Localism Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Doocey]

77: After Clause 170, insert the following new Clause—
“Statutory overcrowding: reform of overcrowding standard
(1) Part X of the Housing Act 1985 is amended as follows.
(2) For sections 324 to 332 substitute—
“324 Statutory overcrowding
A dwelling is overcrowded for the purposes of this Part when the number of persons sleeping in the dwelling is such as to contravene the standard specified in section 325 (the overcrowding standard).
325 Overcrowding standard
(1) The overcrowding standard is contravened when the number of rooms in a dwelling which are available as sleeping accommodation is smaller than the number specified in subsection (3), having regard to the number and description of persons who are ordinarily resident in the dwelling.
(2) For the purpose of calculating the number of rooms available as sleeping accommodation, no account shall be taken of a room which is of a type normally used in the locality as a living room or of a kitchen.
(3) The permitted numbers are specified in the table below.

Description of persons		Number of rooms
Two persons who are spouses or civil partners of each other (or who live together as husband and wife or as if civil partners)		1
Each other person over the age of 21		1
Any pair of children both aged under 10		1
Any pair of children or young persons of the same sex both aged under 21		1
Any child or young person under the age of 21 not included in any of the above categories.		1

(4) In applying the standard specified in subsection (3)—
(a) no account shall be taken of a room having a floor area of less than 50 square feet;(b) a room measuring 50 square feet or more but less than 70 square feet shall not be taken to be available for anyone other than one child under 10;(c) a room measuring more than 70 square feet but less than 90 square feet shall not be taken to be available for anyone other than one person of any age or two children under 10;(d) a room measuring more than 90 square feet but less than 110 square feet shall not be taken to be available for anyone other than one person of any age or two persons of whom at least one must be a child under 10; and(e) a room measuring 110 square feet shall be taken to be available for two persons of any age.(5) The Secretary of State may by regulations prescribe the manner in which the floor area of a room is to be ascertained for the purposes of this section; and the regulations may provide for the exclusion from computation of floor space in a part of the room which is less than a specified height not exceeding eight feet.
326 Notice to abate overcrowding
(1) Where a dwelling is found to contravene the overcrowding standard, the local housing authority may serve on the owner or manager of the dwelling notice in writing requiring him to take reasonable steps to abate the overcrowding within 28 days from the date of service of the notice.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), a person shall be considered to have taken reasonable steps to abate the overcrowding if he takes such steps as are necessary in law to recover possession of the dwelling or to reduce the number of persons in occupation of the dwelling or if he does any other act which in the opinion of the authority amounts to a reasonable response to the abatement notice.
(3) If, within the period of 28 days following service of an abatement notice under subsection (1), or within such further period as the local housing authority shall in its discretion allow, the owner or manager has not taken reasonable steps to abate the overcrowding, the authority may apply for an order to the county court.
(4) On an application by the local housing authority under subsection (3), the court may order that vacant possession of the dwelling or part of the dwelling be given to the landlord within such period as the court may determine.
(5) An order under subsection (4) may be stayed or suspended for such period and on such conditions as the court shall decide.
(6) In exercising its powers under subsection (4), the court shall have regard to the interests of any tenant or occupier of the premises, and in particular to the security of tenure of any protected or statutory tenant under the Rent Act 1977 or any assured tenant under the Housing Act 1988.
(7) Expenses incurred by the local housing authority under this section in securing possession of a dwelling may be recovered from the landlord or manager by action.
(8) Service of an abatement notice under subsection (1) shall not prevent the authority from serving a prohibition order under section 20 of the Housing Act 2004.”
(3) Omit sections 335 to 344.”

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the London Assembly and the Metropolitan Police Authority.

This amendment seeks to deal with the nature and extent of overcrowding and to highlight why the present law is inadequate and needs reform. Overcrowding is an invisible problem compared with homelessness and rough sleeping. Consequently, it tends to be viewed as less of a priority. But overcrowding has a serious impact on children, especially their health and educational attainment, and it disproportionately affects larger households.

Overcrowding is a major problem in London. In 2008 London had more than 200,000 overcrowded households, almost 7 per cent of London’s homes. That was an increase of one-third over the previous decade. About half of these overcrowded households are in the social rented sector; overcrowding is worse in that sector than in any other form of tenure. London has over 40 per cent of England’s overcrowded households in the social rented sector, and nearly 400,000 London children live in overcrowded conditions. The overcrowding rate for black and minority ethnic households in London is about four times that for white British households.

There is no doubt that overcrowding is largely a consequence of housing supply shortage. Therefore this amendment is not a complete solution to overcrowding. For that, we need to build many more homes and, in particular, larger family homes. But this amendment is intended to deal with the abuse of the existing housing stock.

Breaching legal overcrowding standards is a criminal offence, but the official definition of overcrowding has survived unchanged since 1935 and is seriously outdated. Relatively few households are legally overcrowded even though some people have to sleep in living rooms and kitchens. There is little incentive for local authorities to tackle the problem if the law is not actually being broken. This amendment meets the need to provide an updated definition of statutory overcrowding based on the bedroom standard. This would realign the law with the actual problem and would therefore provide local authorities with an incentive to reduce overcrowding. Once there is a serious legal incentive in place for local authorities to tackle overcrowding, it may force them to reorder their priorities when it comes to housing allocation policies.

Overcrowding is a very serious issue. So if the Government are not minded to accept this amendment, perhaps my noble friend the Minister could outline what the Government propose to do to update the official definition of overcrowding, which has not changed for the last 75 years.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, even in your Lordships’ House there are not many of us who were around when these standards were laid down in 1935, as the noble Baroness has pointed out. Housing conditions in general have improved since those days, but she is quite right to draw attention to serious issues around overcrowding. They are not confined to London, although her figures show these issues are extremely problematic in the capital. She is also right to draw attention to the particular problems faced by some BME communities, many of whom have large families and find it difficult to secure accommodation which is adequate to house them.

I have every sympathy with the amendment. I note that the measurements are given in “old money”, when perhaps these days we should be looking at metric equivalents, but that is a trivial point. I am however somewhat at a loss as to how to respond to the Government’s response to the amendment. It seems to be based, to put it crudely, upon facile optimism about the effects of the measures that are being taken around the duties to deal with homelessness and, in particular, the use of flexible tenancies as a means by which, apparently by magic, accommodation of the appropriate size in the appropriate location will become available. The Minister for Housing assured us at a meeting a couple of days ago that he does not expect flexible tenancies to go much less than 10 years in duration, as opposed to the two years that was thought to be the benchmark. In his view—I hope he is correct—that will in fact constitute only a handful of cases. Given that, I cannot see how this measure is going to free up significant accommodation in general, let alone for this particular category.

It seems to us in the Opposition that the noble Baroness has touched on a key issue and the Government’s response thus far has not addressed it to any significant extent. Identifying the issue and improving the standards by which the question of overcrowding is to be judged does not in itself transform the situation, of course, but it would certainly allow housing authorities and the Government to have a better view of the reality of the situation.

I hope that the noble Baroness will not mind me quoting the example she gave in a conversation with me, of a recent case of a child sleeping in a bath which was deemed by the housing department to be acceptable because the child was in “a room”. It is extraordinary for this situation to be acceptable to a housing department in 2011. It could hardly have been acceptable in 1935. But statutorily it is acceptable, and she has other examples of that kind. This is extremely worrying and I am sure the Government would be horrified if there were found to be a significant number of such cases.

Strengthening the framework will allow a proper measurement to be taken of the degree to which this is an issue that needs to be addressed, and with a greater urgency than is likely to occur simply as a result of the other changes that the Government have made. I hope that the Minister will talk further with the noble Baroness to see how this can be improved and, beyond that, agree that this is an issue that should be pursued outside the context of this Bill as the Government look into housing policy generally.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I am quite disappointed with the Minister’s response. I find it astonishing that the Minister is arguing that a law that was put in place 75 years ago that allows people to sleep in kitchens and living rooms and still not legally be classed as overcrowded does not need reform. I find that very, very difficult to understand. I take note of the various things he has said about how the new system will work. I am perhaps not as convinced as he is that it will free up all of the accommodation, and one reason is that until councils have a legal duty to do something about families in overcrowded conditions, I cannot see that they are going to treat this as a priority. Would the Minister be willing to meet me to discuss this in a bit more detail? If that were the case I would be happy to withdraw the amendment at this stage.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Yes, I think we have made it quite clear that in our view this Bill is not the place to be putting this particular amendment. I have given an indication that new advice and guidelines are perhaps forthcoming. If my noble friend would find it useful to talk to officials about this matter before those guidelines are issued, I hope that she would be happy to participate in that discussion.

[Baroness Doocey]

Thank you. On that basis I withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 77 withdrawn.