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Shadow housing minister grills NRLA over PRS ‘exodus’ claims due to Section 21 reforms
The shadow housing minister has grilled the head of the UK’s biggest landlords’ lobby group over its claims of an “exodus” in the private rented sector (PRS) as a result of the government’s proposed private rent reforms.
Addressing Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), Matthew Pennycook said: “Is it not the case that… there is no evidence to suggest that we will see, as some claim, an exodus of landlords from the sector?”
He also referred to comments made by Mr Beadle in an industry webinar earlier this year, in which he said: “This sector is actually still increasing. That’s not terribly helpful to our argument, to be honest with you. But in the context of cost of living and rising costs we have to tell that story and link the two.”
Mr Pennycook and Mr Beadle were taking part in the first evidence session of the Public Bill Committee yesterday regarding the proposals in the Renters’ Reform Bill.
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The bill got its second reading in parliament last month, but its proposed ban on Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions has been delayed until the government has completed a programme of digitising and prioritising housing-related cases in the court system designed to help landlords.
The delay to banning Section 21 evictions came after what the NRLA described in a recent press release as an “extensive lobbying” effort.
Mr Beadle told MPs yesterday: “I am not going to sit here and say that after looking at the bill, everybody is going to sell up. We are not scaremongering here. We are saying that some nips and tucks are necessary to give responsible landlords the confidence to deal with the reforms.”
He added: “We have a massive demand and supply imbalance. Is that a result of renters reform? No. Is it a result of a lot of factors, including renters reform? Yes.”
Mr Beadle’s response appeared to contrast with repeated NRLA claims of an “exodus” of landlords as a consequence of the bill in recent months.
At a Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee meeting in July, Mr Beadle told MPs that “Rome is burning” as he gave evidence on how the PRS was dealing with rising interest rates and increased taxation.
Meanwhile, Office for National Statistics figures point to a relatively stable PRS market, which has hovered around 4.6 million households since 2014. Before that, it had doubled from roughly two million households since 2000.
In yesterday’s session, Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation (NHF), urged ministers to clarify changes in the bill that would restrict rent increases to once per year and require landlords to give two months’ notice of rent changes.
She said that while social housing is exempt from the changes, the exemption does not appear to apply to subcategories such as intermediate rents, specialist supported housing and others.
For operators of these categories of social housing the 12-month standard “would place a huge administrative burden, whether it is on a large-volume landlord or even on a smaller landlord with fewer staff. This would take away from a provider’s ability to deliver those core services.”
“It might mean that neighbours had their rents increased at different times, and it would really affect delivery.”
Elsewhere in the session, Dame Clare Moriarty, chief executive of Citizens Advice, told MPs that the charity is currently helping nearly 100 people per day with Section 21 evictions.
Government figures published last week revealed that no-fault eviction court proceedings hit a seven-year high.
Between July and September 2023, 8,399 English landlords started Section 21 court proceedings against their tenants, according to the latest Ministry of Justice data.
This represents a 38% increase in claims issued by landlords compared with the same period in 2022, when 6,092 landlords started Section 21 court proceedings.
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