Houses in Multiple Occupation

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to this debate, which has included well informed and occasionally passionate contributions from Members. I do not want to minimise the underlying point that it is important to ensure that houses in multiple occupation are appropriately placed, safe and secure and that they do not have a destructive impact on their neighbourhood. It is certainly not the Government’s intention to give a charter of immunity to unscrupulous landlords. On the contrary, we have introduced a targeted process of control that is available to local planning authorities. As quickly as I can due to limited time, I will explain to the House exactly what is proposed, state what progress has been made and, as far as I am able, answer the questions raised.

One point at issue is how widespread the problem is. The Minister for Housing and Local Government gave in the debate on Tuesday and brought to the Committee the estimate made in the Rugg report. He said, “Let’s assume for the sake of argument that it’s actually 10 times worse than that, and that it’s 5%.” Members have said today that 20% of the country is affected. In that case, I must say gently to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) that he cannot claim at the same time that 8,500 planning applications is an overestimate. If the size of the problem is anything like what some people have described, the number of applications made will be hugely greater. In fact, if it is a 5% problem, that means that out of the 8,500 applications that the impact assessment anticipates, only 450 would be in problematic areas. That would impose on landlords a £12 million application cost that would be completely unnecessary for 8,000 out of those 8,500. I say to hon. Friends who perhaps believe even more strongly in deregulation than I do that surely there cannot be anything very wrong with that.

[Dr Whitehead]

Will the Minister give way?

[Andrew Stunell]

Certainly, but my time is limited.

[Dr Whitehead]

I understand that, so I will make my intervention brief. The Minister’s mathematics simply do not add up. If the problem is as concentrated as he suggests, most of the applications will be made in certain areas and not others. He cannot divide the number arithmetically across the country, conclude what the number of planning applications will be and still stand by the view that it represents only a small number of wards in the whole country.

[Andrew Stunell]

I can, and I shall debate it with the hon. Gentleman later over a cup of coffee. I point out that that is not at the heart of the Government’s case. Our case is quite clear: effective legislation should be in place where there is a genuine problem. We are saying that that will be determined by local planning authorities, not by national legislation.

I understand that the hon. Gentleman has a letter from Southampton city council. I know that Southampton and Portsmouth do not get on well, but Portsmouth has already started the process of imposing an article 4 direction on the whole city. It takes 28 days to do it, and then its 12-month period will run. Perhaps Southampton should learn from Portsmouth. It is dangerous for me to say so, but I will say it.

I commend the Minister for Housing and Local Government on pointing out in the debate on Tuesday that in his constituency of Welwyn Hatfield, Welwyn was fine while Hatfield had a problem due to the university of Hertfordshire students and their HMOs. He supposed, and I understand that he told the Committee, that Welwyn Hatfield council would take action on article 4 in relation to part of its area. Several Members who have spoken in this debate mentioned specific areas in their constituencies that were a problem. The hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) mentioned Branksome East and Winton in particular, and the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) discussed three wards in her constituency.

That is exactly the Government’s point: the problems are comparatively localised, although serious where they arise. We believe that there is a better way to address them. We believe that the article 4 system will deliver. There is already evidence from Manchester, Portsmouth and Exeter that local authorities are responding and are not finding it unduly burdensome to go down that route. The guidance issued by the Minister for Housing and Local Government on 4 November will, I hope, give them some additional reassurance on that point.

I welcomed and enjoyed the contribution made by the hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan). Yes, we will be undertaking a review, as she requested. Yes, monitoring will take place. I am absolutely sure, given all the eyes turned on us, that if we did not, the House would be quick to remind us of it.

[Alison Seabeck]

Will the Minister confirm exactly how the monitoring will be done and who will do it?

[Andrew Stunell]

I will have to write to the hon. Lady on that point, but I am very willing to do so. There are a number of questions to which I might not have the opportunity to respond fully and properly, and I will attempt to catch up with them by correspondence.

I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) that we absolutely should not trivialise the issue of safety in HMOs. As a type of housing, they have a poor reputation for safety and fire. That is why a licensing system exists and fire brigades pay special attention to them. However, that is not controlled by the planning system. The planning system responds only to applications, or possibly to reports from neighbours that an application should be made. It does not prevent a rogue landlord from turning his house into something else, which might lead to horrific incidents like the one that my hon. Friend reported. The issue is not part of the planning application process, nor is it specifically relevant to the legislation that we are discussing, but fire protection matters are a responsibility of my Department, and I will take his concerns back to the relevant Minister, so that he is fully aware of the situation.

Another point made was that a local planning authority may be too big a body to take a sensitive and informed decision about where an article 4 order is needed. The example given was Cornwall. If Cornwall is too big an area to take a sensitive and informed decision about where HMOs need to be controlled, how much more true is it that central Government is not in the right place or on the right scale to decide? The driver for the change is giving that responsibility back to the locally elected democratic level in this country, which has been disempowered over the years by successive Governments. We are turning that process around, which means that we are strongly committed to helping councils and local planning authorities take such decisions and respond to pressure from the ballot boxes in their areas rather than to the dictates of Whitehall. That is what localism—turning the whole top-down control system into a bottom-up one—is all about. I do not apologise for what the Minister for Housing and Local Government has said. It is right that the House recognises the importance of localism in this context.