Renters’ Rights Bill: Motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 39

What happened: On 8 September 2025, the House of Commons voted 325 to 171 to reject Lords Amendment 39 to the Renters' Rights Bill. This was a "motion to disagree," meaning MPs voted to remove a change the House of Lords had inserted into the Bill and restore the government's original text. The vote passed comfortably, continuing a pattern seen across several Lords amendments considered the same day.

Why it matters: The Renters' Rights Bill is the government's flagship legislation to overhaul the private rented sector in England. Lords Amendment 39 represented an attempt by the upper chamber to modify the Bill's provisions, and the Commons' rejection restores the government's preferred approach to whichever aspect of rental reform the amendment addressed. The Bill as a whole is designed to strengthen protections for tenants, including abolishing no-fault evictions, reforming tenancy structures, and regulating rent increases. By pushing back against Lords changes, the government is preserving the full scope of those reforms as it originally designed them.

The politics: The vote divided almost entirely along government versus opposition lines. Labour MPs, including those sitting under the Labour and Co-operative Party label, voted almost unanimously in favour of rejecting the amendment, providing the 325-strong majority. Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Reform UK, the Democratic Unionist Party, the Green Party, and most independents voted against, totalling 171. Notably, this was a tighter result than several other Lords amendments voted on the same day, where the government achieved majorities above 300, suggesting Amendment 39 touched on more contested ground within the broader Bill. The Bill is progressing through parliamentary ping-pong, the back-and-forth process between Commons and Lords, as the government works to pass its rental reform agenda into law.