The chief executive of Generation Rent is continuing his campaign for rent controls – and this time he’s doing it in a left-wing political blog.
Writing on the Red Brick Blog, Ben Twomey says: “The glaring gap in the [Renters Rights] Bill is the lack of any measures to reduce the soaring cost of renting. Landlords will still be able to use sudden rent hikes as an economic eviction to price their tenant out of the home.”
Citing polling by the sister activist group the Renters Rights Coalition – effectively led by Generation Rent – Twomey continues: “Recent polling … found more than a third of renters would be forced to move by a rent increase of £110 per month. But analysis by the campaign group suggests the average rent increase awarded to landlords at first-tier rent tribunals, the service through which renters challenge rent increases, is more than double this at over £240 per month.”
Twomey is also sceptical of the effectiveness of Labour’s housebuilding targets of 1.5m new homes by mid-2029, describing them as “welcome” but going on to say: “With all the political will in the world, it will take years for people to see their impact. If we think of the temporary accommodation issue as an overflowing bath, the numbers of households are only going to significantly reduce if the government finds a way to pull out the plug.”
He says high rents currently deter people from moving on from temporary accommodation, and cites another charity – Crisis – as claiming only 2.5% of private rented properties are affordable for people claiming benefits.
Instead he wants what he calls “a commonsense limit on how much landlords can raise the rent” along with the government un-freezing Local Housing Allowance. “Keeping LHA frozen only shifts the cost elsewhere” he goes on to say.
Twomey ends by advocating measures along the lines of those demanded by London Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan.
He states: “Even with the Renters Rights Bill all but finished, there are other opportunities for the government to take action. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill will start the parliamentary process in the Autumn. Within it, the government should include powers for Mayors to introduce a limit on rent rises in their areas.
“This is something Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has called for in the past and is similar to the approach the SNP is taking in Scotland. While the Treasury must unfreeze LHA in the upcoming Autumn Budget.
“The Renters’ Rights Bill is a vital first step in addressing the power imbalance between tenants and landlords. But if the government doesn’t use that momentum to reduce the cost of renting, the temporary accommodation crisis will sadly be a permanent fixture in our society.”
This article is taken from Landlord Today