Renters’ Rights Bill
Olly Glover Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
Let me start by congratulating the hon. Member for Colchester (Pam Cox) on her excellent maiden speech and her comprehensive survey of Colchester’s history.
On the morning of Friday 5 July I was elected as a Member of this House. My result was declared at around 6.30 in the morning. Like so many of us, I had been awake for 24 hours and I was exhausted but elated. When I got home I had breakfast and a couple of hours’ sleep. I was woken up by hearing something being put in my letterbox. That in itself was not unusual; my landlords received my post and put it in that box, as they lived just 25 metres away. I wondered what it could be: another magazine from a charity I support, a credit card bill or perhaps, even, a belatedly delivered Liberal Democrat election leaflet?
When I opened the letter, it was something even worse: a section 21 eviction notice stating that my landlords intended to retire, and giving me just over two months to move out and find somewhere else to live. I had been renting that home for more than four years. I have always rented, and up to that point I had generally had a good experience, so I have no particular axe to grind. But receiving that eviction notice via letter without any prior conversation or indication that it may be coming was not what I needed any morning, let alone that morning when my head was spinning from having been elected.
Receiving a section 21 eviction notice was tough for me, but it is far worse for many others—people with children, those who care for disabled or elderly relatives and those without the financial means to deal with the deposits and up-front rents associated with moving to a new place. Some tenants may seek a landlord notice period of more than two months, but the current market does not provide that, which shows that regulation is needed.
Exposure to many of these renting issues is, at root cause, driven by a lack of social or affordable housing to rent. In the town of Didcot in my Oxfordshire constituency, the average house price is 14.8 times the average annual salary. This significant disparity highlights the need for more homes that are cheaper than market rent, so that young people wanting to start families can afford to remain living in the area. More social and affordable housing would also ease pressures on some lower paid key worker roles in education and healthcare, which currently are hard to recruit.
There are many problems with the current renting arrangements, which I am pleased to say the Bill addresses. However, some organisations representing renters believe that it does not go far enough. For example, the charity Crisis feels that stronger action may be needed to protect tenants from unfair rent increases, and to remove some of the barriers that make it harder for low-income tenants to secure a private rented tenancy in the first place. Research commissioned by the TDS Charitable Foundation indicates that nearly half of private renters do not know where to turn if their landlord or letting agent fails to address a problem they may have. That highlights the need for better information for tenants on their rights and where to find support.
The Bill does not include a requirement for landlords to engage in dialogue or discussion with a tenant before issuing an eviction letter—something that would have helped in my case. As my hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds) and for Taunton and Wellington (Mr Amos) said, more could be done to require landlords to improve energy efficiency, and local authorities and courts will need to be properly resourced to enforce the Bill’s provisions.
In a free market economy people have the right to invest in property, but it is important to remember that a home is far more than a financial asset. Unlike stocks and shares, a home is a place of safety, security, shelter, warmth, comfort and privacy and somewhere to raise a family. That should always be our starting point.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Torsten Bell to make his maiden speech.
New Housing: Environmental Standards
Olly Glover Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) for securing this important debate.
To start my remarks, I will reflect on why this is such an important topic for discussion. Clearly the major consideration, and one of the biggest threats facing us, is climate change and the need to decarbonise, but the beauty of improving environmental standards for new housing is in the many other benefits besides. Investing in insulation, heat pumps and solar-panel fitments for new homes would create jobs and stimulate supply chains, with the subsequent benefit of making it far easier to develop the capability to retrofit existing homes.
A significant benefit of such a policy of getting it right would accrue to those on lower incomes, insulating them not just from the cold, but from energy and fuel market price fluctuations and the global effects on those prices. Dare I suggest that had we been building new homes to good environmental standards for the past 15 years, the Government would perhaps have avoided the winter fuel allowance backlash that is dominating my constituency postbag. This is a great example of a policy that benefits not only the planet, but people and the economy. Many people feel that climate change is an abstract topic, something that is preached at them, and we need to consider more policies that achieve that holy trinity of benefit for planet, people and economy.
Many of my constituents are very frustrated on this topic, similarly to those of the hon. Member for North Herefordshire. They feel that there have been years of wasted opportunities to get new homes right, from design through to build. More energy-efficient homes is a rare example of a near universally popular policy. Unlike 20 mph speed limits, low traffic neighbourhoods or, dare I say, vegan sausage rolls, there are no culture wars to be had here.
I read that the logic of the last Conservative Government, in delaying solar panel mandates for new homes, was optimism about a fully decarbonised electricity grid, which was indeed too much optimism. We also need to work quickly to create a new electricity grid with good storage capability, so that we can capitalise on surpluses of locally generated solar and wind power.
My constituency has seen some of the fastest housing growth in the country, with 8,000 new houses built between 2011 and 2021, at Didcot Great Western Park, Wantage Kingsgrove, Wallingford Highcroft and Grove Wellington Gate, among others. My constituents are baffled by the fact that these houses have been built—and continue to be built—without solar panels, heat pumps or similar. Another development under construction at the moment, Valley Park near Didcot, of more than 4,000 homes, will also not be so equipped. That is despite the efforts of our Lib Dem-led Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire district councils, who have done what they can within the current rules to promote positive environmental measures. They do not have the powers to compel developers to meet net zero requirements as part of the scrutiny of planning applications. That also needs to change, all the more so if there is going to be further delay in implementing national environmental standards and effective requirements.
We need to make climate change action meaningful and beneficial for people. Designing new homes to the right standards has the potential to have universal appeal, and rather than solar panels’ only being accessible to those on high incomes, it could benefit people across income ranges. Investing in solar, heat pumps and insulation will make that difference, and stimulate the economy. As the hon. Member for North Herefordshire said, we also need to think about designs that will keep our homes cool in the hotter weather expected in the future.
If we do not create the homes of the future now, there is a risk that we will need to retrofit the homes built now in only a decade or two’s time, at much greater expense, in order to reach our net zero targets. We cannot wait any longer. I hope the new Government will treat the issue with the urgency it deserves, to help planet, people and economy.
Graham Stringer (in the Chair)
I move to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Zöe Franklin.