Tenant Fees Bill

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 5th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I will speak to all the Government amendments but, for ease, I will take them in a slightly different order from the one in which they have been set out.

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler), back to her place on the Front Bench. Everything we are discussing today is built on the foundations of her incredible diligence in preparing the Bill for us to consider in Committee, where I enjoyed constructive discussions with my opposite number, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn). I am delighted that my hon. Friend is back with us to help us to move the Bill through its final stages.

Amendments 5 and 6 will ensure that landlords and agents cannot charge any fees to tenants in the event of default, except under those circumstances set out in paragraph 4 of schedule 1. That now specifically includes prohibiting default fees that may have been set out in a separate agreement between the agent and the tenant, rather than in the tenancy agreement.

More generally, our provision on default fees in paragraph 4 of schedule 1 has been the source of much discussion and debate. Indeed, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby has tabled an amendment to the provision. Members from across the House, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, and those who provided evidence to the Bill Committee have agreed with the principle that it is not fair for landlords to pay fees that arise due to the fault of the tenant. However, we have listened to concerns expressed by Members on Second Reading and in Committee, including the hon. Members for Great Grimsby and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), and by tenant groups and the Chartered Trading Standards Institute that the default fees provisions as currently constructed may be open to abuse.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

May I mention a case involving my constituent, which is not uncommon in my constituency or in constituencies throughout the country? A young mother paid a deposit of £595 to her landlord for a wet, mildewed house in Rock Ferry in Birkenhead. When she was driven out by the mould, the landlord claimed that the bins were not emptied by the local authority, so she lost her £595 deposit. She wished to pay the rent for her new property on a day that coincided with her universal credit payments, but the landlord said, “Well, there’s no repayment of your previous deposit, and I want £900 up front if I’m changing the rent day.” In the meantime, during all that stress, my constituent lost her triplets. Will she be covered by the Bill, as amended?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Without going into the specific details or knowing the full facts, I can say that the example he gives is exactly the kind of bad practice that the Bill is designed to stamp out. It is not just this piece of legislation, which tackles the specific issue of tenant fees, that is relevant, because across the piece, the Government are examining the private rented sector to ensure that there is balance and fairness between tenants and landlords. He touched on the issue of health and whether properties are fit for habitation. The hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) has proposed a Bill to tackle that exact issue, and the Government are delighted to be supporting its passage through the House.

The issue of transferring deposits from one tenancy to another is out of this Bill’s scope, but the right hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that the Government have convened a working group to examine deposit passporting. The group has already met, and the findings will be published in the spring of next year.

[Frank Field]

I am grateful to the Minister, and I will not intervene again, but there is no transporting of the deposit in my constituent’s case. She loses the deposit and then faces paying another deposit of £900 to get her rent payment day in line with her universal credit payments.

[Rishi Sunak]

The specific issue of one tenancy ending, and the process for recovering part or all of the deposit and starting a new tenancy, is out of scope for this piece of legislation, but it will be a subject for the working group set up by the Government with the sector. There are some interesting ideas about how to solve the problem that the right hon. Gentleman outlines.