Lords Sitting of 30 June 1980

Preamble
The House met at half—past two of the clock: The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (The Earl of Listowel) on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich.

HEALTH AND SAFETY EXHIBITIONS
Lord CROOK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what provision is being made, following the closure on 30th June of the Health and Safety Centre in Horseferry Road, for the exhibition of important material about health and safety in industry, commerce and offices.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EMPLOYMENT (The Earl of Gowrie): My Lords, the Health and Safety Executive will continue to participate in a wide range of industrial, commercial and safety exhibitions and to use other effective means of disseminating health and safety information including publications, films and other promotional activities.
Lord CROOK: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for a reply on a subject different from that to which the Question was addressed, may I ask whether he is aware that there has been an exhibition there on which Members of this House have relied for 53 years?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, the Government recognise that it is important that the Health and Safety Executive should continue to make information available to employers, employees and other groups, and information will continue to be made available. It was not felt, however, that this particular exhibition centre was cost—effective.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, is it impossible for the noble Earl to think again about this matter? Is he aware that this museum has been used most effectively for training in industry and for training students from all over the country for many years? It is a quite invaluable exhibition, the loss of which will be greatly regretted.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I join the noble Baroness in paying tribute to the work the centre has done. Nevertheless, it is a very expensive business and it is the view of the Health and Safety Executive that they can continue with the dissemination of necessary information without this annual charge, which is rather in excess of £200,000 a year.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, is the Minister aware that my noble friend Lord Crook has a particular interest in this matter, in that he was associated with this organisation for a great many years?
The Earl of GOWRIE: I am aware of that, my Lords, and that is one reason why I paid tribute to the work the centre had done; but we must remember that any monies that can be saved by the Health and Safety Executive in this area can be deployed by them in other areas where they themselves judge they may be cost-effective.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, can the noble Earl give the House some idea of the criteria which were used to determine whether this centre was or was not cost-effective?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, the Health and Safety Executive, like all Government bodies, have had to recognise the public expenditure constraints under which they must operate, and within those constraints they have to decide what the most effective provision for their work may be. As I said, the Health and Safety Executive came to the conclusion that they could deploy resources more effectively than in the Horseferry Road Centre.

SAFETY SIGNS: DISPLAY OF POSTERS
2.40 p.m.
Lord CROOK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will arrange for display in the Library of the House of the four posters just published showing the 23 standardised safety signs for EEC countries adopted with effect from 1st January 1981.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I have arranged for copies of the posters to be placed in the Library.
Lord CROOK: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, in view of the closing of the Horseferry Road Centre, may I ask the Minister whether his department will send copies of the posters to the many safety committees of local authorities in this country? Secondly, will he collate the posters which they are issuing—I am thinking particularly of Camden Council—which are very striking and which may be used more widely in this country and in Europe?
The Earl of GOWRIE: I do not think there is any difficulty in publicising the work of the Health and Safety Executive, my Lords. It is in the business of publicising its work, and that is one of the reasons why it is anxious to do so within the confines of your Lordships' House.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, will the noble Earl arrange for a prominent position in this display to be reserved for the poster which says, "Keep Left"?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, the way in which propaganda is emphasised in this House, is, happily, not a matter for me.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, bearing in mind the very late hours which we have been warned the House will have to sit in July and early August, may I ask the Minister whether the Government will consider providing four-posters in the Library in addition to the proposed display?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, as a harassed junior Minister, I am quite anxious that my noble friend should take proceedings against my noble friend the Chief Whip with the Health and Safety Executive if he feels he can do so.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask courteously whether the Minister will reply to the two questions I put to him and to which he made no reply? First, will he provide copies of these posters to the safety committees of local authorities to enable them to do their work? Secondly, will he collate the posters which they are already issuing, many of which are very valuable, so that they may have wider adoption in this country and perhaps in Europe?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I answered the noble Lord's earlier question perfectly fairly. The point of having a Health and Safety Executive is that it should make these decisions about the dissemination of its own information, and that Ministers should not do so.

OVERTAKING BY HGVs
2.43 p.m.
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 to prohibit the overtaking by heavy goods vehicles exceeding three tons axle weight, when proceeding uphill, of other moving vehicles on any road which has a gradient of more than 1:10.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, where local circumstances warrant it, there is already power under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 for the appropriate authority to impose such a prohibition by order on a specified length of road. The Government are not persuaded that there is sufficient justification for a general prohibition.
Viscount MOUNTGARRET: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Does he not think that it would be appropriate if the Government were to draw the attention of local authorities to this inconvenience, which I am sure he and many other hundreds of motorists have suffered, by being unreasonably impeded on inclines, particularly lengthy ones, by leviathan juggernauts, straining every ounce of energy, billowing out black diesel fumes, attempting to grind past others striving hard to—
Several noble Lords: Reading!
Viscount MOUNTGARRET: My Lords, is my noble friend not aware that this overtaking is not allowed on the Continent? Is there any good reason why a prohibition cannot be simply implemented in this country?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, a prohibition can be very simply implemented in this country, if the Department of Transport or the local authority concerned so wished. We are at the moment in consultation with Kent County Council regarding the possibility of such an order being made in respect of Swanscombe Hill.
Baroness SHARPLES: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that I hold a heavy duty licence? Does he not agree that it is vital that as quickly as possible we do whatever we can to help prevent accidents which inevitably occur on such inclines when there is a tail of traffic behind a very heavy lorry overtaking another lorry?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I quite agree with the noble Baroness. The best we can hope for is that drivers use their common sense. If two heavy vehicles are travelling at about the same speed, it is not very clever of the driver of one of them to try to overtake the other. If noble Lords know of such incidences occurring regularly in particular places, I would ask that they let the Department of Transport, myself, or one of my right honourable friends know about it, or alternatively, press the local authority to make an order. This is a perfectly simple thing to do where there is a need for it.
Lord DRUMABLYN: My Lords, might it not be suitable to include this point in the next issue of the Highway Code?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I believe that the Highway Code already includes advice about overtaking in sensible places, but I shall have a look at what my noble friend has suggested.

GOODS AND SERVICES EXPORTS: EXHIBITIONS
2.46 p.m.
Lord HYLTON: 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 sponsor an exhibition

7
of British civil goods and services suitable for use in developing countries on a scale comparable to the current British Army Equipment Exhibition.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, there are already many exhibitions at home and overseas featuring British civil goods suitable for developing countries, which buyers from those countries attend.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer. However, does he not agree that there would be some merit in concentrating the present exhibitions in one place? Would this not also be very much in accordance with the recommendations of the Brandt Commission Report, and would it not follow on from the discussions recently held at the Venice Economic Summit?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I think that the Brandt Commission Report was concerned more with providing the resources for these purchases, than with displaying the goods, or persuading the developing countries which goods they ought to purchase. As for the suggestion of a single venue for such an exhibition, I believe that the interests of the developing countries are best served by giving them a wide choice of specialist exhibitions.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether the exhibitions to which he refers are on the same scale, and are supported with the same extensive back-up by the Government, as the recent defence sales exhibition in Aldershot? If that is so, can the noble Lord very kindly tell the House how much was spent by the Ministry of Defence on that exhibition, and which exhibitions concerned with sales to developing countries are supported on a comparable scale?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, Government support for exhibitions of the type referred to in the Question exceeds £13 million a year, which is substantially more than the costs of the particular exhibition referred to.
Baroness LLEWELYN—DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Government,
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before drafting the Answer, consulted the Crown Agents, who are quite particularly engaged in that kind of endeavour?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, the Answer is of course drafted by all relevant departments.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, will my noble friend consider whether or not support can be given to British civil goods for developing countries to an extent comparable to the support now given to military sales, which I understand are backed up by some 400 civil servants working for the defence sales organisation?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, my noble friend is misinformed. Government support for the general classes of exhibition to which I referred substantially exceeds the support for the exhibitions to which my noble friend has referred.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government consider a suggestion that I have made more than once in the past; namely, that this aid to developing countries should be on a lease—lend basis, rather than on a cash or loan basis?—because, as Her Majesty's Government well know, almost to a man these countries are completely broke.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, of course we have to consider all our aid arrangements on their merits and have regard to the facts in each particular case. I should not want to make a general arrangement such as my noble friend suggests.

BUSINESS
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I announce that dinner will be available at the usual time this evening.
The Committee stage of the Housing Bill will be adjourned at approximately seven o'clock for approximately an hour. Consideration of the Commons amendment to the Lords amendments to the Transport Bill, and the Third Reading of the Gas Bill, will be taken during this adjournment.

NEW TOWNS BILL
Read 3ª, and passed.

HOUSING BILL
2.51 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of THE ENVIRONMENT (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Bellwin.)
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, I wonder whether it would be helpful—and I assure your Lordships that I do not intend it in any other way—if I were to point out that last Thursday, when we started this Housing Bill, after a fairly long day we had got through 17 amendments out of a very large number. I realise that this is a long and controversial Bill, and that there is a great deal of interest in it in all parts of your Lordships' Committee; but after today we are sitting on it only until 8 o'clock on Wednesday, and we hope to finish the Bill on Thurdsay night. What follows, therefore, is that the further we can get today the earlier
we shall be able to rise on Thursday, in view of the Friday sitting at 11 o'clock which is to follow.
Baroness LLEWELYN—DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I had not intended to intervene, but I hope the noble Lord realises that there would in fact be time to finish the Bill on Friday, very shortly. We hope to finish it on Thursday, but, of course, no undertakings can be given by any part of the Committee to that effect.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Earl of Listowel in the Chair].
Clause 7 [Discount]:
Lord MONSON Lord MONSON moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 6, line 6, leave out ("33") and insert ("20").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 18, and with the leave of the Committee I will speak at the same time to Amendment No. 19. The purpose of these amendments is to reduce from 33 per cent. to 20 per cent. the discount available to those tenants wishing to buy under Part I of the Bill who have been in their council accommodation, or series of council properties, for only three years. Correspondingly, the discounts further up the time—scale will also be reduced; that is, council tenants having been in residence for, say, ten years would have their discounts reduced, if these amendments are passed, from 40 to 27 per cent. When a tenant has been in occupation for 33 years, the full discount of 50 per cent. would continue to apply, as it does under the Bill as drafted.
In support of these amendments, I do not think I can do better than quote from what the Housing Centre Trust said about the clauses in question. I believe the Housing Centre Trust was mentioned briefly in Committee last Thursday. Your Lordships may know that the president of the Trust is the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, and the vice—presidents include Lord Brooke of Cum—nor, and the noble Viscount, Lord Esher. So it is a truly cross—party organisation with no political axe to grind whatsoever. Here is what the trust has to say about the Government's proposals:
"We question the propriety of disposing of a public asset at less than the best price obtainable. We submit that the generous scale proposed, taken in conjunction with inflation, is unacceptable. There is no precedent in valuation law for discounts to sitting tenants to be based solely on length of tenancy, let alone on the aggregate length of a series of tenancies….It seems to us inequitable that a tenant who has already benefited from 20 years of subsidised and usually satisfactory housing should now additionally be privileged to buy his house at half price".
Let us consider for a moment the value of a post-war semi-detached house in the South—East of England. It will not be less, I submit, than £30,000. A discount of 33 per cent. for someone who has been in residence, and not necessarily in the same house, for a mere three years will amount to £9,900. This is tantamount to a gift to the tenant—not in cash, admittedly, but a gift, none the less—of £3,300 a year. I really submit that there is no moral justification for this, and I doubt very much whether there is any practical

11
justification, either. I do not believe the Government have made their case there.
There is another point to be considered. Last Thursday a series of amendments were moved, supported from all sides of the Committee—from the Conservative Benches in the person of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, from the Labour and the Liberal Benches and from the Cross-Benches℄to exempt from the provisions of Part I certain categories of housing (housing in stress areas in the Greater London Council area, houses in national parks, and so on), and in reply the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, made the valid point that those excluded by such amendments, had they been passed, would feel aggrieved that they were missing out on the opportunity to buy. Of course, it is perfectly true that if they are missing out on a bargain they will feel aggrieved. By reducing the discount, the bargain element will be less, I submit.
I realise, of course, that the 33 per cent. figure was included in the Conservative manifesto—but there were a great many things included in the manifesto which are not or cannot be fulfilled, and I really do not think that any intelligent person believes that anyone who casts his vote for a particular political party automatically endorses every single item in that party's manifesto. Nobody can seriously believe that. I hope your Lordships will give this amendment your full support. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: The noble Lord has said that the discounts available under Clause 7 of the Bill when a dwelling is sold under the right to buy are unduly generous. I cannot agree. They are certainly not ungenerous, but they are nevertheless fair both to landlords and to tenants, and fairly reflect the relationship in which they stand to each other as seller and buyer. When a tenant in the private sector arranges to buy his home from his landlord, he does not expect to pay, nor does the landlord expect to receive, the price that the dwelling would have fetched if it had been sold on the open market with vacant possession. The price which is paid takes due account of the realities of the situation and the presence of a sitting tenant with security of tenure. There is no reason why those realities should be
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disregarded when a sale takes place in the public sector.
The basic discount of 33 per cent. provided in Clause 7(1) has accordingly been set at a level which is broadly equivalent to the sort of discount that a tenant in the private sector might be able to negotiate if he bought his home from his landlord. The additional percentage points, up to a maximum discount of 50 per cent., which the buyer receives for each year spent as a secure tenant over and above the three-year qualification for the right to buy, are in recognition of the extent to which he has contributed to the cost of his accommodation by paying rent over all the years.
A basic 20 per cent. discount after four years, as proposed in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. would be ungenerous because it would not adequately reflect the relationship between a landlord vendor and a sitting tenant who buys. For example, it would take 16 years as a secure tenant to qualify for the basic 33 per cent. provided for in the Bill as drafted, and that, I repeat, is the sort of basic discount that any private sector might expect to negotiate. As the noble Lord himself has just said, to qualify for the maximum of 50 per cent. would then take no less than 33 years as a secure tenant, and that is quite unacceptable.
I noted what the noble Lord said about the observations of the Housing Centre Trust, but as I said the other day it would not be the first time that I disagreed with some of their observations. As to the point that the noble Lord made when he said that there was no practical justification for this, if anyone doubts the practical justification in terms of incentive, it might be interesting to know that in Leeds when the 20 per cent. discount was being offered the rate of application to purchase was latterly between 30 and 35 a week. Once the discount was increased, as in the Bill, the average number of applications jumped to 140 per week; so that I should have thought it was a practical incentive. I would hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment and, if not, I hope he will understand why we resist it.
Baroness BIRK: I listened to what the Minister said in answer to the noble

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Lord, Lord Monson. My colleagues and I will do our best to keep discussions short at this Committee stage. I hope the Minister appreciates that this is a complex and lengthy Bill. One way in which proceedings could be shortened would be for the Government to accept some of the amendments. When the Minister talks these days about being generous or not I begin to wonder in what context he is speaking. He is speaking in the context of one of the most severe economic situations in which the country has found itself. I am not putting that down entirely to the present Government; the international situation is difficult. But it seems to me to be not the right time to be generous. With possible cuts across the social services, with the fear of unemployment, with anxiety in business, in industry and everywhere, we cannot afford as a nation to be generous even to those who are in great need. Yet at this moment there are discounts being offered which (I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Monson) are almost outrageously generous.
The Minister says that when the discounts were increased, the number of applications increased. Of course, they did! What did he expect? If at the same time—and he was arguing this all through the Committee stage on Thursday—together with the right to buy (or the compulsory sale) there would still be, in the opinion of the Government, adequate housing for people to rent, then the more generous the inducement you offer—and that together with a cut in the housing expenditure, so that the housing investment programmes are cut—the more the amount of the rented sector must shrink. These are the Minister's own words. This must be so.
One of the arguments the Minister put up was that people who had been in houses and paying rent for a considerable time should have some benefit from it. What about the people who are paying rent and who are not able to buy their own house? Are they to get a discount on their rent or a handback in order to mark the fact that they have been paying rent for their council houses for 20 or 30 years? I think seriously—and this is not a party political point—that in the present climate and with the amount of money involved and in order to get a fairer distribution between rented housing
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and houses that are sold, to reduce the discount in the way proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, still leaves (I would have considered) an adequately generous offer today. If the noble Lord intends to press this to a Division, I and my colleagues will be prepared to support him.
Lord HYLTON: I express general support for this amendment. May I ask the Minister whether he would consider this proposition and give a reply now or later? if 50 per cent. discount is the correct figure after 20 years' occupation, then surely 33 per cent. is too much, too high, after only three years.
Lord BELLWIN: As the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, has said, one could pick up and continue the debates we had the other day. I shall try not to do so. Replying to the point my noble friend Lord Hylton has made, I do not think that. In the first place the 33 per cent. was in the manifesto and it was always understood that that would be the basic starting point after three years' occupancy as a secure tenant. I do not think that to go 1 per cent. a year thereafter is wrong at all.
May I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, that it is true that if we were to accept amendments it would shorten the proceedings. I can think of a way to shorten them even more: it would be if she were to withdraw some of them. I do not think I can add a great deal. I do not take the point made—and will not expand on it now but will do so later—as to the effect on other tenants. It is right to raise the point of the effect of the sales policy on other council tenants. I can give more than one explanation of how they are helped very much; but, in the interests of brevity, let us leave that for the time when we are talking about the financial inplications. I repeat that this is very much a cornerstone of Government policy. We feel it is right on all counts. While I respect the aims and motivations behind the amendment, I fear we cannot accept it.
Lord GREENWOOD of ROSSENDALE: May I say how strongly I support the noble Lord, Lord Monson, in what he has said. I think there would be wide support among noble Lords for that point of view. The point I wish to raise is

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narrower. In case the reference that the Minister made to the Housing Centre Trust (of which I have the honour to be president) might have been regarded as disparaging, would he assure the Committee that the fact that he disagrees with its views on some subjects does not detract from his admiration for it or from the esteem in which his department holds it?
Lord BELLWIN: Having arrived at the department in only relatively recent times, I am not sure what the department thinks of the Housing Centre Trust. I have known them for many years and there is no doubt that they have made, and, I am sure, will continue to make, an important contribution to the whole of what is being done in housing in this country.
Lord UNDERHILL: May I ask the noble Lord two simple questions? Reference was made to the 33 per cent. at which it would be possible for a sitting tenant to negotiate a private sale. Has any survey been conducted to achieve the figure of 33 per cent.; or is it something that has been gathered as perhaps being possible? Was there a survey? Secondly, I know he will deal with the financial implications later but this does affect this particular issue now. What will be the effect on local authority housing finances if houses are sold at very low cost?
Lord BELLWIN: As to the first point, of the survey, I cannot quote a specific survey; but much research was done into this a long time ago. I have no doubt that any check on the percentage difference of the market value of a house with vacant possession, as opposed to one with a sitting tenant, must fall within the ball-park that we are talking about. I cannot quote a specific survey.
On the other point, regarding the possible effect on housing finances, I did not want to get into this now but I will give one instance which I hope will indicate that the effect will be positive. First of all, those local authorities who have housing revenue accounts which are not run with any rate fund contribution have for long been able to apply any of their receipts from the sale of council houses to the housing revenue account. Because they are not allowed to have a surplus in
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balance within those accounts, they have had to do either of two things with the money: either to use it to hold down rents (which no one would question would help other tenants) or to use it to spend on other things to do with housing—usually improved maintenance, repairs and the like; so that in that sense they benefit very much indeed.
Baroness PHILLIPS: I should like to follow up this point, although I know we shall be on finance later. Throughout the whole of this Bill there does not seem to have been a reference that I have heard to the fact that as in private business these houses have been paid for wholly before they are sold. The money has to be borrowed at the expense of the ratepayers. If that money has already been repaid, all well and good. But surely some of these houses will still have to continue to be paid for by the ratepayers, so they will be subsidising a sale of a house.
Lord BELLWIN: That is not quite so. On a house which is sold when subsidy is still on it—and that would apply to the great majority of houses—the money received is offset against the interest that would have to be paid on the continuing debt. The statistics which I shall gladly be quoting at a later stage will indicate that the net effect of, on the one hand, offsetting what one loses by way of income from rents on dwellings and, on the other, the continuing cost of maintenance and of paying the interest on the remaining outstanding debt more than offset each other. We will get down to the detail of it when we come to it.
Baroness GAITSKELL: May I ask the Minister whether he is going to drown us with words when there is a perfectly reasonable, strong amendment brought forward from the Cross-Benches? All the Minister can do with everything he says is completely unconvincing. There is not a word of conviction about the whole thing. I think that it is absolutely disgraceful that this kind of amendment is not passed through this House easily and quickly.
Lord BELLWIN: I am sorry if the noble Baroness considers that my words are unconvincing. They may be to her. I sincerely hope they are convicing to many other Members of the Committee.

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I take issue with her very much when she says that I make my points without conviction. I should like her and other noble Lords who may have any doubts to know that I have been involved in the issue of selling council houses for longer than most people in the House of Lords, going back over 14 or 15 years. There are not many who have been involved in selling them for that length of time. I am deeply of the belief that the Government's policy is absolutely right. If the noble Baroness feels that I do not speak with sufficient conviction, then if she listens later I shall try to improve on my delivery.
Baroness GAITSKELL: I did not wish to offend. I did not use the word in that sense at all; I would not criticise the noble Lord about conviction. But it seems to me that this is the kind of amendment that the whole of this Committee can accept.
Lord MONSON: I am grateful to noble Lords for the support that I have received from both sides of the Committee on these amendments. The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, rightly made the point, on Lord Bellwin's argument about tenants' contributions, that a tenant who had been in a council house or flat for many years
and who could not afford to buy or did not want to buy might justifiably ask for a reduction in rent at the end of a certain number of years. Furthermore, given that the rents are subsidised, it may well be that the rents have not covered the outgoings in terms of repairs, insurance and interest on borrowed money over the period.
The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, also drew an analogy with the private sector, where houses are sold to sitting tenants, which I do not think is valid. There is a security of tenure in the private sector which bears no comparison with that available in the public sector. I believe that discounts of such magnitude impose an unacceptable burden upon ratepayers and, indirectly, upon taxpayers. I strongly believe that public opinion would be in favour of a lower discount. For that reason, I feel that I must press this amendment.
3.15 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 18) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 67; Not-Contents, 85.

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Macleod of Fuinary, L.

Amulree, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Maybray-King, L.

Ardwick, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Milford, L.

Ayleston, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Monson, L. [Teller.]

Bacon, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Northfield, L.

Balogh, L.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Oram, L.

Banks, L.

Gosford, E.

Peart, L.

Beswick, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Phillips, B.

Birk, B.

Grey, E.

Rathcreedan, L.

Blease, L.

Hale, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Blyton, L.

Henderson, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Hunt, L.

Seear, B.

Brockway, L.

Hylton, L.

Segal, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Simon, V.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Jacques, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Janner, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Byers, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Strauss, L.

Craigavon, V.

Leatherland, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Crook, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Underhill, L.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Listowel, E.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

David, B.

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

Wells-Pestell, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Diamond, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abercorn, D.

Bellwin, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Adeane, L.

Belstead, L.

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

Allerton, V.

Bessborough, E.

Ampthill, L.

Blake, L.

Clancarty, E.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Clwyd, L.

Barnby, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Cockfield, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Craigton, L.

Halsbury, E.

Nunburnholme, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Orkney, E.

Davidson, V.

Hawke, L.

Penrhyn, L.

de Clifford, L.

Henley, L.

Reigate, L.

De Freyne, L.

Hill-Norton, L.

Romney, E.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Hood, V.

Sandford, L.

Digby, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Sandys, L. [Teller.)

Drumalbyn, L.

Ilchester, E.

Shannon, E.

Dundee, E.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Sharpies, B.

Effingham, E.

Long, V.

Sligo, M.

Ellenborough, L.

Loudoun, C.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Lyell, L.

Spens, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Strathclyde, L.

Faithfull, B.

Malmesbury, E.

Strathspey, L.

Fortescue, E.

Marley, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Milverton, L.

Trenchard, V.

Gage, V.

Mountgarret, V.

Trumpington, B.

Gainford, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Vaizey, L,

Gisborough, L.

Moyne, L.

Vickers, B.

Glenkinglas, L.

Newall, L.

Vivian, L.

Gowrie, E.

Norfolk, D.

Young, B.

Gridley, L.

Northchurch, B.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

[Amendment No. 19 not moved.]
3.22 p.m.
Lord HYLTON Lord HYLTON moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 6, line 11, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Lord said: I come now to a series of probing amendments. Each particular amendment deals with a quite separate point. Should the Committee wish it, I shall be quite happy for them to be taken together, but perhaps we could take them one by one, and I will begin with Amendment No. 20. This is a probing amendment to ascertain the meaning of the word "costs" in line 13. Does it refer to gross costs or net costs? Does it include construction costs, maintenance costs, legal costs, the cost of interest or any one or more of these? Also, why is the special date of 31st March 1974 specified? It occurs to me that that might have been the date of reorganisation of local government in England but, if so, why is that significant? I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: Regarding Amendment No. 20, together with Amendments Nos. 21 and 22, I think really I should like to speak, with your Lordships' permission, to all these amendments because I believe I can cover the points raised by my noble friend, and perhaps some others as well, which may short-circuit some of his queries. Needless to say, if I do not do so, I shall be glad to
20
try to pick up any other points he may feel I have missed.
These amendments would delete a provision which is known in the jargon as the "cost floor" on discounted sales. The effect of this provision is to provide that discount shall not reduce the price of a dwelling-house below a figure representing the aggregate of certain costs, incurred on it since 31st March 1974. A broadly similar provision applies under the existing general consent for council house sales. The clause leaves the detailed machinery of the cost floor provision to be prescribed in a determination to be made by the Secretary of State, since the subject involves a wealth of detail which is naturally unsuitable for embodiment in a statute. The intention is, however, that this cost floor will take into account significant costs incurred since the cut-off date of 31st March 1974 in constructing, acquiring, improving or converting the dwelling concerned.
There is nothing sinister in this provision. Its purpose, quite simply, is to ensure that no landlord is hound to incur an immediate loss on the capital cost of the accommodation that is sold under the right to buy. This is clearly a desirable safeguard for the public purse, and I am sure that no noble Lord would wish to sec it deleted from the Bill.
The guts of the provision are contained in subsection (2), which contains the power for the Secretary of State to make his determination. The cut-off date of 31st March 1974 is the date of the reorganisa-

21
tion of local government in England and Wales under the Local Government Act of 1972. Because of those changes, data for calculating costs incurred before the cut-oft date might often not be fully available. The cut-off date, therefore, is intended to provide landlords with a workable system of calculating the cost floor. Because of movements in building costs and market values, it is likely that expenditure before that date would rarely, if ever, have had a significant effect on the sale price of a dwelling had it been taken into account in the cost floor.
Subsection (3) allows for the Secretary of State's determination to make different provisions for different areas. This formulation allows a useful degree of flexibility to make allowance for specifically local, regional or national conditions, and it has been adopted as a matter of general practice for directions, orders and determinations under the Bill. The Government have at present formed no intention to make different provisions for different areas in the Secretary of State's determination under this clause.
Subsection (3) also gives the Secretary of State discretion to make exceptions to his determination under subsection (2). Again, there are no instances in which the Government have formed a definite intention to use this power, but its presence in the Bill will allow suitable steps to be taken where, because of extraordinary and unforeseen circumstances, the operation of the cost floor might pose a threat to the right to buy. If such circumstances arose, I assure your Lordships that the interests of tenants would be very carefully weighed against those of the public purse, which the cost floor provision was specifically designed to safeguard, before any exception was made.
Subsection (4) provides a financial safeguard which is complementary to, and independent of, the cost floor in subsection (2). It enables the Secretary of State by order to prescribe a maximum cash figure by which discount may reduce the purchase price. In some cases, for example, there could be properties sold whose market values were exceptionally high. It would be reasonable for a tenant of a dwelling valued at, say, £16,000 to be able to take advantage of a 50 per cent. discount where he was suitably qualified and where the cost floor did not bite; but this would not be so self-evidently true if a dwelling
22
was valued at, say, £100,000. It could be desirable, again in the interests of the public purse, for a line to be drawn, and this provision for a cash ceiling on discount would have that effect. In the light of what I have said, perhaps my noble friend may feel satisfied with the information given and possibly may feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord HYLTON: I am most grateful to my noble friend for his explanation, which I shall study with great care. I am aware that a number of files around the country were lost during the local government reorganisation. I am just wondering whether it is right that costs prior to March 1974 should be written off or neglected.
Lord BELLWIN: It is not so much a question of being written off or neglected as the degree of practicability. I think that this matter was carefully thought through, and it was decided that this was the most practical way of dealing with it. But just as the noble Lord says he will consider what we have put, as with everything that he said I hope we will consider any observations he may care to make either now or in any other form.
Lord HYLTON: With that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 20.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 21 not moved.]
3.30 p.m.
Lord HYLTON Lord HYLTON moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 6, line 23, leave out subsection (4).
The noble Lord said: I should just like to ask why this second limit is considered to be necessary, unless it is that the discounts otherwise written into the Bill may in some cases be thought to be too large.
Lord BELLWIN: I do not think there is much I can add to what I have already said on this, but as noble Lords in the Committee will have gathered, we are in a very complex area now. I suspect it is going to become even more complex in the next hour or so. I would gladly say that there will be a number of matters

23
for which we may have to give more detail, perhaps in another way.
Lord HYLTON: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord HYLTON Lord HYLTON moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 6, line 31, leave out from ("tenant") to end of line 35.
The noble Lord said: I should like to ask here why the armed forces are singled out for particular treatment. If we are to include the armed forces in a special way as regards the qualifying period for house purchase, why do we not also include the police service, the ambulancemen or the emergency services generally?
Lord BELLWIN: We believe that this particular form of making this provision is fully justified. Those serving in the regular armed forces of the Crown on or after 21st December 1979, the day after publication of the Bill, will have the benefit for discount purposes of time spent in accommodation provided in connection with their membership of the armed forces. The husband or wife of someone serving on or after that date who subsequently becomes a secure tenant will also be able to count for discount time spent in accommodation provided because he or she was married to a member of the armed forces.
The purpose of this provision is to show recognition of the unique service to the community provided by the armed forces, and of the fact that that service frequently—and I think this is the particular point my noble friend is looking for—involves living in circumstances which would not allow them to gain entitlements under Chapter 1 of this Bill if no special arrangements were made. It is not, however, a provision which the Government consider that it would be justifiable to extend to anyone who has been a member of the armed forces, or the spouse of one, at any time during the past, because to do so would involve going back into history where records would be difficult to find and check. Any cut-off date for the provisions would be bound to cause hard cases, but 21st December 1979 was chosen so that no member of the
24
regular armed forces of the Crown who was serving when the Government's proposals were made public is excluded.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: Will my noble friend allow me to assure him that some of us think this is a most admirable provision in the Bill? One of the problems with recruiting for the armed forces is that service in the forces deprives the serviceman, and sometimes his family, of advantages which otherwise come in the ordinary way of life to those not so serving. For my part, I am delighted to see this provision in the Bill and I hope the Minister will keep it there.
Lord STRATHCLYDE: I should like to support what my noble friend has just said; I entirely agree with him. As one who was a member of the armed forces for a great number of years, I sympathise with the position that the wives of people serving in the forces are in, under certain circumstances, which this will help them to avoid.
Baroness FISHER of REDNAL: I think this is an admirable clause, but it is nothing new, as the noble Lord will understand. For many years now—25 years or more—many large local authorities have given added points to people who are in the armed forces, so that they come to the top of the queue when they give up their serving time. This is really a continuation of what perhaps good local authorities have been doing on the letting side. Now it is on the purchase side.
Lord BELLWIN: I am most grateful to my noble friends and to the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher of Rednal. What she says is quite correct. We are merely extending the principle to this new provision.
Lord SIMON of GLAISDALE: I hesitate to interrupt the chorus of approbation. The question that I propose to ask is not related purely to the substantive provisions of the Bill but to the drafting. The armed forces of the Crown are defined in subsection (10) of this clause with reference to the House of Commons Disqualification Act. We have been promised for a long time a new interpretation Act. A cross-reference like this is highly inconvenient to anybody who wants a definition. As I say, I do not

25
expect the noble Lord the Minister to answer the question, but I should like to put it on record. When are we going to have the interpretation Act for which we have been looking for so long?
Lord BELLWIN: I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for the point he makes. As he so rightly assumed, I am not in a position to answer him now, but I do assure him that it will be taken away —it is on the record—so that we can see whether we can give him some information that might be helpful.
Lord HYLTON: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 24 not moved.]
3.38 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 7, line 28, at end insert—
("(8A) Subsections (5) to (8) above shall have effect as if—

(a) the references to a secure tenancy included a tenancy which either was a secure tenancy within the meaning of the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Act 1980 or would have been such a tenancy if Part II of that Act had been in force and the bodies mentioned in section 10(2) of that Act had included the predecessor of any such body; and

(b) the references to a secure tenant included the tenant under such a tenancy as is mentioned in paragraph (a) above, except when the landlord was a body specified in paragraph (e) or (g) of section 10(2) of the Act of 1980, and also included a tenant of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive or of a predecessor of that Executive.").

The noble Lord said: This amendment seeks to mirror a similar provision in the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Bill. It is concerned with the position of a person who may exercise the right to buy in England or Wales under the Housing Bill after spending time as a tenant in Scotland or Northern Ireland. Broadly speaking, it will mean that such a person will be able to claim discount in respect of his Scottish or Northern Irish periods of tenancy if they corresponded to one of the categories of tenancy in England or Wales for which the Housing Bill allows discount to be claimed.
The one exception to this is the case of housing association tenancies in Scotland. Because of fundamental differences in Scottish and English law, it was impractical to draw the distinction in respect of housing association tenants in Scotland which is drawn in respect of such tenancies in England and Wales by Clause 2(1) and Clause 7(6) of the Housing Bill. Those subsections exempt a number of housing trusts and associations, most of which are charities, from the right to buy. If the Bill had allowed former tenants of similar associations and trusts in Scotland to claim discount in England or Wales in respect of those tenancies, a difficult anomaly would have been created. As a result, former tenants of charitable trusts or associations in Scotland would have been treated more favourably for discount purposes than former tenants of similar trusts and associations in England. Housing association tenancies in Scotland, I remind your Lordships, do not attract either discount or the right to buy under the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Bill. I beg to move.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8 [Repayment of discount on early disposal of freehold or lease]:
3.40 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 7, line 38, leave out ("five") and insert ("ten").
The noble Baroness said: It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak to Amendments Nos. 26 and 27 together. The first amendment extends from five to 10 years the period during which there is a liability to repay a proportion of the discounted value if the property is resold, and provides for the proportion of the discounted value which is repayable to reduce by 10 per cent. per annum. The reason for this is that, given the very generous discounts which are being offered and which go up to 50 per cent. of the value of the property, it is only right that there should be an obligation to repay part of this if the property is sold in the reasonably near future. Otherwise, it is clear that former tenants will be able to make large specula-

27
tive capital gains, at the expense of the public authority, within a very short period of exercising the right to buy.
The Government have, to some extent, recognised this, but propose to require payment only if the property is resold within five years, and the liability for repayment reduces by 20 per cent. per annum under that time scale. This, I submit, is a very limited period and Amendment No. 26 proposes to double it. It is not unusual in other fairly similar fields to have a time limit of 10 years
For example, quite recently, during the time when I was a Minister at the Department of the Environment, we had in the last Bill on ancient monuments that went through a clause under which, if a grant was offered by the Historic Buildings Council for repairs to a house and the house was sold within 10 years, then that grant, or part of it—whatever was equitable in view of the work done—should be repaid. Obviously, the Government money that was going into the house meant not only that the house was improved, but that it would fetch a higher price if it were sold.
The time limit we imposed, after a great deal of consideration, was 10 years. Five years is a very short period in which somebody can buy a house at a very good price and then resell it, and be completely in the clear afterwards. It is far too short a period and, from the point of view of any Government, it is handing over too much money and the possibility of making a profit too easily.
The second amendment would, to a certain extent, safeguard public authorities against speculation in their former assets, and would also generate some additional income to compensate for the low market value which they are required to put on sales to long-standing tenants. It would not prejudice the bona fide purchaser of a former council property who needed to move house before 10 years, because of a change of work, as he would obtain the market value of the property which is likely to be far in excess of the price he paid; that is, the earlier market value less discount. He would simply be required to repay to the public purse a proportion of the profit he had made out of the resale of his former public property, and the
28
discounted value would reduce by 10 per cent. per annum. This is the other side of the equation, making it a rather more equitable proposition for the local authority. I beg to move.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: I hope that the Government will resist this amendment. I rather think that the noble Baroness has a conscience about it, because the requirement to extend the period from five years to 10 years will interfere with the mobility of labour, There is no doubt about that. One of the things that the nation is concerned with is getting greater mobility of labour, in order to take advantage of the changed make-up of industry in this country. To feel that you cannot move because of the problem of your house is interfering with the extension of the new industries and the new ideas we need if we are to solve the present problem which is causing unemployment and all the other things that we find so miserable. If you have a good idea, be generous with it, and five years is the right degree of generosity while preserving the asset and the value of the community's possessions.
The noble Baroness is being contradictory, because her second amendment tries to face up to the point I made. But saying, "We do not want to interfere with mobility", and producing words which are, to some extent, an excuse for taking away the advantages which the five years give, is a contradiction that we ought to accept. Now that, as I hope, we shall be deciding that it is a good thing for people to own their houses, provided that they are bona fide, we ought to go forward with confidence and generosity. But, mainly, we must do all we can to encourage the mobility of labour so that our skills can be placed where they are wanted. The noble Baroness's amendments would interfere with that and for that reason ought to be resisted.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: Whether it should be five or 10 years is a matter of judgment. Normally, in the local government sales that have taken place in the past, there has been a five-years' pre-emption. I must say, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, that I do not think mobility of labour is a key feature of this amendment. The freedom of people to move

29
from one house to another is taken care of by later amendments in this very large Marshalled List.
What I and my noble friends are concerned about is that we had understood—and I believe it to be the Government's case—that the concept of the sale of council houses is that people can own their houses. It is not a question of enabling or encouraging people to make speculative gains. I suppose that virtually the only legal gain that you can make these days without having to pay tax is by selling your principal residence.
It is a matter of delicate balance, but the time limit suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, is preferable, if we put the accent on the concept that people should have the right to buy the council houses they live in and should enjoy them, and not on the concept that they should be seeking opportunities to make speculative gains. I agree that, in certain circumstances and special cases, there will be people who will require to move within a period of less than 10 years, but they will still get some profit from the discount provisions. So, on balance—and it is a difficult balance—I prefer the period set down in the amendment moved by the noble Baroness.
Lord MONSON: I frequently find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, but I am afraid that in this case I do not. I strongly support the noble Baroness in her amendment. She made out an impeccable case for it. It logically complements my pair of abortive amendments, Nos. 18 and 19, except that the case for these two amendments is very much stronger. I think that public opinion would be most offended to see very large tax-free gains being made within a space of merely five years. I hope that if the Government do not give way she will press the amendment and I, for one, shall certainly support her.
Lord DIGBY: On this idea that people are making a lot of tax-free gains, they are also paying. The whole basis of this Bill is that instead of paying small rents they will be paying very sizeable extra amounts, and I do not accept that we should think it absolutely wrong that someone should make a gain. That person is putting an investment into his
30
house and if he makes a gain, then good luck to him.
Lord JANNER: I should like to support this amendment from a different point of view. The speculative element is one of the things that is frightening people in this country. To invite people to speculate will go against the kind of feeling that people in private residences in particular have with regard to the manipulation that is going on at the present time. I think that the amendment is fair, in the circumstances, and that it will have to be considered from the speculative angle at later stages. I strongly support the amendment.
Viscount GAGE: If a man buys his house and then, after four or five years, dies, under the amendment moved by the noble Baroness will the widow be compelled to live in that house until the 10 years are up before she can sell it?
Lord STEWART of FULHAM: That contribution exposes some of the misunderstandings that there are on the other side of the Committee about the amendment. This amendment does not compel anybody to go on living in a house. The noble Viscount might address the question to the Government: what happens if a purchaser dies before the five years that they propose are up? Neither the clause nor the amendment oblige anybody to go on living in a house. The question is this. If you are allowed to buy a house, which originally was council property, on very advantageous terms, how soon ought you to be able to sell that house and in effect make a gain out of it? That is the point we are arguing.
The two amendments, so far from contradicting each other as the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, suggested, as a matter of plain arithmetic must go together. If you have a 10-year period instead of a five-year period, the reduction in what has to be paid will be by 10 per cent. each year instead of by 20 per cent. each year. If the noble Lord thinks it out, he will see that this is so. It has nothing to do with mobility of labour. If you want to provide for mobility of labour, you do that just as well—indeed, more simply—by providing a greater abundance of

31
council property to let. That is quite obvious.
Clearly this is a problem for anybody who decides to buy a house, whether by virtue of this Bill or in any circumstances. He has to consider whether in the future this may face him with a problem if, for very strong employment reasons, he wants to move and dispose of his asset. Therefore, he has to weigh up whether or not it is worth his while to buy. But that happens, irrespective of this Bill. If he decides, having got the house on very advantageous terms, that in a very short time he wants to sell it, perhaps for very good employment reasons, it is not unreasonable that some of the advantage he has got out of it should go back to the public from which it came originally.
I am afraid that the Government are now trying to build up a policy the inspiration for which comes from Ernie, who chooses the winning numbers. It is quite clear by now that the bulk of the population are going to be worse off as a result of the Government's policies, but if they can hold out the chance that each of us might be the lucky one who makes a speculative gain from one or other of the things that the Government have done, it may buoy up the general feeling towards perhaps this not being so bad a Government after all. That, as I see it, is what the Government are doing. They are introducing an Ernie principle into the running of the economy. I think it is an unsatisfactory principle, and I am glad to see that this amendment mitigates some of its effects.
The DUKE of NORFOLK: I really cannot allow the noble Lord to compare this subject with Ernie. When a man buys a house on a private housing estate it very often happens that within two or three years he moves to another job in another part of the country by reason of promotion. People change their location within a firm and go from one area of the country to another. I know this from the experience I had when I built a little housing estate in Lancashire. I have spent most of my life on housing estates—what we in the army call the "married family patches". If we take Germany as an example, they have no shackles like this. They can sell and buy their houses—they are not normally council houses—and
32
move from one area to another as they are promoted. The whole purpose of the Bill is to remove the shackles and therefore the plight under which, unfortunately, we are living.
May I make one further point with reference to the noble Lord who spoke last. It is not true to say that a man can get promotion by taking a tenanted house. There are enormous waiting lists. Many people who want to move within a firm for promotion reasons are unable to do so because they cannot get out of one tenanted house and into another somewhere else. I believe that the period of five years in the clause is absolutely right.
Lord STEWART of FULHAM: May I say in reply to the noble Duke that he has raised the question of private estates. If a man buys a house privately at the market value, it is his business when he sells. But if he buys a house, which was built at public expense, at well below the market value on very favourable terms, it is a matter of public concern to ask to what extent ought he to be able to make money out of that transaction.
The Duke of NORFOLK: Does the noble Lord really suggest, with inflation as it is now and as it is likely to be, that in five years' time it will be much below the market value?
Lord STEWART of FULHAM: The noble Duke supports the Government, not I. He will take, if he likes, his pessimistic view of the future of inflation.
Baroness FISHER of REDNAL: I failed to follow the reasoning of the speaker on the Back Benches opposite. The noble Lord on the Front Bench keeps telling us that these people are not going to sell their houses, that they do not want to make a profit out of them and that they want to continue to live in them; there will therefore be very few which will come on to the market. There seem to be crossed wires between the Front and the Back Benches on the opposite side. The previous speaker spoke about having the opportunity to sell and move around the country, but the noble Lord on the Front Bench does not think that this is what will happen.

33
He thinks they will continue to live in their properties.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: I apologise for speaking again, but I believe that the noble Lord, from the Dispatch Box opposite, and the noble Baroness who has just spoken are being very unfair. I am rather surprised at the noble Baroness because she comes from the Birmingham area, as do I, so I know that her experience must be the same as mine. The crossed wires are not on this side of the Committee. They are opposite. The argument of the noble Lord and the noble Baroness is that the only people who will buy these houses will be those who will want to sell them quickly in order to make an outrageous profit at the expense of the community. We say that the number of people who will want to sell will be minimal but that those who do want to sell, for all sorts of reasons—for mobility of labour reasons or because a husband dies—ought not psychologically to have to have put against them the advantages that we are giving to them by encouraging them to buy their houses.
The noble Lord was very unfair in the way that he disregarded the question put by my noble friend. If a husband dies, it is possible that the wife will not then want to carry on in the house, for all sorts of reasons which are well understood if one understands the psychology of people who lose their partner. To say that because she has suffered the loss of her husband she must also suffer the loss of some of the advantages that the family would have had if her husband had not died, is a complete negation of the spirit in which we ought to promote this Bill.
With regard to mobility of labour, again psychology must come into it. The noble Lord must know—I know that the noble Baroness knows it because, from the area she comes from, she has experienced it, as I have, on many occasions—that the psychological advantage of being able to get the market price for your house and have the full benefit from it does weigh when you have to decide whether or not to accept a job in another part of the country. The family budget is examined carefully. To suggest that that would not be taken into account is a misreading of the whole psychology that is holding back the mobility of labour which this country
34
wants. I believe that the noble Lord, as always, was plausible but, uncharacteristically on this occasion, very unfair.
4 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: We have had a very interesting debate on this matter and I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls in particular for his forceful comments. As the noble Baroness explained to us, these amendments would vary the discount sharing provision in Clause 8, so that a purchaser under the right to buy was liable to repay a proportion of the discount for the 10 years following his purchase. This would double the period of liability and the amount repayable would diminish by 10 per cent. stages, rather than by 20 per cent. as Clause 8 at present provides. Thus not only would the purchaser have this liability for longer, he would have to pay back more discount if he disposed of his property in a way which triggered off the discount sharing charge.
With one or two exceptions, this period of 10 years would be longer than any period for which restrictions have ever been imposed on the sale of council and new town houses. The maximum period for the restrictions in the present consent is eight years, and then only for the sale of empty houses. The maximum period of restrictions in sales to sitting tenants is five years. The noble Baroness may have in mind the provision now in Clause 18 for the imposition of a 10-year preemption condition when dwelling houses are sold under the right to buy in specified rural areas. But this condition does not impose a financial penalty on the purchaser because the pre-emption is to take place at market value.
As the noble Lord, Lord Evans, said, these are largely matters of judgment on which we as parties have different philosophies. My noble friend Lord Gage asked about what happens on the death of a tenant. There is no discount repayment if the purchaser dies within five years; it is only if he sells, of course. Noble Lords and noble Baronesses opposite have been speaking about large speculative gains but, as my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls said, they do not have to sell, they will only have the option. The vast majority of people will

35
buy in order to live in the house. If they were to take advantage and sell they would still have to pay the amount of the so-called gain in buying a new house which they would have to move into. No one will be worse off; no one is going to be made to buy a house. If he does not want to buy a house or cannot afford to do so he can continue to stay there as a local authority tenant.
We believe firmly that more choice and more variety will bring far more reality into the housing situation, and I believe that this amendment would make the discount sharing provision too stringent, especially when it is borne in mind that in the private sector tenants with security of tenure would expect to buy at below market value without any requirement to repay. Clause 8 provides what we believe to be a necessary financial safeguard. It is already adequate for that purpose.
I hope your Lordships will understand that our judgment in this is bound to be different from the judgment of noble Lords sitting immediately opposite me, although I should have thought that the party of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, would have been nearer to our philosophy in this matter; but that is something for noble Lords to judge.
Baroness PHILLIPS: Before the noble Baroness replies, may I say that I think it would be most unfortunate if the party opposite went on record as the defenders of the people who wish to buy houses, and we on this side of the Committee were described as the grinders of the faces of the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is always useful to have a long memory, and I think I can recall that it was one of the philosophies of the Conservative Party apropos local authority housing, that in my own area there was a description of a poor old lady who lived in a private house and who had to pay rates which made some contribution to the people who were living in rented local authority housing. I cannot see the difference, except that in this case it is possible that they could make a profit from the poor old lady living in a privately owned house. That is the kind of thing that we have in mind.
Lord CLEDWYN of PENRHOS: I should like to follow and support what
36
my noble friend has just said. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, referred to the differing philosophies of his party and of this party. I do not know precisely what he meant, but I assume I am right in saying that his argument is that his party believes in a so-called property-owning democracy whereas this party does not. I see that the noble Lord assents. Therefore I wish to make a short point: when the Leasehold Bill was going through Parliament, it was designed to ensure that people should have the right to purchase the reversions of their own houses. The party opposite opposed that measure, clause by clause and line by line, at every opportunity. I know that perfectly well because I played a part when that Bill was going through Parliament. Therefore when it comes to talking about a property-owning democracy there is a good deal of humbug in what the noble Lord has been saying.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: Possibly to comply with the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, we should have tabled an amendment giving the figure of 7½ years! The basic point that concerns me is that there is a generous discount which we debated on the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. It is a very generous discount that purchasers of council property are given. We think it is over-generous and we have to compare that with the position, of which I have quite a lot of experience, of tenants in the private sector who have lived perhaps for 30 or 40 years in a privately-tenanted house which they have repaired and very often improved themselves, and they say: "Now we can afford to buy this house," and one gets a survey for them. The survey comes back and the valuation is £X thousand vacant possession value. The tenant then says: "It is not vacant possession value. I am buying as the sitting tenant"; and the surveyors in my part of the world will always say that for a sitting tenant in a privately rented property the value to him or her is almost the same as vacant possession value. The point I am making is that the tenant of a council house is getting a special benefit.
4.8 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: It seems to me that there is quite a lot of feeling in different

37
parts of the Committee on this amendment, and I preface my remarks by saying that I frankly think this is something which the Government should reconsider. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, says that we now have restrictions greater than have ever been known on (presumably he means) pre-emption and resale. In fact we have never had a situation like this before, where local authorities are being put into the position compulsorily of having to sell houses. It is an entirely different situation, so one cannot talk about restrictions greater than have ever been known before.
I think my noble friend Lord Stewart dealt very neatly with the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, but I would emphasise with regard to the question of mobility of labour that I did not bring that in to salve my conscience or the conscience of anybody else. I was making the absolutely valid and accurate point that the purchaser of a former council property—and that is what we are talking about—who needs to move before the period of 10 years expires, will still get the existing market price for his house, less the discount which is really part of the public contribution. Taking the assessment given by the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, of inflation in the future, then that man will presumably be in a position to buy another house somewhere else because he will already have had an asset which will have increased in value. I think the noble Lord Lord Evans, is absolutely right; it is a matter of judgment.
My noble friend Lord Stewart was absolutely right when he said that there
was a great deal of misunderstanding and, without wishing to rub the point in, here again I think that Notes on Clauses would have been a great help on the whole of this Bill. I think the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, in one of his interventions said that the number of people who will want to sell is minimal. If they are minimal, why not agree to a very sensible arrangement which would at least come down on and act as some sort of penalty on those who may be speculating? Otherwise it will be minimal and people will still have their own property.
I think my noble friend Lord Stewart dealt quite fully with the position of the widow or widower. If, in the case of a widow, it is going to be based on when her husband dies, it could be one year, two years; we cannot depend on people remaining alive until five years have passed, if then the requirement to sell back to the authority goes. I would ask the Government to consider taking it back and reconsidering this point, which again seems to me not a party political point; it seems to me to make very good sense. It is looking after public stock and public assets and taking what I would have thought was a very sensible financial view. If the Government are not willing to do that, I intend to press the amendment.
4.12 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 26) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 85; Not-Contents, 100.

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Henderson, L.

Amulree, L.

David, B.

Hill-Norton, L.

Ardwick, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Avebury, L.

Denington, B.

Hunt, L.

Aylestone, L.

Diamond, L.

Hylton, L.

Bacon, B.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Ilchester, E.

Balogh, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Banks, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Jacques, L.

Barrington, V.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Janner, L.

Beswick, L.

Fulton, L.

Jeger, B.

Birk, B.

Gaitskell, B.

Kilmarnock, L.

Blease, L. [Teller.]

Gladwyn, L.

Leatherland, L.

Blyton, L.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Brockway, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Listowel, E.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Byers, L.

Hale, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Halsbury, E.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Collison, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Maelor, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Maybray-King, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Milverton, L.

Porritt, L.

Stone, L.

Monson, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Noel-Baker, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Strauss, L.

Northfield, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Oram, L.

Seear, B.

Underhill, L.

Peart, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Phillips, B.

Segal, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Piercy, L.

Simon, V.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Stamp, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abercorn, D.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Marley, L.

Adeane, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Allerton, L.

Exeter, M.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Amory, V.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Moyne, L.

Ampthill, L.

Faithfull, B.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Avon, E.

Fortescue, E.

Newall, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Norfolk, D.

Barnby, L.

Gage, V.

Northchurch, B.

Bellwin, L.

Gainford, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Belstead, L.

Glenkinglas, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Bessborough, E.

Gowrie, E.

Orkney, E.

Blake, L.

Grantchester, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Gridley, L.

Reigate, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Robbins, L.

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

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

Romney, E.

Saint Oswald, L.

Chelwood, L.

Hanworth, V.

Sandford, L.

Clwyd, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Cockfield, L.

Hawke, L.

Sharpies, B.

Cotteslow, L.

Henley, L.

Sligo, M.

Craigavon, V.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Craigton, L.

Hood, V.

Spens, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Strathcarron, L.

Davidson, V.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Strathclyde, L.

de Clifford, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

De Freyne, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Long, V.

Strathspey, L.

Derwent, L.

Loudoun, C.

Swinton, E.

Digby, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Trenchard, V.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lyell, L.

Trumpington, B.

Dundee, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Vickers, B.

Effingham, E.

Malmesbury, E.

Vivian, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Mancroft, L.

Young, B.

On Question. amendment agreed to.

[Amendment No. 27 not moved.]
4.20 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 28:
Page 8, line 5, at end insert ("or
(c) the grant of a lease or sub-lease for a term of twenty-one years or less with an option to renew or to purchase the freehold or lease as the case may be; ").
The noble Lord said: We have been exhorted to speak today and no doubt for the rest of the week as briefly as possible. I think that I shall be able to do that by refraining from moving this amendment, because Amendment No. 28A covers the
40
loophole which my honourable friends in another place discovered in the proposed legislation. In the other place it was suggested that an amendment should be put down to fill that loophole. I think that Amendment No. 28A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, and the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, does that and therefore, I am happy not to move this amendment.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 28A:
Page 8, line 31, at end insert ("and for the purposes of this section the grant of an option enabling a person to call for a disposal falling within subsection (3) above shall be treated as such a disposal.").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 28A. With the leave

41
of the Committee I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 75A, 163A, 164A and 164B. These amendments are the outcome of an undertaking which my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State gave to Mr. Alton in the other place.
Mr. Alton had expressed concern about a possible loophole in the provision in Clause 8 for the repayment of discount where a purchaser under the right to buy resells within five years. He drew attention to the possibility that the liability to repay discount in these circumstances might be avoided by granting a subsequent purchaser an option to buy rather than convey the dwelling-house to him straightforwardly during the five year period. Because the grant of the option would not count as a disposal, there would be no liability to repay discount at that stage, and when the sale finally took place the five years would be up.
Successful use of such a dodge would depend on the sale of an option to buy a house for a high price in several years' time. The man buying the option might move into the house as a tenant until he could exercise the option and buy outright unless he were a speculator who did not wish to occupy the house. It is not clear how easy it would be in practice to strike bargains of this type, but we agree that there is enough of a risk to justify bringing forward amendments to the Bill so as to deal with the risk.
Indeed, a similar option device could be used to get round the 10-year rural preemption safeguard under Clause 18. Also, if, as the Bill stands, an option were granted where a covenant had been imposed under Clause 18 limiting future purchases to people living or working locally, that option would not trigger the covenant but the consequent disposal would. This would make for confusion. The problems could also arise on voluntary council house sales where discount sharing or a rural areas safeguard was imposed under Clause 88. We have therefore tabled amendments to Clauses 18, 87 and 88 as well as to Clause 8 itself.
The noble Lords, Lord Evans of Claughton, and Lord Byers, have put down an amendment to Clause 8 in similar terms to that moved by their honourable friend Mr. Alton in the other place. Their
42
amendment was defective however and did not cover all the eventualities. We are grateful to the noble Lords and their honourable friend for drawing attention to the essential point, but I hope that in the light of these Government amendments they will not feel it necessary to move their amendments. I beg to move.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: May I say on behalf of my noble friends and myself how grateful we are to the noble Lord and his noble friends for putting down this amendment and the other amendments to which he referred? Although it would not have been often used as a device because it is rather complex, this might well have given people an opportunity to make very considerable speculative gains to which they were not entitled. I am extremely grateful to the Minister for the amendments that he has put down.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 9 [Right to a mortgage—amount to be secured.]
4.25 p.m.
Lord HYLTON Lord HYLTON moved Amendment No. 29:
Page 8, line 37, leave out paragraphs (b) and (c).
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 29. It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak also to Amendment No. 30. These are both probing amendments and I should like to ask first, why is it thought right that the tenant's legal costs should be included in the mortgage to which he will be entitled. Secondly, how will "available income" be defined? Will it be on the same sort of criteria as building societies employ? What will the factor be by which the income is to be multiplied? If the answer is "building society practice", then I should point out that there has been, over the years, very considerable variation in building society practice. The multipliers have ranged from two-and-a-half to three and perhaps in some cases even a little wider than that.
Finally, I should like to ask the meaning of the word "appropriate" on page 9, line 3. I wonder whether it is a suitable

43
word for inclusion in a statute because, of its nature, it seems to imply a value judgment to be made by somebody. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: I shall try to answer the points which my noble friend has raised. The intention behind our arrangements for costs under the right to buy is that each side of the transaction should pay its own costs, as normally is the case with sales in the private sector. The provision in subsection (1) that the mortgage should include those costs—legal or otherwise—which the vendor either validly charges to the purchaser (namely, the costs arising from the mortgage) or which it initially meets on his behalf is a valuable help for purchasers in meeting all the liabilities they will face on becoming home-owners.
My noble friend asked how "available income" will be defined; what the factor will be; and the meaning of "appropriate". We are at present considering the calculation of income for mortgage purposes and other aspects of the regulations. It is not yet possible to give definite information as to what these are likely to be, but they can reflect what a purchaser spends on everyday living and his existing credit commitment.
My noble friend also asked about the size of the deductions and how much flexibility it is necessary or desirable to have in the regulations. The answer is that the precise provision of the mortgage regulations is still under consideration, as I said a moment ago. The provision for different factors and different amounts to be applied to different incomes is necessary to take account of the individual incomes of those purchasing jointly. It is an integral part of the procedure giving tenants the right to purchase jointly.
My noble friend also suggested that subsection (5) seemed to be contradictory and asked why it was necessary. That provision permits the landlord to allow the tenant a larger mortgage than he is entitled to, so long as the amount of the mortgage does not exceed the aggregate purchase price and costs as set out in subsection (1). Subsection (5) ensures that the landlord may not attempt as a way of getting round the right to buy, to force a larger mortgage on the tenant
44
than he wished to have. It will, however, enable a landlord to grant a larger mortgage backed by guarantees from people whom the tenant did not wish to have as joint purchasers or who did not wish to be so, but who were willing to take on the commitment of helping the tenant with the purchase. I hope that perhaps my noble friend will feel that that explanation will enable him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord HYLTON: I am grateful to my noble friend for what he has said. However, I do not quite see why it should be thought right, in all cases, to provide the purchaser's costs by means of a mortgage. I should have thought that there was a very good case for expecting the purchaser to put at least some stake of his own into his purchase. I am also somewhat concerned to hear that, when we could be rather close to the coming into effect of this Bill as an Act, thinking is still taking place as to how the regulations will be drawn up. I understand that that could be a matter of only eight weeks after Royal Assent. Is my noble friend able to say a little more?
Lord BELLWIN: There are, indeed, a number of matters that are still being discussed with bodies which are involved and interested. I think that it is right that that should be so. Indeed, I am sure that he will be pleased to know that some of the very points still being discussed are ones that have been raised by my noble friend himself, and are matters where we have given undertakings that we would be talking about certain aspects. I suspect that that will be the case until the very time when we move that the Bill do now pass. I hope that my noble friend will feel that that is encouraging rather than discouraging.
Lord HYLTON: I do not wish to press this amendment any further, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 30 not moved.]
Baroness DAVID Baroness DAVID moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 9, line 1, leave out from ("account") to end of line 21 and insert ("determined by the landlord, having regard to the normal commercial

45
criteria of building societies and the guidance issued by the Secretary of State, on the basis of the tenants income, needs, and commitments and the manner in which he has discharged his obligation as a tenant to pay rent.
(3) Where the right to a mortgage belongs to more than one person the limit is the aggregate of the amounts to be taken into account determined by the landlord, having regard to the normal commercial criteria of building societies and the guidance issued by the Secretary of State.
(4) The Secretary of State may give guidance generally or to specified descriptions of authorities in respect of any matter arising with respect to this section.").
The noble Baroness said: As it stands, Clause 9 provides that the amount of a mortgage advance will have to be determined from a formula laid down in regulations issued by the Secretary of State. The Minister has undertaken that the regulations will conform with the normal commercial criteria in granting mortgages, although this is not written into the Bill and, of course, we know that the regulations are not yet with us.
Inescapably, the determination of the amount of the mortgage by central Government regulations must mean the application of some more or less crude formula to the income, and perhaps some other circumstances, of the applicant. An inherent part of normal commercial criteria is that although such formulae can provide a rule of thumb, each application must be considered in its own individual circumstances. This must mean an element of local discretion for those responsible for granting the mortgage, corresponding to the element of discretion that the managers of individual branches of building societies take for granted.
The proposed amendment allows the local authority to consider the tenant's income, needs, commitments and past rent record, and itself to arrive at the amount of the mortgage to be granted. However, it also provides that the local authorities must have regard to guidance—not regulations—issued by the Secretary of State and to the normal commercial criteria of building societies. It is contended that this amendment provides a proper balance between the Secretary of State's concern for a reasonable response by local authorities to the right to a mortgage and the local authorities' concern for a reasonable measure of discretion to allow them sensibly to under
46
take their responsibilities under this section. I think that it also might provide some protection for the prospective buyer if there is an element of local discretion as to whether that buyer is able to fulfil the obligations. There must be some anxiety about those who may default on their mortgages, and I think that this local dimension would be a help in this way. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: There are obviously strong arguments for allowing a landlord—and indeed the Housing Corporation though it is not mentioned in this amendment—to be able to calculate a purchaser's mortgage entitlement in a way which takes proper account of his ability to make his mortgage repayments, which in its turn will depend to a considerable extent on his existing commitments. This is why the Secretary if State said in another place that it was his intention to ensure that normal commercial practice applies under the provisions of Clause 9. Clause 9 empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations determining how the amount of mortgage entitlement is to be calculated. That remains our guiding principle in this matter. It is our intention that the mortgage to which a purchaser is entitled should be one which he can reasonably afford to repay.
But there are important arguments in the other direction. The right to a mortgage is a crucial corollary of the right to buy. We have to be sure that tenants can get the maximum mortgage which they can reasonably afford. We cannot allow for unreasonable cautiousness on the part of the landlords; nor should there be scope to evade the right to buy by finding ways to offer inadequate mortgages. The regulation-making power in Clause 9 is designed to provide the means for us to get the balance right. With this in mind, we brought forward amendments at Report stage in another place to enable the Secretary of State, when prescribing what counts as available income, to take into account sums reflecting the needs and commitments of purchasers as well as their income itself. This will provide sufficient flexibility to ensure that under the regulations purchasers do not become entitled to borrow amounts which they cannot reasonably be expected to repay.

47
The noble Baroness has now added to the amendment which was originally tabled a provision for the Secretary of State to give guidance about the granting of mortgages to purchasers under the right to buy. But it is unclear what status that guidance would have. The amendment says that an authority must have regard to the guidance. Does that mean that it would have to follow it? If so, why should the Bill be amended in this respect, when the net result would not be so different from that with the regulation-making power in the Bill as it stands? If not, then the power of the Secretary of State to give guidance would not provide the necessary assurance to tenants that they have an adequate right to a mortgage. This refinement to the amendment is not a sufficient palliative. The amendment as a whole still does not meet the Government's requirements. As to a purchaser's previous history as a tenant, there is already the safeguard in Clause 15(7). A landlord need not complete the transfer of the dwelling house to the tenant if there are significant arrears of rent outstanding.
This amendment has a purpose with which I think there may be some initial sympathy, but I hope that what I have said will have illustrated that it is unnecessary and that it holds potential dangers. It could, if accepted, result in some tenants being deprived of a mortgage to which they were reasonably entitled and which they could afford to repay. Furthermore, it would be naive not to recognise that some local authority landlords who were opposed to the right to buy would, with such discretionary opportunities, gleefully take advantage of such a loophole, thereby denying that right to their tenants. With this explanation, I hope that the noble Baroness may feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord HYLTON: Obviously, I do not have any particular brief for subsection (4) of this amendment which may need a little redrafting or strengthening. But I feel that the amendment is an improvement on the Bill and gets the balance between the central power of the Secretary of State and the local power of the local authority into a better relationship. At page 9, line 22, in subsection (5), what I had thought to appear contradictory,
48
I now begin to understand. That gives the local authority some greater discretion. I believe that that supports this amendment as it is framed. I am sorry that my noble friend cannot see his way to being able to accept it.
Baroness DAVID: Do I understand from what the Minister has said that one of the reasons the Government are against this amendment is the fear that Labour authorities will try to exploit any discretion to undermine the effective operation of the right to buy? Perhaps I could have an answer to that.
Lord BELLWIN: Indeed, I do, yes. I thought that I had said that.
Baroness DAVID: We have cleared that up. It seems to me that the amendment would not prevent the right to buy because it gives only a limited discretion to the local authority. The right to a mortgage would still remain. Can the Minister tell me when these regulations will be published? Are we going to get them before Report stage?
Lord BELLWIN: As I stand at the moment I cannot say exactly when, but before the day is out I shall endeavour to give the information to the noble Baroness.
Baroness DAVID: I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said. I am not altogether happy about his reply. I should very much like to see the regulations too. I shall at the moment withdraw the amendment and shall possibly come back with it or one similar at Report stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 32 and 33 not moved.]
4.41 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON moved Amendment No. 34:
Page 9, line 28, at end insert—
("(6) The Treasury shall provide all monies required to enable local authorities to make such mortgage advances as are required by this section.").
The noble Lord said: I put this amendment down in order to try to discover the answer to some problems that seem to me to arise from the Bill as drafted, although I hope that the noble Lord will

49
be able to give me a satisfactory explanation. It seems to me that, while most of the mortgage money for tenants of council property will not actually have to be provided but will be dealt with by merely not paying the cash value, in certain other cases, for instance where a housing association house is sold, it may be necessary for the local authority to make money available for such a purchase—to make the actual cash available rather than a book entry.
From my experience in local government and the Housing Act mortgages of the past, if you did not get in very quickly for your local authority mortgage, the local authority resources ran out. If you had not applied for your mortgage under the Housing Act by June or July, very often in the part of the world that I come from there was no mortgage money left. If Her Majesty's Government's wishes are that there should be a reduction in public sector expenditure, it may be that, unless additional words of this nature are put in, the opportunity of selling not so much local authority housing as housing association or other public bodies' housing would be frustrated if local authorities did not have the money available.
My amendment seeks to require the Government to make monies available for local authorities so that, if you like, that excuse will not be available against exercising the right to sell. I am really trying to find out what the Government's plans are because, as I understand it, there is no actual clarity yet as to whether the housing corporation will be providing the money, or what body will be providing the money, for the sale of council houses and private sector houses where actual cash has to change hands. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: Let me quickly and, I hope, briefly, put the noble Lord's fears at an end. I can assure him that the right to a mortgage will not put any strain on local authority mortgage loan money. When a tenant exercises his right to buy and, along with that, his right to a mortgage, there will be no need for the local authority to raise money to advance to the purchaser. After all, the local authority already owns the house and is merely handing over that ownership to the tenant. On a sale under the right to buy, therefore, it will
50
simply forgo an immediate receipt, leaving the amount of the mortgage outstanding. There is no question of the authority having to find new money. I hope that with that explanation the noble Lord will feel able to agree to withdraw his amendment.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: With respect, I did say in my introductory remarks, which may not have been as clear as perhaps your Lordships would have liked, that I was not so concerned as to whether there was a contra-entry where the purchase was from a local authority, because, as the noble Lord said, no cash passes from one hand to the other, which I mentioned. What I am concerned about is to discover what happens to a tenant who purchases from a housing authority, or some authority other than the local authority. From what source will the money for that be made available? Is it going to be the Housing Corporation, or where is it going to come from? Is it going to come from the actual resources of the local authority?
Lord BELLWIN: I am not clear here as to what the noble Lord means. If we are talking entirely of a local authority selling to its sitting tenant, then the position is as I have already stated and as the noble Lord so obviously knows. What other body he is referring to, I am not sure. When a housing association tenant exercises the right to a mortgage—possibly that is what the noble Lord has in mind—the money will come from the Housing Corporation and not from the local authority.
I think I said at Second Reading, or some time last week when we were discussing matters, that the Government, once they know the extent of the likely requirements, will then be looking at the monies which are made available to the Housing Corporation because that is a route it will take. I hope that is helpful.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: That was the point I was trying to find. I accept that the regulations have not yet been made. I wanted to be sure that there would not be any obstacle to a person purchasing from other than a local authority. I think that the assurance

51
that the noble Lord has given is sufficient to enable me to—
Lord BELLWIN: Would the noble Lord give way for a moment? It might be helpful if I made a comment on a point that the noble Baroness made a moment ago and that the noble Lord just mentioned regarding the regulations. I am advised that the regulations cannot be made until the Bill is passed and the power to do so becomes available.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: I am grateful, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment in my name.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Notice of purchase price and right to mortgage]:
4.47 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 10, line 8, after ("12") insert ("and section 15(3A)").
The noble Lord said: The mass of paper increases as the hour advances. I hope that your Lordships will bear with me. Together with this amendment may I speak also to Amendments Nos. 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48, and 49. This amendment to Clause 10 paves the way for an important series of amendments, including those to which I have just referred. I should like to speak to all of them together although the more important ones relate to Clauses 12 and 15. The amendments involve a substantial revision of the provision in the Bill for a tenant whose mortgage entitlement is insufficient to enable him to exercise his right to buy to be able to deposit £100 with his landlord and defer completion for two years. This enables a tenant who cannot afford to buy at once to save for two years towards a fixed purchase price.
The provision is one to which we are firmly committed. It was promised at the time of the general election. We have found it necessary to make important changes to the way in which it will operate, although our policy remains unchanged.
I am well aware that this policy is not to the liking of some people. They make the point that someone who buys his home after taking advantage of these arrangements will benefit from a price which represents in percentage terms a discount higher than the one to which the tenant was originally entitled. If we compare the price that the purchaser pays with the value of the home when he eventually completes, that is certainly true. It is a necessary corollary of the arrangements we have introduced.
I make no apology for these arrangements. They enable us to extend the frontiers of home ownership so that it is within the reach of a group of people who could otherwise never have aspired to it. I must make that quite clear before I turn to the amendments. At present the right to defer completion is dependent on the service of a completion notice by the landlord. We believe that the tenant should be able to claim his right to defer completion of his purchase by depositing £100 with his landlord without having to wait for a completion notice, and these amendments bring that about. The purchaser will therefore be warned of the right to deferred completion when he receives notice of the purchase price under Clause 10. That is provided for in Amendment 35. The notice of mortgage entitlement under Clause 12 will also advise him of his right to deferred completion and enclose a form for claiming it, as provided in Amendment 37.
Where appropriate, the tenant will be able to claim deferred completion within three months of the landlord's notice under Clause 12(4), which informs the tenant of the landlord's calculation of his mortgage entitlement, or within a longer period if the landlord or county court considers there are reasonable grounds for extending the period. Thus, the tenant could claim his right to deferred completion before all the relevant matters had finally been agreed or determined, and therefore before it had been established whether or not he was entitled to delayed completion. In a case where it then turned out that there was an entitlement, the arrangements we are concerned with would operate. On the other hand, in a case where there was no right to delayed completion although the £100 had been deposited. the landlord would be able to serve a completion notice in the usual

53
way and the tenant would be entitled to the return of his £100.
Another defect with which these amendments deal is that the tenant is, as the Bill stands, required to complete his purchase within two years of the service of his notice claiming to exercise the right to buy. But there might be cases where a tenant made every effort to proceed with the sale and complete the purchase within the two years but, for reasons beyond his control, the purchase was non the less not completed within that period. The tenant could thus lose his right to complete the transaction at the old price through no fault of his own. The amendment would, therefore, provide that where a tenant has indicated his willingness to proceed with the sale, by requiring the landlord to reassess his mortgage entitlement within two years but the sale has not been completed within that period, the landlord may, where there are reasonable grounds for doing so, extend the period for completion at the original price. This might be desirable where, for instance, there had been some delay over processing the period mortgage application. If there are reasonable grounds for the landlord to act in such a way but he fails to do so the county court may extend the period by order.
These amendments are complicated, but they embody an important aspect of our policy. In moving the first of them, I am glad to say that in tabling it we are improving the Bill and helping it to reflect more closely the policy of the Government.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12 [Claim to a mortgage]:
4.53 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 11, line 32, at end insert ("and
(c) the provisions which, in the opinion of the landlord or Housing Corporation, should be contained in the deed by which the the mortgage is to be effected.").
The noble Lord said: This is a procedural amendment. Its effect would be to require the local authority, when
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notifying the purchaser of the amount it considers may be left outstanding on mortgage and the way in which this amount has been arrived at, also to notify him of the provisions which it proposes should be included in the mortgage. The Housing Corporation would be under a similar obligation when it was to advance money to a housing association. This would mirror the procedure under Clause 10, where the proposed terms of the conveyance or lease have to be notified to the purchaser. This amendment will remove any chance of an authority failing to reveal the proposed terms of the mortgage until the last moment.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 11, line 32, at end insert—
("(4A) The notice shall also inform the tenant of the effect of section 15(5A) below and shall be accompanied by a form for use by the tenant in claiming, in accordance with section 15(3A)(c) below, to be entitled to defer completion.").
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this with Amendment No. 35. I beg to move.
Clause 12, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 13 and 14 agreed to.
4.55 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 38:
After Clause 14, insert the following new clause:
"Children succeeding parents
( .—(1) Where the secure tenant of a dwelling-house (in this section referred to as "the former tenant") dies or otherwise ceases to be a secure tenant of the dwelling-house, and thereupon a child of his who occupies the dwelling-house as his only or principal home (in this section referred to as "the new tenant") becomes the secure tenant of the dwelling-house (whether under the same or under another secure tenancy), the landlord may, if it thinks fit, count the whole or part of any period qualifying under this section—

(a) for the purposes of section 1(3) above; or

(b) towards the period to be taken into account under section 7(5) above for the purposes of discount;

or both (and may count different periods under paragraphs (a) and (b) above).
(2) A period qualifies under this section if it is a period during which the new tenant, since

55
reaching the age of sixteen, occupied as his only or principal home a dwelling-house of which a parent of his was the secure tenant or one of joint tenants under a secure tenancy, and either—

(a) it was the period at the end of which he became the secure tenant; or

(b) it was a period ending not earlier than two years before another period qualifying under this section.

(3) For the purposes of this section two persons shall be treated as parent and child if they would be so treated under paragraphs (a) and (b) of section 49(3) of this Act.
(4) This section has effect, whether or not the former tenant and the new tenant are also the former tenant and the new tenant within the meaning of section 13 above.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment meets a commitment given in another place. One often hears it said that children sooner or later inevitably grow up and leave home. In fact, this is not always true; not all of them leave home. Grown-up children may continue to live as members of their parents' households for long periods, and some of them will eventually become secure tenants of dwellings of which a parent was the secure tenant before them. Others may eventually take over the secure tenancy of a dwelling in which they have started off their married life living with in-laws. By the time the secure tenancy formally passes from parent to child in this way, either because the parent has died or because the tenancy has been transferred otherwise, the child may for some years have been bearing a major part of the expenses of the household, or even bearing them altogether. But if the child then decides to exercise his right as a secure tenant to buy his home, under the Bill as it stands he will not be able to count any of that time either for the three-year qualification period for the right to buy in Clause 1(3) or to claim discount on it under Clause 7.
This new clause would allow such deserving cases, at the discretion of their landlords, to be granted either entitlement to the right to buy, or discount under Clause 7, or both, in respect of time spent since the age of 16 occupying as their only or principal home dwellings of which a parent was the secure tenant. We decided that this arrangement had to be discretionary because it would have been impossible to devise a mandatory provision which was sensitive
56
enough to distinguish between cases which were genuinely deserving and those which were not, given the huge range of personal and family circumstances which could be involved. This is a modest provision to enable landlords to give a fair deal to a comparatively small number of deserving cases. I am sure that even those of your Lordships who do not approve of the principle of the right to buy will not begrudge its presence in the Bill.
Baroness FISHER of REDNAL: I do not disagree with this proposal, but I should be grateful if the Minister could clarify two points. Because many parents cannot have children of their own, they foster children at a very young age until those children become adults, and I am wondering whether "child" in the new clause will be of help to the foster child. Secondly, does "a child of his" embrace "her", as we would expect under the Sex Discrimination Act?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I am not sure I have all the points the noble Baroness has in mind. It is true that some children will have spent some time as adult members of their parents' households before moving away to become secure tenants in their own right. On the other hand, of course, they will have been accumulating periods of entitlement to the right to buy and to discount in their own right ever since they did so, and a discretionary power will accordingly be of less significance to them. I accept that a small number of deserving cases may be excluded from the discretion we propose, but the fact is that we have confined the provision to tenants who have succeeded a parent as secure tenants of the same dwelling because we believe that only a limited discount concession in particular could be justified on financial grounds, and because we believe that the provision as it stands will cover the great majority of the most deserving cases. I am delighted again to be able to confirm to the noble Baroness that as under the Sex Discrimination Act the terms "his" and "her" will be effective in this Bill.
Baroness FISHER of REDNAL: Perhaps I framed my question badly and it was not readily understood, but f was trying to speak quickly so as not to delay the Committee. I understand that Clause 49 contains a definition of a person who is a

57
member of another's family. This appears at page 35 of the Bill. I hope that this time I hall make myself a little clearer. My point is that there is no definition of what is known as a foster-child. If we are to encourage local authorities to foster more and more children—and this is in fact encouraged, and is taking place—could such children be included in the definition, so that both the legitimate and the illegitimate child are covered?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I understand that under the definitions in Clause 49 foster-children are not included, but step-children will be included. Speaking off the cuff, I am not sure whether illegitimate children will also be covered, but I believe that as a result of recent laws illegitimate children will have rights in this matter in the same way as other children, but foster-children are not included.
Lord GREENWOOD of ROSSENDALE: If the noble Lord is correct in his interpretation that the legal meaning of parent and child excludes foster-children, then speaking as a foster-grandparent, I must say that the Bill contains a very serious deficiency. Perhaps the noble Lord will agree to look at this point before the Report stage, so as to be quite sure about it.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I see the justice of what the noble Lord Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, said, and I shall certainly undertake to do as he asks.
Clause 15 [Completion]:
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Jacques): I should point out that if Amendment No. 39 is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendments Nos. 40 to 49.
5.2 p.m.
Lord HYLTON Lord HYLTON: moved Amendment No. 39:
Page 13, line 6, leave out subsections (2) to (6).
The noble Lord said: I put down this amendment with a probing intention, because I wanted to hear from the Govern
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ment some justification of the whole option period. I listened very carefully to what my friend the Minister said when earlier he moved a whole string of amendments which have some bearing on these options. I cannot say that I then heard anything which made me feel happier about options. I hope that my noble friend will not now say that this was in the manifesto and that we must take it or leave it.
My view is that a local authority tenant who has occupied a house for a period of years has been subsidised by the rest of the community for whatever the period happens to be. If he wants to go ahead and buy, he receives his appropriate discount. He might then put down this relatively small option sum, £100, and following that, he receives the benefit of whatever is the going rate of inflation. As I understand it—I may be wrong—during the two years he also receives the benefit of a further 2 per cent. on his discount. So when he has received all these benefits he is a highly favoured person and, as I said on Second Reading, I cannot see that this represents social justice. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: In reply to my noble friend I should like again to touch upon one of the aspects of this matter which may not be very clear. The amendment would make two fundamental changes to the right to buy procedure. It would mean that local authority landlords no longer had the power to serve completion notices on any tenants who were delaying, and it would remove the option procedure from the Bill. With regard to the service of a completion notice, I think it is only reasonable that, just as a landlord is required to proceed with his side of a sale as soon as possible, the landlord should be able to require a tenant who is delaying to complete within a fixed period of time. The other major provision in Clause 15 which this amendment would seek to remove is that whereby a tenant who cannot afford to buy straight away may have a 2-year option to purchase the dwelling-house at the original valuation.
The Government are firmly committed to this provision. I am sorry that I must put the matter in the way that my noble friend asked me not to put it, but this provision was contained in the manifesto, quite clearly, and it will enable those who are not immediately able to buy outright

59
to have the prospect of being able to buy a property within a defined period. This is a tightly drawn provision. The option procedure will be available only in limited circumstances; that is, where tenants' mortgage entitlement would not enable them to buy immediately. I consider that most people who wish to buy will want to do so at once, so that they can start paying off their mortgage, and so that the five years for discount sharing begins to run soon.
However, we believe that Clause 15 is somewhat unfair on the tenant at present, since he must wait for a completion notice before taking out an option. For this reason we tabled the earlier amendments (which we have already discussed) which will enable the tenant to take the initiative in taking out an option as soon as all matters relating to the grant of the freehold or lease and the amount of the mortgage have been agreed or determined.
This topic has been discussed at considerable length in another place and elsewhere. I am aware that some people feel that a special benefit is being given to those who wish to proceed in this way, but the Government believe that it is not inequitable. Anyone who really wants to buy a house will want to get on with it, but if he cannot put down the money, we want to be able to help him.
As my noble friend said, all this may result in the person receiving a discount of the kind forecast, but that is merely the procedural outcome of the matter. This represents a commitment which we made. There was no mystique about it; nothing was hidden. We have always made it clear, and we are committed to it.
Viscount SIMON: Probably I have not fully understood the clause. The Minister said that the option is available for people who are unable straight away to proceed with the purchase. But is it not likely that people will say, "I am sorry, but I cannot take up the purchase at once", simply because there would be an enormous advantage in buying the house two years hence at a price which is now current?
Lord BELLWIN: Such people may indeed say that they will wait for two years. The motive behind that may be
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the one that the noble Viscount suggests, or that they want to save as much as possible. Surely when purchasing a house it is always preferable to put down the maximum possible amount so that the remaining capital sum on mortgage is as small as possible. That would be another reason why people might want to delay the matter.
Not unreasonably, we are discussing here, and in the many other debates on this Bill, the peripheral cases which will arise. Some people may consider that such cases would be much more than peripheral, but I do not share that view. I entirely recognise the concern of my noble friend, but may I say, without discourtesy, that we are probably more of one mind on some other matters. As the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, said, in so many of these matters one takes a view and makes a judgment. The Government took a view in this case a long time ago. They feel that they are committed to it and that the provision is not unfair.
Lord CLEDWYN of PENRHOS: I wonder whether the noble Lord can confirm one point, which I do not necessarily refer to in a spirit of criticism. As I understand it, the provision would place the tenant who is in the circumstances outlined in a much more favourable position than the private tenant who is in similar circumstances.
Lord BELLWIN: It is not normal, I quite agree, that in making a purchase you can arrange to have a price that will stay fixed for two years. Yes, that is a very fair point to make; but, again, one would have to look at it in the total context of the whole scene and of what one is doing and what one is seeking to do.
5.10 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: I may be wrong, but I get the feeling, both from what the Minister said to his noble friend and from what he said in reply, that he is not quite as happy about this provision as he is about some of the other proposals in this Bill. I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. I think his amendment, as I believe the Minister mentioned at one point, is probably defective, because I do not think he needs

61
to delete all the subsections to achieve what he wants. In fact, all he needs to delete, as I understand it, are subsections (2)(b), (4) and (5). Then, he would not take out the paragraph referring to the exercise of the right to a mortgage. But, of course, this is not the point. I am quite certain that the Government are not resisting this amendment on the basis of defective drafting; it is on the principle of the whole thing.
It seems to us that this is an extremely important part of the Bill; and, I am afraid, it is once again adding extra seductive lumps of sugar to something that has already been, one could say, almost over-sugared. There is the right to buy, and on top of that there are the discounts. The Minister may not like hearing all this again, but I am speaking specifically to the amendment and it is impossible to isolate these things because they are all tied up together. If there was no compulsory sale on the part of the local authority and no system of discounts, or much lower ones at the discretion of the authority, as was the practice before, then one might talk about an option in different terms.
The Minister said that the way in which the matter had been drafted now meant that it had been very tightly tied down. We will come to that. Unfortunately, these are all in different clauses, and there is a new clause on this matter being moved by the Government. I would say that it is not yet tightly tied down; but, nevertheless, even if it were, the point about these amendments is whether, on top of the right to buy and the discounts, there should in fact be added an option. I think one could just as well argue that if people with all those financial advantages, almost at their elbows, at their fingertips, still cannot complete a purchase, giving them an option which will extend for two years and which will enable them to buy their house or flat at the price that it was at the beginning of the two years is really financial irresponsibility on the part of the Government.
I also question very much whether it is in fact ethical or morally right to put that sort of pressure on people who are probably not in a position to afford to buy their house at that time. This is a pressure like that which is often exercised,
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and which succeeding Governments have tried to cut down, in the hire-purchase field. This is the same sort of thing. So I think that for economic reasons and for social reasons, and for ethical reasons this whole option clause is quite wrong. The attempt to help the buyer who needs more time has been covered by the right to a mortgage and by mortgage facilities before ever this Bill appeared. We had special help for the first-time buyer. It is through the mortgage right that this should be done, and there should not be this extra option.
Incidentally, I should also like to know what it is estimated it will cost the local authority in legal and other expenses when somebody takes out such an option, as a number of people will. The demand could be absolutely enormous, because here it is not just demanding a house to buy; it is taking out an option which you can exercise or which you need not exercise; so it is skin off nobody's nose to take out an option like this. But presumably somebody has got to process these applications; somebody has to look at them; somebody has to write letters to deal with them. I should like to know whether there has been any calculation made of the extra cost, particularly in the circumstances when, at the end of the two years, the option is not taken up.
I really think that this is an iniquitous part of the Bill, and that the Bill could stand up on its own, with all the Government's principles about the right to buy, without having this extra bit on top of the discounts. We have seen what the response has been when we had tried to extend the time during which people cannot sell their houses without paying back the discount. That has remained five years rather than 10. The attempt by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, to cut down the rate of discount has been refuted; and now, on top of that, we have these options. It is in the manifesto, as the Minister said, but again I repeat that no Government have the right to take something blindly a year after they came into office, and probably 18 months after the manifesto itself was drafted, and not look at it in the context of the economic situation today. So I really think that the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, is worthy of support.
Lord UNDERHILL: Before the Minister replies, I wonder whether I could follow up this particular point. We are being told at the present time that local authorities must do everything possible to keep within financial limits, and here we have a case where, due to inflation—because we must assume that inflation is continuing at the particular time—we could easily find ourselves with house prices having gone up 40 per cent. in a period of two years; and yet here we have a contract which is to be kept at the original purchase price agreed two years previously. We are always being told by noble Lords opposite that public authorities should be looking at things on a commercial basis. It seems that everything possible is being done in this Bill to ensure that those persons who wish to buy are going to get every opportunity, which is not open to people in other spheres.
I wonder whether the noble Lord would give some indication whether, in the light of this very generous provision, the Government have any intention of bringing in legislation to provide the same sort of facilities for people who wish to buy from private landlords. Or would it be the case that that would be hitting the landlords' pockets, and therefore that cannot possibly be agreed; but as this is public money there is therefore no hesitation on the part of the Government in seeing that it is disbursed in this way to people who wish to buy?
Lord BELLWIN: The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has suggested that private people should perhaps be given the right to buy in special circumstances, and spoke about that hitting the landlords' pockets. I would have thought that it would have exactly the opposite effect. I should think that many landlords would be only too delighted if they were able to sell to people who might be assisted to buy in one way or another; but I think that that is really a side issue.
I do not know that there is a lot more that I can add to what I have already said on this. I understand the points which have been made by my noble friend, as I have said, and by the noble Baroness. I do not take the point at all about the general mal-effect upon finances generally. I said last week, I think it was, on the
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Question, Whether Clause I shall stand part?, or on Second Reading—it is a job to remember which it was—that certainly no one argues that it is not a good thing from the point of view of the tenant, but I was also absolutely satisfied, and no doubt it would come out when we got into the nuts and bolts of the implications of the rights to buy, that it was also an excellent thing for the local authority as well, and for everybody concerned. Therefore, although one might disagree now and may even disagree later (although I hope not, when we get down to the detail), the fact is that I do not think that, on those grounds, I have any sympathy with the arguments. Where I do take some of the points made—and the noble Baroness was very sensitive to the way I was putting the points, perhaps—is in that I understand exactly in this case what the concern is. I am not without sympathy for them, but I must say that on balance—and it is a matter of judgment —it is a fair thing. It was thought through a long time ago. It is no new thing. On balance, it is a good thing, and that is why I support it.
Lord HYLTON: I acknowledge that this amendment is defective in its drafting. Perhaps that is not altogether harmful in what is something of a probing amendment. I feel that the Government are leaning over backwards in favour of the marginal buyer. Having said that, I do not wish to go on battering my head against the manifesto, the mandate and the serried ranks of the Tory Party. We shall have a further opportunity to discuss the matter on the Opposition Amendments Nos. 44, 46 and 47. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 40:
Page 13, line 10, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b) and insert ("to complete the transaction within a period stated in the notice").
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this amendment with Amendment No. 35. I beg to move.
5.22 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 41:
Page 13, line 23, leave out from ("than") to end of line 26 and insert ("whichever of the following is applicable, that is to say—

(a) if the tenant has not claimed to exercise the right to a mortgage, three months after the end of the period within which a notice claiming it could have been served by him;

(b) if he has claimed the right to a mortgage, but is not entitled to defer completion, three months after the service of the notice under section 12(4); and

(c) if he is entitled to defer completion, two years after the service of his notice under section 5 claiming the exercise of the right to buy or, if later, three months after the service of the notice under section 12(4) above.

(3A) A tenant is entitled to defer completion if—

(a) he has claimed the right to a mortgage; and

(b) the amount to be left outstanding or advanced on the security of the dwelling-house is less than the aggregate mentioned in section 9(1) above; and

(c) he has, within the period of three months beginning with the service on him of the notice under section 12(4) above or within that period as extended under subsection (3B) below, served a notice on the landlord claiming to be entitled to defer completion and has, within the same period, deposited the sum of £100 with the landlord.

(3B) Where there are reasonable grounds for doing so the landlord shall extend (or further extend) the period within which a notice under subsection (3A)(c) above must be served and the sum of £100 deposited; and if it fails to do so the county court may by order extend or further extend that period until such date as may be specified in the order.").
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this amendment, too, with No. 35. I beg to move.
Baroness DAVID Baroness DAVID moved, as an amendment to the amendment, Amendment No. 41A:
Line 17, leave out ("to be left outstanding or ") and insert ("which he is entitled, or is treated as being entitled, to leave outstanding or have").
The noble Baroness said: The Government have implied throughout, when talking about the £100 option scheme, that these options will be available only to those who cannot afford to buy immediately. Mr. Stanley, in Standing Committee "F" in another place, said:
"The object of the options concept is to enable those who at present are not able to buy outright the prospect of being able to buy a property
66
within a defined period. That is the whole rationale of the clause".
Mr. Ginsburg said on Report:
"The provision that we have made is tightly drawn. The options procedure will be available only in limited circumstances where a tenant's mortgage entitlement would not enable him to buy immediately".
The Bill's Explanatory and Financial Memorandum introduces the proposal with the words:
"if his mortgage entitlement is insufficient".
Yet there appears to be nothing in the clause as drafted which limits the options to those who cannot afford to buy. As it stands, it appears to allow any purchaser simply to choose to delay for two years and thereby take advantage of the extra effective discount which will arise to avoid house price inflation over that period. It might be thought that there was a difficulty in introducing into the clause the inherently subjective distinction between those who can and those who cannot afford to buy; but the Bill's existing provisions make such a distinction in relation to the right to a mortgage. Subsections (1) to (4) Clause 9 define the amount that the tenant is entitled to leave outstanding or have advanced to him. Clause 9(5) gives the local authority discretion to treat him as entitled to leave outstanding a higher amount.
The amendment that I am moving into Clause 15 from Clause 9 by introducing these concepts would ensure that the £100 options could be exercised only where a tenant had failed to qualify, in the terms of the Bill's own provisions, for a mortgage large enough to enable him to buy immediately. Since, according to Mr. Stanley, this is the whole rationale of the clause, it will be interesting to see how the Government respond; but to make their own purpose more clear I imagine that they will welcome and accept this amendment and be flexible for, I think, the first time. I beg to move the amendment to the amendment.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for explaining what she meant on this amendment. We were puzzled about it and have only just had our advisers' comments on it. I must make it clear at the outset that the provisions in Clause 15 which enable a tenant purchaser to complete his sale at a price which has been frozen

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for two years are designed to help a particular category of tenant. There is no question of every council tenant, no matter how high his income, being able to turn up with his £100 and being able to take advantage of the option to complete later on.
The category of purchaser we are concerned with in these provisions is made up of those who are just on the wrong side of the financial dividing line between those who can afford to buy at once and those who cannot. We want to give them a leg up so that they can cross that barrier. In order to define this group of people in a way which is practical, we have come up with the scheme which is now embodied in Clause 15 as amended by Government Amendment 41. This makes it clear that the only tenant who can take advantage of the option to complete at a later date is the one who has applied to exercise the right to a mortgage, but whose entitlement turns out to be too low to enable him to buy at once. Where it looks on the face of it as though the tenant was entitled to complete later, and he deposited his £100 in order to claim to do so, but it subsequently turns out that his entitlement was high enough to buy immediately, he will either put his £100 to the cost of the house, or get it back if he decides not to go ahead.
From what I have said, I hope it will be clear that I do not accept that there is any danger of these provisions being abused by those who may wish to manoeuvre themselves into an option. It will depend on the outcome of the valuation of the house and calculation of the price payable, and the calculation of the mortgage entitlement under the regulations which my right honourable friend will make under Clause 9. Despite what the noble Baroness has said, I can see no way in which her amendment would either clarify or make more rigorous the provisions of Government Amendment 41, and I therefore hope that she will withdraw her amendment.
Baroness BIRK: I thought that my noble friend Lady David clearly explained this amendment. This is not a matter of principle at all. It is a matter of our believing that it does the job that the Government have said they want their amendment to do, but it ties it even more
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tightly. I would ask the noble Lord and his noble friend to take this back and look at it. The noble Lord said that he had only just had a chance to see the amendment and to see the advice on it. I agree that it was tabled only on Friday. Therefore, I cannot see that anything is going to be lost—and there may be quite a bit gained—on this particular point if this is taken back and looked at. On the objective in this narrow area, evidently we are in agreement to make it as tight as possible. This, as my noble friend quoted, was said in another place also. To me, it looks as though our words:
"is entitled or is treated as being entitled"
are tighter than
"to be left outstanding".
All that we are discussing is which is the tighter drafting. With respect, I submit that the amendment to the new clause is the tighter piece of drafting and I would ask the Minister to take it back.
Lord BELLWIN: I do not think we can take it away in the manner that the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, suggests. On the face of it, there seems to be no reason to do that. Having said that, I will undertake to look at it and if there is any cause for special concern—or if the noble Baroness would care to discuss it later with me and anything transpires from that —we will deal with it in that way.
Baroness DAVID: Having listened to what has been said, including what the Minister said, I am quite willing to withdraw this amendment on the understanding that we shall have some further information. If not, we may come back on Report.
Amendment to the amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.30 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 13, line 34, leave out ("(2)(b") and insert ("(3A)(c)").
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this amendment with Amendment No. 35. I beg to move.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Baroness Wootton of Abinger): The next amendment is No. 43. I have to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that if Amendment No. 43 is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 44.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 43:
Page 13, line 36, leave out from ("transaction") to ("that") in line 37.
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this amendment when I moved Amendment No. 35. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: This is all so complicated. It seems to me that that wording has nothing to do with the other amendment but I am sure that it must be so and I accept that. Speaking on this, with the leave of the Committee, I shall speak to Amendment No. 44 because I am not quite sure what Amendment No. 43 means. The point of Amendment No. 44 is to reduce the time that the option can be held, from two years to six months. This really does more than any of the amendments—even Amendment No. 41 with its amendment—to make sure that an option is granted only in order to help people over a very short, bridging period. In those circumstances, it could be argued that an option was just about feasible because it would take about six months for people to organise themselves, for the conveyance to be carried out and for everything to be done to enable the purchase to go forward.
What it does not do is to allow people to have what is a lengthy period of time which we discussed on a previous amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. It is a practical matter and quite frankly reduces the time of the option almost down to a minimum. If, as the Government say, it is to help people along the way a bit but not take it as far as they would like it to go, to an extent however that we feel would be quite wrong in the circumstances, then the six months is about the only other alternative which I would have thought could be considered at all viable in the whole context of buying discounts and options. Therefore, I hope that the Government will certainly look on this with a more kindly glance than they looked on the
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other amendment which was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton.
Lord BELLWIN: This is probably the third time that we have spoken on this matter in the Bill. I have tremendous sympathy with the noble Baroness in the difficulty of finding a way round the various amendments, and so on. I do not think that we are going to be able to help her very much here. There are one or two points that I ought to make clearer than I may have done before when discussing this whole subject. The option procedure is a tightly drawn provision. It will only be available in limited circumstances—that is, where a tenant's mortgage entitlement would not enable him to buy immediately. I do not think that it has been said before but a prospective purchaser has to be able to show that he cannot buy immediately. It is not simply good enough to say, "I do not want to buy immediately".
I do not want to repeat what I said before on this; that would be wasting the time of the Committee. But, as to the life of the option, it must be long enough to fulfil its purpose: that the tenant should know in advance the price at which he can buy while he saves the money to do so. It would not help to reiterate some of the basic philosophical arguments and points about past commitments that I have before me. We are all aware of those. It is a fact that when this whole proposal was first mooted—and it was done by the now Secretary of State in a speech made at around the time of the election—we were referring to two or three years as the period. So if it is any comfort to the noble Baroness—and I am sure it is not—it is two years that we are talking about and not three. I suppose that everything is relative.
I say again that the option procedure is an integral part of the right to buy, as we see it. We believe that a period shorter than two years would be too short to make the option of any benefit, given that some time will elapse from a tenant's initial application to the date at which it becomes clear that he may have the option to complete at the fixed price within two years. I am sorry that I cannot go further than that.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: I see this is again going back to the question

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of the mandate and the manifesto. Like other noble Lords, I am getting confused with the plethora of amendments. May I inquire why, if the matter is being left at two years between the date of wishing to have the purchase and then completing under the option, there should not be a revaluation? The way inflation is "steaming" away, and is expected to do so, certainly in the housing sector, why will not the Government say: "We insist on two years but if the person completes the purchase for which he has an option within the two year period there should be a revaluation of the value of the house"? The value will change materially in two years, I would have thought.
Lord HYLTON: I take the point that my noble friend is making about the grounds for having an option being tightly drawn. I accept that. It may be that six months is too short a period for the option to run. Equally, I feel that two years is too long. I am sorry that my noble friend was not able to be more forthcoming. I wonder whether there are some grounds for a compromise period here.
Lord BELLWIN: I have always been—and I hope I have shown in your Lordships' House and in Committee no less—a great lover of compromise where it is possible. I hope that I will continue to show that where it is possible. I fear, however, that I do not have the room to manoeuvre in this particular instance. I cannot help my noble friend.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: We now pass to Amendment No. 45. I have to point out that if Amendment No. 45 is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendments Nos. 46 or 47.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 45;
Page 13, line 40, leave out from ("transaction") to second ("the") in line 43 and insert ("but withdraws his notice claiming to exercise the right to buy or is, by virtue of subsection (4) above, deemed to have withdrawn it").
The noble Lord said: I spoke to Amendment No. 45 when I moved Amendment No. 35. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 48:
Page 13, line 44, at end insert—
("(5A) A tenant who is entitled to defer completion may, at any time before the service on him of a notice under subsection (2) above, serve a further notice under subsection (1) of section 12 and, if he does so, subsection (4) and (where applicable) subsection (5) of that section shall then apply accordingly.").
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this amendment with Amendment No. 35. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 49:
Page 14, line 1, leave out subsection (6).
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this amendment with Amendment No. 35, and I beg to move.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: Amendment No. 50: I have to point out that if this amendment is agreed to it will not be possible to move Amendment No. 51.
5.40 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON moved Amendment No. 50:
Page 14, line 13, leave out subsection (8).
The noble Lord said: I should be grateful if your Lordships would be willing to consider Amendments Nos. 50 and 51 together. It may sound a technical lawyer's point—the question of how important the completion of a purchase is when used against a landlord—but in the normal practice of completing transactions for the sale of property, where a court makes an order that the person shall complete a contract for the sale of land, it is done by ordering completion to be done by a method known as "specific performance" and not by injunction, as this subsection proposes.
There is a very important practical difference. If the normal conveyancing procedure were followed in this Bill and completion was enforced on a vendor by the system of specific performance, a court official would then execute the conveyance as "specific performance"

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and the landlord would be overtaken by the court order and the court officials signing the conveyance, and the transaction would be completed.
It seems to me that by going for the unusual procedure—certainly extremely unusual in the world of conveyancing—where you use the system of injunction the penalty for disobeying an injunction is imprisonment. It seems rather an extreme way of dealing with a conveyancing transaction that a vendor of any kind, whether it be a local authority or otherwise, should be committed to prison for refusing to complete.
From a practical point of view—and perhaps this is the most important point with regard to this amendment—it would seem to me infinitely preferable to adopt the solution of a court order for specific performance, so that we would avoid the opportunities given to councillors in local authorities, if such councillors disagreed with the selling legislation, to make dramatic martyrdoms in public; because it seems to me that if an injunction is disobeyed there might be many councillors of certain political views considerably to the left of my own who may feel that it would be newsworthy and very spectacular to get themselves committed to prison, to demonstrate in a dramatic way their opposition to the provisions for sale. Therefore, what I am suggesting is, on the face of it, a technical amendment that specific performance is more usual than injunction, and also specific performance avoids the drama that disobedience to an injunction might bring. In considering these amendments, I have the option, first of all, of leaving out the subsection altogether; but I would prefer, if your Lordships will not leave out the subsection altogether, that the words "specific performance" should be substituted for "injunction", for the reasons I have given. I beg to move.
Lord JANNER: I should like to support this amendment as a person who for some 60 years has been in practice as a solicitor. I am bound to say that the noble Lord has given in very clear terms the reasons why his amendment should be accepted. It would be very unusual for anything in the course of a conveyancing transaction to impose at any time the penalty of imprisonment, and I hope the Government will realise that. It is not only unusual,
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but it could be exercised in a way which the noble Lord has already pointed out: it could be utilised for political purposes as well, and for committing a breach of the law. After all, the important thing is the law as it stands, whether or not we agree with all of it, and we know that breaches of it are very frequently utilised in order to bring public attention to matters which ought in other ways to have been aired. I hope that the noble Lord will realise this and, if I may say so with respect, will take the advice of those of us who are actually in practice, and have been in practice for years, to approve of this amendment.
5.44 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: As has been explained, these amendments are concerned with the case of a tenant who is exercising the right to buy and wants to complete the sale. As the noble Lord, Lord Evans, explained, the amendments are not compatible with each other: the second would amend what the first would leave out, but the effect of the first amendment would be that the Bill no longer explicitly gave a tenant a remedy through the courts if the landlord failed to complete the transfer of the dwelling-house to him as soon as the transaction was far enough advanced. It could cast doubt on the ability of the county court to entertain proceedings to enforce the statutory duty imposed on a landlord by Clause 15 of the Bill.
Once everything has been either agreed by the vendor and purchaser under the right to buy, Clause 15 places the landlord under an obligation to convey the freehold of the dwelling-house to him, if it is a house, or grant him a long lease, if it is a flat. It would be wrong to describe the purchaser as having a contract at that stage, because the procedure which we have adopted does not embody a formal contract step. On the other hand, once the purchaser reaches the stage envisaged in Clause 15 he will have reached a point at which it would clearly be appropriate for him to be given the power to enforce the transaction through the courts. That is what is achieved by Clause 15, and subsection (8) merely places it beyond doubt that the county court, which is the usual forum for proceedings under Chapter of the Bill, can exercise for this purpose

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a jurisdiction to grant an injunction to enforce this statutory duty.
Proceedings of this kind will no doubt be very rare. There must be few cases in which a vendor would not fulfil its statutory duty, having got so far, and of course the powers of the Secretary of State under Clause 22 would be available if it was considered that they were appropriate in any case. Nevertheless, the Government consider that it would be wrong not to make it clear that the individual can enforce the sale at this stage should he decide to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Evans, and the noble Lord, Lord Janner, both argued cogently that the Bill might encourage martyrs because imprisonment is the remedy for breach of an injunction. I have to say, however, that anyone who is determined enough to defy an order of a court, of whatever kind, may end up in prison at the end of the day. I hope that this will never happen as a result of this Bill. I find it very hard to think of a county council trying to bludgeon a small man into not buying his house. It would be quite wrong, in my view, to regard the danger to which the noble Lords have drawn attention as a pretext for incorporating what the Government do not consider to he an appropriate remedy in the Bill.
The second amendment would replace the remedy of injunction by that of specific performance. Specific performance is, as the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has reminded us, a remedy for the enforcement of contracts. But under Chapter I of the Bill, there is no contract between the parties, and specific performance would therefore be quite inappropriate.
The Bill provides, in Clause 5(3), that a tenant should be able to withdraw from his exercise of the right to buy at any time. A contractual commitment would inhibit that flexibility also, which enables a tenant to take a considered judgment as to whether to go on to take the responsibility of home ownership. Until the price and terms of sale and the amount of the mortgage are known, the tenant cannot finally decide. A contract before that stage would be premature but once the relevant matters have been agreed or determined, the parties can proceed
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directly to completion of the purchase without further formality or the tenant can, if he wishes, withdraw. This gives the tenant a right to buy rather than a duty to do so. A contract would, of course, bind both parties. Already local authorities such as the GLC have found it convenient to dispense with contracts when selling council houses to tenants. It gives greater flexibility.
The tenant has, as the Bill stands, an adequate legal means of enforcing completion when it is appropriate for him to do so. The first of these amendments would put him in a worse position, and the second is not considered to be an appropriate remedy to enforce a statutory duty. I hope that on further reflection the noble Lord will be able to withdraw these amendments.
5.51 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: I accept the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, with regard to my first amendment, No. 50. I agree that there probably needs to be some kind of sanction to ensure that a vendor carries out his commitment. I accept that. It had been my intention to say that I would then prefer that the second amendment, No. 51, should be considered. It is not quite that the noble Lord has taken me unawares, but he has put me in a position where I want to reconsider the position about injunctions and specific performance. I must reiterate with all the force I can that specific performance, if it could be applied, if it may be applied in some other way to this Bill, would be a neater and a tidier and a less messy procedure and certainly one that would not have the emotional implications of the remedies for failure to obey an injunction. I agree with the noble Lord. Like him, I hope this would never have to be used, or very rarely used.
I am not quite as optimistic as he is about the concept of the large local authority bullying the small individual purchaser, because there are many people, rightly or wrongly, in local government who hold very strongly the view that people should not have the right to purchase houses, and it may well be that people would seek this as a method to martyrdom. As I say, I do not think

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that would help either the cause that the Government want, or indeed the cause that those of us who are worried about some aspects of the right to sell, would want. All I can do, therefore, is beg leave to withdraw both these amendments at this time, reconsider them and possibly bring something else forward later on. On that basis, I beg to withdraw Amendment No. 50.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 51 not moved.]
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 52:
Page 14, line 17, at end insert ("and, if there is then a subtenancy, section 139 of the Law of Property Act 1925 shall apply as on a merger or surrender.")
The noble Lord said: This is a minor technical amendment. Clause 15(9) of the Bill provides that a purchaser's secure tenancy shall come to an end on the completion of his purchase under the right to buy. This amendment is designed to protect the position of any sub-tenancies which he may have granted before then. It provides for this by applying Section 139 of the Law of Property Act 1925. I beg to move.
Baroness PHILLIPS: I should like to make just one point. I did not think there were sub-tenancies in local authority housing.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Under this Bill, when we have enacted it, there will he sub-tenancies. It is merely a right to take in lodgers that we are talking about.
On Question, Whether Clause 15, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
5.55 p.m.
Lord STEWART of FULHAM: I wonder whether it would not be better for us to remove the clause from the Bill at this stage and give the Government time to think about putting in something a little more appropriate at a later stage. Already in the course of the discussion on this clause the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, has agreed to discuss certain matters with my noble friends on the Front Bench.
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It was very right and courteous of him to do that, but the reason he did it was that on some points neither of us can be quite certain what the clause actually means. As has been pointed out to us from the Liberal Benches, we have a choice between either having provisions in the Bill that may result in people going to prison—with the prisons as overcrowded as they are at present—or there may be no way of enforcing the law at all. Here, again, we should gain from further consideration of the Bill by the Government.
Then we add to those lesser points the fact that the Bill has again the disquieting suggestion of a lottery about it. It means that if one purchases this option for £100 and it is to be for two years and not six months, the thing one is buying may have increased in money value by 40 per cent. in that period. It is a remarkable privilege one gets. Apparently it is not to be open to the public in general. It will be a piece of luck who gets this and who does not.
The Government have insisted throughout the argument that this is meant to help people who are in the unfortunate position of being nearly, but not quite, able to buy the house with the help of a mortgage. That is our understanding; it has been the Government's argument. If that was so one would have much sympathy with it. At one stage the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, said that it will not be enough for the man to say that he cannot complete; he has got to show that he cannot. I wonder—I will give way if the noble Lord can help me—whether he will tell me where in Clause 15 the proposed purchaser is put under the obligation to prove or to come near to proving that he cannot complete.
Lord BELLWIN: The way in which it will become clear that a purchaser is unable to buy at once is as follows. The amount of mortgage entitlement of the purchaser will be calculated under the Clause 9 regulation. Where the amount which emerges turns out to be below the price which he is going to have to pay then, and only then, will he get his option to complete later. Otherwise, if he wants to complete, he must do so as soon as everything is clear.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: May I put a point? I am a little concerned because

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there is obvious difficulty in understanding. As the noble Lord opposite rightly said, all this is a pillar of cloud. Under subsection (1), a tenant's notice may be withdrawn at any time by notice in writing served on the landlord. There are no sanctions whatsoever there. I am concerned with a third point. We are offering a bonanza. It has been pointed out from the Liberal Benches that the spiral of inflation is going on. So Davies of Leek may consider that some of his family ought to go into this buying of council houses racket and I may struggle with a little bit of wire pulling to get some of my family in council houses. What is in the Bill to stop anybody running that kind of racket? Nothing whatsoever. The Government have opened up such a bonanza that they will not know how to deal with it. I suggest that the clause better be taken back and a good look taken at the entire Bill.
Lord JANNER: There is one point in particular on which I should like to have some explanation. We are told that the matter will depend upon whether a person is in a position to purchase or whether help should be given to him. I would like to know how an inquiry is going to be made as to the position of an individual; how far his private affairs are going to be probed into. Are these people going to have the right to serve a subpoena on the bank or whoever else may be concerned? The noble Lord may think me very ignorant about this. The Government are in fact going to assess the position of an individual and I would like to know, if I may, how it is proposed to make that assessment, who will make it, and what rights these people will have in order to probe.
Lord STEWART of FULHAM: The interventions that my noble friends have made indicate that there is a great deal of difficulty about this. I have again been studying Clause 9, to which the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, referred me. Clause 9 deals with the amount of mortgage to which a person is entitled, but it does not give an entirely clear answer. The amount is set out in subsection (1). Then subsection (2) states:
"The amount mentioned in subsection (1) above is subject to the limit that it does not
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exceed the amount to be taken into account, in accordance with regulations under this section"—
we have not seen the regulations—
"as the tenant's available annual income multiplied by such factor as, under the regulations, is appropriate to it".
We do not have the regulations, so it is not crystal clear from Clause 9 what mortgage the tenant will be entitled to. But, even if it were, surely the person we are talking about is somebody who wants to buy a house, has to pay a given price for it, is entitled under Clause 9 to a certain amount on mortgage and is, or says he is, unable to meet the difference. At what stage is he required to prove that he cannot meet the difference? That question is still there and has not been answered. Therefore, it would help the Government and all of us if they took a deep breath and redrafted this clause althogether. For that reason, I suggest that at this stage we do not let it stand part of the Bill.
Lord HYLTON: Before my noble friend replies, I should like to ask him a very technical question of which I have given him notice, and it is this. Does subsection (7) of Clause 15 apply generally to all house purchasers, or does it apply only during the period of the option to those who are able to take advantage of the option?
Lord BELLWIN: May I, first, say that I hope that noble Lords opposite do not consider—I am sure that they do not—that because one is willing to take something away and have a look at it, that that automatically implies that one is dissatisfied. It is one of the courtesies of the House to consider something which is raised, which it might be useful to do, or to see whether there is a case for looking again. So although, as I said earlier to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, it would be helpful to give more information or to give a better explanation—which one would always want to be doing—it should not be concluded that one was unhappy with the whole of a clause.
I am sure that that is not what the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, meant, anyhow, when he referred to this being a lack of option. I do not accept that either. Nor do I accept that there is no way of enforcing the clause. I am sure that there is. What we ought to be doing is ensuring that we have the best way.

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The noble Lord, Lord Evans, made an interesting point about specific performance. I am not sure how far it gets us down the road, in one way as against another, but one certainly ought to think about it, which we will do. I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, had not used the word "racket "when talking about buying council houses. In no way is it a racket. It is exactly the opposite and I am sure, knowing the noble Lord, that he did not mean that.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: I did not. But it could become a racket.
Lord BELLWIN: He talked about getting some of his friends into council houses, but if he could do that easily he would be destroying his own earlier argument that it is a difficult thing to do. But, even more important, I should have to remind him that, even if they were in, they would have to wait three years and after that time they might not be so enthusiastic as the noble Lord suggested.
The noble Lord, Lord Janner, asked how one assesses entitlement or otherwise to an option. I have to refer him to the point I made to the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, and I do not necessarily disagree with the point that he made. I referred him to Clause 9 and what flows from that. Yes, it is indeed a very complex point, but that does not mean that it is necessarily bad or wrong. It may mean that it requires more clarification, and that we will look at. But that is a whole world away from taking out the clause, which we clearly could not do.
As to the point which my noble friend Lord Hylton raised, he always catches me on the hop. Perhaps he could just remind me. One tries to jot down these things at a rapid rate—
Lord HYLTON: My point was about subsection (7) of this clause, and failure to pay rent.
Lord BELLWIN: The intention of this subsection is to allow the tenant to delay purchase by up to two years, but only where his mortgage entitlement under this chapter is insufficient. During that period of two years, he may purchase at a price based on the valuation at the relevant time as defined in Clause 3(5). That is the date on which a tenant served notice
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under Clause 5, or the date of enactment of the Bill if his notice was served within six months of the commencement of Part I of the Bill. The discount would be made that to which he was entitled by virtue of Clause 7. In other words, the price would be unaltered by any change in value after the relevant time, nor would the discount be increased on account of the tenant having remained a tenant.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Before the noble Lord sits down, can he answer a fairly simple question? Who determines whether or not a person can afford to pay this? The noble Lord has referred to a formula. We cannot work that out, because that depends on the regulations and the Government have not published them. But there is evidently a gap. So who determines? Does the tenant determine that he cannot meet the obligations, or is it the housing authority? If it is the housing authority, is there any appeal?
Lord BELLWIN: Once the regulations are clearly made and laid down, there will be no difficulty. Everyone will be able to see what they comprise, and when a tenant who is applying wishes to get the information it will be made available to him. Once he knows what it is, he can then make the decision.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Yes, but that means that it is the tenant who makes the decision?
Lord BELLWIN: No, not necessarily. If the terms that are laid down in the regulations are ones which he cannot fulfill, then he knows what the position is. But once they are there for everyone to see, it will not be a question of who decides. That is what they will be and it is as simple as that. In this Bill, we are trying to make it as clear as possible, so that everyone knows his entitlements, rights and limitations. I readily agree that this is a very complex matter. The noble Lord, Lord Stewart, suggested that we might look to see whether the wording could be made clearer, and I said that one should always do that. I do not think we can go much further.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: The only bit further that the Minister can go is to give an indication of what the regulations contain. We are near enough to the end

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of the Bill for the Government to have their minds made up as to what the regulations will be, and on that basis we shall have some elucidation about the responsibilities that will fall upon a tenant. I come back to my original question. Is it the tenant who decides that he cannot afford and, therefore, applies for the option?
Lord BELLWIN: No, it is neither the tenant nor the landlord. It is the facts as they will be which will decide the issue. The noble Lord asked whether I would take this away. I have already said to the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, that, No, I cannot do that. But everything that has been said here will be considered very carefully, to see whether we can provide greater clarification or improvement. That is one of the reasons why these Bills come to your Lordships' House.
Baroness BIRK: The Minister said just now that the object was to make the Bill as clear as it could be. He could have fooled me. I thought the object must be the reverse. It is so obscure and its density is so great. We now have a situation in which those of us on this side of the Committee—and I suspect that this applies to other Members of the Committee as well—feel very strongly about the principle of the option scheme.
In addition, the Minister has been unable to show that what he is arguing for is in the Bill. He has argued all the way through that the option scheme is not in order to give people a treat or a bonanza but to help those who may need extra help over a short period of time to find that extra bit of money with which to buy a house. The Minister has very great experience—I am not criticising his intelligence or intellect—but he has been quite unable to put a finger on any sentence in the Bill which says specifically that this is the way in which this is going to be judged. Is the reason that
there is going to be a means test and the Government do not want to say so? Or is it that it is all to be left in the clouds and that at the end of the day anybody who wants it will get the two-year option?
In answer to an earlier amendment moved by my noble friend Lady David, the Minister said, and repeated it to my noble friend Lord Ross of Marnock, that all this will be in the regulations. As my noble friend Lord Ross of Marnock quite rightly said, although we have got to this stage of the Bill there are no draft regulations and we do not even know what will be in them.
In this Bill there are about 18 occasions where the Secretary of State has almost absolute power. It would be quite wrong not only for this side of the Committee but for the Committee as a whole to let this clause stand part of the Bill in the condition it is in at the moment. Therefore, we shall not be able to allow Clause 15 to stand part of the Bill.
Lord HYLTON: Before my noble friend the Minister says anything further, or before we take a vote, he gave me a very interesting reply to the question I put to him. I have the greatest sympathy for him but I do not think it was a reply to my question. I was trying to discover whether a tenant who is in arrears with his rent can exercise the right to buy at all. I realise from subsection (7) of Clause 15 that he cannot exercise his right to buy if he is in arrears during the option period.
Lord BELLWIN: I confirm that that is so. In those circumstances, a tenant cannot exercise the right to buy.
6.13 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 15. as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 96; Not-Contents, 72.

CONTENTS

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Blake, L.

De Freyne, L.

Allerton, L.

Campbell of Croy, L,

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Alport, L.

Cathcart, E.

Derwent, L.

Amory, V.

Chelwood, L.

Digby, L.

Ampthill, L.

Cockfield, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Auckland, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Dundee, E.

Bellwin, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Belstead, L.

Davidson, V.

Elles, B.

Bessborough, E.

de Clifford, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Exeter, M.

Kemsley, V.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Kilmany, L.

Redmayne, L.

Faithfull, B.

Kinloss, Ly.

Reigate, L.

Fortescue, E.

Long, V.

Rochdale, V.

Gage, V.

Loudoun, C.

Sandford, L.

Gainford, L.

Lyell, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Gibson-Watt, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Sempill, Ly.

Gisborough, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Sharples, B.

Glenkinglas, L.

Mancroft, L.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Gowrie, E.

Marley, L.

Spens, L.

Grantchester, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Stamp, L.

Greenway, L.

Monckton of Brenchley, V.

Strathclyde, L.

Gridley, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Mottistone, L.

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

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Stathspey, L.

Moyne, L.

Swinfen, L.

Hanworth, V.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Swinton, E.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Newall, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Hawke, L.

Northchurch, B.

Tryon,L.

Henley, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Orkney, E.

Vickers, B.

Hood, V.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Vivian, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Pender, L.

Young, B.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Penrhyn, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Diamond, D.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Amherst, E.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Maelor, L.

Amulree, L.

Evans of Claughton, L,

Monson, L.

Ardwick, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B

Noel-Baker. L.

Aylestone, L.

Fulton, L.

Peart, L.

Bacon, B.

Gaitskell, B.

Phillips, B.

Balogh, L.

Gifford, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Banks, L.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Barrington, V.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Beswick, L.

Gosford, E.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Birk, B.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Seear, B.

Blease, L.

Hale, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Blyton, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Simon, V.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Henderson, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Brockway, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Caradon, L.

Jacques, L.

Underhill, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Janner, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Collison, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Craigavon, V.

Leatherland, L.

Wigoder, L,

David, B.

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

Winstanley, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B. [Teller.]

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Denington, B.

Longford, E.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Clause 15, as amended, agreed to accordingly.
Clause 16 agreed to.
6.20 p.m.
Baroness DENINGTON Baroness DENINGTON moved Amendment No. 53:
After Clause 16, insert the following new clause:
(Protection of old persons' dwellings
.—(1) Where a conveyance or grant executed in pursuance of this Chapter is of a dwellinghouse being one of a group where the dwellings were identified on the submitted plan approved by the Department of the Environ-
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ment (or its predecessor) as old persons dwellings and which it is the practice of the landlord to let for occupation by persons of pensionable age, and has been designed or specially adapted for that purpose, the conveyance or grant shall contain a right of pre-emption precluding a disposal of the dwelling-house falling within subsection (2) below for a period of ten years beginning with the conveyance of grant unless the owner for the time being has first offered to sell the dwelling-house to the landlord with vacant possession and the landlord has refused the offer or has failed to accept it within one month after it is made, the price (subject to subsection (4) below) to be the price which, at that time, the dwellinghouse would realise if sold on the open market by a willing Vendor and which shall be determined by agreement between the parties but in default of such agreement which shall be determined by the District Valuer whose determination of such

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price shall be conclusive and not be capable of being questioned in any proceedings.
(2) A disposal falls within this subsection if it is—

(a) a further conveyance of the freehold or an assignment of the lease; or

(b) the grant of lease or sub-lease for a term of more than 21 years otherwise than at a rack rent;

whether the disposal is of the whole or part of the dwellinghouse; but neither a disposal in pursuance of an order under section 24 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 nor a vesting in a person taking under a will or an intestacy is a disposal falling within this subsection.
(3) The reference in subsection (2) above to a lease or sub-lease does not include a mortgage term.
(4) Where a dwellinghouse falling within this section is sold by the landlord at a discount, the pre-emption right contained in the conveyance or grant shall provide that on the first occasion of a disposal falling within sub-section (2) above which takes place within a period of five years from the date of the conveyance or grant, the purchase price payable on the exercise of the right shall be reduced by the amount specified in subsection (5) below.
(5) The amount by which the purchase price payable on the exercise of the pre-emption right is to be reduced in the circumstances mentioned in subsection (4) above shall be an amount equal to the discount to which the secure tenant was entitled on the sale by the landlord but reduced by 20 per cent. of that discount for each complete year which has elapsed between the date of the conveyance or grant and the date of purchase under the pre-emption right.
(6) Nothing in this section shall affect the operation of section 8 of this Act in relation to dwellinghouses to which this section applies.
(7) The pre-emption right referred to in this section shall be a local land charge and the Chief Land Registrar shall enter the appropriate restriction on the register of title as if application therefor had been made under section 58 of the Land Registration Act 1925. ").
The noble Baroness said: Following the undertaking that was given last Thursday by the Minister, on this question that concerns us on all sides of the Committee, dealing with the sales of old people's dwellings, some of my noble friends would be grateful if the Minister would repeat his undertaking. We are not quite clear what it was. Is he going to bring forward another clause, or is he going to wait until Report stage? If the Minister can make that clear, it will be helpful. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. We had a long and really quite fascinating debate on this
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whole matter last time on the amendments raised by my noble friend Lord Hylton, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, also spoke, and points were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Evans. I then said that, as a result of what had been said and also as a result of some of the points which I myself made, I would take the matter away to be considered and that I felt it was most likely that we should want to do something about it. I am not quite sure of the best timing but I have already discussed it with my ministerial colleagues and they are now looking at the best and most practical ways of doing it. No doubt conversations will be taking place shortly, but certainly we hope before Report stage to be in a position to do something. If that satisfies the noble Baroness and other Members of the Committee that will be an end to it; if it does not, then presumably we shall have to look at it in another way. But I hope to be able to give notice of what we intend to do in good time so that all concerned will be able to make their decisions accordingly.
Baroness DENINGTON: I thank the Minister and I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 54 not moved.]
Schedule 2 [Conveyance of freehold and grant of lease]:
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 55:
Page 96, line 11, after ("water") insert ("sewage").
The noble Lord said: This is a minor but necessary amendment. Its nature is such that I must choose my words with great care. Schedule 2 provides how the conveyance or grant of a lease under the right to buy shall have effect on rights of support, passage of water and so on. It is necessary to protect both the rights of the purchaser and the owners of neighbouring property in relation to easements and rights over the property being bought and over adjoining property. As drafted the schedule covers water, smoke or fumes but, alas, it does not deal with such easements and rights for

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the passage of sewage. This amendment is, therefore, necessary to ensure that they are included. I beg to move.
Lord MONSON Lord MONSON moved Amendment No. 56;
Page 98, line 17, leave out ("£10 per annum") and insert—
("£25 per annum for the first 25 years of the term
£50 per annum for the second 25 years of the term
£100 per annum for the third 25 years of the term
£200 per annum for the fourth 25 years of the term
£400 per annum for the final 25 years of the term").
The noble Lord said: I do not want to spend too much time on this amendment because we discussed a similar one at a previous sitting of the Committee, although it must be said that because of the lateness of the hour on that occasion the Committee was decidedly on the thin side. I pointed out then that, because of the absence of any provision which would allow local authorities to levy a service charge upon lessees where a local authority flat had been sold on a 125 year lease, it was imperative that the ground rent should be set at a figure which would both cover the local authority's minimum costs at the outset (and by that I mean the costs relating to insurance, maintenance of the structure and of the communal parts and administration) and additionally give the landlord authorities some minimal protection against inflation. I pointed out then that £10 would hardly cover the insurance premium alone, let alone the other items mentioned, and that a grant of at least £25 would be needed for this purpose, which would need to be maintained in real terms. That £25 of course was based on the most optimistic expectations of repair costs.
It seems an opportune moment to put right a wrong impression which I may have given to the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin. Whether because of the excitement of the moment or the lateness of the hour, I regret that I made a factual error in inadvertently moving a decimal point further to the left than it should have been by asserting that with inflation at 3 per cent. £10 would be worth only one quarter of a penny in 125 years' time. In fact, with inflation at 3 per cent. £10 would be
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worth fully 2p in 125 years' time; it would require inflation at almost 7 per cent. for the £10 to be reduced to one quarter of a penny. However, at 10 per cent. inflation the value of £10 would be reduced to one fifteen-hundredth of a penny and I am sure that most noble Lords would put their money on inflation being rather nearer 7 or even 10 per cent. than 3 per cent. over that period. The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, agreed to look into this matter, but in, view of the extremely serious financial implications for local authorities if nothing is done I ask for his confirmation that the Government will take this point seriously before the next stage of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: When we were dealing with Amendment No. 16 I think I said then that so far as I was concerned I was also speaking to Amendment No. 56. I should like to reiterate one point which I think to some extent at least should assuage the fears of the noble Lord, Lord Monson; namely, that a service charge will be possible on sales and the right to buy. In any case, the Bill provides for the tenants of flats to buy a long lease under the right to buy rather than the freehold, and the reason for that is that, under the law as it stands, long leasehold sales offer the most convenient way of making arrangements for dealing with such matters as the provision of services and obligations to repair.
The existence of the ground rent is in fact an incidental element of arranging matters in this way. It is not designed to secure a continuing income for the ground landlord but merely to represent in a token way his continuing interest in the land. Therefore, I see no reason to make specific allowance for inflation, as the amendment would do, or to try to maintain the true value of the ground rent. However, I did say before, and I gladly repeat it, that the noble Lord made one or two quite fascinating points last time which I said we would look at carefully. I said that I felt sure there was a snag in it somewhere, but I did not spot it then and I have not spotted it now, but we shall no doubt be looking at it in due course.
Lord MONSON: I am most heartened by the noble Lord's assurance, but can he tell the Committee exactly where in the Bill, which clause or which schedule, the

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provision for local authorities to levy a service charge is to be found, because I have not been able to find it? Schedule 18 refers to service charges, but it has nothing to do with local authorities.
Lord BELLWIN: This is something on which I will undertake to come back to the noble Lord, as I will on the point he has raised. I think that is probably the best way to deal with it.
Lord MONSON: With that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 17 [Right to a mortgage—terms of mortgage deed]:
6.31 p.m.
Lord HYLTON Lord HYLTON moved Amendment No. 57:
Page 14, line 29, leave out from ("period") to ("and") in line 30.
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 57 and at the same time to speak to Amendment No. 58. These are both probing amendments and I am seeking to discover why an extension of the mortgage period is considered necessary, how it will be done by the mortgagee, and if it can be done by the mortgagee why it cannot also be done by the mortgagor, for instance, if interest rates rise and the person with the mortgage wishes to extend the period. I should also like to ask why at all points it is written into the Bill that all mortgages must start off on a 25-year term, neither more nor less. I should have thought it might have suited some fairly young purchasers to begin with a slightly longer term. The Bill does not seem to give any flexiblity in that respect.
I come on to Amendment No. 58. I should like to ask why the Secretary of State should need to have power to vary the provisions of the Act. For whose benefit will he want to vary them and in what kind of ways might he wish to make variations?
Lord BELLWIN: These amendments would considerably reduce the flexibility
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which Clause 17 provides at present in the possible terms of the mortgage deed to be granted under the right to a mortgage. The first of the amendments would remove the facility for the mortgagee to extend the normal term of 25 years. The mortgagee may want to extend the terms of the mortgage, for example, to deal with the case where the mortgagor found at some time after buying that his long-term income prospects were reduced, or where interest rates rose and extension of the repayment period would prevent default. The amendment would remove the scope for mortgagees to act humanely in difficult circumstances. It would remove a power that there is no reason to expect to be abused by local authorities.
The second amendment would remove the provision which enables the Secretary of State to vary the terms specified in paragraphs (a) and (b). I believe this is important since it is quite conceivable that experience will show it to be appropriate to vary or add to the terms included in all deeds drawn up when tenants exercise the right to a mortgage. The noble Lord is worried that this may give the Secretary of State unfairly wide powers to impose variations in the terms of mortgage deeds on tenants. However, I believe his fears are unfounded. An order under Clause 17 would affect only deeds executed after it came into force, and a tenant would always, therefore, be aware of the terms of the mortgage deed he was being offered. There is no question of retrospection. I hope that this explanation satisfies the queries which my noble friend raises.
Baroness FISHER of REDNAL: Perhaps the noble Lord can explain this. Is there anything in Clause 17 which would be a change? If the tenant was going to make the purchase through a building society and not claiming the mortgage through the local authority, would it be a similar facility? In other words, is the Secretary of State really taking a similar line to what a building Society would be doing if it was offering the mortgage instead of the local authority?
Lord BELLWIN: To the best of my knowledge, I think the answer is, No.
Lord HYLTON: I am slightly surprised at the last "no" from my noble friend,

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because I gathered from his previous reply to my amendment that it was envisaged in the Bill that the lender—that is to say, the local authority—would take into account the interests of the borrower. Let me give an example. Supposing a borrower who is in work and earns a wage or salary becomes unemployed, then I would have expected from what the noble Lord said that the lender would perhaps charge interest only during a relatively short period of unemployment. Is this not the case?
Lord BELLWIN: I understood that the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, was asking whether there would be a difference between the two, and it was to that that I said, "To the best of my knowledge, no".
Baroness FISHER of REDNAL: That was the question that I did ask.
Lord HYLTON: It may be that I misinterpreted things. I will certainly study what has been said very carefully. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 58 not moved.]
Clause 17 agreed to.
6.37 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON moved Amendment No. 59:
After Clause 17, insert the following new clause:
"Exceptions to right to buy
( . The right to buy shall not be exercisable where the dwelling-house is:

(a) situated in a National Park; or

(b) situated in an area designated under section 87 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 as an area of outstanding natural beauty; or

(c) situated in an area in Wales designated by an order of the Secretary of State as a rural area; or

(d) situated in the area of a Housing Authority where 25 per cent. or less of the housing stock is owned by that authority; or

(e) situated in a Housing Action Area within the meaning of the Housing Act 1974").

The noble Lord said: I beg to move the amendment standing in my name, and in order to avoid some doubt or concern of some noble Lords, the fact
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that on page 12 of the Marshalled List I put down an amendment to leave out Clause 18 was not because I thought that the present Clause 18 is not preferable to no clause at all, but that my clause, which I want to put in after Clause 17, is preferable to the limited rights of sale and pre-emption put into the Bill at Clause 18. This was discussed at some length on Thursday evening in a different context under Schedule 1.
The reason I want to pursue this is that I think it is of very great importance to a very large number of people who are concerned about the quality of life in rural areas and are concerned about the maintenance of a stock of property available for rent in areas of natural beauty or national parks. Therefore, I do not hesitate to rehearse the matter again to your Lordships, because I think there is a very serious danger indeed that the very small stock of local authority property in many parts of the country would, under the Government's provision in Clause 18, not be adequately protected against loss.
I think your Lordships hardly need to be told the prices which houses in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty fetch, which are quite outside the financial resources of many of the fairly lowly-paid people who work in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. Your Lordships will have had plenty of experience, from reading the newspapers, of the bitterness and frustration that does exist, particularly in parts of Wales, about the second home problem, and indeed in other parts of the country, but perhaps in a less dramatic form.
I was in Wales at the weekend recovering from Thursday or possibly preparing myself for this week. It was quite apparent to me from going about parts of North Wales that there is very genuine concern—and I am sure that this is a concern which other noble Lords have experienced—about the very small available stock of council properties being sucked away and replaced with either second homes or by people living in them who have much higher incomes than the very badly paid people, particularly in areas of North Wales. Therefore, it seems to me that we should have a total ban on the sale of the stock in national parks and areas of outstanding beauty

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and areas designated in Wales as rural areas. Indeed, that takes care of paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of my amendment.
Paragraph (d) of my amendment concerns a matter which I mentioned on Second Reading. There is in many areas such a small stock of rented housing accommodation in the public sector that even an occasional sale, even the odd selling off of one or two properties belonging to the local authority, might completely destroy the balance of many villages and small towns in the rural areas of this country. Again, it is a matter which has been drawn to my attention and which one sees almost every day of the week in the holiday season which is now upon us. Whole villages and small towns are being virtually populated by second home owners and people who do not spend most of their lives in the area and who certainly do not bring up their children in the area. If a housing authority with a very small stock of houses were to sell those houses it would completely destroy the very delicate balance of the neighbourhood. That accounts for paragraph (d).
Finally, I turn to paragraph (e), which is a rather different concept; namely, that in a housing action area the most important thing in my experience (and I have a fair amount of experience as a councillor, as a member of a housing association, and of housing action areas) is that if you cannot so organise the housing action area that the improvements can be carried out en masse and the people can be decanted temporarily into other accommodation before coming back; if you do not have control as it were, in the form of rented accommodation so that the housing association, local authority, or whatever body'it is, can decant the people temporarily and bring them back; if you have owner-occupiers in a housing action area then, under the present law, as I see it and from my experience of housing associations, you cannot take on an agency for an owner-occupier. Therefore, in a housing action area you would have, if the amendment is not passed, perhaps two dozen terraced houses all being improved and the odd one standing out which had not been improved, modernised or brought up to date. It would therefore take much of the value away from the housing action areas created by the Housing Act 1974
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which have been, to those involved in inner urban areas, of great value to the communities there. That is why I have added paragraph (e) to my amendment.
These are very important matters about which there has been a great deal of correspondence and discussion in the past months and in the other place. Therefore, I believe that, despite the discussions we had on Thursday, it is important that these matters should be debated again, and that the additional matters which I have added in paragraphs (d) and (e) should also be considered. I beg to move.
6.45 p.m.
Viscount GAGE: I was for many years President of the National Federation of Housing Associations. For that reason, and as I very rarely bother your Lordships, perhaps I may be allowed to make one or two general comments before coming to this particular amendment, although everything that I say will be connected with the amendment.
When I went around to different associations I found, among other things, that if, for example, there were 500 housing associations, 499 of them would be building houses efficiently and continuously. However, the most publicity that they were ever likely to receive was some reference in the local paper. Successful housing associations were not news. But, if one went wrong or if one did anything particularly dishonest, then that was news and it was well covered by the press, radio, television and so on. The result has been to cast doubt—particuarly in the minds of those people who do not know much about the matter—the whole housing movement. That is a great pity. I used to travel around and found that in nearly every case those engaged in building houses were very conscientious and straightforward. Indeed, they did build houses. A year ago they built 30,000, and this year, as my noble friend Lord Hylton said, that number had to be reduced. I think that they could build that number again. I think that they might well become a considerable supplier of rented accommodation and that might be, in the circumstances, somewhat important. Therefore, I feel that the Government and your Lordships would be right to give the housing associations the quite minor matters that are being requested in the amendments.

97
That is particularly true as regards the present amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has said, there is a great danger of rented accommodation becoming increasingly difficult to find. I am a loyal supporter of the Government as regards the idea of the right to sell, but in these special areas of outstanding natural beauty and in national parks I do not know that it will produce a great impetus for either local authorities or individual private owners to build for rent. It might be done by housing associations. I think that there is a chance that rural housing associations might be formed to produce this very much needed extra rented accommodation.
The trouble, as has been mentioned, is that in these areas—and I live in one, so I know about them—it is very difficult to get any form of planning consent for any new building. I think that it has been overdone. We do not want to turn rural villages into rural museums; but it would be possible to build if housing associations were given half the chance. I know that my noble friend Lord Bellwin has said that the right to buy ought not to be restricted. However, I am thinking of the future. I am talking about housing associations that I hope will be formed and as regards which obviously no right to buy exists at all at present. People will go into them knowing very well what they are facing. At present there is about one housing association for agricultural labourers. It would be good if they could be encouraged in that way, and to that extent I entirely support the noble Lord, Lord Evans.
Lord GIBSON-WATT: I hope that my noble friend will forgive me if I do not follow him in his argument about housing associations. But I certainly would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Evans, that the matter we are discussing is a delicate one in the Principality. However, I would not advise your Lordships to agree to the amendment and I shall try to explain why.
In my view, the Government's Clause 18, as it now stands, is definitely preferable to the new clause as proposed. The effect of the new clause would be to exempt from the provisions and benefits of the Bill a large number of householders in national parks and the other areas specified
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by the noble Lord, Lord Evans. As far as Wales is concerned, the five categories cover a fairly high percentage of those now living in council houses in Wales.
In my view, this would not be fair to them. The limitations imposed on resale in Clause 18 of the Bill are, in my view, adequate to safeguard these houses from exploitation and being bought by "outsiders", if your Lordships will forgive the word. Certainly there is a fear of outside invasion of such properties, as the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, said. But the reasonable anxieties of people in Wales have been adequately met by the Government. A council house so bought will only be available for sale to someone who has either worked in the area for three years or who has his or her main place of residence in such an area. Another objection to the new clause, as I see it, is that it would not help the sales of council houses in designated rural areas in England. This is not an occasion when Wales needs legislation different from that in England. We all remember what the Welsh people said on 1st March 1979; they said "No", and I hope that your Lordships will say "No" to this amendment.
6.51 p.m.
Lord SANDFORDI should like to follow my noble friend for a number of reasons, but chiefly in this connection because he and I were joint chairmen of the committee which reviewed the national parks, and, as I mentioned to the Committee last Thursday, this topic of how to deal with housing to let in national parks cropped up over and over again. If I may say so, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, made the case which he is now making very cogently last Thursday, at what I believe was the proper part of the Bill; namely, Schedule 1, which deals with the exceptions to the right to buy. I am afraid that I also thought that those of us who indicated our agreement with his concern but our difference with him about the way in which to meet it, also made our point cogently.
I very much agree with my noble friend that it is not appropriate to deprive large numbers of our people of what will become a very cherished right—this right to buy the council house in which one is living—

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in order to deal with the problem in national parks and the other areas mentioned in his amendment. I very much agree with my noble friend that the right way to deal with it is to give the local authority the power to recover the property after the right has been exercised and thus to maintain the housing stock.
I believe that the provisions in Clause 18 in respect of properties in rural areas deal with this matter correctly, as does the noble Lord's own amendment, Amendment No. 54, in respect of housing for the elderly. I do not see how he can consistently espouse an amendment, like Amendment No. 54, in respect of the elderly and at the same time twice seek to move an amendment which deals with it quite differently in respect of properties in rural areas. Therefore, having given this matter a second airing, I hope that the noble Lord will feel that he need not press it any further.
Lord HYLTON: From everything that has been said so far I cannot see any likelihood of my noble friend Lord Bellwin being able to accept this amendment. If I read it rightly, like my noble friend Lord Sandford, I am sure that he will rely very much on Clause 18. Therefore, I think that this is the appropriate moment for me to try to outline why I do not believe that Clause 18 will be good enough in all cases.
I accept that it may be sufficient in some cases, but I suggest that whether or not Clause 18 works will be very much a question of supply and demand for houses. I should like to give an instance from the Lake District National Park which covers a great part of Cumbria. Prices of houses within the national park boundaries are, I understand, twice as high as they are in the rest of the County of Cumbria. In any desirable area—whether it is a national park, an area of outstanding natural beauty or at the seaside—the pressure of demand will be highest where people want to have second homes and where they want to have retirement homes. That is the background that we need to have in mind in considering this amendment and this whole question.
In Clause 18 the Government rely on two possible strategies. The first is that
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of pre-emption and repurchase by the local authority of a house that has already been bought. We have not yet heard with any clarity how, in fact, this right of repurchase will work out in practice. How will the local authority bridge the gap—which may be a very large gap, a very big sum in monetary terms—between the initial sale price, which may often have been reduced both by discount and by the effects of the option scheme, and the full open market repurchase price after a period of five years or more? I suggest that this gap may be unbridgeable.
Then we come to the second strategy, which is the limitations on resale. Here, as far as I know, we have not yet had any definition of the criteria which the Secretary of State will take into account when defining rural areas. I should like to suggest that, again, even when we know the criteria, the whole question will be governed by supply and demand for houses in a particular area—it may be a very small area. If there is not much demand, there will be few purchasers qualified coming forward to buy when the first person wants to resell. If that is the case, we run the risk of doing an injustice to the vendor. If too many people qualified to buy come forward, then prices will rise and our object is, to some extent, defeated.
If all the council houses in a particular parish or district get sold off in the first place, when they come to be sold for the first time local people who have a need to live locally will have no chance of getting a house unless they happen to be rich enough to purchase at that time and in that place. If only half the previous stock of houses is sold, then those local people who can only rent will have a 50 per cent. chance compared with the chance they now have.
On Second Reading I thought that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle made an excellent plea for special treatment and, indeed, exemption from the right to buy for areas where the local authority at present owns less than 25 per cent. of the housing stock. That plea is taken up in paragraph (d) of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Evans. A great deal of play has been made of the number of bodies that are said to be satisfied. These include the Association of District Councils, with

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which my noble friend Lord Sandford is concerned, the NFU and perhaps even the Standing Conference on Rural Community Councils. But I wonder whether these bodies and the Government have thought through this question of supply and demand, which I submit will be quite critical. I should like to support the amendment.
Lord BELLWIN: First, I should like to deal with one or two of the points which the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, made. On the one hand, he said that the particular people living in many of these areas would not be able to buy. Then he called for a total ban on sales. With respect, I do not think that those two statements are consistent. If people will not be able to afford to buy, why have a ban on selling, on the right to buy? However, I suspect that, as always, what will happen is that there will be some who will want and some who will not want, either because they are not able or because they do not want. Then I should have to return to the point I made on the first day of the Committee stage when I said, All right, but what we are talking about is a right to buy". If they do not buy for any reason, then so be it; no one is making them buy.
This new clause would exclude from the right to buy all dwellings on whose resale a restriction could be imposed under Clause 18 of the Bill. Clause 18, as my noble friend Lord Gibson-Watt so rightly said—he hit the nail absolutely on the head when he talked about fairness to people and the likelihood of what will happen—allows certain safeguards to be imposed on sales under the right to buy in rural areas. These safeguards may be applied on dwelling-houses situated in national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and other rural areas designated as such by the Secretary of State.
There are two alternatives. First, where the landlord executing the conveyance or grant is a local authority, county council or the Development Board for Rural Wales, it may require a convenant in the conveyance or grant making it a condition of resale that the purchaser should have lived or worked for the previous three years in a region within which the national park, areas of outstanding natural
102
beauty or designated rural area wholly or partly falls. The Secretary of State has the power to designate these "catchment areas". When we reach Clause 18, I shall be bringing forward amendments to allow housing associations a similar discretion. I hope that that will perhaps be of comfort to my noble friend Lord Gage, who was understandably concerned about this matter but who I hope will feel happier when we come to those amendments.
As at present drafted, the Bill allows associations to include a covenant in the conveyance or grant to restrict resale by catchment area in this way only if the local authority within whose territory the dwelling is located requires it. Secondly, if the landlord is a local authority or the Development Board for Rural Wales, it may, subject to the consent of the Secretary of State, replace the restriction on resale by catchment area with a preemption condition giving it the right to buy back at market value if the purchasing tenant sells within 10 years. Again, we shall be proposing amendments later to give a similar alternative to all landlords. Housing associations, too, will need consent, but from the Housing Corporation rather than the Secretary of State.
In providing these safeguards on sales in rural areas we have struck a fair balance between the right of tenants, whether in the countryside or in a town, to buy their home, and the special, local circumstances with which some rural authorities have to deal. We simply cannot agree the exclusion from the right to buy of all those dwellings in the rural areas in which either pre-emption conditions or the restrictions on resale provided under Clause 18 could be imposed.
In the new clause the noble Lord, Lord Evans, also proposes that there should be no right to buy in the area of a local authority which owns less than 25 per cent. of the housing stock, or within housing action areas. Indeed, the point of 25 per cent. was touched on by my noble friend Lord Hylton. Twenty five per cent. is about the average proportion of the housing stock owned by local authorities. Before I say something about that figure, however, I should like to comment on the assumption that the noble Lord seems to be making that the sale of dwellings under the right to buy

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will have a significant adverse effect on the availability of dwellings for letting.
I am looking to see the exact words he used. He said that the sale of one or two houses could destroy the whole balance. I do not want to bring up again the debate we had earlier on this but I do not see that at all, because the people who buy them still go on living there. If they bought them, left the district, and they were then sold to outsiders coming in, then his point would be valid, but for the reasons we have repeated so many times already this is just not going to happen, and the safeguards coming under Clause 18 will make that even less likely to happen.
As to the new clause, it is interesting to note that of 366 local authorities which will be subject to the right to buy in England, 226 own less than 25 per cent. of the housing stock in their area. An exclusion such as the noble Lord proposes would therefore abolish the right to buy in almost two-thirds of the local authorities in England. I do not know whether the noble Lord is aware of this, but I feel I need say no more to show the Committee what an unacceptable effect this provision of the new clause would have.
The noble Lord, Lord Evans, then wanted to abolish the right to buy in housing action areas. But why does he assume that an owner-occupier would not want to improve his house in an housing action area?—especially as, under the proposals for grant, subsidies, and so on, we shall be making more facilities for grants available in housing action areas than has been the case hitherto. But even without that, so far as I am concerned, everything I have seen where sales have taken place, whether they be on council estates or especially in poorer areas or whatever, the people who buy their homes upgrade them and that in turn upgrades all those around them; just as, conversely, where you get an area where one or two people neglect their homes badly, then it tends to lower the standard in the area.
So, far from being concerned about sales in housing action areas, I would very much welcome them, perhaps almost as much as anywhere. That is aside entirely from the question of why we should
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disadvantage the people in the housing action areas. Why should they not have the same opportunities as people who may live in better areas? I am sure that that was not the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, but that is what the effect of the amendment would be.
I do not think I can add much more without going over old ground again, and I am anxious not to do that. I listened carefully, as always, to the points made by my noble friend Lord Hylton, one or two of which I have touched upon. He is concerned about the effect of supply and demand, and that by itself is valid enough except that we would always come back at the end of the day to the point I keep making all the time—namely, what happens when a sale takes place. What happens to the accommodation? What is the effect upon it thereafter? As I have said so many times, selling does not have the adverse effect that some have intimated. I believe that, apart from giving the benefit which it certainly does to the purchaser and his whole family, it also has other benefits as regards the whole area in which the houses are placed. For those reasons, I feel that we could not accept the amendment.
Viscount GAGE: Does what the noble Lord is going to say about Clause 18 contain any suggestions as to who is to build new rented accommodation in these areas of outstanding natural beauty? I made a suggestion, but nobody else has made any suggestion as to who is going to provide new rented accommodation in these special areas.
Lord BELLWIN: It would be up to the authority in each case to decide whether or not it wished to make such provision. That would be its option, if it felt that that was what it should do. I would have to come back to say that there would be no need to do so in my view—I know it is not a view held by noble Lords opposite—for the simple reason that a sale had been made, because when a sale is made the house just does not disappear at all, but if it should be that an authority feels that it ought to build new, then of course that is for it to decide.
Lord HYLTON: Just for clarity, perhaps I may say to my noble friend that I entirely agree with him that there is not a

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problem when the tenant first buys from the local authority. The problems will undoubtedly arise when that tenant who has bought resells.
7.8 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: Like the noble Lord, Lord Evans, I personally preferred Amendments Nos. 10 and 11, which were unfortunately lost when we voted on them last Thursday. I think, however, that this amendment, although it may have certain defects, is something that the Government should look at. I would hope, perhaps not very hopefully, that the Government would take it back to look at it.
The rural areas—I do not know whether it was error or not—should apply to England and Wales. I think the amendment has only Wales. I imagine that the noble Lord thinks it should apply to both. On the housing action areas, there again I prefer the original amendment on housing stress areas, but there is a case for making an exception there, and also for the percentage of stock. None of these things is perfect, as the Minister pointed out, and no doubt will do so in the future, but one has to try and find the best sort of arrangement one can.
I underline the point made by other noble Lords who have spoken on this subject. The problem comes when a local authority sells a house, even if it has the opportunity to buy it back; in this case it has that opportunity for 10 years, which I tried unsuccessfully to secure in another context. As I understand it, under Clause 18 there is no recovery of the discount gained by the original purchaser, so it seems that local authorities will be in a position where, in the majority of cases, the pre-emptive right will mean nothing at all—what is the use of having a right if you cannot exercise it? If, as has been explained, it is more than likely that house prices will rise, particularly in rural areas, local authorities will not be able to afford to buy the houses if they are for sale, even with the longer period of 10 years in which to exercise the right.
I would remind the Minister—we tend to forget this when we debate these issues—that all these things are discretionary. The local authority does not have to buy
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back a house that is offered to it; and as I said, even if it wants to, I do not think it will be able to afford to do so. In the way this is framed—indeed, in the way the original amendment was framed—the local authority will make up its own mind about whether it will sell a house. There may be houses in rural areas which authorities will be happy to sell, and of course the same applies to houses for the elderly. What so many of us object to—this applies not only to noble Lords on these Benches—is the mandatory effect of the rule on local authorities, which means that their hands are completely tied so that they are unable to take any discretionary action.
I will not go over what was said last Thursday about the autonomy of local authorities. A great deal of feeling exists in the Committee on this issue, particularly in respect of rural areas, and the Government should consider the amendment afresh, despite its defects, and, as the Minister has promised to do in regard to the elderly, at a later stage introduce an amendment which would meet some of the concern that has been expressed by noble Lords in all parts of the Committee.
Lord BELLWIN: It is precisely because there exists in the Committee the feeling of which the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, spoke, on this as much as in other areas; precisely because representations have been made by people concerned with the matter, who put their case in the way they did; and precisely because there is concern and agreement about the problems involved, that we are introducing amendments to Clause 18 which were not there originally. When one puts all of this into the context of the whole scene of what the Government are seeking to do, noble Lords should feel satisfied that we have gone all the way down the line to meet the fears which were expressed, fears which in my view are no longer what they might have been at one time.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: I have much sympathy with the point put forward by the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, and I had incorporated in a later amendment—which, I am happy to see, has been overtaken by a Government amendment—a provision to extend opportunities for housing associations to build because, I suspect, that they are the

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most likely, under the present dispensations, to be letting in the future in any part of the country. We have debated this matter in a sense twice and I concede that my amendment is perhaps not the most beautifully drafted amendment ever devised by the hand of man and that the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness may be rather better. I also concede that the new Clause 18 is much better than no Clause 18. My point is that Clause 18 does not go far enough, for the reasons mentioned in most apposite and probing terms by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton.
The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, did not deal with the point which is uppermost in my mind, which is that for the indigenous populations—I am sorry to use that phrase; if I call them "natives" that might be misunderstood—and the people living and working in the areas of national parks and the like are often, if not always, the people least able in income terms to be able ever to afford to buy a house but have to rely on the rented sector. I suspect that in one way or another—either through the local authority not being able to buy the house back or not choosing to exercise its option—the number of rented houses will be eroded to the point where the comparatively little rented accommodation that is at present available in rural areas will become absolutely nil. This is a matter of great concern to a large number of people in all parts of the Committee, as the noble Baroness said.
I will not go into the various points about housing action areas and so on. The one point I wish to reiterate about housing action areas, however, is that while grants may be available—the grants

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

de Clifford, L.

Jacques, L.

Ardwick, L.

Denington, B.

Janner, L.

Aylestone, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Kaldor, L.

Bacon, B.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Banks, L. [Teller.]

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Llewelyn-Davies, L.

Barrington, V.

Gage, V.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Beswick, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Birk, B.

Gifford, L.

Longford, E.

Blease, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Gosford, E.

Maelor, L.

Brockway, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Monson, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Hale, L.

Moyne, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Noel-Baker, L.

Collison, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Peart, L.

David, B.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Phillips, B.

Davies of Leek, L.

Hylton, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Plant, L.

are not, in my view, generous enough and I hope to move amendments about that later—the machinery is not available for people who are owner-occupiers to be moved out while their houses are being brought up to the standards of a housing action area. As for the comparison by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, of an earlier amendment of mine designed to deal with the elderly, that is a quite different matter. There one was dealing with a class of people. Here we are dealing with a class or grouping or kind of house.
As for the rather horrendous statistic which the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, gave, most local housing authorities—I think he said there were 226 which would be covered by my proposal—are comparatively small. The very big ones in the urban areas have the sort of proportion to which the noble Lord referred, but most of the housing authorities we are talking about are very small. I can only repeat the point I made, namely, that one can do a considerable amount of damage to the whole nature and concept of a small village community if even one or two houses are ripped out of the rented sector and put in the owner-occupied sector. This is my view, one which many others share, and while I appreciate that the Government feel they have gone as far as they can on this, I am not satisfied and I must press the amendment to a Division.
7.18 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 59) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 67; Non-Contents, 80.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Stamp, L.

Underhill, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Seear, B. [Teller.]

Strabolgi, L.

Wigoder, L.

Segal, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Simon, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Allerton, L.

Gisborough, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Alport, L.

Gowrie, E.

Orkney, E.

Ampthill, L.

Greenway, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Avon, E.

Gridley, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Bellwin, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Belstead, L.

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

Redmayne, L.

Bessborough, E.

Reigate, L.

Blake, L.

Hanworth, V.

Remnant, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Rochdale, V.

Camoys, L.

Hastings, L.

Sandford, L.

Cathcart, E.

Holderness, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Craigavon, V.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Craigmyle, L.

Kemsley, V.

Sharples, B.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Kilmany, L.

Soames, L. (L. President.)

Davidson, V.

Kimberley, E.

Spens, L.

De Freyne, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Strathclyde, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Long, V.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Derwent, L.

Lyell, L.

Digby, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Strathspey, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mancroft, L.

Swinfen, L.

Dundee, E.

Marley, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Trenchard, V.

Elles, B.

Mottistone, L.

Tryon, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Vickers, B.

Faithfull, B.

Newall, L.

Vivian, L.

Fortescue, E.

Northchurch, B.

Young, B.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Lord TREFGARNE: I beg to move that the House be now resumed.
House resumed.

TRANSPORT BILL
7.26 p.m.
Returned from the Commons on Friday last with one of the Lords' amendments agreed to with an amendment and with the remaining Lords amendments agreed to; the said amendment printed pursuant to Standing Order No. 47.
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons amendment be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons amendment be now considered.—(Lord Bellwin.)

COMMONS AMENDMENT TO ONE OF THE LORDS AMENDMENTS
[The reference is to Bill 224 as first printed for the Lords. The Commons Amendment is printed in italics.]

LORDS AMENDMENT
Clause 48, page 46, line 4, leave out ("85") and insert ("80").
The Commons propose the following amendment: Leave out ("80") and insert ("75").
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their amendment to the Lords amendment.
The Commons appear to be minded to be slightly more generous to the railway pension schemes than we were minded to be, but I see no reason to dissent, and I advise your Lordships to agree to the Commons amendment.
Moved, That the House doth agree with the Commons in their amendment to the Lords Amendment.—(Lord Bellwin.)
Lord UNDERHILL: My Lords, briefly, may I say how much we appreciate the amendment made in the Commons. This

111
is, I think, the third change, and presumably if there were more stages for this Bill, we should get back to the original 60 per cent. We have pleasure in supporting the amendment.

GAS BILL
7.28 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3ª,—(The Earl of Gowrie.)
Lord IRVING of DARTFORD: My Lords, during the Committee stage of this Bill, the matter of energy price disadvantages between the United Kingdom and other countries was questioned by the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, and I promised to return to this at this stage of the Bill. I did so because I believe that there is an unwillingness on the part of the Government to accept that energy prices generally, and gas prices in particular, in other countries are substantially lower than those in Britain. As I outlined to the House in my previous speech, the price disadvantage to United Kingdom industry, particularly to the paper and board industry, can be completely substantiated, and in many cases the lower energy prices in other countries result entirely from a deliberate policy of subsidisation. This is aimed at enabling these countries to compete more successfully in world markets.
While the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, says that he understands that other countries will be forced to bring their prices in line eventually, there is no way in which this can happen in the short run, if at all. In the longer term, even if this action is taken, large sections of United Kingdom industry will have been forced to close, resulting partly from the unfair price differentials that I have mentioned.
Unless the Government recognise, and take action on, this and other key issues to which I referred in my earlier presentation to the House, then in my view the industrial base of the United Kingdom economy will slide slowly but surely into the North Sea, from where come our oil
112
and gas resources at the moment. I realise that there is very little chance of the House agreeing to any changes in this Bill now having its Third Reading, but can we please obtain the reassurance of the Government that this Bill, as presented, will not serve to encourage or allow industry to be further discriminated against, either in terms of supply or in terms of price, and that the Government will seek to review the overall policy of energy supply and price to industrial users, and in particular will ensure that energy prices charged to United Kingdom industry are not unnecessarily exploitive and are internationally competitive?
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, I would not wish for one moment to oppose the Third Reading of this Bill. As I said on Second Reading, this is a Bill which has to go through, although in my opinion it is a trivial Bill which, except for the fact that it is necessary to cope with the problems of the Gas Board, does nothing for the gas industry. My noble friend Lord Irving of Dartford has made, I think, some extremely telling points, both at the Committee stage and now, and I hope the Government will not let the matter rest where it is but will in the near future come forward with more clear and positive proposals for the gas industry, which is a very important industry in connection with some of the highly energy-intensive industries in this country. This is going to be vital.
I do not agree with the general attitude of the Government that gas is underpriced. I think the question of underpricing has nothing to do with its relation to the cost of other fuels. Otherwise, you would always say that the most expensive fuel sets the pace for everything else. My Lords, I hope that we shall allow this Bill to be read a third time.
7.32 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for the succinctness with which they have made their points, although I have to say that I do not altogether agree with them. Furthermore, there seems to me to be a contradiction between the position of the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, who said that this Bill does nothing for the gas industry, and the position of his noble

113
friend Lord Irving, who said that this Bill does nothing, for industry. I think that if the position of the noble Lord, Lord Irving, is right, then the position for the gas industry need not be so bad. But in fact I think the real nub of the issue is not simply finding the dearest energy you can and gearing everything up to it; it is really that it is impossible to consider gas prices logically without reference to prices of oil, the two sources of supply and the two kinds of energy service that they provide being so similar. One fuel can substitute for another in so many cases, and as oil prices have risen sharply over the past year or more so gas prices have followed.
On the point of unfair competition with British industry, which the noble Lord, Lord Irving, with great credit to him, has consistently put in this House on this Bill, while I will concede to him that there are varying degrees of lag between different countries adapting their gas prices to their oil prices, adapt they must, because the revenue loss or conservation loss to the countries concerned will be far too great if they do not. In fact, we are seeing signs all over the Western economies of gas prices coming in line with oil prices.
A significant exception which the noble Lord may have in mind in this context is, as I understand it, the case of some of the Dutch; but, as your Lordships know, the Dutch are much the largest gas suppliers on the continental mainland, and there, I think, the difficulty from their point of view is that they are an honourable nation and they have already signed contracts with price notations in the contracts which they would dearly like to put up but cannot until the contracts come to an end. But I think the noble Lord will find that the contracts will come to an end with sufficient speed for British industry not to be at the price disadvantage that he is so worried about.
I agree with him that at a time when British industry is facing very considerable difficulties generally, we must be constantly vigilant of anything which would put British industry at additonal disadvantage; and I will undertake to the noble Lord to monitor (with him, if he wishes, and in response to anything he cares to ask me) how this price disadvantage may beworking out over the next months and year,
114
because obviously we would be concerned about that.
Finally, I want to emphasise that the Bill does not represent any new departure of pricing policy on the part of the Government. We have already taken action aimed at correcting the present under-pricing in the domestic sector, and I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, that in relation to oil prices it is, of course, technically underpricing. So far as the price to the industrial sector is concerned, succeeding Governments have endorsed the British Gas Corporation's policy of charging prices broadly related to those of the competing oil product. My Lords, this Bill merely removes an impediment to the implementation of that policy, and that is why I ask your Lordships to give it a Third Reading.
On Question, Bill read 3ª, and passed.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.30 p.m.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.36 to 8.30 p.m.]

ROYAL ASSENT
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Lord Nugent of Guildford): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts and Measure:

Port of London (Financial Assistance) Act,

Licensed Premises (Exclusion of Certain Persons) Act,

Industry Act,

Transport Act,

Sea Fish Industry Act,

New Towns Act,

Gas Act,

British Railways (Castlefield) Act,

Bangor Market Act,

Wesley's Chapel, City Road Act,

Diocese in Europe Measure.

HOUSING BILL
8.32 p.m.
House again in Committee.
Clause 18 [Dwelling-houses in National Parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, etc.]:
Lord HYLTON Lord HYLTON moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 14, line 43, after ("beauty") insert ("or a green belt designated under the Town and Country Planning Acts,").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is to extend to council houses lying within green belts the same protection that those within national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty already enjoy under the Bill. I realise that green belts cover quite a substantial area, but I submit that they are just as much in need of protection as the picturesque parts of Britain lying within the defined parks and other special areas. I have personal experience of two particular green belts, one being the Greater London green belt in Northern Surrey, in the area of the North Downs, and the other the green belt between the cities of Bath and Bristol.
Anyone who knows those areas will know how extremely grateful we are for them and what good effect they have. In the case of Bath and Bristol, they have prevented these two cities from coalescing and, in the case of North Surrey, the existence of the green belt has preserved the North Downs in something approaching their former natural state. Nevertheless, grateful as we may be, we have to recognise that these green belts are subject to tremendous pressures. Although they are still rural there are hundreds if not thousands or millions of people now in the cities who would like to live in them if they possibly could. Therefore, all development within these belts has been most severely restricted and just about the only possible kind of houses that can be built within a green belt are cottages, bungalows or farmhouses tightly limited and restricted to agricultural use.
This is what makes me believe that there will be very great problems resulting if the present council houses lying within those green belts are sold, passed on and
116
passed on; and there is little or nothing remaining in the way of rented accommodation to satisfy the needs of those families and people from the villages of the present green belts who will be unable to buy and who must rely perforce on some provision of rented housing. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: At first sight, green belts may seem to be obvious candidates for inclusion in the right-to-buy scheme for safeguarding rural areas. But I trust that on further reflection my noble friend will agree that the automatic application of these safeguards to green belts would not be right. The primary purpose of a green belt is to check the spread of an adjoining urban area. Thus, though a green belt may be a rural area, the reason for having it differs markedly from the reason for making an area a national park or an area of outstanding natural beauty. There, the intention is to protect the area itself. That is why some tracts of land fall both within areas of outstanding natural beauty and within green belts.
There is another difference; a national park or an area of outstanding natural beauty takes in the whole of a locality, including any small towns and villages in the vicinity. Frequently, green belts are drawn so that they leave out land already developed. A green belt might well not take in many local council estates. These would not, therefore, be brought into the safeguard. That means that from a practical point of view green belts arc not a very helpful way of determining the areas where there should be a special safeguard under the right-to-buy scheme.
As the Bill stands, Clause 18 empowers the Secretary of State to designate rural areas other than national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty in which the rural safeguards will also apply. If it was right to make those safeguards apply in a particular green belt, because of the special circumstances within its boundaries, it would be open to the Secretary of State to designate that green belt or part of it as a rural area under Clause 18. I hope, on that basis, my noble friend will withdraw his amendment.
Lord HYLTON: I am grateful for what my noble friend Lord Bellwin has said, particularly about the possibility of the

117
Secretary of State defining a rural area within some or all of a green belt. Can I draw something further from him tonight? Can he give us some indication of the sort of criteria that the Secretary of State will be using when he goes about defining rural areas in need of protection? While I am on my feet, may I say that I think the protection that will be most helpful within a green belt will be that giving powers of pre-emption and repurchase to the local authority?
Lord BELLWIN: I fear that on this cannot be as specific as my noble friend would like. When looking at this amendment and talking about it, we touched on the point that he had just raised as to what might be the basis and so on. To be helpful, I would say it is something we have talked about. I cannot now give him any more information. I doubt that I shall be able to be specific but if I can get something that I think would assist him, then I undertake to do so; but I would ask that he does not hold me to this. I will see what might be done.
Lord HYLTON: I am again very grateful. Since no one else in the Committee appears to be in support of this amendment, I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.40 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 14, line 43, at end insert ("the local authority with the consent of").
The noble Baroness said: This is quite a small amendment designed to bring the local authority into not just the planning but the designation decision again so that the local authority is very closely concerned with the rural area. It is all so vague at the moment that even if it does nothing more than draw out some clarification and elucidation of how the rural areas are going to be designated, that will be helpful. There should be some local consultation and discussions. What it means is that the Secretary of State would designate an area but in consultation with the local authority. I beg to move.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: I hope that the Government will be willing
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to give serious consideration to this point. I and other noble Lords have mentioned this throughout Second Reading and the Committee stage. Local authorities over the years are being more and more emasculated, and more and more responsibilities are taken away from them. I would have thought that this was an area where the local authorities' views and proposals would have been of importance; and—perhaps even more important—that the local authorities themselves would feel that they were involved in this kind of proposal. As the clause stands at present, the local authority has no direct involvement at all. I would have thought that was contrary to the best practices for local government. I hope that this amendment will be taken seriously and considered by the Government.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: I realise that there has been a lot of debate during this Committee stage on the question of rural areas. I believe that it is something which more than anything else unites the different sides of the Committee. I speak to this amendment specifically because Clause 18 deals in chief with the rural areas. I want to ask the Minister to address himself to one or two issues that are raised, although they have been touched on before. I do not want to raise the issue of principle. As the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has indicated, this is an issue of principle which we have debated before. I assure the Minister that I had no intention of trying to give him a lecture on local government, and I do not intend to do so tonight.
However, when I spoke in the Committee stage last Thursday he referred to my remarks as apparently heralding Armageddon. I am sure that there are many noble Lords on both sides of the Committee, from all parties, who do not regard it as necessarily Armageddon but would regard it as a great disaster if the local communities in the rural and semi-rural areas of this country were to be undermined. That is what we have all been showing concern about.
The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, has made many references to Leeds during the course of Second Reading and the Committee stage. I also was brought up in Yorkshire; but we did not regard Leeds as Yorkshire. It was an island of somewhat soulless commercialism that did not seem

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to fit in with the rest of the county. I wonder whether the noble Lord has had the occasion—I am sure he has—of moving around in places like the Worth Valley. I give that as one instance—one of many. If he will bear with me for a minute he will see the point. Take two small villages, as I would call them. I am not sure whether he would technically call them towns. Oakworth and Haworth are both villages which have a number of council estates. In Oakworth there are 89 council houses; in Haworth there are 105. I should like him to address himself to this. He may say that a part of one of the major council estates in Haworth is in a conservation area. I am not sure—and I have no means of being sure—whether that would be protected under the terms of the Bill as it now reads.
These communities are fundamental to the continued existence of the village life which is a centre for rural life. Are they rural or are they urban? I know that the noble Lord cannot give a specific answer tonight, as he has indicated to his noble friend Lord Hylton. But I am sure that he will also appreciate that there is a great deal of concern for these pockets of village life that one can find all over the country—I am giving two specific instances—on which not just the village but also a large area of countryside around depends. They are drawing more and more people in. For their preservation they need essentially a solid core of publicly-rented accommodation for council workers, lorry drivers and a whole variety of agricultural workers and workers in a very wide area. This is the way in which our village life has made a vibrant contribution to our national heritage.
If in Haworth the Government are going to tell the council, "You have to sell or offer for sale your council houses" what is going to happen to them? Surely, it is obvious. Many of those houses will very quickly pass into the hands of the Americans. An American who wants to have a house in this country in an ancient, cultural locality, with all the glamour of living in Bronte land, will certainly look to a place like Haworth.
I will give another instance. Maybe the noble Lord has extended his travels in Yorkshire to the east of Leeds as well
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as to the west. Take the village of Robin Hood's Bay. It only has two council houses—admittedly they are divided into flats. A mile behind Robin Hood's Bay, in the village of Filingthorpe, there are 59 council houses. This is not a rural area as I can understand any definition of it. It is a collection of people living together in a small town. Surely it is obvious that the value of a House in Filingthorpe, a mile away from Robin Hood's Bay, will be of immense value once it is on the market. All I am asking the Minister is whether he can tell us or give us some indication, or will he come back to us on Report stage and tell us, how the Secretary of State is going to allocate those areas where there are going to be exemptions from the general rule of sale?
As I have already told him, I have little confidence in the 10-year rule but, given that rule, will the kind of places I have mentioned to him, especially in regard to his local knowledge, be designated as rural areas, or will they be excluded from the rural categorisation and deemed to be town areas? If the latter is the case, then this Bill is doing even more damage to rural village life, of which so many noble Lords have spoken with so much affection and which has played such a deep and profound role in the history of this country.
8.51 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN: The noble Baroness has made it clear that she considers that, where further rural areas are to be designated under Clause 18(1) of the Bill, it is the local authority which should have the power to make the designation. With a view perhaps to modifying her proposal in such a way as to make it acceptable to the Government, she has proposed that in making its orders the local authority should have the consent of the Secretary of State.
Clause 18 of the Bill was amended in another place so as to open the way to the application of the special safeguards on the sale of council houses in rural areas to be attached not only in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, but also in additional areas to be so designated by the Secretary of State. When these provisions were being discussed in the Standing Committee which

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considered the Bill, my honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Construction made it clear that he considered that the decision whether or not to impose the special conditions in cases where they were possible was for the landlord. I am sure that there will be unanimity on that point.
My honourable friend went further, however. He made it clear that it was quite open to local authorities to take the initiative in seeking designation of additional rural areas for the purposes of Clause 18. I am sure that there will be unanimity on that point also. After all, a local authority will know more than anyone else about local circumstances.
So the question boils down to the narrow one of whether the local authority, with the consent of the Secretary of State (as in the amendment) or the Secretary of State himself (as drafted in the Bill) should make the actual order. There are, in my view, three good reasons why it should be the Secretary of State himself. The first is that this is the only way of being sure that desirable consistency is maintained in the policy. Without it, the local authority might designate part of an area which fell within its boundaries while a neighbouring authority failed to designate its own part of the same area. That hardly seems to me to be a sensible state of affairs.
The second reason is one of administrative convenience—not, I hasten to emphasise, the convenience of the Secretary of State, who will have to make the necessary orders, but of those with an interest in this policy who will be able to see what areas have been designated simply by looking at the orders which may be made by the Secretary of State, rather than having to comb the country to find out. The third reason is constitutional. I would not make too much of it, but I do consider that it is right that orders of this kind should come under the scrutiny of Parliament. That will happen under the Bill as drafted, but it would not do so under the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness.
To come to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, I doubt that his remarks would really have endeared himself too much to the people of Leeds, but that is something he would have to explain to them if ever he gets there,
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because if Leeds is not inside Yorkshire, I do not know where it is! I must confess that I am not really familiar with either Oakworth or Haworth. I know where they are but I know little more than that about them. Your Lordships will see that I am very ready to concede my lack of knowledge and I readily do so as regards these two (as I am sure they are) splendid places. The noble Lord said it would be a great disaster if local communities were undermined and, of course, who would argue as to that? But I do not believe that there is anything in this Bill which is going to so undermine them. He said that the Bill would do even more damage to rural and village life. I am sure he does not expect me to agree with him on that; nor do I.
I do not think there is a lot more I can say on this. How wide will the designations go? That has yet to be decided. I fear that although I am trying to be helpful I really cannot speculate as to that because I just do not know as yet, and therefore I cannot be more helpful. If I am able to be more specific by the time we come to Report stage, I assure the noble Lord that I shall do what I can, but I cannot undertake that that will be the case. Nevertheless, the point will be well borne in mind and possibly the noble Baroness may feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: I do not really think that the first argument put forward by the noble Lord the Minister is very satisfactory: I mean the one about the inconsistency of decisions. There are times on this Bill when I listen to the Conservative Front Bench and I really think I am listening to the Labour Party at its worst. They are always for centralism. They always appear to want to take away any decision from the local sphere. Of course, if you give decisions to the local sphere, contesting decisions may be inconsistent. There may be things one would not want and they will be different in different parts of the country. They may even be, as the noble Lord said, different in very narrow areas close by each other; but that is one of the prices to pay for popular democracy, and that is one of the few good things that I thought the Conservative Party was putting forward at the last election and in its present philosophy. As we go through this Bill, more, more and more

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it is becoming a centralist Bill and a centralist philosophy they are putting forward, and it really does not stand up.
8.58 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: At least the noble Lord did not say it was the Labour Party at its best, so we must be thankful for small mercies! We are all at our worst sometimes, and the Labour Party does have its bad moments. Of course, the noble Lord is right: the extraordinary thing running right through the Bill is this almost authoritarian line from the centre from a party which all the time has been arguing, certainly during the period of the Labour Government, about the autonomy of the local authority.
Turning to the specific terms of the amendment, the Minister said it was quite right, and had been discussed in another place, that local authorities should take the initiative on some occasions in this area of suggesting the designation of a rural area. But nowhere in the Bill at the moment or, as far as I can see, in the schedules, is there anything which gives any indication of the local authorities playing any part.
I should like to ask the Minister, before withdrawing the amendment, how this is going to come about. It is all very well for this to be said in Standing Committee F, but I should not think that the readership of the minutes of that committee would make any publisher wealthy if they were on the market. Similarly, in this House we are also a rather closed group and there must be millions of people outside who will not know that this is so. Could the Minister indicate how this knowledge is going to get abroad? Are the local authorities going to be advised as to what means to use and, even more importantly, are the people living in the areas going to know of the decisions which are to be taken and which will, after all, affect their lives and the places where they live? It is very important, particularly if you are in what might be considered a marginal area, to know whether or not you are in a designated rural area. You may or you may not want to be, but it is very useful to know how things are going, and to whom you apply in order to be in the area and designated as you want to be. There seems to be very little information
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on this. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us further about it.
Lord BELLWIN: I did say, did I not, at the end of my remarks that as it so happens—and I said it was right that it should be so—orders of this kind will come under the scrutiny of Parliament? I should have thought that that was about as good a way as any of ensuring that anything that was happening was brought to the notice of all concerned.
Baroness BIRK: I am sorry. We on this side of the Committee have been trying to keep the debate short, but this is a different point. It is important that it should come before Parliament, but this is an entirely different point from local involvement. I am asking the Minister how the local involvement is going to come about. I want to know how it is going to work in practice, not how theoretically the local authority can take the initiative. It is quite right that the local authorities should sometimes take the initiative. I am asking that. The one thing does not exclude the other. These are not mutually exclusive things.
Lord BELLWIN: I am not sure that I am quite following the point the noble Baroness is making. If an authority take an initiative there is little doubt that everyone within the area concerned will know that the initiative has been taken. It is not for me to tell the noble Baroness the various forms that the media use for that sort of purpose. These things are always very much a matter of local interest—more so these days than ever before, I should have thought. If, further, there is to be scrutiny by Parliament, that again widens it still further. I am not at all aware of any possible danger of anyone not knowing what is happening. If I am missing a point I will be glad to he corrected on it.
Baroness BIRK: I do not want to carry on the debate too long, Perhaps the Minister can write to me or come back and I will withdraw the amendment and wait for Report. I am asking at which point is the local authority brought in? The noble Lord said that the Secretary of State will make the order, and the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, took up the point about consistency. I want to know how far the involvement of the local authority

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will be, at which point. There is no good taking an initiative if nobody takes any notice of the initiative one is taking, or if one is not called in on it, or if it does not come out at the end of the day and one does not really come out as a sort of equal partner in it. This is what I want to know. If the Minister cannot take it any further this evening—I think we have gone on enough about it at the moment—perhaps he will come back on Report; or in the meantime, perhaps he will write to me and tell me exactly what the process is. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Evans, would be interested to know as well.
Lord BELLWIN: I really do try hard to he understanding and helpful. I cannot really see the point. The only thing I can suggest is that the noble Baroness might care to have a word with me afterwards, unless it is so late that neither of us is in the mood so to do. As soon as convenient I will try to ascertain for her that which she needs to know, if I am able so to do.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I am sure the noble Lord will appreciate our difficulty here. Am I right in thinking that the tenants in these rural areas still to be specified will have the same right as any other tenant, and that as soon as the Bill is passed they will have the right to make an application to purchase their house? The landlord is the local authority. It is in a rural area. Will they know by that time as to whether or not the Government are specifying this as a rural area?
The tenant wants to know because there is going to be a limitation placed upon his holding that is not there for anyone else. There may be a covenant limiting him to do certain things. He will want to know. The local authority will want to know. But the initiative rests with the Government, and I should have thought that if the Government are going to maintain the rights of the Bill for everyone they must produce, before this Bill becomes law, their list of rural areas. It is all right in respect of the national parks and these other things; they are determined by statute. But there is nothing in this clause that says anything about the rural area. That is for the Government to produce. It is
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only fair to the local authority. Certainly it is only fair to the would-be purchaser that he should know what position he is in.
Lord BELLWIN: I am very pleased to hear expressed the concern the noble Lord has for the would-be purchaser. I have nothing to add to what I have said. It is open to an authority who are sufficiently interested or who want to do so to take an initiative with a view to having their area designated in this way; that is up to them. But the criteria, if one likes, where there is uncertainty is something which I have already said has yet to be decided. The individual areas have not yet been decided and certainly I have no intention of speculating on that at the present time.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: I am sure the noble Lord will appreciate this. The local authority, by statute, has got to reply to the would-be purchaser by a certain time. Can the Minister tell us how long it is to be? Suppose they accept this initiative and apply to the Government to declare a rural area. How long will it be before the Government, his department, replies and how much longer will it be before an order is passed through the House? Then the local authority will be in the dock because, according to statute, they have got to give a reply by a certain time. Is it two months?
Lord CLEDWYN of PENRHOS: The noble Lord is normally clear but he is less than clear and less than precise on this occasion. He said something rather strange a moment ago. As I understood him, he said it was up to the local authorities themselves to designate what is a rural area. If not, perhaps he would clarify that for the Committee. But if, indeed, it is up to the local authority, the housing authority, to designate what is a rural area within their district, what are the procedures to be? Would he be good enough to give the Committee guidance? What must they do? Are further orders to be produced? Are they to be affirmative or negative orders? Are they to come before Parliament? Before we go any further the noble Lord must give us a little more guidance as to exactly what he meant.
Lord BELLWIN: I do not recall saying that a local authority should themselves designate their area. If I did, I certainly did not mean to do so and I apologise for having said so. Only the record will show if I said that or not. What I thought I had said was that it would be up to an authority to take the initiative of applying to have their area so designated. I really do believe that that is what I said, but, if not, then of course I am sorry about that.
As to the other points that the noble Lord, Lord Ross, made, about who starts the thing going and when something takes place, I have already said a number of times that I cannot give the kind of detailed, specified information for which the noble Lord asks. The areas are yet to be decided. They will be decided, presumably, by the Secretary of State in conjunction with the authorities concerned, in one way or another. Whether the first initiative comes from the Secretary of State or from the authority in question is a matter which will evolve. I cannot give details, because I do not have them at the present time. But the tenants who are interested in buying in those areas—and that is really what the concern ought to be—will have every opportunity to get to where they want to be as regards buying, and as regards the information that they need.
But, conversely—and, surely, this is a point that has been made again and again today—the safeguard for the rural areas is equally vital. It will be clearly understood that it will be there. The people in those areas will, of course, have the right to buy, but they will be buying with the kind of pre-emptions, rights and so on that those in other areas will not have. Therefore, there is a case for saying that they will have the rights, but not to the same extent as others, and some may feel sympathy for them. I am sorry if that is not as clear as noble Lords might like, but however much I am pressed I cannot give more details, because it is not possible for me to do so at the present time.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: Can the noble Lord tell us when he will be able to give us the information? We have already passed that part of the Bill which says that a tenant has the right, he makes his application and the local authority
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must reply in, I think, two months. It is certainly two months in the Scottish Bill. I am speaking here because I have a listening brief to see that there is no unfairness done in certain of the more civilised parts of these islands.
But I know Government departments. The person makes his application to the local authority and they think, "This ought to be an area of special beauty". So he applies to the Government and only the Government can decide that. I want to know how long it will take them to make up their mind and to pass an order through Parliament, because the tenant will have no idea what is holding up the local authority. The local authority will not know whether this will be one of these special houses in respect of which they have to put in a special covenant, and that, also, will take time. If the noble Lord looks at the argument we had in relation to hog-tying a local authority in respect of the time involved in all this, he will find that the Government are quite wrong.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: May I combine my point with that of the noble Lord, Lord Ross, so that the Minister can answer both? I have one very simple point of clarification. The noble Lord said that he could not go any further. I think that he can go a step further in this respect, that he has been referring to a local authority possibly applying for its area to become a rural area. Presumably, he is not suggesting that the local authority either is a rural area or is not a rural area. The parts of an area that come under a local authority could be rural, while other parts were not rural.
Lord BELLWIN: Of course, you can get a variation, but what we are talking about is the designation of a rural area for the purposes of this Bill. That is really where we are parting company. It is no good the noble Lord, Lord Ross, persisting. I cannot make out whether he is concerned about the interests of the landlord, the local authority, the tenant, Scotland or anywhere else. I cannot tell that at all from what he says. What I have said all along, and I repeat it now, is that if there is uncertainty about this and noble Lords want to know more about it, then I will gladly undertake, as I always do, to write and tell them the position as we

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then see it. But, so far as an undertaking is concerned, I am in no position to give one, nor can I even attempt to do so.
Baroness BIRK: Hoping that in the meantime we shall get some light, and taking into account the various questions that have been asked by my noble friends since I last spoke, I shall for the time being beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.13 p.m.
Lord HYLTON Lord HYLTON moved Amendment No. 62:
Page 14, line 44, leave out ("as a rural area").
The noble Lord said: In proposing this amendment, I am trying to be as helpful to the Government as I possibly can, as is my usual wont. I am even going against my natural inclinations in suggesting a much greater discretion for the Secretary of State than he has already taken. The object of this amendment is to enable the Secretary of State to designate any area which needs Clause 18 protection, and not just the rural areas.
I am thinking in particular of the seaside urban areas where it seems to me that there is a great danger of existing council houses being sold off and then used for such purposes as bed and breakfast or self-catering flats, thus removing them completely from availability to the local population. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, gave some interesting examples from Yorkshire of semi-rural/semi-urban areas—borderline areas, areas which could be argued to be one thing or which could be argued to be another.
From my own knowledge of the County of Somerset, I think there will be similar problems. We have the Somerset coast on the Bristol Channel; we have the cathedral city of Wells; we have the caves of Cheddar which draw many thousands of tourists to see them every year. These seem to be some of the uncertain, problematical kinds of areas where it would perhaps be as well for the Secretary of State to have wider powers than he now has. I hope I have said enough to make clear the purpose of this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: We have already seen a number of amendments which would run a coach and horses through the Government's policy for a countrywide right to buy. With that purpose in mind, amendments have already been put down to exclude entirely or to place heavy restrictions upon the sale of elderly people's dwellings, of houses in rural areas, of houses in areas where the local authority owns less than a certain percentage of the housing stock, of housing in inner city areas, of housing in housing action areas, of housing in housing stress areas, of dwellings with more than a certain number of bedrooms, and so on. These are two more such amendments.
Those opposed to the right to buy take the view that if they cannot have a wide range of exclusions then the right to buy should be fettered and qualified in as many circumstances as possible. We are now dealing with further amendments of this kind which have been tabled regardless of the fact that one of the major planks upon which the Government were elected was to give the benefits of home ownership to as many public sector tenants as possible.
The case for all these amendments is based on the belief that the sale of public sector dwellings will cause the supply of housing available for reletting to dry up. I say yet again, for the "nth" time, and doubtless not for the last, that for the reasons which I have already given on a number of occasions this is just not what will happen, nor what happens in practice.
By now everybody knows that the Government have a clear commitment to giving the right to buy to council tenants. There is a small range of exclusions to the right to buy which we concluded to be absolutely necessary. There are of course the special arrangements for rural areas about which we are speaking. The need for this limited number of special provisions has been made clear from the outset —since before the general election.
These amendments would widen considerably the limitations on the right to buy. The first would enable my right honourable friend to designate any area he so wished as an area in which the safeguards of Clause 18 would apply. The second would provide what at first sight would be a more limited power to designate housing stress areas as well as rural areas

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for the application of the Clause 18 provisions. These amendments are not acceptable.
In practice, my right honourable friend would not wish to exercise either of the powers which the amendments would give him. It is a basic point and one which your Lordships may tire of hearing me make today and for the rest of the time that we discuss this Bill in Committee. But the Government believe that the pressures to which housing in rural areas is subjected are unique. That, and that alone, is why Clause 18 is in the Bill and that is why we shall continue to resist attempts to apply its provisions in areas which are not subjected to the same pressures.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: I think that the noble Lord is not being entirely logical in his approach, quite apart from the fact that, if it was the "nth" time he said it, it must by definition be the last time, because you cannot have anything after infinity. However, that is a purely lighthearted, after dinner debating point.
The fact is that all that the noble Lord is asking for in this amendment is that the Secretary of State should have these particular powers. Admittedly, the noble Lord on the Conservative Front Bench is looking forward to a period when, since we do not have proportional representation in this country, another party will no doubt be in power—and probably the party opposite. He does not very much like the idea that the Secretary of State might then make the wrong kind of judgment. Presumably he is not mistrusting his own Secretary of State. Whatever happens, we in this country have the convention that when an Opposition gets into power it can, and it frequently does—and much too often it does under our present system—change the law.
I do not think it is really an answer that he is not prepared to give Secretaries of State this freedom in dealing with a question which has real force. Here I get away from all party points and all debating points because what the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said has not yet been answered. His question concerned what is a rural area and the fact that so much depends on its feeding from local
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market towns, which may be rather more than market towns; it is very difficult to draw the line between what is a real rural area and what is not. Are we going to say either that the Secretary of State has powers to designate as a rural area things which quite obviously are not rural areas, or that he is totally inhibited from making these orders in areas which, although not rural, would quite clearly have exactly the same effect as if they had been rural areas—they would affect the whole question of what goes on in a rural area? I think that is a serious question to which the noble Lord should give an answer, quite apart from the preliminary one, which also was serious, but this is the main question to which we have not yet received an answer.
Lord BELLWIN: One can stand here and try to define a rural area but the fact is that I do not know of any definition, and I doubt whether there is one. In the past people have said that it is an area with a population of less than this or that: that is a rural area, but clearly we know of places in the heart of urban spots which are authorities of their own and, whatever else they may or may not be, no one I know would call them rural areas. Of course, I cannot give the kind of specific definition which the noble Lord would wish to have. I think we can only come back to the point which I made before, namely, that at the end of the day there are to be designations on the initiatives of one side or the other and within that the effects of Clause 18 will apply. Beyond that I do not know that I can be of help to my noble friend, and I fear that I am not able to accept these amendments.
Lord HYLTON: I am extremely grateful for the support I have had from the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. I see that I am up against the pure milk of party doctrine, and for that reason I must accept the situation as it is and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.23 p.m.
Lord HYLTON Lord HYLTON moved Amendment No. 63:
Page 14, line 44, after ("area") insert ("or a housing stress area",).
The noble Lord said: Here we move from rural areas to the heart of the biggest cities and perhaps most especially to the heart of London. I suspect that my noble friend the Minister, while being intimately acquainted with Leeds, perhaps does not really appreciate how extremely serious the London housing situation is, and has been ever since I had any experience of it back in the middle 'sixties.
Housing stress areas have been known about since 1965, since the famous report of the Milner-Holland Committee, which was a specifically London Committee. They have been mapped out, they have been plotted. We know the sort of problems winch arise within them, such as gross overcrowding, multiple occupation, bad physical conditions of houses, lack of amenities in the area surrounding the house or street, extreme need for repairs and sometimes also complete unfitness for occupation. It is to remedy such things that we so much need to have some local authority control. As the Milner-Holland Committee so forcefully argued, local authority control is required over what happens to a particular house and why we need to avoid complete loss of control by the local authority of a house which it used to own and which has been sold to the occupant.
I think I should perhaps also mention that newly rehabilitated houses—particularly those in housing action areas, which are normally small fractions of housing stress areas—which have been rehabilitated to a high standard, normally to a Parker-Morris standard, will become highly desirable places to buy. They will be prime targets I would say of the process that has come to be known by the rather ugly name of "gentrification". I do submit that we need not only control but also the maximum number of rented properties to be kept in five years' time, in ten years' time, in however long we need to keep them, and that is really why I am asking for this Section 18 protection, particularly the repurchase protection, and particularly for such things as have already been touched on earlier—for example, the decanting of people from one house to another while improvements take place. For these reasons I beg to move this amendment.
Viscount HANWORTH: Unemployment is something that is worrying us
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very much and one does feel that mobility of labour is one of the key solutions, and not a partial solution only, to this problem. If we are not going to have council rented properties in sufficient numbers mobility of labour would I think be severely penalised.
Lord SANDFORD: The only point I would make is this: we do in this House have extremely flexible rules of order and procedure. My noble friend has two or three times, or even four times, urged upon our Front Bench that exceptions should be made in the case of housing stress areas, and I have no objection to him making the point once. But to make it under a clause the rubric of which is "Dwelling-houses in National Parks", and to start off by asserting that he is concerned with inner cities, is really stretching our rules too far.
Lord BELLWIN: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Sandford for what he has just said. I seem to be going round and round the same arguments all the time. I recognise that what my noble friend Lord Hylton is seeking is, if not the whole of the cake, at least part of it; if he cannot get the total exclusion at least can he get it to some extent within the pre-emption rights. A halfway house I think is what he is seeking. I fully understand the point he is making, but I would have to answer him properly by going over all the arguments again and again. There is the one about the effect that a sale does or does not have on the availability of the pool of dwellings to rent; clearly we have a difference between us, and so be it.
Another argument is that in fact if you do sell dwellings in these housing stress areas you do not lower the standard, you do exactly the opposite, you raise the standard. Another is if one is concerned about selling in these areas why are we worrying about people who, it is said, will never want to buy them because the areas are of the standard they are. We are going round and round and over the same arguments once again. I fear that in the interests of brevity, certainly not of discourtesy—as my noble friend will, I hope, agree—I would have to say that no, we cannot accept that we can take these amendments on board. We do not see that it helps the situation at all for us to deviate from the basic policy that we have

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laid down, in which we believe very sincerely and which we feel will not only help to bring about the situation that we have said so often we want to see, because of what happens when people buy and own their own homes, but will add to and bring up those very areas of housing stress with which my noble friend is concerned in this amendment.
Lord HYLTON: I think that I have said really all that I wanted to say in moving the amendment. I do not believe that there would be any purpose in dividing the Committee, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.32 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 64:
Page 14, line 44, leave out from ("and") to ("the") in line 1 on page 15, and insert ("it is executed by a local authority (as defined in section 49 of this Act), a county council, The Development Board for Rural Wales or a housing association ("the landlord")").
The noble Lord said: These amendments appear rather a formidable collection, but they have two quite simple aims. The first is to remove the need for housing associations to obtain the consent of the local authority before attaching the so-called "locality covenant" to a right to buy sale in any of the areas with which Clause 18 is concerned. The "locality covenant" imposes the condition set out in subsection (3), that a future purchaser should have lived or worked in the locality for three years or more. On reflection we felt that housing associations should generally be free to make up their own minds as to the desirability of imposing this condition; though doubtless they will wish to take into account the views of the local authority concerned which will itself be making right to buy sales, and may be attaching this condition.
The second aim of these amendments is to enable housing associations and county councils to attach pre-emption rights to sales in these areas. A number of those concerned with housing associations, including especially my noble friend Lord Lonsdale, have put it to us that housing associations should be given the same powers as local authorities to attach pre-emption rights. We have accepted
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their view, and the amendments accordingly enable housing associations to attach 10-year pre-emption rights, pre-emption being at the current market value of the dwelling. We have also given the same powers to county councils who will, for these purposes, be exercising their reserve powers as local housing authorities.
Because of these two changes of substance the same powers will be given to all landlords whose tenants in rural areas will have the right to buy. We have therefore taken the opportunity to simplify the drafting of the clause by making some other amendments. I commend them all to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Viscount GAGE: I think that we should be grateful to the Government for allowing housing associations these rights. It is a fairly complicated formula. I doubt whether it will ever persuade new housing associations to form themselves with the object of providing new accommodation for rent. That is a question which I keep on asking. I cannot find anybody who is able to answer it. Who is to supply new accommodation to let in rural areas, and particularly in the areas of outstanding natural beauty?
I have said that we do not want our rural villages to remain museum pieces; there must be somebody to supply some new accommodation for rent. I suppose that my noble friend Lord Bellwin will say that the council is the answer. It is a nice idea but I doubt, in the circumstances, whether—in view of the restricted powers of local authorities to spend money—we shall get much done. I wish the Government would consider giving special rights to new housing associations without any complicated formula attached to them. The associations might then start to provide this accommodation.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Gage. I hope that it will not arise on this occasion, because we are taking into account what the housing associations want.
I was rather remiss in moving this amendment in that I failed to point out that what I had been speaking to also applies to Amendments Nos. 65, 66, 67, 69, 72, 73, 74 and 75. I apologise for not having mentioned that before. I hope

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that my noble friend Lord Gage will take on board the point that we are doing what we think is right for these areas at the request of the housing associations themselves.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Alport): With your Lordships' permission, I shall take the next three amendments together.
9.36 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendments Nos. 65, 66 and 67:
Page 15, leave out lines 4 to 7.
Page 15 line 9, leave out ("local authority, county council or Board") and insert ("landlord").
Page 15, line 12, leave out ("local authority, county council or Board") and insert ("landlord").
Lord HYLTON Lord HYLTON moved Amendment No. 68:
Page 15, line 26, at end insert—
("or
(c) is a person whom the local authority considers to have a local housing need").
The noble Lord said: We now return to rural areas and in subsection (3) of this clause we have laid down in paragraphs (a) and (b) the sort of people who will be entitled to purchase when there is a limitation on transfer imposed by the local authority which originally owned the house. By means of my amendment I seek to add one more category. I venture to believe that this is rather an important amendment. I am trying to cover people who need to live in a particular place for family reasons or for some other special reason. For instance, it may be that a person needs to move to be near his or her elderly parents in order to look after them in their old age; perhaps a person has to move in order to care for a disabled person. Therefore, there is a whole category of social reasons.
There is another category as important but quite different and that comprises key workers and people able to fulfil particular industrial and commercial functions. In the villages it also includes such people as district nurses, home helps, school teachers and school caretakers. I believe
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that the local authority is the suitable body to reach a conclusion on who should qualify within the kind of categories that I have already mentioned. I hope that it will be agreed that this amendment goes some way towards improving the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: This amendment bears on one of the two safeguards which a landlord may impose when a tenant buys as of right in a national park, area of outstanding beauty or other designated rural area. Under the safeguard, where a purchaser or his successor in title wishes to resell he must obtain the consent of the landlord, but that consent is not to be withheld if the prospective purchaser had worked or lived in a local designated area for the preceding three years. The amendment would mean that the consent to sell should not be withheld, either, if the prospective purchaser is a person whom the local authority considers to have a local housing need. My noble friend instanced the case of a child wishing to live near his parents, or some such situation as that.
I think that on this occasion my noble friend will be pleased with what the Government are about to say. We do not think that amendment is necessary to bring about what my noble friend intends. The landlord may give his consent to resale of a house even if the prospective purchaser is not someone to whom the clause says he must consent. If the landlord judges that someone should be allowed to buy the house because he has a local housing need, even if he has not lived or worked locally, as the clause stands he can allow the purchase to go ahead. I trust that the noble Lord will agree that Clause 18 is already flexible enough in this respect and will therefore be able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord HYLTON: I am extremely reassurred by what my noble friend has said. I am delighted to hear that my amendment is not necessary because the power exists already within the hands of the local authority. I am glad to see him nodding his head to that. With the leave of the Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: Amendment No. 69. I must advise your Lordships that if this amendment is carried I shall not be able to put Amendment No. 70.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 69:
Page 15, leave out lines 27 and 28 and insert—
("(4) If the Secretary of State or, where the landlord is a housing association, the Housing Corporation, consents, the").
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this with Amendment No. 64. I beg to move.
[Amendment No. 70 not moved.]
9.41 p.m.
Lord HYLTON Lord HYLTON moved Amendment No. 71:
Page 15, line 31, leave out ("ten") and insert ("thirty").
The noble Lord said: I am glad to say that I think this is my final amendment on this clause. It concerns the period over which restrictions can be imposed. My submission is that 10 years, as is currently written into the Bill, is far too short a time. It is too short to give the opportunity for judging the effects of what will happen as a result of the restrictions and limitations laid down. I think I am right in saying that further legislation would be necessary in order to change that 10-year period, and that is why I suggest that from the start we should write into the Bill now a much longer period.
Let us look at what might happen in eight or nine years' time. If the Bill says 10 years is the period and after that there are no restrictions at all, it seems to me that there is a grave danger that a person who wants to sell will in fact hold on, and the sort of thing that they might do during the one or two years remaining of the restricted term is to let the house, for instance, as a holiday let or as a furnished let, or use it in some temporary way until they get clear of the restricted period. It is partly to avoid expedients of this kind that I propose a much longer period. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: This amendment seeks to extend the pre-emption safeguard in
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rural areas from 10 to 30 years. But the condition is surely effective enough as it is. The ADC, who have lobbied most effectively on this matter of rural areas and safeguards for them, asked for a 10-year right of pre-emption, and that is what the clause gives. I cannot accept that what we have heard gives any new basis for extending this. The fact is that any pre-emption condition is a harsh imposition on the purchaser. Although the condition may not affect the purchase price the house may fetch, the purchaser does not have the home owner's usual freedom to sell to whom he pleases. He may wish very much to sell to a particular person.
One could go on about this but it is far too much, and I think that 10 years is surely long enough. Just think, for 10 years you have bought the house, with all that goes with that, but you may not dispose of it. I think that this is quite long enough, and I feel that we shall have to reject the amendment unless my noble friend feels able in the circumstances to withdraw it.
Lord HYLTON: May I ask my noble friend the Minister what he envisages actually happening after the expiry of the 10-year period?
Lord BELLWIN: That is not the point. We are here talking about the Government's intention to give a right to buy, with all that flows from that and all we have discussed at length about what a right to buy means.
The tenant has bought his home in which he has lived for certainly not less than three years. For the next 10 whole years he cannot dispose of it other than to the local authority. He certainly cannot sell it on, and presumably he would not wish to do so; he has bought it presumably only because he and his family have lived there for a long time and wish to go on doing so. As to what will happen after 10 years, who can say? It would depend on the individual circumstances in each case. Remember, too, that we are talking about rural areas where, we have been told—I am sure this is right—people wish to live as communities. I accept that. And they want to go on living as communities. Why, therefore, should these same people, whom we are told wish to live as communities, want at the end of

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10 years to break up that community atmosphere? I understand the point my noble friend is concerned about and I respect his view, but we could not possibly dream of moving beyond 10 years, least of all to 30 years.
Lord HYLTON: It goes without saying that I find my noble friend's reply extremely disappointing. It seems to me that after the 10-year period there will be a free-for-all, and it will be at its most vicious within the national parks and areas of outstanding beauty. Having said that, I have no wish to press the amendment, faced with the resolute opposition I meet, and accordingly I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.47 p.m
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendments Nos. 72, 73, 74 and 75 en bloc:
Page 15, line 35, leave out("local authority or Board") and insert ("landlord").
Page 15, line 41, leave out ("local authority or Board") and insert ("landlord").
Page 15,line 43, leave out from beginning to ("thinks") in line 44 and insert—
("(5) The consent of the Secretary of State or of the Housing Corporation under subsection (4) may be given subject to such conditions as he or, as the case may be, the Housing Corporation.").
Page 16, line 7, leave out ("local authority or Board") and insert ("landlord").
The noble Lord said: I spoke to these amendments with Amendment No. 64.
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I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 75A:
Page 16, line 36, at end insert ("and for the purposes of this section the grant of an option enabling a person to call for a disposal falling within subsection (8) above shall be treated as such a disposal made to him and a consent to such a grant as a consent to a disposal made in pursuance of the option.").
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this with Amendment No. 28A. I beg to move.
On Question, Whether Clause 18, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord GREENWOOD of ROSSENDALE: I am sure it will be the wish of all who have been or are involved in the voluntary housing movement to join with the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, in expressing to the Minister our appreciation of the confidence he has shown in the voluntary housing movement. That will be a tremendous fillip to those working in the movement, and I am sure we all wish to express our thanks.
Lord BELLWIN: I am most grateful to the noble Lord.
Clauses 19 to 21 agreed to.
Clause 22 [Secretary of State's power to intervene]:
9.49 p.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 76:
Page 18, line 1, after ("so") insert ("and of his reasons for doing so").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment deals with the core of the clause, which gives the Secretary of State unprecedented powers to interfere with local government. We believe it is only right that before he exercises those powers he should be obliged to give some sort of justification for their use. Surely that is in accordance with the ordinary principles of justice. Let us review the powers, which we consider are unacceptable, that the clause gives the Secretary of State. First, the Secretary of State can, after serving his notice, go beyond even the powers that Parliament is being asked to give in order to allow the right to buy. He can do that by virtue of subsection (7), under which he may require the taking of steps different from those the landlord would have been required to take.
The Secretary of State can then require the landlord to produce any document or supply any information, under subsection (5), and he can require officers of the council to do so even if they are not instructed to do so by their employers. He can take over on behalf of a council its mortgage payments and refuse to return the money he obtains to the council whose property was sold, except at his pleasure. That comes under subsection (4). By virtue of Clause 23 the Secretary of State can actually transfer to the tenant the ownership of property built and paid for in the main by local councils. Finally, the Secretary of State can charge the council such sums as he may determine for the cost of compulsorily seizing and selling its property over its head. That is under subsection (9).
What conditions are laid down for the exercise of such powers?—powers which any Conservative Government would condemn as monstrous if applied to private property rather than to that held in the public trust. The only condition is that the Secretary of State himself shall believe that the right to buy "may have difficulty" in being exercised "effectively and expeditiously".
Such a vaguely worded clause, with absolutely no checks on the decision of the Secretary of State, is a fundamental attack on the principle of local autonomy. In fact, it is another attack on the principle of local councils managing their own property, and I urge the Government to accept this modest and moderate amendment to what is a most objectionable clause. In other words, if such huge powers are taken by the Secretary of State, he should at least give his reasons. The amendment proposes the insertion of the words
"and of his reasons for doing so",
and I believe goes to the heart of the whole clause. I beg to move.
9.53 p.m.
Lord GIFFORD: I wish to follow my noble friend in supporting the amendment, which stands in my name, too, and to add a point about the importance of the arguments for giving reasons before central Government step in in the draconian way in which they can under the clause. I believe two principles are involved. There is the principle of natural justice, which dictates that wherever any person or body is to be subject to severe penalties, he or they should be entitled to know why that is happening, and should have the opportunity to make representations upon the reasons that are given and, if such are mistaken or erroneous, to be able to say so in good time. The second principle is the principle that the people of the area whose authority is being taken over in this way should have the right to know why that is happening.
My noble friend has spelled out the very considerable powers which are granted by the clause: the power to receive mortgage moneys; the power to give orders to local authority staff; and the power to exact the costs of the exercise, upon assumptions which are wholly undetermined and vague, thus putting a burden on the ratepayers. It would be possible to do all that in what I suggest would be the most indecent haste. There is no provision for consultation, nor for advance notice being given. The axe falls, as it were, within 72 hours of the notice being put in the post. The authority is given no opportunity to answer, nor to give its views, before the notice is

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imposed. One is forgiven for thinking that that shows an advance intention for central Government to act as a steamroller against those authorities which are thought likely to be obstructive to this Part of the Bill.
It is interesting to compare what is being done in this Bill with what was done by a Conservative Government in what I think was the last Housing Act that they passed, the Housing Finance Act 1972. That Act included a power to require councils to put up the rents, and it vested in central Government a power to impose its own authority in default, if any authority was recalcitrant. It gave rise to the Clay Cross affair, which caused considerable heat. But in that Act there was an advance provision (and I should like to read it, if I may) as follows:
"It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State, before making an order, to give notice in writing to the authority concerned that he is considering whether to make such order, and to have regard to any representations made to him by the authority within one month of the notification".
That, I would suggest, is the sort of way to go about it; and if the Minister indicates that some sort of advance consultation procedure will be considered by his department, then I am sure we shall not insist upon this amendment to give reasons. But, alternatively, the need to give reasons would serve much the same effect.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: I do not make any apology for sounding once again like a Greek chorus in relation to these various amendments being moved concerning the erosion of the powers of local government, but this seems to me to be a very serious example of the cavalier way in which, in this Bill, the Government are treating local authorities. I feel very strongly that, as the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, said, the least that the Government should do is to consult local authorities when they are about to deprive them of part of their resources. It seems to me that the Government should remember that on the very self-same day on which they got their alleged mandate for this enormous Bill and the draconian measures that they have introduced, local council elections were being held in which people were elected as councillors on an entirely different mandate. They really should consider this very seriously, and should
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give very serious and long thought to what they may be doing to local government.
As I say, I make no apology for persistently complaining about that because I happen to have spent a quarter of a century in local government and I think that local government is extremely important to the health of this country, and that if we erode local government to a point we are well on the way to creating very much a centralised and undemocratic state. So, once again, I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to accepting this very reasonable and very democratic amendment.
Lord BELLWIN: Before I come to the points that have been raised by noble Lords opposite on this amendment, I want to repeat an important point which has rightly been stressed by the Government throughout the proceedings on this Bill in another place. It is that the powers of the Secretary of State under Clause 22 are reserve powers. The Government hope and believe that local authorities, even if they are out of sympathy with the aims of the Bill, will make every genuine effort to carry out responsibly and conscientiously the statutory duties which it will impose on them. If they do so, then occasions on which the Secretary of State's powers under this clause need to be used will rarely, if ever, arise. I hope that your Lordships will keep this fact in mind while this clause is under discussion.
The amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, would require the Secretary of State to give, in any notice under subsection (1) of Clause 22, his reasons for using his powers under the clause. In fact, his justification for doing so would always be the same; and it is laid down in subsection (1) of the clause itself. A notice would he served because it appeared to the Secretary of State that the tenant or tenants in question had or might have difficulty in exercising the right to buy effectively and expeditiously. If your Lordships will bear with me, I shall explain why I believe that no landlord on whom a notice was served would be likely to be in doubt about the circumstances leading, to service in any particular case.

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It would have been necessary for the case to have been raised with the Secretary of State as one where the use of his powers under the clause might be appropriate. Where the possibility was pursued, there would he contact between the department and the local authority concerned, either about the circumstances of the individual case or of the broader class of cases within which it fell. The authority would he aware at that stage, if not earlier, of the factors which had led to the reference of the case or cases to the Secretary of State.
My honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Construction also undertook, when the clause was discussed in another place, that administrative steps would always be taken to forewarn the authority concerned where the service of a notice under Clause 22 was contemplated. By the time any notice came to be served, the local authority would have been made aware that such a step was contemplated, and why, and would have had an opportunity to tell the department of any relevant factors of which it felt the Secretary of State ought to be aware. Against this background, I cannot envisage that any authority will not know why the Secretary of State has served a notice.
To comment briefly on the observations made, the noble Lord, Lord Evans, said that this was a cavalier way to behave and Lord Gifford said that there was no provision for consultation. What I have said ought in practice to convince them that the point is well covered. The noble Lord, Lord Gifford, referred to Clay Cross. The fact that it was entirely on its own, out of all that arose from that Act, was a good sign. The fact that it was what it was, with all that it led to, and the fact that it was deplored by almost everybody that I met in local government, on all sides, augurs very well. The fact is there had been so many noises made, so much insistence that the legislation would not be carried out. I am sure this is one of the factors that have led to this whole position being what it is.
The fact is that I have to come back to saying—and I ask the Committee to
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bear with me repeating it—that this is such a fundamental part of the Government's policy that, if there is to be any prospect of any authority not going along with it, really avoiding the statutory obligations, the Government will have to have the power to intervene. This whole discussion at the moment is about the extent to which they have to give reasons and notice. The points I made are valid. No authority will in practice find, out of the blue, that the Government have served a notice on them about something they know not of. If they have been pursuing a policy of not complying with the legislation, in the remote chance that that would happen, they would know what they were doing. They would know that they would be open to receive the kind of notice we are talking about. If they have been, to the best of their knowledge, conforming to what is required under the Act, they need not have fears or anxieties about that. I do not think this is an amendment we can accept. I do not think that the fears fairly expressed by noble Lords have any validity. In practical terms, the need to give the kind of reasons in the way suggested will not arise. Those involved will know what is happening.
Lord GIFFORD: What the noble Lord is saying is an argument for this amendment. He is saying that in any event his Government would wish to give some kind of notice and to make clear their reasons. I would ask the noble Lord this: will he look at the various other provisions existing on the statute book for central Government to intervene in local authority affairs? I am quite sure that he will find the sort of provision written into the law, such as I have quoted from the Housing Finance Act 1972, which makes it the normal thing to serve some kind of notice or to request consultation before coming down finally and imposing these sanctions. If that is the practice, as I believe it is, before such reserve powers are used, then it ought to be written into the Bill and not left to the goodwill of central Government to come in when they want. At the least, the people of the area ought to know in greater detail than the Act sets out why these powers are being used, so that they can judge whether central Government or local government are right in their actions.
Lord BELLWIN: I am not at all convinced; at the same time I recognise the point of view being put forward. I cannot accept the amendment. I do not agree with it and I do not think that it is necessary, but I am prepared to do the very thing that the noble Lord suggested and talk to my colleagues about it. Beyond that I cannot go. That I will undertake to do.
Baroness BIRK: As the Minister has said that, I will withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 22 agreed to.
Clause 23 [Vesting Orders]:
10.5 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendments Nos. 77 to 84 en bloc:
Page 19, line 39, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
("(2) A vesting order shall have the like effect, except so far as it otherwise provides, as a conveyance or grant duly executed in pursuance of this Chapter, and, in particular, shall bind the landlord and the tenant and their successors in title to the same extent as if the covenants contained in it and expressed to be made on their behalf respectively had been entered into by them.")
Page 20, line 3, at end insert—
("(2A) If the dwelling-house in respect of which a vesting order is made is not registered land the vesting order shall contain a certificate stating that the freehold conveyed or grant made by it is subject only to such incumbrances, rights and interests as are stated elsewhere in the vesting order or summarised in the certificate.")
Page 20, line 7, at end insert
(" and for the purpose of the registration the Chief Land Registrar shall accept any such certificate as is mentioned in subsection (2A) above as sufficient evidence of the facts stated in it.")
Page 20,line 10, after ("him") insert ("(on payment of the appropriate fee)")
Page 20, line 13, at end insert ("and shall (notwithstanding section 112 of the Land Registration Act 1925) allow any person authorised by the Secretary of State to inspect and make copies of and extracts from any register or document which is in the custody of the Chief Land Registrar and relates to the dwelling-house.")
Page 20, line 14, leave out ("by reason of the operation of a vesting order") and insert ("in consequence of a registration under this section")
Page 20, line 17, after ("1925") insert ("by the Chief Land Registrar")
Page 20, line 19, after ("shall") insert ("instead")
The noble Lord said: May I move Amendments Nos. 77 to 84 en bloc. Clause 23 provides the Secretary of State with a means of completing transactions in relation to which he has used his powers of intervention under Clause 22. He is to be able to do this by means of a document to be known as a vesting order containing such provisions as he may determine. A vesting order will take the place of the conveyance of a freehold or grant of a lease in a normal transaction, because the landlord will not he executing the document.
Amendments Nos. 77, 78 and 79 are technical amendments designed to ensure that the system of land registration works in the same way for vesting orders as it does for conveyances or grants duly executed under Chapter I of the Bill. Amendments Nos. 82 to 84 are consequential on these amendments and Amendments Nos. 80 and 81 are designed to remove any doubts there may be about the Chief Land Registrar's power to charge for office copies supplied to the Secretary of State for the purposes of the right to buy and concerning inspection by persons authorised by the Secretary of State of any register relating to any dwelling-house subject to the right to buy.
The new subsection (2A) which would be inserted by Amendment No. 78 is consequential on a new subsection (2). It would apply where the title to the dwelling-house which was the subject of a vesting order was not registered. In such cases, the vesting order is to contain a certificate stating that the freehold conveyed or grant made by it is subject only to such encumbrances, rights and interests as are stated in the order or summarised in the certificate.
This amendment achieves two things. First, it gives a basis for registration of title to the dwelling-house comparable to the basis provided by a conventional conveyance or grant of a lease. This is necessary now that the vesting order no longer in itself vests title in the purchaser. Amendment No. 79 provides that the Chief Land Registrar shall accept the certificate as sufficient evidence of the facts stated in it. Secondly, it ensures that the purchaser receives a good title on registration and that the purchaser only takes the property subject to the encumbrances, rights and interests in the certificate or order.
Amendment No. 79 provides that he shall accept a certificate included in a vesting order under subsection (2A) as sufficient evidence of the facts stated in it. Amendment No. 80 is a minor amendment which simply ensures that the Chief Land Registrar will be entitled to his usual fee where he supplies the Secretary of State with office copies of relevant documents under subsection (4).
Amendment No. 81 is also minor and technical. There is a basic restriction in the Land Registration Act 1925 on who is permitted in inspect and take copies of documents held by the Land Registry. Normally, a third party must be authorised to do so by the registered proprietor. This is clearly not appropriate when an intervention has taken place under Clause 22. Amendment No. 81 accordingly assures the right of the Secretary of State or a person authorised by him to inspect and make copies of the register or documents in the custody of the Land Registrar.
Amendments Nos. 82, 83 and 84 are minor amendments to the indemnity provisions in subsection (5). Amendment No. 82 is a straightforward consequential of Amendment No. 77. Amendments Nos. 83 and 84 simply underline that any indemnity paid under Clause 23 is to be paid by the Secretary of State and not by the Chief Land Registrar as it would in any other case. I beg to move.
Clause 23, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 24 [Statutory Declarations]:
10.10 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 85:
Page 20, line 21, leave out ("may if it") and insert ("or the Secretary of State may, if the landlord or Secretary of State")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this minor amendment. It is designed simply to place beyond any doubt the Secretary of State's ability to rely on a statutory declaration in the exercise of his powers under Clause 22, in the same way as a local authority is enabled to do by Clause 24
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as it is drafted. I hope that it is a power which we will never need to invoke. I beg to move.
Clause 25, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 25 agreed to.
Clause 26 [Interpretation of Chapter 1]:
On Question, Whether Clause 26 shall stand part of the Bill?
10.12 p.m.
Lord AIREDALE: This clause is the last clause in Chapter 1 of Part I. It is curious that whereas Chapter 2 of Part I and the rest of this Bill and most of most Bills have cross-headings above groups of sections, we find that Chapter 1 goes all the way through from the beginning of Clause 1 to the end of Clause 26 without a single italicised sub-heading. I know that italicised sub-headings are not part of the Bill but they are very helpful, and I should have thought that the draftsmen might have been able to assist readers by setting out these first 26 clauses in the customary way with some italicised cross-headings.
Lord BELLWIN: I thank the noble Lord for his comments. I am not quite sure as to what I can do to help, but I gladly undertake to take this away and see whether it would be helpful and possible to do this.
Clause 26 agreed to.
Clause 27 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Tenancies which are not secure tenancies]:
Lord BELLWIN Lord BELLWIN moved Amendment No. 86:
Page 100, line 8, at end insert—
(",unless it is a shared ownership tenancy.
(3) For the purposes of this paragraph a tenancy is a "shared ownership tenancy" if—

(a) it is granted by a housing association which, at the time of the grant, is registered under section 13 of the 1974 Act;

(b) it is granted at a premium which is calculated by reference to a percentage of the value of the dwelling-house or of the cost of providing it; and

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(c) at the time it is granted it complies with the requirements of the regulations then in force under section 132(4)(b) of this Act or, in the case of a tenancy granted before any such regulations have been brought into force, it complies with the first such regulations to be in force.").

The noble Lord said: This amendment is another technical amendment to ensure that leasehold schemes for the elderly—a form of housing association shared ownership scheme—are not caught by the tenants' charter. It is not, of course, intended that shared ownership schemes, either housing association or local authority, should fall within the scope of the charter, and all but leaseholds for the elderly are already excluded either by virtue of being long leases and falling within exclusion No. 1 or as co-owner-ships. Leasehold for the elderly, however, takes the form of a life lease terminable by notice upon the leaseholder's death, when it reverts to the housing association which has granted the lease. The leaseholder's estate benefits from the value of the lease but the property itself, which is sheltered accommodation, is guaranteed for continued use by elderly people. Such leases are likely to fall within sub-paragraph (2)(b) of the exclusion for long leases and will thus come within the charter. Since this is clearly inappropriate, the amendment specifically excludes from the charter housing association shared ownership schemes, which would otherwise be caught by sub-paragraph (2)(b). I trust that your Lordships will be able to accept this amendment.
Viscount GAGE: I do not understand the amendment, but I am very grateful to my noble friend.
10.15 p.m.
Viscount CRAIGAVON Viscount CRAIGAVON moved Amendment No. 87:
Page 100, line 19, at end insert ("except that in the case of a dwellinghouse held by a local authority other than under Part V of the Housing Act 1957 a tenancy is not a secure tenancy if the dwellinghouse was provided as a consequence of his contract of employment.").
The noble Viscount said: This amendment attempts to anticipate and forestall problems that could arise for local authorities under this Bill, as it now stands,
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in relation to security of tenure of residential staff within local authority institutions. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities, which supports this amendment, has received worried representations from many of its authorities of all political colours, among others from Islington, Hammersmith, Bexley, Hillingdon and Newcastle. My own borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the borough of Ealing are particularly affected.
The situation which they fear is that accommodation for staff which is now regarded as integral to an institution—by "an institution" I am talking about a children's home, an old people's home, or possibly a home for disturbed adolescents—could become filled with people who have nothing whatsoever to do with that institution. These people could be former employees who have decided to change jobs, their relatives or their immediate successors in the tenancy. These people would have no obligations or responsibilities to that institution and yet the law would have given them security of tenure within it. Not only is that an incongruous situation, but also that accommodation is then not available for benefit of social workers actually working in that institution. I cannot believe that anyone on any side of the Committee would desire that situation, nor that it is the conscious intention of the Government to allow it to arise.
Can I now justify why I say these problems will arise from the Bill as it now stands? The difficulty arises from the uncertainty of the wording in the Bill at page 100, line 19:
"…for the better performance of his duties".
When this is interpreted in the real world of local authority recruitment and practice a large grey area springs up related to the benefit of and necessity for residential accommodation for staff. Although I am giving examples in terms of the area of main concern—that is social work—this will also apply to other local authority employees such as park-keepers, cemetery attendants and so on, if they live in special housing related to their particular jobs. I should say that in my amendment I exclude what are normally referred to as council houses by mentioning Part V of the 1957 Housing Act.
To go back to the social workers and the grey area of interpretation, the

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difficult question is this. To what extent is it necessary or desirable for social workers to be residential within their institutions? In practice, local authorities have to be flexible in recruitment, and often offering accommodation is a considerable incentive. But also they are happy to accept a new recruit who lives nearby or who does not wish to be a resident in a very run-down area. Thus an original recruitment specification may leave open the necessity for residence. The authority are simply pleased to get a suitable candidate. If the eventually successful candidate does take up residence he will have very strong proof in the terms of his recruitment that the necessity for that residence is merely incidental and that his duties are in no significant way bettered by his residence.
There are many examples of such problems, but I should like to give just two more. I understand it is often the practice to frame the hours of work of a residential social worker in his contract of employment as ending at, say, 5 p.m., 5.30 p.m. or whatever. It is probably not a condition of service that he does anything after that time; technically he is off duty. But inevitably he will put in extra hours and also be available in times of illness, emergency or fire. But if he wanted to prove that his residence was incidental to his job he could point to his hours of work in his contract as being due to end at 5.30 p.m.
As a last example, there might be a modern children's home with, say, three self-contained staff flats. It would probably be agreed that the senior warden had to be in residence for the better performance of his duties. But the two resident junior wardens could, perhaps, point down the road to an older children's home of similar size which had only one staff residence, but two equivalent junior wardens living out, and they could claim that the fact of their own residence was thus incidental.
In all these examples and many more, staff who left the employment of the local authority would seem to have a strong case under the Bill as it now stands for establishing security of tenure in the middle of institutions. I say "in the middle of institutions", but uncertainty would be increased if the staff accommodation was adjacent to or in the same grounds
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as a main building. Sometimes, what I have referred to as an institution would simply be a large house with everyone living in close proximity.
In all these examples, it would seem totally inappropriate for a complete stranger to have security of tenure in the midst of what are often sensitive and difficult circumstances. This would also deprive the old, the young and often the disturbed and handicapped of vital residential staff. It would seem to me even more inappropriate if the right to buy obtained in such circumstances. Additionally, recruiting of replacement social workers would be hindered by the inability to offer residential accommodation. This ability to offer staff accommodation is vital in high-rent areas, particularly London.
This amendment seeks to cure the problems that I have outlined. It effectively substitutes, for the uncertain words "for the better performance of his duties" the clearer criterion of the residence being in "consequence of his contract of employment." This would give a local authority a modest degree of certainty that its institutional social services would not be hindered by chance secure tenancies arising randomly, in quite inappropriate circumstances. Local authorities would, nevertheless, be under a prima facie duty to rehouse any families and their children in the normal way, thus leaving residential accommodation within institutions for the proper and beneficial use for which it was intended.
Finally, I should say that I have concentrated on the problems of local authorities. I should think that similar problems occur in organisations mentioned in paragraph 2(1)(b) to (e) of Schedule 3. I hope, if the Government were able to take on board the general principle of my amendment, that they would be able to extend it to those other organisations. I also hope that the Government will accept that this part of the Bill, as it now stands, is in danger of placing even more strain on our hard-pressed local authorities, and that this small amendment to the Bill now will avoid considerable difficulties in the future. I beg to move.
10.23 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: Very briefly, I hope to add my support to the

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amendment moved by the noble Viscount. It is of very vital importance indeed that this lacuna in the wording of the schedule should be filled. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, must have been very impressed by the ground put forward by the noble Viscount, which is one supported by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, of which the noble Lord has no doubt had long and personal experience. I should have thought that this was a very important lacuna to be filled. It does not affect housing revenue account houses; it merely affects Part V houses. There could be some very embarrassing unintentional results if this amendment is not accepted, and I hope that it will be.
Lord SANDFORD: I should like to add my support to the noble Viscount's amendment, and to confirm that this amendment and the one that follows it are supported not only by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the London Borough Authorities, but the Association of District Councils. So it has the support of all three sets of housing authorities. That being so, I hope my noble friend will indicate that it has his sympathy and that he will, at least, consider it, if he cannot accept it straight away.
Lord HYLTON: It seems, from everything that has been said, that the noble Viscount has raised an extremely important point. I just wonder whether he should have drawn his amendment even wider to include voluntary bodies which employ residential social workers. I am thinking of bodies like Doctor Barnardo's Homes or the Church of England Children's Society. If my noble friend the Minister can reassure us that the voluntary bodies do not need the same protection as the statutory ones, that will be fine.
10.25 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN: The very last point touched upon by my noble friend Lord Hylton gives the clue to the reason why the Government cannot accept these amendments. When one starts to bring in one group of people, then one wants to bring in another and another and another, and the basic objectives of the Bill become undermined.
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The amendment seeks to widen one of the exclusions from security of tenure which have been carefully drawn so that no tenant is deprived of his security and other charter rights unnecessarily. Paragraph 2 of Schedule 3 excludes from security tenancies in dwellings occupied under a contract of employment which requires a tenant to live in that particular dwelling for the better performance of his duties. This is a deliberately tight test. It should cover employees such as caretakers of blocks of flats or wardens of sheltered housing schemes. In such cases, which fall within this exclusion, it is clearly important for the landlord to be able to get possession of the dwelling for the use of the next person to take the job.
If an employee genuinely needs to be resident, then this exclusion is, in our view, perfectly adequate for management's needs. If, however, there is no cause for a particular dwelling to be occupied, because of the demands of the job, by a person doing a certain job, then I can see no sufficient reason why the dwelling should not be available for letting under a secure tenancy. It is up to the employer to make up his mind about the particular job.
I realise that there are some dwellings situated within special establishments, such as old people's homes, where from time to time the deputy warden's flat, for example, may be let to somebody else working in the home because the deputy lives around the corner. I realise that it could be awkward if it came to be occupied on a secure tenancy by an employee who later ends his connection with the establishment or even with his landlord. In those circumstances, it must be up to the authority to consider carefully the terms on which they let the dwelling in the first place. Particular conditions as to noise and behaviour might, for example, be called for in a dwelling within an old person's home. They will also want carefully to consider whether such an employee's contract of employment should have something to say about the tenancy in case it really is necessary for the better performance of his duties. If it is not necessary but they are intent upon not leaving the fiat empty and on being able to gain repossession later, they might find it safer to let to somebody in one of the excluded categories of tenant, such as

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somebody moving into the area for job reasons—which might include another social worker. I am assuming that they cannot use it to accommodate a resident of the home itself.
I understand that problems may sometimes arise but I do not think that they are beyond the scope of intelligent management to deal with, and I do not think they justify a further substantial exclusion from security. In other words, what I am seeking to demonstrate is that there is considerable room for manoeuvre left for them by the Bill as it is drafted.
I turn now to the broader point touched upon by the noble Viscount: that dwellings are sometimes offered as an incentive to attract scarce staff in circumstances where their residence in a particular dwelling could not by any means be said to be essential to the job. It seems to me that in those cases, even more so, security of tenure ought not normally to be denied. Often such lettings are in Part V accommodation, so the amendment would not bite on them in any case, but if it did I should be obliged to oppose it, especially since the right to buy would then also be in question.
I hope that the noble Viscount will appreciate that we have gone very carefully into the sort of difficulties he foresees. We do not want to remove from security any more people than is really necessary. I hope that he will now accept that there is adequate provision in the Bill for the exclusion of tenants in genuine tied accommodation. There is a balance of advantage to be struck here between the management needs of local authorities as employers and the advantages to the tenant and his family of security of tenure and the other important rights of tenants. We believe that the right distinction to make is between those dwellings which are really inseparably linked with the job and the rest.
It is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Evans, said, that I had an association in the past with the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. Indeed 13 months ago I was vice-chairman of the association and I am cognisant of their many concerns and fears, not necessarily about this Bill but indeed about all legislation which Governments have tried to bring in over the years.
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I think it right that they should bring forth that which concerns them, in the same way as does my noble friend Lord Sandford on behalf of the ADC, but in this case we have really tried to consider the kind of problems which have been worrying them. I think that in fact the Bill gives adequate provision for them to be able to cover those aspects which worry them, and, with that in mind, I hope the noble Viscount may feel able not to pursue his amendment.
Baroness BIRK: The Minister will be surprised to hear that I consider the Government have got it right this time. It follows very much the lines of the Rent (Agriculture) Act, which, although it gave rise to misgivings in advance, in the end worked out very well. I think that it should be left as it is and I hope the noble Viscount will withdraw his amendment.
Viscount CRAIGAVON: I appreciate what the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, has said. He said that he was striking a balance of advantage. I am wondering whether he realised what is in one of the balances. As I said earlier, this is a grey area, and he seems to rely on the fact that everyone will behave sensibly and will be perfectly reasonable. One would hope that would be so, but I have given three examples which would produce extremely awkward situations. I should have thought they were examples of the sort of difficulties which would face local authorities, and it seems to me that the noble Lord also relies on the courts interpreting in a common sense way the words "for the better performance of his duties".
If that were so we should all be all right, but what I think will happen is that the courts will be compelled to develop some sort of standard in which a lot of the cases, examples of which I have given, will slip through and there will be anomalies of these institutions being populated by complete strangers and outsiders, although admittedly that will take some time. That is a situation which I do not find acceptable, but I should like to read the noble Lord's words to see what comfort I can draw out of them, and possibly come back at the next stage if I do not feel satisfied. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.34 p.m.
Baroness FAITHFULL Baroness FAITHFULL moved Amendment No. 88:
Page 100, line 28, at end insert—
(" (2) A tenancy is not a secure tenancy if the dwelling-house has been acquired for rehabilitation and the dwelling-house is used by the landlord, pending rehabilitation, as temporary housing accommodation.")
The noble Baroness said: This is a probing amendment which concerns two different but interrelated issues. The first issue concerns certain categories of people who do not qualify under this Bill for insecure tenancies, that is short-term tenancies. The second issue concerns short-life properties acquired ultimately not for development but for rehabilitation, and used temporarily for those in the certain categories.
The categories of people who do not qualify for insecure tenancies to which I refer are, for instance, single people, many of them young secretaries, teachers, shop assistants, bank clerks. Then there are the young married couples whose names are on the local authority waiting list but who may have to wait one, two or perhaps even three years. There are the young, or even older, people transferred by their firms to another place, who require simply short-term accommodation. Finally perhaps, as another example, there is the single woman who has been looking after her parents or parent, and who, when they die, then has to move out of her home; she needs time to look for permanent accommodation and in the meantime needs temporary accommodation.
These categories, particularly the young working people at the beginning of their career, cannot immediately afford the accommodation at present offered either on the open market or as lodgers with council houses. These are the people who are assisted by the housing associations as well as by local authorities in short-life, often substandard, property. If they are not allowed to qualify as insecure tenants under this Bill, then a housing association or a local authority is not going to be able to offer them short-life, substandard accommodation as there will be an obligation to rehouse them when the time comes to rehabilitate the house. The London and Quadrant Housing Trust yielded 2,500 lettings in five years; the Patchwork Housing Trust have
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1,000 such lettings. I have heard from the Fairhaven Trust and I am informed by the National Federation of Housing Associations of the very serious needs of these categories of people.
I am particularly concerned that, through lack of local authority and government financial support, hostels offering accommodation to the young working person are closing down. My noble friend Lady Vickers is particularly worried over this, as I know that three of her London hostels have just lately had to close down. These outstanding and sometimes small housing trusts running as voluntary organisations do much to help this category of person with their short-life, substandard property.
My second point concerns property which is short-life, often substandard property which the housing trusts have made minimally habitable, as the tenants are short-term. Under Schedule 3, paragraph 3, the definition of property acquired for development relates to Section 22 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, but—and this is the rub—does not include property scheduled to be improved and rehabilitated. The housing trusts and indeed local authorities have much property which is to be improved when finances allow. The Bill does not allow houses scheduled to be rehabilitated to be used for insecure tenants.
I know that the contention of the Minister's right honourable friend in another place was, during the debate in the other place, that the use of such properties for the categories stated would or might contravene the principle of the sale of council property, because the short-term insecure tenant might turn into a long-term insecure tenant, and the local authority or the housing trust might not seek to sell that property. This, I think, would not be the case, as both housing trusts and local authorities will ultimately seek to rehabilitate such properties for sale in order to bring in more money.
The noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, has congratulated housing trusts and housing associations. He has asked me to say that he had to leave to catch a train, but he supports this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: In passing, I should like to say that I think this Committee should look at the amendment. I

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shall not make a long speech. However, with all due respect, planners seem to have gone mad in the city centres. If we take the industrial complex from the Mersey down to the Wash and then down to London, we can see that there are thousands and thousands of substandard houses that have been ploughed down and dumps are put upon the areas that are left. But with a little sense, many young people would be glad to go into those houses for a transitional period and be able to afford to pay a rent. Buying is a completely different issue. However, I think that this point should be noted. There is no need for me to expand on this matter because the entire Committee knows the nub of my argument.
Baroness DENINGTON: I should like to give the strongest possible support to every word that the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, has said. If these houses that have been acquired for rehabilitation are made secure tenancies, they will not be used at all—they will be boarded-up. The boarding-up will be broken down because people can always break it down. Those houses will be vandalised and occupied by squatters. However, if the amendment is carried they will be used, as the noble Baroness has explained, for short-term lettings and as soon as the authorities can get round to it financially, and their plans are approved, they will rehabilitate these houses instead of tearing them down. If they are vandalised and vandalised over months, they will have to be torn down because they will be finished. We do not want all of our old houses torn down—they are part of our communities. I hope that your Lordships will very strongly support the amendment.
10.42 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN: I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Faithfull for having given me notice of the points that she intended to raise. The amendment is on a theme which has been much worked over during the past few weeks in the course of proceedings on the Bill in another place. Its purpose is to exclude from security of tenure, and hence the right to buy, housing which has been acquired by the local authority, housing associations or other public sector landlords, and is being let temporarily by the
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landlord until they are ready to start works of rehabilitation. The amendment thus goes wider than exclusion 3, as at present drafted, since that requires the property to have been acquired for development as defined by Section 22 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1972.
I should perhaps make it clear that a considerable amount of acquired property designated by its owners for rehabilitation could be subject to the existing development exclusion. Where the rehabilitation will involve work which materially affects the external appearance of the building or converts, say, one dwelling to two, then that is likely to be development within the meaning of the planning Act, hence the exclusion. It is not necessary for planning permission to be expressly obtained in such circumstances.
If the work concerned comes within the scope of permitted development under the general development order, then the exclusion still applies. We cannot accept, however, that tenants of any acquired property due for rehabilitation, however minor that work, should be deprived of security of tenure and the right to buy perhaps for several years. That is why a tight and testable definition has been incorporated in paragraph 3.
Who knows what could be understood from the term "rehabilitation". There would surely be room for evasion here and I could not be as optimistic as my noble friend that this would not be so. If a lesser degree of rehabilitation is required, which does not constitute development, hut cannot be done without the dwelling being vacated, then a ground for possession is available to the landlord. It is a mandatory ground, but suitable alternative accommodation must be provided for the secure tenant who is displaced. That seems the best and most proper way to deal with such a case.
To turn to the points my noble friend has raised about categories of people who will not qualify for security of tenure because of the provisions of this schedule, I should like to explain to your Lordships that some of those mentioned could in fact be accommodated in tenancies without security. Paragraph 5 of this schedule covers workers who have to move to a new area. Tenancies granted to them while they seek a permanent home will

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remain insecure for a period of a year. Other groups who will he outside security are students given a letting to enable them to attend their course, and the homeless.
I should also like to make it quite clear, as there seems to have been confusion over the position in some quarters, that housing associations can benefit from the exclusion in paragraph 4 of this schedule. They can continue the schemes which, as I am sure my noble friend is aware, some housing associations run for the benefit of homeless people. They use short-life property that they have leased from a local authority, and thus give homeless people a better and more economical alternative to bed and breakfast accommodation while the appropriate inquiries are made.
The exclusion in paragraph 4 will cover lettings under such schemes even though the letting for the tenant is from the association and not from the local authority. It runs for a period of a year from the time when a person given accommodation pending investigations is notified of the local authority's decision on permanent rehousing liability. It would, of course, he possible, as an additional safeguard, for the local authority concerned to undertake to the association, at the time of leasing the properties to them, to deal with any permanent rehousing liability arising from its obligations under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act or from tenants becoming secure by the passage of time.
Another category of letting, which will not be secure and which offers scope for using short-life property, are lettings to a corporate body, such as a health authority. Only individuals can be secure tenants. A health authority could, in turn, let to nurses.
I am most grateful to my noble friend for having put down this amendment and thereby giving me the opportunity to clarify some of the points which perhaps have been misunderstood or which have required further explanation. In turn, I should like to assure her that we shall take away and read very carefully what she has said in case it may be that, despite what I have just said, we have missed some areas. I think that it is right that we should do so. I gladly undertake to do that, perhaps in the hope that my noble friend may feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord HYLTON: I really had hoped that this amendment was one that my noble friend the Minister could have accepted. I acknowledge that he has said that there are some categories of rehabilitation and some categories of temporary short-life tenant who will he able to continue to be temporarily housed, as they are at present. But it is very disappointing that it is not 100 per cent. For far too long there has been an extreme scandal of hoarded-up and bricked-up houses unable to be used during the long transitional periods which the complexity of rehabilitation necessarily, or apparently necessarily, involves. I hope that my noble friend Lady Faithfull will continue to press this point with the utmost vigour.
Baroness FAITHFULL: I thank the Minister for his reply. I have to say to him how deeply concerned I am about the young people who cannot find accommodation, who I think I am right in saying do not necessarily rank as homeless persons under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act, and who very often drift to accommodation which is quite unsuitable for them and into bad ways. I shall not elaborate further. On the other hand, the Minister has given the assurance that he will look at this again and, therefore, I am grateful to him for that because I am sure that in conversation we shall find areas of agreement. Therefore, with his assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, with leave to bring it forward again at the Report stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.50 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON moved Amendment No. 89:
Page 101, line 49, at end insert (" and is of an approved hall of residence")
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment may I also ask that we might consider Amendment No. 90 at the same time. I come here in a rather unexpected guise, speaking in this particular case for the National Union of Students. I know about the close connection of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, with the AMA; I do not know how close his connection is with the National Union of Students, except that his party seems to he doing fairly well among undergraduates at the

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moment, and therefore he may listen with sympathy to what I have to say.
I am here seeking to define the kind of accommodation which is excluded from security of tenure in the schedule's student accommodation. In an effort to do this, to the words on page 101 at line 49, are added,
" and is of an approved hall of residence".
That may sound ungrammatical, but it is correct if you consider it in relation to the rest of the subsection.
At page 102 again the definition is described as,
"a dwellinghouse which is let or normally let only to persons attending the educational establishment specified in the landlord's notice".
The idea here is that where students occupy accommodation in a hall of residence—and that is why it is defined—obviously and clearly they should not have the protection of security of tenure. But the National Union of Students is concerned that in some cases research students, or people of quite long-term connection with a university or other further education establishment, or using local authority public sector accommodation because of the fact that they are working in a university town or in a town where there is a college, would be excluded as the schedule now stands from any security of tenure at all.
What this amendment seeks to do in, I am afraid, a rather complex way is to define a hall of residence, and that therefore if someone is in a hall of residence they are not secure, and by that means to take outside Schedule 3 normal public sector accommodation which is not a hall of residence but happens to be occupied by, let us say, a mature student or a research student, or whatever, who is there as a tenant of the public authority and should therefore have the benefit of security of tenure. I beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: It may be helpful if I explained the reason for the exclusion covering students. They are a group of people whose need for housing in a particular place is by its very nature temporary. The purpose behind the exclusion is therefore to give a certain degree of flexibility to landlords, and at the same time to help students by encouraging public sector landlords to let to them
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houses or flats from their normal stock which may be temporarily available or, for example, not suitable for families. I am thinking here of short-life property awaiting rehabilitation, or dwellings on high-rise estates which are difficult to let to other applicants. The Bill was amended in another place to allow lettings to be made under this exclusion before commencement. (This provision now appears as paragraph 68 of Schedule 23). If students are allowed to stay on after the end of their course, they will become secure tenants six months later. And the procedure for prior notification that the tenancy is excluded means they are sure of their status.
I hope your Lordships will agree that we cannot, against this background, accept the amendment; it would destroy the point of what I believe is a useful provision in the Bill, by restricting it to halls of residence, which in many cases would not be secure accommodation anyway, and to only those houses in the ordinary stock normally let to students at the establishment concerned. I am not sure whether this is what the noble Lord intends. If not, he may feel able to withdraw the amendment. I listened with interest and with sympathy to the points he made. He may not feel as I always do, but perhaps he will take my assurance on this point. In any event, I fear I cannot help him further.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: I understand, even at this comparatively early hour—I was going to say "late hour"—what the Minister is saying, although it seems he has certain double standards because he was giving a quite different answer on the previous amendment to the noble Baroness, Lady Faith-full, about temporary housing accommodation in areas pending rehabilitation. Apparently he is not prepared to look in the same way in relation to student accommodation. I was seeking to define more tightly what a hall of residence or student accommodation was. I shall read at leisure what the noble Lord said to see if I understood it and, perhaps more important, to see whether brighter minds than mine, including the National Union of Students, understood. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 90 not moved.]
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 92:
Page 102, line 38, at end insert—
("Rural Housing
l3. A tenancy is not a secure tenancy if the dwelling house is situated in a National Park, or an area designated under Section 87 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Acts 1949 as an area of outstanding natural beauty, or an area designated by order of the Secretary of State as a rural area, and the landlord is a local authority (as defined in Section 49 of this Act), a County Council or the Development Board for Rural Wales or a registered housing association.").
The noble Lord said: Having taken to heart some remarks made by noble Lords earlier, I think I should—to use a rather inelegant phrase—be flogging a dead horse were I to proceed with this amendment, so I will not do so.
[Amendment No. 92 not moved.]
10.57 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON moved Amendment No. 93:
Page 102, line 38, at end insert—
("Housing for Key Workers
13. A tenancy is not a secure tenancy if the dwelling house is provided by a registered housing association the objects of which include the provision of accommodation for persons engaged in specified employment and (a) it was granted to a person in connection with such employment; and (b) the landlord notified the tenant at the time the tenancy was granted that the accommodation was granted for employment reasons; (c) the property is situated in a Development Area or Special Development Area.").
The noble Lord said: I move this amendment with a little more optimism than I did some of my earlier ones, especially after the many speeches from noble Lords, and particularly from the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, who said how important he regarded the question of the mobility of labour. From my experience of local government, we have always, in the local authorities of which I have been and still am a member, set aside housing for key workers, particularly since the local authority of which I am a member is in a special development area. In such areas you want to be sure that if a new factory is being built, a new enterprise is being started or a new computer set-up is being established, you can, if you do not have the skilled labour in your own area—and that is one of the great tragedies of some special development areas—tell the
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builders or whoever may be developing the scheme that they can have a guarantee for key workers who will be there, by the nature of their employment, on a temporary basis until that particular job is finished. I should have thought this proposal would be one of the best ways of ensuring and enshrining the importance of the mobility of labour, namely by excepting key workers from the provisions, and that is why I say I move this amendment with more optimism than was the case with some of my previous amendments.
Lord BELLWIN: Despite the hour, I do not feel like a dead horse. I appreciate the noble Lord's intention in seeking to exclude from the tenants' charter tenancies granted by industrial key workers housing associations who are providing housing as a means of encouraging employment in assisted areas, which is indeed a very valuable function. However, I believe that the fifth exclusion in Schedule 3—namely, temporary accommodation for persons seeking employment—already caters for such cases. Under that exclusion, people moving to an area for job reasons and needing somewhere to live in the short-term while looking for a permanent house will be excluded from the tenants' charter for one year. If they are still in occupation at the end of that year, they will obtain security under the provisions of the Bill. I believe that that is right, since it will allow landlords flexibility in providing short-term accommodation for newcomers moving for job reasons, without creating a second class of tenant who will be permanently without security of tenure.
I am afraid that I cannot accept the wider exclusion proposed in the amendment, although I appreciate that it is restricted to certain geographical areas and to certain types of landlord. I do not think that we have any reason to deny tenants, who are in all other respects ordinary permanent housing association tenants, the tenants' charter rights simply because of their landlord's constitution and the area in which they happen to live.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: I am not as sanguine as the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, about paragraph 5 on page 100, though I am somewhat reassured by it. I only hope that in fact it works in the way that he suggests, because I feel very strongly that we must do all we can to

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ensure that in regard to key workers, particularly in development or special development areas, there is mobility of labour. The noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, made quite a point about this. I am willing to have another look at paragraph 5 and, with some reluctance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 28 to 32 agreed to.
Clause 33 [Grounds and orders for possession]:
11.2 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON moved Amendment No. 94:
Page 25, line 18, leave out ("but the grounds so specified may be altered or added to with the leave of the court.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment seeks to limit the basis of the local authority's rights in altering a summons for possession of rented property. Any members of your Lordships' Committee who have spent time as advocates in the courts will appreciate that when a tenant receives a notice to quit, followed by a summons, it is in the first instance, at least for any normal tenant who is not totally feckless, a fairly shocking and frightening experience. In addition, if possession is sought for a particular reason, presumably that reason is stated on the summons, so that the tenant can then remedy the particular breach of the tenancy agreement.
The notice may, for instance, be in respect of arrears of rent, which the tenant then puts right. Having paid the arrears, the tenant goes to court confident that he has remedied the breach to which the local authority, his landlord, is referring. The clause provides that the local authority can then change the grounds for seeking possession, after service of the notice. The tenant, who may not be as familiar as are lawyers with court procedures, and who may not be represented, finds, having remedied what he thinks to be the breach in relation to which possession is sought, that the landlord (the local authority) then substitutes an entirely new ground for seeking possession.
Even members of your Lordships' Committee would be caught unawares if such a thing were imposed upon them. One might be prepared to defend proceedings brought in connection with arrears of rent on the basis that the situation had been remedied. One might think that one had the complete answer, only to find that, without warning, the landlord had changed the grounds after service of the notice.
I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, may say that we can leave this to the discretion of the court, and I am sure that in most cases we could. But it is not good enough to have to rely upon the discretion of the court. The county court judge may be having an off day. He may have missed the point. The tenant may be so worried that he is unable to express himself.
Only in very exceptional circumstances, if at all, should a local authority which is in the position of having a considerable number of well-qualified officials, be permitted to impose upon a tenant, who is in a very disadvantageous position, an entirely new set of grounds for possession after the summons has been served on him. I think it is totally contrary to natural justice, totally contrary to the basic principles of British justice, and is something which your Lordships should seek to exclude by means of the amendment I now beg to move.
Lord BELLWIN: Your Lordships have referred to the discussion of this amendment in another place. I have listened to what has been said, but I am afraid I can only agree with what my honourable friend said on that occasion. He said that this provision is a sensible one. It allows a landlord, with the leave of the court (yes, indeed, I did pick up the point, as the noble Lord, Lord Evans, suggested I might)—and I stress the words "with the leave of the court"—to add to or alter the ground for possession specified in the notice which a landlord seeking possession will have to serve on the tenant under Clause 32. If this were not possible, the landlord would have to go through the process of serving a notice seeking possession a second time, thus adding to his workload and risking a delay of the court hearing, even when it was clearly right that the court should consider the

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new circumstances with those already mentioned in the notice seeking possession.
The sort of situation where this provision might be used is where a tenant has been given a notice stating that possession is being sought under Ground 1 of Schedule 4 because he is in rent arrears. His conduct may then change so as to become a nuisance to neighbours, giving the landlord additional reason for seeking possession, under Ground 2 in Schedule 4. Clearly it would be right in such a case that these two issues should be considered together by the court. The provision that a new ground can be added or substituted only with the leave of the court protects the rights of the tenant. For example, the court could extend its protection by adjourning or postponing a case to give the tenant time to prepare his defence where a new factor has been introduced. This procedure will result in less delay and confusion than would an obligation for a landlord to serve a completely new notice whenever circumstances change.
I think, therefore, it would be wrong to remove this possibility from the Bill. There are perfectly adequate safeguards for the tenant; and although, this time, I undertake to read carefully what the noble Lord has said in case we are missing something here, I would ask him whether he feels able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord AIREDALE: Does the Minister not agree that, in the way that the clause is drafted, it is almost an invitation to the court to allow alteration? Because it is phrased in the affirmative:
"the grounds so specified may be altered … with the leave of the court".
Suppose it was put the other way, and read:
"and the grounds so specified may not be altered without the leave of the court",
would that not put it into the court's mind that an alteration would have to be a much more unusual state of affairs and would not be readily granted by the court? If the clause were phrased in that way, would that not better meet the intention of Parliament?
Lord BELLWIN: I am not sure whether that is the case. I suspect the noble Lord may well have a point there, and that is why I felt, based on what the noble Lord, Lord Evans, had said before, that we
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should read what he said very carefully. I shall now add to that what the noble Lord opposite has just said.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: I am grateful for the consideration given. My basic concern is that bureaucratic convenience is coming before the basic rights of tenants. It seems to me that, if you are being "done" (as they would say) for arrears of rent, you may suddenly find, because, perhaps, you have set up a disorderly house in order to pay the rent, that you are being got at on an entirely different ground of nuisance, which is perhaps what is in the noble Lord's mind. I should have thought that it would have been fairer to have worded it in the way that my noble friend suggests, but, in view of the fact that the noble Lord has said that he will consider this—because I think there are real points about the liberty of the individual and the liberty and rights of the disadvantaged small man against the big authorities, to which I hope he will give some serious consideration—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord GIFFORD Lord GIFFORD moved Amendment No. 95:
Page 25, line 25, leave out ("13") and insert ("14").
The noble Lord said: I wish to move Amendment No. 95 and to consider with it Amendment No. 97, as the two go together. The general purpose of these amendments is to introduce a new ground to the Bill upon which a court can order possession of a secure tenancy in circumstances where there has been a family break-up and it is desired to use the accommodation to accommodate the family and the children of the partnership and not the tenant who may be left on his own, but to allow him to be provided with other accommodation.
It would he as well to consider the existing practice of local authorities. Again and again, when there has been a family break-up, the situation arises that the woman and the children have to leave the home. It may be that they are driven out by actual violence; it may be that they leave because the situation within the home has become intolerable; and in the women's refuges which do such valuable work up and down the country they find a shelter. But where a council tenancy

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is involved, what happens is that the local authority frequently will transfer the tenancy if, for instance, it is in the name of the man, as is often the case, into the name of the woman so that she can go back into the tenancy with her family and the man can be provided with separate accommodation.
The effect of the Bill is that that flexibility which the local authorities have is taken away, because the Bill makes the tenant a secure tenant—and, in principle, of course, I support that fully—but that means, if it is a man (and I say a man, because that is generally the case, although it would work the other way), that there would be power in the divorce court when the matter finally gets there to make an order transferring the secure tenancy from the man to the woman. But that comes very late on, often after months of litigation, with the family accommodated in very bad conditions. Often, in the meantime, the local authority will have been under a duty in any case to find accommodation for the mother and the children who will be homeless within the meaning of the Homeless Persons Act. So the authority will be housing both units in a family-size accommodation and, when it comes to the divorce, possibly there will not be any point in transferring the tenancy from one to the other.
In the situation where the parties are not married, the law gives even less protection. There is the limited protection of the Domestic Violence Act when there has been actual violence, where the spouse who has been abused can be put back for a temporary period within the home; but there is no provision in the law for a tenancy to be transferred from one partner to a relationship to the other if they are not married. Therefore, the father (if it is the father) will have the secure tenancy and the right to buy of accommodation, which in many cases will in any event be too large.
The purpose of this amendment is to restore the flexibility which local authorities now possess. It envisages two situations: first, where the local authority, or the landlord authority, needs to rehouse the partner who is out of occupation and her children back in the matrimonial home; secondly, where the local authority already
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has rehoused the partner and the children who were out of occupation to take back the matrimonial home to be used for a family. We know how scarce family accommodation is in many local authorities. The spouse or partner against whom the order of possession would be made would, under this amendment, be given suitable alternative accommodation and there would be the proviso that it was reasonable to make the order.
This amendment has the support of a spectrum of women's organisations: the National Women's Aid Federation; the Women and Housing Organisation; and the Rights of Women Organisation. I make no apology for stressing the wide support that this amendment has among those organisations because it is those organisations who have to deal with the agonies and hardships which take place when families break up and there is no accommodation, and particularly when women and children have to be housed in emergency accommodation.
We need the present flexibility which allows local authorities to restore the unity of a home which is broken up, to restore the children of the family (who suffer greatly in these situations) speedily to the home which they have had to leave. I beg to move.
Baroness FAITHFULL: I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, has said in principle. I have experienced the terrible situation of a woman leaving a home on a constructive desertion clause and I, as director of social services, have had to find her accommodation when I have felt she had every right to the house that she had left.
What I am not clear about is what would happen if every local authority does as, for instance, my own authority does, which is to grant the tenancy jointly to the married couple or the two people living together. My difficulties always were that the man had the tenancy of the house, and because of that the woman and children had to leave. I seek help on this. Would the situation be altered if the tenancy was offered jointly to both husband and wife so it was not always the wife and children who had to leave in the case of constructive desertion?
11.18 p.m.
Lord BELLWIN: The principle behind this amendment is that, on the break-up of a family, public sector landlords should be able to evict the tenant partner in order to reinstate the other, or because the other partner has been rehoused elsewhere. I recognise that there is widespread support for the idea that the spouse of a partner with responsibility for dependants should generally be the one to be given preference if occupation of the family home is in dispute. However, there is a considerable objection to the notion (as embodied in this amendment) that the landlord should be able to make a decision about this before questions of custody and property have been considered by the appropriate court at the time of divorce or legal separation. We have legislation in this country governing the matter of rights to the matrimonial home on divorce, and this is extended to secure tenancies by the Bill itself. I can see no case for giving either local authorities or other public sector landlords the opportunity to make a prior judgment about this in the context of managing their housing stock.
I am of course aware that a similar ground has been included in the Scottish Bill. That is because there is as yet no equivalent to our matrimonial homes legislation in Scotland. It is also the case that in England and Wales the matrimonial homes legislation, other than certain provisions of the Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act, does not apply to people who are cohabiting. That argues against, in our view, amendments which would treat cohabitees in the same way as a separated spouse for the purposes of this particular provision.
If a landlord chose to use the ground for possession proposed in the amendment, and I am sure it would sometimes be put under considerable pressure to do so, it would also be under an obligation to provide suitable alternative accommodation for the displaced partner. Again, we do not accept that this further duty is appropriate. If the landlord and the parties concerned can agree voluntarily to settle the matter in this way, and the accommodation is available, then of course that is up to them; but I do not believe it should be a further obligation on the landlord.
Finally, it has also been suggested that
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the proposed ground would simply enable landlords to do in future what they are perfectly entitled to do already. That is true, but it is only because public sector landlords and their tenants have not so far been subject to any statutory rules about the tenant's security. It is a very different matter, when such rules exist, to incorporate in them what amounts to a specific power to decide between competing claims which ought to be settled elsewhere. I do not think these landlords on the whole want that responsibility; nor does it properly belong with them. I therefore feel we are not able to accept this amendment.
Lord GIFFORD: May I first take up the point which the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, made. The position is better when the spouses or partners are joint tenants because then, at least, they have rights at law and can go to a court to get some kind of order which determines who should be able to occupy the home; and it is principally the cases where the tenancy is only in the name of one partner, who still in many authorities is the breadwinner, or the man, and the woman has a number of rights in equity but very few at law.
I found the answer of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, very unsatisfactory indeed. There is a kind of madness you get into if you pursue the logic of a good idea too far. Local authorities at the moment make a number of very sound, compassionate decisions, about which I have heard very little dispute or quarrel, when, in the early days of a separation, they have to try to help to restore a family and children to the matrimonial home by the use of the power they now have to transfer the tenancy.
With the new Bill, however, there are two kinds of very common situation which simply are not made by the legislation to which the noble Lord referred. He mentioned the Matrimonial Causes Act, where property can be transferred and custody of the children awarded; but if a husband resolutely wishes to stay in the matrimonial home, perhaps because it is becoming a valuable asset and he wants to have the right to buy, then it may take a year or two before the question of custody is decided. True, if there is violence there are the emergency provisions, as it were, under the Domestic

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Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act; but if there is no violence the wife and children will be homeless and will be a charge on the local authority and will have to be re-housed. So the local authority will have two family-sized units of accommodation to house both parties to one marriage for a long period, at the end of which there probably will be no point in transferring the old tenancy.
Secondly, where cohabitees who are not married are concerned, that will inevitably be the situation because no court has the power to make a transfer of property order where there is not a marriage. I do not intend to press this amendment tonight, but I am not satisfied and would wish, having considered the Minister's reply and consulted with the organisations I have referred to, to raise this matter again on Report. With that, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Amendment, by leave. withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 33 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord HYLTON: The noble Lord has raised a very important point on his last amendment. I would just like to ask my noble friend the Minister whether there was any consultation with local authorities before the Bill was put in its present form.
Lord BELLWIN: There has been so much consultation down the line that I cannot tell my noble friend if every single aspect was covered in this way. I should be very surprised if it was not, but I cannot tell my noble friend precisely that it was. I should be surprised if it was not.
Clause 33 agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Grounds for possession of dwelling-houses let under secure tenancies]:
11.26 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON moved Amendment No. 96:
Page 105, leave out lines 6 to 15.
The noble Lord said: This amendment seeks to remove Ground 13 for obtaining possession. I understand very fully, from many years' involvement in the housing problems of a fairly inner urban area, how exasperating it is when one has the situation that this ground envisages of a
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family where probably there have been quite a large number of children, one of the spouses has died and usually the widow is left, perhaps in a three-bedroomed house, and the local authority seek to re-house her into more appropriate accommodation. It may be a widower but it is usually a widow. The tenant concerned, because of sentiment, family reasons, memories, all kinds of intangible but very important sentimental reasons, does not wish to leave the house. This, again, is bureaucratically inconvenient, but the fact of the matter is that I personally would not wish to be associated with legislation which could force people under those circumstances to give up their house.
I am all in favour of the local authority using all kinds of reasonable persuasion, but quite frankly I would be utterly appalled—I say that in a measured way—however many protections there are for the tenant concerned, as set out in Ground 13, if we were to use the authority of the courts to remove a person from a house where they had lived most of their married life, had brought up their children and presumably now have already suffered enough through the loss of their partner. I believe in persuasion; I do not believe in compulsion and that is why I move this amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: Very briefly, because it is very late, I want to support the noble Lord, Lord Evans, in his amendment, because I also feel very strongly about this matter for the reasons he has explained. I feel that by all means one should try to persuade, to make available attractive alternative accommodation, but if at the end of the day the person—I do not think there can be very many such persons—says, "No, I want to remain where I am", then I think it really becomes very inhuman and uncompassionate if one does not accede to their wish.
Lord BELLWIN: None of us would want to see an elderly person moved from their life-long home against their wishes, solely because of under-occupation. That is why we have not included in the Bill a general ground for possession based on under-occupation. To have done so would have been inconsistent with our general aim to give public sector tenants security in the dwelling which is their home.

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But here, as in other parts of the Bill, we have had to balance tenants' reasonable expectations against management needs. We noticed from the response to our consultation document that local authorities were particularly concerned about potential under-occupation by single successors in family dwellings. We felt it right to make a limited concession in the circumstances outlined in the Bill. Ground 13 cannot be used against the spouse of a deceased tenant who succeeds to the tenancy. Widows and widowers will not be subject to being moved against their will, because of under-occupation. It can only he used between six and 12 months after the previous tenant's death. This avoids both the possibility of distress being caused in the period immediately following a bereavement, and the risk of constant worry to a tenant that this ground might be used against him at such future date.
If the tenant is not the spouse of a former tenant and the landlord takes action at the appropriate time, there is the additional safeguard that the court might not make an order for possession unless it considers it reasonable to do so. Clause 33 specifies this. Clause 33 also requires that suitable alternative accommodation must be provided. This will be judged against the criteria in Part II of Schedule 4. I believe that in very many cases a successor tenant would be willing to move voluntarily to smaller accommodation, if this is sensible as a matter of housing management. However, we need to give landlords freedom to make the best possible use of their stock where a much-needed family house is occupied by, say, a young, single person. There are safeguards when this ground is used, and widows and widowers are not exposed to it at all.
I think that the provision is a useful part of the Bill and we cannot accept the amendment, or the attempt thereby to remove it; having said which, the point which was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, was an interesting one. She said that she wondered how much of a matter this really was in practice. I do not know. From my own experience going back some years, I should think that, surprisingly, it is probably a much larger problem than may be realised. I certainly cannot accept the amendment, but what I should like to do for my own
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interest, all else apart, is to try to see whether there are any statistics or information as regards the likely extent of this. If it should prove that the noble Baroness is more right than I think may be the case, then I will speak to my colleagues about it. That is probably the most I can do tonight.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: I accept the position that the noble Lord takes. I feel extremely strongly and very deeply about this problem. However, in the circumstances, I shall beg leave to withdraw the amendment at this stage, but with the proviso that unless I can be very much more satisfied than I am now, I shall certainly raise it at a later stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 97 not moved.]
Schedule 4 agreed to.
Clause 34 [Subletting and lodgers]:
11.34 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON moved Amendment No. 98:
Page 25, line 37, leave out ("persons who are members of his family") and insert ("any persons").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment perhaps I may also include Amendments Nos. 99 and 102 in my introduction. Quite simply, the Government have said that in the tenants' charter they want to simplify things—to reduce bureaucracy, to make things easier generally for tenants and, in every way possible, to make the life of a local authority tenant an easier and less bureaucratically controlled one—a sentiment with which we on these Benches would totally agree. Therefore, it seems to us that tenants should have the absolute right, within the limits set by legislation about overcrowding, which obviously would apply, to take in lodgers without having to get the consent of the landlord.
I cannot see any reason at all, because there is adequate protection under the legislation about overcrowding, why limits should be set on tenants' freedom to take in lodgers. They are not protected, they are not secure tenants; so, if the Government are really concerned about expanding freedom in the public sector, why not give some real freedom and allow tenants to

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take in lodgers at will, within the provisions of the overcrowding legislation? That is the reason why I move this amendment. I beg to move.
11.35 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead): I am not entirely sure that the Government spokesman on these amendments, and on the amendments which we are now coming to, will be able to shed very much light compared with his colleagues on the Government Bench. But at least this spokesman can spread a little happiness because I have great pleasure in accepting the amendment moved by the noble Lord.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON: I am rendered completely speechless. I hope the noble Lord will address us more often. I thank him.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON moved Amendment No. 99:
Page 25, line 43, leave out from ("house") to end of line 45.
Clause 34, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 35 [Provisions as to consents required by section 34]:
Baroness VICKERS Baroness VICKERS moved Amendment No. 100:
Page 26, line 11, after ("of") insert ("Part IV of").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move the amendment standing in my name. At the same time, perhaps I may speak to Amendment No. 101.
This amendment will not cost any money or involve any extra staff. The statutory overcrowding standard enforceable by local authorities is virtually unchanged since the Housing Act, 1935. All rooms used normally as living rooms or bedrooms are included in calculating the "permitted number" in any dwelling-house. Children under 10 are counted as half a unit, and those under one are omitted from the calculations. This standard therefore implies that a house
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is properly occupied if the family needs can be met by using every available space, except a bathroom, water closet or the kitchen, as bedroom accommodation. Only when occupation exceeds this level can a local authority take steps to abate overcrowding by legal action. I should mention that the lowest amount of space that they are allowed is 50 square feet plus—nothing below that figure.
I suggest that this standard is obviously too low and bears too little relationship to current problems. Modern houses are very often designed on an open plan and with through rooms. The assessment of overcrowding should be on a bedroom standard, and all children, regardless of age, should be counted as one unit. I understand that this will have little overall effect on the housing situation, because the problem is comparatively small. It is, however, critical to those people affected who are living in these overcrowded conditions.
Therefore I suggest that each property should be looked at as a whole, having regard to the bedroom standard and the minimum space available for cooking, dining and living. Therefore, Table 1 of the annex to Schedule 6 to the Housing Act 1957 should be amended as follows:
"Annex Table 1 Where a house consists of—

(a) One room

2 persons,

(b) two rooms

3,

(c) three rooms

4,

(d) four rooms

6,

(e) five rooms

8, with an additional 2 in respect of each room in excess of five".

May I say to my noble friend who is to answer that the situation cannot be rectified unless this amendment is accepted, which I hope he will be kind enough to do, so that he does not have to use that horrible word "resist". I beg to move.
Lord BELSTEAD: I entirely understand, from the clear explanation which my noble friend has given, the intentions which lie behind her two amendments. However, my noble friend mentioned that the date upon which the housing standards had been set down was now many years ago. I do not think that just for that reason they are necessarily out of date.
I should like to remind the Committee that the existing standards are deliberately

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basic. If they are contravened, the results are drastic. The landlord is guilty of an offence. The excess residents lose their security of tenure and homelessness may well result. We should need to consult widely and consider carefully before concluding that a change is desirable.
I hope that my noble friend will not think that I am not agreeing with the amendment because of a mere technicality when I say that I remain to be convinced that it would be right to alter overcrowding standards which are of general application to both public and private sector tenants in this clause, which is of limited application only to consents for subletting by public sector tenants.
There is just one other matter which I should like to put to my noble friend. Although the noble Baroness has explained her amendments very clearly, in fact they have not been written down on the Marshalled List. What I mean by that is that my noble friend has really tabled what in effect are two paving amendments, but has not actually put down the new standards which she would like to see. I seriously say that if a major step of this sort were to be taken the Committee would want to see in print the new standards which my noble friend seeks to secure. On these grounds I ask my noble friend to withdraw this amendment. I do not think this is the right place for such a new provision to be written into legislation, and at any rate I hope my noble friend will not mind my saying that what my final words add up to is that the amendments are defective.
Baroness VICKERS: I thank my noble friend the Minister for his reply. I should like to think about this to see whether I can produce some better figures for him and bring something forward at Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 101 not moved.]
11.42 p.m.
Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON Lord EVANS of CLAUGHTON moved Amendment No. 102:
Page 26, line 16, leave out ("lodger or").
The noble Lord said: I think all I need to do is to move this amendment formally
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because it fits in with the other two amendments. I beg to move.
Clause 35, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 36 agreed to.
Clause 37 [Reimbursement of cost of tenant's improvements]:
On Question, Whether Clause 37 shall stand part of the Bill?
The Earl of KINNOULL: I am afraid I have given no notice to my noble friend on this point but I think it is important; it concerns reimbursement for improvements done by tenants to their houses. Under subsection (1)(c) the reimbursement would only occur where the improvement was begun not earlier than the commencement of this part of the Act. In the past that has often led to problems and I think it would do so here because there might be a perfectly sensible improvement for which the council had given their written approval; it might have been started a day before and therefore would not qualify because this Part of the Act had not come into force. I wonder whether my noble friend could look at this point to see whether it would be possible to alleviate the problem.
Lord BELSTEAD: Speaking without notice, I know that the Department of the Environment will look closely at what my noble friend has said, but as I think he will know better than I do, with his knowledge of legislation, there has to be some point at which legislation comes into effect and this particular point has been held to be the right point so far as this legislation is concerned. Unless one chooses a different point at which this particular clause comes into effect (and, if my noble friend will not mind my saying so, I am not persuaded of the need for that), or unless there was some graduated way in which one could make the clause come into effect—and certainly I am not persuaded that that is possible then I do not think that what my noble friend is asking for would be possible. I simply say that now to prevent unnecessary communication between my noble friend and the department. If what I have said is correct I think probably there will be no further communication with my noble friend, who may like to consider whether to table an amendment at Report stage. lf,

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on the other hand, what I said is wrong, I will undertake that a letter will come to my noble friend.
Clause 37 agreed to.
Clauses 38 to 40 agreed to.
Clause 41 [Meaning of "landlord authority "and" housing management"]:
11.45 p.m.
Baroness FAITHFULL Baroness FAITHFULL moved Amendment No. 103:
Page 30, line 43, at end insert—
("(6) Local authority housing authorities shall compile a list of unoccupied Council property; such list shall be laid before the Housing Committee once a quarter; and the Housing Committee shall have an obligation to consider the use of such property.").
The noble Baroness said: I have very little expectation that this amendment will be accepted and perhaps I understand that. Nevertheless the situation in the country is so serious that I think it warrants that this matter should be brought before your Lordships. I move this amendment on two counts: first, from my own personal experience some years ago, when I toured the city where I worked and made a list of all the empty properties not being used. I then conferred with the housing manager, and the housing manager and I approached our council. All the houses standing empty awaiting either rehabilitation or redevelopment were put into use, even minimal use, and we cut down the expenditure we spent on homeless families in putting them into bed and breakfast, which in any case is highly unsatisfactory; secondly, we were able to house a number of people as licensees for a time, until they could find permanent accommodation.
Secondly, having looked at the figures of the number of estimated properties standing empty, I am given to understand, although I have not counted them myself, that in the inner London boroughs there are 23,450 dwellings standing empty. This position obtains not only in London. I have, for instance, the figures for Corby, 1,077; Naseby, 2,247; Birmingham, 4,862. These are considerable figures when one considers the numbers of homeless in this country. Therefore, it has struck me, and I have wondered, whether it would not be better if the local authorities adopted what is, I believe, the procedure in Bristol
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and other local authorities, whereby a list of empty properties should be submitted to the housing committee on a quarterly basis and the housing committee has an obligation to consider the use of such property. If this phrase were incorporated in the Bill, any local authority not using or considering property could perhaps be taken to court for not doing so. This seems a hard measure, but I think it is perhaps an indictment of our country that with so many homeless people we have so many properties in our housing stock standing empty. I beg to move.
The Earl of KINNOULL: I should like briefly to support my noble friend very strongly. I do not think this would be laying too great a hardship on the housing management of any local council. I do not think any housing committee should be without this information anyway, and the inhabitants of any area should feel that the committee has this information available. I do not think it is too arduous a job. I believe my noble friend is absolutely correct in saying there is severe hardship, and I would welcome this duty being laid on councils.
Lord HYLTON: Having asked a number of questions about the use of bed and breakfast accommodation to house homeless families and having raised this matter in debates, I should very much like to support my noble friend in her amendment. I am very glad she mentioned Bristol because it is to the city's credit that it was the first in the whole of Great Britain to start to resist the slave trade, and much more recently it is to the credit of Bristol that it was one of the first publicly to publish its points scheme for housing allocations. I am delighted that it was also in the van on the matter of empty properties. I should like to support the amendment as strongly as I possibly can.
Lord BELSTEAD: I am not surprised that two of my noble friends have joined with my noble friend Lady Faithfull in speaking to this amendment, because in listening to previous amendments this evening I realised that the matter of empty properties is something which has exercised the concern of members of the Committee. I should like to say, first, that I would hope that local authorities will review systematically and regularly their vacancy

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levels and take appropriate action. I should like to reply to my noble friend by indicating briefly what, as the Government see it, is actually being done to try to encourage local authorities to undertake reviews.
Local authorities are encouraged to undertake reviews by the inclusion in housing investment programme returns of a series of questions about vacant properties. Authorities have to tell the Department of the Environment each year how many vacant properties are to be found in the private and public sectors; and to specify for the public sector how long those properties have been vacant and whether they are available for letting or undergoing renovation. At national level we hope that the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys will be publishing next month a report on their vacant property survey. My colleagues at the Department of the Environment will be considering in the light of that report what further Government action might be appropriate.
I would not like to give the impression to the Committee this evening that the Department of the Environment has not given advice about all this. The Department of the Environment Circular 76 of 1977 entitled Better use of Vacant and Under-occupied Housing contains a number of detailed practical suggestions about ways in which vacancy rates might be reduced. For example, local authorities are asked to consider the possibilities for licensing short-life properties to housing associations and other responsible voluntary bodies.
As your Lordships may know, the Department of the Environment has a Housing Services Advisory Unit whose object is to promote good practice in the public sector housing. They invite themselves to local authority areas. They have visited about a third of the housing areas already and one of the very first questions which this unit always asks when it pays a visit is about the empty housing in the area.
I should like to conclude what I wish to say by referring to what my noble friend Lord Kinnoull said. He put it to the Committee that it would not be onerous to accept the amendment. Indeed, I do not think that it would be, but if I may say so I think that it would get the
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statute book into difficulties because, instead of proceeding by advice and by agreement, one would be laying a statutory duty upon authorities concerning unoccupied properties, and as soon as one does that one runs into problems. I shall mention one, and one only.
The last part of this amendment—the requirement that local authorities consider the use of vacant properties—would, in fact, one finds when one looks at it closely, add nothing to existing legislation. Section 91 of the Housing Act 1957, already imposes a duty on local authorities to consider housing conditions in their district and the needs of the district with respect to the provision of further housing accommodation. For a local authority to assess the need for more accommodation in its area it would clearly need to assess the adequacy and the use of its existing stock.
We are left, therefore, with the requirement in the amendment to compile lists and to lay these, at quarterly intervals, before the housing committee. That is a very much narrower objective than the objective which my noble friend Lady Faithful, started with when moving her amendment. Therefore, on grounds that I think that it is difficult—at least difficult in the wording of the amendment which my noble friend has put forward—to achieve what she is seeking to achieve; and on the grounds that I would very much prefer, particularly in the light of what I have said to the Committee this evening, to continue to try to progress by agreement and by persuasion between local and central Government, I hope that my noble friend will not feel the need to press the amendment.
Baroness FAITHFULL: Having listened to all that, I wonder why there is a single empty property in this country. If all this enormous procedure is going forward and if the Department of the Environment is informed, how come that there are many houses in many streets—and the figures that I have given tonight bear this out—boarded up? There must be something wrong with every house so that it cannot be used. However, I understand the difficulties, having been in local government myself, and, feeling better as a result of having aired this terrible problem, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 41 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 104 not moved.]
Clause 42 agreed to.
Clause 43 [Provision of information about housing allocation]:
11.55 p.m.
Lord DIGBY Lord DIGBY moved Amendment No. 105:
Page 32, line 23, leave out subsection (6).
The noble Lord said: This is a probing amendment to find out from the Government exactly what councils have to make available to an applicant. On the face of it, this subsection appears to say that one must tell an applicant tomorrow what he said today. I know that your Lordships need Hansard to tell you that, but I should not have thought it was necessary in the case of an applicant. I am wondering whether it is, in fact, the completed application form which must be shown to the applicant, and what worries me is that perhaps this would have to include such things as doctors' reports, which are provided on a confidential basis. If doctors think that their confidential reports are being reported back to the applicant, they might not co-operate so well in the future. I should be grateful if the Government could tell me what has to be provided to the applicant.
Lord BELSTEAD: I think that I can satisfy my noble friend in replying in this way. The only particulars of which details must be supplied by this subsection of the Bill are those which the applicant himself has provided. It would not be right for applicants to have the right to see reports supplied by doctors, which were mentioned by my noble friend, social workers or others which may have been given on a confidential basis to the housing authority. Authorities have pointed out during the consultation process on this Bill that such reports would cease if confidentiality were not assured. I think that if the Committee looks at the wording of this part of the Bill, it will see that my noble friend's apprehensions in this respect are groundless.
I should like to add one point. I cannot remember the exact words that my noble friend used, but in effect he was
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asking: would the file have to be produced and put under the nose of the person who was asking the question? The answer to that question is also "No". The wording of this clause requires a landlord to provide "details of the particulars". That does not mean that the actual file must be produced. Information would have to be extracted in order to answer a question being asked, but the answer which was given would not have to go further than that. I entirely understand the reasons why my noble friend has asked these questions, and I hope that the answers I have sought to give will provide him with satisfaction.
Lord DTGBY: I am most grateful to my noble friend for that very satisfactory answer. I think that it is worth getting it on the record, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 43 agreed to.
Clause 44 agreed to.
Clause 45 [Contributions towards the cost of transfers and exchanges]:
11.58 p.m.
Baroness DAVID Baroness DAVID moved Amendment No. 106:
Page 33, line 17, at end insert—
("(3) The Secretary of State may by order place a duty on groups of local authorities to participate in any arrangements facilitating moves of the kind outlined in subsection (1) above that have been agreed by the appropriate local authority association or local authority associations.
(4) The Secretary of State may only exercise the power provided by subsection (3) above following a request made by the local authority association or local authority associations concerned that he should exercise the power.").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment is about mobility, which has been mentioned several times in the Committee today. I am only sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, is not here to support me as I move this amendment. I think that it is generally agreed that it is a good thing for council tenants in one area to be able to move to another without surrendering their tenancy. This idea is supported by tenants' rights organisations such as Shelter, Age Concern, and by the CBI, which wrote to the Minister on the need for legislation. I should have thought

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this perhaps a reason for the Government to give their support.
The local authority associations are co-operating in drawing up a voluntary scheme. This work started to head off the Labour Government proposal to legislate on this and on residence qualifications. The fact that the associations agree on a scheme does not mean that all local authorities will operate it. Each housing authority will decide whether or not to join.
Two precedents can be quoted. The first is the inter-borough nomination scheme drawn up by the LBA and introduced in April 1978 to provide for mobility within London. Three boroughs—Barking, Hillingdon and Redbridge—still refuse to join. More significantly, no authority has made lettings to people from other boroughs on the agreed scale. Lettings have been running at about 1,300 a year instead of the target of 4,000.
Secondly, there is the Homeless Persons Act referral system for people with no local connection to be referred back to an area with which they have a connection. Although the disputes procedure for this has statutory backing, several authorities sought to reject the scheme drawn up by the local authority associations. There is the special London dimension. London has two mobility arrangements: the IBNS —the inter-borough nomination scheme—and the scheme for stock transferred from the GLC to the London boroughs. The latter is statutorily backed; a statutory order laid by the DoE on submission by the parties. Everyone agrees on the desirability of a merger, but the LBA has accepted that this can only be achieved by giving the joint scheme statutory backing.
The amendment allows for schemes to be drawn up by the local authority associations both nationally and on a regional basis. The schemes could be introduced voluntarily, but given statutory force if this became necessary. That statutory backing would arise only if the local authorities themselves requested it; that is, the local authority associations for the national scheme, or the majority of the authorities in the area for regional schemes.
This amendment seeks to reinforce the effectiveness of the voluntary arrangements the Secretary of State is discussing and
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developing with the local authority associations, rather than to introduce an inflexible statutory scheme based on particular types of move; that is, essential workers and the elderly, or a fixed percentage of lettings, which is what I think my noble friend Lady Denington is trying to do in her amendment. I hope she might look favourably on this one. This is an important matter, and I hope it will have a friendly reception from the Government. I beg to move.
Baroness DENINGTON: I shall speak to this amendment and then not move my own amendment. The matter we are discussing is of great importance to the nation. Industrial inability is vital. We are all concerned about the condition of industry in this country. If it cannot get its workers it cannot thrive. What we need to do is to get much more mobility. I have no doubt that we have all read of, and know of, workers who have come down from the North to the South because it is in the South that there are vacancies for skilled people that cannot be filled locally. They move down from the North. They get a job. They leave their families behind. They cannot get housed. In the end it is a tragedy. They move North again and go back on the dole. This is a dreadful thing for the family, for their standard of living and self-respect. It is cruel beyond words. It is bad nationally, and costly to the nation.
We know of elderly people. I myself have had over the years many cases like this, where the younger people—often the daughters—want to move near to elderly parents but cannot do so. I have known them travel three hours each way each day to look after an elderly parent. In such circumstances they cannot move to be near that elderly parent, and the old person is unable to move near their daughter or whatever other relative is willing to look after them. It is a crazy situation, because in the end the old person goes at great public expense into an old persons' home or into sheltered accommodation, but the latter is so scarce that usually they cannot get in. I therefore consider this to be a matter of considerable importance.
It is sometimes said that more private enterprise housing or more council tenants buying, and therefore having a house to

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sell, would enable people to move. That sounds reasonable, but it does not work cut that way. First of all, no worker who goes to a new area will consider buying straight away; he wants to know, first, if the job will suit him and if he will settle in the area. Until you feel sure you will put roots down you do not buy, at least for a year or two. There is also the gap between the price at which you can sell a house in the North of England and what you have to pay if you move to the South. The steep difference is another inhibitor against looking on house purchase, however it is done, as a solution. It works occasionally, but by and large not.
I have heard it suggested that the shortholds may help. They may, but nobody knows; indeed, nobody knows what will result from shortholds, and there are many Government supporters who are doubtful about what shortholds will achieve. So I do not think we should put too much trust in those from a national point of view. In the end, therefore, only the local authorities can help achieve the mobility that is essential. Why, then, do local authorities not do more? That is a very easy question to answer for those of us who have been in local government and in politics.
The South, where the jobs are, contains areas of great housing pressure with long waiting lists, and housing allocations are being cut. The waiting lists will therefore increase next year and beyond. Politically, councillors are not able to agree to house people coming into their areas from elsewhere, for they are under enormous political pressure because of the length of housing waiting lists. People resent others coming in, and at political surgeries and public meetings councillors would be under attack and be told, "You are letting strangers in. You are not looking after your own people". It is perfectly understandable, therefore, why councils do not co-operate with such a scheme.
That is why my amendment suggested that the Government should have the courage to say there must be a scheme, and then agree with authorities that a reasonable percentage—it could start as a small percentage—should be set aside for the purpose. I do not blame councils in this respect. It is not lack of goodwill on their part. It is due to the political
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pressures on them. We need the Government to have the courage to tell them, "This is the law. There must be national mobility. We shall see that mobility exists in the interests of the nation as a whole, so we are legislating accordingly and a small percentage will be available for that purpose". That is why I am asking for compulsion, as it were, which is against the general tenor of everything that has been said in this Chamber over the hours, but I do so arising out of my own experience and because I believe that it is needed.
12.10 a.m.
Lord SANDFORD: There is no doubt that the local authority associations do not like these two amendments leading to statutory mobility schemes, and the one that they like the least is that of the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, for the reasons that she has made quite clear. That makes all the more welcome the fact that she has swung her support behind the preceding amendment, which is much milder, and the provisions of which would not come into operation except at the request of the local authority associations. Despite what the local authority associations say, I think that this is the scheme to which the Government should give their greatest consideration.
Lord HYLTON: I should like to give general support to the intention behind both amendments, Nos. 106 and 107, without commenting on the merits of one against the other. I was very encouraged to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, mention the gap in house prices as between the North of England and the South of England. This has acted as an obstacle to mobility for quite a long time, and may well continue to do so for many more years.
I was also delighted to note that at the end of Amendment No. 107 people of pensionable age are particularly singled out as frequently needing to move for social reasons. I should like to add another category of person who needs to move for social reasons. I have previously mentioned this point in your Lordships' Chamber, and I make no apology for returning to it. I refer to parents in one-parent families. I am thinking of widowed, divorced, and separated people, and their

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children. Often they need to move from an area because they have lost the support of their partner. They are very easily exposed to loneliness and often they need to go to another part of the country where they have relatives or friends upon whom they can depend. I hope that the Government will very seriously take this point into consideration and will be able to give us a rather positive reply on either of the amendments, or both.
Lord BELSTEAD: The noble Baroness, Lady David, in moving her amendment (Amendment No. 106) asked whether the Government would give a friendly reply. That amendment, and the succeeding amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, give me the opportunity to explain very briefly what the Government are doing by way of response to the objectives of both amendments.
In another place on 6th March my honourable friend the Minister for Housing, Mr. Stanley, announced the voluntary national mobility scheme, which has been worked out between his department and local authority associations. Briefly, the scheme provides, first, that each housing authority will make available a number of lettings annually for people who need to move into its area from within the same county area. The number of these lettings will be such as to balance in relation to people moving out to other areas within the same county.
Secondly, each district council, the London boroughs—which I stress in particular, in view of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady David, about the inner London boroughs scheme—and the GLC will make 1 per cent. of their lettings available for people moving into their area from another area. This will be in addition to their existing arrangements.
Thirdly, my honourable friend said that he hoped to extend the scheme to housing associations and to the new towns. Finally, he said (in Committee in another place) that the provisions of Clause 45 will be available to assist the operation of the scheme. The details of that, I know, are still being worked out (and I have to use that expression in replying to these amendments) but is it not worth while giving this scheme a chance to get going? It has the advantage, I understand, of being unanimously
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approved by the AMA, the London Boroughs Association and the Association of District Councils. It is a scheme which was welcomed by Mr. Kaufman, for the Opposition, in Committee in another place, as being what he called "a jolly good pudding". He welcomed it wholeheartedly and unreservedly.
Incidentally, there are just two more quick points which I would make. Whereas I think there is so much which is good in the scheme put forward in the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, one of the things which, if I may say so, her amendment does not provide for, I think, is what happens to the person who simply wants to move because it is essential for him or her, or for their families, but that person cannot necessarily be said to be an essential worker? Under the scheme of my honourable friend the Minister for Housing, people of that kind will fall within the scope of the scheme.
In addition to that, although the idea, I understand, is for my honourable friend's scheme to start on a manual basis—in other words, not on a computerised basis— of course the idea is that the scheme will be put on to a computer as soon as possible; and in the jargon words of which I often have a suspicion but which in this particular case all your Lordships, who have got much more experience of local government than I have, will be the first to tell me, this is absolutely crucial. If somebody wants to move from one part of the country to another and the scheme is computerised, they really will he able to know whether there is a house in Aberystwyth, or anywhere else, if they happen to live on Teesside. So, in view of the information which I have attempted to give your Lordships, I ask that perhaps both noble Baronesses might rethink their amendments and as to whether they would want to press them, because there is this voluntary scheme and I believe that it can add very much to the mobility of labour which we all so much desire.
Baroness DAVID: I think that in fact I knew quite a lot of what the noble Lord the Minister has been kind enough to tell us. I cannot say that I have all that faith in a voluntary scheme. I think that if we wait to see whether it will work, it will he too late to get some statutory underpinning

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into this Bill, which is what I think we should aim at ensuring. I will read very carefully what the Minister has said, but I think I shall very likely come back on Report because I should like to get this statutory backing to the scheme. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 107 not moved.]
Clause 45 agreed to.
12.18 a.m.
Baroness DAVID Baroness DAVID moved Amendment No. 108:
After Clause 45, insert the following new clause:
"Restriction on residential requirements
( .—(1) In considering whether an applicant for local authority housing is entitled to be admitted to a housing list, a council shall take no account of the age of the applicant provided that he is over the age of 18 years.
(2) In the allocation of local authority housing, a council shall take no account of the length of time for which an applicant has resided in its area nor of the age of the applicant provided that he is over the age of 18 years, nor of the income of the applicant and his family.
(3) Where an applicant—

(a) is employed in the area of the local authority; or

(b) has been offered employment in the area of the local authority; or

(c) wishes to move into the area of the local authority and the local authority is satisfied that his purpose in doing so is to seek employment; or

(d) is over 60 years of age and wishes to move into the area of the local authority to be near a younger relative; or

(e) has special social or medical reasons for requiring to be housed within the area of the local authority,

admission to a housing list shall not depend on the fact that the applicant is resident in the area.
(4) Where a local authority has rules which give priority to applicants on its housing list it shall apply those rules to an applicant to whom subsection (3) above applies no less favourably than it applies them to a tenant of the local authority whose housing needs are similar to those of the applicant and who is seeking a transfer to another dwelling-house belonging to the local authority.
(5) In the allocation of local authority housing, a council shall not impose a requirement that an application must have remained in force for a minimum period before the applicant is eligible for the allocation of housing.
(6) In considering an application for admission to a housing list and in the allocation of local authority housing, a council shall take no
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account of any outstanding liability (for payment of rent or otherwise) attributable to the tenancy of any dwelling-house of which the applicant is not, and was not when the liability accrued, a tenant.
(7) In this section "housing list" means a list of applicants for local authority housing which is kept by a council in connection with allocation of housing").
The noble Baroness said: The aim of this amendment is to abolish residential requirements, and it really goes very closely with the previous amendment that I moved, the one on mobility. As I said before, it is widely recognised that there is a greater need for mobility and access to the council housing sector. Successive Government reports have argued for a reduction in residence requirements, most noticeably the Cullingworth Report, a very well known report on council housing, published in 1969, which said:
"We hold it to be fundamental that no one should be precluded from applying for, or being considered for, a council tenancy on any grounds whatsoever".
There are two basic reasons for this stance: first, that only by open lists can an accurate assessment of relative needs be made; secondly, there is now a clear need in the public sector for greater mobility between councils. A Centre for Environmental Studies article, CES Review No. 4, has shown that council tenants have only half the chance of an owner-occupier of moving between authorities. As most long-distance mobility is job mobility—this is according to the general household survey—it is understandable why both the CBI and the Economist support it. An editorial in the Economist of 20th October 1979 said:
"No single measure of Government policy is more important or requires more toughening than Mr. Heseltine's Housing Bill. Longevity should no longer determine status on council waiting lists. The sale of some desirable council houses is not the answer".
The LBA, Conservative-controlled, has also recommended to its members that they abolish residential requirements. This is because their mobility scheme is considerably weakened if different periods of eligibility apply to different areas. The same point applies to the national mobility scheme. Restrictive qualifications will remain for single people or owner-occupiers and those groups will be ineligible for the mobility scheme, for the national mobility scheme with its 1 per cent. quota of lettings will provide only some 2,000 a year.
Far more mobility could be created by eliminating residence requirements which arc still in force for one-third of all councils. On neither eligibility nor mobility is there any evidence that the Government's reliance on voluntary persuasion will be effective with that minority of more parochial councils. Previous Governments have tried the same approach and failed. Ten years after the Culling-worth Report recommended the abolition of residential requirements another Government report, Allocation of Council Housing, by the Housing Services Advisory Unit, made the same recommendation and admitted that little progress had been made—a point which was confirmed by a Shelter survey which showed that exactly the same proportion of councils, one-third, still had restrictive residence requirements in 1978 as they had in 1968. One-fifth also refused to register single people under retirement age despite the fact that today over half the households in the country are made up of just one or two people. Subsection (6) of the new clause concerns not considering arrears when allocating housing. That particularly applies when there has been a marriage break-up. I think my noble friend Lord Gifford will speak about that, so I shall not do so.
The Minister could learn from his colleagues in Scotland, where Ministers have introduced measures to end residence requirements for eligibility of single people as well. If he were to do this, he would have the accolade of his friends in the Confederation of British Industry who recently wrote to the Minister expressing their concern that the measures in the Scottish Bill to encourage job mobility by opening waiting lists have not appeared in the English Bill. He would also earn the gratitude of many young, single or mobile people in England who are eager to learn why the Minister believes that they should have a chance of a council tenancy in Scotland but not in England. I shall be interested to hear why this identical clause has been accepted in the Scottish Bill. I hope very much that it will be accepted here. We know that Scotsmen like to come to England but I still feel that we should have this enlightened and rather advanced clause in our Bill. I beg to move.
Lord GIFFORD: May I add a quick word about a particular part of the
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proposed amendment; that is, the proposed new subsection (6), which introduces a different point from that raised by my noble friend Lady David and could, if the main burden of what she said is not accepted—although I hope it will be—be the subject of an amendment of its own. That particular subsection proposes that the local authority, in granting a council tenancy or putting someone on the list, cannot take account of a liability for previous arrears of rent which is not the applicant's responsibility. This is a very real problem in cases where there has been a marriage break-up and where we are again in the situation where there is a single tenant liable for the arrears—again normally the man—who leaves owing arrears, perhaps without the knowledge of the wife, who believes that they are being paid. When the question comes up, "Will you grant me a tenancy of the same dwelling?" the local authority—and many local authorities do this—says, "Yes, if you will take over responsibility for the arrears which your husband has mounted up". That is quite unfair. If a local authority wants to apportion a joint responsibility for the payment of rent to two spouses or two partners, then a joint tenancy can be created and the two spouses know where the legal liability is. If it is on one only, it should not be held as an in terrorem threat over a woman who has no option but to accept it to saddle her with a debt which is not of her making at a time when she is least able to bear it.
12.26 a.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: I hope that the noble Baroness will not think I am being discourteous if in answer to quite a long and detailed amendment, which has a lot of meat in it, I reply fairly briefly. I do so in the context of the new mobility housing scheme which I sought to explain on the previous amendment. This scheme would for instance cover the cases which are set out in subsection (3) of this amendment.
Secondly, may I say in reply to the amendment that this new clause would remove a great deal of the freedom which local authorities enjoy at the moment to give a reasonable degree of preference to local people in the allocation of their housing. It would oblige them to take on their lists people from outside their

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area who meet criteria which would cause a great deal of debate if they were to be put into statute. For instance, I am thinking of the criterion of someone wishing to move to seek employment. Another criterion I see in the amendment is for special social or medical reasons.
The noble Baroness asked: "Why can you do this in Scotland but not in England?" The answer is simple: one is not comparing like with like. For instance, there is an infinitely higher proportion of public housing stock in Scotland—nearly double—compared with England and Wales. Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, have put forward the point which is encapsulated in subsection (6) of the amendment. I do not dissent from the seriousness of the point which the noble Lord explained. But this is a matter, I am advised, that in two instances the local Ombudsman has considered and about which he reached strongly critical conclusions. Apart from that, there is the direct local response that these critical reports have invoked. There have been two documents issued by the Department of the Environment: a circular on the housing of one-parent families and a report from the Housing Services Advisory Group explaining why arrears should not be treated as disqualification for housing in the sad circumstances of the break-up of a family.
With that weight of advice which is being given, if one wanted to legislate one would want further and compelling evidence. Although the noble Lord has given his strong views to the Committee, I do not think there has been a great weight of statistics on this point in support of the amendment. Therefore I do not disagree with the general case which the noble Lord has been putting forward on this point, but I hesitate—and I know my honourable friend the Minister of Housing hesitates—before actually legislating on the matter.
May I come hack on this amendment to my original point in answer to the noble Baroness? It would be exceedingly difficult to enforce most of the provisions to be found in this amendment. I beg the Committee to consider the desirability of trying to proceed in these matters by agreement and by consent. It is with
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that objective that my honourable friend's national mobility scheme is being worked out.
Lord HYLTON: I must say I am somewhat disappointed to hear the reply of my noble friend on the Front Bench, in that he was not able to be a little more forth-coming at least towards the spirit behind this amendment. Local authorities have been saying for many, many years that it is quite impossible to abolish residential qualifications. I should like to quote the example of one which has done so and succeeded: that is the London Borough of Hammersmith. You would think that was a very difficult place in which to get away with it, owing to housing stress and everything else; but it was done, and the housing manager in question has written an article about it in the journal of the Institute of Housing, describing how it went through. I hope the Government will study that article and that others will take courage from it, so that we shall get some progress. It is high time.
Baroness DAVID: Again, I am not very happy with the reply I have received from the Minister. I am sorry they have not taken a more advanced and imaginative approach to this. I think voluntary co-operation is fine if you can get it, but there are always bound to he some councils who do not co-operate and that spoils the whole scheme. Certain parts of the amendment have been criticised more than others, so I should like to withdraw it for the time being and probably bring back the amendment in a slightly different form, perhaps with some cuts, and hope that it might be better received on Report. So I would ask leave to withdraw it.
Lord GIFFORD: Before my noble friend sits down and the amendment is withdrawn, may I add just a word on what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said about the problem of arrears being foisted on to a spouse. He did, in a sense, throw out a challenge that if further and compelling evidence were provided he would—I hope I take his meaning—consider it and consider whether that threw up the need to embody what we agree to be a desirable idea in legislation. I believe the evidence to he there. There have been submitted to me a number of cases, but at this hour of night I do not intend to weary the Committee with them. However, I pro-

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pose to try to marshal the evidence that is available and submit it to him. I hope I take the spirit of his reply in this way: that the department will look at such evidence and be prepared to reconsider the matter if the evidence is forthcoming and is powerful.
Lord BELSTEAD: I am quite sure that my noble friend's department would do exactly what the noble Lord is asking, but it would be of course, as the noble Lord would he the first to understand, in the context of legislation which exists already to deal with rights in the matrimonial home—the Matrimonial Homes Act 1967, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and the Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1976—all of which the noble Lord has referred to during the Committee proceedings this evening. These Acts give substantial protection to spouses in cases of family break-up and, of course, anything the noble Lord put forward would have to he looked at in the context of that existing legislation.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
12.34 a.m.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 109:
After Clause 45, insert the following new clause:
"Distress for rent
( .—(1) No distress for the rent of any dwelling house let under a secure tenancy shall be levied except with the leave of the county court.
(2) Subsection (1) above does not apply to distress levied under section 137 of the County Courts Act 1959.").
The noble Baroness said: It is very late and perhaps it is right that we should be dealing with a distress clause. I intend to be very brief, mainly because my Chief Whip has appeared on the scene. Perhaps I might say quickly that to find that distress is still used, when it is really a feudal power, is quite amazing. The most important element of the feudal nature of distress is that tenants' goods can be seized without any prior warning or remedy for any amount of rent arrears. It is, in fact, the only kind of debt for which such draconian powers exist, and it is only council tenants against whom distress can be operated in this form.
Since 1920 the rent Acts have always included a limitation on the use of dis-
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tress. The legal profession itself has recognised how archaic this matter is. In 1966 the Law Commission's interim report on distress for rents recommended that distress without leave of court should be abolished. In 1969 the Payne Commission on the enforcement of judgment debt went even further and stated that only an accident of history entitles the landlord to exercise this right without first having to transfer his claim into a judgment debt.
For these reasons we conclude that distress in this connection should be abolished. In fact, the Government themselves recognised the incompatibility of having a tenants' charter giving security of tenure when distress was left untouched. The present Minister for Housing, speaking at a Shelter conference on 28th July 1979, said:
"I also intend to require that the leave of the court shall be sought before distress is levied on council tenants, thereby extending to them the same protection as in the private sector. I do not suggest that many local authorities have abused the use of bailiffs in any way, but there is a principle at stake here and I think it right that the public sector tenants also should have the protection of a court procedure before bailiffs appear on the doorstep".
That having been said, the Bill has appeared without any change in the law on distress. According to a recent survey, only one-third of local councils use distraint. Distraint can make the problem of rent arrears worse, because if a family's goods are sold at auction and they yield far less than their market value, then the family is left without any goods with which to furnish their flat or house and also without money for arrears.
This is such an anachronistic measure to retain in 1980 that I hope I do not have to press the Government very hard for them to say that they will deal with it in this Bill. I do not expect a complete answer tonight. I should like the Minister, at this late hour, to say—unless he says right away that this is what he intends to do, which would be fine and then we could finish with it—that he will certainly take this back and look at it, particularly in view of what the Minister for Housing said a year ago. I beg to move.
Lord GIFFORD: This is an enormously important amendment and I am afraid I do not apologise for prolonging the debate in speaking to it. We could alleviate a

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great deal of misery if we were to persuade the Government to accept this amendment tonight. To give an example of the human distress and suffering which this form of debt collection brings, may I take an example which is quoted in an excellent pamphlet produced by Shelter, called In Distress Over Rent? It quotes the case of a couple who were some £200 in arrears in rent and who had these goods seized: a three-piece suite; carpets; a fireside chair; four dining chairs; a dining table; a coffee table; a washing machine; a Hoover and a sewing machine. That raised c38.14. The bailiffs had to be paid, because private bailiffs are brought in with no sense of compassion at all. They were paid £20.63. So the whole exercise of stripping this family's home took £18 off the rent arrears. It really is quite horrific.
The fact that one-third of local authorities in the survey Shelter made were found to use this remedy is significant in two ways. First, this kind of sudden incursion into people's homes, which does not need any notice, is going on in an enormous number of local authority areas; but, secondly, the majority of local authorities do not find it necessary. Indeed, given the tenants' charter, there will be ample powers for the court to supervise the payment of arrears by suspended possession orders and outright possession orders, when the case is outrageous. There is no reason for not accepting this amendment and I look forward to its acceptance. I wonder what other answer there can be.
Lord BELSTEAD: There is every reason not to accept this amendment. The reason is that rent arrears stand, at the moment, at the scandalous total of £70 million. That is what is owed to local authority exchequers. On this ground alone, I should not have the slightest intention of accepting what I consider to he a totally ill-conceived amendment. In moving the amendment, the noble Baroness was good enough to say that she did not want too long an answer, and having perhaps been a little brusque in my first response, may I say that the noble Baroness is absolutely right. The present Government have changed their minds on this matter—I admit it openly.
We had intended to reproduce the clause which was in the Labour Government's
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Bill, which was, in essence, the same as this amendment, but we changed our minds for these reasons: first, because of the resistance of the local authorities; secondly, for the reason that I have given of the enormous amount of rent arrears which, taken over the last two years, appears to be a rising trend; and, thirdly, because of the grievance of those people who do pay their rent on a regular and faithful basis and the effect on them if an amendment of this kind was accepted. However, we do not intend to leave this difficult matter of rent arrears there, and my honourable friend the Minister for Housing gave an undertaking in another place that he would be continuing to look at other methods of recovering rent arrears, to see whether anything can be done to improve the position.
May I just end by registering what I believe is a note of agreement. Certainly, from my reading of what went on in another place, there was agreement on this point, that rent arrears cases need to be looked at case by case. Sometimes there has been just scandalous nonpayment, but sometimes there has been very great hardship. Sometimes it is clearly possible to recover the arrears, but sometimes it is not, for compassionate and human reasons, possible to get the money back. But the people who have to decide these things are the people at local level, the local authorities, and it is they who have brought the strongest pressure to bear in very strongly advising the Government that this amendment is misconceived. It really is for that final reason, more than any other, that I resist this amendment.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: I have listened to the debate and have not intervened, but I cannot refrain from intervening any more. I am very sorry to hear the answer the Government have given on this amendment. There is no reason why a local authority cannot go to court and get an order. All that is being asked for is that, instead of proceeding high-handedly and seizing goods—and local authorities are the only people who can do it—there is no reason why they cannot go to court like everybody else. I cannot see any reason why there should be any excuse given for local authorities insisting that they should have the right to be so high-handed.
Lord BELSTEAD: The answer to the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, lies in this extremely high figure which I quoted at the beginning—
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: That is not relevant.
Lord BELSTEAD: But this is the way that local authorities see it. What they say to the Government is that, if this amendment were accepted, then the proceedings would be more protracted and the amount of rent arrears which would need to be recovered would be even greater than it is if there can be distraint immediately. That is the case which is put by the local authorities, and as they are the people who have to weigh up this very difficult matter at local level, I have to say to the noble Lord that the Government have to take very serious account of what is being said at local authority level.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: I shall not delay the Committee much longer, but did the Government take seriously the account which the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, has just given? People's goods—a large amount—were levied in order to pay a rent of £200, a process which in the end produced £18.
Baroness BIRK: I am not taking this to a vote tonight; it would be ridiculous at this hour. But I am not going to negative it, otherwise I cannot bring it back on Report. However, I really am desperately disappointed that the Government should follow this line. The argument put forward by the noble Lord—that it would upset other tenants who pay their rent—could be taken in aid of all sorts of savage punishments for all sorts of things because other people do not commit the same crimes. I do not think that is the approach which we should adopt. We have heard, and I have also said, that fewer than one third of local authorities use this particularly savage and, I think, quite barbarian measure.
I do not think any of the replies were satisfactory, and what my noble friends have said all adds up to the same point. The Minister agreed with me that the Government have changed their mind. At least they will have the chance to change their mind back again before
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Report and before we have the chance to put down further amendments.
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): The noble Baroness wishes to withdraw the amendment?
Baroness BIRK: Yes.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 46 agreed to.
Clause 47 agreed to.
Clause 48 [Exclusion of certain housing associations from Chapter II]:
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 110:
Page 34, leave out from beginning of line 7 to end of line 17 and insert—
("(4) If a housing association which is a registered society has been a registered association but at any time after the commencement of this Part of this Act has ceased to be such an association it shall notify those of its tenants who thereby become secure tenants").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 110, and, if I may, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 111. Under the clause as it stands at present, security of tenure will apply only to the tenants of such unregistered housing associations six months after the commencement of the Bill. This was intended to allow co-ownerships time to register with the Housing Corporation. However, the Government believe, now that co-ownerships are being given the power to sell, that we must have effective safeguards to protect tenants who do not choose to buy. Therefore this amendment removes the sixth-month period of grace before security of tenure applies, with the effect that tenants of unregistered co-ownerships, like other secure tenants, will receive protection from the commencement of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 111:
Page 34, line 21, leave out ("the end of the period of 6 months or, as the case may be,").
Clause 48, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed.

LABORATORY ANIMALS PROTECTION BILL [H.L.]
Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Commons to request them to be pleased to return the Bill because Clause 13 is incorrect.
Returned from the Commons pursuant to the Message of this day.