Housing and Homes

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

This is the Secretary of State’s first housing debate, but it is a bit like Groundhog day. He is the fourth Secretary of State, with the seventh Housing Minister, now in the ninth year of a Conservative Government, and it is clear from this debate that the Conservative party still has no plan to fix the housing crisis.

The Secretary of State may be new to the job, but he has been in government since the start in 2010. Surely he cannot look at the Government’s eight-year housing record and conclude that more of the same is what is needed. After eight years of failure on all fronts, how is the answer more of the same when, since 2010, we have seen 1 million fewer under-45s owning their own home and the lowest level of home ownership for 30 years? How can the answer be more of the same on homelessness when it has risen every year since 2010, and we now have 120,000 children growing up with no home? And how can the answer be more of the same when private renters face rents that are soaring way ahead of incomes? The average rent is now £1,800 a year more than before.

Finally, house building rates are still lower than they were at their peak under Labour, and fewer new social rented homes were started last year than at any time since records began.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that last year’s figure of 217,000 additional homes is the second highest in the past 25 years. Completion levels have risen 30% and starts have risen 85% from their low points under Labour. He must welcome those increases in activity in the housing market.

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman is a hard-working, loyal Back Bencher, and I have to give him credit. He is making some of the same arguments the Secretary of State made when he said the Government are making good progress on supply. In truth, a full decade on from the worldwide financial crash, house building is still below the level it was before that global downturn.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the article in The Huffington Post at the beginning of the week, suggesting that 1,000 homeless families from Birmingham have been housed tens of miles away from their schools, families and jobs? Does he agree that that is probably because London councils are busy placing their homeless families in Birmingham, because that is the only way they can afford to house them, given that the public purse spent £1 billion on temporary accommodation last year?

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is right. The number of families—now nearly 80,000—living in temporary accommodation because there are no homes available, let alone homes in their own area, is a scandal that shames us all. I am interested to hear what the Secretary of State has to say. It is not just in Newham; he has been in government since 2010, since when his own council has seen a fivefold increase in the number of families without a home living in temporary accommodation.

The Secretary of State said that we are now investing more in affordable homes, and he cited £9 billion, which of course is the figure for the rest of this Parliament. Even if that money is spent, spending will still be half the level it was in Labour’s last year. To give people a measure of it: in Labour’s last year, spending on building new, badly needed affordable homes was £4 billion; and last year, under this Government, whatever they say, it was less than half a billion pounds. No wonder we saw 40,000 new social rented homes started in 2009, in that last Labour year, and last year we saw fewer than 1,000.

The £28 million for the Housing First pilots is welcome, but let me gently say to the Housing Secretary that that is a small drop when compared with the £996 million the National Audit Office says is the annual cut in the Supporting People programme since 2010—a programme to help the homeless. Finally, the right hon. Gentleman makes the welcome argument that we need more social rented homes, but what does he say to the residents in his own area, where 6,022 are on the council waiting list and the number of new social homes rented homes built last year was zero? He has a lot to pick up on and a lot to learn.

We have seen eight years of failure on all fronts since 2010, and it is no wonder that the Prime Minister admitted that housing was a big part of why her party did badly at last year’s general election. As the Secretary of State has said, as the Prime Minister has said and as I have argued, the housing market is broken, and housing policy is failing to fix it.

I say to Conservative Members that at the heart of Tory policy is the wrong answer to the wrong question. Ministers talk big about total house building targets, but what new homes we build and who they are for is just as important as how many we build. Simply building more market-priced homes will not help many of those who face a cost-of-housing crisis, because that can influence prices only in the very long term. We have to build more affordable homes if we want to make homes more affordable, and the public know that. It is why eight out of 10 people now say the Government should be doing more to get new affordable homes built.

The public expect much more of Ministers—more urgency, more responsibility, more investment and more action to fix this broken housing market. That is why Labour has set out a bold, long-term plan for housing. It is what people need from their Government. We have made the commitment, with the plan to back it, that under a Labour Government we would see 1 million new genuinely affordable homes built over 10 years: the largest council house building programme for more than 30 years, building those new affordable homes at a rate we have not seen in this country since the 1970s. The very term “affordable” has been so misused by Ministers that it is mistrusted by the public, so Ministers should drop it and replace it with a new Labour definition linked to local incomes, not pegged to market prices.

We must build for those who need it, including the most vulnerable and the poorest, with a big boost to new social homes built as part of the programme, but we should also build Labour’s new affordable homes, both to rent and to buy, for those in work and on ordinary incomes, who are priced out of the housing market and being failed by current housing policy. These people are the just-coping class in Britain. They are the people doing the jobs we all depend on—IT workers, delivery drivers, call centre workers, teaching assistants, electricians and nurses. They are the backbone of our economy and the heart of our public services. This is the same Labour aspiration that led Aneurin Bevan to talk of the “living tapestry” of mixed communities as he led the big house building programme after the second world war.

[Mr Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman’s leader is a keen fan of rent control to cap the total level of rents. Although that may superficially sound attractive, the right hon. Gentleman will understand the impact it will have on the prospects for that market; we may see people leave that market, so there will be fewer homes. Is he too a keen advocate of rent capping?

[John Healey]

I am surprised if the hon. Gentleman has not already done so, but he should read the housing manifesto that I launched with the Labour leader during the election campaign last year. It pledged longer tenancies, with a cap on the rent increases during that period. I shall come to the Labour plans for private renters in a minute. This debate is about differing views and very different visions of the housing problems that people face and the solutions that the country requires.

Our determination to get built the new genuinely affordable homes that are needed in this country was redoubled after the terrible Grenfell Tower fire. When the Grenfell survivors who contributed to our review say that

“tenants were victims before the fire”

and

“we’re treated as second class citizens in social housing”,

it is clear that radical, root-and-branch reform is required, so we will build more and we will build better, as the public sector has always done in housing. We will have leading-edge standards on energy efficiency and smart-tech design, so that Labour’s new affordable homes will be people’s best choice, not their last resort.

A huge majority of us in Britain aspire to buy our own home, yet the dream is currently denied to millions, especially young people facing a lifetime locked out of the housing market. We set out in our Green Paper a plan for Labour’s living rent homes, which would have rents set at no more than a third of average local household incomes and would be aimed at ordinary working families, young people and key workers—those who need to be able to save a bit for a deposit or who need a bit more to spend on the other things they need.

Labour’s low-cost home ownership home would be a new type of low-cost home, called first-buy homes. Again, they would be discounted, so that mortgage payments would be no more than a third of average local incomes. Crucially, the discount on those homes would be locked in so that it could potentially benefit not just the first first-time buyer, but future first-time buyers.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

In the past, local authorities were able to handle housing crises, such as when way back in the ’60s they were building 300,000 homes a year. Having said that, local authorities also built houses for sale, helped first-time buyers and actually offered mortgages. It was the Thatcher Government who abolished that. Can we not do something about that?

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend might be interested to read the fine detail of the Green Paper that we launched last month, because it makes the commitment to look into enabling local authorities once more to provide mortgages for local people who may find the mortgage market closed off to them.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman just committed to a policy of permanent discount. Is he aware that lenders generally do not involve themselves in those types of purchase, because they find the perpetual discount is very unattractive on repossession? When we had similar products in the past, such as the price discount covenant, only one or two lenders got involved and they required relatively high deposits.

[John Healey]

I have less concern than the hon. Gentleman about that. I recommend that he read the Green Paper. The point of Labour’s proposal is to create almost a parallel market that is permanently affordable to local people who are in work and on ordinary incomes—the very people the Government are currently failing and to whom the housing market is closed. [Interruption.] I give way to the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon). No? I beg your pardon, Madam Deputy Speaker. Labour’s policy on home ownership is about first-buy homes, first dibs for local people in all new developments and tightly targeted Help to Buy. That is the real hope that first-time buyers need.

I promised to come back to the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) on private renters. Since 2010, the number of households renting privately has gone up by more than a third, and there are now 5 million households renting privately throughout the country. The one thing that we cannot do is see a further slide back to those bad old days around the time of the second world war, when we had private rented housing that was unregulated, overpriced and badly maintained, and it was the only default housing for people earning ordinary incomes. What is needed is very clear: it is Labour’s plan for legal minimum standards, longer tenancies, a cap on rent rises and local licensing to drive out the rogue landlords. They are similar consumer rights that we all expect and all have in other markets, but not in housing.

Finally, the tragedy and unforgiveable scandal of the rising levels of homelessness in this country, particularly of those sleeping rough in the streets, is that we know what works because we have done it before. We did it before when the country was faced with rising homelessness in the early 2000s. Our action as a Government then led the independent Crisis and Joseph Rowntree Foundation homelessness monitor to declare that, by 2009, we had in this country seen what it called an unprecedented decline in homelessness. We back the new Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—we pay tribute to the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for steering it through—but we cannot help the homeless without more homes. I say to the Minister: go beyond the Housing First pilot; consider requiring housing associations to set aside, let us say, 8,000 of their homes across the country so that those with a history of rough sleeping have a low-cost, secure home in which to rebuild their lives; and then help to fund a replacement, like for like, of those homes.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

rose—

[John Healey]

I gave the hon. Gentleman the chance to speak earlier. I will conclude now, because many Members wish to speak.

In conclusion, this has been a disappointing first debate with the Secretary of State, who seems—[Interruption.] I listened very carefully, but saw no evidence that he is willing to challenge his own Government’s thinking or to make the radical changes required to fix the housing crisis. This is the test for the Secretary of State and for the Government. It is a big challenge to political thinking, not just to policy decisions. When the evident answer to the housing crisis lies in a bigger role for councils, stronger regulation of private markets, greater investment by Government in new low-cost homes, higher legal standards on everything from energy efficiency to safety, and tougher conditions on public contracts and public funding, it is clear that Conservative ideology, not just Conservative policy, must change. I say to the House that it is also clear from the Secretary of State’s speech this afternoon that the country will only see this change—the change that millions of people need and want—with Labour in government.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill

John Healey Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

It was emailed to the hon. Lady and all Committee members this morning.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Just in time!

[Melanie Onn]

I thank the Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I will certainly reflect on the feedback that I receive from across the House in the days ahead. These are just the first few hours of my tenure in this role, but I will listen closely to the comments from my right hon. Friend and others, and certainly, as we look at the national planning policy framework, we will consider those matters carefully.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Although all Speakers become politically neutral, Labour Members welcome and endorse with particular strength your tribute to our former colleague, Michael Martin, as well as your condolences to Mary and the family, Mr Speaker.

I warmly welcome the new Housing Secretary; it is good to see him back. He has a big job to do and the Opposition wish him all the very best in doing it. The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) was right to highlight Labour’s analysis of his predecessor’s pathetic surrender of housing cash to the Chancellor. It shows the new Secretary of State’s real challenge: the huge cut in housing investment—from £4 billion in 2010 to less than £500 million now—and the huge fall in genuinely affordable new homes to rent and buy. Will the right hon. Gentleman at least make the modest commitment that while he is Housing Secretary, we will build more new social rented homes than we lose?

[James Brokenshire]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his warm welcome to me. As he will know, it has certainly been a challenging personal few months for me, and that is why I am so delighted to have been given this new responsibility on such an important policy issue, as he rightly points out. I point him to the fact that, with the £2 billion that was added last year, this Government are investing £9 billion in affordable homes. I also draw his attention to the fact that more affordable homes have been delivered in the last seven years than were in the last seven years of the last Labour Government. We will continue to have that focus on building more homes and on building more affordable homes, too.

[John Healey]

The record is clear: 40,000 new genuinely affordable social rented homes were started by councils and housing associations in Labour’s last year in government, and fewer than 1,000 were backed by his Government last year. Does the Secretary of State not accept that the housing crisis demands that both central Government and local government do much more? In this local elections week, will he confirm a couple of important facts? Labour councils build five times more council homes than Conservative councils, and Labour councils get 50% more homes of all types built than Conservative councils, so does he agree that to fix the housing crisis, it is clear that we need more Labour councils and more Labour councillors to be elected on Thursday?

[James Brokenshire]

Even Labour councils build more homes under a Conservative Government. The right hon. Gentleman does raise the important issues of housing supply, the housing challenges that we need to meet and the roles of national Government and local government. I very much look forward to working with local government to make sure that we deliver on that agenda, because that is what this country needs and what will make a difference to people’s lives.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is right to raise the importance of infrastructure to the building of the homes that we need. That is why the housing infrastructure fund is so important. As a result of his hard work, Corby received £4 million in the first allocation, but I know that there is much more to be done, and I am listening carefully to what he says.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Nine months on from the Grenfell Tower fire, can the Secretary of State say—yes or no—whether every tower block with a social or private landlord which has Grenfell-type cladding has now been identified and tested?

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue. It is, of course, absolutely key that we ensure that we are helping local councils to identify those tower blocks. When it comes to social housing, we believe that all those tower blocks, whether owned by local councils or housing associations, have been identified. We continue to work with local councils, and that includes giving them additional financial support. Just last week we gave them £1 million to make sure that they had identified every single tower block in the private sector, and they will continue to receive whatever support they need.

[John Healey]

I think that that was a long-winded “no”, and it was consistent with the recent building safety data release. How is it that, nine months after Grenfell, not all private tower blocks with suspect cladding have been tested? Why have only seven of 301 blocks with Grenfell-type cladding had it removed and replaced? Why has not one of the 41 councils that have asked for financial help with extra fire safety work even received an answer from the Department? The right hon. Gentleman is the Housing Secretary. What does he say to reasonable people faced with those facts who feel that he is failing the Prime Minister’s pledge in June, when she said:

“My Government will do whatever it takes to…keep…people safe”?

[Sajid Javid]

Reasonable people understand just how important this issue is, and they do not take kindly to the right hon. Gentleman’s playing party politics with it. If he actually cared about the issue, he would not raise it in such a way. He would not use numbers and twist the facts to try to scare the public. The truth is that we are working with local authorities up and down the country to locate every single building and take remedial measures, and also helping them with funds. Despite what he has said, not a single council has been turned away. We are talking to every single council that has approached us, and we have made it clear that they will all be given the financial flexibility, if they need it, that will enable them to get the job done.

Grenfell Tower

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government if he will make a statement on the implications of the withdrawal of the Building Research Establishment’s safety test results for insulation materials used on Grenfell Tower.

[The Minister for Housing (Dominic Raab)]

I wish to respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s question and the decision by the Building Research Establishment to withdraw a building cladding safety test from its website.

The BRE was contacted by the insulation manufacturer, Celotex, after it identified anomalies between the specification for a particular cladding system it had submitted for testing and the actual system tested. It was alerted to the issue last week, and we were informed by the BRE last Wednesday. As a result, the BRE has withdrawn the classification report relating to that specific test, which was carried out in 2014. That is clearly the right thing to do. The cladding system in question included a fibre cement board, rain screen and Celotex RS5000 insulation. Celotex will now schedule a retesting of that system as soon as possible, as detailed in the relevant test report. It is important to make it very clear that this was not a test of the aluminium composite material cladding system that was widely reported and understood to have been present on Grenfell Tower, and it would be wrong to conflate the two.

In the meantime, we understand that Celotex is contacting all its customers who have used this material. We have published advice for building owners on the fire safety of cladding and insulation materials, including this type of insulation, and that advice still stands. As it makes clear, building owners should take professional advice on any further action they think might be necessary, reflecting their buildings’ particular circumstances. More broadly, we continue to expect building owners to progress any necessary remedial works and, where necessary, to implement interim fire safety measures to make sure that residents and their buildings are kept safe.

[John Healey]

The Government’s fire testing system is in chaos, yet the Minister offers no fresh advice, let alone fresh action, to deal with the problems. More than seven months on from the Grenfell Tower fire, only three out of 300 high-rise blocks confirmed to have unsafe cladding have had it removed or replaced, so thousands of families across the country are still living in homes that are not safe, and other privately owned blocks with the same suspect cladding have not even sent it for testing, despite the Government’s saying they should back in August.

On Friday, the Government’s test centre, the BRE, was asked to withdraw the 2014 safety test results that approved the insulation materials on Grenfell Tower. How many other residents are living in how many other high-rise blocks with that same insulation, which now has an invalid approval? Are any other BRE tests similarly flawed? In particular, is the Government’s own testing programme sound? The industry is now saying that Government-commissioned cladding and insulation tests used different standards from those in official guidance, with cavity barriers three times more fire-resistant. Is this the case? What does the Minister say to insurers and landlords who tell residents that the Government’s tests are not sufficient to show they breach building regulations, despite what the Secretary of State has said, and that therefore they will pay no removal or replacement costs, leaving leaseholders liable to foot the full bill?

Seven months on from Grenfell, the national testing regime is in tatters. After this national disaster, people look to national leaders for action. Only Ministers can act to make sure that all high-rise buildings are tested, that all tests are sound and that all dangerous cladding or insulation is removed. When will the Government sort this out?

[Dominic Raab]

I am somewhat disappointed that from this case and the detailed specifications that need to be retested, the right hon. Gentleman has jumped to conflate a much wider range of issues relating to Grenfell. I think that he has done it deliberately, and it is not a responsible thing to do. [Interruption.] Let me now answer his questions directly—and perhaps the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) would like to listen rather than commenting without understanding the facts.

The right hon. Gentleman asks why there was no new advice. There is no new advice because the existing advice is sound. He said that there had been no action. I gave details of the very specific action that has been taken in relation to Celotex. Indeed, on first hearing of this, I ensured at director level in my Department that the managing director of Celotex was contacted. We understand how seriously the company takes the testing issue, and we understand that it will act as soon as reasonably possible to have the product retested. I know the right hon. Gentleman would not suggest that that should be done in a rushed way. We want it to be done correctly, properly and responsibly, so that we understand and can give the reassurances for which he fairly asked.

The right hon. Gentleman suggests that homes were not safe. He already knows that as part of the building safety programme, inspectors have identified 284 buildings with cladding that does not comply with the requirements in the regulation, and the fire service has visited every one of those buildings. There are interim measures in place, including measures relating to car parks and ensuring that fire wardens are present, so that we can confidently say that every home is safe.

The right hon. Gentleman asks why the renovations had not been conducted more quickly. We need to engage with construction services responsibly to ensure that the renovations are carried out correctly, accurately and in a way that can reassure tenants and the wider public, and that obviously cannot be done in a hurry. We have reviewed the advice regularly, and it remains sound. We are taking every action that is necessary, both in relation to this case—which was the pretext on which the right hon. Gentleman based the urgent question —and in relation to the sensitive and important wider issue of housing and cladding as it affects local authority and housing association tower blocks and those in the private sector. That is exactly what the public would expect.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

First, I can tell my hon. Friend that I am not sure that the hon. Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) is his hon. Friend. As for his question, mechanisms do exist, and we have gone further by saying to local authorities that if there are certain flexibilities that they need, they should contact us, and those flexibilities will be provided.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

My hon. Friends the Members for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) and for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) are absent to pay tribute and respect to Kieran Quinn, whose funeral is taking place this afternoon. He was the leader of Tameside Council, which was council of the year in 2016. Our thoughts and condolences are with his family and friends today.

I welcome the new ministerial faces to the Department with a new name, but what the country really needs are new policies to fix the growing housing crisis. More than seven months on from the Grenfell Tower tragedy, how many tower blocks with the same dangerous cladding have had that cladding taken down and replaced?

[Sajid Javid]

I join the right hon. Gentleman in extending my condolences to Kieran Quinn’s family and friends on what will certainly be a very difficult day for all of them.

According to my figures, which I think are accurate up to 10 January, 312 buildings have been tested, of which 299 have not passed the test. The cladding on a number of buildings has started to come down and is slowly being replaced. We are anxious to ensure that there is enough capacity in the industry to meet the extra demand that it is now experiencing, and we are working on that with both the industry and my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary.

[John Healey]

I wonder whether the Secretary of State has read the update that his Department issued this morning. The number of tower blocks with the same dangerous flammable cladding that has been taken down and replaced—more than seven months on from Grenfell Tower—is three. How has it come to this? Seven months on from Grenfell, only one in four families who are Grenfell survivors has a new permanent home. The Government still cannot confirm how many other tower blocks across the country are unsafe. Ministers still refuse to help to fund essential fire safety work when they know that blocks are dangerous. The Secretary of State is sitting back and letting individual flat owners, rather than landlords and developers, pick up the full costs for private tower blocks. The Secretary of State must know that that is not good enough. What new action will he take to sort out these serious problems?

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Gentleman will know, because he shares this view, that the No. 1 priority for buildings safety following the Grenfell Tower tragedy is to ensure that anyone living in any tower that might have similar cladding feels completely safe and that those buildings are properly tested. If anything is found before that cladding can be taken down and replaced, which will of course take time, we must ensure that adequate measures such as 24/7 fire wardens are put in place, on the advice of the local fire and rescue service. That is exactly what has been done in every single case. The right hon. Gentleman also asked about private sector tower blocks and the cost of any remedial work that is needed. I have made it clear in the House and since our last oral questions that, just as social landlords are picking up the tab for those changes, and whatever the legal case might be in the event of a private relationship, the moral case is clear: the tab should be picked up by the freeholders of those properties.

Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill

John Healey Excerpts

Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

It is good to be back debating the Bill again and to speak after the hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) and the six other very good contributions from Members on both sides of the House who followed the introduction of the Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck). I welcome the Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government to her new post and to the Dispatch Box for the first time. I am glad that her first outing is on this important Bill. She came to this post from the Whips Office, so if any of her colleagues at the back start to play up, she is the ideal woman to sort them out.

I give the warmest welcome and strongest congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North, whose speech showed just how and why she is one of the best experts and strongest voices on housing in the House. This is her Bill. It is not a handout Bill from the Government, nor one from outside organisations. Over a long period, she has put together the case and the content for this Bill, and she has built the coalition of support behind it, which includes the Residential Landlords Association, Citizens Advice and the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. I should also make special mention of Shelter, which made the call for this exact change four years ago in its report, “Safe and Decent Homes”.

I welcome the Government’s declared backing for the Bill. I trust that means that Ministers will do all they can to advance its progress to and through Public Bill Committee and the Lords, and on to the statute books. However, this is something of a groundhog day for the Labour party, especially for my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North. Three years ago, she brought a similar Bill to the House, which the Government blocked. Two years ago, Labour’s Front-Bench team—led by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce)—proposed the same legal changes via the Housing and Planning Bill, but the Government voted those changes down. The Minister, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister all voted against the change that day, so today’s Conservative party change of mind is important and significant; and it is important because this Bill is important.

The Bill gives all private, council and housing association tenants the right to take action in the courts if their landlord fails to let and keep a property that is fit for human habitation—fit for people to live in. That will mean homes that are safe from fire, homes with adequate heating, and homes that are free of vermin, constant condensation or mould. This is so basic. In this day and age, it is extraordinary that landlords currently have no such obligation to their tenants. In practice, tenants can often do nothing about such serious hazards that affect their health and safety.

The Bill is important because it deals with a really big problem. Desperately bad, indefensible standards are widespread. More than 1 million rented properties, which are home to 2.5 million people, have these downright dangerous category 1 hazards. Nearly 800,000 households are private renters. A further 244,000 live in council and housing association properties. New Labour analysis from the official data in the English housing survey that we released yesterday shows that almost 700,000 children are growing up in homes plagued by damp, mould, dangerous electrics or extreme cold, with all the costs to their health and welfare that my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North and other hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber have spelt out to the House.

Councils can of course act to help private or housing association tenants, but last year half of all councils served just one or no enforcement notices. One especially active London council served almost half of all the notices nationally last year. That council was not identified in Stephen Battersby’s report, but I suspect that it is not unconnected with my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North. Over the past year, my own council in Rotherham has trebled the number of inspections it carries out under the housing health and safety ratings system to 721, and half the properties have been found to be a category 1 hazard. The council prosecuted six, but only six, of the landlords.

May I offer the Minister four questions to work on alongside the passage of this Bill? First, will she make a commitment to increase funding for local council enforcement, as Members on both sides of the House have called for, to help to reverse the deep Government cuts to councils since 2010? Secondly, will she confirm that legal aid will be available for tenants taking action to get their landlord to do the work needed? Thirdly, will she extend legal aid to help tenants to claim damages? Fourthly, during the passage of the Housing and Planning Bill, Labour Front Benchers forced the Government to change the provisions to make regular electrical safety checks mandatory. That has been law for two years. When will it be implemented?

The breadth of support for this Bill is a tribute to my hon. Friend but also telling, especially that from the Residential Landlords Association and the National Landlords Association. The large majority of landlords take their responsibilities seriously and make sure that their tenants’ problems are sorted out promptly. The Bill reinforces what landlords should already be doing. I am glad to say that it follows similar legislation already in place in Wales: the Welsh Government’s Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016.

As I said, this Bill is important and significant. It is a policy and political landmark to have Conservative Ministers back a Labour Bill to tighten regulation to help renters. The former Housing Minister and now party vice-chairman, the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), stated Tory policy and philosophy in January 2016 when he opposed this change, saying that it

“will result in unnecessary regulation and cost to landlords”.—[Official Report, 12 January 2016; Vol. 604, c. 785.]

This was part of the prevailing Conservative approach to market regulation based on the infamous “two out, one in” rule. The Secretary of State this weekend confirming Conservative backing for this Bill was welcome and a significant shift.

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

My right hon. Friend is making a really powerful speech. Does he agree that the Government should be very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) for bringing forward this legislation again and giving them an opportunity to overturn their previous opposition to the measures that he has outlined, including during the passage of the Housing and Planning Bill? Will he join me in pressing the Government to implement the measures in this Bill very quickly, because their resistance to them previously has meant that there has been a delay for tenants in getting the protection they very much need?

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is right. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge the opportunity that this Bill gives the Government. I would rather that it were a Government Bill that also went further to make the private rented market fairer. She is also right that there is too long a history of legislation being passed but implementation lagging. She makes a really important point for the Minister to respond to.

This is a welcome and significant shift that shows that Labour is winning the arguments and forcing Government to change policy. It shows that Ministers are coming to terms with the hard reality of our first minority UK Government in 38 years, with no domestic policy programme. That is because it is not covered by their deal with the Democratic Unionist party. If the Government want to act beyond Brexit, only policies that can command some support from beyond their own ranks will stick.

This Bill is an important first step to deal with the failures in a market that the Prime Minister herself describes as “broken”, but more is needed. Alongside the Government’s backing for the Bill, I therefore urge them to rethink their refusal to help renters in other ways. I also urge them to consider backing the Labour plans for longer tenancies, for controls on rents, and for more freedom for councils to license private landlords.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North said that everyone should have a right to a safe, warm, comfortable home. She is so right. We will give this Bill our strongest possible support.