Renters’ Rights Bill: Motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 64

Monday, 8 September 2025 · Division No. 285 · Commons

335Ayes

–

160Noes

Passed

151 MPs did not vote

leftGovernment wonPro Renters Rights(Yes)Pro Landlord Accountability(Yes)Pro Periodic Tenancies(Yes)Pro Landlord Flexibility(No)

Voting Yes means

Support the government's position of rejecting Lords amendments that would have diluted tenant protections, including attempts to reintroduce fixed-term tenancies and make it harder for councils to hold bad landlords to account.

Voting No means

Support the Lords amendments, which would have reintroduced fixed-term tenancies, raised the burden of proof for local authorities pursuing bad landlords, and made other changes that critics argue would weaken the Bill's protections for renters.

What happened: The House of Commons voted on 8 September 2025 to reject Lords Amendment 64 to the Renters' Rights Bill, passing the motion to disagree by 335 votes to 160. This means the Commons refused to accept a change the House of Lords had inserted into the Bill, pushing back the amendment and reasserting the government's original position on that provision.

Why it matters: The Renters' Rights Bill is a major piece of housing legislation intended to strengthen the position of tenants in the private rented sector. Lords Amendment 64 represented one of several changes the upper chamber had sought to introduce, with the government characterising these as weakening tenant protections. By rejecting this amendment, the Commons maintained the stronger regulatory framework for landlords and greater security for renters that the government had designed into the Bill. The vote affects the millions of people renting privately in England, as well as landlords and letting agents who will be subject to the new rules.

The politics: The vote divided almost entirely along party lines. Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs voted unanimously in favour of rejecting the Lords amendment, providing the government's majority of 321 combined votes in the Aye lobby. Conservatives (89), Liberal Democrats (63), and Reform UK (7) all voted in the No lobby, meaning they favoured accepting the Lords change. The Democratic Unionist Party, the Greens, and the SDLP sided with the government. This division on Amendment 64 was notably closer than several other Lords amendments rejected the same day, with Amendment 19 producing a near-identical split of 336 to 158, suggesting this particular provision was marginally more contested than others such as Amendments 11, 18, and 26, which passed by considerably larger margins.