The Renters’ Reform Bill won’t solve the housing crisis

The Renters’ Reform Bill aims to improve tenant security in the private rental sector by scrapping no-fault evictions, but it’s won’t solve Britain’s housing crisis. The Bill, which returns to Parliament this week for a second reading, was originally dreamt up in the dying days of Theresa May’s government. It could still just about make it in time for the next general election, as the government’s main electoral offer to ‘generation rent’. Yet the reality is that it fails to tackle the main cause of our housing woes: a lack of supply.

The Bill’s main component is a ban on so-called ‘Section 21‘ or ‘No-Fault Evictions’. At the moment, the most common arrangement in Britain’s private rental market is a fixed-term tenancy agreement, that is, a rental contract with a fixed duration of six, 12 or 18 months. When such an agreement expires, it can be replaced by an updated one with a new expiry date, or it can just automatically convert into an open-ended agreement.