Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans his Department has to ensure private rented tenants are secure from Section 21 evictions following a complaint.

Tenants in the private rented sector are protected from retaliatory eviction through the Deregulation Act 2015. This prevents landlords from carrying out a Section 21 eviction for 6 months if the local authority has served either an improvement notice, or a notice of emergency remedial action, which has not been addressed.

The government is committed to protecting the rights of tenants and giving them more security. We recently consulted on ways to overcome the barriers to landlords offering longer, more secure tenancies in the private rented sector. The consultation sought views on the effectiveness of the existing protections in the Deregulation Act.

We are considering responses to the consultation and will be bringing forward proposals that make the system work better for both tenants and landlords.