Gareth Thomas
MP for Harrow West · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Local councils such as Harrow need to invest more in youth facilities that divert young people away from crime. Some of the CCTV projects in my constituency that Harrow council has turned down—in Wealdstone, south Harrow and central Harrow—should get funding.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) on securing the debate and on the way in which he approached the subject. I join him and my hon.”
“I also want to suggest that the Metropolitan police does not get recognition across the whole of the UK for its hugely important work in tackling national and international crime, and that perhaps more recognition of that is required in the funding formula.”
“In particular, in Harrow, we recently saw enforcement teams contracted out to an organisation called Kingdom. The responsibility for that contract was with Harrow council. There was widespread criticism of the way some of the staff employed by Kingdom tried to levy fines on a number of young people in south Harrow, in my constituency.”
“One way we can further support the Metropolitan police is by allowing it to keep more of the proceeds from successful operations, such as recovering stolen funds hidden in bitcoin assets. I congratulate my hon.”
“Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has done a huge amount to try to redirect funding from other parts of his budget to minimise the impact of that cut.”
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“I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, Sir Alan. I hope the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton is tempted to catch your eye to say a little more in this debate. He makes a broadly reasonable point in saying that there needs to be a balance in law between the rights of the tenant and the rights of the landlord. However, I struggle to understand why he thinks there is not a sufficient balance in law at the moment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle alluded to, there are already legal provisions to deal with tenants who get into substantial rent arrears and for cases of abandonment, and there is the legal rule of implied surrender.”
“Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead is right to ask for an additional check and balance before a landlord can take action under the provisions. The opportunity to go and ask a local housing authority whether it shares the view that a property has been abandoned is a check strongly worthy of consideration.”
“I am concerned that the clauses and Government amendments could lead to further illegal evictions, and part of the reason for that is that there are very few successful prosecutions at the moment for unlawful eviction by landlords. In 2011 there were only 13. The brutal truth is that illegal evictions are rarely investigated, and few landlords are prosecuted. There are a number of reasons for that. There have been substantial cuts to many of the tenancy relations teams in housing associations, which have traditionally carried out that function—if, indeed, they still exist. Police forces often think that illegal eviction is a civil matter, so it is quite rare that they investigate. For someone who has been evicted illegally and is now homeless, finding accommodation is a much more urgent priority than launching a prosecution. My hon.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point. If the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton will forgive me, that is another reason why it would be good to hear his experience about why the additional provisions, albeit with the Government amendments, are necessary. We will no doubt hear from the Minister in due course. Part of my concern is that tenants evicted under the new provisions will struggle to challenge their evictions. I asked on Tuesday about legal aid for someone wanting to make sure a rent repayment order would be available, and the Minister was going to reflect on that. Will he also reflect on whether legal aid will be available to a tenant who wants to challenge an eviction under the new provisions?”
“I am tempted to think that it ought to be relatively simple for Ministers to write to police forces urging them to check things carefully. If the Minister were to agree to that, I would certainly welcome it. I encourage the hon. Member for South Norfolk to consider the whole piece and all the reasons why it is unlikely that landlords who pursue unlawful evictions will be taken to task. The police issue is one thing, but I alluded to a series of other issues that prompt concern about the Bill’s clauses, albeit there are potential amendments from the Minister.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point, and it will be useful to hear from the Minister on that. Returning to a point I made in an intervention, the vast majority of landlords are not large buy-to-let companies. They are often individuals or families with just one or two properties who want to do the right thing by their tenants. The opportunity to talk to a body before taking a view that abandonment has happened gives them an additional safeguard and provides an additional opportunity for them to satisfy themselves that they are not making somebody homeless inadvertently. The amendment is pro-good-landlord just as much as it is anti-rogue-landlord, as my hon. Friend suggested. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Peterborough is not in his place, because he very much—”
“Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead tabled the amendment, which is pro-good-landlord and anti-rogue-landlord and will strengthen the Bill. I hope the Minister embraces it.”
“I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. It is good to have him here. Indeed, he has arrived in time to allow me to draw his attention once again to the examples of rogue landlords that I mentioned on Tuesday. Mr Antoniades, Mr Ippolito, Stanley John Rodgers, Zuo Jun He, Andrew Panayi, Katia Goremsandu, and Ishak Hussein have all been convicted of appalling behaviour. One suspects that they are looking at the abandonment provisions in the Bill—the Minister has proposed amendments—and thinking that they are a further weapon in their armoury, if they need it, when behaving badly towards tenants for not doing exactly what they want in the time that they want them to do it. I urge the Minister to understand the spirit with which my hon.”
“Will the Minister set out a little more on the general rationale for the provisions? What evidence is there that abandonment is such a huge problem that all those provisions are needed? I do not think we heard any evidence that suggests a problem on the scale merited by the effort gone to by Ministers and civil servants with the clauses.”
“I do not disagree with that proposition, but there are already legal provisions that deal with rent arrears and abandonment. What is the evidence that they are not working and that a slew of additional powers is needed?”
“I am grateful for what the Minister is saying. Will he clarify—if not now, then later in proceedings, or perhaps by letter—whether the tenant in that situation would be able to claim legal aid?”
“I am very grateful to the Minister for the spirit of his response to my point of order this morning. I have been on the website and I can see information about the offer that was made to the Government in October, but no additional information appears to be there about the detail of further discussions or, specifically, of the arrangements with the five housing associations that are proceeding with the pilot. If the Minister were able to give us further information ahead of Tuesday’s sittings, that would be extremely helpful.”
“Simply, will the Minister set out in more detail than perhaps he was initially intending what constitute, in his mind, the good reasons that might see a tenant wanting to go to a county court to get a reinstatement order, and indeed, being successful?”
“I thought I knew the direction of the Minister’s remarks, so rather than necessarily having to make a formal speech in a clause stand part debate, I thought I might simply intervene to ask a question and, I hope, not have to press matters further. Subsection (2)—and, indeed, subsection (1)—states that the tenant must have “a good reason” to press for reinstatement. I wonder whether the Minister might set out on the record what those good reasons are. I say that in the spirit of him wanting to help tenants, as the clause implies, who have unfairly or wrongly had their tenancy terminated under section 49, and I ask in a context in which occasionally, debates when legislation is being introduced can be used to provide guidance to the courts about what the purpose in the Government and Parliament’s mind was behind particular clauses.”
“I apologise for detaining the Committee on this clause, which is helpful, as was the Minister’s example. He will be aware from our discussions this morning that a series of other examples were discussed, such as short prison sentences, someone being taken ill with a mental health condition, or someone perhaps with the early onset of an incurable condition such as Alzheimer’s. Does the Minister see those examples, similarly, as a good reason for the county court to reinstate the tenancy?”
“Very briefly, I want to press the point about the jurisdiction of the database. It clearly relates to England, but rogue landlords operating in the Gloucester area or on the borders of Wales might have properties in Wales. It might be similar with the border areas close to Scotland. It would be useful, as part of the Minister’s helpful commitment to look at how the database might be made even more robust, to think about co-operation with Welsh, Scottish and even Northern Irish housing authorities.”
“I cannot think of any reason why any of those individuals who has already been convicted of being a bad landlord and who may or may not be subject to a banning order under this legislation should not also face a financial penalty. I hope that the Minister might, on this occasion, welcome my hon. Friend’s amendment and accept it for inclusion in the Bill.”
“I rise to support my hon. Friend’s amendment and to push the Minister gently for clarity about why, as the Bill stands, someone who was subject to a banning order could not be subject to a financial penalty as well. Given the significant costs that any housing authority will incur in taking action against one or other of the 10,500 rogue landlords that the Minister estimates there to be, why should not a financial penalty be imposed to help to recover some of the costs of taking action against them? The hon. Member for Peterborough was a particular fan of the examples of rogue landlords in a recent article in the Conservative party newspaper The Guardian .”
“I hear the Minister’s point about the need for proportionality. It seems eminently sensible. For a first offence, one clearly would not want to impose both a financial penalty and some other form of penalty. However, for the very worst sorts of landlord, I do not see why one could not add the option of a financial penalty as well, as part of the armoury of tools available to a first-tier tribunal in dealing with a rogue landlord.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead for not hearing more of her opening remarks. Will the Minister give us a sense of the type of situation in which he or the Secretary of State would feel that a compliance direction was needed? Clearly, one would be if no starter homes had been set in motion, but suppose five had been set in motion? Would that require a compliance direction? Or would the Minister expect 10 or 100 before a direction was issued?”
“The Minister looks like a man who would want a hot tub in his self-build property. Again, his would be a very different property from those that the rest of us want. The hon. Member for South Norfolk is the very definition of the type of Member who would want to create a mini-castle. Certainly, he would want a wide, sweeping drive to accommodate all his cars.”
“We are all living in houses that we do not see as suitable for our needs going forward and so want to be part of building a better home for each of us. We all get along famously, so we decide to work together and support each other’s efforts to get a better home. If we were to build our homes under the self-build route, they would clearly, by their very nature, be somewhat different. I am a new man at the moment—I appreciate that is a controversial concept and my partner is not necessarily a supporter of it. As a new man, I do not need anywhere to watch the television. I simply do not have the time any longer to do that, because of childcare arrangements. My property would be, by definition, very different from those of other Committee members who are not new men or do not have childcare responsibilities.”
“It is interesting that the Conservative party, which is so committed to the free market, should be so actively seeking to meddle with the free market in the clause by creating almost a mini-market within the overall housing market. However, it would be a digression to go down that route. To give the Committee a flavour of my interest in the clause and to amplify my concern, it might be worth imagining a situation where every member of the Committee lives in the same planning authority area—say Harrow, which is probably the best planning authority in the country and certainly the best place to live, with some very high-quality political representation, especially in the western part of the planning authority area. Let us assume we all live in the same planning authority area and have done so for a number of years.”
“I beg to move amendment 88, in clause 8, page 5, line 1, at end insert— “or community-led housing schemes as defined at Schedule [New Schedule 1: community-led housing schemes]” It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. Given your huge experience, you will know the disadvantage that Back-Bench Opposition Members are at in comparison with the massed ranks of the Government with all their civil servants behind them. In saying that, I hope you will protect me from any bullying by Government Members. In moving amendment 88, I probe whether the definitions in clause 8 are sufficiently tightly drafted to allow the full range of would-be self-builders and custom house builders to benefit, while not creating loopholes for bigger beasts of the housing market to exploit.”
“We might build the houses ourselves or contract them out and design how the properties look, but it would be hard to describe that as traditional self-build or traditional custom build. I seek to probe the Minister about whether a housing co-operative would qualify under the terms of the Bill. Indeed, many rightly acknowledge that the self-build and custom build parts of the housing development market are niche areas. The Government and, indeed, the Opposition, rightly want to see that part of the housing market becoming less niche and more mainstream. Again, the housing co-operative movement—which shares many parts of the definition that one might use to describe a self-build or custom build property—is regarded as quite niche. It may be covered by the definitions in clause 8, but at the moment it is not clear.”
“Given the harmonious relationships that have developed in this Committee under your chairmanship, Sir Alan, we could all come together to form a housing co-operative—let us call it the Toffs and Oiks Housing Co-operative—to build a new series of properties in which to live. However, would that qualify under clause 8? Could we register an interest with the local planning authority to build homes? Why might we go down the housing co-operative route, as opposed to the traditional self-build route or the traditional custom build route? It might be easier to raise finance if we were acting collectively and sharing risk. That might make us more attractive to a potential financier.”
“If we were to go down the custom build route, we might again need my hon. Friend to register our interests with the planning authority. My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, who is not in her place, has experience of the planning system and would be useful in helping us to find custom house builders. Again, Government and Opposition Members would probably require different types of custom house builder. I gently suggest that Opposition Members would need larger libraries, because we are much more committed to evidence-based policy. The hon. Member for South Norfolk probably does not need such a big library. That is one difference in the type of specialist custom house builders that we might want.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that kind intervention. I will come to the subject of libraries shortly. I think I have demonstrated that, if we were to go down the self-build route, each of us would build a different type of property. Nevertheless, we might need to work together to achieve that. We might need the help of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicestershire-ish way, I believe— [ Interruption. ] I am sorry, I mean my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle. [ Interruption. ] I am a London MP—bear with me. We might need the help of my hon. Friend, with all his council experience, to approach the local planning authority. He knows how planning authorities work, so he could register our collective self-interest. That is one small way in which we could work together, although we would nevertheless build the properties ourselves.”
“Perhaps I should have gone on a little longer and drawn the hon. Gentleman’s attention to clause 8(2) which, referencing his own Private Member’s Bill, talks about omitting, “bodies corporate that exercise functions on behalf of associations of individuals”. That is one of the things that initially triggered my concern that housing co-operatives or community-led housing might, inadvertently perhaps, be affected by the definition in proposed new subsection (A1).”
“I find myself in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. I have experience of a housing association that is incredibly difficult to get hold of and is not treating some of my constituents as well as it should. He supports co-operatives as one part of the self-build and custom house building world, so does he want the Minister to be clear that they will be covered under the terms of the definition?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his opening remarks thus far, but I wonder whether I could push him a little further. When he writes to every planning authority—as I have no doubt he will—perhaps he can be clear that housing co-operatives in the format that he has described, using the language that he has used, would be covered under the definition of self-build and custom house building. They would then benefit, crucially, from being able to indicate their interest and from being on the register and would have to be contacted by the planning authority if suitable land became available.”
“I welcome the Minister’s efforts to move at least partly in my direction. There are opportunities for us to discuss the state of the housing co-operative world more generally through other amendments that I have tabled. Let me gently raise again with the Minister my concern about clause 8(2) and the example I gave of the Lewisham initiative, where a local community land trust working with the council is coming together to provide homes at local level. There are members of the land trust who want to live in the community-led housing scheme, but it is effectively a corporate body being set up to do this work. Would it be covered?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for that. In which case, helpful as his comments have been, it sounds to me as though some housing co-operatives, but not all, could be covered by the clause. Given the forces arrayed against me, I will perhaps accept the Minister’s words of encouragement for one part of the housing co-op sector and return to my concerns about the need to support the wider housing co-op sector later in proceedings on the Bill. Amendment 88 was very much a probing amendment. I say gently to the Minister that this is a very bad Bill overall, but, in accordance with the spirit of Committee proceedings, we can make it slightly less bad through our debates; I hope my remarks are seen in that spirit. I welcome at least part of the Minister’s remarks, which were helpful. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.”
“Before my hon. Friend gets into the substance of the concern about the clause, which he has helpfully set in context, he will remember, having read the Hansard extracts from the debate on the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for South Norfolk, that our then housing spokeswoman, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), raised concerns about access to finance for those wanting to go down the self-build route. Might my hon. Friend encourage the Minister to give us an update on the extent to which finance is genuinely available for self-build and custom house building, and, indeed, the housing co-operative field, which is covered by the self-build and custom house building definitions in the Bill?”
“I am always encouraged by references to building societies, and I welcome the Minister’s experience. Just to be clear, would the local authority in Stoke have been able to benefit from the fund, to help make self-build plots available? That is the point the Opposition are trying to probe the Minister on.”
“It is always great to have a fellow revolutionary in Committee. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should drift over to the Opposition Benches, at least for this part of our proceedings. I agree that self-build and custom house building could be part of a housing revolution, but surely in order for that to happen there has to be much greater access to finance to enable self-build and custom house builders to develop. Does he not agree that the decision by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to impose a levy on building societies to take some of their capital away potentially makes it harder for them to make finance available to self-build and custom house builders? Will he be a revolutionary on that as well?”
“A slight alarm bell got set off in my head when the Minister talked about the power to make regulations potentially to include broadband. Harrow is in central London, and one would think it had good access to broadband, but that is not the case at the moment. There is a very mixed performance by BT and other providers. Given that it is Ofcom’s responsibility to direct the provision of broadband, one worries that the Minister might feel gung-ho one day and draft the regulations to include broadband, when it is not the local authority’s responsibility to provide such a crucial facility; it is Ofcom’s or, indeed, the private sector’s responsibility. It would be useful to probe the Minister a little more on his intentions for those future regulations.”
“My hon. Friend will remember our debate on clause 8, when a spirit of consensus about the importance of housing co-operatives almost broke out. Were his amendment accepted, it would provide another opportunity for the hon. Member for South Norfolk to demonstrate his revolutionary zeal in support of housing co-operatives. It would go some way towards plugging the shortage of support for the expansion of housing co-operatives, which at all levels—finance, local authority support and builder support—has historically restricted the growth of that important but, sadly, niche part of the housing market.”
“Friend has put forward a very helpful amendment, and I am interested to hear from the Minister how it would not help, since I assume he will oppose it. Why would the amendment not be in the interests of that military veteran wanting a permanent home, albeit using another form of tenure, for which the Minister has not demonstrated an enthusiasm?”
“I support my hon. Friend’s amendment. I want to consider the example of a military veteran who does not want to build his own home, engage with a custom house builder or be part of a housing co-operative, but is on the local authority’s register. In most cases, he is due a very long wait. Were my hon. Friend’s amendment accepted, it might give him some hope that, despite the long waiting list that is the reality for most housing authorities, there is a chance that sufficient homes will be built at a faster rate and that he might be allocated a permanent home, albeit not one of the types of tenure that we have discussed in Committee so far—a starter home, a self-build or a custom build. My hon.”
“I thought we had established consensus but now the hon. Gentleman seeks to spoil the positive atmosphere that was developing between us. People in my constituency come to see me about housing issues. I am sure they are supportive of self-build and custom house build, but they also want the local authority, housing associations or private developers to be able to provide decent homes. The amendment does not seek to exclude self-build or custom house building; my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich simply seeks to make a range of other tenures available. I counsel the hon. Member for South Norfolk that one failing of revolutionaries in the past has been blinkeredness. I hope the hon. Gentleman will not fall for that weakness on this occasion.”
“The Minister has mentioned the 11 vanguard authorities a number of times and has given the example of his recent visit to Stoke. I would welcome hearing whether any of those vanguard authorities are in London. Given the scale of housing need in London, what has the experience been of the vanguard authority in London, if there is one?”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point about the need to make finance available. If I may, I will bring him back to my earlier intervention, when I said that the proposed levy on building societies that the Chancellor wants to impose risks limiting the amount of capital that building societies can lend for mortgage finance, and potentially makes it harder for those building societies to offer finance for self-build housing. It would be helpful to hear a little from the Minister about how he will address that particular problem, and whether there are any conversations going on between the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Treasury to try to offset this problem; otherwise, the Minister’s very laudable aim of an expansion of the self-build sector might be curtailed by difficulties in accessing finance.”
“I appreciate that the Minister may not be able to say so at this point, but, perhaps later in our proceedings, will he say what lessons can be learnt from the 11 vanguard authorities to deal with the scale of the housing crisis in London? There is potentially quite a bit of interest in self-build and custom house building in London, but the cost of land and other factors driving the housing crisis may make it even harder for those who want to do that. It would be helpful to hear a little more on whether the lessons from the vanguard authorities are helpful in any way for the specific London element of the picture.”
“I was briefly provoked by the Minister’s response to my intervention. I say to him gently that it is incumbent on the Minister setting up an initiative—given the scale of the housing crisis in London—to have worked a little harder to try and get a vanguard authority in London. Why, for example, did Bromley, Bexley, Westminster or Richmond not seek to become a vanguard authority? The Minister, with his links into Conservative associations in those areas, surely could have persuaded the leaders to apply to become vanguard authorities, with all the helpful lessons for the housing crisis in London that their self-build experience might have demonstrated.”
“He said that, given the exemption from right to buy, housing co-operatives could flourish as a result of the Bill. Many co-operatives are worried about other parts of the Bill, including the reduction in rental income and what that will mean for their finance and ability to expand further, and the additional administrative costs that might be generated by pay to stay. Will the Minister comment on the impact of those aspects of the Bill on housing co-operatives? That would be helpful. I hope he will focus on whether he thinks that the granting of permission in principle for self-build housing plots will inadvertently drive up the cost of land and therefore make it even more difficult for would-be self-builders and custom house builders.”
“Are we in danger of creating an additional hurdle to the cost of acquiring land by supporting the granting of permission in principle and therefore, albeit inadvertently, driving up still further the cost of acquiring land? I worry that we missed an opportunity in clause 8 to make clause 9 even better in terms of housing co-operatives. Our earlier debate made it clear that some would-be housing co-operatives could benefit from clauses 8 and 9. Again, I encourage the Minister to think a little further about the benefits of housing co-operatives, and about what more the Department can do to encourage local authorities to look with enthusiasm at the potential of housing co-operatives to address some of the housing need in their area. With that in mind, I return to a point that the hon. Member for South Norfolk made almost as an aside.”
“This morning, we have had a pretty good debate about the benefits of self and custom building and there seems to be broad consensus on both sides of the House, and particularly in the Committee, for expansion of such building. The danger is that we have been talking about the emperor’s new clothes, and that lack of finance and professional support—I am thinking of housing co-operatives—might detract from people’s ability to crack on with building their own home or getting involved with a custom house builder. My worry is that the National Custom and Self Build Association is right in saying that the cost of land will continue to be the most significant deterrent to going forward.”
“Thinking about the cost of land in Harrow, I struggle to believe that many self-builders could build property for under £200,000 if they have also had to acquire the land. We know that when planning permission is given for a site, it usually drives up its value and my concern is that if permission in principle is given, even on a plot that has been designated for self-building in future, it would drive up the cost of that land and limit the number of would-be self-builders or custom house builders who might want to build on it. Surely none of us wants to see the number of would-be self-builders restricted, or for them to have to look at areas of the country other than Harrow.”
“In its evidence to the Lyons review, the National Custom and Self Build Association said that the cost of acquiring land was the most significant barrier to more self and custom house building, and that 50% of would-be self and custom house builders had a budget of £200,000 or less with which to fund both the construction of their home and site acquisition. Part of my reason for being interested in whether there had been a vanguard authority in London was the huge cost of land there relative to many other parts of the UK. There may be less scope for self-builders to believe that they could build in London than in the Stokes or the Bicesters, to which the Minister referred.”