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Mr. Burden: Some powerful speeches have been made in support of new clause 9. Some extremely ambiguous messages have come from the Government about a national licensing scheme and registration. To give credit where it is due, the Government have indicated to some extent a willingness to do something. As the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) said, the Government have made certain proposals, although I disagree with the hon. Gentleman about their potential effectiveness. I acknowledge that Ministers feel the need to do something--hence the proposal for a registration scheme.
The DOE paper was very balanced and very clear, and, on its first page, stated that there was a problem that needed to be dealt with. The fact that there was a problem was widely recognised. Paragraph 3--under "secondly", which is odd--of the consultation paper stated:
It is absolutely fair to say that that paragraph does not come out and say, "Therefore, there shall be a licensing scheme." It recognises that there is a problem, and that a large body of opinion recognises that something substantial must be done.
The two-sided letter that came out in Wales also had a third paragraph. It stated:
The tone of those two documents was very different, and some of us wonder whether the fact that the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) was at the Welsh Office at that time had anything to do with it.
Despite the contradiction in the tone of the two documents, both--I shall deal with the DOE document in particular, because it seems to be rather more substantial--made as a substantial argument against a national licensing scheme, in addition to many arguments in favour of one, the fact that it would require primary legislation. That seems odd, because, a short while later, we are now discussing primary legislation on housing. Ministers had every opportunity to insert such a scheme in primary legislation, but have chosen not to do so.
Ministers may have their own reasons for not doing so, which I shall explore in a moment. I should tell the Minister that, if the Government are worried about introducing primary legislation on a national licensing scheme, this new clause will obviate the need for it. It provides a reserve power. Labour Members cannot understand how Ministers believe that their voluntary scheme will be effective. We cannot understand how there can be consistency in standards for accommodation for all tenants across the country, and yet make the scheme voluntary.
I accept that Ministers believe that that can be done. Why are they then removing the option of bringing in a national licensing scheme if the voluntary scheme is unsuccessful? Let us remember what they said before--that the big problem with a national licensing scheme is that it would require primary legislation, that a long process would have to be gone through to introduce it, and that it might be better to take a different route. They do not have to do that now.
The Government should use primary legislation to insert those reserve powers--then, fine, if the voluntary scheme works and all the local authorities opt for an effective scheme, no one is going to say, "Let's have a national scheme just for the sake of it." If those schemes do not work, Ministers should have the power to do something about it.
The consultation papers triggered a response. As my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) has already said, local authority associations were unanimous in their belief that a national licensing scheme was the right option. Apart from those associations, the clear majority of respondents were in favour of a mandatory licensing scheme. The DOE chose, however, to opt for a voluntary registration scheme.
What was odd, however, was that the DOE press notice, which was published on 22 November 1995 and which explained the Government's response, said that the majority of respondents to the 1995 consultation paper welcomed the proposals in principle
Sixty per cent. of the respondents called for the Government to consider mandatory licensing for HMOs.
The Government seemed to say in their press release that the majority of respondents supported a voluntary registration scheme, when the respondents to their consultation document patently said the opposite: the majority supported a national licensing scheme.
Hon. Members have already said that fire risk in HMOs is a serious problem. According to the 1991 English house condition survey, 40 per cent. of HMOs are unfit for human habitation; 80 per cent. of them lack an adequate means of escape from fire, and 98 per cent. of local authorities rate the lack of fire safety as the most prevalent problem. Hon. Members have already said that the risk of fire in HMOs is 28 times greater than that in self-contained housing, as is the appalling problem of carbon monoxide poisoning, which we discussed when we considered new clause 4.
In my area of Birmingham, there are about 5,000 HMOs. We know that some of those are in good condition, and that some are run by responsible landlords who would have no problem with a national licensing scheme. There are far too many other HMOs that are in a dangerous condition and a poor state of repair. In my part of the country, as in others, far too many are accidents waiting to happen. In my constituency, 80 per cent. of the young people who are helped by the south Birmingham young homeless project end up in hostel accommodation, which suffer from the precise problems that I have described. Those youngsters have ended up potentially vulnerable as a result.
On Second Reading and in Committee, and even before the Bill was published, hon. Members on both sides of the House did a lot of good work to alert people to the problem. The hon. Members for Scarborough (Mr. Sykes) and for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson) spoke eloquently in Committee about the need to do something about the appalling conditions in HMOs.
I must ask those hon. Members and the Government whether we are solely concerned about HMOs and the risks they pose to safety. Surely not. The Labour party accepts that standards and the extent of the problem may vary around the country, but is anyone seriously suggesting that standards of accommodation and safety should vary between one part of the country and another? No one has suggested, either in Committee or tonight, that standards should differ. Unless that was argued, surely there is every reason to provide at least reserve powers for a national licensing scheme.
In Committee, we were pressed about the need to respect the freedom of local authorities in this matter--no doubt we will hear the same argument tonight. As my hon. Friends have already said, we take that with a rather large bucketful of salt, given the Government's actions on local authority freedoms. Let them remember that their scheme does not provide local authorities with freedom. The only freedom it gives them is the freedom to have a scheme or not to have one. As soon as authorities decide
to have a scheme, their freedoms disappear because at that point the contents of the scheme become subject to central control.
Let us explore the freedom not to have a registration scheme at all. It means the freedom to allow an accident to happen in a local authority's area without doing anything about it. No local authority that I know would welcome such a freedom.
Let us think, too, about the people who are arguably more important than local authorities or Members of this House--the tenants. They are the ones who will end up suffering the consequences--the fatalities described by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich--of inadequate conditions in houses in multiple occupation. The Government are giving local authorities the right to opt into registration schemes. Where is the right of the tenants to opt into such schemes? They will not be consulted when it comes to bringing a registration scheme into operation.
"there is widespread concern that in many HMOs, physical and management standards are often poor and fire safety precautions inadequate. Although most local authorities are addressing these problems, the proponents of licensing claim that their current powers are too weak or progress in raising standards is too slow."
"There has been some criticism about HMOs which appear to be at a higher risk from fire and in a poorer state of repair. However, providing these homes are in good condition and are safe and well managed, they can successfully meet particular housing needs."
"with a variety of opinion on detail."
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