Private Landlords and Letting and Managing Agents (Regulation) Bill

Alan Meale Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Meale (Mansfield) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is a pleasure and an honour to present the Bill. Members may ask why I have presented this particular Bill. It is because of my concern about the need to reform the private rented sector so that it works for all, not just the few who are currently abusing the system. That is sorely needed for the following reasons.

In England, there are now more than 9 million people, including more than 1 million families with children, renting privately. Those are two truly amazing figures. I say at the outset that I believe the private rented sector has an important role to play in meeting housing need. Indeed, it is an essential ingredient in doing so. Yet today in Britain, as a result of the biggest housing crisis in a generation, more and more people are being locked out of home ownership because of rising costs and are instead looking to find their home in the private rented sector. They do that at a time when, as Members will know, the housing crisis continues to worsen considerably. The situation is caused by a number of factors, not least our growing population. So far during this Parliament, home completions are at their lowest level since the 1920s when Stanley Baldwin was in No. 10 Downing street and King George V was sitting on the throne.

We are now approaching winter. Homelessness and rough sleeping are on the up, and have risen by a third since the 2010 general election. I pay tribute to many organisations such as Shelter, Framework, which is in my area, and others who work tirelessly to ease the plight of people caught in that situation. Needless to say, such organisations should be supported in their important works, which cover a range of issues.

As the housing situation worsens, people continue to struggle deeply to own their own properties, with average house prices now eight times wage levels. It takes more than 20 years for low and middle-income families with children to save enough for a deposit. Last but not least, rents are ever rising in the private rented sector, and are now moving to unaffordable levels, with many young people not even earning enough to pay their rent.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about rents being high, but does he accept that if landlords were forced to pay to be on a register, as he envisages in the Bill, the only possible consequence of that would be for rents to go up even faster?

[Sir Alan Meale]

I will deal with that point later.

On people’s inability to pay rent, last weekend The Observer revealed that rents are at an all-time high, with the average private sector tenant now paying £757 a month. I outline that because the situation is likely to worsen considerably. According to the Office for National Statistics, property prices up to August 2013 rose on average by 3.8%, with the average UK home now costing £247,000. For young people with families who need a 5% deposit, that equates to around £12,350—more than some of them earn.

As we know, most people dream of owning their own home, and like Members across the Chamber, I want people to realise that dream. Today, however, more people are finding themselves in the private rented sector for longer than in years gone by. I want a strong and thriving private sector, but evidence shows that too many tenants are being ripped off by unscrupulous letting agents, and hit by extra rip-off fees that they did not know they would face and cannot afford. People are plagued by rogue landlords and poor standards.

My Bill proposes, first, to tackle those problems head on by establishing a mandatory national register of private landlords. Secondly, it would liberalise selective licensing schemes so that local councils do not have to go through so much red tape if they see the need for such a scheme in their area. Thirdly, it would introduce greater regulation of private sector letting and management agents, and fourthly it would require all tenancy agreements entered into with private landlords to take the form of a written agreement.

My Bill seeks those things because at the moment the private rented sector is not the market it should be or needs to be. What is wrong with the current lettings market? Evidence shows that too many tenants are being ripped off by unscrupulous letting agents who fail to protect them, while also charging exorbitant and opaque fees. As evidence from the House of Commons Library shows, and as the Government have admitted, there is currently no overarching statutory regulation of private sector letting or management agencies in England, or any legal requirement for them to belong to a trade association.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

We are grateful to the Government for last year producing the guide to dealing with rogue managing agents. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in asking the Government, local government and the Ministry of Justice to get together with experts on the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal—the Property Chamber—to look at the way lawyers effectively tie up tenants and leaseholders in red tape, and prevent them from getting access to determination in disputes and to the kind of information he is talking about?

[Sir Alan Meale]

The hon. Gentleman will find that the concluding part of my speech considers precisely that issue. Having said that, lawyers—soliciting is the oldest profession in the world—make a lot of money out of everything they can. We should always be guided by such traits in the open market.

Unfortunately, the Government have recently stated that they do not intend to introduce regulation in this sector, pointing to the use of myriad ineffective consumer protection laws which, as I will show, have proved wholly inadequate at protecting either tenants or landlords. I feel obliged to say that the Government have recently moved slightly in that direction, after tabling an amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 that requires agents to sign up to a redress scheme. The amendment was tabled following pressure from the Labour Front Bench and the other place, particularly Baroness Hayter. Nevertheless I welcome that U-turn, which as I said at the time must be the first step and not the last word on the matter. Redress will allow tenants to seek help only after the fact, and will not prevent the unscrupulous actions of lettings and management agents in the first place.

There is much evidence of bad practice in this area. A report by Citizens Advice found that 73% of tenants are dissatisfied with the service provided by their letting agent, and reported that significant numbers of people have difficulty contacting agents and suffer delays in getting repairs to their property. Furthermore, a report by Which?, “Renting roulette”, shows that, shockingly, letting agencies are ranked second from bottom across 50 separate consumer markets. Indeed, there are many cases of agencies, even large and well-established businesses, running into difficulty because there is no client money protection, with the money of landlords and tenants being lost. Scandalously, in some instances that has not prevented the owners of companies which have gone out of business while holding their clients’ money from resuming their activities soon after the collapse, expressing a “no blame, no shame” culture. No safeguards are currently in place to protect tenants, landlords or reputable agents from being undercut by their unscrupulous counterparts.

To understand the scale of the problem on the high street we should consider the figures. It is estimated that in England alone there are more than 4,000 managing and letting agents who are entirely unregulated. It is still possible to set up a letting or management agency with no qualifications whatsoever. There is no need for them to conform to any requirements as to their conduct, or to provide mandatory safeguards for their customers, as no such formula or regulations exist. In other words, letting agents operate in the property market’s “wild west”, as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors recently described it.

The problem is not only one of useless agents, as there are real problems across the industry, with rip-off and opaque fees charged by unscrupulous letting and management agents. A recent national survey found that 94% of agents imposed additional charges on top of the tenancy deposit and rent, or rent in advance.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has referred once or twice to the fact that the sector contains 4,000 agents who are unregulated, but are they not covered by the general law? Many regulations will cover agents, regardless of whether they are members of a professional scheme.

[Sir Alan Meale]

I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, but that is not the experience of people who have to deal with these matters, particularly local authorities, which say it is sometimes impossible even to get in touch with the landlords. They will not meet people or provide access; they will not do repairs when requested to do them; and they have to be given orders to the effect that local authorities will carry out repairs “unless”. I am not talking about making all this subject to a state scheme or anything like that. The Bill is about providing protection and lifting up the private rented sector to a level that will provide all our constituents with the opportunity to live decently.

I mentioned the 94% of landlords who imposed additional charges on tenants, and huge variations in the amount of costs have been found. By way of explanation, let me provide some facts. The charges levied for checking references ranged from £10 to £275, while charges for renewing a tenancy ranged from £12 to £220. In some cases, charges for a tenancy amounted to more than £600. According to Which?, some tenants are being charged up to £90 to renew a tenancy and up to £120 simply to check out the property. That is an incredible cost for people to pay; by and large, these people do not have much money. There is no reason for them to have to pay these charges. It should be easy to find out that information in today’s modern society; such large charges are really beyond the pale.

[Mr Nuttall]

Clause 3 deals with the transparency of fees, but there is no enforcement mechanism in it to have these fees reduced.

[Sir Alan Meale]

If the hon. Gentleman will let me get on with my speech, I will be able to answer that question. I still have quite a way to go.

Far too many Members have heard time and again in their surgeries that there is a problem with rogue landlords and poor standards. It is true that the majority of private landlords are responsible people who treat their tenants very well, but it is also true that there are too many rogue landlords who undermine responsible behaviour and prey on vulnerable tenants. This is a small but dangerous minority of rogue landlords who, frankly, make people’s lives an absolute misery. They are condemning their tenants—who are, after all, our constituents, and we were elected to come here and serve them—to live in run-down, unsafe and often greatly overcrowded properties. What is more, they regularly intimidate those who speak out, and regularly threaten them with eviction.

Needless to say, despite an increase in the number of prosecutions against rogue landlords, the problem is getting considerably worse. We recently saw press coverage of a health care assistant who was paying £350 a week for the pleasure of living in a shed in Newham. Then there is the case of the 11 young models described in this week’s Evening Standard having to pay £400 a week each to stay in a small Victorian house. One of them even had to share a bed with a stranger because another bed could not be fitted into the property. There should be no place for such rogue landlords; indeed, the time has come to drive them out.

Unfortunately, the problem is not just one of criminal landlords, because a large number of amateur landlords can cause similar problems. They may have purchased a cheap property, inherited a property or secured one by other means. They may often be well-meaning people, but they are unaware of their rights and responsibilities in letting out a property as a home for another person. A recently published case illustrates the severity of this particular problem. A young mother of two, just 33 years of age, had realised her dream of moving to a private rented home in Cornwall. Six days later, she was found dead by her young daughter. She had been electrocuted because of a faulty heater—a very serious situation. Faulty wiring was responsible; that wiring had not been checked for 32 years! An amateur landlord should protect their tenants rather than put them in such a situation.

[Mr Nuttall]

Does not that case demonstrate the problem with this place simply making rules and regulations? Regulations are already in place to prevent that sort of thing from happening.

[Sir Alan Meale]

The object is to protect people from falling into situations like that, rather than to say that there are already regulations that might or could possibly deal with them. We want proper regulations to lift up the whole sector so that people do not have to live in those circumstances.

Sadly, the death of this poor young lady is no surprise because 35% of our private rented sector homes in England are currently classified as non-decent. The reality is, furthermore, that nearly 15% of private rented homes lack minimal heat in the winter. Imagine, Mr Speaker, being unable to heat your home even for minimal warmth, especially if you were a mother with young children. I know where the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) is coming from when he says that current law is available to deal with these matters, but the problem is that it is not working. These things are not being dealt with: they happen day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year—and nobody seems able to do anything about them.

Let me remind the Minister that poor housing has wider costs, too, not only to the renter, but to the taxpayer. Indeed, it has recently been established that the annual costs of poor housing alone to our national health service have increased by £2.5 billion.

We must be clear, then, that rogue landlords undermine the good reputation of the majority of landlords and that there is no place for them in modern Britain. It is important that the majority of well-meaning landlords are made aware of their rights and their responsibilities. That is why my Bill proposes three specific measures.

First, the Bill proposes a mandatory national register of private landlords. This should be a light-touch register requiring all private landlords to sign up. It would be contrast with a licence-based approach and it would as a rule reveal that the vast majority of landlords were able to offer a good service to their tenants. The Minister will be pleased to know that such a national register would not cost any public money whatsoever and would be self-funded by a small annual fee from landlords.

The register would assist and improve private renting in two particular ways. It would assist local authorities in managing the housing market in their areas and offer greater transparency and information that would enable them to target enforcement action in the places most in need of it. Another advantage is that the register would enable the Government and local authorities to communicate with the majority of well-meaning amateur landlords. As I have said, many of those landlords are not aware of their rights and responsibilities and would welcome such communication. Indeed, many have said that they would welcome this new information, welcome some kind of mechanism to advise them and welcome greater liaison with the local authorities in their area.

Secondly, I propose mandatory written tenancy agreements for all new tenancies and renewals. This proposal would help to professionalise the market and allow both tenant and landlord to know exactly where they stand on their rights and responsibilities.

Finally, the Bill is designed to grant local authorities greater freedom to introduce local licensing schemes where they deem that they might improve the housing market and, of course, reduce the particular problem of antisocial behaviour in their areas. Such changes would assist more councils—such as leading local authorities like Newham, Oxford, Blackpool and now Liverpool, which are already using such powers granted to them by the last Government—to tackle some of the appalling abuse caused by some of the worst landlords in England.

The intention of the Bill and the need for it are very clear indeed. The private rented sector has, and will continue to have, an important role to play in meeting housing need, but it should not be based on the current terms. With 9 million people, including over 1 million families with children, privately renting, it is clear that the needs of people in this sector have significantly changed. So far, however, the market has not been responsive to such changes, so the Government must act to ensure that renting works for all.

I say that because, despite evidence and reports from Citizens Advice, the Resolution Foundation, Which?, the Office of Fair Trading and others, and despite calls for action and support for change from millions of tenants and landlords and the industry itself, including the Association of Residential Letting Agents and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Government have so far unfortunately been unmoved. That is why now is the time for action. That is why I call on Members to support my private Member’s Bill to tackle the scandal of rip-off fees, to regulate unscrupulous letting agents and management agents, to tackle rogue landlords and to help professionalise the private rented sector so that it works for all. Let us do that so our constituents and their children living in this sector in future will be protected and allowed to live a decent life. After all, we were elected to this place for one purpose only: to represent our constituents’ need and wish to lead a decent life and to have shelter—shelter for their children, and shelter for themselves while they are working or when they have reached old age.

We are talking about not a majority, but a small minority of people who have taken command of an industry and are abusing it terribly. However, we currently have no way of controlling those people. As I have said, I am not trying to extend the state sector; I am merely saying to these rogue landlords, “There is no place for you in a modern British society.” Our job here is to protect ordinary men and women and their children, and that is what we will do if we pass this Bill.

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[Philip Davies]

It does not surprise me that the hon. Gentleman has drawn that conclusion, but I, as a Conservative, have drawn the opposite conclusion, and I hope to explain why at some point in my speech.

I must apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, to the hon. Member for Mansfield (Sir Alan Meale), and to the Minister, the shadow Minister, and all other Members who will participate in the debate. I am afraid that I may have to leave early. I have no idea how long the debate will last, and I may well be here for its entirety, but it is equally possible that I shall not. I am hosting a lunch in one of the Dining Rooms. If I do have to leave before the end of the debate, no discourtesy is intended.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mansfield on presenting the Bill. As he knows, I am a great admirer of his: in fact, I might even be so bold as to consider him a friend of mine. He may not see it in those terms, but I certainly do. He is a good man, and he has a long track record of bringing important issues to the House and representing his constituents in Mansfield to great effect. I have absolutely no doubt about the sincerity of his case, and I commend him for that. We tend to agree on matters relating to horse racing, and perhaps we would have been better off sticking to that subject today—we could have secured cross-party agreement—but the hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that when we leave the subject of horse racing our views tend to diverge, quite widely on occasion, and this, I am afraid, is one of those occasions. He will also know, however, that my opposition to the Bill is not directed at him personally, and that my admiration for him has not been diminished by the fact that I happen to disagree with him on this issue.

One problem has, I think, affected us all. I know that the Procedure Committee is considering making changes to the private Member’s Bill system—most of which are not desirable in my book—but, as far as I am aware, this Bill was printed only yesterday. It has been very difficult for some of us to understand all its complexities, given that we have been allowed such a short period before being invited to analyse and scrutinise it, although I am sure that if I have misunderstood any aspects of it, the hon. Member for Mansfield will pull me up. Moreover, I am not aware of the existence of any explanatory notes. The hon. Gentleman may say that none are needed because the Bill is self-explanatory, but I feel that some explanation of the Estate Agents Act 1979, and other related legislation covered by the Bill, might have helped. It might be handy in future for Bills to be accompanied by some form of briefing for Members to read beforehand. That would enable us to know exactly where we stood.

[Sir Alan Meale]

The delay in the printing of the Bill was due to the fact that negotiations had been proceeding for some months with a variety of organisations and individuals to establish how we could best persuade the Government of the need for such a Bill. I have already mentioned a range of those organisations and individuals. Indeed, we approached the Department for Communities and Local Government itself to establish whether it felt able to accept any of the proposals in the Bill. As the hon. Gentleman knows, a Bill should be printed up to two days before a debate on it takes place, but there was never any thought of our trying to keep this Bill secret from Members. The delay was caused by the fact that we were trying to negotiate at the last minute.

[Philip Davies]

I am sure that the whole House is grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that helpful clarification. I intended no criticism of him; I was simply making the point that if I had misunderstood any aspects of the Bill, I would perhaps be forgiven because we had been given such a short time in which to look at the detail beforehand. I know the hon. Gentleman well, and I knew that there would be a good reason for the delay. I certainly knew that he would not want to hide his light under a bushel. He has never done that in the past, and I had no reason to believe that he was trying to do it on this occasion.

There seems to be some kind of dispute among us about the amount of legislation and regulation that currently applies to the private rented sector. The hon. Gentleman used the word “unregulated”, and I thought I even heard him use the term “wild west”. However, what concerns me is not a wild-west-style lack of regulation in the sector, but the possibility that there is too much regulation. According to industry experts, there may well be more than 100 pieces of legislation and more than 400 regulations governing the private rented sector. I think that would sound like an awful lot of legislation to most people, and it certainly does to me. If all that does not satisfy those who want to control and regulate everything, I am not entirely sure that this extra piece of legislation is likely to satisfy them either.

The problem is that the left in politics always want to regulate something. They always want to interfere in something. They cannot help themselves: it is their natural state of being. They will not be happy until everything is regulated, or, in some cases, strangled to death, if they do not much like the industry concerned. I wonder why on earth, in 2013, we suddenly need a national register of landlords and the regulation of letting agents. This sector has been going strong for years, and we do not seem to have encountered massive problems. I understand the points that the hon. Member for Mansfield has made, but the Bill seems to me to be a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The hon. Gentleman himself said at the end of his speech that he wanted to tackle only the small minority of people who were causing a problem. It strikes me as bizarre to assume that the best way of tackling a very small number of people who, in the hon. Gentleman’s view, are causing a problem is to impose mass regulation on everyone, regardless of whether—even in his view—they are good landlords.

[Sir Alan Meale]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am not a great one for red tape, and regulation is not really my scene. The term “wild west” was actually used by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and the Association of Residential Letting Agents also supports the Bill. Last but not least, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the numbers involved. In England alone, there are 4,000 unregistered letting agents, and a huge number of people have expressed dissatisfaction with the treatment that they have received. The hon. Gentleman should note all the comments that have been made by organisations such as Which? and Shelter. We may be talking about a minority, but it is a significant, indeed a large, minority. I want to regulate it, and to professionalise the market so that it operates better for the people whom we serve.

[Philip Davies]

I understand that the bodies concerned have that view, and there may be a reason why they hold that view, but if Opposition Members think 100 pieces of statutory legislation and 400 regulations amount to a wild-west situation, I shudder to think what they have in mind for proper regulation of the sector, because it seems to me to be excessive as it is.

In a report for the Residential Landlords Association, Professor Ball noted:

“Housing in general and landlord-tenant relations specifically are subject to a wide-variety of housing, health and safety, planning, social policy, and environmental legislation. This has all developed in a haphazard, uncoordinated manner over many decades. Once in place, repeal is rare. Moreover, the cost-effectiveness of many requirements was never assessed when the measures were implemented nor have recent ones been reassessed after several years in place.”

That goes to the heart of the subject. The sector’s wide-ranging set of rules, regulations and legislation, which has developed in a piecemeal and haphazard fashion, is difficult for landlords to deal with, and a much more simplified set of regulations may well be better.

The Communities and Local Government Committee did a report on the private rented sector recently and its very first recommendation was entitled “Simplifying Regulation”. It said:

“We recommend that the Government conduct a wide-ranging review to consolidate legislation…with the aim of producing a much simpler and more straightforward set of regulations that landlords and tenants can easily understand.”

That seems to me to be a sensible suggestion. What it recommends flies in the face of what the hon. Member for Mansfield is seeking to do, which is make things more onerous, more complicated and add yet another layer of regulations on landlords.

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[Philip Davies]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s advice, but I am not entirely sure when he became such an expert on the Shipley constituency. Perhaps he is spending more time there than in his own constituency because he seems to know what the issues are in my constituency better than I do, and I will have a chat with him in the Tea Room later to seek his advice about what the people of Shipley, Bingley, Baildon and other nearby villages have been telling him.

[Sir Alan Meale]

I well appreciate the avenue the hon. Gentleman is going down, but he must accept that there are rogue landlords out there. Just a short while ago, he and I—he in particular—helped to raise considerable funds after people died in a fire in Malton in North Yorkshire. They died in that property because the landlord was a terrible landlord. There was no escape route and we raised the money to rebuild that property and make sure all the fire escapes and everything else were built into it. These rogue landlords do exist. Some 73% of people are dissatisfied with letting agents, and so on. The Bill seeks not to burden us with bureaucracy, but to shed a light on this area and ensure that the basic, decent things are done so that people can have a good home.

[Philip Davies]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted another area where we have worked together: raising money for the part of North Yorkshire where that sad event took place. The point I was making was not a matter of opinion, however; it was a matter of fact. The vast majority of complaints I get in my constituency about landlords are about social housing providers, not private sector providers. I was offering that up not as an opinion but as a fact. We should perhaps focus on what social housing providers are doing incorrectly.

There is one respect in which I have a lot of sympathy with the hon. Member for Mansfield, and that is on his point about antisocial behaviour; he is on to something there. Again, this is from personal experience—from speaking to people in my constituency, including those who come to see me at my surgery. Getting antisocial behaviour dealt with by a social housing provider may well be a far-too-long—incredibly long—and tortuous process, but I have evidence to suggest that social housing providers take the issue seriously, as do the local police. In my constituency, there has been some terrible antisocial behaviour by tenants in the private rented sector, but the problem is that as long as a tenant pays the rent and keeps the house in a decent manner, the landlord, who may live in another part of the country, or a different country, is not really that bothered about the tenant’s antisocial behaviour in the local community. There is an issue about landlords’ responsibility for dealing with their tenants’ antisocial behaviour, and for helping the local community by being inclined to help have tenants evicted, if there is evidence to suggest that they are causing a menace.

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[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his opinion, but he has not yet come up with an argument that I have been persuaded by. It seems that I have not come up with one that he is persuaded by, and neither of us is surprised by that state of affairs. We can move on knowing that the status quo has been maintained. I agree with very little that he ever says, and he agrees with little that I ever say. That is because he is a socialist and I am not. That is the essence of democracy. I hope the people of Shipley will continue to resist the advances of socialism that the hon. Gentleman wishes to inflict upon us, even though he seems to know more about the Shipley constituency than I do.

With reference to the interest taken by the hon. Member for Mansfield in the subject, I looked at the database of early-day motions on the Parliament website, which I commend to everybody as a great resource. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that he signed 1,787 early-day motions during the 2010-12 Session. That goes to show what an assiduous Member he is, as we who know him well are aware.

[Sir Alan Meale]

The hon. Gentleman no doubt realises that some of those early-day motions were tabled by him. What is wrong with signing an early-day motion? It is a notice board, a window of opinion, which other Members use as he does. That shows activity in this place.

[Philip Davies]

rose—

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[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right. He pre-empts what I was going to say; I was going to make that very point. This is absolutely a tax on private landlords. The hon. Gentleman said that there would be no cost to the taxpayer, but that will not necessarily be the case. If a landlord is expected to pay a fee—in many cases, my cynicism leads me to suspect, perhaps an ever-increasing fee—the likely scenario is that that fee would be passed on to the tenant through higher rents. That will be how the landlord recoups the money to pay for it.

Obviously, many rents are paid by the taxpayer through housing benefit. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman intends that there will be no cost to the taxpayer as a result of this Bill, but he cannot guarantee that, and I would argue the exact opposite. The likely scenario is that this will lead to an increase in costs to the taxpayer through higher housing benefit payments.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, after the consultation process, the Secretary of State will determine what such a register should hold and what the fee should be, so he will have a handle on this and be able to control it? There is no question that it will cost the taxpayer money in any way, shape or form.

[Philip Davies]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but I am simply not persuaded. There will be a cost to somebody, and it seems inevitable that some of that will be passed on to the tenant—and the taxpayer pays for an awful lot of tenancies. I have no doubt that were the hon. Gentleman the relevant Housing Minister at the time, the fee would be small, but heaven knows what the fee might end up being if the hon. Member for Islington North got his hands on the levers of power. I have every faith in the hon. Member for Mansfield as an individual, but he cannot guarantee who will be holding the post in the future and what the consequence of that may be.

[Philip Davies]

As ever on these occasions my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Therefore, we can determine quite clearly that whatever is envisaged there will be a cost one way or the other to the Exchequer.

Who will monitor the register? How will it be monitored? How will it be determined when someone becomes a new private landlord and who will ensure that that particular landlord signs up? I am not entirely sure that I can envisage how that will happen in practice. How will existing landlords be made aware that they have to sign up? How will the process of registration of all these private landlords be carried out? What about private landlords who are foreign nationals, and who own a property in the UK but do not live here? How will we go about getting them on the register? How will they be made aware that they have got to be registered? How will they be made to sign up and pay their registration fee? I simply do not understand how having a register will help the landlord. I do not understand how it will help the private sector tenant either. What incentive will there be for landlords to sign up? If we have a mass refusal of landlords to sign up, what will be done to get them to sign up? We can argue whether the concept is desirable, but it seems filled with practical issues.

If we are to go down this route, surely the hon. Gentleman would accept that there has to some kind of incentive for the landlord to sign up. There has to be some benefit for them in signing up, and the best way to ensure that is to make signing up a free choice, not to mandate people to do it. The only effect it will have on landlords is to ensure that they have the additional task of renewing their registration every year and that they pay for it out of their own pockets. As my hon. Friend so wisely suggested, this is no more than a tax. It is a tax for letting out one’s house for others to live in. I am not sure whether that qualifies it to be called a bedroom tax, but given that most people who live in these houses will be occupying a bedroom, and given that the cost is likely to be passed on to them, we can safely say that this is the Labour party’s attempt to impose a bedroom tax on the public. It introduced the spare room subsidy when it was in government, and it now seems to be trying to introduce a new tax on people.

The Bill will drive up not only rents but property prices, which are extortionate everywhere, but particularly in London. As rents go up to compensate for the cost of the register, property prices will be driven up even further.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Will the Bill not also reduce rents? What about the £350 a week for a shed in Newham? What about the 11 models who were asked to pay £400 each to share a small terraced house? What about a recent report of people having been rented out a walk-in freezer? These are all situations where people pay large amounts of money and the Bill would mean a reduction for them rather than an increase.

[Philip Davies]

I do not doubt the hon. Gentleman’s intention; I just do not see how the Bill would work like that. The problem with the Labour party generally is that it thinks people live their lives in a particular way and that no matter what it throws at them, they will continue to live in exactly the same way and just pay the levies and taxes and burdens that it imposes on them. The real world does not work like that. There is no doubt that if the renting out of property becomes too onerous and too expensive, a considerable number of people will leave the market. They just will not bother being involved in the private rented sector. I can say with some considerable certainty that that will lead not to a reduction in rents in places such as London, but to an increase in rents, because there will be fewer rental properties to go round. That is the great flaw in this socialist ideal of imposing extra regulation and charges on people. People will not stand there and take them. They will change their circumstances so as not to be bogged down by them all. There is absolutely no doubt that if the scenario envisaged by the hon. Gentleman in his Bill were to be put in place, it would lead only to a reduction in the number of private sector landlords. That can only drive up rents, and will probably drive up property prices as well, as those who are involved feel that they can get a better return on their investment. That would be not only what I would call an unintended consequence of what the hon. Gentleman seeks to achieve, but a certainty.

Another point to bear in mind is that landlords come in many guises. Often they own only one property or a small number of them. Sometimes they are accidental landlords, as I am, who either inherited properties or were trying to do something worth while by investing in property for future pension provision. They are not all big commercial landlords making vast amounts of money from renting out their properties.

If we look at efforts to keep the private housing market under control from an historical point of view, we find measures such as the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act 1915, which introduced rent controls that restricted rents to their August 1914 levels to prevent landlords from profiteering during the war years, when demand for housing exceeded supply. Although that was intended as a temporary measure, rent control in general continued to be applied to rental agreements until 1989.

The private rented sector made up nine tenths of the housing stock in 1915, but it had declined to one tenth by 1991. It is important to reflect on the reasons for that decline in the intervening years. I suggest that rent control was one of the factors, because it reduced possible rent returns. My point is that if we introduce a system that delivers a worse return for landlords, they will just not bother letting out their properties and we will end up with less housing provision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is obvious that the larger the sector, the more complaints will be generated. I argue that the increase in the sector is a good thing. That might be one point on which we and Opposition Members have a difference of opinion; I see the increase in the private rented sector as a force for good, not bad.

A 2010 survey that looked at the number and type of people who are private landlords found that 89% were private individual landlords, 5% were company landlords and 6% were other organisation landlords. Those landlords were responsible for 71%, 15% and 14% respectively of all dwellings in the private rented sector. More than three quarters—78%—of all landlords owned only a single dwelling for rent, comprising 40% of the total private rented housing stock. It found that 22% of those landlords had let properties for three years or less, and two thirds—69%—had let properties for less than 10 years. Almost four fifths of all landlords in the sector earned less than a quarter of their income from letting properties in the private rented sector, and only 8% were full-time landlords.

Those statistics are important, because this kind of Bill seems to be of the opinion that the landlords we are talking about are all massive corporations that are effectively building massive profits by being bad landlords. That does not fit the facts. People in the sector may have ended up renting out property for accidental reasons; they are trying to do their best and do not expect to be bogged down with pages and pages of regulation. As we have heard, most—almost four fifths—have full-time jobs as well. A number of them may well not be making any money from renting out their property anyway.

There is a misconception behind the Bill and all the similar Bills that we have seen this year from Labour Members. It is that there are huge numbers of people making vast profits at the expense of their tenants. That does not fit the facts.

[Sir Alan Meale]

The hon. Gentleman will have heard me talk specifically about amateur landlords as he describes them. The organisations that some amateur landlords are involved in greatly support the Bill because it would give them the opportunity to learn more. They are not in it for the short-term grab of a large profit; they want the long-term return. Like him, they may have ended up being landlords through inheritance or whatever. They are not inherently bad people, but very good people. The Bill is to protect them and the long-term return on their capital. Regulation is not bad, but good—it brings properties up to the mark and stops rogue landlords giving the others a bad name.

[Philip Davies]

I am pleased that we agree on the main thrust—that the vast majority in the sector are good people trying to do the right thing, with no intention of being bad to their tenants. That is where I am coming from, and I am delighted that it is where the hon. Gentleman is coming from as well. We differ on the best way to help those people do what they are doing. I do not think that piling on extra regulation and cost is the way. He does. That is our genuine disagreement.

The consequences of such regulation would be terrible for some of those landlords. The good people, to whom the hon. Gentleman referred, might well have to sell their properties because they cannot afford the extra costs and regulation—perhaps to one of the unscrupulous landlords whom he is trying to stamp out. That would be another terrible unintended consequence of what he is trying to do. The good people are probably, by definition, not making as big a return as those who are not so good. Such a transfer of property would not be to the hon. Gentleman’s or the tenant’s advantage.

In February this year, the Office of Fair Trading concluded that the demand for rental properties was increasing. In 2010-11, the lettings market accounted for 16.5% of all housing in England, which equates to 3.6 million households. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North mentioned, that represents an increase from 2 million in 1999.

Government figures suggest that the number of households in England will grow by an average of 232,000 a year until 2033. There is also a general trend of increasing rental in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, mortgage lending has decreased following the financial crisis, so demand for properties to let may be outstripping supply. That is why it is essential that we do nothing that could lead to a reduction in the supply of private rented accommodation—all that will do is stop people having their own homes to live in.

The results of a National Landlords Association tenants survey of September last year showed that just under 37% of respondents stated that they intended to remain in private rented housing as their long-term housing solution; it seems that they are perfectly happy with their situations. Some 42% responded that they had lived in their current private rented property for more than four years, compared with only 20% who said that they had lived there for less than one year. Again, that is evidence that people are satisfied.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She knows a great deal more than me about the problems facing people in her constituency and the rest of London. As ever, she is a great champion of their needs. She clearly recognises that the last thing we want to do is choke off the private rented sector, which is what the Bill would do.

Last year, the Department for Communities and Local Government published a guide for local authorities called “Dealing with Rogue Landlords”. It illustrated many of the remedies already available to deal with what the hon. Member for Mansfield accepted was the small number of problem landlords. The document set out a wide range of powers to tackle the problems associated with criminal landlords. Those powers were enhanced by the Localism Act 2011.

There is other relevant legislation. The Housing Act 2004 allows for a housing health and safety rating system, an evidence-based system used to assess housing conditions in all residential property. That set a minimum standard for all residential properties, ensuring that they are safe and habitable. It comprises an assessment of the presence and severity of 29 hazards, including excess cold.

As a result of the 2004 Act, local authorities have a duty to take enforcement action to secure necessary improvements where those serious hazards are present. They also have the discretionary power to intervene where less serious category 2 hazards are present. To determine the most appropriate form of action, local authorities can consider the extent of the vulnerability of the persons in the accommodation.

The local authority can carry out an assessment of the home and look at the likelihood of an incident arising from the condition of the property and what the harmful outcomes may be. That seems an incredibly useful tool for what the hon. Gentleman refers to as “dealing with rogue landlords.” There is mandatory licensing of houses in multiple occupation. There is already a statutory duty on local authorities to license larger, higher-risk houses in multiple occupation of three or more storeys housing five or more unrelated persons.

Private landlords must be deemed fit and proper persons if they are to be granted a licence by the local authority. Breach of a licence condition is already an offence, subject to a fine of up to £5,000. Letting or managing a property without a licence is a criminal offence subject to a maximum fine of £20,000. There is also the additional licensing of houses in multiple occupation. Poor conditions and bad management practices can be dealt with by local authorities, which can introduce schemes subject to local consultation. There is also selective licensing—a discretionary power to license all privately rented properties in a designated area deemed to suffer from low housing demand and/or significant and persistent antisocial behaviour.

Furthermore, local authorities are required to provide a robust evidence base for introducing a scheme, and once they have introduced it they have substantial powers. There are special interim management orders to take over the management of individual privately rented properties that give rise to significant problems if landlords do not take action themselves. Local authorities can require approval from a residential property tribunal to do that, but the power is there if there are terrible landlords. There are planning contravention notices for when there may have been a breach of planning control. There are temporary stop notices, enforcement notices, stop notices, breach of conditions notices and injunctions that can be obtained from the High Court to restrain any breach. There are also powers of entry and article 4 directions. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 can be utilised if landlords have been using proceeds of crime in relation to local housing, and it allows specific financial investigation powers for the public sector. Lots of assets have been recovered from people using that tool.

We already have lots of legislation and regulation on the statute book that can help to deal with what the hon. Gentleman would call rogue landlords and the kinds of activities they undertake. In fact, the Department should be commended for its document, which gave people a very clear guide as to exactly what powers local authorities have. Perhaps local authorities have been unaware of what powers they have to deal with rogue landlords in the private sector. A better starting point than more legislation might be to ensure that local authorities are using the powers they already have in existing legislation to deal with the issues that he is trying to deal with.

On the register and the registrar, I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has any idea of how much registration would cost and how much the registrar who is administering all this would be paid. Would it be a full-time or part-time role? How would the person be selected for the post? Would the role be advertised to the general public? Would it be a Government appointment? Would the landlords themselves, who were paying into this scheme, be able to appoint the person they wanted to run it? It cannot be a political post; it would need to be independent. How long would the role last for? All sorts of questions about the nitty-gritty of some of the things in the Bill need to be considered.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that if we approve this measure, that matter would be for the Department? The Government would go out to consultation and talk to landlords and their organisations about such a thing.

[Philip Davies]

I am pleased with that clarification of how it would work. The hon. Gentleman clearly has far more trust in the Government than I do in believing they would come up with a scheme that would be acceptable. I would not wish to give them that kind of unlimited power and have no control over how they then used it.

There are already existing bodies in place, including the National Landlords Association and the Residential Landlords Association. The NLA advocates landlords accreditation as an alternative to licensing. It says:

“Accreditation is a practical solution to improving the private rented sector. Landlords provide a service to tenants and should be evaluated about what they know about the sector.”

The association requires all landlords to complete a certain level of development and to keep their knowledge of the sector up to date to remain accredited. Accreditation is backed up by a complaints process that tenants can use if they feel that their landlord is not abiding by the law. That offers a clear distinction whereby a landlord understands his or obligations. It already works with 32 local authorities as exclusive accreditation partners, and all bar three authorities in England and Wales recognise its scheme. In 2012, there were 28 complaints about members of the NLA, but no complaints about its accredited members. If the hon. Gentleman wants to go down this route, perhaps he could look at what is already in place and build on the existing work that is being done by the NLA, which seems to be working well.

--- Later in debate ---

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

What a pleasure it is to thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak. You and I served together for nearly three and a half years on the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, so we know each other well. I feel somewhat sorry for the Committee Chairman, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen). In the space of a week, he has lost the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who has become the shadow Secretary of State for Education; he has lost me, moving to my present position; and then the House took away you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to your position as well. I know that the hon. Member for Nottingham North wishes you well, as do I.

This is an extraordinary occasion. We began the debate this morning, and it has already lasted well into the afternoon. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter). Before—as he mentioned—my latitude was somewhat constrained, we worked closely together on foreign policy issues, and I like and respect him greatly as a Member of Parliament.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a video in which I took part with members of Shelter. I had forgotten about that. I am sure that we all often forget things that we say: one thinks of Paul Simon’s lyric,

“all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity”.

However, I do not resile from anything that I said when I took part in that video with Shelter in the pop-up shop on College Green in my constituency during the Bristol mayoral elections in November last year. The state of some parts of the private rented sector should indeed disturb us. I was talking then about my own experience of living in rooms in a terraced house which was in poor condition, and of being evicted. The one detail that the hon. Gentleman left out—perhaps he had not watched the full clip—was that I was 10 at the time. That was in 1977, and obviously things have moved on a bit since then.

We have heard several speeches so far, although perhaps not as many as we thought could be accommodated in the time available. I pay tribute to the verbal dexterity of the hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), although they have now left the Chamber. I believe that we may be hearing from more Government colleagues shortly.

Let me begin by responding to some of what has been said. I believe that the private rented sector plays an essential role in the English, and British, housing markets, and I would not want anyone who operates in that sector to think that the House is against it. A great deal of negativity has been expressed about it today, although some Members have issued the caveat that they recognise it to be an essential part of our housing market. I believe that it provides much-needed flexibility to that market.

When I graduated from Bristol university a quarter of a century ago—I know that is hard to believe—I lived first in a one-room bedsit with plenty of strangers in the house. When I could afford it, I lived in a two-bedroom bedsit in the attic of a terraced property in Bristol, but still had to share a bathroom. Then, when I could afford it, I rented a one-bedroom flat, and when I could afford a bit more, I bought a two-bedroom flat. The private rented sector provides people with not just the first rung, but often the second and third rungs on the housing ladder, as well as providing liquidity and flexibility in the housing market. That is certainly true in my constituency, Bristol West, which contains the highest proportion of people living in the private rented sector in the country.

I am grateful to the House of Commons Library for providing me with figures from the 2011 census while I have been sitting on the Front Bench this morning and this afternoon. I think that I could have read the entire census during the four hours that have elapsed so far. In Bristol West, 21,538 households rent in the private sector, just over 40% of the total housing market in my constituency. That is topped only by the proportion in Cities of London and Westminster—where we are at the moment—which is 42%. The average in the country as a whole is about 15%. I have looked up the statistics relating to the constituency of every Member who has spoken today.

Let me at this point congratulate the hon. Member for Mansfield (Sir Alan Meale) on his success in the ballot, and on provoking and stimulating a very good discussion. I can inform him that the proportion of households in the private rented sector in Mansfield is 13.6%. In Hammersmith—as I am sure the hon. Member for Hammersmith is aware—it is just under a third. In Shipley and in Bury North—I believe we may be hearing from the latter shortly—it is about 14%, as it is in Corby. In north-east Somerset it is rather lower, at 10%.

The private rented sector has a great role to play in the future as well. Traditionally, private landlords have often been small providers who might only have one property that they let out; they might have acquired it to generate a stream of rental income to support them during their current life or, as is often the case, to provide for their retirement. This country has over a long period lacked large institutional investors in the private rental market, however, and the hon. Member for Hammersmith lamented that. In many other European countries it is the norm to rent accommodation and not to have this country’s obsession with buying, and they also have many large investors in their private rented sector. The Government want that market to develop here, too, so that there is more choice for tenants. Large providers are likely to invest heavily in quality and provide long-term leases.

That is why the Government have set up the Build to Rent fund, which hopes to generate £1 billion in investment. The Department has already agreed its first contract, in Southampton on Centenary Quay, where, as part of a wider scheme, 100 homes will be provided in the private rental market. The Government have helped to the tune of £3.5 million to get that development off the ground. We are, therefore, doing what we can to encourage larger investors and larger schemes to become more the norm in this country. Other first-round bids are being evaluated by the Department, and we have opened a second round of invitations to bid, which will end on 31 October. We would welcome more bids from new providers in this market.

We also have the private rented sector guarantee scheme. We are prepared to guarantee £3.5 billion for large potential investors who wish to enter the private rental market and provide new accommodation. Discussions are ongoing with several large institutional investors who may be interested in taking advantage of that scheme.

The growth of the private rental housing market—and, of course, of social housing as well—is key to the economy, so I should also mention the Government schemes Help to Buy, which enables more people to buy their own home, and the Growing Places fund, which has helped house builders, including in my own constituency in Bristol, to get schemes that were frozen after the crash of 2008 and 2009 off the ground.

The Government also want more affordable housing to be built. Our aim is to have 170,000 more affordable housing units built by the end of this Parliament, and we have already achieved 84,000, which will go some way towards addressing the shortfall that arose during the 13 years of Labour Government. For much of that period—certainly the first half of it when the economy was growing strongly and tax revenues were buoyant—they could, frankly, have done rather more to get affordable housing going.

As the housing market is important for the economy, it gives me great pleasure to be able to say that today’s GDP figures again show that the economy is returning to strong growth. We have had news that the economy has grown by 0.8%—again, that news came to us while we have been sitting in the Chamber today. Most pleasing of all, the construction sector, which is the sector that collapsed the most during the difficult period, grew in the most recent quarter by 2.5%. I think we can say that the economy is growing and Britain is getting building again.

Let me turn to points that the hon. Member for Mansfield made in introducing the Bill. He said that he found it amazing that 9 million people lived in the private rented sector. I found that amazing as well; I raised my eyebrows at that point. My understanding is that there are about 3.8 million households in the private rented sector, and as other speakers have said, there are children in about a third of those. I do not know whether we can extrapolate 9 million from that, but I suspect that the number is a little smaller. However, the number is significant, and the point is that the Government wish it to grow.

[Sir Alan Meale]

The figures are from the Minister’s Department, so I think that they are correct.

[Stephen Williams]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. We have heard that there are many estimates, and indeed ranges of estimates, available to Departments from various providers and people who survey the housing market, but the firm figure that is often quoted is that 3.8 million households are in the sector.

The hon. Gentleman referred to selective licensing, a power that is already available to local authorities. When Bristol city council was controlled by Liberal Democrats, it initiated selective licensing in Easton in my constituency, so I know that authorities are making use of that power. He said that it was being strangled by red tape; I am not sure what the evidence base is for that, because he did not expand on that point, but back in the summer, when my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster), was in office, he initiated a survey of all housing authorities. We are still gathering in the responses, but thus far we have had 194. Given that there are about 300 housing authorities, obviously quite a lot have not yet responded, or did not feel that there was an issue with selective licensing that merited a response. From the 194 that did respond, we know that 16 selective licensing schemes have been introduced in different parts of the country. Obviously, there are still data to be crunched, and I am sure that we will be able to say more about that in due course.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the issue of rogue landlords—as did other speakers, perhaps to counter what he said—as if there was nothing that local authorities could do about the minority of private sector landlords who can be described in that way. Of course, local authorities already have powers that they can use; certainly, as regards health and safety, there are powers to do with the safety and sanitary condition of houses, flats and bedsits in the private rented market. I think that somebody—possibly the hon. Member for Hammersmith or the shadow Minister—mentioned that local authorities face budgetary pressures. I certainly acknowledge that, but the Department has made available a £3 million fund for district, unitary or metropolitan authorities that feel that they have particular issues with tackling poor standards in private sector accommodation. They can bid for resources to deal with those issues.

[Stephen Williams]

On the last point, I imagine that the Department has invited all housing authorities to bid for money from the fund, and has published the criteria. Hopefully Corby council knows what it needs to do. On take-up, if the hon. Gentleman puts his question in a written form, I am sure that I can give him a full answer, but I am afraid that I cannot give him an oral answer at this moment.

As I listened to the hon. Member for Mansfield and others, I thought: what problem is his Bill seeking to address? Obviously, there are problems in the sector. I looked at some tenant satisfaction statistics from the English housing survey, from which we get our most recent, comprehensive data. There are some interesting comparisons between the private rented and local authority sectors.

In the private sector, the English housing survey found that 83.6% of tenants were fairly or very satisfied with their landlord, compared to 76.6% who had the local authority as their landlord. Some 9.7% of private sector tenants were dissatisfied, compared with almost 17% of people in local authority housing. That might back up the point made by the hon. Member for Shipley that his constituency surgeries quite often see complaints about a sector that is already heavily regulated and has democratic accountability—that is, local authorities. Although there are clearly problems in the private rented sector, they are smaller than in the sector that is under the direct control of housing authorities.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Assuming that the Minister’s figures might be correct and about 15% of tenants in the local authority sector are dissatisfied, let us take the figure for the private rented sector, which is 3.7 million households. Fifteen per cent. of that is half a million—a not insignificant number—so we have to deal with the fact that huge numbers of people show dissatisfaction.

[Stephen Williams]

Those are not my figures. As I said, they are from English housing survey data, which are available for all of us to look at. I have acknowledged several times that there are problems in the sector. The hon. Member for Hammersmith mentioned the Shelter pop-up shop. When that was in Bristol, people cited extreme cases of exposed electrical wiring, poor plumbing and awful sanitation. Local authorities already have powers to deal with those transgressions. That is what we want to see them tackling, and the £3 million fund that the Department has opened should help them.

On the tenant satisfaction data, repairs are often an issue about which people come to see us as constituency MPs. The housing survey data show that 72% of tenants in the private sector are satisfied that their landlord deals with repairs in a satisfactory way, compared with 66% in local authorities. I am not in any way trying to diminish the fact that there may well be problems in the private rented sector; I am trying to put those into context. Even in a regulated environment, and even in an environment where each of the three main parties in the Chamber controls housing authorities and councillors have oversight of what they are doing, there is a certain amount of tenant dissatisfaction. No matter what the regulation, we can never make that dissatisfaction go away.

[Stephen Williams]

I will look at the survey in even more detail to deal with the points that the shadow Minister raises, but he is right. The private sector is growing, and that is something that we wish to encourage. That is why we have the policies in place to get people investing in the private sector in order to provide extra accommodation, which is needed in general, but is needed also to provide the flexibility that many of our constituents would want.

Let me turn to the Bill and its four clauses, the first of which establishes a mandatory national register of private landlords. When the shadow Minister was speaking, he allowed me to intervene once about the Rugg review. I tried to put it to him that that review was commissioned by the Labour Government. One issue that it considered was whether there should be a national register of landlords. It rejected that and the then Labour Government, as represented either by the present shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), or by the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), both of whom were Housing Ministers in the period of the Rugg review, accepted that recommendation. The hon. Member for Corby said to me, but would not allow me to intervene in response, that the general election got in the way of implementation. The Rugg review was in 2008. A lot of things happened between 2008 and May 2010, but clearly a decision was made by predecessors in my Department not to introduce a mandatory national register of private landlords.

The range of benefits that a register might provide was not clear, but one was that tenants would be able to find out who their landlord was. Under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, a tenant can ask the collector of the rent, which in many cases may well be a letting agent, to disclose the identity of the ultimate landlord. That information has to be provided within 21 days and failure to do so is an offence. If as constituency Members we find that people do not know who their landlord is, or the local authority does not know and may want to encourage the tenant to find out, perhaps we should publicise that provision, which has been on the statute book for quite a long time.

It is unclear what a national register would achieve. We certainly believe that it would create an unnecessary burden on all landlords, whereas what has been acknowledged in the debate is that there is a small minority of potentially rogue landlords whom we should be concerned about, rather than the vast majority who provide a good service to their tenants. None the less, many private landlords are already in industry accreditation schemes.

One concern is that the introduction of any new compulsory burden of regulation involves a cost. The hon. Member for Mansfield said that there would be no compliance costs, but I would be surprised if a national register of anything was introduced without some compliance costs. People in the private rented sector are looking to make a profit and like any private enterprise or individual in business they will pass costs visited on them on to their customers, who in this case are tenants.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Why is there a strange state of affairs that tenants have to list themselves on either the electoral or the community charge registers, but landlords do not have to register, unless they are in the social sector? Why are many of them trying to keep out of the limelight and not live up to their responsibilities?

[Stephen Williams]

With respect, the hon. Gentleman is conflating several obligations that are not the same. You and I, Madam Deputy Speaker, will have debated the requirement to register to vote many times on the Select Committee and during consideration of Government legislation on individual electoral registration, but that is totally different from someone in business having to disclose their business practices via a register. We have Companies House, where directors have to be registered, but I would be hard-pressed on the spur of the moment to think of another area of business where the owners of the business have to be on a national register. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will give a real example from the world of business in which every provider in the country of a service to our constituents must be on a national register. I cannot think of one.

[Sir Alan Meale]

If nothing else, such a register will allow local authorities and Government to communicate with landlords and tell them what makes a good, safe and fair landlord. Surely that is the basic context.

[Stephen Williams]

In the event of a problem, the person most likely to need to know the identity of the landlord is the tenant, if they pay their rent via an intermediary, whether a letting agent or someone else, and under the 1985 Act the tenant has a statutory right to have the identity of that landlord disclosed to them within 21 days. That might be a long time to wait for the disclosure, but there is a statutory right to know a landlord’s identity if it is needed for dealing with a problem.

The Communities and Local Government Committee, which has been referred to several times, produced a report in the summer. Despite the evidence it heard, which the shadow Minister was keen to refer to, it rejected the idea of a mandatory national register of private landlords. Local authorities already have powers to introduce landlord licensing schemes to tackle problems such as antisocial behaviour where there are houses in multiple occupation that do not already fall within the statutory licensing regime to which the hon. Member for Shipley referred. A house that is three storeys high and has more than five unconnected people living in it already has to be licensed, but local authorities can license properties that fall below those criteria if they have identified particular problems. Therefore, with regard to the problems that a national register might solve, there are already laws in place, passed by this place, and opportunities for local authorities to introduce regulations in their areas.

Clause 2 deals with the regulation of private sector letting agents and managing agents. That area is already heavily regulated. There is a whole range of legislation governing the activities of letting agents—if the hon. Members for Shipley and for North East Somerset were still here they would probably need smelling salts by the time I finish reading this out—including the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, the Consumer Protection Act 1987, the Consumer Credit Act 1974, the Price Marking Order 2004, the Housing Act 1988, the Housing Act 1996 and the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.

Perhaps my parents should have known about that Act in 1977, because that was when we were evicted. Incidentally, that was the first time I met a politician. I will use that anecdote now—why not? Abercynon in south Wales was represented by a communist councillor, Mrs Ann Williams, who came to talk to my mother. I listened to them talk and asked my mother afterwards, “Who was that woman?” My mother replied, “She’s the person we vote for on the council.” I was 10, and perhaps that was what sparked my interest in politics. Perhaps we could have done with knowing about the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.

There is also legislation passed by this Government, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013. It has a rather ugly name, but it does rather important things. The sector is therefore already quite heavily regulated. Some 60% of letting agents operating in the sector already belong to an ombudsman scheme that can deal with complaints, but it is important to recognise—the Government certainly do—that a minority of agents do not belong to the scheme and probably do not provide a good enough service. That is why we introduced the 2013 Act.

[Sir Alan Meale]

The figures are important. There are around 9,000 agents across the country, and the number who are unregulated are indeed a minority, but there are 4,000 of them. Those are the ones we are trying to get to, not the ones who are very good, fair and just. I say that those 4,000 operate in a manner that does not meet the needs of my constituents.

[Stephen Williams]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. We have already acknowledged that there is uncertainty about the number of letting agents, although I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about the 4,000.

Perhaps when the hon. Gentleman was successful in the ballot and chose this cause for his Bill, he was not aware of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013. I do not blame him; I am not sure I was aware of it until I was told about it, although no doubt I voted for it earlier this year. That Act allows us to introduce more regulation in this area.

[Sir Alan Meale]

If the Minister looks at Hansard tomorrow, he will see that I mentioned the 2013 Act in my speech.

[Stephen Williams]

Under the 2013 Act, various new powers are available to the Department to do with how we could regulate this area. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed last Wednesday’s announcement from the Secretary of State dealing with the whole private rented sector. Specifically, the Secretary of State said that we would lay the first order under the 2013 Act. I am pleased to say that we laid the order today. It is an affirmative order, which means that we will have an opportunity to debate it in the normal way. Early in the new year, subject to the order’s being approved, we will ask people from around the country to bring forward schemes for approval. We will then make it mandatory for all letting and property management agents in England—this is a devolved matter, of course—to become members of an approved redress scheme later next year.

[Sir Alan Meale]

I acknowledged that a major move had been made by the Government in the 2013 Act. Here and now I put it on the record that I am grateful for that movement. However, I want something much larger and more comprehensive than has been offered. The Government’s move is a great step forward, but it is only one move.

[Stephen Williams]

I suppose all politicians are guilty of saying, “You’ve done that, but I want you to go further.” That is the nature of the business that we are in. We do it to each other. Campaign groups will always say to those in Government, “Thank you for that—we’ve banked and bagged that one, but can you take the next step?”

All I am saying is that the next step has yet to be taken. The first step was the 2013 Act and the second was taken with the laying of the order today. The next step will no doubt be a Statutory Instrument Committee, which will consider the matter. Let us hope that those important steps are successful.

Requiring letting agents to belong to an ombudsman’s scheme will also empower tenants and consumers to make complaints and should be an effective way of driving up standards with the minimum regulatory burden. Our emphasis now is on making the measures that we have already introduced, and will shortly introduce, work, rather than, as the hon. Gentleman might like us to, anticipating the need to go even further.

As I mentioned, letting agents are already subject to a whole range of consumer protection legislation. If they are in breach of aspects of the legislation about charging unfair fees, for example, action can already be taken against them by local authority trading standards, which have both criminal and civil enforcement powers. My Department is keen to hear from trading standards authorities from county and unitary councils up and down the country to see how they use those powers so that we can have a full understanding of whether any action is necessary.

I can deal quickly with the third part of the Bill, which is about establishing a body to administer the national register monitoring compliance with regulations applying to letting and managing agents. Unless I missed it, the hon. Gentleman did not say what body would maintain that national register. It is not clear who would hold the data, who would have access to them, or whether there would be a charging mechanism. I can think of various people who might see some merit in having access to such data; I am sure that our friends in the Treasury might be interested. There is quite a lot of unfilled-in detail. Our basic position is that we do not accept the need for a national register because remedies are already available, so obviously we do not accept the proposal to set up a new quango to administer it.

[Sir Alan Meale]

The Minister is now approaching the Bill rather well. On the question of what the body would be and who would serve on it, it would be the Minister and his colleagues in Government. It would not be me or Parliament or anyone else; it would be the Secretary of State. That is what I am asking for; I am not asking for somebody out there to do it. When I was a Minister at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, I abolished quite a lot of quangos. I took the number down from 116, which was unnecessarily large, to fewer than 100. I am not a great fan of quangos. The Secretary of State will decide on this. The Minister, as a Minister, will help to decide on how the body is set up and functions.

[Stephen Williams]

I hear that, but our basic position is that we do not accept the premise of clause 1 that a national register needs to be set up. I speak as a liberal. It is a shame that the hon. Member for Shipley is not here, because he rather doubted my liberal credentials compared with his libertarian credentials. At least the hon. Member for North East Somerset was a little kinder, saying that I was a good liberal. As such, despite what may have been prepared for me, I am in any case suspicious of national registers for any purpose. One can see a social need for them in some circumstances, as with a register of organ donors, but it is pretty difficult to see what merit there would be in having a national register of people who are in business to provide housing services.

Where would it end? Once the precedent had been set that one sector of the private sector economy had to register every single provider of a service in that sector, no doubt other hon. Members who were successful in the ballot in future years would introduce private Members’ Bills, or table early-day motions or introduce ten-minute rule Bills, saying that it should apply to plumbers, electricians, painters or decorators. I could go through a whole list, but I am not trying to filibuster, unlike some people today. There would be calls on many other sectors of the economy to set up a national register, and we do not want to run our economy in that way.

Clause 4 would require all tenancy agreements entered into with private landlords to take the form of written agreements. The general rule at the moment is that tenants can already make a written request under section 20A of the Housing Act 1988 for certain terms of their tenancy to be provided in writing, including the amount of rent payable, the date on which the rent falls due; whether there are any terms that the landlord wishes to impose for providing for a review of the rent, and, if there is a fixed term of tenancy, how long it is. The tenant can already request that those extremely important items be put beyond reasonable doubt by having them in writing. In the case of a tenancy of more than three years, the information must be in writing, created by deed and signed by both sides. It is not a matter of it being an option that the tenant can ask for.

There is a need for greater understanding of the rights and obligations that already exist in the law of England and Wales. The Department is in discussions with representatives of the sector to produce a model tenancy agreement that landlords and tenants will be able to draw on to eliminate areas of uncertainty where a landlord is possibly trying to put one over on the tenant.

[Sir Alan Meale]

Whatever happens to this Bill, will the Minister give an assurance that he will consider how he could improve on those standards for the future? I would be very grateful if he would do that.

[Stephen Williams]

Yes. The tenant’s charter is now available among the range of documents published by the Secretary of State last week. The model tenancy agreement is not yet available, because we are working with the sector on how it should look.

Last Wednesday, the Secretary of State announced that there would be a Government-endorsed model tenancy agreement, which we will develop with the sector. His announcement included a timetable for when we will introduce the agreement. We think it will provide extra security and stability for families entering into an agreement with a landlord.

We have also published a draft tenants charter, but that is not the end of the matter, because it is out for consultation and we would very much welcome people’s comments on it. The purpose of the charter, as opposed to the legal agreement of the tenancy, is to help tenants—and, indeed, landlords—to understand what they should reasonably expect from their rental deal and how they can take action if they are the victims of hidden fees, which many Members have mentioned, or poor standards of accommodation.

The Select Committee has looked at some of the issues and its findings no doubt enabled the Government to make their proposals. The Committee said that longer tenancies and rental control should be sought within the existing legal framework.

The Government also announced last week that there would be a mortgage lenders summit—summits are a very good thing—to consider how lenders can make it easier for landlords to offer longer tenancies. The Government will review the process by which tenants can raise concerns about the standard of their private rented property and the response they should expect from the council if they do not get anywhere with their landlord, particularly in enforcing standards of safety and hygiene. As I mentioned earlier, powers already exist for local authorities to uphold that. We will also consider as part of this review whether we should require landlords to repay rent, which would be the ultimate sanction for most of them, if their property is found to have the sorts of serious hazards highlighted to me by Shelter in Bristol.

In conclusion, the private rental sector is an increasingly important part of the housing market. This Government want to see that private rental market remain. We want it to grow and to serve even more of our constituents. That is why we are concerned about whether regulation is appropriate. We certainly should not stifle the growth of the market through poorly targeted and disproportionate new regulation. The hon. Gentleman made many good points and the interesting points and perorations made by others are also relevant, but the Government are taking action. New provisions are just starting to come in, so we feel the time is not right for this Bill to proceed further.