3rd
Jul 2023
A private rented sector industry body is now praising the Labour party as it claims it is now against rent controls.
A spokesperson for the association says he supports recent comments from the party’s shadow cabinet.
He states: “We agree with Labour that rent controls would do nothing to address the rental supply crisis that tenants across the country now face.
“What renters need is a proper plan to boost the supply of homes for private rent alongside all other tenures.
“Housing benefit rates should also be unfrozen without delay to support vulnerable tenants who are struggling to access the rental market.”
His comments follows Labour saying it is considering rejecting Sadiq Khan’s repeated demands for powers to grant rent controls across the capital, and other Mayors are now jumping on the bandwagon.
On Wednesday 28th June Shadow Housing Secretary, Lisa Nandy MP, addressed delegates at the Chartered Institute of Housing conference, and said: “As the mortgage crisis deepens - for homeowners and renters alike - it is perhaps inevitable that the debate has turned again to short term fixes.
“And when housebuilding is falling off a cliff and buy-to-let landlords are leaving the market, rent controls that cut rents for some, will almost certainly leave others homeless.
"It might be politically easier to put a sticking plaster on our deep-seated problems, but if it is cowardice that got us here, it is never going to get us out."
Prior to Lisa Nandy’s speech earlier in the week the Welsh First Minister, Mark Drakeford MS, also voiced his concerns about the possibility of freezing rents.
Drakeford said: “As to a rent freeze, it's a blunt instrument; it has many unintended consequences. We know in Scotland that it has led to a reduction in properties available for rent, because people who have bought properties on a buy-to-let basis themselves face mortgages that have now gone up significantly.
“The Bank of England estimates that it will take a 20 per cent rise in private sector rents simply to cover the additional costs that buy-to-let landlords now incur.
“Even the Scottish scheme is not a rent freeze for everybody; it is a rent freeze for some people, in some circumstances. In Wales, we believe there are other measures, and less blunt instruments, that allow us to respond to the people who are in … difficulties.”
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