Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Grender Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, the Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill and support the fundamental principles in it of rebalancing the relationship between landlord and tenant. We thank the Minister for the meetings so far and look forward to working with her to make progress. We also look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brown.

We are particularly supportive of the measures to immediately ban Section 21 eviction notices. Frankly, this change cannot come soon enough for so many, and we owe it to the almost 1 million renters who have been on the receiving end of a no-fault eviction since the change was promised in the 2019 Conservative manifesto. They are only a small fraction of the vast numbers who have lived with the insecurities of the now most common form of tenure—assured shorthold tenancies—since they were first introduced in 1988. Given all the similarities to the previous Renters (Reform) Bill—in particular, on scrapping no-fault evictions—it was so disappointing to see the Conservatives in the other place attempting to block the Bill altogether. They need to deliver on their original promise. This much- heralded but delayed change by the previous Government remains nothing short of a scandal and has left a legacy for tenants that we should have uppermost in our minds during the progress of the Bill.

The promise to ban no-fault evictions followed by dither and delay made, if possible, the market even worse for tenants, prompting a 30% growth in Airbnb short-term lets and taking away even more security of tenure from other tenants. There is one small silver lining: the sector itself has had significant notice of this change and therefore time to prepare for no-fault evictions bans.

Tenants are aptly described as the

“People on the Frontline of Britain’s Housing Emergency”

in Vicky Spratt’s excellent book, Tenants, in which she outlines the ever-widening gaps between those who own and those who rent. All issues, from inequality to fuel poverty, mental and physical ill health, the cost of living and lack of social mobility, are impacted by insecurity of tenure—or a home that you simply cannot rely on. The direct link between being evicted as a tenant and homeless is well documented by, among others, the Local Government Association.

At the heart of this issue is lack of supply of suitable homes. We strongly support the Government’s ambitions to end homelessness, but that needs to be matched with greater ambition to build social and council homes for rent—150,000 per year, which was in our manifesto, along with a programme of insulation for all housing, a planning use change to control second homes and new powers for councils to halt right to buy based on local needs.

Of course, the elephant in the room with the private rented sector is rents, and we on these Benches regret the lack of progress on this issue. Although we welcome the ban on bidding wars, which in turn drive up rent, this Bill still does not deal with the chronic levels of rent increases. Private rent inflation may have slowed down, but it is still rising faster than the CPI. The Renters’ Reform Coalition, which I thank for its briefing, rightly highlights that this will continue to leave open significant increases in rent as a means to evict. As the Renters’ Reform Coalition makes clear, England’s rents as a share of disposable income are some of the highest in Europe, with two-thirds of in-work private renters struggling to pay. This Government’s housebuilding plans will not change the supply crisis for years and will not fix this rent problem. Amendments by our Liberal Democrat colleague Gideon Amos MP linked rent rises to the Bank of England base rate, and we will look at options, such as the CPI or national wage growth, in Committee.

Given the poor condition of so many private lets, with the 2023-24 English Housing Survey highlighting that the private rented sector has the highest proportion of non-decent dwellings at 21%, we welcome the extension of the decent homes standard and the introduction of Awaab’s law across the PRS. However, we have significant concerns about enforcement, which other colleagues will elaborate on. Likewise, we welcome the protections for renters who are on benefits and those with children.

Instability in this area cannot be overstated, given that a quarter of all private renters have lived in three or more homes in the past five years. Therefore, we welcome the 12-month protected period at the start of new tenancies, and we will continue to explore the possibility of another extended period of tenancy guaranteed as an incentive to landlords to build to rent.

We will look to improve the Bill—for example, by supporting those who serve the whole nation in our military and give the ultimate service. In the previous Parliament, our colleague Helen Morgan MP campaigned to ensure that MoD housing was included under decent homes. The Kerslake commission report, Homes Unfit for Heroes, commissioned by John Healey MP, lays bare how poor the standards are. I ask the Minister to let us know the possibility of including service accommodation in this Bill. We live in an uncertain world, and putting our Armed Forces and their families into shoddy and inadequate housing, which impacts health and morale, is a failure of our duty to them.

Finally, my noble friend Lady Thornhill will lead us in our attempts to improve and expand the database. The majority of landlords that we know about—the ones that will participate in this debate or have briefed us—are the ones we can see and who will immediately join the database and ombudsman scheme. They, like the majority of tenants, are responsible landlords—but we know so little. It is the landlords we cannot see about whom we have limited knowledge, information and transparency. A database can be either a tick-box exercise or a significant game-changer on this. I hope the Bill progresses and that it will be the latter.

Tonight, as we speak, a primary school child will be in their third rental in a year and will know the insecurity no child should have to bear: health-defining, future-defining and life-defining. We owe it to that future generation to get this right, but to do it soon.