David Lepper

Labour Party | Brighton Pavilion

Home Energy Conservation Bill

Mr. David Lepper (Brighton, Pavilion): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner), not only on securing such a high place in the private Members' ballot but on choosing this Bill to steer through the process.

I was pleased to be asked to sponsor the Bill, for a number of reasons. My hon. Friend has already referred to the serious safety hazards in some of the worst houses in multiple occupation. As honorary secretary of the recently formed all-party group on gas safety, I believe that the measures in the Bill will be of great interest to those of us across the parties who support the initiative on that issue.

I am especially pleased to sponsor the Bill because of its importance for the constituencies that my hon. Friend and I represent in the city of Brighton and Hove. He has already referred to the housing situation there; it is one that makes these measures particularly important. Forty-two per cent. of the city's housing stock is pre-1919, which is twice the national average. Many of those houses are in a severe state of disrepair; many are old, rambling buildings converted into bedsits and flats.

The city has the country's largest private rented sector: 20 per cent. of our housing stock is privately rented. As my hon. Friend has mentioned, we have in the pastharboured some of the most scandalously irresponsible landlords ever seen in this country. One, Nicholas van Hoogstraten, is currently detained by Her Majesty awaiting trial next spring for murder. We have a population of 24,000 students, and also a transient and mobile population. In parts of the city centre that I represent, about a quarter of the residents move home every year--some to other parts of the city, some out of the city altogether--according to the electoral register.

Brighton and Hove city council's admirable housing investment strategy document for 2001-06--appropriately entitled "The Well-Being of the City"--recognises the importance of improving the housing stock, whether council or privately owned, as central to the well-being of our citizens. The authors of that strategy also say:

"Many of our residents are living in unsuitable, unfit, unsafe, overcrowded accommodation with consequent damage to health, educational attainment and life chances."

The strengthening of the statutory framework proposed in the Bill to improve energy conservation and efficiency will go a long way towards improving the situation that Brighton and Hove city council seeks to address.

The council is already working with landlords to encourage investment in the housing stock, and improvements are happening. They have jointly published a good landlord guide, whose emphasis is on work under the terms of the Home Energy Conservation Act 1995. In its fifth progress report on the Act's provisions, the council states:

"About 650 households in the city have benefited from insulation and/or heating measures at no cost to themselves, as a result. That is one element of the council's joint promotional strategy with the Energy Action Grants Agency"

-the EAGA, with which I am sure many hon. Members are familiar.

The council also reports an

"Ongoing comprehensive programme for prioritising gas central heating and insulation installations in council housing. Criteria for priority action include ill health, inability of tenants to afford current heating costs, and poor energy efficiency of individual properties."

Those are among the criteria for the support being offered. The council also announces

"The launch of the East Sussex Heat and Sun home insulation, solar water heating discount and energy efficiency advice initiative."

All those measures are excellent. Unfortunately, some councils have still not taken their responsibilities under the Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 quite as seriously as others. While I am proud to report the record of my own council, others may have different stories from other parts of the country. Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill will strengthen the councils' hand in carrying out those responsibilities.

Brighton and Hove has, for the past year or so, been running a pilot registration scheme for houses in multiple occupation. The scheme is, admittedly, including only a very small part of the city and encouraging landlords to register under a voluntary scheme. The feedback from the landlords after the year or 18 months of the scheme is quite interesting. Many have welcomed it, because they see it as a way of improving the standing of their role in the community. They see it--I quote from a report--as a way to

"bring a form of pride and respectability to a sector which has suffered a poor reputation."

The landlords also see the scheme as a way of dealing with some of the more disreputable landlords. Such landlords are in a minority, but unfortunately it is often a minority that owns large stocks of housing. They may be small in number, but their influence is great. The local voluntary registration scheme in Brighton and Hove is seen by the landlords who have taken part as a way of improving the standing of their profession, as well as improving the quality of the housing stock. The city council is now considering extending the voluntary scheme across the whole city over the next year or so. Obviously, part 3 of the Bill will be an incentive for it to do that. It is also offering quite substantial grants towards the improvement of housing stock to those landlords who come forward.

Despite the concerns expressed in the November 2001 issue of Residential Renting--which may have been distributed to other hon. Members; I have been sent copies by four or five landlords in my constituency--that registration would drive out landlords and decrease the available housing stock, that has not been the experience of the Brighton and Hove pilot scheme. We have seen no diminution in the number of flats or bedsits in housing in multiple occupation available to local people.

I am sure that my hon. Friend's Bill will receive wide support across the House. It deserves that support. It will strengthen the hand of the many responsible local authorities and landlords, and it will provide more extensive and stronger measures both to deal with councils whose approach to the HECA initiative is not wholehearted and to ensure that unscrupulous landlords are brought to book.