Conferences
Justine Greening, MP for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, Shadow Minister for London
Elected as the Conservative MP for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields in May 2005, Justine Greening, Shadow Minister for London and a member of the Shadow Communities and Local Government front bench team, delivered the keynote speech at our conference in Wandsworth.
She said that the private rented sector and HMOs are a key critical feature in housing in London. She talked about the Conservatives’ “vision for housing” having a local agenda after the Government has failed to deliver social housing. She claimed that “top down driven Whitehall targets …. are not effective” and that this is fundamentally the wrong way to approach things.
She recognised that the private rented sector has a hugely important role to play, but compared the UK to Europe where many more people rent their homes and called upon her own experience of living in Switzerland for two years. In the UK renting is often a first step on the housing ladder or to independent living. Renting has previously been important for younger people, but there is now a wider variety of people renting and “the churn” of tenants is also now changing.
Ms Greening said that we have had significant legislative changes in recent years including the introduction of mandatory HMO licensing and a wider range of enforcement for local authorities, but that the Conservatives wanted “smart legislation not blanket legislation and smart powers not ones which hinder private landlords”.
She had some concerns over the proposals coming out of the Rugg review, but was keen to see the response to the summer’s consultation.
The Conservatives see a different approach and are awaiting the Code of Practice for letting and managing agents from ARLA and how that will work. They favour self-regulation and having powers at a local level. Many landlords perform well, but there is a small minority of landlords who don’t. Costs to landlords of licensing and enforcement get passed on to tenants in terms of rents and this doesn’t improve the level of service. The buy-to-let market is uncertain and additional powers could stifle that. She said that the Conservatives want to see action on “rogue landlords”.
“The Local Housing Allowance has caused real problems” and it “doesn’t seem to be working for anyone”. A recent NLA survey showed that 60% of tenants would prefer payment of the benefit direct to the landlord. The Conservatives believe that tenants should have more choice in how it is paid.
John Healey, the Housing Minister, has announced more proposals in the last week including plans to legislate before Christmas: setting national housing standards and for landlords to tackle anti-social behaviour in their own neighbourhoods. Ms Greening was keen to see further information on these proposals, but she said that it was not clear if the Government will find time to legislate on anything before the general election and wondered what proposals would be in the Queen’s Speech later this month.
She said that a national register of landlords “will not be supported by a Conservative government”.
It is clear that ‘studentification’ does cause problems for some local authorities and her party supported the Government in raising concerns about the resulting “hot and cold issues”: large numbers of students in term time sometimes creating problems with rubbish and anti-social behaviour and then a complete change when the “economic life blood” that students are, disappearing from an area at the end of term.
Ms Greening talked about Roehampton University in her own constituency where student numbers have increased in recent years. She said that local authorities should have powers to retain a balance so that sustainable neighbourhoods are encourage and also mentioned that Loughborough and Lincoln are working to deal with issues in their own areas.
The Conservatives would carry out a careful review of the “legislative landscape” aiming to avoid duplication and contradiction and targeting legislation where it was most needed. Ms Greening hoped to see the private rented sector play a more important role including more empty properties being brought back into use as they had an important role in tackling the housing shortage.
Finally, Ms Greening said that the Conservatives view the sector differently. HMOs are a valuable option and they want to trust councils to be better judges of where action is to be taken rather than “men in Whitehall”.