Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Leicester (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 252A in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey, which would exempt certain buildings from an EPC requirement. I hope that noble Lords were listening to what she said, because it is absolutely true: the methodology used for assessment of EPC is not foolproof. As my noble friend said, the assessment seems heavily weighted against older buildings, and while she referred to early 20th-century buildings, a decent proportion of houses in this country are from the 18th and 19th centuries. They have even greater problems: for instance, double-glazing is required as one of the ways to achieve EPC C. Many 18th-century and 19th-century houses have shutters, which, when closed at night, do a similar job, but that is not part of the assessment. Many such houses are in rural settings, so what my noble friend said is so true.

My noble friend alluded to the variation in assessment of EPCs by different assessors. As an experiment on one property that we own, we got two separate assessors in—they did not know that they were being tested against each other—and, you guessed it, each of them came up with a different EPC grade. That is a real problem; the assessment needs to be sorted out. I think it was in the newspapers that the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Mr Miliband, had a similar situation, with two different assessments.

On listed buildings, there has been a lot of campaigning by various organisations. You cannot take out 18th-century and 19th-century sash windows and replace them with double-glazing—at least, you can, but it completely ruins the look of the building. A number of people prefer to live in a house which looks nicer but might need a little more heating or a log burner.

As my noble friend said, the Bill is very likely to result in the law of unintended consequences. Many houses will be sold and lost to the rental market, and that will create for this Government and this country an even bigger problem. After the Second World War, some landlords—not that I would want to do this—even took the roofs off their houses so that they were no longer houses.

Finally, I am sorry, but I want to speak against Amendment 251 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tope. If we are to apply the decent homes standard to asylum accommodation, I am afraid that that has to be last in the queue while we sort out the accommodation for our own people in this country.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, a number of speakers have driven home in detail the problems of rural areas with old buildings. The choice is quite simple: we either continue with the existing exemptions or knock down about a third of them and start again. Can the Minister tell us which it is going to be?

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Tope’s Amendment 251, which I have also signed. We have all spoken of the support we give this Bill because it offers the opportunity to address the problems and injustices suffered by renters in the PRS, which is the most insecure, most expensive and lowest quality of any tenure. However, the Bill fails to recognise that certain vulnerable groups of tenants suffer disproportionately, as we have heard, and need special measures to give them the level playing field they need to be able to live in suitable accommodation that is fair, reasonable and secure in the private rented sector.

Refugees and asylum seekers are just one such group, and their housing experience is in need of radical reform. My noble friend’s amendment, suggesting that the decent homes standard should apply to housing for refugees and asylum seekers, offers an opportunity to move forward.

However, the asylum housing system in the United Kingdom leaves tens of thousands of people in inadequate accommodation, where they often live for years in conditions that significantly undermine their physical and mental well-being. The current outsourcing of asylum housing to private companies has created a system that is marked by significant issues, including exorbitant costs, excessive profit making, substandard housing, and inadequate safeguarding and oversight. I read in the Sunday Times this week that the owner of one such company, Clearsprings Ready Homes, is now a member of the Sunday Times rich list as a result of rapidly expanding contracts from the Government at the taxpayer’s expense.

These providers need to be properly accountable. Refugee organisations report appalling conditions and many incidents of poor, unsafe and cold properties with infestations and mould. It should therefore form part of contracts with providers that the decent homes standard should apply to properties that are paid for by government. Taxpayers’ money is being used to fund substandard accommodation and providers are not being sanctioned. Many of those who are obliged to live in such misery are children, forced to live in virtual isolation and incarceration with housing conditions that are woefully inadequate for their needs. I therefore support my noble friend’s amendment and call on the Minister to reflect on this situation. If she is unwilling to amend the Bill, can she say what the Government are proposing to do to resolve the desperately pressing circumstances of refugees and asylum seekers and the housing crisis that they face?

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Moved by

[Lord Cromwell]

258: After Clause 113, insert the following new Clause—
“Illegal evictions: police and local authority duties(1) Where a police force or local housing authority in England receives a complaint alleging that an offence or offences contrary to Section 1 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 (‘PFEA offences’) has been committed, it must—(a) notify the local housing authority (where the complaint has been received by a police force) or the police force (where the complaint has been received by a local housing authority) (‘the other party’) with responsibility for the area to which the complaint relates, and(b) co-operate with the other party to promptly and effectively investigate the alleged PFEA offence(s) and any offences committed at the same time, in furtherance of, or as a consequence of, the alleged PFEA offence(s).(2) Where a police force or local housing authority receives an allegation that PFEA offences are being committed or at risk of being committed, it must take reasonable steps to prevent those offences continuing or being committed, including, but not limited to, by cooperating with the other party and by taking reasonable steps to assist tenants to regain access to properties from which they have been unlawfully evicted. (3) The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government, and the Secretary of State for the Home Department must, within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, issue joint statutory guidance as to how police forces and local housing authorities are to discharge the duties in subsections (1) and (2).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment addresses the poorest end of the rental market by removing ambiguities between police and local authorities, clarifying police duties (illegal evictions often incorrectly seen as civil) and enabling efficient information sharing.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, and the noble Lord, Lord Best, for adding their names in support of the amendment. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who cannot be here at this time, but who has authorised me to say that he both supports the principle of the amendment and believes that it is deliverable in practice. Given the role of the police in this amendment, his assessment and support have been invaluable. I am also grateful to the organisations Safer Renting and ACORN for their assistance in highlighting the urgent need for this amendment, and to the Bill team for working their magic in drafting.

At Second Reading, I underlined concern about those at the bottom end of the rental market; here are the economically and socially vulnerable. They are the most likely to face illegal and sometimes forcible evictions. They are also often the least equipped to resist illegal evictions. It is this shadow private rented sector, the lowest part of the rental market, that most needs help and, in particular—as so often with the legislation that we like to pass in Parliament—needs proper support through effective and well organised enforcement of renters’ rights in what can be a wild world of criminal landlords who pay little mind to the niceties of tenancy agreements when removing tenants. That is what this amendment seeks to address.

Illegal eviction is defined in the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 as a criminal offence—it was referred to earlier this evening by the Minister as a serious criminal offence—that can include physical force, the changing of locks, depriving renters of essential services, and other forms of interference and harassment. Figures from 2022 show that 8,750 illegal evictions were reported in that year; the actual number will, of course, be higher than this. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, earlier cited a figure of about twice that. However, currently prosecutions for illegal evictions are very low. The police do not act in 91% of cases, making an enforcement rate of below 0.3%. I underline that this is not to blame the police; rather, it arises from a legislative ambiguity that needs resolving.

While the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 set out the legal definition of illegal eviction as a criminal offence, it did not include a duty on the police to enforce the protections. The results of this have been, first, ambiguity of responsibility between local authorities and police as to which is the enforcing agency. This, in turn, has led to councils and police each referring renters to the other organisation. Secondly, the police have almost always held the incorrect belief that illegal evictions are a civil matter.

The amendment also takes into account the need to be realistic about overstretched police time and resources. The duties under this amendment have two aspects: reporting and intervening. On reporting, in the interests of joined-up working, the police will notify the local housing authority when a complaint has been made, and vice versa, when a complaint is received by the housing authority.

The immediate anxiety here is to avoid imposing an additional reporting burden on front-line officers and officials. But any incident raised with the police or the local authority gets reported, or it certainly should. That report can simply be electronically copied to the other so that both can be aware, spot patterns and so forth. So it is not really “more flipping paperwork”, because adding a cc to a report is not really very onerous.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, for his amendment and for meeting me to discuss it. The amendment would place a duty on local authorities and police forces to share information regarding alleged offences contrary to Section 1 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill and Lady Scott. Local authorities and police forces would also have a duty to co-operate in the investigation of these offences and take steps to prevent offences from occurring or continuing, as well as assisting tenants to gain access to properties from which they have been illegally evicted. The Secretary of State would be required to produce statutory guidance outlining how these duties would be discharged.

The Government are clear that illegal eviction is unacceptable. Changes introduced in the Bill will further empower local authorities to penalise those who illegally evict, giving them the option to issue a financial penalty of up to £40,000 as an alternative to prosecution. Illegally evicted tenants are also entitled to receive a rent repayment order. Local authorities will be provided with new investigatory powers alongside the powers that police forces have to investigate and prosecute breaches of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.

However, I am concerned about the administrative burden that a reporting duty might place on police forces. The department is trialling approaches to improving multi-agency targeting and the disruption of rogue and criminal actors operating throughout the private rented sector. For example, Liverpool City Council’s private sector housing intelligence and enforcement taskforce—a snappy title, I know, but it does what it says on the tin—has successfully carried out joint operations with Merseyside Police and the Home Office. The Government will continue to explore how we can encourage more effective collaboration between the police and local authorities.

I am happy to add this topic to the agenda for the meeting that I have already agreed to with my noble friend Lady Kennedy and Safer Renting, and to take another look at the existing guidance to make sure that it does what it needs to do. With that said, I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for their contributions.

I do not want to detain the Committee too long, but I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, regarding her comments on co-operation and working it out in detail, that we found, in trying to specify every detail of what would go into the database, that it is much better to let the two responsible bodies work it out for themselves. They are grown-ups and they can work that out.

With regard to it being a further duty on the police, it is not a further duty but an existing one; it clarifies what they are supposed to be doing. I do not want to pray in aid the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, too much in his absence, but he certainly felt that that was a realistic thing that they could deliver without their resources being too stretched.

Sharing information and co-ordination is something that we ought to be able to take for granted, but it is a “nice to have”. The really important bit is that they intervene when people are being illegally evicted and that the police take that responsibility firmly on themselves. That is currently not the case, because they still have this ingrained idea that it is a civil offence, not a criminal one, which is incorrect.

That said, I am grateful to everyone for their comments. I look forward to the meeting. I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to meet the tenant groups, which are passionately convinced that this amendment is essential. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 258 withdrawn.