Public Health (Coronavirus) (Protection from Eviction and Taking Control of Goods) (England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Like many noble Lords, I find it is a great relief to see this extension of the regulations. If once the main fear stalking society was of our loved ones catching Covid, for many people I know that is now equalled by a visceral terror of the blight of bailiffs and eviction notices—but still those eviction notices are on the horizon. My worry is that the regulations just kick a bigger problem down the road. Already, 9% of private renters have suffered job losses, and we know that that is just the tip of the looming unemployment iceberg. Meanwhile, 33% have had a fall in income due to reduced hours and furlough, and we know that furlough, for many, is just joblessness delayed. So how will these renters ever be able to pay arrears? And that, therefore, means that we have to ask: what about the people they owe rent to?

As has already been alluded to, the vast majority of landlords are not anything like massive property magnates; 45% are single individuals who have invested their life savings or redundancy money in just one property. For some, it is their main income. Others are future-proofing their life to supplement meagre pensions. At this stage, they are suffering 20% rental losses, and they know that many rents will not be paid in full, if at all. As the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, reminded us, they are unable to access business support packages because they own a property asset—so now they face a debt crisis, and many are worried about defaulting on mortgages and their future homes.

As for solutions, I—like many noble Lords, I am sure—have been lobbied by special interest groups. They want financial support to pay off Covid-related debt arrears or interest-free Government-guaranteed hardship loans paid directly to landlords. Certainly, that would help both parties. I rather like the look of the proposals in the Reset the Debt report from a variety of churches. However, the real solution is to put a stop to this impending and growing tragedy of increasing homelessness by having a different approach to living with and managing Covid that avoids closing down society. When the Government recently ordered a lockdown based on what is now known to be false data, they guaranteed that more people would be homeless.

The reward for complying with the lockdown was that many millions more were placed in tiers 2 and 3, and that had a devastating impact on the hospitality sector. It is estimated that 30% to 40% of people made homeless this year are—guess what?—former hospitality workers. Many hospitality workers’ homes are linked to their jobs in hotels and pubs, so now they are forced on to the street. Many others who work in hospitality have precarious living arrangements that are not protected by the evictions ban. In other words, it is the Government’s choice of disproportionate and overly risk-averse policies in relation to Covid that have created a long-term debt crisis and looming evictions. No doubt, it is absolutely unintended, but I urge the noble Baroness that the next time her colleagues mention lockdowns or tiers, she reminds them the costs are growing homelessness, evictions in the long term and many more people on the streets and in fear not of Covid but of homelessness.