§ 7. Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is satisfied that rents registered in 1966 under the Rent Act are actually ½ per cent. higher than previous rents; how he explains this failure to take the shortage factor sufficiently into consideration when fixing rents; to what extent rents registered recently are higher than those for similar dwellings determined in the early operation of the Act; and if he will make a statement on the changes he proposes.
§ Mr. MacCollThe figure of ½ per cent. is the overall average of a roughly equal number of reductions and increases and does not in my view show how any particular rent has been reduced because of scarcity value. Rents registered recently are in general no higher than the early registrations for comparable groups of dwellings. On the last part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to my reply to the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) on 6th June.—[Vol. 747, c. 168.]
§ Mr. AllaunWill my hon. Friend confirm that the intention of the 1965 Rent Act was to right the injustice of the exhorbitant rents which were encouraged by the Tory Rent Act? Will he bring this to the attention of those members of the rent assessment committees who are ignoring it?
§ Mr. MacCollMy hon. Friend is quite right in saying that the intention was to remedy injustices. I am sure he will like to know that the evidence is that in London, for all houses with a gross value of less than £125, the average registered 1395 rents are lower than the rents previously paid. The same is true for flats and rooms.
§ Mr. Graham PageIs it not the case that a body of precedents is emerging, as was hoped, on which the assessment committees can decide how they judge scarcity, and that they are doing their work very efficiently?
§ Mr. MacCollI think that they are doing their work very efficiently. My right hon. Friend is most anxious that more tenants should take advantage of their services.