Member

Under English contract law, it is the right of any two, three or four parties—whatever the number of contractors —to agree what they like, provided that the contract is a lawful contract. It is therefore quite wrong for the state to jump in and say, “You can’t do that because we don’t like fixed-term tenancies”. This is a fundamental breach of English contract law. In Committee on a similar amendment, noble Lords made several arguments that short-term tenancies benefit the letting market, and I am very happy to adopt all those arguments— I remember the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, was very active on this issue in Committee. But my principal argument is that, under English contract law, parties if they wish are entitled to create fixed-term tenancies and the state has no right to interfere. I beg to move.