RIGHT OF SUCCESSION OF SPOUSE

HC Deb 26 October 1988 vol 139 cc306-19

".—(1) In any case where—

1. (a) the sole tenant under an assured tenancy dies; and
2. (b) immediately before the death the tenant's spouse was occupying the house as his or her only or principal home; and
3. (c) the tenant was not himself a successor as explained in subsection (2) or (3) below,

the tenant's spouse shall, as from the death and for so long as he or she retains possession of the house without being entitled to do so under a contractual tenancy, be entitled to a statutory assured tenancy of the house.

(2) For the purposes of this section, a tenant was a successor in relation to a tenancy—

1. (a) if the tenancy had become vested in him either by virtue of this section or under the will or intestacy of a previous tenant; or
2. (b) if he was a statutory assured tenant by virtue of section 3A of the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984; or
3. (c) if at some time before the tenant's death the tenancy was a joint tenancy held by him and one or more other persons and, prior to his death, he had become the sole tenant by survivorship; or
4. (d) in the case of a tenancy (hereinafter referred to as "the new tenancy") which was granted to him (alone or jointly with others) if—

1. (i) at some time before the grant of the new tenancy he was, by virtue of paragraph (a), (b) or (c) above, a successor to an earlier tenancy of the same or substantially the same house as is let under the new tenancy; and
2. (ii) at all times since he became such a successor he has been a tenant (alone or jointly with others) of the house which is let under the new tenancy or of a house which is substantially the same as that house.

(3) No order for possession under Ground 7 of Schedule 5 to this Act shall be made—

1. (a) in relation to a case to which this section relates by virtue of subsection (1) above; or
2. (b) where the tenant's spouse succeeds to the tenancy under the will or intestacy of the tenant.

(4) For the purposes of this section a person who was living with the tenant at the time of the tenant's death as his or her wife or husband shall be treated as the tenant's spouse."

The proposed amendments to Lords amendment 18: (a), in line 5, leave out from 'house' to end of line 7.

(b), in line 12, leave out from beginning to end ofline 31.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton

Amendment No. 4 made in another place, amended clause 16(1) of the Bill. That clause defines the circumstances in which a statutory assured tenancy arises, and amendment No. 4 added to the list the right of succession for the spouse of an assured tenant which Lords Amendment No. 18 introduces.

However, the provision needs to be amended further because of the recasting of clause 43 and schedule 6 of the Bill with which Lords Amendments No. 38, 39 and 76 are concerned. This amendment does this.

The Government amendment is a technical one to take account of changes to the provisions in succession made on succession to regulated tenancies in another place.

Mr. Home Robertson

When the Minister disagrees with a Lords amendment it brings a whole new flavour to the concept of relationships between the two Houses, because his brother is the Duke of Hamilton. Therefore, this is something of a family dispute.

The amendment deals with the right of a widow to succeed, and it has been portrayed by the Government as a concession. It shows how many concessions have been made to landlords against the interests of tenants in Scotland when the re-establishment of the right of a widow to succeed to the tenancy is presented by the Government as an important concession.

The Government's concession is little more than a fig leaf and greatly qualified because it applies only to the initial tenant's widow. Under subsection (2), the widow of a successor tenant will have no rights whatever. If a tenant dies and his widow succeeds to the tenancy and then remarries, the second spouse will have no rights and on another death the landlord would be able to repossess the house. That means that by no means all widows or widowers will be protected by the provision.

I draw to the attention of the House the representations made by, among others, the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations Ltd., expressing grave concern about the erosion of spouses' rights under the legislation. The amendment falls far short of what the federation called for and it is worried about the impact on future relationships between housing associations and tenants.

The Lords amendment is a slight improvement, but the new legislation still represents a serious erosion of tenants' rights and security, and many widows will face summary eviction in Scotland under the new assured tenancy system. I commend my amendments (a) and (b) to Lords amendment No. 18 because at least they would lift that threat. I should like to hear the Government's opinion of those amendments.

Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill)

I hope that the Minister will be able to satisfy us on the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson). I should like to ask the Minister about the position of a widow or widower of a tenant who had died. If I understand the Government's intentions correctly, the new spouse of that widow or widower would not be allowed to continue the tenancy of the house when his or her spouse died. I cannot understand the logic of that, because it would mean that the spouse had not only lost his or her partner but had lost the home as well. Is that what the Government intend to do to people? Do they not realise that in many cases the people involved will be elderly, because of the late marriage of a widow and a widower which often occurs?

I can understand a lack of appreciation of these difficulties by people who live in several houses, none of which is let and all of which they own. Will the Government come into the real world and try to concern themselves with ordinary people for whom such a problem would be extremely serious?

4 pm

Mr. John McAllion (Dundee, East)

Will the Minister explain what is the present position in law? Is it the case that the succession of spouses is not affected by whether the person who has died succeeded to the tenancy from his previous spouse? There is a serious weakening of the statutory position under the Bill. At the moment there is no discrimination if one is the spouse of the tenant who died and one succeeds to that tenancy. However, that simple position is being eroded by the Government's amendment.

I should like the Minister to clarify another point. If, for example, a tenant dies, the spouse remarries and there are children from that remarriage, is it the case, under what the Minister has suggested, that both the spouse who succeeds and the children of that second marriage will have no security of tenure and could be required by the landlord to surrender the tenancy because of this amendment? I am worried that that may happen. In the guise of introducing technical amendments—the Minister actually said that it was a technical amendment—the Government are seriously undermining the position of tenants.

I know that Lord Sanderson of Bowden, who has responsibility in the other place for Scottish housing, said that the purpose of the Bill was to build on the rights given to tenants in the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Amendment Act 1984 and not to take away tenants' rights. However, Labour Members do not believe that that will happen, and neither does the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, which said that the Government are giving only basic minimum rights to tenants under the new assured tenancies and short assured tenancies. What the Minister said seemed to confirm the SFHA's worries. I do not see how we can add to a tenant's rights, or secure tenant's rights by taking away rights that they already have in existing statutes, but that is what the Minister appears to be doing.

In Scotland, widows and widowers who are left to pick up tenancies already have serious problems with which to deal. In my surgery last Friday night, I had two different cases. One lady came in and said that her husband had died, her grown-up family had left and she did not know how she could afford to heat the house, but if she went back on the waiting list she would be given a house in a part of a town to which she did not wish to move because of the neglect there resulting from lack of Government funds to local councils. She felt trapped in her house and unable to meet the heating bills and unsure whether she could heat her home over the winter. Another case was of a widow who had been left in a house with a huge garden which she did not know how she could cope with, but she did not want to move on to the waiting list because she could not be assured that she would get the kind of housing that she would want.

The Minister is suggesting that in a number of cases, certainly in the private sector, people will not be able to stay in their houses and, as well as coping with the death of their spouses, they will have to cope with the problem of finding new accommodation for themselves, and perhaps for their families, because the Minister has taken away from them the right to succeed to the tenancy that their dead spouse had enjoyed.

The Minister will have to explain why he can leave somebody in the position of having to cope not only with a family bereavement but with the problem of finding new accommodation for themselves and their families. The Minister is suggesting that we should agree to that, but I do not believe that any hon. Member would accept that diminution of the rights of tenants. That is particularly so in the private sector, of which Conservative Members claim to be in favour and which they want to encourage. Here, they are attacking private sector tenants and taking away their rights, which are taken for granted in the public sector. I should like to see the day when the Minister and the Tory Members start to give private sector tenants the same rights as those enjoyed by the public sector tenants.

Mr. Bill Walker (Tayside, North)

I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) said, and I find myself in sympathy with much of what he said about the problems of individuals who find themselves in houses that are unsuitable for their requirements. That often happens if one is locked into the cycle of council accommodation. Frequently, children grow up and leave home—the normal events of life—parents are left, one dies, and the remaining parent is left with a property that contains more bedrooms and other rooms than are required.

Quite often—the hon. Member for Dundee, East drew attention to this—people are left with large gardens with which they cannot cope. It would be marvellous if one could say that local authorities respond quickly to such situations, but, sad to say, the experience of most hon. Members is that local authorities often leave individuals in these circumstances for long periods, sometimes years, before transferring them to more suitable accommodation.

I can speak from some experience of private letting. I grew up, in the early stages of my life, in a privately let house in Dundee. In those days, private landlords could get adequate returns on their lettings. My experience, and that of my family, was that the private landlord system worked sympathetically to the kind of problem to which the hon. Member for Dundee, East has drawn attention. However, much has happened since then. I see that the hon. Gentleman is shaking his head. I do not know whether he ever lived in such circumstances before the 1939 war, because if he did, he would know that I am talking about the period before the legislative changes that wrought havoc with private letting, certainly in Dundee.

Interestingly, the legislation was intended to do good, but it had the opposite effect. It removed from the market place altogether private sector letting, which had successfully provided homes for the majority of tenanted premises, certainly in Dundee. I cannot talk about elsewhere, but in that city, which I know well, it worked. I hope—I would not go any higher than that—that the legislative changes in the Bill will do something to remove some of the imbalances that have occurred, and release more property for letting.

I should like to think that, in doing so, we are taking on board the problems that were highlighted by the hon. Member for Dundee, East. I hope that the Lords amendment that we are rejecting and the amendment that we are putting in its place will provide a much more sympathetic regime for the kind of problems that the hon. Member for Dundee, East has highlighted. If that is not so, I shall be distressed because we must find a way to improve the lot of people who have to live in rented premises. We must ensure that the private sector, as well as the public sector, provides the right kind of accommodation in the right places and at the prices that people can afford.

If all that happens, the Bill will be a success. If it does not and we do not leave a better position than we found, I shall he saddened. However, I am optimistic, because, having sat through the Standing Committee on the Bill and worked carefully through the Bill, I believe that much of what is in it is progressive. It is intended to improve the lot of people who have to live in the circumstances that we have been discussing. I am not interested in political rhetoric. It is easy to indulge in that, but I am much more concerned about the lot of those who will require sympathy, understanding and the opportunity, if it can be arranged, for a transfer to more suitable accommodation.

Mr. Frank Doran (Aberdeen, South)

Like the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker), I started life in a rented house—a council one built in the 1920s—but the conclusions that I reached about the necessity for public housing are very different from his. In Committee, every time a tenant's right was removed, I referred to it. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) rightly made the distinction between the Government's attitude to tenants in the private sector and their attitude to those in the public sector. It seems that, while the latter are to be given rights, the main one being the right to buy their houses, when, under this Bill, they are forced into the private sector, such rights are removed. I do not understand that motivation. I do not see how it can be seen as an improvement of the rights of the individual in Scotland to remove rights when tenants are forced to transfer.

The hon. Member for Tayside, North said that he did not want to indulge in rhetoric; he wanted to consider the facts. We must ask the Minister to give us some facts. In view of the Government's opposition to what appears to be a sensitive and apt Lords amendment, which more or less deals with the present position and gives some right of protection to spouses in rented accommodation, I am most concerned about the practical implications if the proposal is defeated. I want the Minister to tell us what the implications are for individuals and local authorities.

The Government are encouraging the removal of housing stock from the public sector. We heard earlier this week—I am sure the matter will be raised later today—about the transfer of large numbers of Scottish Special Housing Association houses in the Borders to a new trust. That appears to be the future trend. We must consider the implications of the transfer of large numbers of houses to the private sector. The local authorities will have no houses left. It appears that they will not be given nomination rights in those transfers, but, as I understand it, they will still retain the obligation to house the homeless.

If the Government have their way, we shall have a device that will create homelessness. It appears that the landlord will be entitled to remove a tenant, not because of the actions of that tenant—for example, in failing to pay the rent or because he is a bad or anti-social tenant—but for the simple reason that the person who was the formal tenant, in the sense that he or she held the lease, has died. That will be the sole reason for removing that person. He will not be entitled to stay in the house. The landlord may remove him for whatever purpose—for example, to sell the house or to let it to another tenant at a higher rent or on different leasing terms. Obviously, therefore, there will be an incentive for the landlord.

The local authority will not have the necessary housing stock to rehouse that person. Even if the local authority has housing stock, what will be its obligaton to the tenant? Will he be given priority in terms of housing need? Under the present homeless persons legislation, a test of vulnerability is applied. Will that tenant be a vulnerable tenant, or will he be classified as intentionally homeless? What will be the tenant's situation under this newly created right to evict? The Government are giving landlords the right to evict tenants from their homes for the simple reason that the existing leaseholder has died.

Mrs. Ray Michie (Argyll and Bute)

Perhaps the Minister will help me and explain whether, in the case of a family where a spouse or parents have died, a remaining member of the family will be allowed to succeed to the tenancy. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) said, it is not always necessary to rehouse someone because the rooms or the garden have become too large for them to maintain. Many families have lived and grown up in a public sector house and are sad and reluctant to leave it because it is their home.

I am concerned that, for example, a 50-year-old son or daughter, who has been living with his or parents in that house, would be removed. It seems harsh that somebody who has lived in a house and loved his home all his life should suddenly find himself being put out. I should have thought that it was a great worry for many parents if they thought that, when they died, their child, of whatever adult age, was not able to succeed to the tenancy.

4.15 pm

Mr. George Galloway (Glasgow, Hillhead)

The vast expanses on the Government Benches as we discuss the Bill are a visible, if silent, testimony to the ridiculousness of the Bill. I was ill-fated enough to be a member of the Committee that considered the Bill and similar circumstances prevailed then, with Conservative Members writing out their Christmas cards, sending letters to their constituents and disappearing down the Corridor. However, when the Division bell rang, they thundered back in their artificial majority, buttressed by London barristers who knew nothing about Scottish housing and cared even less about it. Four Conservative Members are present, yet, if a Division is called on this vital amendment, hundreds of Conservative Members who know nothing about this legislation will arrive to ram through in the Lobby the Government's proposals to attack Scottish housing.

Mr. Bill Walker

Let me take up the hon. Gentleman's comments about the Committee and what I took to be his views on the conduct of Conservative Members in Committee. I trust that he will not suggest that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), who is here today, were not active in Committee. If that is what he is suggesting, I suggest that he reads Hansard. He will find that, as I have endeavoured to do in every Committee of which I have been a member, I tried to participate constructively and to be helpful to Ministers and to the people who sent me to Parliament. I view that as a serious commitment, so I take the hon. Gentleman's comments as being out of place.

Mr. Galloway

My comments are not at all out of place as I readily concede the omnipresence of the hon. Gentleman in Committee. He was so active and rabid in his contributions in Committee that we were contemplating bringing a straitjacket to restrain him from making attacks on tenants, local authorities and even on the berry pickers of Blairgowrie who felt the rough end of his tongue.

For that reason, I wanted to follow the remarks made by the hon. Gentleman a few moments ago. I have heard him before on his trip down memory lane about the halcyon days of the private landlord. I too am from Dundee and used to deliver milk to the hon. Gentleman's house in Dundee.

Mr. Walker

Not when I lived there.

Mr. Galloway

That is why I did not doctor the milk, as I might otherwise have done. However, it was not the milk of human kindness that I was delivering or that the hon. Gentleman has been delivering on the issue of Scottish housing, both in Committee and here today.

The hon. Gentleman is taking a trip down a memory lane that does not exist. His memory is playing tricks on him. There never was a time when private landlordism provided the kind of services that he, in Committee and again today, has said it has. There never was a time when private landlords were in it for any other reason than to squeeze every last penny out of the poor people in their clutches who could not get out of their clutches. The private landlords in Dundee and throughout Scotland were bloodsuckers.

The mask slips when we hear the hon. Member for Tayside, North. He revealed the real purpose of the Bill, which is to turn the clock back to the so-called halycon days when the private landlord was king. The Bill has nothing to do with liberating Scottish tenants or increasing the Scottish housing supply. Instead, it is all about giving some fast bucks to private landlords by resurrecting the housing system which existed, as the hon. Member for Tayside, North said, before the 1939 war. That was a revealing phrase. The Government are returning the pattern of housing tenure in Scotland to that which existed before the second world war.

I was born in an attic in Atholl street, in the Irish quarter of Dundee, which is known as Tipperary. The address was No. 12A Athol] street. My mother and father and I spent the first part of my life in an attic in a slum tenement. My experience, therefore, is far more common than the mythical memory-lane experience of the hon. Member for Tayside. North. I have heard him in Committee set out the trip up The Hawkie and doon The Blackie, as we say in Dundee. It is true that there were tiled closes up The Hawkie and especially down The Blackie. The majority of tenants, however—hundreds of thousands in the private sector in Dundee and other cities—were not living in tiled closes in either The Hawkie or The Blackie. Instead, they were living in the rabbit warrens of the Overgate and the teeming slums of Hilltown, Hullgate and Lochee. It is to that pattern of housing, but in a sanitised form—literally, I hope, as well as metaphorically—that Conservative Members wish to take us.

Mr. Bill Walker

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will confirm that he was born after the legislation to which I referred was enacted. That is the legislation that was put on the statute book immediately after the 1945 war. That changes substantially the circumstances that I was talking about and the ones from which he suffered. I accept that he suffered.

Mr. Galloway

I was born in 1954, an auspicious year in many ways. It is true that the legislation that was enacted by the Labour Government from 1945 to 1951 began to change the pattern of housing tenure in Scotland. It could not wipe out at a stroke the sort of slums that I am describing, but the Labour Government made efforts to get rid of them. The difference between that Government and this one is that the present Government seek to return us to the so-called halcyon days that existed before the 1939 war, to use the revealing phrase of the hon. Member for Tayside, North.

The Government should be aware—I have written to them, and I am certain that other hon. Members have done so—that there is a great deal of anxiety in Scotland among those who have heard rumours, perhaps misleading ones, about reduced rights of succession. I know that the Minister is a decent cove and will be concerned to set people's minds at rest. There is a specific problem for the spouse who succeeds on the death of her husband or of his wife. Such people are anxious and will be listening to the debate. They will he waiting for the Minister to give them the appropriate information. They will be anxious to know what their rights of succession will be, and the rights of their families, if they remarry.

The Conservative party claims to be the party of marriage, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced a marriage Budget earlier in the year. Are we to place barriers in the way of widows and widowers that will stop them marrying because of their fears that by so doing they will adversely affect their rights of succession? Are we to encourage widows and widowers to live outside marriage but with partners so as to safeguard their rights of succession?

Surely the Minister is not that sort of person. When he responds, I hope that he will not say that he can meet the problem half way. I hope that he will send to those in Scotland who are anxious about this issue the message that the rights of succession of spouses who remarry will not be adversely affected and that the Government accept the amendments that seek to protect those rights.

Sir Hector Monro (Dumfries)

I am not clear what the main burden of the speech of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway) was all about. He should realise that there have been housing difficulties in Scotland for a very long time, and certainly since the war.

It is no use blaming one Government or another. Whatever Government have been in power, those of us who have held constituency surgeries over many years have found that about 50 per cent. of those seeking advice have been raising housing issues, ranging from dampness to the lack of a house, and including the problems that result from having bad neighbours.

It has been the prime worry of all hon. Members, local councils and Ministers that the housing stock in Scotland has been inadequate. It has not been of sufficient quality and there must be ways of improving it.

When we seek ways of improving the housing stock, we end up with a Bill of this sort. It is disappointing that the Opposition have attacked a genuine attempt to improve the condition of the housing stock, thus adversely affecting the opportunities of those who wish to be tenants in Scotland under one guise or another. When we have an opportunity to improve matters through local authorities, various forms of private housing and Scottish Homes, for example, we should try to proceed constructively and not look on the black side of every proposal that is made. Most of the Government's proposals are the result of detailed consultation.

Everyone who has participated in the debate seems to have claimed some connection with Dundee. I suppose that I must throw in my claim, for I was educated at Dundee. I attended a distinguished Dundee school of economics under the redoubtable Dr. Bowie. From time to time, the local council has had under its control hundreds of houses of poor quality which have been unoccupied, and that is the sort of thing that we want to try to avoid.

The Minister is right to bring forward a Bill that is full of constructive ideas. It is wrong for the Opposition to spend the debate—this is what they did in Committee— trying to shoot down every good idea, however advantageous each one may he to the people of Scotland, who must have the opportunity to live in better homes. The Bill's objective is to provide those homes for them, and that is why I support it.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton

With the leave of the House, I shall respond to the contribution of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Doran), who has temporarily left the Chamber. The Government are proposing disagreement with Lords amendment No. 4, which is essentially technical. We fully support Lords amendment No. 18, which gives the spouse of an assured tenant a statutory right to succeed for the tenancy.

The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) asked me to clarify the current position. The amendment applies only to assured tenants, and only the spouse of the first tenant succeeds. That is relevant also to the questions of the hon. Members for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) and for Argyll and Bute ( Mrs. Michie).

Mr. McAllion

What is the position before the Bill is enacted and implemented? Is it not that spouses of any tenant will succeed to the tenancy irrespective of whether they happen to be the first successor or second successor?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton

The hon. Gentleman is correct that the Bill will narrow succession rights. That I am prepared to admit.

The hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) stated that the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations is expressing concern. Housing associations have every right to grant greater succession rights than exist in statutes if they wish, and I should expect them to do so. They are preparing a model tenancy agreement, which will be extremely important.

4.30 pm

During consideration of the Bill, we were ready to consider improvements at all stages, but the keynote of our policy was the revitalisation of the private rented sector, which now stands at approximately 6 per cent. Many organisations in Scotland were concerned about succession and how to get the balance right. The Government originally took the view that succession rights, like other tenancy terms, should be left for negotiation between tenant and landlord. I remain convinced that many landlords letting on assured tenancies will be happy to include such terms in their leases.

However, we have accepted that when a tenant dies, his or her spouse is in a particularly vulnerable position and with that in mind we introduced Lords amendment No. 18, which allows a limited right of succession to a spouse of an original tenant who, immediately before the tenant's death, stayed with the tenant in a home that was their only or main home.

I should like to answer the point made by the hon. Member for Dundee, East. We propose a limitation on the right of succession not because we do not recognise that the spouse of a tenant will also be in a vulnerable position on the tenant's death, but because excessive succession rights of the type proposed by the Opposition would hinder the expansion of the private rented sector. We have very much in mind the fact that almost 130,000 houses in Scotland are vacant, the majority being in the private sector. We want a considerable proportion of them to be brought back into use.

Mr. Home Robertson

We know that the Minister is seeking to bend over backwards to encourage private landlords to rent so that they can profiteer and do more or less what they like. The hon. Gentleman acknowledged the vulnerability of a widow or widower at the time of bereavement. Will he confirm that the Government amendment would mean that the widow of a successor tenant could simply be summarily evicted?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton

That is the position and the answer is yes, but it is important that a tenant entering a tenancy agreement should negotiate the best possible arrangements, taking the circumstances into account.

What is wrong with the Opposition amendments to Lords amendment No. 18 is that they would give a tenant's spouse a right of succession even though she or he was not living in the house concerned, or used it as a second home. I do not see how that can be regarded as reasonable. The amendments of the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) would open the door to the possibility of an unlimited series of statutory successions to the same assured tenancy. For that reason, the Government cannot accept the amendments.

I listened carefully to the views expressed by Opposition Members and I recognise that they feel strongly about the issue, but we disagree with their amendments. As my hon. Friends the Members for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) and for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) said, it is important to bring empty houses back into use and to revitalise the private rented sector. We believe that the greatest benefit to all those who are seeking homes of their own will derive from encouraging private landlords to let vacant property. That encouragement will not come about if we open the door to unlimited successions in the way that the Opposition propose.

Mr. Nigel Griffiths (Edinburgh, South)

In the year and a bit since I have been in the House, I have not heard such a pathetic justification for a measure that will attack people who are faced with bereavement and give them the unenviable choice of trying to seek alternative accommodation, in the knowledge that if, having remarried, they pass on, their new husband or wife could not succeed to the house.

It is an outrage that somebody who suffers bereavement and falls in love in later life—although it may not necessarily be in later life—will be affected in that way. We all have constituents—I see my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) nodding—who have suffered bereavement. In Dundee and Aberdeen there have been tremendous catastrophes, which have left many young women widowed.

If the widows of men who lost their lives in the Piper Alpha disaster lived in such tenancies, remarried at the age of 22, 23 or 24 and themselves suffered a catastrophe, their new husbands and any young children they had could be thrown out onto the streets by caring landlords such as those described by the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) and the Minister.

Mr. Galloway

My hon. Friend seems to me to be putting his thumb on the nub of the issue. I appeal to the Minister to do better than the pitiful explanation that he gave. As Nye Bevan said—and it is a truism in politics —"Where there is death, there is hope."

The Government seem to be saying that excessive succession rights—as the Minister called them—will be a disincentive to the burgeoning of the private rented sector. That implies not only that people may remarry for the sake of securing rights of succession to a house but that they might do in a spouse to get their grubby hands on the tenancy.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd)

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he is speaking in an intervention.

Mr. Griffiths

I thank my hon. Friend for that most helpful intervention.

We see in front of us a Minister who has been praised —wrongly, it seems—for being a compassionate man, but who, after 70 or 80 hours of debate in Committee and after more debate in the other place, comes to the House and tells us that widows and widowers who remarry while living in such statutorily assured tenancies and then die cannot pass on the tenancy to their husband or wife. The Minister has made an appalling admission.

Mrs. Fyfe

Although it embarrasses me somewhat to mention it, I think that I should relate some of my own experience, which my hon. Friend may find helpful. I am a widow and when I suffered the loss of my husband, at least the security of my home was beyond question. If, in addition to that sorrow, I had had to be thrown out of my home, I think that I would have lost my mind.

It is horrendous that Conservative Members could do this to secure the rights of private sector landlords. It is an outrage and I hope that the whole of Britain will notice it. It is unbelievable. However, the Minister has yet to explain in what way the private landlord benefits from having one tenant rather than another. He is saying clearly that private sector landlords matter more than people who are bereaved and are suffering.

Madam Deputy Speaker

Order. I remind Members that an intervention must be a pertinent question or comment. They must not seek to speak a second time through an intervention.

Mr. Griffiths

Let us consider the scenario that the hon. Member for Tayside, North and the Minister have described—not that of the past but that of today. The Minister told us that there are large numbers of empty houses in the private sector, which landlords are frightened to let in case widows move in and take them over and the landlords can never move them or their families on. That is the nub of the Minister's argument.

Mr. Bill Walker

indicated dissent.

Mr. Griffiths

I shall give way—The truth of what I have said is acknowledged by the fact that the hon. Gentleman makes no intervention.

Landlords now are no different from those whom successive Governments, up to this one, have done so much to try to drive out of business.

It is rather ironic that I should be speaking today, as this is the closing date for landlords to take advantage —under the Government's business expansion scheme—of 60 per cent. tax relief and all the capital gains on that to foster private landlordism. The tragedy is that the clause works hand in hand with the private landlord—for the sake of private profit—to ensure that a minimum of obstacles are placed in the way of his letting a property for the maximum and ensuring that people are moved out, or at least do not have absolute security in a variety of circumstances in which they have it now.

Mr. Bill Walker

The hon. Gentleman obviously was not listening when I talked about the two-year-old milkman delivering milk to me when I lived in Linlathen. I said that legislation had changed circumstances and that private housing which used to be plentiful had disappeared. There are many empty houses which we want to bring on to the market, and the legislation is designed to do precisely that. It is not intended to be a replacement or an alternative to existing legislation; it is intended to add to it.

Mr. Griffiths

The hon. Gentleman should come with me to my constituency, which might be called a typical Conservative constituency in that it has probably one of the highest densities of private landlordism combined with home ownership. He should see the people, too old and frail to come to my ward interviews or surgeries, whom I visit in Morningside and Marchmont. They are living in the houses—with window frames painted the standard green, like the leather benches in the Chamber—owned by the big private landlords in Edinburgh. They find it difficult to get repairs done by those so-called compassionate landlords whom Conservative Members have praised in the past, are praising now and wish to expand in the future.

Worries about rent levels have been heaped on tenants by the Government's withdrawal of housing benefit, as the Secretary of State found when he visited Govan yesterday and spoke to a pensioner who told him that he now has to pay £50 of his rent instead of £30. We need not look back to the past; we see terrible problems today. Compassionate hon. Members who represent constituencies such as mine see them daily when they visit their constituents.

The Minister has woefully failed to address himself to these difficulties. I am speaking now rather than earlier because I thought that my points were being made far better by my hon. Friends, and felt sure that the Minister would take on board what they said. But he brazenly said that he and his party care not a whit for the widow or widower in such terrible circumstances. The charge may be made—we have not heard it yet, perhaps because not many Conservative Members are present to intervene—that we are constructing an exaggerated scenario involving cases that are unlikely to occur, and that the chances of a widow's obtaining a tenancy and then remarrying are slim. If the chances are so slim—one in 100,000, or one in a million—there is surely no problem about accepting the amendment. It cannot be a disincentive.

Pressure has been put on the Minister by his friends the private property speculators not to change the position because they know that this is not uncommon in the areas that we represent, where private landlordism is fairly prevalent. The fact that it is not uncommon means that the safeguard that we are urging on the Minister is more important than ever. We know that the Minister has sought to cloak his wish to protect and expand private landlordism and private profit in talk of security, when security has been removed. We know that the Government have made no provision not only for spouses who may find themselves homeless but for the children of the newly widowed, who may find themselves out on the street because of a rule that can be pointed to by a landlord. The case can go to the sheriff, who will have no discretion or choice in the matter.

Is there a massive pool of other housing in either the rented sector or for purchase? No. Most people rent privately only because they cannot get on to council waiting lists, which have tragically doubled in Scotland under the present Government, or because they cannot afford the extortionate, record mortgage rates that the Government have imposed in 1980 and this year.

4.45 pm

The very people who could be flung out because of this wicked measure are being deprived of the opportunity of applying for council houses because the Government starved them of resources between 1979 and 1983. Any council will tell us that the backlog from those years is so great that, even if spending is greater than it was then, councils are still being starved of resources. They are not able to build houses to house the homeless, and people are unable to enter the housing market, especially in cities such as Edinburgh but no doubt in many other areas as well, because prices have shot up.

The Minister's failure to comment was an appalling omission. What does he expect people to do—not just, the new widow or widower, but the children who have been thrown out on the streets? Does he not think that the rights of thousands of people should be greater than those of a few hundred private landlords?

Mr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield)

I speak on the basis of solidarity with my Scottish colleagues, as a member of Standing Committee G which dealt for four months with the English and Welsh legislation. The destruction of succession rights has run through both Bills, and we have been trying to understand the reasoning behind this vicious, nasty legislation. In fact, it is all about market forces in the private sector.

The property will already be in the private sector, and on the tenant's death it will remain in the private sector. Eviction will not add a single house to the market, as the house will already be in the market place, available for rent, and indeed will be tenanted on the basis that it is in the private sector. The Minister's argument does not hold water. There is no incentive.

Mr. McAllion

My hon. Friend is right to point out that not a single house will be added to the private sector, but another person will be added to the growing list of homeless people in Scotland.

Mr. McCartney

My hon. Friend is quite correct, and I hope to prove the truth of what he has said.

Let me return to the pressures of market forces. The Minister is providing for a gun to be held at the head of the widow or widower. The unscrupulous landlord will say, "I have the power to have you out tomorrow, but I might be prepared to allow you to stay if you agree to a doubling of the rent, or reductions in the amount spent on repairs, or a shorter life span for your tenancy." He may even say, "Would you agree to sublet to another tenant?" That is already happening. In my constituency tenancies are being divided to increase the landlord's share.

The Government are screwing the poorest in the community. Market forces are not about the equality of tenants in the market place. They provide an opportunity for the landlord to take as much as he can in rent and do as little as he can to provide facilities for the family renting his property.

The Bill also encourages the private sector to remove a property from the private rented sector. Private landlords will be encouraged to get rid of the tenant and sell the property as an asset. It does not necessarily mean that that property will pass to another private landlord or that it will be sold to another tenant. It could be sold for business purposes and the house could be sold as a shop or as a future site for an office block. That is already happening in the housing market in England and Wales.

If tenants are lucky they will be offered reduced tenancy rights and massive increases in rent. Alternatively, they will face homelessness. If the private landlord gets rid of those tenants it is possible for him to take the house out of the rented sector and sell it as a capital asset. Therefore, homelessness will increase and there will be a reduction in the number of houses available in the private rented sector. Given the reduction in capital investment available to local authorities, they will be unable to deal with the homeless problem as it increases. That is the reality of the Government's proposals.

The Minister is not ignorant of the facts and he knows precisely what he is doing. He believes in private market forces, not in the quality of the private rented sector or the ability of a tenant to obtain a tenancy agreement that charges an affordable rent. The Bill, which is petty and vindictive, will be transferred to England and Wales. We shall not forget the Minister for this treacherous piece of legislation.

Question put and agreed to.

Amendment (a) in lieu of the Lords amendment agreed to.