Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government when they will be bringing
forward the promised Renters Reform Bill based on the White Paper
A fairer private rented sector published on 16 June.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Levelling Up, Housing & Communities () (Con)
The Government’s consultation on introducing a decent homes
standard to the private rented sector closed on 14 October. We
are considering the responses carefully and will publish our
response to the consultation as soon as we can. In the meantime,
the Government have committed to ban Section 21 no-fault
evictions to protect tenants and will introduce a renters reform
Bill in this Parliament.
(LD)
I thank the Minister for that definitive Answer. As we were
promised it in 2022-23, this definitely feels like a
disappointing push-back of the much-needed reform of the private
rented sector, which I and many others look forward to, as there
is much work to do. For example, last week in the Budget the
Chancellor said that rent hikes of 11% were unaffordable and
acted to cap rent rises faced by social tenants. However, private
landlords are still free to charge the going market rent and,
according to Zoopla, this has increased nationally by 12% in the
past year. In the same Budget, the Government chose to
freeze—
Noble Lords
Oh!
(LD)
I will get to my question; I note that noble Lords have been more
liberal with other speakers. In the same Budget, the Government
chose yet again to freeze housing benefit and local housing
allowance levels. Does the Minister believe that this is fair, as
it disproportionately affects private renters? Are there plans to
review these levels? Given that private tenants are likely to pay
higher rents than their social sector counterparts, does she
agree that they too deserve protection from unaffordable rent
rises?
(Con)
My Lords, the Government do not support the introduction of rent
controls in the private rented sector. Historically, evidence
suggests that this would discourage investment in the sector and
lead to declining property standards as a result, which would not
help either landlords or tenants. Recent international examples
also suggest that rent controls can have an invertedly negative
impact on the supply of housing and may encourage more illegal
subletting.
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am aware of many landlords who own one property which
they use for letting purposes, and it amounts to their sole
income. Does the Minister therefore agree that a
one-size-fits-all rent freeze could damage those who rely on
rental income to service their ever-increasing mortgages, thereby
damaging the rental sector altogether?
(Con)
My Lords, I think that is exactly what I have said. We need a
balance here, in order for landlords to still provide this
sector, which is an extremely important sector, and in the
renters reform Bill that is coming forward I am sure that we will
discuss that in further detail.
(CB)
My Lords, whilst welcoming an enormous amount that is in the
proposed legislation, I am very concerned about the capacity of
the courts to undertake the justified evictions under Section 8.
Currently, the waiting times are simply enormous, and this is
putting off a lot of private landlords.
(Con)
The noble Lord makes a very good point. When court action is
needed for landlords to gain possession of their properties, the
courts should provide fair and efficient access to justice. We
are working with the judiciary, the Ministry of Justice and HM
Courts & Tribunals Service to introduce reforms to make the
possession process much more efficient for landlords, while
maintaining essential protections for tenants built into the
court processes.
(Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as an owner of rented properties.
Following on from that last question, will my noble friend
undertake that, in seeking to protect tenants from a minority of
unscrupulous landlords, they will not make it impossible for
proper landlords to regain their properties from tenants who may
be behaving inappropriately?
(Con)
My noble friend is right that we need a balance in this, and the
way we are going to get a balance is through good debate on the
Bill that is coming forward in this Parliament. We will have all
those discussions and, hopefully, we will get something at the
end which is balanced—for landlords but also, most importantly,
for tenants.
My Lords, rents in London are up to double the level of rents
elsewhere in the UK. Crisis has warned that the number of people
sleeping rough in London has risen by a quarter in just one year,
and more than half of those spotted on the streets are sleeping
rough for the first time. What are the Government doing to
prevent those who are struggling to pay their increasing rents
from falling into homelessness?
My Lords, we have a number of interventions that can be used that
the Chancellor brought in, both for people that are struggling
with their rents and people who are struggling with household
bills as a whole; that was all laid out in the Chancellor’s
Statement last week. As far as homelessness is concerned, we are
providing local authorities with £316 million in the homelessness
prevention grant funding, and we are encouraging local
authorities to use that flexibly, because it will not be the same
in London as it is in other areas of the country.
of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, the Government’s own White Paper admits that the
private rented sector
“offers the most expensive, least secure, and lowest quality
housing”
to nearly 4.5 million households. Will the Government introduce a
new renters’ charter to give tenants more choice and more control
over their homes?
(Con)
My Lords, if it is in the White Paper, we will see whether it
comes through into the Bill and will discuss that. I am sure that
if the noble Baroness tables any amendments, we will discuss
those in full.
(CB)
My Lords, I recognise that the Government are not going to
introduce a freeze for the private rented sector or the social
housing sector, but there is a cap on rents for social housing
landlords, housing associations and councils. That cap means that
they will not be getting the revenue they expected if they have
the full increase in their rents. The main beneficiaries of this
are the Government and Treasury, because housing benefit will be
reduced—so the autumn Statement tells us—by £650 million. Will
this windfall gain of £650 million for the Treasury over the next
five years be recycled or reinvested back into social housing,
where it is very badly needed, to upgrade the stock and build new
homes?
(Con)
The Government are already investing in social housing; we are
putting £11.5 billion into building social housing. Some of the
money from the windfall, as the noble Lord called it—I would not
call it that—will go into that. There is also support going to
local authorities to support those in the private rented sector
who might have problems this winter and whom we might need to
help out.
(Con)
My Lords, following the tragic death of Awaab Ishak due to fungus
growing in a family apartment, will my noble friend the Minister
agree to a review of the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act
2018 to stop this ever happening in the private rented
sector?
(Con)
As we discussed in a lot of detail last week, this was an
extremely sad and very disturbing case. On whether we will look
at the healthy homes standard again, I think we will now wait to
see if it is going to be in the renters reform Bill. In the
meantime, the Secretary of State wrote to all local authorities
this week to insist that they look at their stock, so that we as
a department and a Government know exactly what is happening in
our social housing stock as far as mould and damp are
concerned.
(Lab)
My Lords, one reason why low-income tenants are struggling with
their rents is that the local housing allowance has been frozen.
Can the Minister explain why?
(Con)
We have to understand that this country is in an economically
difficult time, and very difficult decisions have to be made. If
we look at what was given to very vulnerable groups of people in
the Statement last week, I think noble Lords will agree that the
Government are doing all they possibly can—
Noble Lords
Oh!
(Con)
No—the Government are doing all they can to support these people
and help them, both now and if they have problems as the winter
goes on.
