Housing and Planning Act 2016 (Database of Rogue Landlords and Property Agents) Regulations 2018

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I support the intentions of the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. I am grateful to the Minister for his letter of 6 April in which he updated us on the introduction of a database of rogue landlords and property agents, together with the powers being introduced to enable serious and prolific offenders to be banned from operating. I welcome these steps. They are proportionate, legitimate and in the public interest.

However, these changes have taken a while—indeed too long—to reach this stage and I remain concerned that the support from these Benches for an open register of rogue landlords has yet to bear fruit. The letter from the Minister says specifically that his department is,

“exploring a range of options to make the information on the database publicly available”.

Can he tell us what that range of options is, the nature of the consultation and when the exploration will become a decision? I also noted doubt in the Minister’s letter as to whether primary legislation was required. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, mentioned this; I am surprised that it is not already known. Could the Minister clarify why the department is not clear on this matter? It seems a straightforward issue to give a clear answer on.

The Government are to give local authorities the right to publish information drawn from their own records about banned or convicted landlords or property agents and those who have received a civil penalty. But the nature of that publication is not clear. It seems it can be made available to individual tenants—and presumably, therefore, to prospective tenants, although that is not actually stated. I will give the Minister an example of a problem that might well arise in the functioning of this scheme. A prospective tenant wishes to know from the local authority in which their tenancy will be held whether the landlord is a rogue landlord. It is possible that the landlord is not a rogue landlord in that local authority, but it is equally possible that they are a rogue landlord in a neighbouring authority for the reason that a landlord may own properties in more than one local authority. Will that status in a neighbouring local authority be made available to the prospective tenant and will the local authority be permitted to add to its own register and publish details of those rogue landlords who reside in another area? Or will a rogue landlord in one local authority automatically become a rogue landlord in every other local authority in the country?

The Government have an improving record in some areas of private tenant protection. I cite as an example proposals on client protection moneys and progress in the proposal to ban letting fees. However, it is extraordinarily slow, and I have not understood why. However, mandatory electrical safety checks need to be done, and nothing seems to be happening there. Despite the progress being made, rogue landlords remain a big issue. After a great deal of thought I have concluded that, to be effective, a register has to be transparent and open but it also needs to be correct. For that reason, all local authorities need to follow the same clear procedures. What is stopping the Government proceeding on that basis, creating an open register that is publicly available? That seems the only way to protect tenants and prospective tenants.

Many good landlords fully understand the importance of high standards. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, pointed out, there is huge support among residential landlords for effective policies which deliver solutions in protecting tenants to be delivered. However, although some of the improvements the Government have made are welcome, much more needs to be done to ensure that prospective tenants and tenants are properly protected.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, I support the principle behind this Motion, but the issue is wider than this. The Government are extraordinarily reluctant to have dealings with local authorities. I declare my interest in the register as a landlord of two flats in a block which is absolutely under threat from holiday lets, and the local authority can do nothing because powers have been taken away from it. There is some reluctance to give power back to local authorities. They need it; they are the people who are closest on the ground. They were able to charge a fee for registration, and, under that, they were able then to check whether your property was correctly detailed as regards the certificates referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley—the gas and electricity certificates and others that are required. For some reason, the Government just do not want to do this. I do not know why, when it is having such a disastrous effect on so many parts of the country.

No one wants to see things going wrong for people who are good landlords. But, when I was helping in the case of a homeless person earlier this year, I am sure that I told your Lordships’ House at the time how people were willing to offer her accommodation in houses of multiple occupation, provided she never told anyone she was there—because they were illegal and were not registered. Indeed, she was evicted because she had had the police in because her things were being stolen, and immediately the landlord had threatened her physically and she had to get out in a hurry—the police said, “You’re at risk there”.

She was then homeless and had to go wherever she could. She went to hostels, where sometimes at night she would be in such a bad way that the doctor would say, “All those marks you’ve got on you are from bed bugs. You mustn’t go back there again”. It really is a most disastrous situation for so many people. When local authorities were able to charge a fee for you to register, it just about covered their expenses in carrying out any necessary checks. Philip Hammond has announced that he wants people to pay tax on these illegal rents—and of course they should, because it is totally disproportionate for someone to collect in some cases a heap of money for an ill-used and unprepared place.

The whole principle has to be much wider. Although I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, I would not support him at this stage because I hope for much more. It is time the Government woke up to the fact that they have wonderful people available in local authorities. Some local authorities also work together, which again could cover the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, about the adjoining or some other local authority. So the structure is there; it is just that the Government are for some reason reluctant to adopt it. I support the principle behind the Motion.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for bringing forward this regret Motion. We share his deep frustration that this legislation is not already in place—if indeed legislation is necessary. In every possible debate on this issue, during the passage of what became the Housing and Planning Act 2016, during the passage of my Private Member’s Bill on tenants’ rights in 2016, and in numerous other debates, the case was clearly made. Tenants should have the right to know if their landlord, or possible future landlord, is on the database of rogue landlords and property agents. But every time the argument from the Government was against, primarily on the grounds of data issues. On some of these occasions it was about economics and once, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, pointed out, it was a human rights issue.

If any of the amendments on this issue in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 had been accepted by the Government, as they should have been at the time, or if they had been accepted in my Private Member’s Bill, we would not be having this debate now. So when the Minister explained in his letter dated 6 April 2018 that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is now exploring options when there were so many chances before, it seems extraordinary.

While I welcome this change of heart, I fear that this will be another lengthy process—and, frankly, tenants have waited long enough. I have two other examples of where tenants have been waiting for too long. First, there is the lettings fee ban, which I was delighted came in in the Autumn Statement after my Private Member’s Bill—but that was in autumn 2016. The pace is so slow that it is predicted that it will not reach the statute book until the spring of 2019. The electrical safety working group finished its work in 2016 and reached the conclusion that mandatory checks should be introduced. That is another example of where tenants are having to wait so long for any results. Today’s report from the Resolution Foundation makes it clear that whether they are young or old, or with or without children, the number of people who rent and will be renting for the whole of their life is increasing. Indeed, it says that one in three millennials will never own at all.

So the time is now to treat tenants as valued consumers in society. A vast majority—nearly 80%—pay their rent in full and on time. However, as we know from the efforts being made by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, in his Private Member’s Bill on creditworthiness, they continue to be treated almost as second-class citizens in the UK. Even when it comes to a simple thing such as buying something on credit, they are given a much higher interest rate.