The UK Government has folded to landlord’s lobbying, watering down the Renters (Reform) Bill so that it will no longer include student renters.
The Renters’ Reform Bill was an exciting piece of legislation, that promised to reform Britain’s archaic rental system and provide long-needed protections to renters. But right from the get-go landlords who let properties to students lobbied to have them excluded from the protections offered to other tenants. NUS and the student movement were delighted when the bill was placed before Parliament intact, with no student exemption to its safeguards. But as the Bill made its way through the Parliamentary process, we became aware of a continuing, and concerted campaign, to force the government to create an unprecedented two-tier rental market, where students would be at the mercy of Section 21 evictions that other tenants would be protected from.
Despite this lobbying from landlords organisations and the fact that 87 MPs are landlords, including 68 Conservatives, nearly 1 in 5 of the Conservative Parliamentary Party, we continued to hope that the government would honour its promises. But today the Government caved to landlords and the Bill is a hollow shell of what it once was.
NUS UK Vice President for Higher Education, Chloe Field, said:
“The student housing market is broken, as is our higher education system. This government has offered students nothing, other than the occasional top up to hardship funds. While that’s better than zero, with a cost-of-living crisis, spiralling rents and soaring bills affecting students across the country, it’s a sticking plaster at best. The Renters’ Reform Bill was the one concrete thing the Government had to offer us. It promised long needed reforms which would lead to securer tenancies and a market much more in tune with student tenant needs. To have the Government throw this away and ensure that landlords continue to have all the power is unforgiveable. Students will be free to make their views heard on the Government’s caving to Tory landlords clear at the ballot box come the election. And make no mistake: We will.
