Housing minister rejects rent controls in England outright
Rent controls are creeping across the UK including in Scotland and possibly Wales too, but Matthew Pennycook has told MPs they won't be introduced in England by Labour.
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has said unequivocally that rent controls will not be introduced in England despite their adoption in Scotland and potentially in Wales too.
His comments were in a written answer to a question by shadow secretary of state for housing Kemi Badenoch to Pennycook asking whether Labour had any plans to implement them.
He answered: “The Government does not support the introduction of rent controls. We have made clear that we intend to use the Renters’ Rights Bill to provide tenants with greater protections against unreasonable within-tenancy rent increases.”
The Minister has hopefully been listening to Propertymark which has been calling for the property industry to fight back, saying the sector must ‘act together’.
As The Neg reported in March, rent controls have been disastrous in Scotland, resulting in a landlord exodus, falling rental stock and some of the UK’s highest rental inflation.
Wales is now considering a similar scheme and commissioned a Green Paper called ‘A Call for Evidence on Securing a Path towards Adequate Housing Including Fair Rents and Affordability’.
Propertymark has been calling for the property industry to fight back, saying the sector must ‘act together’.”
Propertymark has also recently highlighted research it carried out revealing that 95% of surveyed agents in Wales believe that controlling rents will reduce supply. It says the Welsh Government should instead focus on the urgent need to tackle insufficient supply and reduce the barriers to increased adequate housing.
Rent controls
A number of charities including The Living Rent Campaign have also been demanding them in England. It recently said: “Private renting is unaffordable for many households yet, since 1989, when fair rent tenancies were replaced, national governments of all parties have been committed to ‘free market rents’. It could be different. Other countries in Europe have rent controls, lower rents and better-quality homes to rent.”
Rent control has been tried in The Irish Republic and failed to moderate new rents.
It simply makes the tenants prisoners where they live.
82% of tenancies end due job move, change in family size (divorce, separation, more/less children) all beyond the the landlord’s control.
Sad so few have looked back at the 1970s, rampant inflation and rent control.
Having lived through it, I am not nostalgic.