I am still surprised by the advice tendered to the Minister. I agree with him that it should not be necessary to go into all these formalities at all but the advice which the Minister has expressed opens a very, very wide door in relation to the whole question of labourers' cottages which was not visualised at all.
The whole intention of the 1936 Act was that a vested purchaser of a cottage could not pledge his cottage as long as the annuity remained. If the Minister is right in the advice he has just given, then the person can take his land certificate either to the local authority for an advance under this Bill or to the bank and deposit it in exactly the same way as the Minister suggests the local authority can accept it here.
It also means that there is a possibility of a purchaser of a vested cottage being enabled to purchase that cottage, if you like, by his employer. His employer can say: "I will give you the money to buy it if you give me the land certificate on an equitable deposit," which means going back again to the tied house system I thought we had got away from. I cannot see that there is the slightest difference between the equitable deposit to the local authority and an equitable deposit in favour of a bank or anyone else. The vista opened up by the advice the Minister says he has received is that it will virtually negative the fixity of tenure of the vested cottage holder which was deliberately enshrined in Section 21 of the Act of 1936.
If that is the position, I think the Minister would be very wise, indeed, to re-examine it certainly between now and Report Stage. I do not expect him to be in a position to argue legal points but, perhaps, he might get his legal advisers to brief him so that he could explain to the House the difference between this Bill and the Housing Bill because, as I say, Section 10 of the Housing Bill deliberately visualises the existence of the interpretation that has been put on Section 21 of the 1936 Bill ever since it was enacted. The advice the Minister has got in relation to this Bill completely over-rules that interpretation as it has been heretofore understood.
It is not for me to say which is right but it is perfectly clear that it has always been interpreted up to this that a vested cottage holder was not entitled, so long as the annuity remained outstanding, to pledge his land certificate by way of an equitable deposit. The Housing Bill we are going to discuss accepts that as the law and provides a specific exception for it in favour of the local authority, and rightly so. If the interpretation which is confirmed by the Housing Bill is right, this section does not give the cottage holder the optional arrangement—it is only optional. If he is given the optional arrangement provided here, then clearly there is nothing in this Bill or any other Bill to prevent a cottage holder going to the bank and borrowing funds on his cottage. There is nothing to prevent a person buying a cottage for his employee, putting the employee into the cottage and keeping the land certificate for his own security and in that way going back again to the old tied house system.