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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure homelessness does not increase as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme comes to an end.

The Government has introduced the Job Support Scheme as part of a wider package to protect incomes and has injected over £9 billion into the welfare system, which will support people with housing costs.

This includes increasing the Local Housing Allowance rates for Universal Credit and Housing Benefit claimants so that they are set at the 30 ^th percentile of market rents. £180 million of Discretionary Housing Payments are available for those who require additional support, and local authorities continue to provide their statutory homelessness duties.

Legislation has also been introduced requiring landlords to give tenants 6 months’ notice before they can progress eviction cases to court, except in the most serious circumstances. Where cases do reach court, new rules require landlords to inform judges if tenants have been impacted by coronavirus and to re-activate cases from before 3 August.