I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
When I announced that I was introducing this Bill, there was some surprise that homes could be let that were not fit for human habitation, but, extraordinarily, that is the case in 2015. As long ago as 1885, when the Housing of the Working Classes Act was passed, Parliament first decided that residential rented accommodation should be fit for human habitation. That concept continued in subsequent housing, landlord and tenant statutes, culminating in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. In theory, section 8 of that Act places a statutory duty on landlords, covering issues such as damp, mould and infestation. Failure to meet that statutory duty could result in a civil action by the renter for an injunction or compensation. The great weakness of those provisions is that they tie the repairing obligation to rent limits.