HC Deb 08 December 1964 vol 703 cc1443-56
Mr. MacColl

I beg to move Amendment No. 21, in page 4, line 31, at the end to insert: (3) Where, by virtue of section 1(3) of this Act, it is not lawful for the owner of any premises to enforce against the occupier his right to recover possession of the premises except by proceedings in the county court, but the High Court has before the commencement of this Act made an order for possession in proceedings by the owner against the occupier, the order shall, on application made by the owner to the county court, be treated for the purpose of execution as if the proceedings had been taken in. and the order made by, the county court, and section 2 of this Act shall have effect accordingly. This Amendment adds a new subsection dealing with what happens when High Court proceedings have begun before the coming into force of the Bill. My right hon. Friend promised at an earlier stage to see what could be done to make the position clear about the transfer of authority. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has been able to do some work on this, and he would like to assist the House in the matter.

The Attorney-General

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for giving me this opportunity and for enabling me to get off with being a minute late. As my hon. Friend has said, the Amendment arises from consideration which has been given to the position where, before the Bill comes into effect, proceedings for possession have been instituted in the High Court.

With this Amendment it may be convenient also to consider Amendment No. 23, in Clause 6, page 4, line 43, at end insert: (3) Any proceedings in the High Court by an owner against an occupier for possession of premises to which this Act on the date on which it comes into operation applies and in which no order or judgment has been made or given by the High Court before such date shall be transferred to the appropriate county court; the Rules of the Supreme Court and of the county court shall provide for the transfer of the pleadings and files therein to the said county court and for the continuation of the action in such county court. in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson), which deals with a similar situation. It is necessary to deal with cases of this kind because, when the Bill comes into force, it will be a criminal offence to evict an occupier of premises to which the Bill relates, except on the authority of the county court. Undertakings were accordingly given in Committee to consider the position.

The Amendment in my right hon. Friend's name deals with cases where an order for possession has already been made by the High Court. During the Committee stage it was pointed out that if this situation were not expressly dealt with in the Bill, the occupier would have to start his proceedings all over again in the county court, which, clearly, would be a very undesirable situation.

The effect of this Amendment is to enable the owner of premises to apply to the county court for a High Court order made but not executed on the coming into operation of the Bill to be treated for the purposes of execution as if it had been made in the county court. The county court will be obliged to accede to this application. The application will be made in the court office and there will not be the necessity for a hearing in court in relation to the application. The order will then be treated as if it had been made by the county court before the commencement of this Bill and therefore it can be executed as a county court order without any offence being committed against the provisions of the Bill.

I should remind any of my hon. Friends who may be disturbed by that observation that, because the provisions of Clause 2 will be attracted by the Amendment, it will be open to the occupier of the premises to apply to the county court to exercise its powers to suspend the execution of the order. Reading the Report of the Committee stage discussions, I think it was the general feeling of the Committee that this was the objective at which we should aim.

Amendment No. 23 deals with a situation in part similar, that is the position where proceedings have been commenced in the High Court but no order has been made. We have looked into the matter and have come to the conclusion that no provision in the Bill is necessary to deal with that situation. Under Section 50 of the County Courts Act, 1959, either party can apply to the High Court for an action to be tried by the county court. Section 77 of the Act deals with the procedure to be followed when such an application is made. The Amendment seeks to produce this same result by an automatic transfer of the High Court proceedings into the county court and, superficially, this would be a very attractive proposition, were it workable. It would be an advantage if a transfer could take effect without any action by the parties and without any further reference to the court by way of application in the court. But, unfortunately, what is proposed by the right hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington is not practicable, for a reason which he and his hon. Friends will readily anticipate.

It is that this Bill deals only with premises which are within the jurisdiction of the county court, that is to say, premises with a rateable value not exceeding £400. As the House will know, the jurisdiction of the High Court in an action for possession is unlimited and for this reason the pleadings in the action do not contain any indication of the rateable value of premises which are the subject of an action for possession. It follows from this, therefore, that some evidence of rateable value would have to be given to the High Court before the case was transferred to the county court. Therefore, some form of application to the High Court by one of the parties is inevitable. Accordingly, for these reasons, in our view the Amendment is unnecessary and, what is perhaps a worse objection, misconceived.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for having tabled the Amendment. The moral of this seems to be for my hon. Friends not to bother about drafting Amendments, but to raise these points in Committee on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." This was a point which I raised in that way, when I pointed out an unfortunate error in the Bill.

At that time there was not a Law Officer on the Government Front Bench—certainly not a Law Officer who was awake—and the error would not have been noticed had my hon. Friends not drawn attention to it at that stage. I am grateful for the realisation by the Government, even at this late stage of the Bill, that they are not perfect in the drafting of the Measure and that there are some Clauses which can be improved, this being one of them. The Amendment will be of assistance in practice and I am glad that it has come forward.

Mr. Weitzman

The hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) is wrong in saying that it was not noticed on this side of the House. It was.

Amendment agreed to.

9.33 p.m.

Mr. Mellish

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I am privileged to be moving the Third Reading of the Bill. I am indebted to my right hon. Friend the Minister for having given me this privilege because, as the House knows, I also spoke on Second Reading. Winding up the proceedings on a Bill of this sort is for me a great honour and to have the Bill reaching this stage is a great privilege for my hon. Friends as well as for many hon. Members opposite.

Many hon. Members on both sides of the House represent constituents to whom the Bill will be of material assistance. It is hard to estimate the number of people who will be helped as a result of the passage of the Measure. From the figures I have obtained from the Department, I estimate that about 1,300,000 people in Britain are at present decontrolled tenants, many of them in that position as a consequence of the previous Administration's 1957 Rent Act.

Just prior to taking office we made it clear in our manifesto that we would repeal the Rent Act, the Measure which has resulted in so much injustice. I have no doubt that when the results of the General Election were announced many landlords, in anticipation of the Rent Act being repealed, immediately moved into action and served notices to quit on many of their tenants.

I said on Second Reading, and I repeat, that many hon. Members, including many on the benches opposite, could supply personal evidence of considerable numbers of their constituents who have received notices to quit and who face a very bleak Christmas indeed. It was for this reason that my right hon. Friend, knowing that a Measure to repeal the Rent Act must necessarily take some time—probably two or three months before being produced, and then having to pass through its various stages, involving perhaps another four or five months before it could become law—realised that it was essential, based on the advice he was given not only by his Department but by individual hon. Members pleading for assistance for their constituents, to introduce this Measure. He had the courage to introduce this emergency legislation which, certainly from the point of view of my hon. Friends, is a welcome Measure indeed.

We have had a number of detailed criticisms. The hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) has many times said that the Bill is badly drafted, but to many of us on this side its main principles are about as good as they could be—

Mr. Temple

The hon. Member has just been referring to the drafting of the Bill. Will he, in the course of his re- marks, refer to the position of caravans under this Measure?

Mr. Mellish

With very great respect, I can, on Third Reading, only speak of the Bill as it now is. Amendments dealing with caravans were not acceptable to the Chair in the Committee stage. I want to talk of the broad aspects, as I believe that the Bill affects the vast majority of people. I do not deny, we never have denied, that there is always the possible danger that in its implementation a few people might get hurt. Neither do I deny, that, for the first time in many years, there has been a tilt in rent legislation towards the tenant. I do not apologise for that, because for too long our legislation has been tilted in favour of the landlord.

The proof of that is the extent of homelessness in some of our great cities. We did not know what it was to have the problem of homelessness in London until after the 1957 Rent Act came into operation, and for most of this year we have been receiving an average of 60 or 70 homeless families a week. About 6,000 people have been declared homeless, the vast majority as a consequence of the Rent Act passed by the previous Administration. Something had to be done to stop that situation continuing, and I believe that the Bill we have produced will mean that thousands of people in our great cities and towns will now have a security of tenure denied them in the past.

We found the party opposite to be in an impossible position on Second Reading and it is again in that position now. This Bill is really the beginning of the end of the Rent Act, of which so much fuss was made. It was to solve the housing problem. Houses were to become empty overnight and so provide accommodation for those with the greatest need. That has all been proved to be absolute rubbish. That Act stopped the mobility of very many thousands of tenants who previously used to move to one property from another, and it brought in its train all the hardships of which we have heard.

It is interesting to know that one of the most powerful advocates of this Measure has been the hon. and gallant Member for Chelsea (Captain Lichfield) who, from the Opposition benches, bitterly criticised his own previous Administration for not having themselves brought in such a Measure. I said then and I repeat it, that such speeches come rather late in the day to save some of the misery of so many people. In commending this Bill to the House, we believe that it will be welcomed by the vast majority of those threatened by the 1957 Rent Act.

In Committee, we discussed furnished accommodation, with particular reference to seaside flats. I recognise that there may be some landladies who will be understandably worried by the possibility of tenants taking advantage of this Bill to move into flats like that, and try to retain the tenancies for such a period of time as to destroy those lettings that provide a living at the seaside. That might happen in one or two cases, but I do not think that it will be anything like the general complaint feared and expressed by hon. Members opposite.

I honestly do not believe that. I cannot believe that there are hundreds of people in London just waiting for the chance to go to Blackpool, and to stay there. I do not believe that they will go into that sort of accommodation—these flatlets—stay there, defy the landlady, and then be taken to court in the knowledge that the magistrate or judge will decide against them. Many of the fears expressed will not be realised. One of the things that came out clearly on Second Reading and throughout the proceedings was that perhaps the worst feature of the present system was the letting of furnished accommodation. Every one of us knew that this had to be tackled and dealt with.

I never knew that there were so many landlords who were good people who were suffering so much financially. This Bill was never designed to hurt the good landlord. I do not believe it will worry them for one moment. The good landlord never has to have recourse to the law. The Bill was never designed to touch them, but only to hurt the minority of bad landlords. It is our belief that in furnished letting accommodation we have the greatest number of offenders. In the great cities this has been a means for exploiting the tenant. The landlord puts in a little furniture and a strip of carpet which is not worth anything and calls it a furnished letting. Every hon. Mem- ber representing a constituency in a city or town knows this to be true.

My right hon. Friend had to bring in furnished accommodation. When we have the major Bill the sort of furnished accommodation in seaside flats and so on which has been spoken about will certainly be looked at because the last thing my right hon. Friend or this party wants to do is to hurt the landlord of the genuine type of furnished lettings at the seaside or a genuine flat which the owner wishes to let for a short period. But this Bill will deal quite emphatically and properly with the sort of person who has made furnished accommodation a racket. If in doing this we upset one or two hon. Members opposite and a few landladies we do not apologise. We do not apologise because in homeless units we see hundreds of British people who are without a roof over their heads. They have committed no crime, but they are there because they could not get proper furnished accommodation. This Bill was justified for that reason.

We were told that we were wrong to bring in provisions for agricultural workers. My right hon. Friend brought in the agricultural worker because the Labour Party has for years said that we believe the agricultural worker in the tied cottage has had a raw deal. He had the right to security of tenure and to insist on the owner of the property going to court. We are not concerned here with the decent farmer but with a few bad ones. The decent farmer need not worry about this Bill.

This Bill is a temporary Measure. We expect that in a few months it will be replaced and overtaken by a major Bill. In the meantime it will give to many people the security of tenure which they have a right to expect. By giving the Bill an unopposed Third Reading, the House can send it to another place with the message that we want to see it on the Statute Book before Christmas because speed is imperative. The Commons regards this Bill as one of the most important we could bring before Parliament at this time because of the thousands of people involved who are crying out for the security of tenure that the Bill will give.

9.44 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

It is customary when a Bill has had the full and proper discussion which this one has had for speeches on the Third Reading to be mercifully brief and of as amiable a character as possible. In the light of that tradition I searched my mind for something agreeable to say about this Bill at this stage, but the only thing I could find was that it is at any rate a less bad Bill than when it was introduced.

As the Joint Parliamentary Secretary mentioned, reference has been made in our discussions to the drafting of the Bill. I have not for many years seen a Bill presented so badly drafted as this one. That is evidenced by the very large number of drafting Amendments it has been necessary to make during our proceedings. Those Amendments ensure that those who will have to interpret the Measure will have a less difficult task than they would have had had the House and the Committee not done their duty by the Measure.

I do not propose to rehearse again the arguments which were adduced on the main issues of the Bill. I must take up the point made by the Parliamentary Secretary about the homeless. The implication of what he said was that the Bill will diminish the number of homeless. Will it? Will it increase in any degree the total of accommodation, which is the only way in which homelessness can be dealt with? There are features of the Bill which make it the more likely in some respects that the supply of accommodation will be diminished rather than increased. Though I fully understand the Parliamentary Secretary's feelings, I ask him to reflect that legislation does not always have the effect for which it is designed, and it is our experience of controls in this and other spheres that they often have the unhappy side effect of diminishing the supply of the thing being dealt with.

Mr. Mellish

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has seen the figures of the number of homeless in London, but he will probably know them. These figures are certainly available to members of his own party who are members of the London County Council. The figures are broken down to show how these people have come to be homeless, for what reason? I ask the right hon. Gentleman to study the figures of the past and the present figures. That will provide the answer.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

The answer is a little more difficult than that, as the hon. Gentleman will realise, if he reflects. Whether it is in this great city or in the country as a whole, the problem of homelessness is dealt with only by increasing and making fully available the sum total of accommodation. Therefore, the only relevance of the problem of the homeless to the Bill is whether the Bill when enacted will increase or diminish the sum total of accommodation available. It seems to many of us that the effect of the Bill—not the purpose, but the effect—particularly perhaps in regard to furnished lettings, will be to diminish rather than increase the supply.

There was one hopeful moment in the course of our discussions. It was in the speech of the Minister on an Amendment earlier this evening. The right hon. Gentleman then indicated that, though the Bill itself is on a universal national approach, he did not wholly reject the idea of a regional treatment of the problem. I was glad to hear that. I am sure that the whole House was glad to hear it. Many of us who have thought upon the problem a good deal are becoming more and more convinced that some measure of differentiation in the treatment of the problem in different parts of the country will make for its more effective treatment.

In those circumstances, I particularly regret the fact that, for reasons which seemed to me wholly unsubstantial, the right hon. Gentleman did not translate that bit of forward thinking into an Amendment. It would have been a better Bill and I do not believe that it would have been delayed a day. I think that those who have studied the problem will agree with me about that.

As the House knows, my right hon. and hon. Friends and I approach the Bill with two thoughts in mind. First, as I said on Second Reading, we accept that, in the light of the problem created by the Government's announcement of their intention to repeal the Rent Act, because it was that which created the problem, it was necessary to provide something on the lines of Clause 1 to prevent a minority of landlords, in apprehension of the right hon. Gentleman's forthcoming Measure, unnecessarily and unfairly evicting tenants. We said that on Second Reading and I gave an undertaking, which has been carried out, that, though, in view of many of its terms, the Bill would have to be critically examined, it would be subjected to no undue delay. For that reason, it is certainly not our intention to divide against its Third Reading.

I must also make it very clear that we regard many parts of the Bill as being wholly extraneous to that purpose. We remain utterly convinced that that emergency purpose, to use the right hon. Gentleman's phrase, has little, if anything, to do with the provisions in respect of agricultural tied cottages and furnished lettings. Whatever the merits or demerits of these proposals, they are proposals which could well have been—and more fairly have been—put forward on another Measure. That is the view which we have consistently expressed throughout the debate. As I said, it is not—

Mr. A. Woodburn (Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire)

Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that in previous legislation of this kind to stop rackets, the main effect has been to stop the rackets without involving people in legislation at all? The fact that the Bill is on the Statute Book will make these people reasonable and make landlords come to reasonable terms with their tenants. The owner will never have to go to court at all, in the vast multitude of cases.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

That is a very interesting intervention. Its precise relevance to what I was saying—or, indeed, to the Third Reading—is perhaps more arguable.

What we were concerned about was that the particular provisions which I mentioned are not consistent with the proclaimed initial purpose of the Bill, the purpose in respect of which the Minister appealed for our co-operation in its passage and the reason which the Minister himself gave for its being put through Parliament speedily. I must make this clear. The fact that, for this reason, we have given not too difficult a passage and one without unnecessary division to this Measure in these circumstances does not indicate that when some of the features of this Bill are reflected—as we are told they will be—in a further Measure, that Measure or that part of it will receive similar treatment. It would be unfair to the Minister to leave him in any misunderstanding about that.

Mr. Crossman

I never thought that.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

The right hon. Gentleman is capable of so many misapprehensions that I thought that I would relieve him of one. Though we have improved this Bill, it is in many respects not a good Bill, and even the greatest supporters of the Government would not say that it was the jewel of this Sessions' legislative programme.

9.53 p.m.

Mr. Weitzman

I shall not detain the Committee for more than a few moments, but I cannot, in view of the speech which we have just listened to from the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), let his remarks pass without comment. To say that this Bill was made necessary by any action on the part of this party or this Government is so absurd that we ought to refute it immediately. I congratulate my hon. and right hon. Friends on having brought it in now and on having passed this Measure, which I hope will undo a great deal of the evil which was brought about by the party opposite when it was in office.

9.54 p.m.

Mr. Peter Griffiths (Smethwick)

I rise to speak on the Bill as amended. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and the proof of the Bill will be in its operation as an Act. It is most unusual, but we have already in my constituency put the Bill to the test. I have listened to the debate on this Bill, particularly on the Second Reading and in Committee, and again today. I fully appreciate the need for the Bill if the period preceding the repeal of the Rent Act is not to be abused by an unscrupulous minority of landlords.

At the same time I believe that the Bill as amended will prove to have very serious deficiencies. Although it is intended to be purely a temporary Measure, it could have been used to advantage if it had been sufficiently widely drawn. The aim of the Bill has been stated to be the prevention of mass evictions in a very short period of time. My constituency is faced with a special problem which has led to the close examination of the provisions of this Bill, because we had hoped that we might be able to make use of it immediately.

A large firm in my constituency has ceased operation. In several streets there are rows of houses held on service tenancies. These houses are now up for sale. Should the firm give these service tenants notice to quit, they will be without protection when this sale is completed, and this in a town with a dreadful housing shortage. Even if the firm does not do this and sells with sitting tenants, accepting a lower price, some of the tenants who have already been given notice to quit because they have accepted alternative employment will be faced with the same threat of eviction that I have mentioned because they have been given notice to quit prior to the sale. It may be possible through the efforts of the Mayor of Smethwick or myself to persuade the company not to take the action that I have mentioned.

Mr. Cyril Bence (Dunbartonshire, East)

Name the firm.

Mr. Griffiths

These efforts may be successful, but the fact is that when this Bill was tested it was found wanting. It has raised false hopes, and I think that is worse than raising no hopes at all. It could have been a useful weapon in the hands of those who are dealing with housing problems at a local level. Instead, the first time that it has come to be tested, it has proved to be something of a broken reed.

9.58 p.m.

Mr. B. T. Parkin (Paddington, North)

In spite of the panic-stricken approach from the Deputy Chief Whip, I feel that I might be allowed to say a few words on the Bill at this late stage. If I have said nothing up to now in the debate, it is because I want to see the Bill through, and speed is the essence of it.

However, the Bill has a greater significance than my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has shown in his speeches up to now. He has insisted on the temporary character of the Bill. To me it means the end of a barbarous and uncivilised practice of dumping people into the street, without any provision as to what shall happen to them, without any administrative follow-up of a legal process.

As this practice has done more than anything else to get the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) seated where he is sitting now instead of on this side of the House, we are entitled to say that this is a change achieved by consent of public opinion in this country, manifested by the voices of many hundreds of thousands of people in parties other than my own—indeed, by representatives of property owners themselves—who want to see the end of this practice and who are prepared to concede that security of tenure must be re-established according to law.

The other day I came across a piece by Charles Dickens, written when he was doing propaganda for the abolition of public executions. It was the public aspect of it that moved him most. He said I am solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity could devise to be done in this city, in the same compass of time, could work such ruin … I do not believe that any community can prosper where such a scene of horror and demoralisation … is passed by, unknown or forgotten. There is this other side to it. We have heard a great deal of the sufferings of those who are evicted, but I am concerned with the demoralising effect on the public. It is astonishing that we should have become numbed into an acceptance of this process over the years, so that many other issues and other aspects of the law that might have been cleared up have been confused.

In the course of one of my election speeches in one of the crowded areas in my constituency, where I was giving one of my usual clear sociological exposés, an eviction scene took place within 100 yards of where I was speaking, and nobody took any notice. It was only at the point when violence was taking place, when one man was shaking pieces of milk bottle out of his hair, when another man had got a bent iron bar in his hand and three people, including a woman, were struggling on the ground that I hastened to intervene, and I was restrained by the passers-by who thought that it was wrong of me to get involved in such a commonplace scene. This was the normal practice. The story, when investigated, was of incredible complexity—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.