Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I look forward to our making speedy progress today.

The Bill proposes a number of enforcement measures that offer a strong deterrent to irresponsible agents and landlords and, in doing so, protects tenants from unfair letting fees. Clause 6 places a duty on local weights and measures authorities—that is, trading standards authorities—to enforce the ban on letting fees and requirements relating to holding deposits. Trading standards have an important role in enforcing existing legislation on letting agents—such as the requirement on agents to display their fees transparently. With their existing local knowledge of the industry, trading standards are the clear choice to enforce the ban on letting fees. Indeed, 69% of respondents to the Government consultation agreed that trading standards should enforce the provisions of the Bill. We have also spoken to trading standards officers, who agree that enforcement of the Bill aligns with their responsibilities to enforce other legislation relating to fair trading and consumer protection.

Trading standards authorities are responsible for enforcement in their own local areas. Where a breach occurs in the area of more than one trading standards authority, a breach is considered to have occurred in each of the relevant local areas. Trading standards must have regard to any guidance issued by the Secretary of State or lead enforcement authority. The investigatory powers available to a local trading standards authority for the purpose of enforcing the Bill are set out in schedule 5 to the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Will the Minister explain to the Committee what assessment he has made of the capacity of trading standards departments to implement the measures that he is discussing, and what additional resources he intends to give them to make that possible?

I am very happy to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question briefly now, as I am sure that we will come to it when we consider the various amendments and clauses that deal particularly with capacity and resources. In a nutshell, we believe that the Bill and the enforcement measures in it will be self-financing with the fees that can be charged by local enforcement authorities and trading standards authorities; on top of that, they will receive seed funding in the first year of up to £500,000.

As I was saying, the investigatory powers are set out in schedule 5 to the 2015 Act.

The Minister just mentioned charges. Is he referring to the fines?

Yes; I meant the fines that will be charged of up to £30,000 for a second offence and £5,000 in the first instance.

To return to the investigatory powers, they are laid out and provide the ability for trading standards authorities to investigate, inspect and enforce the provisions; they enable them to carry out their enforcement activity.

I hope that the clause will stand part of the Bill.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma.

As we have heard and read in the evidence from the likes of the Local Government Association, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute and the Chartered Institute of Housing, there are significant concerns about the enforcement powers being conferred on the local weights and measures authorities around the country. For the avoidance of doubt, we are talking in this clause about local trading standards teams. As I have mentioned before, they have a wide and varied remit. They enforce laws on behalf of consumers on matters such as age-restricted products; agriculture; animal health and welfare; fair trading, which includes pricing, descriptions of goods, digital content and services, and terms and conditions; food standards and safety; intellectual property, including counterfeiting; product safety; and, of course, weights and measures.

Trading standards cover more than 250 statutory duties, including providing businesses with advice. The CTSI says that the service is already overstretched and underfunded, with just £1.99 per head being spent. The situation has been recognised by the National Audit Office, which has said that there is a direct threat to the consumer protection system’s viability as a whole, yet here the Government seek to add another layer of responsibilities, technicalities and duties to those of the service without giving due consideration to the implications of the request, and simply assuming that their assessment that the scheme will be fiscally neutral after two years will come to pass. That seems a rather carte blanch approach to me—a “close your eyes, cross your fingers and hope for the best” kind of plan. It is not robust and it is not a process modelled on the evidence of the experts who operate in the roles, day in and day out. There is time for the Minister to correct this.

Our constituents will mostly know trading standards for tackling rogue traders. My constituency being a port town, we have a very active trading standards department, which regularly discovers dodgy goods that people try to smuggle in, including recently some dangerous counterfeit cigarettes, filled with anything up to and including asbestos, for sale cheap on the black market, with a street value of around £8,500. Trading standards are often the first in a position of authority to come across goods linked to organised crime and criminal gangs, and they provide essential eyes and ears within local communities.

Is the Minister confident that the addition of these tenant fees enforcement powers to trading standards’ responsibilities, with only pin money for start-up and roll-out, will not impact on its already essential role protecting consumers? How can he be sure, and what steps will he take to ensure that that is the case going forward? We heard of cuts to trading standards departments of 40% to 50% at a local level.

Across the country, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute tells us that there has been a cut of more than 50% of skilled officers. Does the Minister seriously think that trading standards will be able to effectively implement these new powers? If so, how? What priorities should trading standards officers have? If faced with tracking down an influx of poisonous fake spirits, surveilling for evidence to prosecute the sale of knives to under-18s or taking action against a landlord requiring a £150 prohibited fee from a tenant, which would he suggest the officers pursue as urgent?

If the Minister concedes that the loss of money is likely to be less urgent in its nature than the matter of illegal spirits or the selling of knives to teenagers, at what point does he anticipate that an officer ought to get around to looking into the issue of the prohibited fee? Given the restrictions on time and staffing levels, is not a TSO, rather than acting in an individual case, far more likely to deal with a single landlord facing multiple allegations of charging prohibited fees? It will be dealing with the big fish, rather than the small fry, that will be a reasonable and proportionate use of staff time. Has the Minister thought about the practicalities of enforcement? Has he compared it with how enforcement of housing matters is currently dealt with, or even tried to plug some of those gaps?

In order for the London Borough of Newham’s landlord licensing scheme to be effective, it had to bring together several different agencies, including the police, the UK Border Agency and specialist housing officers, and had to invest in systems to accurately identify those properties that were incorrectly licensed. While it has drawn in significant revenue for the Treasury and the council, it took a laser-focused determination from the political leadership in Newham to get their processes up and running to tackle landlords operating outside the regulations. Can the Minister guarantee that the same will happen to trading standards departments around the country, when it could be said to be somewhat of a Cinderella service? How will he monitor that, and what will his measure of success be?

The Local Government Association said in its evidence that, given the reduction in capacity of trading standards across many authorities, there should be flexibility for local areas to determine whether the ban is enforced by local trading standards or private sector housing teams. Does the Minister agree? The LGA went on to say that the Government had ignored the findings of the working group, which concluded that there should be enforcement of mandatory client money protection by local authorities, rather than trading standards. Is the Minister content to ignore the working group’s findings?

Has the Minister listened to the CTSI when it says that a self-financing enforcement model would potentially create a disincentive to provide regulatory compliance? That certainly seems to be the case with the current system around the display of fees. The fine acts as neither a disincentive for the businesses nor an incentive for the enforcement teams. The LGA pointed out that the Government’s theory that funds generated by fines will increase when non-compliance increases does not add up if companies close themselves down, only to re-emerge under a different name or structure in order to avoid a fine.

The CTSI also says that the costs of providing advice and guidance to a company that is subsequently compliant are not factored into the Government’s calculations. Of course, there was the issue raised by CTSI in our evidence session regarding the differences in the burden of proof and the framework of enforcement. The enforcers, in this instance the trading standards officers, will be required to prove offences beyond all reasonable doubt. What does this mean in practice for people—for families—who are already likely to be afraid about not securing the property that they want to live in and perhaps are under pressure to secure it because they have given notice on a prior residence, or are being thrown out of a property that they already reside in? Will this substantial basis of evidence encourage people to come forward, to make a complaint and seek redress? Let us remember that they are already in a significantly less advantageous position than the landlord or the lettings agent. They are not the experts in renting and even less so are they experts in the most recent legislative changes.

It goes back to the point I made earlier: the reality is that enforcement officers are far more likely to try to build up a stronger case with multiple complainants than deal with breaches on a single case-by-case basis. Does the Minister consider that this is serving tenants’ best interests? The remedy would not be sufficient in financial terms for the local authority, nor will the legislation be seen as fit for purpose by those it is intended to protect. Is he really content to preside over this? The CTSI says that most consumer rights breaches and the Estate Agents Act 1979 are obtainable on a balance of probability test. Why does he not consider amending the Bill to reflect this modest yet effective change? If it is the case that the higher the evidential requirement, the more work is involved and the more risk there is for the local authority, and the less likely it is that the Act will be easily enforceable, should he not just do the right thing and make the amendment now? I say that because one of the biggest frustrations of my constituents is around laws that are not enforced. Whether it is parking restrictions, dog mess or fly-tipping, they expect the rules to be fully and fairly applied. Where they are not, the blame comes back on an unfairly overstretched local authority, trying to do its best against the financial odds—financial odds that I know the Minister has recognised in previous comments that he has made.

I do hope that the Minister will take my comments on board. These are the views of royally chartered organisations, which work within the current legislative framework and can anticipate the difficulties of seeing this legislation in operation. It is only through proper enforcement with enforceable regulations that we can hope to see this law do everything the Minister has set out for it to do; otherwise, I am confident that it will be left wanting.

There are in general three broad questions or buckets of comments. First, whether trading standards are the right institution to take on this task; secondly, prioritisation of resources for the things that trading standards have to do; and thirdly, a specific question about the burden of proof required for the penalties that are in place in this legislation. I will try to answer each of those three questions directly.

First, regarding whether trading standards are indeed the right body, which the hon. Lady questioned, there is unanimous agreement among leading industry bodies that trading standards are the logical choice. Indeed, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute itself, which the hon. Lady referred to, said that trading standards

“are well placed to enforce the ban”,

thanks to their local knowledge of landlords and letting agents.

Would the Minister accept that in the evidence we heard there was a reference to trading standards working closely with housing officers in particular, to better inform their local knowledge in an area that they may not have information relating to, because the trading standards authority has said that in terms of tenants they currently receive a small number of complaints in this area.

I am generous in giving way, but in this occasion I may have been too generous, because I was just about to make that point. It is exactly because we recognise that in different areas there are different situations that we do not want to mandate a top-down approach. We have encouraged close co-operation. I do not want to pre-empt our debate on the next clause, which talks specifically about the powers for district authorities to enforce the provisions in the Bill. Also, on the particular question raised about client money protection and who ought to be the body enforcing that, 74% of respondents to the consultation said that that enforcement should primarily be by trading standards. It is important to note that trading standards can, under this legislation, discharge their responsibilities to the local housing authority, should they feel that is most appropriate for their area. I hope that addresses concerns on that point.

I do not want to pre-empt a future conversation we will no doubt have on the appropriate level of resources. However, to the specific question of how a trading standards operation prioritises between various tasks, it is not for me to direct them to a different area. There will be different needs for each area and they will make those decisions themselves.

Committee Members should note that, as a result of this and previous housing legislation, notably the Housing and Planning Act 2016, local trading standards authorities are able to keep the money they make from civil penalties related to housing to fund greater enforcement of these housing measures. Those powers have been in place only since April 2017, so it is too early to say exactly how they are working, but I can say that the early news is encouraging. For example, in Torbay, trading standards have used the revenue that they have raised from civil penalties to fund an extra enforcement officer specifically for housing. That provides good evidence that the model we propose in this legislation will stand the test of time and prove to be fruitful.

Lastly, I turn to the points raised by the hon. Lady about the burden of proof and whether the right threshold for enforcement has been set in the Bill. I believe it has, for a couple of simple reasons. First, it is worth bearing in mind that we are talking about judicial matters, so we should properly consider these questions. The Bill includes a two-step process to a criminal conviction, if a landlord or letting agent breaks the terms of the legislation twice in a five-year period. The second of those contraventions will trigger a criminal conviction, a potentially unlimited fine and a banning order for that institution. That is obviously a very serious penalty, and for that reason it is right that the burden of proof is analogous to that of a criminal conviction, which is “beyond all reasonable doubt”. That is why the legislation is designed in the way that it is. It would not be appropriate or legally fair to have a criminal conviction penalty without a criminal conviction burden of proof.

It is also worth noting that that was laid out in the draft Bill and there were, to our knowledge, no adverse comments either from participants or the Select Committee. It is also important to note that it is usual to require a criminal standard of proof for financial penalties that are issued as an alternative to prosecution. For example, it is a requirement for any regulations made under the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008, to confer powers on regulators, to impose financial penalties for an offence, and is also the position for several other pieces of legislation, including the Housing and Planning Act 2016, the Housing Act 2004 and the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009.

I thank the Minister for his response. The suggestion that there has been unanimous agreement across professional bodies on TSOs does not stand up to the evidence we heard. In all the submissions we had in writing, concerns were raised about the level of training available for trading standards officers, the level of experience they have in this area and their expertise, and they may well be better assisted by other organisations.

I would be grateful to know if the hon. Lady is aware of an industry body that does not believe that trading standards should be the enforcement agency for this legislation. If she could name that industry body, who else does it propose should be the enforcement body?

I am commenting based on the evidence we heard last week. We heard from the CTSI and the LGA, which both raised those concerns. It is not about not having trading standards involved, because they clearly have an area of expertise, but there were concerns about their level of expertise, experience, training and resources.

The issue of resources was repeatedly mentioned in the evidence we received in writing and verbally. I appreciate the points the Minister made about resources and about looking to Torbay as the standard bearer for all enforcement and revenue-raising operations. I presume that we will look to Torbay in the future as the arbiter of whether this legislation is working.

On the burden of proof, the Minister says that nobody raised issues about that in the Select Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny. However, it has come to light more recently. The high level of the burden of proof is something that we have heard about and that industry bodies have raised as a concern, given what they are used to dealing with as trading standards officers. It would be an error for the Minister to dismiss those comments lightly.

My hon. Friend is giving a very good speech. I think we were all in the evidence session the other day when we heard from the CTSI, which made it very clear why it is so important that we get this right. My experience in this place in the last three years is that we have seen successive pieces of legislation that we are pretty sure are not going to get enforced. Does my hon. Friend agree that if they do not get enforced, there is no point in having them, and that undermines public trust in what we are doing? It is really important that this legislation is enforceable.

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which goes to the heart of this. There is no point in doing this if the legislation is not enforced or does not do what the Minister intends—namely, rebalance the relationship of power between tenants and landlords. Enforcement is key, because if rogue landlords do not fear that the fine or the potential banning order will reach them, why would they bother to worry about whether they are operating within the legislation?

On the Select Committee, we went to see the licensing scheme in Newham in action. One important feature of that scheme is that the council undertakes proactive enforcement work against properties it suspects are being let by landlords who have not yet registered. It is an important part of the resourcing requirement that councils need to make the scheme as effective as possible, but that has not yet been taken into consideration. Will my hon. Friend comment on that?

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point about being proactive and about the intention of trading standards officers or others to undertake that initial work, rather than just relying on the enforcement element of the legislation. I hope the Minister has heard those points, takes them seriously and receives them in the manner in which they are intended. We will not be pressing this matter to a vote, but we reserve the right to return to it on Report.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7