Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Steve Reed and Lilian Greenwood

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

I want to speak in favour of new clause 1 and new schedule 1, which call for independent advocacy and citizen involvement in decision making in public services. I commend my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for proposing them.

I wholly welcome the extension of these rights into the public sector. It is only right that people should be able to seek redress when things go wrong or to expect their complaints about service failure to be treated seriously. It is certainly right that people should have more power to influence decisions made about them by other people. I worry that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow said, the Bill in its current form will not allow that to happen as readily as it should.

A number of Labour councils are part of the Co-operative Council Innovation Network, of which I am very proud to be the patron. The councils involved are working together to find new ways to hand power to service users so that they have more control over the services they use and the people and organisations who provide them. That approach is already demonstrating that it can improve outcomes for citizens. One of the lessons those councils have learned is that handing people more power, on its own, is not enough. Many people who rely heavily on public services do so because they are extremely vulnerable or socially excluded. They lack the capacity or experience to exercise the power made available without additional support to allow them to do so.

Let me offer an example. Personalised budgets are a fantastic opportunity to give more control to people who rely heavily on care services such as home helps, day care, or assistance in managing chronic health conditions at home. Yet many of the people offered personalised budgets feel poorly equipped and supported properly to manage them. Research shows that this is one of the reasons why there has not been a higher take-up of personalised budgets, and that is a missed opportunity. The answer is to put in place the support that people need to exercise control. For someone not used to handling relatively large budgets, it can be a frightening experience to be asked to do so, particularly at a time when their health may be failing. Bringing budget-holders together with experienced advocates—people who are on their side and can help them to understand and articulate their real needs—can transform the situation. We need to build people’s capacity to participate in order to make this power meaningful.

Another example is children’s services. Many service users are children who have experienced severe trauma or disruption in their lives. They do not, of course, have any professional experience themselves of running things—they are, after all, children—but that does not mean they cannot take more control, as long as appropriate support is on offer. When I was elected leader of Lambeth council in 2006, the authority’s children’s services were rated by Ofsted as among the worst 3% in the country. By 2012, Ofsted rated exactly the same services as the best in the country by a considerable margin. One of the key reasons for that transformation was the active involvement of children in shaping their own services—but providing those children with support was fundamental in making that process work. That is why the new clause is so important in improving the Bill.

We also need much greater openness and transparency of information and data in public services. People cannot participate in decision making if they do not have full access to information. I was bitterly disappointed to see Croydon council, which covers the constituency I am proud to represent, failing to understand this. It took a decision to sell off the borough’s public libraries to a private developer in secret, behind closed doors. Doing it in that way fuelled public concern that the deal was not in the best interests of residents. That feeling appeared to be justified when the buyers, Laing, quickly sold the libraries on to another developer, Carillion—at a considerable profit, one would assume, but unfortunately we are not allowed to know.

These are public resources and public services, and decisions about them should be transparent and open; the public should be able to participate. At the council I led, I introduced a very simple open data charter which stated that the authority would publish everything that it was not legally prevented from publishing. Once we did that, the public started asking for data in different formats so that they could use them to scrutinise services more thoroughly and propose better ways to run services, and alternative providers to run better services. That approach helped to create community-run parks, a community-run youth services trust, more tenant-led housing estates, and even a new council website designed by the residents who were using it.

However, citizens need support to take advantage of these opportunities, or the potential for change that they offer will never be realised. We need the new clause and the new schedule if we want these powers really to work for everyone and not just for a privileged few.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I should like to speak in favour of new clause 2, which seeks to clarify how the Bill will be implemented and how consumers will be informed of their rights.

In particular, I want to ask some questions of the Minister about the implications for rail services. It was welcome news in Committee when, in responding to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), the Minister confirmed that the National Rail conditions of carriage will be refreshed to provide stronger provision for consumers in order to make them consistent with the rights set out in this Bill. The operators’ trade body, the Rail Delivery Group, has said:

“The Conditions of Carriage are under review. They will be published by the end of the year and will be fully compliant with the Consumer Rights Bill.”

It also said:

“They’ll be more consumer-friendly in terms of the language used”.

That will be a huge improvement from the passenger’s point of view.

I have a number of questions about how this implementation will be carried out. Do the Government intend to conduct a wider review of the passenger protections in the National Rail conditions of carriage? They could use the Bill as an opportunity to strengthen passenger rights where, for example, the train operator fails to provide passenger assistance, which is so important for disabled passengers; where someone finds that the seat reservations on their train are not being honoured; where there are planned engineering works that the operator could have known about in advance but has not informed people about; or where someone finds on arriving at the station that part of the journey they expected to be by train will be on a replacement bus service.

If the intention is to carry out this wider review of the National Rail conditions of carriage, why has Passenger Focus so far been excluded? Can the Minister guarantee that there will be no watering down of passenger protections in the National Rail conditions of carriage that may be additional to the protections provided in the Bill? All the consumer protections in the Bill are subject to parliamentary scrutiny, and the public have had an opportunity to influence them and have a view on them. Changes to the National Rail conditions of carriage are not usually subject to such public consultation, but this is an unusual circumstance. Will the Minister clarify whether the proposed revisions to the National Rail conditions of carriage to make them consistent with the Bill should be subject to public consultation?

I have a few more questions about implementation and the consequent need for further guidance, as set out in the new clause. The National Rail conditions of carriage do not apply to light rail systems such as the Docklands light railway or the London underground, where separate conditions of carriage are set out by Transport for London. Have the Government made an assessment of the various light rail conditions of carriage? Do Ministers plan to exclude them from the rights in the Bill, as with the National Rail conditions of carriage, or, indeed, to do something different about them?

There are also a number of issues concerning equivalent protections and how they will be met. At present, under the National Rail conditions of carriage, a passenger is entitled to a full refund only if they decide not to travel after the service is cancelled or delayed or when a reservation is not honoured and the ticket is unused. Passengers are entitled to partial refunds if they decide not to travel for other reasons, but they are subject to a £10 administration charge. Passengers who start their journey are entitled to compensation of only 20% of the price paid, and only if their service is more than an hour late. Although some rail operators offer a more generous delay/repay compensation scheme, that is not set out in the national rail conditions of carriage.

If passengers are entitled to a repeat performance, as set out in clause 54, on the grounds that the journey was not in accordance with the information given about the service, as outlined in clause 50, will they now be entitled to a full refund? Could that therefore be the stronger provision relating to compensation for consumers that the Minister mentioned when she responded in Committee in March?

I also want clarification on another issue. When passengers are affected by planned possession works by Network Rail, rather than the train operator, they will clearly be receiving a substandard service, but will they be entitled to compensation? I do not think they have such an entitlement at present.

Obviously, I am speaking in my capacity as a Back Bencher rather than from my position on the Front Bench. Many of our constituents are frustrated by their experiences on the railways, and they want to know that the rights set out in the Bill in relation to rail fares and services are being addressed by the Minister and that there is an opportunity to strengthen consumer protections in such an important area of policy.

Letting Agents

Debate between Steve Reed and Lilian Greenwood

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Steve Reed]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is unacceptable that in Croydon, where there are nearly 8,000 people on the housing waiting list, last year only 420 new social homes were built in the entire borough?

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is right, and that is why it is so disappointing that the Government are so far behind their targets for affordable rented housing.

As we have heard, there is no legislation covering letting agent practices. It is still possible to set up as a letting agent with no qualifications. There are no requirements as to conduct or for the safeguarding of consumers as there are for estate agents, and no obligation to register with a redress scheme. Letting agents simply operate outside any legislation. Agents can voluntarily join a regulation scheme, but it is estimated that fewer than 60% do so. There is no shortage of evidence that supports the need for action. As my hon. Friends have said, an investigation by the Office of Fair Trading found that the lettings market generates a high level of complaints, and the main areas of concern for tenants set out in its report published earlier this month included surprising and high charges, confusion about holding deposits, misleading advertising, repairs not being carried out on the property and non-refund of security deposits. Crisis, the charity for homeless single people, reported similar areas of concern. The property ombudsman reported a 26% increase in enquiries or complaints about letting agents between 2010 and 2011 and, as we have heard, Citizens Advice found that 73% of tenants whom it surveyed were dissatisfied with the service.

Experience from my constituency, consistent with those findings, highlights the need for action by the Government to regulate the private rented sector and, specifically, letting agents. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) I represent a constituency with many students. Some neighbourhoods, particularly Dunkirk, Lenton, Radford, the Park, Wollaton Park and Lenton Abbey, which are close to the campuses of the university of Nottingham, have high concentrations of private rented sector accommodation and especially homes in multiple occupation. Some years ago residents established the Nottingham Action Group on HMOs, because they shared a concern about the way their neighbourhood was being affected by the changing use of local housing. The group has vast experience of the impact of the private rented sector in the city. When I asked for views on letting agents I was told that the most common complaint is agents failing to sort out repairs or carry out regular maintenance. Of course that does not affect only the tenants of the property in question; it often affects neighbours and the wider community, either directly or indirectly, because the local environment becomes run down, the street looks uncared for and further problems flow from that.

However, NAG also had regular reports of other problems, such as agents sending prospective tenants round to view a property without making an appointment, or simply telling them to call round on the off chance. When the current tenants complain they are told to put up with it because the sooner the property is let the sooner people will stop dropping round unexpectedly. There are also reports of agents failing to give prospective tenants sufficient time to look at the property, and pressuring them to sign tenancy agreements and property inventories on the spot. It has been found that agents do not return deposits readily. There is evidence of agents who do not know, or wilfully disregard, legislation. One recent example of that in Nottingham was an agent who has now been fined twice for letting HMOs that required a licence but did not have one. NAG also raised concerns about agents hiring contractors to put up “to let” boards without overseeing the work. Boards have been fastened to fences belonging to neighbours’ properties, and to trees. Thanks to the persistence of NAG, working alongside Nottingham city council, and with the support of landlords and tenants, there are now local controls on the use of letting boards. However, some agents are still acting inappropriately and using every means that they can to circumvent the controls.

The university of Nottingham student union echoed similar themes when it submitted evidence to the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government inquiry into the private rented sector. It said:

“We believe that there need to be mechanisms in place to encourage landlords and letting agents to continually improve the standard of their housing stock. Having worked alongside UNIPOL”—

a voluntary accreditation scheme—

“for many years, we have seen the benefit of accreditation schemes. However, we have concerns that voluntary codes will never catch those landlords who continue to provide low quality housing. We believe that additional licensing in addition to properly supported and valued accreditations schemes would result in improved standards”.

On the regulation of landlords and letting agents the student union was equally clear:

“We believe that registration would improve management of properties by landlords and letting agents. To be registered would indicate that a landlord or letting agent were ‘fit and proper’ to manage properties…working to minimum management standards, and exclude those few landlords whose informal practices leave their tenants in a vulnerable situation”.

I recently heard from Ben, a student in Lenton, who provided a detailed account of the problems he and his housemates had faced. He says:

“Neither us nor our neighbours who are also with the same letting agency received an inventory until quite recently, despite the fact that we were pestering the agency since September. We send e-mails to the landlord and property manager often with complaints and he responds by saying he or one of his agents will come and inspect the property and sort the problems. When and if they come they say things will be sorted and leave and the problems persist with nothing being done. Often they don’t come at all. Our concerns are ignored and disregarded and there seems to be no simple and easy way in which we can launch a complaint and get our issues resolved.”

The Government need to act now to protect tenants like Ben and their neighbours, landlords and the reputations of responsible agents. They need to put an end to confusing and inconsistent fees and charges, so that people understand what they are paying for at the outset and can compare different agents. They should introduce measures to promote longer-term tenancies and predictable rents and should introduce a national register of landlords and give local councils the powers they need to raise standards and tackle rogue landlords. The need for action is clear. It is time for the Government to get on with it.