Ben Cope is a political commentator.
When Michael Gove tried to justify the Conservative’s record of government in these pages late last month, he boasted that the Conservatives had delivered “over 2.5 million new homes.” Readers would be forgiven for rolling their eyes.
The Levelling-Up Secretary is catching on that Britain’s chronic housing shortage will hit his party at the polls. Their most articulated solution – the Renters (Reform) Bill – although containing some welcome changes, has one glaring error: a ban on ‘no fault evictions’ (when a landlord evicts a tenant without a reason at the end of the contract). Not only does this fail to address the lack of supply that is the root cause of our housing woes, but it would make it even worse. The Lords must remove the clause from the Bill to avoid unnecessary damage.
Compared to the average European country, Britain has 4.3 million fewer houses than it should. The result? Across England, the average house costs more than ten times the average salary The last times houses were this unaffordable was 1876, rents are similarly expensive, and space per person for private renters has dropped substantially. Gove may not have created the housing crisis, but by failing to come close to their unambitious target of building 300,000 houses per year even once, they’ve been part of the problem, not the solution.
Following John Burn-Murdoch’s excellent analysis showing that young Brits are abandoning conservatism more than their international peers, in part, because of the housing crisis, Gove gave an interview on the subject to The Sunday Times. He declared: “If people think that markets are rigged and a democracy isn’t listening to them, then you get — and this is the worrying thing to me — an increasing number of young people saying, ‘I don’t believe in democracy, I don’t believe in markets.’”
Gove is pushing the Renters (Reform) Bill in a last-minute bid to rectify this. The legislation would bring in a raft of policies, including applying the Decent Home Standard to all private properties (rather than just social housing), stopping landlords from discriminating against families with children or those on benefits, abolishing fixed-term tenancies (with exemptions for students), making it easier for tenants to keep pets, ensuring landlords give at least two months’ notice before increasing rent, creating a new ombudsman to settle low-level disputes, and making it easier for landlords to repossess tenants in arrears or those who exhibit antisocial behaviour.
Much of this is well overdue and would be welcomed by Britain’s 11 million renters. Can the same be said for the Bill’s most controversial section: the ban on so-called ‘no fault evictions’? The Bill would prevent landlords from evicting tenants in England except under certain circumstances, such as when they wished to sell the property or when they or a close family member wanted to move in.
The Government claims this will “empower renters to challenge poor landlords without fear of losing their home,” while others argue it will protect marginalised groups from discrimination. With no-fault evictions increasing by a third last year to over 30,000, there is a clear appeal for tenants.
Predictably, landlords are less pleased. They argue that making it near-impossible to evict a tenant unless they breach the contract – which can be difficult to prove in our inadequate courts – will make signing a new tenant a high-stakes affair. As such, landlords will avoid letting to more vulnerable renters perceived to be of higher risk: young people and migrants without references.
While claims a ban on no-fault evictions would push one-in-four landlords to sell up entirely are overdone (better conditions for renters will increase demand relative to buying, increasing rent and thus incentivising landlords to stay the course), it will encourage landlords to keep properties empty for short periods to find a tenant they may be saddled with for years, reducing the net housing stock and pushing up rents further.
Rather than tinkering with our insufficient housing stock, we need drastic supply-side reform to address Britain’s chronic housing shortage. Making our housing market more like that of rent-controlled Europe would be a mistake. In Paris, Henry Hill has noted that young people have to lie to secure a tenancy due to gold-plated tenants’ rights, while Stockholm renters now wait an average of nine years to secure an apartment. At the same time, last-ditch plans to “turbocharge” development in cities after 14 years of inaction are too little too late.
The Lords should amend the Renters (Reform) Bill to remove the ban on no-fault evictions, while adding in specific powers to the new ombudsmen to protect marginalised groups at risk of discrimination. The Government, keen that the Bill’s other measures reach the statute book before the election, would cut their losses and ditch the pledge. Renters may grumble, but it would be in their interest.
Ben Cope is a political commentator.
When Michael Gove tried to justify the Conservative’s record of government in these pages late last month, he boasted that the Conservatives had delivered “over 2.5 million new homes.” Readers would be forgiven for rolling their eyes.
The Levelling-Up Secretary is catching on that Britain’s chronic housing shortage will hit his party at the polls. Their most articulated solution – the Renters (Reform) Bill – although containing some welcome changes, has one glaring error: a ban on ‘no fault evictions’ (when a landlord evicts a tenant without a reason at the end of the contract). Not only does this fail to address the lack of supply that is the root cause of our housing woes, but it would make it even worse. The Lords must remove the clause from the Bill to avoid unnecessary damage.
Compared to the average European country, Britain has 4.3 million fewer houses than it should. The result? Across England, the average house costs more than ten times the average salary The last times houses were this unaffordable was 1876, rents are similarly expensive, and space per person for private renters has dropped substantially. Gove may not have created the housing crisis, but by failing to come close to their unambitious target of building 300,000 houses per year even once, they’ve been part of the problem, not the solution.
Following John Burn-Murdoch’s excellent analysis showing that young Brits are abandoning conservatism more than their international peers, in part, because of the housing crisis, Gove gave an interview on the subject to The Sunday Times. He declared: “If people think that markets are rigged and a democracy isn’t listening to them, then you get — and this is the worrying thing to me — an increasing number of young people saying, ‘I don’t believe in democracy, I don’t believe in markets.’”
Gove is pushing the Renters (Reform) Bill in a last-minute bid to rectify this. The legislation would bring in a raft of policies, including applying the Decent Home Standard to all private properties (rather than just social housing), stopping landlords from discriminating against families with children or those on benefits, abolishing fixed-term tenancies (with exemptions for students), making it easier for tenants to keep pets, ensuring landlords give at least two months’ notice before increasing rent, creating a new ombudsman to settle low-level disputes, and making it easier for landlords to repossess tenants in arrears or those who exhibit antisocial behaviour.
Much of this is well overdue and would be welcomed by Britain’s 11 million renters. Can the same be said for the Bill’s most controversial section: the ban on so-called ‘no fault evictions’? The Bill would prevent landlords from evicting tenants in England except under certain circumstances, such as when they wished to sell the property or when they or a close family member wanted to move in.
The Government claims this will “empower renters to challenge poor landlords without fear of losing their home,” while others argue it will protect marginalised groups from discrimination. With no-fault evictions increasing by a third last year to over 30,000, there is a clear appeal for tenants.
Predictably, landlords are less pleased. They argue that making it near-impossible to evict a tenant unless they breach the contract – which can be difficult to prove in our inadequate courts – will make signing a new tenant a high-stakes affair. As such, landlords will avoid letting to more vulnerable renters perceived to be of higher risk: young people and migrants without references.
While claims a ban on no-fault evictions would push one-in-four landlords to sell up entirely are overdone (better conditions for renters will increase demand relative to buying, increasing rent and thus incentivising landlords to stay the course), it will encourage landlords to keep properties empty for short periods to find a tenant they may be saddled with for years, reducing the net housing stock and pushing up rents further.
Rather than tinkering with our insufficient housing stock, we need drastic supply-side reform to address Britain’s chronic housing shortage. Making our housing market more like that of rent-controlled Europe would be a mistake. In Paris, Henry Hill has noted that young people have to lie to secure a tenancy due to gold-plated tenants’ rights, while Stockholm renters now wait an average of nine years to secure an apartment. At the same time, last-ditch plans to “turbocharge” development in cities after 14 years of inaction are too little too late.
The Lords should amend the Renters (Reform) Bill to remove the ban on no-fault evictions, while adding in specific powers to the new ombudsmen to protect marginalised groups at risk of discrimination. The Government, keen that the Bill’s other measures reach the statute book before the election, would cut their losses and ditch the pledge. Renters may grumble, but it would be in their interest.