§ Mr. Tony BanksI beg to move amendment No. 206, in page 19, leave out lines 23 to 26.
§ Mr. SpeakerWith this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 207, in page 19, line 27, leave out 'that section' and insert
'section 3 of the 1977 Act (prohibition of eviction without due process of law)'No. 208, in page 19, line 30, leave out the words'other than an excluded licence,'.No. 209, in page 19, leave out lines 35 to 43.No. 210, in page 20, line 4, leave out
'(other than an excluded licence)'.No. 211, in page 20, line 9, leave out clause 29.Government amendment No. 40.
No. 230, in clause 29, page 20, line 17, leave out
'or a member of the owner's family (whether or not in common with other persons.'.No. 234, in page 20, line 21, leave out
'also at the time it comes to an end'and insert'at all times since then'.Government amendment No. 41.No. 231, in page 20, line 22, leave out
'or a member of his family'.Government amendments Nos. 42 to 47.
§ Mr. BanksThese amendments relate to clauses 28 and 29 which change the Rent Act 1977. We have accepted that clauses 25, 26 and 27 and the amendments that the Government have moved tighten the law—but, as we have said, not as much as we would like—against illegal eviction. It seems a depressingly inevitable consequence that the Government could not give something to tenants without, of course, wanting to take something from them at the same time. In clauses 28 and 29, they take the most basic protection from certain tenants and licensees: the right to proper notice and an order from the court when evicting tenants and licensees in certain circumstances.
Those circumstances are, first, if the tenant is sharing certain living accommodation with the landlord or a member of the landlord's family at the beginning and ending of the tenancy; secondly, if the tenancy or licence was granted as a temporary expedient to a person who entered the accommodation as a squatter; thirdly, holiday 1100 lets; fourthly, hostels provided by statutory or voluntary bodies; and, fifthly, anyone else whom the Secretary of State names.
We believe that this seriously undermines the protection from arbitrary eviction that tenants are entitled to expect. We are not asking that the landlord should not be able to obtain possession of his property in certain circumstances, only that there should be proper scrutiny of the facts when possession is sought. For example, are the Government really saying that people living in hostels, possibly having been discharged from institutions dealing with drink or drug dependency problems, should be evicted on to the streets without any protection whatsoever from the courts? If the Government's response is to say that they do not expect hostels to evict residents in such a way, what is the point in giving them the power to do so? One does not give powers to certain institutions and agencies without expecting them to use them at some time in the future.
I turn now to the vexed question of holiday lets. I have often thought, Mr. Speaker, about what you could get for a holiday let of your premises when you go away. You are not even listening, Mr. Speaker—[Interruption.] Ah, yes, Mr. Speaker, I was saying that holiday lets are the largest category of sham lettings. As we all know, genuine holiday lets do not create security of tenure, but removing the need for a court order makes shams even more attractive to landlords wishing to abuse the system because the court hearing is usually the only point at which the sham can be tested.
I give the Minister of State a good example. Nurses working at the Royal Free hospital in Hampstead were let rooms on holiday let agreements in the street opposite the hospital. At the end of the six months of the let, it was extended by a further six months. After taking advice, the nurses applied for fair rents to be registered on the premises. The landlord then applied to the courts for possession, but the court upheld the nurses' claim that it was a sham and that they had a protected tenancy. That was because they had the ability to go to court and that is why we feel that it is wrong that that ability should be taken away.
Resident landlords of houses in multiple occupation regularly keep a room locked and vacant for, they say, their own use which, if the clauses remain unchanged, will make bogus residency claims harder to disprove as evictions will take place without any court hearings. Obviously, resident landlords who no longer have a reasonable relationship with their tenants will want to obtain possession, but as the tenants do not have full security a possession order could be reasonably and easily obtained. However, in our experience it is more often the landlord who makes petty rules and regulations and generally makes life unpleasant for the tenant rather than the other way round.
I give the Minister another brief example. A student renting a room from a resident landlord in Canterbury was told that she could not have friends to visit or jointly study, that she should not come in after 10 pm or use the bathroom after 9 pm and that she had to vacate the room at weekends if the landlord had any family coming to stay. She was constantly made aware by the landlord that any infringement of those rules or any other disagreement with him would lead to eviction. She was therefore in a state of agitation up to and during her final exams.
1101 The forms of tenure being removed from the law would not be the first choice for those with any real choice in the decisions about their housing. However, such tenures will be the only option for people who, because of age, disability, income or ethnic origin, have no real choice about the accommodation that they occupy. The Minister must know that that is often the case. Such people should not be further penalised by the removal of the vestige of protection that they have at the moment.
The Government are already allowing landlords easier access to courts for possession proceedings, and required notice periods have been reduced. Our amendments do not seek full security for such tenures. We seek only to ensure that the courts are still involved before evictions take place. Excluded tenures would be an incentive to create shams, which are notoriously difficult to prove once the tenant has been evicted. Where possession proceedings are not being brought, the tenant has no easy access to the court to show that a sham is in operation. Tenants would have to predict their landlords' actions and go to court for declarations of protected tenancies, leaving themselves open to harassment and early eviction. Alternatively, they would have to fight their case after they had been evicted, when not only would the facts be difficult to prove, but legal aid would be difficult to obtain.
I am sure that, on reflection, the Minister will accept that it is unreasonable to remove what minimal protection already exists in such specific examples and I am sure that he will now be willing to accept our amendments.
§ Mr. WaldegraveAs a result of the discussions in Committee we believed that one matter needed amendment. I hope that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) will welcome that fact, although I do not accept some of his other points. The hon. Gentleman will remember that we undertook in Committee—I know that the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) will remember this—to have another look at the situation where the resident landlord is said to be sharing and the tenant is excluded because he is sharing with a member of the resident landlord's family. That seemed to us to be quite an easy form of abuse. A resident landlord could scatter members of his family round and about. We have dealt with that in amendments Nos. 40 to 47.
Although hon. Members on both sides of the House will approve of the provisions of clause 28 in general, and the strengthening of the Protection from Eviction Act which they represent, we must he careful that as we extend the Bill to cover licences by making the position of licensees far stronger, which we are doing, we do not produce any problems or difficulties. It is inevitable that, if we are to strengthen the position of licensees in general, we have to consider one or two exceptions, and we have done that.
It has been put to me by a number of bodies involved that it would make the management of hostels impossible if hostel authorities had to get a court order to evict a resident who did not want to move. It might even mean that they had to get a court order to move a resident within the hostel.
§ Mr. Simon HughesI know that the Minister has been approached by the National Federation of Housing Associations about hostels and licences. Does he intend to 1102 apply the same approach in the private sector as in the social sector to hostel users and the difficulties involved in such licences?
§ Mr. WaldegraveWe shall come to another matter regarding hostels, which I had better not quote from memory at this time of night in case I get it wrong. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have been in touch with the NFHA and have visited some of the hostels in my constituency and talked through some of the problems and tried to meet them. We shall have to make another amendment in another place fully to deal with the question, but we shall come back to it.
We want to encourage resident landlords properly to use their property and to let spare accommodation. We know that they will not do that if it means sharing with someone they cannot easily remove if relations deteriorate. We must all have heard such constituency stories; I certainly have.
Hon. Members accept that in general the resident landlord exclusion is justified and the extension of the provision to cases in which a tenant or licensee shares accommodation with a member of the landlord's or licensor's family was more difficult. We want to cover cases in which the property is sub-divided in such a way that the tenant shares with a family member—say, the landlord's mother—in one part of the house and the landlord lives in another part of the house. We have not quite achieved that and that is why we have tabled amendments.
The hon. Member for Newham, North-West raised the matter of holiday lets. There has been a problem with holiday lets. We strongly argue the converse of the arguments that were put to us by the Opposition. Shorthold and market rents will make the incentive for sham holiday lets disappear, and that abuse will go of its own accord when the Bill is passed. It would be monstrous for someone making a genuine holiday letting to have to get a court order to evict a holidaymaker who outstayed his let. In many parts of the country where holiday letting is a key part of the rural economy that would produce very severe problems.
§ Mr. Tony BanksHas the Minister any evidence, any hard statistics, about genuine holiday lets which do not create any security of tenancy ending up with the landlord having to go to court to get the tenant out? Do any statistics show such abuse?
§ Mr. WaldegraveI shall check and find out whether there are, but obviously it would be wrong to do anything that would encourage such abuse. More important" the case that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West described would have been answered by shorthold. Presumably the landlord would have let on shorthold and not needed to use the mechanism of a sham holiday let.
I ask hon. Members to recognise that the widened provisions of the Protection from Eviction Act cannot be sensible if there are no excluded licences and I ask them to reject the Opposition amendments and to accept our amendments which meet the commitment that we made in Committee.
§ Mr. Tony BanksWe are bitterly disappointed at the Minister's failure to accept a reasonable set: of amendments, but on this occasion we shall not press the amendment to a vote.
§ Amendment negatived.