Renters (Reform) Bill

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which gives me an opportunity to apologise to the House,...

The delay has cost hundreds of families in my constituency their homes. Section 21 evictions have...

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have an enormous amount of respect for the work that he does in th...

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rose—

I will not give way at this stage; I will make a wee bit of progress, then I hope to give way sho...

Will the Secretary of State give way?

Not for the moment.

The private rented sector has doubled in size since 2004, to the point ...

I am very happy to give way to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), then to t...

There is plenty to welcome in this Bill, but it should have been an opportunity to increase minim...

I am grateful to the hon. Lady; no one could doubt her sincerity or her commitment to making sure...

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rose—

I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for Strangford.

The Minister is right to say that the encouragement of private landlords is important to ensure t...

Of course, landlords and any property owner must have the right to sell their home if they need o...

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. This weekend I was out meeting flood victims in Ch...

I agree with the hon. Gentleman up to a point, but I would not characterise it in quite that way....

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. My constituents, Esther and Fred, lost th...

I am deeply sorry to hear about the personal tragedy that the hon. Lady’s constituents have suffe...

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. I noted he said that, nationally, around 20% of th...

Although the right hon. Gentleman and I have had many disagreements, there is no one who doubts t...

rose—

Please forgive me; I am just responding to the right hon. Gentleman. It is the case that our effe...

Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the Bill would do exactly what he has just been saying i...

I am very fond of my hon. Friend, but that is just not true. We have seen an increase in the numb...

No, I have been generous so far. Every intervention only takes time from those who wish to contri...

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I am more than happy to give way—

Order. I think that I am right in saying that the hon. Lady has only just entered the Chamber. Sh...

I will give way to colleagues in a moment. The key thing to consider when thinking about how thos...

I am now more than happy to give way to a range of colleagues.

Order. I will allow the right hon. Gentleman to do that in just a moment, but first let me set th...

I accept entirely the force of what the Secretary of State has said, but clearly under section 8 ...

Actually, I agree with my right hon. Friend. It is vital that we ensure that the courts system is...

My constituent Jan Childs rented a property in Much Wenlock to an individual she got into a dispu...

It is not so much this Bill; it is more the steps that we are taking in order to improve the just...

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise; I should have referred to my entry in the Re...

My right hon. Friend is nearly always right and always honourable.

I, too, put on the record my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Some months a...

I know that my colleague the Housing and Planning Minister has met the hon. Lady, and we will res...

Given that the Secretary of State is getting quite a few pot shots from behind him, let me help h...

Absolutely. The sooner the Bill is on the statute book, the sooner we can proceed. Alongside that...

On the enhanced grounds for antisocial behaviour, I have one constituent who has been evicted bec...

I very much take the hon. Gentleman’s point. I do not believe that either of those two cases woul...

I, too, welcome the intention to scrap no-fault evictions. A year ago I asked about the matter at...

First, we will be clear that landlords cannot have blanket bans of the kind that the hon. Lady ri...

The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee raised the need for an effective and efficien...

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee, but the view of the Ministry of Justice, His ...

I rise as what is known as an “accidental landlord”, who conveniently owns and rents out a proper...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Two of the less conspicuous but important parts of the Bill a...

I welcome better protections for renters; in my constituency, swathes of constituents have been e...

What I would like to see in my hon. Friend’s constituency and so many others is an increase in ho...

The Secretary of State has just mentioned the private rental ombudsman, a post that I welcome. Is...

Yes, we are. There is a case for both a separate organisation and for having the issue fall to th...

The Bill would have been a good opportunity to bring forward provisions ensuring that homes are k...

At the very beginning of my introduction to the Bill, I stressed my gratitude to all those who ha...

It is a pleasure to open this debate on behalf of the Opposition. I start by saying that we on th...

The Secretary of State was at pains to stress that the majority of landlords are good ones. It is...

I agree. I hope I can bring the House together when I say that it is right that we get moving on ...

There may well be consensus in the House—I hope there is; we will see how it goes later on. A maj...

We need legislation for decent homes alongside these provisions. I hope that we can get into that...

On decent home standards, would the right hon. Lady support the integration of Awaab’s law into t...

If we can address that in the Bill, we should push for it, but we should also push to ensure that...

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I am grateful to her for highlighting that po...

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that concern. To be fair to the Secretary of State, he ac...

My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the human cost of those evictions, but there is also a...

I absolutely agree. I also think that, as the Secretary of State mentioned, most private landlord...

Is there not a particular problem with the evidence that the rent tribunals will look at? The pro...

It is absolutely right that we get into these challenges, because I do not think people feel that...

The Bill does not really deal with the issue of affordability at all. One of the big issues is th...

We have to get into that issue, but we also have to deal with the root cause, which is that we do...

To ensure that tenants have that safety, does the right hon. Lady agree that we need a new regula...

The Bill talks about the ombudsman. We need to make sure that landlords understand their obligati...

It will be obvious to the House that a great many people want to catch my eye. We have a long tim...

In 2014, fellow housing expert Calum Mercer and I published a then-seminal paper called “Nation R...

I call the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee.

6.53 pm

First, I put on record that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Havi...

I strongly support the point that the hon. Gentleman has just made about the importance of the Go...

I completely agree with those points, and I hope the Secretary of State responds positively to th...

Briefly, I wish to declare my interest. As the parent of a daughter who is currently at Mancheste...

I recognise that the Secretary of State has responded to the Committee’s report, and while not al...

Everybody agrees that people deserve to live in rented homes that are safe, warm, free from damp ...

Is my hon. Friend aware that just five days ago Jones Lang LaSalle, one of the biggest property c...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is a problem right throughout the country, not just the ...

It is genuinely hard to overstate the scale of the housing crisis that we are in, in 2023. Every ...

This is without doubt a significant Bill, which shows that the Conservative Government are seriou...

I call Feryal Clark—not here. That is a shock.

7.20 pm

I join colleagues across the House in welcoming this long-overdue Bill and share their dismay at ...

I am pleased to rise to speak on Second Reading of a Bill that fulfils a manifesto promise and in...

My hon. Friend is making an important point. The people of Southend West are great animal lovers,...

I certainly agree, and my hon. Friend has pre-empted many of my comments. It is heartbreaking for...

Almost 40% of my constituents are private renters, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to re...

I must declare that I own half of a rental property with my wife and should therefore refer the H...

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, whose area I know well because—I declare an interest—I farm...

I thank my hon. Friend for intervening. I do not agree at all, actually. In constituencies like m...

Order. Just for the sake of clarity, let me say that I am grateful to the hon. Member for North N...

Let me first draw Members’ attention to my own entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Intere...

I have no financial interest in the Bill. I am not a landlord, have never been one, and have no d...

Today’s Second Reading of the Renters (Reform) Bill is long overdue but, as many have already sai...

I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Look...

For my constituents in Liverpool, West Derby, and for millions across the country, the private re...

I refer hon. Members to my declaration on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have be...

The housing system is rigged against renters. In Britain today, on average, private renters spend...

We have a mandate from the British people to deliver this Bill, and I know that passing it into l...

I see the impacts of the lack of regulation in the private rented sector in my constituency every...

Listening to this debate, I am surprised that we are being accused of dither and delay when 13 ye...

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), I begin by informing the Hous...

Let me first refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and decl...

My co-chair of the APPG on this subject is making some very important points. Could he further de...

I would love to, but we do not have much time. However, there needs to be some discussion about w...

Never a day goes by without a constituent, or more than one constituent, contacting me about prob...

It is about time. It is nearly five years since promises were first made to tenants facing soarin...

The rights of renters is one of the biggest issues in Putney, Southfields and Roehampton, where t...

One of my constituents was served with a section 21 no-fault eviction notice on their house: a si...

We absolutely do. I very much welcome that intervention. We all have so many stories and know so ...

I call the ever-patient John McDonnell.

9.20 pm

As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and I know, always being called last means that w...

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, in London, part of the problem is that the amount of r...

Look, the major problem is that we are not building enough council houses. On the Conservative Be...

I call the Opposition Front- Bench spokesman.

9.27 pm

It is a pleasure to close this Second Reading debate for the Opposition, and I thank all hon. and...

It is a huge pleasure to deliver the closing speech today on the Second Reading of the Government...

The Minister’s children are in their 20s, but we want to make sure that they are not in their 30s...

I will come on to that precise point, if the hon. Member will allow me.

I want to thank the...

I will make progress, because I have limited time and I must address the points that have been pu...

Will the Minister give way?

I will give way to Members if I have time, but please allow me to make my points.

There hav...

If the Bill’s Second Reading receives widespread support because it will rightly ditch no-fault e...

I thank my hon. Friend very much. I can absolutely give him that assurance.

Does the Minister accept that if the Country Land and Business Association’s estimate is correct ...

I am very happy to work with my hon. Friend on this and many other issues, but it is important th...

Will the Minister give way?

I want to wind up now, because I cannot detain the House any longer. I assure right hon. and hon....