When Andy Burnham was mayor of Manchester, he pushed hard for rent control.
His (nearly) new Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner, has now ruled it out. She told the BBC she doesn’t think rent freezes or rent controls are the way forward at the moment. She pointed out that Burnham’s call for rent control came three years ago, when the rental market was in crisis, and that since then the Renters’ Rights Act has given tenants more power and control.
This lines up with what Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook told Parliament in April: evidence from other countries shows rent controls harm tenants. But during the Bill Committee, he admitted landlords would adjust their rent increases to account for tribunal delays. Some commentators reckon this could create a kind of rent fiscal drag under Section 13, where landlords put rents up earlier, or by more, to make up for the wait to get the higher rent through.
Plenty of countries have tried rent control or capping, and the pattern is always the same: less stock, and rents end up higher because of supply and demand. Sweden’s had rent regulation for decades, and the waiting list in Stockholm now runs past ten years.
As usual, legislation meant to protect tenants ends up hurting the tenants it was supposed to help.
