THE Renters (Reform) Bill is being outsourced to “landlord backbenchers,” campaigners warned today, after it was reported that Tory MPs are being consulted on watering down planned tenant protections.
The Bill is in the report stage before going to its third reading and includes the abolition of Section 21 no-fault evictions – first promised in 2019.
A series of draft amendments have been circulated among Tory MPs who had expressed concerns about the legislation and wanted to increase rights for landlords.
The proposals include delaying the end of Section 21 evictions until the policy’s impact on the courts system has been assessed and a requirement for tenants to live in a property for four months before leaving.
Renters’ Reform Coalition campaign manager Tom Darling said: “It is scandalous and farcical that the government are now outsourcing the writing of the Bill to their landlord backbenchers. It reeks of desperation.
“They don’t want to be seen to have reneged on their promise to deliver a better deal for renters.
“But with the ban on Section 21 even further into the long grass, and the suggestion they are looking to ‘lower the burden on landlords’ to provide safe housing, England’s 11 million private renters will struggle to come to any other conclusion.”
He said that the initial proposals are “the baseline of the change we need” in the private rent sector.
Generation Rent chief executive Ben Twomey said: “It is unacceptable for tenants to be treated as an afterthought around reforms which we were told would help us.
“We will not stand by while the new law to protect and empower renters is transformed into a Landlord’s Bill of Rights.
“If the government really is going to water down the Bill even further, England’s 12 million private renters deserve to know why.
“We have waited a very long time for this Bill, but it must genuinely offer to improve renters’ lives if it is to be worth the paper it’s written on.”
Shadow housing secretary Angela Rayner called for a statement on the matter to be made to Parliament, saying Prime Minister Rishi Sunak “must give cast-iron public assurances that he won’t give in to vested interests on his backbenches and rip up his promises to renters.”
A Department of Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities spokesman said the Bill “will deliver a fairer private rented sector for both tenants and landlords.”
