HC Deb 01 November 1965 vol 718 cc762-5

Lords Amendment No. 12: In page 11, line 6, at end insert new Clause "B":

new Clause "B", which the Minister, I imagine, will shortly move. The new Clause is certainly an improvement on what went before, but it has one strange omission. While it covers the problem of the farm cottage, it excludes the problem of the farm house. This seems to my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself to be a strange omission in a Measure which is allegedly designed to assist the housing problem of the agriculture industry.

What will happen if the Minister and his colleagues do not accept our Amendment but merely give a provision which covers the farm cottage and excludes the farmhouse? The first by-product will be seriously to hamper the much-vaunted farm amalgamation scheme, and I suspect that the Minister knows this. If at a future date farm A and farm B are amalgamated under the new scheme and the owner-occupier of farm A simply has farm B merged into his holding, he probably would not want to move from farmhouse A but might simply run the new amalgamated holding from the house which he has always occupied. The old, former occupier of farmhouse B probably retires and, if he is lucky enough, finds a house to retire to, if the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues enable him to do so without being caught out on the problem of getting possession. Farmhouse B is temporarily redundant in the sense that the owner-occupier of farm A does not want it for the time being.

What does the right hon. Gentleman suggest he should do with farmhouse B? Is he just to leave it empty? Because if he lets it to a non-agricultural tenant he is completely caught out. No matter what circumstances may arise in the future, even the immediate future, no matter how unforeseen those circumstances may be, if farmhouse B is let the owner-occupier of the holding is in very great difficulty. If he has a son who gets married and he wants to take his son into partnership he cannot put him into farmhouse B. If one of his own employees, adequately housed at the moment, but with a growing family, so that he will become under-housed in two or three years' time, asks "Can you find me a bigger house?", although farmhouse B may be a suitable house, if it is let, he is completely hamstrung. So there is no alternative but for the farmer to leave farmhouse B unoccupied, empty, and, may be, deteriorating in the damp.

That is the first effect of the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment. He may say that this is hypothetical. I do not think it is, but let me give him another example, not hypothetical at all. I would invite the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues to give me some advice on how I should deal with the problem at my own home. This is not hypothetical; it is actual. A farm tenant of mine died a little time ago, and I took the farm in hand last Michaelmas. The tenant's widow moved out of the farmhouse and built herself a very nice bungalow. The farm tenant employed two men; neither of them married; and they are merely working for me now instead of the farm tenant, and they are living where they lived before. So for the moment at any rate the farmhouse is surplus to my requirements, I am simply farming the farm alongside the farm I have had in hand for many years. I do not at the moment want the farmhouse.

What am I to do with it? If I let it I am a hostage to fortune. If I let the farmhouse that will prevent me at any future date from letting the farm as a whole, because, as I suspect the right hon. Gentleman knows, it is very difficult to let a farm without a farmhouse; if I let the farmhouse that will also prevent me at any future time from selling the farm if I want to—because, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows, it is not easy to sell a farm without a farmhouse. What happens if one of the two bachelors gets married and wants accommodation? The farmhouse would be very suitable. If it is let it will not be available. So all I can do is to leave that farmhouse empty. I have no alternative.

Let me give the right hon. Gentleman another variant of the same difficulty. I have a farm foreman; he is married but has no children; instead of living in the farmhouse he prefers to live in a cottage over the way. The farmhouse is empty. I dare not let it. May I have the right hon. Gentleman's attention for one moment? I want him to give me some advice. The farmhouse is empty. I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell me whether—

Mr. Crossman

I am baffled by the hon. Gentleman. I am giving the closest attention to what he is saying. If suddenly for a moment I glance at my hon. Friend beside me that is not an insult to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

It is very distracting.

Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe

I had a very shrewd suspicion that the right hon. Gentleman really was not paying very much attention to the argument, and I want him to give me some advice.

If I let the farmhouse I am completely sunk, because if anything were to happen to my foreman—I sincerely hope it will not because he is very good but he might get ill or have an accident, and sooner or later he will want to retire—I would have to replace him. I might want to replace him with a farm foreman who has a large family, and the only house available would be the farmhouse.

I am quoting my own affairs as a typical example of what can happen. I have two farmhouses, both of them empty, within a mile and a half of each other. I have no option but to leave them empty, because if I let either or both of them I am in baulk. I cannot conceivably deal with contingencies which might arise in the future if I have not got accommodation, and this would seriously hamper the running of both farms. This is what is happening with new Clause B which covers the farm cottage but which excludes the farmhouse.

I have a shrewd suspicion that the right hon. Gentleman does not really understand the omission that he has made. In another place the Government spokesman, when dealing with a comparable Amendment—

It being Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Lords Amendments stood adjourned.