Consumer Rights Bill

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

Many people feel that because they are buying a ticket online they are not engaging in behaviour that is associated with a criminal activity, but few of the people who would buy a ticket online would speak to a ticket tout in the street outside a venue and buy a ticket off them. Therefore, part of this may be about educating people so that they understand that when they are buying these tickets online, they are helping some people who are often engaged in criminal activity and they are also working with a group of organisations that are not putting money back into the film and music industries. I am not able to support these new clauses. Although I agree with the spirit of them, I do not feel they would do enough to eradicate the scourge of ticket touts.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I rise to support new clause 22 which is an important first step in addressing a private rented sector into which many hundreds of thousands of people who would previously perhaps have been allocated a social housing dwelling have been forced because council houses and housing association properties are currently in short supply. Many of them have to move over and over again: often these are people on very low incomes and they are hit with punitive charges by profiteering rogue letting agents. I say that this is an important first step because it is not just about the charges associated with establishing a tenancy in the first instance.

A letting agency in Derby, Professional Properties, hits people not only with the sorts of charges we are debating, which would be covered by the new clause, but with additional spurious charges when they end their tenancy. I am dealing with one case in particular where a young woman who looked after the property in which she had been living very well was hit with an enormous charge of more than £1,000 for spurious repairs. As a result of my intervention that charge was dropped, but there has been a refusal to allow her to have her deposit back. Those are shameful tactics by letting agents who are exploiting a very vulnerable group in society, and it is incumbent on us in this place to stand up for people who are being exploited in this way.

It is important to acknowledge that the private rented sector does have a role to play, but we want a responsible private rented sector and a responsible letting agents sector. Rents in the private sector have gone through the roof, so there is ample money in this system without these additional charges being heaped on people, who, as I have said, are often on very low incomes. I strongly support new clause 22 as a very important first step to regularising the private rented sector in our country.

[Andrew Percy]

I want to speak primarily to new clause 22, but first let me briefly speak in support of new clause 14. I thought I was the only person who had problems with switching, believing it to be another in the long list of failures in my life, but since I got elected I have realised that there is a massive issue to address so I fully support that provision. I have some sympathy with new clause 13, as I would like to see better labelling, but I am not sure I can support it as drafted.

On new clause 22, I should declare that I do not have any buy-to-let properties—I struggled enough to qualify for one mortgage, so the idea of qualifying for a further mortgage is probably a bit of a joke. Going through the list of other Members who have relevant interests, I noted that an awful lot of them were on the Opposition Benches. I assume that no Labour Members who rent out a property do so through a letting agent that charges fees, because to do so would be to fall foul of a word we are not allowed to say in here.

With this new clause we have a campaign going on. We have student union politics at the moment whereby the Opposition pick an issue and throw it out there in the hope it gets some traction. They do not think it through; there is nothing more to it than that. This time the issue is letting agent fees. It is my belief that they have not spoken to the letting agents or to many of the tenants who have to pay the fees—if they had, they would not be proposing this measure in such a way. I want a sensible debate on this, but we do not get it. As I have said, what we have had is an orchestrated campaign in which Labour opponents, many of whom live in massive houses in particular constituencies, have been told by the Labour party centrally here in London to parrot a particular line. They do not care about it to the extent that they have ever stood up and talked about it before. My Labour opponent, who wrote to me about this, certainly never had a word to say about it before she was told to do so by Labour headquarters in London. That is what is going on here. We are not having a sensible debate about this measure, which hits some of the big cities such as London, or about repeat fees. Labour has taken this scattergun approach in the hope of trying to drum up support for the measure, but what will happen is that rents will go up, because these charges will not disappear; the tenant will have to pay them in some way.

In many houses in my constituency, particularly in Goole which is relatively poor, the landlords do not charge bonds. They say is that if they cannot charge a relatively small fee—the biggest company in my constituency, Goole Property Centre, does not charge repeat fees or fees to people who do not then get a property—they will charge bonds instead. The cost of getting into a property to begin with could double or quadruple in my constituency.

I can tell Members what some of the letting agencies use their fees for. A large number of those who are renting are foreign tenants, and the agencies try to provide somebody who speaks their language and who gives them additional support, often getting them signed up to gas and electricity. They also help out with some of the simple things, which lead to a huge number of letters in my postbag. I am talking about things like bin collections—how to follow the rules—and community cohesion problems, which occur when large numbers of foreign migrants live in homes in multiple occupation. Landlords use their letting fees to subsidise such activity, and that is what will disappear. This is an ill-thought out policy from the Labour party. Let us have a sensible debate about it. The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) said that it was too early to make a decision, because we need to see what happens with the trial in Scotland. Unfortunately, Labour has decided not to wait, but wants to continue with a student union type approach to try to build something around the cost of living issue. It is a bit pathetic in my view, which is why I will not support this measure until we have a proper and sensible debate.