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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the impact of the covid-19 outbreak on the buy-to-let sector.

Mortgage arrears continued to fall to near historic lows from July to September 2021, with government support for household incomes through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) remaining in place until the end of September as well as mortgage payment holidays. According to publicly available information from UK Finance, which represents over 300 firms across the banking and finance industry, there were a total of 5,670 buy-to-let mortgages in arrears of 2.5 per cent or more of the outstanding balance from July to September 2021. This is a decrease of six per cent compared with April to June of the same year. In terms of possessions, 320 buy-to-let mortgaged properties were taken into possession from July to September 2021, which is significantly down on the same period in 2019 prior to the pandemic when 800 mortgage possessions took place.