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Michael Gove’s housing department has watered down key measures in the long-delayed renters reform bill, including a plan to end “no fault” evictions in England.
Ministers will put forward an amendment to the bill that will delay the end of no fault evictions, also known as “section 21s”, until after a review of the court process for removing tenants, said Jacob Young, a junior housing minister, in a letter sent to MPs.
The promise to end no fault evictions, which allow landlords to kick out tenants with no reason, was a 2019 Conservative party manifesto pledge intended to give renters more security in their homes.
Young said the government needed to ensure a balance between “security for tenants and fairness for landlords”.
Record numbers of people in England faced homelessness last year because of section 21 notices, according to official data, as tenants contended with a year of record rent increases.
Gove, the housing secretary, in February pledged to get the renters reform bill through before the election, expected this year. The government said the legislation would come back to the House of Commons after Easter.
Critics of the legislation, including some Tory MPs who are landlords themselves, have argued that abolishing section 21 evictions would leave landlords unable to deal with problem tenants given delays in the court system.
The amendment will require the justice secretary to publish a report on the “readiness of the courts” before section 21 is removed, according to Young’s letter, first reported by The Sun.
He said the government was “making clear that the new system will not [be] implemented until sufficient progress has been made improving courts”, and that it was putting £1.2mn towards “court digitisation”.
Proponents of ending section 21 fear the legal review will mean extended delays. Polly Neate, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, said: “It’s cowardly that the government would rather betray renters than stand up to a minority of MPs hell-bent on browbeating them into watering down the [bill]”.
Matthew Pennycook, shadow housing minister, said Labour would “immediately abolish section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and deliver the security and rights that renters deserve” if it won the general election.
Other amendments to the bill outlined in Young’s letter include requiring tenants to stay in newly let properties for at least six months, longer than the two months required under the current draft of the bill.
Young said the change “balances protecting landlords’ investment” and that the government was “considering exemptions, such as the death of a tenant, or domestic abuse, or significant hazards in the property”.
At present, the bill prevents landlords from marketing or reletting properties for three months after they take them back from tenants for their own use or to sell.
Young said the government would close a “loophole” by banning landlords from letting the properties on a short-term basis during those months.
Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, a representative body, backed the changes but warned: “The lack of progress and uncertainty about the future is destabilising and damaging for those living and working in the private-rented sector.”
The housing department was contacted for comment.