Covid-19: Poverty and Mass Evictions

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register. I add my thanks to those of other noble Lords to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for securing this important debate. I also thank Generation Rent and the LGA for their excellent briefings.

Evictions are paused but will resume from June onwards. To prevent a spike in evictions from June, the Government must provide financial support for tenants who have lost income due to coronavirus and permanently end Section 21 no-fault evictions; the protections end on 31 May. Tenants with more than six months of rent arrears are not covered by the ban. This is despite Robert Jenrick’s pledge in March 2020 that

“no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home.”

Since the pandemic hit, rent arrears have tripled, which risks driving evictions. There is no doubt that the effect on household finances will exacerbate this further unless we see urgent action.

We came into this crisis with a staggering 253,000 people in England homeless and living in temporary accommodation. This includes almost 130,000 homeless children—almost double what it was in 2010. The truth is that, after a decade of this Government weakening the very foundations of our economy and eroding home security, at the start of the pandemic, way too many families were already on that precipice. The Government have not been nearly quick enough to confront the issue or respond to how the pandemic has exacerbated the threat of homelessness. The current ban on evictions is not working; loopholes mean that hundreds of people have already been evicted during lockdown.

I reiterate what some of my noble friends have already said in this debate. We need a Government who will end Section 21 no-fault evictions and update reporting mechanisms to provide a better picture of homelessness and rough sleeping across the country. They must end the debt crisis and bring forward the renters’ reform Bill to prevent a rise in evictions, together with raising the local housing allowance to cover median local rents; this would prevent shortfalls occurring and prevent debts building up. They should scrap the household benefit cap, ensure that families are able to access the higher LHA rates and create a Covid rent debt fund to clear tenants’ debts built up in the first wave of the pandemic. Before the pandemic, renters spent around a third of their income on rent; these arrears will take seven years to pay off.

The Government must introduce the renters’ reform Bill and permanently end no- fault evictions, as pledged in April 2019, to ensure that all renters have access to a stable and secure home. Without these measures, the Government’s promise that nobody will lose their home because of coronavirus is utterly meaningless. If we can do it in Wales, why can you not do it in England?