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Standing Committee E
Thursday 29 January 2004
(Morning)
[Mr. Derek Conway in the Chair]
9.10 am
The Chairman: I congratulate the Committee on reaching a quorum on such a cold day. Everybody has got here with their snowboots on. Clause 66
Selective licensing of other residential accommodation
Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): I beg to move amendment No. 307, in
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 302, in
Amendment No. 303, in
Amendment No. 304, in
Amendment No. 291, in
Mr. Hayes: It is, as you say, Mr. Conway, a cold day, but I hope that relations on the Committee will not be frosty. From this point on, any similes or metaphors on that note ought to be declared out of order—although far be it from me to second-guess your judgment, Mr. Conway.
The Minister replying to the debate will, no doubt, describe the background to the clause, but essentially we continue to deal with selective licensing issues associated with houses in multiple occupation. These important amendments are designed to ensure consistency in the application of the provisions. Perhaps we are becoming a little boring on that subject—''No!'' I hear Committee members say, ''That is not possible.'' I assure them that it is; almost constantly, I have to guard myself against being boring. We have repeatedly emphasised that consistency is essential in the application of these important provisions. I am concerned that, if the
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amendments are not made, consistency will not be guaranteed.
In addition, in tabling amendment No. 301, we were anxious to ensure that the appropriate person should be dealt with in relation to licensing. Let me paint the Committee a picture. If an owner of property has entrusted ownership to a manager, that manager should be responsible and should play a role—
The Chairman rose—
Mr. Hayes: But we will come to those matters later, Mr. Conway. I mention them now because if we have inconsistent application of licensing, we could end up in the curious situation in which different rules apply to an owner with different managers—for example, an owner who uses different management agencies to run properties in different areas . The confusion that would result from inconsistency would be highly undesirable in terms of ensuring that the Bill is received well and is implemented effectively.
To achieve the objective that I describe, we suggest that the national authority should play a bigger part. There will be those who say that that would be injurious to the principles of local democracy, and I can see that argument welling up on the lips of the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey). Had he not so assiduously already written his speech, I could almost do it for him, but I do not underestimate the assiduity of the hon. Gentleman. He is smiling benignly, so I assume that he disagrees with nothing that I have said.
The argument for local diversity and discretion is less persuasive than the argument for the need to ensure that the legislation is consistent. The arguments are finely balanced: there will be differences between localities, and I do not disregard the arguments for local diversity, which is important, but on balance the argument in favour of consistency is stronger. My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) described the situation in a seaside town, where properties along the seafront may be located in different local authority areas. The argument is just as profound in neighbouring boroughs or suburbs of a conurbation, but is perhaps less applicable in rural areas, where settlements are more widely spread. However, I imagine that the problem of inconsistency will be profound in many towns and cities, and it is not one that we should underestimate. During the past few weeks, that case has been put to me by several representative organisations.
In addition, a question mark hangs over the competence of local authorities to make decisions about the most appropriate management structures and funding arrangements. That is why we tabled amendment No. 304. By inserting
''the guidance on fitness tests supplied by the appropriate national authority'',
application will at least be consistent with the guidance that the national authority—the Government, for example—has provided, and a local authority will avoid the danger of inappropriateness in the way in which it defines management structures or funding arrangements for licensing.
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The amendments are designed to ensure that the Bill is effective and that local authorities are not placed in a position in which they cannot implement its provisions, but can perform their responsibilities in a way that they can properly handle. Once again, we, as the official Opposition, have, in our humble way, done our best to make a positive contribution to the Bill. As I said at the outset, the question of consistency will permeate our discussions. The balance between the need for local discretion and variety and the simultaneous need to ensure equity and consistency has already been mentioned several times, and I suspect that it will be again. It is important that to achieve the right balance, but I am not yet convinced that the Bill as drafted does so.
Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD): Good morning, Mr. Conway. It is nice to be here and to see amendment No. 291 to clause 69 in this group. That is appropriate. Some of the points made by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) need to be teased out at the start of our discussions on part 3. The Government have gone for a targeted approach to the regulation of the private-rented sector: we have mandatory licensing for parts of the HMO sector, discretionary licensing for other parts of it, and now selective licensing in certain cases.
In their approach to regulation of the private sector, rather than take an across-the-board approach, which might have been heavy-handed, the Government have decided to make sure that local housing authorities have powers for specific purposes. It is therefore incumbent on the Committee to see whether the Government have achieved the right balance between having targeted powers for particular purposes and a broader approach, or an approach of no regulation. In trying to understand such matters in relation to selective licensing, we must work out whether the way in which the regime will be developed will be tough enough to deal with the problems of economic regeneration and antisocial behaviour, but not be too heavy-handed in relation to landlords.
I take on board the overall thrust of hon. Gentleman's comments—that too many different regimes operating cheek by jowl could cause confusion. I understand that, under the Government's scheme, in any local authority area there could be HMOs subject to mandatory licensing, HMOs subject to discretionary licensing, and some subject to selective licensing, as well as to things dealt with in part 4, such as interim management orders and final management orders. Having a multitude of regulatory regimes in operation could cause problems, so it is incumbent on the Government to ensure that the guidance to local authorities that accompanies the regimes is clear, and that there is good guidance for landlords, who will have to get used to handling them.
Landlords probably would prefer not to have any regulation at all. However, if that is not possible, they would prefer targeted regulation to across-the-board regulation. In pursuit of better regulation, it is incumbent on the Government to ensure that the
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measures are easy to comply with. What lies behind today's debate is the question of whether the legislation will facilitate that and whether extra-statutory guidance will be provided. We have tabled amendment No. 291 because we want to try to resolve how the relationship between local and national Government will work in practice when setting up selective licensing regimes. As we do that, three matters in particular must be considered: first, the underlying conditions of the regime; secondly, how it will be managed; thirdly, how it will be approved.
I disagree with the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings about the relationship between central and local government in respect of the management of the regime. A landlord who has properties in neighbouring local authorities will encounter different approaches, different environmental health officers, different addresses for their departments and so on. It is inevitable that there will be different management, personnel, and addresses—and probably different forms—unless we do not allow local authorities to do that. We must accept that, because the Government have not gone for a national approach. Unless they propose more of a national regulatory regime, we must accept that there will be inherent differences.
We tabled amendment No. 291 because, having accepted the logic that there will be differences in management approaches—because, inevitably, different local authorities will implement the measure differently—we are concerned about the approval mechanism that the Government have put in place. It is too centralised, and the local authorities will always look to Whitehall to see whether a particular designation can go ahead. That is unnecessary. Amendment No. 291 proposes only that the Government should set down general, objective criteria that any selective licensing regime should meet, so that every time a local authority sets up a scheme it does not need to come to Whitehall and say, ''Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, is this okay by you chaps?'' That is not a good use of Whitehall civil servants; it is a waste of time and it flies in the face of new localism and local discretion.
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