Sir Christopher Chope
MP for Christchurch · Conservative · United Kingdom
“When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one? I was looking at my calendar of business, otherwise known as the Order Paper, and it says that “The selection of the matters to be debated will be made by the Leader of the Opposition (Standing Order No.”
“The Climate Change Committee has condemned the Government for failing and falling short of adapting to climate change and accepting the reality as it is, which is that by the end of this century, global temperatures will have increased to between 3.5° and 4.5° above pre-industrial levels.”
“The Minister has referred to the grooming gangs inquiry carried out by our friend, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), and early-day motion 380 makes a number of recommendations. Will the Minister engage with the hon.”
“The landmark 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence by the United States takes place in the week commencing 29 June. I have applied for an Adjournment debate, but will the Leader of the House enable more Members to be able to participate in marking that historic event?”
“That is exactly what I did on behalf of my constituent Paul Kenchington: I wrote to the Secretary of State about the specialist steel that he uses, and I have not had a reply.”
“Next week, can the Leader of the House produce a Government statement in response to the Hallett review on covid-19 vaccines? Lady Hallett recommended major reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme.”
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“One of the biggest problems with clause 1 is the impact that it will have in the courts. Clause 1(5) states that subsection (1) does not apply where the relevant notice has been wholly revoked under section 16 of the Housing Act 2004, where it has been quashed or where a decision of the relevant housing authority to refuse to revoke has been reversed in three different sets of circumstances, which I will not recite. Those are all very narrow situations, but the bigger question is: what will happen if the tenant acts in a way designed to try to delay eviction or to frustrate the process of recovery of the property by the landlord? The Minister and the hon.”
“Throughout that time, the landlord seeking to regain possession of his property under section 21 would be unable to do so because of the interaction of clauses 1(3) and 1(4). What would be the likely response of a landlord in this situation? They might well say, “I’m going to have to put pressure on the recalcitrant local housing authority to deliver on this, so I’ll go to the court to try to require it to reach a decision.” In many aspects of the world that we look at as Members of Parliament, the inability of regulatory and statutory authorities to make decisions is, in essence, the regulatory burden. The only remedy for that indecision is to go to the courts, and that leads to a lot of extra court work, as well as a lot of unfairness and injustice for the people involved.”
“Given that local housing authorities are not even inspecting all the dwelling houses with repair problems that they are obliged to inspect under their existing statutory duties, it is inevitable that a significant period of time—possibly many weeks—will elapse while they decide whether to carry out inspections under the Bill. If an authority did decide to inspect a dwelling house, it would take even longer for the inspection to be carried out. Then it would have to look at the results and decide whether to issue a relevant notice. If so, the matter would be referred to the legal department and in due course the notice could be served. The whole process, it is no exaggeration to suggest, could take at least six months.”
“It has been assumed during this debate that local housing authorities act expeditiously and conscientiously in dealing with these issues. However, as we heard earlier, there is evidence that, because of a lack of resources, local housing departments and environmental health officers can be reluctant to engage in this kind of activity because it is expensive. Although they have a statutory duty to inspect dwelling houses that have been the subject of a complaint, they often do nothing about it and allow the matter to lapse.”
“in relation to an assured shorthold tenancy of a dwelling-house in England that— (a) before the section 21 notice was given, the tenant made a relevant complaint in relation to the dwelling-house to the landlord or the relevant local housing authority, and (b) subsection 4 applies.” Subsection (4) says that if “the relevant local housing authority has not decided whether to inspect the dwelling-house or the common parts” or has decided to inspect them but has not carried out the inspection, or has conducted an inspection but has not decided whether to serve a relevant notice, or has decided to serve a relevant notice but the notice has not yet been served, in all those circumstances clause 1(3) would result in the section 21 proceedings not being able to go forward. That could give rise to a lot of litigation.”
“The prospect of the Bill generating cases in the county court in which tenants represent themselves against small landlords who are seeking to regain possession of their property is a serious issue which needs to be addressed. It has not been touched on in the debate so far. I draw attention to that aspect because of the wording in clause 1, which states: “A section 21 notice may not be given in relation to an assured shorthold tenancy . . . within six months beginning with the day of service of a relevant notice in relation to the dwelling-house.” It then sets out that that notice would be invalid in particular circumstances. Clause 1 (3) is key. It states: “It is a defence to proceedings for an order under section 21 . . .”
“If we had such an assessment before us, it would probably have been easier for my hon. Friend to make his argument. He would have been able to refer— [Interruption.] or not, as the case may be––to a regulatory impact assessment and thereby ensure that Second Reading of this important Bill was properly informed. The impact is not just potentially on the rest of the private rented sector. The Bill will have an impact on the courts. It is clear that it will generate more business in the courts at a time when the Ministry of Justice—I have the privilege of serving on the Justice Committee—is under enormous pressure to reduce costs and the Courts Service is under great pressure, not least because of the reductions in the legal assistance that has been available to people bringing cases before the courts.”
“Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) and by the Minister, although in his more recent intervention the Minister seems to have said that he was relying on anecdotal evidence, rather than any hard analysis. That is a rather irresponsible position for the Government to take. It is not the position that the Labour Government took and it is not the position that this Government took up to the time that the hon. Gentleman became the Minister. My challenge to the Minister is this: given that the Bill is new regulation, has there been a regulatory impact assessment? I do not think so. This new regulation will impact adversely on the market. I would have thought it was a sine qua non of Government support for the Bill that they would have undertaken a proper regulatory impact assessment.”
“I am worried that such a Bill, which is intended to change the balance—it certainly would—between the landlord and the tenant in shorthold tenancies, might result in adverse consequences for the whole private rented housing market. It might deter new landlords from coming into the market and encourage existing landlords not to re-let and to leave the market. It might, completely contrary to the wishes and intentions of the Minister, reduce the availability of tenancies for people looking for somewhere to live. Against that background, we need to be circumspect in looking at the precise provisions of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley dealt with the scale of the problem and sought to put it into perspective. He challenged the basis of the Shelter survey, which was relied upon by the hon.”
“It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), many of whose concerns about this legislation I share. As I said in an earlier intervention, this area has long been of interest to me, since I was a Minister in the Department of the Environment when we introduced the Housing Act 1988, which deregulated the private rented sector and, in so doing, generated so much more activity in the sector and provided so many more opportunities for people both to rent and to let properties. We got rid of the enormous scandal of hundreds of thousands of properties being kept empty because landlords feared that, once a tenant was in place, they would be unable to regain vacant possession. It is against that background that I look at this Bill.”
“I missed the first part of the Minister’s intervention, I am afraid. He said that the whole process could not take more than two months. Is that what he is saying is contained in the Bill? I have not seen anything in the Bill that says that.”
“Because local authorities are failing to exercise their responsibilities, they are permitting—through their lack of intervention—a larger number of properties to be in disrepair than should be the case. That is unacceptable.”
“Under the title “Category 1 hazards: general duty to take enforcement action”, the Act states: “If a local housing authority consider that a category 1 hazard exists on any residential premises, they must take the appropriate enforcement action in relation to the hazard.” For category 2 hazards, local authorities have the power to take enforcement action. We know that in many cases local authorities are not exercising those powers. That is par for the course and there is nothing that we can do about it. We know also that in many areas local housing authorities are not exercising their statutory duties, which means that they are letting down the tenants whom they purport to want to assist.”
“I would be happy to give way to the Minister if he thinks that my interpretation of the need for such an assurance to be included in the Bill is reasonable and the Government would be willing to take it on board to meet the concerns that I have expressed. I note that the Minister has not responded. The hon. Member for Brent Central said—and I agree with her—that a heck of a lot of people are tenants in properties whose landlord is falling down on the responsibility to keep the property in good repair. Those responsibilities can already be enforced by the existing law, especially the provisions of the Housing Act 2004. That Act deals with the enforcement of housing standards. It defines two categories of hazard. In section 5, the local authority is under a statutory duty with regard to category 1 hazards.”
“In each paragraph in clause 1(4), we should specify that the relevant local housing authority must decide within, say, two weeks. There are four parts to the process, so if the Minister thinks that two months is a reasonable time for those four activities, two weeks for each would equal eight weeks. Each of those decisions by the relevant housing authority would therefore have to be taken within the two-week period or be deemed to be a negative decision. That would be a necessary protection for the landlord and, if the tenant has a genuine concern, it would be an opportunity for him to be assured that if something is wrong in the house that he is occupying it can be put right in a reasonably short time.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Having heard the Minister say that a local authority “ought to” be able to do this in two months, I could not agree with him more, but my concern is what happens when a local authority does not do what Members think it ought to do. We have already heard many examples of areas in which local authorities are already falling down on their statutory duties. Nothing in the Bill sets out a timescale within which a local authority has to act in response to the requirements set out in the Bill. If the Minister thinks that two months is reasonable for the whole process, we should be able to incorporate that time scale in the Bill, perhaps through amendments in Committee. Perhaps such amendments will be tabled by the Government.”
“The explanatory notes mention family members, and clause 2(4) spells out specific cases where the landlord would not be regarded as being engaged in a genuine sale—”
“I was familiar with how the complicated law, as it was prior to 1988, was used by the unscrupulous to prolong the agony, to themselves, often, and the landlord, and at great expense—I am talking about fees as well as the cost to the Courts Service and legal system. The purpose of section 21 notices, which would be undermined by the Bill, was to curtail that activity and the adversarial approach to dealing with tenants’ problems. The Minister and promoter of the Bill say that clause 2, introducing further exemptions to the application of clause 1, balances out the rights of a tenant as against the landlord, but I do not think that is so. That point is reinforced by clause 2(3), which would provide for a further exemption where the dwelling is “genuinely on the market for sale”. Who will assess whether it is “genuinely” on the market?”
“If we start raising questions of whether a tenant has breached an express term of a tenancy or failed to use the dwelling house in a tenant-like manner, we effectively return to the litigiousness of the landlord-tenant law that preceded the assured tenancy regime and section 21 notices, the whole purpose of which was to avoid the litigation and doubts associated with the termination of an assured shorthold tenancy after it had run its six-month course or at some subsequent time. The Bill would resurrect, almost covertly, those old litigious opportunities. Before I entered the House, I was a practising barrister, and I spent many an enjoyable occasion before judges in the county courts—I will not list those I had the pleasure of practising in—representing tenants and landlords.”
“If they are impecunious, they know they can engage in retaliatory action against their landlords by using the courts against them. They could turn the powers in the Bill, which are designed to try to protect tenants, upside down and use them as a weapon against landlords. That is the concern being expressed by landlords’ associations. It is a pity that in listing the bodies the Minister has consulted, he did not mention the Residential Landlords Association, which represents many independent private landlords who are responsible and want to comply with the law, but who are extremely concerned about the consequences of the Bill were it to get on the statute book.”
“Clause 2(1) states: “Subsections (1) to (3) of section 1 do not apply where the condition of the dwelling-house or common parts that gave rise to the service of the relevant notice, or consideration of whether to serve a…notice, is due to a breach by the tenant of— (a) the duty to use the dwelling-house in a tenant-like manner, or (b) an express term of the tenancy to the same effect.” That will be subject to litigation. Whether a tenant has failed in a duty to use the dwelling-house in a tenant-like manner is ultimately something that has to be justiciable by the courts, even where it is alleged that there is a breach of an express term of the tenancy. Why would tenants want to play the game of engaging in litigation?”
“It is still far from clear that putting the burden on the landlord to show that a complaint is totally without merit is a solution to the problem that the Minister and the promoter of the Bill identified, which is how to deal with tenants who are mischievous, who want to prolong their tenancies, who cause trouble for the landlord or who effectively are in what might be described as the tenants’ awkward squad. If this is to be any use, the burden should be the other way around. The burden should be on the tenant to show that the complaint has merit—the burden of proof should be reversed.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that very pertinent question. I think it comes back to the lack of a regulatory impact assessment. The Bill has the potential to put more responsibility on to local authorities, but we know they are already not exercising those responsibilities. The Minister said that they had been given specific grants by the Government in the past year. I think he talked about £6.7 million, if my memory serves me. Despite that, the amount of activity he described by local authorities dealing with problems relating to housing in a bad state of repair was very small indeed in comparison with the vast number of properties—some 4 million—that are currently let by landlords to tenants. That deals with one of the issues relating to the further exemptions under section 1 set out in clause 2.”
“I am sorry that the process has been interrupted. That has taken away 12 or 15 minutes of good debating time, which I was hoping to be able to make use of. It shows that the Bill does not have the massive, overwhelming support that its sponsors say it has. Normally on a Friday, someone moving a closure motion expects to succeed.”
“I am tempted to go into the world of how the Liberal Democrats can sit on the fence and be on both sides of an argument at the same time, but I am not going to do that. I am just going to say that quite a lot of Members come to the House and never vote for or against a closure motion; they sit on their hands. Normally, however, if a Member is going to try to get what is known to be a controversial Bill— [Interruption.] Hon. Members are laughing, but the Bill is obviously controversial because until only a few weeks ago, the Government themselves were against it and they have opposed a similar measure in the House of Lords.”
“The hon. Gentleman obviously was not trusting me, which is why his friends tried to move a closure against me. I must admit that I have a slightly stubborn streak, and since Members of this House have tried to move a closure against me, albeit unsuccessfully, I am certainly not going to just immediately sit down.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Legislating on Fridays is an iterative process. For example, I spoke on several Fridays against what was then known as the high hedges legislation. It took three or four successive Sessions of Parliament before that Bill got through. It was put through by the Government in a schedule to the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, and it was not debated at all, either in this House or in the other place.”
“I am grateful to you for trying to restore some decorum, Madam Deputy Speaker,. I know the hon. Gentleman is new and forgive him that, but he asked me if I would give way; I gave way to him, and then he took the opportunity to insult me. I do not mind: I have been insulted by Liberal Democrats before, and I am sure Liberal Democrats will continue to insult me in the future, but we should not engage in ad hominem arguments, neither should we ignore the fact that this Bill is controversial. It may be supported by 60 Members who are present today, but it is not supported by a lot of other people. I think it is important when considering legislation such as this that we think through the full implications, so that it does not result in a diminution of the private rented sector, as was the case when I first came into Parliament in 1983.”
“I am sorry my hon. Friend does not understand it. This is a serious Bill—I think it should have been a Government Bill, frankly. It contains changes to existing legislation which are potentially of significant impact. I think there should have been a regulatory impact assessment associated with the Bill.”
“I do not know whether the Minister is being intentionally disingenuous, but if the Government introduced this legislation it would be a Government Bill in Government time. The Government are now trying effectively to usurp private Members’ time for Government business, and that is what the Minister has just admitted. This has taken up the whole of a Friday that should be given over to genuine Back-Bench debates on issues of concern to Back Benchers. If the Government think this is such an important Bill and want to get it on the statute book, they could get some of its provisions on the statute book by amending the legislation that is currently going through the other place.”
“I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who knows that although that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and I have been preventing his Bill from going through without debate, I have written to my constituents and others to say that I believe his Bill should also be a Government Bill, as it was promised by the Government—”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Before we had the interruption, I was expressing some concern about the reference: “Subsections (1) to (3) of section 1 do not apply where the dwelling-house is genuinely on the market for sale.” My concern is about the use of the word “genuinely”. Clause 2(4) states that a dwelling house is deemed not to be genuinely on the market for sale if the landlord intends to sell the landlord’s interest to a person associated with the landlord. If somebody wished to sell their house to their child, a divorced wife, a cousin or somebody like that, they would not be allowed to in these circumstances as it would not deliver an exemption from subsections (1) to (3) of clause 1.”
“People wishing to enter into an agreement can ask themselves whether they wish to take on the tenancy of a particular property. If the property has not got a good energy performance rating and the person is suffering hard times, the better choice is not to take a tenancy on that property but to look for a newly built property with proper central heating. We must not treat the people who enter into these contracts as imbeciles—”
“This is potentially one of the most dangerous in the Bill. The Bill gives the Government the power to bring forward regulations. The Bill itself is bad enough in undermining the whole shorthold tenancy regime, but the provisions of clause 5 would enable the Government to introduce regulations covering a whole host of other things that could be used as a reason for not allowing a landlord to recover possession of his own premises. Under the clause, that could occur if a landlord were in breach of requirements relating to “the condition of dwelling-houses or their common parts”, or to “the energy performance of dwelling-houses”. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said so ably, this is about privity of contract.”
“However, my reading of the subsection is that all three conditions set out in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) will have to be satisfied, rather than just one of them. If the Bill goes into Committee, or if it comes back to the House to be reworked on an iterative basis, I hope that we can insert the word “or” after paragraphs (a) and (b), in place of the word “and”. This is another weakness of the Bill. There are also weaknesses in the way the Bill seeks to change the notice process. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Brent Central’s justification for changing the process, but I was not convinced by what she said. Similarly, the Minister justified clause 4 by saying that it would be perfectly reasonable to introduce new time limits, but, again, I was not convinced. We are running out of time, so I shall turn quickly to clause 5.”
“Clause 2(7) states that subsections (1) to (3) of clause 1 will not apply if the landlord is “a private registered provider of social housing.” There is no explanation for that provision, and in my experience some of the worst problems relating to premises in a state of disrepair are found in properties that are owned and let by private registered providers of social housing. Why should that category of person be exempt from the provisions of the Bill? Could this be based on anything other than an ill-conceived prejudice against independent private landlords? When I first looked at clause 2(8), I thought it might meet one of the concerns that I expressed earlier about a landlord whose mortgage had been granted before the beginning of the tenancy.”
“He might be a minority shareholder who can no longer sustain his position. All sorts of issues could arise. If we are saying that a dwelling house has to be genuinely on the market, we should not then go further and prohibit its sale to a relative, friend or business partner, or to an associate of a business partner. People looking at the Bill will think that it is rather slanted against the landlord, yet it is being presented as neutral as between landlord and tenant. Another reason that I think it is slanted against the landlord is that the Residential Landlords Association, which represents the responsible landlords, is against the Bill. The Minister did not refer to the association when he was talking about those whom he had consulted in preparing his view of the Bill.”
“The answer can be found in clause 2(5): “For the purposes of subsection (4), references to a person who is associated with another person are to be read in accordance with section 178 of the Housing Act 1996.” I do not have section 178 of the 1996 Act immediately to hand, but although we might not agree with it, that is probably a proper and adequate definition in this Bill. A second category of people to whom one would not be able to sell a property in order for it to be deemed to be genuinely on the market for sale would be those associated with the business partner of the landlord or a business partner of a person associated with the landlord. Again, that goes far too wide, and the landlord could well be in a situation such that he has to sell his house to pay off his debts to a business associate, for example.”
“How does today’s report fit in with the promise made by the Prime Minister on 19 September that any change giving more devolution in Scotland would go in tandem with, and at the same pace as, changes in the rest of the United Kingdom?”
“The picture is not quite as rosy as my right hon. Friend paints it, is it? Even The Guardian newspaper reported that the Commonwealth Fund survey showed that the “only serious black mark against the NHS was its poor record on keeping people alive.””
“My hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech. When is he going to get on to that part of the Bill that makes it clear that those proposing it are not against zero-hours contracts completely and do not wish to outlaw them? They just wish to limit them, yet all their rhetoric has been about outlawing zero-hours contracts.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sure that the House is most indebted to you for your ruling. It is being said that tonight’s vote will be a proxy for a vote on the European arrest warrant. Is there anything in Standing Orders to allow a vote on one issue to be treated as a proxy for a vote on another?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward this brilliant Bill. If it does not succeed today, it will certainly succeed in future, because it seems to be based on unanswerable logic. Can he explain why he thinks the Government are against it?”
“I am listening intently to what the Minister is saying. Is he concerned that he has not persuaded a whole host of clinicians and medical charities of his case?”
“I know that the principle of my short Bill has been accepted by the former Secretary of State for Education, because it was on the basis of the very narrow anomaly with which it seeks to deal that he intervened so helpfully in the case of Mr and Mrs Amey and their son George. It seems to me that one way of resolving that anomaly would be to ensure that, as clause 1 proposes, “Any reference to a looked after child in the Schools Admission Code issued under Section 84 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 shall be taken to include a reference to a child with a parent or guardian who is terminally ill or suffering a seriously disabling illness.” I do not think that there is any need to elaborate on that.”
“I think that giving such children priority is perfectly sensible, but I think that it is also sensible to take account of the circumstances of children whose parents are terminally ill or suffer from a seriously disabling illness. The journey to school may be much more burdensome for such a parent, and the child will be under a lot of pressure because of the parent’s illness. A parent with a disability may have to move away from the catchment area of a school that is already attended by his or her child’s elder sibling in order to live in specialist housing such as a bungalow, so that there is no need to climb stairs. Accommodation of that kind may not be available in the catchment area. As a consequence, the child will lose its priority in the system.”
“I will not go into all the details, but ultimately, after an enormous amount of anguish, he has obtained a place there. Looked-after children are given special priority when it comes to school admissions, and I do not criticise that at all. They are given special priority because they live with foster parents or are in the process of being adopted, which means that they may need to move to a different catchment area. If the adoptive parents of a looked-after child are unable to get the child into the local school, all sorts of additional problems will be created as attempts are made to ensure that the child can have as normal a life as possible.”
“She was distraught when her son George was unable to join his sibling at Mudeford infant school, which said that it had no space for him. An appeal was made through the county council system, and was rejected. I took the view, on behalf of my constituents, that that was absurd. I was able to secure the support of the then Secretary of State for Education, who very helpfully wrote to the county council saying that he agreed with me that the situation was wholly unsatisfactory, and hoped that the council would do something about it. The council set up another appeal hearing, the outcome of which was that George Amey was able to go to that school. However, a similar problem arose earlier this year, when George wanted to move to Mudeford junior school.”
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. This is a very small Bill. It consists of two clauses, the second of which merely deals with the extent, commencement and short title, and the first of which is also very short. Gaps, anomalies, inconsistencies and injustices in the law or regulations are often brought to our attention as a result of constituency cases, which is what happened in this instance. The Bill deals with the very narrow issue of whether “pupils with a parent with a terminal or seriously disabling illness” should “receive priority in the admissions process to maintained schools” in the same way as, for instance, looked-after children. It arises from the case of my constituents Mr and Mrs Amey. Mrs Amey is extremely unwell: she suffers from what is thought to be a terminal condition.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend, and I thank him for his intervention. I have a great deal of respect for my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), who I see is sitting in the Minister’s place. I am not sure whether she is, in fact, now a schools Minister.”