Fire Safety and Sprinkler Systems

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and to follow so many Members who are experts in this field. In particular, I thank the all-party group, which I have been a member of for some years. I have learned an extraordinary amount, especially from the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). I will do my best to follow those contributions.

As we have heard, there is a great deal of consensus not just in this Chamber but among experts with an interest in this field—the insurance industry, fire safety professionals, including the London Fire Brigade, local government in London and England, architects and surveyors. We have also heard about the good practice in the devolved Administrations, which are substantially ahead of England. This very much seems to be an English problem now.

The first point is that, as many Members have indicated, sprinkler systems work. According to the London Councils briefing for today,

“automatic fire suppression systems…operate on 94 per cent of occasions and when they do operate they extinguish or contain the fire on 99 per cent of occasions. They reduce fire injuries and fire damage by 80 per cent. They also reduce the environmental impact and the economic cost of fire.”

Also, as has been said, no one has ever died from a fire in a fully sprinklered building.

The relatively minimal cost—1% of build costs—of installing sprinklers has also been mentioned. In addition, as the London Fire Brigade reminds us, sprinkler systems on average use 90% less water than hoses, and can prevent costly water damage. Introducing such systems seems to be a bit of a no-brainer.

I can think of two examples from my constituency. In 2012, opposite the BBC Television Centre, we had a major fire in the Dairy Crest warehouse, which had a huge amount of combustible material in it—explosive material, too. It needed 15 fire engines and 75 firefighters. I think about the unnecessary risk to the lives of firefighters on such occasions. In 2016, a year before the Grenfell Tower fire, there was a major fire in Shepherd’s Court, overlooking Shepherd’s Bush Green. There were fortunately no casualties, but there was a full evacuation of the building. Six flats were substantially damaged by fire, but I think another 20 were substantially damaged by water. The consequence of fires, even when successfully extinguished without injury, is often huge costs and disruption to people’s lives over many years.

All that indicates the way in which we ought to be moving, and where we hope to see the Minister moving us. However, I have one other point to make, which is also made by London Councils:

“While…sprinkler systems are very important, it is important to point out that they are not a substitute for a holistic, whole buildings, risk-based approach to fire safety.”

The Royal Institute of British Architects makes four recommendations on where it thinks fire safety should be going. They will not be a panacea and cover everything, but looking at those four areas will go far towards reducing risk. No. 1 on the list is sprinklers:

“a requirement for sprinklers/automatic fire suppression systems in all new and converted residential buildings…and in all existing residential buildings above 18m from ground level”,

as already required in Wales.

The other three recommendations are equally or more important. One is alternative means of escape. Buildings, including in my constituency, are still given planning consent although they have only a single means of escape—blocks that in effect replicate Grenfell Tower: 20-storey blocks of flats with a single means of escape—and that is purely for commercial reasons. It should not be tolerated.

The third recommendation is for centrally addressable fire alarms. That deals with the stay-put policy and what happens when it fails. Is there a fail-safe method of warning people when a building needs to be evacuated?

The fourth recommendation, which will come as no surprise to the Minister, is an extended ban on the use of combustible cladding. That is not the main topic today, but it is one that we return to time and again, because the Government’s measures are wholly inadequate. We have taken a long time to deal just with the issue of aluminium composite material cladding, and the Government are only now getting on to other forms of cladding, often more combustible than ACM, that are estimated to be on more than 340 high-rise buildings out there. Even the ban on use for new build or refurbishment projects is inadequate. It does not cover hotels, office buildings or lower-rise buildings used by vulnerable people, such as hospitals and care homes. Until we have a comprehensive approach not only to fire safety generally but to the removal and installation of cladding systems—not just cladding, but cladding and installation together—we are not seriously tackling the problem, or seriously dealing with the legacy of Grenfell.

Unhealthy Housing: Cost to the NHS

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), who is sat to my left, also had constituents who passed away a few years ago due to carbon monoxide poisoning. That was in a holiday home, but it was none the less a problem. We in the APPG will take the comments of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) on board, and we look forward to working with him.

Let me detail some of my concerns arising from the evidence that we heard. The effects of poor housing are estimated to cost the NHS £2.5 billion per annum; that rises when we consider all housing throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The true cost lies in human misery and lives lost. Some of the figures are quite extreme, but they underline the issue. Some 43,900 excess winter deaths occurred in England and Wales in the winter of 2014-15, with cold homes causing one fifth of those. That is more than the number of deaths caused by road accidents, alcohol or drug abuse, which puts into perspective the need to make sure that homes are healthy. Children in cold homes are more than two times more likely to suffer from a respiratory problem. Cold homes increase the incidence of cold and flu, and worsen conditions such as arthritis and rheumatism. Again, we see that every day in our constituencies.

One in four adolescents living in a cold home is at risk of multiple mental health problems, so we are not always talking about physical issues; there can be emotional and mental issues as well. Those in poor-quality homes that lack effective ventilation suffer from indoor air pollution, which has been linked to allergies, asthma, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease and, more recently, dementia.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate and on championing this cause. I apologise: I will not be here for the whole debate. I am double-booked. There have been steps forward on this issue, such as the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, which was recently taken through Parliament by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck). However, are conditions not getting worse for a lot of people? My experience is that there are two principal causes—the failure to build social housing, and the benefit cap—that force people into substandard accommodation in the private rented sector. Given the hon. Gentleman’s party’s special influence over the Government, could he persuade them to change those two egregious policies, which cause so much human misery?

[Jim Shannon]

If only we had that power! That is not to take away from the importance of the issue of social housing, which I will touch on later. Let us be honest: many people go into the housing that their pockets allow. As a result, they end up in housing that is not particularly in the right category, the right condition or the right shape. The hon. Gentleman is right that the benefit cap also dictates where someone can go. I will give the Minister plenty of time to get her thoughts together on that. However, that is an important point, and I will touch on it later.

Poor indoor air quality has an annual cost to the UK of more than 204,000 healthy life years. It causes thousands of deaths per year, and gives rise to health costs in the order of tens of millions of pounds. One third of people in the United Kingdom suffer from mould in their homes and are at increased risk of respiratory problems, infections, allergies and asthma. Just last week, I saw three constituents with mould growth issues in their houses—mould not caused by condensation, but ingrained in the walls. Sometimes ensuring that the housing associations or housing executive take those issues on board is quite a job.

There are more than half a million overcrowded households. The issue affects one in 10 children—something we cannot ignore. Overcrowding is linked to health and development issues, including meningitis, respiratory conditions, slow growth rates, accidents in the home, stress, anxiety, depression and poor adult health. Occupants of poor-quality housing are more likely to suffer from restricted daylight and noise pollution.

We cannot ignore noise pollution. In the news this morning someone put forward the idea of building houses and flats over railway lines. I am not sure if any hon. Member saw that. The first thing that came to my mind was the noise of the trains continually going underneath. How could those homes be adapted to mitigate that? We need to address noise pollution. Natural light helps to improve the recovery times of long-stay patients and reduces anxiety and the need for medication. Noise pollution can cause long-term health issues and increase stress and the risk of cardiovascular effects.

It is clear that there is a lack of public awareness of these problems, and limited knowledge of the facts. Too often, the homes we live in are, in so many ways, causing or aggravating health problems.

Rough Sleeping

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention; I picked up on that point, which the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, my co-chair on the all-party parliamentary group, also made. I think it is a little misleading, if I dare say so, on the basis that the past year is the first year in which a number of interventions kicked in, the largest of which is the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, so it is not necessarily correct to say that we will see a 2% decrease; we should see a much sharper decrease this year, next year and the year after. Of course, the key is ensuring that we stay on top of those figures and, through further debates such as this one and through the all-party parliamentary group, we continue to hold the Minister and Secretary of State’s feet to the fire to ensure that those ambitions are met.

However, I think we need to go much further. To tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, it is important that we truly understand it. The hon. Lady mentioned the statistics; the reality is that we do not entirely know, because in nearly all cases they are estimates. We have some reasonably good estimates for London, but for the rest of the country they are often based on a headcount on a single night, at one point of the year. As the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark rightly pointed out, numerous people will come into a town centre of an evening or during the day, because they can beg, and people will be kind and generous. However, because of the danger of violence in the evening, they will actually head out of town to parks and recreational spaces to sleep in tents, so may not be picked up in rough sleeping headcounts.

We know that the reasons for homelessness and rough sleeping are numerous, varied and complex. I wish it were as simple as saying that the answer is just more money, but money is only part of the answer. To some extent—I err on the side of caution when using this phrase—homelessness is a little like an illness. Successive Governments have thrown huge amounts of money at the problem, which, a bit like a painkiller, has worked in masking the pain but has not actually treated the underlying condition or, even better, actually cured it.

An old adage that works just as well for homelessness and rough sleeping as for anything else is that prevention is always better than cure. We need a two-pronged approach that covers both. In order to prevent homelessness and to help those currently homeless, we have to truly understand them, looking at those numerous, varied and complex reasons and then putting in place timely interventions to address each and every one of them, otherwise we risk regression.

The all-party parliamentary group goes to all parts of the country, and I have seen too many cases, particularly in London and my constituency of Colchester, of rough sleepers who have been through the council system. They have had support and been through temporary accommodation, and in many cases have been given social housing, but for so many reasons that has failed. That is one of the biggest problems, and if we do not address those underlying issues that cause homelessness at the outset, the likelihood of regression is sadly very high.

We need much better data—as I said, we have reasonable data for London but not for the rest of the country—in order to understand those root causes of homelessness and then address them. We know some of the causes. They include poverty, debt, eviction and section 21 notices to end assured shorthold tenancies, which are now the No. 1 cause of homelessness. They also include relationship or marital breakdown, domestic violence, landlords not letting to those in receipt of benefits, alcoholism, drug addiction, mental health issues, leaving prison or care, being LGBTQ—a particularly vulnerable cohort—hospital discharges and leaving our armed forces, which the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark mentioned.

We also have to consider the wider context. In 2017-18, we built 6,463 social homes, yet nearly 1.2 million people are on council housing waiting lists. Successive Governments have not built anywhere near enough social homes.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I do not disagree with the point the hon. Gentleman is making. Would he like to comment on the opinion of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government that the Mayor of London should build fewer affordable homes and more luxury homes, as he said yesterday?

[Will Quince]

I had not seen that, so it would be ill-judged to comment on it. I can point the hon. Gentleman to a very fine article from only last week in, I believe, the Colchester Gazette, authored by the local MP, on why we need the most ambitious Government investment in social housing since the second world war. I will touch on that in a little bit.

Sadly, we have an estimated 4,677 people sleeping rough on our streets, and 277,000 homeless households. That is due in part to a lack of security in the private rented sector, which, as I mentioned, is now the biggest single cause of homelessness. We have areas where demand massively outstrips supply, including some of our major cities and large towns, with Colchester being a prime example, so landlords will not let to those in receipt of benefits.

The Government have done some great work, which is starting to make a difference and gives some reason for optimism, including the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. I was pleased to speak at all stages of its passage and to sit on its Bill Committee. There is also the £28 million Housing First pilot, the rough sleeping initiative and the Somewhere Safe to Stay pilot. There is funding for non-UK nationals sleeping rough. There are rough sleeping support teams and mental health support outreach workers. Improvements have been made to StreetLink and there are homelessness experts in jobcentres. Those are all part of that £100 million package to support the rough sleeping strategy announced last year.

My concern is that, worthy, important and valuable as those programmes are, they treat the symptoms, not the cause. What do we need to do? The first thing I should say to the Minister is that I do not have all the answers. However, I have some suggestions on ways in which we can start to prevent homelessness and address the issue. First, we need a full nationwide roll-out of Housing First as quickly as possible. The three pilots were important and a great start, but we know that it works; we have seen it work in other countries, particularly in Scandinavia, where rough sleeping has been entirely eradicated. Secondly, fewer than half of local authorities have a night shelter, so we need to fund and build more of those. Regional hubs are hugely important.

As the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark mentioned, we need to lift the freeze on the local housing allowance, which was introduced in 2016. We also need to embed and fully fund the Homelessness Reduction Act. It is a great piece of legislation, but we must monitor it to make sure that it is working and is fully funded and, equally importantly, that local authorities use it to its full and interpret it in the right way. That is hugely important, particularly in relation to the duties it places on them. As the hon. Gentleman also mentioned, we need a help-to-rent scheme. We need to look at people who have no recourse to public funds. In London and some of our big cities, between 30% and 40% of rough sleepers are non-British nationals and are not entitled to any support, so we need to find a solution for those individuals.

We need to start treating homelessness, and particularly rough sleeping, as a health issue. I mentioned alcoholism, drug addiction and mental health issues. We need mental health support workers to go out with every outreach team up and down the country. I am pleased to see that £30 million will be invested in that regard, which will make a huge difference. For the Minister to say at one of our all-party parliamentary group meetings that the Department very much sees rough sleeping and homelessness as a health issue was an important step change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for the intervention. I mentioned that the issue is in part about money, but it is not wholly about money; it is also about getting the right interventions in place. The hon. Lady may not have been listening entirely. I would very much welcome her coming to some of our APPG meetings, because then she would know that it is not just about austerity. Austerity may be part of the issue, because of course if we cut back on services up and down the country, everything has a consequence, but the reasons for homelessness and, in particular, rough sleeping are complex, varied and numerous. It cannot be put down to just one thing.

We need to address the availability of high-strength cheap alcohol on our high streets. I appreciate that doing something about that is not within the Minister’s gift, but I hope that she can take the issue away.

I know that this will be a controversial point, but we need to try to rechannel the generosity of the British public. Too many people are, understandably, giving money to people on the streets. My message to them is this. That generosity is incredible, but please direct the money to the amazing charities that work in our towns and cities up and down the country. By all means, support people with food, blankets and all sorts of other things, but not with money, because in too many cases, as we find if we speak to rough sleepers, it ends up going on drugs and alcohol, and sadly that is helping to perpetuate their rough sleeping. It is making the problem worse, not better, so I encourage people to support charities that are working on the ground and not to give money to individuals.

I want to come back to what the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) said. Yes, we can throw money at an issue, but unless we address the underlying cause, we will not solve it, and the underlying cause of this issue is that successive Governments have failed to build anywhere near enough social housing. That is as true of the last Labour Government as it was of the Government before them and of the Government before them. That is why I genuinely believe that, finally and most importantly, we need the most ambitious and largest Government social house building programme since the second world war. I refer the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) back to that rather punchy article on this issue.

[Andy Slaughter]

Again, I cannot fault what the hon. Gentleman is saying about social housing. It is what all the homelessness charities are urging on us. I just hope that he can have some influence on the Government whom he supports. But perhaps he can explain, then, why rough sleeping fell by 75% in the last 10 years of the Labour Government and has gone up by 165% in less than 10 years of his own party’s Government.

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. There are many reasons for what he refers to. The Government could tomorrow invest tens of millions of pounds—well, it would be more than tens of millions—in more temporary accommodation, and that would get more people off the streets, but it would not address the underlying problem, which is that we need long-term, permanent, secure accommodation for people up and down our country.

I come back to the fundamental point about social housing. I want us to get back to building in the region of 100,000 social houses a year. The Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated that in 2018-19 the total housing benefit bill is likely to hit an incredible £23.4 billion —£23.4 billion—and it is only going in one direction; it is only increasing. That means that we are spending more than £20 billion a year to mitigate the effects of a housing shortage brought about by successive Governments, without finding a long-term solution to the problem. Arguably, what is worse is that, because of the lack of social housing, those who need homes are being housed in the private rented sector, so taxpayers’ money is being transferred into the pockets of private landlords, which in turn only increases demand in the private rented sector and drives up rents for everyone else. I suggest that investing in social homes is a far more efficient use of public money. Once built, those social homes would be public assets that would appreciate in value.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Buck. I know you would be speaking on the issue if you were not chairing, and I congratulate you again on the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, which received Royal Assent recently.

I will not take up too much time; I will deal with just two issues. Rough sleeping is the tip of the iceberg. I agree with the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) that it is a complex issue, so I will say a bit about that. It is also a solvable issue, however, which was not entirely solved, but was largely reduced, by the application of skill and resources, so I will also say something about that and where we go with it.

Many hon. Members have mentioned the fact that some short-term solutions and immediate measures could be adopted to relieve the pressure of rough sleeping, as is often done at this time of year. I pay tribute to the Mayor of London for his initiatives and the specific action that he has recently taken in the cold weather to make sure that, on compassionate grounds alone, people who are forced to sleep outside on very cold nights have somewhere to go. That is good.

Equally, I pay tribute to the fact that the Mayor of London has made the expansion of affordable social housing a priority in London for the first time in many years, because London is severely affected. As has been said, even as the high numbers of rough sleepers flatlined nationally last year, they went up by 13% in London. Since 2010, rough sleeping has, I think, tripled in London, while it has gone up by about 165% overall. Yes, there are a lot of emergency and temporary measures that can be taken, but in reality we will not resolve this problem unless we address the underlying causes. I think everyone agrees on that, and it is good that there is consensus across the Chamber.

Some of those underlying causes are to do with the individual—I will come on to that in a moment—but a lot of them are to do with the housing system in this country, the instability of housing and the associated risk. I was struck by a figure from Crisis, which says that

“there were more than 170,000 families and individuals experiencing the worst forms of homelessness…This includes people sleeping on our streets, sofa-surfing with strangers, living in hostels, and stuck in other dangerous situations.”

That is an intolerable situation, but the trend in housing policy means that it has simply got worse over the years, because there has been huge growth in the use of temporary accommodation.

The ability of local authorities to discharge their housing responsibility into the private sector permanently under the Localism Act 2011 is one factor in that growth. As I have suggested, it is also about housing conditions—the very poor quality of housing and the attitude of landlords. Landlords may be willing to evict tenants who complain about the conditions they are in, or those conditions may simply become too bad and the properties unfit for habitation.

The problem is also related to restrictions on benefits. The cap on local housing allowance—one of the two key issues that Shelter identified in its briefing for this debate—makes it very difficult for anybody on who is on benefits to find housing in significant parts of the country, particularly in areas such as mine in inner London where housing costs are so high.

Universal credit is causing extraordinary problems. I met representatives of the Shepherds Bush Housing Group, which is one of the big housing associations in my area. They said that about 4% of their tenants are in some form of arrears, but the figure is three or four times that for those who are on universal credit. People are being evicted simply because the universal credit system is letting them down.

There is this fetish of relying on the private rented sector to solve problems that it simply is not designed to solve. The massive growth in the private rented sector and the decline in both owner-occupation and social housing, as a deliberate arm of Conservative Government policy, are at the root of these problems.

The other key point that Shelter makes—Members on both sides of the Chamber have also made it—is that we must have a significant commitment to social house building, including in expensive areas of the country. Social house building is very difficult because of land prices, and that is not just the case in London anymore; in other major cities and significant parts of the south of England, it is extremely difficult to achieve social house building.

How on earth did we get ourselves in a situation where £24 billion can go, with no long-term benefits in housing terms, into landlords’ pockets? I am sure that there are good landlords who use some of that money to invest, and landlords with property portfolios who are prepared to take on difficult tenants or tenants who are reliant on benefits. Neither of those scenarios reflect the picture that I find in my constituency, nor is that how the system is designed to work.

My second main point is that although the situation may be complicated, it is not a difficult one to resolve. We know what the solutions are, because we have a very sophisticated group of organisations—the big ones include St Mungo’s, Crisis and Shelter—which have huge reservoirs of knowledge about how to tackle the difficulties involved in homelessness. Homeless people are often very vulnerable people or people with complex problems, often related to addiction or mental health.

I know that there is a move now towards the Housing First model and I do not disagree with that, because putting a roof over somebody’s head is—I think this is fairly self-evident—key to ending homelessness. That model did not find favour previously because those tenancies would often break down, because people who were not used to managing their own lives in that way were unable to sustain tenancies.

The Housing First model obviously has to go hand in hand with a lot of support, but that support is generally there. We are dealing with people who are used to dealing —in an extraordinarily compassionate way but also in a professional way—with people with complex problems every day.

Two weeks ago, I was at one of the St Mungo’s hostels in my constituency. I go to those hostels often and we have hour-long sessions with their residents, and I get asked all sorts of questions. They are sophisticated, educated and intelligent people who happen to have fallen through the cracks and on hard times. I made my excuses and left when I started being asked why Gordon Brown sold the gold reserves and why Labour adopted private finance initiatives, which gives people an idea of where the debate was going. At that stage, I decided that I had another appointment and needed to move on.

Nevertheless, there is a willingness among residents of such hostels and among people who are sleeping rough, as well as among the organisations that look after them, to resolve these problems. The resources to do that have to be available, however, and I am just not finding that to be the case at the moment. Immediate investment is what is lacking.

I know that the Minister will talk about the Government’s rough sleeping initiative, which has the aim of reducing rough sleeping by half by 2022 and reducing it fully by 2027. Of course we will support the Government in that aim, but it means that in about five years’ time we will be in the position that we were 10 years ago. I find that a bit depressing, to be perfectly honest.

I will try to be positive. We all know the large organisations that we work with on this issue. As other Members have already mentioned, there are also a lot of small organisations in our own constituencies. I will mention one—I am a patron of it, so I am obviously biased towards it—called The Upper Room, which is in my constituency. It started in 1990 as a group of local people who were concerned about rough sleeping, both by British citizens and by a lot of European citizens, at that stage. The problem has not got any better, particularly with the increase in “no recourse to public funds”.

Simply out of sheer compassion, those local people got together and raised funds; they are now raising about £350,000 a year from individual donations and charitable giving. Every day they provide a hot meal for about 1,500 people, but they have also gone on to provide an employment service and—particularly for ex-offenders—a service that teaches people to drive. That is a very good skill to help people to get into employment.

Nobody asked those people to do that. It is not a state enterprise; this is people simply seeing a problem and trying to resolve it. The good will is there and the expertise is there. However, with all due respect to the Minister, I do not feel as though there is yet sufficient will to challenge the immediate problems of rough sleeping or to address the issue of housing policy.

It is gratifying that I am now hearing Conservative MPs talk about that issue, and I try not to intervene every time a Conservative MP tries to teach me about the benefits of social housing. It is good if there is going to be a cross-party consensus on that, but there needs to be a sea change in Government policy, not tweaking at the edges. It requires investment of billions of pounds, year on year, to turn things around. We are starting from a very low base, with a very low level of house building. It is not just about identifying the land, reforming the planning system or bringing developers to heel regarding what they want to build.

Frankly, the comment that was made to ITV—I think it was made yesterday—by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, who I normally have a lot of time for, was a disgrace. To say to the Mayor, “You should concentrate more on building market housing and less on building social and affordable housing in London”—I mean, come and look at the problems in London of trying to get anybody housed, given the sort of conditions that people are living in and the length of time that people are waiting for a permanent home; it can be 10 or 15 years. Only by putting ideology to one side and saying that social housing is an absolutely key part of the housing market in this country will we ensure that these problems are not temporarily dealt with in a sticking-plaster way, but resolved for good.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Coyle]

I thank both Chairs and everyone who contributed to the debate.

I asked several questions in my speech. The Minister referred to her team, and I hope they are busy drafting their reply to the inevitable letter in which I put those questions again, because not all of them were answered. Will the funding for the pilot be continued? Will the data be improved? Is the Minister still committed to resigning if rough sleeping rises again? Will there be changes to legal aid and the Zambrano restrictions? How can we ensure that safeguarding adult reviews are more routine? Councils are simply not carrying them out. Even in the example I gave, that did not occur.

There were several running themes in the debate. The first is shame. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) both touched on that powerfully. People are ashamed that the system in our country has compelled so many people to sleep rough. It simply should not be happening. There is a public appetite for change, but sadly not in the Government.

The second theme that came out strongly is ambition, which the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) and my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) touched on. The Government’s target is simply not ambitious enough. They are not on target to meet their weak, unambitious target to halve rough sleeping by 2022. Their figures show that they will not meet it. The risk is that this problem will continue for far longer than necessary. There was some complacency in the Minister’s response. She did not listen to the debate.

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend, who opened the debate brilliantly, is summing it up brilliantly. I am afraid that I heard the Minister read out a prepared speech that just seemed to say that everything is going terribly well. It is complacency. We have heard very good speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the House advocating an immediate solution to the problem.

[Neil Coyle]

Absolutely. There were some warm words, but they will be cold comfort to those who are living in these extreme conditions. The Minister said that three quarters of councils in the pilot areas have done better than average at reducing rough sleeping. That means that, even in the pilot areas, a quarter of councils have seen rough sleeping increase. That is simply not good enough. There may be pilots, but there does not seem to be a cockpit or even a plane. The Government must properly address this problem. I will end on that and start drafting my letter to the officials.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered rough sleeping.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is to be applauded for the constant pressure he keeps up on the Government on safety issues. He is right that we are looking at the introduction of carbon monoxide detectors. We have gathered evidence, which we are looking at, and we will be coming forward with a response shortly.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

We had two debates in the Chamber last week on dangerous cladding, which shows the incompleteness of the Government’s response. Can we have a comprehensive strategy from the Government this year that deals with all types of building, all types of cladding and all types of landlord?

[James Brokenshire]

We provide regular updates that specify the work taking place through the remediation programme to deal with this very serious issue of combustible cladding. The hon. Gentleman will well know the work that is in place, both in the public sector and in the private sector, but I underline to him the urgency I attach to this and how I am not keeping anything out of consideration in making sure that people are safe and feel safe.

Fire Safety and Cladding

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reed]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, with which I have great sympathy. I believe that in this particular case the investigation is also in the hands of the police, because we do not yet know whether arson lay behind the tragedy at the Shurgard facility on Purley Way in Croydon.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong point that—I am sure he will come on to this—applies as much to residential fires as to the case he is talking about. First, there is the issue of insurance, with people in these situations often underinsured or not insured. There is also the issue of who is liable. As he says, the case he is describing may be a criminal matter. At Shepherd’s Court in my constituency, there was an obvious cause—it was a tumble-drier fire—but the manufacturer denies liability and will not pay out. As a consequence of cases like that, people can lose everything and go for years and years without being able to replace their belongings.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am also interested in the insurance aspects of this case, including whether people were wrongly advised by the self-storage company about the level of insurance that they should have taken out and, indeed, whether there was mis-selling of insurance. I have contacted the relevant authorities—the Financial Conduct Authority and others—to seek their advice. I hope we can bring that issue back to the Chamber at the appropriate time, and I would be delighted to work with my hon. Friend on that, since he has an interest in it.

I return to my attempt to establish the extent of the harm that has been caused to people’s lives by the fire. I met another woman—a customer—who had stored in the facility her mother’s and her grandmother’s ashes. One simply cannot imagine what it would feel like for an individual to lose something of such enormous human value to them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Reed]

I am grateful for that helpful intervention and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

I said that there were concerns about the state of the building regulations and the guidance, and it is worth exploring briefly how we got into a position where the regulations were so lax or could be interpreted in such a way. Back in 2009, there was a fire in Lakanal House in Camberwell, central London, that resulted in the death of six people, including a baby. An inquest conducted an inquiry, which took a number of years, and reported in 2013 in a very long document that contained some very clear recommendations. The inquiry said that the fire safety regulations—specifically, part B of the building regulations, which cover fire safety, and the associated guidance—were unclear, and that that was the reason why unsafe and combustible cladding was being strapped on buildings where people lived with their families. The coroner was absolutely clear that if that lack of clarity was not remedied, we would be running the risk of further fires and further deaths.

[Andy Slaughter]

I mentioned Lakanal House, where six people died 10 years ago, yesterday. There was combustible material involved, but it was not ACM cladding. Is it not extraordinary that the Government’s building safety programme is only tracking identification and remediation of residential buildings over 18 metres with ACM cladding? Should not the programme apply to all potentially combustible cladding?

[Mr Reed]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is absolutely extraordinary that we are not looking, right now, at a ban on all forms of flammable cladding. It is now 10 years later.

What we see now is still evidence of a go-slow and foot-dragging approach by the Government that is highly inappropriate—I would almost say negligent—given the risk to life that we know exists from the deaths that happened at Lakanal House and those that happened in even greater numbers at Grenfell Tower. [Interruption.] It is no good the Minister shrugging his shoulders and grunting from the Front Bench. Grenfell happened after Lakanal because Ministers refused to act on the guidance—the instruction—that they were given by the coroner. Eric Pickles, who was the Secretary of State at the time, refused to act on the advice given by the inquest into Lakanal House in 2013. In 2016, because it had not been banned, ACM cladding was strapped to the outside of Grenfell Tower. In 2017, it went up in flames and 72 people lie dead as a result. It could not be more serious.

We need properly to understand how this came to be, why the Government did not act, and why the Government still have not acted to ban that type of cladding from buildings. They are talking about banning it, but all flammable cladding has not been banned from all buildings—[Interruption.] The Minister will have an opportunity to respond later in the debate, and we look forward to hearing him. [Interruption.] If he wants to intervene, I will take his intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the time that has become available to make some brief remarks, although my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) set the case out fully and persuasively, covering many of the points.

We all wait keenly to hear what the Minister has to say in his response. Notwithstanding his comment that we went through all this yesterday, rather than being bored by the subject or not interested in responding, he should seize the opportunity to give a fuller account of where the Government stand. As my hon. Friend set out, the Government’s inactivity and partial solutions mean that we are in a state of some confusion—certainly our constituents are—and severely worried about the risks that remain. That is not scaremongering; those are real concerns felt by our constituents.

In a block in my constituency—I am going to a residents’ meeting tomorrow night, the fourth on the removal of flammable cladding that I will have attended—the residents are fortunate in the sense that they have a housing association as a landlord, it has accepted liability and is removing the cladding at its own expense, and it is prepared to put up non-flammable cladding instead. The situation is still incredibly worrying: fire marshals have been in for periods, and there are concerns about the structure and other potential damage to the building, causing a huge amount of anxiety and of time taken up in negotiation.

I feel very much for my constituents and those of other Members who do not have similar advantages, but that introductory point allows me to say that the problem is widespread and hugely complicated. The Government seem to rely, as if on a crutch, on the Dame Judith Hackitt report. It is a good report, but it approaches the matter in a certain way—she would like to see a “golden thread of information” through UK projects from “design and construction” to “operation”—and at the moment we do not have a clear picture of which buildings are at risk.

Dame Judith can set out a preferred method of operation, but that does not resolve any of the many problems, or the conflicts of interest over time, set out by my hon. Friend, and nor does the report actually implement anything. Those are both matters for Government, and in those respects they are singularly failing. In clarification from the Minister, I want to hear in respect of existing buildings with all types of flammable cladding what the Government’s policy is likely to be. My understanding, from responses to questions I asked before Christmas, is that the policy is likely to cover residential buildings, buildings over 18 metres and buildings with aluminium composite material cladding systems. That excludes a very large number of buildings that we know could have flammable cladding. I cannot understand the logic of the policy not being comprehensive, other than that the Government might not want to put in the resources or are phasing it in over a very long time.

[Kit Malthouse]

In all the assessments we make or have made around the ban on combustible cladding, we are guided by the expert panel. It is effectively the expert advisory panel that is setting the 18-metre limit, deciding which buildings are within scope and where there is most risk to life. This decision has not been made by politicians in the absence of expert advice. As I said yesterday, I cannot pretend to be a fire safety expert. Both I and the Secretary of State take into account the advice of a group of people that includes Dame Judith Hackitt, and it advises us regularly on these measures.

[Andy Slaughter]

With respect to the Minister, he may be listening to what he wants to hear. He should listen to a wider range of voices. I will give an example. In yesterday’s urgent question, several Members—I was not one of them—mentioned the Rockwool company. I have quite a knowledge of this, because I have three very tall buildings—over 23 storeys—in my constituency that are just a few hundred metres from Grenfell Tower and which were fully clad by Rockwool. Following testing, the local authority was able to assure tenants that it was non-flammable cladding and that it met some of the highest standards.

The Minister, with almost wilful misunderstanding, said yesterday that he was not there to listen to people promoting individual companies. That is not the point. No one is promoting the commercial interests of Rockwool—in my dealings with it, it has been perfectly clear about that. We are pointing out that its standards are higher than many others in terms of the combustibility of the cladding, the insulation and the combination of materials. That is the point. No Member on either side of the Chamber is standing up and saying, “Please buy this particular product”; we are asking the Government to listen to the voices saying that their limitations and expectations do not go far enough.

[Kit Malthouse]

I want to reiterate what I said yesterday. I agreed with whoever it was who questioned me that it was not appropriate for us to promote a particular product from a particular company. As the hon. Gentleman says, the job of the Government is to set the standards, through building regulations, to which products must adhere and to make sure that the regulatory inspection regime works so that people can have confidence that the right product is being used in the right place. To reach those assessments, the Government require the advice of non-commercially interested expert opinion. The British people would not think it unreasonable for us to assemble a group of fire safety experts to advise on those standards and the circumstances in which they should pertain. That is all I am saying. As far as I can see, the Government are acting perfectly reasonably in taking this kind of advice. He may well dispute that advice, and he might think he can go further, but he needs to find evidence of where his expertise is coming from, and if it can be demonstrated that the independent expert advisory panel—the great and the good of fire safety—is incorrect, of course we will listen.

[Andy Slaughter]

I find the Minister’s attitude astonishingly complacent. I am a member of the all-party group on fire safety rescue, which has done a lot of work on this, but it cannot possibly compete with the resources of the Government, so let us not be ridiculous about who should do the groundwork. I have taken part in a number of seminars with a number of experts. On those occasions I have heard a variety of views, but even now I still hear, from experts, manufacturers and others, special pleading for the acceptability of either leaving combustible materials—some of them more combustible than the materials used on Grenfell Tower—on blocks, or continuing to install them. That terrifies me, and I think that it ought to worry the Minister.

[Jon Cruddas]

When it comes to the question of complacency and how much confidence we have in the system, I should repeat what I said earlier today about the laggers who put in the insulation, and who are aware of health and safety reports that undermine confidence in the materials that the Government are standing by on behalf of their regulatory bodies. Something must be systemically wrong if the guys who put the stuff on these buildings—and they are guys—are aware of that, and have commissioned reports because they are being damaged by those materials. If they are aware of it, it should not be beyond our collective wit for the Government to be aware of it.

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend has made a telling point. We will not find things that are wrong unless we go and look for them, and I do not feel that the Government are going to go and look for them.

[Mr Reed]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s point about the cladding manufacturers seeking better reassurance for themselves. Of course, it is not just the cladding that is flammable; it is the combination of the cladding with the insulation. Because the Government permit what are called desktop studies—

[Mr Reed]

—which have allowed a particular cladding to be enriched with a particular form of insulation, they do not always know what is being put together and how dangerous that will be, and the cladding manufacturers do not want to know that their products are being used in ways that threaten life.

[Andy Slaughter]

I think that the Minister was trying to intervene on an intervention. I am glad to see that he at least has some interest in the subject. I shall make a little progress, and then I will take an intervention from him.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not think we are being paranoid about this. What concerns us is that a whole industry has developed on a defective basis over time, and has not been corrected: it continues to function as an industry and to make profits. No one is saying that we are going to wipe the slate clean overnight, but a lot of people have a lot to hide, and I therefore think it particularly important for the Government—who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) said, may have something to hide as well—to be rigorous in shaking this out. They should look at the history—at the defects and malpractices that have grown up over the last 10 years or more—but they should also be very sceptical in future about some of the advice that they are getting. They should obtain the broadest possible range of advice.

[Kit Malthouse]

Let me again correct the record. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was absent in December, but he should know that we have banned desktop studies, and restricted them in other circumstances, to try to discourage their use. We did that before Christmas.

The hon. Gentleman made a good point about the effect of insulation combined with cladding. Our ban on the use of combustible materials on buildings more than 18 metres high applies to everything that makes up the skin of a building, and that includes the insulation, not just the cladding. The 18-metre rule was of course introduced on the basis of advice from the expert panel. As I have said, if there is evidence to show that there are significant dangers to buildings that are less than 18 metres high, we will of course be happy to look into it.

I realise that Labour Members are trying to make this point, but I want to dispel the idea that we are complacent, because that is absolutely not the case. An enormous amount of effort, time and energy has been put into getting this right, and a large number of voices have been prayed in aid.

The hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that a defective industry has grown up over the last 20-odd or 30 years, under Governments of all stripes. As I said yesterday, the Grenfell disaster lifted a big flat rock from the building regulation system, which has not been functioning well for some time. It falls to me, and to the Secretary of State, to play our part in correcting that, and we are trying to do so with all speed.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful for that “intervention”. I think that the Minister was using me as a kind of Ouija board to communicate with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North, but that is fine.

[Kit Malthouse]

We are not short of time.

[Andy Slaughter]

Returning to the central point, what we all want is the Government to take a comprehensive view of these matters in respect of both existing and new buildings. My understanding is that only a selective number of existing buildings are covered, based on height, use and the type of material used. I ask the Minister to confirm how far their scrutiny goes at the moment, and explain why he thinks it should not go further. The Government did make announcements on new buildings back in October; they talked about high-rise residential buildings, including schools, hospitals, student accommodation and care homes. That excludes certain types of building—such as office buildings, as has been said—and we cannot see why that is the case.

[Emma Hardy]

The announcements fail to recognise that most schools are not particularly high. I do not understand why the Government do not include all schools in this list, or else they are pretty much ruling out every school in the country.

[Andy Slaughter]

Absolutely; and if the Minister did not like us quoting commercial companies in this way, perhaps he will listen to the Local Government Association. It continues to strongly urge the Government to ban the use of any combustible materials, including cladding panels, insulation and other materials, on the external walls of high-rise and high-risk buildings—including all hospitals, care homes, schools both residential and non-residential, and offices—of below, as well as above, 18 metres in height. That reinforces my hon. Friend’s point. I understand that the Government are considering height again, but hopefully they will do that quite quickly and come to the conclusion that it is a somewhat arbitrary determinant, because there are other factors, such as means of escape, that can control how easily buildings can be evacuated. That is why I say this is a very partial solution.

If the Government do not like the LGA, perhaps they should listen to the Association of British Insurers. In all my experience in the time that I have been here, the Government have been the greatest friends of the insurance industry, and that has been mutual, but in the briefing for this debate the ABI says that it

“remains concerned over the limitations of the MHCLG ban, including the exclusion of buildings lower than 18m and limiting the ban to only care homes, hospitals and student accommodation. It makes no sense that someone can live in a high-rise residential building to which the ban applied but commute to work every day in an office block covered in combustible material.”

That is just common sense, but it comes from an industry body. I will wait to hear the Minister’s response on that.

There are other issues that go beyond fire safety. Some Members took the opportunity to raise them during yesterday’s urgent question, and the Minister commented yesterday that he was quite in favour of ’60s and ’70s buildings coming down per se—a radical solution, which was picked up by Inside Housing. I would give a qualified welcome to that: yes, if they are unsafe, unsuitable or not performing their function, but given the extraordinary housing shortage that this Government have presided over, perhaps the Minister should insist that we get rather more going up than coming down.

[Kit Malthouse]

What I said yesterday was that it was very often the case with buildings of the ’60s and ’70s that it was more efficient, and financially easier, to demolish and replace than to refurbish, and that many of these buildings, particularly LPC buildings, present technical difficulties that make them very expensive to deal with. I would add, frankly, that given the lessons over the years of high-rise living, councils should consider whether people would prefer to live in lower-rise, more gentle-density housing that could be provided on the same space.

[Andy Slaughter]

I will not be tempted into a wider debate, except to say to the Minister that it depends very much on the circumstances. Sometimes it is a matter of choice, and many high-rise buildings offer very good-quality accommodation and have good space standards. The space standards of the 1960s and 1970s often gave people very good, large accommodation, so I think he needs to be careful before wishing to be an iconoclast in quite the way that he does.

I find it deeply troubling that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North has said, there are still probably hundreds of thousands of people around the country living with insecurity. Nobody wants to exacerbate that unnecessarily. The Government must be clear and authoritative in the way that they present their plans to deal with the risks that Grenfell so tragically exposed. I will quote one more thing that the Minister said yesterday. He said in response to the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands):

“It can be extremely debilitating, concerning and worrying for any resident to have the future of their home mired in uncertainty. I hope that he gets the clarity that his residents need.”—[Official Report, 22 January 2019; Vol. 653, c. 137.]

He was responding to the right hon. Gentleman about a separate issue, which is being dealt with by the same local authority, Hammersmith and Fulham. I understand that that authority is being extremely responsible in relation to fire safety generally and also in relation to the specific blocks that were mentioned there. Indeed, there is a council meeting tonight to discuss that. It is about dealing with the system-built blocks of which Ronan Point was an example. Some local authorities, including my own, are dealing with these matters very responsibly. I absolutely agree that residents need to be given certainty, so it is ironic that within a few minutes’ walk of those blocks that were being discussed yesterday there are two estates—the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates—that have been under threat of demolition because of the actions taken by the previous Conservative council, in collusion with the regime at City Hall when the Minister was there. So we can all learn lessons from this.

On fire safety, the Government have a lot more to say and a lot more action to take, and I hope that the Minister will go some way towards doing that this afternoon by telling us what the Government’s intentions are now in relation to existing cladding systems and any future new buildings, of whatever type.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

I am happy to review the panel, but I have confidence in its members and the advice that they are giving, not least because they are a plurality of voices. The panel does include Dame Judith Hackitt, along with several other people who have been involved in the fire and rescue service over the years, but I am happy to review its membership, as we would do generally, to make sure that we have the right range of expertise thereon.

As part of our plans, we also have our new joint regulators group and our early adopters group. They have come forward to help to drive culture change and demonstrate that the industry can put building safety first. I recognise, though, that there is much more to do. Our implementation plan, which we published before Christmas, sets out what the far-reaching overhaul of the system will involve over the coming years. The work spans four areas: first, a stronger, more effective regulatory and accountability framework; secondly, clearer standards and guidance to support better understanding by those carrying out building work of what is required to make buildings safe. This is an area in which we have already taken action, by consulting on a clarified approved document B to enable the guidance to be revised. We have also completed a consultation on restricting the use of desktop studies and published amended guidance on this matter. Thirdly and most crucially, a stronger voice for residents will be at the heart of the new system. Finally, the implementation plan sets out how we will work with industry to help it to prioritise public safety and lead the culture change—a change that we all agree is badly needed.

[Andy Slaughter]

Will the Minister address one specific point? We have seen the conversion of a lot of office buildings for residential use, which the Government have been promoting for some time under the permitted development rules. A lot of these conversions are of poor quality and, frankly, the buildings are unsuitable for residential use, but they have been converted anyway. I understand that, if that happens in future, the building regulations will subject converted buildings to the same requirements as new builds, but what about those that have already been converted? Will the Minister look into that specific issue in relation to cladding?

[Kit Malthouse]

Buildings that have already been converted and are within scope should have been part of the local authority inspection regime to ensure that they are safe. All buildings obviously have to comply with fire safety regulations and the local fire and rescue service should be engaged. I am more than happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with the details on how we are dealing retrospectively with buildings that were converted under permitted development rights.

Before I close my speech, let me turn to a couple of the specific points that were raised. On self-storage, as I said to the hon. Member for Croydon North, current regulations are focused on life safety and have been for many years. Pleasingly, the number of deaths and injuries in commercial fires is very low, but that does not mean to say that we should be complacent and should not consider the issue. We have called for evidence on the review of approved document B and therefore do not rule out any changes to commercial fire regulations in those circumstances as well.

Following Grenfell, all schools, colleges and universities have been contacted to tell them to carry out building checks. All schools have to follow a range of strict fire safety regulations, which are designed to ensure that schools are as safe as possible and extremely well prepared in the event of a fire. The Department for Education has conducted an exercise to review all its buildings and has taken action where necessary. We continue to work closely with the Department.

Tower Blocks: Dangerous Cladding

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is quite right to raise the interests of his constituents. I am not aware of the particular situation, but I am more than happy to investigate and write to him, as he requests.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is quite extraordinary that the Minister has just said that testing on non-ACM-clad buildings is about to start. There are around 340 high-rise buildings clad with non-ACM combustible materials, and more than 1,000 high-risk buildings. Will he guarantee, now, that those buildings—like Lakanal House, where six people died 10 years ago—will all be tested and treated in the same way as ACM-clad buildings?

[Kit Malthouse]

In considering what we should do about non-ACM cladding, we have been guided by the expert panel, which includes Dame Judith Hackitt, on how we should proceed, and we are proceeding on the panel’s best advice. As I said, we expect testing on non-ACM cladding to begin shortly, and the conclusions of that work will obviously colour what action is taken next.

Section 21 Evictions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ms Buck]

It is very much a concern. I will come on to retaliatory evictions in a minute when I talk about why we are concerned about the use of section 21 and the balancing alternatives.

Abolishing section 21, which my remarks are aimed at, would, in practice, make fixed-term tenancies irrelevant. I know that the Government are also interested in, and have consulted on, longer tenancies, in order to provide greater security in the private rented sector. Although I am sympathetic to that idea, I am increasingly of the view that, rather than adopt an arbitrary target for the length of tenancies, we should change the framework completely and ensure that the default is a longer tenancy, unless and until the landlord has a legitimate need to recover the property or if there is a fault on the part of the tenant. However, as I will remark later, that must be balanced with other changes that meet the legitimate concerns of landlords.

Why do we need to change this framework? A Conservative Government introduced section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 as part of a deregulatory approach to the housing sector, at a time when the private rented sector was in a very different place from now. It had been in long-term decline over a great many decades, and the Government felt that deregulation would be one way to boost it. Indeed, the sector has been utterly transformed from the landscape we saw 30 years ago, doubling to 4.7 million households. That is by no means solely the result of deregulation; the obvious decline in the social housing sector and the crisis in the affordability of home ownership are also important factors.

The sector also now has a very different profile, compared with a few decades ago. For many of us, renting was a transitional housing tenure. When starting out in life, many of us rented privately—I certainly did for several years—but often on the way to home ownership. Very few of us, particularly those who were bringing up families, expected or wanted to be in the private rented sector for life. However, we are now seeing a change in that profile, with four in 10 private renters now families with children. The recent Rugg review demonstrated that the private rented sector is also home to a growing proportion of highly vulnerable tenants who have been discharged into the private rented sector who would previously have been accommodated through the homelessness route. We are also seeing, inevitably, an increase in the number of older tenants who expect to live out their retirement in the private rented sector, which was extremely unusual at the time of the 1988 Act.

If the sector has changed beyond recognition, policy towards it must also change, to address some of the unforeseen consequences of those developments and to make sure that the sector works well and fairly for both tenants and landlords. A healthy rental sector is important for the housing mix, and it is important to acknowledge its flexibility, often as a starter accommodation. It is also absolutely essential to recognise that most landlords are good and responsible and provide a decent quality of accommodation.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right that most landlords are responsible, but that is not really the point. The point is that the 1988 Act, and section 21 in particular, allowed housing to become a commodity. Landlords can simply treat it as an asset to be traded and sold to increase their profits or income. Housing has no structure as a home under that Act. That is the basic flaw.

[Ms Buck]

That is absolutely right. It is important to address the points from landlords. Having seen some of the concerns expressed by landlords in the social media commentary in the build-up to the debate, and having spoken at the Residential Landlords Association conference and at other conferences, one hears from landlords that they feel unfairly treated and tarred with the same brush as the rogue minority, which I think is probably fair. Unfortunately, the rogue minority bring down the sector as a whole. However, addressing section 21 is not about the behaviour of the small minority; it is about recognising that there is now a structural imbalance in tenancies that unexpectedly provide long-term homes for a much wider spectrum of society than was previously the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

That point is absolutely central to the argument, and I will come to it in a minute.

On the point about the behaviour of a minority of landlords not doing a great deal for the cause of the majority, there was also on social media the letting agent who said in respect of the payment of a tenant’s renewal fees:

“As far as I can see if the tenant doesn’t pay the renewal fee, DON’T renew the tenancy. Simples… You could always serve S21 and replace them.”

That cavalier attitude to security of tenure is completely unacceptable, but we have a legislative framework that allows a number of landlords to behave in that way. I say to people who are doing that, “Guys, you are really not helping your own cause or the cause of the business sector for private rented tenure, and I would advise you to think very carefully about the way you express yourselves.”

What has happened to the use of section 21 over time, and why do we need to consider our longer term approach? It is extremely hard to obtain accurate information from landlords about their use of section 21 notices, and the large majority of tenants who leave assured shorthold tenancies do so after the service of a notice without court proceedings. I think that in the private rented sector debate last week the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said—I believe this to be true, and have seen anecdotal evidence that it is true—that there are landlords who issue section 21s routinely at the end of a six-month period in order to be prepared for exercising those rights at the end of 12 months. That builds in to tenants’ experience instability of exactly the kind that hon. Members have mentioned today.

The actual number of section 21 notices served is unknowable. However, we know that in 2017 there were 21,439 possession claims under both section 8 and section 21 and 6,260 actual possessions, and a further 29,601 claims and 12,953 possessions under the accelerated procedure. That is a lot of uses of section 21.

We also know from Government homelessness statistics that the ending of a private tenancy on a no-fault basis has become the single largest cause of homelessness, currently representing more than half of all homelessness applications. That is critical. An analysis by Generation Rent claims that 92% of the rise in homelessness cases caused by the end of a private tenancy in London, which of course has the largest share, regionally, of national homelessness cases, can be explained by no-fault evictions. The figure is only slightly lower—88%—outside the capital.

[Andy Slaughter]

The major trauma, of course, is for the tenants being evicted, but there is also an impact on local authorities, because if a landlord is using the section 21 process—often the notices are served at the beginning of the tenancy as protective notices—they are simply using it as a way of regulating their business, knowing that if the tenant is in priority need, they will be picked up in some way by the local authority, which obviously puts additional costs on the taxpayer.

[Ms Buck]

Of course it does. As we have been discussing in the context of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, local authorities, because of the sheer pressure of homelessness applications, are also expecting tenants to wait until the court order has been issued and to wait until the bailiffs have been instructed and a date for the bailiffs to arrive has been received before they will consider the homelessness application. Landlords hate that, and one can understand exactly why—because of the insecurity about what happens to their rental payments. But the tenants absolutely loathe it and find it wholly traumatic to have to wait, often with their children, for the bailiffs to turn up before they can be rehoused by the local authority.

Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation last year found that the number of private tenants being evicted had risen by one fifth, that the overwhelming majority of the increase in possessions was driven by section 21, and that that was highly concentrated, with four out of five such repossessions being in London and the south-east, where rents are highest. It is precisely that concentration of section 21 use in certain areas correlating with the areas where market rents have risen most rapidly that I think is a real cause for concern.

The London boroughs identified by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation were all in the top 10 for the largest and fastest market rent increases from an initially low level. Although correlation must be treated cautiously, it is hard not to conclude that there is causation between increases in market rent levels and the use of section 21, whether that involves evicting tenants in rent arrears because of high rent levels, or evicting tenants in order to raise rents.

If anything, the flattening off of possession claims over the period 2015 to 2017—that has flattened from a period when it rose very steeply—has happened at a time when the private rental market has been under pressure from several other directions. It tends to reinforce the point that section 21 use reflects wider trends in relation to rents and that, crucially, we cannot stop worrying about it because there has been something of a flattening off in the last couple of years. If anything, now is the moment when we need to review the law, because if rents start picking up again, as over the longer term they almost certainly will, we will find that there will be a further acceleration in its use.

The Residential Landlords Association makes the case that its research shows that in half of all places where section 21 notices are served, that is because there is an alleged fault, such as rent arrears, but that argument is somewhat undermined by the local authority homelessness experience, because local authority acceptances of people who have been evicted from the private rented sector will happen only after there has been an inquiry into the cause of homelessness and it has been found that the homelessness is not a result of fault on the part of the tenant.

Homelessness is therefore a major factor in our wanting to reconsider the use of section 21, but it is of course only the sharp end of a much wider experience of insecurity. Unchosen ends of tenancies are disruptive, expensive and often traumatic for those involved. Having to make frequent moves, especially for families with children and for vulnerable and older tenants, is a deeply negative experience, even when it has not been imposed by a court order.

Shelter estimates that 27% of renters with children have moved three or more times in the past five years. That takes a toll on physical and mental wellbeing and on educational achievement. It also undermines communities and civic engagement. A very powerful case was made a few years ago by the Electoral Commission on the impact of high turnover and churn in the private rented sector. I know from my own casework, as I am sure all hon. Members do, just how distressing parents—it is not only parents, but it is parents in particular—find it to have to move around, changing schools and disrupting support networks. I could have chosen dozens of cases from my own case load to illustrate that point, but I have chosen the details of just one to read out— it is only a few paragraphs—with your permission, Mr Hollobone.

My constituent says:

“I have lived in this area for over 30 years. Due to overcrowding in our family home I was asked to leave in 2010, at which point I made a housing application to”

the local authority. They continue:

“The Council accepted a…duty and provided us with temporary accommodation in East London. We stayed in Dagenham for a short while before being lured back to Westminster by the Private Sector Team, reassuring us that this was a better option…When we signed a private tenancy we were promptly notified that the council has discharged its duty towards us because we have accepted private rent. We only rented for a year before the Housing Benefit was reduced under the new welfare reforms. As we could no longer afford the rent, we were obliged to find alternative accommodation”.

Despite their need for three-bedroom accommodation, they moved into two-bedroom accommodation. The council said that it

“could not and would not help us. I have a local connection as I have my family here. I look after my elderly father”,

who has cancer.

“I have 3 dependent children…attending local schools. I sit on the board of governors and play an active role in the…running of the school. I am…a member of the Parent Council.”

My constituent says that they are

“employed…and have served 18 years”

in their job in the local area. They say they have been served another

“Section 21 Notice by the landlords Agents requiring possession of the flat on 02^nd October.”

That will be the family’s fifth move in eight years. It is a simple example. It involves no fault, no arrears, no bad behaviour on the part of the tenants, but an imposed move of a vulnerable local family, and it is only too typical.

Renting privately is overall less secure than other tenures. Some 860,000 tenants moved between private rentals in 2016, up from 465,000 20 years ago, and one in 10 movers said that their move was down to being given notice by their landlord.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) talked about retaliatory eviction. A significant minority of tenants fear retaliatory eviction if they make a complaint and so may be deterred from pursuing their rights for fear of the consequences. That unfortunately undermines efforts to improve standards in the private rented sector, despite its having, of all tenures, the highest level of substandard accommodation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

That is absolutely right.

[Andy Slaughter]

To add to that interesting argument, section 21 has been abolished in Scotland, which is a different jurisdiction and a different housing market, and has been replaced by a regime in which there are mandatory and discretionary grounds for possession. As I understand it, the objections from many landlords are about the complexity and the expense of the court process as much as anything. It is quite a difficult argument to put forward—although I am sure that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) would do it well—that it is simply too difficult for landlords and it should be unrestricted for that reason.

[Ms Buck]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. Certainly the landlord associations and landlords make the argument that the court process takes too long and is too complicated and, in many cases, too expensive for them to operate. I am unconvinced by that argument, because the figures that the landlord associations have put forward for the period of waiting for a court date or until a warrant can be issued are significantly different from the figures that the Library has provided for the debate. I am not sure that the associations are not using a different definition of average to make their case.

Obviously, once a landlord has decided that they want to recover a property, they will want to do so as quickly as possibly—that is inevitable—but whether the period that landlords have to wait and the quality of evidence that they have to provide if they are seeking a fault-based eviction should be lowered to make it easier for them, to the point where it effectively allows them to act without due regard for the rights of tenants, is a highly moot point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, more than ever when we have the luxury of time—such a rare event in this place.

[Lyn Brown]

If I had known, I would have brought my casework.

[Andy Slaughter]

Settle down, everyone. I do not need to speak for very long, because my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) has done the heavy lifting for us by clearly setting out why section 21 should be banished. She has even persuaded Members from the Government Benches; let us hope that she has persuaded the Minister. I am sure that we will listen carefully to what the Minister has to say on this issue, having heard those arguments.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) for his speech, because the property market in his constituency is very different from that which we experience in London. Quite rightly, a lot of attention is focused on London because it is a hothouse of a market. Exploitation of tenants for financial reasons has certainly been very much on the increase with house price rises, but he correctly points out that that is a problem across the country. In some ways, we are lucky in London, in that properties tend to be valued and perhaps kept in a better state of repair. What one does not tend to see now, because the properties are such valuable commodities, is whole areas that have fallen into disuse.

On 15 January next year—just over a month’s time—it will be 30 years since the Housing Act 1988 came into effect. Assured shorthold tenancies are now, as was anticipated under the Act, the major form of tenancy in the private sector. That is not something we need to celebrate. I became a councillor in 1986 before the Act came into effect, and that was probably when I first started to get involved in tenancy matters and tenants’ rights, but it was probably not until I became a housing law practitioner from 1993 onwards that I fully understood just how dramatic a change had been wrought on the private rented market. It was quite an audacious piece of legislation. That was appreciated by practitioners and experts—there was quite a lot of fuss about the 1988 Act at the time—but it probably did not register so much with politicians or tenants, although it possibly did with landlords, just what a change we had made.

Perhaps the best way I can illustrate that change is from what I found by googling “protected tenancies”. Most tenancies before the 1988 Act would have been some form of regulated tenancy. That was the case for decades before, but many would have been protected tenancies under the Rent Act 1977. The first thing that came up when I googled “protected tenancies” was the Landlord Law Blog. I read from it not to be sarcastic—perish the thought—but because it gives insight into how landlords view assured shorthold tenancies. The post is titled, “Three ways to recognise a protected tenancy under the Rent Act 1977 (And avoid buying a property with a tenant you can’t evict)”. It states:

“If you work in property, particularly if you are an investor, it is important that you are able to recognise a protected tenancy when you see one.

Why? Because protected tenants have long term security of tenure.

This means that you will not normally be able to evict them if you want vacant possession. Not unless you are able to provide another property for them to live in. And even then, only if it is considered ‘suitable’…The main effects of this are…The tenant can register a ‘fair rent’ which is then the only rent the landlord is allowed to charge…The tenant can normally only be evicted if he is in arrears of rent (sometimes) or if the landlord is able to provide ‘suitable alternative accommodation’, and”—

shock horror!—

“If the tenant has a spouse or family member living with them at the time of their death, they will inherit either another protected tenancy (if they are a spouse) or an assured tenancy (which also has long term security of tenure!)

The effect of all this is that you are stuck with a tenant who you cannot evict and who is usually entitled to pay a rent which is considerably lower than the market rent you could have charged had the property been an AST.

So how can you recognise when a property is being sold with a protected tenant?

Here are three tips for recognising protected tenancies.

1. The property is being sold for a low price…2. No tenancy agreement is available…3. Check the Valuation Office rent register”

to see whether a fair rent has been registered.

What could be worse than for a landlord to end up with a tenant who has protected rights? That was the norm, however, prior to the 1988 Act. Most tenants would have rights of that kind: rights of succession, rights to a fair rent and rights to be shown cause before eviction took place. In many ways, a private sector tenancy had more in common with a social tenancy than with an assured shorthold tenancy now. The irony is that the rights of social tenants have been substantially weakened under Conservative Governments, both in terms of so-called affordable rents, which generally are not affordable, and in terms of the end of lifetime tenancies or fixed-term tenancies. Actually, social tenancies have gravitated towards that lack of security and affordability at the same time as they have declined as part of the housing sector.

I make those observations not to suggest that we simply repeal the 1988 Act and go back to the pre-Act regime, but to point out that it is within living memory —it is within my memory of my time as an elected representative—that that was the norm. Indeed, I am sure that other Members will still have protected tenants coming to them. It is very few now, obviously, because we are 30 years on, but it is usually about landlords trying to get rid of them to maximise the value of the property for sale or rent. The majority of our casework will be for social tenants or private sector tenants who are living in poor conditions or are subject to eviction because they have no security, but it is always interesting to look at the cases of protected tenants.

It puzzles me why we did not notice the fundamental change that the 1988 Act made to the way the housing market operated. One reason, which my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North alluded to, is that the private rented market was very different 30 years ago. I suspect that the Government knew what they were doing in legislating to shift the balance of power wholly in favour of landlords. The balance had always been that way to some extent, but then it became massively so. One reason that was not noticed was that the private sector had got itself a bad name, partly for the conditions, but partly because it was no longer seen as desirable as compared with owner-occupation or a social tenancy with a council or a housing association. In 1988, 9% of homes were in the private rented sector in England. That has more than doubled to 20%. That is mainly accounted for by a decline in social tenancies across England. If one looks at London specifically, it is even more dramatic. The best figures I have are census figures. In 1991, 14% of homes were privately rented, and that is now 30%. Again, it has more than doubled. Interestingly, there has been a decline in owner-occupation from 57% to 48% and in social rent from 29% to 22% over that period.

For my borough of Hammersmith, the situation is different again. Again, the most recent figures I can get are census figures from 2011, but I am not sure things have changed much since then. A third of properties are private rented, a third are owner-occupied and a third are social tenancies. There has been a significant decline in owner-occupation and a significant increase in private rented from 23% to 32% over that 20-year period. That is a massive change in how the housing market operates. I suspect therefore that the sort of people who become private tenants now are different, too. I am not saying that having no security of tenure is good for anyone, but when, predominantly, those in private tenancies were those who would have chosen short-term rents—perhaps students or people waiting to buy properties—it was clearly less traumatic to be asked by a landlord to leave in a set period than it is for a family who want to stay and live in that area. Increasingly, it is families who are occupying private rented accommodation.

What has also changed is where someone then goes. One of the worst things that the coalition Government did—I apologise to my Lib Dem friend over there, the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), but we have to remember the Liberal Democrats’ complicity in all these matters at all times—was to introduce a duty to permanently discharge into the private sector those in housing need. That means that many families now have no expectation of ever getting a social tenancy. They are therefore at the mercy of a private landlord who may evict them. If they are still in priority need, they will go back to the local authority and ask to be rehoused. Due to benefit cuts and caps, that may be impossible in that area, and they may be moved a long way away. In any case, the process of recycling tenancies and moving on will occur on a regular basis.

[Lyn Brown]

Does my hon. Friend find in his constituency, as I do in mine, that by the time families get their social tenancy or council property they have often waited so long that the children are about to leave home?

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is right. It is almost tormenting people, and these are the people in a preferential situation—in temporary accommodation rather than permanently discharged to the private rented sector. They may have been waiting 10 years, and just as they are getting ready to receive their one offer of accommodation—

[Lyn Brown]

Take it or leave it.

[Andy Slaughter]

Yes, take it or leave it. At that point, one of the children turns 18 and is not in full-time education. Suddenly the family is either told, “You can have a two-bedroom flat rather than the three of four-bedroom property that you need,” or, “Sorry—you’re not in priority need at all any more.” It is extraordinary that whole generations have had to grow up in wholly inadequate housing and temporary accommodation.

My hon. Friend has tempted me to digress, so I will give just one example. Many boroughs and housing associations use the locator scheme, which is the bidding scheme. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not, but something extraordinary happened in my borough. When the Conservatives took control of the council—I am pleased to say only temporarily—they simply abolished the waiting list. Having decided that they did not want to build any more affordable homes—indeed, they started selling off and demolishing the ones that we had—there was obviously a difficulty in rehousing people, so the waiting list and the locator scheme were abolished.

Suddenly, 10,000 people were no longer in line to be accommodated at all. Once the borough came to its senses and returned to Labour control, the list was opened again, but what happened created a hiatus of several years in people’s lives that they will never recover. In addition to the long waiting periods that people face in any event, they were not on a waiting list of any kind during perhaps the prime years when their children were growing up and going to secondary school. Again, many of them are languishing in over- crowded accommodation or unsuitable private rented accommodation.

I do not want to paint a rosy picture of the world in the 1980s. I remember some dreadful, terrible private-sector accommodation then, but at least there was sometimes redress. When local authorities were better resourced, there were housing action areas, so we could go mob-handed, if I can put it that way, into a particular ward with environmental health officers and housing advisers. Also, legal aid was still available—actually, they were quite good days now I come to think about it.

If private landlords took the mickey in terms of the conditions their tenants were in or the way in which they treated their tenants, enforcement action could be taken. How different the situation is now, as evidenced by the fact that the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North—the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill—is necessary to give tenants that power, because often local authorities are no longer able to take such action.

[Liz Twist]

Does that not remind us that, although the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill is a positive move, another essential part of protecting tenants and ensuring that they live in good conditions is giving them the right not to face retaliatory convictions and the right to raise their concerns without being evicted under section 21? It is therefore essential that section 21 is removed.

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is right. We tend, rightly, to focus on bad landlords. I think we all agree that they are a minority, but there is some shocking practice out there. That is nothing new—some of us can still remember the age of Hoogstraten and Rachman. However, I do not think that that is what the debate is primarily about. As I said in my intervention, it is about changing the climate in the private rented sector for good and bad landlords. It is about changing the way in which the private rented sector operates, which is long overdue.

I am often asked to act both for landlords and for tenants in relation to assured shorthold tenancies. A whole industry grew up, partly fuelled by the excellent housing columns in the magazine Legal Action by their honours Nic Madge, who recently retired, and Jan Luba, who is still a sitting judge. Systematically, over many years, they indicated all the areas of housing law where practice was changing and precedents were being set in the higher and lower courts.

A whole industry developed around section 21 notices, which are actually quite difficult to get right. Landlords who think that they can do it themselves often get them wrong. Although they cannot be challenged on the basis that it is a no-fault eviction—the tenant has been a model tenant, and all the other things that we have heard—they can be challenged if they have got it wrong procedurally. Often they have, but it does not get found out.

That should be spotted, frankly, by the judge, even if they are looking at the case on paper—the accelerated procedure for section 21 notices means that often such matters are not heard in court at all. Without the benefit of legal aid and legal advice, it is difficult to expect the tenant to know the process, but often the landlord does not either and it is, in fact, defective. However, it is an indictment of the way in which the housing market runs if we are reliant on catching landlords out on such procedural matters to give people security.

[Ms Buck]

Is it not also the case that, because tenants do not necessarily know their rights or have access to advice, many people leave their properties, and a much larger number of people feel that they have to, upon the issuing of a section 21 notice, before it goes to court, or at the point of receiving a warrant? They then find themselves judged by the local authority to be intentionally homeless because they did not stay until they were required to leave.

[Andy Slaughter]

I know that my hon. Friend is, like me, a great rooter around inside plastic carrier bags when they are brought into her surgery. Often one can find, among many other papers, half a dozen possession notices. Social landlords are better at this—or worse, depending on how one looks at the matter—because they often rather lazily issue notices seeking possession with no intention of pursuing them, the only purpose perhaps being to terrify the tenant. However, private landlords do it as well. They will issue section 21 notices like confetti, either as protective notices, or to try to scare the tenant off or something of that kind.

Although my hon. Friend is right that the advice should always be to stay put, to try to get what legal advice is available and to talk to the local authority housing adviser, one thing that the landlord will say is, “If you don’t go now, there will be costs when, at the end of the two-month period, I issue proceedings, or after that when I issue the bailiff notice, and you’ll have to pay them. It will be several hundred pounds at least, and if you challenge, or attempt to challenge, the action it could be more than that.”

[Lyn Brown]

I hate to extend my hon. Friend’s peroration because I am desperate to get in myself, but he reminds me of a constituency case in which a woman who had learning difficulties, whose son was magnificently supported by a local school, was being terrified by the landlord about her eviction. She left on the date that he told her. The council then had the issue of intentionality, and she has ended up, because she just could not cope with the stress, in a small village outside Bradford, and her little boy is simply not getting support. Had I known that we were going to have a long debate today, I would have brought every single one of those cases to lay before the Minister. Some of the stories that we hear, and know to be true, are just appalling.

[Andy Slaughter]

If my hon. Friend wants to pop back to her office, I can keep things going until she comes back.

[Lyn Brown]

I have no doubt about that.

[Andy Slaughter]

What my hon. Friend says is absolutely true: tenants are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they leave too early, they can be criticised by the local authority; if they leave too late, apart from the cost risk, they may find that time has literally run out. Increasingly, tenants are coming to me and saying that they have been evicted and lost their belongings, which were in the property after the bailiffs arrived, and that they and their children are sleeping on somebody’s floor, sofa-surfing or in wholly inadequate hostel accommodation and being moved on night by night. My council acts as responsibly as it can to try to keep families together and ensure that people are rehoused in the borough or as close to it as possible, but as we all know, schooling, employment, support networks and caring responsibilities are all disrupted by the process—that is very common now.

I hope that nobody here has experienced eviction at first hand, but I am sure we have all met many constituents who have. It is one of the most traumatic things that someone can go through. The humiliation, the cost, the uncertainty, the rejection—the whole process is just appalling, and it is now accelerating as a consequence of simple greed or commercial practice. Unfortunately, with the growth of buy-to-let and temptation in the private rented market, rents are escalating at a huge rate.

Only the other day, we were talking about the difficulty of building affordable homes. I am proud to say that my local authority is now building 1,500 new affordable homes, rather than knocking them down as it did when it was Conservative. However, the rent for a new social rented home is about 20% of the market rate, which means that building it requires a huge subsidy, which is very difficult to obtain. [Interruption.] I can hear the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) tutting, but he knows that that will just encourage me.

In 2010, all the support for subsidy for social rented homes was removed, so it is no wonder that there has been a huge decline in availability and more reliance on the private rented sector. There is a fourfold or fivefold discrepancy in rent levels and landlords are being tempted to increase their income substantially simply by evicting tenants and replacing them with others. Alternatively, they may be thinking, “I don’t want to make more of a profit than I make already, but with benefit caps and restrictions on the rent that the tenant can pay”—given London rents, tenants will inevitably be partially reliant on housing benefit, even if they are working full-time—“I cannot afford to rent to them any more, so I’m evicting them.”

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Gentleman knows how fond I am of him and his remarks, but his slightly party political point tempts me to intervene. This debate is about whether it is right to update the 1988 legislation. Does he accept that his party was in power between 1997 and 2010 but declined to do so? Does he agree that we ought to consider the matter in a more cross-party, consensual and reasonable way, rather than drawing party political points? [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) is shaking her head, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that this need not be too partisan an issue?

[Melanie Onn]

You’re in the minority here—you should be careful!

[Andy Slaughter]

I thought I was making one of my most conciliatory speeches in the past 13 years. I am sure that when the hon. Member for Cheltenham hears from our Front Bench, a lot more of the Rottweiler tendency will be on show.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy Slaughter]

In a moment.

I should not look a gift horse in the mouth, because the hon. Member for Cheltenham has come here to be conciliatory and supportive, so I will move on. Although I regard Labour Governments as scrupulously honest, fair and absolutely on the ball in many respects, I agree that there are one or two aspects of housing that past Labour Governments have not got 100% right. Shall we leave it at that?

[Sir Graham Brady in the Chair]

I think there is now a realisation that things have shifted too far in one direction. There is a willingness to look at the issue again and to effect change, whether through rent-to-buy schemes, which are a big part of the Mayor of London’s platform, through longer-term tenancies or through wholesale reform, as has happened in other jurisdictions within the United Kingdom—Scotland is the example that we have used. Labour party policy has moved on beneficially, not least since I was sacked as shadow Minister last year and somebody far more radical and impressive has taken over.

[Lyn Brown]

And less long-winded!

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

We live in hope.

[Andy Slaughter]

We will hear from the new shadow Minister in a moment, but I hope she will not take it amiss if I say that I am particularly looking forward to hearing what the Minister has to say and finding out how far policy has moved on within the Government—not just on the rabble-rousing Conservative Back Benches where the hon. Member for Cheltenham sits with the radical, provisional wing of the Conservative party.

Can the Minister give us some indication that the issues of balance and no-fault eviction are understood? May we look forward to some beneficial changes that give security to families, particularly in high rent areas, but also—as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Easington—across the country? Those changes are long overdue. Whatever the merits or demerits of the 1988 Act, it is time we took another comprehensive look at housing legislation and redressed some of the obvious unfairness in the private rented sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing the debate and thank all those who have made wonderful contributions today for their interesting stories from across the country, which tug at the heartstrings.

This is an important issue and I am glad to be able to respond to some of the concerns raised. We are committed to rebalancing the relationship between tenants and landlords, to deliver a fairer, better-quality and more affordable private rented sector. The sector plays a pivotal role in providing homes across the country and is an integral element of the Government’s approach to making the housing market work for everyone.

On the specific points made by the hon. Members for Westminster North and for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on section 21, the legal framework underpinning the private rented sector works to build a fair and robust private rented sector that protects tenants, supports landlords and empowers local authorities to deliver a healthy rental sector. The Government provide support to landlords and tenants to navigate the legislative landscape and have recently updated the “How to Rent” guides that offer comprehensive guidance and signposting to relevant resources. The Government are committed to providing practical guidance to relevant agencies and local authorities when new legislation is created.

Interestingly, according to the most recent English housing survey, 84% of private renters were satisfied with their current accommodation, and two thirds were either very satisfied or fairly satisfied with their current tenure. However, we also recognise that many tenants feel insecure and that their house is not their home because they are on short initial fixed-term tenancies of six to 12 months. We are committed to improving security for tenants.

Section 21 provisions provide an important guarantee to landlords that they will always be able to get their property back at the end of the tenancy. The flexibility for landlords and mortgage providers to recover their asset if they need to is crucial to retaining investment and supply in the sector, including the availability of buy-to-let mortgages. I want to make this point specifically in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who has had to leave us. There are clear legal protections for tenants and a clear process that landlords must follow when carrying out a section 21 eviction.

Outside the fixed-term tenancy period, a landlord can evict a tenant using a section 21 notice, but only when they have complied with certain legal obligations. Those include protecting their tenants’ deposit in a tenancy deposit scheme, providing a gas safety certificate, and also providing a copy of the Government’s “How to Rent” guide. If, in response to a complaint about property condition by a tenant, the local authority has served either an improvement notice or a notice of emergency remedial action, a landlord cannot evict a tenant using a section 21 notice for six months. Furthermore, under the Tenant Fees Bill, we propose that if a landlord charges a prohibited fee, they will not be able to serve a section 21 notice until those payments have been reimbursed.

The Government want to protect the rights of tenants and give them more security, but we must do so in a way that does not impact on the supply of good-quality rented accommodation.

[Andy Slaughter]

The Minister highlights important and hard-won preconditions for taking eviction proceedings, but that does not alter the fact that, in the generality of cases, we are talking about no-fault evictions. Opposition Members are anxious to hear what the Government will do about no-fault evictions. Do they still maintain that that is the right general approach or do they think that its day has come to be removed?

[Mrs Wheeler]

Fortunately, as we have so much time, I have an extremely long speech and the hon. Gentleman might be stunned to hear what I have to say. Or he may not.

Growing numbers of tenants are families or older people and the Government are firmly committed to helping them. The measures announced in the housing White Paper mean that most tenants in the build-to-rent sector are now being offered tenancies of a minimum of three years. We recently consulted on overcoming the barriers to longer tenancies in the private rented sector. We sought views on a three-year longer tenancy model with a six-month break clause and asked for views on its viability and how it can be implemented. The consultation closed at the end of August and we are now analysing responses.

A three-year tenancy is one option. However, we have not made any policy decisions regarding tenancy length, whether to change the legislation on section 21 evictions or how our proposed model could be implemented. We are considering the consultation responses fully before making any policy decisions and will set out next steps shortly. In the meantime, for tenants who want a longer tenancy, we have published a model tenancy agreement that landlords and tenants can choose to use as the basis for longer, family-friendly tenancies. We have also published “How to Rent” and “How to Let” guides for tenants and landlords to support them in understanding their rights and responsibilities.

To answer some of the points made by the hon. Members for Westminster North and for Easington (Grahame Morris), the Government recognise the important role that private landlords play in supporting the UK economy and in providing homes to millions of people across the country. We recognise that in order to continue to offer housing, landlords need the flexibility to be able to get their property back quickly when circumstances change. Without those assurances, landlords would be less willing to enter and stay in the market, which does not help tenants.

We recognise that some landlords have concerns about the section 8 eviction process and instead use the section 21 accelerated procedure. We are keen to understand those concerns, and last month, on 13 November, we launched a call for evidence to better understand the experience of courts and tribunal service users in property cases. The call for evidence seeks views from members of the judiciary, landlords and tenants on the private landlord possession action process in the county court and the case for structural changes, such as an extension to the remit of the property tribunal or a new housing court.

There have been calls from hon. Members here today to abolish section 21 evictions. As I have said, we have not yet made any firm policy decisions on whether to legislate to alter the provisions set out in section 21. We first want to consider carefully the responses to the call for evidence on user experience of the courts.

Homes (Fitness for Habitation) Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

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

[Ms Buck]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend on that. It is also fair to say that the majority of good landlords are happy to endorse that view, because their reputation is dragged down by the behaviour of the rogue minority.

The Bill is not intended as a replacement for the work of local authorities but is complementary to it, enabling tenants to take action where the council has not done so or cannot do so. For all new tenancies after the Bill comes into force, it would make it a right to have a home that did not create a risk to the health and safety of its occupants. As the excellent House of Commons Library briefing on the Bill says:

“The Grenfell Tower fire has focused attention on housing standards in the social rented stock and also in privately owned blocks of flats.”

So I am also pleased to say that the Bill was amended in Committee, with the support of the Government, to extend the fitness obligation to the building within which the dwelling forms part. So the tenant of a flat, a room or part of a shared house will be able to enforce against defects, including fire risks, that threaten their health or wellbeing in their home, even if the defect is in another part of the building.

It has been marvellous to have secured Government backing for this Bill, even to the point of strengthening it. We have had support from across the spectrum. It has come from bodies ranging from the National Landlords Association and the Residential Landlords Association, to the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health—CIEH—the Association of Residential Letting Agents, Shelter, Generation Rent, the Law Society, Mind, the National Housing Federation, the Local Government Association, Citizens Advice and others.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I am delighted to say that the Government have now got behind the Bill, as that is very welcome. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would also be useful if they gave more security to private tenants, because that is necessary to ensure that they are not evicted as a result of reporting faults, and if they restored early legal advice for housing matters, because without that it is going to be difficult to enforce this?

[Ms Buck]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend on that. This Bill is one tool and there are many others we need to adopt to ensure that tenants have a full range of rights and, indeed, are protected against retaliatory eviction. That is outwith the scope of this Bill, but there is much more we will seek to do and will no doubt be pressing the Government to do, on matters ranging from security of tenure protection to the provision of legal aid and advice services

I have always believed that politics is a collective effort. For most of us, most of the time, what we do in here is part of a team effort. Although that can sometimes drift into tribalism, there is no shame in the fact that politics is not primarily about what we do as individuals. Private Members’ Bills are one of the few ways in which we, as individual Back-Bench MPs, can make a difference, but in truth this, too, has been a team effort. I am grateful to the Minister and to the officials, who have been brilliant; it has been a joy working with them on this Bill. I also thank all the MPs, from both sides of the House, who spoke on Second Reading, who served in Committee and who are here today to see us through Third Reading.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

As my hon. Friend will know, it is difficult for me to comment on issues in respect of individual planning applications because of the quasi-judicial function of Ministers, but I note his comments.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Half of the residents made homeless in the Grenfell Tower fire are still in temporary accommodation. Is the Secretary of State embarrassed by that? If he is not, why did he sneak out at the end of last week two pages of waffle on Grenfell as a written ministerial statement, instead of making an oral statement to the House when his predecessor said that we would be kept updated in that way?

[James Brokenshire]

We have sought to update the House on a regular basis on the progress in seeing that those involved in the Grenfell Tower disaster are rehoused. Two hundred households have accepted temporary or permanent accommodation, and I can say that 97 households have now moved into permanent accommodation. I want to see this speeded up and I want to see progress being made, because it is important that those families are in permanent accommodation and the homes that they deserve.

Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I rise to add my congratulations and thanks to my hon. Friend, who has not only championed the Bill but, as the MP for Westminster North, has championed the rights of private tenants over a long period.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter]

Obviously, that is what the Bill is about. Does the Minister agree that the Government also have a role to play, either by ensuring that tenants have the resources to be able to enforce their rights, as several hon. Members have said, or by looking at how local authorities and others use the private rented sector? We have seen accommodation procured that is not fit for purpose, even with the Grenfell replacement accommodation. There has been outsourcing. In the time that I have been involved with this issue, we have gone from people in bad private rented accommodation waiting to go into council flats to people who would have expected to go into council flats effectively being put into the private rented sector in substandard accommodation. I hope the Government will also look at that as part of this exercise.

[Mrs Wheeler]

Indeed. Interestingly, when a tenant might take a landlord to court because of a hazard, we know that 75% of those hazards are visible, such as uneven floor surfaces, excess cold or damp and so on. Where a tenant has concerns, they should ask the local authority to inspect and determine what level of hazard it is. Bodies such as Citizens Advice and Shelter can also give advice on such matters.