The Renters Reform Bill is unlikely to pass before Parliament is prorogued today ahead of the General Election.
While the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill is on the timetable for its third reading in the House of Lords today, the Renters Reform Bill is conspicuously absent.
Reforms to England private rental system were promised in the Conservative’s 2019 election manifesto. London’s rents have soared more that 45 per cent in the five years since the last election, rising from an average of £1,425 in April 2020 to £2,070 in April 2024.
The Renters Reform Bill proposed scrapping no-fault evictions, also known as section 21, where landlords could give notice to tenants for no reason with two months notice.
“Renters in England — trapped in an unhealthy, unaffordable and insecure renting system — have been waiting five long years for action on that pledge,” said Tom Darling, campaign manager of the Renters’ Reform Coalition, a campaign group of 20 leading housing and renter organisations.
“Today we get confirmation that the Renters Reform Bill won’t pass — meaning the Bill is dead and the task of fixing England’s broken renting system will fall to the next government. Renters have been so badly let down.”
“The Bill is dead and the task of fixing England’s broken renting system will fall to the next government.”
Amendments had already been tabled to delay the no-fault eviction ban until local court systems were improved to grant landlords greater protections when repossessing their properties.
Landlord organisations also expressed disappointment that the reforms appeared to have been dropped.
“If true, it is hugely disappointing that this Bill will not now make it into law,” said Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA).
“The news comes despite the fact that the Bill was in a state which would work for tenants and responsible landlords.”
No-fault eviction claims spiked in the run-up to the Bill, with a 62 per cent increase in section 21 notices being served according to the latest Ministry of Justice data. Almost 26,000 households were made homeless or threatened with homelessness through no-fault evictions last year.
“The market now faces yet more crippling uncertainty about what the future of the private rented sector looks like.”
The NRLA said that five years of uncertainty had negatively impacted the rental sector.
“There has been too much dither and delay in government, and a failure to be clear about how to ensure changes would work in practice. Critically, the market now faces yet more crippling uncertainty about what the future of the private rented sector looks like,” said Beadle.
“Reforming the sector will be an important issue for the next government and we will work constructively with them to ensure changes are fair and workable. That means empowering tenants to challenge rogue and criminal landlords whilst ensuring the confidence of responsible landlords to stay in the market.”
The RRC said that the Bill was already unfit for purpose, and called on all parties to focus on renters in their manifestos.
“The Renters Reform Bill had already been undermined by repeated government concessions to landlord groups — resulting in a bill that in any case wouldn’t have made much of a dent in England’s renting crisis. The next government must do much better,” said Darling.
We look forward to parties setting out their proposals to improve renting standards, security and affordability — we’ll be looking closely at the manifestos, as I’m sure will England’s 12 million private renters."
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill will get its third reading in the House of Lords this afternoon.
Last year Secretary of State for Housing Michael Gove pledged to scrap the leasehold system, whereby homeowners pay rent on the land their homes are built on or risk losing their home, entirely.
The Government backpeddled on this, launching a consultation into the capping of ground rents that prompted Baroness Taylor of Stevenage to call the Bill “a virtually eviscerated shell”.
