Renters (Reform) Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Matthew Pennycook

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the Minister for that answer. I fully accept that there is a difference between a large registered social landlord, and a mum-and-dad landlord, who might own only one or two buy-to-let properties. However, we should not therefore say that it is acceptable for the kinds of cases that Awaab’s law would cover, if extended to the private sector, to go on unchallenged. I am not satisfied that there are existing powers to challenge those cases. If there were such powers in the social rented sector, the Government would not have needed to bring forward Awaab’s law. Actually, if the Government were properly resourcing local authorities to enforce, Awaab’s law might not be necessary, but the Government deemed it necessary in the social rented sector.

As the Bill demonstrates, the difference between the private rented sector and the social sector will break down to some extent, whether as a result of the ombudsman, who will cover both sectors, or other measures. We think the law should cover both sectors, and I find the Minister’s response unconvincing. I will press new clause 60 to a Division.

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

It is worth pointing out that the Minister himself said that the condition of the housing stock in the private rented sector was now considered to be worse than the condition of the housing stock in the social rented sector. Surely the Minister should therefore argue that we need tougher regulation, because regulation is failing more badly in the private sector than in the social sector, but he seems not to have followed through on his argument.

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend is right. We know that standards in the social rented sector are inadequate; that is why the Government brought forward their recent legislation, which we supported. Things are worse in the private rented sector. I quoted the Citizens Advice statistic: 1.6 million children are in damp, mouldy or cold homes. If anything, there is a stronger case for Awaab’s law applying to the private rented sector than to the social, but the Minister is trying to have it both ways, for the obvious reason that the Government do not want to accept our new clause. I encourage them to go away and think. We will press the new clause to a vote. If the measures are good enough for the social rented sector, surely they are good enough for tenants in the private rented sector; I have seen no evidence that those tenants are not interested in the tougher powers that Awaab’s law would provide.

Finally, I would welcome any further detail from the Minister on whether there is a need to go further on licensed temporary accommodation properties.

Question put and negatived.

Clause 63 accordingly disagreed to.

Clause 54

Crown application

Amendments made: 97, in clause 54, page 55, line 15, leave out “(4), this Part” and insert “(4D), this Act”.

This amendment provides for a default rule which will have the effect that, subject to any specific provision about them, the new clauses which make freestanding provision in the Bill will bind the Crown. This is intended to mean that the Crown will be bound by the new clauses containing prohibitions on discriminatory practices in relation to tenancies and (subject to exceptions in Amendment 98 for powers of entry) the new investigatory powers.

Amendment 98, in clause 54, page 55, line 30, at end insert—

“(4A) Sections (Business premises: entry without warrant), (Requirements where occupiers are on business premises entered without warrant), (Business premises: warrant authorising entry), (Business premises: entry under warrant), (Power to require production of documents following entry), (Power to seize documents following entry), (Access to seized documents), (Appeal against detention of documents), (Suspected residential tenancy: entry without warrant), (Requirements where occupiers are on residential premises entered without warrant), (Suspected residential tenancy: warrant authorising entry), (Suspected residential tenancy: entry under warrant) and (Powers of accompanying persons) do not bind the Crown.

(4B) Nothing in section (Offences) makes the Crown criminally liable.

(4C) The High Court may declare unlawful any act or omission for which the Crown would be criminally liable under section (Offences) but for subsection (4B).

(4D) An amendment or repeal made by this Act binds the Crown to the extent that the provision amended or repealed binds the Crown (but in the case of an amendment of the 1988 Act, this is subject to the amendments made by section 13).”

This amendment provides that the new clauses conferring powers of entry do not bind the Crown. It also provides that the offences applying in relation to the new clauses about requiring information do not make the Crown criminally liable (but can lead to a declaration of unlawfulness) and deals with Crown application of amendments made by the Bill to other legislation.

Amendment 99, in clause 54, page 55, line 31, leave out

“Subsection (2) does not affect”

and insert

“Nothing in this section affects”.—(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 98.

Clause 54, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered,

That clause 54 be transferred to the end of line 30 on page 61. —(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 97. It moves clause 54 into Part 5 of the Bill (general provisions). This is necessary because once clause 54 deals with the application to the Crown of new provisions added to the Bill, it will no longer relate only to Part 2, and therefore needs to be moved out of that Part.

Clause 55

Application to Parliament

Amendments made: 100, in clause 55, page 55, line 36, leave out “this Part” and insert

“Part 2 (and Part 3 so far as relating to Part 2)”.

This amendment is consequential on the motion to transfer clause 55. It also makes it clear that the general provisions about enforcement action in Part 3 of the Bill apply in relation to any tenancies and licences referred to in clause 55.

Amendment 101, in clause 55, page 56, line 16, at end insert—

“(2) The following provisions do not apply in relation to premises that are occupied for the purposes of either House of Parliament—

(a) Chapter 2A of Part 1;

(b) sections (Power of local housing authority to require information from relevant person), (Business premises: entry without warrant), (Requirements where occupiers are on business premises entered without warrant), (Business premises: warrant authorising entry), (Business premises: entry under warrant), (Power to require production of documents following entry), (Power to seize documents following entry), (Access to seized documents), (Appeal against detention of documents), (Suspected residential tenancy: entry without warrant), (Requirements where occupiers are on residential premises entered without warrant), (Suspected residential tenancy: warrant authorising entry), (Suspected residential tenancy: entry under warrant) and (Powers of accompanying persons).

(3) Nothing in section (Offences) makes the Corporate Officer of the House of Commons or the Corporate Officer of the House of Lords criminally liable.

(4) The High Court may declare unlawful any act or omission for which the Corporate Officer of the House of Commons or the Corporate Officer of the House of Lords would be criminally liable under section (Offences) but for subsection (3).

(5) Nothing in this section affects the criminal liability of relevant members of the House of Lords staff or of the House of Commons staff (as defined by sections 194 and 195 of the Employment Rights Act 1996).”—(Jacob Young.)

This amendment provides that the new Chapter containing prohibitions on discriminatory practices in relation to tenancies and the new clauses on investigatory powers (except the power to require information from any person) do not apply in relation to premises occupied for the purposes of Parliament. It also provides that nothing in NC41 makes the Corporate Officers of the Houses criminally liable (though there can be a declaration of unlawfulness).

Clause 55, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered,

That clause 55 be transferred to the end of line 30 on page 61. —(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 101. It moves clause 55 into Part 5 of the Bill (general provisions). This is necessary because once clause 55 deals with the application to Parliament of the new clauses relating to discriminatory practices and to investigatory powers, it will no longer relate only to Part 2 of the Bill.

Clause 56

Regulations

Amendments made: 102, in clause 56, page 56, line 18, leave out “Part” and insert “Act”.

This amendment provides for the provisions about regulations in clause 56(1) to apply in relation to regulations under the new clauses expected to be added to the Bill.

Amendment 103, in clause 56, page 56, line 28, leave out “Part” and insert “Act”.

This amendment provides for the provision for regulations to be made by statutory instrument to cover all the regulations under the Bill.

Amendment 104, in clause 56, page 56, line 29, after “section” insert

“(Power of the Secretary of State to amend Chapter 2A to protect persons of other descriptions),”.

This amendment provides for regulations under the new clause inserted by NC15 to be subject to affirmative procedure in Parliament.

Amendment 105, in clause 56, page 56, line 33, leave out “Part” and insert

“Act made by the Secretary of State”.

This amendment provides for a default rule that all regulations made by the Secretary of State under the Bill are to be subject to negative procedure in Parliament. The reference to the Secretary of State is included because under other amendments there are regulation-making powers for the Welsh Ministers which are to be subject to procedure in Senedd Cymru rather than Parliament.

Amendment 106, in clause 56, page 56, line 35, at end insert—

“(6) This section does not apply to regulations under section (Power of Welsh Ministers to make consequential provision) or this Part.”—(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on the motion to transfer clause 56. It ensures that, once clause 56 is moved into Part 5 of the Bill by that amendment, the clause will apply only to the substantive regulation-making powers under the Bill and not to any regulations made under the general powers in Part 5 (Part 5 already contains specific provision about procedure etc in relation to the general powers).

Clause 56, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered,

That clause 56 be transferred to the end of line 30 on page 61. —(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendments 102, 103, 104 and 105. It moves clause 56 into Part 5 of the Bill (general provisions). This is necessary because once clause 56 deals with regulations under provisions outside of Part 2 of the Bill, it will no longer relate only to that Part.

Clause 64

Meaning of “the 1988 Act”

Amendment made: 107, in clause 64, page 61, line 30, after first “Act” insert—

“‘local housing authority’ means a district council, a county council in England for an area for which there is no district council, a London borough council, the Common Council of the City of London or the Council of the Isles of Scilly;”.—(Jacob Young.)

This amendment inserts a definition of “local housing authority” for the purposes of the Bill as a whole.

Clause 64, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 65

Power to make consequential provision

Amendments made: 108, in clause 65, page 62, line 1, at end insert—

“(2A) The power to make regulations under this section includes power to make—

(a) supplementary, incidental, transitional or saving provision;

(b) different provision for different purposes.”

This amendment allows regulations made by the Secretary of State containing provision that is consequential on the Bill to include supplementary or incidental provision and to make different provision for different purposes.

Amendment 109, in clause 65, page 62, line 2, leave out from “power”, in the first place, to “for” in line 3 and insert—

“under subsection (2A)(a) to make transitional provision includes power to provide”.—(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 108.

Clause 65, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 66 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 67

Commencement and application

Renters (Reform) Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Matthew Pennycook

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will speak to new clause 57. I will state up front that we welcome the Government amendments to clause 27 and in this area to toughen the sanctions on landlords who display the types of behaviour the Minister has just set out. As I indicated last week when we debated amendments 163 and 164 and the financial penalties that local authorities could levy for breaches and offences under clauses 9 and 10, we believe that rent repayment orders should be a more significant feature of the Bill as a means to aid enforcement of the new tenancy system; to ensure compliance with the requirements to be a member of the ombudsman and maintain an active landlord database entry; and to fairly compensate tenants for losses incurred due to a failure on the part of landlords to comply with the duties and obligations provided for in the Bill.

As the Committee will know, rent repayment orders were introduced by the Housing Act 2004, and were hugely expanded via section 40 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016. They allow the occupier of a property—usually a tenant—and local authorities to apply to the first-tier tribunal for an order that a landlord or his or her agent should repay rent of up to a maximum of 12 months—although the Minister has just made it clear that, in certain circumstances, the Government propose to lengthen that period to 24 months. Rent repayment orders are an accessible, informal and relatively straightforward means by which tenants can obtain redress in the form of financial compensation without having to rely on another body in instances where a landlord or his or her agent has committed, beyond reasonable doubt, an offence that relates to the occupation or letting of a property.

As Simon Mullings, the co-chair of the Housing Law Practitioners Association, argued in the evidence he gave to the Committee on 16 November:

“Rent repayment orders create, as I have said before to officials in DLUHC, an army of motivated enforcers, because you have tenants who are motivated to enforce housing standards to do with houses in multiple occupancy, conditions and all sorts of things.”––[Official Report, Renters (Reform) Public Bill Committee, 16 November 2023; c. 114, Q146.]

We know that rent repayment orders are already being utilised on a scale the dwarfs the use of other enforcement tools. In London, for example, the available data suggests that more properties were subject to a rent repayment order in the years 2020, 2021 and 2022 than civil penalties and criminal convictions relating to licensing in the same period.

The Bill as originally drafted allowed for rent repayment orders to be made only where a landlord had committed an offence under clause 27(9) relating to continuing or repeat breaches after a penalty had been imposed. As the Minister has made clear, Government new clause 19 adds a series of offences under clause 48 concerning the provision of false or misleading information to the private rented sector database and continuing or repeat breaches. We welcome that.

Separately, Government new clause 21 provides that a rent repayment order can be made against a superior landlord, thereby overriding the judgment made in the recent case of Rakusen v. Jepsen and others, which was heard by the Supreme Court. We welcome its incorporation into the Bill. We take the Government’s decision to table it as a clear indication that they view rent repayment orders as a practical and accessible means of enforcement by tenants or occupiers.

However, we want the Government to go further and extend the tribunal’s ability to make rent repayment orders for the following: first, a breach of new sections 16D and 16E of the Housing Act 1988, relating to the duty on landlords and contractors to give a statement of terms and other information, and the no-let prohibition in respect of grounds 1 and 1A; secondly, a failure to register with the ombudsman, as required by clause 24 of the Bill; and thirdly, a failure to keep an entry on the database up to date and to comply with all the relevant requirements of clause 39.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Despite my reservations about having three different deposit schemes, one of the reasons that the deposit scheme compliance is so high is because it comes with an element of rent repayment orders. The likelihood of local authorities being able to chase that up is next to zero. The likelihood of tenants being able to do that is extremely high.

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which pre-empts one that I am about to make. We think that rent repayment orders can and do provide an incentive for landlords in these areas.

We believe, specifically when it comes to new clause 57, that allowing the tribunal to make rent repayment orders for these additional specific breaches would provide an additional incentive for landlords to comply with the relevant duties, requirements and prohibitions, and enable wronged tenants to be compensated for any losses incurred. Extending rent repayment orders to the relevant requirements of clause 39, for example, would be a powerful stimulus for landlord portal registration, because it would become the norm for tenants to check whether their landlord or prospective landlord was compliant.

Conversely, if the entitlement to apply for a rent repayment order were to apply to the relevant requirements of clause 39, it would provide tenants with a compelling reason to visit the portal, to learn about their rights and access information and resources they might not otherwise come across until the point they had a serious complaint or were engaged in a dispute with a landlord. This example also illustrates how an extension of rent repayment orders could alleviate some of the burdens that would otherwise fall on local authorities as the only mechanism to enforce, by means of financial penalties and criminal offences, a number of the breaches in the Bill to which they currently do not apply.

In the scenario I have outlined, tenants incentivised by the potential to apply an RRO to a landlord who was not compliant would act as an intelligence-gathering mechanism for local authorities, helping them to identify unregistered properties that they might otherwise struggle to locate and register. Put simply, as Dr Henry Dawson said to the Committee in the evidence session on 14 November:

“Using rent repayment orders incentivises tenants to keep an eye on landlords.”––[Official Report, Renters (Reform) Public Bill Committee, 14 November 2023; c. 60, Q74.]

The Minister may assure me that the regulations to come may provide for rent repayment orders in relation to clauses 24 and 39(3). If that is the case, we would welcome it, but I would much prefer him to accept the new clause and expand the use of rent repayment orders in the Bill to encourage compliance and give tenants the means to secure, for themselves, redress for poorly behaving landlords. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

That is a helpful response. I took from it that the Government are considering including a history of past possession notices granted to a landlord. That is very welcome.

We tabled this amendment because it gets to the heart of how the new portal will operate. It could be a source of very basic information about a property, and whether it is strictly compliant with health and safety standards. We would hope the Government—the noises the Minister has made indicate they might—will take a more expansive view of how the property portal might work. Namely, that it will give tenants, as consumers, real power, because of the transparency and the amount of information recorded, to be able to know whether the tenancy agreement they are prospectively entering into is good for them, and whether the landlord is a good-faith landlord—as we know the majority are—or potentially an unscrupulous landlord. I welcome the indications the Minister has given, and look forward to debating—whether between us, or with other Ministers—the regulations in due course. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 32 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 33 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 34

Making entries in the database

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I beg to move amendment 202, in clause 34, page 41, line 33, at end insert—

“(2A) The regulations must provide for information or documents to be provided relating to disputes and their resolution under deposit protection schemes under Chapter 4 of Part 6 of the Housing Act 2004 (tenancy deposit schemes).”

This amendment would require regulations made by the Secretary of State to require the provision of information relating to dispute resolution for deposit protection schemes.

Amendments 202 and 176 both seek to ensure that certain things are included in this property portal. We have just heard from the Minister that he intends to set out in regulations the lists of what needs to be included. I think it is important that we have confirmation that these are the things that the Minister is considering.

My amendment 202 proposes that disputes and outcomes of the deposit protection scheme be included in the property portal. It is so important that tenants know whether their landlord is routinely in dispute over the deposit. I am not talking about situations in which the tenant agrees that there was damage, and there is no dispute about the deposit deduction; I mean those in which a tenant disputes the damage. The tenant should be able to see whether there are regular disputes and whether the outcome is in the landlord’s favour—the landlord might actually be pretty good—or in the tenant’s. The recording of disputes would also allow us to start to develop case law on deposit disputes and their outcomes.

I also support amendment 176—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

As I take it, the Minister has agreed that he will consider including disputes. That is a separate point from whether they are part of the ombudsperson; it is about whether their own processes and outcomes are being recorded properly. I will not push the amendment to a vote, but I do hope that the Minister will keep us in touch with his thinking as matters progress.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 176, in clause 34, page 41, line 33, at end insert—

“(3A) The regulations must provide for the following information or documents to be provided to the database operator as part of the process of creating entries on the database—

(a) an address, telephone number and email address for the residential landlord;

(b) an address, telephone number and email address for all managing agents engaged by the residential landlord;

(c) details of every dwelling that is being let by the residential landlord;

(d) evidence that the residential landlord has supplied a copy of the ‘How To Rent’ booklet to each relevant tenant;

(e) the rent that is currently being charged in respect of every dwelling that is being let by the residential landlord;

(f) details of any enforcement action that a local housing authority in England has taken against the residential landlord;

(g) details of any banning orders that have been made against the residential landlord pursuant to Chapter 2 of Part 2 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016;

(h) in respect of every dwelling that is being let by the residential landlord, copies of the documents required by:

(i) Regulation 6(5) of the Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012;

(ii) Paragraph(s) 6 and/or 7 of Regulation 36 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998;

(iii) Regulation 3 of the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020;

(iv) Regulation 4 of the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015;

(i) details of whether the dwelling house is required to be licenced under Part 2 (Houses in Multiple Occupation) or Part 3 (Selective Licensing) of the Housing Act 2004”

This amendment would ensure that a number of the regulatory obligations that built up around section 21 notices are maintained by means of the database following the removal of section 21 of the Housing Act 1988.

We discussed, in relation to amendment 175, the fact that we believe that certain requirements relating to the functioning of the portal should be placed in the Bill. In speaking to amendments 170 to 172 to clause 19 in relation to deposit protection, I briefly touched on the fact that a number of regulatory obligations that have developed around section 21 notices over the 35 years for which the present system has been in place will fall away when it is abolished at the point at which chapter 1 of part 1 of the Bill comes into force.

The preconditions and requirements that have built up around section 21 notices, which presently prevent landlords from using the no-fault eviction process unless they can show compliance, include providing copies of gas safety certificates; providing copies of energy performance certificates; providing copies to each tenant of the ever-evolving how-to-rent booklet; and showing evidence of complying with the licensing requirements for houses in multiple occupation. There are no provisions in the Bill to ensure that landlords will have to continue to meet these and other regulatory obligations as a precondition of operating under the new tenancy system.

We fear that that will leave under-resourced local authorities—or tenants themselves, through the pursuit of civil claims—as the only means of enforcing these important statutory duties. We believe that compliance should instead be achieved by making it mandatory for landlords to submit the relevant information and proof of compliance to the database operator as part of the process of creating entries on the database. Amendment 176 would ensure that that is the case in respect of a wide range of existing regulatory obligations. We urge the Minister to accept it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

It is also important that everything be recorded in one place, not only for tenants but for landlords, who will not have to fill in a plethora of information in different places about the EPC, gas safety and so on. It will make it easier for everyone if the Government get it right. It is so important that they be clear early on, so that we are not in a rush at the last moment.

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend’s point is well made. There is the potential—hopefully the Government recognise it—to reduce the burden on landlords by ensuring that there is a clear set of requirements associated with registration on the portal that do not exist around the serving of a notice, as they do currently. We hope that the Government will take our points on board and bring all these preconditions within the scope of the portal in due course. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 35

Requirement to keep active entries up-to-date

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

It might be understandable if, for example, the landlord’s day of birth was redacted on Companies House but the month and year were shown. If we had no national insurance numbers, but we had a contactable address where that person could be found—not necessarily their home address, but a non-PO box address—that might, again, be acceptable.

The Government need to be clear in their intention that this is about privacy grounds only where necessary for the safety and functioning of a landlord, and not about withholding information that would be useful for the tenant in reaching out to the landlord. I will withdraw the amendment, but I expect the Minister to provide some more details in writing about what will be excluded.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 43 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 44 to 46 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 47

Financial penalties

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 167, in clause 47, page 50, line 36, leave out “£5,000” and insert “£30,000”.

This amendment would increase the maximum financial penalty that local authorities could impose on a person for breach of a requirement imposed by clause 39.

Renters (Reform) Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Matthew Pennycook

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

They could, so why not? It would be expected if a property was marketed at a certain price for that to be the accepted price. If someone puts a section 13 down, it is a form of marketing what this property is now worth. The Minister is quite right that it is wrong to engage in unfair advertising practices. A section 13 is a form of advertising to a sitting tenant, to say, “I’m advertising that this is the rent that I now want.” To then change their mind via a tribunal is, in my view, unfair. I think the Minister probably gets that point, but I wonder whether it might be possible to change it through regulation, and advice to the courts and the tribunals. These things need to be considered, and the same goes for widening the scope of what the tribunals could push. I will not push my amendments now, but I hope the Minister will genuinely think about how we can increase the scope of what the courts can consider, so that rents are not always inflated up to the very highest level, but are fair for all our communities.

[Matthew Pennycook]

There were some points of interest raised in this debate that we will certainly come back to—I will check the transcript in relation to a couple of them—but I do not think they satisfy us sufficiently not to press these amendments.

On new clauses 58 and 59, I took the Minister to imply that bidding wars could fall under the category of false, misleading or essentially unfair practices—I think he mentioned dishonesty. I do not think he has given us a cast-iron commitment that bidding wars of any kind constitute an unfair practice. If they do, and the Government know that, why are they not taking action to stamp them out? Lots of people in cities and towns across the country, and certainly in my constituency, are being impacted financially by bidding wars. In some areas, they are extremely intense, and people end up paying huge amounts more than were initially advertised.

I agree with the Minister that advance rent should not be the norm. It seems to be somewhat the norm in many parts of the country. I am interested that he says there is a potential means of addressing this via the Tenant Fees Act 2019. It sounded to me like it may take quite a long time for the Government to bring forward any proposals in that regard. We will certainly not see advance rent stamped out any time soon. The Minister did not address my point on undue hardship. I absolutely realise—it was part of my remarks—that under the Government’s proposals, when a tribunal determines the rent, it will kick in from the point of determination. We think that vulnerable residents need a little more time to adjust and move out if they simply cannot afford those rents.

Finally, on the tribunal awarding rent levels in excess of what is asked for, I think the Government have got it wrong. The Minister referenced unspecified interests that the Government had heard lobbying from—I think he said, “We’d heard concerns.” Who from? I do not know. We can all take a guess who from. There were proposals in the White Paper, this being one of them, that we thought extremely sensible. He is right that some landlords may, having been told by the tribunal that they can increase the rent level even further than asked for, be good-natured enough to charge only the initial rate, but I cannot think that many of them would. They are, after all, running businesses. We need a measure—we will no doubt return to this at a later stage—to ensure that the rent level that the landlord asked for via section 13 is the maximum. In many cases it may reduce, but it should be the maximum that a landlord can ask for. On that basis, I am afraid that we will press our amendments 160 and 161 to a vote.

[Matthew Pennycook]

That was my understanding as well, so I am not sure what the Minister was saying about false, misleading or unfair practices. If that does not apply to bidding wars, it applies to something completely separate from what we are talking about, so he has convinced me that new clauses 58 and 59 are even more necessary than I thought. I thought there was a glimmer of hope there, but there clearly is not. We will press all our amendments to a vote.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6

Challenging amount or increase of rent

Amendment proposed: 160, in clause 6, page 7, line 27, at end insert—

“(7A) After subsection (8) insert—

‘(8A) Where a notice under section 13(2) has been referred to the appropriate tribunal then, unless the landlord and the tenant otherwise agree, the rent determined by the appropriate tribunal (subject, in a case where subsection (5) above applies, to the addition of the appropriate amount in respect of rates) shall be the same or below the rent specified in the section 13 notice and the rent as determined by the tribunal shall only become payable once the decision of the tribunal has become final.

(8B) A decision becomes final only on the latest of—

(a) the determination of any appeal;

(b) if earlier, on the expiry of the time for bringing a subsequent appeal (if any); or

(c) by its being abandoned or otherwise ceasing to have effect.’”—(Matthew Pennycook.)

This amendment would ensure that where a rent assessment is carried out by a tribunal, the rent subsequently determined by that tribunal cannot be higher than that originally requested by a landlord in a section 13 notice.

Renters (Reform) Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Matthew Pennycook

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I have covered all bases in our set of amendments. We will come to the preconditions and requirements that have developed around section 21 that fall away under the Bill; they are a concern. The hon. Gentleman is right: to serve a section 21 notice, a number of regulatory obligations must be met.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Another advantage of doing it through the property portal is that it helps to speed up the digitalisation process that the Government are so keen on with the courts. The portal would retain the information that the courts need.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Absolutely, and it is one of several ways that we think that, with some reasonable, common-sense amendments, we can strengthen the Bill so that every part of it works together. I hope that the Government will go away and think about the other ways in which we can ensure maximum landlord compliance with the portal. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Statutory procedure for increases of rent

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I beg to move amendment 200, in clause 5, page 5, line 17, at end insert—

“(4F) It shall be an implied term of every assured tenancy to which this section applies that percentage increase between the existing rent and any new rent specified in a notice given under subsection (2) shall not exceed whichever is the lesser of—

(a) the percentage increase in the rate of inflation (calculated by reference to the Consumer Prices Index) since the date on which the existing rent took effect; or

(b) the percentage increase in median wages in the local authority area in which the dwelling-house is situated, calculated over a three-year period ending on the date on which the notice was served.”

This amendment specifies that the annual increase in rent requested by a landlord may not exceed the lesser of either the Consumer Prices Index or wage growth in the relevant local authority area.

Renters (Reform) Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Matthew Pennycook

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

That is welcome, but I think the concern is still there, because what does the guidance say? We do not know. What proof does it ask for? We have a clear set of evidential requirements in amendment 138.

We feel strongly about the point of protected periods. In amending ground 1, the Government have removed the requirement for prior notice of the use of the ground. If a landlord wants to take back a property for their own use, they must tell the tenant when the tenancy agreement is made that they may wish to engage the provision for prior notice. There is no prior notice under the amended ground 1. Any tenant could find themselves evicted with six months’ notice, and they would have no clue when they agreed the tenancy with the landlord that they could face that scenario. We very much support the legitimate use of these grounds, but it is essential to strengthen the Bill and the guidance that may come forward to prevent and deter abuse.

For that reason, we will press amendments 138, 139 and 143 to a vote. We also support amendment 194, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown. It is completely reasonable for landlords to have to offer the sitting tenant first refusal on purchase of a property. To be frank, I do not really understand what the Minister says about the alternative scenario of a landlord having a buyer in mind who is not the tenant. That does not sound like a particularly fair ground. The tenant is in the property; they should have first refusal at the market price that the landlord asks for. If they cannot meet that price, the landlord can sell to any other buyers.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

My hon. Friend will note that such provisions exist in other areas, where the first right of refusal is given. Surely if this legislation is passed, the landlord will always first have the tenant in mind when looking for a buyer. The scenarios suggested by the Minister would not occur, because the landlord would go to the tenant before other buyers.

[Matthew Pennycook]

That is a reasonable point. Landlords will adapt to the system. They will have it in mind that they must automatically make an offer to the sitting tenant. If they determine that the market price is more than the tenant can afford, they can go to the second buyer that they have in mind. We are not quibbling about them selling at market rate, obviously, but it is important to help renters on to the home ownership ladder if possible.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 136, in clause 3, page 3, leave out lines 21 and 22 and insert—

[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.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I am sceptical about the need for a special student carve-out. The National Union of Students is sceptical as well, but it did acknowledge that if worded correctly it could provide some relief to support a special dedicated market.

I think the Government’s amendment is too broad: it attacks the market that students might be bidding in rather than specifying student markets. There are three markets for the students to bid in. One is purpose-built student accommodation, which already has an exemption and a ground in the Bill—no problem. The second is the student-only houses in multiple occupation market, which is usually advertised via universities or organisations such as Unipol, and focuses only on students. Then there are the HMOs available for young professionals and young people.

Most of the HMOs on the seafront in my constituency are not occupied by students; they are occupied by young professionals looking to eventually get a house to themselves, but they are sharing. There might be people who share accommodation for cost-saving purposes. The measure gives an exemption to that market if the landlord lets to students only. It sucks away a market that is already overstretched—the HMO market—and pushes it into the student market. Already there is pressure because the student market pays more than the general HMO market. The measure will exacerbate that and make things far worse. I am deeply worried about that unintended consequence.

We could stop that unintended consequence. If a property is only for the student market, of course we recognise that, but it should be advertised only via student letting agencies—at the university or via a registered provider. That is largely done, anyway. Universities often pair up with local letting agents and assign letting agents that are trusted providers. My amendment allows that, but it treats the exemption much more like the purpose-built student accommodation exemption. In the long run, universities should have a duty to provide housing—purpose-built or HMO—via the university for all students who want it. That would relieve a lot of the tensions that we get in communities where people are fighting over HMOs—young professionals versus students.

There are measures via article 4 directives under the planning regulations, but they are blunt tools. What we really need is a duty given to universities to ensure that any student who so wishes can be provided with accommodation. That would be a long-term solution. It would solve the madness in Manchester this year—students having to live in Liverpool because not enough accommodation is provided for them in Manchester. But that will not be solved by the Government’s amendment. In my view, it could be made worse.

Providing that all student accommodation needed to be advertised via the university would also allow the university to have a better appraisal of what accommodation was available for their students. It would allow the university to liaise with landlords. When there are problems in communities with student houses—I do not want to be unfair to students, but they are sometimes known to enjoy a party here or there—the universities would be involved in that process, rather than students just being out in the wild, as it were. Good universities already do that. Most universities already have that process.

My other fear is that the measure will make it harder for students who actively choose to live in mixed households, because landlords will not want mixed households. Students who at the moment want to enter the general HMO market and live in a mixed household will now be discouraged. The landlord will say, “No, even though I am advertising this on the general market, I would quite like to rent to an exclusive student household.” The measure also underestimates the flexibility of the student experience: students will drop out, want to stay or want to go into work.

Finally, the danger of the Government amendment, without my amendment, is that it will embed the very problem with the student market. Anyone whose children have gone to university or who has recently been to university themselves will know that, by January, students already have to decide what accommodation they will have next year. Preserving that function of the market is not a positive thing. Students have not developed deep friendships—they only arrived in October—and often have not actually worked out what course they want to do. If they are on a course that has vocational or work placement elements, they do not know where those placements will be. It is impossible for those students to properly plan. Young people who come through clearing are often scrabbling around; by that point, purpose-built accommodation is already taken, and private rented properties are already snatched up.

We could push back the point at which a landlord would know whether that property was vacant. If the students want to stay, there is no problem: the landlord is still going to get the rent, and for the landlord there is no argument there. But if the landlord knew only a few months beforehand—perhaps a two-month or four-month notice period—then students would be deciding in July or August about what accommodation they would be living in. That would give students who had gone through clearing or were going into work placements much better options in the private rented sector.

I worry that, without my amendment, we are locking in many of the problems of the student market. I would struggle to withdraw my amendment, because I think it improves the Minister’s amendment: it does what he is trying to do, but without the unintended consequences.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the Minister for his explanation, but it lacked detail; I am still not particularly clear on the Government’s rationale for drafting and tabling the amendment as it stands. I will come to the reasons why, but I want first to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown for raising an important issue in relation to student lettings. I fully agree that we need to do much more to improve the student lettings market and drive up professionalism in it.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I should have declared at the beginning that I am a trustee at the University of Bradford Union of Students, which has a board member place on Unipol, the student lettings agency.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The Committee will have noted that. I have no doubt that lettings services run by universities and student unions have an important and effective part to play in driving up professionalism and improving the functioning of the market.

As we have heard, Government amendments 1 and 9 make provision for new possession ground 4A, which would allow a student HMO to be recovered by a landlord for further occupation by students. On the Opposition Front Bench, we take a slightly different view from my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown: we welcome the fact that the Government have recognised that the student market is distinct in particular ways from the rest of the private rented sector and that its protection requires a bespoke approach of some kind. We appreciate the arguments advanced by some landlords operating in the sector about the fact that much of the student market—not all of it; I will come to that—is cyclical and that landlords need a means of guaranteeing possession each year for a new set of tenants. However, we are equally cognisant of the concerns put forward by bodies and organisations representing students and their interests about the potential implications of treating student renters differently from other private tenants—the precedent that might set and the problems that might arise as a result of specific exemptions for certain types of purpose-built dwelling.

In determining whether the Government have struck the right balance as it relates to this measure, we need to grapple with the fact—my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown referred to this—that defining what constitutes a student dwelling is deeply challenging, given the diversity of individuals engaged in higher education and how varied their educational circumstances can be. There is also the fact that some private dwellings will be shared between students and people in employment, whether because the people working have chosen to remain in the area following completion of study or because it made sense for the student in question to move in with an individual of working age who was already at work when they signed their tenancy agreement.

Paragraph (a) of the proposed new ground 4A makes clear that it may be used for houses in multiple occupation and where each tenant is a student at the beginning of the tenancy. Is the implication of the paragraph that, to make use of the ground, a landlord would have to verify at the point the tenancy was signed that every individual who would occupy the property was in fact a student? If a landlord let a house, for example, to two students and one person working full-time, would they not be able to make use of new ground 4A? If it is the case that landlords cannot use new ground 4A to gain possession of a household of, say, part-time students sharing with full-time workers, can the Minister explain whether the Government have undertaken any assessment of the impact of the new possession ground on the availability of rental housing, particularly in towns and cities with large student populations where, as my hon. Friend said, the supply of student housing is already under enormous pressure? I know that, too, from my own constituency.

A further complication is added into the mix by sub-paragraph (a)(ii), which provides for use of the ground where

“the landlord reasonably believed that the tenant would become a full-time student during the tenancy”.

That strikes us as an incredibly low evidential threshold to have to meet. Can the Minister explain how on earth landlords will be expected to prove that such a belief is legitimate? Who will they need to satisfy, if anyone, that there are reasonable grounds to assume that a non-student tenant will become a student during the lifetime of the tenancy?

We are genuinely concerned that Government amendment 9 as drafted could be abused by unscrupulous landlords following the enactment of chapter 1 of part 1 of the Bill. Relying on paragraph (a)(ii), one could easily imagine landlords evicting groups of, say, young working tenants sharing a property using the justification that they believed they intended to become full-time students before the tenancy agreement expired. We would venture that the courts themselves will struggle to ascertain whether a landlord has proved the new ground by relying on sub-paragraph (ii) and that most evictions under 4A, like other mandatory possession grounds, will probably not even arrive before a judge—the tenants will simply leave, the threat having been made. We would welcome further clarification from the Minister about why sub-paragraph (ii) has been included in the proposed new clause and would like some robust assurances that it cannot be abused to facilitate section 21 no-fault evictions by the back door.

Another complication arising from the wording of the new clause concerns paragraph (c) on lines 11 and 12 of the amendment paper. That states that new ground 4A can be used to gain possession only between 1 June and 30 September in any year. However, as hon. Members with student populations in their constituencies will know, a large number of UK universities now also accommodate a winter intake in January. They do so not only for postgraduate students; it is now also the main secondary intake for some undergraduate courses. Given that the proposed new possession ground is available for use only during June and September, we are concerned it could have the unintended consequence of impacting detrimentally on the availability of other properties for students to let at other times of the year, given that under the proposed new ground there is an inherent incentive for landlords to let only on the primary summer-to-summer cycle.

If it is the Government’s intention to ensure that there is a cyclical availability of student accommodation, we suspect that they may need to think again about how it is achieved for students whose academic year starts and finishes at times other than those specified in the amendment. Moreover, even for those students who finish their courses in the summer, there is a wide degree of variation between undergraduates, who will usually finish earlier; postgraduates, who may be working on research projects until a much later date; or undergraduates undertaking placements.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I am not inclined to press my amendment, because the Minister has given assurances that he will go away and rethink the clause. I am still not happy about the clause, and we will see what we do on the substantive issue, but there are problems with paragraph (d). The provisions do not work with the universities; they set things in Westminster, rather than saying that the property should be protected because it has been let via an approved university letting agent or the university itself. That seems like a solution the Minister could grab. It would solve his term dates problem, his “Is it going to be let to students?” problem and his “Is it being let to students?” problem. In fact, every single question we have would be solved by my amendment. The Minister has said, and I will take it in good faith, that he will go away, look at this and see how things could be amended, and I will push him on Third Reading on what ideas he has come up with.

Amendment 1 agreed to.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 137, in clause 3, page 3, line 32, at end insert—

“(4) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a review of the changes to grounds for possession made under this Act within two years of the date of Royal Assent.”

This amendment would require the Government to publish a review of the impact of the amended grounds for possession within two years of the Act coming into force.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Clause 3, as we have discussed, amends the grounds for possession in schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988. Once section 21 has finally been removed from that Act through the provisions in clause 2 and the commencement dates in clause 67, the only means by which a landlord will be able to regain possession of a property by evicting a tenant will be by securing a court judgment under the revised section 8 grounds set out in schedule 2 to the 1988 Act, whether they be mandatory or discretionary. We have already debated concerns relating to several of those grounds, and we will debate more in due course when we get to schedule 1. However, we believe it is important to also take a view on the proposed replacement possession regime as a whole, given that it is the most comprehensive reform of the grounds in that regime in the 35 years since the 1988 Act came into force.

Labour recognises, and has repeatedly said since the White Paper was published, that following the abolition of section 21 no-fault evictions, landlords will need recourse to robust and effective grounds for possession in circumstances where there are valid reasons for taking a property back, such as flagrant antisocial or criminal behaviour. However, we have also made it clear that the Bill must ensure that such grounds cannot be abused to unfairly evict tenants and that they will be tight enough to minimise fraudulent use of the kind we have seen in Scotland in the wake of the major private renting reforms introduced there in 2017.

The revised set of section 8 possession grounds must reflect the fact that evictions, which are inherently disruptive and often incredibly damaging to tenants’ lives, should be only ever a measure of last resort where no alternative course of action exists. The grounds must be proportionate, secure against abuse from landlords seeking to carry out unfair or retaliatory evictions, and designed effectively so that properties are recovered only when a tenant is genuinely at fault, and they must not cause tenants undue hardship.

Amendment 137 and new clause 54 would require the Government to publish a review of the impact of the amended grounds for possession regime within two years of the Act coming into force. With that requirement, whether individual grounds for possession are further amended, as we hope, or the Government resist our efforts and the grounds remain as drafted, we will at least be able to judge the efficacy and impact of the new arrangements both for landlords seeking to recover their properties when a tenant is genuinely at fault and for tenants who are not at fault but who may suffer as a result of flaws in the regime. We think the amendment is entirely reasonable, and I am interested to hear how the Minister will, no doubt, resist it.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I rise to support the amendment. The Minister has already indicated that there is work still to do and that he will go away and see how this will work in practice. Clearly, some of these issues will come out when the Bill receives Royal Assent.

These are sensible measures with which nobody—landlords or tenants—could really disagree. We can no longer have a set of grounds that have been stuck in time for 30 years, and Bills that only add things on from time to time, without stepping back and looking at the changes that have occurred, whether those relate to students—the Minister is pushing for the measures on students to be included in the Bill, rather than in regulations—or any of the other clauses. Consider antisocial behaviour in particular, and the concern that many campaign groups have expressed around potential domestic violence falling foul of the new “likely” or “able to” provisions.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

Paragraph 20 of schedule 1 amends ground 7 in schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988. Ground 7 requires a court to award possession if a tenancy has been passed to someone by will or intestacy after the death of the previous tenant. The landlord has 12 months in which to initiate proceedings using this ground, or 12 months from the point when the landlord learns of the tenant’s death, if the court agrees. The Government propose amending the ground to give landlords 24, rather than 12, months to initiate proceedings.

There are two issues here. The first is whether ground 7, even in its current form, is reasonable, and we are not convinced that it is any more. Why should a private tenant who is complying fully with all the terms and conditions in the tenancy agreement be put at risk of eviction purely because of the death of someone they live with? As the UK Commission on Bereavement has detailed, in the aftermath of a bereavement, renters face not only a significant and immediate loss of income in many cases, but additional costs; they have to prepare funerals and memorials for loved ones, and so on.

In those uniquely distressing circumstances, the threat of eviction should not hang over a tenant for up to a year, as it presently does. Nor should landlords, in our view, be able to use this ground for reasons that the Bill seeks to prohibit—for example, to avoid letting their property to a bereaved family who might find themselves reliant on universal credit, tax credits or housing benefit as a result of the family member’s death. The UK Commission on Bereavement found evidence of that in the sector. The situation is different when it comes to social rented housing, given that stock is much reduced and there is tight rationing; that might require a council or housing association to regain possession of an under-occupied property, but we do not think the same circumstances apply to the private rented sector. Amendment 151 would limit the use of ground 7 to social rented housing, thereby abolishing its use in the private rented sector.

The second issue relates to the change to ground 7 that the Government propose. Assuming that the Minister resists our amendment 151, as I fully expect him to, we still hope that the Government will reconsider extending the period in which a landlord can initiate proceedings on this ground from 12 to 24 months. We recognise that it can often take some time to investigate, and to find evidence confirming whether a person left behind in a property after a tenant’s death is a successor or inherits the tenancy. As a point of principle, however, we do not believe that private tenants who lived with someone who died should face the risk of eviction with just two months’ notice for up to two years after their loss. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that seeking to double the period in which a bereaved tenant has to live with such a risk hanging over their head strikes us as a particularly callous decision. If the Government are adamant that ground 7 needs to remain in force, they should at least retain the existing 12-month timescale for applying for possession on that ground. Amendment 152 would achieve that, and I hope that the Minister will give it serious consideration.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I rise to support amendment 152, and particularly its spirit. I could not agree more that if a tenant is in good standing, paying their rent and not breaching any other clauses of the contract, why should they be kicked out because the named person on the tenancy has died? There are also implications for HMOs if a joint tenant dies, or where the tenancy has been passed on via will or intestacy. Where it is passed on, that will almost always be to children or partners. Very often, a lease will be in the name of only one of the family members—maybe the breadwinning family member, who will have gone through all the financial checks.

A landlord will almost invariably know that they are renting out to a group of people, but for legal and financial reasons, one name will be on that tenancy. It does not seem right that those other people would, over such a long period, possibly face eviction. My preference is for the period to last two or three months after the landlord finds out about the death, but 12 months seems a reasonable compromise that us sceptics could live with, because that is the law at the moment. I have not heard any reasons—I look forward to hearing some from the Minister—why the period needs to be extended, or why the Government think hanging the sword of Damocles over a grieving family is positive. This is bearing in mind that any other grounds can be used if the tenants are not in good standing or not behaving well.

In the social sector, there will be a duty to house a family, maybe in alternative accommodation, if they have a housing need. That duty does not exist in the private sector, so the danger is that all we are doing is putting the burden on local authorities. That family will go very quickly to the local authority, and they will be accommodated in emergency or temporary accommodation. Putting that additional burden on the local authority does not seem reasonable. It is also difficult for the authority, because effectively there is now a two-year period of potential eviction and homelessness for that family. That does not seem a good situation for either the local authority or the family. Can the Minister give some rationale for the proposal? I am particularly interested in why he thinks the period should exist at all.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has decided to contribute, because he has a huge amount of experience in this area. I hope that I was as clear as possible when making the case that ground 8A can be gamed; that there are already mechanisms to deal with it under existing ground 8; and that the numbers are likely to be incredibly small. I suggest that the reason the Government included it is that tenants will collectively feel the force of the new mandatory grounds for possession, and many of them will leave their tenancy under threat of it being served, rather than it being practically served. It is a deterrent to challenging and asserting one’s rights, and, as I will explain, we do not think it is necessary. We are extremely concerned about how the ground might operate and the fact that it could lead to a great many vulnerable tenants being evicted. It is a punitive and draconian measure that will cause great hardship. It is not necessary—this is the important point, in answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question—to tackle genuine instances of persistent arrears or the occasional instance when a problem tenant seeks to deliberately avoid ground 8A action.

These are not tenants who might simply refuse to pay their rent. By implication, those tenants will still be dealt with under the serious rent arrears ground 8. To be evicted under ground 8A, a tenant will need to have fallen into arrears and then worked them off twice in a period of three years. Many will have paid the two periods of arrears off in full, and between them could have been fully up to date with their rent. The new ground will cover many tenants who, for whatever reason, are waiting to receive a lump sum in order to clear their arrears—people who are self-employed or struggling with late payments and those in similar circumstances. To be clear, these are people who are trying to do the right thing and doing precisely what we would expect them to do—namely, trying to put the situation right. As Darren Baxter from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation put it in the evidence he provided to the Committee,

“it is punishing people for doing the right thing.”––[Official Report, Renters (Reform) Public Bill Committee, 14 November 2023; c. 15, Q13.]

We agree with the chief executive of Citizens Advice, Dame Clare Moriarty, who argued last week that the measure targets a group of people, many of whom “are probably in crisis”. We are talking about people who are almost certainly struggling to keep afloat, people in insecure employment, or people whose lives and finances may have suffered multiple adverse shocks.

There is also a real concern that the measure will encompass particularly vulnerable groups of tenants. For example, the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance-led National Housing and Domestic Abuse Policy and Practice Group—that is a mouthful, Mr Gray—has suggested that the new ground presents a significant risk to victims of domestic abuse, who are more likely to accumulate rent arrears due to economic abuse and the economic impact of feeling domestic abuse.

The common denominator will be that the tenants are likely to be doing everything they possibly can to retain their tenancy and their home. As Dame Clare Moriarty rightly put it last week:

“These are people who are either suffering multiple adverse life events or possibly trying to avoid losing the roof over their head by borrowing in insecure ways, but they need help and advice, not to be evicted.”––[Official Report, Renters (Reform) Public Bill Committee, 14 November 2023; c. 15, Q13.]

The idea that we are instead talking about a bunch of people familiar enough with ground 8A of schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988 to sit down and work out how they can game it is frankly insulting. So troubled are we by the proposed new mandatory ground 8A that, unlike with any of the other new possession grounds that the Bill seeks to introduce, we believe it should be removed from the legislation altogether. By leaving out paragraph 22, amendment 153 would achieve that, and we intend to press it to a vote.

If, as we fully expect, the Government resist the removal of new mandatory ground 8A from the Bill, we will press the Government to consider at least making it a discretionary rather than a mandatory ground. Then at least the court would have to consider whether the tenant had inadvertently fallen into arrears three times over the specified period and whether they could reasonably be expected to make up the arrears and pay their rent on time and in full going forward—an outcome that would obviously be advantageous for the landlord, who would not lose income during the void period. If the court believed that the tenant could not do so or was likely to fail to pay their rent again in the future, they could still make an outright possession order under a discretionary ground. As Liz Davies KC argued in her evidence last week, a discretionary 8A ground would not be

“a ‘get out of jail free’ card for the tenant, by any means.”––[Official Report, Renters (Reform) Public Bill Committee, 16 November 2023; c. 106, Q135.]

Amendment 180 would have the effect of moving ground 8A from part 1 of schedule 2 to the 1988 Act to part 2, thus rendering it discretionary. We urge the Minister to give that serious consideration. The county courts, as we have heard, are extremely good at looking at rent arrears histories and judging whether an outright possession order is warranted.

Lastly, if the Government will not countenance removing new ground 8A entirely or making it discretionary rather than mandatory, we urge the Minister to at least tighten it in ways that will make it far less punitive. Amendments 154 to 156 seek to achieve that by reducing the period in which repeated serious rent arrears must take place from the proposed three years to one, and by extending the period during which at least two months of rent arrears were unpaid from a single day to two weeks. Those three amendments, if accepted, would at least ensure that ground 8A is utilised only in instances where a tenant is almost continuously falling into arrears for extended periods of time. As I have said, we feel very strongly about this group of amendments. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to each.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I rise to support the amendments. I think this clause is particularly pernicious. I do not know whether other Members do this, but I have a tendency in the evening, when my staff have all gone home, to sit at the telephone lines, see who rings in and pick up the calls. I probably should not do that, but I like to get a feeling for who is ringing. They are usually the people who are in crisis. I do not do it every evening, so if constituents try and ring, they will not always get me, but on a Friday afternoon or evening, I will pick up the phone. Invariably, one of those people will be in crisis.

It will be the tradesperson who has again not been paid for the job that he has been working on for the past month, or perhaps the payment has been delayed—we know that there are huge problems with people paying small businesses. Or it will be the person who has been trying to scrimp and save, and has not yet gone to universal credit or any of the support agencies, despite probably being eligible, out of pride or a belief that they could get out of it. They have borrowed money from friends and family, and over a period of time repeatedly dipped down, but they always managed to get themselves back up, usually on their own terms, but this time it has just been a bit too much.

The problem is that, by the time that those people have rung my office, it is too late, because they will have dipped up and down a number of times over the past year—or three years, potentially—and the reason for their holding off getting help is because, every time before, they have managed to build back up. However, now, for the third time, we will move to a non-discretionary, mandatory ground. They will phone up their local citizen’s advice bureau or their MP’s office, or go round to the council, but we will be able to say only one thing: “I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do because it’s a mandatory ground.”

I think that that is particularly pernicious and nasty, because these are people who we know are good for it in the long term. They will often be people who can raise the money eventually but have cash-flow problems, perhaps through no fault of their own. As I said, a lot of tradespeople will suffer some of these problems. They are having to pay out money for supplies to continue their work; the money does not come in in some months, and two months’ arrears can quite easily build up.

That feeling—that they might have to spend the rent to be able to buy the materials to build the building that they can get the money for—is a choice that they have to make all the time. While that is of course not encouraged, it surely is better that we encourage them to make good in the end and build themselves up, so that that does not happen repeatedly, rather than push them out. Of course, an eviction makes them more likely to spiral into further difficulties, which is why making this a mandatory measure is so unpleasant. The reality is that a payment plan, in many situations—or a deferred order in most situations—would suffice, and the courts can implement that at the moment.

The idea that we need this as a mandatory ground is also dangerous, as we have heard, because, what would my advice or an advice centre’s advice be, on that third occasion? “Well, you’re going to get the eviction notice anyway. Prioritise the other debts that you need to pay off, or making sure that your family have food on the table, rather than considering the rent a priority.” That is not good for the landlord either. Having to reclaim money through the courts from those groups of people in a speedy manner is nigh on impossible, and eviction is not what most landlords want. They want a payment and to be able to ensure that that support is there.

It would be much better either to not have this clause or to have a discretionary ground that requires engagement with debt advice and advisers. There is also much that can be done through court processes, as we saw during covid. As I have mentioned, for section 21s and other forms of evictions, the landlord—when permitted—had to demonstrate that they had taken covid into account and had sought to advise the tenant of the support offered under the covid regime. Aspects like that need to be incorporated here. Again, it does not always need to be on the face of the Bill, but there need to be reassurances that it is incorporated in a binding way, to be able to process these elements. The Minister needs to relent on this.

Renters (Reform) Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Matthew Pennycook

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

Well, that just makes my point that the sector should have been overhauled a long time ago. The fact that it has changed beyond recognition over recent decades and now houses not just the young and the mobile, but many older people and families with children, for whom having greater security and certainty is essential to a flourishing life, renders urgent the need to transform how it is regulated and to level decisively the playing field between landlords and tenants.

This Bill is a good starting point to that end. We are glad that after a very long wait, it is finally progressing. However, we are determined to see it strengthened in a number of areas so that it truly delivers for tenants. In this Committee and the remaining stages, we will seek to work constructively with the Government to see this legislation enacted, but we also expect Ministers to give serious and thoughtful consideration to the arguments we intend to make about how its defects and deficiencies might be addressed.

Part 1 of the Bill seeks to amend the assured tenancy regime introduced by the Housing Act 1988. In the nearly 35 years since that Act came into force in January 1989, with some limited exceptions, all new private sector tenancies in England and Wales have been either assured or assured shorthold tenancies, with the latter becoming the default PRS tenancy following the implementation of the Housing Act 1996. As the Committee will know, assured tenancies can be either periodic or fixed, but the vast majority of ASTs are fixed.

Clause 1 will insert a new section 4A before section 5 of the 1988 Act, thereby providing, as the Minister made clear, that all future assured tenancies will be periodic and open-ended, and that they can no longer have fixed terms. That change will empower tenants by giving them more flexibility to end tenancies where and when they want or need to, including when landlords are not meeting their responsibilities and obligations or in instances in which the property that they have moved into is not as advertised. We support it.

We take no issue with Government new clause 2. Although we are not convinced that it is strictly necessary, given how the Apportionment Act 1870 applies to rent paid in advance, we believe that it is a worthwhile amendment none the less, to the extent that it makes express provision for that.

We believe that Government new clause 6 is a necessary change to how council tax works, given that the Bill abolishes fixed-term tenancies. However, in the sense that its effect will be to render a tenancy that

“is or was previously an assured tenancy within the meaning of the Housing Act 1988”

a “material interest” for the purposes of this Bill, we would be grateful if the Minister provided some clarification. Could he tell us the effect of the proposed change in circumstances in which a tenant used to have an assured tenancy but, after this part of the Bill comes into force, now does not because of circumstances that are out of their control? Let us say, to take an extreme example, that a tenant died prior to the end of their assured tenancy, and the relevant provisions came into force. Would their estate be forced to pay the council tax liability as a consequence of the new clause?

We understand the Government’s intention with regard to the new clause, which is to manage the transition between the two tenancy regimes when it comes to council tax. However, we are a little concerned that, as drafted, the new clause may be unnecessarily broad and may create some problematic outcomes. The explanatory statement accompanying the new clause suggests that it may have another purpose altogether—namely, to make people liable if they leave a tenancy without giving notice—but that raises the obvious question of how the Valuation Office Agency and the relevant local authority are meant to know that, and how the local authority might ever hope to find the tenant who is liable. Could the Minister tell us whether the Government have discussed the matter at all with either the Valuation Office Agency or the Local Government Association?

Lastly in connection with this new clause, is there not a risk that unscrupulous landlords may game this provision by claiming that there is still a tenant in situ who should settle the council tax liability, rather than the landlord doing so? Our concern is that the provision could be abused along those lines and that local authority revenue would suffer as a result. I would appreciate some reassurance and clarification on those points in the Minister’s response.

With or without the incorporation of Government new clause 2 and new clause 6—after clause 6 and before clause 20 respectively—huge uncertainty now surrounds the implementation of clause 1, and the rest of chapter 1 of part 1, as a result of the Government’s recent decision to tie implementation of the new system directly to court improvements. Whatever the motivation behind that—renters will no doubt have reached their own conclusions—the decision has significant implications for when clause 1 and the other clauses in this chapter become operational. We need answers today, so that those whose lives stand to be affected are clear as to what they are.

Clause 67, “Commencement and application”, gives the Secretary of State the power by regulations to appoint a day when chapter 1 of part 1, including clause 1, comes into force. In other words, the Bill has always given Ministers discretion as to precisely when the new system becomes operational—a matter that we will debate more extensively in a future sitting when we come to clause 67 itself and our amendment 169 to it.

The Government were previously clear that there would be a two-stage transition to the new tenancy system, with precise starting dates for new and existing tenancies to be determined by the Secretary of State, and that a package of wide-ranging court reforms was to accompany the legislation, but at no point prior to the response issued on 20 October this year to the Select Committee on Levelling Up, Housing and Communities did the Government indicate that the new system’s implementation was directly dependent on such reforms. As things stand, because of the Government’s last-minute change of approach, not only do tenants have no idea when the new tenancy system will come into force, but they do not even know what constitutes the requisite progress in respect of court reform that Ministers now deem is necessary before it does.

There are three distinct questions to which the Government have so far failed to provide adequate answers. First, is the county court system for resolving most disputes between landlords and tenants performing so badly that reform is a necessary precondition of bringing this clause and others in this chapter into force?

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

We heard from many representations on the county court part of the process that the county court system was performing adequately. Does that not make one suspicious that there are other motivations for kicking this into the long grass?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will come on to our view of precisely how the county court system is operating, but I think it would be fair to say that we do not necessarily buy the Government’s argument that it is performing so badly that we need to tie implementation of this clause and others in this chapter to it. It could certainly do with improvement, but if it needs improvement, we need to know what that improvement is. That is an argument that I will come on to make in due course.

The second of my three questions to the Government relates to the point that my hon. Friend has just raised: if the court system requires improvement to ensure that landlords can quickly regain possession of their property if a tenant refuses to move out, what is the precise nature of the improvements that are required? Thirdly, how can we measure progress on delivering those improvements so that tenants have certainty about when the new system might come into force?

I will start with my first question. With apologies, Mr Gray, I intend to spend some considerable time on this point, because it is central to when the clause and the rest of the chapter come into force.

If one examines the evidence, it is clear that the possession claims system is one of the faster and better-administered parts of the civil justice system. As housing expert Giles Peaker put it when giving evidence to the Committee on Thursday, it is “well honed”. As Simon Mullings, co-chair of the Housing Law Practitioners Association, stated in the same session:

“What we have at the moment is an extremely good network of county courts, with a very evolved set of civil procedure rules that deal with possession claims very well.” ––[Official Report, Renters (Reform) Public Bill Committee, 16 November 2023; c. 111, Q141.]

The data seems to bear that out. It makes it clear that the various stages of possession and litigation are back to where they were pre-pandemic, and that non-accelerated possessions are not taking significantly longer than the relevant guidelines stipulate. As Giles Peaker argued,

“the current time from issue to a possession order under the accelerated possession proceedings—an ‘on the papers’ process, without a hearing—is roughly the same as under the section 8 process with an initial hearing. There is no great time lag for the section 8 process as opposed to accelerated possession proceedings.”––[Official Report, Renters (Reform) Public Bill Committee, 16 November 2023; c. 111, Q141.]

One of the more robust defences of the adequacies of the present system that I have heard came from the sixth of the seven housing and planning Ministers that I have shadowed in my two years in this role. On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) argued:

“It is important to note at this point that the vast majority of possession claims do not end up in the courts—only something like 1% of claims go through the courts... The courts have already made huge improvements. It is worth saying that over 95% of hearings are listed within four to eight weeks of receipt, and of course the ombudsman will encourage the early dispute resolution process, taking a lot of claims out of the courts and freeing up court time for more complex processes.”—[Official Report, 23 October 2023; Vol. 738, c. 695.]

We also heard expert testimony last week that called into question the suggested impact of the Bill on the courts. For example, it was disputed whether the reforms in the Bill would increase the number of contested cases. Giles Peaker persuasively argued that there was likely to be an increase in the number of initial hearings, but that we are unlikely to see an increase in the number of contested hearings.

To the extent that concern was raised about capacity within the system, several witnesses argued that it still did not justify postponing the enactment of chapter 1 of part 1. Indeed, the head of justice at the Law Society, Richard Miller, argued in relation to plans for digitisation that it would be sensible to see the new tenancy system put in place first so that we can properly understand what a new digital system needs to achieve in respect of the Bill.

Every part of the civil justice system would benefit from improvement, but we would argue that, to date, the Government have failed to demonstrate that the county court system for resolving landlord and tenant disputes is failing to the degree that it is imperative to further delay the long-overdue reforms to tenancies in the Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister set out very clearly why the Government believe the possession of claims system is so woefully inadequate that the enactment of clause 1 and the other clauses in chapter 1 must be postponed.

I turn to the second of my questions. If we accept that the county court system as it relates to housing cases could be improved—probably no one here would dispute that, even if we might debate the extent of the improvement required—how are the Government defining improvement? To put it another way, what is the precise nature of the improvements that Ministers believe are required before we finally abolish section 21 of the 1988 Act and reform the tenancy system, as clause 1 and other clauses in chapter 1 will do?

Let us examine and interrogate what the Government have said about this. Their 20 October response to the Select Committee stated:

“We will align the abolition of section 21 and new possession grounds with court improvements, including end-to-end digitisation of the process.”

Will the Minister tell us precisely what is meant by end-to-end digitisation of the process? Precisely what process did that statement refer to? Was it a reference to just the court possession action process, or to civil and family court and tribunal processes more generally? Further detail was seemingly provided in the briefing notes that accompanied the King’s Speech on 7 November:

“We will align the abolition of section 21 with reform of the courts. We are starting work on this now, with an initial commitment of £1.2 million to begin designing a new digital system for possessions. As work progresses, we will engage landlords and tenants to ensure the new system supports an efficient and straightforward possession system for all parties.”

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Did we not hear in evidence that the key for this to work was the property portal? Delaying the implementation of these measures until after court reform would therefore seem to be the wrong way around. Surely the property portal and ombudsman need to be up and running, and then we can see what pressure is on the courts, and we can also integrate the property portal into the digitalisation of the process.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is a point well made, and I think the same point was made by Richard Miller of the Law Society. If this Bill works as intended, there are a number of provisions in it that should relieve the burden on the courts. We all want to see that happen. However, to the extent that the courts do need to act in possession cases, we need to know precisely what the Government mean by the “improvements” that they have been referring to over recent months.

That King’s Speech briefing note would suggest that the required improvements relate only to the court possession action process. However, it is not clear whether the proposed new digital system for possessions is the only improvement that Ministers believe needs to be delivered before the new tenancy system can be introduced, and if so—this is crucial—by what date that new system will be operational.

Can the Minister tell us more about the new digital system for possessions that the King’s Speech briefing note referred to? Specifically, can he tell us whether its introduction is the sole determinant of when the new tenancy system can come into force? Can he also outline when the Government expect work on that new digital system to be completed by the Government and rolled out for use by landlords, given that it appears—on the basis of the King’s Speech briefing note—to have only just commenced?

The White Paper “A fairer private rented sector”, which the Government published in June 2022, set out the Government’s intention, working in partnership with the Ministry of Justice and HM Courts and Tribunals Service, to

“introduce a package of wide-ranging court reforms”.

Those went beyond purely the court possession action process that I have just been speaking to. It was suggested in the White Paper that the package would include steps to address county court bailiff capacity, a lack of adequate advice about court and tribunal processes, a lack of prioritisation of cases and the strengthening and embedding of mediation services for landlords and renters—issues that many of our witnesses in last week’s evidence sessions referred to.

Many of those issues were also identified in the Government’s response to the Select Committee as “target areas for improvement”. What is not clear is whether the implementation of the new tenancy system, and this clause, is dependent on Ministers judging that sufficient progress has been made in relation to each of those target areas for improvement, or whether it is dependent, as I have suggested, solely on improvements in the court possession process.

Can the Minister tell us clearly which one it is? Will the new tenancy system be introduced only when improvements have been made in all the target areas specified, or is the implementation date linked solely to improvements in the court possession process? If it is the former, what are the criteria by which the Government will determine when sufficient improvements have been made in each of the listed target areas for improvement? Those of us on the Opposition side of the Committee, and many of the millions of tenants following our proceedings, need answers to those questions. As we debate the Bill today, we do not know precisely what reform of the courts is required for the new tenancy system to be enacted.

I turn to my third question. Because we have no real sense of precisely what the Government mean by court improvements, and therefore no metrics by which they might be measured, we have no idea whether and when they might be achieved. The concern in that regard should be obvious. Having been assured repeatedly by Ministers that the passage of this Bill will see a new tenancy system introduced and the threat of section 21 evictions finally removed, tenants have no assurances, let alone a guarantee, that the Government have not, in effect, given themselves the means to defer—perhaps indefinitely—the implementation of these long-promised changes.

As I referenced in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown, we accept that the court system needs to be improved so that, when landlords or tenants escalate a dispute, they can have confidence that it will be determined in an efficient and timely manner. However, since they committed themselves to abolishing section 21 evictions, the Government have had more than four and a half years to make significant improvements to the system to support tenants and good-faith landlords, and they have not succeeded in doing so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend for that well-made point. A related and incredibly important issue is the supply of genuinely affordable housing, and the Government have failed woefully to build enough social rented homes in this country to meet housing need. She is absolutely right that local authorities are picking up the burden for this failure and the failure in the courts. My local authority—like hers, I am sure—is now sending people in need of temporary accommodation as far as Dartford or north Kent, and even further in some cases. Those people are struggling to retain a foothold in the community they live in and value, and in the schools that their children go to. Frankly, that is unacceptable. We need an end to section 21 as soon as possible.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

My hon. Friend talked about the insecurity for tenants if the measure is not implemented in time, but does he also think that if it is not clear when it will be implemented, there could be adverse effects on the wider rented sector market? We know that people game the system; if it is not clear when the measure will be implemented, the danger is that people can run rings around both tenants and the public sector.

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend is right: a protracted delay in implementing this clause and the others in chapter 1 could lead landlords to look at how they can best abuse the system before the new one is introduced. Equally importantly, it could provide a real problem for good-faith landlords who are trying to do the right thing. If a landlord who is affected by high interest rates and section 24 tax changes is wondering whether they can stay in the market and continue to provide private lets, how does it help to have hanging over their head an undetermined date, based on an unspecified set of metrics, for when a new system will come into force?

As I was saying, the Government have had more than four and a half years to improve the court system. They have not succeeded. If they had, then, as the former Housing Minister—the hon. Member for Redditch—claimed, they would have had no justification for delaying the enactment of this clause and the others on the grounds that the system is failing to such an extent that landlords have no confidence in it. The truth is that the Government’s record on court reforms is as woeful as their record on social rented housing. In a damning report published this summer, the Public Accounts Committee made it clear that, seven years into the courts and tribunals reform programme, HMCTS

“is once again behind on delivering critical reforms to its services. Overall, despite an increase in budget, the programme is set to deliver less than originally planned, at a time when the reforms are even more vital to help reduce extensive court backlogs.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 149, in clause 3, page 2, line 32, at end insert—

“(aa) After subsection (5) insert—

‘(5ZA) The court shall not make an order for possession under Ground 6A if the court considers that it is not just and equitable to do so, having regard to alternative courses of action available to the landlord or the local housing authority, which may include—

(a) a management order under Part 4 of the Housing Act 2004;

(b) in relation to paragraphs (b) and (f) of Ground 6A, other measures which are more appropriate for reducing the extent of overcrowding or the number of households in the dwelling-house, as the case may be;

(c) in relation to paragraph (c) of Ground 6A, the provision of suitable alternative accommodation for the tenant, whether under section 39 of the Land Compensation Act 1973 or otherwise; and

(d) in relation to paragraphs (d) and (e), other means of enforcement available to the local housing authority in respect of the landlord’s default;

and having regard to all the circumstances, including whether the situation has occurred as a result of an act or default of the landlord.’”

This amendment would permit a court to refuse to make a possession order under Ground 6A where a more appropriate course of action exists.

One of the changes made to schedule 2 to the 1988 Act by the clause, as we briefly discussed, is the introduction of a new ground for possession to allow compliance with an enforcement action. The new mandatory ground 6A will require the court to award possession if a landlord seeking possession needs to end a tenancy because enforcement action has been taken against the landlord, and it would be unlawful for them to maintain the tenancy.

The relevant enforcement actions (a) to (f) are set out on page 73 of the Bill. They include situations where a landlord has been issued with

“a banning order under section 16 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016…an improvement notice under section 11 or 12 of the Housing Act 2004”

and

“a prohibition order under section 20 or 21 of the Housing Act 2004”.

We take no issue with the fact that the Bill introduces the new mandatory power. Clearly there are circumstances in which landlords will require possession of a property in order to comply with enforcement action.

We wrestled with what should be the minimum notice period that applies to the new ground, given that it feels somewhat perverse to provide for a mechanism by which possession can be gained quickly when the reason for the possession being granted is that the landlord has fallen foul of an obligation under housing health and safety legislation, particularly if it resulted in a banning or prohibition order. As we will come to discuss, we ultimately determined to argue in amendment 136 for a four-month minimum notice period in relation to ground 6A, because in all the situations set out on page 73 of the Bill, the tenant will be evicted because of neglect or default on the part of the landlord. In other words, it is a de facto no-fault ground for eviction that will punish tenants and put them at risk of homelessness because of bad practice on the part of a landlord, particularly as there is no requirement for the landlord to provide suitable alternative accommodation.

Amendment 149 seeks to provide tenants with a measure of protection in such circumstances—this touches directly on the point the Minister made on the previous group of amendments—by giving the court the power to consider whether the relevant enforcement can be met by means other than the eviction of the sitting tenant or tenants, including through a management order under the Housing Act 2004 or the provision of alternative accommodation. If the court judges that the enforcement objectives can be met by other means, the amendment would give the court the power to refuse to make a possession order on the grounds that it is not just and equitable to do so in the circumstances, given that there are other means of ensuring that the enforcement action is complied with.

We believe that the amendment would provide tenants with stronger protection in circumstances where they are victims of poor practice on the part of a landlord. Importantly, it would also ensure that tenants have an incentive to seek enforcement action through their local authority if their home is in a very poor condition or is non-compliant with HMO licensing schemes. That would address the fact that, as things stand, the introduction of the new mandatory no-fault ground with only two months’ notice is likely to actively discourage tenants from doing so. I hope the Minister will give the amendment serious consideration.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Following on from the debate on the last group of amendments, I want to add my concern about ground 6A. Where there are issues with fire or flood, landlords are often expected to find alternative accommodation before a house is vacated, but there is no such provision when enforcement action has to be taken. There is a real worry that a landlord who has multiple properties that are perfectly fit for habitation might seek to punish tenants who have pushed for enforcement, rather than moving them into those properties. That seems wrong, so it is important to require the courts to go through a checklist of other options that the landlord has to consider before they get to ground 6A.

The amendment also provides a checklist for landlords. They can go down it and say, “Okay, I need to comply with enforcement action. Have I considered these things?” It also allows the local authority to consider other courses that they could pursue, such as management orders. We do not want tenants punished. Although revenge evictions are illegal, we know that they happen time and again, because there are loopholes in the law. Closing those loopholes is important, and a statement from the Minister on the matter might suffice.

Renters (Reform) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Matthew Pennycook

Committee stage
Thursday 16th November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Thank you, Ms Field, for coming to give evidence to us. I have two related questions, which are quite broad, to get us into the issue. Do you think the Bill as it stands takes sufficient account of the particular needs of every aspect of the student market, which is not uniform? There are different people starting courses at different dates and people renting different types of houses. Do you think it takes account of that? Then, specifically on the Government amendment that was tabled on Tuesday for a new mandatory ground for possession for student houses in multiple occupation, do you have any concerns about that? How workable do you think that is?

Chloe Field: I do not think it takes sufficient account of the student rental market. People forget how unique and diverse students are and the student rental market is. As you just mentioned, students do not always do their courses in the typical September to June time. We have postgraduate researchers who study and work throughout the year. We also have mature students and students who have families and who will live in properties with non-students. There are things there that need to be taken into account regarding students in the Bill.

We also have the fact that the student rental market is very precarious. Renting in that market is rushed; you are expected to sign a contract about nine months before you move. That means that students end up having to pay really high prices because there is such a rush and people just accept the first house they find. It also means you cannot do sufficient research into the house you are about to sign the contract for. For example, is there mould? Is the quality of the house any good? Those are the unique factors of the student rental market.

In terms of the student exemption, our position has always been that it is incredibly dangerous. It sets a precedent that students will not be afforded the same rights as other renters and sets a further precedent for any future reforms and future exemptions for students. Like I said before, students are not a homogeneous group. They are not just 18 to 21-year-olds doing an undergraduate degree. They come in all types and different forms. It is one thing to make an exemption for purpose-built student accommodations, which is a type of accommodation, but it is another thing to create an exemption for a demographic of people who are studying. We are worried about that.

Also, the reasoning is that landlords are threatening to leave the market. As the previous witness said, landlords should not be renting in a market where they cannot accept that there are slight reforms and accountability for landlords. We consistently see exploitative landlords in the student market. I do not think we should be left threatened by those rogue landlords who cannot accept any form of regulation. Those are the main things on the student exception, but we accept that if there is that exception, it has to be carefully curated to fit the student rental market.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Q The Government have tabled an amendment that would create a ground 4A, which is what you were just talking about there. Have you had time to look at that and do you think it is tightly or too broadly drafted? Are there particular things, such as requiring accommodations to be rented by the university or something, that might give that level of protection, rather than it just being that there happen to be students in that house?

Chloe Field: If I remember it correctly, it is good that the amendment specifically acknowledges term times and stuff like that, but it specifies a certain time in the year and, as I said before, not all students fit into term time. It does not sufficiently recognise that different types of students rent in different ways; they are not a homogeneous group of people. Some students live with non-students and families, and it does not fully recognise that.

An idea we have floated is if there is an exemption, it should potentially be done like a council tax exemption: HMOs with a certain percentage of students are exempt from council tax. We think that kind of specification will be really important. Without more specification about the exemption, for a lot of students, especially those living in family homes, there will be the threat of back-door evictions if they have started their studies.

Your idea about universities renting out accommodation is really good. It would provide a bit more accountability if the institution that provides the education and has a form of duty of care is responsible for the accommodation. I think that is really important, but if that is the case, we would have to take it further. Right now, prices for university-owned accommodation are going up. Universities are trying to bring in more and more students to make more money because their incomes are so precarious right now, and that is not sustainable. We would have to look at the higher education model as a whole if we were thinking of doing anything like that.

Renters (Reform) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Matthew Pennycook

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Just the one route?

Professor Hodges: I would have one for the entire property and housing sector, and this is not the first time that I have said that. My ombudsman and judge colleagues know that, and quite a lot of them would not disagree. Fiona mentioned that we have a number at the moment. It must not proliferate. I am fairly confident that, if the Government just send the right signals, they might not have to legislate and that we can get adhesion on the ADR and the ombudsman side—people joining up spontaneously, if they are encouraged and pushed—so that you actually get there.

What we are doing here is filling a gap in private rented. We have already got the property ombudsman, which largely cover agents, and the private rented redress scheme. Then you have got have got social housing—let us converge. If you converge courts and tribunals as well, that is a major step forward for all the players, and certainly tenants and landlords. You will deliver things more quickly, basically, and everyone will know where to go.

As I said, look at every other sector. In financial services, you have the Financial Conduct Authority and the Financial Ombudsman Service; in energy, you have Ofgem and the energy ombudsman; and so on. It is not 100%, but it is well over 95%. In social housing, you have got a regulator. We have not got one in private property. We could have one, which would be a regulatory space involving these elements in a new and very effective way, within which you would not have, if you like, an old-fashioned regulator. Rather, you would have a system regulator, but all the people would work together in the system on supporting good practice, because codes already exist for that. The decent homes standards is just a code. It should apply, obviously, and then everyone would work towards that, whether it is local authorities, or the system regulator, the various ombudsmen, or the various self-regulatory bodies that exist—everyone knows where they are.

I am involved in several discussions like this, in totally different regulated sectors. If you say to people in your sector, “We’re all going to work together, and this is how we’re going to do it,” and if you have responsibilities to everyone—if you are no longer just a self-regulatory body on your own, but you are an ecosystem, and it has to work—then that works incredibly well, if everyone realises that is the game that has to be played.

Fiona Rutherford: I agree with a lot of what Professor Hodges said, but I am not sure that everybody does know where to go.

Professor Hodges: No, they don’t.

Fiona Rutherford: To answer your question about where there may be good examples, the health justice partnerships, which we have seen work together, are good examples to look at. They do not rely on a tenant or a landlord to know what they cannot know or do not know, and that is what is missing. The health justice partnerships are where we have seen lawyers, or support workers or sometimes NGOs, sit in doctors’ surgeries, so that when a GP sees a patient who is suffering from mental health issues, or various other physical illnesses, and they have it diagnosed that it is probably related to something outside of a medical solution, then there is somebody in the building who that person can go to—if not immediately, then an appointment can be booked. That stops us relying on what are sometimes very vulnerable people, or people who are at vulnerable points in their lives, to seek out support services and help themselves.

Professor Hodges: Just to add one sentence, which was implicit in what I said at the start: in the regulated sectors where you have an ombudsman, such as financial services or energy, no one goes to lawyers or courts—they disappear. People have voted with their feet, because the procedure is faster and more user-friendly, it is free, and it delivers a broader range of behavioural outcomes on the part of the energy companies, or whoever it is, and does not just ask, “Are they breaking the law?” If you feed that in to the ombudsman, you might get a decision, but you will also get the point referred up to Ofgem, or whichever regulator it is, so that it can do something systemically about it, if necessary. It is an ecosystem, but everyone knows where to go. I am afraid that lawyers and courts are toast.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Q The amount that the ombudsperson can award is currently capped. Should the cap should exist, and if so, should it be fixed at £25,000, or should it be linked to another, more sensible amount, bearing in mind that that is a year’s rent on some properties?

Fiona Rutherford: I would like to make a separate comment about the fine in the enforcement process within the Bill, but that is not your question, so perhaps Professor Hodges might start.

Professor Hodges: The amount of money that either a judge or an ombudsman should award must be relevant to the dispute, because you cannot have people not being compensated. Therefore, there should be a mechanism for the amount to be amendable over time. Personally, I would not waste your time with that—coming back again and again to put it up. I would put a mechanism in the Bill, so that someone can set it, whether that is a Minister or whoever. You cannot have people not bringing forward claims because they will not get fully compensated, or bringing forward claims that are not fully compensated when they should be.

That takes you over, however, into penalties or sanctions for behaviour. That is a complicated issue, but the point is that usually we have a national regulator, and here we have a lot of local authorities, and they need the right powers as well, but quite often the right powers are not fines. I am afraid that there is rather a lot of psychological and other evidence that deterrence does not work—which is a shock, the first time that you hear it. Therefore, other, quite significant penalties—such as talking to people, explaining, informing and giving supporting about how things ought to be different, or, in the extreme, removing the licence to operate and saying, “You cannot let this property”—are the ones that work. A broader toolbox of responses and interventions—I am not using the word “enforcement” here—is what actually delivers good outcomes.

Renters (Reform) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Matthew Pennycook

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q I want to ask a niche question about local authority investigatory and enforcement powers; I hope I explain myself clearly enough for you to understand. There is the issue we have discussed about the new duties and responsibilities in the Bill, which, assuming they are sufficiently resourced and supported, should work well, and which we support.

The White Paper also committed the Government to exploring and bolstering local authority enforcement to tackle a wider range of standards breaches. That is not in the Bill. We have a commitment in the King’s Speech, as one of three areas for the Government to bring forward amendments to make it easier for councils to target enforcement action and arm them with further enforcement powers. Could you speculate on what we might expect the Government to bring forward in that area? What would you like to see? Should we seek to weave into the Bill the more expansive measures outlined in the White Paper?

Paul Dennett: The Bill deals with enforcement for local authorities quite adequately. It is about how we resource that and develop the workforce within local government, and how we ensure that this legislation is genuinely resourced and empowered to deliver on what we are setting out here. At the end of the day, any legislation and regulation is only as good as our ability to enact it.

To enact it requires a trained, skilled and developed workforce. I say that against our losing many people from regulatory services, certainly since 2010-11. It also requires the resources to employ people to do the work, gather the data and intelligence, prepare for court and, ultimately, work with landlords, ideally to resolve matters outside of the courts, if we can do that. That is the LGA’s position on all this.

We would like to be in a position of having a working relationship whereby we resolve matters outside of complaints systems, outside of courts, working through local authorities. Nevertheless, if that is required, it is important to have a skilled, resourced workforce. I stress the importance of resource, because local authorities spend an awful lot of money these days on children’s services and adult social care. Those are responsive budget lines that ultimately consume a lot of our budgets and that therefore diminish our ability to get on and do some of that regulatory activity in local government. The legislation is there for enforcement; we just need the resources to get on and do it, and we need the workforce strategy to train the people of the future to enact this and, ultimately, to prepare to support landlords and tenants in this space.

Richard Blakeway: That is a really interesting question, Matthew; I have a couple of thoughts in relation to it. It is perhaps worth testing—if, for example, the ombudsman is seeing repeated service failure in a particular area—what powers there might be to address those kinds of recurring systemic issues, and whose role and responsibility it should be. That goes to the heart of your question about clause 29 and the relationship between the various parties.

The second thing, which goes back slightly to your first question, is how redress is scoped in the Bill. The one area that I would highlight—I can understand why it has been introduced, but it might not stand the test of time—is the cap on the financial compensation that an ombudsman can award. At the moment, we do not have a cap. The Bill proposes a cap of £25,000. I can understand the motivation there and, as an ombudsman, we are always proportionate, transparent and clear about the framework in which we work when awarding compensation. None the less, in time to come, £25,000 might not seem an appropriate sum. It also slightly incentivises people to think of the courts, which do not have a cap, to solve their dispute, rather than using an ombudsman.

It is critical that the ombudsman has sufficient power to enforce its remedies, as well as the council being able to enforce its role and responsibilities, but the cap might be something to re-examine.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Q Does the ombudsperson have the right to initiate? You talked about seeing a pattern of behaviour, rather than waiting for the complaint to come to you. Do you have the right to initiate at the moment? I know that other ombudspeople do.

Richard Blakeway: There is a term that may be in the statute or scheme of an ombudsman called “own initiative”, which allows them to initiate an investigation without a complaint whenever they have a strong sense that there might be service failure. That is not currently explicitly in our scheme. However, three years ago, we had scheme amendments that allowed us to investigate beyond an individual member of our scheme, or beyond an individual complaint, if we had concern that there may be repeated systemic failure. That is something that is exercised.