Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Carden Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I thank her for her work in this role in the Department and all that she has done to help level up in her constituency.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

T6.   There are 14,000 families waiting on Liverpool’s housing register. We are facing a housing and homelessness crisis, and the cost of providing temporary accommodation has gone from £250,000 to £19 million in the past three years. The leader of the council has written to the Secretary of State twice. When will the Secretary of State wake up to this emergency?

[Michael Gove]

I appreciate the advocacy of Liverpool MPs on behalf of those in temporary accommodation, and I appreciate the scale and nature of the problem. I have been working with the Mayor of Liverpool city region and others to look at a strategic futures advisory panel report that we believe will unlock not just additional housing, but additional investment in Liverpool and the Liverpool city region. I look forward to discussing that with the hon. Member and, indeed, the new leader of Liverpool City Council.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Carden Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Lady is quite right: not just in Bristol, but across the country, pressures on infrastructure are one reason why communities sometimes have concerns about new housing developments. It is right that we are reforming the planning system to make that infrastructure available in advance of developments so that we can deliver the housing the country needs, in Bristol and elsewhere.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

11. If he will take steps to extend Awaab’s law to the private rented sector.

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

Any preventable death of a child is heartbreaking. Awaab’s law will require social landlords to remedy hazardous conditions quickly. For private rentals, we have given councils strong powers to force landlords to remedy hazards, and the Secretary of State has made it clear that he expects councils to use them.

[Dan Carden]

May I remind the House of the tragic case of Awaab Ishak? He was a two-year-old boy, living with his parents in a one-bedroom flat in Rochdale, who tragically and needlessly died following prolonged exposure to mould. Despite several complaints from his family over a number of years, his social landlord took no action and shamelessly blamed the extensive mould on the family. The coroner in Awaab’s case stated that damp and mould are not simply a social housing problem, but a significant issue in the private rented sector. My understanding is that the decent homes standard will not appear in the Renters (Reform) Bill and there is no equivalent to Awaab’s law either. Will the Secretary of State go back to the Department and put in proper measures to ensure that we have decent homes in the private rented sector?

[Rachel Maclean]

I think the whole House is united in expressing our sincere sympathies about the tragedy that occurred in the case of Awaab Ishak. It is completely wrong that people are living in homes that do not meet decent home standards. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the debates that we have had in this place. We are improving the quality of properties all across the private rented sector. We are introducing a decent homes standard. We will do that at the first legislative opportunity and we will be the first Government ever to do so.

Private Rented Sector: Regulation

Dan Carden Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered regulation of the private rented sector.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I am grateful to have secured time for a debate on this matter, which continues to directly affect all our constituents. I pay tribute to my constituents in Liverpool, Walton who continue to be the innocent victims of the UK’s broken housing system, and I commend stakeholders including the Merseyside Law Centre, the Vauxhall Community Law and Information Centre, ACORN Liverpool at the local level, and the excellent Renters Reform Coalition at the national level.

The private rented sector continues to be dominated by insecure tenure, increasingly unaffordable rents, poor housing quality and the ever-present threat of homelessness. No one in this House should underestimate the dislocating and exhausting experience of being removed from one’s home.

I am unsure whether anyone in this House has received a section 21 notice, or has felt unable to complain about damp, mould or other poor conditions for fear of a retaliatory eviction. I am unsure whether anyone in this House has had to endure the stress of having only two months to find a new property in a chaotic and punishing market—or to search for a new school for their children, a new doctor, dental surgery or other basic services that we take for granted—following the receipt of a section 21 notice. What I am sure of is that the Government were absolutely right to ban section 21 evictions, alongside taking other measures in the Renters (Reform) Bill, to correct the power imbalance between landlords and tenants; but we must not forget what the cost of delay and inaction has been. To illustrate that, I will discuss just one of my constituents.

My constituent received a section 21 notice through the post, which gave her two months to vacate the property. The landlord gave two reasons for the eviction: he was looking at increasing rental income and was also looking to sell the property. My constituent has two children, a daughter aged seven and a son aged four, who has a severe learning disability and is non-verbal. Despite that, at the start of June, she and her family will become homeless. I invite the Minister to hear directly from my constituent about the impact of that eviction on her and her family’s mental and physical health. I would be happy for my office to make contact with her office to facilitate that.

The measures in the Renters (Reform) Bill will come too late for that constituent, but we can now work to ensure that no other constituent faces the same crushing uncertainty. Thankfully, after a four-year delay following the announcement of the Renters (Reform) Bill, the Government have finally found time to introduce that important piece of legislation. I stand ready and willing to work with colleagues from across the House to ensure that the Bill makes the private rented sector as fair as possible and gives local authorities resources to enable them to regulate the sector effectively for the benefit of all our constituents.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this really important debate; he is making a powerful case. My Brighton constituency is one of the most expensive places to rent outside London, and my constituents are being ripped off daily. Does he agree that there is a big gap in the Renters (Reform) Bill—which is very welcome, if very late—when it comes to more enforcement powers for local authorities to target rogue landlords, and also this outrageous discrimination whereby blanket bans on renting to people with children or those who rely on benefits are still allowed? Those loopholes absolutely must be closed now. It is not good enough for the Minister to say, “We’re going to do it sometime in the future.”

[Dan Carden]

I am grateful for my colleague’s intervention. I will touch on both those points in some detail, and I hope the Minister will respond and that we can work together to see the Bill strengthened over time.

I will use the rest of the time I have available today to cover actions that could be taken to ensure that the reforms were robust enough to provide renters with real security in their homes. I aim to do that in the spirit of genuine co-operation, and there is considerable appetite across the House to make the legislation as effective as possible. I want to cover three primary areas in which policy could be improved: in the Bill itself, on action related to enforcement, and addressing the crisis around affordability.

As I have outlined, the abolition of section 21 evictions is a much welcome step, but the Government must go further to guarantee that private housing providers do not use other routes to subject renters to unfair eviction. Landlords can continue to reclaim possession of their properties in the case of a sale, or if they or a family member wishes to move into a property. However, under the Bill, following an eviction on those grounds, landlords can re-let their properties after three months. That period is too short, and it will not act as a proper deterrent to landlords who seek to exploit the abolition of section 21 evictions. Therefore, the Government must extend the no re-letting period to a minimum of 12 months. If they do not, renters will not feel the assurance and safety that are intended to be at the heart of the reforms.

Further, will the Minister explain what recourse tenants will have if they are evicted unlawfully on those grounds? Can tenants apply for a rent repayment order, for example? If not, what other forms of compensation are available? The proposed two-month notice period and six-month initial protected period leave those evicted on legitimate no-fault grounds in the same position as they are under section 21. The notice period should be extended to four months at an absolute minimum.

Such a proposal is not new to the Government, because in the midst of the covid pandemic, the section 21 notice was extended to four months. I can tell the Minister that the situation in the housing market has deteriorated, not improved, so it is only logical that the Government look at that proposal and seriously consider extending the period again. The benefits are obvious: if tenants were given more time to find somewhere to live, that would spare the taxpayer and tenants the cost of homelessness, which is devastating both financially and mentally.

Organisations including Shelter have expressed concern about the amendments that the Renters (Reform) Bill will make to homelessness legislation. Private renters who receive a possession notice will no longer have the right to immediate help from the council to avoid homelessness. That is because the law will no longer specify when help to prevent homelessness should be available to private renters. Instead, it will leave that to the discretion of local authorities, and that despite the Government knowing that early intervention is paramount in protecting tenants and preventing homelessness. Will the Government move urgently to address that weakness in the Bill, which directly undermines the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and the rough sleeping strategy? We should be boosting and improving protections related to homelessness prevention, not weakening them.

I want to speak about enforcement. The property portal and the ombudsman are positive elements of the Bill, but they will help to drive up standards only if the Government arm local authorities with the means to properly investigate and enforce. There is a postcode lottery in the sector, and enforcement action depends on how diligent and well resourced local authorities are. In my local authority area, Liverpool, we have a selective licensing scheme that aims to proactively regulate the private rented sector.

Despite the Government shrinking the area to which the licensing scheme applied in 2020, the team at Liverpool City Council has reported that, out of 2,308 inspections, 917 disrepair matters have been identified, as well as 1,053 breaches of licensing conditions. This is despite the National Residential Landlords Association previously describing the scheme as a “waste of time”. The local authority looks to work in co-operation with licence holders where possible, but unfortunately some enforcement action will always be inevitable. The council describes the number of referrals to the service as “substantial”. It says that resourcing and recruitment remain a challenge. Will the Minister commit to ringfencing resources to ensure that new regulations can be properly enforced through the property portal and ombudsman?

There is a crisis of affordability in the private rented sector, and yet calls continue to be ignored by Government. Research by Rightmove has shown that, in the past year alone, rents have risen at their fastest rate in 16 years, increasing by an average of 11% across Great Britain, yet I have never heard anyone on the Government Benches express concern that rent increases have contributed to inflation. That argument is often made when it comes to pay restraint or welfare payments, but why are landlords never asked to heed the same advice? These price increases represent an emergency, and the Government are moving too slowly to combat these rises.

There have been five housing Ministers in the past year. It seems that private renters are the losers from years of indifference and delay by the Government. Housing generally is already the biggest expense for renters. According to Crisis, private tenants on the lowest 10% of incomes are facing combined rents, food and utility costs that exceed their total incomes by 43%. The impact of further rent increases will be deep. According to Government figures, between January and March 2023, the number of section 21 claims increased by a huge 52%, and there was a 16% rise in non-section 21 evictions, the highest since the data began in 2009. The rent tribunal still continues to allow rents to go higher than the landlord may initially request, which acts as a major disincentive to using it. Will the Minister work with me to increase constituents’ means to challenge rent increases and improve the utility of the rent tribunal? If action is not taken to combat rent increases, landlords will simply evict tenants by pricing them out of staying in the property.

[Caroline Lucas]

It is generous of the hon. Gentleman to give way again; he is making a powerful case. Does he agree that we also need to look at rent controls, which are used in many other countries without a problem? We simply cannot allow rents to spiral out of all control. People will never be able to earn enough to have a mortgage, and they cannot even earn enough now to pay their own bills, so we need something far stronger even that what he is describing.

[Dan Carden]

Absolutely; I would back the hon. Lady’s calls for the Government to look at rent controls and the best international comparisons, because this is an issue not just for our constituents, but for the economy and inflation, and in the end it hurts all of us.

The Minister could also move to increase the local housing allowance. LHA rates have been frozen since 2019. Following the huge increase in inflation and house prices, this freezing means that private tenants face an ever-increasing gap between housing benefit and their actual rent. What discussions are taking place within Government to modify that? Inaction is prolonging and deepening homelessness. Further, there are White Paper commitments missing from the version of the Bill that was recently published. Where are the measures to outlaw blanket bans on renting to those in receipt of housing benefit? The Government have recognised that this discrimination is wrong, but measures to address it are missing from the Bill. I would appreciate some guidance from the Minister on that point in her response.

I will conclude by discussing an important amendment that I intend to table to the Renters (Reform) Bill. Awaab Ishak was a two-year-old boy killed by mould in a social housing flat. Unfortunately, Awaab’s story echoes much of the casework that comes through my office—and, I am sure, the offices of many Members across the House. It followed Awaab’s social landlord repeatedly failing to fix the mould problem in his family’s flat, blaming the problems on his family’s lifestyle.

In response, the Secretary of State moved quickly to table amendments to the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill to impose timeframes on landlords to investigate hazards and make repairs. That was absolutely the right move, and the Government must now put the same protections in place for private renters. As the Citizens Advice report, “Damp, cold and full of mould”, has shown, 2.7 million renting households in this country, including 1.6 million children, are living in damp, cold or mouldy homes. These conditions have a disastrous effect on people’s physical and mental health.

--- Later in debate ---

[Abena Oppong-Asare]

Abena. I thank my hon. Friend for putting forward this important debate. I have a huge number of housing cases that involve constituents of mine who live in damp and mouldy properties, and I have had responses from housing associations saying that that is down to their lifestyle, which is factually incorrect. Constituents are also facing soaring rents. Like my hon. Friend, I want to see a proper ombudsman in place for constituents living in private rented accommodation. Does he agree that the private renters charter will make things a lot fairer for individuals up and down the country?

[Dan Carden]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. I agree with her, and I hope that this Bill is an opportunity for us to ensure that the Government can put more protections in place for our constituents.

The conditions in which people live can have a disastrous effect on their physical and mental health, but tenants are left with little choice than to stay in homes that make them ill, and even kill them. Will the Minister meet with me to discuss how we can bring the private sector in line with the social sector and ensure that landlords deal with serious hazards in privately rented homes in a timely manner? Sadly, as we have witnessed, the cost of failing to do so can be fatal. I will leave the Minister with that, and I look forward to working with her and colleagues on this hugely important area of policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dan Carden]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rachel Maclean]

I will not give way. Can I ask for your guidance, Mr Davies, because I believe the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton will have time to sum up at the end?

[Dan Carden]

I have a question for the Minister.

[Rachel Maclean]

I give way briefly.

[Dan Carden]

I am grateful to the Minister and I recognise that she has given a full response but, as she said she was concluding, I wanted to pick up on two points that I do not think she covered. I apologise if I am incorrect. The first point was on the ability of landlords to repossess properties if they declare they are going to sell them or if they or a family member are going to move in. They currently need to give only three months’ notice; will the Department consider extending that to 12 months?

Secondly, I mentioned the Secretary of State’s amendments to the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill to impose timeframes on landlords to investigate hazards and make repairs. I will table an amendment to the Renters (Reform) Bill; I would appreciate time with the Minister to discuss how we can use the Bill to ensure those protections in the private rented sector.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. On his first point, we believe that we currently have the right balance. Of course, the Bill will proceed through the House. On his intention to table an amendment, I am of course happy to meet him to discuss that.

A number of Members referenced housing issues more generally. The Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), referred to the affordable eco-homes being built by her local council. The House must be made aware—I am sure it is already—that those affordable homes are being built with support from the Conservative Government through the affordable homes programme. We are delivering homes all across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Carden]

I thank the Minister for her response to the debate, and I thank all colleagues who contributed. Although there is a welcome for the legislation, which the Minister says is the biggest reform of the sector in a generation, there is a danger that it is a missed opportunity. The test will be the impact that it has on our constituents. Does it give them security in their homes? Does it rebalance the power inequality between landlords and tenants? Does it tackle the affordability crisis that exists across the sector? Does it deal with the millions of people, including children, who live in damp, squalid, unsafe houses across the country?

I look forward to following the legislation through the House and to seeking to amend and improve it. I am grateful for the time we have had for today’s debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered regulation of the private rented sector.

Section 21 Evictions

Dan Carden Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of ending section 21 evictions.

I am grateful to have secured time for a debate on this matter, which continues to affect all our constituents. I start by paying tribute to my constituents in Liverpool, Walton, who are the innocent victims of the country’s current broken housing system.

“Everyone renting in the private sector has the right to feel secure in their home, settled in their community and able to plan for the future with confidence. But millions of responsible tenants could still be uprooted by their landlord with little notice, and often little justification. This is wrong”—

those are not my words but the words of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who was the Prime Minister in 2019, when the Government first committed to scrapping no-fault evictions. In the three years since, more than 200,000 renters have been evicted—that is the equivalent of an eviction every seven minutes, and that is despite an eviction ban that was in place for 14 months during the pandemic.

Section 21 evictions allow for landlords in the private rented sector to evict tenants from their properties without having to establish any fault on the part of the tenant. When a notice is served, it gives tenants just two months to leave their homes. Even the threat of eviction has detrimental effects on tenants. Section 21 notices mean that tenants are unlikely to exercise other rights, such as the very limited right to challenge rent increases, for fear of retaliatory eviction.

Research by Shelter shows that nearly one in five renters have decided not to complain about poor conditions in their homes for fear of being evicted. I witness that frequently in my constituency. A constituent who visited my office had complained to her landlord about the lack of essential repairs to the front and back doors. The landlord refused to carry them out. After she complained again, she received a section 21 notice in the post, telling her to leave the property. That shows the clear imbalance in power when tenants are held hostage to a bad landlord in an inadequate property.

It is easy to underestimate the dislocating and exhausting experience of someone being evicted from the place they call home: living in limbo; never certain of when their time may be up; having to pack up belongings, leave support networks and potentially change employment —all at immense personal, mental and financial cost. Children being unmoored and having to move schools or leave friends and family behind can have a lifelong impact on learning and development.

My constituency office recently spoke to a constituent who contacted us after being served a section 21 eviction notice. She has been living in her property for 13 years with her two children, aged 12 and two. She suffers from anxiety, and after being told she must leave the property her anxiety has “gone through the roof”. She has never had panic attacks as bad as they are now. She said it is

“exhausting to look after kids at the same time as worrying about where we will end up.”

She told us that being served with the eviction notice was “cruel”, and that

“you should not be able to drop a note through someone’s door telling them to pick their lives up and move on.”

If constituents are removed from properties, they are often placed on long property waiting lists, compounding the sense of uncertainty and insecurity that they experience. I want to take this opportunity to commend local organisations such as Vauxhall and Merseyside law centres, ACORN and my local Liverpool Shelter branch, which carry out fantastic work in almost impossible circumstances to support my constituents in the face of minimal Government support. All MPs here will have similar stories from their own constituents, and may be planning to share their contributions today. Indeed, it was those stories, and the tireless work of the renters’ unions and housing campaigners, that pushed the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, to promise a new deal for renters in 2019.

It will come as little consolation that the Labour party announced in December 2017 that any future manifesto would contain a commitment to remove no-fault evictions. The 2019 Conservative manifesto echoed that commitment, promising the abolition of no-fault evictions so that tenants were

“protected from revenge evictions and rogue landlords”.

Again, those are the Conservatives’ words, not mine. Of course, like many Tory promises, that was not worth the paper it was written on. The two and a half years of the premiership of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) passed without any Bill being published.

We have had a consultation, which the Government responded to by again vowing to abolish section 21, but now we find it kicked into the legislative long grass. It was not a priority for the previous Administration and no one knows what the new Government are minded to do—I hope the Minister can shed some light on that today. This is all despite the huge public support for the reform of private renting: some 79% of the public, 80% of Conservative voters and 86% of voters over the age of 65 back greater protections for private renters, according to Generation Rent data.

The private rented sector is dominated and characterised by insecure tenure, increasingly unaffordable rents, poor housing quality and the ever-present risk of eviction. Data from Crisis showed that in the last financial year nearly 20,000 households faced homelessness after receiving a no-fault eviction notice. Losing a private tenancy is the second biggest cause of homelessness in England. If the Government are serious about ending homelessness, what are their reasons for delay? No one should be going homeless.

When we know that private sector tenants have to move more often than people in any other tenure, and then face average moving costs of well over £1,500, we should be doing all we can to ensure that constituents are not pushed into destitution following receipt of a section 21 notice. That is more important than ever in the midst of the current Tory-engineered economic chaos that is causing absolute misery to many people throughout the country.

We are all aware of the huge challenges that our constituents face: the skyrocketing cost of living, food prices at a 40-year high, record energy costs and skyscraping inflation. All those conditions make the need for a safe and secure home more important than ever before. Add to that the dwindling supplies of affordable housing, and more than three decades of deregulation, and it is easy to realise how we have created the toxic conditions that we now find ourselves in.

Where is the Government’s plan to deal with this? It may prove to be too late for many people throughout the country. To use just one example, statistics from the Ministry of Justice show that the situation is not getting better for renters but much, much worse: there was a 52% increase in the number of no-fault evictions between April and June 2022.

Conditions for private renters are continuing to deteriorate, and the Government’s neglect is the cause. That increase in forced evictions took place against the background of 11% inflation, and rent increases of 11.8% outside of London, according to Rightmove. Those rent increases are widespread—data from Shelter shows that 1 million private renters were hit with a rent increase in August 2022 alone—and have a clear knock-on effect: eviction claims for rent arrears are at their highest level since records began.

No one from the Conservative party seems to recognise that rent increases also cause inflation. They are frequently eager to call for pay restraint, or for benefits to be held down, but never for landlords to heed the same advice. The Government continue to consult on a rent cap in the social housing sector. Why is it that private sector tenants are always forgotten about? Announcing the consultation, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said:

“Putting a cap on rent increases for social tenants offers security and stability to families across England.”

Highlighting the potential increases of 11% next year for social tenants, the press release stated that this move would

“prevent rents…from rising significantly.”

When we know that price rises will be the same or potentially higher in the private rented sector, why will the Government not provide the same protection to private renters?

In Scotland, emergency legislation has been announced to freeze rents and establish a six-month moratorium on evictions, for both the private rented and social sectors. That demonstrates that, where the political will exists, action can be taken quickly and decisively to provide relief for tenants. What analysis of that legislation have the UK Government carried out? Would the Government be minded to announce a similar pause on evictions?

A dramatic increase in the availability of buy-to-let mortgages, little growth and access to the social rented sector, and now skyrocketing interest rates caused by a mix of backwards ideology and financial illiteracy, have led to a growth in the number of households renting privately. The lack of housing affordability and tenant security in the private rented sector go hand in hand. The cost of frequent, unwanted moves makes people worse off, and money spent on rent is money that is not spent on putting down a deposit or saving for a mortgage.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The hon. Member cites the experience in Scotland, where they have had to introduce rent controls on the back of abolishing section 21; is he advocating that we should adopt rent controls for the private rented sector?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Carden]

Yes, I am. I thought I had laid out that argument quite clearly. We have a system in which housing benefit subsidises landlords who own property. A much wiser use of that money would be to use it to build new council housing. That saves money in the long run, and allows those living in the properties to have the sense of belonging and security that is vital to wellbeing.

Frankly, successive Governments have not taken this problem seriously enough. The Government must recognise the damaging consequences of this delay and announce what is vital legislation as soon as possible. The promise to abolish no-fault evictions was included in the Conservative manifesto of 2019. The renters reform Bill was included in the Queen’s Speech of December 2019. Three and half years, three Prime Ministers and four Secretaries of State later, that legislation has still not been put before the House.

It is no surprise that many organisations simply do not trust the Conservative party to deliver on these much-needed reforms. Just a few weeks ago, in one of her many U-turns, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) had to reassure the House that it was her policy to press ahead with banning no-fault evictions, after reports had suggested the opposite. Anyone seeking another example of the Government’s half-hearted approach in this area need look no further. Even today, we see another change in Administration. Who knows whether that manifesto commitment will be kept or tossed aside?

We need to see action, not more delay. That is the very least that private renters deserve. We need to keep tenants in their homes. Will the Government investigate incentives to sell with tenants in situ? What will they do to work more closely with councils to help them to create and buy more social housing? Will they look at unfreezing housing benefit, which is currently lagging way behind rents? Will the Minister explain why social tenants may receive a rent cap, following a consultation, but there have been no similar moves in the private rented sector?

I invite the Minister to meet me and organisations such as the Renters’ Reform Coalition to discuss these matters further. Will he give a clear date for the introduction of legislation? To give security and certainty to tenants, it must be in this parliamentary Session.

Before I finish, I pay tribute again to the fantastic organisations that work in this area, particularly all members of the Renters’ Reform Coalition. To use a term that the Government and their allies hold very dear, the renters reform Bill is oven-ready, so set a date and publish it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I appreciate that. The hon. Lady could have made an intervention and I would have responded, but she is absolutely right, and I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. For many years, I owned an estate agency lettings business, which I do not own any more. I have, I think, four private rented properties in the private rented sector, but I absolutely do not speak on my own behalf; if anything, I speak on behalf of tenants, because I think that the measures being advocated would lead to a reduction in supply, which would ultimately be massively counterproductive for tenants. That is the conversation we should be having: one about whether or not this idea is good for tenants.

If the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton will just indulge me for a second in terms of responding to his points—he is shaking his head, but if he just listened to my points, it might be useful. Rent controls applied back then. It was not as if rent controls were set according to market value, because there is no market value at that point. As soon as we introduce rent controls, we effectively get rid of market values. That is what happens. Back then the rent offices would compare a property only with other properties that had been rented out, none of which were accessible by the open market. Rent controls take us away from a free market completely.

The Government are also saying that if a landlord needs to reoccupy a property or wants to sell it, they will allow them to do that and ask the tenant to leave on that basis, but that loophole was closed then and it will be closed again. Back then, if someone wanted to ask a tenant to leave, they had to find another house for them. They had to be provided with another house, because the Government did not want that to be used as a back door to getting that tenant out.

[Dan Carden]

To bring the debate back to the merits of ending section 21 evictions, does the hon. Member think that his Government should deliver on their promises, or should they backtrack on them?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My speech is very much in the context of section 21, in that the end of section 21 will not be the end of such measures. I do not think we should abolish section 21, certainly not without more measures relating to how we deal with section 8, which is the other mechanism for getting to grips with difficult tenants—difficult not just for the landlord, but for communities. Some 50% of section 21 notices are used to get people who are guilty of criminal or antisocial behaviour out. Let us not forget the impact of what the hon. Gentleman proposes on local communities.

[Dan Carden]

It’s your Government.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I have spoken to every single Government Minister about my opposition to their plans. Section 8 uses a court-based process. It takes around eight months to get somebody out of a property using section 8. If a person is guilty of antisocial behaviour or is well behind on the rent—measures cannot be taken until somebody is about two months behind—it will take months. It is not that much of a problem for Legal and General, Grainger, Fizzy Living or whatever. They have thousands of properties. If they have a few dodgy tenants, they can blend that problem across their whole estate, so everybody pays for the tenants who make trouble, do not pay their rent or behave in an antisocial manner. What about the small landlord?

I like it when the Opposition talk about business. They always talk about small and medium-sized businesses, as do I. They say that we should abolish section 21, but if someone with one or two properties has a tenant who does not pay their rent for eight months, for whatever reason, that can be devastating to their investment, so lots of SMEs will exit the marketplace, particularly if we abolish section 21 without first reforming court- based process.

When the section 21 measures were introduced in the Housing Act 1988, we saw a massive increase in supply, which has been very good for tenants. The reality is that in most parts of the country, most yields on properties—the return on capital investment—are pretty low. We are looking at a rental yield of 2% to 4%. Interest rates will be 5%, 6% or higher, so if landlords borrow money to buy a property, most will not get an annual return. Most landlords are not profiteering from the private rented sector—far from it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Ms Nokes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) on his excellent introduction to the debate.

For far too long, housing has been an investment as opposed to a human right. That is why it is so important that we start turning the equation around and ensuring that everybody has access to housing. The reality is that few people want to live in the private rented sector. They aspire to have a home that they can call their own, but as rents increase, they are unable to save up to live the dream. It is important that we build the housing stock required to meet need now and in the future.

[Dan Carden]

There has been discussion about who exactly is in the private rented sector. People may not wish to live long term in the private rented sector, but too many of our constituents are trapped there. The travesty of this Government is that their economic chaos has probably led hundreds of thousands of people in areas such as mine, who would have wanted to get on the housing ladder in the next couple of months and years, to rethink their plans and stay put.

[Rachael Maskell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many people saved up for that much-wanted mortgage, and events in recent days have meant their sales disappearing before their very eyes. Demand for property is outstripping supply, which means that the availability of property is such that hope is fading fast for so many people.

This issue is about power and control—about who has wealth and who has none in our country. More and more is being extracted from people who are desperate just to have a level playing field. That is why this debate is so important. If a Government have given their word to the electorate, they should keep it—not least when we are dealing with a significant housing crisis. York so exemplifies a place where there is housing chaos and challenge that I would invite the Minister—if he remains in his place this afternoon—to visit us and see what is really happening.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Andrew Stephenson)]

It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Nokes. I thank all hon. Members present for their considered contributions to the debate. It was valuable to hear real-life examples from different Members’ constituencies. To those who have invited me to visit, such as the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), I say that I will be delighted to do so if I remain in post.

I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) for securing this important debate on the merits of ending section 21 evictions. He made a number of pertinent points regarding issues in the private rented sector. Those issues are faced in all our constituencies, including my own constituency of Pendle, and the Government are committed to tackling them.

As Members will know, the private rented sector is the second largest tenure in England. More than 11 million people call the private rented sector home, and it represents around 19% of households in England. Many of those households—1.3 million of them—are families with children. It is right that they and all tenants feel that their rented house is a home and that they can take jobs and start schooling, confident in the knowledge that they have long-term security. Right now, families across the country are worried about having to uproot their lives at short notice, and millions of tenants have less security than those who own their own homes or are in social housing. That does not need to be the case and should not be.

Everyone deserves a secure and safe home, and the Government are committed to ensuring a fair deal for renters. To do that, we will introduce a renters reform Bill in this Parliament to protect tenants, support responsible landlords and improve standards across the private rented sector. The reforms will be the largest changes to private renting for a generation, so we know how important it is to get them right. We are grateful to those across the sector who have worked closely with the Government on developing the reforms, and we will continue to listen to their concerns, just as I will ensure that the concerns set out by hon. Members are reflected in our responses.

Hon. Members are right to mention the insecurity caused by section 21 no-fault evictions. It is not right that a landlord can ask a tenant to leave without giving a reason, and with as little as two months’ notice. The Government are clear that they want to support the majority of landlords, who act responsibly, but it is not right for tenants to live in fear that their lives may be uprooted at the whim of a minority of rogue landlords. Too many tenants do not complain about dangerous conditions, criminal behaviour or unjustified rent increases, fearing they will be subject to revenge evictions if they do.

As we have set out in our manifesto, which has been mentioned by several Members, and confirmed in the House, the Government are committed to abolishing section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 and giving millions of private renters a secure home.

At the same time, we will simplify complex tenancy structures and move all tenants who currently have an assured tenancy or assured shorthold tenancy on to a single system of periodic tenancies, which will allow either party to end the tenancy when they need to. This will enable tenants to leave poor-quality properties without remaining liable for the rent or to move more easily when their circumstances change, such as when they take up a new job opportunity. Landlords will always have to provide a specific reason for ending a tenancy, which will provide greater security for tenants while retaining the important flexibility that private rented accommodation offers. This will enable tenants to put down roots and plan for the future.

[Dan Carden]

The Minister is clearly aware of the very difficult circumstances that face so many of our constituents. I said in my contribution that 200,000 people have been evicted because the Government have not acted since they promised to act. If the new Prime Minister leaves the Minister present in his job, will he give us a sense of urgency that the Government are going to act?

[Andrew Stephenson]

We are in strong agreement that we need to act. It has not been mentioned too many times today—[Interruption.] Well, the hon. Gentleman will remember that the December 2019 manifesto was soon followed by a global pandemic, when the Government took swift and decisive action to protect tenants across the country, so we have taken action. However, we were unfortunately unable to pursue other legislative priorities included in the manifesto with as much speed and vigour as we wanted. We are making significant progress, though. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the White Paper was published in June and some of the consultations that came under it closed only earlier this month.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Carden]

It has been a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I thank all the Members who have contributed. There has been widespread agreement and support for these changes. I will finish on this point alone: our constituents are facing a terrible winter, with economic pressures from all sides. I encourage the Minister to start the process of acting on these commitments. The Government could act now to cap rents and stop evictions, as our constituents face a torrid winter.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the potential merits of ending section 21 evictions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Carden Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Yes and yes. Even though they are not in my party, I must say that North Ayrshire’s elected representatives in this House and in Holyrood do a fantastic job for their constituents in championing nuclear power.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

T2. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. There is an alcohol harm paradox, whereby people in the most deprived communities drink less but suffer larger consequences. In Liverpool, 88% of alcohol is sold at below 50p a unit, and 24% of the population drink at high risk. More and more premises are seeking to open. Will the Secretary of State look again at making public health a licensing objective and review the way that licensing fees are set nationally so that they could be set at a local level?

[Michael Gove]

I am sure the whole House knows of the hon. Gentleman’s courage and principle in campaigning on such questions. He makes a valid point. A health disparities White Paper is forthcoming soon and I will discuss his precise point with my right hon. Friend the Health and Social Care Secretary.

Private Rented Sector Housing

Dan Carden Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), who campaigns tirelessly to try to find ways in which we can lift people out of poverty. They suffer, through no fault of their own, because the system is rigged against them. I especially pay tribute to his work fighting for a legal right to food, so that no families or children go hungry in the fifth richest economy on the planet.

We had a fantastic debate on supported housing recently in the Chamber. A number of my colleagues spoke and exposed the racket in the housing sector. I hope in my brief comments to suggest a few ways in which the Government could begin to put things into reverse.

The private rented sector is booming in this country—and in Liverpool; it accounts for 32% of all housing stock across the city, and in at least one third of council wards, the proportion is approaching 50%. Liverpool, Walton, which I represent, is ranked as the most deprived constituency in the whole of England. My office is overwhelmed by constituents coming to me and my staff for help because the places where they live are blighted by damp, mould, cold, or vermin.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I apologise for not being here at the start of the debate due to other commitments. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just those in private rented accommodation who find themselves trapped in totally unacceptable conditions—many of which we have heard about today? People such as Janice Dawson and her husband, in my constituency, can be forced to live in damp and unhealthy leasehold properties because management companies fail for years to carry out essential repairs, despite repeated promises to do so.

[Dan Carden]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. She is absolutely right, and that problem is found not just in leaseholds, but in supported housing and housing association homes. In every sector that we look at, there is too little regulation and funding to put those issues right.

When my constituents come to me with those issues of damp, mould, cold and vermin, they are ignored by their unscrupulous landlords. The overstretched local authority, which is supposed to attempt to enforce the few housing standards that we have, is doing so with ever-dwindling resources because of more than a decade of austerity cuts. We should not underestimate the constant, crushing, dehumanising misery that squalid housing conditions cause people and families. The local authority has made tackling those problems a priority in recent years, especially in the private rented sector, but needs urgent support, which the Government have failed to deliver.

In 2015, Liverpool City Council introduced the UK’s first city-wide landlord licensing scheme, which my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) saw in operation. Since its introduction, 70% of inspected properties have been found to be in breach of their licence conditions. Some 37,000 compliance actions were carried out, 2,500 legal and fixed penalty notices were issued, and almost 250 landlords were prosecuted. In practical terms, that meant improving the lives of tenants, making electrics safe, installing fire doors, eradicating damp and preventing illegal evictions. In other words, the scheme worked.

What did the Government do when Liverpool City Council applied for a new licensing scheme in 2019? It rejected the application—a huge blow for residents. Only after numerous resubmissions have we found out that the scheme can be reintroduced in April. However, this time, it will apply to only 80% of the city’s wards, because of a diktat from Whitehall. That will undermine the city council’s ability to enforce standards across the region, and tenants will suffer as a result.

In the light of a near 65% cut in Government funding to Liverpool’s core budget since 2010, Ministers must look at how they can do more to support local authorities that want to ensure that residents have security, dignity and comfort in their home. The Government must rescind the damaging relaxation of permitted development rights and return those powers to local government, too. Ministers should turn their attention to what could be done to support the creation of flourishing communities that support the health and wellbeing of their residents, not least by implementing comprehensive national housing standards.

In recent months and years, I have been working with the Town and Country Planning Association to seek to introduce a healthy homes Act, which would effectively outlaw the slums of the future. We need robust new measures to hold landlords and developers to account. A significant barrier to effective action is the radical imbalance in access to Government among interest groups. We cannot tackle the housing crisis without tackling the undue influence that property developers have over Government policy. A recent report by Transparency International UK found that although property tycoons have an open door into Whitehall, tenants are shut out. Given that private renters make up one in five of all households across Britain, their absence from policy making is conspicuous. It warps the process in favour of vested interests.

At a recent Public Accounts Committee hearing on the regulation of private renting, I made sure that ACORN, the community and tenants’ union, was invited to give evidence. I wonder if the Minister has ever met with that union. The testimony provided to the Committee by ACORN’S representative was powerful and is too rarely heard. I urge the Minister to tell us what he plans to do to address that imbalance and ensure that tenants are given a seat at the table.

Non-commissioned Exempt Accommodation

Dan Carden Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

The hon. Lady gives me the opportunity to make an important point. The “more than minimal” line was not prescribed in law—to a degree, one might say that it is even worse than that, because it came about through case law and legal challenge. Landlords and the services that they provide are a difficult area and are difficult for councils to challenge.

Fortunately, through the pilots, we have been able to help to educate council officers and explain best practice so that they have been able to challenge. The problem is that that needs to be focused and done all the time. Obviously, any council can challenge the support that is being provided, but that requires the council to put in the effort—perhaps to go round and visit the property and speak to the tenants to understand the support that is being provided—and determine whether it feels that meets the threshold and subsequently challenge. Part of the problem is that councils have done that, but because of the low level, they have lost such challenges. We need to ensure that we are helping those providers because there are a lot of good providers out there. We need to do our best to support and encourage them and then, I hope, signpost people to the appropriate accommodation for them. I appreciate and accept the difficult situation, but as I say, I hope that we will understand best practice better from the pilots and share it more widely. As I have said, should legislative changes be required, that is not something we would shy away from.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

But this is bigger than just the regulation. What we have in the most deprived communities, such as Walton and Anfield, is property management companies in London, Milton Keynes and other parts of the country buying up swathes of property to run a supported housing racket. It needs intervention from Government.

[Eddie Hughes]

Just as a particular example, it is possible for councils to investigate such properties, and where landlords are seen to be letting out unsafe properties, they can apply for banning orders and fines of up to £30,000 are available, so powers are available—

[Dan Carden]

indicated dissent.

[Eddie Hughes]

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is shaking his head, but I would just say that councils need to be encouraged to use the legislation already available to them to the max before we reach for a legislative answer to the problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood). I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), who made a tour-de-force contribution to the debate. The Minister could not do better than getting her into the Department and taking some of her sage advice. It is reassuring to hear us debating exempt accommodation in the House of Commons, because in recent weeks I have visited constituents of mine who are neighbours of some of the rogue providers. It is a dominating issue, because it is about vulnerable people, often with significant challenges, and they are losing out in all of this. Exempt accommodation should be a vital function, helping the most marginalised and vulnerable groups in society, but instead all too often it seems to be making up for the chronic shortages of affordable social housing.

We see social housing now at its lowest rate in decades, and there is an annual net loss of 24,000 social homes. One outcome is that we are now over-reliant on exempt accommodation, often at extortionate costs. Supported housing commands far higher rents, which is one of the reasons why it is not under the housing benefit cap. Landlords can demand higher rents than for social or privately rented housing. Of course, there could be a legitimate reason for that, and there are good providers delivering quality services, but let us be under no illusions: unscrupulous agencies are exploiting the enormous gaps in the regulatory regime to rake in higher rents while providing minimal support and, as is too often the case, substandard housing.

In theory, transitional forms of supported housing should be a bridge to independent living. They should be a way for vulnerable people to have a safe place that they can call home where they receive the support that they need to regain their independence. There are shining examples. Damien John Kelly House in Picton in Liverpool—a home for men in recovery from addiction—is one such place. It is a fantastic community that supports, inspires and allows for transformational change. The difference between substandard housing and a good provider is that the good provider offers a community and support work, including support for mental health, while a bad provider might only give someone a key for a cupboard in a shared kitchen and an extra lock on their door. The difference is so significant, and it either makes or ruins people’s lives.

People in my constituency have written to me for help. They live in what they thought was supported housing only to realise that the support package they were promised does not exist and might consist of as little as a CCTV camera in the hallway. The reality of the supported housing racket is vulnerable residents with complex needs living in squalor, isolated, without access to local services, sharing a house with residents who all require specialist support. What is bad for those people living in the properties can quickly escalate to blight the lives of their neighbours and the local community. That experience is all too familiar for my constituents in Anfield and Walton and those further afield.

While vulnerable residents and the community around them suffer, rogue landlords and agencies collect rents from the taxpayer far in excess of allowance rates and without proper regulation. They game the system easily and without consequence. It is a lucrative enterprise for some, operated and funded by the state, and it is almost completely unaccountable. Liverpool has seen a recent influx of these properties, because we have many larger properties that are ripe for conversion to HMOs or exempt accommodation. They are targeted by investment companies from far and wide who buy up cheaper properties in the most deprived areas and lease them to umbrella management companies who moonlight as supported housing providers. The result is that rents are set artificially high to maximise the yield for investors. The net cost to Liverpool after receipt of Government subsidy has risen year on year, to £4 million in 2020. As profits for landlords increase, so do reports of poorly managed, unsafe accommodation that provides threadbare support.

There are so many loopholes that allow for that profiteering. Registered providers are not even subject to the most basic licensing requirements that HMOs must legally comply with. That must be unjustifiable. In 2020, the Government introduced the national statement of expectations for supported housing, so they have tried to deal with this problem fairly recently. The statement sets out standards for the accommodation element of supported housing. However, it is a reference tool—a polite suggestion at best. It must be developed, toughened up and put on a statutory footing. The standards must be legally enforceable. The statement does not even include minimum quality standards for the support, care and supervision that these companies are being paid inflated rents to deliver. It is so poorly defined that an extra lock on a door would pass the test every time. Local authorities could be given the powers to regulate the sector, but that must go hand-in-hand with proper funding and support.

Finally, I see providing a decent home for every person as the most important challenge facing our country. The public pays in the region of £20 billion each year in housing support—money that more often than not lines the pockets of property investment companies and landlords. The reason we are not building decent homes for all has nothing to do with constraints on public spending, It is a free-for-all when public spending lines the pockets of profiteers—we see it time and again. It is this Government’s choice not to invest public money in public provision and that is unjustifiable. It would cost the Government half of what they pay in housing support each year to return us to the spending levels on housebuilding of the post-war Governments of the 1940s and 1950s who strived to make this a country that works for all its citizens, and from which we have today diverted so far away.

Liverpool City Council

Dan Carden Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend, and I should have said in answer to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) that I would of course be happy to meet Liverpool city Members too. I believe that they met the Local Government Minister earlier today, but I would be happy to have a further conversation with them. I should say again that this report is specific to Liverpool City Council—it is not a comment on the neighbouring councils that make up the Liverpool city region—but I understand that my hon. Friend may have concerns about his own council, and I would be happy to discuss those.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab) [V]]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), for their statements. We all appreciate the seriousness of the situation. Clearly, we need to see real change and robust new safeguards that guarantee transparency and accountability, but the people of Liverpool must be part of that process. This week, I have been contacted by local people concerned that sending commissioners into Liverpool amounts to a takeover by Whitehall, so will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to outline to my constituents how their voice and their democratic rights will be respected?

[Robert Jenrick]

The elections will go ahead in May, and they will see the election of a new directly elected Mayor. They will also see new councillors elected to the council, and the cabinet appointed by the new Mayor. It is important, first, that those individuals make representations to me about the report and what they want to see happen. Depending on the ultimate course of action that I take, having listened carefully to those views, if we do choose to appoint commissioners, as I have proposed today, those commissioners will be going to Liverpool to stand behind the elected Mayor, the cabinet and the elected members of the city council—not to tell them what to do but to guide and support them.

I very much hope that the members elected by the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will rise to the occasion and drive the change and reform that is needed on the city council, and that the commissioners will never need to exercise their powers. We have given them the authority to act should they need to, given the seriousness of some of the allegations, but it is not our hope or expectation that those powers will be exercised.

Covid-19: Maternity and Parental Leave

Dan Carden Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

It is a delight to respond to the debate on behalf of the Opposition, and to see you back in the Chair in Westminster Hall, Madam Deputy Speaker. As others have done, I start by thanking Jessie Zammit and her husband James for starting this e-petition, and the 226,000 people who signed it. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) who, as others pointed out, took this issue forward and delivered a really important report. Beyond today, I hope the Government will take far more seriously the issues in the report and give us a much better indication of additional support for parents and families, as we head into what will, no doubt, be an even harder winter with coronavirus.

I briefly thank all Members, particularly those from the Opposition, for their contributions. We heard excellent contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), for Newcastle upon Tyne North, for Luton North (Sarah Owen), for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders).

Even before the pandemic struck, the system of support did not work as it should. There are too many inconsistencies in the support provided to employed and self-employed parents—or biological and adoptive parents, as we heard—causing some to miss out on vital support that is incredibly important at that time in their lives. The existing flaws have been exacerbated by covid-19, leaving many families in hardship and struggling. The Government’s response to the petition and subsequent report acknowledges that we are living through unprecedented times, but it does little more than express satisfaction with maternity and paternity support as it was before. The number of signatories to the petition speaks to the importance of parents’ and children’s wellbeing at this time, and to a real frustration with the inadequacy of the current provisions and the Government’s failure to provide sufficient additional support in the light of the pandemic.

The Petitions Committee’s report explains why the Government’s claim to provide among the most generous maternity support in the world is quite simply untrue, and why it is challenged by UNICEF, as has been mentioned. The report calls on the Government to capture data on the uptake of parental leave, as well as pay, so that any future review of parental leave arrangements can consider the extent to which parents from all groups are able to use their entitlements, and whether to extend leave or provide hardship grants in the light of that evidence. The Minister should take on board that important call. The UK has seen rapid growth in self-employment in recent decades, so it is of great concern that significant disparities exist between employed and self-employed women. Self-employed women already face additional challenges and reduced incomes after having children. If both parents are self-employed, only the mother can claim an allowance and there is no paternity or shared leave for fathers, which means that caring responsibilities fall to the mother. The entitlements available to self-employed women compound rather than address that inequality. Unlike statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance is treated as unearned income and deducted from universal credit, sometimes leaving women up to £5,000 worse off. Can the Minister give any justification for that unfair discrepancy? I call on him to set out how the Government will address it.

That is just one of the many inequalities in entitlement brought about by an inconsistent welfare system, combined with an increase in precarious work. The Government have pursued an agenda of creating a deregulated gig economy, rolling back workers’ rights and fostering insecurity in work, which has left us in the worst possible position as we now face the devastation wreaked on the economy by coronavirus.

Following the announcement by the Prime Minister and the chief medical officer in March that pregnant women are clinically vulnerable, employers that were unable to make the necessary adjustments to ensure workplace safety were required to send them home on full pay, but many pregnant women were unlawfully put on statutory sick pay, which affected their maternity pay and other entitlements. Labour has previously called on the Government to discount covid-related spells on SSP for the period when earnings are used to calculate statutory maternity pay to ensure that pregnant women do not have their maternity pay cut as a result of being on SSP. It is unacceptable that the Government have refused to do that, and I ask the Minister to reconsider.

In fact, the Minister said that the women affected should simply bring an employment tribunal claim against their employer, despite knowing that that is not a realistic option, given the small window of opportunity for doing so and the huge and growing backlog in employment tribunal cases. Citizens Advice says that its advisers are seeing worrying cases of pregnant women who feel that they have been selected for redundancy because they need more stringent health and safety measures, and demand for the organisation’s discrimination advice page has increased fourfold.

I echo the report’s recommendation that the Government should consider extending to six months the period in which pregnant women and new parents can bring claims before the employment tribunal. Last week, the Ministry of Justice published new figures blaming the 31% rise in outstanding employment tribunal cases on an increase in unemployment because of covid-19. It also warned the Government that the decision to end the job retention scheme and replace it with a job support scheme will lead to a further spike at the end of October.

Given that one in four people are already living under regional lockdowns, and that a second national lockdown is a very real possibility, the issues highlighted by the petition, the report and this debate will not go away. It is not acceptable for the Government simply to restate that the support available is generous and sufficient. The evidence submitted to the Petitions Committee inquiry shows that that is not the case. Substantive ministerial action is needed and I call on the Minister to set out what steps the Government intend to take, considering the problems facing pregnant women and new parents that hon. Members have detailed today. It is simply unfair that too many have lost their leave during this period of lockdown, so the Government should look to what action can be taken. The issues raised here will not simply be dealt with in this debate; they require action from the Government.

Local Authority Financial Sustainability: NAO Report

Dan Carden Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on securing this important debate. It is a shame that we will not even hear a Tory Back-Bencher heckle, never mind make a speech or an intervention, because not one has turned up to speak on behalf of their local councillors in this important debate.

As others have identified, the National Audit Office report raises grave concerns about the sustainability of local authority finances. Even more worryingly, this Government show no sign of changing direction, regardless of the consequences. The spring statement showed that there is no plan to abandon the austerity project, meaning that services delivered by local councils will be put under even more pressure. This Government have presided over the slowest recovery since at least the 1920s. Austerity has not tackled the deficit; it has passed it on to public services and plunged them into crisis, from the NHS to schools, to councils even going bust.

The Tory cuts to local government are deeply unfair, hitting the most deprived councils with the greatest need the very hardest. Since 2010, Liverpool’s funding has been cut by a staggering 64%, or some £444 million, and council services have lost 3,000 staff. Those cuts have stripped our communities bare and left our services stretched to the limit. One of the biggest financial pressures on our councils nationally is adult social care. More than 400,000 people can no longer access social care, which faces a £2.5 billion funding gap by 2020. The other main growing pressure on council budgets is children’s services. The number of children taken into care is at its highest since 1985, yet, according to the National Children’s Bureau, more than one in three carers are warning that cuts have left them with insufficient resources to support those children.

Liverpool City Council has rightly shielded those services as much as possible from the full force of Government cuts, but that means that funding for other vital services is being squeezed, from housing to road maintenance to refuse collection. Cuts combine and converge to create increased hardship, risk of homelessness and pressure on other services. Liverpool City Council’s impact analysis shows that the biggest impact is on disabled people, women, families with children, younger people and social sector tenants aged between 40 and 59.

The council has set aside £50 million to protect the most vulnerable, including £11 million to tackle homelessness, which has more than doubled under this Government; £3.3 million for discretionary housing payments for those affected by botched welfare reform and hardship—70% of which are because of the bedroom tax alone—and £3.1 million for crisis payments to help with the cost of food, fuel, clothing and furniture. I could go on.

It is right that local authorities step in when the Government fail the most fundamental maxim: that a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. However, those resources should be going on early intervention programmes, youth centres, community centres, libraries—facilities that give people the means to realise their creative capacities and live full and independent lives. Instead, local authorities, alongside a network of food banks and community and volunteer groups, are forced to act like a sticking plaster over the worst effects of Tory austerity.

Of course, the impact cannot be explained by figures alone. The stories of ruined lives that I hear at my advice surgeries and deal with through my office every day collectively amount to a national tragedy. Current trends of growing overspends and dwindling reserves are unsustainable, and the Local Government Association has raised concerns that there remains no clarity on how local government will be funded after the four-year funding deal runs out in March 2020.

We know that all this is down to political choices, not economic necessity. The Conservative Government chose to give tax handouts to the super rich, corporations and bankers, and it was paid for by the rest of us. In the autumn statement, they chose to hand almost £5 billion to the biggest banks by cutting the bank levy—money that could have been used to fund our children’s services. A recent report by the Equality Trust found that, in the UK, the 1,000 richest people now have more wealth than the poorest 40% of households put together, their wealth having increased by a staggering £82.5 billion last year. Meanwhile, UK workers have not had a pay rise for 10 years and continue to suffer real-terms pay cuts.

It was never about tightening our belts. We were never all in it together. It is time to call austerity what it is—and it ends the day the Labour party takes office.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne]

I absolutely agree. The Tory-controlled Local Government Association and Tory-controlled County Councils Network speak with one voice in the local government family, which is that local government is on its knees, our public services are struggling and local government cannot carry on if the cuts continue over the coming years. We know what is happening because it is happening today. Tory-controlled Surrey County Council, in one of the richest parts of the country, is complaining that it does not have enough money. If Surrey County Council has not got enough money, what hope have the Liverpools, the Tamesides and the Hulls of this world?

[Dan Carden]

I am delighted my hon. Friend has made that point. We are trying to argue that this matter is not economic, but political. When Liverpool has 60% of its properties in band A, what hope have we got of raising council tax to pay for all our services?

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. One of the two local authorities that I represent, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council in Greater Manchester, has a £16 million social care funding gap this year. A 1% increase on the council tax brings in about £700,000. The Tamesides of this world will never be able to fill the gap in the cuts from central Government, so the point my hon. Friend makes is absolutely crucial. The authorities that we represent are grant-dependent for a reason, because no amount of business rates retention and increases in local taxation through the council tax within the referendum framework will ever make up the difference between the cuts that have been made centrally.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Carden]

Does the Minister agree with us that, actually, a fair funding formula is about the requirements of the citizens who live in the area, and that that has to be the responsibility of not just local government, but national Government? I invite the Minister to come to Liverpool to see what would be the consequences of any business rates changes before they take place.

[Mrs Wheeler]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that kind invitation; I am sure that eventually that will happen. Thanks to the business rates retention scheme, local authorities have had approximately an additional £1.3 billion of funding to support local services in 2017-18. That is over and above their core settlement funding.

Investment is important, but it is also vital that local government continues its work to deliver better value for money. Local government has a strong track record on efficiency, setting an example to other parts of the public sector. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), who is responsible for local government, are keen to continue to work with the sector to increase transparency and share best practice and to harness the power of digital to transform services.

I am glad that we have had this chance to discuss the National Audit Office report. It is good that the NAO has recognised the positive work of the Department in getting to grips with the challenges across local government. I believe that the Government have shown that we are alive to the challenges that the sector faces and have a coherent plan for reform.

I thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale for calling a debate on this important issue. I look forward to working closely with many colleagues over the coming months and discussing some of the challenges and opportunities facing the local government sector, and I look forward to hearing the hon. Member for Weaver Vale winding up the debate now.