Call for evidence outcome

Commercial rents and COVID-19: call for evidence

Updated 4 August 2021

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

Applies to England

Scope of the consultation

Topic of this consultation: This call for evidence will support the government’s decision making on the best way to withdraw or replace these measures while preserving tenant businesses and the millions of jobs that they support. If there is evidence that productive discussions between landlords and tenants are not taking place, and that this represents a substantial and ongoing threat to jobs and livelihoods, the government will not hesitate to intervene further.

The measures which are the subject of this call for evidence are:

• the moratorium on commercial lease evictions established by section 82 of the Coronavirus Act 2020; and
• the restrictions on the use of Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery (CRAR) established by the the Taking Control of Goods (Amendment)(Coronavirus) Regulations 2021.

In addition, these measures are complemented by the restrictions on the use of winding-up petitions and statutory demands established by section 41(1)(b) of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 which applies economy-wide. The content of these restrictions is not being considered here, however we are interested in the length of time for which these measures should be in place and how they relate to the other measures.

Scope of this consultation: The government’s objective is to gather more evidence to understand how landlords and tenants are responding to the build-up of rent arrears that has occurred as a result of businesses being unable to trade normally during the pandemic. This will inform a better understanding of the risk to economic recovery posed by remaining rent debts, and to understand how landlords and tenants are adjusting existing lease terms to reflect the period of recovery that many tenant businesses will need once the trading restrictions are lifted. The evidence gathered will inform government policy regarding the exit from the existing measures and any need for additional measures to preserve viable businesses and the jobs that they provide.

Geographical scope: The government seeks views from businesses; business representative organisations; commercial landlords, lenders, and investors and their representative organisations; commercial property professionals; and anyone with an interest in or connection to the commercial property market in England. The government is particularly interested in the views of small to medium sized businesses (SMEs) including small commercial landlords, independent businesses and sole traders with leased premises.

Basic Information

Duration: We welcome responses by 11:45pm on 4 May 2021.

Enquiries: For any enquiries about this call for evidence please contact regeneration@communities.gov.uk.

How to respond: Please respond by completing the online survey

Questions

Please view the questions on our consultations hub

About this consultation

This call for evidence document and call for evidence process have been planned to adhere to the Consultation Principles issued by the Cabinet Office.

Representative groups are asked to give a summary of the people and organisations they represent, and where relevant who else they have consulted in reaching their conclusions when they respond.

Information provided in response to this consultation may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes (these are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and UK data protection legislation. In certain circumstances this may therefore include personal data when required by law.

If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, as a public authority, the Department is bound by the information access regimes and may therefore be obliged to disclose all or some of the information you provide. In view of this it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential. If we receive a request for disclosure of the information we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the Department.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will at all times process your personal data in accordance with UK data protection legislation and in the majority of circumstances this will mean that your personal data will not be disclosed to third parties. A full privacy notice is included below.

Individual responses will not be acknowledged unless specifically requested.

Your opinions are valuable to us. Thank you for taking the time to read this document and respond.

Are you satisfied that this consultation has followed the Consultation Principles? If not or you have any other observations about how we can improve the process please contact us via the complaints procedure.

Personal data

The following is to explain your rights and give you the information you are be entitled to under UK data protection legislation.

Note that this section only refers to personal data (your name, contact details and any other information that relates to you or another identified or identifiable individual personally) not the content otherwise of your response to the consultation.

1. The identity of the data controller and contact details of our Data Protection Officer

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is the data controller. The Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dataprotection@communities.gov.uk.

2. Why we are collecting your personal data

Your personal data is being collected as an essential part of the call for evidence process, so that we can contact you regarding your response and for statistical purposes. We may also use it to contact you about related matters.

3. Our legal basis for processing your personal data

The Data Protection Act 2018 states that, as a government department, MHCLG may process personal data as necessary for the effective performance of a task carried out in the public interest. i.e. a call for evidence.

4. With whom we will be sharing your personal data

MHCLG may appoint a ‘data processor’, acting on behalf of the department and under our instruction, to help analyse the responses to this consultation. Where we do we will ensure that the processing of your personal data remains in strict accordance with the requirements of the data protection legislation.

5. For how long we will keep your personal data, or criteria used to determine the retention period.

Your personal data will be held for two years from the closure of the call for evidence.

6. Your rights, e.g. access, rectification, restriction, objection

The data we are collecting is your personal data, and you have considerable say over what happens to it. You have the right:

a. to see what data we have about you

b. to ask us to stop using your data, but keep it on record

c. to ask to have your data corrected if it is incorrect or incomplete

d. to object to our use of your personal data in certain circumstances

e. to lodge a complaint with the independent Information Commissioner (ICO) if you think we are not handling your data fairly or in accordance with the law. You can contact the ICO online, or telephone 0303 123 1113.

7. Your personal data will not be sent overseas.

8. Your personal data will not be used for any automated decision making.

9. Your personal data will be stored in a secure government IT system.

We use a third-party system, Citizen Space, to collect consultation responses. In the first instance your personal data will be stored on their secure UK-based server. Your personal data will be transferred to our secure government IT system as soon as possible, and it will be stored there for two years before it is deleted.