Section 21 Evictions
Debate between Melanie Onn and Karen Buck(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Ms Buck
It is a fair point. As always, a balance has to be struck. The private rented sector is important, and as much as we would like to build more social housing to accommodate some of the people in it, that would take longer than we can afford to take to accommodate the people in the pipeline. That has to be considered. It is fundamentally unknowable, because it cannot be taken out of the context of so many other aspects of housing need and supply, including the Government’s 2015 tax changes, which landlords are extremely concerned about, and the overall number of tenants seeking accommodation.
The fact is that if we get the balance right and remove no-fault from the equation, and if we concentrate on providing a means for landlords who legitimately need to recover their property for whatever reason and deal with some of their concerns about the operation of that system, there is no reason on earth people should regard that as unacceptable.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I know that it is unusual to make an intervention from the Front Bench, but the situation that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) describes is simply one of displacement, which would not solve the long waiting lists that people are experiencing for social housing and affordable housing, and would not give anybody security of tenure. The issue he describes is not the equivalent of bed-blocking.