HOUSING BILL (Hansard, 27 June 1961)

HC Deb 27 June 1961 vol 643 cc210-328 210

§ Order for consideration, as amended (in the Standing Committee), read.

§ 3.50 p.m.

§ Mr. Speaker
I think that it may be convenient if I indicate, before I call on the Minister to move his recommital Motion, which Amendments to that Motion are selected.
I would select the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart), subject to certain modifications if he were prepared to accept them. I would accept it if it read, line 6, at the end to add "and in respect of the Amendments to Clause 4, page 6, line 3; Clause 5, page 6, lines 35 and 44, and the proposed Clause—(Acquisition of houses in multiple occupation.)

§ Mr. Michael Stewart (Fulham)
The Amendment that you have suggested, Mr. Speaker, would rule out the new Clause—(Register of houses in multiple occupation). We had rather special reasons for wishing to move the Clause in the particular form proposed, which provides for the register not to be compiled at once but after a lapse of two years after the passing of the Bill. I should be grateful, Mr. Speaker, if you could see your way to explain why you have thought fit not to select that Clause.

§ Mr. Speaker
It is not the practice to give explanations. I assure the hon. Gentleman that not only did I read his letter on the subject with great care, but that I am most grateful to him for writing it out, so that I should miss nothing that he wished to urge. I have not missed the point about two years. I considered the matter most carefully and came to the conclusion that I must not call that new Clause.
I was not proposing to select the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun), and, to be completely fair, about it, I should like to explain that, in my view, of the two Clauses to which it relates each is out of order.
I propose to select the Amendment in the name of the hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) and 211 the Amendment in the name of the hon. Lady for Flint, East (Mrs. White).

§ Mr. Frank Allaun (Salford, East)
May I put a point to you, Mr. Speaker, on what you have said about the two new Clauses which my hon. Friends wish to move? The major one deals with the matter of houses without baths. As you know, there are about 5 million families without baths. Therefore, this is a major item of importance and in the Bill the Minister deals with this specifically. He proposes to increase the money paid to landlords for doing this kind of thing, that is, introducing baths, and to increase the grant from Government expenditure.
The hon. Members who support this new Clause regard the Minister's proposal as completely unsatisfactory. We claim that this will fail, as dismally as his attempt to bribe landlords in the past has done. Therefore, in this new Clause we propose an alternative method of getting the baths supplied. To overcome the reluctance of the landlords to do so, we are proposing that it should be done on the application of the tenant.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am sure that the hon. Member will understand that I almost handed him this opportunity to argue his case, but not on the merits of the Clause I assume that it is very important, but I have to decide whether it is in order.

§ Mr. Allaun
I accept that, Mr. Speaker. I think that there should be an opportunity during the passage of the Bill to present an alternative course. The actual grounds on which I wish to press the point are these. In the Money Resolution—and I am quite sure that that is the reason why these Clauses are not being taken—if you. Mr. Speaker. will refer to paragraph C (4, a) you will see that it reads: Relaxation of the requirements as to which a local authority must be satisfied before approving an application for a standard grant. One of the requirements at present in force is that the landlord himself applies for such a grant, and it is precisely this consideration that we are asking to be relaxed. In other words, it should be no longer essential that the landlord applies for the grant. Therefore, we are asking you, Mr. Speaker, to consider this not only because of its constitutional propriety, but also because of the grave im- 212 portance of the matter, and to consider that this comes within the Money Resolution.

§ Mr. Speaker
The last words which the hon. Gentleman addressed to me would appear to be relating to his Clause, the marginal note of which is, "Right of tenants to claim improvements". My difficulty about that is that although one of the matters about which the authority has to be satisfied is truly the interest of the applicant, his stake, as it were, in the land, the hon. Gentleman's new Clause is not relaxing the requirements as to which the local authority must be satisfied before approving; it is by-passing the whole process of approval, by-passing the whole process of application and substituting a new system of a declaration by the tenant ultimately to be followed when the work has been done by a deemed application. I cannot conceive that as being nothing more than a relaxation of some requirements of which the authority has to be satisfied for giving approval to an application. It seems to be nonsense in terms of language to say that.
As regards the other one—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was pressing the other one on me or not when he was talking about supplying baths—I shall not argue it out with him if he does not want to argue its virtues.

§ Mr. Allaun
Let me make it clear, Sir, that what I am arguing about at the moment is precisely the Clause which would supply baths.

§ Mr. Speaker
I should like to have it clear in my mind. There are two Clauses. Each has a marginal note. Whether or not they are in order is to be governed by different principles. Let us talk about them one at a time. Let this one be—"Right of tenants to claim improvements".

§ Mr. Allaun
That is the major one and the one on which I am arguing. The claim is that there are certain requirements at present which have to be satisfied. One of these requirements is that the landlord is willing for this to be done. The new Clause proposes that these requirements should be relaxed. That is precisely what we are asking. Other requirements would exist, the 213 local authority's approval, and so on. It seems to me, therefore, that this falls strictly within paragraph C (4, a).

§ Mr. Speaker
It is strange how differently the same things strike different minds. Knowing the importance attached to this, if I could make this Clause live and give the House an opportunity to discuss it within the Money Resolution, and this was within my power, I would most eagerly do so. But I have to look at the Money Resolution as though it were a Statute binding on me. What the new Clause would require goes far beyond that in my view.

§ 4.0 p.m.

§ Mr. John McCann (Rochdale)
But may not an application by a tenant constitute an application under the present law?

§ Mr. M. Stewart
May I, Mr. Speaker, raise a point of order, affecting the other of my hon. Friend's new Clauses—(Modification of conditions for standard grants)?
I do not think that the objection that you have just raised to the Clause—(Right of tenants to claim improvements)—can apply to that one. Indeed, I think that it would appear to the layman at once that this other Clause—(Modification of conditions for standard grants)—is directly within the Money Resolution and the Long Title of the Bill, which speak for the relaxing of conditions.
When this matter was discussed in Committee the Ruling that we were there given was that my hon. Friend's Clause was out of order because it proposed to reduce the number of the standard amenities. Under the present law it is one of the conditions of the grant that when the work is completed the house shall be endowed with five standard amenities. The purpose of my hon. Friend's new Clause is to make it possible for the grant to be given even if at the end of the work only three of those standard amenities are provided. I am suggesting that the layman would consider that a relaxation of the conditions and, therefore. in the terms of the Money Resolution. The Ruling which the Chair in the Committee gave—

§ Mr. Speaker
There is no need for me to know about it. It is not binding on me.

214

§ Mr. Stewart
I do not think that it could he held against my hon. Friend's new Clause that that fact alone—that it alters the number of the standard amenities of the house—could make his new Clause out of order. Otherwise, if he had chosen, say, to leave out one of the standard amenities, say, a hot water supply, and to insert the provision of an aspidistra, he could have got the Clause in order. What he has done is simply to reduce the number of the standard amenities, and I would have thought that that was a straightforward relaxation of the conditions and that the Clause could, therefore, properly be regarded as in order.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am very grateful to the hon. Member for putting it so neatly, but it is a little more difficult than that, I think. What the Money Resolution would allow in this context would comprise relaxation of the requirements as to which a local authority must be satisfied before it approves an application. Before it makes a grant it has to be satisfied of something else—before it makes a grant under Section 4 of the Statute.
I do not know whether the hon. Member has the Statute. I do not wish to burden him unduly with words. Before the grant is made the local authority has to be satisfied that works are completed to the satisfaction of the local authority, and what has to be approved before an application for standard grant is made is set out, as the hon. Member knows, in Section 5 (1) which shows that the matters the authority has to be satisfied about are those mentioned in subsections (2) and (3) of that Section, neither of which relates to baths or standard amenities or anything of that kind. So that I cannot get the hon. Member's Clause within that limb of the Money Resolution.
I did try the other one. There are some words, which at first sight look a bit attractive, about redefinition of standard amenities. The difficulty is that the Clause does not redefine any of them but leaves them defined in exactly the terms they are now, so I could not, on either line, take the view that the Clause comes within the Money Resolution.

§ Mr. Frank Allaun
I apologise for troubling you again, Mr. Speaker, because it is not my line of country to 215 quibble over Rulings, I am not very good at it and I would rather get down to the substance of the business, but in relation to the new Clause which we are now discussing—and we understand which that is—I should like to read to you paragraph C (4, b) of the Money Resolution, which mentions the redefinition of standard amenities". To be strictly accurate, what we are proposing to do in this new Clause is to seek modification of standard amenities.
You may say, Mr. Speaker, that modification is not the same thing as redefinition, but I would put it to you that, during the long discussion in Committee, exactly this was done by the Minister with permission. We did not object. He has modified the terms on which these grants are applied. I do not want to go into detail. We agreed to it without difficulty. However, he himself, during the passage of the Bill in Committee, did modify those conditions on which grant could be allowed.
That is precisely what this new Clause proposes to do, and, irrespective of the merits of the Clause, it does seem to me quite as in order as what was done by the Minister and accepted by the Committee.

§ Mr. Speaker
I have not in mind what the Minister was doing. He did a lot of things, and I was not there. The point is that the material Section, that is, Section 4 of the 1959 Act, says: Subject to"— so and so— a local authority shall give assistance in respect of the improvement of any dwelling by"— so and so— by such works as may be required for the dwelling to be provided, for the exclusive use of its occupants. with the standard amenities, that is to say— Then it sets out what the standard amenities are and, of course, it is those terms in which the standard amenities are set out which define them. So I cannot say that the hon. Member's Clause involves any redefinition of them. By saying, "You can get away with three instead of having all," it does not redefine them. I am sorry, but the point is precise, and I have to be stern about it.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be re-committed to a Committee of the whole House in respect of the 216 Amendments to Clause 10, page 11, line 13; Clause 15, page '16, lines 14 and 16; Clause 16, page 17, lines 8, 16, and 17, and page 18, line 1; Clause 17, page 18, line 9; the proposed Clause (Provision of means of escape from fire); and the proposed Clause (Application to certain buildings comprising separate dwellings), standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. Henry Brooke.—[Mr. H. Brooke.]

§ Question amended, by adding, at the end: and in respect of the Amendments to Clause 4, page 6, line 3, Clause 5, page 6, lines 35 and 44, and the proposed Clause (Acquisition of houses in multiple occupation), standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. Michael Stewart"— [Mr. M. Stewart]; and in respect of the Amendments to Clause 3, page 4, line 45, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mrs. Joyce Butler"—[Mrs. Butler]; and in respect of the Amendment to Clause 5, page 6, line 44, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mrs. Eirene White."—[Mrs. White];

§ and, as amended, agreed to.

§ Bill immediately considered in Committee.

§ [Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

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