Local Government Finances: London

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) on securing this important debate.

I was a councillor in Southwark for six years before I was elected to this place. It is a privilege to serve in local government. Our councils carry the heavy responsibility of delivering local services across a huge range of areas, and they have a unique opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of local residents by delivering vital protections for vulnerable people as well as the services that all of us rely on. I pay particular tribute to my local councils, Lambeth and Southwark, for the work that they did during the covid-19 pandemic and what they have done over the last few years to support residents with the cost of living crisis.

I was elected to my local council in 2010, on the same day that the Tory-Lib Dem coalition Government took power in Westminster. I remember the first meeting of our council, when we were briefed on its financial settlement from central Government at the start of a period of austerity. I remember the shock that descended in the room at the scale of the cuts to our budget as the impact on local services became clear.

We had no idea what was yet to come. For 14 years, the Conservative Government outsourced both the pain and the blame for their austerity programme to our local councils, cutting well over 50% of the local government grant, slashing the affordable housing grant, freezing council rents, reducing investment in the existing council housing stock, and freezing the local housing allowance, driving up homelessness. On SEND—an area in which I take a particular interest as Chair of the Education Committee—the coalition placed almost all the statutory responsibility for delivering services on councils, but took away their ability to deliver new school places directly, driving up home-to-school transport costs and the cost of purchasing places in the independent sector.

There will not be a Member here today who does not see the impact of the housing crisis, and the crisis of temporary accommodation, on our constituents and local authorities. The shortage of homes is driving more and more residents to seek support from their council, and putting more and more into the worst-quality accommodation, which has destabilising effects on families across our city. The Liz Truss mini-Budget had a devastating impact on our councils’ ability to build new homes. Both of my boroughs have ambitious programmes for delivering new homes, but they have had to mothball sites as the cost of materials and labour has been sent spiralling.

On all of these issues and many more, London councils face a perfect storm in their finances, and we urgently need support from the Government. Let me finish with five quick measures that the Government should turn their attention to: raising the local council housing allowance to stabilise housing in London; ensuring immediate investment in small sites owned by councils and housing associations that already have planning consent and can be delivered; addressing the statutory override—there is not sufficient engagement with councils on what the Government plan as they begin to plan for the next financial year—getting housing revenue accounts back on a sustainable footing; and delivering multi-year settlements to give certainty and stability to our councils for the future. I know that our councils have the commitment and determination to keep delivering for our residents, and I call on the Government to support them to do so as a matter of urgency.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Member is absolutely right to raise the oversight mechanism. I think I have addressed some of that and the wider issues, not just in terms of this inquiry, but all the inquiries that we have had. There have been far too many inquiries into tragedies, in the sense that these scandals and tragedies should not happening in the first place. We are committed to looking at oversight mechanisms, and I have detailed the oversight mechanisms I expect from my Department and the recommendations from Grenfell. I am happy for her to share that information with my Department, and I will take those considerations into account.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

My thoughts today are with the survivors of the Grenfell Tower disaster and the 72 families who are still mourning the loss of a loved one. I pay tribute to their immense dignity, as they continue to fight for justice.

I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s clear commitment to implement all of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s recommendations. I have constituents living in blocks with fire safety issues. Those are often not cladding-related issues, but issues identified as part of the wider scandal in the construction industry uncovered by fire safety inspections post-Grenfell. In some cases there have been terrifying fires in these blocks, leaving residents feeling unsafe and leaseholders trapped in unsellable flats, as building owners and construction firms argue over who is responsible for the fire safety defects and fail to resolve the issues. Can the Deputy Prime Minister therefore say, as she moves forward to implement Sir Martin’s recommendations, when she would expect my constituents to have a clear plan, with a timescale attached to it, for the remediation work needed in unsafe buildings? Where is the accountability in the meantime?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that, nearly eight years on from the tragedy of Grenfell, it is completely unacceptable that people are still living in unsafe buildings. I respect and pay tribute to what previous Governments have done. That legislation has enabled authorities to take action, and we have been supporting them in making sure that action is taken. Our remediation acceleration plan will also outline how we can ensure that those responsible for remediating buildings, whether that relates to fire safety or any other defects, are held accountable, so that we can take those actions and get that remediation done as quickly as possible. I do not want it to take another eight years before people are living in safe and secure homes. I expect to do it as quickly as possible, and action is already being taken.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

Let me clear: this Bill is pro-market, not anti-landlord. It will help create a more stable rental sector in which good landlords can thrive and bad landlords are held to account. This is good for tenants, it is good for responsible landlords and it is good for our economy.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I rise to speak on new clause 10 in my name and Government new clause 15, but before I do so, I would like to make some brief remarks about other aspects of the Bill. In my constituency of Dulwich and West Norwood, housing is overwhelmingly the biggest challenge that my constituents face. Housing costs have spiralled, and the previous Government wasted more than a decade failing to build the homes we need. The effect of this has been that more and more of my constituents are living in privately rented homes, in which they are currently systematically denied the basic stability and security that most of us would agree are essential to being able to function properly in the rest of life.

Private tenants live with the constant fear that their landlord can at any time, without reference to the terms of their tenancy agreement, decide that they want their property back and serve an eviction notice. I have seen this happen time and again. It stops people putting down roots in their community, because they know that they are likely not to be able to stay. It means that parents live with the constant anxiety that they may have to move far away from their children’s school. It means that older people are denied security of tenure in their retirement. In return for extortionate rents, tenants all too often face appalling standards, and find it far too difficult to get basic health and safety issues addressed.

I therefore welcome this Bill, which delivers the biggest package of reforms to private renting for 40 years, redressing the current imbalance between landlords and tenants, strengthening tenants’ rights and providing much-needed additional security. I particularly welcome the scrapping of section 21 evictions—I have been speaking on them in this place since 2016—the strengthening of local authority enforcement powers and the creation of a new private rented sector ombudsman, and the application of Awaab’s law to the private rented sector.

There is a very great challenge about the affordability of private renting, particularly in London, and my constituents experience that every day. I hope the Minister will keep under review the measures in this Bill that are designed to limit the rate of rent increases to ensure they are as effective as they need to be to create a functioning rental market. I trust that the Minister will do that, and will not hesitate to take further action in future if it is needed.

I now turn to my own new clause 10 and Government new clause 15, which would ban the use of guarantor agreements in the event of the death of a tenant. In this place, all of us know that there are sometimes emails that stop us in our tracks. So it was for me when, in 2023, I received an email from a constituent that read as follows:

“Late last year I became a guarantor for my son so that he could secure accommodation with some friends for his second year at university; without me doing so, he would have lost the house. I had no real concerns about my son paying the rent as he had shown he was a hard worker in a variety of jobs he engaged with to supplement his student loan, which would have covered the rent anyway. The tenancy was due to start at the beginning of July. Tragically, two weeks ago he took his own life, leaving myself, my wife and his sister utterly devastated. On top of everything, I now find myself liable to pay the rent for his room for the entire length of his tenancy if a replacement tenant cannot be found…I wonder if there might be scope to look into the practice of expecting bereaved parents to continue in a role of guarantor to a loved one after they have died.”

I do not think anyone could read that email and think that what happened to my constituents who were facing the worst kind of pain was remotely acceptable. I contacted the letting agent who refused to budge, simply stating that they were following the contract that had been signed.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for making such a powerful speech and reading out what must have been a difficult email to receive on behalf of her constituent. Does she agree that, sadly, many other tenants up and down the country might have had to go through that, and suffered in silence because they were grieving?

[Helen Hayes]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I will speak in a moment about evidence I have received that this issue is more widespread than any of us might have imagined. I raised the issue at Prime Minister’s questions, and after that I was contacted by many people, including families who had experienced exactly that, as well as letting agents who told me that they explicitly did not use such clauses, and that such clauses were not necessary because the loss of rental income in the event of the death of a tenant is an insurable risk for landlords.

I am grateful to Members across the House who have supported my campaign, including 48 Members who signed new clause 10, and those who signed my amendment to the Renters (Reform) Bill in the last Parliament. I engaged extensively with two different housing Ministers in the previous Government, both of whom said that they were sympathetic but declined to take action in that Bill or support my amendment. I am therefore grateful to the Minister for Housing and Planning for his compassionate and rigorous engagement on this issue. He has listened and, more importantly, he has acted where his predecessors did not. Government new clause 15, tabled this week, bans the use of guarantor agreements in the event of the death of a tenant who is a family member. That is what my constituent asked of me, and I am proud that that is what we will achieve today. I hope my constituents will take some small comfort from knowing that by speaking out and contacting their MP, other families faced with the heartbreak of losing a loved one will not be pursued by a greedy landlord or letting agent, adding financial stress and hardship to an already unbearable situation.

New clause 15 does not go as far as new clause 10, extending protection only to bereaved guarantors who are related to the tenant. While that protection would have helped my constituent, and while I agree that institutional guarantors should not automatically be released from their responsibilities on the death of a tenant, the limitations of the new clause mean that there could still be hard cases in future—for example, a close friend who is bereaved. I therefore trust that the Minister will keep the situation under review to ensure that new clause 15 is as effective as he intends. As a consequence of the Minister’s engagement on this matter, I am content to withdraw new clause 10 and support Government new clause 15. I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to do the same, and to support this Bill, which will deliver the step change in regulation of the private rented sector that we have all been needing for far too long.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), and I pay tribute to her for the work she has done in trying to alleviate the pain caused when someone dies and all the demands then descend unexpectedly on those who were rent guarantors. She has done a very good job on that and I welcome Government new clause 15.

My constituency, like other constituencies in London and most of our big cities, has a huge number of people living in the private rented sector, with probably more than one-third of the electorate living in private rented accommodation. Collectively, they face insecurity. Collectively, they are often stressed. Collectively, they are often paying high and excessive levels of rent. It is heartbreaking to see the number of people who make their home in the area, become active in the community and make a huge contribution to our community life in lots of ways, but then the rents go up and up, and they simply can no longer afford to stay. Anyone looking for private rented accommodation within the local housing allowance in most inner London constituencies would search for a long time and be unlikely to find anywhere remotely near that allowance. I see my friend the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) nodding, and the same situation exists in many other cities across the country.

People on average earnings and working-class communities are simply being driven out by the greed of the private rented sector and the market that goes with it, with rents going up by 10%, 15% and sometimes 20%. That is why I intervened on the Minister earlier, and I am grateful that he gave way and acknowledged the real crisis happening day in, day out across the country. Long-term private sector tenants are at threat, because their landlords know this Bill is coming and that there will be greater restrictions—perhaps there should be more—on their raising of rents and doing no-fault evictions, so they are presently trying to evict large numbers of tenants. I meet many constituents who are going through incredible levels of stress about that. I realise that the Bill is not yet law and has to go through the House of Lords, and I am not clear what date it will be finally enacted; I just hope it is soon. I urge the Minister to consider any kind of urgent action and advice he can give to protect existing tenants in the run-up to the introduction of this legislation.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) for the amendment she has tabled on rent levels. While there is much in the Bill that I welcome, it is sadly a bit of a missed opportunity. Although it restricts the ability of landlords to raise rents in the future, it does not protect those rents being at a reasonable level. Her amendment, which is a good step forward, would link all rent increases to a combination of wage levels and CPI and give local authorities the power to enforce that. We surely should return to that. I hope that the Government will accept one or other of the many amendments that talk about the ability to review this legislation a year on and two years on to see its effects on rent levels and, above all, on security of tenure and whether ways have been found to get around it.

New clause 9, tabled by the hon. Member for Bristol Central, concerns the protection of tenants with disabilities to ensure that they are not discriminated against, and it is important. It has been widely supported across the House, and I hope the Government will agree it, or at least introduce something similar on Report in the Lords if necessary. The hon. Member is representing an important and genuine need across the country.

Lastly, we have a housing crisis in Britain that is utterly beyond belief and utterly unnecessary. I talk to people every day where I live who are rough sleepers. They are walking around, spending the whole day trying to sell The Big Issue to raise £10 or £20 to pay for a bed in a night shelter that they can only access in the evening and have to leave in the morning. It is not accommodation, it is literally just that: a night shelter. Their life is searching for £20 in order just to survive. I am not saying that the local authority does not do all it can to help—it does. I am not saying there are not lots of housing charities that do the same—there are.

But we have a well known number of people living in destitution in our society, grotesque overcrowding in many council and housing association homes, and insecurity in the private rented sector. The Bill goes a long way in reducing insecurity in the private rented sector, but it must be a wake-up call for our society to invest far more in council housing and in sustainable, affordable social housing.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

Either the hon. Gentleman does not know the status of the rural services delivery grant, or he is trying to mislead the House. A large share of large rural authorities should have got the rural services delivery grant but did not, because that grant was not about rural services. When the previous Prime Minister stood up in Tunbridge Wells and said that the Government had taken money from deprived communities and moved it across, he did not mean that it was for all communities; it was for party politics. So where were Conservative Members then when it came to those rural communities that did not get the grant? I did not hear anybody standing up and asking for their rural community to get the money for those services that Conservative Members are now trying to champion. We will absolutely make sure that deprivation and need are part of the funding reforms that are coming, but we will also make sure that we genuinely take into account the cost of delivering services in rural areas. The sector needs a fair funding review, and we are determined to deliver one.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement, particularly the additional funding to tackle homelessness and provide early help and support for families. I also welcome the principle that resources should be directed according to need. However, as the Minister knows, the elephant in the room of local government finance is that the statutory override for deficits related to special educational needs and disabilities is due to come to an end in March 2026. Councils will be setting their budgets in the new year through to the end of March 2026, and if there is no plan to address the SEND deficits, many councils will be issuing section 114 notices. Councils urgently need certainty at this point, so what discussions are taking place with local authorities about the statutory override, and when will they have the certainty they need?

[Jim McMahon]

I agree about the importance and significance of the statutory override—that is felt very acutely in the Department and in the sector. We are consulting now on a number of matters, including the statutory override, and we are in constant dialogue with the Treasury about how we deal with that in the long term. In the end, this is another example of the legacy we have inherited. We are taking very difficult decisions to reconcile, reform and repair the system—decisions that should have been taken earlier but were not. That issue is very much on our agenda.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I support this long-overdue Bill. Almost a quarter of households in Dulwich and West Norwood are renting privately, and many of them live with the instability caused by an under-regulated market. I am contacted every week by constituents who are living in unacceptable conditions, facing unaffordable rent increases or threatened with a section 21 no-fault eviction. Private renting is fundamentally unsustainable and unstable.

Too many local renters are living in poor-quality accommodation, suffering with damp and mould, but with limited levers to hold their landlord or letting agency to account. Those who complain risk reprisal evictions, from which they have no protection. Tenants are forced by rent hikes and section 21 notices to move frequently, and they are denied the security of a long-term home. Parents put children into school not knowing whether they will be able to afford to stay in the area for the duration of their education. Increasingly, young families are being priced out of London, and that contributes to a dramatic drop in school rolls, so I warmly welcome this Bill.

[Nesil Caliskan]

I recognise the crisis that my hon. Friend describes. Does she agree that individuals and families are paying the cost of this crisis, not only with money but with the trauma of being moved from home to home?

[Helen Hayes]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. This crisis in private renting is taking an unbearable toll on the health and wellbeing, the financial security and the stability of families across the country, which is why this Bill is so welcome.

I will table an amendment to the Bill. Last year, constituents of mine tragically lost their son to suicide. He was in his first year of university and had signed a tenancy for his second-year accommodation shortly before his death. The tenancy, which had not started when this young man died, included a guarantor agreement signed by his parents. After their son’s death, the letting agency insisted that the agreement applied even in the event of a tenant’s death and, shockingly, began pursuing my constituents for rent payments. While facing the unbearable loss of their son, my constituents were forced to find another student to take on his tenancy in order to be relieved of their responsibility for the rent. This type of clause is not in every guarantor agreement, and it is wholly unnecessary. Landlords can insure themselves against loss of rent in the event of the death of a tenant. My amendment would outlaw the pursuit of guarantors for rent owed by a deceased tenant, to protect other families from this cruel treatment while they are grieving.

I am grateful to the Minister for Housing and Planning for his positive engagement on this issue, both in opposition and since he has been appointed to the Department. I hope the Government can accept my amendment, which was drafted with assistance from lawyers at Shelter, as a straightforward solution. I hope Members from across the House can all agree that no one facing bereavement should have to worry that they will be pursued for their loved one’s rent.

Finally, on affordability, rents in Lambeth and Southwark have grown rapidly in recent years. I welcome the measures in the Bill to ensure limits to rent increases under the section 8 process, and to ban landlords from accepting rents from prospective tenants above the asking price. However, the scale of the crisis in London is so significant that there is a need for further action on rent rises. I hope that as the Bill progresses through the House, my hon. Friends will listen to the calls of the Renter’s Reform Coalition and the Mayor of London, and will consider what more can be done to stabilise rents and assist with affordability.

For too long, reform of the private rented sector has been neglected, leaving renters in Dulwich and West Norwood suffering with insecurity, poor accommodation and rising costs. The effect of this crisis in private renting is destabilising for our communities and harmful for health; I see the impact of the crisis every single week in my constituency. The Renters’ Rights Bill will be transformative for my constituents, and I will be proud to support it this evening.

Renters (Reform) Bill

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 40, which stands in my name, but before I do so I will say a little about the Bill more generally.

Legislative reform of private renting is urgently needed. My constituency is in the eye of the storm of the housing crisis, and every year since 2010 the situation has worsened. The waiting list for a genuinely affordable social home has become longer, the number of people living in temporary accommodation has become higher, and private sector rents have continued to spiral. Despite many promises, the Government have delayed action for far too long. Private renters, housing campaigners, charities and Members from across this House are united in their support for bold reform of private renting. But now, after years of delay, we see a Government unable to deliver the effective and urgently needed reforms that were promised, because they are too weak to face down their own Back Benchers.

At the heart of the matter is the urgent need for an end to section 21 evictions, which I have been calling for since the debates on the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Section 21 is the basis of insecurity in private renting, because it gives landlords the ability to evict tenants for no reason at all. Time and again, I have seen in my constituency how section 21 is used egregiously to ratchet up rents and to stop tenants complaining about basic repairs or safety issues, such as damp and mould. Because a section 21 eviction does not need to be justified with a reason, all the power is in the hands of the landlord. Tenants live with the daily threat that they will be told to leave their home, with all that that entails, such as having to find a new home as rent costs continue to rise.

In a housing crisis characterised by an acute shortage of genuinely affordable social housing, private renting is a form of tenure on which millions of people rely. They must have a degree of security so that they can put down roots, know that their children will be able to remain at the local school, and live without insecurity and the constant fear that they may have to move. Section 21 is destabilising for families and communities. It is therefore beyond disappointing that the Bill will not result in an immediate end to section 21, and that the Secretary of State cannot give a date for when it will end.

The reason for the delay is the shocking mess that the Government have made of the court system. My constituents, who used to be able to attend Lambeth county court, now have to travel to Shoreditch, because the court was closed in 2017. When we challenged the closure of Lambeth county court on the grounds that it would involve a much more complicated and costly journey for constituents facing eviction who wished to attend court, we were promised digital reforms of the court service. We were promised investment in infrastructure to make hearings accessible to anybody who had to attend court, and to ease the complexity of the distance and journey time being increased, but no such investment has been forthcoming. Legal aid lawyers in my constituency who work in the courts speak of the chaos, the crumbling infrastructure and the overburdening workload falling on staff, yet this is the excuse today for why section 21 evictions cannot be brought to an end.

New clause 40, which I tabled, arises from a tragedy that happened to a family in my constituency. Their son, a first-year university student, had signed a tenancy agreement on a house for his second year. In common with parents of university students across the country, his parents were the guarantors for his tenancy, but before their son had finished his first year at university and the tenancy had even started, he tragically died by suicide. Faced with one of the most terrible tragedies that any of us can imagine, these bereaved parents were then pursued by their late son’s letting agent for the rent he would have owed on a tenancy that he would never take up. I wrote to the letting agency several times on behalf of my constituents, but it refused to budge. It maintained that a contract was a contract and that my constituents were liable as the guarantors, so they would just have to pay. Surely we in this House can agree that a contractual provision that financially penalises bereaved parents for the suicide of their child is straightforwardly wrong.

After I raised that case during Prime Minister’s questions, I was contacted by a number of families who had signed guarantor agreements on similar contracts, but also by a number of landlords and letting agents who said that they did not use such clauses in their tenancy and guarantor agreements. This demonstrates that such clauses are simply not necessary. Loss of rental income due to the death of a tenant is an insurable risk for landlords, and it should be a matter for insurance, not for bereaved guarantors.

I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me to discuss new clause 40, but I am baffled by the Government’s response, which is to suggest limiting the obligations of a bereaved guarantor to two months, including during the proposed six-month minimum commitment at the start of a new tenancy. While two months’ rent is clearly preferable to six months or a year’s worth of rent, it is still quite literally a financial penalty for the death of a loved one. Bereavement is one of the hardest things anyone can experience, and the Government should use the powers at their disposal to provide comfort, security and peace of mind to the bereaved so that they can focus on grieving the loss of their loved one. It is simply not fair for bereaved guarantors to be charged for the rent that their loved one is no longer alive to pay, and it is not necessary because the loss of rental income due to the death of a tenant is an insurable risk.

New clause 40 would bring this practice to an end and give peace of mind to guarantors that, should the unthinkable happen, they will not have to find hundreds or even thousands of pounds as they grieve. The Minister has said that he will continue to reflect on this issue. I urge him to do the right thing and to accept new clause 40 into the Bill. It is a simple measure that would prevent anyone else from experiencing the additional distress that my constituents suffered when their son passed away. This new clause has not been selected for a separate decision today, but I will continue to pursue this reform. It is the right thing to do. I urge the Government to look again at this issue. It is a reform that would cost the Government nothing, but it would give peace of mind to anybody facing bereavement, as my constituents have had to do, that egregious landlords and letting agencies will not come after them for a cost that they may not be able to afford at a time when they need help, support and comfort, not additional financial penalties.

Renters (Reform) Bill

Helen Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I see the impacts of the lack of regulation in the private rented sector in my constituency every single week. In Dulwich and West Norwood, rents have been spiralling for many years, and all too often the quality of accommodation falls way below what any tenant should be able to expect.

I have in my constituency a landlord who owns 90 homes in a development called Dorchester Court. The landlord is on the Sunday Times rich list. Their properties are in an absolutely dire state. Wooden props support the window frames. Plastic sheeting acts as an ineffective shield against moisture penetrating the walls. The heating is unreliable in the winter. The water pipes are made from lead, which contaminates the water supply to a level that is not safe for human health. The council has been trying for a number of years to take enforcement action against this landlord, but it has been waiting many months for a court date. In the meantime, the same landlord has used section 21 eviction notices—in a way that, in my experience, is entirely common—simply to ratchet up rents. Tenants are served with a section 21 notice terminating the tenancy, alongside an offer of a new tenancy at a higher level—often a significantly higher level—of rent. If any Member doubts the need for additional regulation of the private rented sector, they should visit Dorchester Court in my constituency, and, in five minutes, they will see how the regulatory framework is failing tenants across the country.

Section 8 allows for landlords to get their property back when they have a legitimate reason to do so. Section 21 is a pernicious, destabilising force in the housing rental market and there is no place for it. The consequences of section 21 are more than simply contractual. They are found in poor mental health and anxiety, in increasing homelessness and financial hardship, in children living in accommodation that no child should have to live in, and in children having to worry about the anxiety that their parents are experiencing because of the possibility of losing their home at any time. It is very disappointing that the Government are delaying the ban on section 21 evictions by allowing a loophole in this legislation. I sincerely hope that, in Committee, they will reconsider their position.

I turn now to an amendment to the Bill that I plan to table. Earlier this year, my constituents lost their son, a first year university student, to suicide—a devastating loss for any parent to bear. Their son had signed a tenancy for his second-year accommodation and his parents had signed a guarantor agreement. After their son’s death, they discovered that the guarantor agreement applied even in the event of his death, and the letting agent began pursuing them for the rent. It was rent for a tenancy that had not yet started and a tenancy that he would never take up. This is a shockingly punitive act against parents who were already suffering the worst possible loss.

In extensive correspondence with the letting agent on my constituents’ behalf, it refused to budge, simply stating that the rent was a contractual obligation and, although it was unfortunate, my constituents were bound to its terms. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me to discuss the issues raised by this case. She has explained that the Bill will enable any tenant to terminate a tenancy with two months’ notice, but two months’ rent is a financial penalty that no bereaved guarantor should have to pay. This type of clause is not in every guarantor agreement, and it is not necessary. Insurance policies can cover loss of rent in the event of the death of a tenant. I ask the Government to reconsider their position and, in Committee, to accept my amendment, which would straightforwardly outlaw the pursuit of guarantors for rent owed by a deceased tenant and stop any other family having to suffer this egregious additional pain, anxiety and hardship at a time of great sadness and vulnerability.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

One of the reasons why we have given local government additional funds in this financial year, as I just told the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), is precisely that we recognise that there are challenges. The Government have also allocated an additional £100 million for the most vulnerable households, to be administered through local authorities, which demonstrates the commitment to both local authorities and the most vulnerable in our society.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

6. What discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on long-term funding for local authorities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)]

The Chancellor, his Ministers and his officials are in regular contact with the Secretary of State, me and departmental officials on matters pertaining to local government finance. The final local government finance settlement for this financial year, 2023-24, makes available up to £60 billion for local government in England.

[Helen Hayes]

Local authorities have lost £15 billion of funding since 2010, as the Government have sought to outsource both the pain and the blame for their punishing approach to the public finances, with only a fraction allocated back on a piecemeal, time-limited and ad hoc basis. The reality for local authorities up and down the country is that it is increasingly becoming far too difficult to deliver all the services that local residents rely on. When will the Secretary of State stop treating local government like a pawn in his political games, and start treating local government finance with the seriousness that both residents and hard-working local government officials need?

[Lee Rowley]

Difficult decisions were taken in the years after 2010 precisely because Labour failed to make those decisions in the years before 2010. One of the reasons why we have made available additional funding for local government in this financial year is to demonstrate that we understand the challenges local authorities face. Ultimately, however, as I said to the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), this sort of issue requires hard choices and trade-offs—something the Labour party continues to fail to demonstrate it understands.

Leasehold Reform

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Tomorrow, I will meet my constituent Luke Thomas, who is attending a drop-in in Parliament to raise awareness about the skin cancer melanoma. Luke first contacted me in 2020. He has stage 4 skin cancer, diagnosed after he had bought his first home, a shared ownership leasehold flat in my constituency. Knowing that his cancer is now incurable, Luke decided that he wanted to move back to Wales, to be able to enjoy more precious time with family and friends and to draw on their support when he needed it.

However, Luke is one of many, many leaseholders to spend years effectively trapped by a system, the deficiencies of which were further compounded by the cladding scandal following the horrific Grenfell Tower fire. Luke’s flat has been effectively unsellable, and he faced the dreadful and unacceptable situation of precious, limited time slipping away, unable to move forward with his life. Two and a half years later, Luke’s housing association has finally agreed to an exceptional buyback, but that is not a system, and Luke should never have been placed in that situation.

Luke’s story is heartrending, but it is not unique. I have many constituents who are still living with the consequences of the interaction between the feudal leasehold system and the scandal of building safety exposed by the horrific Grenfell Tower fire. Many have been trapped by the inability of their freeholder to undertake intrusive surveys and fire safety works in order to secure an EWS1 certificate, without which their home is effectively worthless. Some constituents, such as Luke, need to move for compassionate reasons; others, because their job has changed. I have constituents who have had a family and are now overcrowded in their leasehold homes, who have been unable to move for many years because of the lack of an EWS1 certificate or the completion of fire safety works. What started as the fulfilment of a dream—the security and stability of their own home, and the first rung on the property ladder—has become a living nightmare.

The Government’s delay in bringing forward leasehold reform is inexcusable. I was on the then Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee in 2019 when we published the report referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Committee’s Chair. On a cross-party basis and on the basis of the evidence, that report set out recommendations, including that Government should make commonhold the predominant form of tenure for flats, ban the most egregious practices and introduce some protections against catastrophic costs for leaseholders.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech, and she speaks passionately about her constituent Luke wanting to move back to Wales. My constituents have faced similarly terrible experiences as a result of the leasehold system. The Welsh Government have taken some important steps in Wales, virtually eliminating new leasehold for houses and reducing ground rents on new leases to a peppercorn, but does my hon. Friend agree that we need to see ambitious reform from the UK Government on an England and Wales basis so that all our constituents can get out of these terrible situations?

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is unfathomable that the Government, when faced with the urgency and magnitude of this crisis—affecting not just a few people but thousands across the country—have failed to act with urgency. It is very welcome that the Welsh Government have stepped up to the scale of the challenge.

The Committee’s report also included practical measures, such as introducing a standard form for presenting charges for leaseholders so that that information is easy to understand. This is about not just the major, catastrophic problems that leaseholders face, but the day-to-day complexity of a system that is difficult to understand and administer. However, the Government have taken next to no action on those recommendations. I received an email last week from a constituent who has saved for years to buy her first flat in an area that she loves, but has been told by multiple solicitors that they are unable to act in relation to the conveyancing because of the uncertainty created by the Building Safety Act 2022. As such, I specifically ask the Minister to look urgently at that issue and whether there is a need for further guidance to conveyancing solicitors, because new legislation designed to make building safer should not have the unintended consequence of preventing sales moving forward.

Finally, I want to raise the plight of leaseholders living in flats that have district heating systems. Such leaseholders are liable for a proportion of the costs of the heating of their whole block. They have very little control over the consumption of energy, which is influenced by the age of the communal boiler; the temperature that other residents choose to maintain in their homes; the hot water consumption of their neighbours; and the date on which their landlord chooses to switch the heating on and off each year. Because gas for district heating systems is often purchased in bulk in advance, those leaseholders are only now seeing the sharp increases in bills that other customers experienced last year. Inexplicably, there is no Government support at all for customers of district heating systems, and so many of them are now facing completely unaffordable heating bills in addition to the other, often extortionate costs associated with being a leaseholder. This problem is pushing leaseholders into poverty.

There are many thousands of leaseholders across the country—thousands of families facing the uncertainty and anxiety of extortionate and unpredictable costs, building safety defects and sharp practices. The Government’s failure to act with urgency to help them is a complete dereliction of duty. It is time that they stepped aside for a Labour Government who will deliver the reform that leaseholders so desperately need.

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [Lords]

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 1st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

Greater Manchester and, indeed, the rest of the country was shocked and horrified by the tragic death of Awaab Ishak in Rochdale. His little lungs had been exposed to deadly damp and mould in the flat that he lived in with his family. They battled against it for a number of years, and even filed disrepair claims against the housing association. I think we are united in this House that, in one of the richest economies in the world, that should never have happened. I cannot imagine the pain and heartache that Awaab’s family must feel every single day. Today, we embark on the first step towards making sure that no family should ever have to experience what they have experienced.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) cannot be with us in person owing to his ongoing treatment, but it should be noted that he has worked relentlessly with campaigners, with Government and with me and other colleagues across the House to ensure that the robust amendments needed to the legislation were made to honour Awaab’s name and ensure the health and safety of all social housing tenants.

I also thank the amazing organisations that have been the ultimate driving force of the Awaab’s law campaign: the Ishak family, their legal team, the Manchester Evening News and change.org for spearheading the campaign, and Shelter and Grenfell United for committing such energy, compassion and knowledge.

Very briefly, the campaign has four clear asks: to require social landlords to investigate the causes of damp and mould within 14 days of complaints being made, and report findings to tenants; to give social landlords seven days to begin work to repair a property where a medical professional has flagged a risk to health; to ensure bids for new social housing properties are treated as a high priority if a medical professional has recommended a move; and to mandate social landlords to provide all tenants with the information that they need, in simple English and other languages, on their rights, on how to make a complaint and on what standards they can expect.

I thank the Secretary of State, the Minister and their team for speaking directly with the Ishak family, with campaigners and with my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale and me, and for tabling new clauses 1 and 4, which help towards those key goals. Indeed, new clause 1 provides that the Secretary of State “must make regulations” that ensure that landlords have to remedy hazards such as mould and damp in a timely fashion. Although I appreciate that the Government want to consult on the final form of those regulations, I cannot stress enough that they must include provisions, as the Awaab’s law campaign set out, to set clear minimum safety standards, clear minimum timeframes for remedying any hazards, and an urgent priority move if the property is found to be unsafe. I am confident the Secretary of State will agree those are not unreasonable requests, and I hope that he will work hard throughout the consultation process to ensure that they are reflected in the final regulations.

I also support the amendments tabled by the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), which seek to strengthen new clause 1 by protecting tenants from repercussions when calling on the new obligations, and by expanding court powers. I welcome, too, that Government new clause 4 gives direction that registered social housing providers must provide their tenants with information about their rights in making complaints. That is good, but it does not specifically commit to ensuring wider language accessibility. I trust that the Secretary of State and the Minister will address that point in the regulations.

In complement to the Awaab’s law campaign, I also support new clause 6, which embodies Greater Manchester Law Centre’s calls to make social housing providers subject to freedom of information requests. Without that change, social housing providers can and have refused to be transparent about important elements of their business practices, even though they are receiving public money in rent and support.

I also support new clause 5 and Government amendment 47 which detail that social housing managers must gain professional qualifications to protect residents and raise standards in the sector. That is a commitment that many have wanted to see since the Grenfell tragedy. I also support new clause 8, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for households in temporary accommodation. The new clause would enable the regulator to set standards for supported and temporary accommodation. I know that my hon. Friend will speak at length about that in due course, but it is an important change. I am a member of the all-party group, and research that the group commissioned, led by Justlife and the Shared Health Foundation, found widespread and horrific examples of the conditions in which temporary accommodation residents were forced to live. In many cases, their accommodation was not fit for human habitation but they were frightened to say anything about it because of the risk of being made homeless. That is unacceptable.

I hope that the House will support all those amendments today, continuing the productive cross-party ethos that has been embodied in the passage of the Bill. It is important to state, however, that this legislation is one small element in a national moment of reckoning on the state of rented housing in this country. Citizens Advice suggests that more than half of private renters in England are struggling with damp, mould, excessive cold or a combination of those factors. Some 1.6 million of those affected are children. Private renters do not have access to the housing ombudsman for their complaints to be investigated independently, so millions of suffering families have no voice. They are trapped in homes that will ultimately put their lives at risk. I ask the Government to urgently introduce an equivalent Awaab’s law for the private rented sector alongside an urgent, state-funded, national housing mission to build new social homes and bring existing ones up to a decent standard.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 7. First, I want to put on the record my role as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

New clause 7 would protect the tenancy rights of social housing tenants who have to make an emergency move from their home because they or a member of their household are threatened with violence. It would be a small change in the law, but it would make a big difference. Losing the right to a secure, affordable home is a price that no one should have to pay for being a victim of crime. Yet that is what happens to far too many people who have to make an emergency move because the police say that it is not safe for them to stay in their home.

It is what happened to my constituent Georgia, an NHS employee, who had been very happy living in her housing association home with her children for nine years. One day, neighbours told Georgia that while she was at work, there had been loud banging on her door at home. She eventually coaxed her teenage son into telling her that he had been threatened by gang members. Georgia reported that to the police who told her that the matter was extremely serious, that they thought her son’s life was now at risk and that she needed to leave her home immediately. So Georgia approached her local council who provided temporary accommodation in another borough. At that point, Georgia effectively joined the bottom of the housing waiting list.

The current priority needs system does not automatically award high priority for being a victim of a threat of violence. In the context of an intense shortage of social housing, that meant that Georgia effectively faced a wait of many years to be offered a new home comparable to the one she had been forced to leave. In the meantime, after she had been in temporary accommodation for six months, her housing association began the process of formally ending her tenancy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dehenna Davison]

With the leave of the House, I will try to address the concerns raised by Members across the House. First, I thank hon. Members with all sincerity for their thoughtful and considered debate, not just today but throughout the passage of the Bill. We have dealt with things in a constructive manner, ultimately to try to strengthen the Bill to its fullest extent and provide the maximum protection for social housing residents.

I will seek to answer as many questions as I can, starting with Awaab’s law. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson), and the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), who is not here today, for their constructive engagement following the devastating case of Awaab, which touched them and many of us in this House incredibly personally.

I thank the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) for amendments (a) to (f) to Government new clause 1 relating to Awaab’s law. However, we are clear that our current proposals already sufficiently achieve what the hon. Member is seeking to do. Prescribed requirements are already defined in new clause 1 and therefore do not need to be defined in the alternative way proposed. Moreover, new clause 1 already gives us the power to make provision ensuring that social housing providers’ duty to meet requirements cannot be overridden or circumvented by the terms of the lease. We also think it important to be able to make provision enabling the landlord to inspect the property to ascertain whether there are any hazards present, provided reasonable notice is given if it is to be under an obligation to rectify prescribed hazards.

As I have made clear, we will consult on Awaab’s law within six months of the Bill achieving Royal Assent. The consultation will inform the detail of the regulations that the Secretary of State will set for Awaab’s law, including timescales and details on the prescribed hazards themselves. I hope that will reassure the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles, who raised concerns on that point. I reiterate the importance of setting requirements that deliver the best outcomes for residents, while being achievable, proportionate and evidence-based. I assure the House that with new clause 1, landlords will have no choice but to comply with new regulations and to take action to ensure homes are free of hazards that pose health risks to their residents. I therefore hope the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich will withdraw his amendment.

On professionalisation, on which many Members expressed their concerns and passion, I am incredibly grateful for the broad support across the House for our amendment. I believe our approach is the right way to drive up professional standards in the sector, but we will of course carry out further engagement with the sector, including landlords, tenants and professional bodies, as we develop our approach to implementation. I hope that will reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who is no longer in his place but who raised that point earlier.

New clause 6, tabled by the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, seeks to extend the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to registered providers of social housing. I am grateful to him, and to the hon. Members for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for Salford and Eccles for raising their concerns. I think we can all agree that increasing transparency in the sector is hugely important, but I do not believe that new clause 6 is necessary or advisable at this stage. Development of the access to information scheme, one of the Government’s commitments in the social housing White Paper, is already well under way. Through the scheme, private registered providers will have similar obligations as they would under the Freedom of Information Act. The tenants of providers, and their representatives, will be able to request information from their landlords in much the same way. I am also concerned—I am sorry to raise this point on another issue—that extending FOI to registered providers would increase the level of Government control exercised over the sector and may lead to the Office for National Statistics reclassifying housing associations. That is something we are incredibly concerned about.

On new clause 7, relating to Georgia’s law, I want to put on the record my thanks to the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for campaigning on this matter and for raising the really sad case of Georgia and her family. I am grateful to her for engaging with me in a really constructive fashion as we sought to find a middle road that the Government could accept in line with the new clause she is proposing. Unfortunately, we are unable to support it today, and I will explain why that is the case. I note the hon. Lady’s additions to bring assured tenancies within the scope of her new clause, but I reiterate my concern, raised in Committee, about the new clause itself—if not its intent, which I think we can all agree is incredibly admirable. I remain concerned that binding housing providers with policies that remove flexibility to choose who they give tenancies to is not the right course of action. Those decisions are devolved for good reason.

[Helen Hayes]

Does the Minister accept the facts of the situation, which are as follows: the tenants who would benefit from this provision remain social housing tenants for the first six months that they are in temporary accommodation? We really are not talking about a shifting of priority among people who are on the housing waiting list; we are talking about rehousing existing tenants. The home that they vacate would then become available much more quickly precisely for those people who are genuinely on the housing waiting list.

[Dehenna Davison]

The hon. Lady raises a really strong point. As I outlined, our concern is about removing flexibility from social housing providers. Every social housing provider and every area faces very different challenges. We want to ensure that they have the maximum flexibility to deal with those challenges. That is why, unfortunately, we cannot support new clause 7, but I thank her again for campaigning on this issue.

New clause 8 was tabled by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), and I am grateful to her for meeting me to discuss her proposal further following Committee. I know how passionate she is about this issue, and her expertise has certainly brought a great deal to my knowledge and understanding of some of the problems faced by residents of temporary accommodation. She is right to say that we must drive up standards for all tenants, but what concerns me, as it did in Committee, is that this measure would be outside the scope of the Bill. We will certainly explore it with her to make sure that we drive up standards in temporary accommodation as well, but this Bill deals specifically with social housing, and we want to keep it tight to ensure that it achieves its desired aims.

Amendments 36, 37 and 38 deal with the advisory panel that will advise the regulator on a wide range of matters relating to social housing. As I said in Committee, I do want to see tenants at the heart of the changes we are delivering through the Bill—I am firmly committed to that—but I do not necessarily think the amendments are the best way to achieve that. The purpose of the advisory panel is to provide independent and unbiased advice to the regulator. I believe the separate resident panel that we have established is better placed to share views directly with the Government and Ministers. Its members have been asked to tell us what they think about our approach to improving the quality of social housing, and whether our interventions will deliver the changes that they want to see. We think that our approach is the right one.

A number of Members spoke about inspections, including the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. The introduction of regular consumer inspections will be a key part of the proactive consumer regulation regime. It will strengthen the regulator’s oversight of the sector, ensuring that he or she can identify issues early and take effective action when necessary. The system that we propose will be based on a robust risk profile, ensuring that when landlords are at the greatest risk of failure, or when such failure would have the greatest impact on tenants, they are subject to greater oversight. As the shadow Minister knows, we have already amended the Bill to require the regulator to publish, and take reasonable steps to implement, a plan for regular inspections. When developing the plan, the regulator will engage closely with the sector, including tenants, and it is right that we do not pre-empt that process.

Let me turn briefly to amendment 41, tabled by the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan). The Government are absolutely committed to preventing homelessness. Significant work has already been done to address this important issue, including the publication of the Government’s bold new strategy “Ending rough sleeping for good”. We are investing £2 billion in measures to deal with homelessness and rough sleeping over the next three years, and our work in this area is already making an impact. Since the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, more than half a million households have been helped to move into secure accommodation. I cannot accept the amendment, as I believe that the existing legislation can achieve the outcome that the hon. Lady is seeking.