§ Captain HewitsonI have been requested by the citizens of Hull to seek your permission, Mr. Speaker, to present a Petition against the Rent Bill. They claim that, with 86,715 houses damaged and only 6,000 untouched during the bombing in the war, they are suffering from a very severe shortage of housing accommodation in their area. If the Bill becomes operative, many of them, having lost security of tenure, will have to pay very high uncontrolled rents because no alternative accommodation will be available, but the vast majority of them, whilst retaining security of tenure, will have to pay severe increases in rents with no guarantee that their places will be maintained in an adequate and proper state of repair.
They ask, therefore, that, if the Bill cannot be amended to deal with these injustices, it should be abandoned altogether. They conclude by saying, as they are entitled:
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
§ To lie upon the Table.