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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what his policy is on eviction for private rental tenants in (a) Tier 1, (b) Tier 2 and (c) Tier 3 local covid-19 alert areas.

Bailiffs have been asked not to enforce evictions across England whilst the new, toughened national restrictions apply from 5th 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 the 11 January at the earliest, except in the most serious circumstances. We believe this strikes the right balance between prioritising public health and supporting the most vulnerable renters, whilst ensuring landlords can access and exercise their right to justice for the most serious cases.

To further protect renters over winter, we legislated in August to increase notice periods to 6 months in all but the most serious circumstances. This means that most tenants served notice now would not be asked to leave until at least May 2021.

We have worked closely with the judiciary on new court arrangements to ensure appropriate support to all parties as the courts restart possession proceedings. These arrangements include new court rules which require landlords to set out any information they are aware of in relation to how their tenant, or any dependent of their tenant, has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic when bringing a possession claim to court. Landlords are also required to notify the court and their tenant where they wish to continue pursuing a possession claim that was already in the system before 3 August. These new arrangements apply in all courts across all tiers.

The listing of the cases is a matter for the judiciary, but they will be prioritising the most serious cases, including anti-social behaviour, domestic abuse, and extreme rent arrears. Again, this will apply across all tiers of local COVID alert areas.

Prior to the introduction of national restrictions, the Government had announced additional surge funding to support areas moving into the second alert level as well as the third. Areas moving into the Tier 2 (alert level ‘high’) will receive £3 per person, with a further £5 per person (totalling £8 per person) provided for areas moving into Tier 3 (alert level ‘very high’).

In addition to this, on Thursday 22 October the Government announced details of the further £1 billion of financial support for local authorities to support their communities through this pandemic. This further support reaffirms the Government’s continued support to councils during this unprecedented time. Over £900 million will be provided in an un-ringfenced grant in line with previous tranches of funding, recognising local authorities are best placed to decide how to meet the major COVID-19 service pressures in their local area – including supporting renters.

This brings the total funding given directly to councils during the pandemic, so far, to £6.4 billion. This includes £4.6 billion in un-ringfenced funding, £1.1 billion from the Infection Control Fund, and £300 million to support Test and Trace, as well as funding allocated to councils from the new Local Alert Level system and a number of grants to support communities and vulnerable people.

These measures build on the Government’s major economic package of support to help renters continue to meet their housing costs. This includes the Chancellor’s recent announcement to extend the Job Retention Scheme to March 2021 and over £9 billion boost to the welfare system, including an extra £1 billion to increase Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates so that they cover the lowest 30 per cent of market rents.