Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) for bringing in this important legislation for debate, and I know how much work she has done on this issue. I welcome the Minister—a former Whip—to her new position. I am a private landlord, so I refer the House to my entry in the register.

As we have heard today, everyone is entitled to a clean, safe and comfortable home. Indeed, one would have thought that that was a given, but the fact that we are discussing this legislation today illustrates that it clearly is not. Home really should be where the heart is, but there are long-standing concerns about property standards in both the social and private rented sectors. I have been made particularly aware of the issue not just through my work as an MP and my involvement in the Bill that became the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which was guided so well through the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), but through supporting so many Adjournment debates, which you probably sat through, Madam Deputy Speaker, with a former Housing Minister, the previous Member for Croydon Central, in which I heard so many harrowing cases of rogue landlords forcing people to live in squalor and making their lives hell. I am therefore pleased that the Bill will address some of those issues.

[Catherine West]

Given that the private rented sector is composed of a plethora of small landladies or landlords, such as the hon. Lady, does she accept that people can be good landlords? We need good landlords and landladies, but we need good legislation and good enforcement.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady. I will be touching on that later. It is important that we do not make private landlords—the good ones—feel that we are outlawing them. We need to help them, but we also need everyone to have good standards.

In England, the private rented sector currently houses more people than the social rented sector, and that is borne out in Taunton Deane. Last year, the English housing survey found that 40% of homes in the private rented sector had at least one indicator of poor housing.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am going to plough on, because I know that many colleagues want to speak.

The survey results show a pretty poor record and clearly demonstrate why the Bill is so necessary, and I am pleased to give it my support today. I am also pleased by the amount of cross-party work. When I talk to people back in my constituency, they ask, “Do you work with other parties? Are you always arguing?”, but we clearly do not argue about the many issues on which we can work together effectively, as we did on the 2017 Act. I have mentioned the private sector, but the problems are not confined to it. The social sector is important, too, and I do not need to remind people of the terrible Grenfell Tower fire, which brought the situation starkly under the microscope.

To give a few statistics about the scale of the problem, according to the 2015-16 English housing survey the number of properties with a category 1 hazard—things that pose a serious health risk, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) so ably pointed out—is just over 200,000 in the social rented sector, but over 800,000 in the private rented sector. I reiterate that social tenants currently have no effective means of redress over poor conditions because local authorities cannot enforce the housing health and safety rating system against themselves. This Bill will provide social tenants with a much-needed tool to compel the local authority to carry out repairs.

In my time as the MP for Taunton Deane, I have dealt with quite a number of issues relating to rogue landlords, some of which were very serious. One person had no proper back door that they could close, because it had not been mended, so they felt unsafe. Other people had windows that they could not shut or heating that did not work. I am pleased to say that we have worked hard to solve lots of these issues.

[Chris Ruane]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I am going to plough on.

I am in regular contact with Citizens Advice, which is quite easy because the citizens advice bureau is just two doors down from my office. There is me, a pub and then the CAB, and the church is opposite, so I like to think that we cater for all needs. The CAB has dealt with 530 housing-related issues in the past year, almost a fifth of which relate to accommodation that is not fit for purpose. Those tenants, who are facing very serious issues, will be able to take some action because of the Bill.

I make it clear, as the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) said just now, that the vast majority of landlords offer good accommodation. Private landlords are an important part of the mix, and we need to make sure they are not jeopardised in any way and that they offer good standards. I am reassured that the Bill will in no way seek to penalise those landlords—perhaps the Minister will clarify that—but simply aims to build on this Government’s strong record of introducing measures, in whatever way, that set clear, simple and enforceable standards.

Some of my constituents, not surprisingly, have found the current law rather complex. It is not always clear what their rights are, and a common issue such as dealing with damp does not always fall under the landlord’s legal responsibilities, even if it makes the home uninhabitable. The Bill should clarify such matters. It will introduce a wide range of additional health standards, such as on fire safety, through the housing health and safety rating system, which will all help to keep landlords up to the mark.

Stamping out bad practice is essential, and the Bill sets improved standards by giving clear indicators to landlords. Above all, the Bill will empower tenants who, in the worst cases, will be able to provide their own evidence to a judge, such as photographs of the awful things that are happening in their property, without relying on an environmental health officer or an independent service, which can add extra expense and can be time-consuming. That will be a helpful element of the Bill.

The Bill will bring greater protections for the residents of Taunton Deane and for wider society, and it will make residents’ lives happier and, I hope, more comfortable. I strongly support the measures in the Bill, and I wish the hon. Member for Westminster North all the best in progressing it on its journey.