diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index 2d0231465a8807895e9d4393ff31f5c65b210b7a..0c4e23d1a4b737c1120445922495328f831a528c 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -42,12 +42,12 @@ X-Python3-Version: >= 3.2
 Package: python3-astropy
 Architecture: any
 Depends: python3-configobj,
-         python3-ply (>= 3.5),
          python3-pytest (>= 3.1),
          python3-pytest-astropy,
          python3-six (>= 1.10.0),
          ${misc:Depends},
          ${python3:Depends},
+         ${python3-ply:Depends},
          ${shlibs:Depends}
 Suggests: libxml2-utils,
           python-astropy-doc,
diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index ecbb99b2da4e77c86718cc3d3a56b923632a761d..5637482c9f6d60bd5c48d3025034f22a77410745 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -35,6 +35,10 @@ override_dh_auto_clean:
 	rm -rf astropy_helpers-*.egg
 	rm -rf docs/_build docs/_generated
 
+override_dh_python3:
+	dh_python3
+	dh_python3-ply $$(find $(PYBUILD_DESTDIR_python3) -name '*tab.py')
+
 ifeq (,$(filter nocheck,$(DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS)))
 override_dh_auto_test:
 	python3 setup.py test -vv --args "-vv --mpl"