HL Deb 03 July 1972 vol 332 cc1176-272

4.14 p.m.

House again in Committee.

On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall stand part of the Bill?

LORD HUGHES

Towards the end of the intervention in our debate, the noble Earl the Leader of the House said that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, could have his debate in Government time if he could find the time for the Government. If the Government would only be a little more forthcoming in relation to this housing legislation I guarantee that they could easily find adequate time for discussing the computer industry. With a little more common sense attached to the approach to this Bill many of the Amendments could be moved formally and accepted formally and we could get a much better Bill with the minimum of time. I do not suppose that that will particularly commend itself to the Minister. Eventually the Government will proceed in this as in so many other items—not the least the ones which we have just been talking about—to a further reversal of their policy when time shows that what they are seeking to do under the Bill does not work.

But on principle there is one part of the Bill which I should not wish to see reversed and that is the clause which we are now discussing. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, during the discussion of the last Amendment on which we divided, purported to find a division of opinion between my noble friend Lord Hoy and myself on the subject of rent rebates. There was no division at all. What my noble friend was saying was that if the Government found the Glasgow scheme such a good one and that it was operating so well, why impose another one on Glasgow? I could point to quite a number of schemes in Scotland which are infinitely better than the Government's model scheme but I shall have more to say about that when we come to the appropriate clause.

This is the clause about the amount of support which has been given. The Government have rejected the idea that this is an appropriate subject for 100 per cent. support from national funds and have persisted in the attitude that part of it should be borne by the local ratepayer. I do not propose to trespass on the time of the Committee by going into this matter any further, but I should like to remind the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, that this and the succeeding clause is perhaps the linchpin of the Government's policy. The Government have said that the object is to concentrate support where it is most needed, and therefore at least one part of the financial support should be directed to giving help to individuals rather than providing funds for building houses. I am not suggesting that the Government are not providing funds for building houses, because they are doing so—in regrettably small amounts, perhaps. It is an essential part of the Government's policy that assistance should be given to those in need, and that is to be done by rent rebates and, in the succeeding clause, rent allowances.

In the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum to the Bill the Government estimate that by 1975–76 the total cost of all the subsidies in this Bill at current prices will be between £70 million and £75 million. As this is such an important Part of the Bill, will the Minister, now that both he and his advisers have had time to look at calculations, tell us how much of the figure of between £70 million and £75 million is expected to be attributable to the operation of Clause 5?

LORD TANLAW

The request of the noble Lord for further information on these figures is echoed from these Benches by myself. During the course of this Committee it has been said that it is the poor and those who cannot afford houses who should be helped. I believe that it is wrong to look at housing rebates in this way. These are entitlements to people who are in a position to claim them and who want to be in a position to claim them. It is doubly important for them to know what the future provisions are in the long term; what the future provisions in the terms of this Bill are going to mean. This is why it is most important that these figures should be made available.

4.20 p.m.

LORD POLWARTH

A number of the points the noble Lord has raised on whether this clause shall stand part are ones we have been over to some extent before and I do not think he would expect me to go over them again. But he has returned to a point which he made on the previous day of this Committee regarding a breakdown of the figure he has quoted which appears in the Financial Memorandum, which says that the best estimate which can be made is that at current prices by 1975–76 the figure will be about £70 million to £75 million. I think I should make it clear at this stage that there is a difference between withholding information from the Committee, which I think is what the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, argued on that previous day—it is what he said was happening—and declining to make an estimate. Although the noble Lord put the matter very persuasively, there is a real and genuine difference, not merely a matter of semantics, between these two. The Government in no way depart from the normal tradition in the matter of making information available if it can be provided at reasonable cost. This is normally made available by any Government of the day. But it is quite a different matter as regards giving currency to estimates of what may happen in the future. This is not information in the same sense at all and quite different considerations apply.

Having said that, I quite appreciate that it is fair to ask what the separate considerations are, as the Government see them, which justify us in standing by an estimate of £70 million to £75 million by 1976, as quoted in the Memorandum. It is quite fair to ask what justifies us in standing by that estimate, but in not elaborating on it. I am quite ready to give an indication of the reasons. In the first place, the crucial feature of the new subsidy system is that it is open-ended in the sense that each new subsidy is fully responsive to housing need as and when it arises. By this I mean that there is no question of there being a target of expenditure on subsidy at any particular date at which the Government are aiming; nor is there any question of a ceiling by any particular date beyond which the expenditure on a subsidy must not go. The subsidies respond fully to a need, and if expenditure increases then subsidy payments will automatically increase. For this basic reason I would risk seriously misleading the Committee if I were to offer a spuriously precise figure beyond what has already been given in global terms for the aggregate of the subsidies —a precise figure instead for each new subsidy. I fear I might also be offering a hostage to fortune. In the short term it would no doubt be said, quite wrongly, that the Government intended to restrict expenditure to the amount of the estimate, and in the longer term this might have a real adverse effect upon the way in which local authorities assess the genuine housing needs of their areas and prepare proposals to meet them.

Estimating the possible costs of a totally new system, which for the first few years will run alongside the phasing out of an old system, would be a particularly hazardous enterprise. Not only have we as yet no experience of the new system, but it is quite clear that a wide variety of assumptions could be made about a great many factors which will affect it; and depending on the assumptions the estimates could vary considerably. As I have already mentioned, the Secretary of State has declined to estimate the number of tenants in local authority housing who will pay increased rents. This will depend on the rents fixed for individual houses and on the effect of the model rent rebate scheme. It will also, but perhaps to a lesser extent, depend on a number of other factors including assumptions about the future trend of incomes, the cost of building new houses, of interest rates, and so on. I do not believe that the previous Government would have been lured into making, never mind publishing, a specific set of assumptions on such widely different and easily varying matters of this kind; and for our part we do not think it would be helpful to do so, either.

This is a long and involved subject. The figure of £70 million to £75 million by 1975–76 was first published in November of last year. As the Committee will notice, it was expressed in very general terms, and indeed it was intended as a means of giving expression to the Government's determination to pursue a policy which they believe this Bill will advance: of increasing the amount of Exchequer assistance to housing in Scotland over the next few years. I am not saying that the figure was a pure guess, but I do say that no useful purpose would be served eight months later in attempting to dissect it and attribute elements to each individual new subsidy. Indeed, I should be interested to know what useful purpose, other than a polemical one, the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has in mind for this. Whatever it is, I doubt very much whether I could agree that it would be useful.

Apart from anything else, this figure was published at the time when the Bill was introduced into Parliament, before any local authority could know, apart from the White Paper published last July, just how the Government's policy was to be implemented. Since then there has been ample time for local authorities to make their own estimates of the trend in their areas of probable expenditure under the Bill; and whatever may have been the justification for attempting to dissect that global figure last autumn, I submit to your Lordships that it is now really irrelevant. What is relevant now, in this month of July, 1972, is to ask each local authority what their own plans and estimates are, and compare them to what happened in 1971–72 and the years before. In due course no doubt it will be possible, although it is too early now, to aggregate these estimates and see what the whole Scottish position looks like.

However, may we look at one or two cases, because I think this is helpful. Let us take the case of Glasgow. According to estimates made by the Glasgow City Chamberlain six months ago, Glasgow expects to receive from the residual subsidy, the housing expenditure subsidy and rent rebate subsidy a total of some £9½ million in 1975–76. This compares with some £6 million in 1971–72 from the existing subsidy scheme. But he emphasised at the same time that, while there was an estimated 50 per cent. increase in the Exchequer subsidy over that period, with a figure of nearly £10½ million in 1973–74, the future estimates took no account whatever of the substantial assistance likely to be available also from the rent allowance subsidy and slum clearance subsidy. He did not feel it would be possible to make any estimate at that stage of what those subsidies would amount to. And if he could not do it for Glasgow alone, it is surely reasonable that the Government should not have attempted to do it for Scotland as a whole. These were the Glasgow estimates.

In particular in this debate on the rent rebate subsidy it is perhaps fair to single out his estimates for rent rebate subsidy for Glasgow. In 1971 Glasgow gave some 20,000 rebates out of a total stock of some 140,000 council houses, at an average annual amount of £43 a house, amounting to a total expenditure at that time of around £900,000: all that either from the rates or from the rents of other council tenants. What was the position in the following year, 1972–73? Subsidy alone was estimated to give Glasgow £1.8 million increasing to £3 million the following year; £3.6 million in the year after; £4.1 million in 1975–76: all compared with £900,000 before the introduction of the new scheme. This figure is partly caused by the rising level of standard rent, though again this is payable only by those who can afford it.

But there can be no doubt about the probable increase in Government assistance to Glasgow, as well as the probable greater contribution to Glasgow's income for housing purposes from those tenants who can afford to contribute to it.

No doubt comparable estimates could be obtained by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, from his own local authority. I am afraid I do not have them available. Similarly, with a good deal of diligence I have no doubt the amount of residual subsidy to be paid in future could indeed be calculated with some degree of precision, since it is based upon entitlement to existing subsidies for each authority and progresses according to a formula. As I have already said, estimates of future expenditure on rent rebates are particularly subject to a variety of assumptions and imponderables. This is even more true in some respects of housing expenditure subsidies. These subsidies depend upon so many variables.

I could continue with an explanation at even greater length, but I have given this example from Glasgow and I have taken up a good deal of time. I hope in the course of it I have been able to draw attention to some of the consequences of the provisions of the Bill, and to explain what I think are perfectly sound reasons—quite apart from mere debating points—underlying the decision of the Government. We believe that these subsidies, which are responsive to future needs, will be of enormous help. In my view, a round estimate of what we think may be the total cost in 1975–76 (which we think, and indeed hope, may well be exceeded) is all that is useful at the present time, and that to endeavour to break it down into the cost of rent rebate subsidy at this time would be a useless and probably inaccurate exercise.

4.32 p.m.

LORD HUGHES

Towards the end of that long statement the Minister said that he could go on for a great deal longer but he thought he had spoken long enough. So far as I could see he had gone right to the end of the brief; so if he had gone any further he would have been on to the next brief.

LORD POLWARTH

That was not so.

LORD HUGHES

Well, at that point I noticed that the Minister was reading very carefully from the words which were placed before him and obviously those who had provided the brief thought that was the end of it; and if they gave him something after what they considered to be the end, then it was even more useless than the estimates.

The Minister said that I had said that the Government were deliberately withholding information from the House and that that was not the same thing as declining to make an estimate. I very nearly went further than that: I said that I would not accuse the Government of deliberately seeking to mislead the Committee. I am not so certain that I was wise in restricting my charge to the lesser one of withholding information, because we are getting pretty near to misleading the House. When I was a Minister I used to consider that the longer the brief that was submitted by the advisers, the poorer the case, and I have had no cause to revise that opinion after having listened to that long story of considerable irrelevance.

Let us go back to the first page of the brief. There is a difference between withholding information and declining to make an estimate. Certainly there is. But the Government cannot say that they are declining to make an estimate, because they have made an estimate; they had to do so for Parliamentary purposes. The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum at the beginning of the Bill is not there for fun: it is there particularly because another place requires two sets of information—the likely financial cost and the effect on manpower, and it is obligatory for the Government to make estimates for that purpose. Perhaps the noble Lord can tell me how he can comply with the requirements of another place in this matter without having worked out the estimated cost of each of these subsidies. If it has been done without that process then another place has been misled, because the figure is not based on fact if it has not been done in this particular way.

Just in case I have not made myself plain I will re-phrase my question. What part of the £70 million to £75 million which is in the financial information given to another place and to us is attributed to that past of the estimate which the Department made for rent rebates? The Minister cannot say that such an estimate has not been made because the total could not be arrived at without it. If he says that it has not been made, then the House of Commons has been misled. If he says it has been made, then the grounds for withholding the information are abandoned because he said that withholding information was not the same thing as declining to make an estimate. May I therefore ask what part of the £70 million to £75 million was contributed by rent rebates estimate —or "guestimate" or whatever the noble Lord wants to call it? I am not seeking to pin down the Government to any figure. If that was what he wanted all we should need to do is to content ourselves with the £70 million to £75 million and see where it goes in due course, but I am genuinely interested to know how important a part rent rebates, and rent allowances in particular, play in arriving at the total of £70 million to £75 million, and the Government must already be in possession of these estimates.

LORD POLWARTH

I am sorry, but I am not prepared to elaborate on what I said previously. This is a best estimate, and it is a global figure, taking in a large number of subsidies. As I have said, the rent rebate subsidies are the ones which are perhaps the most open-ended in their potential for variation, and accordingly I have nothing to add to what I said previously.

LORD HUGHES

I must repeat what I have already said, in even simpler form: how much money out of the figure of £70 million to £75 million attaches to the estimate for rent rebates? Does the Minister deny that the Government have that estimate in their possession?

LORD POLWARTH

I am not prepared to state or to deny what estimate is in the possession of any part of any Department of the Government. I am prepared to say that we consider that this is all the information it is right to give in relation to the global assortment of subsidies comprised in this Bill.

LORD HUGHES

I am sorry about that. I do not intend to divide against this clause because it would be wholly against my purpose. I think I should have been justified in dividing the Committee, if only to register the complete disapproval that we have of this attitude. It is no excuse that we have a new Minister. Perhaps in other circumstances we could have put it down to a Minister who was unfamiliar with the proceedings of Parliament. But that is not the answer here because the Minister is not putting forward his personal view: he is putting forward a deliberate decision of Her Majesty's Government, and that decision is to withhold from this House of Parliament information which the Government have in their possession. They may have their own reasons for declining to make the information available; they may have their own reasons for not even admitting that it is essential that this estimate should have been prepared if the figure of £70 million to £75 million has any validity, and if it were not that it could be misinterpreted outside the House if we voted against this clause (because I am strongly in favour of rent rebates) I would have sought a Division to show how we regard this appalling attitude which is being adopted by Her Majesty's Government. It is certainly no encouragement to the people of Scotland that the Government have so little confidence in their own proposals that on such a vital matter as the actual financing of two cardinal features of the scheme—rent rebates and rent allowances—they are not prepared to disclose the basis on which Parliament has been asked to provide the money for this Bill.

LORD TANLAW

This question will he asked by every local authority in Scotland, and I hope they will receive a more satisfactory answer than we have received here. I think they have a right to ask this question on the basis of the cost of having to administer the scheme.

LORD HOY

I did not intend to speak to this Amendment and I would not have done so but for the exceedingly disappointing nature of the Minister's reply. I cannot recall an occasion when the Government have declined to give information to either House as to how they have estimated their forward expenditure, and that is the information we are seeking. The noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, distorts the argument when he says that if he gave the estimate and it was wrong, that fact would be used later in some polemical argument in your Lordships' House. The noble Lord went on to seek to equate such estimates with building targets. Governments always estimate building targets. The Labour Government made an estimate of what they hoped to achieve, and while I agree that we did not always reach our targets there was nothing wrong with setting them. If one aims for the best and does not achieve it, that is no reason for disappointment. Perhaps the noble Lord is carried away by the fact that the Tory Party during the last Election said, "Labour did not reach its target", but failed to add, "But they did very much better than we did."

Most of your Lordships have sufficient knowledge of Government Departments to know that it is impossible to forecast the expenditure of any Department without at the same time estimating what each particular item will cost. This is elementary, and I was surprised to hear the noble Lord say in his reply that while we could not expect this information from the Government, it might be expected from local authorities. Is the noble Lord unaware of the fact that local authorities can have no more information than the Government? If he is saying that we should expect local authorities to provide this information to the central Government, what good reason has the Minister for denying this information to us?

Although the noble Lord's reply was most unsatisfactory, I know that my noble friend Lord Hughes, sorely tempted though he may be, is anxious not to take this matter to a Division because we are not against rebates. My noble friend has asserted time and again not only how much he and this Party support the idea of rebates but how we are anxious that it shall not be said at a later date that we opposed them. If we allow the clause to pass without a Division it must be clearly understood that we do so with great reluctance. This cannot be the last word on this issue, because we cannot allow the Government to say "We have made these estimates but we will not tell you what they are." If that were to be the position throughout these deliberations, then, frankly, it would be untenable. How is it possible for the Government to reach an estimated figure of between £70 million and £75 million without having formulated an estimate of how each component subscribes to the overall sum? The noble Lord should consult with the Secretary of State before this matter is raised again, because, whatever may happen elsewhere, your Lordships do not like to be treated in this way.

Clause 5 agreed to.

Clause 6 [The rent allowance subsidy]:

4.43 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 37: Page 8, line 27, leave out from ("be") to ("the") in line 28.

The noble Lord said: This Amendment is identical to Amendment No. 33 and seeks to accomplish for rent allowances what we sought to accomplish for rent rebates. On the last occasion when this matter was discussed we felt sufficiently strong to take it to a Division. We now feel that there is an even stronger case because the Government are engaged on a totally new departure; with the possible exception of Birmingham, which proposed to promote a scheme of its own, local authorities have never before been involved in this field of giving assistance to those who cannot afford to pay the rents which will be called for as a result of the Government's proposals. This scheme will be operated through local authorities; applications for allowances will be submitted to them and they will administer the scheme.

I said in relation to Amendments Nos. 34 and 36 that the other leg of the argument was the question of administering rebate schemes as part of subsidy-aided expenditure. In this case the Government accept that the cost of administering this allowance scheme should be part of the expenditure allowances themselves and reckoned for subsidy purposes. Having said that there was an absolute case for making the whole cost of the rebates a charge on national funds, I now assert that there is an even stronger case for doing that in relation to privately-owned property. One argument used by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, in declining to accept the last Amendment was the fact that we were discussing local authority houses. He cannot use even that argument on this occasion because we are here speaking of privately-owned houses. The increases in rents will go to the owners of those houses. I make no comment on the merit or otherwise of that fact at this stage. The allowances will come from the public purse, and I agree with making these allowances available in the private sector. This is a worthwhile departure in this field of housing assistance and I am glad it is coming about in this Bill. However, I can see no justification whatever for landing the cost of any part of these allowances on local authorities. I therefore wish to associate this Amendment with Amendment No. 38, which would leave out on page 8 lines 34 to 45, which is the table giving the percentages beginning at 90 and reducing to 75. If Amendment No. 37 were accepted the table would be unnecessary. I beg to move.

LORD POLWARTH

I am not surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, in view of his urgings to us on the previous provision relating to rent rebate subsidies, is urging the same principle in relation to rent allowance subsidies payable to those who occupy privately-owned property as opposed to local authority property. The central point about these subsidies is that both are not related to the buildings but to the owner-occupiers of them—to the ratepayers and the people living in the area who are owner-occupiers of the property, be it local authority or privately-owned. This is the basis of these two schemes and of these two subsidies, and the Government's view is that in this matter local authorities do have a responsibility, if not for the relief of poverty as it was described earlier on—because we do not believe that that is exactly what these schemes are—but for the welfare of all people living in their area, whether they are council tenants or private tenants.

There is a comparable scheme to this, I understand—comparable in some respects at least—where a similar principle obtains, namely, the rate rebate scheme introduced by the last Government. It applies to the entire community and was considered to be the responsibility of local authorities. That scheme is financed jointly, by the Exchequer as to 75 per cent. and by the rates as to 25 per cent. That is all I can say in answer to the noble Lord. We feel that these two subsidies hang together and they are based on the need of the individual and not on the category of the house which he occupies. We concede that being a new scheme the cost of administration should be borne otherwise than the cost of the administration of the rent rebate scheme.

LORD HUGHES

The Minister is perfectly correct in saying that these two schemes, the rent rebate scheme and the rent allowance scheme, hang together. I think that in due course the Government will find that they will hang with them. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

4.52 p.m.

On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?

LORD HUGHES

I wish to ask the Minister what part of the sum of £70 million to £75 million which Parliament has been advised is the total cost of these subsidies is attributed to the estimate that his Department made of the cost of rent allowances. I would remind the noble Lord, in justification, that in addition to the arguments I have applied on a previous occasion, one of the justifications which he said was frequently given by Ministers for declining to give information of this kind was that it could be obtained only at a disproportionate cost. I would remind the noble Lord that here is no question of cost, other than for the printing—not even his time, as he will be paid whether he spends five minutes, five seconds or 50 minutes answering this question; the only additional cost that will be involved in dealing with this will be the printing of to-day's Report. In fact, from that point of view, if he had spent less time on that long brief and had instead given the answer, the effect on the public purse would have been to reduce the expenditure. He cannot say that there is any money to be spent in getting that information, because the Government already have the information. The Government know what part of the £70 million to £75 million is attributable to rent allowances. I ask the Minister what part of the £70 million to £75 million is attributable to Clause 6.

LORD POLWARTH

I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, but I have nothing to add to the answer which I gave to the previous request.

LORD HUGHES

I am very sorry about this, because if the noble Lord or Her Majesty's Government think that Parliament will be content to be denied this information, he is grievously mistaken. The only thing is that the information may take a little longer to get. But Parliament will get it, and if I cannot get it in this House I will certainly take every step I can properly take, without infringing the privileges of another place, to ensure that Ministers in another place are pressed on this. It could be quite serious because it comes down to one of two things: either the Minister is saying that the Government do not know the individual components, in which case the figure of £70 million to £75 million is a complete misleading of Parliament; or the Government do know the figures and decline to make them available because they are afraid that somewhere or other they may be used against them—notwithstanding my assurance that if the total £70 million to £75 million cannot be used against them there is no particular danger in the individual ones. Quite frankly, I believe that the reason why the Minister declines to give the answer is because once he gives it on one, then he has to give it on the lot; and the answer on at least one of these subsidies is going to be so derisory that the Minister is not prepared to stand up to it. But I can assure him that I am certain that Parliament will extract the answers to these questions, if not from Ministers in this place then certainly from Ministers in another place.

BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD

I have listened with considerable interest to the noble Lords, Lord Hughes and Lord Hoy. We who are taking part in this debate are all actively engaged in local government. Estimates in local government, as the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, knows, are prepared with enormous care and detail by the local authority of which one happens to be a member, and that generally takes from six to nine months. The estimates come up and they are debated, discussed and gone through with enormous care and detail; and the whole operation takes a year each time it is gone into. The noble Lord knows that just as well as I do, since he has spent many years on local authorities, many years drawing up estimates and many years questioning estimates of one kind or another. These proposals that the Government are putting before local authorities have not yet actually been to the local authorities for the detailed figures—at least, they have not been to my local authority, and so I imagine they have not been to others. It will take time to get the kind of information the noble Lord is talking about.

As I read this Bill (and I have studied it with great care, although I do not pretend to be as knowledgeable on it as the noble Lord, Lord Hughes), what the Minister has given us is a global figure, based on an estimate; not an estimate in detail but a general estimate which the Department is able to make; and this global figure will cover, we hope, the demands from local authorities for the three different types of subsidies. As for the detail which must come from every single local authority, that is something which cannot possibly be done, as I see it, in less than six months, or even more. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, that they have had some estimate from the City of Glasgow. The City of Glasgow is very well staffed; it is an enormous authority, and has a great deal of experience, and so on; and no doubt it can give a better estimate than the ordinary local authority which has to draw up its estimates every year. Those estimates come up only once a year, and the detail of those estimates is therefore known only once a year.

I find it very difficult to understand how the noble Lords, Lord Hughes and Lord Hoy, both of whom are experienced in these matters, can ask the Government to do something which they know perfectly well can be done only by inquiry of each local authority and by getting the details from it—something which the county councillors and the city councillors know only once a year. I find the argument on both these points very unconvincing since those of us who actually do this job know perfectly well that it cannot be done unless there is very careful discussion in detail of how many people are, for instance, entitled to the rebate. If your Lordships ask me that now, I cannot tell you for my own county council. I do not know; I know only what is in the estimates for this year. For next year I shall not know the figures until they are brought before me. It is impossible to get the details for which the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, is asking without an enormous amount of trouble and care. This is done admittedly, every single year by each local authority and then passed to the Exchequer. The Exchequer then tells us how much grant we are going to get on all the different kinds. That is well known.

LORD HUGHES

I think the Ministers are entitled to thank the noble Baroness for so valiantly attempting to come to the rescue. She knows the very high respect in which I hold her, and she will not feel I am departing from that in the slightest when I say that what she has been saying has nothing to do with what we are talking about. We are not talking about local authorities' estimates but Government estimates. The Government, whether they have any information from local authorities on which to base it, have said that the total cost of the six subsidies—or the 10 subsidies if you describe the local authorities as being six and the development corporations and the special Scottish Special Housing Association as being four—in 1975–76 at current prices will be £70 to £75 million. I do not know whether, when they made that calculation, they had the benefit of any estimate from the Roxburgh County Council or the benefit of any estimate from the Glasgow Corporation or the benefit of any estimate from what the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, erroneously referred to as my local authority. Since I ceased to be a member 11 years ago, if I made that claim in Dundee they would tell me to mind my own business. But I know that he meant Dundee.

LORD POLWARTH

The noble Lord will excuse me, but he is so closely associated in the public mind with that great City that it is very easy to make a mistake of that kind.

LORD HUGHES

Yes, but it might just as easily have been the Glenrothes Development Corporation. I do not know whether, in getting the estimate of £70 million to £75 million, the Government relied on any figures from any local authority or all local authorities. I do know that in Scotland, just on this side of the Border, the rent Bill, rightly or wrongly, figured very largely in the municipal election campaign, and one of the things that Members of Parliament and Ministers of the Government were going up and down the country saying was: "But this is going to be so very much better for local authorities and the people in the areas than anything which has gone before". These figures were quoted repeatedly in Scotland. The Government said: "When Labour people are saying what a bad Bill this is they are not telling folk that the subsidies will involve expenditure of 50 per cent. more than the present position envisaged in 1975–76".

The Government had sufficient confidence in these figures to use them time and time again, and we are now being told either that the Government have just made a rough guess at the whole lot, or they have attempted, with the best material at their disposal, to work out what the residual subsidy may cost in 1975–76, what the housing expenditure subsidy may cost, what the high cost subsidy may cost, the rent rebates and so on. They have made these best estimates, and they wrote down these figures. The Secretary of State probably did it with his own fair hand; he wrote them on a piece of paper. They added them up—and the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, is a chartered accountant—and they checked them, certified them correct and the answer was £70 to £75 million. But the chartered accountant then says, "Yes, but we could not possibly venture to say which of the detailed items are such because it is so difficult to make a reliable figure. They may be wrong".

But if any of the components are wrong, then the answer must be wrong, and anxious as the noble Baroness was to help, even if next year she is able to furnish the Government with completely accurate estimates of what the Roxburgh Council expect the position to be in 1973–74, and they get the same from every local authority, it will not alter one iota the figure in this Bill of £70 to £75 million. I am going to take every opportunity of emphasising the fact that for the first time in my limited experience in the House we have a Government who have information and who refuse to make it available to Parliament.

Clause 6 agreed to.

Clauses 7 to 9 agreed to.

Clause 10 [The high cost subsidy]:

5.7 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 41: Page 13, line 43, leave out from ("than") to ("and") in line 45 and insert ("£10").

The noble Lord said: I would wish to associate with this Amendment the following three Amendments, Nos. 42, 43 and 44. I beg to move Amendment No. 41. To show the effect of it I will read the paragraph as it is, and then as amended. This matter relates to the payment of high cost subsidy to the Scottish Special Housing Association, and Clause 10(2)(a) reads: the amount of income per house which would have been receivable by them for the year from standard rents if no high cost subsidy had been payable for that year or any previous year … exceeds the Scottish rent income for that year by more than such amount as the Secretary of State may from time to time determine; and then we come to the next paragraph. As amended paragraph (a) would read: the amount of income per house which would have been receivable by them for the year from standard rents if no high cost subsidy had been payable for that year or any previous year (in this section referred to as 'the development corporation rent income') exceeds the Scottish rent income for that year by more than £10".

Clause 10 deals with the high cost subsidy as it is payable to the development corporation and the Scottish Special Housing Association. This Amendment relates to the development corporation. If I may speak to Amendment No. 44, the estimate for the Scottish Special Housing Association is not the same as that proposed for the development corporation. For the development corporation there is no figure put in. We do not know at what level the Secretary of State would determine that high cost subsidy might be payable to the development corporation. For the local authority—we have already discussed this aspect—it is if the income and expenditure both exceed a figure which is £39 more than the Scottish average.

When we come to the part of the clause to which Amendment No. 44 refers we find that for the Scottish Special Housing Association the figure is £39 again. So the local authorities and the S.S.H.A. are put on the same basis. But for the New Town development corporations the figure is not anything which is specified but "such amount as the Secretary of State may … determine". I wonder why that is? Both the development corporation and the Scottish Special Housing Association are agents of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Each of them is doing a particular job. In the case of the Special Housing Association it is primarily to provide houses. In relation to the New Town development corporation the provision of houses is a very large part but not the whole of their job, because they do other things as well as building or providing houses. Nevertheless, I cannot see why in this clause the Government seek to put the development corporations in so indeterminate a position that there is no figure. It might be that the Secretary of State has in mind the figure of £10 which I have mentioned, though I should be very surprised if that were so. It might be £60; it may be £39, the same as with the other cases.

My objection, which is crystallised in these four Amendments, is that the £39 threshold—I think that is the term that was used—is so high that no local authority other than the now well-publicised burgh of Lauder would benefit from it. Despite all the opportunities that have been given, all that the Government can say is that perhaps in the future some other authority may join Lauder, but with this now extraordinary caution in relation to future "guestimating" they are not prepared to name any local authority which may come in.

I doubt very much whether, at a figure of £39, the Scottish Special Housing Association is likely to come in either. Of course it is quite impossible for me to make any predicitions as to whether any of the New Town development corporations are likely to get any benefit from a high cost subsidy when the amount of help which they may get is completely unknown at this stage. When the Minister gets up to tell us that he is not going to accept any of these Amendments—one does not need to be either Old Moore or a relative to predict that with greater accuracy than Old Moore himself could do—perhaps he might indicate why the Government have felt it necessary to use this very vague description in relation to the corporations. After explaining why it is done in that way, perhaps he would be good enough to let us know what the Government's present thinking is as to the amount which might be applied to development corporations in the current year if the Bill remains as it is. I beg to move.

LORD POLWARTH

I am not surprised to see no other noble Lords rising to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, because the subject of this clause is one of considerable intricacy. It is a matter of some doubt to myself whether I shall be able to satisfy him on the provisions of the clause, but I will do my best. I think he is right in saying that the position with the Scottish Special Housing Association is that it is improbable that it will need high cost subsidy in the foreseeable future because its pooled historic cost rents are about the same as the average for Scottish local authorities, and therefore it is in much the same position as them. That is the reason for the inclusion of the same figure as the one for the local authorities. I know that the noble Lord would like to see it reduced, but, as he knows, we resisted that suggestion for the reasons given on the previous clause.

The position of the New Towns is somewhat different because we do not have the same principle of pooled historic costs in relation to the rents. The acceptance of these Amendments would mean, in the case of the New Towns, a reduction of the standard rents payable in the first year of the new system. Their current levels are fairly high in relation to local authorities in Scotland, and the Government believe, as I know the Opposition did when in Office, that it is right that there should be a significant differential in the level of New Town rents compared to local authority rents. The New Town rents were nearly trebled under the previous Administration, and the differential between them and local authority rents widened significantly. The reason for the differential lies in the nature of the housing stock of the New Town. They tend to be very much newer. In the case of Irvine, for instance, virtually all of them are new. In Livingston they have all been built within the last five or six years. They tend to be newer and better housing stock. This accounts for the much higher average rents, and therefore they are not comparable with the normal local authorities.

We think, therefore, that it would be inappropriate to set a firm threshold of £39 above local authority average rents for high cost subsidy for the protection of New Town tenants. It would cut very much into the existing differential between them and the local authority rents. It would be even less justifiable to restrict it to the proposed figure of £10 above the Scottish local authority average. The Government feel that the tenants of the New Towns require the protection of the high cost subsidy only if, as a result of the new system, the differential in rent in a particular New Town and the Scottish local authority average was to be widened still further than it is now to an unreasonable extent. This is the reason why the Secretary of State wishes to retain a discretion. I think it will be a question of looking at individual cases to see whether there is any question of real need by a particular New Town development corporation for this high cost subsidy. I do not profess to hold out that this is a simple subject. What really underlies this matter is that in the particular case of the New Towns and the widely differing circumstances even between them, and also because of the large differential between their rents and those of the local authority houses, a firm threshold for this subsidy would not be helpful. It is therefore better to leave it for regulation by the Secretary of State in due course if the need should appear to arise.

LORD HUGHES

I do not think the subject is as complicated as the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, is implying. This is one case where it is very easy to determine what the Government have in mind. The figure of £39 applies in relation to local authorities; and, because of what the noble Lord said about pooled historic rents, the figure in relation to the Scottish Special Housing Association is such that by fixing on £39 the Government have selected a figure which makes it most unlikely that in the foreseeable future this will be any cause for concern to the Treasury. I put it at no higher a level than that. When one comes to the New Town corporations this is where, if a figure were put in, it would draw attention most conclusively to the farcical nature of this subsidy. The Minister has pointed out, quite correctly, that the level of rents in New Towns is very much higher than it is with local authorities. One of the reasons is the one to which he referred: that a very much larger proportion of the houses have been built in recent years at high cost, and none of the New Town corporations has the benefit of houses built a very long time ago, either before the war or just after the war, at costs which were only a fraction of those that obtain now.

But there is a second reason why these rents are higher. There were three contributors to the finances of local authority housing: the Government, through Government subsidy; the local authority, through subsidy from the ratepayers; and the tenant, by payment of rent. But in the case of the New Town Development Corporations there were only two contributors: the Government, through subsidy, and the tenant. There was no local authority to make any contribution towards the cost of keeping down the rents of these houses.

I cannot speak for what has happened in the last two years, but up to 1970 where rent levels were very much higher than the average house rents of local authorities the difference was to some extent accounted for by the absence of the rating subsidy. If one took that into account, the level of rents at New Town level and local authority level were, by and large, comparable. It was the absence of this factor which made it necessary for the tenant to pay a bigger share. Incidentally, I believe that the Government paid a bigger share in the New Towns than they did with the local authorities. Also in the S.S.H.A. there was no local authority subsidy, though the Government had accepted a bigger responsibility in subsidising the S.S.H.A. because they accepted that they would make up the deficit year by year, subject eventually to the fixing of a global sum as the limit beyond which the deficit was not to be allowed to rise.

If this Bill becomes law then this clause, like all the rest, applies to the present financial year. How can any of the New Town Corporations know whether they have any entitlement to high cost subsidy until some figure is put in there? Presumably immediately the Bill becomes law the Secretary of State will issue regulations on this matter so far as the New Town Development Corporations are concerned. The regulations, as I think he indicated, may mean that each New Town Development Corporation will have to be assessed individually: what may be an appropriate figure for Irvine may not be right for East Kilbride; and what is appropriate for Cumbernauld may be different from what is appropriate for Glenrothes. But the Secretary of State must at some lime let the Development Corporations know where they are; otherwise how are they to make a claim for high cost subsidy if no figure is available for them? Obviously, the Minister must, at some time before the end of this financial year, arrive at a figure, or alternatively he is going to say to the New Town Development Corporations, "You need not bother making any application because I know you are not entitled to any high cost subsidy. I am not going to tell you anything. You are not going to get it; and that is that". I cannot see even the present Secretary of State—I was about to say even the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth—saying that to them. Therefore presumably they have to be told.

I asked the Minister at this point in time whether the Secretary of State had any idea of the figure which might go, say, to any one of these New Town Corporations. It is obviously going to be higher than £39. Will it be £49, £59, £69, £89? What is it going to be? Obviously, some figure must be settled upon by the Secretary of State in the near future. If the New Town Development Corporations are to be told in September or October, or at some time before the end of the financial year, is there any reason why we should not be told to-day? I give the Minister the assurance that if he quotes only one town and says, "The figure is going to be £60", and it turns out, when the regulations are made, that it is in fact £6:5, I shall not regard that in itself as a reason for kicking up a row. I will take it that he was just estimating, or guessing, and that this was the best guess, or estimate, that could have been made at this time. May I ask the Minister, alternatively, whether he will state a range within which these figures for the New Town Corporations are likely to fall? Will it be between £40 and £90; £60 and £90; or £70 and £90; or something of that kind? Can the Minister be a little more helpful?

LORD POLWARTH

The noble Lord opposite was most persuasive in his endeavours to lead me into giving a further best estimate. I can assure him I shall follow that lead with the greatest of caution. I will be perfectly frank with the noble Lord and say that I am not in a position to-day to tell him exactly what procedure my right honourable friend has in mind with regard to this matter. All I would say to him is that I shall most certainly make inquiries as to how this course is to be pursued. I suspect that it will involve a degree of discussion with the New Town authorities before anything is settled. That is my purely personal guess in this matter, and I will see whether I can give him any further information on this subject. In view of the relative levels of the New Town rents in excess of the local authority rents at present, I think the Secretary of State has no plan to determine a threshold figure this year or in the next year or two. This matter has already been discussed with the New Town Development Corporations, and they are aware of it.

LORD HUGHES

I suppose that means that in the discussions with the New Town Corporations the figure of the extent to which present corporation rents are in excess of the average for local authorities has been discussed. May I ask the Minister what is the amount by which the average of New Town rents exceeds the average of local authority rents?

LORD POLWARTH

I am not sure that I can immediately lay my hands on the present average of local authority rents. The noble Lord himself may be able to help in this matter. I can certainly give him some information on the level of Development Corporation rents. I am told by my noble friend that the local authority average rent for 1972–73 is expected to be about £103 or £104.

LORD HUGHES

Is that taking account of the £24?

LORD POLWARTH

I understand so, yes.

LORD HUGHES

My recollection was that the figure for 1971–72 was about £80 per house.

LORD POLWARTH

That is probably correct. In the case of the New Towns I think the current levels—the exact dates may vary very slightly here—for November, 1971, were Cumbernauld £141; East Kilbride, £146; Glenrothes, which is rather lower, £126; and Irvine, which, as I think we all know, is rather higher, £188. In the remaining one, Livingston, the 1971 average rent level was about £104.

LORD HUGHES

Do these figures for the New Town Development Corporations which the Minister has quoted also include the £24 for 1972–7?

LORD POLWARTH

No, they probably do not, because they are the levels in November, 1971.

LORD HUGHES

The last figure quoted was £104, which is the same as the local authority figure. But it is really £24 higher, because that was a year ago. We then go up to Irvine at £188, which is in fact £108 more than the local authority figure of last year when the figure at the corresponding date was approximately £80. In the light of that information, I am not at all surprised that the Secretary of State has walked so delicately in Clause 10(2)(a) as to state: … such amount as the Secretary of State may from time to time determine", because, to put Irvine on a comparable basis with the local authorities, they will get the high cost subsidy when their rents are £147 more than the Scottish average. Quite naturally, this leads me to my next course of action, but, in pursuance of the policy being followed by Ministers, I shall not reveal it. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

5.31 p.m.

On Question, Whether Clause 10 shall stand part of the Bill?

Loon HUGHES

I have indicated various degrees of enthusiasm, or lack of enthusiasm, for different parts of the Bill. I have not disguised for one moment the fact that I like the adoption of a national scheme of rent rebates. I have made it perfectly clear that I am equally happy about the introduction of rent allowances. I do not like the results which will flow from these clauses, but that is not because of the adoption of those principles but because of the rotten sets of figures which the Government have attached to them. Given the will to improve the figures, those parts of the Bill could be very acceptable indeed. But, quite honestly, I cannot see that this clause, dealing with the high cost subsidy, will serve any useful purpose. Part of the important future of Scotland lies in the New Towns. On the basis of the figures given, with one exception—I think East Kilbride is the one which was £104—

LORD POLWARTH

Livingston was the low one at £104.

LORD HUGHES

With that possible and very doubtful exception, none of them will ever see anything of the high cost subsidy. In fact, if the Bill had made no provision for giving high cost subsidy to New Town Development Corportions they would not have been deprived of anything which they are likely to see this side of time. Even the lowest one is already £24 above the average local authority level, and as their rents have to go up by £24 this year and £26 in successive years they will maintain that difference for some time ahead. So not even Livingston stands to gain anything from this subsidy.

But it is not only these authorities which are affected by this clause. There is also the Scottish Special Housing Association, for whom a £39 limit has been inserted. Again, I must make an honourable exception of Lauder. It would almost be worth their while to forgo this high cost subsidy, because of the free advertising which they have been getting out of this Bill. They have never been mentioned so much in Parliament in the whole of their history as they have been during the time that this Bill has been discussed in another place and here. Therefore, if this clause did not form part of the Bill I doubt whether it would make any difference whatsoever to rent levels, to expenditure levels or to house production in any part of Scotland.

I cannot bring myself to feel that by allowing this clause to pass without comment I should be serving the interests of the people of Scotland. I feel obliged to make it quite clear that, in my opinion, this clause is just a waste of one-and-a-half pages of paper and, if one works the way the Government work with the subsidy and multiplies those pages by the number of copies of this Bill which have been produced, we shall probably have enough paper to stretch a very long way. In all these circumstances, therefore, I cannot support the inclusion of this clause in the Bill. It is a fraud and it has been clearly demonstrated to be a

Resolved in the affirmative, and Clause 10 agreed to accordingly.

Clauses 11 to 14 agreed to.

Clause 15 [Rent rebates]:

On Question, Whether Clause 15 shall stand part of the Bill?

5.44 p.m.

LORD HOY

May I say a word or two on this clause and, in particular, on subsection (3)? That subsection reads: fraud. I do not know whether clauses are like ships and can be referred to as feminine, but, if they can, then I must say that I cannot foresee this clause being made an honest woman at any time in the near future.

5.37 p.m.

On Question, Whether Clause 10 shall stand part of the Bill?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 65; Not-Contents, 42. No rebate from the rent of a house shall be granted by virtue of this section to any person if a substantial proportion of the charges in respect of the house is attributable to the use of furniture. I am sure that your Lordships, like myself, will be grateful to know who is in fact going to make this assessment. It seems to me to be an extraordinary provision; it is extraordinary that it is not better defined than this, and that the Government can come along and say, "Your rent is £2, but because your furniture is worth £x, you are not entitled to a rebate." To me, it seems an extraordinary proposition. I am certain it must have been very carefully thought out before it was put into this legislation, and I am sure the Government will be anxious, in order to clear our minds about this, to let your Lordships know what the proportions are, and who in fact is going to make the decisions.

CONTENTS
Aberdare, L. Eccles, V. Milverton, L.
Ailwyn, L. Elles, Bs. Molson, L.
Balfour, E. Elliot of Harwood, Bs. Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]
Barnby, L. Emmet of Amberley, Bs.
Belstead, L. Erroll of Hale, L. Newall, L.
Berkeley, Bs. Ferrers, E. Northchurch, Bs.
Blackford, L. Goschen, V. Nugent of Guildford, L.
Brooke of Cumnor, L. Gowrie, E. Perth, E.
Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs. Grenfell, L. Polwarth, L.
Carrington, L. Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.(L. Chancellor.) Reigate, L.
Coleraine, L. Rockley, L.
Colville of Culross, V. Hawke, L. Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.
Cottesloe, L Headfort, M. Sackville, L.
Cowley, E. Howard of Glossop, L. Saint Oswald, L.
Craigavon, V. Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal) Selkirk, E.
Cranbrook, E. Killearn, L. Sempill, Ly.
Crathorne, L. Kilmany, L. Somers, L.
Daventry, V. Latymer, L. Stonehaven, V.
de Clifford, L. Limerick, E. Tweedsmuir, L.
Denham, L. [Teller.] Lovat, L. Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, Bs.
Derwent, L. Macleod of Borve, Bs. Wakefield of Kendal, L.
Drumalbyn, L. Mansfield, E. Young, Bs.
NOT-CONTENTS
Ardwick, L. Greenwood of Rossendale, L. Shackleton, L.
Beswick, L. Hale, L. Shepherd, L.
Blyton, L. Hall, V. Shinwell, L.
Buckinghamshire, E. Henderson, L. Slater, L.
Burntwood, L. Hoy, L. Snow, L.
Byers, L. Hughes, L. Stocks, Bs.
Champion, L. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs. [Teller.] Summerskill, Bs.
Crook, L. Taylor of Mansfield, L.
Donaldson of Kingsbridae, L. McLeavy, L. Watkins, L.
Douglas of Barloch, L. Maelor, L. Wells-Pestell, L.
Faringdon, L. Meston, L. White, Bs.
Gaitskell, Bs. Nunburnholme, L. Williamson, L.
Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.] Popplewell, L. Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.
Granville of Eye, L. St. Davids, V.
Granville-West, L. Segal, L.
LORD POLWARTH

I am not at all sure that I shall be able to provide the answer the noble Lord seeks, but I will do my best; and if I cannot give it now I will endeavour to give it to him before we get much further with the Bill. I think that is all I can say. However, I understand that subsection (3) excludes from a rent rebate scheme the tenant of any house to which the housing revenue account relates and which is a furnished tenancy. The phrase "a substantial proportion" has an honest ancestry. It derives from Section 2 of the Rent (Scotland) Act 1971, and has been tested in the courts, so the definition is understood. This means that rebates can be paid to tenants in houses in which some furniture is provided but which are, in the terms of this subsection as read with Section 2 of the Rent (Scotland) Act 1971, legally unfurnished. I am also informed that the exclusion of furnished council tenants will not in practice prevent authorities from granting rebates to old people, unmarried mothers and other special cases where furniture is provided with houses. I am sorry that I am not able to give a more detailed explanation of how this will be adjudicated upon, but I shall make a point of trying to obtain further information on the point and will let the noble Lord know about the method of adjudication. But that is the purport of it.

LORD HOY

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that information. He tells us that it is perfectly respectable; that the wording is taken from the 1971 Act. It was not until he said 1971 that I doubted its antecedents. So, if he does not mind my saying so, I should like to have it on the Record, and I am not seeking to be awkward, because I see the difficulty. But he cites the 1971 Act and says that it has been tested in the courts. Obviously, then, he must be able to give us an example. Again, I am not attempting to be awkward about it: all I am saying is that if we passed an Act in 1971 and find that by July, 1972, it has already been tested in the courts, we wish to know on what grounds: because there must then have been some formula by which an assssment was made as to what portion of the total rent was for the house and what portion was for the furniture. I think that is the way it would be done.

Indeed, if the litigant, or the person who was suing, came to the conclusion that far too great a proportion was being put on, say, the furniture and that the Government had made an adjustment which said, in effect, "The furniture represents 75p out of every £1", then that person was saying, "This is much too high, and I will take you to court about it." If we have a decision on this, it must be on record; and while it is not tremendously important, it can affect a great many people so far as house-letting is concerned. Even if the noble Lord cannot tell us the basis on which the Government are likely to act under this particular subsection, he may be able to tell us why the case was taken to the court. For instance, it would be interesting to know who took whom to the court. Was it in fact the occupant of the house, who felt that he had a raw deal and took the Government to the court; or was it in fact the Government who decided that a particular decision had been made and that they ought to have it resolved by court action? We all know that frequently where legislaiton appears to be absolutely clear we have to go to court to get the final decision and interpretation of the law. The noble Lord instanced a court case. Can he tell us what it was?

LORD POLWARTH

I hope the noble Lord will forgive me if I cannot at the moment give a detailed explanation of the case, but I will see that it is given to him as soon as possible. However, I understand that the decision is one for the local authority and not for the Government. Perhaps, too, I might add a little on the respectability of the antecedents. I am reminded that the 1971 Act consolidated the Rent Act 1965.

LORD HUGHES

I do not want to be difficult and I am not trying to be difficult—although I may succeed in being so. My noble friend has drawn attention to the wording of Clause 15(3): … if a substantial proportion of the charges in respect of the house is attributable to the use of furniture. I have a later Amendment, to Clause 40, which is on the same subject. I am not speaking to that at this moment; but I wonder why, in Clause 40 the new subsection (1A) refers to: … the amount … of the registered rent which, in the opinion of the rent officer … is fairly attributable to the use of furniture … Then the new subsection (1B) says: It shall not be necessary to note on the register under subsection (1A) above any amount which in the opinion of the rent officer or, as the case may be, the rent assessment committee is negligible. Why in one part does the Bill say that no rebate will be granted if a substantial part of the charges is attributable to furniture and in another part (where it is referring to the registration of rent) that it will not be necessary to note the proportion if it is negligible? Would it not be simpler if in both cases we decided on a course of action to be taken on negligible or substantial proportions? Has the meaning of "negligible" also been determined by court action? I will not ask the noble Lord to answer now; but he has notice of another question that I shall be putting on Amendment 100—which will not be before dinner.

Clause 15 agreed to.

Clause 16 [Rent allowances]:

5.55 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 47: Page 17, line 27, at end insert ("or a tenant of a furnished dwelling within the meaning of Part VII of the Rent (Scotland) Act 1971.")

The noble Lord said: I think it is correct to say that in another place there was fairly considerable discussion (as there was here) on the English and Welsh Bill about the position of tenants of furnished accommodation. I think that everyone in all parts of the Committee recognises that some of these people in furnished accommodation will be those most in need of assistance. My recollection from ploughing through the mass of material accumulated in another place is that the Minister made sympathetic noises and talked about future action. I do not think the Government have said that they are not prepared to do anything in relation to furnished accommodation; but one of the fears quite legitimately being held was that to embark into this field might have the result of cutting down a considerable amount of the furnished accommodation available and so worsening people's plight. I think that that argument, if not being abandoned, was not given the same strength as would have been the case a year or two years ago. In moving this Amendment, I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some indication of the Government's thinking on this matter of giving assistance to those who are tenants of furnished accommodation. I beg to move.

LORD POLWARTH

I am glad to say that this is a subject on which I believe there to be absolutely no difference between us. I think the only problem is that of finding a workable method of bringing this into effect. We want to bring in a method that would be workable and not open to abuse, liable to cause hardship or to reduce the stock of furnished accommodation. All I can do is to quote some words used by my right honourable friend on the Report stage on June 6 last in another place. He said then: I can assure the hon. Gentleman, however, that it is my wish that it should be introduced as soon as it is found possible to introduce it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, col. 308.] That I think is a fairly definite statement of desire to see this problem solved. Going beyond the noble Lord's reference to "sympathetic noises", I may say that, following a preliminary discussion in an informal Working Party at official level, detailed consultation with the local authority Working Party which has considered all matters arising from the Bill is already proceeding. I do not know whether this answer will satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, but I hope that it is evidence of our intention to try to deal with the problem and that there is nothing between us.

LORD HUGHES

I do not think I am straining accuracy to say that this is the first reasonable answer we have had from the Minister to-day. I am happy about it. I intended to ask, "How soon?" But it is obvious that it is not going to be this side of the Summer Recess, if there is going to be a Summer Recess, and I doubt whether it will be before the end of the present Session, if the present Session ever ends. Obviously, one cannot anticipate what will be in the next gracious Speech. But, without asking the Minister to give any specific place in the legislative programme for these kind of matters, I take it that the Government regard this as a matter of elementary justice that must be attended to and that they will seek legislation in this field at the very earliest opportunity. Is that the position?

LORD POLWARTH

Without wishing in any way to define "earliest opportunity", I can say that that is very definitely the Government's wish.

LORD HUGHES

With that comment from the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 16 agreed to.

Clause 17 [The model schemes]:

6.0 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 48: Page 19, line 4, leave out from ("may") to end of line and insert ("by order direct").

The noble Lord said: This is another of these very important parts of the Bill on which the Secretary of State may give directions. The subsection reads: the said standard amount shall be calculated or estimated by reference to the rebates or allowances actually granted by following such methods and principles as the Secretary of State may direct, either generally or in any particular case. The effect of my Amendment would be to make the subsection read: The said standard amount shall be calculated or estimated by reference to the rebates or allowances actually granted by following such methods and principles as the Secretary of State may by order direct. On a somewhat similar Amendment where I thought the principle was sufficiently important to require an order, which again would be subject only to the Negative Resolution procedure, the Government felt able to accept the Amendment. I hope the same will apply in this case. In accepting the other Amendment, the Minister said that the Secretary of State, or the Department, would be issuing a circular to the various local authorities letting them know the basis on which things were to operate and that therefore he could not dissent from the proposition that Parliament should be given the same sort of information, which would be accomplished by tabling an order.

I think the methods and principles under which these standard amounts in the rent rebate schemes are to be calculated is a matter of considerable importance and I hope, therefore, that in this case the Government may feel that there is a case for letting Parliament know as directly and as soon as possible, and by putting in the words "by order" this will be accomplished.

LORD DRUMALBYN

I am not sure that we can be quite so forthcoming over this Amendment as the one referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. I do not know whether the noble Lord really intended this, but his Amendment would cut out the possibility of making orders in different cases. The words, "either generally or in any particular case" would be omitted. If we were to make, the change so as to provide for an order, it would probably be necessary to add a sentence to give effect to the differential treatment that might be required.

The more substantial objection here is that this is an administrative direction. The reason why the direction-making provision is necessary, in particular for those authorities whose rent rebate and rent allowance schemes may be more generous than a model scheme, is because they have used the power under Clause 18(1) or (2)—either at their own discretion or with the consent of the Secretary of State under subsections (3) and (4) of Clause 18—to be more generous than the model scheme. It would be possible to require each authority to keep a second set of records of rebates for allowances that they would have granted had they been granted tinder a model scheme and not under a model scheme as varied. But rather than that, the intention is that there should be a formula devised so as to determine the standard amount on the basis of the rebates or allowances actually granted. The formula would be capable of revision in the light of experience and it would be convenient to amend that formula by direction perhaps in a particular case or in general. I would only say that the basis on which rent rebates and rent allowance subsidies will be paid has already been discussed very thoroughly with the Local Authority Working Party on Housing Finance.

Perhaps it would be right for me now to pay tribute to the very great amount of work which the nominees of the local authority associations on the Working Party have contributed to the task of preparing for the implementation of the new subsidy scheme. The fact is that agreement has been reached on the methods to be adopted in calculating and paying both rent rebate and also rent allowance subsidies for 1972–73, and it is not thought that any difficulties are likely to arise. If in the light of experience gained in operating the system it proves necessary to make improvements, that will always be possible. I assure the Committee that at all times very close contact will be maintained with local authority associations and individual authorities as may be required. I hope that, from what I have said, the noble Lord will agree that this is a question of fixing a formula by administrative methods and that it would be better and more flexible to deal with this by way of direction; the more so as the principles and methods have been substantially agreed and now it is only a question of seeing how they work out in practice.

LORD HOY

We find the reply a little disappointing. We had great expectations after a similar Amendment was accepted to Clause 4, when the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, said that there was no difference between us and that he was happy to accept the Amendment. We thought this would be another occasion of the same kind. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has said that the methods and principles have all been thoroughly discussed. I take it that he is talking about discussions between all the parties concerned—local authorities, Government and so on. But at the end of the day the power still lies with the Secretary of State; he has to make the direction.

If this has been done, what good reason is there for Parliament being denied knowledge of what are the principles and methods? If we are not to know, we cannot say to the Secretary of State that what has been discussed—we do not want to say this—and what has been achieved is wrong. All we want to know is what are the methods and principles. It is true that as between the Secretary of State and any given local authority this will be known. But if this is to apply generally over the country it would not be a bad thing that Parliament should know. I should have thought that a simple way of informing Parliament would be for the Secretary of State to act under this clause as he has promised to act under Clause 4, and to put down an order subject to the Negative Resolution procedure. It may be that it will never even be discussed, but it would give information to which I think Parliament is entitled. I ask the noble Lord to have another look at this matter. In a Bill of this size it is not expecting very much to ask that he has one more look at this question to see whether the Government can act under this clause as they have already promised to act under Clause 4.

LORD DRUMALBYN

My noble friend and I would be willing to look at this before the next stage. I think I ought not to make a commitment on this at present, and I think the noble Lord plainly accepts that. It may be that there will be a middle course in this matter, and we shall be glad to look at it.

LORD HUGHES

On that point, I think I am completely justified in asking leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 17 agreed to.

Schedule 2 [Computation of rebates and allowances].

6.10 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 49: Page 67, leave out lines 33 and 34.

The noble Lord said: We come now to the beginning of a serious attempt to make the rebate scheme more acceptable. I do not intend to repeat the extent to which I like the principle and dislike the details, but will now go on to try to make the details, from the point of view of this side of the Committee, better. This Amendment seeks to leave out lines 33 and 34, which are in paragraph 1(1), and there in sub-paragraphs (a) to (f) are the details of a scheme for a weekly amount of rent to be calculated by reference to these various items. The effect of this Amendment is to leave out sub-paragraph (d), "a minimum weekly rent", and sub-paragraph (e), "a minimum and maximum rebate or allowance".

That is only one Amendment of a group of Amendments which are necessary to accomplish the purpose which on this side of the Committee we have in mind. The next Amendment in the series is Amendment No. 50, at page 67, line 36, to leave out from "above" to "shall"; that is, leaving out of paragraph 1(2) the words, "(other than the amount of rent)". Obviously, if the amount of the rent is not one of the principles, then a reference to the amount of the rent in the next paragraph is unnecessary.

The next Amendment which falls into this series is Amendment No. 57, at page 71, line 38, to leave out from "to" to "16". Then Amendment No. 58 is at page 71, line 40, to leave out from first "allowance" to end of line 42, and insert "no rent shall be payable". Paragraph 11(2) reads: If the weekly income of the tenant and his spouse is equal to or less than the needs allowance, the rebate or allowance shall be equal to the amount, if any, by which the weekly rent exceeds the minimum weekly rent. The effect of Amendments Nos. 57 and 58 would be to alter that to read: If the weekly income of the tenant and his spouse is equal to or less than the needs allowance, no rent shall be payable. We then come to Amendment No. 59. The Amendments so far are of a purely negative nature, and would take things out of the Bill. Having taken out these items, if the rebate scheme is to be workable I have to put something else in their place. In Amendment No. 59 I propose at page 71, line 46, to leave out from "be" to "per" in line 48, and to insert instead, "calculated an amount equal to 25". Looking at it in that way on the list of Amendments it does not seem to make any sense; but when we read out what it is and then read out what it will be, it becomes, I hope, at least as clear as the Bill itself—which I admit is not saying very much.

Paragraph 11 reads: (3) In any case where the weekly income exceeds the needs allowance, the rebate or allowance shall be calculated in accordance with sub-paragraphs (4) and (5) below. (4) There shall be added—

  1. (a) an amount equal to the minimum weekly rent;
  2. (b) an amount equal to 17 per cent. of the difference between the weekly income and the needs allowance."
The effect of the Amendments would be to make that part read: In any case where the weekly income exceeds the needs allowance, the rebate or allowance shall he calculated in accordance with sub-paragraphs (4) and (5) below. (4) There shall be calculated
  1. (a) an amount equal to 25 per cent. of the difference between the weekly income and the needs allowance."
 These Amendments, taken together, accomplish a substantial alteration in the basis on which the rebate scheme would work.

My objection to the present form of the scheme is twofold. By adopting a minimum rent of £1 or 40 per cent. of the weekly rent, whichever is the higher, for those whose income exceeds the needs allowance, the level of rent, I think, even at the beginning, is pitched too high for the ability of people with that income to pay that amount of minimum rent. That is my first objection.

My second objection is more fundamental. When, a long time ago, I decided that rent rebates were proper, and when those who believed in rent rebates, either inside local or national government, were a very small majority of the population. I was so persuaded because I thought that this method provided a perfect protection for those of low means to enable them to get the sort of accommodation they needed with-I out requiring them to do without some of the other necessities of life, such as food, clothing, fuel and furniture.

I accept that there can be a great deal of argument as to how much is a proper charge on a given income for rent; but whether that charge is a high one, according to one person's point of view, or a low one, according to another person's point of view, once it has been determined what rent can be paid out of that income it ought to be fixed. This scheme does not provide for that, because once one reaches the position that the minimum rent to be paid comes under the umbrella of the 40 per cent. of the weekly rent, every time the standard rent goes up by £26 a year the person on rebate at that level of income is to be asked to pay 20p more.

I want to remove one of the confusions which arose quite unwittingly during the discussion of the Bill on Second Reading. I was told that of course incomes would be rising also, and that a person with an income of £20 a week now will not have £20 a week when the rent has gone up by £24 this year and £26 next year; that his income will have risen. That is not the point I am making. The point I am making is that out of a given income a certain amount is said to be payable, and it may be that at one time it is individual "A" who has that income, and two years later it may be individual "B" who has it. But what we are saying, in terms of the Bill, is that you take a man with an income at the present time of £21 a week. If I remember my working out of the details of the scheme, in terms of the Bill the needs allowance of a man with a wife and two children of school age is £20.25. I think that was the figure—£14.75 plus £5.50 for two children, which would take him up to £20.25. In terms of the scheme, therefore, the minimum rent of a man with an income of £21, if the standard rent were £3 a week, would be 40 per cent. of £3 in other words £1.20. To that would be added 17 per cent. of the different between £20.25, his needs allowance, and the £21 representing his income. Therefore we get a figure of £1.20 plus a few pence more.

But supposing that the following year the rent goes up by 50p a week: he is immediately in the position (or his successor at that level, if it is another person) that the 17 per cent. of the difference between the needs allowance and his actual income remains the same few pence. Yet the minimum rent has gone up in the interval from £1.20 to £1.40. So we have the ridiculous position that a year later, out of that income he has to devote a higher proportion to buying food and clothing, to the general needs of the house, and almost certainly to rates. He therefore has in fact, by all the arguments, got less out of his income available to pay rent, but he is being asked to pay 20p more. As the years go by, each time the rent goes up by 50p the amount goes up by a further 20p.

Now the Government take care of the matter in two ways. If the man's income is more than the needs allowance the 17 per cent. of the difference comes in. It is added to the minimum rent at whatever level that rent may be. However, if his income is less than the needs allowance he pays the minimum rent, less a deduction of 25 per cent. of the difference between his actual income and the needs allowance; and that goes down until, at a sufficiently low point of income, no rent at all will he payable. What I am proposing is in fact very much simpler. For the moment I am accepting the figure of needs allowance in the Bill. If I take the case which I have quoted—the man with a needs allowance of £20.25 and an income of £21—the rent he would pay would be 25 per cent. of the difference between these two sets of figures, which, you will see at a glance, means a very considerable reduction of rent for that man. The figures to which I referred earlier this afternoon, obtained by the Department of Employment, show that the average expenditure for an average family is nearly £31; obviously, then, this man is a "poor" person by comparison with that average figure. Incidentally, I did a quick extract only on the basis of the Press reports because I have not yet seen the actual document and time has not permitted me to lay my hand on it—I looked for it on the first day and could not find it, but I must admit that I have not looked for it to-day and presumably it is available. But on the assumption that the Press reports were accurate, I found that the amount which was necessary for a family of that size was of the order of £23; and that was ignoring certain figures in the statistics of the Department of Employment.

For the purpose of assessing the needs of this family, I assumed that we were dealing with the rather rare set of individuals nowadays—a husband and wife who were both non-smoking teetotallers, because I allowed nothing for "booze" or for smoking. Yet, even so, this family was well above the needs allowance figure. This may argue that there is a very definite requirement to amend the needs allowance figure, but even if that were done it still would not meet my point, that a rent rebate, once fixed, should remain fixed for that item. There has been reference to the fact that I was chairman of a Development Corporation. When I went to that Development Corporation they had a rent rebate scheme in operation, and when I examined it I did not consider that it met my requirements for a reasonable rent rebate scheme. We altered the rent rebate scheme in Glenrothes, and it worked on the basis that once an amount of rebate was fixed, every time that we raised the rents we did not need to worry about the effect on an individual, because the individual's rent did not go up. The rent went up only for those people who were not entitled to rent rebates, and anybody who was entitled to rebate remained at the same rebateable level as before.

I received a reply from the Minister in which he referred to one of the points I had raised. He said: You are concerned about the principles on which the rent rebate scheme is based. Many of the important features of the scheme follow recommendations by the sub-committee of the Scottish Housing Advisory Committee, the Browlie Report. In particular, this Report recommended that rent payable after rebate should take some account of differences in standard rent. This was a particular feature of the model scheme to which you took exception, but it was of course also a feature of new town rebate schemes approved by the Administration of which you yourself were a member. I did not leave out the awkward part of that quotation because I want to deal with both points.

First of all, may I say that the Brownlie Report did not necessarily imply that people in a given type of accommodation should be paying more at one time than at another. That particular reference, which I looked up, was on the point as to whether there should be different rents for different standards of accommodation. For instance, if someone was occupying a house with two bedrooms, should he be paying a smaller rent than he would pay if he was occupying a house with three bedrooms; or, if he was occupying a tenement house, would he pay less than if he was occupying, say, one of the more desirable cottage-type houses? They pointed out that there was no hard-and-fast rule. Some local authorities worked on the very strict principle of deciding how much a man could afford and then saying that this figure would not be increased no matter what standard or size of accommodation he was provided with. In the scheme which the Brownlie Report put forward, there is this same principle, which the Government have taken; the principle is the same, but the details are not quite so bad. What Brownlie recommended was a minimum rent of 50p per week plus 15 per cent. of the reckonable income. The Government have taken a minimum of £1. It does not stop at a £1; it can become £1.20, £1.40, £1.60 and so on, plus 17 per cent. In the first instance, they have a variable minimum which differs from Brownlie; and it is a very much higher minimum: even at £1 it is twice as much as Brownlie recommended.

The second point was with regard to the type of scheme approved by the previous Government. In an earlier part of our discussions to-day I pointed out that during the time of the last Government we were concerned to get the principle of rent rebates adopted on the widest possible basis. We did not particularly concern ourselves at that stage with the content of rent rebates. To simplify the matter, may I explain that we worked on the principle that any rent rebate was better than no rebate at all. When we had proposals from the New Town Development Corporations about the way their chairmen and members thought the rebate scheme should be dealt with, we did not feel it any more necessary to disapprove the content of their rebate schemes than to disapprove the content of the rebate schemes of any of the local authorities. We liked some of the schemes; we did not like some others. Had we been vetting the schemes I would never for one moment have consented to the scheme of the New Town Development Corporations. This was a case where the Government were working on the basis that the town hall knew better than Whitehall. We are now working on the basis that Whitehall is telling the town hall what to do. If we are going to proceed in that way the scheme ought to be as good as a model scheme can be.

I am sorry to have had to speak at such length but I have tried to compress into one discussion a whole series of Amendments dealing with quite a number of different points in the scheme. If this Amendment were adopted, the scheme would be one which in the course of time would be bound to make even the highest rents in this Bill much more acceptable to the tenants of local authority houses. The effect of the Amendments will be that people at the lower end of the income scales will pay considerably less than the figures that they will pay if the Government scheme goes through. As we get up to the upper limits no one so far as I have been able to work out—and I did not test out every conceivable case, but I tried out a variety of cases—would pay more under my Amendments than they would pay under the Government's scheme. As we get up to the higher income limits there will not be a very great difference between the effects of the Government's proposals and my own. At the bottom level, the effect will be that the people at the £20 to £27 per week level will be getting a greater measure of relief through rebates. I hope that I have clarified what exactly is in our minds on this side of the Committee. I beg to move the first of these Amendments.

6.35 p.m.

THE EARL OF BALFOUR

I think that I can understand the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. But the effect of this Amendment would be a tremendous disincentive to somebody to work hard and improve his living conditions. One of the unfortunate things in this world is that if a person is charged no rent he often tends to feel, "The house is not worth anything; it is not my responsibility", and he does not look after it properly.

LORD HOY

I am interested in what the noble Earl said about the disincentive. Can he tell me how he equates that with the wages and the work of the agricultural workers in his own area?

THE EARL OF BALFOUR

They do not come into the picture in a great many cases because they are not paying rent at all.

LORD HOY

Is the noble Earl suggesting that every agricultural worker in East Lothian has a tied cottage? He knows that that is not the case. Even if only half of them had tied cottages if the noble Earl makes a statement of that kind he has to justify it. In an industry with which he is well acquainted how can he apply that theory to these workers?

THE EARL OF BALFOUR

With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, a great many agricultural workers are living in tied houses. Certainly the employers I know no longer charge any of their farm workers anything in the way of rent, although they can do so under the terms of the Agricultural Wages Board. The workers are living in tied houses, and if they do not look after them they will very quickly lose their jobs.

It has been my experience that where rents have been ridiculously low people have not looked after their houses and did not care about them. The person who pays some rent turns out to be a far better tenant. This is one of the strange facts of life. I remember a friend of mine who had a dog which had four fine pedigree puppies. She was keen to make certain that these puppies went to good homes. Many friends said to her, "Give them away". Others said, I think quite rightly: "If you want to make certain that the dogs get a good home you must sell them for the highest price that you can get". This is absolutely true.

The scheme of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, would be much more generous than the one in the Bill, and a person would have to be earning a much higher wage before he started to pay an economic rent even if the minimum were preserved. As it is, taking a married man with two children (the very case that the noble Lord chose) on a subsistence level, earning between £20 to £25 a week, on the Government scheme, with a house at an economic rent of between £2.50 and £5 a week, he would only be paying £1 to £2 a week in rent. That is between a twentieth of his wage and a tenth of his wage. I do not think that is too high. I said, however, in my Second Reading speech that if you get up to rents of £8 and £9 a week the whole system breaks down. There is a tremendous difference between 17 per cent. being taken off a person's wage. whether in rent, tax, or anything else, and 25 per cent. being take off. With the scheme of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, we start at nothing; but I am certain that the Government's scheme of 17 per cent. shows a more realistic figure. It will often encourage a person to take a real interest in and to look after his home.

I am not keen on things being given away free. The fact that we speak about free education, free health, free this, that and the other, is creating a completely wrong impression of the country. It is not a free service. We are all paying for it at a very high rate. I do not want to do away with any of the national welfare services, but they are not free. We are all, as I say—or, at any rate, those who can afford it are—paying for them and we must get away from this idea of creating a wrong impression by saying, "So-and-so is living rent free because of his low wages." If they are really all that low, it is another matter.

6.41 p.m.

LORD DRUMALBYN

While I think I understand what the noble Lord intends by his Amendments, I am not entirely certain. As I understand it, what he intends is that for anybody who has an income equal to the needs allowance, or less, no rent at all shall be payable, and for those who have an income of more than the needs allowance, the rent to be paid will be 25 per cent. of the difference between the needs allowance and their income. If that is right, the first observation I would make is that we have been attacked from time to time on the grounds that we are going to set up a kind of one-class set of tenants in local authority houses. I am not sure whether the basis I have suggested is right, but it looks to me as if the people with higher incomes would be paying a very substantial proportion by way of rent. Is this right? Or is it related purely to rebate? I do not see how paragraph 11(4) of the Schedule is going to work out when it is said that there shall be a calculation of 25 per cent. of the difference between the weekly income and the needs allowance. What is the purpose of that calculation? Where does it lead to? I am afraid I do not understand how the Amendments work out in practice. As I understand it, what the noble Lord is aiming at is that 25 per cent. of the difference between the weekly earned income and the needs allowance should be paid by way of rent. In that case, of course, without an upper limit at some point we should virtually be compelling people with higher incomes to move out of local authority housing altogether, which is precisely what I understood the Opposition were objecting to. I do not know whether the noble Lord would like to make that point clear now?

LORD HUGHES

I indicated that at no point would the figures, so far as I can check them, of my scheme result in higher rents being payable by anyone compared with the rents proposed by the Government. Of course, if we come to Lord Strathclyde's example of the family with the three cars who come down to the Dorchester Hotel for their holiday, I would not care to predict that they would not in fact be paying more under my proposal than under the Government's proposal. My noble friend Lord Hoy indicated that this family have been migrating between Scotland and the Savoy Hotel for many years and only recently have shifted their patronage to the Dorchester, but I am not particularly worried about anything that might happen to them. But while the noble Lord was speaking I was trying to make a calculation—and it is not easy to listen and calculate at the same time, so I hope my sum is not wrong. If we take a husband and wife with two children who have an income of £25, and a minimum rent of £1, the lowest figure it can be under the Government's proposal, the rent which that family will pay will be £1 plus 17 per cent. of the difference between the needs allowance and the actual income of £25. That is 17 per cent. of £4.75.

LORD POLWARTH

Eighty-one pence.

LORD HUGHES

Now the chartered accountant has justified his letters at long last—I am sorry: the Minister has brought his chartered accountant's experience into account for the first time. That means, accepting the Minister's figures, that the amount paid under the present proposal would be £1.81, Under my proposal the tenant would be paying 25 per cent. of the difference between the needs allowance and his income of £25. He would be paying £1.19. As the income figures rise, the difference between the Government's proposals and the Opposition proposals narrows. But at no point, at least so far as likely incomes are concerned, do the Opposition's proposed rents overtake the Government's. So we shall not be driving people out of council houses any faster than the Government are doing.

LORD DRUMALBYN

I see the point. On the noble Lord's calculation the rent is reached by this difference between 25 per cent. of the weekly income and the needs allowance. Rents will not go any further than that. Once that point is reached, that is the limit. There are two matters between us here. The first is the conception, as I understand it, which is involved in leaving out paragraph 10 of the Schedule. That means, as I under-stand it (and I hope the noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong) that where the needs allowance and the income are the same, or where the tenant has an income below the needs allowance, no rent will be payable at all. Is that correct?

LORD HUGHES

That is right.

LORD DRUMALBYN

The Brownlie Committee looked into this and their Report contained one phrase which I think it is well worth our bearing in mind. It states: On the one hand it can be advanced that no assessment of capacity to pay can be anything but an approximate guide which will not materially be affected by the small variations in rent which are likely to be involved. The argument is based on the view that people expect and are accustomed to pay for every other commodity according to considerations of size and quality and that there is no reason for excluding housing from this economic principle. The noble Lord says, "No. You should pay for everything else and then see if you have anything left with which to pay for housing", which seems to me exactly the opposite to what the Brownlie Committee are propounding. They are saying, in effect, that people expect to pay something for their housing, unless their liability is extinguished by the 25 per cent. rule. That relates to paragraph 10, where it is stated: In any case where the weekly income of the tenant and his spouse is less than the needs allowance, 'minimum weekly rent' means the amount calculated in accordance with subparagraph (1) above, less an amount equal to 25 per cent. of the difference between the needs allowance and weekly income. This means that where a person is below the poverty line—that is, below the needs allowance—his rent may be extinguished altogether.

LORD HUGHES

Will the noble Lord permit me to interrupt at this point? I do not think I shall be interrupting his train of thought now, because I waited until he reached the end of that argument. I shall say something about the extraordinary speech made by the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, after dinner, but the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, and I are both accepting that there can be an income level at which no rent is payable. I do not know whether the noble Lord realises just how little difference there is between us. Take the case of a man, wife and two children, where the needs allowance in terms of the Government scheme is £20.25; that man would in fact pay no part of his income in rent. The Government say that if the income is less than the needs allowance the tenant will pay 25 per cent. less than the minimum rent as his income falls below; so with the minimum rent set at the beginning of the scheme at £1, under my proposal no rent will be payable at £20.25, whereas under the Government proposal no rent will be payable at £1625, because the difference between £16.25 and the needs allowance is £4, and if we take off 25 per cent. of the difference, that is £1, it extinguishes the minimum rate of £1. I thought it better to interrupt the noble Lord at that point because I thought he was not giving the Government scheme credit for going quite as far as it in fact goes. I am fairly certain that the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, will not be able to vote either for the Government or for our scheme, because the idea of anybody with an income of £16.25 getting a house for nothing obviously outrages his dearest principles.

LORD DRUMALBYN

I think I made myself quite clear on this point. I actually read out the provision, which I thought would make it clear.

LORD HUGHES

But the noble Lord did not give an example, which is what I have done.

LORD DRUMALBYN

I am obliged to the noble Lord for giving the example, which of course has validity and shows exactly how the scheme is intended to work. The second point of difference is that we believe that the minimum rent should vary with the quality of the accommodation provided. So we believe that the minimum rent should be 40 per cent. of the standard rent, or £1, whichever is the greater. We think this is the right way to do things, so that people may have a choice as to whether they want to spend more on their housing or on other things. If we simply fix the relationship between the needs allowance and whether or not a person pays rent, then with the needs allowance at a given level of means, as I understand it he pays no rent, whether he lives in one type of house or another types of house. Is that right?

LORD HUGHES

It could well be, but not necessarily.

LORD DRUMALBYN

That is the way in which I understand it, and here again the Brownlie Report seems to be on our side rather than on the side of the noble Lord. I may say, in passing—

LORD HUGHES

Would the noble Lord quote the passage?

LORD DRUMALBYN

If the noble Lord will permit, I was about to quote something else; I will come back to his point in a moment. The Brownlie Report says: On the basis of the level of minimum rent which we have recommended in paragraph 57, a majority of us consider that rebated rent calculated at the rate of four shillings or 20 per cent. of each £1 of reckonable income will easily balance the interests of both the tenant and the local authority. I think the noble Lord quoted a different figure there. Then in paragraph 59 the Brownlie Report says: A number of authorities carry this differentiation into their rebate schemes by fixing different minimum rents for the various sizes and types of houses, with the consequence that the rebated rent depends on the type of house occupied as well as on the tenant's income. Then it goes on to argue the two methods: one, the noble Lord's method and the other the method that I have just quoted, and it seems to come down on the side of the minimum rent. It says: a majority of us consider that it is reasonable to vary rebated rents according to size and amenity, but we recognise that this may not always be possible. It follows that different minimum rents may also be fixed for houses of different size and amenity. That is the broad problem here.

The position of the Government on this matter is that the provision that minimum rents may be proportional to the standard rent is necessary to take proper account of the variation in types and sizes and amenities of houses and the value currently placed on such considerations. So far as that is concerned, in paragraph 62 the quotation that I have already read indicates our position. The reasoning behind this conclusion is that people expect, and are accustomed to pay for every other commodity according to considerations of size and quality, and there is no reason to exclude housing from this basic economic principle. At the same time the Government believe that the figure of 40 per cent. contained in the rebate scheme represents a fair way of taking account of variations in standard rent and will not cause any hardship to individual tenants.

Of course it is the case that special considerations apply in the case of a tenant whose money income does not increase at all from one year to the next. But he will be catered for by the regular review and uprating of the rebate scheme by the Secretary of State, which can be done by regulations under Clause 17. This will cover the needs allowance as one of the things that can be varied, and that is something that is related, directly or indirectly, to supplementary benefit ratings. Apart from that, these are probably the less common cases, since average incomes can be expected to continue to rise. That being so, there does not seem to be any good reason why people should not continue to pay a proportion of their rising incomes towards a proportion of the rise in house values and rents. After all, they are expected to pay for the value of other things. Values change for housing just as for other things and it seems odd that rents should be fixed and should be the only item of expenditure to be fixed in this way. With regard to the tenant whose income remains the same from one year to the next—in other words, a tenant who is becoming progressively worse off —he will in fact, because of the rise in the needs allowance under the scheme, have a progressively smaller proportion of his income taken into account for the calculation of his rebate each year, and this will go to offset the worsening of his position. We have already seen the effect of the process of uprating supplementary benefit. This Bill contains needs allowances which were uprated by Amendments made in another place; in other words, they have already been changed once to take account of increases in the supplementary benefit scales announced in the last Budget. For example, the needs allowance for a married couple with two children was increased from £18.50 by £1.75 a week. The effect of this is more than sufficient to offset the increase in rebated rent which would otherwise occur if the standard rent were raised by 50p.

I hope your Lordships will bear in mind that this principle in the model rent rebate is not just an innovation. It was a cardinal feature of the rent rebate scheme introduced in the Scottish New Towns by the last Labour Government, and I will quote an example from the rebate scheme operated by the Cumbernauld Development Corporation. A married couple with no children whose income in 1968 was £24 a week—let us assume that they occupied a three-apartment, three-person house with a standard rent in 1968 of £95—were required to pay a rent of £93, representing a rebate of £2. In 1969 the standard rent was raised to £109 and the rebated rent, far from remaining constant at the level of £93, was raised to £104. That was an increase in rent net of rebate amounting to £11. In 1970 the rent was raised to £123 and the rebated rent payable by the tenant in question, assuming the same income, was raised to £116, a further increase in rent net of rebate of £12.

Thus, there is nothing new in this and we feel that the principles on which we have based this model scheme are better adapted to the needs of the people and to their feeling that where they can they should pay their way and to what extent they should pay their way. We think that this is a better scheme than the one the noble Lord was advocating and I hope that your Lordships will agree with us in this contention.

LORD HUGHES

I have not the slightest doubt that the majority of your Lordships will agree with the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, but not, I submit, because the case has been made. The noble Lord had not even listened to all I had said, because he quoted figures from the New Town Development Corportion Scheme at Cumbernauld. He completely ignored what I had said about the acceptance of that and similar schemes. That scheme was what the New Town wanted. We did not want it. After all, I had scrapped a scheme of that kind in Glenrothes seven years earlier. The then Government did exactly the same with the scheme that was put up by my colleagues for Glenrothes as we did later on with the Cumbernauld scheme. It was a scheme which the Government did not like but which they accepted because it was what the New Town wanted.

It seems obvious that as I wasted so much of my time putting this matter forward on the last occasion, there is no point in my going over the ground again now. It is clear that the Government do not want to alter their proposal. When they think that there is a possibility of adducing an argument, they bring it forward. Otherwise they ignore what we say and do not even bother to answer our case. Brownlie is a case in point. The noble Lord quoted Brownlie, but that was 10s. plus 17 per cent. I apologise for giving the wrong figure when I quoted 15 per cent. That was the figure in the Minority Report. The Government have chosen a percentage approximately half-way between the majority and minority Reports and have hit on 17 per cent., but Brownlie did not have a second variation in the minimum rent. It was really 10s. The Government are making that minimum rent anything from £1 to £3 depending on where the 40 per cent. lands. That is a greater departure from Brownlie than anything I suggested, but despite that the noble Lord praised Brownlie in aid. It is appropriate that we should record where we stand on this matter, and during dinner we can reflect on how little we have influenced one another.

On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 49) shall be agreed to?

[The Sitting was suspended from 7.13 p.m. to 8 p.m.]

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 51: Page 70, line 1, leave out ("£2.50") and insert ("£4.00").

The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 51, to leave out £2.50 and insert £4. This is the first of the exclusions from income to which I wish to refer, the disregards. It concerns, in the case of a married couple, £2.50 of the earnings of a woman who is either the tenant or the tenant's wife. I propose that there should be inserted £4 instead of £2.50. The amounts deducted or disregarded in various present day rebate schemes, which are schemes perhaps going back at least three years, vary between £2 a week and £4 a week. There has been some talk about incentives. I do not put forward any argument on the basis that if the allowance is so much a woman may go out to work, and if it is so much less than that she will say: "It

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 30; Not-Contents, 53.

CONTENTS
Arwyn, L. Greenwood of Rossendale, L. Shackleton, L.
Beswick, L. Henderson, L. Shepherd, L.
Blyton, L. Hoy, L. Shinwell, L.
Burntwood, L. Hughes, L. Slater, L.
Champion, L. Kennet, L. Snow, L.
Crook, L. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs. Summerskill, Bs.
Davies of Leek, L. Maelor, L. Walston, L.
Gaitskell, Bs. Milner of Leeds, L. [Teller.] Watkins, L.
Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.] Popplewell, L. Wells-Pestell, L.
Granville-West, L. St. Davids, V. Willis, L.
NOT-CONTENTS
Aberdare, L. Elles, Bs. Mountevans, L.
Ailwyn, L. Elliot of Hanwood, Bs. Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]
Balfour, E. Emmet of Amberley, Bs.
Barnby, L. Gainford, L. Northchurch, Bs.
Belstead, L. Goschen, V. Nugent of Guildford, L.
Berkeley, Bs. Gowrie, E. Polwarth, L.
Bethell, L. Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.) Reigate, L.
Brabazon of Tara, L. Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.
Brooke of Cumnor, L. Hanworth, V. Selkirk, E.
Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs. Hawke, L. Sempill, Ly.
Brougham and Vaux, L. Headfort, M. Somers, L.
Colville of Culross, V. Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.) Stamp, L.
Cowley, E. Killearn, L. Stonehaven, V.
Cranbrook, E. Kilmany, L. Sudeley, L.
Crathorne, L. Latymer, L. Tweedsmuir, L.
Cullen of Ashbourne, L. Limerick, E. Wakefield of Kendal, L.
Daventry, V. Macleod of Borve, Bs. Young, Bs.
Denham, L. [Teller.] Mansfield, E.
Drumalbyn, L. Milverton, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

is not worth my while; I am not going out to work", because I do not think that is the way these things operate. In most cases a woman goes out to work for one of a variety of fairly common reasons. One is because the family income is not enough and it has to be supplemented; secondly, although the couple might be able to manage on the husband's earnings they want a higher standard of living and the wife's earnings help to make that possible, whether in the shape of a washing machine, a television set, a holiday abroad, or whatever it may be. Then there is the third reason, that the wife, as is increasingly the case, wants to be just as much an individual in her own right as the husband, and if family circumstances permit her to go to work and earn money she wants to do so. These are all proven, sound reasons for this taking place.

I suggest that by disregarding only £2.50 of the earnings of the woman we are in fact not making adequate allowance; when one considers that the earnings figure taken into account is the gross figure, the difference between the gross figure and the take-home pay probably in most cases absorbs almost the whole of the first £2.50 in any event. Without making too long a story, I think that £4 is a much more reasonable amount to disregard at present wage levels. I therefore beg to move.

LORD DRUMALBYN

One can make out a case, of course, for any particular figure, but the point about the £2.50 disregard is that this is rather more than the Brownlie Committee recommended; they recommended it should be £2. It is really intended to help with such things as household help and travel costs, and so on, by the wife who goes to work. I think this is probably a reasonable figure and it is in line with the other disregards. It is very difficult to decide on anything of this kind, but this seems to us to be the right figure in the circumstances. I am afraid one cannot say more.

LORD HOY

The noble Lord says we cannot say any more; but if the figure has to meet travel costs, they are very considerable indeed to-day. Anyone who lives in any town knows that on a short journey each way per day you can certainly spend thirty shillings or a couple of pounds. Anybody who lives in London knows it, and I know this applies to Scotland. If you take a short journey from here to Gloucester Road once a day it would cost you £1 a week. When the noble Lord advances the argument that this is meant to make allowance for travel and help, if you deduct the travel expenses there is going to be very little help out of what remains from this £2.50. I would have thought that in these days of increasing fares the noble Lord would say that the Government will look at this again. There is no great Party opinion on it, no great divide; but as £2.50 seems so abysmally small I would have thought that, even in self-defence, if the noble Lord does not agree with my noble friend's Amendment he would meet us half way in an honest endeavour to help every person who has to travel, without taking account of home help at all.

LORD DRUMALBYN

The point is really that we are taking into account the earnings of a man and his wife, and the question is, how much is it reasonable to disregard from the earnings of the wife. All one can say here is that the disregard we are proposing is higher by 50p per week than the current disregards in the rebate schemes. I should be glad to discuss the point, but in view of the fact that we should obviously require to have a national arrangement I think it is very unlikely that we would depart from this amount. I cannot hold out a great deal of hope that we would depart from it, but in view of what the noble Lord has said, I should be quite prepared to discuss it. But it seems to me that an increase of 50p on the existing practice is not unreasonable.

LORD HUGHES

Except that the Brownlie Report is dated 1970, and considering the time they took to go through this matter there is probably a lapse of almost 2½ years since these figures were drawn up. We know, for instance, that the increases which have taken place in that time alone would justify the figure going from the Brownlie £2 to the present £2.50. But I am not founding on Brownlie, although if the noble Lord wants to make that the case I am happy to do so. When we come to some other figures the Government cannot found on Brownlie, and we shall be interested to see, if the fact of being a little more generous than Brownlie is the basis in this case, why in others the Government are very much less generous than Brownlie. It might be quite useful at this stage to let it rest on a comparison with Brownlie, as the noble Lord is inviting us to do.

Just before leaving it on that point I should like to follow up what my noble friend Lord Hoy has said. Even in the smaller, compact centres of population like Dundee or Aberdeen, where the distances to be travelled are not nearly as great as may be the case in Glasgow or Edinburgh or with people living in industrialised counties, where both a man and a woman may be travelling fair distances to work, on a five day week, assuming that the woman was travelling to work in the morning and not going home until night and on the basis of my own local fares, which incidentally are predicted to be going up later this month because the estimates show a deficiency of something like £300,000 to be recovered by increased fares, a morning and evening journey will cost at least £1 a week. If the woman is not coming home for lunch it will be another £1 a week for lunches at the factory or some little eating-place close to work. On these two items alone we get a minimum of £2.

These are not the only items which the Government are perhaps taking into consideration in making this disregard. The one thing that is obvious is that what may have seemed a reasonable figure in 1970 has become increasingly unreasonable during the last two years or so. The Minister, while not being very hopeful, has not totally turned down the suggestion of having a look at these figures. I appreciate that they are the same in both Bills—the Housing Finance Bill and the Housing Financial Provisions (Scotland) Bill, and obviously the Government could not alter them in the Scottish Bill without having the devil of a row on their hands if they did not alter them in the other Bill as well. It is quite reasonable for the noble Lord to say that he would want to look at it in a United Kingdom context rather than a purely Scottish context. Because I am rather interested in the Brownlie comparisons, without committing myself more than the present stage. I beg to withdraw—

LORD DRUMALBYN

Before the noble Lord does that—

LORD HUGHES

The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is determined to stop me from withdrawing Amendments at the point I first want to do so and then he twits me for keeping the thing going.

LORD DRUMALBYN

I think I should make it clear that the comparison is not really involved with the earnings less travelling expenses, because, after all, any single woman, or anyone else, has to pay the travelling expenses. The difference between a wife being at home, cooking and so forth and looking after the house, and a wife going out to work means that they have to pay the higher cost of convenience foods and that sort of thing. It is more in line with that kind of extra expense that the disregard is made. I thought it right, before the noble Lord withdrew his Amendment, that we should not assume, so to speak, that this disregard was in order to cover the costs of travel, because it is not really intended for that. It is intended to cover the extra costs that are involved by going out to work as compared with staying at home.

LORD HOY

I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, should produce two arguments in two speeches. It was the noble Lord himself who chose travelling expenses as an example. He said that these disregards covered travelling expenses and other help. Those were his words. Now he says we should disregard the travel argument altogether —the very argument he put up in defence of them. That is one more very good reason why he had better have another look at this matter before we get to another stage of the Bill.

LORD HUGHES

With the permission of your Lordships, and the special permission of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.15 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 53: Page 70, line 16, leave out ("£2.00") and insert ("£4.00").

The noble Lord said: I do not think I need press this Amendment because there are words added to the Bill which give the local authorities discretion, if they wish, to disregard the whole of a disablement pension. We have just dealt with Amendment No. 51. Amendment No. 52 is the one about disablement pensions.

THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY)

Is the noble Lord not moving the Amendment?

LORD HUGHES

I will move it. The Government are giving discretion to local authorities, if they feel so inclined, to disregard the whole of a war disablement pension. I cannot see any logic in this. Why should an industrial disablement benefit be restricted to such a small sum as £2 if a war disablement pension can be disregarded in its entirety? My Amendment suggests that this should be £4 instead of £2. This would not interfere in any way with the discretion given to a local authority to ignore more than £4, up to the total of the war disablement pension, if they felt so inclined.

Once again my reason for moving this Amendment is that I think the sums are niggardly. They do not really make adequate allowance for the circumstances which they are supposed to take care of. A person may be disabled because of a war injury or perhaps equally severely disabled because of an industrial accident and the circumstances are very largely the same. There is a greater sympathy for the war disabled pensioner, and it is a sentimental one with which I do not think I would disagree. This was something arising out of special service to his country, and he has been given an award by the Government to compensate for the injury he received. We have nearly reached the position that a person disabled in another form of service to his country in helping to keep industry moving, and who suffers in this way and. gets industrial disablement benefit, is being treated in the same way. If the whole of a war pension can be disregarded, it seems to me to be unreasonable to confine these other ones.

I would suggest that it is reasonable to do as I have done in this Amendment and make it £4 or to give a discretion to the local authority over (1), (2), (3) and (4) rather than confine it to the war disability pension. Either of these courses is acceptable. Perhaps on reflection the second one of giving a discretion is the better way of dealing with it, because it might well be that the authorities then would exercise their discretion only in those cases where they felt there was a very strict comparability between the circumstances of a civil injury and a war disability. If the Minister, in replying, were to indicate that either of these courses was more susceptible to favourable consideration, then I would be willing for that to be so. I am not fixed to either of these two ways of doing it.

At the time I put down the Amendment, I thought really in terms of the amount being totally inadequate, and it was only after I put down the Amendment that I later noticed the opportunity to have a total disregard. I think if I had seen them both at the earlier stage my Amendment would have been to have a total disregard all round. I hope that the Minister, under the influence of dinner, will be a little more forthcoming on this item than he was earlier on. I do not know who is going to answer this Amendment, but as the noble Lord Lord Polwarth, is smiling and the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, looking most uphappy, perhaps I can guess. He is smiling now. I hope that either way we can get something that is a l[...]title more reasonable than this £2. I beg to move.

THE EARL OF BALFOUR

There is one question that I should like to take the opportunity of asking here. A man who has been disabled by the war, or has suffered an industrial injury, may be living in one of the houses specially built for disabled people. Going by my own county's estimate, instead of the house costing, say, £4,000, it could end up by costing £4,500. Obviously, in reaching our aim to get economical rents, a house costing £4,500 is likely to have a rent slightly higher than one that costs only £4,000. All I ask is that somebody who is forced into a wheelchair should not, in any circumstances, in future revisions of these figures (which I understand and hope will be annually reviewed), and who is living in a more expensive house because of his disablement, will not be penalised by having to pay a rather higher rent. I only ask that the Government should bear this in mind in considering this Bill in future.

LORD DRUMALBYN

I am grateful for the thought that my noble friend puts into our minds here. If it should be that there is a more expensive house with a more expensive rent especially adapted to a disabled person, I take it that under Clause 18 it would then be possible to make grants in view of the personal or domestic circumstances of the individual. Of course it would not follow that the rent of a specially adapted house was higher merely because the capital cost was higher, because the market for specially adapted houses might be a somewhat narrow one. However, that is rather a special point.

I come now to what the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has said. I am bound to say here that we have to keep in line with what is done under other disregards, and there is in particular the disregard in the supplementary benefits scheme, which also disregards £2 of the £4. This is a payment towards the specific items of expenditure which may be involved, as well as a compensation. But here we are concerned with a payment which is undoubtedly a payment in assistance of income, and we are dealing with income in the calculations, and the question is how much one should reasonably disregard. While having the utmost sympathy for war pensioners, it seems to me that a £2 disregard similar to the supplementary benefit disregard is probably the right way of dealing with this particular calculation. I hope that the noble Lord will not find that this is in any way hard-hearted, because this is the general way in which war pensions are treated from this point of view. I hope that in those circumstances he will not feel that he should press the Amendment.

LORD HUGHES

I believe I am right in my statement that in another part of the Bill an Amendment was accepted in another place to enable a local authority to give total disregard of war disability pensions.

LORD DRUMALBYN

That is not quite so. What Clause 18(5) says, is: Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (3) and (4) above,"— which deal with the right to vary model schemes subject to the consent of the Secretary of State— an authority may, subject to the consent of the Secretary of State, vary the provisions of Schedule 2 to this Act so that in ascertaining the weekly income of the tenant and his spouse there is a total disregard of war disablement pension and special widow's pension. That means that the local authority may, with the consent of the Secretary of State, give a total disregard of war disablement pension; but this is merely making it quite clear that that is so, and it would not prevent their making application to do the same with other forms of benefit because of the words, Without prejudice to the generality of subsections (3) and (4)". They could still do so with the consent of the Secretary of State. It is not necessarily limited to the war disablement pension and special widow's pension.

LORD HUGHES

I am not sure that the noble Lord is right in that. If he would care to look at the discussion in another place on this subject he will see that there was considerable disquiet on all sides of the Committee about the war disablement pension being disregarded to the extent of only £2. Amendments were put down on this matter by both Oppo- sition and Government Members. Eventually the Government decided to accept an Amendment. I rather think the successful Amendment was one moved by one of the Edinburgh Members, but I would not be certain about that. If in fact under other provisions a local authority could apply to the Secretary of State for permission to disregard the whole of a war disablement pension, why did the Government add this particular part to the Bill? Could I stop at that point and hope that it is helpful?

LORD DRUMALBYN

The point here is that the Secretary of State has given an assurance to the Royal British Legion that he will give a general consent under Clause 18 to any local authority which wishes to give—as many do at present—a total disregard to these pensioners. Perhaps I could just add to that that the terms of Clause 18 make it quite clear that subsection (5) is without prejudice to the generality of subsection (3) and (4). I can assume, therefore, and I think the whole Committee can assume, that subsection (5) is put in simply to reflect the assurance that the Secretary of State has given, that if an application is made to him for a variation of this kind (and it is permissive for the authority to do so) the Secretary of State will not withhold his consent. This is the point about it. I am not saying that if applications are made for variations in respect of other special categories the Secretary of Stale will withhold his consent it still remains permissive. If application is made the Secretary of State will consider it, but in the absence of a special provision such as subsection (5) he will not automatically give his consent as he has undertaken to do to the Royal British Legion.

LORD HUGHES

This is a rather unusual course which the Minister has explained to us. It is the first time, in my recollection, that we have reached a position where a Minister has given an assurance to Parliament that an Act will be interpreted in a particular way. We have already discussed assurances of this kind and I have had to rest content, as is normally the position, on the assurance being given that this is the way things will be done. We are now told that the British Legion have been placed in an exceptional position. The Secretary of State has assured them that any application of this kind will be granted and, having given them such a firm assurance, the Secretary of State pays so little regard to his own assurance that he then goes beyond it and says, "But I will write into the Bill to make it absolutely clear that when I say I will disregard this I am binding myself to disregard it."

However, leaving that aside, if the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is giving me the assurance that in other individual cases, such as the industrial disablement benefit, it is open to a local authority to apply for the consent of the Secretary of State to a greater disregard than the £2 which is laid down in the Bill, then I am quite content with that and will be prepared to withdraw the Amendment. I will be content with the assurance and will not ask for it to be ensured by being written into the Bill.

LORD DRUMALBYN

All I can say is that that is most certainly my understanding. As the noble Lord knows, I have been involved in the English Bill and, so far as I can see, the only difference in principle in the Scottish Bill is the inclusion of subsection (5). Of course, it has to be understood that whatever consents are given come within the 10 per cent. optional addition to the standard amount of rent rebates or rent allowances, as the case may be, which may be given by the Secretary of State, and also include personal and domestic circumstances where they are exceptional. So the whole lot have to be included in this 10 per cent. option. No doubt the Secretary of State would take that into account in considering whether or not he would be justified in giving his consent. Perhaps I should remind the Committee—and I think the noble Lord has already mentioned this—that the Amendment to which the noble Lord referred was not a Government Amendment; but because it gave useful publicity to the claims of this category it was thought on both sides to be especially deserving. That was the view taken by the Committee in another place.

LORD HUGHES

Obviously I must accept what the noble Lord said about the Amendment not being a Government one. But it was certainly an Amendment which was as strongly supported on one side of the Committee in another place as on the other side, and if the Government had not yielded they would obviously have been defeated. So they then decided that discretion was the better part of valour, with the result that this provision is included. Of course we have not yet come to Clause 18. I do not consider that the 110 per cent. maximum is a satisfactory figure, and I have down an Amendment to vary the figure. But whether it is 110 per cent. or another figure, one of the reasons for allowing a variation of the total amount is to make it possible for payments of this kind of be made without reducing the benefits in other directions. I accept that it is reasonable to put in a limit of some sort and, while I am not agreeing that 110 per cent. is reasonable, I agree that these extra discretionary payments which the Secretary of State may be asked to agree to—and in some cases will agree to—will fall within the permitted margin.

The noble Lord has been not unhelpful in this matter, and I am quite certain that local authorities who are well disposed to people in this category will probably seek to take advantage of what has been said here. I am sure that in at least the most deserving cases, which are regarded as being, say, on a par with a war disabled pensioner, an application will be made to the Secretary of State on their behalf, and I hope that the Secretary of State would look upon such an application in exactly the same way as the noble Lord has looked upon the matter to-day. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.37 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 53: Page 70, line 16, leave out ("£2.00") and insert ("£4.00").

The noble Lord said: This Amendment has to do with a widow's pension. I should like to ask whether the generality clause applies here also, without prejudice. If the circumstances of a widow were exceptionally hard, would an authority be able to apply to the Secretary of State for permission to disregard £3 or £4, rather than £2? Can the noble Lord direct his mind to that aspect? I beg to move.

LORD DRUMALBYN

Where a local authority is taking into account exceptional personal and domestic circumstances, it will not need the consent of the Secretary of State in a particular case. It is where a local authority is considering groups of people, in such a way as to require them to vary the provisions of Schedule 2, that the consent of the Secretary of State will be required. So it is quite open to a local authority to take into consideration special personal and domestic circumstances. But I doubt whether the mere fact that a person was a widow would be regarded as very special. She might well have special personal circumstances, but I doubt whether a local authority would use Clause 18(1) in the way the noble Lord suggested; that is, to give a higher rent rebate to widows as such.

LORD HUGHES

I was concerned not with subsection (1) of Clause 18 but with subsection (5), because subsection (5) has to do with a total disregard of war disablement pension and special widow's pension. In paragraph (h), which includes a war disablement pension, we have the last sub-paragraph saying: any payment which the Secretary of State accepts as being analogous to a payment mentioned in sub-paragraphs (i) to (iii) above". The paragraph which we are now dealing with is (i), and that has three sub-paragraphs: (i) is a widow's pension;(ii) is a special widow's pension; and (iii)is: any payment which the Secretary of State accepts as being analogous to a payment mentioned in sub-paragraph (i) or (ii) above … So the analogy in (h) is to provisions which include a war disablement pension and industrial disablement benefit, and the analogy in (i) is to a special widow's pension and a widow's pension under Section 19(3) of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act. It was because of what the noble Lord said on the first that I thought there was merit in asking whether a local authority could apply the same sort of thing in relation to this second one, and if I were assured that it could be (not that it necessarily will be, but that it could be) covered by the same principle, I would not need to take the matter any further.

LORD DRUMALBYN

I am not really quite clear now in my own mind what the noble Lord is asking us to do. We are here dealing under paragraph (2)(i), first, with a widow's pension under Section 19(3) of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965; secondly, with a special widow's pension, which means a war widow's pension; and, thirdly, with analogous payments. As to analogous payments, of course one can quite see that there may be cases where a widow does not get an industrial injuries pension but where the circumstances in which she lost her husband might be very similar thereto. So there is an analogy there; and I dare say there are similar cases for war widows' pensions. But, here again, we are adopting the same principle as we did in the case of supplementary benefits, and I think it would be rather unsafe to depart from that. I think I ought only to add, though, as the noble Lord has asked about it, that subsection (5) of Clause 18 would not prevent the Secretary of State giving his consent to a variation of the model scheme in Schedule 2 to increase the disregard in any case, if a local authority proposed it. Subsection (5) does not prevent it from doing so.

LORD HUGHES

I think that is possibly as far as we can take that at this stage. It is not quite so good as the previous explanation, but it is sufficiently good to enable me not to press the Amendment any further at this point. I would therefore beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.43 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 55: Page 70, line 32, leave out ("£2.00") and insert ("£4.00").

The noble Lord said: The total disregards under these three paragraphs—I am sorry; have we missed Amendment No. 54? Amendment 54 concerned the voluntary payments. We have missed that one, have we not? It should have been Amendment No. 54 next. However, I will let that go. I will not move No. 54, but will take No. 55. As the Biil stands, not more than £2 can be disregarded in total. I suppose it is theoretically possible that a woman who was in receipt of a widow's pension might also be in receipt of an industrial disablement benefit for herself. In that case, I am not absolutely certain in my own mind why she should in fact, as it were, have to choose which one she should get, because she is not going to get both. I know that she does not have to opt, but what in fact she is being told (or he is being told if it is a man who is concerned) is, "You are entitled theoretically to £2 under this, you are entitled to £2 under this and to £1 under that, but you are not going to get it all; you are going to get only £2 in total". One of the things which occurs to me is that you might well have a woman who is in receipt of a widow's pension and who is getting, a voluntary payment of, say, £1 a week from a married son or a married daughter; and on that basis she would be allowed a disregard of only £2. This seems to me to be a direct incentive to dishonesty, because the son says, "I am not going to give you the voluntary payment, but I will come up with a parcel of groceries now and again". I beg to move.

LORD DRUMALBYN

Whatever this may be thought to lead to, the fact remains that the £2 total disregard is the same as that which is used for supplementary benefit purposes. I am afraid it would he very difficult to depart from that. All I can say, once again, is that where there are special personal or domestic circumstances then the local authority will be able to use its powers under subsection (1) of Clause 18 to increase the disregard.

LORD HUGHES

I think that, as far as voluntary payments are concerned, the effects of this will probably be to put an end to them in many cases—on paper, at any rate—and there are other parts of the Bill where we will get similarly unsatisfactory cases. I should have thought that, whatever aggregation there might be under (h) and (i), there was at least a case for disregarding any voluntary payments which were made under subsection (1); and, in any case, to bring that down as low as £1 seems to me to be quite unreasonable. I think one of the better things of life as it is today is that not every member of a family totally disregards elderly parents, particularly when they are in straitened circumstances. Unfortunately, there are too many cases where no assistance is given at all, and I think we ought in fact to be encouraging members of families to contribute to the upkeep of their parents in circumstances like these and not to be taking steps which would in fact discourage it, or alternatively lead to it being done by subterfuge or in an underhand manner. However, it does not look as if the Government are going to be at all helpful on this. If it were not for the time, I think I would have divided on this, but what I think I will do, in the hope that the Government might have some further thoughts at least on this voluntary payment, which I think is the least defensible part of this set of figures, is to beg leave—

LORD DRUMALBYN

Before the noble Lord does that, I think that perhaps I ought to say this. As he may recall, my right honourable friend the Chancellor said in his Budget Statement that the Government have under consideration the whole question of the complex of benefits which are available at present. The point is that in drawing up these model rent schemes at the present time it seems right and proper that the rent rebates and rent allowances should conform with the other schemes, notably the supplementary benefits scheme, so far as practicable in the meantime. If I remember rightly—I think this is right —the £1 voluntary payment has been the same since it was first introduced in the National Assistance Scheme, and no doubt this is one of the benefits which is being looked at—it is not quite a benefit, but it is one of the disregards that is being looked at by the Government at the present time.

LORD HUGHES

Is there any possibility that the Chancellor's arm might be jogged in relation to voluntary payments so that something may be done about it before we finally dispose of this Bill and the English Bill? If this has stood since the beginning, then obviously it is hopelessly outdated at the present time. I must admit that I am not familiar with the benefits and disregards under the Supplementary Benefits Scheme. If the noble Lord has to fall back on comparison with the supplementary benefit provisions as a justification for these provisions then, without having seen the other provisions, I conclude that they, too, are poor and obviously need reconsideration also. It does not make these provisions good to equate them with other provisions which are not in themselves good.

LORD DRUMALBYN

The needs allowances have been built up from the supplementary benefit basic scales. They are much higher because they take into account a number of other factors but there is a close correlation between the two.

LORD HUGHES

I have reached the point where I am trying to tie things more firmly to voluntary payments—voluntary payments which ought to be encouraged. The Minister and his financial colleagues might, "without prejudice to the generality" have a special look at that particular matter. It is a good thing if, in the context of this Bill and of any other comparable legislation, we are taking steps to have sons and daughters accept that there is special merit in contributing to the support of their parents. It is something which is always praised where we know it happens; and we condemn the fact that in the vast majority of cases it does not happen. As the Bill stands, we are encouraging the minority to go the way of the majority and to say that it is not worth while giving your mother £2 a week when in reality you are giving £1 to the Chancellor of the Exchequer or to the local authority or to a combination of both. I intend to withdraw the Amendment, but I make a special plea to the noble Lord that, without complicating things in other directions, voluntary payments might be given a special kindly look. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.53 p.m.

LORD HUGHES had given Notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 60: Page 72, line 9, leave out ("1.50") and insert ("1.00").

The noble Lord said: I have discovered that I ought to have moved Amendment No. 56 which is tied to Amendments Nos. 61 and 70. When I come to Amendment No. 61 I will remedy my omission. In the case of Amendment No. 60, paragraph 12(5) of Schedule 2 reads: The deductions from a rebate or allowance in respect of non dependants are for each week … for each person aged 18 years or more, but under pensionable age and neither undergoing full-time instruction at an educational establishment nor in receipt of supplementary benefit … £1.50;

My Amendment is to substitute the figure of £1 for the £1.50. May I draw the attention of the Committee to its effect? Under the scheme there is worked out the amount of rebate that a family is entitled to if they have a working son or daughter under the age of 18. The amount of rebate the family will receive is reduced by £1.50 for each one of these. These are the cases I have in mind and where comparison with Brownlie is so niggardly. What Brownlie suggested was that if the working son or daughter was aged 18 but under 21, £2 would be deducted from the amount of reckonable income. Brownlie proceeded to take 20 per cent. of the difference. This meant that for the son or daughter aged from 18 to 21 the reduction in rebate would be 20 per cent. of £2, which is 40p a week. That compares with the Government's proposed deduction of £1.50. If the son or daughter is aged 21 or over, the Brownlie recommendation was £4. Taking 20 per cent. of this, produces a deduction of 80p a week compared with the Government's £1.50.

When I put down the Amendment of £1, I looked at this in the wrong context. I thought, along the Brownlie lines, that this referred to a deduction from income and not from rebate. In putting down the figure of £1, I was relating this to my own Amendment to take account of 25 per cent. of the reckonable income. The effect of that would have been to decrease the amount of rebate received in respect of a working son by 25p a week. Having thus misinterpreted the position, I find that I have put down an Amendment which I am not prepared to support. I am not prepared to propose a deduction of £1 a week; though that makes me not quite so bad as the Government, for think the Government position on this is appalling.

It is not fashionable to make references to the means test, although some people in their objections to rent rebates generally have spoken of their being a form of means test. This is a case where the Government are bringing in a principle which is likely to take us back to the inequities of the means tests of the 1930s. If, because of the presence of a working son or daughter the possibility of decrease is too high then (at least on paper) the son or daughter goes to live somewhere else. Because there is a son aged 18 or over living in the house, the family lose their entitlement (assuming they have one) of more than £1.50. This is going to encourage evasion. Now we are bringing in something which, having regard to the changing values of money, is not quite so bad, but it would have this affect. I have moved this Amendment to enable me to point out just how bad the Government scheme is, but I now beg to withdraw the Amendment. I should hate to vote for it if the Government forced it to a Division because it is there in error. At Report stage I propose to put down an Amendment which will in fact do what I thought this was going to do. I must have put it down late at night and on the following day I discovered that it was not as I intended. So, with the permission of the Committee—I beg your Lordships' pardon; the Amendment has not yet been moved.

THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD CHAMPION)

I was going to say, after all that, that all I have to say is, "Amendment not moved".

9.0 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 61: Page 72, line 21, leave out paragraphs 13 and 14.

The noble Lord said: I should have spoken to this matter on Amendment No. 56; Amendments Nos. 56, 61 and 70 are all on the same point. Amendment No. 56 for example—I shall have to put it that way as we have passed it—relates to page 71, line 23, to leave out paragraph 10. This is what I regard as an iniquitous provision, that the minimum rent shall be variable by the inclusion of 40 per cent. I cannot in any circumstances let it pass. It is in complete contradiction to Brownlie and all the better schemes in operation at present. Amendment No. 61, to leave out paragraphs 13 and 14, is again on the subject of the minima and the maxima. If the amount of the rebate is less than 20p the authority may or may not grant a rebate or allowance as they think fit.

I do not know whether it is because of the influence of decimal coinage, but we are getting to the position of looking at 20p as being something of no cones- quence; but if 20p is regarded as four shillings it begins to look like money. In many cases 20p is something which matters to some of these poor families, and to encourage local authorities—that is what it amounts to—by saying they can ignore it if they think fit, is not a good thing. Similarly, if the amount of rebate or allowance would exceed £6.50 the excess shall not be granted. I am not so worried about this because, even with the Government proposals, there will not be many cases in Scotland in the near future, at least not among occupants of local authority houses, where a rent rebate of more than £6.50 is likely. It may well be that in the near future allowances of more than £6.50 in the private sector may be fairly common because rents have risen very appreciably in that sector.

I started to say that they have risen, because in the field of decontrol we already know that very high rents are being obtained for some rented accommodation. I do not like any of these provisions and so I beg to move Amendment No. 61, to leave out paragraphs 13 and 14. I should then refer to Amendment No. 70 in Schedule 3 which, if I remember rightly, is on the same line—to leave out paragraph 8: It shall not be the duty of an authority to alter a rebate or allowance … if the alteration would be equal to or less than 20 new pence. I see that in two of these cases the local authority is not precluded from making the allowance. An authority may, or may not, grant it. But in the case of the maximum they are not even given a discretion; they are told that it should not be granted. Therefore I beg to move Amendment No. 61.

LORD POLWARTH

May I deal with the first part of the first Amendment, about disregarding the amounts of less than 20p? As the noble Lord has said, this is entirely discretionary. This provision makes it possible for local authorities to disregard amounts of less than 20p per week. I understand that this provision was incorporated into the Bill at the request of the local authority representatives who were consulted at the drafting stage. I know that at some stages in the Bill the local authorities are the "good boys" whom we must not stop from being generous, and at other stages they are the "bad boys" and we must ensure that they do more than they are strictly obliged to do. But I think that they are fairly impartial in this matter, and as it has been included at their request and is purely discretionary, the Government feel that it is not unreasonable to include this provision, so as to avoid unnecessary administrative work. There is nothing to prevent local authorities from giving this concession where the amounts are below the figure but they are not obliged to do so.

I turn to the maximum rebate of £6.50, which is mandatory. This is simply a "long-stop" provision designed to prevent what might be a real abuse of the scheme arising mainly in the private sector, for some fair rents may be very high because of the high quality of amenity or location. It would be wrong to give an unlimited subsidy from public funds to a tenant living in luxury accommodation, whatever his assessed needs. I should have thought that this figure was adequate as a ceiling at the present time and, like other figures in the Bill, it is liable to review from time to time. Therefore it is the view of the Government that this top figure, which is a long-stop figure, is not unreasonable in present conditions.

LORD HUGHES

I am not sure that the term "long stop" in the private sector, if it implies something in the future, is so far away as that. I can well imagine circumstances where it could be desirable to continue an elderly person in accommodation which has perhaps been his or her home for 40 or 50 years. How cruel it would be to turn that person out just because the rent had reached so high a level. However, all I want to add at this stage is this. The noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, rather pulled my leg on the basis that local authorities are sometimes regarded as being good because they are being generous, and sometimes they are regarded as bad because they may not be generous. But that is the position. Unfortunately, we have not yet got rid of all the Tory councils, and so we do have some bad ones.

LORD HOY

I do not think one ought to treat flippantly this allowance of 20p, because, after all, at the end of a year it means £10 in rent, and £10 can mean a lot to a considerable number of people in this country. We have not become quite so blasé about money, I hope, that £10 does not count. If you teach people to believe that, then we shall be in real difficulty. What we take slight objection to is this. Here are the Government saying to the local authority: "If only £10 a year is at stake you really do not need to pay attention to it unless you care to." Surely this is not correct—unless the noble Lord is saying that £10 does not matter, and I am sure he is not. If we all come to the conclusion that £10 a year is a considerable sum to people who are paying rent, then I think the rule should apply. What I find a little invidious is that having said, so far as that kind of tenant is concerned, that it does not matter, the Government then turn to the other end of the scale and say: "No matter what you, the local authority, like, if the rent is going to exceed £6.10 you will ignore it."

The noble Lord must know that in the capital city, which we both know well, there has been a considerable development in what I term and what he knows to be high-rent houses. It may well be that in the older parts where a family may have been reared, as my noble friend has said, they have gone on paying this. It will be very difficult at the end of the day. Let us suppose a case where an old lady has reared a family and in the course of time the members of the family marry and she is left on her own. Are the Government saying that, whatever the rent may be—and, as the noble Lord knows, rents can be high in our city—no matter what contribution she has made, the local authority will not be permitted to go beyond that figure, even if as a result she is forced out of the tenancy? Because that is what it means. One really cannot be adamant about these things. That is why I say that if the Government want to give all this latitude to local authorities at one end, they might devise some system at the other end where cases of this kind could be taken care of. Surely it is not asking too much of the noble Lord, unless he has found an answer from some other place, that he would be prepared to look at it and see whether something can be done about it.

LORD HUGHES

Paragraph 14 says: If the amount of a rebate or allowance as so calculated would exceed £16.50 the excess shall not be granted. Does this debar a local authority from making application to the Secretary of State for discretion to grant more in this case? I should have thought that this was so definite that the Secretary of State himself could not vary it.

LORD POLWARTH

May we come back to the two halves of this question? There is the 20p a week, and I agree that when it is translated into a year's rent, £10 is not inconsiderable. I think it is very much a question of balance whether the local authorities should have this discretion. They have asked for it for administrative purposes. On the other hand, I should imagine and expect local authorities to act responsibily in this way. In view of their request, we felt it right that they should have this latitude. I do not imagine that they will use it in such a way as to cause hardship. That is why we have adopted the provision.

As regards the £6.50, I am not certain that I absolutely comprehend the operation of this point but I think I do. In an exceptional case, I understand that a local authority's discretion under Clause 18(1) or (2) of the Bill would enable them to give a larger rebate or allowance than £6.50. For instance, in this typical case the noble Lord has cited of the old lady who has lived in the family home for a long time and clearly should not be forced to move, the only qualification is that the £6.50 would not qualify for subsidy. I understand that this is the position: it can be exceeded on this basis in individual cases.

THE EARL OF BALFOUR

I think there are several things to be taken into account. One is that a person's wage can fluctuate quite a lot from week to week. I do not think that a local authority should necessarily alter the rent rebate scheme up or down, particularly when it is in very small figures. That is surely the reason why just the 20p was put in. That is my view, and I think that is the attitude of the local authorities. If I may also speak to the next Amendment on the list, No. 62, I feel it is important for the local authority to have that power. I know that in many a case we are desperately looking for a four or five-apartment house for a big family and the greatest difficulty that we sometimes have is in encouraging someone to move into a smaller house. There may be just one or two people involved. So that is one reason: we have this difficulty of trying to encourage people to move. It is not something that a local authority wants to do, but it is a fact that sometimes we are limited in our efforts when we are trying to provide for larger families. I think this is the reason why the provision was put in.

LORD HUGHES

The drawback about that last speech by the noble Earl is that we have only reached Amendment No. 61.

THE EARL OF BALFOUR

I am sorry: I thought that I might be saving the Committee's time.

LORD HUGHES

What with my moving four Amendments late and the noble Earl speaking to an Amendment which is one ahead, we seem to be in danger of getting into difficulties. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, actually answered my point about the mandatory nature of this provision. He said, that if this were done it could only be as a rate-borne piece of expenditure and anything over these figures would not rank for grant. Now this opens up a totally different field. Does it mean that in any of these directions a local authority can go beyond what is in the Bill provided that it is prepared to foot the bill itself at the ratepayers' expense?

LORD POLWARTH

Within the 10 per cent.

LORD HUGHES

Within the 10 per cent. is for grant purposes. Is the noble Lord certain that the difference between 100 per cent. and 110 per cent. is at the ratepayers' expense?

LORD DRUMALBYN

The grant is paid on the standard amount of rebates.

LORD HUGHES

In this case, that is all that they could do, then; but could they do that, in view of the fact that this is one of the cases where it says that the local authority may not grant a rebate? It does not say that the excess shall not be granted. This would seem to rule out the possibility of granting it either as subsidised expenditure or as non-subsidised expenditure. I can see the point, which is that you do not want a situation where for some extraordinary reason somebody lives in an enormous mansion so that without a "stop" a local authority, no matter what they thought, would be able to grant a ridiculous amount of rebate. The obvious solution is that the person ought not to be living there, because that person cannot afford to live there himself or herself, and the community cannot afford to keep him or her there in those circumstances; so they must become accustomed to a different set of circumstances. There must be something along these lines; but obviously whatever line you draw, whether it is £4.50, £6.50 or 03.50, at some point there will be marginal cases where it would be a hardship to apply something as mandatory as this.

What I think would take care of this would be to have words added to this provision along the following lines: If the amount of a rebate or allowance as so calculated would exceed £6.50 the excess shall not be granted unless with the consent of the Secretary of State"— so that there is a way out for the exceptional case to be dealt with. I invite the noble Lord to consider something along these lines. It could be two-way, implying that first of all the local authority must want to do it and therefore apply to the Secretary of State for consent. You would have two safeguards. The excess would not he paid unless a local authority asked permission to do it, and it would only then be paid if the Secretary of State was in agreement with the local authority that this was the exceptional type of case where something beyond this point might he agreed to.

If the Minister could take that aboard, we might try to find something along these lines for the next stage, which preserves the wide safeguard that enables the door to be opened case by case in those individual instances where both the Secretary of State and the local authority think that there is justification for doing so. If the local authority do not think that anything should be done they will not apply. If they apply and the Secretary of State does not agree with them it still will not happen. So this proposal is obviously capable of being kept to the cases of very special consideration where hardship would result from the imposition of this rule. The Minister has been making encouraging nods about considering the matter, so on that basis I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

9.22 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 62: Page 73, line 10, leave out paragraph 17.

The noble Lord said: Paragraph 17 is one to which there has been considerable opposition by local authorities, and others. The paragraph reads: 17.—(1) For the purposes of the computation of allowances, the foregoing provisions of this Schedule shall be modified in accordance with sub-paragraph (2) below.

(2) It shall be the duty of every authority, for the purpose of computing the amount of an allowance—

  1. (a) if they consider that the tenant is in occupation of a house larger than he reasonably requires, or
  2. (b) if they consider that, by virtue of the location of the tenant's house, its rent is exceptionally high by comparison with the rent payable under comparable private tenancies of similar houses in the authority's district,
to consider whether they ought in all the circumstances to treat the rent as reduced by an appropriate amount, and if in their opinion they ought to treat it as reduced, to grant an allowance only in respect of the rent as so reduced. This is the point to which the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, has already spoken. I would not be prepared to argue that there are not circumstances in which this provision might not appear to be reasonable. Accordingly I have had two "goes" at it. I have Amendment No. 62, which is to leave out the whole of paragraph 17, and then Amendments Nos. 63 to 66, which are an alternative way of dealing with it, but which are not so wide reaching.

May I refer to Amendment No. 63? I take out the words: It shall be the duty of every authority and I go back to what the Government do in other parts of the Bill and say An authority may". To say: It shall be the duty of every authority is more or less an admonition by the Government, "This is what you ought to do". Where you say: An authority may that is putting it much more firmly into the discretionary court, where the local authority are being encouraged to follow their own inclinations in the matter.

Amendment No. 64 is to leave out the word "or" in line 16 of page 73.

Amendment No. 75 is to leave out subparagraph (2)(b) in line 17. Amendment No. 66 is to leave out the first "to" in line 21. This means leaving out the second leg. Sub-paragraph (b) says: if they consider that, by virtue of the location of the tenant's house, its rent is exceptionally high by comparison with the rent payable under comparable private tenancies of similar houses in the authority's district, This is something which is almost impossible to work. I do not have the same objection to the first one, if they consider that a tenant is in occupation of a house larger than he reasonably requires, because, after all, local authorities have been operating that kind of procedure in relation to their own houses over a period. Generally speaking, they have not operated it harshly. They have encouraged people, particularly where the authority have a need for the larger type of house, to move from a larger house to a smaller house, and it is a better way of making the best use of available housing resources. I would not want to stand in the way of that being done in the private sector any more than in the public sector.

However, I think that this business of saying, "You know, if you are getting a rent rebate of this kind you ought not to be living in Morningside; you would be much better in Leith Walk" is going just a little too far. Or, to take it to Dundee, "Oh yes, Stockwell's all right, but do not go to Maryfield because there the houses are a bit too good for a person of your class and you cannot afford to be there, and ought not to be there." That is how the second leg is going to work out in practice. It is introducing, perhaps quite unintentionally, something which in operation could be quite offensive. If the wording is altered to, "an authority may" instead of, "It shall be the duty of every authority" it is not, perhaps, quite so likely to happen. I can imagine quite a number of authorities who, even with the words, "It shall be the duty of every authority", will not act on this provision because it is not mandatory as it stands; it is emphasising in one direction rather than in another. I would nevertheless want the emphasis to be a little less definite, and I certainly think that leg (b) ought not to be proceeded with. I beg to move Amendment No. 62, but particularly commend to Ministers the alternative form, Nos. 63 to 66.

THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD CHAMPION)

If Amendment No. 62 is agreed to, of course I shall not be able to call the four following Amendments.

LORD DRUMALBYN

The noble Lord says that he thinks this Amendment might give results which were offensive—

LORD HUGHES

Not the Amendment.

LORD DRUMALBYN

I am sorry: this paragraph. We are dealing with something here which is often disagreeable, but I should not have thought it was offensive. The fact of the matter is, which we must all recognise, that it is possible that a person may have his earning capacity changed; he may not he rated as highly from the point of view of earning capacity as he was at one time; or he may have been over-rated in the first place and have housed himself in a certain district where the rents are high; or he may be occupying a house that is larger than he would normally require. It would surely be wrong for the public, whether by taxes or rates, to be called on to keep that person in accommodation which is in excess of his needs. My noble friend said on an earlier Amendment that he might actually be occupying a house which a large family could make good use of, and it might be well in excess of his own needs. All these cases arise. They are disagreeable for the individual. But there is an obligation on the person concerned to move rather than be sustained by public funds, if he can move without undue hardship. All that the paragraph says is that: It shall be the duty of every authority, for the purpose of computing the amount of an allowance—

  1. (a) if they consider that the tenant is in occupation of a house larger than he reasonably requires, or
  2. (b) if they consider that … its rent is exceptionally high by comparison with the rent payable under comparable private tenancies of similar houses in the authority's district,
to consider whether they ought in all the circumstances to treat the rent as reduced by an appropriate amount". They do not have to do it but it should be their duty in those circumstances to consider it. They should not entirely overlook it because it might represent an abuse. It might represent a wasteful use of housing resources—this only concerns private housing.

We are talking here of rent allowances, not rent rebates. Therefore, it seems that it is not unreasonable to expect the local authority to consider whether they ought to treat the rent as reduced by an appropriate amount. It does not compel them to do so. The Government in no way intend that the provision should be used as an automatic means of forcing particular categories of tenants, such as old people left on their own, to move to smaller houses, or of forcing those whose income suddenly drops for one reason or another—perhaps even temporarily—to move to another area. In normal circumstances the intention of the allowance scheme is precisely to help such people. For example, if a widow is living alone in a large house where she has brought up a family and she is too old or infirm to move to a smaller or a less expensive house, the local authority will be able to grant her a rent allowance on the amount of the full rent. The paragraph only requires the local authority to consider whether, in all the circumstances, they ought to pay a lower allowance, and in such a case the local authority might feel that it ought not to reduce the allowance.

The local authority should consider these matters. I would just point out that, while I am not quite certain about the Scottish Bill, as the English Bill was originally drafted these words were not contained in it. The authority was given a duty to treat the rent as being reduced by an appropriate amount, and it was to meet this case and to give the local authority a discretion in this matter that the words, to consider whether they ought in all the circumstances were introduced in another place. So we have gone a long way and I hope that what I have said will be sufficient to enable the noble Lord to withdraw the Amendment.

LORD HUGHES

Very nearly. The noble Lord spoke throughout as if we were considering only the first of these Amendments, No. 62, which would have had the effect of taking out the whole paragraph, whereas I indicated that I was expressing a preference for the second set of Amendments, which would have left in the first of the things to which the noble Lord said the local authority ought to give attention; namely, where a person was living in a house bigger than he actually requires—and he quoted his noble friend Lord Balfour as saying a house which might more appropriately be occupied by another family. When I spoke to the alternative Amendments I agreed with that point of view. This has already been done by local authorities over the years. It was called "decanting" and is an accepted principle which, applied with discretion and kindness, does not need to cause any hardship.

That point did not worry me. It was the other point, saying, "You are living in an area which is beyond your means"—not that the house is too big, but because it is located in spot "A" rather than spot "B" and perhaps carries a rent of £1 or £1.50 more than it otherwise would. This can be very difficult, but even if the Government are not prepared to omit that, I can now understand why the words "it shall be the duty of every authority" are there. If the last four lines were not there, there would be considerable pressure for local authorities to act in this way, but the addition of the words at the end take it much more definitely into the field of complete discretion for the local authority. In these circumstances, I think it is more appropriate that the clause should start with the words, "An authority may" instead of, "It shall be the duty of every authority". Notwithstanding the last four lines, this conveys the impression that this is what an authority should do. By adding the lines at the end, the Government are not saying, "This is what an authority should do", but are merely saying, "This is what an authority should consider" When the matter is considered in that context, it becomes clear that the initial wording was more appropriate and that in another place they added lines at the end without noticing the nature of the first words of the provision. This is rather like the first Amendment that I had accepted when the Committee spent two and a half days taking out the word" six in one place and leaving it in in another.

While I do not intend to press the matter further now, I hope that the Government will consider the full effect of the words that have been added to ensure that the opening words, "an authority may" are given their full value. With this in mind, I will table an Amendment in that more modified form on Repart, which is the least that one can do to make it clear that this is a wholly discretionary Part of the Bill and not a provision in which the Government are indicating something that should be done mandatorily. With those words, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule 2 [Subsidies for New Town Corporations]:

On Question, Whether Schedule 2 shall be a Schedule to the Bill?

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

Although I do not wish to delay the Committee at this hour, I feel obliged to ask the Government to try, in arriving at the needs calculation, to take all payments—supplementary benefit, social security, National Health Service, pension and the rest—into account when fixing rent rebate schemes and allowances so that there is a common standard. If this is not done people like county and district councillors, clergymen, social workers and others who are anxious to help people to determine what allowance they should get will not have a common standard by which to make such calculations. Under past legislation unfairness has been created because people have not known how to claim their rebates or payments or otherwise have found it difficult to arrive at a calculation because of the amount of secrecy which seems to have surrounded the processes involved in reaching those calculations. It has been difficult for people like myself, ministers of religion, social workers and others to help people to know, at any rate roughly, to what they are entitled.

LORD DRUMALBYN

I do not think any real difficulty of that kind need arise. If, when the Bill becomes an Act, people read it, especially this Schedule, they should find no difficulty, so long as they are prepared to give the facts on which these calculations can be based. If those facts are available, any of the people to whom my noble friend referred will be able to help tenants arrive at the same results as the local authority will by calculation.

THE EARL OF BALFOUR

And if the person is getting social security benefits, will he get the same sort of allowances? That was the problem.

LORD DRUMALBYN

This is a rather difficult and complex matter. The fact is that so far as the supplementary benefit is concerned, if anybody gets full supplementary benefit, what will happen will be that his supplementary benefit will pay for the minimum rent and the rest of the rebate will be borne on the rent rebate scheme or rent allowance scheme as the case may be.

On Question, Schedule 2 agreed to.

Schedule 3 [Rebates and Allowances: Procedure]:

9.42 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 68: Page 75, line 31, leave out ("be under no duty to").

The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 68 and 69 are to be taken together to convey the full sense of what I want to do: page 75, line 31, leave out "be under no duty to"; and page 75, line 32, leave out "unless" and insert "provided". The whole object of these Amendments is to change the emphasis. As the Schedule stands, it reads: An authority shall be under no duty to grant a rebate or an allowance unless they are satisfied that the applicant has furnished all such information and evidence as they require for the purpose of determining whether he is entitled to a rebate or an allowance". What I am proposing does not really affect the sense of the thing at the end of the day, but it invites the local authority to look at the matter slightly differently. It would then read: An authority shall grant a rebate or an allowance provided they are satisfied that the applicant has furnished all such informaion and evidence as they require for the purpose of determining whether he is entitled to a rebate or an allowance.

The difference between these two approaches is that my line of approach is saying to the local authority, "If everything is all right, you should grant the allowance". The Bill as it stands says, "Unless you are absolutely satisfied that everything is all right you shall not grant the rebate or allowance." Given two authorities with the same sort of approach to the problem it will not matter very much whether you do it one way or the other, but if you have an authority whose inclination is to keep down expenditure as much as they possibly can, the form of words as it stands might well put them in a position when they can say, "We shall not be able to stop this person from getting a rebate at the end of the day, but at least we can put off the evil day for another four or six weeks, and if we do this in a sufficient number of cases the saving at the end of the year will be a tidy one." The other attitude is that provided everything is all right the authority must go ahead and grant the rebate or allowance.

Earlier on, I decided not to move the previous Amendment, which was to insert the words "as speedily as possible". I decided not to do it because I thought that if the second form of words was taken, that would take care of the matter and I felt, on second thoughts, that the vast majority of authorities would deal with these issues quickly. There would not be deliberate delay, and therefore to add the words "as speedily as possible" was perhaps being gratuitously critical of local authorities, even bad ones, even the Tory ones. I think this second way is quite a reasonable way of doing it. Provided they are satisfied with all the information they get, it shall be their duty to make the awards. I beg to move.

LORD DRUMALBYN

The noble Lord makes the Amendment sound persuasive. There are difficulties. I would agree that the Amendment would make no legal difference to the meaning of the paragraph, but that again is really neither one way nor the other. I would draw the noble Lord's attention to the actual drafting of sub-paragraph (2). In saying that, "An authority shall be under no duty" and so on, it deliberately modifies the specific duty in sub-paragraph (1), line 17, it shall be their duty … to determine whether the applicant is entitled to a rebate or an allowance". So that this is a qualification; it is not a substantive proposal; the substantive proposal is in sub-paragraph (1). This Amendment would make the qualification less clear and might raise the question whether it would be right to leave line 17 unaltered. Also, there is the point that the Amendment would positively prevent a local authority from granting a rebate if they were not satisfied that all the information had been supplied. As the Bill stands, the authority is under no duty to grant a rebate but they could in exceptional circumstances grant one where all the information had not been supplied.

Perhaps I may put this in another way. Under Clause 15, it would be the duty of every local authority to bring into operation a rent rebate scheme or a rent allowance scheme before October 1, 1972, and January 1, 1973, respectively. Paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 gives any tenant a right to receive a rent rebate or rent allowance provided he qualifies under the rules in the Schedule and applies for it. If he qualifies under the rules in the Schedule and applies for it, under paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 3 he has that right, and that sub-paragraph places the authority under a duty to determine the amount of rent rebate or rent allowance to which the applicant is entitled, if any. Sub-paragraph (2) makes it clear that the authority is relieved of that duty if an applicant fails to provide the information and evidence that the authority are obliged to request in writing under paragraph 2(1). The present wording, therefore, seems more logical, and I think right.

I agree that the Bill does not say anywhere else that the authority shall grant a rebate, but what I have said makes it quite clear that they have this duty. If a person is entitled to the rebate, then the local authority plainly must grant it as it is, so that the change is really not necessary. It would almost certainly involve another change in the previous subparagraph. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will not think it necessary to persist with the Amendment.

LORD HUGHES

I must admit that I am very disappointed. I thought this was almost certainly one of those briefs that had at the top "Refuse, but agree if pressed". I think when the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, gets a brief of that kind he only reads the word "Refuse". It is on the big points we can sometimes get the noble Lord to move; when it comes to the little points he seems to have a special delight in digging his heels in and saying, "No". Quite honestly, I cannot see that he has made any case at all for rejecting this Amendment. There is a reference to what it appears to be the authority's duty to do, subject to the qualifications of paragraph 2. It does not alter that qualification in any way to put it in the form that I have stated—that an authority shall grant a rebate provided they are satisfied. I cannot believe for one moment that the noble Lord's first line of argument, which I am now dealing with secondly, is a more binding restriction on them than saying that an authority shall be under no duty to grant unless they are satisfied.

Obviously if a local authority are not satisfied with the wording I have suggested they are not going to do it. If it is on the basis that an authority shall be under no duty to grant an allowance unless they are satisfied, obviously if they are not satisfied they are not going to grant it. In either case, if they think they have not got all the information, or have misleading information, they will follow up the matter further before acting on it, so that the end result is the same. It is merely a question of the way in which the authority are being encouraged to go—an encouragement that their primary duty is to grant, except in certain circumstances, rather than saying that they are not under an obligation to grant unless certain conditions are fulfilled. The earlier part is all leading on to what the authority must do, and then suddenly we switch to this basis the other way round. While the actual form of words throughout may be the same, I am quite certain that my alternative form of wording is much more in keeping with the obligations which are being placed on the local authorities at the other stage.

If we had been considering this at ten minutes to 4 o'clock instead of at ten minutes to 10 o'clock I think I would have divided on it, because although it is not a major point, in my view the Government are unnecessarily sticking on it. I will therefore beg leave to withdraw the Amendment, but I ask the noble Lord to have another look at this when he is feeling good and, therefore, is more favourably inclined to feel that this is something which could be conceded. On reflection he will perhaps find that the difficulties of the draftsmen are not the difficulties which would worry either Ministers, Opposition Members, local authorities or laymen.

LORD DRUMALBYN

Again before the noble Lord withdraws his Amendment, I really must say that I simply do not agree with him. I am not an expert on this, but I do not agree with him that the meaning is quite the same, although it appears to have no legal change. There is the practical change, and I think he is attaching too little weight to the real argument, the valid argument that I put forward. Nevertheless, I am quite prepared to have another look at this. It may be that we will not actually accept his words but will find others.

LORD HUGHES

That is not unreasonable. If the noble Lord has a look at it in this way, he may find that he agrees with me to a certain extent and that this matter can be improved. It has swung just a little too much in the wrong direction. I would be quite content to leave it on the basis that the noble Lord would see whether an alternative form of wording might be produced by the Government for the next stage. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

9.55 p.m.

Clause 18 [Extent to which authorities may depart from model schemes]:

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 71: Page 19, line 37, leave out subsection (6).

The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 71, to leave out subsection (6): The powers conferred by this section shall not be exercised by any authority in such a way that, on the best estimate which they can make, they are likely as a result to grant a greater amount of rebates or allowances than 110 per cent. of the authority's standard amount of rent rebates or, as the case may be, their standard amount of rent allowances for any year or part of a year. There is a second Amendment and, as the noble Lord, the Deputy Chairman of Committees will tell us, if Amendment No. 71 is carried then Amendment No. 72 cannot be moved. Amendment No. 72 is to continue this provision, but substituting 125 per cent. for 110 per cent. I do not in fact intend to move the second Amendment because, in the light of what was said earlier on, anything over 100 per cent. falls on the local authority and is not subject to grant. I must admit that I had not realised that this provision was merely giving permission to spend up to 10 per cent. of their own money and was not giving them any authority to spend any Government money in the matter. I should therefore wish to take this Amendment out altogether.

If an authority feels so strongly that the Government's scheme is not sufficiently good that it is prepared to go beyond it at its own expense, then having regard to what this Government have said so often about local authorities being allowed to make up their minds for themselves and not to be dictated to by central Government, I can see no reason for imposing a restriction to 110 per cent. in this matter. I thought that the reason for the 110 per cent. was that the Government were saying, "Very well then, the standard amount of rent rebates will be the basis in all normal circumstances for the amount of subsidy that you will get. But if, in exceptional circumstances, there are these other cases which lead you up to a figure not exceeding 110 per cent., the whole of that will in fact be eligible for subsidy."

What the Government are now saying is that in no circumstances are they going to get subsidy on more than 100 per cent. If there are variations in the scheme, and having regard to the circumstances in the area and the number of individual cases —there might be an area in which the proportion of disabled people was perhaps greater in relation to the total population—then 10 per cent. might not be enough to take care of them. Therefore the authority might have to say to certain people, "We should have liked to disregard the whole of your disability pension, but we cannot do so, even at our own expense, because of the restriction that is imposed on us".

I think that to impose a restriction of this kind in these circumstances is a needless interference with the discretion of the local authority. We had been encouraged until 1970 to believe that the attitude of the Conservative Party was that local authorities were responsible people, who ought to be entrusted with the opportunity of making decisions which were appropriate to their own area. Now they are being told that it does not matter what they think, the Government are going to impose this limit of 110 per cent. Honestly, I can see no justification for it, if the former arguments that local authorities should be given maximum discretion still have any validity for the Government. If they are completely abandoning that principle, then this subsection is not unreasonable.

We on this side have been accused frequently in the past of not wishing to allow local authorities to exercise their powers, and more than once this afternoon I had to explain that we allowed local authorities to operate rent rebate schemes which we thought were poor and even rotten. But because at that time it was for the local authority to decide what form its rent rebate scheme —if it had one—should take, we did not interfere. Now this Government, in matters of this kind, are going much further than we ever contemplated doing between 1964 and 1970, and if we did not do it ourselves when we were the Government I see no reason why, when we are the Opposition, we should encourage the Government to do something which flies so much in the face of all that they themselves have said in the past. I beg to move.

THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD CHAMPION)

As the noble Lord said, if this Amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendment No. 72.

LORD POLWARTH

In moving the first of his Amendments to remove completely the ceiling on the amount which the local authority can apply, the noble Lord attempted very persuasively, rather unobtrusively and almost convincingly to drive a carriage and horses through one of the main provisions of the Bill. Even if he had fallen back on his second Amendment to limit the increase over the standard amount to 25 per cent., I could still have described that as driving a carriage and pair through the Bill. This is not just a case of meeting obvious hardships and special circumstances. The objection to these Amendments is that they would allow an authority to reduce, or in some cases to nullify, the effect of rent increases made in accordance with the provisions of the Bill, by granting massive rebates to all, or to large categories, of its tenants. As the amount of these in excess of the model scheme would be unsubsidisable, that would impose a substantial burden on an authority's ratepayers and would be another way of getting back to the present system, by which tenants receive an indiscriminate subsidy from the rates, without any guarantee that individual tenants whose need was greatest would receive special help. We conceive this to be a complete misuse of resources and contrary to one of the basic principles of the Bill.

It may be argued that the Amendments are needed because 10 per cent. is not enough to allow local authorities to take account of special circumstances. The Government's view is that the rebate scheme contained in the Bill represents fair treatment for tenants with a wide variety of personal circumstances. It is accepted, however, that perhaps not all local circumstances can be taken into account by this provision. That is why there is also provision for exceptional rebates to individuals and for variations in the provisions of the scheme. We had some discussion earlier about some aspects of this matter. Acceptance of the Amendments would also tend to produce unfairness as between tenants of different local authorities.

The noble Lord made considerable play of the freedom of action of local authorities, but that is all right in the right place. One of the troubles in the past has been the different attitudes taken by different local authorities, resulting in quite different effects on tenants who simply happen to live in different districts. Here, again, we feel that this Amendment could produce unfairness. One of the great advantages of the national rent rebate scheme proposed in the Bill is that throughout the country the help to tenants will be reasonably uniform, and that is something which, basically, noble Lords opposite support. If there were wide disparities between rebate schemes in different local authorities, much of this benefit would be lost. It is on these grounds that I must ask your Lordships to resist this Amendment.

LORD HUGHES

The noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, is really saying that local authorities can exercise their discretion in various matters provided that the Government agree with the way in which they so exercise their discretion; otherwise, they must do as they are told. I have here a quotation which is not relevant to this particular subject but which says: The independence of local authorities has been seriously eroded by …Ministers. On many issues, particularly in education and housing, they have deliberately overridden the views of elected councillors. We think it wrong that the balance of power as between central and local government should have been distorted, and we shall redress the balance and increase the independence of local authorities". I think that is a perfectly reasonable statement of view, but I have missed out one word. I missed out the word "Labour" before "Ministers", because this is what appeared in the Election Manifesto of Mr. Edward Heath—A Better To-morrow. It was he who said that Labour Ministers had done these things: but by leaving out the word "Labour it is a perfect description of what this Government have been doing to local authorities, particularly in these two fields which the Prime Minister chose for his remarks in 1970—education and housing.

Once again, we have a Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, saying, "Oh, yes, but we cannot allow a local authority to do this because it wants to; this is a case where it is right that the views of elected councillors shall be deliberately overridden by Conservative Ministers". In these circumstances, it is quite obvious that noble Lords opposite are not free agents in this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, said that I had been persuasive, but obviously not quite enough. But even if I had been that little bit extra persuasive and had convinced noble Lords opposite. nothing would have happened; the Amendment would still have been rejected. I think the only useful purpose that this has served is to demonstrate once again that the attitude of the Conservative Party as Government to local authorities is totally different from their attitude when they are in Opposition. When they are in Opposition, with local authorities resides all wisdom, and in disagreeing with them central Government are wrong; but when the Tories become the Government, local authorities are not to be trusted at all in certain fields unless they are agreeing with central Government. We are at complete odds on this. We could spend hours in interesting but totally fruitless discussion on it. In these circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment: I have no greater desire than anybody else to keep on bashing my head against a stone wall.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 18 agreed to.

Clause 19 agreed to.

Clause 20 [Duty of landlord to inform tenant of particulars of allowance scheme.]

10.9 p.m.

LORD HUGHES moved Amendment No. 74: Page 20, line 25, at end insert—("Where he continues in such neglect he shall be liable to a fine not exceeding £5 for each day the neglect continues.")

The noble Lord said: I suppose we are probably reaching about as far as we intend to go to-night. I do not know what the Government's views are on that; but Amendment No. 74 is a probing Amendment. This is the clause which deals with the landlord informing his tenants of the particulars of the allowance scheme. Subsection (3) says: Any landlord who refuses or wilfully neglects to perform a duty imposed on him by subsection (1) above shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £50.

That, in itself, is quite satisfactory. What I had doubts about is what happens if a landlord, having been taken to court and having been found guilty of this offence, still does nothing about it. I believe it is the intention of the Bill that that should not be the end of the matter and that he could be charged again and fined a second or third £50 until he had been punished sufficiently to see the error of his ways. At first glance it looks as if this would depend on whether there was a date inserted in the charge; and that if he is merely being charged with "having neglected" or if the charge were in the form of the wording of this subsection, it seems that he could not be charged a second time because under ordinary law if a person has been dealt with once in connection with an offence he cannot be charged with the same offence; that it must be a subsequent offence.

My Amendment takes the form of saying that if the landlord persists in his refusal or neglect he will be liable to a fine of £5 for every day that the neglect continues. That may not be the best way to deal with it. It may not be necessary to do so. What I want to make certain is that the Bill does not put the landlord to whom it would be worth more than £50 to take no action, in the position of saying, "I have been fined £50. I am not doing anything else about it. What are you going to do?" As the Bill stands, if it permits subsequent charges to be made against the man who persists, then my Amendment is not necessary and I should be happy to withdraw it. I want to make certain that the matter can be pursued to the point where information is made available to the tenant. I beg to move.

LORD DRUMALBYN

First, we would regard this as a penalty which would rarely have to he imposed for the good reason, as the noble Lord indicated at an earlier stage, that it is to the advantage of the landlord to get a full rent. This means that where he has a tenant who has difficulty in paying the rent, the tenant will be able to get assistance towards paying it. This is to the advantage of the landlord. Secondly, the noble Lord will have noticed that the offence is of refusing or wilfully neglecting to perform the duty imposed upon the landlord by this clause. He will be convicted only if he has refused or wilfully neglected; and this will have to be proved. If the noble Lord's Amendment were accepted, it would be necessary for the court to determine when the negligence had started and when it had ended, if it had ended—he may have done this for a period before being brought to court

LORD HUGHES

I must interrupt the noble Lord. He is not understanding—

LORD DRUMALBYN

I am coming to that point now.

LORD HUGHES

But the noble Lord seems to be arguing along the line that my Amendment would require the time that the original offence had started. That may be the effect of what I have moved, but what I have in mind is that the first offence having been brought to court and charged and nothing done, the subsequent offence would be punishable, not by a fine of £50, but by £5 per day, and that would be from a point of time. I had in mind that obviously there would have to be an interval of time. If fourteen days after his conviction he still had not done anything, it would be from that point at which the fine of £5 per day could be imposed.

LORD DRUMALBYN

I quite understand that, and the noble Lord is quite right in what he says. But the particular point he wanted to be sure about—I gather he did not necessarily adhere to his Amendment—was that the landlord would comply in the end, and that the mere fact that he was convicted would not allow him to go on refusing or neglecting. The short answer is that he can again be brought to court—it is a different offence. In other words, if he refuses or neglects again he is committing an offence of refusing or neglecting to provide the information. In such a case I should imagine, that were he the landlord of several premises, the next time the prosecution would be sure that they got hold of the other cases in which he was refusing or neglecting to provide information and they would bring several charges together.

I do not think that the noble Lord need worry about the daily charge, although I quite agree that it has some presentational advantages in dating the neglect from the time of the first conviction, if he is convicted of neglect, to the next time. But I think, apart from anything else, that the mere fact of the court proceedings would be "notour" as they say in Scotland, and that being so, it will be well known. In any case, the tenant would be getting information in that way and the landlord would be punished for having refused or neglected to give it before.

LORD HUGHES

The noble Lord said that it is to the advantage, in the case of a landlord whose tenant is not able to pay the rent, that he should be aware of the allowance scheme so that he may get an allowance and the landlord will be in a better position to collect the total amount of money. Obviously that is the case. Yet the Government felt it necessary to put in the clause a provision that there might be circumstances where a landlord considered it was not to his advantage to make his tenant aware of these provisions, and did not do so. We have the assurance of the noble Lord that despite the wording of this provision it would not prevent a second charge being brought against the landlord for that particular property or set of properties. I may say I did not like the way in which the noble Lord brought in the fact that the landlord might own a number of properties, and others might be latched on to make it a totally different charge. That took away from the benefit of what he said earlier, as if it needed a greater number of properties to make the charge stick the second time. I have in mind what the noble Lord said on the first point. It reassured me that even if there was only one property on which a charge had been brought and a conviction obtained and the landlord persisted in refusing to give the information, he could be brought to court and charged again and again, if need be, on the same offence until he toed the line. With that assurance I am content, and I beg leave unimpeded to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 20 agreed to.

House resumed.