TORY ministers must prevent landlords from using rent hikes to get around the long-delayed ban on section 21 “no-fault” evictions, rent campaigners demanded today.

Current plans for the renters’ reform Bill, expected to be published next week, are “open to a range of abuses and would fail to properly abolish ‘no-fault’ eviction,” the London Renters Union (LRU) warned.

In the four years since Downing Street first promised to scrap Thatcher-era section 21 orders, renters have faced an escalating crisis, the union stressed, with “no-fault” evictions spiking amid skyrocketing rents and tenants reporting disrepair being twice as likely to be kicked out in retaliation. 

Last year’s governmental white paper proposed to bring renters “security in their homes and empower tenants to challenge mistreatment,” but without hard limits on sudden rent hikes, landlords can use the tactic to force unwanted tenants out, leaving them “just as powerless” as before, LRU said.

The group’s Clara Hill said: “The Tories must not give with one hand and take with the other.

“If [Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary] Michael Gove is serious about bringing renters security in our homes, he must ensure this new legislation brings an end to all no-fault evictions, especially the use of unaffordable rent rises to get tenants out.

“The Tories have kicked this Bill into the long grass for years, and it is only the growing strength of the housing movement that has forced them to deliver change.”

The union also repeated calls for a rent freeze and stronger protections against fraudulent uses of new section 8 orders, which enable landlords to evict tenants to move in a family member or to sell up.