Part of Renters (Reform) Bill – in the House of Commons am 2:45 pm ar 24 Ebrill 2024.
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the impact on renters, and that is essentially what we are debating. With every month that passes, more private renters are served section 21 notices. Nearly 85,000 of them have been put at risk of homelessness as a result of being served one of those notices, as the Government have delayed the implementation of their commitment. As the Bill is drafted—even with Government new clause 30—Ministers can determine whenever they want to signal to the House that the courts are ready. We have had no assurances on that point, and that is not satisfactory.
In our view, Government new clause 30 is nothing more than a mechanism designed to facilitate the further delay of the complete abolition of section 21 evictions, and we will look to vote against it. With the Government having previously made it clear that there will be a requirement for advance notice of six months before new tenancies are converted, and a minimum of 12 months between that conversion and the transition of existing tenancies—with a proposal that the latter will also be made subject to the assessment required by Government new clause 30—it could be years before renters see section 21 completely abolished, making a complete mockery of the Secretary of State’s recent claim that such notices will be “outlawed” by the next general election.
We know the Government are in no rush to abolish section 21 evictions because they are not laying the groundwork that is necessary for that to happen. Where are the draft prescribed forms for section 8 notices, and where are the proposed amended court forms and civil procedure rules? There is no sign of them, or of any sense of what the regulations required to bring them forward might be. The truth is that Ministers determined long ago, for reasons that are entirely obvious, to essentially kick the can down the road on abolishing section 21 while disingenuously denying it. Although the passage of the Bill will be taken as a signal of abolition before the next general election, private renters outside will know that is not the case, and that implementation has been pushed back, potentially indefinitely.
We believe that hard-pressed renters have waited long enough for the commitment made by the Conservatives over five years ago to be delivered. They require certainty that it will truly be honoured, and section 21 evictions definitively abolished with the passing of this legislation. Our amendment 28 would provide that certainty by ensuring that section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 is repealed on the day that the Bill receives Royal Assent, with saving provisions for any notices served before that date so that they remain valid and of lawful effect. I commend the amendment to the House.
Government new clauses 27, 28 and 30, to which I have made reference, are only three of the 225 Government amendment tabled just before the deadline last week. Before concluding, I will touch briefly on several of the more substantive among them, starting with the small number that will be genuine improvements to the Bill. We are pleased that the Government have responded to our calls to ensure the maintenance of a number of the regulatory obligations that have built up around section 21 notices over the years by tabling Government new clause 14, which gives the Secretary of State the power by regulation to transpose those preconditions and requirements into section 8 eviction notices.
Similarly, we are pleased that the Government have listened to the argument made by my hon. Friend Mike Amesbury in Committee and that Government amendment 239 will amend the Bill to ensure that tenants maintain the right to access homelessness support when served with a valid section 8 notice. Sadly, those and other sensible Government amendments, including new clauses 32 and 34, are overshadowed by others that are far more concerning, chief among them Government new clause 15.
As the Minister explained, new clause 15 will prevent renters from serving a notice to quit within the first four months of a tenancy. Coupled with the two-month notice period provided for by the Bill as introduced, tenants will be unable to leave a property until they have resided in it for at least six months, unless the landlord agrees otherwise. The Government have committed to considering exemptions to this fixed initial six-month letting period in serious circumstances, such as domestic abuse, the death of a tenant or a serious hazard being present in the property. However, nothing in the new clause as drafted guarantees that any such exemptions will ultimately be made or what they would look like in practice. Even if such exemptions were introduced, we believe that the proposed six-month initial period would still be extremely damaging. Not only would placing the onus on tenants to prove that they qualified for an exemption under serious circumstances deter many, particularly those experiencing domestic abuse, from exploring such an option, but a fixed initial period of any kind risks fatally undermining the integrity of the new tenancy regime, premised as it is on all future assured tenancies being periodic and open-ended with tenants able to end their tenancy when they see fit with appropriate notice as provided for by the Bill.
The Government have advanced two arguments in justifying their eleventh-hour introduction of new clause 15: first, that it will ensure that the costs borne by landlords of finding tenants and making repairs between tenancies are covered; and secondly, that it will prevent tenants from using rented properties as short-term lets. All the available evidence suggests that the prohibitive cost of moving is leading to tenants staying longer in their homes. There is no evidence to support the entirely hypothetical notion that tenants are likely to game the new tenancy regime en masse to use rental properties as short-term lets. The truth is that there is no compelling rationale for Government new clause 15. As the Minister knows full well, if the Government were not having to appease a small minority in their own ranks, they would not be proposing it. We believe that the proposed six-month initial period will not only trap large numbers of tenants in unsafe and unsuitable properties, but put at risk the coherence of the tenancy regime that is at the heart of the Bill, and we will look to vote against it.
In conclusion, this is a long overdue piece of legislation, and it is imperative that it progresses today—there is no question about that but for those of us on the Opposition Benches, the Bill as introduced was only ever a starting point for overhauling the regulation of the private rented sector. As it progressed, the Bill should have been enhanced so that the playing field between landlord and tenant was levelled decisively. Instead, the fractious state of the Conservative party has seen the Government make concession after concession in an attempt—a fruitless attempt, from what we can see—to placate a minority of Members on the Government Benches. We need to draw a line today on what that minority can extract from Ministers to the detriment of private renters who deserve better, and we need to strengthen the Bill in a number of important respects. I urge the House to come together to do so.