The Covid19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the UK economy and would have had a similar devastating impact on jobs and household incomes if it wasn’t for a range of large scale, temporary interventions introduced by the government and financial regulators.
But, we must prepare for the fact that the crisis will play out in four phases:
- Emergency phase (while the temporary government and regulatory measures are in place)
- Survival phase (when the support measures are removed/ phased out and households have to survive financially until a sustained economic recovery comes)
- Recovery phase (when the economy begins to recover – but it will be some time after this before jobs and household finances recover)
- Rebuilding and restructuring phase (when the challenge of rebuilding and restructuring the economy, financial system and household finances needs to begin, new reforms are put in place against the risk of future economic shocks).
The Financial Inclusion Centre recently published a comprehensive report entitled Extraordinary times need extraordinary measures: dealing with the immediate and longer term financial impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. This report can be found here: FIC Covid19 Impacts May 2020
That report proposed a range of measures to protect households during these phases and covered financial services and non-financial services sectors such as housing, council tax and utilities. From that report, we are producing a series of briefings focusing on specific issues.
This first briefing focuses on what needs to be done to protect private renters once the temporary protections against evictions are unwound. This briefing also outlines our proposals for efficiently funding the building of social housing to meet the need for affordable housing.
The briefing can be found here: Financial Inclusion Centre Covid19 Briefing – PROTECTING RENTERS
This briefing should be read in conjunction with the report we have also uploaded on our website today called Consumer Rights in the Private Rented Sector. See: Consumer Rights in the Private Rented Sector
That report provides an in depth analysis of the lack of protection and weak rights available to private renters and makes a series of recommendations for redressing that rights deficit in the long term.
For further information or questions please contact:
Mick McAteer
0783 779 7748
mick.mcateer@inclusioncentre.org.uk
Financial Inclusion Centre