No-fault Evictions

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

To ask His Majesty’s Government when they intend to introduce legislation to ban no-fault evictions.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

The Renters (Reform) Bill had its Second Reading in the House of Commons on Monday 23 October 2023. The Bill will deliver the Government’s commitment to a fairer private rental sector. It will remove Section 21 no-fault evictions to provide tenants with greater security and will empower them to challenge poor conditions. Alongside this, we will introduce periodic tenancies allowing either party to end the tenancy when they need to.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the banning of Section 21 evictions has been pushed into the long grass, and the insecurity caused by no-fault evictions is having a devastating impact on over 24,000 families a year in this country—a 50% increase on the previous year. The financial burden of £1.6 billion a year on local authorities is overwhelming their ability to deliver other services. Five years have gone by since the Government’s manifesto pledge to ban no-fault evictions, and it now appears that the Prime Minister is too weak among his Back-Benchers to deliver that promise. Why has no work happened to ensure that the courts were fit for purpose to deliver no-fault evictions in those five years? What are the Government going to do to stop those being made homeless by Section 21 from rising to over 30,000 families a year before this gets fixed?

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I respectfully disagree with the noble Baroness: we are not kicking this into the long grass. However, this will be the biggest challenge to the private rental sector for over 30 years, and it is vital that we deliver reform in a way that both protects the security of private tenants and retains the confidence of landlords in that new system. This is why Section 21 will be abolished only once we judge sufficient progress has been made to improve the court’s possessions. It is our commitment, in line with recommendations made in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and in recent reports, that we will do this as a matter of priority. I will also draw attention to the new Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service, introduced on 1 August 2023, which will help with those evictions as of now.