Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 104 in my name in this group and, in doing so, I declare my interest as a trustee of the Nationwide Foundation. First, I thank my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage for the excellent meeting we had, together with the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and renter groups Safer Renting, ACORN and the Renters’ Reform Coalition. I also thank my noble friend for the subsequent letter she sent, responding to the points raised at the meeting and for the additional conversations that I understand have taken place between Safer Renting and her officials.

Amendment 104 seeks to change the standard of proof required for rent repayment orders, based on offences under the Protection from Eviction Act. Currently, tenants must prove their case to a criminal standard, beyond reasonable doubt, even though these are civil proceedings in a civil tribunal. This change would make rent repayment orders a realistic option for renters who are victims of illegal eviction and harassment—serious offences that cause immense harm. As we know, most illegal evictions and harassment occur behind closed doors, without witnesses, and I appreciate that my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage recognises that these offences are harder to prove than other rent repayment order offences. The available evidence rarely meets the criminal standard, but may clearly satisfy the civil standard of balance of probabilities.

Civil claims for illegal eviction and harassment already use the civil standard and can carry far higher penalties. The definition of the civil wrongs of illegal eviction and harassment in the Housing Act 1988 uses the same definition as in the Protection from Eviction Act. For all intents and purposes, there is no distinction between the conduct targeted by both laws. Aligning the standard in rent repayment cases would bring consistency, fairness and a real access to redress.

The problem is clear. Research shows that at least 16,000 illegal evictions occurred in 2021-22, yet there were only 31 successful rent repayment orders made for those offences. This shows that the current system deters valid claims and does not provide a realistic route to redress for renters. It is vital that tenants can enforce their rights against criminal landlords. Yes, it is a small minority of landlords, but they are criminal landlords whose impact on renters’ lives, health and well-being is immense. As we heard in Committee, because the rent repayment mechanism is ineffective, these criminals gamble on breaking the law, knowing how hard it is for tenants to prove their case. Amendment 104 would make justice more attainable for renters and allow them to take a leading role in holding landlords to account.

I note from my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage’s letter on this issue—copied to me and the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell—that the Government are minded not to change their view on the standard of proof at this point. Of course, this is disappointing. However, I very much appreciate my noble friend’s acknowledgement that rent repayment orders are not currently working as well as they should for illegal eviction and harassment offences. As well as my noble friend’s commitment to monitor the impact of changes to rent repayment orders, this is very welcome. Collecting the right data will be required to assess whether rent repayment orders are working as intended in cases of illegal eviction and harassment after this Bill becomes law.

Moreover, I very much welcome my noble friend’s commitment to continue to work with noble Lords and stakeholders to assess whether rent repayment orders are working for illegal eviction and harassment offences, with a view for potential changes down the line. I ask my noble friend: can we now start gathering the evidence needed to assess the scale and impact of the problem? In addition to the report as set out by the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Best—I very much support Amendment 113—will my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage consider publishing PRS enforcement data, provided by local authorities, to include a record of the number of reports of suspected illegal eviction or harassment received by the authority, so we can get a better understanding of the scale of the problem? Will she consider mandating local authorities to provide the department with PRS enforcement data, instead of data reporting being voluntary, so again we can get a more complete dataset? Will she work with the Ministry of Justice to collect and publish regular data on rent repayment orders to facilitate monitoring of the system in respect of the volume and success of applications alleging illegal eviction and harassment?

Finally, as well as the issues renters face accessing redress through rent repayment orders, since 2012 there has been an 80% reduction in legal aid applications for bringing cases of illegal eviction and harassment in the civil courts. Therefore, if at all possible, could my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage assist me, Safer Renting and other noble Lords in getting a meeting with a Minister or an official at the MoJ to discuss the availability of legal aid for civil cases involving illegal eviction and harassment?

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. I have also enjoyed my encounters with the Minister, with her, to discuss these issues. I rise to speak to Amendment 110 in my name. I am very grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Best, who have added their names. Between them, they bring unsurpassed knowledge of both policing and housing matters, which are both very relevant to this amendment. I am also grateful to the organisations Safer Renting and ACORN for their assistance in highlighting the need for this amendment, and of course to the Bill Office for its clear and effective drafting.

This amendment is distinct from others in this group, as it does not deal with standards of proof. Rather, as I outlined at Second Reading and in Committee, it addresses the difficulties faced by those at the bottom end of the rental market and most at risk from abusive landlords. It is these people, the economically and socially vulnerable, who are the most likely to face illegal and sometimes forcible evictions. They are often also the least equipped to resist such behaviours.

A core problem that emerged in discussions with tenant organisations at the sharp end is insufficient clarity of understanding about what the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 requires of the police. There is a widespread and incorrect belief among police officers that illegal evictions are civil matters. This has resulted in a tiny number of prosecutions for illegal evictions. Indeed, statistics show that the police have not acted in 91% of cases.

I do not want to stretch the House’s patience with detailed case studies, but three quick examples will give colour to the types of incidents we are concerned about. A tenant returned to their flat to find that the landlord had changed the locks. When the police were contacted, they threatened to arrest the tenant for obstruction of the landlord and assisted in the removal of the tenant’s belongings. In other cases, landlords used tactics such as intimidation and turning off the water supply, as well as threatening and actually using force. When tenants called the police, they were told that it was a civil matter and to call back when an actual crime was being committed. In other cases, tenants went to the police station, but were turned away repeatedly on the basis that such evictions are a civil matter.

In Committee, I put down an amendment to clear up this misunderstanding of the law and improve co-ordination between the police and local authorities. It did not gain government support, which I find very disappointing, not least given the Bill’s avowed focus on those most in need of help. The Government’s response did address the co-ordination point, citing extra work for the authorities and police, and the instance of Liverpool, where the Minister has personal experience of such co-ordination working well.

Tenant bodies involved in the issues reflected in my amendment met with the Minister, and afterwards I received a copy of a letter from the Minister to them. I am, of course, very grateful for the Minister’s considerable engagement, but that letter does not address the role of the police in preventing or stopping illegal evictions before or as they happen. Where it does refer to the substance of today’s amendment, it says that the abolition of Section 21 will

“strengthen the tenants’ ability to argue that they were unlawfully forced out of their homes”.

With the greatest respect, that is very wide of the issue. It is a point for legal argument that may come up if the evicted tenant ever manages, or indeed dares, or can afford, to bring a legal claim against the landlord who put them out on the street. I remind noble Lords that we are dealing here with landlords who care little for the niceties of the law—people whom the Minister’s letter refers to as a

“small minority of unscrupulous landlords”.

But we have repeatedly been told that the purpose of the Bill is exactly to tackle these unscrupulous landlords.

This amendment has dropped reference to local authorities and focuses fully on the core legal issue. It requires a report to establish the level of understanding among tenants, landlords and the police of the criminal nature of illegal evictions and clarification of the correct legal situation, and the incorporation of that legal position and how it should be dealt with in the training of the police.

This is a modest amendment, but it is critical for those facing or experiencing illegal evictions or who feel powerless in the face of the violent actions of their landlords and find that the police seem to be against them when they should be protecting them. Not least, it is critical for police officers themselves, who are trying to follow and apply the law and do the right thing.

In Committee, I asked the Government to bring forward their own amendment to address this issue. They have chosen not to do so, instead writing to say that they are

“working towards updating the department’s guidance”.

That is simply not sufficient when we have one of the few opportunities in the Bill to address a real and terrible day-to-day experience of vulnerable renters. On this modest amendment, I believe we should stand firm. Its requirements are clear, deliverable and highly impactful on those most in need of our help through the Bill. I will, of course, listen to what the Minister says in response, but I anticipate seeking the view of the House on this amendment.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 87, 88 and 103, which I have signed. I add my thanks to the Minister, who has engaged with me on these amendments, among others in the Bill. She has always been courteous and has had good points of view.

These amendments were originally drafted by the late noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton. To double-shot Lord Etherton’s efforts in this area, I signed them in Committee. The amendments have been taken over and very ably introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie.

Lord Etherton viewed this selection of amendments as being his effort to try to manage a quasi-judicial process. He was looking at it, of course, with a very practised eye, having been the Master of the Rolls. He was fully knowledgeable on the various large civil penalties that are in the Housing and Planning Act 2016, for which the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government issued a 20-page memorandum to help local authorities through this particular maze of quasi-judicial process.

The problem, as Lord Etherton saw it, was that this was not a level playing field for local authorities. The best local authorities would have plenty of highly trained resources to look into a quasi-judicial matter with great fairness, and promptly—promptness being important for both sides of any argument. However, the local authorities whose resources were most stretched or at the bottom end of the quality scale would produce problems. Lord Etherton felt that it was important to set the law in this area so that it would be not for the best or the average local authority but at a reasonably modest rate, so that every local authority could execute, with fairness, whatever quasi-judicial issues they were dealing with. Therefore, with Amendments 87 and 88, he was keen that the standard of proof should move from the balance of probabilities to beyond reasonable doubt. He felt that was more in keeping with how the Housing and Planning Act 2016 had turned out.

Moving on to Amendment 103, Lord Etherton noted that there were some large penalties in that Act, the highest penalty being £30,000. The £40,000 penalties we see in this Bill are, I suppose, simply £30,000 grossed up for inflation. He was not worried necessarily about £40,000 as an amount—it was consistent with the £30,000, as he saw it—but he was worried that, under the Housing and Planning Act 2016, the £30,000 penalties were available only where the mental element was intention and not for offences where the mental element was recklessness.

Of course, there is a great difficulty in the law for deciding what the difference is between negligence, recklessness and intention. It is very much something on which, in the judicial process, a great deal of training is given to try to allow courts and judges to be utterly consistent up and down the land so that one has clarity for negligence, recklessness and intention. Lord Etherton’s feeling was that recklessness is very difficult. The 20-page memo for the Housing and Planning Act 2016 will be considerably longer if one is going to try to educate local authorities on what “recklessness” truly means. So he was very keen to remove recklessness from Clause 93. I would be very grateful if I could hear where the Minister feels Lord Etherton was wrong in his analysis on that point.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for their amendments. Amendments 89, 92 and 101 would reduce the maximum civil penalties for offences in relation to illegal evictions—

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I thank the Minister for thanking me, but I have not spoken to this amendment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I think somebody must have assumed that the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, was going to speak. I apologise for that.

For these reforms to be effective, they must be enforced robustly and fairly. Our approach to civil penalties is fundamental to this. Landlords who commit first-time and minor non-compliance will be subject to civil penalties of up to £7,000. However, for serious and repeat non-compliance, landlords will be subject to civil penalties of up to £40,000. The principle that local authorities can impose civil penalties for housing offences is well established. Since they were introduced in 2017, civil penalties have proved an effective enforcement tool. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. I do not think we have any need to question the professionalism of local authorities in dealing with these matters. They are more than well versed in exercising legal duties and have legal professionals to support them.

It is important to emphasise that £40,000 will be the maximum, not the norm. Local authorities will need to have a clear rationale for why they have set a civil penalty at a certain level and apply aggravating and mitigating factors. Penalties of up to £40,000 will be available only in respect of landlords who have committed serious or repeat non-compliance. Initial failure to sign up to the database, for example, will carry a penalty of only up to £7,000. However, local authorities will be able to impose a penalty of up to £40,000 if the landlord continues or repeats this conduct after being given an initial, lower penalty.

When considering whether to issue a civil penalty, local authorities are required to issue a notice of intent—a bit like the notice about parking that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, mentioned—allowing time for landlords to make representations. The local authority will need to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the landlord has committed an offence. If the landlord disagrees with the imposition or amount of the penalty, they will be able to appeal to the First- tier Tribunal. This approach to civil penalties ensures efficiency for local authorities, protection for tenants, and fairness for landlords. As noted in Committee, we will also publish new guidance to help local authorities pursue civil penalties with greater consistency and effectiveness.

Amendments 98 and 99 are in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. She spoke about the scale of fines. We have increased the maximum civil penalties to take account of inflation since the £30,000 and £5,000 maximums were introduced for the similar housing offences that I referred to earlier. We want to ensure that the deterrent value of civil penalties is maintained. As I have stressed before, they are maximum penalty amounts. Local authorities will need to take into account a number of factors, such as the culpability of the landlord and the harm caused to tenants in determining the appropriate level of the civil penalty.

On the point about the single landlord in the depths of the Welsh countryside, and to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, housing is devolved in Wales, so it is a different matter altogether in Wales.

Amendments 98 and 99 would require there to be persistent breaches of certain provisions in Clause 83 or persistent offences committed under Clause 93 before the local authority could fine an individual. I appreciate that the noble Baroness is acting in good faith by laying these amendments, but they would have significant negative consequences for the effectiveness of the database. Under these amendments, individuals could avoid penalties for failing to register or knowingly or recklessly providing false information to the database operator, to name two of the relevant provisions, unless they did so persistently over a protracted period. For the database to be useful to users, it is important that as many landlords as possible register with the service. Indeed, as the noble Baroness commented in Committee:

“It is essential that the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of the data be maintained if it is to be a useful resource for both tenants and for landlords”.—[Official Report, 14/5/25; col. 2219.]


I would add local authorities.

I fear that these amendments could discourage registration and reduce the quality of the data recorded by watering down the threshold at which financial penalties will be imposed. Furthermore, it would be unfair to those good landlords—the vast majority—who comply with the legislative requirements from the outset. It may create an environment where negligent landlords could escape sanction for significant periods of time, and disadvantage the compliant landlords the Bill intends to support.

I recognise that the noble Baroness is trying to protect landlords from being unduly punished. Therefore, I hope she is reassured that the level of fines is the maximum level rather than the standard. Local authorities must also be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that a requirement under Clause 83 has been breached or an offence under Clause 93 has been committed before they can impose a fine. Moreover, new guidance will be published in due course to help local authorities with consistency and effectiveness.

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Moved by

[Lord Cromwell]

110: After Clause 113, insert the following new Clause—
“Offences under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977: report(1) The Secretary of State must publish a report about the application of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, including—(a) an assessment of the level of understanding among tenants, landlords, and the police about the criminal nature of offences under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977,(b) a plan to increase awareness about the nature of offences under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 among groups in paragraph (a),(c) a clarificatory statement about the nature of offences under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 which tenants, landlords and the police can use as a reference, (d) the reasonable steps which the police should take to prevent such offences being committed, and(e) the training and relevant reference materials which must be made available to all police officers to support the discharge of their duties under this section and the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.(2) The report under subsection (1) must be published within six months of the day on which this Act is passed and must be laid before Parliament.”

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I thank all those who spoke in support of this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, was very candid in his acknowledgement—he is on his way here, I believe—of the issue with the police’s application of the 1997 Act. The noble Lord, Lord Best, underlined the need for clarification and the achievable nature of this amendment. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for her kind support for the amendment and what she rather charmingly called the “formidable trio” who were putting it forward.

Finally, I thank the Minister for her comments, which I listened to with care. I have to say that her assurance that, if I may quote, she or her department is “actively working” to “explore” with a number of various bodies what to do is, I am afraid, not good enough. It is clear what needs to be and what should be done within the next six months, which would solve the core issue here: the correct understanding and application of the 1997 Act to do right by vulnerable tenants, target rogue landlords and support the police in the correct performance of their duties. For that reason, I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Best. I will add a brief footnote to what he has just said. As we heard in the last debate, there has been considerable concern about the capacity of the courts to handle the volume of appeals that will go to the tribunals when the Bill becomes an Act. The backlog has been going up: in the first quarter of 2025, the average time between a landlord submitting a claim and getting possession was over seven months—32.5 weeks, up from 29.8 weeks a year ago.

The Minister uses a different figure—eight weeks—but that covers only getting a possession order, not actually getting the property back. In an earlier debate, the Minister implied that it was actually quite difficult for a tenant to challenge an increase in rent. I respectfully disagree with that. There is a whole range of organisations that will give tenants advice on how to challenge an increase from the landlord.

This Government have made it clear that, unlike the previous Administration, they are not prepared to wait until the necessary reforms to the court processes are in place before they activate the Bill. That is a decision they are perfectly entitled to take, and it will be welcomed by tenants. However, a necessary corollary of that decision should be a process to minimise the chance of the courts being overwhelmed, which would be in the interest of neither tenant nor landlord. That is what Amendment 25 does.

The likelihood of the rent—a market rent when it was fixed—diverging significantly from CPI or RPI over four years is quite small. The certainty that goes with that guarantee will be welcomed, I think, by both tenant and landlord. If, after four years, there is a divergence, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, has explained, the rent can then catch up. As someone who voted for the Housing Act 1988, which abolished rent control, I see no problem with this measure to simply smooth increases over a four-year period. Again, speaking personally, if at the end of the four or five years the courts have shown themselves to be up to speed, with no backlog, I would be happy to see this provision lapse, but in the meantime, I hope the Government will smile on it.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

If I may add one note to what the noble Lord has just said, it is very common in commercial contracts to have CPI over a series of periods followed by a reset to market level, in part because CPI may take it up too high and it comes back down to market level. I think that needs to be part of this amendment.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, we support the amendments in this group concerning rent affordability, a matter that strikes at the heart of the lived reality of millions of tenants. We welcome the long-overdue commitment to abolishing Section 21 no-fault evictions but, as Shelter rightly said in a release only this week:

“For every day the government doesn’t pass this bill, another 70 households will be threatened with homelessness because no fault evictions are being kept on life support for no good reason”.


I hope that we will soon get some reassurances about when this key measure will begin, to overcome some of the rumours in the media of late about it being delayed.

We also welcome all the work to fix the issue of the supply of decent homes across all tenures, but private rent inflation is persistently outpacing both wage growth and general inflation. According to the latest data—we heard some of it from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, earlier—average rents in England rose by 7.1% in the 12 months to May 2025. Meanwhile, wages continue to grow more slowly than rents, with the most recent data showing annual growth of 5.2%. Rents have outstripped wages every month for nearly two years; that is, since September 2023. Over the past three years, the average annual rent has increased by £2,650, rising from £12,800 to £15,450, a 21% increase, compared with—for all the owner-occupiers here—just a 4% growth in house prices over the same period. This relentless rise is not just a statistical anomaly. It is a driver of poverty, hardship and, in some—way too many—cases, homelessness.

Amendment 25, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and supported by me and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, proposes a mechanism to smooth in-tenancy rent increases by limiting them to the lower of wage growth or inflation. The Bill currently restricts rent increases to once per year and allows tenants to challenge above-market rents at the First-tier Tribunal, as we heard in the previous group. However, “market rent” is often calculated based on arbitrary information, such as advertised rents for new tenancies, figures that will inevitably and typically be inflated and do not reflect the actual rents paid by sitting tenants. This methodology leaves tenants exposed to rent hike evictions—Section 21 in all but name—undermining the very security that the Bill purports to deliver.

Tenants on lower incomes will be particularly exposed. For the many renters who have no alternative but to rent, the cheapest places they can find at market rent are already, by definition, unaffordable. The tribunal process will help, but not fix, this problem, and certainly not soon. Generation Rent’s analysis found that while 73% of tenants who challenge a rent increase through the tribunal succeed in reducing the proposed rent, the average increase awarded is still 14%, and only a small minority of cases result in annualised increases below wage or rent inflation. The process is also onerous and complex, deterring many tenants from pursuing it at all.

Smoothing in-tenancy rent increases is therefore not just a technical fix but a vital safeguard during this period of transition. It will provide tenants with the predictability and stability needed to budget and to remain in their homes, free from the constant threat of unaffordable rent hikes. For landlords, it offers an indexed yield without the administrative burden and uncertainty of tribunal proceedings.

I ask in particular that the Opposition Front Bench and the Government Front Bench resist the temptation and lure to comment on these proposals as rent controls. That would suggest that the years of knowledge and experience of the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Best, have rendered them somehow incapable of being able to understand the difference between rent control and something else. This proposal is fundamentally different. It is time limited. It applies only to in-tenancy increases. It does not set market-wide caps. It is designed to stabilise rents for existing tenants, not to distort the market or stifle investment.

Beyond these immediate protections, we must look to the medium term while we wait for the much-needed and long-awaited additional supply of homes. That is why I have tabled Amendment 114, requiring the Secretary of State to conduct a comprehensive review of rent affordability with the express aim of establishing a national rental affordability commission. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her support and the Renters’ Reform Coalition for their work on this issue. The coalition has found that nearly one-third of private renters—an estimated 3.8 million people—always or often struggle to afford essentials such as groceries due to the amount that they spend on rent, and nearly one in 10 have sold or pawned personal items to be able to afford to rent.

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[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 58 is in my name. I express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who apologises that he is unable to be with us today but who has added his name to the amendment, and of course to the noble Lord, Lord Hacking —and indeed to the Minister and her officials for the time they have taken to discuss the background to this with me.

This amendment is at heart a simple and technical one. The Bill says that if you ask a tenant to leave on the grounds that you are selling the property but then the property fails to sell, as happens in about a third of cases, you are not allowed to rent the property out for a period of 12 months. It simply has to stand empty and impossible to rent out for a year. That means that numerous properties would, for the crime of not selling, be punished by standing empty and unrentable. My amendment does not seek to change the principle or any other element or clause of the Bill. It simply introduces a rational and balanced obligation to stand empty in this way for six months rather than 12. That is all that it does. I will now set out the reasons why.

On financial logic, when I and others suggested that 12 months was too long, the answer given was that 12 months’ lost rent would prevent evil landlords from claiming they were selling simply as a means to eject a tenant and then re-letting the property at a higher rent. The theory was that after the tenant had left, the landlord would jack up the rent to a high level, both to recoup their interim losses and make profits. Let us look at that proposition rationally.

First, if the landlord has a valid claim to increase the rent, the Bill already provides for that. A landlord would simply seek a normal rent increase rather than going to the dramatic and expensive process and risk of requiring a tenant to leave and then hoping to re-let at a much higher rent.

Secondly, in Committee I set out the mathematical calculation behind a six-month void period; noble Lords will be relieved to know that I do not propose to repeat the numerical details here tonight, or those that I provided subsequently in a meeting with the Minister and her officials. However, the numbers demonstrated clearly that the supposedly avaricious landlord, even if having the property empty for only six months, as I propose, rather than 12, would have to put the rent up by a very substantial amount—in excess of 200% or even 300%—to recoup their rental losses. I say nothing of the other costs, including the council tax surcharge bills and the risks of leaving a building empty. Such a huge rent hike would be impossible. The rent asked would be completely uncompetitive against other properties not carrying such an inflated rent level. In short, being obliged to leave a property empty for six months is more than enough of a financial burden and barrier so as to make the strategy so feared by the Minister simply untenable.

Thirdly, it was suggested that those nasty landlords might lie about selling a property or put it on the market at an absurdly high price, presumably in collusion with a disreputable estate agent—there are some, I believe. I therefore draw noble Lords’ attention to the second part of the amendment. This requires the landlord to provide, if necessary, to the local authority or the court hard evidence of marketing, pricing and offers, et cetera. A landlord flouting these requirements would be breaking the law and punishable accordingly. I understand that an agent colluding with them would also be acting contrary to the law. I remind noble Lords that any landlord taking this approach would face not only the legal risk of a false sales process but ending up with the property back on the rental market at an absurd and uncompetitive level of rent and, on top of that, losing six months’ rent.

Turning to other reasons, having made the argument on the rental conspiracy theory advanced in defence of the 12 months of standing empty, I heard that the landlord might have “other reasons” for wanting to get rid of the tenant, such as those that the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, touched upon. Let us examine this argument. Whatever these other reasons might be, the Minister has confirmed that the Bill makes it perfectly clear that the landlord has only four grounds for requiring a tenant to leave: sale, anti-social behaviour, moving in a relative or persistent failure to pay rent. If the landlord cannot demonstrate that one or more of these cases applies—for example, through not providing conclusive evidence of a genuine sales process—that landlord will be in breach of the law as well as having the financial penalty of the months of lost rent. It is a fundamental of the Bill to block any attempts to get around Section 21 by other means. I entirely agree with that. However, as I hope that I have demonstrated, this amendment is no such thing. The “no renting out” mechanism to prevent abuse remains, but the amendment makes it proportionate rather than excessive and heavy-handed.

Standing back from the detail, we are frequently assured that most landlords are good landlords. Perhaps some in this House have friends who are landlords. Perhaps some Members of this House let out property. This provision to leave a property unlet will not apply just to a subset of bad landlords. It will apply to anyone who rents out a property and genuinely wants or needs to sell their property but does not manage to do so. It also, for the same 12 months, deprives the market of rental properties—a market already bedevilled by a lack of available property to rent. That does not help tenants. This is not only unnecessary but manifestly unfair and will actively harm the supply of rental property. The Minister has accepted in a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, that landlords will lose out, but says that it will be in a small number of circumstances. Where is the evidence for that—or that the six-month penalty is not enough?

I underline that I am no lobbyist for landlords. I have spoken repeatedly in this House about the need to protect the poorest and the most vulnerable tenants who are abused and evicted by genuinely unscrupulous landlords. I have a later amendment seeking to prevent illegal evictions which is specifically on that theme. However, as the Minister has stressed, a successful rental sector is about a balance of rights. The amendment that I am speaking to does not do away with the relevant part of the Bill. It simply reduces the punishment —and it is a punishment—for not managing to sell a property from 12 months to six months. Those six months of costs and no income are, as I have demonstrated previously, more than sufficient punishment to make unworkable the avoidance strategies that so vexed the Minister and to meet the objectives of the Bill.

To be frank, a prohibition on renting out for 12 months is an impractical and disproportionate sledgehammer level of overkill that does not belong in a Bill that creates a set of checks and balances to produce a new, fairer environment for property rental. It also works against its own objective by artificially restricting the availability of property that is available to rent. That is why I feel strongly that this amendment is proportionate and needed. I will listen carefully to what any others and the Minister have to say, but I may need to test the opinion of the House in due course.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I speak to my Amendment 59. I am grateful to the Minister for the time that she spent with me and a representative of the Shared Owners’ Network after Committee, when we discussed in further detail the problems facing shared ownership leaseholders in blocks that have been blighted by the cladding disaster. This amendment is needed to protect shared owners, who are accidental landlords, from the financial problems that they will face if they are unable to finalise a sale after issuing a ground 1A notice.

Many shared owners, of course, continue to live in the property which they half-bought from the registered social landlord. Many shared owners have simply had to move to get on with their life; they have been unable to sell the property in the meantime, so they have sublet. Shared owners are allowed to sublet—they have to get permission from their RSL to do this—but the rent that they receive from the subletting may not actually be enough to cover their costs, with the mortgage, the rent, the service charge and the insurance charges on a block affected by the cladding disaster. Those costs may well exceed the local market rent.

Many shared owners who have been subletting for a number of years have seen their financial situation considerably weakened, with many effectively losing hundreds of pounds every month as a result of subletting. These are people who employed all the professional people that they should have employed when they bought the property owned by a registered social landlord. They took every precaution available to them and bear no responsibility at all for the problem that has engulfed them.

When we met, although she expressed sympathy for this group, the Minister could not offer any mitigation for the unsustainable costs which a 12-month ban on re-letting would create for these shared owners. This is not a satisfactory outcome for a cohort who qualified for an affordable home because their income was not high enough to buy on the open market; this was their first step on the ladder. The Minister argued that the proposed ban protects tenants, but it fails to protect shared owners who are actually also tenants.

Shared owners face a much riskier sales process with the Bill. They have to give four months’ notice to their tenants, and that means they have no certainty at all that the offer to buy the flat will actually result in an exchange, or indeed a completion. Shared owners have to give the first option to buy their flat back to the registered social landlord so they can find another shared ownership owner, and there are strict qualifications, so they are fishing in a relatively small pool. Prospective buyers need to meet the criteria for shared ownership, and that means that the risk of a failed sale, even at a late stage, is actually much higher for a shared owner, and particularly high if you are selling a flat in a block with unsafe cladding.

Should a sale fall through, as is frequent, particularly for these types of properties, shared owners, like other landlords under the Bill, face the prospect of a 12-month void when they will be banned from re-letting their empty property and forced to cover its costs without any rental income.

These people never planned to become landlords. It was not part of their vision at all. They will have had no ability to plan for this outcome or make provision for extended void periods. This will become completely unaffordable for the vast majority of shared owners who, as I have said, are not as financially resilient as other leaseholders, otherwise they would have bought a property on the open market. They will have to pay for the property they now live in, as well as the property they have been unable to sell.

Of course, they will continue to market their property for sale after the first sale has fallen through, but facing the mounting unmet costs of an empty property will actually put their homes at risk of repossession if they fall into arrears, as is very likely. Also—and this is worse—it puts incredible pressure on them to accept any offer from a buyer as soon as possible, even if the offer is below the RICS pre-sale valuation. If they do that, due to the rules of the scheme, they will have to compensate the registered social landlord for the loss of value on their share, as well as losing out on their own share. So, the unintended consequence of the 12-month ban on re-letting is that it puts shared owners selling a property on the back foot, unable to wait for a suitable offer at a fair market value.

It is just not acceptable to punish shared owners who have had to become accidental landlords, including as a result of the building safety crisis, and have already suffered considerable financial harm. In her correspondence, the Minister explained that shared owners would have the option to ask their provider whether a buyback would be possible rather than leaving the property empty.

This could provide a solution, but it will need the Minister to make some changes, As the Minister knows, buybacks are currently very much at the discretion of the registered provider. At the moment they have only limited access to funding to do this, using either their own funds or recycled capital grant funding.

If the Minister is unable to accept my amendment, will the Government ring-fence some of the dedicated funding to registered providers in its affordable homes programme so that they can swiftly buy back properties from those shared owners who fail to sell after issuing a ground 1A notice? This would enable housing associations to add to the stock of affordable property to rent at well below the cost of a new build and avoid leaving a property empty. If the Minister can neither accept the amendment nor give that guarantee, I am minded to test the opinion of the House at the appropriate time—probably next Monday.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I also support Amendment 21 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, to which I have added my name. I am particularly grateful for the warm words of my noble friend Lord Jamieson and for the support of the various carers organisations which do such an important job in our society.

The Bill will allow a landlord to take possession of a property for a family reason. Our small extension would allow a nearby property to be taken back in hand if it were needed to house a carer. In the meantime, it would be available, for example, as a dwelling for a struggling local couple or an individual seeking a home.

With ever-growing numbers of the aged and disabled, with the move to smaller homes and smaller families, and with a scarcity of care homes and hospices, the provision for short-term housing of professional carers, often changing at short notice, will become more and more important in coping with our ageing population. This is particularly true in rural areas, which are being so battered by other changes the Government have felt it necessary to make.

I declare an interest, recorded in the register, as the owner of such a cottage bought specifically for a carer and generally let to a local on a shorthold tenancy. Such tenancies have expanded the rental market hugely in this country and will be completely swept away by the Bill. So, we need to do what we can together in this House to moderate its perverse consequences—notably in this case to make things better for carers. Fortunately, neither my husband nor I yet need a carer, but we may need one eventually, and my concern, like that of the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, is a general one. I can guarantee that I am not alone.

I have no idea how the Government will find the 1 million more rented homes Savills believes we need by 2031 unless they make some sensible technical changes to the Bill, which is being constructively debated by knowledgeable experts here in this House. Our Amendment 21 falls into that category. I hope others will join us in the Lobby and in calling on the Government to think again on this issue.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I did not intend to speak to this amendment but, since I am, I declare that I do not rent out any residential property, but my children are tenants and rent out property in their own right. There are two sources of potential misery here: one is turning out a tenant, the other is being unable to provide care for a family member. I know how I would feel if I was in a situation where I had to deny a family member professional care despite owning a property that could accommodate a carer. I am interested to hear how the Minister feels about this, what she would do in those circumstances, and what other Members of this House would do if the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, calls a vote on this matter.

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to my Amendment 22, I also express my support for Amendment 21 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, and Amendment 23 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson. I declare an interest as a property owner of both commercial land and residential houses. If one acquires planning permission on a parcel of land that might have, to take a brownfield example, a few workmen’s terraced houses or, in a rural setting, perhaps a farmworkers’ cottage that might be in the middle of a proposed development, my amendment seeks to allow the landowner or developer to gain possession of said property or properties.

When I look out of the window of my flat in King’s Cross, which the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, alluded to and which was developed by Argent—a brilliant place-maker that has worked in Manchester, created a marvellous area in Tottenham Hale, and produced a high-quality mix of leisure, retail, high-end accommodation, medium-level accommodation and affordable accommodation, but which takes decades to assemble land—I see commercial property that has been bought by developers and converted into flats. Many of these developments have a high proportion of affordable accommodation, which seems to be the largest amount of development happening in Britain at the moment.

However, this should go both ways. We in this country hear we are losing industry and are only a service economy. We should be doing our utmost to produce jobs. The unemployment figures are already rising. If the examples I have mentioned achieve planning permission and the tenant is removed—the reality is that the developer or landowner would do that by negotiation and try to find suitable alternative accommodation for that person—but the tenant then says, “No, I’m not leaving at all”, then the whole opportunity for growth ceases. Were the development to go ahead then, because of the planning permission it has achieved, a great number of jobs would be created in the short-term in its construction, which might take two to four years, and then in the occupation of those commercial buildings. It is a win-win. The Government say they want growth, but if they do not allow my amendment, nor that of the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, then they are not acting in the best interests of growth.

I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, on providing accommodation for a carer, which is very well thought through. We should all support it. It seems that there is a great deal of support around the House for it. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, is somewhat wider than mine—it is on redevelopment and regeneration—but they are effectively the same thing: they are looking for growth.

I have sat in on much of this debate. It is a shame that the Government are not listening. Good Governments listen to differing views and take note. There are many good amendments being put forward. Government through ideology and a large majority does not lead to good law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

You can use the existing, broader mandatory redevelopment ground, ground 6, when you are redeveloping property.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

In respect of Amendment 21, does the Minister accept that denying someone the ability to move in a carer to look after their family in the way that was outlined will be an enormous temptation for abuse? The best outcome in that context is likely to be that people will simply hold the property empty for very many years in case they might need it. That will not create much help for the rental sector.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I will reiterate my comments. When evicting one tenant to put another tenant in, you may well be evicting somebody else’s carer to put your carer in. Of course, we do not want to see properties sitting empty but, if people have a property, that is their choice. The idea that you might evict one carer to put another carer in, for example, is just not acceptable.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I hear what the Minister is saying about pushing a tenant out to put a carer in, but she is touching on a very specific case, where you are putting out a tenant who happens to be a carer so as to put another carer in. I would submit to her that that is a very tiny example.

The sheer emotional impact of not being able to care for somebody by putting a carer in will simply invite people to abuse the system: to find ways to get around it, or simply to hold the property empty. I wonder how Members of this House would react if they were in the situation of not being able to provide care to a loved one because, despite owning a property, they were unable to put a carer into it.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I simply add that it does not have to be another carer; it could be any of the key workers who we talk about so often who are in need of housing. There are other options for people. If landlords are receiving rent for that property, while I appreciate that there may be further shortages making it difficult to find somewhere near enough to the property, but there is the option of using the rent secured on one property to rent alternative accommodation for a carer.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. This should be directed also to the noble Lord, Lord Bird. As I read in Clause 1 of the Bill that all existing tenancies are made periodic tenancies, that must involve the ceasing of the use of Section 21.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

That is what the noble Baroness is saying.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying: this will bring about the abolition of Section 21.

That failure has rightly eroded trust. It now falls to this Government to deliver what was promised without further delay. Renters should not be asked to wait any longer for the basic security that this legislation is intended to provide. At the same time, we on these Benches recognise that proper implementation matters. Noble Lords would not find that surprising, given that every other member of this Bill team is a former or current councillor, with the exception of me.

The changes this Bill brings are significant and must be supported by clear guidance, well-prepared systems and proper resourcing, not least for the courts and local authorities. Yes, we need preparation time, but that preparation must not become an excuse for indefinite delay. There is a question of balance. Where regulation or consultation is needed, that work must of course be done, but it should be carried out with urgency and to a clear and published timetable. Renters deserve certainty about when these protections will come into force, but so too do landlords. Those operating in good faith need to understand the new framework that they will be working within and to have time to prepare for it, but they should not be left in limbo. The entire sector needs clarity and consistency. Delays would only undermine confidence in this long-awaited reform.

I have only one central question for the Minister. The Government publicly stated that Section 21 would be abolished “immediately” in their 2024 manifesto. However, Clause 145(5)(a) indicates that the abolition will take effect two months after the Bill is passed. The Bill also says that this is a decision for the Secretary of State. Can she please use this opportunity to clarify—my apologies if she has already explained this endlessly, but I am still slightly confused on this question—which timeframe is correct? It would be helpful, for instance, to understand the time lapse between the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and the commencement date of the abolition of Section 21.

Finally, many of us were here until 1 am on Tuesday and until midnight last night, and this is now our seventh day. I am certain that there are many Peers who would do that again and again to get to the abolition of Section 21—to get to, at pace, that long-promised, much-needed change in the law. I look forward now to hearing when.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Perhaps I may offer the briefest of comments. At the risk of being struck by lightning: on the seventh day, the Lord rested. Let us hope we all get some rest soon.

I mention two words: equilibrium and scramble. Equilibrium is what we all seek, but it is a fact of life that one woman’s equilibrium may be different to another woman’s equilibrium. The perpetual life of politics is trying to find an equilibrium between different viewpoints. Regarding scramble, there will be a scramble whenever this comes in, and that is not a reason to put it off.

We touched on the database yesterday. There are bits of the Bill that will come in more slowly, but Section 21, to echo the point from the noble Lord, Lord Bird, will definitely go. If the Bill achieves nothing else, Section 21 will go.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who, as always, so passionately opened this group. I thank him for all his knowledge and particularly the passion that he brings on anything to do with homes, homelessness and vulnerable people.

The noble Lord’s Amendments 278, 286 and 291, along with others in his name, would bring the majority of the Act into force on the day it receives Royal Assent, save for a few areas requiring further regulation or consultation. We on these Benches have consistently urged the Government to not take this approach. We have called on them to reaffirm their long-standing commitment to prospective lawmaking by providing clear commencement dates and reasonable transition periods for all new obligations. This is essential to protect both tenants and landlords from abrupt and potentially unfair changes.

A phased approach would allow landlords, tenants and letting agents time to understand and adapt to the new legal framework. Commencing the Act immediately upon passage does not provide sufficient time to do this. We simply cannot expect landlords to react and comply with significant new requirements on day 1. Indeed, the evidence bears this this out. In a recent survey conducted by Paragon, 57% of landlords said they had heard of the legislation but did not fully understand its implications, and a further 39% said they knew little about it. Those statistics point clearly to a knowledge gap in the market—one that we must not ignore. Therefore, we believe that a clear transition period is necessary.

Amendments 281, 287, 288 and 289, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, present a credible and constructive challenge to the Government’s current position. They propose a model that echoes the approach taken by the predecessor to the Bill—an approach grounded in prospective lawmaking. Phase 1 in that Bill would have applied the new rules only to new tenancies with at least six months’ notice, and phase 2 would extend the rules to existing tenancies no less than 12 months later. This two-phase model provides a reasonable and practical path forward, allowing time for proper education, preparation and implementation. I urge the Government to reflect carefully on these proposals and to recognise the importance of a fair and orderly transition.

We all agree that tenants deserve safe, secure and decent homes at a fair price, but to deliver that we need a functioning rental market with enough good-quality homes to meet growing demand. We need more homes in the right places. This Bill, regrettably, puts that in danger. Rather than boosting supply, it risks driving landlords out of the market, shrinking the number of available homes and pushing rents even higher. If we get this wrong, renters will pay the price. Balance is essential. At present, we believe this Bill does not strike that balance.

Before I sit down, I thank and congratulate the noble Baroness on how she has conducted the first Bill that she is taken through Committee, and all noble Lords who have taken part in excellent, well-informed debates over the past seven days. I look forward to Report.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 252A in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey, which would exempt certain buildings from an EPC requirement. I hope that noble Lords were listening to what she said, because it is absolutely true: the methodology used for assessment of EPC is not foolproof. As my noble friend said, the assessment seems heavily weighted against older buildings, and while she referred to early 20th-century buildings, a decent proportion of houses in this country are from the 18th and 19th centuries. They have even greater problems: for instance, double-glazing is required as one of the ways to achieve EPC C. Many 18th-century and 19th-century houses have shutters, which, when closed at night, do a similar job, but that is not part of the assessment. Many such houses are in rural settings, so what my noble friend said is so true.

My noble friend alluded to the variation in assessment of EPCs by different assessors. As an experiment on one property that we own, we got two separate assessors in—they did not know that they were being tested against each other—and, you guessed it, each of them came up with a different EPC grade. That is a real problem; the assessment needs to be sorted out. I think it was in the newspapers that the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Mr Miliband, had a similar situation, with two different assessments.

On listed buildings, there has been a lot of campaigning by various organisations. You cannot take out 18th-century and 19th-century sash windows and replace them with double-glazing—at least, you can, but it completely ruins the look of the building. A number of people prefer to live in a house which looks nicer but might need a little more heating or a log burner.

As my noble friend said, the Bill is very likely to result in the law of unintended consequences. Many houses will be sold and lost to the rental market, and that will create for this Government and this country an even bigger problem. After the Second World War, some landlords—not that I would want to do this—even took the roofs off their houses so that they were no longer houses.

Finally, I am sorry, but I want to speak against Amendment 251 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tope. If we are to apply the decent homes standard to asylum accommodation, I am afraid that that has to be last in the queue while we sort out the accommodation for our own people in this country.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, a number of speakers have driven home in detail the problems of rural areas with old buildings. The choice is quite simple: we either continue with the existing exemptions or knock down about a third of them and start again. Can the Minister tell us which it is going to be?

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Tope’s Amendment 251, which I have also signed. We have all spoken of the support we give this Bill because it offers the opportunity to address the problems and injustices suffered by renters in the PRS, which is the most insecure, most expensive and lowest quality of any tenure. However, the Bill fails to recognise that certain vulnerable groups of tenants suffer disproportionately, as we have heard, and need special measures to give them the level playing field they need to be able to live in suitable accommodation that is fair, reasonable and secure in the private rented sector.

Refugees and asylum seekers are just one such group, and their housing experience is in need of radical reform. My noble friend’s amendment, suggesting that the decent homes standard should apply to housing for refugees and asylum seekers, offers an opportunity to move forward.

However, the asylum housing system in the United Kingdom leaves tens of thousands of people in inadequate accommodation, where they often live for years in conditions that significantly undermine their physical and mental well-being. The current outsourcing of asylum housing to private companies has created a system that is marked by significant issues, including exorbitant costs, excessive profit making, substandard housing, and inadequate safeguarding and oversight. I read in the Sunday Times this week that the owner of one such company, Clearsprings Ready Homes, is now a member of the Sunday Times rich list as a result of rapidly expanding contracts from the Government at the taxpayer’s expense.

These providers need to be properly accountable. Refugee organisations report appalling conditions and many incidents of poor, unsafe and cold properties with infestations and mould. It should therefore form part of contracts with providers that the decent homes standard should apply to properties that are paid for by government. Taxpayers’ money is being used to fund substandard accommodation and providers are not being sanctioned. Many of those who are obliged to live in such misery are children, forced to live in virtual isolation and incarceration with housing conditions that are woefully inadequate for their needs. I therefore support my noble friend’s amendment and call on the Minister to reflect on this situation. If she is unwilling to amend the Bill, can she say what the Government are proposing to do to resolve the desperately pressing circumstances of refugees and asylum seekers and the housing crisis that they face?

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Cromwell]

258: After Clause 113, insert the following new Clause—
“Illegal evictions: police and local authority duties(1) Where a police force or local housing authority in England receives a complaint alleging that an offence or offences contrary to Section 1 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 (‘PFEA offences’) has been committed, it must—(a) notify the local housing authority (where the complaint has been received by a police force) or the police force (where the complaint has been received by a local housing authority) (‘the other party’) with responsibility for the area to which the complaint relates, and(b) co-operate with the other party to promptly and effectively investigate the alleged PFEA offence(s) and any offences committed at the same time, in furtherance of, or as a consequence of, the alleged PFEA offence(s).(2) Where a police force or local housing authority receives an allegation that PFEA offences are being committed or at risk of being committed, it must take reasonable steps to prevent those offences continuing or being committed, including, but not limited to, by cooperating with the other party and by taking reasonable steps to assist tenants to regain access to properties from which they have been unlawfully evicted. (3) The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government, and the Secretary of State for the Home Department must, within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, issue joint statutory guidance as to how police forces and local housing authorities are to discharge the duties in subsections (1) and (2).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment addresses the poorest end of the rental market by removing ambiguities between police and local authorities, clarifying police duties (illegal evictions often incorrectly seen as civil) and enabling efficient information sharing.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, and the noble Lord, Lord Best, for adding their names in support of the amendment. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who cannot be here at this time, but who has authorised me to say that he both supports the principle of the amendment and believes that it is deliverable in practice. Given the role of the police in this amendment, his assessment and support have been invaluable. I am also grateful to the organisations Safer Renting and ACORN for their assistance in highlighting the urgent need for this amendment, and to the Bill team for working their magic in drafting.

At Second Reading, I underlined concern about those at the bottom end of the rental market; here are the economically and socially vulnerable. They are the most likely to face illegal and sometimes forcible evictions. They are also often the least equipped to resist illegal evictions. It is this shadow private rented sector, the lowest part of the rental market, that most needs help and, in particular—as so often with the legislation that we like to pass in Parliament—needs proper support through effective and well organised enforcement of renters’ rights in what can be a wild world of criminal landlords who pay little mind to the niceties of tenancy agreements when removing tenants. That is what this amendment seeks to address.

Illegal eviction is defined in the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 as a criminal offence—it was referred to earlier this evening by the Minister as a serious criminal offence—that can include physical force, the changing of locks, depriving renters of essential services, and other forms of interference and harassment. Figures from 2022 show that 8,750 illegal evictions were reported in that year; the actual number will, of course, be higher than this. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, earlier cited a figure of about twice that. However, currently prosecutions for illegal evictions are very low. The police do not act in 91% of cases, making an enforcement rate of below 0.3%. I underline that this is not to blame the police; rather, it arises from a legislative ambiguity that needs resolving.

While the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 set out the legal definition of illegal eviction as a criminal offence, it did not include a duty on the police to enforce the protections. The results of this have been, first, ambiguity of responsibility between local authorities and police as to which is the enforcing agency. This, in turn, has led to councils and police each referring renters to the other organisation. Secondly, the police have almost always held the incorrect belief that illegal evictions are a civil matter.

The amendment also takes into account the need to be realistic about overstretched police time and resources. The duties under this amendment have two aspects: reporting and intervening. On reporting, in the interests of joined-up working, the police will notify the local housing authority when a complaint has been made, and vice versa, when a complaint is received by the housing authority.

The immediate anxiety here is to avoid imposing an additional reporting burden on front-line officers and officials. But any incident raised with the police or the local authority gets reported, or it certainly should. That report can simply be electronically copied to the other so that both can be aware, spot patterns and so forth. So it is not really “more flipping paperwork”, because adding a cc to a report is not really very onerous.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, for his amendment and for meeting me to discuss it. The amendment would place a duty on local authorities and police forces to share information regarding alleged offences contrary to Section 1 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill and Lady Scott. Local authorities and police forces would also have a duty to co-operate in the investigation of these offences and take steps to prevent offences from occurring or continuing, as well as assisting tenants to gain access to properties from which they have been illegally evicted. The Secretary of State would be required to produce statutory guidance outlining how these duties would be discharged.

The Government are clear that illegal eviction is unacceptable. Changes introduced in the Bill will further empower local authorities to penalise those who illegally evict, giving them the option to issue a financial penalty of up to £40,000 as an alternative to prosecution. Illegally evicted tenants are also entitled to receive a rent repayment order. Local authorities will be provided with new investigatory powers alongside the powers that police forces have to investigate and prosecute breaches of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.

However, I am concerned about the administrative burden that a reporting duty might place on police forces. The department is trialling approaches to improving multi-agency targeting and the disruption of rogue and criminal actors operating throughout the private rented sector. For example, Liverpool City Council’s private sector housing intelligence and enforcement taskforce—a snappy title, I know, but it does what it says on the tin—has successfully carried out joint operations with Merseyside Police and the Home Office. The Government will continue to explore how we can encourage more effective collaboration between the police and local authorities.

I am happy to add this topic to the agenda for the meeting that I have already agreed to with my noble friend Lady Kennedy and Safer Renting, and to take another look at the existing guidance to make sure that it does what it needs to do. With that said, I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for their contributions.

I do not want to detain the Committee too long, but I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, regarding her comments on co-operation and working it out in detail, that we found, in trying to specify every detail of what would go into the database, that it is much better to let the two responsible bodies work it out for themselves. They are grown-ups and they can work that out.

With regard to it being a further duty on the police, it is not a further duty but an existing one; it clarifies what they are supposed to be doing. I do not want to pray in aid the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, too much in his absence, but he certainly felt that that was a realistic thing that they could deliver without their resources being too stretched.

Sharing information and co-ordination is something that we ought to be able to take for granted, but it is a “nice to have”. The really important bit is that they intervene when people are being illegally evicted and that the police take that responsibility firmly on themselves. That is currently not the case, because they still have this ingrained idea that it is a civil offence, not a criminal one, which is incorrect.

That said, I am grateful to everyone for their comments. I look forward to the meeting. I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to meet the tenant groups, which are passionately convinced that this amendment is essential. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 258 withdrawn.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, first, I apologise to the Minister. I was remiss not to thank her before the previous group for the time she gave up to meet my noble friend Lady Grender and me to discuss the database. I know that she is always very willing to meet noble Lords and that she gives up a lot of her time. I hope she will accept my thanks now.

The amendments in this group continue to relate to strengthening the content, utility and functionality of the new private rented sector database. As has already been highlighted, the database could be a powerful driver of higher standards, tenant protection and, importantly, support for responsible landlords. But to fulfil that role, it must be built on comprehensive, reliable and adaptable foundations—something these amendments aim to deliver.

Amendment 222 is in my name, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman, whom I thank. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his positive comments. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord both made some pertinent comments that I hope will add to the debate. Yes, the amendment sets out a broader and more ambitious vision for what information could be captured in the database from the onset. If this system is to be genuinely useful, it needs to go beyond the basics and include key documentation that reflects the safety, security and condition of the property. Renters deserve to know that the home they are moving into is safe, compliant and fairly let.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, that I do not intend to go into great detail on this today, because time is of the essence. To sum it up, the point is to expose infringing, dodgy landlords. A good landlord has nothing to fear, but if things such as banning orders are on the site, this might incentivise landlords to not get themselves into that position in the first place. In Watford we have had issues with a landlord who is a prolific property owner. It would be very useful, and quite powerful, if people could see the number of offences under the name of a landlord. I accept the concerns expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. If there was any hope of any elements of my catch-all list being taken up, I would happily argue each one with him on a case-by-case basis.

Amendments 221 and 227, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, would ensure that the database includes records of gas and electrical safety checks, and that, crucially, it can become a digital home for all these certificates. We already require these documents to be produced, so incorporating them into the national system should be a logical next step. Amendment 227 would even allow accredited safety certificate providers to upload directly, removing administrative burdens from landlords and improving data accuracy. This would modernise and streamline an essential part of the compliance process.

Amendment 228 in the name of my noble friend Lady Grender focuses on tenancy disputes—specifically rent levels and resolution outcomes. In the absence of reliable rent data, we lack the evidence base needed to track affordability—something that has come up before in the Bill—or understand the impact of policy changes. Including dispute outcomes would help tenants navigate the system more confidently and enable more informed decision-making by both renters and landlords. It also provides an accountability mechanism to ensure that the system is working as it should.

Amendment 224, also from the noble Lord, Lord Best, and which I support, is linked to these proposals and would reinforce the requirement for the database to include the right types of detail to make it genuinely functional for enforcement and policy use. I am sure we would all be willing to contribute to a general discussion on what that might be.

Amendment 229 introduces a small but important clarification to ensure that the database links records not only to landlords but to specific dwellings. This might seem technical, but it speaks to a broader point. The system must allow us to track the full history of a property and not just its owner, although the owner is clearly vital, especially the owner we have mentioned many times: the invisible, absent, non-contactable landlord. This is vital in cases where properties change hands but the issues persist. With reference to the local case that I referred to earlier, often it was just a family member’s name that had changed, so I think the more we can track down these infringing and rogue landlords, the better.

This brings me to Amendment 230, which would require the use of the UPRNs: unique property reference numbers. That is a new acronym for me. These identifiers already exist and are widely used in local government and in the property sector. Using them in the database would help standardise records, reduce duplication and enable effective data sharing across agencies—something that they, and all of us, think needs to be improved. It is a ready-made tool that would help knit together fragmented information across the sector and, as we have heard, it has proved effective.

These amendments work together to build a more useful, transparent and future-proof database that supports not only enforcement but renter safety, data integrity and informed policy-making for the future. Each of these proposals is practical, proportionate and grounded in existing obligations. What they offer is not duplication but integration. I hope the Government will recognise the value of taking a more ambitious approach to what the database can deliver and I am heartened by the comments that the noble Baroness has already made today.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I am entirely supportive of pretty well every amendment that has been put down on this—this blizzard of amendments about a database across four groups. I agree that there should be penalties for not participating in it. It has to be something that is not a nice-to-have add-on: it has to be core to everything. However, I will just give two notes of caution, the first of which goes back to the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. If you are going to start recording disputes on the system, there could be many, many reasons why a dispute runs for a long time. It would not necessarily be the fault of evil landlords. It could be illness on the part of the tenant; it could be a multitude of things. You have to be very careful there.

The second point is to be careful what you wish for. No one has suggested this so far, but is this database going to be searchable by tenant? Because a landlord looking at a tenant might search the database and find that every previous tenancy has ended in a dispute. Is that going to be a fair use of this database? Because it is a logical suggestion, looking at this from a landlord’s point of view, to look out for rogue tenants as well as rogue landlords.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for opening this group. The question of what data is recorded on the database is an important one and the Government need to give the sector greater clarity on their plans. Noble Lords need only look at some of the briefings provided by lettings agencies to landlords over the past few months to grasp the level of uncertainty around this Bill. For the benefit of both renters and landlords, we need greater clarity as soon as possible. As my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook said earlier from these Benches, we believe the Government should be more ambitious. We are broadly content with the direction of travel on greater transparency, but taking this forward through regulations is leaving landlords and tenants in the dark.

We support the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Best, to the Government on the inclusion of gas and electrical safety checks within the PRS database. Amendments 221, 224 and 227, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, all touch on this issue. The database makes use of official UPRNs and covers the full end-to-end process of property compliance, including the urgent need to mandate digital property safety certificates. This will certainly increase transparency for landlords and tenants. Including gas safety certificates and electrical installation reports would assist tenants who wish to confirm that their property is safe.

That said, we have some concerns about Amendment 227, which appears to place the burden of registering digital gas and electricity certificates on the certificate provider rather than the landlord. We do not think that responsibility should be placed on the providers without a proper impact assessment and a fuller understanding of how this would work in practical terms. Perhaps the Minister can commit to considering this proposal from the noble Lord between now and Report.

Amendment 222, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, proposes expanding the types of information or documents that are required for registration on the PRS database. I commend the noble Baroness on her thoughtful drafting. This amendment highlights further the uncertainty and lack of clarity that have arisen from the Government’s decision to place broadly drafted regulation-making powers rather than detailed provisions in the Bill to enable their plans.

Finally, on Amendments 229 and 230, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, it has already been noted that UPRNs are a universal means of identifying properties. They will be central to this system. The database should be as easy as possible to use for both renters and landlords. We accept that the noble Lord’s amendments are well intentioned and we will listen very carefully to the Minister’s response to them.

We have a separate concern. The Government do not have a strong track record on delivering large-scale IT projects. I make no political comment here. We share the concerns that have been raised by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman, earlier, on the time that it will take to roll out this database. Can the Minister assure us that this project will be delivered—and delivered on time?

I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to these well-intentioned and constructive amendments.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I will very briefly intervene. I agree that people who like pets benefit from having them, and I guess that landlords who do not like pets are going to have to put up with it, which seems fair enough. But—no pun intended—what a legal can of worms we are opening here. What is a pet? I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hacking: snakes are animals, as are alligators, rats, goats, snakes, and even fleas, which some people keep as pets. That is going to cause a great deal of stress and redefinition at some point.

Listening to the very interesting speech by the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, we heard that we are also going to introduce a category called an anti-social pet. That is going to be very hard to define and prosecute, and I suspect the unreasonable grounds for refusal will, again, cause interesting legal conundrums. So this amendment will go through, and I am happy to support it, but I wonder what legal can of worms we are opening for the future.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, this section of the Bill is set to introduce some significant changes affecting the rights of renters, the rights of landlords and the nature of the relationship between those two parties, and we need to consider these provisions and the amendments to them with particular care.

Amendments 118 and 119, tabled by my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, seek to prevent consent from being withdrawn by a landlord once it has been granted. This proposal presents some challenges, as far as we can see, and may benefit from a more considered approach. It poses a risk to landlords when taking on a new tenant, because it raises the prospect that they could be tying themselves into a contract whereby they would have no right to remove, in future, a dangerous, aggressive or damaging animal from their own property.

In our opinion, these amendments also suffer from the way that they have been drafted. If a tenant acquired a new pet, would they be obliged to seek consent again from their landlord, or would the one issuing of consent cover all future acquisitions? If a tenant was granted consent for a goldfish, does this amendment really seek to assume that the consent is also automatically granted if the same tenant decides to buy an Irish wolfhound?

Amendment 120, tabled by my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising, seeks to address that fundamental question of proportionality, which I have referred to several times throughout my remarks on the Bill. This amendment rightly seeks to protect the landlord beyond the immediate term and ensures that they will still be able to make full use of their property after a tenant has left. If a landlord reasonably believes that a pet could limit their use of their property into the future and thus reduce its utility and value, it is surely reasonable to allow the landlord the discretion to protect their asset and the health of their family and future tenants.

My noble friend Lord Howard of Rising takes this responsible approach further in Amendments 121, 122 and 123, which would provide the landlord with the capacity to refuse consent if a pet was a dangerous wild animal, if a pet risked causing damage or disruption, or if a tenant wished to keep an inappropriate number of animals or an inappropriately sized animal in their property. These amendments would not only preserve the balance of the renter-landlord relationship but help to ensure the safety, protection from damage and the well-being of the landlord and tenant alike. As it stands, the Bill creates a huge risk for landlords: they could enter a contract with a tenant who could bring an unsuitable, untamed or even dangerous animal into their property without the capacity to refuse. These amendments are a sensible opportunity to redress this risk.

Amendments 124, 125 and 126, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, seek to clarify unreasonable circumstances for pet refusal, including in social housing —Amendment 124 is an extremely interesting amendment from that point of view. In our opinion, outlining these conditions could make the law clearer in application, although it is right that this should not come at the expense of the right of the landlord to safeguard and utilise their property. For instance, these amendments attempt to prevent a landlord refusing to consent to a pet on grounds of pre-emptive concerns. For this demand to balance out with respect for the rights of the landlord, it is surely reasonable to support a further amendment that would allow a landlord to withdraw consent once provided if their pre-emptive concerns turn out to be valid.

We also have some concerns about the vagueness of the language used throughout these amendments, for instance the references to

“a generalised fear of damage to the property”

and to “generalised” animal welfare concerns. The Committee would benefit from further clarification about the specific steps a landlord would need to take to move from “generalised” to what would be considered a valid concern under the text of this amendment.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 126A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Leicester and introduced by my noble friend Lord Caithness. This is a very sensible proposal that is designed to build consensus and clarify points of concern over the scope and definition of the terms used by the Government in the Bill.

I think that Amendment 124A is for national, if not international, debate. Although I understand my noble friend’s concern, I think that debate probably goes wider than this Bill.

We must always remember that this Bill will be used to govern a series of relationships that involve possibly millions of people throughout the country. We have a duty in this place to make sure that the law is as clear as possible and that the relationship we create between a tenant and a landlord is fair and mutually beneficial. We need to make sure that we create market conditions in the rented sector that ensure a steady supply. If landlords start to pull out because of vague and overburdensome regulation, prices will go up and the choice for renters will go down. This is not an outcome that the Government want, nor one that will promote and protect renters’ rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I also support these amendments. I have one small niggle, which I will get to, but I live at the end of a very ropey copper wire system, so I yearn for the day when broadband reaches up into the Midlands—or, as it is known down here, the north.

My understanding is that Openreach, in the areas where it is installing, currently includes a building free of charge in its rollout programme. That could change, and it is not clear whether alternative network providers may charge for installing. The situation is not clear at the moment and is, of course, subject to change. Therefore, would the Minister consider it right to oblige landlords to take on the cost if one is imposed?

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to give my support for Amendments 134 and 135 in the names of my noble friend Lady Janke and the noble Lords, Lord Black of Brentwood and Lord Best, who, in his usual style, has added some quality dimensions to this discussion. The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, has given his usual nudge about something we might have forgotten.

In short, these amendments offer a simple, cost-neutral solution to a growing problem. Too many renters are still denied access to fast, reliable broadband, and there is a real risk of growing the digital divide as a result. The ability to work remotely and to access education and vital public services are basic needs in the modern world. Reliable broadband is not a luxury; it is a necessity as fundamental as water or electricity in our lives today, yet over 900,000 households are being left behind. This is often simply because, as has been said clearly, landlords are hard to reach for requests for fibre installation or are just not bothered. These amendments would introduce a clear, fair process, ensuring that tenants could request full-fibre broadband and receive a timely response. This is not about forcing landlords to pay but removing a passive barrier that is harming renters’ access to full-fibre broadband.

It is good to know that these measures are backed by many organisations, such as Generation Rent and the Good Things Foundation, and offer a cost-neutral way for the Government to improve digital inclusion, particularly for low-income renters. Importantly, yes, landlords benefit too, with fibre infrastructure clearly adding a long-term rental value to their properties.

This is a fair and practical step to connect more people and strengthen our digital infrastructure, so we strongly support these amendments—no surprise there—and urge colleagues to do the same. We look forward to the Minister’s response.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, has again spoken so much sense that it leaves me little to add. I should warn him that in our previous day’s debate I was described as “irritatingly persuasive”, so I hope not to damage his case by supporting it.

There is a real issue here and it does need some serious probing. I am not suggesting that we retain Section 21, but noble Lords have raised at Second Reading and today in Committee, as I am sure others will raise again, the courts simply not being ready to take on the burden that is coming to them. There is no credible timescale to transform the clogged courts and tribunals system. However, my main reason for speaking is to put on record and advise the House that I attended a meeting—with the Minister and other noble Lords, some of whom are present today—with those responsible for the court digitisation, which has been held out as the kind of techno magic that will transform the speed of court processes.

This was illuminating, but it left attendees, a good number of whom have very considerable experience of our legal system, very doubtful about this still-evolving IT system. The view from the people I spoke to was that it would take at least five years to bed in.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, Amendments 279 and 280 stand in the name of my friend, the noble and learned friend, Lord Etherton. I signed those amendments as well, not with a legal hat on but more with the hat of someone who has been there for the development of a large number of complex IT systems over the years, and has probably contributed to almost every mistake it is possible to make in doing that.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, unfortunately cannot be here today, so I am going to make some observations that follow on nicely from what the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, has just said. I refer the Committee to my register of interests. I am, in my own capacity and to a small extent, a landlord, but in Scotland. I am also trustee of a couple of trusts in Scotland that are renting properties out.

The problem was set out by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, at Second Reading. I am afraid that, because he is not here, I will use his words very briefly. He said:

“We all know that there will be many more contested possession proceedings by landlords following the enactment of the Bill and the abolition of Section 21 no-fault evictions. It would not be right to abolish no-fault evictions without adequate speed and resources for dealing with the increase in contested proceedings … The Government need to demonstrate that measures have been or will be put in place which will help to secure that court claims by landlords for possession of residential properties will be disposed of in a timely and efficient way”.—[Official Report, 4/2/25; cols. 623-24.]


The meeting to which the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, has just referred took place on 11 March. There were half a dozen Cross-Bench people there. I am holding the 30-page presentation that was handed out. There were officials there from the Ministry of Justice, in particular from HM Courts & Tribunals Service, and from MHCLG; the Minister was there as well. It was an extremely interesting presentation, and there were two things that came out that I feel I should speak to the Committee about today. The first was about the size of the problem. There is a slide that scopes out the size of the IT system that is involved. This IT system exists today. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, is very familiar with the IT systems that support the court services, as he was responsible for a large number of them for some years, and he was very much the driver for the half a dozen of us who were there.

That IT system has separate subsystems for case management, hearings management, work allocation, user registration and fee payment—there are others as well. Noble Lords can see just how complex this IT system is. In each of the things I have just mentioned, there would of course be major changes required to the IT system that would need to go through development and be dealt with in a proper way.

After considering the size of the problem, which I certainly assess as pretty big, we went on to discuss their approach to the design and build of the new system. This was in a slide that was extremely clear, and they were pleased to report that the prototype stage had arrived. The prototype stage sounds very hopeful, but in fact this comes before the fifth of the six stages, which is “prepare for build”; the sixth stage is “build and test”. The prototype is literally that—something which comes at a pretty early stage in the development of the IT system. All that comes, of course, before user acceptance testing and actually training up people involved in the court system to use this complex system in an efficient manner. The acid question that was put to the people advising us on this was how long they thought it would take to get to the end of the “build and test” stage. The answer on 11 March was two years.

The people who were briefing us universally gave a very good impression indeed. I have met a lot of IT people, but they seemed to me very steady in every way and have clearly been through this a lot before, so I have no reason to doubt their two-year estimate for getting to the end of the IT build. In speaking to colleagues afterwards, I think they also felt that the people who were presenting it—who were, after all, the people who were actually doing the programming—were of a very high quality.

With no IT system, the presentation explains that there are 110,000 cases a year, and this is without any uplift in the number of cases that one would expect. The uplift referred to earlier in this debate, and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, in his Second Reading contribution, was 110,000 cases a year. Let us say that we had only a year and a half of it because things went on, but that would be 165,000 cases clogging up a system that is already under strain, producing delay and, because it is going into the county court system, affecting access to justice for the rest of the county court system as well, one assumes. The amendments that the noble and learned Lord prepared—and I was very much in consultation with him while he was doing it—were aimed at trying to prevent undesirable outcomes.

Can the Minister update us on the progress of the IT system that was presented to us on 11 March? Will she agree to meet further to discuss this issue after Committee?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As I said, we are working very closely with our colleagues in the Ministry of Justice and the courts service. The digitisation process is already under way and is already costed, and we are looking at other impacts. If the noble Lord’s view is that they are not clearly set out in the impact statement, I will come back to noble Lords on what they may be.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I just want to come back to the estimated five-year implementation period that the Minister responded to. That arose from conversations with people who have had a lifetime of professional involvement in legal processes, so I would not brush it aside too early. I have been on the sharp end of a number of these sorts of IT projects that get built. If you build anything, you always double the budget and double the time you are told it is going to take; anybody who has built anything knows that—I will not touch on R&R.

The Minister has told us a number of times that the Government are fully focused—a phrase that has been used a number of times. I do not wish to be discourteous, but it sounds like the Government are being fully optimistic, almost to the point of naivety, on this. These are probing amendments. There is a general agreement, including from the Government, that there really is a problem here that needs to be solved. There is no dispute about it being a problem. I urge that, before we get to Report, we need a crisp, specific, clear and credible statement about what exactly will be done to resource this properly, because our current court system is not a model of swiftness and efficiency, and it is hard to see how this will be magically transformed.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I will follow on from that so the Minister can reply to both. I retain a certain fondness for my former department, and I know that the budget of the Ministry of Justice is extremely tight. I have not seen any scope in that budget for the expected increase in the courts’ workload that the Bill will generate. The Minister said she will work very closely with the MoJ, and I know that, when I was an MoJ Minister, that meant that people would work closely with me by telling me that I needed to spend money from my budget on what they wanted. Can I therefore take it that, when she says she will work very closely with the MoJ, what she actually means is that, if the MoJ needs money to do what the Bill requires, it will come from her budget?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in the private rented sector, with residential lettings in Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire.

I have tabled Amendments 96, 98, 99, 103 and 104 to Clause 8, in which the Government seek to create a new right for renters to challenge their annual rent increases. I am most grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Howard of Rising, in this group.

I believe there is a strong consensus across your Lordships’ Committee that stands alongside the Government in wishing to prevent unreasonable rent increases being used as a means of eviction through the backdoor. However, I also believe there is a strong consensus that the Government’s drafting of Clause 8 will not work. Indeed, I am deeply concerned that providing a universal right for all renters to challenge all rent increases, in all circumstances and without qualification, will undermine the supply of rental homes and overwhelm our courts.

The Bill seeks to provide renters with mechanisms to ensure redress where their landlord behaves inappropriately, irresponsibly or exploitatively—yet I fear that the current drafting will undermine that intention in practice. At Second Reading we heard examples of poor behaviour by a small minority of landlords, but the response delivered by the Government will impact the whole private rental market, including the great majority of responsible landlords.

The effect of Clause 8 will be to create a right for all 4.5 million of England’s private rental households to challenge their rent increases annually, via the Section 13 process, at no cost and at zero risk. Every single renter will have a right to take their landlord to the First-tier Tribunal if they perceive their rent increase to be “disproportionate” or unreasonably above market rates.

The Government believe that tenants should apply to the tribunal only if they believe a rent increase is above market rents, but I am afraid that will not be the result of this legislation. The legal text of the Bill sets out that a rent increase could not come into force until after the tribunal rules, and explicitly prohibits the court from determining real market rent to be higher than the landlord’s proposal, even if that is a judge’s evidenced assessment.

The result of this drafting is to create an artificial incentive for all 4.5 million renters to submit a challenge to their rent rise, however legitimate, because this would prevent the increase coming into force until the tribunal decides. There is no risk to the tenant in this and it provides a guaranteed delay in when the increase comes into force. Once this is widely understood, renters will exercise their right as a matter of course.

This incentive risks overwhelming our First-tier Tribunal, burdening an already struggling court with hundreds of thousands of cases. This has already been referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, who has come up with a sensible solution. The Government want renters in genuine need of redress to have access to the courts, but the queue for justice will be too long for this to prove possible.

Moreover, the risk of this backlog in cases is causing serious concern among professional and responsible landlords in the sector. The prospect of extended delays to increasing rent would make it more difficult for investment institutions and build-to-rent developers to invest in new, high-quality rental homes, undermining the rental housing supply that we want to see. The reality of this backlog would be upward pressure on rents—the opposite of what the Government want to achieve.

The Government themselves have acknowledged their desire to ensure that responsible landlords can increase their rents in line with the market annually, and the Government have rightly ruled out rent controls. However, the system proposed under this Bill will in practice undermine landlords’ ability to secure market rents annually.

The Guardian newspaper recently revealed that a King’s Counsel has assessed the Bill to determine the likelihood of a legal challenge in the European Court of Human Rights. Subsequently, the newspaper City AM published an article outlining this legal opinion, which determined that the Government stand a greater than 50% chance of losing in the ECHR on this aspect of the Bill. I implore the Government to look into this further as a matter of urgency.

My amendments would mitigate the very serious legal risk with the current proposals on rent challenges. It is all very well for the Minister to repeat, as she has in the past, that the Bill is compatible with the ECHR, but that judgment was made before our amendments were tabled and discussions ensued. As a matter of grave responsibility, the Government should consult again with their lawyers now that these issues have been raised.

The amendments to Clause 8 in my name offer a common-sense solution that should reassure all parties. In my amendments, I propose that if a renter’s challenge is unsuccessful, rents should take effect from the date of the Section 13 notice rather than the tribunal’s determination date. I further propose that the court should be able to follow the evidence, empowering the tribunal to raise rents to what it deems to be market rates, even if this is potentially higher than what a landlord originally proposed.

I believe that, taken together, the amendments would deliver a fair result—technical changes that would keep the right to challenge while reducing the artificial jeopardy-free incentive to take landlords to court. These reasonable amendments would also give institutional investors and build-to-rent landlords the confidence to invest in the high-quality new rental homes that our country needs. To address concerns raised by a number of noble Lords at Second Reading about unsuccessful challenges leaving renters with a large bill, my amendment is drafted to mandate landlords to spread any backdating over a 12-month period.

The number of amendments proposed to Clause 8 speak to the widespread concern in this House about the risks of the Government’s current drafting. Whether colleagues support my amendments or those of my colleagues, I believe the Government’s position is unsustainable. A credible plan is needed to address the artificial incentive for every renter to challenge their rent. Otherwise, I fear for serious investment in new rental homes and the functioning of our courts system.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I have some sympathy with Amendment 99, concerning the rent rise challenges under Section 13 of the Bill. It is essential that tenants can properly challenge excessive rent increases—but, once again, a fair balance is what we seek.

I slightly take the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, to task for her reference to “consenting adults”. The reason for the Bill arises precisely because of the power differential between landlords and tenants. Some adults are more consenting than others, if I may use that phrase. I am not quite sure that works, but noble Lords will know what I mean.

I support the proposal in Amendment 99 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that the rental increase—only, of course, if agreed by the tribunal—should take effect from the date of a Section 13 notice rather than the date of the tribunal decision. I also agree that, where this creates a rent backlog, you would need a payment plan to set it off over time. I note, however, that there would still be a risk to the landlord in those circumstances: if a tenant uses the tribunal as a speculative delaying tactic, and then if the rent increase is finally approved by the tribunal but the tenant does a flit with the rent arrears unpaid, this will leave the landlord with the unenviable prospect of trying to recover the money due to them from the departed tenant.

In short, the Bill enables—perhaps even invites—speculative challenges to any rent increase requests. I think the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, slightly overeggs it when he says that everyone in the entire country will do that, but perhaps he is doing that to illustrate his point. Either way, as my grandfather used to say, “Don’t complain if people fall for a temptation that you have created”. For the tenant it would make rational, self-interested economic sense to automatically challenge any rent increase, and this abuse of the tribunal process would add to its existing overload of cases and therefore discourage supply. I therefore support the amendment containing provisions in this regard.

There has also been a suggestion, I think in Amendment 98, that the tribunal might set a rent above what was requested by the landlord. I do not support that, for two reasons. First, if a landlord proposes a rent increase, it must be assumed that they consider it to be a satisfactory increase. Secondly, the danger of having the rent set higher than the landlord has requested is often mentioned by tenant groups that I have spoken to as a significant cause for tenants to feel intimidated, thereby preventing challenges to rent increases. The Bill does a lot to rebalance the power in the landlord/tenant relationship, but the issue needs to be re-examined. Making a revised rent payable from the notice date, if necessary with a payment plan for arrears, while at the same time not allowing rent to be increased beyond the landlord’s requested level, would achieve a better balance of rights between landlord and tenant and would prevent abuse of the tribunal system. I therefore hope the Minister will pay heed to this proposal and I look forward to hearing what she has to say.

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In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, who spoke about other schemes, I will look at the other schemes that are involved—it is important that we do this—to see what conditions are put on those, and I will respond to noble Lords on that subject. We will carefully monitor the impact of grants in the private rented sector. Importantly, we have reserved the right to make in-flight changes to the schemes, so we will look at them carefully in that regard.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Very briefly, if I may, I rather like this idea—it is great. In the Government’s consideration, will they include where the grant covers only part of the cost and how that can be treated?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, makes a very relevant point—we will have a look at both things.

Although I appreciate the intention behind Amendment 90, I have concerns about whether it would be practical to attribute a portion of the market rent to energy improvements. We need to think about how we might do this. I hope that the alternative approaches I have outlined and the steps we have taken to allow tenants to challenge egregious rents, for whatever reason the increase has been put on, provide some reassurance. I therefore respectfully ask the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, not to press the amendment.

Amendments 91, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101 and 104 all deal with the backdating of rent increases. I do not agree that tenants should be forced to pay backdated rent. To ensure that tenants are not unexpectedly thrown into debt that could cause further difficulty, the Bill provides that the new rent will apply from the date the tribunal directs, not earlier than the date of determination. We are clear that tenants should submit an application to the tribunal only where they believe that a rent increase is above market rates, and all parties should communicate about the level of rent increases that would be sustainable.

One noble Lord mentioned 1.6 million tenants taking landlords to court. I find that unlikely, to say the least, but we would quickly know. I have already undertaken to noble Lords that we will monitor this very carefully. If that did start to happen, we would certainly know that it was happening and would deal with it immediately. Allowing the backdating of rents risks disadvantaging the most vulnerable tenants—those who may forego challenging a rent increase that is designed purely to force them out of their home.

I turn briefly to each amendment in turn. My noble friend Lord Hacking has spoken to his Amendments 91, 94, and 97. Amendment 91 aims to backdate a rent increase to the date specified in the Section 13 notice. Amendment 94 seeks to backdate a rent increase where the tenant has challenged the relevant notice at tribunal. Amendment 97 is a consequential amendment linked to Amendment 94, which aims to ensure that, where a tenant challenges a rent increase notice at tribunal, any rent increase determined by the tribunal will be backdated to the date on the Section 13 notice. I have already set out why the Government do not agree that tenants should be forced to pay backdated rent. I therefore ask my noble friend not to press these three amendments.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, set out the process as it is now. If it really is as straightforward and simple as he said—I am not arguing with him, and I am sure he has been as diligent as he always is in looking up the facts—surely we would already be swamped with tenants appealing their rent increases, and that is not the case.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I accept that it is a dramatic departure, but it is done for a good purpose. We put the provision in the Bill to prevent tenants being penalised for challenging their rent at tribunal by having a backdated increase.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Is the Minister saying that a tribunal that sets a rent at a level which it considers to be right is setting a penal level of rent? She is saying that tenants would be penalised if rent is backdated to the date when it should have occurred. The implication, therefore, is that the tribunal is setting a penal rent. I cannot think that that is what is intended.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I again note my interest in the register as the owner of a single rented property. The Minister has asserted, as Ministers are required to do, that, in her view,

“the provisions of the Renters’ Rights Bill are compatible with the Convention rights”.

I am just wondering, because it does tend to be a bit of a routine that those of us who have ever done this sign these things: can she tell the Committee whether there was a very specific examination of the circumstances in the Bill?

I must also say that the tour de force by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, was impressive. We all felt that his Latin was very good—we will give him marks for that, I think—and he raises a very significant point. It is not unique to have retrospective legislation, but it is certainly frowned upon, bearing in mind the number of people who could be directly affected—their financial welfare, their own welfare, their concerns and the worries that can be generated by having something done, in effect, long after they had agreed and thought they had a deal. I am sure that President Trump will be listening to this debate, because he might be learning lessons; we might be teaching him things to do.

Can the Minister assure the Committee that when she signed that, or gave her views on the convention rights, that it was actually properly assessed, and legal advice was provided, rather than it simply being a piece of routine that departments do when they bring legislation to Parliament? Having listened to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, I think there could very well be people who will feel aggrieved if something happens subsequent to an agreement that they entered into freely and, all of a sudden, things have changed. I think we do need an explanation.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Can I just add that I was disappointed that we did not have any phraseology in ancient Greek? We will have to put up with that for today, I suppose. I echo my noble friend Lord Carter’s point: I think it would be really helpful, whatever one thinks of the rights and wrongs of retrospective legislation, that a proper list is set out as to which rights are going to be affected. I think everybody outside this Chamber is going to need that, in practice, in the rental sector. It would be very helpful if something could be published that literally specifies which bits are going to be affected retrospectively and how.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough for bringing Amendments 16 to 18 to the Committee today. The question of the retroactivity of the Bill is not just a question of how it will be applied, it is a question as to whether it is fair at all. It is easy for Governments armed with executive powers to apply the law retrospectively, but it should be the duty of every Minister to ask: is this the right way? Is it the fair way?

I invite noble Lords to imagine that they signed a tenancy agreement under a clear set of rules in January 2025; they followed all the rules; then, in June 2025, Parliament passes a law saying that their tenancy is now invalid. Well, many will have to imagine no longer, because once the Bill gets Royal Assent, tenants and landlords may find that their agreements are no longer valid.

The predecessor of the Bill adopted a model of prospective lawmaking by setting out a two-pronged approach to implementation. It would have assured that substantial changes were introduced at a suitable pace, one that brought the sector along with it, giving it time to understand the new requirements and adapt accordingly. In their haste to publish the Bill, the Government appear willing to abandon the principle of prospective lawmaking, placing an immediate and heavy burden on landlords. The Committee will be well aware that 45% of landlords own just a single property. These are not professional landlords with teams behind them. They lack the infrastructure to absorb complex regulatory change. They are not poring over the details of legislation, nor do they have time to follow days of Committee proceedings. How do the Government expect these individuals to implement such sweeping reforms all at once and without a serious and structured implementation period?

At this Dispatch Box on Tuesday, I quoted some statistics from Paragon. In the same survey, it noted that 39% of landlords had not even heard of the Bill. Will the Minister please explain how the Government will communicate these changes? The department must begin explaining in clear and simple terms what is coming down the track. Landlords need to know that change is coming. Regardless of the Bill’s specific contents or intentions, its retroactive nature will pose challenges. It will not only bring an abrupt end to agreements freely entered into by two consenting adults, it will unleash a wave of challenges upon landlords through its immediate implementation.

I turn to the litany of amendments put down by the Government. We welcome the right to sublet and want to ensure people do not lose that right, but we want it to be implemented with clarity. On these Benches, we would prefer those specific tenancy types which underlie the right to sublet—such as fixed-term assured tenancies or assured shorthold tenancies—to remain. We set out our clear case yesterday and we will continue to stand up for a sector that delivers choice and variety and provides the homes we need. Will the Minister explain the Government’s adjustments to the context of Clause 3? It is clear that they intend to restructure the legislation, so on these Benches we wish to ensure that the effects of superior leases are appropriately addressed within the updated framework. Can the Minister set out how the Government will ensure that tenants in sublet arrangements are not left in legal limbo?

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I know that the Minister is sympathetic to the plight of shared owners, so I hope she will agree to a meeting before Report to address the issues I have raised. I beg to move.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly because, as always, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, has set out his case so coherently and in such detail that I need raise just a couple of points. Before I do, I declare an interest: I do not let out any residential property, but I have a couple of family members who let out one each.

I support all four of the amendments in this group, because there is considerable uncertainty about how the Bill will affect shared owners who become the so-called accidental landlords that have been referred to. They often sublet as a survival strategy, to deal with exceptionally difficult financial circumstances, which the noble Lord set out. Where co-owners try but, as is common, fail to sell, the proposed 12-month letting period ban—the lack of a letting period—risks punishing the very people who simply do not have the financial resilience to cope with a 12-month void in their ability to sublet. This applies acutely to the poorer and more vulnerable end of the market, so I trust that it will be of particular interest to this Government.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I too support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham.

If many of the amendments to this Bill are designed to make us look at unintended consequences for certain groups of people, these amendments concern one group of people who wholeheartedly deserve and need us to look at how the Bill will impact their situation as shared owners who cannot sell their flats and are subletting due to a variety of legitimate reasons. The specific conditions of their model of part ownership were so cogently outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Young, that, noble Lords will be pleased to know, I will not even attempt to repeat them. That has led to their campaign to plead with us—“plead” is almost not a strong enough word—to look at ways to ameliorate the devastating situation in which they find themselves.

The key element of concern is the stranglehold that the registered providers have on the property—no doubt deemed to be a good thing in normal times, but this situation is far from normal. Due to that stranglehold and the restrictive rules that shared owners must abide by, for the majority of shared owners subletting is a loss-making operation by design. I am not given to hyperbole, but I cannot think of anything worse than being in the situation that they are trapped in.

The term “accidental landlord” was a new one to me, but when I heard first hand from the shared ownership owners, I felt their pain—it is a really messy issue. Let us not forget that, if you have gone into shared ownership in the first place, it is highly likely that your finances are going to be stretched anyway—no high salary, no inheritance, and no bank of mum and dad—or you would have bought outright. As has already been said, the 2025 survey of the Shared Owners’ Network found that 90% of subletters were created because of the building safety crisis.

Another shocking statistic was that, in November 2024, the National Audit Office stated that the Government will not reach their 2023 target for the remediation of high-rise buildings with dangerous cladding. This building safety crisis is set to continue for over a decade or more, so it is not a big stretch to say that the problem of accidental landlords will increase. That is why I too was disappointed that this was not picked up by the impact assessment—perhaps the Minister can explain why.

The issue is certainly complex, and I am absolutely certain that the Minister is fully knowledgeable about it and sympathetic to it. The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young, are trying to find out whether there is a way forward through this Bill to help this group of people. Alternatively, perhaps the Minister will take it upon herself to follow this up by other means.

I will end with a few words from one of the many emails from the aforementioned Stephanie, but I will pick up on a slightly different point. She says that

“we are not bad people … we’re trying to cope with an impossible situation … we don’t need to be punished for failing to sell the unsellable flats that are already ruining us”.

Between the noble Lord, Lord Young, and Stephanie, they say it all—and they have our full support.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, my Amendments 35 and 71 both aim to help people who rent. I declare an interest as someone who rents a two-bedroom flat.

I have tabled Amendment 35 because I am worried that the Government’s good policy will actually end up penalising the very people that it is aiming to help. I hope the Minister will go away from here thinking, “The Green Party had quite a good idea on that, and how nice it is to have them on our side for once”.

The Government are doing the right thing for the climate and for people in putting in higher energy efficiency standards—that is a given—and doing the right thing for landlords with grants to help them meet those standards. However, the only people who do not get a guaranteed better life are the poor tenants who have to put up with the work, dust, noise and inconvenience of the energy improvements being done, with the possibility that their rent will be going up as their energy costs go down. Amendment 35 is an attempt to give tenants a guarantee that they will also get some direct benefit from the drive for net zero with two years of lower energy bills, without that saving being cancelled out by a landlord focusing on profiting from a government grant. I think this is a sensible amendment and I hope it will find favour with the Minister.

Amendment 71 aims to shift the debate firmly on to the needs of the tenant and to discourage landlords from constantly changing their minds about letting out their properties. It builds on the Government’s welcome attempt to get rid of no-fault evictions by adding a new clause to the eviction process that gives the tenant a one-month financial head start. With all the costs involved with moving—the deposit and moving costs—it can be a long, drawn-out process, and, for many tenants who are self-employed or on zero-hours contracts, time is literally money and moving is a time-consuming business.

I hope that passing this legislation will create a new era of stability for those in the private rental market. A whole generation of young people has had to suffer from an overheated rental market, which was firmly loaded in favour of investors and those with the money to buy properties. This legislation does not actually solve that problem, because only the Government building hundreds of thousands of social homes could probably do that, but I welcome the start the Bill is making and I hope the Minister will consider the needs of tenants even more in this way.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I rather like the look of Amendments 26 and 27 from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and look forward to hearing her describe them. They also relate to my Amendment 142, which I will now speak to.

The Bill restricts a landlord to four instances where they can recover their property and require a tenant to leave. One of these is if the landlord is selling the property. The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that, where a landlord seeks to sell a property under the new ground 1A but fails to do so, the property is made available again on the rental market without unnecessary delay.

The Bill requires that the property is on the market for sale for at least 12 months before, if no sale is forthcoming, it can be re-let. Market statistics show that typically about 20% of rental properties taken off the rental market do not sell and come back to the rental market. Savills puts the figure higher, at 33%. According to Hamptons, on average properties come back as available to rent after about 90 days, or three months. Where properties do sell, Zoopla figures indicate that the period between first marketing and completion is typically six months. This amendment responds to these facts and reduces to six months the period when the property is required to be unavailable to rent.

I move from the market facts to the Government’s approach. I am very grateful to the Minister for the opportunity that we had to discuss this and the understanding I obtained of the Government’s thinking. I understand that the Government’s concern is that landlords seeking to increase the rent might claim the property is on the market as a means to obtain vacant possession, apparently expecting much higher rent thereafter. They would leave it standing empty for, say, six months with no rental income, and then re-let it not just at a higher rent but at one that would both recover the rent lost in that six-month period and obtain a higher ongoing rent. The assertion is that making the required period 12 months would make such assumed motivation and behaviour unworkable economically.

I have struggled without success to find a period as long as 12 months credible for this purpose. So I ask the Minister: if the current rent on a property is for some reason set below the market rate, would it not be possible for the landlord simply to seek an increase to the market level in the normal way, rather than going through the convoluted processes and expense involved in removing the tenant, putting the property on the market and then re-letting it? If the rent is close to the market rate, it is surely unrealistic to expect that a landlord would be able to leave the property empty for six months, with ongoing costs but full loss of income, and then rent it out again at an uncompetitive rate, well above the market rate, in order, as the Government’s thinking seems to be, to recover six months of losses and then settle at what would be, I repeat, by definition, an uncompetitively high rent. I just do not see how that would have a chance of working.

To give a quick numerical example, a landlord receiving £2,500 a month in rent who puts the property on the market and receives no rent for just six months would, after leaving aside any other costs incurred in departing the tenant and marketing the property, lose at least £15,000 of rental income. To recover this over the subsequent six months and raise a base rental amount to, say, £3,000 per month compared with the £2,500, which for our evil, rapacious landlord is a pretty modest increase of £500, would mean seeking to rent out the property at £5,500 a month—a 220% rent increase over just a six-month period. If Mr Rapacious wanted to recover his losses faster, say in one quarter—three months—the rent would have to go up to £8,000 a month, a 320% increase in rent over just six months.

I must therefore say to the Minister that just six months off the market is easily more than enough to make evicting a tenant simply to achieve a rent increase a highly implausible strategy. Requiring it to be off the market for a full 12 months is not only unnecessary but a distorted intervention that simply reduces the availability of rental accommodation.

Finally, I draw to noble Lords’ attention the two provisions included in the amendment. First, the property would have to have been demonstrably available to purchase on the open market at a fair market price with no suitable offers received and, importantly, the tenant and the courts could require evidence of these points and would be able to decide whether the landlord had made genuine attempts to sell. Amendments 26 and 27, which are coming up shortly, I believe, are also very helpful in this area.

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To conclude, we believe that asking landlords for robust evidence to evict a tenant should not prove onerous if landlords are planning to use the eviction ground as intended. Evictions can cause significant disruption and hardship for tenants, so there should be a high threshold for evidence to ensure that evictions are served only where there are legitimate grounds. A high evidentiary threshold provides a deterrent for misuse, giving some protection for renters, even if, in reality, it is highly unlikely that they will reverse the eviction in the courts. It is about incentivising landlords to do the right thing, which most of them will do, but deterring the small minority of unscrupulous ones. Perhaps the Minister could give at least some consideration to the legitimate concerns behind these amendments.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Perhaps I may be allowed another very brief speech, since I was commented on earlier. I am always grateful for any compliments I receive, no matter how backhanded, about my persuasiveness, so I thank the noble Baroness for those. I will just comment that the idea that you would put your house, flat or property on at a silly price is immediately contested by my amendment and beefed up by her amendment as having to produce evidence to that fact, so I do not think that really holds water. I encourage her to be convinced: not, as she suggested, to give in to her instincts, but to look at the economics, the logic and the maths, which simply demonstrate that six months is more than adequate, and 12 months is excessive.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for those further comments. I am of course always happy to have a further meeting with her and the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, on this subject. A core principle of the Bill is to increase the security of tenure that tenants enjoy. We want to keep our focus on that, but I understand the point the noble Baroness is making and the reason for putting forward the amendment. I think the words I used were that there was likely to be very limited use of this ground and a risk of abuse and that, where a family member would act as carer, there is another possession ground that can be used, but, of course, I am happy to meet and discuss it with her before Report.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

It is always helpful to remember that we judge a democracy on how it treats its minorities.

The Minister referred to my appearing to be interested in rent. I was interested in discussing the issue in the shape of rent because that was the reason I was given for a 12-month barrier to reselling the house: that the rapacious landlord would seek to make profit from doing so. I hope that the example I have given and the explanation and logic I provided demonstrated fairly compellingly that 12 months is simply excessive. I am sorry that I have not convinced the Minister of that. Perhaps we can have a further discussion, because I think the evidence will demonstrate that six months is more than adequate to put off a landlord from taking the risk of having no income for six months, and possibly costs in addition, and then trying to recover that over time.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, for his further clarification. I considered that we had a very useful meeting earlier on this and I have thought about it very carefully. I think the current 12-month restriction on re-letting is the right one to prevent abuse of those possession grounds, but of course I am happy to meet him and discuss it further.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am happy to get further written advice for the noble Lords.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I do not wish to detain the Minister with yet another question, but I will perhaps ask a little cheeky one. She referred a number of times to useful meetings with tenant representative bodies, which I have also had quite a number of meetings with. Can she tell us how many meetings she has had with landlord representative bodies?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I have had meetings with landlord representative bodies, but I cannot tell the noble Lord the number off the top of my head. I will write to him with that.