Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I first declare my interest as a rental property owner. I support certain aspects of this Bill but have major reservations on other parts of it. On some issues the Bill strikes the right balance. This is agreed by the National Residential Landlords Association and the Large Agents Representation Group. These issues include provisions to establish a decent homes standard, applying Awaab’s law sensibly, tackling discriminatory practices faced by benefit claimants and families with children, protecting guarantors when a tenant dies while renting a property, and efforts to end bidding wars. These parts of the Bill are welcome.

Before I look at the Bill’s problems, I would like to take a step back and examine the background to the English residential letting market. First, there are not enough private rented properties to meet demand. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, has acknowledged that demand is currently outstripping the supply of properties available to let. According to the latest English Private Landlord Survey, the number of landlords looking to sell properties is increasing: 31% of landlords plan to cut the number of properties they rent out. Landlords selling properties is not good news for tenants. This is a leading reason that tenancies end, according to the Government’s homelessness data.

The leading countryside organisation, the CLA, states that that the rural private housing sector is shrinking, with 44% of countryside landlords planning to sell or change use class in the next two years. This compares with only 21% planning to build in the same period. Some 90% of those planning to leave the sector gave changes in private rented sector tenancies as the first cause. The second cause was the proposal to increase minimum energy efficiency standards to energy performance certificate C. The third cause was the abolition of Section 21, which I shall now move on to.

The courts are already facing huge backlogs. Ending Section 21 will put an even greater strain on them. They will need to consider and process possession cases where landlords have good cause, under the Section 8 process. The other place’s Housing Select Committee has previously warned that the courts will be overwhelmed without reform. Government data suggests that it takes a court an average of just over seven months to process Section 8 possession cases. This is from a case being accepted to the property being repossessed and includes cases related to anti-social behaviour and serious rent arrears.

As far back as September, the Housing Minister in the other place said that the Government are working

“to ensure that the court system is ready at the point that the new system comes into effect”.

However, since then, no clarity has been provided by the Government about what the courts being ready means in practice. This is especially concerning given that the Minister told the Public Bill Committee in the other place that the court system is “on its knees”. A clear resource plan must be put in place before reforms take effect. The Law Society has rightly warned that

“without investment for housing legal aid and the courts, the bill will not achieve its aims”.

Despite representing the most significant reforms to the private rented sector in over 30 years, no clear implementation plan has been developed or published. Such a plan is vital to ensure that the sector understands what is expected of it and when. Sufficient time needs to be allowed to prepare for changes. I therefore ask the Minister: which parts of the Bill will be implemented at what stage?

I now move to the problems of the legislation regarding the tribunal system. The Bill is set to allow tenants to challenge above-market rent increases at the property tribunal. The ruling cannot decide that a proposed rent increase should be higher than what was proposed by a landlord, and tenants can take rent determinations to a tribunal free of charge. Based on the measures in the Bill, there is no clear reason as to why a tenant would not take an increase to the tribunal. This is irrespective of whether their challenge would be successful, not least because the only way to test if a rent increase was at market rates or not would be to go to the tribunal.

At the Second Reading of the Bill in the other place, the Housing Minister told MPs that the Government

“do not want the tribunal overwhelmed”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/10/24; col. 413.]

However, it is not clear how this will be achieved. I suggest that, to prevent the property tribunal being overwhelmed with rental appeal cases, tenants should first be able to establish from the Valuation Office Agency whether a proposed rent increase is within market rates or not. This would make use of the VOA’s experience on local market rents and reduce waiting times for cases that need to be decided by the tribunal.

The next problem is Clause 9. The effect of this could see a number of otherwise suitable applicants shut out from the private rented sector. The clause prohibits any form of rent in advance other than the first month’s rent, which is only payable after the tenancy agreement has been entered into. While the Government’s intentions behind seeking to prevent large amounts of rent being paid in advance are understandable, limiting this ability may close off the private rental market to certain groups who most struggle to prove their ability to sustain a tenancy, including covering their rents. Those most likely to be affected are international students and overseas workers who have no credit history in the UK, as well as those employed on a short-term or variable basis with income that fluctuates. Those from overseas are also most likely to struggle to secure a UK-based guarantor for their rent.

In addition, I ask the Minister how guarantors will work under the new legislation. Given the end of the fixed-term tenancies, it is unlikely that a guarantor would be willing to guarantee a tenant’s rent indefinitely. The Bill’s potential to close off the market from those overseas is in direct contrast with the Chancellor’s ambition to encourage more high-skilled workers to UK and the Education Secretary’s recent message welcoming international students to the country.

I have two other issues. The first is ensuring that the database of private housing works. Chris Norris of the NRLA, which represents 100,000 landlords, said:

“It makes no sense that whilst planning to create a national database of private landlords, the Government now wants to make it easier for councils to license landlords as well”.


How do the Government plan to prevent the two schemes duplicating each other? A failure to do so risks them becoming nothing more than cash cows at the expense of landlords. The database must make it easier for responsible landlords to demonstrate compliance with all their obligations.

My second and final issue is the uncertainty for landlords over gaining repossession of one or two-bedroom properties let out to students. Can I ask the Minister why the new possession ground 4A will not apply to these?

King’s Speech

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords I welcome the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, to the Government Front Bench. In the limited time available, I can focus on only one aspect of the gracious Speech, the plan to remove the remaining 92 hereditary Peers from the House, eliminating many centuries of tradition and generational wisdom and thus a golden thread going back to the 13th century—although I note that the Labour Front Bench has a hereditary Peer among their number, albeit restored as a life Peer.

On 30 March 1999, in front of a packed House of Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, stood at the Dispatch Box and said that the 1999 Bill to abolish the majority of hereditary Peers reflected

“a compromise negotiated between Privy Councillors on Privy Council terms and binding in honour on all those who have come to give it their assent”.

The noble and learned Lord continued, in the most carefully worded statement, saying that

“the 10 per cent. will go only when stage two has taken place. So it is a guarantee that it will take place”.—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 207.]

The words could not have been more unequivocal.

It is the responsibility of the 92, and those colleagues who believe that the former Lord Chancellor’s promise should be adhered to, to help the Government make sure that proposed legislation includes provision to move to the stage 2 promise, and I will highlight areas that need to be discussed further.

First, there should be measures to restrict the size of the House. It cannot be right that the number of Peers keeps increasing so that only the National People’s Congress of China has more members. The correct number should reflect the voting turnout in recent years, and the political balance should be adjusted according to the percentage of votes for each party at the general election.

There should be a retirement age of 80, as has been proposed. However, this should not be mandatory; it would be fairer to have a secret ballot of the whole House once a year to decide whether a Peer over 80 should continue. The current retirement procedure works well, but unfortunately its effect is totally negated by the more-than-compensating appointment of new Peers. Slightly confusingly, the Prime Minister has already authorised the appointment of an 81 year-old Baroness. The only Prime Minister to limit appointments was Theresa May. More should follow her example. The Appointments Commission should be put on a statutory basis and firmly applied to all new appointments—political ones included—thus controlling the quality of prime ministerial patronage.

In addition, amendments should be considered on the composition of the membership of the House. First, we should debate whether the House should be elected. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, opined in the interesting TV programme “The Lady and the Lords”, this is what the general public would expect. Do we need to rebalance the 26 Bishops of the religious element of the House to insert representatives of all faiths? Should the name of the House change to “the Senate”, as it will not allow hereditary Peers to be Members?

Another issue to be looked at is the powers of the House. Should we not be able to amend the reams of secondary legislation that come before us rather than just having the stark choice of agreeing or throwing it out? Also, I firmly believe that we should have the power to amend badly drafted finance Bills, particularly where, due to the guillotine procedure, the clauses are not even discussed in the other place.

Finally, how will some business mechanics work when the hereditaries are gone? Can there be an exemption for shadow Ministers and Whips on the Front Bench? Will there be enough noble Lords to sit on the Woolsack?

I understand that a key reason for the proposed Bill is to remove a number of Conservative Peers from the House, which means that the Government will not have to create the equivalent number of new Labour Peers. However, the Cross-Bench hereditaries have been caught in the cross-fire unnecessarily. Very often during the last Administration they supported Labour and Lib Dem amendments, so they are no major threat to the Government getting their business through. In particular, the convenor should be spared abolition.

What will happen to the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain? Are they also to be excluded from the House? This would seem to be a huge change of tradition to ceremonial offices of state.

I am sure that the proposed legislation will need thorough scrutiny so that it honours the promise made by the then Lord Chancellor in 1999. I am sure that the 92 would be less unhappy to leave when this has been fulfilled.