Housing: Rent Payment History

Baroness Grender Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

First, I pay tribute to the work that the noble Lord has consistently done in raising this issue up the agenda. It is indeed something that the Government are taking seriously and they are working with the Financial Conduct Authority and the regulators to see how this can be done. The noble Lord will have noticed the welcome announcement last week that Experian intends to take into account rental contributions as part of credit scoring. That will make a significant difference along the lines that we want—that is, getting the major credit reference agencies to use this data in ensuring that lenders have an accurate reflection of an applicant’s ability to service a loan.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that, if a quarter of all households will be renting as of 2021, there must be an end to the bias against people who pay rent rather than a mortgage? With that in mind, will he commit to ensuring that the larger retailers such as Dixons and Argos are included in any initiative that comes out of the Rent Recognition Challenge? Without their participation in addition to that of mortgage lender companies, the poorest renters will continue to be driven into the arms of some of the worst possible lenders just to buy, for instance, white goods.

[Lord Bates]

That is why the consultation is being extended, and it is open to all those parties to feed into it. I gave the example of Experian. By categorising the rental contributions of people in social housing, it was possible for 80% of the 1.2 million people included in the survey to increase their credit rating, meaning that they would have access to lower-cost credit. That is very much what we want, and we believe that, after a long time and a lot of pressure, we are beginning to head in the right direction.