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Rented Housing

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. This is an issue that is a bit like the post office debate, where people say that if post offices are lost it is a disaster for rural communities. Well, I keep saying that it is a disaster for suburban communities too. With housing, it is undoubtedly a disaster for some of the communities in my constituency, which is an urban area; it is doubly disastrous in rural areas, where social housing is the only alternative housing but that alternative has gone completely. That is a point that I will return to later. As we have heard from the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), who is the Chair of the Committee, and in the report itself, we have now reached a point where renting is seen as second best in many cases. That perception is very unhelpful to the people who are in the rented sector, especially the social rented sector. Those people's needs and aspirations are surely just as important as those of home owners and people who can afford to be home owners, especially to a Labour Government. Clearly, however, in the last 11 years those people who are renting have not been as important; they have been at the bottom of the pile and treated as rejects. In the private rented sector, there is a particular problem in that some landlords—the report says that it is a minority of landlords—are not fulfilling the obligations that they have to tenants, to provide, in return for the rent that they receive, a decent home. The Government need to take stronger action in providing guidance, regulation, monitoring and inspection to improve the lot of private rented tenants. Again, that is a point that I will return to later. During the debate in December 2007 on Second Reading of the Housing Bill, I and others pointed out that that Bill was looking very much at the social rented sector and particularly covering the private rented sector, so there was a need for the Government to take action on that sector. During that debate the point was made that in previous years—in the 1980s—the private rented market almost collapsed because of various Government policies, so Governments have since then been very cautious about regulating the private rented market, in case they drove private landlords out of the market altogether, as happened some 20 or 30 years ago. However, given the state of the housing market today, and the way things have moved, that is the least of our worries, and we need to consider regulating the private rented sector more. Shelter has produced lots of research material on that, and we discussed some of that in December on Second Reading as well.