Covid-19: Poverty and Mass Evictions

Baroness Henig Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for securing this important debate. I express my gratitude for his continued dedication in seeking to prevent homelessness, as well as for highlighting the risk of Covid-19-related poverty faced by our communities. The noble Lord was poignant in outlining the drivers of what causes people to sleep rough on our streets. I also thank noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions. I am glad to have the opportunity to update your Lordships on the Government’s assessment of the risk of mass evictions and our action to support renters.

The Government have taken unprecedented action to protect renters from eviction and homelessness during Covid-19. In March 2020, we introduced longer notice periods and worked with the judiciary to implement a six-month stay on possession proceedings. Legislation remains in place until 31 May to ensure that bailiffs do not serve eviction notices or enforce evictions, except in the most serious circumstances. Landlords are still required to provide six months’ notice, except in the most serious cases. This means that tenants served notice now will not have to leave their homes until October 2021.

To ensure that our measures are working, the Government have commissioned robust assessments on the risk of evictions resulting from the pandemic. For example, the English Housing Survey’s household resilience study was set up specifically to investigate household resilience in the light of Covid-19, with the wave 2 data published only yesterday. We do not consider that there will be mass evictions. The data continues to support this: the vast majority of private renters—91%–were up to date on their rent when surveyed in November and December last year. These figures are similar to the NRLA’s. The key is that these data also show that, of those in arrears, the vast majority have arrears of less than two months’ rent. In fact, the NRLA data also showed that, on average, the arrears were in the order of magnitude of £251 to £500, and that only 18% had rent arrears of more than £1,000.

We continue to encourage landlords and tenants to manage rent payment obligations sensibly so that they do not become an avoidable burden or cause avoidable disputes. We are grateful to landlords for their forbearance in supporting tenants during this time, and our interventions are preventing evictions. I know that some data has been presented by Generation Rent; we do not have official data, however. Ministry of Justice statistics show that reported applications to the courts for possession by private and social landlords between October and December 2020 were down 67% compared with the same quarter in 2019; and that only 548 repossessions were recorded between April and the end of December 2020, compared with 22,444 over the same period in 2019.

The Government are collecting, publishing and assessing robust statistics on homelessness, which include prevention and relief duties carried out under the Housing Act 1996. Statistics published today show that there has been a 40% decrease in households owed a homelessness duty due to the end of a privately rented tenancy, compared with the same quarter last year. The number of families in temporary accommodation is now at the lowest level it has been since 2016.

Overall, there has been a reduction in the number of people needing support from statutory homelessness services. This is driven by a reduction in the number of families threatened with homelessness as a result of the action that we have taken to protect renters. Our protections are working, and they strike the right balance between supporting tenants and landlords. They provide assurance to tenants but also support landlords to progress the most egregious cases, such as anti-social behaviour, more quickly.

The noble Lords, Lord Bird and Lord Shipley, the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and my noble friend Lord Young all want to know: what next? As we move along our road map to recovery, we are considering the best way to transition out of these emergency measures, taking into account public health advice, and we will provide more detail shortly. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, has rightly raised the financial pressures faced by tenants during the pandemic, highlighted by the Big Issue’s Ride Out Recession Alliance campaign. I am heartened by the shared commitment that we all have to preventing such hardships wherever possible.

To this end, the Government have supported workers so that they remain in employment, with the job retention scheme extended until the end of September. The Government have also provided billions of pounds in welfare support to help people pay their housing costs. This included £1 billion to increase local housing allowance rates last year, so that they cover the lowest 30% of market rents, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Young. These rates are being maintained in cash terms throughout the current financial year until 2022, meaning that claimants renting in the private rented sector will continue to benefit from the increase.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, I say that the Government have also extended the £20 a week uplift in universal credit until the end of September and provided a one-off payment of £500 to eligible working tax credit claimants. For those who require additional support, the discretionary housing payments are available. We have made £140 million of funding for discretionary housing payments available to local authorities this financial year to support renters with housing costs in the private and social rented sectors. This builds on the £180 million available in the last financial year.

For those who become homeless or find themselves at risk of homelessness, we are providing local authorities with £310 million through the homelessness prevention grant. This funding represents a £47 million increase on the previous year’s funding and can be used to offer financial support for people to find a new home, to work with landlords to prevent evictions, or to provide temporary accommodation to ensure families have a roof over their head.

Looking to the future, and when the urgencies of the pandemic have passed, the Government are committed to introducing reforms to deliver a fairer and more effective rental market. This will be achieved by legislating to remove Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988—as we have pledged as a Government and as the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, mentioned—to provide tenants with more security, but also to strengthen the grounds for eviction to ensure that landlords have confidence that they can gain possession when it is fair to do so. This will represent a generational change to tenancy law in England, so it is only right that such legislation is balanced and properly considered to achieve the right outcomes for the rented sector.

May I refer to some of the specific points that have been raised this evening by noble Lords? The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, mentioned the HCLG Select Committee report. All I can say is that we will respond in due course to the committee’s report on Protecting the Homeless and the Private Rented Sector: MHCLG’s Response to Covid-19; I am afraid I have no news on that.

I thank my noble friend Lord Young for raising what we can learn from Wales and Scotland, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. I will encourage my officials to look at what we can learn from the devolved Administrations, though I would say that there is a choice around whether it is right to offer loans, which in effect provide additional debt for an individual, as opposed to what we have tended to prefer, which is to widen our financial support. There is a choice and you cannot necessarily do both, but we will look at that in some detail.

The noble Lord, Lord Loomba, my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, all raised various forms of direct financial support measures to pay rent arrears, which is not currently government policy. I do not propose to introduce government policy in this debate, but I have to say that everybody who they mentioned is eligible for the support that I have outlined—it is open to them.

With regard to no recourse to public funds, which was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, the rules have not changed. Eligibility is determined by local authorities, which have to use their judgment in assessing what support they may lawfully give to each person on an individual basis. We do not propose to change that at this point.

I assure noble Lords that the Government will continue to support renters affected by the pandemic. The measures that I have highlighted are in addition to existing commitments to deliver a fairer and more effective rental market for all. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for raising this important matter on the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Big Issue, which he can rightly be proud of, and I extend my thanks to the considerable number of noble Lords who have participated in this debate.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Grand Committee now stands adjourned until 5.30 pm. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room.