Bristol councillors who are landlords have been told they cannot speak in a debate on rent controls. 

Earlier this week we explained how Bristol’s Labour council would be debating the need for private rent controls – even though the authority has no powers to implement such controls.

Now council lawyers say landlords would have a financial interest in a vote – the same legal advice extends to those councillors who are themselves private tenants.

Local media report some 16 councillors were asked to leave from the chamber in City Hall on Tuesday, January 10, ahead of a debate on bringing in rent controls for the private rental sector, as well as new protections for tenants.

In any case a majority of this remaining councillors backed rent controls in the city.

Labour’s Tom Renhard, cabinet member for housing, proposed the controls and told colleagues at the meeting: “I rented in this city for over a decade, and while I was a renter I saw and experienced much. There is a chasm that exists in the power imbalance between the minimal protections that renters have and the powers that landlords and letting agents continue to hold.

“If you complain about the conditions of your property, there may be a threat of retaliation of losing your home. If you refuse to pay the rent increase, you might be kicked out and replaced with someone who will, irrespective of whether it’s affordable to them.

“Of course we need to build more social housing and we’re committed to that. 

“However, the continued marketisation have seen homes become increasingly unaffordable to buy and rent across the country. Homes should first and foremost be a fundamental human right. This means we need rent controls.”

Green Party councillor Carla Denyer, seconding the proposal, said: “Thatcher’s market deregulation left tenants with little protection from price shocks and the threat of eviction at any time. The private rental sector has ballooned, while social housing — genuinely affordable homes for families — has dwindled.

“Housing should be first and foremost about providing quality homes as a cornerstone for a happy and healthy life. We realise the need for urgent intervention, and it’s great to see Scotland, with Greens in government, carefully but determinedly leading the way on stabilising rent rises.”

Opposing the controls, Tory leader Councillor Mark Weston said: “Having a publicly accessible list of enforcement notices, where you can actually track what the landlords are doing, is an excellent idea. 

“But rent controls don’t work. Rent controls are not the solution, they never have been.

“It so distorts the market that the only people it helps are the people who are on it at the moment, but the instant they want to move or someone else wants to join it, you destroy that economic basis. Rent controls don’t work. It’s not going to solve a problem in Bristol which is inherently supply and demand. That is the issue here. Your solution doesn’t rectify that.”

Some 35 councillors backed controls and nine were against.