Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

We have a manifesto commitment to more tree-lined streets. I would point my hon. Friend to the new Environment Bill, which will be coming forward. However, she is quite right: we do need to have green spaces and to maintain our ancient woodland. We all want to live in a nice and beautiful environment, and that is certainly something a Conservative party in government will hope to achieve.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The Government’s future homes standard would prevent councils from setting higher energy efficiency standards than national building regulations demand, while also watering down the impact of building regulations by allowing homes to pass the standard if their carbon emissions are reduced by general decarbonisation of the national grid, which will mean that homes can still be poorly insulated and meet the new standard. In what way does the Secretary of State think this is remotely fit for purpose as a response to the climate emergency? Will he rethink these proposals to equip our councils to go further and faster in reducing carbon emissions and to ensure that new homes will not have to be retrofitted in the future?

[Christopher Pincher]

I think that a target of reducing emissions by 75% from 2025 is ambitious. It is very clear that the more stringent targets we are setting mean that it may not be necessary for councils to set different local standards. We have had a consultation, which closed on 7 February. More than 3,000 submissions were made to the consultation from big builders to think-tanks to local authorities, and we shall certainly be listening to that and taking it into account.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I speak in this important debate as someone who has been a member of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for the last five years. As a Committee, we have had regular engagement with survivors and bereaved families and have undertaken regular scrutiny of successive Government Ministers. The survivors are remarkable in their courage, dignity and commitment to one another and to justice, and I pay tribute to them.

It is absolutely shocking and unacceptable that 10 families are still in temporary accommodation two and a half years on from the Grenfell Tower disaster. The process of rehousing survivors has been far too slow—that it is still ongoing at all now is inexcusable. I understand that there are some complex individual circumstances, but the fact remains that some actions were taken by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea early on in the response that contributed to the ongoing delays, including the failure to undertake sufficiently detailed assessments of housing need before properties were purchased, resulting in homes being bought that survivors could not live in, either because of physical constraints or the impact of the trauma—for example, an understandable terror of living at height.

The lack of clarity on cladding is also a disgrace. The Government have still not tested, identified and specified in a transparent way all the types of cladding that are installed on buildings in the UK, leaving thousands living with constant anxiety about whether the cladding on their building is or is not flammable and whether their lives are therefore at risk when they go to bed at night. We do know, however, that there are cladding types in addition to ACM that are flammable, and yet the funding for removal is limited to ACM. Grenfell brought to light the scandal of unsafe cladding. It is now for the Government to identify comprehensively all the types of flammable cladding on buildings in the UK and fund their removal.

The Government announced this week that they would reduce the height above which flammable cladding is banned from 18 stories to 11 stories. For the survivors who have contacted me, this is simply not good enough. ACM cladding is tantamount to soaking the outside of a building in petrol. They can see no justification for any resident at any height or none being asked to live in such circumstances, and I agree. After Grenfell, the Government promised to address the issues raised about how people living in social housing are treated. The promised White Paper on social housing must be grasped as the opportunity to deliver a legacy for Grenfell. The Government must ensure that people living in social housing are treated with dignity and respect, live in safe buildings and have repairs, complaints and concerns addressed quickly and that all landlords are robustly regulated, whether in the social or private sectors, with swift access to redress for tenants and penalties for landlords who are found in breach of their responsibilities.

This is not just about regulation, however, but about funding. Tory cuts to the funding for social housing mean that a council such as Southwark, which covers part of my constituency, has lost £60 million over the past four years from its housing revenue account. Without proper resourcing, the services tenants need and deserve will be stretched to the very limit.

Grenfell United has continued to express concerns about the inquiry panel and, in particular, would like to see a member of the panel with expertise on culture who understands how social housing tenants are sometimes treated when they raise complaints and how some organisations can foster an environment in which tenants raising serious service failings or health and safety concerns are far too easily dismissed. I hope the Government will listen to the survivors and seek to recruit a panel member who understands these issues without further delay.

Among many important recommendations, Sir Martin Moore-Bick recommends that all high-rise buildings have floor numbers clearly marked on each landing and stairwell, yet during the general election campaign, canvassing in many different constituencies, I came across public and privately owned buildings where even this basic and straightforward recommendation had not yet been implemented, meaning that, in the event of another serious fire, the emergency services and residents would again be hampered in their efforts to evacuate the building safely for want of such basic information. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that building owners are clear about their responsibilities and ensure their implementation? There is no excuse for delaying the installation of simple signage that could save lives.

The Grenfell families and the wider north Kensington community have suffered a trauma and loss that runs very deep. They will continue to need support, particularly with both physical and mental health, for the long term. Will the Minister commit to that support, particularly in terms of liaising with the Department of Health and Social Care to secure additional NHS resources, so that whatever the ongoing long-term consequences of this tragedy continue to be for the community, no one will feel abandoned?

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

As my hon. Friend knows, the Department spends an enormous amount of time and energy promoting Help to Buy to those who are eligible, and the new Help to Buy scheme, which will come in once the current scheme finishes, will be targeted very carefully at first-time buyers. I am more than happy to take any suggestions she may have for how we can focus it more on those on lower incomes.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

There is a £3.1 billion gap in funding for children’s services and a £4.3 billion gap in funding for adult social care, but, eight months before the start of the new financial year, local authorities have no idea what their funding settlement will be for the coming financial year or beyond it. What is the Secretary of State doing to address this crisis in local government funding, which is affecting the most vulnerable residents in communities up and down the country every single day? Why is he being so complacent?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)]

Far from being complacent, the Government are working hard to ensure that local authorities receive the support that they need, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen). We know about the importance of children’s services, and the importance of ensuring that all authorities benefit from best practice from places such as Leeds, Hertfordshire and North Yorkshire. We are funding those authorities so that they can spread that best practice throughout the country, transforming the lives of children everywhere.

High Streets and Town Centres in 2030

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I welcome this report, and add my thanks to the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), and everyone who contributed to it.

Town centres and high streets matter because they are the hearts of our communities. They are the places where people come together to access goods and services, to meet each other and to enjoy leisure time. People often feel a strong sense of connection to their place and they enjoy local distinctiveness as part of their identity. People enjoy the relationships they have in their local town centres, with the shopkeepers and café owners who serve them, with the voluntary sector organisations they encounter, and with the public services that they can access in such locations.

Our report found that unlike in the 1990s, when high street decline was linked to the wider economic recession, and the threat of the internet was only beginning to loom on the horizon, the issues facing town centres now are much more fundamental and structural. I will high light a number of issues covered by the report that are affecting the town centres and high streets in my constituency.

Whether in West Norwood, East Dulwich, Brixton West Dulwich, Dulwich Village, Herne Hill or Crystal Palace, I am proud of the distinctiveness of the town centres and high streets in my constituency, the independent businesses, which serve their communities, and the sense of place and community, which they help to foster. Businesses in my constituency are really suffering. Rents in London are going up, and rents feed into the calculation of business rates. One owner of a hugely popular, much-loved local shop contacted me to say that following the recent revaluation, his rateable value had increased by 110%, and his bill by 34% once transitional relief had been applied. Added to that, he told me that he is being squeezed by increases in employers’ national insurance contributions and his rent. His turnover is substantially down as a direct result of online competition.

In West Norwood next week we will see the closure of the last bank in the town centre, when Barclays shuts its doors for the last time. That is a particular blow in an area with a high number of elderly and disabled residents, and one that will further increase financial exclusion in that part of my constituency and harm the wider town centre. Trade will be driven away as people go to other places for their essential banking transactions and choose to spend their money elsewhere.

The relaxation of permitted development rights is already a disaster, resulting in poor-quality homes in the wrong locations and no affordable housing or contribution to services and facilities. The good examples of office-to-residential conversion generally would have achieved planning consent in any event, so PDR has simply facilitated the delivery of poor-quality homes. For town centres, the Government have proposed further expansion of permitted development rights to enable shops to be converted to residential. That would be an unmitigated disaster for town centres. It is true that in many town centres there is too much retail space, but how and where to reduce that and introduce other uses is a strategic decision that should be taken by the local authority, in consultation with the community. Allowing landlords that freedom runs the risk of gap-toothed high streets up and down the country, rather than the sensible consolidation of a retail heart where it is needed.

Our report is right to identify the critical nature of strong local authority leadership in supporting healthy town centres, but planning departments have been cut to the bone under nine years of austerity. Thriving town centres need a strong vision, effective partnerships between councils, businesses and the community and investment in the public realm, increasingly with a focus on sustainability and climate change at their heart. We need to clean up the air in town centres, deliver safe routes for walking and cycling and create pleasant open spaces resilient to hotter summers and wetter weather. That simply cannot be done with current resources. Government must invest in and empower local authorities to play the leadership role on behalf of our towns centres that we know can be so effective.

I want to return to the issue of business rates. A fundamental problem for our town centres is that business rates do not reflect the value that people place on their local high street. They penalise town centre retailers in more expensive property, to the benefit of internet-based businesses operating out of low-value warehouses. It is the job of the taxation system to redistribute resources according to the public goods that communities value. Town centres are one such public good. The value of the relationship that an isolated elderly person has with their local shopkeeper does not appear on any balance sheet. Our taxation system must take account of that value and redistribute resources to serve our town centres.

It is for the Government to provide the policy and taxation regime that can support our town centres, whether by creating an obligation for banks to provide branch-based services in every community in the country, redistributing businesses rates to support our town centres or investing in our local authorities to equip and enable them to play a leadership role. The Government are not doing enough; they must show more leadership.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Wheeler]

The hon. Lady is obviously prescient. When the Government concluded the last fundamental review of business rates, we decided to keep business rates as a property tax, following stakeholder responses. Respondents agreed that business rates are easy to collect, difficult to avoid, relatively stable and clearly linked with local authority spending. Some respondents suggested alternative tax bases. However, Select Committee members and others may wish to know that there was no consensus on an alternative base, and that even those respondents who put forward alternatives were clear that they were not without issues. To finish on business rates, the Government are committed to listening to views and will keep all taxes under review.

[Helen Hayes]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mrs Wheeler]

I have not got time.

[Helen Hayes]

I will be extremely brief. This issue is killing businesses across the country now. I am afraid that saying the Government generally keep it under review, along with all other taxes, simply does not cut it for businesses in our town centres.

[Mrs Wheeler]

I have outlined how the Government are helping local businesses with many, many millions of pounds, and with £6 billion-worth of relief, so I think the hon. Lady is slightly over-egging it.

Another issue that has been highlighted is our undertaking a planning consultation on permitted development rights to help support change on the high street. Permitted development rights continue to play an important role in the planning system, supporting key Government agendas such as housing and high streets by providing more planning certainty while allowing for local consideration of key planning matters.

To put the hon. Member for Sheffield South East’s mind at rest on local plans and permitted development rights, where a local planning authority considers it necessary to protect a local amenity or the wellbeing of an area, it can consult the local community by removing a right by making an article 4 direction. Proposals for development can change, and a change of use would require a planning permission application.

Equally, on the point from the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) about poor quality homes being delivered through permitted development rights, permitted development rights have actually provided 46,000 really important homes that needed to be built. However, we are particularly keen to ensure that the quality of all new homes meets our ambitions, so in the spring statement we announced a review of permitted development rights for the conversion of buildings to residential properties, in respect of the quality and standard of homes.

Because the Government believe in the high street, we run the Great British High Street awards, with Visa, to celebrate the achievements of our communities and high streets. The awards are a great way of bringing together local players and focusing minds on high streets. In entering the awards, local authorities, businesses and communities work together and get local people talking about their high street, letting local leadership emerge. Last month, I was delighted to launch the 2019 competition in Crickhowell, the town that took the top prize in 2018. I am sure that Committee members will join me in wishing this year’s entrants the best of luck.

We encourage all those with an interest in high streets, particularly landlords and retailers, to consider how they can take the Committee’s recommendations on board in their own decision-making processes. We agree wholeheartedly with the Committee that the elements raised today form part of a bigger whole.

This is a package of interconnected measures to help local areas make their high streets and town centres fit for the future. The different elements will work together to have a real impact on high streets and town centres in adapting and evolving and in becoming vibrant hubs once again. I believe that the benefits of this will be felt more widely, helping to deliver local growth and real change in our communities. This growth will be shaped by the Government’s industrial strategy, which sets out the long- term plan to boost productivity by backing businesses to create good jobs and will increase the earning power of people throughout the UK with investment in skills, infrastructure and places. I once again congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield South East on securing the debate, and I thank hon. Members for their speeches and questions and the Committee for its helpful recommendations.

My local high street in Swadlincote is thriving, my wonderful South Derbyshire District Council has no car parking charges in any of its council car parks, and we moved the market back down the high street, making it a vibrant place to be. I am sure that, as the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman) said, we all have marvellous examples that show how our high streets can get back to being the best places that they can be. The challenge of rebalancing the functions of our high streets and town centres is a real priority for us across the nation. Having adapted successfully before to new demands, we believe that places can and will do so again.

Housing

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The Minister spoke of the difficulty of quantifying Government targets for different types of housing. This is what can be quantified: the 1.25 million people on the waiting list for social housing, the 123,000 children living in temporary accommodation, and the fact that more than 99% of homes to rent in the private sector in Lambeth and Southwark have rent that is above the local housing allowance cap.

This Government are failing, as the coalition did before them, by cutting the subsidy for new social housing, redefining affordable housing to make a mockery of the word “affordable”, penalising residents with the bedroom tax, and lining the pockets of shoddy developers such as Persimmon and unscrupulous private sector landlords. The Government are also presiding over the disastrous relaxation of the rules on permitted development rights. In the time left available to me, it is this policy that I will focus on.

The expansion of permitted development rights is delivering poor quality homes in former office buildings up and down the country, resulting in children playing in industrial estate car parks, poor fire safety standards, and homes that are not homes but essentially hotels by the back door that are let out through Airbnb and other platforms for short-term lets. Most shockingly, having introduced this major planning reform, the Government have undertaken no evaluation of its impact and propose further expansions that would enable developers to demolish and rebuild office buildings without planning permission.

This policy is removing quality control and democratic accountability from housing delivery. Councils and communities have no say, and the developers who profit from these developments make no contribution to local community needs or the delivery of genuinely affordable housing. In many areas, the expansion of permitted development rights is delivering the slums of tomorrow and the fire safety horrors of tomorrow. This is happening on the Minister’s watch.

I therefore urge the Minister to do one small practical thing: to halt the expansion of permitted development rights while a full evaluation of its impact is undertaken, and to restore housing delivery to the full democratic control of local authority planning departments, which can decide where their communities need new housing, say where it should be built, and secure affordable housing contributions and funding for community facilities, so that we build not the slums of tomorrow but the high-quality, sustainable, affordable communities that this country so desperately needs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The permanent secretary recently confirmed at the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that the Government have undertaken no evaluation of the impact of permitted development rights since they were expanded in 2013. While the Minister states that more than 46,000 homes have been delivered under the policy, he can have no accurate idea of the quality of those homes. Amid increasing reports of appalling quality, unsafe homes being delivered under permitted development rights, will he pause this policy so that a proper evaluation can be undertaken?

[Kit Malthouse]

There is obviously a concerted attack taking place against permitted development rights, which I find distressing, given the sheer number of homes that they have produced for people who are desperate for those homes. As I have said, all homes, whether under permitted development rights or normal planning permission, have to comply with building regulations, and it is down to local authorities to ensure that that is the case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

It is always a pleasure to be greeted by impatient Members who, as I say, want more housing for the next generation. My hon. Friend is right: we need to constantly examine the effect of the planning system on the production of new homes. As he says, we issued a new planning framework back in July. We are carefully assessing the impact of those policies, but if my hon. Friend has useful and constructive suggestions, I shall be more than happy to hear them.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The Government’s expansion of permitted development rights has caused multiple problems across the country. Such developments make no section 106 contributions towards new social housing. There are reports of homes of appalling quality, with children forced to play in car parks on industrial estates, and of homes in some areas being used only for short-term holiday lets, while developments in other areas are causing the loss of valuable employment space. Last week, the permanent secretary confirmed to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that the Government had undertaken no evaluation of this policy. Will the Secretary of State call time on the policy, so that a full evaluation of the impacts can be undertaken?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There seems to be a competition between what I would call parliamentary essayists today. That was an extremely eloquent essay—very erudite—but we could do with a paragraph.

Deaths of Homeless People

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

My right hon. Friend asks about the evidence. I point him to the Office for National Statistics data that has been released this morning, showing that 190 estimated deaths of homeless people in 2017 were due to drug poisoning; that is 32% of the total number. Alcohol-specific causes accounted for 62 deaths and suicides for 78 deaths, respectively 10% and 13% of the estimated deaths. There is no doubt that drugs and alcohol addiction are a core component of the challenges that we are seeing, which is why we are putting in place additional support. I am profoundly concerned about the implications of new psychoactive substances such as Spice, and the impact that they have had in places such as Manchester and certain parts of London. We are providing additional training and support in relation to those substances and their links to rough sleeping, but we must equally continue to take a very firm approach to drugs.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The tragedy of hundreds of homeless people dying on our streets is shocking, appalling and shameful, but it is not surprising. It is an inevitable consequence of the Government’s failure to address the root causes of rising homelessness. Research from Shelter shows that the Government’s arbitrary benefits cap is now so low that it is not possible for some households, especially households with children, to even cover the cost of rent in the cheapest areas of the country. Will the Government review the cap and remove this completely unnecessary driver of increased and prolonged homelessness?

[James Brokenshire]

There are a number of causes of people becoming homeless in the first place. For example, security of tenancy is a significant cause, which is why I have consulted on longer tenancies. I will continue to work with the Department for Work and Pensions on universal credit and, where there is evidence, on the links to homelessness. Where further changes may be needed, I will have those discussions with the Secretary of State.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

We will use the best available evidence to ensure that the relative needs and resources of councils up and down the country are properly taken into account to reflect a number of the important points that my hon. Friend and others have made. We are working closely with representatives across local government to do that.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Lambeth Council and Southwark Council have lost £6 in every £10 of Government grant they had to spend in 2010, yet across London the population is rising faster, levels of deprivation are greater, and the cost of delivering services is higher than anywhere else in the country. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that the fair funding review will restore funding to London councils and not result in further cuts?

[James Brokenshire]

We will certainly look at the available evidence on how the relative review of resources is affected throughout the country, and we will take account of evidence from London councils and others. Equally, I hope that the hon. Lady will recognise the announcement in the Budget of additional funding for things like social care. An extra £650 million will go around to councils to help to make that difference.

Private Rented Sector

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Betts]

We made a number of recommendations in our report and—my hon. Friend is right—that was one of them. We recognised that the Government had made some changes to the rules on selective licensing, in line with the recommendation on widening the criteria used to bring about selective licensing schemes in the Committee’s previous report back in 2013. They are also changing the legislation about the definition of properties included in licensing for housing in multiple occupation, which we welcome.

Nevertheless, in essence, our recommendation is that licensing ought to be a local matter, depending on local circumstances. It should be a local decision, subject to the Secretary of State’s intervention only when councils have not followed the proper procedures. As I understand it, the Government are now reviewing selective licensing. One of my questions will be about the state of that review and when it is likely to report.

In our report, we tried to focus on those landlords who are not doing the job that we would expect them to do. To divide landlords up, there are the bad ones, who are not good at getting around to doing things in a timely way—they are inefficient, or incompetent to some extent, and are sometimes accidental landlords. There are then the so-called rogue landlords, who have more systematic failings, leaving a large number of properties in an unacceptable condition. Then there are the really hardcore landlords—we ought to call them criminals, because that is what they are. The criminal landlords run a business to exploit vulnerable tenants in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. They are robbing not merely the tenants but the taxpayer, because they are getting money in and yet not providing homes that are fit to live in. We tried to concentrate on how to deal with those landlords, but our report also recognised actions the Government have taken in a number of respects. Quite reasonably, we highlighted actions that they have taken in response to our previous report on the private rented sector. We are pleased with that as a Committee.

Right at the beginning of the report, we refer to the imbalance of power between tenants and landlords, and to how that needs addressing. However, I will not go through all our recommendations. Instead, I will focus on where the Government have said they will do something—whether that is to consult, review or consider in some way—and ask the Minister where that has got to and what we can expect.

On the Deregulation Act 2015, we call for a review of the retaliatory eviction legislation and guidance on how it has worked. The Government did not seem totally enthusiastic about that at first, but they have now said that they will review the Act, looking at its effectiveness in terms of retaliatory eviction and perhaps at bringing in more formal requirements to have longer-term tenancies. The Government have gone a bit quiet on that since their announcement, so where is that review up to, and when can we expect some announcement?

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. I put on record my apologies because I am unable to stay for the duration of the debate—I am hosting an event elsewhere in this place about a related matter, which is housing rent arrears arising from universal credit.

On retaliatory evictions, the Committee recommended reform of section 21 of the Housing Act 1988. There is a growing body of evidence that section 21 should be not only reformed but abolished. In response to our report, the Government stated that, on the one hand, they recognised

“the concerns of the Committee around retaliatory eviction”,

but, on the other hand, that they did not accept our recommendation that section 21 needs to be reformed. They said:

“We believe the current legislation strikes the right balance between the interests of landlords and tenants and we have no plans to change the legislation in this way.”

Does my hon. Friend agree that, without meaningful action on section 21, those are simply empty words from the Government?

[Mr Betts]

I hope that the Minister will come back on that, because we made a clear recommendation, and it would be helpful to have her response to it. The two things go together. Our report called not for the abolition of section 21, but merely for it to be looked at again. The same is true of retaliatory evictions. The Government are looking at one thing, so will they indicate that they might be prepared to look at the other as well, as part of a joint review?

We also called for a specialist housing court. We are pleased that the Government have now announced a call for evidence on the setting up of such a court. Will the Minister explain what will be covered and the likely terms of a housing court’s jurisdiction? Will it cover section 21 notices or retaliatory eviction? Will it cover tenancy fees, which we have recently had legislation on? Will it cover the issues arising from the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill from my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck)? Will it go so far as to look at the whole matter of leasehold, which we are discussing in another inquiry? Will the Minister explain precisely what it will cover, or whether the Government have ruled on what it will not cover? It would be helpful to have such information.

The first of two other issues we asked to be looked at was that of five-year electrical safety checks. We are pleased that the Government have announced support for that in principle, but when will we get a clear announcement and action on it? In terms of having carbon monoxide alarms not only in every room with a coal fire but every room with a gas fire, I understand that a working group inside the Department is looking at that. Where has that got to? Every day of delay might lead people to lose their life because of carbon monoxide poisoning, which is easy to stop with a very simple measure. Will the Minister give us information about that as well?

We looked at enforcement and local authority powers. That is clearly important, and we questioned the housing health and safety rating system, as we have done before.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Betts]

That came up in the Tenant Fees Bill, and the Committee recommended a compromise of five weeks. The Government did not accept it, but we support that recommendation, so as Chair of the Committee I cannot completely agree with my hon. Friend. If I remember correctly, the Government have held a consultation on alternatives to deposits, which is a helpful response to one of our recommendations.

We all agree that we must be as tough as we can be, and tougher still, on bad landlords. I hope the Minister will revisit our recommendation. The really bad, criminal landlords may be banned and have management orders against them, but in the end some of them will find ways around that because it is really profitable for them to do so. They have broken the law once, so they will carry on by ignoring banning orders if they can. Why do we not take the properties off them? Why have the Government resisted that recommendation? The proceeds of crime operate in other spheres. Let us get tough on the bad landlords.

[Helen Hayes]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Betts]

My peroration was just about finished, but I will let it be interrupted.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend. Allow me to add a small example to the point he makes so powerfully. My constituents were evicted from their private rented property after they complained because the bathroom ceiling collapsed over the bath 10 minutes after they had finished bathing their children. I hope the Minister agrees that, in those circumstances, it is not too much of a sanction to confiscate the property from such criminals.