Part of Renters’ Rights Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 2:15 pm ar 5 Tachwedd 2024.
New clause 9 would head in the opposite direction from new clause 5. It is about removing unnecessary barriers to the use of licensing schemes to improve housing standards. The new clause would do two things. First, it would increase the maximum duration of discretionary licensing schemes from five years to 10. Secondly, it would enable local authorities operating selective licensing schemes to use licensing conditions to improve housing conditions.
Licensing can be an effective way to improve housing standards for at least three reasons. First, it is proactive. It provides a means for local authorities to inspect privately rented housing using enforceable conditions and to identify and resolve problems without the need for tenants to have complained, and it provides that proactive regulation in a locally tailored form. It makes major contributions to area-based issues such as crime, antisocial behaviour and waste management, and it brings together a range of bodies to focus additional support services—for example, for landlords and tenants, improving public health and reducing burdens on the NHS. There are a huge number of wins, and I have experienced that at first hand with licensing schemes in my local authority.
Secondly, licensing is self-funding. It means that the market pays for its own regulation, which is a good principle, rather than relying on the taxpayer. It provides a sustainable and predictable source of income that enables local authorities to maintain staffing levels and support the training of new officers.
Thirdly, licensing is targeted. It enables local authorities to target regulation where that is most needed, so that the worst landlords and the most vulnerable tenants get the most attention and landlord costs can be minimised in other areas.
The problem, however, is that local authorities have to implement licensing schemes with their hands tied behind their backs, because previous Governments have made various decisions that have placed unnecessary and irrational barriers in their way. Given that licensing schemes are expensive and time-consuming for local authorities to initially introduce, it does not make sense to restrict the period over which they can act to only five years.
New clause 9 would amend sections 60 and 84 of the Housing Act 2004 to increase the maximum duration of discretionary licensing schemes, which includes both selective licensing schemes and additional—sorry, jargon again—for HMOs from five to 10 years. That would allow local authorities to advertise for longer-term posts for officers and to include training of new staff in those schemes. It would also provide more time for local partnerships formed through such schemes to become embedded and effective.
The new clause also addresses another issue, which was highlighted by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health during oral evidence. That respected body pointed out that it does not make any sense to have the current peculiar disconnect in the 2004 Act, whereby local authorities can introduce selective licensing schemes to address poor housing conditions, but they cannot include a directly enforceable requirement relating to the housing condition as a condition of the licence—so they do not have the tools to do what they are set up to do. The new clause would therefore amend section 90 of the 2004 Act to enable local authorities to use licence conditions to improve housing conditions directly.
I stress that the new clause does not cover all that needs to be done to remove barriers to licensing. For example, I also urge the Minister to commit the Government to removing the Secretary of State’s ability to veto selective licensing schemes covering more than 20% of the local authority area.