Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Trees Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 48, which stands in my name. I declare my interests both as a landlord for my own part, to a small extent—all for properties in Scotland—and as trustee, in particular for the Blair Charitable Trust, all properties of which are also in Scotland.

At the earlier stages of the Bill, it was reflected by a number of noble Lords that pets promoted well-being among tenants; that is something with which I very much agree. I am looking at the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, who made a very good speech on this point at an earlier stage.

The thrust of this Bill is that there is a presumption that pets should be allowed in rented property. There are two protections for landlords. First, they can say no if it is reasonable to do so; we have just been hearing about some things that might not be so reasonable. Secondly, there is a protection for landlords, at least currently in the Bill, of deposits and insurance. However, social housing is not included in the Bill; indeed, it is specifically excluded. That seems to me very unfair.

I am grateful to the Minister and her Bill team, some members of which I can see sitting in the Box. They have been very generous with their time; we have been over this topic a number of times in the Minister’s meeting room upstairs. It seems to me that people in social housing are in many ways the people who most need the sense of well-being that a pet brings. I would be very keen that we make that change.

In the meeting—I do not want to steal any of the Minister’s thunder—a number of points were made to me about this area, and I must say that I have been brought along with those. I would be very grateful if the Minister could tell the House everything that she told me. I think that would be helpful to everyone on this amendment.

[Lord Trees (CB)]

I rise to support Amendment 48 in the name of my noble friends Lord Kinnoull and Lord de Clifford. It is a short amendment but, hopefully, could have a long impact. It would allow tenants in social housing some of the benefits with regard to keeping a pet that this Bill will provide for tenants in private properties. Tenants seeking social housing may not be in a position to buy their own property; if they did, they would have no problem with keeping a pet and they would have all the positives to which my noble friend Lord Kinnoull alluded in relation to well-being and health benefits. Instead, the Bill denies them those rights, which are enjoyed by tenants in the private rental market. I am curious to understand the Government’s explanation for this.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, I too am anxious to have a better explanation. To me, the Bill seems very unfair, as it introduces two classes of people, one of whom will be disadvantaged at the same time as others are advantaged. It is one step forward and another one or two steps back. I hope that the Minister will be able to give sufficiently strong reasons why this should not happen to make me content, but I am not holding my breath.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 53A. Getting the balance right between landlords and tenants is something that was stressed by a number of speakers on the previous group of amendments, including the Minister. The Bill really amounts to a presumption that tenants can keep pets, on the one hand, and protection for landlords, on the other hand, in the shape of a deposit and insurance. Insurance is going to fall away because it was not available and would have entailed a high cost. Even if such insurance had been available, the loss ratio would not have represented good value for tenants. Good tenants would have lost all their money, whereas, as the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, has pointed out, you can get your deposit back with interest at the end. I feel that a deposit is a very good way to go, and that is why I tabled Amendment 51. I was disappointed that the appearance of Amendment 49 was going to kill Amendment 51 by way of pre-emption. That is why Amendment 53A is a very good idea.

Pets damage buildings. We heard a lot about this in Committee, and the noble Lord, Lord Trees, may say something to remind us of all the unseen things that pets bring into the home. I am afraid that I feel that the survey by the academics at the University of Huddersfield is a rogue thing; it does not accord with my experience at all—and the Blair Charitable Trust is a reasonably sized landlord all round. Pets do damage things, but a deposit is a very fair way of adjusting the balance between the two people.

In Scotland, that deposit is set at two months. Here, if the correct level of deposit is five weeks and we add the risk of a pet on top of that, which was going to be taken out by the insurance as originally proposed in the Bill, it seems to me not to be a good balance that there should be no increase in the level of deposit protection. In the original Amendment 51, I had set the additional protection at three weeks because I considered eight weeks very similar to two months and I felt that having some symmetry between Scotland and England on this point was a good idea. I also felt, through experience, that Scotland, with two months of deposit, was okay, and that the balance between tenants and landlords was okay where pets were concerned. I feel that Amendment 53A has a tremendous amount of merit.

One of the points made to me is that Amendment 53A would add a lot of expense to tenants in the amount of deposit they would have to put up. I was just totting up how much our own two dogs cost to look after in a year, and it is a lot. Even though they probably eat better than some dogs, the dog food, inevitable visits to the vets—we do not buy insurance but it would amount to roughly the same as insurance is a pooling scheme—and all the various other things one has to do, such as finding someone to look after them if you go away on holiday, cost many hundreds of pounds a year. There is also the initial cost. I am talking about dogs, but it would be same for other pets. The website Pets4Homes has 1,625 dogs on it today, which cost between £400 and £3,000. Many people who have pets are engaging in something that is reasonably costly anyway, so asking them to provide another three weeks of security is perfectly fair and proportionate—especially if, having looked after the property well, they get back not only the interest on it but the money itself at the end. I am very pro Amendment 53A.

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, I too will speak to Amendment 53A, but first I thank the Minister and her team for their Amendment 49 and the consequential amendments, which will improve this Bill substantially. I thank her for the helpful letter about assistance dogs, which is a matter I raised in Committee and at Second Reading.

I support Amendment 53A. As many have said, it is extremely important that landlords are willing to accept tenants with pets—an objective with which all noble Lords would concur. This amendment would further that objective, and I think it is quite significant.

The costs incurred occasionally—it is only very occasionally but it happens—can be substantial. It goes way beyond a gnawed chair leg or a bit of wallpaper off the wall. As has been alluded to, if one has deposition of potential allergens in a property or a flea infestation, a real deep clean can cost hundreds if not almost thousands of pounds. Those costs inevitably fall on the landlord at the minute and are a considerable potential disincentive.

We have heard the figures from Huddersfield. Another figure is that 75% of landlords did not have a problem with pets. That means that 25% of landlords accepting pets have had some degree of problem. I note that 40% of landlords do not accept pets at all.

The deposit suggested in the amendment is proportionate and extremely important to assure landlords that, if there were to be negative results from a pet, they would get acceptable recompense. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has pointed out, the deposit costs nothing if there has been no problem. It is returned fully, with interest, to the tenant. As he also pointed out, keeping a pet, particularly a dog—we are probably mainly concerned with what dogs can do—is a major financial responsibility and should not be undertaken by people who could not afford to put up a deposit of the size suggested. I support this amendment.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Trees Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 124A in the name of my noble friend Lord Leicester. He apologises to the House for not being here. He had hoped to be here, but a long-standing commitment has prevented him from being so.

Of course, my noble friend Lord Black is absolutely right that pets can be extremely beneficial and are a great asset in many households. However, my noble friend Lord Howard is also right in saying that there needs to be a balance; there cannot just be an open door for tenants to have a pet as and when they want, however badly or well that pet behaves.

Amendment 124A refers especially to cats. I was actually quite surprised that my noble friend Lord Black did not mention cats. He mentioned dogs—he gave them a good write-up—but he did not mention cats because he probably knew that I would make the point that cats are killers. They have many assets and I love them dearly, but let out of a house and loose, they are killers. They kill between 160 million and 270 million animals every year, a quarter of those being birds.

I wonder how many of your Lordships woke up early on Sunday morning and listened to nature’s greatest symphony, the dawn chorus. It was International Dawn Chorus Day. We like small birds—songbirds. They are hugely under threat from all sorts of areas, but they are also under threat from cats. There are certain measures that cat owners can take to make their pet less harmful to other species, but the Brits are not terribly good at doing that. In fact, in Germany they have found that some of the Germans are not terribly good at that, either; they have actually made an order in some parts of Germany that during the summer, you have to keep your cat indoors all the time.

Amendment 124A is very tightly drawn. It allows a landlord to say no to a tenant having a cat if the property is in an area designated by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981—I remember speaking quite a lot during the progress of that Bill through Parliament—or close to a designated area. In other words, what we are really talking about here are key nature sites: the SSSIs and national nature reserves. The amendment is also carefully worded, in that one is not allowed to have a cat if the property is within a mile of one of those sites. Why a mile? The reason is that the research undertaken by the University of Reading and the University of Exeter at the request of SongBird Survival has found that cats can roam up to roughly 1,400 metres, which is just about a mile. Through their research, they also found that urban cats behave differently from what they call “peri-urban” cats, which are much more likely to stray further and have a different attitude and natural instincts from cats in urban areas, because of the restrictions of such areas.

It is entirely reasonable to encourage landlords to say yes, but equally, it is entirely reasonable to allow them to say no in certain circumstances. Nature in this country needs not only protecting but encouraging. One of the small ways to encourage nature is to say no to a tenant having a cat in an area that is very close to or part of an SSSI or a national nature reserve. That is the right step: protection of nature rather than the will of an individual.

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendment 124 in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and others. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, and the noble Earl, I am at a loss to understand why potential tenants in social housing are not included in the Bill. I would have thought that those seeking social housing are likely to be unable to afford to buy their own home, in which case they would not have a problem with having a pet. Why does the Bill not enable such tenants in social housing to enjoy the rights afforded to tenants in private housing? I cannot see the distinction, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply to this question.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate. I am afraid I have none of the expertise of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who spoke about cats with intimate knowledge. At this stage I should redeclare an interest that I declared in the early days of this Committee. For the last almost 30 years my wife and I, by accident, in fact, have been the landlords of five one-bedroom flats in the house next door.

While households normally have as their pet either a dog or a cat, there are some extraordinary households that have a string of other sorts of pet—for example, a snake, monkey or parrot. Looking at page 21 of the Bill, we find that a “pet” is described as “an animal”. On that basis, a talkative parrot or indeed a snake does not fall under these provisions. The assumption therefore is that the landlord is entitled to say no to snakes and, if he needs to—although one hopes it is hardly necessary—no to a talkative parrot. It is important to establish the reasonable grounds on which a landlord can refuse to permit a tenant to bring a pet into the property.

Amendments 120 to 123, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, are very helpful. If they are going to be pressed on Report, I suggest they be condensed into a single amendment.

My wife and I have always refused to permit tenants to have a pet such as a dog or a cat, because we have been concerned about the disturbance of other tenants—a dog barking, for example—and the damage a pet can create in the household.

With that background, it has been very helpful of the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, to identify circumstances in which it is reasonable or unreasonable for a landlord to refuse a pet in the premises. That continues to be a very interesting debate. I do not know whether the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, is going to educate us further on cats, but may we go on?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Black, quoted from the University of Huddersfield’s excellent research, The Financial Impact of Pet Ownership in Rental Properties, which I have read in detail. One of the most surprising things is that there is more non-pet-related damage to properties from non-pet owners, which averaged at £215, than there is pet-related damage from pet owners. But perhaps the more relevant thing to this particular debate is that when there was damage: the tenant’s deposit fully covered the cost 38% of the time; the repair costs exceeded the deposit and the tenant covered the additional costs 18% of the time; and the repair costs exceeded the deposit and were covered by insurance 13% of the time—which is surprising given what the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, told us. So, more than 60% of the time, there was no problem at all. Only in a very small percentage of the time did the landlord find themselves out of pocket. The overall findings from this study were that it is a much-exaggerated fear rather than an actual problem.

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 127, 128 and 129 in the name of my noble friend Lord Kinnoull and others. With regard to pets, the main purpose of the Bill is to make it more likely that landlords will accept tenants with pets. That is its purpose, surely, and it is an objective that I fully support, as a veterinarian, particularly for elderly and lonely people, as well as others. The benefits of pet ownership are very well known, with a strong evidence basis. Amendments 127, 128 and 129 would ensure that the purpose of the Bill with regard to pets is not confounded by unintended consequences. The current reality—and we cannot ignore realities, as the noble Lord, Lord Black, does—is that 40% of landlords are currently unwilling to accept tenants with pets.

Another survey that the noble Lord, Lord Black, quoted showed that 27% of landlords who do accept tenants with pets—that is, one-quarter—have experienced problems. So, in order to boost the market for pet-friendly rentals, it is important that landlords are assured that, were there to be negative effects due to pets, there is adequate legal recompense. The Bill recognises this, and the solution it proposes is that the landlord can require a tenant to provide appropriate insurance. But the problem, clearly articulated by my noble friend Lord Kinnoull, who is, of course, an expert in insurance, is that it appears extremely unlikely that there will be a product on the market which a tenant could buy to insure against the problem—relatively unlikely, perhaps —of damage. If that were the case, as my noble friend started to explain, a landlord could debar a tenant by the simple act of requiring that they provide insurance to cover pet damage, their failure to find which would legitimately allow a landlord to bar them access with a pet to rental accommodation. So it would conflict with the objective of the Bill.

Amendment 127 would remove that possibility. Instead, Amendment 128 would allow an increased deposit arrangement to enable landlords to permit pets, confident in the knowledge that, in the unlikely event of damage, it will be covered by the deposit. Amendments 128 and 129 would ensure that the level of recompense is likely to adequately cover relatively costly measures, such as deep cleaning to remove allergens, referred to earlier, or the elimination of infestation with fleas, which can be a significant problem if it occurs and expensive to remove. I would love to say more about fleas—they are remarkable creatures that can jump amazing distances compared to their size—but I am aware of the constraints on repeating Second Reading speeches, so I will not. I also make the point that a deposit is likely to be a fairer and more acceptable arrangement to a tenant than paying for an insurance policy, because obviously there is no cost unless there has been a problem.

To conclude on these three amendments, I strongly support them and I think they would make it more likely that landlords could be persuaded to offer their property for rent to tenants with a pet than any alternative. I shall just make an additional point that I did raise at Second Reading but which is pertinent to this issue and has wider implications, and that is on assistance dogs. We know that having a pet is very valuable to many people’s physical and mental health, but the case of assistance dogs is very special. These are incredibly valuable animals that can alert to medical emergencies of all sorts, as well as providing physical support for disabled people, hearing support and other things. Yet assistance dogs are not actually officially recognised—there is no list or register of them—and I understand that people with assistance dogs sometimes have problems finding rental accommodation. I raised this at Second Reading, but I hope the noble Baroness will excuse me mentioning it again. She said she would discuss it with officials, and I ask her to consider that again. I strongly support Amendments 127, 128 and 129.

Solar Panels

Lord Trees Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We have a whole range of popular policies, which, I suggest, is why we are here and the other side are not. We are considering measures. We put extra measures into the national planning policy framework and we will continue to do what we can. I like to encourage people where possible. If that does not work, we may have to look again. It is very important that we do everything we can to sell the benefits of having solar panels and other energy-efficient methods of generating heat and other forms of energy and we will continue to do that.

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, it is frequently quoted that ground-mounted solar installations take over 0.1% of UK land, which will increase to 0.3% when our net zero ambitions are met. However, I have figures that suggest that 0.44% of UK land is already committed for ground- mounted installations, with the geographical distribution concentrated in the breadbasket of south and east England. This means that Nottinghamshire, for example, is likely to have 4% of its ground area covered with solar panels. The use of land, as well, is disproportionate; important grade 2 and grade 3 agricultural land is being used. Is this consistent with His Majesty’s Government’s commitment to food security?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are being quite clear on this: while we support ground solar installations, premium grade agricultural land should not be used for that purpose. We are very clear on that point and we continue to strive for the right balance right between ground-based solar and roof solar.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Trees Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, on their excellent maiden speeches and welcome them to the House. I declare an interest as a part-owner of two rental properties—although without beneficial interest—as a veterinary surgeon and as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare.

I want to concentrate in this debate on the issue of keeping pets. I thank the Bill team for the useful discussions we have had. Currently, the Bill has limited descriptions of three important areas. First, what is a pet? They are described in the Bill as

“an animal kept by a person mainly for … personal interest, … companionship, … ornamental purposes”,

which, basically, could be any animal. Secondly, what is damage? I will say a bit more about that later. Thirdly, there is what is reasonable or unreasonable, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, earlier.

With respect to the definition of pets, clearly there are different considerations of welfare, public health, damage, hazards and consequences to others between keeping one budgerigar or five Alsatians. Most species of pet are likely to cause no problems, the most popular pets, dogs and cats, are unfortunately those in respect of which the greatest problems might occur. There is a balance to be struck between three variables: the welfare of the pet, the well-being of pet owners and the possible negative impact on others.

In considering the trade-offs, the first point I want to make is the difference between assistance dogs and other dogs. Assistance dogs are protected by the Equality Act 2010 and are known as auxiliary aids to disabled people. They are not legally regarded as pets, but Assistance Dogs UK still receives reports of obstacles to people with assistance dogs being able to access private rental accommodation. Given the high degree of training of the dogs and of the owners, and the benefit to the owners of such dogs, I suggest there is a clear argument in favour of a tenant’s right to have an assistance dog in private rental accommodation. However, there is an issue, as there is no official recognition of assistance dogs. There is a need for some central registration of such animals and owners to unequivocally identify them—perhaps analogous to the provision of blue badges for preferential parking for people with certain disabilities.

With regard to the welfare of pets in private rental accommodation, such pets are covered by the same animal welfare protections provided under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and other legislation for animals in any other accommodation, so there is no issue regarding the welfare of the animals.

From the pet owner’s perspective, there is much evidence of the value of pets to human well-being. A 2016 report, Companion Animal Economics, estimates that owning a pet reduces costs to the NHS by £2.5 billion per year through reduced numbers of doctor visits. Furthermore, there are well-known health benefits, including improved mental and physical well-being by reducing feelings of anxiety and depression and increased physical activity on the part of owners.

With respect to damage, this is not fully defined in the Bill, but it clearly applies to physical damage of furniture and fittings. Certain pets—notably dogs—can do considerable damage to furniture or fittings, especially when confined in accommodation without supervision. I suggest that the figures for costs quoted in the impact assessment of £12 per year for landlords and £7 per year for pet-owning tenants are far too low.

However, the negative effects of dogs and cats potentially go beyond physical damage. Of considerable consequence, and unconsidered by the Bill, is the contamination of housing with other allergens of pet origin and infestations, particularly of fleas. These may have considerable consequences for follow-on tenants and landlords. Flea infestation of dogs and cats is common, and it is a considerable problem in accommodation. There are now very effective products for dogs and cats to prevent and control fleas, but of course it is up to the owners to administer them appropriately.

Fitted carpets and central heating provide ideal habitats for fleas. Most of the flea life cycle is in the environment where the eggs, larvae and adults are. The adults can survive for some considerable time without feeding. In a property that is infested but has been left empty for some time, when a person goes in there, the fleas will pounce on them for a feed as well as any animal. Only this weekend, I was in the butchers in my village in Perthshire and I mentioned what we were doing today. He told me about his girlfriend’s experience with a cottage she rented in the village. The previous tenants had dogs and cats. She went into the empty cottage, turned on the central heating, and the place was hoaching—as we would say in Scotland—with fleas. They had to get rid of all the carpets, sand the wooden floors and varnish them.

Another direct witness experience came, while we were preparing this, from my researcher, who has friends who rent out a property in Canterbury. The tenants had done a runner and not paid, and when they went into the property it was highly infested. It took five fumigation attempts over four months by professional pest controllers to get rid of that infestation and cost the landlord nearly £1,000.

If insurance or a deposit arrangement can cover that, that is one thing. But my understanding is that insurance may be difficult to secure, particularly for insect infestation. I will leave this issue to noble Lords who are much more expert in this area than I am, including my noble friend Lord Kinnoull, but I suggest that this is an important issue to resolve. Surveys show that 40% of landlords are unwilling to accept tenants who own a pet. Problems such as this, unless resolved, may encourage more and more landlords to abandon the rented sector.

Finally, I ask the Minister: what assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of the likelihood of insurance provision or alternatives? Assistance dogs should be given special regard in the provisions of the Bill, so will His Majesty’s Government consider establishing a register of assistance dogs and keepers to enable them to be identifiable by landlords?