Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Buck Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Stephen Pound? Not here. Where is the fellow?

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

4. What plans he has to improve conditions for tenants in the private rented sector.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

5. What plans he has to improve conditions for tenants in the private rented sector.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)]

I believe that all tenants should have a safe place in which to live. In the Housing and Planning Bill, the Government have introduced the strongest ever set of measures to protect tenants and ensure that landlords provide good-quality, safe accommodation.

[Ms Buck]

According to a freedom of information inquiry that I carried out last year, only 14,000 of a total of 51,316 complaints made to councils about poor housing were subjected to a local authority environmental health assessment, and, on average, councils prosecuted only one rogue landlord every year. Is it not irrefutable that local authorities lack the resources, certainly, and the will, in some cases, to take action against rogue landlords? What possible grounds can the Minister have for resisting a modest change that would allow tenants to take legal action against landlords who let homes that are not fit for human habitation?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Lady is right, in that local authorities should be using the powers that they have. As I have said, there is already a requirement for properties to be fit and proper, and she may wish to welcome the extra £5 million that we have added to the £6.7 million that we have already invested to support it. However, if she looks at the changes in the operation of fines in the Housing and Planning Bill, she will see that the amount of resources for local government will be beyond anything that we have ever seen before, and certainly beyond anything that the Labour Government ever did.