Renters (Reform) Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Karen Buck and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Ms Buck]

Of course I am not suggesting that landlords should be forced. I am saying that a balance needs to be struck. As I have said several times, the Minister is completely failing to recognise that the Government have chosen to use the private rented sector for housing, at scale, households who previously would often have been provided with social housing and supported. The Government have to recognise the consequences of that. There has to be proper provision in law. The abolition of section 21 is part of that, but as we keep arguing, by taking away other safeguards in the legislation, the Government are undermining something that we regard as very positive.

The proposed change will lead to more evictions at a lower threshold; it will lead to families leaving their property before going to court, as my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich says; it may lead to landlords actively avoiding tenants who may pose a risk; and it will lead to more applications to local authorities, which will then have to source more temporary accommodation, inevitably in the private rented sector, to house them.

The Minister has to ensure that there is a proper backstop. If the Government want to house people—particularly those with vulnerabilities and families—in the private rented sector at scale, as they do, getting the balance right is essential. The weakening of legislation in this respect is one way in which they are failing to do that.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I repeat the declarations that I have made previously in Committee about the support I get for running the all-party parliamentary group for renters and rental reform, the rent I receive from tenants in my personal house, my work on the advisory group of a housing co-operative federation legal group, and my work as a trustee of the University of Bradford Union of Students, which has interest in Unipol housing, which offers housing for students. The list gets a little longer every time we talk about different things.

I rise to support what my colleagues have said. It is striking that the Government say in the impact assessment that the change will have no monetised or non-monetised impact on tenants, although—the changes to grounds are all clumped together—they list a number of positives and negatives for landlords. That seems rather odd. If the Government are saying that they need to lower the threshold to get rid of antisocial behaviour, there will be a cost to tenants and local authorities.

Now, perhaps that cost is worth it in order to stop antisocial behaviour; perhaps it is better that the local authority, opposed to the private sector, comes in and houses a family that might be causing a particular problem, because the family needs more wraparound support. I am more than willing to go along with that line of argument, but the Government do not make that argument in the impact assessment. They argue that there will be no impact.

I wonder whether the Minister really believes what the impact assessment says. Have he and the Department done the due diligence on the change? If they are genuinely saying that there will be no impact, what is the point of the change, other than to enable landlords to threaten tenants more? That is what it will be. If they are saying that, when a case gets to court, there will be no material change, what they are actually saying is, “Yes, in the court there will be no change, but we’ll be able to put the kibosh on tenants a bit more.” We need some clarity on that from the Minister.

Clearly, “likely to cause” is an extremely low threshold, but it still requires evidence. What I heard from Grainger and others was that it was difficult for them to gather evidence, because people did not want to come forward, and that in the end people wanted to move out of the situation rather than confront it. Even if we lower the threshold—it is a discretionary ground that we all agree on—there will still need to be evidence. I therefore do not see how changing the threshold—as opposed to, for example, changing court evidence guidelines—helps. The court guidelines could be quite easily changed to say that more regard can be given to diaries, recordings and other forms of evidence. I think we would all agree that we should ensure that landlords and courts can use and have more regard to all the evidence and technology that we have nowadays, such as Ring doorbells and so on. When such behaviour can be evidenced, people need to move out.

There is another problem. As the Opposition Front-Bench spokespeople have said, there is a grey line between nuisance and antisocial behaviour. Let us be honest that that is a very grey area. Clearly, the most egregious forms of antisocial behaviour are horrible and nasty, and everyone can see them from a million miles away. Those are not the cases that are struggling in the courts at the moment; it is the grey-area cases where we are unsure. I am not sure that that helps the debate.

It would be much better if the Secretary of State accepted Labour’s new clause 55, which empowers the Secretary of State to issue guidelines from time to time on the levels, thresholds and evidential thresholds for antisocial behaviour. That would be much better, because it would also allow us to understand the changing nature of antisocial behaviour. It would help with problems of cuckooing and drug dealing. We know these kinds of behaviour change with legislation. It is a cat and mouse game with drugs and gangs. The danger with changing the threshold to “likely” is that we will not actually target those people correctly, but will end up bogging down the courts and people with things that are just nuisances, and we will not be able to pinpoint and get people on areas where we all agree real problems need to be targeted.

The Minister should either accept our new clause or say that he will go back and think about guidelines to frame the matter, so that it is clear. We have heard evidence from domestic abuse charities that they are deeply worried. I remember living opposite a lovely woman whose husband had been sent to prison for domestic abuse. On his release, every other night he was outside her house banging the door and shouting abusive expletives. Yes, the police were called and that was dealt with, but it happened repeatedly month after month. It was hugely antisocial for the rest of the residents, but clearly she should not have been evicted.

The problem is only changing the “likely” thresholds, rather than saying, “We will produce a comprehensive set of guidelines that will ensure and give security to those people.” In changing the threshold to “likely” in a vacuum, the Minister has created a lot of fear and panic in some of the sector, whereas that could have been closed down and the Minister could have been given more discretion. I do not say this very often, but on these matters, I am always in favour of giving Ministers more discretion.

I support amendment 131 on repeat visitors. We have all had situations where constituents or neighbours, particularly—dare I say it—younger people with parties that might have gotten out of hand, where they have had to eject visitors from their flat and in the process of doing so, it has created a great deal of antisocial behaviour. We do not want it to suddenly trigger a threshold when the tenant has done the right thing by trying to stop the problem but that has caused a disturbance. It needs to be when someone has repeatedly and voluntarily invited a person back into their flat to cause a disturbance. It also links to things like cuckooing, where the tenant does not have the capacity to resist that individual. Clearly other interventions, particularly by the police and social security, are needed.

I think the Minister is trying to do the right thing, and we all agree that we need tougher abilities to tackle antisocial behaviour. First, he should accept the amendment. Secondly, it always sticks in my throat that we create a whole different set of regimes for people in the private rented sector compared with people who own houses. We assume that people who live in the private rented sector are more prone to antisocial behaviour, but I must admit that I know lots of people who own their own homes who are darn antisocial as well.

I do not disagree that there should be cause to evict, sometimes and when needed, but it needs to be on a fair and equitable basis, and it should be based on guidelines that can change as the need changes, rather than just lowering a threshold of one word, which the Minister says in his own impact assessment will have no impact whatsoever.

Renters (Reform) Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Karen Buck and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I rise to support the amendment —no surprise there. We have a crisis not only in our private rented sector, but with the burdens that local authorities are having placed on them, with people coming to them at short notice because they are losing their homes. Many Members will know that two months is just not long enough for many local authorities to assist the constituent or, in this case, tenant to find a home in time. They are put into emergency accommodation at great cost to the council and the public purse. As a result of section 21s and the short period people have to find homes, last year 24,000 households were threatened with homelessness and had to resort to their local council. That is a huge number, and our local councils are suffering. The emergency accommodation spending of Hastings Borough Council, just down the road from me, has gone from £500,000 to £5 million this year. How can a council find that amount of money in three years? Almost exclusively, the cause is the ending of private tenancies.

We all think that private tenancies will need to end sometimes. No one thinks they should not when there are legitimate reasons. The Conservative party manifesto said that the Government would end no-fault evictions. It did not say that they would end just section 21s: it said they would end no-fault evictions. Clearly, that has not happened. We all agree that there are some reasons why a no-fault eviction might be needed, but serving those no-fault evictions with the same terms and time limit as section 21 evictions seems to breach the spirit, if not the letter, of not only the governing party’s manifesto but the point that we are meant to be rebalancing and giving time for tenants to find properties.

We could choose any number and say it was suitable, but let us think about the cycle through which people find houses. It will often take a number of weeks just to look for a house. Then someone will have to raise the money to pay for a deposit in advance, which might require one or two pay cheques. The Minister has already dismissed my amendment on rent-free periods, so people will have to raise that amount from the money they are earning at the time, and that may take a number of months. For a lot of private renters, 60% of their salary goes toward rent, so the idea of having to raise a month’s rent in advance in two months is almost impossible.

There is then the need to ensure that contracts are signed and references are done. To go through all that process in two months, someone would effectively need to have found a property on day one of getting the order. Four months is a much more reasonable period for someone to be able to do all that, when there is no fault of their own. It is incumbent on the Minister to at least consider that idea, and if not, to ask what additional protections and support will be given to tenants and local authorities to aid that transition, which is currently not aided.

All that is without me even touching on children and the fact that they will need to move schools. Four months would also mean that a child can make a move between schools within term-time and half-term periods. That allows a parent to say to their child, if they are having to move, “At half-term you will be starting at a new school.” These are important things for raising families, and the cycles are not unrealistic.

Of course, there will always be need for quicker evictions. There will be fault evictions. There will be pre-notice evictions. My Front-Bench team is not proposing to change any of them; I think that that is a reasonable balance for everyone. I urge the Minister to accept the amendment.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I, too, urge the Minister to accept the amendment. It is common knowledge that London is at the sharp end of the pressures in this respect, and the need for a more flexible approach is pressing.

The Government are missing a recognition that the private rented sector, and moves within it, are not as they were, as we touched on earlier. The profile of renters is now completely different compared with the situation a decade or two ago, so the needs of households need to be accommodated in the management of the sector. There are more families in the sector and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown said, we need to ensure that families with children are given sufficient lead-in time to move their children between schools. For families with two or three children, that can involve finding a way of moving children in primary school and secondary school and between nurseries. These are major logistical tasks.

Renters (Reform) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Karen Buck and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Committee stage
Thursday 16th November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Simon?

Simon Mullings: I have nothing to add on that.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Q Can I ask for your views on the Government’s intention to delay the abolition of section 21 pending court reform? You are all litigators. Is that necessary, given the present state of play? What do you think the delay might entail? What reforms would be required in order to ensure that the courts were meeting the standard that the Government are setting?

Simon Mullings: No, it is not necessary.

Renters (Reform) Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Karen Buck and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Committee stage
Thursday 16th November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Q Most of the grounds at the moment are non-discretionary or mandatory, and a few are discretionary. Is that balance correct, or should tenants be able to make specific hardship claims around financial issues, for example, or delay an eviction based on selling the house? For instance, if the tenant were receiving cancer treatment, they might seek a delay for a few months. Could you tell me about that distinction? Would that create more work or less?

Jacky Peacock: We think that all the grounds should be discretionary. There is no more draconian decision that a civil court could make than to deprive someone of their home. The thought that they will be prevented from looking at all the circumstances before making a decision seems, in principle, unfair. Judges are not soft. If they have discretion, they will still grant possession in the majority of cases where the evidence is there and it is the fairest thing to do. But to deprive them of being able to look at every single circumstance in any of those cases before taking someone’s home away is not justice. It does not deliver justice. I have seen many cases of possession orders being issued against the tenant that have been grossly unfair for all sorts of reasons but, technically, the decision was mandatory.

[Ms Buck]

Q Some tenants are keen and able to exercise the right to purchase. What are your views on how that relationship might work in terms of when grounds are sought for a property to be put up for sale?

Jacky Peacock: I should first of all say that we are not happy with the sales ground. If a landlord wants to sell the property, we think that there is no reason that it could not be sold with the tenant in situ. Obviously, if it is sold to another landlord, that is a big advantage because they do not have to have any void periods while the property is going through the process of sale.

I also suggest, whether or not that remains a ground, that tenants should be given the right of first refusal. There is a precedent for that under the Rent Act 1977. Qualifying tenants—in other words, Rent Act tenants and/or non-leaseholders—have that right at the moment under certain circumstances. I will not tire you with the details of that, but as far as I am aware, all the parties are in favour of increasing owner occupation and this seems to be a very sensible way of doing it.

Even if individual tenants could not afford to buy, they may well have a relative that could buy it for them and they could own it eventually or it could be offered to the local authority, a housing co-operative, a housing trust or whatever. I hope that is something that is given serious consideration. It also means that the property is not being lost if landlords leave the sector. Certainly, if we have the portal as we would like to see it, a lot of appallingly bad landlords will be leaving the sector—good riddance—and that property could be bought by someone else, such as the local authority.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Q Someone going through a no-fault eviction must pay the cost of moving. Should there be some sort of recompense? Earlier this week, it was suggested that the tenant could be exempt from paying, say, the last two months’ rent.

Jacky Peacock: Yes. I have not given a lot of thought to the way the legislation could cover that. To be honest, it is not unusual. We had a case recently where tenants were sharing with another family, but the landlord wanted the other family to move out. The families were sharing the rent and the landlord therefore approved £20,000 rent arrears. We were able to negotiate a date by which they would move; the landlord would not have to go to court to ask for possession, but he would not pursue the arrears.

Renters (Reform) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Karen Buck and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Ms Buck]

Q Apart from probationary tenancies, most social housing tenants have secure tenancies. You will be aware of the Bill’s amendments to ground 14 on antisocial behaviour. Given the experience of dealing with antisocial behaviour with secure tenancies, can any lessons be learned from the work that you do in the social sector?

Kate Henderson: Housing associations take reports of antisocial behaviour very seriously, and we will always investigate them thoroughly. Many of our members have in-house teams dedicated to managing and resolving ASB that often work extensively with the police and local authorities. For any housing association, although eviction is sometimes necessary, it will always be a last resort. There are many actions that housing associations will take to resolve an ASB case prior to its reaching the point at which a tenant might face an eviction.

The Bill’s changes to ground 14 propose a widening of the definition of ASB in the ground from any behaviour “likely to cause” to any behaviour “capable of causing” nuisance or annoyance. The word “capable” is really open to interpretation. For us, it is all about clarity: what, exactly, constitutes a legal ground for eviction under the new definition, and how will it work in practice? Eviction is, of course, a last resort. It is incredibly distressing to deal with such cases, particularly if they are having an impact on multiple residents. It is really important that we do everything we can to resolve a case before it gets to an eviction.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Q Ground 14A relates to the situation in which a social landlord wishes to evict the perpetrator of domestic abuse, where the partner has fled. Very often, it requires the partner, not the perpetrator, to leave. Is the wording sufficient, or should there be some wording to allow possession even if the partner has not fled, and reallocate it to the partner? Very often the tenancy is in the name of the perpetrator.

Kate Henderson: This is an area on which I would like to see further evidence. I am a member of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s strategic reference group on perpetrators. In that scenario, where the victim does not want to leave the property, how can we ensure that the tenancy is in their name but the perpetrator is removed? I would like to seek the expertise of those who are working at the forefront of domestic abuse before giving you a direct answer on the strength of that ground, but I would be happy to follow that up with the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

Q Julie, your report from a few years ago was helpful in encouraging people to think about the private rented sector not as a homogeneous whole, but as having different markets within it. Given what you said, and with the Government—rightly, in my view—going ahead with abolishing section 21, I wonder what you think the impact will be on the different markets. What are the warnings there that you have just given us, in particular on the most vulnerable, at the lower end of the market? What safeguards could be introduced to ensure an adequate supply of decent accommodation for people entering the different layers of the market?

Dr Rugg: I am better able to speak about the lower end of the market, because that is the area that I specialise in. We had some comments earlier about build to rent, and there are some concerns about the build-to-rent sector, but I will not go into those here.

Thinking about the lower end of the market, the proposed regulation seeks an end to “No DSS”, as a catch-all. I do not think that that will necessarily work particularly well. Landlords seek not to let to people in receipt of benefits for two reasons: first, because they might have some prejudiced view about the people who tend to be in receipt of benefits, and that is something that is certainly not right; and the other set of reasons sits around frustration with the benefits administration and the level of benefits being paid.

I have researched landlords and housing benefit for many years—too many to mention. In the past, landlords who routinely let in the housing benefit market enjoyed quite good relations with their local authority and they worked together to deal with problems that their tenants might encounter in the benefits market. The introduction of universal credit has completely taken that link away. A lot of landlords are feeling quite exposed now: they have tenants with quite high needs having problems with their benefits, and they simply cannot do anything about it. That is a problem that we need to think about.

One of the earlier speakers referred to the rent control that sits in the local housing allowance system. That is hugely problematic. It means that tenants who receive local housing allowance simply cannot shop around the market, because the rent levels are far too low for them to act as effective consumers. Essentially, they are having to shop where they can, and some landlords are definitely exploiting that situation, letting very poor-quality property on the understanding that the tenants do not have very much choice.

Professor Gibb: I do not have much to add, except to say that I completely agree on the local housing allowance. We have just been doing some research in Scotland that suggests that the levels are far too low to be effective for the great majority of people. It is really welcome to think about the market rental sector as a series of segmented markets. We should therefore not expect regulation that covers the whole area to have equivalent effects in different parts of that area.

The only other thing I would say is that we also need to think as much as we can about housing as a system, recognising the importance of social and affordable housing alongside the bottom end of the rental market, and thinking about how those things can connect together and about the value that increasing investment in social and affordable housing would bring.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Q Dr Rugg, I want to follow up on the maladministration of universal credit, and some of the difficulties that landlords have had since the introduction of universal credit and the local housing allowance going from 50% to 30% and now probably to sub-20%, because of the cuts. We know that possession grounds 8 and 8A are about the failure to pay rent and about rent arrears. There are some weak protections around universal credit in that, but they are non-discretionary grounds in a court, so do you feel that that goes far enough to build the relationship that you were describing between landlord, universal credit and tenant, or could more be done in the legislation?

Dr Rugg: I think we need to re-establish a relationship between landlords and the universal credit system, so that landlords who are encountering problems can talk to someone in detail about those problems. It is a very basic requirement that some landlords have, that when there are individual tenants who might be falling into difficulties they need to talk to somebody about that case, and about the specifics of the case of an individual who might have high support needs. Thinking about how we support landlords through those cases—and we are talking about specialist landlord lines within the universal credit system, so that landlords can seek advice for particular cases—that is not unreasonable; that is the kind of support that we need to re-engender, so that landlords feel that, when they have difficulties, they know exactly where to get advice from.