Ending Homelessness

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

The UK’s homelessness crisis has been decades in the making. Thanks to Thatcher selling off social housing, a large proportion of our country is now at the mercy of private landlords—like those in my constituency who issued section 21 notices to three buildings on Mansfield Road, putting dozens at risk of homelessness.

Low pay and low levels of benefits compared with soaring rents make it even harder for people to access the private rented sector at all, and we have the scandal of children growing up in hotels. I welcome the Renters’ Rights Bill to shift the balance of power towards tenants and away from landlords, and the Government’s commitment to build 1.5 million homes, but we cannot rely on private house builders to build the genuinely affordable homes that we need. The Government must implement a mass public house building programme of homes for social rent.

When I was on the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, I repeatedly questioned the previous Government on why they refused to set a target on new homes for social rent. Our Government must set a target of at least 90,000 homes a year and ensure that they are built. Right to buy must also be scrapped. The action to tackle no-fault evictions in the Renters’ Rights Bill is essential, but landlords can evict by the back door by putting up the rent instead. We should be looking seriously at rent controls to stop the scandal of ever-growing rents gobbling up a higher proportion of people’s wages and costing a fortune in housing benefit—which, of course, needs to rise with rents; that is something the Government must commit to.

In the meantime, there are immediate steps that we can take to ease homelessness for those at the sharpest end while we tackle the structural issues. I was privileged to spend time with the street outreach team in Nottingham, who highlighted the need for more permanent shelters that are easier to access and that could support people with more complex needs. We also talked about the need for more housing like Grove House in Nottingham, which is made up of self-contained units for women with complex needs and provides wraparound support.

Employment Rights Bill

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a proud GMB member; I am told that there are now more of us here than there are Conservative MPs.

Our economy is fundamentally rigged against millions of workers. How else could we describe an economy where many people’s pay does not cover the essentials, where there are people in work who are reliant on food banks, and where the state has to top up poverty wages through universal credit? Nottingham has some of the lowest average incomes in the country, and my constituents are tired. They are tired of living from pay cheque to pay cheque, tired of being unable to save, and tired of having to choose between going to work sick or falling into debt. People’s mental health is suffering as they work multiple jobs to make ends meet, or worry that they will not be given enough hours to pay the bills. That cannot go on, which is why the Bill is so important.

The Bill is about making work pay and creating a better work-life balance, and a more family-friendly economy. It is about fixing the problems that previous Conservative Governments allowed to fester, or even encouraged. The 1 million people on zero-hours contracts deserve security, and the Bill will give them the option of guaranteed hours. Those who miss work because they are sick deserve to be paid, and the Bill will entitle them to statutory sick pay from day one. Every worker deserves to earn enough to afford the essentials, and the Bill will mean that the cost of living is accounted for when setting the minimum wage, and remove discriminatory age bands.

The Bill is an investment in our future. Making work pay will give people more money to spend in the local economy, and improve people’s health, easing the pressure on public services. We have heard scare stories from Conservative Members before. They told us that the minimum wage would cause an unemployment crisis; it was not true. They want the public to fear trade unions, but trade unionists are not the bogeymen that the Conservative party presents them as. They are our postmen, our child’s teacher, and the nurse who cared for our sick parents. Trade unions are the combined power of millions of ordinary working people. From health and safety improvements to holding bad bosses to account and advancing gender equality, trade unions are a force for good in all our lives. I welcome their strengthening through the Bill, but I would like us to go further and scrap every anti-union law introduced since the Thatcher Government came to power. We must not stop here. The Bill is a vital first step to delivering the new deal for working people and resetting our rigged economy, but it is just that—a first step. We must also close all fire and rehire loopholes, create a single status of worker, and extend collective bargaining.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

Some 38% of households in my constituency are in the private rented sector. In England, there are 11 million renters, and the number keeps growing. They have been stuck in a failed system for years. About one in three are in poverty once their housing costs are taken into account, while no-fault evictions are a leading cause of homelessness. Renters need greater protections, security and rights, but their voices and their interests have been ignored by previous Governments.

The Conservatives first promised to end no-fault evictions in 2019, but their Renters (Reform) Bill, already much delayed, stalled in the last Parliament—in no small part because of the influence of landlords in their party, some of whom we have heard from today—so this cruel threat of eviction, as the Secretary of State rightly described it, is still hanging over renters. The fact that we are on the precipice of banning no-fault evictions once and for all is a huge cause for celebration. I congratulate the Secretary of State and the Minister on introducing the Bill so swiftly, and I thank all who have campaigned for this change for so many years, from tenants unions to homelessness charities.

The Bill will also extend the decent homes standard and Awaab’s law to the private sector for the first time. It will allow tenants to challenge above-market rent increases, and will give local authorities stronger powers to crack down on unscrupulous landlords. It will create a national landlord register, give tenants more time to find a home if landlords evict them in order to move in or sell, and introduce the right to keep pets. These measures are vital, and the Bill must pass into law, but we need to go further still if we are to fix a system that is broken to its core. We cannot leave it to markets to stop rents being hiked to unaffordable levels, so we should look seriously at rent controls. We must also ensure that landlords cannot get away with ignoring the measures in the Bill. Local authorities need not only the power but the resources to investigate breaches and enforce these measures, and not just the ability but a duty to issue civil penalties to landlords who illegally evict their tenants.

Renters want a home, not just a house in which to live temporarily. They want to build lives in their communities, not feel that they will soon be priced out. Given that one in three disabled renters live in homes that are unsuitable for them, I urge the Minister to make it explicit in law that landlords cannot unreasonably refuse home adaptations. Reforming the private rented sector is not just about doing what is right for tenants; it is about doing what is best for our whole society. We will not tackle homelessness, poverty or inequality without it.