Communities and Local Government Committee Report: Private Rented Sector

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the publication of the First Report from the Communities and Local Government Committee, on Private rented sector, HC50.

I am delighted to present the report of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government on the Floor of the House and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving me this opportunity, the first for our Committee. I thank all the Committee members for their unanimous support for the report, the Committee staff, particularly Kevin Maddison, for their excellent work, and our specialist adviser, Professor Christine Whitehead.

Why did we carry out the inquiry? We had two main reasons. First, the private rented sector is growing. In 1999, fewer than 10% of households rented privately. By 2011-12, the figure was more than 17%. More households now rent privately than are in the social rented sector. Secondly, the sector is home to a growing range of people, including, increasingly, families with children. In view of that growth and the changing nature of the sector the Committee thought it was the right time to consider how the sector could better meet the needs of those who live in it.

We make the point consistently that many landlords do an excellent job and our efforts should be targeted at the rogues who let substandard accommodation, often to those in real housing need. During our inquiry, we visited Germany. We are not calling for the German system to be adopted en bloc in this country but there are lessons to learn. We saw the advantages that a mature market brings for landlords and tenants: widespread understanding of rights, good-quality housing and a broad equilibrium of supply with demand.

In England, in contrast, the rapid growth of the sector has left in its wake regulation and legislation that was introduced in response to problems from decades ago. Our report identified a number of areas in which we believe action is required. First, we call for better, simpler regulation—not more of it. More than 50 Acts of Parliament and 70 pieces of delegated legislation relate to the sector. The result is a bewildering array of regulation that few landlords or tenants have a hope of understanding. That needs to be consolidated in a much simpler, straightforward regulatory framework. We have seen what the Government have done to simplify planning regulation: why cannot they do the same thing in this case? That is an obvious question to ask the Government and the Minister for Housing, who I see in his place on the Government Front Bench.

Once a new regulatory framework is in place, we need to publicise it. The Government should work with landlords, tenants and agents groups on a campaign to promote awareness of the new framework once it is produced. We call for a standard, easy-to-understand tenancy agreement on which all agreements should be based. Included with that should be a factsheet setting out clearly the respective rights and responsibilities of the tenant and landlord. We heard far too much evidence that people simply do not understand their rights and responsibilities.

We also say that councils should have the freedom they need to enforce standards and the law. First, they need more flexibility over the introduction of licensing schemes. We heard evidence that these are over-bureaucratic and restrictive in the way they can be used. Secondly, councils should have the power to require landlords to be part of an accreditation scheme. We saw an excellent scheme in operation in Leeds, but the landlords who were part of the scheme and tenants drew attention to the fact that those landlords who caused problems were generally not a member of the scheme. Such schemes should as far as possible be self-funding, with extra charges for those who do not comply. We must ensure that the overall burden of costs shifts to unscrupulous landlords and we call for a review of the level of fines and consideration of the use of penalty charges as ways to improve standards and act against bad practice.

In addition, we were concerned about public money, through the housing benefit system, being used effectively to subsidise landlords who do not meet legal requirements. We therefore propose that local authorities should be able to recoup housing benefit when landlords have been convicted of letting substandard property. To ensure we have a balance and that we are consistent, tenants should also have the right to reclaim rent paid in similar circumstances from their own resources.

A real concern—we probably had as much evidence about this as about anything else in our inquiry—was the need to crack down on sharp practice by some letting agents.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Betts]

Of course, and I welcome a fellow Committee member.

[Mark Pawsey]

Does the Chairman of the Select Committee agree that one of the most compelling pieces of evidence that we received on that issue came not in a formal evidence session but when we met tenants? A person told us that if he and a colleague were to visit an estate agent’s office where people were selling houses on one side of the room and letting properties on the other, one set of agents would be regulated and the other set would not, despite the fact that both parties going into the agency were looking to do the same thing: find their own home.

[Mr Betts]

Absolutely, and the hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point. In the report, we welcome the Government’s commitment to a redress scheme, and we hope that our report helps to shape it, but we felt that we could go a little further. On the exact point that he makes, it is quite surprising to people who look at the issue afresh that letting agents are subject to less regulation than estate agents. We believe that they could be put on exactly the same basis. A key point is that the Office of Fair Trading has powers to ban estate agents who behave badly; the same power should be introduced for letting agents.

We also looked at the fees charged by letting agents and found that many of them were unreasonable and unclear. The first step has to be transparency. Wherever a property is advertised to let—in a window, on a website or in a newspaper—it should be accompanied by a full breakdown of the fees that a tenant is likely to have to pay. No more hooking the tenant with a property that they like, and then, once they are interested and are looking to sign the tenancy agreement, letting the hidden fees come out, little by little—drip, drip. We are talking about costs that the tenant never anticipated, and that can run into the hundreds of pounds. Also, there should certainly be no more charging the landlord and the tenant for the same service; that is completely and utterly unacceptable, and should be banned.

An important step in bringing the market to maturity and aligning supply with demand would be to meet the clear need for longer tenancies. The common industry standard is six months. That might be suitable for many mobile, younger people; it is certainly not adequate for the many families in the sector who want a secure home. One renter who came to give evidence to us told us that their 10-year-old daughter had already moved house seven times in her life. That is simply not acceptable. If families move home, it means moving school, and we need to tackle that sort of insecurity.

We need to look at and remove the barriers, real and perceived, to longer tenancies. Limitations in mortgage conditions need to be lifted. We were encouraged by the news that Nationwide building society has begun to allow longer tenancies; we welcome that. We have to ensure that letting agents work with landlords and tenants to make sure that they are aware of the different options for tenancy length. Too many letting agents seem to be hooked on getting repeat fees for short lets. They are almost like the football agent who benefits from constant transfers, rather than players staying at a club for a long period. In return for offering longer tenancies, landlords should be able to evict tenants who simply refuse to pay a lot more speedily.

We looked at safety standards. Safety is absolutely paramount. Landlords who let out death traps must face the consequences. The gas safety regime has gone a long way to making homes safer, but electrical safety is still a blind spot. The Government should develop an electrical safety certificate for private rented properties. It would confirm that wiring had been checked and was in good order, and we think that the check should take place at least every five years. We also call for a requirement that all private rented properties be fitted with a working smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide detector with an audible alarm.

Placing homeless households was another issue to which we gave consideration. Councils can now discharge their duty to homeless households by placing them in the private rented sector without their consent. When councils do this, they must ensure that the accommodation is suitable. As a matter of good practice, they should inspect properties before using them to house homeless families. We are aware that some councils are placing homeless households away from their local area. Where this is necessary, there should be a statutory duty of full discussion, including sharing appropriate information with the receiving authority and, of course, with the prospective tenant.

The Government need to look at how the housing benefit bill is spent in the private rented sector. There are obvious concerns in all parts of the House about the rising bill. We heard from Blackpool about how the market has failed there because housing benefit levels are set artificially high, as the calculation of local housing allowance, which determines benefit levels, includes surrounding rural areas where rents are higher. We heard wider concerns about the interaction between housing benefit and rents. Housing benefits can drive rents up across an area, which in turn leads to upward pressure on local housing allowances, creating a vicious circle and increasing costs for the taxpayer, who picks up the bill. We recommend that the Government conduct a wide-ranging review of the local housing allowance.

We looked at the issue of tax evasion. Very often the tax authorities and councils operate in different worlds. We called for greater co-ordination between councils and the tax authorities, which could go a long way to cracking down on tax evasion, both capital gains tax and income tax. It would be especially effective in areas where a licensing or accreditation scheme was in place and details about the landlords were known. We call on the Government to promote a more joined-up approach to tackling tax evasion, which would benefit us all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Betts]

Agreement is breaking out on the Front Benches as well as in the Committee. We welcome that as well.

[Mark Pawsey]

Does the Chair of the Select Committee agree that it was pleasing that we did not receive any evidence at all from anybody calling for any form of rent regulation or rent control? We recognise that there are problems with some landlords and that people would like to see lower rents, but at no time was a convincing case put to us in respect of rent control.

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Member is right. We concluded that rent control was not feasible. We were concerned that it could drive some good landlords out of the sector and deter new investment. We certainly agree with the Government that we need to get more investment in the sector. Where we looked at rents, it was in the context of housing benefit and landlords not getting away with receiving rent for substandard properties which they were prosecuted for.

Renting can be an attractive alternative to owner occupation, but we need a mature market that meets many more renters’ needs. We need to drive bad landlords out of the sector altogether and to bring all property up to an acceptable standard. The Committee believes that the measures set out in our report will help to achieve this vision. We look forward to the Government’s response and hope that they will respond positively to our recommendations.

Question put and agreed to.