The eviction ban extension is necessary – but Boris Johnson needs to find a long-term solution

Editorial: As with many elements of the coronavirus crisis, the time for stopgaps is over. A proper plan is needed

The housing crisis has been exasperated by Covid-19

Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, has done the right thing, without much conviction. At the last moment yesterday he announced a further extension of the ban on evicting tenants until 20 September.

The government was right to ban evictions temporarily at the start of the coronavirus crisis, but never devised a plan for a return to normality. The ban has to be lifted, and soon, because otherwise the private rented market will seize up. The country needs responsible landlords, and they in turn need to be able to start, end and change tenancies.

But equally, as the opposition and housing charities have been pointing out with increasing urgency, there is a pent-up problem of some tenants in desperate straits, struggling with arrears, who cannot simply be cut adrift.

Mr Jenrick has bought some time, not just by extending the ban on evictions by four weeks but by extending the three-month notice period for ending a tenancy to six months. This means he has until March next year to come up with a plan for dealing with the inevitable cases of hardship. He needs to work with the courts to start to tackle the backlog of cases while devising a fair scheme of support for those tenants at risk of becoming homeless.

But this has to be part of the government’s wider strategy to support people through the recovery phase of the coronavirus recession. The Independent has argued that Boris Johnson should act not just to prevent evictions but to tackle the causes of evictions. The loss of jobs as the result of Covid-19 and the lockdown is the main reason why so many tenants are falling into rent arrears.

Which is why we have argued that the focus of government policy has to be turned to job creation. This may sound to some like an old-fashioned statist idea left over from the opposition to Margaret Thatcher in the Eighties, but in fact it requires some tough decisions. It means that temporary measures such as the evictions ban and the hugely expensive furlough scheme do have to come to an end. It does tenants and workers no good in the medium term to preserve their position as of March for too long.

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is right to unwind the furlough scheme. Some of the jobs it is supporting no longer exist, and nothing is gained by keeping them going artificially. It is a better use of public resources to switch to supporting the creation of new jobs. This has not been a priority for British governments for some time. Even after the financial crisis of 2008, the labour market continued to generate employment, and avoided a return to the mass unemployment during the Thatcher era. This time, such an outcome cannot be avoided, but we have learnt a great deal since then about the kinds of government intervention that work.

The first priority is to sustain activity by pumping cash into the economy and by the state directly employing people. The second is to provide targeted support to help people to find work, to start their own business or to gain the skills they need.

These are the policies that will start to deal with the root causes of our housing crisis, rather than stopgap measures to treat the symptoms.