London mayor Sadiq Khan is putting rent controls at the centre of his campaign for re-election.
Khan is to push central government for the powers required to implement rent controls across the capital.
Should he succeed, other cities across England are almost certain to follow suit in imposing rent controls.
Launching his campaign for the May 7 election, Khan said of rent controls: “If Londoners re-elect me as their mayor, I want there to be no doubt that it represents a clear and compelling mandate for their introduction.”
Khan, who did not mention knife crime or transport during the launch of his re-election bid, has won support from the London Renters Union.
Amina Gichinga said that rent controls are “urgently needed to help end the way that sky-high rents are driving people out from their communities and into poverty”.
She called for rent controls capped at no more than one third of a tenant’s income.
David Cox, CEO of ARLA, said: “Rent controls do not work. They hit hardest those they are designed to help the most, and the Mayor of London has failed to learn the lessons of history.
“The last time rent controls existed in this country, the private rented sector shrunk to the lowest levels ever recorded.
“At a time of demand for PRS homes massively outstripping supply, rent controls will cause the sector to shrink.
“In turn, this means professional landlords will only take the very best tenants, and the vulnerable and low-income people that rent controls are designed to help will be forced into the hands of rogue and criminal operators, who may exploit them.”
The RICS also voiced its opposition.
UK residential policy manager Tamara Hooper said: “Rent controls could wreck the private rented market in London, having the effect of restricting the numbers of homes for Londoners and placing pressure on local authorities to build more themselves.”
She said that rising rents were due to lack of supply, adding: “Landlords have been hit with policy changes in the recent past and they need more certainty, and controlling rents in this way provides anything but that.
“It will likely cause them to continue to exit the market.”
The National Landlords Association and the Residential Landlords Association said that rent controls would be a “disaster”.
In Scotland, the potential for local authorities to introduce rent controls already exists in law, with a campaign under way to get these beefed up.
Comments (6)
Kevin Hollinrake and I have a piece on this here (if the link works). It explains why rent controls are an insane idea for London especially. https://www.conservativehome.com/localgovernment/2019/09/kevin-hollinrake-and-rosalind-beck-rent-controls-would-hit-london-hardest.html
In addition, the idea of going further and actually dictating what the rents are – making them a third of an individual tenant’s income is off the scale in terms of mad ideas. So if a cleaner earns £100pw or £5,000pa in Kensington, they get an annual rent there of c. £1,500 or £125pm. Maybe they can have a penthouse suite for that. What planet are these people on?
Planet lunatic left.
Nothing about his failure to deal with knife crime, 120 people dead a year doesn’t worry him too much then, but lets control the income of all those nasty landlords eh. Time for Sad Dick to go.
I would have thought that knife and other violent crime would have been his main focus. Clearly, he’s not a man to vote for… Why are there so many idiot extreme ideology politicians around these days?!
As mayor he has been a massive failure and crime has sky rocketed. A problem he should have controlled. More political and ideological rubbish from a mayor who has failed. Risk is of course something for nothing always sounds good and the basis for most scams.
At least we know he wont be Mayor with this policy.
Never interfere in a free market economy – Robin Hood politics just don’t work!!!