Homes (Fitness for Habitation) Bill

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

I am grateful for that intervention and I will happily congratulate Newham Council, because although it has a problem with its housing stock, it has led the charge on local enforcement. I am happy to give it credit for doing that.

Many landlords take their responsibilities seriously, but still 1 million households across the private and social sectors are forced to endure conditions that harm them or pose a serious risk of harm. According to the latest English housing survey, 15% of private tenanted properties have category 1 hazards classed as a serious risk to the occupier’s health—that is 750,000 households —at least a third of which contain children. A further 250,000 socially tenanted properties have a category 1 hazard under the housing health and safety ratings system, which works out at about 6%.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that it is completely unacceptable that in my constituency families of four are living in a box bedroom with only a single mattress on the floor?

[Ms Buck]

I totally agree; overcrowding is a scandalous problem in our social housing, and it is often equated with some of the very poor standards people experience, with damp and condensation linked to overcrowding. These are tragic cases and we urgently need not only an expansion of social rented housing to enable people to escape these kinds of conditions, but the provisions in this Bill and other measures that the Government have introduced.

Landlords currently have no obligation to their tenants to put or keep a property in a condition fit for habitation. A requirement does exist to ensure the structure and facilities such as the heating, gas and water are in repair, but this does not cover issues such as fire safety, heating that is functioning but inadequate, or poor ventilation that can lead to the condensation and mould growth seen in the kind of cases I have outlined. A range of fitness issues seriously affect the wellbeing and safety of tenants and about which tenants can do nothing at all.

For private and housing association tenants, it is possible for the local authority to enforce fitness standards under the housing health and safety rating system, under the Housing Act 2004, but there is a huge degree of variability across councils in terms of inspection, the issuing of notices and enforcement rates. About 50% of councils have served none or only one Housing Act notice in the past year. One London council, Newham, which has an active enforcement policy, accounted for 50% of all notices served nationally and 70% of those served in London. A freedom of information inquiry by the Residential Landlords Association found an average of just 1.5 prosecutions per council, and my own freedom of information research found that enforcement action of any kind accounted for only 1% of the estimated number of category 1 hazards. That means there is a complete postcode lottery on the prospect of councils taking steps, with the real prospect being that the council will not do so.

For council tenants, the decent homes standard requires homes to be free from category 1 hazards, and considerable progress was made in improving the quality of housing stock, thanks to the decent homes initiative, but the 2004 Act and housing health and safety rating standards have little impact, as local councils cannot enforce against themselves. So council tenants have no way to enforce, or seek to have enforced, fitness standards, including fire safety, if their landlord does not do anything. The Bill enables all tenants, whether private or social, to take action on the same issues and standards as local authorities can.