Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards: Cost Caps for Landlords

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand the points the noble Baroness is making. That is one of the reasons why we consulted on two different levels. The consultation for the implementation of MEES would require social homes to have energy performance certificates at rating C or equivalent by 2030. There is currently no minimum energy efficiency standard in the social rented sector. Some 72% of social rented homes are already at EPC bands A to C. More than 600,000 social homes are in fuel poverty, so improving the energy efficiency of social homes will help reduce energy bills and tackle fuel poverty. This is important. Having gone through the debate on Awaab’s law the other day, I know it is vital that social homes are brought up to the standards we all want to see.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I defer to the noble Lord.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

That is very generous of the noble Baroness. Further to the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has the Minister seen a survey by the National Residential Landlords Association indicating that 31% of private landlords are planning to leave the market in the near future, aggravating the existing shortage? What steps is the Minister taking to encourage long-term institutional investment by institutions—insurance companies and pension funds—to remedy this shortage?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The Government value the contribution made by responsible landlords and believe that they must enjoy robust grounds for possession and so on, but there is good reason for them to think about these reforms. They have nothing to fear from our reforms. The sector has doubled in size since the early 2000s. There is no evidence of exodus since reform has been put on the table. Our proposals make sure that landlords have the confidence and support that they need to continue to invest and operate in the sector. However, we are determined to level the playing field between landlords and private tenants by providing the latter with greater security. The noble Lord mentioned institutional investment. There is already institutional investment taking place through our major banking organisations to support private landlords to do the work that they need to do. That goes alongside a range of government funding, which will help with the differences that we all want to see.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

Thanks to my generosity, the noble Lord, Lord Young, has covered half of my question, so I will make a quick switch. The minimum energy efficiency standards consultation made no mention of heat networks, which are mainly used by the social housing sector. Many are inefficient, old and very expensive to upgrade. What assessment has been made of the impact of these proposals on the viability of heat networks? As some are privately owned, how can this sector be responsible for improvements of networks that it does not own?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

This is a very important question for those tenants who find themselves on heat networks. The noble Baroness is right to point to the fact that, while some of them have been maintained well and looked after, for others that is not so much so. We have allocated £1.29 billion of funding from the warm homes plan specifically to support energy efficiency improvements in social homes as part of wave 3 of the warm homes social housing fund. We are generally very much in favour of heat networks, and I hope that those organisations that operate heat networks will approach the department for that funding. The funding will deliver support to 144 projects across England. I hope that will provide some financial support for those organisations facing that dilemma.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, I will make a couple of brief points on these amendments. They are a wee bit difficult to link up in some respects. I understand that most of them are about providing checks and balances within the system, or as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, framed it, more transparency.

I support the broad principle of these amendments, including the duty of candour, if we can refine that in the planning system. On Amendment 185SG, the key is getting public authorities and local authorities to work together. I support public authorities having a general principle for their schools, health authorities, hospitals or whatever, provided that it gives enough flexibility for local areas to make decisions, which might be different in a rural area from decisions in London. We need to make sure there is that flexibility.

Finally, we need to ensure that it does not delay the processes. Sometimes, if you put additional checks and balances in planning, local authorities will use them as an excuse for why there is a delay in a planning decision being taken at a much earlier stage. In broad principle, I support the basis of these amendments, but we need to make sure that they would not delay the processes.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I will make a few quick points in the absence of my noble friend Lady Pinnock. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, made his own points very well, so I will not repeat them.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, that I imagine most MPs recognise that their local councils put all their planning applications online now, and a quick look online on a Friday afternoon by a researcher might find exactly what has gone up that week without the need for any change to legislation. But I understand how it feels when someone gets in touch with you and you do not know; I recognise her dilemma.

We wholeheartedly agree with the impassioned plea from the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, about consultation and communities. However, when things get as bad as the estate that he described, it has gone way beyond the need for planning to put it right. It sounded more as if it was heading towards the Bronx or similar, and in that sort of instance other processes have to kick in. I was tempted to add the rider, “Other consultants are also available for this work”—I thought he did a good advertising job there.

The amendment that I really want to turn to is Amendment 158, from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I understand where he is coming from, but, when I read the amendment, I felt that the planning authorities actually do all those things and try to act appropriately. The whole list that he put in his amendment—I will not read it out again—is, in my experience, what they plan to do. I guess what he is getting at is that he has experience, as have I, of officers being leaned on—those are the words he used, but I would go so far as to say that sometimes they are bullied—by politicians into making decisions.

Thanks to the last Government’s work, carried on by this Government, we now have a lot more information about what is going on in planning committees—we have statistics and things that actually tell us what is going on. If you read the planning press, you see that it is clear which authorities, be it members or officers, are not functioning properly. There is help out there for dysfunctional councils in that regard. A council that will remain nameless was in that position and got a very poor peer review, but then at a council meeting all said, “We don’t agree with this poor peer review”. I guess the question then is what happens next when councils really are failing.

Officers are really good. The amendment makes it seem as if it is black and white, but planning officers understand the role of politicians in the planning procedure—they understand political will—and recognise that they have a legitimate role in what is happening in planning. I have had many a discussion—when I was a councillor, not a mayor—where I have said what residents feel, and the officers have said, “Well, you could say that, but…”. They are good at understanding that you have a role and want to help. They are professional. However, when discussing specific cases, officers make you realise that there is nuance. Interpreting a planning rule is not black and white but very grey. People might say, “It says the gardens have to be this big”, but the officer’s response might be, “The gardens are a bit smaller but do other things that are better and more than we expect, so we’re going to give it planning permission”. It is not simple; it is all a question of nuance and interpretation.

I am quite confident that the system should work if things are done as they already happen. My concern sometimes, when things are demonstrably going wrong or exposed to be so, is what happens next.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 158, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, sets out the principle that local planning authorities should operate under a duty of candour. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, that many, if not most, local authorities operate very good planning services and do what I believe my noble friend is setting out.

However, I agree with my noble friend that there would be a benefit to this. I think it would support planning officers in their job, because they would not be so arm-twisted by others outside—and not just by councillors; I can think of some developers and others who do some arm-twisting at times. This matter is important. Communities need confidence that decisions that shape the character and future of their towns, villages and cities are taken in good faith and that the process is accessible, transparent and fair. The amendment makes a constructive contribution to this discussion.

On Amendment 185SG in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, as a councillor I agree—I think all of us ex-councillors here will agree—that we have frustrations as we know how it ought to be, but it is not. I remember having a very long conversation with people at my local hospital about some things we were seeking to do, asking why they could not move this, or do this or that. They basically said, “We would love to work with you and do it, but every Monday morning we get a call from the chief executive of the NHS and all he wants to know is about delayed transfers out of hospital”. Doing something that would fix a problem in six or 12 months’ time was not on the priority agenda.

This is a big issue with all public bodies: they all have their own priorities and all operate in silos, as has been so eloquently made clear. Placing a duty on public bodies and authorities, not only to follow best practice but to co-operate, could be very beneficial in coming up with better communities and better plans for our areas. This is a vital point. We need joined-up thinking, collaboration and co-ordination. They are not optional extras; they are fundamental. There needs to be some mechanism or tool that makes it very clear for those public bodies that they need to co-operate. I emphasise that sometimes it is the local authority that gets criticised when, in many instances—I would say the vast majority of them—it is about the inability to convene the whole public sector and quasi-public bodies together. Therefore, I am very supportive of the sentiments of this amendment.

Amendment 185J in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, raises another practical and sensible point. I appreciate it is a probing amendment, but the issue of GDPR is a crucial one within local government. Again, I can say from personal experience—my noble friend Lord Banner made a comment earlier about the precautionary principle—I find that officers generally have a precautionary principle and will move to the safest option. That is not necessarily the most transparent option. If there is clear guidance that gives them clarity about where that line is, that could be very helpful in enabling officers to do their job better and more transparently, while securing, quite rightly, the privacy of residents and the public.

I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for tabling Amendment 185. There have been a number of comments on this. As set out in Section 102B of the Planning Act 2008, a person within category 1, if they are the owner, lessee, tenant—whatever the tenancy period—or occupier of the land concerned, whose property may be subject to compulsory purchase acquisition under a development consent order, is automatically deemed an interested party. They have notification rights and a statutory place in the examination of an application. The amendment would extend this category to include any Members of Parliament in whose constituency a proposed development is to take place.

I completely agree it is appropriate that MPs know what is going on within their constituencies. However, such a change would give them a formal role in the process rather than relying on access through public channels or discretion. It might alter how MPs engage with nationally significant infrastructure projects, including those that are more contentious. I can see the case and recognise the change in balance between local involvement and the national framework of planning. Therefore, I ask the Minister to clarify the Government’s position. Do they see merit in giving MPs a statutory role in this way? How does that sit with the strengthening of local voices within planning law?

In closing, I thank all noble Lords for raising important questions of candour, co-operation and transparency. These are not just procedural matters but go to the heart of how we deliver in this country—how we build trust with communities and ensure that our planning system is fit for purpose.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, we now come to one of those wonderful issues where we have something in place that works, which this Bill will remove, and that is the protection provided by Sport England for playing fields and recreational facilities. I am in danger of making a very short speech or a very long one and am trying to draw a line down the middle.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

The former, please.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Clearly, my noble friend has heard me often enough.

The best playing fields are in nice, urban environments where people can get to them. Effectively, you have a greenfield site, often owned by a cash-strapped local authority or an independent school that has been increasingly under pressure to improve exam results rather than develop the whole picture. The playing field owners say, “Wouldn’t it be better if we had a slightly better new gym court and got rid of the field?” or “Nobody else is playing on the playing field because we haven’t maintained it”; they sell it off and get rid of it. Who cares? The people who play the sport do and the people you want to play the sport should.

What is sport? It is the ultimate community activity with health benefits, and public playing fields are essential for those in grass-roots sport to be able to address this. Go to any successful sports club, especially for sports such as football, rugby, and cricket, and it will have started on a public playing field. That is where you start. Even with these property-owning sports—rugby and cricket are the classic examples—where you are encouraged to take over, manage and own your own ground, you start somewhere else and develop on from it. You can expand your playing numbers by taking on smaller pitches for your junior teams by using them. It is an integrated part of it. If you do not have that capacity, the nature of the club will be threatened. So we have something which adds to it, but it is potentially a cash cow for some other groups and is sitting there in the right place, very tempting for any housing plan.

The body that has been protecting such places, Sport England, is no longer a consultee. That is what it is thinking and feeling. If we are wrong about that, I would be very grateful to hear it when whichever Minister replies, and your Lordships will not be hearing from me again. If that is not the case, there is something to be answered here.

My amendment would put in another duty; of course, it is Committee and this is just the first go, but I hope that the Government will tell me here if there is another solution to this—if they cannot tell me exactly at this stage, I will make myself available for any meetings to make sure that I know and can tell the rest of the House. If something positive is going to happen there, I will be more than grateful to go away and spread the word. If the Government are not going to do something like this and will just leave it to a general duty, they are basically guaranteeing losses, and possibly catastrophic losses. Unless you understand this and your current drive is for something else, you will ignore it, because we all do. What is your primary objective? We go there. I hope that the Government will tell me something positive and supportive with regard to this group.

We should also remember that you are supporting voluntary groups which do this at very little cost to the state at the moment. That culture of gathering together, paying for the use of the pitch and running up has to have a little space to grow. If we remove that, we will stifle the whole thing.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has another amendment down here; I think we all know enough not to say exactly what her amendments mean, but the idea of play also comes in and tags on there. Such play is not as formalised or structured, but it is also important.

I hope that whichever Minister replies will be able to tell us that something solid will address this, not a general air or duty of “Oh yes, of course they will deal with it”, because we all know that things like that get ignored. We need something solid that will make sure there is a protection at least compatible with what is going on now. If we do not, we will have to go back to this, at least once, and possibly it will have to be decided by a decision of the whole House. I hope we do not need to do that, but I am quite prepared to do it. I beg to move.

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The four amendments in my name, relating to different proposed new clauses to the Bill, are all designed to further enhance the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne. The purpose of his amendment is to ensure that Section 106 or CIL money is properly spent. These amendments would give legal binding to that and empower local authorities to take on that provision, if needed. They also introduce the idea of land value capture. I hope the Minister will respond well to this series of amendments on community benefits from growth.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I relinquished my position in the queue of speakers on these amendments, as it seemed obvious that my noble friend Lady Pinnock should follow the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne. I am speaking to my Amendment 184. The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, described her group 5 as the “odds and sods” group; this should probably have gone in that, as it applies to something rather different, but here we are.

Amendment 184 relates to what is becoming known as stepping-stone housing provision, which is a tool to combat youth homelessness across the UK. The amendment seeks an exemption to national space standards to facilitate this particular kind of housing more quickly and with less stress than it appears to need to achieve it at the moment.

We all know that youth homelessness blights the nation, with almost 120,000 young people—people between the ages of 16 and 24—asking their councils for help because they are homeless or at risk of homelessness, according to the youth homelessness charity Centrepoint. Many colleagues are familiar with Centrepoint: the charity’s efforts to address youth homelessness started, as many did, with a single night shelter in the late 1960s; its work with young people has spanned the last 50 years.

One of the greatest challenges to ending youth homelessness is a lack of genuinely affordable housing options for young people, especially those who are ready to move on from a hostel or temporary accommodation to living independently. One of the key differences for young homeless people is that they are not yet entrenched in that world; they are in the circumstances they are in, and, with the right sort of support and help, they could, and do, manage to go on to lead stable and fulfilling lives. The sooner we get them, the better. Unfortunately, thousands of young people are trapped in a cycle of emergency housing, unemployment and benefit reliance and are prevented from becoming independent adults who can fulfil their potential.

Along with other charities in the same situation—move-on accommodation is the big issue for homelessness charities—Centrepoint has delivered an innovative housing model called stepping-stone accommodation, because it is just that: a transitional accommodation solution which provides the independence, agency and space for young people at risk of homelessness to realise their potential. As part of this model, Centrepoint is building stepping-stone houses at 24 square metres for young people at risk of becoming homeless. The problem that the amendment is trying to solve—and I hope the Minister may empathise with the problem and even come up with a better solution—is that this housing is below the national space standard of 37 square metres for one-bedroom dwellings. Councils are desperate for more housing, but the rigid application of the space standard has meant that planning applications have been bogged down for years—in this case, four years.

We all get asked to do amendments, and we think whether we will take them on. Well, before I decided to take this on, I went to see this accommodation. I found myself in Peckham, where I had not been for many decades—I taught there briefly, many moons ago. Quite frankly, I was blown away—I can use no other words. What I saw was uplifting and encouraging. It was good. The first thing you notice is a solid front door. They have their own front door; they are not in an HMO. They have a lovely shower to the left, a bedroom area, a wardrobe, and a little kitchenette area with a table and chair. The people there were just safe and pleased to be there.

I know many colleagues are wary of reducing space standards, as am I, but this is for very good reason, which is looking for a way to be able to exempt this. Noble Lords will know why they need to do this—I am sure they are already a step ahead of me. It is to do with cost. If you make them a little bit smaller, you can make more.

The model is about getting these young people into work and independent. Unlike with an RSL, which might set its rents according to what the Government allow, the rent is set according to the individual young person’s job. You can have a situation, which there is at Reuben House, where they are paying different rents, but it is according to their ability to pay. It is about getting the young person to be more responsible and eventually to move into ordinary accommodation. Of course, if you cannot guarantee what your rent is going to be, that makes it trickier. There are many good reasons with regard to rent and income, and I do not want to go into that now, but I would be prepared to meet with the Minister to explain that further.

The size is key to being able to do that. The young people in these starter homes are quite clear that a few more metres would not make much odds to them, quite frankly. The homes are for single young people, living on their own for the first time, who need a manageable home that is economic to run. They are indeed that, with all the fuel efficiency and everything else. It gets the young people off benefits and into work, and to make a positive contribution.

Centrepoint and others have proved that this is viable and that it can have a transformative impact by helping young people escape homelessness for good. A targeted exemption—that is the key—should make the planning process easier for charities, so that they can build more homes more quickly for young people and help towards ending the housing crisis. I would value an opportunity to bring Centrepoint officers here to discuss this model and how it works in practice, and to offer a visit to anyone who felt it was appropriate.

I shall leave noble Lords with the words of one of the young people living in Reuben House, who said, “Stepping Stone not only provided me with a safe place to sleep but offered me a sense of hope and dignity during a challenging time in my life. Thanks to your assistance, I am now on a path towards stability and independence”.

[Lord St John of Bletso (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly in support of Amendment 184 from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, on stepping-stone accommodation. This worthwhile amendment promotes transitional housing solutions for those at risk of homelessness, as well as creating incentives for young people to stay at work with financial independence and living in quality, affordable accommodation.

I have been a long-term supporter of the charity Centrepoint, which has done incredible work in providing solutions for those who have been unfortunate enough to be homeless. The stepping-stone homes initiative has delivered self-contained, high-quality homes for young people, with the rent capped, as the noble Baroness mentioned, at one-third of their income. Like the noble Baroness, I have been to see the Reuben homes in Peckham, and I was enormously moved. This cost-effective transitional housing solution has the advantage of not just supporting financial independence and reducing reliance on benefits but, most importantly, helping young people to build a stable future. It provides not just a roof but services, such as helping residents to get over the problems of unemployment, as well as education and other life skills.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, covered the obstacles to scaling this model nationally and the inflexible application of the national described space standards, the NDSS—there are all these abbreviations—which currently block these smart schemes from expanding. She mentioned the limitation of 34 square metres. These pods, as I would call them, are 24 square metres, but none of the young people complained about a lack of space. This amendment provides checks and balances for a limited and carefully designed exemption for accredited stepping-stone accommodation for young people while ensuring—I stress this—that there are still robust safeguards around design quality.

A transitional solution for two to five years, helping young people to settle into work, live independently and save money makes a massive difference to them moving on with their careers. The limited tenure of two to five years provides the push factor that makes stepping-stone homes a sustainable source of affordable housing. It is not just Centrepoint: several other charities are trying similar initiatives. For this reason, I warmly support this amendment, which effectively provides a crucial piece of the puzzle of tackling homelessness.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Banner, described Amendment 184 as compelling, and I entirely agree with him. In the interests of time, that is all I will say on that amendment.

I will briefly speak to Amendment 218, taking us back some time to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, who has already introduced the idea of a review of land value capture. I am going to brandish a historical figure in defence of this suggestion. It may surprise the Benches to my right, because I am going to start by saying that I agree with Winston Churchill. That is not a phrase that I bring out very often, but I do in this context. In 1909, he said that

“the landlord who happens to own a plot of land on the outskirts or at the centre of one of our great cities … sits still and does nothing. Roads are made, streets are made, railway services are improved, electric light turns night into day, electric trams glide swiftly to and fro, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains—and all while the landlord sits still … To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is sensibly enhanced”.

That was identified more than a century ago, but it exactly addresses the issue that still exists and that we have not come to deal with.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

He was a Liberal then.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Okay—I am not going to get that far into the history.

I declare an interest in that land value tax is a long-term Green Party policy and one that I am very happy to talk about at length, but I am not going to do that because it is not what this amendment would do. However, it is worth thinking about the fact that the problem with how we tax land goes back a very long way. There was a royal commission on the housing of the working classes set up in 1885; it was the first time that an inquiry had referred to land value taxation—it was called site value rating then—and it said that this would be a better way to solve a housing crisis. These are issues that we have been wrestling with and failing to solve for a very long time.

My final point is that this amendment by itself would not deal with the crunching, terrible elephant-in-the-room issue of council tax, but it would start to provide the Government with a way to open up these issues. This is all regarded as too politically difficult, too challenging and too complicated to explain—I know what it is like to try to explain land value tax in 15 seconds, because it is a challenge. We are now 35 years on from when council tax was created. It was an emergency crunch measure created by the Treasury after the political disaster of the poll tax. It is a deeply regressive tax. Someone living in a home worth £100,000 pays an effective tax rate five times as high as someone in a £1 million property. The average net council tax is only 2.7 times higher for the top 10% of properties than for the bottom 10%. This is something that we have to address. This amendment would not address all, or even the bulk, of it, but it would start to inch us into a space where we could tackle some issues that desperately need to be tackled.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand the noble Lord’s point, and it is of course important that we get the balance right between the delivery of the infrastructure as set out and having flexibility, so that when circumstances change, this can change too.

The amendments seek to focus on the issue by ensuring that commitments to delivering local infrastructure need to reduce the impact of a large-scale scheme. In responding, I have assumed that the reference to strategic development schemes is intended to relate to spatial development strategies, which are introduced through this Bill. These strategies, along with local development plans, set out infrastructure needs but are not applications and do not have developments attached to them. I agree strongly with the noble Baroness, and when it comes to large-scale new developments, the Government agree that delivering local infrastructure is crucial. If a project approved through a development consent order creates a need for local infrastructure such as roads, schools or drainage works, those needs can be addressed in two ways.

First, development consent order requirements, which are similar to planning conditions on planning permissions issued under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, control how and when the development is carried out, and may require the approval of subsequent details by the local planning authority. These can be used in cases where changes to local infrastructure are needed to make development acceptable in planning terms. For example, if a developer is providing a relief road to mitigate an identified impact on local infrastructure as a result of constructing a large-scale infrastructure project, the necessary works can be detailed in the requirements. Relevant requirements may mandate subsequent plans—which outline proposed design, works phasing and traffic management—to be submitted to the highways authority, and these plans would then need to be approved and adhered to when implementing the development consent order.

Secondly, local infrastructure can be secured through development consent order obligations. These legal agreements can be used to require the payment of money as contributions towards the provision of local infrastructure, or to secure commitments to delivering that infrastructure. An obligation can be used to ensure that impacts on local infrastructure are properly taken into account and to mitigate identified adverse effects. The Secretary of State may take into account development consent obligations that meet the relevant legal and policy tests when deciding whether to grant development consent for the project. Once an obligation is enforced, it becomes legally binding and runs with the land, even if the land changes hands. A local planning authority has a range of enforcement options available to it if developers or the owners of the land, subject to the development consent obligation, do not fulfil their legal commitments.

While we fully support the goal of ensuring communities get the infrastructure they need, we believe the existing system already provides the right tools through legal requirements where appropriate, and these clauses would not add clarity or effectiveness to that process. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for his series of questions. I will check in Hansard which ones I answered. If there are any I did not answer, I will reply to him in writing. However, for all the reasons I have set out, I kindly ask the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, to withdraw her amendment.

Amendment 218 would require the Secretary of State to conduct a review of land value capture, including consideration of the merits of alternative methods of land value capture, within six months of Royal Assent to the Bill, and to report on the findings to Parliament.

I thank the noble Baronesses for raising this amendment. It is critically important that local planning authorities can capture a proportion of the land value uplift that often occurs when planning permission is granted in order to deliver affordable housing and the infrastructure needed to mitigate the impacts of new development. Local planning authorities currently use the well-established and effective mechanisms of Section 106 planning obligations and the community infrastructure levy. That is why the Government are committed to strengthening this system, and we have chosen not to implement alternative proposals for land value capture provided for in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, such as the infrastructure levy.

The Government have already made important progress in delivering against this commitment. For example, through the revised National Planning Policy Framework, published on 12 December last year, the Government introduced new “golden rules” for major development involving the provision of housing on land within or released from the green belt. Our “golden rules” aim to deliver higher levels of affordable housing alongside necessary infrastructure and accessible green space.

Through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, currently in the other place, we are also legislating to give mayors of strategic authorities the power to raise a mayoral CIL alongside the requirement to have a spatial development strategy in place, enabling them to raise revenue for strategic growth-supporting infrastructure where this is balanced with viability. The department has provided evidence to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee inquiry into land value capture, and we very much look forward to engaging with the findings and recommendations of that inquiry in due course.

Amendment 184, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, seeks to exempt local planning authorities from applying the nationally described space standards on planning applications concerning the delivery of “stepping stone” accommodation. I also thank Centrepoint for its continuing and proactive support regarding the housing crisis among young people, and for its work on the Bill.

As helpfully set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, in her explanatory note, the thrust of this amendment is to promote accommodation for young people who are leaving supported housing or who are at risk of homelessness. I have delivered similar schemes to the ones she described through our housing first scheme in Stevenage, including some for young people with learning disabilities, which was a remarkable experience. It was a small development, but it was life-changing for those young people. The community they formed in that housing development was wonderful to see, so I do not need any convincing of the reasons for delivering schemes such as these.

I give my support to the principle of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and agree that regulation should not unnecessarily get in the way of providing safe and secure housing for our most vulnerable, particularly vulnerable young people. However, I hope I can reassure her that the amendment is not needed.

The purpose of the space standards is to provide guidance on the minimum area of new dwellings across all types of tenures, based on the number of bedrooms and bedspaces. The nationally described space standards are not set out in legislation, and they are not mandatory. It is at the discretion of local planning authorities to choose to adopt the space standards through their local planning policies where there is an identified need for additional technical requirements. As set out in planning practice guidance, when establishing a clear need for adopting the space standards locally, they must assess the impact on local viability and housing supply.

By law, planning applications are determined in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Each application is judged on its own individual merit, and the weight given to these considerations is a matter for the local planning authority as the usual decision-taker in the first instance.

What constitutes a material consideration is very widely defined and it is for the planning decision-maker to determine what is a relevant consideration, based on the circumstances of a particular case. We feel this is best for local areas to determine on a case-by-case basis, rather than being dictated by central government. For example, if the local planning authority considers that the need for a particular housing tenure—such as “stepping stone” housing—would, when considering all relevant material considerations, outweigh the policy requirement to have that housing meet the optional space standards adopted in its local plan, it may grant planning permission. In short, the current planning framework—

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I absolutely understand what the Minister is saying but, given the actual experience—four years for planning permission—could we explore together a way of giving this a shove up the agenda and in some way make it a little better? It definitely feels as though there is a wall there that we need to shove a digger through. The Minister says it is there in legislation, but it is clearly not happening in practice.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Thornhill]

134: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Removal of Permitted Development Rights for Conversion to Dwellinghouses(1) The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 (2015/596) is amended as follows—(a) in Schedule 2, Part 3 (changes of use), the following Classes are repealed—(i) Class G (commercial, business and service or betting office or pay day loan shop to mixed use);(ii) Class L (small HMOs to dwellinghouses and vice versa)(iii) Class M (certain uses to dwellinghouses)(iv) Class MA (commercial, business and service uses to dwellinghouses);(v) Class N (specified sui generis uses to dwellinghouses);(vi) Class Q (buildings on agricultural units and former agricultural buildings to dwellinghouses);(b) Schedule 2, Part 20 (construction of new dwellinghouses) is repealed.(2) Any development under the revoked Classes in Part 3 and Part 20 of Schedule 2 that has—(a) commenced before the date on which this Act comes into force, and(b) received valid prior approval or notification from the local planning authority before that date,shall be allowed to proceed under the conditions applicable prior to the repeal.(3) No new applications for prior approval under the revoked Classes may be submitted after the date on which this Act comes into force.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment removes a range of permitted development rights that previously allowed certain non-residential buildings to be converted into homes without full planning permission. It repeals specific change-of-use and new dwellinghouse construction rights in the General Permitted Development Order 2015. Developments already approved or commenced before the repeal may continue under existing rules, but no new applications can be made once the changes take effect.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 134 with a butchered, watered down and much shorter version of my speech than the one I was going to give, so forgive me if it is not quite up to my usual standards.

This amendment seeks to reverse the decision of previous Governments to give permitted development rights to allow the conversion of non-residential properties into dwelling houses—in other words, to get back to where we were, when they would have had to apply for planning permission. The incremental changes were brought about over 10 years ago. Now, there is loads of evidence, including the Government’s own, that this is failing, and on three main grounds. Given that, in future, with more working from home, there are likely to be—and there already are—a lot more empty office blocks, we feel that this needs to be looked at fully and seriously before our town centres and business centres are hollowed out.

First, on quality, there is no doubt that many of these conversions are substandard. Indeed, in my own borough, Watford, there is a case study of a small factory that had been made into several flats with no windows. This happened with PDRs. The case was brought to government—with a body of other things, obviously—and made the previous Government include that such dwellings should have windows.

Secondly, and close to our hearts—I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Best, here—we have lost loads of affordable housing. Had planning permission been collected, we would certainly have had more. Indeed, the LGA reckons that we have had a loss of 28,000 affordable homes. Think how many could have been housed off the temporary accommodation list had we had those homes.

Thirdly, it rides roughshod through local plans and policies, and the design, sustainability and accessibility that have been worked up with local councils and communities to build the places that they want to see.

Amendment 134 is not anti-housing; it is pro quality housing. The amendment was drawn up by the LGA, and many councils and development partners have contributed. Some 39 organisations and many individuals have signed an open letter to the Government—I heard only today that Mayor Burnham has added his name to the letter—to ask them to seriously consider rescinding PDRs. This shows the strength of opposition. In opposition, several government Members, including the Minister, had strong feelings and concerns about PDRs. My question is very simple: what has happened? I will listen carefully to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to find that I take exactly the opposite point of view to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. I see permitted development rights—as in my Private Member’s Bill, and as in my amendments to this Bill—as having a large potential to contribute substantially to housing expansion. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, I shall curtail my remarks in the hope that what the Minister says will be so enlightening that I shall not need to ask her further questions.

My amendments propose a targeted set of expansions to permitted development rights to boost uptake and delivery by methods such as: removing unjustifiably onerous restrictions, including those concerning the ability to convert commercial buildings in areas of outstanding natural beauty, or the inability to extend upwards on pre-1948 buildings of no defined heritage value, or buildings postdating an arbitrary date; clarifying the wording of prior approval conditions to remove vagueness, which leads to a lack of consistency in decision-making between LPAs and more uncertainty in their application to, for example, natural light, flood risk or transport impacts; and removing the subjectivity currently allowed for within external appearance conditions for upward extensions, which are regularly used to refuse or frustrate upward extension in classes A and AA to AD and which act as a strong disincentive for the use of these permitted development rights by SME developers and housebuilders.

Instead, the local design code-based conditions in my amendments would provide certainty and consistency to decision-making, permitting the combined use and application of class MA and classes A and AA to AD, to maximise the development potential for existing buildings to deliver new homes.

Design codes are hugely important in this. Mandatory local design codes, already supported by the NPPF, are essential to make permitted development rights work at scale. They would replace subjective judgments on external appearance with rule-based certainty, define acceptable height, density, daylight and amenity standards to reduce the risk for developers, and be capable of delivery via a public/private model with some costs recovered through planning fee reforms, which could target PDR applications.

Reforms would bring consistency, reduce risk and make PDR a viable route to delivery. Local design codes would improve outcomes and boost developer confidence and certainty in the uptake and use of PDR. PDR allows for greater numbers of conversions and extensions of existing buildings to provide new housing and sustainable urban environments. This would help to reduce the demand and strain of granting housing developments in less sustainable greenfield locations.

Together, the amendments that I suggest would unlock new housing capacity in the most sustainable and accessible locations and benefit smaller building firms, while still maintaining quality and control over the urban environment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

I am grateful for the answers that the Minister has given, and I will think hard on what she said. I certainly understand what she said about the way of dealing with these things not being through the Bill. However, I urge the Government to remember that lots of small improvements—as the Minister has pointed out in terms of the last 10 years of permitted development rights—make a difference. They nourish the small end of the builders’ market and give some balance to the domination of housebuilding by the big housebuilders. It is really important that that end of the market works well.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a quick comment. Article 4 directions are actually a very challenging process; the Secretary of State really gives you a hard time about it and you usually have to justify covering a larger area. The problem with PDRs is they are all over the place and that makes an Article 4 direction a little bit more difficult.

I would like to challenge a fundamental misconception. The Minister talked about the 113,000 homes that have already been created. The misconception is that they would not have happened anyway. I am sure some of them would not, but the majority, if they had gone through the planning process, would have had things suggested, altered and improved to pull up the standard. But, of course, it would not have happened quite as quickly.

I am going to end on a slightly tangential anecdote that shows that we really need to look at this. The people in the house next door to me have informed me that they will be erecting a 12 metre by 20 metre single-storey building in their garden directly adjacent to mine. They do not need planning permission. It is half the size of the garden and they are allowed to do that. If I want to erect a fence to cover the hideous wall of brick that I am going to be looking on instead of a beautiful garden with mature trees, I will have to apply for planning permission. Therefore, I think it is time to review the whole set-up, but particularly office to residential. I wish to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 134 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Thornhill]

135E: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Meetings of local planning authorities to be available for participation online(1) This section applies to any meeting of a local authority held to discharge the authority’s planning functions, including a committee or a sub-committee of the authority held under section 101(1)(a) of the Local Government Act 1972 (a “planning meeting”).(2) A local authority must make arrangements for the proceedings of a planning meeting to be available over the internet both in real time and for five years after the meeting, and those arrangements must include the ability for members of the public observing a planning meeting over the internet in real time to address the meeting where permitted by the person chairing the meeting.(3) Subsection (2) applies despite any prohibition or other restriction contained in the standing orders or any other rules of the authority governing a planning meeting and any such prohibition or restriction has no effect.(4) A local authority may make standing orders and any other rules governing participation by a member of the public in a planning meeting over the internet, which may include provision for access to documents.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would require local planning authorities to make their meetings available for observation and participation online.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to move my Amendment 135E—in another streamlined contribution—which is self-explanatory. I also speak to Amendment 135HZA in the name of noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, who is sadly not in her place due to the hour; we believe it definitely has some merit.

The emphasis for this amendment comes very strongly from our commitment on these Benches to community engagement and, more importantly, from the fact that the community has never before been so apparently disengaged from the need to build houses and engaged instead in full blown opposition.

The pandemic changed everything, including how we did meetings. The one positive thing that is said is that remote council meetings increased the opportunities for planning committees to hear views from a far more diverse group of participants, because they were more accessible to a wider audience.

Several paragraphs have been chopped here. My amendment simply states that the Government would require local planning authorities to make their meetings available for observation and participation online—that latter word is key. It does allow for a degree of local authority autonomy in the way that it decides to allow such participation in meetings. It is not the intention of the amendment to be prescriptive, nor to favour one particular means over another. The purpose of the amendment is that meetings have to be recorded and should be kept for posterity. They could be used in appeals or public inquiries and are genuinely an accurate record of what was actually said.

The public being able to contribute is the key thing, and I believe that, unless this is mandatory, those councils that are not doing this will not choose to do so without compulsion. There are still a number of councils, around 15%, that do not even record their meetings, but, for the 85% that do, they are not always webcast in a way that people can participate in. It should also be said that many councils recognise a range of benefits from providing online availability for questions at meetings, so we must ask ourselves why these other councils are dragging their heels. Surely, giving more means to the public to participate, in a much less formal way than giving a five-minute presentation at the beginning of what can be, for many, a daunting meeting—which is what is afforded at most planning meetings that I have experienced—has got to be a benefit and make communities feel that their voice is being heard. It should be something we want all councils to do.

We know that there is plenty of research, particularly that done by the RTPI, that shows that digital transformation can help various groups, the young in particular. Half the people in the RTPI’s most recent survey said that being able to respond digitally would make them more likely to get involved in the system—and maybe we might then get some yimbys joining in the housing debate.

The Greater London Authority and the Local Government Association have been pioneering this. There are lots of good examples and good practice that we can learn from. This would particularly help people living in rural areas, who may have a long journey to get to meetings or be disadvantaged by poor public transport. It would better accommodate the needs of those with work or caring responsibilities, and people with personal or protected characteristics who may find online attendance or viewing much more accessible than turning up to the fairly stiff formal council meeting. That is why we believe this clause should be mandatory across all authorities.

The situation with regard to the public and planning has never been worse. Anything we can do to improve that has got to be tried, but we fear some local authorities will need the final push of mandatory provision to make it happen. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I want to intervene, not least on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. She is not here to speak to her amendment but, as a number of noble Lords will recall, she and I worked together during the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill on amendments to the same effect. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, will recall that she led an amendment for this purpose, all to the effect of bringing us firmly into the post-pandemic, 21st-century manner of holding meetings, enabling local authorities to hold virtual meetings. There are many reasons for that, which I will not rehearse.

I remind noble Lords, and especially the limited number of us who were here for the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, that we went into ping-pong on this issue on the basis of the amendment at the time from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. It was sent back to the other place on a second occasion with a narrow majority in this House, which included the Minister responding to this debate. The then Opposition committed themselves in principle to virtual meetings. I hope they will see that through now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I want to make a brief comment. I very much sympathise with the thrust of this amendment, but I am anxious about the term “members of the public”. Those noble Lords who sit on a planning committee will know that there are decision-makers—the councillors who sit around the table—who will ultimately pass judgment one way or the other on the application. As I understand it, the amendment would contemplate that those decision-makers would be in the room and then members of the public outside, watching remotely, might contribute.

Is it the intention of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, that special participants, who are not members of the public but also are not decision-makers, will be able to contribute from outside the room? The people I have in mind are local members, for example, local parish council members, or the local neighbourhood group, who have special status in the sense that they are consultees. While I can see that the decision-makers need to be in the room and members of the public might be outside, perhaps the noble Baroness could help us by saying what would be the status of these special people—the local member and so forth—who may be members of the council but not decision-makers.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I do not think that it is for us to decide about these special stakeholders. I would have thought it would be up to the council to decide whether they are allowed in the room. In my council, they are certainly encouraged to attend. The key issue is the involvement of people who would not dream of turning up to a council meeting. Of course, the local member and all the other people the noble Lord mentioned would not fear going into a council meeting and could get there easily enough. It is those who are normally excluded who are the issue. I genuinely believe that, by expanding the voice of people who contribute, we may take some of the heat out of these really controversial planning decisions.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

At the moment, some of these special stakeholders are not permitted to participate unless they are in the room. I take the noble Baroness’s amendment to say that they might be able to participate if they are outside the room. That is what I was trying to probe.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

It would certainly put more pressure on the council to allow that, which I think they should.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The noble Baroness talked about people who would not dream of participating. It is also worth stressing that certain people would not be able to participate because of disabilities, caring responsibilities and other reasons. In fact, given the responsibilities the Government have in terms of protected characteristics, surely that would make the argument for this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

That is exactly the detailed work that we are doing now with the Local Government Association and with other advisers to make sure that we get all the regulations right so that we do not breach any legal duty that councils have as we go through this process. We think this choice should apply to all council meetings and not just planning committees or planning authorities. We do not think there should be conditions attached to the decision. We trust that local authorities will make arrangements that work for them and for their residents, but we need to carry out the further work that I have referred to in order to bring this forward. However, I am very committed to moving it onwards, but we do not believe that the amendments are necessary and I kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw Amendment 135E.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I was quite positive about the Minister’s response because I feel that if the work that she outlined is happening, and I understand why she said it may take a little longer, I think that will give good councils—which are a little bit fearful of doing this, but need that extra guidance—confidence to go ahead and give it a try. However, we all know that there is a group of councils which, let us just say, give rise to concern within the department for not completing their local plans. We know there are issues in council meetings that are reported every week in the planning newsletter that comes out. I think they will be allowed to drag their heels and will continue to cause concern.

I also had a wry smile when the Minister said that the Government did not want to give diktats, because they are certainly not averse to giving them in other areas. I thank the Minister for her positivity on the subject and let us hope that more and more councils do start to do this. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 135E withdrawn.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation after that terrific debate on green spaces to speak to Amendment 122, together with Amendments 141 and 151, all of which address the issue of affordable housing delivery.

Amendment 122 introduces a free-standing new clause which provides for regulations to ensure that affordable housing gets delivered where it is a condition of planning consent, usually through a so-called Section 106 agreement. We are all only too familiar with the problem that affordable homes for local people are expected from new development but fail to materialise. With the excuse of viability, housebuilders back out of delivering all or most of the affordable homes that they promised. They say they have discovered site conditions they had not expected or have encountered problems with subcontractors or higher interest rates or building costs or something else, and now they may not be able to make a 20% profit from the development.

They insist that it is the affordable housing element that must take the hit. Despite affordable housing being a condition of planning consent, precious few such homes may appear. The price that the housebuilder pays for the land should reflect their obligations to provide affordable housing and related infrastructure. It should never be acceptable to claim: “We had to pay so much for the land that now we cannot honour our agreement to build the affordable homes”. The Government’s planning practice guidance explicitly states:

“Under no circumstances will the price paid for land be relevant justification for failing to accord with relevant policies”,


yet this continues to be exactly what happens.

The amendment recognises that the level of affordable housing in every development, the Section 106 agreement, is subject to complex negotiation between two unequal parties—the local planning department and the housebuilder. As a report from the National Audit Office set out in June of this year, there is a serious imbalance between these two, with local planning authorities being hopelessly under-resourced while large developers can employ expensive consultants and legal experts to find ways of negotiating their contributions down.

The Government, commendably, are finding ways of better resourcing local planning authorities. This amendment would add support for planners by cutting down on the imbalanced and interminable arguing over affordable housing numbers. The affordable housing element would become non-negotiable. Amendment 121 would empower the Secretary of State to ensure that developers deliver the affordable homes that were a condition of planning consent. The amendment would add a further detail by obliging the housebuilder to provide a minimum of 20% of the homes for social rent or the percentage that is set out in the local planning authority’s policy framework if that is higher. The definition of social rent housing is that used by the Regulator of Social Housing in its rent standard.

How important is this contribution by the house- builders to affordable housing? Over recent years, the obligations on the housebuilders have produced nearly half, 44% last year, of the total programme of affordable homes. However, according to the National Audit Office, the value of the contributions from developers for both infrastructure and affordable housing fell from £6.4 billion to £5.5 billion last year. We cannot afford for this vital programme of affordable homes, funded by developer contributions, to be depleted by housebuilders reneging on their planning obligations.

Amendment 122 keeps it simple. It dismisses the specious arguments about what is viable and what is profitable. It would require straightforward fulfilment of the planning obligations accepted by housebuilders, which have too often escaped their responsibilities and have reduced or scrapped the quota of social homes that they were obligated to deliver. It would introduce a baseline of 20% of new homes for social rent in all relevant developments. I know that the Minister recognises the problem which this amendment seeks to address. I hope that she will find it acceptable.

Amendments 141 and 151 are also in my name and again supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Carlile, whom I thank. These two amendments go together and back up my earlier amendment. While the earlier amendment is just about developer contributions to providing affordable homes, these two amendments relate to all developments that will be covered by the spatial development strategies outlined by the Bill. Amendment 141 expands on the Bill’s current wording, which stipulates that spatial development strategies can specify or describe the amount of affordable housing, as well as other kinds of housing. This amendment spells out that the affordable housing should be mostly for social rent rather than, for example, shared ownership or middle-market renting.

Amendment 151 defines social rent as in Amendment 122, stating that social rent is the accommodation rented according to the rent standard specified by the Regulator of Social Housing. This is the rent level that applies to most existing council and housing association properties. It is based on a measurement that combines earnings data with property values. It represents the form of affordable housing, which helps those on average incomes or less. Using the common definition that rents are only affordable if they absorb one-third or less of the incomes of the occupiers, the current arrangements are producing pathetically small numbers of new homes for those in the bottom half of the income distribution. If the 1.5 million new homes planned for the course of this Parliament were to contain a quantum of social rented homes similar to the current arrangements, then as little as 8% of all the new homes would be affordable to those on, or below, average incomes. This does not sound like a very fair distribution of all the new homes that we are planning to build.

Fortunately, the Government are determined to see more social rented housing created. This amendment chimes with that intention. The Government have stated that, of the 300,000 affordable homes a year to be funded by the spending review’s £39 billion for Homes England to provide its social and affordable homes programme, 180,000 homes—60% of the affordable homes—should be for social rent. If achieved, this would represent a significant rise in the proportion of homes that are genuinely affordable.

Amendments 141 and 142 would greatly improve the Government’s chances of delivering this outcome. Amendment 141 would establish that a majority of the affordable housing within each spatial development strategy must be for social rent, defined by Amendment 151. This requirement would cover affordable homes in the publicly subsidised housing programme, as well as those affordable homes that are built by the house- builders in fulfilment of their planning obligations.

The amendments accord with the Government’s ambitions and give greater relevance to the new spatial development strategies. They would ensure that a meaningful proportion of the 1.5 million new homes will be for those in that half of the population who cannot otherwise afford a decent home. I know that the Minister will be sympathetic to these amendments. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 137 and 171 and give wholehearted support to the amendments so eloquently and coherently proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Best, which I and other noble Lords have signed.

It is interesting that this group of amendments demonstrates all too clearly the overwhelming need for many more homes for social rent. It is deeply troubling that the number of homes in that category being built has fallen significantly—despite the Government’s stated ambition to tackle the housing crisis and for a significant amount of those homes to be for social rent. We all know that social housing provides stability, dignity and opportunity for those who are in most need. Yet year after year we see promises outstripped by reality, leaving rising numbers of families trapped in temporary or unsuitable accommodation. Currently, there are 130,000 families, which have 169,000 children within them, in that accommodation. I regard it as a national scandal.

Following welcome funding announcements from the Government, the main issues genuinely now appear to be delivery and affordability, which are both deep and entrenched problems. In a small way, the amendments in this group seek to be part of the solution. Without urgent action on both fronts, all our aspirations remain little more than warm words while communities across the country continue to feel the harsh consequences of inaction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I share the aspiration that we should build sufficient affordable housing in order to house those who need it. I do not propose to repeat what has been said in the three excellent speeches we have heard so far in this debate. I want to turn to a particular issue, with which I hope that the Minister who replies will agree.

One of the ways in which we ensure that affordable housing is built in sufficient numbers is to ensure that the contractual relationship between builders and the councils that give them planning permission is a fair one and does not give undue advantage to the contractors. It has not always been the case that that is so; indeed, there are very recent examples, and I will refer to one very major one.

Some years ago, one of the things I did in my legal life was act as a part-time chair of the Competition Appeal Tribunal, the UK’s anti-trust court. One of the cases on which I sat and gave judgment was a case in which a number of household-name builders had entered into cartel arrangements in order that it was ensured that one of them would win each contract. It was so endemic in the building system that an academic, who I will not name, from a respectable university, which I will not name, wrote a book on how to enter into these cartel arrangements. He did not do the builders much good, because the tribunal which I was chairing fined them a very large amount of money, each related to their world turnover.

They have not learned their lesson from that Competition Appeal Tribunal case. This year, a group of the largest housebuilders in the UK have agreed to a series of legally binding commitments to ensure that they are acting lawfully and to prevent anti-competitive behaviour. They have done that following an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority—the CMA. I should say to your Lordships that the CMA took a very pragmatic view and did not make a finding that they had been cartelists. I will leave it to your Lordships’ judgment as to whether that was the case or not, under the parliamentary privilege that I have, by telling you what the housebuilders have agreed to.

They made the following commitments to the CMA. The first was not to share competitively sensitive information with competitors, specifically including the prices for which houses are to be sold. If you are a builder, you do not need to make an agreement with the CMA to know that you should not share competitively sensitive information in a competitive contract situation. They then agreed to support the Home Builders Federation and Homes for Scotland to produce guidance on information exchange for the housebuilding industry. Ditto what I said about the first commitment. They further agreed—I am very pleased that they did—to pay £100 million in aggregate to programmes supporting the construction of affordable housing in the UK. Somebody will have done a calculation of how much they had gained from their anti-competitive agreements, and I have no doubt that the £100 million was a conservative—with a small “c”—estimate of the gain that they had made. Then they decided, generously, to introduce enhanced in-house compliance measures and training programmes, no doubt to deal with corruption among individuals within the industry.

Given that case and the one I mentioned earlier, surely one of the most important things—I am sure that the Government will agree with this—is that we should be alive to the risks of corruption in the building industry, so that housing is built without giving the housebuilders money which they do not deserve and have not earned legitimately.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I have a meeting with them next week; perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, would like to join me.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness for the invitation but, looking at the parliamentary programme for next week, I suspect that I am going to be here for about 11 hours a day.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I start by reiterating our view that the Bill does not go far enough. It tweaks processes, roles, fees and training but leaves the fundamental planning framework—the very framework needed to unlock genuine house building—without the proper reform that Ministers promised. We now hear in the media that a second planning Bill is expected. The Government have missed an opportunity with the Bill.

Amendments 94FB and 94FC in my name seek to probe the Government’s intentions behind the powers given in Clause 48 to local planning authorities and the Mayor of London to set specific fee levels for planning applications. Fee setting must strike a careful balance between national consistency and local flexibility. Planning authorities operate in vastly different contexts, from rural districts handling modest, small-scale applications to major cities building highly complex developments. That diversity and its differences must be respected; a one-size-fits-all approach risks overlooking the practical realities faced by local authorities on the ground.

As currently drafted, Clause 48 enables the Secretary of State not just to permit but to require that these bodies set fee levels. While enabling authorities to set fee levels is one thing, which would potentially support greater local flexibility, requiring them to do so raises important questions: first, in what context would the Government require a local authority to set a specific fee?

My Amendment 99ZA is also a probing amendment. In tabling this amendment, we are seeking to understand how subsection (6) will work in practice. Can the Minister please explain the process Ministers intend to use in calculating appropriate surcharges, and how the duty to have regard to relevant costs will work in practice? It will also be helpful to know whether Ministers intend to consult local planning authorities going forward to ensure that the fees imposed do not exceed the relevant costs incurred.

I will now briefly set out our view on the other amendments in this group. We agree with the principle behind Amendment 94G from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. Of course, all fees should be proportionate. That said, delivering it through an amendment to the Bill may be more challenging. Therefore, will the Minister please address the principle of proportionality and how the Government intend to ensure that fees are proportional as well as responding to the amendment itself?

I move on to Amendment 95, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. As drafted, Clause 48 explicitly excludes enforcement. She makes a strong case for her amendment, and I hope that the Minister will reply constructively. In particular, we would like greater clarity on the “polluter pays” principle. Will the Minister please explain why enforcement action has been left out of this fee-raising power? Is it because the Government feel that it would be inappropriate for applicants acting within the rules to pay a higher fee to cover the cost of enforcements against bad actors? I hope that the Minster will be able to give an unequivocal answer to that question.

Furthermore, Amendments 96 and 97, tabled by my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, address two important aspects of the planning system: transparency and heritage protection. Amendment 96 would ensure that guidance to local authorities includes references to archaeological and other services, so that external services are correctly funded. I know that my noble friend has a wealth of experience on heritage issues, and he was a truly excellent Minister for the arts and heritage. We would appreciate a clear assurance from the Minister on this issue.

Amendment 97 would rightly preserve the very long-standing policy of not charging for listed building consent. This is a vital protection for owners, who often invest significant time and resources in maintaining some of England and Wales’s most treasured heritage assets. Although policymakers in the socialist tradition and the owners or prospective owners of heritage properties may not be natural bedfellows, our historic houses have an important role to play in our housing stock.

The UK has the oldest housing stock in Europe; almost four in 10 houses were built before World War II, and two in 10 were built before World War I. Too often, historic houses are left empty to wither and decay because of the costs and complexities of taking them on, yet every historic property that is restored is an empty home returning to use. We must encourage more people to take on the challenge of restoring our heritage properties, both as a practical step in driving down the number of empty houses and as a gift to future generations. Our historic houses are part of our great island story, and my noble friend is right to seek assurance from Ministers that listed building consent will remain free of charge. Can the Minister give him a cast-iron guarantee on this issue?

I turn to Amendments 98 and 99, tabled by my noble friend Lord Banner. These proposals represent sensible and pragmatic reforms to our planning appeals system. We see the merits in the case that he makes for the introduction of differential fee levels based on the type or complexity of an application. His amendments reflect the practical realities of casework and seek to ensure that the system better aligns with the demands placed on it. Likewise, the proposal to allow the planning inspector to charge appeal fees and, importantly, to retain that income, is a constructive measure. It would enhance the inspector’s operational resilience and reduce their reliance on central funding.

Amendment 99 goes further by proposing a fast-track appeal process that is optional, fee-based and designed to deliver quicker decisions where appropriate. This is clearly a constructive proposal that Ministers should take away and consider carefully. I hope the Minister will engage positively with this amendment.

In conclusion, this group of amendments raises essential questions about the funding, fairness and functionality of our planning system. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my succinct and simple Amendment 94G, and in doing so draw attention to an issue—planning fees—that might seem a bit techy on the surface and perhaps even boring, but in reality strikes at the very heart of fairness, opportunity and the future of our housing market. I recognise and acknowledge that this Government are trying to address the concerns of SME builders in different ways; thus I believe that this amendment is in line with their thinking. It seeks a simple fix to a gross unfairness within the planning fees regime.

The reality is that the way our planning fees are currently structured disproportionately penalises the very people we need most—the small and medium-sized enterprise builders, the SMEs who once formed the backbone of housebuilding in this country. Our high watermark was the 1960s and 1970s, when SMEs delivered almost 50% of our homes. But now, there are just 2,500 SME builders, down from just over 12,000 in the late 1980s.

When the large developers apply for planning permission, they can absorb the cost of these fees—dozens, or even hundreds of units. For them, the fee for a major scheme is just a fraction of their overall margin. It is, if you like, just one more line on a long spreadsheet. But for the SME builder, often working on only one site at a time, sometimes building just a handful of homes, usually locally in the community where they live, the same planning fee represents a very different calculation. Proportionally, it is far higher—sometimes eye-wateringly so—relative to the potential return. For some, it can make the difference between a scheme being viable or never getting off the ground.

Let us not forget that many SME firms operate on tight margins—it is just a fact of the market today—and have limited access to capital. They do not have the balance sheets of the volume builders, nor teams of in-house planners and consultants to smooth the path. They are nimble, creative and often willing to take on small and difficult sites—precisely the kind of brownfield or infill plots that larger developers might overlook. In that sense, they perform a vital public service, delivering homes in places where others cannot or will not. If the Government are serious about reviving the role of SME builders, whose share of new homes has plummeted to barely 10% today, we cannot afford to ignore the structural barriers that hold them back. Planning fees are one such barrier, and it is entirely within our power to address them in this Bill.

My amendment addresses this issue without costing the Treasury a single pound. I am not suggesting that planning departments should be starved of resources—quite the opposite: we all hope that they will be even busier in the future. We all know they need proper funding to recruit and retain skilled staff and to deliver timely decisions, but surely there is a case for a more proportionate, graduated system—one that recognises the scale of development, the number of units and the genuine impact on the planning service. Without such reform, we risk reinforcing the dominance of volume housebuilders, who are of course essential; this is not a downer on them but a recognition of the role that SMEs can play in increasing innovation and diversity. They bring local knowledge and understanding to their role. By ignoring this, we weaken our ability to deliver the variety of homes this country so desperately needs.

The reason for my amendment is that planning costs are probably the most significant disparity, with SMEs facing costs that are over 100% higher than their plc counterparts. In fact, planning fees at the moment are £626 per home for the first 50 units, and only £189 per home thereafter. Therefore, a 50-home scheme pays three times more per unit than a 1,000-home scheme. This is where it creates a real structural disadvantage for SMEs, deterring those much-needed smaller developments and slowing delivery on small and medium sites. Under the Bill, fee-setting powers are being devolved to local authorities and/or mayors, so there is a genuine opportunity to fix the imbalance.

This is not about special pleading; it is about fairness, proportionality and the kind of housing market we want to create. Do we want one dominated by a handful of big players, or one where smaller, local builders have the chance to thrive? I urge the Government to look again at the planning fees regime and at how it might better support our SME builders. Without them, our housing crisis will only deepen. My amendment would help ensure that SMEs are not burdened with excessive costs; and, over time, alongside other government measures, it might reverse their sad decline. I am pleased to note that it also chimes with Amendment 98 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Banner. I hope the Minister agrees.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Scott for opening this small group of amendments and for lending her support to my Amendment 95, to which I will briefly speak.

As drafted, the Bill leaves out the question of enforcement measures being recovered from the fee. I put a very simple question to the Minister: was this a wilful omission or was it omitted by default? As my noble friend Lady Scott said, it would be helpful to know why the question of enforcement measures not forming part of the fee that can be recovered has been left out.

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[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will make two brief points. This debate has shown us that we need to charge fees for planning permission, and one has to understand the purpose. It is common ground that there is a lack of planners in this country, which is one of the reasons why the fee arrangement has to change.

One reason why we have insufficient planners in this country is not that we cannot charge enough. My authority, South Norfolk, has an advanced programme of upskilling planning technicians to become fully qualified planning officers, on a work release scheme, by using the apprenticeship levy that all councils and large employers put into the system. However, this Government have stopped that, because those sorts of people, who have made their way for a few years and have shown expertise and enterprise, are no longer able to be upgraded by using the apprenticeship levy. That has been cast away and it is an omission. I ask the Minister whether she might consider revisiting that rather short-sighted decision to stop upgrading these planners, which would start to address this.

I have huge sympathy with the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, about proportionality in planning fees, but I need to explain that, although the planning fee is important, it is just a single sliver of the total cost that developers, particularly small developers, have to pay. For example, there is the complexity of Section 106. As a council leader, I had to review a Section 106 agreement of which 15 banks were cosignatories. Can your Lordships imagine the cost not just of the applicants’ but of everybody else’s fees? The bespoke nature of many Section 106 agreements is really onerous. Some planning authorities require the use of only their particular lawyers, at a full rack rate. I will not go into nutrient neutrality, although that has an additional level of fees, or building control and so forth.

I know that we are in Committee, and I sympathise with what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, but, if she is minded to bring this matter back on Report, we might have a full idea of all the layering so that proportionality can be taken into account in the round.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I will see what I can do.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

This group of amendments raises several interesting areas about which I, as a chartered surveyor and an occupier and co-owner of listed buildings, feel strongly. I welcome the opportunity to discuss these and the question of proportionality referred to by several noble Lords and by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller. It relates to how the costs are built up and into what particular categories, pigeonholes or whatever one wishes to put them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, referred to this question of the preponderance of very large developments in terms of their cost, and how the same metric applies to smaller SMEs and indeed, one could say, to individual householders with really quite small-scale things. She could perhaps have referred to the fact that the way in which large developments end up setting the tone and the content that goes into planning applications therefore raises the expectation. Whether deliberately or inadvertently, it creates that rather awkward but historically well-known feature of a barrier to entry by the very nature of where you have to get to, what boxes you have to tick and what expense you have to underwrite to get there. This principle is as old as economics, but it is one of the things that is particularly germane to this discussion.

Of course, if we are getting into the situation referred to by other noble Lords of some sort of cross-subsidy from the application fee to issues of enforcement or covering other things, for instance the general costs of the legal department dealing with gruesomely complicated Section 106 agreements—I have seen some gruesomely complicated ones and am very glad to say that I have never had to draft one myself—that rather raises the question: is that right, or should we be subdividing, for instance, the costs of enforcement as a separate charging entity and the costs of dealing with a particular Section 106 agreement dealt with as part of that process? We have to worry about the degree to which there is this cross-subsidy approach, because without a set of rules for that, almost any sort of charging process can be set in place. That might be manifestly unsatisfactory for all sorts of reasons.

I very much welcome Amendment 97, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. I can relate to it as an owner, and in the past a professional adviser on heritage properties, although I would not really claim to be a heritage expert. We have heard that listed building applications are an addition to the need for development consent generally. Because they may revolve around matters that involve the historic character of the asset in question, it then becomes a matter of what is the character and what is the effect. These are often largely subjective considerations. That inevitably results in a sort of precautionary reaction in the eyes of local authorities. Inevitably, if that precautionary reaction takes root, all sorts of assessments and justifications may then be demanded of the applicant. Whether in fact they are reasonable is often in question. Given that, for owners who happen to live in or own listed buildings—putting aside badges of honour, in my case, several have been listed during my lifetime and ownership gratuitously imposed without consultation—I think it fair that the listed building element should not attract an additional fee.

It is important that we get this in context, and I observe that many local planning authorities do not have their own trained heritage officer. Many used to but no longer have one. In my experience, it is often outsourced to a private firm for so many days a month. Again in my experience, even where the external contractor so appointed makes a sensible recommendation, further conditions quite often get added by the local planning authority itself, in some instances displaying quite woeful failure to understand the practicalities of carrying out the work proposed. I will not go into further details on that, but I have several examples. It is therefore a matter of concern that defensively preventive or precautionary permitting practices and a lack of in-house officer competence—and, indeed, confidence—lie behind the added costs. Added to this, of course, is the citation relating to listing of buildings. In many cases, it is so cursory as to prevent a clear understanding of what features are actually important in terms of its character.

I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Mann, that something needs sorting out on a much wider scale here. I certainly would commend the Minister to take this away and see if we cannot, in the context of the Bill, produce something more cohesive going forward.

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[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate, with many different points made. Clearly, training is important to us, as is the status of planners, but I want to touch on issues that, much to my surprise, have not been mentioned. They have been hinted at very slightly by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who came close.

I have attended and delivered planning training to councillors. You can take a councillor to training, but you cannot make him think or learn or go back into a committee room and act any differently from how he or she did before. To be perfectly honest, I have been shocked by the arrogance, attitude and behaviour of some councillors at meetings, which I was obliged to observe as part of my role within that council. What bothers me is that there seems very little ability to sanction or take to task. Often it is individuals. Within councils, they know who they are—but they still put them on the committee the following year. That cannot be ignored. It was not just lack of understanding or wilfully not wanting to understand or genuinely not understanding, but sometimes it was the tricky and thorny issues of probity and ethics within the whole area of this and public standards.

Talking to planners, which I still do, with their work on the ground, I know that they say that the following issues are the rotten aspects of the job. There is hostility from the public—aggression, the way that they are spoken to. You have set up a positive consultation meeting with everything that you think they want to know and sometimes it deteriorates into some really quite shocking situations. They feel like they are piggy in the middle.

The other side of that coin is the politicisation of planning. There is no doubt that this has happened. I said years ago that we have turned nimbys into BANANAs—build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody. Even in my local area, I find that my local environment group, which I was very proud to get well and truly established, is objecting to developments miles away which could not possibly have any impact on them. It seems to be the new form of activism and we cannot ignore that.

Planners hate their decisions being overturned by councillors, because they are professionals. They understand their role, but there are times when they just feel ignored, overruled and put in this position. They too need training in that regard.

--- Later in debate ---

The timing could not be more pressing. Our cultural infrastructure remains fragile, threatened by rising property values, changing consumer habits, and ongoing digitalisation. As the noble Earl has said, without legislative intervention, we risk losing irreplaceable cultural assets before communities can mobilise to protect them. This is a balanced and pragmatic proposal, respecting both community needs and property rights, while safeguarding the places where Britain’s cultural future is being written. I urge the Committee to support both amendments and to give cultural assets the recognition and protection they deserve.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I was not going to say anything on this but, as noble Lords can see, I have been deserted so it has fallen to me. However, after listening to everyone, I will say a few words. As I will wax lyrical on another day about permitted development rights, I feel that I probably should stand and support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, really because I believe in the planning system. I believe that many developments would still be built but, if they had planning permission, they would be built far better. I have a faith in the planning system to do what is right.

Interestingly, it took me back to my own experience of the 2011 community assets Bill. We had loads of rows about the interpretation of it. I remember being in the monitoring office, really at loggerheads. There was a vociferous campaign to keep a Taekwondo space that was in the basement of a derelict factory and designate it as of community value. Believe it or not, all the parents joined in and the grandparents, but we designated for 60 social homes. You can imagine where the Mayor of Watford’s priorities lay on that.

I wrote to the Minister and got what I would call a very typical ministerial reply saying it was a local decision, but I was given a little line that gave some leeway to say that political choice and discretion could come into it. In that instance, I took a leaf out of what the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, said, and just offered a replacement. It was as simple as that. We managed to juggle things around. We got the social housing and they got a replacement, but it showed how difficult that interpretation was. Has any work been done on what has happened to those assets of community value and how successful they have been?

I think the venues issue a really tricky one, and I have every sympathy with what both noble Lords have said. I believe that, in the end, communities come up with ideas and innovations to make things happen differently when things are threatened. In my experience, music venues do not disappear quietly; they disappear very noisily. We had a particular pub, Taylors, and my son was one of the musicians who played there. There was a great hoo-ha when it closed. Guess what? Something like it popped up somewhere else and a little bit of support was given to help it to do that. I absolutely understand what the noble Lords are saying but I do not believe that outmoded, deteriorating buildings that are underused should necessarily be protected for sentimental reasons.

I am also pleased to tell the noble Earl that another of our grass-roots music venues, which we thought had really gone, has just been given a new lease of life. It was in our local newspaper last week, and the message from the people taking it over and taking a risk with it was: if you do not use it, you lose it.

I would also like to tell the noble Earl the saga of a very old building in Watford that had been the scenery store for the Palace Theatre. When I visited our “asset”, I christened it a pigeon graveyard. That is how derelict it was and, as somebody who is feather phobic, I did not stay in there very long, but I was determined to get it into community use, which we did. It was used for many years as a space for dance, Pilates—you name it—and as rooms for charities to do their admin. But that fell off, it was not used and we were in a dilemma. The current mayor has just redone it and done a redeal with the Palace Theatre for a rehearsal space, so it has gone the full circle.

I do not see any reason why a good council would not and should not list its assets and know what matters to it. We have a wonderful pump house that is many years old. It is difficult to maintain, but I am sure there would be massive protests if that were to close. These amendments are worth considering, even though I think it probably is something that should be in local plans and be built locally from the ground up. What they provide is a moratorium on a sale or a demolition, which is important, and give a window for the community to have their say and perhaps appreciate what they might lose. We know from experience that when libraries were under threat the community stepped up and many libraries and other facilities are used within communities and have new life. There are lots of examples of that.

I am interested in what the Minister has to say and thank the noble Lords for prompting me to say something and realising that it was something quite close to my heart. It was not my amendment to speak on, but I hope that that was okay.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, had to leave, so I am moving Amendment 114 in his place, with the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Freeman of Steventon and Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. The amendment would make the Gardens Trust a statutory consultee for planning applications that are likely to affect historic gardens and parks.

In sponsoring the amendment, the noble Lord would have declared his interests, which are also his credentials. He is the owner of a listed garden of some consequence and the park around it, and he has been involved with other owners and trustees of historic and particularly important gardens and parks. He is president of Historic Buildings & Places, previously the Ancient Monuments Society, and he is a member of the Gardens Trust, which I will come back to in a moment.

The working of the town and country planning system is buttressed by the various national amenity societies, which can bring to bear their very often specialist expertise in respect of some of the most sensitive sites in the country. These national amenity societies are essentially focused on buildings, but it is increasingly recognised, not least in the many debates on place-making, and I have been part of a lot of them, that the setting of buildings may be at least as important as a building itself. This relates both to the views in and to the views out.

Equally important are open spaces, which may have no buildings at all—for example, public parks and historic gardens. Expertise in these matters is not necessarily found among the established national amenity societies or planning authorities. The Gardens Trust, which was previously called the Garden History Society, has the expertise in this area, the same as national amenity societies in relation to buildings. It has evolved its work over time as the scholarship on this matter develops. It has been suggested that these matters do not require a statutory consultee because they can be dealt with through local plans, but local plans cover only about a third of local authorities and this is often about the detail. It is the devil in the detail that matters here.

I hope it is possible for government to add another statutory consultee in respect of gardens, parks and the planning applications that are likely to affect historic gardens and parks. I believe that consultation is under way and may lead to this happy outcome, but it would be great to hear the views of the Minister. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I am in a similar position to the noble Lord, Lord Best, with the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, who expected a 7 pm finish, having gone for a train. I will try not to make a dog’s breakfast of her notes.

I will speak to Amendments 118 and 119 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. The Liberal Democrats accept the aim of the Government in their desire to ensure that decisions on planning applications are made in a considered and timely way. The proposals in the Bill appear to neglect the notion of a considered and inclusive approach to planning decisions. Planning decisions matter hugely to communities because decisions can have a lasting impact on that community. The aim must surely be to get the balance in favour of enabling decisions to be made with the communities affected. Failure to do so can lead to long and acrimonious disputes between communities and developers. I can vouch for that.

Pre-application consideration of an application supports the needs of both a developer and the community affected. Pre-application consultation is most relevant for larger domestic and commercial applications, but may be of use in small but controversial ones, and here is why: a comprehensive pre-application stage allows for issues to be identified and resolved at the earliest opportunity, preventing costly delays and complex disputes later in the process. For example, at a pre-application consultation with residents on an application for a large housing estate, residents were able to provide vital information to the developer on the siting of historic mine workings. The precise information as to the location was not available from historical records, but residents whose families had lived in the area for many years knew. The pre-application meeting saved the developer from extensive works to find the shaft.

Another major commercial application, which cost the developer more than £100 million in preparation fees, was refused on grounds that would have become very clear if residents had been consulted before the application was submitted.

The pre-application process is currently good practice, and Amendment 119 in the name of my noble friend Lady Pinnock is designed to make this a mandatory process. The pre-app should include, as the word suggests, an opportunity for councillors in the ward and residents to have details of the planned application, to ask questions and make suggestions about it—crucially, before a more formal application is submitted, when it becomes much more difficult to make changes. It empowers communities to be able to influence an application that will change their neighbourhood. This collaborative approach builds trust, ensures that proposals are fit for purpose and fosters greater public acceptance of vital infrastructure.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking all noble Lords across the House for their contributions to the scrutiny of the Bill. While we may differ in our views, the commitment shown by Members to improving the private rented sector is evident and deeply valued.

I also extend my sincere thanks to the Minister. She has shown courtesy, patience and great resilience throughout this process, defending what we would consider a difficult Bill and, often, an indefensible one. She has defended a policy that we think reflects more political positioning than practical policy-making.

Despite the Minister’s efforts, we are left with a piece of legislation that risks doing more harm than good. The facts are stark. According to Savills, the number of rental properties on its books dropped by 42% in quarter 1 this year, compared with the same period in 2024. That means 42% fewer homes available: fewer homes for families, less mobility for renters, less choice, and more pressure on rents.

This is not theoretical; it is happening now, and the Bill is accelerating that trend. Its uncertainty around fixed-term tenancies, poorly defined possession grounds, and reliance on stretched tribunals are driving responsible landlords away from the sector. When providers exit, supply shrinks—and when supply shrinks, rents rise.

We understand why tenants seek greater security but let us be honest: much of what the Bill tries to fix are symptoms of a very deep problem. There are simply not enough rented properties in this country, and there will be fewer. Instead of addressing that shortage, this legislation papers over the cracks, with layers of regulation that risk doing more harm than good. It treats the pressures of scarcity—rising rents, insecurity and limited choice—as issues that can be regulated away. Regulation without supply is a dead end.

What we need is a balanced approach. Yes, let us protect tenants, but let us also create the conditions for responsible landlords to stay in the market, invest and offer decent homes. Without that balance, the consequences are predictable, and they are already playing out.

The real target should be the rogue landlords: those who exploit vulnerable tenants and undermine confidence in the sector. The Bill misses that mark. Instead of cracking down on the worst offenders, it heaps new burdens on the majority who act responsibly. What the sector truly needs is a rogue landlord Bill that is targeted, proportionate and enforceable, one that protects tenants without pushing decent landlords out of the market.

Instead, we have a Bill that gets the balance wrong. It risks shrinking supply, increasing costs and adding complexity just when we most need clarity and confidence. The Bill does not strike the right balance between protection and provision. It fails tenants, landlords and the very market that it claims to reform. On this side of the House we will continue to monitor the market and challenge the Government to act on any negative outcomes.

Before I sit down, I congratulate Sam and Molly in my office—it is her first Bill in this House. I thank them sincerely for the fantastic support they have given me and my noble friend Lord Jamieson throughout the passage of the Bill.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches have been clear throughout the Bill that we support it very much: its main provisions, including the abolition of no-fault evictions and fixed-term tenancies, and its clear emphasis on tenants’ rights and much more transparency. There is no doubt that it is a radical Bill that will make significant changes to the private rented sector. It has also been said, and I wish to repeat it, that good landlords have nothing to fear from these reforms, and we on these Benches sincerely hope that that will be proved to be the case.

It is usual to say that this process is about improving the Bill through reasoned debate and using the expertise of the House. In truth, to me it felt more like a conflict—a battle of tenants versus landlords—with the bold reforms of the Government pitted against the fears and genuine concerns of the landlords, articulated sincerely and robustly by the Opposition Front Bench and others around the House.

There were also cross-House issues where only time will tell, such as the capacity of the courts. Another is the impact on all aspects of the housing market, including student landlords and the supply of homes to rent, about which let us say there were polarised views. We share the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, but we also hope that the recent figures will steady and that, after inevitable initial upheaval, the market will settle down. We look forward to more build-to-rent and more social housing, because both are needed.

We hope that the Minister’s assurances on the military homes standard will also come to pass, as our amendment on that issue was won convincingly.

Lastly, I have some very genuine thanks. I thank everyone who took part in the many debates on amendments, which were based on honest beliefs and genuine experience, but particularly the Minister for her time, which was generously given, and for her patience—tested perhaps just a little by the determined double act of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson. I admired their persistence, but the Minister showed that she was not willing to be moved on the Government’s core planks of the Bill, and her steeliness in the onslaught, however politely delivered, was commendable.

We cannot forget the valuable contributions of several noble Cross-Benchers. The noble Lords, Lord Cromwell, Lord Best and Lord Carrington, formed a new trio. There was also much legal wrangling. My learning curve was greatly assisted by several noble Lords who are lawyers, especially the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, even if I did not always agree with them.

For its advocacy on behalf of tenants and for shining a light on the reality of many renters, the Renters’ Reform Coalition deserves a big thank you. Generation Rent deserves a special mention—as does the National Residential Landlords Association. For me, it was challenging to read its excellent briefings and pit its persuasive arguments against my own.

It is also appropriate to thank all the officers of the House, who have no doubt worked tirelessly to get everything done on time and correctly delivered. This was my first Bill lead, and I am grateful to have had a small but dedicated team behind me, especially my noble friends Lady Grender and Lord Shipley. Where would any of us be without our able and professional staff—in this case, Adam Bull from our Whips’ Office? It has been a worthy task to contribute to the much-needed reform of the private rented sector.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, traditionally, Third Reading is an occasion to give thanks and congratulations to all those involved in the Bill, whether inside this Chamber or outside. My noble friend the Minister has led us well, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott and Lady Thornhill, who is leader of the Liberals on this, have kindly done. At this stage, our Companion makes it plain that the debates of previous stages of the Bill should not be reopened and speeches should be brief. I hope that my noble friend Lord Leong is noting that I am saying this. I intend to abide by these requirements.

Housebuilders: Information Sharing

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornhill]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the implications for housing policy of the Competition and Markets Authority’s investigation of seven major housebuilders regarding information sharing.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, the housing market can thrive only if there is fair, open competition, and it is right that the CMA acts where this is not the case. The CMA housebuilding study was right to highlight the areas for improvement in the market, and that is why we have responded to its findings about delivering a system that works in the public interest. The £100 million additional funding proposed for affordable housing will mean more families can benefit from a safe and secure home.

To answer the noble Baroness’s point about information, the seven companies highlighted in the CMA report have agreed to work with the Home Builders Federation and Homes for Scotland to develop industry-wide guidance on information sharing and not to share certain types of information with other housebuilders, including the prices houses are sold for, except in very limited circumstances.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer. There could be an alternative version to this: major housebuilders pay £100 million to halt the CMA’s investigation into potential illegal collusion through the sharing of competitively sensitive information that could have inflated house prices. While this settlement might appear a pragmatic, cost-effective solution, would it not be more useful to have some evidence-led answers about whether the business models of the major developers are a significant factor in the slow delivery of housing? Therefore, should not the Government insist that the CMA actually completes its investigation, rather than allowing a financial settlement that obscures the fact and definitely looks dodgy?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The CMA is continuing its work on this, and on 9 July it announced that it is consulting on its intention to accept commitments offered by the housebuilders in relation to the investigation. That consultation closes on 25 July, and I have already set out some of the commitments that the seven companies have made. The £100 million payment, the largest secured through commitments from companies under investigation, will be split between affordable housing programmes across all our four nations. I hope that will make a significant contribution to delivering the affordable housing we all want to see.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly support Amendment 110 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Hogan-Howe. I am grateful to Safer Renting, ACORN and the Renters’ Reform Coalition for bringing this matter to our attention. My noble friends have noted that this is a milder and more focused version of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, debated in Committee, calling only for a review of the legislation that covers the duties of the police in respect of illegal evictions.

Although the amendment places a very modest obligation on the Government—namely, simply to publish a report on the position—this would be a good first step toward addressing a highly unsatisfactory state of affairs. It is clear that the laws against illegal and sometimes violent evictions are not being enforced. I see from the statistics that there were over 16,000 illegal evictions in 2022-23, and the police did not act in over 90% of cases. The underlying problem is surely not because of any malice on the part of the police officers but because of ignorance of what should be done and of the priority this should receive. The report that this amendment would elicit would clarify matters and make the recommendations that are needed to end wrongful and criminal practices by the very worst landlords. I am delighted to support the amendment.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 87, 88 and 104, as we have heard, seek to raise the burden of proof to that of the criminal standard, “beyond reasonable doubt”, from the civil standard, “on the balance of probabilities”, consistently across the Bill. All the amendments in the next group, on financial penalties, seek to lower the amount of money an enforcing council can fine a landlord. This group and the next are, to me, heads and tails of the same coin. Seen together, both sets of amendments seek to considerably help landlords by raising the standard of proof for an offence and lowering the fine if they are in breach of it. We believe that it is a naked attempt to tilt the balance massively in favour of landlords in a dispute, when the power balance is already heavily in their favour, and to deter tenants from complaining and taking action.

We do not agree with anything that undermines two of the core principles of the Bill. The first is to act as a deterrent to bad landlords. We on these Benches keep saying, as does the Minister, that good landlords have nothing to fear from the Bill, and certainly not from this aspect, but the fines have to be tough enough and the burden of proof appropriate to a civil offence. The second is to increase penalties to bring them in line with similar penalties that can be issued already by enforcement authorities against landlords who breach legislation.

I want to look specifically at the amendments. I think that the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, with their forensic legal eyes, are looking at them in a particular way. I look at the unintended consequences for tenants. Amendment 87, on raising the burden of proof, relates to families claiming benefits. Refusing to rent to someone due to their claiming benefits is unlawful. However, with high demand, this form of discrimination is really hard to prove. It is often based on verbal rather than written evidence. This amendment would therefore make it significantly more difficult for recipients of benefits to hold their landlord to account for this discriminatory practice.

Similarly, Amendment 88 relates to bidding wars. It is absolutely right that the Bill will ban bidding wars. Too often, renters are pitted against each other for a home, driving up the cost of renting in the process. It is already very hard to prove, without making it even harder by raising the burden of proof. Raising that standard of proof would make it significantly more difficult for a local authority to enforce the ban on bidding wars, especially due to the nature of the evidence in such cases.

Amendment 103 relates to the database that the Bill will set up. Noble Lords will know from Committee that I am a database believer. However, without the right data and information, such a database risks losing its utility for all tenants, prospective tenants and local authorities. This amendment would provide landlords with a lovely loophole that they could potentially exploit. It would be very difficult to prove that the landlord had knowledge of the breach they committed, and the amendment would therefore allow landlords to contravene the new regulations without fear of enforcement. I acknowledge the complexity of this amendment and look forward to the Minister’s response. To us, all these amendments seek to undermine the protections for tenants, thus we are very much against them.

Let us now be positive, by turning to Amendment 104, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. She has explained the situation very clearly and we support her fully. This is a really positive move. Amendment 104 would reduce the burden of proof for a rent repayment order where an illegal eviction has taken place on the balance of probabilities—hence the connection to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. This is important, as “beyond reasonable doubt” is the criminal standard. It is just too hard at the moment for tenants to successfully get justice. Cases involving illegal evictions and harassment are typically really hard to prove to this standard; in far too many cases, where evidence is based on the word of the applicant, it is practically impossible.

A rent repayment order is not a criminal prosecution. Cases are settled in the First-tier Tribunal; there is no jury and it does not follow criminal procedural rules. There is no criminal sentence or criminal record for the respondent. There is no legal aid available for rent repayment order claims and thus applicants are often self-represented, with little help and no legal expertise. This is again why the higher criminal burden of proof is so inappropriate for this kind of action. It is virtually a non-action, as evidenced by the low numbers of rent repayment orders that are brought.

We need to consider the very serious possibility that, with the abolition of Section 21, there will be more illegal evictions. It is therefore important that a bigger deterrent is in place. This needs to be changed to “on the balance of probabilities”. It is really important not to confuse criminal and civil offences and their parallel burdens of proof.

This takes us neatly to Amendment 110, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell, Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Best—a formidable trio. I can tell the Minister that it will take a lot of political will to withstand their arguments. Amendment 110 clearly gets our support, should the noble Lords wish to test the opinion of the House.

We know from all the arguments in Committee that less than 1% of illegal evictions are successfully prosecuted and that a major part of the problem is exactly as has been enunciated: the police view these things as a civil matter or, even worse, assist the landlord, even though it is a criminal matter under the Protection from Eviction Act, or they refuse to get involved at all. I cannot think of anything worse than being illegally evicted from what I believe to be my home, with my goods and my family. There has to be a greater awareness and more training, which is the aim of the amendment. As this view seems to be shared by many important bodies, it has real credibility.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley for their amendments. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for his comments. We all miss the late Lord Etherton very much and I am very grateful to him for all the work he did on this. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and all the tenant groups that have taken time to speak to me about the amendments in this group.

Amendments 87 and 88 would require local authorities to meet the criminal rather than civil standard of proof when imposing civil penalties for rental discrimination and rental bidding breaches. The standard of proof we have chosen for these breaches is lower than that which applies to the imposition of financial penalties for breaches of other measures brought in by the Bill. This is because, unlike those other breaches, rental discrimination and rental bidding breaches cannot lead to a criminal offence if the conduct persists. Breaches of the rental bidding and rental discrimination requirements cannot result in the landlord being prosecuted or given a civil penalty of up to £40,000, and are subject only to the lower £7,000 maximum penalty. This means the jeopardy for landlords in relation to those breaches is significantly lower than for others in the Bill.

I point out—I hope the noble Lord finds this reassuring—that local authorities already impose civil penalties based on the civil standard of proof in other legislation; for example, in their enforcement of agent redress requirements. My view since Committee has therefore not changed. I consider it appropriate that local authorities need to prove these breaches to the civil standard, “on the balance of probabilities”, rather than the criminal standard, “beyond reasonable doubt”.

On Amendment 103, the PRS database depends on landlords providing accurate information to raise standards, protect tenants and support local authority enforcement. Retaining the reference to recklessness in the current wording of Clause 93 is essential to achieve this, by preventing dishonest landlords submitting false or misleading information. I reiterate the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, that good landlords have nothing to fear from this legislation.

Recklessness is not a simple mistake; it involves taking an unjustified risk, and this wording is consistent with other, similar offences, including offences under the Housing Act 2004, under which local authorities already make prosecutions.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I am obliged to noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I make a number of observations. First, I sympathise with the observations made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, about the conduct of those she identifies as criminal landlords. But before someone should be stigmatised and identified as a criminal, they should be guilty of an offence that leads to them being stigmatised as a criminal. That should not be done on a balance of probabilities.

The relevant standard of proof in regard to criminality is “beyond reasonable doubt”. Indeed, where there is uncertainty about whether conduct is civil or criminal—a point brought up by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell—it is important to ensure either that you can make that clear distinction, or that you understand that the relevant standard of proof must be that which is fair to both parties.

I have to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, when she suggests that, where it is difficult to prove a case, you should reduce the burden of proof. The consequences of that, if developed, are very wide-ranging indeed. We know that there are many areas of criminal prosecution where it is extremely difficult to secure a conviction, but no one would suggest that it is appropriate in these circumstances simply to reduce the burden of proof.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

Given that we are not talking about criminal offences—we are talking about civil offences—and given the power imbalance between a landlord and a tenant, will the noble and learned Lord at least accept that by lowering the burden of proof we would allow the tenant to feel that they might have a voice and could possibly bring something? Otherwise, his amendment is, in effect, saying, “Well, just don’t bother. The burden of proof is too high, so please carry on with your poor behaviour”. This is civil conduct and behaviour.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I do not accept the proposition advanced by the noble Baroness at all. In circumstances where you are going to stigmatise somebody’s conduct as criminal, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, pointed out, it is appropriate that there should be a relevant standard of proof. You are not taking away anyone’s voice in that context.

I come on briefly to deal with the helpful contributions from the Minister and in particular welcome her observation that inconsistency in legislation undermines a regime’s credibility. That is very much in point here, because I cannot accept as accurate her suggestion that you can distinguish the provisions in Clauses 41 and 58 from later provisions of the Bill on the basis that the latter lead to greater jeopardy and, as she put it, could result in a criminal offence. I merely remind noble Lords of what Clauses 67 and 92 actually say. Clause 67 says:

“A local housing authority may impose a financial penalty on a person if satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the person has … breached regulations under section 65(1)”—


that is not a criminal offence; it is a breach of civil regulations. Clause 92 says:

“A local housing authority may impose a financial penalty on a person if satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the person has … breached a requirement imposed by section 83(1), (2) or (3)”.


That is not a criminal offence. Again, what is being underlined here is the very point that the Minister wanted to avoid: the inconsistency in the legislation which is liable to undermine the regime’s credibility. It appears to me that there is a need, if nothing else, for consistency with regard to the obligations imposed by this series of provisions and regulations. I would therefore move to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 87.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, fines must be proportionate, yet, as the Bill stands, the threshold for imposing fines on landlords is worryingly low, and the scale of those fines is notably high. This combination is troubling. Setting fines at such significant levels, in some cases representing a substantial portion of a landlord’s rental income, or even exceeding it, risks driving honest, well-meaning landlords out of the market, not because of any wilful negligence but out of fear.

I thank my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie for leading this group from the Back Benches today and bringing two considered amendments to the attention of the House. The group continues the discussions we had in Committee, as we remain unclear on how the scale of the fines has been determined. Frankly, they appear to be arbitrary, with no transparent methodology or rationale behind them, and we would welcome clarification from the Minister on how these amounts were determined and why those particular values were chosen. Without a clear explanation, it is difficult to support their inclusion in the Bill.

Amendments 98 and 99 seek to clarify that fines should be issued only for persistent breaches. Including this in the Bill would provide much-needed reassurance. It would make it clear that significant penalties will not be levied for the first offence. That is especially important when many landlords may not be immediately aware of their new obligations, either those set out in the legislation or those introduced later through regulations. Imagine a landlord renting out a cottage for many years in their village in rural Wales. They are entirely unaware of this Bill and the proceedings of this House. They do not register on any new database, not out of malice but because they simply do not know what is required. Is it right that they should face a steep fine for this? Surely not. That is why “persistently” must be in the Bill—to protect landlords like them and ensure that the legislation is proportionate, fair and enforceable.

Ministers may say that, in practice, individuals such as in the example I have given will not be fined, and that discretion will be used and enforcement will be reasonable, but warm assurances are not enough. We need to ensure that this protection is guaranteed in law, not simply assumed in guidance or left to future interpretation. We need this clarity in the Bill, and without it, the risk remains that well-intentioned landlords—those who may simply be unaware of new requirements—could still find themselves facing disproportionate penalties.

If the Minister cannot accept the premise that we must embed this protection clearly within the legislation, I regret to say that we will be minded to test the opinion of the House.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness was so quick to leap up—

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am sorry.

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[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

No, I was listening to the debate and trying to get my thoughts in order. I will be very brief because, as I said on the previous group, it is clear that we will oppose anything that lowers the fines.

I am a little bit concerned about some of the attitudes towards local government that are coming out, particularly from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, from her own experiences. Local authorities have experience and expertise; they employ lawyers and solicitors, and they make sure they apply fair and proportionate responses to enforcement across a range of things and do it with consistency and uniformity. There is almost an infantilisation of local authorities, as if they want to grab lots of money from lovely, well-meaning landlords with one cottage in a little village. I say to the noble Baroness that I do not see that happening.

I see that approach to enforcement across a range of things. Even if we are changing parking rules, for example, we put a little notice on windscreens, saying, “Next week, you will get fined if you park here”. Local authorities have guidance and standards that they like to adhere to. I guess there is the odd rogue local authority, like there is the odd rogue landlord, but I do not like the way we want to have things absolutely pinned down so that local authorities can have no discretion about what they do.

The Bill is bold and radical and has new things in it that have to succeed—the database, for example, has to succeed. If the fine is not enough to deter landlords, it will be ineffective, and one of the tools that makes this transformative will have been taken away from local authorities. We have to trust local authorities. I doubt that many £40,000 fines will happen, and I guess that is why we are also calling for reviews—such things will be part of looking at that.

We certainly need to give local authorities higher financial penalties. I am quietly confident that they will not take them out on the uninformed landlord. There is also something faintly patronising about the idea of uninformed landlords. There is so much information out there and so many landlord lobbying groups that it would be surprising if they were not aware that there had been some changes. If they are astute enough to be a landlord, and a good landlord, they will be astute enough to notice that this big Renters’ Rights Bill might just have some impact on them. We will not vote for any amendment that reduces the ability of councils to impose higher fines.

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment, but I want to concentrate on a slightly different aspect, which came up in the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, and remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. The noble Lord referred to the fact that rogue landlords will ignore whatever we put in the Bill, and that may well be the case, although I hope he is not accurate on that. The noble Baroness mentioned that there are people in Wales who will never have heard of the Bill but are expected to conform to the provisions in it. My question for the Minister covers both aspects. Can she at some point, whether now or later, tell us about the implementation of the Bill, so that everybody understands how it works and avoids going to court and all the other matters?

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[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I will comment on Amendment 91 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson. Their amendment would exempt a landlord from joining the new redress/ombudsman scheme if that landlord’s property is managed by an agent who is already a member of one of the existing redress/ombudsman schemes. I declare a past interest as chair for eight years of the Property Ombudsman, which handles complaints about agents. This amendment’s intention of avoiding duplication of membership of redress/ombudsman schemes is entirely right, otherwise the tenant is left puzzling over which ombudsman—their landlord’s or the agent’s—they should address their complaint to.

However, this amendment would not achieve the desired result. I know, from having had some responsibilities for redress in respect of managing/lettings agents, that the response from the agent to a complaint by a renter is often, “I was only doing what the landlord told me to do”. The agent may be justified in this: a renter may have requested an urgent repair and the agent did nothing, but the problem has been the landlord telling the agent that the cost is too high or the work is not needed. The intolerable delay is not the result of the agent’s negligence; it is the landlord who has held things up. These cases cannot be resolved because the landlord is not a member of any redress scheme, and that problem would persist if the landlord was exempted from having to join the new redress/ombudsman scheme.

To avoid duplication of having one redress/ombudsman scheme for landlords and one for property agents, I suggest the solution is for a single redress/ombudsman service for both. This would avoid complaints resolution being stymied and tenants being sent from pillar to post where two different ombudsman services are involved with one issue. I know the Government are still considering how best to introduce the new redress scheme for landlords in this Bill, and I recommend one port of call for tenants with a complaint. The position is already confusing, with the Housing Ombudsman providing a redress service for a few private landlords— as well as for all social landlords—and the Property Ombudsman and the separate Property Redress Scheme both providing redress schemes for property agents. Bringing in the new mandatory redress scheme for complaints about private landlords will add to the confusion for the consumer and the renter. This is a good moment to rationalise and consolidate the arrangements, but not by excluding the landlords who use an agent, which would not solve the problem.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Best. In fact, one of my lines says that there should be only one port of call. If one of the main planks of the Bill is to drive up standards, it is critical that landlords are mandated to be part of the ombudsman scheme. It should be a catch-all. Unfortunately, this amendment would allow landlords to opt out of the government redress scheme and, as has been explained, deny tenants access to redress via the national private sector ombudsman that the Bill intends to set up.

To make this advantageous move, all landlords would need to do is use a letting agent that is signed up to one of these alternative schemes. This would create a significant loophole in the legislation and deny such tenants access to redress for issues that lie solely with the landlord and not the managing agent, such as damp and mould caused by structural issues. Generation Rent’s polling found that one in three tenants has had maintenance issues in their home that they have reported but the landlord has not dealt with. This is quite a widespread problem. If we want to drive up standards, we want to make it easier for tenants to complain and landlords to comply.

In addition, if this amendment were to pass it would create more confusion, as there are currently multiple independent letting agent schemes that compete with each other, arguably creating a race to the bottom on standards. This phenomenon arguably exists to some extent with deposit protection schemes—which, incidentally, are also chosen by landlords or agents, not by renters, so the landlord will choose the one that thinks like they do or favours the way they work.

The system as proposed in the Bill seems to be the correct way forward, as making membership of an ombudsman scheme mandatory for landlords who use managing agents will mitigate a situation where a good agent—and there are good agents—tries to remedy a complaint but is reliant on an overseas landlord who refuses to engage. As well as these advantages, one ombudsman can tackle the root cause of problems, address systemic issues, provide feedback and education to all interested parties, and offer support to vulnerable consumers. Amendment 91 would dilute all these potential good impacts of the new ombudsman, reducing tenants’ ability to hold bad landlord practice and behaviour to account. I cannot think why anybody would want to do that.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for her amendment on the landlord redress scheme, and the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for their comments.

Our new private rented sector landlord ombudsman will ensure that tenants are able to seek redress against their landlord when they have a legitimate complaint about the landlord’s action, inaction or behaviour. We are clear that landlords who use letting agents cannot delegate responsibility for their own actions or behaviours. Landlords almost always retain some responsibility for their property that cannot be passed on to agents—for example, making structural repairs in buildings. Tenants should be able to access redress if they experience issues such as this, regardless of whether their landlord uses an agent. That is why we think it is essential that both landlords and agents can be held to account for their individual responsibilities.

For landlords who have already voluntarily joined a redress scheme, once a mandatory private landlord ombudsman service is in place it will be tailored to the specific needs of the private rented sector, and those landlords will have to move to it. This will work better for the private rented sector, rather than having it mixed up with social housing. Landlords will be required to sign up to the new landlord database, and we are exploring how to align the sign-up process for this with the landlord ombudsman. That will help make it simple for landlords who are already members of an existing redress system to join the new landlord ombudsman service.

We are committed to ensuring that private residential tenants know where to complain and enjoy consistent standards of service and outcomes. Having private residential landlords as members of the same service will support this aim. We also want to ensure that, where it is not clear which scheme a tenant should complain to, there is no wrong access point for tenants. The schemes will be expected to work together to ensure that, regardless of where a tenant raises a complaint, it is effectively triaged and referred on to the right body with minimal input from the complainant.

I understand the noble Baroness’s concerns about duplication, but we will work closely with the new ombudsman and the property agent redress schemes, support them to work effectively together and ensure that the process works smoothly for both tenants and landlords. For the reasons I have set out, I kindly ask the noble Lord to withdraw the noble Baroness’s amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Thornhill]

94: Clause 76, page 115, line 13, at end insert—
“(d) in respect of a landlord entry, details of any banning orders or rent repayment orders that have been made against the landlord.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Private Rented Sector database to include information on any banning orders or rent repayment orders made against a landlord, improving transparency and supporting tenant decision-making.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

Noble Lords will realise by now that I am a bit messianic about the database. I listened very carefully to what the Minister said at the end of Committee about the database, which is that much of it will be given to us in guidance and by statutory instrument. I look forward to the opportunity to contribute to that, but the reason for continuing to press this case is to put on the record just how important this is as a plank of this Bill—and how transformative it could be. So I will speak to my Amendments 94, 95 and 96 and speak against Amendment 97.

The private rented sector database presents a major opportunity to drive up standards through empowering tenants to make informed decisions before entering into a new tenancy, while giving local authorities the information they need to proactively enforce the new regulations. Those are two really important prongs.

The database will only be as useful as the information it stores. My amendments seek to ensure that it is as useful as possible. It is probably my shopping list of things that I would like to see, but I am sure that interested bodies and people other than myself will be putting into that further guidance and further information.

Renters will not be reading it in bed at night, or on holiday; they will look for it when searching for a new home. If it has useful information that helps them make informed choices—such as, past enforcement actions taken against the landlord in question, accessibility features of the home or rent levels for similar properties in the area—they will be able to choose a home that is right for them. For example, a recent Generation Rent survey found that more than three-quarters of renters would support including any prior prosecutions of a landlord on the database, as per my Amendment 94. Having this information will help foster more of the long, stable tenancies that both renters and landlords alike want, while discouraging landlords from attempting to sidestep the Bill or exploit tenants. Furthermore, renters who have used the database will tell their family and friends about it. In my experience, this kind of word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective.

My Amendment 96 would ensure that actual rents are recorded on the database. The Government have put much trust in the First-tier Tribunal, protecting renters from unaffordable rent hikes. At the moment, however, the tribunal uses advertised rents to see whether a rent increase is fair. Often, these are inflated and could become even more so with the end of bidding wars. So, recording actual rents will allow the tribunal and tenants to have a better understanding of the local market.

The issue of local authority finances has been debated many times as the Bill has progressed. We are right to be concerned about their capacity to proactively enforce the Bill. Having key information in one place, such as Section 8 eviction notices, as per my Amendment 95, would be a massive help to enforcement when the Bill comes into action—cutting out much of the proactive fact-finding work that local authorities often lack the capacity to do.

Outside the renting process, the database could also be of use to both national and local policy-making. Recording rents, for example, would help inform national decisions on housebuilding and crack down on landlords’ tax avoidance, which the think tank TaxWatch estimates to be as high as £1.7 billion a year.

We oppose Amendment 97, to limit costs related to the database, given that some areas of the Act inevitably may turn out to need more enforcement than others. It makes sense for the Government to have some wriggle room to set some costs at a later date. The legislation’s success relies heavily on enforcement, and therefore having the ability to raise funds through the database feed written into primary legislation is an important mechanism in case it is needed in future to cover costs, such as an awareness campaign or guidance and training to tenants and landlords.

Finally, I will end on a positive note. Much of this debate often pits landlords against renters, seeing the issue like a see-saw. But findings from Generation Rent’s survey of its supporters in April this year found that the more information about a landlord that renters have, the better their relationship with them. Nearly a quarter of renters who had a direct contact line to their landlord rated them five out of five, compared with fewer than one in 10 of those who did not. With the right information, the database will help foster more of these relationships. I beg to move.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for her expansive and constructive thinking on what more the database could do to support a rental market that works fairly and effectively for both landlords and tenants alike. During Committee, we had a thoughtful and wide-ranging discussion about the purpose, function and future potential of this database, and many noble Lords suggested that it could, and perhaps should, do more. I agree: in time, that may well be prudent. But, from my experience as a Minister, I have learned the value of taking one step at a time. Let us focus first on getting this system up and running and getting it right.

I am very much reminded of the Second Reading of the pensions Bill in the other place. When the Minister, Torsten Bell, began to explain its provisions, he was met with laughter from both sides of the House. The joke was all in very good faith and the Minister joined in at the moment, but it speaks to a deeper truth. We cannot allow this database to become the next pensions dashboard—a project weighed down by scope creep and plagued by delay. So, although I welcome the noble Baroness’s ambitious vision and her efforts to think beyond the immediate text of the Bill, we must begin with the basics, especially if additional functionality comes at the cost of higher system complexity and, crucially, higher financial burdens on those who provide rental homes to millions across this country.

That brings me to Amendment 97, which concerns limited relevant costs. This cannot become a system that imposes unlimited and never-ending costs on landlords. They need certainty—clear and reliable reassurance from the Government—that relevant costs will not spiral every time a new Minister has a bright idea.

It is that word again—balance—and I know that noble Lords are probably sick of hearing it by now, but it remains the guiding principle. We must strike the right balance between the cost of this system and the functions that it is expected to perform. Only then can we ensure that the database succeeds, not just in theory but in practice, for those who depend on it. Despite this, I will not seek to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 97.

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[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I am nothing if not a realist, but I am glad to have pursued this to this stage, because the Minister has just given me some very serious reassurances about what will be included in the database. I am particularly pleased to hear about the consideration of rent repayment orders. I urge the Government to think again about rent collection—because rent is the big issue—and perhaps about how the database can help.

However, I am under no illusion that all these proposals, processes and functions will need further discussion, particularly with regard to human rights and legal matters. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that we need to get this right and to begin with the basics. I look forward to the Minister giving us some sort of timeline, perhaps, and working with the secondary legislation. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 94 withdrawn.

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[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comments. I declare my interest: I own, with my wife, one apartment in the West Midlands. It will not help me in any way if this amendment is passed, but I still think it is the right thing to do, for exactly the reasons that the Minister has given—ones that I myself pressed in Committee. I am very grateful to her and her colleagues for meeting with me in the meantime, and for taking up the amendment at this stage. I urge noble Lords, if these matters are put to a Division of the House, to support the government amendments.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, we supported the right reverend Prelate in Committee and will support the Government now. In my experience, a local authority takes very seriously whether it decides to enforce an entry and go into a property. Again, we are not talking about the nice little cottage or the cottage belonging to the noble Lord, Lord Hacking; we are talking about properties where bad stuff goes on, where modern slavery can be happening, where people are refugees and people are living in appalling conditions.

There is no way we would support saying, “Cooee, rogue landlord, we’re just letting you know that we’re coming in 24 hours”. There has to be an opportunity at this extreme end of enforcement to be able to make a surprise snap inspection. I am glad that the Government have listened to that. Of course there need to be safeguards, but I think this is another of those instances where the good landlords need not fear. The right reverend Prelate need not worry about his flat in the Midlands, because I cannot imagine that they are going to be dashing in at six in the morning. Because of some of the extreme things that happen in our country, sadly, the power needs to exist and therefore we will support the Government.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments concerns powers of entry, particularly in relation to notices served to landlords and occupiers under Clauses 126 and 135. The amendments in the name of the Minister seek to make targeted changes to when and how notice must be given before entry is exercised by local authorities under their enforcement powers.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, makes the case via the “extreme end” of the spectrum. The extreme end of modern slavery and other criminal activities, I do believe, might just be a police matter. This is dealing, rightly, with things that may need enforcement. The notice would be given to the tenant, but owners have rights such as also being given notice, not retrospective written notice after entry has taken place.

On these Benches we have consistently supported effective enforcement, but it needs to be proportionate, accountable and clearly justified. The balance between enforcement and individual rights is delicate, and changes to that balance demand close scrutiny. Government Amendment 111 may appear a consequential provision linked to wider changes proposed in other amendments in this group, but together they are not technical amendments. These amendments, brought to this House so late in the process, underpin a significant shift in approach, one that removes long-standing procedural protections for landlords and residents without adequate explanation or assurance.

These changes introduce ambiguity into what should be a tightly regulated area of enforcement. They risk undermining trust in local authority investigations and could lead to a greater number of legal challenges, confusion and even misuse. We cannot and will not support provision that weakens accountability without offering clear safeguards in return. Powers of entry are intrusive by their nature. If they are to be exercised without prior warning, there must be rigorous justification, robust checks and balances and explicit limits to prevent overreach. That bar has not been met.

We also have deep reservations about government Amendment 113, which proposes similar changes in relation to Section 239 of the Housing Act 2004. Again, the proposed move from prior notification to retrospective notice raises serious concerns, particularly in the absence of a defined threshold for when such unannounced entry would be deemed necessary or proportionate.

This Bill is an opportunity to rebuild confidence across the housing system, but confidence rests on fairness. These amendments risk tipping the balance too far, undermining transparency and weakening the very safeguards that protect landlords and tenants alike. For those reasons, we will vote against this package of amendments and urge the Government to reconsider their approach in this area.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

Can I just ask the noble Lord a question? I absolutely understand that the extreme end is criminal, but will he concede that local authority officers are very often the ones to uncover the criminal practices in their proportionate response to local concerns that have built up over time? They will go in and then find that there is more there than they originally thought, and then it is time to hand over to the authorities. In my experience, that prevents overreach. You have to be able to build your case and be quite confident before you would ever assert these powers, because they are quite strong.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I refer to my comments. If they are to be exercised without prior warning, there must be rigorous justification, robust checks and balances and explicit limits to prevent overreach. That bar has not been reached, and it is not in the Bill. It needs to be in the Bill.

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Moved by

[Baroness Thornhill]

115: After Clause 136, insert the following new Clause—
“Repeal of right to rent(1) The Immigration Act 2014 is amended as follows.(2) Omit Sections 20 (residential tenancy agreement) to 37 (interpretation).(3) Omit Schedule 3 (excluded residential tenancy agreements).”Member's explanatory statement
The new clause would abolish the right to rent provision introduced by the Immigration Act 2014.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, in Amendment 115 I am asking that the Government seriously consider repealing the right-to-rent policy. If any Bill is appropriate to repeal it, it is the Renters’ Rights Bill. I am picking up the baton from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who tabled this amendment on Report. The noble Baroness clearly listened to the words of her colleague, the Minister, and has decided not to pursue her amendment—but I bet her commitment is just as strong, as is mine.

I was surprised at the strength of the Minister’s response in Committee, so firmly closing the door on repeal. This is pernicious legislation that is designed to sound tough on immigration and is therefore for public consumption and political soundbites, rather than effective policy. The right to rent was introduced as a mechanism to make it harder for those without legal status to live and work in the UK—part of the so-called hostile environment. It placed a legal obligation on private landlords to carry out immigration checks before renting out their property, turning them into de facto border officials. Landlords and letting agents are ordinary citizens who are neither trained nor equipped to make complex legal determinations. When even the National Residential Landlords Association is saying loudly and clearly that this is not working, you know it is not a good thing. You have to question its ability do what it says on the tin.

This is not about being soft on immigration; it is about being fair, proportionate and practical, and on all three counts the right to rent fails. The evidence is clear: the right-to-rent scheme fuels racial and xenophobic discrimination. With landlords fearing the consequences of getting it wrong, including fines and even prison, they are more likely to play it safe and reject any tenant who does not hold a UK passport. Both the NRLA and Shelter say that one in four landlords believe they can rent only to British passport-holders.

The Minister in her previous response also asserted that it is possible to carry out the checks proportionately and without unlawful discrimination, but the reality is that it is not happening. Landlords and letting agents often end up resorting to proxies like names, accents and skin colour to rule out prospective tenants they assume will not pass the right to rent. We are seeing the chilling effects of this policy. Vulnerable groups are being pushed further into the shadows and forced into unsafe housing; unable to assert their rights, they are greater risk of exploitation by rogue landlords. Across the House, we have all been saying that we hope this Bill will eventually flush out rogue landlords and make it more difficult for them to exist, but this legislation delivers vulnerable people right into their hands.

The fact is that the Government have turned ordinary landlords into immigration officers—no training or guidance, just threats of fines and prison sentences if they get it wrong. The resulting discrimination is plainly evident. Let us be clear: this is not just a policy failure; it is a moral failure. It is pushing people into the shadows and into dodgy housing, and they are unable to complain or seek help; and all the while—this is the killer—there is no evidence that this policy even works. None at all.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for Amendment 115, which would abolish the right-to-rent scheme that applies in England. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Scott, the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester for their contributions.

The scheme was introduced to ensure that only those lawfully in the United Kingdom can access the private rented sector and, importantly, to tackle unscrupulous landlords who exploit vulnerable migrants, sometimes in very poor living conditions. Some landlords who rent to those who are here illegally are criminal operators. We all have a shared objective to drive them from the rental market and to deter unscrupulous landlords from entering into exploitative practices.

We have always been absolutely clear that discriminatory treatment on the part of anyone carrying out right-to-rent checks is unlawful. The checks apply equally to everyone seeking private rental accommodation, including British citizens. The scheme has been independently evaluated twice. Although some examples of discriminatory attitudes were found, there was insufficient evidence to claim that there was any systematic, unlawful discrimination as a result of the right-to-rent scheme. There are therefore no current plans to end the scheme.

It is our view that it is wrong to seek to abolish right-to-rent legislation in its entirety by simple notice of amendment. This immigration legislation was designed to address those who are disqualified from living in the UK by virtue of their immigration status, and that remains an important priority for this Government. The Government will continue to support legitimate landlords and letting agents who continue to act properly by carrying out the prescribed checks in legislation and published guidance. We have made big strides to improve the digital capability of the systems involved.

I emphasise that the Home Office has listened to and taken on board concerns expressed about right to rent during the progress of the Renters’ Rights Bill and from wider stakeholder engagement. As a result, officials will actively engage further with tenants and their representative groups to ensure that the right-to-rent scheme works fairly and inclusively for all. Early engagement has helped the Home Office identify individuals who may struggle to prove their identity and, in consequence, face barriers to accessing housing and other services. The Home Office has begun to work with local authorities to understand how individuals can overcome these barriers, with the aim of extending successful approaches across the UK.

As we move forward, we remain committed to working with stakeholders, including community-based initiatives and the third sector, to strengthen the inclusivity and accessibility of the right-to-rent scheme. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for her interest in the scheme and would be happy to facilitate a meeting with the appropriate Home Office officials to discuss how to ensure that the scheme can operate inclusively and fairly for all tenants, landlords and letting agents. In the light of these reassurances, I ask that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, withdraws the amendment.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her answer. It seems to me that the Government want to make the scheme work, whereas on our Benches we are fundamentally opposed, as a matter of principle, to making ordinary citizen landlords immigration officers.

Noble Lords know that we do not fight injustice by staying quiet; we fight it by shining a light, telling the truth—the truth is that this is not working—and demanding better. That is what those of us who have spoken have tried to do, in some small way, by supporting this amendment.

I am disappointed that this Labour Government have not taken an opportunity to repeal this, and I feel so strongly about it that I did want to push it to a vote, but I am not silly and I do not want to waste noble Lords’ time, knowing that it will come to nothing. So I will not push it to a vote, but I will explore every avenue to bring it up again and again in any legislation. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 115 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Thornhill]

116: After Clause 136, insert the following new Clause—
“Review of the impact of this Act on the judicial system(1) The Secretary of State must conduct a review of the impact of this Act on the judicial system.(2) The review must, in particular, assess the impact of the Act on—(a) the volume of cases brought before the courts;(b) the efficiency and timeliness of judicial proceedings;(c) the resource and administrative burden on the courts;(d) individuals’ ability to access justice.(3) In conducting the review, the Secretary of State must consult—(a) legal practitioners and their representative bodies,(b) court administration officials, and(c) any other persons or bodies the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(4) The Secretary of State must lay a report setting out the findings of the review before Parliament no later than two years after the day on which this Act is passed.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to review and report on the impact of the Act on the judicial system — specifically in relation to case volumes, court efficiency, resource implications, and access to justice — within two years of the Act being passed.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I have been pleasantly surprised by the support for this amendment from a range of bodies, including the Law Society and the National Residential Landlords Association, plus many and various housing legal practices. Thus I can say with confidence that the reassurances we have had thus far about the capacity and capability of the courts to deal with the impact of the Bill when it becomes an Act are clearly challenged by those who actually have to deal with the courts regularly and currently, and I have listened to them. It seems we are still recovering from the backlog of Covid; they are not convinced that it is sorted, and neither are we yet, but we hope that this amendment provides an opportunity for the Minister to do that.

Put very simply, this amendment asks for a review of the impact of the Bill, when passed, on the judicial system, with the findings set out no later than two years after the day on which it is passed. It asks the Government to consider the effects on case volumes, court efficiency, resource demands and access to justice—all key areas to measure the effectiveness of the court process for both landlords and tenants and to ensure confidence in the whole system. Does the Minister have access to the measures on current case loads from which we can measure progress?

This amendment also reflects concerns raised across this House about the capacity of the courts to deal with the additional case loads that the Bill might generate. I seek reassurance that the Government will give a clear commitment today to provide the necessary resources that the courts might need going forward. Of course, that begs the question of how the Government will know this if they do not carry out some sort of fundamental review. If reviews or something similar are promised by the Minister, given the widespread concerns there still are about the courts, can the Minister give a reason why this cannot be included in the Bill?

I know we have all received emails from around the country from landlords giving their own instances of the length of time it takes for an application for a possession order to get to an actual hearing. It has gone from weeks to months and varies depending on where you live in the country, and that is now. I hope the Minister can give us all some assurance of what the current situation is so that we can have a benchmark before the Bill becomes an Act. In Committee the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, stated:

“Backlogs are rising, court rooms lie unused for lack of staff and overburdened judges are stretched too thin”.—[Official Report, 28/4/25; col. 997.]


Can the Minister please give us a progress report?

Amendments 120 and 121 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, seem to be asking for a delay, setting the unrealistic measure of cases being processed as quickly as they were before the first lockdown. To achieve this some might say desirable benchmark would, we believe, inevitably delay the implementation of the very important rental reforms in the Bill, so we cannot support them, but we would like to hear that the Government and the courts are now in tandem and have an agreed commencement date. I beg to move.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, for their amendments. Starting with Amendment 116, we fully recognise the importance of the justice system, both courts and tribunals, needing to be ready for our reforms, and for individuals to access timely justice. We are therefore, as I have commented in previous sittings on the Bill, working closely with the Ministry of Justice to assess the impacts of our reforms on the courts and tribunals, and to lessen these wherever possible. This work has been ongoing for years and in great detail. The digital service for possession claims is well advanced and will make it more efficient and easier to understand for landlords and tenants.

The amendment we have tabled to our rent increase measures shows that we are listening to the concerns of the sector and this House about tribunal workloads. It puts in place a sensible and proportionate safeguard in case it is needed. The Ministry of Justice already publishes quarterly statistics on the operation of the county court possession process, including the volume of cases going through the system and average timelines. This data is widely available and regularly reported on in the press. As set out in the impact assessment for the Bill, and in debate, we are already committed to monitoring and evaluating the private rented sector reform programme.

I have spoken at length about the ambition of this programme, so I will simply reiterate that we will use a wide range of sources to support this monitoring and evaluation work. Existing datasets will be used, and new data will be collected. The department is fully committed to publishing our evaluation findings at the two-year and five-year points after the Bill’s implementation. I can therefore assure the House that we will already be collecting extensive data. In this context, it is not necessary to commit to undertake any further review. I welcome the wish of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, to give our reforms a regular MOT, but I hope she accepts that we have ambitious evaluation plans and do not want to duplicate them unnecessarily. Therefore, I respectfully ask her to withdraw her amendment.

Amendment 121 would require the Secretary of State to certify that landlord possession actions in respect of residential property are processed by the courts in no greater time, on average, than they were in the year before the first Covid lockdown before most of the Bill could be capable of coming into effect. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, has also tabled Amendment 120, which would confirm that commencement of these important reforms would be delayed until this proposed certification had been carried out. I fully appreciate the need for the justice system to be ready for our reforms, and for landlords and tenants to access justice in a timely way, and that landlords need a smooth and efficient process in the county court for the minority of cases where court action for possession becomes necessary.

I want to be clear that we will not link the implementation of most of the provisions in this Bill to an arbitrary target of court timeliness. The sector has already waited too long for these urgently needed reforms. Court rules already specify that possession cases requiring a hearing should be listed between four and eight weeks from the issue of the claim. The MoJ quarterly landlord possession action statistics for the period January to March 2025 indicate that claim to order median timeliness is 8.3 weeks. I understand that there will be cases outside that, but they often have different circumstances. Setting a target for other parts of the possession process is not sensible, as it is dependent on the actions of the parties to the proceedings.

For example, an important stage of the process is the application for a warrant of possession, and this is dependent on the actions of a landlord and is outside the control of the court service. Where a tenant stays in a property beyond the date in the possession order, a landlord can choose if and when to apply for a warrant to enforce the possession order granted by the court. They can also decide whether to apply to transfer the case to the High Court.

Instead of agreeing to these unnecessary commitments, we are working in partnership with the Ministry of Justice to assess the impact of the reforms on the county court and lessen these wherever possible. This close collaboration has been done in a great deal of detail. It includes the development of a new digital service for possession claims, which is well advanced, that will make the possession process more efficient and easier to understand for landlords and tenants. As set out in the impact assessment for the Bill, and in debate, we are committed to monitoring and evaluating it.

I welcome the wish expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, for a more efficient possession action process, but I hope he accepts that we are making good progress on bringing these processes online and will not press his amendments.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I am pleased that the Minister sounded assured in what she told us, and I accept what she says. However, that view is not shared by everyone. The Minister said that everyone should know, it is in the press, et cetera, but that does not appear to be the case. I think the Minister is confident in the good news and she is in tandem with the courts, and therefore there is a message to get out. Without meaningful court reform, the ambitions of the Renters’ Rights Bill could be seriously undermined, and we all know and understand that. I will cut to the chase: I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 116 withdrawn.

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[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to support the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. There is nothing political about the stand that he is, and I am now, taking; it is a purely practical amendment. Indeed, in Committee, I tabled a great number of amendments to do with the start date of the provisions in the Bill. They were also not in any way political; they were purely administrative or practical.

As your Lordships know, in the Bill there are absolutely fundamental changes to the law of landlord and tenant. The short-term tenancy has gone, and it is being replaced by a periodic tenancy. There are a number of other features which we have gone through in detail, both in Committee and on Report, which are new and represent some massive change. The consequence of that is that everybody involved in the lettings of property —estate agents and the landlords—needs time to draw up entirely new tenancy agreements.

As it happens, I personally write all my tenancy agreements with each of my tenants, and I have to get down to this task of completely rewriting these tenancy agreements. Of course, I have the advantage of having participated in the Bill at Second Reading, in Committee and now on Report. I do not need the full three months for either new or existing tenancies, but I am sympathetic to others who are going to need more time. I ask my noble friend the Minister—not for any political reasons, but for purely practical reasons—would she consider giving more time, because there is a lot of work to be done? I think I can do it within the requisite time, but others may find it very difficult.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

To the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Hacking, I have to say that we do not want to do anything that would delay the Bill. We want its key statutes to be on the books as soon as possible. Being blunt, the key players who are talking about to buy-to-let mortgages have known that this is coming for a long time. They really should have been on it for months. If they have not, I am not quite sure what planet they have been on.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

Would the noble Baroness kindly help me when I have to write all these tenancy agreements? It takes time.

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[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I am hoping that some of the larger players will have ones that are off the shelf for the noble Lord to use. I am sure the Minister will be able to help out with that. Basically, we do not want to delay things any more. We genuinely believe that the trailing of the key planks of the Bill has been so public and so out there. But I say to the Minister that some definite timescales would be helpful.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, we think that the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is sensible and measured. The amendment provides for a minimum of three months’ notice before new tenancies are treated as Section 4A assured tenancies and a further three months before existing tenancies are reclassified in the same way. This introduces a clear and reasonable transitional period, giving landlords and tenants time to prepare for the significant legal and practical implications of these changes.

Crucially, it gives banks time too. As the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, noted, Amendment 122 is supported by UK Finance, including lenders such as Nationwide and Paragon. Banks need time to adjust. Any change to how a landlord can evict a tenant makes lenders more cautious about the security of their investments. These lenders will want to have seen it in writing before they start to make too many changes.

Additionally, lenders will need to reassess their understanding of rental income flows. Lenders will have to adjust their risk models, and potentially their loan terms, to accommodate the risks under the new regime, not only in relation to individual properties but with regard to the broader market stability. It is vital to understand how the regime affects overall demand in the rental market.

I take this opportunity to raise the specifics of buy-to-let mortgages. Flexibility in increasing rents in these cases is especially important and an area where sufficient time for adjustment will be needed. Lenders must evaluate the continued attractiveness of buy-to-let properties as collateral for loans.

Operational readiness matters too. Quite simply, new systems and processes will need to be adapted to the framework. Earlier today, we discussed systems such as the database and the pensions dashboard. Of course, many private companies are often more agile when responding to challenge and change, but even they need time.

This is a complex Bill, and I have said several times that its implementation will require careful communication and a phased approach. I see this amendment as a practical way of helping the Government ensure that no stakeholder is caught off guard by the shift to the assured tenancy regime.

I would welcome clarity from the Minister on the Government’s plans for commencement—so, I am sure, would landlords and tenants—and all stakeholders will need time.

Housing: National Tenant Body

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornhill]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for establishing a national tenant body, as recommended by the Housing Ombudsman.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, with strong landlord bodies in both the private and social rented sector, we agree that tenants should also have a strong voice in influencing and scrutinising social housing policy. The Government are committed to listening to tenants and acting on what we hear. The social housing resident panel was established in 2022 to give social housing tenants direct access to Ministers and officials during policy development. We expanded its scope in 2024 beyond its initial focus on quality reforms to all social housing policy. However, our engagement with tenants has shown that they want a national body that is tenant-led and independent of government and landlords. We will continue to work with tenant groups as they explore how best to establish a national tenant voice.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer and am pleased at the positive response. We could be forgiven for thinking that everything in the garden is rosy and it is all going well—hurrah!—so why did the ombudsman, the National Housing Federation, the Commons Select Committee and other prominent voices feel the need to advocate publicly, loudly and recently for such a body? Why do Ministers refuse to meet two nationally significant tenant groups, G15 and Stop Social Housing Stigma, claiming the “no diary availability” excuse? I would like to think that this is simply a communications failure. Does the Minister see a role for government in creating the independent national body that we all seem to want to see, yet nobody knows about it or how it is going to happen?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question and for championing this issue on behalf of tenants. I have met with G15; I went to its parliamentary session and had a look at its very good report on social housing stigma. I agree that we need to make sure that the tenant voice is heard. I have also met with the regulator of social housing twice, I think, since I took over the regulators. The social housing regulator is looking very carefully at how to increase the emphasis on the tenant voice. It is very important that this national body, whatever it is going to be, is tenant-led. I am happy to meet any tenant groups to move this forward. We all want to see tenants having a powerful voice in designing social housing policy.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak strongly in favour of Amendment 1. I declare my interests as I rent properties in Norwich and commercial properties in Great Yarmouth through a directorship.

We live in a free-market economy, which is underpinned by the law of contract, a codified agreement between consenting counterparties. Of course, we must have safeguards and regulatory guard-rails to ensure that one party does not hold the other over a barrel, but the freedom of contract so that mutual needs can be codified and agreed is a fundamental part of the way in which we live and is one of the reasons why we have so many learned friends in this place.

I want to give some examples, from my experience as a landlord, of the type of persons who value the ability to customise the standard contract to suit themselves by entering into a fixed term. It is not the majority, but it is a significant proportion that cannot just be wished away. They include: employees on a fixed-term employment contract engaged in a particular project; students, singly or more commonly in groups, who want to secure their ideal house in advance and are able to do so only if the current occupants are sure to vacate in the summer; the busy doctor, who gets passed around the hospitals each August; and the foreign person, who is used to the concept of fixed terms in their own country and cannot understand what business it is of the state to interfere in these private arrangements. Those tenants value contract certainty so that they can focus on their work and generate wealth for our nation.

I like this amendment because it gives an additional benefit to the tenant: not just the fixed tenancy but the fixed rent. That seems a fair compromise, not least because the landlord does not need to price uncertainty into the contract—the uncertainty of a void. As a landlord I value certainty, even at the expense of locking out rent rises, because if I know there will not be a void, I can give a better price and everybody wins. I cannot see what is wrong with that.

The Government boast a commitment to

“transform the experience of private renting”.

They are doing that all right; they are making it harder for a significant minority to meet their reasonable needs. There are so many unintended consequences—the noble Lords, Lord Hacking and Lord Truscott, mentioned some of them. For a moment I thought I was going to be on my own, but I am delighted to see that there is cross-party consensus on the importance of this amendment.

I too was thinking about the abuse in holiday hotspots, where it is common ground that we want to encourage year-round occupation of homes in these coastal areas—although not the second council tax that appears to be emerging alongside. I fear the unintended consequences of this Bill. Let us contemplate a tenancy in Cornwall, taking on in June. The proposed tenant says, “Yes, I’m going to stay for a whole year”, but in the event they leave just after the August bank holiday. The problem is that by giving two months’ notice, it is a clear abuse; and to counter that abuse, landlords will factor in the risk of the vacancy. So they will jack up rents, and the person who genuinely does want to stay for the whole year is disadvantaged. Of course, they may wish to show good faith by paying in advance, but that will be discarded as well. I just cannot see how this helps anyone.

I will talk about students in more detail later, but I am concerned that we are going to seriously disrupt the student market, not just for their convenience. Often in freshers’ week—I saw it in my own experience when I was younger—friendship groups get rammed together and pretty quickly decide they want to go into a house together, and why not? Halls do not suit anybody. The purpose of the fixed tenancy is the discipline that binds them all together. They are not related—at least not when they start; I have been in houses where that does happen—but you get a situation where one person may want to quit half way through, and it reverses the obligation. Rather than that person being forced to find another student to take his or her place, it becomes the obligation of all his former friends to undertake that core activity. The responsibility is flipped, and I do not think that is good either.

There are so many other things I could say, but this is a good amendment. It does not wreck the Bill but enhances it. It works with the grain of the way a significant minority of people, consenting adults, wish to conduct their affairs and come to a sensible contract for those it suits. I agree strongly with what the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, said. There are limits to where the state should interfere; it should allow free citizens to exercise the choices that they should be entitled to make. This amendment deserves our full support.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I listened almost with shock at what noble Lords were saying because I feel as if I am living in an alternate universe. They live in the cosy one—I smiled when the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, talked about him and his wife as landlords, and I can absolutely believe that his tenants loved him and enjoyed living with him. But sadly, that is not reality—it is not the situation. People say the Government have no right to interfere; if a Government have no right to interfere in making a roof over people’s heads—the basic issue of having a home—part of government business, please tell me what they can interfere in. Defence of the realm, yes, but ensuring that people can have a safe, secure, affordable home certainly has to be the business of government.

This Bill is scarily radical. I am often guilty of saying that the rhetoric does not match up to the reality, but the rhetoric around this Bill—the biggest changes since whenever, radically changing the system—is correct. The system is meant to be changed because it is broken. It is very brave and very bold. His Majesty’s Official Opposition probably think it is very stupid, which they are entitled to think because that is their job. The real issue around this Bill is that we are leaping into the unknown. We do not know what the impact will be. We have been told that Armageddon will happen; we will have to see. We and the Official Opposition do agree that there should be formal reviews in the Bill where its impact can be scrutinised in Parliament in full—because it is that radical.

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[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire. Anti-social behaviour is a scourge on our communities, but it is particularly devastating from a housing perspective. It undermines community spirit, leaving tenants feeling trapped and helpless. It strips away the very essence of what makes a house a home. Too often we overlook the consequences. It is not just the cost of repairs, increased security and time-consuming administration of complaints, placing an unsustainable burden on housing associations and local authorities, but the misery and social breakdown it can cause in communities. As currently drafted, the Bill weakens the powers available to local authorities and social landlords to tackle anti-social behaviour. That is why we have sought to bring back Amendment 3 today to preserve the ability of social landlords to demote tenancies in response to such behaviour.

Demotion is not about punishment for its own sake. It is a vital tool—a proportionate deterrent that enables landlords to uphold community stability. Whether it is loud noise, vandalism or intimidation of tenants, those engaging in persistent anti-social behaviour must know there are consequences. Without the option to demote, how are landlords expected to maintain safety and harmony in their communities? Those with experience in local government will know that when a tenant causes disruption, it is often the landlord who receives the enforcement pressure from the council. If landlords are to be held to account, they must also be empowered to act. Amendment 3 would ensure that social landlords retain this power. It is not a radical departure but a practical necessity to deal with real-world situations where one tenant’s behaviour causes misery to many others.

This is about protecting the quiet minority—the families, the elderly and the vulnerable who rely on their home being a place of safety. It is about ensuring that social landlords are not left powerless in the face of persistent disruption. I urge the Government to reflect on the value of demotion as a tool of last resort and the message it sends that anti-social behaviour has consequences and that community cohesion matters. In conclusion, if we are serious about supporting tenants and local authorities, we must ensure they have the tools to act decisively and fairly. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, we say ditto to every single thing that the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, said about anti-social behaviour. We all know it blights people’s lives and how difficult it is to stem it. We have arrangements where councils work with their local strategic partnerships to deal with it. Nobody is disputing that.

The reason we have come to the conclusion that demoted tenancies are not needed is really very simple. I contacted the National Housing Federation, whose members are social housing providers. It genuinely does not see a need. It is comfortable enough with the Bill and how it deals with anti-social behaviour. It wants to know that it has effective tools to deal with anti-social behaviour and is concerned about the capacity of the courts to deal with evictions based on anti-social behaviour.

My instinct straightaway was to support the amendment on demoted tenancies, but the National Housing Federation said it did not see the point of it but did want to know that it was going to get the tools to deal with things. Many providers, ones I know personally, feel that they deal effectively with anti-social behaviour, including my own council and I suspect the Minister’s. They were concerned about having those tools and the capacity of the courts to deal with that ground when they choose to use it.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for this amendment. It seeks to reintroduce social landlords’ ability to apply for a demotion order in response to the anti-social behaviour of a tenant. I can honestly say that one of the most frustrating things I dealt with in 27 years as a councillor was anti-social behaviour. While we all agree with the need for tackling the blight of anti-social behaviour on individuals and communities as a priority, I cannot accept the amendment as a way of dealing with that. It would fundamentally go against one of the core principles of the Renters’ Rights Bill—to improve security of tenure for renters. There is also a technical reason, which I shall come to shortly.

The amendment would seemingly enable landlords to demote social tenants to a less secure form of tenancy. As I said in Committee, as drafted, the amendment would not work: the Renters’ Rights Bill will move tenants to a simpler tenancy structure whereby assured shorthold tenancies and the ability to evict a shorthold tenant via Section 21 are abolished. There will, therefore, no longer be a tenancy with lower security to which one can demote tenants. For the amendment to work, a reversal of measures in the Bill to remove demoted tenancies and assured shorthold tenancies would be required.

Tackling anti-social behaviour is a top priority for our Government and a key part of our safer streets mission. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, many councils and housing associations already do a great job in tackling this in partnership with each other, but I accept that it can still be an issue.

The Bill will shorten the notice period for the existing mandatory eviction ground, with landlords being able to make a claim to the court immediately in cases of anti-social behaviour. The Bill also amends the matters that judges must consider when deciding whether to award possession under that discretionary ground. This will ensure that judges give particular regard to whether tenants have engaged with efforts to resolve their behaviour and the impact on other tenants within HMOs.

For all those reasons, we feel that the amendment is unworkable and unnecessary, and ask the noble Lord to withdraw it.

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[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 22 from the noble Earl, Lord Leicester. I declare my direct interests in the private rented sector, with lettings of cottages in Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire, and in direct farming and agricultural lettings in those counties. I said in Committee that a number of Bills, reviews and reports are in motion that cover the whole issue of farm and other diversification in rural areas, which the Government are keen to encourage in the light of falling profitability in farming, as subsidies are withdrawn or concentrated on environmental activities and concerns.

Farmers are therefore looking carefully at their assets to see whether they can be put to a more profitable use. Obviously, this can involve farmstead cottages and buildings, rather than just stand-alone farm buildings. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is relevant in this context, together with the rural England prosperity fund, which specifically targets facilities and building conversions that help rural businesses to diversify.

This amendment would assist in enabling diversification if the necessary planning permission has been granted or there is a permitted development right. I am thoroughly aware that the Minister is keen to protect all assured tenants from eviction for whatever reason, and keen not to reduce the housing stock. However, in granting that planning permission, the authorities will already have given due consideration to the potential conversion and any loss of residential buildings through change of use. They will have agreed that the merits of the planned development outweigh the retention of the residents. I therefore hope the Minister will include this new ground 8A amendment as a sensible ground for possession, which would assist in the development of the rural economy.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I will mainly speak to Amendments 4 and 21. It is fairly obvious that we will support Amendment 21 from the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford.

We have a problem with Amendment 4—or we did to start with, but then I took legal advice. The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asserted that we needed clarity and consistency across the Bill. I suspect we have more lawyers than any other profession in this House, and guess what: I got slightly different answers. However, the message was quite consistent: we absolutely do not need to have the same definition of family, in this case, across a whole Bill because we are dealing with very specific, different things.

My understanding is—and I am certain that the Minister will correct me if I have this slightly wrong—that the amendment to ground 1 deals with the diversity of the modern family and the kind of things that can happen, but it is about the repossession ground, so it has been drawn fairly tightly for obvious reasons. However, the definition in Clause 20 is clearly broader because it relates to the removal of the guarantor liability for rent after a family member in a joint tenancy dies. It is a sympathetic amendment and a sympathetic broadening, casting the net a little bit more widely, as it seeks to protect bereaved families, whereas we necessarily want to keep the definition in ground 1 fairly tight to avoid abuse. We have resolved our position on that, so we will not support Amendment 4.

I want to hear what the Minister has to say on Amendments 22 and 23, because I believe there are grounds to do what they would do already in the Bill. I am genuinely interested to hear the Minister’s response to those amendments.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, the noble Lords, Lord de Clifford and Lord Jamieson, and the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, for their amendments, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Thornhill, and the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Carrington, for their contributions to the debate.

Amendment 4 seeks to expand the definition of “family member” for the purpose of the moving-in ground, ground 1, to a much wider range of relations. This mandatory possession ground is available if the landlord or their close family member wishes to move into a property. This amendment would allow landlords to evict their tenants in order to house nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles or cousins. It would enable the ground to be used to house the equivalent relatives of their spouse, civil partner or cohabitee. The family members we have chosen who can move in under ground 1 aim to reflect the diversity of modern families, but this is balanced with security of tenure for the existing tenant, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, indicated.

I appreciate that this draws the line short of where some might hope, but to go too far would open up tenants to evictions for a wide range of people, potentially very significant numbers of cousins, nieces and nephews, where families are large. I know that this depends on families—it would certainly be a large number in my family. This would provide more opportunities for ill-intentioned landlords to abuse the system. It is right that the definition used here is narrower than the definition in Clause 20, which removes guarantor liability for rent after a family member in a joint tenancy dies. That is because this is a possession ground, so it results in people losing their homes; whereas Clause 20 protects bereaved families, where the net should be cast more widely.

Amendment 21 aims to introduce a new ground for possession that would permit the landlord to seek possession of their property for the purpose of housing a carer for them or a member of their family who lives with them. This is qualified by the requirement that the property is within sufficient proximity to the landlord’s residence to facilitate emergency callouts. I thank all noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, for their considered and passionate engagement on this proposed ground in Committee and when I met Peers to discuss the proposal in the run-up to Report. I recognise the difficulties they highlighted that may be faced by landlords who wish to evict their tenant in order to house a carer. We are all aware of the importance of carers and the remarkable work they do in supporting individuals and families in difficult circumstances. These amendments clearly come from a good place, and I am sympathetic to noble Lords’ concerns.

However, there are some practical considerations that weaken the rationale for this intervention. Adding more possession grounds increases opportunities for abuse by those unscrupulous landlords who, sadly, exist in the market. We are committed to giving renters much greater security and stability so that they can stay in their homes for longer. That is why we have developed very specific grounds. We also think that there are very few landlords who would be in the position of both needing a carer and owning a second property close to their home to accommodate that carer. I appreciate the examples that both noble Baronesses gave. Given the potential risk of abuse and the very narrow group of people who might benefit from this ground, we do not think the additional ground is warranted. Our view is that it is not fair that a tenant should lose their home, with all the disruption that entails, in order for another person to be housed in those circumstances.

The noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, talked about supporting people into work, but this amendment might involve another local worker being evicted to house that carer. Indeed, if the evicted tenant were also a carer, it would be likely to deprive one of the very organisations that have been contacting noble Lords of a key member of their staff, so we have to be careful that we do not cause those kinds of circumstances.

Amendment 22 seeks to create a new ground for possession to enable landlords to convert a residential property to non-residential use. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, that I too visited the King’s Cross development when I was looking at the development of the central part of Stevenage. The work that has been done there is fantastic.

As I stated in Committee, in response to a similar amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, I do not believe that the proposal in Amendment 22 is the right approach. The Government have thought carefully about where landlords should be able to take possession of their properties, particularly where it would lead to a tenant losing their home through no fault of their own.

Encouraging residential lets to be converted to other uses, at a time of such chronic pressure on housing supply, would not be right. It is for the same reason that the Bill abolishes ground 3, which enables landlords to evict long-term tenants in order to turn the dwelling into a holiday let. Where landlords wish to convert their property to non-residential use, it is right that they should do this as tenants move out, rather than by evicting a tenant who has done nothing wrong.

It is also worth noting—as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, referred to—that the existing redevelopment ground, ground 6, could potentially be used in some circumstances. This is the right approach, not the approach put forward in the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Leicester.

I turn to Amendment 23. This well-intentioned amendment would create a new mandatory possession ground to allow landlords to evict tenants in order to redevelop their property, if they have received planning permission for the works and these works cannot be carried out with the tenant in situ. I am pleased to be able to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, that landlords will already be able to evict in these circumstances. They can do this by using the existing, broader mandatory redevelopment ground, ground 6. This also does not require the landlord to prove that they have planning permission, which may not be necessary in all circumstances. In effect, this proposed new ground would merely duplicate ground 6, but with additional constraints. For the reasons I have set out, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 20 in this group and declare an interest as a former landlord. Amendment 20 was tabled in Committee, but I have retabled it because I do not feel I have had an adequate answer from the Government. The amendment would continue to permit rent arrears which arise from non-payment of universal credit to be taken into account as a ground for possession. Not to do so is unworkable and unfair.

Taking unworkable first, since this is the point which must surely concern the Minister, I suggest that it is unworkable because, unlike in the social sector, private landlords are not allowed to know, under data protection rules, whether a tenant is in receipt of universal credit. The Department for Work and Pensions is not allowed to tell them. As such, the landlord will have no idea whether rent arrears are due to a non-payment of universal credit and, unbeknownst to them, will be legally prevented from taking enforcement action. A landlord might discover that rent arrears were due to a delayed universal credit payment and therefore unenforceable only once the case reaches court, thereby piling yet further quite unnecessary pressure on the justice system. This creates significant uncertainty and risk for responsible landlords, particularly smaller landlords. Disregarding non-payment of universal credit is therefore completely unworkable. It will lead to unnecessary enforcement action, which is surely the last thing this new system needs.

Turning to why it is unfair, I ask why the landlord should be penalised if the non-payment of universal credit is the fault of the universal credit system breaking down in some way. This is especially problematic for landlords renting out just one or two properties who rely on timely payments to meet their own financial obligations. If the Government are serious about sustaining tenancies, then addressing the root causes of delayed benefit payments would be more effective. In other words, protecting tenants from administrative delays should be the job of the welfare system, not landlords. Otherwise, the upshot could well be that landlords will be much more cautious about taking on tenants on universal credit. Is that what Ministers really want?

In response to this amendment in Committee, the Minister told your Lordships on 24 April:

“It is important that tenancies that are otherwise financially sustainable should continue, with tenants protected from one-off financial shocks. For example, it is feasible that a tenant who lost their job and had to apply for universal credit could breach the arrears threshold while waiting for their first payment. Evicting that tenant and potentially making them homeless would not help the situation, whereas giving them chances to resolve the arrears would ensure that the tenancy could continue, benefiting both them and the landlord and ensuring that the landlord was able to claim the arrears once the payments were made”.—[Official Report, 24/4/25; col. 842.]


With great respect to the Minister, I cannot help feeling that this is slightly naive. Is it really of benefit to a landlord to ensure that the tenancy continues when a tenant has accrued three months’ worth of arrears and, in the process, may have seriously damaged the landlord’s financial position—for example, in being unable to support their family or unable to pay the mortgage and forced to take enforcement action? Why should landlords be penalised for the state’s failure to pay universal credit promptly?

Paragraph 24(d) of Schedule 1 should therefore be omitted. It is unworkable and unfair. If, however, the Minister continues to think that paragraph 24(d) is fair on landlords, can she at least give some assurance that they will have a way—notwithstanding the data protection rules—of finding out whether rent arrears are due to delays in payment of universal credit, so as to avoid clogging up the tribunal system with unenforceable claims?

I can help the noble Baroness here, because Section 16 of the Data Protection Act—a Henry VIII power, in fact—enables the Act to be amended so that the list of exemptions in Schedule 2 to that Act is expanded. It could be amended in that way by regulations to enable the landlord to know whether rent arrears are due to delays in universal credit. This would not deal with the fairness points I have made but would deal with the unworkability points. If the Minister were able to give the assurance that the tribunal system will not be clogged up with unenforceable claims, I would not press my amendment.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, much of what we have been debating is about balance. We have heard that word a lot today, and I guess it is fairly obvious to noble Lords by now that when it comes to a balance, we come down in favour of the tenant. We believe the balance has been tilted very much the other way from time immemorial due to the complete lack of supply, the lack of social housing and the beauty parade whereby landlords can choose whom they want to let their properties to.

We feel that the Bill intentionally aims to give tenants more time to address their financial difficulties and therefore avoid eviction. We believe that is the right and the moral thing to do because of the additional cost to society of more homeless and evicted people and more costs to local authorities; it is a nasty, invidious vicious circle. But we do not totally have rose-coloured specs on: we seek reassurances from the Minister that landlords have robust grounds for possession, when necessary, when it comes to arrears. We all know that arrears are painful for landlords, especially if they still have a mortgage, but the good news is that most of them do not. In the situation that the noble Baroness outlined of a couple having one or two houses to rent for their pension—generally properties that were inherited from their parents that they decided to rent out—almost half of landlords do not have a mortgage, and a further 20-something per cent have only small mortgages. More than 70% of landlords are not in a dire financial situation and, as someone rather flamboyantly said, needing to feed their families. I see no evidence of that.