Private Rented Sector

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

We have heard today about London, but, along with Brighton, Southampton is the rented homes capital of the south. Something like half of the homes in the city are rented. There are some 25,000 private rented properties in Southampton—about a quarter of all properties in the city—50% of which are homes in multiple occupation. The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) mentioned HMOs but I have to say that the first thing this Government did when they came to power in 2010 was to remove the regulations that the previous Government had put in place. Those regulations would have enabled that sector to be better regulated and organised. I hope that the hon. Gentleman supports my call for those regulations to be restored as soon as possible to ensure better regulation of the HMO sector, certainly in Southampton and across the rest of the country.

Private rented properties in Southampton are in the province of landlords with not just one or two properties, but hundreds of properties across the city. In my constituency surgeries, I regularly hear about the problems that arise from the sheer size of this sector. Families might have taken out a lease on a house, settled their kids in local schools, raised the often substantial deposit and tried to settle down only to be turfed out unexpectedly at the end of a six-month lease period. It might not necessarily be in the first six months, but later when they thought they were secure in that property. What are they going to do? Where will they go? They cannot get instant council points to rent in the public sector. Do they rip their children out of the schools and start somewhere else? Will they even get back their deposit, which they have often borrowed, to allow them to start again?

Single renters also come to see me. They are often faced with poor quality rooms in those homes in multiple occupation. They have to deal with letting agencies that sometimes just rip them off, loading charges on them so that they can squeeze out more money at that vulnerable point when the person is trying to obtain a rental. I am talking about people with very little or no recourse to protect themselves.

Just as is the case nationally, the problems in Southampton come from a minority of landlords and letting agencies. Many landlords are first class and provide a secure and decent home for tenants, and many agencies really look after the people who come to them for lets. The point is that the nature of the rented market at the moment, couched as it is in insecurity and the possibility that rip-offs and unreasonable behaviour by landlords and agencies towards their tenants will generally go unchallenged, means that there is always the fear among renters that that will happen to them. Sometimes it does quite unexpectedly, and that is often when I see them at my constituency surgery. It is fair to say that there is widespread fear of the insecurity in the private rented sector in Southampton. It does not matter that it is only a minority of landlords and letting agencies that feed that fear.

We need to reform the rented market to provide greater clarity and security for those who rent. Renters need to know what they can expect in their letting and how they can live subsequent to a letting being achieved. I understand that Southampton’s housing statistics will not change, but we need to see a change in the way that renters gain and keep their tenancies. We want proper regulation of letting agencies and deposits and three-year security if needed, with flexibility for shorter lengths. That would make an incalculable difference to those people who live in the rented sector in Southampton.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one reason why it would be incalculable is that Southampton, like Slough, has very full schools, and for many parents, the anxiety of moving a long way away from their children’s school completely destroys their sense of security and their family life?

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend could almost have been on my shoulder during my constituency surgeries. I have heard from parents who have been forced to move homes across the city and to take two or three children to different schools. Through no fault of their own, they face disruption to their lives, and it is absolutely corrosive to family life.

Let me explain why I am so disappointed today. Last October, the Department for Communities and Local Government said that it would support longer-term tenancies with predictable rents. It said:

“Tenants will be able to request longer tenancies that provide stability for their families, avoid hidden fees when renting a home and demand a fair deal from their landlords and letting agencies.”

I had thought that that was about changing the market for the better, but what we hear today is that there is a series of proposals in the pipeline that will simply persuade good landlords to be a little better and good letting agencies to be a little kinder. The proposals will make no difference to those agencies that are beyond the pale when it comes to voluntary arrangements or to those landlords who simply do not play by the rules, so business as usual will continue.

Renters in Southampton also need to know that their homes will be of a decent standard. They do not want to be faced with massive fuel bills or leaky, draughty homes. All too often in constituency surgeries, I hear about those who sign up for a lease and then find out that their room or their home is not remotely what they thought it would be. This is yet another area where the Government started down the road of good intention and then stopped. The Energy Act 2011—the last Energy Act but one—stipulated that all properties to be rented from 2018 onwards should be above code F and G, which would ensure that they could be let only if they were reasonably warm and secure. However, such a measure requires secondary legislation, and three years after that legislation was passed, no regulations have been laid.

I have it on good authority that the DCLG is blocking the laying of those regulations. As they have to be laid by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, DCLG is saying that it would be too bureaucratic and costly to implement the legislation. Recent research has shown that landlords across the country would have to spend only about £1,500 to update their properties to meet that standard. If that information is correct, it is shocking. There needs to be a basic understanding that if someone rents a home it will be of good quality, the tenant will be secure in it and the transaction between landlord and tenant will be a fair deal. All the cards are stacked against tenants, and regulation is needed to make sure that the deal is fair. If DCLG is preventing the implementation of legislation that could make sure that homes were of a decent standard, it should get its act together and reverse the decision. I should like to hear from the Minister this afternoon that that is indeed what the Department will do.