RESTRICTION ON LETTING ETC, OF CERTAIN HOUSES IN NATIONAL PARKS ETC. (Hansard, 27 June 1988)

§ Mr. Michael Jopling (Westmorland and Lonsdale)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean)
With this it will be convenient to take the following: Amendment (a) to the new clause, at end add— `(8) The limitation on disposal in subsection (2)(b) shall not apply if and so long as the House remains the only or main residence of the purchaser (including any successor in title of his and any person deeming title for him or such a successor). (9) in this section the words "only or main residence" shall have the same meaning as in section 29 of the Finance Act 1965.'.

§ Mr. Jopling
New clause 4 has been supported, I am glad to say, by about 65 of my right hon. and hon. Friends, and I am grateful for their support of my efforts to get this change in the law. Many of my hon. Friends have supported this proposal because they come predominantly from rural areas, and their anxiety stems from the concern and pressure in their constituencies, where people are concerned about rural housing. Many hon. Members with rural constituencies are accustomed to hearing from their constituents that in such areas, particularly the beautiful national parks, the areas of outstanding natural beauty and areas of great scenic beauty, housing is becoming increasingly unavailable, and that the prices are increasingly inflated, entirely because of the outside pressure for weekend houses and holiday homes.
150 For example, in correspondence, the Lake District planning board has told me: In the central parishes of the Lake District, second and holiday-home occupancy of existing dwellings has reached levels as high as 40 per cent. of the existing housing stock and the financial inducements to let for the holiday market are strong. As the House will recall, this is not a new problem. That problem was clearly recognised in the right-to-buy legislation which passed through the House in 1980 and was further consolidated in the 1985 legislation. At that time, Parliament decided to take steps to ensure that council houses, having been bought by the tenant under the right-to-buy arrangements, were protected from becoming holiday or weekend homes. That proposal has the support of many of my hon. Friends. As a consequence, in the 1985 Act, two alternative restrictive covenants were allowed for local authorities to put into sale agreements to ensure that, when the former tenant wished to resell the house, it remained in local ownership.
That is what the House wanted and what I wanted, but an anomaly has now emerged, that there is nothing to stop the owner of the former council house letting it as a weekend or holiday home, rather than selling it. That could drive a coach and horses through Parliament's wise decision a few years ago to seek to ensure that former council housing remained in local occupancy.
My new clauses are designed to close that loophole. Their intention is the reason why so many of my hon. Friends have flocked to support them. I hope that the Government will be able to support the new clauses. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), whom I am glad to see here, has put down an amendment to each of my new clauses. Those amendments are entirely acceptable to me, as I understand that they seek to say that the restriction that I am proposing will not apply if the house is the principal residence of the owner. I hope that the Government will find that my hon. Friend's amendments make the new clauses even easier to accept.
My intention is solely to prevent the owner of a former council house from leaving the house, buying or renting another to live in and then letting the original council house at a substantial rate which could well cover the mortgage payments on both houses. That was never Parliament's intention and we should change the law to ensure that the loophole does not occur.

§ Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop (Tiverton)
My two amendments refer to the new clauses moved so ably by my right hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling). He has already given the reason for those refinements to his new clauses, which are in no sense hostile amendments, and I recommend them to the House.

§ Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarfon)
I strongly support this proposal, because I represent an area that has problems similar to those of the Lake District. They are not only problems in rural Wales and the Lake District, but in East Anglia, Cornwall and many other areas where tremendous pressures are put on the limited housing stock and make it extremely difficult for local people to obtain housing.
The loophole to which the right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling) referred is open to exploitation in many areas and I hope that the 151 Government will show that they are willing to accept the amendment. The proposal goes only part of the way to try to mitigate the considerable problems that face people in the right hon. Gentleman's area and in mine. The policy of any Government must be to try to ensure that local people can have some sort of command over the housing stock. The proposal at least deals with the sub-letting of houses that have been sold and, to that extent, is welcome.
I hope that the Government will address themselves to the generality of the problem, because it is certainly becoming worse. A cheque-book invasion in the area which I represent is making it next to impossible for local people to acquire houses to buy. The reduction of the housing stock is making it increasingly difficult to find houses to rent. There must be a mechanism that will provide an answer to the problem, and I urge the Government to give serious consideration to finding it before the problem gets out of hand.

§ Mr. Ridley
It might help the House and assist the conduct of business if I were to ask the House to take yes for an answer to the new clause. I know that it is a terrible thing to ask the House to do, but for once it might bear with me if I say that we accept the new clauses of my right hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling). We shall accept also the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) to them. I fear, however, that in another place it will be necessary to amend the amendments while leaving the sense exactly as he would have them. The addition of "only or main residence" which he proposes has been taken from an Act which has been repealed. I do not think that we can leave that.
Secondly, the amendment to new clause 5 would not affect the operation of the clause in those instances where the landlord has reserved a right to pre-emption. Thus, it would mean that before any letting, however short, the owner of the house would have to give the former landlord the opportunity to buy it back. I do not think that that would be right. Subject to introducing those amendments in another place, the Government are happy to accept the new clauses and the sense of the amendments to them.