This Bill proposes to extend the Rent Restrictions Acts for a further period of one year after the 31st December, when they would otherwise expire. In present circumstances the Acts could not be allowed to lapse without causing hardship to many tenants.
After the Government took office they initiated a fresh departmental examination of the rent control problem having regard to the recommendations in the Conroy Report on Rent Control, presented in 1952, and to the economic changes which have taken place since then. The examination was completed during the year and the major recommendations in the report submitted to the Government. I am glad to be able to say that instructions have now been given to the Parliamentary Draftsman for the preparation of a comprehensive measure which will repeal and reenact the present Acts with modifications. The drafting of such a measure is bound to take some time but I hope to be in a position to introduce it sometime in the New Year. In the meantime, it is necessary to keep the present Acts in force, as proposed in this Bill, and I ask the House, therefore, to give it a Second Reading.