A lettings sector trade body predicts that the House of Lords is unlikely to make substantive changes to the Renters Reform Bill.
The Bill completed its passage through the Commons last month, culminating in four hours of debate over a string of amendments, mostly from the government.
It took a year to complete its Commons stages but is thought to have no more than a few months in the Lords before it becomes law - providing a General Election doesn’t intervene, killing the Bill should polling day happen before the Lords stages complete.
Now Chris Norris, policy director at the National Residential Landlords Association, says: “Traditionally debate in the Lords is more lengthy and extensive than that in the Commons, and over the coming weeks we are likely to hear lot of noise about further amendments to the legislation.
“Lots of peers with an interest in housing will table amendments for debate which are highly unlikely to be adopted by the Government.
“However, the Bill will probably continue its progress through Parliament largely unchanged.”
Labour has said it will not oppose the Bill as it stands and the Conservative majority in the Commons has the right to reverse any changes made in the Lords that would alter the nature of the Bill.
Norris acknowledges that it’s difficult to predict exactly how long the remaining stages of the Bill will take to complete, but having taken a year to traverse the
Commons it is possible that its passage through the Upper House could be complete by the autumn.
Norris concludes: “What has happened … represents a huge step forward for the Government, after fears they may run out of time to have the legislation passed ahead of a general election.
“We are confident the Bill as it stands delivers a balance for landlords and tenants and it is in the interests of both that the Bill passes smoothly through these final stages. The alternative is yet more uncertainty, and the prospect of another bill courtesy of the next government.”
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NRLA, Not supporting their members as usual.😡
It's a shame the Lords is not what it was long ago and can no longer be expected to properly and expertly scrutinise poor quality (or in this case absolutely dire and unnecessary) legislation sent to it from the lower house to be either fixed or maybe just booted out altogether.
Too many talentless, nonentity mere political appointees with minimal sense or knowledge there these days...
Along with so much else in the UK that was once working well and worth having, but could have been improved and boosted rather than targeted for demolition (a "great reform" to "level things up" haha), the PRS now seems doomed for a long cycle of heavy decline with the added risk of step by step returning to something like the 1970s blight of sitting tenants and all the frustration and misery that ended causing most of them as well as thier poor landlords stuck with virtually unsaleable, unwinnable properties worth about 1/3 of their normal open market value with full vacant possetion and NO tenants.
Unfortunately, Barry, the Great Deceiver Tony Blair, decided that all the hereditary peers were undemocratic and replaced them with his friends. The hereditary peers, in the main, had a sense of duty and did their jobs responsibly. Their replacements see their job as frustrating the Tory government. It will be interesting, in an academic way, to see if that behavious changes when/if we get a Labour government.
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