Asked by: Lord Bishop of Chelmsford (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what measures they are taking to ensure (1) Afghan, and (2) Ukrainian, refugees are moved from temporary accommodation into more stable, long-term housing arrangements.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government is working with councils to find families settled homes as quickly as possible. It is right that we take time to ensure that families are provided with suitable homes that support their integration and access to education and employment.
In addition to the funding local authorities receive for integration support costs, a £25.5million Housing Costs fund is available to local authorities to help meet the costs of housing. Funding provided to support integration can also be used towards costs needed to enable families to secure accommodation, including deposits and upfront rent, enabling families to fund their own accommodation.
We are working with Rightmove to identify potential properties available in the private rented sector. This provides councils with additional information to source appropriate properties. Our improved Housing Portal also allows property owners and organisations to submit offers of housing for people who have arrived from Afghanistan.
We are also working with councils to make it easier for Afghan families who are currently in bridging hotels to find and secure their own accommodation. We have formalised this as the 'Find Your Own Accommodation' pathway, and we have developed a supplementary training package to enable councils to support individuals and families throughout this process. We have also worked with the Ministry of Defence to make use of Service Family Accommodation and we are working directly with developers and educational bodies to consider alternative accommodation options.
We are working closely with local councils and voluntary and community sector partners to monitor the housing landscape for Ukrainian households, develop our strategy and actively explore options to find suitable long-term accommodation for those who are likely to stay in the UK beyond the initial six months. We have provided a tariff of £10,500 per arrival to councils to enable them to provide support to individuals and families. This is un-ringfenced, which allows councils to use the funding as best suits the local area, including measures to support guests to access the private rental market.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Chelmsford (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many county court judgements there have been for private renters for non-payment of arrears, each year for the past five years, across England and Wales.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
A landlord of a privately rented property may apply to the court either as part of an application seeking repossession of the property, or separately to eviction action, for a county court judgement seeking repayment of rent arrears from their tenant.
Our case management systems do not record what a judgement debt relates to, this information is only recorded in the particulars of claim which would require manual reviewing of court files to extract and as such could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Published quarterly statistics on volumes of county court judgements can be found here – https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-justice-statistics-quarterly#2022
Published quarterly statistics on possession volumes can be found here - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/mortgage-and-landlord-possession-statistics
At the onset of the COVID-19 public health emergency, the Government took unprecedented action to protect tenants from eviction resulting in the majority of possession claims being stayed until 20 September 2020. This meant that possession claims could not progress through the court process including hearings and enforcement action by way of evictions. Since the lifting of the stay, private rented possession claims have largely returned to pre-covid volumes, but social landlord possession claims remain supressed and are currently sitting at around 60% of their pre-covid volumes.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Chelmsford (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to consult on the Decent Homes Standard; and if so, when that consultation will be launched.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
We are committed to drive up standards in private rented accommodation, and we will be consulting in due course on introducing a legally binding Decent Homes Standard in the private rented sector.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Chelmsford (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that, with the removal of section 21 evictions in the upcoming Renters Reform Bill, private renters are not forced out of their homes as a result of unaffordable rent increases.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
In the Renters Reform Bill, we will introduce additional protections for tenants against unfair rent increases, while ensuring landlords can continue to make necessary changes to rent. We will allow increases to rent once per year in line with current legislation and will increase the minimum notice landlords must provide of any change in rent to two months. We will end the use of rent review clauses, preventing tenants being locked into automatic rent increases that are vague or may exceed market prices. We are clear that attempts to evict tenants through unreasonable rent increases are unacceptable. We will make sure that tenants have the confidence to challenge unfair rent increases through the First-tier Tribunal. We will prevent the Tribunal increasing rent beyond the amount landlords initially asked for when they proposed a rent increase.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Chelmsford (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of private renters who receive housing benefit and (1) qualify for the £650 support grant, and (2) do not qualify for the £650 support grant.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
No assessment has been made.
However, the vast majority of people receiving Housing Benefit will be in receipt of another qualifying benefit for the Cost-of-Living Payment.
To support people who need additional help, the Government is providing an extra £500 million of local support. In England this will be via the Household Support Fund, which will be extended from this October to March 2023 backed by £421m.
The Household Support Fund helps those in most need with payments towards the rising cost of food, energy, and water bills.
The government will issue additional guidance to Local Authorities to ensure support is targeted towards those most in need of support including those not eligible for the Cost-of-Living Payments set out on 26 May 2022. Guidance for local authorities on how to distribute the fund will be released soon.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Chelmsford (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, under the proposed changes to possession in the Renters’ Reform Bill, renters can be evicted every eight months with the new grounds due to no fault of their own.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The Government is committed to delivering a fairer and more effective rental market that works for both tenants and landlords. We will deliver the manifesto commitment to end Section 21 evictions; this will mean that a landlord will only be able to evict their tenants in specific circumstances defined in law and they must be prepared to provide evidence of this in court. Under our proposals, landlords will be able to get possession of their properties when they need to, these reforms will include mandatory grounds for if a landlord wishes to sell or move into the property with two months’ notice periods. To protect tenants’ security, landlords will not be able to use these grounds in the first six months of a tenancy. Our reforms strike the right balance between improving security for tenants and ensuring landlords continue to feel confident in the market.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Chelmsford (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the upcoming Renter's Reform Bill will include a cost cap for bringing homes up to the Decent Homes Standard, like there is with the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
We are continuing to develop the policy on introducing a decent homes standard in the private rented sector and will consider the potential for cost caps as part of our consultation and engagement with stakeholders.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Chelmsford (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they plan to publish a response to their consultation Improving the energy performance of privately rented homes, which closed on 8 January 2021.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We have carefully analysed the responses received to the consultation on Improving the energy performance of privately rented homes, and we will publish a Government Response in due course.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Chelmsford (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of how many private renters will not receive the one-off £150 energy rebate payment because the rebate money is paid directly to their landlord and not to the tenant.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
Councils are expected to pay the council tax rebate to the occupants of an eligible property, not the landlord. Where a landlord of an eligible property usually pays the council tax as part of the rental agreement, the Government has asked councils to agree a payment method directly with the tenant.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Chelmsford (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on (1) household energy bills, (2) UK gas consumption, and (3) carbon emissions, of raising Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards in private rented homes to Energy Performance Certificate Band C.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
In the consultation on improving the energy efficiency performance of privately rented homes in England and Wales, the preferred policy proposal would deliver energy bill savings of £220 a year on average by 2028. It would lower energy demand on the grid and support the transition to low-carbon heating, delivering ~6.1 MtCO2e of savings for Carbon Budget 5. These figures were published in the consultation, thus the energy bill savings do not reflect the current energy prices.