Communities and Local Government Committee Report: Private Rented Sector
Debate between Jack Dromey and Clive Betts
Mr Betts
Absolutely, and the hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point. In the report, we welcome the Government’s commitment to a redress scheme, and we hope that our report helps to shape it, but we felt that we could go a little further. On the exact point that he makes, it is quite surprising to people who look at the issue afresh that letting agents are subject to less regulation than estate agents. We believe that they could be put on exactly the same basis. A key point is that the Office of Fair Trading has powers to ban estate agents who behave badly; the same power should be introduced for letting agents.
We also looked at the fees charged by letting agents and found that many of them were unreasonable and unclear. The first step has to be transparency. Wherever a property is advertised to let—in a window, on a website or in a newspaper—it should be accompanied by a full breakdown of the fees that a tenant is likely to have to pay. No more hooking the tenant with a property that they like, and then, once they are interested and are looking to sign the tenancy agreement, letting the hidden fees come out, little by little—drip, drip. We are talking about costs that the tenant never anticipated, and that can run into the hundreds of pounds. Also, there should certainly be no more charging the landlord and the tenant for the same service; that is completely and utterly unacceptable, and should be banned.
An important step in bringing the market to maturity and aligning supply with demand would be to meet the clear need for longer tenancies. The common industry standard is six months. That might be suitable for many mobile, younger people; it is certainly not adequate for the many families in the sector who want a secure home. One renter who came to give evidence to us told us that their 10-year-old daughter had already moved house seven times in her life. That is simply not acceptable. If families move home, it means moving school, and we need to tackle that sort of insecurity.
We need to look at and remove the barriers, real and perceived, to longer tenancies. Limitations in mortgage conditions need to be lifted. We were encouraged by the news that Nationwide building society has begun to allow longer tenancies; we welcome that. We have to ensure that letting agents work with landlords and tenants to make sure that they are aware of the different options for tenancy length. Too many letting agents seem to be hooked on getting repeat fees for short lets. They are almost like the football agent who benefits from constant transfers, rather than players staying at a club for a long period. In return for offering longer tenancies, landlords should be able to evict tenants who simply refuse to pay a lot more speedily.
We looked at safety standards. Safety is absolutely paramount. Landlords who let out death traps must face the consequences. The gas safety regime has gone a long way to making homes safer, but electrical safety is still a blind spot. The Government should develop an electrical safety certificate for private rented properties. It would confirm that wiring had been checked and was in good order, and we think that the check should take place at least every five years. We also call for a requirement that all private rented properties be fitted with a working smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide detector with an audible alarm.
Placing homeless households was another issue to which we gave consideration. Councils can now discharge their duty to homeless households by placing them in the private rented sector without their consent. When councils do this, they must ensure that the accommodation is suitable. As a matter of good practice, they should inspect properties before using them to house homeless families. We are aware that some councils are placing homeless households away from their local area. Where this is necessary, there should be a statutory duty of full discussion, including sharing appropriate information with the receiving authority and, of course, with the prospective tenant.
The Government need to look at how the housing benefit bill is spent in the private rented sector. There are obvious concerns in all parts of the House about the rising bill. We heard from Blackpool about how the market has failed there because housing benefit levels are set artificially high, as the calculation of local housing allowance, which determines benefit levels, includes surrounding rural areas where rents are higher. We heard wider concerns about the interaction between housing benefit and rents. Housing benefits can drive rents up across an area, which in turn leads to upward pressure on local housing allowances, creating a vicious circle and increasing costs for the taxpayer, who picks up the bill. We recommend that the Government conduct a wide-ranging review of the local housing allowance.
We looked at the issue of tax evasion. Very often the tax authorities and councils operate in different worlds. We called for greater co-ordination between councils and the tax authorities, which could go a long way to cracking down on tax evasion, both capital gains tax and income tax. It would be especially effective in areas where a licensing or accreditation scheme was in place and details about the landlords were known. We call on the Government to promote a more joined-up approach to tackling tax evasion, which would benefit us all.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I warmly congratulate both the Chair of the Select Committee and the all-party Select Committee on this very important report which, while recognising the very important role that the private rented sector has to play in meeting housing need, calls for it to change, introducing greater security, more predictable and affordable rents, and higher quality and effective regulation of the letting agents. Do the Chair and the Select Committee share my hope that the Government will respond quickly and constructively to the Select Committee’s recommendations?