HC Deb 21 June 1920 vol 130 cc1945-55

This Act shall apply to any premises used for business trade or professional purposes as it applies to a dwelling-house, and as though references to "dwelling-house" and "dwelling" included references to any such premises, but this Act in its application to such premises shall have effect subject to the following modifications:—

  1. (a) The following paragraph shall be substituted for paragraph (d) of subsection (1) of section five:
  2. (b)Paragraph (i) of the same sub-section shall not apply;
  3. (c) Sections nine and ten shall not apply.

Mr. LORDEN

I beg to move, at the beginning of the Clause, to insert the words "Section five of."

I do this because I feel that probably it is necessary that tenants of business premises should have some fixity of tenure. Many of them have written to me with regard to these points, but it is not a question of the rent they are so much interested in as it is in the question that they should be able to continue in their premises. If these words are inserted it will have the effect of applying the whole of Clause 5 with the exceptions as printed in the Bill, and it will have the effect entirely of giving them fixity of tenure without making any difference to the rent of the premises until the Committee report. I think it is clearly the Government's intention not to include these business premises as they are included now. The Salisbury Committee say clearly that their grievances existed prior to the war, and could not be removed by the application of the Rent Restrictions Act to business premises. They go on to say that such a remedy would only deal with the fringe and would not satisfy their demands in respect to continuity of tenure, compensation for improvements and compensation for disturbance. They give considerable reasons why these business premises should not be included. If this Amendment be accepted there would be a straightforward meaning in line 10 of the same words, and it would have the effect of applying Clause 5 of this Bill, with the exceptions included here, to business premises, and would not affect the question now going before, I understand, a Select Committee. It is important that the thing should be dealt with. By putting in this partial Clause you are upsetting the tenants, interfering with leases falling in, and, generally speaking, upsetting the whole working of this Rent Restrictions Act. It was never intended to apply to premises, and is not suited in its application in any way or shape.

Mr. SPEAKER

Is the Amendment seconded?

Mr. RAFFAN

I beg to second it, although I confess I do not fully appreciate what exactly the hon. Member wishes to do, but it appears to carry out a suggestion I made the other evening. I am not, as I am sure he is not, keen about any particular form of words. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to give us protection from eviction at any rate until the Committee reports. I wish protection from eviction to apply to all business premises, not merely to these limits of rent, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be willing at any rate to consider very favourably suggestions of that character. Unless some protection is given, the Report of this Committee, valuable as it may be, will be too late to save a large number of men who are threatened with eviction.

Dr. ADDISON

I have not had much opportunity of studying this Amendment, but I am quite sure it would not do what the hon. Member wants. It would apply to business premises only, Clause 5 of this Bill. How, could you apply this? You really could not apply it. If it is to be applied to business premises at all it cannot be applied by taking the whole Clause holus bolus and simply applying that. I say, with very great respect, that this is not legislation, and in that respect the Amendment is not an improvement on .the Clause in the Bill. It would spoil it altogether. So far as the Bill is concerned I am sure that if the object of my hon. Friend behind me is to bring the whole thing to naught it would achieve that, and it would make it a dead letter. Perhaps that is his insidious purpose.

Mr. LORDEN

I do not think so.

Dr. ADDISON

That would be the effect so far as the law courts are concerned. We are going to discuss Clause 13 later. My hon. Friend opposite makes a more limited appeal. "Cannot you have a form of words that will save the business tenant from eviction?" We have just resisted one, and I hope the House will resist this too. You cannot do it that way. I wish we could. In Clause 5 we set out to try and protect from eviction the tenants of dwelling-houses below a certain rental value. That is what we have tried to do in Clause 5. With the best will in the world we have found that Clause 5 has grown, grown, grown, notwithstanding our best efforts, until it now covers nearly three pages of the Bill. That is in respect of tenants of dwelling-houses, quite a simple proposition. The word eviction has no special legal meaning. It involves, of necessity, the consideration by some court of the circumstances relating to the termination of the tenancy, and you would inevitably bring up all the cases broad cast as to whether it was this type of tenancy or that, as to compensation for goodwill and loss of business. We explored this with the best will in the world to see if there was any short cut, and there is none in the putting in of any form of words of that kind. I am perfectly certain you cannot do it that way. We have spent a good deal of time to see if you can find a short cut. You cannot. You will not be doing any good to the business people whom we all want to help. I have been bombarded with thousands of these cases. We are all sorry, but do not let us be precipitated into doing the wrong thing simply to meet a pressing and insistent demand. We intend to go on with this Committee which has been set up, the form of which is on the Order Paper to-day, together with the terms of reference and the name of the members whom the Government suggest should be on the Committee. We intend to go on with it without delay and that is the proper way to deal with this question. You cannot deal with complicated legal issues dealing with factories and other business premises by putting some formula into this Act. You cannot do it. I wish we could. It would make more trouble for the people we are seeking to help than it would do good. It is the wrong way to do it, and I hope the House will support the Government.

Amendment negatived.

Lieut.-Colonel HURST

I beg to move. at the end of the Clause, to add the words Provided always that the restriction on the right to possession imposed by section five shall apply to all business premises of whatever rent until otherwise provided by Parliament. This Amendment is intended to take the place of the Amendment which was put down in my name on Clause 5 When Clause 5 was reached, you, Mr. Speaker, told me that Clause 13 was the proper place to bring in this Amendment, and I have now put the Amendment in a form more apt. It is not what my right hon. Friend would describe as a "precipitate Resolution." The object of the Amendment is simply to stay all ejectments in the case of business premises until Parliament has received the Report of the Select Committee to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, and is able to base legislation upon that Report. The Bill in its present form is limited to business premises of certain rentals, and in numberless instances where rents exceed such limits notices have been served. These notices have been given, in many cases, by people who are not the original landlords of the premises, but financial speculators who have bought the property and have given the tenants notice to quit. I am not asking the House in any way to prejudge the issue which is going before the Select Committee. I do not want to go into the larger question at all. There is much to be said on both sides. The whole object of this Amendment is simply to retain the status quo until the House is able to arrive at a right and proper conclusion upon this question. I cannot see what objection there can be to this proviso, which is simply intended to preserve the tenants of business premises from receiving irrevocable harm. Their position cannot be fairly dealt with until Parliament has received the report of the Select Committee and has then determined what action is to be taken on the whole question.

Major NALL

I beg to second the Amendment. I want to assure my right hon. Friend that I do it in no precipitate manner, but simply to help those who have to clear out of their business premises. No provision is made in the Bill for higher rentals, and it is reasonable to suppose that some sort of action may be afforded when the Committee has gone into the matter and this House has had an opportunity of adopting legislation passed on that report. I do hope that the Government can, in the Amendment, adopt a temporary expedient to tide these people over the next few months until the House has an opportunity of deciding that notices of this sort are to be covered or that people should take their chance. In the provincial cities very considerable dislocation of trade will be caused if some temporary measure cannot be adopted to carry over for the next few months.

Dr. ADDISON

I do not want to repeat the arguments which I have already addressed to the House, but it would be impossible to have a better illustration of the danger of the proposals which I criticised. The Amendment proposes to add at the end of Clause 13 the words Provided always that the restrictions of the right to possession imposed by section five shall apply to all business premises of whatever rental, until otherwise provided by Parliament. In other words, throughout the length and breadth of the land, in every factory, warehouse, shop, industrial concern, in the most gigantic shipyard down to the smallest, you are going to stereotype the existing state of affairs until some legislation is passed dealing with this matter. It would have a monstrously desolating effect upon the trade and industry of the country. In the case of a shipyard wanting to extend some slip the whole concern would be liable to be stopped. The same would apply to the extension of any concern or business. I am just as sorry for these people as my hon. Friends. I can only say that you cannot deal with this question in this way. You cannot have a better illustration than this Amendment. It would paralyse business from one end of the country to the other. It would impose more or less of a shadow in the way of any concern, and would simply hold over all business until Parliament had decided. We have tried our best to find some way, with all the best legal advice I can command, to deal equitably and fairly with these cases in a practical form, and you cannot do it. You need an Act of Parliament to deal with it, and I venture to prophesy that Clause 13, which I opposed in Committee, will be found to be very unsatisfactory. Although you are going to leave it in the Bill, I am perfectly certain that in the end it will have been found to do more harm than good. It is not the right way of doing it. This Amendment would paralyse business and bring enterprise to a standstill, because you can always find somebody to object to any enterprise. It will have a desolating effect.

Major NALL

Does the right hon. Gentleman really think that the addition of this Clause to the measure would cause more paralysis than if nothing at all is done to meet these cases?

Dr. ADDISON

Yes, I think it would have a much worse effect. I know the grievance and I am sorry for it, and I want to limit it just as sincerely as my hon. Friend, but this will not do it. You will create a much worse evil than you are remedying. Can my hon. Friend imagine the case of anybody who wants to make a new railway or a new canal or to extend a big business enterprise—a big shipyard or a cloth manufactory or a cotton mill—and who has to take in a certain amount of property? You will find somebody there with a little hairdresser's shop or a small office, and these people will say, "No; I am going to stand as I am until Parliament has done something or other connected with this class of legislation." We have gone so far as to include property where the limit of rent does not exceed the limit of the rent of houses. As I told the Committee, I think that is a mistake, but you have done it, and we propose to accept it. But it would be wrong in this case, because everywhere where these big concerns come along with schemes there will always be somebody who is holding out for a bigger price, or somebody who wants to object, and no considerable enterprise could go foward if this were on the Statute Book. The complications are much more far-reaching than my hon. Friends have in any way anticipated. I am sure it is a mistaken Amendment, and I should resist anything of the kind, and be doing it in the best interests of the very people they are trying to support.

Mr. RAFFAN

I am sure there is no Member of the House who does not wish to give the right hon. Gentleman credit for desiring to act in the best interests of the community, and I am sure that he is equally willing to give credit to those who may not be able to see eye to eye to him, and with very great respect I am bound to say that I am unable to follow the argument he has just addressed to the House. He says that if we pass this Amendment and there is a proposal to extend a railway, a canal, or some other big business enterprise somebody with a small shop or a small office or a barber's shop is certain to stand in the way. But the barber's shop and the little office are already protected. These things will stand in the way as the Bill is, just as in Clause 5 the little cottage stands in the way. The form of legislation embodied in the Bill has unfortunately the effect which he has described, and I suggest to him that the addition of business pre- mises could not possibly operate in the injurious way that he describes. If he could give us an assurance that the matter would be considered, and, if possible, protection given in another place, I would have the utmost confidence that he would do his best to redeem any promise that he made. It has been pointed out that in a great many of our large towns there are business people who have given up the whole of their lives and their energy and their capital to build up their businesses, and they are under notice to quit in June. They will be wrecked before this Committee has reported, and that is a state of things for which provision ought to be made. I presume that the Committee will be able to report very soon, and I should hope that it will be possible to have some sort of legislation in the Autumn Session. If that be so, then all these drawbacks, the holding up of great schemes, could only operate, if at all, for a very short time. While I give the right hon. Gentleman full credit for his earnestness and his sincerity, unless there is a definite promise of some sort I hope my hon. Friend will go to a Division, because this is of great importance to so many business men in all parts of the country.

Major BARNES

I think it is very difficult for any Member not to be impressed by the forceful and eloquent way in which the right hon. Gentleman has resisted this Amendment. I think he has rather overstated the case against it. I think it is not fair to press Clause 13 against him, because he has told us that he thinks that it will have an evil effect, but still it is going to remain in the Bill, and so we have to face that fact, and I think we may fairly take into account what will be the effect of passing the proposal which is embodied in the Amendment. If the situation is fairly looked at, although the result of Clause 13 and the Amendment will be to stereotype things to a certain extent, yet I cannot conceive that it would restrict developments of the important character that he has mentioned—railways, canals and matters of that kind, because what we are dealing with in this Bill is property which is in the ownership of the people who might be carrying out a scheme of development. Take the case of a shipyard that wants to develop. As far as the property that was in its way was in other hands, that would not affect the development at all, because if a shipyard has got to deal with the property belonging to somebody else, then it is up against the ordinary market conditions, and the owner will have just as much to do with that as the tenant, and the only effect of the Amendment in that case would be that the tenant might be able to bleed the owner. So far as the shipyard is concened, I do not think that the Amendment will have any effect at all. I think it is much more likely to operate in the case of large cities, where you have got great extensions proposed in the case of some drapery premises. There, I think, these might be restricted, but I am not sure that such restriction might be to the disadvantage or to the hurt of the much more important schemes that the right hon. Gentleman has in mind. In Newcastle-on-Tyne there is a large drapery establishment which has evidently done very well during the War and is now contemplating very large developments which would require a very considerable amount of property from which people would be turned out who are engaged in business and subjected to serious inconvenience and hardship. That is the sort of development that would be stereotyped for the next two or three years, and I do not think that fact would be injurious to the general trade and I do not think it would hurt the

right hon. Gentleman in connection with his housing scheme. Even admitting that there would be serious disadvantages for a limited period, I think he would make up in the long run, because it would press forward legislation which everybody has been demanding in the direction of giving protection to town tenants. If the situation at all approximated to that which the right hon. Gentleman has presented to the House, I think it would lead to expedition in legislation of that kind, so that out of the evil a great good would come. From all these points of view I think the right hon. Gentleman, if he feels that we are in for the penny, might venture, even against his will, to let us go in for a pound. We are taking great risks this Session of all sorts. There cannot be the slightest doubt that this is being pressed on him, not by a few Members of this House, but from a large section of the trading community. If he yields to that pressure it cannot increase his unpopularity in the country. He will agree that all through this Debate there have been desperate endeavours to rescue him from a position of unpopularity. I hope he is not going to be adamant on this point.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 23; Noes, 95.

Division No. 153.] AYES. [2.45 a.m.
Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.) Hanna, George Boyle Raffan, Peter Wilson
Betterton, Henry B. Hayward, Major Evan Royce, William Stapleton
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. Hinds, John Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely) Holmes, J. Stanley Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)
Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark) Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington) White, Lieut.-Col. G. D. (Southport)
Entwistle, Major C. F. Lawson, John J.
Glanville, Harold James Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross) TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central) Myers, Thomas Lieut.-Colonel Hurst and Major Nall.
Hallas, Eldred Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
NOES.
Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. C. Cooper, Sir Richard Ashmole Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Atkey, A. R. Craig, Colonel Sir J. (Down, Mid.) Henderson Major V. L. (Tradeston)
Bagley, Captain E. Ashton Curzon, Commander Viscount Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. A. (Midlothian)
Baidwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley Dawes, Commander Inskip, Thomas Walker H.
Balfour, George (Hampstead) Du Pre, Colonel William Baring Jephcott, A. R.
Barnston, Major Harry Edge, Captain William Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Barrand, A. R. Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon) Kerr-Smiley, Major Peter Kerr
Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H (Devizes) Eyres-Monsell, Commander B. M. Law, Rt. Hon. A. B. (Glasgow, C.)
Birchall, Major J. Dearman Ford, Patrick Johnston Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Blades, Capt. Sir George Rowland Forestier-Walker, L. Lewis, T. A. (Glam., Pontypridd
Boles, Lieut.-Colonel D. F. Forrest, Walter Lindsay, William Arthur
Borwick, Major G. O. Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot Lorden, John William
Boyd-Carpenter, Major A. Fraser, Major Sir Keith Loseby, Captain C. E.
Bruton, Sir James Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. McLaren, Hon. H. D. (Leicester)
Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A. Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.
Casey, T. W. Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John Moreing, Captain Algernon H.
Clough, Robert Glyn, Major Ralph Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert
Coates, Major Sir Edward F. Goff, Sir R. Park Murray, John (Leeds, West)
Coats, Sir Stuart Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.) Murray, Major William (Dumfries)
Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale Greig, Colonel James William Neal, Arthur
Conway, Sir W. Martin Hacking, Captain Douglas H. Norton-Griffiths, Lieut.-Col. Sir John
Ormsby-Gore, Captain Hon. W. Shaw, William T. (Forfar) Wills, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Gilbert
Parker, James Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. G. F. Wilson, Daniel M. (Down, West)
Perkins, Walter Frank Steel, Major S. Strang Wilson, Colonel Leslie O. (Reading)
Pinkham, Lieut.-Colonel Charles Stephenson, Colonel H. K. Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
Pollock, Sir Ernest M. Sturrock, J. Leng Young, Lieut.-Com. E. H. (Norwich)
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton Sugden, W. H. Young, Sir Frederick W. (Swindon)
Prescott, Major W. H. Sutherland, Sir William Younger, Sir George
Pulley, Charles Thornton Taylor, J.
Raw, Lieutenant-Colonel N. Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham) TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Reid, D. D. Vickers, Douglas Lord Edmund Talbot and Mr. Dudley Ward.
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert A. Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.
Seddon, J. A. Whitla, Sir William

Bill read the Third time, and passed.