HC Deb 15 July 1930 vol 241 cc1187-95
Mr. MacROBERT

I beg to move, to leave out Sub-section (2).

This Amendment was raised in another form in Committee. The Clause as it stands will be a great injustice. I am sure that however prejudiced a person may be against property owners he wishes to be fair to them. When I first read the Clause it seemed to me that there had been a clerical error, and I pointed it out to the Government. The words in the Sub-section are, that any expenses incurred by a local authority may be recovered by them from the owner of the building or house. I thought that the word "owner" was a clerical error and that "occupier" was meant, and I was amazed when I was told that it was not a clerical error, and that "owner" was meant.

Mr. McKINLAY

Why "occupier"?

Mr. MacROBERT

He would be liable, in any event, and if he is not able to pay, why should the local authority recover against the owner? Of course, the occupier will be liable, because he has resisted an order of the local authority, and if and when the case comes into court he will be made liable to pay the expenses. If it remained there, I should be content, but the Government say that although the occupier may be liable to pay the expenses he may not pay them; therefore, although the local authority are the parties who raised the case, they are going to mulct the owner in the expenses. Clause 28 (1) provides that the person who gives notice to the occupier to remove is not the owner but the local authority. The local authority intimate to the occupier that he has to leave the premises, and if he does not do so one may assume, in ordinary circumstances, that the local authority will raise a case against him, and eject him. That is provided for in the Act of 1925. In the Act of 1925, no power was given to the owner to do anything. He was not given the power to eject because he was not the person to ask the occupier to go out; it was the local authority that acted. The local authority has to intimate to the occupier that he must leave the premises which were in a defective state, and if he does not do so the local authority should see to it that he obeys the order.

In the Act of 1925 the owner was not allowed to interfere. The Rent Restrictions Act prevented him from ejecting. That was so decided in the courts. The only body that could eject the occupier was the local authority. Under this Bill, we find that provision is made, as in the Act of 1925, that the local authority shall call upon the occupier to leave the insanitary premises. Then it goes on to say: …. and if at any time after the date on which the notice requires the building or house to be vacated any person is in occupation of the building or house or of any part thereof, the authority or any owner of the building or house may make summary application for removal and ejection …. If the occupier refuses to obey the order properly given by the local authority then, apparently, either the local authority or the owner may move in court for his ejection. Supposing the owner does so. What about the expenses? No doubt he would be entitled to get them from the occupier who had disobeyed the order, but the occupier probably would not pay. Therefore, the person who made the application would have to go without his expenses. But, on the other hand, this particular Subsection gives the right to the local authority to recover the expenses from the owner. Supposing the local authority take action, and the occupier has disobeyed the order. They would be entitled in the first place to get their expenses against the occupier, I should assume, on the ground that he has disobeyed a statutory order, but if he does not pay the expenses, Sub-section (2) provides that the local authority are to go against the owner and get the expenses from him—expenses caused by the refusal of the occupier to obey a notice served upon him by the local authority.

It seems to me to be a monstrous suggestion, I say so with all deliberation, that the local authority should have the right, when the owner has done nothing wrong, and has obeyed all the instructions given, to recover expenses caused by occupier against the owner. It may be said that the owner did wrong because he allowed his premises to get out of condition, but he is punished for that by having his property demolished. Where the local authority give notice to the tenant to quit, and he has refused to obey, there is no justification for making the owner liable for the expenses. By leaving the Sub-section out of the Clause no injustice will be done to anybody. The local authority will be entitled to get their expenses against the occupier if he is able to pay, and if he is not able to pay, they will do without. That will be the position if they chose to raise the application. The Government have put down an Amendment on this point, but it is almost a grotesque Amendment. It says: but a local authority shall not be entitled to recover any expenses under this sub-section unless the owner has failed to make, within a reasonable time a summary application for removal and ejection …. He has no duty to make that application any more than the local authority. The Bill provides that either the owner or the local authority may take action. Why the owner should be penalised on the ground that he has not made application, when the local authority have not done it, I cannot understand. I hope the Government will give effect to my Amendment, and that justice will be done to the owner of the property, who has done all that he can to get the property vacated, and that he shall not be mulcted in expenses because the occupier refuses to vacate.

Mr. JOHNSTON

We thought that we had met every reasonable point that was raised in Committee by the right hon. Gentleman. He must, in fairness, admit that every reasonable grievance that has been brought to our notice from the first stage of this Bill until now we have been willing and anxious to meet. I know of no case where any reasonable point has not been met.

Mr. MacROBERT

I agree that the Government have been very reasonable in meeting the Amendments that I have proposed, and it is because I hold so strongly that my Amendment meets a grievance, that I hope they will be able to meet me in this.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. JOHNSTON

We have not steeled our hearts in any way against any suggestion that has been made to make the Bill fairer, more reasonable or more just, from whatever quarter the suggestion has come. Let the right hon. Gentleman consider what his Amendment means. It means that the proprietor of what I may call for short a rotten property, which has become insanitary and a menace to the community, whose duty it is to demolish that rotten property and to get rid of it in the public interest, is on every occasion to throw on to the community at least a part of the legal costs which are incurred in clearing away that rotten property. There has been no dispute about the fact that it has always been his duty in the past to discharge whatever legal expenses were necessary in clearing away his rotten property, if he could not recover them from his tenant. That has always been his duty in the past, and it has never up to now been the duty of the public authority to undertake the burden of those expenses. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is seeking to throw upon the local authority what may be an added burden—it is not necessarily so, but it may be an added burden—in getting rid of a rotten and insanitary property, namely, a Share of the legal expenses which has hitherto in law had to be borne by the proprietor of that rotten property if he failed to recover them from his tenant. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, in the Committee stage of this Bill upstairs, put forward the case that there might be hardship on the landlord if the tenant showed himself recalcitrant and refused to go. He argued that, if the landlord had done everything he could to get his property demolished, it might be very hard if the proprietor in such a case were mulcted in unnecessary expense; and we sought to meet that argument. What do we say in our Amendment to this Clause which is next, on the Paper? But a local authority shall not be entitled to recover any expenses under this sub-section unless the owner has failed to make, within a reasonable time, a summary application for removal and ejection to the sheriff, or, having made such an application, has failed to take all steps necessary to have the application disposed of within a reasonable time. It has always been, in law, his duty to do that.

Mr. MacROBERT

No; it has never been the duty of the landlord to get rid of his tenant unless he chose to do so, and, if he does not do it, this Bill will make him pay all the local authority's expenses.

Mr. JOHNSTON

It has always been the duty of the proprietor to keep his property in a sanitary condition, and, if a proprietor does not keep his property in a sanitary condition, it is now his duty, at the call of the local authority, to shut it, and to evict his tenant. That is his duty, and what the right hon. and learned Gentleman is now seeking to do is to put the costs of his doing his duty upon the local authority.

Mr. MacROBERT

No.

Mr. JOHNSTON

if a property is in an insanitary condition and is unfit for human habitation, it has always been the duty of the proprietor to stop that state of affairs and to pay the expenses of stopping it.

Mr. MacROBERT

But he cannot evict the tenant.

Mr. JOHNSTON

I do not know what the right hon. and learned Gentleman means.

Mr. MacROBERT

May I explain that under the Act of 1925 the only person who could evict was the local authority. The hon. Gentleman is now suggesting that it was always the duty of the landlord to evict a tenant from insanitary premises; but could he do that under the old law? He had no right to do it; the Rent Restrictions Act prevented it. It has been so held in the courts, and indeed it is stated in the Act of 1925, that the only person who can evict the tenant is the local authority.

Mr. JOHNSTON

Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that the landlord has a statutory duty to preserve his property in decent and sanitary condition?

Mr. MacROBERT

That is another matter.

Mr. JOHNSTON

That is the foundation of the thing. Having allowed his property to fall into an insanitary condition, it is his duty, at the call of the local authority, to close it or demolish it; and, if it is going to cause him expenses to do it, legal or otherwise, it is his duty to bear them.

Mr. MacROBERT

Yes, I agree, but not to evict.

Mr. JOHNSTON

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is now seeking to foist upon the local authority half of the legal expenses of getting rid of the tenant. We have sought to remedy the legitimate grievance which there might be in this matter by framing an Amendment which provides that the local authority shall not have power to recover expenses where the landlord has not failed to discharge his statutory duty. I point out this, further: There only may be a call by the local authority upon the proprietor. The local authority need not recover, they only may recover; and the local authority are not likely to attempt to recover unless they are convinced that there has been a deliberate attempt on the part of the proprietor to put on to the local authority costs which legitimately ought not to be borne by the local authority.

Sir J. GILMOUR

I had not intended to enter the lists upon a matter of legal interpretation, but the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland has, so far as I am able to gather, asserted that what is being done by this Bill is imposing no further duty upon the proprietor than has been the case in the past. As I understand the position, that is not so. In so far as the problem concerns the question of insanitary buildings, it is so, but, when it comes to the question of eviction, the pproprietor, under the existing Act of 1925 and the Rent Restrictions Act, has been debarred from taking the action which the Government are now seeking by this Bill to impose upon him. This is really a matter upon which the House has a duty to be quite clear, and I would invite the Lord Advocate to explain to the House the exact legal position as it exists at the present time, and, in so far as it is being altered by this present Act, what those alterations amount to. None of us, I am sure, would wish to relieve the landlord of his proper duty, but clearly there are occasions when it is the proper duty of the local authority, and is their duty alone, to take this action; and that they should endeavour to lay upon the shoulders of the landlord expenses which justly they have no right to exact seems to me to be harsh and inequitable. At any rate, let us be quite clear as to the facts. I do not doubt that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland has put this case as clearly as he can, but as I understand it and as I am advised, he has not accurately explained to the House the existing legal position, and the House ought to know exactly where it stands in this matter.

The LORD ADVOCATE

I confess that I have very great difficulty in understanding precisely what the difficulty of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite is in this matter. It seems to me that the question for the consideration of the House is not so much what is the existing law, regarding which there may be room for difference of opinion, as the question whether the particular Subsection which it is proposed should be deleted is or is not an equitable Sub-section.

Sir J. GILMOUR

May I tell the right hon. and learned Gentlemen the specific question which I wish answered, following upon what the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland has said, because I am advised that what the Under-Secretary has stated is misleading, and, frankly, is not in accordance with the facts of the case. The Under-Secretary of State, as I understand it, has said that in the proposals which he is putting before the House in this Sub-section there is no alteration in the law as it affects the owner of property; but, in my judgment, and as I am advised, there is a distinct alteration of the law, and the House will be misled by the Under-Secretary if it accepts the position as he has explained it. Whether it is proper to make this alteration, or whether it is not, the House really ought to have a definite and clear statement of fact as to what is the position of the owner under the law at the present time as regards eviction, and how far it is being altered by the proposals in this Sub-section.

The LORD ADVOCATE

I was just coming to that matter, but I was pointing out that to my mind the important question is whether Sub-section (2) is an equitable provision or riot. I am not particularly concerned with the question whether it effects any material alteration in the existing law; but, as regards the point upon which the right hon. Gentleman has asked for information, as I understand the existing law, the cost of demolishing a condemned house is a cost which lies upon the owner of the house.

Mr. MacROBERT

The question is the cost of eviction.

The LORD ADVOCATE

I do wish the right hon. and learned Gentleman would keep his mind in control for two consecutive sentences. Perhaps both the right hon. Gentlemen opposite will follow me step by step. Under the existing law, where an order is made for the demolition of property, the costs of the demolition and the duty of demolishing it rest upon the owner, and, unless I am pointed to some statutory warrant for the contrary view, I should have thought that the cost of evicting, at any rate, preliminary to the work of demolition being carried out, was properly a cost which fell upon the owner of the property. I may be wrong in that—

Mr. MacROBERT

May 1, in order that the Lord Advocate may follow the point, refer him to Section 8, Sub-section (3), of the 1925 Act, which I will hand him in a moment, and also Section 112, which says that the Rent Restrictions Act is excluded only so far as regards the obtaining of possession of a house by a local authority; and there have been cases in the Courts which have decided that the owner has at the present time no power to eject.

The LORD ADVOCATE

I have the Act here. Of course, the owner himself has no power to eject, but I should like to see the authority which says that the owner has no power to eject under an appropriate sanction. But however that may be, the material question is whether this is an equitable provision or not. So far as that matter is concerned, I venture to think that there is no possible answer to the view which has been put before the House by the Under-Secretary of State. If, in order to carry out the necessary work, an eviction has to be carried through, I for my part, cannot for the life of me see why the expense of carrying through that eviction should be placed upon the local authority and not upon the owner of the property who has the tenant in occupation who renders the eviction necessary.

Sir J. GILMOUR

As the right hon. and learned Gentleman has answered the question which I put to him, and in so far as my limited comprehension goes of the information which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has given the House, I now understand—he will perhaps contradict me if I am wrong—that it was improperly stated in this House that under the existing law, so far as eviction is concerned, the proprietor had either the right or the duty to enforce that eviction. The House now understands that that was improperly and wrongly stated, but that it is a matter which the hon. Gentleman thinks no one here should question. So far as we are concerned we do question it.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. W. ADAMSON

I beg to move, in page 26, line 28, at the end, to insert the words: but a local authority shall not be entitled to recover any expenses under this subsection unless the owner has failed to make, within a reasonable time a summary application for removal and ejection to the sheriff or having made such an application has failed to take all steps necessary to have the application disposed of within a reasonable time. The provisions of the Clause were broadly discussed on the last Amendment and there is no need for me to go over the ground again.

Amendment agreed to.