Housing and Planning Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Grahame Morris and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Thursday 26th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Grahame M. Morris]

I do accept that it is a disparate group, but even though it is a relatively small group compared with the settled community, I have had experience of disruption and antisocial behaviour in my constituency arising from a lack of temporary Traveller sites, and I think it is beholden on the local authority to make provision. That might not be a popular view, but it is part of the solution in the long run.

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s description of spending many hours with the police and the local authority in trying to ameliorate the impact of temporary horse fairs and so on that attract a large influx of Travellers from across the country. The problem, however, arises from a failure to provide permanent or, indeed, temporary sites, which is particularly acute during the summer months. Is the Minister concerned that the change proposed to the assessment of Gypsies’ needs will reduce the number of sites and lead to a shortage of accommodation for the Traveller community if they are assessed only as part of general housing need and not with their specific needs in mind?

Without wishing to detain the Committee further, I would appreciate it if the Minister outlined precisely what he seeks to achieve by removing the requirement for local authorities to adequately address the travelling community’s needs. Do we not risk worsening the problem of unauthorised encampments?

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is raising the extremely important issue, which we both felt in our constituencies over the summer, of problems with illegal encampments for travelling people, who fall into various categories, because of a lack of either temporary or permanent sites. It is important to ensure proper assessment of all communities’ needs and proper planning so that there are enough sites and we do not end up with illegal encampments, which can be unpleasant for everyone.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I agree. That was the point I was trying to make, albeit in a rather laboured and long-winded fashion. Let me conclude by reminding the Committee that Catriona Riddell, the strategic planning convenor for the Planning Officers Society, said that there is real concern about councils misinterpreting the new rules. She said that the change is

“almost like handing local authorities, which are reluctant to plan for travellers, an excuse not to do it.”

That warning should ring in our ears before we delete the provision in the Housing Act 2004.

Housing and Planning Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Grahame Morris and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Grahame M. Morris]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I would not wish to argue with him, but the scale of the problem is considerable.

May I remind the Committee of Shelter’s written evidence, which indicates the scale of the problem? A third of privately rented homes do not meet the Government’s own decent homes standards and almost a fifth contain a hazard posing a serious danger to the health and safety of renters. More than six in 10 renters—61%—have experienced at least one of the following problems in their homes over the previous 12 months: damp and mould, which are hazardous to health; leaking roofs and windows; electrical hazards, which are dangerous for any renter, but in particular young children or elderly people; animal and insect infestations; and gas leaks.

The introduction of banning orders for rogue landlords is therefore important, and we should not underplay that importance. Having gone to the trouble of identifying them and their unsuitability, surely the next step is to make the information available and to ensure access to it for prospective tenants and not only local authorities, although I accept that it is possible to introduce some safeguards. Sharing the information would help to drive up standards and would benefit the majority of decent private landlords by helping them to maintain their properties. Those decent landlords need never appear on the database.

The provisions are of great importance to my constituents. I elicited no response from the Minister, but earlier I mentioned the problems we are having in east Durham in the village of Horden. Housing provider Accent recently withdrew from my constituency, and warnings were issued about the consequences at the time. Partially as a result of years of underinvestment, Accent began a process of leaving its properties empty as tenants left. We now have multiple properties, even entire streets—colliery rows such as you might be familiar with from your own area, Sir Alan—that are empty and boarded up, which itself generates huge problems. The worst fears of the community, which I raised in parliamentary questions and in a Westminster Hall debate, were of a fire sale and an influx of absentee private landlords. That is precisely what happened.

I am concerned that unless we take stronger measures and put something in the Bill, the problem that we have seen manifest in Horden in my constituency will spread to other villages, such as Blackhall, Easington Colliery and Dawdon, with similar numbers of former colliery housing. We have an opportunity to address that problem. My community put in its best efforts to establish a housing co-op—an initiative, which I support, advocated with great vigour and enthusiasm by the hon. Member for South Norfolk—but we have seen a lack of any meaningful activity, funding and support by the Homes and Communities Agency, although to be fair the Minister facilitated a meeting.

Subsequently, the properties were auctioned off on the open market and the worst fears of the community were realised. I was hoping that the Bill would offer some comfort and protection from rogue landlords to future tenants and to communities such as the one in Horden. Will the Minister go further and support the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead? Even if not directly, it would allow the public access to the database, in effect naming and shaming bad landlords—in my case absentee ones—in a way that is similar to the practice for businesses that flout the minimum wage regulations.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I, too, strongly support the amendment that my hon. Friends the Members for Erith and Thamesmead and for Easington have spoken to. I want to ask the Minister some additional questions. I find it very curious that the Government have not sought to give our constituents access to the database so that they do not run the risk of taking a tenancy offered by a rogue landlord.

The Government have put forward a helpful measure. It is not the only measure needed to regulate the private rented sector, but at least it is something. Some effort will be made to create a database of rogue landlords, and that will be welcome. However, it is extraordinary that the only people with access to the database will be the local authority, because the local authority will not be the one taking on tenancies

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, as always. We were making a slightly different point, which was that the Government and Ministers do not seem to have made it very clear that the information on the database may not be available through a freedom of information request. Unless that is made absolutely clear, we run the risk of some tenants, future tenants, possible tenants or their advocates getting access to the database, whereas other people who do not go down the route of making a freedom of information request will not have access. To us, that seems to be rather a ridiculous and unfair situation.

We need to hear very clearly from Ministers why access to the database is being restricted to local authorities. What is it specifically in the Data Protection Act that would prevent Members of Parliament or other approved agencies—I am sure we could all come up with list of them—from having access to that information in the database? What are the reasons? Potential use of that information could be prescribed to a large extent by Ministers. During our consideration of the Bill, the Committee has heard a lot about how much information will be put into regulations. I am sure it would be possible for Ministers to come up with regulations that set out who could have access to the database and in what circumstances, what the information could be used for, how it could be passed on to third parties and what caveats would be attached to it. If the information were to be used only in prescribed circumstances, that would protect the people it concerned under data protection law.

[Grahame M. Morris]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for Peterborough has launched a bit of a red herring, or perhaps a blue one? A straightforward question deserves a straightforward answer. Is there not a basic principle, supported by the Public Accounts Committee, that we should follow the public pound? When we are talking about housing benefit in particular, is it not right that information about rogue and criminal landlords should be available?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The point my hon. Friend made in that excellent intervention is that the information should be available as quickly as possible in order to give maximum protection to potential tenants. As it stands, the Opposition are not convinced that tenants are being given that maximum protection. Our argument is a reasonable one. I can see how Ministers might be concerned about the Data Protection Act, but it would be possible to address any concerns by prescribing who can access the information, in what circumstances, and what it can be used for, with some caveats. I therefore look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the very specific points we have raised.

Housing and Planning Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Grahame Morris and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Thursday 19th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

We all want to see more social housing and affordable homes. Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problem may be that the definition of starter homes is too narrow? There are many examples in our region of the north of England—Gentoo, for example—of rent-to-buy options, which could considerably improve the prospect of increasing the number of affordable homes.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It struck me yesterday, as I went through the evidence to the Committee, how many people commented on their concern that such an emphasis on starter homes risks crowding out other sorts of low-cost home ownership. They suggested that perhaps the Government should have looked at other ways of supporting people into home ownership, rather than concentrating on starter homes as much as they have done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The difficulty is that I have tried to separate out the number of homes built for social housing and at genuinely affordable rents, rather than including, as the tables do, figures on housing built at 80% of market rents, which I think a lot of us would accept are unaffordable for many.

[Grahame M. Morris]

My hon. Friend is making a completely sensible point. I think that most of the Committee would agree that there is a consensus that we need some 250,000 houses a year. In our scrutiny of the Bill, the question is whether we are doing everything that we can to encourage not just the private sector but the public sector to build their share. Our contention, and the point that she is making well, is that we could do rather more in passing the Bill to encourage that.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that intervention, and for bringing us back to the real focus of the amendment, which is why the Government are not doing more to produce greater output in terms of housing delivery across all tenures. Most people would think that a reasonable question to ask, given the severity of the housing crisis that we face.

We must also question whether measures in the Bill are making an increase in housing units more difficult from the key sectors: local authorities and housing associations’ homes for social rent. We know, and a number of people have commented, that measures in this Bill and the Welfare Reform and Work Bill could make it more difficult for local authorities and housing associations to build homes, due to the combined impact of loss of rental income.

We are not criticising the reduction in rents; that is not the point. The point about the rent reduction is that less money will be available for local authorities and housing associations to build homes. That is simply the point that they are making. If the Government want to reduce rents—we think it a laudable objective to reduce the rents of people in social housing—it should be done in a way that does not impact negatively on the ability of housing associations and local authorities to build more homes. Unfortunately—we have seen this in some of the detailed evidence given by housing associations and local authorities—reducing rents reduces the amount of money available to them for short-term and longer-term investment in their current stock and building for the future. That does not seem to be a sensible approach.