Housing: No-fault Evictions

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord speaks with great experience in this area. He will be reassured by the fact that the reform will in many cases mean that people will not need to go to law, because the law will be absolutely clear and the activity will therefore cease. Our consultation will be wide and open for people to contribute. He will also know that we are looking at other procedures for speeding up, simplifying and streamlining the process, and that should help too.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

Can the Minister assure us that the impact of the short lets for holidays will also be taken into consideration, to help these tenancies become longer rather than having them concealed and desperately affecting other people in the buildings?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I had not anticipated a dimension for short-term tenancies—unwisely, perhaps—but the whole range of activity will be considered in the consultation to make sure that it is fair to everybody.

Property Guardians

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I should be grateful to the noble Lord if we could arrange a meeting at which he can raise some of the matters he has just disclosed. As I said, under the housing health and safety rating system, as both tenants and licensees, property guardians have rights in relation to fire and hazards of the first category, which include fire protection. As I said, we are very keen to look at this situation. Some property guardianships are perfectly legitimate but they are not tenancies. For example, if a student looks after a house for a family member or friend in their summer break, that is perfectly acceptable. What is of concern is where the rights of people who are there on a much more permanent basis are overridden; that is what we are looking at.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, what is the definition of a property guardian? Can these situations just be produced by simple means or does there need to be a full legal definition? I do not know, and I think many in the House would like clarification.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, thinking on my feet, it is not a straightforward matter. Rights attach to people as tenants; more limited rights attach to people as licensees. I do not think there is a statutory definition of a property guardian. We are looking at how to ensure that property guardians have a bedrock of rights in all situations so that people are properly protected. That is the key.

Council Tax

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, as the noble Lord will know, the Government are looking at the fair funding formula at the moment—I am trailing the next Question—but that does not transfer a burden; it ensures that we have equity across the piece. It does not make the cake any larger; it ensures that there is fairness, as the noble Lord will know. The levels of council tax contributing to local authorities vary enormously: 84% in Surrey and Buckinghamshire; 20% in the City of London. We are not seeking to address that. Although it may look innately unfair, closer attention will show that it is not.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

Can the Minister explain to me, because I have never understood it, why the council tax payable on a property outside London—I am talking about a small family home we have had for many years in Oxfordshire—is more than twice that in Westminster, in London?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, without knowing the particular circumstances that my noble friend refers to, I once again say that the fair funding formula will look at this and will seek to address any innate unfairness that exists between different authorities. Even within London there are massive differences.

Short-term Lettings

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to giving greater power to local authorities to deal with issues arising from short-term lettings.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I declare my interests as in the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, where short-term lets breach the rules, local authorities already have numerous powers to take action. We are strongly encouraging industry to continue its progress on promoting best practice, and to support the efforts of local authorities to ensure that short-term lets comply with the rules. I am pleased to hear that the noble Baroness has now met with the Short Term Accommodation Association to discuss this important work.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I thank the Minister for that reply. It was his advice that I should meet the association, and I found it very productive. Airbnb was among the members that attended, which was quite interesting because there has been a conflict here before. When the Minister asked Airbnb, it said that it sorted all this information; when I asked it, it said that it did not. At the meeting, I asked which of the two was the right answer. The real answer was that it asks users to verify that they have all the necessary permissions for short-term lets. Airbnb is not asking them to produce them or to show that they have that right. It just presumes that they do if they say yes. In view of the fact that HMRC has no interest in this huge field, it is time that some more action is taken.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the Short Term Accommodation Association is grappling with problems of sharing data under the current law, and it is trying to proceed with that. It also has a conference on 14 March, to which it has invited every single local authority in the UK, although this is a devolved issue. That is a sign of its determination to tackle this—as is the accreditation programme which it is setting forth.

New Home Building Programme

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord for all he and RoSPA do on home safety. I am aware of the statistics he referred to. The most prevalent way of people losing their lives at home is, indeed, falls on the stairs. We have in the next year the opportunity to tighten up the guidance on this. Without prejudicing any discussions, one way would be providing two handrails, for example, or lighting that comes on automatically on stairs. RoSPA will be part of that process. We have worked very closely with it—on 20 December we attended a seminar it led—so I can give the reassurances that the noble Lord seeks.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, I hear from carers for the elderly that falls on stairs are fairly regular because some of the lifts in blocks are turned off at weekends and people have to be taken by carers—even by ambulance crews—down often many flights of stairs. It is very important that something is done to ensure that there is a way down and out—or in and up, because they return from hospital in the same way. A lot of accidents could be avoided if lifts were available in high-rise buildings. Also, can the Minister confirm that where a place is specially adapted for, say, a lack of mobility, and the person in question dies or goes into full-time care, that place will sensibly be offered to someone else with the same great needs?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend. On her last point, which is certainly a point of common sense, I think that would happen through the disabled facilities grant in that, if something is required in the way the noble Lord, Lord Jordan, referred to, it will apply to all new premises. My noble friend raises an interesting point and it shows the importance of looking in the round at high-rise blocks. People are living longer. Most accidents in the home happen to people aged 65 or above and, as one would expect, that figure accelerates as people get older. Therefore, it is a particular concern and something we need to watch like hawks.

Tenant Fees Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

Right. Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to cover that.

As I have said, long-standing case law supports the courts not enforcing clauses that have no relation to the loss actually sustained, which in most cases would constitute an unfair contract term under applicable consumer law. The amendment proposed by Citizens Advice in its briefing would have no substantive effect. It is already the case in the Bill as drafted that the relevant person may recover the amount, or part, of damages where a claim for damages has been determined by the court or settled by agreement between the parties.

I believe the amendments in my name will help protect tenants from spurious charges by making it very clear when a default fee can be charged. I also remind noble Lords that we have made a number of significant amendments to respond to all the key concerns raised to date. I believe the amendments proposed in my name provide a fair compromise. I hope noble Lords agree with this, and I know it is in our interests to proceed with this vital legislation. I beg to move.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

I apologise to the House; I would have spoken earlier, but it did not seem that Amendment 42 was actually moved. Even now, I think it is appropriate to mention my concern about that. Why cut back to five instead of six weeks? I declare my interest, which is in the register. Many landlords find that, towards the end of a tenancy, the tenant pays nothing and they are well out of pocket—even if they have six weeks’ rent—if the property is damaged, which happens more frequently than one would hope. I cannot see that it is worth making the major differentiation between five and six weeks. I was perfectly happy with six weeks, and I thought it was fair that everyone should be in the same position.

Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 23rd November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, I join the debate on the Bill because I am very interested in the subject and have always strongly supported Karen Buck, who has done a marvellous job.

I do not agree with the view of the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Tope, that the good thing about the Bill is that people will be able to take their issues straight to the courts. We should have a return to the leasehold system, under which people did not require special measures to get their legal fees paid. The Leasehold Valuation Tribunal did a huge amount of good. There should be an ombudsman to deal with matters prior to people going to court—they could be dealt with more quickly—and court should be a second choice only if the first one does not work. That issue needs thinking about.

My noble friend Lord Horam mentioned properties being split into units as small as possible. I agree particularly that action is needed on these.

Something that has not been mentioned, and here I must declare my interest on the register, is the abuse of the letting system whereby holiday lets are taking over a lot of property in London. The Mayor of London has commented on the great loss of accommodation. I would like to see powers returned to local authorities to determine whether or not people are entitled, and at least to be able to check how many people are living in these places. As I have said before in your Lordships’ House, there are three one-bedroom flats in the block that I have concerns in, and 10 people are bussed in for one or two weeks’ holiday. Sometimes they come all bandaged up—they are national health tourists—but otherwise they come in and make life hell for any long-term residents living in the block. It is important that we restore powers that were taken away from the London local authorities. We should go back to that system and encourage local authorities to be more involved. Although the statement is made regularly that they have all the powers they need, if you ask them, they will say that they do not have the powers. I think Newham is the only London borough that has continuing powers.

Mention was made of mould in buildings. When I was on the Greater London Council, I was responsible for one-eighth of London’s housing. We introduced systems building, which was a marvellous concrete thing that was meant to be great. As chairman, I went out to visit the properties because people were very unhappy with them. Someone’s lovely wedding dress, laid out on their bed for use, had been damaged and virtually destroyed by green mould. It turned out that the whole problem was a lack of ventilation; these places were heated in the morning and then people went out to work and closed the door behind them, and the lack of ventilation meant that the mould had its perfect growing conditions. Once that was discovered, they were able to deal with the problem and put in small permanent ventilation, and the mould vanished. The problem is that, for every improvement you believe you have made in housing, there is some downside. You have to be aware of that and check that things are going well.

Many speakers, including the noble Lords, Lord Tope and Lord Carlile, mentioned legal aid. Legal aid is not that easy to come by. It is a more serious issue to have to spend the time taking a matter to court than the previous system of someone looking into things. Indeed, I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Best, himself has some sort of ombudsman qualification that he deals with. It is unfortunate that powers have been taken away from local boroughs and I would like to see them reinstated.

Rogue Landlords

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest in the register. Is there a suggestion that here we might at last have a licensed register of people occupying these properties on short lets? Most of them now are not declared by the landlord and many are giving absolute agony to the other residents in blocks of flats where their leases really prohibit these short holiday lets.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, that was a not unexpected question from my noble friend. I refer her to the Short Term Accommodation Association, which is doing very valuable work in policing this area and ensuring that it is not abused by people going for short-term lets. As to any breaches of leases, she will be aware that that is a contractual issue between the landlord and the tenant.

Tenant Fees Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register, in particular that with my wife I am the owner of rental property managed by letting agents. I thoroughly commended the Bill at Second Reading because it is an excellent piece of work. If we can improve it, that will be all to the good, but even if we leave it as it is I am sure it will be an extremely useful legislative measure.

Three separate issues are at stake in the amendments we have before us. Two directly concern holding deposits and one is about putting material into regulations rather than into guidance. On holding deposits, there is the question of when one would lose one’s holding deposit. I have come across circumstances in which it is quite difficult to determine exactly what is fair and reasonable. When four people are sharing a property, they will all contribute to the rather large holding deposit. If one turns out to have given misinformation about their circumstances, that will enable the agent to say quite properly that all four will be rejected as a group. Will they lose the contribution that each has made to the single large deposit that has been placed, especially if they had no idea that one of the sharers was in that circumstance? Difficult decisions will have to be taken, on which firm guidance will be needed.

The second point concerns the period that can be covered by a holding deposit being three days instead of seven. Again, a blanket figure of one week somewhat needs finessing in the guidance that will follow. A week in the north-east for a single person occupying small premises might be £50, while for four sharers in Fulham a week might be £1,000. Very different sums of money are involved in different parts of the country. The point about finessing elements of the Bill in later guidance is well made by all.

That brings me to whether guidance that ultimately is not in the Bill or in secondary legislation is strong enough. It may be that having regulations that follow through a statutory instrument would be a better way of dealing with the tricky issue of holding deposits, along with other measures that will come before us as we work our way through the Bill. I should like the Minister to explain the down sides to using regulation in the form of a statutory instrument to cover the issue rather than guidance, which, I suspect, could be open to dispute and disagreement. I fully understand that one clear disadvantage of going down the route of using regulations is that if we are to have secondary legislation, it needs to follow the enactment of the Bill before we can get going on the practicalities. That would put back the moment when the very good things in the Bill would begin, so I see that there might be a delay. However, that might be a price worth paying if the Bill is improved in this way. Could the Minister let us know what kind of delay we are talking about and whether there are other down sides to the use of secondary legislation and regulations in place of guidance, which, as I say, may be subject to a good deal of dispute?

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a landlord. I think one’s week rent is fairly good and clear as a deposit. For some years I have found that some tenants deliberately withhold their final rent so that you do not have a fair amount money at hand to cover whatever damage they have done to the property. Often, the work that has to be done takes every bit of the deposit and more, although sometimes of course it does not—some tenants keep the place beautifully, pay their rent properly and are the tenants everyone wants. However, until tenants are in occupation, you just do not know whether they are good or bad, and I do not think that this provision in the Bill should cut the period to three days. That will leave landlords in a real quandary when people do not pay their last month’s rent—they usually pay monthly rent. It would be a worry if people did not make the last payment. I agree with everything else that other people have said.

[Baroness Grender]

I believe that the noble Baroness is talking about the use of deposits at the end of a tenancy, whereas the focus now is on holding deposits at the beginning of the tenancy. Can I just clarify that that is what she is talking about?

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I accept what the noble Baroness says but I think she will find that a deposit is usually paid by the tenant as a deposit for their agreement. If the landlord or agent has to make other checks as well, even a deposit of one week’s rent might not be enough to cover them. It depends on how much people charge for checking proof of identity and how much the deposit is. I hope that clarifies the matter.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords very much for participating in the debate on this part of the Bill. I should like to speak to the range of amendments that deal with the treatment of holding deposits.

As noble Lords are no doubt aware, this is the first time that we are seeking to cap the level of holding deposits—it has not been done before. I am pleased that we all agree that it is important to permit landlords and agents to charge a holding deposit. That seems to be universally accepted and I thank noble Lords for that. However, it seems that we still have some areas of disagreement and I will discuss each of them in turn.

First, Amendments 18 to 20 seek to lower the level of the cap on holding deposits from one week’s rent to three days’ rent. I am afraid I cannot accept these amendments. A cap of three days’ rent could unfairly penalise the landlord because the costs incurred in referencing a potential tenant include not only the cost of the reference check. Payment of a holding deposit means that a property should be taken off the market, and therefore costs might include lost rent for the landlord if the tenancy does not proceed. That lost rent will be higher in Fulham than it will in Newcastle.

Where a tenancy proceeds before the deadline for the agreement, the tenant will receive their holding deposit back in full. However, if the tenancy does not go ahead owing to the tenant’s default, it is not fair that the landlord or agent is penalised. We are seeking fairness here—no more, no less. We believe that tying the maximum holding deposit that can be retained to a week of rent is fair compensation for the landlord’s likely actual loss. However, our consumer guidance will encourage landlords and agents to retain only the costs they have incurred. In relation to the guidance, I will also look at the point about a draft agreement being seen before the agreement is entered into. That is reasonable. In general, I am very happy for noble Lords to engage in the guidance. We can organise a briefing on it and take on board any points that they wish to make.

However, it is important to state that the cap of one week’s rent represents an innovation and an improvement on the status quo. Currently, there is no prescribed limit. The Government’s 2017 consultation on banning letting fees asked tenants for a breakdown of the fees charged at their most recent letting. Similarly, it asked agents for a breakdown of the fees that they charged. The responses to the consultation were not necessarily a representative sample but they gave us a flavour of the level of holding deposits currently charged. Tenants said that they were charged a mean average of £370 as a holding deposit and agents said that they charged a mean average of £214. Currently, a website run by Generation Rent called lettingfees.co.uk has also compared letting fees as displayed on the websites of 1,088 agents across the United Kingdom. It found that, of 23 agents who declare that they currently charge a holding deposit, the average charged is £341. Between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018, the average monthly rent in England was £675, working out at £156 per week. That is what would be charged as an average. A cap of one week’s rent will help to improve affordability for tenants, while ensuring that landlords are not unfairly penalised should the tenancy not proceed for reasons within the tenant’s control.

Secondly, I will address Amendments 1 and 21, which seek to encourage greater transparency for tenants in how the holding deposit is treated. I appreciate the valuable points raised and the importance for tenants of understanding how their deposit is handled and why it may not be returned. That is entirely fair. I want to minimise the need for secondary legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Best, quite reasonably pointed out the down side of bringing forward regulations. I should say that it is not usual in this type of situation, despite what the DPRRC says. I have checked this with similar, although admittedly only parallel, legislation; of course, there is no legislation that is identical. If one looks at the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, the Local Government Act 2003, the Planning Act 2008 and the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015—across a range of legislation, which I am happy to share with noble Lords—it has been usual for this to go in guidance rather than regulations. The noble Lord is absolutely right that not only would that sacrifice a degree of flexibility, it would slow this down materially—by how long it is difficult to say, given all the legislation currently going through, whatever the circumstances of deal versus no deal. Noble Lords will be aware of the considerable pressure on the legislative programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Best]

I support the amendment on transferable deposits. It is an absolutely commendable concept. How can people possibly find a second fat deposit when they have not had the first one back? This proposal would be a really helpful move, and I hope the Minister will take it very seriously and look at it in some depth.

On the question of a six-week, five-week, four-week or eight-week period, I was impressed by the Citizens Advice survey, which indicated that only a very small percentage of tenants—2%, I think—did not pay their last month’s rent, the deposit being absorbed or used for that purpose. However, I asked Citizens Advice about its survey and discovered that it was exclusively of tenants. I suspect that the percentage might have been different if it had been a survey of landlords or agents. This is bad news for landlords but I am told by agents that, naughty as it is, a lot of students will not pay the last four weeks’ rent because they fear that there will be a big dispute about their deposit at the end. Especially if the student has come from overseas and is returning, they will have no trouble over the deposit because they will instead have withheld their last month’s rent. I suspect that landlords would always be very hostile to the idea of a limit of just four weeks’ rent when students behave like that.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, the question of how much deposit you can pay back immediately to a tenant is a difficult one. Very often a lot of people are required to check exactly what damage has been done, particularly in cases of very heavy damage. I have mentioned before the block where we have a right to manage. A person owing a large service charge has recently had herself certified under the Mental Health Act. Someone has now been appointed to take over and the four flats in her name are being handed over. One flat in the basement was being used illegally as a brothel and the people who vacated it smashed the whole place to pieces—the windows, the walls and pretty well everything else, as far as I understand.

The legitimate tenant is perfectly entitled to think that they should have as much of their deposit back as possible, but where someone does what they did in that flat—as yet, we have not seen the other three that have been recovered from illegal lettings—it is quite worrying if you do not have any deposit to go towards repairing the damage. Therefore, the situation is more complicated than people realise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, as the Minister knows, I am very concerned that people are letting their flats for short lets, which is strictly prohibited under the terms of their tenancy. Is there anywhere in the Bill that this matter could be rectified, perhaps by placing an obligation on the tenant to inform people that it is not a legal letting or by the new tenant themselves confirming that what they are taking on is not a legal letting? There is a big loophole in the law here.

[Lord Best]

I would like to offer a word of support for the intent behind this proposed new clause. Perhaps the best organisations to get the message out to tenants and prospective tenants are the new websites—or not so new anymore—such as Zoopla and Rightmove. So many people looking for somewhere to rent now do so online. Those agencies have the power to reach nearly everybody with the important information contained in this provision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the co-pilot is in charge of this leg of the legislative journey, so there might be some turbulence.

There are two amendments that consider the resources available for the enforcement of the ban and I would like to take them together. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for his gentle dismantling of the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, put forward for Amendment 4. I recognise the pressure on the resources available to local authorities but we do not think that a provision that essentially provides a blank cheque to local authorities is the right approach. It would be a very unusual arrangement, and essentially one-sided, as the Secretary of State would bear all the losses and the local authority would keep all the gains.

We believe that allowing local authorities to retain money from financial penalties would be a significant funding stream for future enforcement, and the Government are providing some pump-priming funding for the initial period. There might be a role for hypo- thecated grants but I do not believe that this is one of them.

Financial penalties of up to £30,000 that can be retained by local authorities were first introduced in April 2017 under the Housing and Planning Act 2016, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will welcome at least one measure under that Act that has found favour with him. We are aware that local authorities already benefit from the proceeds of financial penalties issued under that legislation. Liverpool, for example, has issued 42 civil penalties and has recovered the majority of them; Torbay Council has used the revenue from civil penalties to fund an extra enforcement officer for its housing team; and Newham and Camden have also issued and recovered a number of civil penalties.

However, we appreciate that this model depends on local circumstances and that it can take time to embed within existing frameworks of enforcement. That is why, as I said, we are committing £500,000 of additional funding in year one of the fee ban policy to support education and implementation of the legislation. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said in the earlier debate—that ideally this measure should be self-funding. If one looks at page 19 of the Explanatory Notes, one finds the following:

“The Government estimate that local authorities will incur a new burden in respect of enforcement costs in year one of the policy only and it estimates this to be no more than £500,000. The enforcement of the provisions contained in this Bill by enforcement authorities is intended to be fiscally neutral from year two since enforcement authorities may retain the proceeds of any financial penalties for the purposes of any of its enforcement functions relating to the private rented sector under this Bill or any other legislation”.


That is basically where the Government are coming from on resources.

Further, we are introducing the lead enforcement authority, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, to provide guidance and assistance to local authorities in undertaking proactive enforcement. We have committed funding of up £300,000 per annum to support the lead enforcement authority in its duties, and we have based the funding model on that of the National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team, but we will keep it under review.

Statutory guidance issued by the lead enforcement authority or the Secretary of State will cover matters to be taken into account by enforcement authorities in determining the level of the penalty in any given case. We have been engaging with local authorities to get this right, and my noble friend Lord Bourne has shared a draft version with noble Lords and has placed a copy in the Library. More generally, the lead enforcement authority will be primarily responsible for monitoring enforcement of the ban and ensuring that local authorities have the guidance and support that they need.

Turning to the proposed new clause which deals with reporting requirements, Clause 23 already requires the lead enforcement authority to report to the Secretary of State on the ban. This will include updates on any developments that might be relevant to enforcement of the Bill or to relevant letting agency legislation, including those that might seek to undermine the aim and enforcement of the legislation. It could also include resources, mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Kennedy. The Government will work closely with the lead enforcement authority and key stakeholders representing tenant, landlord and agent groups to monitor the operation and effectiveness of the ban. Against those assurances, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, although an answer was given earlier by the other Minister, why in a Written Answer to me did the Minister say that the Government are unwilling to consider allowing local authorities to license these short lets? Short lets are damaging—badly—every bit of accommodation in the housing market in London, in particular, and in the rest of the country, which can be taken over, illegally, against the contracts. Why are the Government unwilling to allow local authorities to charge a fee to register and check that they are in order? In that case, would that not be a far better answer than losing all the accommodation that we are losing now? Why is it not appropriate to bring it into the Bill under the proposed new clause?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As my noble friend the Minister said a few moments ago, the Bill covers assured shortholds and other lettings. It does not cover the sorts of lettings that concern my noble friend Lady Gardner and which are offered by Airbnb and other agencies. My noble friend has raised an issue that has been the subject of many exchanges in Questions. Our answer is that we believe that local authorities have enough powers to take action where a nuisance is caused by these activities. In many cases, it is up to the manging agents to enforce the terms of the lease.

As I have said on many occasions in the Chamber, many leases specifically preclude the letting of a property for periods of less than six months, and it is up to the managing agents of the block to ensure that the provisions of the lease are met. Again, I say to my noble friend that I have quoted from the action taken by one managing agent when they discovered that a flat in the block for which they were the managing agent was being advertised on Airbnb; that immediately stopped the letting of that flat and any other flats in that block. So the short answer—I fear it was a long one—is that we believe that powers are already available without giving local authorities the additional powers that my noble friend has asked for.

Private Rented Sector Licensing Schemes

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, first of all, there are two systems: the mandatory licensing system, which we extended on 1 October, and the selective system. Here, I want to correct myself: Newham is above the 20% threshold, and the scheme works very well. We are seeking to work with boroughs. A review on selective licensing is being conducted; its first meeting has just happened and it will report by May next year. We hope to learn lessons from that review and take it forward according to those lessons. However, I do not want to pre-empt that—the work has just started.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest in this matter as listed in the register. In view of the Minister’s encouraging remarks, why have so many of his Answers to my Written Questions said that he is not willing to do anything at all or allow the boroughs to do anything? I welcome the change of tone, but I hope that he will follow through on it. I also strongly support the idea of a simple system of appeal where people can sort out their problems in the way that they could under the leasehold valuation tribunal. There is no alternative to that now, except court.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, unless I am mistaken, my noble friend is referring to a specific issue that relates to the Short Term Accommodation Association, as in her Written Questions. The Government certainly have not changed their position on that. We are working with the Short Term Accommodation Association to seek to provide answers to any problems that exist and I am confident that it is addressing those issues.