Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord Young of Cookham

Monday 28th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 99 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, which, as my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising explained, would ensure that, if there was an unsuccessful challenge to a rent tribunal on a rent increase, the increased rent would become payable on the date proposed by the landlord.

Before turning to that amendment, I will say that I have some sympathy with Amendment 87 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, which proposes an alternative means of filtering appeals before they reach the tribunal by enabling the tenants first to check with the VOA whether their challenge has any prospect of success. However, many of the arguments that the noble Baroness used are equally applicable to Amendment 99.

Turning to Amendment 99, what Clause 8 proposes is exactly the opposite of what happens at the moment, and what indeed has been the case since the Housing Act 1988. At the moment, if a landlord serves a Section 13 increase on the tenant, giving a month’s notice, the tenant can appeal. But, if the tribunal decides the rent should be increased, the increase is payable from the date given on the Section 13 notice. That is the position at the moment, which the Government propose to overturn. The CAB website gives advice to a tenant on this subject, saying that

“it’s probably best to save money towards your rent increase if it’s due to start before the tribunal makes a decision. That way, you won’t have to find a large sum of money if your rent is increased”.

It goes on to make the point that it can take up to 10 weeks for the tribunal to make a decision.

I agree with what has been said. I do not see how this proposal, as it stands, can possibly survive. As many noble Lords have pointed out, from the tenant’s point of view they have nothing to lose by appealing against any increase. The rent cannot be put up, and the increase is not effective until it has been endorsed by the courts.

No satisfactory reasons have been given for this, so I looked in Hansard to see what happened in the other place. The Minister, Matthew Pennycook, said on 29 October last year:

“Tenants should not be thrust into debt simply for enforcing their rights”.


But the relevant right of the tenant is to appeal against an unfair rent increase. There should be no additional right to the tenant if that appeal is subsequently lost, but that is what is proposed.

My honourable friend Jerome Mayhew intervened in the Minister’s speech. He said:

“The Minister says that it would be unfair on the tenant to have a significant increase in rent and a backlog after the determination of the tribunal, but that is rent that ought properly to have belonged to the landlord and has been unjustifiably denied them for the period of the process. Why is it fair for the landlord to be denied a just rent as a result of the delay in the process, yet it is for some reason not fair for the tenant?”


The Minister then in effect conceded the case:

“The hon. Gentleman is right that if the tribunal determines that the rent increase is reasonable, a landlord may have missed out on a short period of the rent increase—not the whole rent, but the rent increase”.


It is not “may have missed out” but will have missed out and, as we have heard, not for “a short period” but potentially for a very long period.

The Minister then sought to defend the position:

“I will be very clear about this: we took the view that it was better that tenants were not, by facing the prospect of significant arrears, disincentivised from taking any cases to tribunal to challenge what could be, on a number of occasions, completely unreasonable within-tenancy rent increases”.


But what the Minister described as “significant arrears” were sums which actually a tribunal will have deemed to be fair, and which current advice from the CAB is that tenants should make provision for. The argument the Minister uses is at odds, as I have said, with the position at the moment.

The Minister’s case was further weakened by a subsequent intervention. Again, my colleague Jerome Mayhew asked:

“I understand that the Government’s intention is that tenants should not go to the tribunal unless they are clear that the asked-for rent is too high, but what prevents them from gaming the system, as we discussed?”


In reply, the Minister said:

“What I would say to the hon. Gentleman—I will expand upon my argument in due course—is that I think he underestimates how difficult it is to take a case to the tribunal”.


In a spare moment over the weekend, I put into Google, “How do I appeal against my rent increase?”. Up came the answer: use form Rents 1 on the GOV.UK website. I downloaded the form. You can appeal, free and online. All credit to the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham, and others for simplifying and digitising government forms. You fill in your name, address and contact details, the name and address of the landlord or agent, the amount of rent you are paying, when the tenancy began and the details of the property. You add a copy of the Section 13 notice from the landlord increasing the rent and a copy of the tenancy agreement, and send it off online to the nearest tribunal regional office. I estimate that it would take about 10 minutes. The tribunal will then ask you what type of hearing you want. Most tribunals for rent increases are based on the evidence you send—they are paper hearings—so there is no need for an appellant to do anything more than I have described.

I hope the Minister will not repeat what her colleague said in another place:

“However, I think the hon. Gentleman underestimates the onerous nature of taking a case to tribunal. It will not be as simple as the tenant deciding on a whim one day that they can do that, and that it is a no-lose situation, but I recognise the incentives at play on both sides”.—[Official Report, Commons, Renters’ Rights Bill Committee, 29/10/24; cols. 145-46.]


It is not onerous, and it is no lose. What is onerous is the pressure on the tribunals. I urge the Minister to reflect on the many amendments to this clause and, in her reply, indicate a willingness to think again.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

The points earlier expanded on the point about affordable rent. Is the Government’s policy still that affordable rent means that it should be no more than 30% of total household income? That immediately implies—it is a glimpse of the obvious—that for one tenant a property is affordable and for another tenant with fewer assets it is not affordable.

Secondly, where I support my noble friend’s entry into the argument is on this business of the fixing of rent by the tribunal. How long does that continue? Could that be spelled out clearly? Does it apply merely for the length of time that particular tenant is there? Would it be continued if there were to be a change of tenant and the next tenant said that was the rent the tribunal had set? If we are to have tribunal-set rents, we must be told exactly how they operate.

Finally, unless the Government can answer fully and confidently the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, this Bill will certainly fail in its objective.