HL Deb 16 April 1957 vol 203 cc7-23

2.48 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF MUNSTER)

My Lords, in presenting this Bill to your Lordships for Second Reading I have no wish to do so in any controversial spirit, but so many of its clauses have been distorted and so much of its purpose exaggerated that many people, in my judgment unnecessarily, fear its ultimate consequences. I have in my possession a mass of statements made by noble Lords in this House and by Members of another place dealing with the problem of rent control. I do not intend to refer to them, for they can all he found in the Hansard of the day concerned; but on every occasion when we have discussed this subject your Lordships, irrespective of Party, have again and again expressed the view that the Rent Acts must be amended. I am glad to think that there is no greater contributor to this view in your Lordships' House than the noble Lord, Lord Silkin; and I therefore look to the noble Lord beyond any other Member of this House for substantial support for the new proposals which are enumerated in the Bill.

Noble Lords who have followed the discussions on this Bill in another place will undoubtedly now be acquainted with its main purposes, but I hope that I shall be forgiven if I dwell at some length on the general reasons which have prompted Her Majesty's Government to introduce this legislation. As long ago as 1955, Mr. Sandys, who was then Minister of Housing and Local Government, stated that it was the Government's intention to review the provisions of the Rent Acts and that the conclusions which Her Majesty's Government reached would be announced in due course.

The decision embodied in this Bill is the progressive abolition of rent control and, in fact, a continuation of the reshaping of housing policy which was started two or three years ago. During that time, as we all know, there has been a marked improvement in the general overall housing picture, and a great deal of the credit for the successful policy of the Government can undoubtedly be handed, without fear or favour, to the Prime Minister himself. For as a result of his actions when he was Minister of Housing, and of the action of those other members of Her Majesty's Government who have followed in his footsteps, the country is as a whole far better housed to-day than ever before in its history. Therefore it follows, and I think your Lordships will agree with me, that in the fulfilment of the Government's plan, instead of concentrating so much of our effort on the building of more and more houses we should now divert our effort to dealing with the neglected condition of existing houses.

Here, then, we are confronted with two objectives. The first is to root out and destroy the slums, and to replace them with decent homes. The drive in this direction is already under way and further stimulus has been given to local authorities by changes in the subsidy rate which have occurred over the last twelve months. The second objective is, of course, to preserve and make even better use of the existing stock of good houses, particularly those houses which are to let. In the preservation of decent houses, the main obstacles and the main difficulties arise entirely, in my judgment, from the stranglehold of rent control.

There can be no dispute, I think, in any part of the House that this problem of rent control is possibly the biggest social and economic problem of our time. It has been with us now—and we are apt to forget this—for over forty years; and although modifications have been made in the various Rent Acts from time to time, the legislation was never intended by its initiators to be permanent. What was introduced as an emergency measure, so many years ago, has now become deeply embedded in our lives and has left an appalling problem which urgently needs solution. We are all aware that the original Act was a product of war conditions, and it had to continue so long as those conditions lasted. But surely it has now had its day. It certainly served a vital purpose, but there is now, in our judgment, a need for radical amendment.

I suppose the essence of rent control is the freezing of rents at various, and very arbitrary, levels which have now become quite out of step with the rest of our economy; and if that observation is correct, then such a system as we have operating to-day must be wrong. Indeed, if that were continued, we should soon reach the stage which was so aptly described in this House in 1952 by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, who informed your Lordships that it looked to him that before very long 90 per cent. of the people in this country would be housed at the expense of others. My Lords, I think that the consequences of this system breed a form of creeping paralysis that must have increasingly dangerous results. In many cases the rents are so low that the tenant is not anxious to leave, even if his house is too big or highly unsuitable. Should he be anxious to move elsewhere, the chances of obtaining a house to let are far from bright, first because nobody else is willing to move either, and secondly because, if someone else has moved, the landlord will never create a new controlled tenancy. In this event it follows that mobility of labour is very largely impeded and, in all probability, under-occupation encouraged. This vicious circle, which I have endeavoured in a few words to describe to the House, affects particularly young married couples who are trying to find a house and a home.

Those of your Lordships who are knowledgeable in these matters are well aware that, in spite of controlled rents being low, they are full of inequalities, as widely different amounts are paid for exactly the same kind of accommodation. The figure is, in fact, entirely dependent upon when control happened to be imposed and what rent happened then to be passing, and it is, therefore, subject almost wholly to chance. Then again, we all know that houses are falling into disrepair and decay because repairs and renewals cannot possibly be undertaken at the existing controlled rent. The toll of house property is therefore high, and so long as the present system continues more and more houses are falling into disrepair year by year. I think this fact was fully appreciated by members of the Opposition who in 1952 published a pamphlet entitled The Welfare State. In that pamphlet they admitted that the Rent Acts, while protecting tenants from excessive rents (which of course was their original purpose), did not; allow an income from the property which was sufficient to maintain it in any decent state of repair.

It seems to me clear that one of the most important objects of rent reform as embodied in his Bill must therefore be to halt the steady and remorseless crumbling away of a national asset in housing. The lack of sufficient income from house property to be used for repair and improvement has caused many owners in recent years to sell rather than re-let their premises when they become vacant. The pool of houses for letting therefore continues to shrink and shrink, and the difficulties of securing rental accommodation become ever more pronounced.

I believe that too often the issue of rent control is presented to the public as a battle between the landlord and the tenant. Indeed, it has been said on more than one occasion that when this Bill becomes law things will occur which, at the moment, are too awful and too frightful to contemplate. Some say that rents will soar to unbelievable heights; others say that the extra rent will go into the pockets of the landlords who will be under no obligation whatever to repair their premises. The first of these fears was expressed when houses were decontrolled before the war. It was not realised then, and I do not believe for one moment that it will be realised now. The second is fully covered in the Bill, in respect of houses which remain controlled, by the disrepair provisions which occur in the First Schedule to the Bill.

What does that Schedule say? If the house is in disrepair, the tenant can serve on the landlord a list of the defects which he thinks the landlord should remedy. The landlord has six weeks to do the work or, on the other hand, he can undertake to do it within six months. If he does neither, or if there is any dispute, the tenant can apply to the local authority for a certificate of disrepair. If this certificate is issued, or if the landlord has failed to undertake and carry out the bargain into which he entered, no extra rent can be charged; and if any increase has been obtained in the meantime it must be refunded to the tenant. I think—and I believe this sincerely—that there can surely be no dispute at this time of full employment, high wages, and conditions of great prosperity in those industries whose products are purchased by the great masses of the people, that rent control is, in its present form, unfair, uneconomic and entirely and absolutely wasteful. Some noble Lords will probably wish me to remind the House of the size of the problem which confronts us to-day. In England and Wales there are about 13½ million houses and flats. Of this total some 3 million are owned by local or other public authorities, and practically all of these have never come within the scope of the existing Rent Acts. An additional 100,000 houses are privately owned and right outside rent control. There are, therefore, roughly about 10½ million houses which come within the scope of the existing Acts, and of that number 5 million are let unfurnished at controlled rents. It is with these houses that this Bill deals. The proposals contained in the measure fall under four main headings. First, to provide means for the progressive abolition of rent control. Secondly, to establish, for houses which remain in control in England and Wales, revised rent limits more in keeping with the present day value of money and the cost of maintenance. Thirdly, to permit in Scotland an increase in controlled rents, subject to conditions. Fourthly and lastly, to provide a minimum of four weeks' notice, on either side, for all lettings.

I think I might now turn to deal quite briefly with the principal clauses in this measure. The first clause applies to the 4¼ million houses which will remain, after the Bill has passed, in control in England and Wales. It fixes a maximum rent which is related to the gross value for rating purposes. And the gross value represents the estimate by the valuation officer of the fair market rent in the year 1939. It must therefore be multiplied by a factor to take account of changes in conditions since that time. What are those changes? Since 1939, everything in this country—except rent—has gone up. Retail prices have increased two and a half times; building and maintenance costs, three and a half times; and average earnings nearly three and three-quarter times. The Government have, therefore, come to the decision—and I believe it is fundamentally the right one—that it is reasonable to multiply the gross value by two in the normal case, where the landlord is responsible for all repairs other than internal decorations. Power is also given for the landlord to add an appropriate amount, as is usual, for any rates he may pay or any services that he may render or provide. Subsection (2) of this clause refers to Part II of the First Schedule which, as I have already explained, enables the tenant to prevent a rent increase if the house is in disrepair.

Clause 2 deals with three matters, all of which are very important. First, the landlord cannot get a rent increase until he has served a notice on the tenant; and that notice cannot take effect for a period of three months. Secondly, when the notice has taken effect, the increase cannot exceed 7s. 6d. a week for a further period of six months. Thirdly, the tenant is safeguarded against a rent increase coming into effect if the house is in a clearance area or subject to a demolition or closing order or otherwise, as the clause says, statutorily unfit. Clause 5 re-enacts with slight modification the longstanding provision in the Rent Acts allowing the landlord to increase the rent by 8 per cent. of the cost to him of any improvements. Clauses 7 to 9, inclusive, deal entirely with Scotland, and my noble friend Lord Strathclyde will deal with them at a later stage in this debate.

Subsection (1) of Clause 10 releases a number of houses from rent control by a reduction in the rateable value limits for control. Subsection (2) provides that any new letting of any house below the rateable value limits for decontrol shall be free of all control, but the right of a widow or any other member of the family entitled to succeed to a statutory tenancy is safeguarded. Subsection (3) enables the Minister to reduce the rateable value limits by order, subject at all times to an Affirmative Resolution of both Houses. Clause 11 deals with furnished houses, and its main purpose is to take outside the scope of the 1946 Act accommodation which is above the new rateable value limit for "unfurnished" control. Clause 12, to which we attach the highest importance, provides that no premium may be charged for a period of three years for a house which has become decontrolled because of the lowering of the rateable value limits or which is let on an uncontrolled tenancy.

Clauses 13 and 14 provide for treating as a premium the requirement of a loan and restrict the requirement of rent in advance. Clause 15 adds an important new safeguard for tenants of all houses, whether local authority, new towns corporation, housing trust or private lettings. In future, notice to quit must be for a period of at least four weeks. That is something quite new in the law of the land. Clause 24 lays down that the Act shall come into force one month after the Royal Assent is given. There are also eight Schedules to the Bill. Some of them I have already referred to in the course of my observations. I do not think your Lordships would wish me on this occasion to delay the House further by a detailed explanation of the others. They can always be raised again—and I have no doubt that they will be—at a future stage of the Bill.

I have tried as best I can to explain the main clauses of the Bill, and I must leave it to your Lordships, after you have had the opportunity of listening to the debate, to approve or reject the measure. If, however, the House should decline to give a Second Reading, so far as I can see there will be two alternatives open to us. One is to do nothing and to let the houses fall further into decay, with all the resulting evil; the other is to adopt what I understand is the Opposition's plan for the municipalising of all rent-controlled properties, which means, in fact, ultimately bringing them outside the scope of the Rent Acts and leaving all the tenants to the mercy of the local authorities. I suggest to your Lordships that neither of these alternatives is acceptable or practicable, and I therefore commend the Bill for Second Reading. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Monster.)

3.15 p.m.

LORD SILKIN

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Munster, who has moved the Second Reading of this Bill in his usual graceful and persuasive manner, need have no fear about what the House will do with the Bill. When he looks behind him and sees the numbers there, and looks in front of him and sees the numbers of noble Lords on this side, he can be quite sure that this Bill, or any other Bill he had brought forward, will receive a Second Reading. The noble Earl said that he did not deal with the Bill in a particularly controversial manner, and I propose to be no more controversial than he was. But there is no doubt at all that the Bill, and justifiably, has raised great apprehensions and hostility throughout the country. The noble Earl recognised that and asserted that in some way the purpose of this Bill had been misrepresented. But he gave no instances. I thought that his quotations from my speeches were complimentary. I do not remember what I said in 1952. Evidently the noble Earl's memory is better than mine—or the memory of other people who have prompted him. Of course, he has taken the words out of their context—or they have been taken out of context for him—and I do not think that I need really explain the odd part of a speech to which I happened to give utterance in 1952.

As the noble Earl said, rent control has been in existence for forty years. He drew the inference from that that the time had come to stop it, pretty abruptly. I draw the inference that it has become a part of our institutions; that people have come to rely on security of tenure and the inability on the part of landlords arbitrarily to increase rents; and that the Government cannot terminate suddenly a system of that kind, take large numbers of people out of control arid leave them to the mercy of fate. And that is what the Bill does. Nobody desires to suggest that when control was first imposed it was intended to be permanent. It was imposed because there was a shortage of houses; and control should continue so long as there is a shortage of houses.

I assert—and the noble Earl did nothing to disprove it—that there still remains a great shortage of houses in this country of the kind with which we are concerned in this Bill. It may or may not be true, mathematically and statistically, that if you take all the houses in the country and all the families the country and divide the one by the other, you may get a sufficiency of houses—but that is not the test. What we are concerned with is whether we have a sufficiency of houses of the right kind in the right place at the right rent, to meet the needs of people who require them in different parts of the country. On that test, I can assure the noble Earl—and I am satisfied that my statement cannot be disproved—that there is a vast shortage of houses in many parts of the country and a general shortage in every part of the country. I admit that there are certain anomalies and some hardships resulting from the present system of control, but the attempt to remedy these by means of the present Bill will create more hardships and more anomalies than it will remove.

This Bill is resented all the more because at the last General Election the Conservative Central Office indignantly denied that they would increase rents of rent-controlled premises. I should like to quote a little exchange of confidences that took place at the time of the General Election between the Conservative Central Office and my Party. Mr. Aneurin Bevan had said at Huddersfield on May 10: There are 5 to 6 million rent-controlled houses in Britain and I prophesy all these rents will be increased if they "— meaning the Conservatives— return. There is a definite statement. What was the reply of the Conservative Central Office? Two days later they issued a denial, and this is what they said: This is reminiscent of an earlier canard of Mr. Hugh Dalton, who said at the Margate Conference on 2nd October, 1951, that a general permission to raise rents everywhere was what the Conservatives wanted. They went on to say that there was no more truth in the report circulated by Mr. Bevan than there was in Mr. Dalton's insinuation of October, 1951.

I should like to ask the noble Earl, or the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, what happened between May 10, 1955, when this definite denial was made, and later on in the year, when, as the noble Earl, Lord Munster, explained, Mr. Duncan Sandys decided that the time had come for an increase of rents all round. I have no doubt that when the statement was made it was made in all sincerity in May, 1955, in the face of an Election, there is no doubt that the Conservative Party had no thought of increasing rents if they were returned. But in October, 1955, once they had been returned, they changed their minds. I should like an explanation of that Certainly it was not that there was an increased number of houses in between those two dates. Was it that by that time the Conservative Party had decided on their "get tough" policy? Whatever it was, this was a dramatic change, and it requires considerable justification.

I assert, first of all, that this Bill will inflict great hardship on a large number of families. The noble Earl, Lord Munster, drew attention to the fact that wages had increased and that there was general prosperity in the country. But most people have based their standard of life on the rent that they pay, and they find some difficulty, with the increasing cost of living, in making ends meet. The number of families that will remain in controlled dwellings when this Bill is passed is about 5¼ million. The number of houses that will remain in control (I do not intend to weary your Lordships with statistics) is somewhat less, but I am allowing for the fact that in a number of cases these houses are shared by more than one family. The increase in rent will in many cases be quite considerable. In some cases it will amount to more than £1 a week, and in the case of 1¼ million families the increase will be between 10s. and 15s. a week.

I invite the House to consider, first of all, what will be the effect on the national economy. Almost every working-class tenant will suffer some increase in rent: It will bring about a substantial increase in the cost of living, and will clearly justify demands for an increase in wages, with the continuation and accentuation of the inflationary spiral. That will be effect number one. The next effect is that in a considerable number of cases the tenants will be unable to meet the increased rent. It has been estimated that about £17 million to £18 million a year of the increased rent will have to be met out of public funds by the National Assistance Board. So what will really happen is that the public will be paying for the increased rent to the extent of £17 million to £18 million a year. Further, in the case of many old age pensioners, widows and others who are living on very narrow means, the increased rent may well induce people to go to Public Assistance in order to meet the extra amount. Then there is the effect on health. Many families are living on the very edge of poverty—they just about make ends meet—and any increase in rent will inevitably be at the expense of food. That is, unfortunately, an experience which many medical officers of health have found in the case of new housing estates, where people go on to these estates and pay a higher rent than they have been accustomed to and find they can meet the rent charge only at the expense of food for themselves and their children. Indirectly, this may well result in a charge on the medical health services.

The increase is alleged to be due to the fact that repairs cost more, and it is suggested that landlords will be enabled by means of this increase to carry out repairs. If that is the purpose, this Bill is most ineffective to induce or to compel landlords to utilise the additional rent for the purpose of carrying out repairs. The noble Earl began to describe the First Schedule, which sets out the machinery which enables a tenant to require a landlord to carry out repairs. I think he got as far as explaining that if a landlord gave an undertaking to do repairs he had six months in which to do them. The noble Earl, quite wisely, did not ask the House to go through this Schedule. It provides for no fewer than six occasions for going to the county court; and at each stage the tenant is compelled to go to the county court to get relief. In the case of a really persistent tenant, who is determined to get the repairs done and takes every step open to him, it might well take him two years before he could get a decision of the court which would justify him in withholding the rent or requiring the landlord to do the repairs.

I would invite the noble Earl to take this First Schedule away with him on his holidays. He will have to come back to it after the holidays on the Committee stage. Allowing for the fact that when a person makes an application to the county court he does not get an immediate date, but may have two or three months to wait before he gets a hearing, I think the noble Earl will find that my estimate of about two years before a tenant can actually get relief is not exaggerated.

I would ask why it is not possible, in a case where a house requires repairs, if a tenant gets a certificate from the local authority, as laid down in the Schedule, for the landlord to be given, say, three weeks to do the repairs and the landlord fails to make a start and to proceed with it with all promptness, for it to be open to the tenant to do the repairs himself and charge the landlord with the cost. The landlord could then go to the county court and take the initiative himself. That would be a far better thing than making the tenant go to the county court on possibly no fewer than six occasions.

One of the justifications advanced for the increase in rent is the hardship caused to landlords. Everyone else has had his income increased, so the noble Earl—said workers by more than 300 per cent., so why not the landlord? I suggest that this statement is greatly exaggerated. If rent control was first imposed forty years ago, there must be very few of the original landlords alive today. In the vast majority of cases, rent-controlled property has been acquired by property companies, or even by individuals, at a price which reflected the rent that was being obtained as a result of rent control. Therefore, the people who bought this property—and I say they constitute the vast majority of landlords—are getting a reasonable return on their outlay, and have no complaint. Any increase in rent would merely be an un-covenanted benefit to them.

In any event, landlords are not the only people who have suffered from the diminished value of money. There are many other categories, and this country is not in a position to give everybody a guarantee that in no circumstances will the value of his money not be diminished. There are the pensioners—people who have become entitled to a pension at a certain rate. The cost of living having increased many-fold, they are not cushioned against the increase; their pensions remain the same. There are persons whose money was invested at fixed rates of interest, or in debentures bearing a fixed rate of interest. They get exactly the same income as they did years ago, when prices were much lower. They are not cushioned. People who have taken out endowment policies find that, by the time their policies mature, the value of the amount they receive is much less than they had bargained for. So there is no particular reason why landlords as a class should be cushioned against any decrease in the value of money. Moreover, as I have said, this applies to a minority of them, and certainly not to a majority.

The second justification put forward is the cost of repairs, and I have already dealt with that. I have said that it is not true that the number of houses we now have is sufficient for the population or that there is no housing shortage. One has only to look at the housing lists of the larger local authorities to see that that is so. In London alone, there are 150,000 families on the waiting list. London County Council have already announced that they are quite unable to provide for them, and that, at best, they will be able to provide for only about 2,000 in the next few years. Of this 150,000, I understand that over 50,000 are urgent cases—people who badly need houses for health and other special reasons. Similar circumstances apply in practically every large town in the country: Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, and so on. Furthermore, although for a year or two we have built a substantial number of houses, the number being built to-day is much lower. There has been a great drop in the number of houses being built, as noble Lords can see from the monthly returns that are issued by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Furthermore—and this is a factor we tend to forget—the population of this country is steadily increasing, so that every year there are some 75,000 to 100,000 more houses needed. That, in itself, will tend to make the position worse.

Yet at this time, with little or no evidence that accommodation will be available, the Government have chosen to decontrol some 810,000 dwellings, representing up to 1 million families who will be placed at the mercy of landlords. The noble Earl skated rather thinly over the provisions of Clause 10 of the Bill. It is true that the full effects of this clause will not be felt for about one and a half years—I admit that. But this is not due to the initial thoughts of the Government: the period was increased as a result of great pressure from both sides in another place. It is true that if a tenant can make an agreement with the landlord at any time during the eighteen months as to the rent that will be payable, and begins paying the increased rent at once, he may get three years security of tenure. But does anyone imagine that that is a free bargain into which the tenant is entering? Is he not doing this largely under duress? What freedom of choice has he?—either to get out, or to pay what a landlord will demand. There is no machinery in the Bill—and I wonder why there is not—to ensure that a landlord can do no more than charge a reasonable rent, recognising, if you like, that costs have gone up and that he is entitled to a fair return. If you take that view, well and good, but why is it necessary to place the tenant entirely at the mercy of the landlord? What one will find is that in many cases a tenant placed in that position will either have no choice but to pay whatever a landlord demands or be forced to go out and buy a house, with the result that, because of the increased demand, the price of houses will rise substantially.

I am not suggesting for a moment that every landlord will behave in this way—I would not suggest that—but landlords are as mixed as Members of your Lordships' House, and a very large number of landlords will do so. It is well known that many landlords are waiting for the day when they will get possession. They will refuse to negotiate with their tenants. They seek vacant possession of their houses so that they will become available for sale. It will also be the case, in some instances, that they will do that so that the houses may become available for letting as furnished accommodation. In either case, whether the property is being used for sale or whether it is being furnished and let as furnished accommodation, it will reduce the amount of accommodation that will be available for families who have become decontrolled.

Among those who will be most hit are those who are struggling along to pay the existing rent. As I have said, in connection with the rent-controlled tenants, people on pensions and small fixed incomes, living from hand to mouth and already worried about carrying on in view of the rising cost of living, will now for the next three years or more live in terror of what is going to happen. They cannot afford to pay more rent; they cannot buy a house; they are horrified at the thought of Public Assistance. What are they to do? To put such people in that position, as this Bill does, is one of the cruellest acts I have ever seen perpetrated in a Public Act of Parliament. Surely it was not necessary to put such people in the position of having to lose their homes. Surely the Bill could have provided for a measure of security. I could understand that a landlord might, for personal reasons, really want possession of his house. The existing Rent Acts already provide for that, if a landlord wants a house to live in himself, for a member of his family or for some other proper reason, he can always go to the court, put his case and get possession. On what other grounds should a landlord need to get possession of his house at a time when there is still a considerable shortage? I submit that it is wholly unnecessary to deprive so many unfortunate people of the benefits of security of tenure.

It is well known that many of these properties that are about to be decontrolled have been acquired by speculators, people who have bought the properties since this Bill was made public. Indeed, there was quite a serious debate about this in another place, when a number of Members who are supporters of the Conservative Party put down an Amendment that the Bill should not operate in the case of properties which have been bought after the publication of the Bill. This Amendment was actually carried with the consent of both sides of the House, but on Report stage the Minister was able to marshal his forces and get the Amendment withdrawn and the original provision reinstated. As I have said, the Bill provides for fifteeen months' respite. A considerable number of supporters of the Government in another place thought that that was too short a period, and efforts were made to get the period extended to three years, and in some cases to five years. This was clone not by members of my Party but by supporters of the Government.

If the Government really believed that decontrol would provide the pool of houses that the noble Earl, Lord Munster, suggested, they would have made sonic provision in the Bill to facilitate exchange. It may well be that there are a limited number—but I think only a limited number—of families who are occupying accommodation larger than they need. One finds them, of course, in the categories of houses that are outside the rent control range. There are many families of that kind who are occupying far more accommodation than they need. I would admit that there may be a few who are living in houses which were originally suited to their requirements but which are now too large for them.

If the Government had really meant that these houses should be given up and used by larger families in order to make the best use of the accommodation, surely they would have facilitated the opportunity of making exchanges; but every attempt to introduce into the Bill some machinery for facilitating exchanges of accommodation has been defeated. An attempt was made to say that in the case of such exchanges neither of the properties should become decontrolled. That is only reasonable, because nobody is going to exchange a rent-controlled house for a decontrolled house; but that was not acceptable to the Government. A further Amendment which was put forward provided that landlords should be encouraged to facilitate exchanges. Again, this was not accepted by the Government. Therefore, I cannot believe that the Government are really serious in their belief that the effect of this Bill will be to provide more accommodation and enable people to move about freely from one place to another.

As if everything I have said is not sufficient, the Government have introduced a provision in Clause 10 (3) about which the noble Earl said little, but which enables the Minister by order at any time to take further categories of controlled houses out of control. He can do it, not by bringing forward a new Bill and getting further legislation but by a mere order. And this order can apply to any category of house or any district as against another district. All that is required is an Affirmative Resolution of each House. But the Minister need not give any reasons at all. He need not satisfy any conditions. He can settle this question in an entirely arbitrary way, and, with that confidence which the noble Earl expressed that the House would accept this Bill, he knows perfectly well that any Affirmative Resolution put forward by a Minister will be carried, both in this place and in another. The fact is that such an order would not seriously he tested in either House; it would be quite sufficient, as we know, for the order to be submitted.

I think I have said enough to show that, in my view and in the view of my noble friends, this is a thoroughly bad Bill. It is ill-considered, unjust, abrupt and harsh. It will inflict grave hardship on many families least able to sustain the changes effected by the Bill. We on this side most strongly oppose this Bill as a bad example of class legislation, and we ask the Government to think again, most seriously, even at this late hour, in the hope that they will decide not to proceed further with this measure.