I agree with the hon. Member. We must make sure that the courts are properly resourced so that the grounds that are in the Bill to provide for eviction, where it is justified, can work effectively. That is surely the way forward, rather than some back-door approach in which no-fault evictions are used for a multitude of reasons, many of them not justified.
While it is right to legislate to end no-fault evictions—measures that Liberal MPs such as the former Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, Simon Hughes, vehemently opposed from these Benches back in 1988 —we surely cannot think that the private sector alone is the answer to solving our nation’s housing crisis. The Government must be more ambitious, immediately banning no-fault evictions, building 150,000 council and social rent homes per year, a comprehensive programme to insulate all housing, a planning use class to control second homes and allowing councils to halt the right to buy, so that when we build council houses we are not trying to fill the bath with the plug taken out.
Those are the priorities that the Liberal Democrats will be campaigning for and working to see on the face of this Bill. I urge the Minister and the Government to take on as many of our suggestions as they possibly can.