Non-commissioned Exempt Accommodation

Debate between James Daly and Lisa Nandy

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

My right hon. Friend is right: it is a waste. It is a waste of human potential, a waste of good, thriving neighbourhoods, and a waste of taxpayers’ money. It is more than that actually. The distortion in the housing market in these communities means that working families are being priced out of good, viable family homes. Other social tenants cannot access them either; when a person cannot get enhanced housing benefits, they are subject to the local housing allowance. The regulation is non-existent. Providers are exempt from planning and licensing laws that enable councils to limit the types and proliferation of houses of multiple occupation. The social housing regulator does not have the powers to deal with rogue operators as they set themselves up as small operators outside the direct oversight of the regulator. The effect of all of that is that whole streets and communities become saturated with family homes that are converted into HMOs, providing exempt accommodation and housing vulnerable tenants who are left without support. That creates problems for the whole community, and it is all happening in plain sight.

What is worse is that the people who are most affected—as I said to the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden)—are those who cannot do anything about it. Only the Government have the power to make changes for the better, which is why today we are calling for a package of emergency measures to set this situation right.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I am a fellow Greater Manchester MP. We have the “Places for Everyone” scheme that has been submitted to the Government. I am very sympathetic to a lot of what the hon. Lady has been talking about. In Wigan and Bury over many, many years—from the way that the hon. Lady is looking at me, I think she knows the important point that I am making—there has been a dearth of action by Labour-controlled councils to build and to provide affordable social housing. Does she share with me a disappointment that there is no plan within “Places for Everyone” to deliver that?

[Lisa Nandy]

The hon. Gentleman should spend some time with my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), because she would set him straight very quickly. I know his community very well—it is where I grew up and went to college, and it is where my mum lives—and he has a superb Labour council that backs its community at every turn and was part of dramatically improving the life chances of young people in its community and supporting the community. When Bury Football Club was collapsing, much to our desperate regret, it was his Labour council who stood by the community, while the Government stood and watched as the club fell apart.

[James Daly]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lisa Nandy]

I think the hon. Gentleman should listen for once. His Labour council has stood in as a lifeline for people as support was stripped away over 12 years of Tory Government. It is about time that he not only acknowledged that, but got behind his local community and started standing up to this Government.

The regulation is non-existent. This is all happening in plain sight. The regulations must be toughened up. We need a proper test for what counts as care, support or supervision set out in law. It is right of the Minister to say, as I heard him say in the Westminster Hall debate, that that must be done thoughtfully and with care, but that is no excuse for inaction. Surely it is not beyond the collective wit of Government to come up with a scheme that roots out the bad providers and protects the good.

We need a regulator with the full range of powers needed to deal with the problem, with a fit and proper person test that must be passed before any provider can set itself up to care for vulnerable people. Local authorities need the power to reject applications on grounds of saturation or oversupply in a specific area and to insist on community impact assessments that have the power to prevent such over-saturation.