Tenancies (Reform) Bill

Debate between Sarah Teather and Tessa Munt

Friday 28th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend about that. The fear of eviction has a chilling impact on the sector, and it also hugely damages the reputation of good landlords and the relationship between tenants and their landlords.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on this Bill, and she will know that my team and I have been working on this problem. As an MP, it is most distressing when tenants come to us with a problem, the landlord takes advantage of the fact that so many tenants are looking for properties and new tenants move into a property once the first ones have been evicted, and then the new tenants come to the MP with exactly the same problem, and this repeats and repeats itself, sometimes on a six-monthly cycle.

[Sarah Teather]

That can be extremely frustrating, both for MPs and for those in local councils and in citizens advice bureaux, who may see the same problem in the same property over and over again. I want to place on the record my thanks to the citizens advice bureaux in Brent, which have campaigned on this issue for a long time, and to Generation Rent, which has been very supportive. I also wish to pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West for all his help and for the support of his officials in championing the Bill across government. I well remember from my time as a Minister that getting cross-government agreement on anything requires sustained focus from a Minister, and I am extremely grateful that the Government will be supporting the Bill today.