Renters’ Rights Bill

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Before I call the next speaker, who I am sure will speak to her amendments, I remind Members that on Report we should consider the amendments and new clauses to the Bill; the debate is neither a rehash of Second Reading, nor a precursor to Third Reading.

[Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)]

I should declare that I am a member of the Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now, which campaigns on renters’ rights. I thank it for its important work on this Bill, including alongside me.

The Bill is hugely welcome, but it can and should go further to fix the grave and urgent housing crisis. I therefore rise to speak to my new clause 7, on rent controls and affordability; new clause 9, on home adaptations for disabled people; and new clauses 17 and 18, on selective licencing schemes. I also want to put on the record my strong support for a number of amendments tabled by others, including the hon. Members for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), and for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker).

We have people living on the streets and in temporary accommodation because they cannot afford their rent. New clause 7 proposes a living rent body, which would set the rules that applied to the calculation of rent between tenancies. That would control rents and make them fair, considering factors such as the home’s property type, condition and size, average local incomes and so on. Local flexibility will be important. The measure is needed. The Bill gives renters a once-in-a-generation set of new rights that they have long been denied, but rent controls are still needed, because it is no help to anyone if they have a right to something that they cannot afford or access.

Once the Bill does away with section 21, we will need rent controls to prevent rogue landlords from instead hiking rents to kick people out. The Government’s changes to the tribunal system do not go far enough to protect renters from that. First, most tenants do not have the time or energy to navigate the system. Secondly, tribunal panel judges only judge whether a rent rise is fair compared with market rates, and the market rates are too high.

We have a generation of people who will never be able to earn enough to have a mortgage, and who cannot even afford their rent now. If a 21-year-old in my home city of Bristol rents a single room today at the average rate, they will have put £80,000 into their landlord’s bank account by their 30th birthday. No wonder that a third of private renters struggle with their housing costs. New clause 7 addresses the plain fact that the market is failing, with terrible costs for people who are struggling and made homeless.

There are huge economic costs, too; the Government are set to pay private landlords £70 billion of taxpayers’ money in the five years from 2021 to 2026. That is multiple times the spend on new affordable homes. Surely that is the wrong way round. We can add to that the huge annual spend on temporary accommodation, which cost councils at least £1.74 billion in 2022-23. Rent rises are far outstripping inflation. The Deposit Protection Service rental index found that rents outstripped inflation by one third in 2023. Rightmove reports show that asking rents outside London have risen 60% since 2020, and I assume that I do not have to tell the House that incomes have not grown by the same amount.

As I set out in Committee, discussion is vital if we are to avoid unintended consequences, and I do not dismiss the importance of that detailed work. At the same time, we cannot ignore the acute affordability crisis for renters. Key workers are being forced out of cities, and people are being forced out of communities that they have made their home. The average rent in my constituency of Bristol Central has hit nearly £1,800 a month.

I know what the criticisms will be, but let me remind the House that rent controls are an established part of private renting in 16 European countries, where they are a completely normal part of housing policy. It is interesting that private renters in England spend a higher proportion of their income on rent than those in any European country apart from Luxembourg and Norway. Our homes are in worse condition, too.

Rent controls are of course not a panacea. They are needed alongside a suite of housing policies, and increasing social housing supply is really important. However, the private rented sector is in an affordability crisis now, and it will take huge amounts of effort and time, even with the best will in the world, to increase the social housing supply on a scale that will impact private rents. Modelling from Generation Rent and other economists predicts that building 1.5 million homes over this Parliament will decrease the private rent burden by just over 1%.

Moving on to new clause 9, there are 16 million disabled people in the UK—more than a fifth of the population—and 19% of them live in the private rented sector. The Equality and Human Rights Commission estimates that a shocking one in three disabled people in the private rented sector lives in unsuitable accommodation, and a Government survey reveals that an appalling 44% of private landlords have said that they will not rent to someone who requires home adaptations.

My amendment seeks to ensure that, if all tenants can put up shelves, disabled tenants should be allowed to put up grab rails. If all tenants can replace a showerhead, disabled tenants should be allowed to put in accessible washing facilities. It is not acceptable that disabled tenants must get permission for these most basic adaptations.

In Committee, the Minister was sympathetic to my concern but argued that the Equality Act 2010 already covers this issue. However, it clearly is not doing the job. Disabled people are explaining this very clearly and patiently, as did the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), whom I thank.