Fight for rent controls and council homes
Joe Waters, Gloucestershire Socialist Party
The high cost of renting a home casts a shadow over the lives of millions of people. Home ownership is unaffordable for the majority of young people and it’s getting worse. But the burden of renting is also becoming increasing unbearable. Rents rose an average of 9.3% in the year leading up to November 2024.
Originally envisaged by the Tories, now taken up by Starmer’s Labour, the Renter’s Rights Bill, currently working its way through parliament, has no long-term solutions to the housing crisis. Despite this, many people will at least be glad to see it ban Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions, which leave renters in an uncertain position and allows landlords to throw people out of their homes at their whim.
But the bill does nothing to stop landlords raising rents mid-tenancy, putting even more pressure on ordinary people unable to afford the basic necessities of life. Renters will be forced out of their homes because they can’t afford it, without the need for a ‘no-fault’ eviction.
At the third reading of the bill in the commons, an amendment, supported by over 30 MPs, included the introduction of rent caps. This would prevent landlords raising rents above the Consumer Price Index level of inflation or wage growth, whichever is lower.
The amendment fell. However, a campaign for rent controls, backed up by a new mass workers’ party to fight for them, could win concessions from this pro-bosses Labour government.
We don’t have to wait
Councils could act now to introduce caps on what landlords can change, with the acceptable level of rents decided democratically by workers and local residents. Councils can introduce compulsory landlord registers mandating affordability and quality standards for landlords to be able to operate in an area. Councils should take over the hundreds of thousands of empty properties.
More homes are desperately needed though. Profit-driven housebuilding companies, that the Labour government is looking towards to solve the housing crisis, won’t deliver. By restricting the supply of homes, house prices are kept high. Planning permission exists for one million new homes which are clearly badly needed.
The long-term solution to the crisis is a nationwide programme of council house building, which would provide good-quality, environmentally friendly homes and secure tenancies. The large housebuilding companies and the land they hoard should be nationalised in order to carry out a plan which meets the needs of the population rather than shareholder’s expectations. And no compensation should be paid to the developers and fat cats.
Councillors who want to stand up for the people they represent should be willing to spend what is needed to alleviate the crisis, and launch a campaign to fight the government for the funding necessary. If councillors are unwilling to do this then they need to be replaced by working-class representatives who are willing to lead a mass campaign against Labour’s policy of further austerity.
