It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow some fantastic and informative contributions from both sides of the House. I too will be brief, because I know a number of Members wish to contribute. I start by welcoming the Minister to her place and by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on all his work on his Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. I congratulate the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on her cross-party work over a number of years to ensure the Bill can be supported. I rise with the intention of supporting the Bill today.
The Bill will grant tenants the right to take action in the courts against landlords who fail to ensure that their property is fit for human habitation, and a number of colleagues in the House today will identify with and recognise some of the stories and examples that have already been raised, especially by the hon. Lady. We have all seen the damp and the lack of proper drainage and water in some properties, and I thank her on behalf of a number of constituents in Thornbury and Yate for raising this matter.
I also pay tribute to the citizens advice bureau in south Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire Council for all their work and for the thoughts they provided ahead of this debate. It is clear that the current system needs updating. If a tenant is living in an unfit property, the housing health and safety rating system allows local authorities to assess whether the property contains serious risks to the individuals living there, and where it does, the local authority requires the landlord to reduce or, ideally, remove the risk.
The upshot is that an offence is committed only when a landlord fails to comply with the enforcement notice, and the upshot of that is that tenants have to rely on the local authority to take action on hazardous properties, and are unable to do so themselves. I welcome that the Bill is righting that wrong across all sectors by putting an obligation on landlords to keep their property in good condition.
As has been pointed out, there are already statutory obligations on most landlords to keep in repair the structure and exterior of their properties, and a number of other factors. However, provisions requiring landlords to ensure their properties are fit for habitation have realistically ceased to have any effect—that has been explained much better than I could by the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts).
Where a landlord fails to maintain a property so it is fit for habitation—the Bill’s definition of which will include freedom from damp, proper ventilation, proper water supply and drainage, and a number of other factors that everyone here would take for granted in our own lives—the Bill empowers tenants to take action themselves in the courts, giving tenants the ability to hold landlords to account where there has been a failing and allowing tenants to apply for an injunction.