Housing and Planning Bill (Seventeenth sitting)

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Teresa Pearce

Thursday 10th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Teresa Pearce]

I thank the Minister for his response. When people are handling money that does not belong to them, it is important that it is ring-fenced and safeguarded. For example, solicitors have to keep a completely separate client account, which is audited, because it is not their money. That principle is important with letting agents as well. Nevertheless, I hear what the Minister says and look forward to what may happen in 2016. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 36

Restriction on permitted changes of use

Where the Secretary of State has exercised or exercises his powers conferred by sections 59, 60, 61, 74 or 333(7) of the Town and Country Planning 1990 Act to make an Order in respect of change of use from office buildings (currently Class B1(a) of the Schedule to the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 (as amended)) to use as dwelling-houses, the Order shall have no effect in respect of any building situated within Greater London as provided in the London Government Act 1963.”—(Mr Gareth Thomas.)

This new clause would exclude from the permitted changes of use provided in a Permitted Development Order made, or to be made, by the Secretary of State changes of use from offices to housing in London. Such changes would require planning permission from the local authority.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Mr Thomas]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause would require proposals to change offices in London into homes to go through a planning application process. Greater London has been particularly badly affected by the introduction of permitted development rights for those wanting to convert office accommodation into residential dwellings without seeking planning permission. There is a significant difference between office and residential values, which, combined with the high demand for housing and the scarcity of land, has created big incentives for landlords to convert, without planning permission, viable and occupied offices into homes. London Councils estimates that between May 2013 and April this year, at least 100,000 square feet of office floor space was lost. It argues that one consequence of that had been to drive up office rents in some parts of London, increasing costs for businesses; hon. Members know about all the implications of that.

London Councils has expressed concerns about the impact of the provisions on affordable housing in such developments. Because developers do not have to go through section 106 agreements when offices are converted into flats, there is no requirement to provide any affordable housing. London Councils estimates that some 16,000 new dwellings have avoided the full planning process and, as a result, many affordable homes that could have been built, had a planning application been required, have not been built. The LGA and London Councils have argued for change, and they support the intent of the new clause.

Housing and Planning Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Teresa Pearce

Thursday 26th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)]

Further to that point of order, Sir Alan. To be helpful to the Committee, I suggest that the hon. Member for Harrow West looks at the National Housing Federation website, where the deal is published in full.

Clause 48, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 49

Recovering abandoned premises

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 110, in clause 49, page 22, line 10, at end insert—

“(e) the local housing authority responds to a request by the landlord confirming that they suspect the property to be abandoned.”

This amendment would require the local housing authority to confirm that they also suspect that the property is abandoned before a landlord can recover the abandoned premises.

Part 3 of the Bill makes provision for private landlords to recover abandoned premises. We appreciate the need for some landlords to recover abandoned premises, but the proposed measures give landlords dangerous powers to evict tenants with speed and ease.

Tenancies are formal legal agreements and the Bill will give landlords the power to repossess homes from tenants without going through a court process. The turnover period for recovering abandoned premises is too short and the Bill does not provide safeguards for genuine cases of someone legitimately being away from the property, such as for a long holiday, a stay in hospital or a short period of working away.

The proposed measures will lead to further pressure on our already stretched social housing and local authority housing departments as evicted tenants turn to their local authorities after eviction. At the moment there is a timetable and a process for a local authority to help people avoid homelessness by trying to get them into another property, but the process in the Bill is too speedy and people will literally be turning up at the housing department having just been given a second letter.

As drafted, the measures go against the spirit of the Bill that we debated in our scrutiny on Tuesday, namely to crack down on rogue and criminal landlords with banning orders, the database and the fines and to drive up standards throughout the private rented sector. Instead, as they stand, the provisions create a way for some landlords to evict without recourse to the courts and with ease and speed.

Part 3 gives the impression of being put together at the last minute, without thought for the impact on existing legislation. In fact, the impact assessment, on page 43, indicates that the Government are unsure about how big the problem being dealt with even is, so we are concerned about the inclusion of the measure in the Bill. We are not alone in expressing concern.

Shelter and Crisis, two of the leading charities in the sector, released special briefings on those clauses in part 3, strongly opposing them and recommending that they be removed from the Bill completely. They were particularly concerned that vulnerable tenants could be unintentionally evicted, that tenants will be unable to challenge eviction effectively and that there is insufficient evidence that abandonment is a real problem. They also said that there is existing legal provision to deal with genuine cases of abandonment. In addition, they believe that by undermining the role of the courts in the eviction process, the changes will put more tenants at risk of homelessness.

Many representations made to the Committee in written and oral evidence noted concern about the proposals. In written evidence, Crisis highlighted:

“The Bill creates a new ‘fast-track’ eviction process for landlords to reclaim possession of a property which”

they believe

“has been abandoned”,

and that:

“There is no robust evidence to suggest that abandonment is significant or widespread”.

Crisis cited the Bill and the Government’s own impact assessment, which I just mentioned, in which landlords’ associations representing approximately 1.4 million landlords estimated that only 1% of calls to their helplines relate to abandonment. From that figure, the Government have extrapolated that only 1,750 tenancies are abandoned every year, which amounts to 0.04% of private rented households.

The Housing Law Practitioners Association also expressed concern in its written evidence, saying that the HLPA was unaware of any evidential basis suggesting the need for such a power and did not understand what was thought to be defective in existing law. Looking more closely at the legislation, the HLPA noted that the trigger rent arrears are plainly modelled on those in schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988. If rent arrears are not paid, the landlord is already entitled to a mandatory possession order on ground 8 of the Act.

If the landlord already has a right to mandatory possession, why does he need a right to bypass the court? I would be interested to hear why the Minister believes that the clause is necessary, because it puzzles me. The HLPA also raised concerns about the reinstatement provisions, noting that if the landlord re-lets the property after recovering possession using the abandoned property route and the original tenants seek reinstatement, the court is very likely to refuse them, given that reinstatement would take effect as a concurrent tenancy but would not entitle the original tenant to resume occupation.

In addition to the written evidence, I remember clearly questioning Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, in the evidence sessions. I remind the Committee of that discussion. To quote the transcript, Mr Robb mentioned

“potentially some unintended consequences of bringing”

these measures

“forward and of the lack of court oversight or local authority oversight in making sure that the proposals achieve what is wished but that they do not give a licence to some landlords to use them in a way that we would not support. I just want to put that on record.”

Mr Robb also went on to highlight the danger that,

“without that due process, certain types of landlords may use this to create evictions”

and agreed that it might

“put additional pressure on local authority housing departments by people appearing evicted without due process”.––[Official Report, Housing and Planning Public Bill Committee, 10 November 2015; c. 59, Q153-156.]

Although many have concerns about the proposals as they stand, others note that they are unnecessary. Crisis and Shelter reminded the Bill Committee in their briefing and in written evidence that there is already legal provision for cases of abandonment, in the form of the legal rule on implied surrender.

[Mr Thomas]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend thinks that an elderly person living alone, perhaps with early-onset Alzheimer’s, might be a suitable example for highlighting the concerns about the clause. Such a person, whose Alzheimer’s might not have been noticed, might inadvertently not pay their rent. An unscrupulous landlord would be able to exploit that fact to put that vulnerable person at risk, unless the local housing authority were aware of the situation and able to intervene to prevent the landlord from using an eviction process.

[Teresa Pearce]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is exactly the sort of situation that I could envisage arising. We heard on Tuesday that there are 10,500 rogue landlords who are known about; I know that there are a fair number in my constituency. I hear many cases in which the landlord, rather than resort to the court, has intimidated tenants into moving out of a premises voluntarily. When the tenants go to the housing department, the housing department says, “You’ve made yourself voluntarily homeless, so we don’t have a duty to house you.” There are landlords like that out there; we know that from the discussions that we had on Tuesday.

It is from that sort of person that we seek to protect tenants. We believe that people who do not want to go to the cost and the bother of going to court will use this route, so it needs to be tightened up.

In its briefing, Crisis says that implied surrender

“is where a tenant behaves in a way that would make a landlord believe they wanted to end a tenancy such as emptying the property of all of its possessions or handing back the keys.”

Crucially, there has to be evidence of actual abandonment—evidence that the tenant has gone for good. That can be evidence from neighbours or visual evidence that all possessions have been cleared. The landlord can accept that and then legally change the locks without any court proceedings being required.

Crisis notes that, in addition to the legal rule of implied surrender, the landlord can, outside the fixed term of the tenancy, use a section 21 notice to give a tenant two months’ notice of eviction, under which they do not have to prove that the tenant is at fault. A common complaint about the section 21 route is that the court process can be slow, but if the tenant has genuinely abandoned the property, this route should be straightforward. For example, there will be no need for the landlord to go to court to seek a possession notice, because the tenant will no longer be in the property. There is no evidence to suggest that existing legal provision is ineffective in genuine cases of abandonment.

[Mr Thomas]

I wonder whether I can raise another example with my hon. Friend. If someone living on their own has a heart attack and is taken at a moment’s notice to hospital, they may have to spend quite a time there recovering. As a result, they may not pay their rent for a couple of months. If it is not obvious that they are still living at the premises, they may fall victim to a rogue landlord or, indeed, to any landlord who is concerned about the arrears and who is not aware that the person has been hospitalised. Is that not a further reason for the Minister to take the amendment seriously?

[Teresa Pearce]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is exactly the type of scenario we are talking about. I do not think that reputable landlords will use the provisions to get rid of tenants they do not want or to reclaim their property, but, as we know from our discussions on Tuesday, there are landlords out there who do not act in their tenants’ best interests.

I hope the Minister will be able to comment on the rationale for these measures. As I mentioned, there are no real data to hand, and the impact assessment judges the number of households affected to be extremely small.

The measures give landlords dangerous powers to evict tenants with speed and ease. It is a puzzle why the clause is in the Bill, given that there is already a legal route for landlords to go down. That is why we have tabled amendment 110, among others, which would require the local housing authority, as an extra layer of protection, to confirm that it also suspects the property has been abandoned, before the landlord can recover it.

It is clear that we do not have a cohesive set of measures to adequately prove abandonment. One flaw is that they are open to abuse or error. Landlords could use them as they stand to evict tenants, just by writing them a couple of letters. They could also use the measures to evict someone as an act of revenge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Thomas]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton for intervening, because he prompts me to remind the Committee of my entry on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I put to my hon. Friend another example of someone who might be vulnerable if this provision were introduced without the additional protections she suggests. Let us suppose that someone is rightly sent to prison and has to spend a few months there, in which time they do not pay their rent and—perhaps for understandable reasons —do not make their landlord aware of where they are residing for that short period. Is there not a danger that, without additional protections, a landlord might simply go ahead and seek to evict that person, making it even more difficult for them to be rehabilitated after their spell in prison?

[Teresa Pearce]

There are many scenarios in which that could happen. As I have stated, I believe the majority of landlords are good and proper citizens who would not do that, but we know there is a core of rogue landlords. The Minister’s figure of 10,500 such landlords is, I think, an underestimation, because those are the ones we know about; there are plenty who we do not know about, but who we hear about it in our caseloads and surgeries. That is the reason we tabled the amendment—to try to ensure this proposal has a few safeguards. Landlords could use this measure to kick out a legitimate tenant who was away on business, in hospital or even in jail, as my hon. Friend suggested. Will the Minister outline what would happen in those situations?

What safeguards are in place for tenants if their landlord says a letter has been delivered? Will the letters have to be signed for, with recorded delivery? Many properties in my constituency have communal letterboxes, and people often do not get mail directed at them. A number of properties have external letterboxes, and it is not unusual for people to go along and steal post from those. How will the tenant be protected if the landlord says a letter has been delivered? Will it have to be signed for? What happens if a landlord says he sent a letter but the tenant never received it, or the tenant goes away for a couple of weeks and the landlord evicts them while they are away?

All the legislation requires is for the landlord to say a property is abandoned, rather than for it to actually be abandoned. It is clear that the proposals could be open to abuse. That is why we propose adding an extra layer to them through our amendment. The local housing authority would need to confirm that it also suspects a property is abandoned, which would ensure a landlord is unable to just say it is abandoned. Adding the voice of a local, respected body to the process would ensure the measures are not open to abuse.

[Mr Thomas]

Does my hon. Friend agree that many landlords would appreciate that additional requirement and the ability to check with a respected local body that has expertise in housing matters whether a property has been abandoned? I think most landlords would be horrified if they inadvertently evicted someone who was in hospital, having a short spell in prison or away caring for an elderly relative. Surely another argument for supporting the amendment is that it would help landlords to avoid inadvertently doing the wrong thing.

[Teresa Pearce]

I completely agree. The amendment would also give a heads-up to the local housing authority that there is the possibility of an eviction, enabling the authority to help that tenant into new premises and prevent them from ending up homeless.

It is estimated that these abandonments would arise on only 1,750 occasions a year, and with only 400 local authorities in the country, the amendment would be unlikely to place too much of a burden on them. It is clear that the clause needs amending if it is to work, to not be open to abuse and to be used appropriately on the rare occasions when a landlord is required to recover abandoned premises. The amendment would require the local housing authority to confirm, as an extra layer, that it also suspects that the property is abandoned before a landlord can recover the abandoned premises.

Housing and Planning Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Teresa Pearce

Thursday 26th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Thomas]

Very briefly, I want to press the point about the jurisdiction of the database. It clearly relates to England, but rogue landlords operating in the Gloucester area or on the borders of Wales might have properties in Wales. It might be similar with the border areas close to Scotland. It would be useful, as part of the Minister’s helpful commitment to look at how the database might be made even more robust, to think about co-operation with Welsh, Scottish and even Northern Irish housing authorities.

[Teresa Pearce]

I am reassured by the Minister’s comments. We all agree that we want to drive those sorts of people out of business, because of the suffering of their tenants and the impact on the communities in which they live—on schools and on the NHS. Slum landlords overcrowding properties is a problem in all constituencies, particularly in London. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: 128, in clause 85, page 35, line 5, leave out subsection (5) and insert—

“(5) In section 89 (tests for fitness and satisfactory management arrangements: certain other houses)—

(a) after subsection (1) insert—

‘(1A) A local housing authority in England must also have regard to any evidence within subsection (3A) or (3B).’;

(b) in subsection (2), in paragraph (c), after ‘tenant law’ insert

‘(including Part 3 of the Immigration Act 2014)’;

(c) after subsection (3) insert—

‘(3A) Evidence is within this subsection if it shows that P—

(a) requires leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom but does not have it; or

(b) is insolvent or an undischarged bankrupt.

(3B) Evidence is within this subsection if—

(a) it shows that any person associated or formerly associated with P (whether on a personal, work or other basis) is a person to whom subsection (3A)(a) or (b) applies; and

(b) it appears to the authority that the evidence is relevant to the question whether P is a fit and proper person to be the licence holder or (as the case may be) the manager of the house.’

(6) In section 93, in subsection (2), in the words after paragraph (c)—

(a) for ‘Section 89(1) applies’ substitute ‘Section 89(1) and (1A) apply’;

(b) for ‘it applies’ substitute ‘they apply’.”—(Brandon Lewis.)

See Member’s explanatory statement for amendment number 127.

Clause 85, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 86

Financial penalty as alternative to prosecution under Housing Act 2004

Housing and Planning Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Teresa Pearce

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Teresa Pearce]

I have given thought to that, which is why I talked about “reasonable effort”. The original amendment said that the local authority “must” consult. It now asks for a “reasonable effort”, which is open to interpretation. Of course, there are costs in doing things properly, but we are trying to rid the private rented sector of rogue landlords who commit criminal offences by keeping people in properties that are unfit and unsafe. There is a cost, but the cost of not doing something could be far higher for the local authority.

Are banning orders only a way to punish criminal landlords or are they a way to improve standards in the sector by working with landlords and tenants to drive out rogue landlords? It will be fundamental to the success of banning orders for tenants to be brought in on the process. Not all tenants will want to play a part in the process and that is fine. The aim behind the amendment is for local housing authorities to consult affected tenants, ensuring they have the opportunity to have their say. If tenants have been subject to wrongdoing by a landlord, they will be able to provide further and wider evidence to the local housing authority. The landlord may have been prosecuted for one offence but could have demonstrated a consistent disregard for the tenant’s security and safety. That could be factored in by the local housing authority in the first-tier tribunal. It works both ways. The local housing authority and the first-tier tribunal could factor in positive experiences from tenants, although I suspect that those cases will be few and far between. In all cases, it will allow for the local housing authority and the first-tier tribunal to build up a more coherent case for or against a banning order.

I hope the Minister looks favourably on the suggestion because it would make this section of the Bill work better. For those reasons, we are moving that the clause be amended to include a requirement for the local housing authority to consult directly with any tenants of the rogue landlord or letting agent against whom it is hoping to make a banning order.

[Mr Thomas]

I rise to support the amendment and to add one or two brief thoughts. What would my hon. Friend, who spoke to the amendment in a very consensual style, think about a local authority that has not rushed into taking action against landlords because, for ideological reasons, it does not think it should or because the burden of other legislation in this time of significant cutbacks is too much for it to prioritise taking action against rogue landlords? The amendment would create that additional bit of pressure to ensure that local housing authorities always think of the need to consult tenants on an annual basis about whether rogue landlords are in action and whether the authority should act on that.

Let us take South Norfolk Council as an example. Presumably whenever the hon. Member for South Norfolk sees housing authority staff, he sits down and talks with them at some length about self-build and custom house building. Presumably, given his importance and the esteem in which he is held, it requires a considerable effort by those staff to deal with his inquiries. What my hon. Friend’s amendment will do is gently rebalance perhaps the enthusiasm within South Norfolk housing authority to focus on the needs of tenants, as well as dealing with his concerns. As I alluded to, there might be an authority—a Bexley or Bromley, perhaps, in London—that is so pro-landlord that it cannot envisage rogue landlords operating in its space.

Given that the Minister is determined—it seems to me, at least—to adopt the nanny state approach and not allow tenants themselves to go to the first-tier tribunal, my hon. Friend’s amendment would at least force local authorities to consider whether there is a need to take action. In that sense, it would be a useful annual prod to get local authorities to do a bit more in this area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Teresa Pearce]

Amendments 101 and 102 go together. Clause 17 sets out the financial penalty for breach of a banning order and we are seeking, first, to remove the limit for the breach of a banning order, and, secondly, to change the maximum fine from £5,000 to £20,000. As was said earlier, we support the measures to tackle rogue landlords, to ensure security and safety for tenants and to penalise criminal landlords. We believe that banning orders should help drive up standards and protect tenants, but for banning orders to work they must penalise and target the few criminal landlords who bring down the name of the private rented sector. Those who breach a banning order deserve to be penalised appropriately.

For a criminal landlord, who may have committed a crime such as violently securing entry or harassing their occupiers, to be given a banning order and to breach it and only to face a fine of £5,000 is wrong. It is not in keeping with the spirit of this part of the Bill to tackle such rogue landlords. If a landlord has committed such an offence and gets caught letting a property in breach of that banning order, he will be fined less than he would if he got caught speeding on his way home. If a rogue landlord owns multiple properties, particularly in London, where market rates are obviously much higher, he could raise the funds to pay that fine in just a few weeks, so I believe there is no deterrent. Why was £5,000 thought to be an appropriate maximum financial penalty? By removing the upper limit, the Bill would provide a greater deterrent to those considering breaching banning orders. It would penalise further and recover extra moneys from criminal landlords, which would help drive up standards by ensuring that criminal landlords do not return to the sector.

Secondly, we are proposing to change the maximum to £20,000 from £5,000. That will create a further deterrent to criminal landlords considering breaching a banning order and will penalise those who do. As I said, if a rogue landlord owns multiple properties, particularly in London, where the market rates are high, it would not take very long at all for them to raise the money to pay £5,000. We believe that £20,000 is much more of a deterrent. The figure of £20,000 was drawn from the financial penalty for letting a licensed house in multiple occupation to more than the maximum number permitted. Therefore, we believe that there is a precedent for that level of fine. I would like to hear from the Minister why £5,000 was considered to be appropriate and what his view would be on a higher figure.

[Mr Thomas]

I support my hon. Friend’s amendment and I shall quote a number of examples which have received coverage. They are examples of rogue landlords and how they have been dealt with by the courts.

I draw attention to an article in the Conservative party’s newspaper of choice, The Guardian. According to that article, figures released last summer through a freedom of information case against the Ministry of Justice reveal that there were just over 2,000 convictions of rogue landlords between 2006 and 2014—that is, nicely, the last four years of a great Government and the first four years of a dismal Government for us to look at. The resulting fines in those 2,000 cases were just £3 million—less than £1,500 per conviction. One of those convicted was a man called Andreas Stavrou Antoniades, a landlord who converted a north London terrace into nine flats. He was given the maximum fine at the time, some £20,000—the equivalent of little more than two month’s rent from one property. The article goes on to say that the campaign group Generation Rent has suggested that criminal landlords rake in some £5 billion in rent a year.

The Minister has said that there are, in his estimate, some 10,500 rogue landlords. Clearly, if there is consensus on the Committee that we want action against those rogue landlords, we need housing authorities to move quickly. If they are going to take action quickly against rogue landlords, inevitably there will be a desire within housing authorities to know that the sanctions imposed on those landlords have real and significant teeth that will be a real deterrent to the often very rich individuals who benefit from very poor behaviour, and get them to change their behaviour.

At the moment, particularly in London, where rents are so expensive, we run the risk of fines just being written off as a business expense. I encourage the Minister to look with favour on my hon. Friend’s amendment, to send a much stronger and stiffer signal to stop criminal and other bad behaviour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Teresa Pearce]

Given what the Minister has said—I am taking him at his word—it seems that we may have some agreement here, and given that he seems to have intimated to the Committee that the Government will look at the level of the penalty and perhaps increase it, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: 16, in clause 17, page 10, line 22, at end insert—

“( ) The responsible local housing authority may not impose a financial penalty in respect of any conduct amounting to an offence under section (Offence of breach of banning order) if—

(a) the person has been convicted of an offence under that section in respect of the conduct, or

(b) criminal proceedings for the offence have been instituted against the person in respect of the conduct and the proceedings have not been concluded.”

This amendment ensures that a person does not end up with a financial penalty as well as a conviction for the criminal offence created by NC3.—(Mr Marcus Jones.)

[Mr Thomas]

I beg to move amendment 94, in clause 17, page 10, line 27, leave out subsection (7).

This amendment would ensure local housing authorities would be able to retain any financial penalties recovered under Clause 17.

I hope that the Minister continues to feel in a sufficiently good mood to consider this amendment with enthusiasm. If he wanted to intervene on me very early on and say that it is indeed his intention that local housing authorities will be able to retain any financial penalties recovered under this clause, clearly I would not need to dwell any further on the case for the amendment. As he has stayed firmly in his seat, focusing on his notes, let me make the case a little further. Quite rightly, the Minister alluded to the fact that, as a result of this legislation, it would be incumbent on housing authorities to take action whenever they see a rogue landlord in action and can gather evidence of malpractice. I suggest to him and to the Committee that we have to live in the real world. In a case of declining budgets and cuts, local authorities on occasion have to make tough choices, and it may be that other parts of a housing authority’s responsibilities have to take precedent. Although some prosecutions may take place, there may be other prosecutions that might not go ahead, if additional resources are not available.

My amendment seeks to ensure that the resources that are recovered as a result of clause 17 go to the housing authority, so that they can be invested in action against rogue landlords, and so that there can be confidence that we will see progress in getting the Minister’s figure of 10,500 rogue landlords down to a better limit, more quickly. It cannot be that any of us would want to have such a large figure of rogue landlords operating, feeling that they can do so willy-nilly and that if they get taken to task by the courts, that will almost be by accident. I think the Minister said that he expected just 600 cases a year as a result of the new legislation. That suggests that it will take us a very long time before we can eliminate the full list of rogue landlords.

I give credit to the Government for wanting to bring forward legislation to deal with the issue, but I gently suggest that we need to make sure that those we are going to vest with legislative power to do more against rogue landlords have the resources available to them, so that they have the means to take action and use these powers. My humble amendment perhaps offers a small glint of light to hard-pressed housing authorities that there will be some additional resource that they might get as a result of their efforts to bring bad landlords to justice, which they can use to reinvest in taking further measures against other rogue landlords.

Banking Competition

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Teresa Pearce

Thursday 12th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Teresa Pearce]

That is completely right. Debt is a big issue in my constituency, and I believe that that is why there is no particular interest in opening a branch, which would alleviate some of that debt through giving advice. That said, the staff in a branch of Barclays, which was a Woolwich, in my constituency have taken it upon themselves to try to help their customers. If they see people coming in and just paying off the minimum amount on their credit card for three months in a row, they sit them down, talk to them and explain that they are not paying off the debt. The people in that branch do a fantastic job. I feel sorry that they do not find saying, “I work for Barclays” something to be proud of at the moment. We should be thinking of the people who work in such branches and call centres in the current environment.

[Mr Thomas]

North Harrow, in my constituency, sounds a little like Thamesmead in that it does not have a bank branch. It has a post office through which personal banking customers of Lloyds can access services, but there is no equivalent for small businesses in north Harrow. Given our anecdotal experience of areas of the country that are unbanked, does my hon. Friend think there would be benefits from full disclosure by the banks of what and where they lend by postcode? We could then have proper understanding of which areas are unbanked and a proper debate about how to respond to that gap in the financial market.

[Teresa Pearce]

That is an excellent idea. There are very few things in society that do not benefit from transparency; the more we know, the more we can make a judgment. We should all press for it.

The hon. Member for South Northamptonshire mentioned that people are more likely to get divorced than switch their bank account, which is certainly the case in my experience. Only 36% of consumers have ever switched their bank account, and 45% of marriages are expected to end in divorce. I have been with the same bank since I left school, but it has changed, because it has been taken over repeatedly. That is a common experience. Lots of us will have sat in an office with a friend or spoken to a family member who has tried to switch bank accounts and heard the catalogue of horrors that ensued—from mortgages not paid to bounced direct debits.

As we heard today, the hesitancy to embrace bank account portability is a big barrier to customers being able to exercise choice. The seven-day switching programme is good step forward, but we should be working towards full bank account portability in the long term. I ask the Government to commit today to undertaking a full and comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of account number portability to start that process. Years ago, it was not easy to transfer a mobile phone number from one provider to another—in fact, the mobile phone companies told us that it was impossible. As consumer pressure grew and more providers entered the market, it became very possible, and now is common and simple to do. I see no reason why banks accounts cannot go down the same road. It would make a big difference to consumer behaviour—43% of consumers say that they would be more likely to switch their current account if they could keep the same number.

Even after the banking crisis, our banks are still too big to fail. It is not a proper market when the huge rewards are taken by some, but the risk is always sold on further down the line to other people, ultimately ending with the taxpayer. With only one new high street bank launched in over 100 years, it is pretty obvious that there is no true competition. Increasingly, new entrants need to be backed by one of the big five banks—as with the Marks and Spencer bank, which is backed by HSBC—or to have benefited from Government sell-offs, such as Virgin’s acquisition of Northern Rock.

The big banks are represented on standards-setting bodies, such as the Payments Council, which sets the level of access. There is clearly not a lot of incentive for them to lower the barriers to access for new entrants and thereby decrease their market share. That is why the Government should step in and establish a framework with increased competition and customer experience in mind. To increase competition, it is important to increase not only the number but the diversity of organisations operating, so that consumers have real choice.

Many of us will have read in the papers this week that there is a big consumer push towards ethical alternatives after the recent banking scandals: Charity bank, which lends its savers’ money to charity, has had a 200% increase in depositors; the Ecology bank has had a 266% jump in applications; and there has been a 51% increase in applications at Triodos, a Bristol-based sustainable bank. Credit unions also report week-on-week increases of at least 20% and up to 300%.

Building societies and credit unions obviously have an important role to play in constituencies such as mine. Unlike banks, they are accountable to their members, who are also their customers. There is no discrepancy between the aims of the shareholders and the customers, because they are one and the same. Building societies and credit unions are a true service industry, not a self-serving industry. There is usually a big culture difference in the way they operate in comparison to banks. Most markedly, they are free from the pursuit of short-term returns for shareholders that has contributed to risky behaviour in the big banks and in turn threatened the stability of banking system as a whole.

What we are seeing with the banking crisis is the result of the demutualisation agenda kick-started in the 1980s and peaking in 1997, when a host of building societies became banks, including Woolwich building society, which is a mere mile from my constituency. The Woolwich was founded in 1847 as one of the first permanent building societies. It had a proud local tradition—it was a major employer and an asset to its community. Ultimately, it demutualised and was eventually taken over by Barclays. People used to say, “I’m with the Woolwich.” They were proud to be so, but I do not think they say, “I’m with Barclays and I’m proud to be.”

During the demutualisation period, the investment banks toured the boardrooms of the building societies, putting the case for demutualisation, often making large fees as advisers in the eventual takeover. The end result is that there are now five big banks—Lloyds, the Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Santander and Barclays—with a disproportionate market share. They have an estimated market share of 85% of the personal current account market and 67% of the mortgage market.

When I was writing my speech, I thought back to when I was young, which was a long time ago, and to when the Greater London council used to give mortgages to homebuyers. The GLC was one of the two biggest mortgage lenders in London at the time. Getting a mortgage from the GLC was a great incentive for local people. They felt a sense of ownership of the GLC, and the GLC had invested in their homes, which created a stable society. They did not have what we now have in parts of London—rogue landlords profiteering from renting out terrible accommodation. Giving people a stake in something makes them better citizens. It is a shame we do not have the same model now.

Taxpayers have ploughed enormous sums of money into rescuing the banking system. Northern Rock, RBS and Lloyds TSB have received direct bail-outs, and all banks have benefited from some form of public subsidy, especially quantitative easing and deposit guarantees. The publicly funded support of the taxpayer does not appear to have translated into banks acting in the public interest. In fact, it appears that in some areas of banking, few lessons have been learned, and the banks’ existing priorities and practices seem to be a return to business as usual.

UK banks also hold 85% of the business banking market. In other countries, the picture is different. In the US, there are some 15,000 banks and credit unions operating in the market. In Germany, there is a network of 431 locally controlled banks with public interest criteria in their governing constitutions. Change, therefore, is possible. With the political will and the right Government intervention, it could take place.

Earlier this year, the chief executive at the Office of Fair Trading said:

“For too long banks have needed pressure, often sustained, from regulators and enforcers to introduce the things they should have already been doing.”

In a relatively short period of time, we have ended up with banks taking over each other, leaving just five major banks, and with the deputy governor of the Bank of England describing his own industry as a cesspit. That is a reflection not only on London as a financial centre but on the whole of the UK. The finance sector is a major employer and we should be proud of it. As this issue crosses party lines, it is important that we all put our minds to finding a solution to the problem. We have made piecemeal alterations, but we need a full-scale inquiry into the banking sector. Opening up the sector to competition is one of the major ways to achieve that aim. So far, regulation has not altered culture or behaviour. Perhaps losing profits and customers will bring about such a change in the banks.

We need Government intervention to put the experience of customers at the heart of regulation. The Labour leader and the shadow Chancellor recently made a series of proposals for a banking system that serves not just the bankers but the real economy. They include a British investment bank backed by the state to increase lending to small businesses; a code of conduct for bankers; a greater push for international changes to limit bonuses; selling off high street branches; and greater transparency. All of those proposals would be welcome steps forward.

I have a couple of ideas to float to the Minister. The big high street banks could control the clearing systems, and any new entrant would have to use those systems. As it is unrealistic to presume that a new entrant could create their own systems because of the cost of infrastructure, why not use the Bank of England to monitor and regulate the cost of accessing the clearing systems? Even better, we could make it a condition of the big banks’ banking licence.

Businesses, especially small businesses, pay higher fees to the banks. Will the Minister discuss this matter with the Minister for Housing and Local Government? We could get local authorities to set up a membership system to negotiate bank charges on behalf of local businesses. For example, some small businesses are paying around 50p per £100 cash banked, while the big supermarkets are paying around 6p per £100. Those businesses should come together and collectively borrow. A local authority could perhaps help in this regard, through the local chambers of commerce. We must look at using customer power in a way that helps customers.

I have one final thought, which I doubt the Minister will agree with. Government, both national and local, could pay all their salaries into the local credit union or similar not-for-profit institutions such as Postbank. Obviously, each individual would be free to withdraw their money and put it somewhere else once it has been paid in, but many would keep their money in the local credit union and that would provide a strong impetus for alternative retail banking. Although I doubt the Minister will agree with me, it is a possible way forward.

In conclusion, I hope that one day, the residents of Thamesmead can choose which bank to go to, rather than choosing which bus to catch to get to the nearest bank.