HL Deb 15 July 1980 vol 411 cc1616-32

2.51 p.m.

The MINISTER of STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (The Earl of Mansfield)

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 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- 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 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 … 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 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: 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 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 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. 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 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 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— 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 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.