Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Grender Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, we welcome the Government’s commitment to rebalancing the relationship between landlords and tenants, and the abolition of Section 21, but we must ensure that the protections afforded to tenants are as robust as possible if the Bill is truly to deliver for the people who find themselves on the front line of this housing crisis. The Bill introduces new mandatory eviction grounds. Although we understand that the intention is to provide clear routes for landlords to regain property, making grounds mandatory removes the courts’ vital ability to act as a backstop and consider the individual circumstances of the tenant. It is important to test this issue in Committee, which is why we tabled Amendment 31.

Although most repossessions will be able to proceed without a hitch under the new Act, ensuring that exceptional cases have a discretionary element is critical—a discretionary element that the Labour Front Bench argued for with some vigour in the previous Parliament. Indeed, the Renters’ Reform Coalition argue that the lack of discretion is one of the most significant shortcomings in the Bill. The Renters’ Reform Coalition comprises some of the leading charities that work tirelessly on the issues of tenancy, homelessness and housing, including Shelter, which I used to work for. I thank the coalition for its work on this amendment and its support on this issue.

It is not difficult to imagine situations where compelling reasons for refusing immediate possession should exist. For instance, a tenant or a member of their family may have a serious terminal illness such as cancer, with a very limited life expectancy, a severe disability, or caring responsibilities for a disabled person, meaning they will necessarily need a longer period to find the most suitable accommodation. In the previous Parliament, the shadow Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook, provided us with a useful hypothetical example, in which a terminally ill cancer patient could be evicted and at risk of homelessness because the landlord wishes to sell—a landlord, in this hypothetical scenario, with a portfolio of, say, eight houses and no compelling need to sell. In that scenario, he argued, a judge should have discretion.

Mandatory grounds, such as grounds 2ZB and 2ZC, which cover possession when a superior lease ends, prevent the court taking these profoundly human factors into account. Making all grounds discretionary would offer a vital layer of protection. It would allow the courts the potential to act as a backstop, consider all factors and potentially propose alternative courses of action to avoid a damaging eviction.

Obviously, some will argue that this cannot be done on the grounds of backlogs in the courts. Reforms in Scotland, where grounds for possession were made discretionary in October 2022, have shown little evidence of significantly worsening court backlogs. Indeed, if backlogs in courts, or in any institution right now, were applied to every piece of legislation that comes before us as a rationale for not proceeding or making a decision, we would be very hampered indeed as a legislative body.

We all know that the reality and likelihood of tenants taking up this course of action, just like the First-tier Tribunal, will be minimal, but the existence of the discretionary approach would ensure that an all-important safety net is in place for the worst possible cases. This amendment would remove “must” and insert “may” in the relevant heading of part 1 of Schedule 1, and omit the heading of part 2. This would provide the courts with the flexibility needed to consider the specific context of each case. I understand that the Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook, in the House of Commons has countered that this is “a step too far” and would remove “certainty” for landlords, but we disagree—or rather, we agree with his original arguments, which are no different from mine today.

Should the Government remain resistant to making all grounds fully discretionary, can we please explore, between now and Report, robust mechanisms to prevent evictions that would cause severe hardship? As a fallback position, we advocate strongly for the introduction of a mandatory hardship test that courts must apply when considering possession orders under any mandatory grounds. This test would require the court to explicitly weigh the potential severity of the hardship caused to the tenant, considering factors such as health, disability, how many children there are, access to alternative accommodation and the impact on the ability to maintain employment or education, against the landlord’s stated reason for seeking possession. This hardship test would ensure that the most vulnerable tenants are not rendered homeless or forced into the inadequate temporary accommodation that we have heard described by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, simply because a mandatory ground is technically met without consideration of the dire circumstances in which the tenant finds themselves. It would provide a necessary safety net, ensuring that, while good landlords could regain their property for legitimate reasons, the system does not blindly facilitate deeply unfair and harmful evictions.

We must listen to the voices of those who live with the constant fear of losing their home. We owe it to future generations to get this bit right. This amendment would strengthen the Bill to ensure that security, fairness and compassion are at its heart by making grounds discretionary—or, at the very least, by introducing a mandatory hardship test.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, my Amendments 35 and 71 both aim to help people who rent. I declare an interest as someone who rents a two-bedroom flat.

I have tabled Amendment 35 because I am worried that the Government’s good policy will actually end up penalising the very people that it is aiming to help. I hope the Minister will go away from here thinking, “The Green Party had quite a good idea on that, and how nice it is to have them on our side for once”.

The Government are doing the right thing for the climate and for people in putting in higher energy efficiency standards—that is a given—and doing the right thing for landlords with grants to help them meet those standards. However, the only people who do not get a guaranteed better life are the poor tenants who have to put up with the work, dust, noise and inconvenience of the energy improvements being done, with the possibility that their rent will be going up as their energy costs go down. Amendment 35 is an attempt to give tenants a guarantee that they will also get some direct benefit from the drive for net zero with two years of lower energy bills, without that saving being cancelled out by a landlord focusing on profiting from a government grant. I think this is a sensible amendment and I hope it will find favour with the Minister.

Amendment 71 aims to shift the debate firmly on to the needs of the tenant and to discourage landlords from constantly changing their minds about letting out their properties. It builds on the Government’s welcome attempt to get rid of no-fault evictions by adding a new clause to the eviction process that gives the tenant a one-month financial head start. With all the costs involved with moving—the deposit and moving costs—it can be a long, drawn-out process, and, for many tenants who are self-employed or on zero-hours contracts, time is literally money and moving is a time-consuming business.

I hope that passing this legislation will create a new era of stability for those in the private rental market. A whole generation of young people has had to suffer from an overheated rental market, which was firmly loaded in favour of investors and those with the money to buy properties. This legislation does not actually solve that problem, because only the Government building hundreds of thousands of social homes could probably do that, but I welcome the start the Bill is making and I hope the Minister will consider the needs of tenants even more in this way.

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Amendments 32, 33 and 34 would achieve equality and consistency. I recommend them to the Government, and I hope the Minister will take these arguments on board and see the merits of the case we are putting forward. I look forward to hearing from her and hope she will be able to accept these today—and if not today, then perhaps before Report. I beg to move.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly from these Benches to say that there is some nervousness on our part with regard to these amendments and the potential for loopholes to be created. If the discussion is that this is a meeting of equals between tenants and landlords, then I am not sure that this is entirely the case from all the experience and data that we have so far. Let me stress that one of the reasons why we are very excited about the data section, which we will come to later in the Bill, is that we have quite a strong belief that there is limited knowledge about who is out there and who is a landlord right now. All we know about are the responsible ones who register themselves and provide information.

A tenant by very definition is not an equal to someone who owns a property. There may be exceptions to that case, such as tenants who are in high-end properties, but on the whole the tenants we are talking about within the Bill are the ones who struggle on a weekly basis to pay their rent. Therefore, it is not a meeting of equals.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for her amendments. Amendments 32, 33 and 34 seek to expand the definition of a family member for the purposes of possession ground 1. This mandatory possession ground is available if the landlord or their close family member wishes to move into the property. These amendments widen the ground to allow a landlord to claim possession from an existing tenant to move in relatives of their spouse, partner or co-habitee, along with nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles or cousins.

In choosing which of the landlord’s family members can move in under ground 1, we have reflected the diversity of modern families while drawing a line short of where some might wish. But we are of the view that to expand the ground any further would diminish tenant protections too far. It would open tenants up to evictions from a wide range of people—potentially very significant numbers indeed where families are large—while providing more opportunity for ill-intentioned landlords to abuse the system.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked why “family member” is used in Clause 21 while close family member is used in the moving-in ground. The moving-in ground is designed for very specific circumstances where a landlord’s family member is in need of accommodation, so it is right that this definition is narrower, as tenants risk losing their home. New Section 16N of the Housing Act 1988, “Guarantor not liable for rent payable after the tenant’s death”, as inserted by Clause 21, is specifically targeted to stop those grieving being held liable after a tenancy should have been ended, and it is right that this is a broader protection. The use of guarantors is wide ranging and, as such, a wider definition is needed to encompass all relevant persons. However, that is not the case when a tenant is facing eviction from a property.

For these reasons, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

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I will leave it there. These are very sensible amendments and I would be very surprised and disappointed if the Minister did not take them on.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, we thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, for raising a critical issue that is at crisis point: namely, housing in rural communities. We on these Benches understand the need to support those in the agricultural community, who are on unique tenancy arrangements for a variety of historical reasons. These tenancies often involve longer durations, inter- generational involvement and a closer relationship between the land and the livelihood than is typical elsewhere in the rental sector, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, described. As such, it is vital that any legislative change reflects the particular realities of agricultural life and does not introduce any unintended uncertainty or disruption.

Crucially, it is important to ensure that there is greater clarity for both landlords and tenants operating under agricultural tenancies. In a sector where long-term planning and security of tenure are essential, both parties require clear and consistent rules to navigate their rights and responsibilities with confidence. That said, we on these Benches are somewhat hesitant about the proposed amendments in this group to introduce a new repossession ground for these tenancies. We believe it is possible that there may be more effective ways to provide reassurance to those living under such arrangements. On that basis, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, as someone who farms, albeit not on the same scale as the noble Lords who have spoken thus far, or indeed anywhere near it, I am very sensitive to the requirement for security of tenants. On the other hand, I know that—

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief. Amendment 68 seeks to make a modest but sensible change to Clause 6 by replacing “may” with “must”. The intention here is clear: to ensure that the Secretary of State is under a duty—not merely a discretion—to publish the prescribed form for a notice of possession and to ensure that it is kept up to date. We simply do not understand why the Government believe that discretion is necessary in this case. If a form is to be relied on by landlords and tenants alike, and ultimately by the courts, it must be accessible and current. Anything less introduces the risk of confusion, inconsistency or even procedural unfairness.

Can the Government kindly explain the rationale behind retaining this discretion? In what circumstances does the Secretary of State envisage not publishing the form or not ensuring that the version in use is the most recent? This is a matter of basic clarity and procedural transparency, and I hope the Minister can provide some reassurance on this point.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I find myself in a strange position: having argued earlier on discretionary powers to change “must” to “may”, I now find myself in support of changing a “may” to a “must”. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that making this open, available and transparent would be a good thing. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.