Oral Answers to Questions

Harriet Harman Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

Not least as a result of difficulties in being able to afford to buy a home, 9 million people are now renting. That figure includes 1.3 million families with children, for whom security and continuity are particularly important. Does the Deputy Prime Minister back our plans to move from one-year tenancies with unpredictable rents, to three-year tenancies with predictable rents? Will he back our proposal to stop letting agencies charging tenants as well as landlords?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. and learned Lady makes an important point about the virtues of longer-term tenancies. We are working on a model tenancy agreement that will support tenants and families who want a longer fixed-term tenancy, and will publish the final agreement in the summer.

Although the right hon. and learned Lady rightly identifies the problem on agencies’ charges, the solution that she suggests may lead to higher rental costs for people renting properties. That is why we will announce today that we will place new obligations on agents to publish with full transparency the fees that they charge, so that people can shop around and get the best deal available.

[Ms Harman]

But transparency is not good enough. We need to be sure that letting agents do not rip tenants off by, as well as charging the landlords, charging the tenants. There will be a vote in the House today. Will he vote with us to protect people in rented accommodation, or will he back the Tories in standing up for the rip-off letting agencies?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I explained, we all share the right hon. and learned Lady’s concern about those charges. We just want to make sure that the solution does not make the situation worse, because once rents go up, they tend to stay up.

The fundamental problem, for which her party bears a heavy responsibility, is that we are simply not building enough affordable homes in this country, and have not done so for a long period. Under the previous Government, fewer social homes were built than under the Thatcher Government. Now, the rate of affordable house building is higher than it has been in the past 20 years.