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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent steps his Department has taken to support renters; and what assessment he has made of the potential merits of a (a) compulsory and (b) permanent ban on rental increases in (i) private, (ii) public and (iii) shared ownership housing after the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government has no plans to ban rent increases and we have put in place an unprecedented package of support to protect renters during this period.

We have legislated to increase notice periods to 6 months in all but the most serious circumstances and bailiffs have been asked not to enforce evictions across England whilst the new, toughened national restrictions apply from 5 November. The only exceptions to this will be the most egregious cases, including cases of illegal occupation, fraud, where tenants have demonstrated anti-social behaviour or are the perpetrator of domestic abuse in social housing and where a property is unoccupied following the death of a tenant. We also intend to introduce an exemption for extreme pre-Covid rent arrears and will provide more detail in due course.

Together with the pause on evictions starting in December, this means that evictions will not be enforced in England until 11 January at the earliest, except in the most serious circumstances.

These measures build on the Government’s major economic package of support to help renters continue to meet their housing costs, including the Chancellor’s recent announcement to extend the Job Retention Scheme to March 2021 .

We have also strengthened the welfare safety-net with an over £9 billion boost to the welfare system, which includes an extra £1 billion to increase Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates so that they cover the lowest 30 per cent of market rents. For renters who require additional support, there is also an existing £180 million of Government funding for Discretionary Housing Payments made available this year, an increase of £40 million from last year, which is for councils to distribute to support renters needing additional help.