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HRH HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN - Simon Collyer, ABC founder has written to the Queen regarding the ending of the 'eviction' protection period on August 23rd. 

We will not repeat the whole of the letter which would be impolite, however this is part of it.

A section from the letter sent to the Queen:

Our organisation was one of several organisations lobbying the government and the Housing Minister to move the date when evictions could start against tenants behind with their rent (to August 23rd).

Half a million people could be at risk and Councils daily are being bombarded with calls from worried and desperate people - however, there are relatively few places available at affordable rents. People are staying put because of Covid-19 and house prices may be about to fall.

The rented housing shortage can be traced back to Mrs Thatcher selling off Council Housing stock at knock-down prices.

Additionally, a growing population and high immigration have caused issues along with the amount of available land. The last time I can think of when there was such a mismatch in supply and demand was in the late fifties. As my article from the ABC website (www.abcorg.net) enclosed points out, landlords like the notorious Peter Rachman emerged in that era. 

We also pointed out:

While the Queen does not get involved in political debate, the Queen is one of the UK's largest landowners and is the unofficial head of the landed gentry. If there is a conflict between landowners and tenants then the Queen is by definition involved. We might hope she might talk informally about this issue in talks with the prime minister Boris Johnson. We explained what Section 21 is [where tenants can be evicted without any reason in a no-fault eviction when there is a fault) and the fact this odious legislation is still on the statute book.

The debate will be hotting up as this deadline approaches.

Image: Buckingham Palace.

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BACK TO WORK - Employers can bring staff back to the workplace if it is safe to do so from 1 August 2020. There has been a lot of confusion and mark wearing and whether staff will have to wear masks is not clear. The school holidays have kicked off and kids will not be back to school till Tuesday September 1st. 

Face coverings are required to be worn in any shops, including food shops and supermarkets, but are not required in hospitality settings, including restaurants with table service, bars, and pubs.

Those who do not have to wear a mask on public transport include people with "any physical or mental illness or impairment, or disability", and would experience "severe distress" from doing so. This includes: if you are travelling with someone who requires lip-reading.

Image:Prime Minister Boris Johnson one described women wearing the burqa or burka as looking like ‘letterboxes. 

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HOMELESSNESS - This morning, Robert Jenrick MP, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, has announced a £266 million package to support vulnerable people into long term accommodation.

The funding is part of the Next Steps Accommodation Programme which has been created to cover property costs and support new tenancies for homeless people and rough sleepers, who were provided with accommodation during the lockdown period.

From today, Local Authorities and London Boroughs can apply for the funding which is expected to support around 15,000 people.

The following types of short-term accommodation will be considered eligible for funding under the programme. Funding can be used for both the provision of new accommodation and the extension of existing accommodation:

• • Accommodation owned by a university, RP or private landlord and available for interim use.
• • PRS Access. This includes guaranteed rent or deposit schemes, mediation support and training, or landlord incentives.
• • Supported Housing. Additional support can be offered to enable access to supported accommodation or social housing.
• • Modular housing units where these can be made available with necessary facilities, including power and waste connections. These can usually be placed with temporary planning permission.
• • Hotels. This includes funding to extend contracts, where this is the only or best solution to keep people in safe accommodation.
• • Other forms of short-term accommodation to ensure that no one returns to the streets. Bidders are encouraged to be creative in their proposed response to reflect the expressed needs of individual rough sleepers.
• • Employment support and training either to access work directly or to improve individuals’ employability.
• • Reconnections with friends and family, including local, national and international reconnections.
• • Other forms of immediate support including tenancy sustainment support and immigration advice.

The closing date for applications from local authorities is Thursday 20 August.

ABC Note: The problem is not just funding, the problem is that Boris Johnson has failed to rescind Section 21 which means that landlords can evict tenants without any reason and it is being used by unscrupulous and unethical landlords to avoid paying for repairs. 

Additionally, 55% of all families do not have savings and the 5.2 million people who have signed on Universal Credit have to go through a waiting period before they start seeing any money. They can take a loan called an 'Advance' but that reduces their monthly payment. Masses of people are facing job losses this autumn, it is estimated that two million people are threatened by redundancy when the government Furlough schemes end in October. Some 45,000 people face eviction following August 23rd and the end of the moratorium on evictions. These are the hardworking families, the government talks about so much, citizens who have not intentionally done anything wrong.

There are just too many people chasing too few properties. Many flats are being let almost immediately and although that discrimination against tenants on welfare is illegal in practice, in reality, the practise is widespread. The property market has slumped, people are not moving, and many people are still in lockdown. 

In New York, the moratorium on evictions was set at a year. This time frame seems far more realistic. It will take time for the first wave of deadly COVID-19 to pass through the economy. We may see a second wave in the autumn. The virus is very much present in the community. What caused the massive deaths of the influenza pandemic in 1918 was that troops were moving around after World War One. The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, lasted from February 1918 to April 1920, it infected 500 million people–about a third of the world's population at the time–in four successive waves. 

This does not seem to be the right moment to force tenants from the accommodation they have where they know their situation and their neighbours and their health, moving into potentially crowded shared accommodation with strangers. We need to keep as many of the public in their existing accommodation as possible. This may upset profit-seeking landlords, upset that arrears have occurred, however, we must think of the greater good of society and the health of our nation. We need people ready to work as soon as possible and to pay taxes, to repay the fantastic public sector borrowing that is being taken on currently. We need a new army of entrepreneurs to build businesses to replace those lost, and to replace all the lost jobs. You need a stable environment to succeed in self-employment. You cannot build a business if you are forced to keep changing addresses. You have to focus. Your small initial profits would be drained-off, like your personal energy, by moving accommodation again and again.  

The ABC has written to the Housing Minister, DWP Minister and Colchester MP Will Quince, and we are writing to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. 

In the late 1950s in the third term of the Conservative government, a notorious landlord set the byword for band landlordism, Peter Rachman. Rachman became notorious for his exploitation of his tenants, with the word "Rachmanism" entering the Oxford English Dictionary as a synonym for the exploitation and intimidation of tenants. The shortage of properties was caused by the Blitz and the baby boom. Rachman was a criminal landlord - he was a small fish, in reality, however, he became a scapegoat to take away attention from much bigger landlords higher up the chain. A public outcry brought an end to landlords like these. Peter Rachman died in 1962 (aged 43) having lost his property empire and the Macmillan government was finally defeated in 1964. 

Boris Johnson has moved the Conservative government leftwards, but he will find himself balanced between the narrow interests of Tory landlords - who occupy the Tory front bench and Tory-supporting buy-to-let landlords balanced against the greater good of the community who are bearing the brunt of the pandemic. These are the people who will have to pay back all the money the government is currently borrowing.

The PM could lose his footing over this issue and it will be a great ball for Labour to pick up as they have objected in the past to private landlordism and the fact there is a Class of people who live off others without contributing anything much to GDP. We may see policies that turn buy-to-let landlords into an endangered species. That the letting housing section will become the domain of social landlords who will treat their tenants responsibly and have...very importantly, stakeholders to report to. The days of the lone private landlord acting like a medieval Baron, dispensing his or her justice at will with limited accountability, may become a thing of the past. This approaching housing crisis may prove to be the catalyst for change in society, and perhaps even a change in government.  

 ABC Comment has your say below.

BBC EAST - Simon Collyer appeared just after 9.00am this morning (21/07/2020) with Sonia Watson on BBC Essex Breakfast Show discussing 'masks' and the costs for those on low incomes. 

We appeared with Julian Hoez a French citizen currently living in the UK. 

Julian is the interim Managing Director of Brussels-based think tank Vocal Europe.

Audio Clip courtesy of the BBC

 ABC Comment, have your say below:

PLEASE CLICK BELOW: 
 

BBC ESSEX - ABC Founder Simon Collyer is appearing on the BBC Essex radio breakfast show with presenter Sonia Watson on the 21/07/2020 talking about COVID-19 masks and the cost/benefits to those managing on benefits.

We do hope you can join us on BBC Essex - so please do tune in.

Simon's slot is after 09.05 am. Plenty of time for the morning cuppa.

Image: BBC Breakfast presenter Sonia Watson. 

ABC Note: Sonia Watson presents the breakfast show on BBC Essex with Ben Fryer. Join us they say, 6-10 weekdays.

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UNIVERSAL CREDIT CALL WAITING TIMES - According to DWP Minister Will Quince: 

Individuals making a Universal Credit declaration from 16 March to 23 June stood at 3.2 million (3,240,570)

The Average Speed of Answer for calls to Universal Credit in each week from 6th January 2020 is shown below in the format of hours:minutes:seconds.

Week Commencing -

06/01/2020 0:04:00

13/01/2020 0:03:34

20/01/2020 0:03:06

27/01/2020 0:02:14

03/02/2020 0:03:37

10/02/2020 0:03:31

17/02/2020 0:03:46

24/02/2020 0:02:56

02/03/2020 0:03:12

09/03/2020 0:03:34

16/03/2020 0:16:52

23/03/2020 0:43:08

30/03/2020 0:44:01

06/04/2020 0:29:32

13/04/2020 0:15:17

20/04/2020 0:23:05

27/04/2020 0:21:42

04/05/2020 0:10:30

11/05/2020 0:07:24

18/05/2020 0:04:30

25/05/2020 0:06:20

01/06/2020 0:02:35

08/06/2020 0:01:50

15/06/2020 0:01:44

22/06/2020 0:02:38

29/06/2020 0:03:54

Has this been your experience? 

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ECONOMICS - The purchasing power of money is falling due to what is called 'Shrinkflation'. Products shrink in size and your money buys less content. Cadburys are shrinking their chocolate bars yet charging the same price. 

The Rule of 72 is a simple way to determine how long an investment will take to double given a fixed annual rate of interest. By dividing 72 by the annual rate of return, investors obtain a rough estimate of how many years it will take for the initial investment to duplicate itself. It works the other way. Divide the rate of inflation by 72 and it tells you the time it will take in years for inflation to halve the purchasing power of money. 

All money is borrowed into existence. The amount of money in the economy equals the amount of goods and services sold. The Chancellor has borrowed 100 billion to fund the COVID-19 issues but that increases the money supply. There will be a lot of downward pressure on prices due to a recession but expect to see the value of money and what it will purchase fall. Intelligent investors are putting money into art, collectables, gold and silver. 

At least a pint of beer has not shrunk.

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AUSTRALIA - The unemployment rate in Australia as at its highest level in 22 years.

Almost 1 million Australians (or 7.4% of the workforce) did not have a job in June. Many more are under-employed – working fewer hours than before.

The Covid-19 lockdown in Melbourne will damped any hope of a quick recovery.

The term 'Aussie Battler' is very appropriate in a country nicknamed 'the lucky country'. 

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GOVERNMENT STATISTICS - The Resolution Foundation a noted think tank has been questioning the government's unemployment statistics. At the ABC we have long had doubts about the quality of statistics produced by the Office of National Statistics and whether or not they provide a true picture of unemployment in the economy. The way the UK reports unemployment may not reflect the "true scale of joblessness", says a think tank.

Unemployment statiscs are prepared based on international rules, however, governments and organisations like the European Union may all have the same agenda of making things seem more positive than they are.

These are the key findings of the Resolution Centre.

The Claimant Count measure of unemployment is currently overstating the level of and changes in those genuinely unemployed and claiming unemployment-related benefits, for two reasons. First, the crisis occurred in the middle of the roll-out of Universal Credit (UC), and has dramatically increased the pace of that roll-out. The replacement of legacy benefits by UC leads to more people being captured in the Claimant Count, including those who would have previously only claimed Child Tax Credits and Housing Benefit, and claimants awaiting a health assessment.

Second, and more importantly, the easement of the usual work-search conditions and contact between claimants and work coaches between March and June means that many new UC recipients have not had their work status accurately updated as quickly as they otherwise would. This is particularly important in light of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (JRS), with some furloughed workers making an out-of-work UC claim that would have placed them in the Claimant Count, before they knew they were furloughed.

Analysis of timely longitudinal survey data suggests that at least 27 per cent (400,000), and likely many more, of the 1.6 million Claimant Count rise between March and May is accounted for by those still working, furloughed workers, or Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) grant recipients. While some of these people will ultimately be thought of as unemployed, it is far from clear that all should be right now. We estimate that only 45 per cent of the recent Claimant Count rise (700,000 claimants) relates to those newly out of work and not receiving other government support via the JRS or SEISS.

In contrast to the overestimate provided by the Claimant Count, the International Labour Organisation measure of unemployment in April will have underestimated any increase in unemployment. This is because the hard lockdown period, and the collapse in vacancies it caused, meant that many people who did not have a job during April, or who lost self-employed work, did not make an effort to look for new work. This is reflected in the fact that while unemployment did not budge, economic inactivity rose by 425,000 in the month to April, driven by those inactive for reasons other than the usual ones, and those who say they want a job.

It would therefore be more sensible to use the employment rate as the key indicator of the state of the labour market. But key employment measures are also failing to provide a complete picture of the state of the labour market and the amount of productive work being done. The headline employment measure includes people who are temporarily not working (the proportion of employees in this group has risen from around 7 per cent before lockdown to just under three-in-ten in the five weeks after lockdown began), while Pay As You Earn (PAYE) data misses out the self-employed, and includes employees who are not working but are being paid (including furloughed workers).

To gain a complete insight into the amount of productive work actually being done, we need to turn to additional indicators published by the ONS. These include the average and total hours worked in a week by those who are in employment (average hours fell by 23 per cent between early March and the last week in April), and the proportion of workers employed and not temporarily away from work.

ABC Comment, have your say below:

DWP RENT PAYMENTS - Universal Credit systems will be changed so that social landlords receive direct rent payments on the same day that tenants are paid the rest of their benefits from next month, the government has announced.

Tenants struggling with paying their rent can have payments paid direct to their landlord. These direct payments known as an alternative payment are paid on a four-weekly cycle, while the claimants living amount is paid monthly.  

A new “payment alignment feature” will mean the direct rent payments switch to a monthly cycle coinciding with people’s Universal Credit payment dates, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said.

Welfare delivery minister Will Quince said the feature “will help reduce time spent on administration by landlords”.

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