Clause 6 - Repeal of Section 346 of the Housing Act 1985
Home Energy Conservation Bill
6:30 pm
Mr Michael Meacher (Minister of State (the Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Oldham West and Royton, Labour)
The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire asked about the scope for varying model schemes. There will be some scope, but the variance will be given only under exceptional circumstances. On fees, he quoted £60 per habitable room. The Local Government Association proposed £112, which is in approximately the same order of magnitude. The fees are unlikely to exceed the LGA estimate. There is no reason why we should move away from the fees set under statutory instrument 1997/229. The current fees place much less of a financial burden on landlords of HMOs than do the fees in Scotland, which are probably what activated the hon. Gentleman. In Edinburgh, the fee is £480 to register for a year. In Glasgow, the fee is £1,700 to register for three years. Under statutory instrument 1997/229, which could be applied to the Bill, a 10-room HMO would cost £600 to register for five years. That is a substantial reduction.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about the right of appeal if his local authority imposed conditions that he considered to be unusually onerous compared with
those imposed by other local authorities. In effect, there would be an automatic right of appeal wherever the application for a licence is refused, or any conditions as to works or management are imposed, or if the application is not promptly dealt with. Therefore, there is fairly comprehensive protection.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud referred to registration fees. They will be capped by the Government. There is no appeal against fees as such. The maximum levels are set by the Government. The Secretary of State can specify cases in which no fee is payable, and deal with different cases in different ways.
Lastly, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown, who has just left my side, sought confirmation that we will consider using the affirmative procedure, as he requested. We will consider that—I am sure that he will read about it in tomorrow's edition of The Times—but we will accept it only if there is strong justification. He also mentioned a threshold of five or more occupants, and that is a strong candidate, but the position will have to be carefully considered, as I have stated.
I hope that I have answered all the questions that were raised.
Question put and negatived.
Clause 6 disagreed to.Clause 7Part 11 of the Housing Act 1985