Housing and Planning Bill

Angela Watkinson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

In welcoming this large and excellent Bill, I thank the Secretary of State, who fell short of accepting my new clause 5, but who has agreed to set up a working party to look into why so few local authorities use the powers that are available to them to collect tenure information via their council tax application forms. I believe that the information so collected would be extremely helpful to local authorities and tenants in identifying rogue landlords and letting agents, as well as housing benefit fraud, unregulated houses in multiple occupation, environmental health issues and other parts of the housing and planning function. I look forward to the working group making progress to ensure that those powers are exercised consistently across all local authorities.