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Senior Tories have held private talks with big landlords about how to thwart the government’s renters’ rights bill, the Guardian has learned, with ideas including launching a legal challenge under human rights law.
Jane Scott, the shadow housing minister, recently hosted a roundtable meeting with several of the country’s largest landlords and estate agents, at which they discussed a number of ways to delay or stop the bill altogether. The ideas included challenging it in the courts and delaying it with repeated rounds of Lords amendments, according to three people in attendance.
The discussions have prompted accusations of collusion between the Tories and property industry. They also give an indication of how hard the Conservatives are likely to fight the bill in its final stages, even though the party tried to pass a similar version of the proposals when it was in government.
Anny Cullum, policy officer at the campaign group Acorn, said: “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.”
She added: “Unelected and unaccountable Tory peers are using underhand tactics to deliberately delay this vital legislation even more – legislation that many of them supported in its previous guise under the last government.”
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “England’s 11 million private renters have been waiting years for genuine security and safety in their homes. With reform finally on the horizon, it’s utterly disgraceful that a handful of self-interested peers are resorting to cynical delay tactics designed to slow the progress of the renters’ rights bill to a crawl.”
A Conservative party spokesperson said: “The Conservatives have been warning that this bill is deeply flawed, as 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.”
At the heart of Labour’s renters’ rights package is a ban on no-fault evictions, due to come into force as soon as the bill received royal assent. Other measures in the bill include preventing landlords from accepting more rent than the amount for which a property has been listed, and enacting “Awaab’s law” to force landlords to carry out essential repairs within fixed time periods.
Michael Gove attempted to enact a similar set of proposals when he was housing secretary in the last government, but his bill failed to pass before the election was called. Since then, the new Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, has hardened her party’s stance against such reforms.
Scott’s meeting with landlords and estate agents included representatives from the property group Get Living, Dexters estate agents and the National Residential Landlord Association, among others.
Get Living told the meeting they had instructed a senior barrister to examine bringing a legal challenge to the bill on human rights grounds, an initiative which Scott welcomed, according to two attenders. One said she told the meeting the legal challenge might stop the bill “dead in its tracks”.
The Scottish Association of Landlords launched a similar challenge against the Scottish government’s attempts to bring in a temporary rent cap, arguing it violated the right to property as enshrined in the European convention on human rights. That challenge ultimately failed.
A spokesperson for Get Living said the company wanted the bill to succeed. The spokesperson added, however: “There is a group in the professionally managed rental sector that significantly contributes to new housing stock that are concerned about the legal issues the government faces if the bill proceeds in its current format.”
Scott also told the meeting she would do everything she could to force debate on multiple amendments as a way of delaying the bill, telling those who attended she thought she could hold it up until the autumn at least.
At one point, according to one attender, she complained she could not find enough statistical evidence to say landlords were leaving the market as a result of the bill. In response, attenders said they would try to find the data she was looking for.
Scott also defended the Conservatives’ decision not to bring in Awaab’s law, saying landlords were not sufficiently well organised to be able to respond to tenants’ problems within strict deadlines. One of those who attended, who said they were playing devil’s advocate, wondered aloud whether landlords should not be forced to become more organised.
Not all of the property groups represented were comfortable with the tone of the meeting, according to some of those who attended. Some groups believe the bill is going to become law eventually, and that it would be best to pass it quickly with modest amendments to give landlords more certainty.
