Rogue Landlords Register

Lord Flight Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to ensuring that we build back fairer and to improving the relationship between landlords and tenants. We will certainly consider the policy ideas put forward by Generation Rent as part of our commitment to that reform.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I am advised that, in the two years since its launch, the Government’s database to keep track of rogue landlords contains only 21 names so far, submitted by 15 local authorities, despite the Government’s estimate that there are as many as 10,500. What reforms are the Government therefore proposing for a more realistic approach to identifying rogue landlords? Further, do they have any plans for a national rogue tenant database?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I thank my noble friend but the latest data shows that the figure is slightly higher than that: there are 43 entries by 26 local authorities. However, we will consider what we can do to improve access to the database. We currently have no plans to introduce a national tenants database. There are a number of measures we can put in place, such as the referencing scheme, which we think are sufficient.