HC Deb 16 May 1933 vol 278 cc207-16

3.44 p.m.

Sir BASIL PETO

I beg to move, in page 17, to leave out lines 1 to 7.

I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health to give serious consideration to this Amendment and to the arguments which I shall venture to address to him and to the House. The House at the beginning of this Schedule will find the words: Possession or ejectment without proof of alternative accommodation, and the Schedule opens by saying: A court shall, for the purposes of Section three of this Act, have power to make or give an order or judgment for the recovery of possession of any dwelling-house to which the principal Acts apply or for the ejectment of a tenant therefrom without proof of suitable alternative accommodation where the court considers it reasonable so to do. The Schedule is divided into paragraphs (a) to (h,) and I should like the House to consider what are the circumstances in the different paragraphs which the Bill supposes will be adequate circumstances to justify the court not requiring proof of suitable alternative accommodation. Paragraph (a) says if the rent has not been paid. Paragraph (b) says if a tenant has committed a nuisance or annoyance to adjoining occupiers. Paragraph (c) says if the tenant has given notice to quit, and in consequence of that the landlord has contracted to sell. Paragraph (d) says if the tenant without the consent of the landlord has at any time after the 31st July, 1923, assigned or sublet the whole or part of the dwelling-house. Paragraph (e) says if the dwelling-house contains premises for the sale of intoxicating liquor. Paragraph (d) is an exception, because last night the Minister accepted an Amendment which inserted a provision that such proof was required in the case of a dwelling-house being so overcrowded as to be dangerous or injurious to health. I would specialli call the attention of the House to the circumstances envisaged in paragraph (g) — if the dwelling-house is reasonably required by the landlord for occupation as a residence for some person engaged in his whole-time employment. In that case, there is no necessity to prove that alternative accommodation is available. Paragraph (h,) the proviso to which I am moving to omit, is that the dwelling-house is reasonably required by the landlord, not for a person in his whole-time occupation, but for himself, or his son or daughter, or his father or mother.

We have, therefore, this state of affairs in this Bill. We have a Schedule which specifically enunciates cases in which the court has not to give consideration to the provision of alternative accommodation in eight different paragraphs applying to eight different cases. In only one of them, namely, where the owner wants to live in his own house or wants possession of it for his son or daughter, or father or mother, has the landlord to show that there is alternative accommodation available for the tenant. It is a strange thing that if a landlord wants possession of his house for a servant, he can get it without proof of alternative accommodation, but if he wants it for himself he cannot do so. I would like to mention two out of an immense number of cases of great hardship of quite poor people who want possession of their houses. The first is the case of a man living in a small street in Barnstaple who, some 10 years ago, inherited an eight-roomed house in a superior part of Barnstaple. The rent of it is 7s. 6d. per week. The tenant has only an aged father-in-law and an epileptic brother and no children. The owner has a wife and three children. He is forced to live, and has been forced to live for 10 years, in a small cottage which does not give adequate accommodation to his children, and an eight-roomed house such as he owns would cost him from 15s. to £1 per week. He contrasts the 7s. 6d. which he gets as rent with the rent charged for council houses of similar accommodation, which is 16s. 4d., with rates in addition.

The other case comes from Exeter. A husband and wife, some six months before the husband was due to leave the Army at the end of the War, bought a house with their savings, at a cost of nearly £400. The present tenant pays 6s. 6d. a week for this six-roomed house, while the owners of it have to live in two rooms for which they pay 12s. 6d., and their two children have to live out. Similar houses in Exeter to that for which the owner gets 6s. 6d. per week are rented at 18s. to £l. Those cases prove the next thing to which I wish to call attention. In the discussions on this Bill the Minister of Health has made a considerable number of speeches in which he has shown conclusively that the reason for continuing these restrictions on the smaller type of house is that the supply of those houses has not been sufficient to meet the demand. In the cases envisaged in paragraph (A) there is no question of an additional house at all. It is a question of two families each living in a house or a part of a house. The owner wants the one the tenant is in, and whether or not the tenant keeps that one or has some other house there will be exactly as many houses available—neither more nor les3. There is no question of this involving a diminution or an increase in the supply of houses. The whole point is, which of the two people has the right to live in the house, the man who bought it 10 or 15 years ago or the present tenant?

I hold that of all the cases envisaged in the Schedule this is the special case to which the provision as to alternative accommodation should not apply, but, instead, we find it is the one singled out from among all these eight different cases in which alternative accommodation has got to be found. The Schedule begins by saying that it is setting forth the cases in which alternative accommodation is not to be required, but then comes a proviso bringing in again a condition which the court has to take into consideration: if the court is satisfied that having regard to all the circumstances of the case, including any alternative accommodation for the landlord or the tenant, greater hardship would be caused by granting the order or judgment than by refusing to grant it. To me it is quite obvious that it is the landlord who is suffering the injustice and the hardship by being kept out of the house he has purchased, and, therefore, this is the very case in which he should not have to prove the existence of suitable alternative accommodation. Obviously the landlord would not want to live in the house unless it presented superior attractions to the accommodation that he could get elsewhere, and so it seems quite clear that he will be debarred from showing that there is other accommodation equally cheap. In the cases I have quoted 7s. 6d. was the rent for one house and 6s. 6d. for the other and it is a very attractive thing for a working class man to get a house of six or eight rooms at such a rent; but under this proviso the owner of the house is to be kept out of it because he cannot show that there is another house of six or eight rooms to be had at such a cheap rent. That seems to negative the whole value of paragraph (h,) by setting up a condition with which it is quite impossible for the owner to comply. He can never show that there is anything so cheap or advantageous as the house he wants to get into.

I make this further and last point. It is not here a question of the landlord who has figured in so many speeches, the landlord who is the owner of a large number of small houses or cottages but who himself is much better off, living probably in a house at a rent 10 or 12 times as high. The man envisaged in paragraph (h) is a man of more or less the same status and worldly wealth as the tenant. The only difference between them is that one has been a saving man and has bought a house, and the other is in possession of that house and will not get out of it. I say that under the Bill as it is drafted the landlord is called upon to fulfil an almost impossible condition before he can get the tenant out of the house. I hope the Minister will accept the Amendment and realise that without it he is negativing one of the main purposes of the Bill. I know he will agree that nothing has caused a greater sense of hardship and injustice than that frugal people who bought their own houses should have been unable to get possession of them for so many years. One of the purposes of the Bill is to make it easier for them to get possession, but then we find this proviso, which I am moving to omit, putting up another barbed wire entanglement which it will be quite impossible for the owner to get through in his efforts to obtain possession of his house.

3.58 p.m.

Sir HENRY CAUTLEY

I beg to second the Amendment.

From all parts of my division, which is a largely populated county division, I get complaints of the injustice of this law. Numbers of people have bought houses for the purpose of living in them themselves or of putting their sons or daughters into them, and are having to pay more for accommodation elsewhere while the houses they have bought are occupied by somebody else. In numbers of cases the house has been bought through a building society. Those who bought were looking forward to living in their own house and paying off the money which had been borrowed from the building society. Now they find, many years after the War is over, that they are still kept out of their property, the only piece of property they possess, and they cannot understand the equity or the justice of being compelled to pay a higher rent to live elsewhere while their own house is occupied by another. I do ask the Minister to explain where is the equity of this proceeding. On the technical wording I suggest that without this proviso there is protection for very hard cases, because if one looks at the first part of the Schedule, although power is given to the court to give judgment for possession without proof of suitable alternative accommodation that is limited to cases where the court considers it reasonable so to do. Even without this proviso the court can only so act if it is reasonable. That would provide for the protection of the sitting tenant in borderline cases, or where very grave hardship would result by displacing the tenant. It is a little difficult to understand why it should say: having regard to all the circumstances of the case, including any alternative accommodation available for the landlord or the tenant, greater hardship would be caused by granting the order or judgment than by refusing to grant it. If I read that aright, it means that if there is no alternative accommodation provided, the judge cannot give judgment under this proviso. That is grossly inequitable. The case of great hardship is provided for in the first part, and there is no need for this proviso.

4.3 p.m.

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Hilton Young)

My hon. Friend the Mem- ber for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) has been so vigorous in his attack on this particular provision throughout our proceedings, that I cannot but feel some regret at this final stage in having once more to disappoint him. What is the case in point? It has been put both by the hon. Member for Barnstaple and by the hon. and learned Member for East Grin-stead (Sir H. Cautley) with great force and great clearness. It is the case of people in a small way who have bought a house with their savings or own a house, and have looked forward to living in it and desire to do so. It is said, What equity or justice can there be in denying them the right to live in that house? Of course, the answer is that under the provisions of the Bill they are not denied that right. They are given a full and fair opportunity of securing possession of the house under all reasonable conditions.

Let me ask the House for a moment to examine the actual provisions of the Bill. The owner of a house can obtain possession if he desires it, first of all, for himself; secondly, if he desires it for his child, and, according to the extension made by this Bill, if he desires it for one of his parents. The last is an extension given by the Bill, because previously he could not have got it if he wanted it for his parents; it is a humane case that needs consideration. Therefore, we have already extended the opportunities of the small owner to obtain possession of his house. It is said by the hon. Member for Barnstaple, "Why attach to this particular power the requirement of alternative accommodation?" The answer is that no such requirement is attached by the Bill. This is a matter in which, I can quite understand, the provisions of the law of rent restriction are not quite clear at first sight, but the fact is that the obtaining of possession of a house by the owner for occupation by his parent or child is not subjected to the condition to which other applications for possession are subjected, namely, that of establishing alternative accommodation.

The hon. Member for Barnstaple asked what is the meaning of the proviso to which he objects? That proviso says not that it shall be a requirement to show alternative accommodation before possession is obtained under these conditions, but that the court shall take into consideration whether greater hardship will be entailed upon the owner or upon the tenant by making the order required. I will say a word about that provision in a moment. It says that in considering where the greater hardship lies whether on the landlord or the tenant—differing in that respect from the ordinary provision as regards alternative accommodation, because in the ordinary provision there is no reference to accommodation for the landlord at all—the court shall take into consideration this question of alternative accommodation. I think that is common sense, because even if you did not say so the court would certainly do it. It could not come to a judgment where the greater hardship lay without taking into consideration this question of what sort of house the owner was living in, or what sort of house the tenant could move into. Therefore, the provision is much more general than are the ordinary provisions with regard to alternative accommodation.

There is another important change made by the Bill in order to make this provision work more smoothly. In the past the onus lay upon the applicant, the owner who wanted his house, of proving that there would be greater hardship involved in refusing the application than in granting it. The onus of proving greater hardship lay upon the landlord. The Bill changes that and in future the onus of proving where greater hardship lies will rest with the tenant, which will make it a more simple and common-sense procedure for the court.

FiNaily, I cannot but think that on merits the provision requiring proof of greater hardship must commend itself to common sense. It is surely a position that requires no defence to say that in such circumstances, or indeed in any circumstances, the court should not be required to make an order when it is satisfied that making that order entails greater hardship than not making the order. I think therefore that the provisions of the Bill go as far as it is possible, or reasonable or necessary to go in order to facilitate the recovery of their houses by owners, under the conditions to which the hon. and learned Member for East Grinstead referred.

Sir B. PETO

If this proviso is so reasonable and necessary in paragraph (h,) why does the right hon. Gentleman not apply it to paragraph (g)?

Sir H. YOUNG

I think my hon. Friend will see that it is for this reason, that the provision as to greater hardship is really only necessary where you have to compare the requirements for accommodation. Where you have that requirement of alternative accommodation, that is a satisfactory answer to the tenant who says that it is hard lines for him to go out, as there is not a house for him.

4.10 p.m.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON

I am sorry the Government have not acceded to a very reasonable Amendment. Most of us who have a large correspondence with regard to these Acts, know that one thing which annoys, infuriates and aggrieves so many people is that when a man has purchased a house where, when he retires from work or for some other reason, he desires to spend the rest of his days, he is prevented from having it because some person who got it some time ago is established there. The Minister spoke of whichever party has the greater hardship. Surely that is not quite fair. It might very reasonably be said that it was a greater hardship on the sitting tenant to have to move his goods into another house to enable the owner to come in. I would venture to say it would be very much fairer if some words were put in such as, "unless in the opinion of the court a very serious hardship should be cast upon the sitting occupier."

As the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) pointed out, where will anybody in these days be able to obtain a six-roomed house for 7s. 6d. a week? It is undoubtedly a very serious hardship on a man who has a house of six rooms for 7s. 6d. a week to have to move out of it, but surely it is a greater hardship on the man who, by exercising his judgment, has obtained a good bargain by putting his money into a house in which he wishes to spend the remainder of his days, to be excluded from that house by reason of the fact that the sitting tenant has had it for 7s. 6d. a week for many months or years. Just as one argument is always used in support of our leasehold system, that the man who bought the ground lease of the house and had it for a small rent for a great many years, ought to be able to set aside such sums as will enable him to pay a normal rent for the property when the lease falls in, so I say that the man who has had a house such as that indicated by the hon. Member for Barnstaple for 7s. 6d. a week for a number of years, ought to be in a position to set aside a sufficient sum, at any rate, to help him to pay rather more in the future, I do not think that the alternative put upon the court in this proviso is sufficiently clear to enable the court to decide that, unless there is very serious hardship involved, the man who has bought the house either for himself or a member of his family, should be entitled to obtain possession of it.

4.14 p.m.

Mr. JANNER

I rise with a certain amount of pleasure on this occasion, because it gives me an opportunity of supporting the Government's point of view. It is rather a rare occasion as far as this Bill is concerned, but I think that when they do take the right view one should express one's reasons for agreeing with them. There are one or two points ovErieoked by my hon. Friends who supported this Amendment, and while agreeing with them that a person who has inherited or purchased a house which comes within the provisions of the Act is on many occasions placed in a very serious position because he is unable to obtain possession, nevertheless the fact remains that the intention of the whole of the Acts is to retain as large a number of houses and parts of houses available for the accommodation of those who cannot find alternative accommodation. Consequently the question of greater hardship is one of extreme importance. It cannot affect the person who has bought a house, because, as I am sure hon. Members will realise, when a person has bought, particularly while the Acts have been in operation, he has done so with the full knowledge that he cannot gain possession. Having seen the Acts extended from time to time, such a person must have realised that his purchase was of a very speculative nature when he purchased a house in which he was not actually living or in which his son or his daughter was not actually living. Consequently, it is not a severe hardship to say to him that he must prove to the satisfaction of a court that greater hardship would result to him if he were not given the opportunity to occupy that house than would ensue to the individual who was actually occupying the house at the time when the purchase was made, or who came in subsequently.

There is another very serious point. Assuming that a landlord or his son or his daughter gets possession, it means that there is one house less available for those who have not been in a position to purchase, but it means something else. If in the course of, say, one year that landlord thinks that he will not be able to continue in the house and decides to sell it, he is not in a position to do so. Although he went in with the most honourable intentions of occupying the house as a residence for himself, and notwithstanding the fact that he may have let it to his son or daughter as a residence, circumstances have turned out in such a manner that he finds that those honourable intentions have unfortunately to be altered, and that he can no longer retain the house. That is putting the position at its best. He has two alternatives; he can let the house, and if he does so, he must let it at a rental which is permitted by the Acts, or he may sell, with the possibility of getting a much greater price, from a person who desired to occupy the place himself, than would be obtained in the ease of a purchase by a person who was going to let the house, in order that that person might be able to occupy the place himself. We ought to walk very warily when we propose to make what, in my view, is a very serious and considerable extension of the removal of control. I hope that my hon. Friends will realise the truth of my argument from that standpoint, and that they will not press this matter to a Division.

Sir B. PETO

In view of the statement that the Minister has made, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.