Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

The Minister, at our meeting yesterday, for which I am deeply grateful, said that the amendment was not necessary as the superior landlord would in any event still be able to obtain possession after four months, come what may. Unfortunately, in many developments, which is what this is all about, there is a real need to regain the whole site with vacant possession on a timely basis. Allowing the assured tenant to remain in the holding after the intermediate landlord has left would slow down the process of regaining vacant possession of the site and might delay or adversely affect the planned development. I beg to move.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I was expecting a slightly longer debate this time, as we have been proceeding slightly more slowly than the other day. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for bringing this debate on notice periods for intermediate landlords. Intermediate landlords make the rental market more flexible and accessible, precisely the kind of benefits we should be seeking to expand, yet the Bill now risks removing them. These landlords play a vital role in our housing system. They unlock additional housing options by turning single lets into shared accommodation. They offer more affordable arrangements and provide the flexibility that is so essential in urban and rural areas closely tied to the job market. It is therefore vital that any legislation we pass recognises their contribution and protects the value they bring to the sector. In the previous debate, many noble Lords talked about the red-hot market and the lack of housing. I genuinely worry about the risk of reducing the amount of housing.

On that note, I turn specifically to the amendments before us in this group and thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for giving us such an erudite summation of a rather technical area, which I could not and do not wish to replicate, and therefore I shall move on swiftly. These amendments will certainly assist the Committee in considering how best to address this issue. Protecting small-scale renters should be the priority for us all. I hope to work constructively across the Committee to ensure that we get this right. From housing associations to charities and small local businesses providing accommodation, intermediate landlords are vital to the supply on which a secure, reasonably priced and decent rental sector depends.

Amendments 37 and 38 apply explicitly to the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 and the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1985. These tenancies by their nature can be very long indeed, even multigenerational. The tenanted property can include farmhouses and cottages, which could be occupied either by agricultural employees or open market tenants, depending on the terms of the superior tenancy. While in some cases they may have fixed termination dates, in other cases these tenancies could be brought to an end unexpectedly with a short timescale. It is right that these intermediate landlords should have the power to terminate subsidiary tenancies in a shorter timeframe in order to deliver the property back to the superior landlord in compliance with the superior tenancy agreement. Otherwise, the risk is that they may choose not to let such properties. There are many such tenancies already in place that will not and could not have anticipated this Renters’ Rights Bill. Intermediate tenants could well be put in a position of being in breach of their own tenancies, with negative financial implications.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for the amendments and for the meeting we had yesterday, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for his comments on this set of amendments. Amendment 28 works together with Amendments 29, 37 and 38 to insert a new ground for possession, numbered 2ZZA. This proposed ground for possession is well intentioned but, in the Government’s view, unnecessary. It seeks to replicate ground 2ZA with a notice period of two months rather than four in the limited circumstances where agricultural landlords have been given short notice to vacate of three months or less by their superior landlord. Ground 2ZA already covers these circumstances and allows superior landlords and courts to treat a notice given under ground 2ZA as valid even after the intermediate landlord is no longer legally involved once their lease has ended, thus providing the affected tenant with the same protection.

Amendment 28 specifically seeks to ensure that the proposed ground has two months’ notice. This goes against the general principle of the Bill that tenants should generally be given four months’ notice to uproot their lives in circumstances where they have not committed any wrongdoing. We do not believe that a tenant’s security of tenure should be undermined due to the actions of a superior landlord and encourage communication between all parties, where a superior landlord’s notice to the intermediate landlord is shorter. By creating ground 2ZZA with a shorter notice period for circumstances where the intermediate agricultural landlord has themself been given short notice by their superior landlord, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is seeking to ensure that the superior landlord is not left managing the subtenancy.

Amendment 29 adds ground 2ZZA to the list, in subsection 4(3)(f) of the Bill, in which a notice given by an intermediate landlord can be treated as a notice given by a superior landlord once the intermediate tenancy has ended. As superior landlords will already be able to evict tenants under a notice given by an intermediate landlord, we do not think the noble Lord’s proposed ground 2ZZA is required.

Amendment 37 is an amendment specifically to ground 2ZA, disapplying it in the circumstances in which the noble Lord wishes ground 2ZZA to apply. Further to what I have already said, this highlights the redundancy of the proposed ground 2ZZA. Clearly, ground 2ZA would apply already, to the point that it needs to be disapplied to make proposed ground 2ZZA work. I am sorry—I hope everyone is following this.

Amendment 38 inserts the proposed ground into Schedule 1 to the Bill. For all the reasons I have already highlighted, in our view the amendment is not required. As such, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for speaking prematurely. I speak as someone—I should declare this interest—who has a small farm, as I said earlier, which is very small in comparison with those of some of the noble Lords who have spoken. However, I have seen at first hand some of the problems that have been described. In particular, I remember one old lady who carried on in a house where she simply was not able to manage the property and its upkeep. What I think the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Lord opposite are suggesting would help to avoid very painful, costly legal cases where people have to try and get somebody out, which causes enormous bad feeling and cost.

I am in favour of this amendment and would have been in favour of previous ones because I think in farming at the moment the difficulties that landlords face are so immense—I will not go through them all now—that the ability to keep a farm going, which is the interests of tenants and future tenants, is prejudiced if they cannot get back suitable accommodation. I completely understand the desire, which I am sure the Government have, to offer security to tenants. In fact, that is an extremely important part of the fabric of our society, but we have moved on in some ways and what has happened in farming and what I have observed around me in mid-Wales is that there is a need to be able to get back certain properties to bring in younger people to farm.

I broadly support these amendments and suggest to the Government, with great respect, that if there is any way that they can move to accommodate them, I would very much support them.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for moving this amendment and again he has given an excellent technical explanation of the need for it. I shall not try and repeat it, in the certain knowledge that I would not give as good an explanation. It recognises the enduring statutory duties placed on certain landlords to house former employees. I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, who have further explained and emphasised the issues and why this amendment is necessary.

Many of these tenants are retired agricultural workers who have given years, sometimes decades, of service and who now occupy homes with lifetime security of tenure. As such, landlords—often small family-run farming businesses—continue to shoulder a statutory duty to provide housing, even after the employment relationship has finished. This is not merely a moral obligation; it is a legal one that increasingly runs into practical difficulty.

The housing needs of retired employees can evolve over time. A once necessary dwelling may no longer be suitable, as has been mentioned, due to age, health, or changes in family circumstances and numbers. At the same time, that same property may now be needed to house a current employee whose work is essential to the functioning of the farm. Yet under the current drafting of the renters reform Bill, landlords cannot regain possession of that alternative accommodation in order to fulfil their continuing statutory duty. Amendment 65 corrects that oversight. It provides for a narrow, targeted new ground for possession applicable only when the landlord is required to rehouse a protected tenant or their successor, and only when suitable alternative accommodation is required for that purpose.

This is not about weakening tenant protections or finding a loophole—far from it. This is about balance, ensuring that landlords who remain bound by statutory obligations are able to meet them in practice. Without this amendment we risk trapping landlords in a legal Catch-22, where they are legally required to provide suitable housing but legally prevented from doing so. Importantly, they will be able to provide accommodation to retired employees who may have given many years of service and who deserve secure accommodation in their retirement, without the risk of breaking the law or leaving accommodation empty in expectation of its use later.

This amendment does not open a back door to wider evictions; it simply ensures the fair and functional operation of existing, long-established housing duties. It is balanced, proportionate and essential to upholding the very laws that protect these tenants.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, once again I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for his amendment which would create a new ground for possession, and thank the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, and the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley of Knighton and Lord Jamieson, for their contributions to this debate. This ground would enable a landlord to seek possession of a tenanted property in order to re-let the property to a person to whom they have a lifetime duty under the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976 or the Housing Act 1988.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for his collaborative engagement on this matter and for helping me through his reasoning for the amendment, both in our meeting and his clear explanation in this Chamber. However, our position towards this amendment remains the same. It would go against the general principle of increasing security of tenure for assured tenants that is consistent throughout the Bill.

We do not agree that there is a compelling reason that this particular group of agricultural tenants need to be housed in specific dwellings at the expense of existing assured tenants. Where a landlord has a statutory duty to house an agricultural tenant or their successor, in many cases landlords will be able to move tenants as and when suitable properties become available. Landlords can also use the existing discretionary suitable alternative accommodation ground 9, which the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, mentioned, to move an assured tenant to another property if needed.

The noble Earl, Lord Leicester, referred to the issue of underoccupation, which all landlords face. I certainly faced it as a social landlord when I was a council leader; it is not unique to farming. The idea that mandatory eviction is the answer to this, rather than incentivising people to move on from underoccupied properties, would be a completely new area of legislation to be considered and would be out of scope of this Bill.

The new ground would mean that an existing assured tenant could be evicted through no fault of their own, simply moving the problem around and creating insecurity for tenants. As the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said, this is similar to the issue we discussed on Tuesday in relation to retired clergy. I understand the distinction that the noble Lord made in relation to the statutory duty, but it is not for a specific property. The issue of just moving the problem around is the same. As such, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.