CIEH amendments to Renters’ Rights Bill on licensing tabled again for Lords report stage

Two Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) amendments to the Renters' Rights Bill on licensing have been tabled by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Shipley again for the report stage of the Bill in the House of Lords.

Lord Shipley, a Vice President of the Local Government Association and former leader of Newcastle City Council, previously tabled and spoke on the amendments at committee stage. He told peers that the amendments “would remove unnecessary barriers to the use of licensing schemes to improve housing standards".

CIEH says the arguments for the amendments were not adequately addressed by the Government at committee stage and need to be considered further.

The first amendment would enable local authorities operating selective licensing schemes to use licence conditions to improve housing conditions. It would remove a “peculiar disconnect” in current legislation, highlighted by CIEH, whereby local authorities can introduce selective licensing schemes in order to address poor housing but cannot include in the licences themselves conditions requiring the physical state of the licensed properties to be improved.

The second amendment would increase the maximum duration of additional HMO licensing schemes and selective licensing schemes from five to ten years. Local authorities would then be able to implement longer schemes without repeating the time consuming and expensive designation process. CIEH argues that this would allow them to advertise longer term posts and to include training of new staff in these schemes.

The discussion of these amendments at Lords committee stage came after Green MP Carla Denyer tabled and spoke on them at the report stage of the Bill in the House of Commons. She also tabled and spoke on an amendment covering the same issues at Commons committee stage.

The amendments are backed by the Renters’ Reform Coalition, which comprises 19 organisations and includes major housing and homelessness charities as well as CIEH.

The CIEH amendments can be found here and here. Lord Shipley's speech at committee stage, when the amendments were numbered 253 and 254, can be viewed here.

Mark Elliott, President of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, said:

“We are very grateful to Lord Shipley for ensuring that the Lords will return to these issues at report stage.

“The Government responded to our first amendment at committee stage by referring to the proposed extension of the Decent Homes Standard and Awaab’s Law to the private rented sector. Neither of those measures, however, will remove the need for councils to be able to use enforceable licence conditions, without the need for tenants to have complained, to deal in a proactive way with general disrepair in areas with poor housing conditions.

“With regard to our second amendment, the Government did not appear to recognise at committee stage the amount of time and money that is wasted through councils being unnecessarily required to repeat the designation process for licensing schemes.

“We are urging the Government to think again and to accept these amendments that would help councils with tackling poor housing conditions and supporting the most vulnerable tenants.”