Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 18 December 2019 to Question 202108 on Multiple Occupation, what estimate he has made of the number of houses of multiple occupation in Birmingham Edgbaston as at 27 February 2019.

Local authority data returns for 2018-19 will not be published until 2020 and we will not have new data available until then.

As stated in response to the previous question on this matter, Question 202108, we estimate from local authority data returns for the period 2016-2017, that there was a stock of 495,208 Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) in England at that time. Since the 2016-17 figures were published, Government has extended mandatory licensing of HMOs to properties of any size, given 5 or more people from more than 1 household and we estimate that this extension will bring an additional 170,000 properties within the scope of mandatory licensing.

Birmingham City Council is responsible for issuing HMO licences in Birmingham Edgbaston and therefore may be able to provide an estimate of the number of HMOs as at 27 February.