Other than shadow housing secretary Kemi Badenoch, few MPs stood to defend landlords during yesterday’s second reading of the Renters' Rights Bill in parliament.

Conservative MP David Symonds (main image), who sits on an all-party MP group on housing, urged Labour MPs not to portray all landlords as ‘bad' and that the Government’s own data shows private tenants are the most satisfied among all the tenancies in England.

“Everyone is aware of the problems within the private rented sector, but on the whole those who use it find it a source of appropriate and affordable housing,” he said, adding that the Bill should be there to “put right the most egregious examples” of bad landlording not to make life more difficult for all landlords.

Rebecca Smith, MP for South West Devon, who has affiliations to the SW Landlords Association, told MPs that the Bill would have unintended consequences by persuading more landlords to sell up and that properties released into the market were unlikely to be afforded by the tenants who live in them, forcing them into temporary accommodation.

“I speak for the many excellent landlords who provide the vital rented homes that Plymouth and the surrounding rural areas need, the loss of which will only impact the very tenants that we are hoping to support – none of this Bill will be relevant if there are no homes available to rent,” she said.

Unintended consequences

Her points were supported by former Home Secretary Priti Patel, who also warned that the Bill would have unintended consequences, but it was Reform UK’s leader Richard Tice who made the point that in order to increase supply, landlords needed to “feel that the balance of risk and reward was appropriate” and that the Bill would change this, but not for the better.

All the other speeches, six of which were Labour MPs’ ‘maiden’ ones in parliament, were in support of the Bill, all saying that the private rental market is ‘broken’; that renters needed more rights; that landlords were a ‘vested interest’ and in the case of Matthew Pennycook (pictured) that the private rented sector was ‘unjust’.

Other comments, by former Generation Rent board member and now Antonia Bance, included that it was a “good thing” that landlords with one or two properties were being forced out of the market, claiming it was this kind that were most likely to ignore the laws and regulations.

The Renters’ Rights Bill now moves on to its committee stage in the Commons for further scrutiny, on a date which has yet to be set.