Labour’s renters reforms kick in, causing mass exodus of landlords and booting out of tenants – but left already pushing to go further

Labour MPs are now pushing the Government to go even further to protect renters – just as sweeping new rights are bestowed upon tenants.

Labour’s long-heralded Renters’ Rights Act comes into force today, scrapping no-fault evictions, limiting landlords to yearly rent rises and giving tenants more time to fall into arrears.

But the draconian law – the brainchild of Angela Rayner – has seen landlords across the country evicting tenants before the new rules take effect.

Hundreds of landlords have now quit the rental market altogether – with many selling their property portfolios to avoid the bill’s stricter measures.

Adding to their misery, it emerged this week Rachel Reeves is considering banning landlords from increasing rents for a year in a last-ditch attempt to claw back votes ahead of the local elections.

The idea was promptly mooted by Housing ministers in an embarrassment for the Chancellor, whose position in No 10 Keir Starmer failed to guarantee on Wednesday.

But Labour MPs from across the party are now pushing the Government to bring in even more severe rent controls, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Dan Carden, MP for Liverpool Walton, said that he welcomed Ms Reeves considering a one-year freeze on rents, but measures ‘can and should include piloting a more substantial Labour rent control system that is long-term, devolved and targeted through local Government and local valuation offices’.

And Steve Witherden, Labour MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, backs ‘something akin’ to Berlin’s Mietendeckel model, which looked to cap rents for 5 years to fight rising housing costs.

York Central MP Rachael Maskell meanwhile, said it is ‘blindingly obvious’ that the Government should bring in rent controls.

She added she would be pressing the Chancellor to follow through on the one-year rent freeze when Parliament returns after the local elections.

Liverpool West Derby MP Ian Byrne said the UK needs ‘long-term radical economic policies’ with ‘nothing off the table’.

This comes as the measures in Labour’s Renters’ Rights Act are already taking a hammer blow to landlords and renters alike.

Almost half of more than 1,000 landlords surveyed across England said they would stop renting their homes as soon as the legislation came into force.

And middle-income landlords ‘face bankruptcy’ as the new rules allow tenants to go months without paying rent, legal experts have warned.

Landlords have also been evicting the very tenants the legislation is designed to protect – with renters’ union Acorn saying no-fault evictions made up one in five of the reports they received from members in October, rising to nearly one in three by January.

And landlords who remain letting properties will become ‘far more selective over the tenants that they accept’, Ben Beadle, the chief executive of the National Residential Landlord Association has warned.

With lettings agency Zoopla finding five tenants chasing every available property, he added that ‘landlords will naturally ask for a higher price’.

Despite this, Nye Jones, head of campaigns at Generation Rent, said that the issue landlords are currently facing has been ‘potentially overemphasised’.

He added the fact that landlords are ‘cashing in’ by evicting tenants before the legislation comes in ‘shows how badly we need new protections’.

Jae Vail from the London Renters Union said there was ‘always going to be some short-term reactions and volatility’ while forging towards greater security for renters.

And in a grim warning for already overloaded courts, Mr Vail said that after Friday the union will be ‘encouraging renters to use the tribunals to exercise these new rights and challenge rent increases if they seem really unreasonable’.

Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, said: ‘Banning unfair evictions is the biggest change to renting in a generation and will free families from the misery it has created.

‘Kicking tenants out before they receive stronger rights is the type of disgraceful behaviour from shameless landlords which our Act will stop.

‘There is no need to evict their tenants ahead of this ban and landlords should give people the housing security they deserve.’

Now a 75-year-old former Royal Marine is evicted before Labour’s reforms come in

Thomas Allen has spent a large part of his life in service to his country.

Having toured Northern Ireland in the seventies as a Royal Marine Commando, he then spent nearly 28 years in His Majesty’s Fire Service.

But the decades protecting the public have taken their toll. The veteran suffers from persistent mental health challenges, as well as a debilitating pulmonary condition.

And now, the 75-year-old has been evicted because his landlord is selling up before Labour’s Renters’ Rights Act comes into force.

‘I’ve been the type of person who always coped for myself,’ Mr Allen tells the Daily Mail, with tears in his eyes. ‘I did everything for myself. I was self-reliant. Now I’m in a situation where I’m having to rely on other people to help me.’

Mr Allen was given two months to find somewhere to live. His landlord, who rents to around 60 people across Stevenage, is evicting all tenants en-masse.

This week, the veteran finally moved into temporary accommodation sourced from the council. It has a shower, a bed and a small microwave to cook with. There’s no washing machine, however, so he takes his laundry round to his daughter’s house once a week to be cleaned.

‘It’s not ideal,’ he says, ‘but it will do’.

Now he must wait for more permanent accommodation to be arranged.

‘It’s taken months just to get onto the housing list, mainly because they lost my application or misplaced it, or it got sent to the wrong department,’ he says, of Stevenage Borough Council.

‘I’ve applied for a whole list of houses – suitable properties which have come up on the housing market – but the closest I’ve come is number 35 on the list.’

The whole experience has only made his existing health conditions worse.

‘It’s just outbreaks of things like rashes for your anxiety and stress. I also suffer from fibromyalgia, and sometimes your nerves in your body, hands and arms and legs start reacting to the anxiety. It’s like a reaction, but other than that, it’s just not knowing – being left in limbo.’

Mr Allen does not want to seem ungrateful. But he says the lack of housing has only been exacerbated by Labour moving migrants out of asylum hotels and into private rented accommodation.

‘Even in Stevenage, we’ve got quite a few migrants being housed into accommodation,’ he says.

‘And a lot of that is council housing which would otherwise be available to local people, but is not because of Government legislation and requirements for housing migrants’.

But the former Commando remains upbeat.

‘Everything has an up and everything has a down, and we have to look at both,’ he says. ‘And I try to be positive.’

A spokesperson for Stevenage Borough Council said: ‘We have been working collaboratively with Mr Allen in sourcing council-owned accommodation to suit his needs and continue to support him in doing this.

‘We are currently progressing a variety of housing developments throughout the town including homes and independent living accommodation, which in the future will support our wider housing development programme – helping us meet local housing need, make better use of our housing stock, and deliver homes that work for residents at every stage of life.’  

 

‘Labour’s Renters’ Rights Act will make things worse’

By Sir James Cleverly, shadow housing secretary

Under Labour, our housing market is broken.

And renters, in particular, are paying a high price for that fact. The private rental sector is an important part of the housing mix. It’s often the first rung on the ladder for people moving out of their parents’ home, for people who are moving to a new area for work, or people who just don’t want to get a mortgage and buy.

But we recognise that some tenants are shelling out for sub-standard accommodation. And with the cost-of-living soaring, it’s becoming harder and harder to make ends meet.

But rather than helping tenants, Labour’s Renters’ Rights Act will make things worse. Much worse.

As soon as Labour introduced it, we warned that it would drive landlords from the market.

And that is exactly what is happening.

By making it more expensive and more difficult to rent out properties, the Government is forcing many landlords to just sell up and leave the market.

In recent weeks there has been a surge in evictions as landlords move tenants out before the new law comes in.

In fact, it’s happened to me: I’ve got a great landlord but they feel they have to sell up and asked me to move out.

But this is only the beginning. The full effects of this disastrous Act will be felt in the coming months and years as rental properties disappear from the market, prices soar and choice is reduced for renters.

Instead of recognising their error, some in the Labour Party want to go even further.

Reports this week suggested the Treasury was considering capping rents at their current level.

This would be a complete disaster.

Rent controls have failed everywhere they have been tried. Even Labour’s Housing Secretary and Housing Minister have recognised that.

Yet it seems Rachel Reeves is considering lurching to the left as her party faces catastrophic losses at the local elections.

If, as expected, Angela Rayner returns to the Cabinet despite dodging her housing taxes, you can bet your bottom dollar she’ll push for more radical lefty housing policies too.

And meanwhile, Labour is failing abysmally to deliver the new homes our country needs.

They keep telling us there will be 1.5 million new houses by the end of this Parliament. But wishing something into existence doesn’t work. The Government’s own figures show they will miss their target by a country mile.

The Conservatives, however, have a real plan to fix the housing market. And it starts with scrapping stamp duty on family homes.

This won’t just help prospective buyers. By encouraging sales, it will unfreeze the market and Get Britain Moving, releasing homes to rent as well as to buy.

We will also ensure Britain gets the right new homes in the right places – not concreting over the countryside as Labour want to, but prioritising brownfield land and putting London at the heart of national housebuilding policy.

That’s how you deliver a system that works for both tenants and landlords.

And you have a chance to vote for it by backing the Conservatives on 7th May.