Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has admitted her promise to ban Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions immediately after a General Election win isn’t quite what it seems, it has emerged.

Her promise, which is mentioned within Labour manifesto published earlier this month and repeated since by party figures including leader Keir Starmer, says Section 21 evictions would be banned from ‘day one’.

But as the Tories discovered during their attempts to ban this kind of eviction, which is the most commonly used and quickest method to remove tenants who have built up rent arrears, sudden and significant changes to the private rented sector need to be brought in carefully.

But an with Rayner has emerged where she admits that much during an interview with LBC radio. In response to social landlord Paul’s question during a phone-in show yesterday during which he said an ‘immediate ban’ would scare a lot of landlords, she said: “That’s a simplistic way of looking at it. We also need to ensure the courts system is working and that we’ve got a fair balance between landlords and renters.

“I do hear that the court system is in a mess at the moment and that needs sorting… and there are so many good landlords out there and they are frustrated by [the situation with the courts].

“But if I’m going to be honest with you, I think the balance at the moment is much too towards landlords as opposed to the renters.

“Section 21 evictions are causing too much misery and are being used to turf people out without any explanation or excuse.”

The landlord asking the question revealed he specialises in HMOs that take-in vulnerable tenants offered by homeless charities and that, if Section 21 is abolished, it would mean he ‘could not take the risk’ of taking on tenants he might later struggle to evict if their behaviour worsened.P

Paul Shamplina (pictured), founder of evictions specialist Landlord Action, says: "I suspect many landlords will be serving Section 21 notices on their tenants wanting to beat the ban date.

"Landlord Action is seeing an increased number of landlords instructing us now more on Section 21s then Section 8 Notices."