Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Baroness Janke

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 133 in my name and that of Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. This amendment would require landlords to grant permission for home adaptations that constitute reasonable adjustments where these have been recommended by local authority assessments.

Disabled individuals in the private rented sector often face significant barriers in accessing essential adaptations that allow them to live safely, independently and with dignity. According to the English Housing Survey for 2022, 21% of private renters live in homes that fail to meet the decent home standards and 16% of private renters with a long-term illness or disability are in homes with at least one category 1 hazard, such as the risk of falls or inadequate heating. These conditions are not only uncomfortable; they can actively endanger health and undermine independence. The Family Resources Survey for 2022-23 reports that 24% of people in the UK are disabled, amounting to approximately 16 million individuals. With such a significant proportion of the population affected, the case for making housing adaptable and accessible is both moral and practical.

We know that many disabled renters face long delays, refusals or restrictive conditions when requesting simple modifications. Even small adjustments such as installing grab rails, ramps or stairlifts can make the difference between a person being able to remain in their home or being forced to move, rely on care or live in unsafe conditions. This amendment seeks to remove those barriers by ensuring that tenants can make necessary changes, subject to the existing checks and balances of local authority assessments. It offers a proportionate, workable solution that respects landlords’ rights while upholding the basic needs of tenants.

The amendment would also help to reduce demand on already stretched social housing by enabling more disabled people to remain in private accommodation that suits their needs. Given that nearly a quarter of the population is disabled, the need for accessible and safe housing is clear and pressing. This amendment offers a practical step to ensure that those who need adaptations are not denied them by process, delay or indifference.

I urge noble Lords to support this amendment in order to make real the promise of equality under the law and to ensure that disabled renters can live in homes that support their independence, health and dignity. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, my Amendments 178 and 191, along with Amendment 133 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, highlight some of the challenges that disabled people face living in rented accommodation. Life is hard if you have to live with a disability, and it makes sense if where you live can help you have as much of an active life as possible. When we talk about disabled people, we are not just talking about wheelchair users; we are talking, for example, about people who might react badly to certain colours or intensity of lighting. Step-free access these days ought to be almost automatic, given our ageing population.

The sad reality is that Britain’s housing stock has not been designed with disabled people in mind, and the provision of adaptations for disabled housing is quite scarce. My Amendment 191 would give people reassurance that they can ask about and discuss disability adjustments when looking for somewhere to live, without being disadvantaged. Amendment 178 would take this further and give tenants a right to make minor adaptations for disabilities without needing consent from the landlord.

Taken together, these amendments would support people with disabilities to live healthier, happier lives by ensuring that they have specific rights to meet their needs. I hope that the Minister can take this issue away and look at it, as there are some simple ways forward that will have a huge beneficial impact on disabled people and their families.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Baroness Janke

Monday 13th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of the amendment as one of the very few people in this House—I exclude the noble Lord, Lord Tope—who has had up close experience of the two London mayors we have had over the past 15 years. I can assure noble Lords that the system works sometimes, but not always, so to make it a compulsory element is absolutely nonsensical. Some of the language used here is a bit misleading. Talking about an elected Mayor of London as local government is a complete nonsense because it is not local government, it is regional government. The whole point of the Mayor of London is that he or she is not a local politician; they are a regional politician with responsibility for the strategic oversight of the area to which they are elected. Sometimes it works and sometimes it fails. It has failed spectacularly in London on our housing stock. The fact that we are so short of affordable and social housing is, I think, a failure of the mayor. As I say, this is not about local government, but strategic regional government.

I can assure noble Lords that making an elected mayor compulsory is nonsensical. It all depends on the talents and abilities of the person, and I would argue that while it has worked for some issues, for people here to say, “It is the answer because it is modern, innovative and fresh thinking”, is complete nonsense. Please do not be fooled; rather, accept that a mayor should be an optional extra, not compulsory.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I too rise to support Amendments 3 and 4, and to echo some of the comments that have already been made. This is actually about choice. The Minister has rightly said that the Bill is not prescriptive, and yet it is highly prescriptive when it talks about mayors. We can see different forms of leadership working well in other parts of the country. We talk about international cities and Europe, but mayors in France are not directly elected; they are the top person on the list. People in other cities elect their leaders in different ways. Some call them mayors and some do not, and as I say, some of them are not directly elected.

We heard last week from colleagues who said that in their area of the country, a mayor would be entirely inappropriate. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has explained how it would be unacceptable and inappropriate in her own area. I would say that if we are in favour of no prescription, we should allow innovative forms of leadership to emerge in different parts of the country. We should not try to impose a certain form and say that people will not have powers if they do not adopt a mayor.

Perhaps I may talk briefly about the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and his rewriting of the history of the city of Bristol. I should point out at the start that the successes of Bristol have been well known for a long time. For the past 10 to 15 years it has been the most successful city outside London. It has the highest GDP per head of population of any English city except London and it is the European Green Capital, something that emerged through my own administration and has been carried on by the mayor. Certainly, there was instability of government when the Labour Party lost its majority on the city council, but that is no different from what has happened in many other places. Indeed, the city ran a successful three-party coalition for 18 months. I led that coalition, so it is no good the noble Lord shaking his head; that is indeed what happened—