Private Rented Sector Housing

Debate between Kim Leadbeater and Dan Carden

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), who campaigns tirelessly to try to find ways in which we can lift people out of poverty. They suffer, through no fault of their own, because the system is rigged against them. I especially pay tribute to his work fighting for a legal right to food, so that no families or children go hungry in the fifth richest economy on the planet.

We had a fantastic debate on supported housing recently in the Chamber. A number of my colleagues spoke and exposed the racket in the housing sector. I hope in my brief comments to suggest a few ways in which the Government could begin to put things into reverse.

The private rented sector is booming in this country—and in Liverpool; it accounts for 32% of all housing stock across the city, and in at least one third of council wards, the proportion is approaching 50%. Liverpool, Walton, which I represent, is ranked as the most deprived constituency in the whole of England. My office is overwhelmed by constituents coming to me and my staff for help because the places where they live are blighted by damp, mould, cold, or vermin.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I apologise for not being here at the start of the debate due to other commitments. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just those in private rented accommodation who find themselves trapped in totally unacceptable conditions—many of which we have heard about today? People such as Janice Dawson and her husband, in my constituency, can be forced to live in damp and unhealthy leasehold properties because management companies fail for years to carry out essential repairs, despite repeated promises to do so.

[Dan Carden]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. She is absolutely right, and that problem is found not just in leaseholds, but in supported housing and housing association homes. In every sector that we look at, there is too little regulation and funding to put those issues right.

When my constituents come to me with those issues of damp, mould, cold and vermin, they are ignored by their unscrupulous landlords. The overstretched local authority, which is supposed to attempt to enforce the few housing standards that we have, is doing so with ever-dwindling resources because of more than a decade of austerity cuts. We should not underestimate the constant, crushing, dehumanising misery that squalid housing conditions cause people and families. The local authority has made tackling those problems a priority in recent years, especially in the private rented sector, but needs urgent support, which the Government have failed to deliver.

In 2015, Liverpool City Council introduced the UK’s first city-wide landlord licensing scheme, which my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) saw in operation. Since its introduction, 70% of inspected properties have been found to be in breach of their licence conditions. Some 37,000 compliance actions were carried out, 2,500 legal and fixed penalty notices were issued, and almost 250 landlords were prosecuted. In practical terms, that meant improving the lives of tenants, making electrics safe, installing fire doors, eradicating damp and preventing illegal evictions. In other words, the scheme worked.

What did the Government do when Liverpool City Council applied for a new licensing scheme in 2019? It rejected the application—a huge blow for residents. Only after numerous resubmissions have we found out that the scheme can be reintroduced in April. However, this time, it will apply to only 80% of the city’s wards, because of a diktat from Whitehall. That will undermine the city council’s ability to enforce standards across the region, and tenants will suffer as a result.

In the light of a near 65% cut in Government funding to Liverpool’s core budget since 2010, Ministers must look at how they can do more to support local authorities that want to ensure that residents have security, dignity and comfort in their home. The Government must rescind the damaging relaxation of permitted development rights and return those powers to local government, too. Ministers should turn their attention to what could be done to support the creation of flourishing communities that support the health and wellbeing of their residents, not least by implementing comprehensive national housing standards.

In recent months and years, I have been working with the Town and Country Planning Association to seek to introduce a healthy homes Act, which would effectively outlaw the slums of the future. We need robust new measures to hold landlords and developers to account. A significant barrier to effective action is the radical imbalance in access to Government among interest groups. We cannot tackle the housing crisis without tackling the undue influence that property developers have over Government policy. A recent report by Transparency International UK found that although property tycoons have an open door into Whitehall, tenants are shut out. Given that private renters make up one in five of all households across Britain, their absence from policy making is conspicuous. It warps the process in favour of vested interests.

At a recent Public Accounts Committee hearing on the regulation of private renting, I made sure that ACORN, the community and tenants’ union, was invited to give evidence. I wonder if the Minister has ever met with that union. The testimony provided to the Committee by ACORN’S representative was powerful and is too rarely heard. I urge the Minister to tell us what he plans to do to address that imbalance and ensure that tenants are given a seat at the table.