§ Mr. Wyn RobertsI beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 18, line 27, leave out 'a house' and insert
'not a flat within the meaning of Schedule 19 to the 1980 Act'.
§ Mr. SpeakerWith this we shall take Government amendments Nos. 9 to 15, 111, 96, 48, 49, 112 and 74.
§ Mr. RobertsThis group of technical amendments need not detain us long.
Clauses 17 to 20 of the Bill apply to both right-to-buy and voluntary sales, but the basic provisions governing both types of sale are contained in different legislation. For right-to-buy sales it is the Housing Act 1980, for voluntary sales other legislation applies—notably the Housing Act 1957. The object of this group of amendments is to achieve consistency in the application of clauses 17 to 20, given the different statutory provisions that apply to the sales.
The amendments deal with five specific issues, which I shall run through briefly. First, amendment No. 8 ensures that there is no overlap between schedule 19 to the 1980 Act and schedule 4 to the Bill—both of which deal with service charges. Schedule 19 applies if the dwelling-house is a flat and schedule 4 to all other dwelling-houses.
Secondly, amendment No. 13 extends the definition of dwelling-house to include a house within the meaning of the Housing Act 1957. Right-to-buy sales are always sales to sitting tenants; voluntary sales may be of property where there is no sitting tenant. The definition of "house" in the 1957 Act is wide enough to deal with that position.
Thirdly, under the right-to-buy rules landlords may not assign leases, but such assignments are possible in voluntary sales. It is desirable therefore that the provisions of clauses 17 to 21 should, for the sake of completeness, cover such assignments also. That is the objective of amendment No. 9 and the new definition of conveyance in amendment No. 13.
Fourthly, clause 17(3)(c) relates the provisions only to the sale of dwelling-houses held by county councils under their reserve powers. But there is no reason why sales of dwelling-houses held by county councils for other purposes should be excluded, or why purchasers of those dwellings should be excluded from this group of clauses. We believe that that limitation should therefore be removed. Furthermore, since housing co-operatives are not landlords in their own right, and do not dispose of dwellings, there is no reason for them to be included in the list. Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 achieve that effect.
Fifthly, clause 18 applies the new vesting arrangements to voluntary sales where there is a pre-emption covenant of the kind mentioned in section 104(6)(b) of the 1957 Act. But the vesting arrangements may also be appropriate where, in voluntary sales, a lease precludes its assignment, or the granting of a sub-lease, under the powers contained in section 104(6)(c). since it is normal in such cases—for example, local authority leasehold schemes for the elderly—for lessees to have a right of surrender to the 515 local authority. The end result is, in effect, the equivalent of a right of pre-emption. Clause 18 should, therefore, also contain a reference to section 104(6)(c) of the 1957 Act. That is the purpose of amendments Nos. 14 and 15.
Amendments Nos. 10, 48, 49 and 74 are consequential. Amendments Nos. 111 and 112 remove what is now subsection (8) of clause 19 to schedule 10 and are drafting amendments, as is amendment No. 96 to clause 21.
As I said earlier, these are technical amendments necessary to achieve consistency. I hope that the House will endorse them.
Amendment agreed to.
Amendments made: No. 9, in page 18, line 28, after 'grant', insert
'or, in the case of a conveyance which is an assignment of a lease, the lease'.No. 10, in page 18, line 37, at end insert
'; and in that Schedule expressions used in this section have the same meanings as in this section'.No. 11, in page 18, line 42, leave out from beginning to end of line 7 on page 19 and insert
'the vendor or lessor is one of the following bodies,namely—'.No. 12, in page 19, line 9, at end insert—
'(aa) a county council;'.No. 13, in page 19, leave out lines 19 to 26 and insert—
'(4) In this section and sections 18 and 19 below—"conveyance" means a conveyance of the freehold or an assignment of a long lease;
"dwelling-house" includes a house within the meaning of the 1957 Act;
"grant" means a grant of a long lease;
"long lease" means a lease creating a long tenancy within the meaning of paragraph 1 of Schedule 3 to the 1980 Act. '.—[Mr. Wyn Roberts J.