Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, to which I added my name. Sadly, he is right: the police do not have sufficient knowledge about the law changes, which are now quite old. I suspect the reason is that the complaints tend to be infrequent, but of course it can be a Catch-22 because, if people do not think that their complaints will be listened to, they do not tend to make them. But, in the process, that means that the police have probably not kept pace with the law as it has changed, and with the needs of complainants.

Traditionally, the police did get involved, even in civil disputes, usually to prevent a breach of the peace, because people were worried there would be violence. Sometimes, a tenant might have access to a firearm, so there would be pre-work to make sure that that was removed from the scene so things could not get more serious.

This seems a reasonable step. I could not necessarily give the amendment that level of support in Committee because I thought there was a danger that it was directing the police to do certain things. All this tries to do is establish the level of the problem and what can be done about it so that the police perform their duty. The risk is that, at the moment, they are not.

Obviously, the amendment may or may not be accepted, but there are some fairly straightforward ways in which it could be helped. The Chief Inspector of Constabulary goes around and inspects every force every year and, if it were put on the list of things to look at, that would certainly make the police think about it. Tenants having a single point of contact within a force would mean that at least one person—or two or three people, or a department—could provide this knowledge and expertise for the officers on the street. That would be helpful. Carrying on as we are is not fair on the tenants, and it is not proper if Parliament has decided that this is a criminal act and the police have a role to play. So I support this amendment; it is a reasonable step. If the Government do not accept it, they might want to make it clear how they will address the gap.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly support Amendment 110 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Hogan-Howe. I am grateful to Safer Renting, ACORN and the Renters’ Reform Coalition for bringing this matter to our attention. My noble friends have noted that this is a milder and more focused version of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, debated in Committee, calling only for a review of the legislation that covers the duties of the police in respect of illegal evictions.

Although the amendment places a very modest obligation on the Government—namely, simply to publish a report on the position—this would be a good first step toward addressing a highly unsatisfactory state of affairs. It is clear that the laws against illegal and sometimes violent evictions are not being enforced. I see from the statistics that there were over 16,000 illegal evictions in 2022-23, and the police did not act in over 90% of cases. The underlying problem is surely not because of any malice on the part of the police officers but because of ignorance of what should be done and of the priority this should receive. The report that this amendment would elicit would clarify matters and make the recommendations that are needed to end wrongful and criminal practices by the very worst landlords. I am delighted to support the amendment.