Private Rented Sector

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I am grateful for that intervention because I entirely share the hon. Gentleman’s outrage at the suggestion that these practices are taking place. As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) said, there are already powers to deal with that, but it is important that they are used and enforced, and I hope very much that local authorities and police forces around the country will look closely at any evidence presented to them by “Panorama” or anyone else.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The question from my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) was not just about race discrimination, but about discrimination against tenants who depend on benefits to pay their rents. Is there any remedy for that?

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Lady will understand that obviously private owners of properties have some rights to decide who they let their property to, but I feel that it would be very strongly in the interests of all private landlords to work closely with people who are in receipt of local housing allowance and ensure that they too can access properties in the private market.

We will do nothing to undermine confidence in the long-term prospects of the rental market and drive away the institutional investors we need to expand the number of rental properties and improve their quality, but that would be the precise effect of the rent controls that the Leader of the Opposition proposes.

I hope hon. Members will forgive a brief foray into basic micro-economics, but I do think it is important in this debate. Owners of properties have a choice: they can either sell them and invest the money elsewhere, or rent them out. The more institutions we can persuade to invest in owning and renting property, the more options will be available to would-be tenants and the more likely it is that those who want longer tenancies with predictable rent reviews will be able to find landlords who are willing to offer them.

If, however, investors in rental property think that their costs may increase while their rents are capped, they will do one of two things: they will either insist on a much higher rent up front, increasing the costs tenants face, or they will decide to sell the property into today’s buoyant housing market and invest the money elsewhere. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East is a highly intelligent woman and a much better economist than I am. She knows that this is the reality of the rental market, so why has she come to the House today with such an obviously idiotic policy? There are reasons.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one reason why it would be incalculable is that Southampton, like Slough, has very full schools, and for many parents, the anxiety of moving a long way away from their children’s school completely destroys their sense of security and their family life?

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend could almost have been on my shoulder during my constituency surgeries. I have heard from parents who have been forced to move homes across the city and to take two or three children to different schools. Through no fault of their own, they face disruption to their lives, and it is absolutely corrosive to family life.

Let me explain why I am so disappointed today. Last October, the Department for Communities and Local Government said that it would support longer-term tenancies with predictable rents. It said:

“Tenants will be able to request longer tenancies that provide stability for their families, avoid hidden fees when renting a home and demand a fair deal from their landlords and letting agencies.”

I had thought that that was about changing the market for the better, but what we hear today is that there is a series of proposals in the pipeline that will simply persuade good landlords to be a little better and good letting agencies to be a little kinder. The proposals will make no difference to those agencies that are beyond the pale when it comes to voluntary arrangements or to those landlords who simply do not play by the rules, so business as usual will continue.

Renters in Southampton also need to know that their homes will be of a decent standard. They do not want to be faced with massive fuel bills or leaky, draughty homes. All too often in constituency surgeries, I hear about those who sign up for a lease and then find out that their room or their home is not remotely what they thought it would be. This is yet another area where the Government started down the road of good intention and then stopped. The Energy Act 2011—the last Energy Act but one—stipulated that all properties to be rented from 2018 onwards should be above code F and G, which would ensure that they could be let only if they were reasonably warm and secure. However, such a measure requires secondary legislation, and three years after that legislation was passed, no regulations have been laid.

I have it on good authority that the DCLG is blocking the laying of those regulations. As they have to be laid by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, DCLG is saying that it would be too bureaucratic and costly to implement the legislation. Recent research has shown that landlords across the country would have to spend only about £1,500 to update their properties to meet that standard. If that information is correct, it is shocking. There needs to be a basic understanding that if someone rents a home it will be of good quality, the tenant will be secure in it and the transaction between landlord and tenant will be a fair deal. All the cards are stacked against tenants, and regulation is needed to make sure that the deal is fair. If DCLG is preventing the implementation of legislation that could make sure that homes were of a decent standard, it should get its act together and reverse the decision. I should like to hear from the Minister this afternoon that that is indeed what the Department will do.