The activist group Generation Rent has criticised the controversial Renters Reform Bill for “abandoning” students.

Group spokesperson Tilly Smith – writing on the website of self-declared “progressive” campaign publication Left Foot Forward – describes the Renters Reform Bill as involving the biggest reforms in a generation for tenants in England.

However, she claims “one key group has been sorely overlooked and excluded from these reforms – students.”

Smith claims that a National Union of Students survey late last year found that 84% of students had experienced problems in their home, including almost half with mould or mildew.

She also says there is a “shocking affordability crisis” with over a quarter of students allegedly struggling to pay the rent, and 17% apparently having used a food bank.

Smith argues that students living in on-campus accommodation provided by universities and colleges, and those in Purpose Built Student Accommodation, are excluded from the Bill and unlike other tenants “will remain vulnerable to eviction, usually with less than a month’s notice.”

And she adds that the Bill allows landlords “free” to evict student tenants in HMOs “at any point between June and September” which she claims would mean “right as many students are studying for their final exams.”

Smith goes on to suggest that “this cohort of renters will therefore be vulnerable to ‘revenge evictions’ – meaning their landlord or letting agent could retaliate to the tenant’s attempts at using their rights by evicting them.”

The lengthy article ends with criticism of the government saying: “Too many of those in positions of power have simply decided that students, especially young students, do not need to live in good quality, secure homes they feel safe and comfortable in.

We cannot let students be abandoned. These reforms must reach through to them, especially as they are some of the most in need.”