RECOVERY OF POSSESSION WHERE GRANT INDUCED BY FALSE STATEMENT (Hansard, 22 July 1996)

§ Mr. Clappison
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this, it will be convenient to take Lords amendment No. 147.

§ Mr. Clappison
The amendment introduces a new discretionary ground for possession for assured tenancies where the landlord has been induced to grant the tenancy by a false statement made knowingly or recklessly by the tenant. It extends the ground to cover false statements provided by a third party at the tenant's instigation.
76 Lords amendment No. 147 extends the deceit ground for possession for secure tenancies.

§ Mr. Raynsford
We agree with the purpose of the Government's actions, but are troubled by the way in which the amendment has been drafted. Lords amendment No. 122 would add a second category to the category of people who knowingly or recklessly made a false statement. It does so by adding to the Bill (b) a person acting at the tenant's instigation", without making it clear who is in category (a).
In Lords amendment No. 147, which is for secure tenancies, it is clear that "(a) the tenant, or" should be inserted in the final line of page 63 of the Bill. On first observation, it is not clear whether that is the correct interpretation for Lords amendment No. 122. If that were not correctly interpreted when the Bill was finally put to bed, we could have a nonsense here.
I hope that the Minister will assure us that Lords amendment would change clause 95, which deals with ground 17, so that it would read: The tenant is the person, or one of the persons, to whom the tenancy was granted and the landlord was induced to grant the tenancy by a false statement made knowingly or recklessly by the tenant, or (b) a person acting at the tenant's instigation. I make that point in the spirit in which we have approached the legislation—of seeking to improve the unsatisfactory parts and not wanting legislation to reach the statute book in a form that could be ambiguous or confusing, thereby creating further problems that would have to be amended at some future date.

§ Mr. Clappison
I think that ground 17 will become (a) and will deal with the case of the tenant making the sort of representation in question and, as a result of the amendment, (b) will be inserted to cover a third party acting at the tenant's instigation. I must make it clear that the amendment covers a false statement made by (a) the tenant or (b) the third party and that that will be clear when the Bill is printed.

§ Mr. Raynsford
If the Minister's initial interpretation is correct, there is a problem. If the Bill were to read "Ground 17—(a) The tenant is the person'", as he implied, it would make no sense. The Bill would make sense only if it read "Ground 17—The tenant is the person, or one of the persons, to whom the tenancy was granted and the landlord was induced to grant the tenancy by a false statement made knowingly or recklessly by (a) the tenant". If the Minister can confirm that that is the case, we are out of the problem.

§ Mr. Clappison
That was what I was trying to convey in my original submission. I am sorry that I did not make it sufficiently clear. Those are the two circumstances contemplated by the clause as amended.