§ RENT CHARGES
§ A local authority shall not create a rent charge on any land sold by that authority.—[Mr. Michael Cocks.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ 4.15 p.m.
§ Mr. Michael Cocks (Bristol, South)I beg to move. That the Clause be read a Second time.
1452 The Clause is the next stage in a campaign that I introduced to the House through my Rent charge Abolition Bill on 16th December, 1970, when I referred to the large number of representations which had been made to me about this system in the Bristol and West Country area, where it prevails, and gave the House some details from a submission that I had made to the Law Commission on this subject.
This peculiar system was the subject of a working paper, No. 24, by the Law Commission, which said that there was a prima facie case for its abolition. Since this is such an archaic and obscure form of land tenure, it may help hon. Members who are not entirely familiar with it if I spend a moment explaining it.
Hon. Members are accustomed to think of houses being either freehold or leasehold and subject to a ground rent, but in both the Greater Manchester area and the areas around Bristol we have the peculiar system of land being freehold but subject to a rent charge. The point that I urged on the House is that this system is spreading outwards to areas of new development like some sort of loathsome plague.
The original justification for this system, which was that it was possible for a landowner to release land to a builder without receiving a capital sum but receiving instead an income from these rent charges, or chief rents as they are called in the Manchester district, no longer exists. It was this lack of any further justification for the continuation of this system which suggested to the Law Commission the prima facie case for its abolition.
On 8th November last year I asked the Attorney-General when he expected to receive the final report from the Law Commission on this matter, and he said that it would be some time this year. I urged on him at that time the need for speed.
One of the defences for this system is that people have the right under Section 191 of the Law of Property Act, 1925, to redeem. But I said that this right is not generally known, that many solicitors are not helpful, and that gross anomalies are arising out of people's ignorance of the law.
1453 I gave an example to the House, when speaking on my Bill, of 25 years' purchase being asked for a rent charge of £2.50. When it was asked whether people had rights to redeem compulsorily, a letter was sent saying that a person asking to redeem on a compulsory basis could not be accommodated by giving the rent away at the compulsory purchase price. The letter went on to say that if such people were not prepared to pay a reasonable sum they must exercise their rights in the normal way. In January I asked the Secretary of State for the Environment the current rate for certified redemptions, and the answer was, 12.284 years purchase.
Since I brought this matter to the House, there has been a further complication in that the Lands Tribunal has given a decision on the price of a house sold on lease with 75 years to expire. In the case of Jenkins v. Bevan Thomas, after evidence had been submitted on valuation of long leases, by Mr. William Ricketts, a decision was given that Mrs. Jenkins could buy out her long lease for 10 years' purchase. If this decision becomes standard, it represents a grotesque anomaly, to be able to purchase a long leasehold at a cheaper rate than that at which one can redeem the rent charge on land which one already owns.
There is now a general feeling against these rent charges. Two private Bills came before the House recently. They were promoted by Bath and Solihull Corporations. In the sections dealing with investment of superannuation funds there was a provision that they could be put into leasehold or ground rent charges. I put it to those corporations that the passage of those Bills would be expedited if those provisions were removed. I had a letter from the parliamentary agents dealing with the Solihull Bill saying that they had asked the Committee to which the Bill was referred to delete the whole of that subsection.
All these pressures point in one direction. I call the attention of the House to the example of Bristol Corporation, which for years has not created rent charges when selling land in its possession. It has a system of direct transfer of plots to individual purchasers. This I drew to the attention of the Minister in Committee, and he said that he would 1454 look at it with a view to possible action in future.
While this problem is not restricted to land which local authorities dispose of, I ask the House to accept the new Clause because this is a matter in which we should set an example. We should show the country that this House is prepared to take this question seriously and that, although the overall position probably has to wait for the report of the Law Commission, here we can strike a small blow for freedom from this archaic system. I have written to national developers who are in the habit of imposing these charges, and I received a reply saying that it will no longer be their policy to impose them.
I ask that in this small sector in which local authorities dispose of land we should take the opportunity to show that we are aware of this anomaly. I ask the House to pass the Clause as a small token of our intention to stamp out a thoroughly unjustifiable practice.
§ Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones (Eccles)My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks) has described the situation in Bristol. There is a similar situation in Manchester. On 16th December my hon. Friend referred to this practice as the "Bristol twist". In Manchester it is known as the "Manchester swindle". The situation there is even worse. This is a scandal which should be stopped at once. It is a disgraceful situation. Only hon. Members representing Manchester constituencies are aware of this vicious piece of permissive legislation. It may be legal, but it certainly is not moral.
I can quote examples of 80-year old ladies who are unable to write to me because they are suffering from arthritis and also cannot come to my political surgeries because they cannot walk. I have had to visit them in their homes. I suddenly realised that one of these old ladies is responsible for collecting the rent charge. My hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) has advised me to use the word which we use in Manchester and call them "chief rents". They are a bitter bone of contention. This 80-year old lady is responsible for collecting these rent charges not for her own house but for the whole street. She cannot walk and cannot write; she cannot 1455 move from her home, and yet she is legally responsible for collecting the rent charges from everybody in her street. How absurd can things be? This may be legal, but it is damnably immoral. It is high time that we moved in this matter.
There may be legal difficulties, but they should be overcome so that disabled people do not have to collect chief rents. My hon. Friend has advanced a reasonable and straightforward case. I speak for the town clerks of the Boroughs of Swinton, Pendlebury and Eccles. They would never dream of imposing such charges through the local authority. This Clause may go a small way towards preventing such an abuse in future. I hope that it may be accepted so that local authorities can set an example and these scandals may be removed.
§ Mr. R. C. Mitchell (Southampton, Itchen)In Southampton we have another name for this—"perpetual rent charge". Notice the first word in the phrase. For 15 years I lived in a house on which there were these iniquitous charges. When I tried to purchase it I was told that I could buy it at a 25-years' purchase price. Hon. Members may imagine the answer I gave. I think it was contained in two words.
I hope that the Government will accept this Clause, Although by this Bill we cannot get rid of these wretched charges which apply not only in Bristol, Manchester and Southampton but elsewhere under various names, the Clause would represent a first step in reform, for local authorities could not then create any new rent charge. I regard this as only the first step in getting rid of the whole lot.
§ Mr. Frederick Corfield (Gloucestershire, South)I apologise to the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks) for not being present when he began speaking. I take this first opportunity to congratulate him in the House on his campaign to get rid of these rent charges in the Bristol area.
I did a detailed study on them 10 years ago and found it evident that this practice was so universal that there was no choice between an unencumbered freehold and an encumbered freehold. The payment of a rent charge enables the purchaser of a house at a lesser price to 1456 be charged additionally on the property. I believe these charges are quite wrong and entirely out of date. I hope that my right hon. Friend will accept the new Clause.
I accept, as the hon. Gentleman does, that, owing to the nature of the Bill, he cannot go as far as he would like. I know that the Law Commission is studying the problem, and it was kind enough to let me see its interim report some years ago and ask for my comments. I appreciate the legal problems of getting rid of the existing rent charges, but there is no legal problem in preventing such charges from being created in future. I hope that we shall take his small step towards doing so.
§ 4.30 p.m.
§ Mr. Mary Holt (Preston, North)I had not intended to speak but I was surprised to hear this attack upon rent charges.
It appears that an important distinction is to be drawn between ancient rent charges, which were created hundreds of years or perhaps 150 years ago in the Manchester and possibly the Bristol areas, and new rent charges today being created by conveyancers on the development of freehold flat schemes.
It is a well known defect of the law of real property that positive convenants are not enforceable against successors in title of the original grantee. The use of free rent charge with right of re-entry to the annex to it is a well-known device for securing the enforcement of restrictive covenants on development of blocks of flats. It is in the interests of every purchaser of a flat in a freehold development—and many people want them to be freehold—that restrictive covenants should be enforceable by each flat owner against the others. That is one of the reasons why rent charges are extensively used today in freehold flat schemes.
Anyone who cares to consult the books of precedents used by conveyancers today in respect of freehold flats will find this to be the case. It appears to me that the local authority which wishes to develop a freehold flat scheme might well need to resort to this device. I beg the Government to consider most carefully the aspects of this matter as they affect enforcement of positive convenants. In 1457 fact, the whole law of real property needs reforming in this respect, taking into consideration that rent charges ought to be abolished.
§ Mr. Carter-JonesDoes the hon. Lady agree with the situation where one person is responsible for collecting the rent charges of 10 or 12 others? Is that a good thing?
§ Miss HoltI would say that that has arisen out of the ancient type of rent charges common in Lancashire and in the Bristol area, where one person at the end of a terrace collects them from the whole. I am not definitely in support of that but rent charges today in certain areas of development, so long as the law of real property is defective, serve a useful purpose.
§ Mr. Kenneth Marks (Manchester, Gorton)I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks) for not being present when he spoke. The area I live in and represent suffers a great deal from the question of permanent rent charges—what we in the North-West call chief rents. The working party of the Law Commission was emphatic in its view that a prima facie case for prohibition of the creation of rent charges in the future and of the extension of existing rent charges could be established.
At the beginning of January I wrote to all the local authorities in Lancashire and Cheshire putting two points to them about rent charges. I felt that, as the report of the working party has been published as far back as September, 1969, we had been waiting a long time for a final recommendation from the Law Commission and for action by the Government. During that period the extension and creation of rent charges was very considerable.
I asked the local councils that when land owned by them was sold to developers for private housing it would be on the understanding that the price paid for each plot by house purchasers would be only a properly proportioned part of the purchase price and that chief rents would not be charged. I asked them, when granting planning permission for private residential development, to make every effort to secure voluntary agreement not to create rent charges.
1458 To the 187 letters I sent I have received over 120 replies—indeed, I received some more this week. The vast majority of the replies give general support to the idea that rent charges—chief rents—are a bad thing. Most councils agree that they would not create rent charges on land they used themselves and that they would also try to see to it that people who bought the property from them would not create rent charges.
These favourable replies have some doubts about the latter proposition, obviously, since some of the councils feel that it would mean an infringement of town planning regulations to lean on a developer not to do this, but some express interest in it. What they all feel is that there should be some statutory position on the matter through legislation. Usually local authorities are only too keen to keep powers to themselves, but in this case the majority think that the Government ought to do something. I believe that this matter is particularly important because, with the Government's inquiry into land availability, local authorities are going to be under very great pressure to sell land for housing for private development. I believe that they are also going to be under great pressure to charge chief rents because the district valuer may well say to them "You must get the best price you can", and it may well be that the most profitable price is one that includes a chief rent.
I ask the Minister to consider this question very urgently, as his own council gives general support to the proposition and has said that it would seek support from the local Member of Parliament. So I am very hopeful of his response. I realise that he has other pressures on him besides those of myself and his urban district council, but this is an urgent matter.
I think that on the whole rent charges are spreading, although I am glad that Wimpey, one of the biggest developers in the country, has told me that it will not in future charge chief rents. The charging of chief rents is a pernicious practice, and even if the amounts in many cases are not particularly high, people resent paying every half year something for which they see no result.
I support the right hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield), who 1459 says that it does not make any difference to price. As the Law Commission working party said of it, it is a bonus for the developer. The prices are the same in the North-West whether or not chief rents are charged. It is, in fact, a bonus for the developer, and we in this House should be doing something now to prevent it.
§ Mr. Graham PageI congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks) on finding another opportunity for pursuing his campaign against chief rents. The hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) seemed to give the House the idea that only if one lived in Manchester or Bristol did one know anything about the subject. I have been dogged by it all my political career. I used to fight Islington and we had it there; I have now gone to the North-West and we have it there.
Hon. Members have made the distinction, of course, between ground rent or rent services due when a tenant holds from a reversioner, where there is a relationship of landlord and tenant for which Parliament has provided a method of redeeming, and rent charges, or chief rents, or perpetual rent charges, where no such relationship exists and it is an annual charge issuing and payable out of the land, where the payment is secured by right of distress and where it is a charge on the freehold. So there is no relationship, in this subject of chief rent, of landlord and tenant but rather that of original vendor and purchaser.
The theory of it is that when one bought the house, whether now or many years ago, one paid a lesser lump sum for it and made a payment for perpetuity. I say "the theory", because when one is buying a house subject to an ancient rent charge or chief rent, as the Law Commission has said, there is very little difference in the actual purchase price. Sometimes when a new rent is created it is quite clear, and it may be that on those occasions the purchaser pays something less in lump sum in consideration for having to pay a rent charge over a period of years in perpetuity.
The hon. Member for Bristol, South referred to the provisions for redeeming these rent charges. Those provisions apply only in certain cases. In particular, they do not apply, if my memory serves 1460 me correctly, when there is a right of entry attached to the rent charge. Where it is not merely a matter of recovering it by distress but there is the right of entry—a sort of half-way house between the landlord and tenant and the freehold owner—then one cannot redeem.
That brings me to the point raised by the hon. Member for Eccles about the unfortunate freeholder who may be made responsible to pay the chief rent for all the houses down the same street and be subject not only to distress but to a right of entry and termination of his freehold if he fails to collect and pay the rents.
There is a considerable mischief in the process. We recognised the mischief in the rent charges when we provided—Ithink in 1936—for the redemption of tithe rent charges. It was recognised that, these things having run from the dissolution of the monasteries up to the 1930s, one should be entitled to redeem them and get rid of that burden on the land.
These rents are not wholly mischievous. Until we have reformed the law on positive and restrictive covenants, as my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Miss Holt) pointed out, it is not possible to enforce positive covenants except by some device, such as the rent charge, keeping the landlord and tenant relationship or a chief rent.
We cannot do this piecemeal. We cannot attack the chief rent without solving the problems about the enforcement of positive covenants. The Law Commission has been active on this subject. It issued a working paper in September, 1969, and, as has been announced recently in answer to Questions in the House, its intention is to publish an interim report within the next few months. In these circumstances, it would be quite inappropriate for a Local Government Bill merely to pick out one part of this subject and make provision for the abolition of rent charges regarding local authorities.
The rent charge is an aspect of general law relating to land. I certainly do not want to embark upon a reform of the Law of Property Act, 1925, in this Local Government Bill. Although a number of problems are peculiar to local authorities in connection with rent charges, I think that it would be wrong to deal with this fringe problem before the central 1461 policy, which I am assured we shall be getting from the Law Commission, has been settled and property legislation has been brought forward dealing not: only with the chief rent but with all the other aspects of enforcement of covenants, and so on, in relation to freehold land.
I hope the hon. Member for Bristol, South will be satisfied with this further airing of a very important subject and will appreciate that it is impossible for me at this stage to accept his invitation to do something about it in this small area. It is a property law matter, not a local government problem. I ask him to await the report of the Law Commission, which will come in a few months.
§ 4.45 p.m.
§ Mr. Gordon Oakes (Widnes)I listened with mounting enthusiasm to the Minister's first words because I realised that, as a Lancashire Member and a member of the same profession as myself, he realises the burden these rent charges can be on a purchaser. However, I am disappointed that he will not accept the new Clause.
I want to add my voice to those who have congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks) on raising this matter. This is not just a question of local authorities setting an example. The example which local authorities can set to end this pernicious practice is in itself important, but the Opposition are concerned about this matter from a more real, immediate and practical point of view. That point was touched upon by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks).
The Government—I do not disagree with this policy—are suggesting that local authorities which have land surplus to their requirements—we have a disgraceful, highly inflationary market in land which makes it virtually impossible for a person earning as much as £30 a week to obtain a mortgage—should sell that land for housing purposes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton clearly pointed out, we do not want local authorities in future selling land at a price fixed by the district valuer and then adding £10 or £20 a year as a perpetual rent charge. That could happen. I think that this Bill is the proper vehicle for saying to local authorities "You shall not do this". It is infla- 1462 tionary in itself. It is a device which local authorities could use to increase the price of land that they might unwillingly sell at the district valuer's valuation. It is an immediate risk, because many local authorities, as we see from the Press and the queues of people who wait to obtain land from the local authority, are doing it now.
We can wait a long time for the Law Commission's report. It is fairly certain that it will not be made in this Session of Parliament. The Clause seeks to ensure that in future local authorities shall not create rent charges on their land. We are not dealing with existing rent charges. The Clause seeks to prohibit something being done in future.
The hon. Member for Preston, North (Miss Holt) mentioned a difficulty with some rent charges. I suggest that in a new conveyance by a local authority dealing with land for the future that could be dealt with by a restrictive covenant, not by a rent charge.
§ Mr. Graham PageThe hon. Gentleman referred to restrictive covenants. There is great value in being able to enforce positive covenants in the development of land by way of payments for certain services to the premises. This is what local authorities are using them for now. The hon. Gentleman knows my views about rent charges in general. However, I do not wish to do anything before we have something to assist local authorities to enforce positive covenants.
§ Mr. OakesYes; but I think that this could be done by the adoption of the Clause. I thought that the Minister was going to accept it by the words he used at the beginning of his speech. If the local authority does not create a financial rent charge, since there is privity of contract for a considerable time between the local authority and its purchaser, it could deal with the matter on direct privity of contract between the parties concerned because it is not dealing immediately with successors.
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter Jones) about these charges. In Lancashire this pernicious system means that a person can buy a house and have the responsibility, sometimes hardly known to him at the time he buys the house, for collecting the ground rents for the whole 1463 street or paying them himself. It is very unpopular that a person should have to act as a bailiff for somebody else without any reward, and go up and down the street collecting this money because he is liable for it. I think this is a pernicious practice, which could go on by local authorities carrying out this system. There is a danger that they may do so immediately on the sale of land
§ for housing purposes, which many authorities are engaging in at the present time. If the Minister does not accept the Clause, we on this side of the House feel so strongly about it that we should be prepared to press it to a Division.
§ Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time: —
§ The House divided: Ayes, 144. Noes 174.
1465| Division No. 121.] | AYES | [4.50 p.m. |
| Albu, Austen | Huckfield, Leslie | Orbach, Maurice |
| Allen, Scholefield | Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.) | Oswald, Thomas |
| Ashton, Joe | Hunter, Adam | Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton) |
| Atkinson, Norman | Irvine,Rt.Hn.SirArthur(Edge Hill) | Padley, Walter |
| Barnett, Guy (Greenwich) | Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas | Paget, R. T. |
| Blenkinsop, Arthur | Jenkins, Hugh (Putney) | Palmer, Arthur |
| Booth, Albert | Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.) | Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles |
| Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur | Jones, Dan (Burnley) | Pardoe, John |
| Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,W.) | Judd, Frank | Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange) |
| Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) | Kaufman, Gerald | Pendry, Tom |
| Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James | Kelley, Richard | Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg. |
| Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles) | Kerr, Russell | Price, J. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Clark, David (Colne Valley) | Lamond, James | Price, William (Rugby) |
| Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.) | Lawson, George | Reed, D. (Sedgefield) |
| Cohen, Stanley | Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick | Roberts, Albert (Normanton) |
| Concannon, J. D. | Leonard, Dick | Roper, John |
| Conlan, Bernard | Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.) | Rose, Paul B. |
| Corbet, Mrs. Freda | Lewis, Ron (Carlisle) | Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock) |
| Cronin, John | Lipton, Marcus | Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne) |
| Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven) | Lomas, Kenneth | Short, Rt.Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne) |
| Dalyell, Tam | Loughlin, Charles | Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford) |
| Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove) | Lyon, Alexander W. (York) | Sillars, James |
| de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey | Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.) | Skinner, Dennis |
| Delargy, H. J. | Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson | Small, William |
| Doig, Peter | McCann, John | Spriggs, Leslie |
| Dormand, J. D. | McCartney, Hugh | Steel, David |
| Driberg, Tom | McElhone, Frank | Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham) |
| Faulds, Andrew | McGuire, Michael | Strang, Gavin |
| Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E. | Mackenzie, Gregor | Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. |
| Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham,Ladywood) | Mackie, John | Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley |
| Fitch, Alan (Wigan) | Maclennan, Robert | Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.) |
| Foley, Maurice | Mahon, Simon (Bootle) | Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy |
| Forrester, John | Marks, Kenneth | Tinn, James |
| Garrett, W. E. | Marquand, David | Torney, Tom |
| Gilbert, Dr. John | Marshall, Dr. Edmund | Urwin, T. W. |
| Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury) | Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert | Wainwright, Edwin |
| Golding, John | Mendelson, John | Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints) |
| Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C. | Mikardo, Ian | Walker, Harold (Doncaster) |
| Grant, George (Morpeth) | Millan, Bruce | Wallace, George |
| Grant, John D. (Islington, E.) | Milne, Edward | Watkins, David |
| Hamilton, William (Fife, W.) | Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen) | Weitzmen, David |
| Hamling, William | Molloy, William | Whitehead, Phillip |
| Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill) | Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe) | Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick |
| Hardy, Peter | Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw) | Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton) |
| Harper, Joseph | Moyle, Roland | Woof, Robert |
| Harrison, Walter (Wakefield) | Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick | |
| Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis | Murray, Ronald King | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Heffer, Eric S. | Oakes, Gordon | Mr. Ernest Armstrong and Mr. James Hamilton. |
| Horam, John | O'Halloran, Michael | |
| O'Malley, Brian | ||
| NOES | ||
| Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash) | Berry, Hn. Anthony | Burden, F. A. |
| Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead) | Biffen, John | Carlisle, Mark |
| Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian | Biggs-Davison, John | Carr, Rt. Hn, Robert |
| Astor, John | Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.) | Chapman, Sydney |
| Atkins, Humphrey | Boscawen, Robert | Clark, Willam (Surrey, E.) |
| Batsford, Brian | Bossom, Sir Clive | Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe) |
| Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton | Bowden, Andrew | Clegg, Walter |
| Bell, Ronald | Bray, Ronald | Cooke, Robert |
| Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay) | Brinton, Sir Tatton | Cooper, A. E. |
| Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport) | Buchanan-Smith, Alick(Angus, N&M) | Cordle, John |
| Benyon, W. | Bullus, Sir Eric | Cormack, Patrick |
| Costain, A. P. | Jopling, Michael | Raison, Timothy |
| Critchley, Julian | Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine | Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James |
| Crouch, David | Kershaw, Anthony | Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter |
| d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry | King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.) | Redmond, Robert |
| d'Avigdor-Goldsmid.Maj.-Gen.James | King, Tom (Bridgwater) | Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.) |
| Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. | Kinsey, J. R. | Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David |
| Digby, Simon Wingfield | Knight, Mrs. Jill | Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon |
| Dixon, Piers | Knox, David | Ridley, Hn. Nicholas |
| Dykes, Hugh | Lane, David | Roberts, Wyn (Conway) |
| Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke) | Langford-Holt, Sir John | Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey) |
| Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) | Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry | Rost, Peter |
| Emery, Peter | Lloyd,Rt.Hn.Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield) | Russell, Sir Ronald |
| Eyre, Reginald | Longden, Sir Gilbert | Scott, Nicholas |
| Farr, John | Luce, R. N. | Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby) |
| Fenner, Mrs. Peggy | McAdden, Sir Stephen | Sinclair, Sir George |
| Fidler, Michael | MacArthur, Ian | Skeet, T. H. H. |
| Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead) | McCrindle, R. A. | Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington) |
| Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton) | McLaren, Martin | Soref, Harold |
| Fookes, Miss Janet | Maclean, Sir Fitzroy | Speed, Keith |
| Fortescue, Tim | McNair-Wilson, Patrick (NewForest) | Spence, John |
| Foster, Sir John | Maddan, Martin | Stanbrook, Ivor |
| Fowler, Norman | Madel, David | Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper) |
| Fox, Marcus | Marten, Neil | Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. |
| Gardner, Edward | Mather, Carol | Stokes, John |
| Goodhart, Philip | Maude, Angus | Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne) |
| Goodhew, Victor | Meyer, Sir Anthony | Taylor, Frank (Moss Side) |
| Gorst, John | Mills, Peter (Torrington) | Tebbit, Norman |
| Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.) | Mitchell, David (Basingstoke) | Temple, John M. |
| Green, Alan | Moate, Roger | Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth) |
| Grylls, Michael | Money, Ernle | Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.) |
| Gummer, J. Selwyn | Monks, Mrs. Connie | Tilney, John |
| Gurden, Harold | Montgomery, Fergus | Trew, Peter |
| Havers, Michael | More, Jasper | Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin |
| Hayhoe, Barney | Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh) | van Straubenzee, W. R. |
| Hicks, Robert | Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm. | Vickers, Dame Joan |
| Hill, James (Southampton, Test) | Murton, Oscar | Walder, David (Clitheroe) |
| Holland, Philip | Neave, Airey | Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester) |
| Holt, Miss Mary | Normanton, Tom | Ward, Dame Irene |
| Hornby, Richard | Onslow, Cranley | Warren, Kenneth |
| Hornsby-Smith,Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia | Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally | White, Roger (Gravesend) |
| Howell, David (Guildford) | Orr, Capt. L. P. S. | Wiggin, Jerry |
| Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.) | Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.) | Winterton, Nicholas |
| Hunt, John | Page, Graham (Crosby) | Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher |
| Hutchison, Michael Clark | Page, John (Harrow, W.) | Woodnutt, Mark |
| Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) | Pike, Miss Mervyn | |
| James, David | Pink, R. Bonner | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Jennings, J. C. (Burton) | Proudfoot, Wilfred | Mr. Paul Hawkins and Mr. Hamish Gray. |
| Jessel, Toby | Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis | |
| Quennell, Miss J. M. |
§ Question accordingly negatived.