What a pleasure it is to see you in your place, Mr Deputy Speaker. I commend my hon. Friend Darren Henry for securing this important debate. It is also a pleasure to see my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) and for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) in their places, representing their communities.

I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe will appreciate that, due to my role within the planning system, I am not in a position to comment in detail on the merits of any specific planning applications or appeals. However, I hope he will find my explanation of what the Government are doing to put communities at the heart of decisions, and to tackle the impacts of HMOs on his community, helpful.

My hon. Friend is right to say that HMOs provide relatively low-cost accommodation for rent and can play an important part in the housing market. However, he also rightly highlights some concerns about what the concentration of HMOs can bring, particularly in residential areas, and how they can require control due to those impacts on local areas.

HMOs are required to meet certain standards and are subject to management regulations. Those regulations impose duties on managers of HMOs, including the duty to take safety measures, to supply and maintain gas and electricity and to have them tested, and to maintain common parts, fixtures and fittings. All local authorities are required to license HMOs with five or more people from two or more households when they share facilities such as a kitchen or a bathroom.

Through additional licensing, local authorities also have the power to require HMOs to be licensed when there are three or more unrelated people from two or more households sharing facilities. Local authorities also have strong powers to regulate standards in HMOs, including HMO licensing, penalties of up to £30,000 for breaches of the law, rent repayment orders and, for the worst offenders, banning orders.

My hon. Friend mentioned the role of the planning system. For smaller HMOs, national permitted development rights allow smaller homes to change to an HMO for up to six people without the need for a planning application. However, as he has highlighted in his area, local authorities can remove these rights by making an article 4 direction.

That power enables local authorities to protect important local areas where permitted development rights would have an adverse impact. Local authorities are required by law to publish a copy of the direction and to consult the community. The local planning authority then has a responsibility to decide whether to confirm the direction, taking into account any representations made during the consultation period by my hon. Friend’s constituents. The direction does not prevent development, but means that development cannot be carried out under the permitted development right; instead, it needs an application for planning permission, which means the local authority must consider the proposal in more detail.