A SURGE in homelessness can only be stopped by the government cancelling private-sector rent arrears which have built up during the pandemic, ministers were warned yesterday. 

Campaigners and politicians demanded the debt relief in reaction to Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick’s extension on Saturday of a ban on bailiff-enforced evictions in England to the end of March.

Previous bans allowed evictions for people who had nine months of rent arrears, but excluded arrears built up by people who had lost their jobs since March 2020.