The support package to help combat soaring fuel bills and the cost of living crisis - introduced at the end of last week - is not enough for activists in the Generation Rent campaign.
Every household in the UK is to get an energy bill discount of £400 this October as part of a package of new measures.
The poorest households will also get a payment of £650 to help with the cost of living, Chancellor Rishi Sunak says.
But Baroness Alicia Kennedy, director of Generation Rent, says it won’t help private tenants, apparently.
She says: “One in three tenants have had rent rises this year, so many renters will still face agonising choices between eating, heating and paying rent.
“Tragically, because evictions without reason are still legal, renters have little choice but to cope with a rent hike.”
The Baroness says two issues need urgent attention.
“For renters living in homes where energy bills are included in the rent, such as shared houses, it is not clear if the landlord is under any obligation to pass this new support to them through a reduced rent.
“The government needs to clarify how it will ensure renters receive the package of support as the Chancellor intended.
“While benefits will rise in line with September’s inflation rate, Local Housing Allowance is still frozen at 2019-20 levels.
“We need a freeze on rents, an emergency pause on evictions and increase LHA to cover market rents.”
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Another day and another rant with insane demands from Gen Rent ….. Tenants have no clue how much damage these idiots are doing.
Does she really believe that £400 is going result in a surplus for LLs who include utilities in the rent? I imagine most will be taking a hit this year even if they have put rents up.
How can rents be frozen when mortgage rates continue to rise? This person is deluded. The chancellor said £400 towards utilities per household. Tenants in HMO don't pay utilities so can't be intended for them.
Very unlikely that £400 would cover the increased cost of utilities in the vast majority of shared houses, must be a nightmare for those landlords.
One of my HMOs uses an average of 20kWhs of electric per day.
This time last year I was paying about 12p per kWh. Now I'm paying over 28p per kWh. So £3.28 a day more. Even if electric didn't go up in October that will be well over £1100 extra this year just for electric. The gas bill is well over £900 more this year. I haven't increased rents for existing tenants ever in that house and would prefer not to. Obviously new tenants pay whatever the market rent is when they move in so I'm not completely stuck in a timewarp.
Realistically the choice is leave things alone and the bill payer gets the £400 or force the bill payer to hand it over to tenants and they all get a rent increase. A 9% inflation linked increase would equate to just over £40 per tenant per month or just over £2900 a year for that house.
So Generation Rent and other activists be very careful of unintended consequences with your campaigning.
Jo
The problem is - they never are - and all decent tenants pay these unintended consequences but rarely the freeloaders they protect!
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