My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the Property Ombudsman. I warmly welcome the Bill. I am sure the Minister is well aware of the large number of organisations from which we have all had briefings. The Bill has taken a long time to get here, and expectations are riding high.
That is not surprising. Since 2001, the number of families forced to rent privately has doubled. High housing costs both cause and worsen poverty. The number of family homes available to social rent has reduced dramatically. For households on low incomes, this has significantly worsened living standards. The Bill needs to be seen in that context. We must not miss the opportunity to tackle long-standing issues of unfair eviction, rent increases and access to dispute resolution.
A number of issues will be raised in this debate from organisations such as Shelter, Crisis, Marie Curie and others, which I hope to be able to support in Committee. Today I will say a few words about Section 21 —in effect, the centrepiece of this legislation. I will then look briefly at some points that affect social housing providers and the property portal, the front door that will be crucial to enabling enforcement, then focus my main attention on the new PRS landlord ombudsman.
There is now some real doubt about when Section 21 evictions will actually be abolished. This part of the Bill has near-universal support, and tenants and landlords need certainty. The Government have said that it would be wrong to introduce it before the courts are ready, but have not defined what ready means or how we—or they—will know. It is five years since the Government made this commitment, yet there is still no progress. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to give the House, as well as landlords and tenants, the certainty they need, by providing a plan for court reform and a timetable for when the abolition will come into effect.
The Bill largely concentrates on the private rented sector, but it will also have an impact on social housing providers, particularly where they use assured tenancies. The Government responded to some of these points on Commons Report and introduced amendments, but these themselves are likely to have unintended consequences, which I hope the Minister will be ready to consider. I refer to the new rent-to-buy ground 1B,
introduced in the Commons as Amendment 158, and ground 6. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has given the House the details of these and I will not repeat them, but this has been raised by the National Housing Federation and I am sure it would welcome a meeting with the Minister to discuss the technical detail.
Next, I would like to mention the new portal. The Government have recognised the need for local authorities to have information about PRS properties in their area, for landlords to be clear about their responsibilities, and for tenants to know where to go for help if their landlord fails to put right a problem. The TDS Charitable Foundation’s survey work raises serious concerns about the ability of tenants to enforce the new rights that the Bill will give them. It is developing a new “My Housing Issue” gateway or portal, to which the noble Lord, Lord Best, referred, which will act as a signposting service. I understand that it will identify for tenants the correct route to solve their problems, encourage an early resolution of disputes and provide relevant information about housing rights and options. I certainly encourage the Minister to look at this in relation to the new portal; it may be very helpful.
I now turn to my main concern: the way the new PRS ombudsman will be selected. The new ombudsman will play a vital role in delivering the Government’s objectives to improve experience in the sector for tenants and landlords alike. I declared my interest as chair of the board with responsibility for the Property Ombudsman. TPO deals with complaints and requests for assistance from private sector tenants of the 39,000 property agents who subscribe to this service. The new ombudsman will provide that service for PRS tenants whose landlords do not use an agent. This has been a huge gap in redress, as my ombudsman knows all too well from the thousands of requests for help that we have to refer elsewhere or to the courts.
We should not underestimate the scale of the new regulatory role proposed. The latest data from HMRC states that there are almost 2.4 million incorporated private landlords in England, with almost half owning only one property. Moreover, local authorities, which are responsible for investigating poor housing standards and taking enforcement action against rogue landlords, are overstretched, as we know. At the same time, many tenants struggle to enforce their rights through the courts, not least because, as the Law Society notes, 44% of people in England and Wales do not have access to housing legal aid providers in their local authority area.
The scale of, and challenges for, an ombudsman for this part of the private rented sector will be completely different from those presented, for example, in the social housing sector. Given the size of the task, it seems right that the Government have said they have yet to decide how the new position will be filled and supported. Clearly, this requires an open competition among the existing bodies in this field, to determine which might provide the best service.
However, the Minister made clear today that their preference is for the Housing Ombudsman, which covers the social rented sector, to have its remit extended to cover private sector landlords. I find that quite confusing because, although the decision about who should operate the service looks like a foregone conclusion, the Government have been at great pains to explain
that no decisions have yet been made about whom to appoint to run the service. Indeed, the Housing Ombudsman has indicated that he is undertaking preparatory work, funded by the Government, to investigate how the PRS ombudsman could work and how it should be funded.
In a Written Question I put to the Minister some weeks ago, asking for the extent of the support provided to the Housing Ombudsman and the terms under which it was provided, the Government declined to provide that information. I can tell her that the gossip in the sector is that it is about half a million pounds. That does not bode very well for fair, open and transparent processes. Given what the Minister said about the Government’s preferred option, has she considered that TPO has uniquely detailed knowledge and experience in the private rented sector and is certainly well placed to be considered to deal with complaints for the landlord part of the sector?
This is my main point: in making important appointments for this role, it is imperative that the Government follow a clear and transparent procurement exercise, not least to ensure the best value for the taxpayer. Given that, can the Minister confirm that the Government will publish clear criteria setting out how they expect the new PRS ombudsman to operate and ensure that they fully consider all potential providers of the service? I reiterate that I broadly welcome the Bill as a chance to empower tenants to call out bad practice in the private rented sector, while supporting the vast majority of private landlords who do the right thing.
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