LANDLORD AND TENANT (No. 2) BILL. (Hansard, 21 December 1927)

§ The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks)
I beg to move, "That the Lords Amendments be now considered."
It would perhaps be convenient if I were to make one or two preliminary remarks as to these Lords Amendments. I have to apologise for the number of the Amendments, but the House knows that we finished the Committee stage of the Bill only at the end of July, and that the Report stage was fixed for the first day of the present Session. It was not possible for us to put down any Amendments then, and when the Bill went to another place it had to be polished up and a large number of drafting Amendments made. The great bulk, 90 per cent., of the Amendments made in another place, are purely drafting Amendments which do not alter the Bill in any shape or form.
There are, however, three Amendments which, in fairness to the House, I ought to mention, because they do make an important change in the provisions of the Bill. The first of these is with regard to the tribunal, and relates to Clause 32 in the new Bill and Clause 20 in the old Bill. If the House will look at page 20 of the old Bill, they will see the original proposal, which was a panel of quasi arbitrators to be set up by the reference committee—the Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls and one or two others—who were to make a panel from which the arbitrator who decided this question could be selected by the parties themselves, or, if the parties differed, the selection could be made by the reference committee. Their Lordships felt that this was taking a very important question out of the jurisdiction of the Law Courts and putting it into the jurisdiction of a non-legal tribunal.

§ Mr. DENNIS HERBERT
Hear, hear!

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. D. 438 Herbert) will, I am sure, be pleased to see that the Lords have made the Amendment which appears on page 10 of the Amendment Paper—leave out Clause 20 and insert New Clause D.

§ Sir HENRY SLESSER
The right hon. Gentleman will remember that I moved the Amendment in Committee.

§ Sir GERALD HOHLER
And that I put it down in this House.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
At all events, whoever killed Cock Robin, they all seem to be very pleased. The Amendment, shortly, is that, instead of the tribunal which we propose, the County Court shall be the Court to deal with all these cases, subject, however, to the High Court having the right, as it has in all cases to-day, to transfer a case from the County Court to the High Court (a) if both parties agree that it should be transferred, or (b) if, on the application of either party, the High Court consider it is a case which, by reason of its magnitude or for any other reason, ought to go to the High Court; but in order to minimise as much as possible legal expenses, provision is made that, after a case is technically begun in the County Court, it shall be at once referred, as a matter of course, to one of the referees who is on the panel which we have established in the earlier part of the Bill. That is to say, it will not be necessary, in a purely technical case of this kind, to take it into the County Court, to brief counsel and argue over the whole case, and then for the County Court Judge to say, as he would in 99 cases out of a hundred, "This is a matter I cannot possibly decide, and it must be referred to a technical tribunal."
To prevent that dual hearing, it is proposed that, although commenced in the County Court, a case shall be referred, as a matter of course, to one of these referees on the panel. But—and here I call the attention of my legal friends to what is a concession to them—after the hearing has taken place before the referee, the referee can send it to the County Court where an order can be made by the County Court Judge. That is giving the same powers of appeal as in ordinary County Court cases, in which a matter of law is taken, as a right, to the High Court, thence to the Court of 439 Appeal, and from there to the House of Lords. That is the first Amendment of any real substance in the Bill. The second Amendment is on the question of contracting out. If hon. Members will look at Clause 8 of the old Bill and Clause 10 of the new Bill—

§ Sir PHILIP PILDITCH
Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what is the number of the Bill? Because, on application at the Vote Office, I was told that there was no Bill as altered by the Lords in print, and the Bill that was given me is No. 123, which is the Bill as it left this House and went to the Lords.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
This is Bill 153. It can only be obtained in the Private Bill Office of the House of Lords, because it is a House of Lords document. Hon. Members will find the Amendment at the bottom of page 6 of the Amendment Paper. The House will remember that, under the Bill as it left this House, all contracts contracting out from the provisions of the Bill were made void. The House of Lords struck that Clause out, and that, of course, in effect knocked the bottom out of the Bill, because it is perfectly impossible to have a Clause contracting out from the provisions of this Bill. Then, on Third Reading, their Lordships, who have a practice which we in this House do not have, put in an Amendment to insert a new contracting out Clause which, I think, is all we want, namely: This Part of this Act shall apply notwithstanding any contract to the contrary, being a contract made at any time after the thirtieth day of March, nineteen hundred and twenty-seven. So that all contracts in avoidance of the Act in any document for a lease, agreement of collateral document, made after 30th March this year, that being the date when the Bill was introduced, will be null and void. As the House will understand, it is not to be supposed that there can be a single lease or agreement dated prior to 30th March this year which has got a Clause in it avoiding the provisions of this Bill, because no one could have anticipated them. We have, therefore, got in this Amendment all, I think, that can reasonably be expected.

§ Mr. D. HERBERT
Will not the lawyers in the Courts have to work longer?

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
That ought to be a pleasure to my hon. and learned Friends.

§ Mr. DALTON
Is the right hon. Gentleman not going to say anything about the proviso?

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
The proviso to this Clause is: Provided that if on the hearing of a claim or application under this Part of this Act it appears to the tribunal that such contract as aforesaid, so far as it deprives any person of any right under this Part of this Act, was made for adequate consideration, the tribunal shall in determining the matter give effect thereto. That is to say, supposing there is a contract made after the 30th March, 1927, to provide that the provisions of the Act should not apply in consideration of the landlord having paid to the tenant, say, £100, that is a consideration, and the tribunal will have to consider whether it was adequate or not to induce the tenant to give up the rights he has under the provisions of the Act. The House will see that it is only the proviso we have already passed, because under Clause 8 in the Bill as it left this House it will be seen that the contract shall be void unless the tribunal, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, is of opinion that the contract was reasonable and, in the case of a contract made after the commencement of this Act, that the consideration for the deprivation of the right was adequate.

§ Mr. VARLEY
The tribunal has now become the County Court.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
Instead of the Tribunal under the Bill as it left this House there is now the County Court, with a reference to the same person as in the Bill as it left us, but there will lie an appeal from the Referee to the County Court. The House will see, however, that the condition in reference to the adequacy of this consideration is the same in the two Bills. Why their Lordships altered the actual wording, I do not quite know, but I, myself, am satisfied that their Clause is no more harmful to the tenant than the Clause in the Bill as it left this House. The third main Amendment is with regard to provisions as to premises under the Rent Restrictions Acts. This is an entirely new Clause, Sub-section (1) of which says: 441 The Tribunal shall not entertain an application under Section three of this Act if at the time of the application the applicant is a person in possession of the premises by virtue of the Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Acts, 1920 to 1925. That, of course, I am bound to say, does create an entire change in the position. I admit it is a serious change, as it takes out of the provisions of the Bill all those tenants of shop property who come under the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts, and who have received notice from their landlords, that is, where a man is a tenant of a shop with a house above it, because other shop property does not come within the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts. Where a tenant is under the Rent Restrictions Acts, and is in possession against the will of the landlord—that is what it comes to—the view of the House of Lords is that it is not unfair that he should not be entitled to go to the landlord and say, "I am going to make an improvement on your premises." The landlord quite rightly says, "But I do not want you here at all. You are not here by my wish, but because Parliament passed a certain Rent Restrictions Act, and you are only having to pay £50 a year rent when I could get £70 or £100. It is an added insult, beside an injury to myself, that Parliament should say, in spite of that, that you can make improvements for which I shall have to pay." With regard to goodwill—I am trying to put it from the point of view of the landlord—he says, "It is equally unfair that this man should continue in possession of my property for five or six years piling up a goodwill for which I have got to pay, and all the time he is in possession of my property under an Act of Parliament. I cannot get rid of him, and he is paying less rent than I could get from another tenant if I could get him out." Those are the reasons which have influenced their Lordships. I think I have put them fairly to the House, and it will be for the House to consider them.
Practically the whole of the other Amendments are drafting Amendments. On page 1, of the Lords Amendments, all the Amendments down to that in page 2, line 29 of the Bill are drafting Amendments and the last two Amendments in the page are also drafting Amendments. On page 2 of the Lords Amendments all 442 are drafting down to that in page 4, line 33 of the Bill.

§ Mr. HARDIE
Is the Amendment in page 3, line 35 of the Bill, to insert the words "attributable to," regarded as a drafting Amendment?

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
If the hon. Member does not take it from me that these are drafting Amendments I can deal with them as they come before us; but I have gone through them very carefully, and I can assure the House that I am not trying to get any of them through as drafting Amendments when they are not drafting Amendments.

§ Mr. CRAWFURD
Is the Amendment on page 2, of the Lords Amendments in page 3, line 18 of the Bill, to leave out "one month" and insert "two months," a drafting Amendment?

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
That is consequential to an Amendment made in this House, and I will deal with it in due course. I am only roughly going through these Amendments in order to try to give hon. Members some idea of the Amendments to which it is worth while directing attention. On page 2, of the Lords Amendments all are drafting Amendments down to that in page 4, line 33 of the Bill. The Amendment in page 5, line 9 of the Bill is not drafting, but the two remaining Amendments are drafting. On page 3 of the Lords Amendments the only drafting Amendments are those proposed in page 5, line 30 of the Bill and page 6, line 34 of the Bill. The others I shall deal with. On page 4 of the Lords Amendments the drafting Amendments are those proposed in page 7, line 23 of the Bill and page 7, line 33 of the Bill.

§ Mr. ERNEST BROWN
May I point out that the right hon. Gentleman is indicating the Amendments by the paging of the document containing the Lords Amendments, but the Amendments themselves are subdivided according to the pages of the Bill, and that is causing some confusion.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
I am dealing with the numbering of the pages of the document which hon. Members have in their possession containing the Lords Amendments. On page 4 of that document the only drafting Amendments are those proposed in page 7, lines 23 and 33 of the Bill, in page 8, line 27, 443 of the Bill and in page 9, line 40, of the Bill. On page 5 of this document the first two Amendments are not drafting, but all the others down to the Amendment in page 10, line 37, are drafting. The only other drafting Amendments on this page of the document are those proposed in page 11, lines 34 and 35, of the Bill. On page 6 of the document there is only one drafting Amendment which will be found in the middle of the page and is in page 12, line 3, of the Bill. On page 7 of the Lords Amendments from the Amendment in page 13, line 8, of the Bill down to the bottom of the page they are all drafting. On page 8 of the Lords Amendments the first Amendment is drafting and the Amendments in page 16, lines 35 and 37, of the Bill are purely drafting, while the Amendments in page 17, lines 30 and 31, of the Bill, and that in page 18, line 6, of the Bill are drafting. On page 9 of the Lords Amendments all are drafting except the two first and the Amendment in page 19, line 25, of the Bill. The others are all technical and have been suggested by the Ministry of Agriculture. On page 10 of the Lords Amendments there are no drafting Amendments, and on page 11 only the last two are drafting. On page 12 of the Lords Amendments the first four are drafting and also the three Amendments in the middle of the page in page 23, lines 32, 33 and 36 of the Bill. The Amendments in page 24, line 16, of the Bill at the bottom of the page are consequential Amendments. On page 13 of the Lords Amendments the last three are all drafting. I have taken this unusual course, because I think, where there is such a large number of Amendments, the House would like to know those which are of a drafting character.

§ Sir WILLIAM PERRING
Is the Amendment in page 24, line 19, of the Bill dealing with the date, a drafting Amendment?

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
No, I did not say that it was. That is an Amendment which will have to be discussed. I have tried to put, as shortly as possible, the crucial questions which arise on these Amendments and I now beg to move, that the House proceed to consider them.

§ Mr. DALTON
We are obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the very clear 444 resumé which he has given of the principal Amendments now submitted to us. It may appear when we come to consider those Amendments in detail that one or two of them to which the right hon. Gentleman has made no reference will require discussion. I am surprised that it has been found necessary to have such a large number of drafting Amendments. After the prolonged discussions which took place here and in Committee on this Bill one would have thought it unnecessary for their Lordships to put themselves to so much trouble in order to improve our language. However, no doubt, reasons can be advanced for some of the drafting Amendments. I think it will be more convenient if my hon. Friends and I reserve what we have to say until we come to the particular Amendments with which we wish to deal. May I just indicate with regard to the three Amendments which the Home Secretary has singled out that in the first place we are agreeable to the Amendment regarding the tribunal. It was originally proposed by us and therefore we take some pride of paternity in it. In the second place with regard to the contracting-out Amendment we are exceedingly dubious as to whether a very large part of what we intended to give to the tenants has not been whittled away in another place. In the third place with regard to the rent restrictions proposal. we are very strongly opposed to that further whittling away of the protection of the tenants. We shall have something to say upon each of those Amendments when they are submitted to us.

§ Mr. CRAWFURD
For my part, I cannot in the least consent to the alteration which it is proposed to make in the tribunal. It seems to me a fundamental change in the spirit of the Bill and certainly in the operation of the Bill. Presumably the right hon. Gentleman will go through these Amendments, one by one, and will pause at those which are not purely of a drafting nature.