Homes (Fitness for Habitation) Bill

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He will realise that I have to face the House and am not deliberately turning my back on him as I reply. He is absolutely right that if someone makes a legitimate complaint to their local authority or pursues a case under the Bill, there must be clear actions to be taken if so-called revenge evictions take place.

I am conscious that that danger may vary between areas. In some parts of the country, a large amount of housing may be available at reasonable prices, although I accept that affordability is an issue across the country. However, in other places, particularly the area represented by the promoter of the Bill, the cost and availability of housing are huge issues. The threat of having to move out is much more significant in such places than somewhere where people could just move down the road. There is a need to tackle revenge evictions, because if revenge evictions are the result of the Bill, it will not be a success.

Again, the vast majority of landlords respond to complaints fairly and reasonably and will work with their tenant in their mutual interests. If the landlord has a long-standing tenant, they do not have to pay agency fees to relet their property. Likewise, the tenant is able to make more of a life for themselves and does not have the disruption to their family life and their children’s schooling that comes with regular moves.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North, as always, brings his vision and knowledge to this debate, and rightly highlights that we must not only ensure that the powers are used, but that revenge evictions do not take place.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

What would my hon. Friend say to those who say—I disagree with them—that any legislation that impacts on landlords will have an unwarranted impact on the availability of housing, because people will be more unwilling to rent out their properties in areas where there is already a pressing demand for housing?

[Kevin Foster]

What I would say to them is, as an Opposition Member said earlier, “If you are renting out a property that is unfit for human habitation, you really should not be in the business of being a landlord. If that is the standard of what you are renting out then, bluntly, we do not want you to carry on.”

Will there be an impact on availability? Possibly, but—and it is a very big but—if someone cannot afford to do a property up to the standard where it is fit for habitation, they have an obvious option, which is to sell the property to someone who can. Another option is to discuss with the local authority whether planning permission needs to be granted to allow for a proper redevelopment.

I recently went to see a superb development in Paignton. It used to be poor-quality, guild house-style accommodation. In theory it was sheltered accommodation, but it was more like guild house-style accommodation, with shared bathrooms and facilities that were not particularly good. It was on the site of a former brewery. It was really not that great and the local housing association took the view that it did not meet the standard. It has been done up properly and there are now 22 new homes. The new apartments are modern properties that meet modern standards of disability access; the facilities reflect this era, rather than the 1950s; and young families have moved back in.

Let us be clear about what happens when we take action on housing standards. I know my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) will agree with this point; indeed, he probably made his intervention so that I would put it on the record. There is always the theory that when we introduce legislation and take action on housing standards, we might reduce the supply and make it more difficult or more expensive—because if we contract the housing supply, the price clearly goes up—for the tenant to find housing. However, in my experience when enforcement action is taken by local authorities, which will still happen, in many cases it results in the same amount of housing, or even slightly more of it, but this time of the right standard.

If a landlord feels that one of their properties is not up to standard—again, I refer to the landlord with a property in Paignton—they should start engaging with the local authority. Most councils will be reasonable and sensible if a landlord is trying to do the right thing. That could mean looking at how the property is used, perhaps converting the property or getting planning permission to allow the proper redevelopment of the site, as happened in Paignton. I am happy to take another intervention but I think that my hon. Friend can be reassured that, although there is always an argument about how much we do in terms of pushing measures so far that we reduce supply, this Bill will not do that. In fact, it could reduce the supply of completely unsuitable accommodation and increase the supply of the type of rental properties that we want to see.

Let me turn to the matter of implying terms into a lease—a sensible and proportionate measure. For those wondering what that means, this is about how the legislation creates the civil enforcement. Any tenancy will now contain this provision in the lease. As has been said, this is not about bringing back a piece of Victorian legislation, where the maximum rental price is now woefully out of date—probably as historical as the piece of legislation itself. Rather, this is about having a modern piece of legislation that does not come with the idea that every so often we need to decide the maximum rent to which it would apply. That makes this a more secure piece of tenancy legislation.

Following amendment in Committee, it would be interesting to understand how the Bill will affect those who rent out a property in a block where the leaseholders are the freeholders. A concerning issue came out following the fire safety work in Torbay after the Grenfell Tower fire. To be clear, there is not a large local authority owner of tower blocks in Torbay, as some hon. Members might have in their constituencies. We have a lot of apartment blocks and blocks of flats, particularly for those entering retirement, where the leaseholder is the freeholder—that is, the leaseholder owns a share in the freehold—and some of these flats may be rented out. In these cases, the freeholder, who is supposed to be dealing with certain issues and maintaining certain safety standards, has absolutely no incentive to enforce against its own shareholders. In fact, the shareholders are not very keen at all for the freeholder to take enforcement action.

There was an example in my constituency whereby a block had been built in the late 1960s—not a dissimilar era from that of Grenfell Tower. There were two apartments on a floor, which had two fire doors, then the corridor and then the door to the stairwell. About 20 years ago, the owner of one flat bought the other flat on the floor and turned it into one property along the whole floor, so instead of having two doors and the fire door to the stairwell, there was now just a fire door to the stairwell. This had not been picked up, partly because the freeholder had no great incentive to take action against the leaseholder, because the leaseholder was the freeholder. In the Minister’s contribution, she might wish to reflect on whether a tenant of a leaseholder would be able to enforce against the freeholder in such a situation.