| Sustainable and Secure Buildings Bill
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Dr. Turner: Will the Minister please explain why the Government still resist any energy efficiency requirement as expressed in whatever rating? If local authorities are objectively to carry out the duties that he has just outlined—for instance, assessing how hazardously cold a building is—they must have an objective framework to apply. An energy efficiency rating is the obvious way to go about that. Why should this not be done? Phil Hope: I understand my hon. Friend's point, but rather than setting overall energy efficiency targets in the way that he has described, the new health and safety system will deal with the conditions—cold, mould or lack of ventilation—in a property. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, Column Number: 55 South, we are endeavouring through the Housing Bill and the new system that is being introduced to achieve a certain outcome—tackling the appalling conditions that blight so many properties where many of the poorest in our community live.Setting overall energy efficiency standards and targets, however, would not achieve that outcome. I fully understand that it would achieve other outcomes—energy efficiency outcomes—which is why we are debating these matters while considering a Bill that deals with sustainable and secure buildings. However, we shall tackle conditions that are connected not with poor energy efficiency but with appalling housing conditions through the Housing Bill and the new health and safety rating system associated with it. Brian White: Given the Minister's remarks, I can understand that local authorities will be able to find a way, using the new system, to address those issues. Why can they not be permitted to get on and do it? Phil Hope: I am trying to explain to my hon. Friends that our reason for taking this approach is that we want to deal with the bad conditions—the health and safety hazards—in which many people live. I do not have conditions in my constituency similar to those described as existing in Brighton, Kemptown, but I recently visited Derby, where I shadowed a housing standards officer at work as part of the Government's examination of how to reduce bureaucracy. We are trying to ensure that we raise standards without imposing unnecessary bureaucratic measures. I was aghast at some of the conditions. I saw a lot of people; some were drug addicts and there were needles around. I could see the all the difficulties involved and the hazards of an HMO with an absent landlord—who did not, as it happened, turn up to the meeting. I suggest to my hon. Friends that the action being taken through the Housing Bill and the new health and safety rating system will address those appalling conditions, in which too many of our constituents still live, without the risk of the housing stock needed for people to live in being removed from the market. I think that that is the right approach to take. I understand that my hon. Friends' priority is energy efficiency, but I am suggesting that we can tackle energy efficiency questions through the health and safety rating system. We must do so by taking into account the genuine personal needs and deprivation of people experiencing hazards and living in cold, damp or mouldy buildings. Dr. Turner: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way once again, but I must return to the point that we must have an objective means of measuring those outcomes. Otherwise, this will not be very meaningful. Phil Hope: That point has been made, and the Derby city council officer I was shadowing showed me the new booklet that housing standards officers will use. The system uses objective measures and a complicated formula, which I will not go through now, although we can send it to Members if they require it. The system will ensure that when an HMO is being assessed for licensing and so on, objective Column Number: 56 criteria, through a complicated series of standards, will determine the extent to which the HMO lives up to the standards that we want and expect.Alan Simpson: I understand what the Minister is trying to say, and having shadowed officials he will have experience of the front line. However, in the context of what he said about better regulation, will he consider this? If a local authority official will have to go in and apply a complicated formula, and then have to persuade a landlord and/or seek enforcement measures, that will be much more difficult than saying to the landlord, ''Look, unless you meet these conditions you don't get a licence.'' Bureaucratically, it is much simpler if everyone knows the hurdles and that unless they get over them they will not be part of the game. We are in danger of sending a different message to landlords, which is that unless the worst landlords are able to offer the worst conditions we fear driving people out of the market, and that our process must cater for the worst in the market, not everyone's entitlement to a decency standard that all are expected to meet. Phil Hope: I hope that I have not misled the Committee. There is no doubt that licensing will identify the properties with the worst conditions in which people are living in the worst circumstances, who the landlords are and the extent to which they do or do not meet the fitness requirements—the standards in part 1 of the Housing Bill, using not an energy efficiency standard, which my hon. Friends are pressing for, but the health and safety rating system that it will establish. By ensuring that we get the people who are managing the properties, the health and safety rating system will allow local authorities to tackle the worst cases and conditions that my hon. Friends and I have seen at first hand and find unacceptable in the 21st century. My hon. Friends and I have a shared objective; we are arguing about the means to that end. The clause is inappropriate and unnecessary because we are working towards such outcomes through the Housing Bill, the health and safety rating system, and the licensing system for HMOs about which my hon. Friends are concerned. I appreciate that the health and safety rating system does not go as far as they would like, but, given how it will work, it is moving towards their desired system. Ms Walley: In view of what the Minister has said, I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown can look forward to any further amendments to the Housing Bill as it goes through another place. Phil Hope: I am being drawn towards providing assurances in areas where it would be unwise for me to do so. The Housing Bill is not my Bill, although I daresay that those points are being argued in full. If my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown or any member of the Committee examines the Housing Bill with its health and safety rating system, detailed requirements, ability to target those landlords who are causing the most difficulty and licensing Column Number: 57 system as well as how new measures will enforce changes relating to cold, ventilation, mould and other issues, they will be reassured that energy efficiency is being delivered through those mechanisms.Dr. Turner: The very reason I keep returning to these points is that I have read the Housing Bill and it does not deal with them. Phil Hope: I appreciate that concern, but it is not for me in this Committee to determine what may happen in other Committees dealing with other Bills. I shall just add another point. I have spoken about how the health and safety rating system addresses certain points that have been raised—I appreciate that some of my colleagues feel that it does not go far enough—but there are other requirements in building regulations. In particular, part L of the building regulations refers to such things as replacement boilers, hot water storage systems and replacement windows and doors. The powers under clauses 2 and 3 will enable improvements in energy efficiency to be achieved in HMOs because they apply to all buildings in the appropriate circumstances. It is not as though HMOs are not covered by all the other regulations that we are trying to improve and develop, which the Bill will enable. Clause 8 does not require improvement of energy efficiency, only the possibility that failing HMOs would not be able to continue as HMOs. That is the point that I was trying to make. If we introduced the clause, we would have a problem in deciding where tenants should go if their building failed to meet energy efficiency requirements. I know that we have been around that circuit. My hon. Friends have made points on that matter, but I want to ensure that we understand the significance of the new licensing regime under the Housing Bill. It concerns management standards and identifying properties on which the landlord needs to carry out particular work in respect of the authority intervening. The new health and safety rating system is designed to consider each building and to tailor improvements regarding the need of that building, instead of taking a blanket approach. I suspect that I have not satisfied to the fullest extent all the concerns of my hon. Friends, but I hope that, to ensure that the Bill is considered on Report, I have given some assurances—their concerns notwithstanding—on how what we are doing elsewhere meets some of their needs. Having said that, I hope that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove does not press for the clause's retention. Mr. Stunell: We have to make progress and I do not want to detain the Committee. There are 1.5 million homes in multiple occupation in this country and 600,000 households in fuel poverty live in them. They have low standards on average. There are no incentives for landlords to change or improve the situation and tenants face exceptionally high fuel costs compared with the average household. Hon. Members have set out their concerns and their puzzlement at the Government's approach to the clause. However, it was made clear to me from a very early stage that the Column Number: 58 Government would not wear the clause under any circumstances, whatever its merits or demerits.I certainly do not want to sacrifice what is in all other respects a very necessary and appropriate Bill by making a political statement on the clause. I assure the Minister that I and other colleagues in the House will return to this matter, but I shall not press for a vote at this stage. Question put and negatived. Clause 8 disagreed to. Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 2004 | Prepared 9 March 2004 |
