Councils have insisted police powers can still be used to evict perpetrators of domestic violence amid the evictions ban.

Landlords had complained they were ‘powerless to take action against tenants committing domestic abuse or making the lives of fellow tenants or neighbours a misery’.

Chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, Ben Beadle, said: ‘Extending the evictions ban is not without victims.

'It leaves landlords powerless to tackle the kind of behaviour that causes untold suffering and hardship for many communities and tenants alike.’

But housing spokesman for the Local Government Association, Cllr David Renard, said he was pleased the Government was preventing any evictions taking place until the end of August because it would ‘help to mitigate against the rising homelessness pressures that councils are under as a result of the pandemic’.

Cllr Renard added: ‘For victims of domestic abuse, other options including police powers, enable perpetrators to be removed from the home while the victims remains living there.’