Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the number of people who are voluntarily leaving their privately rented home as a result of loss of income due to the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government routinely collects information on the movement between housing sectors through the annual English Housing Survey, the last of which was published in January 2020.

The Government has introduced a package of measures to protect renters and landlords affected by coronavirus.. Emergency legislation is now in place so that landlords will not be able to start proceedings to evict their tenants for at least a three-month period. The courts have also suspended housing possession proceedings.

The Government also has introduced significant financial measures to help support tenants to continue to pay their living costs, including rental payments. This includes support for businesses to pay staff salaries, strengthening the welfare safety-net with a £7 billion boost to Universal Credit, and increasing the Local Housing Allowance rates so that they are set at the 30th percentile of market rents in each area.

These measures support Public Health England recommendation that people should stay in their current home unless absolutely necessary.