Michael Gove has separately warned that democracy is under threat if young people are excluded from owning their own homes in the future, and has vowed that no-fault evictions will be banned this year.
Ministers have come under fire in recent days from campaigners who say the bill to abolish Britain’s so-called Section 21 evictions, which allow landlords to evict tenants without cause, is insufficient. The ban was also a pledge in the Conservative Party’s 2019 manifesto.
But Britain’s housing minister insisted in an interview on Sunday that the practice would end by the time of the general election, despite earlier concerns that the courts might not be able to address it.
“We’re going to outlaw it and we’re going to put money into the courts to make sure they enforce it,” he told BBC 1’s Saturday Politics programme. Mr Gove delayed the ban until court reforms were achieved last year, prompting accusations from opposition parties that he had betrayed voters.
Asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg if he could assure 11 million renters that the ban would come into force before the election, which Rishi Sunak has suggested will happen in the second half of this year, Mr Gove said: “Yes. ” and added: The Tenant Reform Bill would accomplish this.
This comes after last week’s statistics showed a spike in no-fault evictions and a 49% increase in the number of households foreclosed on after receiving a Section 21 notice last year.
Separately, he warned that a failed political response to the housing crisis could jeopardize democracy and the party’s chances at a general election, and said the Spring Budget would provide more funding for housing. He said he was doing everything in his power to persuade the prime minister to invest in the project.
Mr Gove said: “I am committed to doing more to free up housing supply” ahead of plans to build tens of thousands more homes by allowing developers to refurbish vacant offices, due to be announced this week. “We send notes and messages every day stressing the importance of what we need to do.” blocks, department stores, commercial buildings.
The minister used an interview with The Sunday Times to warn that the traditional route for young people to get onto the housing ladder is gone.
“It’s a barrier to young people feeling that democracy and capitalism are working for them,” he says. “If people who have broadly ‘small’ conservative values, or who don’t really have any particular political agenda at all, feel like they’re being shut out, It’s simply hard to argue that. ”
He added: “When people think that markets are rigged and that democracy doesn’t listen to them, more and more young people will say, ‘I don’t believe in democracy.’ “This is what’s alarming to me”, I don’t believe in the market.
Mr Gove’s pledge on the Tenants Bill was described as “weasel talk” by Labour’s shadow leveling up secretary Angela Reiner, who said: It’s the most despicable way. ”
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats said Mr Gove’s comments would “sound hollow”. “It is shocking that this Conservative government has repeatedly chosen to extend the promised ban on no-fault evictions,” said Daisy Cooper, the party’s deputy leader.
