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Lords amendment: No. 11, in page 15, line 33, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
(4) Where a notice is served under subsection (1) above but the rent under the tenancy has previously been increased (whether by agreement or by virtue of a notice under subsection (1) above or a determination under section 25 below) the new rent shall take effect not earlier than the first anniversary of the date on which that increase took effect.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
The amendment makes more explicit the provisions of clause 24(4). Our intention has always been that rent increases under this provision should not take place more often than once a year. In the form in which the provision left this House, the once a year limitation applied only to notices proposing increases. In practice, that will probably have the effect that we intended, but amendment No.11 seeks to put the matter beyond any possibility of doubt.
§ Mr. Home RobertsonThe Minister is displaying his usual charming innocence, but it does not take us much further forward. The amendment simply substitutes the provision that the new rent will not come into effect earlier than a year after the previous increase for the bar which stated that no further notice of increase could be served within a year of the previous one. An increase in rent may be delayed, but harassment by notice of rent increase can go on with impunity. That is what the Government want, and I fear that that is what will happen.
§ Mrs. FyfeI live in hope that the Minister will actually answer one of my questions. Just how often can there be a notice of rent increase, although the rent increases may be reduced to one a year? If a landlord may issue notices of rent increase over and again, that is an act of harassment in itself, and the Minister is doing absolutely nothing about it. Surely he knows that people fear notices of rent increase—even people in the public sector regard them as a threat to evict, although they are nothing of the kind. They are merely formal notices of intention to increase rent. If that action is repeated over and again, it will be taken as harassment, and rightly so.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonWith the leave of the House, I inform the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) that the amendment makes explicit what it has always been our intention to make certain, that increases under the provision should not take place more often than once a year. All it does is to make certain what is a safeguard for tenants, and I am sure that the hon. Lady will accept that.
§ Madam Deputy SpeakerOrder. The hon. Lady has already spoken once on the amendment.
§ Madam Deputy SpeakerI beg the hon. Lady's pardon. I did not hear what she said.
§ Mrs. FyfeI specifically asked the Minister how often there could be a notice of intention, and he has failed to answer the question.
§ Madam Deputy SpeakerThe hon. Lady knows that that is not a point of order for the Chair.
§ Question put and agreed to.