Clause 44 - Licensing of HMOs to which this Part applies
Housing Bill
4:15 pm
Mr Keith Hill (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Streatham, Labour)
I have already said that when we draw up the regulations we will be perfectly willing to consider including basements in the three-storey definition. I remind the hon. Gentleman that part 1, which we recently finished debating, contains specific provisions for dealing with overcrowding in local housing stock, which will include HMOs. I also remind him that the practical benefit of the mandatory licensing regime is that, perhaps for the first time, it enables the local authority to identify HMOs in its locality, which it will then inspect according to the criteria of the housing, health and safety rating system with a view to identifying hazards, of which overcrowding is one.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe asked me many questions, and I am grateful to him for giving me notice of his intention to press me hard on these matters, which he certainly did. It gave me an opportunity to read the comments that he made in the debate on the Queen's Speech in which he talked about his concerns. I am also grateful to him for at least one and a half cheers.
My beloved ministerial colleague, the Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire, has been prayed in aid more than once in this debate, and the Committee will recall that he argued during debates on the Housing Act 1996 that excluding small HMOs from registration schemes was not justified. He was absolutely right. The 1996 Act amended the Housing Act 1985, which provided for HMO registration schemes and their approval. The Committee should recall that nothing in those Acts excluded small HMOs from registration schemes. It should be stressed, however, that the power for local authorities to have registration schemes was discretionary, and many local authorities have not used it.
However, as with the Bill's power to designate an area for additional licensing, there is no constraint on the size of the HMO that could be covered. I want to say more about our arrangements for that, but the Committee should remember that the Bill goes further than previous legislation in clarifying the procedures through which local authorities may extend mandatory licensing through additional licensing regimes. We are also enhancing their powers, if they choose to go down that path.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe was probing the apparent shift of Government position since our statement in the 1999 consultation paper that we were not convinced that all houses occupied by three or four persons should be exempt from licensing. That was not a commitment to bring mandatory licensing in for such houses, but at least it showed a laudable open-mindedness. However, I say to my hon. Friend that matters have moved on. First, the health and safety rating system, which is to apply to all properties, has been developed. Secondly, following consultation, the Government decided that local authorities were best placed to judge whether
smaller HMOs were to be licensed. As I said before, the Government are concerned to strengthen the role of local authorities.
In his contribution to debate on the Queen's Speech and in this debate, my hon. Friend raised the fact that there are many two-storey houses in multiple occupation in Sheffield. However, I say again that for the purposes of the Bill such properties fall within the definition of HMOs. They do not fall within the scope of our proposals for mandatory licensing, but they can be subject to additional licensing if the local authority thinks that appropriate. If Sheffield has a problem with two-storey HMOs, it can propose an additional licensing scheme. Problems with such HMOs in Sheffield may not affect other towns, cities and boroughs, so it seems inappropriate to burden other authorities with an obligatory regime for matters that may not be regarded as important in their area. The great city of Sheffield is not the world, but if there is a serious and demonstrable problem there, that can be dealt with by the additional licensing regime set out in the Bill.