Lords Sitting of 15 July 1980

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chelmsford.

ROADS: LANE DISCIPLINE
Viscount MOUNTGARRET: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether provision could be made either to compel motorists to use the left-hand lane of dual or triple lane carriageways when possible or to permit the overtaking on the left-hand side of vehicles monopolising the centre or right-hand lane.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, the Highway Code gives clear advice on lane discipline and overtaking on dual carriageway roads which all drivers should follow. It should not be necessary to compel drivers to use the left-hand lane of these roads as the noble Lord proposes. The Government would not want to encourage overtaking on the left on dual carriageways as this is potentially dangerous in British conditions.
Viscount MOUNTGARRET: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply, and I would agree with the second part of his Answer to my Question. Does he not agree that there is an increasing tendency for motorists—particularly those wishing to travel at low speeds—to hog the centre lanes of motorways, and who perhaps do not pay attention to the advice given in the Highway Code? Would it not be helpful if attention could be drawn to this problem?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, as your Lordships and my noble friend will be aware, occasionally the Government advertise on television
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on matters of this sort and we shall continue to do so.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that to "keep left" is a motto which might well be followed in all walks of life?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Leather-land, is always asking me about these matters. In his case we are following a green light which will go straight ahead.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, will the noble Lord say what the Government's policy will be on U-turns?
The Marquess of AILESBURY: My Lords, has the noble Lord noticed that one never sees a woman driving in the manner about which the noble Viscount very rightly complained, but that it always seems to be a particular kind of man who clearly regards the right-hand lane as a virility symbol. Therefore, will he consider a publicity campaign in which men, popularly supposed to be virile, will appear on posters, or possibly on television, proclaiming that they, in fact, drive on the left? Finally, is the noble Lord aware that although I have five children and am, therefore, technically qualified for this role, the kind of man whom I seriously put forward is Mr. Sean Connery?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I should be the last to suggest that any driver should try to identify whether the driver in front of him be a woman or a man, because these days it is very hard to tell. Basically, the advice that I have to give—and it is the Government's advice—is that the Highway Code contains all the necessary information if only drivers will read it and follow the advice.
Lord BALFOUR of INCHRYE: My Lords, when licences are renewed annually, will the noble Lord consider including a leaflet of special reminders for the particular year dealing with such subjects as that raised by the noble Viscount?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I shall certainly have that looked at and let my noble friend know.
The Earl of BRADFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that on the Continent lane discipline on motorways is very much better than it is here, particularly in France and Germany; and that that succeeds very largely because of the constant repetition of the words "Keep right"—in their case their politics perhaps being rather different—in the vernacular "Tenez la droite"and"Rechts fahren". That seems to be very effective.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I am grateful to my wife's noble kinsman for his words of advice, which I do not think particularly go against the Highway Code. Conditions in Germany are not the same as those obtaining in this country. I repeat, the Highway Code says it all; I must emphasise that yet again.

RETIRED LORD BISHOPS: MEMBERSHIP OF THE HOUSE
2.41 p.m.
Lord MAELOR: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will introduce legislation to enable bishops who are Members of this House to remain Members after their retirement.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): No, my Lords. This would not be in accordance with established usage.
Lord MAELOR: My Lords, although I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for answering my Question, I do not thank him for the Answer that he has given me. I am not concerned about any of the bishops as such; I do not believe in bishops—I am a staunch Welsh non-conformist. However, I am concerned about two of the bishops who are about to retire; namely, the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Southwark.
Noble Lords: Question!
The MINISTER of STATE, MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES and FOOD (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord could put his observations in the form of a question, because if he did I think that he would fall more happily within the bounds of convention.
Lord MAELOR: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware that these two particular bishops have given great service to this House? I should like them to be appointed, not as Lord Bishops, but as bishops in their own name, as was done in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsey. I would beg the noble and learned Lord to reconsider this matter.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the Question related to legislation. It would be quite improper for me to discuss the use of the Royal Prerogative in any particular case.
The Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware that some of us on these Benches—and we are grateful for the expression of concern for ageing Church of England bishops—would very much prefer any extension of the representation from these Benches to include our friends and colleagues from the other Churches of the British Isles?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, we might find ourselves turning into a very highly religious Assembly, with mitred abbots, ex-moderators and chief rabbis.

AFGHANISTAN: DISPOSITION OF SOVIET TROOPS
2.43 p.m.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the information in their possession enables an accurate report to be made on the disposition of Soviet forces in Afghanistan since they announced their intention to withdraw both numbers of troops and weapons.
The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (Lord Carrington): My Lords, such information as we have suggests that considerably less than 10,000 troops have been withdrawn and that they and their equipment are of a kind irrevelant to a counter-insurgency war. Probably over 80,000 Soviet troops remain in Afghanistan.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, I thank the Foreign Secretary for that Answer. Is he aware that the position is deplorable and most unsatisfactory? That it would appear that the Soviet Union could now invade almost any part of the globe without any resistance from the allied nations, even the United States of America, and certainly the United Kingdom? That we are now in a position where we cannot act diplomatically because there is no hope of success in that connection? That we are apparently unable to mobilise our forces in order to warn the Soviet Union that if they persist in behaviour of this character this can only lead to another conflagration, and that we are not prepared to allow them to misbehave in this fashion because, in the long run, it would mean that the civilised nations of the world would have to surrender?
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that this is indeed a serious situation. I also agree with him that what the Soviet Union has done is quite unacceptable, and that the western world is not prepared to accept it. There have been certain developments recently in the situation which have been not entirely unpromising. We have seen the third world unite almost unanimously against this invasion, and recently we have seen the Islamic Conference condemning it yet again and calling for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Nevertheless, I think we would be overoptimistic if we thought that that was going to happen in the near future. But we must press on and we must not allow this situation to become irreversible.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to ask this further question: Will the Foreign Secretary appreciate now that there are some of us who feel—I cannot speak for everybody, and certainly I have no right
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to speak for the Members on this side of the House; I wish I could—that, in view of the tension that now exists and the apprehension of vast numbers of people in various countries of the world, it is of the utmost importance that NATO, the allied countries without exception—even Belgium and Holland—play their part and must be prepared to use every possible military device at our disposal in order to prevent the Russians from indulging in aggression? That we ought to put a stop to the nonsense that is being indulged in at this time by some people who apparently arc unconcerned about our security in the future and the security of those who are to come after us—
Several noble Lords: Question!
Lord SHINWELL:—be it on a principle which is not worth two pennyworth of gin?
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not think that there would be anybody in the House who would disagree with the noble Lord about the paramount need to ensure the safety of this country and the credibility of NATO. I agree with him entirely.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether any evidence is available that the Russians have been using weapons of chemical warfare in the course of their activities in Afghanistan?
Lord CARRINGTON: No, my Lords, I have no firm evidence of that.

THE MOTOR TRADE: HIRE-PURCHASE TERMS
2.47 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, in view of the motor trade's present unsatisfactory position, whether they will alter the hire-purchase terms of 33 per cent. cash down over two years, to 20 per cent. cash down over three

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years, so as to bring the terms offered to the general public in line with those offered to professional people.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I regret that, in the Government view, it would not be right to relax the controls at the present time.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer, which was not unexpected. Would he consider a compromise that perhaps the present rates may apply to cars from Japan, and suchlike, but that Common Market vehicles could have a reduced HP?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I think that the difficulty with that proposal is that it would constitute a form of preference for European manufactured vehicles which I think would fall outside the provisions of the GATT.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend this one further question: Surely one of the objects of our joining the Common Market is that we should help ourselves in the Common Market and the outsiders should come last?
Lord TREFGARNE: Yes, my Lords, but our international agreements extend beyond the simple fact of our joining the European Community.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that the situation might be bettered if we were to produce slightly better cars ourselves? Would he not agree that it is practically impossible to buy a new British car that is in 100 per cent. working order?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I do not agree with that. I have a British manufactured car and I am very pleased with it.

BUSINESS
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Strathcona and Mount
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Royal will repeat a Statement being made in another place on strategic nuclear deterrent.
It may also be for the convenience of your Lordships if I announce that dinner will be available this evening at the usual time. The Committee stage of the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7 o'clock for about an hour. Four representation of the people regulations will be taken during this adjournment.

CRIMINAL APPEAL (NORTHERN IRELAND) BILL [H.L.]
2.50 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Recommitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Recommitment be discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PIER AND HARBOUR ORDER (BRIGHTON WEST PIER) CONFIRMATION BILL
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Recommitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Recommitment be discharged.—(Lord Mowbray and Stourton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TENANTS' RIGHTS, ETC. (SCOTLAND) BILL
2.51 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (The Earl of Mansfield):

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My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Secure tenant's right to purchase]:
2.52 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 8, at beginning insert ("Subject to the proviso to this subsection and").
The noble Lord said: I think I should begin by expressing my appreciation to the Minister for supplying us with Notes on Clauses, Notes on Amendments and a new Explanatory and Financial Memorandum. It was rather a surprise when we discovered on Second Reading that, although we were dealing with a Bill of 83 clauses, we had an explanatory memorandum which took us up to only Clause 57, and then we discovered that the clauses were not the clauses in the Bill but the clauses as printed in another place. However, we got a new financial memorandum about a fortnight later. I am bound to wonder what has happened to the Scottish Office; they might have got that one right.
I looked through the financial memorandum and discovered that, far from it being correct, while it was correct so far as the explanatory memorandum was concerned, when it went on with financial explanations of the Bill, it went awry; I do not know whether they had lost the place or were overworked or tired, but they just copied out the old one again, and it was wrong. In view of the helpfulness of the Government, I think I should warn the Minister that he had better be careful even in respect of the Notes on Clauses, because there are a few mistakes there, too. I will leave it to him to look into that; he has probably been through it all and realised what the mistakes are. I am sure they were made with the best of intentions.
I certainly hope we can place a little more reliance on the arguments that have been supplied by the Scottish Office than we can on their provision of explanation and by way of the financial memorandum. If they want to know exactly what the mistakes are, they will find them on page V of the explanatory memorandum, Clauses 54 and 56 relating to changes in grant provision—Clause 54 (Succession to statutory tenancy) and Clause 56 (Returnable deposits not premiums)—which have nothing at all to do with the subject which they mention. All this has made it very difficult for us. It is difficult enough when you are proceeding with one Bill and trying to translate what was done in the other place into another Bill that has been reprinted; I assure the Committee that the work involved in that was not greatly helped by this sort of muddle.
However, in moving Amendment No. 1 I will, with permission, speak at the same time to Amendment No. 4 because that is the proviso referred to in No. 1. The Bill as drafted takes away from the discretion of a local authority a decision in respect of the sale of any house and, after the measure is passed, it will be entirely a matter whether a tenant wants to buy his house. When the Government first announced their ideas on this they sent a circular to local authorities advising them to anticipate the legislation, giving them an indication as to what was involved and asking them if they would go on with it, and the majority of Scottish local authorities said No. They were appalled at the idea that what had been their responsibility for over 60 years —namely, of building houses, first of all for the working classes in Scotland—was all to change. I see sitting on the Benches opposite the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, who after the war moved an amendment which was accepted and the working classes were ruled out.
Lord DRUMALBYN: Ruled out?
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Not ruled out, but ruled out in the sense that it was done not only for the working classes; ruled out of the Bill, one might say. Local authorities had been under a statutory obligation to provide houses for people in Scotland who needed them, people who were in overcrowded premises, in slums which had to be de-

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molished, and people with no homes and living with parents. Since the war there have been—the Secretary of State said this in another place-33 Acts of Parliament dealing with these issues. I took part in the Committee stages of practically every one of the Bills. Where I did not take part in Committee, I nevertheless had an obligation as Secretary of State for the Acts. So I have lived with the problems that are involved here, and I see in front of me noble Lords who also played their part in those proceedings.
The result of it all is that in Scotland today—forget about England—more than 1 million families, or 58 per cent. of Scottish households, live in local authority houses. The responsibility on local authorities remains, because of the legacy of bad housing, and nobody has reduced the statutory obligation on local authorities to provide the houses. Indeed, it may well be that, as a result of a decision by the Appeal Court last week, those obligations towards homeless people arc increased. Nobody else will do this work and there is no question of looking at private owners of tenanted property: they will not do it. The obligation is on the local authority and, while local authorities are placed in this position, they should not be interfered with to the extent proposed by the Bill; namely, by the Government saying,"You will give to every tenant a right to buy his house".
Not every tenant, however, gets the right to buy. There are 70,000 people in Scotland in tied accommodation, 12,000 of them in public sector houses, and they are denied the right to buy—and in any case, not all will. Between 38 and 40 per cent.—the figure is higher in the cities—of people living in local authority houses in Scotland are in receipt of supplementary benefits. Their income is so low that it has to be supplemented. I cannot see those people buying their own houses.
Then there is the question of the"inalienable right". It is a good slogan, but what does it mean when translated into fact? The right to buy a house is in fact only the right to buy the house that you are in, and there are many people in local authority houses who would not wish to have that right, bearing in mind the type of houses they occupy. Surely, the
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thing to do is to place the responsibility for the sale of houses upon the local authorities. The local authorities should be encouraged in that direction, as we did before the present Government came into office. In 1977 the last Labour Government introduced a Green Paper on housing. It presented an entirely new approach and arose from past experience and from advice that had been given, not least by the Scottish Housing Advisory Committee, which under the Bill the Government propose to abolish.
At that time we instituted a system whereby local authorities made an assessment of their actual stock of houses—not just in the public sector, but all housing. The local authorities made a realistic assessment of their housing needs: how much of the needs could be met by owner-occupation from private sources, with land made available for the particular purpose; how much could be met by reorganisation and modernisation of their housing stock; how much could be met by new building; and there was also the question of the sale of council houses. On that basis proposals could be put forward for the Secretary of State for Scotland to approve. My right honourable friend the Member for Craigton, when Secretary of State, dealt with a proposal from Kyle and Carrick, which is within the constituency of the present Secretary of State, and approval was given for the sale of, I think, one in 200 council houses. In regard to Inverclyde, agreement was reached to sell 5 per cent. of the stock of council houses.
The principle of the matter is not at stake here; it is a question of who controls the situation. My Amendment No. 4 states:
"Provided that … such a sale is in conformity with the targets set out in the relevant local housing plan"—
since 1977 those local housing plans have had to be submitted to the Scottish Office each year, from each housing authority—
"drawn up by the local authority and approved by the Secretary of State"—
so the Secretary of State has a role to play there—
"and … the right to buy shall not extend to houses in any area designated by the local authority housing plan where such a sale would prejudice the general interests of its tenants, or prospective tenants …"

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A local authority must keep a balance of stock; it must have the right kind of houses to meet particular needs. Noble Lords opposite when in the Scottish Office sent circulars to the local authorities, telling them to meet particular needs, such as the need for slum clearance. Then there was the realisation that slum clearance was not enough. Houses had to be demolished. That work, intended to meet the needs of overcrowded, large families, has not yet been completed.
Then we had a subsidy system tailored to meet particular needs. I ask the Committee please to remember that subsidies were given in the first instance only provided that an equal subsidy was given by the local authority. That was a condition of subsidy laid down by central Government, though it was considerably departed from later. In addition to that, in order to meet the economic needs of the people of Scotland, the local authority could still further provide something from the rates and ensure that the rents were reasonable.
I ask the Committee always to remember that historically wages and salaries in Scotland have been lower than those in England and Wales. Unemployment in Scotland has been double that in England and Wales. Some people deplore the fact that there is not so much owner-occupation in Scotland, but I wish that circumstances were such that there could have been more owner-occupation in Scotland. I have just given the reason why it was not so.
For years and years we have had nothing but sneers from the party opposite directed at people living in council houses. They have been referred to as shiftless council tenants, second-class citizens, enjoying subsidised rents. But now the future owner-occupiers are the new objects of attention and veneration. I wish that people who are doing this would talk to some of the owner-occupiers in the part of the country in which I live and so see how they regard the glories of owner-occupation under the present Government. But that is by the way.
The needs changed. Suddenly there was a realisation that even our subsidy system was wrong, and it was the party opposite who changed the subsidy system. No matter what the size of the house that
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was built, the subsidy was the same, with the result that Scotland started building smaller houses. The curse of Scotland in the past has been the one or two apartment house, because that became a slum. When a decent flat, with a sitting room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, was built, it met a need from elderly and single people. These arc very desirable houses. I am thinking not just of pensioners or widows, but spinsters and bachelors as well; they, too, need houses.
Local authorities started building for these people, at the instigation of the central authority. I can recall some very fine houses that were built by the local authorities. My spinster sister occupied one of them. There is still a great need for houses of this kind, but if they are to be sold to the highest bidder, and then in another three years' time can be sold to anyone, we shall not be able to meet the housing need. Surely the local authority, within its housing plan, is the body that should say, "Yes, we shall sell so many of these houses because the need has changed".
The same is true in the rural areas. When people discuss housing needs in Scotland, they tend to think in terms of only Glasgow and Edinburgh, but my goodness!, the housing need is just as great in the rural areas; indeed, it is far greater. I do not know how many noble Lords who are interested in the problem of Scottish housing took the advice that I gave on Second Reading to obtain copies of the Cullingworth Report, drawn up by a sub-committee of the Scottish Housing Advisory Committee. The report is on Scotland's older houses. It states the housing position in Scotland, and my goodness!, we are still clearing slums, still trying to prevent houses from sliding into "slumland". The report referred to areas that people do not usually talk about:
"The fact remains, nevertheless, that the conditions in some of the rural areas are so bad that no excuse can warrant things being left as they are. Our rapid review of the situation led us to the view that in some areas the problem is not being tackled with the urgency it demands"
The report added:
"We think that the problem requires a separate study, and we recommend accordingly".
That was in 1967. That study was carried out by the Scottish Office, and has not ! been published. The report also stated:

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"We were shocked to discover the extent of the rural problem. What we saw in Ross and Cromarty could no doubt have been repeated many times over in any of the other counties. Indeed the landward areas of several counties appear to have proportionately a bigger problem than that which appalled us in Glasgow".
The sale of every house in a rural area will have commensurately greater effect on the local authority's ability to meet its housing needs. Everyone who comes from a rural area knows that. They know quite well, too, that in a village you can sell a local authority house to the person who is living there as a sitting tenant, and after a few years it is not a local tenant who is there at all but somebody who has come in from outside and has paid a considerable price for it. I can think of rural villages in Scotland where there are very long waiting lists. I can also think of these houses as very desirable residences, not just as holiday homes or as second homes but because mobility is such today that people prefer to live in a village and work in the cities; and there will be commuters who will certainly buy their way into very attractive villages where there are good public sector houses.
What is the effect of this going to be on the rural community? What is the effect of this going to be on the ability of the local authority to meet its statutory obligations? I think it is a bit much that a party and people who have talked and talked so loudly about freedom for local authorities should take away from the district authority this power of decision in respect of the sale of houses, and should make it almost impossible for that authority, over the years, to carry out its statutory obligations. The district authorities were the creation of the last reorganisation, when—I think it was—Lord Campbell of Croy was the Secretary of State. Their main function is housing, and here is their main function being undermined and being determined by civil servants in Edinburgh. We have already seen how good they are at explanatory memorandums! If they cannot do that, how on earth are they going to determine what should be the priorities in Kyle of Lochalsh, in Skye, in Tweeddale or in Strathspey?
All these authorities I have mentioned have complained that this Bill is going to destroy their ability to carry out their
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job. I am pleading with the Government: leave it with us to determine. Put as much pressure on as you like, but leave the decisions with us—and that is the purpose of this amendment. Anybody who knows anything about these things knows about the problems of a local authority. I wonder whether anybody will serve on a local authority after this sort of treatment, especially on the district authority. I sincerely hope that the Government will, at this minute, think again. They had enough bargains yesterday: let us stop the indiscriminate sale of local authority houses in this particular way, because it is building up problems. I think the consequences of this in 5, 10 or 15 years' time will be appalling from the point of view of good government. I beg to move.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: The Committee will not be altogether surprised—and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Ross, certainly will not be—if I describe certainly the second amendment as a wrecking amendment, because that is in effect precisely what it is. What these amendments seek to do is to render the right to buy ineffective, and to replace it with some form of qualified right exercisable effectively at the discretion of the local authority. As such, these amendments call into question one of the basic principles of the Bill; that is to say, the right of a tenant to buy his own home. If I may say so, as one of the basic principles of the Bill, that really fell to be discussed, as indeed it was, on Second Reading rather than in Committee. Nevertheless, the fact that we did that and the fact that this principle has been discussed, I was going to say ad nauseam, but certainly very fully in another place, does not prevent or inhibit us from discussing it, and other principles, yet again. But I think it is right that I should reiterate (briefly, I hope) the main reasons why we have said, and have said consistently—and we fought the election with it as part of our platform—that there should be the right to buy, which would be so infringed by these amendments if they were agreed to.
First of all, the level of home ownership in Scotland is, as the noble Lord acknowledged, abysmally low, and the only way to remedy this in anything like a reasonable period of time is to provide for

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public authority tenants to become home owners. It is clear, I am afraid, that many local authorities will not voluntarily transfer the power which they at present have over their housing stock to their tenants, and this is why, when I came to comment on speeches made on Second Reading, I said that this Bill represents one of the fundamental differences of opinion as between the Government and their supporters and the Opposition and their supporters. We believe in the rights of ownership of individuals; we believe that, metaphorically, individuals should be able to"cock a snook" at local authorities and persons in power; and the Labour Party hate it. That, very simply, is the difference between us; and I am afraid that will come out at various times during our deliberations on this Bill.
I think the noble Lord said that the previous Government had allowed, in a somewhat feeble way, discretionary sales of local authority housing. In 1975 there were 28; in 1976 there were 24; in 1977 there were 92; in 1978 there were 98; and in 1979, after we had come along, there were 941. Although, as I have said, the previous Government paid lip service to this principle, on some occasions the Government in fact refused local authorities permission to sell houses which they wanted to sell, and they cut the numbers which some were allowed to sell.
The effect of the noble Lord's amendments, once again, would be to put absolute discretion as to who should and who should not be able to buy their houses into the hands of local authorities. Some authorities, I have no doubt, would exercise such a discretion sensibly. Equally—and we know this from public statements which have been made recently —while some would exercise the discretion reasonably and in favour of their tenants, others, either for doctrinaire reasons or because they are thoroughly misguided, would make every effort to prevent their tenants from becoming home owners. Therefore, I am afraid that I just do not accept that, given the objectives which we are aiming at, it would in fact be reasonable to provide local authorities with the very wide discretion which this amendment would give them.
Perhaps I may turn for a moment to the two amendments themselves, particularly the second one, and to their drafting.
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They represent what I might call an amalgam of two amendments which were proposed in the other place. Somehow—and the noble Lord, Lord Ross, harped on this theme—they give vent to the misguided belief that houses which are sold are in some way lost to the housing stock of the area to which they belong. That is not the case, and it is not the case whether they are urban houses or whether they are in rural areas. I dare say we shall come to rural areas in greater detail on another series of amendments to the Bill, so I shall not say anything more about that. In any event, houses which are sold to sitting tenants would be unlikely to become available for letting to anyone else even if they were not sold. The vast majority of those who are going to buy their houses are not wishing to buy because they do not like their houses; they are wishing to buy because they want to own the home in which they live, and there is evidence to suggest that, generally, people who buy have already lived in the house for some particular time and would do so for at least 30 years. This claim—which is oft repeated—that in some way the sale of such houses diminishes the stock is wrong, in that such houses are virtually irrelevant to meeting unmet housing needs in an area. Authorities which have a shortage of houses in their area—and I agree that there are some —will have to look to ways other than this in which to impose long-term solutions.
On the amendments themselves, some noble Lords will know that local housing plans have absolutely no statutory basis. Therefore, if these amendments were agreed to, whatever proposals might be put up to the Secretary of State they could not be amended by his direction. He could do nothing about a housing plan put up to him which he did not approve in this connection; so the effect of the amendments would, as I have said twice already, be that for the framework that we propose in this Bill there would be substituted complete discretion on the part of a local authority. As I have said, the effect of this amendment is absolutely fundamental to the whole principle behind the Bill. I have repeated some of the things I said on Second Reading as to why we think it desirable that tenants should be allowed to buy their homes and, if it comes to it, I ask the Committee to reject these amendments.
3.22 p.m.
Lord GALPERN: The noble Earl, in his opening contribution to this debate, has said that it would be a wrecking amendment. It is a wrecking amendment, but not to wreck the local authority which decides to offer certain houses under certain conditions for sale to tenants. But it is a wrecking amendment in as much as it opposes the trend that many local councils and councillors are finding in Scotland, a trend now to centralise all the work that is being done and has been done over the years by local authorities into the hands of the Government themselves. The amendment rightly says that it will make arrangements,
"in conformity with the targets set out in the relevant local housing plan".
That, in my opinion, is not a prohibition. The local people will be able to decide whether areas or certain houses should be or should not be offered for sale.
I could take the noble Earl through some parts of the city of Glasgow and show him officially the number of people who are still homeless, who go daily to the local house-letting department to find out how they stand on the local housing list. How are they going to feel if the Government decide that the local authority must sell a house to a sitting tenant in one of their tenancies? I have spoken to quite a number of people on this matter. Some have been in their houses for 40 years, some have come to the end of the period (60 years) for which subsidy was provided; and people say,"Why should I buy a house?" Of course, even although the Government tell the local authority that they must sell houses, there is no compulsion on a sitting tenant to buy.
Many people do not realise that there will be many repairs to be done to houses; that, in many cases houses will require a lot of modernisation. In the city of Glasgow (and I can speak only from the point of view of the city of Glasgow) there has been a programme, extensively employed over the whole of Scotland, for the modernisation of council houses. Let us take a sitting tenant who, so far as the Bill is concerned, requires only a three-year tenancy. It may be a young fellow who is perhaps in work today but who, with the lengthening queues of unemployed, could be on the scrap heap
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in six months' or twelve months' time. He is able to apply for rent relief or rent rebate.
In the city of Glasgow at the present time, apart from those who are in receipt of supplementary benefit, there are about 43,500 tenants receiving rent rebates. They are working; but their income is insufficient to pay the rents that are presently
being exacted; and the Government refund 95 per cent. of the losses of rent arising from that particular source. The noble Earl says,"Let them buy their homes so that they can cock a snook at the local authority". What kind of attitude is that to try to instil in tenants who, in most cases, know very little about the responsibilities, financial and otherwise, that can devolve upon an owner-occupier?
The city of Glasgow, as a matter of fact, because of the changing majorities that were recently operated in the city, actually started to prepare a booklet in order to give sitting tenants something to read as to what they were letting themselves in for. Take the financial case of a man who is granted the sale of a house —and he must be granted it. I do not know whether there are to be any prohibitions if his income is below a certain figure to prevent him qualifying for purchase of a house. So far as I am aware, the mortgage rate has to be fixed by the Government and not by the local authority. The city of Glasgow at present is operating a lower rate of interest. They will be prevented from showing consideration to particular types of tenant. The Bill says that we should cock a snook at all the work which keeps a roof over the head of a corporation tenant at a reasonable rent.
On this wrecking business, if the noble Earl regards it as such, we had the other day another example of what the future will be when we had the Minister for Housing in the Scottish Office telling us in quite an astonishing clash on television that if the local authorities did not exact the rents that would be laid down by the Government, they would know all about it—another shift of the power that the local authorities have enjoyed over the years in municipal housing. There is a great deal to be done here, particularly at this stage, to allow areas to make their own decisions because of the

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problems that will arise financially to a sitting tenant and in relation to the nature or condition of the house.
I do not know whether the noble Earl will be prepared to give us some indication whether, if a house requires any maintenance or rectification or repair, that the local authority would also be instructed not to hand it over until the repairs have been carried out. It would be a reasonable thing to expect them to do. Where is the tenant who will embark on the mortgage of a municipal house only to find that he has burst pipes, drains, fire
places, ceilings and roof to repair? If they are going to insist on this condition, they should make sure the house is handed over in reasonable condition.
My main purpose in supporting the excellent case put forward by my noble friend Lord Ross of Marnock is that the amendment does not prohibit or prevent a local authority selling the housing stock. The Government say they are desirous to give the sitting tenant the right to make application to purchase his own house. Subject to the recognition of the needs of each particular authority, the right would be there for a local authority, if it feels that it no longer has a housing problem and is not likely to have one in the future, to submit the plan to the Secretary of State for Scotland, who still has the right under this amendment to accept or reject any proposals put forward by the local authority for the sale of their council houses. I do not want to hold up the Committee any longer than is necessary, because the case has been so well argued. I would invite the noble Earl, whom I congratulate on his 50th birthday and the presentation made to him by his wife, to give a present to Scotland by taking this Bill and burying it.
3.32 p.m.
Viscount THURSO: It seems that we are discussing a matter of principle which in many ways should really have been discussed at Second Reading. But if we are to restate our principles, our principles from these Benches are that tenants should be given a right to purchase their house, but the great principle of Scottish law, which overrides everything—that nobody shall so use their right as to harm their neighbour—
1630
should from time to time, in certain circumstances, override the general right. So I am afraid I cannot go along hand in hand with the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Galpern, in seeking to wreck this Bill, because I do not seek to wreck it.
I should like to see tenants of houses given the right to buy their houses; but I shall, I hope, be supporting amendments, and indeed moving amendments later, which will seek to temper those rights in such a way as to benefit the whole of the community or parts of the community. I think that, in so far as we are discussing these limited amendments, we on these Benches will find it difficult to support the noble Lord, Lord Ross, and the noble Lord, Lord Galpern.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I should like to make one or two observations on this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, certainly knows a great deal about this subject, and his memory goes back just about the same length as mine in dealing with it. I admit he knows more about the subject than I do. I never had to deal with housing when I was at the Scottish Office, and he had to deal with it for a long time. I wonder whether he is really looking at this matter from the right angle. The point here is to enable there to be a stock of houses for the whole country of Scotland, as my noble friend said, and one does not take away a house simply because it is sold by a local authority to a sitting tenant. One does not take it away; it remains as part of the stock, and the tenant still goes on occupying it and is likely to do so for some years, because he will not want to lose his discount. The question is: how is one going to finance the housing of those people who still need housing? It has nothing to do with whether a particular house is within the stock of the local authority or within the general stock of houses in the area. Does the noble Lord wish to intervene?
Lord GALPERN: The noble Lord fails to see that if one sells a house, that house is removed from the realm of letting. The person who is looking for a house is not in a position to buy the house, but if it belonged to the local authority he may have been the lucky one to get it rented to him.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I should like to say how pleased we are to see the noble Lord back in his place again. We hope he is entirely recovered from his recent illness. I wonder whether what the noble Lord has said is tenable at all, because sooner or later it is just as likely that a house will be let—that is, one of the houses that are sold—as that it will be occupied by the owner himself. This surely is the desirable aim—to get more houses to let. The whole of the Scottish scene in housing has been bedevilled. It goes right back to the question of owners' rates, as noble Lords will remember, and the two sorn reports and the way in which we had to get rid of that and finished up with rents that were so small as to be totally ridiculous. Some privately owned houses were being let at half-a-crown a week, the reason being that in order to get rid of this anomaly it was necessary to reduce the rent payable by the tenant by the amount of rates that he was taking over from the landlord. This was a perfectly absurd thing to do, but it had to be done at that time.
The great problem just now is that there is no incentive whatsoever in Scotland for landlords to build for letting. That is why the local authorities have had to provide houses to such a very great extent and why we in Scotland have —I think I am right in saying this—the highest proportion of local authority-owned houses in any country in Europe. Surely it is a good idea, then, to get more houses in general circulation. I think noble Lords forget that these houses are not going to be got for nothing. They are going to be sold at the district valuer's valuation, less the discount. In future these houses will always be sold at market price, and this will have a general effect of releasing the market for houses as a whole. I believe this is also something which is very much overlooked in considering the general principle here.
It is difficult not to agree that, while in the main housing authorities have done a very good job in Scotland, they do have a very possessive attitude to their houses. They do not like disposing of their houses. The noble Lord was not arguing that more housing, or even as much housing, would be disposed of by local authorities if they retained the power to say whether houses should be
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sold or not than if we adopted the principles of this Bill and put it in the power of the tenants to say whether they want to buy the houses. Another thing he mentioned was the complaint of local authorities that the best houses would be sold off. I should have thought that if a local authority retains the stock of houses and retains the power to sell them off it would be inclined to sell off the worst houses. The local authority would be inclined to sell off the worst houses or houses that were going to cost it more money.
Why should the tenant of a good house, which undoubtedly he has helped to maintain and keep in a good state, not be allowed to buy his house? I am saying that it is reasonable for the best houses to be sold off because the main responsibility of the local authority has to be to provide houses for those who cannot provide houses for themselves. Therefore, it seems to me that the philosophy and also the logic of the clause as it now stands is right and that the noble Lord has not, as I said before, accustomed himself to looking at the situation from the angle from which it will have to be looked at in the future.
Lord DENHAM: It may be for the convenience of the Committee if we took the Statement now. If that is convenient, I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

THE NUCLEAR DETERRENT
3.40 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, MINISTRY of DEFENCE (Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal): My Lords, with the permission of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence on the eventual replacement of the Polaris force which now provides Britain's strategic nuclear deterrent capability. The Statement is as follows:
"As the House knows, the Government regard the maintenance of such

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a capability as an essential element in the defence effort we undertake for our own and western security. I made clear the reasons for this policy in the debate on 24th January.
"We have studied with great care possible systems to replace Polaris. We have concluded that the best and most cost effective choice is the Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile sysstem developed by the United States. President Carter has affirmed United States support for British retention of our strategic nuclear capability and US willingness to help us in this. An exchange of letters between my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and the President, with a supplementary exchange between the US Secretary of Defense and myself, is being published today as a White Paper. The agreement we have reached is on the same lines as the 1962 Nassau Agreement under which we acquired Polaris. We shall design and build our own submarines and nuclear warheads here in the United Kingdom; and buy the Trident missile system complete with its MIRV capability from the United States. Once bought it will be entirely in our ownership and operational control, but we shall commit the whole force to NATO in the same way as the Polaris force is today. The new force will enter service in the early 1990s and will comprise four or five boats. We need not decide about a fifth boat for another two or three years, and we are leaving the option open meanwhile.
"I am publishing a memorandum explaining our reasons for choosing Trident; advance copies of this memorandum are available in the Vote Office. It gives the very full account which I promised to the House, and I am sure the House will wish to study it.
"We estimate the capital cost of a four-boat force, at today's prices, as up to £5 billion spread over 15 years. We expect rather over half of the expenditure to fall in the 1980s. We intend to accommodate this within the defence budget in the normal way alongside other major force improvements. We remain determined to uphold and where necessary strengthen
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our all-round defence capability; and this applies to our conventional forces no less than to our nuclear forces.
"I intend that as much work as possible should go to British industry. At least 70 per cent. of the total cost will be spent in this country; and that will be reflected in a substantial amount of employment.
"The decision I have announced is one of cardinal importance, as the House will recognise. The Government regard it as an essential reaffirmation of our national commitment to security and to co-operation with our allies under the North Atlantic Treaty. The United Kingdom's continuing possession of a strategic nuclear capability remains a major element in our deterrent strategy, and a major contribution to the defence of Western Europe. As the House knows, our strategy, with that of our NATO Allies, is entirely and absolutely defensive in concept and scope. It is designed solely to preserve peace and prevent war. Until genuine wide-reaching multilateral arms control can be negotiated, any diminution in the pattern and structure of our wholly defensive capability must increase rather than reduce the risk of war, especially at a time when the Soviet Union is rapidly building up its massive military strength.
"In these circumstances, and while we must regret the need for such weapons, the Government are confident that the decision I have now announced will have the general support of this House and of the country".
That, my Lords, concludes the Statement.
3.45 p.m.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for making this important Statement. I know that some of my friends in another place believe that the Statement should have been made by the Prime Minister and not just by the Minister for Defence. It is one of the most important Statements that I have heard. We are to purchase a replacement which is going to cost £5 billion. That is a tremendous amount of money. I have always taken the view that if it is right for the defence of our country and

1635
it is adequate, then we should support it. On the other hand, before such a step was taken by the Government we should have examined still further the implications, and the senior committee on this would then have been able to study it and also to have made a report to the House. Indeed, the Minister of Defence in another place actually said he hoped to provide information about procuring a new deterrent. That promise has not been fulfilled. I know that a document is to be placed in the Library of the House and in the Vote Office, but I believe we should have had that now. It is not easy to probe matters if all the information is lying next door.
I should like to ask the noble Lord whether we can have more information about this. It is a very important matter; I have always helped him considerably in defence debates. I feel he owes it to the House to provide much more information. I assume that at some time we shall have to discuss this further. It also goes to show the importance of SALT 2, which is a complex arrangement. There is much detail of this in the White Paper and the excellent document which the Minister of Defence published. I still believe we should emphasise over and over again the importance of getting agreement. I hope that there will be no dilatoriness in relation to this.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, I also should like to thank the noble Lord the Minister for repeating this Statement. The Liberal Party have for long made it clear—as I am sure your Lordships are aware—that they are totally opposed to the renewal of our so-called independent strategic nuclear deterrent. The reasons will be developed fully in any debate which we may have on the subject. I hope that it will take place before the Recess, if that is possible. This, therefore, is not the time to rehearse the arguments, except in the very briefest way.
Broadly speaking, we believe that the new deterrent will be otiose if the Americans continue to be engaged in the defence of Europe, and useless as a deterrent if they are not. We are also convinced that, whatever the Government may say, the cost will be far more than £5,000 million and that, if not now, at any rate in a few
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years' time, this sum will have to be found at the expense of our"conventional "forces, thus weakening our capacity to fight a conventional war and lowering the famous nuclear threshold.
To conclude, the installation of cruise missiles in this country—as we may hope, under genuine joint Anglo-American control—will give us all the nuclear deterrent that we need, always supposing that their installation is not proceeded with as a result of the coming equivalent of SALT 3 talks with the Russians on long-range tactical nuclear weapons. The only question that I should like to ask is this. In what circumstances and in what conditions would the Government be prepared to discontinue our production of all or any of the proposed five new Trident submarines as a result of talks on strategic weapons with the Soviet Union?
3.50 p.m.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I am grateful to the two noble Lords. May I start by saying that the document which was produced today will answer much more specifically and clearly than any words of mine nearly all the points that have been raised, and I daresay most of the points that will be raised during comments on this Statement. So far as the relative costs are concerned, we have said before and we reiterate again that we do not expect the cost of this weapon system to exceed 5 per cent. of the defence budget in any year, and in very many years it will be substantially less. The operating cost is similar to the Polaris cost, and that is of the order of l per cent. of the defence budget at the present time.
The noble Lord, Lord Peart, made the point—and it is a perfectly fair one—about the opportunities there should have been for further discussion. I would remind him that both in another place and here we had a number of debates about this issue, and the difficulty about supplying really comprehensive information is the combination of the sensitivity of the subject and the difficulty of arriving at conclusive figures from which the argument can he deduced. I think the noble Lord will find this is again admirably summarised in the document which is now produced.

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We believe that this has no impact upon the SALT 2 negotiations. It is quite a separate issue. This has been made clear on a number of occasions by the Americans. There is no contravention in any way of the intention of the SALT negotiations, and there can be no question of bad faith about it.
The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said that the cost of £5,000 million will be exceeded. I would not dispute it in an inflationary situation, but then you have to allow as best you can for the fact that everything you try to buy will cost more when you come to pay for it. But we believe an adequate allowance has been made in putting forward a figure of £5,000 million at the present time.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, there are a number of staunch supporters of the NATO concept who will have their doubts about the wisdom of the decision which the Government have taken. I am sure we shall all want to study the background documents, but prior to that may I ask the noble Lord four questions on what he has said?
I understood him to say that the new weapon will be entirely under our operational control. He also said, "But we shall commit the whole force to NATO". There would seem to be some ambiguity here which he might clear up. Who will, in fact, give the order? It will possibly be the last order that is ever given in the United Kingdom, and we ought not to have this in any ambiguous cloud.
Secondly, the noble Lord said that we shall build our own submarines and warheads. He also said that 70 per cent. of the £5,000 million, or whatever more it costs, will be spent in this country. Does that mean that the submarines and warheads will cost 70 per cent.? Or what other part of the project will then be spending in this country?
The noble Lord also said that we shall—I think he used the word—"uphold" our conventional forces. Is he really saying that if we spend £5,000 million on this project we shall still be able to spend the same amount of money on our conventional forces, including our air forces? Would he be good enough to clear up that point? Finally, may I ask him what happens now to the Chevaline programme if this decision is made?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I shall try to take the noble Lord's points in reverse order, because that makes it easier for my memory. The Chevaline programme will be relevant until the Polaris is phased out in the early 'nineties as the Trident comes in.
So far as equipment spending is concerned, of course any money spent on this will not be available to be spent on conventional capability; but it is a fact that we are currently spending more and we would expect to be spending more on conventional weapons than we are currently doing because of the policy of increasing the defence budget.
So far as the apparent contradiction that he was referring to on the question of control is concerned, the Polaris force is declared to NATO and is targeted according to the NATO agreement. Our option to exercise the unique British control which exists to fire these weapons would be used in only very exceptional circumstances.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, did I ask the noble Lord about the 70 per cent?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, that is, indeed, true. Seventy per cent. of the cost of this system is absorbed by the submarines and the warheads, and that is the British part of the cost of the system.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, the Minister will remember that I asked him for this Statement yesterday. I was a day too early. I need not repeat the deep opposition of many of us to this proposal, but I want to ask the Minister this: Has a long-term contract been entered into for the Trident? It does not come into operation, as he himself said, until the early 'nineties, which is 10 years hence. Within those 10 years tremendous changes may take place. There are already the discussions initiated by the German Chancellor in Moscow which have on the whole had a good response from President Carter. There is the committee at Geneva, and within a few years disarmament agreements may be reached which will make this deterrent absolutely unnecessary.

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Secondly, may I ask him this: Is he aware—I was scoffed at for saying this yesterday—that the Labour Party is now absolutely united in opposition to any replacement of the Polaris submarine? It is not only the decision of our conference. In the pamphlet published yesterday by Mr. William Rodgers lie declared against any replacement of the Polaris submarine. In view of the circumstances in the world, are the Government really going to spend £5,000 million upon the Trident when all the international and domestic conditions are such that—let us hope—it will never be necessary?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I would not wish in any way to minimise the importance of this decision or the scale and the cost of the buy, and indeed the Statement does quite the reverse; but I think it is necessary to get it in proportion. This equipment buy is, in fact, less than the cost of the Tornado programme and it is relatively less than the cost of the V-bombers in their day. So it should not be regarded as so overwhelming as some noble Lords are inclined to make it out to be. As yet, no contract exists for the purchase: it will he some time before the contractual details are settled. I have to say to the noble Lord that I would be delighted, and I am sure many other noble Lords would be delighted, if, indeed, there really were negotiations which made it possible to contemplate giving up a capability of this kind. The fact is that there are no such negotiations, and there is even very little prospect of any such negotiations, and we believe that if we go soft on this particular option the chances of any successful negotiations will be greatly diminished.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, may I ask the Minister this: we have promised to increase our defence spending along with the other nations of the West by a real 3 per cent.: is part of this 3 per cent. committed to Trident?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I am not wholly certain what the noble Lord means by that. We intend to accommodate the purchase of Trident within the expanded and expanding defence budget. Does that answer the noble Lord's question?
Lord SHINWELL: My, Lords, may I express on opinion? Is the noble Minister aware that if I thought there was any possibility of coining to some arrangement with the Soviet Union, either in the future proposed SALT talks or in any kind of negotiations that might be suggested, I would offer opposition to the Government's propositions, except that I would advocate, as I have done frequently, the provision of adequate conventional weapons?—and I hope that nothing the Government propose in connection with nuclear weapons will prevent our providing adequate conventional equipment and weapons for our conventional forces.
What I want to know is this. Are we to understand that this is the only possible kind of replacement for the phasing out of the Polaris weapon? Has the matter been thoroughly considered? In this connection, may I also ask whether the noble Lord the Minister is aware that the previous Government occupied a great deal of their time considering what kind of replacement for the Polaris missile was likely to be projected, but they came to no decision? How long has it taken previous Governments and the present Government to investigate the nature of this problem and come to a decision? Can we therefore, at the instigation of my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition, ask for further information on the subject? Can it be clearly understood, in view of some differences of opinion in the Labour Party, that there always have been differences in the Labour Party on the subject of defence and some members of my party do not want any defence of any sort or kind?
I take the view that we have to provide the most adequate measures of defence that are within our capabilities. I hope that the Government, in spite of all the difficulties involved and the expenditure to be entailed, which I deplore, will stand firm on the need, after careful investigation and study, to provide in the interests of our security, and in consultation and conjunction with NATO and our allies, all the security and the defensive measures that may be regarded as necessary.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for a predictably robust comment, if I may say so. I do

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not want to make this a moment for party political contention but I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, that if he can say, with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, sitting on the same side of the House, that the Labour Party is united on this issue, he is performing an intellectual somersault which I find difficult to understand. It is perfectly true, as the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, said, that the last Government addressed this problem, and frankly they found it too difficult and they ran away from it. This Government have not run away from it; they have made up their minds and that is the reason we are having this Statement today.
Regarding the two technical questions put by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, I think that when he reads this document he will find that it does address the problem of the balance between conventional and nuclear forces. I will merely say that this is actually the most difficult part of the problem. The Government are satisfied that this represents a cost-effective defence expenditure and I have tried to put it into proportion. His other question asked whether this was the only other replacement system that was considered? No, indeed, it was not. In this document there is a careful discussion of cruise missiles, the various sorts of basing of cruise missiles—submarines, surface ships, land systems, airborne cruise missiles, and the possibility of mini-submarines even. They are all mentioned in this document, and at the end of the day the experts were united in the view that this was the most cost-effective way of continuing the effectiveness of the independent strategic nuclear deterrent.
Lord PEART: My Lords, may I just say to the noble Lord, who I thought made a monstrous statement when he said that my noble friends—and I was a member of the Government ran away from making a decision, that that is not true, and he knows it. I think really he is spoiling his case. After all, why does he put a document in the Vote Office when he is making a Statement? That is a funny way of giving information to the House.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that if I were to go through
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all the information in this document we should be here for a great deal more than 24 minutes.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, may 1, on a business point, ask whether there arc any practical reasons why the Government could not have answered these questions about cost-effectiveness, to which the noble Lord continually refers, and why this House and the other House should not be familiar with the arguments before the noble Lord makes this Statement? His excuse that such a Statement would take much longer simply does not fit the seriousness of the situation.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, my right honourable friend in another place has explained on a number of occasions that when the arguments had been assembled and assessed he would then make a Statement, and I believe he referred to a "full, comprehensive document". It may be slim, but I do assure the House that it is a full and comprehensive document. However, it is not one that one can very well read out in a Statement.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord said that the cost of this Trident programme will be no more than the Tornado programme. Will this not he in addition to the Tornado programme on the basis of what he said in the Statement and in answer to my question? I therefore ask him to make this clear: are we having this and the Tornado programme?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: Yes, my Lords: we certainly are. There is no question of the cancellation of the Tornado programme. All I am trying to indicate is that the Tornado programme was a big and important programme and this is another big and important programme, though not actually as big.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, will not the Minister agree that the policy of deterrence has worked over the last thirty years and will continue to work if we are sufficiently resolute?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord. Those are exactly the sentiments of the Government.
Lord KALDOR: My Lords, the very important remark made by the noble Lord was that if we, as he called it, "went soft" on nuclear weapons the chances of an agreement on nuclear disarmament with the Russians would be sensibly diminished. I think that is possibly the only argument for having strategic nuclear weapons of this kind which we would all agree we could never use without committing collective suicide. Is the noble Lord really satisfied, in the present international situation, that the importance of our possession of these weapons really does make an important difference to the chances of reaching an agreement between the Russians and the United States?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: Yes, I am, my Lords. This again is something that is addressed in the document. May 1 summarise it simply by saying that we believe there is a real importance as seen from the other side—and this is the important point—in the existence of a second centre of decision-making. This increases the chances of coming to a workable agreement with the Soviet Union.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, may I put this point to the Minister: Is it right to say that what he has said today is really a decision in principle and that no agreement has been signed with the United States or anybody else so far, and no contracts concluded? Would it be right to say that there is nothing binding on this country and on the Government in what he has said today and that therefore there is time to consider the documents to which he has referred, and indeed for both Houses to consider this matter in depth; and that there is indeed time to follow up any possibility of negotiation between us and our allies on one side and anybody else as to a decision on this important matter which may overreach this particular decision?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, the Government have announced that they have come to a decision. I do not really believe that the contractual details are anything like as important as the main issue of principle.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, may I ask the Leader of the
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House when we could have a debate on this? I must say the answers to various questions have confused me as to whether we shall indeed have to reduce our conventional forces. Perhaps the Leader of the House could say.
The LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (Lord Soames): My Lords, I think that if the House wishes to have a debate this can be discussed through the usual channels. It may well be that this would be the wish of the House and the usual channels would be at the disposal of the House. We have now had up to 30 minutes on this Statement and supplementaries; we have quite a lot of business in front of us and I suggest we move on.

TENANTS' RIGHTS, ETC. (SCOTLAND) BILL
4.12 p.m.
House again in Committee on Amendment No. 1.
Lady SALTOUN: I would just like to say a word or two in support of Clause I of this Bill. I agree with every word the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said. In fact, he has said most of what I was going to say already, but there are just two points which I should like to emphasise. The first is that where a tenant purchases his council house, the burden of maintaining it, as I think has already been mentioned, will fall upon him instead of upon the local authority as in the past. I am a Scot and I know that the Scots are a canny race. I do not think that many Scots will contemplate purchasing their houses unless they are fully aware of the burdens which they are undertaking. The second point is that the money which the local authorities obtain from the sale of council houses to sitting tenants can go to help towards the provision of further housing.
The Earl of SELKIRK: The noble Lord, Lord Ross, emphasised to us that the fundamental work of the local authorities would be seriously undermined if these proposals went through. I find it very hard to be sympathetic with this point of view because of course none of us knows how successful it would be; it may or it may not be successful. But

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supposing in the next five years 10 per cent. of the local authority houses were sold—I rather doubt myself whether as many as that would in fact be sold, but supposing it was that figure in five years—just about half the houses in Scotland would remain local authority houses.
With those figures it is really rather hard, I think, to say that the basic role which local authorities have in this would be undermined. After all, these people, of their own free choice, are saying, "We want to and we can buy a house". A house is a very personal thing indeed, and it is something about which people are entitled, as far as possible, to arrange as they like. I cannot see that the local authorities' duties, such as they are, would be very greatly undermined. They would still have over half or just about half of all the houses in the country. I really think this is quite enough for them to deal with those essential problems with which they have been charged by statute. Not only that, I think all those houses are in fact paid for in part out of the rates, so that the more houses are sold the more this would be a form of economy to most local authorities. For these reasons, I think the anxieties of the noble Lord, Lord Ross, are not really justified. I believe the local authorities will not be any worse off; they will still have a very large task and, I think, a reasonable opportunity of fulfilling it.
4.14 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: We have had a better debate on this amendment than we had on the Second Reading. As I remember, on the Second Reading there were no Back-Bench speeches at all and I think from that point of view this debate has certainly been worthwhile. The suggestion is that this is a wrecking amendment. I am an old enough parliamentarian not to put down wrecking amendments, and the noble Earl the Minister destroyed his own argument when he said that this was an amalgam of other amendments in another place. It may well have been, but if they had been in another place and had been wrecking amendments they would not have been discussed at all, because wrecking amendments are out of order. It is not a wrecking amendment; it is certainly a limiting amendment in respect of the principle that the tenant is the
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only person to be considered in this matter. The actual principle of the sale of council houses to sitting tenants is still a live matter, even taking into account this particular amendment.
My noble friend Lord Galpern, who, as the former Lord Provost of Glasgow, probably knows a little more about the position in respect of council houses and the problems of Glasgow, the problems of the cities, is quite right, I think, when he draws attention to exactly the difficulties that will arise even for those who buy the houses. This links up with the point that was made by the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun.
I thought of putting down an amendment to insist that either the Secretary of State or the local authority should produce a document outlining to would-be purchasers just exactly what they were letting themselves in for. We shall probably discuss this later, but it is so very important. You see, everybody will make out of this. Lord Drumalbyn is going to finance the rest of the building programme of the local authorities out of this, so is the noble Lady. It will be a tremendous bargain for the tenants; their rates are going to be reduced, and everybody is going to gain from it.
You only have to say it to realise that there is something wrong here somewhere. So far as I can see, the only person who will gain is the Government, because if it is not on the housing revenue account then they do not pay a subsidy on it. Not all the money, by the way, I would inform the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, is coming to the local authority. Once we get down to other clauses, she will discover that the local authority has to provide the money for the tenant to buy the house that it was unwilling, in the first place, to sell. Crazy!
But the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said that I should find another angle from which to look at this matter. I have been looking at this from all angles and I think I said on Second Reading that the one on which I lighted as the angle from which many supporters of the Government saw it, is that we get rid of as many council houses as we can. I do not think that the Government know very much about the people who live in council houses. The noble Lord said that they do not take away a house, it remains a part of the stock. Of course it does, but

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it is no longer within the control of the local authority, and the day after purchase it can be sold to somebody who is not on a waiting list. It can be sold to anybody at all who is not in need of housing. That is the difficulty that the local authorities find themselves in. They have got to provide a plan and tell the Secretary of State exactly what they are going to do in the way of building, in the way of modernisation and all the rest of it, when they do not know themselves whether there is going to be 5 per cent. sold. It knocks haywire any idea of planning as to what the local authorities can do.
The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said that there was no incentive for landlords to build for letting. I ask the noble Lord when that started. It started in the year 1900. That is when private landlords stopped building houses and that is why a Royal Commission had to be established, which encouraged local authorities to start building houses. That was the reason for it. This problem was there before a single local authority house was built.
Lord DRUMALBYN: Surely the noble Lord will admit that it was mainly the cessation of the building of houses during the First World War that influenced the situation.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: No, not during the First World War; it was before the First World War. As a matter of fact, it was in the year 1917, during the First World War, that the Royal Commission on Scottish Housing reported. So the noble Lord's history is not all that good, so far as that is concerned. There is a possessive attitude—
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: The noble Lord did not mention any dates of that kind. He was simply saying that the cessation of building during the First World War led to most of the trouble.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: No; it was the establishment of the Royal Commission which pinpointed the fact that there was trouble. A Royal Commission is not established unless there is something to solve on which you want some kind of advice. It reported during the war, which is an indication that the
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trouble started long before that time. The trouble started after about the year 1900. It may have been the introduction of a Liberal Government in 1905 that caused the trouble—I do not know. Anyway, the noble Earl the Minister suggested that the Government had fought an election. He was careful not to mention the manifesto this time. My full congratulations to him. I did not introduce the subject—he did. They fought an election on this promise. He did not tell us the result, but they lost it.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I am sitting here.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Of course, the noble Earl is sitting there, but it is by the grace of the English. The number of seats won by the Labour Party in Scotland was 44. The number won by the Conservatives and Unionists—I think they still call themselves that in Scotland—was 22. They are in a minority of two to one and the noble Earl says, "We fought an election". He did not convince the people of Scotland of it.
But since then we have fought the local elections. What happened there? We hardly controlled a district authority in Scotland before. All these authorities who I said were complaining to the Minister about taking away their powers were Tory authorities and Independent authorities. But since the election—and they fought the election on this issue—they have lost miserably. They have only a handful left in Glasgow; they have only the casting vote of the Lord Provost in Edinburgh, with the help of a few others as well. The same applies in the other cities. This idea has been turned down by the people of Scotland. We fought a by-election in the centre of Glasgow; I hope that noble Lords remember the result. The Tories got 707 votes and lost their deposit. Was this a great victory for this kind of thing? Of course it was not.
They are so insensitive to the needs of the people of Scotland, and they are running into the same dangers as they ran into before. What do they think of the people of Scotland? The people give a decision against something, but they still get it. I hope that noble Lords noticed who was second in that by-election. It was not the Conservatives; it was the Scottish Nationalists. The Conservatives

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are going to repeat all the mistakes of the past and the trouble will start in the same areas around the North of Scotland. The noble Lord shakes his head. He is very young in politics, but I can tell him exactly where the seats will be lost. Let him look at the majorities in that area where the Conservatives had hoped that we had got rid of Scottish Nationalism. The way they are carrying on, giving people what they do not want in spite of the declared opposition, will invite the same kind of problems as before.
There has been talk about the rights of ownership and cocking a snook at local authorities. What does this mean? You must own your own house, in order to do it. I own my house and I do not cock a snook at the local authority—I dare not. The byelaws passed by local authorities apply to owner-occupiers, as they do to tenants. If the noble Lord is talking about the colour of the windows and so on, that has nothing to do with the purchase of the house. That has to do with security of tenure and the lease that we are going to give them. That is the freedom that we are going to give to the tenants. The tenant's charter was provided by the last Labour Government. That is the only good bit in the Bill, but we are not there yet.
The noble Lord himself used to be in a local authority, and I understand that at that time it was a housing authority. Can he tell me how many local authority houses he sold then? I do not think there was one. The point is that we first had to meet the needs of the people of Scotland. We had to build and build. I remember a Tory Prime Minister who made his name by building 400,000 houses. But he never sold a single local authority house. This is the new criterion. The question of selling the houses has arisen only in the last few years. In those great glorious 13 years of Tory misrule, how many houses were sold? This is something new which they have thought up. I assure noble Lords that they do not really appreciate the damage that they will do.
A person does not necessarily stay in a council house all his life. People have been known to leave council houses at the age of 40 or 50, when their families are working, and then to buy a house under private owner-occupation. There is a
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mathematical formula that can be worked out to find the number of local authority houses that become available for reletting every year. But the one thing that is true is that if you take a house out of the stock and sell it and then it is resold again and again, it is not someone from the waiting list who will be going in. It will be lost to the local authority for reletting. We are not wrecking the Bill. We are trying to make sense of the Bill and trying to save the Government from doing something that is very foolish indeed.
I am sorry that the Liberal Party do not appreciate the value of decision-making by a local authority. That is the principle that we are now talking about. Let the local authority decide. It is a question of the rights of the individual or the rights of the whole community, because the people who are waiting for houses are interested in this, and their rights are reduced if a house is taken out of the letting stock. We are talking about the rights of people who are waiting to get into a desirable area—and there are many.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, who said that the houses in desirable areas will be sold first. Of course they will be. I can think of a scheme in Kilmarnock where you must virtually serve your time there for five years before you get a transfer into a better house, but that better house will not be there if it is sold and then resold to somebody else. This will make it absolutely impossible for a local authority to keep a balance of housing to meet its varied needs, whether they be the needs of the homeless, the elderly, the people who need transfers or the pensioners. We have done our best to persuade the Government, but they are obviously not going to move. Good sense would tell them to take the advice of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. Good sense would tell them to take the advice of the National Farmers' Union. Good sense would tell them to take the advice of their own individual local authority. But, no; they fought the election on it and they lost and, whether or not the Scots like it, they are going to get it. Well, well! I think that the party opposite deserve everything they are going to get at the next election. I think we should divide the House.
4.30 p.m.
Lord STRATHCLYDE: I rise merely because I think that the noble Lord who has just spoken forgets things that he does not wish to remember. He forgets the Rent Restriction Act. He forgets owners' rates. What was one of the principal causes why we needed to build more houses? I also ask, who was it who went ahead and built the houses? Who was it who set a target for housing? It was not the Government of which the noble Lord has been a member; it was the Conservative Party which set the target. The target of 300,000 houses was fixed by two Members of your Lordships' House today—myself and my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls. We were told that the target was impossible. The Labour Party's target was 200,000 houses.
The noble Lord forgets some of these facts; he has a convenient memory. The need for houses was made more and more abundantly clear during the First World War. Houses were falling into disrepair at a tremendous rate because of the Rent Restriction Act. The owners of these houses simply could not afford to keep them up. Whose fault was that? It was only when we set our target so high that we began to get houses built. If people want to have houses of their own, surely they ought to be able to have them. Should not houses be made available to them? I cannot understand the noble Lord when he says, more or less, that people are not allowed to get a house of their own if they want one.
Who can afford to build a house today, I should like to ask? I know of nobody in my situation who can afford to build a house today, nor in the case of many Members of your Lordships' House, because this is simply out of the question. Here is an opportunity to let people get the house which they want at the price which they can pay. I am delighted that the Government have brought forward this Bill, and I hope that it will go through, despite what has been said by the noble Lord opposite—which in my opinion is quite mistaken, and I think that I had as much to do with housing during my period in another place as did the noble Lord.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I should be the first to admit that the noble Lord did his best. So far as building houses
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is concerned, and so far as targets are concerned, he has only to look at the history books to find that it was when I was Secretary of State that the greatest number of houses were built in Scotland, not when he was there as Minister of State. The noble Lord talked about the Rent Restriction Act. The troubles did not start with that Act; they started long before then. The noble Lord also talked about owners' rates. Owners' rates were taken away and put on to the tenant. That was supposed to help owners, but it did not lead to an increase in the number of privately rented houses. In fact, the number still went down, even after all the generosity of the Government of which the noble Lord was a member. The situation is certainly different today.
I am glad that the noble Lord asked, who can afford to build a house? The people who have got to build houses to replace the houses which are no longer in stock are the local authorities. Could the noble Lord tell me, just like that, what it is going to cost Shetland County Council, because of the pressures there, to build houses? I will tell him. The cost of building a house there is £63,000. Because of this Bill, they have got to sell houses to sitting tenants at, possibly, half the price when they were built. Many of these houses to which the noble Lord refers were built before the war. The loans were for 40 years and they have been paid off by now. The fact that they are still tenanted and being looked after means that the local authority can reduce the rents of the others, the whole community thus benefiting. This helps the rates as well. I am afraid that what is being done today is not something of which eventually we are going to be very proud. I hope that we shall return to local authorities the discretion and the right to determine where and how many houses will be sold.
The Earl of PERTH: As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, said that this was not a wrecking amendment. Technically, I suppose that is true, but, as I understand it, the amendment makes things extremely restrictive in the realm of housing. Under this amendment, although Government policy may be one thing, if the local authority decides otherwise their rule or will would prevail. Perhaps I have got this wrong, but that is how I understand it. It seems to me that

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this is as close to a wrecking amendment as can be, for it says that local authority policy will come ahead of that of the Government. Perhaps the noble Lord will explain it to me if I am wrong.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: These houses are the local authority's houses.
The Earl of PERTH: I know, but Government policy is Government policy.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Yes, but it does not change that simple fact. They are local authority houses. They are owned by the local authorities. The local authorities are responsible for them, not the Government.
The Earl of PERTH: It seems to me to be a wrecking amendment, or as close to it as no matter.
Lord UNDERHILL: May I comment on what the noble Earl has just said? I have just looked at the amendment which refers to,
"the targets set out in the relevant local housing plan drawn up by the local authority and approved by the Secretary of State".
Then it refers to the designation of areas as the local authority, with the consent of
the Secretary of State, may determine. Therefore the local authority is going to have some authority, but the Secretary of State is going to have some as well.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I do not want to prolong the agony. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, was in his place, or attending, but on the assumption that the answer to one of those questions may be, No, I tried to say that the plan drawn up by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, by which local authorities will produce their relevant local housing plans,to be approved by the Secretary of State, is unfortunately not blessed by statute. If, therefore, they produce a plan of which the Secretary of State disapproves, or if they produce no plan at all which contains any proposals for selling local authority housing, there is nothing under these amendments which the Government, through the Secretary of State, can do about it.
4.38 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 71; Not-Contents, 120.

CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Pargiter, L.

Aylestone, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Parry, L.

Bacon, B.

Hale, L.

Plant, L.

Balogh, L.

Hall, V.

Rathcreedan, L.

Beswick, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Birk, B.

Henderson, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Blease, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Segal, L.

Blyton, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Shinwell, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Jacques, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Bowden, L.

Janner, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Brockway, L.

Jeger, B.

Stone, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L,

Kaldor, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Strauss, L.

Cudlipp, L.

Leatherland, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Darling of Hillsborough, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

David, B.[Teller.]

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.[Teller.]

Underhill, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Denington, B.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Walston, L.

Diamond, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Whaddon, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Maelor, L.

White, B.

Galpern, L.

Milford, L.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Gardiner, L.

Noel-Baker, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Glenamara, L.

Oram, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Amory, V.

Baker, L.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Ampthill, L.

Balerno, L.

Allerton, L.

Auckland, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Alport, L.

Avon, E.

Bellwin, L.

Belstead, L.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Berkeley, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Moyola, L.

Bessborough, E.

Glenkinglas, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L

Bradford, E.

Gray, L.

Nathan, L.

Brentford, V.

Grey, E.

Netherthorpe, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Gridley, L.

Newall, L.

Byers, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Northchurch, B.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Onslow, E.

Carrington, L. (A Principal Secretary of State.)

Hampton, L.

Orkney, E.

Harvington, L.

Perth, E.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Hawke, L.

Redmayne, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Henley, L.

Reigate, L,

Clwyd, L.

Holderness, L.

Ridley, V.

Cockfield, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Rochdale, V.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Rochester, L.

Craigavon, V.

Kimberley, E.

Saltoun, Ly.

Crawford and Balcarres, E.

Kinloss, Ly.

Sandford, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L,

Kinnaird, L.

Sandys, L.[Teller.]

De Freyne, L.

Kintore, E.

Selkirk, E.

Denham, L.[Teller.]

Lauderdale, E.

Sharpies, B.

Derwent, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Simon, V.

Digby, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Sligo, M.

Drumalbyn, L.

Long, V.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Dundee, E.

Lyell, L.

Stamp, L.

Eccles, V,

McFadzean, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Effingham, E.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Strathspey, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Swinfen, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mancroft, L.

Thurso, V.

Elton, L.

Mansfield, E.

Trefgarne, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Margadale, L.

Trenchard, V.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Marley, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Falkland, V.

Merrivale, L.

Vickers, B.

Ferrers, E.

Milverton, L.

Vivian, L.

Ferrier, L.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Fortescue, E.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Westbury, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Morris, L.

Wigoder, L.

Gainford, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.

4.47 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 9, leave out ("to which this section applies").
The noble Lord said: I am not necessarily going to divide the Committee on this amendment but I am giving the Government a chance to redeem themselves and to live up to the Title at the front of this Bill.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: Would the noble Lord think that he might speak to Amendment No. 3 at the same time, to give me a double chance?
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I will do more than that. I will speak to Amendments Nos. 3 and 6. We are racing through at a speed that my ex-colleagues in another place just would not believe. I was wondering whether on this Bill I could possibly repeat my performance—my greatest parliamentary achievement—
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which was to get Bob Boothby out of his bed at 4 o'clock in the morning on a Scottish Housing Bill, summoned by his Whips to appear; I think it was in 1956. I am giving the Government an opportunity to redeem themselves here so that the Bill might apply not just to public sector tenants but to all tenants—those who are private tenants as well. If all the great benefits that we have heard about put a new light into the eyes of people and a sprightliness into their step when they become owner-occupiers, why should that be available under this Bill only to the public sector tenants? What about those who are paying rent to private landlords? Would they not be much better people (according to the Government, anyway) if they, too, were given the opportunity to become owner-occupiers?
That was the intended effect of this series of amendments. I did not follow it through, and if the Government think that there is no precedent for this kind of thing may I remind them of the Scottish long leases Act of 1951, when we had a problem of long leases falling in and, even though they had only a year to go, we

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worked out a formula whereby they were given a nominal term of (I think it was) about 15 to 20 years; and we worked out a formula whereby those with long leases were allowed to purchase their houses. The Government did not own the houses; they were private houses owned by private people, and if we could do it there, surely we can all exercise our noble minds to do it here for those people who are unfortunate enough still to be paying rents. We should give them the opportunity. So I am really testing the bona fides of the Government in respect of this great new principle that they have discovered in the past year. I beg to move.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: Fortified by the majority in the last Division, which proportionately was bigger than that obtained in the pocket borough of Glasgow, Central, the noble Lord now turns the argument on its head; because having said in effect that nobody should have the right to buy his council house, save with the blessing of the local authority, the noble Lord now turns round and says in effect that every tenant should have the right to buy his house not only in the public sector but in the private sector as well. Nevertheless, I suppose I do have to take this argument as a would-be serious contribution to the deliberations of the Committee, although perhaps I shall do so fairly quickly.
I shall take the public sector tenants first. What the noble Lord proposes, of course, runs absolutely contrary to the bulk of the amendments which he and his noble friend have put down to Part I, which restrict the right to buy. We make no apologies for the limitations which we have placed on the right to buy. As regards its limitation to tenants of public housing authorities, this follows to a large extent the limitation on the landlords whose tenants are to have security of tenure. It seems a matter of simple logic that if there are sound reasons for not granting a tenant security of tenure in his house those reasons must apply with equal or greater force to the case for not giving him the right to buy it. The reason for not granting security of tenure to tenants of public landlords other than those listed in Clause 10 of the Bill is that they have no housing functions and are all concerned with housing only in so far
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as it is related to their activities as employers. I take it that the noble Lord is not seriously suggesting that employers who need a stock of tied housing in order to carry out their functions should be forced to sell it.
So far as Amendment No. 6 is concerned, that would restrict landlords, past tenancy of whose houses will count for the qualifying period, to those whose houses are covered by the right to buy. At present, time in any house let by a landlord and covered by discount also counts for the qualifying period. There are people, for instance, such as those who have been policemen or prison officers, who spend a great deal of their time in tied houses placed at their service and have to, as it were, work unsocial hours and have to be on hand to deal with any emergency that may arise. We want such people at the end of their service, people who have to leave their service houses and become housing authority tenants, to be entitled to put that period of time towards the time which counts for the buying of a council house. But equally it could not be right to say that such a person should be entitled in circumstances such as those to buy his house. So I hope that answers that point.
I come finally to the private sector. The reason that private tenants are not given the right to buy is simple that their houses are not owned and financed by the state, so that if in effect by this amendment you gave them the right to buy it would be a wholly unwarrantable appropriation of private property by an individual at the behest of the state without any or any proper compensation.
If I may encapsulate the argument in this way, we believe that the freedom to choose between owning and renting is an extremely important right, as we have been discussing for the last hour or so, but we have never sought to suggest that its availability should not be circumscribed where there are strong practical considerations which weigh against granting it. There is a balance to be struck and believe that the Bill now strikes the balance correctly. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord, once he sees the logic which I have brought to bear in relation to these amendments, will see fit to withdraw them.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Whatever else there may be in the arguments in relation to this Bill and the title of this Bill, logic is not one. It says "Tenants' Rights, Etc." Bill; it does not say "Public Sector Tenants' Rights", but "Tenants' Rights". I am trying to widen as much as possible the rights of as many tenants as possible. I had a feeling that we would get the old argument brought out that the houses I would seek to bring in are not owned by the state. As a matter of fact I think it was at the Second Reading the Secretary of State who gave this argument that the houses were not owned by the state, and then at the Committee stage the Under-Secretary of State Mr. Rifkind said that the houses were not owned by the Government. This was a new concept of the Government actually owning houses. The whole point surely is that the public sector houses, generally speaking the local housing authority houses, are owned by the local authority; they are not owned by the state, they are not owned by the Government, they are owned by the local authority.
If under national policy we can interfere with the local authority to the extent that has been suggested, why should not we interfere with privately owned rented property? We have done it in many ways in the past with all sorts of rules and regulations about rent control, fair rents, registered rents, regulated tenancies and all that. Indeed, in the question of leasehold, we actually gave rights of ownership to people who formerly had only leases, and we did this in Scotland long before they did it in England and Wales. I remember the arguments which we had in the Government of which I was a member about that. Believe it or not it was a Tory Government which did it in Scotland; I think it was Viscount Stuart of Findhorn, James Stuart, who introduced the Bill on the long leases in Scotland, and interfered with the rights of individual owners who were expecting to have properties falling into their hands within a few years in Lanarkshire, in Stonehouse—places like that. We put a stop to that; we interfered.
From that point of view, why should we not do it now? But the Government, which has found all the arguments on the grounds of national policy in relation to interfering with local authorities, are not prepared in this instance to apply the
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principle to the private section of the field. Well, I accept it; I am not surprised, I am not disappointed. It is just what I always thought, that there was no logic in what the Government were doing, and probably there was no money to be made out of it from the Treasury point of view. So that is why there is no interference on the private side. That being so, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 2 and shall not move Amendments Nos. 3 and 6.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 not moved.]
5 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 8, leave out ("3") and insert ("8").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 5. In order to gain the right to purchase a house, to buy a house—I do not know whether we have sorted out those two words, but I shall leave that to the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk—a person must have been a tenant for three years, and for only three years. I do not think that it is fair that that right should be given after that length of time. It may well be that the Government find some special magic in three years, but certainly from the point of view of the local authorities and of anyone who considers that people should have earned the right by having lived in a council house for a certain length of time, I think that eight years is far more reasonable. For that reason I wish to move this very simple amendment. It is easy to understand and I am perfectly sure that any fair-minded person would say, "Yes, eight is quite a good period; by that time you will know whether they are good tenants, and you will have all the information that you want in respect of them when you come to adjudicate on whether or not they should be allowed to buy their house". Eight years would be a far better period.
We must bear in mind, of course, that the three years could be three years spent in England, Wales or Northern Ireland—so long as they were in a local authority house—they could then come to Scotland, get a local authority house and within a day proceed to purchase it. In that respect I think that eight years is far better and it

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would be much more likely that the local authorities and, indeed, the people in the area, would know just exactly who is the person who is getting what, in my view, will be the bargain of a house. I beg to move.
Lord GALPERN: I should like to support my noble friend. I think that eight years is a more practical period. I am afraid that there will be some people who will move in by way of business if the period is three years. There will be people moving in who have no interest, apart from making a fast buck by working some kind of dodge that they will devise, and the house could be sold after three years.
As I read it, even as regards the requisite period of occupation, it says:
"… or of a succession of dwelling-houses".
It does not mean a continuous succession of dwelling-houses. I take it that under this particular clause, an individual will be able to have a house one year, move out and then somehow get back in again or be out for two years. It does not say that it must be a continuous period. If that is so, there will be a great deal of malpractice operating if we do not alter it to a reasonable period, one of, as is suggested, at least eight years.
Viscount THURSO: I think that as regards this amendment, we are probably more able to go hand-in-hand with the noble Lords, Lord Ross of Marnock and Lord Galpern. However, I feel that eight years is rather too long. I would much prefer a figure of five years, which seems to be a reasonable period by which one could prove one's intent and one's bona fides. I know that it is difficult to pick a figure out of the sky. I merely wish to say that we support the principle of a rather larger number of years as the qualifying period, but we think that eight years is rather too long and that five years would be nearer the mark.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: there is nothing magical about three years. It is a restriction. First it is designed to ensure that the right to buy is confined to those who are bona fide public tenants. We think that three years is just about right for that and I am quite certain that the eight years proposed by the amendment is much too long. I say that for two reasons.
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First, as I have said, it is too long for the ordinary public tenant. Also, there are certain categories of people who quite frequently live in tied houses—I am thinking of people like policemen, prison officers and so on, who do their stint (if that is the right word) and come out at the age of about 45 still active and quite able to embark on a second career. Very often they go into public sector housing. They have given a considerable amount of their life to public service, and it would be quite wrong for those types of people—who are able to contribute a great deal more to the community and who probably will be the sort of people who would like to buy their own houses—to have to wait eight years until (and noble Lords have made reference to my recent birthday) they are getting slightly over the hump and perhaps their earning power decreases. Seriously though, quite a lot of thought was given to this particular time, and I ask noble Lords on reflection, to agree that three years is about the right level, and I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord HOWIE of TROON: I do not want to spend too much time on this matter, but it occurs to me that buying a house under the Bill after the very short period of three years will attract a substantial reduction in the cost—a third if I have read the Bill correctly. That suggests a possibility to me, following on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, earlier when he spoke of people qualifying in various parts of the country and they buying a house in another part of the country. It opens up the possibility of a market in second homes in some of the coastal towns of Scotland where there is a very large programme of public housing and where local authority houses are relatively easy to obtain. It would not be impossible to qualify, let us say, under the conditions of the Bill, in England or elsewhere in Scotland, or even, if I read the Bill correctly, in Northern Ireland, and then to find a council house in a coastal region of Scotland, buy it at a very substantial discount after a very short period, and then set up in the second home market. I am perfectly sure that that is not the Government's intention. It may well be that they have thought of that and have safeguarded themselves against that particular abuse.

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However, I think that the three year period is very short indeed. Whether or not eight years is right, I have no idea at all. But, three years is certainly on the short side, and I think that the Government would be well advised to give some further consideration to my noble friend's amendment with a view to coming back with a new suggestion at a later stage in the Bill.
Viscount THURSO: Will the noble Earl clarify the point which he made? He quoted the case of a prison officer. As I read the Bill it says:
"… not less than 3 years in occupation of a dwelling-house or of a succession of dwelling-houses provided by any persons mentioned in subsection (10) below".
Subsection (10) includes police authorities, the prison service and so on. So the fellow who has done his stint has surely quite easily qualified for buying a house before he ever leaves the prison service. He would have made eight years, he would have made five years and he would certainly have made his three years, and he would have his qualification under his belt at the age of 45 when he wants to buy his house. I was merely hoping that in these circumstances a slightly longer qualification could be considered by the Government. Would the noble Earl like to clarify that?
Lord GLENKINGLAS: Before the noble Earl clarifies it, would he not think it wise to take this back and look at it again, because I think that three years is too short. I am not sure whether eight years or five years is right; I should be happier with five but, frankly, I am not happy with three.
The Earl of PERTH: I should also like to support the noble Lord, Lord Glenkinglas, for I agree that three years is a short period, that eight is rather long and that the figure of five, which seems to be a compromise, seems to have good reasons going for it. I hope that the noble Earl will, in fact, say that he will consider the actual figure—he said that the figure of three was not sacrosanct—and perhaps introduce an amendment at the Report stage.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I take a different view from that expressed by my two noble
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friends. It seems to me that three years is sufficient to identify the person with the house. In the ordinary way, if a person has been in a house for three years, the likelihood is that, other things being equal—and they seldom are—he will have intended to stay on there, and he will now be given an opportunity to buy the house and identify himself with it even more closely.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: Do I understand the noble Lord, Lord Ross, to be right and that a person can serve his three years in the houses of any authority in the British Isles?
Lord DRUMALBYN: Yes, that is right. Perhaps my noble friend can confirm what I say in relation to the point raised by the noble Viscount. It seems to me that it is intended that a person should be able to qualify in any house of another public housing authority and also of any of these other bodies, like the prison service, forestry and so on, within the public sphere. The case that was taken was that of the prison service or the police service. Let us assume that he starts off in a new house with a new career and that his service in the prisons or the police counts to enable him to buy the house that he has moved into on the basis of renting it practically right away. I think that that is right if he has served the three years. I see nothing wrong with that. One is merely treating the publicly-owned housing service as one complete service for that purpose—not for all other purposes. It seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Lord SWINFEN: I should also like to support the suggestion of a period of five years rather than three years. This Bill deals with Scotland, and people in local authority houses in Wales, England and Northern Ireland can also qualify within this period to buy a house in Scotland. Should not the matter be considered at the same time as the Housing Bill so that the qualifying period is the same under both Bills?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: The answer to the last queston is, No. We like to consider Scottish matters on their merits; and the English have had their go with their Housing Bill. and they are welcome to it. First, may I tell the noble Viscount,

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Lord Thurso, that in trying to search for graphic—I shall not say amusing—but slightly more entertaining examples, I deceived myself and may have misled the Committee. Prison officers, of course, are in the latter part of the clause and therefore they, as it were, clock up their years by virtue of their service. If I have misled the Committee in what I find is a somewhat complex matter, I can only apologise. However, I think that the point I made is a good one even if, in fact, the prison officers were not.
I should like to answer the two points which have been made: first, on the period of three years, which some noble Lords have certainly queried, as opposed to five years or eight years; and, secondly, the point made, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, that a public sector tenant who avails himself of these provisions after three years could thereafter sell the house and make what I think the noble Lord, Lord Howie, would regard as an unjustifiable profit.
On the question of three years, nobody can be put in this happy position unless he has been allocated a house by the local authority which has come to a conclusion that that person needs to be allocated a house. So that person is not in the position of being a speculator, which is the point I am trying to make. I think that the length of time that a person should have to work his term as a tenant until he is entitled to buy his house is a matter of judgment. It has been considered very carefully by the Government. The matter was exhaustively debated in another place and it comes to your Lordships—and I do not say this in any pejorative sense—with thought already having been given to this period. I am very ready to give more thought to it, but I cannot make any promises that I shall come to any different conclusion from that which has already been reached by my right honourable and honourable friends.
So far as the unjustified enrichment part is concerned, if the noble Lord, Lord Howie, looks on down, so to speak, he will see that there are measures which would allow clawback if someone takes advantage of the fact that he has been allocated a council house and then sells it within five years of having made the purchase. Therefore, I hope that that deals with the noble Lord's point.
Lord HOWIE of TROON: Before the noble Earl leaves that point, will he recall that I was less interested in what he calls an "unjustifiable profit"—those words were his not mine—and that I was really drawing attention to the possibilities of acquiring at an advantageous price a second holiday home?
The EARL of MANSFIELD: When there is nationally a shortage of houses, I just do not believe that local authorities will be keen to allocate as tenants people who already have a home. I cannot see that happening. Unless they were, then of course this does not arise.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: This is very interesting. When the noble Earl spoke and corrected himself, he used not only the words "the prison service", but the words "police authority" as well. Of course, he was quite wrong, because subsection (10) gives a lengthy list starting with local authorities, new towns, a development corporation, the Scottish Special Housing Association, the Development Board for Rural Wales, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, a police authority, a fire authority, a water authority, and so on. All those bodies, having served their time—their three years—if they are given a local authority house are immediately in a position to demand the right to purchase. With all due respect, I think that it is just a bit much, even though a person may have come from the housing lists and gone on—I think that three years is not fair.
I read most of the arguments put forward in another place and I listened to some of them in the Committee in another place. One person said that someone who has been in a local authority house, having paid rent, is entitled to this privilege. That is not the argument that he used a few years ago. A few years ago the argument was that people were not paying enough rent, but now they have to get a return for this. Three years is not fair; it is not right. When we talk about somebody who has been in a police authority house, or a prison warder's house—and there are the ones at Barlinnie and around the Polmont area and elsewhere—it may well be that that person only joined the prison service, did not like it, and left after three years. There is no indication of need to justify how

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you left the other house that was occupied which gives you a qualification.
Then of course you come to town because you have to leave that house. It is a tied house, and you are then homeless. You have to be rehoused by the local authority, and within a day you can send in word saying you want to buy the house. I do not think this is altogether fair. I can assure the noble Earl, after 33 years sitting at surgeries on a Saturday morning and hearing people on their problems of housing, that there is no subject on which you will get less objectivity than the subject of housing—who gets a house, which house they get.
This will cause a lot of trouble. We would be easing the position considerably if we had a higher figure than three. The suggestion has been made by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, that it may be that five is a better figure. I am not particularly tied to eight, because it is equally arbitrary. What I am convinced of is that picking on three is almost ludicrous. It is unfair to the people themselves for the kind of problems that might arise with neighbours in respect of it.
I hope we appreciate that local authorities are not all that keen to part with their houses if they know they are to be sold. Up until now there has been a good relationship in regard to tied houses in the countryside, certainly in relation to janitors, in relation to people leaving the prison service, people in police houses, with the local authority going out of their way to rehouse these people. I hope that the Government will appreciate the difficulties now. The local authorities may decide, "Well, we did that before but we can hardly do it now when, within a day of arriving, if they had been in these other public service houses, they are going to be off the housing stock". I hope that the Government thought of this consequence in respect of not just this amendment but in respect of this particular clause and this new right that has been given.
I would gladly withdraw the amendment if the Minister would suggest that he is prepared to have a look at this and see whether or not five would be a better figure. I think that would be reasonable. I am very glad indeed that he said that we are not going to be tied to what they have
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done in England in this respect. The English housing situation is entirely different, Their attitude to sale for owner occupation is different. Birmingham, over 13 years, sold about 10,000 houses. It would be interesting to analyse what kind of houses were sold, but that is something we shall return to later on.
The point is that we do not want to be tied by that. I would like to see the Minister of State getting his civil servants together and, after having lectured them about the mess they made over the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, saying to them, "I want this changed in the Bill from three to five". I am sure that his word would prevail. If he would do that I would gladly withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I shall lecture my civil servants in the way that I consider proper. Just to squash the endless repetition of allegations about the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, I would say that there are public servants at several stages who have their part to play before the memorandum sees the light of day. The noble Lord should not blame officials in the Scottish Office necessarily for the fact that it was produced incomplete and not wholly accurate, and somewhat late. I shall look at this again, although, as I have said, without any commitment necessarily to table an amendment at the next stage.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I well know what the position is of civil servants and I know who employs draftsmen. But I think that the Government are to blame because of the unholy speed with which they processed this Bill from another place into this House and want it finished before the Summer Recess. That is the real cause of the trouble, and not enough checking is being done. Ministers have ultimate responsibility for the Bills which they bring forward and which they sponsor, and not just civil servants. On the undertaking that was given, I gladly withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 6 not moved.]
5.26 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 2, line 23, leave out ("fixed by subtracting from").
The noble Lord said: With Amendment No. 7 may we take No. 8. I do not think we can take quite as many as I had thought, unless the noble Earl wishes to deal with the whole question of discounts in the one debate. I would gladly do that, but not No. 14.
The EARL of MANSFIELD: I think that Amendments Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 14 fall into what I might call a convenient parcel.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Helpful as ever, I shall agree to that. It means of course that we may have a wider ranging debate. In the first instance what I suggest is that we leave out the words "fixed by subtracting from". We come now to the question of the price of these houses that we have now decided to sell, and we have decided to sell to tenants, or joint tenants, if they can show that they have been three years either in that house or in another public sector house. You can aggregate the periods together after three years. After this time the local authority must give a discount to whatever is the market value decided by the qualified valuer, or the district valuer, and subtract from that market value a sum of money equal to, in the first instance 33 per cent.
That is the reduction you get if you have been in the house for three years. Then another 1 per cent. for every year beyond three years up to a limit of 20 years, which would amount to 50 per cent. You get the house for half price eventually after that length of time. I have no objection to the sale of local authority houses on a restricted basis. As Secretary of State I allowed the sale of certain local authority houses, but we did not tell the local authorities to give them away at bargain prices.
This is distinctly unfair to the local authorities. Of course they are bargains even after the three years, and so, instead of 33 per cent. as a starting point, I have suggested 15 per cent. to a maximum of 25 per cent., rather than 50 per cent. It is most unfair on the local authorities that they should have to give away property which is valuable to them, and
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which they may well have to replace at the highly inflated figures of modern building today. Indeed, it could land the local authority in considerable financial difficulties.
I have read the financial memorandum that was produced not by the Scottish Office but, I believe, by the Department of the Environment. If I had to go through this and deal with every single unwarranted assumption—because they had to make assumptions of some kind—and then work out just exactly whether this would be of financial benefit to the local authorities, it would take me a long time indeed.
I notice that the Government are a little more hesitant today when speaking about the financial benefits that will come from the sale of council houses. They have probably appreciated that it is a much more complex business than they had originally thought. If one leaves aside the replacement cost, one may come to an advantageous figure, but once one begins replacing the houses that have been taken out of the housing stock, then of course local authorities will find themselves in deep trouble. I do not know whether noble Lords on the Liberal Benches are satisfied that my figures this time are reasonable—moving from 33 to 15 per cent. and from 50 as a maximum to 25 per cent.—but I think they will agree that any fair-minded person with the interests of the ratepayers at heart could not do other than say that what the Bill proposes is more than slightly ridiculous. Giving discounts of the size proposed would be unfair to the local authority and to the rest of the community, who must bear the burden.
If this is the kind of standard the Government intend to lay down for the sale of public assets—and every day we hear of more public assets being offered for sale— Heaven help us! After all, local authorities will not decide what the charge should be for their own houses; the Government will make that decision. "Freedom for local authorities" was, I thought, the watchword of the Liberal Party at one time. Here the Government are not only telling local authorities, "You will sell your houses", but they are also saying, "You will give a discount", and they give the actual figures—figures which to my mind are unfair to local authorities.
5.33 p.m.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: This is an enormously important question in Scotland today, particularly as we need some mobility of labour. Nobody wants to buy a house in Fort William at the present time, because we have just had a failed industry there. On the other hand, people want to buy houses in, say, Shetland and areas around Aberdeen where prices are high and there are jobs. It is therefore important that housing authorities should be in a position to do something useful with the money they receive. The cost of new housing is high and I doubt, for example, whether authorities in the region of Aberdeen would be justified in giving the large discounts that are being proposed. I can see the argument for giving a discount on the sale of a house, but the figures proposed in the Bill are, in my view, far too large.
Can the Minister say in what way he thinks this proposal will help the vexed question of the mobility of labour? We in Scotland have always tried to move jobs, at any rate to a degree, to where the people are and we have tried to substitute new industry for declining industries—obviously that is much cheaper—but this is a problem which must have a relationship to the Bill. I would not go along with the noble Lord, Lord Ross, in saying that many Labour authorities in Scotland have been particularly successful in providing houses for new industries and in conditions which have attracted industry, and the Government's initiative here might help. Nevertheless, I believe that more will have to be done to encourage the mobility of labour, and the money received by authorities must have a bearing on this question of providing houses where the need is great and where the jobs are.
Lord STRATHCLYDE: Have noble Lords opposite taken into account what was the original cost of the house to the local authority, who will probably make a considerable profit, even allowing for a reduction of 33 per cent.? Again, what has it cost them to maintain that house? Many of these original houses have been kept up-to-date by the local authority at considerable expense, not to the local authority but to the poor unfortunate ratepayer, of whom I am one and the noble Lord opposite is another. One must take account of those two figures before saying
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a discount of 33 per cent. is excessive, because I do not think it is if a proper calculation is made.
The Earl of PERTH: The length of time we spent discussing earlier amendments is relevant to this question. If, after only three years' occupation, one gets a house at a 33 per cent. discount, I think that is going a bit far. If it were five years or a slightly longer period I could see a better justification for that sort of discount.
Lord GALPERN: I imagine that those who will seek to buy their corporation or council houses will probably accept the valuation placed on those properties by the surveyor selected by the local council. I do not like the idea of a surveyor being selected by the local council because there may be a tendency, in order that he should get as much business as possible from the local authority, for him to put a slightly higher valuation on the property than would, say, the district valuer. I believe he should be a completely independent man, not engaged by the local council.
The point I particularly wish to raise is the question of a possible disagreement. If a valuation has been fixed and there is not agreement, will there be any machinery, any form of arbitration, to reconsider the price suggested by the surveyor or local council? One can imagine disputes arising and I am wondering whether anything will be done to help the prospective purchaser to obtain another opinion on the valuation of a
house.
Lord HOWIE of TROON: The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, drew attention to differences between different parts of Scotland and he instanced prices in Fort William, on the one hand, and Aberdeen, on the other, and certainly house values are very different in those places because the demand is different. Houses are at a premium in Aberdeen and it seems somewhat divisive to propose a situation in which council house tenants in Aberdeen—I mention that city only by way of example and not to pillory it in any way—should receive such an advantage when their fellow citizens who are not in council houses have to buy their houses on the open market, and the difference in value between Aberdeen council houses and property on the open market might be considerable. The

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advantage then would be increased; it would still be 33 per cent. but it would become that much greater compared with open market values.
That brings me to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Galpern when he spoke about the method of valuation. Obviously council houses in this category must be valued in some way and it must be done by a professional man doing a proper job. Undoubtedly a number of houses will be sold and perhaps some of them will be re-sold. We shall then have the situation where there will be two possible values for a council house, the theoretical value derived by the valuer and the re-sale value which, as time goes on, will become an increasing proportion of the whole.
As more and more houses are sold, does the valuer then adopt the market value as the value, or does he continue with the same kind of calculations of a theoretical nature that he has carried out in the past? The Government should think very carefully here and should try to ensure that the disparities caused by these discounts are as narrow as possible; otherwise they will create in society unnecessary division where is does not already exist.
5.40 p.m.
The EARL of MANSFIELD: For the moment I shall confine myself to the four amendments that we agreed would be considered in this package, as I described it; that is, Amendments Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 14. If these amendments were agreed to, the totality of their effect would be to remove the right to discount so that all the sales would in effect be at full market value. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, in his Amendments Nos. 10 and 11 proposes different figures for what he considers the discount might be, but so as not to muddy the debate, I shall confine myself for the moment to the four amendments that I mentioned earlier.
I say right away that the provision of discounts as part of the right to buy is one of the fundamental features of the policy. We make no bones about the fact that we are making a genuine attempt to give as many council tenants as possible a real choice between owning and renting, and I admit that, unless there are substantial discounts, a large proportion of tenants
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will not have a genuine opportunity to buy.
As the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, has pointed out, the availability and amount of discount will increase mobility of labour, because more people will be able to buy their homes, and there is overwhelming evidence that owner-occupiers are more mobile than are public tenants. Public tenants often have to stay where they are by virtue of the local authority's allocation policies. So in a situation in which we want to encourage the maximum mobility of labour—I think that this was behind the point of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie—that maximum mobility depends to an extent on ownership of homes.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: May I interrupt the noble Earl for a moment? How will that point apply in the case of Aberdeen, which we keep mentioning? Surely people presently occupying houses there will be buying them, and certainly they do not want to move out of Aberdeen. It seems to me that in Aberdeen it is necessary to provide more houses because the population is growing.
The EARL of MANSFIELD: Yes, and, as my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn said earlier, one way to provide more housing is through the injection of cash made available by the sale of houses. Aberdeen is a most volatile society, due to all the different things that are happening there regarding new industries. If people there wish to move, because they get a better, or different, job in another part of the country, what better chance have they of availing themselves of such opportunities if they own their own homes and can sell them. This is an important part of the thinking.
Experience over the last year of voluntary sales shows that with the discounts, many thousands of tenants are keen to buy their homes, and it is only the blind intransigence of Labour-controlled local authorities that forces large numbers of them to wait until the Bill is to be enacted before they can realise their ambitions regarding home ownership.
Next we should look at the discounts. They are not an unwarranted benefit to tenants. If noble Lords examine Clause 1(5)(a) of the Bill, they will see

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that the discounts are in fact against a fictional basis for valuation: the supposition that the house is
"available for sale on the open market with vacant possession".
That is not the case in the public sector. The house has a sitting tenant with security of tenure, and, as some noble Lords will know to their cost, in the private sector sales of houses with sitting tenants take place at substantially lower prices than is the case with houses with vacant possession. It is impossible to state a general rule, but advice has been taken from the Chief Valuer for Scotland, and on average the reduction in price is in the order of 40 per cent., due to the sitting tenant with security of tenure. While our discount scheme does not provide a single flat rate of discount, it reflects the realities of the market. That is the answer to the question of what happens as between Aberdeen, which in terms of housing is intensely desirable, and Fort William, which because of its present difficulties is less desirable. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, implied in effect, if he did not say so outright, that in the legal sense the sale of houses in such a case was a fraud on the public purse; that it is quite unfair to the public purse that sales of houses at a discount should take place in this manner. I hope to show that that is simply not the case.
The Financial Memorandum to the Bill illustrates the very substantial short-term savings, and these continue in the medium term. It is generally recognised that analysis of the long-term financial effects of sales is extremely dependent on the assumptions made about rents, interest rates, inflation, and a variety of other factors, and that this limits the value of any such analysis. However, in January the Government published a long and detailed analysis, which the noble Lord, Lord Ross, at any rate has looked at, and this examined 24 different combinations of key assumptions. The results, based on Scottish data, which were made available separately, showed that there was not a single one of those combinations of assumptions which resulted in net loss, even over a 50-year timescale. I hope that that disposes of the point about the loss to the public purse.
I was asked another question by the noble Lord, Lord Galpern, and, I think,
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the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, about the mechanics of the valuation. The position is that the tenant can choose whether to accept the local authority's choice of valuer or the district valuer. Once the tenant has done that and the valuer has made his valuation, it is beyond appeal, as is normal custom. I hope that with regard to the question of discounts, as opposed to full market value, it will be seen that the discounts give a very considerable impetus to the tenants in the public sector to buy their houses.
Lord GALPERN: The noble Earl has made one point very clear to the Committee, and that is that the substantial discounts are the main attraction, are the carrot which is being dangled in front of the sitting tenant; but he goes on to try to soften the amount of discount by indicating that, because it is the sale of a house with a sitting tenant, the value for sale will be substantially less than if it had been a house which was untenanted. Does he realise, then, what a rush there could be? Because the individual, if he is smart enough, will be buying a house even below its market value because it is tenanted. All right; at the time he gets a lower discount than he would have got if it had been an untenanted house, but all he has to do is to wait for the qualifying period and then he can offer an untenanted house at a far higher price than the one for which he got a reduced discount because of the fact it was a tenanted house.
Baroness PHILLIPS: As an Englishwoman I hesitate to intervene in this Scottish debate, but a point which the Minister made mystified me. He said that owner-occupied houses presupposed greater mobility. I am chairman of governors of a school, and I can tell him that anybody seeking to move from Scotland, even if they are selling their house, cannot possibly purchase a house in the South-East at anything vaguely like the same price. So often do we find that the young professionals are totally immobilised because the values are so very different according to the area in which they are living. I feel it would be unfortunate if it remained on the record that everybody who owned a house had greater mobility, because that is not so.
Lord DRUMALBYN: May I say a word about that? If I understand the position properly, the answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, is surely this, that values of houses in areas with high unemployment will tend to fall. Is that not so? And these areas of high unemployment are just the areas which want to attract industry. What happens very often is that industry will not go to a particular area because there is a deficiency in that area of certain classes of skilled labour. There must be difficulties, as of now, in getting those classes of skilled labour to move; but if, as I am postulating, the rents in the areas to which we are trying to attract industry are lower, there will be a greater attraction for the skilled workers to move, particularly from areas in which they can sell their houses at high prices. So they will make a double gain, and I should have thought it was bound to increase the willingness to be mobile. No one can say whether it will increase mobility, but it could at least set the scene to make it easier for people to move. But on that point I think the second answer to the noble Lord is to look at Clause 26, which is purely on the question of the allocation of public authority houses. There, special attention has to be given to the question of mobility, so that priority can be given, when necessary, to mobility. But that is another question we shall come to in due course.
I think that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Galpern, is seeing things too much in the present pattern, in the pattern fixed by the market at the present time. The changes which are being made are, I am quite certain, going to change the market very considerably, and I do not think he can look forward to the situation in years to come and say that at the end of the period when the tenant has, so to speak, worked off the discount and is free to sell, the situation will be the same as it is now. I think it will be very different. I think this Bill will give the whole thing a shake-up.
5.54 p.m.
Baroness SEEAR: Like the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, as an Englishwoman I hesitate to say anything, but the question of mobility is most important and, like Lady Phillips, I was extremely surprised to hear the noble Earl say that
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this was going to increase mobility. There is no doubt that the inability of people to move about the country and get housing is a real block in dealing with problems of unemployment, and it is a priority matter. If you are in a Fort William situation and you own a house, the value drops because there is not employment there. If you want to move where there is a job, the house you wish to buy there is going to be very much more expensive than the house you have owned in the Fort William area. Therefore, the ability of people who live in areas where work has disappeared to move is handicapped very considerably by the ownership of houses. I am very much in favour of the ownership of houses, but do not let us have the argument that it is going to help mobility.
With the greatest respect to Lord Drumalbyn, I find his argument a little difficult, because, all right, you want to attract employers of skilled people into areas of unemployment, and therefore cheap housing, the noble Lord is arguing, will help to do this. But if people have been able to buy their council houses in such areas, then there will be fewer, not more houses available for people to move into, surely. You are again making the mobility question more difficult, not easing it—and it is a matter of priority.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: Perhaps I may intervene, as reference was made to me. If I may make a point, it is very difficult to get a specific industry to move to areas like Fort William. My noble friend Lord Thurso and I have specific knowledge of trying to set up industry in an area remote from other industry, remote from the services and remote from the customers. It is enormously difficult to do; and, although we have tried hard and we have been successful in a number of areas, there is really much more need for people to move to the areas where there is a great need for employment than there is a willingness among employers to move to areas like Fort William.
Lord HOWIE of TROON: I should like to revert for a moment to the question which I raised, and which the noble Earl replied to, about the machinery of valuation. As I understand the Bill, the initial valuation is done by experts as if the house was in an open market and

1679
untenanted. That is a theoretical position, and, quite properly, it is the only position in which it can be valued. There then follows a period in which sales and resales take place, and there develops, presumably, some kind of local resale market in former council housing. In some areas the value of these council houses will rise due to the localised demand in housing, and in other areas the value of these houses which have been once sold will fall. Do we assume, then, that the valuation is based on the local resale market, or is there still an element of theory about it? Because if it comes to the realistic market price, that seems to reinforce what I said earlier on about the divisive nature of this bargain sale: that the bargain will be a greater bargain, very desirable, in some parts of the country, but much less so in other parts of the country. I do not really see that as terribly socially cohesive, and I am sure the Minister will not, either.
Lord GLENKINGLAS: Before my noble friend answers this short debate, can he perhaps help me by letting me know how, if his scheme is a success, the valuations are in fact going to be achieved? My experience has been that the district valuers are already enormously heavily pressed, and sometimes take two or three years to come to value things. If we are going to have a lot of houses, then how are the district valuers going to cope and where are they going to get the staff to carry out the valuations?
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I think we have pretty well covered the Question, Whether the clause shall stand part? We are dealing with art amendment in relation to the discounts.
The EARL of MANSFIELD: I wonder whether the noble Lord will allow me to reply if he is about to sum up the debate, because one or two things have been put to me. May I say a word on mobility? With these ferocious ladies from the golden triangle, I am not making a great claim about mobility, particularly so far as the South-East of England is concerned. What I say is that, bearing in mind—
Baroness PHILLIPS: If the Minister thinks that we are ferocious, he has not seen us in action.
The Earl of MANSFIELDI do not think I have seen the noble Baroness in action but I have often heard her.
Prices vary from area to area. It must be so if one has a free market and there are economic factors in different parts of the country which are going to make a tremendous difference so far as prices are concerned. My point, which is a limited one, is that at least if you own your own house you have an asset to dispose of and some funds, if you do so, which go towards your next house. That is the simple point. If you live in rented accommodation, you have no financial base upon which to move. As I have said, one is then likely to be dependent upon the housing authority, the local authority, in the area to which one wishes to move. I make no greater claim for that point than that, but I think that it is a valid one.
So far as the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, is concerned, I can do no more than direct his attention to the clause which, in 5(a), sets out how the district valuer or qualified valuer will set about his task. There will be differences in value as between Fort William and Aberdeen, because of the economic situations which obtain in those two towns; but the basis on which the valuation will be made will be exactly the same according to in whichever area the house happens to be at the time the valuation is made. So far as the last point that my noble friend made, in resource terms, I have to confess that I do not know what will happen so far as district valuers are concerned. The task of valuing a council house would be very considerably less than that of valuing perhaps a scattered estate for capital transfer tax purposes. I do not anticipate that such would pose nearly the same problems; but if there are resource difficulties posed by this new Bill becoming law, then they will have to be faced.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I thought that we should get many arguments about the discount—whether it is too large or too small—but I never thought that we should get one about the mobility of labour. If we are on the subject of mobility of labour—and it was the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, who introduced it and the question of attracting new industries—if we had to depend on the mobility of owner occupation for the attraction of new industry, the pulp mill

1681
at Fort William would never have been built there. It was the local authority, sponsored by the Government, who saw that the houses were built. The firm building them, Logan, went bankrupt. The result of that was that we had to get the Scottish Special Housing Association to move in to take over the contract. But it was important and it was done.
That is what I have been talking about—the feelings of the local authorities in respect of their housing and the problems that they have had to face in what they have done at the behest of Government. Now the Government say: "You will sell at this price and there will be this discount". I see ex-Secretaries of State sitting opposite. We had the same problem with the motorcar industry. That meant a tremendous build up of rent in Erskine.
Lord GLENKINGLAS: I am grateful to the noble Lord for referring to me in that way. I think that in every case in which we brought in new, big industries to Scotland, it was not the local authorities, but the Scottish local housing which built the houses.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Precisely. It is a mystery to me that it is not abolished in this Bill. Perhaps it will come in the next Bill. I should not have put the idea into the heads of the Scottish authorities. The Scottish Special Housing Association built houses in Fenwick and just outside my constituency, at Symington (not the one in Lanarkshire) and they built them for young executives who could not afford to buy their way into owner occupation; and let them—they were specially-built houses—at economic rents. These houses, too, will go for sale under the Bill, with a discount. Is that fair? Of course it is not. Admittedly, there would be a discount to take into account the difference in value in respect of vacant possession, but in these particular cases, with due respect to the noble Lord, it is not 40 per cent.
My argument is that in the circumstances, this discount is far too high in respect of somebody who has been there for three years—as we have decided it now: but we hope it might he changed to five years. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, spoke about the length of
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time that these houses have been built and the extent to which they were debt-free. Half of them will be debt-free now; because these houses were built before the war and they were built with money borrowed over 40 years. But local authorities consolidate their debt charges and the result is that the benefit of that reduction is going to the ratepayer at the present time and it is going to try to keep down the levels of rents that would be otherwise far too high. The more of these houses that we sell, the worse will be the position for the local authority. The suggestion that we should sell these at anything below market value—tell that to the private owner!—really would be a bit unfair. We are going too far with the market value minus the 33 per cent. going up to 50 per cent.
On the question of mobility, there is a demand for houses at the moment in the Shetlands. They cannot meet their own waiting lists. The information I obtained yesterday—and I should like the noble Earl to check this—is that for the replacement of an ordinary house which goes off the housing stock the cost is £63,000. The noble Earl laughs. I do not know whether he knows the Shetlands. I had the good fortune, or misfortune, to serve there during the war with the HLI. There is not a tree in the place. Every piece of stone, every piece of wood, every piece of material, has to be brought in at considerable expense. When you consider the cost of labour, the cost of materials, the cost of transport, you begin to appreciate there why there is this cost. Probably the noble Earl does not know (although I hope he does) that we have a subsidy for the Highlands and Islands. Because of that they get an even higher subsidy in order to help build these particular houses.
All of the finance statement that he spoke about is destroyed by one simple fact. If you sell a house and then you must build another to meet the need that still remains, then you are very much out of pocket. According to the England figures for the first half, 1979–80, the average house price before discount, is £12,000. If you sell one for £8,000 or for £6,000 and build one which will cost £15,000, I should like to know how we make a profit out of that. It becomes worse the greater you make the discount.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: If the noble Lord will allow me to intervene, I have heard that there are certain elements of local housing where the cost of maintenance exceeds the return from the houses. I know, for example, of an instance in Liverpool, where it costs £10 to mend a washer on a tap. Surely he is carrying his argument a little too far, in that owners of houses maintain them rather more competently and cheaply than do local authorities.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I hope we shall have an opportunity to discuss this further, but it would be quite wrong to suggest that all local authorities and all houses of all local authorities are in that position. That is not true of the houses in the part of the world that the noble Lord knows best. The noble Lord should not start to draw a general deduction from an isolated example; it is quite wrong. I have known the noble Lord for a long time, and I am not surprised that he does. I suggest that we are being unfair to the local authorities here. We are being unfair to ratepayers generally. I will not move the amendment that would remove the discount altogether, but I will move Amendment No. 10, I think it is, which deals with the reduction from 33 per cent. to 15 per cent., and with that I would have in mind the reduction from the maximum of 50 per cent. discount to 25 per cent.
On Question, amendment negatived.
[Amendments Nos. 8 and 9 not moved.]
6.12 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 2, line 37, leave out ("33") and insert ("15").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this amendment formally.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: We now come on to the second part of the argument which I specifically did not address myself to in the earlier part of our deliberations, when I was a great deal shorter than some; and I shall be that now. I want to direct my remarks particularly to the noble Earl, Lord Perth, who thought that the scale of possible discount was on the generous side; I believe that is putting his point of view fairly accurately. What
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I have to tell the Committee—and this is what is in the Bill—is that the district valuer, if it is he who is making a valuation, will in fact have to value the house at a full open-market valuation with vacant possession. I stress the last part of that phrase, because what the house does not have is vacant possession. It has in it a sitting tenant, with security of tenure, and, as I told the Committee, on advice which the Government received from the chief valuer for Scotland, that average is a discount of 40 per cent.
What we are doing in this Bill is to provide, first of all, an inducement for people to buy their houses; and I think most noble Lords will agree that if that inducement is not provided they will not come forward and buy them. That is the law of nature. So the scales range from 33 per cent. at the bottom for the tenant who has been but three years in his house, which is below the 40 per cent. average, to 50 per cent., which I concede is 10 per cent. above the 40 per cent., for the tenant who has been 20 years in his home and whom one could say was likely to be a reasonably steady and meritorious citizen. So, in effect, rather than giving a flat rate of discount overall, which could very well have been 40 per cent., at which, on the figures, as I have suggested, would not have been a fraud on the public purse, would not have been unconscionable, would not have been improper in any way—and I take issue, though not at length, with the last remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, on the previous amendment—we have spread the benefit either side of the figure of 40 per cent., so that according to the length of tenancy in a publicly-owned house the figure will fluctuate, because we believe that most people will regard this as a fairer method of proceeding.
It is important that the discount should be large enough to give a really sizeable proportion of tenants, a large number of tenants, a real choice between owning and renting. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, would argue that the smaller the discount the greater the benefit to public expenditure. That may be, although I do not agree, but the general truth about all transactions between anybody who is going to buy or sell is that one cannot sell anything for a greater price than the market will bear. If we do not enable

1685
tenants to buy their houses, then we shall be left with these loss-making assets which, as the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, said in the last debate, make a tremendous call every year on the taxpayer and ratepayer. That is the way in which I justify these figures in the Bill, and therefore I would ask your Lordships to reject the somewhat specious range of discounts put forward in Amendments Nos. 10 and 11.
The Earl of PERTH: Since the noble Earl mentioned me in particular in relation to this amendment, I should like to say that I do not quarrel with the fact that there is a considerable inducement to encourage people to buy. The only point I made was that someone who has lived there for only three years is perhaps getting away with something rather fortunate. I would hope that the noble Earl would take that point, not so much in relation to this amendment as in relation to Amendment No. 5, which has already gone its way. He said at that time that he would consider again whether three years was not too short a period. I would hope that in that connection he would bear that in mind when he considers Amendment No. 5, which has already been dealt with.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I do not think the noble Earl said much that he had not said before, because I remember him mentioning this figure of 40 per cent., which I personally do not accept, for the simple reason that this market has not yet been tested. It is wrong to suggest that 40 per cent. is the right figure and then to say that one is being fair to a person who is entitled to 33 per cent. discount. One is being very unfair. Being more fair to somebody else does not justify being unfair to any individual. The noble Earl said that if the phrase "with vacant possession" had not been there, there would have been a reduction in market value of 40 per cent. He cannot possibly justify 33 per cent. He is being unfair to that tenant.
But all the argument is on his side. I am not in favour of the discount at all; I would rather have had the words "vacant possession" left out. I followed the arguments in another place, and the suggestion was that the person who had been there for 20 years paying rent—the
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phrase used by one Member, who shall be nameless, was "hard-earned wages"—was entitled to this discount. We have spent 20 years saying that he has been far too well off because he has been getting a subsidised rent, and then we have got to give him not only the right to buy the house but to buy it at lower than market value with this discount. I think the discounts are still too high. In this muddled Bill it is not the first aspect that is wrong, nor is it the last one.
Viscount THURSO: The discounts are indeed too high. The noble Earl has not explained this to us. What will be the differential when all these houses come on the market? At the moment maybe the difference is 40 per cent., between owner-occupied and non-owner occupied. Once all these houses become available for purchase, is the figure not going to change? I cannot help feeling that the difference between rented and vacant possession houses is going to narrow very considerably.
Lord DRUMALBYN: The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, may well be right. The point is that one has to adjust the figure—this is a matter of judgment—not just to bring the houses on the market, but to ensure that they will be sold. If one merely brings them on the market and the discount allowed is not big enough to sell them, then one's efforts will be wasted. The noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, said that one does not know what the houses are going to be sold at; it has not been decided. The only test is when they come on the market. But a judgment has to be made to get things moving. Nobody has put forward any other credible judgment to put against the careful judgment which has been made by the Scottish Office.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: We have some slight experience. Local authorities have been selling the houses without these fantastic discounts.
6.22 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 10) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 69; Not-Contents, 86.

CONTENTS

Ailesbury, M.

Greenway, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Bacon, B.

Grey, E.

Baker, L.

Hale, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Balogh, L.

Hall, V.

Rochester, L.

Beswick, L.

Hampton, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Birk, B.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Seear, B.

Blease, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Segal, L.

Blyton, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Janner, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Bowden, L.

Jeger, B.

Stone, L.

Brockway, L.

Kaldor, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Craigavon, V.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Thurso, V.

David, B.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Underhill, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L. [Teller.]

Diamond, L.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Walston, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

McNair, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Fulton, L.

Maelor, L.

Whaddon, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Monson, L.

White, B.

Galpern, L.

Oram, L.

Wigoder, L.

Glenamara, L.

Peart, L.

Winstanley, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Phillips, B.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Wynne-Jones, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Geoffrey-Lloyd, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Allerton, L.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Netherthorpe, L.

Alport, L.

Gisborough, L.

Newall, L.

Auckland, L.

Glenkinglass, L.

Northchurch, B.

Avon, E.

Gray, L.

Pender, L.

Balerno, L.

Gridley, L.

Perth, E.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Bellwin, L.

Redmayne, L.

Belstead, L.

Harvington, L.

Reigate, L.

Bessborough, E.

Henley, L.

Ridley, V.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Rochdale, V.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Inchyra, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Clitheroe, L.

Kemsley, V.

Saltoun, Ly.

Cockfield, L.

Killearn, L.

Sandys, L.[Teller.]

Cork and Orrery, E.

Kimberley, E.

Selkirk, E.

Craigmyle, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Sempill, Ly.

Craigton, L.

Kintore, E.

Sharples, B.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

De La Warr, E.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Stamp, L.

Denham, L.

Long, V.

Strathclyde, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lyell, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Dundee, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Strathspey, L.

Eccles, V.

Mancroft, L.

Sudeley, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Mansfield, E.

Teviot, L.

Elton, L.

Marley, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Falkland, V.

Merrivale, L.

Trenchard, V.

Ferrers, E.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Vaizey, L.

Ferrier, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Fortescue, E.

Vivian, L.

Gainford, L.

Resolved in the negative and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendment No. 1l not moved.]
6.29 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 2, line 47, at end insert ("; and (c) in calculating the discount no account shall be taken of the element of market
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value of the house which reflects an increase in the value as a result of modernisation of major maintenance carried out by the landlord after 15th May 1975.").
The noble Lord said: In calculating the discount, I suggest that no account should be taken of the element of market value of the house which reflects an increase in the value as a result of modernisation on major maintenance carried out by the landlord after 15th May, 1975. The

1689
date is reasonably arbitrary. I say "reasonably" because it is already in the Bill; it refers to the date of reorganisation of local authorities. One can appreciate very considerably that the cost of modernisation now amounts to thousands of pounds. It would be quite unfair to give away an element of that—33 per cent. or 50 per cent.—in discount. It is a relatively simple amendment but important from the point of view of the eventual price that will come to the local authority. I beg to move.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I think that there is a major misunderstanding about the financial considerations which are relevant to selling council houses and I will attempt to explain it. It is frequently suggested that the fact that an authority has spent a certain sum of money on a house in the past is relevant to what it ought to obtain for it in selling it. This overlooks the fact that once money has been spent by an authority, nothing will bring it back and the only sensible way of looking at the financial implications of a choice between two options is by looking at the future income and expenditure connected with each of those options. In the case of the choice between renting and sales, the balance of financial advantage lies firmly with selling, as I have indicated already in previous debates, and any change in the terms of sale which makes it less likely that people will buy, such as the one proposed in this amendment, will therefore have the consequence that more public expenditure will be required to subsidise the retention of the house for renting. Far from being good, financial sense this amendment would leave the taxpayer and ratepayer worse off.
Even if one accepted the other way of looking at it and had regard to past costs, this amendment offers an inconsistent approach. Houses which have had substantial works done to them will be older houses, which will have been built for sums which are very small compared to present-day house values, so that the tenant is, on the one hand, to be asked to pay much more than the house cost because its value has gone up, but, on the other hand, is to be denied discount because of the cost underlying part of its value. Whichever way one looks at it, the logic behind this amendment is what I might describe as somewhat muddled. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw it.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, is it not fallacious to take improvements made to a house as necessarily adding proportionately to the value of the house? One knows from one's own house, when one has made an improvement that has cost a lot of money, that that improvement is sometimes not reflected in the value of the house when one comes to sell it. That is a common experience. That being so, I fail to see why it should be necessary to say that this will not affect the discount. The discount comes from the market value of the house and has no near connection—I was going to say no necessary connection, but no near connection—with the cost of improvements done.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: If that were the case, I am surprised that the noble Lord has not got an amendment down to subsection(6). I am sure he is consistent and will follow this all the way through. If he reads subsection (6), he will see that it says:
" For the purposes of subsection (5)(a) …"—
—that is the discount—
"no account shall he taken of any clement in the market value of the house which reflects an increase in value as a result of"—
and so on. The Government are saying that: it is not me saying that. So that will probably change the noble Lord's attitude altogether.
I do not accept the arguments of the Minister in respect of this matter. One must consider just exactly the position; here is somebody who has got to stay in a house for three years; within that three years maybe he has already fixed the price and even after the price has been fixed the local authority may be in the process of spending money modernising the house; and he gets all that for nothing.
I think the only sensible thing to do in respect of this is to fix the date at the date of reorganisation, and if the local authority has spent a considerable sum of money, maybe thousands of pounds, then that will be in the calculation for the market value. I am not quarrelling with that, but, as to discount, I do not think he should get the full value of that expenditure for the discount: that should be ignored so far as calculating the discount is concerned.

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I am far from satisfied with the explanation that the noble Earl has given. I think he is trying to find some way of introducing this document and showing what a great bonanza all this is for the local authority. He talked about repairs. My goodness! if you have just done major repairs and modernisation, that is the kind of house on which you will be spending less on repairs. This really
[Amendment No. 13 not moved.]
does not add up, and I think the inconsistency of the arguments proves my case that this amendment should be accepted.
6.37 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 12) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 53; Not-Contents, 85.

CONTENTS

Ailesbury, M.

Hale, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Bacon, B.

Hall, V.

Rathcreedan, L.

Balogh, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Beswick, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Shackleton, L.

Birk, B.

Howie of Troon, L.

Stamp, L.

Blease, L.

Janner, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Blyton, L.

Jeger, B.

Stone, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kaldor, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Bowden, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Brockway, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B. [Teller.]

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Underhill, L.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

David, B.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Walston, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Maelor, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Monson, L.

Whaddon, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Noel-Baker, L.

White, B.

Galpern, L.

Oram, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Glenamara, L.

Phillips, B.

Wynne-Jones, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Fortescue, E.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Allerton, L.

Gainford, L.

Netherthorpe, L.

Auckland, L.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Ncwall, L.

Avon, E.

Gisborough, L.

Northchurch, B.

Balerno, L.

Gray, L.

Pender, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Greenway, L.

Perth, E.

Bellwin, L.

Gridley, L.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Belstead, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Reigate, L.

Bessborough, E.

Rochdale, V.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Hampton, L.

Rochester, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Harvington, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Henley, L.

Saltoun, Ly.

Clitheroe, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Cockfield, L.

Kemsley, V.

Seear, B.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Killearn, L.

Selkirk, E.

Craigavon, V.

Kimberley, E.

Sempill, Ly.

Craigmyle, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Sharpies, B.

Craigton, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Long, V.

Strathclyde, L.

De La Warr, E.

Lyell, L.

Strathspey, L.

Denham, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Sudeley, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Teviot, L.

Dundee, E.

McNair, L.

Thurso, V.

Eccles, V.

Mancroft, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Mansfield, E.

Trenchard, V.

Elton, L.

Marley, L.

Vaizey, L.

Falkland, V.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Vivian, L.

Ferrier, L.

Wigoder, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Baroness Wootton of Abinger): I have to call your Lordships' attention to the fact that if Amendment No. 14 should

1693
be agreed to I shall not be able to call Amendments Nos. 15 to 23 inclusive.
6.46 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 3, line 33, leave out subsection (10).
The noble Lord said: Here we have a very, very lengthy list of persons referred to in subsection (3) regarding the right to purchase and I want to query this as to its fairness, and as to whether or not the Government have had any other second thoughts about who else should be included. It takes one's breath away when one appreciates that the right to purchase will be given to anyone in these categories: the regional or district councils in Scotland—anyone who has been employed by them in any capacity and housed by them; and then there is the commission of a new town. If you move out of a new town into a local authority —it does not matter whether it is near or far—you then have an entitlement right away if you have completed the three years. In another place, the Government added the Forestry Commission to this.
This is only of value to anybody if they become a secure tenant under a local authority or, in other words, if the local authority gives them a house. Can the Minister give me any justification for this regarding anyone who has served with the fire authority, the water authority, the prison service or the Crown in relation to accommodation provided, or in connection with service by the tenant or occupier who is a member of the regular armed forces or where the house is used for the purposes of the health board? Then we get the Department of Health and Social Services in Northern Ireland and the Health and Personal Services Board of Northern Ireland and the statutory predecessor of any such board, and the Forestry Commission. It is a very considerable burden that is being placed on local authorities, if you were to say that they were under an obligation to house anyone who left any of these other houses. How do the Government justify all this? How many people do they think will be involved in transfers of this kind? They must have some statistics. This is really a probing amendment. I am fascinated by the list and I wonder whether the list is enough. Also, I wonder just exactly what is involved within it.
Of course, people do not acquire any rights until they are rehoused by a local authority and I raise a question which I think is important: What is the position at the moment? Are local authorities rehousing these people? What makes the Government think that once this Bill is passed the local authority will continue to rehouse these people, knowing that if they are rehoused after even a day has passed they can buy the house? I know the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, thinks it is a great thing, but I am not interested entirely in what he thinks but in what the local authorities think and how they will react. If beneficial procedures are being applied, non-statutory at the present time, in respect of rehousing people in all these categories of houses, will that continue after the passing of this Bill? I beg to move.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I am bound to say that I do not find it at all easy to reply to the amendment proposed by the noble Lord. The various persons, referred to in subsection (3), who have their rights referred to there, are then set out in subsection (10), as the noble Lord has said. It seems to me that this is a fairly extensive list of public authorities, the employees of which are deemed to be (what shall I say?) worthy enough to have the rights that are laid down, which are similar to those enjoyed by public sector tenants.
When I gave vent to my explanation which was rather more enthusiastic than accurate, and for which I subsequently apologised to the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, I think I then tried to explain that there are various classes of people who, for one reason or another, should be put in a favoured position by virtue of their employment, and in many cases they have to inhabit different houses from those which they would inhabit if they were in more ordinary occupations.
I take it that the noble Lord is referring to paragraph (f) downwards. I am afraid I have no figures as to the number of people who it is estimated could take advantage of the subsection. I will try and obtain them for the noble Lord and let him know before the next stage of the Bill. But I think that my colleagues, when they came to draft the Bill, merely—if one can use the word "merely" about such a magnum opus as this—sat down and considered those who were to be ad-

1695
vantaged. This is the result of their deliberations. I do not think I can help the Committee any more at this stage.
Viscount THURSO: This clearly has to be a probing amendment, because to leave this whole section out of the Bill would wreck it and it is obviously not intended to be a wrecking amendment. Now there are one or two questions that arise. Perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, can help us with these questions. I take it that anybody who lives in one of these houses mentioned in this list of categories can buy that house. He does not necessarily have to buy a council house, does he? He could buy the house that he lives in. If that is so, this surely presents fairly major problems because some of the houses, for instance, are remote doctors' houses. Paragraph (m) refers to the statutory predecessors of the Health and Personal Services Board in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health and Social Services, and so on, and the National Health Services (Scotland) Act, and this refers to the houses which were set up by the old Highlands and Islands Panel—the old doctors' houses in villages in very remote communities.
If suddenly a doctor who now occupies a house decided that he liked the community and wished to retire from medicine and would like to buy his house at a discount, he could get a very large and comfortable house at a very low price. The community would find it extremely difficult to get a new doctor. This surely cannot he meant.
Likewise, if you take a forestry house, or perhaps one or two remote cottages in a forestry area which had been set up to provide enough resident workers on the spot to cope with the forestry plantation. If you think of somebody who, after say three years of permanent argument with his employers, gets the sack, he could demand to buy his employers' house at a discount and live in it. He could say that he was a forestry worker and he could not find any employment round about, and you have a whole series of ridiculous situations which one can envisage with very small quantities of houses. Can the noble Earl clear this point up for me—
Lord DRUMALBYN: If I may answer—
The EARL of MANSFIELD: If I might intervene, I wonder whether the noble Viscount has finished.
Viscount THURSO: I think I have made the point, I am probing and was asking the question in relation to these small numbers of houses. I do not quarrel with the fact that people who live in these special sort of houses should acquire points, as it were, when they go to council houses. But I wonder whether they are going to be entitled to buy the specific houses they live in.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: No. May I just remind the noble Viscount of what subsection (10) provides? It provides that tenants whose landlords in effect are contained in that very long list from paragraph (a) to (m) can use their occupation of those houses as a qualifying period for the right to buy, and also for the assessment of the discount if eventually they decide to buy. But this is only if at the time when they do decide to buy they have in effect moved house and they are then the tenants of a body mentioned in paragraphs (a), (b), (c) or (f) of Clause 10(2); in other words, a local authority, an islands or district council, a development corporation, the Scottish Special Housing Association or a housing cooperative. I think that answers the noble Viscount's point about the doctors and so on.
The Earl of SELKIRK: Might I ask whether the Special Housing Association is included? I see it is not included under subsection (3) which refers to paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (f). That does not include the Special Housing Association.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: If the noble Earl will forgive me, that refers to Clause 10(2), whereas the other reference is in Clause 1(10).
The Earl of MANSFIELD: We have to distinguish between subsection (10) of the clause which we are now considering and Clause 10(2), which we shall come to.
Lord HOWIE of TROON: I hestitate to intervene at this moment, but it strikes me that very little justification has been made for the extreme length of this list. It consists of some very worthy people and

1697
I understand the principle that lies behind it, but people can qualify by living in houses for a period under the Development Board for Rural Wales. Welshmen are excellent people in their way and particularly good in Wales, but I am not so sure that you want too many of them in Scotland; or, at any rate, for relatively short periods they are welcome when they come. There are various qualifications in this list which seem to be rather remote from Scottish housing.
I recollect that in one of our debates earlier today the noble Earl rather cast English things to one side when he was asked to make provisions in the Bill similar to provisions which occurred in an English Bill. He said that we Scots did not do that sort of thing. Yet here is a list which goes far, far wider than that question raised earlier on. I would like some kind of justification for several of the inclusions in this list.
Lord DRUMALBYN: Would it be possible for my noble friend, when we get to the Report stage, to give us some idea of the co-ordination—or co-operation, if he likes—between all these bodies and the islands and district councils? Because the accumulated right of the time during which the applicants to buy a house have been employed by, and have been occupying a house of, the various authorities listed is, as I understand it, all of no avail unless they are given a house by the district council. Ought we not to know the attitudes of the district councils, the islands councils and so on? Do they have a single attitude to it? How will this work out in practice?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: The best thing for me to do is to cogitate. It is fair to say—and it must be obvious to the Committee—that we did not realise that the probes would go so deep. I shall think about it before the next stage.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: The noble Earl must be very grateful that he met me in my old age, because I can assure him that the probes have not been very deep at all. Some of his noble friends behind him, who have a little experience, will probably agree that I have been very kindly towards the noble Earl in respect of this matter.
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I can understand how the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, was confused about subsection (10), because it is very easy to be confused. That subsection lists the bodies in occupation of whose houses the eventual tenant of a district council house manages, by extent of occupation, to build up a right to a discount. A regional, district or islands council in Scotland is easy to understand. A regional authority is the employing authority for the whole of the education authorities. That means headmasters who have to live in a school house; it means janitors who have to live beside a school in a school house. But whereas, at the present time, we all know that provision is made by a local authority for a retiring janitor to get a local authority house, is there any likelihood of that position continuing? As a consequence of that, I hoped we should he able to get some information on whether the Scottish Office have had discussions with local authorities.
When a warden retires from Barlinnie, Saughton or some other prison, the local authorities very often have an arrangement, but will that continue? Unless they get a local authority house this discount, this confusion and this lengthy list, that worries my noble friend Lord Howie of Troon, will not come into application at all. My concern is that there may be a change in attitude as a result of this Bill, and that these people will find themselves worse off. They will not be able to get a house to rent, far less one to buy, because a local authority will know that, as soon as they allocate a house to that person, he will be able to buy it and it will be off their hands.
Up till now, it is fair to say—and it has caused some talk—people have moved into good housing, because they came from a police house, from a prison warden's house or from a janitor's house. These are houses that people are likely to want to buy. But it may well be that local authorities will be offering them houses—they are under no obligation to do so, unless they are homeless—which nobody would want to buy, or would want to rent. There will be a very considerable difference in the rights of those people, who have served out their lives in the prison service or in the police, and who are no longer able to stay in their house. It is that kind of information that I want, and it is a fairly obvious question to ask

1699
whether the Government have had some discussion with district authorities as to whether or not this will change their attitude.
As regards the lengthy list, I think that it just grew and grew. I do not know how Northern Ireland came into it. Of course the noble Earl will try to find our for me whether, in the past five years, somebody has moved from Northern Ireland to Scotland and into a local authority house, because there must be some pattern somewhere to justify including this.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I can justify this. The noble Lord had a good point, but I think he is now making it worse; and age has certainly not withered his infinite capacity to keep the debate going. But the list includes public housing bodies in the United Kingdom and there must be—pace the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, who, if I may say so, exhibits a certain chauvinism in this direction—some degree of reciprocity as between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, if for no other reason than to encourage labour mobility, which is one of the reasons behind this Bill and which we have already discussed at length.
I am informed that the Development Board for Rural Wales is the Welsh equivalent of the SSHA and, therefore, perhaps that picture falls into place. In fact, I am told that the Bill as a whole was discussed with local authorities, and there is no question of any suggestion being made of a change of policy. So I think that deals with that. I have been thinking over this long list, and I have received word from the Box that, as I said in an earlier part of our deliberations, it is public housing bodies in the United Kingdom who employ people who, because of their type of employment, such as policemen or fire officers, have to live in defined quarters. They are singled out—if that is the right term—for special treatment thereafter, in circumstances which I suggested, slightly out of context, to the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, earlier on. I do not think it is any more sinister than that, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Ross, is trying to suggest.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I never thought it was at all sinister. The prolongation of any debate is related to the
1700
replies that I have received, and it is not only the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, who has been querying the information that is available to the noble Earl; there have been others as well, who are equally perplexed about this complex matter. The simple fact is that they are public service houses. That is one of the answers that we have now elicited, but which we should have got very much earlier.
There are other people in worthy occupations to whom one might say "We will allow you to build up a right". Farm workers who live in tied houses do not get any preference. They have a worthy occupation, but they cannot move from their house in the same way as the police, water authority employees, janitors and so on. The Government have singled out public sector authorities. But the big safeguard in respect of the chauvinism of my noble friend is that, before they get any benefit at all, they must be allocated a house by a Scottish local authority, a Scottish new town, the Scottish Special Housing Association or by others who are listed. I am still not satisfied that the Government have covered them all here. The noble Earl says that this was discussed with local authorities. His information is better than that which was available to honourable Members in another place. If all this had been discussed, we might have had a White Paper and known something about it. Ministers might have known a little more about their own Bill and its implications if there had been discussion, a White Paper and debates. Instead, it has been thrown at us like this. I have no intention of dividing the Committee, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord SANDYS: I think at this juncture it would be the wish of the Committee to adjourn for one hour and to reassemble at 10 minutes past eight. In the meanwhile, the other business will be dealt with. I beg to move that this House do now resume.
Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 1980
7.11 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead)The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead) rose to move, That the regulations laid before the House on 23rd June be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that the Representation of the People (Amendment) Regulations 1980 be approved. There are three other sets of regulations on the Order Paper and, if your Lordships agree, it might be for the convenience of the House if I speak to all four sets of regulations together.
The purpose of these regulations is to implement the provisions of the Representation of the People Act 1980 which received the Royal Assent on 31st January. That Act was sponsored in your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran. Unfortunately, he is unable to be here because of other business this evening. In the other place the Bill was sponsored by Mr. Cranky Onslow. The Act contains the following provisions.
First, it provides that a spouse of a member of Her Majesty's Forces who is resident in the United Kingdom shall have an option to register for electoral purposes either as a service voter or as a civilian elector. Secondly, attestation or counter-signing "of service declarations made by members of Her Majesty's Forces and their spouses is to be abolished. Thirdly, electoral registration officers are in future to be permitted to add to the published electoral register the names of electors whom they are satisfied were entitled on the qualifying date to be registered, subject to an objections procedure. At the moment, your Lordships will recall that it is possible for amendments to be made to the draft of the annual electoral register available for inspection in Great Britain only between the dates of 28th November and 15th December each year but not to the final register which comes into effect the following February. This new provision in the Representation of the People Act 1980 will enable such amendments to be made all the year round, except after an election has been called.
In form, the regulations now being considered operate by amending existing regulations. I should add that because of the more complicated structure of the electoral law in Northern Ireland, it is in fact going to be necessary to make some of the provisions for Northern Ireland in a statutory rule of Northern Ireland, which will be made if the Northern Ireland regulations are approved. But the net effect is the same. Your Lordships may be assured that while I refer purely for convenience to the English regulations, I am speaking to all the regulations together which apply the same provisions in substance.
May I refer to the main aspects of the regulations and, first, to service wives. The only changes to existing regulations that is necessary is in some of the electoral registration forms. These changes are made by the regulations so that the right to register as a civilian elector can operate from the 1981 electoral register which will be prepared this autumn. Secondly, may I deal with the removal of the attestation requirement. We do not think that this is any longer necessary, and it is provided for in Regulations 9 and 10.
Thirdly, and this is perhaps the most substantive aspect, Regulations 6, 16 and 17 provide a procedure for the newly extended right to correct the register even after it is finally published. The procedure, briefly, is that persons who discover that they were omitted from the register—or it may be that they had forgotten to fill in their forms, so they are not on the register—may make a claim for inclusion in it after it is published, provided that no election is under way. The registration officer will then publish a notice between the 11th and the 20th day of the month in an appropriate manner stating that such a claim has been made. Incidentally, following the publication of the register on 16th February, the period of time when the electoral registration officer will publish the notice will be, in the month of February, between the 11th February and the 22nd February, to give just those extra two days longer for somebody who suddenly sees, when the new register is out, that they are not upon it to do something about it. It will then be open to interested electors, including for example the local political agents, to scrutinise the publicly available list of claimants and to make by the end of that month such objec-

1703
tions as they wish to the inclusion of the new names on the electoral register. A hearing, similar to those hearings which occasionally follow claims and objections made to the draft register published in November, could follow and, as in other matters, the electoral registration officer's decision can be appealed against in the courts.
Fourthly, Regulations 4 and 5 follow previous regulations so as to remove certain provisions whereby service voters may be identified as such in the register. More generally, the opportunity has been taken in these regulations to modernise and to simplify some of the electoral registration forms to which it was essential to propose amendments. For example, except for Scotland where the retention of the existing version has been preferred, the regulations incorporate a new, simplified version of the basic electoral registration form, Form A. The bilingual version of this form for use in Wales is also prescribed in the Elections (Welsh Forms) Regulations which are also before the House.
The Home Office has made these changes in the hope that the forms are now easier to understand and may in future be completed more promptly and more accurately. In particular, the Government are anxious to see a substantial improvement in the rate of electoral registration among 18-year-olds, and those who are only 16 and 17 when the form is completed but who will be 18, and thus eligible to vote, during the currency of the register. There is evidence of substantial under-registration among that age group. Perhaps only two-thirds of those eligible do actually appear on the register. It is essential, and their basic right as citizens, that every encouragement is given to them to register.
Finally, I should mention that during the preparation of these regulations many very helpful comments have been received. I beg to move.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 19th June be approved. —(Lord Belstead.)
7.19 p.m.
Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM: My Lords, your Lordships will be very grateful
1704
to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for the clear and detailed explanation he has given of these four sets of proposed regulations. The Act from which these regulations arise, the Representation of the People Act 1980, met, it is right to say, with wide support on all sides of your Lordships' House and of another place when it went through Parliament as a Bill earlier this session. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, who I am sure is with us in spirit, drew well-deserved praise for having introduced it in your Lordships' House. It is worth noting that the speed with which that Bill passed through Parliament and the speed with which these regulations have been brought forward shows that Parliament can act quite quickly, if necessary. And this is not an isolated illustration.
When the Bill was given a Second Reading here my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell welcomed it and I am very happy today to welcome these sets of regulations. Before the Bill was introduced there were extensive consultations outside Parliament among various organisations, and it received wide support as a result of those. I would only ask the noble Lord the Minister whether consultations with appropriate bodies took place before these regulations were brought forward and whether there was similar general and wide support for them. The regulations give detailed effect to the very useful reforms which were made under the Representation of the People Act 1980, both to rectify omissions or errors in the electoral register and to meet the very valid objections which service voters and their spouses had to the previous system.
I should like to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has said about the welcome which we on this side of the House would like to give to the simpler forms and also to join him in expressing the hope about an increased proportion of voters of 18 who we hope will be filling up those forms or contributing to them and so appearing on the register. Therefore, I join in urging noble Lords to support these regulations. They do not enable an elector to rectify an error on the register, and to have his name put on it if it has been omitted, once an election has started. That is perfectly reasonable and understandable, because, as I think my noble friend Lord Underhill mentioned

1705
during the course of the Second Reading debate on the Bill, there has to be a cut-off point.
So far as the Welsh Forms Regulations are concerned, I for one must admit to having to take on trust those parts of the draft forms which are in the Welsh language. I have had only one previous experience of debating Welsh forms regulations and that was in April of last year when, thanks to the assistance of officials of the Minister's department and of the Welsh Office here in London and in the Principality, I was enabled to say Erfyniaf am gymeradwyaeth, which, as noble Lords will know if my pronunciation has not defeated them, means, "I beg to move". Therefore I cannot use that formula tonight; it would indeed be presumptuous of me to attempt to do so, but I offer it to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, and with it, offer him support for these regulations.
Lord McNAIR: My Lords, may I also thank the noble Lord and welcome these regulations from these Benches and also put one question. The noble Lord has mentioned under-registration of 18 year olds and has also mentioned the bilingual form in use in Wales. Can he say whether there is any evidence of under-registration among other citizens who may not understand English but would not understand Welsh either? I am thinking chiefly of people of Asian origin. Can anything be done for them to simplify the task of filling in the registration form?
Lord UNDERHILL: My Lords, as I supported the original Bill which is now the Act of Parliament upon which these regulations are based, I should like to say a few words. I have had an opportunity to check these proposed new forms against the existing forms, and I agree both with the noble Lord the Minister and with my noble friend Lord Boston of Faversham, that the simplification is a great improvement and I echo the comment that I hope the political parties and representatives of the electoral registration officers were fully satisfied with the new forms.
There are three points which I should like to raise with the noble Lord the Minister. Under Regulation 6, dealing with the new Regulation 27(A), paragraph 5(a), notice of a claim "shall be published in the way the registration officer thinks best." I am a little con
1706
cerned about that, because the registration officer may consider it best to publish it in newspapers. On the other hand, he may consider it best just to put a notice outside the town hall or the council office. In the light of the next point I am going to raise, this is rather important, because it is essential that the persons who may be submitting objections should have an opportunity to see the claims notice.
One would hope that this would somehow be drawn to the attention of persons who would normally have received copies of the electoral lists, who would be the persons making the claims and objections arising on the lists in the normal way, because the next point I want to raise affects this time limit. The period for claims and objections arising in the normal way from the electors' lists gives a period of 18 days; that is, from the 28th November to the 16th December. As the noble Lord has pointed out, the period for objections to a claim could only be 10 or 11 days from the publication of the notice of the claim up to the end of the month by which objections must be submitted and in the case of February it is only six or seven days. If there has not been adequate publication of the notice of a claim, one could find some difficulties arising. That is why those two points are linked. I know that there is a keen desire, which I think we all share, to expedite this process so that there is no delay and therefore there can be no objection to these short periods so long as there is adequate assurance that person who might be making the objections have had the opportunity of seeing the notice and there is no doubt that they would have seen the notice of a claim.
With regard to my third point, I may be wrong in my reading of the regulations (and I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am wrong), but if a claim is received between the 16th December and the 16th February and appears to be related to the current register ending on the 15th February, a notice of claim must be published, even if it is received in that period, and paragraph 5(d) provides that objections must be received by the end of the month in which the notice is published. Therefore, we could have a rather comical situation, and I wonder whether the regulations should have either a cut-off date or a proviso, because any claim that is received after the end of January, to go

1707
through all this process when objections can be received by the end of the month, which is after the end of that current register, seems to me to be an oversight. It may be that I have missed something in the regulations. It may be argued that nothing is likely to arise in this case, but if it does arise, then the registration officer has a compulsory duty to go through this process, and I am wondering whether there should not be a cut-off date or a provision of some kind.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord McNair, and the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, for the welcome which they have been good enough to give to the regulations which arc made under the Act which was passed earlier this year.
The noble Lord, Lord Boston, asked me about the consultations. As the noble Lord said, consultations preceded the introduction and the passage of the legislation. What about consultations before these regulations were made? I perhaps referred rather too fleetingly in my speech to this important aspect, and I should like now to say that the regulations have been the subject of consultations, as is usual in electoral matters, with the political parties represented at Westminster; with the local authorities and with electoral registration officers associations and, I repeat, all the comments we received have been most constructive and helpful.
The noble Lord referred to the fact that of course the provision which is absolutely new in these regulations; that is, for a person to be able to get their name on to the register if it has been omitted at any time of the year—a matter which has attracted some detailed note of criticism from the noble Lord, Lord Underhill—none the less is not effective if it is during the time after an election has started. Just for the record, I should like to make it clear that that, of course, means 25 days before polling day in local elections, and that 25 days excludes Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.
The noble Lord, Lord McNair, drew attention to the possibility that there may be problems with people who are resident in this country, citizens of this country, but who none the less may find it not
1708
entirely easy to master the reading of the electoral registration form. If I may say so, I think the answer lies in some words spoken by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, when he welcomed the simplification of the forms. If the noble Lord, Lord McNair, cares to glance at the first of the regulations, the Representation of the People Regulations, he will see on page 7 that the new simplified version of the form, which one fills in relating to one's place of residence on 10th October, is, I like to think, a very much simpler form and easier to understand. None the less, the noble Lord makes a valid point, and I should like to give him an assurance that there will be discussions within the Advisory Committee on Race Relations shortly about the problem the noble Lord has raised.
Finally, if I may turn to the noble Lord, Lord Underhill. He raised the point about the publication of the notice by the electoral registration officer when an objection or objections have been received by people who say, "We have been left off the register". The noble Lord asked me whether it would not have been better if the duty had been placed on the electoral registration officer to make available a list of such people who had been omitted at least to the people who get free copies of the register. We have in fact worded Regulation 6 in the way that we have—that the notice is to be published by the electoral registration officer in a way "best calculated to bring it to the attention of the electors"—for two reasons: first, because this is the way notices have been published previously and therefore there is precedent; secondly, we felt that from the point of view of public expenditure falling on local authorities this was a reasonable and reasonably cost-effective way of laying the duty.
As the noble Lord pointed out, it is indeed going to be exceedingly important, particularly from the point of view of local government elections falling at the beginning of May, that people left off the register should spot it immediately the registers have been published on 16th February and raise their objections very quickly, and we have given an extra two days in February for them to be able to do that. So that notices can be published by the electoral registration officer, objections raised if necessary by people who are interested parties, and

1709
maybe even a hearing held by the electoral registration officer, so that the whole thing can be decided for those people to go on the register, if that is where they ought to be, in time to be there firmly and to have their vote in any year for local government elections, bearing in mind that they have to be on the register for 25 days, not counting Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, before those elections are held at the beginning of May.
I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, that I feel that, knowing that there is this particular local government point with regard to the moment when the registers are published in February, people living locally, particularly the interested parties like the agents for the political parties, will very soon get to know, as they have done in the past, the way in which the electoral registration officer will discharge his or her duty under Regulation 6. I like to think that Regulation 6 is a fair and reasonable way of laying that duty.
Finally, the noble Lord put to me a point to which I found some difficulty in thinking of the answer; namely, that there ought to be a cut-off point, otherwise one would have unnecessary work falling on the electoral registration officers during the early part of the year. Regulation 6(4) provides that claims received after 16th December will be treated as relating to the next new register. That is the advice I have received.
7.35 p.m.
Lord UNDERHILL: My Lords, it was because of the complications of Regulation 6(4) that I had to read it four or five times. I may have made a mistake even now. It says:
"Where a claim made under paragraph (1) is received … after the sixteenth day of December but before the sixteenth day of February … he shall, unless it appears that the claim relates to the existing register"—
treat it as if it was the next register. It could be that the claim is for the current register. It may well be that there will be very few of these cases, and one cannot imagine them, but if one comes in for the current register the electoral registration officer has to go through this whole process, which seems ridiculous in regard to something which may be received early in February.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I hesitate to cross swords with the noble Lord, with his very long and deep experience of electoral registration matters, but I can only say that from my reading of Regulation 6(4), and from the advice I have received from my right honourable friend's department, I do not think the noble Lord is on to a sound point. If I might repeat what I said, in case there was a misunderstanding, I am advised that claims received after 16th December will be treated as relating to the next new register. For that reason the point that the noble Lord raises is not a valid one in this particular case. With that, I hope, correct advice to your Lordships, I beg to move that the first of these regulations be agreed.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ELECTIONS (WELSH FORMS) REGULATIONS 1980
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I beg to move that these regulations be approved.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 19th June be approved. —(Lord Belstead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (SCOTLAND) AMENDMENT REGULATIONS 1980
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I beg to move that these regulations be approved.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 19th June be approved. —(Lord Belstead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (NORTHERN IRELAND) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 1980
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I beg to move that these regulations be approved.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 23rd June be approved. —(Lord Belstead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.38 p.m. until 8.10 p.m.]

TENANTS' RIGHTS, ETC. (SCOTLAND) BILL
House again in Committee on Clause 1.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendments Nos. 15, 16 and 17:
Page 4, line 10, at end insert ("or any statutory predecessor")
Page 4,line 26, leave out ("house") and insert ("dwelling-house")
Page 4,line 26, leave out ("is") and insert ("was at the material time").
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendments Nos. 15, 16 and 17 en bloc. They are all purely drafting amendments to Clause 1(10), which lists the public bodies, time spent as a tenant of which by a person who has moved house and become a tenant of a public sector housing authority is to be reckonable for the purpose of the three-year qualifying period for the right to buy and for the period of up to 20 years relevant for discount purposes. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 4, line 32, at end insert (" or as a worker in a Royal Dockyard ").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 18. I do not know, but it may well be that the Minister will tell me that this amendment is unnecessary. It is to cover the situation of workers at Rosyth, the Royal Dockyard. There is a rather special situation here because I wish to mention the fact that I consider that the people there are being denied their rights.
We were informed that this was the Tenants' Rights Bill. We were informed still further that, apart from local authority housing, those in public sector housing were being given special consideration. We are now in a rather peculiar position as regards certain Ministry of Defence houses at Brucefield in Dunfermline. There are 372 houses in that one housing estate and, believe it or not, the people there will not be given the chance to buy their houses although in 1977 one of those tenants made inquiries and was told by the powers that be that he could have the house at a price of,
1712
I think, £2,372. However, the situation changed and for the past two weeks this whole estate has been on offer to the highest bidder at a price of around £350,000.
Many of the people there want to be covered by the Bill. They want to have the right to buy and they want to have the privileges that would come from a possible transfer from these houses to a local authority house. That is the only matter that is covered by the amendment. However, it is such an outstanding example of unfairness as between one set of tenants and another that I hope the Government will look at it. I understand that the local Member of Parliament is to raise the matter with the Minister fairly soon.
Having heard all the arguments today about how determined the Government are to give everyone the chance to become owner-occupiers, particularly those in public service houses, I think that if possible, we should look after the situation of those people who at the start of the war came up to Scotland at the re-opening of the Rosyth Dockyard and who have lived in those houses, which are owned by the Ministry of Defence and looked after by the Property Services Agency.
Those people certainly want to be assured as regards security of tenure. I do not think that there is any doubt that they have security of tenure under the Rent Acts. However, they are very troubled at the idea of this speculative bidding for the whole estate and about what will happen to them and, indeed, why they should be denied rights that are given to other people. The least that the Government can do is include them within this subsection so that their tenancies will count towards the right to buy and the right to get a discount later if they move into a local authority house.
I should like to see the local authority take over these houses—there is no reason why it should not do so. That would ensure that the Government's wish that as many people as possible should get the right to buy their own house is carried out. That is what matters most to the Government, so far as I can gather. It may well be that the residents of this area might form themselves into a housing association and receive whatever benefits will come in that respect from the Bill.

1713
However, I should like to know how the Government feel about this particular amendment as regards subsection (10) and any ideas they may have about the future of these houses, which I can assure the noble Earl really worries the tenants. I beg to move.
Viscount THURSO: I think we had it explained to us earlier in this debate that the principle is that workers in the public service living in houses provided by the public service should be allowed to acquire points towards the purchase of a local authority house. If that is so, it seems that if workers in the Royal Dockyard, who are presumably working in the public service, are living in houses provided publicly, they should be entitled to this privilege. But if this indeed applies, and if the Government say that they will consider it, this brings to my mind the case of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, where one-third of the employees in the town of Thurso work in the public service—they are public service employees—and are living in tied houses which they cannot buy. Therefore, they would surely be entitled to collect points. However, I do not see the name of the Atomic Energy Authority anywhere in the list. If this particular amendment is successful, or even if it is not, I shall certainly be examining this question more closely with a view, possibly, to introducing an amendment at the Report stage.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: The general effect of this amendment would be to give one category of civilian worker, who is a tenant in accommodation provided by the Crown, the right to count the period of that tenancy for discount and for the qualifying time in respect of any house covered by the right to buy of which he may later acquire the tenancy.
In particular the noble Lord, Lord Ross, has made it plain that he is principally concerned with one particular estate of Ministry of Defence houses at Brucefield in Dunfermline. According to my information, Dunfermline District Council has refused to take the houses over, but I do not think that it would be useful, or indeed proper, for me to comment any further on that issue this evening. I say that because my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland is meeting a deputation of tenants from the
1714
estate, together with the local Member of Parliament, on Friday, and he is still discussing the Government's proposals for the disposal of these houses with the Minister directly responsible for the Property Services Agency, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment. I hope that the end results of these various avenues of consideration are satisfactory, but I am not in any position to comment further today.
I return to the generality of the amendment. The objection is that it singles out one small group of Government employees and proposes that they should be treated differently from the many other categories of Government employees. It is not easy to get clear what is a Government employee. We have taken a very generous approach to the availability of discount, as the long list of bodies which we have already discussed, in Clause 1(10), testifies; but generally speaking we have excluded Crown employees, with two exceptions to which I shall come. This has not been altogether an easy decision, but it was one which the Opposition in the other place made it clear that they supported. In fact, in the cases of which there are exceptions—that is to say, members of the armed forces and prison officers, both of whom are often required to occupy tied houses throughout their employment—Opposition voices in the other place were raised, objecting to Crown employees benefiting from the Bill.
Therefore, it is against this background that I do not believe it would be right to single out this one type of Government employee, who is no different from many other civilian employees of the Government, for special treatment. I know that this list is bound to be arbitrary; there are people in the public service, as opposed to being in the service of the Crown as the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, mentioned a few moments ago, who are not included. But quite obviously it would be impossible and make it a nonsense if everyone in the public sector were included. One has to take a number. We have taken what we consider to be a generous number, and on that basis I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I can understand the reluctance of the Government to extend further this long list, but

1715
it is not easy to extend this list because the tenants must be in houses provided by, if it is a Government department, a Government department, or, if it is the Crown, the department of Government responsible. I do not think that there are many groups of civilian employees who have been omitted who are in that position. The whole argument of the Government is destroyed when they include the Forestry Commission. To my mind the Forestry Commission is in exactly the same position.If the noble Earl's argument stands good for Ministry of Defence workers living in Ministry of Defence houses who are there because of the Royal Dockyard and for no other reason, it is very difficult to see why we can include forestry workers who live in Forestry Commission houses, not local authority houses, who are not even Government workers.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but the Forestry Commission was included as a result of an Opposition amendment in the other place. It was the Opposition who objected to Crown employees, so if there is an absence of logic, it stems principally from the Opposition.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I take no responsibility for what anybody else did as regards what is in the Bill. The person who must take responsibility for every word in the Bill is the noble Earl the Minister. Whatever made the Government accept the Forestry Commission, the same could allow them to accept the amendment that I have tabled. So they must not shuffle off the responsibility. I have put forward many amendments that have not been accepted; I hope that quite a number will be accepted. But the responsibility for acceptance—and he keeps on telling us this—is that of the Minister himself. So the Government must accept responsibility for the Forestry Commission being included here. Whether or not they like it, it is there, and while it is there I have a right to draw attention to it. If they can do it for the Forestry Commission, they can do it for the Ministry of Defence and, indeed, the Atomic Energy Authority. It is on all fours with that.
This, of course, is one of the complexities and difficulties which the very
1716
nature of the Bill and the proposals of the Government create. I am trying to make sense of this. If I see the Forestry Commission there, then equally something else is entitled to be there. I am not satisfied that we have had any worthwhile arguments from the noble Earl. I do not know whether or not he wants to have another try. There are thousands of people requiring to be convinced by him. He knows that if the Division bell rings, all his support will come in and beat down our amendments.
It is part of—what shall we call it?—the democratic process of the House of Lords. There is not a single Scot listening behind him. Of course, that implies full confidence in his ability. Now he has let himself down by saying, "What is in the Bill is not my responsibility, or the Government's. It was done by the Labour Members in another place". That is not good enough at this particular time.
Let him think about this again. I do not expect him to give me any decision about the Dunfermline position. But it seems rather ridiculous where the Government are pressing people to buy houses, and giving them the opportunity, that here is a Government department actually selling houses but refusing to sell them to people who have been their tenants for probably the last twenty or thirty years. It just cannot be justified in logic. But then the mistake is to apply logic to this Bill, and nothing is surer than that from what the noble Earl said about the Forestry Commission. It is something we might return to at another stage of the Bill, now that my attention has been drawn to yet another loophole and denial of right for a further group of people in Scotland. On the understanding that we are not finished with this matter, I am prepared to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendments Nos. 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23:
Page 4, line 33, leave out ("house") and insert ("dwelling-house")
Page 4, line 33, leave out ("is") and insert ("was at the material time")
Page 4, line 38, leave out ("is") and insert ("was at the material time")
line 40, leave out ("and") and insert ("or for the purposes of")

1717
Page 4, line 42, at beginning insert (" the Secretary of State, or the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, where the dwelling-house is used for the purposes of").
The noble Earl said: With leave, I shall move Amendments Nos. 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23 en bloc. They are all drafting amendments to Clause 1(10). I do not think I need say any more than that.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
8.33 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 5, line 8, leave out from ("facilities") to ("for") in line 10.
The noble Lord said: This is a really important amendment. Paragraph (c) of subsection (11) of this omnibus Clause 1 deals with the question of dwelling-houses which have certain facilities and are let and
"specially designed or adapted for the needs of elderly or disabled persons.
There has been considerable concern about this type of house built by local authorities. There is a growing demand, and a demand which the local authorities cannot meet, for houses for elderly and disabled persons. It was subject to pressure that the Government decided to make some changes in this, but at a later stage they seemed to think they had gone too far, because I think at Report stage in another place they added the words, "and the services of a warden ". So here we are prepared to give a special concession of not applying the sale of houses in respect of dwelling-houses which are one of a group which has been provided with facilities. They have to have a call system and the service of a warden, and be specially designed or adapted for the needs of elderly or disabled persons.
The number of people for whom the local authorities are able to make such specialised provision is very limited indeed. The Government recommended at one time that special provision should be provided in respect of 25 per 1,000. That was later raised to 50 per 1,000. Scarcely a single local authority in Scotland has been able to meet the need, or get anywhere near the original target. There are many houses which are specially let for the elderly and the disabled but they are not specially designed and built
1718
for them. They have been adapted. But when you take the limitations:
"facilities … specially designed or adapted"
and that they must have a call system and there must be a warden, I think we can say to the Government, thank you for very little. You are offering very little protection.
I had the privilege of opening a group of houses in Kilmarnock, and these are for elderly couples. They are in the grounds of Springhill House, which is a home for elderly people run by the local authority. I do not know that they are specially built, or there is anything special in the design. They are all in the one flat. They are ideal for the purpose of elderly people. They may well have a call system. You get this in sheltered housing where there is a bell at hand for the people to call for help. I suppose they could have.
However, have they got a warden? I was asking the chief executive about this a fortnight ago, and he was under the impression that they had not. I said, "Well, they are at risk now of sale, because you must have all these features and a warden as well ". These are for the elderly. They are very much in demand, and of course they are very limited. It would be a disgrace to allow somebody to purchase this type of house and then, after a few years, for it to be sold either by the people themselves moving out and moving in with relations, or by the heir to the old person.
There is nothing to prevent them. There is nothing to prevent them selling to a family. You get the whole aspect of that small area of peace and quietness completely destroyed. Surely this is not the Government's intention. They have to look way beyond the question of the call system and the services of a warden, and the special design or adaptation. It would be a far better paragraph if it read:
"where a dwelling-house is one of a group which has been provided with facilities for the needs of elderly or disabled persons".
I think everyone can understand that. It is simple. It would certainly widen the protection given in a field where local authorities are worried because they cannot meet all the demands even under something less restrictive than paragraph (c).
If there is any one amendment that the Minister should accept of all the ones that we have dealt with, this is it. It would not undermine the principle, but it is underpinning the ability of the local authorities far better to meet the needs that are virtually becoming the demands of the elderly population. I beg to move.
8.39 p.m.
Viscount THURSO: This is an important amendment which I hope the Government will consider with sensibility and compassion. Providing for the needs of the disabled is an expensive business. It is not a cheap matter to put in all the facilities that might be required for somebody who uses a disablement vehicle and who goes in and out of the house in a wheelchair, and requires handholds, and so forth, in the bathroom and other facilities so that he or she can live a fairly normal life in spite of his or her disability.
In the past, local authorities have done their best to cope with that sort of situation. They have behaved with sensibility and compassion and have, so far as they have been able, provided facilities in a number of houses not grouped in one group with a call system and warden but dotted throughout their district, town or region. I know of many such houses in the district of Caithness and the town of Thurso, where the tenant of an ordinary three-apartment council house who has been stricken by illness and forced into a wheelchair has been provided with facilities by the council so that he or she can get in and out of the house and use the property in comfort so as to live life as near as possible to a fully able person.
It would put councils off doing that if they thought that the houses on which they had spent money doing up would be taken out of their stock. On receipt of requests to do up houses in that way at great expense, they would ask themselves: "Is it safe to spend all this money on this house? Had not this person better go into a home or wait until they can be put into a group of houses with a call system and warden? "That would cause hardship and a slowing down in coping with the needs of the disabled and would probably take out of the housing stock some houses which should be in it for the use of disabled persons. By and large,
1720
whenever houses especially adapted for the disabled come back on to the normal letting market, councils look around for people who fall into the right category and choose them as tenants for those houses.
These are therefore very specialised houses and I urge the Government seriously to consider the amendment, which would enable those houses which have already been done up to cope with the needs of the disabled to be kept in the housing stocks of local authorities. I consider this to be an extremely important point which I hope the Government will consider.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: The amendment would, if accepted, drastically enlarge the scope of the exclusions from the right to buy contained in Clause 1(11)(c) so that instead, as it now is, of being limited to sheltered housing for the elderly or disabled, it would extend to all houses forming part of a group
"provided with facilities for the needs of elderly or disabled persons"
and that is a very wide definition indeed. I suggest it would be useful to take the different types of housing and consider them one by one, because that is what was done, in effect, by the Government, with the constructive help of the Opposition in another place, and they reached in the other place a conclusion which I suggest is about right.
The Bill makes careful distinctions between different types of housing for the elderly and disabled. If a house is full sheltered housing, as is assumed in subsection (11)(c), it is excluded from the right to buy because its sale could affect the viability of the sheltered housing development, by, for example, reducing the cost effectiveness of the warden service—and there are other reasons which spring to mind. Therefore, although the Government do not see why, just because somebody happens to be disabled or old, they should be thereby excluded from the rights which are being given to every other tenant who comes under the various clauses of the Bill which gives them the right to buy their houses, in this particular instance we thought it would be right to exclude this form of full sheltered housing from the right to buy.

1721
I come to the second type of house; namely, if the house is not, as it were, fully sheltered housing but has been significantly adapted to provide special facilities for the elderly or disabled, a second type of consideration comes in. As I have said before, we see no reason why tenants in that situation, whether elderly or disabled, should be prevented from buying their homes, but we paid attention to the results which could flow if the erstwhile tenants who became owners then sold them off. In those circumstances, the local authority is permitted to impose a pre-emption condition which would have the effect of safeguarding the community's long-term interest in a stock of specially adapted housing.
There we have the first two types of housing and what is done in respect of them. We come to the third, and much the largest, group of housing. If a house is only slightly adapted—for instance, if grab rails are put in here and there—the house is not significantly different from the general run of housing and therefore it should not be subject to any special conditions. Still less should the people who are in it as tenants be deprived of the rights which other citizens are being given under the Bill. We believe this is a sensible approach which recognises the differences which exist within the broad range of houses for the elderly and disabled.
Even if I am wrong in what I have said—in the sense that the Government have not got it right—I do not think the amendment would begin to ameliorate the position, if it needed it. In fact, the amendment would confuse the structure which has been carefully evolved in another place, where the Government made a number of changes in response to views put to them in constructive fashion by the Opposition and their own supporters. It would leave the reference to grouped housing, which suggests that it is still aimed at sheltered housing, but it removes all the words included to define sheltered housing and differentiate it from lesser forms of specially adapted houses. It is a recipe therefore for confusion when authorities come to apply it, whereas one of the reasons for the amendments made in another place was a request from COSLA that the Bill should be drafted unambiguously in this respect.
1722
However, the main reason why the amendment is unacceptable is that it seeks to exclude from the right to buy houses which do not have a warden service and do not even have specially designed or adapted features. This is a quite unwarrantable discrimination against the elderly and disabled, and it is for those reasons, not through any lack of consideration on the part of the Government, that I hope the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: Having listened to the Minister's explanation, I would press a further point on him. He and I both come from the agricultural east coast of Scotland. In Angus, one of the great features which has made the tied house system work has been the fact that the old Angus County Council built small houses, particularly for retired farm workers, and they laid down a system of points so that they could get those houses. So there were farmworkers who were entirely happy with the tied house system, which saved them a great deal of money during their lifetime. The system also saved the country and the county council a lot of money. Farmworkers were happy because they knew that there were small houses available for retired people. This is a very important point in regard to the agricultural industry.
I notice that the Minister is not being rigid and adamant about these matters, and I now want to impress another point upon him. What are old people to do if they buy these houses? If an old couple have security of tenure, there is no point in their buying a house unless they are to pass it on to a son or daughter who perhaps might make it no longer available for old people. I do not think that the Conservative Government should have the rigid attitude to theory that the Labour Party had and say that people must have the right. This might well be a case in which the local authority could exert its discretion—which is the subject of a later amendment—with the approval of the Secretary of State. Certainly it is impossible in a Bill to cover every example of injustice or plain maladministration which may occur throughout the length and breadth of Scotland in many different circumstances. I believe that in Angus the selling of small houses for retired people might do much harm to the interests of agriculture.
Lord GALPERN: The noble Earl has this evening given us the best possible argument for these houses being excluded from the provision compelling local authorities to sell houses. He said that if we remove the words,
"including a call system and the services of a warden",
we bring in a wide variety of houses. Yet we safeguard the position because we lay down quite clearly that it must be a house
" which has been provided with facilities"
and
"designed or adapted for the needs of elderly or disabled persons".
I draw attention to these various requirements. The greatest shortage experienced by handicapped and elderly people is in this particular field of housing. As the noble Lord, Mackie of Benshie, said, elderly people may buy a house and after a short occupancy, die. The house may then pass to the next of kin who are not elderly or handicapped. The next of kin move into the house, and so this type of dwelling, which is in such great demand in various parts of Scotland, is no longer available. If the next of kin occupy the house themselves, that could detract from the whole purpose, designation, and general atmosphere of the area, since young children may come to play on the little green paths and, generally speaking, may make life more difficult for the other elderly people still living in the area.
On the other hand, if the next of kin decide to sell the house to a handicapped or elderly person, then unfortunately the individual who moves in will be someone who has the necessary money, while another person, who is most deserving and has probably been longest on the local council's housing list, will be entirely excluded because he or she is unable to undertake the financial responsibility of buying. The whole principle is one which certainly calls for a complete deletion of the words,
"including a call system and the services of a warden".
Lord STRATHCLYDE: Perhaps in addition to the care and trouble that was taken in another place to get this matter right, the noble Earl will, before the Report stage, consider the question as put before us today by noble Lords
1724
opposite, and thereafter let us have the result of his consideration.
Lord TAYLOR of GRYFE: After hearing the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, speak, I cannot help thinking that tonight this is a re-union of Glasgow Town Council, since the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and the noble Lord, Lord Galpern, were frequently involved in the affairs of that city. I can speak for the city, just as the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, can speak for the rural areas, and it is a city in which catering for the disabled and the elderly is a real social problem. Even if the words are not as clearly defined as the noble Earl would wish, I suggest that the restrictions imposed by the clause are bound to hurt at least one or two people. The provisions are bound to restrict the availability of houses for elderly and disabled persons.
The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, appears to me to be a reasonable way in which to tackle this social problem. I hope there will not be a Division, but that instead the noble Earl the Minister will decide to take back this matter and have another look at it. However, if it comes to a Division, it will be a sad day if the troops who have not heard the argument in this Chamber tonight are marshalled in to support a Government proposal that in fact does the Government no credit.
Viscount THURSO: May I ask the Minister for clarification in one respect? He mentioned the right of pre-emption. Can he tell me where in the Bill lies the right of pre-emption in regard to a house specially adapted for a disabled person?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: The noble Viscount has caught me unawares. I shall look for that point while the next debate is taking place. It is just down the line, so to speak. I do not know whether this is the appropriate moment to respond to the further points in the debate. I am sorry that apparently nothing that I say is listened to, or if it is, it is not accepted by the noble Lord, Lord Galpern, or indeed the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe. I have tried to say that very careful consideration was given to this matter in long debates in the other place, where, incidentally, honourable Members did not see the need to divide on precisely

1725
these questions. They were anxious, as are we, to balance the right that is being given to tenants to buy their houses with the possibly unfortunate or unjust results that could flow from that right in certain well defined and very rare circumstances. This matter of sheltered housing happens to be one of those circumstances.
I tried to explain that this form of housing as it applies to both the elderly and the disabled has in effect been placed into three categories. I shall not go over them again, but I suggest that this represents a reasonable compromise between the two perfectly laudable aims that I have suggested.
As I have said, I think that the amendment is illogical and badly drafted, and it would bring chaos where there should be order. The amendment proposes that the provision should read,
"provided with facilities for the needs of elderly or disabled persons".
That is much too vague. No attempt is made to define a "facility" which, as I have tried to point out, could mean merely one grab rail by a lavatory. That leaves the matter much too wide. Much thought has been given to this question and there has been much constructive discussion on it, and it would be idle of me to pretend that I can go away and completely rethink it; I do not intend to do that.
I do not think I can assist the Committee any further, except to say that now that my scattered wits have been properly directed, I in turn can direct the attention of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, to Clause 4(4)—to which Amendment No. 46 relates—which gives the right of preemption.
Lord GALPERN: I have just one point. I was wondering whether the noble Earl could tell us how it comes about that local authorities do not seem to experience any difficulty in arriving at what is a house specially designed for the needs of elderly or disabled people. They do not let them out to physically fit people; they have no problem in that respect at all. Why should there be any difficulty when it comes to the Government including this particular type of house? As I have already said, the great danger lies in the fact that it passes out on sale from the use for elderly or disabled people, and physically non-handicapped people take
1726
over—the offspring and the next-of-kin of those who were the owners.
Finally, I wonder what advantage the noble Earl thinks will accrue to an elderly person who is pleasantly and adequately housed at the present time in a rented house. I should like to know what the advantage is to an elderly person, 80 or 90 years of age, who decides he is going to acquire his house privately. I should like to know what the advantage is, except probably to buy it at the discounted price and pass it on to their families.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I am very disappointed indeed. I have always thought that this Bill was badly drafted. I have always thought it would be impossible to achieve what the Government want, because they were trying to legislate a slogan, and as soon as you tried to put any restriction upon what the Government wanted, it opened up further avenues for further restriction—all very desirable, but all very destructive of the slogan. The noble Earl comes and tells us that this would drastically increase the number of exclusions. I wonder whether he has read the clause. The clause says:
"… where a dwelling-house is one of a group …"—
it has got to be one of a group—
"which has been provided with facilities …for the needs of elderly or disabled persons".
Could he tell me how many such groups there are in the whole of Scotland? I am sure he cannot. I am sure his civil servants could not tell him. If they have not been asked for the information before, they should have the information. If the noble Earl is going to make statements such as "it is going drastically to reduce", he should have the facts to substantiate it.
The noble Earl talks about the agreement that was come to in another place. He must have been at a different Committee. They had 30 sittings, and they left a considerable part unconsidered. They raced over it because they had not time, during the last two days, and it was during the last two days in another place, not a month ago, that they added to the restrictions of this group. They put in a warden system. and by putting in a warden system it further restricts the number of houses that can be saved by the local authority.

1727
Then the noble Earl says, "Ah!, but we give an option". Let us look at the option. Remember all that he said; remember all the words that are necessary —there must be a call system, there must be a warden and all the rest of it. Here is the option. The local authority will be given an option in respect of the purchase of—what? It is "a dwelling-house". It is not a group of dwelling-houses this time. It is not one of a group, but just a dwelling-house which has facilities which are substantially different from those of an ordinary dwelling-house and which has been designed or adapted for occupation by an elderly or disabled person whose special needs require accommodation of the kind provided by the dwelling-house. There is nothing about a call system, nothing about a warden. Perhaps I should not have mentioned this, because this will have to go in now; because the two things that he is talking about, and the one which he says protects the other, do not add up. The noble Earl talks to me about defining the facilities. There is no facility defined here. The two clauses that he referred to are two entirely different things. One is that it has to be one of a group. In the option there is no mention of a group. That is far wider than anything I have suggested.
I suggest he really ought to take this thing back and look at it. It is important from the point of view of the local authority's functions and the demands which are made on the local authority. I have in mind a group of houses in Kilmarnock, specially built, specially let to old people. I could list the names of the people who were in them at one time. They have the help of a neighbouring home and the help of nurses. I do not know whether they have a call system, but they probably have; there are very few people in these sheltered houses who have not. That is not to say that they are always provided by the Government. Round Table and Rotary have very often provided the call system. But I know that they do not have a warden system, and because of that one defect in this definition —and it is one which was put in only at Report stage in another place—these houses in Kilmarnock may well be ruled out. I hope they are not, because assuredly this Government are not greatly loved in Kilmarnock at the present time.
1728
Kilmarnock has been meeting the social needs of old people. They have provided what used to be called Part III accommodation, which is now provided by the local authority. They get I, II and III places. They pioneered it, and they pioneered this kind of development. Now a Government come along and say, "We are doing this as a result of a slogan which was invented in England and incorporated in Scotland, and which was defeated in the election in Scotland ". I know the noble Earl does not like it, but I have told him that if he stops putting forward Scottish manifestoes I will stop rubbing home the fact that the people of Scotland rejected these manifestoes: and they have got to get this changed.
I am still hopeful that the Government will change their mind about this one; they are so completely wrong. If the noble Earl were to say, "If he withdraws it, I will promise that I will have another look at it", I will bend my own efforts and those of my noble friends massed behind me—and I am very glad to have the help of Lord Taylor and Lord Galpern; they know something about the subject—to getting an amendment to which the draftsmen will say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servants; you have saved us an lawful lot of trouble''.
On Question, amendment negatived.
Lord LYELL: I think the Question was put and the Contents did not reply. I am afraid that the Not-Contents have it. The Question has been put.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Who is objecting?
Lord LYELL: I understood that there were some objections. I am sorry. We are in some confusion.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: The Government Benches are confused, and not for the first time.
Lord LYELL: I understood that the noble Lord, Lord Peart, was in some confusion and was objecting; but I am wrong. I apologise.
9.9 p.m.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Amherst of Hackney):

1729
Amendment No. 25. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, and the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, wish to move this amendment as three separate amendments, each being one of the subsections of this amendment.
Amendment No. 25 was printed as follows:
Page 5, line 10, at end insert ("; nor
(d) where a dwelling-house comprises one or two apartments and which it is the practice of the landlord to let for occupation by person or persons of pensionable age;
nor
(e) where the housing authority is satisfied that further sales will unduly disturb the balance of housing set out in the Housing Plan submitted to the Secretary of State, and subject to the Secretary of State's considering such a submission to be reasonable; nor
(f) to dwelling-houses which are situated in a housing authority where 35 per cent. or less of the housing stock is owned by that authority.")
Viscount THURSO: It is unfortunate that the three subsections of Amendment No. 25, which are linked with the same part of the Bill but not linked in sense, have been put in as one amendment. We would appreciate it if your Lordships would allow us to consider them as three separate subjects for debate.
The first, which I now move, is as follows:
Page 5, line 10, at end insert ("; nor
(d) where a dwelling-house comprises one or two apartments and which it is the practice of the landlord to let for occupation by person or persons of pensionable age;").
The point here may sound similar to that of the previous amendment but it is a totally different point. The point here is really the siting of houses for retired persons. I had quite a bit of experience with these problems when I was a member of Thurso town council and Caithness County Council. The difficulty in finding suitable sites on which to build accommodation for retired people is that the best place for these houses to be sited is somewhere near the centre of towns, near the shopping centres, near the post office and near the bus routes.
If these areas are not bought and held by a local authority for this kind of purpose the desirability of these sites leads to a tendency to take them out of
1730
housing and out of the reach of elderly retired persons. So the elderly retired people in one- or two-apartment houses are pushed away from the bus routes, from the shopping centres, from the post office where they collect their pensions, and away from the areas where life goes on and where they can see life without a great deal of effort and expense, where they can meet their families and friends. In my experience, it is important to acquire sites of this sort in the centre of the town and in the centre of the village and at suitable sites close to communications and so forth. I think that anything which allowed these sort of houses to drift out of local authority control would be harmful to the community as a whole, unkind to elderly people and uncaring as far as our attitude to people within the community is concerned.
I know that the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, will say that this is all coped with in Clause 4(4) but I have been re-reading this since it was directed to my attention, and I am not happy with the drafting of that particular clause and the various subsections which are now pre-emption clauses in the case of somebody wanting to buy a two-apartment house. If it all depends on these pre-emption clauses, perhaps we should look at them because I think the drafting is faulty. Clause 4(4) says
"Subject to subsection (6) below, no condition shall be imposed…except in the case of a dwelling-house which has facilities which are substantially different from those of an ordinary dwelling-house and which has been designed or adapted for occupation by an elderly or disabled person".
One of the difficulties there is that this has to be substantially different from the ordinary dwelling-house. You must have grab rails. It cannot be merely a two-apartment house suitable for a pensioner. You must have something in this house which you can say is designed for an infirm person. After all, the kind of house that suits old-age pensioners is really no different from the kind of house that suits a newly married couple, because once again they are a couple at that stage. But only if they are infirm and have some disability will that house be sub-stantially different.
It seems to me extremely dangerous to rely upon this pre-emption clause, which would not save one- or two-apartment houses built in the centre of small market

1731
towns or near the post office in villages or near the bus stop in rural areas, especially for the needs of elderly people. These would not be safeguarded in any way by Clause 4(4), so that the noble Earl would have to explain to me very carefully how this was done. If one looks a little further on, one is not at all sure that a later provision does not nullify the whole thing by the way in which it is drafted. I am really not very happy about subsection (6), but what I do claim is that Clause 4(4) provides no protection for the house designed for senior citizens, designed to make life just that little bit better for the older people who are not infirm but are living a reasonably active life and want to stay in touch with the community in which they have made their home. I beg to move.
9.16 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: The noble Lord, Lord Ross, would always say that the Scottish Office is the last to know, and certainly in this case it was the last to know that the noble Lord was going to chop up his amendment—as if we have not got enough in this Bill to talk about—and make three debates where it would have been one before. Accordingly I must try to chop up my remarks, and that I will do. We have already had a very full debate on sheltered housing. I say one thing, and I do not say it in a contentious spirit. I am not going to be tempted to go forward now and start discussing the meaning of Clause 4 and whether it is or is not drafted felicitously, because I really think that if we conduct our debates in this way, running forward from consideration of one amendment to consideration of drafting in clauses further on, we shall never get anywhere. What I shall do is confine myself to this amendment.
Viscount THURSO: I am not talking merely about the drafting. I mentioned the drafting, but the noble Earl did tell me earlier on that this particular problem was solved by Clause 4(4). If he is going to tell me that now, I am going to tell him that Clause 4(4) does not solve it.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: We can debate that when we get to Clause 4. We really cannot go backwards and forwards in a Bill.
Viscount THURSO: The noble Earl started it.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: No, I did not, with respect. The noble Viscount asked me where in the Bill was the protection for the second class of housing, and I told him. I think that to go on now and debate it would be counter-productive and would not lend itself to logic and reason in your Lordships' Committee; and I am simply not going to do it. What I did say was that housing which is provided for the elderly—and in this part of the amendment we are talking about a person or persons of pensionable age, and not necessarily infirm people—is split up in exactly the same way as are houses for the disabled. The effect of the first part of the noble Lord's amendment would be to exclude from the right, to which I have said again and again the Government attach great importance, tenants living in houses which may well be of a type of which an authority has a shortfall. It would mean anyone, young or old, living in a small dwelling which the authority can claim ordinarily to let to the elderly. That is terribly wide and one could not possibly accept an amendment like that. It is far too imprecise in its drafting and, I suggest, in its thought.
Where there are specific problems to do with sheltered housing, I hope that I have already told your Lordships that we think we have covered them. If one has a house which is occupied by elderly people, and if the noble Lord is going to claim that it should be excluded from the provisions of the clause merely because it happens to be on a bus route and elderly people habitually inhabit it, then I must tell him that I do not think that is any reason for any Government to admit it as an amendment which ought to be accepted. I am sorry, but I do not. I do not think that I can go further than that.
I do not think that it is right and I do not think that it is fair to discriminate in this way against the elderly simply because they are elderly. Many elderly folk would be delighted to buy their home. They may have saved up money to enable them to do that, should they have the opportunity. They can buy their home and achieve something in their life which gives a lot of folk very considerable satisfaction in their declining years. They will no longer be paying out rent, but will

1733
have something which they can call their own, build up and preserve. I do not think that we should thwart the perfectly just, reasonable and lifelong ambitions of people who want to own their own houses and who would, if this amendment was agreed to, be discriminated against simply and solely because of their age.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: That is a very disappointing but, I am afraid, predictable reply that the noble Viscount has received. I do not know what more we can say to the noble Earl. Let him go and have a look at all the circulars that have been sent out by Secretaries of State to the housing departments over the past 20 years. He will see that there was a time when we realised that we were building houses, large houses, that we did not need, and we were leaving aside the needs of elderly and elderly single people.
At the behest of government the local authorities built two-apartment houses. "Two-apartment" meant a room and a kitchen in the old terminology. "Two-apartment" in modern terminology—means one bedroom, one sitting room, a bathroom and a kitchenette. That is ideal for a let to elderly people; and many apartments were built on the flat. Local authorities have in many cases been clearing out areas and grouping these houses together—but not entirely; they have been mixing them up with general needs housing as well. There is nothing indefinite about it. In practice the local authorities let them to elderly people. They would not let them to young people for the simple reason, as my noble friends Lord Galpern and Lord Taylor know, that this type of accommodation was in the old tenements, the curse of Scotland.
Through the close and up the stairs and you were faced with three houses: the one before you was a kitchen. The one on each side was a room and a kitchen. There were no inside toilets, no hot water and no bathrooms. These were the conditions that led to the overcrowding. A local authority would not be as irresponsible as evidently the Minister seems to think if he believes that these would be let to people other than the elderly and the elderly single. They were built for that purpose; in practice, the local authority used them for that purpose. If we free them from the control of the
1734
local authority, they could, on their first sale—and there is nothing to prevent it—be let to a young couple. The couple could proceed to have a family, perhaps one, two, three and four children, and would probably never get out of the accommodation. We would be recreating the conditions from which we had escaped.
That is the reasoning behind this amendment, and behind our harping on the one- and two-apartment houses. I wish the noble Earl would look beyond this slogan of his and look at the whole history and the reason for the building of houses by local authorities. I am sure that his noble friend Lord Strathclyde knows that this is true. This led to the overcrowding and the slums. Local authorities are not going to create it in their own houses that have been specially built, and it is their practice to let the houses to the elderly people. I sincerely hope that my noble friends will persist with this.
I gather that the noble Viscount has divided this amendment into three separate amendments. This one covers much of the ground that is covered by a later one of mine lower down the page, which is Amendment No. 26, which covers the one-bedroomed house:
"and it is the practice of the landlord to let it for the occupation of single persons, widows, widowers or elderly married couples".
Because of that, I am fully in support of this particular amendment; so I hope the noble Earl will change his mind about this. The creators of chaos are the creators not just of this clause but of this whole Bill, and I do not know whether the Government appreciate it. I think they want confrontation; they want discontent among local authorities. This business of blandly turning down every amendment, where the principle is accepted but where we are trying to make the whole thing reasonable, is the most unreasonable attitude a Government could possibly take. I hope they think again.
9.36 p.m.
Viscount THURSO: My Lords, I really feel I must say that the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, does not appear to have listened to what I said. He is, of course, a little further away from being an old age pensioner than I am, but surely a person who moves into the kind of housing which

1735
I have described has already spent a good few years living, probably as a council tenant, within the community in which he is going to move into this one- or two-apartment house, and if he was longing to buy a house surely he would be longing to buy a house in the community in which he has spent the greater part of his life—and that is not the two-apartment house, into which he is not going to be moved until he has satisfied the requirements of the local authority which are that he be a senior citizen. These houses are, as I well know, deliberately designed for the senior citizen, deliberately located to be in places suitable for the senior citizen. I know what difficulties councils have had in finding areas upon which to build this sort of house; and this sort of house is not covered in the Bill, it is not protected by Clause 4(4). The noble Lord was the person who told us about the protection which Clause 4(4) was supposed to provide for houses for the elderly. That is why I mentioned it. It was because he told me that there was this pre-emption protection.
I now see that there is not to be a pre-emption protection for this particular class of house, for the two-apartment house designed for the elderly, and I feel I should press this amendment upon the House and not withdraw at this stage. However, I would give the noble Earl one chance to say that he will reconsider before we actually press this amendment to the vote.
9.28 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: It is so tempting to say that I will reconsider, and go away and either do it or go through the motions—I have sat on that side of the House, and it has happened again and
again—but it would be totally dishonest of me. So much thought has been given to this whole subject of sheltered housing. I tried to explain to the noble Viscount the objections to his amendment. I know that he cannot concede in thought that if you have an ordinary house, which is what he is really talking about, which happens to be rather small and which happens in the past to have been let to elderly people, in the future tenants would not be allowed to buy it. That is really what is between us. I am telling him that the Government say there is an overriding consideration of the right which tenants are to be given to buy their properties except in certain very well-defined circumstances, which we have been debating. I am sorry, but I do not think that this type of housing comes into one of those exceptions. I think it would be less than honest of me if I said that I would take this away and look at it again.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: The Question is that Amendment No. 25 be agreed to? As several of your Lordships may not have been in the Committee when I first read it, the amendment is:
"Page 5, line 10, at end insert (';nor (d) where a dwelling-house comprises one or two apartments and which it is the practice of the landlord to let for occupation by person or persons of pensionable age'.".
The other parts of Amendment No. 25 will be the subject of further amendments.
9.30 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 25) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 32; Not-Contents, 70.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: I will tell the noble Earl. It was he who told me the difference. He said, with regard to Amendment No. 4, that the Secretary of State had no statutory authority and, therefore, it lay entirely in the hands of local authorities.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: So, I fancy, it will with this amendment. What I suppose could happen is that a housing authority could produce its plan, record therein that it considers that the balance of housing will be disturbed by "further sales"—whatever that means—seek approval and it would be up to the Secretary of State to give it or not. I have not addressed my mind as to whether, in those circumstances, the Secretary of State would be acting ultra vires if he did. I am not sure about that. But it is one more way of saying, in a rather more attractive form than the noble Lord, Lord Ross, that the statutory right to be conferred on the tenant is to be whittled away and instead is to be left to the discretion of the local authority.
But, says the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, there is the further proviso that the local authority cannot be totally unreasonable; otherwise, it will not obtain the seal of approval from the Secretary of State of the day. That, no doubt, is the way he puts it. He has not said what he means by "the balance of housing", in what circumstances the balance could be upset, what balance is desirable or anything like that. I had thought in my naive way that he would address himself to rural housing, but he has not done so and I shall therefore not be tempted along that path. All I can say is that I am afraid I am not at all persuaded that this amendment would improve the position as it exists in the Bill, and I could not possibly recommend it to the Committee.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I am very disappointed indeed but, like the Minister, I was slightly disturbed that the Liberal Party refused to support me on what I thought was much the same kind of amendment. I should like to take up the Minister on the housing plan. He knows that housing plans have been in operation since the Green Paper of 1977. It may surprise him to know that, statutorily or non-statutorily, local authorities have put forward suggestions about the
1738
sale of so many council houses. The Clyde area was one. The Secretary of State disagreed with them and suggested another figure for the sale of council houses. They accepted it and went ahead with it. Then Kyle and Carrick suggested the sale of 100 or 200 council houses. The Secretary of State agreed and they went ahead with
it.
Many of the powers exercised by the Secretary of State and the Scottish Office arc not entirely under statute. Probably this is just as well in many cases. If the Minister is worried about that, the Bill has a long way to go; we can easily make it a statutory housing plan. The local authorities agreed that it was sensible for the Government to do this. The noble Earl asked my noble friend Lord Mackie "What is 'a balance of housing?' It is a very big phrase". If he asks the Institute of Housing they will tell him; if he asks the housing managers of all the local authorities they will tell him; and if he asks his own officials they will tell him. The local authority has to provide for the statutory needs of the people—that is, for general needs, for slum clearance, for overcrowding, for single people, for elderly people, for the disabled. The responsibility is theirs. The point is that their authority is being usurped by central Government, who will make it impossible for local authorities to carry out their duties. The Scotsman put it very well:
"The authorities know best the conditions in their area: what houses could be sold, and where, and whether the right to repurchase should or should not he exercised. But they have been stripped of any discretion and made to act as the Government's selling agent".
The Government are determined to hold on to the position that they know best. Well, they do not. I am sorry about this reply. I think it was based upon a lack of understanding of the housing problems and the housing needs of Scotland. It is making a mockery of democracy, if we can mention that word in this House.
Several noble Lords: Of course we can.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Well, it is not a very democratic place, is it? In a minute I shall be asking the noble Earl on the opposite Front Bench what his majority is. The people of Scotland, both nationally and locally, turned this down, lock, stock and barrel. They

CONTENTS

Balogh, L.

Janner, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Kaldor, L.

Stone, L.

Birk, B.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Blease, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Thurso, V. [Teller.]

Brockway, L.

Peart, L.

Underhill, L.

David, B.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Walston, L.

Galpern, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Hampton, L. [Teller.]

Ross of Marnock, L.

White, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Simon, V.

Winstanley, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abercorn, D.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Balerno, L.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Avon, E.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Bellwin, L.

Fortescue, E.

Mottistone, L.

Belstead, L.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Bessborough, E.

Gisborough, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Gowrie, E.

Orkney, E.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Gray, L.

Pender, L.

Bradford, E.

Gridley, L.

Reigate, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone,L. (L. Chancellor.)

Rochdale, V.

Cockfield, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Colwyn, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Saltoun, Ly.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Harvington, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Craigavon, V.

Holderness, L.

Selsdon, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Craigton, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Sharples, B.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Inglewood, L.

Strathclyde, L.

De La Warr, E.

Kemsley, V.

Sudeley, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Killearn, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Trenchard,V.

Dundee, E.

Long, V.

Vaizey, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Lyell, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Ely, M.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Vivian, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mansfield, E.

Westbury, L.

Ferrier, L.

Marley, L.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

9.38 p.m.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: Amendment No. 25A is the second paragraph of Amendment 25 as printed.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE moved Amendment No. 25A:
Page 5, line 10, at end insert ("; nor
(e) where the housing authority is satisfied that further sales will unduly disturb the balance of housing set out in the Housing Plan submitted to the Secretary of State, and subject to the Secretary of State's considering such a submission to be reasonable;"
The noble Lord said: I will not take long on this amendment because we have covered a great deal of the ground already. I think this amendment is extremely necessary, as this debate has shown. From all sides of the Committee noble Lords have spoken of particular areas in their own communities where the local authority and, indeed, the pensioners or some other special group would be very embarrassed if a considerable proportion of these houses were sold without the local authority being able to do anything about it.
Lord Ross of Marnock had an example, Lord Galpern had another, Viscount Thurso had one and I had one myself. I think it is precisely because of this that the Government should introduce some form of appeal for a local authority as well as giving every citizen who can have it
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the right to buy his house. It is only reasonable that that should be so, and it would save a tremendous amount of unhappiness and misuse of resources which were built for a special purpose and which could easily be abused. The wording of the amendment is such that it is really an appeal to the Secretary of State, who has the final word. It is quite different from the first amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, which gave the whole say to the local authority.
Since it is the fashion in this Committee to lecture people, I should like to lecture the Minister particularly on his attitude to the fact that all wisdom resides in the other place, where he told us the Bill has been extremely carefully considered. Let me tell him, as he knows himself, that in the other place little wisdom resides. Passion, yes, theology, theocracy—everything except wisdom. If there is any justification for this House, it is that it considers carefully what the other place has done and suggests from a great deal of accumulated wisdom—which I do not claim for myself, but which I see all around me—amendments which make the law infinitely better for the ordinary citizen. That, I suggest, is what this amendment is about. I beg to move.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I was going to ask the noble Lord, before he sat down, where his amendment differed from the first part of Amendment No. 4. But he assures me that there is a difference, and I suppose we shall have to be content with that—

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could not get more than 707 votes in the centre of Glasgow. We are back to facts. What happened in the local authority area that the noble Earl lives in? I can tell him what happened in local elections all over the place. The people rejected it. They fought the elections on the ground that the Government knew best and that they were going to give people a new right in respect of buying council houses. The people said, "Thank you very much, but we don't want it", but the Government said, "Whether you like it or not, you are going to get it". They are destroying any pretension of being concerned about the freedom and discretion of local authorities. As the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, has said, once again they are showing no understanding of the whole aspect of policy in respect of housing planning and meeting the needs of the various categories. They are just determined to carry out a slogan and to make a nonsense of everything.
Viscount THURSO: I think I owe it to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, to explain the difference in our attitude between this amendment and Amendment No. 4. With regard to Amendment No. 4, we felt that local authorities were being invited to become judges in their own cause. In this amendment we are saying that there may well be a case which the local council may see but the judge should be the Secretary of State and that is the slight measure of difference between us on this point. Nevertheless, whether we may disagree or agree on the emphasis, the purpose of both our amendments is the same and that is to safeguard particularly the smaller rural authorities where a housing plan could go very much out of balance with too many sales. In fact at the last general election the Tory party manifesto specifically suggested safeguards against too many sales in rural areas, and I am surprised that they do not now see these suggestions with some pleasure in that we are helping them to honour their manifesto in this respect.
In the borders, the Highlands and the North East there are many parts of rural areas where there are only two or three council houses in a group and to sell off even one of those could very well upset the housing balance in that area quite drastically, and I feel it is only right that
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there should be some protection against the complete unbalancing of housing plans and that the Secretary of State is the correct arbiter to whom appeals should be made.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: I, too, am very disappointed. I shall not return to the centre of Glasgow but I will return to this point: of course I could have adduced arguments about rural Scotland and indeed my noble friend Lord Thurso has just done so, but the point that I was trying to make is that all over Scotland, rural and urban, there are different sets of circumstances which cannot be covered by a blanket resolution, which in fact is what the Government are putting forward. Hundreds of Bills which have become law in this country contain a clause which says that, in case anything else goes wrong at all, the Secretary of State has power to put it right. That is a well-known device and I think in this case it is such a complicated measure with so many different combinations of circumstances in rural and urban areas that we were merely asking the Government—not to accept our particular amendment, which I am sure is appallingly drafted and is quite dreadful, but at least to give us an assurance that they would look at it. They are not going to do that apparently; they are going to retain this curious socialist attitude that they must stick to the theory. We shall not press the amendment but we reserve the right to bring up this matter at a later date. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 25B not moved.]
9.52 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 26:
Page 5, line 10, at end insert ("; nor
(d) where a dwelling house has only one bedroom and it is the practice of the landlord to let it for the occupation of single persons, widows, widowers or elderly married couples.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is more or less included in the debate which we had on Amendment No. 25 and I do not propose to move it now, but I reserve the right to put it down again for consideration at Report stage.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 5, line 10, at end insert—
("; nor
(d) where a dwelling-house is part of a multi-storey block").
The noble Lord said: I want to move this amendment very quickly. I cannot for a minute understand why the Government do not get up and even frustrate me in the brilliant speech I am about to deliver—which, of course, I have carefully prepared. Can your Lordships imagine anyone in a multi-storey block of flats buying a flat there and the appalling consequences there would be if nine-tenths of the block was owned by the local authority with only isolated little pockets of owner occupation? The idea is nonsense. There is the whole question of servicing, the whole question of repairing, the whole question of management. If there is one thing we should have learned in Scotland it is that we do not want multi-ownership in tenements or multi-storey flats.
Noble Lords from Scotland will remember 1968, when there was a storm which swept over Scotland and removed the roofs of tenement houses, destroying them; chimney pots came down. Who was left to pick up the pieces and try and get on with things, trying to forget about statutes and forget the limitation on the powers of local authorities or the Secretary of State to act, because everyone said we should? What was the thing that kept us back except the multi-ownership? I gave the order that we should go ahead and put the roofs back on, get people back in their houses. By the way, for those who are in love with the private ownership of tenement flats and the rest of it, I can assure you that there were plenty of them empty but the people who were made homeless did not move into them; it was left to the local authority to provide for them. But there was a bill to pick up at the end.
One of the things we discovered with owner-occupiers, especially people who bought houses that their parents had been glad to get out of, tenement flats, was that they were under-insured; some of them had no insurance. This is something I hope we shall have time to discuss at some time or other when it comes to the provision for people buying these flats.
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They must know what they are letting themselves in for, and that the cost is not just the cost of the mortgage, so that they will go into owner-occupation with their eyes open.
I would like the Minister to go back to the Scottish Office and ask how much of that money that was spent by the Scottish Department at that time on behalf of Glasgow, Stirling and other places, has not been repaid by some of the owner-occupiers of these flats or some of the private tenement owners. We are inviting trouble for ourselves in respect of the management of multi-storey flats if we allow them to be multi-owned. Common sense alone says that we should draw the line at this; there must be a restriction. I shall cut my speech short because the hour is late for this House; it would be early elsewhere, but I have not got rid of all my bad habits yet. I suggest the Government should cut the debate very short by saying, "Yes, we accept this amendment. Thanks for moving it." I beg to move.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: The trouble is that "No" is a shorter word than "Yes", and I have to use it. There is nothing inherent in the nature of multi-storey blocks which is incompatible with ownership. Therefore, in principle, we see no reason to exclude some 14 per cent. of public sector tenants from the right to buy. I do not conceal from the Committee for a moment that selling multi-storey flats has conveyancing problems, but we do not accept that they are insuperable. Several local authorities in England have experience of selling multi-storey flats. In any event it is no part of the policy embodies in this Bill to allow the administrative convenience of local authorities to prevail over the interests of tenants. Our approach from the tenants' point of view is that council tenants are responsible adults capable of making up their own minds. If there are snags which are inherent in the buying of multi-storey flats they should, of course, be explained to the tenants.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: No one is suggesting—
Several noble Lords: Order!
The Earl of MANSFIELD: If I may finish my sentence the noble Lord can

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have another go. If there are snags of this nature they will be, or they should be, explained to the tenants. After that, they are responsible adults and we believe they can make up their own minds as to whether in the particular circumstances they want to buy.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: No one is suggesting that we should sell multi-storey blocks. I know of cases where blocks in toto have been sold and there is sense in that. However, we are talking about a dwelling-house which is part of a multi-storey block—simply that—and that is where the difficulties arise.
On Question, amendment negatived.
10 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 5, line 26, after ("may") insert (",at the discretion of the landlord").
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendment No. 28. This is a purely drafting amendment which is consequential on the fulfilment of an undertaking given to the Opposition in another place in effect to make an amendment to the definition of "occupation" in Clause 1(12). I beg to move.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Procedure]:
[Amendment No. 29 not moved.]
10 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendments Nos. 30 to 36 en bloc:
Page 6, line 15, leave out from ("months") to ("after") in line 17 and insert—
(",where the application is made during the first year after the commencement of this section, or, in any other case, within 2 months")
Page 7, line 4, leave out ("any") and insert ("the")
Page 7, line 9, at end insert ("setting out the request")
Page 7, line 10, leave out ("or failure")
Page 7, line 14, after ("above") insert ("or by his failure timeously to serve an amended offer to sell under the said subsection")
Page 7, line 30, after ("sell") insert ("by timeously serving a notice setting out a request under subsection (3) above;")
Page 7, line 33, leave out paragraph (c).
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendments Nos. 30 to 36 en bloc. All of these amendments are drafting amendments concerning various stages in the process dealt with in Clause 2 whereby a landlord serves an offer to sell on a tenant who has applied to exercise his right to purchase and, after negotiation where appropriate, the tenant has the opportunity to serve a notice of acceptance.
It is helpful, I think, to take these amendments as a whole. Amendment No. 30 corrects the drafting of an amendment made by the Government in another place in response to representations from housing authorities. Amendment No. 31 makes a very minor drafting change in relation to the tenant's right, after an offer to sell has been served, to request the inclusion or exclusion of a joint purchaser. Amendment No. 32 concerns the stage of the procedure where the tenant has requested alterations in an offer to sell as regards conditions of sale or joint purchasers. Amendments No. 33 and 34 are both related to the tenant's right under Clause 2(4) to seek the judgment of the Lands Tribunal on any request for a change in the offer to sell to which the landlord does not accede. Amendment No. 35 makes a similar change to subsection (6), which deals with the time limits on a tenant's right to serve a notice
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of acceptance. I have put the matter in short and rather muddled compass. I beg to move.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 8, line 12, leave out subsection (8).
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 37. This is a fairly important amendment. It deals with a matter of considerable principle. Not only is the right given to purchase, and purchase at very considerable beneficial discount, but a further privilege is given to a tenant who wishes to purchase; namely, he can say, "Yes, I wish to purchase, but not just now". He pays £100, and for up to two years after that he can purchase the house at that fixed price. Therefore, a fixed price option is given. I am sure that there are many people indeed who would love to meet someone as generous as that, who will sell them something that perhaps costs £6,000, and if they wait two years before they buy it they will get an even better bargain because the value of the house will have increased. Anyone who had taken advantage of this offer in the last two years in respect of house prices in Scotland would have benefited very considerably. There is no indication that, in respect of the houses that will be desirable enough for the tenants to buy, that will not happen here.
I think that the Government are going overboard in their efforts, to use the phrase of the Member for Aberdeen South, to "get rid of council houses". They are forgetting an element of a sense of fairness between the tenant in this particular case and the rest of the ratepayers and, indeed, those other people who seek to buy in the open market. Can you imagine anyone else saying, "It is all right, give me £100; I can wait for two years and you can get the property at the price that we are now fixing". It is so unfair. It only has to be stated to be appreciated to be unfair. I beg to move.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: The noble Lord is perfectly right when he says that this amendment in fact highlights a

1749
fundamental difference of view between the Government and the Opposition so far as people who wish to buy their council homes are concerned. In a nutshell, the Government wish to help them and the Opposition wish to hinder them, if at all possible.
The purpose of Clause 2(8) is an attempt to help those who, although they wish to buy their home, are not in a financial position to do so right away. It is available only to those who are offered a loan by a housing authority which is not as large as the amount which they indicated that they needed in order to buy the house. If they are prepared to put down £100 deposit, it gives them the right to buy at the price which they have been offered at any time up until two years after the date of their application. The purpose of this is to allow them time to save more money so that they do not need a loan for as large a percentage of the price or for improvements in their financial position to take place, perhaps through obtaining a better paid job. In other words, we are saying to people that if they are prepared to make an effort to help themselves, we are prepared to meet them half way.
This may be the only chance of home ownership that people on relatively low incomes ever have and we believe that it is a chance which they should be given. As the Opposition do not want to give anyone that chance, it is hardly surprising, I suppose, that they do not approve of this provision. Of course, this amendment would go some way—in fact, it would go a great deal of the way—to detract from the right which we give them. It is obvious from what I have said that I cannot commend this amendment to the Committee.
On Question, amendment negatived.
[Amendments Nos. 38 and 39 not moved.]
10.10 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendments Nos. 40 and 41:
Page 8, line 37, at end insert ("12 months after")
Page 8, line 39, leave out from ("acceptance") to end of line 40 and insert ("under subsection (6) or (8) above").
The noble Earl said: These are in effect drafting amendments, so perhaps I could move Amendments Nos. 40 and 41 together. I beg to move.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I would not myself call the last amendment a drafting amendment, but at this time of night I am not going to quibble about it.
10.10 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 8, line 44, at end insert—
("(12) Subsection (8) of this section shall not apply where the dwelling-house is one of a group on which the landlord has proposals for, or the houses are in the process of, improvements, alterations or major structural repair; or where the dwelling-house has had such work done on it since 15th May 1975.").
The noble Lord said: This is another simple amendment. We have granted this fixed option where people can wait for two years. It sounded plausible for the Minister to suggest that the only reason why a person delays this option could be because he is unable, by reason of the application, to get a loan of the amount that he wants. It can be arranged in many ways as to whether or not he gets the size of loan he wants. It can be for very different reasons from those that the innocent Minister of State suggested. But now we come to the question of the particular house.
Remember that the price has been fixed. There can be no departure from that price. Suppose it is a dwelling-house which is one of a group for which the landlord has proposals for improvement, major repair, and goes ahead with this major repair, probably costing thousands of pounds, but the price is fixed. Surely it is sensible to take that position into account. It may be that if the price has been fixed, the local authority will say, "We are not going ahead with this". The local authority may well have a contract out with a local contractor covering this and other houses. It is fair in this instance to say that where these houses are due to be repaired, or are in the process of being repaired, this fixed option, "Wait for two years and pay

1751
only the price we first of all fixed", is quite wrong. That is why we put forward this amendment, and indeed the suggestion where the work has been done on it since May 1975. It certainly is an extension to it, and I daresay that the Government will object to that extension. But certainly to the first part of it, where the houses are in the process of improvement, alterations, or are about to be, where the price is already fixed it would be quite wrong to allow the house to be sold at that price.
It is not a question of helping and hindering; it is a question of fairness and unfairness. There are more people to be considered in this respect than a would-be tenant purchaser. There is the whole of the rest of the ratepayers and all those who live in local authority houses. If the noble Earl thinks that the rest of the people in local authority areas seeing this kind of thing going on are not going to be disaffected towards the local authority when things are being given away in this way, then he does not know very much about the reactions of Scottish people, and people in respect of Scottish local authority housing in particular. I beg to move.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: I should merely like to say that the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, appears to have a point in the first part of the amendment. I trust that the Minister will be able to explain.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I am inclined to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, in that there are two proposals contained in the amendment one of which certainly deserves more consideration than the other. Dealing with the less meritorious one first—that is, the proposal that because a house has had works carried out to it since local government reorganisation, a tenant should not be entitled to an option to buy it at a certain price even though he could have bought it at that price if he had the money—Clause 2(8) is concerned with helping people who fall just below the level of being able to afford home ownership. If one accepts that principle, there is no case for discriminating between that sort of tenant in one
1752
house and a tenant in a similar position in another.
The point of substance concerns works which were not carried out in time to be reflected in the house valuation. Clearly there is a danger that authorities might be discouraged from carrying out works on houses subject to a fixed price option. The amendment would not be a satisfactory way of dealing with that point of concern because it negates the right to an option and because it would operate on the basis of a landlord's proposal which, in the hands of an unscrupulous authority, might be a wholly fictitious device to deprive tenants of the benefits which Parliament has decided that they should be entitled to. The defects of the amendment do not, of course, dispose of the problem and we have given the matter careful consideration. Having done so, we are satisfied that the Bill provides adequate scope for authorities to safeguard themselves in relation to houses for which they have genuine plans for major works by seeking to impose appropriate conditions of sale in the offer to sell, which forms the basis of the option.
I can illustrate that in this way: "appropriate conditions" could relate to repayment of any work done in the two-year period. If a tenant disputes those conditions, it would be a matter for the Lands Tribunal to resolve and, in the light of any such decision by the Lands Tribunal, it would be for the tenant to consider his position. I hope that with this explanaton I can convince the noble Lord that his point which has substance is already catered for in the subsection and he will withdraw the amendment.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I dare say that in the end I shall withdraw the amendment, because of the weakness of the second part of it, but let us look at the solution. "Appropriate conditions", yes, but put in by whom? By the local authority. The Minister will appreciate—and we have not yet come to the clause—that those conditions are subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. He is the great ruler of all things in this matter, not the local authority. Thus, we have the Secretary of State hurdle to go over and then we have the Lands Tribunal. I believe it would have been far simpler to have ruled out the possibility of this kind of thing happening

1753
and not leave it to the matter of conditions. Unconvinced though I am by the noble Earl's explanation, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Conditions of sale]:
10.18 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendments Nos. 43 and 44:
Page 9, line 32, after ("generality,") insert ("common")
line 32, leave out ("of ownership").
The noble Earl said: These are technical drafting amendments. They have the effect of providing that the conditions of sale contained in an offer to sell under the right to buy must confer on the tenant such "common rights", rather than "rights of ownership" as the Bill expresses it at present, as are necessary for his reasonable enjoyment of other parts of the building of which his house forms part. Rights to use of a common drying green attached to a block of flats, for example, may be more appropriately described as "common rights" than "rights of ownership".
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 45:
Page 9, line 42, at end insert ("and maintaining").
The noble Lord said: Now, are we in sight of victory? This is the real test. If this amendment is refused, I am not going to move another single amendment on this Bill. Clause 4(2) states:
"A condition which imposes a new charge or an increase of an existing charge for the provision of a service in relation to the dwelling-house shall provide for the charge to be in reasonable proportion to the cost to the landlord of providing the service".
My amendment seeks to add the words "and maintaining" at the end of that subsection. I am waiting to hear the Minister find fault with this amendment. I beg to move.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I am afraid that the time that the noble Lord mentions
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is not yet. There is to be such an occasion, but I am not going to tell him when it is to be, so as to prolong the excitement. This amendment is unnecessary. The word "providing" which currently appears in Clause 4(2) embraces both the initial provision and the continuing provision of a service. I am informed that there arc numerous statutory precedents for its use in this dual sense. So I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: That is not a very convincing reply. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 46 and 47 not moved.]
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendment No. 48:
Page 10, line 40, leave out ("accordance with the provisions of") and insert ("pursuance of his right to purchase under").
The noble Earl said: This is a technical drafting amendment. I beg to move.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
[Amendment No. 49 not moved.]
Clause 5 [Loans]:
10.23 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 50:
("(v) such other information as the Secretary of State considers necessary to allow the landlord or other body to consider whether the applicant is a suitable person to receive a loan under this section; and").
The noble Lord said: Clause 5 deals with loans to a tenant who exercises his right to purchase. He applies to the local authority, and says, "I am sorry, but I have applied to the building societies and they have turned me down." The tenant applies to the home loans department of the local authority, and the local authority, whether or not it likes it, must provide a loan of some kind, even if it is only 10 pence. That is the effect of the clause as drafted.
My amendment deals with the question of the provision of the loan and whether or not the application can be turned down. The whole thing is tied up with the Secretary of State. First, an application for

1755
a loan must be in such form as is laid down by the Secretary of State by means a statutory instrument. The form shall contain
"the amount of the loan which the applicant seeks…
"the applicant's annual gross income and his net income…
"any liabilities in respect of credit sales…
"a statement that the applicant has applied for and been unable to obtain a sufficient building society loan".
I suggest that we add:
"such other information as the Secretary of State considers necessary to allow the landlord or other body to consider whether the applicant is a suitable person to receive a loan under this section…".
Surely that is reasonable. The local authority is to lend the money—possibly several thousand pounds—to the tenant who wants to purchase his house. Surely the question of whether to give a loan to a particular tenant is not purely a matter of mathematics. Surely there are other aspects which come into it. The question arises as to the record of this person as a tenant, even in the three years. It may well be more than three years. It may well be that he has been in the toils so far as debt is concerned, that he has not been paying his rent.
That, surely—and there are other aspects of information which I am perfectly sure noble Lords will provide themselves—is something about which a local authority has a right to know. But it can know about it only if the Secretary of State puts it into the form. It is not really the Secretary of State who is lending the money; it is the local authority. But the person who is laying down all the questions is the Secretary of State. Really, the persons who should be satisfied are the local authority, because, after all, they are responsible to the ratepayers—and, indeed, in the end, probably, to the Treasury as well, in respect of this kind of finance—in relation to those to whom they lend money.
I think it is a fact that, out of those who receive home loans under the home loan schemes of local authorities, one in five—it is a very high proportion, one in five—default on their loans; so a certain measure of care has to be introduced into this. It is not always the person who
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struggles to pay who is the defector, or the person who has not got the requisite minimum income: it is somebody who is an awful lot better off who is the kind of person to whom you would not lend money. I think we are entitled to have this considered by the Secretary of State, that he should get the person to supply further information in respect of his worthiness to receive a loan from the local authority to purchase that local authority's house. I beg to move.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I am bound to say that I regard this amendment as being purely cosmetic. It is difficult to see what information the would-be borrower could provide, on the form which the Secretary of State is going to prescribe by statutory instrument, which would enable the local authority to (as it were) test his character when it is he who is going to supply the information which cannot readily he gained in other ways. The form is going to prescribe the applicant's own personal financial position, other liabilities which he has attracted and a statutory statement that he has in fact been unable to obtain a sufficient building society loan. I cannot see what else he could be expected to put, by way of answering questions or relating information, which could possibly help the local authority to carry out its statutory function—unless, of course, this is in fact a concealed paving amendment for another amendment which the noble Lord is going to move in the not too distant future, which would give the local authority the right to refuse such an application of its own discretion. Then, of course, this amendment might have some point, but as the Bill stands, no.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: That is very disappointing indeed, but it is consistent with the experience we have had all evening. Of course, we know that they have been turned down by a building society. In fact, they cannot get a loan unless they have already been turned down. The situation is that the high-risk people are the people to whom the local authority must give a loan, whether or not they like it. The Secretary of State is determined to ensure that they will give them a loan. When I think of the grounds on which a court may order recovery of possession of a house, the behaviour of a tenant, it may be that the person may be

1757
the wrong person to whom to grant a loan. Anyone who has been a Member of Parliament, as quite a number of noble Lords in this House have been, will know that one of the greatest problems that we have in local authority housing is the unsocial tenants who make life absolute hell for the people next door to them and the people upstairs. And there is little you can do about it. You need not bother to go back to your Member of Parliament to see if anything can be done about this—you had better go to the police; because, after this, if this kind of person applies for a house and has the wherewithal to meet the needs of a building society or of the Secretary of State, he will get his loan and his house and then you will not be able to do anything about it. The people will suffer and suffer and the proud owner-occupier with a new gleam of independence in his eyes will go on without let, knowing that so long as he does not do anything which is criminal you cannot get him out.
I can think of a lot of justification for seeking further information in respect of an individual who applies for a loan of £6,000—not just the mathematical calculations in relation to his income; calculations which, by the way, will be laid down by the Secretary of State and not by the local authority. The local authority are just agents; they are the message boys. We have asked to see what these conditions are. The Secretary of State comes into this clause about four times with different kinds of orders and we have not yet been given a clue as to what the orders are or what the questions entirely are going to be and what are the conditions laid down by the Secretary of State and how the calculations are to be made. In the other place, they asked for this and the Government stupidly produced a paper—I say "stupidly" because they had to tear it up; it was so inaccurate.
With the rigid good sense of this noble House they have not produced anything at all; but they are asking us to pass this provision and we are dealing with thousands and thousands. Nobody will ever be satisfied but I should love to have the Minister bring in and defend a paper as to what the orders are going to be in respect of this. Subsection (3) says:
"…the Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument impose"
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conditions upon the local authority of the tenant. We do not know what they are. But we are going to pass this! This is carrying out a democratic process of search and determination to see that everything is fair and right and above board! And then they are going to
"specify a maximum amount of loan calculated in accordance with regulations made by order made by statutory instrument".
By whom? By the Secretary of State. We do not know about that. We have not been told. So it goes on four times, four orders; and we do not know. The local authority must carry them out blindly and we must pass this and say that this is wonderful; that we entirely agree with all of it—with something that we know nothing about.
We are asking for one piece of information. We cannot get it. The local authority is not allowed to ask questions. Only the Secretary of State puts the questions into a form and it is filled in. Surely they are entitled to know this additional piece of information. We do not even say the local authority will determine what the other information should be. We leave it to the Secretary of State:
"as the Secretary of State considers necessary to allow the landlord or other body to consider whether the applicant is a suitable person to receive a loan under this section".
If it is left in this way the Secretary of State does not need to add anything at all. He can decide that he does not want to ask any other questions, but other people may well be asking questions when they discover who has been getting loans from local authorities. No doubt the Daily Express and the other newspapers will soon tell us when something happens to an individual. They will say, "This is the kind of person to whom a local authority gave a loan of £10,000".
It was not the local authority, however; it was the Secretary of State. But the Secretary of State will not be held responsible; it will be the message boy—it will be the local authority. Surely we should do something to safeguard the position of the local authority. I know the time is racing on, but I am just getting into my stride. I know, too, that the noble Earl will turn me down again. I would be disappointed if he accepted any of my amendments now, especially the one

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where I asked for not only correct information but full information. I dare say that that is the one where he is probably going to say, "Yes, it's worth thinking about".
On Question, amendment negatived.
[Amendments Nos. 51 to 57 not moved.]
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendment No. 58:
Page 12, line 31, leave out ("subsections (3) and (6)") and insert ("subsection (3)").
The noble Earl said: This is a drafting amendment aimed at clarifying the status of a declarator for a loan granted by a sheriff to an applicant under Clause 5 where a housing authority has failed to fulfil its statutory duties under that clause. I beg to move.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6 [Recovery of discount on early re-sale]:
10.38 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendment No. 59:
Page 12, line 43, leave out from ("than") to second ("or") in line 44 and insert ("in the capacity of executor of the deceased owner").
The noble Earl said: This is a technical drafting amendment. I beg to move.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 13, line 21, leave out from ("secures") to the second ("the") in line 22 and insert ("the liability to repay a proportion of discount under this section").
The noble Earl said: I should like to deal with Amendments Nos. 60 and 61 en bloc. These are pure drafting amendments. I beg to move.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 13, line 32, after ("the") insert ("said standard").
On Question, Whether Clause 6, as amended, shall be agreed to?
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: This clause merits some examination and looking at, because it concerns the recovery of discount on an early re-sale. Noble Lords will remember that we referred to the fact that, after three years as a tenant—not necessarily the tenant of a particular house; a person could have built up his three years' qualification in some other house, in Northern Ireland, Wales, England, the Forestry Commission; anywhere but the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority—he can buy his house. The day after he has bought it, he is entitled to sell it, and at the highest price he can get. But he is under some possible penalty because he is subject in the five years to repay in increasing amounts, according to the time that has passed since he bought the house, the discount. I do not think this will be any great handicap to a person. Having bought the house and re-selling it quickly, he is doing so to make a profit that will probably be considerably more than the discount, so he will gladly pay the discount before the expiry of the five years.
The proportion of the discount shall be 100 per cent. where the disposal occurs in the first year, 80 per cent. in the second year and reducing each year until the end of the five-year period. We are glad to see that there is some penalty on the quick profit "gentlemen", but are we satisfied that that is enough? There should be a penalty of 100 per cent. all through, and probably it could be even more: perhaps half of the profit made by the individual over and above the market price could be repaid to the local authority, taking into account the discount. I do not think that is a high enough penalty: the 100 per cent., 80 per cent., 60 per cent., 40 per cent., and then nothing at all. I am not entirely satisfied that this lengthy clause—it covers nearly a full page—is sufficient to prevent what may be speculation.
I know that there may be cases where because of a change in tenant on the death of a person the estate will have to be realised so there is inevitably a sale. I am concerned about the quick money guy. We just do not know what will happen to these houses and how this business will develop over the next five to 10 years. I can see all kinds of rackets

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arising from this, because it is going to be a good bargain for some people to buy their way in, to finance old people and then get the pickings. There is no end to what people will do in this country for money—and what people in this Committee can do for no money at all. I thought I was retired! But think of the Finance Act, and the trouble the Chancellor of the Exchequer takes to close loopholes to stop someone making a "killing" out of some provision; and then he has no sooner closed that loophole than someone prises open yet another.
I should like to see a much stiffer attitude to this question of re-sales: that re-sales should he more strictly controlled than they are. There should be a penalty where there is evidence of speculation and people making a profit. They are making a profit out of the ratepayers. The rate-payers are dependent on us doing a duty by them.
I do not know how the Minister feels about that. It may well be that this is the amendment of mine that he is going to accept—that we leave out Clause 6. He has promised me one. He may find it difficult if I do not move the amendment that he is going to accept. I should like to hear whether he is satisfied that the action taken here in recovery of discount is enough to stop speculation and quick profit taking.
Viscount THURSO: I am not so much concerned with the speculator and the shark. In this instance, I should like some information on what happens in the event of a death. Let us assume that Mr. McTavish or Mr. Smith buys his house, and he makes a will and leaves the house to his son hoping that he will live for five years, expecting that he will live for five years, and then he is stricken down in the prime of life and his son inherits. Is this deemed to be a sale? Is this deemed to be a disposal? And if so, is the son then deprived of 100 per cent. of the discount? It would seem to be an unnecessary hardship to impose at such a time, and I wonder whether this would happen and whether it is intended that it should happen.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I hope that this short consideration of Clause 6
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will go some way to reassuring those of your Lordships who felt uneasy about a number of matters to do with the tenant's right to purchase his house. I hope the Government's view has been made plain again and again in the course of the evening: that we regard this as an important right, and further, that we hope and set store by the fact that there may be, and probably will be, considerable aids to mobility of labour if there is a larger proportion of people in Scotland who in fact own their houses, and if they have to move in order to get a new or a better job, as it were, can therefore do so, either by selling their house more quickly and buying another one, and perhaps more especially doing so with a little money behind them which they can get on the sale.
I hope also that when noble Lords consider Clause 6 they will be comforted to some degree over the matter of the three-year qualification. We had quite a long debate about that, which I shall not go into again, as to whether it should be three, five or eight years. I took the view, and I am reinforced in it now that I come to address my mind to Clause 6 again, that three years is about right, and I think that if there is—
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: If the noble Earl will allow me, he did promise to give reconsideration to this. Does this mean he has been sitting here thinking about this, and has come to the conclusion that three years is right, when he suggested to noble Lords on both sides of the Committee that it might well be five?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: Reconsideration is an on-going process, to quote the trendy phrase, and there is reconsideration and reconsideration, and those of us who can think like lightning on our feet can reconsider all sorts of things as we do that. But I hope, speaking seriously for a moment, that the compendiousness of the Government's proposals will be taken into account by those who are uneasy about some of these things.
The noble Lord, Lord Ross, talked about what he calls "quick money", and he is always quick to see suspicious motives in anybody who buys a council house and later wants to sell it. I think he should realise that if anybody buys their council house and then sells it

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again, they are going to need somewhere to live, and therefore one assumes that they just do not pocket the money and go off on a cruise, not unless they wish their living conditions thereafter to be purely ephemeral. But people do move, I should remind the noble Lord, for genuine reasons, and I suggest that it would be unreasonable to penalise them unduly because they want to sell their council house which they have bought.
How much and how penal are the provisions? As the noble Lord has reminded us, the discount, as it were, is phased away over the five years, going down from 100 per cent. to nought. I should have thought that this is a reasonable way of looking at the person who sells his home. If he does so within a year—and there could, I suppose, be an element of speculation about that; there may very well be—he then finds that he is not going to enrich himself unjustifiably at the expense of the taxpayer. That, I think, is right; but the further off he is from the time when he bought his own house, then the less he has to repay until he comes to five years—and let us remember that it is eight years at least since he moved into that house.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Not that house.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: The noble Lord is quite right—eight years since he went into public sector housing; so he does not have to give back any of the discount at all. It is possible to read something suspicious and unworthy in almost anything to do with human activity or endeavour, but I should have thought that this clause was eminently reasonable, and I would suggest that it gets the approval of your Lordships.
The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, put a point to me which is answered in Clause 6(1) of the Bill. Inheritance, in effect, is not deemed to be a disposal, so the unfortunate series of happenings which he postulated to your Lordships will not bring in the disallowance of the discount in the way that he feared. I suggest that this is probably the moment to look reflectively and calmly at Clauses 1 to 6 of the Bill and thereafter to conclude that this clause should take its part in the Bill as it stands.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
House resumed.