Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, may I say how much the whole House will miss the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, from the Dispatch Box? We welcomed the clarity of his contributions, and the Back Benches will be reinforced by his presence now that he is free to say what he actually thinks.

Here we go with another planning Bill. I start with a quote:

“Conflict is not uncommon between those in both the public and private sectors who wish to change the use of land … The planning system provides the framework for resolving these inevitable conflicts. The Bill brings the system up to date, and enhances its credibility”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/3/1991; col. 816.]


That was me, as Planning Minister in the other place, introducing the then Planning and Compensation Bill in 1991. My imprint on the planning system did not last long. We then had the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004; the Planning Act 2008; the Localism Act 2011; the Housing and Planning Act 2016; the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, which was another planning Bill—and now this. The 1947 planning Act lasted until the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Since then, we have kept on digging up the foundations without, apparently, making the structure any more durable, so I wish the Ministers well.

In the time available, I want to make just one point: the success of the Bill will depend on the efficiency of local government departments in responding to the challenge in the Bill. On 5 February, the Government told all councils in two-tier areas and small neighbouring unitaries to produce, by March, plans to go unitary. Professionals in planning departments are probably more affected than anyone else because all the plans will have to change. They will, understandably, be worried about their own future and the turbulence of reorganisation as they apply for jobs in the new structures or accept redundancy.

The Bill’s success depends on up-to-date plans to deliver certainty and avoid appeals. The Government state:

“Succinct and up-to-date plans should provide a positive vision for the future of each area; a framework for meeting housing needs and addressing other economic, social and environmental priorities”.


However, as of March 2024, only a third of local authorities had adopted a plan in the last five years and 291 had plans which were more than five years old. As they attempt to address the backlog—which will still be necessary until the Bill becomes an Act—they will also have to start all over again producing a plan for the new unitary authority. The Government have stated:

“Where reorganisation occurs, new unitary authorities are expected to promptly prepare a local plan covering the whole of their area”.


This all came on top of the December 2024 devolution White Paper. In another reorganisation, all of England is to be part of one of three new categories of local authority: foundation strategic authorities, mayoral strategic authorities and established mayoral strategic authorities. Under the Bill, the planners in these new strategic authorities must produce spatial development strategies, providing strategic policies for the use of land in their area. At the moment there are only three of these. In a masterly understatement, the Government said:

“We are aware that areas undergoing local government reorganisation and devolution will experience a transition period where responsibility for spatial development strategy might transfer between authorities”.


At the same time, the Government want to reduce all the current delays in processing planning applications so that we can get on with the infrastructure and with building the 1.5 million homes that we need.

If planning departments were fully staffed with the necessary skills, they might rise to this challenge, but they are not. The Local Government Association workforce survey found that 62% of councils have difficulties recruiting planning officers and 45% have difficulties retaining planning officers, many being tempted by higher salaries elsewhere. Two-thirds of councils rely on agency staff to address capacity issues. The RTPI says:

“We continue to have concerns about the chronic under-resourcing of our planning system and therefore … a long-term resourcing and capacity strategy should be published alongside the Bill”,


but it has not been. The new town development corporations will also require planners. The Government have recognised the problem, but the steps that they have taken to address it fall way short of what is needed and risk undermining the purpose of the Bill.

I remember a discussion, when I was a Treasury Minister, with a senior economist in the Treasury. When I suggested a new policy that had been tried in New Zealand, he said, “It may work in practice, but it doesn’t work in theory”. The risk with the Bill is exactly the opposite: it may work in theory, but it will not work in practice—unless planning departments are resourced.

Planning: Energy Efficiency and Fire Safety

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for making that point so powerfully. We all know how urgent this work is. Retrofit work in support of decarbonisation must comply with building regulations, including those concerning fire safety. As the regulations state, the building’s compliance should be no worse than it was before the work started. No additional measures are needed to ensure that fire safety is integrated into retrofit. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, a fire risk assessment will be completed for all new builds, other than individual private homes. Building regulations require building control bodies to consult the local fire and rescue authority to ensure compliance with the order. There is a further requirement under the order for a responsible person to review the fire risk assessment for those premises where material changes, such as a significant retrofit, are made to the building in question.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the National Audit Office estimated that the work to which the noble Baroness just referred will not be completed until 2035. Is that not far too late a date for people to live in unsafe buildings? What action are the Government going to take to bring that date forward?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am sure that the noble Lord paid full attention to the remediation action plan that the Government published, and we want to move this forward as quickly as possible as there is a lot of work to be done on remediation. My honourable colleague in the other place, Minister Alex Norris, is moving forward the remediation action plan as quickly as possible, as we have to make sure that we get on with this now. Eight years is far too long not to move this forward, but we are getting on with the job now and cracking on with it as quickly as we can.

Cladding: High-rise Buildings

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Cabinet Office announced investigations into seven organisations, a few of which the noble Lord mentioned. These organisations were named in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report, enabled by the Procurement Act 2023, which came into force on 24 February 2025. The Cabinet Office is considering options under this Act. This is rightly independent. While this process must run its course, further actions outside the debarments regime against those involved in this tragedy have not been ruled out.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, eight years after the Grenfell tragedy, the Public Accounts Committee in the other place reported that 3 million people are still living in unsafe buildings, unable to sell their properties and move on with their lives, facing high service charges and high insurance premiums, and in some cases facing repossession. The Minister’s own department says that this ordeal will not be completed until 2035, 10 years away. These leaseholders are the innocent victims of negligence and, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has said, of greed. Do they not deserve a better deal?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord speaks with great expertise and makes a very important point. This Government have been taking decisive action to address the building safety crisis so that residents do not need to wait a day longer than necessary to feel safe in their homes. We continue to work closely with industry, local authorities and residents to accelerate remediation efforts while ensuring that those responsible for unsafe buildings cover the costs. On the important point of insurance, work has been ongoing to reduce building insurance premiums for leaseholders. On lending, we have seen improvements for leaseholders who previously found themselves unable to sell or remortgage their homes, but we will remain vigilant and continue to hold the 10 major lenders to account following their commitment to lend on properties even if remediation is not yet complete.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 262 and 271. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, for tabling them and for his excellent introduction, which explained the lamentable situation we have arrived at whereby people living on boats continually fall through the cracks between housing and what is now known as Defra. I will go a little bit into the history, so that the Minister will perhaps appreciate the need for action now.

Those with permanent moorings have some protection, although the cost of mooring fees and licences is an issue. I am especially concerned with those who do not have a permanent mooring and are classified as continuous cruisers, which means they can stay for a maximum of only 14 days in one place. This situation dates from the British Waterways Act 1995, when Parliament removed the need for boat dwellers to have a home mooring.

The Canal & River Trust, which is now responsible for our waterways, has embarked on a review by an independent commission. It says that the review will seek to implement any reforms, including any legislative changes, as soon as possible after its conclusion. Your Lordships may feel that that is a good way forward, but the problem is that housing is not reflected anywhere in the Canal & River Trust’s main purposes: waterways management, maintenance, environmental protection, and generating income to support its work, which might include development along the riverbanks. Your Lordships can see that nowhere is it tasked with looking after the rights of boat dwellers to a safe and secure home situation. All this amendment is asking the Minister to do is to ensure that this group of boat dwellers be considered within the scope and implications of the Bill. Defra formed a working group in 2017 to try to resolve some of these issues, but that was inconclusive.

Amendment 271 concerns the definition of a dwelling house. In 2016, the Planning and Housing Act placed a duty on local authorities to assess the housing needs of boat dwellers and bargees. However, the Act did not read across to the duties of the Canal & River Trust, in whose gift lie mooring and mooring regulations. As the riverbanks are continually assessed for development or leisure potential, the supply of moorings is constantly under threat. The ability to moor somewhere is obviously essential if a boat is your home. Given the Canal & River Trust’s rule that continuous cruisers cannot stay on any one mooring for more than 14 days, for a boat to remain a home there must be a supply of available moorings.

There is a lot of history to this, but I will not go into all of it because I do not want to detain the House. I simply mention that in 2004, I took part in a debate when the late Baroness Hanham was trying to pass an amendment to address this very issue. My noble friend Lady Hamwee made a very apposite point when she said that for

“the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to refer the people involved to Defra and for Defra to tell them that it is a matter for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister leaves us wondering what we can do to get bits of government not just to talk to one another but to find a solution to a very real problem”.—[Official Report,16/9/2004; col.1422.]

That was over 20 years ago. My right honourable friend Vince Cable raised the issue in 2006 when he was MP for Twickenham. He identified one reason why the navigation authorities and regulatory bodies are rather hostile to residential boat owners—the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, touched on this. He said that at best they tolerate them, but they do not see them as integral to canal conservation. So there was a certain amount of prejudice against boat dwellers and Travellers, and I do not believe that has changed.

The Minister who replied to my right honourable friend Vince Cable is now the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, Leader of our House. She said that a working group had been formed and that action in this area had been sought for a number of years. Well, that was 19 years ago and the solution is no nearer, because the department responsible for waterways never considers housing matters for boat dwellers, and the housing department, which has been through many names in time, does not relate to waterways issues. This Bill must break the mould and address this matter now.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I have an interest to declare, as my family owns land in Cookham with a quarter of a mile of river frontage along the Thames and one of its tributaries, but we have never accommodated houseboats. I have added my name to Amendment 262, so ably spoken to by Lord Cashman, and it is appropriate that houseboats are linked in this group of amendments with mobile homes, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has just spoken. In both cases, the home is owned or rented by the owner, but the land or water on which it rests is owned by somebody else. This leads to issues of security mentioned by the three previous speakers, as the home—which, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, may cost a quarter of a million pounds—has really no value unless it is on land or secured to land. To that extent, there is some comparison with leaseholders, because the flat owner owns the flat, but he does not own the land on which it is based. That is the point that I want to make.

All three tenures—leaseholders, mobile home owners and boat owners—have varying degrees of security. Right at the top of the scale are leaseholders, whose rights have been progressively improved over the last 50 years, and more rights are promised in forthcoming legislation. Lower down the scale are mobile home owners. They have rights; as a Minister, I put on the statute book the Mobile Homes Act 1983. That legislation was then succeeded by other legislation, further improving the rights of mobile home owners. By contrast, houseboat owners are right at the bottom of the list and have very little security. So far, all Governments have refused to make any progress.

I will not repeat the problems facing boat owners that have been so ably mentioned, but I just make this point. In answer to a Question on 17 January, the Minister in the other place said:

“The government recognises that while the occupants of residential boats have the benefit of protection under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 and wider consumer … legislation, they do not enjoy the same level of … security as those in the private rented sector. We will consider what action might be necessary to provide houseboat residents … with greater security in their homes”.


That is exactly what Amendment 262 does. It asks the Government to review the security of houseboat residents, which the Answer said they are going to do anyway. So, I honestly do not see why the Minister has any reason not to accept this amendment, as it simply is in line with an Answer given by her parliamentary colleague only three months ago.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, my name is down in support of Amendment 262 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, which, as he so eloquently explained, calls for a review of the position of river houseboat residents. I also support his Amendment 206A, which would give houseboat residents similar protections to those afforded to renters in the Bill before us. Protections are needed for those on houseboats against evictions and massive increases in mooring fees and licences, which are simply not affordable to many who have made their homes on our rivers and canals.

I couple these houseboat amendments with Amendment 206B, so convincingly covered by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, which would enhance the rights of those living in so-called mobile homes, often known as “park homes”. There are obvious parallels between those living in mobile homes where the site is owned by someone else and those living in houseboats, where, again, the resident does not own the place where their home is situated, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, explained. In both cases, there is a need for protection just as much for the rights of those occupiers as for those living in permanent bricks and mortar homes that cannot be moved.

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for her fearless campaigning for Gypsy and Traveller rights, and I will not attempt to speak on her expert amendments in respect of those communities.

My interest in respect of mobile homes stems from the Mobile Homes Act, which the former MP, Peter Aldous, introduced as a Private Member’s Bill and I piloted through your Lordships’ House in 2013. Today, some 200,000 people—many of them elderly—occupy such mobile homes, on about 2,000 sites. Although some are living in happy communities, there have been too many cases of unfair practices by site owners taking advantage of those residents.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I too have added my name to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best, and want to add a very brief footnote to the two speeches that have already been made.

It is at times like this that we miss the contribution of the late Baroness Gardner of Parkes, who many of us will remember intervening forcefully whenever short-term lettings were mentioned, reminding us of the erosion of rented property in London, but also, as the noble Lord, Lord Truscott, mentioned, some of the problems in large blocks of flats when short-term tenants cannot conform to the normal rules.

What we need here is a balance. There is a role for short-term lettings and Airbnb to play as part of a portfolio of opportunities in a coastal resort or, indeed, in a capital city. But what we have at the moment is a one-way street of erosion of long-term property for rent into short-term lettings. If we are to have a balance and get it right, it should be the local authority which should be in a position to strike that balance. I am sure the Minister, as a distinguished leader of a local authority, would agree that local authorities are best placed to do this.

I think I am right in saying that, until fairly recently, you actually needed planning permission to move from long-term to short-term letting, but, in a move to deregulate and make it easier to move from one use class to another, that requirement to get planning consent to move from one use to another was waived in the 2010 or 2015 Parliament, apart from in London.

It was retained in London, and only in London, where, if you want to short-term rent a property, you can only do so for 90 days—a rule that is ineffective unless it is enforced, and many local authorities find it difficult to enforce . What this amendment seeks to establish is whether the Government are minded to extend from London to other parts of the country that type of restriction to stop what is, at the moment, a one-way street.

I just add a rider to what the noble Lord, Lord Best, has suggested. If you need planning consent to go from long-term to short-term, I do not think you ought to need planning consent to go back the other way. In other words, it should be a hurdle to get over, but if you want to revert to long-term renting, you should not have to go through the process again. If one looks at various parts of the country, in some coastal areas, one in 10 homes are now short-term lets or second homes. Roughly 24 homes a day are being lost through this process, so I hope the Minister will be able to respond sympathetically to the thrust of this Bill, and say that there are plans to give local authorities the powers that I think they need to get the right balance in the tenures in their area.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I live not far from Aldeburgh, not too far from Southwold, so I am very conscious of the issues that have arisen from people acquiring homes and then turning them into short-term rentals. It is a really important part of the coastal economy, but I would suggest in a different way that, in fact, the changes made to the tax situation, where it was possible to offset mortgages and all sorts of expenses, led to a significant increase in the price that people were prepared to pay for houses. I saw this in Southwold, where I got a lot of angry letters—admittedly from people who had done just this thing. What happened was that neighbouring houses that had been priced only a few years earlier at something like £300,000 to £400,000, were now selling for over £1 million. This was done on the basis of the short-term property rental that was possible.

However, what concerns me about this particular amendment is that it does not account for those people who are moving into a place to make it their permanent home. At the moment, this amendment suggests that, if it has been used at all for long-term tenancy, it should be excluded or need further planning permission. I suggest that there are plenty of people who are trying—whether in rural or coastal areas—to make their long-term home, but want to take advantage of the times when they themselves choose to go on holiday to be able to get some rental income. It is a perfectly sensible way, at times when people choose to be away potentially at the height of season, to gain that extra income. While I am sensitive to the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, I think that we need to explore what happens when the property transitions from one owner to another so that they can use their new family home in the best way possible, not only to enjoy that home but potentially to make sure that it gets used all year round.

--- Later in debate ---

These amendments indicate a direction of travel. They would demonstrate the Government’s willingness to finally address a serious national concern which has the strongest support from those representing landlords, agents and, in particular, renters. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, once again I follow in the slipstream of the noble Lord, Lord Best, and have added my name to one of his amendments. I commend the work that he has done on this particular subject.

The only point I want to make is to draw attention to the growing gap between the qualifications that are needed to manage a block in the social sector as against those needed to manage a block in the private sector. I take the view that, whether you live in a block managed by a social landlord or a private landlord, you are entitled to the same quality of management, professionalism and competence.

Two years ago, we had the then Social Housing (Regulation) Bill. That set out requirements of qualifications for those in the registered social landlord sector, and it required some 25,000 people to go out and get qualifications. Senior housing managers have to have a level 4 housing qualification and senior housing executives need level 5. One could make the case that requirements are even more necessary in the private sector, because it does not have the overall protection that the social housing sector has with either local authorities or registered social landlords.

There is now a growing gap between the relative qualifications you need, depending on whether the block is in the private or public sector. Although some progress has been made in driving up the standards of lettings agents, there is still some way to go. I hope the Minister will be able to express some sympathy for these two amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, indicated, if we do not make any progress with this Bill, we will be back with the leasehold Bill later in the Session.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I have also put my name to Amendment 203 and I declare a non-financial interest as chair of the Property Institute, which favours regulation of all property agents, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, has said. Amendment 203 is about safety, security and the good management of people’s homes. I think we all agree that residents deserve to be safe in their homes, but in rented accommodation it is impossible for residents to do everything themselves, because the building and the environment are actually owned and managed by the landlord.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, intimated that, in the case of social housing, it actually took the death of Awaab Ishak to bring forward mandatory qualifications for those who manage social property. As he said, however, there is no equivalent for private property, where unqualified and even rogue agents take responsibility for vital parts of the building’s upkeep, its safety, its access, its insurance and its legality. Unlike other professions handling legal and financial transactions, most of which are regulated, there are no mandatory qualifications or any minimum requirements for property agents, even when they are managing the money of assured tenancies. The absence of regulations clearly can lead to the mismanagement of deposits and rents and legal non-compliance, very often through ignorance rather than wickedness.

Managing shared buildings, particularly tall ones, is extremely complicated and demanding, and growing more so. There are a lot of new energy-efficient rules, quite rightly; there are increasing tenant demands for involvement, quite rightly; there is the rising cost of insurance; and there is more focus on legislation on health and safety, particularly after Grenfell. All these are complicated issues that need to be handled by a professional in the private rented sector, which houses, of course, many vulnerable people.

The private rented sector is often the home of people who can least afford to pay for any additional services, and, if they are paying too much in rent, they cannot even heat the property, and that can be because of mismanagement. It should be obvious without, I hope, having to wait for a death in the private rented sector, that all managing agents looking after homes should be properly competent and qualified. It is a job for professionals, not amateurs.

This amendment is a way forward. We are not talking about an expensive thing to run; it is not asking for very much. It asks simply that those who are paid to manage rented properties know what they are doing and have the qualifications to prove it, so that landlords would employ only agents capable of managing homes legally and honestly. Let us not wait for a tragedy: let us do it now. We owe it to all residents to make sure that the state requires those managing their homes to know what they are doing.

Homelessness: Young Adults

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My noble friend knows how strongly I agree with the comments she has just made. The Government view the Vagrancy Act as antiquated and no longer fit for purpose. No one should be criminalised for simply sleeping rough on the streets. We must ensure that we avoid criminalising those who are the most vulnerable, while also ensuring that police and local authorities have the wide range of tools they need to make sure that communities feel safe. We are in the process of making sure that happens. As my noble friend will know, repeal of the Act needs to be included in forthcoming legislation. Colleagues in the Home Office are exploring options to do just that, and I want to make sure it is done as quickly as possible.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness said, a very high proportion of young people who become homeless were originally in care, with one survey indicating that a third of care leavers become homeless within two years. The Children and Social Work Act 2017 requires local authorities to continue to support care leavers until they are 25. Is the Minister satisfied that local authorities are doing all they can in that respect?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As I said in my initial Answer, we continue to strive to make sure that we offer the best support possible for care leavers. The noble Lord is right to say that they deserve to have that support right through to the age of 25. Earlier this year, we introduced a measure into the DfE’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to make sure that no care leaver in scope of corporate parenting duties can be found intentionally homeless. We also made the decision to further strengthen legislation as the Government are all too aware of the long-term impact that pre-care and post-care experiences can have on young people. It is essential, as part of local authorities’ role as corporate parents, that this vulnerability is recognised and that care leavers are provided with the care, stability and support they need to build a secure and successful future.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to this group of amendments and to thank my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for their amendments.

Before I get into the substance of the debate, I would like to issue a plea. I hope the Minister knows that I have the utmost respect for her. However, so far in Committee, we have been disappointed with the responses we have received to our debates and amendments. I can say in good conscience that, when I sat in her seat on her side of the Chamber, I treated every amendment put before me with respect; I often took issues back to the department to consider and, where possible, made changes. That is because I understood that it was the role of the House of Lords to scrutinise, revise and improve legislation. Unfortunately, it does not feel like this is still happening. Questions go unanswered and suggestions are dismissed without sufficient consideration.

This House has always been more about reason and substance than blind political ideology. I hope that the Minister can approach our debates going forward in that vein. I know full well that Ministers cannot always have the answers at their fingertips, and I am very happy to have written answers on points of details. However, I do ask that the Minister treats our House and our suggestions seriously, in the nature that they are intended.

This group addresses a critical issue that will determine the success or failure of the Bill: the capacity of our courts to deliver it. Let me say from the outset that we fully support the ambition to strengthen security and fairness in the private rented sector. That commitment was made clear in the previous Renters (Reform) Bill. Within that, the previous Conservative Government set out that Section 21 would not be abolished until meaningful court reform had been undertaken and sufficient progress achieved. Such caution was not merely prudent but essential, considering the challenges facing our courts system.

This Bill abandons the careful sequencing we set out under the previous Renters (Reform) Bill. Under our approach, Section 21 would not have been abolished until meaningful improvements had been made to His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service. We also committed to a six-month implementation period for new tenancies to ensure that the system could cope. These safeguards were not incidental; they were essential.

However, in this Bill, those safeguards are gone. There is no clear commitment to upgrade court capacity before abolishing Section 21 and no phased rollout to protect the system from being overwhelmed. As a result, we face a real risk that our courts will be asked to carry out a far more demanding role without the necessary resources, reforms or readiness.

The ambition of the Renters’ Rights Bill is commendable, but ambition alone is not enough. We must also confront the operational realities. This legislation will place significant demands on our already stretched courts and tribunals system. If we press ahead without ensuring that the system is properly resourced, modernised and fully functional, we risk undermining the very objectives that the Bill sets out to achieve. Tenants and landlords alike need a process they can trust: one that is timely, fair and accessible. Without that, this reform will falter at the first hurdle.

Let us be clear about the scale of what we are asking the courts to do under this legislation. With the removal of Section 21, we are fundamentally reshaping the legal framework for possession. Possession cases that might previously have been resolved swiftly, albeit controversially, will now be channelled through more complex, contested grounds. This is a just and necessary step, but it is one that demands an equal and opposite increase in our ability to administer justice efficiently.

Yet the system is not ready. The Civil Justice Council, the Law Society and countless court users have been sounding the alarm for years. Backlogs are rising, court rooms lie unused for lack of staff and overburdened judges are stretched too thin. In some parts of the country, landlords wait months, not weeks, for a simple hearing. In turn, tenants are left in limbo and often under the threat of eviction without resolution or recourse.

We must remember that delay is not neutral. It is not a benign inconvenience. It is a deeply disruptive force in people’s lives. For a landlord, it might mean months without rental income, with mortgage arrears mounting. For a tenant, it means living in a state of uncertainty. That silence—those weeks and months of not knowing—is not just stressful but debilitating. It leaves tenants feeling powerless and unable to plan their future and move forward.

It is for that reason that I urge the Minister to consider carefully Amendment 69 in my name, which requires the Lord Chancellor to conduct an assessment of the possession process. This assessment would examine how county courts handle applications from landlords for possession of properties under both assured and regulated tenancies, and how those orders are subsequently enforced.

This is a foundational step. If we are to move away from Section 21, we must be absolutely confident that the remaining legal routes for possession are functioning effectively, fairly and in a timely manner. This is not just a tick-box exercise; it is about ensuring we have a legitimate understanding of where our courts stand, their capacity and whether they are in any fit state to take on the increased volume and complexity of cases that this Bill will inevitably bring.

The amendment ensures transparency, accountability and evidence-based implementation. Without such an assessment, we risk walking blindly into a situation where the courts become the bottleneck, where neither landlords nor tenants can get timely access to justice. Likewise, Amendment 283 provides an essential safeguard. It would ensure that Section 21 cannot be abolished until the assessment outlined in Amendment 69 has been published and, crucially, that the Secretary of State is satisfied that the courts have the capacity to manage the increased demand. This is not an attempt to delay reform indefinitely; it is a commonsense measure to ensure that reform is deliverable. It puts the infrastructure in place before the policy takes effect. Without this step, we risk setting both tenants and landlords adrift in a system that simply cannot cope.

I look forward to hearing from other noble Lords on this very significant group. The amendments from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, in particular, underscore the necessity of certifying that the court system has the capacity to manage the anticipated increase in possession cases. Amendment 279 in his name stipulates:

“None of the provisions of this Act, other than this subsection, come into force until the Secretary of State certifies that the average time for the court’s disposal of landlords possession actions in respect of residential property is as timely as in the year ending 23 March 2020”.


This benchmark is not arbitrary. It reflects a period when the system was functioning at a level that we can reasonably expect to return to. Furthermore, Amendment 280, also in his name, reinforces this by requiring the Secretary of State to certify that the courts are not only timely but efficient and adequately resourced to handle the increased caseload.

These amendments are not about delaying progress. They are about ensuring that progress is achievable and that the reforms we implement are not undermined by an overburdened and underresourced court system. As we have discussed, the abolition of Section 21 will undoubtedly lead to more contested possession proceedings. Without the necessary court capacity, we risk exacerbating the very issue that we seek to address: delays, uncertainty and a lack of access to justice for both tenants and landlords. The amendments before us today provide a prudent and responsible approach to ensuring that our court system is ready to meet these challenges.

In conclusion, I urge the Government to give serious consideration to these amendments. They represent a balanced approach that aligns the ambition of the Renters’ Rights Bill with the practical realities of our courts system. We have noble Lords present who are experts in that system and I look forward to listening to their contributions. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 205 in my name has much in common with the other amendments in this group, which are probing amendments to see whether the capacity of the courts is up to dealing with the cases that are likely to come before them—not least the likely increase in possession cases when the Act is implemented, and of course to deal with any backlog that has accrued between now and when it comes into effect.

Amendment 283, in the name of my noble friend Lady Scott, is the most demanding of the amendments. It basically defers the abolition of Section 21 until an assessment of court capacity has been completed and the Secretary of State is satisfied about capacity. Amendment 69 finds her in a more conciliatory mood. That amendment does not delay the abolition of Section 21 but requires the Lord Chancellor to monitor progress and ensure that the capacity is there, and it sets no time limit on that assessment. My Amendment 205 finds a middle way, requiring the assessment to be carried out within six months of the passage of the Bill, while Amendment 264, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, is more generous, allowing two years. Neither would hold up the abolition of Section 21.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as an owner of a rental property. I shall speak to Amendments 99 and 103 in this group, both of which would go towards preventing the situation where it has become almost mandatory for a tenant to take any increase to a tribunal. As that has been pointed out by the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Cromwell, I will spare your Lordships the repetition of those arguments, but it would be silly for a tenant not to take any proposed increase to a tribunal. Under present proposals, there is no risk or disadvantage to the tenant. The very worst that can happen to the tenant is that an increase, if agreed, is postponed until such time as it has been dealt with by the tribunal.

Amendment 99 proposes that any increase agreed by the tribunal could be implemented from the date when the increase was due to take effect. That would remove some of the incentive to automatically apply for reviews.

As has been mentioned, according to government statistics, there are 4.9 million private rented homes in England. Some of those will have an annual rent review, for some it will be less frequent, but, if one takes a conservative average of, say, three-year rent reviews for each dwelling, that would mean over 1.6 million possible applications to the rent tribunal per annum. I think every three years is an exaggeration—it is much more likely to be more frequent—but let us assume that we take the three years, and that one-third of the people who have received increases in rent do not apply to the tribunal. By my conservative calculation, that leaves 1 million applicants to the tribunal. How are His Majesty’s Government planning to deal with that? Could the Minister tell the Committee the number of challenges taken to the tribunal in the last period for which the information is available? What is the present delay or wait time for applications to the tribunal being heard?

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 99 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, which, as my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising explained, would ensure that, if there was an unsuccessful challenge to a rent tribunal on a rent increase, the increased rent would become payable on the date proposed by the landlord.

Before turning to that amendment, I will say that I have some sympathy with Amendment 87 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, which proposes an alternative means of filtering appeals before they reach the tribunal by enabling the tenants first to check with the VOA whether their challenge has any prospect of success. However, many of the arguments that the noble Baroness used are equally applicable to Amendment 99.

Turning to Amendment 99, what Clause 8 proposes is exactly the opposite of what happens at the moment, and what indeed has been the case since the Housing Act 1988. At the moment, if a landlord serves a Section 13 increase on the tenant, giving a month’s notice, the tenant can appeal. But, if the tribunal decides the rent should be increased, the increase is payable from the date given on the Section 13 notice. That is the position at the moment, which the Government propose to overturn. The CAB website gives advice to a tenant on this subject, saying that

“it’s probably best to save money towards your rent increase if it’s due to start before the tribunal makes a decision. That way, you won’t have to find a large sum of money if your rent is increased”.

It goes on to make the point that it can take up to 10 weeks for the tribunal to make a decision.

I agree with what has been said. I do not see how this proposal, as it stands, can possibly survive. As many noble Lords have pointed out, from the tenant’s point of view they have nothing to lose by appealing against any increase. The rent cannot be put up, and the increase is not effective until it has been endorsed by the courts.

No satisfactory reasons have been given for this, so I looked in Hansard to see what happened in the other place. The Minister, Matthew Pennycook, said on 29 October last year:

“Tenants should not be thrust into debt simply for enforcing their rights”.


But the relevant right of the tenant is to appeal against an unfair rent increase. There should be no additional right to the tenant if that appeal is subsequently lost, but that is what is proposed.

My honourable friend Jerome Mayhew intervened in the Minister’s speech. He said:

“The Minister says that it would be unfair on the tenant to have a significant increase in rent and a backlog after the determination of the tribunal, but that is rent that ought properly to have belonged to the landlord and has been unjustifiably denied them for the period of the process. Why is it fair for the landlord to be denied a just rent as a result of the delay in the process, yet it is for some reason not fair for the tenant?”


The Minister then in effect conceded the case:

“The hon. Gentleman is right that if the tribunal determines that the rent increase is reasonable, a landlord may have missed out on a short period of the rent increase—not the whole rent, but the rent increase”.


It is not “may have missed out” but will have missed out and, as we have heard, not for “a short period” but potentially for a very long period.

The Minister then sought to defend the position:

“I will be very clear about this: we took the view that it was better that tenants were not, by facing the prospect of significant arrears, disincentivised from taking any cases to tribunal to challenge what could be, on a number of occasions, completely unreasonable within-tenancy rent increases”.


But what the Minister described as “significant arrears” were sums which actually a tribunal will have deemed to be fair, and which current advice from the CAB is that tenants should make provision for. The argument the Minister uses is at odds, as I have said, with the position at the moment.

The Minister’s case was further weakened by a subsequent intervention. Again, my colleague Jerome Mayhew asked:

“I understand that the Government’s intention is that tenants should not go to the tribunal unless they are clear that the asked-for rent is too high, but what prevents them from gaming the system, as we discussed?”


In reply, the Minister said:

“What I would say to the hon. Gentleman—I will expand upon my argument in due course—is that I think he underestimates how difficult it is to take a case to the tribunal”.


In a spare moment over the weekend, I put into Google, “How do I appeal against my rent increase?”. Up came the answer: use form Rents 1 on the GOV.UK website. I downloaded the form. You can appeal, free and online. All credit to the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham, and others for simplifying and digitising government forms. You fill in your name, address and contact details, the name and address of the landlord or agent, the amount of rent you are paying, when the tenancy began and the details of the property. You add a copy of the Section 13 notice from the landlord increasing the rent and a copy of the tenancy agreement, and send it off online to the nearest tribunal regional office. I estimate that it would take about 10 minutes. The tribunal will then ask you what type of hearing you want. Most tribunals for rent increases are based on the evidence you send—they are paper hearings—so there is no need for an appellant to do anything more than I have described.

I hope the Minister will not repeat what her colleague said in another place:

“However, I think the hon. Gentleman underestimates the onerous nature of taking a case to tribunal. It will not be as simple as the tenant deciding on a whim one day that they can do that, and that it is a no-lose situation, but I recognise the incentives at play on both sides”.—[Official Report, Commons, Renters’ Rights Bill Committee, 29/10/24; cols. 145-46.]


It is not onerous, and it is no lose. What is onerous is the pressure on the tribunals. I urge the Minister to reflect on the many amendments to this clause and, in her reply, indicate a willingness to think again.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

The points earlier expanded on the point about affordable rent. Is the Government’s policy still that affordable rent means that it should be no more than 30% of total household income? That immediately implies—it is a glimpse of the obvious—that for one tenant a property is affordable and for another tenant with fewer assets it is not affordable.

Secondly, where I support my noble friend’s entry into the argument is on this business of the fixing of rent by the tribunal. How long does that continue? Could that be spelled out clearly? Does it apply merely for the length of time that particular tenant is there? Would it be continued if there were to be a change of tenant and the next tenant said that was the rent the tribunal had set? If we are to have tribunal-set rents, we must be told exactly how they operate.

Finally, unless the Government can answer fully and confidently the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, this Bill will certainly fail in its objective.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, makes a very relevant point—we will have a look at both things.

Although I appreciate the intention behind Amendment 90, I have concerns about whether it would be practical to attribute a portion of the market rent to energy improvements. We need to think about how we might do this. I hope that the alternative approaches I have outlined and the steps we have taken to allow tenants to challenge egregious rents, for whatever reason the increase has been put on, provide some reassurance. I therefore respectfully ask the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, not to press the amendment.

Amendments 91, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101 and 104 all deal with the backdating of rent increases. I do not agree that tenants should be forced to pay backdated rent. To ensure that tenants are not unexpectedly thrown into debt that could cause further difficulty, the Bill provides that the new rent will apply from the date the tribunal directs, not earlier than the date of determination. We are clear that tenants should submit an application to the tribunal only where they believe that a rent increase is above market rates, and all parties should communicate about the level of rent increases that would be sustainable.

One noble Lord mentioned 1.6 million tenants taking landlords to court. I find that unlikely, to say the least, but we would quickly know. I have already undertaken to noble Lords that we will monitor this very carefully. If that did start to happen, we would certainly know that it was happening and would deal with it immediately. Allowing the backdating of rents risks disadvantaging the most vulnerable tenants—those who may forego challenging a rent increase that is designed purely to force them out of their home.

I turn briefly to each amendment in turn. My noble friend Lord Hacking has spoken to his Amendments 91, 94, and 97. Amendment 91 aims to backdate a rent increase to the date specified in the Section 13 notice. Amendment 94 seeks to backdate a rent increase where the tenant has challenged the relevant notice at tribunal. Amendment 97 is a consequential amendment linked to Amendment 94, which aims to ensure that, where a tenant challenges a rent increase notice at tribunal, any rent increase determined by the tribunal will be backdated to the date on the Section 13 notice. I have already set out why the Government do not agree that tenants should be forced to pay backdated rent. I therefore ask my noble friend not to press these three amendments.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, set out the process as it is now. If it really is as straightforward and simple as he said—I am not arguing with him, and I am sure he has been as diligent as he always is in looking up the facts—surely we would already be swamped with tenants appealing their rent increases, and that is not the case.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

The key difference is that it is backdated at the moment. The Bill changes that, which provides the incentive that is not there at the moment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand what the noble Lord is saying, but putting a backdated rent increase burden on people who are challenging the rent because they cannot afford it in the first place would just exacerbate the problem, rather than make the proper ability to challenge their rent increase available and accessible to them, which is part of the aim of the Bill.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I signed Amendment 77 because it is a really sensible amendment. My Amendment 275 goes a little further. If I was enthusiastic about my Amendment 90, I am delirious about my Amendment 275.

Back in 2001, I was the Green Party member of the London Assembly. Our group persuaded the Mayor, Ken Livingstone, to set up a Living Wage Commission. It looked at what it really cost to live in London, rather than what the minimum wage paid. The commission then went about the work of persuading employers to sign up to a living wage, rather than the inadequate minimum wage. It was a real success, one that Tory and Labour mayors have kept going. It used common sense and facts instead of relying on market forces, and many people had easier lives as a result.

I now suggest a living rent commission to do a similar job, with local mayors given the power and discretion to bring in rent controls that match the conditions in their area. We need this simply because the privatisation of the rental market since the 1980s, with a decline in social housing and the right to buy, has a been a disaster for poorer people and, of course, young people. We have a two-tier economy in which the rich get richer and the rest of us barely manage to tread water. Because the rich can buy only so many yachts and overpriced handbags, they spend their money on buying assets, which often means properties. When BlackRock buys thousands of properties for rent in the UK and another US investment firm, Blackstone, spends £1.4 billion doing much the same, what chance do a couple earning an average income have of getting on the property ladder? We have a younger generation working hard but being sucked dry every month by a rental system that benefits the rich and big corporations.

The Resolution Foundation found that private renters were spending on average a third of their income on housing costs. This is getting worse rather than better, and it is not just a London problem. Rightmove reports that asking rents outside London have risen 60% since 2020, far outstripping inflation and wage growth.

Rent control is an established part of private renting in 16 European countries, so why not here? If the Government want to save money, bring in rent controls. Between 2021 and 2025, the Government are set to spend £70 billion of taxpayers’ money on housing benefit, with an additional £1.74 billion annual spend on temporary accommodation. Why not save money on housing benefit and use that to build more social housing, and reduce the millions of pounds spent every month on temporary accommodation? I have heard a lot from this Government about affordable housing; I have not heard quite so much about social housing. We need to bring it back into use.

Creating a living wage in London made sense because people in low-income jobs spend nearly all they have on just getting by, and by giving them more money you benefit the local economy because they go out and spend it. By contrast, the more money that goes to rich people and corporations, the more that money forces up the price of homes as they outbid everyone to buy more assets.

The Government can break that cycle by establishing a living rent. When one in five private tenants are spending half their wages on rent, our economy is not working for everyone. The Government are doing their best with this legislation, but if you want real change then we need big ideas—like a living rent.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I do not share the delirium of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for the reintroduction of rent controls, not least because I was a Housing Minister in the 1979-83 Parliament, which dismantled the rent controls that had strangulated the private market.

I want to add a brief footnote to the excellent speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, on Amendments 79, 84 and 85. Of the many reasons he gave, the last one attracted me. I see it as avoiding all the problems that arose in the last debate on the Government’s proposals for dealing with rent increases, in which there is no incentive for the tenant not to appeal. We all listened to the Minister’s defence of what is proposed. I may have misread the mood of the Committee, but I am not sure she carried the Committee with her.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, set out the reasons for avoiding overloading tribunals with appeals by inserting a formula for rent increases for four years. Other amendments propose different formulae. In the other place, the Minister explained that he wanted to avoid rent controls. I fully understand that institutional investment will be deterred by the reintroduction of rent control, which effectively nearly ended the private rented sector. The proposals in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best, to restrict increases to RPI to four years, strikes the balance between rents falling out of line with market rents and the regime proposed in the Bill, with all the risks that were referred to in the last debate. Over four years, it is unlikely that there will be a serious deviation between RPI and rents.

I did a little research on this; the average annual rent inflation in the UK from 1989 to 2023 was 3.71%. I recognise that figure may have been depressed by rents in the public sector. The long-run average in RPI is 3.6%, so there is not a lot of difference between those two figures.

My final point, which was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Best, is that the Minister and I are at one in wanting long-term institutional investment in rented accommodation. In our last two exchanges at Oral Questions, she has confirmed that we are at one on this. The institutions want the rent to go up each year, either in line with RPI, as proposed in the amendment, or in line with market rents, as in the Bill. They do not want reasonable increases to be regularly challenged by tenants who can simply defer any increase by appealing. What consultations has the Minister had with the pension funds, insurance companies and long-term institutional investors about whether they prefer the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Best, or want to live with all the risks in the Bill? She may not have the answer at the moment, but I hope she will consult with those people, whom we want to invest in housing, and see which of these alternative measures they are in favour of.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

19: Clause 3, page 4, line 4, at end insert—
“(7A) Any regulations made under subsection (7) must make specific provision for shared ownership leases.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment probes what effect the Secretary of State considers clauses 1 and 2 will have on shared ownership leaseholders who currently rent out their apartments under licences.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, these probing amendments draw attention to the problems already facing many shared owners following the cladding scandal but also problems for them with the provisions in the Bill as it stands. I note that the Government’s impact assessment makes no mention of shared owners who have become accidental landlords.

This form of tenure, shared ownership, occupies the space between owner occupation on the one hand and tenancy on the other, as a shared owner owns part of the property and rents the other bit from a social landlord. Shared owners are individuals who are unable to buy a property on the open market and use a government-backed affordable housing scheme to buy a share of a property, increasing that share as their circumstances improve. So, by definition, they are not well off. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation analysis in 2020 indicated that around 20% of shared owners are in poverty—double the rate for outright or mortgaged home owners—suggesting a demographic that is vulnerable to shocks such as those following the cladding scandal.

To complicate matters, shared owners can simultaneously be both a tenant and a landlord. In its 2025 survey, the Shared Owners’ Network found that 22% of its members are now subletting, with 90% doing so because of the cladding scandal. They have to sublet to move on with their lives, because their properties are not sellable. The Government do not collect data on the number of shared owners who sublet, but the Government recently amended the Homes England Capital Funding Guide to facilitate subletting for shared owners who are trapped—so I expect that the numbers are substantial and are to increase.

Conventional leaseholders have the right to let their property, but shared owners do not. Subletting is seen as an exceptional measure, subject to social landlord and lender approval, with commercial gain from subletting prohibited. Social landlords’ approval remains inconsistent on the ground.

The Bill abolishes fixed-term tenancy and moves all tenants on to periodic tenancies, but shared ownership tenants who sublet cannot give a periodic tenancy. Any permission they get from their social landlord is time-limited and can be withdrawn. Withdrawal often happens when a compliant EWS form becomes available for the building and the social landlord argues that this makes the flat sellable. However, major lenders have agreed only to consider lending on these properties, and often other issues, such as a very high service charge and high insurance, impact mortgageability and the property is not in fact sellable. Where a licence to sublet is not renewed, shared owners are required to evict their tenants, even if they are not able to sell their property.

So how will they cope with the Bill, which, on enactment, converts all tenancies into periodic tenancies? How will any existing agreements interact with the provisions in the Bill that give tenants the right to stay in a property for a minimum of 12 months, when, as I have just explained, consent can be withdrawn by the social landlord before that period has expired?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for his amendments relating to shared ownership licensing and for his usual clarity and coherence in the way that he proposed them. I also thank the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Jamieson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for their contributions to this discussion.

Amendment 19 would require any regulations made under the power in Clause 3 to include provision for shared ownership leases. As noble Lords are aware from our previous debate, the current Clause 3 will be subsumed within part 2 of Schedule 6, but that will still deliver the same effect. I will therefore respond to Amendments 19 and 20 with reference to the fact that these measures will sit elsewhere in the Bill.

As I set out in the discussion on the previous group, the new part 2 of Schedule 6 will ensure that landlords with superior leases can continue to sublet in the future system if they currently have permission to do so. Superior leases or agreements may currently require subletting to be on an assured shorthold or an assured tenancy with a fixed term. Part 2 of Schedule 6 will ensure that, where a sublease transitions into a new periodic assured tenancy, the intermediate landlord will not be in breach of the terms of their superior lease and can continue to sublet under the new system. This will include sectors such as shared ownership and leasehold, where these kinds of restrictions in superior leases are commonplace.

The Government do not believe that Amendment 19 is necessary. It would lead to additional and otherwise unnecessary drafting in any regulations made under this power. The power already requires the Government to specify what sectors the regulations will apply to.

Amendment 20 defines shared ownership for the purposes of Amendment 19. The Government believe this is unnecessary for the same reasons that I just set out for Amendment 19.

Amendment 107 would exempt landlords who are shared owners from Clauses 7 and 8. The effect of these clauses is to prevent unscrupulous landlords using rent increases as a backdoor means of eviction, while ensuring that rents can be increased to reflect market rates, as we have debated previously. Of course, the Government, and I personally, have every sympathy with shared owners who have been affected by building safety issues—such as Stephanie and James, to whom the noble Lord, Lord Young, gave testament—and who, through no fault of their own, are unable to sell their homes. We know that subletting their homes, whether it is accidental or not, is an important way in which shared owners can mitigate the effects of building safety issues.

To respond briefly to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, my honourable friend Alex Norris is making good progress with the remediation action plan. Both he and the Deputy Prime Minister are determined that the targets set in that plan are achieved, and we are moving that forward. I can assure noble Lords that it is a top priority for the department.

The Government have made it clear that such shared owners should be able to charge up to full market rent when subletting their homes. The Homes England and Greater London Authority capital funding guides have been updated to make this explicit. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to that point. Adherence to this guidance is a condition of receiving grant funding through the affordable homes programme. Moreover, the Government have made clear their expectation that this guidance should apply to all shared owners, regardless of how their home has been delivered, and the department is working with the sector to ensure that this is implemented across the board. As the noble Lord requested, I am very happy to meet before Report to discuss this matter further.

It is therefore unnecessary to exempt these landlords from the important protections that Clauses 7 and 8 provide. These clauses will still allow these landlords to increase the rent in line with market rates, and their subtenants will be protected from egregious rent increases and enjoy the same protections as other assured tenants.

Amendment 143 would exempt landlords who are shared owners from new Sections 16E and 16F of the Housing Act 1988, as inserted by Clause 15. These sections will prevent landlords reletting or remarketing a property if they have used the selling or moving-in grounds for 12 months after the date the relevant notice was served. These sections also set out other prohibited landlord behaviours, such as trying to create fixed-term tenancies. Although we appreciate that landlords’ circumstances may change, new Sections 16E and 16F contain critical protections for tenants. The 12-month restriction will stop unscrupulous landlords using grounds 1 and 1A to evict a tenant with the intention of immediately reletting. It will be unprofitable to evict a tenant simply to increase the rent and it will stop landlords using these grounds as a backdoor Section 21.

We believe that all tenants must benefit from these protections. It would not be right or fair to compromise tenants’ security of tenure simply because of who their landlord is and the circumstances those landlords might find themselves in when selling a property. That said, I am happy to meet again with the noble Lord and anyone else who is interested in this topic before Report, but for now, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Young, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who took part in the debate: the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, my noble friend Lord Jamieson, and, of course, the Minister, who gave the sympathetic reply that we would all expect.

As I understand it, periodic tenancies will continue to be allowed after the Bill because there is an exemption in another part of the Bill which enables these tenancies, which are not assured tenancies, to continue. Therefore, a shared owner who is subletting will continue to be able to let on fixed-term tenancies or tenancies subject to notice from the social landlord without granting a periodic tenancy.

Where I was disappointed by the Minister’s reply was on the issues I raised about the four-month notice and the 12-month ban on subsequent letting. It simply is not possible for a shared owner, who we have all agreed is somebody on a limited income, to give four months’ notice when an offer is accepted before contracts are exchanged because these sales are particularly vulnerable for all the reasons that I have explained. A shared owner who does not want to have additional financial liabilities would therefore give notice to a tenant only once contracts have been exchanged. Otherwise, they are even more at financial risk. As I understand it, the Minister is inflexible on the exemption I am seeking for the four months’ notice for shared owners.

Likewise, I think the Minister was also, at this stage, resistant to an exemption to the 12-month ban on subsequent letting. A shared owner whose sale falls through, through no fault of the shared owner, is banned—unless we get an amendment—from reletting that property for the next 12 months. How on earth are they going to survive? They have no income and they continue to have all the outgoings.

I am grateful for the Minister’s offer of a meeting, and those are two issues that I will certainly want to pursue. Even if we get all these amendments, shared owners will still be running at a loss, but the long-term solution is either for them to resell the property back to the social landlord, which would solve the problem, or to get ahead with remediation of all these blocks so they can sell these properties on the open market. The first is unlikely and the second will take time, so that brings me back to the point that, in the meantime, we really must take all the pressure off shared owners where we can. I have already indicated two issues on which I will wish to press the Government to think again at the meeting, which I readily accept. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 19 withdrawn.

Housing: New Homes Target

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they will meet their target of building 1.5 million new homes by 2029.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government remain committed to our ambitious target of delivering 1.5 million homes over this Parliament. We have already taken decisive action to increase the supply of new homes, including bold reforms to the planning system and the launch of the new homes accelerator to tackle delayed housing schemes. In our Spring Statement, we announced a £2 billion down payment to deliver 18,000 new social and affordable homes and we are investing £600 million in construction job training that will help deliver those further homes.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the measures the Government have just mentioned to increase supply, but is not the real threat now to the Government’s ambitious target the lack of effective demand? Housebuilders will not build unless there is a buyer, and with the recent increase in stamp duty and the reduced growth forecasts, there is now uncertainty in the market. What is the role of the Government’s promised new mortgage guarantee scheme, due in a few weeks’ time, in rebuilding that confidence, and, crucially, will it help first-time buyers with a deposit for their first home?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Lord that we have to pay attention to the demand side as well; today’s under-30s are less than half as likely to be home owners as those of the same age in 1990, so there are real affordability challenges which we are determined to tackle. In addition to increasing the supply of homes, we have committed to launching a new, permanent comprehensive mortgage guarantee scheme, meaning that first-time buyers will be able to take their crucial first step on the property ladder with only a small deposit. New details of that will be announced in due course. Alongside that, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury has written to the Financial Conduct Authority setting out the Government’s support for its proposal to review mortgage rules. The Government have made it clear that they want the FCA’s review to be as ambitious and as rapid as possible.

Local Authorities: Temporary Accommodation Costs

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. A number of factors are driving the high level of temporary accommodation costs, such as Section 21 evictions, which we are addressing through the Renters’ Rights Bill—there will be plenty of discussion on that later today. There is also the cost due to supply issues. We have a target of 1.5 million homes, which is a stretching target but achievable. There is the lack of social housing, to address which we will have the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation. Some £800 million has already been allocated for the affordable housing programme and £2 billion for future years. There is also not enough homelessness prevention work. We have increased the homelessness prevention grant for 2025-26 to the highest level it has ever been, meaning that almost £1 billion is allocated for homelessness.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, one reason for homelessness that the Minister mentioned is Section 21. Some 41% of private landlords are now planning to sell their property and many of them are issuing Section 21 notices, which are now the biggest cause of homelessness. On top of that, there are 35,000 asylum seekers in hotels whom the Government wish to move into rented accommodation. Will the group to which the Minister referred look at persuading the financial institutions to invest serious long-term money in good-quality accommodation to relieve the pressure on local authorities and to make good the shortfall?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord is quite right to highlight the importance of attracting funding into housing. I recently attended a session in the City to encourage that, and there was a lot of interest in investing in the housing sector. We are also determined to restore order to the asylum system so that it operates fairly and properly, and we recognise the importance of a smooth transition out of asylum support accommodation for individuals granted refugee status. We are working with the Home Office to ensure that those individuals can successfully integrate into local communities.