Mr John Hayes (South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 274, in

clause 57, page 37, leave out line 36 and insert

'The licence period shall end five years after'.

As you can tell, Mr. Pike, I have moved into semi-relaxed mode as we approach the end of our important business. As the Bill stands, the maximum length a licence can stand for is five years. This probing amendment is designed to test what the Government see as the likely period of a licence. My anxiety is that different tests may need to apply in different circumstances. What I mean by that—I made the point earlier, but it is worthy of repetition—is that the marketplace is rapidly moving. The local authority may want to issue licences for property that changes

hands or changes its status. It is important to know precisely what the Government intend during the period in which the licence applies, because of the possibility of rapid change in type and status of various kinds of property. I hope that the Minister can clarify the matter. However, I do not want to delay the Committee unduly, so I shall bring my remarks to a close.

Mr Robert Syms (Poole, Conservative)

The licence will run for five years, and because it is to be introduced at one time, the vast majority of properties will be licensed at about the same time. Therefore, will there not be bunching? Local authorities' environmental health officers will be examining HMOs and licensing a lot for a period, then there will not be very much business, and then there will be a lot again. Has the Minister for Housing and Planning thought about the implications of this for local government? For vehicle licences, there is a constant monthly and annual turnover, so there is a steady flow of work. For these property licences, because of the start date and the five-year period, it is inevitable that there will be peak periods of work. Environmental health officers will sometimes have a lot to do, and at other times they will not have a lot to do. Have the Government thought about the throughput of work?

Mr Keith Hill (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Streatham, Labour)

I congratulate the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings on an excellent recovery.

Clause 57(1) provides that a licence must not relate to more than one HMO. A licence is valid for a period that is specified in it, but for not more than five years—although it may be brought to an end earlier if there is non-compliance with a provision of the licence. A licence is non-transferable, and upon the death of a licence holder a three-month temporary exemption would automatically be granted in line with the provisions of clause 51.

Amendment No. 274 provides that a licence would be for five years in all cases. That returns us to the argument about providing flexibility for local authorities. In practice, we expect the vast majority of licences to be granted for a five-year period. If a licensee does not agree with a decision to grant a licence for a shorter period, they can appeal against that decision and a local authority will have to explain why a shorter period is appropriate. However, flexibility may be advantageous in a few circumstances: for example, if a local authority knew that an additional licensing designation was going to end on a particular date, they could grant licences that would run to that date, and therefore would not have to go through the trouble of revoking each licence individually.

The hon. Member for Poole mentioned the implications for local authorities and environmental health officers of the bunching of start dates. The Government do not expect the licensing of properties to occur simultaneously. The assessment of such properties is a complex task. I remind the Committee of some interesting data: the local authority in Nottingham reckons to bring 100 HMOs a year into registration. I am not saying that it would be impossible to bring more HMOs into schemes during

the course of a year. However, we expect the implementation of both the licensing regime and the health and safety rating system to take place over a year. We want the exercise to be conducted in a reasonably finite period, so we do not anticipate such a bunching effect.

Mr Robert Syms (Poole, Conservative)

Where a current voluntary scheme is rolled into the compulsory scheme, will all the properties in the voluntary scheme start off on day one on the same terms, or will their licences under the voluntary scheme run for their full period?

In addition, if someone has a licence of five years but a local authority has 1,000 properties to inspect in a very short time, will it be possible for the property to be inspected after four and a half years but for the licence to be issued to follow on from the end of the five-year period? If we are talking about heavy fees—perhaps £10,000 or £15,000—and the owners of a property might be a little bit concerned if they are being short-changed on their five years.

Mr Keith Hill (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Streatham, Labour)

On the implications of the existence of voluntary schemes, such as accreditation schemes, we expect there to be a transitional regime with allowances made for the fact that there are already properties, which are recognised and known to the local authorities, that have been assessed to a degree. We envisage a transitional process—we may have the opportunity to talk about that in due course. In terms of the hon. Gentleman's example, those are licences for specific properties, therefore one would expect, in the case of the management regime, that the licence would apply for the five-year period.

We expect new properties to come on stream. We are eager to encourage the growth of the private rented sector, of which the sorts of properties that we have discussed, well managed, will be a part. We expect there to be a natural evolution and flow in the delivery of such licences. I hope that that goes some way to satisfying the inquiries of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. I ask him to withdraw his amendment.

Mr John Hayes (South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

It is interesting that the Minister's made it clear that he expects that, in most cases, licences would last for five years. That will give the sector some sense of certainty so it can anticipate and plan accordingly. As he says, there may be exceptional circumstances where the opposite applies, but for the most part we are looking at a five-year period. The purpose of my amendment was to offer clarity and test the Government on the time scale. I think that we have done so adequately, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 57 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 58 to 60 ordered to stand part of the Bill.