Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Truscott and Baroness Coffey

Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Truscott (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 203 and 204, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, and others. I declare my interest as a leaseholder, as well as a landlord and former PRS tenant. Noble Lords supporting these amendments have already made a cast-iron case for requiring property-management agents to have relevant training and qualifications, and for these requirements to be legally enforced.

I have dealt with a number of property management agents. Some have been excellent and others have been appalling. It seems extraordinary to me that property agents who may deal with millions of pounds of property and revenue are currently not required to have any professional qualifications or training whatever. Some agents I have dealt with in the past have no property qualifications and had little or no understanding of property law or lease enforcement. There is no other sector that I am aware of where individuals dealing with such large amounts of money and such valuable assets can be wholly unqualified and virtually unregulated.

Anyone can set themselves up as a property agent, with little or no knowledge of the sector. Many property agents are, of course, very professional, but the rogues and amateurs undermine the reputation of the whole property sector. This must end, as we have heard. For that reason, I wholeheartedly support these two amendments and urge the Minister to accept them.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I oppose this amendment. It is rare that I am out of step with my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, but I am concerned that overregulation of aspects of employment is—how can I put it?—a solution waiting for an extensive problem. One of the things that these amendments do is to yet again give considerable powers to others to set all sorts of training expectations. Candidly, and certainly in the private market, there are simply too many sectors in which government and Parliament seek to rip away control instead of the individual having that engagement and relationship.

We already have the property redress scheme in place, of which letting agents and people who manage properties have to be a part. Do not get me wrong: there are plenty of landlords who are not necessarily doing what they should, at the moment, but there are already mechanisms to put this in place. I do not believe that qualifications, training schemes or similar will make a particular difference.

I am also conscious of what happened with social housing, particularly some of the significant failures that we sadly saw in aspects of local government and housing associations. There was a feeling that something must be done. I am conscious, however, that that does not mean that we need to paint every letting agent or property manager with the same brush. For me, this is overreach on behalf of Parliament and, again, I would like to see the evidence for why we need to go to this extent and why yet another profession that has minimal regulation today now needs to be heavily regulated.

It is again a barrier that would put up agencies’ costs. This is the reality of having to deal with this sort of regulation: the person who pays is the renter, not the landlord. We have to bear in mind that, with the cost of living challenge that we are facing—still the number one issue for the electorate in this country—we are here tonight considering an amendment that will continue to put costs on people who are trying to pay their rent. This is the sort of economic situation that we need to consider for every regulation where we are adding extra barriers to entry to make sure that we keep in mind the people who want to just get on with their lives and have good relationships. They can change in the private sector; that is much harder for people in the social rented sector but, even then, we may have gone slightly too far. We must continue to consider the economic impact on people in this country with every regulation that we pass in this House.