Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provisions to require owners of park home sites to undergo a fit and proper person test; to introduce a national licensing scheme for individual owners of park home sites; and for connected purposes.
The Bill would help to increase protections for some of the most vulnerable in our communities—those who live on park home sites—by introducing a national licensing regime and a fit and proper person test for those who seek to own such sites. As hon. Members will know, park homes are modern bungalow-style residential properties, usually sited on private estates. The park home industry is a billion pound business and there are more than 2,000 park home sites across the UK, primarily but not exclusively in rural areas such as Cornwall.
For the vast majority of the quarter of a million residents on park home sites, their park home constitutes their only home. Many residents are elderly, with a number of park home sites setting a minimum near-retirement age as a condition of residence. Indeed, the industry heavily markets itself to property-rich, but cash-poor, senior citizens. The advertising paints a picture of like-minded individuals forming idyllic communities in which they will live out their twilight years in comfort and contentment, made all the better by the equity release that moving to a park home brings. Almost all the sites are privately owned and run as profit-making businesses.
Most sites are owned by individuals, and although some site owners own a single park, others might own 20 or more. Park owners with a single site will tend to manage it themselves, but those with multiple sites might employ site managers to run individual sites on their behalf. Sites can be bought and sold at the whim of an individual. Anyone can own a park home site, and as things currently stand, a long criminal history or prior evidence of malpractice within the industry is no barrier to an individual buying and running a site. The current residents of a site have no say whatever about it being sold, or who purchases it.
I want to be absolutely clear that the majority of park home site owners conduct themselves in a professional manner and serve the people they accommodate well. However, the actions of a small but significant number of site owners who harass often vulnerable and elderly people can no longer be ignored. My Bill proposes one way of addressing this bad practice within the industry, by bringing in a national licensing regime for the owners of park home sites and a fit and proper person test. I do not believe that those measures alone will address all the problems faced by some residents, but they will be a step towards the greater protections that are desperately needed.
We should be clear that the majority of park home site owners have absolutely nothing to fear from a fit and proper person test, which in my opinion would help to drive up standards across the industry, but we need to take steps to secure a thriving and well-run park home sector that continues to provide people with sites on which they want to live, and opportunities for investment for others. I believe that a national licensing system will maintain standards, root out bad practice and ensure that sites are safe, well planned and well managed, and have appropriate facilities and services.
Indeed, the previous Government said in their March 2010 document “Park homes site licensing reform” that they were committed to
“a comprehensive licensing regime which ensures that only ‘fit and proper’ persons are engaged in the management of park homes sites and which is backed by effective enforcements tools”.
This Government’s Housing Minister said in a written ministerial statement in February last year that he was
“announcing my intention to consult on a further package of measures that could improve and modernise the licensing regime that applies to caravan and park home sites to enable local authorities to more effectively monitor and enforce licences and, therefore, better protect the many thousands of older households who live in this sector.”—[Official Report, 10 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 15WS.]
That was welcome news in 2010, as it was the year after, but so far there has been little sign of a consultation emerging from the Government. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is in his place to hear me tell the House that the one thing that park home residents across the country are saying to us is that they need the Government to get on with this.
In the absence of further action by the Government, my Bill seeks to help the two in every three park home residents who report living in unacceptable conditions. Almost half of all residents report living under the regime of an unscrupulous park owner. It aims to build on the work of hon. Members from both sides of the House in raising this important issue, notably my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes). I am delighted that the Bill has attracted cross-party support, and note that other Members—such as my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace)—also wanted to have their names on the Bill, but could not be accommodated. It is clear that there is a desire on both sides of the House to sort out the problems that for too long have bedevilled the park homes industry.
Problems in the park homes sector occur because the current system of regulation and the industry’s economics make it an attractive proposition to a number of rogue site owners who are intent on making substantial sums of money. When taking over a site of, say, 30 park homes, a rogue site owner only needs to replace 10 existing homes with new ones to make a significant profit. Of course, the problem for the rogue site owner in achieving that is that there might not be 10 individuals who want to leave the site. Rogue owners then begin a process of forcing residents to leave, or to sell their park homes to the site owner on advantageous terms.
Practices that are, sadly, commonplace include the vetoing of all sales of homes within the site, including any that are part way through. Although regulations allow home owners to challenge the unreasonable rejection of prospective purchasers, the reality is that most do not have the emotional or financial resources to take the site owner through the court process. In addition, the length of time that it would inevitably take for that process to be completed would no doubt result in the loss of that prospective purchaser.
The Park Home Owners Justice campaign, ably led by Sonia McColl, reports that rouge site owners visit local estate agents who market park homes to tell them that they will not allow any homes on their site to be sold. Rogue site owners also intercept prospective purchasers visiting the site to put them off, by rubbishing either the home or even the site in general, and they bully residents by telling them their homes are defective in some way, and threaten to evict them from the site unless their homes are brought up to standard.
It is reported that rogue owners tell residents that improvements to their park homes are illegal when they are not. Many park home residents report being subject to harassment, intimidation, abuse, and, in the worst cases, arson of their park homes. Through such abuses, a site owner effectively traps residents in their homes while creating a climate of fear. Many residents are frail and vulnerable, and their physical and mental health can be easily impacted on. Eventually, the suffering reaches the extent that, desperate to get out, the resident will sell to the site owner for a fraction of the park home’s market value. There is evidence of rogue site owners then buying further sites where the same tactics of abuse are brought to bear on a different group of luckless residents.
My Bill seeks to create additional protections for residents of park homes by creating a two-tier licensing regime. In an era of localism, it is right that local authorities should be responsible for issuing and monitoring the site licence, which would cover such matters as the site’s suitability, amenities and services. In line with the recommendation from the trade and the two national residents associations in response to the previous Government’s consultation, there should be a national licensing authority, the role of which would be to decide whether an applicant to own a park home site was a “fit and proper person”, and suitable to manage the accommodation of others. I suggest that that responsibility could sit with the newly empowered residential property tribunal service. If so, the national authority would issue a personal licence. If the applicant were refused a licence, he would not be able to manage any park home site anywhere.
It is that two-tier approach, as part of a package of other measures that I expect from the Government, that I wish to commend to the House. Those of us who have significant numbers of park homes in our communities know only too well that budget pressures mean local authorities often do not resource park home issues properly at the moment. We also know that many environmental health officers do not have the expertise in legal and financial matters in the context of park homes, and are not best placed to assess someone’s suitability to own and manage a site. A national regime would remove the chance of duplication in the work of local authorities, and therefore reduce the costs of introducing additional protection for park home residents, as well as ensure a consistent level of national protection for all residents of park homes.
I am sure that all hon. Members agree that we need to ensure that everybody can enjoy their home unfettered, and I commend my Bill to the House.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I just want to put down a marker. Not everybody in the House thinks that the solution to this problem, which the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) rightly identifies, is the one that he proposes.
As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on mobile homes, I am well aware of the problems with park homes, particularly regarding their sale. Indeed, I introduced the Sale of Park Homes Bill, which sadly has not yet received a Second Reading. Not only that, but it has not even been printed, because I have been waiting until I have seen the consultation paper that the Government said they would publish last year. The Minister for Housing and Local Government is sitting on the Front Bench, and I hope that that consultation paper, which he has promised, will be published very soon. When it is, I anticipate that it will show that the solution—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Mr Chope, are you speaking in opposition to the ten-minute rule Bill?
Mr Chope
Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am speaking against the Bill because the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay does not have the right solution to the problem. He has identified a problem that exists in many hon. Members’ constituencies, but that does not mean that any legislation that purports to address it will deliver. That is why I am speaking against the Bill. I am putting down a marker on the Bill, but at the same time encouraging the Minister to produce the consultation paper.
My feeling is that the problem would be better addressed by focusing on the sale of park homes rather than by introducing an inevitably bureaucratic and heavy-handed licensing system. As the hon. Gentleman said, a very large proportion of park home site owners are reasonable and supported by local residents. Why should those good park home site owners be put through that hoop? Why should they have an extra bureaucratic burden placed upon them, which ultimately must be paid for by the hard-pressed residents to whom he referred?
I suggest that, like many ideas that come before the House, this idea would mean introducing disproportionate and heavy-handed regulation to address a problem. How would the idea of a fit and proper person test, which is at the core of the hon. Gentleman’s proposal, work in practice? Are we saying that only people with criminal records would be excluded from becoming park home site owners, or would exclusion be extended more widely? How will we deal with corporate bodies and companies? We know that many rogue directors run companies up and down the country. How would we deal with them? Would his solution of a fit and proper person test address that?
I am urging on the hon. Gentleman the idea that there might be better ways to address the problem than having the knee-jerk reaction of saying, “Let’s have more regulation, and a new fit and proper person test that everybody must go through.” In my submission, that test has not been properly analysed. I shall not press the motion to a Division tonight, but the Bill might be printed, and then he might see that the consultation paper has a better solution, along the lines I have suggested. That could be the way forward.
I will not speak any longer, because there is a lot of pressure on the time of the House, but I thought it would be wrong to allow this proposal to go through on the nod just because everybody agrees that there is a problem to be addressed. Hon. Members must be assured in their own minds that the solution proposed is the right one.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Stephen Gilbert, Mr Robert Buckland, Andrew George, Stephen Lloyd, Tessa Munt, Sheryll Murray, Caroline Nokes, Dan Rogerson, Mr Adrian Sanders, Heather Wheeler, Dr Sarah Wollaston and Gordon Banks present the Bill.
Stephen Gilbert accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 30 March, and to be printed (Bill 268).