---

Baroness Maddock: I welcome these orders and regulations, and think that my Liberal Democrat colleagues would do the same. It is some time since we discussed them in the Housing Bill. Indeed, we spent many a long day discussing the issues with the Minister who was taking the previous orders. We went into it in some detail, although not without controversy. There are higher standards for landlords, and I appreciate that some of the matters will be difficult. I understand that it has taken the ODPM—now the DCLG, if I have that right—rather a long time to deal with this; partly, I suppose, because there has been quite detailed consultation. Because I am now a member of the Merits and Statutory Instruments Committee, I know that some notice was taken of issues raised by landlords and others. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that it could not have been expedited rather more speedily.

Personally, it has practically been 20 years since I got involved in these issues as a new councillor in Southampton, went out with the environmental health officer to see some of these properties and realised what some of these problems are, particularly for people living in properties with poor repair and management. In parts of Southampton we had young mothers with babies living in this type of accommodation. Children were not learning to walk at the right age; there were all sorts of problems. It was interesting that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, mentioned the difficulty of getting washbasins everywhere. Having inspected these properties, I think it is pretty vital. People are living cheek by jowl, and hygiene is important. Hotels manage to have washbasins, or some sort of plumbing, in every room. It is not too much to expect.

The other problem is not just the people living in them, but problems for other houses in the surrounding area, where gardens, rubbish and disrepair affect everyone living in the neighbourhood. The fact that huge amounts of public money, in the form of housing benefit, have been paid for rather substandard accommodation has appalled me over the years. I raised this issue with Nick Raynsford in another place in 1995. I had high hopes that we would get this all done a lot quicker when he became Minister. Nevertheless, we are here now. I was pleased to visit an area in Newcastle during the local elections, with Liberal Democrat colleagues who are thinking of using these regulations and orders in a particular area.

I have one or two questions reflecting what the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, said. What information does the Minister have on the level of interest in these measures from local authorities? What measures will be put in place to monitor progress? The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, has raised issues that people have been concerned about. It is only right that we look at how matters turn out and whether some of our fears are real, and to help spread best practice where we find it, enabling local authorities to deal with problems if someone else has found a good way to remedy them.
 
16 May 2006 : Column GC73
 

During the passage of the Bill, I had hoped that the scope of properties subject to these regulations would be rather wider. I argued rather forcibly for that, and was grateful to Shelter for the huge amount of evidence which it provided. The Government can be assured that Shelter will monitor the progress of the licensing of houses in multiple occupation. Even if the Government is not doing its research, others out there will.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, raised how the orders have been dealt with by what was the ODPM, now the DCLG. We raised this issue on the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee. We investigated how different departments deal with secondary legislation. For someone who has spent most of the past 13 years doing primary legislation in both Houses, it has been quite interesting. I did not think that it would be as interesting as it turned out to be. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, might like to look at that report to see what we said. We will be getting a detailed response from the DCLG on what we said on that committee; we have had an interim report. I hope that the new Minister in another place will take heed of what we said and enable the DCLG to improve its performance in this area.

As I said at the beginning, however, I welcome these measures and hope that they will bring about the improvements we all want to see in this type of accommodation; not least that we will not be paying lots of money for rather inferior accommodation in the future.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews): I am very grateful to the noble Baronesses for the hard work that they put in through the passage of the legislation, which I was not involved in. As with many instances when dealing with housing legislation, I know that I am in the hands of a great deal of expertise on the other side. We have come to the point now where we are dealing with implementation, and that gives us some pleasure, even if some of the things that the noble Baronesses, Lady Maddock and Lady Hanham, would have liked to have seen were not successful. I welcome the support that they have given the statutory instruments in general.

Both noble Baronesses know well the pressures on people living in houses in multiple occupation, how important they are as a source of accommodation and how they have always housed the most vulnerable. I take the experience of 20 years of seeing the sorts of states that people live in in those houses, in saying that it is a good thing that we have now moved to provide through regulation a national licensing scheme to include those controllers.

It might be worth explaining why we have five statutory instruments here instead of bundling them up into one. We felt that it was important to keep the matters dealt with in the three orders separate, because they deal with issues arising in three separate parts of the Act; Parts 2, 3 and 4. We wanted to avoid any confusion arising between what was required in relation to mandatory licensing when prescribing
 
16 May 2006 : Column GC74
 
which types of HMO would be subject to mandatory licensing on the one hand, and which properties could not be subject to selective licensing on the other. We also felt that the question of when to make a special interim management order had very little to do with the rest of the issues, so that was dealt with separately. We also decided that the management requirements should stand alone, because they deal with a specific set of requirements. They apply to all HMOs too, as opposed to just those that are required to be licensed. Therefore, they should not have been buried among the others. That is why we are bringing forward five provisions today.

The common questions asked by both noble Baronesses essentially were about preparedness, and I will start with that in describing what we are doing. I take the point about the three months, but we are where we are. I will go into a bit of detail about what we have tried to do to get local authorities up to speed, including local authorities that have had registration schemes and those that have not, which are starting from a different base entirely. It is important that we get them up to speed as much as possible. It is a challenge; there is no doubt about that. We have given high priority to putting in place a comprehensive training programme for all local authorities. We funded the Improvement and Development Agency—the IDeA—to train all local housing authorities in the details of implementing the licensing provisions. They are seeing more than 900 delegates from 336 local authorities in training. In addition, 800 delegates have attended an extensive programme of events across England on their role in licensing. We have also been trying to deliver a cultural change in attitude towards the problems. It is not simply a technical process; it will be about looking strategically at what they are now able to do and sharing ideas for joint working.

The Local Government Association has produced, in consultation with authorities and the landlord organisations, a licensing fees toolkit, which is suitable for use by all types of local authority. That has been endorsed by the IDeA, CIPFA and the Department for Communities and Local Government. For landlords and tenants, we have a paid publicity campaign in newspapers and on the radio, which is raising awareness. It began in early March and will run to the end of June. We had 200,000 hits on the dedicated website in the first two weeks, and lots of inquiries are coming in from local authorities, landlords and tenants' organisations. We have set up a telephone helpline and an email address to respond to licensing inquiries. We are getting inquiries from the public and from the range of stakeholders. We had 750 email inquiries by the end of April, and they have been responded to. The feedback suggests that stakeholders are taking these opportunities on board. That is what we have tried to do. As the programme unfolds, the department and local authorities will be on the alert for anything else that we can do in the interim.

Matching that is the question about monitoring, which is equally important. We know the scale of the changes and we are committed to ensuring that the
 
16 May 2006 : Column GC75
 
measures that we are introducing should work in a very practical way. They are new, so we must monitor their effectiveness and practicability in helping to raise standards. We have commissioned the Building Research Establishment to monitor licensing and its impact upon the private rented sector, but we have also commissioned the Local Authorities Coordinating Office on Regulatory Services to provide advice to authorities on the practical application of licensing and other measures in the Act, including developing best practices. So we are trying not simply to share best practice but to aim at consistency between local authorities.

All that will inform a review of all aspects of the new licensing regime within the next three years, and if we conclude on the basis of evidence that changes are needed, we shall look at what needs to be done. The process of review was made clear during debate on the Bill, and we are now engaged with that process—and I think that this is the right time to do that.

The other question that links in with this debate is the scope of the definition of what should be mandatory. I do not really want to revisit what must have been hours of debate—and very well argued, I am sure; but I shall repeat briefly what must have been the argument and what remains the argument, which leads us to the question of amenities. It is essentially a question of how we protect the most vulnerable and make the best use of our resources. The choice is to spread thinly and widen the definition or to arrive at a definition of mandatory licensing that picks out the big houses with the most tenants and, therefore, the most vulnerable people.

---