HL Deb 18 November 1947 vol 152 cc760-85

VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER rose to call attention to the law relating to rent restriction, and to the injustice arising therefrom, and to the necessity for the introduction without delay of a new Bill revising and consolidating the existing Acts; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in bringing this matter to your Lordships' notice once again I think it right to say that I am president of two property-owning associations. At the same time it is only fair to add that my personal interest in property of the nature we are discussing is entirely negligible. It would not be right, nor would it be fair to the noble Lords who have been good enough to receive me on these Benches, if I were to put this matter before your Lordships as one in which one section of the community or one Party were aligned against another. Nothing could be further from the truth. As your Lordships are aware, 98 per cent. of the houses in this country are controlled by the Rent Restriction Acts, and nearly every member of the community, be his financial status great or be it small, is affected by these Acts.

I am anxious to avoid, as far as may be, any legal disquisition. I do not want to refer to the complex and confusing Statutes which have so often excited the criticism of His Majesty's Judges. Your Lordships will recollect that the Ridley Committee, which was appointed in 1943 to look into this matter, gave it as their unqualified and unanimous opinion that it was urgently necessary that the "present chaos of overlapping Statutes should be replaced by a single comprehensive Act." There have been in fact sixteen Acts of Parliament. Twenty-five Rules and Regulations have been passed. Six Committees have been appointed to deal with this matter. This list of leading cases in the chief work upon this subject occupies seventeen pages of close print and represents only a minute fraction of the total litigation which these Acts have involved.

In brief, the position is this. Rent restriction was started by an Act of 1914 which, to use its own words, was passed for controlling the rent of "small dwellings." This brought under control these small dwellings at the rent paid on August 3, 1914 A mass of legislation followed, but in substance two results were achieved. First, it became possible to increase rents by 15 per cent. and a further 25 per cent. if the owner were responsible for repairs, making a total permitted increase of 40 per cent. Secondly, in certain circumstances it became possible to secure the decontrol of property. The last World War, or rather the probability of the World War which has just taken place, made it necessary to pass the Act of 1939 which controlled all the houses in London which had a rateable value of £100 and under. It controlled these at the rent payable on September 1, 1939, and it fixed a figure roughly three times that chosen in the Act of 1915.

Now I have finished with these Statutes. The point to which I am trying to take your Lordships is this. The result of this is that you have two different sets of controlled property. You have the property controlled by the Act of 1915, as subsequently amended, "the small dwellings," and you have the property controlled by the Act of 1939. Now it follows that the owners of what I will call the old controlled property are particularly hardly used. Their rents are fixed on a standard existing prior to the First World War, a standard which, even if you allow for the permitted increase, bears no relation to reality. Nor is this the end of the story, for, if when the owner sought to let the house it was in his own occupation—in other words, if it was not then let—then under whatever Act it came you had to go back to the time when it was last let. You may, therefore, not have to go back merely to 1914, but you may have to go back to the Boer war and you may conceivably even have to go back to the Crimean war. There is no limit to the date to which you may have to have recourse.

There is one other way in which I think the owner of these small houses, particularly in the country, was hardly used. I do not propose to touch upon this matter of country property, because I trust other noble Lords more competent than I will deal with it. The man who owned a small property in the country often felt it a social obligation—and indeed, if I may be allowed to say so, it was an obligation of which your Lordships were by no means unconscious—to charge a somewhat lower rent than that which was economically sound for these cottages. He did not wish to be hard on the small tenants. But whether he charged too low a rent or whether, when it subsequently became possible to decontrol his property, he did not take advantage of it, the result in each case is the same. The good landlord is punished and punished always to the full extent of his generosity. The hardship which these Acts occasion is considerable.

It is not right to suppose that every owner of property is a man of great wealth and substance. There are many thousands of small people in this country who have invested their life savings in property only to see these savings gradually disappear, because without recourse to their ever dwindling capital they are unable to keep their property in repair. I hesitate to say how many thousands of houses there are in this country at this moment which are falling into decay and disrepair. Many of them are no longer habitable, and many more will soon cease to be habitable; not a very happy reflection on our attempt to solve this great question of houses.

I have no wish to weary your Lordships with any figures, but I would like, if you will allow me, just in the shortest way to give an illustration of how the cost of two quite simple repairs has risen. If we examine the figures, we find that the cost of retiling a roof—if we take 1935 as the basis—rose by 53 per cent. in 1943, and showed an increase of 117 per cent. in 1946. The cost of repairing a floor, again taking 1935 as the basis, shows an increase of 121 per cent. in 1943 and an increase of 183 per cent. in 1946. Now I particularly wish to stress the date—1943. That was the date when the Ridley Committee was appointed to investigate this matter. Now, while we can accept—and I do accept—that the figure which they gave of an increase in the cost of repairs of 50 to 75 per cent. was entirely accurate then, we must realize that it can bear no relation whatever to the rise which has since taken place; nor is there any sign that this rise is likely to stop. The figures I have given are merely those for 1946, and a further sharp increase has taken place since.

It is not merely the general hardship to which I would like to draw your Lordships' attention. I want, as briefly as I can, to bring to your Lordships' notice one or two particular instances. I have in mind the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, which for the sake of simplicity I would like to be allowed to call the Furnished Houses Act. This Act was passed with the idea of stopping an unduly high charge for furnished accommodation—a purpose with which I am entirely in sympathy—but unfortunate results ensued. What happened was this—it is not altogether easy to explain but I hope I may be able to do so. The owner of property controlled under the earlier Acts, that is to say the owner of property in London of a rateable value of £100 a year or under, who let it at a rent which includes the cost of services, finds himself in a position where he is caught not only under the existing Acts but under the Furnished Houses Act as well. In other words, if he finds, as he will surely find, that the cost of these services in involving him in loss, and he goes to the tribunal and seeks relief on this account, he will be told: "Yes, the claim is just, and we agree you chould have an increase, but the rateable value of your house is under £100 a year and so we can do nothing for you. If it were over £100 a year we should be prepared to assist you." That is a highly anomalous position and one which is quite unjust.

I have in mind a case which has been brought to my notice. A man at the outbreak of war let the upper part of his house—in order that his wife might have some company—at a trifling rent. He undertook to provide certain services. Now what is his position? He is caught in every way. If he were to ask relief from the arrangement on account of the increased cost of services he would be told that nothing could be done. There is no means by which under the Rent Restriction Acts he can increase the rent. There is no means under these Acts whereby he can gain possession of the upper part of his home: indeed he cannot eject the tenant, because his is not a furnished letting. I suggest to your Lordships that that is a most unhappy position. It reminds me almost of the unhappy position in which our old friend Sinbad the Sailor found himself when the Old Man of the Sea twined his legs round Sinbad's neck and refused to be dislodged. In Sinbad's case the dislodgment was achieved by the use of alcohol, a remedy not open to the unfortunate landlord.

The Government have strenuously resisted any legislation to adjust this matter. I venture to say with great respect that it is a great injustice, and I do not believe that in the end any advantage is gained by laws which are based on unjustice. I am encouraged in this view by a quota- tion from a Latin poet with whom your Lordships will be familiar. I will attempt a rough paraphrase, if I may. He said, some 2,000 years ago: What without moral sanction can any laws avail?

I will pass from this aspect of the matter and turn as briefly as I can to the question of the owner who seeks to regain possession in order to live in his house himself. The Ridley Committee, with certain qualifications, said that such a man should be granted this as an act of right. What is the position now? Without going into the law in detail the position is this. If he comes under a certain provision he has to show hardship; he has to show that the hardship of denying him possession is greater than that of ejecting the sitting tenant. If he comes within another category be has to offer alternative accommodation, which is by no means easy. I would like to show your Lordships how hardly this matter presses by reading a very brief extract from two letters. The first says: Dear Sir—For five years I have been kept out of my own house by a Rent Restriction Act protected tenant. Whilst I am unable to offer him alternative accommodation I have been compelled to live for five winters in the bottom compartment of an old tramcar together with my two infant children. Not a very happy state of affairs.

The other letter touches on an even more complex point, which I think might well be brought before your Lordships. The writer of this letter is a man who has let a large house, too large for his own use. The tenant does not need it all for himself. The writer of this letter suggests, not unreasonably, that if he cannot be granted possession of the whole, he might at least be granted a part. The law says: "Yes, you can have possession of part, provided you have a separate kitchen. If you have not got a separate kitchen, you cannot have it. The top part must remain empty." Not a very wise solution to our housing problem. This is what the writer says: Twelve months ago I appealed to the County Court for part possession"— only part possession, your Lordships will note— but the judge decided against me, with costs"— he was penalized for trying to get that which was his— but it seems that sharing the kitchen ruled out all alternative accommodation. As a consequence my wife is continuing to live a difficult and lonely life in Birmingham and I am obliged to reside in a London hotel. We have in fact a position where a man who has executed a lease, or concluded an agreement and who after giving proper notice tries to get back that which, by law and right, he thought was his own. But he cannot have it. Everything he believed in, legal agreements, leases, the sanctity of contract, apparently mean nothing. Not a very happy position; and I trust the noble and learned Viscount who will reply shares my view.

We might ask in such a case why, when the Ridley Committee so strongly recommended that something should be done the Government so strenuously refuse to take any action in this matter. It cannot be, I think, because the demands that have been put forward are immoderate. I myself have endeavoured to couch this Motion in terms with which none could quarrel. If I were asked for a solution to this problem I would say that the findings of the Ridley Committee form a sound basis for negotiation. I would qualify it to this extent, that I feel that the tribunals which the Ridley Committee proposed should be set up should not be composed of the same personnel as the tribunals under the Furnished Houses Act. As your Lordships are aware, the Minister, when he introduced this Act, said that it was a "rent reducing" Act. He meant these tribunals to reduce rents; he did not intend them to have any power to increase rents at all. It was only by an Amendment in your Lordships' House that a modification of this most unjust principle was secured. Further, I feel, that the appointment of the members of these tribunals should rest not with the Minister, whoever he may be, but with the Lord Chancellor of the day who, if I may say so, although his appointment may be political is, by his legal training and experience, better qualified than any other person to choose the personnel of these tribunals. We can only rely on his discretion to see that the tribunals are not fettered in their instructions by Party bias.

In regard to repairs, the Ridley Committee recommended that after an interval of three years a special Committee should be set up to deal with this matter. I have tried to show how much repairs have risen since the Committee was appointed up to the present date. I venture to think that the ground has altogether slipped away from under their feet and that there is an urgent case for some relief in regard to repairs forthwith. If no such relief can be granted, then I think that a technical Committee should be appointed without any further delay.

I have always been deeply conscious, if I may say so, of the courtesy and patience with which the noble and learned Viscount who will reply has listened to me whenever I have addressed him. I have not, therefore, pressed this matter with the force and vigour with which I have felt inclined. I have tried to be moderate in my views and in the expression of them. I only hope that the noble and learned Viscount may give some assurance of early action, and that at least I may have convinced him that this demand for a reform of these Acts is something which cannot with reason or with justice any longer be resisted. I beg to move for Papers.

5.52 p.m.

VISCOUNT MAUGHAM

My Lords, I shall detain your Lordships for only a short time in attempting to follow my noble friend Lord Buckmaster in setting out the facts which result in our being face to face with a crying scandal which calls for immediate redress. In saying that, I am really saying what I feel most sincerely, and I can express it with more straightforwardness because I am in favour of rent restriction and, in particular, of the modern alteration of the law which applies rent restriction to what are generally called furnished lodgings. But it is the injustice which is embodied in these Acts of Parliament—a number of which some of your Lordships must have heard of with surprise—and the extraordinarily confused language in which some of them are now expressed, which have largely led to the difficulties of landlords of all kinds, rich and poor. There is hardly a County Court Judge in the land who has not said that he does not know what the Acts mean. Some of the decisions have ultimately gone to the Court of Appeal, and there Judge after Judge has said that he has never come across anything which beats the complexity with which he is faced. The late Lord Mackinnon expressed the matter in a very pungent way only a short time before his lamented death.

With all this complexity of obscure legislation before us, it is not surprising that a supervening event—namely, the enormous rise in the costs of repairs of any sort—has made matters worse than they were before. The result, therefore, is that many of the poorer landlords are quite unable to carry out urgently needed repairs to their property. It is not surprising, as my noble friend has said, that many men who, perhaps with their wives and even with their families, have towards the end of their lives put all their savings into buying the small houses in which they have lived, have subsequently had to leave those houses owing to the increased cost of living. They have let their houses and they are liable for the cost of repairing them. They simply have not the money to do it, as things are, and they know perfectly well that if they were able to borrow it they would not be able to get back in increased rent anything like the sum they would have to spend. It is the fact, as noble Lords who are acquainted with the countryside will tell you, that there are thousands of houses in this country belonging to landlords who are unable to repair them, which are gradually getting worse and worse. That is indirectly adding greatly to the difficulty of the housing situation.

Then there are many landlords—I know some of them myself who are members of this House—who have numbers of houses, sometimes on their own estates and sometimes elsewhere, which they let to people at less than one-third of the present economic value of those houses. That is not uncommon, and yet it is justified by the present Acts of Parliament. I think it is perfectly dreadful. However, the lack of time, which no doubt is pleaded as a reason for not doing anything to improve the present state of things, is considered as a ground for once more putting off this badly needed legislation the introduction of which has been urged so often in this House.

I am not going to repeat the history of the legislation with which I once, I am afraid, detained the House, and the long series of Acts which I sought to explain and the rather strong language I used with regard to the whole matter. Those who have taken any interest in these topics will perhaps be able to remember some of the things I said, and I will not repeat them. I would say that all the charges that are being made to-day by my noble friend Lord Buckmaster are fully justified, and that the law with regard to the present position of affairs has been expounded absolutely accurately by him. I can see no exaggeration in his story of the whole set-up. I venture to think that there is the strongest possible ground for urging the Government—not on any Party ground, for to me this is not a Party question at all, but on the ground of the justice of the case and the great advantage which would be gained by a complete reconstruction of rent restriction legislation—to see if it is not possible to bring in a measure which will consolidate and improve the present legislation and remove some of the distressing injustices which that legislation imposes upon so many people.

My noble friend has mentioned some personal cases, and I could mention others. I went down to a County Court more than once to hear these cases disposed of, and I was staggered by stories of hardship which people were telling the learned County Court Judge. I have heard of many people who are living in outhouses; I have heard of one family which is living in an old pig sty. Such cases as those are caused by the impossibility of getting fair play for landlords, and the absence of inducements to improve the premises they have let, and to put new roofs on houses which have defective roofs. There is—I will not shrink from it—the further necessity of imposing rents which are to some extent economic upon many people in this country who are entitled, or whose families are entitled, to remain in occupation of premises at a half or a third of the economic rent, notwithstanding the enormous increase in the value of their houses. This is due, simply and solely, to the unjust Acts of Parliament which are now upon the Statute Book.

The improvements which we suggest are not suggested in the name of Party. A good Act of Parliament in this matter would be a mainly uncontroversial matter, and I think all noble Lords in this House would do their very best, even if they hoped for something better at a future date, to help such legislation to be passed by the present Government. I have nothing more to add to the remarks of my noble friend, Lord Buckmaster, except to say that everybody who heard his speech will feel that all he said was well justified.

6.5 p.m.

THE EARL OF RADNOR

My Lords, I do not propose to detain you long on this subject, because I cannot speak with the detailed and intimate knowledge of rent restriction that has been displayed by my noble friend, Lord Buckmaster, and by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham. I think both of them have made it quite clear that the complexity of the legislation dealing with rent restriction is such as to cry out for some consolidating and revisionary measure as soon as possible. If further argument is required in that direction, I have in my hand a memorandum prepared by the Ministry of Health purporting to answer some of the questions which are often; put to the Minister of Health on the subject of rent control. In its preface emphasis is over and over again laid upon the fact that you must consult a solicitor. It goes even to the extent of twice putting those words in italics. It is deplorable that a Government Department should have to say to a large part of the population that, in dealing with problems which affect their very living, they must consult a solicitor. It may be added that those problems in the main affect the poorer and less educated members of the population.

Although there may be a great deal of litigation on the subject of rent restriction, how many cases are there that ought to be brought but are not brought because the people who are being injured or who are suffering under this legislation may not have the knowledge or the experience to go to a solicitor? We cannot blame His Majesty's Government for the complexities of the legislation; they are not responsible for all the laws that were passed with regard to rent restriction. The only blame that can attach to them is if they are not prepared to try and remedy the wrong that is there. I trust that the noble and learned Viscount when he replies may, at long last, be able to give us some hope that some genuine consideration will be given to this matter.

So far as rent control is concerned, I imagine that its original purpose was, first, to ensure that wage earners should not have to pay too much rent. With this object was coupled a hope that, by keeping rents down, there would be no necessity, on account of higher rents, for wages to rise. In that way it was hoped to counteract any inflationary tendencies that may have existed when rent restriction first started. There is, to-day, a further reason, and that is to prevent the exploitation of individuals through the scarcity of houses. I am rather doubtful of the rightness of the first reason, if it is a genuine reason—the attempt to prevent inflationary tendencies by keeping down rent—but I am quite certain that there must be some control of rents while the present scarcity of houses continues. It would be all wrong that there should be an exploitation, especially of the poorer people, on account of the known scarcity of houses.

My main experience in rent restriction lies in the country districts. Perhaps some of my arguments may apply to the towns, but I will use them mainly in reference to the country districts. My first and main point is that the artificial restriction of rents is, in fact, a concealed subsidy to wages which the wage earner does not realize, and it is a subsidy which is not paid by the general public. It is paid by the houseowner almost individually to the man who occupies the house. Wage earners who live in houses in the country districts have not even yet realized the extent of the subsidy they are getting. That has this effect. There are some new houses which are appearing in the country districts, and there are some which were built during the war when Mr. Hudson was at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. I think 3,000 houses were built in those days in rural districts, and they were built as a first instalment to improve conditions in the country. Those houses were supposed to be let to agricultural workers at a rent of 10s. 6d. a week. It would be extremely interesting to know how many agricultural workers in fact actually went into them. I know of a number of cases where, after completion, the houses remained empty for quite a considerable time, because an agricultural worker could not be found to pay 10s. 6d. a week rent when his neighbour, in a controlled house, was paying 3s., 4s., or it may be 5s. This controlled house may have been just as good, but it probably was not. Even so, the agricultural worker could not see the logic of paying double the rent which a man earning exactly the same money wages as himself was paying. It will be more interesting still when houses which are being built by local authorities under the present difficult conditions are ready in country districts—and I understand that there is going to be a very definite priority for houses in country districts—to see whether farm workers can be persuaded to go into them, at the rents which will, necessarily, have to be asked for them.

The only other fact upon which I wish to lay emphasis is one which has already been touched upon by the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster. That is that the permitted increases above the standard rent do not compare in any way with the actual increases in the cost of maintenance today. It is quite true that the wealthier owners of houses in country districts have, generally, made it a point of honour to keep their cottages in decent order, even though it costs them a great deal of money. But there are great numbers of people, again in country districts—the owner-occupier, for instance, who, between the wars and even now, is still being virtually compelled to buy his farm at a high price in order to retain possession of it—who cannot afford to dip their hands very deeply into their pockets for over and above the amounts of the rents they are getting for their cottages. The result is that the minimum is done in the way of repairs to a very large number of cottages, and, consequently, there is, in many cases, a definite lowering of the standard of living and accommodation. That, to my mind, is a state of affairs which, in view of the necessity of getting the right type of labour and the right numbers of wage-earners into agriculture, is almost disastrous, for we do want to give them not only good jobs, but also good homes.

It is only in this way that we shall attract the men to our agricultural industry who ought to be in it. On that account, therefore, I think there is some very clear case for a revision in order to bring the rents that can be charged under rent restriction somewhere in line with the rents that will be charged for the new houses that are coming along. Otherwise, you will find that the new houses will not be occupied by the people who are wanted on the land, and the standard of life of those who remain on the land will go down. I hope, therefore, that at least there will be a sympathetic answer from the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack, because I think it is so clear that this particular problem is not merely one of helping the landowner and the landlord of houses out of a hole—and he is in a hole in many cases—but that it has far wider social implications which ought to be pat right.

6.14 p.m.

LORD MESTON

My Lords, I hope that the Government will be able to deal with this matter, and, among other things, with the following aspect of it. During the war, many thousands of houses which were controlled by the Rent Restrictions Acts were totally destroyed by enemy action. Some thousands of those houses have been rebuilt, or will be rebuilt, with the assistance of a cost-of-works payment. That is to say, there will, in those cases, be a new structure on the site of the old house. That new structure may be identical with the old house or it may differ in some respects, possibly substantial respects, from the old house. The question arises as to whether the Rent Restrictions Acts do or do not apply to the new structure.

Then there is another matter that requires consideration, and that is the position of the statutory tenants in these cases. As your Lordships well know, under the Landlord and Tenant (War Damage) (Amendment) Act, 1941, it is provided, in effect, that the whole system of disclaimers and notices of conditional retention do not apply to short tenancies, and all these houses about which we are talking to-day are held under short tenancies. Suppose that the tenant of a controlled house which was totally destroyed by enemy action desires to occupy the new structure which has been erected on the site of his former house. Is he entitled to do so, and, moreover, what is the position with regard to the standard rent of the new house? I may say that this is a most complicated question, and I have no doubt at all that I have ceased entirely to elucidate it.

But let me add this. A few months ago, I put down a question on this point on the Order paper, and, in due course, I received a most courteous and helpful reply from the appropriate Government Department in a lengthy memorandum. In that memorandum the appropriate Government Department said two things: first of all, that any questions relating to the Rent Restrictions Acts have to be decided by the Courts; secondly, that it was not the intention of the Government to deal with the matter piecemeal, but they intended to deal with it at some future time in a comprehensive manner. I would respectfully submit that for the reasons which have been stated this afternoon, the time has now come when all these questions should be dealt with in a new and revised and consolidated Act, having regard, among other matters, to that aspect of the case to which I have just referred—namely, the application of the Rent Restrictions Acts to houses which have been erected on the site of controlled houses which have been totally destroyed by enemy action.

6.18 p.m.

LORD MIDDLETON

My Lords, very briefly, I would like to reinforce what the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, has said, in respect of cottages in rural England. When I began to study estate management and agriculture, nearly 25 years ago, I was informed that no agricultural landlord ever expected a cash dividend from the money spent on building cottages. The small rents charged constituted a fund for the maintenance, repair and improvement of cottages when necessary. If I venture to say something of my own property in the East Riding of Yorkshire, it is because it is typical of a great many other estates in the North and East Ridings. Rents have not been raised within living memory, and the rents were fixed when the occupants of the cottages were receiving wages of from 16s. to 18s. a week. To-day the minimum wage for the agricultural worker is £4 10s. At my Last Riding property, for 117 cottages I receive an average rent of 2s. 0½ d. a week. It is very difficult, indeed, to create a fund from these small rents that will meet the cost of any kind of repairs at all.

The noble Viscount Lord Buckmaster, has mentioned repairs to roofs. I would mention another repair which is frequently required at cottages, and that is to kitchen ranges. The lives of these ranges depend, of course, upon the competence of the occupiers wives. Up till 1939, one could get at wholesale rates from Sheffield quite adequate kitchen ranges for little more than 50s. To-day they cost £23 10s.—that is about 4½ years' rent. And the cost of roofs, sinks and other things is more or less in proportion. I do not sug- gest that all controls should be removed, but there are bodies in rural England—housing committees and rural district councils—who should be competent to judge to what extent rent should be raised. We are not asking for anything unfair. I know many of my old employees, when they realize how difficult it is to find money from other sources to supplement this cottage repair fund, say, "Why don't you put up the rent?" The answer is, we cannot do it. I do not think there should be any ill-feeling about it. With proper control, it is a matter which should be attended to forthwith.

6.21 p.m.

VISCOUNT GAGE

My Lords, I do not claim any special knowledge of this very complicated matter and the only reason I am speaking is that I am President of the National Federation of Housing Societies, which have recently felt impelled to put to the Minister of Health a very detailed case showing the great difficulties they are getting into owing to the operations of the Rent Restrictions Acts in their present form. The housing societies are not pleading a special position and the remedies they are suggesting to meet their case are not of a kind which could form a precedent for any other class of owner. For that reason and because the matter is a public question, I do not propose to say anything about the solution to their troubles. But I think the evidence they have produced is of a wider interest and certainly does bear out what has already been said to-day.

Their main conclusion is that the present cost of labour and materials bears no kind of relation to the scale of the permitted increases of rent. For that reason the societies are apprehensive as to the future of their properties, which are progressively deteriorating, unless something is done. Whereas the Ridley Committee, bearing out what has already been stated by the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, reported that in 1943 there was no evidence to show that the cost had gone up by more than fifty per cent. on the 1939 costs, the housing societies say that by their experience the costs of labour and materials in 1947 are at least double and sometimes almost three times what they were in 1939. A secondary conclusion they have come to is that a certain amount of available accommoda- tion is being wasted because the Rent Restrictions Acts prevent the societies from moving tenants from larger to smaller houses, and vice versa, to fit in with the size of their families.

I do not wish to weary your Lordships with elaborate statistics to prove these points, though I have a good number of them here. I think it is sufficient to remind your Lordships that these societies are largely philanthropic in origin and control some sixty thousand houses. They have a very long and practical experience in the management of working-class houses; and they are not hard-fisted business men trying to get the last pound of flesh from the tenants. In fact, the maximum profit they can make is on a standard fixed by the Treasury. I think the main motive that inspires these housing societies is a sort of missionary zeal to carry out what they regard as a very high form of public service. I hope that your Lordships will not deduce anything to the contrary from the fact that I happen to be President of this Federation. When people of this kind talk, as they are doing, of grave concern, of running into debt and of being completely crippled because of the effect of the Rent Restrictions Acts, I am sure your Lordships believe these are plain factual statements and not exaggerations put up by any Party or sectional interest. Indeed, many members of these societies are very loyal supporters of the present Government.

I cannot believe that these conclusions are confined to housing societies only. We have had some very convincing cases put up by other noble Lords. As the owner of agricultural land, I am always surprised at the extraordinary, crazy anomalies in rent that seem to be inevitable under these Acts and it seems extremely difficult to give estate and farm employees any fairness of treatment. I have no expert knowledge and therefore I do not feel qualified to make any suggestions except that the position ought to be reviewed by people who are qualified. I feel there might be something to be said for some greater degree of flexibility, so that these cases could be treated more on their own merits and not as precedents for some other case of an entirely different kind. I cannot believe that the interests of housing are being served by allowing matters to drift as they are at present.

6.28 p.m.

LORD LLEWELLIN

My Lords, I think we all agree that the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, has raised to-day a very important matter. It is certainly one which may be represented to the Government as a very urgent problem and one about which they should as soon as possible try to do something. I am very glad to be able to give support to my noble friend's Motion. Many anomalies have grown up under these Rent Restrictions Acts. There are no fewer than ten of these Acts existing contemporaneously with one another, and superimposed on them is the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act. So that is eleven—a little team. It is obviously most confusing for the ordinary man to find his way about this conflicting mass on the Statute Book. That is not the fault of the present Government and I am not suggesting it is. It is part of their inheritance. But the time has surely come to get, at any rate, a consolidating measure.

The first step towards getting a new Consolidation Bill amended up to date was the appointment of a Committee, over which the noble Lord, Lord Ridley, so ably presided. Its findings have been available now for some thirty months. It is not only the complexity of the legislation but the way it is working in practice, in every village and town, which disturbs me. One house which may never have been under the Rent Restrictions Acts stands in a row exactly similar to the house next door which is under those Acts. In some cases of houses that are semidetached and are exactly the same except that in one the door is on the right and in the other the door is on the left, one is under an uncontrolled rent of, say, 20s. or 25s. a week while the other is still at its original rent-restricted or standard rent, plus, perhaps, an increase for repairs.

I cannot understand why the Government have not done anything about this subject. It is not such a non-controversial matter as the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, would have one believe, and certainly—I can see them sticking out a mile—it presents a lot of very thorny problems. The real controversy on this matter is not between the Party that sits on these Benches and the Party that sits on the Government Benches, but between those who prefer the short view rather than the long view. In the short view, of course, if you do something to solve this problem it must mean in a number of cases increasing the rents of a certain number of people. That will never be popular. On the other hand, taking the long view, if you do not do something to enable these houses to be kept in a proper state of repair, then you are postponing for years the day when this problem will be ultimately solved by having enough houses for the whole population, when controls can be taken off altogether.

Why do I say that they cannot be kept in repair? The noble Lord, Lord Middleton, touched on this point. If you take a house—and there are a lot of them—which in 1914 was let at 3s. a week, the utmost increase the landlord can have on that runt brings it up to 4s. 3d. a week. That rent equals £ 11 a year. Incidentally, at my own home—if I may quote my case, as the noble Lord cited his—we have long had a house let at 3s. a week. We have not in fact put on the increase, although I suppose we might have done so. It is a thatched cottage, and this year it needed a new roof. It will take seven years of the rent of that cottage to pay for that thatched roof. We did it, and are glad to have done it, but a large number of owners of cottages of that sort cannot afford to do it. Many indeed are in that position. After all, when the 25 per cent. increase for repairs was incorporated in the Rent Restrictions Acts the wages of bricklayers, joiners and plumbers were in the neighbourhood of 8d. and 10d. an hour, and now they have gone up to something in the neighbourhood of 3s. 7d. an hour. That is a figure I have had given to me, and I gather that quite a number of them can get 3s. 7d._ an hour. As the noble Viscount, Lord, Buckmaster, said, materials have gone up considerably in price. Since 1914 they have certainly gone: up 200 per cent. As a result, the 25 percent. increase for repairs is obviously not enough to carry out the repairs, and, therefore, even corporations which run housing estates—like the Peabody Trust, which run them largely for charitable purposes—find it very difficult to make both ends meet, while the small person who puts some savings; in houses has not got the money, and those houses are getting into a worse condition every day. I think something will have to be done about it.

The local authorities are doing it. The houses of the local authorities, as your Lordships know, are not under the control of the Rent Restrictions Acts. In the last year twenty-one local authorities, varying in the composition of their councils considerably, have put up the rent of their houses in order to meet these increased charges. They are allowed to do it, but the small man who has got a few houses cannot increase the rent at all because he comes under the Rent Restrictions Acts. It is being done by authorities as far apart as Hove on the south coast, up to Morayshire in the far north of Scotland; from Chatham to the Menai Bridge authority, taking a diagonal from east to west; and they cover a considerable area of the country at the present time. It is, indeed, an anomaly that these local authorities are allowed to charge an economic rent that will cover repairs while the ordinary private owner is still restricted by the Rent Restrictions Acts.

I do not want to keep your Lordships very long. There are some extremely good suggestions made in the Ridley Report, if I may say so. I hope we may get something in the nature of a tribunal which can go into individual cases, look at particular districts to see where the anomalies lie, and work them out as common-sense men without any restrictive terms in the Statute such as the 5 per cent. rise if you do one thing, and 25 per cent. if you do the repairs, and so on. Another anomaly has been referred to to-day with reference to service. Your Lordships' House prevented it happening in certain cases where there was a contract to provide a certain amount of service, and the cost of the coal, the cost of wages of the lift man, and so on, had gone up so much, that the landlord could not afford to carry out the service on the rent he was getting. That anomaly was removed in the case of a house of a rateable value of over £100. But if there is some service in the case of a house under the rateable value of £100 in London, and £75 in the provinces, then the man has still got to provide that service, although the rent he may get from his tenants does not provide enough to enable him to pay for that service, for which in normal times he would have charged more. I do hope that problem can be dealt with at the same time.

As I said, the Ridley Committee reported nearly thirty months ago. We had a discussion in this House almost twelve months ago, when we had a very sympathetic speech from the noble Lord, Lord Ammon, whom I see sitting opposite. He then said, talking about the Government (I quote from Hansard of December 12 last): They fully sympathize with the expressions which have been advanced in support of those points, but they cannot see their way clear to formulate any legislative proposals on those heads just now I would like to ask the Government how long "just now" lasts, because that was very nearly a year ago. They do not expect that they will be able to take effect earlier than, say"— he put in the word "say," which was perhaps lucky— sometime in 1947"— not to be introduced, but to take effect— Whether or not the expressions of the two noble Lords in the House this afternoon"— that is, the noble Viscount, Lord Buck-master, and the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham— will have some effect in accelerating that, I am unable to say. Of course, it will also depend upon the rate of progress made in other matters Well, we have made pretty good progress in other matters in the last two years. I support my noble friend's Motion. Let us now make some progress in this matter also.

6.41 p.m.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I am very much afraid that the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, will not be pleased at what I am going to say. When this matter was debated on December 12, 1945, he quoted Burton's lines: … Fortune and Hope adieu; Mock me no more, for I have done with you. He did not give the preceding words: Mine haven's found Perhaps he can now say that more rightly, having regard to his new position on the Bench where he now sits. It is the fact that he then expressed some degree of impatience, but I am afraid that although nearly two years have passed we are in the same position. The noble Lord, Lord Ammon, was always a cheery optimist, perhaps a bit too optimistic, but we still hope that before an undue time has elapsed we shall be able to bring in this very necessary measure, for I quite agree that it is a. necessary measure. It is quite inaccurate to say that we have strenuously refused to bring it in, unless the mere failure to bring it in is something from which you can infer refusal.

VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER

I was referring to the refusal in another place to make any concession over this question of increase of rent for services.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

That certainly we strenuously refute, and I will deal with that in a moment. We want to follow out the recommendations of the Ridley Report. Let us see what the Ridley Report said on this. Their recommendation in paragraph 31—the words are printed in italics—was this: In our opinion it is urgently necessary that: the present chaos of overlapping statutes should be replaced by a single comprehensive Act in which the whole law relating to rent control should be clearly set out and we recommend accordingly Then, in the next paragraph they say this: We are emphatic on the necessity for this new simplified legislation and we feel bound to say that all the recommendations we make are based on this premise. If this recommendation is not accepted, we should have no confidence in putting forward the rest of this Report. I entirely agree with the Ridley Committee. I will come presently to the detailed matters which the noble Viscount mentioned, in regard to which they said they did not recommend that these things should be done apart from the fulfilment of the major premise; that is to say, a complete comprehensive review.

I am bound to tell your Lordships this. In my view it is an exceedingly complicated and an exceedingly difficult piece of work. I think any of your Lordships who have had any acquaintance with this subject at all will realize that. Further, as an old House of Commons man—the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, was also trained there, and we have had some experience of such Bills there—I think we may both fairly assert that this is a highly controversial matter. It is no good saying it is not. Therefore, we are confronted—if we accept the major premise of the Ridley Committee—with an exceedingly difficult piece of work and a lengthy piece of work which, in my view at any rate, is likely to prove highly controversial. Now what should we do? We accept (if this is any consolation to the noble Viscount) the recommendation of the Ridley Committee that the only thing to do is to have one Statute setting out as clearly as possible what are the rights and obligations. Are we to abandon that hope? Quite frankly, we cannot introduce such a Bill this Session.

I am struggling, and struggling without success, to make room this Session for a Bill which I believe is very necessary, quite simple and wholly uncontroversial—namely, my Legal Aid Bill. Up to the present time, however, I have not been able to get that Bill into this Session's programme. If I cannot do that, if is perfectly idle to think that we can get this immense piece of legislation into the programme. Therefore, I am afraid that all I can say to the noble Viscount is that, although I entirely agree with what he. is saying and with what noble Lords in all parts of the House have said, that it is deplorable that the present chaos of Statutes and uncertainty should go on, yet I can say, for this Session at any rate, that it is manifestly impossible for us to carry out this major premise of the Ridley Report. We cannot introduce such a comprehensive piece of legislation at present.

What follows? We might of course abandon the idea of bringing in comprehensive legislation and deal with the particular matters which the noble Viscount mentioned. Let us understand that if we do that, we are departing entirely from what the Ridley Committee recommended. I will take first of all, if I may, the principle of a flat increase in rent in view of the enormously increased cost of repairs. I will read from the bottom of page 24, paragraph 79, where, after dealing with the increased cost of repairs, the Committee point out how sharp the increases are. They indicate that such costs may go on increasing after the date of their Report—I think their Report was dated February, 1945—and then they say this: It seems to us an inescapable conclusion that, in view of the different levels of rents prevailing, a flat rate percentage increase applied to all controlled houses would fail to achieve the fairness of rents at which we am, and would merely have the effect of perpetuating and exaggerating the disparities and anomalies that now exist … They begin paragraph 80 by saying: For these reasons we have come to the conclusion that we cannot recommend any general increase in rents to meet the increased cost of repairs Those of your Lordships who advocate this particular piece of legislation, on the ground that it would be carrying out the recommendation of the Ridley Committee, are doing so under a complete misapprehension. The Ridley Report is emphatic that that should not be done, and in the same way has regard to the increase by reason of the provision of services. May I read from the top of page 26 of the Report, which I think sums up the matter? They are dealing there with the increased cost, and in the first line on page 26 they say: The amount of the increase must obviously depend on the services provided in each individual case. This is a question eminently suitable, in our view, for decision by the Rent Tribunals, who will be able to decide on the appropriate increase on the evidence produced to them" There again, their recommendation, as we all know, was to set up these tribunals. There would be something like 200 of them set up for the purpose of dealing with the question of increased rent by reason of the increased cost of repairs or of the added cost of provision of services. They did not recommend—in fact they negatived—the idea, that these matters should be dealt with by an express particular rate increase, such as was done in 1920 over and above the 1914 rates.

There is one other matter which the noble Viscount specifically mentioned, and here, I think, is the only point on which I am inclined to part company, though I do not say my mind is made up. It is the question whether the owner of a house should, by reason of his right of property in the house, have an absolute right to recover possession of the house without regard to the question of comparative hardship. That was a matter on which there was dissent on the Committee. The members of my Party who served on the Committee thought that there should be no such absolute right. We all, I hope, respect the rights of property, but there are occasions when we are apt, rightly as I think, to disregard the rights of property, having regard to other considerations. The illustration I always give is of people who find themselves in a lifeboat, their ship having sunk. No one would be allowed to keep to himself a tin of biscuits or a bottle of water on the ground that it was "his" water or "his" biscuits. I confess that when we are dealing with this tragedy of the shortage of houses—for it is a tragedy—I should not think it right to enable a man to acquire possession of a house which, for instance, he wanted as a "week-end cottage, displacing some woman with young children who was living there and had nowhere else to go. I should think it would be wrong and I would not be prepared to accede to any such proposition, though I think it should be considered as a relevant factor. Speaking for myself—and this matter, let me be quite frank, has not been considered by the Government—I cannot accede to the proposition that the mere fact that a house belongs to a man should entitle him, without any consideration of hardship or comparative hardship, to turn out the sitting tenant. But that is obviously a matter which would have to be considered, and it is likely to prove a highly controversial one.

For the rest I am afraid I can only say this. I have complaints made to me very frequently about the decisions of County Court Judges. I do not attempt to interfere with the discretion of the County Court Judge. I find out what are the facts, and I find that it often happens that the person who has written to me has the story from one side and does not know the story put forward by the other. The stories on both sides are very often heart-breaking, and one realizes the extraordinarily difficult job these County Court Judges have to do; and they feel it very deeply. I would like to say, having surveyed a great many of the decisions, that I am full of admiration for the way in which the County Court Judges are discharging this task. It is a trite saying, but obviously there is only one satisfactory solution of this problem, as we should all agree, and that is to build more houses. At present there are married couples who are not able to get a house of their own and are living under difficult conditions. The social trouble and social disadvantages of this situation are frightful. But while I agree that the landlord, in the cases that have been mentioned, has a real grievance in the matter of the cost of repairs, there are other and more serious grievances and consequences which come from the shortage of houses.

We are deeply conscious of the problem here involved. It is a very real problem. We are anxious to deal with it, but it is a long, complicated, difficult and probably contentious task. There is no chance of dealing with it this Session and I cannot say whether there will be a chance of dealing with it next Session; but it is quite obvious that sooner or later, however difficult and however lengthy it may be, it is a task that any Government will have to face and must attempt to solve. That, I regret to say, is the only consolation—if it is a consolation—I can give the noble Viscount: the fact that we accept what I think is a major premise of the Ridley Report and that we shall, as soon as may be, try to carry it out.

6.56 p.m.

VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER

My Lords, before I thank the noble and learned Viscount for his reply, there are too small points which I should like to make. The first is that I personally am, and always have been, in favour of a measure of rent control in times of crisis or emergency. The second point: is that the Ridley Committee were appointed in 1943, and issued their findings in 1945, although it appears clear to me that they accepted 1043 as the date on which they based their calculations in regard to repairs. In reply to the noble and learned Viscount, I have not yet abandoned all hope, although I am somewhat shaken by his reply, which I will not attempt at this hour to deal with in detail. There is one thing, however, which I feel I should say. The noble and learned Viscount said that these matters can be dealt with only by one complete and comprehensive Act. I would venture to remind him that the Government who are now so anxious to apply this salutary principle against me have already departed from it. If I may draw your Lordships' attention to Section 7 of the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, it provides that Sections 9 and 10 of the Act of 1920 do not apply. The Government have already interfered with rent restriction and have thereby departed from the sacrosanct principle that is now invoked against me. I am disappointed with the noble and learned Viscount's reply and I must feel myself free, as indeed I am, to raise the matter again at a later date. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.