Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of potential conflicts of interest in circumstances where the board members of deposit protection schemes are also landlords who choose to lodge deposits with the same scheme; and if he will make it his policy to require landlords to lodge deposits with deposit protection schemes with which they have no governance involvement.

Landlords are required by law to protect a deposit in relation to most Assured Shorthold Tenancies and are free to choose with which government-authorised scheme they protect a tenant’s deposit.

The TDP providers are private companies that are operationally independent of Government. TDP providers are contractually obliged to avoid any conflict of interest arising which prejudices the independence and objectivity of the service provided.