This afternoon, our Prime Minister defied all expectations and called the general election for 4 July. Parliament will be dissolved and any draft legislation – yes, like the Renters Reform Bill, with it’s amendment to the Tenant Fees Act 2019 that we campaigned long and hard for – is now dead in the water.
Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth!!
BUT there is still light at the end of the tunnel. Labour have previously said they would introduce “similar” legislation; whether that would include the whole pet damage insurance thing is not known, however there are several reasons to be optimistic:
The current shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook, was on the bill committee that AdvoCATS gave evidence to, and so is very much aware of what we campaigned for and why.
We also had a lot of Labour MPs who backed us who will almost certainly retain their seats, and hopefully be willing to help us put together a new cross party political support base.
We’ll be emailing all our non-political supporters and see no reason why they wouldn’t continue to be onboard. We can use this as an opportunity to add even more big industry names. We are not starting from square one.
We are down.
We are NOT out.
We are known and we are heard.
We fight on.
Heads for Tails! is our ongoing umbrella campaign calling for a simple change in the law to make renting with pets easier and fairer for both landlords AND tenants.
Despite unprecedented support from both the PRS and the animal welfare world, plus cross-party political support, the Labour government, although initially receptive, have decided against allowing landlords to ask for pet damage insurance.
Whether it’s talking to the general public, clients,...
