Minister agrees to cross-party talks on strengthening rights for disabled renters

The government has agreed to cross-party talks on strengthening the law so that landlords would have to allow “reasonable” adaptations to the homes of disabled renters.

Ministers had refused on Tuesday to back two separate attempts – by Green and Liberal Democrat MPs – to strengthen the renters’ rights bill in favour of disabled renters.

But housing and planning minister Matthew Pennycook did agree to a cross-party meeting to discuss the concerns of MPs who have highlighted how many disabled people in rented homes are faced with landlords who refuse to allow them to install adaptations such as grab rails, ramps or accessible worktops in the kitchen.

The meeting will take place before the bill begins its progress through the House of Lords.

Carla Denyer, the Green party co-leader, had proposed an amendment to the bill that would have forced landlords to give permission for home adaptations where the local council has carried out a home assessment and recommended an adaptation, if it would be considered a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act.

Gideon Amos, the Liberal Democrat housing and planning spokesperson, had put forward a similar amendment to the bill.

Denyer told fellow MPs on Tuesday that the Equality and Human Rights Commission had found that one in three disabled people in the private rented sector lived in unsuitable accommodation, while a government survey had shown that 44 per cent of private landlords would not rent to someone who required adaptations to the property.

She said: “My amendment seeks to ensure that, if all tenants can put up shelves, disabled tenants should be allowed to put up grab rails.”

Denyer said the government had argued that the issue was already covered by the Equality Act, but she said landlords were still refusing requests, while the “hassle and delay in appealing an adaptation refusal, given the major backlog in the courts, makes it prohibitive for many and unfairly puts the onus on the tenant”.

Amos told MPs that his friend and constituent, Mike Godleman, who was disabled, had died “while recovering from major surgery and under the threat of a no-fault eviction notice, for no reason he could possibly work out”.

He said the party’s proposed amendment to the bill was partly in his memory.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – now an independent MP – also backed Denyer’s amendment, which he said had been “widely supported” by MPs and would meet an “important and genuine need across the country”.

It was also supported by former Labour chancellor John McDonnell, currently sitting as an independent, who said he hoped the government would be able to agree an amendment that would “satisfy all concerned” if there were further discussions.

Labour’s Florence Eshalomi, who chairs the Commons housing, communities and local government committee, called on the government to address the issue.

She said: “It is not fair that disabled tenants end up with reduced access to their own homes. 

“The government are rightly looking at making it easier for disabled people to thrive in the workplace, but what is the point of someone thriving if they do not even have an adequate home or housing?”

She added: “Can any of us imagine being unable to have a shower in our own flat because the landlord refuses to make the necessary adaptations, or trying to cook in a kitchen when we cannot even reach the worktops? 

“None of us would want to live in such conditions, yet that is the reality for many disabled people in the private rented sector in 2025 in the UK. 

“People face such issues on a daily basis, with more challenges and blockages when trying to get private landlords to address them.”

But Pennycook told MPs that the Equality Act “already provides that landlords cannot unreasonably refuse a request for reasonable adjustments to a disabled person’s home”.

He said the bill’s abolition of no-fault evictions would “remove the threat of retaliatory eviction, empowering tenants to request the home adaptations they need and to complain if their requests are unreasonably refused”, while a new ombudsman would “have strong powers to put things right for tenants where their landlord has failed to resolve a legitimate complaint”.

But he promised the government would continue to consider “what more we may need to do to ensure that requests for reasonable adjustments cannot be unreasonably refused, including those recommended by local authority home assessments”.

And he promised a cross-party meeting to discuss the issue, and Denyer’s amendment, before the Lords began to debate the bill.

Afterwards, Denyer welcomed the minister’s offer to hold a meeting. 

She said: “I’m really pleased that the minister has agreed to meet with me to discuss my renters’ rights bill amendment to give disabled people the right to adapt their home to meet their needs. 

“I’m not counting any chickens yet, but this is a potential big win for all those who campaigned on this, and I will continue to push this forward.”

The bill, which the Labour government says will “transform the experience of private renting in England”, passed its third reading by 440 votes to 111, and will now be debated in the Lords in the coming months.

Pennycook said the bill would “modernise the regulation of our country’s insecure and unjust private rented sector, levelling decisively the playing field between landlord and tenant” and would “empower renters by providing them with greater security, rights and protections so that they can stay in their homes for longer, build lives in their communities and avoid the risk of homelessness”.

Credit for this article goes to the Disability News Service