diff --git a/neutron/privileged/agent/linux/ip_lib.py b/neutron/privileged/agent/linux/ip_lib.py
index 6e8d98c824..09b4a21d37 100644
--- a/neutron/privileged/agent/linux/ip_lib.py
+++ b/neutron/privileged/agent/linux/ip_lib.py
@@ -522,6 +522,7 @@ def make_serializable(value):
     def _ensure_string(value):
         # NOTE(ralonsoh): once PY2 is deprecated, the str() conversion will be
         # no needed and six.binary_type --> bytes.
+        return value.decode() if isinstance(value, bytes) else value
         return (str(value.decode('utf-8'))
                 if isinstance(value, six.binary_type) else value)