Renters’ Rights Act: Definition of Court Readiness

Debate between Baroness Brown of Silvertown and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The Government are acting as they should according to their manifesto and putting the legislation in place. On top of that, we have had to correct the 14 years of decline of effective action in the justice system. We have had a lot of work to do and my colleagues in the Ministry of Justice are taking that action urgently.

Given the need to provide families living in the private rented sector with greater certainty and stability, it is not appropriate to delay implementation while assessments of court readiness are carried out. An assessment of the possession process would provide no new insight or benefit to interested parties, and quarterly data on the operation of the court possession process for rented properties is already published by the Ministry of Justice and will continue to be. My department has allocated increased funding for the court service to enable it to deal with the increase in workload, and we are working very closely with our colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to make sure they are able to cope.

[Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Lab)]

My Lords, some of the worst cases I had as an MP were to do with housing. We had children who had to move home every six months, absolutely wrecking their life chances. They were unable to stay in the same schools or with the same friends unless they travelled for hours on buses, going from stop to stop. Can my noble friend think of a single reason why we would delay the implementation of this Act?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My noble friend is quite right. Her experience as an MP was similar to mine as a councillor. I had client after client come to me to discuss the horrendous impacts of homelessness. But we are implementing this Act not just for tenants but for landlords. As I said, good landlords deserve support, and they do not like to see poor landlords not having action taken against them when they are not acting in the interests of tenants. This Act actually benefits everybody in the private rented sector.

Election Law

Debate between Baroness Brown of Silvertown and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I do understand the impatience that the noble Lord pushes. We did a recent review of electoral registration conduct to improve resilience, reduce risk and support administrators and voters alike. We are now taking the key priorities from that review and enacting them to make sure that our election system is as good as it can be without creating a long delay before we do anything.

[Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Lab)]

My Lords, over 6 million eligible UK citizens are not signed up to vote. What steps are the Government taking towards automatic voter registration?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. As we set out in July’s strategy, the Government have committed to introducing more automated approaches to electoral registration. We are actively exploring some very innovative approaches to registration, including leveraging some of the public sector data and digital services to boost registration rates and improve the accuracy of electoral registers. Any new registration processes we bring in will be tested properly to make sure that they work well before we roll them out.

Social Housing

Debate between Baroness Brown of Silvertown and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am pleased to be able to tell the noble Lord that we have a £600 million package for construction skills. We set up the Construction Skills Mission Board under the very able chairmanship of Mark Reynolds from Mace; I worked with Mark and Mace on the regeneration of Stevenage, so I am sure that he will do a fantastic job on that. That will create an extra 60,000 construction worker posts by 2029. There will be 10 new technical excellence colleges. Skills bootcamps have been extended with £100 million of funding, including short-term training for new entrants and upskilling for returners. The Construction Industry Training Board has really stepped up here with funding from industry to fund over 40,000 industry placements and to double the size of the new entrant support scheme to support SMEs to recruit, engage and retain apprentices.

[Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Lab)]

My Lords, homelessness and housing costs are driving factors in both child poverty and ever-escalating costs of homelessness. My council alone is spending £60 million a year—a figure that is rising—to tackle homelessness. Newham and other councils have done their absolute best to provide affordable homes and thereby cut costs to themselves and their residents, but they need government help. Can my noble friend say what assessment she has made of the role of local government in the delivery of affordable and social homes?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. Of course I would say this, but local government is absolutely critical to delivering the new, generational change in the number of social homes being delivered. Our changes to reverse the set of supply-negative changes made by the previous Government introduce a wider set of growth-focused interventions that will help with this. The Secretary of State and I want this to be a plan-led system. When the new National Planning Policy Framework was published in December last year, I was delighted to see that we have, for the first time, encouraged local authorities to assess their social housing need separately from affordable housing, which I am sure will help. Later this year, we will introduce reforms to accelerate local plan preparation. As my noble friend said, this is not just a great cost to the people who are homeless and in temporary emergency accommodation but an enormous cost to the public purse and for our councils, so we need to solve the problem quickly.