Andrew Miller
Main Page: Andrew Miller (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I am delighted that the House has voted unanimously that my speech should be given a public airing. I hope I can prove to be worthy of that honour.
I congratulate the promoter of the Bill, which I am delighted to sponsor. I have been dealing with the matter for the 20 years I have been in Parliament—I joined in 1992, along with your good self, Mr Deputy Speaker. The problem affects a wide variety of constituencies. When discussions on it first took place, there was a perception that the problems occurred only in seaside areas, but they occur across the country and there are many substantial sites in inland areas. There are common threads to the problems in all parts of the country.
There is a substantial number of good park home sites that are run by good owners in partnership with tenants associations. I congratulate the park home owners and the National Association of Park Home Residents on the work that they have done collectively to try to set standards. Unfortunately, the law—and this is the trouble with all law—is made not to deal with the good people but with the rogues. We come across a number of rogues in this area, and some of their behaviour is desperately poor. We must bring that to an end. To a substantial extent, we have done that in the housing sector. There are still rogue landlords in the private rented sector, but park homes have been a neglected area over the years. Despite the sterling efforts of many, including my dear friend Lord Graham of Edmonton, who has done so much to bring this issue to the attention of both Houses, we have not got far enough. I therefore congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) on pressing this matter.
In my constituency, I have the case of a site that is owned through a complex series of companies. I am not even sure to whom the site fees are paid. If HMRC staff would like to contact me, I will tell them whom they should be chasing, because I have a feeling that the structure is a neat tax dodge. This is the same chap who has sent me letters saying that he is going to take me to court for the things I have said about him. I am still waiting for the writ, and I look forward to my day in court with him. This is a case of consistent threats and bullying, and attempts are regularly made to carve any resident with a problem away from the rest by insinuating to the rest of the tenants that if they raise the issue too, it will be a black mark against them in terms of their relationship with the landlord. For example, the communal electricity supply to the site has electrical safety standards that even I, with my modest knowledge of electrical safety, would not approve of. I have asked a friend of mine, who is qualified in electrical safety and was then a local councillor, to drive round the site to have a look. He was horrified. We raised the matter with the local authority, but very little has happened. It is all very well having a regulatory structure, but we have to have the enforcement that goes with it.
The other practice that is remarkably common is the deliberately wrong interpretation of the law, in particular the use of Daily Mail-style myths about health and safety. People are told, “You must do this, on the grounds of health and safety”, when in fact the site has been inspected by a fire safety officer from the local fire authority. The owner has been given the nod that A, B and C need doing, but that does not amount to an instruction to the tenants. It needs to be clear where the responsibility lies in such cases.
The hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) raised an interesting point about the role of solicitors in the procurement of mobile homes, and I have spoken to the hon. Member for Waveney about the line we need to develop on this. Philosophically, we should be trying to ensure that a park home owner is in the same position as the owner of a leasehold property. By definition, that would mean a need to move towards transactions conducted by legal process. The idea that the involvement of the law would be a burden on park home owners and residents—I think that solicitors are always a burden on people, but that is another matter, with apologies to those present who are members of that profession—is wrong, if the issue is dealt with properly, sensitively and in a structured way.
When the Bill is in Committee, I invite those on the Treasury Bench to think carefully about drawing parallels with rights that exist for leasehold occupants of conventionally built homes, because therein lies the key to some of the problems that we have faced for many years.
I realise that many hon. Members wish to speak on this important measure, so my final point is about enforcement. There is no point having a regulatory structure if it is not accompanied by an effective, but appropriate enforcement structure. We need to ensure that we create a structure that does not make it impossible for local authorities or fire authorities to do their work. We need not “light touch”, but “right touch”. We do not want a heavyweight regulatory structure: we want one that works properly in the context. Legitimate complaints have to be investigated, but frivolous complaints must be sidelined. A proper complaints process will work in the interests of individual park home owners as well as the collective group on the site
All the evidence suggests that where there is a good tenants’ association on the site, and a landlord who is acting rationally, a good working relationship can be achieved, even to the extent that in case of a dispute, the owners and the landlord jointly invite the local authority to adjudicate in terms of the legal position. We have come across this on issues such as spacing of homes and transitions when owners move on. On the other side of the coin, some sites still give rise to huge concern.
I again congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney, and I wish his Bill every success. As I have said, those on the Treasury Bench need to look carefully at the Bill in Committee and invite officials to draw as many parallels as possible to give this group of home owners the same status as owner-occupiers of leasehold properties.