Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 330)
MONDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2007
PROFESSOR MICHAEL
BALL, MR
ADRIAN TURNER
AND MR
MIKE STIMPSON
Q320 Anne Main:
Would you have an argument if it was a smaller sized property
than that?
Mr Stimpson: We think it is unnecessary.
Q321 Anne Main:
Okay. So you have got no problems with the standards, it is now
that you would not like to see it for a smaller unit?
Mr Stimpson: We do not think it
is necessary. What we are seeing now is a lot of local authorities
have got massive numbers of applications for licensing and they
are not issuing licences.
Q322 Anne Main:
Why is that?
Mr Stimpson: They cannot get round
to it. They have not got sufficient staff. They were not well
enough organised when the Act came in. What we are seeing is that
the same people are being licensed that were registered before.
All the good landlords are declaring and they are getting licensed,
and what we are going to see, just the same as before, is the
bad ones who will never ever be looked at because local authorities
just do not get round to it. By the time the licensing period
is up, they will be doing new licences for the same landlords
who have come forward.
Q323 Anne Main:
Is this a government failure to give enough lead time for training
up or being prepared? Have you got anything to say about that?
Hopefully that is not an intractable problem you have just described.
Mr Stimpson: I think there has
been a real mess, to be absolutely honest. I believe that when
licensing was brought in it should have done away with all previous
schemes. It should not have allowed local authorities to continue
with existing schemes, such as registration schemes, because it
has confused landlords. Landlords do not know whether their property
is due to be licensed or not, and I can tell you, many local authorities,
even on the three storeys and five tenants, are doing totally
different things. In Worthing they are doing totally differently
to Brighton. If you are a landlord in Worthing it is very likely
an HMO will not be licensed, but it is licensed in Brighton, simply
because they do not understand the Act. The Act is not that clear.
To give an example, if a property does not have all non self-contained
accommodation (i.e. shared facilities), it is partly studios,
some local authorities are saying that is not licensable, whereas
if it has got all shared facilities it is; and so you have got
different local authorities and landlords owning properties in
these different local authorities going to one local authority
and saying, "That is not licensed", going to the next
one and the same property is. So there is a lot of confusion.
It will get sorted out because LACORS are doing a lot of work
in doing best practice, et cetera, but it has not come yet. What
I would like to see is local authorities tackling the very organisation,
the very properties and landlords that you would like to see them
tackle. We are not seeing it.
Q324 Chair: There
is no reason why local authorities should not have started with
the worst properties?
Mr Stimpson: You are absolutely
right, that is exactly what we expected to see, but it is not
happening. It is the good landlords who come forward, and we want
them to go after the bad ones.
Q325 Chair: Would
you contradict that?
Mr Turner: No, I would not. You
asked whether it was a government failure, I would make the point
that, during the consultation period for the Housing Act 2004,
we and others lobbied for consistency as being absolutely fundamental
to the new Housing Act, consistency and prescription, where it
was required, for local authorities.
Q326 Anne Main:
And guidance to start with the bad ones first, or anything like
that?
Mr Turner: That would have been
nice, and that is what we did not get. I go round the country,
I meet a lot of local authority representatives. They think it
is as much of a mess as we do, and they would have liked there
to have been prescription so that they knew what they were doing.
Q327 Anne Main:
So it is pointless suggesting introducing any other categories
because you cannot deal the ones you have got?
Mr Turner: Indeed. There are many
local authorities, as Mike says, who have not yet got round to
dealing with the backlog of applications from the very people
that Mike talks about who are prepared to put their hand up and
say, "I own an HMO, I want to be licensed." Local authorities
are only just now, 12 months on, beginning to get round to looking
at how on earth they are going to identify the people who will
not put their hands up.
Q328 Anne Main:
Is there any simple step you could suggest that would make the
regime be improved or reformed? I know you wanted guidance, and
all the rest—you have not got them, you were not listened
to—but simple steps now to move us forward?
Mr Stimpson: What I would like
to see is local authorities being required to, first of all, introduce,
and get working properly, mandatory licensing and not start introducing
selective licensing before they have got mandatory licensing properly
established. Secondly, I would like to see converted flat licensing,
which is additional licensing in the main (the secondary legislation
has not gone through), left also until the mandatory licensing
is well in place with local authorities. There is no doubt that
it is the three and five (three storeys and five properties) that
are the ones that need the attention first, and they need to be
done properly. I should perhaps add, in my city we have pointed
out to the local authority houses that have been empty for 20
years and are derelict. Nothing is being done.
Q329 Anne Main:
Yes or no: would you agree with those proposals?
Professor Ball: Yes.
Mr Turner: Yes and no.
Q330 Mr Betts:
Local housing allowance: The proposal from the pilot scheme is
to roll it out across the country. I suppose it fits in with the
agenda of tenants having a degree of choice. Do you generally
support the concept? Do you think it is going to lead to any problems
in terms of landlords not being willing to let properties to people
who are on benefits?
Mr Stimpson: First of all, I am
a landlord who accepts housing benefit tenants. The housing allowance
was introduced in Brighton quite a while ago and, as far as I
am concerned, it is absolutely first-class, but I would give credit
to the local authority, because the local authority is reasonable
when it comes to challenging tenants. In other words, we have
got tenants who perhaps would not pay the rent. If they do not
pay the rent for two or three weeks, the local authority will,
with the consent of the tenant, revert the payment to landlords.
The worry of landlords, where it has not been introduced, is the
non-payment to the landlord but to the tenant. I think, as long
as local authorities are reasonable in their interpretation of
vulnerability, then landlords will find that this is a good way
forward and, as far as I am concerned, in the Pathfinders that
have already been introduced it has been a great success.
Professor Ball: My feeling would
be that the administration has to be good. The problem with housing
benefit in the past has been very low administration. In Pathfinder
experiments administration tends to be good by definition because
they are being looked at, and so it is important in the future
that those local allowances are put in place very quickly, otherwise
vulnerable people will be left in very difficult situations.
Chair: Thank you very much indeed.
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