Clause 9 - Improvement notices relating to category 1 hazards: duty of authority to serve notice
Housing Bill
11:00 am
Mr Keith Hill (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Streatham, Labour)
I take the point made by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton. A number of answers to his questions are set out in the schedule. I understand that the Bill takes some working through and that he had not worked through to the schedule when he tabled his amendments. I have a degree of sympathy with him, so I will not be as cruel as my speaking notes.
Where a local authority has a duty to take the most appropriate enforcement action on a category 1 hazard under clause 5, the serving of an improvement notice under clause 9 is one of the courses of action available to it, unless the premises are already the subject of an interim management order or final management order under part 4. The notice requires the person on whom it is served—normally the owner or landlord—to take the remedial action specified in the notice. The minimum action required by a notice must be sufficient to ensure that there is no longer a category 1 hazard. A notice can require an owner to remove a category 1 hazard from residential premises, and to take action in non-residential premises where the deficiency that gives rise to the hazard is located—for example, if dampness rises from commercial premises that have flats immediately above them, and remedial action is necessary for the health or safety of actual or potential occupiers of those flats.
Improvement notices will perform the function of repair notices under the current fitness regime, and are likely to be the most common response to a hazard. Amendment No. 222 reveals a misunderstanding of why a notice is served on an occupant. Schedule 1, as the hon. Gentleman has now discovered, requires copies of notices to be served on occupiers and people with a relevant interest. That is for their benefit and it is a matter of their right to know what action is being taken. Let me pause at the issue of obstruction. There are separate provisions in part 7 that deal with that. I draw the Committee's attention to those provisions and to the provisions of clause 33, which set out the penalties incurred by the obstruction of the work by any party.
Amendment No. 223 is motivated by a decent desire to protect the interests of occupants. If there is a serious hazard, the authority will be concerned to start the remedial work as soon as possible or to move the tenant away from the hazard. The hon. Gentleman raised the question of the occupants' need for alternative accommodation. That is important, but we must remember that the tenant is moved away to remove the threat of a category 1 hazard from them. There is an urgency and priority about dealing with such a hazard, which may be threatening to life or limb. It would be wrong to leave a vulnerable tenant exposed to a high risk of injury.