There is conservable speculation around a major Cabinet reshuffle following last night’s confidence vote (Monday 6th June) and whether there will be further delays to the incoming Renters’ Reform Bill.

Boris Johnston’s majority of confidence votes was deemed surprisingly low as he won with 211 votes against 148 no confidence votes with more than 40 per cent of Tory MPs opposed to Johnson’s leadership.

The Renters Reform Bill  and White Paper has been threatened for three years which include the most contentious of provisions with the scrapping of Section 21 powers, it will also give private tenants far more rights over notice periods, deposits and other areas of the rental process.

Yesterday the minister who is responsible for steering through the Renters Reform Bill at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, supported Johnston in the party’s confidence vote.

Eddie Hughes MP for Walsall North, who was given the junior ministerial role by the PM - tweeted yesterday: “When Boris came to Bloxwich in April 2019 I saw first-hand the amazing connection he has with the public - like no other Conservative PM before him. 8 months later he delivered an 80 seat Conservative majority. #BackBoris”  Hughes’ Twitter account was changed to remove the MP’s own photograph and replace it with a Back Boris badge.

Also another high ranking appointee by Johnson and Hughes’ chief, Housing Secretary MP Michael Gove, also showed his support for the Prime Minister prior to the vote when tweeting somewhat identical thoughts to other senior ministers, which said: “I’ll be voting for Boris this evening. The PM got the big decisions right on Brexit and Covid. We need to focus now on defending Ukraine, driving levelling-up and generating growth. We need to move past this moment and unite behind Boris to meet these challenges.”

However, it could be more than likely that there will be reshuffle of the cabinet due to the significant number of Tory MPs opposed to his leadership and it may be a possibility that the Renters Reform Bill could be further delayed.

With Boris clinging onto power even if the White Paper is presented to Parliament some are predicting that overall it could take up to a further year before it is passed; there are even claims that the incumbent PM may face further challenges from Tory MP rebels.

Prior to the confidence vote’s result the Shelter charity demanded that the abolition of Section 21 powers must be fast tracked.

The charity as usual states some ‘interesting’ figures which includes the claim that during the first three months of 2022 - 5,890 landlords in England started Section 21 eviction court proceedings, which according to Shelter is 41 per cent higher than the corresponding period in 2020.

It also states that landlords made18,626 eviction claims to court between January and March 2022 - an increase of 32 per cent from the previous quarter.

In the government’s last general election’s manifesto it promised to scrap Section 21 in April 2019 and Shelter is claiming that since then around 230,000 private tenants in England have been served with a Section 21 notice eviction.

Polly Neate, Shelter’s chief executive, says:?“It’s alarming that as the living cost crisis rages more landlords are kicking tenants out of their homes. These are real people whose lives are being turned upside down and simply cannot afford to lose their homes right now. Every day our emergency helpline supports renters who are scrambling around trying to find another home after being slapped with a no-fault eviction. But soaring living costs mean many are struggling to stump up the cash for a house move they don’t want to make.?

“While scrapping Section 21 evictions alone won’t solve the cost-of-living crisis for renters, it will at least give them some much needed security in their homes. The government promised renters three times that it will introduce?a Renters’ Reform Bill to scrap unfair Section 21 no-fault evictions. Now, it must get the job done as?every minute wasted puts another renter at risk.”