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 itâs 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 âsimilarâ 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.
Weâll be emailing all our non-political supporters and see no reason why they wouldnât 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 hugely successful umbrella campaign that saw pet reforms included in the late, lamented Renters Reform Bill, which sadly never became law.
A simple change to existing legislation is the key to more landlords becoming pet friendly, and thatâs why we were able to secure such widespread political and corporate support first time around.
Whether itâs talking to the general public, clients,...
