HC Deb 17 July 1973 vol 860 cc263-5

3.40 p.m.

Mr. T. L. Iremonger (Ilford, North)

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for retired persons to purchase annuities for themselves and their surviving spouses in respect of premises partly leased to lessees and partly occupied by themselves during their lifetimes.

The Rent Act 1968, which the Bill seeks to amend, provides in Section 10(1) that a court shall not make an order for a house owner to regain possession of part of his house let unfurnished except in certain cases when it may—though not must—order possession, and those cases are set out in Part I of Schedule 3.

Subsection (2) provides that the Court "shall"—that is to say, must—order possession in the cases set out in Part II of Schedule 3.

The Bill would add a new Case 14 to Schedule 3, which would come at the end of Part II, in the following terms: Where notice is given to the occupier of part of a dwelling house by an individual house owner or the surviving spouse of such an individual who occupied the whole dwelling house as his residence and who is over 60 years of age or, alternatively, by a person —which would include a company— whose title to the property in which such part of a dwelling house is comprised derives from such an individual over 60 years of age, or from his surviving spouse, as part of a scheme approved by the Secretary of State. The Bill would also contain a new clause to amend the Rent Act to give powers to the Secretary of State to make regulations approving schemes referred to in the new Case 14 in Part II of Schedule 3.

The kind of scheme envisaged is one under which an owner sells the freehold reversion of his property in exchange for an annuity or approved benefit while re-retaining for himself and his surviving spouse a life interest in the property.

The purpose of the Bill is to enable two sets of people to solve one another's problems. One such set is retired people who would be glad to convert part of their large freehold house into a self-contained flat and to let it unfurnished.

They would be glad to do this and thereby turn a sterile asset, which they do not need, into a supplementary income which they need desperately. They may also wish to sell their freehold reversion while retaining a life tenancy for the couple or the surviving spouse in exchange for an annuity. These people are not willing to convert and let part of their house unfurnished unless they can recover possession when and as they may wish. They cannot do that, as will have been clear from the explanation that I have given of Section 10, unless the Rent Act is amended as proposed. If the Rent Act were so amended, these householders would be glad to convert and to let to home-hunting people to whom I shall refer shortly.

This same set of people-the retired-may also wish to buy annuities on the basis of schemes of the kind to which I have referred. However, to do that it is imperative that their freehold should not be encumbered by a privileged tenancy which may subsist under the Rent Act for up to three successive generations of tenants.

In my constituency there are many streets of large houses occupied by one or two retired persons hard hit by decades of inflation who would take advantage of their asset in the shape of their house if they could be sure of being able to regain possession of the whole of it on demand. They would let unfurnished in those circumstances, but not otherwise.

The second set of people to benefit from the effects of the Bill would be young married couples who desperately need unfurnished flats as homes to rent. They do not want and do not need privileged tenancies under which the house-owner cannot give them notice. But without the Bill they have this unwanted and unnecessary privilege forced on them. They cannot waive it. So there is no home for them, though such homes are potentially available, in my constituency at any rate, in substantial numbers.

Failure to amend the Rent Acts in the way that I propose is like making able-bodied people hobble about on crutches. It is denying homes to thousands of young married constituents of mine who are able and willing to pay a substantial rent of up to £10 a week but are condemned to living with their in-laws or to moving far away from Greater London. It is also denying to thousands of elderly people a much-needed benefit which would improve their standard of living and relieve them of much anxiety.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. T. L. Iremonger and Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman.