Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Lords Chamber

There is therefore a great deal to be said for strengthening the role of local authorities in overseeing the sector, and also in fulfilling this part of the Bill, in allowing and promoting tenants’ access to information about the owners of the properties that they seek to rent. Anything that can be done to bring pressure to bear on such owners to behave responsibly is welcome, and I hope the Minister will feel able to accede to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, and to my own amendment relating to the consequences with regard to HMO licensing.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Bakewell spoke to these amendments fully and explained them very well, and we all wait with interest to hear the Minister’s response. We should recognise how important the issues that they raise are. My name does not happen to appear on Amendment 9—I am not quite sure why—but I certainly support it. We do need some sort of indication—I think 28 days is entirely right and appropriate—of how soon an appeal on matters that are so important and sensitive for both the tenant and the landlord will be heard. We are only too aware of other types of appeal that wait not just for months but for years. For an appeal to be heard within 28 days seems to me entirely reasonable.

The other amendments deal with another important point: exactly who will have access to the information in the database? Surely it must be right for the tenants to have a right of access to that information. Whether it is appropriate to put that in the Bill or in the draft regulations we wait to hear—but we have heard enough about the regulations already while debating this Bill, and we think that it should be on the face of the Bill. I hope that when the Minister replies she will, at the very least, agree with the point being made here. We can then argue about where the provision is to be placed. We look forward to the Minister’s reply; I hope it will be a positive one, recognising the importance of these issues.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I firmly support Amendment 9, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. It is a very sound amendment.

Clause 29 refers to a power to include a person convicted—that is, convicted in a court of law—of a banning order offence. Then it says in a subsection:

“A local housing authority in England may make an entry in the database in respect of a person who has, at least twice”—

not once, twice—

“within a period of 12 months, received a financial penalty in respect of a banning order offence committed at a time when the person was a residential landlord”.

We are talking here about a habitual offender. In Clause 32 the Government set out what can be on the database. Let us go through the list, because that list should be available to the general public for the reasons set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, when she referred to freedom of information. First, there is the period for which the entry is to be maintained: why should that not be available to the tenant or tenants? Details of properties owned, let or managed by the person: why should they not be in the public domain when the matter has been dealt with in the courts? Details of a banning order offence of which the person has been convicted in a court of law: why should that information not be made available to the tenant? Details of any banning orders made against the person, whether or not still in force: why should tenants not know the background of their prospective landlords? Also on the list are “details of financial penalties” received by the person.

Finally, I return to the first item in the list: the person’s address or other contact details. One would have thought that a tenant should at least have the right to know who their prospective landlord is, where they live, and their contact details. I put it to the Minister that the Government are a little oversensitive about this. They should reconsider this area and think about what is in the public interest. Who is going to lose as a result of this? The local authority does not lose; the tenant does not lose; only the landlord who has been convicted of a criminal offence loses. I ask the Minister to reconsider the position.