DISCOUNT (Hansard, 6 August 1980)

§ Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 2C, 3 to 7, 11, and 17.

§ Mr. Finsberg
As you observed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, this is a series of amendments and I should like to speak first to amendments 2B and 2C. The Bill provides for a tenant to receive discount in respect of a spouse's secure tenancies provided that the tenant and the spouse are living togther when the notice is served.
But if, for example, a widow has taken over the tenancy on the death of her husband and wishes to exercise the right to buy, the rule as it exists would have meant that she could not rely upon any of her dead husband's entitlement to discount. These amendments would allow her to do that, provided that she became a secure tenant on the death of her husband and the two partners were living together at the time.
This ensures that the discount she receives is no less than her husband would have been entitled to had he lived. This provision, I need hardly add, applies to widowers as well as to widows.
The remaining amendment to clause 7 mirrors a similar provision in the Tenants' Rights Etc. (Scotland) Bill. In broad principle it provides that a person who exercises the right to buy in England and Wales under the Housing Bill after spending time as a tenant in Scotland or Northern Ireland will be able to claim discount in respect of those periods 603 tenancy provided that the tenancies correspond to one of the categories of tenancy in England or Wales for which discount may be claimed.
That ensures, as I feel sure the House would wish, that discount entitlement does not simply vanish if a secure tenant moves across the border in either direction. The new clause meets a commitment given to the House on Report. One of the Members who raised this issue was my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Trippier).
It applies in cases where a child becomes the secure tenant of a dwelling whose preceding secure tenant was one of his or her parents. It would allow landlords the discretion to grant such a tenant credit towards the right to buy under clause 1(3), or discount under clause 7, or both. That would be on the basis of time that he had spent since the age of 16 occupying as his only, or principal, homes dwellings of which the parent was a secure tenant.
Amendment No. 11 provides that if the maximum discount to be prescribed under clause 7(4) has affected the price that the tenant must pay for his home, he must be told about it in the notice which the landlord serves on him under clause 10 setting out the purchase price and other matters. The tenant will, obviously, need this information to make sense of the price that this landlord was quoting.
These are all modest provisions designed to ensure that secure tenants receive a fair deal in all circumstances under the discount provisions of the Bill.

§ Mr. D. A. Trippier (Rossendale)
I take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction for being so sympathetic to the appeal that I made when I spoke on Report.
That resulted in their Lordships moving the amendment to clause 14 which is now before the House. The amendment will be welcomed by thousands of potential home owners who will benefit from the provisions detailed in this clause. It will ensure that the children of deceased parents who would, previously, have lost the discount entitlement carried by their parents and to which they had contributed by paying the rent or part of it 604 have that entitlement protected with the permission of their local authority.
I am pleased that the wording of the amendment to subsection (2) makes it clear that the child of the original tenant can qualify for the discount entitlement in the eyes of the local authority only if he or she has occupied the council house in question as his, or her, only, or principal, home. In other words, the child must have lived with the parent or parents who were the secure tenants. I was searching for that wording in my original speech on this matter.
Since speaking to my amendment on Report I have received numerous inquiries from tenants affected by this provision in my own constituency. As a result of national publicity at the time I received an enormous correspondence from all over the country. I am entirely satisfied that the provisions detailed in this amendment will meet the criteria which I tried to lay before the House on a previous occasion.
I thank my hon. Friend for keeping his word and for honouring the obligation he accepted on Report and for introducing this amendment in another place.

§ Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg
I am glad that we have been able to meet the point raised by my hon. Friend. I shall convey his thanks to my hon. Friend, who may have heard what he had to say.