Clause 66 - Selective licensing of other residential accommodation
Housing Bill
9:10 am
Mr Edward Davey (Shadow Secretary of State for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Local Government & the Regions; Kingston and Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)
Good morning, Mr. Conway. It is nice to be here and to see amendment No. 291 to clause 69 in this group. That is appropriate. Some of the points made by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) need to be teased out at the start of our discussions on part 3. The Government have gone for a targeted approach to the regulation of the private-rented sector: we have mandatory licensing for parts of the HMO sector, discretionary licensing for other parts of it, and now selective licensing in certain cases.
In their approach to regulation of the private sector, rather than take an across-the-board approach, which might have been heavy-handed, the Government have decided to make sure that local housing authorities have powers for specific purposes. It is therefore incumbent on the Committee to see whether the Government have achieved the right balance between having targeted powers for particular purposes and a broader approach, or an approach of no regulation. In trying to understand such matters in relation to selective licensing, we must work out whether the way in which the regime will be developed will be tough enough to deal with the problems of economic regeneration and antisocial behaviour, but not be too heavy-handed in relation to landlords.
I take on board the overall thrust of hon. Gentleman's comments—that too many different regimes operating cheek by jowl could cause confusion. I understand that, under the Government's scheme, in any local authority area there could be HMOs subject to mandatory licensing, HMOs subject to discretionary licensing, and some subject to selective licensing, as well as to things dealt with in part 4, such as interim management orders and final management orders. Having a multitude of regulatory regimes in operation could cause problems, so it is incumbent on the Government to ensure that the guidance to local authorities that accompanies the regimes is clear, and that there is good guidance for landlords, who will have to get used to handling them.
Landlords probably would prefer not to have any regulation at all. However, if that is not possible, they would prefer targeted regulation to across-the-board regulation. In pursuit of better regulation, it is incumbent on the Government to ensure that the
measures are easy to comply with. What lies behind today's debate is the question of whether the legislation will facilitate that and whether extra-statutory guidance will be provided. We have tabled amendment No. 291 because we want to try to resolve how the relationship between local and national Government will work in practice when setting up selective licensing regimes. As we do that, three matters in particular must be considered: first, the underlying conditions of the regime; secondly, how it will be managed; thirdly, how it will be approved.
I disagree with the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings about the relationship between central and local government in respect of the management of the regime. A landlord who has properties in neighbouring local authorities will encounter different approaches, different environmental health officers, different addresses for their departments and so on. It is inevitable that there will be different management, personnel, and addresses—and probably different forms—unless we do not allow local authorities to do that. We must accept that, because the Government have not gone for a national approach. Unless they propose more of a national regulatory regime, we must accept that there will be inherent differences.
We tabled amendment No. 291 because, having accepted the logic that there will be differences in management approaches—because, inevitably, different local authorities will implement the measure differently—we are concerned about the approval mechanism that the Government have put in place. It is too centralised, and the local authorities will always look to Whitehall to see whether a particular designation can go ahead. That is unnecessary. Amendment No. 291 proposes only that the Government should set down general, objective criteria that any selective licensing regime should meet, so that every time a local authority sets up a scheme it does not need to come to Whitehall and say, ''Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, is this okay by you chaps?'' That is not a good use of Whitehall civil servants; it is a waste of time and it flies in the face of new localism and local discretion.