Commons Sitting of 18 June 1954

Preamble
The House met at Eleven o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  FERQUSON BEQUEST FUND ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read the Third time, and passed.
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  LANDLORD AND TENANT BILL
  Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed [17 th June] on consideration of Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee and on recommittal)—
  Which Amendment was, in page 26, line 7, to leave out "there being disregarded," and insert:
  "Provided that the county court judge in fixing the rent make take into consideration whether or not, and to what extent, the sitting tenant is reasonably entitled in all the circumstances to the benefit of,"
  instead thereof.
  Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
  11.5 a.m.
  Sir Frank Soskice: This is the Amendment which we began to discuss in the early hours of this morning, when my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) clearly put the point about which we are anxious. It is one which is analogous to points previously raised on the earlier part of the Bill.
  The object of the Amendment is to seek to urge the Government to introduce into this Clause a provision to exclude the scarcity element from the rent which is to be paid by the tenant of the business premises. I do not suppose
  2464
  that my hon. Friends would wish us to have a long debate on this particular point for the reason that the Government have already clearly explained their view about rent under Part I of the Bill, and it is to be apprehended from that and also from the answer on this point that we had during our Committee deliberations that they are not likely to accede to the point of view which I am now urging.
  On the other hand, we on this side of the House regard it as of great importance. I suppose most hon. Members, on whichever side of the House they sit, have had the experience of being told by the tenants of business premises when their tenancy comes to an end that they may have a renewal of the tenancy but only upon the terms that they pay a rent—I will not say many times the amount which they have hitherto paid—greatly in excess of the old amount. That is a circumstance which comes about because there is a scarcity of business premises, and, therefore, landlords are in a position to insist upon a scarcity element being included in the computation of the rent for which they ask.
  This is a point which does not improve by repetition, and I do not desire to do so. I would expound it at greater length if we were approaching the matter from the beginning, but I have already reminded the House that we have fully gone into the doctrine which we feel ought to prevail on the computation of rent under Part II of the Bill in circumstances analogous to those circumstances to which we pointed when we were discussing rent under Part I, and which we were urging the Government to adopt.
  We desire to go on record as emphasising the view that the tenant of business premises is not getting the security we had hoped he would get, although we recognise that the Government have done quite a little for the tenant of such premises. Nevertheless, he is still left in the situation that he can only exercise his rights under the Bill and extend his tenancy on the terms that he pays a rent which is inflated by reference to scarcity value. We do not think that that is a position in which he ought to be, and we are disappointed that the Government have not been able to go further in meeting us in that particular respect.

  2465
  The Amendment is designed, in effect, to require that the county court judge dealing with this matter will look at it from the point of view of the sitting tenant. In other words, the matter is not to be left at large in regard to the fixing of the rent when it is a sitting tenant, although my hon. and learned Friend has deliberately left the matter to a very considerable extent in the discretion of the learned county court judge who may have to deal with this particular application.
  Therefore, this Amendment raises the general question of scarcity rents. We urge the Government to accept the Amendment or something like it because, with the expert advice in drafting which they have at their disposal, it may be that better wording could be found to achieve our purpose. We are not so hopeful as to think that the Home Secretary may suddenly say that he has been converted after adopting a contrary attitude for a considerable period, but we hope that he will further consider this question of the principles on which the rent of business premises should be assessed.
  Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;
  House counted, and 40 Members being present—
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe): This Amendment raises a most interesting point and one on which there is, again, a genuine difference of opinion irrespective of party line or of whether the general approach is pro-landlord or pro-tenant. I am sorry that after mature and earnest consideration I still take a different view from the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels). This is not a policy view, but one that I have formed from considerable experience in valuation in the course of my legal practice. Our basis for the rent is that there should be disregarded the effect on the rent of the fact that the tenant has been in occupation of the holding, and the Amendment asks that the county court judge should be able, in his discretion, to take that into account.
  I want to put the argument, as it appears to me, entirely on the basis of the benefit to the tenant, which is how I
  2466
  am approaching this matter. It can be argued, as was argued in Committee, that in a number of cases the good landlord will allow the tenant who has been his tenant for a number of years to continue at a lower rate. That was the way the argument was put against me and it was argued that that point ought to be taken into account.
  The way it strikes me is that what we have to guard against is the tenant, who is desperately anxious to continue in the premises where he has built up his business, being asked for a larger rent than the market value by the landlord who knows how desperately anxious he is to continue there. These are the two points which one has to balance, looking at it from the point of view of the tenant. I think it is better to protect the tenant against the second possibility of being driven into the position of paying for his own urgent desire to occupy the premises.
  11.15 a.m.
  Mr. M. Turner-Samuels: That, in my submission, cannot possibly happen here. The procedure is that a new rent is to be fixed by the judge. The judge, by the terms of the Clause, has to disregard those things which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has mention, and the court is left with only one consideration, and that is the open market rent. My point was that in this respect the tenant is not only being deprived of any benefits as regards goodwill or improvements that he may have carried out, but he is put on exactly the same footing as a stranger who has not even been in the premises or done anything with regard to improvements or goodwill. That is the issue.
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The points in the Clause are in paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d) and I was dealing with (a). I have come to the decision that this is a matter which should be disregarded because in my view, on balance, it will help the tenant if that is done. Whether I am right or wrong must be a matter of argument, but that is my view.
  I would remind the right hon. and learned Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) that in the compulsory purchase procedure, with which he is so familiar, it has been a point since 1919, and I think since 1845, that we exclude the fact that the local authority desires compul-

  2467
  sorily to purchase for schools or other purposes, because, otherwise, it might be put in the position of paying a higher price. So I think it is a good thing to exclude (a).
  Now I come to the question of goodwill, of which the hon. and learned Gentleman has reminded me. Paragraph (b) deals with goodwill and as it stands—the same relates to improvements in paragraph (c) either as it stands or as it is proposed to be amended—the benefit from that can never reasonably belong to anyone but the tenant. If it belongs to the tenant, again it is right that in fixing the rent we should exclude consideration of it. It is something for which he should not be charged additional rent. Again, I take the view that the provisions as they stand are for the benefit of the tenant.
  The alternative would mean that the court would sometimes award a higher rent where it thought that the tenant was not entitled to the benefit of (a), and sometimes a lower rent where it thought he was. I am clear, however, that, on balance, it would be better that the court should not consider this point. I do not think I need trouble the House at this stage with paragraph (d), which is on rather a special point.
  The Amendment would have no effect at all on paragraphs (b) and (c), and since the Clause wholly excludes these elements from the consideration of the court, thus keeping rents down, any effect that the Amendment would have would be to raise the rent, which is a result that none of us wants. That is how I see the position. It is a matter of legal construction and of experience and in matters like that I am more than prepared to reconsider the point, in the sense of looking at it again. I think that all my confreres would agree that the longer one is in the law the more satisfied one is that on the effect of any legal point one may well be wrong. I can give no guarantee, but I will reconsider the point in that sense.
  As to the general position, I have noticed what has been said about scarcity value. Speaking quite objectively, my experience, certainly with regard to shop premises, is that the scarcity value situation is improving. There is some improvement, also, with regard to other
  2468
  premises. I do not want to put too much emphasis on that, because the problem does exist and that is the reason why this part of the Bill has been introduced. While I am always prepared to look at the point, I think that our proposal is the best that we can do. If any hon. Member has any suggestion to make before consideration of the Bill is concluded in another place and cares to send it to me, I shall be glad to look at it.
  Mr. David Weitzman: I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will look at the Amendment again and that even if he is not satisfied with the form of words he will see that the effect of the Amendment is secured in some way. I understand that the only real objection to it is that if these words are inserted in the Bill it is conceivable that the county court judge might fix a higher rental. I apprehend that that is a possibility and that no one in the House intends that that should happen. The effect might be avoided by an alteration in the words of the Amendment.
  There is a grievance here that should be remedied. If one looks at it from a practical point of view and takes the case of a man who has built up a business and has established a goodwill, is it right that when the rent is fixed in respect of its further tenancy the fact that he has built up a goodwill and that the business is on a sound basis should not be taken into account by the landlord? The tenant may have started from scratch with the business and have had the premises empty at the beginning. He may have built up by his own efforts a really valuable holding there. The county court judge fixes a rental which is the ordinary rental in the open market. I suggest that that is unfair, because even if one says that the county court judge has not to take goodwill into account that goodwill, nevertheless, cannot be shut off if one is trying to assess market value.
  It is only right that some benefits should accrue to the tenant when the landlord fixes the rent. I should have thought that the last thing we wanted was to go further back than the benefits conferred by the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1927. It will be remembered that under that Act there were certainly cases of adherent goodwill which involved con-

  2469
  siderable sums by way of compensation. It seems wrong that one should go back and deny to the tenant the advantages given by that Act.
  The proper way would be to say to the county court, "Take into account the fact that the tenant has built up a business here and has established a sound holding in the area. In fixing the rent you should have regard to that, for the tenant's benefit, and you should reduce the rental accordingly." If, as the Home Secretary
  says, there is a danger on the part of the court that the rental might be increased, let us have words to prevent that possibility arising. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will look at the matter again and consider whether something cannot be done.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
  The House divided: Ayes, 136: Noes, 99.

  Division No. 157.]

  AYES

  [11.28 a.m.

  Aitken, W. T.

  Hay, John

  Oakshott, H. D.

  Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  O'Neill, Hon. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

  Alport, C. J. M.

  Heath, Edward

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

  Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

  Higgs, J. M. C.

  Page, R. G.

  Barlow, Sir John

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Peto, Brig. C. H. M.

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Horobin, I. M.

  Pitt, Miss E. M.

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

  Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Bishop, F. P.

  Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

  Profumo, J. D.

  Black, C. W.

  Hulbert, Wing Cdr. N. J.

  Rayner, Brig. R.

  Bossom, Sir A. C.

  Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.

  Redmayne, M.

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Renton, D. L. M.

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)

  Ridsdale, J. E.

  Braine, B. R.

  Jones, A. (Hall Green)

  Roberts, Peter (Heeley)

  Braithwaite, Sir Gurney

  Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.

  Robertson, Sir David

  Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)

  Kerby, Capt. H. B.

  Russell, R. S.

  Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. p. G. T.

  Kerr, H. W.

  Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.

  Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Savory, Prof. Sir Douglas

  Campbell, Sir David

  Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

  Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

  Channon, H.

  Linstead, Sir H. N.

  Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Sir Winston

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norton)

  Spearman, A. C. M.

  Colegate, W. A.

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Spens, Rt. Hon. Sir P. (Kensington, S.)

  Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Cooper-Key, E. M.

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)

  Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.

  Summers, G. S.

  Crouch, R. F.

  McAdden, S. J.

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Dodds-Parker, A. D.

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Teeling, W.

  Drewe, Sir C.

  McKibbin, A. J.

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Dugdale, Rt. Hon. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)

  Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

  Macleod, Rt. Hon. lain (Enfield, W.)

  Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)

  Finlay, Graeme

  MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)

  Touche, Sir Gordon

  Fisher, Nigel

  Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)

  Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.

  Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

  Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Fletcher-Cooke, C.

  Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. Marylebone)

  Ford, Mrs. Patricia

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir Reginald

  Walker-Smith, D. C.

  Fort, R.

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Wall, Major Patrick

  Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)

  Marples, A. E.

  Wellwood, W.

  Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe & Lonsdale)

  Medlicott, Brig. F.

  Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)

  Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell

  Mellor, Sir John

  Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

  Garner-Evans, E. H.

  Moore, Sir Thomas

  Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)

  Glover, D.

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

  Gough, C. F. H.

  Neave, Airey

  Wills, G.

  Grimond, J.

  Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

  Nield, Basil (Chester)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Mr. Studholme and Mr. Vosper

  Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)

  Nutting, Anthony

  NOES

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Collick, P. H.

  Harrison, J. (Nottingham, E.)

  Bartley, P.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Healy, Cahir (Fermanagh)

  Beswick, F.

  Darling, George (Hillsborough)

  Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)

  Blackburn, F.

  Deer, G.

  Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)

  Blenkinsop, A.

  Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Blyton, W. R.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)

  Johnson, James (Rugby)

  Bowden, H. W.

  Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

  Jones, David (Hartlepool)

  Bowles, F. G.

  Flenburgh, W.

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Brook, Dryden (Halifax)

  Grey, C. F.

  Kenyon, C.

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Lianelly)

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Burton, Miss F. E.

  Hale, Leslie

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)

  Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Lawson, G. M.

  Callaghan, L. J.

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Lewis, Arthur

  Lipton, Lt.-Col. M

  Rhodes, H.

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  MacColl, J. E.

  Roberts, Rt. Hon. A.

  Weitzman, D.

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Mellish, R. J.

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Wells, William (Walsall)

  Messer, Sir F.

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  West, D. G.

  Moody, A. S.

  Short, E. W.

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Morley, R.

  Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

  White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

  Moyle, A.

  Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke-on-Trent)

  White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Mulley, F. W.

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

  Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

  Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)

  Willey, F. T.

  Oldfield, W. H.

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Williams, David (Neath)

  Orbach, M.

  Sparks, J. A.

  Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)

  Pannell, Charles

  Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

  Williams, W. R. (Droyleden)

  Parker, J.

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)

  Paton, J.

  Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)

  Wyatt, W. L.

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Yates, V. F.

  Popplewell, E.

  Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Pursey, Cmdr. H.

  Turner-Samuels, M.

  Mr. Holmes and Mr. Arthur Allen.

  11.30 a.m.
  Mr. William Wells: I beg to move, in page 26, line 9, after "has," to insert:
  "or his predecessors in title have."
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: If the hon. Member will allow me to say so—and prepare himself for a great shock—I am ready to accept this Amendment.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: The best speech this morning.
  Mr. Wells: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but I do not think he should give us shocks of this kind after so many late nights.
  Mr. Speaker: I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to second the Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I beg to move, in page 26, line 15, to leave out paragraph (c), and to insert:
  (c) any effect on rent of any improvement carried out by the tenant or a predecessor in title of his otherwise than in pursuance of an obligation to his immediate landlord.
  This Amendment fulfils an undertaking which was given in Committee by my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary to consider the reference to improvements in Clause 34, the Clause prescribing the basis on which the rent is to be fixed. At present, the Clause provides that in assessing the rent the court is to disregard improvements for which compensation would:
  "have been payable to the tenant if he had quitted the holding."
  The effect of the Amendment is that all improvements are to be disregarded except those carried out by the tenant in
  2472
  pursuance of an obligation to his landlord. The purpose of disregarding improvements is to prevent the tenant having to pay a higher rent by reason of his own expenditure on improvements. In the ordinary way obligation to do improvements has the effect of reducing the rent and in our view such improvements ought not to be disregarded when the rent under the new tenancy is fixed. For the other improvements we think it ought to be made quite clear that they will not result in the tenant having a higher rent and that is the purpose of this Amendment.
  Mr. Glenvil HallI am inclined to support this Amendment, which, of course, we accept. At the same time, we sadly reflect that while we are glad this provision is being made more satisfactory from the point of view of the tenant, it is a pity that when we were pleading hard late last night for consideration for the tenants of residential properties the right hon. and learned Gentleman hardened his heart and refused to listen. However, half a loaf is better than no bread.
  Mr. Weitzman: May I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether I have the right understanding of this Amendment? Does it mean that if a tenant has carried out an improvement in pursuance of an obligation to his landlord the fact that there is an improvement can be taken into account in fixing the rent; in other words, his rent may then be increased? It seems an extraordinary state of affairs. Supposing that under the terms of a lease or agreement with his landlord, or in some way, because of what the landlord obliged him to do the tenant has done something to the

  2473
  property which improves the property. Is the landlord then to be entitled to say to the county court judge, "The tenant has done this because I obliged him to do it. He was obliged to do it under his contract to me and, therefore, you have to take that into account and increase the rent because of it."
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: One has to go back to the original letting. If at that time the lease contained obligations to carry out improvements on the general higgle of the market the tenant would say, "I must pay a lower amount, because you are obligating me to carry out improvements which will cost me, say, £250." It would be an adjustment of that kind. Then, when the lease comes to an end, and the premises are standing with the improvement made, they will be valued as they stand, and with that improvement which has been carried out under the contractual obligation. But if the tenant has done any further improvements of his own volition, they will be ignored in fixing the rent, and therefore the rent will be kept low. I am sorry if I did not make that clear originally.
  Mr. Turner-Samuels: I cannot accept this with the same equanimity as my right hon. Friend, particularly because I do not agree that it will have the effect which the Home Secretary has mentioned. He will insist on suggesting that a provision of this kind would be a benefit to the tenant and I cannot see where the beneficial process comes in. I wish the Government would appreciate the fact—I am sure they must be advisedly closing their eyes to the obvious consequence of this matter—that the open market rent will be charged to the tenant, and that the effect of this is to shut out any other consideration. It is expressly clear that the advantage lies with the landlord. This effectively and designedly clears out of the path of the landlord any obstructive considerations of advantage to the tenant, including the particular consideration to which I have referred. How, therefore, this can be described as a benefit to the tenant completely baffles me.
  No statement from the benches opposite has clarified this matter. If the Government wish to put this into the Bill, and to make the path easier for the landlord to get his open market rent without consideration for anything the tenant has done, why do not they say so
  2474
  candidly and straightforwardly? Why should they clutter up the matter with all these self-righteous expressions about benefit to the tenants, when that is just the very thing this Clause expressly excludes?
  Amendment agreed to.

  LANDLORD AND TENANT BILL

    Clause 37.—(COMPENSATION WHERE ORDER FOR NEW TENANCY PRECLUDED ON CERTAIN GROUNDS.)
    Mr. Speaker: The next Amendment selected is that on Clause 37, in page 28, to leave out lines 44 to 46, and to insert the words on the Order Paper.
    Sir F. Soskice: Did I understand you, Mr. Speaker, to call the Government Amendment on page 28 to leave out lines 44 to 46?
    Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman is thinking about his own Amendment on page 27, line 35. I am instructed that that is out of order because it is incompatible with Clause 37 (1) which we have just passed. It would be out of order to call it now.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth): I beg to move, in page 28, to leave out lines 44 to 46, and to insert:
    "the reference to the termination of the current tenancy is a reference to the date of termination specified in the landlord's notice under section twenty-five of this Act or, as the case may be, the date specified in the tenant's request for a new tenancy as the date from which the new tenancy is to begin."
    This is a drafting Amendment.
    11.45 a.m.
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: I realise that this is a drafting Amendment, but we have dealt with so many in the last day and a half that some of us on this side of the House are not certain to what this drafting Amendment refers. We should be grateful if the Joint Under-Secretary of State would be good enough to explain briefly what is the purport of this Amendment and to which Clause it refers.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The House will remember that an Amendment was passed last night to leave out subsection (3) of Clause 30 and this Amendment is to replace the reference to that subsection. Unlike subsection (1) of Clause 30. subsection (3) of Clause 37 uses the expression "termination of the current

    2475
    tenancy" for the purpose of fixing a particular date and the definition inappropriate to Clause 30 is therefore appropriate here.
    Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 38.—(RESTRICTION ON AGREEMENTS EXCLUDING PROVISIONS OF PART II.)
    Mr. John Hay: I beg to move, in page 29, line 16, at the beginning, to insert:
    "Subject to the provisions of subsection (4) of this section."
    I think that it would be convenient if we discussed with this Amendment the consequent Amendment in page 29. line 32, at the end, to insert:
    (4) If the holding has been acquired by a local authority for the purpose of demolishing the premises comprised therein or a substantial part of those premises, the right to compensation conferred by the last foregoing section may be excluded or modified by agreement between the authority and a tenant to whom a tenancy thereof is granted by the authority.
    The purpose of these Amendments is to ensure that where an agreement has been reached between a local authority which has acquired premises for the purpose of road widening and has installed a tenant in them, it shall be excluded from the restrictions which this Clause makes. The object of it is supported by the A.M.C.
    Mr. Charles Williams: I beg to second the Amendments.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: As the Clause stands, contracting out is valid only when the business of the tenant has been carried on in the premises for less than five years, and this applies to local authority landlords and private landlords alike. Both private landlords and local authorities let property temporarily until they are ready to demolish it, and I think that it would be wrong to differentiate between them in the way proposed by the Amendment. It would be unfair if the local authority could escape paying compensation in circumstances where a private landlord has to pay.
    It makes no difference to the tenant whether his landlord is a local authority or a private person. There is no reason why he should not get compensation
    2476
    from the local authority, if he would in similar circumstances obtain it from a private landlord. The question, therefore, is whether some change is required in the contracting out provisions of the Bill for landlords generally.
    At present, under Clause 38, contracting out is valid only if, when the tenant leaves, his business has been carried on in the premises for less than five years. Perhaps I should also mention that paragraph 5 of the Ninth Schedule deals similarly with tenancies current at the commencement of this Measure. A tenant receives no compensation if the business has been carried on for less than five years.
    The basis of these provisions is that, in the view of the Government, contracting out is appropriate only where the tenancy is intended to be temporary, and is in fact temporary. It is not sufficient to look only at the intention of the parties when the tenancy was granted. If in fact the tenant remains in occupation for a number of years then the assumptions on which the contracting out compensation was based have ceased to be valid. Although the tenant's occupation was expected to be temporary he has stayed long enough to put down roots in the property and is likely to have built up a well-established business. On the principles of the Bill, therefore, he ought to be compensated when eventually he has to leave. Five years is taken as a reasonable dividing line between the truly temporary accommodation and the accommodation which was expected to be temporary but has passed into another category.
    If the tenant of premises let pending demolition is paying a reduced rent, the reason is that the tenancy is liable to termination on fairly short notice. Any other tenant on a periodic tenancy is in a similar position but cannot be excluded from compensation unless he leaves before completing five years' occupation. The Government's view is that the tenant of premises acquired for demolition should not be treated differently from other periodic tenants.
    That is why the Government cannot see their way to accept the Amendment, and I hope that my hon. Friend will be willing to withdraw it.
    Mr. W. Wells: I agree entirely with everything that the Joint Under-Secretary has said. I can see no reason at all for differentiating in these instances between local authorities and other landlords. I compliment the Joint Under-Secretary, something which it is pleasant to be able to do on this Bill for once, apart from personal grounds, upon the very definite opposition which he has offered to this very bad and dangerous Amendment.
    Mr. Leslie Hale: I congratulate the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Hay) upon being the first person today who has spoken long enough for me to he able to find out what we are discussing and which Amendment—[Laughter]—we are on. I am not in a jocular mood, and I am sorry to find that my more serious moments appear to arouse hilarity in the House. I have spent 25 years in an office trying to find out why Parliament passes Bills in the form in which it does, and I am now going through the painful experience of finding out why it is. We have long Order Papers containing many Amendments. We find that some Amendments have been dropped, and we do not know which Amendments are being called. I am making no criticism of anyone; it is simply the procedure about which I am talking.
    The Amendment which we are now discussing seeks to insert:
    "Subject to the provisions of subsection (4) of this section."
    On reading through the Clause, one's first discovery is that there is no subsection (4). One then rushes through the Order Paper and observes that there is a subsection (4) to be moved later. Then we fail to hear what the hon. Member says in moving the Amendment and so we do not know why he has moved it.
    It is difficult to understand why one with legal experience moved this Amendment in view of the fact that the Committee were unanimous about the utter failure of the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1927. That Act has always been a dead-letter because of its contracting out provisions. What is said about contracts negotiated freely between the owners of house property and the persons living in the property is a figment of a diseased brain, for it just does not exist. If the landlord says "You get out" or "You do this," that is what happens, and it is
    2478
    nonsense to talk about feet being on the deck.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall (Mr. W. Wells) said that we should not differentiate between local authorities and other landlords in this connection. However, an owner of a property is an owner of a property. It is true that we expect a higher standard from a local authority, and Parliament ought to see that it gets it. If I had my way, local authorities would not be able to chuck tenants out on the street as some do. I believe in applying general principles rather than doctrines to this matter, but I should be nearing the limits of the rules of order if I pursued that matter, and so I will leave it there.
    Mr. Hay: My reply to the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) is that I had not expected that I should be in the position of moving the Amendment. I suggest to the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. W. Wells) that, if he feels so strongly about the subject, he should have a word with his hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington), who has now come into the Chamber, and who was intended originally, I believe, to second the Amendment.
    I am sorry that I did not explain the Amendment at rather greater length. The Joint Under-Secretary has explained it at much greater length and with much greater clarity than I could have done. In the circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn
    Sir F. Soskice: I beg to move, in page 29, line 16, to leave out from the beginning, to the second "any," in line 21 and to insert: "Subject to subsection (3) hereof."
    Mr. Speaker: Perhaps it would be convenient to consider, at the same time, the Amendment in page 29, to leave out line 29, and the Amendment in page 29, line 32, at the end, to insert:
    "where the tenancy was entered into by both parties in the knowledge that at its expiry the landlord would require possession on any of the grounds specified in paragraphs (g) and (h) of subsection (1) of section thirty of this Act and the landlord obtains possession on any of the said grounds."
    Sir F. Soskice: I think it would, Mr. Speaker. The two other Amendments hinge upon the first. I will explain the purpose of all three together.

    2479
    The Amendment which I now move raises a question which my hon. Friends and I believe to be one of very considerable importance, that of compensation as assessed under Clause 37. We seek to make it impossible for the tenant and the landlord by the original tenancy to agree that there should be no compensation.
    We believe that to be important for this reason. We believe that the compensation provisions contained in Clause 37 are already quite inadequate. I know that I must not discuss that in detail. As I pointed out earlier, we had Amendments on the Order Paper which were designed to raise the point, but they were so drafted that they were not in order, and, therefore, I must not deal with them. However, if we start from the standpoint that the compensation provisions are inadequate and assessed on irrelevant principles, it obviously becomes of very much greater importance to secure that the right to compensation, inadequate though it may be, should not in any circumstances be excluded.
    Under Clause 38, the right can be bartered away unless the tenant has been there for five years. The Amendment seeks to exclude the provision with regard to the five-year period. In other words, the right should not be one which can be bartered away even if the tenant has been there for less than five years.
    The Bill provides that there shall be compensation for the tenant if he fails to get his new tenancy only if he can show that the failure is due to the landlord raising certain types of objection, namely, those specified in Clause 30 (1, f, g and h), for example, that the landlord wants to demolish or to occupy for the purpose of his own business.
    It is not stated whether the compensation is for loss of goodwill or what else it is for, but practical experience makes it obvious to everybody that if a tenant who has carried on business for a number of years, or even for a few months, at premises which he has selected as being suited for his business, has to remove from those premises, in the very nature of things he must suffer considerable loss as a result of so doing. He has to discontinue his business temporarily. He has to try to wean his customers away from the original premises to the new premises. He will almost certainly have
    2480
    to carry out alterations to the new premises to adapt them to his business. He has all the expenses of removal and the hundred-and-one disadvantages that a general dislocation or an interference with his business necessarily entails. All those disadvantages represent in £ s. d. in the case of nearly all such tenants a very considerable monetary loss.
    12 noon.
    One starts this question of compensation by finding oneself confronted with a situation in which the tenants have to move from their premises because the landlord wants them, with the result that they are faced with serious and heavy loss. In those circumstances, the Bill does no more than say that the tenant faced with that loss has to get the rateable value of the holding. That is all, except that if he has been there for 14 years or more he is to get twice the rateable value.
    That might work out at £75, or, in the case of a tenant who has occupied premises for 14 years, at £150. It might even work out at a little more, and sometimes it will work out at not inconsiderably less. But supposing it ranges from between the figure of £50 and £200, which would cover a very large number of people carrying on small businesses, such a sum would go nowhere near compensating them for the loss which they would inevitably incur in having to move.
    As I have pointed out, I cannot argue on these Amendments that these provisions are wrong. I have just recalled them to the House in order to show why we attach such importance to the Amendment which I propose to move to a subsequent Clause. We start, therefore, with a Bill containing hopelessly and wholly inadequate compensation provisions. They are assessed by reference to a rateable value which has no kind of relationship to the actual amount of loss involved. Indeed, it has been described by Government speakers as being merely a chance shot concerning what the compensation should be.
    In taking this rough measure for computing compensation, the Government know that it will be inadequate for the loss sustained by the tenant. But they say that it is all he is to get, and then only in certain circumstances. Unless those circumstances appertain, he

    2481
    is to get nothing. Starting from that position, it seems to us on this side of the House that the tenant should at least get that, and be certain of getting it.
    As in the great majority of contracting-out provisions which one finds in statutory enactments, they are designed to deal with the case where the situation is such that one person can take advantage of another. One may get a tenant who is anxious to obtain premises and who might be argued out of insisting upon his right to compensation. He might be cajoled into being prepared to bargain it away.
    Small as the right is, we think that this Bill should protect the tenant from being cajoled, threatened or induced, fairly or unfairly, to barter away that very niggardly right to compensation which the Bill gives him for what may be, and almost certainly will be in most cases, a considerable monetary loss.
    We on this side are particularly concerned with the small business man. The large concern can look after itself. It can insist on what is to happen if it leaves premises, but the many small business men who may, perhaps, have a weekly or a monthly tenancy, or no tenancy for any specific period of time, and who went in never thinking of moving or of compensation of this sort, might find themselves turned out simply because the landlord wishes to use the premises for investment purposes.
    Some may think that a good reason for turning out a tenant who has occupied premises for years and whose livelihood depends on his association with those premises. We certainly feel that in those circumstances everything possible should be done to try to protect the tenant, and this is one of the ways in which we seek to do that. We say that no such agreement should be countenanced, no matter whether the tenant has been in occupation five years, five weeks, or even 50 years. If there is such a provision in black and white in the terms of the original agreement creating the tenancy, then the law should not give effect to it.
    Those are the reasons why I have moved this Amendment. I hope that the Government will be able either to accede to the actual Amendment or will give an undertaking that they will subsequently embody suitable wording, properly conceived, at a later stage in the Bill.
    Mrs. Eirene White: I support my right hon. and learned Friend in this matter. We on this side of the House are most anxious that something, even a relatively minor thing, shall be done to improve the compensation provisions in this part of the Bill. It is regrettable that we find ourselves unable to call any Amendments on Clause 37, which is the most unsatisfactory Clause, but, as my right hon. and learned Friend has emphasised, the fact that that is such an unsatisfactory Clause makes it all the more necessary that we should stress this series of Amendment.
    We wish to protect the small tenant from allowing himself to be placed in a position in which he could suffer very considerable hardship. I entirely fail to see where this magic of five years comes in. I cannot see why the five-year period should suddenly change the entire status of the tenant. The Home Secretary calls him a medium-term tenant, and he suddenly turns from a short-term into a medium-term tenant with the passage of the last day of the fifth year. I fail to see why one should allow persons to enter into a position where, as I say, they may have considerable hardship.
    In these Amendments, provision is made for the type of short tenancy where it is perfectly well known at the beginning that the landlord, for the proper reasons set out in paragraphs (g) and (h) of Clause 30, already has plans, and when he just wants to have the building used until those plans can mature. That is a situation which arises not infrequently, and it is perfectly reasonable that if a business man is prepared to take on a very short tenancy on the understanding that the landlord has definite schemes in mind he should conform to the terms of that tenancy. We are not complaining about that.
    In such circumstances, no hardship occurs, because both parties enter into the agreement with the full knowledge of the kind of agreement that it is. But in any circumstances other than those provided for in the third Amendment, we feel very strongly that people should be protected. The mere fact that they have not completed the fifth year of their tenancy should not make it possible for them to be induced to contract out. I can visualise all sorts of hardships that may arise from that—the possibly unfounded

    2483
    optimism of a small business man going into a business for the first time, and so on—and I very much hope that further consideration will be given to the matter.
    There was a long and learned discussion in Committee on this point, on which I would not presume to enter, but I understood that the Government intended to look at the matter again. It is regrettable that so far they appear not to have found themselves in a position to meet us on this point, which, as I say, is particularly important because the general principles of compensation appear to us to be completely inadequate.
    Mr. Turner-Samuels: I wish to support the Amendment. This is really a very serious matter for business tenants, who might involuntarily be placed at a very serious disadvantage, for one reason or another, by entering into an agreement to exclude themselves from the advantages of Part II of this Bill. However small and inadequate those advantages may be, nevertheless, they amount to something and would save the tenant something, but, if he entered into that sort of agreement, he will be excluded even from that meagre benefit.
    What the Amendment seeks to do, and quite rightly, in my view, is to protect the tenant in these circumstances so that harsh and unreasonable agreements, which might have been entered into because of the pressure of the tenant's circumstances, should, if the court thinks proper, be modified. It is important here to remember that, when a tenant has to give up his business premises, he not only loses the capital value of his business, but, at the same time, loses his income as well, so that he receives a joint blow from this kind of agreement if the circumstances in which he finds himself compel him to sign such a document.
    There are two cases which come to my mind in which the greatest pressure may be brought upon a tenant with extremely harsh consequences. The first one is that of a tenant who happens to be old and infirm and who wants to leave his business. There, of course, he is at the mercy of the landlord, and it may very well be that, to save something from the wreck, he is prepared, under pressure, to enter into an extremely unfair agreement, under which he agrees to take something appre-
    2484
    ciably less than he ought to have in the circumstances.
    The second case that occurs to me—and it could be sub-divided into many instances—is the case which comes under the Rent Restrictions Acts. If we have a parcel of premises, including not only residential property but also business property, and if alternative accommodation is found by the landlord, the tenant is bound to go out and the tenancy, under the Rent Acts, is excluded from this Bill, so that the tenant would be entitled to no compensation at all. These are harsh consequences, about which, apparently, the Government Front Bench is completely unimpressed, being overshadowed, in their minds, by the solid benefits conferred on their friends the landlords by the deliberate provisions of this Bill.
    Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke rose—
    Mr. Turner-Samuels: I cannot give way.
    I would urge the Government to look afresh at this matter, and to consider whether what my right hon. and learned Friend has suggested is a cogent proposition which ought to be accepted. If it is not accepted, great injustice will undoubtedly ensue.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: While I recognise that the scheme for compensation of business tenants may give rise to sharp controversial issues, I do not think the subject-matter of this Amendment does so. Indeed, we are really agreed as to the purpose which we want to achieve, and the difference between us is how that purpose is to be achieved.
    Under subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 38, contracting-out of compensation is valid only if the tenant leaves the premises before his business has been carried on there for five years, and the Amendment would alter this in two ways. First of all, contracting-out would be valid only where both parties knew from the start of the tenancy that the landlord would eventually claim possession either for redevelopment or his own occupation, and where he does, in fact, obtain possession on one of those grounds.
    Secondly, where contracting-out was permissible, there would be no time limit on its validity. Both the Clause and the Amendment recognise that some limita-

    2485
    tion on contracting-out is necessary, and the Government's approach is that contracting-out should be valid only where the tenant's occupation is intended to be temporary, and is, in fact, temporary. That is the reason for the five-year time limit. It is not sufficient protection for the tenant to rely on the intentions of the parties at the time when the tenancy was granted.
    Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas: This has nothing to do with intention.
    12.15 p.m.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: If we exclude a time-limit, we are then relying on intention. Factors beyond the control of either party may prevent the carrying out of the landlord's plan. The tenant may remain in occupation much longer than was expected. Where this happens, he will have acquired a greater stake in the premises, and the assumption on which he had accepted the contracting-out provisions in the tenancy agreement will have been falsified. That is the answer to the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas). If we start off without a time-limit and proceed merely on the expectation of the parties at the start of the tenancy, we shall be relying entirely on intention.
    The Government have given the tenant a right to compensation if, in fact, and contrary to the expectation and indeed the intention of the parties, he remains for more than five years. I believe that the hon. and learned Gentleman is inclined to accept the five-year time limit. I am making no party point about it. I believe that some hon. Members on the other side of the House feel that some limit of that kind is reasonable, and I think that the view of the hon. and learned Gentleman is that there ought also to be the safeguard suggested in the Amendment; that is to say, even where the tenant leaves before the five years, he should not be excluded from compensation unless he entered into the tenancy in the knowledge that he would have to leave. I think that that is putting the view of the hon. and learned Gentleman fairly, judging from what he said.
    Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but he has referred to me several times.
    2486
    This Clause has nothing at all to do with intention—absolutely nothing—and the hon. Gentleman is proceeding to talk about intention when intention does not enter into the Clause at all. When this matter was considered by the Leasehold Committee, every single member of that Committee insisted that there should be no contracting-out provision at all. The Government are now putting in a contracting-out provision.
    It was foreseen by the Committee that there might be cases in which the landlord and tenant would agree that the property could be available for use—that the landlord could have it on his hands—and that, therefore, it was desirable, in order that the property might be used in those circumstances only, that there should be a letting from the landlord to the tenant upon terms which would exclude the compensation provision.
    The safeguard provided against that was that the landlord and the tenant should go to the court, and that the court should be satisfied that it was a genuine case in which the property would not be let at all—in the interim until the landlord acquired it—unless it were on terms which excluded compensation. The whole thing was based on intention exclusively, an intention which was checked by the application to the court which must be satisfied as to the genuineness of the intention. But this Clause has absolutely nothing to do with intention.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I do not disagree with a great deal of what the hon. and learned Member said but if we have no time limit and we start on the premise that the whole question of contracting out, which the hon. and learned Member accepts must be permissible in some cases, depends on the position at the beginning of the tenancy, then the matter must rest on intention. I think that is what the hon. and learned Member said.
    I do not think that the Amendment would, in practice, add much to the Clause. The landlord who wanted to exclude compensation would merely have to make some reference in the agreement or in the correspondence to his intention to resume possession, however vague that intention might be. The Amendment is prompted by the fear of contracting out becoming common form, and

    2487
    I do not think that the proposed safe-guard would add anything to prevent that happening.
    Mr. Hale rose—
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I would prefer not to give way. This is a difficult and complicated matter.
    Mr. Hale: I am trying to make it clearer for the hon. Gentleman.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The last time I gave way there was a somewhat lengthy interjection. The hon. Member will have an opportunity of expressing his views.
    Mr. Hale: I could put it in three words instead of making a long speech.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: Well, if it is only three words, I will give way.
    Mr. Hale: It seems to me that it is so much simpler to make the point simply in this way than to have to go through a preamble, a peroration and a few incidental observations. The hon. Member says that there would have to be a reference to the landlord making it clear at the inception of the tenancy that he requires possession at some subsequent time. If the landlord does that, the tenant has had his warning. It would not then be reasonable for the tenant to say, at the end of his tenancy, "I never thought it was bona fide." He must take it as it stands. If the landlord says, "I shall want these premises, I want there to be a clear understanding that at the end of six years I shall want possession." then, of course, the situation is clear. Under the Minister's proposal it is left to the imagination. This is an obvious practical test.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: If it is a question of the tenant being given warning, he can hardly be given a clearer warning than by putting into the terms of his tenancy agreement an express provision for contracting out. If that is what the hon. Member wants, this seems to me to be the best way of doing it. I do not disagree with the purpose. It is a matter of finding the best way of doing what I think we all want to see done. The effectiveness of the five-year time limit is illustrated by the local authorities' anxiety to avoid it. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffing-
    2488
    ton) expressed that point forcibly in Committee, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Hay) this morning.
    To accept the Amendment would be to make it more difficult to resist the local authority point which is behind the Amendment. If exclusion of compensation were to turn upon the tenant's knowledge at the start of the tenancy that the landlord would require possession, the local authorities would have a stronger case for arguing that compensation should be excluded in all cases where they let property pending demolition, however long the tenants stay, and I do not think hon. Members opposite want that. I believe that the proposal in the Bill is more effective in doing what we all wish to see done, and I hope that the House will not accept the Amendment.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Divide.
    Mr. Weitzman: This is an important matter and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent. South (Mr. Ellis Smith) will not be too persistent in seeking to divide the House at the moment.
    I have tried hard to understand the reasoning behind the explanation given by the Joint Under-Secretary of State, and for the life of me I cannot see it. He says we both want the same sort of thing. If the provisions for compensation were on a generous scale it might be a very different matter, but when we have provisions on such a scale as this, which means practically nothing or very little to the tenant, it is surely incumbent upon us to protect the tenant's rights as far as possible.
    One can visualise many tenancies of business premises for periods of three years. Supposing a man takes business premises on a lease for three years. Apparently there is to be a right to contract out of the right to compensation. I ask why. Why should a man who takes premises for three years and builds up a business there during those three years be penalised through the right to contract out being given in the lease and so be prevented from obtaining compensation?
    Mr. Hay: Let us reduce the period of three years to 12 months. Supposing the tenant took the premises for 12 months.

    2489
    Would the argument still hold? Would the hon. Member say the tenant should still be entitled to compensation?
    Mr. Weitzman: I believe there ought to be no right to contract out in any case, but I am taking as an example what is the usual business case of a man taking premises for business purposes for three years and building up a business. It is wrong that in such a case there should be a right to contract out such as is given here. The Amendment in page 29, line 32, in the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) prevents any difficulty from arising. The position would be satisfactory if we had inserted the words:
    "Where the tenancy was entered into by both parties in the knowledge that at its expiry the landlord would require possession on any of the grounds …"
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State asks, what better knowledge can there be
    than that provided through including some words for contracting out? But that is not the point. The insertion of words about contracting out may have no reference to the fact that the landlord desires to demolish the premises. The point is that these are cases to which paragraphs (g) and (h) of the subsection apply, and my submission is that if the words in the Amendment are accepted protection is provided for all parties. The right to contract out would be denied, as it should be denied, and the tenant would be given his rights. In addition, the words provide that where knowledge is given to both parties, then and only then should there be a right to contract out.
    Question put, 'That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 147 Noes, 125.

    Clause 42.—(TENANCIES EXCLUDED FROM PART II.)
    The Solicitor-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): I beg to move, in page 32, line 13, to leave out paragraph (c).
    This is the subsection on which we had considerable discussion during the Committee stage. As I indicated then, the object of paragraph (c) was to exclude from the operation of Part II the type of premises which consist of a large block of flats or offices where the tenant of the whole block merely gets the letting of it for the purposes of his business. I need not go into it in greater detail. We were all agreed in Committee that a boarding house or apartment house should not be excluded from Part II, and I undertook to consider the matter further. I have done so, with the result that this Amendment is tabled and I am glad to see that it has the support of hon. Gentlemen opposite. In these circumstances, I hope that it will be accepted without further discussion.
    Sir F. Soskice: I rise to thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for the course he has adopted. It was apparent in Committee that there were good arguments both ways. The arguments, we thought, were in favour of not excluding the boarding house keeper, but we recognised that there was a case which required careful consideration. I think that we entirely agree with the view which the Solicitor-General has taken, and I thank him for putting down the Amendment, which we very cordially support.
    Sir Patrick Spens: I raised this point originally on the Second Reading and again in Committee. I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for putting down this Amendment because it affects more tenants in my part of London than does any other point in the Bill. I am grateful for the assistance which I received from hon. Members opposite in Committee, and I am very glad indeed that the Government have come to this conclusion.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. Turner-Samuels: I beg to move, in page 32, line 16, to leave out paragraph (d).
    That paragraph excludes Rent Act premises from the provisions and benefits, such as they are, of Part II. That means that a vast number of business premises are involved. The Government's reasons for not agreeing to this are, as I understand it, three. One is that there should be only one code of protection in regard to businesses included in Rent Act properties and that that code already exists within the Rent Acts themselves.
    The second ground is that it is alleged to be impossible to give to tenants a choice of two codes, although it is interesting to note that a double code has been in operation in this respect since the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1927. The third reason is that it is impossible to frame—I use the word, in the context of this Bill, advisedly—the Bill so as to confer on the tenant the benefit of Part II instead of the provisions of the Rent Act.
    Those are substantially the three grounds that the Government put forward. In my view, not one of them is well-founded. First, it is to be noted, significantly, that the Rent Acts protect different interests entirely from those protected by Part II of the Bill. The Rent Acts protect only living accommodation, but premises in which business as well as living accommodation are included will not be covered by the Bill. In other words, the Rent Acts merely give the security of domestic shelter, whereas Part II of the Bill gives protection in regard to business goodwill, which may be the fruits of years of hard work by a tenant, and in the process becomes adherent to the premises. These different forms of protection are two entirely separate matters, each requiring to be provided for, and one of which will not be forthcoming if paragraph (d) remains in the Bill; for, where business premises are part of a parcel of Rent Act premises, they will not get the benefit of Part II.
    As the Bill stands, it creates an extraordinary position. At the same time and by the same process as the tenant gets protection for his home, he loses protection for his business premises. That is a curious contradiction and a solecism
    2494
    here which it is difficult to understand. In the case of premises which include not only business premises, but living accommodation also, the landlord has only to offer suitable alternative living accommodation to the tenant and the court is bound to make an order giving possession of the whole premises to the landlord. That is the law at present and that cannot be controverted. The court can in such a case pay no regard to anything beyond the question of dwellinghouse accommodation. That is the serious point in issue which the House must bear in mind.
    It may well be that a tenant has built up valuable goodwill in the premises in question. Yet all that the landlord needs to do is to purchase a dwelling house or ether suitable alternative living accommodation and offer it to the tenant, and the whole of the goodwill which the tenant may have attributable to the business he conducts on the premises is completely jettisoned. If the tenant refuses the alternative accommodation, the court is bound by law to make an order and the tenant loses his goodwill as a consequence.
    If in any circumstances a tenant under the Rent Acts changes his residence, he at once loses the protection of those Acts. Not only that, but as regards the business part of the premises he would also lose the benefit of Part II of the Bill, because the statutory tenancy under the Rent Acts had been ended. There would be nothing left on which to claim relief.
    12.45 p.m.
    There may be the case—and this is of great importance to thousands of tenants—of a tenant whose family is growing; the few rooms connected with his business premises may have become inadequate, and so the tenant finds he must go out. The moment that he steps out of the living accommodation part of the premises he loses all protection, both under the Rent Acts and under Part II of the Bill.
    Take another case. An old infirm tenant might want to sell his business, but cannot do so because the tenancy is a statutory tenancy and the Rent Acts, therefore, prohibit him from doing so. Consequently, he is absolutely at the mercy of the landlord. If he tries to make an arrangement with the landlord, he might be confronted with the most

    2495
    harsh terms and have no alternative but to refuse those terms and lose all. I think that, by what I have already said, I have indicated adequately the consequences of paragraph (d), and I hope that the Government will now decide to agree to its exclusion.
    Mr. W. Wells: I beg to second the Amendment.
    The Solicitor-General: The hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) will recall that we had a very full discussion on precisely the same proposal in Committee: namely, the possibility of giving the occupant of mixed premises within Rent Act limits the choice of coming under Part II of the Bill as well as possessing the advantages that he secures under the Rent Acts.
    I sought then to deploy the reasons why the Government had come to the conclusion that that should not be done. When I heard the hon. and learned Member seek to summarise the reasons that I had advanced, I felt that either I had not expressed myself clearly or that he had not paid sufficient attention to my argument. I am afraid that the further consideration which the Government have given to this proposal has not led us to think it desirable in the public interest to make the proposed change.
    As the right hon. and learned Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) said in Committee:
    "Prima facie, it may seem to be reasonable that if one has protection under one Act one does not need it under another."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 29th April, 1954; c. 588.]
    But the right hon. and learned Gentleman went on to say that he was not convinced that the complexity of provisions to include mixed premises in Part II was sufficient to justify leaving them out. I well understand that point of view being taken, and we have given further consideration to it, but we have come to the conclusion that the change should not be made.
    It is not right to say that under existing law the tenant of such premises in substance has the advantages of two procedures, because the 1927 Act, as I think is generally recognised, has broken down and is particularly ineffective in relation to the small tenant. If we here gave the
    2496
    choice of both codes, it is by no means certain that the choice would always enure to the benefit of the tenant.
    If, for instance, the tenant chose the benefit of Part II of the Bill, he might be faced by claims for dispossession on ground of redevelopment, which could not be made if he relied upon the Rent Acts. I appreciate that the fact that different codes may not be of particular benefit to the particular tenant is not in itself an argument for saying, "Why should he not have the choice?". The reason we have come to this conclusion is, first of all, if we were to provide that this type of tenant should have the best of both worlds it is not sufficient to say that. We have got to make provision for it, and the complexity of the provision which we have to make ought not to be under-estimated. As I see it, in order to avoid confusion, one has got to provide a method by which the two codes are to interact if this choice is given.
    There are many examples that I could give, but here is one of the technical difficulties into which we may get. If a landlord gave notice with a view to bringing the statutory tenancy into operation and the tenant wished to have the case dealt with under Part II, there would have to be some procedure for switching the case to Part II. Presumably the tenant would have to give counter notice to this effect and a time limit for this would have to be laid down. Further, when the tenant made his choice he would have to abide by it, at any rate for the time being.
    Mr. Hale: Where does it say so?
    The Solicitor-General: The hon. and learned Gentleman wants to secure that a tenant shall be able to get protection under Part II of the Bill as well as under Part I.
    Mr. Hale: As I read my hon. and learned Friend's Amendment, it suggests that this paragraph should be left out. What then happens? We would then be in a position that two Acts of Parliament exist and would be extended to the property. One might apply to the living accommodation and the other to the business accommodation, or in certain circumstances they might apply to both. The Rent Act provision would remain and the limitation on the rent would remain, so that the tenant would have the benefit of the additional safeguard.
    The Solicitor-General: But the existence of the two Acts would affect the relationship of the landlord and the tenant under two particular codes.
    Mr. Hale: But that is the Act of 1927.
    The Solicitor-General: The Act of 1927 is really inoperative. It does not work. The relationship of the 1927 Act to the Rent Restriction Acts has not been fully worked out yet by any means. I do not want to make a long speech on this, but there are a whole lot of authorities to which I could refer.
    Mr. Hale: But is it a matter of choice?
    The Solicitor-General: The word "choice" may have been the wrong word, but there are two codes.
    Mr. Turner-Samuels: It is a case of Hobson's choice.
    The Solicitor-General: If the Amendment is accepted we would have to provide for the inter-relationship of these two codes, and I do not think it would be right to leave the Rent Act code on one side and Part II to apply to some premises on the other side without providing for the inter-relationship on the two.
    What I was trying to indicate before the hon. Gentleman interrupted me was that there are very serious technical difficulties in securing the inter-relationship of the two codes. There would be a great many complications which might be regarded as intolerable. Having regard to that, one has to consider whether it is really in the public interest to try to bring that about in favour of a particular class of tenants for whom one naturally has great sympathy. We have come to the conclusion that the very complexity of the provisions which would be required—and we have gone into this—is such as to create a serious risk of their failing to help precisely the type of tenant for whom they are being made.
    I personally think that if we were to provide that machinery we would have to give as part of it the choice for the tenant as between the two codes and there would be difficulties about it. I doubt very much
    2498
    whether providing machinery for the choice of two alternative codes would be in the interests of the public at large, and it would certainly add a burden of inquiry to the incoming tenant to see which code applied.
    I have sought to deploy all the reasons which were in our minds in Committee on this point. I am sorry that I did not satisfy the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I can assure him that since the Committee stage we have given further consideration to it. I have listened with great attention to what he said, but I am afraid no new reasons have been advanced for changing our position upon this matter and, therefore, the Government are sorry that they cannot accept the Amendment.
    Sir F. Soskice: I do not want to prolong this debate because the case for the Amendment has been amply and fully made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) and the reply has been fully and amply made by the Solicitor-General. It is a question of one's point of view. Our point of view is still the same. I must confess that mine has been considerably influenced by the fact that since the Committee stage the Government have not found themselves able to limit the very extensive grounds upon which landlords can obtain possession of premises under Part II of the Act. I might have taken a different view had they moved in the matter, but the Government have not and these wide grounds still exist in Clause 30 so that the tenant is being exposed to the risks mentioned by my hon. and learned Friend.
    I think this Amendment should be carried. It may give rise to a complicated provision, but my hon. and learned Friend wished to raise the matter of the principle. I think the House might now come to a decision on the matter, and I would certainly advise my hon. Friends to register their vote in support of the Amendment.
    Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 149 Noes, 127.

    Division No. 158.]

    AYES

    [12.29 p.m

    Aitken, W. T.

    Hay, John

    Page, R. G.

    Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Peto, Brig. C. H. M

    Alport, C. J. M.

    Heath, Edward

    Pitt, Miss E. M.

    Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

    Higgs, J. M. C.

    Powell, J. Enoch

    Barlow, Sir John

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Profumo, J. D.

    Baxter, Sir Beverley

    Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P

    Rayner, Brig. R

    Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

    Horobin, I. M.

    Redmayne, M.

    Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

    Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

    Rees-Davies, W. R

    Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

    Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

    Renton, D. L. M

    Bishop, F. P.

    Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.

    Ridsdale, J. E.

    Black, C. W.

    Iremonger, T L.

    Roberts, Peter (Heeley)

    Bossom, Sir A. C.

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Robertson, Sir David

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon J A

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Russell, R. S.

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)

    Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.

    Braine, B. R.

    Jones, A. (Hall Green)

    Savory, Prof. Sir Douglas

    Braithwaite, Sir Gurney

    Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W

    Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

    Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)

    Kerby, Capt. H. B.

    Shepherd, William

    Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.

    Kerr, H. W.

    Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)

    Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (Saffron Walden)

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)

    Campbell, Sir David

    Langford-Holt, J. A.

    Spearman, A. C. M.

    Channon, H.

    Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

    Spens, Rt. Hon. Sir P (Kensington, S.)

    Churchill, Rt. Hon. Sir Winston

    Linstead, Sir H. N.

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

    Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norton)

    Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)

    Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert

    Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

    Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)

    Cooper-Key, E. M.

    Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.

    Studholme, H G

    Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

    Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

    Summers, G. S.

    Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

    Crouch, R. F.

    Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O

    Teeling, W.

    Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)

    McAdden, S. J.

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Dodds-Parker, A. D.

    Macdonald, Sir Peter

    Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)

    Drewe, Sir C.

    McKibbin, A. J.

    Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W)

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. Sir T. (Richmond)

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Thornton-Komsley, Col. C. N

    Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

    MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)

    Touche, Sir Gordon

    Finlay, Graeme

    Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)

    Turton, R. H.

    Fisher, Nigel

    Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)

    Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.

    Fleetwood-Hesketh, R F

    Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)

    Vosper, D. F.

    Fletcher-Cooke, C.

    Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir Reginald

    Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

    Ford, Mrs, Patricia

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. Marylebone)

    Fort, R.

    Marples, A. E.

    Walker-Smith, D. C.

    Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)

    Medlicott, Brig. F.

    Wall, Major Patrick

    Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe Lonsdale)

    Mellor, Sir John

    Webbe, Sir H (London & Westminster)

    Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell

    Moore, Sir Thomas

    Wellwood, W

    Garner-Evans, E. H.

    Nabarro, G. D. N.

    Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)

    Glover, D.

    Neave, Airey

    Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

    Gough, C. F. H.

    Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)

    Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)

    Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

    Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E)

    Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

    Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)

    Nield, Basil (Chester)

    Wills, G

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Nugent, G. R. H.

    Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)

    Nutting, Anthony

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES

    Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)

    O'Neill, Hon. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

    Mr. Oakshott and Mr. Legh

    NOES

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    Bartley, P.

    Holman, P.

    Short, E. W.

    Beswick, F.

    Holmes, Horace

    Silverman, Julius (Erdington)

    Blackburn, F.

    Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)

    Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

    Blenkinsop, A.

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Skeffington, A. M.

    Blyton, W. R.

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke-on-Trent)

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G

    Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Bowden, H. W.

    Janner, B.

    Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)

    Bowen, E. R.

    Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Bowles, F. G.

    Johnson, James (Rugby)

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Brook, Dryden (Halifax)

    Jones, David (Hartlepool)

    Sparks, J. A.

    Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

    Jones, Frederick Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

    Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.

    Burton, Miss F. E.

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)

    Kenyon, C.

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Callaghan, L. J.

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W

    Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)

    Castle, Mrs. B. A.

    King, Dr. H. M.

    Thomas, George (Cardiff)

    Collick, P. H.

    Lawson, G. M.

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Cove, W. G.

    Lewis, Arthur

    Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

    Turner-Samuels, M.

    Crosland, C. A. R.

    MacColl, J. E.

    Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

    Darling, George (Hillsborough)

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Viant, S. P.

    Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

    Mellish, R. J.

    Wallace, H. W

    Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)

    Messer, Sir F.

    Weitzman, D.

    Deer, G.

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Delargy, H. J.

    Moody, A. S.

    Wells, William (Walsall)

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)

    Morley, R.

    West, D. G.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

    Moyle, A.

    Wheeldon, W. E.

    Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)

    Mutley, F. W.

    White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

    Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

    Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

    White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

    Fienburgh, W.

    Oldfield, W. H.

    Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

    Follick, M.

    Orbach, M.

    Willey, F. T.

    Foot, M. M.

    Pannell, Charles

    Williams, David (Neath)

    Freeman, John (Watford)

    Parker, J.

    Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)

    Gibson, C. W.

    Parkin, B. T.

    Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)

    Grey, C. F.

    Paton, J.

    Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Lianelly)

    Popplewell, E

    Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)

    Grimond, J.

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)

    Hale, Leslie

    Proctor, W. T.

    Wyatt, W. L.

    Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

    Pursey, Cmdr. H

    Yates, V. F.

    Hamilton, W. W.

    Rhodes, H.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Harrison, J. (Nottingham, E.)

    Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

    Mr. Arthur Allen and Mr. John Taylor.

    Hastings, S.

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Healy, Cahir (Fermanagh)

    Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

    Division No. 159.]

    AYES

    [12.58 p.m.

    Aitken, W. T.

    Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)

    Oakshott, H. D.

    Alport, C. J. M.

    Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)

    O'Neill, Hon. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

    Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

    Hay, John

    Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-super-Mare)

    Barlow, Sir John

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Page, R. G.

    Baxter, Sir Beverley

    Heath, Edward

    Pete, Brig. C. H. M.

    Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

    Higgs, J. M. C.

    Pitt, Miss E. M.

    Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Powell, J. Enoch

    Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

    Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P

    Profumo, J. D.

    Bishop, F. P.

    Horobin, I. M.

    Rayner, Brig. R

    Black, C. W.

    Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

    Redmayne, M.

    Bossom, Sir A. C.

    Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Bowen, E. R.

    Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.

    Renton, D. L. M.

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Ridsdale, J. E.

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Robertson, Sir David

    Braine, B. R.

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Russell, R. S.

    Braithwaite, Sir Gurney

    Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)

    Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.

    Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)

    Jones, A. (Hall Green)

    Savory, Prof. Sir Douglas

    Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.

    Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.

    Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

    Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (Saffron Walden)

    Kerby, Capt. H. B.

    Shepherd, William

    Campbell, Sir David

    Kerr, H. W.

    Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)

    Channon, H.

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)

    Churchill, Rt. Hon. Sir Winston

    Langford-Holt, J. A.

    Spearman, A. C. M.

    Colegate, W. A.

    Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

    Spens, Rt. Hon. Sir P. (Kensington, S.)

    Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

    Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert

    Linstead, Sir H. N.

    Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)

    Cooper-Key, E. M.

    Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norton)

    Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)

    Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

    Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

    Studholme, H. G.

    Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.

    Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.

    Summers, G. S.

    Crouch, R. F.

    Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

    Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

    Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Teeling, W.

    Daines, P.

    Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Dodds-Parker, A. D.

    McAdden, S. J.

    Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)

    Drewe, Sir C.

    Macdonald, Sir Peter

    Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. Sir T. (Richmond)

    McKibbin, A. J.

    Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N

    Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Touche, Sir Gordon

    Finlay, Graeme

    MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)

    Turton, R. H.

    Fisher, Nigel

    Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)

    Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.

    Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

    Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)

    Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

    Fletcher-Cooke, C.

    Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir Reginald

    Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. Marylebone)

    Ford, Mrs. Patricia

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Walker-Smith, D. C.

    Fort, R.

    Marples, A. E.

    Wall, Major Patrick

    Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)

    Medlicott, Brig. F.

    Webbe, Sir H. (London & Westminster)

    Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe & Lonsdale)

    Mellor, Sir John

    Wellwood, W.

    Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell

    Moore, Sir Thomas

    Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)

    Garner-Evans, E. H.

    Nabarro, G. D. N.

    Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

    Glover, D.

    Neave, Airey

    Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)

    Gough, C. F. H.

    Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)

    Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

    Grimond, J.

    Nicholson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)

    Wills, G.

    Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

    Nield, Basil (Chester)

    Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)

    Nugent, G. R. H.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Nutting, Anthony

    Mr. Vosper and Mr. Robert Allan.

    NOES

    Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

    Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

    Lawson, G. M.

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Fienburgh, W.

    Lewis, Arthur

    Bartley, P.

    Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)

    Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

    Beswick, F.

    Follick, M.

    MacColl, J. E.

    Blackburn, F.

    Foot, M. M.

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Blenkinsop, A.

    Freeman, John (Watford)

    Mellish, R. J.

    Blyton, W. R.

    Gibson, C. W.

    Messer, Sir F.

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Grey, C. F.

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Bowden, H. W.

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Lianelly)

    Moody, A. S.

    Bowles, F. G.

    Hale, Leslie

    Morley, R.

    Brockway, A. F.

    Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

    Moyle, A.

    Brook, Dryden (Halifax)

    Hamilton, W. W.

    Mulley, F. W.

    Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

    Harrison, J. (Nottingham, E.)

    Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

    Burton, Miss F. E.

    Hastings, S.

    Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)

    Healy, Cahir (Fermanagh)

    Oldfield, W. H.

    Callaghan, L. J.

    Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)

    Orbach, M.

    Castle, Mrs. B. A.

    Holman, P.

    Pannell, Charles

    Collick, P. H.

    Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)

    Parker, J.

    Cove, W. G.

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Parkin, B. T.

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Paton, J.

    Crosland, C. A. R.

    Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)

    Pearl, T. F.

    Darling, George (Hillsborough)

    Janner, B.

    Popplewell, E.

    Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

    Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)

    Johnson, James (Rugby)

    Proctor, W. T.

    Deer, G.

    Jones, David (Hartlepool)

    Pursey, Cmdr. H.

    Delargy, H. J.

    Jones, Frederick Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

    Rhodes, H.

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

    Kenyon, C.

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

    Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

    King, Dr. H. M.

    Short, E. W.

    Silverman, Julius (Erdington)

    Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Willey, F. T.

    Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

    Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)

    Williams, David (Neath)

    Skeffington, A. M.

    Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

    Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)

    Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke-on-Trent)

    Turner-Samuels, M.

    Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

    Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)

    Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)

    Viant, S. P.

    Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Weitzman, D.

    Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Wyatt, W. L.

    Sparks, J. A.

    Wells, William (Walsall)

    Yates, V. F.

    Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.

    West, D. G.

    Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

    Wheeldon, W. E.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

    Mr. Wallace and Mr. John Taylor.

    Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)

    White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

    Thomas, George (Cardiff)

    Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

    Question put, and agreed to.

    The Solicitor-General: I beg to move, in page 33, line 8, after "term," to insert "certain."
    This is a drafting Amendment. In other places in the Bill a tenancy of this character is referred to as a tenancy for a term of years certain, and this Amendment will bring this Clause into line with the rest of the Bill.
    Sir F. Soskice: I want to express my gratitude to the Solicitor-General for this change. It recalls a short passage of arms between us, when his view was right and mine was wrong.
    Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 46.—(TIME FOR MAKING CLAIMS FOR COMPENSATION FOR IMPROVEMENTS.)
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I beg to move, in page 34, line 19, to leave out "two." and to insert "three."
    This is one of five consequential Amendments on the Order Paper and if we can discuss them together it will be for the convenience of the House. This Amendment extends from two to three months the time allowed for claiming compensation for improvements under the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1927. In Committee the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. W. Wells) moved an Amendment to extend the period to six months. My right hon. and learned Friend undertook to consider the matter further and to try to find the most suitable period rather longer than the present two months.
    As explained in Committee, the objection to making the period a great deal longer than the present two months is that this would take the period for claiming compensation up to or beyond the end of the tenancy. That would be undesirable because it is generally convenient for both parties to settle the amount of compensation before the tenancy comes to an end. In particular,
    2502
    it may be important for the landlord to know the extent of his liability before he decides what to do with the property at the end of the tenancy. The Amendment avoids this difficulty while allowing the tenant appreciably longer than at present for submitting the claim for compensation.
    Mr. W. Wells: We have been anxious throughout to extend the time which the tenants have for going through the somewhat complicated motions that will be necessary under this Bill. They will need advice and we thought that the time given throughout the Bill is on the niggardly side. We are grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for the concession he has made by extending the time under this Clause from two to three months. We would have wished that a longer period could have been granted and we are not impressed, though we see the difficulty, by the force of the argument that the period for claiming compensation should be coterminous with the tenancy. However, we are grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for going as far as he has gone.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendments made: In page 34, line 23, leave out "two," and insert "three."
    In line 32, leave out "four," and insert "three,"
    In line 36, leave out "two," and insert "three."
    In line 39, leave out "two," and insert "three."—[Sir H. Lucas-Tooth.]

    Clause 53.—(DETERMINATION OF TENANCIES OF DERELICT LAND.)
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I beg to move, in page 38, line 18, to leave out "three," and to insert "six."
    Clause 53 requires the county court, if it sees fit, to terminate the tenancy on

    2503
    the application of the landlord, provided certain requirements are satisfied. One requirement is that during the period of three months ending with the date of the application neither the tenant nor any person claiming under him has been in occupation of the premises. In Committee, the right hon. and learned Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) moved an Amendment to extend this period from three to 12 months and my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General promised to look into the point.
    We think that a period of 12 months is unnecessarily long, but to meet the point made an extension from three to six months is proposed by the Amendment. The court, of course, has complete discretion to grant or refuse the application. The landlord has also to show that he has taken all reasonable steps to trace the tenant and has failed to do so and either that the rent is not payable or that no rent is paid. Probably a period of six months will meet the points raised by the right hon. and leaned Member for Neepsend.
    Sir F. Soskice: I am very grateful to the Joint Under-Secretary for what has been done in making this change, but I still feel a little anxiety. I would not think of seeking to divide the House but, at the same time, I ask the Government to give further thought to this matter and consider whether they cannot come a little nearer to the figure which I proposed.
    Clause 53 enables the court to say that a tenancy has come to an end. The conditions are that the landlord must have tried to communicate with the tenant and, as the Bill stands, during the period of three months he must have found that the property was, in effect, not in the occupation of the tenant.
    When this matter was before the Committee we said that the period of three months was too short. The Home Secretary and the Government have acceded to that view and have doubled the period, but I still put it to the Government that possibly there is some risk even with six months. I do not put it any higher than that. I ask them to think about it again. It would be most unfortunate if, as the result of an accident, or something of that kind, a tenant lost his tenancy. I can
    2504
    quite see that the Clause is so drafted as to contain safeguards, but I doubt whether those safeguards are adequate to prevent a possible, unfortunate accident.
    I earnestly ask the Government to think again and consider whether a period of six months is sufficient to make the position safe. One can conceive. without any great difficulty, cases where tenants who mean to retain their tenancy, very largely through inadvertence or stark carelessness, leave the premises apparently not occupied for six months. That is the more likely the less careful and less educated the tenants may be. I am sure that the Home Secretary and the Joint Under-Secretary will be ready to think about the matter again.
    Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe indicated assent.
    1.15 p.m.
    Sir F. Soskice: I see that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has kindly nodded so to indicate. With that word of caution I suggest that we offer no opposition to the change. On the contrary, I thank the Government for going as far as they have gone.
    Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 57.—(COMPENSATION FOR EXERCISE OF POWERS UNDER SS. 55 AND 56.)
    Amendment made: In page 43, line 2, leave out "subsection," and insert "section."—[Sir H. Lucas-Tooth.]
    Clause 61.—(JURISDICTION OF COURT FOR PURPOSES OF PARTS I AND II AND OF PART I OF LANDLORD AND TENANT ACT, 1927.)
    Amendment made: In page 46, line 7, leave out "termination of the current tenancy," and insert "date mentioned in that subsection."—[Sir H. Lucas-Tooth.]
    Clause 62.—(INTERIM CONTINUATION OF TENANCIES PENDING DETERMINATION BY COURT.)
    Amendment made: In page 46, line 32, leave out subsection (2).—[Sir H. Lucas-Tooth.]

    Clause 67.—(INTERPRETATION.)
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I beg to move, in page 49, line 15, after "in," to insert "section seventeen and."

    2505
    This Amendment repairs an omission from the Bill. It was never intended that parties to a long tenancy of residential premises should be able to contract out of the provisions of Part I by making an oral as opposed to a written agreement. That could happen as the Bill stands and the Amendment repairs the omission.
    Amendment agreed to.

  First Schedule.—(SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS AS TO PAYMENTS FOR ACCRUED TENANT'S REPAIRS.)
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I beg to move, in page 51, line 10, at the end, to insert:
  (6) In a case falling within sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph where a payment for accrued tenant's repairs would, apart from this paragraph, include an amount in respect of cost incurred by the landlord in ascertaining what initial repairs are required in consequence of failure by the tenant to fulfil his obligations under the former tenancy, the following provisions shall have effect—

  (a) that amount shall be recoverable notwithstanding anything in sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph;

  (b) in a case falling within sub-paragraph (3) of this paragraph the said amount shall he recoverable in addition to the amount specified in that sub-paragraph;

  (c) the time for recovery of the said amount shall, as well in a case falling within sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph as in one falling within sub-paragraph (3) thereof, be that mentioned in the said sub-paragraph (3).

  This Amendment is consequential on the Amendment to Clause 8, page 7, line 36.
  Sir F. Soskice: This is a long and complicated Amendment. I am sure that the Joint Under-Secretary is right, but I should be glad if he would be so good as to say what it is consequential upon and not simply mention the number of the Clause. Will he say what changes have been made which make it necessary to make this somewhat complicated change in this part of the Bill?
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The Amendment to Clause 8 makes the payment for accrued tenant's repairs include survey fees incurred by the landlord on finding out what initial repairs were required because of the failure of the tenant to fulfil his repairing obligations under the ground lease. The present Amendment deals with the position where the statutory tenancy comes to an end before the initial repairs have been completed.
  2506
  Its effect is that so much of the payment as represents survey fees is recoverable immediately on the ending of the statutory tenancy, and it is recoverable whether or not the initial repairs are still required. The justification for this latter provision is that, even if the initial repairs are no longer required because the house is to be pulled down, the landlord will have already incurred the survey fees and should be able to recover them on the principle of the original Amendment. I accept that the House was divided on the original Amendment, but the principle is the same and is imported into this Schedule.
  Sir F. Soskice: If, with the permission of the House, I may speak again, I wish to add a few words because the previous explanation was possibly a little on the inadequate side.
  I am sure that the Government will not feel that we have any reason to be gratified by this Amendment. Indeed, while the hon. Gentleman was speaking I heard an hon. Friend say, "It is not the question of principle, but a question of lack of principle " and I cordially agree with him. I will not seek to divide the House on this matter, because the House has approved the main Amendment to which this is consequential, but I think I should register the feelings we have on this further addition to the burdens on the unfortunate tenant.
  Once the Government have committed themselves to one piece of iniquity I suppose they are dragged by their own momentum to another. They have gone a long way in this and I should like to mark my sense of strong disapproval of this further concession to landlords at the expense of these unfortunate tenants.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I beg to move, in page 52, line 13, to leave out from "landlord," to "has," in line 14, and to insert:

  (a) in ascertaining what initial repairs are required in consequence of failure by the tenant to fulfil his obligations under the former tenancy; and

  (b) for the purposes of the relevant initial repairs;

  as is recoverable from the tenant and.
  This is another Amendment consequential on the Amendments to which we have agreed. I do not know whether we should take the protest of the right hon.

  2507
  and learned Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) as repeated?
  Sir F. Soskice: Repeated and re-emphasised.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Second Schedule.—(FURTHER PROVISIONS AS TO REPAIR WHERE TENANT RETAINS POSSESSION.)
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I beg to move, in page 53, line 41, at the end, to insert:
  (3) An order under this paragraph may include a provision that the reduction of rent shall take effect from a specified date before the making of the order, being such date as the court thinks just having regard to the landlord's delay in carrying out the initial repairs; and where an order contains such a provision then, in addition to the reduction ordered by virtue of sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph, such number of payments of rent next falling due after the date of the order shall be reduced by such amount as may be specified in the order for the purpose of giving effect to the said provision.
  There is a further Amendment proposed to page 54, line 6, at the end, to insert:
  "or to any reduction ordered by virtue of subparagraph (3) of the last foregoing paragraph."
  That Amendment goes with this one and these Amendments fulfil a pledge given in Committee by my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General. They concern cases where the landlord has failed to carry out initial repairs within a reasonable time and the court therefore orders a reduction in rent. It may well be that at the time when the court orders the reduction the tenant will have been paying the higher rent for some time beyond the date which, in the view of the court, is a reasonable limit by which the landlord should have completed the repairs.
  In such circumstances, it would be only just for the tenant to be able to recover from the landlord the excess rent paid over the relevant period. This Amendment enables the court, when ordering a reduction of rent, to order, also, that the tenant can recover the excess.
  Sir F. Soskice: The hon. Gentleman will be able to divine my reaction to this Amendment as easily as he was able to divine my reaction to the last Amendment. This, we think, is a very welcome
  2508
  Amendment and I thank the Government and the Joint Under-Secretary for having introduced the change in the Bill.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 54. line 6, at end, insert:
  "or to any reduction ordered by virtue of sub-paragraph (3) of the last foregoing paragraph."—[Sir H. Lucas-Tooth.]

  Third Schedule.—(GROUNDS FOR POSSESSION ON TERMINATION OF TENANCY.)
  Mr. Arthur Skeffington: I beg to move, in page 55, line 24, to leave out from "rates," to the end of line 25.
  The Third Schedule outlines the grounds upon which the landlord may obtain possession of tenancies to which Part I of the Measure applies: that is apart from the re-development provisions dealt with elsewhere. The Schedule describes one of the grounds referred to in Clause 12 as:
  "that the tenant has failed to comply with any term of the tenancy as to payment of rent or rates or as to insuring or keeping insured any premises."
  In passing, I may say that I have never known a possession order granted for non-payment of rates. However, that Amendment deals with the matter of insurance. This seems to us a very unsatisfactory ground and, possibly, even a new one. There was some discussion in Committee of whether or not the proposal in the Third Schedule is on all fours with the grounds in the Rent Acts. That was the line taken by the Joint Under-Secretary. I am not at all certain, about that: if one looks at the First Schedule of the 1933 Rent Act, that statement does not seem correct, because paragraph (a) of that Schedule says:
  "or any other obligation of the tenancy (whether under the contract and tenancy or under the principal Acts), so far as the obligation is consistent with the provisions of the principal Acts which has been broken or not performed."
  I have never known a case under the Rent Acts where possession has been given on the ground of non-payment of fire insurance. I presume that fire insurance is mainly concerned. The term "insurance" is not mentioned in the Schedule, and I doubt if it is a ground under the Rent Act. In any event, that

  2509
  would be a very small breach committed by the tenant in the past and I see no reason why, at this stage, he should be punished for some failure in the past. The house would still be there: so the breach is not serious but the landlord would get possession because of it.
  I cannot see why, under this Bill, the landlord should be given as an additional ground for possession a comparatively minor breach for which no good reason has been advanced. His first remedy would be to proceed against the tenant in the courts for the recovery of the money, which would be very much more satisfactory from the point of view of everyone unless the landlord is just seeking for some technical breach in order to get possession.
  Even now we would ask that the matter of non-payment of insurance should not be made a ground for possession. It seems to us to be an extension which is not in practice a ground used in connection with the Rent Acts. In Standing Committee D the Joint Under-Secretary said:
  "If the tenant had, incidentally, omitted to pay the last insurance premium and there had been no damage to the house the court would almost certainly hold that, despite his omission, it would not be reasonable to grant possession in those circumstances."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 29th April, 1954; c. 660.]
  If this is so why include this ground for possession at all? This breach is a small one, committed in the past, and no damage in fact will have flowed from it. It therefore seems wholly unreasonable and unfair that in these circumstances the landlord should have this further and new ground for obtaining possession. I hope that even now the Government will consider doing without this extension.
  Mr. Barnett Janner: I beg to second the Amendment.
  I think there is a principle involved here. What the Government are doing is to say that if the Rent Acts as they stand at present do not cover points of this description they are to take good care to see that they shall cover the points. Hitherto, the Government have been trying to base the whole of their argument on the fact that they are dealing with these houses when leases finish. That is bad enough, goodness knows, and we shall have a little more to say about it later if opportunity arises. But here
  2510
  they go further than the Rent Acts and try to insert a condition which will open to landlords an opportunity of taking cases to the court and direct the attention of the court to a specific point. What is being done here is quite beyond what the Government profess that they want to do.
  1.30 p.m.
  If there is any doubt about this point I ask the Minister to give the benefit to the tenant by leaving things as they are rather than emphasising a point which may not, and in our opinion does not, come within the purview of the Rent Acts. Even though it does, there is no necessity for the Government, at this stage, to say that the point should be taken into account. It places the court in the position of having to regard it as a material point. I appreciate that the Bill says that the court still has a discretion under certain circumstances, but the point is that the judge must direct his attention to this question of insurance if it is in the Act.
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I am advised that the Rent Acts provision is a good deal wider than the paragraph in the Third Schedule. That is undoubtedly the case, because it refers to any obligation of the tenancy. I think the House will agree that those words are as wide as is possible.
  Mr. Skeffington: The Schedule also says, "consistent with the principal Acts." That is where the doubt arises.
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I am advised that the words would include insurance.
  It may be that not many cases have come up, for the reason that hitherto it has been understood that in the case of Rent Acts property the obligation to insure was not very frequently on the tenant. It is the principle of Part I of the Bill that the tenant should not be deprived of protection because of a breach of such obligation. It is for this reason that paragraph 1 (b) of the Third Schedule is confined to failure to pay rent or rates or to insure, and I think it right to include insurance as a ground for possession.
  When a landlord is seeking possession on one of the grounds in the Third Schedule he has not only to establish that

  2511
  ground, but also he must satisfy the court that it is reasonable that he should have possession. I think it important to point out that fact. That is under Clause 13 (4) of the Bill. If the tenant accidentally omitted to pay the last insurance premium and the house suffered no damage, I think the court would almost certainly hold, despite the omission, that it was not reasonable to grant possession. If, however, the tenant had neglected to insure over a long period I think it right that the landlord should be granted possession. For those reasons, I hope that the hon. Member will not press the Amendment.
  Mr. Skeffington: I do not wish to waste time by dividing the House, but I must place on record my opinion that the reply of the Joint Under-Secretary is profoundly unsatisfactory. This is a very small breach. It would have been a different matter if it had serious consequences, but this is a small neglect on the part of the tenant in the past, and because of it, the landlord is given another ground for possession. We consider that to be extremely unfair.
  Amendment negatived.
  Order for Third Reading read.—[Queen's Consent on behalf of the Crown, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall, signified.]
  1.35 p.m.
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
  After the Report stage of a Bill like this, it is something of a relief to return to the consideration of the Bill as a whole. Whatever may be the state of our minds, it is refreshing to look again at the general principles after so much detail. I am sure that I am speaking for the whole House when I say that no one will regret the time we have spent on the examination of the details of this complicated Bill. I consider that our discussions have been of great value. As evidence of this, I would point to the large number of Government Amendments put down for Report. There are 76, and nearly all of them are as a result of points raised in Committee upstairs by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  2512
  I am particularly grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) and to other hon. Members for the friendly spirit in which our discussions have been conducted. I should also like to thank those people outside this House who have written to me about the Bill. Their suggestions have all been considered, and many have been adopted. It is encouraging from the point of view of legislation as a whole that there are so many people willing to devote their time and professional knowledge to disinterested criticism of a Bill which Parliament is considering.
  Although it has been urged that the Government have come down on the side of the landlords, if one regards the Bill as a whole, it is clear that that is a false impression. I wish to consider that for a short time. I take first the case of a tenant occupying a small house under a ground lease. Apart from the temporary legislation passed three years ago, he has, at present, no security of tenure when the ground lease comes to an end. Apart from such protection as he gets under the general law, he is liable in full under the schedules of dilapidations which we have heard described in such bitter terms.
  This Bill makes him much better off. It enables him to stay on as a statutory tenant unless the landlord can establish certain limited grounds for possession. It gives him substantial help in the matter of dilapidations. It will be for the landlord to find the money for repairs and the tenant merely has to repay this, it may be, if necessary, by instalments spread over a period.
  Secondly, the amount which the landlord can recover from the tenant is arbitrable by the county court. Thirdly, as I urged yesterday, the landlord cannot recover more than is necessary for putting the house into a state of good repair. That is the absolute upper limit, whatever the terms of the lease, and that takes into account changes in the property.
  We have had a good deal of discussion about how the rent should be fixed where the tenant stays on after the end of the ground lease. One must take into consideration that the landlord is being obliged to allow the tenant to remain in most cases, whatever he may have had in view when he bought the property and

  2513
  whatever price he may have paid. The landlord is also obliged to let the tenant off his repairing liabilities to the substantial extent I have indicated.
  In these circumstances, although I have carefully considered all that has been so strongly and eloquently urged throughout the proceedings of the Bill, I feel that the landlord is entitled to a fair up-to-date rent for his house. If one starts, as hon. Gentlemen opposite have said they do, on the basis that it is the tenant's house, then I can appreciate how they reach a different conclusion; but in trying to discover the basis and to bring this legislation into effect, I had to have regard to the legal realities which exist at the present time.
  There is one point I wish to make—I do not want to deal with it at greater length, because we discussed it as we went along, but I think it is useful from the point of view of realising how our legislative process works—that the machinery of this part of the Bill has been considerably recast since it was considered upstairs. I think that hon. and right hon. Members opposite made a perfectly fair point when they said that, as the Bill stood originally, rather too much depended on the tenants replying to the landlord's notice within a specified time, and that that might result in people losing their rights simply through a technicality.
  The changes which we have made on Report are designed to prevent this from happening. Again, I think that we made an important change—and added an important sanction against the landlord obtaining possession at the end of the ground lease by misrepresentation—by the Clause which I introduced yesterday. I mention this point because it shows that, although there may be considerable difference of opinion on major points, it does not prevent this House and its Committees from getting down to improvements on other points, and the Government of the day, whatever their political flavour, examining these and accepting them where they think an improvement can be made.
  I should like to remind the House—we have not discussed it, because there has been general agreement on it—that we have again helped the sub-tenant by our reversal of the "Knightsbridge case" and by removing the jeopardy in which
  2514
  he stood from the intermediate tenant finding that his ground lease had come to an end.
  In regard to business premises, I think it fair to say that there was less controversy on Part II of the Bill, and that that represents a great advance for the tenant, because I do not think anyone who has not had experience of taking cases through the courts realises how difficult it was to carry out successfully the procedure of the 1927 Act. The tenant had to show that the presence of his business on the premises had increased their value to the landlord. That establishment of inherent goodwill is never easy to prove, and in many types of businesses it is impossible to prove. Under the Bill, there is no preliminary test.
  The second point is that the Bill applies to many types of tenants who were entirely excluded from the 1927 Act, and, in particular, to professional tenants, although I am not suggesting that any of the professional gentlemen who are seen in such numbers will require to go to the Bill in order to continue in the premises in which they now work in so distinguished a manner. But, generally speaking, that is a good advance, and I think that everyone agrees with that. I think it was important, and again it was due to a combined operation, if I may put it that way, that we made the Amendments on Recommittal to deal with the tenancy of a shop with a flat above.
  I suppose that, summarising, our discussions on Part II have concentrated on the circumstances in which the landlord can obtain possession at the end of a business tenancy, and the compensation which he has to pay. But I wish to make just one point. Had we made it too difficult or too expensive to get possession of premises which had been let, there would have been a danger of stagnation and of the prevention of the improvement of healthy and prosperous businesses, and the creation of new businesses. I think everyone would agree, on reflection, that in this field the landlord-and-tenant relationship is of great benefit to the business community. The businessman who takes his premises on lease has his capital left free for use in other ways. I know that it is always very difficult to hold a balance, but I tried to keep that in mind, as well as the primary

  2515
  intention of improving the situation of the tenant.
  I wish to mention a point that was raised in Committee and which, although we have not had a great deal of discussion on it, I know is very much in the minds of hon. Members who are either at present members of a local authority or who have had local authority experience. I want to tell the House today that I considered very carefully the situation of local authorities, and I want to point out that they have special powers.
  Although we are all agreed that local authorities must have special powers in order to obtain possession of premises needed for their special functions, I felt that if a local authority was to be exempted from the requirements which the Bill places on landlords generally, the decision ought to be taken by a Minister who is responsible to this House.
  I met the hon. Gentleman who put the points, and other representatives, before the Bill came to the House. I have discussed the point and tried to weigh it. But I think that it is an important matter, and I came down on that side. However, I want to say that I have, as promised, consulted my colleagues who are the Ministers mainly concerned, and they see no difficulty in issuing the required certificates in the time allowed. That was one of the points which, as the hon. Gentleman will remember, was rather worrying the local authority representatives.
  The other point raised with regard to local authorities was that, in the interests of the public purse, they should not have to pay compensation where they let property pending demolition. Again, I have considered it, but I cannot believe that it would be justifiable to deprive the local authority tenant of compensation in circumstances where he would receive it were his landlord a private person.
  I do not propose to go into Part III and Part IV of the Bill except to remind the House on one point which we have not discussed, because again we are agreed, that it is rather surprising that so little has been said about Clause 50 which does much to strengthen the tenant's protection against unreasonable enforcement of repairing covenants under the Leasehold Property (Repairs) Act, 1938. I am glad that has been done.
  2516
  In the course of debate, and in view of the strong feelings of interest which they hold, hon. Members opposite may have felt that my attitude at times in respect of the Bill has been negative. I would, however, say that I came to this subject—I approached it soon after I became Minister—without any preconception in favour of landlord or tenant. My aim was to do justice to both, and I honestly think that we have substantially succeeded in doing that.
  A number of people will not think that we have gone far enough, but no one can seriously deny that the Bill as a whole confers great benefits on the tenant. As I have indicated in the far too many speeches which I have of necessity had to make upon the Bill, to go further in that direction would mean injustice to the landlord. Holding a proper balance between landlord and tenant is not only a matter of justice between individuals but also something which is vital in the public interest.
  As soon as one translates one's ideas into action, it is inevitable that a great deal of the resulting action is subjected, quite properly, to criticism. I would only say—I hope that no one will think that I am fulsome in doing so—that in view of the large scope of the Bill and the different opinions which must be held, I do not think any Minister could have been more fortunate than I have been in respect of the constructive nature of the criticism and the way in which it has been expressed.
  1.53 p.m.
  Sir F. Soskice: I suppose that one always approaches the Third Reading of an important Bill with a sense of fond regret. One gets to live with the Bill, and in a sense it is rather a wrench when the House parts with it. [Interruption.] I am not sure that everybody agrees with me about that. There are mixed considerations which give rise to different feelings according to the aspect at which one looks.
  The Home Secretary said that we had had full and, he kindly added, constructive debates during the Committee stage. I cordially agree with him. I am sure that I shall have the assent and approval of my right hon. and hon. Friends in saying that the success of debates in Standing Committees depends very largely upon the personality of the

  2517
  Minister in charge and his assistants. When I reiterate what the Home Secretary has said about the success—and I hope I may add, the thoroughness—of our debates, the inference which I intend to be understood will, I hope, be obvious.
  Substantial clashes of opinion occurred. I am sure that all my right hon. and hon. Friends would agree that the viewpoints which we advanced received careful consideration from the three Ministers who conducted our debates. In some respects those Ministers have been able to meet us. We are disappointed that in other respects they felt, after consideration of our arguments—our arguments undoubtedly received consideration—that they could not go further than they have done.
  In spite of all the defects which the Bill has, the Opposition nevertheless welcome it as a substantial advance in the direction of proper adjustment of landlord-tenant relationships. In that regard, for a Conservative Minister, the Home Secretary has done very well. He has been working under considerable disadvantages. He has had the hot breath of united landlordism blowing hard on the back of his neck. He has, on the other hand, been supported and stimulated by persistent, and I think, very valuable goading by right hon. and hon. Friends of mine who contributed in an endeavour to guide the Home Secretary along the path of justice and right.
  The result is the Bill which we now welcome. The Opposition would like to see it reach the Statute Book even in its present form if it is not susceptible to improvement in another place. It marks a substantial change in the relationships between landlord and tenant. Years ago such a Bill emanating from a Conservative Government would have been a matter of great surprise. It is an achievement on the part of the Labour Party that it has succeeded to that extent in educating the Conservative Party.
  As the Home Secretary has said, the Bill now gives the tenant something which he has never had before. However, if one proceeds to look the gift horse in the mouth, one finds that the advantages which are conferred upon the tenant are not, by a long way, as rosy as he may have thought at first sight. The tenant under these long leases at a
  2518
  ground rent is now assured—I emphasise the word "assured"—that he will not be turned out of his house at the end of his tenancy if he does not want to go.
  If the tenant is assured of that, he ought also to be informed that that is subject to very stringent conditions. It is subject to his paying a rent which he may find within his means but it will be very much more than he ever thought he would have to pay. He is at a disadvantage in that respect as compared with the ordinary rent-restricted tenant; he has to pay the market rent. The Solicitor-General readily accepted that that was the situation, and he sought to justify it as a measure of justice. The Opposition have said, and we shall go on saying whenever the matter arises for consideration, that we think that that is unjust.
  Still, a tenant who is very much attached to his own home may find it within his possibilities to pay that market rent. It will probably—almost certainly—be a very considerable drain on his resources. Indeed, that is one of the reasons for the existence of the Rent Restrictions Acts which have been on our Statute Books for many decades. However, the Home Secretary has departed from them in that respect. He has not found it possible to give the tenant that measure of protection which tenants ordinarily expect to have under the Rent Restrictions Acts with regard to the amount of rent which they can be called upon to pay.
  If the householder looks further, he will run up against the very unfortunate situation in regard to accrued repairs. I do not want to reiterate the arguments which have been put forward on this subject. I will merely say that the tenant will be allowed to stay on but upon terms which mean that in a great many cases he will be very nearly bankrupt. Staying on is better than not staying on at any cost, and the tenant can stay on if he can put his hand in his pocket to the extent to which the Home Secretary is asking him to do, and that is something.
  Part II of the Bill has evoked much less criticism from this side of the House than Part I. We think that Part II makes a substantial advance in relation to business premises—more substantial than the lesser advance made in relation to private premises by Part I of the Bill. Our main

  2519
  criticism of the Government on Part II is that we think that, quite apart from the niggardly compensation, the landlord is given far too many opportunities in the provisions of Clause 30 to burke the tenant's attempts to extend his tenancy. That, we think, is a great defect in Part II, and we have repeatedly voiced our hopes that the Home Secretary might, at long last, think further about it. We begin to lose hope as we see the Bill vanishing from this House, because we know that if we have not been able to persuade the Home Secretary to change his mind by now, perhaps the chance of the right hon. and learned Gentleman subsequently doing so becomes somewhat less.
  There is not much more than I want to say in bidding god-speed to this Bill on its passage to the Statute Book through the medium of another place, but I know that, on Third Reading, I must not speak about anything that is not in the Bill as it now stands. However, I think it would be in accordance with the rules of order and that I shall not be reproved by the Chair if I look at the Bill, turn over its pages and then point out what I cannot find in its provisions. I think that is perfectly legitimate, and, if I may be permitted that intellectual process, and take the Bill in my hands, look at Part I, Part II and then at succeeding Parts, I think it will be within the rules of order and within the scope of a Third Reading speech to shed a bitter tear at finding myself unable to find in the Bill any provision in regard to leasehold enfranchisement.
  I know that I cannot discuss that here, and can only refer to its absence, but, very bitterly, I do refer to its absence. It is not in this Bill, and I feel terribly tempted to say that it certainly ought to be. We shall certainly have our opportunity in the future of doing what we think social justice requires to be done, and we shall await that opportunity which, no doubt, will come in a very short time from this moment.
  I should like to compliment the Home Secretary on what he has done, and to thank him and his assistants with all sincerity for the courtesy and care with which they have met the points of view we have put forward. The Home Secretary has stood between us and the landlords. He knows that landlordism is an
  2520
  extremely powerful force, and it takes a very courageous Minister to resist it as the Home Secretary has done. We congratulate him on his success. We have done our best to help him on points which may have been difficult, and this Bill emerges improved at the end of the day. We shall be glad to see it placed on the Statute Book and brought into operation, even though it still possesses the defects to which we have repeatedly called attention.
  2.3 p.m.
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) referred to "the hot breath of landlordism" beating on the neck of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary from back benchers on this side—
  Sir F. Soskice: I hope the hon. Gentleman will not think me discourteous if I have to go out, but I have to go, may I add, not for the purpose of having lunch.
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Of course, I quite understand that the right hon. and learned Gentleman must go, but I will, however, proceed to say what I began to say. At the moment when that observation was made, I was the only back bencher on this side of the House, and I wish to say, that, as far as "the hot breath of landlordism" is concerned, I can assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I am not a landlord, that I have never been a landlord—
  Mr. Douglas Glover: I was also present.
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: I am much obliged; I am sorry that I did not observe my hon. Friend.
  It has been no part of this party's tactics to cause the "hot breath of landlordism" to blow upon the neck of my right hon. and learned Friend, and that is a completely unjust accusation. I am not a landlord, I never have been, and I never shall be.
  Our task has been as the Home Secretary's has been, to see that justice is preserved particularly in Part I of the Bill, because Part I raises very different considerations to Part II. After all, when we are concerned with somebody who has been living in a house for a long time, quite different considerations arise to those affecting business premises which

  2521
  are now brought within the purview of what I might call a "tenancy freeze." Part II is, indeed, a revolution. My right hon. and learned Friend referred to it as "a great advance," but it is really much more than that.
  The 1927 Act really provided no sort of security of tenure for business people except on a very limited basis. They had to prove all sorts of different things before they could get any security at all. Why was that? Was it not for this reason—that, as far as business premises are concerned, considerations of public efficiency spring very closely to one's mind? As far as houses are concerned, that does not apply, but, where industry and trade in this country are concerned, they apply very strongly.
  I would strike a slightly discordant note on Part II, because I believe it is very important that the best man, and not necessarily the man in possession, should have the opportunity of developing a business or developing trade. That does not apply so much to shops, and particularly mixed premises with the home above the shop. Therefore, the considerations of Part I apply to Part II to a limited extent. But as far as these enormous industrial premises now for the first time brought into the tenancy "freeze" are concerned, it is time somebody's voice was raised to echo what my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State said in the Minority Report:
  "Attractive though a permanent freeze may be to sitting tenants and to those with vested interests, I believe it is in the interests of the country as a whole that there should be considerable flexibility in the system of tenure of business premises"
  We have seen the danger in what has happened in the agricultural community if we "freeze" a productive business too far. We see that the sitting tenant, provided that he preserves a standard of farming just above the minimum necessary to prevent eviction, can, as it were, trundle along year after year, while there are thousands of aspiring tenants, young and vigorous men, who might be able to farm that land much better, and I am very worried lest we may not be reproducing the same situation on the whole of the business, commercial and industrial premises in this country.
  It will be a terrible thing if both parties in this House today are concerned with entrenched interests, whether they be
  2522
  landlords or tenants—and both have got their pressure groups—and should forget the perhaps even more important class, the class of aspiring tenants, the people who would like to be tenants, but who have no pressure group, have no identity and no association, and, therefore, no voice in this House.
  To me it would be a terrible derogation of our duty if, in our attempts to preserve justice as between the landlord and the tenant, we should forget that there is a third party to whom justice must also be done—the "would-be" tenant, the aspiring tenant, about whom, as far as I can remember, nobody taking part in these debates has said a word at all.
  A recent publication by some colleagues of mine, called "Change is our Ally," said this—and I agree with them:
  "The essential condition of future security in this country is industrial flexibility, as opposed to the maintenance of the status quo.'
  Later, they say:
  "The speed and readiness with which less efficient methods and less valuable forms of production are abandoned in favour of those which are superseding them have become all important."
  In other words, it is their view—and it is certainly mine—that we must be prepared to ease the way for rapid changes in the direction and degree and quality of industrial production in this country.
  Of course, one of the difficulties of doing so is created if we "freeze" the present tenants in their present premises and I fear that that is what Part II of the Bill may do, since it is drawn so widely. This does not apply to the retail distributive trade, because obviously it is not as important there to have the opportunity of rapidly changing the methods of production and distribution, but this Bill covers productive industry, too, and in that connection it seems to me to go contrary to the direction in which we should go, which is the direction of flexibility and change and not the direction of ossification.
  I believe that before long Part II of the Bill will have to be amended so as to exclude from its provisions what I may call the big firms and the big concerns. I do not think they are entitled to the same degree of security of tenure. After all, they are often just as strong financially—and sometimes even stronger—than the landlords, and there is no

  2523
  particular reason why they should be given this protection.
  Mr. W. Wells: Surely the hon. Gentleman appreciates that if there is continuous pressure from landlords to increase the rents of business premises—and that is a matter of common experience in London today—it will put up the price of goods to the consumer. If the hon. Member is arguing the cause of efficiency, which in business matters means ultimately the cause of cheapness, surely he should take that factor into account.
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: I do take it into account, and I also take into account the fact that on the whole, because of the pressure of demand, the person who can afford to take the premises is more likely to work harder, to streamline his productive line and thus to produce his end-produce more cheaply than the man who knows that he can sit back without making that effort at efficiency. Our experience is that the man who knows he can sit back because he does not have to fight has not the same incentive towards lowering his costs or the price of his end-product.
  Mr. Wells rose—
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: I do not wish, on Third Reading, to become engaged in a long economic argument about the way the market works. I adduce in support of my argument the last sentence of the Minority Report of the Leasehold Committee, upon which the Bill is founded. I do not think that that point of view has yet been put forward and I think it should be put forward.
  I believe very strongly that when the landlord and tenant are on equal terms, as they are at the big business level, they should be allowed the freedom of the market. It has always been recognised that that is not the case with mixed premises and shops, with which most of our discussion has been concerned. In those cases all parties agree that protection of some sort should be given, and this is probably the best way of giving it.
  I wonder whether it is enough to take the view—although it is right in itself—which has been taken by the Home Secretary that in this matter of commercial and industrial premises it is enough to
  2524
  sit like a judge or a referee and hold the balance between landlord and tenant. Is it not the function of anybody concerned with the industrial future of this country to do something a little more active and to be concerned with something more than justice between two people?
  Ought we not to be concerned also with the efficient use of those premises? Surely we should take into account not merely these two parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, as it might be, but also a whole host of people who have not appeared before the court at all, who have not been represented in any way, whose identity we do not know and who, indeed, may not yet have been born—that is to say, the vigorous, young, new-minded, fresh-outlooked, aspiring tenant who cannot find premises now and to whom this Bill offers very little hope of finding them in the future.
  2.16 p.m.
  Mr. D. J. Williams: I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) into all the technicalities of Part II of the Bill. I say that for two reasons: first of all, because I do not pretend to understand all the intricacies and complexities of Part II as it applies to business premises, and secondly, I want to be brief because the time for Third Reading is limited and I know that a number of other hon. Members wish to speak.
  We are now coming to the final stages of the discussion on this Bill; and I want to say that the progress of the Bill through the House has been followed with deep anxiety in Wales and especially in the industrial areas of South Wales. The Bill has caused concern and disappointment in many other parts of the country, but I mention South Wales, not only because it is the area which I know best but because in South Wales the problems created by the leasehold system are present in a particularly acute and concentrated form. This is due, not to any special national characteristic of the Welsh people, but to the course of our industrial and social history over the last 150 years.
  I am bound to say that some of the provisions of the Bill have shocked a very large number of people in South Wales. Indeed, I know of no Measure introduced by this Government over the last two or

  2525
  three years which has caused more resentment and more disappointment in the Principality. It is true that the people of Wales did not expect a great many benefits from this Tory Government. That is why they voted so overwhelmingly against them at the last Election. But as a result of this Bill the vote against the Tory Party in Wales at the next Election will be even more decisive and overwhelming.
  At the beginning of the present Parliament the Government announced, in the Queen's Speech, that it was their intention to introduce legislation to effect leasehold reform in England and Wales and in Scotland. That announcement aroused considerable hopes in Wales and it did so because of the use of the expression "leasehold reform." For over two generations, "leasehold reform" in Wales has meant one thing and one thing only; it has meant leasehold enfranchisement, it has meant the right of the lessee to buy the freehold of the land on reasonable terms. Leasehold reform in that sense has been part of the political vocabulary of Wales for a long time.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): The hon. Member can deplore the absence of it from the Bill, but I do not think that he can develop the argument in favour of it.
  Mr. Williams: I accept your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was not developing the argument for leasehold reform. I was taking the Government's announcement and trying to show how far short of that promise the Government proposals are.
  The Government's use of the expression "leasehold reform" means something entirely different from what that expression means in Wales. Indeed, we now know that it means quite the opposite. The use of the term by the Government was an indication to the people of Wales at the time that they meant to introduce some measure of justice for the tenant, but the hopes raised in Wales by the Government's announcement were shattered first by the White Paper of January, 1953 and finally and irrevocably by the present Bill.
  In Wales we have always regarded the leasehold system as iniquitous and unjust; and the demand for the reform of the leasehold system has been a live
  2526
  political issue in Wales over the last 70 years or more. This Bill does not reform the leasehold system. It leaves it intact, and it leaves untouched all the objectionable features associated with the leasehold system.
  At one stage in the proceedings on this Bill the Home Secretary who is also Minister for Welsh Affairs, said that it was his object to maintain the balance between landlord and tenant. He repeated that expression this morning. That, I think we all agree, is a very worthy and laudable object. If that really was the right hon. and learned Gentleman's intention—and I accept his word for it that it was—then I am bound to say that he has failed dismally and lamentably. He has failed in this Bill to maintain the balance between landlord and tenant. In the outcome the balance has come down heavily in favour of the landlord and against the tenant.
  Let us see how the landlord fares under the leasehold system and under this Bill. First of all, during the currency of the lease he has already received in ground rent four or five times the original value of the land. Secondly, he gets the land back, and the land is now of a much greater value than it was when it was originally leased. Thirdly, he gets the house in good repair. The landlord did not build the house and he did not keep it in repair. Fourthly, he gets the rent from the tenant, and one factor in the assessment of the amount of rent which the tenant has to pay is the cost of the repairs which the tenant has already paid.
  Let us see how the tenant fares. First, he has to give back the land to the landlord even though he has already paid in ground rent far more than the original value of the land. Secondly, he has to give up the house in which he lives. In other words, he loses his status as an owner-occupier and becomes a tenant; he loses the ownership of his home and becomes a tenant in his own house. This change means not simply a loss of status for the tenant, even though that is serious enough. It also means for the tenant a considerably increased financial burden. As a lessee he would pay in South Wales a ground rent of somewhere between £1 and £2 per year. Now as a tenant he may have to pay £40 or £50 a year in rent for the house which he

  2527
  and his family have always regarded as their own.
  The landlord certainly comes out very well under this Bill. Whatever the technical difficulties in the way of doing justice to the tenant—and we have heard that there were many—there seem to be no difficulties at all about helping the landlord. In his case all the technical difficulties are easily overcome. To use a colloquialism which we have in South Wales, the landlord, under this Bill, gets both the penny and the bun.
  This Bill is not a measure of leasehold reform. It is certainly not leasehold reform as we understand the term in South Wales. It does not reform the leasehold system—it preserves it and perpetuates it. It confirms and consolidates all the advantages which the landlords enjoy under the leasehold system.
  Finally, may I say this. The next time that the Home Secretary speaks in Wales, I hope he will take for his text that ancient and hollow Tory slogan about a property-owning democracy.
  2.26 p.m.
  Sir Edward Boyle: I would not have intervened but for what the hon. Member for Neath (Mr. D. J. Williams) has just said. He seemed to me to be suggesting that this Bill is not consistent with what the Conservative Party had said in its election propaganda about leasehold reform. I quite understand any hon. Member opposite, particularly if he happens to represent a Welsh constituency, feeling that this Bill does not go far enough, but it is not fair to say that this Bill is inconsistent with what we said when we were in opposition.
  I would ask hon. Members, before they make that accusation, to see what my right hon. Friend who is now the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in this House in the debate on the Address on 1st November, 1950, which was the first occasion when this subject was discussed. I think that I am in order in doing so, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, because what my right hon. Friend said on that occasion is absolutely on all fours with the present Bill. He said:
  "We believe that there is need to do three things. First, there is the necessity to extend the protection of the Rent Restrictions Acts to ground lessees in occupation of their premises
  2528
  within the rateable value limits of those Acts upon the expiry of the leases. Secondly, we think that greater security should be given to tenants of business premises; and, thirdly, we think that amendment and consolidation of the law in regard to landlord and tenant is necessary, particularly in regard to repairs and improvement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st November, 1950; Vol. 480, c. 178-9.]
  It seems to me that the Bill which we are now reading for the Third time exactly carries out that statement of policy which my right hon. Friend declared in this House nearly four years ago.
  Mr. Janner: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the bringing of these premises under the control of the Rent Acts would be interpreted in Wales and other similar places as meaning that the ground rents as they stood would be protected? That is what he was saying.
  Sir E. Boyle: That was not how our policy was expounded, when we were in Opposition, by my right hon. and learned Friend who is now the Solicitor-General. When the Leasehold (Temporary Provisions) Bill was going through this House in the Session 1950–51, we made clear in detail, in a series of rather elaborate and complicated Amendments which must have been very difficult to move what we intended to do about the rent, when we were returned to power, and were in a position to bring forward a large-scale landlord and tenant Bill. Whatever right hon. and hon. Members opposite may feel about the merits of this Bill, it really is not fair to accuse us of any breach of faith in this matter.
  I cannot agree with the hon. Member for Neath when he says—as many Members have said—that the leasehold system is a bad system in itself. I am glad that in this Bill we are keeping the leasehold system in existence, because it has enabled countless people to own a house of their own without having to sink money in a freehold. We are absolutely consistent in supporting both the idea of a property-owning democracy and the system of ground leases.
  In my view, Part II of the Bill goes rather wide and I should like to reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) said about it. I am a little sorry that we have made the ambit of Part II quite so wide as it is. But with this reservation I believe this to be a Bill which

  2529
  holds the balance fairly as between landlord and tenant. It has been defended in the House and in Committee upstairs with great skill, courtesy and patience by my right hon. and learned Friends the Home Secretary and the Solicitor-General. I believe that as time goes on people will come to see that we have reached what is, on the whole, a thoroughly equitable solution of a really difficult and tricky problem, which must have needed great skill in drafting to solve.
  2.32 p.m.
  Mr. Weitzman: The Home Secretary has said that the Bill represents a considerable advance, both in the provisions of Part I and in the provisions of Part II. On the face of it, there has been an advance, but to see whether there has been real progress and something done to improve the position of tenants, surely the right thing is to examine the provisions and see how far they go.
  Everybody on both sides recognised that in regard to the owner of a ground lease whose lease came to an end, something would have to be done. We recognise that with regard to business tenants the provisions of the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1927, were not sufficient and something had to be done with regard to them. It is a little important to see what has been done in both cases, what benefits or advantages have been granted or given to ground owners or to business tenants, and I should like to look first at the provisions of Part I, quite briefly, to see what advantage is given to a ground lessee whose lease comes to an end.
  It is said that that person is given security of tenure in the protection afforded by the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts. Certainly, if the matter was left there, that would be an undoubted advantage. But the position is not left there. The ground lessee is not left in the position of a person who has the protection of the provisions of the Rent Acts, because tenants under the Rent Acts who may have been there for years are paying standard rents—in the case of old controlled tenants, their standard rate of August, 1914, and in the case of tenants of new controlled property, the rent of September, 1939.
  But here, whilst it is said that the ground lessee is given security by rent
  2530
  control, what is being done is to put upon him such a burden in the payment of rent as to do away with any real benefit that he gets from security of tenure. Perhaps hon. Members remember the illustration which I endeavoured to give in an intervention during the Report stage. It has been said again and again that the cases dealt with in Part I have a great deal of application in South Wales. Instances of hardship to ground lessees are not limited in any sense to South Wales. There are many cases in many parts of the country, apart from Wales, of people who will suffer, and suffer bitterly, when their ground leases come to an end.
  What will happen to them under the Bill? A ground lessee with a rental of £10 a year will now have to pay a rent, but what kind of rent? It is an open market rent, often based very largely upon scarcity value. In the example I gave—say, in the Finsbury Park area, which is part of my constituency and where there are many leases of this sort—a man who spent his life savings in acquiring the house and who has been paying a ground rent of £10 and occupying the house as his own for many years, will now have to pay a rent, I visualise, of about £4 a week—15 or 20 times the amount of ground rent that they were paying before.
  From a practical point of view, let hon. Members see what that means to the tenant. A person who has been living in a house and paying ground rent of £10 a year now faces the prospect of a rental of £4 a week. Even if we make the figure a little less and say £3 a week, what a burden it is to place upon the tenant. When one adds that with dilapidations and the arrangements under the provisions of the Bill with regard to initial repairs and that an instalment order will be made by the county court judge allowing the tenant to pay by instalments for initial repairs, and when there are repairs which may well cost hundreds of pounds in addition to the £4 a week which the tenant will pay, we must recognise what an enormous burden that represents.
  Consider the change in the position of the ground lessee. His ground lease has come to an end. Instead of paying £10 a year, he has this enormous burden. Does this not make a farce of the security given to the tenant under the Rent Acts?

  2531
  It is quite true that the tenant is allowed to remain in occupation, but only if he shoulders this enormous burden in the way of rent and in the way of instalments in payment of the cost of initial repairs. Looked at from a practical point of view, this is an illusory security. Therefore, in its provisions the Bill is gravely defective in that way.
  Part II of the Bill relates to business premises. The Government have done one very good thing. The provisions of the 1927 Act were very limited in scope. They did not apply to professions or to anything else except a business; they did not apply to factories and matters of that kind, and a very welcome extension is made by Clause 23 to the Bill. But although the Government say that they are conferring an advantage as against the provisions of the 1927 Act, by the provisions of the Bill a considerable number of people will lose in the result.
  It is true that adherent goodwill was difficult to define and that it was difficult for a tenant to establish under the provisions of the 1927 Act his right to a new lease or to compensation if an order for a new lease was not made, but there were many cases where such tenants did get a new lease or, where they could not get their lease, got compensation. Their compensation was measured in hundreds and sometimes in thousands of pounds.
  All that has gone, and in its place there is this much wider benefit in that it is being conferred on a greater number of people. The actual terms of compensation in the Bill are grotesque in the extreme; the amount of rateable value or twice the rateable value is so absurd when one looks at it in money value it really is no compensation at all. That, I suggest, is a grave blot on the provisions of the Bill.
  The other thing which I desire to criticise and which, I hope, will be looked at again, even at this late stage, is the provision under Clause 30 which sets out the grounds upon which the landlord may claim possession and deny the tenant the right to remain in his business premises. I should have thought these grounds are far too extensive and that they should be limited so as to give considerably greater opportunity to the tenant to retain his holding.
  2532
  There is one other small point I should like to make and I hope in doing so that I shall not be transgressing the rules of order. It will be observed that the court dealing with these matters is defined under Clause 61 of the Bill. It is quite obvious that a great deal of the litigation that will ensue will be litigation in the county court. It surely is important when such an amount of litigation of such a vital nature to so many people is inevitable that the provisions of the Legal Aid and Advice Act should be extended so that legal aid is given to matters of this kind—a right denied to them now because it is in the county court.
  2.41 p.m.
  Mr. George Thomas: The course of the debate this afternoon has been much more even than the course of the deliberations during the earlier stages of the Bill. I have been very glad to share in the discussions on the merits of the respective Clauses in the last two days. It was unfortunate for me that I could not be on the Committee dealing with this Bill and I failed to speak on Second Reading.
  I therefore welcome the opportunity of declaring today the attitude which I think we ought to adopt towards this Measure. It is, in my opinion, not a minor Bill, but a major one. It is a Bill involving millions of pounds of the money and the rights of little people as well as the rights of big people and big combines. It also involves justice to the people.
  I would have thought that the Government would have been well advised to have given us a little longer to look at the Bill on Third Reading. I speak more in sorrow than in anger at this stage. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice), who has put up such a valiant fight throughout against so many of the proposals in the Bill, has already said that by the Third Reading of a Measure we have all mellowed a little. But I have not mellowed sufficiently to welcome the Bill.
  It is, to me, an anachronistic Measure which shows the Conservative Party reverting to type. It is against the tide of opinion in the 20th century for it reveals a cold-blooded decision to take

  2533
  the landlords' side on leasehold, though not in the second part of the Bill which everybody acknowledges to be a tremendous step forward. I am talking about Part I of the Bill, which concerns the little man who owns his own house.
  It has already been indicated that in South Wales this problem takes precedence over all others. With the single exception of mass unemployment, I know of nothing which captures attention in Wales more than the words "leasehold system." That is because in Cardiff today it is impossible to get a house freehold. I suppose I ought to have declared my interest. I own a leasehold bungalow which I am paying for, but long after I reach pensionable age I shall have to give it up and it will go back to the ground landlord unless I can find the necessary money to keep it and to meet the cost of the rent and repairs as laid down by this Bill.
  In Cardiff, there are two big companies, Western Ground Rents and Mountjoy, Ltd., who own almost the whole of our city. It is a common remark that we ought not to sing "Land of my Fathers," but to sing, "Land of Western Ground Rents" because that company reaps the reward of all the efforts of the Welsh people in that great city. I think it is unjust to make the conditions of tenure as severe as they are being made here when a lease runs out. In thousands of cases the rent will be as much per week as it has been per year. I am doing my best not to exaggerate, but, certainly, in thousands of cases where people paid £3 or £4 a year ground rent they will have to pay that much by way of rent, and the instalments for the repairs will mean that working people will, in many cases, find that they have lost the home which either they or their fathers bought.
  This is not only a landlords' charter, which is bad enough, but it is a lawyers' charter. I can understand the interest which has been taken in it by hon. and learned Members in all parts of the House because to the legal profession this must be a juicy morsel which will be welcomed by the members of their profession. It is a pity that this Bill will not only take money from the pockets of the people to give to the landlords, but will put money into the pockets of
  2534
  the lawyers, and at the end of the day, if we do not belong either to the class of the landlords or to the profession of the lawyers we shall be in a very poor position indeed.
  I only want to say one word about Part II of the Bill. The conditions which tenants have to observe in order to stay in business premises are fairly extensive. A family business in my constituency has been owned by the same people for 30 years. An English concern has bought the lease from one of the big combines that I mentioned. It is one of those stores which has shops in different parts of the country, and it has already indicated to this family concern which has been 30 years in my constituency that it will want this place for itself.
  Under the Bill, my constituents will have to get out. What compensation does this Bill give to them? It gives them twice the rateable value of their shop as total compensation for taking away their living and their goodwill which cannot be transferred, and for making them go and find accommodation elsewhere. It is no easy problem to find accommodation in Cardiff, but to find it in those circumstances is a hardship against which they have every right to be protected. These people have been thrown to the wolves by the Government.
  I am reminded—and I am coming to my conclusion because I know so many of my hon. Friends want to speak—that in 1906 when the Liberal Party swept Wales with the cry, "God gave the land to the people," it appealed to something very deep in all of us. A lot has happened since God gave the land to the people. People in between have been interfering, and we have the right to say now that as we are the proud custodians here of the liberties and rights of the British people we will protect them from exploitation and from injustice.
  This Bill does nothing of the kind. Fortunately, it is not the last word. The Labour Party is committed to leasehold enfranchisement, which does not take away property but gives people the right to buy their freehold at a fair price. When that day comes, we shall indeed be able to say that this House has once again taken another step on the road to full democracy.
  2.50 p.m.
  Mr. Janner: I want to take this opportunity of asking the Government once again to think over what they are doing in this Bill. It is a bad Bill, particularly in respect of the provisions regarding leaseholds. When the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary next visits Wales, where the heart of the problem is to be found, he will find nothing has been exaggerated by hon. Members from that area who have spoken. I know the position down there myself. He will find that the Bill is doing a grave injustice to lessees there as elsewhere.
  I want to point out one or two things that have perhaps escaped the notice of the Home Secretary. It is not a question of perpetuating leaseholds. The Bill is destroying anything in the nature of security of tenure provided by a lease and leaving the dregs, the covenants and the obligations with little rights to the tenant. Why do I say that? Because, instead of giving a long security of tenure, the Bill merely gives a so-called security of tenure under the Rent Acts. It makes the tenant carry out certain repairs which are not obligations even within the Rent Act provisions, and it enables the landlord to turn out the tenant, whereas, if there had been a continuation of the lease, that would not have been possible.
  I will give one or two illustrations. If a landlord says that he requires a house for his own use, if a question of greater hardship arises on any grounds at all, he can say to the tenant, "I ought to have possession of your house, which your family have held for so many years, and I want a court to grant me possession to which I am entitled under this Bill." In those circumstances, the court would have to give possession provided it was satisfied that greater hardship would be entailed by refusal. This means that a person is no longer secure because, whereas formerly he held a tenancy of a substantial nature, he can now be turned out.
  There is a second injustice which the Government refuse to amend. Supposing a person in leasehold premises, the lease of which had just come to an end, dies a day or two after the expiration of the lease—I am taking an extreme example to see what will be the position when this Bill becomes an Act—his children
  2536
  can be turned out as soon as the tenant's widow dies. It is grossly unfair. When the Conservative Party said that it was going to give security of tenure to lessees, nobody could have dreamt that the family could be turned out within a few hours in circumstances of that nature.
  Now I come to one of the biggest difficulties of all in respect of tenancies which are under the Rent Acts at present. Thousands and thousands of houses will be thrown within the provisions of the Rent Acts by this new Measure, and, as a result, county courts will be cluttered up with cases, because under the Rent Acts the county court is the place to which such cases must be taken. Yet the tenant, no matter what his grievance, will not be able to face up to that procedure if he has not the wherewithal to enter into proceedings or to get legal advice. The Government have made no provision for legal aid to help the many more thousands of tenants who should now come to the county courts to fight their cases.
  These matters are all bound up with each other. We cannot honestly say that we are giving a lessee a chance if we place him in the position where not only are we hurting him financially, because a very much higher rental will fall upon his shoulders but, in addition, if there is dispute between himself and his landlord, he is left without the help that is given to litigants in High Court cases. That is a serious point, and I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to consider putting a provision into this Bill, even at this late hour, which will enable the tenant to have free legal advice in respect of these complicated matters.
  Those who have emphasised the fact that the leaseholder has been looking for some kind of relief for many years have said nothing short of the truth. I remember in my early days, even before I entered political life when I was living in South Wales, that the burning problem at that time was ensuring the security of lessees who had paid over and over again for the right to build and live upon a piece of land which was previously useless. I have in my possession a book published on the subject when the Liberal Party dealt with it 30 years ago. In spite of the fact that proper agitation had been going on before and continuously ever since then, when it comes to dealing with

  2537
  the situation we now have in this Bill a ridiculous crumb which cannot sustain the lessee for any period at all.
  It is a pure travesty to say that this is a leasehold reform Bill. The Government should be ashamed of themselves for trying to deceive people into believing that the Government have done anything at all consistent with the necessity of the occasion. I beg them to make their position quite clear outside this House, and to tell the people of the country that although the leases have existed for all these years it is the Government's belief that the landlord is fully entitled to take everything that has been created by the lessee and that the lessee now is to be fully at the mercy of anyone who wants to purchase fag-ends of leases and turn the lessees out in order to use those places themselves. I who have agitated for many years for leasehold reform could never have believed that anything of this kind would be described as reform, and I am sure that the Bill will not meet the situation. Furthermore, it will have to be altered in a very short time, and the sooner the better.
  3.1 p.m.
  Mr. Granville West: I think that it is agreed on both sides of the House that the Government have brought forward the Bill because they recognised that there was a problem affecting the owner-occupier of leasehold properties and also a problem affecting business tenants. If I were to say that I welcome this Bill and the methods which the Government have adopted in dealing with these two problems, I should be exaggerating my position. I have a very great difficulty in agreeing to a Third Reading, a difficulty which I do not find very easy to resolve.
  In the first place, I recognise that there is an improvement in the position of the business tenant. In some respects he has a greater security than he had before. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) has already dealt with the terms of compensation. They have been described as niggardly, absurdly low and unnecessarily mean. I am deeply concerned with the problem of the leasehold owner-occupier of a dwelling house. As my hon. Friends have indicated on many occasions, that is a problem which affects South Wales in particular, as well as other parts of the country.
  2538
  One ought to consider the grounds on which the Government have proceeded with the formulation of the proposals in the Bill. It has been made quite clear to the House on more than one occasion that the Government had recourse to the Leasehold Committee's Report and that it was upon the basis of the Majority Report of that Committee that they formulated their policy. They, therefore, bring forward a proposal that the owner-occupier of the leasehold dwelling house should have security of tenure at the end of his lease under the Rent Acts.
  That was never the problem. The problem with which the House should be dealing is not the question of giving the leasehold owner-occupier that limited security of tenure on the expiration of his lease. The House should consider the question of the ownership of the house itself. The Leasehold Committee, dealing with the leasehold system generally, said:
  "At this distance of time it is obviously impossible to adjudicate upon charges of unfair conduct on the part of the original landlords in the granting of leases 80 or 90 years ago. But the difficulties with which occupying ground lessees of working-class dwellings, whether in South Wales or elsewhere, may well be faced at the expiration of their terms have caused us concern;"
  That is the position which I gather the Government have accepted.
  The Leasehold Committee go further and say that they have
  "heard of practically no cases in which occupying ground lessees have in fact been compelled to quit their holdings on the expiration of their leases. A more common complaint is to the effect that the landlord in such a case offers a new tenancy at an excessive rent, or offers to sell the freehold to the tenant at an excessive price."
  The Committee add:
  "Some of these complaints are doubtless well-founded, …"
  What do the Government do? In face of the facts as found by the Leasehold Committee, they come forward and give protection under the Rent Restrictions Acts, which the Leasehold Committee say is not the problem. What do they do in regard to the complaint of the Leasehold Committee, which they say is well founded, that landlords have been demanding exorbitant prices for freeholds and exorbitant rents? The Government are supporting the landlords to do this very thing.

  2539
  One of the grave doubts that I have about this Bill is that building lessees will be in a worse position under it than before. It is true that ground landlords were able to exercise their powers to compel the owner-occupier to pay an exorbitant rent or to pay an exorbitant price for the freehold of his house, but under this Bill we are giving legal authority for landlords generally to demand high prices for the freehold or exorbitant rent in respect of dwelling houses. I am definitely opposed to that part of the Bill.
  I agree that on balance there is some advantage to the business tenant, but there is a great disadvantage to the owner-occupier of the leasehold dwelling house. I believe that with the legal authority they will have under this Bill in future ground landlords will be insisting upon higher prices for the conversion of leasehold properties into freeholds or will be demanding increased rents beyond the capacity of the tenants to pay. It is upon that point that I view this Bill with great dissatisfaction.
  The only hope I have is that expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) that very soon we shall have a Labour Government returned to power to whom the leasehold tenant can look with hope of getting ownership of his property restored to him. We trust that day is not too long distant. My hon. Friend said that this Bill would be a good thing for the landlords and also it would be a "juicy morsel" for the lawyers. I regard it not as a juicy morsel but rather like the curate's egg. My hon. Friend did not mention the fact that Members of the legal profession who sit on this side of the House have not been looking at the Bill as a juicy morsel but have been fighting most strenuously in opposition to it.
  Mr. G. Thomas: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way because, on second thoughts, I should not like anyone to think that I believe lawyers on either side of the House would look on this for what they could get out of it, but I know that my hon. and learned Friends have fought harder against it. Is that all right?
  Mr. West: I am obliged to my hon. Friend. I must agree with my hon.
  2540
  Friends that I should not oppose the Third Reading of the Bill but I should like to record my strong opposition to the leasehold provisions it contains.
  3.5 p.m.
  Mr. W. T. Williams: Like several of my hon. Friends, and like the Home Secretary, I have lived with this Bill a very considerable time. It may be that my own view about it has been softened and has become gentler as the Bill has gone through its various stages; except that today, after the Report stage, I feel that I hold a record, in that more of my Amendments were cut out than those of any other living person.
  I am glad to have the opportunity to pay a tribute to the Ministers for the courtesy and restraint which they exhibited, often under great provocation, during the Committee stage upstairs. It was matched only by the courtesy and restraint of my right hon. and hon. Friends. It is true that by this time almost all that can be said about this Bill has been said, and the Ministers in charge of it must be very tired of hearing again and again the kind of arguments and protests against which they have stood for hour after hour in the past weeks. But perhaps they will bear with me if I put as shortly as possible my particular complaints against this Measure.
  I do not think that anyone on this side of the House believes that the Government could have been persuaded to do the job properly and to have given leasehold enfranchisement, without which we on this side could not be satisfied. Nor can the Government complain unduly if, not having given us the whole horse, we complain bitterly about the smell of the part carcase with which we have been provided. Bearing in mind the difficulties facing the Government they may feel that they have done their best, but in respect of both parts of this Bill it appears to many of us on this side of the House that they have been unnecessarily stingy.
  Part II of the Bill is undoubtedly the better. I think that is because the Government understand the point of view of the business man better than that of the little man who lives in his own small leasehold house. But each part of the

  2541
  Bill has its faults, and they arise in our eyes because the House, as was the Committee upstairs, is divided by a gulf of principle. The Government have said, and I accept their assurance, that they have tried to weigh the balance fairly between landlord and tenant. But of course they are cursed by their political philosophy and by the history of their party. Unconsciously they have revealed that by the provisions in this Bill. They have been biased on the side of the landlord.
  It appears to hon. Members on this side of the House that the benefits provided for the tenant are largely illusory. Even such benefits as have been afforded are so hedged about by restrictions, inhibitions and requirements as to limit greatly such protection as is afforded in such a way that to use the words of a popular song, for the last two years or so of his tenancy, the tenant is altogether, "bothered, bewitched and bewildered."
  It appears to us that in this Bill the Government have been more than fair to the landlord whom, they declare, they have wanted only to treat with justice. It is not my intention to repeat in detail now the criticisms that have been made so often before, except to say that not only in South Wales—though I speak as a South Walian, I am now the representative of a London constituency—but also in my own constituency, many tenants feel very heavily the burden of the leasehold provisions, and have expressed to me their disappointment and concern about the Bill.
  The total effect of the Bill is to provide the landlord with a gift of property in which for many years he has had no interest except the financial interest of collecting the rent, to which he has made no contribution, and the natural improvement in whose value he has done nothing to create. Land upon which his property has stood owes its value to the property upon it, a property which is in good repair thanks to the tenant and not to the landlord.
  The landlord receives all these benefits at the price of providing to the tenant a benefit and an advantage that is not even as good—and I think this point ought to be made as forcibly as it can—as the provisions that protect the tenants of rent-restricted properties. The
  2542
  tenant of a rent-restricted property is very much better off than the tenant who holds over after the leasehold has fallen in.
  Therefore not to put too fine a point on it, it appears to us that the Government have succeeded in giving the tenants, not the uncovenanted mercy about which Cromwell spoke, but rather the worst of all possible worlds. The tenant's sacrifice is the greater as the landlord's benefit is the greater. For us the real import of the Bill lies not in what is in it, but in the fact that we can take comfort from the knowledge that, if a Conservative Government have attempted even this much reformation, there is hope that when another Government come to power, the first death knell of the leasehold system which this Government have begun to sound will be brought to a full carillon with the happier occurrence of a Labour administration.
  3.18 p.m.
  Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: The hon. Member for Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle), who, I am sorry to say, is not present, was at great pains to show that there was no inconsistency between this Measure and the policy of his party. I would merely comment that the rent policy which the Government have inserted in this Bill will do nothing to alleviate the cost of living in this country, and one of the cardinal promises of the Conservative Party in the last Election was that it would reduce the cost of living. One thing that the Bill will do, through these increased rents, is to add to the cost of living.
  I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. D. J. Williams) when he says that this is a Measure for which many thousands of leaseholders have been anxiously and hopefully waiting for a very long time. There have been temporary legislation, a report, a White Paper, and debates in this House. This Bill is the end product, the long-awaited-for Measure upon which the Government will ultimately be judged.
  At this stage of the proceedings, it is difficult for hon. Members to be completely objective about the Bill. We have had our noses so close to the grindstone for so long and we have been so busily engaged with the minutiae of paragraphs, subsections and Clauses that it is difficult for us to look at the Bill in its proper perspective. However, one

  2543
  thing emerges beyond any shadow of doubt: this Measure falls short of the hopes and aspirations of a large section of the community. As has been said by my hon. Friends, what they desire is enfranchisement and the translation into law of the undoubted moral rights of the tenant, but, unfortunately, that is what the Bill fails to accomplish.
  I want to be fair in my appraisal and would agree that the Bill has made concessions to tenants which they have not previously enjoyed. It is better than nothing. The granting of security of tenure in Part I and Part II will be a partial relief to tenants, and we welcome it, but we make the reservation that it is so hedged about and so limited that it ceases to become the generous security of tenure which we desire.
  Let us get this one basic point clear. The security of tenure—this point has been made before, but it is worth making again—is not given to the tenant as a right and as something related to his status as a leaseholder and an owner-occupier for many years; it is given because it is expedient at the present time that the shelter of the Rent Acts should be thrown over him. The security of tenure about which so much has been said has no real permanency. If and when there is progressive decontrol, as occurred between the two wars, these houses will lose the protection of the Rent Acts, and the security of tenure will go.
  The Government have made their attitude to the ground lessee perfectly clear. They did so in paragraph 16 of the White Paper, which was quoted by the Home Secretary during the Committee stage and the Solicitor-General during Second Reading. It said that the Government were very far from conceding that occupying ground lessees possessed such a right as a matter of principle. That is the Government's attitude, but the Opposition believe that the ground lessees have certain inherent moral rights, and our complaint about the Bill is that those rights are not granted recognition.
  I propose, briefly, to mention two cardinal defects in the Bill. One is in Part I and one in Part II. The first relates to rents. Surely it is not unreasonable to expect the Government to fix a level of rents which would be related to the level of rents on houses
  2544
  which come under the Rent Acts. However, in spite of every effort made by my right hon. and hon. Friends, we have completely failed to persuade the Government to move an inch in our direction.
  There has been no spirit of compromise at all. I make no complaint about the demeanour of the Home Secretary during our proceedings on the Bill. He has been extremely courteous, but, at the same time, incredibly obstinate. His obstinacy is always cloaked by a characteristic charm, but that does not help us in any way, and we have, unhappily, failed to persuade him to move in our direction.
  The attitude of the right hon. and learned Gentleman was summarised by him during the Committee proceedings. The words that he used are most interesting. He said:
  "… I think it would be wrong to deal the landlord a double blow—to deprive him of the right of vacant possession and also limit the rent under the Part I statutory tenancy to an artificially low level — it would be an unconvenanted mercy or benefit to the tenant if he were to get both the protection and the artificially low rent. I do not think that would be fair."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 16th March, 1954; c. 165.]
  The fact is that the tenant will have to pay an artificially high rent, and that is the argument we have advanced; in other words, what the Home Secretary meant—and he will correct me if I am wrong—is that it is a blow to the landlord for the tenant to be given security of tenure and a blow to the landlord if a ceiling to the rent to be charged under this Bill was fixed.
  I must say that the blow to the landlord has been considerably softened by the Government, and this is especially true when we consider that one landlord in Pembroke Dock will have his annual income from 1,730 houses increased from £34,000 per annum to £100,000 per annum. It is, indeed, true to say that the blow to the landlords has been considerably softened and cushioned by the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his hon. Friends. There is no talk of the blow which a tenant deprived of his birthright will suffer.
  There is no reluctance, in Clause 37, to fix a ceiling above which compensation payable to a tenant should not

  2545
  rise, and this is the sort of contradiction which we find in this Bill when we come down to details. There is a refusal to fix a ceiling to the rent, but a great readiness and willingness to fix a ceiling to the compensation payable to the tenant.
  The second deficiency to which I wish to refer is in Part II, and deals with this question of compensation. It is still far too easy for the landlord to obtain possession of business premises. The hon. Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) criticised Part II on the grounds that it would tend to "freeze" the tenant in business premises, but my criticism of Part II would be quite the opposite. It is that the loopholes to enable the landlord to obtain possession of business premises are still far too wide and too numerous.
  Clause 30 is far too widely drawn, and, under it, a small business man may find himself deprived of his home and livelihood, he may not be able to find alternative accommodation, yet at the most he can only recover twice the amount of the rateable value. Of course, big business is well able to look after itself; it is the small business man in the small country shop who will find himself in difficulty.
  I say that this Bill makes one thing inevitable. The inevitability is that the next Labour Government, at a very early stage in its career, will be bound to introduce legislation to grant enfranchisement, and I hope that that day will not be too far distant.
  3.29 p.m.
  Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: I have watched the various stages of this Bill as it has proceeded on its way with growing pessimism and dissatisfaction. The Government had an opportunity of dealing with what has been regarded for a long time as a very serious injustice to the owner-occupiers of leasehold premises. In the constituency of Brixton, which I have the honour to represent, we enjoy the melancholy distinction that Brixton has been for too long a hunting ground for the most crooked landlords in London. It has been a happy hunting ground for them, but a most unhappy hunting ground for the unfortunate occupiers of property.
  This Bill will do nothing at all to prevent some of the operations in which these crooked landlords have been
  2546
  indulging for some time of either buying the ground on which derelict property stands or buying the tail-end of leases and, by a variety of the most dubious expedients, blackmailing the tenants into paying sums to the operators for one reason or another.
  I am precluded from going into that aspect in greater detail, for reasons which are known to the Solicitor-General. Criminal proceedings are pending in one case and, to my knowledge, various civil proceedings are pending in the local county courts.
  It is most disappointing that the Government have not taken the opportunity to do something about this field of exploitation which will continue to be at the disposal of some of these crooked property speculators. It may be argued that some security of tenure has been granted to the occupiers of leasehold properties on the termination of the leases, but the tenants will merely be thrown into the very deep waters of the Rent Acts, and if and when those Acts have to be dealt with these tenants may find themselves very much worse off than they have ever been before.
  Furthermore, the difficulties and legal complexities with which these occupiers will be faced in the not-too-distant future will be increased by virtue of the fact that the legal aid scheme will not be available to them to enable the various points at issue to be effectively dealt with in the county courts.
  For all those reasons, I very much deplore this big gap which will still exist in the law and which will enable some of these crooked landlords to continue to pursue their various forms of exploitation for a long time. As has been pointed out by previous speakers, the only answer is to provide the right of compulsory leasehold enfranchisement. Until that fundamental problem is tackled, there will be no such thing as security for the people whose interests we are trying to serve.
  3.34 p.m.
  Mr. Skeffington: I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) wants to speak in a few moments and I will sit down shortly in order to enable him and the Solicitor-General to wind up the debate.
  I am grateful to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, even if only for one or two

  2547
  minutes, first of all because I did not have an opportunity to thank the Home Secretary in connection with the new Amendment Which he put down in place of paragraph (g) in Clause 30, partly I believe as a result of my representations. Although, naturally, we cannot be completely satisfied with it, we must be grateful that the difference between us is not as great as it was. May I also thank him in connection with some suggestions about the wording of Clause 38, which I gather may be changed in another place?
  The Government will not expect us to be enthusiastic on this side of the House, particularly in relation to Part I, but I think that it is worth while saying, even at this late hour, that one does realise that there are improvements with regard to leasehold law in relation to business and commercial premises. They are, on the whole, a very real advance because previously business tenants in fact enjoyed no security of tenure and no rent protection
  Even if they attempted to take advantage of the rather lame assistance of the 1927 Act and did succeed in being granted a new tenancy, they could always be defeated by the fact that the landlord merely fixed so high a new rental that the tenant could not meet and so no new lease was effected. That weakness has been to some extent remedied. There is an opportunity for continuing the lease at a rent which at any rate, will be decided by some other arbitrator than the two parties or the security value of any particular district.
  I am sorry that the Government have not thought it possible to look at paragraph (h) in Clause 30 which enables the landlord to obtain possession of business premises if he wants them for occupation for himself to carry on a business. That seems to place a very considerable handicap on the ordinary tenant as against the multiple firm, or the case as quoted by the Off-Licence Association in which they said, in a memorandum which they sent around, that many of the off-licence premises were in fact owned by brewery companies. Under the proposed legislation any brewery company desiring to obtain possession will be able to plead paragraph (h) and obtain possession of the premises on payment of a nominal sum; that is to say, the very small com-
  2548
  pensation laid down under the Bill. This seems a defect in the Bill of a character which I would not have thought the Government really wished to create and I hope that this matter will be looked into in another place.
  I shall not say anything about Part I, because there is no time to express my indignation, and I have already expressed it. May I say one thing about the contracting-out provisions in Part II? I think that what will happen in relation to Part II premises is that every solicitor advising a landlord will advise him to put in the tenancy agreement a provision to contract out of compensation payment, and the seven-year long-term leases will in many instances be a thing of the past. New terms will be restricted in future to five years. In that case the whole of the meagre compensation proposals will in any event fall to the ground. I hope that even at this late stage these arguments may be reconsidered in another place.
  3.39 p.m.
  Mr. Glenvil Hall: We all know that the Solicitor-General will want sufficient time to wind up this debate and, therefore, I intend to be as brief as I can be. It is very easy for me so to be because we have had, as I think the whole House will agree, some excellent speeches notable both for their brevity and for the fact that they have been confined to the points at issue.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) began by saying that he was rather sorry to say "Goodbye" to the Bill. For my part, I am delighted to see the back of it. We have had it with us for a good many months. We spent altogether nearly two months on it upstairs. The OFFICIAL REPORT on our proceedings there runs to nearly 700 closely printed double-column pages, and over and over again, as Ministers themselves will be the first to admit, all of us have, unfortunately, fallen into the deadly sin of repetition. Nevertheless, it is well, as we part with the Bill, to look back and consider whether we have covered any real distance as a result of the astonishing labours in which we have collectively engaged.
  I remember the Second Reading debate extremely well. There were then very high hopes on this side of the House that

  2549
  the Bill was a Measure that was worth supporting and that between us, before we parted with it, we should be able to improve it. I must say that we have been able to do very little to make it a better Bill. In addition, the more we came to consider its provisions and to hear the explanations which were given us by the Home Secretary and the Solicitor-General, the more despondent we became, at any rate about Part I.
  That is not to say, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Neepsend pointed out in his speech, that there is not much in the Bill of which we approve, and which we shall be delighted to see reach the Statute Book. But when we consider what the Bill might have been, we are extremely disappointed and feel that much of our time has been wasted.
  What is much worse, many hundreds of people who have heard about the Bill, who knew that it was to deal with the question of leasehold reform and that its object was to give security of tenure to many residential premises where leases were coming to an end, will be deeply and tragically disappointed when they come to examine the Bill after it becomes an Act.
  My right hon. and learned Friend, who is a master in this field, when summing up the effect of this Bill, pointed out that so far as Part I is concerned thousands of people will look upon it as a cruel mockery. Therefore, although I, at any rate, am glad to see the Bill leave this House, and am also glad to see some of the provisions therein reach the Statute Book, I do so with a sense of deep disappointment that this opportunity has not been taken really to make a good Measure of it.
  Sometime, as my hon. Friends on this side have pointed out, we shall have to come back to this matter, and when we do, it will be, I am almost positive, under a Labour Government. For I doubt whether the party opposite will want to touch it again for many years. In any case, it is unlikely that they will have the opportunity; but at any rate, whether this is so or not, when we on this side reach the benches opposite, we shall obviously have to try to implement the promises that have been made and to undo the injustices of the present leasehold system which now become more and more apparent.
  2550
  One matter which was mentioned by one of my hon. Friends should be mentioned again, namely, the question of legal aid. We hope that the Home Secretary will remember that many of the provisions of the Bill give the right either to the landlord or to the tenant to go to the county court. Obviously, unless things go much more smoothly than we at present can envisage, this means that the county courts will be given a great deal of extra work. That is not a thing that we have to worry about when dealing with this Measure, but we must remember that such extra work for the county court means extra costs to individuals. It will certainly mean extra legal costs to many tenants.
  We should like to feel that the Government are well aware of this and are aware, also, that this legislation, which the Government themselves have introduced, will mean that this added legal burden will, in all too many cases, be placed on people who will find it difficult to bear. We feel that the legal aid scheme ought to be extended at the earliest possible moment to assist people of this kind. I am sure that when I make a plea to the Home Secretary it will not fall on stony ground. Some of us have sat opposite him both in Committees and in the House for a long time now and have always found him most kind and courteous. But some times we wonder why anybody so intelligent and efficient can find himself unable to accept the arguments put forward with such force and cogency from this side of the House.
  We feel that the right hon. and learned Gentleman must realise that what we are saying is right and we can only assume, as I ventured to remark last evening, that he must be the prisoner of Conservative policy. If only he and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General would break away from their own back benches and the policy laid down by the Tory Conference—that is, if they ever follow what their conferences say—and treat these questions, particularly this one, as they should be treated, I feel sure that they would sleep in their beds with clearer consciences.
  We on this side of the House do not intend to divide on the Third Reading, although we are bitterly disappointed that the Government have not seized this opportunity to make a real job of the

  2551
  Bill. They have not seen their way so to do, and it is quite obvious that when this Measure reaches another place it is unlikely that it will be more radically improved than has been the case in this House. Therefore, as I say, this matter will have to be dealt with again.
  We are grateful that the Government have accepted our point of view to the extent that they have, but we feel that the Measure is not what it should be. So although we are glad to see it go and we will not be altogether sorry to see it reach the Statute Book, we feel that the earliest opportunity will have to be taken by another Government to carry on the work so tentatively and timidly here begun so that those who suffer under our present leasehold system will at last receive justice at the hands of Parliament.
  3.48 p.m.
  The Solicitor-General: I join with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) and not with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) in the view expressed about the passing of the Bill. I confess that I shall be delighted to see the back of it. During the last few years we have had many debates on the relationship between landlord and tenant. There have been two temporary Acts, a White Paper, the Second Reading of the Bill, the debates upstairs and yesterday's debate. I should not look forward with much feeling of pleasure to having to discuss in the near or immediate future any further proposals about the law of landlord and tenant.
  During the passage of the Bill we have experienced all sorts of weather. The Second Reading was somewhat stormy with a wintry atmosphere. When we got to Part II of the Bill the weather seemed to improve, although there were violent showers. Yesterday we reached the Report stage but at times during the summer weather, like all English summers, there were constant and unexpected thunderstorms. Now on this Third Reading there is the atmosphere of a pleasant summer evening, with a faint glow of sunshine from the West. Indeed it was not until we heard the hon. Members for Leicester, North-West (Mr Janner) and Pontypool (Mr. West) that there was any threat of a change of weather.
  2552
  I think our discussions have been useful throughout and I hope that they have led to appreciation of the different points of view. Of course, this Bill must be disappointing to those who have come down firmly in their own minds in favour of leasehold enfranchisement, because this Bill does not provide that and we have on more than one occasion given reasons why it does not do so. I will not endeavour to repeat them now. I can well understand the disappointment of those enthusiasts but, if they can put that on one side, I feel sure they must agree that this is a good Bill which arrives at a fair balance between the interests of the tenant, on the one hand, and of the landlord, on the other, without regard to the interests of lawyers.
  It is wrong and unjust to describe this Bill either as a cruel mockery or as one which comes down completely on the side of the landlord. It certainly does not do so in relation to Part II, which some people think goes too far. I do not take that view. I have always felt that Part II is the most important part of this Bill because it affects all kinds of tenancies of all classes of business premises. I hope that under Part II we have produced a code which will endure for many years; a code which provides an example for the good landlord and for the good tenant. I do not think that there is so much danger in the view that it will freeze tenancies, because the good landlord wants, if he can, to retain the good tenant. Sometimes in our debates we might get the impression that the majority of landlords were bad and that the majority of tenants were not so very good. I hope that Part II will prove to be of great public advantage, and it cannot be said that this part of the Bill is a landlord's benefit.
  Nor can it be said in relation to Part I. because even if it does not provide for leasehold enfranchisement, it deprives the landlord of the right that he now has in law to possession of the premises at the end of the ground lease. It deprives him also of his right, which he would then have, to sue for large sums for dilapidations and repairs.
  I do not now intend to say any more about the content of the Bill, but I want to pay a tribute to all the officials and to the Parliamentary draftsmen who have helped us. In helping us they have helped hon. and right hon. Gentlemen

  2553
  opposite both to appreciate the effect of the various proposals that have been put forward, and they have helped us also to produce a Bill which is drafted as well as a difficult Bill of this character can be drafted.
  I hope that the Bill will not require to be amended in any great degree, at least for a large number of years, that in its operation it will be shown that the fears which have been expressed about it by hon. and right hon. Members opposite have not been well founded, and that it will prove to be of benefit to the people of this country and of Wales.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

  PRIVATE BILL PROCEDURE
  Resolution of the House [24th May] relating to the appointment of a Joint Committee, and so much of the Lords Message [27th May] as signifies their concurrence in the said Resolution read.
  Select Committee of seven Members appointed to join with a Committee to be appointed by the Lords to consider what alterations, if any, are desirable in the practice and the Standing Orders of the two Houses relating to private legislation, having special regard to the desirability of lessening the expense at present incurred.
  Power to send for persons, papers and records, and to report from time to time.
  Three to be the Quorum.
  Mr. Bowles, Sir Edward Boyle, Mr. Erroll, Mr. Glenvil Hall, Lieut.-Colonel Lockwood, Mr. J. Enoch Powell and Mr. Sydney Silverman to be members of the Committee.—[Sir C. Drewe.]

  BRITISH ARMY (SOLDIER'S ILLNESS)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. R. Allan.]
  3.56 p.m.
  Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: I wish to take advantage of the Adjournment to raise the case of Private Edward George Whiten who was a National Service man attached to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. I wish
  2554
  to acknowledge that I have had from the Under-Secretary of State for War a number of letters upon this case and I appreciate the thoroughness with which he has gone into it and the manner in which he has replied. If I am raising the case on the Adjournment it is, first, to make a plea on behalf of the victim of this tragedy and, secondly, to make a plea that more human consideration should be shown to the parents of men who are stricken down with disease when on service.
  I can summarise very briefly the facts which I think are undisputed on both sides. Private Edward Whiten was a National Service man who was posted overseas in September, 1953. The place to which he was going was expected to be Korea, but in Japan he began to show some symptoms of disease and he was reported on 5th January of this year to be in the Army hospital there. On 22nd January the report came that he was in Netley Hospital near Southampton. Two months later he was examined by a leading consultant neurologist and was found to be suffering from torsion dystonia, an incurable disease. He was recommended for discharge from the Army on 29th March and was allowed to go to his home. The medical board has since met on the question of pension and has declined a pension on the ground that the disease did not arise from military service and had not been aggravated by it.
  These concrete facts are the milestones of a very tragic story. I am making the plea that this story indicates that the War Office should give more human consideration to the parents of men who may suffer in this way. Torsion dystonia is not only an incurable disease but a very distressing one. I saw this boy yesterday. He was lying in his bed and was the victim of continuous contortions.
  It being Four o'Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. R. Allan.]
  Mr. Brockway: I was saying that I saw this boy yesterday, lying in his bed in the front room of a council house and subject to almost continuous contortions. His arms were flung from one side to

  2555
  the other, his body was in continual movement, his head back on the pillow with his mouth open and he had difficulties of speech so great that one could hardly understand what he said. His stepfather, an honest-to-goodness working man, was there and his mother, a woman of extraordinary serenity and calm which indicated that she had found something of the secrets of the depth of human experience.
  The first point I want to put to the representative of the War Office is that when a man who has been serving in the Forces reaches that stage of terrible tragedy, either the War Office or the regiment ought to send some communication to the parents expressing sympathy and regret about what has happened, but not a letter has been received by the parents either from the regiment or from the War Office about the terrible condition of that boy.
  The second point I want to make is in reference to the failure of the War Office or the regiment to inform the parents, until a long period had passed, of the nature of the disease. From Japan the only information the parents had of the illness of the boy was this card I hold in my hand. Army form A2042a. It is a printed card bearing the regimental number and name of the boy, his company and battalion and just the printed word "sick" and the name of the doctor in the R.A.M.C. That was the only information the parents had from Japan of the illness.
  They were naturally concerned and the mother wrote to the commanding officer, while the stepfather got in touch with the local Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Family Association. Not one further word came to the parents until 14 days after this boy had reached the hospital at Netley, in Southampton. The explanation of the War Office is that the boy was not seriously or dangerously ill and that he could have written himself or that nurses, Red Cross workers, or the padre in the hospital ward could have written for him.
  I think it very doubtful indeed whether the boy was in a physical condition in hospital in Japan to write himself. He had written continuously to his parents; he had written from every port on the way to Japan. I find it difficult to
  2556
  believe that he would not have written in hospital if he had been able to do so. Yesterday it was pathetic to listen to his denials that he was able to write, trying to express himself, the obvious urgency in his mind.
  The very fact that this boy was flown home suggests that in the hospital in Japan he was not in the condition in which he could write to his parents. In his letter to me, the Minister says that air evacuation is quite common for cases which are not serious, but which require either further treatment or convalescence in the United Kingdom. It was obvious that the illness must have been of such a character, even while Whiten was in hospital in Japan, that further treatment was necessary.
  More than that, there is the evidence about the boy's condition when he arrived at the hospital at Netley. Can hon. Members imagine those parents going to that hospital, only having had the card to say that he was sick, and then at the hospital being warned for the first time that they must face a shock, and then seeing two orderlies bringing the boy down the corridor? The stepfather used the phrase that even while they were bringing him they "had to drag him," the contortions of his body being so great, and one orderly fell. That was the first knowledge the parents had that the boy was in such a condition. I say that if within three days of his arrival at Netley he was in that condition, the assumption is very great that he was not able to write at least for the later period of time that he was in hospital in Japan.
  The other point I wish to raise is about the delay at Netley in calling in a consultant neurologist to examine this case. Whiten reached Netley on 22nd January, and it was not until 22nd March that the consultant neurologist was called in to examine him. I suggest that there was inexcusable delay, and that some regret for it should be expressed by the War Office.
  I do not wish only to be critical of what has taken place. My greatest plea, and I hope the Minister will be able to hear my words, is that the boy should now be treated with some generosity. I think it very likely that the disease from which he suffers was inherent and did not arise from his Army service. I think

  2557
  that possible in view of the nature of the disease. But I plead with the Minister that, even if the pension which is ordinarily decided by a tribunal is not granted to this boy, in view of the experience which I have described, an ex gratia payment should be made to him.
  Mr. Edward Evans: Before my hon. Friend leaves that point, may I ask whether he can tell the House if this lad showed any symptoms of this disease in adolescence, or before he was examined?
  Mr. Brockway: I understand not. I understand that previous to his service in the Army he had a clean health record and was passed Al when he joined the Army.
  This case is going to appeal. The British Legion are representing the boy at the further hearing. But my appeal to the Minister is that, whatever may be the decision, in view of the circumstances which I have described the War Office has a moral responsibility to grant some payment to Whiten.
  The last point I wish to raise is related to this. Two months ago Whiten's brother was called up for Army service. I wrote to the Minister and he immediately responded to my request that this boy should have a special examination in view of what had happened to his brother.
  Then one Sunday morning, after the brother had been taken into the Army, the parents received a card identical with the one which they received in the case of Edward Whiten, Army form A2042a, Hospital Re-direction Card, Number, Name, Company, and "In hospital." One can imagine the shock that was to the parents.
  I am not complaining because when I rang up the hospital at Oxford I found that the boy was under a week's observation there as a result of the suggestions which I had made to the Minister. But what I am suggesting is that, in view of the record which I have described in the case of the elder brother, someone in the regiment or in the War Office should have had sufficient imagination to understand the shock and the distress which the parents would suffer when they saw an identical card about the younger boy.
  2558
  Though I am raising this matter on only one case, I am hoping that my plea will be heard by the War Office, and that some means can be found in the War Office and in the regiment to show more consideration for parents whose sons may become the victims of the kind of disease which I have described.
  4.12 p.m.
  Sir Ian Fraser: I remember that when I was a subaltern 10 or 15 of my platoon were killed in one period of 10 days. After my day's work, one of my duties, so it seemed to me, was to write a letter to the next-of-kin whose name was in the book found on the boy's body.
  I am bound to say that I do not see how the vast machinery of the Armed Forces can catch up with all individual cases like this, at least not through the War Office. Everybody knows how slow the War Office is, perhaps inevitably. But good is done when an hon. Member like the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) raises a painful case like this, because it may serve to remind all officers, padres, nurses and doctors of their duty, apart from their daily task, to think of the parents at home, and, when they can, to write a sympathetic letter to them.
  As soon as I heard of this case—when the hon. Gentleman let me know about it—I saw to it that the British Legion put in an appeal. The machinery for that is now proceeding, and we shall represent the boy at the appeal tribunal. To that extent, the question of whether he will get a pension, or whether the case will be recognised as one attributable to or aggravated by war service, is sub judice.
  It only remains for me to add my own personal sorrow at hearing of such a sad case, if one can share with the parents the very real grief which it must have been for them.
  4.14 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison): I think that the most convenient way of replying to the points made by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) in connection with this unhappy case is, first, to outline the measures and the system which the Army authorities have for informing next-of-kin when any soldier is admitted to hospital.

  2559
  In all battle casualties and in all cases of soldiers being seriously or dangerously ill, or whenever a soldier loses a limb or an eye, notification to the next-of-kin is automatic. Notification to the next-of-kin is also sent if it is felt that the soldier is incapable at that time of making a decision as to whether or not he should write himself. With the exception of those categories of casualties, in all other cases the soldier is left to decide for himself whether or not he wishes to inform his next-of-kin.
  It does not need a very lively imagination to think of a great number of cases in which a soldier would prefer that his next-of-kin was not informed, and for us, under such circumstances, to decide that, nevertheless, we were going to inform the next-of-kin would almost enter into the realm of interference in a mild way with the liberty of the subject.
  When a soldier is not in those serious categories of illness or casualty which I have outlined, he is, as soon as he is admitted to hospital, asked whether he wants his next-of-kin to be informed and whether he proposes to do it himself. If he is in a weak, tired condition in which he is not able or does not want to do it himself, it is done for him.
  As soon as he has made his decision, the card which the hon. Member had in his hand is sent by the authorities. It is, of course, a brief card, because on a card of that kind notifying admission to hospital it is not possible to go into the surrounding circumstances in the way the soldier would want to go into them if he himself decided to write.
  The card having been sent by the authorities, the soldier is left, with help from the nursing staff, Red Cross visitors or padres, who did, in fact, visit this soldier while he was in hospital in Japan, to write if he wishes. Whether it be done by them or him, the details and the way in which he wishes to break the news is left to him. If he states that he is unwilling that information should be sent to his next-of-kin, he is asked to sign a refusal book. That is the procedure which was carefully and faithfully followed in the case of Private Whiten.
  I have searched my mind in connection not only with this case but many others also, as to whether there is anything seriously wrong with the system. On the
  2560
  question of the commanding officer of the unit writing, it is possible that he may sometimes do so, but this man, unfortunately, fell, so to speak, between two stools, because the unit which he would have joined in Korea would quite possibly have written if all this had developed in Korea, but he went into hospital in Japan.
  Mr. Brockway: Might I suggest that something should be done in a case like that when the commanding officer of the man's regiment is elsewhere? Surely someone should write from Japan in a case like this when a man is on the way to a regiment in Korea.
  Mr. Hutchison: I have informed the hon. Gentleman that while the man was in hospital he could have taken advantage of the good offices of the nursing staff if he did not himself wish to write and wanted someone else to do it. There were also the padre and Red Cross visitors. In the normal course of events, they are only too willing to carry out such a task.
  Let us now look at the man's history. Except for some very minor details, the hon. Gentleman has outlined the story faithfully and correctly. The man enlisted in May, 1952, as a Regular and not as a National Service man. Until he was posted abroad, which was more than a year later, his medical documents showed no serious sickness or admission to hospital. He was posted to Korea in September, 1953, and he arrived in Japan on 11th December of that year. He reported sick on 21st December. He was admitted to hospital suffering from a nervous complaint which, at that time, was not adjudged to be serious.
  I am not a medical man, but I have inquired carefully into the symptoms at that stage. I am given to understand that the symptoms do not in 99 cases out of 100 turn out to be torsion dystonia, happily. It is a rare complaint and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to diagnose in the very early stages. Certain organic changes have to take place before that type of tic can be accurately diagnosed.
  Dr. H. Morgan: No diagnosis was made in that case?
  Mr. Hutchison: A diagnosis was available at a very early stage of the illness. The soldier was admitted to hospital suffering from a nervous complaint,

  2561
  which, at that stage, was not considered serious. It was considered to be a complaint which would benefit from psychiatric treatment, so he was sent home to the headquarters of our psychiatric treatment at Netley Hospital. He was sent home by air on 13th January for treatment and further observation.
  Meantime, the parents had been informed of his entry into hospital, but the soldier himself had not written, nor had the various agents, to which I have already referred, written either. A letter from the stepfather was received by the unit in Korea, but, since the man had not arrived, no one was able to answer the letter, and no letter was received at the hospital.
  The welfare organisations of Great Britain had been trying to find out about this on behalf of the parents, and they received a signal from Japan about his evacuation and informed the parents. Private Whiten arrived in this country and was taken to Netley Hospital on 23rd January, and his parents were informed at once.
  Mr. Brockway: The communication which informed the parents from the welfare organisation was received 14 days after the boy was back in this country.
  Mr. Hutchison: I shall have to check up on that point. The welfare organisation was inquiring from the unit in Korea, and eventually the news came back by means of this signal, and they informed the parents, perhaps at that time. I do not know; I shall look into it.
  The parents, as I said, were notified of the change of hospital, and, later, a specialist diagnosed torsion dystonia. I have already referred to the difficulty of earlier diagnosis of that complaint. During the time he was at Netley, his parents had every facility to see him, including free rail warrants and concessional travel vouchers, and so on. The parents saw the specialist, and I understand that they were satisfied with the treatment and consideration which they received. During February and March, various treatments were tried, and then the parents decided to take the soldier home and nurse him themselves; otherwise, the treatment would have been continued, either by the military or the National Health Service authorities. He
  2562
  was discharged from the Army by a medical board on 29th March, and was taken home on Friday, 2nd April.
  The question of a pension is one for the Ministry of Pensions; it is not the responsibility of the War Office, but it is under consideration at the present time. I myself hope, speaking personally, that it will be determined successfully, but there are no funds available in the War Office for an ex gratia payment in a case of this kind. The parents have been visited by a welfare officer of the Ministry of Pensions, and have also been visited by a representative of S.S.A.F.A. and the British Red Cross Society, which has supplied certain nursing equipment to help them. The welfare officer of the Ministry of Pensions is available to advise on the use of such facilities as are available under the National Health Service.
  Finally, on the question of Private Whiten's brother being called up, he was sent for a thorough medical examination, probably at the request of the hon. Member. Here, I must go back for a moment to the system once again. The hospital redirection card was sent, and I think there might have been a little more imagination used by somebody. It would be better if the card had stated that this was only a routine inspection. I should like to agree there.
  I do not know whether machinery can be evolved for similar circumstances, for this is a very special case. The brother was examined by the same neurologist who, I am glad to say, can find nothing wrong, neurologically or otherwise, with the brother, who has been discharged from hospital with a clean bill of health. All I can say is that if the brother comes under orders to go overseas, he can apply for retention in this country, and I will undertake that such an application will be considered sympathetically at that time in the light of all the circumstances then ruling.
  I was as moved as was anybody else in listening to the hon. Member's description of this boy's suffering and I should like to add my sympathy for the parents in the anxieties which they have endured and my tribute to them for the brave way in which they are bearing their distress. This is one of those sad cases which life occasionally throws up of a young man being attacked by a dangerous disease, but upon my conscience,

  2563
  looking back over the story, I cannot see what more we could have done or that the disease could have been avoided.
  4.26 p.m.
  Mr. J. Langford-Holt: I knew nothing about this matter before the debate started, but I have listened to the debate. I wonder whether my hon. Friend would consider looking into the question of the cards which apparently are sent, for there appears to be a certain degree of what one might almost call brutal frankness and abruptness in them. I quite realise the difficulties of large organisations involving millions of men which have to get their business done quickly and as briefly as possible, but would my hon. Friend consider looking at the question of this card? I have not had the advantage of seeing it.
  Would he consider whether some other form cannot be devised so that the machinery which he has described—and on the face of it I do not see much flaw in that machinery—can follow the same fundamental course but, at the same time, this abrupt language can be modified?
  Mr. Hutchison: I will look into that, but it should be remembered that this card is only part of the system. The card is brusque; it ends, I think, by saying that the man is not seriously ill. On the other hand, not long ago in the House we had a complaint following a case in which an attempt had been made on the card to say more than that. It was the case of a lad who was described in the card as suffering from multiple injuries. In fact, he had dislocated a finger and bruised another. They were multiple injuries, because there was a number of them, but it was misleading.
  2564
  Bearing in mind the difficulty of saying on the card something which might involve a long story, I will look further into the matter.
  4.29 p.m.
  Dr. H. Morgan: I am sorry that I am so late in intervening in the debate, but I wanted first to hear the whole case.
  It is clear from the debate, I think, that the Under-Secretary of State has scope for a revision of the whole system dealing with these cases, and I hope it will be reviewed with the aid of those people who know something about this problem. I know of men who deal with nothing else but this sort of case and I do not think they have ever been called in by the War Office. Unfortunately, official Departments have a tendency to live in their own little surroundings and never to leave them.
  Torsion dystonia is a very special form of nervous disease associated with war service. I think the whole system linking the War Office with the military hospitals and the military hospitals with the psychologists and psychiatrists—which requires very special and sympathetic handling—could do with a thorough review by the Department, and I hope that, taking this case as a basis, the hon. Member will look into the matter to see whether he can review the whole system and do something for cases of this sort.
  The Question having been proposed at Four o'Clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Half-past Four o'Clock.