Lords Sitting of 6 March 1984

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Lincoln.
The Marquess of Ely (Lord Loftus)—Took the Oath.
Earl Brooke and Earl of Warwick—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

Small Businesses and Form-Filling
Baroness Sharples: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many forms relating to small businesses were abolished between 1979 and 1983.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, figures on Government forms prior to 1982 are not available, but in the year February 1982 to February 1983, 4,705 of the estimated 17,000 Government administrative forms to business and industry were reviewed. Of these, 640 were abolished and a further 658 redesigned. Many of these would have been sent to small businesses.
Baroness Sharples: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. May we hope that this trend will be accelerated? Can my husband—I apologise: can my noble friend please see that these forms are sent out not in gobbledegook but in plain English?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her very friendly supplementary question! I hope it will be good news to my noble friend that the VAT leaflets have won plain English awards, so I am advised, in two of the last three years; and that, as I am also advised, the new Inland Revenue income tax return has become simpler and less forbidding as a result of the reviews which have been going on. Yes, I can reply to my noble friend's other point. I do not know about the trend being accelerated, but we shall certainly press on.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, while commending the efforts of the Government in relieving the load on small businesses, does not the arithmetic of the noble Lord's Answer indicate that 16,360 forms may still be sent to these people? Do they not have an enormous amount of work to do in trying to comply with the demands of the Government, even after the efforts of the year for which he has given figures?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, that does not mean 16,000-odd too many. This
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is about more than just cutting out waste. The whole thrust of our policy is to give good service and good value for money, and that is what we are trying to do.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, can the noble Lord indicate how many small businesses have gone into liquidation since 1979?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I cannot answer the noble Lord's question in the way that he put it. I can tell the noble Lord that 20,000 more small businesses started up than went out of business between 1980 and 1982.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm that between 1979 and 1983 some 70,900 small businesses were either made bankrupt or went into liquidation, and that many of those 20,000 new businesses to which he referred were among those bankruptcies and liquidations?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, if we are going to talk about the legacy of the previous Government, I will admit to the House, quite openly and frankly, that there were very great difficulties in this country in 1979. But I have to repeat to the House that between 1980 and 1982 there was a net increase in the number of small businesses.

Common Fisheries Policy
2.40 p.m.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what aspects of the common fisheries policy have yet to be agreed.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, there are currently no major aspects of the common fisheries policy awaiting agreement in the Council of Ministers. The operation of the policy is, however, a continuing process and there will no doubt be further matters for decision at future meetings.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, I thank my noble friend very much for the Answer to my Question. It is encouraging that the extremely difficult problems of fishing have now reached the point at which they are being tackled very satisfactorily. It is also encouraging that our proportion of the fishing has gone up to 37 per cent. and I congratulate the Government very much on what has happened.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. In her supplementary question my noble friend mentioned a percentage. I think that the percentage is taken from the agreement that was struck when my right honourable friend the previous Minister of Agriculture was in office. My right honourable friend the Minister was, of course, negotiating on behalf of the United Kingdom at the recent meeting. I think it is fair to say that the effects of my noble friend's words have been continued in that latest agreement.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, at the time of the last Statement there was considerable questioning about the fact that all the inspectors had not been appointed and that the log books had not been printed. I wonder if the noble Lord can tell us whether this has now been rectified and whether the inspectors have all taken up their work. Is it not a fact that the Scottish fishermen are not too pleased with the closing of the mackerel box in the south-west of England, and that they have produced figures to suggest that this is not necessary? I wonder whether the noble Lord would like to comment on that. I think the argument is that hand-liners will be able to supply the demand, but I understand that they produce only about 3 per cent.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, so far as enforcement is concerned, the United Kingdom was instrumental in the setting up of the inspectorate. It is fair to make that claim. My right honourable friend the Minister has been pressing for the early introduction of log books. Once these two key areas are fully operational—and I have to say to the noble Lord quite openly that they are not—we expect the standards of enforcement within the Community to be very greatly improved. May I say that the Government and the Opposition agree on this. Let us get on with it as quickly as possible. We shall continue to press for it. The closing of the south-west box is a conservation and management matter which we believe is desirable. The south-west box was closed at midnight on 4th March. I think I am right in saying that this is the latest date at which it has been closed during the last five years.
Lord Boothby: My Lords, does the noble Lord realise that the fisheries agreements which have been negotiated with the countries of Western Europe are the best that we have ever had and that this is primarily due to the diplomatic skill with which they were negotiated in Brussels by Mr. Peter Walker, as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, with staunch support from the Secretary of State for Scotland? At every stage the fishermen and their leaders were consulted and agreement was reached. Does the noble Lord not agree that his example might be followed by the Government over the wider field of industry? It proves that consensus, when it can be arrived at, pays off far better than confrontation.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I do not in any way disagree with what the noble Lord said in the second part of his supplementary question. As to the first part, I know that Scottish Ministers, my right honourable friend and previous Ministers will be extremely grateful to the noble Lord, with his enormous experience of this subject, for the words he has spoken. But the point is not what redounds to political parties and politicians but what is beneficial for people's livelihoods. There is no question but that the agreement of last year and the new agreement which was hammered out only five or six weeks ago are for the future good of the fishing industry in this country.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that the setting up of an inspectorate has been the continuing objective of all political parties, and that we welcome what has been achieved? Given that it is very important for the British fishing industry
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that the inspectorate should be at full strength as soon as possible, could the noble Lord indicate the obstacles which now stand in the way and also say when we may expect the inspectorate to be fully operational?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, most of the inspectors are now in post. It is hoped that log books and landing returns will come into force this summer. When pressed by my right honourable friend at the last Council of Fisheries Ministers on 31st January, the European Commission could not give an exact date for this, but I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, that the text and format for log books and landing returns have been completed and are now going out to tender for printing.

Hamilton College of Education: Sale
2.47 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement on the sale of Hamilton College of Education in the light of the report of the Public Accounts Committee.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Gray of Contin): My Lords, the Public Accounts Committee report is being carefully studied. In accordance with long-standing arrangements, the Government will respond to the committee in due course by means of a Treasury minute. It would be a breach of the undertakings given to the Public Accounts Committee by successive Governments for me to comment at this stage on the content of the report.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, in view of the great public concern about this particular transaction, can the Minister indicate to the House when this minute might be produced and whether it will provide an opportunity for a discussion in this House, or in another place, on the facts which have been revealed by the Public Accounts Committee? Can the Minister confirm that in the Public Accounts Committee it was established that the Chief Valuer put a value of £6 million on these properties, that they were subsequently sold for £600,000 and that the Chief Solicitor has declared in the Public Accounts Committee evidence that the properties were not adequately exposed for sale? In view of these facts, can the Minister expedite the preparation of the Government's comment?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, the Government's comment, by way of a Treasury minute, will be prepared and delivered as soon as possible. I am sure that the noble Lord will appreciate that my position is such that I cannot comment on his other questions.
Lord Ross of Marnock: My Lords, surely the Minister of State will be aware that the Minister who was fairly closely connected with this matter has already commented? How does that square with the

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Minister's own statement today that the Government cannot say anything about it? Is it not clear that a valuable public asset was disposed of to the private sector in a way which was contrary to the Government's own advice and at a price that was contrary to what could have been expected if the sale had been properly carried out? Would the Minister care to change the statement that he made to me on 1st December, of which I have a copy? The Minister cannot comment now, evidently.
Noble Lords: Question!
Lord Ross of Marnock: This is the question. Is the Minister aware that he said:
"As to the final decision, the noble Lord knows only too well that the Secretary of State is always made aware of the situation when such a sale takes place. The Secretary of State would not necessarily approve it but he decided not to hold up the sale"?—[Official Report, 1/12/83; col. 799.]
Does the Minister agree with the statement made by the secretary of the Scottish education department, who said that the sale took place at the direction of the Secretary of State; that there was a working party set up in which the SED was involved; and that the Secretary of State finally approved of the sale? Is it not a grave dereliction of ministerial duty to have allowed this to happen?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, needs no coaching from any other noble Lord as to how to make his points in the most appropriate way. But the noble Lord cannot expect me to be led down the path he seeks to lead me down. I am not prepared to comment any more at this stage.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that he has put forward what amounts to a new sub judice rule today? He is saying in effect that a Minister cannot comment on anything which has been discussed by the Public Accounts Committee until the Government have issued a Treasury minute about it. This is a new theory. If the noble Lord cannot comment on the report, can he at least comment on the sale of the college?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, noble Lords who have served in another place are trying to divert me from my brief. On this occasion I can assure noble Lords that I am not going to be diverted. I am not prepared to make any comment. The noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, who is a very experienced parliamentarian, is as aware as I am of the conventions in this matter.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is it not the fact—and as a former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee I can confirm that it is—that fair-minded people, when the Public Accounts Committee has reported, await the reply of the Government to the minute and then form a view; and they do not seek to form an opinion or to influence opinion by going off at half-cock on half the evidence?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, my noble friend, as he so often does, has made a very valuable contribution to our deliberations.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, is the noble Lord the Minister aware that in some parts of this House the feeling is that this matter cannot be shrugged off with general words? Will the Minister accept that in some parts of this House this would prima facie be deemed a first class scandal? Would he therefore not agree that instead of merely giving the reply that the Treasury note will be available as soon as possible it is incumbent upon the Government to fix a very near date when that Treasury note will be available?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I do not recall from the past a precedent for a firm date being agreed in advance. I shall certainly pass on the noble Lord's comments; and I am sure that it will be the Government's intention to make their views known at the earliest date.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, is the Minister not aware that this is a very special report? With all due respect to his noble friend who spoke as a distinguished former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, it is a very special report because this matter is causing great distress and suspicion, if I may put it that strongly, in Scotland. A date for the Government's reply to the Treasury minute ought to be fixed fairly soon. Also, it must be a time when the House will have an ample opportunity to consider and debate it in depth.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, in view of the seriousness of the matter to which the noble Lord has made reference, I am sure he will agree with me that it is better that the Government consider very carefully their response before making it.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I have not had the privilege of the parliamentary experience gained by most noble Lords who have spoken, and perhaps I could have some guidance from the noble Lord the Minister on the subject of the Treasury minute. There are issues of public accountability and ministerial responsibility which go back a long time—since Crichel Down. I wonder whether the Treasury minute is the appropriate vehicle for dealing with these two matters.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I do not consider myself to be in a position to give guidance on such an important issue. If we are to go by precedent, it has always been accepted as the appropriate way of dealing with the matter.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, in view of the general concern and, indeed, disquiet felt in many parts of the House, will the noble Lord be good enough to ask his right honourable friend the Secretary of State whether he will consider as a matter of urgency making a Statement in another place when the Government have reached a view on the Treasury note—a Statement which will, of course, be repeated in this House?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I shall certainly pass on the noble Lord's comment to my right honourable friend.

Housing and Voluntary Bodies
2.55 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they consider that the experience of voluntary bodies is, or will become, relevant to the development of national housing policies and local tactics, and if so, what consultations they have held or will hold.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the Government consider that the experience of voluntary bodies can play an important part in the development of national housing policies, and welcome their views on such matters. We also accept that they can make a valuable contribution at a local level. In the latter case, however, it is for local authorities to decide how far to consult and involve them.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his very helpful reply. Does he agree that innovation is one of the main justifications for voluntary bodies? Does he accept that, today, homelessness and sub-standard housing are two of the most acute problems that we face? Is it not true, therefore, that voluntary innovations in adapting unlettable properties and in making use of short-life housing urgently need to be copied in the public sector?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the Government have no monopoly of good ideas, and they recognise this. There will inevitably be gaps in the statutory and local provision for housing which, with its experience, the voluntary sector is very successful at plugging. Some schemes have been taken over by the public sector in the past and I have no doubt that others will be in the future. Whether they will be concerned with homelessness or with short-life use is difficult to say.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, why does the noble Lord say that the Government recognise the importance of voluntary organisations in the housing field at a time when the Government are making it more difficult for local authorities to contribute to those schemes and more difficult for voluntary organisations to carry out the work that he says is important? Does he not agree that public contributions to the special housing for which most voluntary associations are responsible will be discouraged if potential donors feel that the houses they help to provide will be sold off?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I do not believe that the Government are putting difficulties in the way of local authorities in the manner that the noble Baroness suggests. We are changing the particular body which provides a particular fund to a particular voluntary sector housing association. In answer to the noble Baroness's second point, we have today a long debate on the subject of housing—the second of three allocated days—and I have no doubt that we shall be able to pursue this aspect a good deal further.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept my congratulations on his original reply? But, bearing in mind the Government's interest in and devotion to voluntary organisations, will he not accept that the decisions taken here on the Housing and Building Control Bill are decisions taken—with the exception of the Government Front Bench—by a voluntary body? I hope, of course, that those decisions will be respected.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I thought that we were discussing voluntary bodies which are partly funded by public moneys. I do not think that your Lordships fall into that category.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the Committee stage of the Housing and Building Control Bill will be adjourned for dinner at approximately 7.30 p.m. for a short period. During this adjournment the Committee stage of, the Disabled Persons Bill will be taken.

Computers: Sub-Committee
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Sub-Committee on Computers appointed by the Select Committee on House of Lords Offices shall have power to join with any Sub-Committee thereof that may be appointed by the Select Committee of the House of Commons on House of Commons (Services); and
That any such Sub-Committee shall have leave to agree with the Commons on the appointment of a chairman for any joint meeting.—(Lord Aberdare.)
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, if I intervene on this item it is because I had contemplated putting down a Motion on the principle involved. I welcome the Motion. If the Chairman of Committees will permit me to offer an opinion—not advice, but an opinion; and I have every confidence in the Chairman of Committees—I welcome further consultation with those in another place. We ought to utilise the wisdom and also accept the authority of the other place; but they also have to recognise the wisdom and ability that resides in your Lordships' House. The more frequent are the meetings between both sides the better it will be for parliamentary democracy.
Lord Aberdare: My Lords, I am sure the whole House will have heard with approval the words spoken by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell. We would all welcome co-operation between the two Houses. On this occasion the initiative came from the other place, which invited the Lords committee to meet them over problems concerned with computers. The Lords subcommittee has been anxious to accept, and if your Lordships agree to this Motion it will be able to do so.
On Question, Motion agreed to; and it was ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

Road Traffic Regulation Bill [H.L.]
3.1 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This consolidation Bill seeks to re-consolidate that part of the law relating to road traffic which was last consolidated by the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967. Since 1967 this area of the law has been heavily amended by successive Acts, notably the Transport Act 1968, the Transport (London) Act 1969, the Heavy Commercial Vehicles (Controls and Regulations) Act 1973, the Road Traffic Act 1974 and the Transport Act 1982.
In order to produce a satisfactory consolidation, it is necessary to make a number of recommendations which are set out in the Law Commission report on the Bill laid before this House on 21st February. If your Lordships give this Bill a Second Reading it will be referred in the usual way to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I should like to express appreciation to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for this consolidation Bill. As the noble and learned Lord explained, a vast number of changes have taken place since we had the last Bill. This Bill will be much appreciated by everyone involved in road traffic regulations. We express our appreciation.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I am grateful indeed to the noble Lord for his kind words. Of course, the work of consolidation is something for which we ought constantly to offer our congratulations to the Law Commission.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Food Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Again, this Bill is purely consolidation, consisting of the Food and Drugs Acts 1955 to 1982 and certain other measures which contain between them most of the legislation relating to the preparation, advertising and sale of food for human consumption. If your Lordships give this Bill a Second Reading it will be referred in the usual way. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a second time, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Mental Health (Scotland) Bill [H.L.]
Report received.
Ullapool Harbour Order Confirmation Bill
Considered on Report.

Housing and Building Control Bill
3.5 p.m.
The Minister 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.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[THE LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 23 [Grounds and orders for possession]:
Lord Sandford Lord Sandford moved Amendment No. 43:
Page 24, line 9, at beginning insert—
(" () After subsection (3) of section 30 of the 1980 Act there shall be inserted the following subsection—
"(4) It shall be the duty of the person or persons claiming to succeed the deceased tenant to notify the landlord within three months of the tenant's death."
and in the paragraph (c) of Ground 13 of Schedule 4 to that Act after the words "the date or there shall be inserted "notification of".")
The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend Lady Faithfull, I beg to move the amendment standing in her name on the Marshalled List. We come now, in this Bill, to the other rights of secure tenants and, in particular, to the grounds and orders for possession. This is only a probing amendment. As the Committee will recall, Section 30 of the Housing Act 1980 provides for succession to take place on the death of a secure tenant but does not provide for any requirement to notify the landlord. Ground 13 of Schedule 4 provides for recovery of possession in such cases where the dwelling is under-occupied as a consequence, subject to suitable alternative accommodation being offered.
However, such proceedings for recovery must be exercised within time limits. If the landlord is not notified of the tenant's death, the time limits might have expired before the landlord learns of it. This amendment provides for the successor to notify the death of the tenant to the landlord within three months and for Ground 13 to be exercisable within the existing time limits but counting from the date of such notification.
I hope that my noble friend will feel that a provision along these lines is reasonable in all the circumstances. I hope that he will indicate either that an amendment such as that proposed can be accepted or that the situation is provided for in some other way. I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: As far as I am aware, this is the first time that there has been any call for such an amendment, and I was interested in what my noble friend Lord Sandford had to say. There are always questions that need to be considered closely, and I can see difficulties in this. Perhaps I may explain. Let me take, first, the question of succession. For good reason, there is no provision in Section 30 for any minimum or maximum time in which to decide who shall succeed, and an alert landlord will quickly know when there has been a succession. In most cases, there will be no doubt about who is to succeed, but if a person is qualified to succeed and wishes the landlord to choose

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between him and other people who are equally qualified it is obviously in his own interest to approach the landlord quickly.
I suggest that there is no need for a three-month limit. However, if, for example, the purpose of the amendment is that the deceased's spouse, who is qualified to succeed, has to notify the landlord of the succession, that is another matter. Provided the conditions in Section 30 are met, the provision gives spouses and other family members a right to succeed. The wording of Section 30 is:
"the tenancy vests by virtue of this Section".
There is no question of a successor claiming the tenancy or of the landlord having power of veto. We therefore have to be very careful that making notification a statutory requirement would serve a useful purpose. I must admit to being concerned about whether there should be sanctions, and, if so, about how sanctions which are workable and acceptable could be devised against successors who failed simply to notify their landlords within the statutory period.
I turn to the second limb of the proposed amendment. At present when a secure tenant has died and been succeeded by a member of the family other than the spouse, and the dwelling-house is under-occupied, the landlord can seek repossession. The landlord can do so in the period more than six months but less than 12 months after the date of the previous tenant's death. This six-month period was carefully chosen. It gives a new tenant six months to get over the death and allows the landlord to seek repossession before the new tenant gets too settled.
However, this proposal would effectively extend the period during which the landlord could seek possession by up to three months, so that notice could be served on the tenant up to 15 months after the former tenant's death, instead of 12 months or possibly even longer, where the tenant had failed to make notification within the specified time. If a landlord intends to seek repossession, surely there is time enough at present to make this decision. Fifteen months after death would keep the successor tenant cruelly in suspense. I think that this would be a retrograde step.
However, I am prepared to take a closer look at the question, though I cannot assure my noble friend that we shall end up with an amendment that he will like. But, on the assurance that I am willing to look at it, perhaps he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Birk: Before the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, replies, may I just make one brief comment? I thought that the Minister's explanation was extremely clear. He made out a well-balanced case, but it seems to me that there is one practical point about this. There could be a certain amount of doubt or argument about the date of notification. The authority may correctly have down one date; the person concerned may have made a mistake and believe that it is another date. The date of death is definite. When the Minister is considering this matter, perhaps he ought to take that into consideration.
Lord Sandford: I am most grateful to my noble friend the Minister particularly for saying that he is
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willing to look at the matter again. If I may say so, I think that that would be as well. Although I was grateful to my noble friend for what he said in the main part of his reply, I do not, if I may say so, think it bore exactly on the point that I was making. At the beginning he said that the housing authority would quickly get to know about the death of a tenant. I suppose that in the great majority of cases that would undoubtedly be true, but it might not be true. In so far as time limits are set in the Housing Act 1980 for the operation of the procedures to which this amendment relates, it is important that the housing authority should be certain of being made aware of the tenant's death for the reasons that I gave in moving the amendment. Regarding a fixed moment, I entirely take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, about the definitive date on which death occurs.
However, I am more than content with my noble friend's agreement to look at the matter again, and I shall read carefully what he has said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 44:
[Printed earlier: col. 1267.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment was taken together with Amendment No. 42. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 45:
[Printed earlier: col. 1267.]
The noble Lord said: This, too, was taken with Amendment No. 42. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
3.14 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal Baroness Fisher of Rednal moved Amendment No. 46:
Page 24, line 30, leave out from ("words") to end of line 31 and insert (" "grounds 1 to 6" there shall be substituted the words "grounds 1 to 6 and 9A" ")
The noble Baroness said: I move this amendment because I am concerned that certain problems may arise in the case of ILEA. The position is similar to that which the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, mentioned in connection with other categories of possession.
Lord Bellwin: In speaking to Amendment No. 46, is the noble Baroness speaking also to Amendments Nos. 70, 71 and 143?
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: I apologise to the House, and I am grateful to the noble Lord the Minister. I should have said that originally.
Amendment No. 70: Clause 29, Page 30, line 27, leave out ("paragraph 3 shall be omitted and")
Amendment No. 71: Clause 29, Page 30, line 42, at end insert—
("2C. A tenancy is not a secure tenancy if the tenant or his predecessor in title was in the employment of the landlord and

(a) the dwelling-house was let to the tenant or predecessor in consequence of that employment;

(b) the dwelling-house is held by the landlord for the purpose of any of its functions under the Education Act 1944; and

(c) the dwelling-house forms part of a building held for those purposes or is within the curtilage of such a building." ")

Amendment No. 143: Schedule 11, Page 90, leave out line 55.
We are trying to envisage the problem that will arise, particularly in ILEA. It is a point similar to that which the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, raised. In pursuit of educational needs and functions under the Education Act 1944, ILEA has certain problems regarding tenants. It is important for the running of the educational establishments that on an employee's retiring or otherwise leaving, ILEA should be able once again to take control of the property. So far as I can see—and I would wish the noble Lord to correct me if I am wrong—paragraph 3 of Schedule 3 to the Housing Act 1980 safeguarded that position. The person employed was never a secure tenant because the tenancy related to the employment. In this Bill there seems to be some doubt about that.
Our chief concern is that in such cases eviction procedures might have to be taken to remove the people from the properties. That is not something which we should relish. The amendment takes a wider view of the issue. ILEA is in the same category as a county council, which is not a housing authority, and it may be placed in great difficulties. The educational establishments would be in the various boroughs, and that would affect the evictions. The amendments would extend the safeguards that the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, was asking for to these clauses, I ask the Minister to give us the same consideration. I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher of Rednal, has tabled four amendments which variously modify the proposed provisions governing dwellings let to employees which are within the curtilage of educational buildings. In fact the amendments would affect educational authorities as a whole, but I note that the noble Baroness has specifically referred to ILEA. The department is in touch with the authority about certain aspects of what she has said. It might be helpful if I explained the situation in more detail and perhaps picked up the points that the four amendments raise. I believe that similar arguments underlie each of them. I should make it clear straight away that I accept that there is a point of substance here which I feel must be considered further.
The noble Baroness referred to paragraph 3 of Schedule 3 to the 1980 Act. It is not correct to say that under that paragraph the tenancy was never secure. In fact it provides that a tenancy is not a secure tenancy if, first, the dwelling forms part of or is within the curtilage of a building held for education or social service purposes; and, secondly, it has been let to an employee on terms which provide for the tenancy to terminate on cessation of his employment.
Clause 29(2) proposes the repeal of paragraph 3 of Schedule 3. It is to be replaced by a new provision excluding paragraph 3-type dwellings from the right to buy (but not, incidentally, from security of tenure) but going wider than paragraph 3 in that, first, it covers dwellings within the curtilage of all operational buildings; and, second, it covers all relevant dwellings let to an employee in consequence of his employment, regardless of the precise terms of his tenancy. This provision is in Clause 2 of the Bill.
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There is also to be a corresponding new ground for possession, enabling landlords to obtain possession of such dwellings where they are required for letting to a new employee. That is Clause 23. Amendments Nos. 46, 70 and 71 modify these proposed provisions in slightly different ways. Amendment No. 71 provides that there should be a new additional exclusion to security of tenure, relating only to dwellings within the curtilage of educational buildings, but going wider than paragraph 3 of Schedule 3 in that it will apply to any such dwelling let to an employee in consequence of his employment. The Government would not be happy with this amendment—partly because there seems to us little logic for a provision which relates exclusively to educational buildings and partly because it would, in effect, deprive some existing tenants of the statutory security of tenure conferred on them by the 1980 Act.
Amendments Nos. 70 and 143 provide simply for the retention of paragraph 3 of Schedule 3. If the Committee want to press the case for that, I should certainly be happy to reconsider. But my feeling at the moment is that what the Government are proposing, coupled with the additional provision to which I will refer in a moment, provide for a better and fairer balance between the rights of tenants and the operational needs of landlords. Under the Government's proposals, a landlord will be able to obtain possession of a building within the curtilage of an operational building if it is required for letting to a new employee, provided that the tenant (who will be a former employee or a successor to an employee) is offered suitable alternative accommodation, and this is what our proposal in Clause 23(1) amounts to.
The opposition Amendment No. 46 would modify this provision so that the landlord could obtain possession without ensuring that the existing tenant was provided with alternative accommodation. The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, said that some bodies to which this provision will apply are not housing authorities and may therefore be in some difficulty in ensuring that suitable alternative accommodation is available. Such authorities will need to co-operate with the housing authority, or with another local landlord, in ensuring that alternative accommodation is available. Surely it would not be right to provide that a former employee tenant should be evicted without any provision to ensure that he has a new home to which to go.
However, having said that, I accept that the noble Baroness has raised one point of real concern: there will be cases—I hope very exceptional ones—in which a teacher or other employee is dismissed from employment as a result of behaviour which may put at risk the safety of children or indeed of other clients which an establishment is intending to serve. In such circumstances, it will be important that the dismissed employee does not continue to reside within the curtilage of the school or other operational buildings. In my view we may well need an initial ground for possession, perhaps tailor-made to apply in these circumstances. We are in touch with the local authority associations on the point and I hope to bring forward a relevant amendment at Report. I hope that in view of that, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: I thank the noble Lord for a very full answer to us and for the thought that he has given to it. The noble Lord has spelt out quite clearly that the 1944 Education Act is a very wide Act regarding employment of all kinds of people. I did not go into it; but as the noble Lord said, it is not just school caretakers, it is all kinds of people that very often have to be removed from their jobs because of difficulties of employment in education and, as the noble Lord said, of providing suitable accommodation. It is true that in most local authorities they are housing authorities; but I think it is the same principle that is arising in the shire counties, where they are not housing authorities; and the ILEA find themselves in difficulties. In view of what the noble Lord has said, I hope that the deliberations that he has with the associations will be fruitful and will bear out what we are trying to achieve and I think what the noble Lord is aware are the difficulties.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 47:
[Printed earlier: col. 1267.]
The noble Lord said: This was taken with Amendment No. 42. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 48:
[Printed earlier: col. 1267.]
The noble Lord said: This was taken with Amendment No. 42. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 49:
[Printed earlier: col. 1267.]
The noble Lord said: This was taken with Amendment No. 42. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 50:
[Printed earlier: col. 1183.]
The noble Lord said: This was taken with Amendment No. 5. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 51:
[Printed earlier: col. 1183.]
The noble Lord said: This was taken with Amendment No. 5. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 23, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 52:
After Clause 23, insert the following new clause:
("Additional ground for court order for possession.
The following amendments shall be made to the Housing Act 1980—
(a) In section 34—
(i) after subsection (2)(c) shall be inserted—
"(d) on ground 14 unless conditions 3(a) and (c) are satisfied";
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(ii) after subsection (3)(b) shall be inserted—
"(c) that the court is satisfied that suitable accommodation will be available for both partners when the order takes effect"; and
(iii) in subsection (4) for the words "for a tenant" there shall be substituted the words "and, for the purposes of ground 14 only, includes a sole tenancy of the dwelling house which is the subject of the proceedings.".
(b) In Schedule 4, after ground 13 shall be inserted—
"Ground 14
The dwelling house has been occupied by partners and one of the partners has notified the landlord in writing that either—

(a) she or he no longer wishes to live with the other partner as husband and wife; or

(b) the partners have ceased to live together as husband and wife.

For the purpose of this ground, partners means spouses or former spouses of a man and a woman living together as husband and wife,".
(c) In Schedule 4. paragraph 2, after paragraph (f) shall be inserted—
"(g) the location of the accommodation if one of the partners (as defined for the purposes of Schedule 4 ground 14) or a member or members of his or her family has suffered violence or threats of violence from his or her partner or a member of his or her partner's family.".").
The noble Lord said: We have just listened in the earlier debate to a series of circumstances which quite clearly are not happy and very often are exceptional. I am very pleased indeed that the Minister—and I believe it was no surprise to the Committee—recognises and sympathises with the circumstances, and was prepared to see whether anything can be done. I stand at the Box to ask him about, if not a comparable set of circumstances, a situation in which there are some unhappy people born out of housing situations that I believe are well known to many people in this place, but also I think even more to those who have served in another place and at constituencies and who have had surgeries where they have had to face up to the realities.
At the end of the day, the Minister will be able to tell the Committee that this amendment has had a good run for its money, not once but twice—and not twice but sometimes three times in the other place by the time one looks at Report stage as well. So it may be that for the benefit of the Committee I do not need to say a great deal except in essence. What we are faced with in many circumstances is the break-up of a marriage or a partnership (these days in housing we have to look at the circumstances whereby two people who are living together invariably are married but not always so, they are cohabiting). For one reason or another—and the prime circumstance that has been drawn to my attention is that of violence by one partner to the other—quite frankly, they are unable to live together. The Minister and Members of your Lordships' House will have noted the crux in paragraph (ii)(c) where in effect we are suggesting an amendment to the Bill that both partners will be provided with accommodation when the order takes effect.
In simple terms, we are faced with the situation of two people who are unable to live together in one unit and the solution to their problem could very well be to have two units, so that they can live separately. No one on this side of the Chamber, nor I believe on any side, will take lightly any interference with priorities and needs when it comes to housing people. More often than not it is asked, "How is it possible to begin to

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justify the case of two people with one unit of council accommodation requiring two units when there are many families who have no units at all?" Certainly, I am not wanting to make the case here on the grounds of priority or necessity.
In a debate in another place at the Report stage, on 21st December, as reported at col. 504 of the Official Report, the Under-Secretary of State said—I consider quite fairly—
"Instead of the couple occupying one dwelling house the new clause would require the landlord to find two dwelling houses. Many people would simply regard that as queue-jumping".
That may very well be the view of many people.
This amendment is born out of the experience of a number of bodies which, on behalf of the community and, I would suggest with all temerity, on behalf of your Lordships' House, have to deal with these unhappy circumstances and try to resolve the problem. The amendment is supported by the National Consumer Council, the National Council for One Parent Families, Shelter, the National Housing Aid Trust, the Women's Aid Federation, and the London Tenants' Organisation.
What we are attempting to secure is a method whereby the very painful circumstances of the breakup of a partnership are resolved in a way in which the innocent party is not deprived of accommodation. Members of your Lordships' Committee may feel that that is not possible if, as happens at present, the issue is referred to the courts which then determine it. However, there are circumstances in which a couple may not be prepared to be the subject of either a divorce or a judicial separation, but where it is quite impossible for the partnership to continue. The clause that we are suggesting would create an additional ground for possession by local authorities of council accommodation and would allow them to transfer the tenancy at the request of one of the joint tenants or tenants living together. That would enable the authorities to take possession proceedings when a relationship breaks down, allow them to transfer the tenancy to one of the parties, and, if there is violence, to rehouse the woman elsewhere for her protection. The new clause seeks to protect the rights of both married and cohabiting couples and to ensure that neither party is left homeless as a result.
Many people, whether they are married or cohabiting, joint or sole tenants, with or without children, victims of domestic violence or not, face legal difficulties and long delays in obtaining separate accommodation when their relationship breaks down. The resultant emotional stress does not need to be spelt out. I am sure that, like me, the Minister will have seen well documented cases, in regard to which we would not demur, concerning the emotional circumstances in which one of the two partners has to wait for an extraordinarily long period for a legal ruling, and because of violence is very often faced with no alternative but to leave the home or unit, thereby depriving herself or himself of any rights she or he may have.
I raise the matter without in any way saying that one would call this a high priority case, bearing in mind the kind of dreadful circumstances which your Lordships recently considered when debating housing. But I should be very grateful if, first of all, the Minister
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would express sympathy and understanding regarding the circumstances. If he is unable to accept the amendment, I wonder whether he could include the point behind it on a list of matters which clearly call for consultation from time to time with the local authorities and which require joint attention.
This is not a new circumstance; it has existed for some time. No doubt during his local government experience the noble Lord the Minister came across such a problem, attempted to solve it. and was beaten by it, as has happend to many of us on both sides of the Committee over the years. So the Minister is no stranger to the problem. Quite frankly, I do not really expect him to be able to concede the principle of what we are asking for in the amendment, but this is a good case and I shall withhold further comment until I have heard what the Minister has to say. I beg to move.
3.36 p.m.
Lord Bellwin: The noble Lord makes his point extremely well, if I may say so, and very persuasively. I say at once that I am not without sympathy for what he says. Yes, I know of the type of situation that he describes. But as he very fairly says, there are problems about what the new clause proposes. It is concerned with a couple who either have parted or wish to part, and one of them notifies the landlord of this. The landlord can then go to court and accommodate both partners separately. So far, so good. But what happens in practice is that it will not be the tenant who notifies the landlord. If the tenant no longer wishes to live in the family home, he or she can simply surrender the tenancy and there would then be no need for any new ground for possession. Alternatively, he or she may be able to assign the tenancy to the other partner.
In simple language the new clause deals with the situation where, though the tenant may want to stay in the family home, a man or a woman, a joint tenant or a non-tenant, wants the tenant to be evicted. Why? The victim may very well have done nothing wrong as a tenant. None of the 13 grounds for possession in Schedule 4 to the Act may apply. It is clear from the new clause that it is envisaged that the couple may no longer be living together when one of them notifies the landlord, and therefore the new clause could simply be a way to provide a means of getting a tenant out, with the consequent loss of the right to buy the dwelling. What happens then? Instead of the couple occupying one dwelling-house, as the noble Lord fairly said, the landlord (presumably the local authority) then has to find two dwelling-houses for them.
I shall not talk about queue-jumping. I think that this matter is perhaps serious in another way. It would lead to certain situations which would be difficult for the landlord authority. I prefer to consider the matter strictly on humanitarian grounds on its own merits. I am sure the noble Lord would agree that even if the landlord felt sympathetic there would be a problem with other people who were on the waiting list who would object if what is being proposed were done. I should have thought that there would be a great difference between the landlord authority statutorily, obligatorily and compulsorily being required to accommodate both partners separately and a situation where the authority may voluntarily want to do so if accommodation is available.

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As the noble Lord fairly said, the objections to the proposal (which have been voiced several times in the past) remain unaltered. They are that an innocent secure tenant can be ousted from the family home by his or her partner, and that the issues at stake are not ones of housing management and are best dealt with not by housing legislation but by matrimonial legislation in the courts, where the question can be settled as part of the whole division of property on divorce. I see the noble Lord shaking his head because obviously that argument has previously been put to him and I suppose he is not too surprised that I put it forward.
Of course I realise that matrimonial legislation has very little effect on cohabiting couples. But that legislation is essentially the responsibility of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, and I hope that the noble Lord is aware that it is being reviewed by a committee chaired by Mrs. Justice Booth. I am not sure whether the noble Lord knew that. If he did not know, I hope that he will be encouraged by it.
I am always willing, however, to consult the Law Commission on this matter, and I think we must make quite sure that we have an input into those considerations now. I assure the noble Lord that I will make sure this is put in. As I said, I know this is not an easy matter. He knows this is something you cannot solve just like that. That does not mean to say we can all turn away as if it will not happen any more. With those assurances, perhaps the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: I was going to voice a slight word of demur. Although the noble Lord who moved this amendment has identified a very real problem, on the whole when it comes to evicting one spouse, the matter is very much better left to a court which is seized of the human and the property problem. As the noble Lord the Minister said, the Booth Committee is at the very moment seized of this difficulty.
The other thing that I felt was relevant in my experience was that the local authority frequently looks to the court for guidance in these matters. It is difficult for a local authority—as the noble Lord put it—to allow someone to jump the queue; but if they have a lead from the court (even an initial informal inquiry through the court welfare officer) it is often very much easier. As the noble Lord the Minister is considering this problem further, he would perhaps bear these points in mind.
Lord Bellwin: I will indeed. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for those comments.
Baroness Birk: There is one brief point that I wish to make. I am sure the Minister will remember we considered this ground last year and I think his noble friend Lord Skelmersdale replied then. At the Report stage in another place the Minister said that this was of course under consideration. I take very much what the noble and learned Lord has said, but this does seem to have been going on a tremendous amount of time and the examples of hardship have, unfortunately, increased rather than diminished. We and those
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bodies who are particularly concerned with this problem would like to hear whether there will be some time limit to this and whether there can be some speed about it because it is a growing problem and the considerations seem to be taking an awful lot of time.
Lord Bellwin: At the moment I do not have any information on that but I will try to ascertain the current situation of the Booth Committee and will notify the noble Lord. Lord Simon of Glaisdale, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and the noble Lord, Lord Graham, accordingly.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I do appreciate the manner in which the Minister has responded. I certainly understand that he is unable to say more than he has done bearing in mind the complex situation. It is a matter which could either he resolved by the courts or by a housing department if in actual fact there were no other constraints. If there were ease of supply of housing and one was able simply to make two unhappy people less unhappy by providing an alternative, I am sure there would not be a problem. But the noble Lord the Minister and the noble Lord. Lord Simon of Glaisdale, I think, touched upon another aspect: that very often it is the innocent person, the secure tenant. But if the innocent person is the subject of violence and they have children, they literally cannot stop and insist upon their rights to their secure tenancy; they have got to get out of the place because the man or woman (whoever is the agressor) makes it physically impossible within the constraints of not getting himself or herself into too much trouble and drives the other person out. That person has then made himself either homeless or has given up his rights.
I do take from the Minister that there is, if not some hope, some deep consideration going on in another place. Certainly, I was unaware personally of the initiative that the Minister has drawn to the attention of your Lordships' Committee that there is a committee sitting under Mrs. Justice Booth. As far as I am concerned, I take the Minister's point that he will feed into that the experience of his department and himself in an unhappy situation. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Sandford Lord Sandford moved Amendment No. 53:
After Clause 23, insert the following new clause:
("Other rights of secure tenants.
. In subsection (1) of section 35 of the 1980 Act (subletting and lodgers) at the beginning there shall be inserted the words "Subject to subsection (1A) hereof"; and after subsection (1) there shall be inserted the following—
"(1A) In every secure tenancy of a dwelling-house of the type described in paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 hereto it is by virtue of this subsection a term that the tenant shall not allow any persons to reside as lodgers in the dwelling-house without the written consent of the landlord." ").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 53 standing in the Marshalled List in the name of my noble friend Lady Faithfull. This is another probing amendment which deals with the question of the tenants of sheltered accommodation taking in lodgers and waiting to get their landlord's permission before doing so.
Section 35 of the Housing Act of 1980 gives freedom to secure tenants to accommodate lodgers in their dwellings without any reference to their landlords. This includes the secure tenants of sheltered accommodation. I put it to the Committee that in such cases difficulties could arise from the use or abuse of special accommodation and facilities provided specially for the elderly by people other than those for whom that accommodation was originally and specially provided. I think the Committee would also agree that there could be problems relating to succession on the death of such a tenant: for instance, where the lodger was an elderly person from another district, he or she, on the death of the secure tenant, might gain a secure tenancy of sheltered accommodation over the heads of elderly people on the waiting list of the landlord and gain priority over other elderly people with equal or greater need. It is for reasons such as these that it is considered it would be reasonable to require tenants of sheltered accommodation—only sheltered accommodation—to seek the landlord's approval before admitting lodgers. That is the purpose of this amendment and I would be glad to hear—and I think the Committee would be glad to hear—my noble friend's reaction to it.
Lord Bellwin: Secure tenants have had the right to take in lodgers without needing their landlord's consent since 1980, and so far as I know this is the first rumbling of discontent—if I can put it that way—with this provision. I was interested in what my noble friend Lord Sandford had to say. The tenants charter gives a range of rights to council tenants' and others and enables them to have a greater say in housing matters concerning their homes. The right to take in lodgers is one such right where a tenant is judged to know best whether to take advantage of the opportunity. The lodger might be a relative or a friend and would doubtless contribute or perhaps contribute towards the rent. In addition, tenants who take in lodgers can be helping to solve another person's accommodation problem. Lodgers present no problems for landlords since the secure tenant is not parting with possession of any part of his home. There seems to be no good reason why tenants in sheltered accommodation should have their rights limited while they are actually living in the dwelling even if they should not be given the right to buy. If, as a result, a dwelling were to become overcrowded within the meaning of the 1957 Act, the landlord might in the last resort decide to have recourse to Ground 7 of Schedule 5 to the Act (the overcrowding ground) to seek repossession.
My noble friend referred to problems related to succession of sheltered accommodation, but I wonder if this is a real issue. Only close family members who have lived with the tenant for the preceding 12 months can succeed whether or not they are lodgers, and if successors do not have the special needs for sheltered accommodation the landlord can seek possession of the dwelling under Ground 12 of Schedule 4 to the 1980 Act provided the court considers it reasonable and provided suitable alternative accommodation is available. I think that I understand my noble friend's arguments in this area, especially in view of the fact—if my noble friend will allow me to say so—that the amendment also appears in the name of my noble
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friend Lady Faithfull whose knowledge in this whole area is such that one has to give great consideration when she raises points of this kind.
So it is not lightly that I say that, at the moment, I am not convinced by the argument for treating secure tenants in sheltered housing differently in this respect from other secure tenants. It may be that I am missing something here, in which case of course I shall want to read carefully what my noble friend has said. But at the moment I think that that is the attitude that the Government will take on the matter.
Baroness Birk: Before the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, responds to the Minister's comments, I should like to point out that we find ourselves at one with the Minister as regards this particular amendment. There is another point to bear in mind. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, was concerned about the question of overcrowding or what was happening to sheltered accommodation. However, paragraph 4 says that sheltered accommodation is somewhere where there are social services or special facilities provided in close proximity to a group of dwelling-houses. Therefore, I should have thought that what goes on in sheltered housing, and the number of people living there, can be far more easily found out than similar information relating to almost any other type of housing.
Lord Sandford: I am grateful to my noble friend for what he has said. It is of course the case that this amendment stems to some extent from the housing authorities, one association of which I have the honour to represent as president. But it also, as my noble friend indicated, stems from the experience of my noble friend Lady Faithfull with a lifetime's background in the social services of the county councils. If the fact is that my noble friend would find it easier to see the force of this argument if he were able to study a few case histories, then I will see what can be done in the way of providing them. But I am grateful to him for what he has said, and for the time being I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 24 [Assignments and other disposals of secure tenancies]:
3.52 p.m.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 54:
Page 25, line 32, after ("is") insert ("made").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 54 and I should also like to refer to Amendment No. 59 which arises after Clause 24.
Amendment No. 59: After Clause 24, insert the following new clause:
("Rent not to increase on account of certain improvements
. In section 39 of the 1980 Act (rent not to be increased on account of tenant's improvements) for paragraph (b) there shall be substituted the following paragraphs—
"(b) if he has died and on his death the tenancy vested under section 30 above, at any time whilst the person in whom the tenancy so vested is a secure tenant of that dwelling-house; or
(c) if he has assigned the tenancy and the assignment was made as mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) of section 37(1) above, at any time whilst the assignee is a secure tenant of that dwelling-house; or

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(d) if the tenancy has been transferred to his spouse or former spouse by an order under paragraph 2 of Schedule I to the Matrimonial Homes Act 1983, at any time whilst the transferee is a secure tenant of that dwelling-house".").
This amendment fulfils an undertaking when the Bill was earlier discussed in another place. The Government accepted in principle the argument that the benefit of Section 39 of the Housing Act 1980, whereby a landlord must disregard improvements carried out by a secure tenant in determining any increase in rent, should not be confined to the tenant and, on his death, to his successor spouse. This amendment, therefore, extends the benefit of Section 39 to members of the family of the tenant who carried out the improvement, so that when one of them becomes a secure tenant on succession or on assignment he will have the right to enjoy the former tenant's improvements without a consequent increase in rent. The amendment also provides that the benefit can be enjoyed by the spouse or former spouse of a tenant who carries out the improvements to whom the secure tenancy has been transferred on divorce in pursuance of an order under paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 to the Matrimonial Homes Act 1983.
The reasoning behind the amendment is that as the landlord did not pay for the improvement, he should not be entitled to an increase in rent attributable to it so long as the tenant and his family are enjoying the benefit of the improvement. The minor amendment to Clause 24 is consequential. I commend the amendment to the Committee.
Baroness Birk: We on these Benches welcome this amendment and think that it is an improvement on what has been the rather loosely worded Section 39 of the 1980 Act. It makes the situation clear and it is also much more equitable.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 55:
[Printed earlier: col. 1267.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment was taken with Amendment No. 42. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendments Nos. 56, 57 and 58:
[Printed earlier: col. 1267.]
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 24, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 59:
[Printed earlier.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment was taken with Amendment No. 54. I beg to move.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: So far as we are concerned on this side of the Committee, we support the amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
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Clause 25 [Right to carry out repairs]:
Baroness Denington Baroness Denington moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 27, line 12, after ("a") insert ("model")
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 60 and to speak also to Amendments Nos. 62 and 63.
Amendment No. 62: Page 27. line 24, at end insert—
("Provided that the right of a secure tenant to carry out repairs shall not arise unless the landlord has failed to carry out repairs within such reasonable periods of time as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State.").
Amendment No. 63: Page 27, line 28, at end insert—
("() The model scheme made by the Secretary of State may be varied by agreement between landlords and secure tenants.").
We are now dealing with the rights of secure tenants to do their own repairs, as regards which the Government issued preliminary proposals in the autumn for discussion. I must say that I greatly welcomed the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, on Second Reading, when he said that the Government's ideas were not yet absolutely firmly fixed and there was still room to listen to other people's ideas on the subject. Those comments were exceedingly welcome to me because originally some of the authorities were not too happy about what was being proposed. However, I beg the Minister and his friends to be patient, because with a little flexibility there can be reconciliation and everybody can be behind the basic proposals that the Government are putting forward and with which we have no quarrel. I repeat: we have no quarrel with the basic proposals at all. We are in agreement with the Government that some tenants have suffered abominably from lack of repairs and dilatoriness as regards repairs and that is what the Government are trying to cure. So, with a little patience and just a weeny bit of flexibility, everybody can be happy, and that surely is what we all want—we want it to work properly and well.
I have spoken about "flexibility" and that is the reason why I have proposed the insertion of the word "model" in the clause. We might be able to arrive at not a scheme hard and fast in every single detail, but a model from which in certain respects there could be slight deviations. After all, the authorities who will have to work this scheme are very varied. They vary in size and responsibility. What is good for one authority is not always good for another. I can think of a small housing association that may have less than 20 dwellings. That is a very small association and it ought perhaps to be able to have some modified, very simple scheme as regards the detail. I am talking about detail, but I am not going to suggest the detail. However, that was what was in my mind when I put forward the word "model".
I am speaking also to Amendments Nos. 62 and 63. Amendment No. 62 really states the principle that the repairs are the landlord's responsibility. I notice that the Government are not departing from that at all and surely cannot, because, as I understand it. tenants pay in their fair rent a sum towards the maintenance of their dwellings. That sum, for the tenant of a new dwelling, is £170 a year and for a "rehab"—which needs a lot of maintenance—£330 a year. That must clearly establish that it is the landlord's responsibility: he is receiving that money in the rent to carry out the repairs. So that principle ought to go in.
First, we should like all the repairs to be done by the landlord speedily and efficiently, but, failing that, the tenant must have the right to come in and do them himself. That is where the flexibility argument arises. I should like to propose that if a tenant is a DIY enthusiast, and he does things about the house as a hobby and gets satisfaction from it, he should be able to go to the landlord without having to wait the appropriate period of time in which the landlord may do the repair, and say "I love doing this kind of job, I am absolutely competent, you can come and see other things that I have done, but please let me have a go at it". That is what I mean by flexibility. Perhaps I may describe it as "statutory schemes that are human".
In circumstances where the landlord fails to carry out the repair and the tenant wants to do it and the landlord agrees that he can, the landlord should have an approved list of contractors so that he can tell the tenant to go to one of the contractors on the list because he is known, trusted and has done many routine jobs and the landlord knows roughly what it will cost. This will speed up the whole operation and the landlord will be satisfied and so will the tenant because they know that the contractor is reliable.
Of course, in such proposals there is always the possibility of cowboy operators. This is what worries some of my friends in local authorities. We want to keep out the man who knocks at the door, offers to do a job and asks for payment in cash, because this would encourage the black economy, and surely we cannot have any legislation that encourages or helps the black economy in any way. That is why I put forward the suggestion that local authorities should have a list of approved contractors so that the cowboys are kept out.
I should like to raise one other point which is not referred to in my amendments, but which arises in Clause 25. It says there that if any query arises on the scheme between the authority and the tenants, the matter should be referred to the county court. I wonder whether it is possible to think of some alternative to the county court, which will involve everybody in waiting time and in costs. Perhaps there could be an arbitrator. I do not find it easy to make suggestions because I do not know exactly what to suggest, but there must be an alternative to the county court which could be more useful.
I put these three amendments forward in a spirit which I hope is helpful to the Government and which might also be helpful to tenants and local authorities who have to work the new scheme. I beg to move.
Lord Evans of Claughton: Briefly, I warmly support the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, has moved. As she said, we agree with the principle that the Government want to establish, that tenants can carry out their own repairs and not have to wait for the cumbersome machinery of the local government housing repairs section. We can all think of cases where people have waited not months but literally years for very important repairs to be carried out. The system which the noble Baroness seeks to amend is cumbersome, can be very expensive and, with all the inspection procedures involved, would probably cost more than the small amounts referred to in the Bill.
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I hope that the Government will give very serious consideration to the amendments which the noble Baroness has put forward, which are supported by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and by the Institute of Housing. I hope and believe that the Government will take them seriously because at the end of the day I believe that they will do what the Government want done in a more efficient and more humane way.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: Briefly, I should like to support the spirit of the amendment and express the sympathy which I certainly feel for everything which the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, has mentioned. But surely it is questionable whether these amendments are appropriate or, indeed, necessary. I say that because, after all, Clause 25 as it stands is a hare affirmation of principle, leaving implementation to regulations to be made by the Secretary of State. There are many details to be dealt with in those regulations. The noble Baroness has, indeed, referred to some which require a very great degree of flexibility.
For example, in the case of a local authority, the cost to the landlord will he less than the tender cost of builder to tenant and greater than the cost of materials plus do-it-yourself—a point very well taken, if I may say so with respect. Secondly, an application under the scheme would in many cases require a specification of works and an estimate of costs, and in other cases it would not. The local authority must surely be entitled to consider whether the repairs are needed, and there must be safeguards as to standards of work and fair compliance with standards to the reasonable satisfaction of the local authority before payment is made. Again we come to the problem of the cowboys.
All this machinery has to be worked out, and these are only some aspects of this implementation machinery. But surely one has said enough fairly to suggest that the county court is the appropriate forum for the resolution of the type of dispute that one could envisage might arise. We are all agreed that this type of implementation machinery should never encumber a statute but should find its place in regulations.
Perhaps I may ask my noble friend the Minister to help a little on the following point. The regulation is to be made under the proposed new Section 41A(2) of the Housing Act 1980. Is this to be laid before either House of Parliament or both Houses of Parliament for approval? If so, is it to be subject to affirmative or negative resolution, or is this just to constitute some delegated exercise of ministerial discretion which is not subject to challenge either in Parliament or in the courts? I merely seek clarification, for I truly do not know. For if Parliament is afforded the opportunity to debate the form and content of any proposed legislation, the veto could, of course, be exercised and, if that be the case, it is not understood why a model scheme, or the proposals in the amendment, would carry the matter any further or secure any preferable result.
I support the broad structure of the clause which, as I think we are all agreed, is wholly in accordance with the policy in the Bill. However, the question of delegation of exercise of permissive ministerial power, which after all is the crux of, the implementation machinery, would surely require your Lordships'

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attention before finally disposing of the point of principle.
4.10 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: The noble Baroness, Lady Denington, has obviously read and understood the Government's proposals. However, if only to clear my own mind, I think it would be appropriate to run through them briefly to put this series of amendments in context. I must, however, in doing so, make it clear that today we are discussing not the regulations that may subsequently be made—they will be laid before Parliament and be subject to negative resolution, to answer my noble friend Lord Campbell—but Clause 25 itself.
At the outset, I can confirm as my noble friend remarked on Second Reading, that the answer to the question whether the Government's ideas are fixed in this respect is, of course, "No". We are still consulting. I undertake to include any debates that we subsequently have on this clause in our consultation process. It is important to bear in mind that the right to repair will be entirely optional for tenants. The Government are not seeking to shift any additional responsibility on to tenants. The right to repair scheme would simply provide an additional resource for the carrying out of repairs that are the landlord's responsibility.
Under our proposals the scheme will be limited by an application of cost thresholds to promote cost-effectiveness and practicability. Repairs which would cost the landlord less than £20 or more than £200 to carry out would he excluded. Repairs to the structure of blocks of flats and maisonettes and to the exterior of such buildings will also be excluded. Landlords will have a prescribed time—we suggest three weeks—in which to respond to a tenant's notification of the works he proposes to carry out. They may grant consent either unconditionally or possibly subject to certain reasonable conditions as to the nature and quality of the work to be done.
In any consent the landlord must specify the amount that he will pay the tenant. The amount to be paid must, under our initial proposals, be at least 75 per cent. of what it would have cost the landlord to do the work himself. A larger proportion could, of course, be paid at the landlord's discretion. Landlords will be able to withhold consent only on specific grounds to be set out in the regulations. Disputes about a landlord's refusal, or the amount the landlord was prepared to pay, could be referred to a county court for determination.
I took very strongly the point made by the noble Baroness in introducing this amendment, and I shall have to look at it carefully, but my initial reaction is to think in terms of arbitration. I recall, at the back of my mind—I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, could confirm whether I am right or wrong—that legal aid is payable only in courts of law and not in courts of arbitration. Therefore, I would have to think a little further along the lines that the noble Baroness proposes.
The proposed scheme, anyway, contains two default provisions. First, if a landlord were to withhold consent because he intended to do the work himself
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but then failed to do it, the tenant would be entitled to carry out the repair himself, provided that it was otherwise within the scheme and to recover 100 per cent. of what would have been the cost of the landlord's doing it. Secondly, if a landlord failed to respond to a tenant's repair notice within the prescribed period, or failed to specify the cost to himself of carrying out the repair, then the tenant might also carry out the work himself. In this case, he would be entitled to recover 100 per cent. of his own costs provided that they were otherwise within the scheme's cost limits. I think that the flexibility that the noble Baroness was asking for is included in the scheme that we are currently consulting about.
Now let me turn to the amendments themselves. If the intention is that the model scheme will be binding on no one, it certainly does not require legislation, either primary or secondary. The Secretary of State could issue a model scheme if he wanted to, but there would be no onus on landlords to introduce schemes in their areas if they decided not to give tenants these rights. If, on the other hand, the intention is that the model scheme should be binding unless it is varied by agreement, this would still seriously weaken the right of tenants and could produce undesirable differences between one area and another.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Evans, and the noble Baroness, Lady Denington. I felt, however, that the noble Baroness was talking about an ideal world. The noble Lord, Lord Evans, certainly knows, and the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, probably knows, and I think I know, that, in the relationship between the public sector landlord and public sector tenant, there is not an ideal world. In some cases, the relationship works very well; in others, it works appallingly.
Frankly, I have been led to the view that there is general agreement that, on the whole, tenants do not get a satisfactory repair service from their landlords (although there are notable exceptions, as I have just said) and that tenants do need stronger rights in this field. We may and probably will differ on how such rights should he translated into practice, but I submit that these amendments could seriously limit tenants' rights, and seem to be somewhat retrograde.
The third of the amendments raises a different issue. The Committee has the benefit of having had an opportunity to see the Government's initial proposals. Among others, a tenant will be able, subject to certain limitations, to claim his right to repair at the same time as notifying his landlord of the defect, and a landlord will be able to refuse consent on certain grounds. One of the options proposed was that landlords should be able to refuse consent when they intended to carry our repairs themselves within 28 days.
Superficially, that proposal would not appear very different from the amendment, but the right to repair will not arise until some time, as prescribed, has elapsed. I have to tell your Lordships that there are fundamental differences which, if the amendment were adopted, would work against the tenants' interests. The amendment provides scope for unwelcome procrastination on the part of landlords. I am sure that the Committee will agree with me when I say that it is not sufficient for tenants to have to wait

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a length of time, as prescribed by the Secretary of State, before they can start the process of claiming their right to carry out the repairs themselves.
In many cases, tenants will be able to carry out repairs more quickly and more cheaply than the landlord, and this amendment would simply add delay and expense. We should never forget that it is the tenant who has the major interest in getting the repair attended to. We have already had more than enough complaints of repair delays sent to the department. I submit that the amendments would produce many more. Speedy repair is what the Government's proposal is all about. For the good of tenants, and the relationship between landlord and tenant to the advantage of both, I ask the Committee to reject these amendments.
Baroness Denington: I am absolutely astonished by what I have just heard. These amendments were never meant to work against the tenant. They were meant to establish a flexibility between the landlord and the tenant that could help the tenant and the landlord, and help the whole process. I shall not pursue the amendments now. I shall withdraw them, but I would be glad if the noble Lord would agree that we could perhaps have some conversation. I may have worded the amendments badly, but, obviously, their intention is not understood at all. I think that there is nothing much between the Government and ourselves. We want a little flexibility rather than a hard-and-fast scheme in every single detail. It is not beyond the Government to bring that in, without hurting anybody, either the landlord or the tenant, and it could make things easier.
With regard to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, there are, of course, repairs and repairs. I dare say that a good deal of what I was thinking about related to those repairs where costs are so astronomical these days that £20 does not go anywhere. But where there are repairs that cost a little more than £20 and you know, for instance, that the builder will do the work for £25 or £30, it is simple. Anything more complicated, however, introduces the need for a specification and is of another order altogether. I do not think there is room for flexibility there. We are in agreement. I shall withdraw the amendment and hope, however, that we can understand one another.
Lord Skelmersdale: Before the noble Baroness withdraws her amendment, I most certainly undertake to have conversations with her whenever and wherever she desires. As to whether the amendments were meant to have the effect that I have identified, I am prepared to believe the noble Baroness, of course, that they were not meant to have this effect but I am advised that that is the effect they in fact have. This is the point.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: Before my noble friend asks leave to withdraw, perhaps I may say that I was a little disappointed in the noble Lord's reply. As my noble friend clearly spelt out, she is aware, as well as anybody sitting in this Chamber, of the problems about repairs in public housing. We are all aware of these, especially those of us who have served on local authorities. We know that there are problems with
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repairs. As one noble Lord said, there are some repairs and some other kinds of repairs. Some repairs on council property are delayed for lengthy times because they do not know how to solve the problems. With much industrialised building it is difficult to find the source of the problem when the roof is leaking on a flat-roofed dwelling. How do they find where to cure the problem? All this kind of thing causes excessive delays.
What is worrying me about the clause is that it does not place a limit on a tenant's ability to call on the right to repair in a financial year. Can he call upon it two, three or four times? Will a limit be placed and the local authority have to tell a tenant that he has had as much as he can from the pool of repairs allocations? With the right to repair for a tenant there must also be the right to repair for those who will not be able to afford to start the repair in the first place. Their interests must be safeguarded.
It amazes me that the Minister uses a facial expression which I find difficult to understand. We find that 60 per cent. of tenants in public housing receive housing benefits. Where will they get the money from initially to start to do the repair, then asking the local authority to reimburse them? The majority of tenants will not be able to benefit from the clause anyway. What concerns us particularly is that such tenants should not be neglected. We must ensure that those people who can afford to do the repairs will not be taking more than their fair share out of the housing pool to do the repairs. The noble Lord has not really satisfied us on that point, which was what my noble friend was trying to bring out.
There are categories of tenants who will benefit over and above others. It is important that we are fair to them. It is important for the Government to recognise that adequate financial provision must be made. My noble friend Lady Jeger has just sat beside me. Only last week she was speaking on housing benefits. It is no good our having a housing Bill when we need a much more comprehensive housing scheme than we have. It is all bits and pieces. The Government are making it even more so.
My noble friend Lady Denington raised a particular point about cowboys. All of us are well aware of the cowboys. The West Midlands county trading standards officers have just issued a new pamphlet relating to property repairs which tells tenants to beware of the man who says that their roofs need mending and to beware of the man who calls to say that their electricity is not up to standard. Everybody is aware of these people who will move in. The good local authorities have tried their best as to repairs with the limited amount of finance they are able to spend. They have set up district teams on housing estates, trying to keep repairs under control. That is not always satisfactory, I agree, but those maintenance teams employed by local authorities can easily be ousted to the detriment of those people who will not be able to afford to pay for the repairs in the first place.
We are afraid that this will be another form of privatisation where the maintenance teams employed by local authorities will gradually lose more and more work to the 40 per cent. who can afford to carry out repairs, to the detriment of the 60 per cent. of people on housing estates who cannot afford it. We are

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concerned about the privatisation aspect, which will mean that the maintenance teams might easily disappear in the future.
Baroness Denington: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.28 p.m.
Baroness Vickers Baroness Vickers moved Amendment No. 60A:
Page 27, line 12, after ("tenants") insert ("who have obtained a report on the condition of the dwelling-house from an environmental health officer").
The noble Baroness said: I realise that the Government attach importance to the tenants' charter for the public sector because they believe that secure tenants should have the same privileges as exist in private accommodation, consistent with the landlords' responsibilities. However, I should like to suggest that the Bill is an extremely complicated way of doing it.
I understand that a number of local housing authorities are already operating schemes which allow tenants to carry out a certain amount of repair work, and they can be reimbursed or have the work done if the landlord has not carried out the repairs within a specified time. However, I know that many people have no knowledge of how to bring their needs to the notice of the local authority. For this reason, I have put down this amendment to give secure tenants the same rights as private tenants. I realise that there are agencies that can give advice, such as Shelter and the National Housing Aid Trust. However, the environmental health officer is the expert readily available to all tenants. I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, said: that he has knowledge of the contractors and can advise who are not cowboys and who would do a good job. I should like tenants to be able to contact the environmental health officer to get the necessary form and advice on how to fill it in.
Many of us who have been in the other place and who have had surgeries know how difficult people find filling in forms of any kind, and a great deal of time is spent trying to give them advice. The environmental health officer can visit the person applying and see that the real interests of the tenant are met. I hope that they will receive the list that I have seen of nine reasons why tenants can be refused action. The list also explains how the applicant is to know whether the cost will be under £2 or over £200 when making the application.
I understand that the view of the Department of the Environment is that the administration costs should be included. Are they to go on to the administrative cost of repairs or will it be money allocated by the local authority? It is also difficult to relate the grant given for improvements and the money given for this scheme. Many people will not know the correct one to apply for. This is another reason why the environmental health officer can help. I understand that, in claiming, the tenants themselves serve a notice on the local authority and on the landlord with particulars which will include an indication by the tenant of how best it is proposed to remedy the disrepair. It will be difficult for them, unless they happen to have special knowledge, to know exactly how a defect is going to be remedied. And then they have only 21 days for the
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refusal. I think that it takes far longer to go through these applications than a period of 21 days. There are so many details in this complicated scheme and there are also 15 works which the tenant may elect to carry out. This information was given to me by the Institute of Housing.
Therefore, I should like to suggest that the local authority takes full advantage of the environmental health officer's ability to arrive at expert and full advice on the defects which, if they exist, the council may see for themselves. Also this will help them to prepare the necessary repair work if they wish. I think that the amendment that I have put down will be a real help to the tenants and also to the local authority. I beg to move.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am well aware that my noble friend Lady Vickers has had consultation and correspondence with the environmental health officers on this matter. I should like to say at the outset how well those particular council officers do their job but I should like to point out to my noble friend that they are of course council officers and it may well not be appropriate for one particular group of council officers, with their particular expertise, to do this job. In many cases, what you actually need is an administrator rather than a specialist. I think that we are still in danger of misunderstanding the kinds of repairs to which the proposed scheme is addressed. The right to repair, which this amendment again would seriously affect, is designed to enable tenants to carry out their own repairs and to receive payment from their landlords when they have done so. As I have said earlier, the details have yet to be finally worked out, but when they are worked out draft regulations will be issued for further comment.
However, the main purpose of this right is for tenants to be able to get relatively small repairs done quickly and economically. At present, it is clear that tenants often suffer delays in having necessary, simple and straightforward repairs done. Environmental health officers do not need to inspect homes and produce reports when all that is at issue is, say, a cracked window pane or a leaking hand basin or a damaged door frame; nor, I suspect, would they want to. Environmental health officers would, in my view, rightly regard their involvement here as a waste of time. But without their involvement tenants would, under this amendment, not be able to exercise their right to repair.
Indeed, the sort of repairs to defects which might be relevant, to environmental health officers would be those which would probably be excluded from the scheme anyway, because they would cost more than the £200 to which I referred earlier. I am well aware that the Institution of Environmental Health Officers has recommended that central government should consider giving tenants the right to obtain reports from them on the condition of their homes, and this would apply whether the right to buy was in prospect or not or, indeed, whether the right to repair was in prospect or not. I can only say that my current view is that that recommendation is misdirected. If the institution feels that action along those lines is justified, the environmental health officers themselves should first persuade their employers to make it available to their tenants. There is nothing to stop them preparing reports on the

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condition of homes if they want to. It only needs the tenant to set off the process with an approach to the council and for the council to be sympathetic. To give tenants a right constrained by this amendment would, I fear, be gravely detrimental to the right to repair scheme.
My noble friend brought up the very serious point of the understanding of forms. This is something which I must confess I have not yet considered in detail and, certainly, fully intend to take on board. Normally, advice is available on the filling in of forms from such organisations as the Citizens' Advice Bureaux, but it may well be that some form of advice should be provided by the council. However, as I said at the outset, I do not feel that an environmental health officer would be the right person to choose for this job.
Baroness Vickers: I should like to thank my noble friend for that reply but I am not at all satisfied with it because I do not think that it will help the tenant in any way. I think that we are all worried in this Committee about the tenants themselves, what advice they will get and how they will get the most out of this Bill. They need something that will make them feel reassured that they are not being done out of something that they think will now become their right. There is an alternative that could be thought of: and that is to have a legal duty upon the local authority and the environmental health officers to investigate complaints from council tenants and to submit reports to the responsible council committee, charging them to ensure that remedial works are carried out. That might be a safeguard.
On the other hand, I really cannot understand why my noble friend the Minister said that these officers cannot go round the houses and that they need an administrator. What type of administrator are we going to have? What is the problem going to be for the local authorities? I should have thought that where you have these able, highly-trained and qualified people, it will be much better to use their advice and their interest in and knowledge of the neighbourhood, rather than bring in an administrator. I should be very glad to know what he meant by "administrator".
Lord Skelmersdale: What I meant by an administrator is someone who is not a highly-trained specialist such as the environmental health officer to whom the amendment refers. It is somebody who is adept, if this is the problem, in interpreting the forms for the applicants to use.
Baroness Vickers: I thank my noble friend for his reply, which I do not think is a very satisfactory one. I will now withdraw my amendment and hope to discuss it in the future.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 27, line 20, leave out from ("sums") to ("as") in line 23.
The noble Lord said: This amendment removes the upper limitation on the amount which landlords may reimburse tenants satisfactorily to carry out repairs under the proposed right-to-repair scheme. Clause 25, as drafted, would entitle tenants to recover from their landlords any such sums as may be determined under
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the scheme, subject to their not being greater than the costs that would have been incurred by their landlords in carrying out the repairs. This amendment removes that proviso. The Government recognise that there could be circumstances under which it would be quite proper for tenants to receive payment for carrying out a repair which was higher than the landlord would have incurred in carrying out the repair.
The department's consultation documents recognise the need for such provision in cases where the landlord defaulted under the proposed scheme. The circumstances envisaged were where a landlord had failed to respond within the prescribed time to a tenant's application to carry out a repair and had failed—that is, the landlord had—to specify the cost to him of carrying out that repair. If the tenant went ahead with the repair in ignorance of the amount that he would he reimbursed, he could be out of pocket even to the extent that his own costs could exceed the landlord's. He should be entitled to recover them in full provided that they were otherwise within the terms of the scheme.
Ministers in another place undertook last November to come forward with a suitable amendment in the light of the responses to the consultation. Undertakings have already been given elsewhere—and I am glad to repeat them today—that the draft regulations will be put out for further comment before they are laid before the House. I commend this amendment to the Committee. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 62 and 63 not moved.]
Clause 25, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 26 agreed to.
4.41 p.m.
Lord Evans of Claughton Lord Evans of Claughton moved Amendment No. 64:
After Clause 26, insert the following new clause:
("Tenants' participation in management.
. After section 41B of the Housing Act 1980 there shall be inserted the following section—
"41C.—(1) Secure tenants shall be entitled to direct, manage, participate in and supervise together with those other secure tenants who are likely to be substantially affected, any scheme of improvement, maintenance, modernisation or rehabilitation costing in excess of £10,000 per house or dwelling-houses in which the tenant is a secure tenant, which the landlords propose or intend to carry out.
(2) Regulations under this section may make such procedural, incidental, supplementary and transitional provision as may appear to the Secretary of State to be necessary or expedient." ").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 64, which seeks to add another clause to the Bill dealing with rights of tenants to be consulted about major improvement schemes and with their participation in the management of the housing estates in which they live. An increasing proportion of money that is at present spent by local authorities is being directed towards improvement schemes rather than new building, and that is a trend which we would all support. Much of this is going towards the renewal of properties built since the war which, sadly, have proved very unsatisfactory, unsightly and unpopular with tenants. In almost every part of the country,

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particularly in urban areas, we can think of such unsatisfactory, unsightly and unpleasant buildings.
The money was spent unwisely when these places were built. Architects were allowed to put forward designs which suited their imaginations as they were at that time but which had no bearing on the reality of what tenants seemed to want. I can remember very clearly in the area that I used to represent as a councillor a block of flats known as Oak and Eldon Gardens in Birkenhead, which has since become notorious. That was put up during the late 1950s and early 1960s and it was greeted as the most wonderful example of mass housing of that period.
Right up to the time when they were in course of demolition, those flats were still being used by the architects who designed them and the builders as an example of the ideal form of local authority municipal housing. That was at the point when they were being demolished at a cost of millions of pounds. So it is not unfair to say that much of the building that was done in the period after the war was, apparently, done at the best levels of architectural design at the time, but without any concern for what the people wanted.
It is probably facile to suggest—as a lot of people do—that local authorities have since learned their lesson. Many lessons have been learned, but money is still being spent on improvement schemes which are out of line with tenants' wishes. Public money is being wasted, in a fashion, because local authorities still tend to rely solely on the views of professional architects and fail to consult the people who will live in the properties. This amendment is aimed at preventing that waste and at giving tenants the right to be consulted about how improvements are to be carried out, which will mean that they subsequently have an interest in protecting the work to which they have subscribed.
There are those—I hope not in your Lordships' House—who take the view that ordinary people cannot have any useful ideas which will assist in the improvement and design of dwelling houses, and they cannot see how ordinary people can work with professional architects. But this approach is refuted by the architectural profession itself and in their own magazine, the Architects Journal, the experience of architects working with council tenants to design entirely new houses, quite apart from improving existing houses, is widely praised. I could quote many examples from the architectural journals of the truth of this view, which has emerged over recent years.
If tenants can work with architects to design new houses—and very superior ones at that—they can certainly work with them to modernise existing properties. A good example of where this has worked is Hackney Council. Tenants there have worked very successfully with the architects in modernising a tower block of flats, in which, understandably, they then have a much greater interest and pride than they would have had if they had not been consulted. There can also be long-term financial advantages from such arrangements.
But we on these Benches believe that even more important than the financial advantages is the fact that tenants are put in a position where they have some
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control over the surroundings in which they live and where, by encouraging them, we can look to a greater sense of belonging, of involvement and of responsibility among tenants towards their homes. I genuinely believe, too, that there will be a reduction in the volume of vandalism and a strengthening of the social bonds in cities, where life can be very grim, and is very grim, in the absence of any sense of community.
I very firmly believe that a greater involvement of tenants in the design, in the improvements and in the alterations of their houses would give them that interest, which they often lack at the moment, and understandably lack, because very often they are still warehoused and not housed. If the Government could accept the terms of the amendment, to involve tenants in this way more than they are at present, it would have benefits not only financial but of a very important social kind. I beg to move.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: May I from the Labour Front Bench support the principles and the philosophy behind this new clause? Those of us who have had experience in local government are well aware of the syndrome of the estate which, at one time, was a matter of pride to the people who lived there. I am thinking of pre-war council estates which were given little attention, because of a shortage of money which the council finds from some source, primarily central Government.
But then, after years and years, the council decides that there will be a major improvement scheme. People who had been living there for many years were put off by the reason that the council were not going to waste money this year or next year, but that in two or three years' time the whole job would be done. Then the council announces that it has the right scheme and will install central heating, add extensions, fit new window frames, and so on. Certainly in my experience in Edmonton there were schemes costing on average £10,000 or more, and they would be covered by this amendment.
Then, for the next 18 months, all hell is let loose, because of the carrying out of the scheme—because of the manner of it. the order of it, the totality of it or the execution of it. The tenants then realise that although a lot of money is being spent, it is very often wasted. They would have liked a chance to intervene with some muscle—not merely to make suggestions. I am not certain whether, even if a council had the patience of Job and took a long time to consult the tenants, that they would be any better off by the time the job was finished. That is because there are always those who will be churlish and will refuse, even if they are consulted, and who will wait until something has gone wrong. However, the principle underlying the amendment is very sound.
I should like to draw attention to some of the words which the Minister will need to look at, if he agrees to take back the amendment. We cannot cavil at the word "participate". However, we need to be very careful about the words,
"to direct, manage, participate in and supervise together with those other secure tenants who are likely to be substantially affected".
As I read these words, it is perfectly possible for council officials not to be very greatly involved.

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Although I am a passionate believer in co-operatives and tenant co-operation, it could be that very large sums of money which need to be spent upon major improvements would be handled by people who know what they want but who would nevertheless make technical mistakes in managing, supervising and directing the carrying out of the work. We agree with the movers of the amendment about improvement, maintenance, modernisation and rehabilitation.
So far as subsection (2) of the new clause is concerned, the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, has provided that:
"Regulations under this section may make such procedural, incidental, supplementary and transitional provision as may appear to the Secretary of State to be necessary or expedient".
His proposed new subsection ought, I believe, to be strengthened along the lines I have suggested.
This is an amendment with a very serious purport. We are trying to stem the tide of dissatisfaction and disillusionment. The noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, was perfectly fair not to mention the Government. He simply said that, over many years, dissatisfaction had manifested itself because of the manner in which councils and governments had carried out developments and improvements about which there had not been full consultation. The Minister may say that there is no need for the amendment in order to carry out its purport. If the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, is prepared to withdraw the amendment, I hope that the Minister will try to strengthen it.
The Minister realises that primary legislation of this kind is seldom passed and that we seldom have the opportunity to write words into Bills which we wish them to contain, words which confer very real powers. If the Minister agrees with the sense of the amendment and is prepared, even if the words are suspect from the point of view of good, sound, strong legislation, to take it back, we shall be grateful. If, however, the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, feels sufficiently strongly about his amendment, we shall be prepared to listen carefully to his arguments as to why the views of the Committee should be tested.
Lord Skelmersdale: While I agree with the noble Lord. Lord Evans of Claughton, about the mass municipal schemes to which he referred when moving his amendment, schemes which were erected in the 1950s and 1960s for the conditions which were thought to be in existence at that time, I have to say to him that the country has moved on since then. As a result of current knowledge and experience, we now know that those schemes were misconceived. None the less, it is easy to be wise after the event. I am the first to accept that the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, has the germ of a good idea which I should be willing to talk to him about. However, as the noble Lord will appreciate, there are problems about consulting in advance of the original letting, because we do not know which members of the housing list will be put into the scheme that has been built. With that proviso, if the noble Lord is speaking about a scheme which is currently occupied and which will be changed for one reason or another, I should be very interested to talk to him about it.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, hit the
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nail somewhat obliquely on the head, and I shall explain why. The Government, like everybody in the Committee, are in favour of the involvement of tenants in proposals to upgrade their homes. The tenants' charter already places a duty on landlords to consult those of their secure tenants who would be substantially affected by any housing management proposals, including plans for maintenance and improvement works. We have also had direct and repeated experience of consultation in practice in our priority estates project, which we have recently extended for a further three years. However, this may not be enough, and I shall be interested in the ideas of the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton. The noble Lord has gone a little far, though, and I am not persuaded that this far-reaching proposal is a helpful way of promoting such involvement.
The essence of such a scheme lies in co-operation and communication between all the interests concerned, not in setting one interest against the other. Before the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, leaps to his feet, perhaps I ought to say that I suspect that this is not the intention of the amendment, but I am advised that it is the practical effect. If tenants are unhappy about the manner in which they are consulted or about the extent to which their views seem to be taken into account, they should take up the matter with their landlords or, if they are council tenants, with their elected representatives. It is quite another matter to say that they should be entitled to take control of expensive and complex projects. This was, I believe, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. Apart from the contractual and legal difficulties of management work of this kind, it is rash to assume that tenants will have the collective will to resolve their own inevitably diverse views and to provide effective and co-ordinated arrangements for managing the work. I am not happy with the amendment in this form, but, in the near future, I should enjoy talking to the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, about it.
Lord Evans of Claughton: When one has reached my girth, one does not leap to one's feet. Nor did I feel like doing so. While the Minister's head may be in the wrong place, his heart is probably in the right place. I am not suggesting that this wording has come down on tablets of stone from Mount Sinai. I am willing to concede, with the reputation that we on these Benches have for radicalism, that possibly some of the words should be slightly tempered. I have in mind in particular the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, about the words in the first subsection. The difference between us is that we believe—I hope the Goverment will concede this point—that we in this country have moved on from the 1920s and 1930s, and even from the 1940s and 1950s, when local councils, architects, or the government believed that they always knew best. There is a growing feeling in the country' that people, whether they be council tenants, residents of housing estates, or people affected by trunk roads, should have the right to express an opinion. Sometimes those opinions are expressed in too robust a way. The spirit of the country today is that tenants, or groups of tenants, should be consulted about the conditions in which they live.
I took the liberty of mentioning—because it was

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such a good example—a block of flats of which I have close and intimate knowledge in the area I represented on the local council; namely, Oak and Eldon Gardens. I concede, that, when the flats were built and opened by the then Labour Member of Parliament for Birkenhead, they were welcomed as a kind of new Jerusalem and that, whatever party we represented, we all said "Hallelujah". Everybody at that time thought that they provided the best housing conditions anybody could ever hope for, and compared them with the luxury blocks of skyscraper flats in which the rich lived. Subsequently, we discovered that under-floor electric heating was of a kind which the average tenant could not afford. The tenants were not consulted about this, or about the general management of the flats. Gradually, therefore, a block in which everybody living there felt great pride deteriorated into a place which was hard to let.
Eventually, it became almost impossible to let. That was partly because the views of the tenants, although they were very well-organised, were ignored by the local council. The experience in Hackney which I mentioned shows how much better it is to say, "We have here a block of flats which is not satisfactory. What do you suggest could be done to improve it? Should there be a caretaker sited at the entrance, or should there be an improvement in the heating system?" Attention to matters of that kind would give people a pride in the property because they will think, "I have some stake in the management of the estate".
I accept what was said by both the noble Lords the Minister and Lord Graham of Edmonton, that there are some people for whom one cannot do anything. We are all aware that some tenants' associations are taken over by extremists and become highly politically-motivated—but that should not put us off the general principle that 'the more responsibility one gives people, the more likely they are to be responsible.
Although I understand why the Minister cannot approve of the proposed clause as it is drawn—and I would not suggest that it is the ultimate in perfection in terms of draftsmanship—I will willingly take up the Minister's offer to discuss this matter. He was not quite so effusive with me as he was with the noble Baroness, Lady Denington; he said that he would meet her any place, any time! Still, I assume that he is well-intentioned and I accept his invitation. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Before the amendment is withdrawn, may we look forward to those conversations taking place before Report stage? If there is need at Report stage to take further action, then we shall of course feel free to take such action.
Lord Skelmersdale: I do not intend to be dilatory.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.2 p.m.
Lord Evans of Claughton Lord Evans of Claughton moved Amendment No. 65:
After Clause 26, insert the following new clause:
("Tenants' co-operatives.
. After section 41C of the 1980 Act there shall be inserted the following section—
"41D.—(1) Thirty or more secure tenants who have
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registered as a co-operative society in accordance with section 1(2)(A) of the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965 shall be entitled to apply to the landlord for an agreement within the provisions of section 139 of the Housing Act 1980, and it may not be refused without good reason.
(2) Regulations under this section may make such procedural, incidental, supplementary and transitional provision as may appear to the Secretary of State to be necessary or expedient." ")
The noble Lord said: I apologise to your Lordships for moving three proposed new clauses on the trot. The Committee can be fairly sure that I will be comparatively silent for the rest of the day, having got these amendments off my chest. This amendment concerns the rights of tenants—along the same theme as the previous amendment but going a little further—to take over the management of the block of flats or the housing area in which they live. We on these Benches recognise that housing—and this is something of a cliche—is not just a matter of bricks and mortar. It is not even entirely a matter of ownership. It is fundamentally a matter of those who control the housing in which they live or in which other people live.
The Labour Party has been the greatest advocate of central control of housing in the past—be it by the state or by the local authority. It is widely recognised that many problems in the large cities are caused by the existence of enormous municipal housing estates over which, until now, the tenants have had no control whatever and which are managed in some cases in a manner that is remote, insensitive, unaccountable, unhelpful and little concerned with the average resident. I regret to say that the Labour Party in some parts of the country still persist in arguing that all that is needed is to spend more money to right the problems. I will not spend the rest of my speech insulting the Labour Party because I am obviously going to look for their help and support.
I concede that more money does need to be spent on public sector housing, but the tenants should have, in so far as it is possible, a greater say in how that money is spent. Alongside more expenditure on housing there should be a radical change in the way in which rented homes are controlled. In other words, the way in which money is spent and control is organised needs to be determined at the lowest possible level and not at the highest and most central level.
Those of your Lordships who were up late last night will be aware that we had a debate about the problems of the City of Liverpool. I do not wish to re-open any of those particular wounds today. All the accusations and counter-accusations which have been flying about in respect of that whole unhappy area have tended to obscure the very much brighter aspects of much that goes on in the City of Liverpool. For instance, it has the largest and most flourishing housing co-operative movement in the whole of the country. Between 1980 and 1983 more than 18 new housing co-operatives were established in Liverpool—all by existing council tenants for the purpose of building new estates of rented homes. These co-operatives were formed by local people and were given the full support of the administration which then ran the City. I leave your Lordships to guess of which party that administration was, and which provided the money to build those new houses. Those co-operatives have proved a dramatic

177
success and have been described in one professional journal as:
"Public sector housing Mark II".
It is a system where the tenants are firmly in charge. Were it not for the present council's unhappy total opposition to the co-operatives they would be expanding still. I hope that in the months to come a change of heart or a change of control will be seen so that the co-operative system can continue to expand.
I do not believe that Co-operatives can be created by politicians. As noble Lords commented earlier, the people who live in the houses must want them and must he a party to them. The politicians' role is to create the climate in which such initiatives will flourish. The Government recognised this and the potential of self-help when they drew up the Housing Act 1980. Sadly, there are many councils up and down the country which would seek to prevent tenants from taking control of estates in the way envisaged in the 1980 Act. Liverpool is one example of what is occurring in many areas, where the local authorities will not recognise the advantages to be gained by encouraging tenants to run their own affairs. It may be that there is a genuine fear that tenants will make a mess of the job and that the local authority will be left to clear up for them. It may be that they are just frightened of the unknown. Nevertheless, I hope that your Lordships will give every encouragement by supporting this amendment to the Housing Act 1980 philosophy of encouraging greater co-operative management by tenants.
Allowing tenants, properly and legally organised, to take charge, will ensure that public money is spent in the most effective way. It will ensure that caretaking is performed properly, that repairs are carried out efficiently, that rent is paid on time, and that ordinary residents will feel a strong sense of responsibility towards their homes and towards their neighbourhood. The Conservative Party locally and the Government nationally have consistently supported the concept of co-operatives. They did so under the 1980 Act and at local authority level—for instance, in Liverpool. The principle I am propounding is already enshrined in the Act. I hope that principle can be further advanced today by seeking your Lordships' support for my amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: We on these Benches fully support the sense of every word which appears in the amendment on the Marshalled List. We are grateful that this initiative is before us and for the opportunity of debating it this evening.
Goodness knows that the Government have enough on their plate not to want suggested further opportunities; but here they have a special opportunity to review the way in which the whole milieu of housing in this country is changing. The right-to-buy legislation and the initiatives which flow from that are certainly traumatic in the field of public housing. One cannot cavil at that, but it so happens that because there is a ferment relating to the tenancy and management of public housing—even to the extent of taking public sector housing out of public management when people buy—new opportunities do occur.
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Together with some of the Members of your Lordships' House, and other places, last week I attended a co-operative trade fair not very far away from here. We saw what I call the new emerging cooperative movement, as compared to the old. I am very proud on this and other occasions to acknowledge my close identity with what one could call the traditional existing consumer co-operative movement. The past 20 years have seen successive governments, by the creation of the housing co-operatives, by the establishment of the Co-operative Development Agency and by other initiatives at a local level—I am thinking of the Greater London Enterprise Board and many others throughout the country—respond to what are genuinely heartfelt needs of ordinary people to play just a bigger part in their own affairs. We are talking here about what are called management cooperatives, where the people have a greater say in actually managing.
Very wisely, the mover of the amendment has subsection (2) in his new clause which takes account of a great many other matters that need to be dealt with and provides the Government with the opportunity of recognising that this is a proper aim and that one can take it on board. It still then leaves, when looking at subsection (2), a range of matters which they can take time to work out. Alternatively, they can say to the mover of the amendment. "We have some sympathy and some problems but, even if not on Report, we are prepared to see how far we can go".
One important action the Government can take is to lay very heavily upon people who believe that it is a simple process to move from being a tenant to being an owner or to being a tenant of a management cooperative, and that there is something simple about it; that all one needs to do is to form a committee. We know that there is far more to it than that. One needs to understand the responsibilities and the philosophies. One needs to understand the penalties that sometimes arise from it. There is an enormous educational job to be done. That is where the Cooperative Development Agency, which has been in existence for 4 to 5 years (its terms were renewed only recently) has a great contribution to make in providing advice and guidance and also opportunities for people to attend courses and to become better co-operators, better managers and better citizens—and certainly better neighbours to the co-operative.
Whether the proposed figure of 30 is right, or whether it is too much or too little, and whether or not other words would be better, the philosophy behind this amendment is absolutely sound and modern. I believe the amendment will be welcomed by a great many councils who will be looking for variations from the straightforward proposition that one either wholly publicly owns all the housing or one sees it taken away through the right-to-buy provisions. There may be some other way in which the council can retain, tenuously, some control with the management of the co-operatives, and which will allow the council opportunities of nomination into the co-operative as vacancies occur. Therefore, I hope that the Government will show some sympathy to what I believe is a very well drawn and much needed amendment.
Baroness Denington: I, too, give the warmest possible support to this amendment. Until recently I have been a member of a secondary housing cooperative which was originally financed by the GLC, and also by the boroughs. Its object has been to start up co-operatives in conjunction with London boroughs. In one instance it was new housing—a very large GLC development in Islington—part of which was half built. The other half was still being built and we were invited by the GLC to see whether we could "co-operatise"—if one may use that horrid word—the part that was not yet built. This was very large, consisting of over 100 houses. We managed to split that down. We could not alter the plans but were able to split it into four different and separate co-operatives which are still there and flourishing.
We worked with the Wandsworth borough council which had estates on which it wanted to form co-operatives. We did the educational work. I support what my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton said. It is not easy. People have a lot to learn when they intend running their own affairs. We had to teach them, for instance, how to conduct committees. One must start from the very beginning and long before the co-operatives get going one must do almost 12 months tutorial work to get them established; otherwise, they do not know their responsibilities, as my noble friend said. We did work at Hillingdon, and all over London.
I refer now to tower blocks, of which we have far too many in London. Each one of those would be an excellent unit to he turned into a co-operative. They could run their own affairs. They could be responsible for matters such as their own entry phones. The co-operatives that my organisation was sponsoring were allowed by the borough councils to be responsible for choosing their own tenants provided they came from the council housing list. I have to say that they were very responsible about it. They did not merely choose the best, well-off tenants. They chose a proportion of coloured tenants. There was a whole mixture. They were quite remarkable and earned my great admiration.
Therefore, I give this amendment my warmest possible support. I should like to see the Government, when they have got some of their present problems off their chest, turning their mind to perhaps trying to run a conference and encouraging authorities throughout the country to have more co-operatives in their public housing.
Lord Dean of Beswick: I have listened with interest to the previous speakers to this amendment. I do not want to give the impression that I am speaking against the amendment because I am not. But if someone can tell me that it is a simple exercise even to establish co-operatives within the present housing structure in this country, I can only say that they have never dealt with the situation. First, if "X" number of houses, or tenants and their families, in those houses decide to become a co-operative, where does the extra funding come from for the improvements that they may decide they want? Will they try to implement the separate rent structure from the total pool of housing in their city? I suggest that people are interested in housing co-operatives because they want to cast their sights a little higher than their existing facilities.
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I know, as an ex-chairman of a local housing authority and I am sure other noble Lords know, that it is very difficult to start apportioning where the areas of priority lie. It can be a very successful operation to start apportioning priorities in terms of spending and it can also he a disaster area. I saw a recent example of a very successful operation and I have no doubt the Minister is aware of it. It took place in Leeds where, because last year the Government made "X" millions of pounds available, suddenly there was a problem in the constituency I represented where some rationalised, or semi-industrialised houses, which had been built about 15 years ago needed totally re-roofing. I believe the cost was about £10,000 for each house. I think the noble Minister knows the area I am talking about. It is an estate in West Leeds.
The local authority handled this situation well by holding tenants' meetings because it was a crash programme. Anyone who is involved in local authority housing will know that when one starts on an improvement scheme of any dimension, whether re-wiring re-plumbing or a total refurbishing of the house to bring it up to modern standards, it is the most difficult exercise in which any local authority can become involved.
If it is a major operation you first have to consider whether the people will be prepared to put up with the terrible conditions they would need to endure while the operation is carried out or whether to adopt a policy of decanting. A group of tenants who have set themselves up as a co-operative housing association may be in houses in the public sector which are 30, 35 or even 40 years old. They may want total inside renewal or improvement at perhaps £10,000, £15,000 or even £20,000 per house. Where will the occupiers be moved to? A large local authority will probably already be short of housing stock and will not even be able to accommodate the waiting list. That is where one difficulty will come in in this type of exercise.
Quite a number of local authorities have a housing stock of about 100,000. A local authority may feel that it has done a good job on paper and 10,000 of its tenants have formed themselves into co-operatives of varying sizes. The associations will have various schemes to which they aspire. With a severely restricted housing investment programme, which prevents it even in summary cases from carrying out an adequate basic maintenance programme, how is a local authority to deal with the priorities? Who will the people in the co-operatives blame when they cannot get the money they ask for? We are talking about a lot of money—perhaps £10,000 or £15,000 per house. The local authority will have to say, "We have let you set up the co-operative. We think it is an excellent idea. But if you take that course, there is no way that we can find from our housing investment programme the finance to make your pipe-dream come true". That is where the difficulty will appear.
I do not want to speak against housing co-operatives. In principle, I am in favour of them. But anyone who thinks that by putting through this measure all the kinks will be ironed out, people will be queuing up to form co-operatives, and in five, six or seven years time all the problems will be dealt with is living in cloud cuckoo land.
5.22 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: Some 20 minutes ago the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, was at it again—not jumping to his feet but being too radical. I welcome the importance given in the amendment to tenants' management co-operatives, but the entitlement that it proposes cuts across the voluntary principle on which they simply must be established. In any eventuality, I cannot support coercion.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, spoke about running co-operatives. I have never run a housing co-operative, but my first post-graduate job was to run a vegetable growing co-operative in Zambia. That threw up problems which were widely outside my experience and I suspect rather outside the noble Lord's, too, even with the experience to which he has admitted. I very much take the point that co-operatives are difficult things to handle. Nonetheless, as I said, I welcome the importance that has been given to them by this amendment.
As the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, said, these agreements under Section 139 and Schedule 20 of the Housing Act 1980 are intended as a means of facilitating arrangements entered into voluntarily by both parties. The terms of the agreement could not be imposed by one party on another. I take for an example the suggestion that it would not he right to allow 30 tenants on an estate to choose procedures for collecting rent arrears, whereas it might well be very pertinent for them to examine and have discussions with the landlords on other things.
The other day I had the opportunity to go round a large Haringey estate of 1,000 units of flats, including two tower blocks, housing some 5,000 people. I went there not so much because of the condition of the units—because I was not able to go inside one of them—hut to see exactly what was going on in the tenants' association. I do not know whether this was a co-operative association within the meaning of the noble Lord's amendment, but I was incredibly impressed. I would go even further than that: I was actually thrilled to see what this tenants' association had been able to do in the way of a youth common room, sporting facilities and a complaints procedure which could be used by all the tenants on the estate, irrespective of whether they belonged to the tenants' association.
There is nothing between us on the principle, but the amendment, as written, has certain practical defects. It would apply only to local authority and new town tenants. Furthermore, it is normally necessary that a housing co-operative should represent all the tenants on the estate. As I understand the amendment, it would apply only to some, albeit a minimum of 30. What occurs to me is what happens if it is a very small estate with only 20 tenants. The condition that a certain minimum number of tenants should have this entitlement is, therefore, I suggest, misconceived. While I agree with the principle behind the amendment, I really cannot support the idea of coercion, and that is why I cannot support the amendment.
Lord Evans of Claughton: I think that coercion is probably rather too strong a word. In my opinion it is preferable that every possible encouragement should
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be given to further concepts and ideas of co-operative management of housing. As so many authorities have not taken advantage of the 1980 Act, my proposal would give them the boost, or the kick in the pants, to encourage them to give their tenants every opportunity to do this kind of thing.
I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, that if there is no money not an awful lot can be done and there will be a great deal of disappointment. But if there is no money, whether it is a tenant co-operative or the management is done in some other way, it still will not be done. Local authorities may make the money available for re-roofing or major repairs—which are examples that the noble Lord gave—as they have done in Liverpool and elsewhere. It is not a question of co-operative ownership but of the co-operative managing the use of the money where it is available, rather than a solution being imposed on them by the housing department and the architects that it employs. In a sense it follows on from the previous amendment which I withdrew in order to have discussions with the noble Lord the Minister.
The point that I am trying to establish is that if we really are looking to a change in the drab and unhappy aspect of many of our municipal housing estates, we must encourage this kind of development much more robustly than has heretofore taken place. The system has worked exceptionally well in pockets. I do not want to see the development only in pockets; I want to see it spread all over the country. I agree that I may not be as radical as the noble Lord the Minister. Thirty may be too high a figure; perhaps it should be less. Those advising me picked 30 as a reasonable figure in order for that kind of organisation to take off.
I very much follow the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, about the learning and training process. This is terribly important not only in order to be part of a co-operative but to lead a fuller and more active life, to be more involved in the community and to get your feelings and ideas over to other members. I think that possibly training in committee work is one of the most important aspects of the whole idea. I am conscious of the fact that I am holding up your Lordships. On this point I feel sufficiently strongly, and sufficiently discouraged by the noble Lord's attitude, to test the feeling of the House.
5.30 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 65) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 114; Not-Contents, 130.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Blyton, L.

Ardwick, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Attlee, E.

Bottomley, L.

Aylestone, L.

Briginshaw, L.

Banks, L.

Brockway, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Beswick, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Bishopston, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Blease, L.

Chitnis, L.

183

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Collison, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Darling of Hillsborough, L.

McNair, L.

David, B.

Mar, C.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Mayhew, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Melchett, L.

Denington, B.

Milford, L.

Diamond, L.

Molloy, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Monson, L.

Donnet of Balgay, L.

Mulley, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Nathan, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Nicol, B.

Ezra, L.

Ogmore, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Oram, L.

Foot, L.

Peart, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Phillips, B.

Gallacher, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

George-Brown, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Glenamara, L.

Rhodes, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Roberthall, L.

Rochester, L.

Greenway, L.

Ross of Mamock, L.

Grey, E.

Sainsbury, L.

Grimond, L.

Seear, B.

Hall, V.

Serota, B.

Hampton, L.

Shackleton, L.

Hanworth, V.

Shinwell, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Stallard, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Stedman, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Hunt, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Jacobson, L.

Stone, L.

Jacques, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Jeger, B.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Tordoff, L. [Teller.]

Kilmarnock, L.

Underhill, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Kirkwood, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Lawrence, L.

Whaddon, L.

Leatherland, L.

White, B.

Listowel, E.

Wigoder, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Wilson of Rievaulx, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Lockwood, B.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Young of Dartington, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Allerton, L.

Elton, L.

Ampthill, L.

Enniskillen, E.

Auckland, L.

Faithfull, B.

Avon, E.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Fortescue, E.

Bellwin, L.

Gainford, L.

Beloff, L.

Geoffrey-Lloyd. L.

Belstead, L.

Glanusk, L.

Bessborough, E.

Glenarthur, L.

Bolton, L.

Glenkinglas, L.

Brookes, L.

Gormanston, V.

Broxbourne, L.

Gowrie, E.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

Gray, L.

Caithness, E.

Gray of Contin, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Gridley, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Camegy of Lour, B.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Cathcart, E.

Chelwood, L.

Halsbury, E.

Cockfield, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Coleraine, L.

Harvington, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hayter, L.

Craigavon, V.

Henley, L.

Croft, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Hunter of Newington, L.

Daventry, V.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Ilchester, E.

Dilhome, V.

Inglewood, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Ingrow, L.

184

Killearn, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Kilmany, L.

Portland, D.

Kimberley, E.

Quinton, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Rankeillour, L.

Kinnard, L.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Renton, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Rochdale, V.

Lewin, L,

Romney, E.

Long, V.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

St. Davids, V.

Luke, L.

Saltoun, Ly.

Lyell, L.

Sandford, L.

McAlpine of West Green, L.

Selkirk, E.

McFadzean, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Sharples, B.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Mancroft, L.

Soames, L.

Margadale, L.

Stamp, L.

Marley, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L,

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Sudeley, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.

Suffield, L.

Swansea, L.

Merrivale, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Middleton, L.

Terrington, L.

Milverton, L.

Teviot, L.

Molson, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Morris, L.

Tranmire, L.

Mottistone, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Trenchard, V.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Trumpington, B.

Norfolk, D.

Tryon, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Onslow, E.

Vickers, B.

Orkney, E.

Vivian, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Westbury, L.

Pender, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.39 p.m.
Lord Evans of Claughton Lord Evans of Claughton moved Amendment No. 66:
After Clause 26, insert the following new clause:
("Tenant's access to landlord's files.
. After section 41D of the 1980 Act there shall be inserted the following section—
"41E. At the request of any person who is a secure tenant, the landlord shall permit him access at all reasonable times and without charge to any file kept in connection with his tenancy or the construction, financing or repair of his dwelling house." ")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper, to insert the new clause to give tenants access to landlord's files. In another place today my right honourable friend the Leader of the Liberal Party introduced a Bill under the Ten Minute Rule to provide more general freedom of information. I am not moving this amendment in order to curry favour with him, but merely because I think that it is a good way to start down this very important path of rights of access to information—and what information is more important to an individual than information about the house in which he lives?
The amendment seeks to allow secure tenants the same rights to information about their homes as is available to an owner-occupier. The noble Lord the Minister's honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment has already declared in another place that he agrees in principle with the amendment and that in his view the matter could be best introduced by way of guidelines. To us on these Benches that is not good enough. We believe that the rights of tenants to know about the details of their

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tenancy, the history, structure, rehabilitation, and state of repair of their homes is not a matter for guidelines, but is a fundamental entitlement in our society, and should be legislated for.
In some cases tenants who have bought homes under the terms of the Housing Act 1980 have been denied complete access to the relevant files on the property only to find out too late that it suffers from some structural fault which is not immediately apparent on a survey. The forthcoming data protection legislation, which your Lordships have been dealing with, will, as I understand it, mean that access will be available to information stored on computer files of whatever kind. It will then be the case that a tenant in a computerised district—that sounds rather ghastly, very Nineteen-Eighty Four—or a district which has computerised its processes, will have the right of access to information, while a tenant in a less progressive, or more old-fashioned, authority will still be denied the right to see the records stored on paper, because the Data Protection Bill, when it becomes an Act, will not apply to that kind of information.
As I have said, the Government have supported the concept in principle in terms of guidelines, which we think does not go far enough. In previous discussions on earlier legislation the Labour Party has supported an amendment couched in these precise terms. So with my usual optimism I look forward to wholehearted support from all sides of the Chamber for what I very seriously believe would be an important extension of the freedom of secure tenants to enjoy the knowledge that they are entitled to have about the whole history of the house in which they live. I beg to move.
5.42 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I rise from the Labour Front Bench to support the amendment. I am sure that this comes as no surprise, in particular since those noble Lords astute enough to read further ahead on the Marshalled List will have seen Amendment No. 88A, which relates to the provision of a manual. I would hope that the Minister finds unexceptionable most of the amendment that we are now debating; that is the part of the amendment which relates to the file on "construction, financing or repair". By and large those points would be covered by our Amendment No. 88A, in which we talk in terms of the purchaser or the tenant of a house having the right to a manual, which from the very beginning will reveal precisely how the building was built, whether there were any structural problems, what one can anticipate, what one can be fearful of, and so on.
I appreciate that the nub of the reservation which we might hear will relate to a tenant having the right to look at a file on his tenancy. The response may very well be that these are very sensitive documents and that they are used in order to record all kinds of information. If it were said that that information was highly confidential or was strictly confidential to the members of a sub-committee, I would acknowledge that that has been the past practice.
However, I think the Minister must be aware that there is a wind of change and a mood for more information to be made available. At the same time this of course places a great onus of responsibility on
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those who actually enter the items of information on the file. If before a person who is to enter details on a file puts pen to paper he realises that upon request the file may be opened, that would not be a bad thing. I am not arguing that the file would be less colourful or less useful or that it would be doctored. But I believe that in the context of the 1980s, and bearing in mind the Ten-Minute Bill in the other place this afternoon (to which the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has referred), there is a general desire to ensure that this kind of information should be available. The information can affect all kinds of matters including credit ratings and a person's standing in the community. A person ought at least to be aware of the information and ought to be in a position to challenge its authenticity and to verify its veracity.
We are aware of the great argument that is going on regarding school files and records and of what I would simply call the movement that there is for people to know more about what has hitherto been kept in secret by banks and various bodies and organisations. Here is an opportunity for the Government to show some sympathy for the matter. If there is to be a blanket refusal from the Government, it is likely that the noble Lord, Lord Evans, will repeat the performance of a minute or two ago. But if the Minister is able to show some sympathy with the point and, as he did on the previous amendment, can indicate that conversations, if they would not resolve the matter, could well go some way towards producing a formula that is acceptable, then we on this side of the Committee would certainly not wish to support the pressing of the matter to a vote. But if the noble Lord, Lord Evans, does not feel satisfied, we on these Benches would certainly support him in a Division.
Lord Skelmersdale: The noble Lord, Lord Evans, has referred to the discussion in another place on giving tenants access to files about themselves and their homes. The Government then undertook to see how secure tenants could be given the information they want, and I of course understand the noble Lord's anxiety to find out what progress has been made.
Equally, I am sure that the noble Lord recognises that the proposal that he has put to the Committee is complex. It is not simply a matter of tenants having access to files about themselves but also about their property and the financing of it. That, I suggest, is the difference between the issue that we are now discussing and the similar issue which has been raised, and is continually raised, on the Data Protection Bill. There would be many questions to be answered about what would be reasonable information to which tenants should have access.
Even so, I am hound to tell your Lordships' Committee that the Government do not accept that there is a strong enough case for tenants to have a right of access to files which would leave the landlord with no discretion whatever as to whether to withhold information—information that could harm either the landlord or the tenant. The Government take the view that the burden that would be placed on landlords would be out of all proportion to the benefits which might accrue.

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The noble Lord, Lord Evans, referred to the reply of my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary and so I think that I must repeat what he said; namely, that the Government's inclination in this matter is to proceed not by legislation, but by guidance or circular. These questions need the fullest consultation with interested bodies. Even if at the end of the day we were to consider primary legislation for this matter, there would need to be very thorough consultation indeed. We are already considering the issues carefully, but it would be wrong to rush this question.
I can assure the noble Lord that we support the principle of tenants having greater access to information, but I have to recommend the Committee to reject the proposal before it for a wide-ranging, statutory right on which much thinking still has, very rightly, to be done. So I am afraid that I cannot accept the amendment.
5.50 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: I quite like the thoughts behind this amendment but I really did think it was put over in a way which would frighten everybody in any aspect of having a secure tenant.
If one approaches a landlord or his agent in a reasonable way and says: "Could you give me the background history to this? What are the structural conditions underground or in the building? What repairs have been done in the last 20 years?" the agent for the landlord or the landlord himself will in a great majority of cases provide that information and it is quite right that the tenant should be given the opportunity to get that.
What this amendment does is to take into account the wretched word "financing", which opens up a whole new ambit of personal relationships between the landlord and financiers because it does not specify what aspect of finance the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, wants available—and I think this would create enormous difficulty from the point of view of running an agency and looking after landlords who have got secure tenants. To have this provision imposed upon us would probably mean considerable extra time and staff, because one can imagine the number of tenants queueing outside, whereas this could easily be done by negotiation in a letter form giving the information which the noble Lord, Lord Evans, seeks without any of the hassle of having it in the Bill.
Lord Evans of Claughton: I am afraid I do not share the noble Earl's feeling of optimism about the information the landlords would provide. In a large number of cases landlords are helpful; in a small minority of cases they are grotesquely unhelpful, and the noble Earl is probably aware of it as I am. It is the whole point of information which enables people to control their affairs much more than living in an atmosphere where they know very little about what is going on with the property they occupy.
I am a little surprised—and I should have thought there might be some objection from noble Lords on all sides of the Committee—about the concept of information regarding people's personal records. I
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have often thought to myself that when I come to write a reference I might be a little less frank if I thought the referee was going to see what I had written. But in the case of a house it is either falling into a coalmine or it is not; it is either constructed in a certain way or it is not. I concede the point which the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, made about the financing side of it. I agree that is a slightly more controversial point, but I really cannot see why a secure tenant should not know the whole history of his house in the same way as an owner-occupier can learn the history of his house through its records and through the history of its title and all those kinds of things.
You see, I am trying my best to see that the Government has a good side to it, but I am afraid I am failing. Quite frankly, I would have thought that in these days and in the atmosphere in which we live—as the noble Lord, Lord Graham, said—there is a continuous movement towards people having the maximum information to assist them in living their lives more fully, to know what is going on around them and to have the power to control their own destinies to that extent. I think the days of confidentiality about this kind of thing, people knowing very little and only as much as is good for them—as we used to say when I was a child—have changed, and I think the whole ethos of our society today is moving towards greater knowledge and greater information about people's lives. I think this is true particularly about houses in which people live.
It is with great regret that I feel the reply given by the noble Lord the Minister is not satisfactory, although I hope that at some point this discussion will help him to persuade his colleagues to introduce primary legislation. At this stage I think it would be useful to test the feeling of the Committee on this subject, which to me is of very great importance.
The Earl of Caithness: Before the noble Lord sits down, he has acknowledged the point that the word "financing" is going to cause problems. My noble friend the Minister did say he was in sympathy with the proposal. I have said I am in sympathy with some of it. I apologise to my noble friend: he is not sympathetic to all of it. Why does not the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, withdraw this amendment, go to the landlords and say, "What information can we produce?" It is not going to be done in four lines; it is going to be a schedule relating to various aspects. This is surely the wrong way to approach it. I do ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I wonder whether the noble Lord the Minister can help the Committee by indicating the precise stage the consultations, which I believe he referred to as taking place, have reached and the extent of the detail. I appreciate the problem of the noble Lord the Minister in being able to respond straightaway. The fact is that I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, is anxious to press matters to a vote if he is able to make progress on the principle. We recognise that we are not going to change legislation overnight. What we want is satisfaction from the noble Lord the Minister that there is a process going on, and quite clearly not only property owners (that is, landlords) but local authorities—and there may be other bodies—can

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make a useful input. If the Minister were to indicate that—and I am not talking about coming back on Report or anything of that kind—and we can be satisfied that there is genuine progress along those lines towards the principle, I am prepared to accept the good faith of the Minster. But, in the light of his earlier reply, which was somewhat bleak, I can fully understand the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: Before the noble Lord sits down, very briefly is not one of the crucial problems this business of what is in the file? I ask the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, to consider that if we could devise the feeding of information on two sections of the file, one which related to the house—and I take his point about what is structural—and the other which related to personal matters (whether the tenant has too many parties at two o'clock in the morning and so on and so forth, which are personal matters and matters of conduct) one could perhaps then make a hit of progress. On this side of the Committee we are faced with a situation where—speaking only for myself—if you could separate the files, I could open my mind, but, with the system we have got, I cannot.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am grateful to both my noble friends. I think the key to all this is in what the noble Lord. Lord Evans of Claughton, said. He said something to the effect that it was his desire to give the maximum opportunity to people to learn about the things which affect them. We have now heard six different speeches on six different points, which is why I suggest to the Committee that consultation is a very real and necessary thing in all this.
To answer the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, directly, consultations have already begun this afternoon in your Lordships' House—consultations which it was suggested to me I should tell the Committee were at a very early stage; so early in fact, that they are beginning soon! If the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, has done nothing else, he has prompted some very serious consultations, and I have been as honest with the Committee as I possibly can be.
Lord Evans of Claughton: I hope I have done one or two other things besides that, but that in itself is a major feather in my cap and I shall remember this for the rest of my life.
In the light of the fact that the noble Lord the Minister has said that consultations are beginning and there is the possibility, I gather, of primary legislation being considered in the future, and in the light of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and to show how flexible we are and how reasonable we shall be when shortly we form the Government, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.59 p.m.
Clause 27 [Housing Association grant]:
On Question, Whether Clause 27 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Bellwin: May I take the unusual step of begging to move that Clause 27 shall not stand part of the Bill and, in saying that, to speak to Amendments Nos. 67 and 72, in which it will be found that there is a new clause which is a division of technical provisions in Clause 27, which it replaces?
Amendment No. 67: after Clause 28, insert the following new clause:
("Housing association grant.
.—(1) The Secretary of State may pay housing association grant under section 29 of the Housing Act 1974 (in this Part of this Act referred to as "the 1974 Act") to an association registered under section 13 of that Act in cases where, after a tenant has exercised or has claimed to exercise the right to buy or the right to be granted a shared ownership lease, the association carries out to the dwelling-house or to the building in which it is situated works of repair or improvement.
(2) Where in a case falling within subsection (1) above a housing association grant is made after the tenant has exercised the right to buy or the right to be granted a shared ownership lease, the Secretary of State may reduce the amount of the grant.").
Amendment No. 72: Clause 31, page 31, line 34, at end insert—
(" "the 1974 Act" means the Housing Act 1974;").
The new clause deals with housing association grant payment powers in cases where the right to buy is claimed or exercised while major repairs or improvement projects are under way and the association might make a loss on the sale if HAG is not paid in respect of those repairs. The new clause provides a limited extension of the powers to pay grant so that it may be paid on repairs or improvements where a tenant has already claimed or exercised the right to buy or the right to a shared ownershp lease. That appears in subsection (1). The new clause also provides for grant to be reduced to take account of the proceeds of sales which are completed before grant is paid over. That appears in subsection (2).
The new clause will enable the Secretary of State to ensure that there need be no loss and also that no undue profit is made by housing associations as a result of these transactions, and I commend it to your Lordships.
It might be convenient also if I speak to the amendment to Clause 31 which is a minor and consequential amendment to ensure that references to the Housing Act 1974 are correctly interpreted. The first reference to the 1974 Act is made in this new clause. I beg to move.
Clause 27 disagreed to.
Clause 28 agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 67:
[Printed above.]
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to Amendment No. 67. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 68:
After Clause 28, insert the following new clause:—
("Repayment of housing association grant.
.—(1) In section 30(3) of the 1974 Act (repayment etc. of housing association grant in certain circumstances), after paragraph (a) there shall be inserted the following paragraph—
" "(aa) there has been paid to the association in respect of any land to which the grant relates an amount payable in pursuance of—

(i) the covenant required by section 104B of the Housing Act 1957 or section 8(1) of the Housing Act 1980

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(covenant for repayment of discount) or any other provision to the like effect; or

(ii) the provision required by paragraph 3, 6 or 7 of Schedule 3 to the Housing and Building Control Act 1984 (terms of shared ownership lease) or any other provision to the like effect;".".

(2) If, after a housing association grant has been made under section 29 of the 1974 Act to an association registered under section 13 of that Act—

(a) there is such a disposal as is mentioned in paragraph (a) of subsection (3) of section 30 of that Act; or

(b) there is made such a payment as is mentioned in paragraph (aa) of that subsection,

the association shall notify the Secretary of State of the disposal or payment and, if so required by written notice of the Secretary of State, shall furnish him with such particulars of and information relating to the dispoal or payment as are specified in the notice.
(3) Where a housing association grant has been so made, the Chief Land Registrar may furnish the Secretary of State with such particulars and information as he may reasonably require for the purpose of determining—

(a) whether there has been such a disposal as is mentioned in paragraph (a) of subsection (3) of section 30 of the 1974 Act; or

(b) whether there has been made such a payment as is mentioned in paragraph (aa) of that subsection.")

The noble Lord said: This clause will bring the Secretary of State's powers to recover grant in respect of HAG-funded projects into line with the full range of circumstances which may now arise in respect of payments associated with the disposal of housing association dwellings, either outright or on shared ownership terms.
This does not represent a change in the general policy on the recovery of housing association grant. Section 30(3)(a) of the Housing Act 1974 allows recovery for a reduction of grant where any land to which the grant relates is disposed of, up to the historic level of that grant. Where dwelling-houses are sold at a discount or only a share in the dwelling is acquired, either under the right to buy or under the voluntary scheme, the capital receipt may occasionally be insufficient to meet a repayment of all the grant attributable to the dwelling. In such circumstances the Secretary of State will abate the recovery of grant to avoid the association making a loss.
A tenant may, however, decide to sell the house he has bought under the right to buy within the statutory period which requires him to repay a proportion of the discount. Or if he has a shared-ownership lease he may purchase an additional share or the whole of the rented portion of the dwelling. In either event there will be a further capital receipt for the housing association. There is currently no power to recover any outstanding balance of housing association grant in these circumstances. The new clause will provide it. I beg to move.
6.5 p.m.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 69:
After Clause 28, insert the following new clause:
("Provisions as respects certain tenants of charitable housing associations etc.)
.—(1) This section applies to any tenant of a publicly funded dwelling-house who, but for subsection (1) or (2)(a) of section 2 of the 1980 Act (exception for cases where landlord is a charitable housing association etc.), would have the right to buy; and a dwelling-house is publicly funded for the purposes of this section if housing association grant has been paid under section 29 of the 1974 Act in respect of a project which included—
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(a) the acquisition of the dwelling-house;

(b) the acquisition of a building and the provision of the dwelling-house by means of the conversion of that building; or

(c) the acquisition of land and the construction of the dwelling-house on that land.

(2) The Secretary of State may pay housing association grant under section 29 of the 1974 Act to an association registered under section 13 of that Act in cases where the association first acquires a dwelling-house and then disposes of it at a discount to a tenant to whom this section applies.
(3) Where an association registered under section 13 of the 1974 Act contracts for the acquisition of a dwelling-house and, by way of sub-sale, disposes of its interest to a tenant to whom this section applies, subsection (2) above and the following provisions, namely—

(a) section 122 of the 1980 Act and sections 104B(2) to (9) and 104C of the 1957 Act as applied by that section (disposals by housing associations);

(b) section 2 of the 1974 Act (consent of Housing Corporation to disposals); and

(c) section 9(2) of that Act (loans by Housing Corporation), shall have effect as if the association first acquired the dwelling-house and then disposed of it to that tenant.

(4) A housing association which is a society registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965 may have among its objects that of effecting the transactions falling within sub-section (2) above without preventing the association being or, as the case may be, remaining registered under section 13 of the 1974 Act.
(5) In this section "dwelling-house" includes a house within the meaning of the 1957 Act.")
The noble Lord said: This new clause provides the machinery to give effect to the new home ownership scheme for tenants of charitable housing associations which the Minister for Housing and Construction announced in outline on 21st December 1983 in another place. These are enabling powers and I will not dwell long on their detail. Their purpose is to enable the Secretary of State to pay housing association grant so that tenants of publicly-funded dwelling-houses, excluded from the right to buy because of the charitable status of their landlord, may purchase a house, or a share of a house, on the open market, on similar terms to the right to buy. This will also free the publicly-funded charitable dwellings for re-letting to people with families with the type of housing need the charity was established to meet.
The outline of the scheme is familiar to your Lordships from the announcement made by my honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Construction on 21st December in another place. I should like first to say something about the people whom the scheme is designed to help and how it will operate to help them. For myself, I have to say that I am disappointed that your Lordships' House was not prepared to give this category of tenant the right to buy as the Government proposed in the original Housing and Building Control Bill. But the Government accept that these properties should be retained in the ownership of the charitable housing associations and, as I made clear at Second Reading, we have no proposals in this Bill to give the right to buy to the tenants of charitable housing associations.
However, the arguments put forward against the right to buy for charitable housing associations were mainly concerned with the effects on the housing associations, the landlords. But I do not believe that anyone has argued that it would be wrong to help the people, the tenants of those properties, who would like to buy a home of their own. Why should they be

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denied help to become home owners? Even if the charitable properties they live in are to remain permanently in the rented sector, it does not follow that the tenants should be forced to remain permanently as tenants and denied in perpetuity an opportunity similar to the right to buy which applied to tenants of other public sector properties. The Government have always recognised the overwhelming case to deal fairly with these people and to help those who want to take on and who can afford to take on—and I accept that they may not be very many in number—the benefit and responsibilities of home ownership. That is why we have come forward with this scheme.
I should like to stress that the powers in the Bill are only enabling powers. The details of the scheme will be administrative and not legislative, but there are a number of matters of concern that have been expressed about the scheme which I would like to explain, and I hope that this will reassure the Committee that we have already taken account of the type of points that were worrying your Lordships at Second Reading. Of course, we shall consider any further points that your Lordships make in working out the details of the scheme.
It might be helpful to the Committee if I outline the circumstances in which we would expect the scheme actually to operate. I do intend to go into some detail, because I hope that in so doing, if your Lordships will bear with me, I shall be able to assuage all the concerns which have been expressed. I know that your Lordships will take careful note of what I say, especially those noble Lords who may have doubts about the scheme.
First, grant would normally be reserved to cases where the charitable landlord had refused to sell to the tenant the house in which he was living on terms equivalent to those that would be available under the right to buy. Secondly, the home selected by the tenant would be expected to fall within the value limits operated under the, "Do it yourself shared ownership" scheme. Those limits are £40,000 in Greater London, £35,000 in the home counties, and £30,000 elsewhere. Grant would be available on outright purchases, or on shared-ownership leases, but in the case of shared-ownership the minimum share that the tenant purchased would need to be 50 per cent. Shared ownership will normally be available only to those tenants who cannot obtain a sufficient mortgage to cover outright purchase, subject to the usual requirements associated with income and the security of the property being purchased.
My noble friend Lord Selkirk made the point on Second Reading that it is important for people not to be tempted by discount alone (particularly as regards shared ownership) into committing themselves beyond their ability or willingness to take on the responsibilities associated with home ownership. The same points and the same safeguards as regards the security of the property and the income of the tenant purchaser apply to the new scheme.
Another point that has caused concern is the way in which the discount is to be calculated. I should like to explain this in great detail because it is most important. The basis for determining the discount
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entitlement eligible for grant purposes is intended to be broadly similar to the right to buy. It will depend on length of tenancy in the public sector and the value and cost of provision of the existing charitable dwelling. In the case of a purchase at or above the value of the rented dwelling, the discount under the scheme will be the actual amount of the discount the tenant would have received if he had bought his rented dwelling. If he buys a house with a lower value than his rented dwelling, he would get a percentage discount on the value of the purchase. The percentage would be the same percentage discount he would have received under the right to buy.
These proposals will meet the concern that people will be able to use the discount—and many people have referred to the £25,000 discount, which is the maximum under this scheme and the right to buy—to buy a house outright without having to contribute anything themselves. The method that we are proposing to use for working out the discount entitlement will not enable this to happen. I repeat, this will not happen. I think that I can best illustrate this by giving one or two examples.
Let us consider the case of a tenant with 20 years of public sector tenancy who is entitled to a 50 per cent. discount. The rented dwelling in which he lives is valued at £20,000. The actual discount on the open market purchase may depend not only on the value of his existing dwelling, but also of the house he purchases. If the market value of the house the tenant chooses is £20,000, the discount would be £10,000, exactly as it would have been for the right to buy were he able to buy his present home. If the market value of the house he chooses is more than the value of the existing dwelling, but I stress still within the price limit of the scheme, the discount will still be £10,000. The critical point is that he is not entitled to more discount than he would get if he could buy his existing dwelling. When the tenant chooses to buy a dwelling worth less that his existing rented dwelling his discount entitlement will reduce in consequence. In those cases the percentage discount, not the actual sum, will be applied. The tenant will not be able to obtain a larger percentage discount than he would have obtained if he was to buy his existing dwelling under the right to buy. I shall refer again to the same example of an entitlement to 50 per cent. discount on a rented dwelling worth £20,000. If the house or flat the tenant chooses is worth £15,000 then the discount will be 50 per cent., that is £7,500, not £10,000.
The cost floor will also apply, so the maximum discount will depend on the cost of provision. The effect of the cost floor will also be carried through if the tenant buys a cheaper dwelling than the value of his present rented dwelling.
Finally, there is the question of discount on the acquisition of initial and additional shares under shared-ownership leases. For the purchase of the initial share it is intended that the discount entitlements I have just described will be applied pro rata to the size of the share being purchased. So a discount entitlement of £10,000 on a house chosen by the tenant that is worth £30,000 will give rise to a discount of 33.3 per cent. on the value of the share he is purchasing. A discount entitlement of 50 per cent. a house, chosen by the tenant, worth £15,000 will give

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rise to a discount of 50 per cent. of the share he is purchasing, and so on. It is also intended that for the purchase of additional shares, the leases should enable discounts to increase in the ordinary way by 1 per cent. for each year of occupation under the lease from the base provided by the discount on the initial share up to a maximum of 60 per cent. So if a tenant bought an initial share with an effective discount of 33 per cent., three years later he could buy an additional share at a discount of 36 per cent.
I realise that that takes some taking in just listening to it—I might add that it takes some taking in preparing it. But nevertheless with careful thought, if nothing else, it illustrates the fact that it is carefully thought through; it is not there to give an undue advantage, it is not silly, it is not giving anything away. It is exactly in line with the proposals under the existing right to buy for other public sector dwellings.
It is understandable that there has been some concern about the resources to fund the scheme and the effect on the rest of the Housing Corporation's Approved Development Progrmme. I commented at an earlier stage in the Committee's proceedings on the far-fetched suggestion that the scheme could cost £600 million. We gave our own estimate of £10 million. There is somewhat of a difference. I understand that the National Federation of Housing Associations has suggested a slightly higher average annual figure over five years of £l4 million. I do not either dissent or agree with that figure. The actual figure will depend upon the take-up by people who were in necessitous circumstances when they took up their tenancies and many of whom may well wish not to move. However, I think the fact that the National Federation of Housing Associations' estimate is £14 million and that our estimate is £10 million shows that the estimate of £600 million is, let us say, slightly ludicrous.
As I said on Second Reading, the resources for the scheme are to come from the Housing Corporation's Approved Development Programme. Allowance has been made for it within the gross programme of £687 million and the cash limit of £617 million for 1984–85. We shall also take account of the resources required for this scheme in future years. I recognise the concern that housing associations' other projects should not suffer from the operation of the scheme. As your Lordships know, the programme is set from year to year and no decisions have therefore been taken for future years, but the corporation will continue to consult the NFHA in the normal way before discussions with Ministers, and there will be ample opportunity for the movement to make its views on the shape and size of the programme known to the corporation and the Government, precisely as it always does and in the most helpful and valuable way.
There is one other concern about the scheme that I should like to mention. This is that some sort of market in the qualifying dwellings may emerge and that this will be encouraged by the right to exchange that we are introducing. I do not think this is likely to happen in practice. The major safeguard lies in the charitable rules under which charitable housing associations operate. They are able to let within those rules only to tenants whose housing needs accord with their objects. The proposals for the right to exchange will not override this requirement.
We are also proposing to include a further safeguard in the rules of the scheme which will prevent the successive movement of existing tenants to a particular dwelling to enable them to take advantage of the scheme. What we are proposing is that for tenancies which begin after the start of the scheme, the tenant should be required to have lived in the house for a reasonable period before participating in the scheme. The period we have in mind is one of about two years. There is of course no requirement under the right to buy for a tenant to have lived in a particular dwelling before he buys it, provided he has already sufficient public sector tenancy to qualify for the right to buy. But I think that such a requirement is appropriate for this scheme to ensure that tenants are not allocated to a particular dwelling just because it will give rise to a discount that will enable the tenant to buy a house with the help of this scheme. A requirement for tenants to have lived in the dwelling for at least two years before participating in the scheme should prevent tenants moving or being moved to particular dwellings at frequent intervals to take advantage of higher discounts.
I have given an outline of the way in which we intend the scheme to operate. We are however still considering the details of its operation. I assure your Lordships that we shall be prepared to take account of any points that are made in the debate on the clause today in finalising the scheme. I hope that I have said enough to convince your Lordships that this scheme is a valuable way of helping this category of tenants to become home owners.
Before I sit down, I think that I ought properly to refer to the article published in today's edition of The Times (and if I do not, your Lordships will) urging your Lordships to vote against this proposal. I hope that I can demonstrate that the arguments in the article are quite misconceived. Let me just pick a few out. The main argument that the article uses is that charitable landlords have a special legal status and that this is more important than the need to treat public tenants consistently. But surely your Lordships will accept that we have done a great deal to recognise the special legal status of charitable housing associations, and that is why we have not reintroduced the old Clause 2 which would have conferred the right to buy on tenants of charitable housing associations whose dwellings were provided with public funds.
This new scheme is designed to help the tenants of charitable housing associations who would have received the right to buy under the old Clause 2. I see no reason why this group of tenants, whose homes were provided with public funds in just the same way as the houses of council tenants of non-charitable housing associations, should be denied the sort of help to move into home ownership that is provided under the right to buy.
Indeed, many of these tenants would have been housed by a charitable housing association under nomination rights by the local authority. In other words, it would have been a matter of pure chance that they were housed by a housing association rather than by a local authority. So I ask, can it really be right that such a matter of chance should permanently deny them the opportunity to become home owners?

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Surely, it is not wrong, as The Times suggests, to want to treat all tenants whose dwellings have been provided with public funds as consistently as possible?
It was also argued in The Times that the fact that many tenants may not be able to afford to take advantage of the scheme makes the plan worse. I must say that this seems to be trying to have one's cake and eat it. Only just over a week ago the same newspaper was claiming that all eligible tenants would take advantage of the scheme, and that it would therefore be prohibitively expensive. Now that that argument has been shown to be totally groundless, it claims that the fact that not many tenants will be able to afford to take advantage of the scheme makes it worse. What possible basis can there be for such an argument? No one ever suggested that all council tenants would take advantage of the right to buy. So far, about 11 per cent. of public sector stock in England and Wales has been sold to tenants since 1979. Does the fact that this is a relatively small percentage prove that the right to buy is a bad scheme? I think not. Nor, I suspect, do the hundreds of thousands of ex-tenants and their families who have bought under the right to buy.
The other main point that The Times leader today totally ignores—it is surely the point I should make to my noble friends who. I know, have been so concerned about the position of the charitable housing associations and the dwellings which they manage and let—is that every time a tenant buys a house on the open market with the aid of a discount under this scheme, a house or flat is freed for the association to allocate to someone else in acute housing need. This is something that has been noted, and I think welcomed, by the National Federation of Housing Associations. It is a crucial element of the scheme that is totally ignored by The Times article. Even if the average discount works out at £6,000, the figure quoted by The Times on 25th February, I would hope that your Lordships would recognise that this is a much cheaper way of making rented accommodation available for the charities to let than new provision.
I hope I have said enough to convince your Lordships that the criticisms in The Times are not justified. My view is that this scheme represents a useful, if modest, means of helping this group of tenants to achieve home ownership. As I have repeatedly made clear in this Committee and in your Lordships' House, I cannot stress too much the importance I attach to treating these people fairly by giving them, if they wish—and only if they wish and are able to take it—the chance to have a home of their own.
This is nothing more than an attempt to recognise the concern of the charitable housing association movement to retain the ownership and letting facility of its dwellings and, at the same time, to meet the aspirations of such of their existing tenants as wish to, and can afford to, buy their own homes. It disadvantages no one. It is a truly worthy objective, and I hope that your Lordships will accept it. I beg to move.
[Amendment No. 69A, as an amendment to Amendment No. 69, not moved.]
6.25 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: The Minister has given us a great deal of information, but he has not by any means
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answered all the questions. I hope that the Committee will forgive me if a large part of what I offer this evening is in the form of questions, because there are still a fair number to be dealt with. We seem to have come a long way from the beginning of this exercise, which was to allow people to buy their homes—the homes in which they lived, where they had perhaps brought up their families, and certainly, where they intended to stay.
There seemed to me quite a strong argument in favour of doing this. Indeed, there were a great number of people up and down the country of all political persuasions who felt that this was the right thing to do, although they questioned in some ways the way that it was done. However, we are now saying that, in order to pursue this dogma through to its end, we are going to give the people, excluded last week by your Lordships from the right to buy, a hand-out so that they can go into the open market and buy the house of their choice, or at least persuade their association to do it on their behalf. I shall return to that in a moment.
The great injustice achieved by this, to which the noble Lord the Minister referred, althogh he does not seem to think it very important, was the harm done to other young couples who are trying to gather together enough money to buy their own homes. Most of them are having to do so in conditions of great discomfort. They are having to work very hard, to scrimp and to save, to get a deposit to put down on a house, usually a modest house to begin with—the sort of house most likely to be available to the tenants of charitable housing associations.
The result of what is being proposed is bound to be inflationary. Even if there was no feeling of injustice, which there undoubtedly will be among these young people, the effect, when people have a good deposit ready to put down without any argument, is bound to be to increase the demand for the houses and therefore the price. This is an injustice, and it is one which we should not consider supporting in this Committee.
The Minister refers to this as enabling legislation. Does he mean that the charitable housing associations may not take part in it if they do not want to? Is this what he means by "enabling"? There is nothing in Amendment No. 69 to say that they must do so. If they have to do so, are they to bear the whole cost of the exercise? Forgive me if I have this wrong, but your Lordships must admit that the information given to us is rather slight to begin with. If the tenant expresses a wish to buy a particular house in the open market having first registered his wish to buy his own and been refused, as I understand it, the housing association will then be required to go and buy this house and resell it to the tenant. Who bears the cost of that exercise? We all know how expensive it can be.
The questions about discount on the property purchased have been answered. There was quite a lot in the reply and I shall need to study the Minister's statements carefully before I come back on that. The time spent as local authority tenants will, I understand, also count towards discount. This puts an entirely different complexion on the exercise, which, again, one will need to look at carefully. Will the tenant be able to use the money to buy in another area? If someone is moving from town A to town B, can he buy a house in another area and require his association to

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pay for it for him? This is something that does not apply under council tenancies, and therefore it is a new question to be answered. If he can, will there be a distance limit or can he move north, south, east or west as he chooses?
The article in The Times was dealt with to a certain extent by the Minister; but it raised a number of points which strike a chord in the hearts of many people here. I draw your Lordships' attention to the beginning of it. I am sure most of those present will have read it, as it was freely available in the Library today. It says:
"What if a minister of the Crown were today to rise from the front benches and promise a cash gift of thousands of pounds to each of a group of citizens, 100,000 strong, whose location and circumstances he would be at pains to describe and whose individual merit had not entered his calculations?"
That is exactly what he has done and nothing that he has said, either before today or during his discussion here this evening, has persuaded me that this is the correct line for him to take. I propose to read carefully what he has said, to listen to the rest of the discussion and to return to it at a later stage.
Lord Moyne: Before the noble Baroness sits down, might I ask her whether the young couple she envisaged not being able to find a house because houses were being bought under this clause would not more easily he able to afford to move into one of the charitable trust houses set free by the moving out?
Baroness Nicol: Yes, indeed, that would he possible if there were enough of these dwellings. But there are enormous waiting lists for them, as the Minister is well aware. We are talking about a possible turnover of only a percentage of those dwellings. The feeling of injustice that this provision will arouse is not to be lightly taken. It may outstrip the size of what happens, but it will create a feeling of injustice.
Viscount Hanworth: If I have understood it correctly, the Minister's case is largely based on the fact that it is a matter of chance whether somebody seeking accommodation finds it with a housing association or with the council. He is therefore trying to he fair to see that people who find it with a housing association are not prejudiced. That is all very well in its way, but we also have to consider that the possibility of housing with a housing association is small because there are enormous waiting lists. Whereas he is trying to ameliorate one problem, there are those who have to find their accommodation outside—which is the vast number—who will receive nothing of this and can be even more upset by it. If one is faced with a situation such as that. I think one is entitled to look at the financial costs, bearing in mind that we can never afford what we would all like to do. What I fear will happen is that the Treasury will not honour the cost of doing what is down in the Bill, and where will the money come from?
The money will come from the housing grants. There will be fewer houses. I find it extraordinary that the Government should be so concerned with this little problem when unfairness, I fear, is far greater in the wider field.
Lord Moyne: As one of those who spoke against
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giving the right to buy their own dwelling to tenants of charitable trusts—declaring my interest as a trustee of one of them—I should like to support the principle underlying the proposed new clause. It fulfils the Government's promise not to reintroduce the old proposal which would have been so hard on the trusts. I understand that it ingeniously gives an equivalent subsidised opportunity for publicly-funded trust tenants to buy on the open market. I say "ingeniously" because of the point which has not been mentioned but comes out of what is in the clause, because of the mechanism devised of using a non-charitable association to channel housing association grants subvention to do a job outside the scope of charitable trusts. The Minister may like to say a word about this presently.
Trustees must welcome the advantage for their tenants, particularly the fact that vacancies will be created to he filled from their long waiting lists. But they must have anxiety about the long term effect on HAG funds available for future building development. The Minister has made up the funds to take account of the expected purchases and it is to be hoped that he will keep an eye on this aspect as time goes on.
I am bound to say that I find the drafting of the clause far from crystal clear. It says nothing, except by reference to previous Acts of Parliament, of the trust tenants' opportunity to secure financial support from HAG funds in purchasing an outside house, only that the Secretary of State is permitted to pay housing association grant to a non-charitable housing association which buys and re-sells a house to a trust tenant. The clause reads almost as if the housing association might have to go out to do the house-hunting, but surely the intention must be for the housing charity to tell the tenant how much would be forthcoming in discount towards his proposed purchase, so that he could find a house that suited him and which, with the discount, he could afford. As I understand it, the discount would be calculated by the charitable housing association, but the transaction would be seen through by the non-charitable association.
I wonder whether it should not be made clear beyond peradventure that charitable tenants on acquiring outside houses should have to vacate their existing dwellings. Assuming that the complicated wording of the clause is necessary to set in motion the financial mechanics of the purchase on the open market, would not the Minister consider inserting on Report something that tenants could more easily understand? Could not the clause begin by describing the opportunities to be given to publicly-funded tenants of charitable housing associations for HAG-supported purchases on condition of their moving out when their new dwellings became available for occupation? While finding the present drafting of the clause a little obscure, I very much welcome the principle which lies behind it.
Baroness Denington: I should like to answer the point raised a few minutes ago about whether the young couples who are struggling to raise the deposit on their first house could not go into the charitable houses left vacant by the people able to move out of those. I can only speak from my knowledge of my

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membership for a number of years of the Sutton housing trust, which is a charitable trust. The Sutton housing trust has a rule which it holds to rigidly that it may only take into its dwellings people who are really poor, who are very poorly paid and who are among the lower and more unfortunate members of our society. The trustees hold to that; but they also regularly review the position because about every two years a new trustee may ask about the people in the dwellings who have got on well in life and who now have money. The trustees consider whether we ought to turn them out of our charitable dwellings. The trustees regularly consider the matter deeply and decide that they cannot really turn them out.
These are the people who, if this is passed, will take up the Minister's offer. They will buy in the open market. But the point I am trying to correct—and one or two of your Lordships were rather carried away by the thought that the dwelling would be empty for someone else to come into—is that the dwelling will only be empty for someone very poor to come into. It will not help the young couples who are in a position to be gathering their mortgage. It will, of course, help somebody lower down but not the young couples.
The Earl of Enniskillen: Before the noble Baroness sits down, is that not the precise point that we are trying to get to?
6.40 p.m.
Lord Molson: In view of the fact that I voted on each occasion against the Government on the last occasion, I think that perhaps I ought to say a few words to explain my position this afternoon. I did not think that the Government were wise in introducing this provision in another place after having accepted the decision of your Lordships' House that the right to buy should not apply to the tenants of charitable housing trusts. I largely agree with the views expressed in the article in The Times today. I do not think that there is justice in making these contributions, these charitable gifts, to a selected number of tenants. On the other hand, I have listened with close attention to the speech of my noble friend the Minister.
I said in reply to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, last Tuesday that, in drafting our amendments, the noble Lords associated with me and I myself were not influenced by considerations about the discount. We were solely concerned about trying to preserve housing which was specially suitable for disadvantaged classes in the community. I want to stand entirely by that statement that I made on behalf of the noble Lords, some on the other side of the Committee and some independent Cross-Benchers and myself.
Without changing my view that the Government were unwise in introducing this special machinery to enable the tenants of charitable trusts to go out into the open market and use money paid for the by the taxpayer in order to acquire houses in the general market, I feel that my noble friend the Minister has drawn a very clear distinction between the preservation of the houses for disadvantaged people and the provision of money in order that the disadvantaged people occupying those particular houses should be able to find alternative accommodation. I am also very much influenced by a very careful study that I have
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made of the indications made by my noble friend in his various speeches of the willingness of the Government to look sympathetically at the amendments which we moved. I would point out to him that these concessions, these hints at concessions, were made only towards the end of his speeches when it was impossible for one to consider to what extent he had gone to meet the points of substance which we had put forward in or our speeches.
I am waiting anxiously to know how far the Government are prepared to go in order to meet points which he was good enough to say he regarded as substantial. I feel that if the Government are prepared to go a considerable distance in order to meet the point which we sought to establish by our amendments, then perhaps I ought to go as far as I can in supporting a new clause with which I am not entirely in agreement, but to do so in the general interest of trying to arrive at an agreed settlement upon this matter.
The noble Lord has mentioned on two occasions that he has not been convinced of the wisdom or justice with which your Lordships rejected the proposal that there should be a right to buy in the case of tenants of charitable trusts. At the same time, while saying that he does not accept the justice of that, he has responded and the Government have responded to the decision of this House by not seeking to reintroduce and have promised not to try elsewhere to reintroduce a provison of that kind.
Naturally, I speak only for myself and not for anybody else, but while saying that I do not approve of the new clause which is being moved, as the Government have indicated that they are prepared to go a considerable distance, although we do not know how far, in order to meet the points of substance which we have made in seeking to preserve the dwellings of disadvantaged people—and, I would also add, in treating specially the charitable trusts—just as they were prepared to meet us over the question of houses occupied by tenants from charitable trusts, I hope they will also be prepared to carry this principle of special treatment of charities as far as we asked for in the amendment which was moved by my noble friend Lord Selkirk and which was carried by such a large majority in your Lordships' House. I hang in the balance as to where honour rooted in dishonour stands and as to whether I should abstain; but, on the whole, and in the hope of a generous response from the Government to our amendments which were carried last week, I am prepared on this occasion, against (shall I say?) my own prejudices, to go into the Lobby in support of the Government.
Lord Dean of Beswick: The noble Lord the Minister said when he moved this clause that it was a very detailed one and one which would require some understanding. I must pay my respects to him in saying that I think he tried to explain it in detail, but he must not be surprised if the whole exercise is viewed with cynicism by some people involved. This is the second time that this piece of legislation has been before another place and this Chamber, and it seemed strange in another place when, after a substantial number of hours had been taken on this Bill in Committee, this new measure—which is an implementation of the existing policy, but by another

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method—was introduced at the eleventh hour, when there was no time at all to debate the very complex problems which the Minister has explained today.
While there may he some justification for saying that nobody will be hurt in the process, it seems odd that under this system people can go into this type of house and, after two years' tenancy, pick up £6,000 for having been a tenant in a house which has been provided mainly by public funds. It seems an odd set of priorities, when we have youngsters—and I have youngsters of my own as, I have no doubt, have other noble Lords—who are struggling to get money together for a down payment on their first, perhaps very modest purchase, to have a measure like this being brought in at the end of protracted discussions on the Bill.
One point which I should like to put to the Minister is the question of finance. I think I heard the Minister say that finance will come from the Housing Corporation's allocation. May I ask him whether the Housing Corporation was consulted about the fact that its annual global sum would be diminished by the money required to finance this scheme, or was it just told about the measure? Lastly, can the Minister give an undertaking that further deliberations in this Chamber may take place in order to look into a very complex financial problem?
Lord Broxbourne: May I—
Lord Monson: Despite the many reassurances given by the Minister this afternoon, particularly on such matters as the discounts applicable when a cheaper house than that which he or she already lives in is bought on behalf of the tenant under the scheme, and which marginally improve the amendment in relation to how it originally appeared to a layman, I am afraid that I still think that The Times got it more or less right today.
The noble Lord. Lord Bellwin, said on 28th February at cols. 1230–31 of the Official Report in reply to the noble Lord. Lord Molson, that he thought that, in practice, grants would be more like £10 million than £600 million. There are two points to be made here. First, would the Minister not agree that, in theory, the £600 million figure could be reached? Statute law must surely cater for what might happen in consequence of legislation, as well as for what is expected at this particular moment to happen. Secondly, if the Government are right about the £10 million, then mathematical calculations lead one to suppose that only a lucky 1½ per cent. of charitable housing association tenants—that is, the richest 1½ percent.—will be able to benefit from this largesse; largesse which is bestowed, indirectly, by the taxpayer.
Very well; but is it right that this 1½ per cent. of tenants in England and Wales—because, for some reason, the scheme does not apply to Scotland—should be placed in such an advantageous position, not only vis-á-vis their poorer neighbours in charitable housing association accommodation, but also vis-á-vis aspiring owner-occupiers, particularly young couples and first-time buyers who are struggling to save for a deposit, and visa-á-vis council tenants and tenants of non-charitable housing associations,
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who cannot enjoy the triple benefit of a cash bonus together with both choice of property and choice of location?
At a time when the Government are so hard up, evidently, that postmen are now being required to pay tax and national insurance on non-existent Christmas boxes, would it not save public money, and be altogether fairer, if the cash sum to which certain tenants would be entitled under this amendment were to be reduced by, say, 20 per cent., so that the maximum would reduce from £25,000 to £20,000? They would still be getting a very good bargain, as I am sure the Minister will agree. Would the Minister consider withdrawing this amendment this afternoon and resubmitting it at Report stage in a modified form, to make it more acceptable to the House and to the public at large?
Lord Broxbourne: May I start what will be a mercifully brief intervention by expressing my apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Monson? I hope that he will acquit me of any apparent discourtesy in not giving way to him more promptly and will attribute it, as is the fact, merely to my ignorance of the practice of this place. I hope not to make that particular error again. I was glad that I did not challenge the noble Lord because of the excellence of his speech in addition to the question of the practice of this House.
Like my noble friend Lord Molson, but with much less hesitation, I certainly intend to support this new clause. But I should like to ask one question of my noble friend in the context of one of the main criticisms to which this proposal has been subjected. The short point about the article in The Times to which so much reference has been made, if I interpret aright its stately and sonorous language—if it is possible for stately and sonorous language to have a short point—is that there are two related criticisms here; first, the looseness and complexity of the drafting and, secondly, the vulnerability of the public purse. It is in regard to that second matter that I wish to raise a question with my noble friend the Minister.
The question of the safeguarding of the public purse seemed to be in the mind of Parliament when they enacted the principal statute, the Housing Act 1974, in the machinery which Section 29 prescribes for the determination of grants. By Section 29(5), there is, as my noble friend so well knows, a power of ministerial determination of maximum grants and more than that cannot be paid. That provides an inbuilt statutory protection for the public purse which even The Times, I think, would recognise.
I am not heeding the exhortation in The Times of the House of Lords to smoke out Lord Bellwin; I should not dream of embarking on so unnecessary and disrespectful an exercise. I think the Committee will recognise that he has done a very considerable self-fumigatory exercise in his notable speech, and in the detailed and helpful explanations this afternoon, for which I am sure we are all most grateful; I certainly am, and I will study them more closely in print. But a determination made under Section 29(5) becomes part of the statute law and is binding. I am wondering therefore whether the Minister has considered in this case making a determination, because determinations can, as he knows, be either general or particular in

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their content. The Minister may consider that it is unnecessary or that it will not fit the mechanism of this particular case. Because of his much greater knowledge of the matter, I certainly accept his judgment on that point, but he may think that there would be advantage, particularly in view of the criticism which has been expressed by The Times and others, in at least exploring the possibility of a determination. As the Minister knows, a determination requires, under the Housing Act 1974, prior consultation with bodies which appear to be representative of the housing associations—in this case, I would assume, the federation. That itself, I should have thought, would have certain advantages in the context of this matter. I apologise for having put my question at some length, but at least I have asked only one in contradistinction to the noble Baroness opposite with her quiverful of questions.
Lord Northfield: I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, recognises that there is a certain illogicality about part of what he has said to the Committee this afternoon. He said that he accepted the sensitivities of the charitable housing associations and recognised to some extent their anxiety about keeping their stock at its present level and not having to reduce it, so that they can continue to cater for the particular classes of people whom they house. The noble Lord said that because he recognised the sensitivities and the needs of the charitable housing associations he had found some extra money.
The noble Lord who spoke from the Liberal Benches has not noted what the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, said at Second Reading. He said that he would offer extra money to the housing corporations, which he would provide through the mechanism of this clause, in order to solve their problem. They will not have to sell their houses in the way that they fear and their stock will therefore be kept intact. This is precisely the case I put to the noble Lord last week about old persons' dwellings. I said to him that if he would only offer to ensure that money was provided in some form in order to prevent the stock of old persons' dwellings being reduced we should all be very happy to go into the Lobby with him. I said that the Minister ought to say that as fast as houses are sold he would make sure there is a really energetic programme for housing elderly people through the public sector, where housing is needed, and that he would find the extra money with which to keep up the stock.
I freely admit that the noble Lord did not reply to that, but in ignoring what I said—I am not charging the noble Lord with anything, as I am sure he will accept—I suspect that he was dismissing my argument. I have to put it to the noble Lord that, if he had made that offer last week, he would not, I believe, have lost the Division. If he had said that he fully understood the need to keep up the stock of old persons' dwellings, everybody in the Committee would have been happy to let his original proposals go through.
A noble Lord: Not everybody.
Lord Northfield: No, perhaps not everybody, but most people would have been happy. I get some support from my noble friend on one side, if not from
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everybody. All I am saying is that there is a certain illogicality in the position adopted by the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, and I hope he will respond to this point.
Nevertheless, let us look at the prime point which the noble Lord is making in this amendment. It is worth stating again that the noble Lord is saying that the Government's aim is not to disadvantage people who have, in effect, got their money through the Government. This is public sector provision of housing in another form. The Government do not want to discriminate against somebody who has obtained his money through a housing association and who would have had the right to buy if, by accident, he had instead been the tenant of a council dwelling. That is an overwhelming argument. In other words, it follows through the logicality of saying that where public money is involved the Government need to complete the totality of their policy by giving these people the right to buy. That, so far as I am concerned, overwhelms all the other arguments and for that reason my sympathies are with the Government.
Lord Hylton: The noble Lord the Minister and the Committee know that I have very considerable reservations of principle both about the 1980 Act and about this Bill. I shall mention only one reservation. The 1980 Act took away from local authorities and non-charitable housing associations all discretion whatsoever over the right to buy. The Government now propose to take away all discretion from charitable associations. However, that is not the main point I want to make tonight. Instead I wish to look at the detail of the amendment. My concern is that it is going to place a considerable administrative burden and extra costs upon the charitable associations, which may, I fear, divert them from their main purposes. The larger associations employ paid staff. They are very capable and qualified people, but on the whole they are under extreme pressure and already are very highly stretched. The smaller associations, on the other hand, rely to some extent—and some of them to a great extent—on voluntary staff. They will have to face even greater problems.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, mentioned legal fees. There will be two sets of legal fees: one on the purchase, the other on the resale. Who will hear those fees, I wonder? The distance from the original dwelling of the qualifying tenant has also been mentioned tonight. The further away he is encouraged or allowed to buy the greater will be the administrative problems that follow. It would be very much better if, instead of the amendment as drafted, there were an amendment which put the whole onus upon the tenant, first to find the property and secondly to arrange to finance it, and only then would he receive the benefit of the discount money, which could be paid to his solicitor after exchange of contracts.
I should also like to follow up the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, about whether or not housing trusts are covered by subsection (4) of the amendment as well as industrial and provident societies, which are mentioned in the text.
The Earl of Selkirk: I am grateful to the Government for not trying to put back the clause which we took out last time. I do not deny that it is a rather clumsy way of getting round it. The essence of

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the problem was expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Denington. She asked: what are we doing here? We are putting out of charitable housing associations those who can afford them. That is right. It is right because charitable associations deal directly with the homeless—those who demand most from us and who deserve most attention from us. They put out those who can afford this housing. Not very many of them can. There are some, like single parents, who marry well. This does happen. They can go out, and it is right that they should go out; they should not remain in these associations. That is not what they are there for. I hope, therefore, that the Committee will support the amendment. Whether or not we make amendments to it I do not know. I do not believe that this will happen very frequently. I do not know what the figures are. However, I guess that the number of those who take advantage of this amendment will be comparatively small. Nevertheless, this is a genuine effort to meet what we had in mind, and on this occasion I hope the Committee will support the Government.
Lord Bellwin: The problem always is how to respond in a reasonable period of time to the many points which have been made. In doing so, one always disappoints some of those who have made contributions. I am grateful to everybody who has spoken. The debate has been of a particularly high order. I ask in advance to be excused if I do not cover all the points which have been made. If I miss any important points I shall write to noble Lords and carry the debate further outside the Committee.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, said that this was a great injustice and would do harm to others who were trying to get money to buy their own homes. She spoke about the effect on house prices and said that it would lead to inflation. What are we talking about? We are talking about some 100,000 eligible tenants and the likelihood, as my noble friend Lord Selkirk has just said, of perhaps 2,000, 3,000 4,000 or 5,000 of them buying. Is it seriously proposed that even 5,000 purchases will create inflation over the whole of the country in the housing market? I do not believe that at all.
The noble Baroness asked a number of questions which would take me some time to answer. I will pick up on one or two of them but will answer the others in writing. There will not be a geographical limitation on the movement of tenants to other areas, and they will have to find their own homes. This was a point raised by several noble Lords. As to the rest of the detail, if the noble Baroness will bear with me, I will pick up her points in writing.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said that the Treasury will not honour the arrangement, and he asked where the money is to come from. The noble Viscount was not listening. The noble Viscount is not in his place, but he cannot have been listening to what I was saying. I was at great pains to explain exactly where the money was to come from, and I will return to that point in a moment.
I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Moyne and thank him for his support. I know how deeply he felt, together with other noble Lords, when we discussed Clause 2 of the old Bill. I am especially
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grateful to him and to my noble friend Lord Selkirk for saying what they did about what is now proposed. I take the point which he and my noble friend Lord Broxbourne made about the drafting of the clause. The clause as drafted provides no more than an enabling power primarily concerned with the Secretary of State's grant-paying process. It does not set out to show how the scheme will work. That will be done administratively. I hope that I explained in my opening remarks how I expect that to operate.
My noble friend Lord Moyne absolutely picked up the point made by several noble Lords and by the noble Baronesses opposite. He made for me the point that is fundamental to this whole argument. While protecting the housing associations' accommodation, we are seeking at the same time to give those tenants who are disadvantaged because we would not go forward with Clause 2 an opportunity to buy. That is what it is all about, and no more. I take my noble friend's point about making this clearer on Report. I shall try through conversation and correspondence with him to clear up that aspect.
The noble Baroness, Lady Denington, spoke about the people who are poorly paid and asked about those who have got on; she asked about turning them out. She said that the dwelling will only be empty for someone who is very poor. But that is the whole essence of charitable housing accommodation. If it is not for people who are very poor and who have difficulty in finding other accommodation, then who is it for? If that is not the definition, then it is nothing. I respect the views of the noble Baroness on this subject, even if I do not agree with her, but I believe that her argument falls on that point.
I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Molson. I know of his reservations about certain matters that we discussed on the first day of Committee. I try to raise points which are raised in Committee and I will go on trying to do so as best I can. The Committee knows I try to do so with all the legislation I take through. I am grateful to my noble friend for his support, despite the reservations I know he may have.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, said that there had not been enough time to discuss this aspect in another place. I cannot take the responsibility for that, as I am sure he knows. As the noble Lord put a question, I should like to answer it and make this point clear to all noble Lords. The £10 million is additional money. When the discussions were taking place with the Housing Corporation, it was made quite clear that this would be additional money. I give the noble Lord that assurance. If the wants to pursue this point with me in detail after, I shall be pleased to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, still persists with his figure of £600 million. I wish that I were a betting man because I could make a pretty penny by working out some shade of odds there. The noble Lord says £600 million and I say £10 million. The federation says that it will be £14 million. I will split the figure with the noble Lord at £20 million. Let us be serious. The noble Lord said that this was largesse for the richest of the tenants. By definition, if one is a tenant of a charitable housing association how can one be described as "rich"? Have we lost all sense of proportion? These people are not rich; they are people who aspire to have

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something and to use part of what they have towards a home of their own. That is all they are, and I see nothing wrong in that.
My noble friend Lord Broxbourne questioned the looseness of the drafting. I hope he will feel that what I said to my noble friend Lord Moyne to some extent answers his point, too. He asked specifically about the maximum discount. I followed exactly what he was saying. We intend to tie the maximum discount to that available under the right to buy. We propose that the maximum grant shall be £25,000. We do not propose to make a specific further determination under Section 29(5) of the 1974 Act but we are prepared to consider this point. If my noble friend would like to pursue it later, then I should be very glad to do so with him.
The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, picked up a point made in debate last week. Was it last week?—it seems a long time ago to me. The noble Lord said that if only we would give extra money for the old persons' dwellings he and his noble friends would have gone through the Lobbies with us. I have to say that I doubt it. I see from the nodding of heads opposite that I am more right than is the noble Lord. Let us acknowledge the fact that there is a clear division of thinking about the right to buy. Let us not be ashamed of saying what it is. The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, said the other week that we are obsessed with our determination to further the right to buy. The noble Baroness is right. Just as noble Lords opposite are equally obsessed with denying the right to buy. That is the real issue and that is what we are really talking about.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, the onus will he placed on the tenant to find the property, and that is what we intend as a result of what is in the Bill. The noble Lord said this will place an extra administrative burden on housing associations. I can only say that this is one of the purposes to which they will put some of the extra money they will be getting for this purpose.
I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Selkirk because I know that, like my noble friend Lord Molson, he, too, has reservations. But this whole argument is about the principle of the right to buy. Noble Lords opposite do not like what we are proposing. They do not want us to give the elderly the right to buy. I do not know where that is going to end up. They did not want us to give the disabled the right to buy. They do not want us to give the tenants of non-charitable housing associations the right to buy. The top and bottom is that they do not want people to have the right to buy. I respect that point of view even if I disagree with them. I hope that noble Lords will support the Government's proposals. I believe that they are merited in all justice and in all equity.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: May I first apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lady Birk, who has to be elsewhere. If she had been here, I believe my noble friend would have shared in the views of the Minister when he said that this had been a fine debate. But I do not believe the Minister would be sensing the mood aright if he were to say that there was certainty and complete unanimity even on his own side over this issue. What in fact emerged, even from the remarks of his noble friends, was perhaps grudging acknowl-
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edgement that somehow or other he had escaped from the decisions on charitable housing that had been taken earlier.
Words such as "astute", "clever" and "he managed to find a way to look after these tenants" have been used. As far as we are concerned on this side of the Committee, we are far from satisfied that what the Minister proposes in this new clause is right, just or equitable. The Minister seems to be besotted by the fact that there is a class of person in our community entitled to preferential treatment. That class of person consists of the tenants of public housing. If one is a tenant of a council house, ipso facto one is entitled not only to the right to buy but to pay half the price of that which you want to buy. If one is a tenant of a charitable housing association, not only is one entitled to buy, and entitled to buy at half price but one is also entitled to buy the house of one's choice—
Lord Mottistone: Is it right for a noble Lord, from whatever Bench, to speak after the Minister who is moving the amendment has made his final speech? It seems to me to be most unusual.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I certainly bow to any noble Lord in this Committee who clearly has longer service than I have—and that includes almost everyone. However, I have been an assiduous watcher of procedure in this place since coming here and I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, that my observation is different to his recollection of how these things proceed. I get the sense of the Committee that I am doing nothing wrong even though there will be some dubiety about what I am going to say.
We, on this side of the Committee, fail to see why tenants of charitable housing are to be given what has been described more than once as a free handout—£4,000, £5,000, or £6,000—and then be able to go on to the open market. The Minister and his supporters may believe that this will be a mere ripple and that it will not disturb the market at all. I can tell him that that will not be the case. Whenever there is a house for sale for, say, £30,000 which a young couple who are after the house, are struggling to pay, along will come the tenant of a charitable housing trust able to say. "Yes, that is the house I want. I know it costs £30,000 but I am well able to afford it. Didn't you know, I have a grant of £4,000, £5,000 or £6,000 towards it?" Does the Minister believe that, once the detail has emerged and the reality is established—with a special class of house-hunter on the market containing those who have been fortunate enough to be tenants of charitable housing for 10 or 20 years, who have had good landlords because their landlords have been charities and who, in addition, have in their pocket a cheque potentially worth £5,000 or £6,000—it will not have any effect? If the Minister believes that this will not disturb the social equilibrium, then his justice and his view of what will happen is different to mine.
As far as this side of the Committee, is concerned, we are not prepared to support, as many of his noble friends are, the words which appear on the face of the amendment. When my noble friend Lady Nicol spoke, she indicated that there was a range of details which the House had not heard; general principles, yes, but a range of details that had yet to be placed before us.

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Although there are people who have heard them and agree with them, we on this side of the Committee have a great many questions that remain to be answered. What action we take on Report and the amendments that we move at that stage is another story. As far as we are concerned, we are not prepared to vote for this amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Skelmersdale: I hope that the Committee will consider this an appropriate moment to break for supper and to go on to other business. I see the Opposition Chief Whip looking at me and I suggest that we do not return to this current business until twenty minutes past eight o'clock, if that is convenient to the Committee.
I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Disabled Persons Bill [H.L.]
7.25 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Campbell of Croy.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD HAYTER in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Constitution and proceedings of the Commission]:
Lord Kilmarnock Lord Kilmarnock moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 8, leave out ("four") and insert ("eight").
The noble Lord said: I think it might be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak also to Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 which are all part and parcel of the same purpose.
Amendment No. 2: Page 1, line 9, leave out ("six") and insert ("ten")
Amendment No. 3: Page 1, line 9, after ("members") insert ("(of whom not less than four shall themselves be disabled and whose various disabilities are those to which the Act applies) who shall be")
I have not previously spoken on this Bill. I was unable to be present on Second Reading so I could not, at that time, express my general sympathy for it, Despite that general sympathy, I have one or two reservations about the drafting. As at present drafted, the Bill makes no suggestion as to the composition of the Disablement Commission except in Clause 1(3) which specifies:
"Members of the Commission shall be appointed in their personal capacities and not as representatives of particular organisations."
This may be designed to ensure that organisations representing the disabled do not dominate the commission and there is no doubt a case can be made out for that. The noble Lord, as a former Secretary of State, doubtless has great experience in this field. However, if organisations are to be excluded as such,
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it would seem to me highly desirable that some disabled members should be included "in their personal capacities", to use the phrase in the Bill. I also believe that it is important that disability should not just be talked about but should be made apparent in the physical presence of disabled members on the commission.
The small size of commission, suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, in the Bill, while not making it impossible for the Secretary of State to appoint one or more disabled members, rather inhibits the choice from among the disabled and also the range of disabilities. The amendment would permit a membership of eight eventually to be picked by the Secretary of State and allow an equal balance between disabled and non-disabled. There are precedents for such an arrangement. As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, will recall, there once existed what was called the Minister of Health's Advisory Committee on the Health and Welfare of Handicapped Persons. A number of handicapped persons served on that committee. It was disbanded in 1971 with the advent of the Personal Social Services Council; a much larger and more representative body with a much wider brief which accomplished a whole range of personal social services and which also included some disabled members. Regrettably, the Government in their first quango hunt killed off the PSSC along with a number of other perhaps less deserving bodies.
To many people "discrimination" is just a word embodying a concept which it is hard to pin down. Such people might find great difficulty in judging in what circumstances discrimination occurs and even greater difficulty in assessing what for the purposes of this Bill is termed "unjustifiable discrimination". Who better, therefore, in my submission, to serve as members of the commission than a few people who, because of their own disability and their experience, know exactly what discrimination against the disabled means and can assess whether or not such discrimination might be justified.
I want to be constructive. This is a matter of judgment. I am not claiming that I have the balance immutably right. But I hope very much that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, the promoter of the Bill, will think carefully about what I have said as it proceeds through its stages and perhaps be inclined to favour the amendment in some measure. I beg to move.
Lord Campbell of Croy: I think that it would be convenient if I spoke now to indicate what my intentions have been in the Bill. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, was speaking to Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 as well as to Amendment No. 1. I see that his first two amendments, which would have the effect of making the commission larger, are in fact related to his third amendment, which requires that at least four members of the commission be disabled persons. I have no difficulty in accepting amendments which would make the commission a bit larger. As I think your Lordships know, my intention had been that the commission should be small and inexpensive. A number of the objections which were raised on Second Reading and

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on other occasions were that people did not want a new large commission. Mine certainly is small, as in this Bill.
I would draw attention to Clause 1(3) which makes it clear that there is no question of the members of the commission having to be representative of the chief bodies in this field. Once you accept representation of the many bodies which are concerned and active, you would have claims which might bring the number to 30, 40 or more. In subsection (3) it is absolutely clear that it is to be a small commission, naturally with wide experience and ability, but not one which was trying to represent particular bodies.
I now come to Amendment No. 3. If the total number of members on the commission was to be eight, under Amendment No. 3 half that number would have to be disabled persons. That might well fit in. But to require at least four members—and half, if the commission is to have eight members—to be disabled persons places a restriction on the composition of the commission. In certain circumstances I believe that it would hamper the Secretary of State in achieving the best possible group of members.
We cannot now foresee the possible combination of talents and experience which might be available when the commission is being established. It could be that the Secretary of State and the country might have to lose the chance of an eminently suitable person who was available and prepared to offer his or her services being made a member of the commission because the quota of able bodied persons had already been used up. It there were to be a requirement such as that put forward, for at least four of the members being disabled persons—and from the drafting of the amendment they would have to be people with serious disabilities—I would suggest a figure of two rather than four. If at least two members were disabled, that should be enough to provide at least the practical experience which the commission would need. That would be particularly so if they were of different categories of disability, perhaps one a wheelchair person and the other a person with a quite different disability. But I think that to stipulate that at least four of the members have to be disabled persons would cause an unnecessary restriction.
I shall say no more now. When we come later to amendments concerning the membership of the commission I wish to say something about giving the Secretary of State and the other Ministers concerned as wide a discretion as possible to secure the services of the most suitable people and therefore get the best possible commission. But I think that to provide that as many as four members have to be disabled persons would perhaps be going too far.
Lord Ennals: I had hoped perhaps that the noble Lord. Lord Campbell of Croy, would have accepted the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. I do not at all take his view that it would be a restriction on the Secretary of State. After all, on CORAD, of which Mr. Peter Large was chairman, roughly half the members—whether it was exactly half or slightly more I am not certain—were disabled people. In many organisations—and I am thinking epecially of Motahility—the contribution of disabled people and their various abilities are outstanding. The
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Secretary of State would have no difficulty at all in finding four people who would he representative of a wide variety of interests and different types of disability.
Lord Campbell of Croy: I was not suggesting that it would not be possible to have four disabled members. The Secretary of State may be able to appoint six or eight members who are disabled persons. I just say that in certain circumstances the provision might be restrictive. There is nothing to stop the Secretary of State from appointing a commission every member of which was a disabled person. But the restrictions might mean that in certain circumstances he could not achieve the best possible combination of talents and experience.
Lord Ennals: If the Committee wants there to be a rough balance between able bodied and disabled people, the best thing is to say so in the Bill. If the amendment was not accepted, it would he perfectly possible for whichever Secretary of State it is—and we shall come to an amendment on that in a moment—to appoint only able bodied people. I think that that would be a mistake. I hope that before we come to the Report stage the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, will he seen to find favour with the promoter of the Bill.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I should like to speak briefly in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, as it reads at present. But I wonder whether otherwise there might possibly be a compromise. I think that in the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, when dealing with the representation of disabled people on committees, mention is made of the desirability of having members who are themselves disabled. I wonder how the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, would look upon that.
Lord Campbell of Croy: I should be very happy to accept that. As I have indicated, I should be happy to put down an amendment at Report stage in the terms of that of the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, but with the figure two rather than four, simply because once the provision is in the Bill it has to be followed. But there is nothing in the Bill to stop the Secretary of State from appointing four or more disabled persons if in his opinion that seems to be the sensible thing to do.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, exactly what powers the commission will have. I rather agree with him that one does not want to impose a limitation. If the commission's powers are to be quite strong, it might be important to have on it people with legal experience to sort out any problems. That is the point which I should like him to answer.
Lord Campbell of Croy: This point really comes up under Clause 2, but I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, that there would certainly have to be at least one member of the commission—and probably more than one—who, among other things, had the legal knowledge to help the commission.
Earl Attlee: I should like to support my noble friend Lord Kilmarnock. The commission may have to look at important business, and with a small commission of only four or six members, there need only be illness, pressure of business or holidays and the odds would be against there being a sufficient number to carry out the business. That is all that I wanted to say.
Lord Campbell of Croy: If I may just recapitulate, I am pefectly happy to accept Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, which is the point that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has just been speaking on, and I just have this reservation about putting in the fixed number of as much as four in Amendment No. 3.
Lord Kilmarnock: I am grateful to all those who have spoken and to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy,in particular. As I said in my opening remarks, this is really a question of balance and judgment. The noble Lord referred to greater restriction and to hampering the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State would undoubtedly get a great deal of advice on the formation of a body of this sort and he might in fact appreciate some guidance in the Bill.
I think the best thing to do—and I have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, who says that he is prepared to bring forward an amendment at the Report stage—and the most practical thing for us to do would be for us possibly to get together and see whether we can agree a joint amendment in which possibly the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), would also like to participate. I have also listened to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, on the CORAD Report. In those circumstances, I think it would be appropriate for me not to move Amendment No. 3, which is the amendment specifically concerned with the disabled members of the commission. But the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, has expressed his willingness to accept Amendment No. 1, and on those grounds I beg leave to move this amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Kilmarnock Lord Kilmarnock moved Amendment No. 2:
[Printed earlier: col. 211.]
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy moved Amendment No. 4:
Page I, leave out line 10 and insert ("the Home Department, after consultation with the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Social Services")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 4 standing in my name. Like my other amendments, this is to meet criticisms which were voiced at Second Reading and in discussions elsewhere. With this Bill, I am aiming to provide a more acceptable alternative to the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill which has been sponsored by the noble Earl, Lord Longford. Within reasonable limits, I would be prepared to put down amendments to meet substantial points that have been made. The other Bill did run into doubts
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and objections. For example, the question whether making discrimination illegal is the most practicable way of proceeding, given the difficulties of defining both discrimination and disablement. The Government have seen objections to the other Bill on that score and I share some of those objections. My object therefore is that this Bill should be a vehicle for making progress against discrimination, and disadvantages suffered in general by disabled people, which can command the widest support.
In the Second Reading debate, and in many of the talks which I have had with people concerned, there was a preference shown for the apppointing Minister to be the Home Secretary, and my first amendment brings that about. This is not simply a health subject but involves the rights and equality of disabled people and others, and humanitarian matters in general. The Home Secretry is the Minister who appoints the Equal Opportunities and Race Relations Commisssions. I have proposed that this be done in consultation with other Ministers concerned. I regard this as important, first because the Secretary of State for Scotland is the Minister for both home affairs and health in Scotland (the Home Secretary's writ does not run there) but he is not responsible for social security. On that, the Secretary of State for Social Services is responsible, both north and south of the Border.
There are aspects of the existing system of administrative devolution which must be kept in mind. This is best illustrated as follows. In the debate on the Second Reading of both Bills on 16th December, my noble friend Lord Glenarthur assured us that the Minister for the disabled had a mandate to cover the whole of the United Kingdom, and I was very glad of that assurance. However, during the International Year of Disabled People, when I was the chairman of the international year for Scotland, the then Minister for the disabled Sir Hugh Rossi announced, in a debate in the other place on 3rd July, a competition including a panel of judges which was part of the international year. From the reading of Hansard and the press reports, it seemed clear that everybody who took part in that debate thought that it covered the whole country but I was suspicious because I noted the judges all came from England. So I wrote to Sir Hugh Rossi on the 20th July 1981 and made inquires. Of course, I then received the answer that it applied only in England. Also in his reply he went on to say that because of the separate health departments, the separate finances for the health departments in Scotland, England—and I think Wales—in this case and in other cases he could only take initiatives and do direct dealings in matters affecting England although he could influence the other parts of the United Kingdom. I give that as an example because that is why the amendment which I am moving makes the Home Secretary responsible but requires him to have consultations with other Ministers who are responsible for home affairs and health in other parts of the country. I beg to move.
Lord Ennals: If it is of any relief to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, I shall support every other amendment that he has tabled, but I do not want to support this one. In fact, I want to put forward some arguments to seek to change his mind, although I must say that if the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, were to

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leap to his feet—which he has not been doing very much of in these debates—and to say that the Government would accept this Bill, because of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord Campbell, then of course I would immediately sit down and say that I would take anything if the Government would accept it. But there is no sign of the noble Lord leaping to his feet. So, in spite of the discussions that the noble Lord has had, quite clearly he has not managed to persuade his noble friend the Minister. So I think it is far better that it should he done by the Secretary of State for Social Services, though I fully agree that he should consult with the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales and, of course, the Secretary of State for the Home Office, and I would have thought with the other Government departments that have an interest. There are about nine other Government departments that have an interest one way or another in disabled people, such as the Department of Transport in connection with the organge badge scheme; the Department of Employment, the Department of Education—I need not run through the whole list. But of course he should consult as widely as possible, and maybe the noble Lord would think that it would he wise to have an amendment which says that he should consult. But we are looking at who should take the initiative, and if one looks at the role of the Secretary of State for Social Services, it seems to me that he is the most appropriate Minister.
Most of the provisions for disabled people are the results of DHSS initiatives. This is whether it is in the field of cash benefits, which later amendments will, I think quite properly, remove from the Bill; whether it is the assistance that is given by health authorities to disabled people often in their own homes and with particular types of equipment and aids; whether it is the provision of social service benefits and the assistance of social workers and again under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act the many forms of assistance that local authorities can provide, and if one also recognises that the Minister for the Disabled is of course a DHSS Minister.
The very fact that Sir Hugh Rossi got it wrong and made a boob is no reason why there should be an amendment. Certainly, in my day as Secretary of State for Social Services, when Mr. Alf Morris was the Minister for the Disabled, not only did he consult other Government departments, but he was also the chairman of the interdepartmental committee involving all the Government departments which, in one way or another, were concerned with disabled people. I am not so much in touch now with how things work in the department. Perhaps this would be a moment for the noble Lord to enlighten us. I hope however that that interdepartmental committee still operates and that it is not a form of quango that has been abolished, as was the Personal Social Services Council. One of the best ways to look at all the needs of disabled people is to have one person who is especially concerned and then to consult all the other Government departments which have a special interest.
I believe that I have certainly proved that the Secretary of State for Social Services, with his Minister for the Disabled, is in the best possible position to know the people who would best serve on the
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commission. It was to the Secretary of State that the CORAD committee reported, and, as I am certain the noble Lord will recognise, most of the initiatives that were taken during the International year were taken by the Secretary of State for Social Services. So I hope that there will perhaps be an amendment to ensure that there is maximum consultation with other departments. But I hope that if it is to be a choice between the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Social Services, it will be borne in mind that it is the Secretary of State for Social Services who has the natural responsibility for the welfare of disabled people in this country.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: In a way, I rather feel able to support the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, because I think that the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, has made a very good point in that he has illustrated that the present DHSS is not interested in disabled people; and sadly there are no Lords a leaping from the ministerial Bench. Perhaps if the responsibility lay with the Home Office—and I know personally the Home Secretary, who is an exceedingly hardworking person—disabled people in this country might he better off.
Lord Campbell of Croy: Well, I make no further comment on that at this stage. I am not surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, should be taking this line, because he was a distinguished Secretary of State for Social Services and he knows how much there is to be done in that department and no doubt he considers that this responsibility should lie there. But, certainly in the Second Reading debate, there were voices which suggested that the responsibility should lie with the Home Secretary in preference to the Secretary of State for Social Services. But the Secretary of State for Social Services was my first choice, and, indeed, my amendment was put down in order to bow to what seemed to be overwhelming opinion of another kind.
In case there was any misunderstanding, I must point out that what Sir Hugh Rossi was telling me at the time related to departmental budgets and the difficulties of moving money if there is a scheme with prizes which is going to cost money. I am sure that he was co-ordinating on committees and doing all those things. But when one gets to projects and schemes, one runs up against barriers that are no doubt set up by the Treasury. That is why I think, as the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, agrees, it is necessary to bring in other Ministers and ministries.
I do not know whether any other noble Lords wish to speak on the amendment; no other noble Lord seems to be rising to his feet. But if there is an objection from the Opposition Front Bench, I can certainly take away the amendment and think about it, since I could put it down again at the Report stage.
Lord Ennals: I was present during the Second Reading debate and I was not really aware that there was a mass of opinion saying, "We want the Home Secretary". I do not know whether the noble Lord can give any arguments in favour of it; he has not yet done so.
Lord Hylton: Before the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, replies, I should like to put a point to him. Clause 6 states that,
"This Act shall not extend to Northern Ireland"
though I now understand that that is being changed. It had made me wonder why the noble Lord wanted the Secretary of State to be consulted. I am delighted that the Bill is to extend to Northern Ireland, where there are many disabled people, where there is general poverty, and where needs are very great.
Lord Campbell of Croy: The question of the Bill not extending to Northern Ireland (which I propose to explain when we reach the relevant amendment) involved a financial matter, covering the question of pensions and benefits when, in fact, they were in the Bill. But that situation will not continue, since I hope that my amendment to extend the Bill to Northern Ireland will be passed when we reach it.
In view of what has been said from the Opposition Front Bench, I certainly will not press this amendment. I noted some comments made during the Second Reading debate. I have also had many comments from people who took part in the Second Reading debate, as well as from people who are concerned with the subject, who did not take part in the Second Reading debate, but who, in meetings upstairs and elsewhere, have told me that they would think the Bill better if the Home Secretary were the appointing Minister. In particular they referred to the Home Secretary's role (which I mentioned right at the beginning) with the race relations commission and the Equal Opportunities Commission, on the basis that this type of discrimination question comes into that kind of category. I shall not start an argument about that, and I think that at this stage the best course would be for me to withdraw the amendment so that I shall be able to talk about it to those concerned and then consider whether I should table it again at the Report stage. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Banks, is rising to his feet.
Lord Banks: I wish to say only a few brief words and to support what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, said when he described what took place during our Second Reading debate. I was certainly one of those who suggested that it might be better for the power to be exercised by the Home Secretary, on the very grounds that have been given by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. On that day, since we were also considering the Bill brought forward by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, we were concentrating on discrimination and outlawing discrimination, and it seemed that there was a case for having all of the Government apparatus (if I may so call it) dealing with that under one roof and that it should be within the Home Office.
I believe that there is still a case for that, though this particular Bill is in a way divided between discrimination and disadvantages; and, of course, disadvantages go much further and may be linked to considerations other than those which moved us when perhaps we had the other Bill in the forefront of our minds. However, I think it is worth considering the matter further and bearing in mind the desirability of having all powers dealing with discrimination handled by the one Minister.
Lord Campbell of Croy: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.59 p.m.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth)Baroness Darcy (de Knayth) moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 1, line 15, after ("the") insert ("chairman and").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment was originally no more than a probing amendment to learn a little more about the kind of people whom the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, envisaged having on the commission. I put down the amendment long before the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, put down his amendment to extend the size of the commission. Under the Bill as at present drafted, only the deputy chairman has to be full-time, though the other members can be full-time. I feel that now that the commission is to be larger, perhaps we should have two full-time members, and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, will agree. I do not feel that one of them should necessarily be the chairman, though perhaps he would be the most suitable. I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, thinks. I beg to move.
Lord Campbell of Croy: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising this point for clarification. I think that it would be useful if, at this stage, I indicated the purpose of the Bill. I am perfectly willing to listen to views and to make changes. What occurs to me immediately is that an amendment which might be more suitable (and which could be tabled for the Report stage) would be one that proposed that the deputy chairman and one other member of the commission should be full-time, particularly in view of its enlargement. I should like to suggest that the chairman should not be tied to being a full-time member. It leaves the option open for securing the best available person and the widest choice. As the noble Baroness has indicated, there is nothing to stop it: the word "may" is there. The chairman could be full-time but there are technicalities which arise about full-time and part-time when members are appointed to Commissions of this kind. They have to give up all directorships, partnerships and other occupational and business interests. When that happens it eliminates some of the most suitable of the people who would otherwise be available—especially the younger ones.
I must remind the House that I was a Secretary of State who had to make many appointments to various bodies and boards, including chairmen. I found that when I had to try to find a full-time chairman—because the statute required him to be full-time—it was exceedingly difficult. The first 10 people suggested from all quarters had to be crossed off because they could not give up everything; they could give up good deal, but one or two things were their life and they could not give them up—even something which met only twice a month. So there are these technicalities which have the effect of removing well-qualified people from consideration.
I also add that in my experience I found it particularly difficult when it came to approaching women to be appointed as chairmen. I had a record of appointing

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quite a number of women as chairmen and members of bodies when I was a Secretary of State, but it was particularly difficult when it was a full-time job because many women could do a very good part-time job as members or chairmen but found it difficult when it was written into the statute as full-time, either because they had some interest which they could not give up or because they simply did not have the time to do what was described as a full-time job. Instead of excellent candidates in their forties or fifties, one very often had to rely for full-time chairmen on people who were retired completely and were in their late sixties or seventies. So I hope we will not put a restriction of this kind on a commission where we want to try to secure the best possible available group, including the chairman.
Lord Ennals: We are a hit short of executives. I entirely agree with every word of that former Secretary of State, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for his full reply, and I totally appreciate his point about not wanting to limit the choice of chairman to someone who should be full-time because the best person may not he able to give his service full-time. I am glad he agrees that we can have one more full-time person, and I think his suggestion of putting down an amendment of "and one other" on Report is a very good one. I have no hesitation in withdrawing the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 1 stand part of the Bill?
8.4 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: Perhaps I could just say something first on Clause 1 stand part. I see the noble Earl, Lord Longford, rising but I simply want to indicate that I am perfectly willing, as a result of representations that have been made to me, and also because of what was said in the debate I think by my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox, that one's mind should be open to the possibility of some existing body doing the job that is now set out for the commission and thereby not have to establish a new commission. Certainly some misgivings have been expressed about bringing into existence yet another new commission. I should point out that in the Bill the commission is a small and inexpensive body, even though it has been slightly enlarged by the amendments we have just made.
Provided that there is an existing body—perhaps a voluntary organisation which has been concerned with disabled people for 20 years of more—and it clearly has the resources, or resources specially buttressed for this purpose, I should like to indicate that I would not close my mind to that. But I must make this clear: if a voluntary organisation which is normally financed entirely by voluntary contributions were to be suggested, I feel most strongly that this part of its work should be carried out with grants from the Government. It would surely be wrong for the work of investigation and reporting on alleged discrimination to be financed by the haphazard system of responses to
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letters from appeal committees and similar arrangements with which many of us are familiar. This would be another way. It would be a less expensive way of making progress outside Government departments and offices than a new commission.
That is a very important point because I know the Government's attitude in recent times has been that the work of a commission can all be done within the Government machinery. I and others, I think, know only too well that many of the complaints of discrimination which come to us are about Government departments and Government offices, and there can never be complete satisfaction that such complaints can be seen to be investigated fully and with impartiality when it is done by the same Department or a sister Department. After all, that was the reason for the setting up of an ombudsman to look into the question of maladminstration.
I just want to make the point that if there is to be investigation by a body outside the Government machinery, and if there are overwhelming objections to a Commission, then I would be perfectly happy—but I think it would be less satisfactory—for some existing voluntary body (if it were really qualified to do it) to take on this task.
The Earl of Longford: The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, very courteously refrained from criticising my Bill when it was going through the Committee stage, and I therefore feel the least I can do is to follow his example and remain as silent as the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur. I will make sure that on this occasion the best is not the enemy of the good. I think my Bill is better but I think there is a great deal to be said for the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Banks, pointed out, in some respects it would confer benefits on the disabled which are not covered in my Bill. All I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy is that I wish him well.
Viscount Ingleby: May I say a brief word here and ask the Minister this. When handicapped people experience difficulties or, indeed, something which they might call discrimination, does he feel that the existing channels of communication are adequate, bearing in mind his statement on Second Reading about the offer by the Minister for the Disabled to act as a channel in this regard? He stated that at that date only 21 enquiries had been received.
Baroness Masham of Ilton; I should like to ask a question of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy. Under this Bill, if there is an obvious case of discrimination—for example, not calling a disabled person for a job interview solely because he is disabled even though he is qualified with excellent references, and all other external factors are suitable—and if it is very obviously a case of discrimination, what would the commission do about it? If they attempt to conciliate and fail, what recourse does a disabled person have and what power has the commission?
I support the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, when he says that the Commission ought to be independent. So many voluntary bodies are worried about raising funds, and they spend so much of their

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energy raising funds and worrying whether they can carry on. As he has so rightly said, so many of the problems are right across the board with many different government departments being involved.
I have been attending the all-party disablement committee today and there was great concern from the Spastics Society because of the move out of the large mental institutions by mentally handicapped people into the community, where some local authorities and health authorities are not coming together and adequately planning this move. It is felt that there may be some very severe problems which need to be dealt with. The ghetto situation, which arises when the places where they are living are sometimes far from suitable, is becoming a problem. Therefore, more than ever before I think that there is a need for an independent commission.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Glenarthur): The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, need wait no longer for me to rise to my feet. I have been waiting for a suitable opportunity to speak on the Question, Whether Clause I shall stand part of the Bill. But the Committee will be aware, as my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy said, of the Government's position regarding the Bill. I stated it as clearly as I could during the Second Reading debate in December. That basic position has not changed. Of course my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy has himself suggested deleting some references to benefits and pensions, thus removing some obvious pieces of duplication between his proposed commission and the work of an existing body, the Social Security Advisory Committee.
However, the point remains that such a commission would be expensive to establish and run, and would duplicate work already going on elsewhere both in the voluntary and the statutory sectors. One of the most obvious examples is that of access. That is generally acknowledged to be one of the main causes of disadvantage suffered by disabled people, and would undoubtedly also be a major concern of a disablement commission, such as that proposed by the Bill. But a national access committee for England is being set up with funding from the Government, and is about to start its work. It would be more sensible to see what impact this has in tackling this major problem before establishing yet another national body.
In answer to the particular question raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, let me point out that there have been one or two further complaints since I spoke during the Second Reading debate on the Bill. I do not have the exact number; all I am able to tell him now is that there have been one or two. But the existing channel for communication is working well. My honourable friend the Minister for the disabled is well aware of many of the issues which have been discussed. Indeed, they have been discussed outside your Lordships' Chamber during the passage of this Bill and the Bill of the noble Earl, Lord Longford. In the light of what I have said about the Government's position as regards the Bill, I have to say to the Committee that I do not propose to comment now one way or the other on the amendments which have been proposed to it.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: Before the noble Lord sits down, I should like to ask him a question about the access committee which I wholeheartedly welcome and whose chairman I know. What will the access committee do when it is faced with matters of discrimination? I hope that it may tackle the problem of fixed rails at London Airport which stop any wheelchair-bound person using the facilities.
Lord Glenarthur: I had hoped that I had just explained to the noble Baroness that the access committee is being set up and is about to start its work. We shall have to see how it goes before I can answer the question which has been raised by the noble Baroness.
Viscount Ingleby: Will the Minister be kind enough to consider a little further the point that I raised? He mentioned that there have been one or two more inquiries, which I think would bring the total up to 22 or 23. On that evidence, surely the explanation for the fact that the Minister has only received 23 inquiries is either that disabled people are not suffering disadvantage or discrimination, or that disabled people do not feel that this is a satisfactory way in which to raise their difficulties?
Lord Glenarthur: I cannot really comment any more than I have already. I made the Government's position perfectly plain on Second Reading. We believe that the situation as it stands is the best way in which to cope with the problem. I shall certainly read the noble Viscount's comments; but beyond that I have nothing further to say.
Lord Ennals: I cannot say that I am disappointed with the noble Lord because I knew that he was going to be as negative as he has been. Of course one welcomes the access committee, but the supposition that the only disadvantages and discriminations that disabled people face are those of access, is one that I could not for a moment accept. However, I do not intend to proceed with an argument about that.
The figures regarding those who have registered with the Minister their concerns or their complaints, mean nothing. Indeed, I can add one further case to those figures, because I have just written to the Minister today enclosing a letter from someone else who made a complaint. But it is not normally to a Minister that people write, especially to a Minister who has many other functions. The Minister for the disabled is also the Minister for all sorts of other matters and he carries out his duties very well. But dealing with disablement is only a part of his job. Most people would not naturally write to a Minister if they were concerned. It may be that they think that the Government are not doing their job right. Thus there is advantage in having an independent body.
So, in general, I welcome the initiative taken by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell; but I have to say that in my view his is a pretty modest proposal compared with that of my noble friend Lord Longford. If one had to make a choice between the two Bills, I know that I would strongly support the Bill, as it has so far been amended, that has been moved by my noble friend Lord Longford. But if we have to find a fallback position, if the Government decide to use the same

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powers in another place as they used to prevent the same Bill getting a Second Reading, and if there is a possibility of this modest proposal coming through, then I would rather have a modest proposal than nothing at all. It is in that mood that I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, for bringing forward what I consider to be a long stop alternative.
Lord Campbell of Croy: I should like to reply very briefly to the points that have been raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, raised a case concerning employment. In my opinion, in that type of case, if the person accused had legal proceedings brought against him, he would undoubtedly get off with a good lawyer—even with an adequate lawyer—because he would be able to plead various other reasons for not having employed the person concerned. The commission proposed under the Bill is limited to investigating, reporting—and the reports would be to Parliament—and to publicising, because the reports would be public. It does not try to bring the person concerned to a court, but in my opinion it would be more effective.
I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for the kind words which he said. Of course I should be very grateful if he did want to comment on or criticise the Bill. I maintained silence during the discussion on his Bill because the points that I am dealing with now were more appropriate to raise today.
I thank my noble friend Lord Glenarthur for again expressing the Government's attitude, which I do understand. However, there is one matter that I should like to raise. My noble friend referred to the access committee. I hope that I am not being mischievous when I state that I heard him referring to it as a national access committee established for England. That brings out my point, because my noble friend is briefed to tell us what is happening for England, but I want to hear what is happening for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well. The DHSS is the Health Department for England and this is the "Rossi syndrome" which I mentioned earlier.
But an access committee is not the same as a commission like the one proposed. The access committee will look into all the problems of getting into buildings for public use. To illustrate what I mean I will mention one point which I mentioned on Second Reading. As regards access, possibly the perpetrators of some of the worst obstacles in the country are churches of all denominations, because they have so many steps and difficulties. An access committee does not necessarily deal with discrimination; an access committee would be trying to find all the ways of improving access to churches in the most inexpensive way for the congregations, et cetera, but it would not start treating that as a matter of discrimination. Therefore, I see the role of the commission as quite a different one.
Of course, access is a matter that will arise in certain allegations of discrimination, but an access committee has very much wider work to carry out. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, will not mind my mentioning an event which took place when I was chairman for Scotland in the International Year for Disabled People. I am sure that she will correct me if I am wrong. During the year a ceremony was held in
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St. Paul's Cathedral and one of the administrative problems was getting the noble Baroness, in her wheelchair, into that cathedral for the service. There were no easy methods of doing so, and one has only to think of the front of St. Paul's to appreciate that. There were no easy methods round the back either. I give that as an illustration because certainly Sir Christopher Wren and others were not trying to discriminate against disabled people. However, that is the kind of thing with which an access committee would deal. It is not the kind of thing which I regard this commission as being brought into existence to deal with.
Lord Glenarthur: Before my noble friend thinks that I made his point rather better for him than he made it himself, he might like to know that the other three countries of the United Kingdom have already established access committees.
Lord Campbell of Croy: Thank you.
Viscount Ingleby: May I just inform the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, that there is now a splendid lift at St. Paul's?
Lord Campbell of Croy: I was aware that it was installed, I think as a result of the incident to which I referred.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Duties of Commission]:
8.23 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 2, line 8, after ("disadvantages") insert ("experienced").
The noble Lord said: This is a straightforward drafting amendment. Somehow in the printing of the Bill a word was omitted. This amendment would put it in. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth)Baroness Darcy (de Knayth) moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 2, line 9, leave out ("deliberate").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment would enable the commission to look at cases of unintentional discrimination as well as at deliberate cases. I think that we are all agreed that, in fact, 90 per cent.—and probably much more—of cases of discrimination stem from ignorance, thoughtlessness and lack of imagination. Very few people actually set out to discriminate against disabled people in the first place. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, himself said on Second Reading at column 421 of Hansard of 16th December 1983:
"The large majority of situations in which handicapped people are at a disadvantage and could be thought to be discriminated against are not intentionally created or contrived".
However, in Clause 2(1)(a) the commission is to consider only cases of deliberate discrimination. From the debate at Second Reading when he was dealing with the noble Earl's Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, seemed to fear that the rural bus service would rapidly disappear and that the churches would become impoverished if they had to be made

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accessible. But I do not think that he need have worried because there was, of course, the concept of "reasonableness" written into the noble Earl's Bill, and we see that my noble friend Lady Masham is seeking to embody the concept of "reasonableness" in this Bill with Amendment No. 11.
I must also be honest and make it clear that, like the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, I prefer the Bill of the noble Earl, Lord Longford. We are in this very difficult situation of both Bills going through the House at the same time. But in case the noble Earl's Bill fails, I think that we must strengthen the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell.
There are many cases of unintentional discrimination that should and can be rectified. There is the example of guide dogs not being admitted to restaurants under the no-pets rule. This is really due to lack of understanding about the way in which guide dogs behave in restaurants, which is not like other dogs. There is the pedestrianisation of shopping areas, which can be a boon to the wheelchair disabled and also to the ambulant disabled if there are parking places provided nearby, but otherwise can turn these areas into a nightmare of inaccessibility.
With a bit of thought, such problems could easily have been solved in the first place. Bearing in mind that it is only unreasonable behaviour and barriers about which we are talking, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, will think that he can accept this amendment. I beg to move.
Viscount Ingleby: I should like to support this amendment. Like the noble Baroness, I think that the vast majority of cases of discrimination are not deliberate.
Lord Campbell of Croy: It would perhaps save time if I spoke immediately. For myself, I see no difficulty about accepting this amendment, but, in reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy, who moved it, I must explain that subsection (1)(a), which was to consider disadvantages experienced by disabled people, was meant to cover the kind of discrimination which is intentional, because I wanted the discrimination to be looked into here to be those forms of discrimination which appear to be deliberate.
I am, in the hands of your Lordships' Committee as to whether or not to accept this change. I note that in Amendment No. 11 the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, has proposed a definition of "discrimination". I think that we should take that into account as well. However, I should he satisfied to accept the amendment which is now before us, though I should be perfectly ready to listen to any views expressed in the other direction.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I am delighted to hear the noble Lord's words because, although it is a very small amendment, it is really quite important and I think it strengthens this Bill a great deal.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 2, line 12, leave out paragraph (b).
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this amendment and with it I suggest that Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 might be considered.
Amendment No. 9: Page 2, line 16, leave out ("under paragraphs (a) and (b) above").
Amendment No. 10: Page 2, line 36, leave out from ("1970") to end of line 40.
Amendment No. 10 has a star against it, but it has been down for several days. It is simply that, unknown to me, the form has been changed. It makes no difference to the words that are taken out. When I first presented a Bill on these lines in another place after I had been successful in the annual ballot there, the question of pensions and benefits was a most urgent subject. Since then, and, felicitously, when I was a member of the Cabinet in the early 1970s, the principal allowances for disability were introduced. So, while there is still a need for these matters to be kept under review, I do not believe that they need be in this Bill.
There is also now an advisory committee in existence, and this brings me to a further point. If your Lordships' Committee agrees with me on this and believes that the advisory committee can cover the whole area, then personally I should be ready to drop subsection (2) of Clause 2 as well. That would mean that the commission would not have any responsibilities for looking at the financial emoluments of disabled people. However, I should prefer to hear the views of the Committee before proposing to table that amendment before the Report stage. If I was satisfied that everybody agrees that the advisory committee should and can do all this work, then that would be an amendment which I should add to these that I am moving today. I beg to move.
Lord Kilmarnock: I was about to suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, that, if he removes subsection (1)(b), as I think he rather implied, in fact, subsection (2) is also unnecessary, and perhaps the whole of Clause 3 as well. I must confess that I think the Bill is running into difficulties here. I understand the noble Lord's thinking that the Social Security Advisory Committee has been established and is already keeping under review all pensions and benefits for disabled persons. If the noble Lord wants to go down that road, and if he is going to rely on the SSAC, it seems to me logical that he will need to drop subsection (2) of this clause and also Clause 3, which also becomes superfluous.
Lord Campbell of Croy: As regards subsection (2), that is what I was suggesting, but not Clause 3. Clause 3 is an important clause, which requires the Secretary of State within one month to place before Parliament reports which would be made under what is at present paragraph (c) in Clause 2.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy moved Amendment No. 9:
[Printed earlier.]
On Question, amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 2, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Ennals: I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, will take out subsection (2) when we come to Report stage. Any reference to a review of the pensions and benefits is inappropriate in the Bill.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: Before the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, replies, may I say that I was delighted to hear a, "Content" from the Government Bench—from the noble Lord, Lord Lyell—which was so nice.
Lord Campbell of Croy: On Clause 2 stand part: that was a voice from the Opposition Front Bench that I was glad to hear in favour of dropping subsection (2), which is what I was asking for opinions on. I shall certainly be tabling an amendment to take out subsection (2) at Report stage. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, asked me a question about functions of the commission which I said would be more appropriate for Clause 2 stand part, but I think I answered her question when she raised the case concerning employment. Therefore, I do not think that we need pursue that again.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 3 and 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Interpretation]:
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy moved Amendment No. 10:
[Printed earlier.]
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Masham of Ilton Baroness Masham of Ilton moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 2, line 36, at end insert—
(" and
() "discrimination" against disabled people means imposing conditions which will adversely affect them to an unreasonable extent.")
The noble Baroness said: During 1970 when Members of both your Lordships' House and another place were working together in a committee on the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill I showed the Bill to my noble kinsman, the late first Earl of Swinton. Some of your Lordships may remember the noble Earl, as I do, as a Member of your Lordships' House with immense parliamentary experience and having a clear, legally trained mind. The noble Earl said that the Bill should have a definition of "disability". I took that message to the committee, who agreed, and a definition was incorporated.
I find that in this very reasonable Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, "discrimination" is not defined. Therefore, I bring before your Lordships what I hope your Lordships will agree is an amendment which will benefit the Bill. I feel that it is useful to have "discrimination" defined, as I hope it brings with it a message that I believe to be the wish of everyone, disabled people and able-bodied people alike, that we should all work together to smooth our problems and help these unfortunate people who sometimes feel that the difficulties of life, because of their disabilites, are so great that the odds against them are insurmountable. I beg to move.
Viscount Ingleby: I should like to support this amendment. It seems to me to be admirably clear and simple. May I also express my preference for the phrase "handicapped people" rather than "disabled people".
Lord Campbell of Croy: I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, for having raised this matter. I remember her noble kinsman the late Lord Swinton, and I would regard his advice as very wise advice, but in these situations I have often received legal advice which conflicts. It is a good thing to have a definition in some cases, but in other cases it is much better not to have a definition where the subject is a difficult matter to define.
I think I rather prefer to have a definition, having seen this one. It was circulated to me only yesterday, but I have been able to get some quick advice from at least one legal mind in your Lordships' House. He said that he could not be here at this moment but he is interested in these matters, and he thought that this looked a good definition. I agree to it in principle, but if there is any question of the word "handicapped" going in instead of "disabled" I should like to suggest that perhaps we leave it to Report stage, when there will have been more time to get some advice on the exact wording.
Baroness Darcy (De Knayth): May I say a few words here, because I totally support my noble friend on the principle. I think it is necessary to define "discrimination" and to embody the concept of "unreasonableness". However, I am not sure whether she would cover all the aspects of discrimination. Indeed, I do not think that she would cover the instance she gave earlier where the disabled person was discriminated against when applying for a job. I do not think it covers the circumstance where a disabled person is treated less favourably than an able-bodied one would be in identical circumstances. Therefore, I hope that she might reconsider the wording of this amendment.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: I thank all noble Lords who have spoken and given advice. With the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, and others I shall take it away and try to get something of satisfaction to everyone, and to see that it covers everything that is necessary. What I wanted to do was to keep it simple because this is a fairly simple, straightforward Bill and I did not want to complicate it. I shall certainly do that, and I have pleasure in withdrawing this amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6 [Short title and extent]:
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 2, leave out line 42.
The noble Lord said: I am advised that there is no difficulty with the Bill as amended, and, in present circumstances, in extending it to Northern Ireland; and that is the effect of this amendment. I know it will give pleasure to the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, who raised as his only objection to the Bill at Second Reading that it did not extend to Northern Ireland. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule [Constitution of the Disablement Commission]:
On Question, Whether the schedule shall be the schedule to the Bill?
Lord Campbell of Croy: As there is nobody speaking to the Schedule, may I simply thank all who have taken part in this Committee stage and made such contributions to improving the Bill. May I say to my noble friend Lord Glenarthur that I hope that when the final version appears, after all this assistance, it will commend itself to the Government.
Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the amendments.

Housing and Building Control Bill
8.40 p.m.
House again in Committee.
Clause 29 [Meaning of "secure tenancy"]:
Lord Skelmersdale: I think I can help the Committee. Amendment No. 70 was spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, with Amendment No. 46, as was Amendment No. 71.
[Amendments Nos. 70 and 71 not moved.]
Clause 29 agreed to.
Clause 30 agreed to.
Clause 31 [Interpretation of Part I]:
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved Amendment No. 72.
[Printed earlier.]
The noble Lord said: This is a simple drafting, clarifying amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 31, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 32 [Giving and acceptance of an initial notice]:
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol moved Amendment No. 73:
Page 32, line 34, at end insert ("or if a notice has previously been given for the same work (or any part of it) and has been cancelled for the reason specified in section 37(1)(c) below").
The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 73 extends the local authorities reasons for refusal of an initial notice to include certain circumstances in which an original initial notice had been cancelled. I am also speaking to Amendment No. 92.
Amendment No. 92: Page 40, line 43, after ("notice") insert ("(except where section 37(1)(c) applies) ").
Clause 37(1) will require an approved inspector to withdraw from this role, either if he feels that he is, or will become, incapable of fulfilling it or if, under paragraph (c) of that subsection, he is of the opinion that there has been a contravention of the building regulations and has given notice to the builder or developer to rectify that contravention and the builder or developer fails to do so.
In such a case the approved inspector must withdraw his involvement and notify the local
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authority. But there is nothing in the Bill to stop the builder or developer from shopping around to find another, perhaps less conscientious, inspector, to take over the work, so the builder or developer could continue to flout the building regulations.
Clause 37(1)(c) demonstrates an essential weakness of the new system, in that an approved inspector will lack the teeth to enforce the building regulations. These amendments seek to prevent a series of initial notices being issued where the first has been cancelled either because the approved inspector feels that he is incapable of fulfilling his functions or where there has been a breach of building regulations and the approved inspector has not been able to bring about compliance. In that case, the supervision should revert to the local authority for it to use its enforcement powers. It should not be left to the builder or developer to shop around for a more amiable approved inspector. I beg to move.
Lord Broxbourne: Unless I have failed to understand the amendment, it seems to involve an unnecessary duality. As I understand it, it would make mandatory under Clause 32 the rejection of an initial notice by the local authority when the notice has already been cancelled by the inspector under Clause 37(1)(c) on the grounds that a builder has failed to remedy defects within the three months' statutory period. That involves an unnecessary duality and, in a statute that will necessarily be as long and complex as this, we should be at pains to try to avoid that. I think that, on reflection, noble Lords opposite may feel it to be a case of overkill and may wish to withdraw the amendment.
Viscount Hanworth: In a way, this amendment is a paving amendment for Clause 37. I cannot help going back to the Second Reading debate. It seems to me doubtful whether all these provisions for outside inspectors are necessary or whether the system could not be left as it was. However, I do not think at this stage that this is very important except to say that it seems that the Government are pursuing a doctrinal policy. It is a doctrinal policy with utter disregard for the side effects. It is these side effects on which the Government have been defeated three times in this Bill. It is strange that they should be so purblind as not to look at the issues with common sense.
We are dealing here, and in subsequent amendments, with something which is quite as important as anything that we have had before. It appears that these inspectors can be sacked by the contractors, just like that. If they do not like the inspector, after a little backwards and forwards, they get another one.
I challenge the Government to say whether this is not an absolute charter for dishonesty and corruption. Without amendments in the Bill that is exactly what it will be. I cannot understand how a responsible Government can so ignore the side effects of their legislation as they seem to do in this area.
We might remember one other matter; that is that in trying to see whether something conforms to building regulations is on-going. Once it is covered up nobody knows until possibly the building gets damp or, in an extreme case, it falls down. But this is absolutely

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monstrous unless something is done to amend it. This is only one of the small amendments; the first, which may be unimportant on its own merits, but it is vital to see that we do not land in a similar situation which we know has happened before with Poulson and others. I cannot conceive how any responsible Government can imagine that this will not happen.
Lord Irving of Dartford: Like the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, I feel tempted to make a Second Reading speech, but I should declare an interest as a vice-president of the ADC, as a member of a local authority with 32 years' experience and as a member associated with NALGO which has 4,000 control officers in membership and a large number of ancillary workers who all feel under threat.
Lord Broxbourne: I am grateful to the noble Lord for his characteristic courtesy. Will he repeat, spelling it out fully, the organisation which has the advantage of his vice-presidency, I could not identify it?
Lord Irving of Dartford: Yes, indeed, vice-president of the ADC, the Association of District Councils. I am glad to join with the noble Lord in this as in many other enterprises. The Secretary of State for the Environment, Mr. Heseltine, at the beginning of this piece in 1979 talked about national standards nationally enforced. Everything the Government have done since then has sought to fragment the service and, in my view, to disrupt a well-trained, well-established and independent service, to threaten standards, and to weaken the protection for owner and public alike. It will establish, alongside the present local government system, a class of inspector known as an approved inspector who can be chosen by the builder, who, as has already been said, can shop around and find an accommodating inspector if he does not like the actions of his particular approved inspector. There are none of the safeguards which apply in local government. I should like to remind your Lordships how strict they are. Every local government building control officer is subject to conditions that he must have no conflict of interest; that he must have no pecuniary interest that he does not declare; that he must not get involved in any kind of politics—and all these are subject to disciplinary sanctions if he defaults in any way.
The approved inspector will be exposed to all the commercial pressures without any of the protections available to the owner and the public today. If the approved inspector does not please he will not be appointed again. This could be a threat to the whole system of protection for which and to which the service is devoted at the moment. If this protection fails, the Government's action in providing compensation to owners who are injured or killed will be of little consolation. I should like, and I hope perhaps even at another stage, to explore the implications of this whole wretched measure in greater detail—but not tonight.
8.52 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: I had hoped before the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, spoke that I should be able to respond to the amendment as briefly as the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, moved it. I am afraid that that
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is not to be. Clause 32 provides the essential legal framework for enabling an approved inspector to undertake the functions of inspecting plans and supervising building work in place of the local authority. The noble Lord, Lord Irving, with all his experience of local authorities—and I hesitate to be drawn into the argument of whether that matches that of my noble friend Lord Broxbourne or not; they can settle it out of court, so to speak—said that the local authority officers in this respect are well-trained, well-established and working well. Well-trained, I would agree with, well-established, I would agree with; working well—how does he know? He has nothing to compare it with. I think this is the point. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, talked about doctrinal measures of this kind, or words to that effect.
With respect I do not again want to engage in a semantic argument with the noble Viscount but where do ideas come from? Sometimes, on rare occasions, ideas get translated into primary legislation or, on occasions, secondary legislation evolves from a general consensus of opinion; but this is very rare. I would suggest to him that all measures of all Governments have most of their foundations in some degree of doctrinality—if that word serves the purpose.
I should point out, going back to the Bill in hand, that this proposal of the Government will be an optional alternative available to a developer. He and his approved inspector will be able to serve a notice on the local authority which it will only be able to reject on limited grounds which will be set out in regulations. On acceptance of the notice the local authority's duty to enforce the building regulations will be suspended.
The inspector will then be responsible for seeing that the work secures the standards of health and safety required by the building regulations and will in due course issue a final certificate when the work is completed to his satisfaction. We will come to this later. If however the inspector considers that the work contravenes the regulations—and I think this is the point of the amendment—Clause 37 provides that he must give the developer a notice specifying the contravention. Our draft regulations require that the notice also specifies the measures required to remedy it. The developer then has a prescribed period (three months) in which to remove or remedy the offending work. At the end of the three months, if the work has not been put right, the approved inspector must cancel the initial notice.
This gives the developer a reasonable time in which to remedy a contravention and advance warning that the approved inspector might cancel the initial notice. Even though inspectors will not have the criminal enforcement powers of local authorities, they have this powerful sanction against developers who disregard their opinion and refuse to remedy what their inspector believes to be a contravention of the regulations. Cancellation and withdrawal in such circumstances would put the developer at serious risk of expense and delay.
If nonetheless the developer refused to alter the work, the inspector would have to cancel the initial notice. The local authority would then take over responsibility for the work unless the developer had been able in the meantime to find a second inspector prepared to take it on and give a second initial notice.

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I have painted the worse possible case—I hope it is to the advantage of the Committee—because these are the sort of things which have given grounds for suspicion to certain members of the Committee.
Lord Irving of Dartford: If, in the example that the noble Lord has given, the inspector virtually withdraws and the local authority is left with the job of controlling that development, is it not left with an impossible task, with no plans, with no supervision of the early work, of the foundations or of anything else? Then he has to deal with a situation which is quite intolerable and the local authority will have to do it with what could be in some respects an open-ended liability.
Lord Skelmersdale: No. This is untrue. The approved inspector is responsible for the work up to the point where the disagreement arises. If the disagreement has not been put right, then either the local authority or the first approved inspector or the second approved inspector would have the authority to get it put right for the development to continue beyond that point. I do not think it is an impossible situation. The original approved inspector would be totally liable in law for all the interim certificates given for the work up to that point.
Lord Irving of Dartford: What I am saying is that if, in fact, the inspector withdraws or has to withdraw) in the circumstances that the noble Lord indicates, how is he to know whether the early certificate was a valid one in the sense that the work was carried out effectively? They will have to proceed with the rest of the work without knowing about the foundations or other parts of the building and therefore could pile on to an original fault work that might then be at risk.
Lord Skelmersdale: No. The whole objective of the system is to break down into sections the building work on the development and a certificate must be issued at the end of the last section before the next section can be undertaken by the developer: so that we have this safeguard built into the scheme all the way along. If there is a row and a default on one side or the other, the inspector's certificates up to that point not only remain in force—because he will have been satisfied; otherwise he would not have signed the certificates—but, as I have said, he will be liable in law should his work subsequently prove to be defective or negligent.
However, perhaps I can now get on to the amendment. I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Irving, is convinced; but perhaps he will read what I have said and then perhaps he can come back to it later on. As far as these two amendments are concerned—and I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for talking to both of them together—I am certain that my noble friend Lord Broxbourne is not correct about duality. I am advised that, on the contrary, these amendments would prevent a second certifier taking over supervision of the building where the first certifier had withdrawn because he considered that the work contravened the building regulations and the builder had not altered or taken down the work in the prescribed period. It would follow that the local authority would always take over responsibility in such cases. The Government do not believe that this would be right.
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A difference of opinion about work on the site could arise between a builder and his certifier, and the view of one certifier might not always coincide with the view of another. It is possible for there to be honest differences of view about the interpretation or application of the building regulations. Indeed—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Irving, would bear me out—such differences are not uncommon now between local authorities, and what is permitted in one local authority from time to time is not necessarily permitted in another.
It has been suggested—not yet here, but I am sure that the suggestion will arise sooner or later, so I may as well deal with it—that a developer will be able to shop around until he finds a second approved inspector, who is prepared to certify work where the first inspector alleges contravention. I think that, in practice, this ruse is most unlikely to succeed. If the second inspector whom he approaches agrees with the first that there is a contravention, the chances of a third or fourth disagreeing will be slight, to say the least. In any case, we must remember that the approved inspector who took over from the first would be taking over responsibility for the work supervised by his predecessor. He would not do this lightly and I do not see the justification for precluding take-over whenever this situation arises, given that there is scope for genuine differences of opinion.
Therefore, the Government's view is that we must continue to allow for the possiblity of such genuine differences in professional views, and that it would be unfair to deprive the builder of the chance to engage a second certifier who would be prepared to certify that, in his view, the work complied. I do not see any justification for obliging the local authority to take over responsibility in every case where this situation arises. I also doubt—again, I am prepared to take advice—whether many local authorities would welcome that obligation. I therefore invite the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Viscount Hanworth: Before the noble Lord sits down, I should like to make one or two points. First, I realise that when I used the word "doctrinal" I was being a little unkind to the Government. What I mean is carrying forward what may well be a perfectly good policy into areas where it is just not applicable. I used the word "doctrinal" to refer to that.
The noble Lord has done something over my real worries about dishonesty, which go right through these clauses. But he has not gone as far as we must go, because, if the contractor sacks his own inspector, he is still at liberty, without consulting anybody or the council, to take on another more pliable inspector—and such inspectors will undoubtedly exist.
Perhaps the noble Lord would take away the worries I have raised and see what the Government think can be done in this direction. If the inspector has been sacked, as opposed to retiring, the council could be consulted, or something of that sort. If the noble Lord would only go away and see the point I have been making—without any undertaking—and will consider whether he can do anything, while realising that there is a problem in this area, then I shall not go on harrying him with subsequent amendments. That is a very decent promise.
Baroness Nicol: Before the noble Lord replies, may I deal with two points in one go? First, this is the first occasion on which the Minister has even suggested that there was anything unsatisfactory in the application of building control up to this point. In fact, he is on record, on two occasions at least, as saying that building control has been carried out very satisfactorily by the local authority; that was on the Second Reading of this Bill and of the earlier one. I am sorry that I did not bring the Official Report with me, but I did not expect this point to be raised. But it has been generally agreed that the system of building control by local authorities has been satisfactory, and it was the Government's wish to bring an element of competition into it that gave rise to this set of clauses.
Secondly, I must reiterate what my noble friend has said. We are not really concerned with the honest developer and the honest inspector, of whom there are many, and we make no bones about that. The vast majority of the people concerned will be honest and wish to do their jobs properly, and they probably will do their jobs properly. But in building as in almost no other industry in this country, we have been plagued wih cowboy builders and cowboy operators of all kinds, and it is against that kind of operation that we wish to defend ourselves and the general public.
For this reason, when an inspector leaves, for any reason other than illness, or for some perfectly acceptable reason—perhaps because of a row with his employer—then there should be no shopping around for a second approved inspector. It should then become the responsibility of the local authority to see the job through. Perhaps the Minister could take those points on board.
Lord Broxbourne: Before my noble friend replies, he said that there would be no duality, but could he identify how this can be so, since the initial notice is clearly cancelled and the two forms referred to in his draft inspector's regulations do not make any reference to the subsequent position after that? Once the initial notice has been cancelled, I should have thought—I am open to correction and conviction on this point—that there would be no point in taking the action proposed in the amendment, because the matter is already dead, so to speak, by reason of the cancellation.
It may well be that there should be further provisions, providing for a right of challenge to the cancellation and the various circumstances that ought to be provided for in that regard. But I do not see them in the Bill and in these voluminous documents at present. Perhaps my noble friend could identify them—if not now, at any rate on some occasion—or I should be equally happy to have the information from the noble Baroness opposite.
Lord Irving of Dartford: Would the noble Lord allow me a few sentences before he replies? He outlined a series of dramatic situations in which withdrawal might be appropriate; the conflict then arises as to whether you get another inspector or go to a local authority. But even if he ties up all these loopholes, is he not aware that the pressure could be much more subtle? An inspector completes one job, but he is found to be too tough. So there is no question
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of conflict—it is just that the next time he is not appointed. Therefore, there is no way in which the protection which the Minister has talked about could apply. This is one of the points we are worried about in terms of the integrity of inspectors.
Lord Skelmersdale: I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Irving of Dartford, can possibly be right. The complaints that I have received are not that the inspector will he too tough but that in carrying out his duties he will be too lax.
Lord Irving of Dartford: He will be too tough in terms of the builder, which may be a different criterion from the one which the noble Lord or I would apply.
Lord Skelmersdale: It is surely in his own interests not to be too tough so far as the builder is concerned. As the noble Lord says, he will want to get another job on another development. It has been suggested to me that he will be too lax from the point of view of the local authority, in which case the local authority will get to know very quickly and the next time round will refuse him an initial notice.
While on the subject of initial notices, the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, asked me exactly where in the Bill it is stated that the local authority will be informed in the event of the sacking of the first approved inspector. The answer is on page 40, in subsection (7) of Clause 38:
"The fact that an initial notice has ceased to be in force shall not affect the right to give a new initial notice".
In other words, if there is another inspector there is another initial notice. I hope that that explanation will satisfy the noble Viscount.
I must apologise to my noble friend Lord Broxbourne for the fact that he and I were talking at cross purposes. When I referred to duality I was talking about duality of the amendment, which does not exist. My noble friend was, I believe, talking about duality of the amendment with the Bill, which I accept would exist. Since we are not, I hope, going to agree this amendment, I hope that point will not arise.
Viscount Hanworth: The Minister said that if an inspector was too lenient the local authority would sack him. This could occur only in extreme cases. We are thinking about collusion between an inspector and a builder. If there is collusion it is very easy quite quickly to cover up shoddy work. What the noble Lord has said does not, therefore, cut very much ice. We still come back to the point that something must be done to ensure not only that there is no open invitation to collusion but also that there is no open invitation to all sorts of bribes for the inspector.
Lord Skelmersdale: I should have thought that collusion would result in negligence, which is an offence under a later clause of the Bill, to which I cannot turn at the moment. Since this is obviously a very complicated issue for the noble Viscount, perhaps we might with advantage discuss it outside in the near future.
Viscount Hanworth: I certainly agree to that proposal.
Baroness Nicol: The discussion has been fairly confusing for a number of noble Lords. The best course to adopt will be to read what has been said, to look again at the Bill and then to decide whether we wish to bring it back at a later stage. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.13 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 74:
Page 33, line 35, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").
The noble Lord said: One of the aggravations we have to face is the pressure on time, because this is one of a handful of most crucial issues that we are now beginning to debate. The sparse attendance in the Committee does not reflect the importance of this issue, which is the kernel of the basis by means of which the Government intend, in Part II of the Bill, to change the present system of building control and inspection, which is designed to prevent difficulties, to one which is underwritten or underpinned by an insurance system which will provide compensation after a tragedy or event has taken place. I begin by quoting the words of the Secretary of State in another place. When these matters were being discussed, he said:
"If there is no satisfactory insurance there will be no approved inspectors".—[Official Report, Commons, 15/11/83; col. 664.]
It is as simple as that. The kernel of the argument we shall deploy is that for more than five years the Government have sought agreement by consultation, by variation, among a range of people—not least those in the insurance industry. After five years, we stand here tonight, I will not say no further forward, because clearly some progress has been made, but with the insurance industry saying to the Government, "What we have seen is not an acceptable basis upon which we can say to the Government that a market can be created and the terms of the Bill can go forward". This is a lamentable situation. When one considers the time, the energy, the emotion, the disturbance and distress which has been caused in a range of fora by the Government's intentions, it is nothing short of scandalous.
Let us examine precisely what it is that the Government intend to do. The present situation is one whereby the public are protected from the event of dereliction by those who are charged with inspecting the footings, the buildings, the materials, the aspects and the range of qualities which need to he provided. The public are protected because at the moment there is a perfectly satisfactory system of inspection. It is a system of inspection carried out by approved inspectors. Those inspectors are the building control officers who have been approved by the system and by time. If the public, through the developer, pay a fee—and there are prescribed fees relating to the value of the development or the house—they then get a service. Up till now that service has satisfied the public. I do not wish to speak in complete unanimity because tragedies do occur and odd corruptions are revealed. But we are talking about the totality of the system, and the public are satisfied that the public inspector is able to give a satisfactory service.
The Government have indicated on page 33 of the Bill, line 35, in Clause 32(7):
"Building regulations may prescribe for the purposes of this section the insurance cover which is to be provided in relation to any work which is specified in an initial notice and is not work to which an approved scheme applies and may, in particular, prescribe the form and content of policies of insurance".
Amendment Nos. 74 to 77, to which I speak, cover the totality of those arguments.
In preparation for these debates, my noble friend Lady Nicol and I have not merely relied on our experience of serving on committee upon this Bill in the past. In order to refresh our minds, we sought meetings with a range of people representing a number of bodies with whom certainly the civil servants, who served the Minister well in his department, have met and consulted. I say this with no disrespect to the Minister, but he himself may not have met the individuals we are talking about—although when consultations take place, the Minister may be there, too, Certainly I am well aware that consultations have taken place.
We have held discussions with the Association of Consulting Engineers, the Society of Architectural and Associated Technicians, NALGO, the National Federation of Building Trade Employers, the British Insurance Brokers Association, the British Insurance Association, the Institute of Building Control Officers, the District Planning Officers' Society, the unattached architects, the National House Building Council, the District Surveyors' Association and the Royal Institute of Structural Engineers.
We did not meet them all in the same morning, not all on the same day, not all in the same week. But as a credential, we simply say that we have relied neither on prejudice nor on a brief for our memory or for our reading. We said to all of those organisations, "Tell us what you think about how the Bill looks now in the light of your experience and in the light of consultation papers". When we have asked the Minister, he has been kind enough to let us have consultation papers; sometimes we have obtained copies without asking him for them. I refer to the consultation papers of August, September, November and February.
We are not arguing abut the endeavour of the Minister to satisfy his imperative. His imperative is simply to produce a scheme that will work. What they have told us—without wishing to put words into their mouths—is that the scheme as at present on the table will not work. They have told us that it will not work. But that does not mean to say that it is not capable of being made to work by further consultation and improvement. I simply want the committee to stand aghast at the fact that after five years of an idea which most people said had grave difficulties the Government have yet to produce a basis.
Looking at the reality of parliamentary arithmetic, in a matter of months the Bill will become an Act and will be on the statute book with a range of triggers as to when various things can or cannot happen. Frankly, the Committee should be appalled at the emotional energy—if I may use that term—that has been generated in a range of forums, and at the alarms and depressions, let alone the steps that local authorities have to take on what is to happen. That is nothing short of a disgrace.
I want to stick strictly to the insurance aspect and the current situation. I rely very heavily on an opportunity I had when I attended a conference. I know that there are others not a thousand miles away from where I stand now who have responsibilities in these matters, who attended the same conference and who heard an eminent member of the insurance broking profession speaking to perhaps 200 people who will carry some responsibility in the inspection field. I am referring to the public sector as well as the private sector. The conference took place last week. Those people and their association invited this man, from his knowledge and sense of what is happening, to tell them, as he saw it, his impression of the present situation. I simply want to ask the Committee to listen to the words that I heard. I paraphrase them because I did not have a tape recorder and do not possess a verbatim record of what was said. One of the first things he said was:
"In the case of the Bill the demand is as yet unknown".
So we have the unusual situation of the importance, or even the success, of the Bill revolving around an insurance capacity which currently does not exist in the commercial insurance market. That was said by someone who, from his credentials, I respect although I have never met him. The Minister will be advised by his advisers that this person is an authority in that respect. I think it is a little disgraceful, in what I would say are the latter stages of the Bill, that that is the situation. He then went on:
"Whenever an insurance proposition is put to the market the response will depend heavily on the answers to two questions: one, full details of requirements; and, two, the likely demand".
Both questions are at present unanswered.
If we have a situation where the whole underpinning of a piece of legislation—the words of the Minister—is without adequate insurance arrangements there will be no Bill. It is as simple as that. I invite the Minister to comment on that situation.
I know that the Minister will tell us that the insurance arrangements are not complicated but that they relate to different categories of housing. There are the low rise, residential developments where the National House Building Council is likely to be the body that will look after that situation. I am delighted to see my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, in his place. He is well equipped not only to defend, which is not the point, but to speak about the work and record of the National House Building Council.
We then have to consider the length of time, the amount, the certainty, the escalation and the protection that the insurance company needs to give in the light of what are, quite frankly, the very strict criteria which the Government are laying down. One problem is that the Government take very much on board the need for protection comparable to that which the public already enjoy. They are asking insurers to cover for a length and certainty similar to that which they presently enjoy, and the insurance industry is having grave doubts.
Another thing that this eminent person said last week was:
"How can one persuade an insurer to commit himself to a 15-year term on an escalating sum insured at a reasonable premium without a guaranteed flow of business and the spread of the risk? The backing
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of a substantial bulk of business would be essential".
I come now to what I think are that person's most damaging observations. He said:
"The Bill seeks consumer protection when inspection work is transferred to private authorised inspectors but only in respect of domestic buildings. It does nothing to protect the owners of other buildings, and from the insurance viewpoint it may as well be called the 'Housing Control Bill'. At this stage it is difficult to see why any authorised private inspector will wish to undertake this work, as the cost of insuring his liabilities would appear to be uneconomical when related to his fee income for his work".
We need to respect that opinion. When that person talks as frankly as that about what we consider to be a central point of the Bill, we should ask the Minister whether he is prepared to tell his colleagues that, as there is no certainty about the arrangements that can be made, we should not burden local authorities and the world of architects, engineers, surveyors, planners and others with a situation that may never come about. The Minister may respond by saving that they do not have to be involved in the business; the developer need not go the private route, as there is always the public route. What a scandal that five years of parliamentary time, all the energy of the department, and, I repeat, the emotional energy outside, may have been wasted simply to leave that as an option. When we are told by people who know their business that the cost of insurance will he two, three or sometimes even four times as high as it is now, quite frankly it is no wonder that the proposal for an approved inspector is not likely to get off the ground.
We want the approved inspector to carry a certificate of full insurance cover against any claim that may be made against him or his estate in respect of any works carried out under the initial notice. That is precisely the position at the moment. A developer is covered by the responsibility and insurance of the local authority. If the local authority insurance cover is insufficient to meet the amount that a court might lay down as being due to an aggrieved person because of the negligence of the council's building inspector, because the council is a body of substance and permanence, it will have to make up the difference through the rates. Although, as a ratepayer, one might wince, that is the present system, and what we are being invited to do is to produce a weaker system for the protection of the public. The amendment that we make is the only way in which we can say to the public whatever other reasons the Government have got, in future you will be protected as much as you have been in the past. I beg to move the amendment.
Lord Broxbourne: Before the noble Lord sits down, in the concluding part of his very interesting observations the noble Lord made reference to the local authority position, and quite correctly said that there was insurance against negligence. The insurance contemplated, as I understand it, by these draft insurance regulations, which I am sure the noble Lord has studied, is that there shall be two forms of insurance covering two different periods, the 10 year period, which is the so-called no fault period, and the 15 year period, the longer period, where negligence has to be established.
My understanding of the local authority position is that only the first type of insurance applies and that negligence has to be established. It will of course be a very substantial advantage to have the no fault period

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introduced. The noble Lord was good enough to refer to the National Housebuilding Council of which I am a quondam amateur chairman. I think the idea does in fact derive from the practice there where they do operate—and I see, from the nodding of his head, that the noble Lord knows—to have the no fault period as well. I do not know whether the noble Lord would like to comment on that before he sits down. I am sorry that my intervention has been a little long, but mercifully I think it will save the Committee from any further contribution from me on this particular matter.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I do appreciate and want to respond helpfully. It is a fact that the understanding in the industry is that the first part of the insurance proposals, which relate substantially to what I would call the National Housebuilders' Council insurance building type, is likely to be the one that will get off the ground and the other one will not—not least because of the difficulty of matching up to providing the cover. One of our concerns, which we will express later, is that clearly, because the National Housebuilders' Council already in existence has been favoured—and this is not denied by the Government—as a proper body, in fact is likely be the only body that is going to be not just interested but benefit from and grow and expand as a result of these proposals. I am not arguing against their system. It is in writing; there is experience; one can look at it. I have seen cases of distress and grievance, but this happens in all occupations. What I am saying is that we are likely to go through the whole trauma of creating a system when in effect the Government ought to have done their homework, even if that took years and years. Our charge is that in order to get something on the statute book that looks good, the privatisation of building control, they are falling over themselves to try to make arrangements which will not work.
Lord Skelmersdale: Oh dear, my Lords, "the privatisation of building control"! I really cannot agree with that. It has got nothing to do with it. What it does is give an option which is not available at the moment to a developer and why on earth should he not have such an option? The noble Lord also talked about a scandal. May I remind him that the lead time for nuclear power stations is in the order of from 15 to 17 years. I equally cannot accept his definition of a scandal in this case. We are working concurrently on consultation papers with the production of a Bill and all governments have done it at all times and will continue to do it at all times in the future. There is nothing improper in that. But I would accept one thing that the noble Lord, Lord Graham, has said: this is a key issue. I feel sure that both sides of the Committee agree that some form of insurance is necessary to protect the owner of a certified building in the event of defects occurring at a later stage which result from an approved inspector's negligence. Let us remember that this is what we are talking about: we are talking about negligence, and not some other reason for a building falling down, a collapsed wall, a collapsed roof or whatever. It is the inspector's negligence that we are talking about. Such cases should be rare, just as they are under the present local authority system.
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Nevertheless provision must be made for them. A local authority is always there to be sued and has resources to meet claims for damages arising from their own negligence in inspecting a building possibly many years ago.
An approved inspector, on the other hand, who is found negligent many or may not be able to meet a claim for damages. If he has a professional indemnity insurance policy in effect at the time when a claim is made, there should be no problem, but there is no way of guaranteeing that his annual insurance premiums will continue to be paid indefinitely.
The purpose in approving insurance schemes under Clause 32(6) of the Bill is to ensure that a person suffering damage attributable to non-compliance with the building regulations will be able to obtain redress for a reasonably long period of time. In order to be certain that the cover will be available, we have suggested that it should be provided on payment of a single premium at the construction stage.
As the noble Lord well knows, we are currently consulting on draft guidelines for schemes, and it may help the Committee if I explain the kind of insurance requirements that we have in mind. In the case of domestic buildings we feel that owners should be assured of redress without themselves having to take out insurance. An approved scheme would, under the proposed guidelines, give a house buyer a 10-year warranty against defects, whether or not they resulted from the negligence of the approved inspector. In addition, it would give further cover for another five years; that is 15 years in all against any damage which could be shown to result from an inspector's negligence.
The National House Building Council has said that if approved as a certifier of low-rise housing, it would provide a scheme on these lines, incorporating an improved version of its existing warranty; and the Government are grateful for that. This scheme will have a number of significant advantages over the present position with local authority building control. Local authorities do not give any sort of warranty. If a defect occurs in the first 10 years in a local authority supervised house, therefore, the houseowner has to prove that the local authority has been negligent. Taking the council to court is not something that an ordinary householder can do lightly or easily, but it might be his only means of redress. If the local authority were not found negligent, the houseowner would have incurred considerable expenditure to no avail, and would still be faced with the problem of putting right a defective house. Under the insurance scheme that we are proposing the owner would not have to prove negligence in the first 10 years but would be protected by a warranty from an insurance company.
So much for the first 10 years. During years 11 to 15 the two houseowners will be in exactly the same position; we are back to negligence again. After 15 years the owner of the privately certified house will still be able to sue the approved inspector for negligence. At this point, however, there would be no guarantee that if negligence were established, damages should be forthcoming. Nevertheless, I think it very unlikely indeed that a body such as the NHBC would be unable to meet such a claim, Furthermore, the likelihood of a

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defect not coming to light within 15 years is itself fairly remote. I think, therefore, that an owner of a certified house who has the benefit of a scheme such as the NHBC has offered will be at least as well protected as one whose house was subject to local authority building control.
The noble Lord very properly asked about commercial property. It has been suggested to us that owners can be relied upon to look after their own interests in this respect. Consequently, in the present draft guidelines for insurance schemes, on which we are currently consulting, the only obligatory requirement is for insurance cover to meet claims from injured third parties. Our concern here is to protect members of the public from the consequences of negligence on the part of an approved inspector.
As the Committee is aware, the Law Reform Committee is currently considering the question of time limitation of liability in negligence cases involving latent damage and is expected to report in the near future. Its recommendations may well have considerable implications for these matters, but of course we cannot anticipate them.
Clause 32(7) provides for a possible alternative approach to the matter of insurance requirements. It enables the Secretary of State to prescribe by means of regulations the insurance cover which is to be provided in cases where work is not covered by an approved scheme.
For the time being at least we see the approval of schemes under subsection (6) as the more promising approach, and regulations under subsection (7) have not been drafted. Any system of regulations would have to be watertight in all situations, and this could be difficult to achieve in the short term.
I now come to the specific amendments, Nos. 74 and 76. Their intention, in altering the word "may" to "shall" in subsection (7) is evidently to make certain that regulations imposing requirements for insurance are made before certification is introduced. I can understand the concern of noble Lords on this very important point, but I think I can reassure them. Certification under Clause 32 will not and indeed cannot begin until either insurance regulations are made prescribing the cover to be required, or a specific scheme (or schemes) has been approved for the purpose by the Secretary of State.
This is because subsection (1) of this clause requires that an initial notice will have to be accompanied by prescribed evidence of insurance. Failure to provide such evidence will be one of the grounds on which the local authority will have to reject the notice, so there can be no chance of an inspector supervising work without the necessary insurance. So again, to that extent the noble Lord, Lord Graham, is quite correct. Amendments Nos. 74 and 76 are therefore unnecessary. They are also undesirable—they would force us to make insurance regulations and to prescribe the form and content of insurance policies at the outset.
I have already explained that for the present we propose to rely on approved schemes. When the market has developed we may be able to make regulations, but we are not at that stage yet.
The effect of Amendment No. 75 would not I think
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be helpful when we came to draft such regulations. It would actually limit the kind of insurance requirements which might be prescribed to cover for the approved inspector. The essential point in any insurance requirements or approved schemes is that the protection is primarily for the owner and subsequent owners of the building. There may be ways of achieving this which depend on cover for the approved inspector but there are problems in this approach. More direct protection for the building owner is the surer method. If the inspector personally is insured, satisfactory redress for the building owner would depend on his taking action against the inspector—probably by suing him; on the other hand, if the policy relates to the inspector's work—the building—the owner would then have direct access to the insurer and to the benefits of the policy. We do not wish to limit ourselves exclusively to one or other method. Both could work, but there is no merit in restricting choice unnecessarily.
Amendment No.77, which adds a new subsection to Clause 32, would require something which the insurance industry cannot provide; namely, insurance cover for a certifier covering his own negligence for an indefinite period, regardless of the fact that there is no way of ensuring that premiums will continue to be paid. It would be impossible for an inspector to produce a certificate of the kind envisaged in the amendment.
It is of course always open to an owner to sue an approved inspector for as long as the law permits; and, conversely, in the interests of an inspector, or any other professional person for that matter, to insure himself against such an eventuality, but we cannot require people to do the impossible.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, in fact wandered very naturally away from the insurance point during the course of his speech, and he mentioned something which caught my ear, which was the shift from prevention to compensation in this respect. Not so. Emphasis remains on prevention of defects; hence the stress on inspector's qualifications and experience, which is another subject which I suspect we shall come on to later. Insurance for inspectors is only a fallback, as it is for local authorities, which also insure and pay out heavily every year.
The noble Lord also placed great reliance on his panel of experts. I note that I was not included in that panel of experts although I did have somewhat brief discussions with him prior to the Bill. The insurance expert is the one who concerns me now. I would say that the report of the noble Lord, Lord Graham, on last week's conference at the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors is substantially correct. The burden of the insurance brokers' message was, as the noble Lord said, that the insurance industry would find it hard to respond because it is a new market, a new kind of insurance and because they do not know how much business there will be.
He also said that the insurance guidelines suggested for consultation would provide building owners with very much more protection than they get from local authorities. But the fact is that the one insurance body with experience in this field, the NHBC is ready to provide an insurance scheme of this sort. So it is

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erroneous for the noble Lord to suggest that all is already lost.
The Bill will enable inspectors to certify any type of building, but the draft insurance guidelines would require more extensive insurance for domestic buildings than for commercially-owned buildings. To quote, I hope, from our current set of discussion papers on this, the reason for the distinction is that the Government believe that owners of domestic buildings should be able to rely on the availability of redress in the event of defects occurring which are attributable to contraventions of the building regulations, without themselves having to take out insurance. Owners of other buildings can be expected to make their own commercial judgments as to how far they wish to insure them, but third party cover will be obligatory. For those reasons—which I accept are very complicated and perhaps we cannot go into them in much greater detail now—I would invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendments to which he has spoken.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I should like to respond by saying that I am grateful to the Minister and to his advisers for clearly anticipating the importance of this debate and for preparing themselves quite fully to respond to the very predictable points which have been around for a long time and which, I suspect, will be around for a great deal longer. I take from the Minister the point that has been made by myself and the noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, that there is already something upon which can be grafted the Government's ambitions, and that is the operations of the NHBC. I am prepared to believe that provided it works and provided it is supported that particular kind of construction is likely to be taken care of.
But the Minister failed to respond—and quite rightly, because he would have been in difficulty—to some of the detailed worries of not just the insurance industry, but of those who will have to rely upon it. For example, the element of inflation needs to be taken into account. I am an amateur but a keen observer in these matters. I am bound to tell your Lordships that, besides reading the information which I receive—and the briefs clearly have a vested interest—last week I spoke to some of my own contacts in this field. They are very worried indeed.
I must repeat that the revolution in this particular field of local government responsibility is based upon a system of insurance. The insurance industry and the brokers are distinct and separate—and I understand the difference—from the insurance companies that will actually write the insurance. They are all saying that at the moment they cannot see it getting off the ground. But in the meantime the local authorities have to make their manpower decisions. They have to decide whether in 1985 or 1986 their existing complement of 40 or 50 building inspectors will be required. If they decide to keep them and a lot of their
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work goes away, then they will be charged by this Government and others for having been overstaffed, et cetera.
Lord Skelmersdale: Will the noble Lord give way? The noble Lord cannot have it both ways. He suggests, on the one hand, that the local authority panel of inspectors is doing so well that the developer would not take up the option, and then he suggests, on the other hand, that when the developer does take up the option there is the threat of—I was going to say "dismissals", but that is the wrong word—
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Redundancies?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, the threat of redundancies in the local authority team. Those two ideas are totally incompatible.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Of course I can have it both ways, because either circumstance is possible. We just do not know. The local authority, the chief officer and the committee are charged with trying to manage their affairs in the best way they can. If in 12 or 18 months' time things begin to get off the ground, then they will need to tailor the number of building inspectors they will need. What concerns me is that all that I have heard from people in the business is that the approved inspector system is not likely to make very much progress, if any progress at all. But people just do not know. I am not prepared to weary the Committee any more at this time. There is some more business to be pursued.
Lord Irving of Dartford: Will the noble Lord give way? On a point that he is making, is he aware that already the uncertainty of the last five years has inhibited recruitment to this profession in a way that has made control of building sites and property that much more difficult?
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My noble friend has great experience and many contacts in this matter, and I can well imagine that that is true. It is the uncertainty that has been created that worries me. I believe that that will continue for a very long time. I am grateful for the opportunity that we have had to air the fears and worries of people outside this place who are looking to us to produce a satisfactory system. We intend to return with other opportunities at other stages of the Bill, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 75, 76 and 77 not moved.]
Clause 32 agreed to.
Clause 33 agreed to.
Clause 34 [Approved inspectors]:
9.52 p.m.
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol moved Amendment No. 78:
Page 35, line 13, leave out paragraph (b), and insert ("(b) by the Council.")
The noble Baroness said: I rise to move Amendment No. 78 and to speak to Amendments Nos. 81, 84, 86, 94, 95, 108, 109 and 110.
Amendment No. 81: Page 35, line 30, leave out paragraph (c).
Amendment No. 84: Page 36, line 1. leave out paragraph (f).
Amendment No. 86: Page 36, line 27, after ("person") insert ("provided that any person who carries out an inspection under this subsection is suitably qualified in accordance with the appropriate regulations of the Council").
Amendment No. 94: After Clause 38, insert the following new clause:
("Building Control Council
.—(1) There shall be established a body to be called the Building Control Council (in this Act referred to as the "Council") which shall be a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal.
(2) The Council shall consist of such persons as shall be appointed by the Secretary of State and shall have the functions conferred upon them in this Act and as shall be prescribed.
(3) The Council shall be established and maintain a register of approved inspectors containing the names, addresses and qualifications; and such other particulars as shall be prescribed, of all persons who are approved by the Secretary of State or by the Council under section 31(1) of this Act and any person may inspect that register during office hours without payment.
(4) All other matters relating to the conduct and proceedings of the Council shall be such as shall be prescribed.").
Amendment No. 95: After Clause 38, insert the following new clause:
("Practising certificates
.—(1) The Council shall, as soon as reasonably practicable, issue a practising certificate to a person who applies for one, if they are satisfied that—

(a) he has been approved under section 34(1) of this Act;

(b) his name is on the register maintained by the Council; and

(c) he continues to be suitably qualified in such a manner as shall from time to time be prescribed.

(2) A practising certificate shall be valid for such period, not exceeding one year, as the Council may specify in that certificate and may be cancelled or suspended by the Council on such grounds as may be prescribed.").
Amendment No. 108: Clause 42. page 43, line 28 at end insert—
("() Any person who wilfully pretends that he is—

(a) an approved inspector, or

(b) the holder of a valid practising certificate issued by the Council under section (Practising Certificates) of this Act, shall be guilty of an offence.").

Amendment No. 109: Clause 42, page 43, line 29, after ("(1)") insert ("or (2)").
Amendment No. 110: Clause 43, page 44, line 10, at end insert—(" "Council" has the meaning assigned to it by section (Building Control Council) of this Act").
For good measure, I should like to include the new Amendment, No. 78A, which can conveniently be discussed with these others.
Amendment No. 78A: Clause 34, page 35, line 15, at end insert—
("() The body designated by the Secretary of State in accordance with subsection (1)(b) above for the architectural profession shall be the Architects Registration Council for the United Kingdom (ARCUK).")
All these amendments are aimed at the quality and the form of the body of approved inspectors who will operate the new system. To prevent sectional interests
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taking advantage of the new system, we think that a separate body corporate should be established, which, apart from the Secretary of State, would be the only body capable of approving building inspectors under paragraph (b) of Clause 34(1). A building control council would ensure a consistent level of expertise in all geographical areas and grades of inspector.
The amendments and new clauses would establish such a body, to be known as the Building Control Council, whose members would be appointed by the Secretary of State and which would, under the first of the above amendments, have the function of appointing building inspectors. The first new clause would require the new council to maintain a register of all approved inspectors which would be available for public inspection free of charge. The new clause would also enable the Secretary of State to confer by building regulations all other appropriate functions to enable the new council to take a major part in securing the proper operation of the new system.
We consider that provisions should be written into the Bill to require non-local authority building inspectors to be issued with practising certificates by the new council along the lines of those issued to solicitors. The practising cerificates would be issued only in cases where the council was satisfied that the applicant should be so certified. The new practising clause would provide for the system of certification, and amendments would make it a criminal offence for any unqualified person to pretend either that he was an approved inspector or that he had held such a practising certificate.
Clause 34(8) allows inspectors to appoint others to carry out inspections. It is accepted that an approved inspector would not need to carry out all inspections—not all would need the same level of expertise. But we are concerned that the clause as presently drafted would enable approved inspectors to send out inexperienced and untrained personnel. We think that anybody who carries out inspections must have the experience and training appropriate for that level of inspection.
The proposed council would provide arrangements and guidelines for training and qualifications of anybody involved in building control and would ensure all inspections are carried out by trained personnel. In response to these amendments and new clauses, the Government will no doubt use two arguments. We have been over this ground before, and I am sorry to put the Minister through it again. I expect the Minister to say that such a body will just be another quango, and secondly, that all the professions will get together and sort the matter out between them.
The reason why I am so confident of the Minister's response is that he was kind enough to write to me in May of last year, and I was careful enough to keep the letter. He says in fact: "there is really very little between us on this issue."
He goes on rather surprisingly
"We do not want to create another quango for this purpose, and we agree with you that it would he an excellent solution if all the relevant professional bodies were to co-operate in setting up and running some kind of joint committee…We see no point, however, in restricting ourselves at this stage to "a single body". Let us see first if the professions can agree".

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That was a truly intelligent letter from the Minister in May last year.
We have waited since May of last year, and the various organisations concerned have held many discussions since May of last year among themselves and with the Department of the Environment, with a certain Mr. Watson, who appears to have called conference after conference with very little success.
The result of all these consultations is that the bodies cannot agree, or at least a majority of them cannot. A number of them are quite willing to have a joint organisation and the others are not. We do not seem to be any nearer a solution approaching it from that point of view. Therefore, our feeling is that the organisations will not co-operate without a legal requirement to do so. We are asking the Minister to bring in that legal requirement.
In speaking particularly to the new Amendment No. 78A, I should like to mention the possible composition of that council. It obviously should have representatives from many of the professional bodies who have been taking part in the consultations with the Department of the Environment. I shall not weary the Committee with the list, which is quite a long one, but there is one particular aspect of the composition of the council which we need to think about.
It is being assumed, quite naturally, that architects would wish to be included on the list of bodies from whom approved inspectors would be appointed. This is quite right and proper, though there is indeed some question about whether the training as an architect will in itself qualify them for being building inspectors. It may well be that they will have to submit themselves to some further specialised training before they can be approved. However, to be an architect is to be well on the way to being an approved inspector.
However, it seems that the Government are confining themselves to discussions with the RIBA. The RIBA is an excellent body and all its members are highly qualified, but they are no more highly qualified than many other architects who are in fact members of the Registered Council of Architects known as "ARCUK". I have here a copy of the register, which contains many thousands of names, all of qualified architects. Something like one-third to a half of them have chosen to join the RIBA. The rest of them have not, but they are not any less qualified, or any less good, architects on that account. They have simply chosen not to pay the extra fee which is required to join the RIBA.
It is our contention that, if we are to say that some of the inspectors are to come from the architectural profession, then they should be capable of coming from among all registered architects and not simply from those who have joined the RIBA. For the benefit of your Lordships who do not necessarily know it, there is no examination qualification for joining the RIBA. It is simply a matter of paying your subscription and becoming a member. I do not wish in any way to belittle that particular exercise, but many well qualified architects have chosen not to do it. That accounts for Amendment No. 78A. We feel that when the Government are considering the inclusion of
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architects they should draw them from the whole registration council and not simply from the RIBA. I hope that the Minister will deal with that point.
In the same way as my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton and I have had discussions with the insurance industry, so we have had many discussions with various other professional bodies who would be likely to wish to appoint approved inspectors. It is quite clear that a number of them who have attended the various conferences are well qualified to produce approved inspectors. But there was also some agreement from some members that it would be necessary to institute a separate training programme for approved inspectors and that there are certain levels of expertise, certain bits of nous, that need to be imparted to people before they set out on building control if they have not already done so. There are people who have done it in one way or another and are well qualified. We ask the Government to consider the setting up of this council and that the council should have some form of selection process through which all applicants would need to go before they could be considered as approved inspectors. I beg to move.
Lord Broxbourne: I wonder whether the noble Baroness would be good enough to give her attention to one point to which she did not refer. She told the Committee that my noble friend on the Front Bench told her some time ago that this body was likely to be a quango—a conclusion to which I had independently come myself. One of the characteristics of a quango and one of the things that involves it in criticism is expense. Nothing in the amendment nor in the speech of the noble Baroness referred to, analysed or defined the costs of setting up this council, administering it and operating it. Would the noble Baroness say a word about that before she finally resumes her seat?
Baroness Nicol: I do not know how to define a quango, but since last May we seem to have become quite good at setting up quangos for other purposes. Perhaps the resistance to it is not quite as great as it was. Where will the money come from? All the approved inspectors will be required to pay fees. I do not know what level of fees will be set, because they have yet to be "prescribed"—in the famous word which occurs throughout the Bill. But that is one source of income. One does not anticipate that the quango will be sitting permanently. One assumes that it would be a body which met at irregular intervals whenever the need to approve or disapprove of new inspectors arose.
I should enlarge a little on the disapproval element. One of the questions asked during Second Reading was who would inspect the inspectors. I seem to remember that the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, was eloquent on this subject. The establishment of a council such as this would answer that question because the council would give and it would also take away. I do not anticipate it sitting as a permanent quango. I would assume that its meetings would he irregular, not necessarily expensive and I would not expect any of the bodies concerned to want to charge heavily for their services because it would be in their interests to see that their members were able to enjoy this new career which was being opened up to them.
10.5 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: May we first dispose of my May 1983 letter? It surprised me that it was produced in evidence and waved before my face. However they have an expression of the west coast of Scotland, which I am sure the noble Baroness knows, which is "We think better later". I may have been intelligent then, but my thoughts and those of my respondents have clarified as a result of consultation. I should say that there is yet more to come before we achieve total purity.
This group of amendments would effectively remove the power of the Secretary of State to designate bodies for the purposes of approving inspectors and would instead empower a new statutory body or council to do so. It would also introduce a number of related constraints. The proposed council is defined in Amendment No. 94 as a building control council which would be a body corporate, consisting of persons approved by the Secretary of State with functions to be prescribed. It would be a quango, although that is not the total of our objection to it. We do not see the case for this system of achieving objectives. As the Committee are aware, we have been consulting the main professional institutions whose members have a claim to he approved inspectors. I will get on to those about whom the noble Baroness is doubtful in a minute.
Their response so far has been helpful and constructive, indicating a considerable measure of agreement on the main principles of approval; that is to say, professional qualifications, relevant practical experience coupled with some specific demonstration of knowledge of the building regulations. Many of the institutions have said that they wish to become designated bodies and they are continuing their discussions on these standards and possible grades of inspectors with a view to reaching agreement among themselves. Again, all is not yet lost. In particular, they agree the need for a common syllabus on which candidates for approval will be tested on their knowledge of the various regulations and approved document. Our consultation with these institutions will continue and we have no intention of doing away with the powers of the Secretary of State to designate those whom he considers appropriate.
There is always a danger with a long list of linked amendments that there will be a slip up. I can only assume that Amendment No. 81 was put in in a sense of exuberance. This would remove the Secretary of State's power to make regulations requiring the withdrawal of approval in certain circumstances. The latest draft regulations require that any inspector convicted of the offence of giving a false certificate should immediately have this approval withdrawn and I fail to see why the Opposition should object to this. Amendments Nos. 81 and 84 are I think largely consequential. Amendment No. 86 relates to a particular aspect of certification.
Clause 34(8) of the Bill provides that an approved inspector may delegate work to another person; for example, another member of his firm or a specialist in some aspect of construction work. But an inspector will not be able to delegate the giving of a plans certificate or a final certificate. Only the approved
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inspector will be able to give such certificates and he will be liable by statute for any negligence on the part of a person to whom he delegates the work. It follows that an inspector will only entrust such work to a person whose technical qualifications and experience he can completely rely on.
Another important consequence of this provision is that in the event of defect occurring there would be only one approved inspector who would be answerable to the building owner. Amendment No. 86 would prevent an inspector from delegating work to anyone other than a person approved by the council. The criteria for such approval are not apparent but if this means another approved inspector, it would he very restrictive and if it does not it implies the need for separate approvals in each discipline. Either way the case is not made. Given the responsibility which the approved inspector carries, he can be relied on to exercise it in delegating work to others.
Amendment No. 108 would create an apparently new offence; namely, that of wilfully pretending to be an approved inspector or the holder of a certificate given by the council. However, there is no need for such a provision because Clause 42(l) already makes it an offence knowingly or recklessly to make a false statement in a notice or certificate. That would include a false claim to be an approved inspector. Amendment No. 109 is consequential.
Finally, in this first group of amendments which we are considering, Amendment No. 95 aims to define the manner in which the proposed council would issue so-called practising certificates to inspectors who applied to them for approval. Such certificates would only be valid for one year. The council would have the power to cancel a certificate after a shorter period, but no power to extend it beyond a year. I really cannot, if I were to go along the noble Baroness's route—which I am not—see any justification for such complicated and bureaucratic procedure quite apart from my objection to the idea of the council itself. We doubt the need for approval to be subject to annual renewal. Inspectors will be responsible professional people, whose qualifications and probity do not need to be re-established every year. However, as a result of our discussions with the professional institutions, the Government have concluded that a period of five years would be appropriate for approvals, in order to ensure that inspectors did not become out of touch with developments in building and the building regulations. The Committee will shortly be considering the Government's amendment to Clause 34, to allow regulations to prescribe a period for approval, and our latest draft regulations anticipating this provision state that approvals will last for five years.
We now get to the thorny problem of unattached architects. As I have said, the department has been consulting, and is continuing to consult, professional institutions on the procedures and criteria for the approval of inspectors. The Architects Registration Council of the United Kingdom (ARCUK) indicated at an early stage that it did not feel that it would be possible to involve itself in this matter, which could better he dealt with by the professional bodies. We have continued to keep ARCUK informed by sending them copies of our consultation documents, but I

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understand that the council's view remains that it is not a job for it.
It is true that some of the functions of ARCUK in maintaining standards and keeping a register have something in common with those of a designated body under the proposals of the Bill. However, ARCUK's functions are set out in precise detail in the architects' registration Acts and the Government do not propose to amend this legislation to widen its role. In our consultation documents we have frequently pointed out the need for arrangements for the approval as inspectors of unattached architects, who prefer not to belong to professional institutions, inviting suggestions as to how this might be done.
It is not our intention that membership of an institution shall be a prerequisite for approval. Furthermore, there is no reason, in principle, why a designated body's power to approve applicants should be limited to its own members. I hope that this will provide quite a lot of comfort to those who have been advising the noble Baroness. I have much more that I could say, but I hope I have said enough to explain to the noble Baroness why, although there are some worries behind her amendments, I do not think they are justified and therefore I could not support them.
Viscount Hanworth: Before the noble Lord sits down, can he answer one or two questions? First, can he give some indication as to how many bodies are likely to be designated to approve the inspectors? If, as I imagine, there are a considerable number, does he suppose that they will co-ordinate what they are doing without somebody—maybe the Government themselves—co-ordinating or helping to co-ordinate? Secondly, who will deal with the discipline and the complaints, because throughout professional bodies we always have someone who takes complaints—possibly not effectively, as we consider, with the solicitors; but. at least, there is somebody. Who on earth will do it in this instance? I suggest that, unless they appoint a council or keep the designated bodies to a minimum, somebody—it may be the Government or perhaps they can persuade one of the bodies—will have to perform the co-ordinating function. Clearly, the system will not work with more than, say, four designated bodies, unless that is done.
Lord Skelmersdale: In answer to those two questions, 18 to 20 are being consulted at the moment, but not all of them will be approved. As regards discipline, which I think may be the more important of the noble Viscount's two points, the professional bodies will police the people whom they approve, because it will be in the professional bodies' interests so to do. Otherwise, by definition, they will lose the respect of everybody, which is to nobody's advantage.
Viscount Hanworth: The Minister must realise this. If there are 12 or even more bodies, Heaven help the consumer who has to find out which body to approach, all of which will have different arrangements, unless there is co-ordination. The Minister simply has not satisfied anybody that this is a sufficiently thought-out scheme which is sufficiently co-ordinated to work.
Baroness Nicol: The noble Viscount is quite right. This seems to me to be a very ill thought-out scheme. The Minister raised one or two points. First, we welcome the fact that the Government will look outside the professional institutions for other approved inspectors. I apologise for pressing the point about ARCUK, but can the Minister assure me that when they appoint representatives of the architectural profession they will not require members of ARCUK necessarily to make their application through the RIBA? Will they be able to go straight to the Secretary of State? Secondly, the council of ARCUK, which made the decision that they would not wish to be one of the bodies to be consulted because they do not possess the machinery, had a majority of members of the RIBA on the board and present at the meeting when the decision was made. And it was not a unanimous decision. I hope that the Minister will take that into account when he makes his further investigations.
The Minister said about our amendments that the Secretary of State's powers to appoint would be excluded. They are not. They are left in the Bill. The Secretary of State and the council will have the power to approve inspectors. We have no intention of curbing the power of the Secretary of State.
Lord Skelmersdale: At this stage this must be the last question that I answer on this amendment. I am not being unhelpful to the Committee but I feel we have given the amendment a pretty good run. I fully intend to write to every Member of the Committee who has spoken, because obviously there are many matters which continue to worry people. To answer the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, theoretically the Bill would allow the unattached architects to be approved directly by the Secretary of State. But we do not intend this to happen. Nor do we intend to request architects to be approved by the RIBA, a point which I understood the noble Baroness to say worries some of them. There are two other possible designating bodies which would be able to approve architects. These go under the acronyms FAS and IAAS.
Baroness Nicol: I understand the Minister's wish to bring the proceedings to a close, but I really must protest—
Baroness Trumpington: Order! The Minister has given an assurance that he intends to write to those noble Lords who have spoken and that he understands the worries which have been expressed. We have spent 27 minutes on this amendment. If noble Lords wish to continue the discussion they may, but I hope that the noble Baroness will consider the Committee.
Baroness David: Could I remind the Minister that this is the Committee stage and that there is no limit to the discussion. Because it happens to be after 10 o'clock and noble Lords opposite perhaps want to go home to bed this does not prevent my noble friend from asking questions and expecting to receive positive and respectable answers. The interruption was not justified.
Baroness Nicol: It is not my intention to pursue the matter much further. However, our view is that three matters of great importance are to be found in this part of the Bill. This happens to be one of them. It is not our choosing that it is being considered at this time of night. Therefore, we shall return to it at Report stage. I hope that the answers which the Minister has promised will be received in good time before Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 78A not moved.]
10.20 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved Amendment No. 79:
Page, 35, line 23, at end insert—
("() There shall be paid on an application for any such approval as is referred to in subsection (1) above—

(a) where the application is made to the Secretary of State, such fee as may be prescribed by building regulations;

(b) where the application is made to a body designated by him as mentioned in that subsection, such fee as that body may determine. ").

The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend, I wish to move Amendment No. 79 and speak also to Amendments Nos. 80, 82 and 83.
Amendment No. 80: Page 35, line 25, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b) and insert—
("(a>) contain provision prescribing the period for which, subject to any provision made by virtue of paragraph (c) or (cc) below, any such approval as is referred to in subsection (1) above shall continue in force;").
Amendment No. 82: Page 35, line 31, leave out ("so referred to") and insert ("referred to in that subsection").
Amendment No. 83: Page 35, line 33, at end insert—
("(cc) contain provision authorising the withdrawal of any such approval or designation as is so referred to;").
These amendments make detailed changes to the procedure for improving inspectors and reflect the discussions we have been having with the professional institutions which are interested in becoming designated bodies. The effect of Amendment No. 79 will be that each designated body will be able to fix its own fee for considering applications for approval rather than having them prescribed by the Secretary of State. This of course was the statement in Command Paper 8179, paragraph 30, that approval arrangements will be expected to be self-financing. Where application for approval is made to the Secretary of State the fee will be prescribed in regulations.
The effect of Amendment No. 80 will be to enable approval to be limited to a prescribed period, renewable upon application. There was strong support for this proposal from professional institutions and the current draft of the approved inspectors, et cetera, regulations, in providing that approval shall cease to have effect for five years after it is given, anticipates this amendment to the Bill—I hope, correctly. Amendments Nos. 82 and 83 are consequential. I beg to move.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Despite the possibility of incurring the wrath of the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, I have the temerity to believe that I ought to ask some questions even at this time of night.
258
May I be clear that what is proposed is the possibility that if there are 15 designated bodies, there could be 15 different fees for the same kind of work? If I read the amendment correctly—and I have been known to misread an amendment—that will be so if every separate designated body is allowed to set its own fees.
For instance, one knows that if one wants to get a certain job done by the local council there is a scale of building fees to be paid. Whatever the quality of the work, the fee prescribed for one dwelling house is £32. The fee for 10 dwelling houses is £214. If it is a building having a value below £100,000, the fee is £411. If the value of the building is below £500,000, the fee is £1,458. If the building is valued at under £1 million, the fee is £2,169.
Is it being proposed that where a developer looks at the range and totality of his responsibilities and asks, "To whom shall I go regarding an approved inspector?", he will then look at the field and see that it includes the cost of going to one body or another. The register is kept at the local authority, and when he asks for the list he will see that, according to whether one is a member of one professional body or another the fee is different. Will this not lead to the possibility that when a profession sees that it is being consistently priced out of the market, it will then decide to lower its fees? That may lead to a lowering of efficiency. If I am wrong, I shall be grateful to be put right.
Lord Skelmersdale: The noble Lord has got it wrong and I am equally sure it is my fault for rather gabbling through my explanation. The fees in question are the fees a body would charge its members for approval. We are not talking about the fees that the inspector charges the developer for the certification work he is going to do.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I did get it wrong, but one is left with this intriguing point: in order to be an approved inspector, if one is an architect the fee might be £100—because that is perhaps what the RIBA decides to charge its members. But if one is a structural engineer, that profession's designated body might be charging its members £200 or £25. In effect, to be an approved inspector one may be paying different rates according to one's profession. Will that not lead at least to the comment that in order to be an approved inspector one looks at how much it costs. One is then beginning to see a different scale and grade of the value and quality of the approved inspectors themselves.
Lord Skelmersdale: The noble Lord forgets about the magic word "competition". I have no doubt that fees in this respect will be broadly equal across the full range of designated bodies.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved Amendment No. 80:
[Printed earlier.]
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 81 not moved.]
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved Amendments Nos. 82 and 83:
[Printed earlier.]
The noble Lord said: I beg to move these amendments en bloc.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 84 to 86 not moved.]
Clause 34, as amended, agreed to.
Baroness Trumpington: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Derwent Valley Railway Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee without amendment.

London Docklands Railway Bill
The Queen's Consent was signified; Bill reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.
House adjourned at twenty-seven minutes past ten o'clock.