Tenant Fees Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 5th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

May I first draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?

One of the many effects of the housing crisis is the sheer amount of people now forced into the private rented sector. It is for this reason that I am adamant that we must improve conditions for renters. The Liberal Democrats have fought long for renters’ rights, so I welcome and support this Bill. It is vital that we in Westminster ensure that tenants’ fees are abolished because of the transient nature of the private rented sector, particularly for young people. However, the housing crisis has also pushed many families into renting and, as we heard earlier, the leading cause of homelessness is the ending of a private rented sector tenancy.

While rental costs continue to spiral, people are becoming trapped. They cannot afford their rent, but nor can they afford to move because of the myriad administrative fees. We must ensure that the Bill fully ends the practice of tenants’ fees. However, as the Bill is currently drafted, there are still loopholes around default fees. The Secretary of State’s amendments go some way towards closing the gap, and ensuring that letting agents and landlords do not introduce new fees under a different name. However, the text of the Bill is still too ambiguous, leaving what constitutes a reasonable cost to the discretion of landlords or letting agents. We must also provide local authorities with appropriate funding to enforce the ban. If local authorities have no resources to enforce it, landlords and letting agents will just continue with this unreasonable practice.

I urge the Secretary of State to listen to the concerns raised today. Otherwise he will undermine legislation that could really make a difference to people’s lives. There is little merit in introducing legislation with obvious loopholes that allow individuals to continue with a practice that we want to stop. There is also very little merit in introducing legislation that we cannot enforce due to the lack of resources.

We currently have about 5 million households in the private rented sector. Today we are beginning to tackle letting fees, but there must be more wholesale reform of the private rented sector. For example, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I believe that there must be compulsory registration of landlords, that there must be public access to the Government’s database of rogue landlords, and that those landlords should not be able to obtain a licence for houses in multiple occupation.

This Bill is, in good measure, the result of the hard work put in by my Liberal Democrat colleagues in the other place. I look forward to further improvements as the Bill progresses.