Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 4) (Coronavirus) Rules 2020

Motion for an humble Address

Moved by

That a Motion for an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 4) (Coronavirus) Rules 2020, laid before the House on 17 July, be annulled because they will permit evictions of individuals who have been served a notice of eviction between 23 March and 28 August before Parliament has had an opportunity to debate the impact of the Rules on (1) homelessness, and (2) the spread of COVID-19 (SI 2020/751).

My Lords, in the last general election this Government promised to scrap Section 21 evictions—evictions that are mandatory and require no explanation from the landlord. In March, the Government promised that

“no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home”.

This Motion, with your Lordships’ support, will achieve those objectives—those two promises from this Government—for thousands of renters who face the pandemic second wave and a bleak winter.

I thank all Peers who have joined me in discussions about this debate in advance. I recognise that this afternoon we may well tour a multitude of issues faced by both tenants and landlords, and many valid points will be made, but I urge Peers to comment on the significant loophole as a result of this statutory instrument, namely the Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 4) (Coronavirus) Rules 2020, laid before Parliament on 17 July. Its welcome baby sister, the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Residential Tenancies: Protection from Eviction) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020, was laid on 28 August, introducing six-month notice periods for tenants, unless there are serious issues such as domestic violence and anti-social behaviour or significant rent arrears.

My only question to the Minister today is: why can we not explore methods to apply longer notice periods to ensure parity between those served notice before and after 29 August? This request was shared with the Government yesterday, and I gave the Minister notice of it this morning. I hope that he will answer this specific question. The letter sent to all Peers by the Government yesterday dwelled almost entirely on the second statutory instrument, not the first, which is the subject of today’s debate.

As a result of this identified loophole, an estimated 55,000 households, according to Generation Rent, will not have six months’ notice, so if a landlord served a Section 21 notice to their tenant during the height of lockdown, they could be coming to the end of their tenancy now. Indeed, many notices served at the height of the pandemic have already expired, or the best-case scenario is three months’ notice.

My Lords, Ministers promised that no one would lose their home because of coronavirus. The rules before this House today will see this promise broken. Tenants across the UK are struggling to make ends meet right now, and just as the furlough scheme ends, redundancies begin, and lockdowns start again. This Government’s response is to bring the evictions moratorium to a halt.

I remind the House of some of the figures that we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. Shelter estimates that close to 250,000 renters are now at risk of a Covid-19 eviction as a result of the ban being lifted. Already, 174,000 private tenants have been threatened with eviction by their landlord or letting agent. Even before this crisis, more than half of private renters aged between 25 and 34 had no savings. On top of this, 45% of renters have lost their income since March, according to Generation Rent.

The Government are well aware of this and rightly avoided the cliff edge back in August, when they chose to extend the evictions ban. However, less than a month later, they have driven off that very same cliff edge. I understand that the Minister will tell the House that the evictions ban cannot go on for ever—I accept that—but it is not what we, or anyone else, are asking for. We are asking the Government to stick to their word that no one will lose their home because of coronavirus.

In the months that have passed since the announcement of the moratorium, the Ministry could have put in place the right measures to ensure this promise is honoured. It could have brought in the right to support for tenants who are struggling, changes to the universal credit system and an uplift in local housing allowance. It could have also announced a credible plan to deal with rent arrears. Instead, it has leapt from crisis to crisis, wasted the summer months, and now tenants are facing the same predicament they faced at the beginning of the pandemic.

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lords proposing the two Motions before the House. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, is an experienced Member of this House. I expect she fully understands that her proposition to annul these measures is contrary to the practice and conventions of this House. Such a proposition, if successful, will be greatly to the disadvantage of the House. I hope she reconsiders the matter and withdraws her Motion.

I will address the regret Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. I think he is wrong. In the light of the pandemic, I can understand the anxiety of noble Lords about this matter, but if we agree with the view that the justice process is not just about the resolution of difficult matters but also about fairness, we need to get the courts hearing cases again. Justice and fairness, to both landlord and tenant, cannot be put on hold just because of the pandemic, particularly as the Government have introduced measures to assist fairness and justice following the working group convened by the Master of the Rolls. There has been reference to yesterday’s letter from the Minister, Alex Chalk; it makes the measures in the practice direction clear. The prioritisation of cases will focus on anti-social behaviour, extreme rent arrears, domestic abuse, fraud and deception, illegal occupation and squatters, and abandonment of a property. I think noble Lords will agree that these cases are not just about parties to the dispute, but often about the rights and distress of neighbours.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for giving us this chance to consider how a Covid-related rise in homelessness can be avoided. I declare my interests as on the register.

The pandemic has revealed how insecure and vulnerable is the private rented sector. Tenants, who can be paying over 40% of their income on rents, can lose their homes if they lose their jobs. Landlords, and there are over 2 million of them, can lose much of their income if they lose their rent. Therefore, the problems now faced by tenants and landlords call into question whether halving the size of the social housing sector—councils and housing associations—and doubling the size of the private rented sector, has been a sensible switch. We can now see the necessity not only of promised renters’ reforms but of rebalancing the two rental sectors, so that more households once again have the greater affordability and security of council and housing association accommodation.

The immediate necessity, however, is to avoid thousands of households with rent arrears losing their homes, not least because temporary accommodation for homeless families is already costing £1 billion a year. The annulment Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, seeks to do this by addressing one unfair anomaly in the current arrangements. The Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, points to the lack of discretion for the courts in England—unlike their equivalents in Scotland —to refuse or delay a possession order where this is clearly justified.

I recommend that the Government also top up councils’ Covid hardship funds and reconsider the Spanish tenants’ loan scheme: a government-guaranteed, interest-free bank loan, repayable over six years or more, that pays off the arrears so the tenant is not evicted. The landlord is happy, the cost to government is very modest and to the tenant, bearable; and a rise in homelessness and misery is avoided.

My Lords, it is always good to follow the noble Lord, Lord Best, with his knowledge of this area. I am aware of the importance of this matter for both landlord and tenants. I am grateful for many of the measures that have been put in place hitherto and many of the protections and mitigations which will continue under these rules. However, to pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, I am concerned about those who may now find themselves in significant arrears, not least because of the pandemic. I think we will find there are many more in this situation than there were some months ago. This will disproportionately affect those from the most vulnerable groups in our midst, including migrants and those with mental health conditions.

A few months ago, the Everyone In initiative was in very many ways an astounding success and something of which the Government and others can, rightly, be proud. I would not want to see that being reversed by the effects of what is now being proposed, whether intended or not. My anxiety is that, just as infection rates may be rising, so evictions could reverse the good work that was done by putting people back on the streets. I will listen carefully to the debate. I hope for reassurance from the Minister but I have an inclination to vote for the regret Motion to give judges greater discretion in this matter.

My Lords, very briefly and swiftly I shall give the local government perspective of the impact of this SI.

This pandemic has merely highlighted and exacerbated a growing problem—namely that, with a significant reduction in social housing over many years, many low-waged earners are now privately renting and, as a direct consequence, are spending a higher percentage of their wages simply on putting a roof over their head.

Pre Covid, the most common reason for people turning up homeless to their local council was eviction from a private tenancy. That figure is still at 74% nationally. In the longer term, we must reverse this decline and provide significantly more social, not affordable, housing. Just 6,000 homes for rent were built last year.

Local authorities, with government help from the Everyone In initiative, have taken 15,000 homeless people off the streets, but there is not the appropriate accommodation to house them permanently. Adding to this number by enabling further evictions will exacerbate an already difficult and unsustainable situation. Councils are using hotels and hostels, which is a temporary solution. In the last financial year, councils’ net expenditure on temporary accommodation was £140 million over budget. It is crucial that we prevent by whatever means possible any further homelessness.

To reduce evictions from the private sector, the Government should urgently bring forward their proposal to end Section 21 no-fault evictions and commit to maintaining the local housing allowance at the 30th percentile in the longer term. They should provide assurances to councils about the continuation of the much-needed discretionary housing payments for at least the next financial year and, finally, address the £2 billion local authority funding gap.

My Lords, I wish the House to understand the view of the Welsh Government on the importance of housing and the private rented sector. It is a humane and supportive way of dealing with the fundamental issue of people having a decent home.

In February, the Welsh Government introduced an amendment to their housing Bill. The aim of the Bill was to improve security of tenure for those who rent their home in Wales. Although its provisions will apply to all landlords, its greatest impact will be felt in the private rented sector. Increased security of tenure would be achieved by amending the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 to extend the minimum notice period for a notice given under Section 173 from two to six months, and to restrict the issuing of such a notice until six months after the occupation date of the contract, currently set at four months. The net effect of these changes would be to double the length of time before a landlord could seek possession at the beginning of a contract from six months to one year.

The Minister for Housing and Local Government in the Senedd said that she was committed to ensuring that the Government continue to protect renters, while at the same time mitigating impacts on landlords and protecting communities from the harmful effects of anti-social behaviour. Where rent arrears have accumulated due to Covid-19, private rented sector tenants will be able to apply for a loan through the tenancy saver loan scheme, which opens at the end of this month and will provide £1.4 million to manage debt problems. Looking beyond the pandemic, the Welsh Government will continue with their Bill to amend the Act to increase the security of tenure, meaning that security of tenure in Wales will be greater than elsewhere in the UK.

This ground-breaking legislation sends out a very clear message: a secure home is essential and forms the basis of a decent society. The regret Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby follows that sense of decency in trying to protect tenants in England from eviction. I urge this Government to look at what we are doing in Wales to support people, particularly in these most difficult of times.

My Lords, although it was right to impose a ban on evictions as we worked to understand the effects of coronavirus, it was not without consequence, particularly for victims of domestic abuse. For months, victims have been trapped in their homes with their perpetrator, living in daily fear of abuse because landlords have not been able to end tenancy agreements. This situation cannot continue. If we do not redeem evictions, we will prolong people’s suffering and let victims down. I know how seriously Members across the House take the issue of domestic abuse, so I am sure that this is something that none of us would want.