Having considered the matter fully, I have decided that I should not oppose this Bill. In coming to that decision I have been influenced by the fact that the Minister has indicated that the report of the commission which was set up over two years ago will be circulated very shortly and that he will, without delay—he has not pinned himself to any time—introduce amending legislation or perhaps completely new legislation following on the Government's consideration of that report. For these reasons I will not oppose this Bill.
However, the Minister has made the point that the reason for the Bill is mainly the fact that the present Act expires on the 31st of this month and, if it were not for this continuance Bill, great hardship would be caused. By that he means, I think, that great hardship would be caused to tenants. There is no word at all about the difficulties of the unfortunate landlords whose property is let in many cases at entirely uneconomic rents. There has been a great deal of hardship caused to landlords as a result of the passing of the Rent Restrictions Acts from 1914 up to last year. Undoubtedly there was grave necessity for legislation of this kind to protect tenants from rapacious landlords. Were it not for this legislation, undoubtedly the lot of the tenant would be very different; but I assure you that because of the statute law as it stands to-day the lot of the tenant is a very happy one and the lot of the landlord in many cases is a very sad one.
Generally speaking, the landlords of this country are landlords of one, two or three houses, the rare exception being the landlord who owns very many houses. The landlords of one, two or three houses, in the main, exist, or endeavour to-day to exist, out of the rents of those houses. Pre-1939, perhaps, they had a reasonable income from those rents, but to-day, because of the fall in the value of money, because of the increase in rates and because of the excessively high cost of repairs and their inability to recover a proportion of that cost, the income is very seriously depleted. By allowing this Bill to be passed, we may be seeing that no hardship is caused to tenants, but I am afraid that, for another 12 months at least, we will be allowing hardship to be caused to landlords. Therefore, I would say to the Minister that this time next year I would expect him to be able to do a little for landlords who find themselves in a difficult position because of the statute law in regard to landlord and tenant relationships to-day, because of the fall in the value of money and because of the increase in rates. Many of them are in a bad way.
Because of this legislation, they do not get anything like a corresponding increase in rents to make up for the increase in the various outlays they have. Undoubtedly, this statute is necessary, as otherwise things would be very difficult for the tenant. Certainly, from 1918 on, steps had to be taken to see that the lot of the tenant was not made a misery and this restrictive legislation had to be passed; but to-day the tenant is considerably better off, generally speaking, than his landlord, who, because of this law, is in a most unfortunate situation.
For these reasons, I will expect that, when again introducing a Bill of this kind, either to seek renewal because he is not ready to deal with the report, or because he is ready to bring in new legislation following on the report, the Minister will consider not merely the tenant but also the landlord.
