Private Rented Sector

Robert Flello Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey]

rose—

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Jack Dromey]

I am moving to a conclusion.

Poor housing has wider costs, including to the taxpayer. The annual cost of poor housing to our national health service is up to £2.5 billion. Labour wants a strong private rented sector—vibrant and diverse, helping to meet the nation’s housing need—but the nation does not need a sector in which landlords and tenants are hit with rip-off fees and charges by unscrupulous letting agents. The nation does not need a sector in which families do not have access to longer-term tenancies and predictable rents, leaving them feeling insecure and unable to plan their lives. The nation does not need a sector in which there are rogue landlords preying on vulnerable tenants and, in the worst cases, risking their lives. We cannot have two nations, divided between those who own their own homes and those who rent.

We therefore call on the Government to regulate letting and management agents to ensure that tenants, landlords and the reputations of reputable agents are protected—regulation that, I stress again, is supported by the entire sector and industry. We call on the Government to end the confusing, inconsistent and opaque fees and charges imposed by letting agents and ensure transparency and comparability. We call on the Government to introduce a light-touch national register of landlords and to grant local authorities greater powers to root out and strike off rogue landlords who are found to have broken the rules, in particular by way of criminal behaviour, so assisting more councils, including leading Labour local authorities such as Newham, as we have heard, Oxford, Blackpool and now Liverpool, which are already using the powers granted to them by the last Labour Government, to tackle some of the most appalling abuse by some of the worst landlords in England.

We call on the Government to take action to ensure that families and tenants who want longer-term tenancies are able to enjoy them, providing flexibility for those who want it and security for those who need it—a very different model of the private rented sector for the future; a sector of choice in the 21st century, like in many continental European countries. We call on the Government to back our motion today. I commend the motion to the House.