RESTRICTION ON OPERATION OF NOTICE TO QUIT GIVEN BY REASON OF DEATH OF TENANT. (Hansard, 10 May 1976)

§ Mr. Pym
I beg to move Amendment No. 39, in page 23, line 32, at end insert—

§ Mr. Speaker
With this we may also discuss Amendment No. 40, in page 23, line 32, at end insert—

§ Mr. Pym
The amendments deal with an aspect of hardship. One of the basic aspects of this part of the Bill causes us a great deal of anxiety. Amendment No. 40 deals with the point that after the conditions are satisfied under the Bill there is no requirement on behalf of the prospective or successor tenant to show that there may be hardship. We believe that this should be a necessary element in the argument. The only reason given for this legislation is to deal with cases of genuine hardship, and once the tribunal has determined that an applicant is eligible and suitable it must make a direction in his favour unless the landlord proves one of the grounds in Section 25 of the 1948 Act.
Even in that situation, however, the tribunal has a discretion to withhold consent. Nevertheless, in our view the tribunal's job should not be merely to seek who is the most suitable person; it should also be to investigate whether there is a case of real hardship on the part of a suitable and eligible applicant. The effect of Amendment No. 40 would be to direct the tribunal to do just that.
10.15 p.m.
At the time of the discussions before the Bill came before the House, and on Second Reading, I remember very well just how much anxiety there was about the question of relative hardship, and as at present there is no requirement for the prospective successor tenant to prove hardship, Amendment No. 39 deals with the problem of relative hardship as between the tenant's successors and the landlord and his family and possible successors.
I suppose that I ought, in a sense, to declare an interest here, but I do so in both capacities, as tenant and landlord. My hon. Friends and I—and not only Opposition Members—have great anxieties about the treatment that it is proposed to mete out to landlords in this part of the Bill. It seems to us that both sides in any dispute ought to be treated fairly and evenly. I think I am right in saying that in Committee the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes) 183 supported an amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling), because he, too, and others in the House, are concerned that the landlord's potential hardship is going unconsidered.
I know that there are hon. Members—this point arose earlier this evening—who would be prepared to admit that they would take almost any weapon to damage the landlord in some capacity or other, but even allowing for the fact that they may take an exceptional point of view, I should have thought that any fair-minded person, wherever he sits in the House, would want to be sure, in a very difficult matter of this kind, that both the families involved should be equally considered.
After all, it may well be that a landlord has only one farm, which is let at present, and when a tenant dies and his family or a member of it comes before a tribunal, there may or may not be hardship. But what about the landlord's situation? He may have been waiting for 10 years or longer to take over the only farm that he has. No one could conceivably deny, on any basis whatsoever, that there would be a hardship to the landlord if he did not take the opportunity of farming that land—granted that he would suffer hardship if he did not do SO.
We are really trying to measure the relative position. In an earlier debate, the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) talked about dealing with injustices. I should have thought that this aspect of the Bill was creating an injustice. It was the Parliamentary Secretary himself who said in Committee: What we cannot accept is that the landlord's son will be treated on an equal basis with the son of the tenant. That seems to be a very strange, unfair and unreasonable attitude to take, because the landlord and the landlord's son or family may be just as much subjected to hardship and problems as is the tenant's potential successor family. I do not say that he is, but he may be. It is a point that I made strongly on Second Reading in relation to the Agricultural Land Tribunal. How can the tribunal acquire the experience and understanding to judge in what would clearly be a difficult situation? I am not saying that it would 184 happen at all often, but it can and will happen.
As I said on Second Reading, in dealing with the unfairnesses thought to exist in the few cases where aspiring tenants' sons do not take on the tenancy when their fathers die—and the Bill is designed to deal with those hardship cases—we shall create other hardship cases. I say in all seriousness that there will sometimes be hardship cases on the tenant's side, no doubt, but there will also be hardship also on the landlord's side. I should have thought that all hon. Members would be anxious about that. However, the Parliamentary Secretary also said in Committee, what I undertake to do, is to look at how we can make this 'greater hardship' phrase have greater substance and meaning."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C, 18th March 1976; c. 889.] That is exactly the spirit of what I was trying to say on Second Reading.
I do not think that as the Bill is drawn it is fair and just. How can one say that the tenant's family may suffer hardship and that provision must be made for that, but we must not take notice of the landlord's hardship? They will be different sorts of hardship, but in the case that I cited of a landlord who has only one farm, one can imagine that he might have been expecting to take it over and he will suffer hardships if he is not given that opportunity, yet no provision is made for dealing with that. Therefore, this is unjust and unreasonable.
The House is being asked to pass the Bill in order to deal with injustice, and I assert that out of it will come other hardships and other injustices. If they happen to be suffered by landlords, some people may not mind, but an injustice is an injustice wherever it occurs. I think that the House ought to give further consideration to this matter. That is why we have tabled these amendments. I hope very much that the House will feel it is right to give the utmost care and consideration to a genuine, human problem, whichever party suffers it.

§ Mr. Strang
My Department has already received representations from the National Farmers' Union and the Country Landowners' Associations to the effect that if the family succession scheme is intended to deal with cases of hardship which can arise on the death of the tenant 185 it would seem essential to have a hardship or a greater hardship provision in the legislation.
I am not wholly convinced of the need for such a provision, because the alleviation of hardship is implicit in the scheme as now drafted. The description of an eligible applicant in Clause 17 clearly implies hardship for the tenant's close relatives; and the landlord is able to base his case for the operation of the notice to quit in Clause 20 on, among other things, the greater hardship test currently set out in Section 25(1)(d) of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948.
The right hon. Gentleman pushed his case a little too far. I think he will acknowledge that there is provision in the Bill for the position of the landlord, but I go further and say that I recognise that the NFU and the CLA, from their different standpoints, feel strongly about this, and I do not want to appear to be unreasonable. I am willing, therefore, to consider the matter further in consultation with the two organisations.
I hope that with that assurance the right hon. Gentleman will agree to withdraw the amendment.

§ Sir Timothy Kitson (Richmond, Yorks)
Will the hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that what he said in Committee at column 889—-

§ The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Fred Peart)
That is a debating point.

§ Sir T. Kitson
I am not making a debating point. It must have been a slip of the tongue when the hon. Gentleman said: What we cannot accept is that the landlord's son will be treated on an equal basis with the son of the tenant."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C; 18th March 1976, c. 889.] Will the hon. Gentleman assure the House that the son of the landlord will be treated on an equal basis with the son of the tenant in cases of hardship? Was that a mistake in Committee?

§ Mr. Strang
I am not giving that assurance, and I was careful not to give it. I am not retracting what was said in Committee. I have said that I am prepared to look at the question of greater hardship.

§ Mr. Pym
It would be both wrong and discourteous not to say at once that we are grateful to the Minister for what he said. There is a problem here, and he has recognised it. If he thought there was not a problem he would not pursue the matter any further. His undertaking that he will consult the interested parties—which implies that he will do so with a view, perhaps, to making an amendment in another place—is acceptable to this side of the House, and it almost certainly gives us the opportunity to consider the matter again when the Bill comes back from the other place.
When one has been defeated on so many issues that one regards as important matters of principle and one then gets an offer of this kind, one is grateful for any crumbs. We hope that the discussion to which the hon. Gentleman referred will bear fruit and yield something that will, in the view of us all, be fairer and more just to all the parties concerned in what will occasionally be a difficult dispute. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.