Dan Carden
MP for Liverpool Walton · Labour · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Harris. I once again congratulate the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) on securing the debate. I will not repeat all the points colleagues have made; people know my passion for the sport. I know the Minister enjoys horseracing and is keen to be supportive to the industry.”
“I am delighted to be here to support the hon. Member’s debate on the future of British horseracing. Aintree racecourse is in my constituency. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and declare my interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on racing and bloodstock.”
“I would like the Minister to be honest about her Department’s remit over the Gambling Commission, and where authority for this policy lies. Where does authority lie when we want to challenge it because it is not working?”
“I know good things can be done to improve the behaviour of bookmakers, regulation and health support for people who struggle with gambling. Mrs Harris, you have spent many years in this place and I am sure you are watching this debate from the Chair with interest. Let me make a couple of more general points.”
“It is important to all our communities, with 60 racecourses across the United Kingdom. It attracts a remarkable amount of investment, especially flat horseracing, through all the work around breeding racehorses for a global industry.”
“There needs to be a much broader review of the financing of British horseracing that takes account of the money from bookmakers, the levy and so much more. I will finish my contribution with one little fact: breeding is currently a loss-making activity in this country.”
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“The hon. Gentleman hits the nail on the head. The point of this debate is that the Government had a very good strategy in 2012 and unfortunately failed to deliver on it. Alcohol is now the leading risk factor for death, ill health and disability among 15 to 49-year-olds. In 10 years, deaths caused by alcoholic liver disease are up by a third, and the estimated cost of alcohol harm is upwards of £27 billion—£6 billion higher than back in 2012. Alcohol-specific deaths have risen by 27% in the last two years alone, and since 2012 there have been more than 66,500 deaths from alcohol across the UK. Alcohol-related hospital admissions in England are upwards of 980,000 annually, and one in five children is living in a household with one parent with an alcohol use disorder.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his response. He has covered every part of government and society, from the health service to criminal justice. I think alcohol takes up around half of all police time. What I am asking for is a strategy and an independent review. The Government have taken their eye off the ball over the last 12 years. They published the strategy, but it was never fully implemented. What we need is something that looks across Government at alcohol, in the way Dame Carol was able to do with illicit drugs. Our constituents know that this is a problem up and down the country. It costs society tens of billions of pounds, and the money that the alcohol industry pays in taxes does not cover the cost of alcohol harm.”
“I recently wrote to all the major energy companies to ask about the shameful practice of obtaining warrants to forcibly install prepayment meters. The responses showed a lottery across all the companies, but British Gas told me that 7,500 warrants were obtained in 2020. That jumped to 24,500 last year, and one court in the north of England approved 496 warrants in three minutes. Ofgem has proven incapable of dealing with this scandal; when will the Government act?”
“I declare my interest as a proud trade unionist. I meet striking workers on an almost weekly basis at the moment, and I know that working people are often targeted by employers during a dispute. This Bill hands employers the right to decide which worker goes to work and which worker can go on strike. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that this could allow bad bosses to victimise and target workers?”
“Year on year, the number of people who lose their life to alcohol rises in this country. It has risen 7.4% in the last year—that is 2,000 more people dying from alcohol this year than in 2019. Every death is a tragedy, and it is also preventable, and yet this Government seem to have done very little, if anything at all, to tackle this public health crisis. They even fail to implement evidence-based policies, which baffles not just me but many professionals. How many more people must die before the Government accept that alcohol harm is out of control in this country? Will the Leader of the House speak to Cabinet and the Prime Minister about whether the Government will conduct an independent review of alcohol in the style of the Dame Carol Black report on drugs?”
“I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary. Qatar has brought into focus the denial of people’s basic rights over their sexuality and gender. Around 70 countries still criminalise homosexuality, with 10 or more still using the death penalty. We are seeing a regression for LGBT rights in many parts of the world. Last week in Russia, Putin criminalised any act of public mention of same-sex relationships. In parts of eastern Europe, LGBT people are facing aggression, with violence in Bulgaria, new anti-LGBT laws in Hungary and so-called LGBT ideology-free zones continuing to operate in Poland. What is the Foreign Secretary doing to ensure that we do not see a pink curtain descend across Europe?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. I have had the privilege of travelling to Poland and Finland in recent months to see how we are working with those allies. The UK must support Ukraine for the long term, and it must move beyond ad hoc donations of weapons and lay out a long-term strategy for military, economic, humanitarian and diplomatic support throughout 2023 and beyond. In the summer, the Defence Secretary promised that the UK and its allies would begin to establish a plan of action to support Ukraine into 2023. Can the Minister tell us where that is? The Defence Secretary also endorsed updating the integrated review in response to Ukraine during the summer. Where is that plan?”
“13. What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of real-term reductions in local housing allowance rates on levels of poverty.”
“In Liverpool, the shortfall between housing benefit and the cheapest rents has now risen to £1,360 over a year. Outside London, private sector rents are rising across the country at an average of 11.8%, yet no one from the Conservative party seems to recognise that rent increases also cause inflation. Conservative Members are frequently eager to call for pay restraint and for benefits to be held down but never for landlords to heed the same advice. My constituents now face homelessness. Does the Secretary of State recognise that high housing costs and completely inadequate housing benefit lie at the root of the cost of living crisis and that the choice for the Government should be between capping rents and raising support?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his update. I have the privilege of chairing the all-party group on Mexico, which is one of the world’s biggest democracies and the second largest economy in Latin America. Trade deals provide an opportunity not only for economic growth, but on the connected issues of climate, environmental protection, human rights, workers’ rights, sustainable development and gender equality. How is progress going on those issues? I understand that the Government are considering appointing a trade envoy to Mexico. Will the Minister update the House on that progress?”
“I welcome the Minister to her new role. As we all know, Shell is making windfall profits—more than double those last year. Despite that, it is not paying a penny of the UK’s windfall tax, because of a get-out clause that obscenely incentivises new oil and gas extraction in the UK. Given that we know that drilling for more fossil fuels is incompatible with the target of 1.5°C to avert climate catastrophe, will the Government now remove that loophole?”
“4. What assessment his Department has made of changes in the level of the sanction rate for universal credit between November 2021 and May 2022.”
“I am disappointed with that answer. The current high rate of universal credit sanctions is unprecedented. Right now, twice as many people on universal credit are being sanctioned and having their benefits cut as did before the pandemic, three years ago. At this very moment, families face the reality of hunger and freezing homes because of soaring food prices and energy bills, as well as rising rents. Instead of making things harder for those who are struggling, and punishing those on the lowest incomes, will the Minister commit to raising social security in line with inflation and end the sanctions regime, which will only inflict more hardship and homelessness this winter on those in areas such as mine?”
“While we were told that the Government were committed to ensuring that care home residents had access to the support and companionship that loved ones bring, there was no answer to our request for a meeting or consideration of our proposals. Understandably, the campaign groups felt ignored once more. I hope that the Minister will not leave those affected feeling the same way. The problem is not exclusive to the coronavirus pandemic. There are still rigid restrictions on visiting as well as shocking instances of denying contact. Another of my constituents reported: “My family and I have never been allowed into the care home that he now resides in. Restrictions have caused unnecessary stress and anxiety to my family and I.””
“To give just one of the contributions from that day: “Sitting with my mother’s body was the longest time I had been allowed to spend with her since she had entered the care home 16 months before.” That powerful event left those hon. Members present united in the view that a legal right was needed to secure the right of care users to nominate an individual to provide support or care in all circumstances. Many of us at the event were disappointed by the response of the Government and the Minister for Care. Since the event, 60 Members sent a letter to the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), who at that point was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pushing for codification—a legal right to be put into law. We were again left disheartened by the Minister’s response.”
“It is almost exactly one year since Mike was admitted to hospital, where he spent the last month of his life, and I am still overwhelmed each time I attempt to talk about what he went through.” I turn to the words of one dementia sufferer, who said: “I’d forget that I had an allergy, but my daughter was there to correct me. If alone, I would simply have said I didn’t have an allergy—that could be so dangerous.” The lack of input from the family and friends of those receiving care—the people who know them best—leads to much worse outcomes. In March, we invited affected constituents to an event where they could share their experiences with parliamentarians on the estate. The testimonies that we heard were harrowing, and the collective trauma was palpable.”
“They should also support your family, carers or other people who are important to you.” However, at the time, the hospital defined end of life care differently and restricted visiting rights to those patients who were “actively dying”. In other words, they were displaying the physical symptoms of dying. My mum said: “This meant that instead of being able to focus on caring and supporting my husband through his final weeks, we had to battle with the hospital to see him. The trauma of my husband’s death—and in particular the neglect he experienced in his final weeks of life—remain with me.”
“After these experiences he told us that he had felt so lonely and neglected, and unable to alert anyone to his basic needs, and my dad was a man who never liked to make a fuss. The hospital policy at the time was that visitors were only allowed for patients in end of life care. The NHS website defines that as follows: “End of life care is support for people who are in the last months or years of their life. End of life care should help you to live as well as possible until you die and to die with dignity. The people providing your care should ask you about your wishes and preferences and take these into account as they work with you to plan your care.”
“My dad was in an A&E side room for three days, during which time he did not receive any hot food, he was not showered or washed, nor assisted to change his clothes, and he was unable to get help to go to the toilet. Instead, he was given cardboard containers which were often left full on his bed table for days despite regular requests that they be taken away and replaced. Throughout this time, he had no means of contacting us, because there was no phone signal where he was and he could not access the wi-fi despite repeated attempts. There were other occasions: once he had to be moved to a ward, when he was left with his emergency buzzer out of his reach; and one time he could not breathe and began to panic, and he phoned my mum, who was unable to get through to the ward by phone and therefore rushed to the hospital.”
“Throughout today’s debate we will hear further personal experiences from across the Chamber, but I hope the House will not mind if I take a moment to talk about my own family’s experience last year. My mother and brother contributed a few words, too, and I am grateful to have the opportunity in the Chamber to express them. My father, Mike, died last year: he was diagnosed with lung cancer in February and died in December. Like many people undergoing cancer treatment, one evening he suddenly became unresponsive and we had to rush him to A&E. At the hospital, it was confirmed that he had sepsis, and he was therefore isolated in a side room on the A&E ward, which was overrun with patients on beds or trollies in the corridor.”
“Do they even know that I care?” That same anguish and pain is experienced by the individual receiving care, not understanding why family or loved ones are not able to visit. Shirley from my constituency said: “My father forgot I was his daughter during the period I was unable to visit. When I was finally able to visit, my dad was unrecognisable. It broke my heart. He has never recovered.” The support and care given by partners and by parents and children is not an optional extra: contact with loved ones is absolutely vital to dignified care. This point was also made by the 363 members of the public who in the last few days alone provided written evidence for this debate, and I want to thank them for their brave contributions and the Chamber engagement team for collecting them.”
“People across the United Kingdom are still having to face their time in hospitals, care homes and other care settings completely alone and detached from the people they hold dearest. They are some of the most vulnerable and frail people in our society; some of them will be nearing the end of their lives. The devastating impact of this isolation and of denying contact with loved ones affects those in receipt of care and also their loved ones. It is difficult to imagine, unless we have personal experience, the anguish, pain and stress of not knowing when we will next see our loved one—our husband, wife, mother or father—and repeatedly asking ourselves, “Are they okay? Are they comfortable?”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of guaranteeing the right to maintain contact in care settings. After much delay due to circumstances out of our hands, I am grateful that we now have the opportunity in this Chamber to debate this incredibly important issue. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for its efforts in finding us time to speak about this in the Chamber today. I also want to extend my gratitude to the hon. Members for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) for their steadfast and resolute support and advocacy on this matter throughout.”
“The work of Jenny Morrison, Diane Mayhew, Helen Wildbore, Julia Jones, Nicci Gerrard and Kate Meacock has been absolutely inspirational, and they are all in the Public Gallery today watching this debate. Their dedication to this campaign has been phenomenal. I pay tribute to them. In the face of immense loss and personal grief, they have shown incredible selflessness and service to guarantee that no other family member will have to endure the pain of being denied contact again. Families do not deserve any further delay; they have suffered enough. We must learn from this trauma and bring in legislation. I hope that when the Minister rises to give the Government’s response, she will agree and set out the steps that we can take to get this right.”
“We have opportunities in the draft Mental Health Reform Bill and the Bill of Rights to codify this right. The Government could also introduce secondary legislation, which I know campaigners are in favour of. Will the Minister meet me, others and the affected families as soon as possible to discuss making this right as strong and effective as possible? The Government have previously said that legislative options are under active consideration, so please can the Government give much more specific detail on what that actually means? I want to finish by paying tribute to the tireless campaigning of organisations in this area, in particular the Rights for Residents campaign group, the Relatives and Residents Association and John’s Campaign.”
“Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), has previously signalled support for this right. We are ready and willing to work with the Government to make this legal right a reality as swiftly as possible. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has also been unequivocal in its call for legislation in this area. In its report from July this year, “Protecting human rights in care settings” it stated: “The Government must introduce legislation to secure to care users the right to nominate one or more individuals to visit and to provide support or care in all circumstances, subject to the same infection prevention and control rules as care staff.” We have not yet had a response from the Government to that report, so may I ask the Government Minister to take that up?”
“If the Government are serious about their support for these calls, if they are serious about acting in the interests of families and loved ones, if they are serious about balancing clinical restrictions with the impact of restrictions on residents’ health and human rights, then I ask the Minister to immediately consider how to put that into law. I cannot think of any other issue that commands such unanimous cross-party support. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who I know supports these calls wholeheartedly, said at our meeting in Parliament: “How can anyone be opposed to this?” There are also 35 organisations in this area who support these calls, including Mind, Mencap, Disability Rights UK and Dementia UK. The new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon.”
“By comparison, in Scotland, the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill, places a duty on Ministers to require providers to comply with any direction made regarding visiting. What assessment has the Department made of the Bill and would it be minded to introduce similar provision in England? The evidence suggests that the only way to guarantee contact in care settings is a legal right to an essential care supporter. An essential care supporter would be able to visit or accompany a person in any health and care setting to help communicate their wishes and needs, and to ensure they receive the correct care.”
“The poor response is not because the CQC ignores complainants, although there was evidence of that as well, but that it simply does not have the proper powers or data to support people who have their access rights compromised. In the CQC’s own words: “We do not have the power to require care homes to report live data on levels of visiting, neither do we have the power to take action against those care homes that are not reporting changes to their visiting status to us.” The CQC, which regulates all health and care services in England, bases its enforcement action on the capacity tracker. However, providers are not obligated to use the tool—they are merely encouraged. That has led to very little, if any, clarity on the true extent of the problem.”
“I am grateful to the right hon. Member for that intervention. The Government have previously pointed to guidance as a defence against bad practice, and we have enough evidence to show that that is not good enough. Indeed, while there are excellent examples of good practice across the sector, significant levels of uncertainty and variability throughout the system seriously undermine the rights of individuals. The guidance leads to a postcode lottery as separate settings interpret guidance differently. That difference is compounded by the response of the Care Quality Commission, which is an organisation that many have had difficult and negative interactions with. The Government encourage those affected to report care providers who do not meet the guidance to the CQC, but by then it may be too late.”
“I think that we can all agree on the principle that, whether it is the state, a privately run care home or a hospital, it does not have the right to separate family and loved ones. The right to visit a loved one in a care setting is one that we should all enjoy across the country.”
“I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for chairing the debate. I was watching the faces of the campaigners in the Gallery, who I am sure wish they had a voice in the Chamber. Having said that, I will take the Minister at her word. It may have been a bit much to ask that, on her first day, she would commit to legislation, but she knows that the campaigners will not be going away and that I and other hon. Members will continue to make their case. We must put right what has gone wrong during covid. Loved ones are an essential part of care and, as many colleagues have said, there is an easy solution: essential care givers and loved ones should be treated in the same way as staff. The only way to resolve the situation is for this place to put a right in law through legislation.”
“The cost of frequent, unwanted moves makes people worse off, and money spent on rent is money that is not spent on putting down a deposit or saving for a mortgage.”
“In Scotland, emergency legislation has been announced to freeze rents and establish a six-month moratorium on evictions, for both the private rented and social sectors. That demonstrates that, where the political will exists, action can be taken quickly and decisively to provide relief for tenants. What analysis of that legislation have the UK Government carried out? Would the Government be minded to announce a similar pause on evictions? A dramatic increase in the availability of buy-to-let mortgages, little growth and access to the social rented sector, and now skyrocketing interest rates caused by a mix of backwards ideology and financial illiteracy, have led to a growth in the number of households renting privately. The lack of housing affordability and tenant security in the private rented sector go hand in hand.”
“They are frequently eager to call for pay restraint, or for benefits to be held down, but never for landlords to heed the same advice. The Government continue to consult on a rent cap in the social housing sector. Why is it that private sector tenants are always forgotten about? Announcing the consultation, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “Putting a cap on rent increases for social tenants offers security and stability to families across England.” Highlighting the potential increases of 11% next year for social tenants, the press release stated that this move would “prevent rents…from rising significantly.” When we know that price rises will be the same or potentially higher in the private rented sector, why will the Government not provide the same protection to private renters?”
“To use just one example, statistics from the Ministry of Justice show that the situation is not getting better for renters but much, much worse: there was a 52% increase in the number of no-fault evictions between April and June 2022. Conditions for private renters are continuing to deteriorate, and the Government’s neglect is the cause. That increase in forced evictions took place against the background of 11% inflation, and rent increases of 11.8% outside of London, according to Rightmove. Those rent increases are widespread—data from Shelter shows that 1 million private renters were hit with a rent increase in August 2022 alone—and have a clear knock-on effect: eviction claims for rent arrears are at their highest level since records began. No one from the Conservative party seems to recognise that rent increases also cause inflation.”
“That is more important than ever in the midst of the current Tory-engineered economic chaos that is causing absolute misery to many people throughout the country. We are all aware of the huge challenges that our constituents face: the skyrocketing cost of living, food prices at a 40-year high, record energy costs and skyscraping inflation. All those conditions make the need for a safe and secure home more important than ever before. Add to that the dwindling supplies of affordable housing, and more than three decades of deregulation, and it is easy to realise how we have created the toxic conditions that we now find ourselves in. Where is the Government’s plan to deal with this? It may prove to be too late for many people throughout the country.”
“The private rented sector is dominated and characterised by insecure tenure, increasingly unaffordable rents, poor housing quality and the ever-present risk of eviction. Data from Crisis showed that in the last financial year nearly 20,000 households faced homelessness after receiving a no-fault eviction notice. Losing a private tenancy is the second biggest cause of homelessness in England. If the Government are serious about ending homelessness, what are their reasons for delay? No one should be going homeless. When we know that private sector tenants have to move more often than people in any other tenure, and then face average moving costs of well over £1,500, we should be doing all we can to ensure that constituents are not pushed into destitution following receipt of a section 21 notice.”
“The two and a half years of the premiership of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) passed without any Bill being published. We have had a consultation, which the Government responded to by again vowing to abolish section 21, but now we find it kicked into the legislative long grass. It was not a priority for the previous Administration and no one knows what the new Government are minded to do—I hope the Minister can shed some light on that today. This is all despite the huge public support for the reform of private renting: some 79% of the public, 80% of Conservative voters and 86% of voters over the age of 65 back greater protections for private renters, according to Generation Rent data.”
“All MPs here will have similar stories from their own constituents, and may be planning to share their contributions today. Indeed, it was those stories, and the tireless work of the renters’ unions and housing campaigners, that pushed the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, to promise a new deal for renters in 2019. It will come as little consolation that the Labour party announced in December 2017 that any future manifesto would contain a commitment to remove no-fault evictions. The 2019 Conservative manifesto echoed that commitment, promising the abolition of no-fault evictions so that tenants were “protected from revenge evictions and rogue landlords”. Again, those are the Conservatives’ words, not mine. Of course, like many Tory promises, that was not worth the paper it was written on.”
“She said it is “exhausting to look after kids at the same time as worrying about where we will end up.” She told us that being served with the eviction notice was “cruel”, and that “you should not be able to drop a note through someone’s door telling them to pick their lives up and move on.” If constituents are removed from properties, they are often placed on long property waiting lists, compounding the sense of uncertainty and insecurity that they experience. I want to take this opportunity to commend local organisations such as Vauxhall and Merseyside law centres, ACORN and my local Liverpool Shelter branch, which carry out fantastic work in almost impossible circumstances to support my constituents in the face of minimal Government support.”
“It is easy to underestimate the dislocating and exhausting experience of someone being evicted from the place they call home: living in limbo; never certain of when their time may be up; having to pack up belongings, leave support networks and potentially change employment —all at immense personal, mental and financial cost. Children being unmoored and having to move schools or leave friends and family behind can have a lifelong impact on learning and development. My constituency office recently spoke to a constituent who contacted us after being served a section 21 eviction notice. She has been living in her property for 13 years with her two children, aged 12 and two. She suffers from anxiety, and after being told she must leave the property her anxiety has “gone through the roof”. She has never had panic attacks as bad as they are now.”
“Research by Shelter shows that nearly one in five renters have decided not to complain about poor conditions in their homes for fear of being evicted. I witness that frequently in my constituency. A constituent who visited my office had complained to her landlord about the lack of essential repairs to the front and back doors. The landlord refused to carry them out. After she complained again, she received a section 21 notice in the post, telling her to leave the property. That shows the clear imbalance in power when tenants are held hostage to a bad landlord in an inadequate property.”
“Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who was the Prime Minister in 2019, when the Government first committed to scrapping no-fault evictions. In the three years since, more than 200,000 renters have been evicted—that is the equivalent of an eviction every seven minutes, and that is despite an eviction ban that was in place for 14 months during the pandemic. Section 21 evictions allow for landlords in the private rented sector to evict tenants from their properties without having to establish any fault on the part of the tenant. When a notice is served, it gives tenants just two months to leave their homes. Even the threat of eviction has detrimental effects on tenants. Section 21 notices mean that tenants are unlikely to exercise other rights, such as the very limited right to challenge rent increases, for fear of retaliatory eviction.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of ending section 21 evictions. I am grateful to have secured time for a debate on this matter, which continues to affect all our constituents. I start by paying tribute to my constituents in Liverpool, Walton, who are the innocent victims of the country’s current broken housing system. “Everyone renting in the private sector has the right to feel secure in their home, settled in their community and able to plan for the future with confidence. But millions of responsible tenants could still be uprooted by their landlord with little notice, and often little justification. This is wrong”— those are not my words but the words of the right hon.”
“Before I finish, I pay tribute again to the fantastic organisations that work in this area, particularly all members of the Renters’ Reform Coalition. To use a term that the Government and their allies hold very dear, the renters reform Bill is oven-ready, so set a date and publish it.”
“We need to keep tenants in their homes. Will the Government investigate incentives to sell with tenants in situ? What will they do to work more closely with councils to help them to create and buy more social housing? Will they look at unfreezing housing benefit, which is currently lagging way behind rents? Will the Minister explain why social tenants may receive a rent cap, following a consultation, but there have been no similar moves in the private rented sector? I invite the Minister to meet me and organisations such as the Renters’ Reform Coalition to discuss these matters further. Will he give a clear date for the introduction of legislation? To give security and certainty to tenants, it must be in this parliamentary Session.”
“Three and half years, three Prime Ministers and four Secretaries of State later, that legislation has still not been put before the House. It is no surprise that many organisations simply do not trust the Conservative party to deliver on these much-needed reforms. Just a few weeks ago, in one of her many U-turns, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) had to reassure the House that it was her policy to press ahead with banning no-fault evictions, after reports had suggested the opposite. Anyone seeking another example of the Government’s half-hearted approach in this area need look no further. Even today, we see another change in Administration. Who knows whether that manifesto commitment will be kept or tossed aside? We need to see action, not more delay. That is the very least that private renters deserve.”
“Yes, I am. I thought I had laid out that argument quite clearly. We have a system in which housing benefit subsidises landlords who own property. A much wiser use of that money would be to use it to build new council housing. That saves money in the long run, and allows those living in the properties to have the sense of belonging and security that is vital to wellbeing. Frankly, successive Governments have not taken this problem seriously enough. The Government must recognise the damaging consequences of this delay and announce what is vital legislation as soon as possible. The promise to abolish no-fault evictions was included in the Conservative manifesto of 2019. The renters reform Bill was included in the Queen’s Speech of December 2019.”
“To bring the debate back to the merits of ending section 21 evictions, does the hon. Member think that his Government should deliver on their promises, or should they backtrack on them?”