Tenant Fees Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Melanie Onn and Sarah Jones

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Jones]

I have listened to the Minister’s response, and I am glad that there are working groups, roundtables and other such things looking at these issues. As a former senior civil servant, I know well the line that there are still many things that need to be considered, which can be used to push things into the long grass so that they never get completed.

I take the point from the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby that we do not want to delay the Bill and that we need to look at these matters properly, but I urge the Minister to speed up the working groups and roundtables and to try to come forward with something. If he did, I am sure he would have the support of the Opposition. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 3

Report on operation of Tenant Fees Act

“The Secretary of State shall within a period of 12 months from the date of commencement of this Act and annually for the four years thereafter lay before Parliament a report on the operation of this Act, setting out the number of breaches of sections 1 and 2, the number and amounts of financial penalties levied by enforcement authorities, and the number of criminal prosecutions commenced and concluded in each 12-month period”. —(Melanie Onn.)

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to report annually for five years on the effect of the Act

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Melanie Onn]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause is quite clear that it intends the Act to be reviewed and closely monitored by the Minister. There has not been a great deal of discussion around the monitoring of the implementation of this legislation so far. Assessing the effectiveness of the legislation is incredibly important, and I hope the Minister will be able to support it. We know from the experience in Scotland that legislation, even when well intended, may not be effective if the wording is not clear enough, the rights are not precisely defined, the impact is not fully, properly and regularly communicated to those who need it, and the enforcement mechanisms are inadequate. I do not want to let the Minister leave here without allowing for future Ministers and Governments to recognise early the elements of the Bill that are not quite working as intended. From the discussions we have had, it seems that the Bill will probably not come into force for 18 months, which is quite some time away. How it actually pans out in practice will perhaps be well out of our hands.

It is inevitable that there will be clauses of the Bill that, once in action, do not work quite as anticipated. To rectify that, the Government could accept this new clause, which would ensure regular assessments are undertaken of the number of breaches of sections 1 and 2, as well as providing details around the fines—how many have been issued, what revenue has been generated and whether there have been any prosecutions. It would enable the Government to show their demonstrable concern for tenants by making it clear that they were keeping a beady eye on the practicalities of the measures and not simply leaving matters to chance.

No doubt there would be a Select Committee inquiry without these changes. What do the Government anticipate that they might wish to hide? By being proactive, they would be ahead of the curve and would save the Select Committee a great deal of time that it might spend on other inquiries.

I anticipate that the Minister will say he is confident that local authorities will maintain such records. That might be suitable for him, but it would not compel him to collate such data to gain regional perspectives on the implementation. Given the failure on the display of tenants fees rules so far—so much so that they now have to be beefed up through the Bill’s enforcement powers—accepting the new clause would be an honest recognition that legislation does not always work well.

The new clause would provide for an ongoing evidence base from which future improvements could be made. It would show landlords, letting agents, councils and tenants that the Government were taking a responsible approach to a significant piece of new law and showing a keen interest in its future application.

Were it to be found that the funding for new burdens was insufficient, the Government could deal with that rapidly, rather than facing the worst-case scenario of the laws not being used and being completely useless. They could check where the laws were being best utilised, identify why and assist in the sharing of best practice around the country. They could check that the legislative process was quick and that the remedy was proportionate to the breach.

In housing, timing is often of the essence. Those who would be charged prohibited fees are most likely to be those who can ill afford them—those who are forced towards bad landlords or letting agents. Should resolution of the process take too long, a tenant may be two or three properties along since the original complaint was submitted. I urge the Minister to consider this sensible step.

Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Debate between Melanie Onn and Sarah Jones

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 27th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. The most common scenario in domestic violence cases is that of a woman fleeing her abuser. She escapes a harmful and dangerous situation and tries to find a place of safety—often a refuge. As we said this morning, for 68% of those women that is in another local authority area. The Minister said she does not think there is a problem with that in the Bill and decided not to accept amendment 5, which we withdrew following our discussion this morning, but we still hold that there may be a problem if the cross-boundary duty is not made explicit. The situations becomes even clearer if we think of people fleeing from another country in the UK—from Northern Ireland to England, from Scotland to Wales, from England to Wales, or from Scotland to Northern Ireland.

There are significantly fewer resources in towns than in cities. For those living in the more far-flung reaches of our country, access to support services, including housing, may be much more limited. The homelessness services provided by, for example, Crisis, are well known, but Crisis clearly operates somewhere where a significant amount of rough sleeping occurs—London. The excellent services it provides at its Crisis Skylight centre in central London are much harder to come by in, say, Norfolk or Wiltshire, although it now has an excellent service in South Yorkshire. The groundbreaking work and the centrepiece services tend to be in cities, and the same is true for domestic violence services. It stands to reason that the more people there are, the broader the range of support services catered for, and the greater the experience and knowledge base that is built up.

The anonymity of cities can be a draw for victims. If there are services to support those experiencing domestic violence, or if that is the nearest place where spaces are available, that is where victims will go. Complications may arise if someone who lives in a border town—for example, Wrexham—is directed to or heads to Manchester to seek sanctuary. Similarly, people from Northern Ireland may head to Birmingham, which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley tells me contains the largest diaspora of Irish people in the country, to be supported by extended family members. Will the rights conferred by the Bill travel with them? Will the rights follow the victim? When the system differs among our devolved nations, will victims find that they do not receive the same treatment and housing opportunities as someone who straightforwardly moves from one council house in their local authority area to another in that same local authority area? I fear that the Government are looking at this matter far too simplistically and that down the line they will come a cropper as they realise that the Bill has not worked as intended.

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth recognised the issue presented by the Bill and has committed to taking this particular matter to the Ministry’s devolved Administration roundtable, which I believe is due to convene in Cardiff in April. He has also committed to provide the Library with a copy of the letter that follows the outcome of that roundtable. I am unclear about what that might mean for the Bill, because the outcome of that roundtable will surely serve as some form of response to some of the issues that have been flagged up in debates so far.

I very much accept the difficulties and sensitivities involved, so the new clause will not force England-only duties on to the devolved nations. It strives to ensure that full collaboration is exercised and provided for to enable all victims to be treated fairly and equally, wherever in the country they come from and wherever they end up. To do that, there must be some method of reviewing the issue, and I personally prefer to understand the issue that we are trying to fix with the import of new legislation.

The new clause would recognise that there should be no detriment to anyone travelling between Northern Ireland, Scotland, England or Wales who requires security of tenure. At the moment, the Bill does not do that, despite the recognition of the problem. The new clause therefore proposes a review period of six months to establish where the problems lie in the legislation and to enable the Government to take steps to resolve them.

We do not want to see anyone dissuaded from getting themselves to a place of safety if that place is in one of the devolved nations. The matter was recognised in debate in the Lords. Rather than having to reflect on a missed opportunity, and in full understanding that this is an issue of a premise accepted by Lord Bourne, I urge the Minister to take the necessary steps to future-proof this Bill.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I want to speak in support of new clause 1 and the principle of co-operation, and to give a couple of examples. I used to work for Shelter, and I lobbied successfully for the Homelessness Act 2002. It was a groundbreaking piece of legislation because, for the first time, local authorities had to have a strategy in place to tackle homelessness. It also extended the definition of priority need to many different groups who had not fallen into that category before, including people fleeing domestic violence, as well as 16 and 17-year-olds and people leaving care, prison or the armed forces.

Shelter put a huge amount of resource into lobbying for the legislation. We worked during the passage of the Bill and lobbied civil servants on the guidance that followed. It was a good Bill and there was good guidance, but we knew that we could not necessarily guarantee that it would be implemented in the way that legislators had intended. As a charity, we funded about 15 full-time members of staff to work with every single local authority to help them understand the legislation and implement it.

My point is that even though we had a good Bill, good guidance and all this extra resource from Shelter, which was used widely by all local authorities, there were still differences in implementation, with pockets of good practice and pockets of bad practice. For example, the good practice was that a local authority should have a safe place—a safe room or a safe opportunity—for people once they came to the local authority and said that they were fleeing domestic violence. Not every local authority does that; there are differences in implementation. The implementation and what is written in the Bill are absolutely crucial.

We know that there are different definitions of priority need in different nations. If someone is fleeing domestic violence in England, the category of priority need is stronger than it would be for someone fleeing in Wales. If someone is fleeing in Wales, they have to have been the victim of domestic violence. In England, they have to be the victim or at risk of domestic violence. There is a slightly different way of interpreting that legislation, because it is different in the two nations. I would hate, as I am sure the Minister would, for us to introduce legislation that does not enable every single person we can possibly help to get the support that they need.

The new clause is a sensible addition to the legislation. Giving six months to look at this before anything has to be introduced is sensible. We can support those victims of domestic violence who need our support. Croydon, which I represent, has the highest number of applications by people fleeing domestic violence of any London borough. We have a fantastic service in Croydon. We have the only family justice centre in Europe, which brings together all the agencies that help to support people who are fleeing domestic violence, including housing and the police. We provide brilliant support, which I would like to see across the country and across the nations, but sadly that is not the case. I am supportive of co-operation and new clause 1.