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

Debate between Karen Buck and Antoinette Sandbach

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady pay tribute to Citizens Advice for its role in assisting 144 families with housing repairs in my constituency? Does she agree that many tenants can get legal expenses insurance through their household insurance, and it is always worth checking insurance policies for that?

[Ms Buck]

I join the hon. Lady unequivocally in paying tribute to Citizens Advice. It supports the Bill and has written a good briefing about it. I do not want to stray too far from the Bill, but there is a real concern about advice services across the piece, and we must continue to discuss and make representations on that.

One concern that underpins my motivation for the Bill is that it is often the poorest and most vulnerable people—those with the highest likelihood of having disabilities and sickness—who are trapped in the worst housing, and in my experience, very few people have adequate insurance. That is a much larger problem that we must seek to resolve. A number of different remedies may be available to some people, but the minority of people who are concentrated in very bad housing often do not have access to the remedies that are available to those who are better off.