Section 21 Evictions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ms Buck]

It is very much a concern. I will come on to retaliatory evictions in a minute when I talk about why we are concerned about the use of section 21 and the balancing alternatives.

Abolishing section 21, which my remarks are aimed at, would, in practice, make fixed-term tenancies irrelevant. I know that the Government are also interested in, and have consulted on, longer tenancies, in order to provide greater security in the private rented sector. Although I am sympathetic to that idea, I am increasingly of the view that, rather than adopt an arbitrary target for the length of tenancies, we should change the framework completely and ensure that the default is a longer tenancy, unless and until the landlord has a legitimate need to recover the property or if there is a fault on the part of the tenant. However, as I will remark later, that must be balanced with other changes that meet the legitimate concerns of landlords.

Why do we need to change this framework? A Conservative Government introduced section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 as part of a deregulatory approach to the housing sector, at a time when the private rented sector was in a very different place from now. It had been in long-term decline over a great many decades, and the Government felt that deregulation would be one way to boost it. Indeed, the sector has been utterly transformed from the landscape we saw 30 years ago, doubling to 4.7 million households. That is by no means solely the result of deregulation; the obvious decline in the social housing sector and the crisis in the affordability of home ownership are also important factors.

The sector also now has a very different profile, compared with a few decades ago. For many of us, renting was a transitional housing tenure. When starting out in life, many of us rented privately—I certainly did for several years—but often on the way to home ownership. Very few of us, particularly those who were bringing up families, expected or wanted to be in the private rented sector for life. However, we are now seeing a change in that profile, with four in 10 private renters now families with children. The recent Rugg review demonstrated that the private rented sector is also home to a growing proportion of highly vulnerable tenants who have been discharged into the private rented sector who would previously have been accommodated through the homelessness route. We are also seeing, inevitably, an increase in the number of older tenants who expect to live out their retirement in the private rented sector, which was extremely unusual at the time of the 1988 Act.

If the sector has changed beyond recognition, policy towards it must also change, to address some of the unforeseen consequences of those developments and to make sure that the sector works well and fairly for both tenants and landlords. A healthy rental sector is important for the housing mix, and it is important to acknowledge its flexibility, often as a starter accommodation. It is also absolutely essential to recognise that most landlords are good and responsible and provide a decent quality of accommodation.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right that most landlords are responsible, but that is not really the point. The point is that the 1988 Act, and section 21 in particular, allowed housing to become a commodity. Landlords can simply treat it as an asset to be traded and sold to increase their profits or income. Housing has no structure as a home under that Act. That is the basic flaw.

[Ms Buck]

That is absolutely right. It is important to address the points from landlords. Having seen some of the concerns expressed by landlords in the social media commentary in the build-up to the debate, and having spoken at the Residential Landlords Association conference and at other conferences, one hears from landlords that they feel unfairly treated and tarred with the same brush as the rogue minority, which I think is probably fair. Unfortunately, the rogue minority bring down the sector as a whole. However, addressing section 21 is not about the behaviour of the small minority; it is about recognising that there is now a structural imbalance in tenancies that unexpectedly provide long-term homes for a much wider spectrum of society than was previously the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

That point is absolutely central to the argument, and I will come to it in a minute.

On the point about the behaviour of a minority of landlords not doing a great deal for the cause of the majority, there was also on social media the letting agent who said in respect of the payment of a tenant’s renewal fees:

“As far as I can see if the tenant doesn’t pay the renewal fee, DON’T renew the tenancy. Simples… You could always serve S21 and replace them.”

That cavalier attitude to security of tenure is completely unacceptable, but we have a legislative framework that allows a number of landlords to behave in that way. I say to people who are doing that, “Guys, you are really not helping your own cause or the cause of the business sector for private rented tenure, and I would advise you to think very carefully about the way you express yourselves.”

What has happened to the use of section 21 over time, and why do we need to consider our longer term approach? It is extremely hard to obtain accurate information from landlords about their use of section 21 notices, and the large majority of tenants who leave assured shorthold tenancies do so after the service of a notice without court proceedings. I think that in the private rented sector debate last week the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said—I believe this to be true, and have seen anecdotal evidence that it is true—that there are landlords who issue section 21s routinely at the end of a six-month period in order to be prepared for exercising those rights at the end of 12 months. That builds in to tenants’ experience instability of exactly the kind that hon. Members have mentioned today.

The actual number of section 21 notices served is unknowable. However, we know that in 2017 there were 21,439 possession claims under both section 8 and section 21 and 6,260 actual possessions, and a further 29,601 claims and 12,953 possessions under the accelerated procedure. That is a lot of uses of section 21.

We also know from Government homelessness statistics that the ending of a private tenancy on a no-fault basis has become the single largest cause of homelessness, currently representing more than half of all homelessness applications. That is critical. An analysis by Generation Rent claims that 92% of the rise in homelessness cases caused by the end of a private tenancy in London, which of course has the largest share, regionally, of national homelessness cases, can be explained by no-fault evictions. The figure is only slightly lower—88%—outside the capital.

[Andy Slaughter]

The major trauma, of course, is for the tenants being evicted, but there is also an impact on local authorities, because if a landlord is using the section 21 process—often the notices are served at the beginning of the tenancy as protective notices—they are simply using it as a way of regulating their business, knowing that if the tenant is in priority need, they will be picked up in some way by the local authority, which obviously puts additional costs on the taxpayer.

[Ms Buck]

Of course it does. As we have been discussing in the context of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, local authorities, because of the sheer pressure of homelessness applications, are also expecting tenants to wait until the court order has been issued and to wait until the bailiffs have been instructed and a date for the bailiffs to arrive has been received before they will consider the homelessness application. Landlords hate that, and one can understand exactly why—because of the insecurity about what happens to their rental payments. But the tenants absolutely loathe it and find it wholly traumatic to have to wait, often with their children, for the bailiffs to turn up before they can be rehoused by the local authority.

Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation last year found that the number of private tenants being evicted had risen by one fifth, that the overwhelming majority of the increase in possessions was driven by section 21, and that that was highly concentrated, with four out of five such repossessions being in London and the south-east, where rents are highest. It is precisely that concentration of section 21 use in certain areas correlating with the areas where market rents have risen most rapidly that I think is a real cause for concern.

The London boroughs identified by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation were all in the top 10 for the largest and fastest market rent increases from an initially low level. Although correlation must be treated cautiously, it is hard not to conclude that there is causation between increases in market rent levels and the use of section 21, whether that involves evicting tenants in rent arrears because of high rent levels, or evicting tenants in order to raise rents.

If anything, the flattening off of possession claims over the period 2015 to 2017—that has flattened from a period when it rose very steeply—has happened at a time when the private rental market has been under pressure from several other directions. It tends to reinforce the point that section 21 use reflects wider trends in relation to rents and that, crucially, we cannot stop worrying about it because there has been something of a flattening off in the last couple of years. If anything, now is the moment when we need to review the law, because if rents start picking up again, as over the longer term they almost certainly will, we will find that there will be a further acceleration in its use.

The Residential Landlords Association makes the case that its research shows that in half of all places where section 21 notices are served, that is because there is an alleged fault, such as rent arrears, but that argument is somewhat undermined by the local authority homelessness experience, because local authority acceptances of people who have been evicted from the private rented sector will happen only after there has been an inquiry into the cause of homelessness and it has been found that the homelessness is not a result of fault on the part of the tenant.

Homelessness is therefore a major factor in our wanting to reconsider the use of section 21, but it is of course only the sharp end of a much wider experience of insecurity. Unchosen ends of tenancies are disruptive, expensive and often traumatic for those involved. Having to make frequent moves, especially for families with children and for vulnerable and older tenants, is a deeply negative experience, even when it has not been imposed by a court order.

Shelter estimates that 27% of renters with children have moved three or more times in the past five years. That takes a toll on physical and mental wellbeing and on educational achievement. It also undermines communities and civic engagement. A very powerful case was made a few years ago by the Electoral Commission on the impact of high turnover and churn in the private rented sector. I know from my own casework, as I am sure all hon. Members do, just how distressing parents—it is not only parents, but it is parents in particular—find it to have to move around, changing schools and disrupting support networks. I could have chosen dozens of cases from my own case load to illustrate that point, but I have chosen the details of just one to read out— it is only a few paragraphs—with your permission, Mr Hollobone.

My constituent says:

“I have lived in this area for over 30 years. Due to overcrowding in our family home I was asked to leave in 2010, at which point I made a housing application to”

the local authority. They continue:

“The Council accepted a…duty and provided us with temporary accommodation in East London. We stayed in Dagenham for a short while before being lured back to Westminster by the Private Sector Team, reassuring us that this was a better option…When we signed a private tenancy we were promptly notified that the council has discharged its duty towards us because we have accepted private rent. We only rented for a year before the Housing Benefit was reduced under the new welfare reforms. As we could no longer afford the rent, we were obliged to find alternative accommodation”.

Despite their need for three-bedroom accommodation, they moved into two-bedroom accommodation. The council said that it

“could not and would not help us. I have a local connection as I have my family here. I look after my elderly father”,

who has cancer.

“I have 3 dependent children…attending local schools. I sit on the board of governors and play an active role in the…running of the school. I am…a member of the Parent Council.”

My constituent says that they are

“employed…and have served 18 years”

in their job in the local area. They say they have been served another

“Section 21 Notice by the landlords Agents requiring possession of the flat on 02^nd October.”

That will be the family’s fifth move in eight years. It is a simple example. It involves no fault, no arrears, no bad behaviour on the part of the tenants, but an imposed move of a vulnerable local family, and it is only too typical.

Renting privately is overall less secure than other tenures. Some 860,000 tenants moved between private rentals in 2016, up from 465,000 20 years ago, and one in 10 movers said that their move was down to being given notice by their landlord.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) talked about retaliatory eviction. A significant minority of tenants fear retaliatory eviction if they make a complaint and so may be deterred from pursuing their rights for fear of the consequences. That unfortunately undermines efforts to improve standards in the private rented sector, despite its having, of all tenures, the highest level of substandard accommodation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

That is absolutely right.

[Andy Slaughter]

To add to that interesting argument, section 21 has been abolished in Scotland, which is a different jurisdiction and a different housing market, and has been replaced by a regime in which there are mandatory and discretionary grounds for possession. As I understand it, the objections from many landlords are about the complexity and the expense of the court process as much as anything. It is quite a difficult argument to put forward—although I am sure that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) would do it well—that it is simply too difficult for landlords and it should be unrestricted for that reason.

[Ms Buck]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. Certainly the landlord associations and landlords make the argument that the court process takes too long and is too complicated and, in many cases, too expensive for them to operate. I am unconvinced by that argument, because the figures that the landlord associations have put forward for the period of waiting for a court date or until a warrant can be issued are significantly different from the figures that the Library has provided for the debate. I am not sure that the associations are not using a different definition of average to make their case.

Obviously, once a landlord has decided that they want to recover a property, they will want to do so as quickly as possibly—that is inevitable—but whether the period that landlords have to wait and the quality of evidence that they have to provide if they are seeking a fault-based eviction should be lowered to make it easier for them, to the point where it effectively allows them to act without due regard for the rights of tenants, is a highly moot point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, more than ever when we have the luxury of time—such a rare event in this place.

[Lyn Brown]

If I had known, I would have brought my casework.

[Andy Slaughter]

Settle down, everyone. I do not need to speak for very long, because my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) has done the heavy lifting for us by clearly setting out why section 21 should be banished. She has even persuaded Members from the Government Benches; let us hope that she has persuaded the Minister. I am sure that we will listen carefully to what the Minister has to say on this issue, having heard those arguments.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) for his speech, because the property market in his constituency is very different from that which we experience in London. Quite rightly, a lot of attention is focused on London because it is a hothouse of a market. Exploitation of tenants for financial reasons has certainly been very much on the increase with house price rises, but he correctly points out that that is a problem across the country. In some ways, we are lucky in London, in that properties tend to be valued and perhaps kept in a better state of repair. What one does not tend to see now, because the properties are such valuable commodities, is whole areas that have fallen into disuse.

On 15 January next year—just over a month’s time—it will be 30 years since the Housing Act 1988 came into effect. Assured shorthold tenancies are now, as was anticipated under the Act, the major form of tenancy in the private sector. That is not something we need to celebrate. I became a councillor in 1986 before the Act came into effect, and that was probably when I first started to get involved in tenancy matters and tenants’ rights, but it was probably not until I became a housing law practitioner from 1993 onwards that I fully understood just how dramatic a change had been wrought on the private rented market. It was quite an audacious piece of legislation. That was appreciated by practitioners and experts—there was quite a lot of fuss about the 1988 Act at the time—but it probably did not register so much with politicians or tenants, although it possibly did with landlords, just what a change we had made.

Perhaps the best way I can illustrate that change is from what I found by googling “protected tenancies”. Most tenancies before the 1988 Act would have been some form of regulated tenancy. That was the case for decades before, but many would have been protected tenancies under the Rent Act 1977. The first thing that came up when I googled “protected tenancies” was the Landlord Law Blog. I read from it not to be sarcastic—perish the thought—but because it gives insight into how landlords view assured shorthold tenancies. The post is titled, “Three ways to recognise a protected tenancy under the Rent Act 1977 (And avoid buying a property with a tenant you can’t evict)”. It states:

“If you work in property, particularly if you are an investor, it is important that you are able to recognise a protected tenancy when you see one.

Why? Because protected tenants have long term security of tenure.

This means that you will not normally be able to evict them if you want vacant possession. Not unless you are able to provide another property for them to live in. And even then, only if it is considered ‘suitable’…The main effects of this are…The tenant can register a ‘fair rent’ which is then the only rent the landlord is allowed to charge…The tenant can normally only be evicted if he is in arrears of rent (sometimes) or if the landlord is able to provide ‘suitable alternative accommodation’, and”—

shock horror!—

“If the tenant has a spouse or family member living with them at the time of their death, they will inherit either another protected tenancy (if they are a spouse) or an assured tenancy (which also has long term security of tenure!)

The effect of all this is that you are stuck with a tenant who you cannot evict and who is usually entitled to pay a rent which is considerably lower than the market rent you could have charged had the property been an AST.

So how can you recognise when a property is being sold with a protected tenant?

Here are three tips for recognising protected tenancies.

1. The property is being sold for a low price…2. No tenancy agreement is available…3. Check the Valuation Office rent register”

to see whether a fair rent has been registered.

What could be worse than for a landlord to end up with a tenant who has protected rights? That was the norm, however, prior to the 1988 Act. Most tenants would have rights of that kind: rights of succession, rights to a fair rent and rights to be shown cause before eviction took place. In many ways, a private sector tenancy had more in common with a social tenancy than with an assured shorthold tenancy now. The irony is that the rights of social tenants have been substantially weakened under Conservative Governments, both in terms of so-called affordable rents, which generally are not affordable, and in terms of the end of lifetime tenancies or fixed-term tenancies. Actually, social tenancies have gravitated towards that lack of security and affordability at the same time as they have declined as part of the housing sector.

I make those observations not to suggest that we simply repeal the 1988 Act and go back to the pre-Act regime, but to point out that it is within living memory —it is within my memory of my time as an elected representative—that that was the norm. Indeed, I am sure that other Members will still have protected tenants coming to them. It is very few now, obviously, because we are 30 years on, but it is usually about landlords trying to get rid of them to maximise the value of the property for sale or rent. The majority of our casework will be for social tenants or private sector tenants who are living in poor conditions or are subject to eviction because they have no security, but it is always interesting to look at the cases of protected tenants.

It puzzles me why we did not notice the fundamental change that the 1988 Act made to the way the housing market operated. One reason, which my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North alluded to, is that the private rented market was very different 30 years ago. I suspect that the Government knew what they were doing in legislating to shift the balance of power wholly in favour of landlords. The balance had always been that way to some extent, but then it became massively so. One reason that was not noticed was that the private sector had got itself a bad name, partly for the conditions, but partly because it was no longer seen as desirable as compared with owner-occupation or a social tenancy with a council or a housing association. In 1988, 9% of homes were in the private rented sector in England. That has more than doubled to 20%. That is mainly accounted for by a decline in social tenancies across England. If one looks at London specifically, it is even more dramatic. The best figures I have are census figures. In 1991, 14% of homes were privately rented, and that is now 30%. Again, it has more than doubled. Interestingly, there has been a decline in owner-occupation from 57% to 48% and in social rent from 29% to 22% over that period.

For my borough of Hammersmith, the situation is different again. Again, the most recent figures I can get are census figures from 2011, but I am not sure things have changed much since then. A third of properties are private rented, a third are owner-occupied and a third are social tenancies. There has been a significant decline in owner-occupation and a significant increase in private rented from 23% to 32% over that 20-year period. That is a massive change in how the housing market operates. I suspect therefore that the sort of people who become private tenants now are different, too. I am not saying that having no security of tenure is good for anyone, but when, predominantly, those in private tenancies were those who would have chosen short-term rents—perhaps students or people waiting to buy properties—it was clearly less traumatic to be asked by a landlord to leave in a set period than it is for a family who want to stay and live in that area. Increasingly, it is families who are occupying private rented accommodation.

What has also changed is where someone then goes. One of the worst things that the coalition Government did—I apologise to my Lib Dem friend over there, the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), but we have to remember the Liberal Democrats’ complicity in all these matters at all times—was to introduce a duty to permanently discharge into the private sector those in housing need. That means that many families now have no expectation of ever getting a social tenancy. They are therefore at the mercy of a private landlord who may evict them. If they are still in priority need, they will go back to the local authority and ask to be rehoused. Due to benefit cuts and caps, that may be impossible in that area, and they may be moved a long way away. In any case, the process of recycling tenancies and moving on will occur on a regular basis.

[Lyn Brown]

Does my hon. Friend find in his constituency, as I do in mine, that by the time families get their social tenancy or council property they have often waited so long that the children are about to leave home?

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is right. It is almost tormenting people, and these are the people in a preferential situation—in temporary accommodation rather than permanently discharged to the private rented sector. They may have been waiting 10 years, and just as they are getting ready to receive their one offer of accommodation—

[Lyn Brown]

Take it or leave it.

[Andy Slaughter]

Yes, take it or leave it. At that point, one of the children turns 18 and is not in full-time education. Suddenly the family is either told, “You can have a two-bedroom flat rather than the three of four-bedroom property that you need,” or, “Sorry—you’re not in priority need at all any more.” It is extraordinary that whole generations have had to grow up in wholly inadequate housing and temporary accommodation.

My hon. Friend has tempted me to digress, so I will give just one example. Many boroughs and housing associations use the locator scheme, which is the bidding scheme. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not, but something extraordinary happened in my borough. When the Conservatives took control of the council—I am pleased to say only temporarily—they simply abolished the waiting list. Having decided that they did not want to build any more affordable homes—indeed, they started selling off and demolishing the ones that we had—there was obviously a difficulty in rehousing people, so the waiting list and the locator scheme were abolished.

Suddenly, 10,000 people were no longer in line to be accommodated at all. Once the borough came to its senses and returned to Labour control, the list was opened again, but what happened created a hiatus of several years in people’s lives that they will never recover. In addition to the long waiting periods that people face in any event, they were not on a waiting list of any kind during perhaps the prime years when their children were growing up and going to secondary school. Again, many of them are languishing in over- crowded accommodation or unsuitable private rented accommodation.

I do not want to paint a rosy picture of the world in the 1980s. I remember some dreadful, terrible private-sector accommodation then, but at least there was sometimes redress. When local authorities were better resourced, there were housing action areas, so we could go mob-handed, if I can put it that way, into a particular ward with environmental health officers and housing advisers. Also, legal aid was still available—actually, they were quite good days now I come to think about it.

If private landlords took the mickey in terms of the conditions their tenants were in or the way in which they treated their tenants, enforcement action could be taken. How different the situation is now, as evidenced by the fact that the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North—the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill—is necessary to give tenants that power, because often local authorities are no longer able to take such action.

[Liz Twist]

Does that not remind us that, although the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill is a positive move, another essential part of protecting tenants and ensuring that they live in good conditions is giving them the right not to face retaliatory convictions and the right to raise their concerns without being evicted under section 21? It is therefore essential that section 21 is removed.

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is right. We tend, rightly, to focus on bad landlords. I think we all agree that they are a minority, but there is some shocking practice out there. That is nothing new—some of us can still remember the age of Hoogstraten and Rachman. However, I do not think that that is what the debate is primarily about. As I said in my intervention, it is about changing the climate in the private rented sector for good and bad landlords. It is about changing the way in which the private rented sector operates, which is long overdue.

I am often asked to act both for landlords and for tenants in relation to assured shorthold tenancies. A whole industry grew up, partly fuelled by the excellent housing columns in the magazine Legal Action by their honours Nic Madge, who recently retired, and Jan Luba, who is still a sitting judge. Systematically, over many years, they indicated all the areas of housing law where practice was changing and precedents were being set in the higher and lower courts.

A whole industry developed around section 21 notices, which are actually quite difficult to get right. Landlords who think that they can do it themselves often get them wrong. Although they cannot be challenged on the basis that it is a no-fault eviction—the tenant has been a model tenant, and all the other things that we have heard—they can be challenged if they have got it wrong procedurally. Often they have, but it does not get found out.

That should be spotted, frankly, by the judge, even if they are looking at the case on paper—the accelerated procedure for section 21 notices means that often such matters are not heard in court at all. Without the benefit of legal aid and legal advice, it is difficult to expect the tenant to know the process, but often the landlord does not either and it is, in fact, defective. However, it is an indictment of the way in which the housing market runs if we are reliant on catching landlords out on such procedural matters to give people security.

[Ms Buck]

Is it not also the case that, because tenants do not necessarily know their rights or have access to advice, many people leave their properties, and a much larger number of people feel that they have to, upon the issuing of a section 21 notice, before it goes to court, or at the point of receiving a warrant? They then find themselves judged by the local authority to be intentionally homeless because they did not stay until they were required to leave.

[Andy Slaughter]

I know that my hon. Friend is, like me, a great rooter around inside plastic carrier bags when they are brought into her surgery. Often one can find, among many other papers, half a dozen possession notices. Social landlords are better at this—or worse, depending on how one looks at the matter—because they often rather lazily issue notices seeking possession with no intention of pursuing them, the only purpose perhaps being to terrify the tenant. However, private landlords do it as well. They will issue section 21 notices like confetti, either as protective notices, or to try to scare the tenant off or something of that kind.

Although my hon. Friend is right that the advice should always be to stay put, to try to get what legal advice is available and to talk to the local authority housing adviser, one thing that the landlord will say is, “If you don’t go now, there will be costs when, at the end of the two-month period, I issue proceedings, or after that when I issue the bailiff notice, and you’ll have to pay them. It will be several hundred pounds at least, and if you challenge, or attempt to challenge, the action it could be more than that.”

[Lyn Brown]

I hate to extend my hon. Friend’s peroration because I am desperate to get in myself, but he reminds me of a constituency case in which a woman who had learning difficulties, whose son was magnificently supported by a local school, was being terrified by the landlord about her eviction. She left on the date that he told her. The council then had the issue of intentionality, and she has ended up, because she just could not cope with the stress, in a small village outside Bradford, and her little boy is simply not getting support. Had I known that we were going to have a long debate today, I would have brought every single one of those cases to lay before the Minister. Some of the stories that we hear, and know to be true, are just appalling.

[Andy Slaughter]

If my hon. Friend wants to pop back to her office, I can keep things going until she comes back.

[Lyn Brown]

I have no doubt about that.

[Andy Slaughter]

What my hon. Friend says is absolutely true: tenants are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they leave too early, they can be criticised by the local authority; if they leave too late, apart from the cost risk, they may find that time has literally run out. Increasingly, tenants are coming to me and saying that they have been evicted and lost their belongings, which were in the property after the bailiffs arrived, and that they and their children are sleeping on somebody’s floor, sofa-surfing or in wholly inadequate hostel accommodation and being moved on night by night. My council acts as responsibly as it can to try to keep families together and ensure that people are rehoused in the borough or as close to it as possible, but as we all know, schooling, employment, support networks and caring responsibilities are all disrupted by the process—that is very common now.

I hope that nobody here has experienced eviction at first hand, but I am sure we have all met many constituents who have. It is one of the most traumatic things that someone can go through. The humiliation, the cost, the uncertainty, the rejection—the whole process is just appalling, and it is now accelerating as a consequence of simple greed or commercial practice. Unfortunately, with the growth of buy-to-let and temptation in the private rented market, rents are escalating at a huge rate.

Only the other day, we were talking about the difficulty of building affordable homes. I am proud to say that my local authority is now building 1,500 new affordable homes, rather than knocking them down as it did when it was Conservative. However, the rent for a new social rented home is about 20% of the market rate, which means that building it requires a huge subsidy, which is very difficult to obtain. [Interruption.] I can hear the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) tutting, but he knows that that will just encourage me.

In 2010, all the support for subsidy for social rented homes was removed, so it is no wonder that there has been a huge decline in availability and more reliance on the private rented sector. There is a fourfold or fivefold discrepancy in rent levels and landlords are being tempted to increase their income substantially simply by evicting tenants and replacing them with others. Alternatively, they may be thinking, “I don’t want to make more of a profit than I make already, but with benefit caps and restrictions on the rent that the tenant can pay”—given London rents, tenants will inevitably be partially reliant on housing benefit, even if they are working full-time—“I cannot afford to rent to them any more, so I’m evicting them.”

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Gentleman knows how fond I am of him and his remarks, but his slightly party political point tempts me to intervene. This debate is about whether it is right to update the 1988 legislation. Does he accept that his party was in power between 1997 and 2010 but declined to do so? Does he agree that we ought to consider the matter in a more cross-party, consensual and reasonable way, rather than drawing party political points? [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) is shaking her head, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that this need not be too partisan an issue?

[Melanie Onn]

You’re in the minority here—you should be careful!

[Andy Slaughter]

I thought I was making one of my most conciliatory speeches in the past 13 years. I am sure that when the hon. Member for Cheltenham hears from our Front Bench, a lot more of the Rottweiler tendency will be on show.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy Slaughter]

In a moment.

I should not look a gift horse in the mouth, because the hon. Member for Cheltenham has come here to be conciliatory and supportive, so I will move on. Although I regard Labour Governments as scrupulously honest, fair and absolutely on the ball in many respects, I agree that there are one or two aspects of housing that past Labour Governments have not got 100% right. Shall we leave it at that?

[Sir Graham Brady in the Chair]

I think there is now a realisation that things have shifted too far in one direction. There is a willingness to look at the issue again and to effect change, whether through rent-to-buy schemes, which are a big part of the Mayor of London’s platform, through longer-term tenancies or through wholesale reform, as has happened in other jurisdictions within the United Kingdom—Scotland is the example that we have used. Labour party policy has moved on beneficially, not least since I was sacked as shadow Minister last year and somebody far more radical and impressive has taken over.

[Lyn Brown]

And less long-winded!

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

We live in hope.

[Andy Slaughter]

We will hear from the new shadow Minister in a moment, but I hope she will not take it amiss if I say that I am particularly looking forward to hearing what the Minister has to say and finding out how far policy has moved on within the Government—not just on the rabble-rousing Conservative Back Benches where the hon. Member for Cheltenham sits with the radical, provisional wing of the Conservative party.

Can the Minister give us some indication that the issues of balance and no-fault eviction are understood? May we look forward to some beneficial changes that give security to families, particularly in high rent areas, but also—as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Easington—across the country? Those changes are long overdue. Whatever the merits or demerits of the 1988 Act, it is time we took another comprehensive look at housing legislation and redressed some of the obvious unfairness in the private rented sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing the debate and thank all those who have made wonderful contributions today for their interesting stories from across the country, which tug at the heartstrings.

This is an important issue and I am glad to be able to respond to some of the concerns raised. We are committed to rebalancing the relationship between tenants and landlords, to deliver a fairer, better-quality and more affordable private rented sector. The sector plays a pivotal role in providing homes across the country and is an integral element of the Government’s approach to making the housing market work for everyone.

On the specific points made by the hon. Members for Westminster North and for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) on section 21, the legal framework underpinning the private rented sector works to build a fair and robust private rented sector that protects tenants, supports landlords and empowers local authorities to deliver a healthy rental sector. The Government provide support to landlords and tenants to navigate the legislative landscape and have recently updated the “How to Rent” guides that offer comprehensive guidance and signposting to relevant resources. The Government are committed to providing practical guidance to relevant agencies and local authorities when new legislation is created.

Interestingly, according to the most recent English housing survey, 84% of private renters were satisfied with their current accommodation, and two thirds were either very satisfied or fairly satisfied with their current tenure. However, we also recognise that many tenants feel insecure and that their house is not their home because they are on short initial fixed-term tenancies of six to 12 months. We are committed to improving security for tenants.

Section 21 provisions provide an important guarantee to landlords that they will always be able to get their property back at the end of the tenancy. The flexibility for landlords and mortgage providers to recover their asset if they need to is crucial to retaining investment and supply in the sector, including the availability of buy-to-let mortgages. I want to make this point specifically in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who has had to leave us. There are clear legal protections for tenants and a clear process that landlords must follow when carrying out a section 21 eviction.

Outside the fixed-term tenancy period, a landlord can evict a tenant using a section 21 notice, but only when they have complied with certain legal obligations. Those include protecting their tenants’ deposit in a tenancy deposit scheme, providing a gas safety certificate, and also providing a copy of the Government’s “How to Rent” guide. If, in response to a complaint about property condition by a tenant, the local authority has served either an improvement notice or a notice of emergency remedial action, a landlord cannot evict a tenant using a section 21 notice for six months. Furthermore, under the Tenant Fees Bill, we propose that if a landlord charges a prohibited fee, they will not be able to serve a section 21 notice until those payments have been reimbursed.

The Government want to protect the rights of tenants and give them more security, but we must do so in a way that does not impact on the supply of good-quality rented accommodation.

[Andy Slaughter]

The Minister highlights important and hard-won preconditions for taking eviction proceedings, but that does not alter the fact that, in the generality of cases, we are talking about no-fault evictions. Opposition Members are anxious to hear what the Government will do about no-fault evictions. Do they still maintain that that is the right general approach or do they think that its day has come to be removed?

[Mrs Wheeler]

Fortunately, as we have so much time, I have an extremely long speech and the hon. Gentleman might be stunned to hear what I have to say. Or he may not.

Growing numbers of tenants are families or older people and the Government are firmly committed to helping them. The measures announced in the housing White Paper mean that most tenants in the build-to-rent sector are now being offered tenancies of a minimum of three years. We recently consulted on overcoming the barriers to longer tenancies in the private rented sector. We sought views on a three-year longer tenancy model with a six-month break clause and asked for views on its viability and how it can be implemented. The consultation closed at the end of August and we are now analysing responses.

A three-year tenancy is one option. However, we have not made any policy decisions regarding tenancy length, whether to change the legislation on section 21 evictions or how our proposed model could be implemented. We are considering the consultation responses fully before making any policy decisions and will set out next steps shortly. In the meantime, for tenants who want a longer tenancy, we have published a model tenancy agreement that landlords and tenants can choose to use as the basis for longer, family-friendly tenancies. We have also published “How to Rent” and “How to Let” guides for tenants and landlords to support them in understanding their rights and responsibilities.

To answer some of the points made by the hon. Members for Westminster North and for Easington (Grahame Morris), the Government recognise the important role that private landlords play in supporting the UK economy and in providing homes to millions of people across the country. We recognise that in order to continue to offer housing, landlords need the flexibility to be able to get their property back quickly when circumstances change. Without those assurances, landlords would be less willing to enter and stay in the market, which does not help tenants.

We recognise that some landlords have concerns about the section 8 eviction process and instead use the section 21 accelerated procedure. We are keen to understand those concerns, and last month, on 13 November, we launched a call for evidence to better understand the experience of courts and tribunal service users in property cases. The call for evidence seeks views from members of the judiciary, landlords and tenants on the private landlord possession action process in the county court and the case for structural changes, such as an extension to the remit of the property tribunal or a new housing court.

There have been calls from hon. Members here today to abolish section 21 evictions. As I have said, we have not yet made any firm policy decisions on whether to legislate to alter the provisions set out in section 21. We first want to consider carefully the responses to the call for evidence on user experience of the courts.