COMMONS AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 2 July 1984)

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 7 and 8, and I will speak also to Amendments Nos. 20, 24, 24A, 24B, 28, 32 and 32A. I feel I must apologise to your Lordships, because it is at this moment that the Government are asking your Lordships to agree to three amendments which the Government are hoping that the House will agree to make and send to another place, but I hope that your Lordships, after allowing me to make a brief explanation, will agree that it is in a good cause.
Amendments Nos. 7 and 8, together with 20, 24, 28 and 32, clarify the operation of the commercial unit occupancy test to ensure that a would-be successor already farming a commercial unit should not be eligible to succeed to a tenancy under Part II of the 1976 Act, or under the new inter vivos arrangements. That is probably fairly familiar ground. However, we came across a difficulty after the Bill left another place, and this is the subject of Amendments Nos. 24A, 24B and 32A.
The effect of these three new Government amendments is to amend the commercial unit occupation provisions in the new Schedule 3A to the 1976 Act—that is Amendment No. 24—and the inter vivos succession arrangements in Schedule 2 to the Bill, which is Amendment No. 32. The purpose is to cover the point that where the death of a tenant is anticipated, or where a retirement is planned under the inter vivos succession, it would be possible for a potential applicant who occupies a commercial unit to grant one of the forms of excluded tenancy or licence under paragraphs 2(1)(a) to (e) of the new Schedule 3A to somebody else, thereby ceasing to be in occupation of the land technically for a short period during which he could establish eligibility and succeed to the tenant's holding. It is to prevent that happening that these three amendments will be moved. I beg to move that this house doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 7 and 8.

§ Lord John-Mackie
My Lords, the noble Lord has raised an interesting point. It is something that could be used, as it is unfortunately in the buying of council houses, which the Government are keen on. Somebody with an elderly person in the family steps in and helps them to buy the house, in anticipation, as the noble Lord said, of the death of the tenant. It is the same picture when you come to what can he done to get the tenancy of a farm. It is a real point that has been picked out, and certainly we would support preventing this sort of thing happening. That is all I want to say about it. It is an essential thing to do, and we shall leave it at that; but one can see the difficulties that can arise in these matters.

§ Lord Northfield
My Lords, may I express my appreciation? This was an issue in respect of which the noble Lord was kind enough to write to me and say that the Government were having great difficulty in 83 drafting this while the Bill was before your Lordships, and he had to say that it had to wait until the Bill went to another place before they could get something on to paper. It shows how complicated it is that even then it was not quite right, and the Government have found yet another loophole that has to be stopped up.
I am grateful to the noble Lord. I can only take it on trust that all this is now right, because it is so essentially complicated in drafting that laymen would quite easily be misled. I am sure that a lot of work has gone into this, and I can only again express my gratitude that at last this point has been cleared up.

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, when I said earlier that I was indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, it was no mere politeness because in the whole area of eligibility we are under the commercial occupancy rules, and we will all remember that what we managed to do in this House was to get the new definition of commercial occupancy, but we did not manage to dig into the eligibility rules at all. It was on those that the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, had done a great deal of work, and made more than one speech as the Bill was going through your Lordships' House.
I am glad that in another place we were able to bring forward these eligibility rules, but we missed this particular loophole which we are now trying to stop up by deeming. Not only has the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, been good enough to welcome this group of amendments, including Nos. 24A, 24B, and 32A, but the Agricultural Law Association was particularly anxious that the effect of the three amendments with "A" attached to them should be inserted. I therefore hope and believe that we are on the right lines.
With respect to the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, I am not entirely sure that we are on the same ground on these amendments as we are with council houses. There are rather different eligibility rules so far as the right to buy council houses is concerned; but I am not going to go down that road just now.