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8.45 pm
Opposition Members would champion the case for local authority freedom on many issues. In Committee, we had some moments of humour. The issue that caused the greatest collective hilarity among Opposition members was the Minister's conclusion that we could not have a national mandatory licensing scheme because we had to give local authorities the freedom and choice to act on behalf of their residents as they thought fit. From a Government who have imposed so many extra duties on local councils in the past few years, taken so many responsibilities and powers away in other respects, and controlled their expenditure absolutely, that came a bit rich. That argument cannot be meaningfully sustained.
The lie to the suggestion that the Minister was a champion of local authority freedom and local democracy was given by the wording of his model registration schemes. Local authorities have the freedom to act only in so far as they can apply to have such a scheme. They can have any scheme they want, as long as it is the Minister's scheme. They can have a different scheme as long as they get approval from the Minister for it. That is nothing to do with local authority freedom. The Government are apparently not willing to stand up to certain pressure groups that are forcing them away from imposing a duty on all local authorities to have a proper licensing scheme for HMOs.
There is no real argument for local authority freedom in this respect. Local authorities are not making one. As my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich said, when the Government consulted, the local authorities associations unanimously said that they wanted a mandatory national licensing scheme. The only organisations that appeared not to want such an arrangement were the landlords and the fire officers. The latter had a peculiar view about who should be responsible for the enforcement of the schemes and wanted more authority for themselves rather than directly for local authorities. Apart from that, the Government chose to side with the landlords.
Perhaps the Minister could tell us about the results of the consultation. The Government started by considering both a national mandatory scheme and one that local authorities could choose whether to adopt. What single factor in the consultation responses decided the Government in favour of an optional scheme? Which single organisation or group of organisations gave such powerful evidence to the Minister that the Government were persuaded of that point of view? Why did the Government, who said that they were neutral and had an open mind when they set out on the consultation process, come down for an optional scheme rather than a mandatory one? Was it the pressure of landlord power? Apparently, no other group seriously argued for the course of action that the Government have decided upon.
The hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) seemed to be arguing that the Government were right to have a scheme that local authorities could choose to adopt if they so wished but that the Government--and I agree with him on this--should do everything that they can to bring the availability of the scheme with its enhancements to the attention of local authorities and to encourage them to take it up because it was a good idea that it should be extended across the country. But he then seemed to say that if local authorities relax and do not take up the offer and the Government's suggestions, the Government
should consider a national licensing scheme. If the result that the hon. Gentleman is trying to achieve is that the registration licensing scheme that is available for local authorities to take up if they so choose should be taken up by all local authorities and applied on a national basis, why not begin from that position and place that duty on local authorities? We shall then achieve much more quickly the end that the hon. Gentleman apparently desires.
Sir Teddy Taylor:
The basic reason why I prefer the voluntary scheme is that authorities have different problems and the schemes will not all be the same; they will vary according to the applications put forward by the different councils. I think that my hon. Friend the Minister will confirm that the legislation makes it clear that it would not merely be a matter of applying for a licence and getting a stamp on it. The licence for Southend-on-Sea would be simpler than those for other areas. I would prefer that, but I agree that if councils do not apply, we should consider a national scheme, which would be uniform.
Mr. Betts:
I think that the hon. Gentleman may have slightly misunderstood the possibilities that will be available to the Secretary of State under a national mandatory licensing scheme. I take the hon. Gentleman's point that different HMOs pose different problems in different parts of the country. In response to an intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich explained the different aspects of HMOs and how they might be treated differently under any system.
While a national licensing scheme would place an obligation on every local authority to license HMOs in their areas, it could contain slight differences of approach--as the Government suggest may be available to local authorities under their model arrangements. But, under a national licensing scheme, every local authority would have to have a scheme and apply it. Under the Government's proposals, a scheme is taken up only if a local authority so chooses--that is an important difference. There could be variations in individual schemes and variations in the way in which different HMOs are treated, even under a national licensing scheme. The essential difference is that every local authority would be required to have a scheme. The universal application of a scheme would be that much quicker if the Secretary of State were given powers to introduce one--as my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich suggests.
I wish to raise one further issue that I hope my hon. Friend and, in particular, the Minister, will address. I raised the issue in Committee, and it remains important. When I moved an amendment in Committee I accepted that its wording was not necessarily correct--and I accept that it is difficult to draft the correct form of words.
We have discussed in the debate the difficult and sometimes complicated issue of defining multiple occupation. There is another difficult issue--which may seem simple at first sight, but can prove to be more complicated--and that is the definition of household. There has been a difficult case in the courts involving Sheffield council. The issues involved in the Barnes case, which we talked about in Committee, still need to be addressed as part of any national scheme.
In the Barnes case, the landlord was able to avoid being affected by the local authority exercising its powers through a local control scheme by claiming that the students who occupied the property were living as one household. Without going into the details of the scheme, when students occupy houses, even if they are individuals leading individual lives and not sharing many of the household duties in the home, they may well turn up on the doorstep of the property as a group. They may have been sent there by the local students union or whatever body organises accommodation for new students arriving at university. If four, five or six people arrive at the property, they may collectively be required to find a replacement if one of them leaves.
In the Sheffield case, such issues meant that the court found that it was dealing with one household, which could not be controlled by the local authority scheme dealing with houses in multiple occupation. That is worrying and puts many students at risk. Other local authorities are already encountering problems as a result of the system and I hope that we can resolve the problem of definition--if not under the Government's current proposals, certainly under the national mandatory licensing scheme that the next Government will surely introduce.
The problem has been recognised; the need for a scheme has been recognised in the sense that the Government accept that they will draw up model schemes for local authorities to follow--that is hardly an issue between us. Our argument involves the need to replicate that scheme so that all local authorities run such a scheme in their area. We do not disagree on the nature of the scheme, but on the extent of its application. Even a national scheme could reflect slight differences in different areas.
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