The Opposition think it is important that local authorities take seriously their responsibility to license private hire vehicles, and we are not seeking to undermine the existing framework that provides assurance to people who are booking taxis and private hire companies, as clauses 10 and 11 will.
Safety concerns have been raised considerably since the inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, which concluded that one of the common threads running through child sexual exploitation across England has been the prominent role of taxi drivers in being linked to children who were abused. The author of the report, Alexis Jay OBE, has warned against any further deregulation in that area. Given that the Government accepted the recommendations of that inquiry, we are surprised that the Minister has not listened to the concerns that are out there.
The Home Secretary has promised a joined-up safeguarding approach in response to Rotherham, and we have now heard about cases elsewhere in the country, including the disturbing report that came out last week
about Oxfordshire. How do these proposals, particularly those in clauses 10 and 11, relate to that promise to join up safeguarding? I want to quote an old friend of mine and a very respected figure in local government, Councillor Ann Lucas, the chair of the Local Government Association’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board. She has campaigned to keep women and girls safe from violence, and she has stated:
“Keeping children safe is our top priority and a responsibility councils take extremely seriously. It is imperative that the Government withdraws these plans so councils can continue to fully check everyone getting behind the wheel of a taxi or private hire vehicle to ensure vulnerable children are kept as safe as possible.”
We are pleased to see the back of this provision today, but we are disappointed that the Government have not fully listened to the concerns that have been raised.
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I want to turn now to the amendments relating to housing. This is why I have been asked to respond to the debate today. I pay tribute to the work that has been done on the Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central. It is these amendments that have provoked particular interest. We have already heard concern being expressed about short-term lets. The issue has generated considerable controversy since it was proposed that there should be some relaxation of the London provisions, but the Government have also focused attention on what is now happening in the market and why the status quo cannot be sustained. Currently, the letting of residential accommodation for temporary sleeping accommodation in London for a period of less than 90 consecutive nights constitutes a change of use, for which planning permission is required. Notwithstanding the possibility of a fine of up to £20,000 for failure to secure permission, short-term letting is extensively carried on without permission being available or given.
We have covered in earlier debates the problems that can arise in this area, and the issue is also dealt with in the very welcome briefing that we have received from London Councils, which has done excellent work to highlight the fact that this is a particular issue for London. The loss of residential accommodation to the lucrative short-let market has an impact on the availability of accommodation in central London, which is already under pressure. Properties entering the short-let market in this way can increase problems of noise and antisocial behaviour, as well as leading to a loss of community identity, increased crime and fire safety risks and significant challenges relating to continual enforcement.
We know that other cities around the world are experiencing similar problems, so why are cities such as Amsterdam and Berlin taking action in this area while our Government fail to recognise the importance of the issue for this part of our country? Westminster city council estimates that at least 3,000 properties in the borough are being used for short-term letting accommodation, and there has apparently been a rise of 37% in just three months in Camden. Members should recognise that these are very real problems that afflict some areas particularly deeply. The issue has been raised not only by the Opposition; I know that some Government Members wish to comment on it as well, as it affects all parts of London.
There is clearly a market for short-term letting activity, and business opportunities have been created, particularly via the internet. It was noted in the other place that this is very different from the situation in the 1970s. According to the Government’s own figures, thousands of London properties and rooms are currently being advertised for short-term lets, each of which is potentially in breach of the law. That is an untenable situation. Of course we support people who want to rent out their home when they go on holiday or want to make a bit of extra money. We understand that some people want to take the opportunity to do that. However, any changes in the provisions must ensure that there is a clear distinction between those who wish to rent out their homes infrequently and those who want to turn them into a short-let business. There is a critical difference between them.
We are worried about the lack of consultation on these proposals, and the results from the recent survey undertaken by London Councils show that the move is not really what many London local authorities want. They are the organisations closest to the issue, and 93% of the boroughs opposed the Government’s proposals to remove the requirement for planning permission for short-term lettings in London, 83% of them would not support the Government’s proposals even if the boroughs were able to apply exemptions in specified premises or areas, and 71% of them believed that the removal of the requirement for planning permission would have a negative impact on the London economy as a whole.
The Government released their policy document on short-term lets prior to the Report stage in the Lords. It set out their vision of how they would operate. The document stated that a short-term let may not exceed 90 days in a calendar year, that such a let may apply to a property only where the owner is liable to pay council tax, and that the local planning authority and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government should be able to issue a direction to exempt a particular area or premises. Unless our amendments are accepted, however, it will not be a question of the local authority and the Secretary of State being able to do that. Rather, it will simply be conditional on the Secretary of State giving his support. There is no localism involved at the moment. This is another example of the Secretary of State wanting to meddle in a decision that should rightly be determined at local level.
In the other place, Lord McKenzie of Luton won the support of Baroness Hanham, Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Lord Tope to come up with a package of measures that, building on the Government amendments, would enable home owners who wished to let their homes on a short- term basis to do so unless there was detriment to the amenity of the locality, and to do so within a system in which there was proper notification to local authorities and in which enforcement was enabled. The Minister’s argument that such an arrangement would be burdensome shows that he does not really understand that, in this day and age, technology is a great enabler.
Local authorities should rightly take the lead on these matters, rather than the Secretary of State, and they are particularly concerned about this. We have heard the evidence from London Councils. I am sure that they can be relied on to enable people to report the fact that they are letting their home on a short-term basis in a way that will not prove too costly, not least
because many of the London boroughs in question have had some of the biggest council cuts in England under this Government.
Our amendments cover four areas. First, there must be provision in regulations for those letting properties on a short-term basis to have an obligation to notify the local authority. That is not a prescriptive amendment. Secondly, the concept is that short-term letting should be allowed when it involves someone’s home. It appears that the Government are seeking to define that by a liability to council tax, but we think that that is inadequate. Would not a liability to council tax arise for somebody letting residential property on a commercial basis—for example, between tenancies? Limiting the relaxation to someone’s principal residence in London would better target the deregulations. That is the reason for our amendment on that point.
Thirdly, we welcome the provision that the Government are seeking to make for local authorities to disapply the regulation for certain properties or areas, but we oppose this right being subject to the consent of the Secretary of State. As I have said, the Government’s proposal is not a localist move. Finally, there is the issue of enforcement, and we believe that a proportionate system can and should be put in place. The amendments are designed not to undermine the Government’s position but to strengthen the safeguards, and I hope that, even at the eleventh hour, the Government will be able to support them.
I have three short “finallys”, Madam Deputy Speaker. On tenancy deposits, Labour pushed for these amendments in the House of Lords and we are therefore delighted that the Government have seen sense and tabled their amendment, which implements Labour’s proposals. On Ebbsfleet, as we made clear in the other place, we remain unconvinced that the negative procedure accompanied by a statutory duty to consult is the appropriate procedure for establishing an urban development corporation. I was personally involved as a local councillor in north Kent in the late 1990s and the early 2000s when we were trying to get Ebbsfleet off the ground, having successfully brought Bluewater to the area to help with the regeneration, and I greatly regret that it has taken the Government so long to take these proposals forward. They have effectively wasted five years. We do not intend to stand in their way on this technical question of how UDCs should be created.
We welcome the Government’s change of heart on tackling retaliatory eviction. They had previously suggested that our amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill in the House of Lords to protect tenants against retaliatory eviction was unnecessary. We believe that it was absolutely necessary, however, whether it would affect 6,000, 40,000 or 80,000 people. These amendments give much-needed protection to tenants, as landlords will no longer be able to evict them in response to a valid complaint about their home. Tenants will no longer have to choose between living in poor conditions or losing their home. Labour would go much further to get a fairer deal for private renters by legislating for three-year tenancies, by ending excessive rent increases by putting a ceiling on rent increases across the three-year tenancy and, crucially, by banning rip-off letting agents’ fees for tenants. Nevertheless, we are happy to support the Government’s proposals today. I urge the Minister, at the final stage of
this 18-month process, to listen to the many hon. Members who have direct personal experience of the issue of short lets, and to have a change of heart.