Renters’ Rights Act: Definition of Court Readiness
Lord Carrington Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
It certainly would not help tenants to delay implementation of the Act. Tenants are waiting for this, and have been for a very long time indeed. We are working very closely with our colleagues in the Ministry of Justice on a number of fronts, including digitisation of the system, ensuring that more staff are prepared and making sure that we are ready for this. We are working closely with the judiciary and the ministry to ensure that the First-tier Tribunal has the capacity to deal with applications.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests in the private rented sector, with cottage lettings in Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire. Sadly, there is not just the current delay of up to 15 months in the court granting a repossession; there is then an additional delay of up to seven or eight month waiting for a bailiff to carry out the eviction. What plans do the Government have to improve the bailiff service? A further point is the bankruptcy service’s increased granting of a breathing space to enable the tenant to put his affairs in order, though there is no consultation with the landlord on this. This can result in a further two-month delay in obtaining possession, along with the time necessary to appoint a bailiff. Is this the level playing field promised by the Government?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I do not think we should exaggerate the situation as it currently stands. The Ministry of Justice quarterly possession statistics show that median timeliness for claim to order is 7.3 weeks and that the median average time from landlord claim to repossession is 27 weeks. However, not all landlords will experience the whole court process. Of the landlord possession claims issued in 2024, only 28% progressed to the stage where bailiff enforcement was necessary. Bailiffs are responsible for a range of sensitive work. HM Courts & Tribunals Service is working to make sure that the timeliness of bailiff enforcement is improved.
Renters’ Rights Act: Implementation
Lord Carrington Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
We want to improve all parts of the sector and make sure that home buying is available for young people, as well as making the rental market fairer for them. I had a big round table last week with a group from across the sector —agents, conveyancers, the legal profession, financial services and developers—to see what we can do to make it both a faster and more accessible process for young people to be able to realise the dream, which many of us were able to realise, of buying their own home.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest in the private rented sector in Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire.
The Minister refers to the Renters’ Rights Act as producing better conditions in the private rented sector. Surely, this very much depends on the ongoing consultation on the home energy model methodology for assessing existing dwellings and producing new energy performance certificate metrics. I gather that this will conclude at the end of March. Will the Government commit to publishing their response and detailed guidance within six months of this date, so that landlords can have the clarity and confidence to prepare and budget for the necessary improvements?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
If the noble Lord is referring to the minimum energy efficiency standards implementation, we have published our response to the consultation on those standards in the private rented sector. We have listened to the voices from across that sector. The response confirmed our decision to set new regulations in the private rented sector for landlords to meet EPC C or equivalent by 1 October 2030 for all tenancies unless a valid exemption applies. The consultation also confirmed that landlords will not be required to spend more than £10,000 per property. Exemptions will last for 10 years.
Renters’ Rights Bill
Lord Carrington Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to Motion J, specifically Amendment 62. I declare my interest in farming and rented cottages in Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire. I want to set out on the record that the NFU and I have every reason to thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, for her tremendous work on these amendments, particularly the one I am speaking to. I also thank the Minister, Matthew Pennycook, for his attention to it as well. I very much hope that this sets a precedent, particularly in the realms of the Ministers of Defra and the Treasury, to take farming interests more seriously and learn from what we have learned here today.
Lord Willetts (Con)
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Motion H1 and the powerful points that have just been made by noble friend Lady Scott. The Minister spoke as if one-bedroom and two-bedroom student accommodation would be occupied by families and people who needed deep roots in their university environment, but much of it is also occupied by undergraduate students, who are often on low incomes, because this tends to be the lowest cost accommodation. If academic year tenancies in one-bedroom and two-bedroom accommodation become unviable then there is a real risk that this will act as a constraint on students going to university.
The Minister said that these fears would not be borne out, and I understand the sincerity with which she makes that point. However, we cannot be confident. My regret, looking back over the exchanges we have had as the Bill has progressed through this House, is that we have not heard at any point any kind of undertaking to review or assess year on year whether student accommodation is being affected by this measure. We simply cannot be as confident as she appears to be that these dangers will not arise. Therefore, I strongly support Motion H1.
Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards: Cost Caps for Landlords
Lord Carrington Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Carrington
To ask His Majesty’s Government why the cost caps proposed for landlords in the social and private rented sectors to meet the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards are different.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my interest in the private rented sector, with rented cottages in Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, all renters deserve warm and safe homes. Both consultations on the minimum energy efficiency standards for private and social rented homes sought views on the options of a £10,000 and £15,000 maximum spend requirement. During the consultation, we engaged extensively with a broad range of stakeholders to understand the potential impact of the policy and how we can ensure that requirements are fair and proportionate for landlords and tenants. The difference between the proposals reflects the different starting positions of the sectors and the need to support social landlords to deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation. Final decisions have not yet been taken. We will consider responses to both consultations to ensure that an appropriate figure is set for each tenure.
Lord Carrington (CB)
I thank the Minister for her response. Surely the guiding principle should be that tenants in the social rented sector should have the same level of investment in their properties as those in the private sector. I think that is an important principle. The Government are proposing to increase the current cap from £3,500 to £15,000, and to achieve this requires a fair and workable funding model. Given this, will the Government consider a graduated cap on the amount landlords would be expected to spend to meet the planned energy efficiency standards, taking into account factors such as the rental value of the property, its location, its age and its heritage? With such a balanced approach, I think we will see landlords staying in the private sector, but without it we may see sales.
Renters’ Rights Bill
Lord Carrington Excerpts(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Hacking (Lab)
I am now getting congratulations from my noble friend, which are very warmly felt. We cannot, however, leave the Bill without giving profound thanks to my noble friend the Minister for her pioneering of the Bill through all stages of its passage through this House. I think I echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in that regard.
Throughout, the Minister has been a paragon of patience and courtesy. She has also been enormously conscientious, holding meetings right up to the third day on Report and sending letters—even though the letter to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was somehow in transit on the third day of debate. Not wishing to leave anybody out, she recently thanked and congratulated a Peer on a speech he had not made, but nobody was left out as a result.
A special reason to thank and congratulate the Minister is the sheer length and complexity of the Bill. I also congratulate the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott and Lady Thornhill, on dealing with the length and complexity of the Bill, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson—I am sorry that I did not bring his name to the fore until now. The Bill itself—this is somewhat alarming—stretches over 258 pages but still has to be spliced into earlier statutes, most particularly the Housing Act 1988.
I have in my hand the annotated current edition of the Housing Act 1988. It stretches over 383 pages but, by the time the provisions of this Bill have been spliced into it, it will be 600 or 700 pages long. I do not wish to introduce this debate now, but I believe the length of these Bills is a subject that should have attention on another occasion. For example, the Housing Act 1988 can be read in its completion. It tells you the state of landlord and tenant law in 1988. When I first came to the House 54 years ago, legislation was not run in this direction. As I said, this is a matter for another debate on another occasion.
I will just end on a personal note. I am aware that it must have been difficult for my noble friend the Minister to have me sitting right behind her and muttering from time to time, but I ask her forgiveness. I am very lame. I always used to sit at the back, but I am afraid my lameness has taken me to immediately behind the Minister. I apologise, but I hope that she will accept that my many interventions were made in a genuine attempt to improve the Bill: to focus more clearly on the rogue landlord and to protect the honest landlord.
Lord Carrington (CB)
I give my very personal thanks to the Minister for her work on this Bill and the enormous amount of follow-up she achieved. Her final letter arrived, as the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, just mentioned, on Friday.
I have two reservations. All my amendments were about two matters. The first was the difference of the private rental sector in rural areas and the second was the effect of the Bill on institutional investment in the sector. I will be watching these in the remainder of my stay in the House of Lords. In the meantime, I would like to thank everybody who has been involved and not waste any more of your Lordships’ time.
Renters’ Rights Bill
Lord Carrington Excerpts(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Thornhill (LD)
No, I was listening to the debate and trying to get my thoughts in order. I will be very brief because, as I said on the previous group, it is clear that we will oppose anything that lowers the fines.
I am a little bit concerned about some of the attitudes towards local government that are coming out, particularly from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, from her own experiences. Local authorities have experience and expertise; they employ lawyers and solicitors, and they make sure they apply fair and proportionate responses to enforcement across a range of things and do it with consistency and uniformity. There is almost an infantilisation of local authorities, as if they want to grab lots of money from lovely, well-meaning landlords with one cottage in a little village. I say to the noble Baroness that I do not see that happening.
I see that approach to enforcement across a range of things. Even if we are changing parking rules, for example, we put a little notice on windscreens, saying, “Next week, you will get fined if you park here”. Local authorities have guidance and standards that they like to adhere to. I guess there is the odd rogue local authority, like there is the odd rogue landlord, but I do not like the way we want to have things absolutely pinned down so that local authorities can have no discretion about what they do.
The Bill is bold and radical and has new things in it that have to succeed—the database, for example, has to succeed. If the fine is not enough to deter landlords, it will be ineffective, and one of the tools that makes this transformative will have been taken away from local authorities. We have to trust local authorities. I doubt that many £40,000 fines will happen, and I guess that is why we are also calling for reviews—such things will be part of looking at that.
We certainly need to give local authorities higher financial penalties. I am quietly confident that they will not take them out on the uninformed landlord. There is also something faintly patronising about the idea of uninformed landlords. There is so much information out there and so many landlord lobbying groups that it would be surprising if they were not aware that there had been some changes. If they are astute enough to be a landlord, and a good landlord, they will be astute enough to notice that this big Renters’ Rights Bill might just have some impact on them. We will not vote for any amendment that reduces the ability of councils to impose higher fines.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I support the amendment, but I want to concentrate on a slightly different aspect, which came up in the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, and remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. The noble Lord referred to the fact that rogue landlords will ignore whatever we put in the Bill, and that may well be the case, although I hope he is not accurate on that. The noble Baroness mentioned that there are people in Wales who will never have heard of the Bill but are expected to conform to the provisions in it. My question for the Minister covers both aspects. Can she at some point, whether now or later, tell us about the implementation of the Bill, so that everybody understands how it works and avoids going to court and all the other matters?
Lord Carrington
“(9) Different days may be appointed for different purposes in relation to Chapter 1 of Part 1 so that—(a) one day (not sooner than three months after this Act is passed) is appointed for the purposes of new tenancies, and(b) one day (not sooner than six months after this Act is passed) is appointed for the purposes of existing tenancies.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that at least three months’ notice is given prior to new tenancies becoming section 4A assured tenancies and that at least a further three months’ notice is given before existing tenancies become section 4A assured tenancies.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 122 and welcome the support of the noble Lord, Lord Hacking. The amendment aims to introduce a transition period of three months for new assured tenancies and six months for existing tenancies before the Bill’s provisions take effect.
Much of the debate surrounding this legislation focuses quite rightly on the need to tackle rogue or criminal landlords, while ensuring that the new responsibilities applied to PRS landlords are fair, equitable and sustainable. However, there is another important consideration which has received considerably less attention but which is equally critical if we are to maintain a vibrant PRS.
The implementation of the Bill’s measures must avoid any disruption in the flow of mortgage finance that underpins most of our country’s privately rented homes. Careful consideration must be given to the implementation of the legislation to ensure a smooth transition to the new tenancy system. A great many landlords have no knowledge of the Bill and what it entails. Landlords, lenders and others in the PRS will need time and support to adjust to the significant changes that the new tenancy system requires.
I would like to explain why this, or a very similar amendment, was not tabled in Committee. Lenders rightly wanted further engagement with government to discuss how the legislation can be implemented successfully, to share insights on the impact on the lenders and to consider how the sector can be supported to ensure the best outcome for tenants. In order to achieve a smooth transition to the tenancy system, following Second Reading in February the mortgage lenders, led by UK Finance, wrote to the Minister at MHCLG in early March requesting a meeting. The Minister’s officials at MHCLG responded in mid-April, offering that meeting. Ongoing discussions then started regarding the concerns of the lenders. I thought it best to wait till the outcome of those discussions was known before muddying the waters with an amendment. Unfortunately, these discussions, which also involved HM Treasury, have not so far satisfied the mortgage lenders. In fact, no follow-up has been received from the Treasury. Current meetings continue to take place with the Bank of England.
As noble Lords have been made aware, the PRS currently houses one in five households, including workers, students and those unable to buy homes or access social housing. Some 60% of landlords rely on buy-to-let mortgages. To maintain the supply of PRS homes needed to meet sustained demand, a continuing flow of buy-to-let mortgage finance is therefore essential. As such, the Government should welcome this amendment to introduce a transition period for the introduction of reforms before the Bill’s provisions take effect, so that the buy-to-let mortgage lenders have sufficient time to implement the necessary system changes.
I believe the Government have committed to implementing the new tenancy system in one stage, avoiding unnecessary cliff edges and working with all parts of the sector to ensure a smooth transition. To achieve this, sufficient time will be needed for the sector to prepare. The changes will include drafting new tenancy agreements, developing training materials to support property professionals, helping agents understand the new procedures, and enabling insurance and mortgage providers to adjust their policies, among other issues.
It would make enormous sense to provide a transition period to support the industry to implement the required changes. These lenders will need at least three to six months, depending on whether the tenancies underpinned by their mortgages are new or existing, to implement the changes required by the legislation. To give some examples, lenders will need to review new mortgage application terms and conditions, mortgage offers and lending policies. Additionally, lenders with forward flow or warehouse agreements for funding may need approval from their funders and forward flow partners.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for his amendment and for his engagement generally on the Bill. Subsequent to our meeting earlier this week, I had a detailed response prepared for the noble Lord on Clause 145. Unfortunately, it arrived in my inbox just as I was coming into the Chamber this afternoon. It probably has not reached him yet, but that is on its way to him.
On Amendment 122, the Government are committed to introducing the new tenancy system for the private rented sector in one stage to bring to an end Section 21 no-fault evictions as soon as possible. These evictions cause utter misery for the tenants on the other end of them and a huge amount of cost to local government in picking up the pieces when people get evicted at very short notice. A single implementation date for both new and existing tenancies will enable all tenants to benefit from the reforms as soon as possible and prevent a confusing two-tier system during transition.
We are continuing to work very closely with stakeholders. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, referred to meetings between my honourable friend the Minister for Housing and financial institutions. He has also met with many landlords’ associations and other stakeholders to ensure that the sector is prepared for the reforms in the Bill. I want to be very clear that we are committed to providing sufficient notice to ensure that all parts of the private rented sector have time to prepare. Implementation will not be immediate, as we have secondary legislation to pass. We are making good progress on drafting that and the necessary guidance that goes alongside it. All this will help us to implement in a timely manner.
In addition, the Bill makes specific provision to ensure a smooth transition to the new system and avoid unnecessary cliff edges. For example, the Bill will ensure that notices served by landlords before the commencement date remain valid after that date. Based on our ongoing work to ensure a smooth transition to the new system, we consider that there will be no benefit to requiring arbitrary minimum time periods after Royal Assent before the tenancy reform measures in the Bill can come into force.
With these reassurances that we are committed to a smooth and responsible approach to implementing the Bill, I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for her engagement with me, although the letter has not arrived yet. I am in a position of enormous power now, in the sense that this is the very last amendment and I am keeping noble Lords from their drinks and everything else. I am very pleased that the Minister has now reassured me that the cliff edge will not happen just like that as far as financial institutions are concerned, and that there will be time for preparation.
I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, for his support and his emphasis on the fact that this was not a political amendment but a practical one. I wish him great success in the work he does with his tenants. Happily, I have someone to help me.
Having thanked everybody for their kind engagement and sometime support, I have pleasure in withdrawing the amendment.
Renters’ Rights Bill
Lord Carrington Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 34 and the associated Amendments 35, 36 and 40 in my name and kindly supported by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking. First, I thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, for her ongoing engagement with me and other noble Lords and Baronesses throughout the steps that this important Bill has taken thus far. My amendments concern a vital part of the Bill: the right of renters to challenge annual rent increases.
There remains strong consensus across this House and in the other place that stands with the Government in ensuring that unreasonable and exploitative rent increases are avoided. Such increases should not be used in this way across the private rented sector as a means of eviction through the back door. However, despite the Government’s own recent amendments, which I will turn to in due course, I remain strongly of the opinion that the Government’s current drafting of Clause 7 will not work, even with the new failsafe mechanism that has been added in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor.
It remains the case that under the current wording of the Bill, renters will have a universal right to challenge any and every rent increase they receive, in all circumstances and without qualification. Moreover, increases that the First-tier Tribunal agrees will come into effect only once the tribunal has given its ruling. This wording continues to have the very real and dangerous potential to undermine the supply of new rental homes in England and, at the same time, overwhelm the courts.
The Government believe that renters will apply to the tribunal only if they believe that a rent increase is above market rents. Like others, I am afraid that will not be the result of this legislation. The legal text of the Bill still sets out that a rent increase could not come into force until after the tribunal rules. The result of this drafting is to create an artificial incentive for all renters—all 4.5 million of them—to submit a challenge to a proposed increase in rent from their landlord, however legitimate. This would prevent the increase coming into force until the tribunal decides. There is no risk to the renter in this, as it provides a guaranteed delay. Once this is widely understood, as was pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, renters will exercise their right as a matter of course. Indeed, I expect a celebrity such as Martin Lewis would immediately note the opportunity to delay rent increases as a money-saving tactic for renters.
This incentive also risks the efficacy of the First-tier Tribunal by burdening an already struggling court with thousands of cases. This would result in those in real need waiting potentially months longer for access to justice from exploitative landlords. The Government rightly want renters in genuine need of redress to have access to the court, but the queue for justice will be too long for this to prove realistic.
My amendments seek to ensure that if a rent increase is challenged, but the increase is upheld by the tribunal, the rent increase becomes effective from the original date of the Section 13 notice. This important detail removes the incentive for spurious challenges that are being used only as a delaying tactic by renters who are challenging their rent increase because they simply want to delay payment of it. By removing this incentive, only those renters with real cause and who are being exploited, and are therefore likely to get the support of the tribunal’s decision, will challenge rent increases. These are the very people who should be at the front of the queue when it comes to these sorts of challenges.
I turn to the amounts of money we are looking at when it comes to rent increases. I want to explain how my amendments, while deterring spurious challenges, also support renters who challenge their rent but with whom the tribunal is not in agreement. The Office for National Statistics notes that the average rent per month in the United Kingdom, in the 12 months to April 2025, was £1,339. The average rent increase across the UK in the same 12-month period was 7%. Therefore, if we were to take 7% as a marker for the rent increase in the next 12 months, we would be looking at the average rent across the UK increasing by around £93 per month.
Now, £93 can be a good deal of money to many across the country, particularly as the cost of living crisis continues. This pressure on household finances has not been overlooked in my amendments, which cover the concerns of the Minister and others that renters may be put under undue financial pressure if they are unsuccessful in their rent challenges and are required to pay back large lump sums of backdated rent at once.
Under the Bill, every renter from the time it is implemented would have the ability to challenge and delay the £93 per month annual increase without needing to provide a reason, be it financial or otherwise, as to why they are challenging that increase. However, if the tribunal, when it eventually gets to each and every challenge, judges in the landlord’s favour, my amendments would ensure that instead of that renter needing to pay their landlord a backdated amount of rent immediately, a 12-month payment plan would be put in place. This means that if it took six months for the challenge to be reviewed by the courts and a decision made, the renter would not need to find the extra rent immediately but would need only to find the extra £46.50 each month over the next 12 months to pay their landlord in backdated rent. This seems entirely reasonable, and I hope the inclusion of this amendment has been carefully considered by the Minister.
I now turn to the Government’s assessment that renters will apply to the tribunal only if they believe a rent increase is above market rents. The Government are placing a great faith in this opinion and have commissioned a new burdens assessment and justice impact test, which is referred to many times throughout the Bill’s impact assessment, from November last year. However, we have not been able to review or scrutinise these two important documents, as they have not been published. Were we able to see and scrutinise them in this place, many of us may be reassured by the Government’s current opinion on levels of renters who will challenge their rent, but while the Government restrict access to these documents, we must rely on what the Bill says and our understanding of renters and the PRS as it stands in a time when household finances are tight and there is every incentive to delay a rent increase.
The Government have tabled a fail-safe amendment to Clause 7, but again there is a lack of detail here too. In Amendment 37 in the name of the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, we are not given clarity around when such a power would be used and what the trigger for this would be. What level of caseload would the tribunal need to face before the Government were to step in and introduce backdating? Therefore, while I applaud the Government for considering Clause 7 and tabling this amendment, I fear it will do nothing to reassure the sector. It is also interesting to note that in the event of the introduction of the fail-safe mechanism, rents will be charged from the date of the Section 13 notice—quite a reversal of policy from the tribunal decision date. If we had the detail around when such a statutory instrument would be enacted, we might be able to agree with the Government on the amendment, but as it stands, sadly I cannot.
To sum up, taken together, I believe that Amendments 34, 35, 36 and 40 in my name would deliver a fair result. They are technical changes that keep the vital rights of renters to challenge from being exploited, while reducing the artificial, jeopardy-free incentive to take any and all landlords to court for reasonable increases in line with the market. The amendment giving protection to renters who lose their challenge with the 12-month payment plan should also be strongly considered by Government.
Lord Carrington
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I very much thank the Minister for her answers to my various questions. However, I also point out that her agreement to work on the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, is an extremely positive step and I look forward to the results of that.
However, with considerable sadness, I am very disappointed by the lack of clarity on Amendment 37. The drafting of that amendment is so vague, with the judgments being called only when absolutely necessary and when significant, et cetera, and there being no data to back this whole thing up, that I want to pursue my amendment, because my Amendment 34, together with associated Amendments 35, 36 and 40, all provide great clarity to this particular issue. They are, in a sense, technical amendments: they are not in any other way political.
In Amendment 36, I propose this 12-month delayed payment for any rent increases that the tribunal comes up with, so I recognise these financial pressures, and we have done something to try and ameliorate them. On that basis, I would like to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, I very much support Amendments 43 and 45, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson. I can give a practical example of this. A very nice couple from Chile wanted to rent one of our flats. They had no credit record at all here in England so there was no way to check that. There was no efficient way to check the previous landlord, which is the other step that a landlord normally takes to ascertain whether these are suitable tenants to go into the property. They had the money. Both of them were coming to work in London for a year for an academic purpose. Enabling them to pay some money in advance—I have forgotten whether it was six months or more—was therefore a sensible compromise. They turned out to be delightful tenants and highly reliable, and we were delighted to have them in our house.
I also want to speak to Amendment 46. It is to protect landlords when a tenant has signed up to take the property on a certain date but has failed to pay either the first month’s rent in advance or the deposit. I suggest that it would be entirely wrong, because the tenancy agreement had been signed and so forth, if the landlord were then obliged to take that tenant into the property. Remember that a landlord cannot chase unpaid rent for three months, and then there is the delay in getting a hearing in the county court, so that would be onerous for the landlord to deal with. Moreover, if the tenant has not paid either the first month’s rent or the deposit in advance, he probably does not have the money available, and the high probability is that the landlord will have to suffer that tenant in his property for three or four months without any payment at all.
I therefore thought it would be sensible to make it quite plain—my amendment starts:
“For the avoidance of doubt”—
that the landlord does not have to give the tenant keys to the property or allow them to get into it when the tenant has not paid. I added a further bit to the amendment to enable the landlord, if the tenant fails to pay the first month’s rent or the deposit for a further 28 days, to take the next step of having the lease annulled. That is to make it plain in the Bill what the position of the landlord is after having entered into an agreement with a tenant who then does not pay either the first month’s rent or the deposit.
Lord Carrington (CB)
I support the indefatigable and noble Lord, Lord Hacking, in his Amendment 46. I find it plainly obvious that rent needs to be paid before occupation. I can find preciously few examples of anyone paying for goods and services after they are contracted or consumed. An obvious example is a railway ticket or an air ticket. No one goes to the cinema and pays after the performance or takes a litre of milk at Tesco and then pays after drinking it: it is just not acceptable.
Participating in the private rented sector, as either landlord or tenant, is a serious business. The landlord has made a major investment and may have a mortgage to service, among other costs. A tenant is looking for a safe and secure tenancy which incorporates decent home standards: he is well aware of the financial obligation. Without this amendment, the landlord would be laid open to the possibility of four months with no rent and a longer eviction process under Section 8, possibly taking seven months or so. The position of a landlord is a commercial business, not a public service. I urge the Minister to accept this rather obvious amendment.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, in view of the time, I will speak briefly to Amendment 43. I could simply say the first sentence: “We are strongly opposed to rent in advance because it is discriminatory”.
This amendment is being framed as a cosy option where tenants and landlords can reach a mutual agreement as to whether or not they will do this. No, I do not believe that. If allowed, it will become, as now, a requirement. In effect, it will become a bidding war by any other name, and landlords have their pick of tenants: Zoopla has just reported that there are between 20 and 25 punters for each property and at least 20 requests to view each property. Landlords can pick, it is a beauty parade, so they can choose the tenants who have the money to give them six months’ rent up front against those who just do not have those advantages. But those same people can still afford to pay the rent and would still make good tenants.
We are opposed to anything that prices out poor renters in hot rental market areas. We refute the argument being discussed by landlord groups that this is an option for niche circumstances that allows people to access housing; for example, as was said, where people might struggle with credit checks. If you are struggling with credit checks, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to pay six months’ rent in advance. In a very modest property in Watford, six months in advance is between £6,000 and £8,000. That is a lot of money.
We know that landlords and letting agents often use it as a barrier to reject tenants relying on universal credit or housing benefit, preventing them accepting a tenancy, which means that only those with savings or family support to draw on will comply, which those on low incomes are less likely to have. Shelter tells us that six in 10 renters have been asked for it and over 800,000 people in one of its surveys say they were not able to secure a property because of the demand for rent in advance. The Bill aims to prevent discrimination against renters on benefits. This amendment would allow it by the back door.
Renters’ Rights Bill
Lord Carrington Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendment 22 from the noble Earl, Lord Leicester. I declare my direct interests in the private rented sector, with lettings of cottages in Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire, and in direct farming and agricultural lettings in those counties. I said in Committee that a number of Bills, reviews and reports are in motion that cover the whole issue of farm and other diversification in rural areas, which the Government are keen to encourage in the light of falling profitability in farming, as subsidies are withdrawn or concentrated on environmental activities and concerns.
Farmers are therefore looking carefully at their assets to see whether they can be put to a more profitable use. Obviously, this can involve farmstead cottages and buildings, rather than just stand-alone farm buildings. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is relevant in this context, together with the rural England prosperity fund, which specifically targets facilities and building conversions that help rural businesses to diversify.
This amendment would assist in enabling diversification if the necessary planning permission has been granted or there is a permitted development right. I am thoroughly aware that the Minister is keen to protect all assured tenants from eviction for whatever reason, and keen not to reduce the housing stock. However, in granting that planning permission, the authorities will already have given due consideration to the potential conversion and any loss of residential buildings through change of use. They will have agreed that the merits of the planned development outweigh the retention of the residents. I therefore hope the Minister will include this new ground 8A amendment as a sensible ground for possession, which would assist in the development of the rural economy.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
I will mainly speak to Amendments 4 and 21. It is fairly obvious that we will support Amendment 21 from the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford.
We have a problem with Amendment 4—or we did to start with, but then I took legal advice. The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asserted that we needed clarity and consistency across the Bill. I suspect we have more lawyers than any other profession in this House, and guess what: I got slightly different answers. However, the message was quite consistent: we absolutely do not need to have the same definition of family, in this case, across a whole Bill because we are dealing with very specific, different things.
My understanding is—and I am certain that the Minister will correct me if I have this slightly wrong—that the amendment to ground 1 deals with the diversity of the modern family and the kind of things that can happen, but it is about the repossession ground, so it has been drawn fairly tightly for obvious reasons. However, the definition in Clause 20 is clearly broader because it relates to the removal of the guarantor liability for rent after a family member in a joint tenancy dies. It is a sympathetic amendment and a sympathetic broadening, casting the net a little bit more widely, as it seeks to protect bereaved families, whereas we necessarily want to keep the definition in ground 1 fairly tight to avoid abuse. We have resolved our position on that, so we will not support Amendment 4.
I want to hear what the Minister has to say on Amendments 22 and 23, because I believe there are grounds to do what they would do already in the Bill. I am genuinely interested to hear the Minister’s response to those amendments.
Lord Carrington
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and others in the name of Lord Carrington would enable the landlord to gain possession of the dwelling-house to house their agricultural worker, who will be working at least 35 hours per week for the landlord, regardless of the worker’s employment status (i.e. employee, worker or self-employed person).
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak also on Amendments 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17. I apologise that there are so many; I actually tabled only one but the Table Office divided it.
The amendments cover grounds for possession as they relate to self-employed agricultural workers. It is clearly understood that the key aim of government is to provide more security for tenants in the private rented sector—hence the abolition of Section 21 no-fault evictions. I thoroughly support this policy, but reforms must be implemented carefully when it comes to the rural economy to take into account the particular circumstances of the agricultural sector in order to avoid negative impacts, such as the necessary housing of farm workers who are crucial to the nation’s food security, as well as to a thriving rural economy.
Accordingly, special protections specific to agriculture are required. That is already partly recognised in the Bill in ground 5A, but limited to direct employees. Agriculture is unique in terms of tenanted housing, as often agricultural workers are provided with accommodation to enable them to be close to their place of work. A worker can often be required to work long hours during certain seasons, such as lambing or harvest, or unsocial hours, such as early mornings and late evenings, in the case of dairy farming. There are also animal welfare considerations that require workers to be close at hand at all times.
Following Committee in the Lords, I withdrew the original amendments to address the Minister’s concerns. She said then that there were other arrangements that a landlord could use to help their contractors with accommodation when they are working away from their home, such as paying expenses, using licences to occupy or paying for them to be housed in an Airbnb. She is absolutely correct, as contractors can be somewhat different from employed or self-employed farm workers. I have therefore removed contractors from this amendment.
The Minister’s suggestion that the same could be achieved by allowing self-employed workers to occupy a property under licence would not be appropriate for longer-term workers, which this amendment seeks to address. I also point out that licence agreements are generally unsuitable for long-term occupation, and in some instances can actually be considered as a tenancy, especially when the occupant of a dwelling has exclusive occupation of all or part of the dwelling.
I know the Minister was worried that these amendments could open up an exemption for a wider group of workers, and I hope I have reassured her that this specifically covers only genuine full-time agricultural workers. The revised amendments, which add only self-employed agricultural workers to this category, also deem that the nature of the self-employment should be genuine and meaningfully full-time. Hence, reference is made to working a minimum 35-hour week. Furthermore, the revised amendments confirm that there is no intention to alter the security of tenure afforded to assured agricultural occupants. That is because the Bill states that grounds 5A and 5C do not apply to this type of worker.
We believe that the ground for possession should be available where there is a need to house self-employed agricultural workers—for example, a self-employed party to a share-farming arrangement on a farm or a self-employed shepherd. It is increasingly common in the agricultural industry for workers to be self-employed but, given the nature of their work, especially if it is with livestock, they need to live on site. Some examples of workers who might fall into this category are dairymen, sheep shearers, relief milkers or tractor drivers. Currently, ground 5A provides a means of getting possession where the dwelling is required to house someone who will be employed as an agricultural worker. However, it does not cover the situation where that worker is self-employed.
On the same theme of self-employed workers, ground 5C does not adequately provide for possession where a self-employed worker has been provided with a dwelling but the work contract has ended; it applies only where the tenant has been employed by the landlord. In summary, we would like to see extensions to both ground 5A and ground 5C to reflect modern farming employment practices and cover situations where the worker is self-employed as well as employed. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to accept this amendment, which purely reflects current employment practices in farming, is non-political and is not designed to cover non-agricultural workers.
My two other amendments in this group, Amendments 10 and 12, cover the status of service and key workers. Much of the debate, within this Chamber and beyond, is rightly focused on the Bill’s impact on the private rented sector in urban rather than rural areas. These amendments seek to address two critical concerns: first, how we ensure that rural businesses can continue to function effectively and house employees; and, secondly, how to support the housing needs of key workers, in both urban and rural areas.
In many rural communities, landlords have typically also been a major employer in the area, and the convention is that they house employees of their businesses. Traditionally, the most common form of employment was in agriculture, and this is reflected in the specific legislation for agricultural worker tenancies. But, as successive Governments have encouraged rural diversification, we have seen a growing number of businesses beyond farming employing and housing workers. This has become more frequent as affordability challenges have meant that accommodation often needs to be offered as part of an employment package to attract and retain staff. Alongside this, more properties have been let to non-employees under assured shorthold tenancies, which have maintained flexibility. This system has allowed landowners to regain possession at the end of a fixed term, enabling them to house new employees as business needs evolve. Without a clear right to repossess in such cases, we risk seeing vital rental properties in rural areas either being sold or left empty. This is not hypothetical: we have already seen the consequences in Scotland following the ending of its equivalent of Section 21.
These amendments aim to ensure that rural businesses can continue to house the workers they need, while also supporting the broader functioning of rural and urban communities. In Committee, the Minister raised two objections to a similar amendment: first, that ground 5A already covers this issue; and, secondly, that we must protect tenants in critical local jobs. However, ground 5A, while welcome, does not go far enough. As the Minister acknowledged, the agricultural sector has unique needs, hence the inclusion of ground 5A, but 85% of rural businesses do not relate to farming or forestry. Many of these businesses still require staff to live on or near the site to perform their duties effectively. If the logic behind ground 5A works for agriculture, it should also work for these other rural enterprises. These amendments would extend repossession rights to cover incoming service occupancy workers—those who are required to live in a property for the better performance of their duties.
A good example is a rural business that diversified into hosting weddings to remain viable under changing agricultural policies and profitability. It now needs to hire a full-time wedding planner, someone who must be on site at short notice, work irregular hours and take on responsibilities for security and caretaking. However, the business cannot recruit because there is no housing available nearby. One of this rural business’s cottages is currently let to a non-employee. If the business were to seek repossession of this property to house this wedding planner, ground 5A would not apply and it would be unable to obtain possession. Amendments 10 and 12 would allow repossession of this property to protect the viability of the business.
I appreciate that the ambition of the Bill is to protect the security of tenure of more households. However, if we do not strike the right balance and make it more difficult for businesses to employ and house staff, they will simply hold properties vacant for potential future employees or sell them. This will further restrict the availability of private rented housing in rural areas.
I turn to the second point, which is the protection of tenants in vital local roles. The amendment is needed to address the efficient functioning of the rural economy, which includes housing those in vital local roles. The principle has been accepted for housing incoming agricultural workers; this is simply an extension of that. The Government are concerned about housing vital key workers in rural areas, so I have strengthened the amendment to include a provision allowing repossession where the property will be used to house an incoming key worker. Such workers are broadly defined as certain NHS employees; carers, who we have already talked about; teachers; and police and security staff, et cetera. In many rural areas, key workers face long commutes due to a lack of suitable housing. This undermines recruitment and retention and ultimately harms local services. These amendments would allow rural landlords to offer housing to key workers, ensuring the viability of rural areas.
While my focus is primarily rural, the benefits extend to urban landlords, such as NHS trusts or housing providers, and to key workers such as firefighters, on-call carers and others whose proximity to work is essential. In short, these amendments would make the private rented sector more responsive to the needs of both rural businesses and urban communities. They strike a balance between tenant protection and operational necessity and I urge the Minister to support them. I beg to move.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for bringing what is a quite small technical issue, even if there are many amendments related to it, particularly regarding farmers and their tenants. We understand that, technically, Amendments 8, 9, 11 and 13 to 17 relate to one very small, specific, technical issue, which is that if a dairy farmer, say, is on a contract, or is a freelancer but needs to be moved in to the site, then that repossession should be able to happen. So it is about viable businesses and about ensuring that somebody who is highly relevant can live next door to where they are working.
We understand, or we thought we understood, that licence to occupy would cover this. We also worry about the hours relating to this, although we note that one of the amendments specifies a 35-hour week. Therefore, I want to know from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington— I am happy to sit down and make way for him to answer—whether it would be possible to apply a loophole so that someone could work for just one hour and then get through a loophole that has been applied by these amendments.
Lord Carrington (CB)
The answer is “No”. The whole reason for putting 35 hours a week in there is to make sure there is no loophole, and it is drafted as such.
Baroness Grender (LD)
I thank the noble Lord.
On Amendments 10 and 12, we on these Benches are concerned that they technically widen the scope beyond where we are comfortable. However, regarding Amendments 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15 and 16, we hope that the Minister has heard the technical detail that is required for a very specific profession and will look favourably on taking this away and having another look.
Lord Carrington (CB)
I thank the Minister very much. I appreciate her response, but I am afraid that I am somewhat disappointed by it. It demonstrates a lack of understanding of the farming industry and the rural economy.
I greatly appreciate the words of the noble Baronesses, Lady Grender and Lady Scott, as well as of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, who brings very practical experience as a dairy farmer, whereas I am only a sheep and arable farmer.
To pick up on what the Minister said about this being a loophole, the whole point of my amendment saying that the person has to be a genuine worker, working 35 hours a week, is surely sufficient to deny that claim. Reluctantly, I would like to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Carrington
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment and others in the name of Lord Carrington would enable the landlord to gain possession of the dwelling-house to house their agricultural worker, who will be working at least 35 hours per week for the landlord, regardless of the worker’s employment status (i.e. employee, worker or self-employed person).
Lord Carrington
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment and others in the name of Lord Carrington would enable the landlord to gain possession of the dwelling-house to house their agricultural worker, who will be working at least 35 hours per week for the landlord, regardless of the worker’s employment status (i.e. employee, worker or self-employed person).
Lord Carrington
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment and others in the name of Lord Carrington would enable the landlord to gain possession of the dwelling-house when the tenant stops working for the landlord, regardless of the tenant’s employment status (i.e. employee, worker or self-employed person).
Renters’ Rights Bill
Lord Carrington Excerpts(10 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I shall speak very briefly, because the noble Lord, Lord Black, covered his two amendments very thoroughly. I do not have pets myself, but I declare that I have a daughter who has recently taken the tenancy of a house, and she has children, a dog and two cats. It was quite difficult for her to make sure that they could all live together, so I understand that a lot of people would have to lose their pets, and I think that is an incredible shame.
I thank the Dogs Trust, Mars Petcare and Battersea Dogs & Cats Home for their briefings and work on this, which were very thorough. Amendment 118 would provide security for pet owners in rented accommodation —knowing that, once granted, consent cannot be withdrawn. If this was tabled in the other place by the current Minister, I assume that he is going to accept this amendment, and that the noble Baroness the Minister will tell us that today.
Amendment 125, which I have also signed, would go a long way towards ensuring that blanket no-pet policies cannot continue. Battersea Dogs & Cats Home has described the second most common reason that pets are given up to it as because of rental restrictions. That seems extremely hard. Although I do not have any pets, I understand the value of pets to people in all sorts of ways, and I hope that we can have some success with these amendments.
Lord Carrington (CB)
I shall speak to Amendment 126A and to support the noble Earls, Lord Caithness and Lord Leicester. I had not intended to speak on this, but it is a point that there is a big difference between pets in rural properties and pets in urban properties. Speaking as someone who lets rural properties, I have never had any problem with stopping tenants bringing their pets, but I would mention that cats are a particular problem in certain areas. I think that the very carefully drafted amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, makes a great deal of sense in this respect.
Lord Inglewood (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as entered in the register and apologise to the House for not having spoken before in Committee. I spoke at Second Reading, but the combination of the west coast main line and prior commitments has made it impossible in Committee until now.
Briefly, I make just three points, in no particular order. First, in respect of Amendment 118, the nicest, cutest little puppy can turn into a horrible adult dog, and if it is impossible for the landlord, having given consent, to change that if the cute little puppy turns into a dog from hell, that would be a very great mistake. It is a matter of balance, reasonableness and judgment. Secondly, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, because that seems to be elementary sensibleness—nothing more. Thirdly and finally, having heard the very persuasive speech of the noble Lord, Lord Black, I suddenly wondered: were they asking the Government to make it compulsory for tenants to have pets? I ask the Minister what her view about that would be.
Renters’ Rights Bill
Lord Carrington Excerpts(11 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests in the private rented sector, with residential lettings in Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire.
I have tabled Amendments 96, 98, 99, 103 and 104 to Clause 8, in which the Government seek to create a new right for renters to challenge their annual rent increases. I am most grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Howard of Rising, in this group.
I believe there is a strong consensus across your Lordships’ Committee that stands alongside the Government in wishing to prevent unreasonable rent increases being used as a means of eviction through the backdoor. However, I also believe there is a strong consensus that the Government’s drafting of Clause 8 will not work. Indeed, I am deeply concerned that providing a universal right for all renters to challenge all rent increases, in all circumstances and without qualification, will undermine the supply of rental homes and overwhelm our courts.
The Bill seeks to provide renters with mechanisms to ensure redress where their landlord behaves inappropriately, irresponsibly or exploitatively—yet I fear that the current drafting will undermine that intention in practice. At Second Reading we heard examples of poor behaviour by a small minority of landlords, but the response delivered by the Government will impact the whole private rental market, including the great majority of responsible landlords.
The effect of Clause 8 will be to create a right for all 4.5 million of England’s private rental households to challenge their rent increases annually, via the Section 13 process, at no cost and at zero risk. Every single renter will have a right to take their landlord to the First-tier Tribunal if they perceive their rent increase to be “disproportionate” or unreasonably above market rates.
The Government believe that tenants should apply to the tribunal only if they believe a rent increase is above market rents, but I am afraid that will not be the result of this legislation. The legal text of the Bill sets out that a rent increase could not come into force until after the tribunal rules, and explicitly prohibits the court from determining real market rent to be higher than the landlord’s proposal, even if that is a judge’s evidenced assessment.
The result of this drafting is to create an artificial incentive for all 4.5 million renters to submit a challenge to their rent rise, however legitimate, because this would prevent the increase coming into force until the tribunal decides. There is no risk to the tenant in this and it provides a guaranteed delay in when the increase comes into force. Once this is widely understood, renters will exercise their right as a matter of course.
This incentive risks overwhelming our First-tier Tribunal, burdening an already struggling court with hundreds of thousands of cases. This has already been referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, who has come up with a sensible solution. The Government want renters in genuine need of redress to have access to the courts, but the queue for justice will be too long for this to prove possible.
Moreover, the risk of this backlog in cases is causing serious concern among professional and responsible landlords in the sector. The prospect of extended delays to increasing rent would make it more difficult for investment institutions and build-to-rent developers to invest in new, high-quality rental homes, undermining the rental housing supply that we want to see. The reality of this backlog would be upward pressure on rents—the opposite of what the Government want to achieve.
The Government themselves have acknowledged their desire to ensure that responsible landlords can increase their rents in line with the market annually, and the Government have rightly ruled out rent controls. However, the system proposed under this Bill will in practice undermine landlords’ ability to secure market rents annually.
The Guardian newspaper recently revealed that a King’s Counsel has assessed the Bill to determine the likelihood of a legal challenge in the European Court of Human Rights. Subsequently, the newspaper City AM published an article outlining this legal opinion, which determined that the Government stand a greater than 50% chance of losing in the ECHR on this aspect of the Bill. I implore the Government to look into this further as a matter of urgency.
My amendments would mitigate the very serious legal risk with the current proposals on rent challenges. It is all very well for the Minister to repeat, as she has in the past, that the Bill is compatible with the ECHR, but that judgment was made before our amendments were tabled and discussions ensued. As a matter of grave responsibility, the Government should consult again with their lawyers now that these issues have been raised.
The amendments to Clause 8 in my name offer a common-sense solution that should reassure all parties. In my amendments, I propose that if a renter’s challenge is unsuccessful, rents should take effect from the date of the Section 13 notice rather than the tribunal’s determination date. I further propose that the court should be able to follow the evidence, empowering the tribunal to raise rents to what it deems to be market rates, even if this is potentially higher than what a landlord originally proposed.
I believe that, taken together, the amendments would deliver a fair result—technical changes that would keep the right to challenge while reducing the artificial jeopardy-free incentive to take landlords to court. These reasonable amendments would also give institutional investors and build-to-rent landlords the confidence to invest in the high-quality new rental homes that our country needs. To address concerns raised by a number of noble Lords at Second Reading about unsuccessful challenges leaving renters with a large bill, my amendment is drafted to mandate landlords to spread any backdating over a 12-month period.
The number of amendments proposed to Clause 8 speak to the widespread concern in this House about the risks of the Government’s current drafting. Whether colleagues support my amendments or those of my colleagues, I believe the Government’s position is unsustainable. A credible plan is needed to address the artificial incentive for every renter to challenge their rent. Otherwise, I fear for serious investment in new rental homes and the functioning of our courts system.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, I have some sympathy with Amendment 99, concerning the rent rise challenges under Section 13 of the Bill. It is essential that tenants can properly challenge excessive rent increases—but, once again, a fair balance is what we seek.
I slightly take the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, to task for her reference to “consenting adults”. The reason for the Bill arises precisely because of the power differential between landlords and tenants. Some adults are more consenting than others, if I may use that phrase. I am not quite sure that works, but noble Lords will know what I mean.
I support the proposal in Amendment 99 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that the rental increase—only, of course, if agreed by the tribunal—should take effect from the date of a Section 13 notice rather than the date of the tribunal decision. I also agree that, where this creates a rent backlog, you would need a payment plan to set it off over time. I note, however, that there would still be a risk to the landlord in those circumstances: if a tenant uses the tribunal as a speculative delaying tactic, and then if the rent increase is finally approved by the tribunal but the tenant does a flit with the rent arrears unpaid, this will leave the landlord with the unenviable prospect of trying to recover the money due to them from the departed tenant.
In short, the Bill enables—perhaps even invites—speculative challenges to any rent increase requests. I think the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, slightly overeggs it when he says that everyone in the entire country will do that, but perhaps he is doing that to illustrate his point. Either way, as my grandfather used to say, “Don’t complain if people fall for a temptation that you have created”. For the tenant it would make rational, self-interested economic sense to automatically challenge any rent increase, and this abuse of the tribunal process would add to its existing overload of cases and therefore discourage supply. I therefore support the amendment containing provisions in this regard.
There has also been a suggestion, I think in Amendment 98, that the tribunal might set a rent above what was requested by the landlord. I do not support that, for two reasons. First, if a landlord proposes a rent increase, it must be assumed that they consider it to be a satisfactory increase. Secondly, the danger of having the rent set higher than the landlord has requested is often mentioned by tenant groups that I have spoken to as a significant cause for tenants to feel intimidated, thereby preventing challenges to rent increases. The Bill does a lot to rebalance the power in the landlord/tenant relationship, but the issue needs to be re-examined. Making a revised rent payable from the notice date, if necessary with a payment plan for arrears, while at the same time not allowing rent to be increased beyond the landlord’s requested level, would achieve a better balance of rights between landlord and tenant and would prevent abuse of the tribunal system. I therefore hope the Minister will pay heed to this proposal and I look forward to hearing what she has to say.