Private Rented Sector

Eddie Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

In the previous report, we did not look specifically at mechanisms for increasing housing supply. In this report, we recommended that 90,000 social homes are built a year and said that that could cost up to £10 billion a year, which is about £70 billion more than has been provided through social housing grant. The Government must give that serious consideration, because the housing crisis will not go away unless something significant is done. The worry is, and this is something the Committee is looking at, that housing associations and councils will start to build fewer homes because of the pressures from disrepair, particularly around mould and damp, and because they are fixing safety defects post-Grenfell, all of which are adding further demands on their limited capital resources.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

It was an absolute privilege to be the previous Minister who was responsible for the White Paper. As an accidental landlord myself, I feel like I have a bit of a vested interest, but I am still evangelical in my support for the idea of a landlord portal because it will do two things: connect landlords to excellent advice available from the Government; and allow the Government to communicate directly with those 2.5 million landlords on environmental benefit schemes, reducing carbon emissions and so on. Does the Chair of the Select Committee feel my enthusiastic support for the portal and the difference it might make to local councils in driving up standards in the private rented sector under their control?

[Mr Betts]

This is probably not the first occasion that I agree with the hon. Member. The portal is an extremely important step forward, and it will bring that information together. We talked about the importance of how it is delivered, which will involve a lot of discussions with landlords and councils to get it right, digitalising some of the information so that it is accurate and proper. It also ought to help with the problems that many councils have in finding out who owns a property, as bad landlords often move it from one family member to another and the council has the challenge of chasing it round. I hope the information held in the portal will enable councils to enforce more appropriately in future.