Housing Bill

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Mr. Davey: The Minister was helpful. I should like to clarify whether the Government's consultants who reviewed the system, DTZ Pieda Consulting, made it clear that when evidence went to court it should be primarily descriptive rather than numeric, so that the officer would explain to the court the nature of the hazard. It is important, given Pepper v. Hart, to press the Minister. Would the court be focused on the description of the hazard provided by the officer, or should the court be more minded to take account of the numeric value that the officer had calculated?

3 pm

Keith Hill: The hon. Gentleman tempts me, but I have a degree of trepidation in presuming to make a judgment about the way in which the courts would respond to such an issue. I am not a legal person. However, my understanding is that it is the role of the courts to make a judgment about the reasonableness of behaviour. On this question I defer to my legal colleagues, at least on this side of the Committee Room. If they decide to intervene in my support I shall be extremely grateful; I hope that otherwise they will remain silent. That is the basis on which the court is likely to make a judgment. If I were to venture an answer to the hon. Gentleman's question, it would be upon description rather than the score that the court would make a judgment. However, that is an absolutely tentative response on my part.

Mr. Davey: I am not trying to score a debating or political point; I just want to know the answer. I understand why the Minister chooses his words very carefully. However, it is pretty important, both in this clause stand part debate and when we discuss clause 2, to be clear about what the Government intend. If more weight is given to the numerical value, we risk seeing clever barristers unpicking the calculations, looking at average population criteria and all the rest that is wrapped up in the guidance—no disrespect to barristers, such as the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird)—possibly causing local authority lawyers to go to great expense, increasing the cost of the system. It is very important that we have clarity on this issue; otherwise, we could be creating real problems in terms of implementation.

Keith Hill: In at least one respect I can set the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest. In due course we will table amendments that will change the judicial process, as it were, from the court system—extremely expensive, as he rightly says—to what we hope will be a more expert and cost-effective body, namely the residential property tribunal; but more of that later.

I confess that I am slightly winging it here. I shall now consider the circumstances in which the action will proceed through the judicial or quasi-judicial process. It would be about the appropriateness of the enforcement action. That action would be based on

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the identification of a danger in a property. Essentially, that would be based on the culmination of the process I described earlier. The culmination of that process—of the inspector, surveyor or environmental health officer going into the property—is his or her judgment.

I believe that the court, or whatever, would make its judgment on the basis of the propriety of the description and not of the score. If I am wrong about this—although I have encouraging indications from the silent ones, to whom one hardly dare refer—I will confess my error to the hon. Gentleman and to the Committee.

The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings pressed me again on the issue of review. He found my earlier response to be, in that grand parliamentary phrase, made up of weasel words. I am not sure that he will find my response now very different. I assure him that we will continue to review the system and monitor how it works out, with a view to making adjustments. In due course, it may be appropriate to add hazards to the list. However, as for a formal, proper review with a report to Parliament, no, I will not make such an undertaking at this stage. Nevertheless, I assure him that we will keep a very careful eye on the process. If changes have to be made, we will make them and report them to the House in one way or another.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East and the hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings and for Poole (Mr. Syms) raised questions of cost. While I have been describing the health and safety rating system, inspiration has winged its way to me and I am now in a position to attempt at least an answer to the question of the costs to local authorities under the new system compared with the fitness standard. I think that I am right in saying this to my hon. Friend: the costs that he quotes—from the Library note, I think—relate to the compliance costs for landlords, not to the operational costs. Compliance costs are estimated to be lower, because hazards are often inexpensive to put right. For example, a window catch or frame may be enough. We estimate that the start-up costs for authorities are between £4 million and £5 million. That is for training and the kit, which may involve IT or be paper-based. We anticipate that the ongoing costs will be about the same and we have said that we will make the appropriate allocation to local authorities as part of the local government financial settlement.

Mr. Hayes: Let me be absolutely clear about the financial issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Poole has helpfully passed me some inspiration too—if that is the euphemism that we are to use. As I glance again at page 29 of the Library paper, I am surprised by what the Minister has said about compliance costs. The paper does say that

''the cost of complying''

with the new standards

''is calculated as £4.8bn, as compared to £8.7bn''.

It goes on to talk about the costs to local authorities. I want to get this absolutely clear. The Minister tells us that compliance with the new standards will represent

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a massive saving to landlords, so the new fitness standards will be much less expensive for people to implement. That rings a few alarm bells. I do not want landlords to pay any more than they should—heaven forbid; I used to be one myself. However, we are being told that the new system will cost landlords a fraction of the cost of the old one, and I am concerned about that. Is the implication that there will be some deterioration? I think that that would be the public's view, if they were to discover these things by reading the record of the debate—which they surely will, in great detail and with real enthusiasm.

Keith Hill: I feel that I need to respond to that, as it appears that my own Department's regulatory impact assessment is quoted in those figures.

We are not in the business of reducing the necessary investment that we expect landlords to make with regard to the condition of their properties; that goes without saying. Nevertheless—I make this point as a possible explanation for the figures, assuming that they are accurate—we have always said that the new system provides a more targeted and selective approach to dealing with hazards in building. It is important to remember that one weakness of the old fitness test standard was the fact that it required the identification of one or other of the nine defects and prescribed a series of responses but—this was the crucial difference between the old system and the new—it did not relate the hazard to the occupant of the premises. We will say a lot more about that. To that extent, the new system has a less broad-brush approach to dealing with hazard. It is more precise. It identifies the impact of a hazard on the occupant, and it might therefore produce fewer costs for landlords.

We believe that the report refers to the cost of works carried out, not to local authority costs. We think that it states what I have maintained, which is that dealing with hazards can be reasonably inexpensive. As I have said, it is our contention that the new system provides more discussion to tailor work. I am grateful for that further item of inspiration, which largely points up what I was able to work out myself.

The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue, and it is incumbent on me to offer a more detailed response. I undertake to do so in due course, if the Committee will be patient.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Meaning of ''category 1 hazard'' and

''category 2 hazard''

Mr. Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 175, in

clause 2, page 3, line 17, after second 'the', insert 'immediate'.

[R] Relevant registered interest declared.

The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

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No. 174, in

clause 2, page 3, line 19, at end insert—

'(1A) In calculating the seriousness of hazards, the individual level of disability shall be taken into account.'.

No. 176, in

clause 2, page 3, line 24, leave out 'the case may be' and insert

'clearly defined by the appropriate national authority'.

No. 216, in

clause 2, page 3, line 27, at end insert—

'(3A) Before laying any regulations under this section, the Secretary of State shall have laid before Parliament a report setting out the results of a pilot testing the latest version of the prescribed method for calculating category 1 and category 2 hazards.'.

No. 177, in

clause 2, page 3, line 31, after 'mental', insert ', physical and environmental'.

No. 184, in

clause 5, page 5, line 8, after second 'a', insert 'clearly defined'.

No. 185, in

clause 6, page 5, line 41, after '5', insert

'where the local housing authority deems a clearly defined category 1 hazard exists'.

No. 186, in

clause 7, page 6, line 17, after 'a', insert 'clearly defined'.

Mr. Hayes: We have come to clause 2 with appropriate alacrity. It happily brings us to a discussion that stems directly from the previous one. That seems logical, but it is important to rehearse the Minister's earlier point. He said that the important change under part 1 of the Bill was to make it person-centred. I prefer the description ''man-centred'', but perhaps ''person'' is the politically correct term if not the generic one. The person-centred approach marries considerations about the property with considerations about the people who occupy it. The right hon. Gentleman also said that the system should be objective and transparent. He said that those were the two great changes. On one hand, the change is to be person-centred, while on the other it is to be transparent and objective. That is a neat turn of phrase. It well summarises the intentions of the Government and that is made clear in the detailed documents that we have all studied.

3.15 pm

The group of amendments does two things. It probes the Minister to be more specific, in the interests of transparency and objectivity, about the balance between category 1 and category 2 hazards. He has been more specific to some extent by describing the process in his useful remarks at the end of the first clause stand part debate. However, there is a need for greater clarity about the difference between a category 1 hazard and a category 2 hazard, because of the repercussions of each. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will have a chance to clarify matters. Several of the amendments are designed to elicit greater clarification.

Amendment No. 175, in particular, gives us the opportunity to study in some detail the people-centred aspects of a hazard and risk assessment. I understand precisely why the Government have chosen an

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approach whose essence is to base the people-centred assessment on age but, as I told the Minister before our sitting, I have certain worries about it. Such an approach has the advantage of simplicity, but there is more to it than that. It is rooted in good evidence that typically, as people grow older, they become subject to more risks. We need not study rocket science to work out that, as people become old, they often become less able. Sometimes they become less capable of dealing with various risks that are associated with housing.

Such an approach is laudable but unsatisfactory. My amendment suggests that we move from an analysis based solely on age to an analysis based on ability or disability, so that the system can be implemented with greater confidence. We can define ability and disability without a significant overlap with age. People often become less able as they become older, but that is not exclusively the case. We can define matters in a way that allows the analysis of hazard and the enforcement measures to be completed in a more targeted and effective way.

The Minister described the importance of targeting when he was defending the financial aspects of the information that has been provided to members of the Committee about as persuasively as Max Bygraves would have done in Committee. His description of the numerical analysis was a little like the Max Bygraves rendition of ''Deck of Cards'', in which the four stood for the evangelists and the three for the Trinity. I could go on, but I do not want to become too biblical. In the interests of clarity and targeting, it is important that we reach the people who are most at risk. Disabled people may not be old; old people may not be less able. The marriage between people's behaviour and habit and their culture that prevails when they are exposed to risk requires a more sensitive, targeted approach.

For example, we know that mentally disabled people are critical of the quality and appropriateness of their housing. Members of the Committee will be familiar with the parliamentary briefing on wheelchair users that we received from the John Grooms housing association. It suggested that about 40 per cent. of wheelchair users believed that the place in which they lived was inappropriate for them because it was not well adapted to their needs. We know that other disabled people are at particular risk from a range of hazards that are described in the new document. The guidance that has been provided to implement the new standards deals specifically with mental health and psychological implications of various conditions that might prevail in housing. In many ways, the guidance seems to apply outside the narrow boundary of how old someone is. Surely we can be more intelligent, more targeted and more specific in how we deal with the analysis of the types of people who are most likely to be at risk from the hazards that we define as a result of the new information.

 

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Prepared 20 January 2004