Baroness Thornhill (LD)

My Lords, much of what we have been debating is about balance. We have heard that word a lot today, and I guess it is fairly obvious to noble Lords by now that when it comes to a balance, we come down in favour of the tenant. We believe the balance has been tilted very much the other way from time immemorial due to the complete lack of supply, the lack of social housing and the beauty parade whereby landlords can choose whom they want to let their properties to. We feel that the Bill intentionally aims to give tenants more time to address their financial difficulties and therefore avoid eviction. We believe that is the right and the moral thing to do because of the additional cost to society of more homeless and evicted people and more costs to local authorities; it is a nasty, invidious vicious circle. But we do not totally have rose-coloured specs on: we seek reassurances from the Minister that landlords have robust grounds for possession, when necessary, when it comes to arrears. We all know that arrears are painful for landlords, especially if they still have a mortgage, but the good news is that most of them do not. In the situation that the noble Baroness outlined of a couple having one or two houses to rent for their pension—generally properties that were inherited from their parents that they decided to rent out—almost half of landlords do not have a mortgage, and a further 20-something per cent have only small mortgages. More than 70% of landlords are not in a dire financial situation and, as someone rather flamboyantly said, needing to feed their families. I see no evidence of that.