So much bollocks is written and discussed about No Fault Evictions and by all sides in the adversarial ‘event’ called the Renters Reform Bill, that’s the one where this week the Government kicked into touch the idea of abolishing the section 21 No Fault Eviction.
The facts and that other simple exact science of arithmetic prove this is bollocks.
1. England has 4.61 million private rented sector (PRS) tenancies
2. The average duration of a PRS tenancy is 3½ years
This means that each year 1.32 million PRS tenancies come to an end and according to official homelessness data released last week there were 24,260 tenancies ended in FY202223 by the section 21 no fault eviction route.
Thus, as a matter of fact just 1.8% of PRS tenancies are brought to an end by PRS landlords using the section 21 no fault eviction notice and route.
The Renters (Reform) Bill has been framed almost exclusively as the end of the no fault eviction and it contains far more proposed changes which have rarely been discussed.
The two principal protagonists in this adversarial debate are:
- The National Resident Landlords Association (NRLA) for private landlords, and
- The Renter Reform Coalition (RRC) for the renter and private tenant
The RRC would have you believe the prevalence of the no fault eviction is huge whereas the facts say it is less than 2% of all PRS tenancy ‘endings.’
In fact the RRC fed many of their sympathetic MPs with understated data on this issue that they parroted in the second reading of the RRB earlier this week. The Hansard recording of that ‘debate’reveals countless use of the claim that 71,310 no fault evictions had taken place in the 4½ years from when the then Prime Minister Theresa May announced the pledge to abolish the no fault eviction in April 2019 to the end of September 2023.
"... since his Government first announced the end of no-fault evictions back in April 2019, a total of 71,310 households have been kicked out on to the street." Angela Rayner
The debate was full of other dodgy facts such as Karen Buck stating
"On average, 290 London renters a week have faced no-fault evictions since the Government promised to bring an end to them in 2019"
290 per week every week in London alone? That would be 15,080 in London alone yet the latest homelessness data reveals 4,240 in London in FY202223 which is circa 82 per week not this 290 claim.
This is found in Table A1
Then Hansard records
"Each day that we delay, 172 families are handed a no-fault eviction notice."
This claim of Kim Johnson MP would mean 172 x 365 section 21 notices or 62.780 such notices per year yet the same Kim Johnson MP a few seconds before spouts the 71,310 line ...
"...Nearly five years since the Government proposed to outlaw no-fault evictions and give renters desperately needed protection from exploitative landlords, some 70,000 households have been threatened with homelessness by section 21 notices."
Kim Johnson is claiming 62,780 per year and this she says is some 70,000 over FIVE YEARS! The level of innumeracy and politcking by regurgitaing any and every 'prevalence' claim is an insult to all private renters these MPs are projecting they support!
The fact that Angela Rayner the Labour shadow to Michael Gove, Karen Buck MP who has instrumental in the Homeless Reduction Act and Kim Johnson MP the former shadow rough sleeping minister have all had 4 years to get their arguments together for the abolition of the abhorrent NFE and all of them can't be bothered to even get the numbers right! So those of you who may wish to believe the Angela Rayner direct answer today to the question of whether Labour will ban NFEs being a resounding YES ...
If ONLY these Labour MPs had bothered to check the number and prevalence of s21 notices they would have easily been able to expose the Michael Gove excuses of the alleged 'swamping' of the court system for the poppycock they are anyone?
The reality is the 71,310 claim for the 4.5 year period equates to 15,846 section 21 notices yearly and just 1.2% of all of the PRS tenancies that end each year and is below the official homelessness data released last week revealing 24,260 such notices in FY202223 - which is 1.8% of PRS endings.
These numbers, numeric facts and prevalence are extremely significant by being below 2% of all PRS tenancies that end each year and over 98 in every 100 PRS tenancies ending are NOT by this (amoral and abhorrent) no fault eviction section 21 route.
The craven Government and specifically the LUHC headed by Michael Gove before the second reading said that the abolition of section 21 evictions would not take place until four other factors were in play of (a) the digitisation of the courts to process evictions and repossessions; (b) recruiting and retaining more bailiffs; (c) an enquiry into how ASB should be prioritised for court cases; and (d) much greater housing legal aid is available for private renters.
In short, Government took on board the specious argument that the court system – which is already overworked and underfunded – would be overwhelmed or even that favourite term of government of ‘swamped’ with huge number of cases that would ordinarily have been the no fault section 21 notice.
However, the damn pesky numeric facts of 24,260 yearly cases of section 21 no fault eviction use breaks down to 1½ new cases per local authority area per week across England for the courts to decide.
The Government’s 4 point excuses for not abolishing section 21 are risible as 1.5 new section 8 discretionary cases per local authority per week for the courts to make a decision upon is not anything like a ‘swamping’ at all.
Whilst Michael Gove is on record as despising and ignoring ‘experts’ he cannot ignore irrefutable numeric fact and I remind him that it is his LUHC department which collates and publishes the official homelessness data which reveals this 24,260 uses of a section 21 notice.
The campaign and relentless almost sole focus of the Renter Reform Coalition on the amorality of no fault evictions whilst massively ‘bigging-up’ the usage or prevalence of the section 21 was crass, naïve and a case of the RRC shooting themselves in the foot by bigging-up the section 21 notice. Their opponents the NRLA were more than happy to acquiesce to this innumerate RRC strategy as they were then able to argue to Government that the section8 alternative notice and which needs ‘fault’ would see the courts overwhelmed – yet the facts prove this narrative is absolute poppycock or as I choose a load of innumerate and specious bollocks.
Reader, if this author as a mere consultant in this area for over 20 years can access the numeric facts at the heart of this NFE argument, then bet your life the salaried policy and research staff in the large organisations who came together to form the Renter Reform Coalition must know these numeric facts of section 21 usage and prevalence. It is incredulous to believe that the policy teams of Shelter, Crisis, Citizens Advice Bureaux, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and all the other luminaries and self-titled ‘experts’ in this not hastily assembled coalition did not and do not know the usage and prevalence of the no fault eviction section 21.
Yet, in focusing this entire Bill almost exclusively on the (amorality of) no fault eviction, the Renter Reform Coalition ran a campaign that was naïve, incompetent and pitiful and these “experts” severely let down the vulnerable private renter they were supposed to be fighting for!
There is and never was any need for a new specialist housing court as the 1½ new eviction cases per authority per week as replacement for the abolition of section 21 no fault notices is not an undue addition that would swamp the courts. Any increased digitisation of the courts for possession or other cases is a long slow piecemeal process and if any ‘digitisation’ process cannot cope with the addition or 1½ additional cases per week per local authority then that digitisation process is not worthy of pursuing!
That applies even with a clear acknowledgement that the current court system is on its knees due to cuts to funding and closure of thousands of court rooms by the current government. The offensive irony of Michael Gove and the government housing department citing a chronic shortage of housing legal aid to deal with the non ‘swamping’ of the courts after this government has massively cut legal aid and housing legal aid provision is distasteful and duplicitous in the extreme.
In summary, reader, the years of bull and bluster over the no fault eviction issue has taken the usual course of any intended real reform to any housing, homeless and poverty matter – the priority of myth, bullshit and exaggeration over those darn pesky things called fact.
A plague on all your houses Michael Gove, NRLA and RRC!
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