During a roundtable, Jane Scott and several of the country’s largest landlords and estate agents talked about how delay or stop the legislation altogether.
Even unelected, the Tory party are still casting a bleak shadow over the housing sector. Particularly the rental market. At the beginning of this week shadow housing minister Jane Scott hosted a roundtable where herself and private landlords spoke of ways to interrupt the Renters’ Rights Bill, a legislation due to pass in Summer 2025.
According to those who attended the roundtable, experts discussed challenging the bill in the courts or enforcing repeated rounds of Lords amendments.
‘The comments by Baroness Scott have confirmed what we suspected: that there is a coordinated attempt by landlords and their supporters within the Lords to frustrate the progress of the Renters’ Rights Bill,’ Anny Cullum, policy officer at Acorn said. ‘Unelected and unaccountable Tory peers are using underhand tactics to deliberately delay this vita legislation even more – legislation that many of them supported in its previous guise under the last government.’
However, a Conservative spokesperson told the Guardian that the party have understood the legislation as ‘deeply flawed’ since it was first proposed.
‘It will lead to a reduced supply of rental homes…As is standard practice with all legislation, the official opposition engages privately with a range of stakeholders to hear their views,’ they said.
At the heart of Labours housing plans, the Renters’ Rights Bill aims to abolish no-fault evictions and ensure all tenancies are periodic. Awaab’s law is also included within the legislation which mandates social landlords must address issues of damp and mould within a strict timeframe.
During the Conservatives latest reign, Michael Gove attempted to enact a similar set of proposals, but the bill failed to pass before the next election was called. Since then, Kemi Badenoch – the new Tory leader – has hardened her party’s stance on such reforms.
To give an example, during the roundtable Scott defended the Conservatives’ decision to not establish Awaab’s law as she claimed landlords aren’t organised enough to be able to respond to tenants’ problems within strict deadlines.
It should be noted that some of the property groups represented were not comfortable with the tone of the discussion. Some experts claimed they believe the bill will become law eventually and it would be best to pass it quickly with modest amendments.
Photo by chris robert via UnSplash
In related news:
Community and faith networks to be recognised as ‘national infrastructure’
Leave a Reply