§ 2.35 p.m.
§ Order of the Day for the Second Reaching read.
§ THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL)My Lords, the object of this short and comparatively simple measure is to provide machinery for the control of the rents of furnished lettings and of premises, whether furnished or unfurnished, which are let together with services, such as attendance, heating or lighting or hot water. This proposed extension of statutory control over rents will be exercised through a system of tribunals appointed by the Minister for the purposes of the Bill. As your Lordships are already aware, the Ridley Committee on rent control, in their recent and most valuable Report, made out a strong case for radical amendment of many of the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts. To give full effect to their numerous and far-reaching recommendations would mean a long and complicated Bill, and the pressure on Parliamentary time has made it impossible for the Government to prepare so comprehensive a measure for passage into law during the current Session.
The Government have, however, decided to deal at once with the limited but extremely urgent problem of furnished lettings. Their proposal to widen in this direction the field of statutory control is in accordance with the views of the Ridley Committee, which suggested in paragraph 148 of its Report that "a scheme for the control of furnished lettings on the lines of the Scottish Act should be applied throughout Great Britain." I am sure 147 that our intention to implement forthwith so vital a recommendation of the Ridley Committee will have the full approval of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, and of the other noble Lords who urged the Government not long since to act upon the recommendations in this Report.
The existing Rent Restrictions Acts give substantial protection to the tenants of unfurnished premises, but they leave the tenants of furnished premises at the mercy of any unscrupulous person who, taking advantage of the present exceptional conditions, may choose to use the housing shortage to drive a hard bargain. These Acts do, of course, make it an offence to charge an exorbitant rent, and they set out to control charges by reference to a normal profit, but such vague and general statutory provisions are extremely difficult for the Courts to interpret.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERYCould the noble Earl speak a little louder? We cannot hear what he is saying.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELI apologize to the noble Earl. I shall endeavour to make myself audible in his part of the House. Experience has shown that the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts cannot be relied upon to give sufficient protection to hard-pressed tenants. There is also no effective control under the existing law over the charges which may be made for premises let with services. A common form of exploitation is to require the tenant to enter into separate contracts for renting the premises and for services. While the amount of rent recoverable under the first contract may be limited, because the premises are subject to rent control, there is no limit at all to the charge which may be demanded under the contract for services. I need not enlarge on the difficulties of the present housing situation, which are, of course, particularly severe where the population is most dense. Because of the prevailing shortage of unfurnished accommodation and of furniture to equip such unfurnished rooms as may come on the market, very many people, including a large number of newly-married couples, are compelled to have recourse temporarily to furnished premises.
Unfair advantage has already been taken of their desperate need for homes, 148 and if control is not speedily established charges are likely to become increasingly exorbitant as more and more ex-Servicemen, married and unmarried, return from overseas and increase the demand for the insufficient accommodation at present available. Your Lordships will have noted that this Bill is a temporary measure and that it will only operate until December 31, 1947. It is designed to expire directly the housing situation has taken a real turn for the better. Its provisions are very similar to those contained in the Rent of Furnished Houses Control (Scotland) Act, 1943, which is also a temporary enactment. This Act has, on the whole, worked well in Scotland and has not set an impossible task to those responsible for its administration. Another point of some importance is that the Bill applies to all furnished lettings and to lettings with services, irrespective of the rateable value of the premises. In the present period of acute stringency it is not considered reasonable that any class of property should be exempt.
Let me now explain to your Lordships quite briefly some of the main provisions of the Bill. Under Clause 1 the Minister may by Order apply the Act to the whole or part of any district of a local authority on representations by or after consultation with the local authority concerned. The Minister must then appoint a tribunal, consisting of a chairman and two members, for each district or combination of districts to which the Act is applied. The members and staff of the tribunal will receive such remuneration as the Minister, with the consent of the Treasury, may think fit, and the cost of those and other expenses will be borne by the Exchequer. Clause 2 provides that in a district in which the Act has come into force, either party to a contract of the kind envisaged in the Bill may refer the terms of the contract for adjudication to the appropriate tribunal. The local authority may also refer cases to the tribunal. Such a reference may be made whether or not the tenant has the right to share other rooms or accommodation in the house.
Another important feature of the Bill is that in Clause 12 (2) "rent" is defined as the aggregate of any separate sums paid by the tenant for the occupation of premises, or for the use of furniture, or for other entitlements to different 149 services. It will thus no longer be possible to avoid rent control by making separate contracts for the use of furniture or for the provision of services. After due consideration, a tribunal may decide to approve the rent, or to reduce it, or, if they think fit, to dismiss the reference altogether. A tribunal has no power under this Bill to increase a rent except on a second reference to them on a change of circumstances, but I would ask you to note that a dismissal of a reference by a tribunal would in fact mean that the tribunal considered the existing rent to be unreasonably low, and it would then be open to the landlord to increase the rent at the end of the current contract.
Clause 3 provides that local authorities must keep a register of the rents fixed by the tribunals. That is obviously necessary in order to ascertain whether a rent is in accordance with the decision of a tribunal or not. Under Clause 4 it is made an offence to ask for or to receive a rent in excess of the registered rent, or a premium or other valuable consideration. A tenant can recover any excess rent or premium charged him, but this right does not extend retrospectively to a period before the registration of the rent.
Under Clause 5 a limited security is given to tenants after reference has been made by them or by a local authority to a tribunal. This clause follows very closely the recommendations made in paragraph 151 of the Ridley Committee's Report. It provides that the tenant shall have security of tenure for the whole period from the date of the reference to the date of the tribunal's decision, and for a further period of three months from the date of the decision, unless, of course, the tribunal decides to curtail it. An exception to this rule is made in a case in which a reference is withdrawn, and security of tenure in all such cases would cease on the expiration of seven days from the withdrawal of the reference. Under Clause 9 the penalties attached to any infringement of a tribunal's decision are, a fine not exceeding £100, or a term of not more than six months' imprisonment, or both penalties together. If the Bill is to be effective it must provide a severe deterrent. On the other hand, proceedings for offences under the Act will not be lightly entered into, because they 150 may only be instituted by a local authority.
I have endeavoured to explain the provisions of this Bill in broad outline. I feel confident that it will commend itself to your Lordships as a means of securing fair rents during a period of unprecedented housing shortage and that you will regard it as an urgent measure which ought to reach the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(The Earl of Listowel.)
§ 2.47 p.m.
§ LORD LLEWELLINMy Lords, I think we are all indebted, as we usually are, to the Postmaster-General for the concise and clear way in which he has explained this measure to us. There is not the slightest doubt that there are a certain number of cases—although they are probably few compared with the very large number of furnished lettings—in which excessive rents are being charged for furnished property. This is being done by a few unscrupulous landlords. In this connexion I think I ought to say "unscrupulous landladies," because in nearly every case of this sort it is a landlady who is concerned and not a landlord. They are able to charge these excessive rents because of the results of enemy action and the shortage of housing accommodation. Thus it is made very difficult for the men who have been fighting for us to get houses, and all of us who served through the 1914–1918 war and through this war know how good it is to get back from war conditions into a home, and a nice home at that. I think all of us are quite determined that these men shall not have to pay unduly for the accommodation which they so much deserve.
There is, however, another class for whom we ought to have some consideration—namely, those people who have lost their homes through bombing and who have to bear the burden of having lost their homes and the furniture they had collected, perhaps over a number of years. We must see that one injury is not added to another and that they are not asked far too much for similar accommodation. If one person starts charging too much, it is very often contagious. Mrs. Jones's friend—to take a name by chance—may well drop in and say: "What are you getting for your rooms? Do not you 151 know that Mrs. Smith is getting so much?" That makes Mrs. Jones feel rather foolish that she is not asking as much as Mrs. Smith, and the whole thing is quite liable to become contagious once it is started. Therefore, I think we are all agreed that a check should be put on this practice before it grows into a real scandal. That is why the Coalition Government set up the Ridley Committee and that is why, in 1943, that Government introduced very similar legislation to this, applying to Scotland, where this habit had first appeared. I think it is quite clear that a measure like this is necessary now for England and Wales.
For my part, I believe that this Bill deals with the problem in the right way. There are such varied conditions in furnished lettings. Some rooms or houses may be well furnished, with good type furniture, some may be hardly furnished at all, and perhaps with quite shoddy stuff at that. So it cannot be laid down by Act of Parliament—nor, indeed, by regulation although we lay down lots of details in these days, unfortunately, by regulation—what the rent should be, and I think it is much better left to the kind of flexible procedure which will be the procedure under this measure. You must leave it really to the discretion of the tribunal. I believe the most important thing of all, if this measure, when it gets on the Statute Book, is to be a success, is the appointment of the chairmen and the members on these tribunals. I would have liked, myself, to see these matters left to some sort of informal hearings by County Court Judges who have such great experience, but I know that the County Court Judges already have their time fully occupied, and that, therefore, was, probably, not possible. But I should like those who recommend and appoint, at any rate, the chairman, to aim at getting for that position a man or a woman who has the full respect of his or her fellow citizens and a reasonably judicial outlook upon affairs. We must remember that there is no appeal. It is quite unusual to set up a tribunal and allow no appeal from it at all. We are vesting in the hands of these three people a considerable power and nobody is in a position to override what they do.
Failing County Court Judges, I would like the choice to be made amongst people 152 who have served, and served well, in the office of Justice of the Peace—people who are known to take their duties in that capacity seriously, and to have the kind of character for impartiality which I have outlined. It is not desirable to get people who in dealing with cases of the kind that will come before these tribunals will take up a sympathetic attitude either because of the poor circumstances of the tenant on the one hand or because of those of the landlady on the other. We must remember, in considering this measure, that in lots of cases the landlords and the landladies will be poorer people than those who are lodging with them. I think that if you get tribunals looking rather at the side of one or other of the particular parties to the dispute and not at the size of the rooms, what the services are, and how they are furnished, you will get a frightful jumble of conflicting decisions about rooms of the same size in the very same street. So I do hope that great care will be taken in the selection of those who are to form these tribunals. I note that the Minister of Health said; in another place, that he thought they would work very much more justly and fit in better with local circumstances if the chairman was usually a lay person. If he or she is a lay person who has a good knowledge as to what is hearsay and what is not, that may be quite all right. But I do hope that some guidance will be given so that these tribunals do not form just a place where a good deal of hearsay evidence may be given and a lot of gossip of the neighbourhood may be aired.
The only other remark I desire to make is this. The Bill contains no provision and affords no way in which the tribunals can put a check on the putting forward of frivolous appeals. I know that the Minister of Health in another place opposed the making of some such provision. He did it on the ground that people in poor circumstances might be deterred from bringing their cases before the tribunal at all if the tribunal had the power—which was all that was asked for in the case of frivolous applications—to award costs against them. I do not think the fact that they risk having costs awarded against them, has prevented a large number of people making full use of our County Courts. Let us recognize quite frankly that there are some litigious people who like to have the thrill of going before a tribunal and, possibly, in con- 153 sequence, afterwards finding their names in the local paper. But there is nothing at all in this measure to prevent such people going time after time to the same tribunal about the same case. If your Lordships will look at the controlling words which are in Clause 2 (2) you will find they read as follows:
Where any contract to which this Act applies is referred to a tribunal"—and it may be referred time after time—then, unless at any time before the tribunal have entered upon consideration of the reference it is withdrawn by the person or the authority by whom it was made, the tribunal shall consider it …I really think that in some way we ought to protect these tribunals from having cases brought time after time before them. It may be done, though not perhaps by many people. There were one or two litigants who I remember, when I was a junior barrister, did appear time after time in one or two County Courts, to which I then went. They were a public nuisance to the Courts, and the Courts had the power, of course, to check them. I think that there ought to be some power for the preservation of the dignity of the tribunal and to ensure fairness to the other party before the tribunal. That, however, is a matter which we may well discuss at later stages of this Bill. Let me end on the note which I have stressed in my speech this afternoon. I believe that we should facilitate the passage of this Bill into law, but that its success or failure will depend entirely on the people appointed, to reach the difficult and discriminating decisions that their duties will demand of them.
§ 3.0 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT BUCKMASTERMy Lords, the principle of this Bill is one which I feel sure will commend itself to the noble Lords with whom I sit, all of whom are obviously anxious to stop the charging of rents which are unduly high in any cases in which this may happen. My noble friend who moved the Second Reading was good enough to make some reference to me. I should like to congratulate him on the extremely able way in which he put forward his Bill, but I must remind him that in saying he has carried out some of the decisions of the Ridley Committee, he has in fact taken one of the provisions and cut it in half. He has appointed the tribunals and denied them the right to increase rents which the Ridley Committee 154 intended they should have, a point to which I shall be obliged to revert.
The noble Lord has called it a simple Bill. It is not, in fact, quite so simple as he would lead us to suppose. In the first place, as he has very rightly pointed out, although it is called the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Bill, it covers a vast mass of unfurnished property. In regard to these service flats which are the unfurnished property which it covers, the Rent Restriction Acts determine in many cases whether they are within the scope of the Acts or not by the meaning of the word "attendance." Frequently it all hinges on that word, but in this Bill we have substituted for it the word "services," a word which so far as I can discover is never used in the existing Acts. At once you have an element of confusion, the very thing which I ventured to tell your Lordships would arise when we attempted to tackle this question bit by bit as we are doing.
A further point to which I hoped the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, would refer, is that in Clause 8 of this Bill the Minister has power to make regulations but there is nothing to compel him to disclose those regulations to members in another place. This violation of what I believe to be the common procedure is surely also a violation of one of the principles of democracy. It should not in my view be merely criticized, but sternly condemned. It must be wrong that regulations should be made in a Bill of this kind and that members in another place should have no right to see them beforehand. It may seem from what I have said that it is my purpose to attack this Bill. That is not so. I have no desire to be unhelpful. But I should like to try and establish two points quite briefly. I may say in passing that I am sorry once again that it falls to my lot to weary your Lordships on these uninteresting and somewhat complex matters. I should also like your Lordships' permission to use the old familiar words "landlord and tenant" instead of the "lessor and lessee" in the Bill. I cannot somehow think of a seaside landlady as a lessor.
In the first place, I should like to urge that these tribunals should have power to increase rents. There may not be many cases where the rent should be increased: but there will be cases where the landlord has charged a nominal or trifling rent 155 to oblige a friend or out of charity. The friendship may be interrupted, with the result that there may be a vexatious appeal, yet the tribunal has no power to rectify the injustice. The Minister, speaking in another place, called these "arbitration tribunals." There are in your Lordships' House—and they are not few in number—those who have been called upon to arbitrate on matters of great moment. I wonder what they would have said if, when being asked to act, they were told that they could decide in favour of one party, but that whatever happened they must not make an award in favour of the other. The Minister has called this rent-reducing legislation. That is all he has in mind—not the application of justice, but the reduction of rents. I suggest that the very expression implies misunderstanding of what justice stands for. It is regarding justice as if it were some industrial machine into which you pour blanks at one end, move a lever and all that concerns you is that the result in every case should be the same.
To turn to a merely common-sense view of this matter, I fear that this very provision may tend to defeat the purpose of the Bill. For, as the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has pointed out, there is nothing to stop a vexatious or frivolous application. No appeal can lie, no costs can be awarded against the loser and the tenant is in the position that whatever happens he cannot possibly lose anything. I am not going to suggest that an application would be a matter of ordinary business routine, but if we consider the countless number of properties involved in London alone, we can see that the machinery of this Bill may well be slowed by the flood of applications which pour in, and there may be delay in granting relief in those cases where it is justly due.
As your Lordships are aware, in any form of control, the article controlled tends to disappear. I could give your Lordships examples of this, but perhaps at this hour of the day it might be a little painful were I to do so, choosing as an example the shops in which food is for sale, but as a general principle you can take it that under control the article controlled tends to disappear. We have got to be careful, then, that nothing we do diminishes the accommodation available. Much of this accom 156 modation is provided by what I would call "small people"—landladies who let one room or perhaps two. They have their proper pride; they are sensitive to local publicity. Is it to be wondered at that they would shrink from being brought before a tribunal at all, still more when that tribunal can in no circumstances make an award in their favour?
If I may say so with respect, I feel sure that the Minister is conscious of the dignity of his office. He will not be led astray by the prejudice of partisans in another place. I feel, further, that he has every intention to be just, and I have tried to appreciate the argument which he has put forward in another place, and that adduced before your Lordships by the noble Earl.
As I understand it, it is twofold. First it is said that under Clause 2 (3) of the present Bill rents can be increased. But in fact they can only be increased in the light of changed circumstances. The circumstances existing up to the time of the application, or at that time, cannot be taken into account at all. In other words, if you hang a landlord first and try him afterwards you cannot be wrong. The second point is that the tribunals have the power to dismiss these cases. Therefore, the landlord can go back home and immediately increase the rent. There are several points about that. One is that some properties under this Bill are already controlled under the existing Rent Restrictions Acts, so that the remedy which the noble Earl suggests is in these cases by no means open. But if we take those cases where it does exist, how can it be suggested that it is a proper remedy? How can you ask a landlord to go home and say "This application has been dismissed. There is no guidance. I do not want to be wrong again, so I will charge a bit more." Perhaps too much is charged, and the tenant then has to apply again. How can it be suggested that this going backwards and forwards, this hit-and-miss procedure, can be a proper way of dealing with the matter, or that it can be fair to either one party or the other?
My last point concerns the question of flats let at a rent which includes services. I think it is important to remember—I hope I may be forgiven if I repeat myself—that all service flats are brought within the ambit of this Bill. Certain of them—that is those with a rateable value 157 of £100 or under, and with regard to which the attendance is not such as, by virtue of Section 12 of the Act of 1920, to take them outside existing Acts—are covered by both Acts. But whether they fall into the one category or the other, I think we should consider what the Ridley Committee has said. This Committee, as your Lordships are aware, was composed of members of all Parties. Their findings were not altogether unanimous, but on this point there was no dissentient voice. Everyone said the same thing. Everyone said—I need not quote the exact words—that where you have service letting and where the cost of those services has increased, the landlord should be allowed to increase the rent.
This is another instance in which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel—I am sorry he is not here—has taken a part of the recommendations of the Ridley Committee and not taken the whole. The position of the owners of these service flats is hard. They have provided a great deal of accommodation at reasonable prices in London. They find themselves now, as indeed they always have, under an obligation to provide services which cost them a great deal more. I am advised, that even if there is no covenant in the lease, they can be sued for not performing the services which were the basis of the original agreement. It is easy to see how the cost of those services has risen. In addition to that obligation, for which they can be sued, they are liable under Statute to take back their old employees. Any of them may have to be paid twice what they were paid before, their lower pre-war wage being the figure on which the landlord relied when the original agreement was negotiated. When we turn to the increased cost of coke and coal, I am dealing with a matter so familiar to your Lordships that there is no necessity to elaborate it. I do suggest most earnestly that with regard to these service flats there is grave injustice. You cannot in fairness bring them within the scope of this Bill and at the same time deny them that limited increase of rent which by right is theirs, and which the Ridley Committee unanimously recommended they should receive.
My Lords, I am sorry if I have detained you. I feel the points which I have made are the least which justice will 158 allow, and I can only hope that they will not lightly be rejected.
§ 3.15 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAMMy Lords, there is one point which arises out of this Bill and which I think I ought to mention on the Second Reading. I hope before we get to another stage that the noble Earl who is in charge of the Bill will be in a position to deal with the point and to remove the objection, which I feel is very strong. I will state the point quite shortly—prefacing my observations with the remark that I am very much in favour of the Bill as a whole. There is no subject nearer the legal part of me than rent restriction, and I feel very strongly that rent restriction having been a necessity, it will be a necessity for another year or two certainly. It is undoubtedly in the interests of the public as a whole that people should not be allowed to take advantage of a temporary stringency with regard to houses to exact exorbitant rents.
Now I come to the point at once. I imagine nearly everybody in the House at the moment thinks that this Bill relates to cases where there has been substantial letting of furnished rooms in a building. That is the main point, but, inadvertently or otherwise, it is so drafted that, as far as I can see, it applies to every single unfurnished room in a house, to every single letting of a flat, an unfurnished room or rooms in a flat. Indeed the short title suggested—Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Bill—is quite wrong, because as drafted it applies to every room, furnished or unfurnished, in such a city as the City of London, and it all comes about from the use of some words in Clause 2, to which the attention of the noble Earl has already been directed by the Law Society, who requested me to make clear to the House what we were dealing with.
This is (may I call it?) a snag which creeps into certain Bills which are put before us and which we have very little time for considering, and it entirely affects the real nature of the Bill. It is this. In Clause 2 (I) it is stated that where a contract which can be interfered with by a tribunal, whether entered into before or after the passing of this Act—that may refer to something going back ten years or more—where such a contract has been entered into whereby one person grants to 159 another person the right to occupy as a residence a house or part of a house,
in consideration of a rent which includes payment for the use of furniture or for services, whether or not, in the case of such a contract with regard to part of a house, the lessee is entitled, in addition to exclusive occupation thereof, to the use in common with any other person of other rooms or accommodation in the house, it shall be lawful for either party to the con tract. …to go before the tribunal. Have your Lordships ever heard of a room being let in London—and I am thinking of the poor people in London far more than I am of the rich—where a room has been let in a house unfurnished without a right to go out by the front door and to walk along the passageway to the door? That is accommodation in the sense that other people have got accommodation of the house and of the door in common with other persons in the house. Or have your Lordships ever heard of a place where in an ordinary house there is no light over the door in wintertime, so that people can go in and get out of the door? Yet, if they have that accommodation given, the Bill applies.Have your Lordships ever heard of a building—and I will come now to the more expensive flat if you like, but the same is true about cheaper ones—where there is not any amount of accommodation in connexion with other people? If you go into a flat in Grosvenor Square you are entitled not only to the use of the front door and the passage up to the front door; you are entitled to go upstairs, or to use the lift, or to have other advantages given to you in connexion with the flats. And all those flats in London, small or big, for rich or poor, are included in this Bill. I challenge my noble friend who is in charge of the Bill to tell me what the answer to that is. It all comes into the words: "other rooms or accommodation in the house in common with other persons." You cannot help having some use or accommodation in common with other persons.
The Law Society, when they raised the point, drew attention to the fact that you have a right to drainage; even if you have only one room out of two or out of twenty, you have all the same right to drainage or to pour water down a sink. That is all accommodation in common use with other people in the house, and it is absolutely incredible to me that the noble 160 Lord can really intend that words such as those, slipped in perhaps by a mistake but adhered to notwithstanding that the matter has been pointed out by the Law Society, should continue to be the subject matter of this Bill. And if it is the subject matter, all I can say is that we shall have to consider a good many other things in connexion with the Bill when it comes on at a later stage.
I am very much in favour of the Bill, but as a measure confined to the matters to which it properly is intended to relate. This Bill is not intended to relate to the cases I have instanced. The people who have flats of the expensive kind I have mentioned are entitled to go before the tribunal because they think their rents are rather too high. They have taken unfurnished rooms, yet inevitably they have the use, in common with other persons, of some of those amenities without which you cannot get to a room or use it in any way.
There is a clause about services which makes it quite clear. In clause 12 (I) of the Bill, which is the definition clause, you get this curious statement:
'services' includes attendance, the provision of heating or lighting, the supply of hot water …"Lighting" includes lighting the door, the humble gas jet over the front door. Then it says, "the supply of hot water"—it does not say cold water. It goes on:and any other privilege or facility connected with the occupancy of a house or part of a house.You may have cold water coming to your room or to the passage outside your room, but you cannot use the passage because that will not relate to you. How you are to get the water brought into your room, I do not know.All this really requires consideration. I need not say that I am only too desirous that some consideration should be made so as to confine the Bill to those things to which it really is intended to apply. I have not forgotten all that the noble Lord who is in charge of the Bill said in regard to evasions. That is quite true. If very trifling things are stuck into a room to make it a furnished room, that is a matter which obviously is included in the Bill, and properly included in it, and that may be true with regard to some of the things I have mentioned. On the whole, however, the effect of the use of these words is to make this Bill extend not only to 161 furnished houses but to practically every single unfurnished room in every big city in England or in Wales.
It is quite easy to tell the noble Earl where he can make the Bill reasonable. That is in Clause 12 (3), which says:
Nothing in this Act shall apply to a house or part of a house let at a rent which includes payment in respect of board.So if you have bed and breakfast you are lucky enough not to be included in the Bill. The same clause ought to be extended so that you may say that the Bill does not include the cases of ingress and egress to the house and a number of other little things like that which are inevitably granted as part of the amenities which you get in respect of premises such as these. I finish by repeating what I have already said. I am in favour of the Bill on consideration of the points mentioned by my noble friend Viscount Buck-master, and subject to the limitation of the Bill in the way I have suggested to make it a reasonable measure.
§ 3.27 p.m.
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Llewellin that in the circumstances in which we find ourselves at the moment there is a case for this Bill being necessary, but I do not think that we should give a Second Reading without expressing, in some way, how much we deplore the necessity, at this stage after the war, for the imposition of further restrictions. This is a control, a restriction. We put up with controls and restrictions during the war because they were necessary during the war. We put up with them in order to win the war. Well, we have done that, and it is reasonable to suppose that people expected that as soon as possible after the war these controls and restrictions would be relaxed and reduced. Therefore I do think it is a great pity that all we can see going on is the imposition of further controls.
It has been said, perfectly truly, that the necessity for this Bill is due a great deal to the housing shortage. The remedy for that is to build more houses, and I think that if the Government really concentrated on that and got some houses built, as they promised in July—it was said then that they could deal with it in a fortnight—this Bill and others like it would be absolutely unnecessary.
Turning to the Bill itself, I want to make a suggestion as regards the tribunals 162 that are going to be appointed by the Ministry. They are obviously the most important matter dealt with in this Bill. How they do their work, and the decisions they give, are going to have the very greatest effect on the operation of the Bill. In fact, the whole measure hangs on them. The tribunals are the main-spring of the whole thing, and I am wondering whether it is correct for the Minister of Health to be responsible for appointing these tribunals, They are doing work which is going to be very closely connected with the duties of his own Department. He is going to appoint the members of the tribunals, and he is going to have referred to them matters very closely concerned with his own Department. He is running a very grave risk of being accused of political bias in these appointments. The tribunals are not going to have an easy job; they are not going to please both sides who refer a case to them; they are going to make definitely disgruntled people. Those people, probably most unjustly, are going to say, "Of course, if you have a Minister like that appointing these people what hopes have you?" The Minister is laying himself open to the accusation of political bias.
I am not saying anything against the present Minister or the present Government. They have assured us frequently that they are going to operate the various Bills which they bring before us very fairly and very honestly, and I am perfectly certain that they are; but they are making laws for future Governments and there may be a Minister of Health and a Government with a very different shade of political opinion from the present one. I should very seriously like to suggest to the Government that it would be far better if these tribunals were appointed by the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor is admittedly also appointed by the Government, but he has always fulfilled his task with the absolute confidence of the people and with no political bias whatever. It would certainly relieve a great deal of anxiety and establish much more confidence in these tribunal, were they to be appointed by the Lord Chancellor. My noble friend Lord Llewellin suggested that justices of the peace might be appointed. That is an excellent suggestion, but there may be objections to it. I think that the appointments should be made by the Lord Chancellor, and I hope that the Government will give this matter serious con- 163 sideration and possibly bring in an Amendment before the Bill passes through its final stages.
I should like to have an assurance from the noble Earl that this Bill does not apply to hotels. I do not see why it could not; reading the Bill very carefully, I think that it can apply to any hotel, and that if you were lucky enough to get a room in an hotel for one night you might be able to claim it for three or four years! I am sure that that is not the intention of the Government, but as drafted at present that seems to be so. There is the question of contract. Surely a verbal contract that you take a room and they charge you for it is an implied contract? That is a legal matter and I do not wish to go into it, but I want to be assured that in no possible circumstances could this Bill be applied to hotels.
I have only one other point, but it is a most important one—the duration of the Bill. I think the fact that it can operate up to the end of 1947 is the most optimistic statement that I have ever heard as to the housing position. We cannot get any statement from the Minister of Health as to his target for housing, or even as to what has been done up to the end of last year; but I am not at all sure that in this Bill it is not implied that the housing problem will be completely solved by the end of 1947. I hope that the Minister is right there, but unfortunately there is a measure called the Expiring Laws Continuance Act, and I imagine that under that Act the life of this Bill can be carried on—can be, not will be—from year to year. I think that we want to watch that very carefully. We should not have this control of the rent of furnished houses one second longer than is absolutely necessary. We are prepared to give the Bill a Second Reading now in very exceptional circumstances and because of those very exceptional circumstances. As soon as things become normal again, we have to watch very carefully to see that this Bill is not renewed.
§ 3.36 p.m.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, I should very much like the opportunity to answer some of the important points made by several noble Lords in the course of the debate. I am extremely grateful to all the noble Lords who have spoken and to the House for the support which 164 they have given in general terms to this measure. It is an urgent Bill. Its speedy passage through the House will enable injustices to be righted and prevent future injustices, and I am most grateful to the House for their support of this measure.
The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, raised two points of special importance which I should like to try to answer. He directed attention to the importance of the personnel of the tribunals which will fall to be appointed, and I can assure him that the Government entirely share his sense of the importance of the personnel of the tribunals that are to exercise such important functions. He suggested that justices of the peace or other responsible persons with an impartial outlook should be chosen, and I have no doubt that the Minister will take his words to heart. He will notice that under the regulations in Clause 8 the Minister has power to give guidance in matters of procedure, and I think that that covers the possibility that laxity of procedure might prejudice the fairness of the decisions.
There is another important point made by the noble Lord which was later endorsed by the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster—namely, that there might be frivolous applications and there seemed to be no protection under the Bill against litigious people who cared to bring such applications before tribunals. I think that in fact there are two safeguards. In the first place a tenant would hesitate, because it would jeopardize his own security. The obvious way for the landlord to retaliate would be by giving him notice to quit, and under the Bill he will not enjoy the same degree of security as a bona-fide applicant. The noble Lord will remember that the period of three months can be curtailed by the decision of the tribunal, and I have no doubt that in such cases the tribunal would send the tenant about his business as speedily as possible. I think there is little doubt that the time of tribunals would not be wasted by frivolous cases on account of their power to dismiss a reference. The moment they scented that a man was not a bona-fide applicant they would clearly dismiss the case, and the more often he came up the more obvious it would be that he was merely trying to waste the time of the tribunal.
§ LORD LLEWELLINIf I may interrupt, a duty is imposed on them to con- 165 sider it. I suggest that the noble Earl should have that looked into to see whether there cannot be some better provision against constant appeals than the rather vague hints to which he has alluded.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, I will certainly fall in with the noble Lord's wishes in this matter, but there is of course no time limit to the consideration. It may be that the consideration will be extremely brief.
The noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, who is such an authority on the subject of rent control, raised two points of special importance. First of all, he complained that the present Bill does not give the tribunal power to increase rents, such as was suggested in the Report of the Ridley Committee. He went on to say that he hoped this was a case for justice, and that it was unjust not to give a landlord the same opportunity of obtaining reparation as it is proposed, under the present Bill, to give to the tenant. We entirely share his sentiments about the justice of the position and the need to put right any injustice which may be caused. I would, if I may do so, like to direct his attention to the terms in which the Report of the Ridley Committee has been spoken of publicly by my right honourable friend the Minister of Health. He said, on the Second Reading of the present Bill in another place:
I know that a strong case can be made for the enactment of the whole of the recommendations of the Ridley Committee, and the Government would not have been loth to do so were it not for the fact that the preparation of a Bill of that sort would have strained the machinery at our disposal and that we have not the Parliamentary time to devote to it. Therefore, I hope that in this matter the House will forgive the Government for not getting on with a very much more ambitious measure and will accept this Bill as a kind of first-aid treatment for the patient, who later, perhaps, will require a very much more radical cure.I honestly do not think there is any difference of opinion between the noble Viscount and the Government as to the merits of the Ridley Committee Report. The noble Viscount also made a point about the regulations under Clause 8 and said that they might be subject to review by Parliament. That, of course, is not the case, but I would remind him that similar powers were given to the Minister under the Scottish Act of 1943, and those powers have been exercised for the last three 166 years without any criticism or questioning of the fairness of the Minster's decisions. I therefore think it is reasonable not to clutter up the business of Parliament with any matters which may reasonably be left to the discretion of the Minister.I am much obliged to the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, for the emphasis he placed on the drafting of Clause 2 (I). He would, of course, be the first to agree that this is a Committee point, but I am grateful to him for giving me notice in order that I may go into the matter carefully before we reach the Committee stage. I think one of the most useful functions of this House has always been to see that the wording of a Statute corresponds with the intentions of the legislators. When business has to be pressed rather hard and when Bills pass speedily through another place your Lordships' House is perhaps in a particularly important position in the matter of reviewing the wording of Bills in order to see that, when they pass into law, there are no omissions. I can assure the noble Viscount that the point he raised will be very carefully examined between now and the Committee stage.
The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, raised two points which I should like to answer now. The first was about the position of hotels. I can assure him that hotels are excluded from the provisions of the Bill and will not be affected by the new procedure for the fixing of rents.
§ LORD LLEWELLINCan the noble Earl tell us what is the definition of "a house"? His answer must depend on that. After all, we are a house. It is a word with a very wide significance, and it surely might well be said to include an hotel.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELI am obliged to the noble Lord for making that point. I will certainly see that the definition is tightened up, if that is required, so that the expression "a house" can definitely exclude anything in the nature of an hotel. The other point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, was the question as to who should have the power to appoint these tribunals. He suggested that that should be done by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack instead of by the Minister of Health. I should like to make one comment on that point. I am sure the noble Lord opposite realizes that my noble 167 and learned friend on the Woolsack is one of the most hard-worked members of the Government. He has a number of different capacities to fulfil. I always think it is really astounding that any Lord Chancellor can discharge so many functions over a longish period of time without a serious effect on his health. I am quite certain that the Government would be very reluctant to add any additional burden to that already borne by my noble and learned friend upon the Woolsack.
§ LORD CHESHAMMight I ask if the Minister of Health has nothing to do?
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELI can leave the answer to that to the noble Lord himself. What he was proposing was the removal of the responsibility from one Department to a member of the judiciary, who is also the Chairman of this House and who, as a member of the Cabinet, has to support and defend a number of important Bills. I merely wished to indicate that that was a serious difficulty in his suggestion. I have covered as best I can—I am afraid I have not dealt with every point which has been raised—the matters which have been drawn to the Government's attention by the speakers in this debate. I can assure your Lordships that any point which requires further consideration will be considered between this and the Committee stage. I should like to conclude by thanking the House for giving such a kind and good reception to the Bill.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.