Speeches by Mayhew.

“Q I am straying into my memory now, but I think the financial exemption was set at £9,000 for the costs of an upgrade, above which you are exempted as a landlord. Judicaelle Hammond: It was proposed to be £10,000 in the last consultation. It is every five years.”

“Q Okay, I accept that answer. Am I right in thinking that there are about 4.6 million private tenancies out there? Justin Bates KC: Broadly, yes.”

“Q Okay, so three months of avoiding a 20% rent increase. Everyone will do it, will they not? Why would they not? Justin Bates KC: I do not know, is the answer. That is not a cop-out; it is recognising the limits of what lawyers should safely talk about.”

“Q Just to follow up on that point, none of us knows what the increase in tribunal work will be, but there will be an active incentive not to agree a rent increase because you have your rent, it is going to go up, there is the delay of the process, and then at the end, the worst that can happen is that you get the rent …”

“Thank you both very much.”

“Q You have mentioned confidence twice. In anticipation of the Bill, and now that it has been published, are you able to say what has happened to confidence in the real market for both accidental and commercial landlords? Ben Beadle: If you consider yourself an accidental amateur landlord, that is arguably part of the p…”

“Q Ben, you have been patient. Perhaps you could do your best to answer the same question. Ben Beadle: With pleasure. We are largely supportive of many features in the Bill. There is a lot to be welcomed, and the Minister should take great credit for bringing in these reforms so quickly. One thing the industry has suffe…”

“Q What impact, if any, is that having on rental asks? If supply is being reduced, what is happening to demand? Theresa Wallace: Demand is up and supply is down, so that obviously does have an effect. It is not just an effect on rent: it is also an effect on the tenants who can secure the properties in the first place. …”

“Q I am butting in again—I apologise. You say that private landlords are exiting the market already; what evidence do you have to support that statement? Theresa Wallace: There is evidence out there. With my agent’s hat on, I can say that we have evidence in the amount of landlords we have lost and the number of people …”

“Q Can I bring you back to your opening statement? You said that there were likely unintended consequences from the Bill in its current form, and that one of those unintended consequences would be an increase in homelessness. Could you expand on why you said that? Theresa Wallace: There are various reasons. We need the …”

“Q Welcome, and thank you very much for attending today. To kick proceedings off, I am interested in hearing your first impressions of the Bill in respect of whether you think there should be a balance between landlords and tenants and whether the current drafting gets that balance right. I would be grateful if you coul…”

“I declare an interest as a private landlord.”

“Q Just on that, every landlord—or the vast majority of landlords—increases the rent annually to take account of inflation and other issues. Is that not right? Justin Bates KC: There is a famous housing benefit case, which the Commission on Social Security likes to remind us of, that says that Rachman is not the only mo…”

“Q Building on that, we heard from a few of the witnesses this morning that one of the key concerns of the private rented sector is the delay associated with the recovery of property through the Courts and Tribunals Service. A moment ago, you said that some of your members are waiting 12 to 18 months, during which time …”

“Q So if everyone does it, that is quite a lot of extra work. Even if 25% do it, it is 1 million papers-only cases a year. Justin Bates KC: Yes. Liz Davies KC: Of those where the landlord increases the rent. You are assuming an annual increase.”

“Q But what it is actually doing? Justin Bates KC: It broadly keeps to that. The FTT is pretty good at keeping to its standards. You can safely assume that we are looking at three months. Those are the figures you are throwing at me, and I can see that being realistic.”

“Q But even on that basis, you are loading on to the landlord a requirement to create the papers and a period in which the tenant has to respond —I am guessing 14 or 28 days, but we do not know yet. Then there is a period of consideration. What is it currently? Even if it is dealt with on the papers, what is an average …”

“10. When she plans to launch a consultation on secondary ticketing and dynamic pricing.”

“I am grateful to the Minister for his answer. I understand the need to look at secondary ticketing, but dynamic pricing is a contractual bargain between buyer and seller, based on supply and demand. It actually gives us cheaper tickets as well as more expensive ones. Does he really want the Government to get involved t…”

“Thank you, Mrs Harris, for chairing the debate, and well done to my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies) for securing it. What a good debate it has been. It has been a debate of two halves. From this half of the room—the Opposition half—we have heard lots of interventions and lots of tho…”