Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Janke]

133: After Clause 13, insert the following new Clause—
“Permission for home adaptations(1) The Housing Act 1988 is amended as follows. (2) After section 16 insert—“16A Home adaptations(1) It is an implied term of every assured tenancy that a landlord must give permission for adaptations where a local council has carried out a Home Assessment and recommends adaptations which constitute reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010.(2) A tenant may appeal a landlord’s refusal to give permission for such adaptations.””Member's explanatory statement
This new clause would ensure that landlords of private and social tenancies provide permission for home adaptations for people who have disabilities where a Home Assessment has been carried out.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 133 in my name and that of Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. This amendment would require landlords to grant permission for home adaptations that constitute reasonable adjustments where these have been recommended by local authority assessments.

Disabled individuals in the private rented sector often face significant barriers in accessing essential adaptations that allow them to live safely, independently and with dignity. According to the English Housing Survey for 2022, 21% of private renters live in homes that fail to meet the decent home standards and 16% of private renters with a long-term illness or disability are in homes with at least one category 1 hazard, such as the risk of falls or inadequate heating. These conditions are not only uncomfortable; they can actively endanger health and undermine independence. The Family Resources Survey for 2022-23 reports that 24% of people in the UK are disabled, amounting to approximately 16 million individuals. With such a significant proportion of the population affected, the case for making housing adaptable and accessible is both moral and practical.

We know that many disabled renters face long delays, refusals or restrictive conditions when requesting simple modifications. Even small adjustments such as installing grab rails, ramps or stairlifts can make the difference between a person being able to remain in their home or being forced to move, rely on care or live in unsafe conditions. This amendment seeks to remove those barriers by ensuring that tenants can make necessary changes, subject to the existing checks and balances of local authority assessments. It offers a proportionate, workable solution that respects landlords’ rights while upholding the basic needs of tenants.

The amendment would also help to reduce demand on already stretched social housing by enabling more disabled people to remain in private accommodation that suits their needs. Given that nearly a quarter of the population is disabled, the need for accessible and safe housing is clear and pressing. This amendment offers a practical step to ensure that those who need adaptations are not denied them by process, delay or indifference.

I urge noble Lords to support this amendment in order to make real the promise of equality under the law and to ensure that disabled renters can live in homes that support their independence, health and dignity. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, my Amendments 178 and 191, along with Amendment 133 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, highlight some of the challenges that disabled people face living in rented accommodation. Life is hard if you have to live with a disability, and it makes sense if where you live can help you have as much of an active life as possible. When we talk about disabled people, we are not just talking about wheelchair users; we are talking, for example, about people who might react badly to certain colours or intensity of lighting. Step-free access these days ought to be almost automatic, given our ageing population.

The sad reality is that Britain’s housing stock has not been designed with disabled people in mind, and the provision of adaptations for disabled housing is quite scarce. My Amendment 191 would give people reassurance that they can ask about and discuss disability adjustments when looking for somewhere to live, without being disadvantaged. Amendment 178 would take this further and give tenants a right to make minor adaptations for disabilities without needing consent from the landlord.

Taken together, these amendments would support people with disabilities to live healthier, happier lives by ensuring that they have specific rights to meet their needs. I hope that the Minister can take this issue away and look at it, as there are some simple ways forward that will have a huge beneficial impact on disabled people and their families.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand the noble Lord’s point about reinstatement. However, the property being adapted will usually extend the length of the tenancy, which is one of the initial objectives. This already happens where a tenant asks for a home adaptation to be carried out. That will usually mean that they will extend the length of their tenancy. If the tenant does decide to move out, the landlord can seek someone else who would benefit from that adaptation. I will come back to the noble Lord regarding his point about any necessary reinstatement costs. Normally, landlords will be able to find another tenant who would benefit from the adaptation that has been made to the property.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister, and I look forward to seeing her letter and the various assurances that she has given us today. This amendment stemmed from the fact that refusal by landlords has been a major obstacle in the private sector to disabled people who are trying to get adaptations, and it seems that there are a number of measures within the Bill that will really start to tackle this problem. The Equality Act requirements have not prevented landlords refusing tenants who have requested adaptations.

As the Minister says, the business of reinstatement is not always necessary. I admit that some hoists might need to be reinstated, but there is a huge shortage of rental places available for people with even minor disabilities. Bathroom improvements and stairlifts can be a great benefit and make the property much more in demand, because they are in very short supply. I accept that some reinstatement may well be necessary at some stage, but you need only to look at how much demand there is for these properties before you think that you would necessarily have to reinstate them after somebody with a disability has left. The fact that the tenants have a longer period of tenure as a result is also an important factor.

The point of this amendment was that getting it under the disabled facilities grants, meaning that local councils would have their inspection under some form of supervision, was meant to be a safeguard to ensure that things were not being done in an ad hoc or an unsafe way. I am very pleased to hear that disabled facilities grants are being boosted, because the fact that there has been so little money in them for so long has been a major impediment to getting these improvements. I look forward to reading the Minister’s assurances in the letter, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 133 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Baroness Janke]

134: After Clause 13, insert the following new Clause—
“Right to request Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) installation(1) It is an implied term of every assured tenancy to which this section applies that— (a) a tenant may request the installation of Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) at the dwelling-house if the tenant asks to do so in accordance with this section and the landlord consents;(b) such consent is not to be unreasonably refused by the landlord;(c) the landlord is to give or refuse consent in writing on or before the 28th day after the date of the request, except as provided by subsections (2) to (5).(2) Where the landlord reasonably requests further information from the tenant about the proposed FTTP installation on or before the 28th day after the date of the tenant’s request the landlord may delay giving or refusing consent until the 7th day after the date on which the tenant provides any further information that the landlord requests where the following circumstances apply—(a) the installation of FTTP at the dwelling-house would require the landlord to obtain the consent of a superior landlord under the terms of a superior tenancy, and(b) the landlord seeks the consent of the superior landlord on or before the 28th day after the date of the tenant’s request.(3) The landlord may delay giving or refusing consent until the 7th day after the date on which the landlord receives consent or refusal from the superior landlord.(4) Where the landlord and the tenant agree that the landlord may delay giving or refusing consent, the landlord may delay until whatever date is agreed between the landlord and the tenant.(5) Where more than one of subsections (2) to (4) apply, the landlord may delay until the latest date to which the landlord may delay giving or refusing consent under any of the subsections.(6) This section applies to every assured tenancy other than a tenancy of social housing, within the meaning of Part 2 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment introduces a right for tenants to request Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) installation, similar to the right to request keeping a pet, by ensuring that landlord consent for FTTP installation cannot be unreasonably refused and that decisions are made within a specified timeframe. This provision is intended to reduce delays in broadband infrastructure improvements in rented properties.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 134, I will also speak to Amendment 135. Both are also in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Black of Brentwood and Lord Best. I am grateful to Openreach for raising this issue with me, and to Generation Rent and the Good Things Foundation for their support. These amendments would introduce the right for tenants to directly request a full-fibre broadband installation. Tenants would be able to request from their landlord directly, who would have to decide within a specified timeframe. Landlord consent would not be able to be unreasonably refused.

Broadband was historically delivered through electrical signals in copper phone lines, but this technology faced limitations, including vulnerability to weather and limited information-carrying capabilities. A demand for connecting multiple devices grew. Copper networks have increasingly been replaced with fibre-optic cables, enabling more reliable broadband and faster download speeds for households and businesses across the UK.

Four years ago, less than a quarter of British homes and offices could access full-fibre broadband. Today, around seven in 10 premises, or 20.7 million, have access to full fibre, and gigabit-capable network coverage has increased from 40% in 2021 to 83% last year. This progress has been commendable, but there are still challenges to building this vital infrastructure, which is why I tabled these amendments to resolve an increasingly pressing matter.

Although the provision of ultrafast broadband has been mandated in new builds since 2022, tenants in older residential properties have to rely on freeholder permission to upgrade existing copper to full fibre. This can pose significant challenges to the provision of gigabit-capable broadband to residents, if landlords are difficult to identify or are unresponsive to requests for access.

It is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of multi-dwelling units across the country whose tenants could be disfranchised from the benefits of gigabit-capable broadband. Although there are existing rights to enter communal areas in flats to repair the ageing copper network, providers cannot use these same rights to upgrade tenants to the latest technology, despite the benefits it brings.

Although the telecommunications code was amended in 2022 to help broadband providers get access to multi-dwelling units by providing a tribunal process, this route is often very ineffective, takes a great deal of time and cost, and results in properties still being bypassed. The law also allows providers to apply to the tribunal only when a tenant has asked for a broadband service, but if the building does not already have a fibre network in place, there is no service available for the tenant to request. As a result, tenants, often in lower-income areas, will be left with slower, outdated broadband options, restricting their ability to access vital public services, work remotely, and access online education.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Earl makes an excellent point. Anyone who has travelled on the east coast main line will be incredibly frustrated about the dipping in and out of the broadband signal, and if you go through the Hatfield Tunnel on the A1, you will lose your broadband there as well. So he makes an important point.

The Bill is of course about housing, which is why we are considering the housing aspects of it, but I am sure my colleagues in DSIT are very aware of the absolute need to make sure that we have good broadband connection wherever we are in the country.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her comments, and I am very interested to hear how the Government will move forward on this. As they have rejected this amendment, I would be very interested to see what measures will be taken. Whatever reassurances we have in here, there are still large numbers of people who are digitally excluded and, as other Members have said, they are entirely reliant on broadband connection for so many things, whether it is medical appointments, work or for economic reasons. It is a real inequality and a great exclusion if they cannot have reliable connections. I hope that this will be a priority and that the Minister will inform us—perhaps in a letter—about what developments are taking place and by when. She mentioned some dates and I should be interested to see them. With those reassurances, I withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 134 withdrawn.