The NRLA has slammed Chancellor Rachel Reeves for “doing nothing” in her Spring Statement to help ease a crisis in the PRS.

Ben Beadle, CEO at the NRLA (main picture), says the statement was a “wasted opportunity” to help with the “chronic shortage” of rental homes.

And there was no help for landlords to meet new energy efficiency targets, he says.

Upgrades

The Government has begun consulting on its plans to force landlords to upgrade their properties to a minimum EPC band C by 2030, and two years earlier for new tenancies.

Perhaps ministers will point to the Renters’ Rights Bill, which is set to become law in the next few months, as evidence that they are trying to reform the PRS.

But will the bill help ease the supply crisis in rental properties?

The statement was a missed opportunity to support renters across the country.”

“The statement was a missed opportunity to support renters across the country,” Beadle says.

Done nothing

“It has done nothing to tackle the chronic shortage of rental housing to meet demand.

“It has done nothing to reform a broken tax system which is failing to encourage and support investment in energy efficiency improvements,” he says.

“And it has done nothing to address the unjust freeze on housing benefit which is leaving so many renters fearful of how they will afford their rents.”

Touching distance

In the statement to MPs, Reeves claimed the Labour Government was on course to reach its new homes target of 1.5 million homes.

She said the country was set to achieve a “40-year high of housebuilding” at 305,000 per year.

This would take the overall total to 1.3 million by the end of this parliament, “within touching distance” of its aim, despite much scepticism in the building industry that it was possible.