, small man his right to buy his house, like everybody else. In the Bill we say that we will pay the premiums and the ground rent but we will reserve the right to buy the land on which the house has been built by the payment of a lump sum equal to 15 years' contribution. We are asking for a square deal, and I hope that the House will give it to us.