Landlord Registration

Mr Spratt: I am delighted to be able to take part in the debate. I support the motion. I am not a landlord. I might have been one in the past, but, thankfully, I no longer am. I had a property wrecked on two occasions, but somebody else has that headache now, and I was delighted to hand it over.

Lord Morrow: It was not profitable.

Mr Spratt: It became less profitable; that is correct. This has been a good debate. Housing and housing problems are among the main issues that we all have to grapple with daily in our constituency offices. I am always concerned about the number of folks who live in private rental accommodation, particularly in south Belfast, who do not know the contact details of their landlords. In some cases, they do not even know who their landlords are, because they have leased the property from a rental company, for instance. Heating systems, among other things, often break down, and the tenants are left in dire circumstances and cannot get anything done to solve their problems. It is difficult for those of us to whom they come for help to do anything for them.

I would welcome some form of registration. However, there are many good landlords, particularly in the Holylands. Often, it has been made to appear that the problems and the things that have happened lie at the doors of those landlords. In many cases, that is not accurate, because many of them run good and successful businesses. On the whole, many of them do a fairly good job.

Considering that the Holylands has been mentioned in the motion, it is important to point out that many other organisations, such as the universities, the Police Service, Belfast City Council and various other groups have put a tremendous amount of work into trying to solve the problem. Often, students get the blame for such things as the terrible events, which we saw on our televisions, that took place on St Patrick’s Day last year. People are happy to blame students, and they are particularly happy to blame Queen’s University, because the events took place in close proximity to it — a university that has done much and put a lot of finance into trying to help solve the problem by providing wardens, for instance. However, when Members look at the statistics relating to the arrests that were made during last year’s St Patrick’s Day events, they will see that 11 of the 19 people who were arrested were not students. Therefore it is wrong to blame students as the easy target on every occasion. I want to be fair to everybody and remind the House of those statistics. I think, and I hope, that most folks will accept that.

If an independent organisation similar to that which exists in Scotland and in other areas is introduced, I am concerned that it will be another costly level of bureaucracy. The last thing that we need is another quango somewhere in the middle. The Housing Executive and the housing associations do an excellent job, but the housing associations need to look at some of their practices in relation to payments, for instance, and to have them examined regularly, because residents do not know what they are getting. I am concerned that the introduction of an independent organisation will become an additional burden to the folk who have to rent private property.

Whether we like it or not, any charges will be passed on to the people who rent the property. Some of those people are already in dire circumstances and, as another Member pointed out, they are in private rented accommodation because they cannot get onto the property ladder.

The Minister must look very carefully at whatever system is put in place.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Will the Member draw his remarks to a close?

Mr Spratt: I will, Mr Deputy Speaker. I urge that some kind of registration be put in place, because folks who rent private property need to know who they are renting it from. I support the motion.