Tenancies (Reform) Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Friday 28th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Thornton]

We will start all over again. As I was saying, our duty to our constituents as MPs is often difficult where there are worries about triggering a revenge eviction by a rogue landlord. It is important to understand why we are introducing this measure.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Before the urgent question, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the role of environmental health officers and their concerns. Does he share my concerns that they often work very hard, that their departments are often very understaffed and that they are often placed in a difficult position because of the lack of legal protection for the tenant against retaliatory eviction? They want to do the right thing and enforce a repair order on the landlord but they are frightened of the consequences for the individual tenants. Environmental health officers, too, are good, decent human beings who want to see the right thing done, and this Bill would surely help in that situation.

[Mike Thornton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because that is exactly what I think, and exactly why my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central has introduced the Bill: not only to protect tenants, but to allow our caring and hard-working environmental health officers to do their job in the way they want to do it.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) mentioned dampness, and I have mentioned electrical safety, but there are many other problems that can make a house unfit to live in. That is something that this House must look into as the Bill goes through. Evicted tenants might well find that rogue landlords do not return their deposit. We have protections in place for the return of deposits, but it is not too difficult for a rogue landlord to manufacture an excuse not to return it, perhaps by inventing damage that they claim the tenant has caused.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Williams]

I have just begun. I have not come to all the evidence in the world yet, but I assure my hon. Friend that I will give him some evidence. I acknowledge what he says, but a lot of the evidence is hidden. One of the issues is that people are afraid to make complaints about conditions in their property precisely because they fear receiving a section 21 notice.

The Government are committed to promoting a strong, thriving and professional private rented sector where good landlords can prosper and hard-working tenants enjoy decent standards and receive a service that represents value for money for their rent. After a long period of contraction, the sector is expanding strongly and more than 4 million households rent in the private rented sector. We think that is good for the economy and we want to see that trend continue, particularly as it allows flexibility for young people not only to move around for employment reasons as they develop their careers, but to move up the housing ladder as their income expands. That is what I did when I moved from a one-bedroom bedsit to a two-bedroom bedsit, then to a one-bedroom flat and then finally buying at the age of 31.

We also want to see more purpose-built private rented properties, which is, after all, the norm in our fellow European states. That is why we have invested £1 billion in a build to rent fund, which provides development-phased finance to large-scale private rented sector developments that will deliver up to 10,000 new homes for private sector rent. Our housing guarantee scheme will support up to £10 billion-worth of investment in large-scale private rented projects and additional affordable housing.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

As this development of 10,000 new tenancies is getting a large element of public money, will the Minister tell us what the rent level will be?

[Stephen Williams]

These are guarantee schemes to enable developments to get off the ground. I am sure we would all agree that many of the problems that have been identified so far in this debate represent a minority of landlords and they are probably in the sort of properties that have been converted from large family houses. That is probably the issue in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, where Georgian houses have been converted into bedsits and small flats; it is certainly the issue in my constituency. We need to deal with the problems in those properties, but more purpose-built private rented accommodation—that investors such as pension or insurance funds see as long-term investments—will ensure higher quality for tenants at an attractive rent.

It is important that we raise standards and improve transparency in the sector. The Government have done a lot and have a good story to tell in this area over the last few months in particular. We have worked with the industry in the development of a code of practice for those managing properties in the sector, including landlords themselves. It was published on 11 September. From 1 October, it has been a requirement for letting and property management agents to belong to any one of three Government-approved redress schemes, so that where standards do not meet expectations, landlords and tenants have an effective means of raising their concerns. The schemes are run by the Property Ombudsman, the Ombudsman Services: Property, and the Property Redress Scheme.

The shadow Minister mentioned the Consumer Rights Bill, which is under consideration in the House of Lords. We introduced provisions requiring letting agents to increase transparency around renting costs by publicising their fees prominently in their office and on their website. We hope that that provision will come into force in this Parliament. That transparency will assist with the problem of double charging that the shadow Minister mentioned, and that of extortionate charging, when agents charge over and above the actual cost of the service. As soon as the fees are transparent to everybody, much of that sharp practice will end overnight. If it does not, it will be down to constituency MPs like us, Shelter, the National Union of Students and other campaigning organisations to expose such practice so that it can be driven out of the sector. That will be a big improvement.

The Government are also committed to ensuring that private tenants know their rights and responsibilities, which is why we published a “how to rent” guide on 10 June. In September, we backed that up with a model tenancy agreement for the benefit of landlords and tenants. That tenancy agreement has been improved as a result of the Westminster Hall debate instigated by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton)—he is not in his place at the moment—to which I replied. I was struck by the feeling after that debate that the tenant and the landlord should both know their rights and responsibilities. The model tenancy agreement now has a tick box so that the tenant and landlord can confirm that they have seen the “how to rent” guide, which includes coverage of safety issues in the property. The use of the agreement is voluntary, but it strikes the right balance between the rights and responsibilities of the parties and both parties can use it with confidence. After all, a tenant wants a home and a landlord wants a good tenant providing a stable income. It is in the interests of both that they embark on the tenancy with confidence on both sides. In particular, the agreement can be used when the parties have agreed to a longer fixed-term tenancy of two or three years; and it contains model clauses protecting the interests of the parties around termination, rent reviews and home business use.

Reference has been made to the resources available to local authorities to deal with the problem of rogue landlords. We have provided £6.7 million of additional resource to help local authorities tackle poor standards in that area. Specifically, £2.6 million has been allocated to deal with the mainly London-based problem of so-called beds in sheds, with a further £4.1 million to help tackle rogue landlords more generally.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, although, in fairness, the point has been made by others that there are good landlords and less-than-good landlords, and good tenants and poor tenants who leave properties in a terrible state and without paying. I do not see this as a one-sided issue. I do not think it is all in favour of the landlord, as opposed to the tenant. That is not my reading of the picture.

I must say in passing that those who claim there is a terrible bias in the system owing to problems of supply and demand are the same people who do not want to tackle immigration, which is one of the main reasons there is so much demand for property. If they really wanted to tackle the root causes of any imbalance in the market, they might at least be consistent and approve policies on immigration that would do some of the job they want to do through regulation.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On the subject of supply and demand, what does the hon. Gentleman think about the vast numbers of properties deliberately kept empty in London as part of land-banking, which denies people somewhere to live and jacks up the price for everybody else?

[Philip Davies]

I cannot speak for the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. He had the opportunity to speak earlier, but he cut himself short; he could have expanded at greater length on the problem of land-banking in his constituency. I do not want to be drawn off course. I am being dragged away and asked to speak at length about something, but I would rather stick as closely as I can to the meat of the Bill. I am sure that everybody would want me to do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Obviously, the more supply there is in the market, the better it is for the tenants—the more choice they have, the more likely it is that prices will be lower than if there was less supply.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have been listening carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), and he does not seem to me to be talking much about retaliatory evictions. He is talking more about the generality of the private rented sector. It is obviously in order to refer to that, but it is clearly not the central factor of the Bill. The Bill is quite specific—it deals with retaliatory evictions.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

We are going to hear quite a speech. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be heading that way, but he is actually in order.