Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Bob Blackman

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Would that it were that easy. My experience of rogue landlords is that the worst really do act like a bunch of gangsters. Going after one will send a message to some of the others, but we need to close down all of the routes into the system. As I say, unfortunately, these are enterprising individuals; if they put their enterprising skills to good uses, we would probably welcome their contribution to our national life, but they are currently abusing the system, and abusing people while doing so. Until we close down all the avenues for abuse, we will still get rogue individuals thinking, “That’s a bit of easy money.”

In some parts of the country—I strongly suspect it has happened in a few cases in Birmingham—such lax regulation is providing ample opportunity for those involved in other criminal acts effectively to launder their money and pose as respectable citizens running housing associations. We know that that is part of what is happening in this sector across the country, so we need to push the Government—collectively, I hope; cross-party in this House—to bring forward national measures. That is why I will fight the cause for a national regulator come what may, because that is ultimately the proper answer to this problem.

As well as securing the quality of exempt accommodation nationally, the Government also have a responsibility to ensure that the taxpayer is getting value for money and that the money being spent in this sector is doing what we all believe it should be doing. In Birmingham, there are more than 21,000 providers of exempt accommodation accessing the higher rates of housing benefit that are available. This equates to millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, but currently there is no way of knowing how much is being claimed by each provider, or whether providers are upholding their commitments and providing support to the tenants. The hon. Member for Harrow East made similar points.

The Government have been aware for at least a decade that robust information about exempt accommodation is not held centrally, but they still do not collect even basic data to understand the levels of housing benefit being spent within the exempt accommodation sector. When I asked the Department in December 2021 how much money is being spent on this sector, it simply responded that it was too costly to collect that information. I would say that it is too costly not to collect it given the abuse we have seen occur. As the Select Committee noted, the Government have been caught sleeping:

“The Government has no idea how much taxpayer money is spent on exempt accommodation, nor what this money is spent on.”

Again in my constituency, we have seen the emergence of what are called ghost tenancies, whereby a managing agent or a registered provider is claiming enhanced rates of housing benefit for an occupant who has already vacated a property, or who in some cases never lived in the property in the first place. We just have to clamp down on all this abuse, and good data collection by the Government can help us to do that.

One of the things missing from the Bill is a firm commitment on planning. I think there is a possibility for the Government to bring forward such measures, but I would have liked them to commit to planning measures in this Bill.

[Bob Blackman]

indicated assent.

[Shabana Mahmood]

The hon. Member is nodding, and I suspect he would have liked that to make its way into the Bill in a stronger form than it currently has. I welcome the direction of travel of the commitment that has been given, but it would have been a much stronger Bill had those measures been a requirement on the Government. Oversaturation in certain areas is a huge problem, particularly in Birmingham, and it can only be dealt with if there is a planning requirement to get planning permission. That would enable local authorities to prevent oversaturation in their areas. There are streets in my constituency where a quarter of all the houses are now exempt accommodation. If we had proper planning powers and the ability to deny planning permission to people who want to turn these properties into exempt accommodation, a council would be able to prevent that from happening, and therefore prevent the saturation and the ghettoisation I have spoken of.

I really welcome this Bill. I do not believe that the Government have discharged their responsibilities to my constituents or people across the country sufficiently at the speed that is required—because, as I say, every moment of delay scars another community across our country for a long time—but I do welcome that they have at least supported this Bill. This Bill will pass, and I hope we can very quickly fill the gaps in regulation that exist so that all the vulnerable tenants across our country can get the support they need to turn their lives around, and no longer are communities scarred and damaged for a long time to come.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Bob Blackman

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab) [V]]

Four years have passed since the Grenfell tragedy, and once again the House is debating whether or not to protect leaseholders from the costs of remedying fire safety defects caused by a failure of regulation and negligence, as well as by deceptive practices in the building industry. Meanwhile, the Government continue to dither and delay, and order their MPs to vote against amendments designed to protect leaseholders. Make no mistake, the funds that the Government have made available thus far have taken too much time to come on stream. The money will not ultimately be enough to meet the scale of the crisis and, crucially, interim costs are not covered.

On top of all those costs, today we have heard about the cost of insurance. I have lost count of the times that I have pleaded with the Government to do something about insurance costs. In my constituency there have been insurance increases of 1,000% in affected buildings. Those are shocking figures, and this shocking situation is falling on deaf ears as far as the Government are concerned. Long before any cladding is removed from these buildings, the people living in them will have been ruined by the costs of insurance and interim measures such as waking watches to keep their buildings open. There is simply nothing left to remedy the internal fire safety defects as well. Leaseholders need the protection that the Lords amendment would offer.

We should never forget that at any point, a further tragedy could—God forbid—occur. That is a terror that leaseholders in Brindley House in my constituency have had to face, because on 31 January this year there was a fire in a flat in their building. I have seen the burned-out husk of that flat for myself. The fire service said that the residents were only two minutes away from the fire engulfing the whole of their building. Two more minutes and the windows in that flat would have shattered, and the cladding wrapped around that building would have caught fire. When I heard that, my blood ran cold. Can the Minister imagine what it must be like for the people who live in Brindley House? That is the risk, that is the fear, and that is the scale of the financial ruination that people in my constituency and all over the country are trying to cope with.

One of my constituents recently said to me that he now thinks it will be less stressful to declare himself bankrupt and become homeless than to try to find a way to carry on as a leaseholder. At the very least, the Government could and should support the Lords amendment, or indicate a clear way through the crisis, so that we send a clear signal to all leaseholders that we will stand with them.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

I start from the principle that successive Secretaries of State and Ministers have said from the Dispatch Box that the leaseholders are the innocent parties in this scandal and that they should not have to pay a penny piece towards the costs of remediation. I applaud the Government for coming forward with £5.1 billion of public money to support the remediation of unsafe cladding, but our problem is that it is not enough. The estimate now is that £15 billion will be required and that the extra £10 billion will have to come from leaseholders as the last resort, because building owners will naturally pass that on to leaseholders wherever they possibly can. They are the ones in situ; they are the ones facing these huge bills.

The Government say that further proposals will come forward on the forced loan scheme. We were promised in the earlier statement in February that the loan scheme would be announced at the Budget. Now, I did make the assumption that that was the Budget in 2021, not the Budget in 2022 or 2023. The reality is that the evidence given to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee and other bodies suggests that the forced loan scheme is nowhere near being available. We as Members of Parliament are not even able to scrutinise the proposal, so those who are living in blocks of flats of six floors or less do not even know how that scheme will work. My estimate is that many people will end up with a bill that will last for 100 years, therefore factoring in, almost inevitably, a dramatic reduction in the value of their properties. Equally, we know that the fire safety remediation required in addition to the remediation of unsafe cladding almost dwarfs the costs of remediating the cladding. All those costs will once again be passed on to the innocent leaseholders.

I understand that my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench has to defend this position and clearly wants to get the Fire Safety Bill on the statute book. Let us be clear. I do not think any MP wishes to prevent the progress of the Fire Safety Bill. What we do need, however, is surety and assuredness, because the draft Building Safety Bill will almost certainly take 18 months to two years to bring to fruition. The leaseholders do not have that time to wait. My right hon. Friend the Minister has made it clear on a number of occasions that he finds the amendments defective. Well, there is still time. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) that there is a solution. If the Government reject that solution, let them come forward with their own solution in the House of Lords. Let us agree that the leaseholders do not have to pay a penny and the Fire Safety Bill can go on the statute book, as we would all like to see.