Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Tom Hayes

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hayes]

I never disagree with my hon. Friend, and his point shows why we need the Bill.

I welcome the Bill’s protections against unreasonable rent rises and rental bidding. My disabled constituent Tracey, also from Boscombe, got in contact with me about how a substantial hike in her rent acted as an effective eviction as she was unable to pay. Despite looking to use her personal independence payment towards her rent, she was forced to look for alternative accommodation, and we all know how difficult that is in the private rented sector for people with disabilities. I welcome the protections in the Bill against unreasonable rent rises because they will provide much-needed security for renters like Tracey who struggle to find appropriate accommodation in the rented sector to meet their needs.

I also welcome the introduction of a new ombudsman service, which will provide quick, fair, impartial and binding resolutions for tenants’ complaints about their landlord, bringing tenant-landlord complaint resolution on a par with established redress practices for tenants in social housing or consumers of property agent services. I welcome the move to make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants in receipt of housing benefit or other benefits or with children when choosing to let their property. That particularly affects James in my constituency, who is homeless and cannot secure private rented housing because he is in receipt of benefits.

All of us who hold constituency surgeries week in, week out will know these stories. All of us have campaigned for better renters’ rights because we have heard those stories on the doorstep, and I commend the Government for bringing forward the Bill at such an early stage in this Parliament. We must of course make the point that not all landlords are bad, but the Bill is important because it weeds out those bad landlords so that the good landlords—those who care about their tenants and who provide an important duty to the housing market—can continue to have a good reputation, and so the overall market continues to have that good reputation.

I commend the Bill and the ministerial team for bringing it forward. I am thrilled that renters in Bournemouth and across Britain will finally, after many years of delay, get the renters’ rights they deserve—no, that they are entitled to.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Let me begin by thanking all hon. Members for their contributions. It has been a thoughtful and good-natured debate, and while there are many genuine points of difference and emphasis, there is a consensus across the House that reform of the private rented sector is long overdue and must be taken forward.

In the time I have available to me, I will respond to a number of the amendments and key arguments. In his contribution, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), suggested that Government new clauses 13 and 14 risk locking out of the rental market those renters who are on the financial margins and fettering landlords and tenants coming to fair agreements on tenancies in the assured regime that we are introducing. I gently say to him that he seriously downplays the imbalance between landlords and tenants, and the fact that requiring multiple months of rent from a tenant in advance when agreeing a tenancy is unfair, places considerable strain on tenants and can exclude some people and families from renting altogether.

Landlords will continue to be able to take a holding deposit of up to one week, a tenancy deposit of five or six weeks’ rent and up to one month’s rent in advance before a tenancy has begun. They will also be free to undertake the necessary referencing and affordability checks to give them confidence that a tenancy is sustainable for all parties. If and when they are not satisfied by the outcomes of pre-tenancy checks, options are available to tenants and landlords to ensure that rent in advance need not be used—requesting a guarantor or engaging in landlord insurance, for example. I hope that provides the shadow Minister with a degree of reassurance on that point.

The shadow Minister tabled a number of amendments—several of which we debated in detail in Committee. With regard to amendments 57, 58 and 60, I restate the argument that I made in Committee: fixed terms mean that tenants are locked into tenancy agreements without the freedom to move should their personal circumstances change, and compel tenants to pay rent regardless of whether a property is fit to live in, reducing the incentive for unscrupulous landlords to complete repairs. For that reason, the Government remain firmly of the view that there is no place whatsoever for fixed terms of any kind in the new tenancy regime that the Bill introduces.

A number of hon. Members referred to problems with short-term lets. The Government are cognisant of the impact that excessive concentrations of short-term lets can have on the affordability and availability of local housing and the sustainability of local communities. We are committed to monitoring that issue and, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), knows, we are exploring what further powers local authorities need to bear down on it. However, putting an arbitrary deadline in law, as new clause 2 would do, is not the way to proceed.