Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Mick Whitley

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mick Whitley]

Q Do other witnesses have anything to add?

Jack Shakespeare: Absolutely. I would echo that. The extension and the timescale seem about right; that is the message we are getting from our members. Each sector has its own characteristics. Our sector has a unique recovery curve, in that it is largely subscription focused. Recovery does not cover the cost of service straight away. That impacts recovery. The extended period of time is welcome. I am sure that we will come back to it today, but a guiding principle that needs to sit at the heart of this process is the message of sharing the burden. This is clearly a collective problem that needs a collective solution.

Martin McTague: I think it was about right when we first started discussing this, but omicron has changed all that. It is clear that we are now into a lot more uncertainty. It would be nice to have the flexibility to be able to move that date to respond to what seems to be an ever-changing virus.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q Thank you for coming in to give evidence. Perhaps I could start with Mr McTague. On the 10 November cut-off date, we have had some evidence of concerns about landlords who have not engaged with their tenants, and who may have ignored the code and started to apply for court judgments to pay the full rental arrears. Those who started proceedings before 10 November could be in a more advantageous position than those who played it fair. Have you come across that at all through the FSB, and what is your view about whether there should be a retrospective change to the 10 November date?

Martin McTague: Around the beginning of November, most landlord-tenant arrangements—probably close to 90%—had settled, but the hard-core 10% had got into an acrimonious stand-off. We engaged with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to try to find a way in which those more acrimonious relationships could be dealt with. As for the cut-off date, I realise that it will leave some people on the wrong side of it, but I think that it was about right when it was chosen.

Andrew Goodacre: On the cut-off date, you have to choose a date. There is never a good time, from that point of view. It comes back to an understanding of what negotiations were taking place beforehand, and how they were being managed. Martin referred to a hard-core 10%—we are probably hearing about 15% to 20%. There is a hard core of people on both sides who seem unwilling to reach a negotiation. It would be good to include at the arbitration point an insight into what negotiations and actions were taking place beforehand, and whether those actions were reasonable in the circumstances.

The arbitrator has to decide how to resolve the debt issue. We have heard stories of landlords seeking side agreements or even being willing to write off a level of debt if the tenant gave up their secured tenancy. That kind of negotiation is going on as well. Is that fair? I do not know, because the security may be worth a lot more than half the rental debt, but it is not explained properly. If evidence of what was being said before the ninth can be put forward as part of the arbitration process, that may be a happy halfway house.