Legislation aimed at raising standards in private sector rented accommodation has to go back for review after a heated debated in the House of Keys.
Some 20 landlords were in the public gallery to hear MHKs debate a report on the Landlord and Tenant (Private Housing) Bill.
A Keys committee investigation into the Bill concluded that it needed a complete rewrite as parts were unintelligible.
The committee, chaired by Douglas West MHK Chris Thomas, said it agreed that there should be basic guarantees of minimum standards of accommodation and behaviour by landlords.
But it said the Bill should also give more powers to landlords, outlining basic standards for the behaviour of tenants, including paying the rent on time and not damaging the property or its contents.
Mr Thomas said: ‘The committee recommends that the drafting errors identified be corrected before the Bill is allowed to proceed to third reading and the easiest way to do this is to send the Bill back to the Attorney General’s chambers for a complete rewrite in order to make it more intelligible. Unfortunately the Bill’s substance and style are flawed.’
Mr Thomas insisted the committee wasn’t trying to ‘kick this important legislation into the long grass.’
But Minister for Policy and Reform Chris Robertshaw, who introduced the Bill as Social Care Minister, argued that the committee’s report was biased in favour of landlords.
He said: ‘Just look at the thickness of the report, How many times do we hear from vulnerable tenants? The answer is that we do not at all. How many sub-standard properties did they see? None.’
Mr Robertshaw insisted this was a ‘light touch’ registration scheme which aimed to protect vulnerable tenants with minimum cost and no adverse impact on landlords’ businesses.
‘This is nothing short of scaremongering by some landlords,’ he claimed.
‘What message are we sending out if we can’t support something that really matters and that’s protecting vulnerable tenants?’ he asked angrily.
But Home Affairs Minister Juan Watterson (Rushen) said: ‘There is little doubt this Bill is in need of some serious CRP’.
But he said it needed to live to see another day and it was important the legislation was not ‘timed out’.
John Houghton (Douglas North) described the Bill as a ‘dog’s dinner’. He table an amendment that the Bill should be sent back not to the Attorney General’s chambers for a complete rewrite but to the department for review.
Member for Economic Development John Shimmin said: ‘Let’s get a balance in this, let’s have tenant and landlord as in the legislation’s title but let’s keep this alive because 90 per cent we all agree with and as ever we spend all our time fighting over the 10 per cent. The majority of this is good legislation to protect the most vulnerable.’
MHKs voted to approve the report’s seven recommendations as amended by 16 votes to six.