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Energy Bill [Lords]

I shall speak to amendments 2 to 6 and 8, in my name and those of right hon. and hon. colleagues on both sides of the House, on energy efficiency in the private rented sector. I join other Members in congratulating the Department on going a long way to tackle the problem in the private rented sector by agreeing to introduce a minimum efficiency standard and by declaring that it is simply unacceptable to rent out dangerously cold and draughty homes. The Department has gone far further than many expected, and the minimum standard is a major achievement that goes some way to meeting the Government's pledge to be the greenest Government ever. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) for her work in Committee, to the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) and to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change for genuinely engaging with the coalition of organisations that support the introduction of a minimum standard. My amendments are backed by a coalition of some 40 organisations, and I join the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) in thanking Friends of the Earth, the Association for the Conservation of Energy and Citizens Advice for all their work during the passage of the Bill and for supporting my amendments. The Government have taken a giant leap forward by agreeing to introduce a minimum standard, and we should not underestimate how far the Department has brought us, but my amendments seek simply to take a further, much smaller step forward. The most important of my amendments is amendment 6, which would bring forward the date by which landlords have to bring up their property to a minimum standard. So far, 181 MPs from nine different political parties on both sides of the House have signed early-day motion 653, which I tabled in July last year, so there is clearly cross-party support for bringing in the minimum standard by 2016. The Government have given no good reason why the deadline must be 2018 and not sooner, but there are plenty of good reasons for introducing it sooner. The Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000 requires the Government to do all that is reasonably practicable to eradicate fuel poverty by 2016, and there must be very compelling reasons not to meet that obligation. According to the most recent figures, 5.5 million households are in fuel poverty, and housing makes up 27% of the UK's carbon emissions—a strong argument for it playing a central role in the Government's plan to meet their carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act 2008. Owing to the lack of available social housing in recent years and the failure of successive Governments to prioritise and tackle the lack of affordable rented property, there has been an increasing reliance on the private rented sector to provide homes. Although there are many good landlords, there are still a number who let substandard properties, and in my constituency some private rented accommodation is among the worst and least energy efficient property available. The Department's own impact assessment estimates that 42% of households in F and G-rated properties in the private rented sector are in fuel poverty, and Friends of the Earth-commissioned research by Consumer Focus estimates that 150,000 households would be lifted out of fuel poverty simply by bringing F and G-rated properties up to a minimum E standard, saving an average of £488 on the annual energy bill of the improved homes. It is also estimated that that would save 1.87 million tonnes of CO2 annually and £145 million currently spent by the NHS on treating illnesses caused by cold rented homes. Those are all good reasons to bring forward the date to 2016. Bringing forward the deadline to 2016 would still give landlords nearly four years to comply with the minimum standards. Ministers have argued that waiting until 2018 means that the majority of private tenancies—getting on for 90%—will have changed hands, which will give landlords the chance to upgrade and retrofit the properties before a new tenant moves in. That is a reasonable argument, as it creates the minimum disruption for the minimum number of tenants and will cover the vast majority of tenants in longer-term lets. However, the vast majority of private tenancies—between 80% and 90%—will also have changed hands by 2016, and so bringing forward the deadline would cause very little, if any, additional disruption for tenants. The Bill should be amended so that we have a 2016 deadline after which all private rented sector homes must, by law, be at least E-rated for energy efficiency. The 2016 date clearly meets the Government's stated criteria of being"““a date by which properties with long-term tenancies will have gone through a tenancy cycle””." The 2016 date has been backed by the Committee on Climate Change, which, since the Committee stage of the Bill, has stated:"““There is no reason to delay implementation of the proposals. The regulation would only apply to F and G-rated properties and improvements would be relatively low cost in most cases.””" Research suggests that the vast majority of these properties could be improved to meet the minimum standard for less than £3,500, and that for 37% of them it would cost less than £900 to make the necessary improvements. Today's letter from the Minister to Friends of the Earth made it clear that the Government are not going to concede any ground on the date and suggested that it was a matter for Parliament. Well, I am making it a matter for Parliament today. I would have been prepared to withdraw the amendment if I had received a commitment to a public consultation on changing the deadline, but because there has been no such commitment I feel that it is necessary to seek to put it to the vote. I have tabled amendments 2, 3 and 5 because clause 42 does not mention the role of letting agents and those marketing rented properties. Ministers say that it is ““implicit”” that the minimum standard will have an impact on not only landlords but anyone acting as their agent, including letting agents and estate agents. The Department has subsequently stated that the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 will prevent landlords and letting agents from marketing F and G-rated properties. I hope that the Minister can give a clear indication of how the regulations will do that, and then I will be happy to withdraw the amendments. I welcome the provision in clause 45 that means that landlords cannot refuse consent for reasonable requests for energy efficiency measures. Some tenants already worry about asking for reasonable repairs because of the potential threat of retaliatory eviction, so how many will exercise that right if they face a strong chance of being chucked out of their homes? The National Private Tenants Network has clear evidence that retaliatory action is occurring, including landlords seeking possession of a property under the Housing Act 1988. The Housing Minister has said that it is vital that tenants can ask for repairs without fear of eviction, and I welcome that comment. In Committee, Ministers acknowledged those concerns and set up a stakeholder group on retaliatory eviction. That is a step in the right direction because it is vital that tenants have legal protection against such retaliation. Amendment 8 seeks to give the Secretary of State the power to include in the regulations protection for tenants by limiting the circumstances under which a section 21 notice for eviction of a tenant can be served once a request has been made by the tenant for relevant energy efficiency measures. I would be grateful if the Minister updated the House on what progress has been made by the stakeholder group in ensuring that tenants are protected against eviction. Finally, amendment 4 seeks to ensure that improvements that are carried out on a property that falls below the E rating make it reach a minimum E rating. It is not clear from clause 42 that it will be mandatory for improvements to bring it up to band E—the minimum standard the Government want to see. Subsections (2) and (3) suggest that landlords will have to make ““relevant energy efficiency improvements””. The clause states that those improvements can be financed by the green deal, the energy company obligation or other financial arrangements. Those improvements might bring the property up to band E, but they might not. For some band F and G properties, landlords will rely on using ECO, a fixed pot of money that will not pay for all improvements or other sources of funding. In such cases, landlords will not know what is expected of them. That will not only create the danger that private rented sector tenants might not benefit in full from the improvements the Government want to see; it will also create uncertainty for landlords. Once the principle of regulation has been accepted—as it has been by introducing a minimum standard—it is in the interests of landlords for that regulation to be clear and straightforward to comply with. The ambiguity will make it more difficult for local authorities to undertake their enforcement role. They will somehow have to distinguish between F and G rated properties that are legal because they have been improved and those that are illegal because there have been no improvements. We need to mend the legislation to make it crystal clear to anybody what the minimum standard is, and amendment 4 seeks to do that.