HC Deb 14 March 1919 vol 113 cc1645-51

(1) A landlord of a house to which the principal Act, either as originally enacted or as extended by this Act, applies shall, on being so requested by the tenant of the house, furnish to him a statement us to what is the standard rent of the house, and if he fails within fourteen days to do so, or furnishes a statement which is false in any material particular, he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding ten pounds.

(2) Where a person who has, since the thirtieth day of September, nineteen hundred and seventeen, purchased a house to which the principal Act, either as originally enacted or as extended by this Act, applies, requires the house for his own occupation or that of some person in his employ, or in the employ of some tenant from him, nothing in the Increase of Rent, etc. (Amendment) Act, 1918, shall be construed as preventing the Court from making an order for the recovery of possession of the house, if, after Considering all the circumstances of the case, including, especially the alternative accommodation available for the tenant, the Court considers it reasonable to make such an order.

Mr. ADAMSON

I beg to move, after Sub-section (l), to insert as a new Sub-section, (2) Notwithstanding anything in Sub-section (3) of Section 1 of the principal Act no order for the recovery of possession of a dwelling-house to which this Act applies, or for the ejectment of a tenant therefrom shall be made so long as the tenant continues to pay rent at the agreed rate, as modified by the principal Act or by this Act, and performs the other conditions of the tenancy, except on the ground that the tenant has been guilty of conduct which is a nuisance or an annoyance to adjoining or neighbouring occupiers, and where such order has been made but not executed before the passing of this Act the Court by which the order was made may, if it is of opinion that the order would not have been made if this Act had been in operation at the date of the making of the order, rescind or vary the order in such manner as the Court may think fit for the purpose of giving effect to this Act. I moved this Amendment in Committee stage and withdrew it on the understanding that the right hon. Gentleman would give it further consideration between then and the Report stage. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has seen fit to make any modification in the direction in which my Amendment goes. The object of the Amendment is to put employers of labour who are owners of house property on exactly the same footing as private owners of house property. In large industrial centres there are many employers of labour who own a considerable amount of house property. They are in a superior position to the private owner, and, as a consequence, workmen who are occupying their houses are in an interior position to workmen who are occupying houses belonging to private individuals. This difference has given rise to a very large amount of dissatisfaction, and to such an extent had this been the case that in certain areas where employers who are owners of house property have got notices of ejectment served upon workmen, their fellow-workmen in the same industry, in order to prevent them from being turned out of the houses, have had to take industrial action.

Mr. B. DENNISS

Do they pay rent?

Mr. ADAMSON

Yes; they are paying rent. Their fellow workers have had to take industrial action in order to prevent their ejectment for the simple reason that there was not a single house to be got for the workmen in case the men were ejected from the houses they then occupied. The House can very well understand that in circumstances such ns those you are bound to have dissatisfaction. There are also a considerable number of widows and dependants of our men who have fallen in the War who are still tenants of the class of house with which my Amendment seeks to deal. When the War took place all sections of our people appealed to the workmen of this country to take their share in the defence of the country, and, as hon. Members know, a very large number of our men went, and considerable numbers of them have fallen. My Amendment deals with those cases, and those widows and dependants would find the same difficulty in obtaining suitable places as there is such a scarcity of houses in many of the industrial areas. The working classes of the country think that this is giving to employer owners of house property an unfair advantage, and consequently we have been asked to move this Amendment, and I hope that the Attorney-General may be able to give effect to the particular ideas contained in it.

Mr. E. GARDNER

I hope the Attorney-General will not accept this Amendment. I have no doubt there are hardships without it, but with it the hardships would be still greater and the hindrance to taking back men out of the Army would be almost insuperable. When men joined the Army in the early days of the War in a large number of cases the wives were left in the cottages, but there are many cases in which the wives would not stay at home. They went out to occupations and left for various reasons, with the result that many of these cottages were empty, and were kept empty for some considerable time in the hope that the men would come back at an early date from the Army and resume their occupations on farms, estates, and so forth in these cottages. But everyone knows, too, that the War lasted much longer than was expected, with the result that the owners of these cottages were hardly pressed, and particularly in populous districts, to let these houses to outsiders. After a time they were so let, and on the condition that they should be surrendered when the previous occupants came back or when tenants who took up similar work applied for the cottages for the purpose of enabling the estates or farms to be carried on. Those cottages were occupied in that wayby various kinds of persons, and I am not sure that a good many week-enders from town did not go into them. If this Amendment is passed it will be absolutely impossible for the owners of those cottages to regain possession of them for the purpose of again employing the men who left them to go into the Army, and I am sure that that is a condition of affairs that the Attorney-General will not allow.

2.0 P M.

Sir G. HEWART

This proposal was moved in Committee in the very same words as those which are now employed, and it was dealt with very fully by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Education. It is quite true that he said he would consider the matter further before Report, but upon that further consideration I am bound to say that the objections to this proposal appeared even stronger than they did in Committee. May I call attention to what it is that the right hon. Gentleman proposes to do? The principal Act was passed so long ago as December, 1915. It was further considered with reference to an amendingAct which was passed in May, 1918, but the particular proposals which are now being attacked were con- tained in the original Act and were not affected by the amending Act of 1918. What are they? It is provided by the principal Act that there shall be certain exceptions to the rule that an order for the recovery of possession of a dwelling-house to which the Act applies or for the ejectment of a tenant therefrom shall not be made, and the exceptions are, first, upon the ground that the tenant has committed waste; secondly, upon the ground that the tenant has been guilty of conduct which is a nuisance or an annoyance to adjoining or neighbouring occupiers; thirdly, upon the ground that the premises are reasonably required by the landlord for the occupation of himself or some other person in his employ or in the employ of some tenant from him; and, fourthly, on some other ground which maybe deemed satisfactory by the Court making such order. What is the effect of the right hon. Gentleman's proposal? Of these four exceptions he desires at a stroke to take away three. That is to say, if this proposal were to be accepted it would be impossible to obtain an order for the recovery of possession or for the ejectment of the tenant, although the tenant had committed and was committing waste. Is that seriously suggested? Then it would be impossible to obtain such an order because the premises were reasonably required by the landlord for the occupation of himself or some other person in his employ or in the employ of some tenant from him; and, finally, it would be impossible to obtain an order for possession or ejectment on any other ground, although that ground did appear to be satisfactory to the Court. I can only say, as was said the other night, that this proposal, whatever may be the individual hard cases that may arise—and I do not want to belittle them—would take away a large part of the protection that was given by Sub-section (3) of Clause 1 in the principal Act of 1915, and was deliberately allowed to remain when the amending Act of 1918 was discussed in Parliament.

Mr. SPENCER

I am very sorry that the Attorney-General cannot see his way to give effect to the proposal which has been moved by my right hon. Friend. He laid stress upon the fact that we propose to do two or three things, but as a matter of fact we have no intention of removing numbers 1 and 2 of those exceptions which he quoted under the principal Act. The Amendment is directed, undoubtedly, against No. 3. We have cases of men who have actually gone out as soldiers and who have returned to collieries but who now cannot find them employment. Furthermore, the wife and children must give up the house because the house is required for some other work. I put it to hon. Members, is that a fair method of dealing with men who have been out to fight? That has actually taken place, and it is because we are desirous of protecting the position of men of this character that this Amendment is being moved to-day. The second ground is this. It may be very desirable, indeed, for a workman to remove from one house to another, when he can get it, when circumstances are such that he must leave his work at one colliery and go to another, but because he goes to another colliery in the neighbourhood hegets a notice to quit the house as soon as he has left his employment. Under such circumstances, I think hon. Members will admit that this is a very real grievance, and one which deserves the attention of the learned Attorney-General.

Amendment negatived.

Major HENDERSON

I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), to leave out the word "the" ["including the alternative accommodation"], and to insert instead thereof the words "any suitable."

When this Clause was discussed in Committee, the learned Attorney-General agreed to insert the words "in particular,"and the hon. and learned Member for Warrington (Mr. H. Smith) pointed out that that might be taken as a direction to the Court that any alternative accommodation would be sufficient, quite regardless as to whether the alternative accommodation was suitable or not. By leaving out the word "the" and inserting the words "any suitable" the difficulty pointed out by the hon. and learned Member for Warrington would be removed.

Sir G. HEWART

At a somewhat earlier stage in the afternoon we had a discussion on the difference between "in particular" on the one hand and "especially"on the other. I hope we are not going to have a discussion now on the difference between "suitable accommodation" and "alternative accommodation."Does not my hon. Friend perceive that the Clause already contains what he is seeking to put in? How can that be said to be accommodation which is not suitable? It is not accommodation. How can it be said to be alternative accommodation if it is notsuitable? And how can it be said to be alternative accommodation available for the tenant if it is not suitable accommodation? I hope this Amendment will not be pressed.

Mr. H. SMITH

I regret having to differ from my right hon. and learned Friend. I do, with all respect, think there is a great difference between "any suitable accommodation" and the words "alternative accommodation."I have seen a striking case in the village in which I live. Had these words "suitable accommodation" been in the Act, what took place in this particular instance could not have taken place. An application came before the magistrate for an ejectment order, and in this particular case there was alternative accommodation in the village. It was most unsuitable. My right hon. and learned Friend said that it is not accommodation, but he has to remember that, in the case of houses rated under a certain amount, an ejectment order must be applied for before a lay bench, and in the case I have in my mind the wording of the amending Act was so construed by a lay bench that an order was made to turn out the tenant merely on the ground that there was in the village some sort of accommodation, which, I should maintain, knowing the village, was not suitable accommodation. That mistake would nothave been possible had these words been in. Nor could benches in future make such a mistake if their minds were directed to the fact that they must not make such an order unless the alternative accommodation is at the same time suitable accommodation. Take the case of a tenant, his wife, and three children, living in a house, say, of 3s. or 4s. a week in that village. There is a house available, perhaps, in a very inferior part, the accommodation is less, and the rent 6d. a week more. That obviously is notsuitable, but surely a lay bench of magistrates might easily, as they have done to my knowledge, regard that under the circumstances as alternative accommodation. It is not suitable accommodation, and I do ask my right hon. and learned Friend to accept this point of view, that the insertion of these words can do no possible harm to the Clause, and might be of assistance even to a County Court judge. My right hon. and learned Friend knows well that a clear indication of this sort would be of great assistance to a lay bench. It cannot injure the Bill, and it makes the wishes of the House perfectly clear beyond any question. Under these circumstances, I do hope he will reconsider his decision, which, I think—if I may say so—was taken—I will not say rashly—but without that thought he might have given to it, and without appreciating the fact that the words cannot possibly do any harm to the Clause.

Amendment negatived.