Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Sharma and Melanie Onn

Monday 13th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Centrepoint’s evidence to the DWP Committee showed that 96% of the young people it surveyed were not offered a traineeship or work placement if they were still on the youth obligation for six months. Does the Minister think it is worth having a closer look at what more could be done to improve the youth obligation?

[Alok Sharma]

I share the hon. Lady’s desire to make sure the youth obligation support programme works properly. We are looking at extracting information from the system, and I hope shortly to come and report on the findings from that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Sharma and Melanie Onn

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

We have been told time and again that people will not be worse off under universal credit, but my constituent is £463 a month worse off after transferring from tax credits in work to universal credit. Is that something the Government are proud of?

[Alok Sharma]

I am happy to look at the individual case that the hon. Lady raises, but I would point out that £2.4 billion was unclaimed under the legacy benefit system, and that is changing under universal credit.

Private Landlord Licensing

Debate between Lord Sharma and Melanie Onn

Wednesday 15th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn]

May I ask when the latest piece of information was provided to the Department by Newham Council?

[Alok Sharma]

Officials received the latest information on 25 October, so they have had a few weeks to process it. They are carrying out that work right now, and I make it clear that they will make a recommendation to me very shortly.

The right hon. Member for East Ham has highlighted the benefits of the current licensing regime operated by Newham and has placed his views firmly on the record. He also mentioned agencies that have worked with the council. It might be useful if I set out in general terms the Government’s current licensing framework. We support the use of licensing to address high-risk properties, such as houses in multiple occupation. We also support selective licensing of other private rented properties in areas where this will help to combat serious problems in the private rented sector.

The Housing Act 2004 introduced legislation for selective licensing to target the areas of highest risk and the most problematic private rented accommodation. It was never intended to be a means to license the entire private rented sector in an area. It provides for licensing properties in the private rented sector in very specific circumstances: when those properties are houses in multiple occupation or are subject to selective licensing, as defined in part 3. The legislation is very clear that licensing under part 3 is selective: any scheme must be targeted to address specific areas that are experiencing serious problems and that pose risks to tenants and their community. That does not rule out the possibility that a particular problem or set of problems could affect a large area or—in exceptional cases—a whole borough. In that event, the legislation provides that there must be clear evidence to demonstrate the need for licensing.

There must also be proper, robust plans in place to show that selective licensing is a crucial part of the local authority’s strategy, either to eliminate problems or, as a minimum, to mitigate their impact. This legislative framework ensures that selective licensing is not simply a means of raising revenue from local landlords—the right hon. Gentleman referred to that issue—and ultimately from tenants, as landlords pass on their licensing fees through higher rents.

In 2015, the then coalition Government extended the criteria for making a selective licensing designation to include areas with high levels of migration, crime, poor property conditions and deprivation. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman has, as I have said, highlighted the achievements of the Borough of Newham under its current scheme in tackling poor conditions and working closely with a range of agencies.

I appreciate that there are concerns about poor property conditions in the private rented sector in the borough, to which the council itself has drawn attention recently through media coverage and, of course, both the hon. Members for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) and for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) have also put it on the record that they have been out with the Newham team to look at the work that it does. Just to be clear, I absolutely agree that the conditions we are discussing should not be tolerated and that action must be taken.