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Standing Committee E
Tuesday 27 January 2004
(Morning)
[Mr. Derek Conway in the Chair]
Schedule 9
Buildings which are not HMOs (except in Part 1)
9.10 am
Matthew Green (Ludlow): I beg to move amendment No. 242, in
schedule 9, page 183, line 17, leave out paragraph 4.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 243, in
schedule 9, page 183, line 21, leave out paragraph 5.
Amendment No. 244, in
schedule 9, page 183, line 38, leave out paragraph 7.
Amendment No. 237, in
clause 192, page 135, line 5, leave out paragraph (c).
New clause 18B—Meaning of house in multiple occupation—
Matthew Green: The amendments challenge the Minister to explain why various buildings are exempted from the category of houses in multiple occupation and how he intends to use regulations to describe HMOs in future. Amendment No. 242 is a probing amendment. It would delete paragraph 4 to schedule 9, which will allow the Minister to set up regulations to exempt buildings from being HMOs. We want the right hon. Gentleman to confirm that he does not have any secret intention to exempt a huge number of buildings from that category. We are worried that the provision would allow him to make a substantial number of exemptions if he so wished, which could, in effect, negate the effects of the Bill.
When the Government consulted about HMO licensing in 1999, they favoured a broad definition of HMOs with specific clearly delineated exemptions from the licensing scheme. They stated:
''The Government favours the second approach with a broad definition and specific exclusions and would propose to use a definition based on the Scottish one.''
There is concern that the wide-ranging regulation-making power afforded under paragraph 4 could be used to create a more narrow definition of an HMO. One example of that could be the use of subsequent regulations to exclude from the HMO definition dwellings contracted by the National Asylum Support Service on the ground that the standards are regulated via the contracts between NASS and its main service providers. Such a move could result in some extremely vulnerable people living in dangerous housing conditions. There is already evidence that asylum seekers have been placed in substandard
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private rented accommodation and that the current regulatory regime for such accommodation is ineffective in monitoring and enforcing standards. I want reassurances from the Minister that the Government will not make much use, if any, of paragraph 4. Hopefully, it exists only to deal with unforeseen circumstances and the Government do not see any likelihood of using the power in the next few years.
Amendment No. 243 would delete paragraph 5. I am sure that members of the Committee have received e-mails and letters about that provision, which covers the exclusion of university halls of residence from the licensing of HMOs. The Minister will say that the whole purpose of licensing is so that the landlords are known, and that they are seen to be fit and proper persons and are brought under the regime; and that is not necessary for university halls of residence because we know the landlords and they are responsible public bodies.
If the landlords are responsible public bodies, they will have nothing to fear from licensing. It will hardly be a hugely onerous duty for a university to register itself as a landlord, and registration would at least provide a framework under which to operate. It is odd that universities will be the nearest things to private owners specifically exempted from the regulations, because they operate in a grey area. It is apt today that we should talk about whether universities are private or public institutions.
It is for the Minister to flesh out the Government's thinking on that, because organisations like Shelter and the National Union of Students are quite concerned. It is feared that universities want to dispose of their halls of residence by selling them off, and some universities have already indicated their desire to do so. There might be some danger of that happening if licensing were an onerous burden. However, the licence would not be so onerous: it would not be the thing that tips a university over the edge into selling off its halls of residence. Some universities regard their halls of residence as liabilities; perhaps they should not do so, and perhaps there is a case for not allowing them too much independence in future. That, however, is a different debate.
There are good reasons why university halls of residence should be brought into the framework, not least because it would mean that there are procedures for an outside body to monitor and enforce standards. I know that probably only one good example has been cited of a university housing students in dreadfully poor conditions, and that the Minister will stand up and say ''There isn't a problem, so why are we dealing with it?'' However, that argument works both ways: if there is no problem, licensing will not be an onerous task for the universities.
There are some grounds to set regulations in this area. In fact, as I am sure the Minister knows, the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions said that
''the Government should return to the definition of an HMO proposed in its 1999 consultation paper. We do not see why educational establishments . . . should be exempted. If a broad
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definition of HMO were adopted, certain categories or types of HMO could . . . be exempted from specific . . . controls, such as . . . licensing.''
The Select Committee does not see why educational establishments should be exempted.
There are some problems with university HMOs, although nothing on the scale of private operators. The form of licensing chosen would tend to pick the worst examples, which are not as bad as some of those in the private sector, and raise their standards. Universities would be forced to consider the standard of the accommodation that they provide. In most cases their provision more than fits the bill, but the amendment might make a few universities bring their worst properties up to standard.
Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): Rather as John Bright said of Lord John Russell, one of the hon. Gentleman's predecessors, I have to tell him that he is probably ''flogging a dead horse'' with his amendment. However, I wonder whether he might test the Minister on his experience and knowledge of the arrangements that university authorities make to ensure that properties are up to standard. The Minister has on a number of occasions used that argument as a reason not to do what the hon. Gentleman proposes. He says that there are good informal arrangements in place, but he has never given us any detail.
Matthew Green: That is an excellent question for the Minister to answer. He has told us informally that the standards are high and there are plenty of arrangements in place, but I am not sure that that is so. He is relying on the fact that universities are ''responsible semi-public bodies''. There is no enforcement or regulation covering such buildings, and if a university were to allow its properties to deteriorate substantially, I am not sure what anyone could do about it. Perhaps the Minister can tread a bit into the territory of the Department for Education and Skills—its mind is probably on other things today—and see what is currently in force to regulate or enforce action against a university that allows the quality of its halls of residence to slip.
Amendment No. 244, which would leave out paragraph 7, is a probing amendment. The paragraph exempts a building that is occupied by
''one or more persons who have a leasehold estate in it granted for a term of more than 21 years''—
in other words, a long lease holder. That takes us back to a situation that was raised last Thursday. It is particularly common in student housing for the property to be owned by one student and for several other students to live in it. I can envisage a person who is a leaseholder for a term of over 21 years occupying a house but there being five, six or seven other people renting from him in that building; they are individual households in a three or four-storey property. That situation is probably more likely to occur in London more than anywhere else.
I do not want to dwell on this matter for too long, but I am concerned that there is a loophole for
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somebody who is a leaseholder and living in the building. I do not think that they would be exempted if there were not a lease but they owned the building and lived in it, so why are they exempted if they are a leaseholder? On Thursday, the Minister for Housing and Planning made it clear that properties would be included if the owner was living in the building as well as other people, but I am talking about a leaseholder—a category that is currently specifically excluded.
Amendment No. 237 is also a probing amendment. It deals with clause 192(3)(c). I am slightly bemused by the provision that
''where a building is not structurally detached, it is not a house if a material of it lies above or below the remainder of the structure''.
I am confused because if a right-wing Government were ever to get into power—
Mr. Robert Syms (Poole) (Con): They have.
Matthew Green: Well, suppose an even more right-wing Government than the current ones privatised Downing street and decided to sell off Nos. 10 and 11. It is my understanding that part of No. 10 goes out and above No. 11—a part of it now runs across the top of the other building. Would the buildings be exempt if they were used as HMOs? They would be, according to my reading of the Bill.
Those properties are not HMOs—at least not yet—but there could be other such cases elsewhere in the country. I am a bit bemused: if there are two buildings that are not entirely vertical because a part of one of them goes above and across the other one, are both exempt? I could be wrong, but I think that they would be. If not, will the Minister for Housing and Planning explain why this provision is in the Bill?
New clause 18B went with an amendment that was not selected because it was, in effect, a clause stand part debate about deleting clauses 192 to 195. I have a question about the new clause. The Minister likes his regulations—he likes giving himself powers to make secondary legislation. This Bill is stuffed full of statements such as, ''And we will make regulations elsewhere,'' but when it comes to defining an HMO—which we can imagine the Minister being tempted to do almost entirely through regulations—the Government have used five clauses and gone into quite a lot of detail. I am not unhappy about that, but I want the Minister to explain why he has decided to include all of that in the Bill, when he has chosen not to include lots of other things. What is so special about the definition of HMOs? What makes it so different from lots of other definitions that are to be dealt with through regulations?
The new clause would allow the Minister to make all those definitions through regulations. I am not suggesting that I want him to go down that route, but I would like him to explain why he has gone down it.
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