Liz Truss has within the past few minutes confirmed that the government is not backtracking on their plans to scrap Section 21 so-called ‘no fault’ evictions and will press ahead with the policy.
The Tories have returned to Westminster in an unsettled mood following the break for the party conferences, and MPs on all sides of the House had plenty of questions for the prime minister on a wide range of pressing matters, including housing.
During PMQs, which started at midday today, Graham Stringer, Labour MP, commented on reports that the government does not plan to proceed with Rental Reforms, including the scrapping of Section 21 eviction notices.
He said: “Going back on commitments to end no fault evictions is an act of extreme callousness.
“Can the prime minister reassure the 11 million private renters in the country that she will carry out the commitment to get rid of no-fault evictions?”
Truss replied succinctly: “I can.”
The Times reported this week that the government is expected to U-turn on plans to abolish Section 21 evictions, which caused outrage among some people. See below.
The government published its Fairer Private Rented Sector White Paper in June with plans to ban Section 21 evictions, alongside other proposals.
But the newspaper claims to have been told that the plans are no longer considered a priority and could be killed off entirely, despite being a manifesto commitment.
Steven Swinford, political editor at The Times, tweeted: “Liz Truss is shelving Michael Gove’s plans to end no-fault evictions, which were due to be introduced in this Parliamentary session.
“The Times has been told that they are not considered a priority and could be killed off entirely, despite being a manifesto commitment.”
However, Truss has now confirmed that is not the case, and it would appear that the plan will now be introduced in this parliamentary session.
We will keep you posted.
Government accused of ‘betraying’ renters over reported housing reforms
Comments (16)
Firstly, thank you to The Times for a spurious story that has been proven to have no substance making more waves in already very stormy waters! We need to stay calm, over 85% of tenancies are ended by the tenant- this will not change. Rent increases will be enshrined. The right to re-occupy & sell will be enshrined. Yes, ASB or arrears will need to be tackled with S8 and court action BUT this is a small number in the market. One way to negate some risk is to require guarantors for a broader spectrum of tenancies. It could also be argued that any decent Rent Warranty & Vacant Possession product will be incredibly sensible to have- if not critical- especially in the early days when the courts will be overwhelmed. Most products offer substantial coverage for £100-200 per annum.
Spot on Mr B!
It would seem that this woman has a self-destruct button that she cannot resist pressing! She has made the conservative party pretty much unelectable now, if she was banking on getting tenants as voters, she is living on another planet, now she alienates all the landlords along with pensioners who have had their pensions put at risk by kamikaze the chancellor!
I will increase my rent in January by 8%. It is no longer covering my costs. This is my last BTL to go, but I need to do as much as possible to mitigate the costs in the meantime. I suspect I will get pushback, but the rent is below market, and my tenant has had a good run for 4 years. In the meantime, I will issue a S21 to cover me while I sell.
Having already gone through this in Scotland with the removal of Section 33, the fear was actually worse than the reality. In practice the impact has been minimal. Therefore my message is, don’t worry too much about it.
The bark is worse than it’s bite.
I am not waiting around to find out.
How many evictions have you gone through since its removal? Further, were any of those evictions for ASB? If you’re a landlord with a portfolio of less than 10 ‘middle-class’ properties, I suspect you’re not in any position to comment. It WILL be a disaster and IS causing me to sell up (just a few hundred properties, almost all at the benefit end of the spectrum).
We manage a portfolio of 1500 properties so dealt with a few hundred during the past few years. Very few have had to be taken to the first tier tribunal to obtain eviction order and of those, 100% success rate.
How many since the s.21 ban and how many were for ASB?
The S21 ban has not been implemented yet and has not set date, as yet, to be implemented.
We were discussing Scotland…
That’s what we found too in Scotland. It wasn’t the problem many predicted and has made little difference. More annoying was removing ALL mandatory grounds for possession….. oh, and rent freezes.
Welcome to all renters who wish to not pay their rent and be generally bad tenants.
The government will wonder where all the rental housing stock has gone soon, oh no, sorry they won’t, they will realize that all the illegal immigrants have them 🙂
Thank goodness I did not abandon my plans to sell. Mrs Truss, my tenants are now to become your housing problem.
Well, mistake after mistake, Liz. Kiss goodbye to re-election. The renters will not vote for you when their landlords sell up. If there is a wrong thing to do, Truss Liz to do it.
Well, there was a glimmer of common sense – but now it’s gone.