Labour MP Stephen Timms has asked Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick to commit to five measures to tighten controls on the private rental sector.

Timms wants: The Housing Act to be amended to protect renters who have lost income during the Coronavirus pandemic; the Renters Reform Bill to be introduced as soon as possible to stop landlords using what he calls ‘no fault evictions’ during the rest of the pandemic; funding for councils to clear tenants’ debts in areas where the Local Housing Allowance is deemed inadequate; the government to resource local authority regulation of the private rental sector so they are able to help protect tenants from illegal eviction and harassment; and to support landlords “at a serious risk of financial hardship”, by allowing them to claim up to 80% of income lost through arrears.

Timms makes the call in a letter to Jenrick, in which he claims that over 500,000 private rental tenants are now in arrears as a result of the pandemic, which he claims has disproportionately hit renters from the ethnic minorities and poorer sections of the community.