Renters’ Rights Bill set to become law – more than 2,300 days since Tories promised evictions reform

It’s been 2,382 days since Theresa May first promised to axe no-fault evictions but the Renters’ Rights Bill has finally completed its journey through parliament.

The long-awaited rent reforms passed through their final House of Commons hurdle on Wednesday (22 October) more than 400 days after Labour introduced the bill to parliament last September.

The bill will remove no-fault evictions – considered a leading driver of homelessness – as well as aiming to drive up standards through the introduction of Awaab’s Law and a new decent homes standard.

Other changes include banning landlords and letting agents from stoking bidding wars, giving tenants a right to own a pet and prevent discrimination against renters with children or in receipt of benefits.

In Wednesday’s (22 October) half-hour debate, housing minister Matthew Pennycook hailed the reforms as a “transformational piece of legislation”.

“We promised in our manifesto to overhaul the regulation of our country’s insecure and unjust private rented sector. This bill delivers on that commitment,” said Pennycook.

“It will empower renters by providing them with greater security, rights and protection and they can stay in their homes for longer, build lives in their communities and avoid the risk of homelessness.

“It will ensure that we can drive up the quality of private rented housing so that renters have access to good quality and safe homes as a matter of course and it will allow us to crackdown on the minority of unscrupulous landlords.”

The Renters’ Rights Bill will become the Renters’ Rights Act once it receives royal assent in the coming weeks. Some measures will come into force immediately when the bill becomes law.

Pennycook said there will be an implementation period for other measures with the government “balancing the need to act quickly while ensuring the sector has time to adjust”.

Following the debate, the Renters Reform Coalition posted: “No more amendments, no more debate –renters’ rights are coming,” as it marked the culmination of a six-year campaign to change the law and tip the power balance between renters and landlords.

It was back on 15 April 2019 when former prime minister May said she would scrap no-fault evictions.

That was the same day as the devastating fire at Notre Dame’s iconic cathedral. The building was rebuilt and reopened almost a year ago.

But many groups who have called for the bill to change lives are hailing the latest milestone.

Owen Sharp, chief executive of Dogs Trust, said: “These new pet-friendly renters’ rights mean that the benefits of pet ownership are no longer exclusive to homeowners, something we have been campaigning on for many years. It is a game-changer for pet-loving tenants. 

“While there’s no doubt this is a massive step forward in improving the availability of pet friendly accommodation, there is still more to be done. Sadly, one of the most common reasons we see dogs handed in to our rehoming centres is a change in the owner’s living circumstances and a lack of available pet-friendly accommodation.  

“We urge the government to work with the private and social rental sectors to increase confidence in renting to pet owners so that they are not disadvantaged when seeking to access suitable accommodation.”

Read more:

• How taxing private landlords helped 1.1 million renters become first-time buyers
• The ‘Yo-yo Homes’, revealed: How ex-council tenants make over £200k selling homes back to councils
• Housing First promised to be a silver bullet to solve homelessness. Why are we still waiting?

William Reeve, CEO at lettings platform Goodlord, said he expects that some changes, such as the abolition of section 21 no-fault evictions and the shift to periodic tenancies rather than fixed-term, to come into force between April and June next year.

He added that the creation of a new private rented sector ombudsman and the introduction of the decent homes standard have less clear-cut timelines.

“After too many false starts to count, the deed is done. Three and a half years after it was first mentioned in a Queen’s Speech, this seminal piece of legislation is now finally winging its way onto the statute books,” said Reeve.

“This gives agents and landlords a small window in which to get their house in order. It’s absolutely essential that anyone with their head still in the sand about the legislation pulls it out sharpish. This legislation is real, vast and can no longer be ignored.”

But the bill will still face challenges in making rent more affordable.

The bill cleared its final hurdle on the same day that it was revealed that the inflation rate remained at 3.8% but Office for National Statistics figures showed private rents across the UK rose by 5.5% in the year up to September 2025 to a new record-high £1,354 a month.

With limited measures dealing with affordability in the bill and Pennycook rejecting Jeremy Corbyn’s call for rent controls in the Commons debate, the government will now face pressure to unfreeze local housing allowance rates to help low-income renters at next month’s autumn budget.

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