Clause 8 - Houses not treated as registrable
Home Energy Conservation Bill
7:00 pm
Dr Vincent Cable (Twickenham, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 57, in page 4, line 34, leave out 'and' and insert 'or'.
I would like to take advantage of the ruling of your predecessor in the Chair, Mr. Cummings, according to which, although clause 8 is to be removed from the Bill, we are still able to use the debate on this amendment to it to discuss the terms of the threshold of registration of HMOs.
The Minister will set that threshold through guidelines, and he has already said that he regards the existing threshold in the Bill as a good candidate
for inclusion. I suggest that there is a wider definition of the registration threshold that would make a better candidate. The current threshold, as defined in the Bill, is rather narrow. It is a two-prong definition, requiring that a property, to be registered, should have three storeys or more, and that it should also house five adults or more. There are many HMOs that may be at risk, have three storeys or more, but house fewer than five adults. Such households may comprise three or four adults and many children.
There may also be HMOs that have vulnerable residents, are at risk of fire and house five adults or more, but have fewer than three storeys. That is the typical pattern in my constituency. In most suburban areas, as opposed to inner-city areas, there are not many three-storey buildings. A typical Twickenham HMO would have a row of shops with one storey above it and would comprise two or three rooms, with students and others passing through. Many such HMOs would be subject to the same fire risks as a typical HMO in a city like Brighton or central London, but would not be covered by the guidelines, as defined in the Bill. Therefore, we must consider splitting the two definitions.
The reasoning behind that has already been covered and I do not need to go into it in detail. The hon. Member for Billericay has already spoken about the three-storey qualification and given several examples from the 1997 fire risk assessment. There is clear evidence that fire death rates increase dramatically above two storeys, as evidenced by the fact that 52 per cent. of HMO fire deaths occurred in buildings with three storeys or more, but only 16.5 per cent of households actually live in such buildings. The hon. Gentleman did not say that households that contain five or more adults are vulnerable whether or not the house has three storeys. Again, I can quote from the same study by the Department, which explicitly states:
''HMOs which provide accommodation for highly vulnerable persons, large numbers of people or exhibit a special risk . . . also present a relatively high risk. This is regardless of the number of storeys and whether the building is purpose-built for this occupancy or not.''
It continues:
''Certain two-storey HMOs present a high risk, particularly bedsits and homes for vulnerable persons. 48 per cent. of all HMO fire deaths occur in buildings of 1 or 2 storeys.''
I recognise that situation from my constituency and it reflects the way in which the property market has developed.
I ask the Minister to widen the definition. By all means, let us take the numbers that have been given because there must be a cut-off, which will obviously be arbitrary. The three-storey definition seems sensible, as does the definition of three adults, so why can we not use either/or, rather than and, as the basis for defining the threshold? That would take in more properties. No doubt the objection will be raised that the greater the number of properties that are included, the wider the compliance costs will be spread. However, from the point of view of the local authorities who will operate the system, the set-up costs are crucial, and taking into account more
properties, especially if they are at risk, would seem to be an obvious precaution. Will the Minister say whether he is willing to entertain a broader definition, covering a wider range of properties, which his Department's studies suggest are at risk?