Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Williams and Tony Baldry

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

Where there are horror stories, local authorities have powers to act. They can serve an improvement notice on a landlord. If a landlord does not take action, the local authority can take action itself. The consultation document looks at other measures that might be put in place. For instance, when equipment in a property is found to be defective, perhaps the redress should be a rent refund for the tenant. That would probably concentrate landlords’ minds.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Given that people are four times more likely to die in a fire if there is no smoke alarm installed in their home, have we not got to the situation where, if a private landlord does not install and properly maintain an alarm in the home, they are breaching a common law duty to properly look after their tenants and could be sued for breaching that duty of care?

[Stephen Williams]

My right hon. Friend is asking me to look back at my notes from more than 20 years ago about the law of tort to see whether that is the case. We are considering whether such powers should be introduced. I understand that smoke alarms are not mandatory in social housing either, so perhaps there are two houses to be put in order, as it were.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Williams and Tony Baldry

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point on discretionary housing payments for last year. Of course, last year those payments were in place to deal with differences in the private rental sector. I wish Opposition Members would remember that the Labour Government introduced tight controls on the funding of spare bedrooms in the private rental sector. Some 43% of people in my constituency rent in the private rental sector. I do not recall much protest from Labour Members at that time.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Following on from that answer, am I right in thinking that the rules on housing benefit for those in social housing are now broadly the same as the rules on housing benefit for those in the private rented sector, and that the latter rules were introduced by the previous Government? Is there any reason why those on housing benefit in social housing should have different rules from those on housing benefit in the private rented sector?

[Stephen Williams]

My hon. Friend has neatly followed the logic of what I said in my previous answer. There is a logic behind the reforms that this Government have introduced. Throughout the entire 13 years that the previous Government were in office, they had tight controls on the private rental sector and tightened them further. I do not recall a single Labour Member describing that as Labour’s bedroom tax on the majority of people, certainly in city centres like mine and that of the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who rent in the private sector. The rules are now aligned.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Stephen Williams and Tony Baldry

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

The new clause as drafted, which has been exhaustively considered by the advisers of the British Humanist Association and passed by the Department, has its own version of a triple lock, one part of which states that the organisation in question, such as humanism, must be registered as a charity. I do not believe that the charity commissioners of England and Wales would register as a charity Jedi knights, white knights, druids, pagans or anyone else whom the hon. Gentleman wishes to conjure up, so they would not come under the provisions of the new clause.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The House will know, because it is a matter of record, that I am a freemason. Freemasons are registered as a charity. I do not know whether people in England want to see the introduction of masonic weddings. As the new clause has not been properly consulted on, and there has not been time for proper consideration of all its ramifications, it leads the hon. Gentleman into all sorts of areas that have not been properly construed. There has been no proper opportunity for the House to take the advice of the Attorney-General.

I say to the hon. Member for Rhondda that during the past couple of days I have been a bit confused as to which are wrecking amendments and which are not. I am still trying to work out whether the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) was a genuine amendment or a wrecking amendment. I am really not quite sure whether this new clause is a genuine amendment or a wrecking amendment, because it is difficult to see how Parliament, and certainly the other place, could allow the Bill as amended by the new clause to go forward without a serious delay while there was proper consultation to think through the ramifications.