Renters (Reform) Bill

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

On the one hand, I understand the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), but on the other hand I also understand the concerns of others, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Dover, who worries that it is too easy to evict people. It is not easy to get the balance right, but in putting forward this suite of carefully judged amendments, the Government have done that. The Bill will make it fairer and more secure for people in the private rented sector, but it also treats landlords fairly. I think that is a fair balance.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

While I respect the views of the hon. and learned Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who raised some valid points about the county court system and the pressures on it, as someone representing a large number of private renters, I must nevertheless express my concerns and share those raised by the shadow Minister and others about the Government’s failure to deliver on their promise on no-fault evictions. I rise, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for students, to comment specifically on the proposals in relation to students, to support new clause 41, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), and to speak to amendment 260, which stands in my name.

Students form a substantial part of the private rented sector. Back in July, the all-party parliamentary group organised a meeting to ensure that their views were heard. We brought together people from different nations of the UK and from all parts of the country. The Minister—sadly, he is not currently in his place—would have found it useful, because it highlighted a number of issues in the Bill that have not been properly thought through. I have discussed with the Minister the issues that came out of our meeting, and I am grateful to him for having found that time, but I want to share some reflections at this point in the Bill’s progress.

First, on the decision to extend grounds for eviction from purpose-built student accommodation to houses in multiple occupation and potentially to other student renters, there are mixed views across the country. Some are worried that exempting students makes them more attractive to less scrupulous landlords as potentially second-class, less protected tenants. Others, though, were concerned that giving students the same protection as other renters would force landlords to leave the student market, with that point made by landlords in areas where there was significant pressure on the housing market. Overall, we reached the same view as the Select Committee: on balance, the exemption is probably right, but it needs to be kept under review.

There is, however, a wider problem with the whole approach to students in the Bill. It seems that the Government have approached students with a one-size-fits-all model: they are undergraduates aged 18 to 21, living away from the parental home from the first time, and living there during term time only. However, students at our meeting were at pains to point out that they are not a homogeneous group. There are mature students who are renting in their home city and need to be there all the time, and students with families. Many courses do not start in September and are not on the cycle on which the Government’s amendments are premised. There are postgraduate taught programmes on a different, longer cycle. There are postgraduate research students on full-time programmes over several years, who are like any young professional. There are mixed households of students and non-students, particularly where groups of friends form and perhaps one member graduates.

I discussed all those variations with the Minister— I am glad to see him back in the Chamber—and his view was that any atypical student would simply not be subject to the exemption, partly because these issues have not been thought through properly. That might be in their favour because they will have greater protection, or it might leave them out in the cold because landlords will find them less attractive within the student market. Again, that emphasises the need to keep the impact of the student proposals under close review.

As the Minister resumes his seat I will move to my amendment 260, which raises a further issue that he referred to: the cycle of student tenancies, which I have discussed with him and on which he was sympathetic. When some of us were students, undergraduates would start university in September, settle in and make friendship groups, and towards the end of the academic year, after Easter, they would start looking for accommodation for the subsequent year. We have seen a landlord-driven arms race, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West referred to it, in which they have pressured students ever earlier in the year to enter into contracts for the subsequent academic year.

It is now the norm in many parts of the country that students starting a course in September are put under pressure by landlords the following month to enter into a contract for the following year. That forces them to pay a substantial deposit at a point in their life when they already have significant additional costs. It also forces them into joint tenancies with groups of people who they might discover later in the year are probably not who they want to live with in the subsequent year. Appeals to landlords to step out of the contract into which they entered are invariably rejected.

As the Government’s proposals are to regulate on the basis of that tenancy cycle, my proposition is that we try to make that cycle work better by saying that designated student contracts should not start sooner than March of the year in which students will take occupation in September. That would be in the interests of tenants, for the reasons that all of us who represent students will know. Setting a defined starting point will also end the arms race, in the interests of landlords.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The tendency that the hon. Gentleman refers to is not new. My daughter, who graduated in 2011 and therefore started in 2008, was already under that pressure. He is right that for a lot of young people it is incredibly difficult to find a group of people they want to live with the following year within a month of arriving at university. His proposals are commendable and I hope the Government are listening.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. It does vary in different parts of the country, but the way in which it has come earlier and earlier each year, to the ludicrous position where students are being forced into contracts for the subsequent year almost at the moment they start their first year, clearly needs to be addressed. As I said, I have discussed this issue with the Minister. When we talked about it he seemed sympathetic, so I hope it is an issue we can address as the Bill progresses.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Before I start my remarks, I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

My amendments—amendments 39 to 41—all refer to the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. I have raised this issue with the Government for the past two years, after one of my constituents, who is a lecturer in law at Bristol University, came to me with his concerns. To be fair to the Government, the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan), had a meeting with that group of academics, but then I heard nothing, which was a little bit disappointing. I have, just this afternoon, received a reply from the Minister. I thank him for that, but it was dated yesterday and only sent to me today. I will look at it very carefully, but it is still important that I raise here what I have to say.

There are two parts to amendment 39, which relates to the law on harassment of a residential occupier. At the moment, the law is complex and confusing, particularly for lay people, and difficult to enforce. I have glanced over the response from the Minister. The Government believe that there is currently enough power of enforcement. As I understand it, the 1977 Act is quite unknown. Local authorities and the police do not know enough about it. I wonder how we can work in that space to ensure that any unintended consequences brought in by the new legislation will not allow rogue landlords, or those who do not want to do the right thing, and refer them to other pieces of legislation.

First, the amendment would change the law so that everyone who is harassing a residential occupier to try to get them to move out of the property is subject to the same law. Currently, if a criminal landlord is harassing the tenant, the law is fairly clear. However, it might be another individual who is harassing the tenant to get them to move out. In this case, the local authority has to try to find out whether the person doing the harassing is an agent acting for the rogue landlord.

There is also often deliberate obscurity about the identity of the landlord. Investigating the relationship between individuals to establish their precise legal relationship is time consuming and unnecessary, where the aim of the legislation is to protect residential occupiers from harassment. The amendment changes the law to make enforcement easier for local authorities. The change will not affect the position of landlords. They will continue to be subject to the same law. It is only the local authority that can prosecute this offence, and it would still need to prove that a rogue landlord, their agent or any other person knew, or had reasonable cause to believe, that their actions would have the result of causing the occupier to leave.

The other thing that the amendment would do is clarify the law. Currently, if a rogue landlord interferes with services that are reasonably required for the occupation of the premises as a household, that can constitute harassment. However, it is not clearly stated what those services are—I can think of essential services, such as electricity, cutting the water off or even changing the locks—so it is important that we take that into consideration. We are not talking about decent landlords, as I have always made very clear. It is about getting to those landlords who are clearly not doing the right thing.

As I said, it is not clearly stated what the services are. Amendment 39 sets out a list of such services, including water, gas and electricity, as well as access to “electronic communications networks and services” as defined in section 32 of the Communications Act 2003.

Amendment 40 deals with three issues. First, the law on whether certain occupiers are protected by the legislation on illegal eviction is very complex, and it can be very difficult to establish. That is because some occupiers—for example, those who live with the landlord—are excluded from the protections in the law and can therefore be evicted without a notice or court order. That creates an incentive for sham arrangements whereby a rogue landlord might pretend to live with a tenant to circumvent the protections in the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. The amendment reverses the burden of proof, placing it on the landlord, who must establish that an occupier is not protected by the law. It is based on the idea that everyone has the basic protection of the law unless they are in an exclusionary category for a good reason. The presumption should be that they are protected.

Renters (Reform) Bill

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Almost 40% of my constituents are private renters, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to reflect their concerns. Of those, many are students—I think I have the largest number of students of any Member in the country—and I want to raise their concerns as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for students.

I was one of a cross-party group of 60 parliamentarians who wrote recently to the Secretary of State urging him to bring forward this legislation, so I am delighted that we have it. I did so primarily because of its promise to fulfil the Government’s pledge to end no-fault section 21 evictions, so it is a bitter disappointment that the Government appear to have frustrated the hopes of tenants by kicking the abolition of section 21 notices down the road to some potentially distant future, after further changes to the courts system—something that I saw that the National Residential Landlords Association has celebrated in a statement today, as a result of its “extensive lobbying”. I hope that the Government will think again, or at least give us an assurance this evening of the date when they plan to fulfil the ambition for no-fault evictions.

I hope the Government will go further in delivering the promised new deal for private renters in other areas, because I share the concern of the Renters Reform Coalition that the Bill needs amending to ensure that the proposed “landlord circumstances” grounds for eviction do not become the new section 21. The tenant should be given four months’ notice rather than two. There should be a one-year ban on re-letting after invoking the new landlord circumstances, rather than the proposed three months. We need stronger mechanisms than those proposed to stop unaffordable rent increases—of which we have heard examples already this evening—pricing tenants out and becoming the new section 21. We need to ensure that tenants can be confident in raising issues and making complaints without fear of retaliation. I hope that those issues will be considered seriously in Committee.

I want to raise the concerns of student renters. There is an exemption for purpose-built student accommodation, but many students live in the parts of the private rented sector that are covered by the Bill—around 45% of them, or 600,000 across England and Wales. Their voices have not been fully heard, which our all-party group has been trying to address. In May, we held a roundtable with student representatives from most of our major cities and many of our smaller towns. They agreed that there were many positive elements to the Bill, but raised issues that needed further clarification if it is to succeed for all renters.

I see that in his response to the Select Committee, the Secretary of State accepted the argument of landlords that

“the student market is cyclical and…landlords must be able to guarantee possession each year for a new set of tenants”.

He went on to state that

“we will introduce a new ground for possession to facilitate this.”

I understand that case, and it was reflected in some of the student voices that we heard, but we need to take care about how we do it because there is an underlying false assumption in the discourse around the issue that all students fit a traditional stereotype: on three-year undergraduate courses, wanting a 10-month contract and leaving their university town when they finish their studies. However, students are not homogeneous. Undergraduates and postgraduates have different requirements; there are 30-week programmes and 52-week programmes; some courses start at different times of the year and have a different cycle. There are mature and part-time students, students with families, estranged students, international students, graduate apprentices, those who stay on to study or work during vacation while their friends do not, and those who want to make their university house a permanent home.

Many students live in mixed households, with recent graduates or other non-students. It simply would not work to have people in a mixed household on a shared tenancy with different rights. A grounds for possession clause might protect the market, but a one-size-fits-all approach will not address the fact that not all students want properties that are cyclical with the standard undergraduate year. So we need a clear definition of a student and how grounds for possession will be implemented. I would welcome some acknowledgement from the Minister, in winding up this evening, that the Government have given consideration to those complexities in their proposals in relation to students.

We also have to recognise that the student market differs greatly across the country. Large cities are different from smaller towns, and urban and rural-based universities are different again. The Higher Education Policy Institute’s study of the Scottish experience highlighted the risk in tourist areas, or in other areas with low supply and high rents, that not exempting students will encourage landlords to move out of student accommodation. Student representatives expressed concern to us about being priced out in some areas by young professionals. On the other hand, there are worries that exempting students in some areas will risk them becoming second class renters, attracting less scrupulous landlords into student accommodation because they are relatively unprotected tenants.

Student renters face many of the same issues as other renters and they deserve the same broad protections. They face specific issues, too. The raised with us the growing pressure they are under to view and sign tenancy agreements for a property earlier and earlier each year—often in this term, early in the academic session, before friendship groups are formed—leaving them locked into unwanted contracts. The Bill does not address that, but students felt that it should. There are other questions that need addressing if we are to exempt students. What happens if a renter’s student status changes during the tenancy? How will the Bill address the issue of joint tenancies?

To conclude, I simply say to the Minister that we should not rush to exempt students from the protections in the Bill relating to no-fault evictions and keep them uniquely locked into fixed-term tenancies without careful consideration of the impact on all types of students in all parts of England and Wales. Even then, we need to ensure they continue enjoy the protections in the Bill. I hope the Minister will agree to meet the all-party parliamentary group for students, and student representatives, to hear our concerns.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I am pleased to contribute to what has been a generally thoughtful debate, from the moment that the shadow Secretary of State rose to speak. I am sorry that the Secretary of State left so soon after his own rather provocative contribution, because he would have benefited from hearing many of the speeches.

This is an ill-judged and unnecessary attack on local democracy—unnecessary not least because of the provisions of the Local Government Act 1988, which, alongside the notorious clause 28 prohibiting local authorities from “promotion of homosexuality”, also banned non-commercial consideration on contracts on the basis of

“the country or territory of origin.”



That remains in place, so the Secretary of State has law to refer to, without needing to bring forward this Bill, if there are the problems he describes.

That legislation was a response by the Thatcher Government to a campaign co-ordinated by Sheffield City Council. We were the first council in 1981, under the leadership of David Blunkett, to pledge to end all links with apartheid. Many others followed, and in 1983 we set up Local Authorities Against Apartheid, developing a network of around 120 councils taking action—action that was subsequently praised by Nelson Mandela after his release for its contribution to ending apartheid.

As someone who was in the leadership of the anti-apartheid movement for 20 years, I do not accept the application of the term apartheid to Israel, although I have to say that, if the policy trajectory of the current Israeli Government continues in the way it has, that comparison will be increasingly difficult to resist. My point about the action that we organised is that it demonstrates the long history of local authority action over human rights, which is something we should be proud of, and of local politicians responding to local concerns, whether about South Africa 40 years ago or about China today.

Clause 3 will enable action to be taken where dispensation is given—by the whim of the Secretary of State, not even by Parliament. However, that highlights the exception provided in clause 3(7) in relation to Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Golan Heights.

I want to be clear that I do not support the BDS campaign against Israel. I do think that we should long ago have taken action on economic engagement with the illegal settlements, to match our words with positive measures, and it is extraordinary that this Bill prevents public bodies from implementing the Government’s own advice to business not to trade with the illegal settlements. However, for those of us who do not support BDS, that does not mean we should support banning it, and much of Israeli society would agree.

I am grateful to Yachad, which many colleagues will know is a significant voice within the mainstream British Jewish community, campaigning for a political resolution in which Israel thrives alongside a viable and independent Palestinian state. In its briefing on this Bill, it drew parallels with the debate in Israel on its own anti-boycott law in 2011, in which Tzipi Livni, then Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset and previously Foreign Secretary, said:

“I disagree with those that demand boycotts, but I will fight for their right to express their views.”

Dan Meridor of Likud, then Deputy Prime Minister, said:

“I oppose boycotts, but they should not be illegal.”

Ruvi Rivlin, then Leader of the Knesset and subsequently President of Israel, slammed the law for

“turning freedom of speech into a civil injustice.”

The Government argue that this Bill is necessary in opposing antisemitism, but, as others have said, there are important voices within the Jewish community who disagree. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for students, I have worked closely with the leadership of the National Union of Students in challenging antisemitism within its own organisation, and on every step of that journey I have liaised with the Union of Jewish Students. Nobody will question the UJS’s credentials as a robust opponent of antisemitism. At its annual conference recently, UJS unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming its opposition to BDS, but rejecting any attempt to outlaw it. One of those involved in that motion wrote recently in The Times:

“Using legislation to outlaw BDS will do nothing in the fight against antisemitism… We may disagree with the BDS movement—we may even think that there are some people who support the BDS movement who are motivated by antisemitism—but the tactics of boycott, divestment, and sanctions are non-violent and legitimate.”

The Secretary of State has argued that it is his responsibility to bring forward this legislation in the context of the Government’s manifesto commitment. I am conscious of the fact that the Government have fairly casually disregarded manifesto commitments in the past, but even if that were his justification, he should recognise that things have changed enormously since 2019. The new extremist Israeli Government are moving from de facto to de jure annexation of the occupied territories. Illegal settlements have been legalised and many more are planned, with the responsibility for them given to a far-right Minister who denies the existence of the Palestinian people and has been condemned by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Today, we have seen the massive Israeli attack on Jenin, and not the first; it follows months of raids across the west bank and on Nablus. Across the west bank, settler attacks—killing and injuring Palestinians, torching their homes, their businesses and their cars—are being encouraged by the Israeli Government and those responsible are going unpunished. All that is designed to end the prospect of a viable Palestinian state and frustrate attempts to secure a just settlement.

Those Israeli civil society voices who support our ambition for a two-state solution have made it clear that there could not be a worse time for the UK to send a signal that we see the occupied territories as part of Israel in the way that this Bill is framed. We should not do it. I urge the Government to think again.

Building Safety

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That point has been made by other hon. and right hon. Members. I do believe that developers are living up to their responsibilities to deal with life-critical safety defects in medium and high-rise buildings, but as we have discussed, some buildings fall outside those categories. We are working on bespoke solutions for those.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

As the Secretary of State knows, not only are developers frustrating leaseholder rights. In response to his last statement, I raised the case of Mandale House in my constituency; leaseholders in Daisy Spring Works have the same, or a similar, problem. The common factor is the managing agents, Y&Y Management, which also has freehold interests. That company is not simply denying leaseholders their rights: it is doing so on the basis of challenging the legality of the Secretary of State’s own legislation. Those leaseholders do not have the resources to challenge Y&Y’s lawyers, so I have shared the relevant information with the Secretary of State’s Department. Can he reassure me that he will use all of the resources at his disposal to tackle Y&Y and ensure its leaseholders get the rights under the Building Safety Act that he intended?

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. I want to be really fair to the hon. Member: he is doing the right thing. He has highlighted an abuse and has contacted the Department in a co-operative and detailed fashion. The Minister for Building Safety, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire, has been looking closely at that case. There is more that we can do, and I thank the hon. Member on behalf of his constituents for being tenacious in trying to get a good deal for them.

Building Safety

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is exactly what our establishment of the recovery strategy unit is designed to do. I hope the hon. Lady will be in touch directly with Brigadier Cundy.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State’s ministerial and staff team for the support they have given to residents in Wicker Riverside. However, he will be aware of another case in my constituency, that of Mandale House, where the managing agency, Y&Y Management, which has directors in common with the landlords, is not only denying leaseholders their rights, but challenging the legal status of the legislation we have passed to protect them, presumably believing that the leaseholders will not have the resources to challenge them in court. Can the Secretary of State explain how today’s announcement will help leaseholders in Mandale House, and will he assure me that his Department will provide all the support they need to make Y&Y Management fulfil its responsibilities?

[Michael Gove]

We absolutely will—it is with their concerns in mind that I made the statement today. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words about the Department’s engagement. May I thank, in particular, the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), who has made personal visits to many of those who are most directly affected and is ensuring that, within the Department, every lever is being pulled to help them on an individual basis?

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Clarke]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. It is a very perceptive one. We believe that zones can support both housing and jobs. Clearly, in some cases that could be on the same site.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

T10. Contrary to last week’s pledge by the Prime Minister, the latest Chancellor has said he will cut public spending. Sheffield Council has seen its Government grant halved in real terms over the last 12 years, as Conservative Chancellors have boasted about shifting money to wealthier areas. We have lost £2.1 billion, the annual grant is worth £288 million less and local services have been decimated, so will the Secretary of State press the new Chancellor not to make any further cuts to council funding and to redress the damage already done?

[Paul Scully]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be awaiting the local government finance settlement, but in the meantime Sheffield high street has received nearly £16 million from the future high streets fund and £8.2 million for three projects through the community renewal fund. There is also £20,000 for the gateway to Sheffield bid, and £46,000 across South Yorkshire, including Sheffield, so I hope he will include those funds in his assessment.

Homes for Ukraine: Child Refugees

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq]

This is not often said in this place, but I absolutely agree with my colleague from the other side of the House. I have a daughter who is not far off the age of the little girl the hon. Gentleman describes, so it is heartbreaking to think of her being separated from her family and not being given safe accommodation when something changing in the Home Office could rectify the problem. However, I know that the Minister cares and I hope to hear him announce the updated policy.

As many people will know, and before we hear the updated policy, the rules of the Homes for Ukraine scheme dictate that unaccompanied children are allowed to apply only if they are travelling with their parents or legal guardians to the UK. I understand that the Government have to take into account safeguarding risks such as people trafficking, and that the Government of Ukraine have stated a preference for keeping unaccompanied children in regions close to Ukraine, but this blanket, blunt policy and the failure to take a more sophisticated case-by-case approach has completely ignored situations such as Mariia’s.

The Home Office should be consulting the sector more and making the system work for such children. Excellent organisations such as the Refugee Council and the Children’s Society, to name just two, do this work day in, day out. They could help to come up with solutions that would provide children with necessary protections and safeguards. That is all we in the House want; we want to protect the children and make them safe; we do not want them to go through unnecessary trauma and be unable to come to our country. Perhaps then, Mariia—a 13-year-old girl—would not be forced to choose between returning to a war zone and staying alone, putting herself at risk in temporary hotel accommodation in Montenegro. That situation is especially ridiculous to me because she has a warm, safe home waiting for her in my constituency, but she cannot get here because of Government bureaucracy.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and commend her powerful speech. She is right to put safeguarding at the centre of all our policies in this area. Does she agree that the Home Office changing its policy in April was inexplicable, as is why it has been unable to come up with a robust framework to provide for the safeguarding of unaccompanied children? By not doing so, the Home Office has put those children at more risk.

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and he is absolutely right. It is a pity that so many children have been affected by the inability to rectify the policy. We knew the war was coming. I know we had to develop the policy at short notice, but I wish the Home Office had taken the issue more seriously and come up with solutions, as my hon. Friend has described. I will speak more about that later in my speech.

The interventions from colleagues across the House have shown that Mariia’s story is not an isolated case. I have dealt with countless similar cases of unaccompanied children denied access to the homes for Ukraine scheme due to the rigid and bureaucratic approach of the Home Office. For example, David and his wife in my constituency sponsored sisters aged 20 and 13 to live with them in London, but because of the Government’s policy the sisters never made it to the UK. Diahann, also my constituent, sponsored two 17-year-olds, who ended up sleeping on a kitchen floor in a small flat in Poland rather than in Diahann’s home.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has resulted in more than 7 million refugees fleeing that country, but by 14 June, only 82,000 UK visas had been issued under Homes for Ukraine, and only about 50,000 of those people had arrived in the UK. That is less than two thirds of those who had been issued with a visa, but the Home Office has failed to explain why so many with visas have yet to arrive in the UK. That was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy).

The Refugee Council has warned that the gap between those figures might be explained in part by cases in which only some in a family unit have been issued with a visa. It is heartbreaking to think that all the older brothers and sisters have chosen to stay in Ukraine with their younger siblings rather than make the journey without them. That is not something that any of us would want for our family, and I hope everyone will agree that it is not something that people in Ukraine should have to suffer through.

Building Safety Bill

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 20th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He has, to some degree, covered the concerns that I was going to raise about those people who have exercised the right to manage. Yesterday, in a letter to us, he and the Secretary of State acknowledged that Lords amendment 117 identified a real problem. Frankly, at this stage, a consultation will give very little comfort, but could he try to assure leaseholders in that position by saying how long that consultation will be undertaken and when they might expect some conclusion?

[Stuart Andrew]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point. I want to ensure that we get the consultation under way as quickly as possible. I accept that people have deeply held concerns, so we will do our best to get that done speedily, but we do need to consult. We need to get the evidence and know exactly what the picture is, in order to know how best to deal with that situation.

Lords amendment 184 inserts a new schedule 8, titled “Remediation costs under qualifying leases”. It sets out the circumstances in which costs cannot be passed on to leaseholders. The Government’s original proposals set out that where the building owner is, or is linked to, the developer or can afford to meet the costs in full, they would be prevented from passing costs on to leaseholders.

It is worth stressing just how wide these proposed protections are. If a building is still linked to the developer, that building owner and the landlord will be liable for the costs associated with non-cladding defects and their leaseholders will pay nothing. If the building owner or landlord is not linked to the developer, but has the wealth to meet the costs in full, their leaseholders will pay nothing. If a leaseholder property is valued at less than £175,000, or £325,000 in London, the leaseholder will pay nothing and, if the leaseholder has already met interim costs that exceed the contributions cap, they will pay nothing.

Based on that “waterfall”, the Government’s assessment is that the vast majority of leaseholders would pay less than the caps and many would pay nothing at all. However, it is important to remember that not all landlords are evil. Where the building owner or landlord is not at fault, where they have no link to the developer who created those defects and they do not have the wealth to meet the remediation costs in full, and only in that situation, we propose that leaseholder contributions towards non-cladding defects can be recovered, subject to the fixed caps.

--- Later in debate ---

[Royston Smith]

That is an excellent suggestion. The Government have been very successful in talking to developers and persuading them to sign up voluntarily, and there is no reason why they could not have similar conversations with insurers.

I do not want to make a case in defence of developers. I have made the case throughout that they should pay, but we need to be a bit careful about the possible unintended consequences of only going after them. I am pleased to note that they are taking responsibility for their own buildings, although they should have done that in the first place and they are a bit late to the party. Asking them then to remediate buildings that are not their responsibility will have all sorts of effects, not least in making them think about whether they will want to be in that particular market any more. I doubt that they will ever withdraw from the house building market, because it is their business, but if we want to ensure that we can build 300,000 homes a year—a proportion of which would, I am sure, be high-rise—we should bear in mind that some developers will now be saying, “This may not be for us in the future.”

I promised that I would not speak for too long, because we want to get through this business as quickly as possible, so I will end my comments by thanking the Minister again for what he has done and welcoming the changes that have been made. Given the Minister’s assurances today, I will be supporting the Government.

[Paul Blomfield]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith). I pay tribute to him and to the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) for the work that they have done in this regard.

As others have said, we have made considerable progress, but it is a disgrace that, so long after the Grenfell tragedy exposed the scandal of cladding and fire safety issues, the Government have yet to provide the comprehensive response that would address all the issues faced by the thousands of leaseholders caught up in that scandal across the country. This evolving Bill—it was clearly still evolving yesterday, with a body of new amendments tabled by the Government—and, indeed, the Secretary of State’s announcement in January were significant steps, but they still fall short of the Prime Minister’s promise—and I think we all know how much that is worth—that no leaseholders should have to pay for the remediation of problems that are not their responsibility. Moreover, there is still too much uncertainty surrounding the Government’s proposals, which in itself is frustrating progress on making buildings safe.

Let me give just one example. Mandale House, in my constituency, faces a range of problems, and has secured £3.4 million from the building safety fund towards the necessary remediation. However, that falls short of what is needed, and Mandale House is left with £7.4 million to find in order to complete the work. The building’s original developer is one of many to have gone into liquidation, so the building management are on their own. The builders who had been scheduled to carry out the remediation works have now pulled out because of the uncertainty over whether they would be paid. That leaves no foreseeable prospect of the building’s being made safe. The building management are now worried that if the money they have been granted from the building safety fund is not used promptly, it may be withdrawn. I understand that that has happened in respect of other buildings, and I would welcome the Minister’s confirmation that it will not happen in this case—as well as his advice on how Mandale House leaseholders should now proceed to make their building safe.

The second point that I want to make concerns enfranchised buildings. I urge the Government to think again about Lords amendment 117, and I hope to persuade them to do so by citing the case of Wicker Riverside, another building in my constituency, whose residents were evacuated just before Christmas 2020 because of safety concerns.

It is not good enough for the Secretary of State to write to us, as he did yesterday, saying that the amendment highlights a real problem which must be addressed, but then to reject it without putting anything else in its place. I welcome his late announcement today of a consultation, but it should have been possible four years on, and after all the months of knowing that this remained a problem following the Government’s January announcement, to include an amendment that addressed the concerns and provided a solution that the Government felt was robust, along with the bundle of amendments that were added yesterday.

Let me illustrate the problem. In 2019, Wicker Riverside leaseholders took their freeholder to court after years in which building maintenance had been neglected, with the freeholder also failing to provide proof of whether the money collected through service charges had actually been spent on the building. The freeholder did not even turn up for the court case. The leaseholders then exercised their right to manage, and took over responsibility for the building. Now they are being penalised for doing so. By treating right to manage companies in the same way as institutional freeholders, the Government are excluding them from the protections that exist for other leaseholders, such as the remediation bill cap. I would like us to go further and provide zero liability for leaseholders, but the fact remains that the cap is there for some and is not there for those in Wicker Riverside. They should qualify for the same protection as others, because without it they will face unmanageable costs, and as a result the building will not be made safe.

The Government must set out their plans. If they will not accept Lords amendment 117, I respect their concerns, but the Minister needs to explain—and I hope that he will, in his closing remarks—exactly what they intend to consult on to ensure that right to manage leaseholders are protected. I hope the Minister will also give a clear guarantee that the outcome of the consultation will be that those leaseholders will have the protection that is being provided for all others.

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

Like many Members on both sides of the House, I welcomed the Secretary of State’s assurances to Parliament earlier this year that leaseholders

“are blameless, and it is morally wrong that they should be the ones asked to pay the price.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 283.]

However, despite the progress that the Secretary of State and Members across the House have undoubtedly made on this issue, there are still inadequate legal protections in the Bill to ensure that residents and leaseholders do not bear the costs of a crisis that they did not cause. I therefore support Lords amendments that seek to widen the scope of the Bill, including the amendment to reduce leaseholder contributions to zero, tabled by Baroness Hayman, and the proposal for an extension of leaseholder protections to buildings of all heights, tabled by the Earl of Lytton and supported by Lord Blencathra and Lord Young. I thank Members of this House for their hard work, and I thank all the cladding campaign groups, many of whose members are present today. I want to mention in particular Manchester Cladiators, which has supported residents throughout Greater Manchester through rain and shine in their hour of need.

Those campaigners have to keep going, because the sad reality is that many residents in my constituency still fall through the gaps in the proposals that the Secretary of State has outlined so far. Indeed, a recent survey by End our Cladding Scandal of more than 2,200 properties and buildings over 11 metres tall shows that more than 64% of leaseholders outside London and more than 83% of leaseholders in London will not be protected from the costs of non-cladding fire safety defects. The recent pledges from developers to remediate the buildings that they have built over the last 30 years sadly do not go far enough, and there is continued ambiguity about the treatment of non-cladding fire safety defects. Leaseholders in buildings that are under 11 metres remain unprotected, and there is still no funding commitment from house builders for the £4 billion required for the remediation of buildings where the developer no longer exists. As we have heard today, there also remains a huge question mark over social housing.

Further to that, we still do not know what residents who have already received devastating demands for payment should do. There is no detail at all on how to recoup any sums of money already spent by residents, as sinking funds are depleted to catastrophic levels. For example, one development in my constituency has been unable to receive support from the waking watch relief fund simply because the residents acted proactively to try to reduce the cost of their waking watch by agreeing to fund the installation of a fire alarm system. Because they did this prior to the waking watch relief fund’s cut-off date of 17 December 2020, their application to the fund was rejected. Sadly, had they waited and incurred even more waking watch costs, their application probably would have been successful. The Minister must agree that that makes no sense at all, and this is just one case.

The Secretary of State informed Parliament in January that he would pursue statutory protection for leaseholders, and that nothing would be off the table. The Bill does not give that protection, and all I ask today is that the Government support the amendments that would protect leaseholders and go some way towards providing that statutory protection that they all deserve.

Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend and the One Nation group of Conservative MPs helped in the development of our policy with some of the ideas that they shared with the Department. I am grateful to him and his colleagues, and to individuals across the House who played a collaborative part in that. The money that we are giving to local authorities will go to lower-tier local authorities, and I will ask my Department to ensure that in Ashford, and elsewhere, and through the good offices of the Local Government Association, local authorities know how to access the resources they need.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

The Government’s response to the refugee crisis so far has shamed our country and damaged our reputation abroad. Today’s announcement is a step forward, but we need to go faster than the statement suggests to make up for lost time. Will the Secretary of State confirm to the many groups that have contacted me in Sheffield over the weekend a date by which the community sponsorship route will be open?

[Michael Gove]

Friday.

High-rise Buildings: Remediation

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate with you overseeing it, Mrs Miller, and I thank the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for securing it. I join him in paying tribute to the work done by his colleague, the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), throughout this entire debacle. I have seen the former’s comments about St Francis Tower on Twitter and elsewhere. He is right to highlight the issue because many of our constituents will face similar problems as this crisis reaches the next stage. He rightly describes this as a precursor.

Along with the hon. Members for Ipswich and for Stevenage and others, I have made representations on behalf of many constituents in buildings affected by the scandal. Part of the scandal is that in the vast majority of cases, we are still so far off remediation, but for those who are at that stage, there are real problems of the sort described by the hon. Member for Ipswich.

I have recently been in touch with leaseholders in Mandale House in the heart of Sheffield, who are in exactly that position. After all the other traumas that they have faced—the uncertainty over so long; the waking watch costs; the trebling of insurance costs—they now face the problems of remediation work. Their building is to be clad—understandably and necessarily—in scaffolding, which requires the removal of balconies. We all know that in recent times, any piece of outdoor space has been precious. Losing a balcony is bad enough, but the work also involves blocking the opening of the window by the balcony. In many of those flats, that is the only window. People have been condemned to live in a space with no source of natural light and no ventilation. They anticipate that they will be in that position for two and a half years, but as we know, it could be longer, given the way these things unfortunately go.

Mandale House residents will lose access to their car park, as will those in other buildings in the same situation. That might be a comparatively small issue, but in city centre complexes, having somewhere to park a car is important. Residents paid for those spaces, but there is no sense of what alternative provision might be available—provision that they will have to pay for. There are issues about coming back late at night; young women will have to walk through the city, when they would rather park in their building and have direct access to their flats.

There is a range of problems, and in any other situation in which people were facing these sorts of difficulties, they would have someone to turn to for compensation, or perhaps to facilitate their relocation while the work was taking place, but none of that is available to these people. People might want to move temporarily, but their flat will be unrentable. People might want to move in order to move on with their life—we know that is a big aspect of this crisis—but their flat is also unrentable. The remediation work is directly impacting not only how they live, but how they can take their life forward. As the hon. Member for Ipswich suggested, that adds to the stress that many leaseholders have long suffered while anticipating the difficulties that they will face in living without access to their balcony, and with no source of natural light or ventilation.

Leaseholders recognise that that the remediation work is necessary—vital, as the hon. Member described it—but they are being asked to pay substantial amounts of money to repair faults for which they have no responsibility, and will, through those repairs, experience a substantial reduction in their quality of life over a long period. What is happening to them is obscene. It is having a very significant impact on their mental health, as the hon. Member pointed out; and as I have said, these people have already been traumatised.

The impact on mental health has been explored in a report by Dr Jenny Preece of the University of Sheffield, who also works with the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence. It published the report, entitled “Living through the building safety crisis”, at the end of last year. Dr Preece started her research before many leaseholders started to make payments or faced the impact of remedial work, but they were, at that stage, facing all the other worries, and were having to pay out for a waking watch; at Mandale House, they had to pay a substantial amount for a new alarm system. They were paying for interim measures while still uncertain about their future. It has to be said that the Government’s recent proposals will not lift the worries of most of these people.

Many leaseholders have had their whole life taken over by this crisis. One is a GP. This has completely affected his career development, because he has become almost a full-time organiser, helping the voices of those across the city who are suffering these injustices to be heard. Dr Preece’s report points out the practical impact of the worries that many people face. There are leaseholders who have a bag packed by their front door in case their building reaches the point of unsafety and they have to move out in a hurry. Another building in my area, Wicker Riverside, was evacuated before Christmas 2020 with three hours’ notice, so these are real worries.

However, the continued lack of support from the Government has meant that, for most leaseholders, the financial worry has overtaken the question of safety. That came through very powerfully in Dr Preece’s report. From her extensive interviews with leaseholders, she concluded that the negative impacts on mental wellbeing ranged from constant worry and an inability to concentrate and focus on work, to anxiety, depression and suicidal feelings. One mother wrote to me to say that her son was seriously contemplating suicide because he felt so blocked in by the crisis imposed on him.

There is real fear of a dangerous fire breaking out, but that fear, as I have said, is eclipsed by the financial impacts. The anticipation or receipt of bills that are simply unaffordable—that break people financially—has created enormous stress, alongside the day-to-day attrition of increasing costs for insurance, a waking watch and other things. All the participants in Dr Preece’s survey

“reflected on the impact…on their ability to control their own lives”.

That is a point worth reflecting on for a moment: their inability to control their life and plan for their future. Many are young people at the start of their life, planning careers and families, who are unable to move or to commit to having an extra family member in the household. That is an important point about all those life stage transitions—family planning, moving to a larger home, retirement. Some of these people have invested savings into a retirement plan and are similarly trapped. For many people, the pressures have challenged their self-perception and self-confidence, and have put a strain on relationships.

I do not want to score a party political point here—there has been a lot of cross-party unity on this issue—but the Prime Minister was recently asked on ITV about the concerns expressed by one of my constituents in Wicker Riverside, Jenni Garrett. He said she had

“a frankly unnecessary sense of anxiety”.

I challenged the Prime Minister on that point at Prime Minister’s questions, and asked him to meet Jenni so that they might explain why she and so many others were worried. I was surprised by his response. He doubled down on the assertion, and told me that it was my responsibility to tell her that her building was safe. That is shocking, but is perhaps an insight into why the Government are still failing to treat the issue with the urgency it deserves, and in the appropriate way.

Although I recognise that the recent announcement was a step forward, it does not address the commitment that the Prime Minister previously made, and which we should be committed to as parliamentarians. These people have faced an extraordinary injustice. The solution that the Government are proposing will lead to a long road of resolution for many of those affected, heaping more worry on them, as well as potential litigation that they will not be able to afford or organise. We should be taking responsibility for fixing the buildings quickly and then using the full resources of the state to hold those responsible to account and to recover the public money that we need to put in to secure the situation, so that we can live up to the commitment that the Prime Minister made at one stage—that every affected building is fixed without delay, and at no cost to leaseholders. That is what will lift their worry.