THE Renter’s Rights Bill is coming into legislation. What can you tell us about it?

The Bill will be the biggest reform for the private rented sector since 1988. So, it’s pretty massive. And it’s an understatement to say it’s been a long time coming.

The private rented sector is fundamentally broken: the contradictions were there very right from the start, [and] as more and more people have relied upon it, housing has become more expensive. But it’s taken until now for there to be a change.

The Bill was originally committed to under the Theresa May government after a long campaign by renters’ unions and other housing campaigners. They made a big announcement to abolish Section 21 “no-fault” evictions where a landlord has the right to evict a private tenant for no reason, with just two months’ notice. It never actually passed [into] legislation.

Each successive Tory prime minister recommitted to a renter’s reform Bill. And some came close perhaps to passing it. But the Tories [are] dominated by landlords — that doesn’t massively distinguish them from the Labour Party — and never actually managed to get that legislation over the line because it was massively resisted within their own party.

With the abolishment of Section 21, does that mean tenants are now safe from unfair evictions?

The Bill does make an enormous difference to renters in terms of security. It far from solves every problem. But what characterised the modern private rented sector when it was created under Thatcher in 1988 was the abolition of rent controls and the removal of security of tenure.

Renters up until that point had had solid security of tenure and controlled rents, and they were totally abolished. [This meant] that home was valued, in law, as an asset as opposed to somewhere that someone can rely on to live.

And so in order to make it attractive for landlord investors to come into the market, it was seen that they needed to be able to regain their asset whenever they wanted to. Section 21 allowed landlords to retake possession of that asset with a very small amount of notice for the tenants with no reason at all needing to be given.

Section 21 eviction usually is the leading cause of homelessness in this country, and is one of the reasons why we have the highest level of homelessness in the developed world.

Now landlords will have to give tenants additional time that can make all the difference in terms of finding a next home. It is a huge step forward in terms of security and we can now speak of private renters having a degree of security in their homes, whereas for the last four decades, we’ve not been able to.

Labour has pledged to build 1.5 million homes, what does this mean?

Labour’s plans with the housing crisis are much like Labour’s plans with most everything else: channelling the Tony Blair vibes, they’re saying growing the economy will solve everything.

With the economy, they’ve made bold promises on growth. And with housing, they’ve made huge promises on growth. But like their economic plans, these plans are slowly hitting up against reality and being shown to be basically nonsense in a variety of ways.

The promise of 1.5 million homes in this parliament is an average of 300,000 homes a year. We have not built that many homes since just after the second world war per year — no-one credible believes that Labour can actually do that.

Just like many of Labour’s promises, it’s not actually a serious promise.

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