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

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Eddie Hughes

Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

I completely endorse the hon. Gentleman’s comments. The YMCA took people from 16 years of age—sometimes previously looked-after children—and it was incredibly important that the accommodation was of the highest standard. I am grateful to the HCA for giving the YMCA the money to do that.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Gentleman also accept that a safe and secure environment should mean having carbon monoxide detectors in accommodation, for which he and I have campaigned for many months? It is a high priority that people not die from that silent killer.

[Eddie Hughes]

I completely endorse those comments. As the hon. Gentleman says, carbon monoxide is a silent killer—you cannot see it, smell it or taste it—so the best protection is to install an audible carbon monoxide detector. I thank him for his endorsement—I think that is what it was—of my Bill.

The HCA has given the YMCA £1 million to build new-build accommodation at the site in Erdington. When I was working on that project, I was approached by one of our tenants, who asked that I try to find him employment on the building site, which I did. I offered my support, and the company arranging the construction offered considerable support as well, and then all of a sudden that tenant disappeared. He did not turn up for work for a few days, and when I went to see him in his room, I found he had had some mental health problems and had smashed up his room completely, causing considerable damage. That brings me to one of the exemptions in the Bill. Clearly, in such a situation, the circumstances of the case are different: it is not that the landlord has not maintained the property appropriately, but that the tenant has not lived in the property appropriately. It is not necessarily the case that the landlord is not maintaining the property properly; sometimes it is that the tenant has not treated the property appropriately.

Finally, I would like to move on to my tenure as chair of the board of Walsall Housing Group. It is a housing association with 20,000 homes, so clearly it has the facilities and money to maintain its stock properly, but at any given time up to 10 of those properties might not have a current gas certificate. That is not because we have not been diligent in ensuring there is a certificate for the property, but because we have not been able to get access to that property. Sometimes, the only way is to seek legal access, which can take many months and costs thousands and thousands of pounds. I heard of a case this morning: the tenant is in prison, yet we still cannot gain access to the property to service the boiler because the courts are saying we need to consider further action. It is possible to be a completely diligent landlord, and still be unable to maintain a property to the expected standard.

I know, then, from my broad range of experience that landlords often do their best to maintain a property in a fit and proper state, but sometimes that is not the case, and when it is not the case, we need legislation that protects tenants. Tenant safety is a very high priority for this Government, as we have seen in the work carried out since Grenfell, and we will continue to deliver on that. For my part, in all the various guises of my landlord responsibilities, I will continue to discharge my duties as well.