Orders of the Day — Housing (White Paper)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 19 July 1971.

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Photo of Gerald Kaufman Gerald Kaufman , Manchester Ardwick 12:00, 19 July 1971

I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate because this White Paper affects more than 60 per cent. of my constituents. The effect will be major, overwhelmingly it will be damaging, and in some cases it will be devastating. The veneer of presentation of the White Paper has been smooth and ingratiating. The Secretary of State began with an emollient anthology of Press quotations. The title of the White Paper aims to please—" Fair Deal for Housing". But the game is given away in Appendix I under the very deceptive heading Proposed Formula for the Transition to Fair Rents". If one looks below the heading one comes to the meat. Paragraph 2 says that the local authority … will be required to make … a further general rent increase … Paragraph 3 says … the local authority … will be required to increase rents … Paragraph 4 says that … the local authority … will be required to make a rent increase … This is not a fair rents White Paper ; it is a rents increase White Paper and, what is more, a rent increase of at least 50p a week White Paper. The Minister's slogan for it should be, "Pay your rent increase now and hope for a rebate later". It is damaging in both the private sector and the public sector. In the private sector all rents are to go out of control by January, 1976, and the rents are to go up by, to use the Government's favourite formula—and I quote from the White Paper— … not less than 50p per week". Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) mentioned, the landlord will be in a position to intimidate the tenant into accepting the new rent he wishes. The rent officer need never be consulted about what the rent should be. The acceptance by the Government of the Francis Committee's recommendation mentioned in paragraph 25 gives the landlord the opportunity to fix a rent privately with a tenant, and many tenants who are unaware of their rights and who wrongly fear for their security of tenure will accept whatever the landlord proposes.

This can go in indefinitely, because the White Paper states on page 7 : When a rent has been registered at least three years, and the parties agree on a new rent, they can apply jointly to the Rent Officer for cancellation of the registration". It says "can apply jointly", not "must apply jointly". In many cases they will not apply jointly and the landlord will get away with the rent that he wishes to impose on the tenant. The tenants who have most access to advice and who can understand advice best will be all right. But it is the tenants with least access to advice who most need it and it is they who will be most vulnerable. Even under present legislation, I can quote from my constituency an example of an attempt to exploit a defenceless tenant in this situation. That is what could and what will happen in the private sector.

In the public sector we have a prescription for ever-escalating rents because the Government clearly look forward to most rents going up, otherwise there is no meaning in the first sentence of paragraph 36 of the White Paper which states : The rents of most council dwellings are at present less than the fair rent". This must mean that the rent of most council dwellings will go up, and the Government wish it to go up. What is more the Government insist in paragraph 37 that the rent must go up by an average of 50p even if no fair rent has been determined, because their concept, under the White Paper, of a fair rent is a high rent—in fact, not just a high rent but an escalating rent. One does not simply, under the White Paper, establish a fair rent and that is the end of the matter. A new fair rent is to be established for local authority dwellings every three years. Therefore, instead of stabilising the rent situation, the White Paper introduces the new concept of the rent spiral.