Part of Orders of the Day — Housing Bill – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 13 Ebrill 1964.
I strongly support what my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) has said. For many years the Government have refused to tackle this problem with energy and decision. I remember that on 17th June, 1952, I asked the then Minister of Housing, the right hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan), to ensure that the correct names of property owners were recorded with the rating authorities. He replied:
I do not think that any steps are called for on my part."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th June, 1952; Vol. 502, c. 977.]
That is the attitude which the Government have taken ever since.
My hon. Friend spoke of the difficult ties in the way of local authorities trying to identify the real owner of property. Unfortunately, Lambeth Borough Council has a long experience of dealing with Brady, alias Waters, alias all the other names of companies owning properties in Lambeth and other parts of London. I will quote one case to help to pinpoint the difficulty.
A short time ago, one of the companies to which my hon. Friend referred, and which was mentioned in this remarkable article in The Times of 7th January, Various Tenancies (South London) Limited, was the owner of a number of leasehold and freehold properties in my constituency and neighbouring parts of south London. The borough council carried out certain repairs to one of these properties because Brady, alias Water, et cetera, refused to carry them out. Instead of going to the trouble of registering the charge on the over a long period afterwards, the borough council took proceedings in the county court to recover the cost of £50, or whatever it was, due from the owner of this property.
The council obtained judgment, but it was not possible to enforce it because no one on whom the judgment debt could be enforced could be identified. The only possibility open to the council was to obtain an order for the compulsory winding up of the company as the money had not been paid. It obtained an order in the High Court, the company not appearing or being represented.
A day or two after the winding-up order had been made, the company suddenly decided to come to light, and it tendered a banker's draft for the amount of the judgment debt, asking the council to consent to the rescission of the winding-up order. The borough council, very wisely, did not accept the proposal, taking the view that it was not in the public interest that companies of this kind should continue to own property in London and elsewhere.
The company then asked the court for a stay of the operation of the winding-up order and its motion was heard on 11th November. The judge delivered a provisional judgment, acceding to the motion for a stay on the strict understanding that within 14 days there should be filed on behalf of the company further evidence dealing with the following points. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to take note of the further evidence which the judge required:
When we approached the Board of Trade to take action for non-compliance with the provisions of the Companies Act, for not showing the registered offices as the office occupied and not making annual returns, and when we notified the Inland Revenue authorities, no action at all was taken. We are at an absolutely dead end in trying to deal with slick operators of this kind. The Minister has all the details. He has a copy of the article which appeared in The Times and he has the details I have given the House. I have sent them to the Milner that and Committee. What else can I do, even at the risk of raising this matter ad nauseam, but urge the Minister that the time has come to make quite sure that this sort of operator is not allowed to carry on?
The only way in which these slum emperors can have their wings clipped, and we can enable local authorities to carry out their duties towards their tenants, is by putting teeth into any housing Bill which the House is asked to accept. We should make it a criminal offence to give false information, to have dummy directors and accommodation addresses. We have tried to trace these directors, but no one is known and their names and addresses are not in the directory. All this is allowed to go on with impunity. I urge the Government to accept what my hon. Friend has said and to take effective action at long last.