Public Health (Coronavirus) (Protection from Eviction) (England) Regulations 2021

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. I too welcome my noble friend to his role and thank him for setting out this SI so clearly. I also thank Generation Rent and the NRLA for their briefings and their constructive work on these issues. It is absolutely right that tenants need to be protected against unreasonable behaviour by their landlords, and public health concerns absolutely mean that homelessness is really problematic and must be avoided wherever possible. As the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, rightly says, the vast majority of tenants are responsible, but the vast majority of landlords are, too. The majority in fact own just one or two properties and look after their tenants with care. Some are pensioners, relying on rental income for their retirement security. Private landlords cannot be expected to continue to effectively pay to house people for free. That is a government role, and I agree with other noble Lords that there are important issues that we must address to support tenants who, through no fault of their own, and perhaps as a result of the pandemic, have found themselves in rent arrears.

This SI, which focuses mostly on tenants with large arrears who have engaged in egregious behaviour, anti-social behaviour, abusive behaviour or trespass, for example, does seek to balance the interests of landlords, who may indeed have suffered more than a year without any rental payments at all, and those of tenants who need a home. Of course, supporting tenants to help them continue to pay rent is a very effective way to help landlords, but there are cases where landlords will need to have their property back. That is what the Government are seeking and I agree that this is a very delicate and difficult issue that they are seeking to achieve.

The measures that the Minister outlined show that, even with the six months’ arrears and notice of eviction, tenants will be secure until June at the very least and, indeed, with the review stages being extended, it is likely to be quite significantly beyond that. They have time to either find new accommodation themselves or for social housing to be assigned to them if possible. I recognise that this is difficult and that in some cases we will be dealing with tenants who will find it difficult to be housed. However, I support the Government in their efforts to balance the interests of innocent landlords with the needs of good tenants, who also must be protected.