A little while ago, I posted about the upcoming vote on the Tenancies (Reform) Bill. Its intention is to put a stop to revenge evictions.

First, I received an update from Crisis (the national charity for single homeless people), informing me that “despite hundreds of Crisis campaigners like you emailing their MP, the Bill to tackle revenge evictions has failed.”

A few days later, I received a letter from the MP for Portsmouth South, Mike Hancock. He explained in detail that two Conservative MPs “intentionally used up the rest of the allotted time to prevent the Bill from being voted on“.

At around the same time, I also received Lime Legal’s newsletter (edited by housing champion Jan Luba QC), which included an item on the same topic:

“On 28 November 2014 a private members bill designed to address retaliatory evictions … was talked-out in Parliament and, despite having had UK Government support, is unlikely to make further progress.”

Also interesting is what the Residential Landlord’s Association had to say about what actually happened. Among other things, it wrote:

“The Bill ran out of time, after only 60 MPs voted on a procedural motion to put the Bill to a vote.  100 MPs are required for such a motion to succeed.  It now drops to the bottom of the order for Private Members’ Bills and has no chance of proceeding.”

If you clicked on that last link, you’ll have seen that someone called the Bill “badly drafted“.

Together, these four views give a better picture than either one of them individually, particularly when combined with the official account of what went on that day.

More information:

• Official account of what was said in Parliament that day (interesting read);
• Text of the Tenancies (Reform) Bill;
• Explanatory notes for the Tenancy (Reform) Bill.

The second reading debate is expected to continue on 23 January 2015. Initially, that appears to have been scheduled for 5 December 2014 (tomorrow), a day on which there would likely have been no time to discuss the Bill in Parliament as there would be 8 bills ahead of it, so I understood from Mr Hancock’s explanation. It is even less likely to be read on 23 January, as 11 bills will be ahead of it on that day, and everyone agrees that is it dead in the water.

If you want to follow what happens to the bill, click on this link to its page on the Parliament’s web site.

UPDATE 10 December from Lime Legal:

“After the talking-out of the Tenancies Reform Bill, there is to be an attempt to introduce the same provisions controlling retaliatory eviction as part of the Deregulation Bill which is currently going through the House of Lords”