sums payable by the tenant in respect of rates, services, repairs, maintenance or insurance now had to be disregarded. The Act removed most of the unintended consequences of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 in respect of premiums and the price to be paid for enfranchisement. Increased rents registered between 10 July 1968 and 31 December 1969 were liable to phasing under the Prices and Incomes Regulations 1968 (which only applied until the end of 1969). When those regulations expired, the Rent (Control of Increases) Act 1969 (which only applied to the end of 1971) introduced phasing of rent increases generally speaking over three equal annual increments. Improvements to the security of tenure available to occupants of agricultural tied cottages were made by the Agricultural Act of 1970. It amended Section 33 of the Rent Act 1965 to ensure that, subject to conditions, the tenant of a tied cottage, or his widow, would automatically get at least six months' security of tenure alter the employment ended. This Act extended the provisions of the Agriculture Act 1967 to Q redundant farm houses and not only just those redundant due to amalgamation of farms under the 1967 Act. The Fire Precautions Act 1971 made amendments to the Rent Act 1968 and arrangements to amend the Rent (Scotland) Act 1971. Where a dwelling was subject to a controlled or a regulated tenancy and the dwelling was issued with a fire certificate, the amount of the expenditure (or a proportion of it approved by the county court) incurred in fire precautions work was to be considered as an improvement in an application for a certificate of fair rent. The county court could, upon application, determine an increase in the rent of controlled or regulated tenancies due to the cost of carrying out fire precaution works. Adjustments in 1971 to 1977 A review under the chairmanship of Hugh Francis QC was commissioned in October 1969 to review the operation of rent regulation under the Rent Acts, especially in large centres of population where accommodation was scarce, and to consider the relationship between the furnished and unfurnished codes. Its conclusion, published on 2 March 1971, was that rent regulation was working well. The report made 36 recommendations, four of which were enacted in the Housing Finance Act 1972, an Act that in its time had a minor claim to fame—57 committee sittings taking 248 hours of debate