Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of illegal evictions, by (a) ethnicity and (b) gender of the evictee, in the last 12 months.

The Ministry of Justice has published information on prosecutions and convictions for illegal eviction offences in England and Wales, up to December 2020, in the ‘Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code’ data tool, available here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/987731/HO-code-tool-principal-offence-2020.xlsx

In the data tool linked above, use the ‘offence code’ filter to isolate the following offence under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977:

• 08701 – Unlawful eviction of occupier

Information on the ethnicity and gender of the alleged victim or victims of illegal eviction is not held centrally by the MoJ and a further search of HMCTS court records has shown this information was not recorded on any accessible court record. Centrally held courts data is recorded under a series of offence definitions, which align with legislation, and only includes characteristics related to the victim where it is central to the statutory offence (e.g. age of victim in some sexual offences). We do not otherwise routinely collect details about the victim, such as ethnicity or gender.