Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley of Knighton and Earl of Leicester

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, on Amendment 65. I take this opportunity to apologise that, sadly, I was not able to attend the first day of Committee on Tuesday, when, had I been able to, I would have supported the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester in his Amendment 62, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, noted, is reasonably similar to this.

I shall embellish what the noble Lord has said clearly with two examples. One example is a house that has been lived in by a protected tenant family but, 30 or 40 years on—that is the reality of protected tenancies—the house might need serious refurbishment, which after 35 years may cost north of £100,000 to comply with EPC or MEES, and will take nine or more months to complete; and the need to find a house to put said old and retired couple in more suitable accommodation while retaining their protected tenancy status. That accommodation might be an almshouse or a bungalow.

The second example is a protected tenant family that may have been a large family, with three or four children back in the day, occupying a four-bedroom house. The children have married or moved away. The father is deceased and the widow is knocking around in a large four-bedroom house that is expensive to heat and manage; perhaps it has a dangerous old staircase, with a bathroom downstairs and the bedrooms upstairs. One has to think about this, because that is denying a large house to a young, growing family who may themselves be in a two-bedroom flat or house. A simple solution—which, again, would come through negotiation, but I am sure would be welcomed by a widow—would be a house swap, with the widow retaining her protected tenancy. That would mean evicting the small, growing family, but offering them the opportunity to move into a larger house.

There are quite a few examples in the rural tenanted sector—and, I suspect, in the urban sector—where families have stayed in houses for many years, but then the family, having grown for 20-odd years, starts reducing in size but they remain in a big house. So it is important that protected tenants can be housed in smaller houses and that the tenants of those smaller houses are moved out, to allow the churn of housing as families grow and then reduce in size.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for speaking prematurely. I speak as someone—I should declare this interest—who has a small farm, as I said earlier, which is very small in comparison with those of some of the noble Lords who have spoken. However, I have seen at first hand some of the problems that have been described. In particular, I remember one old lady who carried on in a house where she simply was not able to manage the property and its upkeep. What I think the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Lord opposite are suggesting would help to avoid very painful, costly legal cases where people have to try and get somebody out, which causes enormous bad feeling and cost.

I am in favour of this amendment and would have been in favour of previous ones because I think in farming at the moment the difficulties that landlords face are so immense—I will not go through them all now—that the ability to keep a farm going, which is the interests of tenants and future tenants, is prejudiced if they cannot get back suitable accommodation. I completely understand the desire, which I am sure the Government have, to offer security to tenants. In fact, that is an extremely important part of the fabric of our society, but we have moved on in some ways and what has happened in farming and what I have observed around me in mid-Wales is that there is a need to be able to get back certain properties to bring in younger people to farm.

I broadly support these amendments and suggest to the Government, with great respect, that if there is any way that they can move to accommodate them, I would very much support them.