HC Deb 20 May 1938 vol 336 cc749-57
Mr. Higgs

I beg to move, in page 4, line 17, at the end, to insert: except that they do not include any reference to such a grant as is mentioned in the said section one hundred and forty-six, or to the person making, or to the grantee under such a grant, or to persons deriving title under such a person; and 'lease ' means a lease for a term of twenty-one years or more. The Amendment was put down by me under advice received from the Law Society. In certain parts of England, and in Manchester in particular, there is an alternative form of purchase, which is neither freehold nor leasehold, but which is called fee farm rent. It is a perpetual rent, and the lease never falls in. The purchaser does covenant to repair, but the conditions of the covenant are very loosely drawn, and the right of re-entry is permitted only for a period, until the repairs are properly carried out. There are certain provisions in this Bill which obviously do not apply to such cases, for example, the five years in Clause 1. This is a perpetual lease, and it appears, from information which I have received from the Law Society, that it would be very undesirable not to have this Amendment in order to exclude fee farm rents. The Bill was originally drawn for restricting repairs in long leases in small houses, and this Amendment defines such long leases, which were not originally defined in the Bill, as leases for 21 years or more.

11.53 a.m.

Sir P. Hannon

I beg to second the Amendment.

It will be obvious that a fee farm rent stands in an entirely different category from the lease contemplated within the ambit of the Bill as drawn, and I think my hon. Friend is acting wisely in accepting the suggestion of the Law Society that an Amendment of this nature should be embodied in the Bill. I am sure the House will understand that it will not in the smallest degree abrogate the character of the Bill itself which is to deal with an abuse which exists with regard to leasehold property in this country, but will make it clear that fee farm rents are excluded from the purview of the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

11.54 a.m.

Mr. Higgs

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

This is an amateur's first attempt at legislation, and I feel that I have been the instrument rather than the instigator. I had some little luck in the ballot, and I have tried to turn it to good use. It certainly has given me a very great insight into procedure in this House. At this stage I should like to acknowledge the very ready assistance which I have received from the Attorney-General and his staff, and I would not confine my acknowledgments to the Attorney-General only. I wish to thank wholeheartedly my hon. Friends on the Opposition benches, who have gone out of their way to give me information and to assist me on every possible, occasion, and I very much appreciate that attitude. I have also received considerable assistance from property owners' associations and the Law Society. There has been a number of Amendments, many of them of a minor character, but I consider that they have all been in the nature of intelligent criticism. The greatest difficulty I had during the passage of the Bill was to get a quorum in Committee. Again I had good friends who came forward to help me.

There has been no serious modification of the Bill as it was originally drafted, the main alteration being to increase the rateable value from £50 to £100, which seems to have met a lot of legitimate criticism. The question has been brought up this morning of making it retrospective, and I am glad that the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Errington) saw his way clear to withdraw his proposed new Clause. What has struck me all through has been the enormous number of letters I have received from old people who are not capable of looking after themselves. It seems to be that class of individual which has been preyed upon by this ramp. I am sure that the Bill will do an enormous amount of service to a certain section of the community who are incapable of looking after themselves. I have received letters as long as ten to fifteen pages, handwritten, explaining to me the hopeless position of the writers owing to the action of certain landlords.

There are three things in particular which mankind requires—food, clothes and housing. Food and clothes are not difficult for the average individual, but housing is a question of capital expenditure of which the average individual is not capable, and it is a serious problem for those poor people who are being turned out without any resource or any possibility of redress. There has been during the proceedings on the Bill a temptation to increase its scope. I am glad the House has seen its way clear to assist me to keep to the one point, because I believe it is far better to achieve one definite object than to run the risk of loosing the whole Bill, which may have occurred if we had endeavoured to amend the law of property. Words do not fail me to express my opinion of those fellows who have been running this ramp of leasehold property. Your presence, Mr. Speaker, prevents me from expressing my opinion of them. since the Second Reading I have received much information and criticism, and many compliments. I will conclude by reading an extract from a letter I received yesterday: We must say you are better than two or three hundred M.Ps. at the House of Commons. I hope my friends on the opposite benches will remember that when I have differences with them in future. That letter comes from an old fellow 80 years of age. It gives me great pleasure to move the Third Reading.

12 noon.

Sir P. Hannon

I beg to second the Motion.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the admirable work he has done during the passage of this Bill through the House, and I would like to compliment him on the practical way in which he handled the Bill in Committee. He was always ready to accept practical suggestions and to deal with sympathy and consideration with the several points raised. With the assistance of my hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General the Bill has been hammered out into a form that has received the approval of the House. The self-respecting property owner who realises his responsibilities to his people accepts this Bill willingly as a wholesome improvement of the law. There has never been any suggestion that the property owners who exercise their rights properly and within the legitimate limits of honourable dealing with their leasehold tenants have not been doing a great service to the community, and I know that this Bill will pass without the slightest aspersion being made against these people and the responsibilities that they carry with regard to their leasehold properties. The Bill will bring into the administration of the law a healthier situation from the point of view of the leaseholder whose lease becomes terminable within a comparatively short period. Those of us whose names are associated with this Bill have been constantly brought into contact with sad cases which will not recur under the Bill. I am very proud to have the privilege of seconding the Motion for the Third Reading.

12.2 p.m.

Sir C. Edwards

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this Bill forward. There is such a thing as stealing other people's thunder, and he has stolen mine, for I look upon this as my Bill. I was the first to start this business, and I took a deputation to the Attorney-General who received us kindly and was very sympathetic. As the result, this Bill was printed and was put in the hands of one who was lucky in the Ballot. My hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Higgs) took charge of the Bill, and I congratulate him. It shows how generous we are in the House and how delighted we are to support anybody who gets on with a piece of good work, whether we get the credit for it or not. I suppose that I shall get no credit for my work on this Bill. There are some lines in Gray which say: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. That is my position to-day. I am delighted that this Bill has gone through, for it is a very necessary Measure. There were working people who were being harassed and worried to death by the abuses which this Bill seeks to abolish. When the leases were bought the tenants had to buy from the new owners at an enhanced price or do repairs which were out of all reason. I sent to the Attorney-General a copy of a schedule of repairs which had been supplied to a woman in London. The schedule covered 20 foolscap pages. This worried the woman to death, for the owners threatened to get hold of the property unless she bought the lease at an enhanced price. This Bill will give security to such tenants and the new owners will not be able to do this sort of thing without going to a court of law. The very fact of bringing this Bill in has had preventive effect and I have not heard of this abuse happening during the last few months while the Bill has been before the House. I am glad the Bill is to be passed to-day and I congratulate my hon. Friend, although the Bill really belongs to me.

12.5 p.m.

Mr. Kingsley Griffith

I do not rise to claim paternity of this child, but I should like to give it a christening present, because both as a Member of this House and professionally I have come into contact with an enormous number of cases in which these schedules of repairs have been used as a veritable instrument of torture against helpless people, and I wish that in many cases within my experience I could have been armed with this Bill as a weapon of defense. It was not in existence then, however, but now, thanks to the foresight and vision of either the hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Higgs) or the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Sir C. Edwards)—I will not say which—this weapon will be available, and it is pleasant to think that our Friday afternoons can be so properly used and that private Members' Bills are not always doomed to futility.

12.6 p.m.

Major Mills

On the Second Reading, while welcoming this Bill, I ventured to call attention to circumstances in which, quite involuntarily, the interests of the occupiers of houses who were sub-lessees might suffer from its provisions, and I would like to say how grateful I am to my hon. Friend the promoter for the way in which he met the suggestions which I then put forward. I should like to thank also the hon. and learned Attorney-General for the way in which he went into the case which I ventured to put before the House in order to find words to deal with the problem which I had put forward, because I was not a Member of the Committee which dealt with the Bill, and, therefore, it would have been very difficult for me as a layman to draft the words necessary to accomplish what I wish to do. He took a great deal of trouble to find out exactly what I meant and to go into the cases I had in mind, and also took great pains to devise a form of words, which are to be found in Clause 1 (5, c) to meet the point. I should like to thank him very much, and also to congratulate my hon. Friend the promoter of the Bill.

12.8 p.m.

Mr. Lyons

I wish to join in the general congratulations which have been offered to my hon. Friend for West Birmingham (Mr. Higgs) upon this Bill. I was associated with him in the introduction of it, although I make no claim to its paternity. The Bill will, I believe, put an end to a long-standing ramp, and hundreds of people throughout the country will be very glad indeed that my hon. Friend used the chance he got in the ballot to such very good purpose. I am the more pleased because this Bill has been dealt with on the same morning on which the House has accepted a Bill which I had the honour of bringing forward, and I feel that this will go down in the records as a very useful legislative morning. I quite appreciate the point made by the hon. Member about the pressure that was brought upon him to add to this Bill, and if that had been done it would never have got to the stage where it is to-day. Whatever alteration may be necessary in the law of property as a whole, I think that is hardly a matter to be dealt with by a Private Member's Measure, but the hon. Member seized this opportunity to deal with one point and the public will reap the advantage. We do not often have the pleasure of listening to observations from the Chief Whip of the Opposition. By virtue of his position he seldom has the opportunity of addressing the House, and although he recalled the words of Gray about many a flower being born to blush unseen, I would add that, at any rate, his sweetness was not wasted on the desert air.

12.10 p.m.

Mr. H. G. Williams

I should like to join in the congratulations offered to my hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Higgs), and to thank him for having been good enough to ask me to put my name on the back of this Bill, because my constituency happens to be one of those affected, though, I am glad to say, only in a minor degree. I am glad that West Birmingham, if I may put it that way, is once again associated with legislation for social amelioration. For many years that constituency has been represented by those whose names stood out for social amelioration. As one who has made more speeches on Fridays than, I think, any other Member, I am a little perturbed at the existing state of affairs, and I fear that some old Members would feel that our Fridays were going to the dogs. This is the seventh Bill which we have passed with unanimity and self-admiration on the last two Fridays. We used to have first-class rows on Fridays; now we merely admire one another. If we could induce the League of Nations to hold its sittings here on Fridays its might do some good. It is fortunate that the hon. Member was able to get a place in the ballot this year, because I really think his Bill will get on to the Statute Book in time to stop an evil before it becomes one of great magnitude. The practice has been localised in a few places; as far as I can find out, it is not general all over the country.

If one can only get the law into operation sufficiently rapidly to stop an evil from growing, it is indeed a fortunate thing, and I think we ought to be grateful to the hon. Member not only for the skill which he has shown in the handling of the Bill but for using an opportunity for righting a matter at the right time. We must all admit that every now and then we do the right thing on the wrong occasion, but in this case we may congratulate him on having done the right thing at the right time. I should also like to congratulate the "usual channel," if I may so describe him, for his valuable part in connection with this Bill. We know that he is the essence of amiability. He has to do his duty by his own party, but there is no person in this House with whom it is more pleasant to negotiate, and in order that he may have full glory out of this Bill I will add this: that on two occasions within the last three or four years when I have introduced non-controversial Bills which I had to get through, without any facilities at all, after 11 o'clock, he was very kind to me. Therefore, I am only too glad to pay a tribute to him on this occasion.

12.12 p.m.

Mr. Errington

I should like to add my tribute to the hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Higgs), and to congratulate him on the Bill for which he is about to get a Third Reading. In view of the fact that I moved a Clause which he thought might be likely to do harm to the Bill in another place, I should like to say that my only object in moving that Clause was to assist him in strengthening the Bill, but I appreciated the points which were made by him in regard to it and that was the reason why It was withdrawn.

12.13 p.m.

Sir R. Clarry

In offering my congratulations to the hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Higgs) I can assure him and the House that this Bill will be regarded by a number of people, particularly in my constituency, as the most important Measure passed in their time. It is difficult to describe the intense feeling of resentment against the wicked exploitation which was going on. They will feel that Parliament has done some useful work in their time. I hope no time will be lost before this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament.

12.14 p.m.

The Attorney-General

I should like to thank the Mover of the Bill for the kind words which he said about me and my Department and Parliamentary counsel in expressing thanks for the assistance which he has received from them. I am not proposing to go into the question of who is the actual patriarchal father of this Measure—

Sir C. Edwards

I am.

The Attorney-General

I know that the hon. Gentleman claims it, but I am not sure that the hon. Member for Newport (Sir R. Clarry) could not put in quite a good claim, even although he may not have been on the scene quite so early.

Mr. Gallacher

Take a blood test.

The Attorney-General

I think Members in all quarters of the House realised the evils of the practice which the Bill is designed to stop as soon as their attention was called to them, and desired that steps might be taken to deal with the matter. I think that the procedure adopted in the Bill will stop the evil. It is a sufficient and adequate safeguard, and I think that this abuse will disappear from our life. I would like to add my congratulations to the hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Higgs), who was the first to acknowledge the assistance he had from others, and when he had good fortune in the Ballot took the decision to introduce this Bill. To be responsible for a Bill of this kind is a very considerable burden, for it means dealing with much and various correspondence, apart from other things, and I am sure my hon. Friend must have devoted many hours to the Bill.

Question, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.