Judicaelle Hammond gave evidence.

Welcome; please introduce yourself.

Judicaelle Hammond:

I am Judicaelle Hammond, director of policy and advice at the Country Land and Business Association. We represent 26,000 members in England and Wales who own and run land-based properties. We estimate that our members account for about a third of properties in the rural private rented sector.

Q Your organisation previously warned that young people could be forced out of rural communities due to a lack of affordable and available homes. How do you feel this Bill will affect that situation?

Judicaelle Hammond:

Unfortunately I do not think the Bill is going to make it much better in the sense that the main issue is the availability of housing full stop, and particularly the availability of affordable housing. Our members are doing a great deal already to provide that. We reckon that 23% of our members’ properties are let out at less than 80% of market rates, but at the end of the day there probably is not enough to go round and therefore we see the changes to the planning sector as the key. What the Bill might do, particularly with the demise of section 21, is to make it more difficult for people to enter or want to stay in the private rented sector, which is an issue. Again, as I said, it is by no means the only issue. I think the real key is supply.

Q Thank you very much indeed; that is helpfully clear on the point about supply. In written evidence you have warned that some proposals to reform the private rented sector could risk overcorrecting in favour of tenants. Do you still have those concerns about the Bill in its current form?

Judicaelle Hammond:

Yes. The main issue is the ability of the courts to deal with the extra cases that might be coming their way. One of the solutions, perhaps, is to look at some of the mandatory grounds and make them paper-based. That might improve things.

In terms of section 21, I should make it clear that among our membership the average time that the tenancy lasts is 7.5 years, which is nearly twice as long as the national average. Our members are responsible landlords; many of them will have had tenants who have been there for decades. We are not in the business of evictions or fast turnaround. We are not using section 21 very much, but when it has been used—it has included, for example, issues about antisocial behaviours—we have had some horror stories of members waiting for 12 to 18 months to get their properties back.

Without section 21, in the courts I think it takes at the moment 24 weeks from application for possession to actual possession, and some members are taking far longer than that with county courts that have closed. Digitisation might be a good thing, but how long will that take? There is an issue for us about reducing, unwittingly perhaps, the supply of private rented sector properties in rural areas as a result of the Bill.

Q I have one final question. I would like to explore the specifically rural and agricultural aspect of this. I know it is common in rural areas for properties to have things like agricultural worker conditions on their occupation and for properties to be provided with a licence to occupy rather than through a tenancy in the traditional sense, because the accommodation is connected with the work that the person does at that specific location. What is your view of how the Bill will impact or deal with those types of situations?

Judicaelle Hammond:

We are grateful to the Government for the new ground 5A, which deals with incoming agricultural workers. That will help—no question about that. And we are grateful for the new ground 5C, which is a ground to get property back because a job has ended, where the property was limited to the employment.

There are a couple of other grounds that are not covered at the moment and would be needed for rural businesses. The vast Majority of rural businesses are not linked to farming or agriculture, but there might still be times when—we hear this from our members all the time—the provision of accommodation is necessary to attract or retain people, particularly when there is nothing else around. They could be in a really remote rural area or it could be because, for example, the person in that job needs to be on call, which would apply to security, caretakers or vets. Or it could be for people working antisocial hours in hospitality, for example, or at a wedding venue, where there is no longer public transport available at the time they are meant to finish or they need to start really early to set up before the wave of tourists come—and so on.

Increasing and expanding ground 5A to include service occupancies in very defined circumstances would be really helpful. To avoid abuse, there are definitions of what that could cover in other legislation that could be referred to. That is the main ground.

The second ground that is needed for agricultural workers is a new ground for what is known as suitable alternative accommodation. Some categories of agricultural workers have protected tenancies under existing legislation—the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976—and assured agricultural occupants are also protected under the Housing Act 1988. For example, you might have a retired dairyman or indeed their widow who is still in the main dairy. You need to recruit somebody to replace that dairyman. If you have more than one property, it would be useful to have a ground to get it back, in order to then move the retired dairyman or the widow in that property. Obviously, if you have only one property, it is game over, but in the case that you have a small portfolio, it would be really useful to have that, because you have a legal obligation to rehome that person but you need the property in which they currently are.

Q In response to the previous Government’s white paper, “A fairer private rented sector”, you questioned whether we should look to introduce a decent homes standard to the private rented sector. Is that still your view and, if so, could you elaborate on why?

Judicaelle Hammond:

Yes, sure. I think it needs updating because it was designed for problems in the social sector. It might or might not be applicable to the private rented sector. It also does not deal very well with older properties, which is the vast bulk of what our members have. To judge the private rented sector against the decent homes standard as it currently is would be, I think, misleading, and it would have all sorts of unintended consequences. For example, in small cottages in rural areas, there are typically very small kitchens and so on. They would not necessarily fit, and it would destroy the character if you were to change that—

Q Sorry to pull you up, but we have not consulted on it yet. We have not told you what it consists of yet; you are pre-empting it. Is it the principle?

Judicaelle Hammond:

No, it is not the principle. The issue at the moment is that what we have got, which is the decent homes standard that applies to the social sector, would not work in the private rented sector in the rural context. The other thing that we do have, however, is the housing health and safety rating system and, indeed, the minimum energy efficiency standards. We reckon that that probably covers the ground, but it absolutely needs to be enforced. I think you have already got levers there. That is what we would say.

Thank you.

Q You mentioned the planning system earlier. Do you see any risk, because of the perceived unattractiveness of the new system, that there will be an increase in short-term holiday letting? The Liberal Democrats want to see the use class brought forward for holiday lets. Would you support that in terms of controlling it in rural areas, so that councils and communities can control the amount of Airbnb-type short-term holiday lets in their areas?

Judicaelle Hammond:

We recognise that is an issue in some areas of the country that are honeypots. If the proposals that were consulted on are implemented effectively, we see a need for them.

On your question about whether some properties would become holiday lets, I think if you had asked me a year ago, I might have said yes. There are other pressures on the holiday let market that make this increasingly unlikely. We hear from members that they are planning on selling full stop, which would probably be selling to people who want to be on the housing ladder rather than to people who want to take over their business of being private rented sector housing providers. That is a real issue and concern for us.

Q Building on that, we heard from a few of the witnesses this morning that one of the key concerns of the private rented sector is the delay associated with the recovery of property through the Courts and Tribunals Service. A moment ago, you said that some of your members are waiting 12 to 18 months, during which time they do not get any rent and it is an asset that is not working for them. I would like to drill into that a little further to understand fully why it is that landowners are already leaving the market and why that might happen in the future, and what impact you assess that will have on future rents.

On one side of the argument you could say, “Rents will go up as supply decreases.” Do you think that will be an unintended consequence of the proposed legislation? On the other side, which I invite you also to consider, is the question of whether, if you increase foregone earnings—that is, increase the losses associated with being a tenant—because the time required by court processes will be extended because of increased demand, that increased loss will filter into increased rents in the long run.

Judicaelle Hammond:

I think the answer to both of your questions is that there is a risk. If demand and supply work in the way they are intended to, unless you increase the supply there is a risk that the rent would go up—to do exactly the two things you suggested.

What we see is broader than just renters’ rights reform, though: we are seeing, for example, the move towards minimum energy efficiency standards, and I totally understand why that is needed. At the same time, it is quite difficult for landlords to deal with some of the costs. Again, we are mostly talking about older properties in rural areas. The cost of maintenance and improvement, particularly since the Ukraine war and the surge in the cost of building materials, has not come down. It has stopped growing at the same rate, but the prices have not come down to where they were pre-pandemic, pre-Ukraine.

As a result of that, you will first have to wait for a void in your properties, in all likelihood, in order to do the kinds of work that will be needed. Those voids do not happen very often. Secondly, you need to get your hands on tradespeople, who might actually prefer to stick to their local areas, because they are within 30 minutes’ driving time and not an hour and a half’s driving time. That is something else that we hear quite a bit about. All that is bringing pressure on to the private tenanted sector.

Q I am straying into my memory now, but I think the financial exemption was set at £9,000 for the costs of an upgrade, above which you are exempted as a landlord.

Judicaelle Hammond:

It was proposed to be £10,000 in the last consultation. It is every five years.

Q What has happened with that? If the level is £10,000, does that feel about right to you? Should it be higher or lower, or should there be an improvement in another way?

Judicaelle Hammond:

I am afraid that the answer, which is probably for another day, is that it depends. For example, it depends where you are in the country and what kind of rents you are going to be able to charge. I was talking to a member this morning who said, “There is no way I can put the rents up. The people who are paying for it will not be able to cope with an increase in order to recoup that.” We need to look at that carefully and have either a ramp-up system or a different system for exemption, or indeed better or more suitable technology, which might well be coming. My plea on that would be: let us use the time we have before the standards are tightened to improve things like the energy performance certificate methodology and look at alternative technologies as well.

Q I want to come back to what the Minister said about condition and the introduction of the decent homes standard into the private rented sector. I want to understand this. I think you were saying there is an in-principle objection to the standard but a recognition that the actual standard has not been published. At the moment, the position you would take is to rely on the housing health and safety rating system and the homes fit for human habitation provision. My experience, and I am sure that of many representatives, is that it is difficult to drive up the quality of homes with the HHSRS due to how long it takes to force landlords to acknowledge where they are failing on a particular hazard. Could you elaborate on why you think relying on HHSRS, or even the homes fit for human habitation provision, would be more effective than the decent homes standard both for consumers—tenants—and for landlords in terms of the condition of their assets?

Judicaelle Hammond:

It is a question of finding ways quickly to improve things, and using the current regulations. Again, I am not here to ask you questions, but I am really curious about the barriers that you see. If this was enforced properly, you would find ways of doing it. For us, it is a question of asking, “Well, there is legislation already. Why don’t we use it?”

On the decent homes standard, it is less an objection in principle. It is more about taking what we have at the moment and applying it without thought or adaptation to the private rented sector, where some of the conditions might be different. For example—going back to my argument about the availability of trades, maintenance staff, and so on—if you have a large portfolio, that might be doable, but if you do not, you really are in a different position.

Q Let us take heating—

Order. I am going to bring in Jacob Collier because we are running out of time.

You have spoken about your members being responsible landlords, and a previous witness said the Bill would raise the bar for good landlords. What are your thoughts on the national landlord database and how that will raise the standards?Q

Judicaelle Hammond:

It might help. We see that database as a way of increasing transparency for both tenants and landlords. Our plea would be: let us do it effectively, and let us ensure that we have an IT system that works and is not basically a massive white elephant. An awful lot of that data is already available in other places. Can that system be built using the available data, rather than having a completely different program that requires quite a lot of time and money?

Rachel, you have half a minute for a quick question.

Q Let us take heating as a hazard. What do you think the effective enforcement of heating, or cold, as a hazard would be?

Judicaelle Hammond:

Sorry, I really cannot give you a proper answer because it would depend on the circumstances.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you for coming along and giving us a bit of your experience and knowledge. We will move on to the next panel.