Housing and Planning Bill

Mark Prisk Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

We must also be clear that the Bill in its current form would promote a profusion of rapid cheap building at the expense of proper planning and with no real requirement to consider any potential environmental impact. It is important that the chair of the Adaptation Sub-Committee also suggested that there is no evidence that resilience measures will affect the speed of development. I take this opportunity to echo calls for the Government to respond on that matter today.

[Mr Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

Given that the definition of resilience appears to be based on the existing planning law regarding sustainable development, will the hon. Gentleman explain the difference between the two and how it would be enforced?

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[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

I shall be mercifully brief. I have great respect for the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), but I do not agree with his analysis of the Bill.

Clause 3(1) states:

“An English planning authority must carry out its relevant planning functions with a view to promoting the supply of starter homes in England.”

I rise to support amendment 1, which I tabled and which has support throughout the House. After the words “starter homes”, it would add

“or alternative affordable home ownership products, such as rent to buy”.

I have been involved in social housing since 1989, when I was the chairman of Plymouth City Council’s housing committee. Even then we had policies on hedgehogs in Plymouth. The harsh reality is that under any colour of Government and any kind of council, there has always been more demand for social affordable housing to rent than there has been supply. That continues today and will probably always be with us. It is our obligation, in every generation, to do our best to meet that demand and provide good quality social affordable housing to rent for the many people who require it.

We face a new crisis in this country today that is completely different from what we faced when I was involved in housing back in the 1980s. It is the crisis of home ownership and the inability of many younger people to own their own homes. We know that 85% of people still aspire to do so. I bought my first house when I was 23. The average age of a first-time buyer is now 38. This is a genuine crisis—generation rent—and the Government have my support in seeking to tackle it by supplying more affordable homes to buy.

I strongly support the big push by the Government to build more homes, especially starter homes with a 20% discount. I also support the challenging targets the Government have set themselves to meet that need throughout the Parliament. I agree that planning authorities should promote the supply of starter homes, although I argue strongly—this is the thrust of my amendment—that the Bill should refer to starter homes and other rent to buy products as well. That would help us to move towards the goal that we all want to reach: more young people owning their own homes.

[Mr Prisk]

I strongly support my hon. Friend’s two amendments, which relate to the same point. Does he agree that the crucial point is that his amendments would not only help the Government to deliver the additional homes we all want to see, but widen the pathways towards that end?

[Mr Streeter]

My hon. Friend puts the case much more eloquently than I ever could. Indeed, he used the favourite word of the moment: pathway. We heard it a lot earlier this afternoon and it is a very commendable word. I agree entirely with him.

The point of the schemes that I am promoting is not that they give an option to buy, nor that that there is a wish or aspiration that the incoming tenant will perhaps buy one day. The whole basis on which the schemes are set up is that the incoming tenant or occupant of the property will buy it and, within five, 10, 15 or 20 years, will be a homeowner. These products help to fulfil the aspirations of people who cannot get there right now and help the Government to meet their targets over a period of time. As far as I am concerned, they are a win-win.

There are new rent to buy products on the market. Rentplus has its headquarters in Plymouth, which is why my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) and I support it so strongly. It has brought forward a product that has attracted a lot of private investment. It is interested in setting up schemes that attract people in bands C and D on the housing needs register. We know from our constituency surgeries that people in bands C or D do not often get the house that they go for. This product is helping people who are on the homeless register to rent their property to begin with, but to agree at the outset—here is the beauty of the scheme—that within five, 10, 15 or 20 years—whatever they think they can manage—they will buy that property. They are gifted a 10% deposit by the scheme to make that purchase possible. It is a very innovative scheme and the kind of product I am sure the Government would want to promote.

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Amendment 39, another extremely important amendment, asks that the discount on starter homes remain in perpetuity. In Committee, we asked the Minister why he had rejected the outcome of his own consultation exercise on starter homes and why the discounts were not being applied in perpetuity. The Government’s plan for starter homes is that they could be resold or let at open market value after the initial sale. The majority of respondents to the consultation elected for an in-perpetuity discount: 75% of local authorities, 100% of lenders and 50% of developers thought for all sorts of reasons—not least because it is hard to price a product that is going to change like this one will under the current provisions—that there should be an in-perpetuity discount. It would be good to hear why he does not accept that. We feel very strongly about this, so, depending on his response, we might press the amendment to a Division.

[Mr Prisk]

What estimate has the hon. Lady made of the loss in the number of homes built? If the price is capped and the discount extended into perpetuity, it will almost certainly increase the unit cost, which will mean fewer homes. How many fewer homes would she be happy to see built?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s logic. The new starter homes would be coming up for resale, as well as the additional starter homes still being built, so I am not quite sure of his logic.

Amendment 40 would ensure that local authorities can ask for planning gain measures providing for a range of affordable homes, rather than just starter homes.

Amendment 41 suggests that the Government should really ask local authorities to provide a full assessment of housing need in the area and then deliver the number of homes that meet that housing need, rather than prioritising starter homes above all other types of affordable housing. It does not seem to us that the Government are proposing a sensible measure here, and again we need to hear from the Minister why he is moving away from the NPPS requirement to ensure a full assessment of housing need locally and subsequently that local authorities plan to meet it rather than go off at a particular tangent.

Amendment 42 is designed to secure an exemption from the requirement “to promote starter homes” where a site has a scheme that is either a “build to rent” scheme or one that contains some other sort of

“supported housing for younger people, older people, people with special needs and people with disabilities”,

for example—or otherwise one that contains a “homeless hostel”, “refuge accommodation” or “specialist housing”. This is another very important amendment because we feel these sites could be exempted from the requirement to promote starter homes on the grounds that they already delivering a scheme that brings about enormous community benefits.

Amendment 43 asks for information about starter homes to be displayed on a local authority’s website and updated annually. It should also be put in the context of all other types of housing being built in an area. To provide an example, there might be 640 starter homes produced in an area, but how many affordable homes that are social homes for rent might actually have been built? We think that people need a full range of information about the type of housing and the applicable tenure in order to make sense of starter home information.

Amendment 44 is designed to ensure that the land set aside for starter homes

“is not needed for employment, retail, leisure, industrial or distribution use.”

It is important for ensuring that starter homes do not crowd out other forms of development.

Amendment 45 would remove clause 6 from the Bill, as we think it is an imposition on local authorities, which takes away important community rights to have a say about what is happening in an area, while amendment 46 would ensure that in moving to promote self-build, the cost of servicing plots is not unreasonable for local authorities.

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Amendment 16 amends clause 21. Civil penalties for breaching a banning order are an alternative to prosecution. There was strong feeling across the House that we should clamp down on rogue landlords, so we have increased the civil penalty from £5,000 as currently drafted up to a maximum of £30,000. I am glad that the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on the Opposition Front Bench likes the Government’s amendment.

[Mr Prisk]

On Second Reading, I and a number of other Members raised the issue of clause 21 penalties. I am delighted that the Government have responded to that. Does the Minister agree that the penalties need that level of fine to make the bans effective?

[Mr Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He is absolutely right. It is important that we raise the level of civil penalty to £30,000, because a smaller fine may not be significant enough for landlords who own numerous properties and who flout the law to think seriously about their behaviour and provide good quality, private sector rented accommodation for their tenants.

Amendments 17 and 18 provide that a person who has had two or more relevant civil penalties imposed on them in the previous 12 months may be entered on the database of rogue landlords and property agents. Amendment 26 would amend clause 53, consequential to Government amendment 17. As the Bill is drafted, it is possible for a person to be entered on the database only if they have been convicted of a banning order offence. Consequently, any person who has had a number of civil penalties imposed on them as an alternative to prosecution in relation to such offences may not be entered on the database. We seek to remove that anomaly with these amendments. We recognise that a civil penalty is likely to be imposed rather than a prosecution in a court for less serious offences. That is why two or more civil penalties have to be imposed, as opposed to a single criminal conviction.

Amendment 19 provides that regulations made about information to be included on the database may include the details of the civil penalties a person has incurred. Amendment 20 makes provision for an entry on the database to be removed or reduced by the local housing authority when the entry was made because the person had incurred civil penalties. That mirrors the existing provisions that deal with the removal or variation of database entries for people who have been convicted of criminal offences. Amendment 21 provides that the duration of an entry on the database may be reduced to less than two years by the local housing authority in certain circumstances.

Amendment 22 provides that the Secretary of State may provide information held on the database in an anonymised form to any person with an interest in private sector housing for statistical and research purposes.

In Committee, the Bill was amended to make it a criminal offence to breach a banning order imposed under chapter 2 of part 2. Changes were also made to ensure that chapter 4 applies to the offence of breach of a banning order in the same way as it applies to other offences. Amendments 23, 24 and 25 are minor and consequential on the introduction of the banning order offence.

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[Teresa Pearce]

I could not agree more. In Committee we tabled an amendment that asked local authorities to report quarterly to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on all housing benefit paid, so that some of the landlords who are literally putting money in their back pocket and not providing a decent service could be caught. Unfortunately, that amendment was not accepted.

[Mr Prisk]

All Members of the House want to ensure that we crack down on rogue landlords, and that is why many measures in this Bill are good. My problem with the new clause is that it seems to replicate the failed experiment in Scotland, where a register has been on the books for more than five years, yet fewer than half of 1% of those landlords have been removed or had their licence revoked. The ombudsman scheme, together with measures in the Bill, is more effective. How would the hon. Lady’s scheme differ from the one in Scotland?

[Teresa Pearce]

I am aware of the Scottish scheme, but this measure applies to England and it is perfectly possible that we could do it better. We will discuss our amendment on the ombudsman later, so I hope the hon. Gentleman will bear with me.

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[Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to new clause 5, which is complementary to clause 26—previously clause 22—of this excellent Bill and which relates to rogue landlords and letting agents. The new clause simply requires local authorities to add a question to their council tax registration forms seeking information about the tenure of a property. It would not only be administratively easy to implement, but the cost would be de minimis. The purpose of the new clause is to provide a database for all local authorities, identifying the owners of privately rented properties.

Currently, local authorities know who is paying council tax on a private property, but they have no way of knowing if it is owner-occupied or tenanted. Having easy access to such information would have numerous benefits for local planning authorities, environmental health departments, social services, tenants, HMRC and good landlords. The Residential Landlords Association fully supports this measure.

[Mr Prisk]

I strongly support new clause 5 and I hope that the Government will look favourably on it. Does my hon. Friend agree that one critical benefit of the new clause is the ability to use the information to track rogue landlords when they move from one place to another?

[Dame Angela Watkinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is why it is so important that all local authorities adopt this measure; rogue landlords will have properties in more than one area.

The database would also assist local planners in measuring the size of the private rented sector in their area. That would help to develop future planning policy. Enforcement of existing regulations relating to the private rented sector would be made easier, as the landlord could be identified and contacted. Indeed, the absence of this information could alert local authorities to possible irregularities such as illegal subletting, unregulated houses in multiple occupation—this is becoming a problem in my Hornchurch and Upminster constituency—housing benefit fraud and public health issues. Finite resources could then be targeted at the most troublesome tenanted properties via the Land Registry.