Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill

Will Quince Excerpts

Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad). I, too, support the Bill and commend the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) for introducing it; I worked with her on the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman).

I pay tribute to Shelter. It has done a fantastic job campaigning on many of the issues we are talking about today, and the Bill receiving its Second Reading would be a testament to all its hard work in this area.

We have already seen action to help people get into properties—Help to Buy for those looking to own, and the Budget included help to rent—and this must now be extended to ensuring that people live in properties that are fit for purpose. The 2015-16 English housing survey found that almost 795,000 homes in the private rented sector and almost 245,000 in the social rented sector have a category 1 hazard. A category 1 hazard is defined in the housing health and safety rating system as:

“a serious and immediate risk to a person’s health and safety.”

The phrase “health and safety” might cause a few eyes to roll, but we are talking here about some very serious things: asbestos, mould and damp, carbon monoxide and the products of fuel combustion. What if I said this represents 6% of properties in the social rented sector, or that it represents 17% of properties in the private rented sector? Let us just think about that for a moment. There is nearly a one in five chance that a property one of our constituents goes out and rents has a hazard considered a “serious and immediate risk”; this has to change.

The Bill’s key function is to provide a meaningful route for those living in properties that are not fit for purpose to get necessary repairs done. We are not seeking to be disparaging about landlords; the overwhelming majority of them always try to do the right thing by their tenants and take swift action to resolve any faults or problems with their properties. If anything, the majority of them, who are tired and fed up with having their reputation trashed and tarnished by others in this sector who simply—excuse my language, Madam Deputy Speaker—don’t give a damn, want this Bill to pass.

At present, tenants are dependent on their local authority for action to be taken regarding property standards. This can be difficult enough when someone is renting accommodation from a private landlord, but what about when their landlord is their local authority? It is important to have a route open to tenants that ensures that local authorities do not have conflicting interests.

The Bill will give tenants the right to take their landlords to court where the property they inhabit is not fit for purpose. They will be able to apply for an injunction directly that will compel their landlords to carry out the necessary repairs or for compensation from their landlords for their failure to maintain the property. In the worst cases, tenants will be able to provide their own evidence to the judge, rather than, as at present, having to rely on an environmental health officer or independent surveyor’s report. Local authorities can focus their resources on the very worst landlords.

There is always a reluctance about legislating in this area—a belief that this is a matter best left to be resolved between individual landlords and tenants—but let us be clear: this is not about the Government telling landlords what to do; it is about levelling the playing field. Nor does it introduce anything new. No new property standards are defined in the Bill. There is no additional regulation. We are simply making sure that existing standards are enforced.

The final point I want to make is to do with the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, which the hon. Member for Kensington rightly referenced. An inquiry is taking place, and I do not want to speculate about what it will find or who is to blame, but we have all heard the harrowing stories about the unsafe conditions, including fire doors that did not work, insufficient emergency lighting in stairwells and inadequate smoke ventilation. A number of those concerns had previously been raised by tenants, who felt that they were being ignored. We must never again have a situation in which genuine issues, particularly those relating to safety, are not tackled by landlords. When tenants feel unsafe, landlords have to take action. They must listen; no ifs, no buts.

That is what the Bill will do. It will empower tenants so that when they tell a landlord that the condition of their property is simply not good enough, the landlord must take notice and resolve the problem. This is not some kind of top-down diktat; it is bottom-up accountability. That is why I am pleased to support the hon. Member for Westminster North and her Bill on Second Reading. It is a welcome and necessary step towards ensuring that every tenant is given the basic right to live in a home that is fit for purpose. Our constituents deserve nothing less.