Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Baroness Thornhill and Lord Fuller

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak strongly in favour of Amendment 1. I declare my interests as I rent properties in Norwich and commercial properties in Great Yarmouth through a directorship.

We live in a free-market economy, which is underpinned by the law of contract, a codified agreement between consenting counterparties. Of course, we must have safeguards and regulatory guard-rails to ensure that one party does not hold the other over a barrel, but the freedom of contract so that mutual needs can be codified and agreed is a fundamental part of the way in which we live and is one of the reasons why we have so many learned friends in this place.

I want to give some examples, from my experience as a landlord, of the type of persons who value the ability to customise the standard contract to suit themselves by entering into a fixed term. It is not the majority, but it is a significant proportion that cannot just be wished away. They include: employees on a fixed-term employment contract engaged in a particular project; students, singly or more commonly in groups, who want to secure their ideal house in advance and are able to do so only if the current occupants are sure to vacate in the summer; the busy doctor, who gets passed around the hospitals each August; and the foreign person, who is used to the concept of fixed terms in their own country and cannot understand what business it is of the state to interfere in these private arrangements. Those tenants value contract certainty so that they can focus on their work and generate wealth for our nation.

I like this amendment because it gives an additional benefit to the tenant: not just the fixed tenancy but the fixed rent. That seems a fair compromise, not least because the landlord does not need to price uncertainty into the contract—the uncertainty of a void. As a landlord I value certainty, even at the expense of locking out rent rises, because if I know there will not be a void, I can give a better price and everybody wins. I cannot see what is wrong with that.

The Government boast a commitment to

“transform the experience of private renting”.

They are doing that all right; they are making it harder for a significant minority to meet their reasonable needs. There are so many unintended consequences—the noble Lords, Lord Hacking and Lord Truscott, mentioned some of them. For a moment I thought I was going to be on my own, but I am delighted to see that there is cross-party consensus on the importance of this amendment.

I too was thinking about the abuse in holiday hotspots, where it is common ground that we want to encourage year-round occupation of homes in these coastal areas—although not the second council tax that appears to be emerging alongside. I fear the unintended consequences of this Bill. Let us contemplate a tenancy in Cornwall, taking on in June. The proposed tenant says, “Yes, I’m going to stay for a whole year”, but in the event they leave just after the August bank holiday. The problem is that by giving two months’ notice, it is a clear abuse; and to counter that abuse, landlords will factor in the risk of the vacancy. So they will jack up rents, and the person who genuinely does want to stay for the whole year is disadvantaged. Of course, they may wish to show good faith by paying in advance, but that will be discarded as well. I just cannot see how this helps anyone.

I will talk about students in more detail later, but I am concerned that we are going to seriously disrupt the student market, not just for their convenience. Often in freshers’ week—I saw it in my own experience when I was younger—friendship groups get rammed together and pretty quickly decide they want to go into a house together, and why not? Halls do not suit anybody. The purpose of the fixed tenancy is the discipline that binds them all together. They are not related—at least not when they start; I have been in houses where that does happen—but you get a situation where one person may want to quit half way through, and it reverses the obligation. Rather than that person being forced to find another student to take his or her place, it becomes the obligation of all his former friends to undertake that core activity. The responsibility is flipped, and I do not think that is good either.

There are so many other things I could say, but this is a good amendment. It does not wreck the Bill but enhances it. It works with the grain of the way a significant minority of people, consenting adults, wish to conduct their affairs and come to a sensible contract for those it suits. I agree strongly with what the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, said. There are limits to where the state should interfere; it should allow free citizens to exercise the choices that they should be entitled to make. This amendment deserves our full support.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I listened almost with shock at what noble Lords were saying because I feel as if I am living in an alternate universe. They live in the cosy one—I smiled when the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, talked about him and his wife as landlords, and I can absolutely believe that his tenants loved him and enjoyed living with him. But sadly, that is not reality—it is not the situation. People say the Government have no right to interfere; if a Government have no right to interfere in making a roof over people’s heads—the basic issue of having a home—part of government business, please tell me what they can interfere in. Defence of the realm, yes, but ensuring that people can have a safe, secure, affordable home certainly has to be the business of government.

This Bill is scarily radical. I am often guilty of saying that the rhetoric does not match up to the reality, but the rhetoric around this Bill—the biggest changes since whenever, radically changing the system—is correct. The system is meant to be changed because it is broken. It is very brave and very bold. His Majesty’s Official Opposition probably think it is very stupid, which they are entitled to think because that is their job. The real issue around this Bill is that we are leaping into the unknown. We do not know what the impact will be. We have been told that Armageddon will happen; we will have to see. We and the Official Opposition do agree that there should be formal reviews in the Bill where its impact can be scrutinised in Parliament in full—because it is that radical.