During the government’s sparsely attended debate in the Commons on the Rental Reform Bill it has still failed to declare the date for its introduction to parliament.

At the end of the debate the latest under-secretary of state at the DLUHC (Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) Felicity Buchan, fully backed the sentiments of those MPs who took an active part. 

But regarding the Bill’s progress she just said  “in due course” which made little sense to the MPs, her somewhat lacklustre comment is in spite of the Conservative’s 2019 pledge in its manifesto for the General Election.

Buchan made a few rather generalist statements regarding the government’s stance at the end of the short parliamentary debate when she said: “The Government are determined to deliver a new deal for tenants and landlords in the private rented sector … Everyone in our society deserves to live somewhere decent, warm, safe and secure. The Government are determined to make that vision a reality.”

She continued: “I am proud of the action that the Government has already taken to put things right. We have strengthened local authorities’ enforcement powers by introducing fines of up to £30,000, extending rent repayment orders and introducing banning orders for the most serious and prolific offenders.

“We have introduced new regulations, which require landlords to install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and ensure that the electrical installations in their properties are safe.

“We are concluding our overhaul of the housing, health and safety rating system, which is the tool used to assess hazardous conditions in rented homes. That will make it more accessible to tenants and landlords and allow more efficient enforcement.”

Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke and Labour’s Lloyd Russell-Moyle led the debate in the House of Commons.

A few MPs spoke out listing their usual litany of criticisms of the PRS, landlords, lettings agents, holiday homes and short lets.

However, Russell-Moyle was the most aggressive anti-landlord voice in the debate when citing one case but would not disclose the names of the landlord or lettings agents, he said: “One of the many replies I received was from a young couple who said that before they moved in the landlord agreed to carry out a deep clean, but when they entered the flat they found that it had an insect infestation and it had not been cleaned for months.

“Both the agent and the landlord refused to do anything. Later, the couple found that two windows were broken and so they asked for repairs, but, again, there was a refusal to do anything.

“They contacted the council, but it did not carry out an in-person inspection—we all know the pressures on councils—and in the end, on the balance of things, it just accepted the landlord’s word against that of the tenants.