TENANCIES WHICH CANNOT BE ASSURED TENANCIES

HC Deb 09 June 1988 vol 134 cc1011-9

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ian Grist)

I beg to move amendment No. 9, in page 75, line 41, at end insert— '(2) The reference in sub-paragraph (1) above to the case where the interest of the landlord belongs to Her Majesty in right of the Crown does not include the case where that interest is under the management of the Crown Estate Commissioners.'.

Mr. Speaker

With this, it will be convenient to take Government amendment No. 61.

Mr. Grist

Both are straightforward amendments. Properties let by the Crown Estates Commissioners, like those let by the Chancellors of the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, are to be brought within the scope of the assured tenancy regime although Crown properties are, of course, generally outside the scope of the Bill. The Crown Estate Commissioners and the Duchies were brought within the scope of the Rent Act 1977 by the Housing Act 1980. The Duchies' interests are already covered by clause 43. Government amendment No. 9 applies the assured tenancy regime to lettings by the Crown Estate Commissioners.

Government amendment No. 61 is a technical amendment. As the Duchy of Lancaster will be letting on assured tenancies, it is necessary to deem that the Chancellor of the Duchy shall be the owner of Her Majesty's interests for the purpose of those tenancies. That is because Her Majesty cannot be sued in the event that legal action should arise. I am sure that hon. Members will accept that the amendments are uncontroversial and necessary.

Mr. Simon Hughes

The amendments are uncontroversial in one sense, but it would be convenient if the Minister could tell the House how many properties are affected in England, Scotland and Wales, because for the people in question the amendments are clearly important although the percentage of the total stock that is affected is small. How many properties and tenants are we talking about?

Mr. Grist

I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman off the cuff but I shall certainly try to find out the answer for him.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. McCartney

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have just had a vote on the order of consideration motion, but the Minister cannot answer the first question that he has been asked about the first amendment. It is an absolute shambles—[interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd)

Order. I ask the hon. Gentleman to resume his seat. Answers given by Ministers have nothing to do with the Chair. We now come to Government amendment No. 70——

Mr. Frank Dobson (Holborn and St. Pancras)

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. As you are aware, a considerable number of points of order were raised with Mr. Speaker about the generally unsatisfactory nature of the Bill as it comes to the House on Report, and about the late tabling of amendments. Many of my hon. Friends have made the point that the House as a whole is now being expected to give Committee stage consideration to these amendments rather than the normal Report stage reconsideration. It seems farcical that we are faced with a situation in which an hon. Member, not of my party, asks a perfectly reasonable question about the number of tenancies affected by the very first amendment but the Minister apparently does not have the faintest idea. That seems to reduce our proceedings to a farce. The object should be to allow hon. Members to find out the background, the justification and how many people are involved—[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker

Order.

Several Hon. Members

rose——

Madam Deputy Speaker

Order. I think that I can deal with this. I understand the frustration felt by hon. Members, but I must remind the House that the Chair is not responsible for answers given by Ministers. Perhaps the point that has been made by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) from the Opposition Dispatch Box has gone home to those in all parts of the House. We must now proceed with Government amendment No. 70.

Mr. Paul Boateng (Brent, South)

rose——

Mr. McCartney

rose——

Ms. Dawn Primarolo (Bristol, South)

rose——

Madam Deputy Speaker

Order. I call the Minister to move Government amendment No. 70.

Ms. Primarolo

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Opposition Members raised earlier with Mr. Speaker the point that new information is before us and that, as Back Benchers, we have been unable to consider that information properly in order to debate the Bill. Mr. Speaker advised us that Ministers would answer our questions during the debate. However, on the very first amendment and on the very first question asked, the Minister told us—he was not even on the Committee— that he could not answer the question. What faith can we have in the proceedings on the rest of the Bill?

Madam Deputy Speaker

The House cannot go on rehearsing and repeating points which have already been made and which, in effect, are not points of order. We must now proceed with the amendments, which, I repeat, have been before the House and all its Members for some time. It would be to the advantage of everybody concerned to proceed with the amendments.

Mr. Tony Banks

rose——

Mr. Boateng

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I appreciate your predicament in this matter and do not seek to go beyond your rulings but I am bound to say that in Committee we were used to the somewhat cursory comments from the Front Bench of the Minister of State's acolyte who never departed from her script. Much of the Bill that we considered in Committee has been dispensed with—like, apparently, the services of the Minister who considered the matter in Committee. Is it really in order for this matter to be dealt with by the Minister of State's new acolyte in this way? We ask ourselves, "Where is Marion Roe?"

Madam Deputy Speaker

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's sympathy for the Chair, but I assure him that I am in no predicament. I call the Minister to move Government amendment No. 70.

Mr. Grist

I beg to move amendment No. 70, in page 76, line 14, at end insert— `(cc) the Broads Authority' I was going to say, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) is that the lettings are for the future so the number is hypothetical anyway.

The Broads Authority was established for the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads earlier this year. For housing purposes it is treated as a local authority. It is intended that its small housing stock should he let on secure tenancies, not assured tenancies. The amendment adds the Broads Authority to the list of bodies in schedule 1, the lettings of which cannot be assured tenancies.

Mr. Soley

We are glad to know that the tenancies will not be shorthold tenancies in that context. However, in view of the Minister's unfortunate contribution to the debate so far, I advise him that the whole essence of this afternoon has been the Government's inability to get their act together in relation to the Bill. We need detailed answers, given that to some extent the Government seem to have accepted that the Bill is now being drafted on the Floor of the House. Let me put the Government on notice that we expect to have answers to reasonable questions. We do not expect to have dismissive answers. If, in some circumstances understandably, the Minister does not have a complex answer to hand, we expect to hear from the Minister and to be given an answer in due course. Otherwise, the Bill will not only be an appalling mess, but it will be a very long and very bitter, nasty mess.

5 pm

Mr. Simon Hughes

On what should be relatively short and uncomplicated matters, the figures are very important. In the same schedule, one of the excepted authorities is the Inner London education authority. The House might believe that the ILEA owns no houses apart from those lived in by school teachers, but that is not correct. Several people who are tenants of the ILEA live near me. It was several months, if not years, before I could discover how many properties in Southwark and Bermondsey not attached to school or education premises were owned by the ILEA. The amendment does not concern my constituency. It is about the Broads. None the less, I am sure that the same question is relevant. How many people will be affected by being in one category of tenancy rather than another? The whole debate is about what tenancies and what rights people will have.

Like the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley), I hope that whenever we consider proposals—they are all new Government amendments—to put into the Bill or take out of the Bill a category of housing we shall be told how many properties are involved. However small the geographical area, it is a fundamental change for the people in question. Repeatedly in the Bill we have discussed what for many tenants will be the most fundamental change in their status relative to their landlords since the war. I ask again, and I give notice that I will do so on each similar amendment, how many properties and how many tenants are involved.

Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark (Birmingham, Selly Oak)

It may come as a surprise, but I have not always agreed with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. As I understand the Bill, and as I understand what the hon. Member for Hammesmith (Mr. Soley) said when he talked about 99 if not 100 concessions being made, the concessions which many of us have heard about today are profound concessions that hon. Members on both sides of the House welcome. Surely those concessions were made because the Secretary of State and his team listened to what has been said and listened to the worries that people have had. That will make it a better Bill.

Is it not right that, even if the Opposition do not like the Bill, it is the will of the country and the will of the Government that the Bill will prevail in the end" Is it not their task to see that it is a better Bill and to discuss the very proper concessions that have been made? Are we not better to move on in that attitude, instead of in the manner of people who think that they still run the country when they do not?

Mr. Allan Roberts (Bootle)

The assumption is being made that the amendment that we are now considering and the other Government amendments that have been tabled, some at great length, are the result of concessions granted to the Opposition. In Committee we were granted a large number of concessions, or given assurances about a large number of matters, which we saw as concessions.

The great tragedy for us, and for people in this country, is that the Government amendments, new clauses and new schedules do not reflect the concessions and undertakings given in Committee. If they did, we would be very happy and we would not be complaining. However, they are quite different. They represent the Government's rewriting of the legislation and the final gestation of a dispute between Ministers and civil servants in the Department of the Environment. It is obvious from the length of time between finishing Committee and reaching Report and the panic over the way that the Government have tabled amendments that there have been major problems in the Department of the Environment which have resulted in amendments being tabled in a way that treats the House with contempt. As we discuss Government amendment after Government amendment, the Opposition will point out how concessions which seemed to be granted and agreed in Committee have been ratted on and we shall table amendments to make sure that the Government's promises in Committee are put before the House in the form of Opposition amendments.

Mr. McCartney

I should like to ask the Minister a question about his statement. I heard him say that the Broads Authority will be treated like a local authority. At about 8 o'clock this morning I received a copy of what loosely could be called a White Paper entitled: Large Scale Voluntary Transfers of Local Authority Housing to Private Bodies". I had a cursory look at it. Will the Minister confirm that the Broads Authority will be treated like a local authority and will be included in the concepts set out in that White Paper? If so, has the Broads Authority been advised of the contents of the White Paper and what procedure will be used to consult the tenants of the Broads Authority in respect of the possibility of their homes being transferred to the private sector by the Broads Authority?

Mr. Spearing

I was not a member of the Committee and therefore I approach these matters as an amateur. That does not mean that the Minister does not have the responsibility to make things absolutely clear. As I understand it, an assured tenancy is a new form of legal tenure which has much less security for the tenant than he has at the moment. Even what is described as a secure tenancy in another part of the Bill is not as secure as such tenancies are at the moment.

I understand that schedule 1, to which the amendment applies, defines tenancies which cannot be assured tenancies. Therefore, I assume that they are tenancies which, whatever happens to the property, will remain secure tenancies whether they remain with a local authority or whether the local authority disposes of them in the way in which the Government wish.

The amendment is adding to the list of local authorities, on page 76 of the Bill, the Broads Authority, which does not yet exist. The House has passed a Bill creating the new Broads Authority. Informal discussions are taking place, and I believe that the county clerk of Norfolk county council is about to call a number of meetings in which policies are to be discussed and the authority will take over next year.

If the Broads Authority is added to the list and becomes a local authority for the purposes of the Bill, presumably it will be subject to the Government's policy of disposal, including the policy of disposal encapsulated in new clause 47 which is on the list of amendments and is therefore important in the debate. Will the Minister tell me whether I am correct in saying that, by adding to tenancies that cannot be assured the tenancies of the future Broads authority, if that authority used the future facilities of the Bill, it could sell off property? Indeed, the Government say that the future Broads Authority, inheriting tenancies and ownership of property, can, if it wishes, come to an arrangement with another landlord under new clause 47, or with anyone else, and sell it off. Therefore, they say, if it is sold it must retain secure tenancies and not assured tenancies.

Is the Minister saying that the servants of the Broads Authority—which has hardly got going, and which is an important new authority in the administration of a novel sort of national park—who will be in occupation of property, the ownership of which will be visited on the Broads Authority, might have their property sold under them? The implication is that, although that may happen, they will remain secure tenants, but the property will he sold. In answering this short debate, which may be less important than others, will the Minister say whether that is correct?

Does the Minister envisage that the Broads Authority will be able to sell or to transfer tenancies to charitable organisations as defined in new clause 47? If that were the case, tenants would remain secure, but the ownership would be transferred.

Mr. Grist

For housing purposes the Broads Authority is treated like a local authority, so it comes under exactly the same rules as a local authority. In the terms of this small amendment, these tenants are secure tenants and the terms of the amendment mean that they remain so. I would have thought that that would be welcomed by Opposition Members.

Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North)

Will the Minister answer the question put by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes): how many tenants and properties will be affected by this?

Mr. Grist

I said "few" when I opened this little debate.

Amendment agreed to.

The Minister for Housing and Planning (Mr. William Waldegrave)

I beg to move amendment No. 10, in page 77, line 17, leave out 'sub-paragraph' and insert `paragraph'.

Madam Deputy Speaker

With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 11 to 13.

Mr. Waldegrave

These are intricate amendments relating to the resident landlord provisions of the Bill. They derive from a particular case, about which there has been regular correspondence since 1974 between a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) and the Department.

Lettings by resident landlords—that is, people who let part of their homes—are not assured tenancies. Under the Bill they are not subject to statutory security of tenure or to rent control. Many of these restrictions were removed as long ago as 1980. Paragraphs 18 to 20 of schedule I ensure that a letting which has been made by a resident landlord does not become assured during certain periods when there there is no landlord in residence in the building.

Amendment No. 11 covers the case in which there is a change of landlord, a new landlord gives notice that he intends to occupy the dwelling within six months or, within that period, another resident landlord moves in or the landlord's interest becomes vested either in trustees with the beneficiary moving into the dwelling or in the owner's personal representatives following his death. During the intermediate period, when no landlord is in residence, the tenancy does not become assured.

Amendments Nos. 12 and 13 deal with the case when the landlord's interest is vested in trustees and the beneficiary under the trust who has been living in the dwelling dies. The tenancy will not become an assured tenancy in any period up to two years while the landlord's interest remains vested in trustees until a new beneficiary moves in.

Mr. Allan Roberts

This seems to be an interesting but somewhat convoluted amendment.

Mr. Waldegrave

That means that the hon. Gentleman does not understand it.

Mr. Roberts

It means exactly that. That is why I am on my feet asking the Minister to explain it further so that we can decide whether we agree with it.[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) understands it, I will be surprised. What I do understand is that one of the proposals gets rid of the protection that might exist for some tenants who are living in property where the landlord is not resident.

If I understood the Minister correctly, he said that if a house is sold with sitting tenants to a new landlord and the old landlord was not in residence, so the sitting tenants have security of tenure, the new landlord can give notice to the tenants that he intends to become a resident landlord in the house which he has purchased within six months, whereupon the tenants lose their security of tenure. That is one of the main thrusts of the amendment.

Will the Minister confirm or deny that? If that is true, a strange position will be created. If a landlord who is not resident sells a house with sitting tenants and the new owner can get vacant possession, how is the property valued? Is it being sold with vacant possession, half vacant possession or sitting tenants? It will certainly make life difficult in terms of property prices and sales, and the security of tenure enjoyed by those who live in accommodation where there is no resident landlord.

5.15 pm

Mr. Simon Hughes

I wish to make a short confession similar to that of the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts), but in relation to my notes on the amendments. The first one said, "technical" and the second, "probably technical". By the third one I could not work out whether it was technical, probably technical or neither.

I heard what the Minister said, but he will accept that this is the sort of amendment which, if we have not understood it or its implications clearly before we hear his contribution, although we can understand the words, we do not necessarily understand the consequences. Would it be possible as a matter of practice, specifically in a Bill such as this to which there are many Government amendments and new clauses at this stage, to have the courtesy of notes on Government changes in the usual way, certainly for those who served on the Committee?

Many individual constituency cases were raised in Committee which the Minister undertook to consider and do something about. Some came from his side and others from the Opposition. With a clear head and a slightly better opportunity to consider them, we may improve the Bill further. I do not pretend to know the answer, but I should be grateful for that opportunity if it is possible.

Mr. Waldegrave

I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and I shall endeavour to ask my officials to produce a commentary on the Government amendments which I hope to put before the House at the earliest opportunity and which I hope will be helpful. I well understand his anxiety, because many of these issues are complex.

I assure the House that many of these amendments seek to meet the points on which commitments were made. The hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) suffered from a different problem in Committee. It was not that I made commitments to him which I subsequently broke, but I refused to make any commitments to him except on one occasion at the end, when I made a concession which surprised him. Normally he was given the thin edge of the wedge.

Mr. McCartney

On one occasion, when the Minister was not present to look after the Under-Secretary of State, she slipped up and gave me a further concession which I shall speak to on clause 14.

Mr. Waldegrave

I do not want to disappoint the lion. Gentleman but I must point out that my hon. Friend is in Finland—[Interruption.]—which precludes any such repeat. She will doubtless return recreated by a better acquaintance than many of us with Finnish opera and other cultural events.

These intricate amendments are aimed at a problem which has been brought to our attention over many years in a lengthy correspondence with a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), Mr. Bednar, and we are taking the opportunity to meet that small point.

No one who has an assured tenancy will lose it as a result of these amendments. It is about circumstances in which the residence qualification is met by the resident being the beneficiary of a trust—that can be met under the present law—and in which, if the beneficiary dies, it may take some time before another beneficiary can move into the same position. That is covered by the legislation. It would be wrong if he suddenly lost the resident qualification. That would be a radical change in the present law.

So it is a tidying up amendment. I apologise for its intricacy. I had to read it at least as many times as the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) before I could understand it. But I assure him that it does not have the implications that he feared.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments made: No. 11, in page 77, line 26, leave out `the condition in paragraph 10(1)(c) again applies' and insert `that interest becomes again vested in such an individual as is mentioned in paragraph 10(1)(c) or the condition in that paragraph becomes deemed to be fulfilled by virtue of paragraph 19(1) or paragraph 20 below.' No. 12, in page 78, line 8, at end insert— '(2) If a period during which the condition in paragraph 10(1)(c) is deemed to be fulfilled by virtue of sub-paragraph (1) above comes to an end on the death of a person who was in occupation of a dwelling-house as mentioned in paragraph (b) of that sub-paragraph, then, in determining whether that condition is at any time thereafter fulfilled, there shall be disregarded any period—

1. (a) which begins on the date of the death;
2. (b) during which the interest of the landlord remains vested as mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(a) above; and
3. (c) which ends at the expiry of the period of two years beginning on the date of the death or on any earlier date on which the condition in paragraph 10(1)(c) becomes again deemed to be fulfilled by virtue of sub-paragraph (1) above.'.

No. 13, in page 78, line 16, after '18', insert 'or paragraph 19(2)'.