A campaign group claims that current MPs in the House of Commons make as much as £2m a year.
38 Degrees, which operates online, describes itself as “a community” and in a new report says: “For renters across England, the housing system is neither fair nor respectful. In fact, the country’s private rental market is broken. For the nearly one in five households made up of private renters, an unsafe and unfair system means a roll of the dice with every new tenancy. Meanwhile good landlords must watch as irresponsible ones bring their reputation into disrepute.”
It calls for the rapid introduction of the Rental Reform Bill - which suggests the report, although only just released, was written some time ago before Housing Secretary Michael Gove committed to launch the bill this week.
The report, based on an analysis of the House of Commons Register of Members’ Interests, says 101 MPs declared rental properties of any type earning more than £10,000 annual rent in 2022/23 - that’s 15.5 per cent of elected MPs.
The report then states: “This means people who claim rental income are significantly over- represented in Parliament: by comparison, just four per cent of the total UK population are landlords. As a result, MPs are almost four times more likely to be landlords than the population as a whole.”
Looking at England specifically, it suggests that 87 MPs declared rental income. Of these 87, some 53 claimed rental income from one home and 34 from two or more properties. Ands of the 87, some 68 are Conservatives. 16 are Labour, two are Liberal Democrats and one is a Scottish National Party MP.
The report says that based on the ‘£10,000 minimum’ rule for a declaration, at least £1.67m a year is being made in rent from MP-owned homes in England, but it then speculates: “In reality, the amount earned is likely to be higher, since many of the properties listed will earn more than £10,000 a year in rent. Indeed, there are good reasons to think many earn a lot more.”
The report then speculates that: “66 of the rental properties declared were in London - more than in any other English region. With a minimum of £10,000 a year rental income each, the total for these 66 was at least £660,000. But the latest ONS statistics suggest London’s median monthly rent is £1,475 pcm, or £17,700 a year. That’s £7,700 higher than the £10,000 a year threshold for declaration. So if every London property listed earned the capital’s median rent - instead of the minimum £10,000 - the estimated rent from MP- owned properties in the city would collectively be £508,200 a year more.”
It also speculates that the number of private landlords in Parliament is likely to be higher than outlined as MPs are only required to declare rental income over £10,000.
Government estimates suggest median monthly rent across England is £800 a month, or £9,600 a year and the report adds that: “Therefore, any MP charging a tenant the median national rent would not be required to declare it - severely limiting transparency on landlord interests in Parliament.”
After further speculation about other parts of the country, the report suggests MPs earn in excess of £2m a year from rent.
38 Degrees says five members of the current cabinet declared income from properties in England this year. This includes the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, who has seven apartments in Southampton, as well as Suella Braverman, Gillian Keegan, Alex Chalk and Lucy Frazer.
Former PM Boris Johnson, who pledged Renters’ Reform in his 2019 manifesto, has also declared rental income on three properties.
One member of the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee has also declared rental income - the is Conservative MP Bob Blackman, who holds six buy to let properties in Welwyn Garden City.
Three members of Labour’s Shadow Cabinet also earn rental income: David Lammy, Emily Thornberry and Lucy Powell, who each declared income from one property.
Want to comment on this story? Our focus is on providing a platform for you to share your insights and views and we welcome contributions.
If any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.
Please help us by reporting comments you consider to be unduly offensive so we can review and take action if necessary. Thank you.
Landlord-400x310.png)
.png)
Join the conversation
Jump to latest comment and add your reply
Make or take?
There's a huge difference in turnover and profit.
Why shouldn't MPs have rental properties? They earn a reasonable salary. Most of them are old enough to have been around when buying BTLs was easy.
All sorts of people own rental properties. It either suits you or it doesn't. The thing that puts most people off is the amount of debt that is involved. They simply couldn't sleep. It doesn't matter what your day job is, landlords come from all walks of life. I was a single parent taxi driver when I started. Lots of self employed people had BTL as an alternative to a traditional pension. Just about every tradesperson I know either has a BTL or is saving to buy one. Several of my current colleagues have BTLs. For many years it was very popular among the middle class dinner party brigade. So it would be surprising if a sizeable number of MPs didn't have BTLs.
Turnover is fantasy, net profit is reality
The politics of envying anyone who has done more to provide for their families. Sickening 🤐
I wonder how many MPs wives / husbands are landlords, so the MP doesn't have to declare it
I don’t know which is the biggest lie is it Mr Gove with the Renter’s Reform Bill to help Tenants allegedly that has increased their Rents 30%, does he think he can pull that one over on them.
Mr Sadiq Khan the other massive lie contender with ULEZ. He has introduced a huge number of Traffic Creation Schemes in London, just how many Roads has he Blocked off, no entry at certain times or at all, narrow widths, bits of unnecessary bus lanes for penalty money grab, bicycle lanes sometimes even dual carriageway cycle lanes taking up half a Main Road and not a cyclist to be seen, over the top
temporary Road Work restrictions sometimes unnecessary lights or far wider coning off than sensible obstructing traffic.
So the Roads that were moderately busy are closed off forcing them onto Roads that were already busy clogging up the whole Town, nice one Mr Khan so you think a journey that used to take me 30 minutes in relatively slow
moving traffic yesterday took over 95 minutes one way and obviously 95 minutes back, brought traffic often to a standstill or 3/4 mph.
So you have increased Air Pollution no end, the ONS are dreaming as well telling us how many of carbon saved they should get out of the Office more. Where do you earn your money or not at all just grab other peoples money for free like the hundreds of pounds already you take for every individual C/tax or ULEZ you now wants more free Billions from the Schemes, it certainly beats earning money. Notwithstanding scrapping perfectly good cars doing huge damage to the environment and 4 times more resources and energy to build electric cars and the extra electricity needed to operate them.
Time for you to go and bring Mr Gove with you and your Treasonable Policy’s bringing the Country to its knees because every stupid thing you do is copied attributed to your position of power.
Livingstone closed loads of roads before the congestion charge. Measured average speeds. Introduced the charge, opened up the roads and hey presto it's a success. Ching ching.
So MP's are 4 times as likely to be PRS Landlords than Joe Blogs?
As we say in Glasgow "Haud the bus!"
What a revelation! People earning more than the average earnings are more likely to have the money, borrowing power ( or the initiative) to invest for their future than those who can't afford to buy their own home.
Also as we say "Who'duv thunk it?"
I subscribe to 38 degrees but only very occasionally agree with their campaigns and find it most annoying that they are not interested in reporting the numbers of those who record their disagreement, only those who agree with them.
Explains the delay
Obviously affecting their pockets so they’re changing stuff to suit themselves
Public servants? 😂 biggest scam ever
You surely can't be surprised George?
Tory MP's want a rethink as it's dawned on them that most tenants won't ever vote for them.
Labour MP's want to screw landlords as it's dawned on them that most landlords won't ever vote for them - and it doesn't matter if tenants are also screwed in pursuit of their jealous dogma.
Please login to comment