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I beg to move amendment 42, in schedule 1, page 155, line 9, leave out “1 year” and insert “2 years”. <em>This amendment would increase the minimum period before a landlord can use certain grounds for possession from 12 months to 2 years.</em>
The Bill rightly seeks to address the fact that tenants do not have security in their homes. Amendments 42 and 43 would amend schedule 1 to lengthen the proposed period of protection against eviction under grounds 1 and 1A from one year to two years. This would be just one measure to start to address insecurity of tenure. It is worth recalling that the King’s Speech background briefing notes explain that one of the primary aims of the Bill is to increase tenant security and stability. Private renting does not have to be insecure. The median length of tenancy in the UK is just under three years, while the average in Germany is 11 years. Insecurity erodes renters’ sense of belonging, and constant moving has a heavy financial cost. For children who are in privately rented homes—the Minister pointed out that they make up an increasing proportion of private renters—this insecurity takes a wider toll. Each school move at a non-standard time of year reduces expected GCSE grades by 0.5. Shelter has found that 13% of tenants with children in their household said that their last house move was stressful or upsetting for their child. The Committee will no doubt be aware that constant moving is a major problem for private renters. Research by Shelter in 2022 found that a quarter of all private renters had lived in three or more privately rented homes in the previous five years—three different homes in five years. Amendments 42 and 43 are part of an effort to urgently change the renting culture and our ideas about what is acceptable when a property is rented out as someone’s home. I hope the Minister will look at them, not least because a central aim of the Bill is about addressing the deep unfairness of private tenant insecurity. That unfairness is a massive problem in my constituency of Bristol Central, where a huge 47% of households are in the private rented sector. It affects many people. To give just two examples, a constituent I spoke to had to move six times in six years, and another constituent literally received her notice as she was moving her possessions into her new flat. That is unacceptable. Security is vital to allow renters to put down roots in their community and plan for the future. It is clear from the evidence gathered by the Renters’ Reform Coalition that the vast majority of tenants want security and the power to decide when to move on. They do not want the anxiety, discomfort and expense of being forced to move by a distorted, malfunctioning market. Unwanted, unexpected home moves are stressful and costly. Generation Rent estimated in its evidence that an unwanted move costs a typical two-adult renting household more than £2,000. Almost half of renters have no savings at all. Moving frequently or a short period of time after the previous move impacts tenants’ financial resilience. For many, those costs are prohibitive and will push them into homelessness, not least because finding somewhere new can often prove impossible or mean <span id="117" class="column-number" data-column-number="117"></span>accepting dangerous, substandard accommodation. To give one example among many from my constituents, after months of searching with no luck, a constituent and her partner had to settle for a grim place with an “unshakeable smell of damp” that made almost everything she owned “fuzzy with mould”. Competition for properties in the private rented sector is fierce. Tenants often have little time in which to find a new home and little power to influence the terms of their tenancy agreements. They often sign 12 or six-month contracts under the current regime simply because that is the only option available to them, not because they actively prefer to be protected for only one year. Many tenants would prefer long-term security in their home. The proposed two-year protected period in amendment 42, coupled with rolling tenancies, would allow tenants a combination of flexibility and security. We should reflect that the two-year protected period I am proposing is not radical or new—far from it. It was what was initially proposed in the former Conservative Government’s 2019 consultation, “A new deal for renting”, to ensure that security of tenure for tenants would not be undermined once fixed-term tenancies come to an end. However, when legislation was eventually brought forward, that Government watered down the protected period to just six months. The current Minister, then a shadow Minister, rightly supported a two-year protected period with regards to grounds 1 and 1A in the Renters (Reform) Bill Committee. As well understanding its history, it is important to reflect on the fact that a longer protected period has the potential to drive professionalism in the sector. As ever, good landlords have nothing to fear from this provision. A two-year measure of security at the beginning of a tenancy is needed to create a disincentive for any abuse of the exemptions to no-fault eviction, and it would be a triple win: better for renters, for the local communities they move into, and for homelessness reduction. The Renters’ Rights Bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to set out clear principles for the roles of both landlord and tenant and to develop a regulatory regime that reflects and incentivises that vision. While some landlords will have to make changes to their business plans, a two-year protected period should not amount to a significant change for many landlords or interfere with their business model. In the Renters (Reform) Bill Committee, when speaking to his amendment to create a two-year protected period, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich rightly said: “We believe that any landlord likely to use ground 1 or 1A in good faith will have some prior awareness that they or a family member may need the property for use at some point in the coming years, or that they may wish to sell it in the near future.”<span id="vol_col173" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="173" data-volume-number="" data-external-id="A02B2C0F-5A3C-4647-A57D-513BA3C4B6C8"><em>––</em>[<em>Official Report, Renters (Reform) Public Bill Committee, </em>21 November 2023; c. 173.]</span> Buy-to-let mortgages are often made available at fixed rates for two years or longer and, currently, the average tenancy in the private rented sector is longer than two years. This should not be overly disruptive, and it can provide much-needed stability for those in most need of it. To conclude, the change to a two-year protected period would be one of the most important things the Government could implement in the Bill to more fully deliver on their ambition to decisively rebalance renting in favour of renters. The amendment seeks to understand <span id="118" class="column-number" data-column-number="118"></span>the reasoning behind the proposal for a protected period of one year rather than two years, as was the Minister’s position previously. While 12 months is obviously an improvement on six, we can do better to improve the security of private renting, which has such a big impact on tenants’ health, wellbeing and life choices.
Would the hon. Gentleman be able to speak slightly louder? It is difficult to hear down here.
I thank the Minister for his response. I, too, have spent a lot of time reflecting on the potential effects of the amendment, including thinking about potential edge cases, exactly as he described. Imagine someone who became an unintentional landlord, perhaps because after buying their home, they got seconded to another country for work for a year or two. While I recognise that it might be inconvenient for a landlord to have a two-year limit, it is also inconvenient for a tenant to have instability of tenure. If someone is, for example, seconded to work abroad for a year or two, with a fixed date of return to be back in their own property, they have to consider their responsibility to provide stable housing for their tenants. If they are not able to do that for a long enough time for the tenant not to be subjected to undue costs and effects on their health, stability, education and so on, maybe the landlord needs to look into short-term lets, rather than creating a situation where somebody believes they are making a permanent home. Say that person was going abroad for a year and a half, and the limit is two years—they might have to find somewhere else to live for a few months before moving back in. Yes, that would be an inconvenience, <span id="120" class="column-number" data-column-number="120"></span>but we have to weigh that against the huge inconvenience for tenants who have their only home constantly disrupted and moved around. I ask the Minister to look at this again, and to think about the edge cases, as well as where the greatest inconvenience and injustice really lies between the landlord and the tenant. I would be happy to have a chat with him. I will not press the amendment to a vote this morning.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. <em>Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.</em>
I am grateful to be called to speak in this debate. Like others, I thank the Minister for her commitment to further action on redress for the Windrush scandal. I also commend the Commonwealth nations, which are making sure that there is a conversation internationally about redress and action on reparations for the transatlantic trade in trafficked and enslaved Africans. I applaud the hon. Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for her powerful arguments on that point earlier. I will take the opportunity to talk a little about Brighton today, particularly the Brighton & Hove Black History group. It was formally launched in 2002 and is now a thriving team of local volunteers from very diverse cultural backgrounds. It owes its existence to the passion and dedication of Bert Williams MBE, who has spent so much of his retired life researching and presenting the multicultural history of our city. The Brighton & Hove Black History website is an amazing resource for finding out about the impact that black residents have had on the city throughout its whole history, and it is full of beautifully presented photographs. Everyone should visit it. Today, there is a lot to celebrate about Brighton and how it looks at its history, including its black history. Afrori Books in North Road has been running since 2021 and was founded by Carolynn Bain as a safe space for black people and their allies. Carolynn was inspired to open the shops because “I was tired of going to bookstores and having to search for ages to find the tiny BAME section that had been allocated to Black authors. Surely, they deserved more than that?”. Afrori delivers anti-racism training to adults. It runs anti-racist clubs in schools across Sussex. It has hair workshops, author events, women of colour yoga sessions, writers’ workshops, music events, a book festival and so much more. In Brighton we are also very lucky to have the brilliant Black & Minority Ethnic Community Partnership centre, a sustainable resource centre that champions the black minority ethnic community in Brighton and Hove, owns its own building—such a big thing for groups like that —and supports BME communities and their families in so many ways. I have met young refugees there, and long-retired Caribbean nurses, all playing their part in our brilliant community. I cannot omit to mention some of our incredible local artists. We have AFLO. the poet, an amazing spoken-word artist who uses poetry as a vehicle to address racism and mental health issues. We have Fox Fisher, an incredible non-binary artist, author, film-maker and educator who is cherished in our LGBTQ community. We have Jordan Stephens and Harley Alexander-Sule, better known as Rizzle Kicks, and QM Records, a Brighton-based label and events company founded and <span id="467" class="column-number" data-column-number="467"></span>run by Ned and Nicholson from the well-known local band Normanton Street. I could go on, because those are only a few of the amazing, creative people who are leading the way in Brighton. Now in its third year, led by its directors Carolynn Bain of Afrori Books, Althea Wolfe and John Mayford, Brighton book festival is a grassroots festival with equity at its heart. The directors’ aim was to create another space in Brighton where writers from under-represented backgrounds would be the main focus, and where diverse audiences could see themselves reflected. In August, for reasons that should not have been required, I became just one of thousands of people who joined in powerful collective action in response to far-right riots and threatened racist action against members of our community. As always, Brighton and Hove came together to say loud and clear that those who spread hatred, fear, fascism and racism have no place in our city. As has happened earlier in our history, thousands of Brightonians defended the values for which our city is well known. This is an important part of building a better history for our future, and confronting and defeating the racism in our communities. Brighton faces challenges, as all places do—we have heard Members say that powerfully. We have seen the rise in hate crimes nationally, with hundreds of racist hate incidents and crimes every year. The safety of black people in Sussex is not helped by the fact that, according to the most recent statistics, they are more than eight times as likely to be stopped and searched by police as white people. According to Home Office data on rates of stop and search by race found that the equivalent of nearly 30 black people in every 1,000 living in our area were stopped in a 12-month period. That is not proportionate, and it does not help to keep people safe. Strip-searching children is also one of the most racialised tactics used by the police, who are six times more likely to strip-search black children, and I am glad that the Children’s Commissioner for England has taken up this countrywide children’s rights issue. Every police service needs to take action to prevent this traumatic practice from causing further harm. I recently met representatives of StopWatch, which does fantastic work on strip-searching, as well as on institutionalised racism in the justice system more broadly. The Runnymede Trust has conducted excellent analysis, adopting an evidence-based approach to tackling the causes of the racist riots during the summer. We must continue to pay attention, and do much more to ensure that all the ways in which overt and systemic racism affects black people in our city and our country are brought into the open and confronted honestly.
I absolutely agree with the hon. Member about education. As for his point about reparations, the echoes of this injustice will not simply fade away; we need to talk about it and take action.<span id="468" class="column-number" data-column-number="468"></span> Let me end by talking about one more injustice. Jay Abatan was murdered in Brighton outside a nightclub in January 1999. No one has ever been convicted for his killing, and his brother Michael, who was there on the night Jay was attacked, has spent 25 years campaigning for justice. I have met him several times over the past year at community events, and at a vigil on the anniversary of Jay’s death. Sussex police have apologised to the family for how the case was handled, but I know that Members supported my predecessor’s early-day motion expressing concern about the fact that Jay’s murderers have still not been brought to justice. I hope I can rely on the same support from Members here for any action that I take on the Abatans’ behalf, for the echoes of this injustice, too, will never fade until we take such action.
Parents and teachers in North Herefordshire tell me how concerned they are that special educational needs funding has stagnated for the last 10 years, while needs have increased. I visited Westfield school in my constituency, which is in desperate need of capital investment. It was allocated funding under the school rebuilding programme, but the implementation of that programme has been very slow. Can the Minister assure me that she remains committed to the programme, that it is on track, and that she will amend the way that the funding system works to incentivise mainstream inclusion?
If I heard correctly, at the start of his statement the Secretary of State referred to the River Lugg, which runs through the centre of my constituency. Its catchment has been subject to a planning moratorium for more than five years, because of excess levels of phosphates in the river. The Secretary of State will be well aware that the reason for that is not primarily sewage pollution, but agricultural run-off; more than two thirds of the pollution is from agricultural run-off and only a quarter from sewage. However, the terms of reference for the Government’s water commission essentially make no mention of agriculture, with only a passing reference and nothing specific about addressing that problem; likewise the Water (Special Measures) Bill. With such a narrow approach to addressing water pollution, the Secretary of State will not be able to achieve his aim of cleaning up our rivers and seas. Does he agree that the terms of reference need to be changed to incorporate full attention on agricultural pollution as well as sewage?
The Secretary of State highlights the scandal of sewage in our seas and rivers. Indeed, raw sewage was dumped into our <span id="286" class="column-number" data-column-number="286"></span>rivers and seas for 3.6 million hours last year. Since privatisation, £72 billion has been paid to shareholders in dividends, while his Department highlights that it would cost £56 billion to carry out the necessary investment, so privatisation has failed as a model for getting the investments in place. Will he therefore confirm that the commission will look at what ownership model for water will be effective in addressing this scandal, including the option of bringing water back into public hands?
<Question HRSContentId="{FB101751-BF05-4AC5-82D3-F3AD027D6D58}">T3. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{40A5061F-EB1B-4091-97AC-1119CACAA029}"></QuestionText>I welcome this Government’s ambition in seeking a new climate finance goal at COP29 in Baku shortly. Will the Minister assure me that she understands the scale of need? The UN Environment Programme says that 10 to 18 times more funding is needed for adaptation than is currently on the table. Will she make sure that it includes loss and damage and is additional to aid?</Question>
I am a member of the Acorn community union, which is giving evidence today.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{54A3D079-743E-4015-98C2-E083597AF9B0}"> </QNum></strong> My question is a really simple one. Do you think that rents in the private rented sector are currently fair and affordable? <em><strong>Theresa Wallace:</strong></em> It is a good question. I think that the demand is what has the effect on rents. I really believe that if we had those million social homes—I know we cannot get them overnight, but we should have a long-term strategy working towards that—you would have no pressures on rents because you would not have this imbalance in the demand and the supply, so rents would not be where they are. <em><strong>Ben Beadle:</strong></em> Yes is the straightforward answer, for me. The rents that we have seen increased by 8.4% in the year to September. That is high by any measure, and I think, as Theresa says, it is entirely down to a lack of social housing and a lack of new stock coming to the market. It cannot be normal that you get 21 people applying to rent a property. I know the Bill deals with advance rent. As a landlord, I never ask for advance rent, but I get people saying, “I will give you 12 months’ rent up front,” before they have even seen the property. I think this mad market is not normal, and obviously it will not be resolved by this Bill. I say that because—though there are a lot of really good things in it, such as the database and the ombudsman, which we are very supportive of—it tinkers around the edges of the fundamental issue here, which is supply. I know the Government will address social housing and right to buy, and all those things, and they are absolutely right to do so. At the same time, we do need a vibrant private rented sector. We need that vibrant private rented sector now while we work out what to do with social homes, because there is a massive lead time. What I see at the moment is everybody harking back to the wonders of the ’70s, of social housing and council housing, and looking at that as a really great thing, but we see horrible stories of local authority properties in serious disrepair. We have lower satisfaction in the social sector than we do in the private rented sector. At the same time, we are focusing on making life really difficult for responsible landlords who have good quality accommodation to bring to market. We do not want to dissuade those people from bringing it to the market; <span id="11" class="column-number" data-column-number="11"></span>we want to encourage them. I think the sequence of this needs to be that the Bill must deliver for responsible landlords and renters, and give them security, but it must also address some fundamental issues about supply.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{50E9F3B2-0A94-4229-9722-B452CE7116D6}"> </QNum></strong> When I met your Citizens Advice colleagues in my constituency, they said, “We can give all the advice that you like, but ultimately, the problem is that money out is more than money in.” I have that ringing in my ears, and that inspires this question. We all know that rents have been increasing out of proportion to incomes over the last few years, creating this growing gap where one or, at this rate, two generations of people risk never being able to afford to get out of the private rented sector. I am really worried about that, especially as that group ages. Do you think the Bill does enough to address the issue of affordability of rents and the long-term and growing problem of those generations of people, moving into old age, permanently trapped in the private rented sector? <em><strong>Tom MacInnes:</strong></em> We will not go back to the bit about rent rises, but we will talk about some other aspects. The thing that concerns us is asking for enormous amounts of rent up front, so what we want is to have that limited to a month’s rent up front. There are also other issues around guarantors and asking for guarantors, in the next stage along the process. We think that has discriminatory consequences against people who actually can afford it, but cannot point to the evidence of it—people who could afford the rent but do not have anyone in their social circle, if you like, who could back them up for a year or whatever. We would like the instances of relying on guarantors to be reduced. If the issue of perceived affordability changes, the choice for those groups grows; we are looking for that kind of support. We welcome the end of “No DSS, no benefits”, but we are worried about that coming in in other ways, such as someone not having rich enough friends to back them up. We would like to see that being addressed.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{10D46D10-9F86-4A6D-AABF-7DCDD5F9EAD4}"> </QNum></strong> As far as I am concerned, you can talk about rent controls. <em><strong>Tarun Bhakta:</strong></em> We really agree with those points about rent in advance and guarantors, which are particular priorities for Shelter. Particularly through our legal services, we have been one of the foremost organisations supporting tenants to challenge DSS or housing benefit discrimination. We see how slippery that discrimination is. It is very difficult for tenants to understand whether they have experienced it. To add to what Tom said, we have some evidence that rent-in-advance requests are disproportionately made to housing benefit claimants, but that also applies to older renters, as do guarantor requests. Rent-in-advance and guarantor requests often come together or are linked. A lot of older renters do not have someone in their support network who is willing or able to offer to be a guarantor. The effect of these requests that landlords introduce is to lock people out of the rented sector. Tom said that they are perceived affordability issues. It is that first step into housing, and affordability is strongly relevant to that, but we find that people who can afford the rent are prevented from renting properties because of arbitrary barriers such as rent-in-advance and guarantor requests. To answer your question more directly, it is fair to say that the Bill does not introduce measures to address affordability in the sector. We think the Government should take a longer look at that and, to go back to my <span id="19" class="column-number" data-column-number="19"></span>previous answer, take a more reasoned approach to rent controls. Essentially, they should explore the options, particularly where rent increases for sitting tenants are forcing them out of their homes. That undermines the core purpose of this Bill, which is to provide greater security for tenants and help them to avoid homelessness. Beyond that, it is clear that we need much greater provision of social housing and much more adequate housing benefit in order to tackle some of the affordability issues in the private rented sector.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{D99A4247-118D-4460-A38B-F36DDF98C054}"> </QNum></strong> You will notice that I have a rent-affordability theme, but this is probably my last question on that theme. I am aware that the Renters’ Reform Coalition would like to see a national rental affordability commission that looks into options for rent controls. If we reflect on what a previous panellist said about rent controls being not a single thing but an umbrella term for a wide spectrum of possible interventions, Tom, or Ben if you have anything to add, would you like to expand on how a national rental affordability commission might work to figure out what the best solutions would be? <em><strong>Tom Darling:</strong></em> I think Ben touched on it. The literature shows that different types of rent control have worked best in combination with a bunch of other policy levers, and particularly the supply of social housing. If the Government are continuing to set out that affordability is not the thing they are going to deal with in this Bill, we think it would be sensible to have a national rental affordability commission that could look at all these issues in the round—including all the different policy levers such as local housing allowance, housing benefit, the supply of social housing and different forms of rent controls—to bring down rents relative to wages and make renting more affordable. That feels like a pipe <span id="29" class="column-number" data-column-number="29"></span>dream at the moment, but it should not be. That should be our aim. If the Government are not going to take forward affordability in this Bill, that sort of commission might be a place where they could look at all the different policy levers which, it should be said, cut across different Departments, and it might be a way to take that forward. <em><strong>Ben Twomey:</strong></em> On that point, the idea of rent regulation being a scary thing is not new, and it is something that is hammed up by the landlord groups. They obviously want to make as much as profit as they can, but they do not have a right to make profit; they have a right to seek it. In this market, it is so broken because, unlike lots of other types of markets, the landlords can just click their fingers and say, “I’m short £100 this month. I’ll get it off my tenant.” A tenant will usually be forced to pay or have no other options unless they want to leave the home or even become homeless. It is a very broken market. We used to have regulation in many ways in the country more than 30 years ago. Things have not got better since then, so the trial we have had of not using these measures has not really worked for people. These are all things that a commission could look at, or on which the Bill could take some quite straightforward measures. Similar to the energy price cap, with which we recognise that energy is essential for our homes, our homes are also essential for our homes. We should probably think about some common-sense solutions to that.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{BB7D2FB0-5EDF-45C3-B3CD-8824E167D045}"> </QNum></strong> I have three questions, but they are all yes/no, so you can be as brief as you like. First, do you agree with a previous panellist that the landlord licensing rules need to be loosened so that councils can have more discretion and flexibility to apply, for example, landlord licensing across their whole area rather than just bits of it? Secondly, do you think that the potential <span id="35" class="column-number" data-column-number="35"></span>penalty of £7,000 that local authorities can apply is sufficient to act as a deterrent? Thirdly, do you think that the Bill goes far enough on housing quality, and especially energy efficiency, given that, as we have heard from previous panellists, homes in the UK are some of the worst in Europe on energy efficiency, and the private rented sector is the worst within that? <em><strong>Richard Blakeway:</strong></em> On licensing, yes. On the deterrent, yes and no. You have to recognise that the penalties have increased in this Bill, and that is important, but I emphasise my point about the scope and whether, for example, non-compliance with ombudsman decisions should be brought into the scope of that.<span id="36" class="column-number" data-column-number="36"></span> On energy efficiency, obviously there are significant measures in here, but it will be important to see what the decent homes standard—I think it is in clause 98—contains in order to judge what the standard of accommodation will look like in the future.
This is my first time on a Public Bill Committee, Sir Christopher, so I might make a mistake with process. May I briefly point Jerome at the answers provided in written evidence and in earlier verbal evidence, which I felt answered the question already? In terms of, “Surely, won’t all tenants do it?”, I think we heard a clear answer that, for the vast majority of the population, anything to do with courts is a terrifying and bureaucratically faffy process that they will not want to engage with. On “Won’t landlords just max it out”—
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{2ECE091E-D010-425E-9A59-B95524A0EAA0}"> </QNum></strong> Since you are an expert on the Scottish system, I will make use of your expertise; I want to ask more about rent controls. In my understanding, when the Scottish Government initially brought in rent controls in tenancy, that was because that was all they had the power to do at the time—they brought it in using existing legislation, initially during the cost of living crisis triggered by the pandemic—and ultimately, that they might do something different. You mentioned the Bill going through at the moment. In your view, is there an inherent problem with rent controls, or could the problems that you described be remedied by having some kind of controls between, as well as within, tenancies? <em><strong>Anna Evans:</strong></em> I think what we have concluded from all of the evidence is that the rent control has to be very carefully designed to avoid unintended consequences. It is above my pay grade to say what that design might be, but there could be a range of ways in which landlords <span id="57" class="column-number" data-column-number="57"></span>try to get around rent control. We have seen examples of offers from tenants—I understand that your Bill will avoid wars between tenants, in terms of rent levels, but because of demand-supply imbalance, tenants do offer landlords higher rents to get properties. Evidence across different states shows that rent control efficacy is variable, so it has to be very carefully designed.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{2B6EFC5E-11F0-4F0A-B4C8-DF335C73CCBF}"> </QNum></strong> I have a specific question on the new grounds for possession that we were just talking about. I interpreted the wording of the new ground that specifically gives the power to recover possession between June and September as potentially an oversight. One of the written statements we received—RRB 04, for Committee members—highlights that as well. The ground seems to fail to consider other kinds of students, such as people on a one-year Masters that starts in January, or nursing students who are often studying over the summer. I know, as I am friends with some of those people, that they found it hard enough to get housing on a non-traditional term as it was, without giving landlords a particular power to kick them out halfway through the summer when they are halfway through their course. Do you share that concern, and do you have suggestions for whether that should be changed? <em><strong>Victoria Tolmie-Loverseed:</strong></em> There are significant numbers of students—I do not know the exact numbers, but more and more are starting with January start dates. <span id="64" class="column-number" data-column-number="64"></span>Some universities have five points in the year when you can start a degree or a Masters. It is problematic for Masters students whose course goes on until September or October, when they are having to write up, or PhD students. That can be difficult. I think there should be more flexibility in the current timetable of June to September, and perhaps in the ability to give notice at different points in the year for student properties.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{7D70A8A8-3B41-4D37-BB18-BB4DA22C7EA5}"> </QNum></strong> I want to ask about one of the things in your submission, so this may help you to expand on it. I thought your proposal on the right to withhold rent for serious disrepair is interesting: it sounds quite radical on the surface, but in any other sector, if one party was breaching a contract and failing to deliver a service, it would be quite normal to withhold payments. Can you expand at all on how that would work in practice or how you envisage it working? What are Acorn’s views on the proposed regime for managing unaffordable rent hikes, and is it enough? <em><strong>Anny Cullum:</strong></em> On withholding rent for serious disrepair, there are much-improved schemes and action within the Bill around the decent homes standard and improving standards for tenants, but a lot of the action set out to be taken if tenants are experiencing disrepair is retroactive or down the line. We know that councils can take a long time to act and that lots of tenants will not pursue things like rent repayment orders because they just do not have the time and energy. But if someone is living with serious disrepair—things like the damp and mould laid out in Awaab’s law, which we are pleased to see moving over to the private rented sector—we think there could be a mechanism whereby, if it is not fixed within the timescale set out by Awaab’s law, they could withhold their rent and pay it to a third party, which could then give the landlord another timescale within which to solve it. If they did not solve it, the tenant would get the rent paid back. If they did, the landlord would get the rent. That would be an immediate incentive to do the work and stop leaving people in the dangerous conditions we see all the time. Landlords are not necessarily going to worry in the moment about a rent repayment order that a tenant may or may not put in for, which would take ages to go through a court—landlords sometimes do not even pay them anyway—whereas, if you can withhold the rent, that will speed along the process of sorting out mouldy and unsafe homes. So that is the mechanism we <span id="87" class="column-number" data-column-number="87"></span>would think of. There are lots of considerations as to how it could work. If you consult on bringing Awaab’s law into the private rented sector, that will be a good place to think about the best mechanism to do it. I think your second question was about rent hikes—rent rises.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{2E44BD7F-BE13-47BC-B55D-7E1FAA4C664B}"> </QNum></strong> Yes—whether you think that the Bill goes far enough to prevent or manage unaffordable rent hikes. <em><strong>Anny Cullum:</strong></em> Unfortunately, no. We as an organisation at the moment would never recommend that anyone go to the rent tribunal, because we have seen tenants go there and have more rent—a higher percentage—awarded than the landlord was asking for in the first place. We are pleased to see that you are going to get rid of that, but we would like to see rent rises capped at the lower of median wage growth over the last three years or inflation. From my experience, I know most tenants are not going to go to the tribunal. It is brilliant if they do, but a lot of people will accept the rise, or have to move out because they cannot afford it, or get into debt. This means that the people who do go to the tribunal will still be judged against market rents that are way more unaffordable than the one at which they went into their contract. Does that make sense? We are not going to bring rents down just by tinkering with the tribunal. This is mainly about making sure that people can stay in their homes and it does not undermine the Government’s efforts to prevent no-fault evictions. This could easily be used as a no-fault eviction by the back door. You could just put the rent up to a level that you know your tenant cannot afford. We do not think comparing what is affordable with new prices is the best way, so we would advocate for that cap on how much rent could be increased by.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{1D210AC9-5953-49CA-98B5-029C0F46F61A}"> </QNum></strong> One of the topics that has come up several times today is whether grounds for possession should all be discretionary, or whether some should be mandatory and some discretionary. I understand that, when the previous Renters (Reform) Bill was going through, you were in favour of them all being discretionary. <em><strong>Matthew Pennycook:</strong></em> That is not correct.
Okay, then this is an invitation for you to talk us through your rationale, because that was my understanding. While I am at it, if there is anything where your mind has changed since the previous Bill, could you briefly talk us through why? <em><strong>Matthew Pennycook:</strong></em> It is important to give context for the debates on the previous Bill and why, in certain circumstances, we were probing the Minister on making grounds discretionary rather than mandatory, and whether we were pressing the then Minister on additional protections for tenants relating to some of those grounds. The rationale for that was ensuring that the grounds, if they were mandatory, would not be abused. I suppose where my thinking has changed on many of them—I will continue to think on whether we have done enough on specific grounds for possession to protect tenants against abuse—is that the other actions we have taken in the Bill provide the protection we need. I will give an example. On grounds 1 and 1A, where the previous protected period was smaller and the previous re-let period was much smaller—three months, not the 12 that we are proposing—in our view there was clear scope for abuse there. In many parts of the country, particularly hot rental markets—including London, and I am sure it is the same in Bristol—landlords are quite willing to suffer three-month void periods because the rents are so high. In a sense, if that is your re-let period on those mandatory grounds, you can get rid of what you consider a problem tenant, such as one who has complained perhaps entirely appropriately about damp, mould and other hazards. If you wait the three-month void period, then re-let, you have effectively recreated section 21 by the back door. I think we have dealt with the abuse, which is from memory where we were probing the Minister about the discretionary or mandatory distinction. We have provided protections in other ways in the majority of cases. I am giving consideration, as I say, to some of the grounds and whether we have quite got sufficient protections in place. I think Justin Bates KC, for example, raised ground 6A, where action is rightly taken against the landlord whose practices need bearing down on, but the tenant should not suffer in that regard.
I thank the hon. Member for his comments. He has rightly highlighted that solar farms can be combined with food production. There are studies showing that there are even ways in which crop yields can be increased. But would he therefore encourage the Government to be clearer in their national planning policy framework that if solar farm applications are being put forward, they should be combined with food growing as part of the application?
The Minister always engages in a collegiate manner, which I welcome. On rooftop solar, I am sure, despite the disagreements today, that we would all agree that more solar on rooftops is crucial for tackling the climate crisis energy bills. Could he therefore confirm that the future homes standard will require all new homes to include solar panels as standard?
<Question HRSContentId="{E8A7E031-117E-41A9-958C-0294C6328F47}">14. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{E1A3F000-6E72-411B-86B9-528DAA2C7845}">What steps she is taking to monitor and maintain standards of police conduct.</QuestionText> </Question>
<strong> </strong>I thank the Minister for her answers. We have seen a toxic culture in some police services, including WhatsApp messages that are racist, homophobic and sexist, displaying deep prejudice. Will she clarify when the multiple recommendations from the Home Office review into the process of police officer dismissals will be actioned, including changing the law so that those who fail re-vetting can be more simply dismissed?
I begin by welcoming this Bill on behalf of my Green colleagues. I would like to gently comment on the tone of some of this debate. I find myself on the Opposition Benches, <span id="102" class="column-number" data-column-number="102"></span>but that is not to say that I share the sentiments expressed by Conservative Members. In particular, it is a shame that we have seen some very polarised debate today. I want to challenge the rhetoric of, “It’s workers versus employers and unions versus small businesses.” That is both ahistorical and economically illiterate, frankly. It is ahistorical because if we did not have workers organising together to improve their conditions, we would still have children up chimneys and women being paid a small fraction of what men are paid for doing the same work. Such rhetoric is economically illiterate because inequality is bad for growth. It is not just me and Labour Members who say that; the International Monetary Fund has specified that inequality is bad for growth. Let us try to look for the common ground together, and to welcome measures that will improve work and the security of people who work. Let us recognise that, frankly, this Bill is long overdue, because we have seen the erosion of workers’ rights over decades. We are now in a position where work does not pay well enough for far too many people in our country, which is why we have so many people on in-work benefits. I really welcome the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who pointed out that there are much better labour relations in countries where there is a positive recognition that workers’ rights go along with improved economic growth. As a country, let us try to move towards that point. I want to briefly mention a few areas where I would like the Government to go further. The Bill’s failure to fully ban fire and rehire practices is inexplicable. It leaves a loophole or get-out clause that effectively condones this practice, and I do not think there can be any grounds for treating workers in purely transactional terms. Zero-hours contracts are a complex area. I know that some people welcome the opportunity to have zero-hours contracts, but this flies in the face of what the majority of the public wants. The current model leaves far too much power in the hands of employers. I want to briefly mention other aspects of equality. It is disappointing that this Bill does not uphold previous Labour pledges on mandatory disability and ethnicity pay gap reporting. It will lead to increased inequality between migrant workers and others, because it does not address the risks that migrant workers face when their visas are dependent on employers, and they may exit the country before they have had a chance to pursue their employment claims. I would like to see kinship care treated in the same way as adoption leave. The hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) talked about foster carers, too. In summary, I welcome this bill, but there are areas where I would like to see the Government go further to protect workers’ rights.
This week is Flood Action Week, an important opportunity to raise awareness of this crucial issue. This week, sadly, North Herefordshire has been subject to flooding: roads are closed, schools are closed and soil is washing off the fields into the roads and rivers. Unfortunately, climate change is making these events more frequent and more extreme. Does the Leader of the House agree that farmers are crucial partners in tackling flooding through natural flood management? Will she make time for a debate in Government time on the crucial issue of flood prevention and action?
The Darzi report made it very clear that our NHS is under- funded, overstretched and too hospital focused. That has also been a focus of today’s debate so far. I welcome what I heard from the Secretary of State, in last week’s debate on the Darzi report, about investment and reform, and a shift from hospital to community and from sickness to prevention. We all want those things, but they will not happen without more investment, and without a crucial reform in the way the NHS is funded. We have seen a drift towards an increasing focus on acute services and on hospital services at the expense of investment in preventive healthcare and the primary services that we all recognise are so needed, and that my constituents in North Herefordshire so desperately want. <span id="908" class="column-number" data-column-number="908"></span>They want to be able to see a GP, and they want to see the community frontline services that will save their health, and will save the NHS money, in the long run. Can the Minister assure me that she and her colleagues have been doing everything possible to urge the Chancellor to make available the billions of pounds of investment in the NHS that are necessary to bring us back up to scratch in comparison with our peers? Darzi said that we are underfunded in comparison with similar health services. Will she assure me that the Government are considering putting in place some sort of mechanism to protect funding for primary and community care, and indeed to ratchet it up over the years? The way things happen at the moment is that hospitals constantly overspend and those overspends are constantly plugged, which is why the money is going more and more into hospitals and less and less into primary care. Will we get the billions of pounds of investment in the Budget that we need, and will we get that protection and ratchet mechanism for primary care funding that is the only way to ensure that the extra doctors, extra appointments and so forth are delivered?
<Question HRSContentId="{2B3EEB2E-E8E2-4990-820D-783CB333BA4E}">Q4. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{1C328456-08EE-4882-AF86-764A46B21821}"></QuestionText>I associate the Green party with the Prime Minister’s tributes to Alex Salmond and Sir David Amess. Some 99.7% of new patients in the east of England are unable to find an NHS dentist—it is the worst-affected area in the country. My constituents want urgent action, so when will the Government begin the critical negotiations on dental contract reform so that no one in the 21st century has to pull out their own teeth? Will it be by the end of this year?</Question>
On pharmacies, a new report from Healthwatch England reveals a worrying picture of pharmacy closures and reduced hours hitting older people and rural communities the hardest. NHS Norfolk and Waveney integrated care board, which covers much of my constituency, has reported the highest number of hours lost per pharmacy. Does the hon. Lady agree that we urgently need a national evaluation of pharmacy funding, including the size, role mix and distribution of the pharmacy workforce?
The far-right Netanyahu Government continue to assert that they are complying with international law, when in fact they are acting without restraint. That is clear from the atrocities in northern Gaza, the Israeli settlement in the west bank, and completely inadequate evacuation orders issued to densely populated suburbs in Beirut. Will the Minister recognise that the UK is complicit in these war crimes due to the UK Government’s continued refusal to stop all arms sales to Israel?
I believe in taking a positive approach to politics. Not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good is a good principle, and in that spirit, I welcome the Bill. However, I must confess that it is a pretty lukewarm welcome, because this Bill is not a really significant or radical step. Effectively, it is a tweak. We could call it a bit of glorified admin, because it tidies up a thread that has been hanging since 1999. It does not tackle several of the other inequalities and inconsistencies in the composition of the House of Lords. Members across this House have highlighted some of those today, such as the presence of the bishops and the appointment of life peers, so while I welcome the Bill, there is huge room for improvement. House of Lords reform is absolutely long overdue. Three hours or so ago, somebody referenced Asquith in 1911; we have been waiting a really long time. When the Minister introduced the Bill several hours ago, he referenced the next steps in the reform process, and I very much hope we do not have to wait 25 years—or, indeed, 113 years —to find out what those next steps are. Reform is also widely supported, as the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) just said, and it is essential to improve the functioning of our democracy. By the way, there are many other ways in which we could improve the functioning of our democracy, but let us focus on House of Lords reform today. When the Paymaster General introduced the Bill, he spoke about a matter of principle for a Government committed to fairness and equality. He described going step by step in the direction of reform. I challenge him to tell us what the next steps are, to show us his workings and his road map, and to assure us that we will not have to wait 25 or 113 years.
I will not give way, and I will explain why. Like many other Members, I have been waiting and bobbing for hours to have a chance to speak—apart <span id="789" class="column-number" data-column-number="789"></span>from the moment when I left for a prearranged meeting with the Speaker. Several Members on both sides of the House have intervened frequently, thus putting others further down the speaking list. I know that the hon. Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) would like to speak. We need to know the next steps in House of Lords reform. I agree that these are questions of principle. The issue is not the individuals who currently serve in the House of Lords, many of whom are hard-working and experienced, and bring a lot of expertise and effort. That is not the point. The point is that unelected lawmakers should not be a thing. People who make laws should be elected. That is what democracy is about. It is a fundamental principle, and I find it extraordinary that the Bill does not adopt it. The Government are sometimes a little selective in applying the principles for which they nail their colours to the mast. On the principle of unelected people not making laws, why do we still have bishops and life peers? There is no other walk of life in which someone would be appointed to a role for life. We should not have that in our Parliament. I challenge the Paymaster General to use the Government’s huge and disproportionate majority —disproportionate given that it is based on a minority of votes—to take forward the principles of fairness and equality, and to get rid of not just the unfair and unequal hereditary principle, but the unfair and unequal principle of representing certain religions and not others, or of representing any religion. I challenge the Government to get rid of the unfair and unequal principle of giving political appointees life peerages. Will the Paymaster General do that? Will he also set out steps for replacing the House of Lords with an elected house of citizens? Will he take steps to introduce a fair electoral system for this Parliament, so that every vote cast in this country has equal weight?
<Question HRSContentId="{1E757924-31FB-42C3-986C-85EDD98D2133}">T6. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{72A05E89-A663-4EE8-B790-7895080020BD}"></QuestionText>Has the Minister’s capital portfolio review properly considered the health, social and equalities aspects of value for money, and will it therefore recommend cancelling more road building schemes from the previous Government in favour of a real long-term boost to local authority active travel funding?</Question>
Many happy returns to the Leader of the House. This week, questions have been raised about whether Lord Walney is to be sacked as the Government’s anti-extremism adviser, amid concerns about his independence. I understand that a formal complaint will be lodged next week about paid roles that he held advising lobbyists for clients including fossil fuel and arms companies at the same time as he advised the Government that some peaceful climate protesters and anti-war protesters should be considered extremists. May we have a debate on whether we need to revisit the rules around when a Government adviser is formally described as independent, especially when the Government have said that they want to raise standards?
I endorse all my hon. Friend’s comments, particularly on the need for rent controls. In my constituency of Brighton, I have a very high population of renters, including myself. I have only ever been a private renter since leaving home over 30 years ago. My constituency has many young people and students renting, and my local Acorn branch and the National Union of Students have also raised the problems caused by well-off guarantors being required to secure a rented home. I have spoken with the NUS president about this. It fuels discrimination against working-class, estranged and international students, and fuels homelessness among students—
I congratulate the new Members who have made their maiden speeches on the interesting and important points raised. I should declare that I am a member of Acorn Community Union, which campaigns on renters’ rights. Indeed, I have personally campaigned on renters’ rights for a long time now. This welcome Bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to recognise the rights of the 11 million people living in the private rented sector to have a safe, decent and secure home. In the words of activist Kwajo Tweneboa, we are facing<span id="371" class="column-number" data-column-number="371"></span> “the biggest housing crisis since the Second World War”. We have a generation who will never be able to earn enough to have a mortgage and cannot even afford their rents now. The average rent in Bristol Central has hit nearly £1,800 a month, which is more than in several London boroughs, and a huge 47% of households in the constituency are in the private rented sector—that is 18,000 households. As the Secretary of State herself said, good landlords who are already acting fairly have nothing to fear from this Bill, but the rogue ones—like the landlord of my constituent who made countless reports of damp mould and leaks for months with no resolution until the ceiling fell in—need to be held to account. I really recognise the many good parts of the Bill, but I hope the Government will go further on three key issues: security of tenure, rent affordability and energy efficiency. On security of tenure, the extension of notice periods to four months for landlord sale and moving in is progress, but we must have clear evidence thresholds for those grounds of no-fault eviction and measures to ensure that the 12-month “no re-letting” period is not broken. We also need an automatic right of non-payment of rent in the final two months to compensate a tenant for the disruption of being forced to move home. The proposal to outlaw bidding wars is okay as far as it goes, but it is not likely to be effective in tackling rising rents. Landlords could still hike rents to kick people out, so we really need a cap on rent increases within tenancies, set at the lowest of either average wage growth or inflation. Rents in advance should be capped to one month—as a Labour Member suggested—to stop discrimination against people on low incomes. But rents are too high in the first place. To illustrate this point, if a 21-year-old living in Bristol rents a single room today at the average rate, they will have put £80,000 into their landlord’s bank account by the time they reach their 30th birthday. We need a system of rent controls, carefully introduced with local flexibility, aimed at bringing rents down relative to incomes, alongside a suite of policies to address the housing crisis, including a major increase in social housing and real support for community-led housing.