Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Carrington and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for his amendment and for his engagement generally on the Bill. Subsequent to our meeting earlier this week, I had a detailed response prepared for the noble Lord on Clause 145. Unfortunately, it arrived in my inbox just as I was coming into the Chamber this afternoon. It probably has not reached him yet, but that is on its way to him.

On Amendment 122, the Government are committed to introducing the new tenancy system for the private rented sector in one stage to bring to an end Section 21 no-fault evictions as soon as possible. These evictions cause utter misery for the tenants on the other end of them and a huge amount of cost to local government in picking up the pieces when people get evicted at very short notice. A single implementation date for both new and existing tenancies will enable all tenants to benefit from the reforms as soon as possible and prevent a confusing two-tier system during transition.

We are continuing to work very closely with stakeholders. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, referred to meetings between my honourable friend the Minister for Housing and financial institutions. He has also met with many landlords’ associations and other stakeholders to ensure that the sector is prepared for the reforms in the Bill. I want to be very clear that we are committed to providing sufficient notice to ensure that all parts of the private rented sector have time to prepare. Implementation will not be immediate, as we have secondary legislation to pass. We are making good progress on drafting that and the necessary guidance that goes alongside it. All this will help us to implement in a timely manner.

In addition, the Bill makes specific provision to ensure a smooth transition to the new system and avoid unnecessary cliff edges. For example, the Bill will ensure that notices served by landlords before the commencement date remain valid after that date. Based on our ongoing work to ensure a smooth transition to the new system, we consider that there will be no benefit to requiring arbitrary minimum time periods after Royal Assent before the tenancy reform measures in the Bill can come into force.

With these reassurances that we are committed to a smooth and responsible approach to implementing the Bill, I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for her engagement with me, although the letter has not arrived yet. I am in a position of enormous power now, in the sense that this is the very last amendment and I am keeping noble Lords from their drinks and everything else. I am very pleased that the Minister has now reassured me that the cliff edge will not happen just like that as far as financial institutions are concerned, and that there will be time for preparation.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, for his support and his emphasis on the fact that this was not a political amendment but a practical one. I wish him great success in the work he does with his tenants. Happily, I have someone to help me.

Having thanked everybody for their kind engagement and sometime support, I have pleasure in withdrawing the amendment.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Carrington and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for the amendments and for the meeting we had yesterday, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for his comments on this set of amendments. Amendment 28 works together with Amendments 29, 37 and 38 to insert a new ground for possession, numbered 2ZZA. This proposed ground for possession is well intentioned but, in the Government’s view, unnecessary. It seeks to replicate ground 2ZA with a notice period of two months rather than four in the limited circumstances where agricultural landlords have been given short notice to vacate of three months or less by their superior landlord. Ground 2ZA already covers these circumstances and allows superior landlords and courts to treat a notice given under ground 2ZA as valid even after the intermediate landlord is no longer legally involved once their lease has ended, thus providing the affected tenant with the same protection.

Amendment 28 specifically seeks to ensure that the proposed ground has two months’ notice. This goes against the general principle of the Bill that tenants should generally be given four months’ notice to uproot their lives in circumstances where they have not committed any wrongdoing. We do not believe that a tenant’s security of tenure should be undermined due to the actions of a superior landlord and encourage communication between all parties, where a superior landlord’s notice to the intermediate landlord is shorter. By creating ground 2ZZA with a shorter notice period for circumstances where the intermediate agricultural landlord has themself been given short notice by their superior landlord, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is seeking to ensure that the superior landlord is not left managing the subtenancy.

Amendment 29 adds ground 2ZZA to the list, in subsection 4(3)(f) of the Bill, in which a notice given by an intermediate landlord can be treated as a notice given by a superior landlord once the intermediate tenancy has ended. As superior landlords will already be able to evict tenants under a notice given by an intermediate landlord, we do not think the noble Lord’s proposed ground 2ZZA is required.

Amendment 37 is an amendment specifically to ground 2ZA, disapplying it in the circumstances in which the noble Lord wishes ground 2ZZA to apply. Further to what I have already said, this highlights the redundancy of the proposed ground 2ZZA. Clearly, ground 2ZA would apply already, to the point that it needs to be disapplied to make proposed ground 2ZZA work. I am sorry—I hope everyone is following this.

Amendment 38 inserts the proposed ground into Schedule 1 to the Bill. For all the reasons I have already highlighted, in our view the amendment is not required. As such, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

I thank the Minister for her extremely clear description of this amendment and why it might not work. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, very much for his own contribution. Everyone is probably now completely befuddled by the whole thing. I will not take up any more of your Lordships’ time, and I certainly will withdraw the amendment. However, we will be looking further at the legal implications of this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Presumably there would be a time lag anyway because of the notice period that is required. Whatever arrangements are made in those circumstances would need to be used in the circumstances that the noble Baroness describes.

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

I just add that there may not be a notice period if there has been an accident.

I thank all the noble Lords who have contributed to the debate, particularly the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott and Lady Grender. I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has to say before Report.

There are two themes to these amendments. The first is the change in farming employment practices, and these amendments are designed to cater for that. The second theme is farm diversification, which this Government are keen, quite rightly, to encourage. As we all know, diversification ought to lead to growth and growth ought to lead to more housing, as there will be more wealth. I think the Government should, if possible, broaden the way that they look at these two amendments.

The Minister mentioned that the proposals that have been put forward are open to abuse. I say only that the abuse would be by a very small number of people, whom one could probably deal with in a different way. Airbnb and licensing are solutions for certain types of contractors or employees who are brought in for a limited period, but are certainly not suitable for the longer term. It is not in any landowner’s interests to get rid of a tenant who is paying a decent rent in order to put in an employee who is not paying a rent, unless he really has to, so I do not think that abuse is really an issue.

However, I see that we need to look at the definitions very carefully and I am happy to sit down again to try to come up with some definitions of who should qualify for this. That said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, once again I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for his amendment which would create a new ground for possession, and thank the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, and the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley of Knighton and Lord Jamieson, for their contributions to this debate. This ground would enable a landlord to seek possession of a tenanted property in order to re-let the property to a person to whom they have a lifetime duty under the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976 or the Housing Act 1988.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for his collaborative engagement on this matter and for helping me through his reasoning for the amendment, both in our meeting and his clear explanation in this Chamber. However, our position towards this amendment remains the same. It would go against the general principle of increasing security of tenure for assured tenants that is consistent throughout the Bill.

We do not agree that there is a compelling reason that this particular group of agricultural tenants need to be housed in specific dwellings at the expense of existing assured tenants. Where a landlord has a statutory duty to house an agricultural tenant or their successor, in many cases landlords will be able to move tenants as and when suitable properties become available. Landlords can also use the existing discretionary suitable alternative accommodation ground 9, which the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, mentioned, to move an assured tenant to another property if needed.

The noble Earl, Lord Leicester, referred to the issue of underoccupation, which all landlords face. I certainly faced it as a social landlord when I was a council leader; it is not unique to farming. The idea that mandatory eviction is the answer to this, rather than incentivising people to move on from underoccupied properties, would be a completely new area of legislation to be considered and would be out of scope of this Bill.

The new ground would mean that an existing assured tenant could be evicted through no fault of their own, simply moving the problem around and creating insecurity for tenants. As the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said, this is similar to the issue we discussed on Tuesday in relation to retired clergy. I understand the distinction that the noble Lord made in relation to the statutory duty, but it is not for a specific property. The issue of just moving the problem around is the same. As such, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

I thank everyone who has contributed, particularly the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, my noble friend Lord Berkeley of Knighton and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson.

I think we must agree to disagree on this. The Minister, quite rightly, is trying to uphold the essence of the Bill, which is security of tenure for assured tenants, and does not appear to be able to consider the fact that some properties should have a sticker on them saying “prior notice could be given for the occupation of this property”. I think that would be a sensible solution because there are two big things that this Bill does not take account of—no doubt among others.

First, the rural economy is very different from the urban economy. We do not have the housing that is available in the urban economy, and we are going through a revolution in terms of farming. Secondly, and I keep emphasising this, the farmer or landowner has a statutory duty. That was put firmly in an Act passed, I believe, under a Labour Government: the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976. I urge the Government to consider this again, but in the meantime, I withdraw the amendment.