LORDS AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 25 July 1969)

§ Lord KENNET
My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on its Amendments No. 4 to 6, to which the Commons have disagreed.

§ Lord BROOKE of CUMNOR
My Lords, would it be posible to have a word of explanation from the noble Lord without our getting out of order?

§ Lord KENNET
My Lords, these are the Amendments which phase rent increases consequent on conversion from control to regulation over three annual stages instead of five; and, as I stated on behalf of the Government at earlier stages, the Government's judgment is that to give adequate protection to the tenant against hardships arising from rent increases on conversion from control to regulation, five equal annual stages, subject to the weekly minimum of 7s. 6d., are needed, rather than three; and that appears to be the view which has commended itself to the House of Commons.

§ Lord BROOKE of CUMNOR
My Lords, no consideration seems to have been given in another place to justice to the landlords. These are the people 1192 who are always regarded as the good landlords—the people who have improved their houses; whose houses, by all the tests in the Bill, are satisfactory. I am still quite unable to understand why these people should be damnified in the Bill, in the sense that it is to take longer before they can claim the full fair rent for their houses, in comparison with the landlords who have not yet improved their houses. The latter class—those who have still to improve their houses and have not yet got round to doing it—are to be allowed to claim the full fair rent after two years' delay. One of the main reasons why your Lordships agreed to these three Amendments was that there seemed to be no reason whatever for your Lordships' House or Parliament in general to be prejudiced against the landlords who had improved their houses already.
All we could extract from the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, in debate was that it was a matter of judgment, and I ventured to say that Parliamentary debates would be greatly shortened if, instead of reasoned explanations, the Government spokesman simply said that it was a matter of judgment. I gather now that it is a matter of judgment as between one House of Parliament and another. In these circumstances, it is more than usually difficult for me to carry on the argument any further.

§ Lord KENNET
My Lords, "a matter of judgment" is one way of putting it, but I think it is pretty well known to anybody who knows anything of the history of this country and its present political situation that, on the whole, the Conservative Party tends to favour the interest of landlords and, on the whole, the Labour Party tends to favour the interest of tenants. And when, at a certain point, there is a very fine balance of judgment between two ways of settling these interests, one infinitesimally in favour of the landlord and the other infinitesimally in favour of the tenant, it is not to be wondered at that a Labour Government should choose the latter.

§ Lord BROOKE of CUMNOR
My Lords, if I may have leave to speak again, I would strongly suggest that the most important thing of all is to consider the interest of the houses.

§ Lord KENNET
My Lords, I find the noble Lord's suggestion an astonishing one. A house has No interest. The people who live in it have the main interest, and the people who own it have another interest which, I would submit, is secondary. The house itself has No Interest.

"Year of period of delay	Appropriate Proportion
1st year	one-third
2nd year	two-thirds"