Housing and Building Control Bill

HL Deb 22 March 1984 vol 449 cc1372-425

3.37 p.m.

Report received.

Clause 2 [Variation of circumstances in which right does not arise]:

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin) moved Amendment No. 1A: Page 2, line 22, at beginning insert ("Subsection (5) of section 2 of the 1980 Act (exceptions to the right to buy) shall be omitted and").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, with Amendment No. IA I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 1B, 1, 2, 3, 3A, 38 to 43, 47 and 48, 52, 148, 149 and 160. Amendment No. 1B: Page 2, line 23, leave out ("the 1980") and insert ("that"). Amendment No. 1: Page 2, line 25, after ("dwelling-house") insert ("either"). Amendment No. 2: Page 2, line 27, leave out ("and") and insert ("or is situated in a cemetery and (in either case)"). Amendment No. 3: Page 3, line 6, after ("council") insert—("() the governors of an aided school:"). Amendment No. 3A: Page 4, line 30, leave out ("amendment") and insert ("amendments"). Amendment No. 38: After Clause 23, insert the following new clause:

("Consent to certain voluntary disposals.

.—(1) Except with the consent of the Secretary of State, a local authority shall not dispose of a dwelling-house to which this section applies otherwise than in pursuance of Chapter I of Part I of the 1980 Act or this Part of this Act.

(2) A dwelling-house is one to which this section applies if—

1. (a) it is let on a secure tenancy; or
2. (b) a lease of it has been granted in pursuance of Chapter I of Part I of the 1980 Act or this Part of this Act,

unless (in either case) it has been acquired or appropriated by the local authority for the purposes of Part V of the 1957 Act.

(3) A consent under this section may be given either generally to all local authorities or to any particular local authority or description of authority and either generally in relation to all dwelling-houses to which this section applies or in relation to any particular dwelling-house or description of dwelling-house to which this section applies.

(4) Any such consent may be given subject to such conditions as the Secretary of State sees fit to impose.

(5) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (4) above, any such consent may he given subject to conditions as to the price, premium or rent to be obtained on a disposal of a dwelling-house to which this section applies, including conditions as to the amount by which, on a disposal of such a dwelling-house by way of sale or by the grant or assignment of a lease at a premium, the price or premium is to be, or may be, discounted by the local authority.

(6) Section 26(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1959 (power of local authorities etc. to dispose of land without consent) shall not apply to any disposal which requires a consent under this section.

(7) If—

1. (a) a local authority dispose of a dwelling-house to which this section applies; and
2. (b) the disposal is one which requires a consent under this section but is made without such a consent,

then, unless the disposal is to an individual (or to two or more individuals) and does not extend to any other dwelling-house to which this section applies, it shall be void and section 128(2) of the Local Government Act 1972 or, as the case may be, section 29 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1959 (protection of purchasers) shall not apply.

(8) For the purposes of this section the grant of an option to purchase the freehold of, or any other interest in, a dwelling-house to which this section applies is a disposal and any consent given under this section to such a disposal extends to any disposal made in pursuance of the option.

(9) In this section "local authority" has the same meaning as in section 21 above".).

Amendment No. 39: Page 26, line 31, leave out ("ground") and insert ("grounds").

Amendment No. 40: Page 26, line 42, at end insert—

("Ground 5B

The dwelling-house forms part of, or is within the curtilage of, a building to which sub-paragraph (2) of paragraph 1 of Part I of Schedule I to this Act applies and—

1. (a) the dwelling-house was let to the tenant or a predecessor in title of his in consequence of the tenant or predecessor being in the employment of the landlord or of a body specified in sub-paragraph (3) of that paragraph; and
2. (b) the tenant or any person residing in the dwelling-house has been guilty of conduct such that, having regard to the purpose for which the building is used, it would not be right for him to continue in occupation of the dwelling-house.").

Amendment No. 41: Page 27, line 7, after ("dwelling-house") insert ("either").

Amendment No. 42:

Page 27, line 9, leave out ("and") and insert ("or is situated in a cemetery and (in either case)").

Amendment No. 43: Page 27, line 16, at end insert ("and")

Amendment No. 47: Before Clause 29, insert the following new clause:

("Power to extend right to buy etc.

.—(1) The Secretary of State may by order provide that, in cases falling within subsection (2) below, Part I of the 1980 Act and this Part of this Act shall have effect with such modifications as are specified in the order.

(2) The cases referred to in subsection (1) above are cases where there are in a dwelling-house let on a secure tenancy one or more interests to which this subsection applies; and this sub-section applies to any interest which—

1. (a) is held by a body mentioned in section 19(3) above; and
2. (b) is immediately superior to the interest of the landlord or to another interest to which this subsection applies.

(3) An order under this section may make different provision with respect to different cases or descriptions of case and may contain such consequential, supplementary or transitional provisions as appear to the Secretary of State to be necessary or expedient.

(4) The power to make an order under this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.").

Amendment No. 48: Insert the following new clause:

("Dwelling-houses on public trust land.

Where a dwelling-house let on a secure tenancy is land held—

1. (a) for the purposes of section 164 of the Public Health Act 1875 (pleasure grounds); or
2. (b) in accordance with section 10 of the Open Spaces Act 1906 (duty of local authority to maintain open spaces and burial grounds),

then, for the purpose of Chapter I of Part I of the 1980 Act and this Part of this Act, the dwelling-house shall be deemed to be freed from any trust arising solely by virtue of its being land held in trust for enjoyment by the public in accordance with the said section 164 or, as the case may be, the said section 10.").

Amendment No. 52: Page 35, leave out lines 30 to 43 and insert— (" "2A. A tenancy is not a secure tenancy if the tenant is a member of a police force and the dwelling-house is provided for him free of rent and rates in pursuance of regulations made under section 33 of the Police Act 1964. 2B.—(1) A tenancy is not a secure tenancy if the tenant is an employee of a fire authority and—

1. (a) his contract of employment requires him to live in close proximity to a particular fire station; and
2. (b) the dwelling-house was let to him by the authority in consequence of that requirement.

(2) In this paragraph "contract of employment" has the same meaning as in paragraph 2 above and "fire authority" means a fire authority for the purposes of the Fire Services Acts 1947 to 1959.

2C.—(1) A tenancy is not a secure tenancy until the periods to be taken into account for the purposes of this paragraph amount in aggregate to more than three years if—

1. (a) within the period of three years immediately preceding the grant the conditions mentioned in paragraph 2, 2A or 2B above have been satisfied with respect to a tenancy of the dwelling-house; and
2. (b) before the grant of the tenancy the landlord notified the tenant in writing of the circumstances in which this exception applies and that in its opinion the proposed tenancy would fall within this exception.

(2) A period is to be taken into account for the purposes of this paragraph unless it is a period during which the conditions mentioned in paragraph 2, 2A or 2B above are satisfied with respect to the tenancy."

(3) In paragraph 6 of that Schedule after the words "the district or London borough", in the second and third places where they occur, there shall be inserted the words "or its surrounding area" and at the end of that paragraph there shall be added the words— In this paragraph 'surrounding area', in relation to a district or London borough, means the area which consists of each district or London borough that adjoins it.

(4) The paragraph inserted in Schedule 3 to the 1980 Act as paragraph 2C does not apply to a tenancy granted before the commencement date unless, immediately before that date, the interest of the landlord belongs to a county council.

(5) That paragraph and paragraphs 6 and 11 of that Schedule shall have effect in relation to a tenancy granted before the commencement date and in the case of which, immediately before that date, the interest of the landlord belongs to a county council as if for the words "before the grant of the tenancy" there were subsituted the words "before the end of the period of three months beginning with the commencement of Part I of the 1984 Act".").

Amendment No. 148: Page 95, line 44, at end insert—

("21A. In section 50(1) of that Act (interpretation of Chapter II of Part I) immediately before the definition of "development corporation" there shall be inserted the following definition— 'cemetery' has the same meaning as in section 214 of the Local Government Act 1972;".").

Amendment No. 149: Page 96, line 7, at end insert— ("23A. In section 137(1) of that Act (avoidance of certain unauthorised disposals) after the words "section 128(2) of the Local Government Act 1972" there shall be inserted the words", section 29 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1959".").

Amendment No. 160: Page 98, leave out lines 55 and 56 and insert— ("1. The repeal of subsection (5) of section 2 of the Housing Act 1980 has effect subject to section 2(5) of this Act. 2. The repeal of subsections (5) to (11) of section 7 of that Act has effect subject to section 3(6) of this Act.").

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

My Lords, before the noble Lord proceeds, is he right in grouping together so many amendments? Do not they fall into two quite separate categories; that is to say, those relating to the right to buy and those relating to security of tenure, which are dealt with in different chapters of the 1980 Act, which is the Act which is being amended?

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, I felt that it was for the convenience of the House for the amendments to be taken together in that they are all linked and they relate to the Government proposals to extend the right to buy to certain county council tenancies. If your Lordships feel that you would prefer me not to deal with them in this way, then of course I shall be quite happy to deal with them as your Lordships would wish.

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, I assume that because there are so many amendments in one group—I appreciate the question as to whether there should be two groups—the Minister will in fact take extraordinary care to deal with all the amendments not too briefly but not too lengthily, while at the same time giving us a good explanation.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, I will try to deal not too shortly with this matter, but not be too long; and I hope to give a proper explanation. As I have said, these amendments relate to the proposals to extend the right to buy to certain county council tenancies—broadly those that are not being used for operational purposes—and the related proposals to modify the provisions in the 1980 Act governing tenancies held other than under general powers. In earlier debates on these proposals, I said that we had consulted the local authority associations about their detail. I also undertook further to consider a number of points raised in Committee by noble Baronesses on both sides of the House, and by others of your Lordships. Most of those amendments are in response to comments and suggestions from the associations, and to points raised in Committee. Perhaps I may now speak to each of the amendments concerned. I take the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Graham. I begin by referring to Amendments Nos. 39 and 40.

The provisions which we considered in Committee proposed the repeal of paragraph 3 of Schedule 3 to the 1980 Act—which excludes from security of tenure certain dwellings within the curtilege of education and social service buildings—and its replacement with a new exclusion from the right to buy. This new exclusion goes wider than paragraph 3, in that it applies to certain dwellings within the curtilege of any operational building. We have proposed in association with this change a new ground for possession which will enable landlords to gain possession of such dwellings when an employee/tenant resigns or retires, and when the dwelling is needed for letting to a new employee.

In speaking on these provisions in Committee, I said that we recognised that the landlord must also be in a position to gain possession if the tenant was guilty of behaviour which might prove a threat to the effective functioning of the building within which his home is situated. An additional new ground for possession is therefore proposed in Amendments Nos. 39 and 40. This will apply where any person residing in the dwelling has been guilty of conduct such that, having regard to the purpose for which the building is used, it would not be right for him to continue in occupation". It will not be subject to the proviso that the tenant is provided with suitable alternative accommodation.

I now come to Amendments Nos. 1, 2, 41, 42 and 148. It has been argued that the exclusion from the right to buy of dwellings within the curtilege of operational buildings should be extended to exclude also any dwelling on operational land. The Government do not accept that it would be right to go so far as this in denying tenants the opportunity to buy. In proposing the "curtilege" exclusion, we are primarily concerned with the security of operational buildings, and in particular with the safety of children or other vulnerable groups which the building may be used to serve. Similar considerations will not usually arise where a dwelling or group of dwellings is sited in, say, open space or parkland. The general public will in any case normally have access to such areas. Where it is necessary and reasonable to control or limit the use of dwellings in such areas, the landlord will be in a position to do so through the imposition of suitable convenants and conditions of sale.

There is, however, one category of operational land which we accept should be treated in the same way as operational buildings. The purpose of Amendments Nos. 1, 2, 41, 42 and 148 is to add dwellings within cemeteries to the "curtilege" exclusion. Dwellings within cemeteries—and I must say that I was surprised to learn that there are a few such dwellings occupied other than on a strictly service tenancy basis—will therefore be excluded from the right to buy.

Amendment No. 3 adds the governors of voluntary aided schools to the definition of "employer" for the purpose of paragraph 2 of Schedule 3 to the 1980 Act, and for the purposes of the new "curtilege" provisions which we are proposing. This will mean that the various exceptions will apply in cases where the landlord is the local education authority, but the tenant is actually employed by an aided school. Where the aided school is itself the landlord, no difficulties arise; an aided school is not a relevant landlord for the purposes of the security of tenure and right to buy provisions.

Amendment No. 52 modifies the amendments previously proposed to Schedule 3 to the 1980 Act, which excluded certain tenancies from security of tenure. There are four points here. First, the exclusion of provided police housing is retained, but slightly reworded to make its intention clearer. Secondly, there is an additional new exclusion for certain fire authority housing—relevant in particular in the context of day-manning arrangements. Thirdly, amendments are proposed to paragraph 6 of Schedule 3 to the 1980 Act—which excludes from security of tenure certain temporary accommodation for persons moving to an area for employment reasons. This is currently limited to cases where the dwelling and work place are in the same district or London borough. It is to be widened to include also cases where the dwelling is in a district adjacent to that in which the work place is situated. Fourthly, the amendments propose certain transitional provisions relating to county council tenancies, which will be brought for the first time within the scope of Part 1 of the 1980 Act. Amendment No. 38 and—

Baroness Birk

My Lords, I wonder whether I may interrupt the Minister. I think that we all go along very much with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, said. My noble friend Lord Graham asked the Minister whether he would take the amendments separately. My noble friend Lady Fisher indicated to me earlier that she wanted to raise a point on this amendment. If the amendments are to be taken together—though we are having explanations but then running on—it will be difficult to discuss points on the different amendments, and everything becomes very complicated. I should be grateful if the Minister could stop there and if we could deal with these tenancies before he goes on to the next amendment in the group. Otherwise, we shall be back to where we were before my noble friend Lord Graham asked for the amendments to be dealt with separately.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, by leave of the House, may I just say that the noble Lord, Lord Graham, did not ask that they be taken separately.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

My Lords, was the noble Baroness dealing with Amendment No. 38? If so, I should like to reinforce what she said because it raises very big constitutional issues.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, by leave of the House, I shall meet your Lordships' wishes so far as this goes. I had understood that all this had been generally agreed and it is somewhat disconcerting to assume that that is not so. If it is not so, I shall ask questions elsewhere. However, if it is so, I am in your Lordships' hands.

Baroness Birk

My Lords, I appreciate the Minister's point. But the list of groupings for the amendments came round very late in the morning and I had to attend another engagement before I came here. Therefore, it was impossible to go through the list to the extent that it should have been gone through in order to decide to agree to it. The noble and learned Lord raised this question which was worrying a number of us and I generally misunderstood. If my noble friend had not spoken I was about to say that one way to proceed would be to pause and give a chance for any interventions on the different amendments instead of dealing with them altogether. That is what I should have liked and what I intended to ask the Minister to do. So perhaps we may deal with the amendments in that way. The noble and learned Lord is right about going back and jumping all over the place. Very often amendments are grouped in some sort of order where they can be discussed. But these amendments are not in that kind of order.

Lord Hylton

My Lords, may I say in support of the noble Baroness that I received my copy of the list of groupings after the start of Questions this afternoon. I am very grateful for it, but it seems to me to be leaving matters a little late.

3.50 p.m.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, of course I accede to the wishes of the noble Baroness and the noble and learned Lord. But I am bound to say that it does not augur well for the future conduct of agreements about business arrangements of this kind. However, I shall gladly take it as it is.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

My Lords, perhaps I could say how grateful I am to have received a copy of the grouping paper; but of course nobody consults anybody sitting on the Cross-Benches.

Viscount Hanworth

My Lords, there has been extraordinarily little time between the Committee stage and the Report stage. This has not allowed us to give adequate consideration to the matter. As has just been said, even if one groups the amendments and speaks to them, it is still up to any Back-Bencher who has not been consulted to speak. It should not be passed just on the nod if somebody wishes it not to be so.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, that is a most unreasonable comment. We have had a perfectly proper suggestion from the noble and learned Lord, and a point has been raised by the Front Bench opposite which I accept without question, if that is the wish of the House. To imply that in some way there has been an attempt not to give information or to stifle information is completely wrong, and I take the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, to task. May I say how difficult it is to decide on groupings until we have the Marshalled List. The Marshalled List arrived in my department at 10.30 today and we dispatched it to everybody concerned by 11 o'clock. I do not consider that that was in any way dilatory or means that we were holding something back. All it does is to illustrate the difficulty of dealing with the amendments. However, I am very happy to accede to the request that we should get on and discuss them in any order that your Lordships may wish. That, surely, must be the only matter at issue.

The Deputy Speaker (Lord Aberdare)

My Lords, we are getting very much out of order. If the Minister has finished his speech I ought to put the amendment: Amendment proposed, page 2, line 22, at beginning insert the words as printed on the Marshalled List.

Lord Broxbourne

My Lords, before my noble friend replies, would he say who are the people concerned who were the privileged recipients of this grouping paper?

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, to the best of my knowledge the normal convention is that it is distributed to the Opposition parties, the Cross-Benchers and to anybody else who wishes to receive a copy. There is no secret about this. It is merely a question of what is convenient for the working of your Lordships' House. In five years I have never been challenged in this way on this point. During that time I have dealt with about 25 Bills, so I am not rising to my feet as a beginner. The fact is that there has always been a very fair attempt to work together in this way. Now that this matter has been raised I have said that I am quite content to deal with it in whatever way your Lordships may wish. I do not think we need to go further than that.

Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge

My Lords, it is necessary for me to say that my noble friend and colleague did not suggest that anything was wrong. He said only that it is the rule of this House—and always has been—that if a group of amendments is being discussed together and any noble Lord wishes to speak to a separate amendment, he has the right to do so. There is nothing very offensive in that.

Baroness Faithfull

My Lords, may I ask some questions of my noble friend the Minister on Amendments Nos. 1A, 1B, 1, 2, 3, and 3A? I am very grateful to my noble friend for going some way towards meeting the amendments that I moved at the Committee stage. However, may I ask him whether or not he is a little worried about extending only to cemeteries the provision of secure accommodation, which means that people cannot buy a house in the middle of a cemetery? Because of the changing roles of the various local government departments, would not my noble friend agree that there are other areas of operational land held by local authorities upon which there are houses which are at present—and which will continue to be unless the Bill is amended further—subject to the right to buy? I am referring to houses in parks, recreation grounds and council depots; and to at least one in a restricted area at Luton Airport. I live in the area of a district council where accommodation is provided for the caretaker in the various recreation grounds owned by the council. However, this recreational land will probably no longer be needed. If these houses can be purchased by the tenants before the future use of this land has been decided, it will be very difficult for the local authority to sell the land or to put it to another use.

Secondly, may I ask my noble friend to clarify a point which relates to the social services. A great deal of residential custodial accommodation is being changed from its present use to day care use. As that is the case, it will not always be possible immediately to put staff into that accommodation. As a temporary measure, other people will be put into it. Can the Minister assure me that that accommodation will not be subject to purchase? I should be most grateful if those two points could be answered.

Baroness Fisher of Rednal

My Lords, turning to Amendment No. 52, which stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, and relates to the police force and the fire authorities, may I say that I raise no objection to those bodies being included. However, I raise objections—and I rang the Minister's office as soon as I received the groupings regarding the amendment which stands in my name and those of my noble friends—to the exclusion of tenancies for educational purposes. The noble Lord went some way towards explaining the reason for this when dealing with a previous amendment. However, may I remind him that at col. 150 of Hansard on the second day of the Committee stage he said that there seems to be no logic in a provision which relates exclusively to educational buildings. The noble Lord explicitly includes in Amendment No. 42 the fire service and the police, who are not explicitly named in the 1980 Act, although education and social services are. It seems as though education and social services have lost out, to the advantage of the fire service and the police. I cannot see any logic in that.

May I refer to the fire service as it operated in the City of Birmingham. As long as 20 years ago the fire service asked whether they could become municipal tenants in their own right. The fire brigade officers in Birmingham became municipal tenants in their own right because they served shifts on three watches and automatically had to go back and forth to fire stations. Many of those fire brigade officers who became tenants in their own right have bought their homes. Therefore the inclusion of the fire service in this amendment means that the position with regard to fire services will not be universal. However, that will apply to education. One wonders about the logic of this. The Department of Education and Science have supported the inclusion of education and in particular have given special support to the representation of ILEA.

It has to be recognised that children who have a physical, mental or sensory handicap have to be placed in special schools. These are the children who need to be educated in special schools and who are not able to enjoy the benefit of special education in integrated ordinary schools. They are a special category of pupil, and many of them, not only in the ILEA but also in many of the shire counties, have been placed outside the boundaries of their own localities.

When teachers or care staff are asked to work in those schools they enter a certain commitment on accepting the job. Over and above teaching, they have to undertake, among other things, an average of 50 hours of additional duties concerned with caring for the children. In recognition of that extra work, they receive additional pay as well as the offer of housing. It is important that their needs should be equally recognised with those of workers in the fire service and the police force.

Emergencies do occur in special schools because all kinds of incidents arise when one is dealing with maladjusted children and children who have suffered educationally because of the situation in their own homes. One also encounters acute illnesses such as diabetes and other forms of physical handicap. I cannot see any reason why the ministry is singling out two categories but is then completely disregarding a third, important category—that of education.

4.2 p.m.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

My Lords, I intervened at the Committee stage of this Bill, knowing that I was addressing a Committee of experts, because I wanted to put the case for the exclusion of old persons' dwellings, particularly in relation to an area such as Scarborough, which is an attractive seaside resort with a large rural hinterland and a much higher than average number proportionally, of elderly persons in its population.

Having done that, I remained listening, absorbed by your Lordships' further deliberations on this Bill. I also remained becoming increasingly alarmed by the form of this Bill, which is legislation by reference of the grossest character. For all that one can judge from the way this Bill is framed, the noble Lord, Lord Tranmire, might never have raised this point in debate, and there might never have been increasing concern about the complexity and opacity of leglisation. The Renton Committee, which was a committee of extraordinary distinction, might never have considered the matter for months on end and produced a report which commanded universal approbation and which was, in general, accepted by successive Lord Chancellors.

I mention that because I think that the noble Lord the Minister has referred to Amendment No. 40, and that amendment does exemplify something of what I have been trying to say. It seems to me quite impossible—an act of legislative indecency—to let this statute go out unconsolidated with the statute that it amends.

We have had some very bad legislation lately, but this Bill seems to me to be a particular enormity considering the sort of persons who will be affected. The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, made that point at the end of Committee stage. They are some of the humblest of our fellow subjects. They are people who live in council houses. Many of them will have left school at the age of 14, and probably many of them have been concerned in manual labour all their lives.

At the very start of the Committee stage, the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, and the noble Lord, Lord Molson, complained about the difficulty of this statute. Both noble Lords are trained in the law. The noble Earl is a Queen's Counsel. Both noble Lords have held high positions in the state, and both have been concerned with the preparation and administration of legislation. If they feel difficulty, what is the difficulty to be felt by those who are affected by this legislation and by those who have to advise them in the Citizens' Advice Bureaux? Indeed, I believe that the difficulty will extend to solicitors, who I think may have very great difficulty in construing what all this means.

I made a proposal on the third day of Committee—right at the end of business quite late at night—to consolidate. Your Lordships will have an opportunity to consider this point later, more narrowly framed. I will not anticipate the arguments, except to say that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, was mistaken in thinking that Statutes in Force is in any way an acceptable alternative to consolidation.

I mention this because the point arises again on Amendment No. 40 in respect of Clause 24. That amendment seeks to institute a new Ground 5B. It states: The dwelling house forms part of, or is within the curtilege of,"— which itself is hardly the everyday language in council houses— a building to which sub-paragraph (2) of paragraph 1 of Part I of Schedule 1 to this Act applies". There then follow two sub-paragraphs (a) and (b). If this is not consolidated, it will go out as a statute. It will be the Housing et cetera Act 1984. What will anybody reading that understand by "this Act"? What will they understand by "Schedule 1 to this Act"? This Act will have a Schedule 1; but it does not mean Schedule 1 to the 1984 Act—it means Schedule 1 to the 1980 Act. "This Act" means "that Act", which is the first thing anybody reading the statute will have to master.

That is by no means an isolated example, because such difficulties occur over and over again. We ought to face the fact that this style of legislation is not designed to suit the consumers of the legislation. It is certainly not designed to suit the convenience of your Lordships or another place. It is designed purely to suit the convenience of the Government's business managers. If you legislate in this way, the hope is that the main Act which was already discussed in 1980 will not be rediscussed. Therefore, there are just these amendments made. They are incomprehensible, of course, unless they are consolidated with the 1980 Act.

I may say that the hope of limiting debate is only marginally consummated. I have listened with fascination to reverberations of the 1980 discussions. Obviously the noble Lord the Minister believes intensely, and I found convincingly, in that measure and wants to extend it. On the other hand, the noble Lords on my right do not wish to see this extension. Therefore, there has been constant manoeuvring for tactical positions on the edge of the main 1980 battlefield. The pursuit has been sought to be limited, and ever and anon I must confess I have heard the great guns which dominated the battlefield in 1980 sounding again in all their fury.

So one has to face it—this is a Government business managers' measure. It is not only the present Government who have done this: it has been happening for 25 years, I suppose. Although we all hoped that the Renton Committee would arrest it, obviously unless there is consolidation that will not be done. It is only acceptable if the legislation is consolidated before it has to be used. I use the example of "to this Act" to show how misleading it would be to allow this Bill to go out unconsolidated. It will save time when your Lordships have to consider consolidation. However, I ask your Lordships, as we go through, to bear in mind what we shall so often find—that unconsolidated it is only liable to mislead.

Baroness Birk

My Lords, perhaps I may follow up the very substantial points made by the noble and learned Lord and say that I think he put his finger on why we have this problem at the beginning of the Report stage. I was in any case going to draw attention to it when I moved the next amendment. On this side—and I am sure the Minister thinks the same—we do not like to start a stage of a Bill with a feeling of any animosity or tension between the Benches. It is quite different when we are dealing with amendments and clauses, but not on the general point. It is quite clear that the noble and learned Lord has put his finger on the problem because there is great difficulty in mastering this situation.

We also recognise the difficulty which the Minister was in. We had a couple of late amendments, I agree; but the Government also put down some late amendments yesterday. Perhaps I may also point out that unfortunately on these Benches we do not have a Government department to help us and it makes matters extremely difficult. This referring back to the 1980 Act will go on throughout the Bill. I wanted to cheer when the noble and learned Lord said, "When it says, 'to this Act', it means, 'that Act'." It often takes a lot of working out to understand everything, and if we find it so difficult when applying ourselves to legislation, how much more difficult will others find it?

If at this early stage we could have an undertaking from the Minister that there will be an urgent decision to consolidate this legislation, at least we shall all feel that we had something to look forward to—some simplification of this very complicated legislation. As the noble and learned Lord said, we are really dealing with two pieces of legislation together.

This question has been raised, quite rightly, because of the effect of the grouping, and we are trying to feel our way through this legislation this afternoon. It has come out into the open that we do not have to wait for the much later amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord. In view of all that we should try to get some agreement from the Government that this legislation will be consolidated—and not just in the future as we were told on the heritage Bill.

Lord Broxbourne

My Lords, may I add a brief word—and only a brief word is necessary when a matter has been raised by a speaker of the eminence, distinction and authority of the noble and learned Lord on the Cross-Benches. Of course what he says in regard to legislation by reference is universally accepted by all, certainly by all practitioners in the law and, I would assume, by all legislators. It applies with particular force to the statute law which we are here considering. The amendments in question are concerned with amending and adding to the Housing Act 1980. That is an Act of considerable complexity, even by the standards of that category of legislation—and that is by no means a low standard.

Noble Lords will appreciate that the Housing Act 1980, with which we are here concerned by reference, contains no fewer than 155 sections and 26 schedules and covers no fewer than 190 pages of the Queen's Printer's copy. That is a long statute, even by the standards of housing, town planning and public health legislation. It gives rise to considerable difficulties of comprehension. Specifically we are concerned with adding to the grounds specified in the fourth schedule to the Housing Act 1980. As your Lordships know, there are already 13 specified grounds in Part I of the fourth schedule to the Housing Act 1980. The Bill as it comes from Committee would add two more. The amendments proposed would add one more and, if my arithmetic is correct, that makes 16 specified grounds in the fourth schedule; that is quite something.

I speak, if I may, as someone who has spent a considerable time in studying, seeking to interpret, and advise on the housing Acts of the last half century or so, which I found a difficult task, even with the stimulus and incentive of those inducements to which, fortunately, in one's professional work one is entitled. But for those without such inducements and incentives, as my noble and learned friend said—the noble and learned Lord, but my noble and learned friend in this context—and perhaps without this background of acquaintance with this somewhat and subject, the difficulties are formidable indeed.

I shall not take up another moment of your Lordships' time. My purpose in rising is to invite my noble friend to listen not only with respect to the noble and learned Lord—he would hardly do otherwise—but to consider with sympathy the possibility of meeting his wishes so far as he can.

The Earl of Selkirk

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, for what he said. There is a major problem in reading this. I make only one further point. For over half a century we have completely ruined rented property by the sheer volume of legislation. Let us not do the same with owner occupation. This kind of legislation, which has such complexity, is not in the interests of anyone. If the Government cannot make it more simple, they will damage houses, rather than improve them.

4.19 p.m.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, may I say first of all to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, that I am sure he was absolutely right when he said that he heard the guns from 1980 still being fired? As one who was involved in the 1980 battle, I endorse that. It is something of which I have constantly complained, if you like, throughout every Bill since then. I think that this is now the fifth housing Bill that I have dealt with since then. We always come back to the underlying difference in theology between this and the other side of the House. Frankly, I see nothing wrong in that. When we talk of the right to buy, feelings run very deeply and there is an absolute difference between us. There it is. I do not think that it will be resolved today or possibly at any other time. As I am referring to the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, perhaps I could say to my noble friend Lord Broxbourne that of course I listen with respect. I listen with respect to what every noble Lord says, from whichever side of the House. I like to think that I always do that.

May I say this about the very difficult point of consolidation? Since 1982 the Law Commission, with the assistance of the former solicitor and chief legal adviser to the Department of the Environment, who has long experience of housing law, has been working on the consolidation of all housing legislation. The point made by the noble and learned Lord is arguable by itself. The last housing consolidation measure was in 1957. I assure your Lordships that we fully accept the need for consolidation. I repeat that work is proceeding urgently. For reasons which I am sure your Lordships will appreciate, unhappily, I am not in a position today to say when the task will be completed. I say only that it will really be as soon as practicable.

In the light of the concern which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, has also expressed to me in correspondence, and so on, we have approached the editor of Statutes in Force. He has said that he will take the special step of including in the cumulative supplement for the group "Housing" the complete text of Chapter I of Part I of the Housing Act 1980 together with Schedules 1 and 2 as amended by the Bill. The supplement will also record the amendments, section by section, in the normal way. The editor hopes to publish the supplement within four months from receipt of the Queen's Printer's copy of the Act.

For people other than practitioners, we shall be producing a series of explanatory leaflets about the rights given to tenants by the Bill, which will be made widely available to the public. In addition, we shall be issuing a detailed circular to right-to-buy landlords giving details of the changes which the Bill will make. We shall send a copy of the circular to the Citizens' Advice Burcaux. For these reasons, I hope that the Bill will not create difficulty, at least to the extent that is envisaged.

To consolidate Part I of the present Bill with the 1980 Act would mean a delay of several months before the commencement of a measure which, reverting to 1982, some of us feel is long overdue. The early extension of the right to buy and the strengthening of tenants' rights under the tenants' charter which the Bill will effect are proposals to which the Government are committed. As your Lordships know, we have effectively lost a year because the Bill was introduced in the last Parliament and then was lost on dissolution. We are also anxious that the introduction of the changes to the building regulations should not be further delayed. These have been developed over a number of years with the most thorough-going public consultation, and are eagerly awaited by the construction industry. Nevertheless, I can and do assure your Lordships that the Government fully recognise the urgent need for a consolidation of housing legislation, on which, as I say, work is already in hand. But we should prefer to go for a comprehensive consolidation.

Having said that, later on, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, fairly said, we shall be talking further on this matter. There are other amendments down on this subject, including the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, which I think is Amendment No. 94. I shall happily come back to this again. I say "happily" because I take what he says with great seriousness and would like to dilate further on it when we come to the matter and when we hear what additional observations he has to make on his own amendments.

Lord Molson

My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend to put to him one penetrating point? He has accepted fully the line of reasoning of the noble and learned Lord and of my noble friend Lord Broxbourne. The point that we want to be assured about is that some form of consolidation will be published before this Bill comes into operation.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, perhaps I can revert to what the noble Lord, Lord Molson, says in a few moments. A number of your Lordships have spoken. May I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, that my comments on Amendment No. 48, had I been allowed to continue, would have picked up the point that she was making about open space and parkland? I have already explained why we take the view that tenants should not be denied security of tenure or the right to buy simply because their home happens to be situated in open space or parkland. Many such houses are no longer needed for operational purposes and are let on terms which are not tied to the performance of a particular job. In these circumstances, we see no reason why the dwellings should not be sold and why the sitting tenants should not, in common with other secure tenants, have the right to buy. In some cases there may be a need to place restrictions on the use of a dwelling in the interests of the park in which it is situated, but we think that this can be done by means of appropriate covenants and conditions of sale.

Much open space and parkland is held under the Open Spaces Act 1906 or the Public Health Act 1875. As such, it is subject to what is known as a statutory public trust. In legal terms, such a trust imposes a limitation on the landlord's interest. This might be interpreted as inhibiting a secure tenant's right to buy. Amendment No. 48 therefore provides that dwellings shall be deemed to be freed from a statutory public trust of this nature if they are let on a secure tenancy. This will mean that the tenants have the right to buy.

I should make it quite clear that we are not here proposing a substantial change in local authorities' powers to dispose of dwellings on land held under statutory public trusts. Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended by Schedule 23 to the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980, already provides that local authorities may dispose of such land voluntarily—regardless of whether or not it is let on a secure tenancy—freed from the public trust interest, and subject only to certain procedural requirements. We are adding to the Section 123 provision only in the sense that we are providing a right to buy to secure tenants in circumstances where the authority already has a power to sell. I hope that that will assuage the concerns of my noble friend Lady Faithfull, who I know pursues these matters closely.

May I touch on the other point to which she referred; namely, temporary lettings? It may be helpful to her if I pointed out that the new paragraph 2C of Schedule 3 to the 1980 Act will allow temporary lettings of up to three years not to be subject to security of tenure. I think that that may please her.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher of Rednal, said that she was speaking to Amendment No. 52. If I may put it to her, I think that she was covering Amendment No. 53, because that is the one which deals with the educational point. It makes no difference to what she said.

Baroness Fisher of Rednal

My Lords, yes, I was, but I had to raise the matter on Amendment No. 52. I hoped that the noble Lord understood why I raised the matter on Amendment No. 52. That was the principal amendment.

Lord Bellwin

Point taken, my Lords. This matter brings us back once again to the question of which education authority dwellings should be excluded from security of tenure and the right-to-buy provisions. Much that is relevant to this issue has been covered in debates on earlier amendments; but I know that this is a matter of concern in particular to the ILEA. Perhaps I may briefly state the Government's position in relation to employee housing provided by education authorites. It is that any dwelling which a tenant is required to occupy for the better performance of his or her duties and his or her contract of employment, is excluded from security of tenure by virtue of paragraph 2 of Schedule 3. There are no plans to change that. In addition, any dwelling which is let to an employee and which is within the curtilage of educational premises will be excluded from the right to buy, regardless of the terms of the tenant's employment contract. Any dwelling let to a new employee on a temporary basis for up to one year may also be excluded from security of tenure.

This amendment seeks to go wider. What the noble Baroness would like it to do is to go wider than the Government's proposals; for example, excluding an additional category of tenants from security of tenure and the right to buy. As we have been told, it would cover cases where the dwelling is not let under contract of employment, where the dwelling is not within the curtilage of school buildings, and when the letting is not on a temporary basis. All that would be required to deny an education authority tenant security of tenure would be a very general proviso that the tenant's employment duties make it necessary that he lives within reasonable proximity of his workplace.

I would have thought that such a proviso would apply to most of us. Therefore I do not accept that there is a case for that particular amendment. I should like to go back to basics in explaining why not. In 1980 we decided it was right that council tenants should have security of tenure with the right to buy and that these rights of protection should be interfered with only in very exceptional circumstances. In looking at this amendment, I am afraid I have to say that in my view ILEA want to have all the cards in their own hand and they are not prepared to accept that any of their tenant employees may acquire rights in respect of their homes.

Furthermore, they do not appear to have had any regard to the fact that their proposals will deprive certain of their tenants of the statutory security which they have enjoyed since 1980. I cannot believe it would be right to do that. The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, drew a parallel with what we are proposing in relation to fire authority dwellings. I think we have a rather different set of circumstances here. Under day manning arrangements recommended by the Home Office, firemen are required to live in very close proximity to the station at which they work. It is clearly essential that they do so if the emergency service is to operate effectively. I do not think it is right to draw from this a general precedent applying to other services.

The noble Baroness said it may not always be easy for a body such as ILEA to offer rehousing when possession is sought under the new ground for possession. I accept that, though I believe that a responsible authority would normally wish to ensure that, on retiring, an employee had an alternative home to which to go. She suggested the department might give guidance to the housing authorities to look sympathetically at such cases, and I certainly undertake to look into that.

On her point, may I conclude by saying we have considered very carefully what provisions are appropriate to ensure that landlords retain control over dwellings which are needed for operational purposes; but in doing so we have been very conscious that we must not ride rough-shod over the reasonable expectations of tenants, and that we should not deprive tenants of rights conferred in 1980. That particular amendment would do just that.

If I may reply to my noble friend Lord Molson who asked whether the present Bill would be consolidated, I think I touched upon the answer in what I said earlier in my first response to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, namely that to consolidate the Bill with the 1980 Act would add many months to the timetable of the Bill. It means delay in commencement of the provisions and in giving many tenants, therefore, the rights that they have been promised. We promised very firmly that we would give them. I am hoping that when we come to talk about consolidation under the later amendments of the noble and learned Lord, we can go into that more closely. Goodness forbid for me to say what the noble and learned Lord has in mind—I am quite sure he will do that himself—but I do not think that he would want the Bill to be delayed in that way—not least because of the assurances I have given him about the attitude that we are adopting to consolidation. I can assure him that as a result of what he has said in the debates on this Bill the whole process will receive a kick in the pants in terms of time, if I may use the expression.

4.35 p.m.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

My Lords, as the noble Lord has referred to me so agreeably, perhaps I may say that I would not wish to delay the implementation of this Bill. I do not believe for a moment that consolidation would do so. After all, the noble Lord has a draftsman. The editorial board of the Statutes in Force have no draftsman. If they can do it in four months, certainly the Ministry can do it in much less than four months.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, all I can say is that there is no answer to that—certainly not one that I have. I want to come back to this again later. Clearly, we will be doing so when we are talking in the later amendments. By that time, I will certainly discuss the matter further.

I think I have responded—if I have not I have tried to do so—to most of the points that have been made so far on these amendments—and it is the first amendment which we are discussing. If the noble Lord, Lord Graham, wishes to say something further, I should be glad to try to respond to him with the permission of the House—and I have to remember we are on the Report stage. I think I have covered the points that have been raised. These amendments, may I remind your Lordships, were very much as a result of suggestions made in this House, often by noble Lords opposite. The amendments have been discussed with the local authority associations and indeed have been put together very much with them. That is not a situation that we always have these days. I hope that with those observations your Lordships may feel able to accept the amendments and we can then move on to the later business.

Lord Graham of Edmonton

I appreciate the spirit in which the Minister has sought to respond and be helpful to the House. I certainly acknowledge that there are 19 amendments and most of them will have been presented to him. I am also conscious of the convention at Report stage, that one in fact only speaks once. I have not yet spoken on these amendments. Of course, with a grouping of 19 amendments one is unfair to the Minister because if everyone speaks early to make sure that they make their point, by the time the Minister replies, he has a very long list of answers to make.

There are two points upon which I want some clarification relating particularly to the Amendments Nos. 40, 41 and 42 which were mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon. I think the Minister can help us a little further to understand more the reason for the amendment. The amendment says: the tenant or any person residing in the dwelling-house has been guilty of conduct such that, having regard to the purpose". Can the Minister tell us whether there is a formula or a mechanism as to who decides this matter? Who determines that the caretaker, for instance, or the person with what one would call, in a clumsy phrase, the service tenancy—whatever it is—has been found guilty? Is it a tribunal? Is it the housing committee? Is it reference to a court? I should like to know whether we can be told who actually determines that. If it is possible for it to be argued as to whether the person is guilty or not, and what are the grounds for guilt, perhaps the Minister can tell us the categories of people that would be covered by this and what are the crimes or the misdemeanours which would cause them to be caught by this amendment. I think in order to illustrate what is meant by this Part of the Bill to people outside, we ought to have a little more detail.

The Minister then quite fairly pointed out that one had to have due regard to the operational needs of the various undertakings. Who in actual fact determines the operational needs? Is this something which the undertaking itself decides: that the operational needs of the authority are such that a house needs to be retained? Again, if there are arguments about it, are we to be driven to raise the matter in the courts, or is there a mechanism of reference so that these disputes—if they turn out to be disputes—are actually raised?

I acknowledge the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, that in adding to the grounds for possession—and that is what we are talking about—we are now extending the number in the 1980 Act to 16. I cannot complain because I sought to introduce an additional ground for possession at Committee stage. It was a fair argument and I understand the problem. I tried to introduce the argument that grounds for possession ought to be held by the authority so that they could resolve the unhappy situation if a marriage or a partnership may break. So I am not arguing the principle of the need. What we have under this Act—and we know from experience—are illustrations where people will see opportunities to raise anomalies. We should be very concerned if what emerged was not merely an extension of grounds for possession but, in effect, it became much more substantial than that. We are satisfied on this side of the House that although the Minister knows our point very well about the general philosophy, what he is doing is trying to take account of individuals, individual authorities, individual categories of people, and attempting to make sure that there is equitable treatment. If the Minister can give us some satisfaction or information on the points that I have raised, perhaps we can make some progress.

Lord Boyd-Carpenter

My Lords, before my noble friend responds to that, may I put to him a suggestion which is at least intended to be helpful and which he may care to say he will consider by way of dealing with the procedural problem with which he is faced? I think all Members of your Lordships' House, wherever they sit, were deeply impressed by the criticisms which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, made with his very considerable authority. I wonder whether my noble friend would consider something on the lines of a practice which developed in the House of Commons fairly soon after the war. At that time there was an enormous flow of delegated legislation—of statutory instruments—a great deal of which proceeded by reference and were therefore very largely (when considered individually) incomprehensible to everybody.

There was considerable resistance to this, and a Member of another place—now dead, but who many of your Lordships may remember, Sir Edward Keeling—objected strongly and put a proposal which was adopted by the Government of the day. That was to annexe to a piece of legislation by reference, as an appendix, a restatement of the earlier legislation as it would appear if the amendments proposed in the legislation then being considered were enacted. That is to say, with a statutory instrument—it is simpler of course than with a large statute like this—you had the legislative proposal in the instrument attached as an appendix to the basic earlier order, as it would appear if the House had accepted the proposals to amend it contained in the current piece of legislation. These were—as some of your Lordships may remember—called "Keeling schedules" after the Member whose valiant efforts caused the Government of the day to produce them.

This falls a good deal short of full consolidation. It does not seek to go through the lengthy processes of the Statute Law Revision Committee and all the rest, but it provides for either House of Parliament—which is actually dealing with a current piece of legislation by reference—a quick view of what the amended earlier provisions will look like if the House agrees to the amendments.

It seems to me that this is a simpler and quicker procedure. It deals with my noble friend's very proper suggestion that full consolidation takes a considerable time; and, indeed, it should not be impossible, given the resources at his disposal, to produce a Keeling schedule for this Bill by the time we get to Third Reading.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, if I may just comment on that observation by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, I confess I have never heard of the Keeling schedules. I should want to take advice on this; and I shall certainly do so.I can make no comment on it but I know it was meant to be helpful. My noble friend always tries to be helpful—and invariably is. Clearly, I shall need to take advice and I will do so.

Baroness Birk

My Lords, may I help the Minister and say that, as I understand it, there was a Keeling amendment of this sort used in this House on the Health Bill and we tried to do the same thing on the national heritage Bill—which was another piece of legislation by reference—in order to simplify matters. Perhaps the Minister could go on from there and he might find that useful.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, the noble Baroness has been in this House longer than I have, and I bow to her greater knowledge on that point. I will take advice and come back to it. May I thank the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, for his very fair observations. It is actually for the landlord to decide in the first instance whether the ground for possession applies, and he would then have to go to the court to seek possession. As to dismissal for behaviour reasons, again that would depend on the offence. It is very hard to list a number of hypothetical situations in which it would arise. The noble Lord, Lord Graham, has spent time in local government (and I am sure on housing) and he will know, as I do, of many situations where a local authority as the landlord has difficulties of that kind. I can think of some to talk about at some length. I can best deal with the point by saying that the local authority as the landlords would have to decide in the first instance whether or not they wished to institute any proceedings on that basis.

Lord Broxbourne

My Lords, if my noble friend would allow me, it is quite clear—is it not?—that the court is the—

Baroness Fisher of Rednal

My Lords, it is Report stage, is it not?

Lord Broxbourne

My Lords, surely that does not apply. I am more conversant with the other place, as you know, but the speaking rule does not apply to interventions of this sort. It certainly does not down the corridor.

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, perhaps I may help my noble friend by agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, that it is Report stage and the normal form in which to make such interrogatory remarks would be to say, "Before the noble Lord sits down".

Lord Boyd-Carpenter

My Lords, with respect, this is not in fact the rule of order. If the Minister at the Box decides—and it is in his discretion—to give way to another noble Lord, that other noble Lord is then permitted (even though he has spoken) to put his question. I have seen this practice followed very frequently from both sides of the House.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, I do not mind at all if my noble friend wishes to make observations. However, I bear in mind the best interests of work in general terms. We have strayed several times today from the regular procedures. As I say, I am always very content to respond to anyone, but I suspect that it may not be too helpful to the general business for me to say that.

Lord Broxbourne

My Lords, I am most grateful. I am also most grateful to have the support of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. His service and mine down the corridor, put together, would amount to an almost astronomical time, although my service here is very minimal. His time here is longer and infinitely more distinguished. All I was seeking to say is that it is entirely clear that it is the court that interprets this rather difficult phrase. The court will no doubt proceed, as courts always do, on a basis of judicial interpretation with, as time goes on, case law to support it. We are, of course, dealing with a schedule to the 1980 Act headed, "Grounds on which court may order possession".

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendments Nos. 1B, 1, 2, 3 and 3A:

[Printed earlier.]

On Question, amendments agreed to.

4.51 p.m.

Clause 3 [Further periods to count for qualification and discount]:

Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 4: Page 4, line 41, after ("with") insert ("Part I of').

The noble Lord said: My Lords, with this amendment I should like to refer to Amendments Nos. 6, 7 and 8.

Amendment No. 6: Page 5, line 6, leave out from beginning to ("is") in line 10 and insert— ("(2) For subsection (1) of section 7 of the 1980 Act (discount) there shall be substituted the following subsections— (1) A person exercising the right to buy is entitled to a discount equal, subject to the following provisions of this section, to the following percentage of the price before discount, that is to say— (a) if the period which, in accordance with Part I of Schedule 1A to this Act, is to be taken into account for the purposes of discount").

Amendment No. 7: Page 5, line 15, at end insert— ("; and where joint tenants exercise the right to buy, that Part of that Schedule shall be construed as if for the secure tenant there were substituted that one of the joint tenants whose substitution will produce the largest discount.

(1A) There shall be deducted from the discount any amount which, in accordance with Part II of Schedule 1 A to this Act, falls to be so deducted.").

Amendment No. 8: Page 5, line 20, leave out subsection (4) and insert— (" (4) Subsections (5) to (11) of that section shall be omitted.").

This is superficially a somewhat complicated set of amendments, but I hope that I can explain their purpose fairly succinctly, and I think that when I have done so they will be seen to be uncontroversial.

The amendments are about the situation where a tenant has already bought a council house; has, for whatever reason, sold it and become a tenant again; and wants to buy a second time. Of course, such cases are few and far between, but they can occur, and the rules have to provide for them. Their numbers are bound to increase with the passage of time, and particularly in the context of defective dwellings. We have already announced that the Bill we hope to introduce very shortly will provide in certain circumstances for councils to repurchase defective dwellings and to give their occupants secure tenancies. In those cases, tenants will often wish to buy again.

The rule in the 1980 Act, which is at present reflected in Schedule 2 to the Bill, is that someone who wishes to buy a second time under the right-to-buy rules cannot count any period of tenancy preceding his first right-to-buy purchase towards his entitlement in respect of a second purchase. So, under this rule, someone who bought and sold and became a tenant again would have to "clock-up" the basic two-year residential period as a tenant before he could exercise the right to buy again—but would then be entitled to the minimum discount of 32 per cent. regardless of what discount he may have received on his first purchase.

That rule leads to a number of anomalies and unfairnesses. First, it applies only where the "previous purchase" was under the right-to-buy rules, not where it was under a voluntary sales scheme. Yet many councils grant discounts on voluntary sales which are of the same order as those available under the right to buy. Secondly, the present rule takes no account of the extent to which any first discount may have been limited by the "cost floor" rule, or "clawed back" under the discount repayment rules. It also, as I have said, forces tenants to wait for two years before they can exercise the right to buy again.

On the other hand, in other respects the present rule seems over-generous. It means that someone who becomes a council tenant again can be sure of getting the basic 32 per cent. discount after two years' tenancy regardless of the discount he may have received on his first purchase. So if, for instance, he first bought under a voluntary sales scheme at a discount of 40 per cent. or even 50 per cent. his total discount on the two purchases, after only a short intermission as a tenant again, could be very high indeed. For all these reasons we have concluded that the present rule should be changed. The kernel of the change we are proposing is in Amendment No. 106.

The new rule will provide that where a tenant purchases a second time the whole of his previous tenancy record will count, but his entitlement to discount on his second purchase will be reduced by the cash value of any discount he received and did not have to repay on any previous purchase from any public sector landlord.

The new rule will thus ensure that all previous discounts from public sector landlords are taken into account, not just those on previous right-to-buy sales. But, at the same time, it will be fair to the tenant in that it will take account of any restrictions on the first discount which may have prevented the tenant enjoying the full benefit of his tenancy record—principally, restrictions relating to the cost floor or to the discount repayment rule.

It may help if I give an example, because this is not easy to follow. Suppose that a tenant bought a house in 1980 at a discount of £5,000, and suppose that, for whatever reason, he had to resell it in 1983. He would be liable to repay £2,000 of his discount; so his net discount on the purchase would be £3,000. Suppose that he then buys again in 1985. The old rule would have given him an arbitrary 32 per cent. regardless of both his overall tenancy record and his discount on his first purchase. The new rule will ensure that his full record can be taken into account in assessing discount on the second purchase, but that whatever his entitlement may be it is reduced by £3,000 to reflect the net discount he received on his first purchase. Thus, the effect of the rule is that the tenant's total discount on the two purchases can never be greater than the discount he would have received on his second purchase if there had been no first purchase.

I hope your Lordships are still with me. As I said at the beginning, it is basically all very simple. The new rule is, I am sure, a great improvement on the old. It is fairer; it is tighter; and (would you believe it?) it is more comprehensive. I should be happy to explain the amendments in greater detail if your Lordships wish. However, may I say again that they represent one more attempt at this stage of the Bill to try to meet a situation where there are anomalies and where there are problems and yet, at the same time, not to over-extend the situation; to retain fairness to the tenant yet keep a proper balance for the landlord.

I acknowledge that this is an explanation that your Lordships may want to read in detail. That is why I have set out the amendment as slowly and as clearly as I can. I feel that it will turn out, surprisingly, to be one of the less controversial measures that we are proposing. I beg to move.

Baroness Birk

My Lords, I rise only to—

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, may the Question be put?

The Deputy Speaker (Lord Cullen of Ashbourne)

My Lords, the amendment proposed is: page 4, line 41, after "with" insert "Part I of".

Baroness Birk

My Lords, I was so hasty because I wanted to congratulate the Minister on the way that he explained the amendment. I feel that, if it had been put to music, both the original and the replacement, with the music written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, he would have a hit on his hands.

Lord Hylton

My Lords, I listened carefully to what the Minister said. Everything that I heard convinces me that the Government are in pursuit of a mirage. They are inviting the House and the public to follow Alice through the looking glass into some amazing kind of wonderland beyond. I suggest that this kind of pursuit of the unattainable is diverting attention from the real housing needs of today. I regret that we have come to this pass. I wish that the Government would concentrate their minds on the real problems of homelessness, bad housing and all the rest.

Lord Evans of Claughton

My Lords, I agree philosophically with what the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, has said. The Government seem to be pursuing the right-to-buy legislation to a point where many of us feel that they have gone over the top. I do not believe, however, that it is on this particular amendment that we should address ourselves to that point.

We have the minefield of this peripatetic tenant/owner-occupier whose life has been painted for us by the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin. If such men or women or joint tenants of that nature—who are continually restlessly moving from tenanted accommodation to owner occupation and then back to tenanted accommodation—exist in any numbers, then it is right that this amendment should have been put down. So although I have my usual suspicion of the Government's motives, I congratulate the Minister on the way in which he has put the situation.

Viscount Massereene and Ferrard

My Lords, I should like to ask my noble friend the Minister how many times a man can be a tenant, an occupier, back to being a tenant, then again an occupier, and so on. Can it go on ad infinitum? If so, such a person might do rather well.

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, the point that I wish to make is comparable to the point that has just been made. Clearly we are in a situation where the same council or different councils are in possession of the fact that the person to whom they are going to give the tenancy of a house has previously been the occupant of a council house and the records show that he has bought it and sold it. This query has in fact already been raised. How often can he do it? In my view it can only happen once, but the Minister will clearly come back to this point and help the House.

The Minister and his advisers have moved this amendment in the light of some experience. There must have been illustrations whereby a potential abuse was identified, and identified not in the abstract because otherwise the Minister and his advisers would "go round the bend" in trying to anticipate all the things that could go wrong. But the Minister and the Ministry must have some record of the number of cases drawn to their attention which caused them to feel that this matter is so important that it needs to be taken care of. Can the House be told in how many authorities or in how many instances this happened?

The Minister used the illustration of a tenant who buys at a discount of£5,000. If he sells after three years he has to repay £2,000. The Minister will know that there are cases where someone has a 50 per cent. discount, but in actual fact all he has is £5,000 because the market value of the house is £10,000. These days there can be very few council houses which have 40, 50, or 60 years left and only a market value of £10,000. As regards the London area, and certainly where I live in Edmonton, the houses that are being bought and sold have a value of £30,000 and £40,000, and so we are talking about £20,000. Quite frankly, I cannot believe that the Enfield Council—which has the difficulties which everyone has—has actually given a tenancy to someone who, to its knowledge, has had access in other ways.

We are talking about very big sums of money. The Minister is saying that we are stopping someone from getting the first 50 per cent. off the first house and then a second 33 per cent. off the second house. Bearing in mind that it is a bit later, it will be 33 per cent. off a larger value. For instance, if in the first case it was £30,000 and the tenant got 50 per cent. discount, he would have £15,000. Two or three years later it may be that the house is valued at £48,000. He only has to get a third off and he has £16,000 the second time round. So the Minister is absolutely right in stopping this crazy business to which the noble Lord, Lord Evans, drew our attention. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, quite rightly pointed to the misuse or the wrong use of public money for housing purposes. There are better uses to which, in my view, most people would say this money (if it is there at all) needs to be put and that is to build more homes for people to rent.

Viscount Hanworth

My Lords, I would support the amendment but I would like to say how much I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, has said. Whereas the Government seem only too willing to look at the academic aspects of the Bill, they seem to fail to see what is happening on the ground or its side effects. I think that that is what the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, was saying. Anyway one must be grateful for this amendment because it does set the record right and prevent the odd case of abuse of legislation which none of us likes to see.

Lord Spens

My Lords, I am an amateur on this Bill and I feel very much like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. I have been trying to find out where Part I of Schedule 1A to this Bill exists. If one looks at Clause 3(5) one sees that it says: After Schedule 1 to the 1980 Act there shall be inserted, as Schedule 1A the Schedule set out in Schedule 2 to this Act". If we look at Schedule 2 to this Act we see that it talks about Schedule 1A, but nowhere does it talk about Part I of Schedule 1A. Where is Part I? How much of that schedule does it include?

5.5 p.m.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, perhaps I can just say something to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. Not for the first time he raises his general concern about housing in its broadest sense. I do not quarrel with him that the need to take the broadest look and to give the broadest attention to many aspects of housing is something that should concern this Government, and I tell him that it does concern this Government. If I were speaking in the broadest terms of housing generally—and that really is not what we are supposed to be doing in the Report stage of this Bill—then I should want to tell him of the measures that the Government are taking and have taken to tackle the whole problem of housing in its broadest sense. So while it is not difficult to make the point that he makes, I can tell him that in fact—as I know he knows from the many debates which he and I have had in the last five years from discussion of the very first housing Bill—the situation is much broader than the narrow confines of what we are proposing in this right-to-buy legislation. The fact is that housing is not just about the right to buy; it is about many other matters. But I shall resist the temptation to move into that whole area at the moment.

The noble Lord, Lord Graham, raised a number of points. Let me just say to him, as I know he knows, that this is simply nothing more and nothing less—and this is why I said that it would not be controversial, and I do not think that it is—than an attempt to try to deal with things that I believe are more likely to happen in the future than have happened hitherto, because of, in particular, defective housing and also because the 1980 Act is now in its fourth year and, inevitably as more and more people buy their homes, there is bound to be more movement. My noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard has said that people could make this a good thing. If we do not do what we are proposing in this amendment, then my noble friend would he quite right. No one wants that to happen and that is why we are proposing the amendment.

The noble Lord, Lord Spens, asks where Schedule lA is—

Lord Spens

No, my Lords, I want to know where Part I of Schedule 1A is. I know where Schedule 1A is—it is in Schedule 2, but there does not seem to be a Part I.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, Schedule 1A will be a new schedule and it is amended by these amendments.

Lord Spens

My Lords, that still does not help me as to Part I of Schedule 1A. If I look at Schedule 2 I can see Schedule 1A, but I cannot see Part I. Yet this amendment inserts after the word "with" the words "Part I or.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, perhaps I can help the noble Lord. In fact, Amendment No. 96 introduces Part I of Schedule 1A at page 64, line 3; and Amendment No. 106 introduces Part II at page 65, line 30.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

The Deputy Speaker

My Lords, the next amendment is Amendment No. 5. If Amendment No. 5 is agreed to I cannot call Amendments Nos. 6 and 7.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

My Lords, before the noble Baroness moves Amendment No. 5, am I right in thinking that she is now seeking to move out of the Bill subsection (2) of this clause as not yet amended, because we have not reached Amendment No. 6?

Baroness Birk

My Lords, it is to remove subsection (2) of Clause 3.

Baroness Birk moved Amendment No. 5: Page 5, line 6, leave out subsection (2).

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in order to prevent confusion and misunderstanding it would be easier and shorter in the long run if I explained, rather than jumping into the substance of it, exactly what the subsection does. The part that I wish to take out is to do with the discount. The amendment would take out:

1. "(a) if the period to be taken into account under subsection (5) below is less than three years, 32 per cent.; and
1398
2. (b) if that period is three years or more, 32 per cent. plus one per cent. for each complete year by which that period exceeds two years, but not together exceeding 60 per cent".

This refers to, and changes, subsection (1) of Section 7 of the 1980 Act. Under the 1980 Act—and perhaps this is to what the noble and learned Lord was referring to—it is stated:

1. "(a) if the period to be taken into account under subsection (5) below is less than four years, 33 per cent.; and
2. (b) if that period is four years or more, 33 per cent. plus one per cent. for each complete year by which that period exceeds three years, but not together exceeding 50 per cent.".

What my amendment intends to do is to take the position back to the 1980 Act from the position which the Government are introducing into this Bill, which is to increase the top amount of discount from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. The noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, when discussing the last amendment moved by the Minister, said that while he was not very happy about it he did not think that that had gone over the top. I would say that this change in the legislation that we have before us today has gone over the top. As my noble friend Lady Fisher did when she moved a similar amendment rather late at night on Committee, I also would ask: when will the Government get to the point of giving the houses away? The success of the right to buy has exceeded even the Government's best hopes. Incidentally, I noticed in re-reading the Committee stage when the Minister was replying that he just, in a broad way, said that he knew that Members on this side of the House were just against the right to buy, and more or less that was that. This does not happen to be true, whatever he may continue to think. What we feel is that it has to be dealt with with some discrimination, and there has to be some sensible social limit to the amount of discount that is being given away.

As I say, the success of the right to buy has exceeded even, I should have thought, the Government's best hopes. As I understand it, approximately 700,000 dwellings have so far been sold, and the Government's prediction for 1984–85 is a further 162,000. Is this other inducement because the Government are worried that this demand will fall off, or are they anxious—which I would find difficult to understand—to give away more public money in discounts where manifestly it is not needed? This is an important point of economics and finance and not just a question of housing philosophy.

Nearly £3,000 million has been given away in discounts since the right to buy was introduced. The average discount for each dwelling sold is already in excess of 40 per cent. A rise to a 60 per cent. maximum would take the average to nearly 50 per cent. All the evidence suggests therefore that the right to buy does not need a boost at this time. It would encourage speculative purchases for gain, particularly at the high levels of discount. A £30,000 house would sell for £12,000 with its 60 per cent. discount. If that house were sold again after five years at, say, £40,000, then the purchaser would have made a capital gain of £28,000 over the five-year period.

I really do not think that public expenditure should be in this sort of business. This is not what public money should be used for. In our view the discount should be no more or no less than that which a sitting tenant might expect in the private sector when purchasing from his or her landlord. Clearly this would be far less than 50 per cent., and most certainly less than the 60 per cent. proposed in Clause 3.

There is another point about this. It encourages people to try to exercise the right to buy. The Government are absolutely entitled, and they have the mandate, to do that. But the Government must take a balanced view of this. If the encouragement is too great so that it almost pushes people into undertaking commitments that they have not got the financial responsibility to undertake over a long term, then the Government are entering the field almost of the door-to-door salesman, or the inducement to people to take on hire purchase commitments which they cannot afford to keep up.

In fact, the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk—not on the 60 per cent. but on the question of people taking on more commitments than they can afford—referred on Second Reading to "bribery". To increase discounts above the current level allows the disposal of valuable public assets at even lower prices than is currently the case. With thousands of millions of pounds involved, I should have thought that noble Lords would feel that it is inappropriate to dispose of public assets in this way without regard to a reasonable return for the public purse in the form of capital receipts from these sales. Now £3,000 million income forgone in discounts is equivalent to £3,000 million less for investment through capital receipts received.

This ties up closely with the comments made on the last amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. If we are to increase the housing stock of the country—and the Government say that this is what they want, but this is not what is happening—then there must be more capital available for housing and for the whole of the housing programme. As this has declined, to take an action like this would seem wrong, irrespective of people's views on where the right to buy should start or end. On this amendment we are discussing simply the question of discount. We had an Act not so long ago in 1980, and when this Bill was first introduced this new proposition to increase the discount was in it, in 1983, and we ought to pause and think carefully about this before allowing it to go through. I beg to move.

Lord Hylton

My Lords, I should like to explain why my name is attached to this amendment and why I support the noble Baroness in this matter. I had numerous doubts and disagreements with the economic and social policy of the first Thatcher Government, but it was the Housing Act 1980 that precipitated my departure from the Tory Benches after sitting on those Benches for some 10 years, and after, I might add, voting Tory in just about every parliamentary election between 1953 and 1967.

The Government showed by the Act of 1980 that they were beginning to give away public assets. They claimed to have a mandate to do so. I would maintain that it was a very poor mandate. It also showed that they were unwilling to allow local authorities to settle what should be the local housing policy; something that seems to be totally contrary to the whole history and tradition of the Tory Party.

The Government did not attempt to provide a bounty or largesse to all local authority tenants. They restricted this to those who were able to raise the finance and to purchase. Had the Government said that any tenant who applied may have, for instance, 1 per cent. of the equity of his house for each year of his tenancy, that would have been fair, though it would have been quite unjust to private sector tenants, who would not have participated in this distribution. That is why I feel that the 1980 Act was both unjust and discriminatory. It introduced an unjust right without placing on those who benefited from it any balancing duty towards either the local community or the state.

The Minister cannot say that I am against a property-owning democracy. I am in favour of it. As a landlord myself I have sold quite a number of previously rented houses. I have also sold what were previously leasehold houses. In a totally different capacity, acting for a voluntary body, I have advised many people with housing problems that they could solve them by house purchase and I have put them in touch with building societies, solicitors and other necessary people. Therefore I am in favour of people buying houses.

I do not believe either that there is anything particularly sacrosanct about the present stock of council housing. But I maintain that it should not be sold off or given away without a reform—a comprehensive reform—of the present totally anomalous and unjust system of subsidies and tax benefits that have been bedevilling housing for far too long. Such a reform of personal housing finance has been shirked and avoided by every Government over the last 10 or 20 years. It is, in my view, quite inappropriate to sell or give away public assets at the present time when the production of housing to rent has been harshly cut back from 1979 until the present. The result, which we can see quite clearly, is rising homelessness and more children in care. We read only in this morning's papers of renewed riots of a Rachman-type taking place in the East End.

I cannot accept that a Government who invent generalised rights in hopes of gaining votes from groups of people who are not traditionally their party supporters are doing the right thing. That was the bait in the 1979 manifesto. That was the motive of the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Heseltine, in his 1980 Act. The Government have shown that they are not content with what they achieved in 1980. As the French say, "l'appétit vient en mangeant"; and we have seen the Government coming back repeatedly for more. In 1983 they tried to alienate the properties of charitable housing associations. This year they have tried to dispose of a few previously protected old persons' and disabled persons' dwellings and other miscellaneous properties. Now the Government wish to shorten the qualifying period and to increase the maximum discount. Once again this bounty is not available to all tenants. It is restricted to those who happen to be able to buy, or who are assisted by others to buy. In my view the principle is bad, the extension is immoral, and I trust that the House will reject it.

5.23 p.m.

Lord Evans of Claughton

My Lords, I wish briefly to say that I agreed with almost every word—every word that I understood—of what both the noble Baroness said and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said. I was not quick enough to catch his French quotation. I would be tempted to quote something in Welsh, if I could find anything suitable, but offhand I cannot think of anything.

This is much more a watershed amendment than anything we have heard hereuntofore. From these Benches I want to underline the point that we are not against owner-occupation. We are in favour of a property-owning democracy. The question is: at what point is the line drawn in giving away to tenants' capital assets that belong to the nation so as to enable those tenants to become both owner-occupiers and—as has happened in two general elections—Conservative voters?

It seems to me that we should have at least an equal concern, if not a greater concern, for the people who, however generous are the Government, for one reason or another are not able to purchase houses and become owner-occupiers. The area of real need is in many of those houses in the private sector, where the kind of Rachmanism referred to in the newspapers today and mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, takes place and where many people live in conditions of squalor because the rent and mortgage interest restrictions legislation have made it uneconomic for the landlord to carry out repairs. The Government's proposed limitation on improvement grants will make this situation much worse for private sector tenants.

I should like to see from the Benches opposite more concern for the people who are in real, desperate housing need, rather than this obsessive concern with giving more and more to people who might then be tempted to purchase their council houses. It is a question of where one draws the line. With the enormous number of people who have chosen to purchase under the right-to-buy legislation, I should have thought, as the noble Baroness has pointed out, that the Government have proved, by their own success, that 50 per cent. as the top limit was quite enough. Why do they now want to take it up to 60 per cent? What argument can there possibly be for taking it to 90 per cent. or 100 per cent. or, in a moment of wild excitement before the next general election, 110 per cent., and giving people cash for taking the houses off their hands? Where do we draw the line? I think the line should have been drawn where it was generously drawn at 50 per cent. I feel that the amendment should be supported and that the Government's action is difficult to defend, though I am sure the noble Lord the Minister will do his best.

Viscount Hanworth

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. One of the worries is: where is the money coming from? One is almost certain that in the future it will mean a reduction in the amount of money available for housing as a whole. Most people consider that the Government's estimates for this proposal are far too low. Council houses are terribly important for helping people when they cannot find something on the private market. There is also another factor. Bearing in mind the unemployment situation, people ought to be able to be moved from one area where they are in council houses to another. From that point of view alone housing is becoming even more important than it always has been.

Lord Monson

My Lords, I, too, should like to support the amendment. Unlike a number of noble Lords on the Opposition Benches, I do not oppose, and never have opposed, the broad principles of the right-to-buy legislation introduced since 1979. Where I have opposed the Government and their predecessors is in matters of detail. This is one of those occasions. I believe that a discount of as much as 60 per cent. at the expense of the public purse is excessively generous and cannot be defended in any way. In passing, may I say that I cannot help but suspect that a large number of Conservatives in the country at large and in Parliament would support my contention in private, if not in public.

Baroness Fisher of Rednal

My Lords, perhaps I may follow on what my noble friend Lady Birk has outlined; I raised at Committee stage this question of shortening the period from three years to two. Listening to today's debate, one understands that if one increases the discount, one must get back capital receipts some way; so one shortens the term from three years to two. I was not brilliant enough to remember that point last time. What we must take into consideration is that while we are doing all these things, while we are increasing the discounts and shortening the period, we are also—and nobody has mentioned this—increasing very substantially the rents of those who are still renting the properties.

When people talk about council house rents, I feel sure they think that many tenants still pay only a pound a week to live in those houses. The average rent now being paid in the West Midlands is from £23 to £28 a week. It is that kind of rent people are being called upon to pay. I think that people fail to realise that these high rents go up each year because of Government edicts. While, on the one side, we are giving rebates over and above these amounts each year to people who can afford to buy, on the other side there are those who are unemployed and on housing benefits who cannot afford to buy. They are deprived of these houses while those who are working are being called upon more and more to pay increased rents. This is what I would call the double-dyed effect of the Government proposals.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, hears the guns thundering yet louder all the time the debate goes on. Certainly, I do. I must therefore bring up some of my own. Again and again noble Lords opposite are protesting, "We are not against home ownership, we are not against the selling of council houses". Every word they now utter, as they uttered in 1980, disproves that all the way down the line.

Let me take up the points they have made. The noble Baroness, on the one hand, says that she is concerned at the lowness of the prices that this legislation will lead to. I would remind her at once that the cost floor pertains. That is also the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Evans, who asked why it could not be 100 per cent. or 110 per cent. There is a cost floor below which no sale can take place. On the one hand, the noble Baroness claims that the legislation will leave the houses costing so little and then, in the same breath, she says that it pushes people into undertaking a commitment to buy something that they cannot afford. But if the prices are to be so low as she fears, that must be contradictory.

Let me explain that we are talking here of 60 per cent. for people who have occupied a dwelling for 30 years. If it is 21 years, then it is 51 per cent. If it is 22 years, it is 52 per cent. It becomes 60 per cent. only after 30 years. I ask your Lordships to think of the people who have lived in council houses that were built 30 years before and who have paid the rent for 30 years. It is now said that it is so iniquitous that the Government seek to sell to them and give them 60 per cent. discount. Some may think so; I certainly do not—perhaps the noble Lord who is about to interrupt will not interrupt. I did not. This is not the other place where speakers are interrupted.

The fact is this. We are told that the legislation will have some devastating effect upon the availability of capital, and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, waxed eloquent in his best French about why it was that it would have such an adverse effect. The guns are still firing. These are the very arguments that we heard in 1980. Yet here today the noble Baroness reminded us of 700,000 dwellings, which involve approximately 1½ to 1¾ million people of our population living in homes which they own themselves. That has not had all the adverse effects that we were told about. It has not meant there has been a lack of available accommodation to rent. The same people are living in the same homes, only now they live in them as owners when before they lived in them as tenants. It does not make the dwellings one whit more available or less available to rent than before.

Yet we are told that all this money will have been lost in some way or another. May I tell the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, that, with the local authorities today having some £2,000 million of capital receipts in their coffers, they can do things on housing (if they decide that is their priority) that they were never able to do before. The decision is theirs. So let us not have any diverse talk about what adverse effects this will have upon the whole of housing. If we want to talk about the rectitude of the policy of giving people an extra 10 per cent. for 10 years in which they have lived in their own houses, let that be the debate. But let it not spin off into other aspects of housing. It just is not so.

To come back to the rectitude of this particular issue, I see nothing wrong at all in this. When we are told that we do this because we wish to gain votes or whatever—come on! That was said in 1979 and in 1983, and no one can deny that it was clearly there in the manifestos. No one can deny it was massively supported by the people, and that those who have taken advantage of it are very happy. The only thing that irks noble Lords opposite is that it has been so successful, and that it is what they need. I make no apologies whatsoever for the Government. I support this 100 per cent. It is not wrong that people who have lived 30 years in a home should be given the chance today to buy it at a 60 per cent. discount, especially when the cost-floor factor operates at the same time.

Clearly noble Lords opposite wish to divide the House on this. It is entirely up to them. This is not the first time that this has come to the fore. It came a year ago, and it came again when we debated at the Committee stage. I shall be very interested to see the feelings of the House on it. As far as I am concerned, it was a commitment made by the Government. It is one that we are carrying out, and it is right, not just for the people concerned but for the totality of housing.

Baroness Birk

My Lords, the Minister has dealt passionately with this issue. There really is no use in his bringing up this old chestnut all the time about the right-to-buy issue and the attitude on this side of the House. We are discussing an amendment which increases the maximum rate of discount from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. I intend to restrict my remarks to that amendment. The Minister said there was a contradiction in what I said: that, on the one hand, there would be people who would make profits from it; and, on the other, there would be people who would undertake commitments that they could not afford. These are two different sets of people. The same thing can be happening to entirely different people. We are not talking about the same people doing the same thing. But the noble Lord knows that.

There is no use his saying that local authorities have astronomical amounts to spend which they do not spend. He knows as well as I do—and even better—the amounts that are being cut in local authority expenditure. He knows that housing has taken the biggest cuts in local authority expenditure. He knows that since 1979 the housing investment money has been reduced by some 60 per cent.

There are two points here. First, the noble Lord has had no support from behind him; and, secondly, he has not answered the question I put in moderate terms when moving the amendment as to why there is an increase from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. When, in the 1980 Act the top figure was 50 per cent. He has not answered that question. The sort of reasoning he put forward does not add up, and I would therefore ask the House to divide on this amendment.

5.40 p.m.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 5) shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 79; Not-Contents, 98.

DIVISION NO. 1
CONTENTS
Airedale, L.	Derby, Bp.
Aylestone, L.	Diamond, L.
Birk, B.	Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.
Bishopston, L.	Elwyn-Jones, L.
Boston of Faversham, L.	Ennals, L.
Bottomley, L.	Evans of Claughton, L.
Brockway, L.	Ewart-Biggs, B.
Caradon, L.	Fisher of Rednal, B.
Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.	Fitt, L.
	Foot, L.
Chitnis, L.	Gaitskell, B.
Collison, L.	Gallacher, L.
Craigavon, V.	Galpern, L.
Crowther-Hunt, L.	Gladwyn, L.
David, B. [Teller.]	Graham of Edmonton, L.
Dean of Beswick, L.	Grimond, L.
Denington, B.	Hale, L.

Hanworth, V.	Phillips, B.
Harris of Greenwich, L.	Pitt of Hampstead, L.
Houghton of Sowerby, L.	Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]
Hylton, L.
Ingleby, V.	Sainsbury, L,
Irving of Dartford, L.	Seear, B.
Jacques, L.	Seebohm, L.
Jeger, B.	Sefton of Garston, L.
Jenkins of Putney, L.	Serota, B.
Kagan, L.	Shinwell, L.
Kennet, L.	Simon, V.
Kilmarnock, L.	Stallard, L.
Leatherland, L.	Stewart of Alvechurch, B.
Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.	Stewart of Fulham, L.
	Stoddart of Swindon, L.
Longford, E.	Stone, L.
McIntosh of Haringey, L.	Strabolgi, L.
Mais, L.	Taylor of Blackburn, L.
Mishcon, L.	Underbill, L.
Molloy, L.	Wallace of Coslany, L.
Monson, L.	Wilson of Langside, L.
Mulley, L.	Wilson of Rievaulx, L.
Ogmore, L.	Wootton of Abinger, B.
Oram, L.	Young of Dartington, L.

NOT-CONTENTS
Abinger, L.	Kemsley, V.
Ampthill, L.	Killearn, L.
Avon, E.	Lane-Fox, B.
Belhaven and Stenton, L.	Lauderdale, E.
Bellwin, L.	Lawrence, L.
Beloff, L.	Liverpool, E.
Belstead, L.	Long, V.
Boyd-Carpenter, L.	Lyell, L.
Broxbourne, L.	Mancroft, L.
Bruce Gardyne, L.	Margadale, L.
Caithness, E.	Marley, L.
Campbell of Alloway, L.	Massereene and Ferrard, V.
Carnegy of Lour, B.	Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.
Cathcart, E.
Chelwood, L.	Merrivale, L.
Cockfield, L.	Mersey, V.
Coleraine, L.	Mottistone, L.
Colwyn, L.	Mowbray and Stourton, L.
Cottesloe, L.	Moyne, L.
Croft, L.	Murton of Lindisfarne, L.
Cullen of Ashbourne, L.	Newall, L.
Daventry, V.	Norfolk, D.
Denham, L. [Teller.]	Nugent of Guildford, L.
Digby, L.	Onslow, E.
Dilhorne, V.	Orkney, E.
Drumalbyn, L.	Orr-Ewing, L.
Dundee, E.	Pender, L.
Eccles, V.	Portman, D.
Ellenborough, L.	Radnor, E.
Elliot of Harwood, B.	Rankeillour, L.
Elton, L.	Rawlinson of Ewell, L.
Enniskillen, E.	Renton, L.
Faithfull, B.	St. Davids, V.
Fanshawe of Richmond, L.	Selkirk, E.
Gainford, L.	Simon of Glaisdale, L.
Gisborough, L.	Skelmersdale, L.
Glanusk, L.	Strathcarron, L.
Glasgow, E.	Strathspey, L.
Glenarthur, L.	Sudeley, L.
Gowrie, E.	Swinton, E. [Teller.]
Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.	Terrington, L.
	Thomas of Swynnerton, L.
Halsbury, E.	Trefgarne, L.
Harvington, L.	Trenchard, V.
Hives, L.	Trumpington, B.
Holderness, L.	Vaizey, L.
Home of the Hirsel, L.	Vaux of Harrowden, L.
Hornsby-Smith, B.	Vickers, B.
Hylton-Foster, B.	Vivian, L.
Ilchester, E.	Whitelaw, V.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.

5.49 p.m.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 6:

[Printed earlier: col. 1392.]

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 6, which was taken with Amendment No. 4 earlier.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendments Nos. 7 and 8:

[Printed earlier: col. 1392.]

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 together.

On Question, amendments agreed to.

Clause 4 [Inclusion of land let with or used for purposes of dwelling-house]:

Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 9: Page 6, line 5, leave out ("or has been used") and insert ("let").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, we have had the opportunity at this stage of the Bill both to better understand the new clause and also to reflect on what the Minister said at the Committee stage. The Minister will acknowledge that this amendment first saw the light of day at that time; and, simply to be helpful to the House, perhaps I might quote the first paragraph of what he said in introducing Amendments Nos. 132 and 133: The new clause deals with the inclusion of land in right-to-buy sales. In this context, 'land' includes garages, and it is particularly in connection with the sale of garages that problems have arisen, although there have also been difficulties over the inclusion of gardens."—[Official Report, 28/2/84; col. 1237.] So we have a problem which relates to garages and gardens, and it is the view of the Government that this new clause is appropriate to deal with it.

I was a member of the Committee in another place, and I can recall the discussions when the Members for Woolwich, East and West, from two different parties, John Cartwright and Peter Bottomley, both spoke very strongly and with feeling. Perhaps the Minister will acknowledge that one of the councils—in its eyes rightly, but in the eyes of the Government wrongly—took the opportunity which the law provided of dividing and using it separately, and not applying it just to the house, the garden or the land attached to it. There were other authorities which were involved at the same time. The Government made a fair case, saying that this was the kind of anomaly that had been created and that the manner in which the law was being applied was not the will of Parliament, so it needed to be put right. The Minister came to the Committe on 28th February and moved the clause.

I have to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Monson, who is not in his place, who was very quick to point out to the Committee the queries which he had, which I confess I had not perceived, not necessarily as to the purpose of this new clause—I accept the purpose which the Minister gave in introducing it; it was to block up loopholes which, in the Minister's view, were being exploited by an authority that wished to do so—but as to one or two other matters that have caused us a great deal of unease since. This is what the noble Lord, Lord Monson, said at column 1238: I fully take his point about garages, but surely the effect of the amendment as drafted would be to enable tenants to purchase at a large discount houses with gardens or with land attaching of as much as two acres. From looking up the 1980 Act, that would be the effect of the amendment. Of course, there may not be many local authority or housing association houses with as much as two acres of land attaching, but certainly in rural areas there are many council houses with very large—by urban standards—vegetable gardens attaching to them. —[0fficial Report, 28/2/84.] As the Minister pointed out on earlier amendments, many things are possible and one has to legislate for the impossible happening. But what we have here is a situation where anything up to two acres of land attached to a house is capable of being sold with it.

As to the purpose of Amendment No. 9—althought another amendment follows later which clears away the whole of the clause—the words that disturb my noble friends greatly are these: There shall be treated as included in a dwelling-house any land which is or has been used for the purposes of the dwelling-house". This House, like another place, needs to be very sensitive, not merely about what is meant by the words on the face of a Bill, but about how they are capable of being understood by others outside, because interpretation can vary. The great objection to the clause and to those words is that they are wide and could include—the Minister may disagree—temporary arrangements on vacant plots not let to the tenant; in other words, permission to cultivate a vacant plot prior to development for housing.

I acknowledge that the Minister is well experienced in local government, and he has the appreciation of the House for his services. He must know of many temporary situations where land is not needed immediately for road widening or for development. I am talking about a piece of scrub land which is given to a tenant. The land may not be attached to the dwelling-house, but it is land, which is or has been used for the purposes of the dwelling-house"; in other words, the land is used by the tenant in connection with his tenancy. I am not talking about a bit of industrial development or non-conforming use; I am talking about a proper arrangement with land which is not attached to a dwelling-house. We believe that some very serious situations could arise. A council may have let the land in good faith, as a favour on a temporary basis, but that land will now be open to a right-to-buy application under this clause.

The Government have moved from the principle that they want tenants to have the right to buy their house—not a house in which they have been living for years, but one in which they have been living for, perhaps, only two or three years. We are now moving to a situation where that tenant is also the user of another piece of council property. We want the Minister to tell us that the illustrations which we are raising are not possible. If they are possible, we hope very much that he will take this away and look at it again.

We believe that the 1980 Act, which stipulates two acres of agricultural land, is sufficient to take account of unusual circumstances. The Minister used the illustration of garages and gardens, and I am prepared to acknowledge that an authority, for its own good reasons and being a little more zealous than the Minister might have wished, tried to drag its feet in implementing the Act. But I understand that that problem about garages and gardens with that authority—there may have been others—has been resolved. In other words, there has been a passage of time—we are talking about the experience of 1981, when we last discussed the Act—and we on this side cannot see the need for the clause in its present form.

We understand also that the discounts which the Minister has successfully piloted through the House, which can amount to 60 per cent. for the tenant of a council house, will be available on both the land and the house. If a piece of land not adjacent to the dwelling-house has been used for the purposes of that dwelling-house, whatever its size—perhaps one-quarter, one-sixth or one-tenth of an acre—we understand that it will be capable of being sold at the same time as the dwelling-house. But the 60 per cent. provision for the repayment of the discount will not apply to the land. If under Clause 5 of the Bill, page 7, line 24, the land we are referring to will not be capable of having the five-year graduated repayment discount applied to it, the Minister has to justify why that will be the case. Even in the case of the smallest piece of land which has been bought with a dwelling-house and used in connection with it, we do not need a great deal of imagination to realise that it represents a free gift. If somebody gets the dwelling-house and the piece of land which has been used with it, that piece of land is capable of being sold. The tenant will get not only the right to buy his house but also the right to buy a piece of land and to sell it immediately.

We fail to see why the Minister is so determined to heap upon those who have, just a little more. In our view, the council tenant already has a very good deal if he has a decent council house, a decent landlord and a fair rent—whatever that might mean. Council tenants have the right to buy their homes at 40 per cent. of their market value. The Minister has to justify to the House why they should have this additional right to purchase land which is not attached to the house but which has been used for the purpose of the dwelling-house. If the Minister is unable to give satisfactory answers to the points we have made, or tells us that the illustrations I have given are possible, though not likely, we shall have to consider whether to test the will of the House. I beg to move.

6.3 p.m.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, first may I explain briefly the background to the provision. Section 3(4) of the 1980 Act permits the parties to agree to the inclusion of, land used for the purposes of the dwelling house in a right-to-buy sale. Clause 4 replaces that subsection with a new subsection which gives to the tenant the right to the inclusion of such land if it is reasonable in all the circumstances. However, the amendment would restrict this right to, land let for the purposes of the dwelling house". As I shall explain in a moment, this is wrong for a number of reasons. Nevertheless, may I say how much I appreciated the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, deployed his arguments.

First, land could be included only if it was let to the tenant. There must be a tenancy of the land. A licence may be insufficient. It can be difficult to decide in any given case whether an arrangement amounts to a licence or a tenancy. There may also be difficulty in ascertaining the precise boundaries of the land let to the tenant. Clause 4(2) overcomes these problems by permitting the inclusion of land if it is used by the tenant or some other occupant of the dwelling-house. This should be relatively easy to determine in any given case as a matter of fact.

Secondly, it would be necessary, according to the amendment, to determine the purpose of the letting. There are a number of problems about this. The letting may have taken place many years ago. The motives of the tenant may have been different from those of the landlord. It may therefore be difficult to tell in any given case precisely why the land was let to the tenant. Clause 4(2) concentrates on the use made of the land by the tenant or another occupant of the dwelling-house. Again it will be relatively straightforward to determine in any given case whether or not the land is being used for the purposes of the dwelling-house.

It may be argued that it is wrong just to look at the use made of the land by the tenant and that the intentions of both parties should be considered. The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, made that point. The amendment would certainly achieve this result. But the landlord's intentions would also be relevant to Clause 4(2), as drafted, since the tenant has the right to have the land included only if it is, reasonable in all the circumstances". This involves a consideration of the interests of both the tenant and the landlord. Clearly it would be relevant to consider the circumstances in which the land can be used for the purpose of the dwelling-house.

I fear that the amendment would lead to much confusion. It would defeat a principal purpose of Clause 4, which is to remove uncertainty as to the land which a tenant has the right to buy with his dwelling-house. A number of the amendments are designed to try to remove the anomalies and uncertainties which are to be found in the existing legislation.

May I respond to some of the other points which were made by the noble Lord. He said that we should not hide behind the fact that this might apply to only a few cases. I accept that point. I have made it in other ways. It is fair to say that one can always find the odd, unusual case. I do not defend this decision by reason of the fact that the number of cases is likely to be small. Indeed, during the last three and a half years the number of cases which have come to the attention of my department could be counted on the fingers of one hand. But that by itself is not the whole answer. Even if a council house garden has development potential, that potential—assuming it is established at the time of the right to buy sale—will be taken into account in the valuation. In other words, a tenant who buys his council house will pay a price which reflects the fact that part of his garden may be resold for development. To that extent there will be compensation, subject to the normal discount rules.

I should also emphasise that a purchaser who subsequently makes a disposal of this kind will not necessarily be entirely absolved from having to make a discount repayment. The normal repayment rules will still apply if the sale takes place within five years of the original purchase. In all cases where a secure tenant claims to buy land which is or has been used for the purpose of the dwelling-house, the landlord—I wonder whether the noble Lord appreciates this point—may object on the ground that it is unreasonable in all the circumstances for it to be included. Whether or not it is reasonable is ultimately a question for the county court to determine. I recognise all the limitations. However, one would still have to insert that caveat when considering the merits of this proposal.

I am sure that at the end of my response the noble Lord realises that the Government will have to resist the amendment. We are trying to provide a measure of equity because of some of the anomalies which have arisen, based upon experience of the working of the 1980 Act. Lessons were bound to be learned. In the adjustments which we are trying to make both in this and in a few other ways we come back always to the underlying principle of trying to make the legislation better, fairer, and, not least, more clearly understood and defined.

Lord Somers

My Lords, I must confess that I found the Minister's explanation a little confusing. I know that must be my fault and not his. Would it not be perfectly simple to use the words, the land on which the house is built", and so solve all the difficulties?

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, with the leave of the House, that is not the problem we are discussing. The problem occurs where there is land which is part of the whole of the dwelling. If we were talking only about the land on which the house itself was built then we would not he discussing this matter at all.

The Earl of Selkirk

My Lords, as I understand it, a let must be written. That should not lead to too much confusion. It is being suggested that a licence is what is in mind, but a licence need not be written. Someone may say, "Very well, you may cultivate my bit of land here", and one may have done so for 10 or 20 years. That is the sort of thing which I believe might very well lead to confusion. It is in everybody's interest that we should be very clear about this.

I would have thought that the word "let" would be in every sense better than the phrase, the purposes of the dwelling-house". I do not like the word "purposes" very much. What are the purposes of dwelling-houses? How many acres of potatoes can I grow in order to serve, the purposes of a dwelling-house"? There are a great many angles of that kind which one can develop. I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister can find words of slightly greater precision.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, again with the leave of the House, I should have thought that a development of acres of potatoes would not be reasonable at all and that very few courts would so hold. Nevertheless, I hear what my noble friend says. I should like to think about this point again. I certainly undertake so to do and will communicate with my noble friend and others in this respect.

Viscount Simon

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, can he explain this point to me? The amendment is proposing that the land has to be let in order to be included in the sale. The Bill says that the land must have been used by the tenant. What is the position supposing that the tenant and two other householders have common use of a drive which is used by the tenant? Can that drive be part of the sale?

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, in a case such as the noble Viscount instances—and there may be others—I would say that wherever there is uncertainty, then if the point was pressed by either party the court would have to decide the position. If I am told that the answer is something else, then I shall certainly inform the noble Viscount.

Lord Monson

My Lords, I am very sympathetic to this very modest amendment but I am not at all sure that I can support the later amendment, Amendment No. 9A, which goes a little too far. After all, there are many house purchasers who are not former council house tenants and who have bought their property on the open market in the normal way. Nevertheless, they are perfectly happy to rent their garages, or to rent allotments, or to rent a small area of grazing. They find nothing at all inconvenient or onerous about such arrangements.

Why should people who are buying their houses under the right-to-buy scheme be placed in a better position than those who buy houses in the open market in the normal way? Why should they be permitted to buy from an unwilling vendor? This, after all, is the point, is it not? Why should they be permitted to buy from an unwilling vendor land which they have never in fact tenanted?

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I am sure the Minister will appreciate that the House is interested in pursuing and exhausting this point. We are not quibbling about the cause or the purpose behind this clause, but the indications around the House are that "let" is preferable to the words which appear in the Bill.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, that if we can be successful in pressing Amendment No. 9 in order to ensure that the Bill reads better, then that is what we would prefer. We are certainly not trying to strike out Clause 4; we are simply attempting to make it read better.

The Minister said that if there is any dispute, the courts must decide the matter. Why do we need to rely on the courts to decide the matter in many instances, if there is a dispute, or if people are not too sure about definitions, or if they are not sure about what constitutes reasonableness or unreasonableness? If it is the view of the House that "let" will be a better term to use in this illustration, then I am saying to the Minister that we ought to take account of that feeling.

The Minister did not deal properly with the point I made about land that is separate from and not contiguous to the house; land which is in another place but is used by the tenant. I questioned whether such land would be subject to the 60 per cent. discount. My information is that such land would not be subject to the 60 per cent. discount that will apply in the case of the house.

We are far from satisfied. We can understand the purpose of Clause 4; but the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, which sought our support in this matter, can see a great deal of mischief occurring if the existing form of wording is not amended. I hope that the Minister will allow this amendment to be carried because otherwise we shall certainly press it to a Division.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, I fear that I cannot help the noble Lord. I say again that I appreciate the argument he has put forward. I said to my noble friend that I will look at the wording he suggested, and I will certainly do so. But I cannot go as far as the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, wishes me to go.

6.17 p.m.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 9) shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 69; Not-Contents, 97.

DIVISION NO. 2
CONTENTS
Airedale, L.	Jenkins of Putney, L.
Aylestone, L.	Kennet, L.
Beaumont of Whitley, L.	Kilmarnock, L.
Birk, B.	Lawrence, L.
Bishopston, L.	Llewelyn Davies of Hastoe, B.
Boston of Faversham, L.	Longford, E.
Bottomley, L.	McIntosh of Haringey, L.
Caradon, L.	Mishcon, L.
Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.	Molloy, L.
Collison, L.	Monson, L.
Craigavon, V.	Mountevans, L.
David, B. [Teller.]	Mulley, L.
Dean of Beswick, L.	Ogmore, L.
Denington, B.	Oram, L.
Diamond, L.	Phillips, B.
Elwyn-Jones, L.	Pitt of Hampstead, L.
Ennals, L.	Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L [Teller.]
Evans of Claughton, L.
Fisher of Rednal, B.	Sainsbury, L.
Fitt, L.	Seear, B.
Foot, L.	Sefton of Garston, L.
Gaitskell, B.	Serota, B.
Gallacher, L.	Shackleton, L.
Galpern, L.	Shinwell, L.
Gladwyn, L.	Simon, V.
Graham of Edmonton, L.	Stallard, L.
Greenway, L.	Stewart of Alvechurch, B.
Hale, L.	Stewart of Fulham, L.
Hanworth, V.	Stoddart of Swindon, L.
Harris of Greenwich, L.	Stone, L.
Houghton of Sowerby, L.	Strabolgi, L.
Howie of Troon, L.	Taylor of Blackburn, L.
Irving of Dartford, L.	Underhill, L.
Jacques, L.	Wootton of Abinger, B.
Jeger, B.	Young of Dartington, L.

NOT-CONTENTS
Abercorn, D.	Bellwin, L.
Abinger, L.	Beloff, L.
Avon, E.	Belstead, L.
Belhaven and Stenton, L.	Birdwood, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.	Liverpool, E.
Brabazon of Tara, L.	Long, V.
Brougham and Vaux, L.	Lyell, L.
Broxbourne, L.	Mancroft, L.
Bruce-Gardyne, L.	Margadale, L.
Caithness, E.	Marley, L.
Carnegy of Lour, B.	Massereene and Ferrard, V.
Cathcart, E.	Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.
Chelwood, L.
Cockfield, L.	Merrivale, L.
Coleraine, L.	Mersey, V.
Croft, L.	Molson, L.
Daventry, V.	Morris, L.
Denham, L. [Teller.]	Mottistone, L.
Digby, L	Murton of Lindisfarne, L.
Drumalbyn, L.	Newall, L.
Dundee, E.	Norfolk, D.
Eccles, V.	Nugent of Guildford, L.
Ellenborough, L.	Onslow, E.
Elliot of Harwood, B.	Orkney, E.
Elton, L.	Orr-Ewing, L.
Enniskillen, E.	Pender, L.
Faithfull, B.	Portland, D.
Fanshawe of Richmond, L.	Radnor, E.
Gainford, L.	Rankeillour, L.
Gisborough, L.	Rawlinson of Ewell, L.
Glanusk, L.	Redesdale, L.
Glasgow, E.	Renton, L.
Glenarthur, L.	St. Davids, V.
Gowrie, E.	Sandford, L.
Gray of Contin, L.	Selkirk, E.
Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.	Skelmersdale, L.
	Somers, L.
Halsbury, E.	Spens, L.
Harmar-Nicholls, L.	Sudeley, L.
Harvington, L.	Swinfen, L.
Hives, L.	Swinton, E. [Teller.]
Holderness, L.	Trefgarne, L.
Home of the Hirsel, L.	Trenchard, V.
Hornsby-Smith, B.	Trumpington, B.
Hylton-Foster, B.	Vaizey, L.
Kemsley, V.	Vaux of Harrowden, L.
Killearn, L.	Vickers, B.
Lane-Fox, B.	Vivian, L.
Lauderdale, E.	Whitelaw, V.
Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.

[Amendment No. 9A not moved.]

Clause 5 [Repayment of discount on early disposal]:

6.26 p.m.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 10: Page 6, line 30, leave out ("does not fall within") and insert ("is not exempted by")

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I wonder whether I may suggest a slight adjustment in the order of taking these amendments. With Amendment No. 10 I should like to take Amendments Nos. 12, 18, 22, 25 to 29, 31 to 35, 117 to 127 (with the exclusion of 119 and 120), 129 to 133 (with the exclusion of 131 and 132), 137, 139, 140 and 142. Amendment No. 12: Page 6, line 43, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by") Amendment No. 18: Page 7, line 27, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by') Amendment No. 22: Page 8, line 1, leave out ("not falling within") and insert ("which is not exempted by") Amendment No. 25: Clause 8, page 10, line 41, leave out ("does not fall within") and insert ("is not exempted by") Amendment No. 26: Page 11, line 24, leave out ("falling within") and insert ("exempted by") Amendment No. 27: Page 11, line 31, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by") Amendment No. 28: Page 11, line 32, after ("Act") insert ("any") Amendment No. 29: Page 11, line 39, leave out ("does not fall within") and insert ("is not exempted by") Amendment No. 31: Clause 9, page 12, line 14, leave out ("does not fall within") and insert ("is not exempted by") Amendment No. 32: Page 12, line 18, leave out ("does not fall within") and insert ("is not exempted by") Amendment No. 33: Page 12, line 34, leave out ("falling within") and insert ("exempted by") Amendment No. 34: Page 12, line 42, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by") Amendment No. 35: Page 13, line 6, leave out ("does not fall within") and insert ("is not exempted by") Amendment No. 117: Schedule 3, page 71, line 22, leave out ("does not fall within") and insert ("is not exempted by"). Amendment No. 118: Page 72, line 7, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by"). Amendment No. 121: Page 72, line 31, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by"). Amendment No. 122: Page 72, line 43, leave out ("not falling within") and insert ("which is not exempted by"). Amendment No. 123: Page 73, line 9, leave out ("does not fall within") and insert ("is not exempted by"). Amendment No. 124: Page 73, line 10, at end insert ("or"). Amendment No. 125: Page 73, line 11, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by"). Amendment No. 126: Page 74, line 40, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by"). Amendment No. 127: Page 74, line 45, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by"). Amendment No. 129: Schedule 6, page 80, line 35, leave out ("does not fall within") and insert ("is not exempted by"). Amendment No. 130: Page 80, line 45, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by"). Amendment No. 133: Page 81, line 26, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by"). Amendment No. 137: Page 81, line 46, leave out ("not falling within") and insert ("which is not exempted by"). Amendment No. 139: Page 82, line 14, leave out ("does not fall within") and insert ("is not exempted by"). Amendment No. 140: Page 82, line 18, leave out ("falls within") and insert ("is exempted by"). Amendment No. 142: Page 82, line 26, leave out ("does not fall within") and insert ("is not exempted by").

When we debated in Committee the Question, Whether Clause 4, (now Clause 5) should stand part of the Bill, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, had some harsh words to say about the drafting of this particular clause. This large group of amendments is, in fact, an attempt to improve the drafting of the clause and to carry through these drafting changes to the other clauses and schedules containing similar provisions. I am sorry that in the time available it was not possible to consult the noble and learned Lord on the changes proposed by these amendments, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say in the hope that he will agree that they improve the clauses and schedules. I hope they meet with both his approval and that of your Lordships.

I know that the noble and learned Lord has tabled his own amendments to Clause 5, which I think can be taken separately, and to which I shall try to respond when I hear what the noble and learned Lord has to say about them. These Government amendments are drafting amendments. There are no substantive policy changes contained in them. I beg to move.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord the Minister for dealing with this matter, and also for separating out these two sets of amendments. When I spoke on Clause 4 (as it was) standing part, the noble Lord twitted me genially with examining the nuts and bolts of the clause. I did indeed examine it in detail because it was really only by reading it over and over again, word by word, that I could understand what it was getting at. Apparently I was right in thinking that there was some cross-threading. This particular point arose out of my criticism of the words in what is now Clause 5, at page 6, line 30: does not fall within subsection (3A)". As I understand it, what this clause does is virtually to repeat the 1980 Act in the new subsection (3), whereby the discount is repayable, and put in a new subsection (3A), in which the discount is not repayable, even though it falls at first blush within subsection (3). The noble Lord will tell me if I have it wrong.

My objection was that the new subsection (3A) is in positive terms but is in fact, as the Bill is printed, a negative, because it is governed by the word "not" which appears 13 lines before; so it means at first reading the opposite to what one thinks. So far as I know, it is only the Whips in another place who read things in that way, in a mirror language, owing to the curious way the Question is put there.

What the noble Lord has done seems to me very adroit but it does not completely meet the point. Instead of the words, "does not fall within", he has, "is not exempted by", so one still has the negative 13 lines before governing the new subsection (3A). But he has picked up the words, "is not exempted by", in the new subsection (3A) and in all the other provisions which are dealt with by this group of amendments. At this stage I cannot myself suggest any way in which there could be further improvement, and it seems to me that the draftsman has done it very adroitly.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, I say at once that I should certainly not have the temerity to say that the noble and learned Lord was wrong in a field in which he has so much expertise and knowledge. We—including the draftsman and all others concerned—must, as always, consider very carefully what he says. Based upon his first remarks, my feeling is that he is actually right about the negative point. I say that not in surprise. Had it been otherwise, I should have been surprised. We accept without question that the noble and learned Lord is seeking to make sure that we have a Bill with the clearest possible wording so that there is no room for misunderstanding, or whatever. If the noble and learned Lord will allow me, I shall gladly undertake to take this away again in the light of what he has said to see whether we can get it even better in the last stages of the Bill.

The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Wootton of Abinger)

My Lords, does the noble Lord wish to withdraw the amendment.?

Lord Bellwin

No, my Lords. If I may, I should like the House to agree to it at the present time with the undertaking that we shall look at it again and, if necessary, bring back another form of amendment on Third Reading.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

6.35 p.m.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale moved Amendment No. 11: Page 6. line 42, at end insert ("and for the purpose of this subsection a lease containing an option to renew which if exercised would make the total term more than twenty-one years shall be deemed to be for a term of more than twenty-one years").

The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, in commenting in Committee on the details of the clause, I did not ask the noble Lord about subsection (3) because it repeats, I think, certainly in substance, the existing provision of the 1980 Act. But I did write to him about it. I asked one question: why 21 years? I ventured to point out a number of ways in which it seemed to me the provision could be evaded. There are now really quite big sums involved. The policy of the scheme of the Bill is that the discount should be repayable in certain circumstances. Obviously subsection (3A) is not sufficient by itself, because you can get round a conveyance or an assignment of the freehold by granting a long lease, and therefore paragraph (b) guards against that loophole.

Equally obviously, it would be very unfair to penalise the buying tenant by stipulating that the discount should be repayable if there were a very short lease. For example, there might be a construction worker who had exercised the right to buy. He might be offered a contract abroad, say, for five or seven years, and wish to let the house. It would be unjust in those circumstances to penalise him by clawing back the discount. Therefore, it was only a question of where one draws the line.

The noble Lord said it should be 21 years: that the line has to be drawn somewhere, and in their assessment, on the evidence that they have, that is the line of demarcation in general saleability. It seems to me that that is a valid argument. The line must be drawn somewhere. Of course, you will get anomalies on either side of the line, wherever you draw it. As for pointing out the way that the provision can be evaded, the noble Lord said that they had no evidence of substantial evasion since the 1980 Act. I have therefore not pursued any except one method of evasion.

Having decided that in the circumstances, under subsection (3), the discount should be repayable, it is obviously incumbent in the public interest to see that a coach and horses cannot be driven through this provision. It seemed to me that the easiest way to do it would be to grant a lease of 21 years with an option to renew. That is still not a lease of over 21 years but in fact it carries the lease for a term of beyond 21 years. That seems to me a very obvious loophole for two reasons. In the first place, solicitors and other conveyancers are very familiar, these days, with a short lease with an option to renew. In the second place, this particular loophole was closed in the 1967 Leasehold Reform Act.

I am quite willing and ready to be told that my drafting is defective. Certainly the closing of this particular loophole in 1967 was of an almost unbelievable complexity and I did not want to add to the complexity of what is already a highly complex Bill. I hope it will do. At any rate, the object is to see that a coach and horses should not be driven through subsection (3). My Lords, I beg to move.

Lord Evans of Claughton

My Lords, as a humble conveyancing solicitor, may I agree with the noble and learned Lord that you are really making an invitation, as a Government, here to encourage solicitors to start driving coaches and horses ail over the place. We witnessed in the recent Budget debates the closure of one of the means whereby solicitors have been using leases to avoid the payment of stamp duty; the Government have closed that loophole. I do really commend it to you. While I do not support the Government's legislation in general, I do beg of the Government to take into account what the noble and learned Lord has said, because otherwise you are now really making an open invitiation. Now that the invitation has been spoken about in your Lordships' House it is going to make it that much easier. I ask the Government to reconsider this matter and take it into account, as the noble and learned Lord has advised.

Lord Bellwin

My Lord, I say at once that I most certainly do take into account what the noble and learned Lord says, and I am not in the coach and horses business at all. May I just make one or two observations on this which I feel perhaps ought to be said. Of course, a principal purpose of Clause 5 is to add certain other categories of disposal to those that are exempt from this discount clawback provision. The amendment, as the noble and learned Lord has explained, does in fact operate on the basic definition of "disposal" for the purposes of the discount clawback provisions, which has been in force since 1980. The definition originally appears in Section 8(3) of the 1980 Act. A disposal is defined inter alia as—and I quote: the grant of a lease or sub-lease for a term of more than 21 years otherwise than at a rack rent". As the noble and learned Lord has pointed out, it would therefore be theoretically possible for a tenant, who has purchased his dwelling-house under the right to buy, to grant within the five-year period after acquisition a lease of less than 21 years with an option to renew which would take the total period above 21 years and thereby avoid any obligation to repay discount.

I must say we are not aware that the loophole is being used to any great extent, but I think that we must, and we do, accept that it exists and we are certainly prepared to consider what we have to do to block it. It may well be that the solution proposed by the noble and learned Lord is the right one—it very likely is—but I would ask him if he would allow us to look at the wording of the amendment in more detail. He said he was prepared to be told that the drafting might be defective. All I can say is, not by me. Nevertheless, I do think that we would just like to have a look at the wording.

There will, for example, be a need for consequential amendments to Schedules 3 and 6, and we would like to see if we can bring forward appropriate amendments at Third Reading. In the light of this undertaking perhaps the noble and learned Lord would withdraw his amendment. May I say I am most grateful to him for bringing this forward, and I invite him so to do?

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

My Lords, I do not know whether I need to ask your Lordships' leave to say merely this. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for his support and I am very grateful to the noble Lord the Minister for his most forthcoming reply. I of course am very glad to leave the matter in his hands. I do not know whether I said this in opening. I did not deal with the other loopholes that I suggested to the noble Lord might be used, because I did not want to advertise them. But I think it would be a good thing if the noble Lord would keep his eye on those as well as trying to improve this aspect and make the consequential amendments. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 12:

[Printed earlier: col. 1413.]

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I took this with No. 10 and I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 13: Page 7, line 1, leave out ("the person or").

The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this amendment takes up a point I referred to in Committee. I corresponded with the noble Lord about it and he said that he has a re-draft which they were considering. As I could not find it at that time on the Order Paper—because in fact it was not there—I put down this amendment, which is less felicitous than what the draftsman has devised. Therefore, I do not move the amendment.

[Amendment No. 13 not moved.]

The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Wootton of Abinger)

Amendment No. 14. I must point out that if this amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to move Amendment No. 15.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 14: Page 7, line 3, leave out from beginning to end of line 10 and insert ("is a qualifying person").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this group of amendments is another attempt to improve the drafting of the clause in the light of the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, at the Committee stage. The group deals with the specific points that the noble and learned Lord raised on Section 8(3A)(a) of the 1980 Act, as inserted by Clause 5(2) of the Bill.

The noble and learned Lord pointed out that the paragraph as drafted appeared to contemplate a disposal by a person to himself, which of course is a legal impossibility. These amendments are designed to cure the fault in the drafting, and I hope that the noble and learned Lord will feel that they are an improvement. If he feels that we should go yet further, I should be very interested to hear what he has to say.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord. As I mentioned in Committee, without developing it, the draftsman had an extraordinarily difficult task over this. As I understand it, what he is dealing with is conveyances by joint owners. But he had to find something to latch on the spouse and the family and he did that by specifying "the person", but we ended up with the absurdity that we have the situation of a conveyance by a person to himself.

The draftsman has dealt with this very adroitly; not by curing the mischief but by hiding it a little! What we have still got, I think, is this: a person is a qualifying person if he is the person by whom it was made, and the person to whom it is made is a qualifying person. So you have still got—although hidden away decorously—the absurdity. I cannot myself suggest any way of getting over it, granted the draftsman's difficulty. But I would venture to submit to your Lordships that the draftsman is bound to get into this sort of difficulty if we persist in trying to draft in the most minute detail: trying to govern every possible contingency which might arise in direct derogation of the method recommended by the Committee of the noble Lord, Lord Renton.

I do welcome this as an improvement. At any rate, a legal absurdity is moved a little more out of the daylight. I should certainly like it looked at again although I cannot suggest, having regard to this method of drafting, any way of getting over the difficulties.

Lord Renton

My Lords, as this is an agreed matter I do not want to take up further time with it. I should simply like to endorse what my noble and learned friend Lord Simon of Glaisdale said, and say that I rejoice even more about the omission of the words proposed to be left out than at the insertion of the words to be included.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, what does one say after that except, yes, of course, we shall certainly want to look again and see if we can come up with something which makes it yet better.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

[Amendment No. 15 not moved.]

6.51 p.m.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale moved Amendment No. 16: Page 7, line 12, after ("person") insert ("or persons").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a slightly different point. In Committee I drew to your Lordships' attention that whereas in the 1980 Act there was an exception to the clawback of the discount whether the whole or part of the dwelling-house was disposed of, in the amendment it now has to be the whole. I gave your Lordships the example of an order under the Matrimonial Causes Act. When I corresponded with the noble Lord the Minister, he said that they had no evidence of part-disposals, and to deal with part-disposals would involve apportionment, which would in turn involve draftsmanship of incredible complexity. I think it would be of incredible complexity if this style of drafting is persisted in, but it would not in fact be difficult to say: And in the case of a part-conveyance the discount shall be apportioned in such proportion as shall be just", leaving it if necessary for the court to determine. I am not wholly satisfied with the Minister's explanation, and I should like to ask him if he will look at the matter again in the light of the particular amendment I have tabled.

To paragraph (b), line 11 on page 7, which reads: it is a vesting of the whole of the dwelling-house in a person taking under a will or on an intestacy; I have sought to add the words: or persons because what you might have is a will relating to, say, a two-storey house and devising the lower storey to one child and the upper storey to another or, for that matter, to two strangers. I cannot for the life of me see why it should be the whole of the dwelling-house in "a person". There is no point, obviously, in pursuing this matter, but, unless the Minister has a conclusive on-the-spot answer. I ask him to look at it again.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, once again I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his suggestions for improving the drafting of Clause 5 of the Bill. His suggestions have already resulted in some improvement in the intelligibility of the legislation as we have seen from earlier amendments. We shall wish to study more closely in Hansard when it appears exactly what he has just said and of course I shall be discussing it with him in due course.

The noble and learned Lord is rightly concerned with the consistency between the wording of paragraphs (a) and (b) of Section 8(3A) of the 1980 Act, as inserted by Clause 5(2) of the Bill. We rely, of course, on Section 6(c) of the Interpretation Act 1978 to achieve the correct result for section 8(3A)(b). Section 6(c) provides that, unless the contrary intention appears, words in the singular include the plural". I must remember to use that somewhere else.

I am advised that, as the noble and learned Lord said, there is no evidence of a contrary intention here and that "a person" in Section 8(3A)(b) may be read as "persons" and so the right result is achieved.

There are special reasons for not relying upon Section 6(c) of the Interpretation Act 1978 in relation to Section 8(3A)(b). That provision has to cope with the possibility of disposals from one or more persons to one or more persons who may qualify for exemption from discount in a variety of ways. Those special considerations are not present in relation to Section 8(3A)(b) and I think we are therefore justified in relying upon Section 6(c) in that context. It might even be subversive to the application of Section 6(c) to other provisions of the legislation if we were to use the plural in Section 8(3A)(b).

Even so, quite clearly I want to look closely with the draftsman and others at what has been said by the noble and learned Lord, and this I gladly undertake to do with the same intent as with everything else he has raised and everything we have been discussing with the basic objective of making the Bill more intelligible. Of course, there are other provisions which are similarly worded which would be affected if the amendment were to be made, but we want to look at this carefully and I gladly undertake so to do.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for taking that line. I had, of course, considered whether the Interpretation Act would take care of the question. It seemed to me, reading the whole of the clause and in particular the subsection, that it could well be argued that the contrary intention does appear and that the singular is not intended to extend to the plural. Perhaps the noble Lord will consider this with the draftsman in the light of what I say. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

7.1 p.m.

Baroness Birk moved Amendment No. 16A: Page 7, line 24, leave out paragraph (e).

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is really a question of asking the Minister for an explanation. It seems a rather extraordinary situation. Clause 5(3A)(e) removes the requirement to pay back discount if land is sold in under five years. Presumably, this would allow the speculative gain on the land. In the 1980 Act, Section 3(4) defines the kind of land that is dealt with. Section 8(3) sets out where discount has to be repaid. In the Bill that we are considering today that instruction or necessity to repay the discount is removed if land is sold in under five years. I want to know why that has been done, if I am right in understanding that it has been done. If it has not, I wonder whether there has been some mistake, or whether the Bill needs to be clarified.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot resist the temptation to point out the few words, "of this Act" in the paragraph to which the amendment relates. I should point out once again that unless this Act, as it will be, goes out consolidated, that will he entirely misleading. It is not this Act; it is the 1980 Act to which reference is made.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, once again I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for making that point, which I shall certainly take up. As the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, has explained, this amendment would delete paragraph (e) in the new subsection (3A). The purpose of the paragraph is to exempt disposals of land, other than the dwellinghouse itself, from the normal discount repayment provisions. I can perhaps briefly explain, I hope, why we included that provision in Clause 5.

We have seen a number of cases, some of them put to us by the local authority associations, where right-to-buy purchasers wish to sell a small area of garden land for an obviously sensible reason. They may, for instance, simply want to realign garden boundaries or to assist with a road widening scheme. Under the present rule in the 1980 Act they find that if they do so within five years of the right-to-buy purchase, they are liable to repay in toto whatever amount of discount is currently repayable on their home according to the normal sliding scale. This could mean that they face an obligation to repay several thousand pounds to the council despite the fact that the value of the garden land involved is only a few hundred pounds, or even less.

I can give an illustration of the kind of difficulty that results. Your Lordships will recall that a year ago a very large council estate on the outskirts of Liverpool, the Cantril Farm Estate—which the noble Lord, Lord Evans, will know very well, as indeed will the noble Lord, Lord Sefton—was conveyed from Knowsley council to the Stockbridge Village Trust. This is a pioneering enterprise which offers great potential for the regeneration of an estate that has suffered severe problems. Were the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, to be in his place, I would strongly recommend him to visit the estate to see exactly what is being done there. Indeed, many of your Lordships who are interested in where we go from here in housing, would, I suggest, hardly find a better place to see what really can, and is, being done. It is quite staggering in its impact. That is, however, for another time.

One of the projects which the trust has come up with is a redesign of part of the road network on the estate, to give residents a more satisfactory living environment. The redesign of the road layout requires some of the residents to give up small areas of their gardens. Some of the residents are people who have bought their homes under the right to buy within the last five years. The residents are willing to co-operate with the trust but, as I explained, have found that if they do so and part with small areas of their gardens, they will be liable to repay thousands of pounds of discount to Knowsley council. The result is that, unless this provision in Clause 5 is enacted, the whole scheme may be stymied until the residents' discount repayment period expires. Clearly, that cannot be right. I am convinced that it should be removed. Indeed, I am most surprised that noble Lords opposite appear not to agree with this. The noble Baroness made this point—

Baroness Birk

My Lords, I said that, as I read it, I did not understand it.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, if the noble Baroness says she did not understand it, I withdraw absolutely the last point. Probably, we should have made it clearer. I take the responsibility for it not having been made sufficiently clear. In view of the fact that I have now made it clearer I hope that I need not make any further points and that the noble Baroness will not wish to proceed.

Baroness Birk

My Lords, there is one question that I am not clear about. Obviously, no one would go against the example that the Minister gave. But are there controls or constraints? Is there wholesale removal of the requirement to pay back discount if land is sold in under five years? If that is a general concession, it seems to me a rather dangerous one. How is it restricted so that it only extends to the type of example that the Minister gave? That is what concerns me.

Lord Bellwin

My Lords, by leave of the House, and again in the interests of time I would say that it seems that this is an area that I should like to discuss with the noble Baroness. So far as I am concerned, we are talking here about small disposals, involving small sums of money—nothing more than that. I am satisfied that when we discuss it in depth with the noble Baroness, she will go along with this. In reply to the point that she raised, I would say that if the land does not include the dwellinghouse itself, the answer is, yes, it is so.

Baroness Birk

My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 17:

Page 7, line 27, at beginning insert— ("For the purposes of subsection (3A)(a) above a person is a qualifying person in relation to a disposal if he—

1. (a) is the person or one of the persons by whom it is made;
2. (b) is the spouse or a former spouse of that person or one of those persons; or
3. (c) is a member of the family of that person or one of those persons and has resided with him throughout the period of twelve months ending with the disposal.

(3C)").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment was discussed with Amendment No. 14.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 18:

[Printed earlier: col. 1413.]

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment was taken with Amendment No. 10.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 19:

Page 7, line 35, leave out ("After subsection (4) of that section") and insert— ("In subsection (4) of that section for the words "specified in" there shall be substituted the words "falling within". (3A) After that subsection").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, with this amendment I should like to take Amendments Nos. 20, 21, 134. 135, 136 and 150.

Amendment No. 20: Page 7, line 38, leave out ("specified in") and insert ("falling within").

Amendment No. 21: Page 7, line 42, leave out subsection (4) and insert— ("(4) For subsection (5) of that section there shall be substituted the following subsections— (5) The bodies referred to in subsections (4)(b) and (4A) above are—

1. (a) the Housing Corporation;
2. (b) any building society;
3. (c) any body falling within paragraphs 6 to 9 of the Schedule to the Home Purchase Assistance and Housing Corporation Guarantee Act 1978; and
4. (d) any body specified or of a class or description specified in an order made by the Secretary of State with the consent of the Treasury.

(5A) Before making an order under subsection (5) above varying or revoking an order previously made, the Secretary of State shall give an opportunity for representations to be made on behalf of any body which, if the order were made, would cease to be a body falling within that subsection.".").

Amendment No. 134: Schedule 6, page 81, line 34, leave out ("After subsection (5) of that section") and insert— ("In subsection (5) of that section for the words "specified in" there shall be substituted the words "falling within". (3A) After that subsection").

Amendment No. 135: Page 81, line 37, leave out ("specified in") and insert ("falling within").

Amendment No. 136: Page 81, line 41, leave out sub-paragraph (4) and insert— ("(4) For subsection (6) of that section there shall be substituted the following subsection— (6) The bodies referred to in subsections (5)(b) and (5A) above are—

1. (a) any building society;
2. (b) any body falling within paragraphs 6 to 9 of the Schedule to the Home Purchase Assistance and Housing Corporation Guarantee Act 1978; and
3. (c) any body specified or of a class or description specified in an order made under section 8(5) of the Housing Act 1980.".").

Amendment No. 150: Schedule 11, page 96, line 11, at end insert— ("24A. In section 151(1) of that Act (regulations and orders) after the word "section", in the second place where it occurs, there shall be inserted the word "8(5)".").

These amendments deal with a matter on which representations have been put to us during the course of this Bill. I do not believe that they are controversial. I hope that your Lordships will be prepared to accept them at this stage. I shall explain their purpose as briefly as I can. Under the Housing Act 1980, if a right-to-buy property is resold within five years, the former landlord is entitled to repayment of part of, or all, the discount on the original sale. If there is a mortgage on the property in connection with the original purchase, repayment of the mortgage loan takes priority over the repayment of discount, provided that the lender is one of the types specified in the Act. These include building societies, banks and insurance companies. Clause 5 extends this provision to cover mortgage loans taken to refinance a previous local authority mortgage.

Most mortgage lenders are covered by the provisions of the Act, but there are some who do not fall within any of the categories at present specified. Such lenders, even though they may in principle wish to lend on council house sales or to refinance local authority mortgages, may in practice be reluctant to do so since a property on which the discount has first to be repaid is not as good a security for a loan. These amendments would make it possible for such bodies to lend more freely for these purposes by giving the Secretary of State the power to make an order extending the list of lenders whose mortgages take priority over repayment of discount.

There is more in the same vein, but basically that is the intention. The amendments are broadly paralleled by those to Schedule 6, which amends the Housing Act 1957 in respect of voluntary sales of public sector houses. I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 20:

[Printed earlier: col. 1423.]

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, I wonder whether at some stage the House is going to adjourn? We are only seeking guidance: it is not that we want to run away from any battle. But there are other people here who I think are even more anxious than we are to know where they stand.

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, I appreciate the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Graham, but I should tell him that the usual channels are currently consulting, and as soon as I have something to tell the House I shall certainly report it.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 21:

[Printed earlier: col. 1423.]

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment was taken with Amendment No. 19. I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 22:

[Printed earlier: col. 1413 .]

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment was taken with Amendment No. 10. I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Denham

My Lords, I think that this is probably a convenient moment to adjourn the Report stage for dinner. In moving that futher consideration on Report be now adjourned, perhaps it would be fair to tell the House that we shall not resume the Report stage before ten minutes past eight. I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned.

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