§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Brooke.]
2.36 pm§ Mr. Nicholas Lyell (Hemel Hempstead)I am pleased to have the opportunity to turn our minds to the problems of mobile home owners. It is a pleasure to see the Under-Secretary of State ready to reply, as I speak against the background of a consultation document that has happily been issued by the Department of the Environment.
I shall have an opportunity to deal with the strictly legislative aspects of the issues, which would not be in order this afternoon, on Tuesday week when I have the good fortune to have a Ten-Minute Bill.
No fewer than 150,000 people—some in my constituency—live in the small and often delightful bungalows known as mobile homes, although, alas, sometimes they are dilapidated caravans. I see my hon. Friends the Members for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones), Dorset, North (Mr. Baker) and Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) in their places. They all have mobile home owners in their constituencies. Together with my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle), who cannot be here, they are anxious about the position of those people. They will be with me in my remarks.
If there is one at all, the legislative framework under which the tenure of mobile home dwellers is held is the 1975 Act. The framework has shown itself in practice to be riddled with flaws, anomalies and loopholes.
I know of the problems of the hundreds of mobile home occupiers in my constituency at the charming site at Beach Park near Wiggington on the outskirts of Tring and in the Kings Langley area. The difficulties arise not only as a result of the activities of some fringe site operators, whose disgraceful conduct has been drawn to the public's attention by the Esther Rantzen programme and the recent BBC Roger Cook "Checkpoint" programme, but in the operation of comparatively well managed sites.
The difficulty is that, to have effective protection under the Acts, a mobile home owner has to have an agreement with the site owner. In practice, only about one-third of mobile home owners enter into the agreement envisaged in current legislation. My experience is that that is probably an overestimate.
When I visited the Beach Park site in Wiggington about 18 months ago, I saw 11 mobile home owners. Only two of them had valid agreements. Even those who enter into agreements often allow them to lapse because they do not understand the technicalities of keeping them going.
The major problem arises when the home owner wishes to sell, assign his mobile home on site to somebody else and move away. The site owner is entitled lawfully to charge a commission of up to 15 per cent. When the owner has no agreement, he has no right to sell and move in that way. He is at the mercy of the site owner.
The owners of the Beech Park site believe that they do the mobile home owner a favour because they are kind enough, for a forfeit of an extra 10 per cent.—which, on a mobile home worth £10,000, is an extra £1,000—to let him assign. That may seem astonishing. What estate agent presumes to charge even 15 per cent. on the selling of a property? In this case, 25 per cent. is thought reasonable 621 as an additional forfeit. It causes hardship to people most of whose savings are likely to be tied up in their mobile home.
The legislation is intended to provide a workable system for the fixing of resonable reants. The expression "reasonable rents" is not in the legislation. If one cannot come to an agreement, the theory is that one side or the other goes to the county court. My hon. Friends have sufficient legal experience to know that that is unworkable and almost never used.
The Minister should seek a simpler system which ensures that, before site rents are raised, proper notice is given to the site occupant—the mobile home owner—of the opportunity for consultation. I am thinking of what happens to commercial leases, although the exact system would not apply. There should be an arbitrator to whom one can go to fix a fair market rent.
I use the expression "fair market rent" because I have no desire that the disadvantages of rent control should apply. The mobile home owners with whom I have had discussions are of the same opinion. Such suggestions have been made, but that is not the real point. We must find a way for a fair market rent to be proposed, discussed, objected to, and arbitrated, if necessary, comparatively simply.
Other problems have arisen as a result of the complexity of the law. Excess charges, such as £75 for a standard typed or printed agreement, are frequently charged on assignment. A solicitor would probably jib at making such a charge, even if he were drawing up a simple agreement on an ad hoc basis. To charge that for what is simply a roneoed sheet or two of paper is wrong, but it is happening at the moment.
Administratively, site owners frequently fail to display their names and addresses on site. Therefore, residents do not know to whom to go if they have complaints or with whom to negotiate when rent increases are proposed. Of course many site owners are exemplary in this respect, but, sadly, many are not. Therefore, one has to chase round the country in the undesirable way that the existing legislation was designed to obviate, but which it fails to do.
I am sorry to say that local authorities appear to be lax in their willingness to follow up cases of harassment. There have been some monstrous cases of harassment. The evidence coming to me from the Mobile Home Owners' and Residents' Association 1982, which happily has started up again recently with very sensible management and a very good secretary, leads me to believe that this is getting quite widespread.
I understand that chief public health officers are reluctant to get involved in these harassment cases. I ask my hon. Friend to look into that matter and to inquire of them whether their association has laid down any guidance. I should be greatly disturbed to think that guidance which discouraged them from doing their proper duty had been issued. I hope that that is not the case.
I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North an opportunity to speak, and, for that reason, I intend to sit down very soon. Briefly, I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will consider drawing together the current legislative arrangements into one codified form which is simpler and more concise and direct than the 1960, 1968 and 1975 Acts which govern the position. I hope that he will consider a system 622 whereby, in the absence of actual refusal by a mobile home site owner, a model agreement will automatically apply, so that mobile home owners are not duped of their rights either by their own incompetence or by the activities of the site owner. I hope that we shall find a system in which reasonable minimum standards are laid down for the operation of the sites and that a straightforward system for negotiating fair market rents can be devised.
It is a matter of interest to many of my hon. Friends. I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North has to say.
§ Mr. Nicholas Baker (Dorset, North)I am extremely grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Lyell) for allowing me to contribute briefly to the debate because, like him, I have a number of mobile homes in my constituency and the problems with which the owners have confronted me lead me to suppose that there are some very real difficulties that have to be looked at, and that the 1975 Act in many respects is flawed.
These mobile homes have some considerable advantages because, in the parks in my constituency and no doubt elsewhere, they are a way in which people live together and help each other as communities. The costs are low. Were these housing units not available, I dare say that pressure on the public sector for the provision of accommodation would be even greater than it is. In my constituency, the gardens that they have are some of the most beautiful that I have seen.
A general point that strikes me about mobile homes is that they have become very much less mobile than they were originally. I am led to wonder whether the amending legislation at which my hon. Friend is looking will be the next stage in a continuous process towards treating mobile homes more as ordinary homes are treated at law.
I have encountered three problems. The first concerns security of tenure. Whatever else is done, I hope that the rights of mobile home owners will be protected. Under the 1975 Act, agreements do not sufficiently protect the individuals as they should.
The second problem is that of the pitch rents that are paid. There are practices that one could optimistically describe as doubtful.
The third problem concerns the county court. As a forum for resolving disputes under the 1975 Act, the county court is less than adequate. I, like my hon. and learned Friend, would be reluctant to recommend any increase in bureaucracy. However, mobile homes should, in due course, be regarded as houses because, certainly in Pinehurst Park, West Moors and Lady Bailey Park, Winterborne, Whitechurch in my constituency they are becoming permament and beautiful homes.
First, the criminal law should be able to deal with some of the practices that have been described. Secondly, either there should be arbitration for rents or the fair rent legislation might provide a means of settling the rents for such homes. Thirdly, I hope that the Under-Secretary will do what he can to increase the private rented sector to reduce the pressure on mobile home owners.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir George Young)This is the second time today that my life has been enriched by my hon. and learned Friend 623 the Member for Hemel Hemstead (Mr. Lyell) speaking on the subject of mobile homes. I heard him on the "Today" programme over toast and marmalade this morning. I am grateful to him for what he has said and to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker) for what he said in support.
For reasons that will become clear, my reply will be more enigmatic and noncommittal than usual because, as my hon. and learned Friend knows, the Government have the matter under urgent consideration. By way of background, may I confirm some of the statistics and information that my hon. and learned Friend gave. Most mobile home residents live on privately owned sites. They own their homes but rent the pitch on which their homes are stationed from the owner of the site. The latest figures for the number of residents that we have are drawn from a survey carried out by the Building Research Establishment, published in 1977. My hon. and learned Friend said that there were approximately 150,000 people living in 70,000 mobile homes in England and Wales. Of those mobile homes 90 per cent. were owner-occupied and 10 per cent. rented. Ten per cent. were on local authority sites, the remainder on licensed privately owned sites.
There are three main pieces of primary legislation controlling the use of land for mobile homes and the terms on which residents occupy their homes. The first of these is the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960. The Act provides that privately owned mobile home sites, and holiday caravan sites, must, with certain exceptions, be licensed by the local authority.
The local authority can apply such conditions as it thinks necessary in granting a licence. The site licence must be displayed and it is open to a resident who considers that a condition is not being fulfilled to take the matter up with the local authority if he cannot resolve his dispute with the site owner.
The second piece of legislation is the Caravan Sites Act 1968, which bears more directly on the terms on which a mobile home resident rents a pitch from a site owner. It provides a basic level of protection for all residents, on both privately owned and local authority sites. The Act makes it an offence to evict a resident from the site or to remove his home without a court order. It also makes it an offence to harass a resident in order to make him leave or to stop him exercising his rights. In the case of residents on privately owned sites, the court has the power to suspend an order for possession for up to 12 months at a time.
The third piece of legislation is the one to which my hon. and learned Friend directed our attention, and that is the Mobile Homes Act 1975. It was introduced as a Private Member's Bill by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services. Although my hon. and learned Friend and my hon. Friend said that it was flawed and had one or two loopholes, I hope that they will both recognise that it constitutes a major advance on the position that prevailed until 1975.
The Act established a system of written agreements between site owners and mobile home owners—on licensed private sites. It applies only to those who own their homes, not to those who rent them, and it does not apply to sites owned by local authorities. The Act required that residents who were on site on 1 October 1975 had to be offered agreements covering the matters laid down in the Act. Residents who came on to site subsequently also had to be offered agreements under the Act, provided that 624 they notified the site owner in advance, and in writing, of their intention to occupy the mobile home as their only or main residence.
Agreements under the Act are for a minimum of five years, with an option for the resident to renew for a further three years, if he chooses. They must specify the pitch fee he is to pay and provide for an annual review of the fee. They entitle the resident to sell his home on site, subject to a discount or a commission which the site owner may charge. The maximum level for commissions, to which my hon. and learned Friend referred, is currently limited by regulations under the Act to 15 per cent. The Act also provides for disputes about the terms of an agreement to be settled by the courts.
All these matters must be covered by agreements under the Act, but the provisions of the Act only apply, as my hon. and learned Friend said, if a statutory agreement has been made. A site owner is obliged to offer an agreement only in the circumstances that I have described, and there is, of course, no obligation on a resident to accept the offer. Our information suggests that no more than one-third of residents entitled to an agreement actually have them. The percentage was even lower on the site that my hon. and learned Friend mentioned. Where no agreement under the 1975 Act has been made, a resident's rights will depend almost entirely on the terms of the contract that he has with the site owner.
Agreements under the Act are for a period of five years, renewable for a further three—that is, eight in all. As the first agreements were made at the end of 1975, they will begin to run out at the end of next year. The Government have, therefore, been considering whether any further legislation is necessary. In February this year, we issued a consultation paper inviting views on the possibility of new legislation and on the form that it might take.
The consultation paper made no firm proposals for new legislation, but it was intended to give people as wide an opportunity as possible to say what they wanted. I am glad to report that the response has been a good one.
I want to take up one or two of the points that my hon. and learned Friend raised, some of them in correspondence with my Department.
§ Mr. LyellBefore my hon. Friend does that, will he say whether it is right that he has received valuable representations from Age Concern saying that over one-quarter of all mobile home residents are pensioners, or of pensionable age, and also a valuable and detailed representation from the National Consumer Council?
§ Sir George YoungMy hon. and learned Friend is correct. They were two of the bodies which replied to our consultative document. We shall, of course, take on board their comments.
One of the points that my hon. and learned Friend raised in correspondence was that legislation might not be primary but secondary legislation. He said that, in his view, secondary legislation that did no more than extend the 1975 Act would be insufficient. I hope that he will understand that I cannot yet tell him whether there is to be primary legislation. What I can say, however, is that if there is to be legislation it will be primary and not secondary, because secondary legislation would not, in fact, achieve an extension of the 1975 Act. The relevant section of the Act empowers the Secretary of State to vary 625 any of the periods specified in sections 1, 2 or 3 of the Act, including the period which is laid down as the minimum length of an agreement.
However, my understanding is that a variation order of this kind would apply only to future agreements, not to those already made. Thus, we might prescribe that a future agreement under the 1975 Act was to be for a minimum of 10 or 25 years, but that would be no help at all to people with existing agreements which run out next year—or, indeed, to people already on site without 1975 Act agreements. I can assure my hon. and learned Friend, therefore, that the issue that the Government are now considering is whether there should be a Bill, not whether we should make an order under the 1975 Act. If there is a Bill it would be susceptible to amendment. If it was not exactly in line with the ideas put forward by my hon. Friend and my hon. and learned Friend, they could persuade the House that it should be altered.
The response to the consultation paper was good. We received comments from nearly 100 residents, some park residents associations, individual site operators and national organisations representing both sides of the industry. Many other national bodies wrote to us, including Age Concern, the National Consumer Council, Shelter, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the local authority associations. It is a measure of the interest that has developed in the subject that so many people replied, and it is helpful to have their views.
It will come as no surprise to learn that the range of views expressed in the responses was wide and that many subjects were raised. The points that have been made today were raised by some respondents—for example, whether the site owner or resident should take the initiative towards making an agreement and what should happen in the absence of a statutory agreement. The notion of a deemed agreement, as put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North, is an interesting solution to the problem that the Government are considering seriously.
My hon. and learned Friend put forward solutions to many of the problems as did some other respondents. Many respondents mentioned the commission on the sale of a mobile home. That subject has given rise to strong 626 feelings. It is now for the Government to consider what action we should take on those points and on the others that have been put to us.
My hon. Friend and my hon. and learned Friend mentioned rents. The 1975 Act provides that an agreement must specify the initial pitch fee and provide for an annual review of the fee. As with the other terms of an agreement under the Act, disputes about the initial fee and the provision for review can be settled by the courts, but there has been some doubt about the powers of the court in that area and about the role that arbitration might play. It is another issue that the Government are examining in the light of the responses to the consultation paper.
§ Mr. Ivor Stanbrook (Orpington)Would not voluntary associations of mobile home owners be valuable in promoting their interests because there is so little liaison and co-ordination in this area? The information required and the problems highlighted by my hon. and learned Friend could be dealt with more easily on the basis of concerted information.
§ Sir George YoungThe Government were delighted to see the bursting into life again of the residents' association to which my hon. and learned Friend referred. It is vital that the Government have an authoritative and representative body whom they can consult on such issues. I endorse my hon. and learned Friend's remarks about the organisation and its officials. We are considering pitch rents carefully.
I have listened carefully to what was said today. The Government will take full account of the comments of my hon. and learned Friends and my hon. Friend and of those who responded to the consultation paper. We wish to ensure adequate protection for the residents of mobile home sites. However, we must also ensure that there is sufficient incentive for site owners to continue their role. There will be no advantage to residents if site owners feel that they can no longer maintain their sites or invest in new ones. We must strike a balance. I am grateful to my hon. Friend and to my hon. and learned Friend for their advice on how best to find that balancing point, but I can say no more about the Government's legislative plans at present.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at three minutes past Three o'clock.