A Labour politician has returned to the subject of rent controls – even though the party has officially abandoned this as a policy.

London Assembly Labour housing spokesperson Sem Moema says: “Housing is the biggest challenge facing Londoners – with many struggling with sky-high rent and spiralling mortgage payments. These costs are holding back our city – with more than a third of Londoners raiding their savings just to get by.

“While the Mayor has met his target of 116,000 homes through his Affordable Homes Programme, we know that urgent action must be taken to make sure that Londoners are not priced out of their own city.

“The government has failed in its promise to ban section 21 evictions, which can push up rents, they’ve failed to fund affordable housebuilding in our city and just yesterday the Levelling Up Secretary had the audacity to criticise London’s housebuilding record.

“Londoners are literally paying the price for the Government’s inaction. It’s time for Ministers to come to the table, including considering the Mayor’s call to have the powers to control rents, so that Londoners aren’t pushed into poverty by housing costs.”

London Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan has repeatedly called for government to give him the powers to exercise rent controls over the capital’s private sector.

However, Moema and Khan appear to be going against their own party’s official policy, which has for some time been to oppose rent controls.

In June the then-shadow Housing Secretary – Lisa Nandy – took the party on a U-turn. Whereas in autumn 2022 she told her party conference that she was 

exploring proposals to hand metro mayors and council leaders powers to freeze rents, saying ‘doing nothing was not an option’, by June 2023 she changed her mind.

She told the Housing 23 event that rent controls would be “little more than a sticking plaster” and added: “When housebuilding is falling off a cliff and buy to let landlords are leaving the market, rent controls that cut rents for some, will almost certainly leave others homeless. It might be politically easier to put a sticking plaster on our deep-seated problems, but if it is cowardice that got us here, it is never going to get us out.”

Her successor as Shadow Housing Secretary – Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner – has not commented publicly on the rent controls issue, with the party saying that rent controls are not official policy.