Three rogue landlords a day face council enforcement action for breaking buy to let and shared home licensing, health and safety rules, according to Housing Minster Gavin Barwell.

He revealed government funded task forces had brought more than 5000 bad landlords to book during the past five years.

In that time, the government has ploughed £12 million into local authority housing enforcement which has funded 70,000 inspections of rented homes.

Barwell was answering a written question from Labour’s Jon Trickett about government measures aimed at curbing rogue landlords.

Trickett also wanted to know if the Department for Communities and Local Government held a database showing the number of bad landlords in England and whether this was broken down by local authority area.

“The department does not hold this information,” said Barwell.

However, he did reveal a new rogue landlord database is expected to go live sharing data between councils in October 2017.

“New housing laws introduced a package of measures to help local authorities crack down on rogue landlords. This includes a database of rogue landlords and property agents who have been convicted of a banning order offence or have received at least two civil penalties for housing relates offences,” said Barwell.

The Housing and Planning Act 2016 gives councils in England more powers to deal with landlords accused of breaking rules designed to protect tenants from overcrowding, poor accommodation and safety risks.

The measures include fines of up to £30,000 instead of prosecution, expanding Rent Repayment Orders to cover a wider range of offences and banning orders to prevent regular offenders from renting out or managing private rented properties.

The landlord database will allow councils to check if landlords applying for licences already have housing offence convictions elsewhere for the first time.