The report comes from the leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council Stephen Cowan. It was commissioned by Labour MP Lisa Nandy when she was shadow housing secretary.
However the official party spokesperson seems to have indicated to The Guardian that the report is not any part of formal policy for Labour if it goes into government.
The leaked proposals publicised in the paper include a system to cap rents at either consumer price inflation or local wage growth – whichever is lower – across England and Wales.
The paper says this will be rejected by the current shadow housing secretary, Angela Rayner, because the party is “conscious of warnings from experts that rent controls could discourage developers from building new houses and therefore make the crisis worse.”
Cowan also recommends that rents can only be increased once a year, with tenants receiving at least four months’ notice of any increase.
He also believes rent review clauses – which give landlords the scope to raise rents mid-contract – should be banned.
However versions of these measures are already in the government’s Renters Reform Bill albeit with two, not four, months’ notice before a rent rise.
The report in the paper today continues: "The Guardian understands that the report, led by Cowan, … will be launched on Wednesday without any shadow cabinet minister attending the event.”
Cowan himself says: “Renters have a right to know that their home will be safe and of good standard. And good landlords have a right to compete in a market where everyone plays by the same rules. These recommendations will enable those things to happen efficiently and quickly.”
Other recommendations include:
- An annually updated National Landlords Register which would require landlords to demonstrate compliance with the decent homes standard or face fines and even be subject to a criminal offence;
- Scrapping Section 21 eviction powers;
- Measures to discourage landlords from entering the short-term and holiday let market or nightly paid temporary accommodation sector by equalising the tax treatment for all forms of private letting; and
- Policies to ensure that medium-term affordable housing returns to being the second-largest part of the housing sector, to decrease the country’s reliance on the private rental market.
Activist groups demanding rent controls are expected to be at tomorrow’s launch of the report and one prominent figure - Tom Darling, of the Renters’ Reform Coalition - says: “These appear to be a commonsense set of proposals for reforming the private rented sector.
“It will be critical that, if Labour is to win the general election, it gets on and delivers a package of reforms along these lines – and fast.
“That will deliver security of tenure for renters who, facing an acute and ever-growing renting crisis, have been so badly let down by the government.”
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Cowan should know that rents may only be increased once a year already. If he does not already know this, then he has no business making any recommendations regarding the PRS.
Not strictly true - once a year within s13 but any number of times with tenants agreement.
Labour- say one thing today and then change mind the next. But all parties are like that. Don’t believe any of em. And just now I’ve heard they are going to . So proves the point.
Didn’t you read the small print ?
Trust politicians as far as I could throw them
If they are going to equalise all forms of taxation won’t this mean scrapping Section 24 the grossly unfair tax.
We can only hope they go that way and not just mess up tax for anyone else. It would be hugely beneficial for all PRS tenants. Even though not all landlords are impacted by Section 24 virtually all tenants are. Portfolio landlords have to increase rent to accommodate Section 24 and other landlords tend to increase rent in line with market rent (which is mainly determined by portfolio landlords setting rent to accommodate Section 24).
Don’t believe them ☠️ But they say it’s so supply isn’t reduced 😂😂 that has already happened 🤷♂️🤷♂️ To fix that issue they need to do some back peddling 🏡
Labour has also said that they are devolving more powers to the mayors. We all know that Sadiq Khan wants rent controls in London.
They just need to build more social housing and house themselves alk the "vulnerable " tenants. But that costs money.. I am not offering accommodation to anyone on UC, low paid jobs or presenting ant risks...
Thanks to all the policies pushed by Shelter and other left-wing zealots..
A vulnerable tenant is always the problem tenant so why would we rent to them, this is what social housing is for, not enough social housing- not my problem
Seeing the chaos rent controls have made in other countries they've maybe learnt something, unfortunately it won't have been to stop piling expensive legislation on Landlords and licensing costs etc are simply going to be passed on to tenants or reduce supply.
This is the problem when you have amateurs advising on policy.
We can only hope that the more pressure/hassle they pile on LL’s the more LL’s will leave. Eventually perhaps, they will work out this glaringly obvious certainty!
If politicians wanted to learn something, they could look at what Milei in Argentina has been doing, which is quite the opposite of rent caps and non-sense rules. What is the result? There are more flats to rent on the market, and rent has diminished drastically. Labour will never understand this, but Tories are doing the same mistake now...
Milei is my hero. Someone who has the political courage to try and liberate Argentina from 20 years of incompetent/corrupt socialist peronism.
But he's a right wing economist.. Booh!! Not a role model for Starmer and his mediocre left wing mignons!
Well if they stick to it, could be a vote winner if it works. They will never be able to build enough affordable homes so in reality they need to stop selling them off pdq and expand the PRS. Seems so blindingly obvious I don't know why all political parties can't see it. Another triumph of dogma over common sense.
Believe Labour? never
I think what they said was"rent controls could discourage developers from building new houses and therefore make the crisis worse.” A crisis that the government has deliberately created.
They don't care about the PRS, they just don't want to upset the big boys from taking over.
Of course Labour will not introduce rent controls. Labour are totally controlled by global corporate capital. That is who they work for. Global corporate capital is investing in big Build to Rent schemes.
The game is to wipe out as many small landlords as possible, replace them with corporate capital funded Build to Rent schemes, and then INCREASE rents!!
When you understand the game, it's easy to predict what will happen next.
As an addition; all political opposition is CONTROLLED OPPOSITION. That applies everywhere.
They want you owning nothing and being happy. WEF admittance. Don't trust any of the globalist political parties Tory or Labour.
The Housing Crisis is similar to NHS Crisis if it’s free you’ll never have enough.
Why do you think marriage vows has faltered, marriage break-ups / divorce rampant, single parent families the order of the day to get housed avail of all the Benefits and Children’s Allowance etc’
So no need to be surprised where all your Social Housing is disappearing.
Billions spent on Social Housing and Benefits to keep them all, still can’t cope with this policy so just steal private Landlords property and give them that as well.
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