Renters (Reform) Bill

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Everybody agrees that people deserve to live in rented homes that are safe, warm, free from damp and mould, and in which they can feel secure. Nobody doubts that intention, or the fact that rogue landlords should be clamped down on and be made responsible. However, rogue landlords are the minority—the Secretary of State has said that on the Floor of the House—yet despite that, the Government seem to be tarring every landlord with the same brush with the Bill. The ironic fact is that there is already a plethora of legislation that allows local authorities to clamp down on every housing issue, including the scourge of the rogue landlord. One issue is that councils themselves are often the rogues, citing resources as an excuse for inaction, and with private landlords they already take action, or at least have the powers to take action if they so wish.

Without wishing to pinch the TV advertising slogan, this Bill does not do what it says on the tin. It should be renamed the “rogue landlord and nightmare tenants Bill”, because all it does is force good landlords to take action that they would not normally take. To highlight what I mean, this is what has happened in the past. The Government forced landlords to put deposits into a Government-approved scheme, which landlords did. Any landlord who has tried to get money back from that scheme when tenants have caused damage will know that it is nigh-on impossible. So instead of putting money into deposit schemes, many landlords now do not take deposits. Instead, they have increased rents in order to cover the cost.

The Government do not treat private landlords as sole traders, but instead treat the whole income from rents as taxable, whether someone has a mortgage on the property or not. The result of that is increased rents. The Government stopped paying landlords directly when tenants on benefits are in arrears, instead saying that the contract is with the tenant and not the Government. As a result, good landlords are now forced to take rent in advance—in the old days they used to take it in arrears as those tenants on benefits were paid by universal credit—and they have increased the rents because of the higher risk. Many, many landlords do not take people on benefits as a result of that. The Government say that they will legislate to make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against those on benefits, but when landlords have between 20 and 50 applicants for each house, all the legislation in the world will not make a ha’porth of difference, because the landlord will always take the most risk-free option.

One key component of the Bill is the removal of section 21 “no fault” evictions—because of the time limit I have had to strip loads out of this speech, Madam Deputy Speaker. Leaders Romans Group is one of the UK’s largest property maintenance companies. Indeed, it has a landlord client base of more than 65,000. It took a sample survey from those landlords and found that section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 is rarely used, rarely overused, and even more rarely misused. Of all those who responded to the survey, 80% had never used section 21. Of those who had, a significant majority—over 60%—did so because the tenant was in breach of the lease. The English Housing Survey 2021-22 found that only 6% of tenancies ended at the landlord’s volition. Both figures demonstrate the fact that the vast majority of landlords do not evict tenants on a whim. To end no-fault evictions through the abolition of section 21 is extreme, unnecessary and damaging to both landlords and tenants.

Let me give a couple of examples about using section 8 evictions to replace section 21. Ground eight is currently the most heavily relied on ground for landlords trying to gain repossession, and it currently provides a two-week notice period. It applies where the tenant is two months in rent arrears at the date of the section 8 notice and the date of the possession hearing. In the Bill, the notice period has been extended to four weeks. Also, any outstanding universal credit payments that the tenant is due to receive are not to be included when calculating the arrears, if the universal credit payment would reduce arrears below the two-month threshold. The Government cannot say to landlords on one hand that the contract for UC is between the landlord and the tenant, but in the Bill say that the landlord has to take off the pending UC payments for rent. It is a nonsense.

I am short of time, so I will briefly mention expanding the powers for antisocial behaviour under section 8 of the Housing Act 1988. It is unlikely to change the effect of ground 14, which—I think this question was asked earlier—is not mandatory but discretionary. That means that the judge has to consider whether it is reasonable to make a possession order, even if a tenant is guilty of the alleged conduct. It is very unlikely that any court would consider some trivial conduct to justify a possession order.

As has been mentioned several times, the real issue is the inaction in building more houses for people to live in—that is not just this Government but successive Governments. The market will not change until a Government grasp the nettle and literally put spades in the ground, as Macmillan did in the 1950s. There is a reason why we have the Homes for Ukraine scheme: it is because we do not have any houses to put people in. There is a reason why over 100,000 young men are staying in hotels in this country: it is because we have no homes to put them in. The Bill will do absolutely nothing to improve the rental market. It will drive more landlords from the system. The Secretary of State said earlier that the number of landlords in this country has stayed static since 2016, but I would like to know exactly where he gets that information from as it is not the information coming from the market.

[Mr Fysh]

Is my hon. Friend aware that just five days ago Jones Lang LaSalle, one of the biggest property consultants in the world, published a report that analysed Rightmove evidence of rental market availability? It shows that in the south-east and south-west of England, rental availability is down by 32% on 2019. Is that caused by some of the things my hon. Friend has been talking about?

[Craig Whittaker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is a problem right throughout the country, not just the south-east. It is happening in the north in Calder Valley—wherever people are, there is an absolute shortage of homes, whether socially or privately rented. The Bill will do nothing to improve the rental market. It will drive more landlords from the system, and because of those shortages of homes to rent, where dozens of people apply for any homes that are available, the Bill will also do nothing to curb the rogue landlord element.

End of Eviction Moratorium

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

Even with the benefit cap, from which there are right and proper exemptions, I think in London there is an equivalent income of £28,000 for a person in receipt of benefits. We keep our policies under constant review—the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), is here listening to the points that the House is making—and of course if we do choose to make future changes, will bring those to the House.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

I have information on dozens and dozens of small-scale landlords—not property tycoons—who are now owed several thousand pounds in rent arrears, some due to genuine hardship, some as a result of tenants’ taking advantage of the current situation. This situation is now causing some landlords, particularly those with mortgages, severe hardship. I know that my right hon. Friend has said that the best option is to give the tenant as many options as possible to pay their rent, so will he look at the development of interest-free Government-guaranteed hardship loans for tenants to pay off their covid arrears?

[Christopher Pincher]

As I said, we will keep our policies under review, to ensure that they take account of the state of the emergency at any given time. The steps that we have already taken, including mortgage holidays and the right to extend those mortgage holidays, also apply to landlords. I am happy to keep in touch with my hon. Friend as we continue to keep our policies under review, to make sure that he is apprised of the steps that we are taking to support landlords and tenants alike.

Housing and Planning

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

We all know the drawbacks of the planning system. In areas such as mine, which comes under the jurisdiction of Calderdale Council, we have a local authority that is not only risk-averse when it comes to enforcement, but is driven by the multitude of Government targets around house building to the detriment of everything else. Today I want to highlight the issues around local plans. Calderdale still has not had that signed off and is in the midst of yet another consultation via the planning inspectorate. I want to make it clear that I do not have an issue with the numbers of houses. Whether it is one or 50,000 extra homes, the reality is that we need to build homes. The problem is our infrastructure, and without a robust infrastructure plan to sit alongside a local plan, the local plan is undeliverable.

We all know the issues across our constituencies with failing and stretched infrastructure. On roads, as well as the many pinch points across Calder Valley, we see a single road in and out of the Upper Calder Valley. Whether it is the single lane that we have had to endure for three years while flood defences are built, or whether it is roadworks, not to mention accidents, we have to sit in our cars often for more than an hour just to travel a few miles. On the numerous days throughout the year when the M62 is closed, it does not matter where one lives in the Calder Valley, the roads are like car parks, and that is just the roads.

Our clinical commissioning group has recently announced that five GP surgeries will close because of an inability to recruit GPs to the area. School places are also an issue, particularly in the Lower Calder Valley, where our excellent schools are all over-subscribed. The local authority will say that it has infrastructure improvements within the plan, but its plans do not even touch the sides of the already stretched infrastructure, let alone if a further 15,000 homes are added over the next 15 years.

The final issue that I want to touch on around infrastructure is flooding. The Calder Valley and other parts of Calderdale have just experienced their third 100-year flood in just over seven and a half years. We had 1,187 properties flooded this time. Many of the 650 homes experienced their third flood. Small micro-businesses were flooded, too. There is not one piece of feasibility on flooding on the many dozens of sites in our local plan, and many—in my estimate about 40% of the land parcels—are already flood plains for when it rains. One particular site in Brighouse, earmarked for 200 houses, was six feet under water. Another in Greetland, with 600 homes, was like a waterfall. Finally, I have no confidence in our local authority to amend things at the planning stage.

I have two asks of our fabulous Housing Minister. First, why is there such a bypass of infrastructure requirements within local plans, and why are we allowing that to happen? Secondly, I have much evidence of our local authority ignoring infrastructure requirements for housing plans on flood plains. Now is surely the time to say, “No more building on flood plains or in areas where there is a high flood risk.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am very happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the matter further. It sounds like an issue that we should consider.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

After our third one-in-100-years flood in seven and a half years in Calder Valley, the support package announced last week for the 1,187 properties that were flooded was a welcome relief. However, it appears that the match funding element of the package for those who fund-raise for residents badly affected by floods is not included. Can my right hon. Friend confirm whether the match funding is included, as it was last time, and whether it will be available to South Yorkshire before Christmas?

[Robert Jenrick]

May I praise my hon. Friend for the hard work that he has done on behalf of his communities, who have faced severe flooding over the past two weeks? We have worked together and brought forward a significant financial package that is comparable to that provided in 2015. I do not believe that anyone has yet approached the Government to ask for match funding for a charity foundation, for example, as happened in 2015, but I would be happy to consider that if it was suggested.