Tenant Fees Bill

Baroness McDonagh Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McDonagh (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Tenant Fees Bill, as I welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement at the Conservative Party conference to lift the cap on housebuilding imposed by the previous Conservative Prime Minister in 2012. However, while welcoming the Bill, having read it, I see that it does not live up to its promise. It feels as though someone who understands the issues wrote the first half of the Bill and somebody else, who does not understand the issues, came along and put in so many exclusions that they negate what the Government are trying to achieve. I am therefore disappointed that, when we come to Committee, we will be in Grand Committee, which reduces our ability to amend—and this Bill needs amendment.

Let me give noble Lords a recent example of what tenants face. I appreciate that the tenants in this example would not be protected by such a Bill, as the actions involved are illegal. Two Sundays ago, the Member of Parliament for the community in which I live—here I declare an interest, as she is also my sister—was canvassing with her team. She received many complaints from local residents about the number of black bags on the streets. They identified the rubbish as coming from a commercial office block. The intrepid canvassers and said MP knocked on the door of the office block only to find that it was full of tenants: each office had a family in it. As there were no cookers in the offices, each office had a hotplate, and the families were using the ladies and gents toilets. These tenants did not have tenancy agreements but licences. I am very nervous about the number of landlords now creating licences, allowing them to subvert a lot of the regulations we are putting in place.

The families in that block were being charged £1,100 per month for each office space, completely unlawfully. But why did they take that accommodation? They took it because they were absolutely desperate. Having heard that story, if noble Lords reread the exclusions in the Bill, would those same tenants be able to argue their case? I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger. Many hundreds of thousands of landlords in this country are perfectly reasonable and do a good job, and we are talking about hundreds of thousands—one in five people over 65 now own a second property that they rent out. The Bill is about rogue landlords. If you behave well, you have nothing to fear from it.

What sorts of things did I hope to find in the Bill? First, six weeks is too long for a deposit. I ask the Government to think again about that, particularly in London and the south-east. In the community where I live, a property that would house a mum, dad and two children would easily cost a minimum of £2,000 a month. People looking for that housing are largely on minimum-wage jobs. We are talking about a £3,000 deposit. I ask the Government to consider either reducing that to four weeks or putting a financial cap on the amount that can be charged.

Secondly, I would expect to see normal consumer protection. An example would be a cooling-off period for tenants. There is no provision for that in the Tenant Fees Bill. It is wrong that you have greater protection if you buy a telecommunications package, digital television or washing machine than a home.

When the Minister replies, I would like some clarification on some of these exclusions. Schedule 2(8) to the Bill states:

“The landlord is reasonably entitled to take into account the difference between the information provided by the tenant and the correct information in deciding whether to grant a tenancy to the tenant”.


If the landlord sees that those two pieces of information are different, they do not have to give back the holding deposit. How can the landlord be judge and jury of that?

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I gently draw the noble Baroness’s attention to what the Companion says. Any speaker in the gap is expected to be brief and speak for no longer than four minutes.

[Baroness McDonagh]

I apologise to the Minister. I will finish with those points about exclusion. Each exclusion clause is written in defence of the landlord, not of the tenant. There is no process for tenants to complain.