LANDLORD AND TENANT (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL (Hansard, 24 July 1958)

§ LORD LATHAM

My Lords, we on these Benches think that the Third Reading of this Bill is an appropriate occasion for restating our view that the Bill is quite unsatisfactory for its intended purpose, and to regret that our successive efforts to improve the Bill met with no success. The intention, of course, of the Bill is to protect the tenants of those dwellings which, under the Rent Act, 1957, will be decontrolled in October, from the hardships and indeed one might well say the suffering to which many of those tenants may be subjected. There are some 800,000 dwellings that will be decontrolled in October next, which means that there will be in total some 2,400,000 persons affected in one way or another. In London alone the number of dwellings is estimated to be 190,000, which means something in the region of 570,000 persons.

I have some sympathy with the Minister. This Bill was not his originally. He found it, as it were, on the plate when he sat down at the ministerial table in January, 1957. Unhappily for him, he adopted it with enthusiasm. Having 229 had quite a lot of close association in another sphere with the present Minister of Housing and Local Government, I feel bound to say, and indeed entitled to say, that I do not think he has ever really understood the housing problem. He has seen, and I think still sees, the housing problem as one of rents and economic returns; whereas, of course, the housing problem is a matter of homes in which families can be brought up.

The Government generally take the view, so far as I can judge from their pronouncements, that the housing problem is more or less solved in this country except for slum clearance. An examination of the lists of waiting applicants for municipal houses clearly shows that that is far from the case. It is estimated that there are two million people sharing accommodation or existing in inadequate housing accommodation; that there are seven million dwellings which are substandard to the extent of having no separate lavatories, no bathrooms, no separate kitchen sinks, no separate stoves, and lacking many other ordinary amenities. I submit, that when this grave shortage still exists it is idle to say that there is a free market in housing. It reminds me of the satirist's comment, "There is no housing problem; only a rumour put around by people with nowhere to live! "Indeed, in our submission, the present Bill is proof that there is no free market. There is a "scarcity market" and properties are letting at "scarcity" rents. If there were a free market, there would be no need, in my submission, for this Bill.

The present Minister was warned what would be the consequences of the provisions of the Rent Act. He proved, however, obdurate—I sometimes think he mistakes obstinacy for firmness of mind—and he refused to take account of the warnings given on numerous occasions about what the situation would be in October of this year under the decontrol provisions of the Rent Act. For instance, as recently as February 11 of this year the Minister said in another place [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 582, col. 188]: I have already said that, while there will be no amendment of the Rent Act, I am quite sure that the great majority of difficult cases will, in fact find a solution before October. 230 I repeat, that that was said on February 11. Less than two months afterwards, on April 2, the Minister made his statement of intention to introduce a Bill having, roughly speaking, the terms of the Bill now before your Lordships' House. What happened to change the Minister's mind? One can only think that it was the circumstance that we were then approaching the county council elections, including that of the London County Council; and the present Minister is not unaware of the housing activity of the London County Council; nor is he unaware of the still grave and serious housing problem which there is in London. And so, having sworn that he would "never consent." he consented; and the critics of his proposals as embodied in the Rent Act were proved right and the Minister has been proved wrong. Hence this Bill.

In some quarters it has been suggested that some of the difficulties likely to arise in October flow from the alleged threats of municipalisation contained within the Labour Party policy on housing. I confess that I was a little sorry, and more surprised, to find in a statement made by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack that that attitude was adopted by him in his speech on the Second Reading of the Bill. I should like to quote what was said by the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor on July 3 [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 210 (No. 87), col. 530]; Circumstances since the Rent Act became law have not been favourable. Credit restrictions, essential as they are in the national interest, have deprived many who might otherwise have bought their homes of the means of doing so. That is a matter of policy for which the present Government must carry and accept full responsibility. The noble and learned Viscount went on to say: Threats of municipalisation of rented property made by the Labour Party, with only the vaguest of references to compensation, have frightened many owners, who might otherwise have been willing to re-let, into trying to sell. If I may say so, with appropriate respect, I think that the noble and learned Viscount has the chronology wrong. It is the case, of course, that the statement of Labour Party policy was published in June, 1956, whereas the Bill was not introduced until November, 1956, and received its Second Reading in 231 another place on November 21, 1956. The statement of Labour Party policy was made, therefore, six months before the Bill was introduced into another place—not after, but before—and the Government were on full notice as to the policy of the Labour Party in regard to housing, as were the public. Nevertheless, the Minister went forward with his proposals, and although he was urged on many occasions in another place to amend his proposals, he steadfastly refused to do so.

It is, therefore idle, in my submission, to claim now that the policy of the Labour Party has contributed to difficulties which will be met with in October of this year. It is, in my submission, complete conjecture—convenient conjecture, no doubt. No evidence has been produced that owners are refusing to let because of the declaration of policy embodied in the Labour Party brochure. Further, if some owners are selling, then there are some persons who are buying in what the Government says is a free market. Those persons are evidently not frightened, and it seems to me that it is a little tenuous to contend that the difficulties which will be met, and which this Bill is designed (inadequately, as we say) to meet, arise from any statement of policy by the Labour Party.

Our contention is that this Bill casts the whole burden of securing protection upon the shoulders of the tenant. A tenant has to satisfy the court as to his incapacity to pay the rent which is demanded. He has to satisfy the court that he has taken every proper step to find alternative accommodation. He has then to satisfy the court that his hardship will be greater than the hardship of the landlord if he is required to give up possession. Now, my Lords, that is a pretty serious and, I submit, unfair burden to cast upon the tenant.

There is another unfairness in this Bill—a very serious one. Large numbers of dwellings are owned by companies or corporations. For instance, there is one company that owns 5,000 decontrolled dwellings in London; another with 2,000; another with 815, and a further one with 650. How can one appraise the relative hardships as between a corporation, which is the landlord, and a tenant? A corporation, it has been said, "has not a body to be kicked nor a soul to be damned"; 232 but a tenant and his family will be out in the street if the notice is allowed to run. If, on the other hand, the notice is not allowed to run the worst that can happen to a corporation is that it will be short of the higher income that it would have obtained from the premises if they had become vacant and if the corporation had been able to let them at a higher rent. How a county court is to be able to compare the hardship of a corporation with the hardship of a tenant and his family who are to be evicted I find difficult to comprehend. It seems to me that that provision indicates a cynical disregard of human rights: a reduction of human rights and of human considerations to the base material of pounds, shillings and pence, represented in a profit and loss account or by way of dividends which are paid. We therefore take the view that, as with the Rent Act so with this Bill; it represents a housing policy which is wrong and which a succeeding Government will have to correct in due time.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, at this stage of this Bill I am somewhat reluctant to follow the noble Lord into controversies which really relate to the Rent Act itself. I will therefore limit my remarks to the shortest and most effective answers that I can. The first is that I am deeply sorry—and I am sure that someone like my noble friend Lord McCorquodale of Newton, who was there at the same time, must he deeply sorry—for the late conversion of the noble Lord, Lord Latham. I only wish that he had taken these views about the need for homes when the noble Lord and I were fighting, day after day, to try to persuade the Labour Government to build more than 200,000 houses a year. We could not persuade them. We came back from our Divisions over and over again, and asked them to deal with the human problem; and they refused. The noble Lord, of course, agreed with that.

So to-day, when he talks of the position, I ask him only to remember two things. First, if his policy had gone on there would have been over three million people added to those looking for homes but who to-day, fortunately, thanks to the fact that the policy to which he clung was done away with and our policy substituted, are now comfortably in homes 233 of their own. That is the first thing the noble Lord should remember when he talks about the policy being a matter of homes. The second thing is this. As I reminded him more than once during the passage of the Rent Act (I cannot recall the exact period, because I have not verified it again, but I think I am right within a matter of months) it is now something like five years since the next most distinguished Member of his Party to himself and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, in this field of politics, said that we were getting near, if we had not already reached, the point when there was a sufficient number of houses. The only difference, of course, is that since that time a least a million more houses have been built. I hope that he will remember that point. I am sure that if he looks up the debates he will find the exact figures and will have them at his disposal.

Another point I want to put to the noble Lord—again with great brevity—is with regard to the Labour Party's policy. The Labour Party's policy, of course, is the municipalisation of all houses privately owned and coming within the Rent Act limits. According to Mr. Greenwood, that would cost£2,500 million. The Labour Party have not quantified it officially as a Party, but that is the estimate of one of their Front Benchers. In addition to that, there would be a vast payment—perhaps not as big as the£2,500 million, but still a vast payment—for maintenance and repairs.

The result of that policy, apart from the question of municipalisation itself, would, of course, be higher rents—because there would be no Rent Act running against a municipality. It would mean higher rates for owner-occupiers. It would mean higher taxes for the taxpayers, who would have to find these vast sums of money. It would mean higher prices, and the pouring of£2,500 million to£5,000 million into the economy would be bound to cause inflation. If brought into operation, it would almost certainly cause a devaluation of the pound and difficulty for this country in buying its imports abroad. These are the results, the inevitable and indisputable results, of the Labour Party's municipalisation policy. If the noble Lord thinks that that policy is one which has helped 234 to create confidence during the last few years, then he is a spirit of the fantastical which even his speech tonight would hardly have made me credit.

These are the general points and noble Lords will accept my apologies if I have made my answers on the brief side. I always enjoy the arguments I have with the noble Lord and no doubt again we shall be able to develop this one at length. Let me come for a brief moment to the only material point—that is, the Bill at present before us. I have followed the noble Lord into pastures new, but as shortly as I can.

With regard to this Bill we have always said that it is not a Bill to erode decontrol in any way. Like so many other people, we have said that the Rent Acts have created a problem, but, unlike the noble Lord and his friends, we have solved the problem which they created and from which the noble Lord and his friends shrank. Having done that, we have said that this Bill does not erode the principle of decontrol. But we discovered that there would be a residuum of hard cases, because there are a certain number of people who are old or who are sick or who are not otherwise in a position to make the search necessary to find other property. We have dealt with them on the principle stated in this Bill.

The noble Lord has done me the honour of not only listening to, but also reading, some of my speeches. I quoted the case of Birmingham, a large city with, as we know, a considerable housing problem. The estimate there is 5 per cent., but, as I pointed out, Birmingham is not a typical case because there are many districts where there would be nothing like that percentage constituting this problem. Therefore, we have to deal with a small problem, but in our way we have tried to seek justice. These people are cases of hardship and we are not in the least afraid of coming forward and saying that we have found these cases and will deal with them. It will be a poor day when the Conservative Party is ashamed of being an emperical Party that deals with problems as they arise, irrespective of the preconceptions or prejudices it holds. It is in that way that we have dealt with this problem, and it is for that reason that 235 I ask your Lordships to give a Third Reading to and to pass this Bill.