POWER TO PRESCRIBE MINIMUM STANDARDS (Hansard, 9 May 1975)

§ Mr. Speaker
With this new clause it may be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Gerald Kaufman)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
We had a most useful discussion in Committee on the intentions and likely effects of Clause 7 as drafted. However, I do not propose to go through in detail all the points made in Committee.
We agreed that it would be useful to have at hand the means of ensuring that both private and local authority sites were kept up to certain minimum physical standards. Model standards exist at present, but they are advisory and are intended to guide local authorities for two purposes. First, the local authority must have regard to them in issuing to the operator of a privately run site the licence which governs the physical conditions of that site. Secondly, authorities are asked to have regard to these model standards in running their own sites.
1799 These model standards have been deliberately devised as guidelines, leave discretion to the local authority, and will not necessarily work as mandatory minima. Therefore, if we are to think in terms of minimum standards below which site conditions must not fall, we are inevitably drawn towards devising a code separate from the existing model standards. No such code exists at present, but the purpose of the new clause is to give my right hon. Friend the power to prescribe minimum standards for all sites containing permanent residential mobile homes.
The power can be used selectively since it enables my right hon. Friend to differentiate geographically. This would enable action to be taken if evidence in particular areas became available to substantiate allegations at present current about scruffily kept or ill-supervised sites, whether run privately or by a local authority.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) for having discussed with the Association of District Councils, then in Committee, and subsequently with me, the motivation behind his original clause and the difficulties to which it led. I hope that his discussions have persuaded him, and will persuade the House, that the formula now before the House will prove both effective and workable.

§ Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater)
I thank the Under-Secretary of State for moving the clause. As he said, this matter was discussed in Standing Committee. It is clear that the model standards as written into the Bill as drafted were never designed as model standards. There were problems about seeking to make their enforcement more stringent. The clause meets the case, providing that the Secretary of State gets on with prescribing some minimum standards.
There is no time limit attached. We discussed the possibility of introducing a time limit and we understand the difficulties. The Minister accepts that he will come under pressure, particularly as soon as his review is completed, when he will be better able to consider suitable matters for inclusion in minimum standards. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides will be looking for early action on minimum standards.
1800 Clause 7, which will be deleted by Amendment No. 39, covers local authorities. The Under-Secretary said that the new clause will apply to all sites on which there were residential caravans in which people were living as their only or main residence. I assume that the minimum standards would be applied to local authority sites as well.

§ Mr. James Wellbeloved (Erith and Crayford)
I greatly welcome what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said. The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) has very full support in pressing for early publication of the minimum standards. Much of the hostility which do doubt exists in many areas against mobile homes or permanent caravan sites stems from the varying standards of practice which are applied and from some very bad sites which exist. A sensible, reasonable and uniform standard applied throughout the length and breadth of the country will go a long way to removing some of the genuine objections which exist to this type of home.
I am particularly keen that the standards should be all-embracing, because the vast majority of people who occupy mobile homes fall into two categories—those who have been unable to obtain accommodation in any other way and those who wish to have a temporary home, perhaps for two or three years, close to their place of work.
In my constituency we face the possibility of having a large-scale mobile home site created at Crayford Greyhound Racing track. If that mobile home complex is permitted by the local authority, it will be designed to cater for many thousands of workers employed on the construction of the Thames flood barrier. If the Minister has published his minimum standards so that my authority can take them fully into account when considering the planning application for the mobile home site, I believe that Bexley Council will more readily come to the very sensible decision that the site at Crayford is not a desirable place to put these homes because it could not conceivably comply with what, I hope, will be reasonable and sensible minimum standards.
How wide will the minimum standards be? My attention has been drawn by 1801 my hon. Friend the Member for Basset-law (Mr. Ashton) to a problem which has arisen in his constituency. The East Lindsey area rating authority has decided to rate each van on a site in its area. My hon. Friend tells me that this decision could have a widespread effect on a large number of people who occupy such homes in his constituency. If the rating authority succeeds, as I have no doubt it will, in rating the caravans individually, will the minimum standards cause local authorities to ensure that suitable reductions in site fees are made to remove that part of the existing fee which represents the rating element?
11.15 a.m.
My hon. Friend is very concerned that, if East Lindsey goes ahead with its proposal, it will result in site owners not reducing the site fee but continuing to charge the existing element in the site fee for rating and then applying to each resident the extra burden of individual rating.
I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will not be able to give a detailed reply in this debate, but I hope that he will be able to give an undertaking, which I shall be able to pass on to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw, that he will take this matter into consideration and if he cannot deal with it adequately in the model standards he might give consideration to some other method of dealing with it.
For those two basic reasons—one an urgent constituency reason, and the other which I have adduced on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw—I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will press ahead and have comprehensive model standards to deal with the present situation, to bring about a greater acceptance of the sites by local communities, and to bring considerable relief to the residents and justice to the site owners.

§ Mr. Kaufman
I am obliged to the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) for the way in which they received the clause.
My reply to the hon. Member for Bridgwater is that the clause will apply to local authority sites.
1802 In reply to the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford, I would not expect that the standards would necessarily be uniform, I indicated earlier that it might be appropriate for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to lay down different standards to suit different conditions.
My hon. Friend, who spoke about a project in his constituency and possible difficulties arising, will accept that it might be necessary to lay down special minimum standards for that kind of development.
I am obliged to my hon. Friend for raising the question of rating. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) cannot be here today because of urgent engagements in his constituency. I know that this matter greatly concerns him—he has written to me about it and others of my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite. It is a matter which we are studying carefully. We realise that this is something which has happened rather suddenly and which has caused a great deal of concern among those who live on mobile home sites. I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Cray-ford was good enough to say that he did not expect a definitive answer today. I assure him and my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw and other hon. Members that this is a matter to which we are giving serious and urgent study and I shall be writing to my hon. Friends on the subject.

§ Mr. Michael Ward (Peterborough)
Before rising to speak I waited for the Under-Secretary to say that the clause would affect local authority sites, of which there are a large number through out the country. A fair number of them were established in the 1950s—in the immediate post-war period when the housing shortage was particularly acute. A number of them are rather out of date in terms of standards and amenities.
I have had experience of one such site in the London Borough of Havering. The authority decided to bring the site up to standard and spent many tens of thousands of pounds on improving the standards. Any basic improvement to a site involves hard standings and other matters necessitating substantial capital expenditure. When the rate support grant negotiations take place at the end 1803 of this year, and when the Department is considering its allocations for locally-determined schemes—those are the capital allocations under which authorities meet expenditure of this kind—I hope that my hon. Friend will bear in mind the pressure on authorities this year because of the financial stringency which has been imposed on them.
I hope also that in establishing these new standards, which the whole House welcomes, and which I am sure the local authority associations also will welcome, my hon. Friend will negotiate on the basis that some provision will be made to enable authorities to meet their obligations under the new standards which it is proposed to formulate.