Today’s Second Reading of the Renters (Reform) Bill is long overdue but, as many have already said, it unfortunately does not go far enough in many areas. Since the Government first promised to end section 21 no-fault evictions, 70,000 households have been evicted or threatened with homelessness. Everybody deserves to have a safe, decent and affordable home, but sadly, on the Tories’ watch, mortgage bills and rents are soaring, fewer people can buy their own home and over 1 million people are still stuck on social housing waiting lists.
My constituency is one of the youngest in the country and has a higher number of private and social renters than the national average. Average house prices are more than £675,000, which is around 15 times the average annual salary, making it much harder for many to get on to the housing ladder. All too often, that leaves them trapped in the private rented sector. The Renters Reform Coalition has rightly asserted that:
“The private rented sector in England is characterised by poor standards, a lack of affordability, discrimination and”—
most importantly—
“insecurity.”
I regularly receive correspondence from constituents complaining about the poor living standards and eye-watering rents that they are facing. That is why I asked the Secretary of State earlier why he would not bring forward provisions in the Bill to address the issues around decent standards. Renters have never been so exposed or so desperately in need of Government action to establish a fairer, more secure and more affordable private rented sector.
In London, private rents rose by over 6% in the year to this September, which is the highest for over a decade. The average rent in London is the equivalent of 40% of the average household income, compared with just 26% across England. The lack of protections for renters is playing a huge role in these trends. That is why reform of this sector is vital, but more needs to be done to protect renters and to ensure that they can live in a home that is safe, decent and affordable.
The Bill as it stands does nothing to address the cost of renting, which has skyrocketed. It contains no requirements for privately rented homes to meet the decent homes standard or provisions to increase councils’ investigative and enforcement powers. The Bill will eventually remove section 21 no-fault evictions, but it still has many issues. Renters will be protected from eviction only for the first six months of their tenancy, rather than the two years that many across the sector have been calling for. They will be entitled to receive only two months’ notice of an eviction rather than four months, which would give them more security, and landlords will be banned from reletting a property after evicting tenants on new grounds for only three months rather than for a year. While the Bill strengthens the law to ensure that landlords can increase rents only once a year, the mechanism for tenants to contest increases that are too high is not strong enough. We need to see a cap on tenancy rent increases at either the lowest end of inflation or wage growth.
I also want to touch on pets in private rented homes. This is an issue I have been working on with Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in my constituency, and an issue
that many of my constituents have been writing to me about. It is something that they care about. For many people, their pets bring them physical, mental and social health benefits as they are an integral part of many family units. It is vital that we ensure that clauses 7 and 8 are protected in the Bill, so that tenants have a legal right to request a pet in the property and the landlord must consider that request and not refuse it unnecessarily.
This Bill alone will not solve the housing crisis in the private rented sector, and the Government must look at wholesale reform of the sector. Labour has committed, once in government, to increasing the affordable housing supply, and the Mayor of London has already invested over £3 billion in building genuinely affordable homes. There is so much more that the Government can do. They could look at unfreezing the local housing allowance and restoring the link between the LHA and rising rents. It has been frozen for too many years and it is totally out of step with the cost of renting for many in this sector. Shelter has shown that low-income renters are being forced to find, on average, an additional £648 for a one-bedroom property, which is virtually impossible for many.
This Bill only scratches the surface on fixing the housing emergency created by the Conservatives. To protect our constituents, more needs to be done in every way to ensure that everybody has a safe, decent and affordable home to live in. This is the level of ambition that we need, but unfortunately it has been missing from this Government.
8.9 pm