PAY RENT DEBTS OR FACE LARGER HOMELESSNESS BILL, GOVERNMENT WARNED
The UK government has been urged to spend £300m paying off renters’ arrears to prevent evictions – or face a bigger bill to deal with homelessness later. Westminster’s Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee is the latest body to plead for leaders to pay off rent debt accumulated during the pandemic, joining homelessness charities, landlords and tenant groups. The committee’s report called for an end to last-minute extensions to eviction protection measures. Since the full eviction ban ended in September last year, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick has announced short-term protections pausing bailiff action – the latest of which came in mid-March when Jenrick announced an extension until May 31. But renters must be given a “coherent exit plan” from the pandemic to rival Boris Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown, MPs warned, including paying…