Clause 47 - Designation needs confirmation or general approval to be effective
Housing Bill
11:00 am
Mr Keith Hill (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Streatham, Labour)
Clause 47 provides that additional licensing can come into force only if the designation is confirmed by the appropriate national authority or falls within a general approval. I will return to that in due course. That means that before designating an area for additional licensing, the local authority must make a case for doing so and justify its proposal effectively. If the confirming authority is satisfied that the local authority has adequately consulted on its proposed designation and considered any representations, as required under clause 45, there is no reason why any proposal should not be confirmed. The provision will ensure that local authorities are clear about the steps that they need to follow to set up a scheme, which is important to ensure that the views of local people who will be affected by the scheme are properly considered and that schemes will not be continually subjected to legal challenges by landlords or tenants.
Clause 45(7) also provides that the appropriate national authority may give general approval to any description of designation. When a general approval is given, any such designation comes into force no earlier than three months after it is made. I want to respond in more detail to the hon. Member for Ludlow, but let me remind him and the Committee that those new licensing regimes and, in particular, additional licensing are a new area for us, and we are at the beginning of a process that gives extensive new powers to local authorities. To that extent it seems right that, at least at the beginning of the process, applications for such designations should be subject to scrutiny by the national authority. It is important that the national authority is convinced that the applications are justified. I suggest that such recourse, at least at the beginning of the process, will help to ensure greater consistency in the licensing regimes that are enforced at local level. Throughout our debates, concern has been expressed about problems of inconsistency and mixed messages to landlords within and between specific areas. The measure is a further means of offering reassurance about consistency.