I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 6, at end insert 'or'.

With this we may take the following amendments:

No. 2, in page 2, leave out lines 7 and 8.

Government Amendments Nos. 3, 12, 16 and 21.

I should like to deal briefly with Amendments Nos. 1, 3, 12, 16 and 21. The other amendment stands in the name of the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) for withdrawing his proposed amendment to Clause 2 so that I can give it further consideration. I agree with him, and with the right hon. Member for Crosby, that we should try to cut down, so far as practical, any exceptions to the main purpose of the Bill.

I have come to the conclusion that the case for retaining the provisions of paragraph 8 of Schedule 1 to the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 is not a strong one, and we are prepared to forgo it in the interests of the passage of the Bill. The repeal of that paragraph in the 1967 Act is dealt with in Amendment No. 21. That entails making certain consequential and transitional amendments. These are dealt with in Amendments Nos. 1, 3, 12 and 16.

I am glad that the Government are prepared to support the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Evans), who promoted the Bill, in reducing the number of exceptions to rent-charges. The amendments grouped with the one which the Minister has moved relate to another paragraph and another exemption in addition.

If I may just recap on the previous debates, we all agreed that the purpose of the Bill to abolish rentcharges had two reasons behind it—first, to remove what was felt to be an injustice, an imposition, a payment for nothing, because the original consideration for this payment has long been forgotten, and to relieve people of the anxiety of having to pay an annual rentcharge.

But the second reason, as I see it, is to simplify conveyancing, the transfer of property and the title of property. That again, is an important matter when we are considering the cost of sale and purchase of houses.

If we leave too many exceptions to the general rule that rentcharges shall not in future be created and that those which are in existence shall be redeemed, we are not de-complicating conveyancing and we are not simplifying the title to property as much as we might.

This subsection deals with the exemptions to the general rule that rentcharges shall not in future be created. In the first four exemptions, it is quite clear that it is exempting those charges which are paid for some purpose which can be seen. The first two cases, paragraphs (a) and (b) are the case of the settlement and trust for sale. The advantage there is that they do not really attach to the land. Under a settlement and a trust for sale, one can provide for charges which follow the money rather than the land, and they can be detached from the land. Certainly one can see that there is some good reason—some family arrangement—for a charge of this kind.

The next two, paragraphs (c) and (d), are cases where the payment is being made for something—the estate rent-charge for services to the property. In the fourth one, again one can see that it is made for something in return.

But when we get to paragraph (e) and (f), these are the rentcharges created by the court and the rentcharges created when leasehold property is enfranchised. They seem to be exactly the same in their nature as those rentcharges which the Bill is forbidding in future and redeeming where they now exist, and I think that we can do without both of them. In the case of leasehold reform rentcharges, I am glad that the Government are prepared to accept their removal as an exemption, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Caerphilly will be happy about it. But I wish to argue the point about leaving the court the power to create rentcharges in future—in other words, to create exactly that which the Bill is abolishing.

First, is there any need for this? The Commission gave its reasons for this in paragraph 52 of its report. It said:

"Thirdly, rentcharges created by, or in accordance with the requirements of, any court order. Such an order may well take the form of an order for payment of periodical sums, and we do not think that the court should be inhibited from causing the payments to be secured by a charge on land belonging to the person liable".

I intervene to ask, why not? We are forbidding this for every other citizen. Are we to have citizens before the court who will be able, by means of litigation, to create rentcharges which everyone else is forbidden to do?

The Commission goes on in its report:

"In many (perhaps most) cases the result will be a secured 'family' annuity very similar to those included within the first head of exceptions".

That is so. The court can do what it would wish to do in administration proceedings, in proceedings between members of a family to settle some provisions under a will or a settlement, and so on, by means of a settlement or a trust for sale.

I see no reason why we should give the court power to create rentcharges merely by an order of the court in settlement of the case. It will still leave that possibility on the title to the property. Therefore, we are not simplifying conveyancing by leaving this. We are not simplifying the litigation in which it may be created. If there are proceedings in court where a settlement is to be considered by some periodical payment, and if there are a number of alternatives for the parties to the proceedings to put before the court or to say that that operation should not be used by the court, it will only complicate the proceedings.

In this case, we should be clear and forbid the creation of a rentcharge by a court order. There is no need to give the court that power. It can make all its useful orders in family arrangements by means of a settlement or a trust for sale.

I agree with the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) that the purpose of the Bill is to do away with an injustice, that being a rentcharge for which the payer can see no purpose and in which the person who receives it has no other interest in the land than receiving a continual periodical payment.

But it seems clear now—and I agree with the Law Commission—that an order made by the court for security for the payment of periodical sums does not come within that category.

The right hon. Gentleman will know that the usual type of order of this kind is where the court has made an order in respect of maintenance payments in matrimonial proceedings. I cannot think that that comes under the heading of the mischiefs which this Bill seeks to cure. I cannot see why it is right in this Bill to prevent a court making an order of security on a husband's home if that is the only method which it can envisage of securing a payment to the wife. That is the most usual situation in which a court would make that order and, although I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we want to cut out superfluous or unnecessary rentcharges, I do not think that this form is one which the Bill deals with or ought to deal with.

I do not think that I need expand on the very proper and correct reason which the Law Commission gives for including this subsection in Clause 2. So, although I am always eager and willing to listen to what the right hon. Member for Crosby says on this subject, I must tell him that I propose to resist his Amendment No. 2.

I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 2, line 20, after 'services', insert 'or easements'.

This is an amendment to the definition of "estate rentcharge". As was said in our previous discussion, estate rentcharges are an exception to the general rule that rentcharges shall not in future be created and that those which exist shall be redeemed or have the possibility of redemption.

The estate rentcharge is one which is paid for something done to the property, something being done to the property, and something in respect of which the payer can see that he is getting some return.

Again I refer to the Law Commission's Report. In para. 48, it mentions a distinct group of separate freehold houses or a single building divided into separate freehold parts, and it says that in such cases, to preserve the rights against various parts of those properties a rentcharge is imposed.

In such a case, there is a need for a payment of this kind. It is necessary for a charge to be imposed on the property because, otherwise, the positive covenants would not be enforceable or, to put it the other way, there would be difficulty in enforcing the positive covenants in many cases.

We still have the strange legal position that negative covenants run with the land but positive covenants do not. Why have no "Government—I am criticising the Conservative Government when they were in office as well as any other Government—taken the bull by the horns and legislated in accordance with the Wilberforce Report on positive covenants and made them enforceable? We were unable to take leasehold reform to its proper limit and apply it to flats as well as houses because no Government had taken action on the Wilberforce Report and made positive covenants enforceable.

We are now dealing with the same problem because here are charges placed on property merely for the purpose of enforcing positive covenants. Given covenants between flat owners in one building where they each rely on the support of the other owners in the building, the issue can be solved by ordinary long leases, but in many cases the problem has been solved by imposing rent charges on all the property—namely, all the parts of the property in separate ownership. That was a purpose of the estate rent charge.

Clause 2(4) states:

"a rentcharge created for the purpose—(b) of meeting, or contributing towards, the cost of the performance by the rent owner of covenants for the provision of services".

I presume that to that extent one would have to show that services were being provided. I do not think that we are told in the Bill exactly what "services" are. We are not told whether we are to take them as the sort of services that we have described in furnished dwelling house legislation on rent control, but some service has to be shown for that. The paragraph goes on to describe

"the carrying out of maintenance or repairs, the effecting of insurance or the making of any payment by him for the benefit of the land affected by the rentcharge or for the benefit of that and other land."

There are cases in which property has been divided up from a larger area and in which rights of light or rights of way over the property are retained by the vendor, rights reserved as easements over that property. It may be that the promoter or the Minister will be able to satisfy me that a payment made by what we know in law as the dominant owner to the servient owner for the right to use a way or for the right to have his light maintained to his building, may not be a rentcharge at all.

Perhaps it is not one of the matters that we are abolishing but I wish to be quite certain because when payment is made for a right to use a certain pathway or road, or the right to have the light to one's windows maintained and not blocked by someone building too close, it may be described as an estate rentcharge. I hope that that sort of rentcharge, if it be such a charge, can be an exemption from the general rule about abolishing rent charges which is now being applied under the Bill.

11.45 a.m.

It should be made clear that where the owner of one piece of land or one building is providing rights to the owner of an adjoining piece of land or building and is receiving payment for that provision, although he is not under an obligation to keep the right of way in repair or anything of that sort, he will still be able to receive those payments without being obliged in a later part of this measure to have it redeemed, and that we shall still be able to create a liability to pay under circumstances of that sort.

As the right hon. Gentleman said in moving an earlier amendment, one of the objects of the Bill is to reduce to the minimum—he did not use these words but this is what he was implying—the type of rentcharge that can be created. That formed the basis of his argument on Amendment No. 1. The present amendment goes against that principle. I am not suggesting that it is wished that it should do so, but in fact it goes against the principle.

In the view of the Government, the amendment is unacceptably wide. There is no need for the device of rentcharge to be used to pay a rent owner for providing an easement. It is difficult to imagine that a rent owner would covenant to provide an easement or right of way or light and seek to secure reimbursement by way of a rentcharge. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has any examples of that being done.

There are many occasions when an annual payment is made to retain a right of light and to prove that it is a right of light. Payment is frequently made for that very purpose. The payment may be only a shilling a year—sometimes it is considerably more than that—but payments are made for such easements.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. In my experience the more common method is that the owner simply provides an easement right of way of right of light, the value of it being reflected in the price of the property that enjoys the benefit of it. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that that is the more common method, although I do not dispute that in some cases what he says may be correct.

If payments of this nature are made to secure an easement, I am advised that it would be a rentcharge. I can put the right hon. Gentleman's mind at rest in that respect. I accept that what he says does arise but the occasions are very rare. It is the view of those advising me that such payments could be classified as rentcharges. I see no reason unnacessarily to widen the category of types of rentcharge that can be created, and for the reasons I have given I do not think that the amendment is necessary.

I beg to move Amendment No. 6, in page 3, line 18, at end insert

'otherwise than by an amount or amounts on a date or dates stated in the instrument'.

We may consider at the same time Amendment No. 13, in Clause 9, page 9, line 8, at end insert

'and in the case of a rentcharge the annual amount of which alters (as provided by the instrument creating it) by fixed amounts on fixed dates, one sixtieth of the total amount payable in respect thereof during the period of 60 years immediately preceding its extinguishment under section 3(1) of this Act'.

I am much obliged to you, Mr. Speaker, for selecting Amendment No. 13 for consideration at the same time, since the two amendments go together.

In Committee, we had considerable discussion about what is described in the Bill as a variable rentcharge. If I understand aright, variable rentcharges may still be created but they are not subject to redemption until they cease to be variable rentcharges.

Let us go back to the beginning, as it were, and consider the purpose of Clause 3. The clause provides that every rentcharge shall be extinguished at the expiry of 60 years beginning with the passing of the Bill or beginning with the date on which the rentcharge first becomes payable. It is that last provision which affects the variable rentcharge in particular, that is, a rentcharge which is not the same sum each year but which may vary with the circumstances described in the instrument creating the rentcharge. It may be a rentcharge which varies according to some event or circumstance which itself may vary from year to year, such as the rateable value of the property. A change in the rentcharge may take place on a death or some other event which cannot be pinpointed as a date in the future.

That is one type of variable rentcharge. I see the extreme difficulty of saying either that that variable rentcharge shall be deemed to start on a particular date while it is still variable or that one can fix the amount of redemption.

However, where the rentcharge varies by specific amounts on specific dates set out in the instrument, we can say that it is in the nature of a fixed rentcharge, and there is no difference in principle between the rentcharge which varies on specified dates and by specified amounts and the rentcharge which is the same amount every year.

In subsection (4), therefore, which lays down that the extinguishment provisions shall not apply to a variable rentcharge, I seek by Amendment No. 6 to exclude therefrom the rentcharge which, although variable, is by the instrument under which it was created payable on specific dates at specific amounts.

The subsection goes on to say that where a rentcharge

"ceases to be variable, subsection (1) above shall apply "—

subsection (1) being the extinguishment provision—

"as if the date on which the rentcharge first became payable were the date on which it ceased to be variable."

At the end of the clause I have introduced my amendment which would make a variable rentcharge payable by fixed amounts on fixed dates a rentcharge which should be extinguished under Clause 3 in the period of 60 years.

I turn now to Amendment No. 13, which would deal with the redemption of a rentcharge of that nature, that is, a rentcharge of fixed amounts which, although they vary, will vary only on fixed dates specified in the instrument creating the rentcharge. Amendment No. 13 applies to Clause 10(1), which sets out what appears to be a rather complicated formula. The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment did splendidly with this in Committee, giving us examples of how the formula would work out and almost producing a sliderule to help us. In fact, however, it is not so terribly complicated. One symbol in it, indicating the amount of the annual rentcharge to be redeemed, is the letter R. That is easy enough to introduce into the formula if it is a fixed sum which does not change annually.

However, since we are here basing our system on extinguishment over a period of 60 years, if the sum is not the same every year, why can we not make a simple addition to the formula, that is, adding up the total payments over the 60 years and dividing by 60, so that, even if the specified amounts vary over that period—starting off at £2 for 10 years, then £4 for the next 10 years and so on—one can tot up the total amount payable over the 60 years and then divide by 60? It seems to me that that would produce the same sort of figure as is produced when the amount is the same each year.

Amendment No. 13, therefore, is designed to introduce into the symbol R the added item where it is not just the fixed annual amount of the rentcharge to be redeemed but the varying amount, provided that the sums are fixed and the dates are fixed. One would then add into the symbol R in the formula one-sixtieth of the total amount payable over the 60 years.

I am not a mathematician. I do not profess to be skilled at these matters, especially when I have to square certain figures, as I have to do in this formula, when I need log tables and the rest. But I have applied what seems to me to be a simple solution to this matter. The serious side of it is that if we say that variable rentcharges of the kind which I have described shall not be subject to the Bill after it becomes an Act, we shall leave a considerable hole through which the Bill can be avoided. I hope that by means of the formula which I have proposed we can close that hole at least partly.

I cannot deal with variable rentcharges where we do not know the dates on which they will vary, the occasions on which they will vary, or even the amounts, but where both the amounts and the dates are known I think that we can introduce this item into the formula and say that such rentcharges shall be extinguished under the redemption formula.

First, I congratulate the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) on endeavouring to invent a formula for variable rentcharges. He has found one which could quite simply be added to the formula which we already have in the Bill.

However, I know that the right hon. Gentleman would not wish to see in the Bill any element of confiscation. The purpose of the formula in the Bill is to find a way of ensuring that the rent owner receiving the payment for redemption should have sufficient to give him the same income, broadly speaking, over the perpetual period which would previously have applied.

The Government would not support any move towards confiscation, and I think it right at this point to explain something about the purpose of the Bill which people in the country, especially in Manchester and Bristol, may have misunderstood. What the Bill does is to prevent the creation of rentcharges in the vast majority of cases, to simplify the apportionment and redemption system, and to cut out some of the charges in that. It does not immediately abolish all rentcharges.

Therefore, before there is any dancing in the streets of Bristol and Manchester, I want that to be clear. There may well have been dancing in the streets of Bristol last night, and there may well be dancing in the streets of Manchester tomorrow night, but the connection will be with football rather than with the Rentcharges Bill.

The Minister must not be so partisan as all that. The dancing will be in the streets of Liverpool tomorrow night.

As the Member for Manchester, Gorton I was modest enough to say that there may be dancing in the streets of Manchester, and I could lose a lot on that, too.

These questions of variable rentcharges were dealt with at great length in Committee and I spoke in particular about the possibility of extinguishing them. But any automatic extinguishment of a rentcharge, even one which rises by fixed amounts on fixed dates, carries with it an element of confiscation which the rent owner cannot provide against with the redemption fee he receives. In particular, any rises in the rentcharge, which would take effect under the instrument creating it, after the end of the 60-year extinguishment period would not be catered for by the formula, and the rent owner could not be expected to set aside out of the annual payments he receives during the 60 years an investment to provide an equivalent rising income after the rentcharge is extinguished. That is precisely what I know the right hon. Gentleman does not want to see. In Committee I dealt with the matter at length, and it is referred to in columns 89 and 90 of the Official Report of the Committee proceedings.

The reasons for not accepting the amendment to Clause 10 are similar. In effect the amendment requires that in the case of this sort of variable rentcharge the figure to be used as the annual amount of the rentcharge is to be the average of the annual amounts payable over the 60-year extinguishment period.

Again, this formula takes no account of any rises which would take place after the end of the 60 years. The amount of the redemption price would on this formula be an artificial figure based on the lower amount of rentcharge payable it its early years and would not provide a fund capable of bringing in a sum equivalent to the higher rent due in later years after redemption.

There is a further reason for not accepting the proposd formula in that it would not work similarly in all cases. The result would depend to a large extent on the amounts of rises in the rentcharge and the intervals at which they should take place. The redemption price arrived at to provide a similar substitute income could vary widely from case to case, even when it is a fixed charge, and that is why we are unable to accept the amendments.

I am disappointed with my hon. Friend's reply. In Committee it seemed that we faced two problems. First, there was the question of how to avoid expropriation, although many Members in Committee were prepared to see a small amount of that. Secondly, the problem was to produce a formula. The challenge was issued for someone to do so. If the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) can produce a formula in about 15 days, surely a Government Department could by now have produced a formula to cover the point.

If the right hon. Gentleman is happy that his formula does not involve too much expropriation, it seems that that would be accepted by the House as being a fair amount. I hope that in rejecting the amendment the Government will not shut their eyes completely to this problem of variable rent charges and that between now and when the Bill comes up for Third Reading in another place they will have further thoughts to see whether they can produce a solution to the problem.

I appreciate that one must consider whether any formula will be a formula of confiscation or expropriation of some right in property which is held by the rent owner. But when one gets beyond the 60 years, even though the instrument creating the rentcharge may provide for rises, those rises will be of a pretty low value.

At the bottom of page 19 in paragraph 58 of its report the Law Commission considers the figures required to be put aside out of the rentcharge each year in order to have a sum at the end of the 60 years which, when invested, will bring in the same as the rentcharge has brought in over the previous 60 years. It is shown that the amounts go down substantially throughout the years. By the time the sixtieth year is reached the figures are very small.

Therefore, the value of a rentcharge after the 60 years is not very great. This was the sort of thing that was recognised in dealing with leasehold reform, and the redemption of rentcharges appears to be very similar to leasehold reform. I agree that a formula which just adds up the total amount payable over 60 years and divides it by 60 is rather rough and ready justice. But I do not think that one would find a very great injustice to the rent owner who is obliged to accept redemption on that basis.

I may have been careless in something I said in moving the amendment when I spoke about the creation of variable rentcharges in future. I think I am right in saying that these are not excepted in any way. They may be excepted from extinguishment—I see the Under-Secretary nodding and therefore I hope that I am right—but I assume that it will not be possible to create them in the future. If I am right, that is a bit more relief to me in moving the amendment since I am dealing only with existing rentcharges.

I imagine that the Department of the Environment has some good idea how many variable rentcharges there are, certainly of the fixed variety. They will have been created perhaps, in the case of building sales for development purposes, but I do not think that many have been created. We know that rentcharges and chief rents of this sort exist only in certain parts of the country. I think that we could get a good idea of how many of these there are and to what extent there would be injustice.

This Bill has another stage to pass through in another place. I hope that the Department will not throw in the sponge over a formula for variable rentcharges and that some suitable formula will be found, even if the one which I have proposed is rather rough and ready. Perhaps the Department could smooth off the rough edges and come up with a reasonable solution. We should try to dispose of these fixed-date, fixed-amount variable rentcharges.

Perhaps I may reply briefly to the debate. On the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett), there is an argument for expropriation and I know that many people who pay chief rents in his area and mine would, whatever their political leanings, vote for expropriation. However, that is not what the Law Commission suggested or what is proposed in his Bill. We want as far as possible to provide justice in this matter.

Often a Bill may give rough justice, but we have gone as far as we can to be fair to the rent owners. In the case of variable rentcharges, what the right hon. Gentleman for Crosby (Mr. Page) said about amounts reducing towards the 60th year does not apply.

Frankly, I do not think we have any idea how many variable rentcharges there are. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that I should not throw in the sponge at an early date, and I do not propose to do so on this amendment.

I beg to move Amendment No. 7, in page 3, line 41, at end insert

'until the expiration of six weeks from the date of completion of the service upon all other owners of the land affected by that rentcharge of an advance copy or advance copies of the application conforming with the provisions of subsections (5) and (6) below.'

I understand that it is convenient to discuss at the same time the following amendments:

No. 8, in page 4, line 3, leave out 'equitably', and insert 'proposed to be'.

No. 9, in Clause 5, page 4, line 33, at end insert

'and upon all owners of the land affected by the rent charge if there has been no equitable apportionment'.

No. 10, in Clause 5, page 5, line 34, after 'applicant', insert

'and all other owners of the land affected by the rentcharge (if there has been no equitable apportionment)'.

Clause 4 deals with the apportionment of rentcharges which may apply or may originally have applied to a number of properties. By agreement between the rent owner and the rent payer, the rentcharge may already have been legally apportioned, but that can be done only if there is agreement between the two parties or between one party, the rent owner, and all the rent payers. Or it may have been legally apportioned by an order of the court. Otherwise, the rentcharge remains unapportioned. One payer may be responsible for the whole rentcharge, even though there is a great number of properties on which it is imposed. It is necessary before one redeems a rentcharge on one's own dwelling house, if it originally applied to several others as well, to have it apportioned and to find out what the amount is on that one property.

However, when one considers the machinery under Clause 4 as to how to go about apportionment, some complications arise, particularly under subsection (4):

"No application for apportionment may be made…in respect of any rentcharge which has not been equitably apportioned as between the land to which the application relates and other land affected by the rentcharge."

"Equitably apportioned" means that it has not been legally apportioned and there must be some arrangement among the several payers of the rentcharge before one may apply for apportionment.

This must put 99 per cent. of the payers of rentcharges in some difficulty. It is very seldom that one can point to an agreement between all the rent payers to share out the rent payment in certain amounts. They do pay them in certain amounts, but it may be difficult to point to any agreement. It is called "equitable" apportionment because the rent owner himself has not agreed with it. One must therefore consider an agreement among all rent payers before any one of them makes an application for an apportionment for his mount to be fixed.

I wanted to deal with cases where one cannot point to an agreement between the payers of the rentcharge to apportion it among themselves. However, I do not want to obstruct the application by the one who wants to redeem his rentcharge and therefore goes for an apportionment to start with.

Therefore, in Amendment No. 9, I have merely provided for a period of six weeks during which that rent payer who wishes to have an apportionment of the rentcharge, so that he knows exactly what is payable in respect of his land, must give notice to the others of his intention to make that application. If those others do not take some step to object to or to modify his proposed application, then the application shall be allowed to go forward. It puts the rent payer in great difficulty if he cannot ask for an apportionment when he cannot point to agreement among all the other rentcharge payers.

12.15 p.m.

It follows, in regard to subsection (5)—

"Every application…shall specify the amount equitably apportioned to the applicant's land "—

that he would not be able to comply with that if the amendment were accepted, but he would be able to propose in his application some amount which should be apportioned to his land. Therefore, in Amendment No. 8, I have suggested the replacement of the word "equitably" by the phrase "proposed to be"—that is to say, that the application should state the amount proposed to be apportioned to the applicant's land.

When the application comes before the Secretary of State under the procedure set out in Clause 5, he may decide that the equitable apportionment, or the proposed apportionment if the amendments are made, is not the right figure. If he so decides, he may be affecting other rentcharge payers, so it would be necessary, if the Secretary of State drew up a different apportionment to that required by the application, to give notice to the other owners of land affected by that same rentcharge. That is the purpose of Amendment No. 9, which adds to the subsection which already obliges the Secretary of State to send a copy of the draft order to the rent owner. It would oblige him also to send it to the other persons liable for the same rentcharge.

When the apportionment is finally made as provided under Clause 5(7) and the Secretary of State is obliged to send copies to the applicant and the rent owner, he would under Amendment No. 10 be obliged to send copies to the other persons affected by that rentcharge.

The whole procedure is an effort to simplify the existing procedure. There should not be an obligation on the person who applies for apportionment to search out the other people liable for the same rentcharge. The present procedure is precluding a rent payer from making the application at all. It is all very well to say, "We shall simplify the procedure. If you show that there has been an equitable apportionment and that all your neighbours agree on who should pay what, you need not notify your neighbours." Of course not, but he is precluded from making the application at all if he cannot show that he has already got the agreement of all his neighbours.

I am trying to provide not too complicated a procedure under which the rentcharge payer, who sometimes remains, both in law and in equity, liable for the whole of that rentcharge even though it is imposed on other property, will have a chance to ask the Secretary of State to apportion it although he has not gained agreement.

This, after all, is the purpose of the Bill. There are so many cases in practice in which, most unfairly, the whole rentcharge has been imposed on the owner of one property in a terrace, who has to collect it from the others. It is not easy for him, although he collects a certain amount from the others, to show that there is any agreement about their paying it. This is the case which would be greatly assisted by the amendments.

One of the special features of the apportionment scheme provided by the Bill, as most of us involved in the discussions on it so far have said, is that it is aimed specifically at simplifying and making the procedure less expensive. Towards that end, we have said that the applicant's co-rentpayers will no longer be made parties to the application. This is made possible by providing that legal apportionment, unless there are compell- ing reasons to the contrary, made under the statute, shall correspond with the existing equitable apportionment, where there is one. On this footing, the applicant's co-rentpayers are in no way affected.

The right hon. Gentleman said that this did not affect 99 per cent. of rent-payers, who are paying simple rentcharges or equitably apportioned rentcharges. If—and the right hon. Gentleman admits, therefore, that it would be an exceptional case—there is no existing equitable apportionment, this provision would not work.

The Department could not fix the applicant's scheme without consulting his co-rentpayers, and it would be wrong for the Secretary of State to be given the function of interfering in the arrangements, or potential arrangements, which exist between the rentpayers, some of whom, in any event, will not have asked the Secretary of State for a legal apportionment. It must, therefore, be up to the applicant to reach agreement with his neighbours as to what his share shall be before he asks the Department to make an order imposing that agreement on the rent owner. I recognise that the agreement of the rentpayers is not binding on the rent owner.

Amendment No. 8 would undermine the procedures. It would be possible for an applicant who had an equitable apportionment to apply for a legal apportionment and to propose a smaller amount, and he could do so without having to notify his co-rentpayers. For these reasons, I advise the House not to accept the amendment.

I am disappointed that the Under-Secretary of State has turned down the amendment, and that he did so very briefly without going in any depth into the very important position which is left in the air by the Bill. We are giving the public to understand that rentcharges are to be redeemed, that they will be extinguished after 60 years, so that all parties concerned had better get down to redeeming them now and clearing them off the title of the property. But we are putting this obstacle in the way of any rentcharge payer applying to the Secretary of State for his rent to be apportioned so that he may know exactly what is imposed on his property and then proceed to redeem it from his property.

I am disappointed that procedure has not been included in the Bill for the case where the person liable for the rentcharge may be unable to obtain the agreement of all those other persons who are liable for the same original charge, and therefore cannot get his apportionment. The hon. Gentleman says that the Secretary of State should not interfere between all the parties to this matter, both the rent owner and the rentcharge payers. But the whole procedure of apportionment and redemption is an interference between the rentcharge payer or payers and the rent owner. The Secretary of State will have in the Bill power to refuse the figure in the equitable opportionment and to put his own figure there. Therefore, he is already given the right to interfere as between the rent owner and the rent-charge payer. If the Secretary of State does interfere to that extent, and refuses to accept the figure in the equitable apportionment which appears in the application for apportionment, he is imposing a different figure on rentcharge payers who are not party to the proceedings at all. Let us take as an example a terrace of 10 houses, each occupier paying a rent-charge of £5 a year, the charges having been equitably opportioned among themselves. They all agree that they shall each pay £5 a year. But one of them wishes to have this legally apportioned. Thereby, having it set down legally that he is to pay £5 a year between the rent owner and himself, he can have it redeemed.

It goes before the Secretary of State, who, for example, says "Your house is a corner house. It is bigger than the others and much better, and you should pay a little more than the £5 that your neighbours are each paying." It may go the other way round. The Secretary of State may say "Your £5 is too much because you are in a corner house and are liable to road charges on either side. Therefore, you should pay a little less." If the Secretary of State does that, he is imposing something on the other rent-charge payers greater than the equitable apportionment.

It is no good using the argument that, under this procedure, the Secretary of State cannot and should not interfere in arrangements between rentcharge payers and the rent owner, because he is already doing so under the procedure. All I am asking is that he shall interfere to the extent of helping the rentcharge payer who cannot produce a firm agreement between himself and his neighbours as to who shall pay what. Without that, some people are suffering extreme hardship from being liable for the whole of the rentcharge when it should be legally apportioned between them and their neighbours.

I give an example from the point of view of the money involved. Again, let us take the case of the terrace of 10 houses. Looking at the legal documents, one finds that the man in the corner house is legally responsible for the whole lot. He wants to get a mortgage on his house. Every building society is prepared to give him a mortgage but wants some indemnity against his having to pay the whole of the rentcharge, or, if he fails to pay, or his neighbours fail to pay, the right of the rent owner to enter that property and to realise the rentcharge.

I do not know what the premiums are now for that. A few years ago, when—if I may declare an interest—I was a director of a building society, we used to provide through insurance companies for an indemnity against failure to pay rentcharges by the neighbours when there was not a legal apportionment. For a rentcharge of about £2, there was a once-for-all premium of about £30. Not a large sum is involved, but it may well be an encumbrance when an owner wishes to sell his property and a purchaser wants to get a mortgage.

The purchaser will go to the building society, whose solicitors find that there is this rentcharge on the property and say "You must have an insurance policy to indemnify us against having to pay that charge". So the circumstances in which an application for apportionment could be made should be extended to those cases where the applicant cannot prove that there is an equitable apportionment. He should be able to go to the Secretary of State by some form of procedure and say "Please apportion it for me". The formal procedure should be to give notice to the others concerned, and that is all my amendment would do.

I wish to support the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). It seems to me that, in this specific set of circumstances, we are probably dealing with the most needy among those cases affected by the Bill. Those who have had the greatest difficulty in persuading their neighbours to join in an agreement of this kind are most in need of this type of provision.

I can envisage a situation where, as the right hon. Member for Crosby has indicated, an elderly or infirm person who is responsible for collecting rentcharges in a terrace is afraid and unhappy about visiting his neighbours and asking them for money. For example, in my constituency there is a blind woman who would be afraid or worried about having to go to her neighbours to ask for an agreement of the kind described by the right hon. Member for Crosby. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will reconsider the circumstances outlined in the amendment before the Bill completes its final stages.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Noble) and the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) know that I want to have as few exceptions as possible in the Bill. I have great sympathy with what the right hon. Member for Crosby said about finding some form of procedure for dealing with this problem. One of the problems arises with terraced houses in industrial districts where the rentcharges are not equally apportioned. If there are examples where rentcharges are not equitably apportioned, they must be few in number. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale could find an example where the charges have not been equitably apportioned. I know that in some terraces there are all kinds of different charges—for example, charges of £2, £7 or £10.

I assure my hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman that I shall look at this matter again to see whether some way round the obvious disadvantage can be found. If so, perhaps this matter can be dealt with when the Bill goes to another place.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Undersecretary is only too well aware, after his consultations with me, as the promoter of the Bill, of the situation outlined by the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page).

In Committee I began to cite an example that I found in London, but I was interrupted by the lunch hour. The example concerned a lady who, as part of her family property, had inherited the receipt of rentcharges in Cheshire. She wrote to all the rentcharge payers to absolve them from any further payments because she was bitterly resentful of the system. That was because, having been north to look at that part of her inheritance, she found that the onus for collecting rentcharges on a sizeable group of houses had been placed on an old-age pensioner who was partially blind and suffered from other disabilities. Her sense of indignation was such that she took unilateral action and decided that she must get rid of the system, which she did.

I have talked about such cases with my fellow sponsors of the Bill and with the two Ministers who are here today, and I know where their sympathy lies. I am sure that if anything can be done on the lines of the right hon. Gentleman's amendment, my hon. Friends will look at it sympathetically and not dismiss it in a cavalier way. I pledge myself, as promoter of the Bill, to see that this particular matter is not dismissed in a cavalier fashion.

Finally, I accept that it is always the dramatic, headline-making issues that dominate the Press, and in our own localities this kind of issue becomes the focus of community attention. Emotive and evocative cases of real suffering, such as the one that I mentioned, would be talked about by everyone in the locality. I do not know how many such cases occur. The Department of Environment, as in the case of variable rentcharges, admitted that it has been almost impossible to obtain a global picture of what is entailed. The Department is perhaps in more difficulty when it comes to the highly personalised cases mentioned by the right hon. Member for Crosby.

I am grateful for the Minister's assurances. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move Amendment No. 11, in page 6, line 40, leave out 'substitute' and insert 'specify, in substitution'.

This is a little more than a drafting amendment. Frequently, when dealing with Statutory Instruments and considering whether they are vires, intra vires or ultra vires the parent Act, one comes across the phrase about the Secretary of State being able to put into the order something that he considers to be appropriate. The question arises whether he should be able to put into a Statutory Instrument such a figure as seems appropriate to him, or whether it must be a specified figure.

I have suggested a form of words which gets us out of that difficulty altogether. These words make absolutely sure that if the Secretary of State, in making regulations, substitutes some other figure for the figure mentioned in the clause, the regulations themselves shall specify that figure. On the wording in the Bill—the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has looked at this matter from time to time—it is not entirely clear. Under Clause 7(6), as it stands, the Secretary of State can make regulations saving that, in his own discretion, he shall fix a figure whenever he considers it appropriate. I want to make certain that when he intends to alter it—hon. Members know what I am talking about—he must state the actual figure in the regulations. I believe that the words in my amendment will make it absolutely certain that that is done.

Having twice turned down the right hon. Gentleman's amendments, and possibly because I am influenced by the fact that he, like myself, hopes and expects that there will be rejoicing in the streets of Liverpool, I am prepared to accept this amendment. It is rare that three words in the place of one make better sense and clarify an issue. I make no criticism of the existing drafting, but it may be that the wording suggested by the right hon. Gentleman will make the meaning clearer.

I beg to move Amendment No. 14, in page 13, line 15, after 'of', insert 'the relevant provision of'.

): With this, we may take Government Amendments Nos. 15 and 17.

These amendments are designed to ensure that the various parts of the Bill become effective as soon as practicable.

The provisions of the Bill which prohibit the creation of new rentcharges and provide for the extinguishment of existing ones will come into force, together with some of the miscellaneous and general provisions, one month after Royal Assent. The provisions which set up the new apportionment and redemption procedures will come into operation at a later date to be appointed by order.

As the Bill stands, the two schedules to the Bill would also come into force on the later date. However, some of the provisions in the schedules are amendments to or repeals of provisions giving power to create rentcharges. Therefore, these provisions should come into force on the same day as Clause 2, that is, a month after the passing of the Act.

I welcome the amendments, but they do not entirely meet the problem which we discussed in Committee, namely, when will the Bill be brought into operation? We have not had a satisfactory answer to that question. If it depends on regulations being made, will the Department send the regulations in draft to all sorts of organisations—to everybody, indeed, except Members of Parliament—for their comments so that months pass before the regulations are made?

I recall—and this is not entirely irrelevant, Mr. Deputy Speaker—that the Lotteries Bill, which the Government took over from me two years ago, came into operation only 18 months after its passage because we were waiting for the regulations not from the Department concerned with the present Bill but from another Department. In that time, about £60 million was lost to some of the organisations about which we have been speaking today. We do not want delay of that sort to occur in respect of this Bill.

I hoped that the Under-Secretary of State would bind his Department by giving an undertaking that the Bill would come into operation in perhaps two or three months, giving sufficient time to make the regulations, but we do not want a series of consultative documents on the regulations going out to local authorities, Government Departments, property federations and residents' associations while we wait for the legislation to be brought into operation.

I do not oppose the amendments. I simply ask for an assurance that the apportionment and redemption parts of the Bill will be put on the statute book as quickly as possible.

I give the assurance that all the provisions of the Bill will be brought into operation at the earliest possible date. One danger in fixing a date is that one looks well ahead and tries to make arrangements for all the difficulties which may cause delay. I should much prefer to be able to bring the Bill into effect as soon as practicable. I do not think that a lot of consultation will be needed, as the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) suggested. At this stage, I would rather not specify a date but prefer to say that we shall deal with the matter as soon as possible.

Will my hon. Friend give an assurance that before debate on the Bill is concluded in the Lords the Government will indicate a date from which they expect it to be operative?

I shall try to do that, but I do not wish now to specify a date because there may be a tendency to specify a date some way off which allows for all eventualities.

I accept the amendments. I, too, urge on the Department the need for speed, because people expect to be able to rid themselves as soon as possible of what has always seemed to be a hardship or an irritation.

I beg to move Amendment No. 18, in page 14, line 27, leave out from beginning to end of line 28 and insert:

"be substituted the words 'redeemable under sections 8 to 10 of the Rentcharges Act 1977 and those falling within paragraphs (c) and (d) of section 2(3) of that Act (estate rentcharges and rentcharges imposed under certain enactments)'".

With this it will be convenient to discuss Amendments Nos. 19 and 20.

These are technical amendments altering paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 which contains amendment to the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 in order to ensure that the provisions of that Act are brought into line with the general scheme of the Bill.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

It has given me great pleasure that throughout the exercise of promoting the Bill there has been agreement about ending an ancient injustice which was highlighted in Committee and during the Bill's other stages, particularly on Second Reading, by cases of individual hardship and suffering, including the suffering mentioned in an inimitable speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Stock-port, North (Mr. Bennett), who had armed himself with the deeds of his house, because he was not only the payer of a rentcharge but was a designated rentcharge collector.

We are having a Third Reading debate simply because the Report stage was so technical legally that it was difficult for me to find a peg on which to hang my few remarks. I should like to pay great tribute to the tremendous amount of work done by the Law Commission, in its thinking and physical effort, in examining the problem of rentcharges. In particular, I should like to express my thanks for the help I have been afforded by the officers of the Law Commission and by the Lord Chancellor's office in preparing material for the Bill.

I wish to express my personal gratitude to my hon. Friends the Undersecretary of State for the Environment and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Law Officers' Department, who have given me all possible help and who have harnessed the resources of their Departments from which I have received a great deal of co-operation. I should like also to express appreciation to the only Member on the Opposition Benches who has put forward amendments, the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). Debate on the Bill has risen above party politics and has been fair and expeditious.

The people in Bristol, Greater Manchester and North-East Lancashire are very heavily hit by this problem of rent-charges. I hope that when the Bill is enacted the machinery of operation for the redemption of rentcharges will be adequately publicised by the Department concerned, so that people will know exactly how to set about securing what the Bill has obtained for them.

On Second Reading some colourful phrases were used. In Bristol rentcharges were described as "the Bristol twist". In the North rentcharges were described as "the landlords' pension fund", and so on. It is an ancient abuse, and everyone involved in this matter regards it as something which should no longer be repeated. It has imposed personal hardship of the nature I mentioned earlier and to which the right hon. Member for Crosby referred.

Now at long last this abuse is coming to an end. The view of the Law Commission is that there should be no attempt at direct expropriation, and the formula worked out for redemption over a 60-year period may be a matter of argument. Some people may feel that this is too long a period or that some other formula should be used. These are matters of legitimate argument, but beyond peradventure there cannot be any charge other than of almost purely notional expropriation, and that element must always remain, even if the period went on for 100 or 150 years.

Had the original concept of the use of the district councils with an almost over-the-counter transaction been used, we might have seen a great simplification of procedure, to which reference has been made on Report in a couple of the amendments. But, because of the economic climate and other difficulties, it was not possible to do this, and therefore the Department of the Environment, rather than see such a worthwhile reform fail, has undertaken the onus of overlooking and meeting the expenditure on this side of the Bill.

It is, therefore, within the realms of possibility that before this summer ends the Bill will become an Act. In this Bill I embarked on an aspect of property ownership which does not really affect my own area very much. The curse of my part of the country, in South Wales, has been the 99-year lease and not the rentcharge, although I have unearthed pockets of houses in cities such as Cardiff and Swansea which are so affected. But since embarking on the exercise I have come more and more to feel that, like many other hon. Members, I might have the satisfaction of leaving Parliament having in my name an absolutely essential reform, and by so doing leaving the tiniest of tiny footnotes in the tiniest of tiny handwriting on a page of history in this Parliament.

My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Evans) has done a great service to the House by promoting the Bill. Now that we have come to Third Reading he is indeed to be congratulated.

My two hon. Friends on the Front Bench, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Law Officers' Department, have both done great work on the abolition of these charges during the period in which this measure has been working its way through the House.

As I said on Second Reading, there have certainly been occasions when such Bills have been brought forward and have floundered for one reason or another. I should have liked to see the House giving a Third Reading today to a Bill to abolish rentcharges completely, because in my view the cities of Manchester and Bristol are still in an iniquitous position and they will be even after the Bill is enacted. We are still not on a par with the rest of the country. That must be completely understood by my hon. Friends. That is why there will be no dancing in the streets of Bristol or of Manchester, even though there may be dancing in the streets over other matters.

To my mind the fly in the ointment is the 60-year redemption period. I have fought for a long time, together with other hon. Members from the Bristol area, to get some formula for the redemption and I believe that 60 years is much too long a period. In the area that I represent, where there are very many rentcharges, people have said to me when I have tried to explain to them that the Bill is before the House "I shall be dead and gone by then. It will not benefit me." That is the great regret that I have now that we have come to Third Reading, because we are still in an iniquitous situation and the anomaly in the Bristol and Manchester areas will remain. But in order to persuade the Opposition to allow the Bill to proceed and so that we shall not be thwarted as in the past, we have had to agree to the lines of the report of the Law Commission, and I acknowledge this.

Certainly on two issues there has been great success, and this will be widely welcomed. The first is the provision in the Bill to prohibit new rentcharges for new buildings. The second is the formula, which has been agreed in the Bill, for the redemption of rentcharges. These two items will certainly help my constituents in Kingswood and people in the Bristol and Manchester areas in particular.

Perhaps it can be said that we have half a loaf in this Bill. There is an old saying that half a loaf is better than no bread, but the main problem has been the 60-year redemption period. I hope that this aspect can be examined again. As I stated earlier, it is because this problem has not been overcome that there will not be dancing in the streets.

But my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly has done a great service to us on the two counts of prohibiting new rentcharges and of bringing about a formula for redemption that will be widely welcomed and used by many of my constituents.

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Evans) on getting his Bill so far, but I hope that he has not concluded his toils. In Committee we pointed to one of the areas of concern, and I trust that when the measure gets to the other place my hon. Friend can act in an advisory capacity and persuade some of their Lordships to bring in amendments that will make the Bill more welcome to this side of the House.

In this connection I am referring particularly to the 60-year period. It is clear that there is a lot of concern and feeling about this, and I ask my hon. Friend to have another go at discussing the matter with Ministers to see whether some improvement can be made.

There was an interesting amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) that was not selected. I can think of good reasons for its not being selected, but it would have looked at the question of the tax on income from rentcharges. I wonder whether, if someone had considered granting a tax concession, there could have been a considerable reduction in the 60 years. Such a change would have helped to tidy up the statute book.

We have pressed the Minister about the date on which the measure will come into effect. I hope that he will take to heart the strong feeling on this side of the House that the Bill should come into effect as quickly as possible.

I propose now to deal with the question of organisation. In Committee we expressed considerable disappointment and concern that local authorities had refused to take on this responsibility and that it will have to be carried out by the Department of the Environment. Most hon. Members feel that it would be much more satisfactory if there were someone in each area to whom people could talk across the counter rather than have to write to some remote Department. We pressed that if this task could not be done by local authorities paid to do it by the Government, the Department of the Environment should consider the possibility of setting up regional offices, so that somebody could go to an office in the centre of Manchester, or Bristol, and present his problem face to face with an official there.

Yesterday one of my Labour councillors received a query from one of his electors about a notice from the Department of the Environment. I did a little checking this morning and I rang the Department. It took me nearly five minutes to get through. It took the Department a little time to find the relevant papers and only about two seconds to answer my question, which was whether the property was freehold or leasehold. Having received an answer to my query, I knew how to proceed.

The situation is not too bad if someone is phoning a London office from the House of Commons. One has to allow the switchboard time to put the call through and the Department time to find the relevant papers. One then asks a short, simple question and gets an answer. If, however, somebody 'phones from, say, Manchester, it is annoying to find the money ticking up for the call. I hope that local people can be used to deal with these problems.

It would be helpful if the documentation were simpler and more easily understood. Let me quote from a letter sent by the Department of the Environment. The letter deals with leasehold, but I understand that this is the standard form of letter. It says:

"You will note that your property has been included in Part Four of the draft Order in the unapportioned residue. This has been done as your property forms part of the security for the rent and as such it must be shown in any Order which may be made. It does not however in any way affect the amount of rent you may pay or your possible indemnity against this rent."

I have probably read that rather badly, but that is that sort of phrase that leads people to wonder what is meant. The recipient of the letter was not sure what it was all about and whether it was not a notice that the charge had gone up.

Having checked the matter, I can give the answer that the charge has not gone up and that it is possible that the person concerned has been overcharged for some time. The receipt of the letter caused considerable concern and worry. I think that it could have been phrased better. It could have said at the beginning of the sentence that there was no change, or no extra charge, and then, if necessary, set out all the legal wording.

I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that the scheme will operate quickly and simply and that there will be someone in each locality from whom those who are involved can get personal advice instead of having to write to London or make telephone calls.

My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) is well placed. If we do not receive the kind of service for which we are asking we shall advise people to go to his advice bureau rather than come to see us. I hope that my hon. Friend can give us the assurances for which we have asked.

Let me first congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Evans) on steering the Bill to its Third Reading. It is always a formidable task for a non-lawyer to attempt to present a Bill fraught with legal technicalities. Not only are there such technicalities, but almost inevitably one faces the formidable but genial figure of the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page). That is something for which we all have to be prepared and do our homework. The right hon. Gentleman's amendments and his contributions to the Bill have been extremely helpful, and for that I pay tribute to him.

Not only is it a pleasure for me to have played a part in helping to steer the Bill through the House, but I have a direct constituency interest. In Accrington and North-East Lancashire there are probably more houses directly affected by rent-charges than there are in any other part of the country, and for many years the collection problem has been a scandal.

Many elderly people are extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for having introduced the Bill. For years people throughout North-East Lancashire have had to collect rentcharges from their neighbours. They have done that with patience and fortitude, whereas I am sure that I and many other hon. Members would have done so far less happily. Now at last they know that the procedure for getting rid of the burden of collection will be very much easier and simpler, and if that will not cause dancing in the streets, it will at least give them a measure of pleasure.

I pay tribute to the Law Commission for the great and scholarly work that it has done on this subject. It beavers away on what to the public appear to be erudite subjects, but, as a result of its work, life is made that much better for many members of the community. I assure the right hon. Member for Crosby, who mentioned the subject of positive covenants, that the Law Commission is studying the whole topic of appurtenances to land. It will, I hope, soon be ready to report, and perhaps that anomaly will be dealt with in a way that will satisfy the right hon. Gentleman.

Like my hon. Friends, I am disappointed that the extinguishment period has to be as long as 60 years. If it were possible to reduce that period nobody would be happier than myself or my hon. Friend. I am sure that their Lordships and my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor will take note of what has been said today.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment will deal with the points about procedure, and how it can be simplified, because that is the responsibility of his Department.

I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. It is a great pleasure for me, because many years ago almost one of the first things that I did in the House was to introduce a Private Member's Bill to abolish rent-charges. At least now something has been done about it. I would again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly and congratulate him.

I welcome the opportunity to pay a warm tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Evans) and to say to him that I can speak on behalf of my constituents, who widely welcome the measure that he has steered through the House. I wish him continuing success in getting the Bill on the statute book.

I regret that, because of illness, I was unable to be present during the Second Reading debate. I would say to my hon. Friend that, while nothing detracts from his measure, many of my constituents would have welcomed a much more radical measure. However, in the opinion of my constituents, the Bill is a move very much in the right direction.

I shall be brief, because I know that many of my hon. Friends want to add their congratulations. I do not want to let this occasion pass without saying that there are other hon. Members, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Cocks), who made valiant attempts years ago to bring a measure of this kind to success and fruition. There was my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. Davidson). As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) has said, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) will have a distinguished place in the history of this Bill. We very much welcome the assistance that he has given to it.

I should also like to pay tribute to the Law Commission for its efforts in assisting the Bill to reach this stage. I welcome the opportunity of saying on behalf of my constituents that this is a step in the right direction. It may well be that we could have had a more radical measure but, nevertheless, nothing should detract from what my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly has done. I know that he will receive the grateful thanks of many individuals in my constituency and in the larger area of Manchester.

I, too, welcome the Bill. I have played no part in the proceedings so far, either on the Floor of the House or in Committee, but, as the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Evans) will remember, I did privately express my support for the Bill and offered him any help that I could give. I am glad that that has not been necessary both from the point of view of the success of the Bill and from my own point of view.

I should not like the occasion to pass without welcoming the Bill and congratulating the hon. Member for Caerphilly on being the latest but successful of a long line of hon. Members who have been pursuing this matter. I think it has been an ancient custom rather than an ancient abuse, the phrase used earlier. The system has been capable of abuse, but it has not always been abused. It did not necessarily grow up in an abusive manner.

I would add to the list of hon. Members my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Silvester), who introduced a not dissimilar Bill a short time ago of which I was one of the sponsors, but my hon. Friend did not have the luck and the success of the hon. Member for Caerphilly.

I do not want to go into the details but, as has been mentioned by other hon. Members, I agree that the 60 years' period in the Bill is on the long side. I am not one of those who favour the immediate abolition of rentcharges. It seems to me that that would be unfair particularly to some of the owners of the rentcharges, although, naturally, there are others with whom I have less sympathy. However, 60 years is on the long side and if during the course of debates in another place this period can be reduced, hon. Members can count on my support, for what it is worth.

The Law Commission Report was an excellent document. I do not pretend to have understood more than a small proportion of it, but it seems to me that it came down in the right direction. The Bill follows that report and is a small but useful improvement to the law of the land.

I shall be brief. I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Evans). When one has the good fortune to draw a high place in the draw for Private Members' Bills, it must be a great temptation, when one looks at the vast number of subjects that are possible, to introduce a Bill dealing with some of them, particularly affecting one's constituency. But my hon. Friend recognised, in fine Socialist tradition, an anxiety which scarcely, if at all, affected his constituents and introduced this measure to benefit our constituents in the North-West. The fact should be recognised that my hon. Friend did not choose a measure directly affecting his own particular area but rather one which had wider implications. We are all very grateful to him, particularly those of my constituents who face this problem.

Like other hon. Members I am concerned about the 60-year period. It is interesting to see that the concern about the 60-year period stretches far beyond the Labour Benches and disturbs hon. Members opposite. I hope that we can look at the possibility of getting rid of these rentcharges in a much shorter period. Perhaps the Government Departments concerned will be looking at that possibility in the next few weeks.

I am still attracted to the idea of having the redemption procedures conducted by the local authorities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) outlined the kind of approach which is possible at local authority level. In my experience older people are more at ease when they can go to a counter and deal with someone on the other side of it than when dealing by telephone or, perhaps, worse still, experiencing the protracted delays that arise from time to time through correspondence. I hope that we shall look at this point and deal with it at local level.

The strength of the Bill is that no more rentcharges are to be created. We are extremely pleased about that, but I can see some anomalies arising. Only recently I lived on a housing estate containing about 60 houses, half of which have been sold. Some have rentcharges imposed on them of about £12, some are subject to rentcharges of between £15 and £16 and some are not yet sold. What will be the situation for those houses which are not sold once the Bill becomes law? I can imagine the discussion that will take place in my "local" among the people who live on that estate about the various anomalies that arise in these circumstances.

I hope also that the Department of the Environment will be able to get away from legal jargon when we come to devise the redemption procedures. It will be necessary to draft them in a way which will be intelligible to people like me, and that may be extremely difficult. They may have to be simple beyond belief. But I want to be able to understand them, as do my constituents. I hope that there will not be a great chunk of legal jargon being sent to people who have to go through these procedures. There is a great deal of virtue in simplicity.

I want to thank the Ministers who have been involved in our consideration of this Bill. I know of the great interest of my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. Davidson). We have a common constituency boundary, and we have discussed this problem on many occasions. He was quite right when he said that it was North-East Lancashire, especially its terraced properties, where there was one of the highest concentrations of rentcharges. I know, too, of the long interest of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks). I thank them both for the immense amount of work that they have done, and I am sure that we shall soon see this measure on the statute book, to the great relief of many people in the South-West and the North-West who have faced this iniquity for far too long.

I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Evans), whose constituency is not far away from Bristol, anyway. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Noble) that it was a very unselfish act on the part of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly to introduce a measure which affected certain areas of the country but which was not a problem in the area which he represents. There are many people in my constituency who very much appreciate the fact that my hon. Friend is putting through this Bill, which we hope will become an Act of Parliament very quickly, and who also appreciate that the Government have given it their support.

At the same time, I, too, feel that the measure does not go anything like far enough. These rentcharges seem to me to be almost symbolic of feudalism. They are an anachronism going back almost to feudal days, and I think that we could have found ways to abolish them even more quickly than we have decided to do.

I am also a little concerned that, under Clause 2, we are to retain estate rent-charges for the carrying out of services, and so on. We have left open the possibility there for a load of rentcharges which will not be covered by this legislation. The right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) referred to this difficulty in Committee, and I am still concerned about it.

I, too, feel that the 60-year period which we have provided is far too long. In my view, that becomes even more apparent if we sit back and think that, in the year 2037, these rentcharges could still be in existence and that presumably by then there will be developers active on other planets. I do not know whether they will support rentcharges.

How right my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Walker) was when he saild that his constituents and mine will say "In 60 years, we shall all be dead and, therefore, this legislation will not help us". I am afraid that many of us will be dead by then, although I do not include you, Mr. Speaker, in that category because I know that you will still be here. But certainly many of my constituents will be dead by then, although I suppose that some of them who are very young now will be going round collecting these pernicious rentcharges.

It has been suggested that we should ask the other place to consider this matter with a view to amending the Bill as it is now drafted. I must confess that I am reluctant to ask an anachronistic institution to amend an anachronism. I have no time at all for that body down the Corridor and, for that reason, I am not inclined to agree with that suggestion. However, if I may hide my conscience a little, I hope to find that, when the Bill comes back from the other place, it contains a provision stipulating some period less than 60 years. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Cope) make the same point.

I do not believe that we should call in aid the views of the Law Commission on this matter. It makes it clear on page 20 of its report that it regards the acceptance of the principle that existing rentcharges should ultimately expire without compensation as more important than the actual period chosen. It goes on to say that the final decision about the period is a matter for political decision.

We are making a political decision, and in my view it is not right to call in aid the fact that the Law Commission has laid down that it must be 60 years, although in its report it talks about the "appropriateness" of 60 years. For that reason, I hope that we can cut this period considerably.

Finally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and others have done, I ask the Government to think again about the possibility of local authorities dealing with this matter. I know that the Association of District Councils said that it was not very happy about taking on the job. I do not know whether that is because the Government, with their views about capital expenditure, were not prepared to provide a little additional money for the purpose. I suspect that it would cost far less to give local authorities a small additional sum for the purpose than to let the Department of the Environment do the job. Bristol, for example, has a first rate Housing Aid Centre which could do the necessary work very easily. I do not know whether Rossendale has a similar set-up.

As I say, the Association of District Councils would not like to take on the job. I wonder whether that is said from the financial point of view, or whether the Association as a body has made that judgment when the problem exists in the areas of only two or three of its constituent members.

The Bill will be welcomed in the Bristol, North-West constituency though, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kings-wood said, there will not be singing in the streets. Many people will look to us to bring in a far more radical measure. However, in that respect no blame attaches to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly. We all pay tribute to him for bringing forward this measure, and we hope that it will not be too long before it is an Act of Parliament.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Evans) on his success in getting his Bill to this stage. I hope that it will be given a good passage through another place.

The hon. Member has achieved far more than the great F. E. Smith. Of course, he has always achieved more than F. E. Smith in terms of eloquence. But this reform was started by Lord Birkenhead in 1925, and he failed to do it very well. Section 191 of the Law of Property Act 1925 is an utter nonsense. Over the years, it has achieved nothing. That is why, when we needed some measure of redemption here, the Law Commission looked into it. However, it has taken rather a long time.

I recall that, when I first entered this House, there were hon. Members thinking about presenting Bills on rentcharges. Incidentally, we in the North-West call them "chief rents". I hope that this will not confuse people when it comes to advertising what the hon. Member for Caerphilly has done in this Bill and that they will realise that it applies to chief rents as well as to rent charges. I hope that that fact will come out in the circulars and advertisements which the Department of the Environment is to issue.

As I say, we have been trying to get a redemption of rentcharges for many years—in fact, for nearly the 60 years that we have been discussing. When I saw the Patronage Secretary enter the Chamber during this debate, I was disappointed to discover that it was only to give the Queen's Consent. I was hoping that he would join in the debate and tell us about his own struggles, because he presented at least two Bills to the House. I remember supporting him at the time and urging him to go on with them. He tried and failed where the hon. Member for Caerphilly has succeeded.

It may be thought that when one is lucky enough to come out of the Ballot it is easy to take a Law Commission report because there is a draft Bill at the end of it available for one's use. It was not as easy as that for the hon. Member for Caerphilly. For one thing, the draft Bill had to be altered considerably because the Law Commission had proposed that the local authorities should take on the task. There is also the disadvantage that Law Commission reports always put both sides of an argument, which stimulates debate. I must admit that many of the ideas that I have put forward have not be original; they have been stolen from the Law Commission. Anyone who promotes a Bill recommended by the Law Commission has to face those obstacles.

The Ministers and the hon. Member for Caerphilly have met extremely well the arguments that have been advanced. Their replies have not always been entirely satisfactory to me but we have a Bill that will work. The two major points that arise from it that are subject to criticism concern the arguments that I have already put about local authorities. Many of us wished the local authorities to take on the task, but perhaps this is the wrong time when local authorities are being criticised on the ground of expenditure and when we in this place are being criticised for putting more and more duties on local authorities that create expenditure.

Perhaps this is the wrong time to oblige local authorities to take on even this small job. Of course, the work would relate only to a few local authorities. Surely it could have been done on an agency basis, the Department of the Environment appointing local authorities as its agents and paying the money for the work. I suggested that in Committee but it has not emerged in the Bill.

Am I correct in thinking that the Bill does not prevent the Secretary of State, if he wishes, from appointing agents through local authorities at some later stage, if they are willing to take on the task on an agreed financial basis? Presumably the Secretary of State will not be doing the work personally. He will present the task to some agents, whether they are his own officials or the local authorities. It does not seem that the Bill rules out the possibility of the local authorities doing it.

It is true that the Bill does not rule that out. It may be that the Department of the Environment will consider that the best way of proceeding is by appointing local authorities as agents to carry out the work.

I have offered my congratulations to the Ministers for helping the hon. Member for Caerphilly to get the Bill through the House, but I must also congratulate their servants in the Department. With my knowledge of these matters I know that they have acted extremely efficiently in applying the procedure that is now laid down. That is the present procedure before the Bill comes into operation. They have acted expeditiously, but it was difficult to expedite the present procedure. I congratulate the Ministers' officials on the efforts that they have made and the help that they have given to the Bill.

My anxiety about the local authorities not taking on the job and my eagerness that the Department of the Environment should appoint local authorities to do it is that I can see that right hon. and hon. Members will be the ones who suffer. We shall meet these inquiries at our surgeries. Most of us have plenty of other inquiries to answer whenever we offer our services in the constituency surgery. I should like to be relieved of this task. I should like the local authorities to answer these questions. I should like to be able to pass people on to whoever is dealing with them at the local authority.

The other major issue is the period of redemption of 60 years. I do not criticise that period. That is because I do not believe that it means what it says. In the Bill it is stated that rentcharges shall be extinguished after a 60-year period. I take that to mean that it is an element in the formula for redemption.

It may be assumed that there will be very few rentcharges that last out the 60 years. When it becomes known to the payers of rentcharges that they can redeem, there will be almost a rush to do so right away.

Redemption will improve the value of the house when it is sold. I think that on almost every occasion when a house is sold with a rentcharge on it there will be a redemption. This will become the advice that is given by the solicitors and the estate agents to those buying and selling houses. They will gradually be redeemed on that basis if not before someone thinks of sale.

The 60-year period shows the fair way in which the hon. Member for Caerphilly has dealt with the issue between confiscation and compensation. The figures that the Law Commission were given by the Government Actuary are set out in page 19. The Law Commission states:

"We also asked the Government Actuary to state how much of each £1 of rent charge income received annually by a rent owner during a given period would have to be set aside by him and accumulated in a sinking fund in order to provide a full £1 a year in perpetuity after the period had elapsed, independently of the rent charge."

The Commission was asking for fair compensation, replacement of what the rent owner would lose by not being able to collect the rentcharge. It was supplied with the figures. They are given for periods of 10 years from 20 to 90 years. Assuming a rate of interest of 8 per cent., at 60 years it is necessary to put aside only one new penny a year to have at the end of the period a sufficient sum to invest to bring in the same £1 rentcharge. That seems to be a reasonably fair way of compensating the rent owner. If we assume an interest rate of 10 per cent., it needs only·33 of 1 new penny. It seems that a fair basis has been set.

There is a difficulty that will arise in respect of tax. A certain amount is being paid as capital and a certain amount as interest during a fixed period. For the remaining period for rentcharge it will be said that there will be redemption at so much, whatever the figure may be, and that part of the payment is capital and part is interest. That issue has not been settled in the Bill but the Finance Bill is now passing through the House. Perhaps at the dead of night I may be able to sneak through a little amendment in Committee on the Finance Bill to provide that some of the payment should be treated as capital and not as the income of the rent owner, and that if treated as capital it should be disregarded as part of the taxable income.

I am glad that we have reached this stage at last in the redemption of rent charges. I warmly congratulate the promoter.

I add my congratulations and thanks—indeed, not only my thanks but, I am sure, the thanks of a great many of my constituents—to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Evans) on reaching this stage with his Bill. I should add that he will deserve the thanks not only of the citizens of Manchester and Bristol but of others elsewhere, since one of the dangers of the system was that builders were getting hold of the idea and it was spreading.

Information was coming to us from Southampton, Sunderland and a great many other places that, as house building came to be done by builders on a national scale, big firms were bringing in the idea for other areas. Thus, my hon. Friend has saved a great many people from some expense and frustration in the future. Moreover, the amounts spoken of were not small sums such as £2, £5 or £7, as they were in the 1950s, but were up to £25, £30 and probably much more.

My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly has performed a service also by the way in which he has kept in touch with hon. Members on both sides, giving them information—true, with the help of my Department—about various possibilities regarding certain amendments.

It has been suggested that my hon. Friend drew a high place in the Ballot. In fact, he drew No. 8, which is not in the first six favourites. However, because of his parliamentary knowledge and, I suspect, the great liking which so many right hon. and hon. Members have for him, by dint of persuasion and debate he has now reached No. 3 in Bills to reach Third Reading.

I came into the House at the end of 1967. In 1969 I saw the first Law Commission working paper on rentcharges, and I realised that it applied to the deadly chief rents of my own area. In the eight years since then I have turned from Back Bencher to Minister, from poacher to gamekeeper, perhaps, but as a Minister I have encountered some of the difficulties in matters of this kind, with the need for all the i's to be dotted and the t's to be crossed. We have had to maintain fairness in what we have done. Moreover, we were involved in the minefield of land law, in which the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) is so adept. I confess that on many occasions I have felt that I was absolutely in a forest.

I come now to the question of publicity and administration so far as it affects my Department. I have already assured the House that we shall go into action as soon as possible in implementing the parts of the Bill concerning redemption and apportionment. I shall do all I can to ensure that whatever forms are issued are understandable. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Noble) was a bit worried about this. Perhaps I may tell him that for about five years I was a teacher of backward children, and I am sure that the level of understanding, about which he was concerned, will be such that people will be able to know what is necessary if they wish to take advantage of the Bill.

We all know—especially those of us who regularly have surgeries in our constituencies—that many people would rather come and talk than try to write a letter. There are various facilities nowadays that help people in that way. We ourselves provide one such facility at weekends. The citizens' advice bureaux will be given full information about the Bill and a collection of the forms. The district councils have done a great deal to assist us in helping people under the Law of Property Act 1925. A great many people have been able to redeem their chief rents in that way—or their ground rents, as they are called in Bristol—and I hope that that will continue. Although they do not want to have the job of dealing with implementation of the Bill directly, I know that the district councils will ensure that their information officers provide a great deal of information to people who need it.

Although I said earlier that there may not be dancing in the streets of certain cities on account of the Bill, we ought not to underestimate its value.

Before leaving the question of administration, will the Minister comment on the point I raised with my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page)? Would it be possible at some future stage for the local authorities to be appointed agents?

My advice is that we can divide the work—I have in mind here the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett)—having centres where the Department could run the thing in, say Manchester and Bristol, but I am advised that under the Bill as it stands at present it would not be possible to appoint local authorities as agents.

There have been references to consultation with the local authorities. My Department is bound to have such consultations through the local authority associations, and it has been the advice of both the AMA and the District Councils Association that the local authorities did not want the job. Therefore, we could not deal directly with individual local authorities. I suggested in Committee that hon. Members themselves might care to contact their local councils in order to ascertain their view.

I am surprised—and I saw expressions of surprise on other faces in the Chamber—that the Department cannot appoint anybody as agent to do this job, and certainly cannot appoint the local authorities. What prevents the Secretary of State from having power to ask anyone to do the job, if he pays for it to be done? Indeed, what prevents his asking a local authority to do it? The local authorities do not need statutory powers to do it if the Secretary of State employs them to do it. He could employ the chief executive to appoint administrators for him. I am puzzled that it cannot be done unless there is a statutory power.

I can only say that I asked for advice immediately before 11 o'clock this morning, and that was the advice I received. However, I shall have another look at it. When things are easier for local authorities, we might well be able to do something on those lines in the future.

I hope that that is possible. If it is not, may we have my hon. Friend's assurance that he will accept the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett), and that it will be done by the Department of the Environment in Bristol? I can give my hon. Friend a short example to show why that is necessary. The noise insulation regulations, which were a problem in my constituency, were handled from Taunton, and this created difficulties. In my view, if we cannot have the job done by the district council, it should certainly be done by the Department of the Environment in Bristol.

Locally—that is what matters.

As I said in Committee, I cannot give an assurance on that. Only a small section of my Department will be involved, and it may be possible to split it in that way under the Bill. That is the only assurance I can give.

The right hon. Member for Crosby has dealt in detail with the period of 60 years. I know that some of my hon. Friends and a great many of my constituents would have liked to see us going nearer to expropriation, but we must realise who the rent owners are nowadays. They are not the builders who made their pile under the system immediately after the building of the houses. My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly gave various names which have been used to describe the system. In my area it was known as the builder's bonus, meaning that the builder built the houses, put chief rents on, and then sold the chief rents.

Now, however, a great many of the chief rents in my area are owned by charities and friendly societies. This is not, therefore, a matter in which we could deal unfairly with the rent owners. The idea of choosing 60 years came forward because the Law Commission asked the Government Actuary to give us the period that would deal with the matter fairly.

We have managed to interweave into our debate the subject of a football match to be played tomorrow, as well as the possibility of dancing in the streets. Whatever the result of that match may be, I am sure that both teams will receive a tremendous welcome in their own areas. I can only hope that their Lordships will give this Bill the same tumultuous reception as those teams will have tomorrow night.