Clause 48 - Notification requirements relating to designations
Housing Bill
11:15 am
Mr Keith Hill (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Streatham, Labour)
Clause 48 contains provisions that deal with the notification requirements when an area is to be subject to additional HMO licensing. It requires that, when a designation is made or confirmed, a notice should be published giving prescribed information about the designation and, if appropriate, its confirmation. The local authority must make available to the public copies of the information and other prescribed information.
Subsection (2) refers to publishing notices in a prescribed manner. The appropriate national authority is likely to prescribe the newspapers or other publications in, say, a prescribed number of local newspapers or in a national journal in which such notices are published. It should have regard to the other provisions under subsection (2) on how such notices should be itemised and what information they should contain. Some of the details of the provisions relate to the confirmation of schemes of additional HMO licensing by the appropriate national authority.
The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings asked several important questions. He was right to emphasise the significance of the new powers and the need for both national and local government to deal with them in the most responsible fashion. I wish to say a word in response to those observations: the fact is that local authorities will have to consider carefully their reasons for seeking additional HMO licensing, such as what problem they are seeking to deal with by wanting additional licensing.
It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.