Housing and Planning Bill

Baroness Grender Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, while the House is reorganising itself, I, too, would like to welcome my noble friend Lady Hanham back. She has done much in this field over the years and we have appreciated it. I also remind the House that my interest is declared in the register.

My amendments are fairly straightforward and should not require too much elaboration. They attempt to restore some of the properties, conveniences and protections that were exercised by local authorities before the Deregulation Act. That Act deregulated at a time when New York and Paris were regulating. We lost all control of who was living anywhere, as a council or an authority power. I think that it is very important, particularly at this time, in two respects. The first is where rogue landlords are filling substandard properties, with people crammed in—I am told that three-tier bunks are being used and £70 per night is being charged. I would not swear that it is £70 per night; that is hearsay or press report and I have no idea of what is really being charged. But whatever it is, it is too much for a property where there are no facilities and no possibility of people living a normal life.

That is one group of people. The other group is people concerned with holiday lets. I have explained in the past that I know of these personally, in a block where I have a flat. Ten people are flown in under the Airbnb banner for a one-bedroom flat, and those 10 people take over so many of the facilities, including hot water and the general convenience of getting in and out. Security doors are left open. Councils and landlords have no control over them whatever, unless they can prove that these people exist. Unless, therefore, the council has some idea of who is in occupation or has the right to investigate if there is a question raised by other people, there really is no way of dealing with it. Amendments 98 and 99 are designed to deal with these problems. I beg to move.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of these Benches, I support Amendments 98 and 99 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes. We are all familiar with some of the hair-raising examples of how many people have been found in some raided properties. Recently, in Newham, seven people were found in a windowless basement. Overall, there were 26 people in that three-bedroom house. In another recent raid, 47 people were found in a property intended for nine. This level of overcrowding goes beyond any notion of civilised accommodation. Issues such as affordability, illegal lettings, economic migrants and particularly the acute property issue in London all impact on these kinds of properties. That is why we on these Benches support the amendments.

When I worked for Shelter in 1985, we campaigned hard for the Housing Act, which covered some of this area. But clearly we now need to update the legislation, in particular because, even if the percentage of overcrowded accommodation has stayed reasonably static, the net amount is increasing because the private rented sector is increasing, and as the private rented sector grows, this becomes more of a problem. For those reasons we support the noble Baroness’s amendments.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I join others in welcoming the return of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, my old sparring partner in local government. Perhaps I should rephrase that and say “my long-standing sparring partner”. It is so good to see her back looking so well. We very much look forward to hearing her contribute, preferably being somewhat more critical of the Government she supports than she was constrained to be in previous years. It is so good to see her back.

In that vein, the Opposition are very sympathetic to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes. We hope that the Government will look sympathetically upon them. I cannot see any great difficulty in them so doing. It would be reassuring to hear from the Minister that the Government are as inclined to pursue this issue as they kindly indicated they would do in regard to property guardians—an issue that I raised. The Government have undertaken to look into that problem. I hope that they will go a bit further and either accept the amendment as drafted or come back at Third Reading with different wording that achieves the same objective—because I think that the objective is widely shared across the House.