Clause 1.—(RESTRICTION UPON RECOVERY OF POSSESSION, ETC., OF CERTAIN DECONTROLLED DWELLING-HOUSES.) (Hansard, 23 June 1958)

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. R. Bevins)
I beg to move, in page 2, line 12, to leave out "on" and to insert "until".
It might be convenient, Mr. Speaker, to take with this Amendment the following Amendment, in line 13. The two are linked together. They are drafting Amendments for the sake of greater clarity.

§ The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Mr. Henry Brooke)
I beg to move, in page 2, line 25, after "dwelling-house", to insert: or any part of the dwelling-house". Perhaps it would be convenient if we could discuss, at the same time, the next five Amendments. All six are linked together. They may at first sight appear somewhat complicated, but the matter is really simple. The purpose of these six Amendments is partly drafting, because as the Bill is now it is difficult to see what would be its effect if the occupier surrendered possession of part of the premises.
The Amendments do rather more. They give to the tenant who holds over on, say, a monthly or a quarterly tenancy a part of the premises and surrenders the remainder after the notice to quit expires, the same degree of protection as he would have had if he had retained the whole house. They also, of course, make the necessary adjustments in the rent-fixing machinery of Clause 2. I think that the object is one that will commend itself to the House generally, and that there is nothing controversial in this series of Amendments.

§ Mr. G. R. Mitchison (Kettering)
I would only say that we on this side have looked on these Amendments with that care and suspicion that the right hon. Gentleman sometimes attracts, and that, on the whole, they seem to us to be right and as likely to help the tenants or the occupiers as the landlords or the owners.

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington) has an Amendment in page 5, line 3, at the end to insert: Provided that if at the hearing of the proceedings the occupier is unable to satisfy the Court that he has complied with the terms of paragraph (c) of subsection (1) of this section the Court may order that such suspension shall be conditional upon the occupier paying the rent and the reasonable sum therein mentioned within seven days of the Court so ordering which seems to be linked with this series of Amendments.

§ Mr. Graham Page (Crosby)
I, also, have my name to that Amendment, Mr. Speaker, and there is one point in it that, perhaps, my right hon. Friend could clear up. Does his Amendment in page 2, line 35—subsection (4)—cover the case where the court would wish to make an order for possession of only part of a dwelling-house, leaving the tenant in occupation of the other part? It seems to me that in making an extension of an order for possession, the court ought to be given the power to make the order applicable to only part of the dwelling-house if the court is satisfied that the tenant is well accommodated in the remainder of the dwelling-house. I am not quite sure whether my right hon. Friend's subsection (4), would take that into account.

§ Mr. Brooke
I had rather hoped that a further Government Amendment, that in page 4, line 28, might be helpful to my hon. Friend. I expressed the view in Standing Committee—and although I have looked at the matter again, as I then promised I would do, I must stand by that view—that it really would not be practicable to give the court the power to suspend the execution of an order for possession in respect of part of the premises only, and not of the whole premises.
One reason for that is that what would really be required in such a case would be a new tenancy agreement because, if the tenancy or the occupation is no longer to extend to the whole of the 31 dwelling, but only to part of it, there are bound to be questions arising about rights of access, access to sanitary accommodation, and one thing and another, which cannot reasonably continue just as they were when the occupier was the tenant of the whole of the premises.
For that reason, the Government thought it wiser to deal with my hon. Friend's suggestion from another angle, which was to make it clear beyond all doubt that if, in fact, a part of the premises would suffice the tenant's or the occupier's needs it would be practicable for the landlord to make an offer of a new three-year tenancy for that part of the premises beforehand, and then, if the tenant had unreasonably rejected an offer of a part of the premises, he would be unable to qualify under that test in Clause 3 (1).
It seemed to us that that was a more practical way of approach than to follow along the lines of my hon. Friend's thinking, because it seemed to us quite impracticable to deal, as he suggests, with a possibility suddenly arising—though nothing had been previously discussed—of the court seeking to arrange that the occupier might stay on in part only of the premises.
I think that if my hon. Friend will consider it, he will see that it is most improbable that an order of that kind could lead to any form of satisfaction if it were not accompanied by a whole new lease, and that certainly could not be brought into the middle of the court proceedings.

§ Mr. Speaker
With the permission of the House, I will put these five identical Amendments en bloc.