§ Lord ELTONMy Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. We stand on the brink of the holiday. It is an invidious task to stand between your Lordships and the freedom of the countryside and I shall endeavour to be brief, but your Lordships will, I am sure, agree that this small but none the less important and humane piece of legislation should not receive only scant attention. The Bill is concerned with residential caravan sites, of which there are 5,000 licensed, and among those 1,700 have residential plots or pitches with something between 170,000 and 200,000 residents in them. It is not, therefore, a small question affecting a small number of people.
Your Lordships will doubtless have seen numerous of these settlements from time to time and have noticed that they vary from, on the one hand, a rather idealised suburban situation in the middle of the country—not so much rus in urbe as urbs in ruri—and, on the other hand, something that looks like a rather rundown gypsy encampment. In both types the interests of the parties concerned—that is to say, the site owner on the one side and the home occupant on the other—while potentially in conflict are in fact interdependent. The site owner without the home occupant would have a field worth a great deal less than it now is in capital terms, and a very much reduced income. On the other hand, the home owner without the site owner would have nowhere to live. Each party can abuse his position. The occupant, by flagrantly anti-social activity, can degrade the character of the site, and indeed by failing to maintain a factory-made dwelling he may enable it to slide gently but rapidly into the condition of a slum, and that is to the detriment not only of the site owner but also of his neighbours. On the other hand, the site owner, by overcharging or harassment or interruption of service, or by other means, or even by eviction, can from a stronger position exert a stronger influence to the detriment of the occupant of the home.
The homes of which we speak are not simply caravans. I hope to disabuse the mind of any Member of your Lordships' House who believes they are. They may 1509 be caravans, but they may also be much more elaborate and commodious. In fact, a two-unit mobile home, factory constructed, is something which arrives on a lorry and is lowered by a crane on to the four corners which form its base. It may have for its occupants between 700 and 800 square feet of floor space, which is equivalent to, or rather larger than, many two-bedroomed bungalows. It is connected to the site by a sort of umbilical collection of drainage and plumbing and electricity lines, maybe gas as well.
Supposing somebody in one of these habitations is told overnight that he must leave; supposing, being reluctant to leave, he is forced to leave; or supposing his own personal circumstances are such that the initiative conies from him—he may have been posted from let us. say, Devonshire to, let us say, Scotland, and he must go. In those circumstances, if the occupant has no agreement defining his relationship with the site owner and the site owner says, "Remove your mobile home; prove its mobility, and vacate the site. I want to let it again ", what is he to do? There is a waiting list as long as your arm for most of these sites. The thing is not inherently mobile, in spite of the name by which it is known. All he will have on his hands is at the best a parking obstruction and at the worst a public nuisance. Therefore the site owner can offer a ridiculously small sum to the occupant of the mobile home. He can also profit from a change of occupancy of a pitch by a forced sale, either by buying cheap and selling to a new owner at a realistic price, or buying cheap and selling to a holiday site and replacing it with a new unit bought from the factory, on which he gains a handsome commission. Indeed, he may also charge a premium to the new arrivals on the site. This is a question which your Lordships will want to look at fairly closely, and I cite it merely as being one of the principal reasons for the need of regulation.
Like almost all good legislation, this Bill is an attempt to find an equitable balance between legitimately opposite but complementary interests. The preparation and consultation which have gone into the drawing up of this Bill and its passage through another place have been no mean accomplishment. I have heard criticism in the corridors of your Lord- 1510 ships' House of the speed, not with which it has traversed the other place but with which it has traversed the corridor between another place and this House. I ought to say that this is by design rather than accident, and I accept the responsibility for it.
I do not think that the speed is excessive for a Bill which has been under consideration since last November and for which the Committee stage is not expected to be before the 20th of next month. But we arc, as any who have read the Economist over the last few weeks will have realised, in a legislative log jam, and any Private Member's Bill which loses time in its progress in this House cannot possibly expect to get Government time in another place, and therefore would stand a very real risk of being lost in the Dissolution. Since this is a Bill, as I said before, of some importance, and also of some expense since it is not supported by an outside body but merely with the £200 allowance to the sponsor in another place, I feel, for many reasons, that it would be a great pity if that were to come about. If there are any points which your Lordships wish to raise with me before Committee stage I shall be only too delighted to discuss them with you.
I shall briefly, because I believe it is the convention, summarise the contents of the Bill. The first clause imposes a duty on the site owner to offer a written draft agreement to the home occupant. Under this clause we shall take a closer look in the Committee stage at one particular aspect, which is the apparent necessity of granting an eight-year agreement for mobile homes which may have a life which is visibly less. The second clause imposes a duration of five years, extendable at will on the part of the occupant under Clause 3 (c) on the agreement, or a shorter period if the interest of the site owner expires before that or if his planning permission expires before that.
The third clause—and a crucial one—consists of a recitation of the matters which must be made explicit in the agreement. This is not an inclusive list and it is important to understand that other matters may be brought in specifically, and indeed should be brought in specifically by the parties to the agreement, though they cannot be, I believe, and I should not expect them to be, in contradiction of 1511 anything already in the clause as specified. The method of charging and the frequency of reviewing the amounts of charges made by the site owner is one area upon which I may wish to detain your Lordships briefly at Committee stage, as I believe it may be possible to improve on the formula at present laid down under Clause 3(d) and (e).
Clause 4 provides for the resolution of disputes arising out of either the unreasonable failure of either party to make an agreement, or disagreement under the terms of the agreement itself. I have had notice that some of your Lordships may wish to consider further both the advisability of permitting the appointment of an arbitrator other than the court for such purposes, and also the wisdom of asking the court to give judgment in some matters upon which the Bill gives it no guidance. These points we shall consider in Committee, and our considerations will doubtless be the more lucid and rapid if any of your Lordships who wish to advance a new position will let me know in advance. Clause 5 deals with the case where a party to the agreement dies, when the successor in title to the site owner, or a relict or kinsman of the late occupant, assumes responsibility.
Clause 6 gives to the Secretary of State a series of order-making powers for the purpose of varying in the light of experience and by means of Statutory Instrument under the Negative Resolution procedure the periods and terms laid down in the Bill. Under Clause 7 similar powers can be used to lay down minimum standards for sites. Although model standards do exist, they have so far been a dead letter, and this power, if widely used, can only be beneficial. Clause 8 extends various parts of the 1968 Act to Scotland. Clause 9 deals with interpretation, and your Lordships will note that the term "model home" is here given the same meaning as in the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, as amended by the Caravan Sites Act 1968—I mention this for those noble Lords who wish to do some homework during the Recess—and that "a protected site" is one licensed for permanent residential occupation under those Acts. Under Clause 10, the Bill is to become law—except in Northern 1512 Ireland, where it does not apply—two months after receiving the Royal Assent.
My Lords, I have outlined at some speed the general purposes and intentions of the Bill. I have recited its main contents clause by clause and I do not imagine that your Lordships will wish me to dwell on the subject longer than to commend it as a small but important and humane piece of legislation. It is capable of avoiding both uncertainty and hardship for a growing population of occupants and of giving a clear code of conduct consistent with profitable operation by site owners. It will serve this purpose unless and until it is overtaken by Government legislation. I believe, as will most of your Lordships who, like me, have read the Shelter Report which was published last February, or who, like me, have visited sites of caravans for various purposes at various times, that this Bill is needed. I believe that, properly regulated, the mobile homes sector can provide a disproportionate relief of pressure on the housing lists, principally because the well-to-do who move into these very agreeable residential sites normally do so after their children have grown up, and they thereby vacate on retirement accommodation which will house more people than just themselves. I also believe that it is a valuable way of giving a first toe-hold into home property owning for young marrieds on housing waiting lists, and for others. It is important that such people should not be put in jeopardy of being exploited, and this will serve to protect them.
I hope that your Lordships will view this Bill in your customary kindly but thorough manner and that I have set an example, which your Lordships will feel free to follow, of taking the business somewhat apace, though not without due care and attention. I hope, too, that it will be possible for those of your Lordships who wish to put forward views, in advance or retardment of the position taken by the Bill, to do so reasonably concisely and to expatiate on the merits of your positions at greater length in Committee. My Lords, I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Elton.)
§ 4.13 p.m.
§ House adjourned during pleasure and resumed by the Lord Chancellor.
1513§ Lord MELCHETTMy Lords, I will do my best to follow the injunction of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and not take up too much of your Lordships' time. I suppose the fact that this Private Member's Bill has reached this House is in itself a clear sign of Government good will towards it. I wish, first, to place on record that this good will will be maintained during the Bill's passage through your Lordships' House. The aims outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, are common to the Bill's sponsors and the Government. We welcome a measure which seeks to end the kind of exploitation which some residents have been subjected to, while at the same time offering to the decent site operators every incentive to carry on their business.
We recognise that in attempting to find a balance between the sometimes conflicting interests and demands of residents and operators, the Bill cannot be expected to please all of the people all of the time. But if it is going to prove an effective measure which will work when it is put into practice, it must clearly be seen at least to try to reconcile these conflicts in a fair-minded way. The Bill's sponsors have, I know, made every effort to get this balance right and we believe that they have so far achieved their object. There are, I gather, still some matters where common ground has not yet been staked out; in particular, as the noble Lord mentioned, the form and timing of site charges has already been aired at some length in another place without any necessarily final conclusion having been reached. The Government do not hold any fixed views on these matters, though I hope we will be able to contribute constructively to any debate which takes place in Committee.
Several noble Lords have considerable expertise on mobile homes. We shall listen to them attentively, and I am sure the Bill will benefit from their contributions. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of the Environment indicated on Third Reading in another place, there may well still be scope for improving the Bill even though its main principles are now common ground. The sponsors of the Bill are to be congratulated on the speed with which they worked to prepare their measure, and for the remarkably effective results which they produced in so short a time. But, 1514 frequently, fast concentrated work does mean that attention to certain of the details may have to be sacrificed. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships' House will be able to look carefully at the detail of the Bill to see whether any improvements are needed. From the Government side, we shall certainly be glad to play our part in assisting any such examination. But, as I said earlier, any help we offer will be in support of, and not in criticism of, the Bill, and will in no way detract from our sympathy with its main principles.
When I spoke at the outset of this Bill's attempt to strike an immediate balance, I wanted quite deliberately to avoid giving the impression that this was a measure for all time. It is essentially and necessarily an interim Bill, which does not claim to be comprehensive. I know that interim Bills are not always regarded with favour. But I hope that noble Lords will not succumb to the temptation to transform what is already, by Private Member's Bill standards, quite an ambitious measure into a definitive piece of legislation. The fact is that we simply do not know enough about mobile home living, its problems and the extent of those problems, its economics, or its present and potential usefulness as a contribution to housing problems generally, to attempt the production of a comprehensive system of statutory regulation. The filling of this gap in our knowledge is one of the objectives of the review of mobile home residence now being undertaken by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Department of the Environment. Only when we have studied, and have considered as necessary with those involved, adequate and reliable information about mobile home living, can we hope to be able to produce soundly-based, definitive, long-term legislative proposals.
I cannot forecast when this will be. Work on the review is inevitably being delayed by the switching of staff resources to the Bill. I should be misleading your Lordships if I encouraged any hopes that, once the necessary information is available, the production of comprehensive legislation will be a simple matter. On the contrary, everything we already know about mobile home living sugeests that it will be a complex and difficult task. But we have started along the road, and mean to continue to the end.
1515 Meanwhile—and because it gives some hint of the size of the field we are now working in—noble Lords may like to have the first small fruits of my honourable friend's study, which is a very preliminary estimate of the number of residential mobile homes. The initial findings of an inquiry to local authorities—based on extrapolation from a response of 80 per cent. to date—suggest that some 70.000 mobile homes in England and Wales are occupied as residences.
When all the material we need is available, and has been examined and discussed with the various bodies concerned with this matter, it should be possible to frame viable recommendations for action. But extensive statutory intervention would be unwise when we do not have adequate knowledge of the situation. It could easily prejudice the considered legislation introduced when the necessary knowledge had become available and, at the worst, could create problems greater than those it solved. I hope, therefore, that noble Lords will understand why the Government cannot endorse any measures more extensive than those already embodied in this Bill.
My Lords, the sponsors of this Bill have already been active and sensitive in taking soundings of those who will be most affected by their proposals. I am sure that noble Lords in assisting the Bill on its way will complement these efforts by scrutinising the Bill objectively and constructively. I look forward to the Government's joining in the scrutiny.
§ 4.20 p.m.
§ Lord AVEBURYMy Lords, I am not sure whether it is strictly necessary for me to do so, but to be absolutely on the safe side I would begin by declaring an interest, as having the honour to be President of the National Mobile Home Residents Association, a body which has fought long and hard to improve the lot of the people with whom this Bill is concerned. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, said that he felt it was necessary to argue the case for some further regulation before your Lordships' House, but I am sure he would agree with me that nobody who has been concerned to investigate the plight in which mobile home residents have had to exist for 1516 many years could have any doubt whatsoever about the need for further regulations, in the absence of solutions being devised voluntarily between the site operators' organisations and the National Mobile Home Residents Association—negotiations which have proceeded for so many years without leading to concrete results. Therefore, one must warmly welcome the advent of this Bill which goes some way along the road to a satisfactory position for those people.
I hope that the Government will be prepared to listen to some Amendments on Committee stage when we reach it. I was a little alarmed by the threat of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that the Government could not tolerate any fundamental revision of the legislation. It is to be hoped he does not mean that most of the Amendments that we shall find it necessary to put forward in Committee will receive polite answers and nothing else. It is fair enough to say we must wait until the Kaufman Committee has produced its final results, but I hope that does not mean that we cannot make some alterations to the Bill to improve it as we go along.
May I now make a little historical digression? In 1967, when I had discussions with the late Arthur Skeffington and the late Jim MacColl, about the form of the Caravan Sites Bill as it was then, and which became the Act of 1968, we were forced to agree that within the time scales we had available it was impossible to draft comprehensive legislation that would deal with the inequalities of bargaining power between the site operators and the mobile home residents. We settled at that time for a holding operation, purely to stop instant evictions and harassment. I was sorry to hear the phrase "holding operation" used yet again, knowing it has taken eight years since the passage of what was intended to be a holding measure at that time to make the further progress which is embodied in this Bill. It was always the understanding between us when I had those discussions with Arthur Skeffington and Jim MacColl that, just as the Protection from Eviction Act 1964 had been followed by the Rent Act 1965, so the Caravan Sites Act would be followed up in the near future by Government legislation to complete the work which had 1517 been begun then for the occupiers of mobile homes. Unfortunately, alas! both Jim MacColl and Arthur Skeffington died before those intentions could be fulfilled.
It was mentioned in another place that Dick Crossman showed in his diaries that he, also, was very sympathetic to the needs of caravan dwellers. I should like to mention that after the Second Reading of my Bill in 1967 it had to wait a long time in the queue to go to Standing Committee because the Divorce Reform Bill was taking up the whole of the time available. I went to Dick Crossman, who was then Leader of the House, and asked him whether he would set up a separate Standing Committee to deal with that Bill. He readily complied, saying that he welcomed its intentions, and therefore I should like to pay my tribute to Dick Crossman for the work he did in assisting that legislation to get on to the Statute Book. I also wish warmly to congratulate Mr. King, the author of the Bill, on his success in the ballot. I very much welcome the Bill personally, because it deals with some of the matters which I should have liked to cover myself eight years ago, had it been possible within the time.
The provision of written agreements and the detailed specification of the matters to be covered in those agreements will be very helpful, particularly on those sites not run by either members of the National Caravan Council or the National Federation of Site Operators, because those latter organisations have always suggested that written agreements should be universal. I am pleased to understand that they accept the obligations which are laid down in this Bill including particularly the right of assignment subject to the payment of commission to the site owner. This is a very important step forward, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has said, and it will be warmly welcomed by mobile home residents.
Secondly, I believe that the establishment of machinery for the settlement of disputes is right in principle. However, I am not altogether happy—as, I believe, some other noble Lords are not—that the county court should be the sole body to act as the final arbiter. This could be an unnecessarily expensive and cumbersome process in many instances, particularly when it comes to determining the payment which is to be made for the 1518 occupation of a pitch and for any services provided by the owner. I have always believed that the rent officer and the rent assessment machinery—established originally under the Rent Act 1965, and now in the 1968 consolidation Act—could be read across to mobile homes, with an appropriate variation of the fair rent formula.
One would need to replace the "age, character and locality of the dwelling house ", as referred to in the 1965 Act, by reference to the amenities and locality of the site; otherwise, the wording could be very similar, including the disregard of scarcity which is such an important feature of the Rent Act, and which also very much applies to the provision of mobile homes. As we know, the demand very greatly exceeds the supply, and in the absence of any provision requiring scarcity to be disregarded this can have an effect on the charges made.
As the Bill stands, the county court has power to fix charges for the occupation of a pitch and for any management services that may be provided in association with it. But the court is given no guidance at all on how those amounts are to be determined. That was the position under the 1968 Act when the court suspended the execution of an order for possession. But I submit that the cases are not parallel, because we were considering that as being intended to apply for only a couple of years, and, we hoped, to a very limited number of eviction cases which came before the county courts, and not to the much larger number of cases, which I imagine will arise under this Bill, of determinations where the site owner and the residents cannot agree between themselves. I give notice to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that I shall try to frame some rules for the court to apply in deciding these charges, as a second best to the more difficult drafting job of substituting the rent officer and the rent assessment committee for the court. In doing that, I am obeying the injunction of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that we should not attempt to transform an ambitious measure into something which is definitive.
My next point concerns the five-year minimum period of the agreement. Mr King said on a number of occasions that we are looking at a situation where residents may have already been on a site for 1519 a number of years at the time when these agreements are brought into force, and that is a reason for having shorter leases than one may otherwise have chosen. I look upon this as an argument for saying that people should have the right to stay in their homes indefinitely, unless they commit some flagrant breach of an agreement, as they would do if they were living in a house or a flat.
As the Bill is framed, at the end of the five-year period there is an option to renew for a further three years, so that the minimum could well have been eight years without any right of renewal. But as I understand it, at the end of the eight years the site operator can decline to renew the agreement and issue a notice to quit within 28 days. Therefore, one would be saying, in effect, that a family who had lived on a site for upwards of eight years—bearing in mind that they were already there when the Bill came into force—and who, one may assume, had paid all the charges regularly and faithfully observed all the other terms of the agreement, could then be kicked off the site within a month, subject to any delay imposed by the county court. I do not think that is good enough. I hope the Government will agree that this is something that we should try to improve as the Bill goes into Committee.
If indefinite security of tenure is granted so that the caravan resident is in the same position as somebody in a house or flat, the site operator will have no grumble so long as the resident in complying with the agreement. Conversely, a site operator already has in the Bill a means of recovering possession if the resident is in breach of any undertaking in the agreement, either within the initial five-year period or during the three-year renewal period, as the case maybe, since he has that power, it is for the Promoters of the Bill to say under what circumstances, other than breach of agreement or failure to pay the rent or termination of the site licence by the local authorities they envisage a site operator declining to offer a further renewal at the end of eight years. If they cannot produce a reason these time limits should be left out of the Bill.
My next criticism is of the omission of any prohibition in the Bill of exorbitant siting fees which may amount to several hundreds of pounds. I can pro- 1520 duce examples. It is common, as your Lordships know, for the site operator also to be an agent for the sale of mobile homes so that he is already making a profit out of every new tenant. I should like to ask why, in addition, he should receive separate payment in consideration of the granting of an agreement to occupy a pitch, when he is to receive money regularly under that agreement to cover his costs and make his profit. It is already illegal under Section 85 of the Rent Act to charge a premium for the rent or renewal of a protected tenancy. I do not see why there should be a similar provision in this Bill.
It could be argued on behalf of the Promoters that in granting these eight year leases the site operators are conferring on the residents valuable benefit which they did not previously enjoy, and the site operator is therefore entitled to receive some consideration for that benefit. That is true only if the charges made during the lifetime of the lease are below what they might have been if the present situation continued. The same could be said of tenancies. In granting to somebody a tenancy of a flat or house, one may be giving him a valuable benefit which he would not otherwise have enjoyed; but that does not stop us making a prohibition on the payment of a premium for the granting of such tenancy. Another objection which I have heard is that by allowing people, indefinite tenances without payment you would encourage them to maintain decrepit mobile homes and not to renew or keep them in proper repair. If one looks at the matters to be covered by the agreement, one of them is that the owner of a home should maintain that mobile home in a proper state of repair and maintenance. I do not think that this objection carries much force.
Then, referring to the provisions of Clause 7, which gives the Secretary of State power to lay down the minimum standards referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, the local authorities already have these powers and model standards are suggested by the Department to which, generally speaking, they try to adhere, except in the case where only a temporary site lease is granted. If the Secretary of State intends to be more generous in granting permanent site licences, then I shall be very pleased indeed. The position at the moment is 1521 very far from that. If I may give some satistics, in 1973 for residential caravan sites 619 permissions were given without time limit, and 4,139 for a limited period only. The equivalent figures in 1972 are as follows: without time limit, 677; for a limited period only, 3,841.
In spite of undertakings which I understand the Secretary of State has given in the past, the rule is very much that only temporary licences are given, and under these circumstances if the operator is made to conform with the model rules I am afraid the effect will simply be that the capital cost which he incurs will be passed on to the occupiers over the short period which may remain for that licence to run. This policy could be a very expensive one from the point of view of the residents.
There are two answers to this problem. First, the Secretary of State could announce and adhere to a more generous policy in granting appeals against time limits on the licences which are often imposed by local authorities out of their hostility to mobile homes, rather than on general planning grounds. Secondly, we can provide much stiffer penalties against such operators who fail to comply with the conditions imposed on them under this Act. The fines are still at the levels fixed in 1960 of £100 for a first offence, and £250 in the case of a second or subsequent offence. It will be useless for the Secretary of State to prescribe the higher minimum standards that we all want to see unless proper means are laid down in the Bill for enforcing those standards. This is a point to which I shall return in Committee.
One final point which arose in another place, and to which I cannot see an ideal solution, is treatment of the basic occupation charge and management services respectively. As the Bill stands, the two have to be separately identified. This is because the other place felt is was desirable to provide for a two-year review in the case of the basic occupation fee, and an annual review in the case of the management charge, the logic of the distinction being that the management charges would be more affected by inflation that the basic rents, which are more likely to be predetermined in advance by the interest and amortisation of long-term loans which the site operator raised at the time of the original development. 1522 Unfortunately, if these two elements are separated VAT becomes chargeable on the service component, whereas if they are lumped together it is not.
On balance, I am inclined to the view—although I have not definitely come down on this side—that a unified charge would be desirable and one can expect a review every 12 months provided that any increases imposed on the residents are limited to those which can be fully justified by reference to the costs incurred by the site operator, plus a reasonable increase in his profit to cover the effects of inflation. There is nothing in the Bill which obliges the site operator to justify the extra charges he seeks to impose at the time of a review. Without such provision, the residents would still be in the weak bargaining position from which they suffer at the moment. Here again, we are proposing to treat the site operators more favourably than we do the landlords of houses who are still entitled to a rent increase every three years.
My Lords, within the time available, and in trying to obey the injunction of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, I have had to concentrate on the scope for improvement of the Bill, as I see it, rather than draw attention to its very many good points. Even with its defects, it represents a very considerable advance on the 1968 Act and I hope it can be improved even more by your Lordships' House.
§ 4.40 p.m.
§ Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDALMy Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I have an interest to declare in that I am a member of the Executive Committee of the National Caravan Council, and I am also chairman of a company which operates caravan estates of a holiday kind, not a mobile kind as referred to in this Bill, which are not affected by it. The National Caravan Council represents the industry as a whole, that is to say, the manufacturers, the supplier of parts and trailers and some of the park operators. The National Federation of Site Owners represents some of the park operators. Some of the park operators are members of the National Federation of Site Operators as well as of the National Caravan Council. I thought it desirable for your Lordships to have this brief explanation of 1523 the position of these two bodies, to avoid any misunderstanding.
I should like to say right away that I am not proposing at any length to go into the principles of this Bill which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has put before your Lordships' House. I should like to say, on behalf of the Caravan Council, that there is general agreement with the philosophy of the Bill and with the requirement that a written agreement should be entered into. However, there are one or two matters of substance yet to be resolved, which were the subject of last-minute Amendments made to the Bill on Report stage in another place. The noble Lords, Lord Elton and Lord Avebury. have referred to some of these matters, and I should like to say that the interested parties have been in some difficulty because of the speed with which this Bill went through its stages in another place. This has already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. The Amendments were put down overnight for the Report stage and there was no opportunity at all to consult with interested parties. Therefore the fact that there is the Recess available for discussion is very much welcomed; there will be that interval between the Second Reading and Committee stage. I hope, though, that the Report stage will not follow too quickly on the Committee stage; so that if, as a result of discussions at Committee stage, it is necessary to hold further consultations between the interested parties, there may be a reasonable opportunity for such consultations before the Report stage.
I should just like to comment that it seems to me there are three main points on which Amendments are needed and discussion required on Committee stage. First, in Clause 3 on page 4, paragraphs (d) and (e) separate the charges already referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. Separate charges are to be made for the occupation of a pitch on mobile home parks, and the Caravan Council believe that this is undesirable in that it will put up the cost to the caravan occupier because VAT will be attracted by the service element of the charge. Also, instead of a two-year period of review, it is hoped that the review period could be more frequent, say annually. We are again very much concerned with the effect of inflation if 1524 charges have to be raised, and particularly in respect of the service element. We would hope that increases could be by small amounts rather than by making too large a jump at any one time.
§ Lord AVEBURYWould the noble Lord allow me to ask this: if the Caravan Council were to have the annual reviews they seek, would they be prepared to accept some numerical rules limiting the amount of the increase at the annual intervals? Would they be prepared to have some rules written into the Bill to make sure that the amount of the increase is fairly determined?
§ Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDALMy Lords, that no doubt is a matter which could be discussed between now and the Committee stage. I hope there will be opportunities for informal discussions, and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Elton, can give us some observations on that point.
§ Lord ELTONMy Lords, may I intervene to make two points? First, I shall be returning to this building on a number of occasions during the referendum campaign and I shall eagerly await messages on my desk announcing the willingness of noble Lords to speak to me on the matter. The other point is that I think we are now approaching a Committee stage debate. This is a debate on Second Reading, on the principles of the Bill, and I hope we can avoid going into such detail.
§ Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDALMy Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I am merely giving warning of points where I think Amendments should be made to the Bill. I am not proposing to go into any detail at all on these suggested Amendments. I was about to say that because of last-minute Amendments made to Clause 4 (Disputes) which were put down overnight before the Report stage in the Commons, provision is made for the courts to decide the terms of agreement in certain circumstances where owners or occupiers have failed to complete the process. The National Caravan Council fear that, as now worded, these clauses will give insufficient guidance to the courts as to what may be included in such agreements. As I have already said, I am not proposing to go further into these details; they 1525 can of course be quite properly dealt with at Committee stage.
We, too, fear that the same clause may also create an anomalous situation in the procedures for entering into agreements. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred to that. Here again, this is a situation which can be amplified in detail in Committee. There are other minor matters on which clarification is needed, and these, too, can of course be dealt with at the Committee stage. I therefore will not detain your Lordships any longer but give general approval, as I have already said, to the principles of this Bill.
Baroness VICKERSMy Lords, I have no interest to declare like the last two speakers, but I should like there to he better safeguards for mobile homes and more accommodaiton to be provided for the homeless. In view of the lateness of the hour and the excellent explanations given by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, I should like simply to convey our congratulations to the sponsors in another place on bringing the Bill forward. I wish it every success, but I reserve my right to put down some Amendments on the Committee stage.
§ 4.48 p.m.
§ Lord ELTONMy Lords, I would briefly express my gratitude to your Lordships for your general, if qualified, approval of this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, encouraged me greatly by his general favour and his open mind on a number of points. I think we should accept his view that this is not the time to extend the powers of this Bill; but then I also think that this is not the time to extend one's arguments about its details. May I thank the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for his qualified approval and for saying that this Bill is an advance on the 1968 Act? We shall go more closely at Committee stage into his views on the six points he raised, as we shall also the three points raised by my noble friend Lord Wakefield of Kendal. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, for her support in principle. I think, my Lords, that I can do nothing but incur your odium if I do not now sit down, and that is what I shall now do.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.