Renters (Reform) Bill (Fifth sitting)

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st November 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I totally take that point. I am talking specifically about the short-term problem.

On the all-party parliamentary group for renters and rental reform, we heard from Gemma Marshall, who every year has to look for a new house and has had to change her children’s school three times. She lives not in London, which is even worse, but in north Devon. This problem affects all parts of our country. We also heard from Amy Donovan, who does live in London, and equally has had to move numerous times, which has meant that she cannot commute to her job effectively and has had to move job.

This issue causes problems for the very foundations of society. On the Opposition Benches—and, I genuinely believe, on both sides of the House—we believe that strong societies are built with strong, stable families and communities from the ground up. To some extent, communities are built with bricks and mortar—with people being safe and secure where they are. That is why the clause is so important, but also why it is so important that it is implemented right now, because any delay will mean more mould on the walls for the Amys of the world and more new schools for the Gemmas and their children. Whether the wait is a year, two years or whenever the Minister has the whim to act—he has not laid out the conditions in which he will enact the clause—it is not acceptable for anyone.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

I do not intend to detain the Committee for long. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown on his powerful contribution to the debate, which has inspired me to make a contribution.

I want to pick up on a point that the hon. Member made about the aims of the clause and the flexibility for tenants to leave their tenancies when they need to. That is welcome, and I welcome the clause. I also welcome what my hon. Friend the Minister is doing and congratulate him, because I have not yet had a chance to do so officially, on his elevation to his position and the work that he has done so far in this space. However, the aims of the clause need to go alongside a regulatory foundation. The Bill rightly builds that flexibility.

This has been an interesting debate; it has almost had two sides. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown spoke about the need for security, and not uprooting families from their community. I agree with that, and I think we all share the aim of building sustainable communities that enable people to put down roots. They need a home with security of tenure, but equally, a regulatory framework is needed if we are to meet the aim of enabling tenants to escape tenancies that are not working because, say, there is mould, or uninhabitable conditions.

I think quite often of the additional licensing schemes that were available to councils, particularly for houses in multiple occupation. The fights that I have had with my local authority to implement those schemes have driven me to the point of madness at times. Authorities—particularly mine, in Sandwell—have the expertise, in many ways. My authority has admitted to me that it could do that. We need a localised, driven regulatory system.

I think we would all agree that landlords are, broadly, good actors. They want to offer decent, habitable homes, and to have people in them for the long term. That benefits the landlord, because they then get emotional and moral investment in the property, and from a long-term, sustainability perspective it of course makes sense to have that. We do not want to broadbrush the sector in general. However, clearly there are bad actors. We all know about them from our postbags; I certainly see them in the area that I represent. We need a framework that deals with the issues. My hon. Friend the Minister and I have had many positive discussions on this subject, and I know that he is committed to it. The framework should be locally driven, in many respects—I know his commitment to localism—and should enable us to catch these people and drive down the problem.

I fully support what clause 1 does. When a tenant needs to get out because the tenancy is frankly not working and puts them in a dangerous situation, getting out is absolutely the right thing to do.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The hon. Member mentions selective licensing, which is important. Do we need to review the way that authorities apply for selective licensing? Should there be an assumption that they should have selective licensing for all properties, rather than their having to provide evidence for a license? Many shy away from doing that.

[Shaun Bailey]

To be honest, I probably want a comprehensive selective system. There are already structures and expertise that would enable us to have that. The hon. Gentleman and I have probably had similar experiences with constituency casework. Something like that could be preventive. I am not saying that the issues we have talked about would not still present themselves—let us face it: they probably always will—but if we can mitigate them, that is what we need to do.

I welcome the clause for a variety of reasons that Members from across the Committee have touched on. It is welcome that it enables tenants to leave more expeditiously, but I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that we need to continue the conversation. The Bill is part of a broader conversation about how we ensure that we do not even get to the point at which the measures are needed, because we have habitable homes, people have somewhere to live safely, and they do not have to fall back on the provisions all the time just to keep themselves safe. The clause is absolutely the right way forward. My hon. Friend the Minister can see that there is support for it from across the Committee. I thank him for hearing me out.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I ask the Minister to consider the law of unintended consequences. If the Government delay implementation of the clauses that end section 21 evictions, they could find that landlords who are worried about their ability to evict tenants or have choices will rush for a clause 21 eviction, because they know that at some point section 21 evictions will be ended. The longer it takes the courts to be reformed, in whatever undisclosed way we are considering, the greater that concern will be.

As I said, I see a lot of older long-term assured shorthold tenants being evicted, their landlord rushing them toward the door because they do not want a tenant who has limited means of paying increased rent in the future, and because they are concerned about the news that it will be difficult to evict anyone. The rush for the door is distressing for the people involved, but has the knock-on effect of causing huge problems for local authorities attempting to assist people who are in priority need in terms of homelessness. We are all seeing many more people than usual being evicted via section 21. That has enormous consequences in so many ways.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

Clause 3 amends the grounds for possession in schedule 2 to the 1988 Act, by means of the changes set out in schedule 1 to the Bill, which we will debate separately later today. Taken together, amendments 145, 146 and 150 would extend “greater hardship” provisions to three of the mandatory grounds set out in amended schedule 2 to the 1988 Act, namely grounds 1, 1A and 6A.

Ideally, we would have debated these amendments as the last amendments to clause 3, because they are very much our fall-back position if we cannot convince the Government to accept the other changes that we propose to the clause. In due course, we will debate our concerns about several of the revised or new possession grounds provided for by the Bill that can still be fairly categorised as de facto “no fault”. These include grounds 1, 1A and 6A.

In cases where a landlord has proved a discretionary possession ground, a judge must decide whether it is reasonable to make the possession order. In reaching their decision, a judge can consider not just the reason for the possession claim, but anything relevant to the case, including the tenant’s conduct and the likely consequences of eviction for the individual or individuals in question. They can also consider whether the tenant has tried to put things right since the claim was issued. If the judge is not satisfied that it is reasonable to award possession in these discretionary cases, they can dismiss the claim all together. In contrast, if a landlord proceeds on a mandatory ground—I remind the Committee again that proposed new grounds 1, 1A and 6A are mandatory—the judge must make an order, if the landlord has proved their case.

The amendments would give the court very limited discretion, in relation to mandatory grounds 1, 1A and 6A, to consider whether the tenant would suffer greater hardship as a result of the possession order being granted.

[Shaun Bailey]

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has tabled further amendments on the evidential burden, but does he not appreciate my concern that there is perhaps a little bit of a floodgate situation around appeals on this issue? Notwithstanding his comments about the judicial system and the court system, I am conscious that we may have a scenario where judges’ decisions are challenged and we end up with a backlog. As a result, what the amendment tries to do would either be delayed, or would end up in a system of appeal after appeal, because clearly the result would be down to a judge’s subjective decision, based on the evidence in front of them at the time.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Perhaps I have not explained myself clearly. These amendments do not provide for an appeals process. As I have tried to make clear, when it comes to a discretionary possession ground, judges can weigh up the evidence. That is not the case for a mandatory ground. The amendment provides for not an appeal process, but discretion for the court and the judge to consider whether their decision would cause greater hardship to the tenant. I will come on to explain how that would work.

[Shaun Bailey]

To clarify my point, I am aware that the amendment is not about an appeals process. However, as the hon. Gentleman will know, an application for appeal can be made against any judge’s decision, and that application can be granted by the superior courts, so the process is not immune from appeal; decisions can be taken to appeal. That is a right, which would be granted, and it could be achieved through another part of the system. I just wanted to clarify my position on that point.

[Matthew Pennycook]

It is an interesting debate, but not particularly pertinent to the amendments. It is not my understanding that a mandatory possession ground order can be appealed. If it can, then I think that the instances in which it can are vanishingly small. However, that is not what these amendments seek to do. They purely seek to protect very vulnerable tenants who might suffer great hardship as a result of the court’s decision.

The starting point for the court would remain that the landlord in question has proved his or her intention to either occupy the property under ground 1 or sell it under ground 1A, or the need to respond to enforcement action under ground 6A. In other words, the presumption would be that a possession order will be made, and in most cases it would be. However, the amendments would provide tenants with the opportunity to demonstrate to the court—not at appeal, but at a hearing of the court—that their eviction on any of the three grounds in question would lead to hardship greater than that of the landlord or, in the case of amended ground 1, potentially the landlord’s family. If the judge determined that the hardships each party is likely to experience were the same, under these amendments, the tenants would not succeed, and the possession order would still be made. However, if the tenant could prove to a court that they or a member of their household would suffer greater hardship than the landlord or the landlord’s family if a possession order were made, the court could refuse to make the possession order.