Private Rented Sector

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is to be commended on her initiative. On a wider scale, Which? undertook that same kind of mystery shopping initiative, and it demonstrated an enormous variation in charges. For example, the charges for checking a reference vary between £10 and £275. As I will argue later, the opaqueness and the scale of the fees charged is wrong, and that must change.

We need a sector where 1 million families with children have the certainty that the rent will not rise at any time and that their children will not be forced to move school. We need a sector where there is no place for rogues who prey on vulnerable tenants and where every home is a decent home.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

There are many areas in my constituency where I am afraid that private rented housing is not fit. A recent poll by The Guardian suggested that 84% of people wanted landlords to be required to make rented homes decent. How can we ensure that the right of people to live in decent homes with secure, value-for-money tenancies does not risk landlords exiting the market?

[Jack Dromey]

I will come to that precise point later.

The sad facts are these: 37% of homes in the private rented sector do not meet decent homes standards, and we have a business model that does not work for tenants or for landlords. In no way do we want to promote flight from the private rented sector; on the contrary, we want to transform the private rented sector so that we move in future to a sector of choice that works for landlords and for tenants.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Prisk]

If the hon. Gentleman will give me some of the details of an individual case, I will double-check, but I am fairly sure that the necessary powers are already available to local authorities. However, he is right to raise the issue of antisocial behaviour. I shall not be referring to it specifically in my speech, but I believe that it causes genuine misery to decent tenants.

I have mentioned the need for regulation, but it must be said that much of it is already in place. Let me give some examples. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 give tenants specific protection from letting agents who mislead or engage in aggressive business practices. Tower Hamlets took advantage of those regulations recently. The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 protect tenants from unfair conditions, such as unfair restrictions on ways in which they can use a property. If a landlord unfairly withholds a tenant’s deposit, the tenant can already seek redress through a Government-sponsored tenancy deposit protection scheme which covers about 2.5 million tenancies. The worst abuses—harassment and illegal evictions—are already criminal offences.

We have seen that trading standards can and will prosecute letting agents. There is a good example in West Bromwich, where a letting agent, Mr Dhuga, was taken to court by Sandwell council’s trading standards team, He had been falsely claiming that his business was a member of the Property Ombudsman scheme, and a member of this and that. Sandwell won, and as a result Mr Dhuga will have to pay more than £6,000 in fines and costs. I congratulate Sandwell on bringing the prosecution and on publicising the case in order to deter others.

However, more can be done. Last year, for example, we became aware of a number of landlords in parts of London with tenants in outbuildings, or “beds in sheds”. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington gave an example in Newham. These are complex situations. Often, alongside the housing issue are illegal immigration, tax evasion and other criminal activities. We recognised that to root out those rogue landlords, the enforcement agencies needed to work differently and much more closely together. My predecessor developed a new, collaborative approach that can tackle complex problems on the ground. We then provided an additional £1.8 million to help local teams, particularly those in nine areas; even on one of the early raids 39 people were found to be in appalling conditions, and that has put a stop to it. Of course, the “beds in sheds” case is slightly unusual, but it has shown that we can, and should, make much better use of existing law to tackle the minority of rogue agents and landlords.

The Opposition’s motion contains a number of ideas that were recently trailed in a speech by the Leader of the Opposition. Some of the ideas are more statements of hope than detailed policies. I was hoping, perhaps naively, that we were going to get the detail from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington. We did not get that, but we should none the less explore what the Labour party is proposing. First, the hon. Gentleman has said that he wants the introduction of a national register of landlords, which he says will help local authorities to root out rogue landlords. However, he has not said what form of additional powers local authorities would have, what would happen to the existing voluntary schemes or what the costs would be.

What is clear is that for the majority of law-abiding landlords, such a register— whether or not it includes the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who registered his interest for this debate—would mean that those who are doing the right thing and are already accredited will have a new, additional burden placed on them. When Labour, in office, last proposed a register it said that the register would cost £300 million, and that was without the extra powers that the hon. Gentleman seems to allude to. We must also bear in mind the fact that higher costs for landlords mean higher rents for tenants. In addition, many of the worst landlords—the rogues he rightly highlights—would continue to operate, under the radar. If they do not sign on, what guarantee is there that local authorities would be able to take action? Let me cite an example and then if he wants to intervene, I will be happy to let him do so.

As we have seen in Scotland, after five years—

[Debbie Abrahams]

rose—

[Mr Prisk]

Just a moment. As we have seen in Scotland, after five years just 0.5% of licensed landlords have either had their licence revoked or have been refused. What makes the Labour party think its scheme will be any better?