NOTICES (Hansard, 23 March 1983)

§ The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. John Stanley)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This clause provides that a landlord must supply any form which has been statutorily prescribed for tenants' use in connection with their right-to-buy within seven days of receiving a request from a tenant for such a form. We are concerned in particular that landlords should be under an obligation to supply the initial right to buy claim form, the RTB1. No express provision was included in the Housing Act 1980 to require landlords to meet requests from their tenants for these forms.
We assumed, not unreasonably I think, that no local authority would be so irresponsible or so petty as to refuse its own tenants a statutorily prescribed form under legislation passed by Parliament. Unhappily, we overestimated the sense of public responsibility of two Labour-controlled authorities, the city council of Leeds and the council at Thamesdown, both of which have consistently refused to provide their tenants with the right-to-buy application forms, referring all requests to the Department. The Department has so far issued over 8,000 forms to Leeds tenants and over 16,000 to tenants in Thamesdown. I can see no justification whatsoever for the stance that those two authorities have adopted. Their refusal to supply the statutory forms has simply served to cause delay, frustration and inconvenience to individual tenants who want to exercise their statutory rights.
The new clause will place landlords under a clear legal obligation to supply their tenants with forms prescribed for their use in exercising the right to buy. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree that the new clause should never have been necessary. If councils such as Leeds and Thamesdown wish to conduct themselves in an obstructive and petty-minded way by refusing to hand out statutorily prescribed forms, we have no alternative but to bring forward a new clause to prevent tenants from being obstructed in obtaining their legal rights.

§ Mrs. Ann Taylor (Bolton, West)
The Minister said that the new clause should never have been necessary. It would not have been necessary if the Government had not 879 insisted throughout their right-to-buy legislation that they knew better than local authorities what was appropriate with regard to council house sales in any local authority area. As the Minister has said, the new clause is a petty little amendment. It shows the House the Minister's obsession with forcing through as many council house sales as possible. The whole of the Minister's legislation has been insistent on pushing forward as quickly as possible with as many sales as possible. This is yet another example of that approach.
The Minister gave two examples of authorities which, he said, were dragging their feet in terms of supplying forms to tenants who wanted to buy. However, he did not point out that the new clause will apply to all local authorities. They will all have to supply forms within seven days, regardless of the circumstances in which they are operating and regardless of the staffing constraints that the Tory Government have placed upon them. I wonder whether there are any other circumstances in which a local authority or even a Government Department has to operate under such a peculiar restriction that it has to send out forms within seven days.
The Minister has not said what will happen if the request for a form is received by a local authority during a holiday period—say, wakes week, Christmas or Easter —when staff are away. He has not taken account of problems such as postal delays. He has not said whether local authorities will have sufficient money to send the forms out by first-class post or whether the seven days apply to the date on which the local authority posts the form or the date by which the tenant is supposed to receive it. I wonder, too, whether, in future, all of us will get replies to letters from this Government within seven days. Will the Government set an example?
The Minister ought not to be bringing forward the new clause. It is a petty amendment. It is a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but it is symptomatic of the obsession of the Minister and his Department with council house sales and his assumption that he knows better than the local authorities concerned.

§ Mr. Christopher Murphy (Welwyn and Hatfield)
I wish to support my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction who has moved the new clause. He is endeavouring, as are all Members on this side of the House, to ensure that council and housing association tenants are provided with every fair opportunity to take advantage of the right to buy. It is imperative to eliminate from the Housing Act 1980, via clauses such as this, any hurdles that may be erected by Labour-controlled councils in the hope that the tenant will eventually fall short of the winning post. The stakes are indeed high—a person's home — and the prize well worth the winning —ownership—and nothing should be allowed to make the going more difficult.
The new clause will assist the tenant who wishes to claim to exercise the right to buy by stipulating the provision of a form from the landlord to give such notice. It should provide a helpful step in the procedure, in stark contrast to doctrinaire Socialist local authorities, such as Welwyn/Hatfield, which apparently makes considerable use of completion notices as part of the technique of hindrance.
880 The new clause also illustrates clearly how the Government are determined to help fulfil the desire of the vast majority of council tenants to own their own homes by improving the system, and district councils such as my own should fully recognise that. To have had to involve my hon. Friend the Minister to speed up local sales and to find that under 15 per cent. of houses have been sold speaks volumes.
It is essential that, should the clause be passed by the House, its importance in amending the Housing Act is given maximum publicity to council tenants seeking the right to buy. The need to publish the whole advantageous scheme, together will full details of the method to be adopted in purchasing council homes, is paramount in overcoming the intransigence of Labour-controlled authorities.
I urge all hon. Members who believe it is correct to respect the hopes and aspirations of their constituents to support the Minister on the new clause. Such determination will make the right to buy one of the most successful social policy innovations of the 20th century.