George Howarth
Main Page: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
May I say from the outset that I am grateful to Shelter for providing the information that enables me to take part in this debate? Few housing sector organisations have as much experience as Shelter in the matters addressed by the Bill, so it is well worth paying a good deal of attention to what it has to say. I act vicariously without speaking with its authorisation. It is fair to say that Shelter is concerned that, as currently drafted, the Housing and Planning Bill will unintentionally reduce the supply of affordable housing, although I think it is being very generous in its assessment by using the word “unintentional”.
First, I want to address the circumstances of families who face housing difficulties. Families who are unable to buy or access social housing may have no option but to live in the private rented sector, which is in need of urgent reform because it is not fully fit for purpose. The private rented sector is no longer the preserve of students and mobile professionals. There are now 11 million private renters in England, and one in four families in England is renting privately. Rising demand and a lack of supply are driving up the cost of renting. Sadly, a minority of landlords are exploiting the situation and renting out properties that are not in a decent condition.
Secondly, private renters are paying too much and are living in increasingly worse conditions. England’s private renters are spending a staggering 47% of their income on rent. The comparable figure for those with a mortgage is 23%, while for social tenants it is 32%. Nearly 30% of private rented properties in England would fail the Government’s own decent homes standard, compared with only 20% of owner-occupied properties. Some landlords know that either they will find tenants desperate enough to accept poor conditions, or they will rely on the fact that if tenants complain, local authorities do not always have the power or resource to take action.
The Bill contains proposals to crack down on some rogue landlords, but more can be done. The proposals could be strengthened to give a strong and clear signal to rogue landlords that renting out properties that are in a poor condition will not be tolerated. The message is simple: stop exploiting people’s vulnerability.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend also accept that a small number of private landlords—this is certainly the case in my constituency and, I suspect, in his—use the private rented sector to launder the proceeds of crime?
Peter Dowd
All sorts of things start to come out of the woodwork when we look at the issues. The Government have to look carefully at the issue raised by my right hon. Friend.
Banning poor landlords from renting out properties is one thing, but breaching a banning order is another and it should be made a criminal offence.
Thirdly, as well as cracking down on rogue landlords, we have an opportunity to take a common sense approach to reform in order to protect renters and improve conditions. As a former chair of Merseyside fire and rescue service for many years, I am acutely aware of the impact of fire deaths and injuries on victims and their families. In 2013-14, there were 49 deaths as a result of electrical fires in homes—an increase on the previous year. The Government have an opportunity to bring that dreadful statistic down by introducing mandatory electrical safety checks. A simple change in the law would require private landlords to carry out electrical safety checks every five years. As has been mentioned earlier, the law already requires carbon monoxide checks. Behind every statistic is a person, a family, a life.
Shelter heard from a private renter who encountered dangerous problems in her flat as soon as she moved in a couple of years ago. She found the property was so dangerous she was at risk of electrocution. She said:
“During my first week living in the flat, I put my foot through the rotten kitchen floorboards. My landlord’s response was to put a bit of plywood over it. In addition to the hole in the rotten kitchen floorboards, I had water coming in through the electric extractor fan in the bathroom ceiling every time it rained. The ceiling around the electric extractor fan was perishing, there were leaks under the kitchen sink, under the bathroom washbasin and from a neighbouring property.”
She was told by the council that it was unambiguously dangerous.
That brings me to my fourth point. With almost half of renters—in my constituency, that amounts to about 3,000 renters—saying they have had problems with poor conditions or disrepair in the last year, we need to empower them to take action against landlords renting out unfit properties. My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) has a private Member’s Bill seeking to reform the fitness for human habitation requirement. If her Bill does not succeed, or is talked out like the Hospital Parking Charges (Exemption for Carers) Bill, the Housing and Planning Bill will be another great opportunity to bring in this crucial reform. It would require a landlord to ensure that properties are fit for human habitation at the start of each tenancy and throughout the tenancy. The current systems—the housing health and safety rating system and the statutory repairing obligation—set out what condition a property should be in and what the responsibility of the landlord is, but they rely on overstretched local authorities first investigating the tenant’s complaint and secondly taking the appropriate action.
There are three practical measures the Government could and should introduce: first, change the law so that landlords are required to carry out five-yearly electrical safety checks—to be fair, many landlords already do this as a matter of course; secondly, reform existing law so that all private properties are required to be fit for human habitation—a dreadful demand to have to make in the 21st century; and, thirdly, enhance the rent repayment orders process by removing barriers to renters exercising their right by making landlords bear tenants’ fees.
Finally, I have heard comments tonight about brownfield sites. I could draw a circle around my constituency, and that would be a brownfield site. The idea of having a slab of concrete and putting a house on it would horrify most people in my constituency. It is not just about the industrial heritage. Many houses were built in a gerrymandered fashion, and the stuff used for the foundations was the cause of the contamination. We cannot just solve problems with a slab of concrete.