Butterfields Estate — House of Commons, 2016-04-20
Topic: Housing
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): I will come to some of the provisions of the Housing and Planning Bill. I hope the hon. Lady will consider, possibly for the first time, supporting the Government’s work to provide more homes at an affordable rate for people in Walthamstow by delivering starter homes—homes for first-time buyers at a discount on the market price, which make house buying affordable again. Our increase in shared ownership also aims to do that. I hope she will get behind the Bill when it returns to the House in the next few weeks, before it gets Royal Assent, as we hope it will I will come to the wider issue of legislation in a second, but increasing the supply of private rented homes is only part of the picture, as the hon. Lady rightly says. The private rented sector is currently dominated by small landlords, with larger landlords owning 10 or more properties accounting for only 1% of the market. Many landlords provide a very good service, and by far the majority of tenants are happy with it, but I share the hon. Lady’s view that we want standards to rise across the board so that we drive out every last bad and rogue landlord, regardless of their position The Government therefore published the "How to rent" guide so that tenants know what they should expect from their landlords. The guide improves transparency, making more information available, and helping tenants to make informed decisions and to know their rights. That in itself can prevent more poor and substandard accommodation from being rented. Empowering tenants is key to our approach We have introduced legislation requiring all letting and management agents in England to belong to one of the three Government-approved redress schemes. We have also required them to publicise prominently in their offices and on their websites whether they are a member, for example, of a client money protection scheme and which redress scheme they are a member of, giving landlords and tenants a clear route to pursue complaints against agents and helping to drive up standards Just today, we have introduced an enabling power into the Housing and Planning Bill to make regulations to require letting agents and property management agents to belong to a client money protection scheme. That will protect the money of landlords and tenants if an agent goes into administration or from theft while the money is in the agent’s control We are determined to do all we can to protect people who rent privately against a tiny minority of rogue and criminal landlords who exploit their tenants by renting out unsafe or substandard accommodation, or who act unfairly. We have also made millions of pounds available to local authorities to identify and successfully prosecute rogue landlords. We have introduced legislation to protect tenants against retaliatory eviction where they have legitimate complaints about the standard of their accommodation. We have placed restrictions on repossessions where a landlord has failed to comply with legal responsibilities on, for example, gas safety and the provision of information to tenants We are going further by introducing measures in the Housing and Planning Bill to tackle rogue landlords and property agents. That includes establishing a database of landlords and property agents who have been convicted of serious offences; introducing banning orders for the most prolific and serious offenders; issuing civil penalty notices of up to £30,000 for some breaches of housing legislation, and ring-fencing those resources for housing-compliance activity; extending rent repayment orders to cover situations where a tenant has been illegally evicted, or where the landlord has failed to rectify a serious health and safety hazard in the property or breached a banning order; and applying a more stringent "fit and proper person" test for landlords letting out licensed properties, such as houses in multiple occupation, to help ensure that those landlords have the appropriate skills to manage such properties and that they do not pose a risk to the health and safety of their tenants As with the penalties introduced through the Immigration Bill, those measures are meant to make sure that we target criminal landlords who ignore their existing legal obligations. The penalties will not have an impact on the vast majority of good landlords who comply with the law and who rent out good-quality and well-managed accommodation However, we need to do all we can, and the Government are going further than any Government before us to crack down on rogue and bad landlords. I am happy to continue to make the case to the hon. Lady that landlords who behave in a manner that is not fair or appropriate, and who do not provide the right services and accommodation to their tenants, should be driven out of the market.