Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Grender Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

I thought that my amendment was never going to come. Amendment 249 stands in my name, and I am glad to support Amendment 252, to which I have added my name, and Amendments 250 and 251 in this group. I declare my interest as co-owner, with my wife, of one rather modest apartment in the West Midlands, which we let out.

As someone who has chaired a wide range of housing associations, including a large local authority transfer and an arm’s-length management company, I have seen the huge positive impact that the decent homes standard has had since one was first applied to social housing. Not least, it has forced landlords to pay proper attention to their existing stock, rather than focusing all their energies and resources on new developments. Hence, I am delighted that this Bill will, for the first time, extend the standard to much of the private rented stock; it is a sector desperately plagued by underinvestment in repairs, maintenance and stock improvement. One in five privately rented homes does not currently meet the decent homes standard compared to 10% for social housing. More than one in 10 has a category 1 hazard, which is two and a half times the figure for social housing.

My amendment, along with those in the names of other noble Lords that I wish to support in this group, seeks to test whether there is appetite in your Lordships’ House to extend the application of the standard to others whose homes will not be covered as the Bill stands. Amendment 249 would make the decent homes standard apply to all homeless temporary accommodation provided under the Housing Act 1996. Record numbers of individuals, families and children are currently housed in temporary accommodation. Some 117,450 households were in temporary accommodation in March 2024, which was a rise of 12.3%, almost an extra one in eight, from the previous year. Extending the decent homes standard to this large group of people would enable those living in temporary accommodation to expect basic standards from their accommodation.

The very phrase temporary accommodation is something of a misnomer. Many of those who live in such properties are housed there for years at a time. Moreover, the same property may then be used for further so-called temporary tenancies. While I understand that sometimes it may appear better to allow a family to live for a short while in a property that is awaiting imminent major refurbishment or even demolition rather than leave the building empty, this is not what is happening in the vast majority of cases.

I have previously raised in your Lordships’ House the particular plight of children in temporary accommodation. I remember a very good conversation with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, a year or two ago. The figure was then more than 130,000, and it is still rising. They are often housed many miles away from their schools and play friends. Managing an education in such a context is desperately difficult. Some schools in Manchester are already having to put on special provision for children living in temporary accommodation, so imagine what it means to have to do that in a home that does not meet a basic standard of decency. We are failing such children utterly. Alongside families with children, many residents in temporary accommodation have particular vulnerabilities in terms of health and are often not well equipped to advocate for themselves. A national standard will make a huge difference.

My amendment would close a glaring loophole in the current Bill whereby private landlords could escape the decent homes standard by switching to providing temporary accommodation. Allowing the poorest quality homes in our nation simply to move to another form of tenure without doing anything to tackle their condition defeats the whole object of extending the standard at all.

I shall not steal the thunder of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, whose Amendment 250 would extend the standard to accommodation used by HM Armed Forces families, save to remind us that these households, containing those on whom we rely for our nation’s defence, deserve the very best from us.

Amendment 251 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lady Janke, and my right reverend friend the Bishop of Chelmsford, who cannot be in her place tonight, would extend the standard to accommodation provided for those who have fled war, terror and persecution and are now seeking, lawfully, to rebuild their lives here.

Amendment 252 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Whitaker and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, to which I have added my name, would extend the application of the decent homes standard to mobile homes that are rented for residential purposes. I have been a long-term advocate for the rights of Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller households, which often experience levels of prejudice beyond that of almost any other ethnic group in our society. They simply seek live a way of life that they have followed for centuries and have long been a vital part of the workforce, especially in rural areas where short-term temporary agricultural workers with high mobility are required at particular points in the seasonal cycle.

These amendments seek to extend to some of our most vulnerable or deserving households a standard that the Bill already agrees is the proper one for most of our citizens. I hope that in responding to the debate the Minister will be able to indicate some movement or at least offer scope for further discussions with us on these important issues ahead of Report.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group. In particular, I draw to your attention Amendment 250 in my name which would extend the decent homes standard to accommodation used by service families.

Our service personnel and their families make extraordinary sacrifices for our safety and security. The very least we owe them is decent housing. The current state of service accommodation is, in many cases, unacceptable. Satisfaction levels with both service family accommodation, SFA, and single living accommodation, SLA, fell to their lowest reported levels in 2023 impacting recruitment and retention. The Defence Select Committee reports that one-third of SLA and two-thirds of SFA are in such poor condition that they are essentially no longer fit for purpose. We hear persistent reports of damp and mould, inadequate maintenance and repairs and poor communication.

We cannot discuss the state of military housing without acknowledging the damaging legacy of some past decisions. The sale of 57,400 military homes to Annington Property Ltd in 1996 under the Conservative Government was described as a disastrous fire sale. The deal left the Government trapped paying rent and maintenance costs with no power to plan or make major upgrades. Indeed, the Public Accounts Committee concluded that service families were,

“badly let down for many years”

under the previous housing contracts. The taxpayer was left nearly £8 billion worse off due to that original deal, with money that should have been spent on maintaining homes lost.

The current Labour Government have taken welcome steps. They repurchased 36,000 homes from Annington in January, a deal that is expected to save £230 million a year in rent. A defence housing review was launched in February. A new consumer charter promises measures such as higher move-in standards, more reliable repairs and a named housing officer for every family. It is welcome that the MoD has agreed with the conclusion that the current complaints process is inefficient and that a new, simpler, two-stage process is being devised.

I now come to the “however” bit, I am afraid. The scale of the problem is immense, a result of historic underinvestment over decades. Estimates suggest billions are needed, potentially £2 billion to £2.4 billion for SFA alone, and more than £1.5 billion for SLA. I reassure the Minister that we did our costings in our manifesto and definitely identified funding in some of these areas. While investment plans are being set out, questions remain about whether funding will be sufficient and sustained to address the condition of the entire estate.

Amendment 250 is crucial because it would continue the work of my colleague in the House of Commons, Helen Maguire MP, a former captain in the Royal Military Police who served in both Bosnia and Iraq; it would reinforce the work of the MoD; and it would honour the Kerslake commission. It would ensure that the decent homes standard, which provides a very clear benchmark for acceptable housing quality, was legally applied to service family accommodation.

The amendment goes beyond acknowledging the problem of setting targets. It would establish a right to a decent home for those who serve our nation and their families. They deserve homes fit for heroes, and the amendment would be a vital step towards making that a reality. It would ensure accountability. It would provide service families with the basic standards that they have every right to expect.

I urge the Committee to support the amendment. After all, it is only right that our service personnel and their families live in safe, clean homes that meet basic, dignified standards, especially when they risk their lives to keep us safe. Pride in our Armed Forces must mean pride in how we house them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a previous chair of Peers for the Planet and a director of that organisation. I will speak to my Amendment 274, which is supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, who cannot be in the Chamber this evening. It continues the theme of energy efficiency that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has just spoken about on her Amendment 259. She dealt specifically with the issue of data on energy efficiency. I wish to contribute particularly on the issue of financing energy-efficiency measures. This is the first time that I have spoken in Committee on this Bill, mainly because of my interaction with the Minister and her officials in the run-up to it, during which several issues were clarified very helpfully.

The issue of improving energy efficiency in the private rented sector has been discussed at length and on multiple occasions in this House. I hope that the current consultation will go some way to address the lack of coherent and consistent long-term policy certainty in this area, because it has suffered from stop-go and from changes of administrations and forms of assistance that have been incoherent and stopped us making progress. Of course, one of the main issues preventing progress in this area is funding, so my amendment seeks to break through some of the barriers to progress by requiring the Government to publish a road map on how private finance initiatives could be scaled up to support the funding of energy-efficiency measures.

Other speakers in the Committee have pointed out the problems that exist because of the quality of the stock in the private rented sector. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester pointed out, nearly half the housing stock in the private rented sector has an EPC rating below C. Although fuel poverty has fallen 35% among owner-occupiers and 54% among council tenants since 2010, it has fallen only 4% for private renters. Their homes are still disproportionately damp and cold, causing both short- and long-term health issues, with higher bills adding insult to injury. Of course, this is an issue where we should take action not only because of the need to help people in this situation but because of the detrimental effects this has on our achievement of net zero and improving our energy security.

However, while there has been widespread agreement about the value of improving energy efficiency, finance has always been an obstacle to progress. The costs of improving the quality of housing will be substantial, as others have said, given where we are starting from, and it is not realistic to expect the Government to foot the bill in its entirety, nor to put intolerable burdens on landlords. We need to find a way to finance these improvements that will work for tenants, landlords and the public purse. I recognise that the Government are doing some work on this and looking at how barriers can be overcome. The green home finance accelerator fund, due to end in June, has a number of projects looking specifically at rented properties and a number of pilot schemes. I would like to hear from the Minister what steps the Government plan to take in response to what they are learning from the experience of the fund and to what timetable they will be working.

There is also a growing number of innovative private sector finance mechanisms that deserve serious attention. As the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association recently reported, the high upfront costs of installing energy-efficient technologies remain the biggest challenge for landlords, and ensuring that there is private capital to support this process, and investment to help drive down the costs of energy efficiency, is paramount. To meet this challenge, a number of policy proposals have been made that my amendment would prompt the Government to consider. The UK Green Building Council, for example, has proposed a warm home stamp duty incentive, where stamp duty would be adjusted up or down depending on the EPC of a property and a rebate would be triggered within two years of purchase if the energy efficiency of the home had been improved.

The Local Government Association has recently recommended that the Government should incentivise landlords through tax rebates. France has added energy efficiency improvements to the list of deductible costs of managing a property, such as legal fees or insurance. Within the UK, Scotland has introduced low-interest loans for landlords. Such loans could be linked to the property, rather than the individual, for which there is the precedent of the interest-free loans that were available to install renewables.

Property-linked finance has been deployed in several other countries, and these are all measures that deserve serious consideration by the Government. They could cut through the Gordian knot of all agreeing that a great deal needs to be done but no one being able to see how it could be financed.

I hope that when the Minister responds, she will provide a little more detail on the Government’s thinking in this area, particularly on ways of incentivising landlords and how the Government intend to make progress in an area about which much has been said but too little has been done.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Bennett, for tabling these amendments and generating this debate. We on these Benches support both amendments. Every renter has the right to a warm and energy-efficient home as part of a decent standard of living. Improving energy performance in private rentals not only is vital for tenants’ comfort and reducing fuel poverty but contributes to the all-important climate target.

I thank the LGA for its briefing. It is concerned about how enforcement will be enhanced to ensure that minimum energy-efficiency standards in the PRS are upheld. As we know, the sad reality is that some landlords continue to let out inefficient, poorly insulated properties, leaving tenants with high energy bills and cold homes. Indeed, tenants in the private rented sector living in the least efficient homes are paying as much as an additional £1,000 a year on their energy bills, compared with someone living in a relatively energy-efficient home. As we heard in previous discussions, an expansion of the rent repayment orders to cover situations where a landlord lets a property that fails to meet the minimum energy-efficiency requirements would mean that if a landlord breached energy standards, for example by renting out a property below the legal EPC threshold, the tenant or council could apply for an order to reclaim up to 12 months’ rent, which we think will be a powerful deterrent against non-compliance.

Amendment 274, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is an extremely useful step towards the ultimate goal of making homes warmer and more sustainable. It proposes a clear government strategy to unlock private finance, for example with green loans or incentive schemes for landlords to retrofit insulation and efficient heating. It makes me a little nostalgic for something that we think was an excellent model, but it was on a wider infrastructural basis. I refer to the Green Investment Bank, which was introduced in the early days of the coalition Government. The National Audit Office praised it for having a clear rationale, mission and objectives, backed by sound oversight. The then Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the NAO and the Institute for Government all concluded that it had largely been successful in scaling up the UK’s green investment during its early years. It invested £3.4 billion into green projects, attracting £8.6 billion of private capital—a healthy £2.50 of private investment for every £1 of public money. Its portfolio was expected to deliver a 10% return by 2017. Sadly, in 2015, the Conservatives flogged it off and that 10% return was not realised. I would love to be able to tempt the Minister to look at that model as a really interesting way of pulling in investment.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for recalling the excellent Kirklees Council scheme. I think it was the local authority with the largest number of retrofitting and insulation projects. It was award winning. I would not want to miss the opportunity of mentioning that my noble friend Lady Pinnock was then leader of Kirklees. It drew on finance that it received for an infrastructure project; it decided to insulate across every tenure in the largest local authority area. I believe that it is still the largest local authority area, unless anyone wants to correct me.

These remain excellent examples of how facilitating investment in measures such as insulation, efficient boilers and double glazing, the Government can ensure that landlords have the means to comply with higher energy requirements rather than simply exiting the market or passing the costs on to their tenants. We therefore welcome this proposed roadmap and data collection and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, having been extremely brief on everything, I beg noble Lords’ indulgence on this issue, which is extremely important. I sincerely hope we make a bit of progress on it. I want to thank the Renter’s Reform Coalition for their very hard work on this amendment, indeed, on the whole of the Bill. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, who strongly supports this amendment but is unable to be here tonight.

While this was debated on Report in the House of Commons in terms of its drafting, the original proposal was ruled out as not in scope of the legislation. Therefore, this is a new draft to reframe it as a review of the impact of the Bill on rents. The amendment has been redrafted in response to that feedback. To be clear, according to the Renter’s Reform Coalition, the likely projection of increase in rents as a direct result of the Bill is limited to the net core cost to landlords of £12 per home per year or 0.1% of mean annual rents. I will explain why rents continue to be a problem in spite of whatever the impact of the Bill is likely to be according to the coalition.

This amendment proposes that the Secretary of State must within 18 months of passing the Bill establish a body to report on the impact of the Act on rent levels in the private rented sector. A report published under this proposed new clause would include an analysis of any changes in average rent levels, an overview of the historic affordability of properties and consideration of proposals for improving the affordability of properties. The report should also include characteristics such as age, income and employment status.

Some of the context will be very clear to noble Lords. Private tenants have the highest weekly housing costs of any housing tenure, with lowest income tenants in particular often spending huge proportions of their income on rent. On average, renters spend 34% of their household income on housing, compared to 19% for mortgagors and 26% for social renters, and high rents hit poorer tenants hardest. One in three private renters spends at least half of their monthly household income on rent alone. Nearly 30% of private renters struggled to pay their rent in 2022.

England’s rent burden as a share of disposable income is among the highest in Europe. An analysis from Generation Rent has shown that not a single borough of inner London is affordable for roles across education, healthcare, social care, construction, retail, commerce and hospitality. Recent data released by Zoopla shows that renting a new home is on average £270 per month more expensive than in 2021, meaning that rents have increased by more than £3,000 annually in just three years. An increase in housing affordability would enhance the Government’s objective of driving growth. New research from the Mayor of London, London Councils, Trust for London and G15 shows that a 1% increase in housing affordability in this city could yield a boost of £7.3 billion in economic output over a decade. This research clearly showed that worsening housing affordability has a negative impact on productivity.

We welcome the fact that the Government are ending the bidding wars, but without also including something that acknowledges the issue of rent—and this is a very small version and modest in terms of what it does to the Bill—rents will remain too high across the board, and there will be no measures within the Bill to tackle that issue, or the current measures will be limited.

The amendment stipulates that any report made would need to include proposals for improving the affordability of rent levels in the private rented sector, but it does not prescribe what those policies should be. A report of this nature is an invaluable opportunity to consider the factors that make renting increasingly unaffordable and measures to address these factors in the round. Undertaking this thorough assessment of this complicated issue will take time, given the various intersecting factors that are contributing to the unaffordable nature of renting.

The report could consider: supply and demand in the private rented sector; the role and long-term future of the local housing allowance; the shortage of social housing; the effects of various kinds of rent control and stabilisation measures in comparator nations; an assessment of the potential impact of introducing any kind of rent measures—our preference would be for rent smoothing, as we have discussed several times, not rent controls; any impact on rent prices since the passing of the Act; and other relevant factors. In other words, this is not about being prescriptive but about studying all the impacts on rent. The impact report proposed in this amendment would provide an ongoing mechanism for acknowledging the scale of the affordability crisis. It would provide an opportunity for the Government thoroughly to assess the available evidence on unaffordability in England.

This amendment, as I have said, would not commit the Government to any one policy or approach but aims to gather evidence, data and information in a way that we do not believe is currently sufficiently gathered, and neither does the Renters’ Reform Coalition. It is also an opportunity for the Minister to commit publicly to further considering how to bring rents down in relation to incomes. I will draw my remarks to a conclusion, but this amendment is simply seeking to strengthen what the Government are already trying to do to improve the private rented sector. Without this piece, there is something very substantial missing. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 273 would require, within 12 months of implementation, a report on the impact of the Bill on BME and ethnic groups. I thank Race on the Agenda and Shelter for their briefings.

The private rented sector has the highest number of ethnic minorities relative to other tenures—23% compared with 19% among social renters, and 8% among owner-occupiers—yet black renters are disproportionately faced with barriers that prevent them securing a home in the sector compared with white renters. Generation Rent’s 2024 survey of private renters around the UK revealed that minority-ethnic renters were significantly more likely to face obstacles in accessing new tenancies. Racial minority respondents were almost twice as likely to have been refused a tenancy when they attempted to move home, with 12.5% reporting this experience compared with 6.3% of white British or Irish renters. Some 7% of England’s population are BME, yet in June 2024 20% of homeless households were BME; 8% of households living in poor conditions were BME compared with 3.5% identified as white households.

It is well-documented that black and minoritised groups experience both income and wealth inequality. This makes it much more difficult for these groups to cushion the shocks of rent increases or large deposits, pushing them deeper into problem debt with the associated mental health difficulties that that brings. Measures in the Bill, such as banning discrimination against people on benefits and families with children, should help reduce discrimination against BME groups, as will the ending of the bidding up of rents and the constraints on upfront payments. These are also positive measures.

I will end with a comment from Race on the Agenda.

“We note that although some provisions are made in the Bill to address housing discrimination in general terms, there is a problem as the Bill has not conducted a full racial impact assessment and does not sufficiently include robust measures to tackle racial discrimination in housing and homelessness”.


I hope that, in the light of this, the Minister will embrace the need for the review set out in this amendment.