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Eight landlord MPs spoke during debate on renters’ rights [1]
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Date: 2023-10
At least eight MPs who spoke during a Parliamentary debate on renters’ rights yesterday were landlords, openDemocracy analysis has found.
Tenants’ groups told us they were concerned about a lack of transparency during the second reading of the Renters (Reform) Bill, with one MP forgetting to declare an interest until after the fact, while those with rental income below £10,000 a year were under no obligation to declare anything.
The bill had contained measures to improve conditions for renters such as the abolition of section 21 (or “no fault”) evictions.
But that ban has been kicked into the long grass, handing a victory to landlord lobbyists who had called for such a measure. The government says it wants to improve the court system before the ban is brought in – a major project with no end date attached.
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At least 87 MPs are residential landlords, including 68 Conservatives and 16 Labour MPs. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has seven properties in Southampton, while cabinet ministers Suella Braverman, Gillian Keegan, Alex Chalk and Lucy Frazer also receive rental income from residential properties.
MPs must declare if they receive rental income of over £10,000 a year but, if rental income is below that threshold, it remains unknown. They are also required to declare a conflict of interest during debates where relevant.
Speaking in Monday’s debate, Desmond Swayne MP praised the decision to delay the ban, calling it “vital as part of the reform that [housing secretary Michael Gove] is bringing forward”.
Swayne, who owns a house and a flat in London jointly with his wife, receives more than £10,000 a year in rental income from both properties. This was not declared before he made his contribution to the debate, though he later corrected his mistake in a point of order.
The other MPs who list rental income on their declarations of interest and spoke in the debate were Lib Dems Helen Morgan and Wera Hobhouse, Tories Duncan Baker, Robert Syms, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Nick Fletcher, and Labour’s Lloyd Russell-Moyle – who also chairs the all-party parliamentary group for renters and rental reform.
Syms, who is the co-director and shareholder of a private lettings business, told the chamber: “I sometimes feel that private landlords have a thankless task. They tend to get kicked by everybody, even though they are trying to do the right thing.”
MPs are not required to give any further detail about their property income, meaning many of those who spoke may be earning significantly more than the £10,000 threshold for declarations.
Gove, meanwhile, went so far as to “put on record” his thanks to the National Residential Landlords’ Association in yesterday’s debate for ensuring “that the voice of landlords is heard”. He made no reference to tenants’ groups, but did say: “Landlords are good things… it is nothing to be ashamed of.”
In all, 50 MPs spoke in the chamber.
Tom Darling, campaign manager at the Renters’ Reform Coalition, told openDemocracy: “Being a landlord doesn’t mean you have to recuse yourself from this debate, but the public deserve to have a complete understanding of the ways in which you stand to benefit or lose as a result of the proposals you are scrutinising.
“On the one hand, it’s good that MPs are required to ‘refer members’ to their register of interest’. But on the other hand, it really isn’t enough info – if you are, say, a buy-to-let landlord with multiple properties, as some MPs are, then this is important context for any contribution you make to a debate on these important new proposals to improve renters rights.”
Ben Twomey, CEO of Generation Rent, added: “All Conservative MPs were elected on the promise to end Section 21 no-fault evictions, written into their 2019 manifesto. Responsibilities as parliamentarians must come above private interests and all MPs should stand by their commitment to ban no-fault evictions.
“Renters would be rightly furious if a select few landlord MPs are the reason that this legislation has been stalled for months. The public deserves to know who is standing in the way of reforms that renters as well as responsible landlords agree are necessary, and what they stand to gain from preventing change.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/renters-reform-bill-eight-landlord-mps-transparency/
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