Mobile Homes (Hansard, 13 November 1974)

§ 19. Mrs. Sally Oppenheim
asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will introduce legislation to provide a statutory form of contract between site operators and mobile home residents.

§ Mr. Freeson
We still hope that the caravan dwellers and site operators' representatives will agree on a model form of contract.

§ Mrs. Oppenheim
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he is hoping in vain? That legislation has been introduced in the United States. Whereas there are good operators, there are some had ones who impose conditions on site residents which vary from unsatisfactory to intolerable. Do not the Government have a moral obligation at least to give site residents some security of tenure?

§ Mr. Freeson
I certainly take the matter seriously, although it has not suddenly emerged in the last few months as a moral affront to the housing situation. We are looking carefully into the whole question, as my hon. Friend indicated in reply to an earlier Question. In the meantime I hope that it will be possible for the site operators and the occupants' organisations to get together on a model agreement. If not, we shall have to look at other ways of handling the situation. I agree that it is a very serious one.

§ Mr. Ward
Will my hon. Friend look particularly at the question of additional charges levied by site operators in many parts of the country, such as the £560 development charge imposed by one site operator in Peterborough on a young married woman occupying a caravan on the site?

§ Mr. Freeson
I shall be glad to receive information on any of these activities throughout the country, so that when we come to make decisions in due time on legislative and possibly other action we can do so on the basis of the fullest possible information about abuses of the questionable system under which site operators and others are acting.

§ Mr. Ridley
In view of the long delay in getting the agreement signed, which smacks of foot-dragging by the site owners, will the Minister publish a draft model agreement so that on individual sites the tenants can take up the question of the site owner signing the agreement as part of a local bargain in advance of a national one?

§ Mr. Freeson
That is one possibility that I have had in mind for some time while awaiting the results of the consultations.