HC Deb 01 November 1965 vol 718 cc796-804

Lords Amendment No. 24: In page 19, line 45, at end insert: () whether the occupier has found employment other than as an agricultural worker,

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Crossman

I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

I have thought about the Amendment a good deal. I would say straight away that there are certainly two sides to the question, and the Amendment states one of them. When we were moving the Protection from Eviction Bill I made it very clear that we on this side of the House recognised the side of the question which the Amendment emphasises. I said clearly that we did not want to have a law which deliberately weighted things in favour of people so that they could take an agricultural cottage and then use their position in order to go into industry.

Since I said that, we have passed that Bill and a good deal has been achieved. We have this Measure before us. I worked very hard on a compromise Clause which I think achieved a fair balance between the requirements of the farmer and the requirements of the National Union of Agricultural Workers. There are three parts to that Clause. One states the requirement to consider the needs of the industry, one states the requirement to consider the alternative accommodation for the farm worker and the third studies the balance of hardship between the two sides. We have a Clause which is as fair as it possibly can be. I do not deny that it is opposed by both the National Union of Agricultural Workers and the N.F.U., who do not like it at all, but it is as fair as any human being can get. The difficulty is that if we take this particular aspect in the Amendment and write it into the Bill, we shall upset the balance which we have created without achieving any very powerful purpose.

There is one other thought which I should like to leave with the House. Perhaps I should declare an interest in the matter before dealing with it, as I have an interest in cottages of this kind. About 20,000 farm workers leave the industry each year. There is a great migration from farming into industry, and that migration takes place partly by people voluntarily going from farming and partly by the farmer efficiently cutting back his staff and saying, "I can do with fewer men".

There is, therefore, a constant tension within the industry as people move out of it. We need this; we want the industry to be more efficient and to produce more per man, and we welcome the constant dwindling of manpower combined with increased productivity.

But my hon. Friends concerned on the trade union side will agree that if we are to have that constant stream out of the industry, we must protect the men during the awkward period of transition. As I said at the beginning, I strongly dislike the person who takes a cottage on false pretences, but, on the other hand, there are people who are compelled by circumstances to move into industry, perhaps by losing their jobs because a farmer finds them redundant, and these people are entitled to the protection of the court.

I emphasise that throughout the Clause and our thinking about the agricultural worker we have thought it right—with some support from hon. Members opposite—to leave to the court's discretion how much stay of execution should be allowed. There is only one difference between the standing of the farm worker under the Bill and the standing of any other kind of service tenant. Other service tenants have a basic right, but normally the court is limited to four or six weeks as the maximum which it can give. For farm workers we say to the court, "You have your own discretion. You can give less than four weeks. You can say that a man is a swindling person who does not deserve to stay in the cottage if you are convinced that he got it under false pretences." The court is entitled to give longer than six weeks if it thinks that cases really deserve that treatment.

That means that the instructions one gives to the court are important and that they should balance fairly. I believe that the instructions as drafted give a fair balance and that if we added this fourth instruction—which is what the Amendment is designed to do—it would create a dangerous situation. It would create a grave suspicion in the trade unions about why this has been put in.

The court will have to take into account the fact that although there are cases where men swindle the farmer in terms of cottages, they are rare, and it is much commoner for farmers rightly to cut their staff. However, in such circumstances the men must be given perhaps two or three months in which to find alternative accommodation.

I want to make it clear that I am in some difficulty over this issue. We as a party have an election pledge to guarantee alternative accommodation to farm workers. The more I looked at this the more I realised that we could not fulfil that guarantee in terms of writing it into the Bill, for if we had written it in and said that the local authority must give alternative accommodation to evicted farm workers, we should have been urging farmers to evict the farm workers they liked the best so as to ensure them council houses. We found, therefore, that we could not write that guarantee into the Bill.

I have told the farming industry that I am convinced that it does not make any difference in reality. The number of evictions is small and reducing. There is a basic willingness to let old grudges die, and our hope is that we can strike a balance by which it will die away and by which the tied cottage will no longer be a memory of wickedness.

We shall not increase that good spirit in the industry if the proposed words are inserted in the Measure—coming from another place at the last moment. I believe that we have the balance right, that we got it right in the House of Commons, and therefore I must urge the House to resist the Amendment.

Mr. J. B. Godber (Grantham)

The Minister dealt with the Amendment with care and moderation. I listened carefully to what he said and the proposal before us, coming from another place, is less strong than the one put forward by my hon. Friends earlier. For that reason we had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would have accepted it, particularly in view of what was said in another place by the right hon. Gentleman's noble Friend, who seemed to be evenly balanced in his view of the proposal and who said that he had sympathy for those involved and instanced the ways in which harm could be done.

As I understand it, the Minister based his case on the three criteria which arise in subsection (5). However, these criteria are not binding on the court and I would not have thought that to have included the additional criterion—where an occupier has found employment in something other than agriculture—would have been unreasonable. I regret that the right hon. Gentleman has indicated that he cannot accept the additional criterion, for it would have gone a long way towards meeting cases which can arise.

I do not want to over-emphasise the possible position or say that a great many cases will arise. However, where there is an attempt to swindle the farmer—and that phrase was used in another place—by obtaining employment with him simply to get the house, then leaving the job thereafter, the additional category proposed in the Amendment would enable the courts more clearly to look at the provision and inquire into all the circumstances involved. All that is asked is that the courts should inquire into the circumstances, and, were they to do so, the very arguments which the Minister has adduced would show that, in cases in which a farmer was seeking to get rid of additional labour, this particular provision would have no merit and no binding force on the courts. Where, on the other hand, a man had been unfair in his dealings—there can be such cases—the courts would take note of it.

This would have been a very effective way of safeguarding against the undoubted loophole here through which a man could take advantage of the conditions laid down. I still think that the Minister ought to give further thought to it and consider the arguments put in the other place and, briefly, by me tonight. I shall not labour the point. Time is getting on and I do not wish to deal with the question at length. Any arguments justifying keeping a man in the cottage would be available to the court, but, by incorporating this proposed additional provision, one would give the court the facility to take account of the case in which a man had taken unfair advantage. It was for that reason that the Amendment was carried in the other place, and it is for that reason that, even now, I ask the Minister to consider it further.

The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of the balance between the two sides. This would not disturb any balance. As he himself said, even with his balance he has not had great success in getting the happy acquiescence of both sides, and the Amendment would not greatly change it. I ask him to consider the matter further and incorporate this provision which would have good effect in preventing the possibility of abuse which he has himself acknowledged and which is evident to the whole House.

Mr. Lubbock

This Amendment follows one which was discussed in Committee, having been moved by the hon. Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King). It would require the court, when considering whether to exercise its power to suspend execution of an order for possession, to consider the present employment status of the tenant. On that occasion in Committee, I voted with the hon. Member for Dorset, South, not so much because of his persuasive arguments as because I had earlier moved an Amendment on the subject of agricultural tenancies covering the case of the tied cottage temporarily occupied by a person not engaged in agriculture but which the farmer required for occupation by one of his own employees. The Minister persuaded me to withdraw my Amendment on the mistaken statement that it was covered by a later Amendment of his own.

I found this out the following day, after going through the Paper, and the Parliamentary Secretary was unable to give me a satisfactory explanation of what had occurred. This was my reason for voting against the Government on the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Dorset, South. I am glad that my point has been covered in another place and is to be incorporated in the Bill, but at the same time, I agree with the hon. Member for Dorset, South that the farmer should be adequately protected against the person who gets into a farm cottage by false pretence, as it were, by pretending to be an agricultural worker, and who then, at the first opportunity, leaves the farmer's employment and takes a much better paid job in the nearest town.

On reflection, I think that the Clause as it stands would allow this kind of circumstance to be taken fully into account by the court, which would almost automatically grant an order for possession in such a case. Clause 31(5) provides that the court shall have regard to all the circumstances". Sharp practice by a person who pretended to be a farm worker in order to get an agricultural tenancy would certainly be a most material circumstance.

11.45 p.m.

Also, in Clause 31(5, b and c), we find the words: whether the efficient management of any agricultural land or the efficient carrying on of any agricultural operations would be seriously prejudiced and whether greater hardship would be caused by the suspension of the execution of the order than by its execution without suspension or further suspension. I suggest that if a person has fraudulently pretended to be an agricultural worker and has then gone off and taken a well-paid job in the nearest town, it is likely to have jeopardised the efficiency of the agricultural operations of the farm and that those two subsections would then be brought into operation and could be used by the farmer in gaining possession.

On the other hand, there may well be cases where a farm tenant leaves the employment of the farmer for a legitimate reason, because the farmer is a bad employer or because the farmer no longer requires his services, and I agree with the Minister that in that case the tenant would be entitled to the basic protection and the court should have the power to suspend the execution of an order for possession. It is impossible to cover every eventuality, and I think that on balance it is better not to tie the court up too much but to leave it with the discretion which is already contained in the wording of the Bill.

I emphasise that neither the National Farmers' Union nor the National Union of Agricultural Workers is entirely satisfied with the protection given by the Clause. As the Minister said, the agricultural workers in particular consider that it falls short of what they might have expected from the Labour Party manifesto. But it is a very difficult matter on which to strike a balance, and I think that an attempt has been made to be fair to both sides, and I doubt whether there would be more than a handful of cases where possession might be granted with this Amendment and not without it.

I remind the House what the Minister said in his Second Reading speech on 5th July at col. 1199 of the OFFICIAL REPORT. He was quoting a number of cases which the National Union of Agricultural Workers had drawn to his attention of evictions in the last twelve months, and he said that they were not able to collect more than 20 and that, therefore, this was a declining practice. I join with the Minister in hoping that this old sore which has plagued the agricultural industry will now be healed and that we can go ahead with good will on both sides of the industry.

Mr. Bert Hazell (Norfolk, North)

I am delighted that my right hon. Friend has advised the House against the Lords Amendment. The House is fully aware of my interest in the National Union of Agricultural Workers.

When new Clauses A and B were introduced they created a considerable amount of resentment among farm workers throughout the land. Great play has been made about the few isolated cases where men go to work for a farmer for the purpose of securing accommodation and then immediately go elsewhere to get higher earnings. But in by far the majority of cases the reason why men occupying tied cottages seek employment outside the agricultural industry is that for some purpose or other the employment is terminated by the farmer. Often a farmer's son leaves school and comes to work on the farm, and the farmer will tell a man that now that his son is working on the farm he cannot keep both of them and the man will have to go.

So the man looks for another job. He is not allowed to be unemployed. He would not be entitled to unemployment benefit if he failed to accept any form of employment that came in his direction. It may not be a job on a farm. Circumstances may force him to go into another form of employment. It would be prejudicial to him to make this further Amendment.

As my right hon. Friend rightly said, this Clause has not received the approval of the workers and this Amendment would without doubt stir up even greater animosity by farm workers against the Government on the Clause. In the first four months of 1965, over 80 cases were defended in the courts by the union. In no other industry in the country have so many men to be defended over the occupation of their homes. The Protection from Eviction Act has not solved the problem. This Bill will not abolish the tied cottage. Any extension of the considerations to be used by the judges would be deplored by my union and the farm workers.

Question put and agreed to