Expect something on Wednesday, some gesture in the spring statement to ease the gathering cost-of-living storm. But for whom? That’s the chancellor’s political and moral choice. But, before he chooses, I would like to bring him with me to sit in court to watch a day of housing evictions, warrants and repossessions.
Since the ban on evictions in England during Covid ended last summer, a wave of cases has surged through the justice system. Here Rishi Sunak would see stricken households losing their daily battle to stay afloat in a sea of bills and misfortunes. Many were knocked into debt by lost earnings in the pandemic, struggling against mounting bills. Many were “just about managing” with the £20 a week “uplift” to universal credit, before that was cruelly withdrawn.
In Watford county court, Hertfordshire, some of them find their last hope in Ruth Camp, a duty solicitor and housing specialist who works for Shelter, the housing charity. They spill out their story briefly to her before they go into the courtroom, where she argues their case before the judge, doing the best she can on the day. Some tenants, having already given up in despair, never even turn up. Often she does win adjournments and delays, finding technical errors in landlords’ paperwork or gaining a legal “breathing space” for those with mental health problems. Years of legal aid cuts have left just one law firm still taking housing cases in all of Hertfordshire, she says, while landlords often have barristers. The usher says no reporters ever come here.
I’d like the chancellor to meet Adele, who has fallen asleep in the foyer queueing for Camp’s help. She has already been evicted by bailiffs, but all her possessions, including, crucially, her ID, are locked in the flat – she can’t get benefits or anywhere else to rent without it. She had lived there for nine years with her brother, until both lost work during Covid and fell behind with their rent.
Or how about Michael, who has taken the day off his chemotherapy for throat cancer to attend court? His arrears are huge, as he says his benefits got stopped. Why? He rambles, a bit confused, and has brought a heap of documents, including photos of black mould in his sitting room. “I’ve tried over 40 flats, but no landlord will take me,” he says, knowing eviction is inevitable. The judge tries his best but has no discretion in granting the landlord possession within 28 days. Camp writes everything down for Michael, tells him to go to Citizens Advice about his benefits and the council’s homelessness prevention team, but, she says, hard-pressed councils keep raising their criteria for help of any kind.
If some tenants seem disorganised, maybe the typical Tory minister would brand them feckless, but in hard times those in the frailest mental state fall under the wheels first. Some are just unlucky – like Kingston, an assistant plumber, who tells me that in his 20 years since leaving the Caribbean: “I paid tax and stamp, took no benefits, never been in debt in my whole life.” But work was scarce during the worst of the pandemic and now he’s been in hospital. Working on a zero-hours contract for an agency, he got no sick pay, so he’s in arrears and his landlord wants him out. Camp bargains with the judge to reduce his repayment rate. “He can’t pay it off that fast, with the cost-of-living rising,” she warns. Housing associations can be as tough as private landlords. “We’re a charity, we can’t afford arrears,” one argues – but the judge negotiates a last chance to repay.
The chancellor really should meet Esther, so resourceful and resilient that she leaves Camp and me full of admiration. She’s a widow with children who has already been served with a warrant for eviction. Her landlord does no repairs, so she taught herself on YouTube to plumb in a new toilet. Her budgeting is tuned to the last penny. “We buy 20p pasta packs, cheap packed lunches, no school dinners. We’ve stopped wifi, my boy’s football club and my girl’s bus pass,” she says: all that with no breath of self-pity. She works in hospitality and barely earns above the minimum wage. She glows with pride at her daughter, who has just been accepted into university, but her debt problems started when she had to pay for her mother’s funeral. When Camp assesses her bills, the scale of the problem is apparent, especially now that crucial £20 week has been lost from universal credit. The judge lets her repay a bit less, but warns he can’t stop an eviction from taking place if she falls behind in the onslaught of price rises ahead.
One landlord came to court accompanied by an incandescent father, who shouted at Camp after the case: “Shelter! You’re a disgrace: you should be ashamed!” Finding a technical error, Camp had won a stay for an agoraphobic tenant in high arrears. But usually the boot is firmly on the landlord’s foot. Official figures show a 43% rise in evictions in the three months to December in England on the previous three months, with Shelter reporting that 275,000 privately rented households had received an eviction notice or were behind on their rent. A landlord can evict a tenant with two months’ notice for no reason at all.
Of the 30 clients Camp has helped this month, she says, in 10 of those cases outright possession orders were made, meaning evictions are very likely to follow. In all of those cases, the only discretion the judge had was the amount of time before the order took effect. But, even for those cases where she won a respite, many would still end with the bailiff’s knock. Since the great austerity axe fell on the welfare state, charities such as Shelter and Citizens Advice can be all that’s left to defend destitute people; the Department for Work and Pensions can be worse than no help, and social workers are stretched to life-and-death cases only.
On Wednesday, the chancellor chooses how to spend a windfall of £9bn from better than expected tax income, as the Bank of England warns of the deepest fall in living standards since modern records began. His backbenchers clamour for popular cuts to petrol duties and taxes for all voters. But if he took the moral course and directed £9bn to keeping benefits up with inflation, then, says the Resolution Foundation, three-quarters of his assistance would be well-targeted on the lower earners in most need.
If he does nothing to stop benefits falling, low earners such as Esther will be losing a colossal 14% of their real income to rising prices, according to the political economist Richard Murphy, analysing official figures. Barring a miracle, that means she would fall behind with rent and lose her home. Would the chancellor look her in the eye and tell her that? Esther probably shouldn’t hold her breath. It doesn’t take much political tea-leaf reading to guess who this Tory chancellor will spend most money on pleasing.
Some names have been changed in this piece
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
Join Hugh Muir, Richard Partington and Anneliese Dodds MP in a livestreamed event on the cost-of-living crisis and the effect on the poorest households.
on Thursday 14 April 2022, 8pm BST | 9pm CEST | 12pm PDT | 3pm EDT Book tickets here
• This article was amended on 22 March 2022. Ruth Camp made reference to 10 cases where outright possession orders had been made, out of 30 clients she had helped this month; rather than 10 evictions out of 30 cases in one day, as an earlier version said.
