My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark for introducing his ever-helpful amendments. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that he should be congratulated on his tenacity in continuing to pursue these matters. It is also good to see the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, in his place, clearly still enjoying my noble friend’s speeches; he cannot keep away and it is good to have his support. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for his support for my noble friend’s amendments, and again for his continued pursuit, as the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, said, of these matters. I thank him also for reminding us of something that is very close to my heart, which is the importance of pre-legislative scrutiny. This seems to have completely gone by-the-by now and it is important that we remember that it makes good legislation.
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I will not speak for too long. Clearly, Members are hungry and want their dinner. Clearly the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, must be starving—I have never heard such a quick speech from her. However, on the basis that these are amendments to the levelling-up Bill, I did want to get on the record what the relevant mission was, because I think we need to keep this within the context of the debate. The mission is that by 2030, renters will have a secure path to ownership, with the number of first-time buyers increasing in all areas, and the Government’s ambition is for the number of non-decent rented homes to have fallen by 50%, with the biggest improvements in the lowest-performing areas. That is a really important mission.
It has been years since the former Prime Minister Theresa May promised to abolish Section 21 “no-fault” evictions. My noble friend referred to this and to the fact that Ministers have repeatedly stated that this promise is going to be stuck to. The levelling-up White Paper reiterates the intention to abolish this type of eviction. It says that it will set out how the UK Government will support those in the private rented sector, including ending so-called “no-fault” Section 21 evictions, and giving all tenants a strong right to redress. But, as my noble friend has said, this still has not happened. I do not know whether the Minister will say that he cannot tell us when the promised private rented sector Bill will appear, but even he and his noble colleagues must acknowledge that the wait has been dragging on and, as my noble friend said, it has not been getting enough action.
If we look at the technical annexe that accompanies the White Paper, we see:
“The headline metric for housing quality is the proportion of renters living in housing that does not meet the decent homes standard … Further detail will be provided once the Decent Homes Standard review has concluded”.
We know this concluded in October, so it would be very helpful if the Minister could give us some idea of when we are likely to see the Government’s response to this, because clearly it is going to be critical to making progress on this mission—as is all the housing legislation that my noble friend referred to. If we are going to genuinely move forward and manage the levelling-up challenges of housing, we need to move forward on the promised legislation. In particular, as my noble
friend said, when are going to see the abolition of leaseholder tenure? Reform is not good enough; it is where we want to move forward, so I await the response with interest.