Renters (Reform) Bill (Third sitting)

Karen Buck Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Jacob Young]

Q Your point is specifically around digitisation, so it is not necessarily about court reform as a whole. Specifically on digitisation, do you think that we could do section 21 before that?

Richard Miller: That’s right, yes. Digitisation is absolutely necessary. It is disappointing, but we understand the reasons why it has not happened already. It is a major project and we need to have the system that will be in place for the foreseeable future before we start building the digital systems to cope with that system.

Nimrod Ben-Cnaan: On your point about the ombudsman, Minister, there is little to comment on in the Bill. The shape outlined in the Bill is just that: an outline of an idea that has been suggested by various parties. You have heard some of them in previous sessions, and that might be useful in their own terms. Our concern has always been that the ombudsman would be used to displace, specifically, tenants’ access to the courts when they need it, and through that to displace the provision of legal advice that would otherwise be available for them. We would like to ensure that tenants have a good, reliable source of information and advice about their rights, what they can act on, how they can act on it and the support to do so. On the ombudsman, well, let us see that idea get fleshed out in detail.

I was heartened to hear from the Department’s officials that the intention is not to have the ombudsman somehow displace access to courts, for example, with disrepair claims, which would be so important to us. The court still does, and can do very well, the kinds of things that the ombudsman cannot do at all—be that through things such as establishing fact, applying the law, interpreting the law and sometimes being able to issue injunctions when there is, for example, an unlawful eviction. A law centre would normally be able to step in and stop that right there and then, in a way that the ombudsman would not even have the power to do so. Actually, we have a lot going on with the courts at present, and we should resource them and resource the allied measures to make the most of them.

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

Q Could I just go back to the issue of advice and representation? You both made the point that there are strong arguments for tenants being represented. Will you tell us what those arguments are? In practical terms, what are the consequences at different levels—within the courts, and also going back to issues such as homelessness—of people not being represented and having advice? Can you give us an indication of how the level of service is spread out across the country? Are there particular places and areas where there are difficulties for tenants in getting representation?

Richard Miller: The Law Society has published a number of maps showing the availability of legally aided housing advice across the country. Those have shown, over time, that the picture is getting worse. The number of law firms and law centres delivering these services is reducing. We now have something like 42% of the population without a housing provider on legal aid in their local authority area. By definition, the sort of people we are talking about—those who are financially eligible for legal aid, where very often the issue is that they are unable to pay their rent—cannot afford public transport to travel significant distances to get the advice they need. Local provision of advice is vital.

The problem we have—there may well be many people around the table who are not experts in the legal aid system—is that the last time the remuneration rates for legal aid were increased in cash terms was in the 1990s. That is what the profession is up against, and that is why more and more firms have decided that it is not economically possible to carry on delivering these services. We are seeing an absolute crisis in the state of legal aid provision across the country, and that needs to be addressed. I will pass over to Nimrod to deal with the consequences of people not being represented.

Nimrod Ben-Cnaan: Things have got so bad that even delivering the duty desk at court—the scheme that we are so reliant on to make possession work well for all parties—is difficult. In the last procurement round, the Legal Aid Agency had such problems sourcing providers in the greater Liverpool area—Merseyside, if you like—that there was a reliance on transitional arrangements. If you have a large urban centre where a legal aid firm should be able to make a sustainable business but is not able to do so, we have a real problem.

In terms of the kind of impact that legal aid services could offer us, I would say that the current scope of legal aid needs to be addressed, not just the remuneration. Ten years ago, in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the scope cut to legal aid was such that a lot of early intervention to help people was taken out of scope, so you are basically incentivised to let problems escalate. It is the wrong way round, and even the Government are realising that in their current review of civil legal aid. If you get in early, you are able to divert people from the court wherever possible. You get to represent tenants wherever possible, lightening the load of the court, and you get to give assistance for as long as it is needed, rather than by adhering to whatever original parcels you were apportioned by legal aid. There is an opportunity here to make a secondary provision to legal aid that would help to prop up the system through this transition.

Richard Miller: To build on that, some unrepresented tenants do not bring cases that they could and should bring and do not enforce their rights; others bring cases that are misconceived, and that has an impact on the landlord, who has to defend the misconceived case, and on the courts, which have to put in resources to hear it. When these cases go to court, whether they are validly brought or misconceived, unrepresented tenants very often do not understand the processes and what is required of them, so they do things wrong and have to have things explained to them. That means that the courts have to put a lot more resources into managing the case than they would if the tenant was represented, so there is a whole range of ways that landlords and courts—and therefore the taxpayer—are adversely impacted by tenants being unrepresented.

[Helen Morgan]

Q You mentioned the problem that 42% of the population cannot access a legal aid provider in their area, and we heard earlier from another witness that there is a shortage of courts in parts of rural Britain. You have just described Merseyside, and I am not sure there is an obvious geographical disparity there, but do you see a geographical disparity between rural and urban areas, or in specific parts of the country where it is much harder to obtain legal aid?

Richard Miller: Certainly what we have seen in the data is that it was the rural areas that were the first to be impacted. We are now seeing a lot of market towns up and down the country where there is no provision, and the position in the cities is getting ever worse and ever tighter. It was definitely the rural areas that were the first impacted, but this is now a nationwide problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Q Most of the grounds at the moment are non-discretionary or mandatory, and a few are discretionary. Is that balance correct, or should tenants be able to make specific hardship claims around financial issues, for example, or delay an eviction based on selling the house? For instance, if the tenant were receiving cancer treatment, they might seek a delay for a few months. Could you tell me about that distinction? Would that create more work or less?

Jacky Peacock: We think that all the grounds should be discretionary. There is no more draconian decision that a civil court could make than to deprive someone of their home. The thought that they will be prevented from looking at all the circumstances before making a decision seems, in principle, unfair. Judges are not soft. If they have discretion, they will still grant possession in the majority of cases where the evidence is there and it is the fairest thing to do. But to deprive them of being able to look at every single circumstance in any of those cases before taking someone’s home away is not justice. It does not deliver justice. I have seen many cases of possession orders being issued against the tenant that have been grossly unfair for all sorts of reasons but, technically, the decision was mandatory.

[Ms Buck]

Q Some tenants are keen and able to exercise the right to purchase. What are your views on how that relationship might work in terms of when grounds are sought for a property to be put up for sale?

Jacky Peacock: I should first of all say that we are not happy with the sales ground. If a landlord wants to sell the property, we think that there is no reason that it could not be sold with the tenant in situ. Obviously, if it is sold to another landlord, that is a big advantage because they do not have to have any void periods while the property is going through the process of sale.

I also suggest, whether or not that remains a ground, that tenants should be given the right of first refusal. There is a precedent for that under the Rent Act 1977. Qualifying tenants—in other words, Rent Act tenants and/or non-leaseholders—have that right at the moment under certain circumstances. I will not tire you with the details of that, but as far as I am aware, all the parties are in favour of increasing owner occupation and this seems to be a very sensible way of doing it.

Even if individual tenants could not afford to buy, they may well have a relative that could buy it for them and they could own it eventually or it could be offered to the local authority, a housing co-operative, a housing trust or whatever. I hope that is something that is given serious consideration. It also means that the property is not being lost if landlords leave the sector. Certainly, if we have the portal as we would like to see it, a lot of appallingly bad landlords will be leaving the sector—good riddance—and that property could be bought by someone else, such as the local authority.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Q Someone going through a no-fault eviction must pay the cost of moving. Should there be some sort of recompense? Earlier this week, it was suggested that the tenant could be exempt from paying, say, the last two months’ rent.

Jacky Peacock: Yes. I have not given a lot of thought to the way the legislation could cover that. To be honest, it is not unusual. We had a case recently where tenants were sharing with another family, but the landlord wanted the other family to move out. The families were sharing the rent and the landlord therefore approved £20,000 rent arrears. We were able to negotiate a date by which they would move; the landlord would not have to go to court to ask for possession, but he would not pursue the arrears.