Admiralty Houses

HC Deb 04 March 1959 vol 601 cc419-20

5 and 6. Mr. Hamilton

asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (1) if he is aware that local authorities in Fife have refused to take over Admiralty houses on the grounds that they are substandard; and whether, in view of the recent rent increases, steps will be taken to bring all Admiralty houses up to standard;

(2) to what extent the rent policy of the Department is operated with provision for rebates for needy tenants.

Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith

The local authority gave no reason for declining to take over the Admiralty houses at Rosyth, but it is presumed that one consideration was that the rents were too low to cover maintenance costs. The increased rents reflect the general standard of the houses and if the standard were to be improved the rents would have to be further in creased. If in particular cases the increase in rents already notified causes hardship, the facts should be represented through normal official channels. Some temporary concession may then be made if circumstances warrant it.

Mr. Hamilton

Is the Civil Lord of the Admiralty aware that one of the reasons specifically given by local authorities for not taking these houses over was that many of them were in a bad state of repair, and that the Admiralty has now inaugurated a rent scheme at the instigation of the Treasury—on the hon. Gentleman's own admission—whereby the tenant gets no redress from the certificate of disrepair procedure under the Rent Act? In other words, the Admiralty is, at the instigation of the Treasury, operating a rent scheme in a way which gives less protection to a tenant than he has even under the miserable Rent Act?

Mr. Galbraith

I do not think I could agree with that statement by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Hamilton

Would the Civil Lord undertake to receive representations from tenants, if need be, on this issue, because there are increases of up to 350 per cent, on decontrolled houses? Is it not scandalous that people should have to submit to this treatment without recourse to the certificate of disrepair procedure under the Rent Act?

Mr. Galbraith

I am quite willing to receive any representations on this subject.