SHORT TITLE, REPEALS, COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT (Hansard, 5 May 1983)

§ Sir George Young
I beg to move amendment No. 23, in page 5, line 5, leave out 'three months' and insert 'one week'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Paul Dean)
With this it will be convenient to take Government amendment No. 24.

§ Sir George Young
These amendments were trailed in the speech of the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham) a short while ago and they deal with the commencement date.
We have taken the unusual step of proposing that this Bill should come into force only one week after Royal Assent to minimise the danger that site owners might attempt to deny their residents the protection of the Bill by taking action before it comes into force. The Bill has now completed most of its stages in another place and in this House and I do not think that it is unduly premature to say that it is Parliament's wish that mobile home residents should enjoy the protection that the Bill will provide. These amendments will reduce as far as possible the danger that site owners will be able to prevent that happening between now and commencement.
Subject to the approval of this House and of another place, we hope that the Bill will complete its remaining stages in time for it to achieve Royal Assent and come into force before the end of May. Any resident who is still on a mobile home site—provided that his right to be there has not already been brought to an end by then—will be entitled to the protection of the Bill from;its commencement date. Following the amendments which the House agreed to earlier, residents will have security of tenure and the right to sell from the day that the Bill comes into force. I should perhaps add that the Caravan Sites Act 1968 provides that a notice to "determine a residential contract" on mobile home sites cannot take effect in less than 28 days.
In considering how best to cope with attempts to evade the Bill, we examined the possibility of making its provisions retrospective. I do not think that any hon. Member regards retrospective legislation with enthusiasm and it did not seem to us that retrospection would achieve significantly more than these amendments. We also considered bringing the Bill into force at Royal Assent but it cannot be fully effective unless an order has been made under schedule 1, part I, paragraph 8, fixing the maximum level of commission that a site owner can charge on the sale of a mobile home. The week between Royal Assent and commencement will enable us to make and lay that order. It will also enable us to make the regulations with which a site owner's written statement must comply under 427 what is now clause 1. This inevitably means that the statutory instruments must come into effect almost immediately, without the normal 21-day period to which the House is accustomed.
There is one other point that I should make about these amendments. They will give those affected by the Bill little time to prepare for commencement. That is why new clause 1 gives site owners six months in which to provide written statements to those on site at commencement, rather than three as we had originally intended. Security of tenure and the other implied terms will, of course, apply from the date of commencement.
I do not claim that these amendments are altogether desirable. It would have been better to bring the Bill into force after a more reasonable interval. However, I believe that they are necessary if the Bill is to be as effective as possible in protecting those whom it is designed to protect. I commend the amendments to the House.

§ Mr. Stephen Ross
I strongly support these amendments. The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) will have received the same letter as me as he is the president and I a vice president of a park in his constituency. Unfortunately, there are some site owners who can be pretty nasty. In one case, a lady who formed a residents' association has apparently been given notice to quit and been taken to court. There is a need for speed. I should not like to say that that type of treatment is common but it occurs and the Minister is absolutely right to take this action.