Labour confirms plan to stop landlords renting poorly-insulated homes
Energy and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband tells Labour Conference he is going to get tough on landlords who rent out 'cold and draughty' homes.
Labour minister Ed Miliband has told Labour supporters that landlords will be prevented from renting out homes that are under an EPC rating of ‘C’ from 2030.
Although the policy had been discussed publicly before by Miliband, who is Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary, he used his Labour Party Conference speech to launch a vitriolic attack on landlords who rent sub-standard homes, and warned of going ‘much further’.
Announcing the measure officially, he said: “Many of the poorest in our country live in cold, drafty homes and many are rented from private landlords below decent standards.
Many of the poorest in our country live in cold, drafty homes and many are rented from private landlords below decent standards.”
“I say this is a Tory legacy, a Tory scandal, a Tory outrage… this Labour Government will not tolerate it. We will end this injustice [with] decent standards for private rented homes – warmer homes, lower bills.”
The policy of forcing landlords to upgrade properties before they can rent out their homes, which was mooted in the Labour manifesto and talked about in parliament last month, reverses the previous government’s U-turn on mandatory EPC ‘C ratings in September last year, announced by the then PM Rishi Sunak.
Energy efficient

Timothy Douglas, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Propertymark, says: “Property agents want to see more energy-efficient homes, but new rules and requirements must be realistic and achievable.
“Furthermore, without providing landlords with incentives and access to sustained funding, it is unlikely that energy efficiency targets for the private rented sector and a reduction in emissions across the property sector will be met.
“The consultation process must shine a light on the different types of property across the rented sector to ensure the targets, guidance and funding prioritise the most difficult to decarbonise.”

Chris Norris, Policy Director for the National Residential Landlords Association, says: “The NRLA wants to see all rented properties become as energy efficient as possible.
“However, the Government’s approach must involve a clear and comprehensive plan which recognises that the sector has some of the oldest, and hardest to improve, properties in the UK’s housing stock.
“The sector needs a clear trajectory setting out what will be expected of it and by when. This plan must also ensure enough tradespeople are in place to undertake the work that will be required.
“Alongside this, as the Committee on Fuel Poverty has warned, is the need for a financial package to support investment in energy efficiency measures.
“At present, the private rented sector is the only housing tenure without a bespoke package to support work to upgrade homes.”
Only a month ago estate agency Hamptons warned that it would take far longer than six years to upgrade all the nation’s sub-standard homes to a ‘C’level EPC.
Miliband is just playing to the gallery – no-one expects a party conference to say anything of interest. I work in new-builds residential construction and, yes, EPCs are utterly useless. There’s been talk of changing them to RdSAPs, derived from the SAP energy assessments used with new-builds, but that would be far too sensible and will require an army of trained assessors and significantly higher costs, which will create the usual fuss. Who knows if Labour will actually do any good? Their manifesto and public statements are all so vague, so non-specific, it’s not surprising there is so much dread and foreboding. But it does look like they are aiming to destroy the PRS, and when the housing crisis gets worse, it will be landlords and letting agents who get the blame.
Keep going Labour and you will have no landlords left to fine. I have been a letting agent since 1989 and have never seen so many landlords selling up. When will politicians remember that landlords are not providing a public service, so don’t apply the same rules to the private sector. The biggest elephant in the room is that social housing is exempt from EPC regulations!
Many of the poorest in our country live in cold, drafty homes and many are rented from private landlords below decent standards.”
Well Mr Miliband it is strange that some of the worse cases I hear about are the “Social Housing Associations” but the reality is that here in Northumberland the EPC is so flawed that a landlord recently spent £42, 000 on renovating a property with insulated walls, insulated floor, new heating system, extra loft insulation basically everything you could do. Result, it came back as a very poor D on the EPC with the recommendation that solar panels and a nice windmill in the garden costing a further £25k would reduce the tenants energy costs by £2400. That really is a miracle because the tenant says they have never spent more than £1600 on energy. The EPC says they spend £4200.
Now Mr Miliband that landlord is selling he has had enough and this year looking at our statistics 60% of properties when the tenant has handed in notice have hit the sales market. We usually would expect about 25/30% because of the type of landlords we have ie a good percentage of short term landlords. The reason well basically its YOU Mr Milliband YOU are putting people out of houses.
But you are OK because you live in a nice warm house in Islington you have never had to face the realities of life.
Proper thick he is.
Cold and draughty?
Come and tell that my tenants who’s got new boiler, new windows, warm home, but UNFORTUNATELY, still an EPC D cause of the way the flawed system works.
And tell them we know u paying £200pm below market rent and perfectly happy, but if we get u to EPC D (which we know that means you’ll have to pay market rent £2400 per year more}, we’ll look good to the voters for doing what we say.
And we’ll keep quiet about how we constantly retrospectively changing the rules after you’ve moved in and this causes more landlords to sell, but we’ll blame homeless on a local level.