Mike Thornton
Main Page: Mike Thornton (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Mike Thornton
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was politely interrupted earlier, but I am now going to continue. Now, where was I?
Mike Thornton
We will start all over again. As I was saying, our duty to our constituents as MPs is often difficult where there are worries about triggering a revenge eviction by a rogue landlord. It is important to understand why we are introducing this measure.
Jeremy Corbyn
Before the urgent question, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the role of environmental health officers and their concerns. Does he share my concerns that they often work very hard, that their departments are often very understaffed and that they are often placed in a difficult position because of the lack of legal protection for the tenant against retaliatory eviction? They want to do the right thing and enforce a repair order on the landlord but they are frightened of the consequences for the individual tenants. Environmental health officers, too, are good, decent human beings who want to see the right thing done, and this Bill would surely help in that situation.
Mike Thornton
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because that is exactly what I think, and exactly why my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central has introduced the Bill: not only to protect tenants, but to allow our caring and hard-working environmental health officers to do their job in the way they want to do it.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) mentioned dampness, and I have mentioned electrical safety, but there are many other problems that can make a house unfit to live in. That is something that this House must look into as the Bill goes through. Evicted tenants might well find that rogue landlords do not return their deposit. We have protections in place for the return of deposits, but it is not too difficult for a rogue landlord to manufacture an excuse not to return it, perhaps by inventing damage that they claim the tenant has caused.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that rogue landlords do a disservice not only to tenants, but to the vast majority of sensible, law-abiding landlords? This Bill is good for everyone. It should help tenants and landlords alike.
Mike Thornton
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is exactly right. Most landlords are responsible, decent and caring people. We need to protect not only tenants but other landlords, because rogue landlords also damage their reputation and their willingness to carry on as landlords, without being seen as abusing their tenants. The great friend I mentioned earlier is one of those responsible landlords.
Some rogue landlords manage to manufacture evidence, exaggerate damage or say things that are plainly untrue in order to retain a tenant’s deposit. The tenant might then have no money for a new deposit and so cannot easily find another property. My local borough council provides a property bond, which in theory should enable a tenant without a deposit to move in, but most landlords will not accept a property bond. That means it is extremely difficult for anyone evicted and treated in that way to provide a decent home for their family.
I commend the Bill to the House and ask everyone to support it, in order to have a go not at landlords, but at those people who call themselves decent landlords but who are not, and to help tenants and landlords alike to act in a decent, honourable and caring way.
Mr Chope
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Legislating on Fridays is an iterative process. For example, I spoke on several Fridays against what was then known as the high hedges legislation. It took three or four successive Sessions of Parliament before that Bill got through. It was put through by the Government in a schedule to the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, and it was not debated at all, either in this House or in the other place.
Mike Thornton
Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman is unwilling to allow this mother of Parliaments to make a decision on this motion and I have to leave for my constituency. All I can say is that, as a fairly new Member of this House, I am shocked and ashamed that this sort of thing can go on. It is the clear will of the House and of the public that this Bill be passed, yet this gentleman makes an outrageous play, using up time and a parliamentary motion, to prevent that. I have to leave now. I will lose my temper; I am shocked, and I think the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) should feel a sense of shame that they are unwilling to act in a decent and moral manner.