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Matthew Green: That is a hell of a fence the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings is sitting on in respect of additional licensing. Getting back to the Minister's confusion about where the Liberal Democrats are coming from, amendment No. 255 is almost deregulatory and seeks a voluntary approach before the licensing route is used. Before making such a designation, the authority should work strategically with private landlords, agents and associations. The Minister can see that that would be preferable if it can be achieved, albeit with the threat of additional licensing. I am sure that the whole Committee would agree that it would be a good thing if we could improve standards without having recourse to additional licensing. This is just a probing amendment, and I am sure it is not perfectly framed. It is designed simply to ask the Minister why seeking a voluntary approach is not one of the things that the authority has to do before making the designation. I cannot support the Conservative amendment, No. 252, because removing the phrase
Column Number: 191 would lead to over-regulation. If an authority wanted additional licensing, it would have to apply it throughout its district, rather than to the particular area within the district where there are particular problems and hence a need for additional licensing. The amendment is probing, unless the Conservatives really are going down the route of over-regulation—but who knows where they are going these days? Mr. Syms: On the up.
Mr. Green: I cannot support the amendment, and in the general terms of the need for additional licensing—[
The other amendment in the name of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings touches on the general principle of additional licensing, and I firmly come down on one side of the fence: additional licensing is needed. It gives local authorities the power to deal with specific problems in their area, and we would be happy for that to happen. A good local authority could use it to deal with many exemptions from the Bill's provisions. With so many properties exempt, there is a danger that a local authority that is not remotely interested in providing resources, despite its general duty, will not pick up on additional licensing—but that is local democracy in action. If the local council does not do its job or use additional licensing, the electorate can throw councillors out.
The clause gives local authorities the power to consider areas that they want to license additionally, and we strongly support that. Our only concern is that a scheme will always be subject to the Secretary of State's approval. It is rather odd to give local authorities a power, but only if the Secretary of State agrees to its use. It would be much more in the spirit of new localism if the Minister gave the power to local authorities and let them frame it.
Mr. Syms: The Bill as it stands allows a housing authority to designate all or part of its area. In some parts of the country, there are local authorities that share a common frontage, for example, in seaside towns. It is not always clear, even to me when I am canvassing, where Bournemouth stops and Poole starts. That problem continues along the coast from Brighton and Hove through to Shoreham or Worthing. There would be no point in designating a mile of frontage in one district to try to improve the quality of HMOs if that allowed other parts of the frontage to be perceived as substandard or difficult. At the point of consultation or when setting out the objectives for an area, is there an element in the Bill to allow adjoining housing authorities to share a common objective of improving housing in a particular area, or is the focus wholly on a district, irrespective of the situation?
Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East) (Lab): I rise to speak briefly in support of clause 45. We in Bolton have 22,000 houses that are about 150 years old and not as well constructed as other houses of that age. In the 1960s we had about five general improvement areas, which are now in a state of decay. The problem arises when landlords move in and do not care what tenants they put into their properties. Antisocial
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The measure is necessary to prevent market collapse in such areas. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning recently visited Bolton and saw one street where drug dealers and prostitutes have moved in. The measure is an important tool to control such behaviour.
Mr. Hayes: That is precisely why it may have appeared to the hon. Member for Ludlow that I was sitting on the fence. The truth is that in the vast majority of cases, an agreement with the private sector will be desirable. The local authority working in partnership with private sector will work, but there will be cases in which such a measure will be necessary, for the reasons outlined by the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon). It is not fair to assume that all landlords are good and reasonable people, even though the vast majority are.
Dr. Iddon: I accept that the vast majority of landlords are reasonable, and we have had a voluntary registration scheme in Bolton for some time. However, it is noticeable that the bad landlords do not join the scheme, so I am keen that the measure is left unamended in the Bill. Keith Hill: Before coming to the substance of my remarks, I shall respond to some of the questions raised during this useful debate. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings drew attention to the powers in Conservative legislation that authorised local authorities to take action against badly run properties. As he will know, that legislation conferred simply a power, not a duty, and the record of voluntary registration is mixed to say the least. Evidence of that is in the response to a written question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) on the operation of registration schemes in various authorities, which revealed that about one third of authorities do not engage in any registration scheme. Furthermore, the schemes that do exist are variable in nature: some are simply registration schemes, while others are registration-with-control schemes. That is why we have introduced a mandatory element in the Bill. I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Ludlow, who at this juncture is back into regulatory mode. He said that he would come down firmly in favour of additional licensing and that some local authorities would not be remotely interested in such registration schemes. However, as he rightly said, that is a matter for local democracy, and if a council does not do its job, the electorate can throw it out. I dare say that, in view of the fact that his Liberal Democrat-controlled South Shropshire district council has never implemented a registration scheme of any kind—the Column Number: 193 Committee will be shocked to hear that—the electorate of the area will draw their own conclusions and take the necessary action in due course. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings on the fact that his local authority has implemented a registration scheme.Mr. Hayes: This might be an appropriate opportunity, perhaps not for the last time, to inform the Minister that South Holland district council—happily Conservative controlled since 1999—has an exemplary record as a local authority in general and a housing authority in particular. I know that the Minister will want to study its good practice in many different areas relevant to the Bill so that it can be exported to other authorities—Conservative, Labour and even Liberal Democrat. Keith Hill: I was going to say that we have had enough of this guerrilla warfare. I do not want to undermine the splendid spirit of constructive exchange that has dominated our proceedings so far. Matthew Green: I should be delighted if the Minister came to south Shropshire and showed me the properties that could be in a licensing scheme. The reality is that in a scattered rural community, there are practically no properties that would fall into the category of HMO. There may be one or two, but I am not aware of any substantial number of properties that could be categorised as such. I am sure that he will do some research on the matter, but he ought to take into account the nature of an area before saying whether a council should incur the unnecessary costs of implementing schemes into which, quite frankly, there are no properties to be brought. Keith Hill: Methinks the hon. Gentleman protests too much—I think that we have scored a palpable hit. It is up to the hon. Gentleman to justify the derogation of his local authority from its proper responsibilities.I hope to persuade him that his amendment is, in that splendid parliamentary word, otiose. However I shall come on to that in due course. The hon. Member for Poole made a sensible point—if I may so without sounding patronising—about local authorities with, as it were, common frontage. That is certainly an issue. The answer to his question on whether local authorities could have common schemes is that if they want such schemes, they can certainly have them. We are aware of the issue of emigration of troublesome parties, who might be landlords or, in terms of selective licensing, tenants. In general terms we are eager that local authorities with common problems should work together. I am extremely grateful for the moral support offered by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East. I remember with pleasure my day in Bolton looking at both problems and successes. We made a very interesting visit to the Haulgh district, where we saw both problems and evidence of progress. In other areas, we saw what we agreed were wonderful examples of regeneration in communities that were beginning to cohere and progress. It was a memorable day. I take my hon. Friend's point: the large, multi-tenanted properties that we saw in the Haulgh district Column Number: 194 of Bolton may be obvious candidates for the kind of provision that we are discussing. However, he will be aware that there are other parts of his constituency with different types of tenure and ownership where the selective licensing regime—the Committee is about to come on to that—may be more appropriate. I am grateful for his wise words and support.Clause 45 allows a local authority to designate part or all of its area as subject to additional HMO licensing for specified descriptions of HMOs. That means that a local authority will have discretion to extend the scope of HMO licensing to HMOs that fall outside the scope of the mandatory system. Additional licensing could apply to HMOs that have less than three storeys and/or are occupied by fewer than five people. We know, for example, that some local authorities are likely to use additional licensing to target properties occupied by students that are particularly badly managed. Such properties are often two storeys and are occupied by four people. I wish that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) were here to hear these reassuring words. I am sure that we all want regulation to be targeted on properties where the worst problems exist. Often, those types of property are concentrated in a particular area: for example, as I have said, areas with high numbers of properties let to students. Many local authorities could use their discretion under existing HMO licensing and have applied it only to specific parts of their area.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 2004 | Prepared 27 January 2004 |
