Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab) I beg to move, That this
House has considered private rented sector housing. It is an honour
to serve under your chairship, Sir Gary. I thank Members for
attending this debate today and for what I know will be powerful
contributions. I start by paying tribute to my constituents in
Liverpool, West Derby, who are the innocent victims of this
country’s current housing system. I also want to thank ACORN, the
Vauxhall law centre,...Request free
trial
(Liverpool, West Derby)
(Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered private rented sector housing.
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Gary. I thank
Members for attending this debate today and for what I know will
be powerful contributions. I start by paying tribute to my
constituents in Liverpool, West Derby, who are the innocent
victims of this country’s current housing system. I also want to
thank ACORN, the Vauxhall law centre, Generation Rent, Shelter,
the Daily Mirror and the many other organisations for their
campaigns to get the changes we need.
For millions, the current system in the private rented sector is
failing to provide homes that are safe, secure and affordable for
everyone. Mindful of this House’s sub judice rules, I am unable
to go into the details of some of the appalling cases that my
constituents have written to me about. However, issues raised
with me by private renters include: constituents with health
conditions such as asthma whose landlords have left them in damp
properties with no gas supply in the middle of winter;
constituents, including children, who have been hospitalised and
suffered serious health impacts as the result of disrepair in
their homes; and families living in fear of bailiffs, who were
served a section 21 eviction notice by the landlord after
complaining about terrible disrepair and conditions. My
constituent told me:
“Section 21 takes the humanity out of the situation and that’s
precisely the problem. We are human and lives are being
carelessly destroyed!”
Other constituents who have contacted me wanted the Government to
take urgent action so that nobody in future has to go through the
same horrific experiences. Nationally, the private rented sector
includes some of the oldest stock in England; it remains the
tenure with the lowest standards, based on the Government’s
decent homes standard. The latest English housing survey found
that one in five homes in the private rented sector is classed as
non-decent, and 12% have a category 1 hazard for which the most
serious harm outcome is identified, for example, as death,
permanent paralysis, permanent loss of consciousness, loss of a
limb or serious fractures.
Does the Minister know how many serious injuries and deaths have
resulted from making people live in such appalling accommodation?
Shamefully, we have a system that means a private renter has more
than a one in 10 chance of living in a home that could kill or
seriously harm them or their children. Let that fact sink in—how
can this be allowed to continue?
Private rented sector homes also have the worst energy standards
on average. That means private renters will have to pay
significantly more in heating bills because of poor insulation,
inefficient heating systems or lack of double glazing. With the
cost of living crisis starting to bite and energy prices set to
soar, private renters really are in a precarious situation. Added
to that, it seems that complaining puts them on a fast track to
eviction. Research from Citizens Advice shows that those
complaining to their local authority about disrepair were 46%
more likely to get a section 21 from the landlord. Section 21—the
fast track to eviction—must be scrapped.
I recently spoke to Professor Ian Sinha, a consultant respiratory
paediatrician at the fantastic Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in
my constituency, about the health impacts of poor housing
conditions. Ian told me:
“The consequences of poor quality housing can be fatal for
children: the National Child Mortality Database identified poor
housing as one of the top risk factors associated with the
inequalities that result in children's deaths....If babies and
children breathe air rife with fungus, toxins, and dust, in
overcrowded and cold homes, their lungs develop abnormally. Even
though we focus on the shortterm effects, the problems they face
in adulthood are even more stark—the poorest children are 5 times
more likely to develop adult diseases like COPD, and chronic
illnesses such as this lead to the poorest adults dying two
decades earlier than the richest ones in Liverpool and many other
cities...Poor housing can result in 20 years being taken away
from your life...There is a window of opportunity for children to
develop and grow—and the state of housing in which millions of
children are forced to live is holding them back...That’s why
good housing for all should be the very essence of any levelling
up agenda otherwise it’s a vacuous nonsense.”
Professor Sinha continued:
“Parents are gaslighted at every opportunity—landlords deny pest
problems—but mothers of premature babies tell us they know there
are rats in the house because they see bite marks in their baby’s
oxygen tubing; mothers tell us that when they reach for the
cereal there are rodent faeces in them; mothers tell us that
their toddlers are afraid to go in rooms because they see mice
looking at them through the gaps in the floorboards that still
haven’t been fixed. While parents are told that damp isn’t an
issue, they tell us their children are waking up coughing thick
mucus every night in rooms riddled with mould, and they are
bullied because their clothes smell of damp”.
After listening to that, we must remind ourselves that it is
2022, not 1822.
It is clear that the current legislation is failing, which is
compounded by a decade of Government cuts to local authority
budget cuts and the cutting of access to free legal support.
Between 2009 and 2019, local authority budgets to ensure that
private rental standards were kept up were slashed by 44%. Local
authorities have lost almost half their capacity to enforce
standards.
Selective licensing is a tool that local authorities can use to
tackle poor property conditions and poor practice in the private
rented sector. The landlord licensing scheme in Liverpool, which
ran from 2015 to 2020, found that 65% of properties were not
fully compliant on the first visit. Some 37,000 compliance
actions were taken to improve conditions and 250 rogue landlords
were prosecuted. I saw this first hand when I worked with my hon.
Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (), as his office manager, when
we utilised the scheme to tackle rogue landlords. I hope the
Minister can enlighten us further as to why landlord licensing is
not operational across the whole country.
The regulatory framework for the private rented sector is
fragmented, underfunded and, quite frankly, broken, and the White
Paper and renters reform Bill must address these systemic issues.
A renters reform Bill was promised by the Government in 2019.
Where is it? Every single day that the Bill is delayed is a day
millions spend in cold, insecure, unsafe and unaffordable
homes.
During the height of the pandemic, renters were trapped in unsafe
housing while the Prime Minister was apparently picking out new
wallpaper. Now, many renters are fearful of section 21 evictions
if they raise complaints, because they cannot afford to move
house in the middle of this appalling cost of living crisis. The
power imbalance means that the mental pressures facing renters
are built into this broken system.
(Nottingham East) (Lab)
I wholeheartedly agree with the points my hon. Friend is raising
and I thank him for leading this debate. I am regularly contacted
by constituents whose private landlords are refusing to fix
issues. Like the examples raised by my hon. Friend, they are not
small problems; ranging from black mould to rat infestations,
these failings have a disastrous impact on my constituents’
health and wellbeing.
As it stands, tenants who decide to withhold rent from landlords
who fail to maintain their properties to standard will be in
breach of contract and have next to no protections. Does my hon.
Friend agree that increasing protections for tenants should form
a fundamental part of our strategy to make the PRS safer and
improve conditions overall?
My hon. Friend makes some fantastic points, and I fully agree. I
thank her for all the work she does on this issue in her
constituency.
The Government must present the White Paper as a matter of
urgency, and new legislation must have real teeth and be
enforceable. A renters reform Bill must abolish section 21 and
end no-fault evictions, drive up standards through an updated and
improved decent homes standard and create a national landlord
register and licensing scheme to improve accountability and
ensure that legal standards are met. It works—Liverpool has shown
that. This is not more red tape, but an investment in the health
and wellbeing of present and future generations. To reinforce
this, have the Government undertaken a cost-benefit analysis of
what it means for a child to grow up in a home that is a threat
to their health and safety?
Let us put ourselves in the shoes of the people whose cases I
have outlined. If an MP or a Minister were asked to live in a
flat riddled with mould, in such a state of disrepair that it
endangered the life of their family members and might lead to
reduced life expectancies, we would rightly hear howls of rage
reverberating from both sides of the Chamber. Let us take that
fury and that righteous anger and, as legislators, represent with
the same force the millions who are suffering that fate daily,
forced into silence because of our unjust system. That would
really be levelling up, and the Minister knows it—taking on the
vested interests and doing something transformational, changing
the life chances of millions for the better. Surely that is why
we are all in this game.
This Bill must not tinker around the edges of a broken system,
and it should not just move the goalposts. It must empower
tenants and hardwire social justice into the system. From working
with the Minister on numerous Bill Committees and Select
Committees, I know he understands the need for change; but deeds
will be the measure, not words.
2.41pm
(Westminster North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I
congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby
() on securing this debate and on
a very powerful speech, setting out the conditions as he sees
them in his own constituency.
I have the largest private rented sector in Britain in my
borough, including some of the most high-end private
accommodation it is possible to find—the luxury penthouses, the
oligarch properties—but also some of the worst conditions. I am
going to make three points of slightly different lengths, but my
first is to beware the tyranny of the average. I urge the
Minister to reflect on that point, because we know that over the
decades there has been a steady overall improvement in the
condition of property, including in the private rented sector.
However, beneath that, we have a huge and arguably growing
problem that is concentrated in particular sectors.
That problem was very well set out in Julie Rugg’s report three
years or so ago, in which she looked at the sub-markets in the
private rented sector. She rightly reflected on the fact that
there are particular groups of people without power, including
purchasing power—those who are dependent on housing benefit to
rent their property—but also other kinds of power: those who do
not have settled immigration status; those who have been
homeless; the very young; the students; the old; and, in
particular, those with disabilities. When the Minister responds
and whenever we talk about this issue, it needs to be properly
reflected that there is not a single sector, even allowing for
geographical variations.
Secondly, I will touch briefly on the issue of enforcement.
Although we will rightly hear from a number of colleagues,
including the Front Benchers, about the need to move ahead with
the overdue legislation to strengthen renters’ rights, those
rights will mean very little unless we are sure that we have
enforcement capacity—two kinds of enforcement capacity, in
particular.
The first is the enforcement carried out by local authorities,
particularly through their environmental health departments.
Although I do not have time to reflect on this at length, we know
from the work of the National Residential Landlords Association,
and my own series of freedom of information inquiries to local
authorities over the course of the past 10 years, that most local
authorities do not enforce, or do so informally. Some of that
informal enforcement will be fine, but it is untrackable—it is
not monitored.
(Poplar and Limehouse)
(Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that what is needed is a centralised
national landlord register that ensures accountability, so that
tenants know before moving in whether their landlords have been
compliant, especially in relation to health and safety?
(in the Chair)
Before the hon. Lady continues, it might be helpful to say that
she is rushing, but she does not need to: every speaker can have
six or seven minutes if they want, rather than four or five.
Ms Buck
I am grateful for that, Sir Gary; I am always anxious not to take
too much time.
I certainly agree that one of the issues in the private rented
sector is that we do not actually know where it is, other than
when it comes to those claiming housing allowance in the private
rented sector. There are landlords who are renting and we do not
know who they are, so it is quite hard to enforce against
them.
We have a patchwork of enforcement services. That requires
resources from local authorities, which have been hammered over
the past 10 years of funding cuts, and also political will. The
situation needs a clear steer from the centre, together with good
local knowledge—local authorities are in the best position to
understand something about their own local markets. It also needs
individual capacity for enforcement. We have just come from a
statement on legal aid; one of the issues we should be very
concerned about is the significant shrinking of the housing legal
section’s capacity in recent years, with fewer providers and less
capacity for access to services that put individual tenants in a
position to enforce their own rights.
(Lewisham West and Penge)
(Lab)
My hon. Friend makes an important point about people in the
private rental sector not being able to enforce their rights,
because of lack of legal aid. Does she agree with restoring legal
advice in this area? That would help prevent problems from
escalating in the first place.
Ms Buck
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the earlier one intervenes,
the better, in all respects.
My third substantive point is the issue of temporary
accommodation. This is property rented almost invariably from the
private sector, often—although not always—managed by intermediary
organisations such as housing associations and procured on behalf
of local authorities. I raised a debate about this issue a little
over a year ago, particularly looking at my own local
circumstance, but the issue is wider than that. Human Rights
Watch published a report a few weeks ago on the issue of
temporary accommodation: a major human rights organisation felt
it necessary to carry out an inquiry and report into the scandal
of families and households in temporary accommodation and the
conditions in which they are living. That report is utterly
devastating. In the London Borough of Westminster, we have people
living like this—I will quote from a couple of recent case
studies:
“I’ve lived in this temporary accommodation Since June 2020 and
have been under a lot of stress and strain due to my situation…I
am infested with cockroaches and mice. As my son is a toddler, I
always find him with the traps for…pests and putting them in his
mouth. I fear for both his and my health. I have contacted my
landlord, who are A2 Dominion”—
it should ashamed of itself—and
“Westminster Housing, and they keep sending pest control…They
have sprayed the house but it only made matters worse.
Cockroaches are everywhere! They’re in my fridge, my bed, my sons
cot, within the sofas, just EVERYWHERE! I also have damp in my
kitchen wall where there is water between the walls where I have
an electrical socket.”
Another constituent wrote:
“I am currently in temporary accommodation and the council and
housing providers which are A2 dominion”—
a bit of a theme will emerge with A2Dominion—
“are not listening to my concerns…The flat is infested with
pharoah ants. They are all over the place. These ants carry
bacteria which could harm my baby if they got to her. The ants
have crawled on me. Today is the last straw when I saw them on my
babies bottles. Pest control came out but never returned and
there’s more than before… the bedroom is…freezing.... I have to
put the heating on all night and that still doesn’t help so I’ve
bought an electric heater that I have to put on through the whole
night because of how cold the room is, and the electric heater
takes so much electric that I can’t be affording.”
Another wrote:
“This house is riddled with black mould because of the continuous
flooding. This has been going on since 2017. Each and every time
I have made Westminster aware of the issues, I have been told
that it is my fault because I don’t keep the property
ventilated…It’s because I’ve been continuously flooded. I am
forever cleaning black mould off the walls. My health has got
worse. So much so, my current midwife is concerned for…my unborn
child…I am continuously wheezing and have a dry cough…My eldest
son has asthma and always complaining that his chest is hurting
him.”
Another wrote:
“I actually haven’t had any hot water for at least 18 months and
have to boil the kettle to have a bath. Why am I living like this
in 2022???? Myself and my 18 month old sleep in the front room as
the bedroom is too mouldy to sleep in. We have a hole in the
ceiling and every time it rains, the water comes through.”
The last one wrote:
“I live in a temporary accommodation provided by Westminster
council. I reported a leakage and mould problem in February 2021
to the council. The timing…was…terrible because I was undergoing
breast cancer treatment so it was necessary for me to be at peace
in my home free from…dampness…The reply letter acknowledges that
the TA suffers from…damage, mould and disrepairs and even
apologises to me yet says I will only be updated once they have
more information? I think this matter is…a severe health risk yet
the council believes it is…fine to continue sleeping in a mould
infested home and have water dripping from the ceiling while you
sleep.”
I could read 50 cases like that. The chief executive of
A2Dominion earned a salary package of £276,000 in 2020, despite
being in charge of a stream of those cases. But A2Dominion is not
the only one.
It is my strong belief that, in addition to tackling the issues
of enforcement and renters’ rights, the Government need to take
action on the issue of temporary accommodation. The people
accommodated there are in accommodation procured by the state.
The state should set a higher bar for services than for the
remainder of the private rented sector; in fact, it sets a lower
bar. I would very much like the Minister, a year since I last
raised this, to tell me what the Government are going to do about
it.
2.50pm
(Ellesmere Port and Neston)
(Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Sir Gary. I start by
congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West
Derby () on securing the debate and on
his excellent introduction.
As I have said before, if the issues that we debate in this place
were guided by the issues that constituents come to see us about,
housing would be very near the top of the list and debated far
more often than it is. Whether it is tenants facing eviction, or
tenants coming back to see me in my constituency surgery for a
fourth or fifth time because the damp still has not been fixed,
it is clear that we do not have enough housing in the right
place, of the right quality or of the right tenure. That is in
part because the private rented sector has changed beyond all
recognition in recent years and legislation has not kept pace
with those changes. The last piece of comprehensive legislation
to affect the private rented sector was over 30 years ago, with
the Housing Act 1988. Since then the sector has doubled in size,
and that exceptional market growth, made possible by financial
incentives for landlords, together with the lack of regulation,
has been characterised by insecurity, poor conditions and
sky-high prices.
The biggest irony, certainly in my constituency, is that many of
these private sector properties were once in public ownership,
before they were sold off at a discount rate, allowing many
people to own their home for the first time, which is a good
thing; but that generation has moved on. Those council houses
were not replaced and the first proud home owners have often been
usurped by private sector landlords. So we now have the ludicrous
situation where in two properties, standing side by side, one
tenant will have a much lower rent, much greater security and can
usually be confident that any issues they have with the property
will be dealt with by the regulated, accountable social landlord,
but the other has none of those things. If anything demonstrates
the short-term thinking that has guided housing policy for
decades, that is it.
In a debate only last week, I described how reliance on the
private sector had increased in my constituency due to the
chronic lack of affordable and council housing, and how it was
now rare to see properties offered at a rental value equivalent
to the local housing allowance. A recent search of locally
available properties revealed only two within the rental
liability that would be covered by the LHA, with others ranging
from £30 to over £200 above the required rate.
That is not a sustainable situation. People simply cannot afford
to put a roof over their head in that situation, let alone pay
for the increasing bills, energy, food and council tax that we
hear so much about. But today’s debate, as we know, focuses
specifically on poor conditions in the private rented sector and
rightly so, because private renters live in the poorest-quality
homes in this country, with more than one in five properties in
the private sector classed as non-decent. That may well be
because, in part at least, it accounts for some of the oldest
housing stock, with a third of all private rented sector
properties built before 1919, so it is not a surprise, perhaps,
that on average private rented sector properties have worse
energy standards, meaning that the tenants have to pay
significantly higher heating bills due to poor insulation,
inefficient heating systems or a lack of double glazing. This is
important because, as the cost of living crisis starts to bite
and energy prices continue to go up, it is private renters, who
are already paying higher housing costs, who will be worst
affected. Of course, many private rents are higher than mortgage
payments and certainly higher than social housing costs. How can
we justify that situation?
As we have heard, many constituents have come to their Members of
Parliament with issues with their properties. I will give one
example: a property that was not watertight, so that the back
door leaked every time it rained; pest control issues; electrical
issues, with some of the plug sockets not fitted to the wall
correctly; and issues with windows sealed shut and others that
could not be closed or locked. I am sure we can all agree that
that is just a snapshot of the conditions that people have to
live with.
Too often, people are scared of raising concerns because of the
risk of retaliation by the landlord. As we have heard, tenants
who received a section 21 eviction notice were twice as likely to
have complained directly to their landlord, five times more
likely to have gone to their local authority and eight times more
likely to have complained to a redress scheme, prior to receiving
their eviction notice, resulting in a staggering 46% chance of
their being served with a section 21 notice within six months of
the complaint.
I met a couple this weekend who were in that position. They told
me that they had been raising disrepair issues with their
landlord for five years. When he finally acted, what did he do?
He began work on repairs but decided to evict them at the same
time. They are now living in temporary accommodation. No wonder
people are reluctant to challenge landlords.
For too long, private rental properties have not had the priority
they deserve from Government. A need for improvement of renters’
position was acknowledged in 2019, and again in the Queen’s
Speech of 2021. Both committed to bringing forward reforms to
drive improvements and standards in the private rented sector
but, as we have heard, we are still waiting for those
improvements. We were expecting a White Paper last autumn. In
reply to my written question on the matter last month, the
Minister said that would now be spring. We are now in spring, and
I am hoping to hear from the Minister when we might see that
White Paper and the Government finally taking the action that
many Members want to see.
Housing is a basic human right. Decent and affordable housing has
the power to improve people’s lives fundamentally and the life
chances of children in my constituency and throughout the
country. Every day that the Government delay reform is another
day that people are living in cold, unsafe, insecure and
unaffordable homes. For millions of people, that is an
unacceptable situation that has to change, because they deserve
better.
2.56pm
(Vauxhall)
(Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I
pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West
Derby () for calling this important
debate. The Minister may be aware that yesterday, at the Select
Committee on Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, we heard
powerful testimonies from two social housing tenants about
similar issues in the private rented sector.
My constituency of Vauxhall, like that of my hon. Friend the
Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), has one of the highest
levels of private renters in the country. The average house price
in Vauxhall is around £600,000, as of June 2021. Private renters
also pay more than their fair share, often spending more than a
quarter—in some cases, a third—of their income on rent.
For that cost, the very least my constituents deserve is to live
in housing in good condition. That means that the properties they
are renting should meet modern standards of insulation and energy
efficiency. It means that structural defects should be fixed and
not left to cause serious problems. It means that urgent repairs
should be carried out rapidly, to a high standard. It means
expecting the same standards and efficiency from a landlord that
homeowners deserve and have in their own properties.
Too often we see private rented properties not living up to those
standards. Instead, we see tenants living with health-damaging
features, such as mould, for months if not years. We see requests
to fix faults met with sticking-plaster solutions. Although many
of us may associate disrepair and poor energy efficiency with our
elderly housing stock, those renting new homes and flats are not
immune to finding some of the issues that I have talked about.
That was the case for my constituent, Louise. She moved into new
student accommodation in Vauxhall, as her family home was
overcrowded and she wanted space during her time at university.
The student accommodation was in a new tower block and Louise
moved in soon after it opened in September last year.
Unfortunately, where Louise should have expected a new quality
build, she instead found something only half done, according to
her description. She says her experience has included being stuck
in lifts that did not work, with firefighters coming out to help
her; hot water issues; dirty water coming from taps; and
tailgaters coming into the building. She said that amenities such
as the laundry room were not opened until October, despite her
moving in in early September. In addition, the kitchen doors and
curtains were all missing.
Louise is far from alone in that experience. It is worth
remembering that this is student accommodation, where many are
accessing the private rented sector for the first time, and so
many are scared to speak up, but continue to live in those
substandard conditions. We need to understand that lack of agency
when we talk about standards enforcement and ensure that
conditions across the board meet the standards that we all
expect. First, where standards are in place, as hon. Members have
said, local councils’ ability to regulate them is drastically
undermined by the cuts imposed by central Government. That makes
proactive action hard and it means that tenants with so little
experience of the private rental sector are unfortunately
exploited by unscrupulous landlords. Providing fair funding to
local authorities would allow the enforcement bodies to clean up
the sector and ensure that those without a voice were not left at
the mercy of disrepair.
Secondly, the insecurity at the heart of current private tenancy
law goes hand-in-hand with the fears of raising issues with
properties and demanding rights as a tenant. Next month, as the
Minister knows, will be three years since the Government promised
to end section 21 evictions, yet we are still to see that in the
renters reform Bill. I hope the Minister will listen to our
contributions this afternoon. I know he cares passionately about
this area. I hope he will commit to bringing that vital piece of
legislation forward as soon as possible to provide that
reassurance and, most importantly, the protection that my
constituents in Vauxhall deserve and renters up and down the
country need.
3.01pm
(Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill () for setting the scene so very
well. He does so with a knowledge and a determination for the
change that each and every one of us wishes to see. I will give a
Northern Ireland perspective, which the Minister is not
responsible for, but will do so in order to back up the hon.
Gentleman and the other speakers. It is always a pleasure to
speak after the hon. Member for Vauxhall (). She and I usually spar
in this Chamber. Either she is first and I am second, or vice
versa. Today the hon. Lady takes prominence, as she always
does.
These are incredibly poignant issues. There are just not enough
houses to meet the need in Northern Ireland, and that has meant
that people pay high rents for properties that are not fit for
purpose, let alone worth the money. In my office there are three
massive and critical issues—benefits, housing and planning
matters. Every day in my office features housing issues.
Two years ago, the rent for a standard three-bed house in
Newtownards, the major town in my constituency, would cost
approximately £450—for a nice house in a nice area. Two years on,
that same house will now cost at least £750. I was in shock just
the other week when a lady came into the office. She is divorced
from her husband—separation happens—has three children and was
paying £850 for a house. The gas boiler was broken and she could
not set the timer. She is in private accommodation because that
is all that was available. She had to press the boost button each
hour to make it work, in a house in wintertime with three
children. The difficulty for her was that she could never get a
house with the Housing Executive, which is the equivalent to
council housing over here on the mainland, because she and her
partner work and they have an income and good health, so there is
no way in the world that they will ever qualify for the points to
get them a Housing Executive house. It would be the same
here.
That is a real problem. They are stuck in a rental house, they
cannot get out of that rental house and there is no other
accommodation, rental or private rental where they can go, so
they find themselves in a very difficult position. My constituent
had divorced her husband. Separation happens; not every marriage
succeeds and hers unfortunately did not. They did not have enough
credit to buy a house, for which a mortgage would have cost her
less. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston () mentioned mortgages and if
someone were able to get a mortgage for a house, they might be
able to pay less and have something to look towards. Unlike in
the constituency of the hon. Member for Vauxhall, the average
price of a house in my constituency is £250,000.
My constituent asked if we would contact her landlord to get the
heating on in the morning so that her children were not shivering
while getting dressed. That is the reality of housing in this
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland today; every
Member has said it, and every other Member who will speak will
confirm it. The simple solution on paper for her was to move, and
yet she could not find anything large enough or in her price
range. She therefore had no option other than to pay the top
price for that low-quality housing—I know that this is replicated
in too many other constituencies.
The Northern Ireland Assembly report for the Private Tenancies
Bill states that
“the private rented sector continues to play a critical role in
meeting housing need in NI”.
The latest available data, which is from 2016—hardly up to
date—indicates that the private rental sector has taken over from
the social housing sector as the second-largest housing tenure.
Approximately 17.4% of occupied dwellings are in the private
rental sector, in comparison to the Executive—known as council
housing here—which makes up 15.6% of occupied dwellings.
According to the Department for Communities, nearly half of those
in the private rental sector are in receipt of some element of
housing support. We say this every day in debates, but it does
not lessen the issue: the price of energy is going through the
roof. Renting is one cost, but then there is gas, electric or
oil—whatever it may be. Housing benefit becomes a critical factor
for many tenants in my constituency who are in the low-wage
bracket and find those costs difficult to deal with. It is either
through universal credit or housing benefit that they get help.
In 2019-20, some £270 million was paid into the private rental
sector, either in housing benefit or through the housing-costs
element of universal credit. That tells us a wee bit about the
magnitude of the issue we have before us.
The current fitness standard for all housing tenures in Northern
Ireland, including private rental sector properties, has been in
place since 1992. It is not the Minister’s fault, but it is
totally unsatisfactory to have a standard set some 30 years ago.
The housing fitness standard has been described as a physical
standard, but it is arguably very outdated and does not
sufficiently address issues such as thermal comfort, energy
efficiency or home safety—three critical factors. As people have
referred to, there are houses overrun with ants, spiders and
insects, so we do need to raise the bar, and raise it soon.
Too many families are living in substandard housing. There is too
little legislative weight on landlords to do what they should
morally be doing. As we have families faced with high fuel
prices, they can little afford to carry out the work that
landlords should be carrying out for them. It has occurred to me
that we must make it a priority in this House to work on this
issue, which is tantamount to the abuse of the vulnerable—those
who feel trapped by poverty and circumstance, and by a lack of
legal support and redress. I hope that the legal statement that
was made today can help; I think the hon. Member for Lewisham
West and Penge () referred to that. We hope
that the legal changes that have been talked about today may help
get legal redress.
I know that the Northern Ireland Assembly are seeking to address
this issue back home; we in this House must also ensure that
obligations on landlords are a UK-wide standard. The Minister
works hard at his job and I respect him, but I will ask him to
take the UK-wide approach on board when considering the matter
further. People in every corner of this great United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland deserve that protection,
regardless of their postcode. The hon. Member for Vauxhall said
it was about helping people; I totally agree with that. Our job
is to make sure that people’s lives can get better. We need to do
that.
3.08pm
(Lewisham West and Penge)
(Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I
thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby () for securing this incredibly
important debate. Decent housing should be a basic right for all.
The private rental sector has grown significantly over the last
decade, but the Government have been incredibly slow in
protecting the rights of renters.
The English Housing Survey estimated that 21% of private rental
sector homes did not meet the decent homes standard, and 13% of
privately rented homes have a serious health hazard. The impact
of that on my constituents is huge. Last year I was contacted by
a constituent who raised concerns about her privately rented
property. Cigarette smoke from other tenants in the block would
fill her entire flat, and her five-month-old baby developed a
cough that doctors said was directly due to the smoke. Despite
raising that with her landlords, and giving them the opportunity
to fix the situation, it was not resolved and she was instead
asked to tell her neighbours to stop smoking. Eventually she was
placed on the housing register, but her private landlord wanted
to charge her huge fees just to move out. Minimum standards were
clearly not kept up, but with no clear regulation of the private
rented sector, the landlords have the power to dictate these fees
to the tenant, even when the property is unsuitable for
habitation. My constituent also tells me that she was left
without hot water for her and her baby for 11 days, without
getting any response from her landlords. She has decided to move
out of London, her home city, in the hope of finding better, more
affordable accommodation.
The Government’s inaction on section 21 no-fault evictions is
also having a profound effect on my constituents. Despite the
Government announcing in 2019 that they would abolish the
measure, they are yet to do so. One of my constituents, who is
unable to work due to a number of complex health issues, was
served with a section 21 notice completely out of the blue,
giving her one month to find a property for her and her children.
She was told that she would struggle to get social housing and
would have to move far away from her local support structures.
She wrote to me stating that the whole experience had pushed her
to the verge of suicide. I know it is difficult to hear, but
policy decisions have a very real effect on the hardest hit. The
Government should immediately abolish section 21 and give people
security of tenure.
Another constituent who escaped domestic abuse was also served a
section 21 notice from her private rented accommodation. She then
found herself in appalling conditions. The temporary housing was
covered in mould and damp, and there was an infestation of slugs.
Instead of having this addressed, she was advised just to find
another property. She and her children are now trapped in
squalor, and have few or no options. This is a vulnerable family
who, if not supported into decent housing, could find themselves
back in the path of their abuser. Sadly, her case is not
unique.
While the private rented sector is an important part of the
housing mix, there has been a lack of urgency from the Government
to take action on keeping the sector up to standard, and on
giving renters rights. In the absence of such action, I want to
mention some of the work that has been done in my constituency.
While almost every council has a landlord forum, very few have
formalised ways of communicating with private renters. Lewisham
Council and others are trying to change this at local level.
Lewisham is working with Generation Rent to research how private
renters want to be engaged with, and as part of that, Generation
Rent has launched a survey and planned focus groups with private
renters in the borough. The aim is to provide a link between
renters and councils; help the local authority become better
informed about the issues that private renters face and what it
can do to support them; and help renters to become more
knowledgeable about the council services available to them.
Local authorities cannot fix the system alone. We need a
commitment and the energy to drive this forward at national
level, yet to date the Government have failed to give councils
the powers to deliver landlord licensing, to deliver their
planned White Paper on rental reform, and to update the decent
homes standard. Sadly, this just reflects the Government’s record
of kicking renters’ rights into the long grass. Every day that
the Government delay reform is a day many people spend in cold,
dilapidated, hazardous and unaffordable homes. My constituents
and many others across the country cannot wait any longer. Rental
reform has to be done now, and done right.
I hope that today the Government are listening to all these
stories from up and down the country of what people are facing in
the private rented sector, and that they will outline when the
millions of renters living in terrible conditions will finally be
treated fairly.
3.13pm
(Easington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I
congratulate my good and hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool,
West Derby () on securing this important
debate. It speaks volumes that, apart from the Minister—to whom I
mean no disrespect—and his Parliamentary Private Secretary, no
Government Members are present for this debate. They really
should be. I do not know if it is an indication that there are no
problems in the private rented sector in the constituencies of
Government MPs, but this is a really important issue for me and
for many Opposition Members.
I know from personal experience that my hon. Friend the Member
for Liverpool, West Derby, is a long-term advocate of improving
housing quality and conditions. Even before he was elected to
this House, he very kindly hosted members of my team from
Easington, who visited Liverpool in 2018 to discuss and see for
themselves how that city’s very successful selective private
sector rented scheme was improving the community’s quality of
life. I am grateful for that, because we learned from that
scheme.
I will use the little time I have to highlight the issues that
affect my constituency in east Durham. I am pleased to note that
after many delays and much procrastination by the Government,
permission was finally given to Durham County Council to
implement a scheme based on the very successful Liverpool model.
That scheme will come into effect on 1 April this year. That
selective licensing scheme is not a solution, but it is an
important tool in the toolbox. I thank Councillor Kevin Shaw, who
my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby met during
that visit. He is the erstwhile holder of the housing portfolio
at Durham County Council, and has always been a champion of
driving up standards, tackling homelessness, and the effective
regulation of absentee landlords.
This is not an abstract argument. I hope the Minister will take
up some of the invitations that have been extended to him, in
order to see the impact that absentee landlords have on former
mining communities such as Easington Colliery, Horden and
Blackhall. That impact is really quite sinful, and clearly
exposes the Government’s myth of levelling up. People living in
those private rented properties, which in many cases are former
colliery houses, think that term is some kind of joke. Far from
levelling up, many people are struggling just to keep up.
When preparing for this debate, I was reflecting on the fact that
I served for a number of years on Easington District Council, a
local authority that had housing responsibilities. The vision of
my predecessors was “farewell to squalor”—an end to squalid
housing conditions—and that gave birth to the new town of
Peterlee. The idea was that we would never again suffer the
appalling conditions that so many families in my constituency
were subjected to before the development of that new town.
From the Government’s statements and Ministers’ responses to
debates, it seems as though they measure success on housing
policy by new building starts. However, there are multiple facets
to, and crises in, the UK housing sector, from a lack of
affordable housing stock in overheated economies, such as in
parts of London and the south-east, to problems associated with
derelict and void properties in the northern regions, in areas
such as mine, which are falling into decline and damaging local
communities. A number of Members have made positive suggestions;
I do not want to elaborate on those, but I hope the Minister will
respond to the suggestion about section 21 no-fault evictions,
the suggestion from my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port
and Neston () about addressing the issue
of poor energy efficiency, and all the other suggestions made.
When he responds to my remarks, I would like him to concentrate
on the availability of a selective licensing scheme for the
private sector.
When these problems were arising, I pointed them out to the
Housing Minister. I was just checking how many Housing Ministers
there have been since I was first elected in 2010; I think the
current Secretary of State for Transport was the Housing Minister
then, and there have been 11 or 12 since. Perhaps part of the
problem is getting a grip on the portfolio and understanding the
depth of the problem. As soon as we feel that we are making some
progress with a Minister, they are shuffled, and we have to start
all over again. I am not making excuses for the Minister, and I
am sure he will respond in his own way.
Seven years ago, I warned the then Housing Minister, the right
hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (), that the bedroom tax was
undermining the viability of social housing in many of my
communities, and I pointed out the problems arising in the former
mining community of Horden, where Accent Housing, a housing
association, withdrew an investment plan after local housing
market failure and a collapse in demand, partially because of the
bedroom tax undermined demand for certain types of properties in
the area. I said that I understood that Accent Housing
“is currently seeking permission from the Homes and Communities
Agency to dispose of its properties on the private market, which
means that it will put…up…for auction”—[Official Report, 11
February 2015; Vol. 592, c. 266WH.]
the whole of its housing stock, amounting to several hundred
houses. That meant ownership was fragmented among many private
landlords, who bought small parcels of stock. Instead of dealing
with a stock of 500, 600 or 700 houses, we had dozens and dozens
of private owners buying three or four properties. I warned then
that the consequence would be an influx of absentee private
landlords. They are not bad people; I am not suggesting that they
are evil. Some have good intentions. They buy these properties,
often at auction without even seeing them, to put that investment
in their pension portfolio, but the effect has been bad for
residents, tenants and the wider community.
I want action from the Government. I fear that their policies
have laid the foundations for many of the problems with poor
condition of housing stock. There has been decline of local
housing demand, increases in the number of derelict and void
properties, and a decline in the local quality of life. I have no
doubt that the rise in crime and antisocial behaviour has been
exacerbated by Government policies, and by the reduction we had
in the number of police. I know we are all desperately trying to
reverse that, but much of the damage has been done, and it will
take a huge commitment and a great deal of time and effort to
recover from this position.
Horden is not alone. Many areas, particularly former industrial
areas—perhaps including the Minister’s constituency—have been
blighted by problems and the short-sighted nature of managed
decline. My constituency needs significant funding for housing
redevelopment and regeneration, so will the Minister stop holding
competitions to identify the areas of greatest need? He should
take responsibility for the devastation that has been inflicted
on communities such as mine, where people have served the nation,
including by mining the coal that powered the engines of industry
that made Britain great, and they deserve recognition.
In conclusion, I ask the Minister not to join his long list of
predecessors in batting aside the criticism. I want him to work
with the Labour party Front Benchers, and to visit my community.
I want us to work together to create a funding and investment
package that will improve my area and others. I want an
investment package that will really deliver on the levelling-up
promise. We want an end to meaningless rhetoric.
3.23pm
(Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I
thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (), who campaigns tirelessly to
try to find ways in which we can lift people out of poverty. They
suffer, through no fault of their own, because the system is
rigged against them. I especially pay tribute to his work
fighting for a legal right to food, so that no families or
children go hungry in the fifth richest economy on the
planet.
We had a fantastic debate on supported housing recently in the
Chamber. A number of my colleagues spoke and exposed the racket
in the housing sector. I hope in my brief comments to suggest a
few ways in which the Government could begin to put things into
reverse.
The private rented sector is booming in this country—and in
Liverpool; it accounts for 32% of all housing stock across the
city, and in at least one third of council wards, the proportion
is approaching 50%. Liverpool, Walton, which I represent, is
ranked as the most deprived constituency in the whole of England.
My office is overwhelmed by constituents coming to me and my
staff for help because the places where they live are blighted by
damp, mould, cold, or vermin.
(Batley and Spen) (Lab)
I apologise for not being here at the start of the debate due to
other commitments. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just
those in private rented accommodation who find themselves trapped
in totally unacceptable conditions—many of which we have heard
about today? People such as Janice Dawson and her husband, in my
constituency, can be forced to live in damp and unhealthy
leasehold properties because management companies fail for years
to carry out essential repairs, despite repeated promises to do
so.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. She is absolutely right, and
that problem is found not just in leaseholds, but in supported
housing and housing association homes. In every sector that we
look at, there is too little regulation and funding to put those
issues right.
When my constituents come to me with those issues of damp, mould,
cold and vermin, they are ignored by their unscrupulous
landlords. The overstretched local authority, which is supposed
to attempt to enforce the few housing standards that we have, is
doing so with ever-dwindling resources because of more than a
decade of austerity cuts. We should not underestimate the
constant, crushing, dehumanising misery that squalid housing
conditions cause people and families. The local authority has
made tackling those problems a priority in recent years,
especially in the private rented sector, but needs urgent
support, which the Government have failed to deliver.
In 2015, Liverpool City Council introduced the UK’s first
city-wide landlord licensing scheme, which my hon. Friend the
Member for Easington () saw in operation. Since its
introduction, 70% of inspected properties have been found to be
in breach of their licence conditions. Some 37,000 compliance
actions were carried out, 2,500 legal and fixed penalty notices
were issued, and almost 250 landlords were prosecuted. In
practical terms, that meant improving the lives of tenants,
making electrics safe, installing fire doors, eradicating damp
and preventing illegal evictions. In other words, the scheme
worked.
What did the Government do when Liverpool City Council applied
for a new licensing scheme in 2019? It rejected the application—a
huge blow for residents. Only after numerous resubmissions have
we found out that the scheme can be reintroduced in April.
However, this time, it will apply to only 80% of the city’s
wards, because of a diktat from Whitehall. That will undermine
the city council’s ability to enforce standards across the
region, and tenants will suffer as a result.
In the light of a near 65% cut in Government funding to
Liverpool’s core budget since 2010, Ministers must look at how
they can do more to support local authorities that want to ensure
that residents have security, dignity and comfort in their home.
The Government must rescind the damaging relaxation of permitted
development rights and return those powers to local government,
too. Ministers should turn their attention to what could be done
to support the creation of flourishing communities that support
the health and wellbeing of their residents, not least by
implementing comprehensive national housing standards.
In recent months and years, I have been working with the Town and
Country Planning Association to seek to introduce a healthy homes
Act, which would effectively outlaw the slums of the future. We
need robust new measures to hold landlords and developers to
account. A significant barrier to effective action is the radical
imbalance in access to Government among interest groups. We
cannot tackle the housing crisis without tackling the undue
influence that property developers have over Government policy. A
recent report by Transparency International UK found that
although property tycoons have an open door into Whitehall,
tenants are shut out. Given that private renters make up one in
five of all households across Britain, their absence from policy
making is conspicuous. It warps the process in favour of vested
interests.
At a recent Public Accounts Committee hearing on the regulation
of private renting, I made sure that ACORN, the community and
tenants’ union, was invited to give evidence. I wonder if the
Minister has ever met with that union. The testimony provided to
the Committee by ACORN’S representative was powerful and is too
rarely heard. I urge the Minister to tell us what he plans to do
to address that imbalance and ensure that tenants are given a
seat at the table.
3.32pm
(Greenwich and Woolwich)
(Lab)
As always, it is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir
Gary. The debate is incredibly important. The issue does not get
enough attention in this place but, as all Members will know, it
is of huge and growing importance to many of our constituents,
not least given the size of the private rented sector and its
ongoing—and, indeed, accelerating—expansion.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West
Derby () on securing the debate and on
the way he opened it. As always, he spoke with great force and
sincerity on behalf of his constituents, and brought alive the
reality of the appalling conditions faced by far too many of
those renting privately.
Following his impassioned remarks, we heard a series of
incredibly powerful contributions from my hon. Friends the
Members for Westminster North (Ms Buck), for Ellesmere Port and
Neston (), for Vauxhall (), for Lewisham West and
Penge (), for Easington () and for Liverpool, Walton
(), as well as the hon. Member
for Strangford (). Their contributions were all directly informed by
their respective constituency experiences and the obviously huge
housing caseloads each of them deals with on a weekly basis.
It is not in dispute that some of the worst standards in housing
are in the private rented sector. It goes without saying that
that statement should not be taken to imply that every privately
rented property is in bad condition, or that all private
landlords fail their tenants. I also fully accept—no doubt it
will be referenced in the remarks the Minister’s officials have
prepared for him—that, measured by either the decent homes
standard or the housing health and safety rating system category
1 hazards, the absolute number and proportion of poor quality
private rented homes continues to fall, albeit steadily rather
than drastically, as part of a half century if not longer of
improvement in housing standards.
There is still clearly an acute problem for those private sector
tenants who are the most vulnerable, have little or no purchasing
power, are increasingly concentrated at the lower end of the
private rental market and—as anecdotal evidence would suggest—are
also increasingly concentrated geographically. However, we still
need the Department to provide accurate data on precisely how
private rented homes are distributed across the country.
As we have heard from all speakers today, for tenants forced to
live in homes that do not meet the decent homes standard and that
often have a category 1 hazard what should be a place of refuge
and comfort is instead a source of daily anxiety and, in many
cases, torment and misery. Whether they wake up every day to
mould, vermin or dangerous hazards, today’s debate has provided
yet more evidence that substandard private rented housing takes a
huge toll on the physical and mental health of those in it and
prevents families and children—it is this I find the most
saddening—from flourishing as they should be able to.
I know the Under-Secretary cares deeply about improving housing
standards and life chances, but it should be a real source of
shame to him and his colleagues that after 12 years of
Conservative-led Government, one in five homes in the private
rented sector still does not meet the decent homes standard and
one in 10 has a category 1 hazard posing a risk of serious harm.
The Minister and his colleagues should be agitating week in, week
out for the changes necessary to bear down decisively on this
problem, and for those changes to be enacted as a matter of
urgency. What makes the situation all the more frustrating is
that it is patently obvious what the required changes are and,
indeed, there is broad consensus across the House on most of
them.
I leave aside the more fundamental issue of a striking lack of
decent, secure and genuinely affordable social homes to rent,
which is in many ways at the heart of the problem, and will
instead use the time left to explore in a little more detail the
three most important areas where change in the private rented
sector is required: standards, enforcement and rights. Each has
already featured in the debate.
First, on standards, a technical but crucial issue is that the
Government need to review and strengthen national standards for
rented homes, and to do so at pace. The decent homes standard,
which provides for general benchmarking, has not been updated
since 2006. It is welcome that it is being reviewed, but the
process needs to be expedited. Will the Minister tell us when the
Government expect the decent homes standard review to complete?
The HHSRS is also under review and we need the conclusions of
that exercise to be published as soon as possible. Will the
Minister give us an update on when he expects that review to
complete?
My final point on standards is that, in the levelling-up White
Paper, the Government committed to exploring
“proposals for new minimum standards for rented homes”.
Obviously, we have no issue with that in principle, but will the
Minister give us some sense of how such minimum standards would
interact with the updated decent homes standard and the HHSRS?
The last thing we need is to make the current regime even more
complex and challenging to administer.
Secondly, the Government must start taking enforcement more
seriously. A number of contributors have talked about the
importance of enforcement. The Minister could emerge from Marsham
Street in a month’s time with proposals for the most robust set
of national standards possible, but it would count for little if
those standards could not then be enforced in practice. As my
hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North mentioned, two
changes need to be made if the Government are to facilitate the
proper enforcement of standards across the country.
The first is to give local authorities the means to enforce
standards properly themselves. At present, enforcement of
standards across the country is incredibly patchy and tenants
face a postcode lottery as a result. Those councils that could do
more with the resources they have but are not need to be
encouraged to do so, but the problem in large part is the product
of central Government funding cuts over many years. Does the
Minister accept as much? If so, what plans do the Government have
to provide local authorities with the funding and support they
need to enforce regulations, as well as enabling, rather than
frustrating, those authorities that wish to adopt landlord
licensing schemes?
The second change is to enable tenants themselves to enforce
standards. I appreciate that the issue lies outside of the
Minister’s departmental responsibilities, but does he accept that
unless legal aid is reintroduced for disrepair claims so that
lower income tenants can seek to enforce existing standards—let
alone future standards—progress on his objectives is likely to be
held back?
Thirdly, the Government must act now to give renters more rights
and better protection, so that they can seek redress for poor
quality conditions and disrepair without fear of retribution.
There is clear consensus across the House that we need to
overhaul the outdated legislation that applies to the private
rented sector. However, it is now three years since the
Conservative Administration of the right hon. Member for
Maidenhead (Mrs May) promised to abolish section 21 no-fault
evictions. There has been a lot of talk about the White Paper
today but, perhaps most disappointingly, we were promised a
renter’s reform Bill in the Queen’s Speech last year yet as we
approach the end of the Session, not only is there no sign of
that Bill but we are now told to expect a White Paper in its
place in the spring.
Of course, we need to ensure that any proposals for reform are
considered and properly scrutinised, but tenants need protection
now. They cannot afford to wait 12, 16, 18, 24 months or longer
for the White Paper to be published and consulted on and for
legislation to be brought forward. Given the implications for
tenants suffering now, I would like to hear from the Minister
why, having committed to a Bill in this Session, the Government
have now determined that a White Paper will do instead.
To conclude, the House must act to improve conditions for the
millions of private renters trapped in substandard housing, and
must act quickly. Tenants living in squalid conditions cannot
wait years while the Government slowly analyse yet more reviews
and engage in more consultations and delay. We know what needs to
happen; it is now a question of delivering it. I look forward to
hearing from the Minister that the Government are not only seized
by the urgency of the problem but, as a result, will look again
at how the changes that need to be made can be enacted
quickly.
(in the Chair)
I remind the Minister to leave three minutes at least for to wind up.
3.41pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up,
Housing and Communities ()
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary.
Given that I have a bit of a cold, it might be easier for me to
conclude two or three minutes early, to give my voice a rest. I
thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby () for securing this debate on the
quality of housing, which is an issue that affects us all.
Although I appreciate that there has been no representation from
the Government side, I like to reflect that that might be because
my colleagues have faith in the Minister responsible and the
forthcoming promise of legislation, but that will be for others
to judge.
We have discussed standards in the private rented sector. I am
delighted that the opportunity has arisen, because we have
ambitious plans to create a vibrant private rented sector that is
safe, healthy and fit for purpose. During the debate, we have
heard a wealth of expertise and experience from across the House.
Although I appreciate that we are on different sides of the
House, I like to think we are on the same side of the argument. I
share others’ determination to address these problems.
I start by reiterating our commitment to drive up standards in
the private rented sector. Good quality housing can help to
improve a wide range of outcomes, including health, quality of
life and educational attainment. Since 2004, landlords have had
to ensure that their properties are free from the most serious
category 1 hazards, those that that pose an imminent risk to
tenants’ health. In 2016, we strengthened local authorities’
enforcement powers to deal with hazardous properties by
introducing financial penalties of up to £30,000, extending rent
payment orders and introducing banning orders for the most
serious and prolific offenders. Councils have been using those
powers.
I fully appreciate that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for
Greenwich and Woolwich (), says that the
Government are not spending enough, but I think the examples I
give show that some councils are doing that. He described the
provision as patchy, which is unfortunate and certainly something
the Government would like to address, but there are definitely
examples of good practice.
Enforcement action by Burnley Borough Council over the past two
years, for example, has netted fines and costs of more than
£85,000. This year, Bristol City Council banned a landlord for
letting or managing properties for five years after it found he
was running a seriously unsafe house, with 18 tenants, including
six children. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, when people
were spending so much more time in their homes, we increased
safety further by requiring landlords to ensure that electrics in
properties were safe. Local councils have also been using powers
we gave them to do that. Fenland District Council has fined four
landlords £25,000 for dangerous electrics. We are amending
regulations to make it mandatory for both social and private
landlords to instal a carbon monoxide alarm in any room used as
living accommodation where a fixed combustion appliance of any
fuel type is used.
There has been a marked improvement in standards in the private
rented sector. The proportion of homes in the sector with
category 1 hazards has halved since 2010. However, as the shadow
Minister pointed out, 12% of homes in the sector still contain
serious hazards. It is not good enough, so I need to talk about
what we will do.
The levelling-up White Paper outlined a set of ambitious missions
to level up the country and support our communities. On housing
quality, the Government set our ambition to half the number of
non-decent rented homes by 2030, with the biggest improvements in
the lowest-performing areas. We have committed to consult on
introducing a legally binding decent home standards in the
private rented sector. We are working with a range of experts to
review the housing, health and safety rating system risk
assessment tool, which forms part of the decent home standards.
That will make it more efficient and effective for local
authorities to use and more accessible for tenants and
landlords.
We are exploring a register of private rented properties so that
local councils can identify where to target their enforcement and
leave the good landlords alone. We are also committed to
requiring all private landlords to belong to a redress scheme to
drive up standards further and ensure all tenants have a right to
redress. As have been said, we will abolish no-fault evictions,
which will mean tenants who complain about poor standards are
protected from revenge evictions. We will publish our landmark
White Paper later this spring, which I understand technically
starts on 20 March, so I hope very soon.
Let me turn to the issues that Members have raised. I appreciate
it is slightly outside the course of the debate, but the social
rented sector was mentioned by a few Members. We had the social
housing White Paper, the charter for social housing residents.
The regulator for social housing and the housing ombudsman have
not needed to wait for us to introduce legislation to become more
muscular in their interactions with the problems they face. The
housing ombudsman has seriously increased its number of staff, as
has the housing regulator. As we prepare for legislation, I am in
constant contact with them both to ensure that they will have the
powers that they need, but they already have the staff they need
to carry out that level of enforcement.
A number of people mentioned the problems with mould in the
socially rented sector, which was deplorable. Following the
report published by the housing ombudsman, we do not have the
presumption that it is the tenant’s fault—a lifestyle choice on
their part—that causes damp, so we are already seeing steps in
the right direction in advance of any legislation.
On the items listed by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby,
I share the frustration with section 21. Clearly, that will be
fundamental in the White Paper. It seems deplorable that people
could be concerned about reporting dangerous items in their
property to their landlord with that fear hanging over them. We
have consulted widely. I share the concerns of others and that
will be fundamental to our reforms.
The shadow Minister clearly said that there are landlords who are
doing the job right, but there are those who do not. Is it the
Minister’s intention to bring those people up to the standard of
those who do it right? Owning rented accommodation is not a cash
cow; it is more than that. There is an obligation to look after
their tenant. Will the standard be those good owners of rental
accommodation?
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It was raised by
another Member with regard to the balance of power between
tenants and landlords. For too long, the power has rested more
fundamentally with landlords and we need to redress that balance
to bring the standards of the worst up to the standards of the
good, and we need to accept that that might mean that some
landlords will exit the sector. If they have been providing a
particularly poor service and poor quality accommodation, the
sector will be better for their absence from it. That is why we
are consulting on a decent homes standard for the PRS.
Unfortunately, I am not able to say when that work will be
concluded, other than in due course, but we are working closely
with stakeholders to make sure that the review gives us an
appropriate basis for legislation in the future.
I completely accept that there have been problems previously with
the selective licensing across Liverpool. My understanding of the
situation is that there were some statutory problems with the
application. I appreciate that it might have been an
administrative-type problem, but at least we are there now. I am
an enthusiastic consultee with regard to the idea of a landlords’
register, because it would be incredibly helpful for all councils
to know where their private rented landlords are, and it would
help them focus whatever resources they have more
specifically.
This is not a one-way Streeter—sorry, street even for the
tenants. There are certain advantages for landlords of such a
scheme being adopted, which I understand will happen in County
Durham in two weeks’ time, based on the excellent scheme that my
hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby () was promoting.
It is great to hear about good work that is going on across the
country, and I fully accept that we can learn from the work that
other areas are doing.
I quickly want to cover a few more points. The hon. Member for
Vauxhall () mentioned Louise’s
case. I would be grateful if she would write to me, so I can pick
up that case, because we need to be concerned about standards in
all forms of accommodation, and student accommodation is one of
them. The hon. Member for Strangford () raised working with devolved assemblies. One of the
things I have been working on is the new homes ombudsman, who
will ensure the new properties we build are of an appropriate
quality. We have been working very closely with the devolved
Assemblies on that issue, and we will continue to do so in other
areas.
I am grateful for the invitation from the hon. Member for
Easington () to visit. I hope there is
no reshuffle before I get the opportunity to get out and about
more, to say the least. With regard to the hon. Member for
Ellesmere Port and Neston (), when we are talking about
insecurity and poor quality housing, I hope that work to abolish
section 21 will address both those points because tenants will
have more security and more leverage to complain about the
standards of accommodation they are being provided with.
The one question I would like the Minister to answer before he
wraps up is why the Government have decided to replace a
commitment to a renters reform Bill in this Session with a White
Paper. Can he guarantee that we will get that comprehensive
renters reform Bill in this Parliament?
It would be fair to say that I will do everything I can. I feel
personally invested in ensuring that happens. On the delay, I am
not sure this is the legitimate answer the Government expect me
to give, but we have been through two years of covid, and I have
seen—we are seeing it now with the situation in Ukraine—that a
number of staff have to pivot to the most pressing item that the
Government are dealing with. We have a finite number of staff,
and clearly covid has caused incredible challenges for the
Government. I personally feel that they have responded well, but
I understand the frustration. I conclude by saying that the
debate has been incredibly useful for me—
Ms Buck
Will the Minister give way?
I do not have time to give way; I need to give the hon. Member
for Liverpool, West Derby time to wrap up. I remain open and will
continue the conversation with hon. Members should they wish to
take that opportunity.
3.54pm
It is clear from the contributions to the debate that the message
is loud and clear: for so many, the system is unfair and unjust,
and it leaves so many tenants living in fear, squalor and genuine
worry about what the future holds for them and their families. We
should think of this statistic when we leave this place today and
we should think of it every day: poor housing can knock 20 years
off somebody’s life. That is something that we should never
forget. It is what should drive all of us in this Parliament.
I welcome the passionate contributions today from my fellow
Members—the debate has been excellent—and from the shadow
Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich
(). I also welcome the
Minister’s commitment. I know that he genuinely wants to drive
social justice through the Bill that we are talking about. I
welcome his commitment on abolishing section 21 and his
acknowledgement that current landlord licensing is patchy. We
will see what is in the White Paper when it eventually comes. I
look forward to working with the Minister in driving that. I hope
that he redresses the situation and that we get a landlord
licence scheme rolled out nationally, because licensing works and
would make such a difference.
I thank everybody very much for taking the time to participate
today. I really hope that the Minister does remember the 20-year
fact, because deeds are far more important than words.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered poor quality conditions and
disrepair in private rented sector housing.
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