Policy background Secure tenancies
Under the Housing Act 1985 ("the 1985 Act"), local authority landlords may grant their tenants either secure periodic tenancies, or secure flexible tenancies. Secure periodic tenancies have no fixed end date and can only be brought to an end by the landlord obtaining a possession order on one of the grounds for possession set out in Schedule 2 to the 1985 Act, which are mainly fault grounds. Flexible tenancies, which were introduced by the Localism Act 2011, are tenancies granted for a fixed term of no less than two years. Currently it is for the landlord to decide which type of tenancy to grant and in which circumstances they grant flexible tenancies.
	Schedule 7 to the Housing and Planning Act 2016 ("the 2016 Act") amends the 1985 Act to prevent the creation in future of secure periodic tenancies (referred to in the 2016 Act as "old-style secure tenancies"), except in limited circumstances. It also removes the power to grant new tenancies and instead requires that new-style fixed term tenancies should generally be granted. The 2016 Act includes a power for the Secretary of State to prescribe in regulations the circumstances in which a local authority may still grant an old-style secure tenancy.
	The Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Act 2018 ("the 2018 Act") amended Schedule 7 to the 2016 Act to deliver on a 2017 Manifesto commitment to ensure "that victims who have lifetime tenancies and flee violence are able to secure a new lifetime tenancy automatically".
	The Government has since decided not to implement the 2016 Act provisions at this time, which means that the grant of fixed term tenancies will remain at a local authority’s discretion and the 2018 Act will also not be brought into force at this time.
	The Government’s Social Housing Green Paper, A new deal for social housing (Cm 9671), published on 14 August 2018, includes a commitment (at paragraph 188) to legislate to put in place similar protections for victims of domestic abuse where local authorities offer fixed term tenancies at their discretion in order to deliver on the 2017 Manifesto commitment. Section 79 gives effect to that commitment.