Renters’ Rights Bill

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point about deposits and paying rent in advance. This Bill will protect tenants from requests for large amounts of rent in advance, but we are in listening mode. We will keep this issue under review during the passage of the Bill, and we will take the necessary action. We think that we have done enough on that, but we are open to interventions, if people feel that they would help.

Unlike in the previous Government’s Bill, the tribunal will not be able to increase rent above what was originally proposed by the landlord. In cases of undue hardship, we will give the tribunal the power to defer rent increases by up to two months, thereby finally ending the injustice of economic evictions.

However, that is not all we will do to tackle unfair rent costs. We remain committed to ending rental bidding wars, which all too often price hard-working families out of a home. Landlords and letting agents will be required to publish an asking rent for their property, and will not be allowed to ask for, encourage or accept a higher offer. We are delivering real change for working people.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

The challenges faced by tenants in the private sector are very real, but is the right hon. Lady familiar with the law of unintended consequences? What have she and her officials learned from the study of the application of similar rules in Scotland, which have made the plight of renters worse, not better?

[Angela Rayner]

I do not accept that from the hon. Member. We have had scare stories about this before. As I have said, the majority of landlords are doing the right thing. The Bill is about fairness for landlords and tenants, and I think it strikes the right balance. I am acutely aware of the law of unintended consequences. In fairness, the previous Government were batting around these ideas for years, after promising in their manifesto to tackle the issues, but they let down the people who are in these situations, who deserved better from their Government. This Government will do better than the previous Government.

As I set out at the start of my speech, tackling the blight of poor-quality homes is a priority of mine and of this Government. That is why part 3 of the Bill will apply a decent homes standard to the sector for the first time, requiring privately rented homes to be safe, secure and free from hazards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Badenoch]

I am still on that subject, Madam Deputy Speaker.

As I was saying, the hon. Member for Canterbury took the brave decision to leave the Labour party. I have followed her career in this place closely and, although we do not agree on everything, she is very brave. Perhaps the Secretary of State will feel nervous as she introduces the Bill, because I know that her Department is already breaking promises of its own. It promised a new national planning policy framework within 100 days, yet there is no new framework. There is just a consultation, as I predicted during our last debate on this subject.

To be fair, the Department has finally produced this Renters’ Rights Bill, after copying and pasting quite a lot of our Bill, but it is still not ready. The truth is that it cannot fix the rental market by tying it in knots with further interventions and directives. The simple truth is that this Bill will not work and the proposals will fail.

We know the Bill will fail because this approach has been tried in Scotland by those great experts in failure, the Scottish National party. Research by Indigo House, the housing expert, has found that none of the Scottish legislation since 2017 has protected the majority of private residential tenants against excessive rent increases or high advertised market rents. It has discovered that tenants have found it more difficult to find a home, and that there is a particularly negative impact on those in greatest need, including homeless households and those with less economic power, such as those claiming welfare benefits.

[Andrew Griffith]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech on an important subject. Is she familiar with this week’s report from Scotland’s Housing Network revealing that 16% of landlords are reducing their supply, and fully 12% are considering leaving the sector over precisely this sort of attempt to over-regulate what would otherwise be a free market?

[Mrs Badenoch]

I have not seen that specific report, but I have seen others that indicate that this is happening. We have to be careful. I appreciate that the Government want to make renting more secure and affordable, and we want to do that too, but this Bill will have the opposite effect, as we have seen in Scotland. As this Government will find out over the course of this Parliament, they cannot buck the market.