Private Rented Sector Housing

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ms Buck]

I am grateful for that, Sir Gary; I am always anxious not to take too much time.

I certainly agree that one of the issues in the private rented sector is that we do not actually know where it is, other than when it comes to those claiming housing allowance in the private rented sector. There are landlords who are renting and we do not know who they are, so it is quite hard to enforce against them.

We have a patchwork of enforcement services. That requires resources from local authorities, which have been hammered over the past 10 years of funding cuts, and also political will. The situation needs a clear steer from the centre, together with good local knowledge—local authorities are in the best position to understand something about their own local markets. It also needs individual capacity for enforcement. We have just come from a statement on legal aid; one of the issues we should be very concerned about is the significant shrinking of the housing legal section’s capacity in recent years, with fewer providers and less capacity for access to services that put individual tenants in a position to enforce their own rights.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about people in the private rental sector not being able to enforce their rights, because of lack of legal aid. Does she agree with restoring legal advice in this area? That would help prevent problems from escalating in the first place.

[Ms Buck]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the earlier one intervenes, the better, in all respects.

My third substantive point is the issue of temporary accommodation. This is property rented almost invariably from the private sector, often—although not always—managed by intermediary organisations such as housing associations and procured on behalf of local authorities. I raised a debate about this issue a little over a year ago, particularly looking at my own local circumstance, but the issue is wider than that. Human Rights Watch published a report a few weeks ago on the issue of temporary accommodation: a major human rights organisation felt it necessary to carry out an inquiry and report into the scandal of families and households in temporary accommodation and the conditions in which they are living. That report is utterly devastating. In the London Borough of Westminster, we have people living like this—I will quote from a couple of recent case studies:

“I’ve lived in this temporary accommodation Since June 2020 and have been under a lot of stress and strain due to my situation…I am infested with cockroaches and mice. As my son is a toddler, I always find him with the traps for…pests and putting them in his mouth. I fear for both his and my health. I have contacted my landlord, who are A2 Dominion”—

it should ashamed of itself—and

“Westminster Housing, and they keep sending pest control…They have sprayed the house but it only made matters worse. Cockroaches are everywhere! They’re in my fridge, my bed, my sons cot, within the sofas, just EVERYWHERE! I also have damp in my kitchen wall where there is water between the walls where I have an electrical socket.”

Another constituent wrote:

“I am currently in temporary accommodation and the council and housing providers which are A2 dominion”—

a bit of a theme will emerge with A2Dominion—

“are not listening to my concerns…The flat is infested with pharoah ants. They are all over the place. These ants carry bacteria which could harm my baby if they got to her. The ants have crawled on me. Today is the last straw when I saw them on my babies bottles. Pest control came out but never returned and there’s more than before… the bedroom is…freezing.... I have to put the heating on all night and that still doesn’t help so I’ve bought an electric heater that I have to put on through the whole night because of how cold the room is, and the electric heater takes so much electric that I can’t be affording.”

Another wrote:

“This house is riddled with black mould because of the continuous flooding. This has been going on since 2017. Each and every time I have made Westminster aware of the issues, I have been told that it is my fault because I don’t keep the property ventilated…It’s because I’ve been continuously flooded. I am forever cleaning black mould off the walls. My health has got worse. So much so, my current midwife is concerned for…my unborn child…I am continuously wheezing and have a dry cough…My eldest son has asthma and always complaining that his chest is hurting him.”

Another wrote:

“I actually haven’t had any hot water for at least 18 months and have to boil the kettle to have a bath. Why am I living like this in 2022???? Myself and my 18 month old sleep in the front room as the bedroom is too mouldy to sleep in. We have a hole in the ceiling and every time it rains, the water comes through.”

The last one wrote:

“I live in a temporary accommodation provided by Westminster council. I reported a leakage and mould problem in February 2021 to the council. The timing…was…terrible because I was undergoing breast cancer treatment so it was necessary for me to be at peace in my home free from…dampness…The reply letter acknowledges that the TA suffers from…damage, mould and disrepairs and even apologises to me yet says I will only be updated once they have more information? I think this matter is…a severe health risk yet the council believes it is…fine to continue sleeping in a mould infested home and have water dripping from the ceiling while you sleep.”

I could read 50 cases like that. The chief executive of A2Dominion earned a salary package of £276,000 in 2020, despite being in charge of a stream of those cases. But A2Dominion is not the only one.

It is my strong belief that, in addition to tackling the issues of enforcement and renters’ rights, the Government need to take action on the issue of temporary accommodation. The people accommodated there are in accommodation procured by the state. The state should set a higher bar for services than for the remainder of the private rented sector; in fact, it sets a lower bar. I would very much like the Minister, a year since I last raised this, to tell me what the Government are going to do about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (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) for securing this incredibly important debate. Decent housing should be a basic right for all. The private rental sector has grown significantly over the last decade, but the Government have been incredibly slow in protecting the rights of renters.

The English Housing Survey estimated that 21% of private rental sector homes did not meet the decent homes standard, and 13% of privately rented homes have a serious health hazard. The impact of that on my constituents is huge. Last year I was contacted by a constituent who raised concerns about her privately rented property. Cigarette smoke from other tenants in the block would fill her entire flat, and her five-month-old baby developed a cough that doctors said was directly due to the smoke. Despite raising that with her landlords, and giving them the opportunity to fix the situation, it was not resolved and she was instead asked to tell her neighbours to stop smoking. Eventually she was placed on the housing register, but her private landlord wanted to charge her huge fees just to move out. Minimum standards were clearly not kept up, but with no clear regulation of the private rented sector, the landlords have the power to dictate these fees to the tenant, even when the property is unsuitable for habitation. My constituent also tells me that she was left without hot water for her and her baby for 11 days, without getting any response from her landlords. She has decided to move out of London, her home city, in the hope of finding better, more affordable accommodation.

The Government’s inaction on section 21 no-fault evictions is also having a profound effect on my constituents. Despite the Government announcing in 2019 that they would abolish the measure, they are yet to do so. One of my constituents, who is unable to work due to a number of complex health issues, was served with a section 21 notice completely out of the blue, giving her one month to find a property for her and her children. She was told that she would struggle to get social housing and would have to move far away from her local support structures. She wrote to me stating that the whole experience had pushed her to the verge of suicide. I know it is difficult to hear, but policy decisions have a very real effect on the hardest hit. The Government should immediately abolish section 21 and give people security of tenure.

Another constituent who escaped domestic abuse was also served a section 21 notice from her private rented accommodation. She then found herself in appalling conditions. The temporary housing was covered in mould and damp, and there was an infestation of slugs. Instead of having this addressed, she was advised just to find another property. She and her children are now trapped in squalor, and have few or no options. This is a vulnerable family who, if not supported into decent housing, could find themselves back in the path of their abuser. Sadly, her case is not unique.

While the private rented sector is an important part of the housing mix, there has been a lack of urgency from the Government to take action on keeping the sector up to standard, and on giving renters rights. In the absence of such action, I want to mention some of the work that has been done in my constituency. While almost every council has a landlord forum, very few have formalised ways of communicating with private renters. Lewisham Council and others are trying to change this at local level. Lewisham is working with Generation Rent to research how private renters want to be engaged with, and as part of that, Generation Rent has launched a survey and planned focus groups with private renters in the borough. The aim is to provide a link between renters and councils; help the local authority become better informed about the issues that private renters face and what it can do to support them; and help renters to become more knowledgeable about the council services available to them.

Local authorities cannot fix the system alone. We need a commitment and the energy to drive this forward at national level, yet to date the Government have failed to give councils the powers to deliver landlord licensing, to deliver their planned White Paper on rental reform, and to update the decent homes standard. Sadly, this just reflects the Government’s record of kicking renters’ rights into the long grass. Every day that the Government delay reform is a day many people spend in cold, dilapidated, hazardous and unaffordable homes. My constituents and many others across the country cannot wait any longer. Rental reform has to be done now, and done right.

I hope that today the Government are listening to all these stories from up and down the country of what people are facing in the private rented sector, and that they will outline when the millions of renters living in terrible conditions will finally be treated fairly.