25th
Sep 2020
Liberal Democrat Baroness Olly Grender trumpeted that she is going to do everything in her power to make a last-ditch bid in the House of Lords this week, to scupper evictions being carried out after the ban was lifted on Sunday 20th September.
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Lib Dem Olly Grender will be using a procedural motion known as a ‘Prayer To Annul’ in the Upper Chamber in her attempt to stop evictions.
The procedural motion is rarely used and could pressurise a vote to be taken involving the government’s Coronavirus measures.
The Baroness believes her action will almost certainly appeal to the opposition to try to force through a ban on evictions and already a Labour peer, justice spokesperson Lord Ponsonby of Shulbredeh, has entered the fray by tabling a so-called ‘Regret Motion’ against the end of the ban.
Baroness Grender has told the Mirror newspaper: “This government made a promise that no renter who has lost income due to COVID would lose their home, yet ... tens of thousands are facing that very real threat.
“Rather than scrapping no-fault evictions as promised in the election, Tory ministers are enabling evictions of an estimated 55,000 private renters.
"People who have been furloughed, made redundant, have children going to a local school are all under threat. If this goes ahead countless families will find themselves without a home, on this government's watch, in the midst of a pandemic.”
The Grender measure if approved will in effect apply considerable pressure on the government to force through the abolition of Section 21 notices in the House of Commons using the Renters Rights Bill, and this will be much sooner than already intimated by the government’s housing minister Christopher Pincher.
The government says: “We’ve taken unprecedented action to support renters by banning evictions for six months, preventing people getting into financial hardship and helping businesses to pay salaries.
"To help keep people in their homes over the winter months, we’ve changed the law to increase notice periods to six months and introduced a ‘winter truce’ on the enforcement of evictions for the first time.
“In addition, we have put in place a welfare safety net of nearly £9.3 billion and increased Local Housing Allowance rates to cover the lowest 30 per cent of market rents.”
Richard Merrick of PIMS said: “Once again interfering Lords wish to wreck the private rented sector by stopping all evictions. They state it should only be for ‘no-fault’ cases which of course will allow some tenants whom through no fault of their own decided to spend their rent on the new electrical ‘must – haves’, otherwise without them their mental well-being because of Covid would go to ‘pot’.
“Why shouldn’t tenants be evicted who racked up substantial rental arrears before the lockdown came along? I am sure the peers and MPs will reply Well it’s not Christmas – like is it ....after all we are a Christmas led nation and private landlords don’t believe in Christmas do they ?”
Richard added: “In light of what is happening it is more than likely that many landlords will not now be able to afford Christmas.”
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