Bill makes renting as safe as houses for tenants

AN interesting week in Westminster – as you probably have read we got the Rwanda Bill through – and the House of Lords, as convention expects, finally accepted the will of the elected House of Commons.

The debate was, however, important to have, and we sat until about midnight on Monday – which is certainly a serious start to the week.

We fulfilled the Government’s 2019 manifesto commitment, which I stood on, to make a fairer renter’s market for both landlords and tenants with the Renters Reform Bill.

Basically, this bill provides greater security of tenure for tenants by abolishing ‘no fault’ evictions, whilst strengthening the grounds on which landlords can seek to repossess their properties – where a landlord wants to move in themselves or sell the property – with safeguards for the tenant such as two months’ notice.

The bill also strengthens the grounds to make it easier for landlords to reposess their property where tenants exhibit anti-social behaviour or repeatedly build up rent arrears.

In order to have a healthy rental market in this country, there needs to be safeguards for both the landlords and for the tenants. I believe this bill, after much consultation and discussion, does iron out some of the injustices on both sides.

We also debated The Football Governance Bill which will establish an independent regulator with a licensing system for the top five tiers of men’s football in England.

It will strengthen the owners’ and directors’ test to make sure a club’s custodians are suitable and to protect fans from irresponsible owners.

It also sets a minimum standard of fan engagement and requiring clubs to comply with new FA rules on club heritage.

Importantly for us locally, it requires clubs to seek regulator preapproval for any sale or relocation of their stadium.

I am not sure this would actually help efforts that my colleague, Sarah Dines MP and I have had to go to to save the Sudbury Football Club pitch as the club is too small.

We will, with Kate Kniveton MP, keep working on this as I am sure that Lord Vernon, when he gave the land to the National Trust, expected it to be used for these purposes.

The bill’s regulations would probably have alleviated the issues that Derby County had in 2022, when following years of turmoil as a result of unprecedented spending and transfer embargoes, Derby ended up being relegated to League One.

This bill should make sure something like this can never happen again.

I also got the chance to support my colleague, Laurence Robertson MP, in his Private Members Bill which aims to amend existing legalisation relating to cases for people who have a terminal illness who can receive benefits when they have a life expectancy of 12 months rather than six months.

This, if we can get it through Parliament, will just provide a little bit of extra help for those who are already having a terrible time.

A good week in Westminster – but a particularly busy one.