This amendment, and amendment No. 2, are in the nature of drafting amendments and are consequential on the deletion from subsection (2) of Section 9 of the Bill of the words "being dwellings to which Chapter 2 of Part II of the Act of 1946 applied". The object of that amendment was to give the courts when determining the basic rent for a dwelling which was not let on 31st December, 1960, discretion to have regard to the basic rents of any comparable dwellings whether or not they were controlled under Chapter 1 or Chapter 2 of Part II of the Act of 1946. However, it is necessary to retain these words in subsection (2) of Section 9 for the purpose of deciding under Section 8 whether a basic rent automatically fixed under Section 7 is excessively low or excessively high.
It appears, on further consideration, that the consequential amendments already made in Section 8 may not have achieved this object. The two amendments now before the House will ensure that the provisions of Section 8 will not have been changed in substance by the amendment to Section 9 so that the criterion to be applied by the courts in operating the provisions of Section 8 will continue to be the Chapter 2, or 1941, level of rents, except in the case of dwellings which have remained under control since 1915 where the application for revision of the rent is made by the landlord or by a tenant whose dwelling has a rateable valuation not exceeding £10. In such cases, the criterion will be the 1914 level of rents.