Renters’ Rights Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

Absolutely; I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. That has been at the forefront of our minds, and not just in our work on this Bill. Hon. Members will recall that it is only a few weeks since we had the report on phase 2 of the Grenfell inquiry, so when we talk about providing housing, it is at the forefront of my mind that houses have to be safe for people. It is absolutely scandalous that here in Britain at the moment we cannot guarantee that, and I will do everything I can as Secretary of State to fix that problem.

Talking about families more widely, we will also end the abhorrent practice of denying a family a home purely because they receive benefits or have children, by making it illegal for landlords and letting agents to discriminate against tenants on that basis. This Bill is about social justice and fairness for all.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my right hon. Friend on behalf of the many families in Walthamstow who have been in exactly that position. One of the things that drives my constituents mad is having to move repeatedly because of rent increases that they cannot afford, because it means that their good credit rating stops and starts, which makes it harder for them to get on the housing ladder. What more can we do to tackle this discrimination against tenants and give them a chance of owning a home in the future, by tackling this basic issue of credit ratings, perhaps with a good credit passport?

[Angela Rayner]

This is a wider issue to do with the poverty trap that so many people face this country. I am also proud to plug the employment Bill that will be coming forward this week. It is another incredibly important part of this Government’s agenda; the Prime Minister mentioned it earlier today. We want to make sure that the working people of this country feel better off, and are able to get on and do the things in life that we should expect anyone to be able to do—things that we were able to do as a result of the toils of the generations before us.

I want to talk database. Part 2 of the Bill will introduce a new online private rented sector database, to the benefit of landlords and tenants alike. Landlords will need to provide key information about the properties they let out, including around property standards and compliance with the law, helping tenants to understand more about the property and the landlord who they are looking to rent from.

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[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate all Members who have given their maiden speeches today, and the Minister for Housing and Planning, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), for all his hard work on this Bill.

If I am honest, I am disappointed that the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), is not still with us—looking at the faces of Conservative Members, she appears to be unexpectedly busy—because she seemed to argue that the challenge that the Government are creating is to intervene poorly in a market. In the limited time available to me, I want to take on the challenge that she created, because I am not sure that she actually understands what this market is. That may well show in Conservative members’ voting if they think they are voting for somebody who understand market economics.

Let us look at what we are talking about. In my constituency, we have had the biggest growth in affordable housing in London, yet we have also had a 55% increase in homelessness. This is not a healthy market where there is effective competition, and where every participant has the tools to operate equally. Let me try to explain through some of the stories from my constituency. My constituent Kate, who works in the NHS on a nurse’s salary, has had to move every single year, because landlords are selling properties and putting up prices. That is not healthy—it is an overheated market. It means that the state picks up the pieces, through the salaries we need to pay and to deal with the consequences for her and her family.

My constituent Claire, who is self-employed, started renting her home for £1,750 a month in November 2019, and it had increased by £200 by 2023. She has now been threatened with another £400 a month raise, putting her total rent up to £2,350 for the same property within five years. What powers do my constituents have in that market, apart from to exit? That is not a healthy, functioning market.

We are seeing mould in properties, so the quality of goods in this market is not good enough. Emily, a mum from Walthamstow, was scrubbing mould from the walls of her three-month-old son’s room every single day. She eventually walked out because she found mould on the underside of her son’s cot mattress. But she was afraid to complain because she was afraid of section 21 eviction powers, so she does not even have the voice of exiting the market. Albert Hirschman would be horrified. We have to end the scandal of no-fault evictions, and we have to deal with the mould.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Creasy]

Of course I will let the hon. Gentleman in. If he is going to make a declaration of interest, obviously I will let him intervene.

[Andrew Rosindell]

The hon. Lady is making some excellent and valid points, but does she agree that the London borough of Waltham Forest should ensure that its residents who are homeless—our heart goes out to those people—are cared for and looked after in Waltham Forest? At the moment, her borough council is sending her homeless constituents to the London borough of Havering. They are living in Harefield Manor in Romford. Surely Waltham Forest should look after its homeless people in its own borough.

[Ms Creasy]

I know that the Conservative party is about to go down a rabbit hole about immigration, but honestly, moving people from Walthamstow to the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is not the challenge here. We have a broken rental market where the rights of renters do not allow them to compete fairly.

Let me give the hon. Gentleman another example so that I can explain the problem. The reason we need to tackle bidding wars is that there is a straight-out conflict of interest affecting the consumer. How can the person who represents them to the landlord also represent them fairly in a rental agreement? It is little wonder that Catherine, one of my constituents, found that she had to offer £300 over the asking price to secure a flat in a bidding auction. That is why people from Walthamstow are being moved out, and the hon. Gentleman would do well to think about sorting that market out, rather than trying to build a blockade on the A406.

Discrimination against single parents is widespread in the market, by definition because of what happens when households need to rent property. Ruth, in my constituency, is a single mum with two young children. She was told by agents, “Don’t even bother applying.” She could pay the rent and she was entitled to housing, but she was not even entitled to compete in this market.

In the final minute I have, I want to make a plea to the Minister about the credit rating of those in our private rented sector. It is not true that renting in the private sector automatically damages someone’s ability to get a mortgage, but if they are having to move time and again, their credit rating clock goes back to the start because lenders look at their addresses, they have to re-register for all their utility bills and they have to keep building up their good record. That gets taken into account by some lenders. People are finding that this affects other forms of credit, including the credit cards that many of them are using to pay their bills. In my constituency, the average percentage of people’s income spent on rent is 44%. If they have kids and are trying to pay for childcare, it does not take a rocket scientist or Ayn Rand to realise that this market is not working for them.

I believe we could do more if we came up with a good credit score passport to help those constituents of mine and others, who are paying their bills but who have been evicted through no fault of their own, not to lose their precious good credit rating. I hope the Minister will be willing to listen to some ideas about how we can do that with the companies.

Thank goodness for this legislation. It is long overdue, because tackling unfair markets is absolutely what good co-operators like myself and good people who care about social justice wish to do, and I shall vote wholeheartedly for it as a result.

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[David Simmonds]

The hon. Member raises a good point about rogue landlords. Let us reflect on some of the complaints that we have heard. Ant infestations, widespread evidence of mould causing health problems, the dilapidation of communal areas, a prohibition on tenants seeking to rent while on benefits and a failure to comply with licensing laws—just some of the complaints made by the tenants of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal), but they are widely represented across the market. They are the reason we need to get enforcement action against rogue landlords such as that Member right.

On enforcement, the Secretary of State said in opening the debate that she is keen to ensure that there is an effective fining regime so that those who breach the rules can be held to account. We in the Opposition have a genuine concern about getting that right. There are a number of different areas of local authority activity in which enforcement is essentially a net cost to the council tax payer, because even when costs are won and fines levied, they are nothing like the cost of carrying out investigations, building the evidence base and taking the required enforcement action. If we are to ensure that rogue landlords acting in breach of existing laws are held to account by local authorities using those powers, we need to ensure, during the passage of the Bill, that the resources that are expected to arrive through the method of enforcement and fining are sufficient to make the process self-sustaining, or that the Government have alternative measures in mind to ensure that local authorities can access those resources by other means.

That is a long-standing issue and has been a factor for Governments of all parties. It was certainly a challenge in my 24 years in local government, under Labour and Conservative Governments. We need to ensure, in the interests of our tenants, that we get this right as far as we can.

[Ms Creasy]

As the hon. Gentleman will know from his experience in local government, the challenge is that the existing legislation relies on our constituents having the confidence to come forward, whether they are facing mould or unfair practices, and the evidence shows that the threat of a no-fault eviction means that many do not come forward. Does he therefore recognise that simply opposing no-fault evictions and relying on the existing enforcement regime means consigning people in an unfair market to silence and suffering?

[David Simmonds]

As a constituency Member of Parliament and former councillor, I entirely recognise the hon. Lady’s point, but what the hon. Member for Rugby said was significant because we need to recognise that 76% of tenants in the private rented sector report a high level of satisfaction, a much higher level of satisfaction than is found in other forms of housing tenure. If we are to strike the appropriate balance in this debate in the Parliament of the nation, we have to recognise that the vast majority of landlords provide a good, important and high-quality service, and make sure that the legislation we take through to address the difficulty and challenge that our constituents—citizens—experience is proportionate.