Crown Tenancies Bill

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Wendy Morton]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that relevant point. I appreciate that the planned phase 2 of HS2 goes either through or very close to her constituency.

Only properties located within the Act limits for the purposes of High Speed 2, between London and the west midlands, will be covered by the Crown tenancy exemption in the Bill. The exemption does not currently apply to properties acquired in connection with phase 2 of the HS2 scheme, to which my hon. Friend referred, because Act limits for phase 2 have not yet been determined and the Bill has not been deposited. However, I believe the proposed legislation will allow for the list of tenancies to which the exemptions apply to be amended. The Minister may wish to expand on that. In broad terms, people can continue to live in these properties and provide rental income for the Government, but at the same time the Department will be able to get possession at short notice where that is necessary to meet construction deadlines.

Thirdly, the Bill allows for other specific exemptions to be created in future and, as importantly, to be removed if they are no longer needed. That will ensure they are considered by Parliament on a case-by-case basis, which is a very sensible approach. Fourthly, the Bill recognises that it is not always easy to identify at the start of a tenancy whether the property is one that may need to be recovered quickly, so it creates two new grounds for possession. One enables the Ministry of Defence to obtain possession of properties where that is necessary for military operational reasons. The other enables Welsh Ministers to obtain possession of properties that have been let as a short-term management measure—for example, for road schemes or redevelopment. Finally, the Bill will ensure that the Ministry of Defence can continue with its current rent charging arrangements so that they apply uniformly across all service accommodation.

I hope I have made clear that this is not about making it more difficult for Government to carry on their business. The Bill aims to promote fairness by rectifying an anomalous situation that deprives Crown tenants, simply because they rent from a public landlord, of the rights that most private tenants currently enjoy. Although this is a private Member’s Bill, it contains important provisions that the Government feel strongly about and I am pleased that the UK Government and the Welsh Government offer their support to the Bill.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I welcome the Bill. As the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills says, the Bill rectifies an anomaly that tenants of Crown property have suffered under. To date, they have had a less secure form of tenancy; in particular, military families have had only licences. The Bill comes at an appropriate time and ensures that military families will have the same security of tenure and rights available to all assured and private tenants.

We appreciate the reasons for the exemptions, which seem entirely appropriate. There is some family accommodation at the barracks in Hounslow, near my constituency. It will be a relief for those families to get much better terms than are offered by a licence, which is clearly insecure and offers few rights. There are bigger concerns, though perhaps not for exploring in this Committee, about military families’ experience regarding the quality of the management of their accommodation. That is for a different debate.

I have one question that I hope the Minister will answer. As I understand it, most military family accommodation is managed by another agency or agencies. I assume that the Bill would apply to all of the occupants of the family housing that is managed by those private companies. If that were not the case, it would cause further difficulty for those families that are already facing management issues. I am happy to endorse the Bill.

[The Chair]

I know that St David’s day is a very exciting time in Croydon Central, so I invite the Minister to excite us.