Clause 80 - Revocation of licences
Housing Bill
3:15 pm
Ms Yvette Cooper (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Pontefract and Castleford, Labour)
If I have understood my hon. Friend correctly, the answer is that separate licences will be held for different properties, so licences would have to be revoked separately if there was any concern about a licence holder not being a fit and proper person. The measures in this part of the Bill are parallel with the part that deals with houses in multiple occupation, so we would expect it to be relatively easy for a local authority to deal with a landlord who has an HMO licence and a licence in a selective licensing area.
The amendment would give a local authority the power to revoke the licence of a landlord who commits a serious criminal offence. Under subsection (2)(b), a local authority can decide whether a licence holder is a fit and proper person, and it is hard to see how someone who has committed an offence involving violence, fraud or deception could be considered a fit and proper person, so the amendment is subsumed by that subsection. We discussed this issue with officials and tried to come up with an example of a serious criminal offence that a landlord might commit, but still be considered to be a fit and proper person.