I would love to, but we do not have much time. However, there needs to be some discussion about what compensation someone will be given if they are no-fault evicted: for example, should they be given two months’ compensation, which could pay for a deposit and the first month’s rent in their new property? If the landlord has not registered, and the tenant is then evicted because their landlord has failed to be a good landlord—which is, of course, one of the grounds—what compensation will that person receive, enabling them to move into new, decent accommodation? Their money is tied up in the deposit and in having paid the rent. There needs to be some serious thought about how we compensate tenants so that they can move on in the private rented sector. Some people have also said that the property portal might be a back-door way of getting rid of selective licencing, which would be a great mistake.
The real story of these reform methods is the work of tens of thousands of hard-working activists, advice workers, policy leaders and organisations up and down this country, many of them in the Renters Reform Coalition, to which I give much praise. We are close to significant reform, but we must be vigilant.
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