Rent Arrears: Covid-19
Baroness Grender Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, we are aware of the exhortations from many organisations, but we consider that the increase in rent arrears is not statistically significant between the two surveys. It went from 7% to 9%. We also recognise that we have provided a substantial package of support for renters during the pandemic, including legislative protections and unprecedented financial support.
Baroness Grender (LD)
Does the Minister accept that loosening restrictions when 353,000 private renters are in arrears risks making families homeless, particularly while no-fault evictions are still in use? Even at this late stage, will he agree to meet Generation Rent to discuss a Covid rent debt fund, enabling renters to clear their debts and landlords to claim up to 80% of income lost, all at a fraction of the current subsidies for home owners?
Covid-19: Poverty and Mass Evictions
Baroness Grender Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on his moving opening speech, on securing this all-important debate and on his work during this pandemic, in particular the Ride Out Recession Alliance. As he rightly said, the greatest danger of homelessness is among people leaving the rented sector, particularly the private rented sector, but I align myself totally with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, about the all-important safety net of housing for social rent.
On Monday, in this very Room, we debated the latest piecemeal approach to evictions—or “stopgap actions”, as the noble Lord, Lord Bird, described them. While there is a stay on bailiffs enforcing evictions at present, it is the mere tip of the iceberg. According to Generation Rent, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, just said, around 700,000 people have received an eviction notice since March 2020. Can the Minister tell us what information he is using to ensure that only the most egregious cases are currently ending in eviction? When Tim Farron MP asked for a process, such as a register of evictions from landlords, he was told that that was not an option. Why not?
Gemma Marshall, who lives in the West Country, has recently been served with her second Section 21 in two years. She has an autistic son aged nine who struggles with change. She and hundreds of thousands like her have been forced to move during this pandemic. What advice does the Minister have for those tenants, and when will we see an end to this arbitrary eviction process?
Finally, arrears are now one of the most significant challenges for both tenants and landlords, as we heard from the noble Baronesses, Lady Warwick and Lady Gardner of Parkes, and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. Citizens Advice tells us that it would take an average of seven years for the people who come to it to pay off their debts. They desperately need a financial package; I support the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, in asking for an investigation into the viability of the kind of packages that we have seen in Wales and Scotland. As the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said in reference to the Commons Select Committee, this modest financial package of between £200 million and £300 million pales into insignificance in comparison with the subsidy for home owners during this period. As the Resolution Foundation has pointed out, the majority of tenants now in arrears do not qualify for the current system of DHP support. By the way, on DHP, the £180 million has not been increased since the pandemic began.
We will hear some arguments about balance between landlords and tenants where the Government are somehow acting as the honest broker. I dispute that because, as the National Residential Landlords Association says, this Government are clearly breaking their promise that
“no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home.”
It is time to fulfil that promise and, as the noble Lord, Lord Bird, said, deliver a long-term plan.
Housing Strategy
Baroness Grender Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, it is always an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who gave us a very timely reminder of some of the Select Committee reports that have pushed the very issues we have discussed this afternoon. I congratulate the most reverend Primates the Archbishops of Canterbury and York—his return is most welcome—on securing this “Easter is the new Christmas” debate and thank other noble Peers for their valuable contributions. I also congratulate the most reverend Primates and their commissioners on this excellent report, Coming Home; long-term strategy and politicians are often complete strangers, and this is a valuable way of getting all parties to the table.
Having first worked with Professor Christine Whitehead at Shelter in the mid-1990s, it comes as no surprise to me that she and others on the commission have not, as the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury said in his introduction, shied away from challenging the Church. I think that all parties which have had their hands on the levers of power over the past 40 years need to take a look back, challenge their own moments of power, take off the rose-tinted spectacles and understand how we got here and what we need to do to improve the situation.
When I first met Christine in the mid-1990s, the picture was very different. There were other challenges—new builds of social housing were rapidly disappearing and housing associations were increasing and coming into their own—but the private sector was not the wobbly and widely used crutch that it is now is for a whole host of poorer families who should not be there in the first place, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, described, and it has doubled in 20 years, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, described so well. As we have seen with some of Shelter’s campaigns, they are often unwelcome customers when landlords refuse to accept anybody in receipt of benefits.
It is particularly sad to be debating this issue given the loss of one of our own yesterday: Lord Greaves, a champion of local government. I associate myself with the many tributes we have heard today. He was a strong advocate of localism and believed profoundly in community politics: the empowerment of individuals in communities to have a say over their own lives and destinies. I see that theme echoed in the report we are discussing today.
That this report lays down the challenge for parties to all work together is so important, and the answer to all the questions is of course “yes”, including on working together to change the charity rules.
Both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat 2019 manifestos committed to building 300,000 new homes per year. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party also set an annual target of 100,000 new homes for social rent although, as my noble friend Lord Shipley pointed out, only 7,000 were built last year. The precise mechanisms by which we get there may vary, but the target remains the same.
However, just like social care, this debate often drops into the “too difficult” or “too expensive” column. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, made clear, the disproportionate and eye-watering expenditure—the current expenditure on benefits, for instance, rather than the capital expenditure on bricks and mortar—continues to be such a waste and limits our potential to save. Why do you have to go back over 50 years, to 1969, to find the last time that over 300,000 new homes were built in the UK? All too often, landowners and developers are incentivised to sit on their hands and watch as their assets increase. If any Government change the rules, they will just hold tight until the next Government change them back.
The speeches today showed considerable agreement that the only way to crack the housing crisis is with a bold, long-term, cross-party commitment. I, too, pay tribute to the excellent conclusions of the Affordable Housing Commission of the noble Lord, Lord Best—and let us not forget that commissions of the charities Shelter and Crisis. All have concluded that building social housing is critical to underpinning any of these future strategies so that, regardless of tenure, people have safe, secure and affordable housing.
As I was writing this speech, I thought of the themes of this report as the six “S”s, or maybe the five “S”s plus. We agree to those standards; they are well put. On sustainability, I fear the cladding scandal of the future as today—right now—homes that are not up to the zero-carbon standard are being built. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, pointed out, the cost of retrofitting will be disproportionately high and, yet again, a whole cohort of people will be placed in a shocking position. It will cost today’s new homeowners thousands to put right and I fear that we have learned nothing from the cladding crisis.
Yesterday, I spoke to someone who, just over a year ago, was encouraged and enticed to be a first-time buyer by this Government through the Help to Buy scheme. She saved everything she had to buy a flat in Manchester but, following the Grenfell tragedy, its cladding is now deemed unsafe, with a hefty bill of £50,000 to put it right. On what planet is she liable for that? Our party fully supports the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester today and the earlier description of the vote in the Commons this week as a “grave error”. My noble friend Lady Pinnock will continue to work across all sides of the House to ensure that leaseholders are not made liable for the incompetence of others. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on this.
The most intriguing of the six “S”s is the aim of sacrifice, which is almost the opposite of nimby. I very much enjoyed the insight from the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, into the experience of being a constituency MP, where this area is often a challenge, and from the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, of being a local representative.
The sacrifice the Church of England has made is to offer more of its land for truly affordable housing developments. As we have already heard, 200,000 acres of land is enough to cover New York City. I applaud the Church’s change in strategy on the use of its land. In a debate in the Commons on 10 March, the Minister, Eddie Hughes, said that the Government are reviewing their land. Can the Minister share with us the planned timetable and methodology for this? Will it follow the pattern set by the work of the Church of England and Knight Frank? As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, also mentioned, where is the other potential for this? What is the latest news on, say, MoD land, given our recent reduction in boots on the ground?
Land is a critical part of this equation, as my noble friend Lord Shipley described. I particularly welcome the description of community land trusts by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Stroud. If anyone has not been to see the development in Tower Hamlets, I would thoroughly recommend it; it is well worth a visit.
The value of a home goes beyond pounds and pence. That the Church might now be now free to decline the highest bid from deep-pocketed developers—and that “value” can be determined by impact on people, not profit—is a great example.
The past year in particular and the Covid pandemic have, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Goudie and Lady Andrews, said, thrown into the spotlight the significance of a home—a real home. Young children whom I know of in my community were incarcerated in small high-rise flats for the whole of lockdown. Older children went from bed, then got up and worked at their laptop —if they had one—then back to bed again. This is happening and has been happening. It is shocking. There have been even worse experiences in temporary accommodation, as described by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York.
Too many flats are wholly inadequate and many are unhealthy, some with social landlords from whom we should all expect better—like the Croydon flats featured on ITV this week—but often with the more unscrupulous, rogue and unregulated private landlords. Local housing is not set as a median rent, as is so rightly recommended in this report, but at the bottom 30%—and with a freeze coming down the track. This completely constrains tenants, particularly poorer ones, from exerting any kind of buying power or choice to hold their landlords to account. What a far cry from the decency and dignity described by the right reverent Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle. While the threat of Section 21 no-fault evictions continues, tenants in the PRS will not have the security that they need. Over the winter lockdown alone, even with a stay on the use of bailiffs, there were, I understand, 500 private renters evicted.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, pointed out, 8 million people live in unsuitable, unaffordable or unsafe housing, and are currently in need. That these homes may have contributed to higher rates of death due to overcrowding and poor conditions is something that the Government must fully commit to examining in any future inquiry into Covid-19; I hope that the Minister will do so today. As Inside Housing recently reported through its own work and through research by the Health Foundation, one in three households in England had at least one major housing problem related to overcrowding, affordability or quality going into the coronavirus crisis. Housing conditions have affected people’s ability to shield from the virus. We know of the success of Everybody In, which got rough sleepers off the streets and into accommodation. It saved hundreds of lives and avoided 20,000 infections, according to the NAO, in stark contrast with what happened in, say, New York City, where rough sleepers were put together into emergency shelters and the infection spread with dire consequences.
I hope that this commission’s ambitions—particularly for 20 years’ time and the visualisation of what it will look like—will become a reality. I simply ask the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury to explain in a little more granular detail how he intends to knock heads together and get politicians round the table if all three of us say “yes” in answer to his questions.
I was surprised in the post-World War Two scenario that we were not given a sense of Macmillan—someone who was a businessman and understood the value of bricks and mortar and created truly affordable homes. It would be great to see something like that.
Joy and expectation is something that everyone should have when coming home. I hope that this becomes a reality.
Levelling Up
Baroness Grender Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
We can be very clear that the objective of levelling up is to deal with all the issues the noble Lord raises. The metrics are clear: for instance, the performance metric that I mentioned in my previous answer concerns the
“Economic performance of all functional economic areas relative to their trend growth rates”.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, in answer to Clive Betts on Tuesday, the Minister, Eddie Hughes, clearly stated that the way of measuring the success of this programme will be at a general election. Is it the intention to circulate table 2H, as previously mentioned? What is the open, accessible way that the electorate will be enabled to judge whether this programme is a success—or, indeed, not a success, as some of us suspect may well be the case?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I refer to my previous answer: there is a series of provisional outcomes and metrics. I just pointed to table 2H as an example of one that affects my department. Those metrics are then captured by departments in their outcome delivery plans.
Rough Sleeping
Baroness Grender Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, for bringing this Statement to the House this afternoon. I draw the attention of the House to my relevant registered interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
The Government promised to “bring everybody in” during the pandemic and, despite good work done in the first wave, today we sadly have many people sleeping rough again on our streets, many very close to this building. The people sleeping on the link bridge between Waterloo station and the street, who I have mentioned before, are still there: I saw them yesterday on my way to this House. According to the Government’s own figures, there were 2,688 people sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2020. People who are homeless are three times more likely to experience a chronic health need, including respiratory conditions, putting them at higher risk of poor health outcomes, including from Covid-19.
It is tragic that in one of the richest countries in the world, in one of the richest cities in the world, we have people sleeping rough on the streets tonight. So, can the noble Lord tell the House why the response to the homelessness situation of people living on our streets was so much better and more effective in the first wave in comparison with the second wave? What happened in government that led to the response being so much worse this time around? What happened to the Everyone In policy? It created a safe space for people to access the support needed to move on from homelessness.
On the wider picture of homelessness, the situation is even worse, with people living with friends and sleeping on sofas, including up to 130,000 children in England. The Government have a manifesto commitment to end the blight of rough sleeping in England by 2024. The response by the Government to this pandemic must surely be part of the plan to deliver on that commitment, and not an obstacle that puts the policy pledge in jeopardy. What we need from the Government is a strategy in place to ensure that people experiencing homelessness can move on from homelessness or expensive temporary accommodation into secure, safe, warm, dry, long-term accommodation that enables them to start rebuilding their lives.
Local authorities should be congratulated on the work they have done, with limited funding and unclear guidance from the Government. Will the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, identify for the House the various sums of money that are mentioned? Which of those are new money and not just restatements of previous funding commitments?
Housing First is a recognised and accepted method of ending homelessness for people with multiple needs, including mental health issues and addictions. The scheme is in place in Scotland and is being piloted here in England, but the fact is that many people experiencing homelessness in England will need a Housing First offer to finally end their homelessness. There are three pilots in place, which provide around 2,000 places, but this is a long way short of the investment and commitment needed to deal with the issue finally. So when does the Minister expect a decision to be made on rolling out the scheme in England, as has already been done in Scotland, and when does he expect funding for the rough sleeping accommodation programme to ensure that a long-term housing solution is not just an aim but a reality, which is not the case today?
Baroness Grender (LD) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, for bringing us the Statement. There is no doubt that Everyone In last spring was a significant achievement. Louise Casey, now the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, wrote in her email at the start of the pandemic, after her first week in MHCLG:
“I don’t care what’s happening; I don’t care what’s going on, you’ve got to get everybody in.”
Rough sleeping was treated as an urgent public health issue, resource was prioritised and brought forward, and central and local government worked in tandem with all the charities and the hotel sector and lined up safe accommodation. This was without question a success. But, as so many witnesses to the APPG for ending homelessness made clear, these numbers are never static. Homelessness, like a river, expands and grows. Substantial boulders are the only thing that stop it at source, and those boulders start with social and truly affordable housing.
Will the Minister explain why social housing build last year was only 5,716 homes, far below both Shelter’s annual target and the National Housing Federation’s goal of 145,000 social homes per year? Tomorrow in the Budget we are expecting to see a significant subsidy, not to social housing but to first-time buyers, who will be encouraged to borrow 20% of the purchase price. Will the Minister say where that money is likely to go? What is the possibility that it will end up in the profit margins of the large developers, many of which donate regularly to the Conservative Party? To prevent an increase in the number of people sleeping rough, rapid access to secure, long-term accommodation is vital. This period, following the achievement of Everyone In, is a unique opportunity to do just that and never return to the levels that were way too high just before this pandemic.
The target date of the manifesto commitment—as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy—is fast approaching, and policies need to be in place now. So surely—as the noble Lord also said—it is time to commit to a rollout of Housing First across England, instead of continuing with the pilots. The scale of current provision is 2,000 places, which falls far too short of the 16,450 places needed that were identified by the charities Crisis and Homeless Link. Can the Minister explain what is preventing the Government rolling out these successful pilots now?
It is welcome news that local authority guidance is encouraging registration of people sleeping rough with GPs, but why are the Government not following the success of some London boroughs, together with Liverpool and Oldham, which are using current JCVI guidance to vaccinate homeless people, in order to mitigate health inequalities? Some local authorities are unclear about this; will the Minister commit to clarifiying the issue? Even at the height of Everyone In some local authorities turned homeless people away. Can the Minister explain why? Does his department know why there were 2,600 people, or more, sleeping rough in October, and how many of them had no recourse to public funds?
The Statement rightly refers to research in the Lancet but not to the wider arguments used. It was clear that what was critical was the absolute refusal to resort to emergency shelters at all. So why are the Government considering using them? Large cities in the US continue to use emergency shelters, to huge detrimental effect. If social distancing is still advised next autumn, should emergency shelters not be ruled out? Can the Minister explain, in detail, in what circumstances they will be used?
The Statement refers to many of the underlying reasons for rough sleeping but fails to mention the precarious position of so many in the private rented sector. Why is that? While it is welcome that the pause on evictions has been extended, that has not stopped every stage of the process. Will the Minister acknowledge that, during the winter lockdown, 500 people were evicted from their homes and that last month 445 were either in arrears or served with eviction notices? Does the Minister agree that if the landlords’ associations and charities have united to ask for assistance, in the form of grants to tenants to keep roofs over their heads, this should be a priority to prevent homelessness?
As we continue to see the economic impact on people’s incomes, it is worrying that there is no longer-term strategy from the Government to ensure that people will be able to keep a roof over their heads. We are expecting unemployment to rise by this summer. The Government have frozen housing benefits once again. Can the Minister give reassurances that the Government are looking at ways to support people to prevent homelessness, including by helping them to avoid eviction due to arrears? Finally, is there any news on the long-awaited end to the use of Section 21, which has such an impact on vulnerable tenants?
There are many paths to homelessness. I sincerely hope that this period has been a pause and we can move forward from here. However, unless some of the problems in areas which give rise to homelessness—such as the private rented sector—are anticipated and stopped in their tracks, we will continue to see rises in homelessness.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
My Lords, the Oral Statement relates to rough sleeping. The figures are very clear: we have seen a 37% reduction in rough sleeping—a huge reduction. There has been a reduction of 43% since the Prime Minister took office in 2019. The 2,688 statistic that was referenced by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in his opening remarks, is down from 4,751 in 2017. This Government retain the ambition to end rough sleeping. I point out, too, that subsequent analysis, in December and January, shows continued reductions in the levels of rough sleeping.
One of the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, is not correct: the Everyone In programme continues and by January had helped 37,000 people, with over 11,000 in emergency accommodation and 26,000 moved into longer-term accommodation. The programme continues to operate, along with subsequent programmes and the Protect Plus programme.
It is important to address the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, on funding. The commitment on homelessness and rough sleeping in the 2021 budget was £700 million, and that will increase next year—since we had a single-year budget commitment—by a further £50 million, to £750 million. Significantly, within that £750 million is a commitment to a block grant of £310 million for homelessness prevention. That grant is to ensure that there are no further pressures, and to support people at risk of homelessness.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, mentioned the Government’s record on social housing. Social housing is underpinned by the multi-billion pound affordable homes grant, which has had record funding. We continue to be committed to build all forms of affordable housing, of all tenures, including social housing.
The Housing First pilot, which was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, is a world-class project. It was pioneered in Finland and we are piloting it to get the policy right. It continues to be piloted in three areas—the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region. It is important to use the findings of the evaluation, and other experiences with pilots, to inform our next steps, and we are commissioning a consortium led by the ICF to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the programme. When you do something new like this, it is important to test what you want to expand and expand what you test, rather than hurriedly implement something and get it wrong.
We remain committed to removing no-fault evictions; that will happen as soon as parliamentary time allows, as I have said in previous answers. We recognise the underlying problems of people on our streets, and that we need to continue to address them. This Government, however, have made huge, unprecedented strides in reducing rough sleeping, and we continue to see that in the latest information that we have published.
No-fault Evictions
Baroness Grender Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Grender
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made towards preparing the legislation to end “no fault” evictions announced in the Queen’s Speech on 19 December 2019.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
My Lords, we remain committed to abolishing Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 to enhance renter security and improve protection for tenants. However, our collective efforts are currently focused on responding to the coronavirus outbreak. We will bring forward a renters’ reform Bill once the urgencies of responding to the pandemic have passed and when parliamentary time allows.
Baroness Grender (LD) [V]
My Lords, by all metrics, tenants started this pandemic with less savings and have lost more jobs and income than property owners, but the Government, in the name of balance, have made the callous move of including arrears accrued during the pandemic as grounds for eviction. They have therefore broken the promise that loss of income will not mean the loss of a home. Can the Minister share the data used to guide this decision? If it is not available, will he please write to me?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
Given the significant level of financial support that has been available to renters throughout the pandemic, through furlough and welfare, it is unlikely that this expansion of rent arrears would have accumulated solely through Covid-related arrears. I point out the Citizens Advice data that 250,000 renters owe landlords some £360 million.
Covid-19: “Everybody In” Scheme
Baroness Grender Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Grender
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the restrictions in place to address the COVID-19 pandemic, whether they plan to reinstate the “Everybody In” scheme in England to provide shelter for homeless people; and if not, why not.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
On 8 January, the Government set out further support for people who sleep rough as part of our ongoing, world-leading work to protect rough sleepers. In the light of the new strain, we are asking all local authorities to redouble their efforts to accommodate rough sleepers, backed by £10 million. We are also asking areas to use this opportunity to make sure that all rough sleepers are registered with a GP and factored into local area vaccination plans, in line with the JCVI prioritisation for vaccinations.
Baroness Grender (LD) [V]
Everyone In was a success, with great leadership from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, refusal to resort to the dangers of night shelters and all sectors working together. Should not that success be repeated? What guarantee can the Minister give that this time, with increased transmissibility and local authorities going broke, no one will be refused a safe room and a roof? Does he agree that it is no longer “Everyone In” if rough sleepers are refused emergency help in this lockdown?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, Everyone In was a tremendous programme, which is why it continues to be in place. I would point to the fact that 33,000 people had been helped and supported to the end of November. We continue with this programme in place to build on the success that has saved many lives in the course of the pandemic.
Covid-19 Lockdown: Homelessness and Rough Sleepers
Baroness Grender Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
My Lords, families do tend to squabble a bit, but that has nothing to do with the massive ambition we have for ending rough sleeping. Some £700 million has been committed to end rough sleeping with a world-class policy, a programme in three stages, and the recent announcement of a further stage of the Protect programme. Our swift action has been praised by leading stakeholders, including Shelter, Crisis, St Mungo’s and Thames Reach. The policy speaks for itself: lives are being changed for the better and I see that my colleague, Minister Tolhurst, continues to lead in this regard, under the benign direction of the Secretary of State.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, in the spring the Everyone In scheme was a success, but post Dame Louise Casey—now the noble Baroness, Lady Casey—who is leading and taking up that role now, not at ministerial level but in Whitehall? If emergency shelters were deemed unsafe then, will the Minister confirm that they will not be used now? With so many families who rent threatened with homelessness, does the Minister agree that universal credit should cover the median rent in every part of the country, and will the Government do what they promised at the election and get on with scrapping Section 21 evictions? Finally, why are the Government only “asking” bailiffs not to carry out evictions? They have compelled so many on so much. What is so special about the bailiffs?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, that was a succession of questions. There is no doubt that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, is a phenomenal force of nature. I watched how she took the troubled families programme and developed a fantastic resolve at all levels of government, and in the social and charitable sectors, to ensure that everyone worked together to tackle the malaise of the families who require a huge amount of support from the state—and then with the integration programme. We have really benefited from her work. However, we do see leadership from Ministers, including the Secretary of State, and a resolve to do something at all levels of government. We will build on that. As for the removal of Section 21, that is a manifesto commitment, and we will introduce legislation to deliver a better deal for renters, including repealing Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, as a priority, once the urgency of responding to this dreadful pandemic has passed. I will write to the noble Baroness on the other matters.
Almshouses
Baroness Grender Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I point out that the Government have seen 140,000 affordable homes delivered by local authorities in rural England since April 2010, and I will write to the noble Baroness on that matter.
Baroness Grender (LD) [V]
Does the Minister agree that almshouses are welcome but do not fill the gap identified by the Housing Learning and Improvement Network, which projected a shortfall of 400,000 units of specialist housing for older people in the next 15 years? Can he therefore tell us how many new social—not affordable—housing units are to be created specifically for older people to avoid the unsuitable alternative, which is inevitably the private rented sector?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I have pointed out that there are 36,000 almshouses. However, there are 700,000 specialist supported and secure accommodation homes for people in this country. In addition, the affordable homes programme includes 10% towards specialist housing—but I will write further if I can provide any assistance on that point.
Housing: Rent, Evictions and Covid-19
Baroness Grender Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Grender
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the announcement by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on 18 March about the complete ban on evictions and additional protection for renters affected by COVID-19, what progress they have made to ensure that “no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home”.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
I point to my relevant residential and commercial property interests as set out in the register. There has been a six-month stay on repossession proceedings and we have established an unprecedented financial package. This includes spending over £39.3 billion on the furlough scheme and boosting the welfare system by more than £9 billion. There are now new court arrangements and notice periods of six months, except in the most serious cases, to help keep tenants in their homes over winter.
Baroness Grender (LD) [V]
Does the Minister accept that this is a promise that cannot be met if mandatory evictions have resumed and infections are rising? What protects tenants in tiers 1 and 2, such as Michelle in Nottingham, who says:
“Rent alone each month is £575. I lost my job in March due to the virus and am now trying to survive on universal credit but I’m getting into debt with bills and barely have anything left for food”?
How do we now keep her safe?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I repeat that there has been an unprecedented level of measures to support renters and we will continue to do what is needed to keep as many safe as possible, but it is fair to say that there will be cases where renters will have to potentially seek other places to live.