HL Deb 19 November 1976 vol 377 cc1614-6

27 Page 19, line 44, at end insert— (1A) Subsection (1) above shall not apply in relation to accommodation which would, apart from this subsection, be deemed to be a dwelling-house subject to a protected tenancy if—

  1. (a) the accommodation consists of only one room, and
  2. (b) at the time when the tenancy was granted, not less than three other rooms in the same building were occupied as residential accommodation by separate occupiers, or were available for such occupation, on such terms as are mentioned in subsection (1)(a) above."

The Commons agreed to this Amendment and proposed the following Amendment thereto:

28 Line 8, leave out from ("were") to ("on") in line 10 and insert ("let, or were available for letting, as residential accommodation to separate tenants")

Baroness BIRK

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 28 to the Lords Amendment No. 27. It may be for the convenience of the House if I speak to Amendments Nos. 35 to 42 inclusive. Amendments Nos. 27 and 35 both deal inter alia with the exclusion of occupants of hostels from the protection of the Bill. When I spoke to the Amend- ments on Report, I warned the House that we had received the information on hostels, which we required and for which we had asked, only at the last moment, and that it might therefore be necessary to tidy up these Amendments. This appears in Hansard for 11th November at column 660. This has proved to be the case, though I must emphasise that these new Amendments, Nos. 28 and 36 to 42, are purely technical and drafting Amendments which will ensure that the aim which I outlined on Report, and the aim which was asked for by the House, is achieved; that is, to provide that the protection of the Bill will not extend to a worker sharing a dwelling with three or more other persons, where each person has one room, and one room only to himself. My Lords, I beg to move.

Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 28 to the Lords Amendment No. 27.—(Baroness Birk.)

Lord SANDYS

My Lords, I must congratulate the noble Baroness on explaining in so few words an exceptionally complicated problem. My noble friend Lord Ferrers addressed himself to that problem on Report, but I should like to make this comment. If your Lordships have studied the Reports of the discussions in another place, and indeed the arguments which took place in regard to the new Schedule 1A, you will know that this is a matter of very much wider concern than simply hostels. It is a matter of the working of previous Rent Acts. We have had a major discussion on earlier Rent Acts, but I should like to say this. In the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Janner, I did not have an opportunity of discussing it with him, but there are, of course, 13 operative Rent Acts and this will no doubt become the fourteenth operative Rent Act in due course. There are matters of abstruse and particular complication, as the noble Baroness is all too well aware, and this Amendment, which relates to the 1968 Act, has been only briefly discussed. It has not received sufficient detailed attention. We are very well aware of the discussions which took place in your Lordships' House. We are not going to oppose this Amendment, but I should like to say this to the Government. The consolidation of the 13 exist- ing Rent Acts with the present Bill should surely be considered for early review. It is quite intolerable, for those who have to interpret the provisions of the many Rent Acts, that we should have a Statute Book so littered with such deep complication.

Baroness BIRK

My Lords, just in order to be quite clear about this matter—and I agree with the noble Lord that the Rent Acts are extremely complicated—I should remind him how this arose. It arose because his noble friend Lord Ferrers asked a question on hostels, and I said in Committee that what I wanted was information from the National Farmers' Union, from noble Lords and from anybody else. In fact, we did not really get any, and it was only the fact that we sought it out at the last moment that allowed us to do something to improve the Bill.

I believe that the noble Lord is unnecessarily worried about the result of this, because the effect of our Amendment was to apply the relevant sections of the Rent Act to agricultural licensees or tenants not now protected by Rent Act legislation. This is what my honourable friend in the other place put forward during the recent debate. As he stressed then, it does not have any effect on those already protected by the Rent Act. It was because of efforts made by the Government and the honourable friends of noble Lords opposite that this was further clarified and made more precise. Consolidation has been raised before by the noble Lord, and it is something we want to have. Indeed, we tried to get it started by trying to have part of it in this Bill but, understandably, the noble Lord and his friends did not feel that was the right place. But we were trying to get it started.

On Question, Motion agreed to.