A trade body states that those who publicly claim that Section 21 'no fault' evictions is the major cause of the UK's homelessness crisis are “factually incorrect, misleading and just plain wrong.”

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Using the government's own data, the trade body found that between October and December 2018, 33,020 households that were assessed by local councils, just 3,890 - 11.8% - were going to be made homeless because of being handed a Section 21 notice.

The same statistics showed the number one reason for households being made homeless was because of friends and family no longer being able or wanted to house them any longer, with more than 15,000 cases of this.

The second most common reason for tenants having to move on was because of coming to the end of an assured shorthold tenancy, which included using the fault-based Section 8 notice, tenants leaving the property without informing the landlord, and Section 21 evictions.

29% of Section 21 evictions were because of rent arrears, property damage and anti social behaviour.

A spokesperson for the trade body, says: “Claims by the government and tenant support groups that Section 21 is the leading cause of homelessness are not supported by the available evidence. They are factually incorrect, misleading and just plain wrong. No reasonable landlord would seek to evict a tenant without good cause.

“Most evictions are a symptom of wider issues, such as the freeze on local housing allowance, insecure jobs, and the lack of support for vulnerable tenants to sustain private tenancies successfully. The increase in the use of no-fault evictions through Section 21 is because landlords simply don’t have faith in the courts being able to deal with eviction cases, however justified their reason.