Public Health (Coronavirus) (Protection from Eviction) (England) Regulations 2021

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have previously queried whole swathes of illiberal legislation that have been put on the statute books, such as that which makes it illegal to leave your own house without an explanation or to mingle with friends in your own back garden. When I pressed for a date about when lockdown will end and asked if we can know exactly when these things will happen, my queries were met with great irritation and government Ministers saying, “We are following the evidence, don’t you know there’s a pandemic on?” This is one statutory instrument where I would actually like to see that kind of approach. Instead, here we have very specific dates, which are always time-limited, on-the-dot and short-term. I do not understand, especially given that homes are so important in this pandemic, why the Government are being so mean-spirited on this question.

That dreaded lockdown phrase, “Stay home”, resonates differently across society. For some, “Stay home” means saving money on the commute, or thinking about where to place the home-school workspace for the children or what bookcases are on display during business Zoom calls. But for many people, “Stay home” means how to rota the kids’ laptops on the dining room table in the cramped, gardenless flat. With this SI, it is about the fear and dread of whether or not being able to stay in the same home will be feasible once lockdown ends. This is one of the greatest causes of anxiety, with parents lying in bed at night worrying about debt and eviction. Many private renters are worrying about how to stave off homelessness for themselves and their families.

I of course welcome this temporary ban on eviction—I welcome it again, as it was only a few weeks ago that we renewed it for a further few weeks—but it feels too short-term and shallow to deal with the challenges of the continual closure of society. Surely the Government realise that this is storing up huge problems for the future. Tenants’ debts are mounting up, and, as other noble Lords have mentioned vividly, this is not their fault. Many of them would never have got into debt before. They are using their rent money to pay fuel bills because they are not allowed to leave the house with their families. As the months drag on, furlough, which was at first welcomed, now means a one-fifth cut in wages. This is unemployment delayed. In the past, those who managed to juggle their finances often had a number of part-time jobs to make do, but you can no longer have an evening bar job or a shift in Debenhams to make up the money because we have locked down.

As tenants’ debts mount up, they do not stand a chance of paying them off. It is now clear that when lockdown measures end there will not be a land of milk and honey but a serious economic depression with mass unemployment. If furlough is just redundancy deferred, then the inadequacy of this SI means that it is, I am afraid, eviction deferred. There is just no need; I genuinely do not understand why the Government— for whom money seems to be no object during this pandemic—cannot see that targeted loans and grants will get them out of this and help tenants and landlords alike. Why do they not write off the debt and have a debt amnesty? Remember that so many landlords, who are also suffering, are not property tycoons—almost half of them own only one property. They have spent their life savings or redundancy money on prudently investing in a buy-to-let for their income and pensions, and they too are now desperate.

I finish by saying that the Government have proved, through the magnificent vaccine rollout, that they can be impressive and swift, think in the long-term and solve problems. But, unfortunately, they also have the problem of making a mess of less challenging issues, from the cladding scandal and the throwing of leaseholders under the bus, to the home-school meals saga. I welcome the noble Lord to the Chamber, but I appeal to him to not follow in the same suit of making a mess of this, because it is easy to solve. Just solve it, and do not keep coming back with SIs for another few months.