Homelessness Reduction Bill

Debate between Clive Betts and Bob Blackman

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 27th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

If my hon. Friend would like to go through the 18 pages of the Bill, he will find that people leaving the armed forces are specifically mentioned as being owed a duty under it. Under the armed forces covenant, they should already be provided with accommodation and with help and assistance from their relevant local authority, but there is a new duty on the armed forces to refer people who are leaving to the relevant local authority so that they get help and assistance early on rather than having to seek advice separately. Someone who is leaving the armed forces, as a planned move, should be referred to their relevant local authority, which of course may not be where they are currently based as a member of the armed forces.

I am particularly pleased that the Minister has proposed in his amendments that the requirement for interim accommodation is continued until any reviews are completed. One of the key aspects of the Bill, from my perspective, is to make sure that applicants who are facing an absolute crisis point in their lives, many of whom are becoming homeless for the first time ever, are not put in a position whereby they are told by a local authority, “This is what you’re going to have—take it or leave it.” It is absolutely imperative that there is an agreement between the applicant and the local authority. If the local housing authority acts in an unfair way from the perspective of the applicant, there must also be a process whereby they can seek external help or assistance from appropriate charities in order to get a review to make sure that they are given the proper help and advice and end up being in a position to be offered accommodation.

I welcome these amendments and hope the whole House will support them.

[Mr Betts]

When we discuss a Bill on Report, there are times when we find ourselves dealing with an awful lot of Government amendments and suspect that Ministers are trying, at the last minute, to slide one or two contentious issues past the House under the radar, thinking that people might miss them due to the great complexity of our discussions—[Interruption.] I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) never did that when he was a Minister, as he has just indicated. This, however, is not one of those occasions.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) said, there has been a great deal of discussion not only in the House, by Members on both sides, but outside it with the charities arguing the case for homeless people, the Local Government Association and landlords, among others, to try to get this right. It is important that we do get it right, even though the process has taken a bit longer than some of us would have wished.

Once again, I pay tribute to the diligence and forbearance of the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) in trying to get us moving forward in a consensual manner on these issues. As he said, it took us a long time to get to this version of clause 1, which has appeared in many formats. It goes to the heart of the concerns that many of us have about the workings of existing legislation. One of the worst aspects of the way in which homeless families are currently treated—even those who are acknowledged to have a priority need—is that they are told to go away, sit at home and wait for the court to hear their case, and that then the authority may act, once a court order has been made, to deal with their situation. In the very worst cases, they are told, “Wait until the bailiff has arrived and while you are out on the street, we might decide to deal with you as a homeless family.” That situation is not acceptable, so it is important that it changes as a result of this Bill. The hon. Gentleman said that, importantly, the 56-day provision will not end responsibility—the prevention duty continues beyond that time if a family does not yet have settled circumstances.

I had concerns that the specific requirement to deal with homelessness once a section 21 notice had been served, rather than allowing the matter to get to court, which was in a previous version of clause 1, had been taken out. I accept that the requirement for local authorities to exercise the prevention duty means that as soon as a section 21 notice is served and the family provide the local authority with that information, the duty kicks in and the local authority immediately has to seek to resolve the family’s homelessness and look for alternative accommodation for them.

The code of guidance, which was discussed at length in the Bill Committee—I had a discussion about it with the Minister outside the room and then we referred to it in Committee—will be important to make it clear to local authorities how they should treat a family who are subject to a section 21 notice and in priority need. They will need to make sure that they do not get to the court stage before action is taken. It is also important for making sure that an offer acknowledges, as far as possible, an individual family’s circumstances with regard to the schooling of children, the employment of family members, caring responsibilities and so on. Moreover, if a family have to be offered accommodation outside the borough, the receiving borough has to be notified that they are coming. Many of those important issues are in the existing code of guidance, but authorities have not implemented the code or addressed them.

We all hope that the Bill will be enacted before long. The Minister said helpfully in Committee that he will present the code of guidance to Parliament for approval, which is welcome. Our Select Committee has said that we will quickly arrange an evidence session on the code because we want to make sure that it is right. Getting the Act right but having a code of guidance that does not work will leave us no better off; getting both of them right will make the situation much better so that local authorities are able to address the issue of homeless families. I hope that Ministers will welcome that as another way in which the Select Committee can play a constructive role in this private Member’s Bill process by ensuring that the legislation has cross-party support and really works for homeless people.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman—I shall call him my hon. Friend—for giving way. We look forward to the publication of the code of guidance once the Bill is enacted. The Bill also makes provision for issuing statutory codes of practice, so if local authorities fail to live up to both the spirit and the letter of the law, the Secretary of State will have the opportunity to impose on them a requirement to do what we expect them to do.

[Mr Betts]

That is very helpful. The Select Committee might well want to extend its remit and look at those codes of practice as well to make sure that everything is working. Indeed, the Minister has gone further by saying that he wants local authorities to indicate to the Government how they intend to implement the Bill. Ministers want to work with the LGA to get templates for how elements of the Bill, including giving advice to individuals who are not in priority need, should be implemented. Those are welcome measures and the LGA will want to be thoroughly involved in the process. With those comments about the issues that will need to be addressed once the Bill becomes an Act, I am happy to support the Government amendments.

Homelessness Reduction Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Clive Betts and Bob Blackman

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 11th January 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point, which I will take on board and think about. There will certainly be guidance relating to the substantive clause on the duty to refer. Whether that guidance will look further into collaboration in places that are doing a good job remains to be seen, but I will certainly look at the question, as he suggests.

Finally, we will also support councils through a network of advisers. That is possibly where the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman, who is Chairman of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, might apply. The advisers are experts who will work with local authorities to produce multi-agency homelessness strategies. They will also agree protocols and pathways between services in line with the good practice that already exists.

We believe that the initiatives I have set out are powerful ones that will help with best practice and encourage the delivery of local partnerships. I am not sure whether we are to have a clause stand part debate, but if we do, I shall be able to set out in more detail how the duty to refer will work. It will be an important step towards where we want to be; it will also be important for encouraging the sort of local collaboration that we want. For all those reasons, the Government believe that the amendment is unnecessary, and I ask the hon. Gentleman withdraw it.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I echo the Minister in wishing everyone a happy new year, as we rush towards completion of our Committee sittings on this private Member’s Bill.

The Minister is quite right that there was a similar clause on duty to co-operate in the original draft Bill, and he has set out the position on co-operation between service partners. Clearly, we shall have further discussion on that on clause stand part. This matters for defining how the relationship between service partners works. Service partners are co-operating in a number of innovative local operations, and the last thing that any of us wants is to stymie those local approaches. It is important to give them a chance to work, see what best practice is, and bring forward alternatives.

Legislation is only one tool in the box for helping to relieve homelessness. We are imposing a duty—we shall come on to this in clause stand part—to refer individuals from different public bodies. My real concern about the amendment tabled by the Chair of the Select Committee is that it would give carte blanche on the duty to co-operate, without specifying what such co-operation would look like. I have a lot of sympathy with the intention behind the amendment, but the general intention of the Bill is to drive through a culture change, and an element of that is wanting culture change—in local authorities, but also in all public bodies across the piece. It is important to create strong local working relationships, and on that basis I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

The problem with this amendment in many ways is that because it includes a duty to co-operate overall, it runs the risk of creating a maelstrom across public services because of its uncosted and unbudgeted element, which would cause a problem in future. On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment. I have a lot of sympathy with wanting to ensure that we have proper co-operation, but the first part of that is ensuing that public bodies refer homeless people to the local authority, so that they get expert help and advice.

[Mr Betts]

I wish everyone a happy new year and echo the sentiments of the Minister and the Bill’s promoter. I will not press the amendment for reasons that I will explain, but I want to keep an eye on the issue, because I am not totally convinced by what the Minister said.

I recognise that the Minister and the Bill’s promoter want public bodies to co-operate in all shapes and forms. I accept that that is their intention and take their comments at face value. However, I am not totally convinced that all Departments always want to engage in this way. There is a history of some Departments being less co-operative than others on some of these matters, and I think we all know that. That applies not just to Departments and Ministers, but down the line to local health bodies, for example, which in my experience are not always co-operative in every shape or form, though many are. That is the issue; it is not just about Departments, but about what happens in practice on the frontline. I listened to what the Minister said about guidance. I hope that he will reflect further on that and talk to his colleagues in other Departments about what can be done to get the message down the line about what is expected.

I thought there was a little conflict in what the Committee was told this morning. The Minister talked about a one-size-fits-all approach; a requirement on a public authority to co-operate in a very general sense cannot be described as a one-size-fits-all approach. It is a very general requirement. Indeed, the promoter of the Bill said that the amendment does not specify what co-operation looks like. If it does not specify that, it can hardly be described as a one-size-fits-all approach. The two do not quite sit together.

The Minister referred to York and Brighton, where good things are happening. That is right and is to be encouraged and commended. If authorities are co-operating anyway, this is hardly a new burden on them. My suspicion is that it is not happening everywhere. He gave examples of where it is happening, not where it is not, and there could be examples of where it is not. The amendment would require all authorities to come up to the standard of the best. It might impose a duty, but a duty that should be there anyway. I hope that, even if this requirement cannot be in the Bill, the Minister will reflect on the issue of guidance, and let us know what he intends to do about it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Bob Blackman]

I beg to move,

That the Order of the Committee of 23 November 2016, as amended on 30 November, be amended, by inserting at the end—

“and on 18 January when the Committee will meet at 2.00 pm as well as 9.30 am.”

By way of a brief explanation, this change would mean that the Committee would sit not only in the morning, but in the afternoon until we conclude our business. We have had a number of sittings during which we have had vigorous debate, which is absolutely right, but we need to move the Bill forward so that it returns to the Chamber on Report. My intention as the Bill’s promoter is for Report and, hopefully, Third Reading to be on 27 January. That would obviously necessitate us concluding our debates and deliberations next Wednesday, by when we will have certainty about concluding proceedings and the Bill going back to the Chamber. We have important issues still to resolve, but I trust that Wednesday afternoon will give us sufficient time to debate and discuss vigorously those elements.

Homelessness Reduction Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Clive Betts and Bob Blackman

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Betts]

That brings the discussion of this matter to a conclusion. I thank the Minister for his reassurance and for taking the significant initiative of having that conversation ahead of this sitting to try to get agreement. Not all Ministers behave in that way, so when they do we should respect it and have proper regard for it, because that is how things should be done. I very much thank the Minister for that, and I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East for joining that discussion. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I thank hon. Members for the amendments they have tabled and for the debate we have had. I reiterate to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East that we are not talking about mere guidance; local authorities will be ordered to take into account matters of education and employment, and the other aspects he mentioned. We wish to proceed in this Committee by consensus and discussion. If we can agree on that, it is going to help considerably.

Clause 3 will require local housing authorities to carry out an assessment for all cases in which an applicant is homeless or threatened with homelessness. The housing authority will have to look at the circumstances that caused the person to become homeless, or that threatened them with homelessness, which will be specific to that person, and it will have to look at the person’s housing and support needs.

Following the assessment, the authority must work with the applicant to agree what steps need to be taken by the applicant to secure and retain suitable accommodation, and what steps need to be taken by the authority to help them. The steps must be notified to the applicant in writing, in the form of an agreed plan, which will mean that applicants will be clear on what steps they, as well as the local authority, need to take to get accommodation.

There may be circumstances in which agreement cannot be reached. If that is the case, the local authority must record the reasons why and provide the applicant with a written copy of them that also contains the steps that the authority will take and those that it thinks it would be reasonable for the applicant to take.

The clause has been included in the Bill because local housing authorities are not currently required to assess the circumstances that have caused an applicant to become homeless or to be threatened with homelessness. That can lead to vital information about the applicant’s circumstances being missed, which in turn causes them extra difficulties. By asking applicants for more information about what happened to make them homeless or led to their being threatened with homelessness, a potential solution should be identified.

A more personalised approach will definitely help local housing authorities to get it right first time and prevent people from becoming homeless. The tailored approach will help the applicant and the housing authority to understand the actions that have to be taken and the responsibilities on both sides. The clear intention is to help both the housing authority and households to become more effective in preventing and alleviating homelessness, thereby diverting more households from the crisis point.

I have sympathy with the desire of the hon. Members for Westminster North and for Sheffield South East to ensure that the consideration of specific issues relating to education, employment, health and other matters is spelled out. Only this past weekend, a constituent’s case was related to me. The husband is undergoing knee surgery at a local hospital, the three children are in local Harrow schools, and both the mother and father of the children are employed locally. Harrow Council has offered them a place in Wolverhampton, so it is clear that the existing order is not being enforced correctly. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to making sure that local authorities understand and implement their duties. With that, I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8

Local connection of a care leaver

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We had a good discussion in the Communities and Local Government Committee on this as well. He is absolutely right. The clause tries to anticipate an ideal situation in the future that Ministers can act upon, while recognising the reality that, if we increased it to 12 months now, that might exclude a whole range of accommodation and make it very difficult in some areas for local authorities to find the right accommodation to offer.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee. This is one of the aspects that we looked at in the Select Committee and in pre-legislative scrutiny. A longer period of 12 months was in the original draft, but after consideration of the problems we currently face, that was amended to six months. That is the minimum we would expect. We would all like to see that extended to a much longer tenancy so that families and individuals have more permanency about where they are living, but we are just setting the minimum.

Finally, the authority must give notice to the applicant to bring the duty to an end. That notice must

“specify which of the circumstances apply”

and inform the applicant that he or she

“has a right to request a review of the authority’s decision”.

It is absolutely appropriate that we get to the point where individuals will have a notice in writing informing them that the local authority is ending its duty, where they can ask for a review of the process because of the relevant circumstances.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Clive Betts and Bob Blackman

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

It is quite clear there should be an opportunity for everyone to exercise the right to buy. In London, people who use buy-to-let arrangements are getting a return of probably about 3% to 4% on their capital. They are not necessarily getting a huge rate of return, so they are providing facilities for people to live in accommodation when those people cannot possibly afford to buy their own home, or choose not to do so. There are people who choose to rent rather than buy because that suits their lifestyle better.

I want to move on to an issue that seems to have been forgotten in all this. The reality is that someone who demonstrates that their housing need is sufficient—in other words, they are homeless—has a chance of winning the lottery prize of getting social rented accommodation. If they currently get such a prize, they can live in the property for the rest of their life, regardless of their income. That has to be wrong; it should not happen. People come to me every day and say, “I can’t get a council property. I can’t afford to rent a property in the constituency. All the local authority is offering is, with respect, a place in Bradford, Wolverhampton or somewhere in Birmingham, but nowhere near London.” The reality is that people are being priced out of the market because we are building too few homes and, equally, we are allowing people to live in social rented accommodation for far too long after their incomes have risen considerably. That cannot be right. Social rented accommodation should be for people who need it.

[Mr Betts]

Is the hon. Gentleman therefore saying that pay to stay is intended to drive people out of social rented accommodation when they earn more than £40,000? Will they actually be priced out? He seems to be implying that if they live in social housing, there will not be enough social housing for other people, and that we therefore need to get them out of such properties so that poorer people can have them.

[Bob Blackman]

No. This is where there might be differences between London and the south-east, and other parts of the country. The vast majority of London council house tenants, and even housing association tenants, are on the maximum housing benefit, so the public sector is picking up the cost of their rent. I am saying that if someone is earning more—if they are above the threshold—they should contribute more to the cost of their rent. When we examine the figures, we can see that tenants actually pay very little in rent in most parts of London at the moment because housing benefit picks up the cost of their rent. I am saying that if people are employed in reasonable occupations with reasonable incomes, it is right that they should contribute to the cost of public sector housing, and that principle is set out in the Bill. It is the right approach and one we should thoroughly endorse tonight. It is important to put it on record that this is not an attempt to force people out of social rented accommodation; it is a matter of fairness and of people paying their way reasonably.

Transport for London has 5,700 acres of land in London, and while not all of it is developable, a lot of it is. That is one public authority in London that has an opportunity to provide land that could be used for the development of housing for rent or for sale. I piloted the Bill that will enable TfL to provide the homes that are required, and it was interesting that the only opposition to it came from London Labour Members, who opposed the opportunity for more than 50,000 homes to be built in London for the very people they represent. I suggest that we should reject all the Lords amendments that are a deliberate attempt to wreck the scope of the Bill, which contributes to the creation of more housing and more affordable housing, to the opportunity for people to own their own homes, and to local authorities working in partnership with the Government to deliver the homes that people want.

Litter and Fly-tipping: England

Debate between Clive Betts and Bob Blackman

Thursday 25th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Betts]

No, it does not, because they are not part of the same declaration, but I will come on to chewing gum in a minute, because it is a different but interesting subject.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

A sticky subject!

[Mr Betts]

I was just about to say it, but the hon. Member for Harrow East got in before me—I was reflecting on whether it was appropriate, but it obviously was.

It is a difficult issue, but the Committee—most of us are generally localists—decided that we understood the declaration and the LGA’s position, and that it was up to local authorities to make a decision themselves. We also said that if they did so, they should not allow themselves to be used in any way by tobacco manufacturers to gain any advantage or engage in any promotion of tobacco products—to give any impression that tobacco was okay because the companies were making a contribution towards a public service.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman]

Clearly the packaging that McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants use is a matter for them, but the consequences of packaging are not limited to fast food—there are whole ranges of unnecessary packaging. However, the point is whether we should look at duties on fast food restaurants to act in the same responsible way as McDonald’s.

In my constituency we have a perennial problem with a Kentucky Fried Chicken drive-through restaurant where people drive in, park up the road, eat their chicken and throw the bones on the floor—they literally drop them out of their car windows—for local residents to suffer. Surely we can ensure that the fast food restaurants have a duty to keep their areas clear. I leave the implementation of that to the great thoughts of my hon. Friend the Minister, but we must say, “The consequences of you selling your products are the costs of clearing up.” Let us look at some solutions to that.

[Mr Betts]

I did not cover this point in my introduction, but the hon. Gentleman is right. My Committee gave specific praise to McDonald’s because of what it does and said all fast food restaurants, takeaways and so on should have a legal responsibility to clean up in their areas. The Government came back and said that they did not want a general duty, but that local authorities have powers to act under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 where there is a persistent problem. I wonder whether many local authorities use that power; I am not sure if figures are kept about that. Going down that route presumably has quite a considerable cost for local authorities. Does the hon. Gentleman think we ought to push the Government a little bit harder, to see what we can effectively do about this?

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman who chairs the Select Committee. We have to press the Government further on this issue, and we will clearly return to it in this term. If the Government do not take action, we will as a Committee almost certainly conclude that further action is required. If the Government do not come up with a scheme, we will suggest an alternative.

Another area of social change in this country is that we are shifting to a lot more people living in private rented accommodation. People quite frequently live in such accommodation for short periods of six months to one year and then move to another area, which may involve moving from one local authority to another. That has consequences.

As a true localist, I applaud local authorities collecting domestic rubbish as they so choose. However, if we go to any London borough or any local authority up and down the country, we will find different coloured bins for different types of waste—be it general waste, dry recycled waste, food waste or garden waste. In some local authorities, there are five different bins, all with different colours. No information is supplied to individuals living in households in the area as to which rubbish they should put in which bin, except when the local authority issues the bins.

The problem is that when people move, they may then put rubbish in the wrong bins, and it is particularly people who come from another country to live in this country—I am not blaming them for this. They want to do the right thing; they want to dispose of their rubbish. They put the rubbish in the bin that they think is the right one. They may have moved from one local authority to another, so they just use the same colour bin. However, when the rubbish comes to be collected, the bin men arrive and say, “Nope. It’s the wrong rubbish in the wrong bin,” and just leave it there and move on to the next house.

As a consequence, the bins rapidly fill up and overflow, causing rats, mice and other vermin to congregate. Worse still, particularly in shared households, what tends to happen is that people say, “I’ve got to get rid of my rubbish. What am I going to do with it? The local authority hasn’t collected my bin and hasn’t told me why. What I’ll do is put my rubbish in a plastic bag, wander down to the end of the road and deposit it on the corner.” Rats, foxes, dogs, cats and all sorts of vermin then chew the bags and the rubbish goes everywhere.

My suggestion is relatively simple. When someone moves into private rented accommodation, one of their duties is to register on the electoral register with the local authority. Surely local authorities should have a duty to issue people who move into the area and register for the first time with a simple guide to how to dispose of rubbish. It is not rocket science but, to my knowledge, that is not done anywhere in the country. Some enlightened places may do it, but the reality is that it is not generally happening. It would be so easy to do. It could be one sheet that goes out when someone registers to vote, saying, “Here’s advice on how you dispose of your rubbish.” At a stroke, we would remove quite a few of the problems that occur with fly-tipping. From what I can see, a lot of fly-tipping is a consequence of people not getting their domestic waste collected.

Another associated problem is that many local authorities are now choosing to charge for the collection of garden waste. I remember introducing wheelie bins for the first time in my local authority when I was a local authority leader. We had a great song and dance about it—“Throw all your rubbish in the bin. It’ll be collected once a week and we’ll sort it out for recycling and other purposes.” It was a great idea. For the first time, garden waste was collected, free of charge. The problem is that as local authorities then separated out the various different types of service, they cottoned on to the fact that they do not have to collect garden waste free of charge. They therefore then imposed a charge on collecting garden waste, which is deeply unpopular and is a monopoly service, because no one else provides it.

The reality is that the charges are very different depending on where they are in the country. I have done a study demonstrating that in London my own borough, which is introducing the charge from April, will have the highest level. That is a deterrent straight away to people registering for the service. People who have gardens and are therefore likely to generate garden waste will dispose of their garden waste somehow. One problem with the charge is that those people will say, “Actually, I’m not prepared to pay for a service that I think should be provided by the local authority free of charge”—and has been, by the way, for a number of years—“so I’ll find another way of disposing of it.” Fly-tipping will become more prevalent as a result.

It is certainly true that where charges have been imposed, fly-tipping of garden waste in particular has increased quite dramatically. That is a consequence of charging for services that people see as part of the council tax they pay. The Government need to look at that carefully. I take the view that the charges for such services should be kept under review, because it cannot be correct that equivalent authorities are charging very different prices for the same service. Something is going wrong somewhere when that is the case.

[Mr Betts]

I understand the problem. It certainly caused a great deal of concern in my constituency when charges were introduced. The problem was that it is not the council that introduced the charge; it is Veolia, the contractor. Veolia fixes the charge and refuses to take instalment payments, so people have to pay it up front. That is a deterrent to people, particularly those on low incomes. There is a challenge when contractors—ones that make a lot of money out of this—introduce that sort of charge for the service.

[Bob Blackman]

That is a clear concern. It depends, of course, on the contract that has been set up between the local authority and the supplier. In London—I cannot speak for the hon. Gentleman’s area—we have done quite a detailed study of this issue, and it is local authorities implementing the charges, not contractors. In my borough, it is a direct service—it is not even being provided by an outside contractor, which demonstrates that there is a particular problem.

[Bob Blackman]

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point. That has happened in a lot of local authorities up and down the country.

I will move on to bulky waste, to which the Chair of the Select Committee also alluded. There are duties for certain items to be collected when someone buys a replacement, but I think we will all have seen beds, sofas, garden furniture and ordinary furniture just dumped on the streets and left to rot. The reality is that much of that, and mattresses in particular, could be collected at the same time as people are buying new ones. I have seen certain local authorities that routinely go around and collect mattresses that have been left in particular areas. In areas with houses in multiple occupation, landlords will turn out the beds on a routine basis, especially when there has been a turnover of people living in those properties. When there are mattresses on the street, they have to be collected and dealt with. Surely there should be a duty on suppliers, as part and parcel of the process of delivering mattresses, sofas and other items, to collect and take away the old ones and dispose of them free of charge to the individual who is buying the new product. The Government should look at that in order to reduce costs.

The other issue with fly-tipping is that it is definitely on the increase. We have to combat it in every way, shape or form. Two types of fly-tipping are of particular concern. There is fly-tipping on the public highway, which hon. Members have mentioned, along with fly-tipping on street corners and all sorts of areas of the public highway that tend to be out of sight. People just wander along and either dump their rubbish from a car or, alternatively, dump it on service roads, whether to shops or domestic properties, as access points to garages. They are often the biggest problem of all, for the simple reason that they are on private land, so local authorities will say, “Nothing to do with us; you have to pay for that rubbish to be removed,” whereas residents say, “Well, it’s nothing to do with us. We didn’t dump it there in the first place.” The rubbish then builds up and up, till it becomes a health hazard and finally the local authority has to step in, remove it and try and identify who was responsible. It is often good luck if they find anything associated with the individual who dumped it in the first place. Often that is not possible.

I suspect this will be difficult, but we will have to look at what the duties are to collect fly-tipping on private land and whether any can be passed on to local authorities or whether there is some other way of dealing with fly-tipping on service roads. I know this is of great concern to many residents up and down the country, and there do not seem to be proper regulations to control it.

[Mr Betts]

To deter fly-tipping, we said we wanted to see powers to impound vehicles engaged in fly-tipping. One very positive thing that we probably ought to report—and, again, congratulate the Government on—is that they brought those regulations into force on 6 April. That was really welcome. In serious cases, a vehicle engaged in fly-tipping can be impounded and taken away, which is a really strong penalty and deterrent.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee again for making that point about a good thing that the Government have done.

All in all, this is a comprehensive report, with some simple recommendations about which most right-minded people would say, “Well, let’s implement those.” There are some dilemmas for the Government in their deliberations on fly-tipping and littering, but I would welcome the Minister’s views on how some of the ideas we have floated today can be taken forward and implemented across the country, while allowing local authorities to develop new strategies to deal with fly-tipping and littering as appropriate in their local communities. It is also about making it clear that there are duties to keep areas clean and duties on individuals to ensure that they do not dump rubbish and act in an antisocial manner.

In conclusion, it was a pleasure to work on this report. It upsets most residents across the country to see rubbish thrown everywhere. Clearly this is an area where a clean-up is necessary.

Select Committee on Communities and Local Government

Debate between Clive Betts and Bob Blackman

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

I would have thought that making this statement today was a start to that process and give the report some publicity. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be sending messages to his colleagues in the other place where he wants to draw particular aspects to their attention. A key issue is how the right-to-buy scheme should be funded. I think it would be very helpful for their lordships if the Government were to produce the calculations on how the sale of high-value council assets in relation to right-to-buy discounts, the replacement of the sold-off council homes, and the brownfield regeneration fund—which I think we can all support as a very good principle—can all be funded. We need to see the Government’s figures given that we had evidence from the Chartered Institute of Housing that the maximum amount raised from the levy would be about £2.2 billion a year, which would not cover the three costs that need to be covered to meet the Government’s intentions.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I welcome the statement from the Chair of the Select Committee, on which I am pleased to serve. I can confirm that this report was, helpfully, agreed on a cross-party basis. I commend him for his diligent work in ensuring that we did come to such an agreement even though it was quite difficult at times. Does he agree that it is important to increase not only the supply but the mixture of tenure? One of the key concerns that the Government have addressed, thanks to an amendment to the Bill, is that social rented homes sold will be replaced on a two-for-one basis. I think that is warmly welcomed. We also need to make sure that the homes that are sold are for owner-occupation and do not end up in the private rented sector market, because that denies people the right to own their own home.

[Mr Betts]

When a home is bought under the right to buy and the Government then continue with their policy of selling a council home to pay for it, if both those homes could be replaced with properties that meet the needs of those communities, I think everyone would feel a lot more comfortable about the direction of travel. As I understand it, the two-for-one replacement is a London-only commitment at this stage, and it is not precisely clear what the tenure of the two-homes replacement would be. That is one of the unanswered questions. Another is that we do not yet know how the levy raised on councils would be distributed around the country. Presumably the specific requirement for London means that some sort of regional ring-fencing will be in place, but we do not know precisely what that will be until the Government say so.

Yes, there is a concern about homes being bought under the right to buy and then becoming homes in the private rented sector. We can all see why that is. When people have bought their council homes, we see the front doors and front windows appearing in those newly bought homes, and a few years later we go back and probably see the roofs that have not been repaired, indicating that those homes have been passed on to the private rented sector. That is a challenge the Committee identified, and I hope that the Government will work with the National Housing Federation to explore how it might be dealt with.