Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Friday 3rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I appreciate that many Members wish to speak, so I will keep my remarks brief. I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who is a veteran in being successful in private Members’ Bills ballots. I have long watched him. I used him as an example when I was in the classroom teaching sixth-form A-level politics students and he put through the House the Homelessness Reduction Bill, now the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. That is a fantastic piece of legislation, and it demonstrates the power that Back Benchers have to influence Government policy, engaging with all sides of the House to bring forward positive change. He deserves enormous credit for his incredible work to be a strong voice for, in many cases, the voiceless in our society.

I could not agree more on the importance of this Bill. We have really good providers in Stoke-on-Trent, whether Concrete or Brighter Futures. The latter charitable organisation is currently being supported by the Lord Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent, raising money to help people who have come out of prison, or who are recovering from alcohol and drug addiction and so on, to get set up in a home and rebuild their lives. They are fantastic examples of organisations that have, and will have, nothing to fear from this Bill, because they are fine examples of what a good landlord should be doing. It is absolutely correct that the only people who will loudly moan and groan about it are the rogue landlords who seek to profiteer off the back of hardship and misery, seeking to take advantage of the defenceless who they know will not have a strong voice.

I introduced my own private Members’ Bill to increase fines on rogue and absent landlords under section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, because of the degradation of the Price and Kensington Teapot Works by a rogue landlord, who allowed fires to be set up on site and used it as a dumping site. That important grade II* listed building in Longport is now rotting and is sadly probably damaged beyond repair. I thank the Minister and the team from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for adopting my proposed legislation into the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which is currently going through the House—I am lucky to be able to piggy-back off the back of Government legislation to get my own private Member’s Bill through the House.

On the scheme, I join the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), in his concern about the cost of implementation. Stoke-on-Trent City Council is the second poorest in terms of what it brings in through council tax. Some 94% of our properties are band A to D, so when we put up council tax by 1% it brings in £900,000, whereas a council in Surrey would bring in £13 million. It will therefore be really important to find the funds to ensure that we deliver the scheme. That financial support will have to come from the taxpayer via the Government to ensure it can be enforced. Stoke-on- Trent will have a higher than average use of that kind of supported accommodation. Stoke-on-Trent City Council has tried schemes, such as the landlord accreditation scheme in Portland Street in the Etruria and Hanley ward, which I represent, but sadly it was a voluntary scheme that only good landlords signed up to and took part in. Rogue landlords avoided it. That meant we did not really get the benefit of holding them to account.

I am very supportive of the universal local licensing scheme. We absolutely should be looking to hold landlords to account. They have the great honour of owning these properties, so it is only right that they look after the tenants who currently pay such extortionately high rents. Sadly, we are not building as many homes as I would like, to increase home ownership and drive down cost in the rental market.

The licensing regulations and, most importantly, the support package that have come forward are essential. As the Minister outlined perfectly in her speech, vulnerable people should be assessed before they move into a property and a tailored plan should be designed for them. These people are stakeholders in our society and they need that support to ensure that they get back on the ladder and do not have to rely on friends and families for support when they have their own lives to be concerned about.

We also have to make sure that we find such houses in appropriate places so that we are not clumping or clustering vulnerable people together. Sadly, that will attract levels of antisocial behaviour and will increase the presence of vile drug gangs or county lines gangs, as has happened especially in Stoke-on-Trent North, who try to push their filth on the streets around those who are vulnerable. We need to make sure that we do all we can in that regard to have a properly regulated licensing scheme. Once again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East on his fantastic Bill.