On Thursday the 8^th of May I had the incredible privilege to present as a keynote speaker at a Westminster Social Policy Forum, discussing all things about the private rented sector in England. Specifically, we spoke a lot about the Renters’ Rights Bill – a proposed law intending to equip tenants with more rights. Given my passion this year about bringing our students’ voice to national issues, I was invited to present at this Forum to represent the student perspective. There was also plenty of opportunity for Q&A, giving me direct access to policymakers and stakeholders to give voice to our historic struggles with the private rented sector – all chaired by Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe.

 

“As students, we are a captive audience that must access the private renting sector in order to access our education.” I put these words quite bluntly to the other members of the forum, to paint our unique picture. Whilst some members of the forum could discuss private renting in a more detached business sense, it’s much more existential for us. If students are not afforded many protections as tenants, our experience undeniably suffers (think about the threat of no-fault evictions, or the unliveable mould situation that your landlord isn’t addressing). Equally, if changes in law mean that a bunch of student landlords pull out of the private rented sector, Guildford’s supply of housing will further fail to meet the demand. More students will be left without suitable housing, more will have to commute, and again the student experience suffers or ceases outright.

 

In short, Social Policy is really complex; but it was my mission to make sure that everyone in the room knew that our very livelihoods were are at stake when we discuss the private rented sector. As a whole, the Forum isn’t what I expected; I thought it would be much more of a push-and-pull between tenants and landlords wanting different things. In reality, few people in the room disagreed that the protections brought by the Renters’ Rights Bill are positive in principle. The difficulty comes from implementation.

 

As a case study, let’s look at Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA). These are the private, non-University accommodation halls that you can see around Guildford. At the moment, the Renters’ Rights Bill seems set to exempt PBSAs from most of its proposed protections. This means that, unlike their course mates living in private rented housing, the hundreds of students living in these halls will not have access to: deposit protection, rent increase protection, no-fault eviction protection, and more. It seems unfair to establish an unequal system in this way, which is something we identified in our initial response to the Renters’ Rights Bill.

 

To reinforce the importance of this, I spoke to the forum about many of our students’ recent harrowing experiences at a local PBSA under a previous administration. In short, hundreds of students found out a matter of days before move-in that their accommodation was nothing more than a building site. To put it bluntly, our students were taken advantage of. Many were left due thousands of pounds of re-imbursement, were put in hotels 60 miles away from campus, and worse. It felt as though these students had no rights with which to defend themselves. The very foundational goal of the Renters’ Rights Bill would be to resolve this, yet PBSAs seemingly remain exempt.

 

It is arguable that this is a double-edged sword, though. The abolition of fixed-term contracts is an example of a protection that will give students a lot more security, in that they can stay longer in the houses they are renting. The problem, though, is that this may make it harder for incoming students to find a house to live: if every house is already full, the lack of churn means that new students stand little chance of living close to campus. This issue generated a lot of debate. How can we equip students with more protections, but protect the market to ensure enough rooms are available to students who join year-round? This specific point is debated in this interesting HEPI article, which I recommend reading if you want further context.

 

I won’t get into further specifics about the topics discussed for sanity’s sake – it can get quite granular! My presence in this Westminster Forum was absolutely pivotal, though. I fielded many questions from private rental providers and policymakers alike, with the Baroness appreciating my input as the first tenant speaker. It has been my primary goal this year to bring our students’ voice to the national stage, and this was an incredible opportunity to do so in the context of a law that is going to affect students for generations to come. My contributions will help inform further revisions to the Bill, which is current sitting in the House of Lords.

 

If you have any particular thoughts on this issue, please contact me at ussu.president@surrey.ac.uk. In the meantime, I will continue to lobby policymakers to consider the oft-undervalued impact of national policy on our student experience.