Clause 66 - Selective licensing of other residential accommodation
Housing Bill
10:00 am
Mr David Kidney (Stafford, Labour)
I wish to ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary about the selective licensing regime. If a university's hall of residence were in a area designated for selective licensing, would it be required to have a licence? We had an extensive debate on Tuesday about houses in multiple occupation. There are many exemptions listed in schedule 9, one of which is university halls of residence, so they are clearly not caught under that system. If an area is designated as requiring selective licensing under the clause, I understand that every house would be subject to a tenancy or a licence. The definition of ''house'' under clause 84 includes a building with one or more dwellings in it, which I think means a university hall of residence.
Under clause 66, social landlord properties are explicitly exempted from the scheme, so that we do not catch accidentally council or housing association properties. No others are mentioned, but under subsection (4)
''the appropriate national authority may by order provide for descriptions of tenancies or licences''
that do not need to have a licence. I wonder whether the Government intend national authorities to provide
that university halls of residence do not count. It would be interesting to know whether students will have that protection if they reside in that sort of area.