Stephen Williams
Main Page: Stephen Williams (Liberal Democrat - Bristol West)(9 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Stephen Williams)
It is always a pleasure to follow the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), with whom I get on very well. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) not just on securing a place in the ballot, which is, after all, a lottery, but on her wisdom and good sense in selecting such an important issue as the subject of her private Member’s Bill. I also thank her for the constructive way in which she has engaged with me and my departmental officials, to make sure that we would be able to support the Bill’s Second Reading, and for securing a cross-party coalition in support of the Bill, even including, as he himself acknowledged, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner).
I thank Shelter for working constructively with me and officials at its head office in London. I have also worked very closely with Shelter officials in my own constituency of Bristol West. I also thank Acorn, a new group that works in Easton in my constituency, for campaigning on improving conditions in the private rented sector in general.
The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) has mentioned how the issue affects students, which is important in her constituency and in mine, so I would also like to thank the National Union of Students for meeting me to discuss the private rented sector. It has been a while since I had a constructive and friendly meeting with the NUS, but that was it and I hope it will be a hallmark of how we will go forward from hereon in.
Members have spoken of how important this issue is in their constituencies. The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has said that a large proportion of his constituents rent in the private sector, although his constituency is not in the top 20 in the country in that regard. I thank the House of Commons Library for giving me a table while the urgent question was taken. Several Members who have spoken have clearly done so because of the high proportion of tenants in their constituency who rent in the private rented sector. The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central just makes it into the top 20—it is 20th in the table—with 32% of her constituents renting in the private rented sector. My own constituency of Bristol West comes second after Cities of London and Westminster. More than 40% of my constituents rent in the private rented sector, so this Bill is very important to me and the people I represent.
Philip Davies
I hear what the Minister is saying, but only as recently as last December he said:
“The Department does not, at the moment, have any comprehensive evidence that retaliatory eviction is a widespread problem.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 281WH.]
The Minister has just said that a high proportion of his constituents are renting in the private sector, but how is it that his Department used to have no evidence and now, all of a sudden, he seems to have all the evidence in the world?
Stephen Williams
I have just begun. I have not come to all the evidence in the world yet, but I assure my hon. Friend that I will give him some evidence. I acknowledge what he says, but a lot of the evidence is hidden. One of the issues is that people are afraid to make complaints about conditions in their property precisely because they fear receiving a section 21 notice.
The Government are committed to promoting a strong, thriving and professional private rented sector where good landlords can prosper and hard-working tenants enjoy decent standards and receive a service that represents value for money for their rent. After a long period of contraction, the sector is expanding strongly and more than 4 million households rent in the private rented sector. We think that is good for the economy and we want to see that trend continue, particularly as it allows flexibility for young people not only to move around for employment reasons as they develop their careers, but to move up the housing ladder as their income expands. That is what I did when I moved from a one-bedroom bedsit to a two-bedroom bedsit, then to a one-bedroom flat and then finally buying at the age of 31.
We also want to see more purpose-built private rented properties, which is, after all, the norm in our fellow European states. That is why we have invested £1 billion in a build to rent fund, which provides development-phased finance to large-scale private rented sector developments that will deliver up to 10,000 new homes for private sector rent. Our housing guarantee scheme will support up to £10 billion-worth of investment in large-scale private rented projects and additional affordable housing.
Jeremy Corbyn
As this development of 10,000 new tenancies is getting a large element of public money, will the Minister tell us what the rent level will be?
Stephen Williams
These are guarantee schemes to enable developments to get off the ground. I am sure we would all agree that many of the problems that have been identified so far in this debate represent a minority of landlords and they are probably in the sort of properties that have been converted from large family houses. That is probably the issue in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, where Georgian houses have been converted into bedsits and small flats; it is certainly the issue in my constituency. We need to deal with the problems in those properties, but more purpose-built private rented accommodation—that investors such as pension or insurance funds see as long-term investments—will ensure higher quality for tenants at an attractive rent.
It is important that we raise standards and improve transparency in the sector. The Government have done a lot and have a good story to tell in this area over the last few months in particular. We have worked with the industry in the development of a code of practice for those managing properties in the sector, including landlords themselves. It was published on 11 September. From 1 October, it has been a requirement for letting and property management agents to belong to any one of three Government-approved redress schemes, so that where standards do not meet expectations, landlords and tenants have an effective means of raising their concerns. The schemes are run by the Property Ombudsman, the Ombudsman Services: Property, and the Property Redress Scheme.
The shadow Minister mentioned the Consumer Rights Bill, which is under consideration in the House of Lords. We introduced provisions requiring letting agents to increase transparency around renting costs by publicising their fees prominently in their office and on their website. We hope that that provision will come into force in this Parliament. That transparency will assist with the problem of double charging that the shadow Minister mentioned, and that of extortionate charging, when agents charge over and above the actual cost of the service. As soon as the fees are transparent to everybody, much of that sharp practice will end overnight. If it does not, it will be down to constituency MPs like us, Shelter, the National Union of Students and other campaigning organisations to expose such practice so that it can be driven out of the sector. That will be a big improvement.
The Government are also committed to ensuring that private tenants know their rights and responsibilities, which is why we published a “how to rent” guide on 10 June. In September, we backed that up with a model tenancy agreement for the benefit of landlords and tenants. That tenancy agreement has been improved as a result of the Westminster Hall debate instigated by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton)—he is not in his place at the moment—to which I replied. I was struck by the feeling after that debate that the tenant and the landlord should both know their rights and responsibilities. The model tenancy agreement now has a tick box so that the tenant and landlord can confirm that they have seen the “how to rent” guide, which includes coverage of safety issues in the property. The use of the agreement is voluntary, but it strikes the right balance between the rights and responsibilities of the parties and both parties can use it with confidence. After all, a tenant wants a home and a landlord wants a good tenant providing a stable income. It is in the interests of both that they embark on the tenancy with confidence on both sides. In particular, the agreement can be used when the parties have agreed to a longer fixed-term tenancy of two or three years; and it contains model clauses protecting the interests of the parties around termination, rent reviews and home business use.
Reference has been made to the resources available to local authorities to deal with the problem of rogue landlords. We have provided £6.7 million of additional resource to help local authorities tackle poor standards in that area. Specifically, £2.6 million has been allocated to deal with the mainly London-based problem of so-called beds in sheds, with a further £4.1 million to help tackle rogue landlords more generally.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Has the Minister heard of the New Era estate in Hackney which was bought by US private equity billionaires who have a horrible reputation as landlords in New York? Ninety-one Hackney tenants face eviction by landlords who are not interested in providing homes: they are only interested in driving out long-settled tenants so that they can make huge profits.
Stephen Williams
I had not heard about that, but I have now and the hon. Lady has placed the matter on the public record via Hansard.
Thirty local authorities have claimed the funding that I mentioned. In 2014, the money has paid for more than 13,000 inspections of properties, resulting in more than 3,000 landlords facing further action or prosecutions, and the demolition of 140 illegal beds in sheds in gardens, in London in particular. Those are outputs over and above what councils were already doing. We will shortly publish revised guidance for local authorities on best practice in tackling poor conditions and unacceptable practice in the sector, which builds on the work of the rogue landlord programme.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central referred to Jo and her collapsed ceiling. She also mentioned other evidence of how the tenant wished to replace an electric fire with a gas fire—to improve home energy efficiency and reduce fuel poverty—and how difficult it was to get the landlord’s co-operation for the installation. The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce), who is no longer in her place, said that London families in particular had these problems, especially as more are now living in the private rented sector. She also mentioned unsafe cookers. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) rightly pointed out that this is also an issue in small rural towns in Cornwall. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who is also no longer in his place—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
That normally happens for the wind-up speeches, but as we did not know when they would happen, I do not think that we need to worry.
Stephen Williams
I forgive them for not being here. I am sure that they will diligently read Hansard to see how I responded to the points that they made.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East asked what would happen if a landlord was obliged to make repairs but then tried to evict the tenants in order to get vacant possession. I am advised that the council can issue a prohibition order prohibiting use of the dwelling by someone else while repairs are taking place—
Mr Chope
Well, this is only the first time. To take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), does the Minister think that the service of a prohibition notice is sufficient answer to that problem? A significant number of repairs may be needed, and in order to carry out the repairs, the landlord may need vacant possession. Is that not a reasonable position for a landlord to take?
Stephen Williams
These are detailed points and reasonable concerns about the effects of the Bill. That is why the Government’s position is that we support the Second Reading of the Bill so that such points can be teased out in Committee. As the hon. Member for Harrow East also said, that is one issue that will need to be tested.
Barry Gardiner
The Minister has indicated that the Government support the Bill, so will he explain why on 24 November the coalition Government voted against an amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill on this exact point?
Stephen Williams
We are trying to be consensual today to get this Bill through. I think the hon. Gentleman knows very well that this Bill was already known about. It is promoted and supported by the cross-section of charities referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central. Today is her opportunity to introduce the Bill and for the Government to respond to a substantive debate on it. That is why it was said in another place that the amendment tabled by the Opposition was not necessary, as we would have the opportunity to deal with the matter today. That is what we are now doing.
The Bill is necessary. The Government are very clear that retaliatory eviction is wrong and that its continued practice is unacceptable. No tenant should face eviction because they have made a legitimate complaint about the condition of their home to the landlord. No decent landlord—decent landlords have been referred to, in particular by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh— would engage in or condone that practice. However, there are a small number of rogue and unscrupulous landlords who think it is perfectly acceptable to evict a tenant for requesting a repair.
The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) asked for evidence and here it is. An extrapolation from a YouGov survey of more than 4,500 private renters carried out earlier this year found that 480,000 tenants had either not asked for a repair to be carried out or had not challenged a rent increase because they were concerned about being evicted. Some 80,000 tenants had actually been evicted because they had asked for a repair to be carried out. Many of those tenants will have children and partners, so we estimate that about 213,000 people are actually affected by retaliatory eviction every year. There may be 213,000 people affected by the issue we are discussing today.
It has been suggested—I suspect it will shortly be suggested again, but at great length—that there is no need for the Bill because existing consumer protection legislation is adequate. The view of the Government is that that is not correct. The existing law does not provide tenants with sufficient protection against retaliatory eviction. The application of existing consumer legislation to landlord and tenant issues is not clear. The existing consumer law enforcement regime is not specifically geared up to deal with landlord and tenant issues, but applies to traders who offer a wide range of goods and services.
It would be difficult for a tenant to prove that a landlord had acted illegally under consumer law by serving a section 21 notice in retaliation for a complaint. Threatening a tenant with eviction could potentially be considered an aggressive commercial practice, but it is difficult to see how serving a notice that a landlord is contractually and statutorily entitled to serve would be found to be an illegal act. Under section 21, the landlord does not need to give a reason to evict tenants.
Engaging in unfair or aggressive commercial practices is a criminal offence for which a prosecution or other enforcement action can be brought by trading standards officers. We consider that the law needs to be changed to introduce provisions specifically designed to target retaliatory eviction, which will make it clear that where a local authority has issued a statutory notice in relation to a health and safety hazard in the property, the existing restrictions on the use of section 21 notices should be extended to cover those circumstances.
It has also been suggested—I suspect we will hear more about this shortly—that the introduction of the Bill will jeopardise the private rental sector. There are already some restrictions on the use of section 21 notices. Landlords cannot serve a section 21 notice where they have failed to put their tenant’s deposit in a Government-approved tenancy deposit scheme, or where they have not obtained a licence for a property that should be licensed. There are therefore already some restrictions on section 21 and the private rental sector has expanded none the less.
I will briefly cover the four main areas of the Bill. First, there is protection from retaliatory eviction where a tenant requests a repair be carried out and the local authority confirms that that repair is necessary. It cannot be a vexatious raising of a spurious point—the local authority would have to confirm that the repair was necessary. If that is the case, the landlord will be prevented from evicting that tenant for a period of six months. Under existing legislation the landlord will also be required to ensure that the repairs are completed.
Mr Chope
But surely that does not cover the situation where the local authority does not reach a decision. An application to a local authority would have the effect of staying proceedings. If the local authority does not then reach a decision, the landlord will be left in a very difficult position.
Stephen Williams
The landlord would be left in a very difficult position, but I have not yet seen or heard any evidence to suggest that local authorities do not, or are unable to, reach decisions. That would be quite an extraordinary state of affairs. The Bill provides that when the local authority does reach a decision, the repairs must be carried out.
Secondly, there will be compliance with certain legal requirements. Landlords are currently required to ensure that any property they rent out has an annual gas safety certificate and a valid energy performance certificate. The Bill provides order-making powers, and the intention is that regulations will be made specifying that a tenant may not be evicted where the landlord has failed to comply with these basic legal requirements. The restriction would be lifted as soon as the landlord obtained those documents.
Thirdly, the Bill provides for time limits on the service of eviction notices. There will be no change to the current requirement that a tenancy must be for a period of at least six months. However, the Bill will provide that an eviction notice may not be served during the first four months of any tenancy and that the eviction notice will be valid for a maximum of six months. The purpose of this measure is to deal with an approach adopted by a small minority of landlords: serving an eviction notice right at the start of a tenancy, which can result in a tenant having to vacate a property with virtually no notice.
Fourthly, the Bill makes the eviction process more straightforward. This shows that the Bill is balanced, because it helps the position of landlords as well. The process for evicting tenants in legitimate circumstances—for example, for non-payment of rent—is not as straightforward as it could be. That is exacerbated by the fact that most landlords are not property professionals and frequently do not understand current legal procedures for eviction available to them. As a result, it can sometimes take landlords several months to regain possession of their property. To address that, there will be a standard pro forma which can be used by landlords to serve an eviction notice and will provide that, so long as two months’ notice is given, a landlord no longer needs to specify the exact date when the tenancy will come to an end.
In conclusion, the Government support the Bill in principle. We want the Bill to be balanced. We do not want tenants to be able to make vexatious complaints and we do not want to bring in excessive regulation. We wish to give the Bill a Second Reading and for it to proceed to Committee, where some issues will need to be addressed. I commend the Bill to the House.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and that certainly makes up a large part of the market.
A helpful breakdown in the English housing survey also shows why over the past three years tenants were asked to leave. That is very illuminating as regards today’s debate, because we are being led to believe that people left, right and centre are being asked to leave in some sort of retaliatory eviction, which simply is not the case. Out of 184,000, 103,000 had been asked to leave because the landlord wanted to sell the property or use it themselves, 18% had been asked to leave because they had not paid the rent and 63,000 had left for other unspecified reasons, which is 35%. In 57% of all cases people were asked to leave simply because the landlord wanted to sell up or use the property themselves.
It is not very helpful just to say that there are “other reasons”, so I asked the statisticians behind the survey for a breakdown so that we could be a bit more specific about what they were and how many there were in each category. I suspect that the Government have not done that and that the hon. Member for Brent Central has not done so either. The statisticians helpfully said that the sample sizes for the response options grouped together as other reasons are too small to break down any further but include difficulties with the payment of housing benefit and local housing allowance, the landlord’s being dissatisfied with how accommodation was being looked after, the landlord’s receiving complaints from neighbours and, crucially, the tenant’s having complained to the council, agent or landlord about problems with the property. So, that was the fourth reason down of the other reasons that are individually too small a sample to be broken down and have their own category. That lays bare the extent of the problem that the Bill is trying to deal with today.
The Government claim that they have been persuaded of the case and that because of a YouGov survey they have overturned everything they ever believed in. It seemed from what the Minister said earlier that that is the basis on which the Government’s position has changed. He did not say that it was a YouGov survey commissioned by Shelter, so I will add that bit for him. The day that a Government support a Bill on the basis of an opinion poll commissioned by a campaign group is a sad day, and the Minister did not even have the nerve to admit that that was what happened. It was a survey conducted by a pressure group, and that is a pretty shoddy reason. He should look at the evidence.
Stephen Williams
I cited the YouGov research, and the extrapolation that could be made from it, as further evidence of the need for the Bill. The compelling need for the Bill has also been illustrated by many other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate and reiterated the real-life experiences of their constituents. They have shown why there is a need for the Bill.
Philip Davies
If the Minister would like to intervene on me again and tell me his view of the English housing survey and how much weight should be put on the figures, I would be interested to hear that. The survey has, in just one set of tables, completely undermined the case for the Bill.
Given that the smallest figure that had a category—non-payment of rent—was 18,000, we can deduce that the number of households with tenants who were asked to leave because they had complained about problems with the property has to be substantially less, because it was the fourth category down in the “other” section. The figure must therefore be considerably less than 18,000. That figure also relates to people who have been asked to move from a household in the past three years, so this represents a three-year figure, not just a one-year figure. We know that the figure is very small, but, whatever it is, it will include tenants who have complained but who did not have a genuine complaint, because the complaints in the survey were never verified.
In fewer than 18,000 households were tenants renting in the private sector asked to leave because of a complaint made about problems with their property. Even if the figure were 18,000, that would amount to only 0.7% of all households where the tenant left their rented property in the past three years. That means that fewer than 6,000 households a year were affected. We do not know the exact number, because the figures are too small to be helpful, as the statistician behind the English housing survey confirmed.
Another way of looking at this is provided by the Association of Residential Letting Agents, which has said of retaliatory eviction:
“A recent poll undertaken by possession specialists, Landlord Action, suggests it could be the reason behind around 2% of landlord possession claims.”
It is also important to consider that, according to the English housing survey for 2010-11, only 9% of tenancies ended at the request of the landlord. Based on those two pieces of research, we can conclude that the figure we are talking about is 2% of that 9%. So, according to the best evidence we have, retaliatory evictions might occur in only about 0.18% of tenancies, yet we are told that it is essential that we pass this Bill today. Given that the English housing survey suggests that there are currently almost 4 million tenancies in the UK, that 0.18% would equate to approximately 7,120 tenancies ending in retaliatory eviction.
Richard Lambert, chief executive officer at the National Landlords Association, has said of retaliatory eviction that
“it should not be confused with using the no fault possession procedure to end a tenancy, which in the vast majority of cases is the final resort, not a response to a request for repairs or because landlords are out for revenge. We don’t talk about any other service provider seeking revenge from their customers and there is no reason to suspect landlords are any different. Sarah Teather’s private member’s Bill is aimed at tackling a perception of the ‘worst case scenario’, which is not the experience of the majority of renters who rely on private housing. There is a lack of hard evidence to support a need for the changes proposed”.
How well do the official figures that I have given to the House tally with the claims being made by those in favour of the Bill? Not very well—
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), many of whose concerns about this legislation I share. As I said in an earlier intervention, this area has long been of interest to me, since I was a Minister in the Department of the Environment when we introduced the Housing Act 1988, which deregulated the private rented sector and, in so doing, generated so much more activity in the sector and provided so many more opportunities for people both to rent and to let properties. We got rid of the enormous scandal of hundreds of thousands of properties being kept empty because landlords feared that, once a tenant was in place, they would be unable to regain vacant possession. It is against that background that I look at this Bill.
I am worried that such a Bill, which is intended to change the balance—it certainly would—between the landlord and the tenant in shorthold tenancies, might result in adverse consequences for the whole private rented housing market. It might deter new landlords from coming into the market and encourage existing landlords not to re-let and to leave the market. It might, completely contrary to the wishes and intentions of the Minister, reduce the availability of tenancies for people looking for somewhere to live. Against that background, we need to be circumspect in looking at the precise provisions of the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley dealt with the scale of the problem and sought to put it into perspective. He challenged the basis of the Shelter survey, which was relied upon by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) and by the Minister, although in his more recent intervention the Minister seems to have said that he was relying on anecdotal evidence, rather than any hard analysis. That is a rather irresponsible position for the Government to take. It is not the position that the Labour Government took and it is not the position that this Government took up to the time that the hon. Gentleman became the Minister.
My challenge to the Minister is this: given that the Bill is new regulation, has there been a regulatory impact assessment? I do not think so. This new regulation will impact adversely on the market. I would have thought it was a sine qua non of Government support for the Bill that they would have undertaken a proper regulatory impact assessment. If we had such an assessment before us, it would probably have been easier for my hon. Friend to make his argument. He would have been able to refer—[Interruption.] or not, as the case may be––to a regulatory impact assessment and thereby ensure that Second Reading of this important Bill was properly informed.
The impact is not just potentially on the rest of the private rented sector. The Bill will have an impact on the courts. It is clear that it will generate more business in the courts at a time when the Ministry of Justice—I have the privilege of serving on the Justice Committee—is under enormous pressure to reduce costs and the Courts Service is under great pressure, not least because of the reductions in the legal assistance that has been available to people bringing cases before the courts. The prospect of the Bill generating cases in the county court in which tenants represent themselves against small landlords who are seeking to regain possession of their property is a serious issue which needs to be addressed. It has not been touched on in the debate so far.
I draw attention to that aspect because of the wording in clause 1, which states:
“A section 21 notice may not be given in relation to an assured shorthold tenancy . . . within six months beginning with the day of service of a relevant notice in relation to the dwelling-house.”
It then sets out that that notice would be invalid in particular circumstances. Clause 1 (3) is key. It states:
“It is a defence to proceedings for an order under section 21 . . . in relation to an assured shorthold tenancy of a dwelling-house in England that—
(a) before the section 21 notice was given, the tenant made a relevant complaint in relation to the dwelling-house to the landlord or the relevant local housing authority, and
(b) subsection 4 applies.”
Subsection (4) says that if
“the relevant local housing authority has not decided whether to inspect the dwelling-house or the common parts”
or has decided to inspect them but has not carried out the inspection, or has conducted an inspection but has not decided whether to serve a relevant notice, or has decided to serve a relevant notice but the notice has not yet been served, in all those circumstances clause 1(3) would result in the section 21 proceedings not being able to go forward. That could give rise to a lot of litigation.
It has been assumed during this debate that local housing authorities act expeditiously and conscientiously in dealing with these issues. However, as we heard earlier, there is evidence that, because of a lack of resources, local housing departments and environmental health officers can be reluctant to engage in this kind of activity because it is expensive. Although they have a statutory duty to inspect dwelling houses that have been the subject of a complaint, they often do nothing about it and allow the matter to lapse.
Given that local housing authorities are not even inspecting all the dwelling houses with repair problems that they are obliged to inspect under their existing statutory duties, it is inevitable that a significant period of time—possibly many weeks—will elapse while they decide whether to carry out inspections under the Bill. If an authority did decide to inspect a dwelling house, it would take even longer for the inspection to be carried out. Then it would have to look at the results and decide whether to issue a relevant notice. If so, the matter would be referred to the legal department and in due course the notice could be served. The whole process, it is no exaggeration to suggest, could take at least six months. Throughout that time, the landlord seeking to regain possession of his property under section 21 would be unable to do so because of the interaction of clauses 1(3) and 1(4).
What would be the likely response of a landlord in this situation? They might well say, “I’m going to have to put pressure on the recalcitrant local housing authority to deliver on this, so I’ll go to the court to try to require it to reach a decision.” In many aspects of the world that we look at as Members of Parliament, the inability of regulatory and statutory authorities to make decisions is, in essence, the regulatory burden. The only remedy for that indecision is to go to the courts, and that leads to a lot of extra court work, as well as a lot of unfairness and injustice for the people involved. One of the biggest problems with clause 1 is the impact that it will have in the courts.
Clause 1(5) states that subsection (1) does not apply where the relevant notice has been wholly revoked under section 16 of the Housing Act 2004, where it has been quashed or where a decision of the relevant housing authority to refuse to revoke has been reversed in three different sets of circumstances, which I will not recite. Those are all very narrow situations, but the bigger question is: what will happen if the tenant acts in a way designed to try to delay eviction or to frustrate the process of recovery of the property by the landlord?
The Minister and the hon. Member for Brent Central, who introduced the Bill, kept on emphasising that it was fair as between landlord and tenant and that there was an opportunity to ensure that if the notice was being challenged on unreasonable grounds, that could be dealt with by the courts. That is where clause 2 comes into play, but I submit that that is not fairly expressed. For example, clause 2(2) states:
“Subsection (3) of section 1 does not apply if the court considers that the relevant complaint is totally without merit.”
How will it be possible to find out whether a complaint is “totally without merit”? That is obviously a subjective judgment that would have to be made by a court. Assertions would be made by one side and counter-assertions by the other. The process of establishing that will take a significant amount of time, even when the notice has been served prior to the landlord seeking to exercise his section 21 rights.
Stephen Williams
To reply to the hon. Gentleman’s point about what would happen in the event of a delay, if a section 21 notice is given, there would have to be two months’ notice and it is our view that that would be sufficient time for a council to go into a property and assess whether the repairs or safety measures need to be undertaken.
Stephen Williams
I am sure the hon. Gentleman is not being mischievous, but what I said was that if a section 21 notice is given, it is for two months and that ought to be sufficient time for a local authority to go into a property to assess whether the repairs or safety measures need to be undertaken.
Mr Chope
I am sorry my hon. Friend does not understand it. This is a serious Bill—I think it should have been a Government Bill, frankly. It contains changes to existing legislation which are potentially of significant impact. I think there should have been a regulatory impact assessment associated with the Bill.
Stephen Williams
The hon. Gentleman wants it to be a Government-supported Bill, and I have already indicated that the Government support its having a Second Reading and therefore proceeding to Committee. I have also indicated that the Government had some technical amendments to put down, addressing some of the points raised. If he wants those points to be raised in detail in Committee, he must allow a Second Reading. He could help us all in that by now sitting down.
Mr Chope
I do not know whether the Minister is being intentionally disingenuous, but if the Government introduced this legislation it would be a Government Bill in Government time. The Government are now trying effectively to usurp private Members’ time for Government business, and that is what the Minister has just admitted. This has taken up the whole of a Friday that should be given over to genuine Back-Bench debates on issues of concern to Back Benchers. If the Government think this is such an important Bill and want to get it on the statute book, they could get some of its provisions on the statute book by amending the legislation that is currently going through the other place.