Part of Renters (Reform) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:00 pm on 28 November 2023.
Let me address the hon. Gentleman’s point about local authorities and their ability to enforce. We will establish a new duty on landlords to ensure that their properties meet the decent homes standard. For landlords who fail to take reasonably practicable steps to keep their properties free of serious hazard, local councils will be able to issue fines of up to £5,000. That will encourage those landlords who do not already do so to proactively manage their properties, which will allow local councils to target their enforcement more effectively on a small minority of irresponsible and criminal landlords.
We will also explore requiring landlords to register compliance with the decent homes standard on the property portal. That will support local councils in identifying non-decent properties to target through their enforcement activity. As I have already said in response to different parts of the Bill, we will also do a full new burdens assessment for local authorities, and where there is a new burden, they will be resourced to fund that.
On the hon. Gentleman’s questions about the HHSRS review, the simple answer is that we will publish that in due course. Secondary legislation obviously needs to coincide with that, so I do not have anything further to add at this point. However, I am happy to write to him in further detail on that. Similarly, I will commit to writing to him on on the DHS review too.