We are in the middle of a housing crisis – it’s time to bring back rent controls Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is calling for for rent controls, but doesn’t have the powers to introduce them

When Margaret Thatcher did away with rent controls in 1988, it was part of a push to remove laws that protected tenants and were perceived to put off prospective landlords. She wanted to create a booming buy-to-let sector, liberate the market and give people more choice.

‘If rent controls are implemented in London why not make them nationwide?’

It may have succeeded in boosting the buy-to-let sector, but in terms of choice, it seems to have delivered anything but. Since 2011, the cost of renting has outpaced people’s wages not only in London, but increasingly in other areas of the country.

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Earlier this week, a report from consultancy firm PriceWaterhouse Coopers found that private rents are now unaffordable for workers on average wages in London, the South East and the South West. That was followed shortly afterwards by the latest annual English Housing Survey, which found that 29 per cent of people are finding it difficult to pay their rent. Of those who can afford their rent, 63 per cent cannot save at all and just 1 in 10 have more than £16,000 in the bank, which pushes getting onto the housing ladder firmly into the realm of fantasy.

The cost of renting means that growing numbers of people are trapped by the whims of their landlords. Where is the choice in this?

The “fair rent” tenancies that existed before 1989 are now incredibly rare in England. That’s a shame because – as a new study of European housing over the last 500 years has found – while rent control increases housing affordability, unregulated markets entrench housing inequality.

This is hardly a secret. In Scotland, local authorities have very recently been given to power to introduce ‘Rent Pressure Zones’ to cap rent increases for tenants if rent rises are causing problems for tenants or putting pressure on the council to provide or subsidise housing. Scotland is one of the places in the UK where rents are manageable.

In Paris, rent controls also made a comeback earlier this year and Berlin, backed by Merkel’s government, has just approved a five-year rent freeze.

Today, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has finally published the proposals for rent control in the capital which he promised when he became Mayor. However, in his announcement the Mayor notes that, unlike the heads of other European capitals, he doesn’t actually have the power to implement rent controls and is calling on the Government to make a change.

What else is Sadiq Khan calling for in London? A universal register of landlords The establishment of a London Private Rent commission Better dispute resolution services for tenants and landlords Landlord-to-tenant notice periods of four months

The problem with any conversation about Britain’s housing crisis is that it is too London-centric. We know that housing inequality is reshaping communities all over England, as well as parts of Wales and, if rent controls are implemented in London why not make them nationwide?

It’s fair to say that this week has seen an onslaught of housing news. We also heard from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care for Older People, they warned that hundreds of thousands of millennials will be homeless in old age because they will be unable to pay private rents.

So, perhaps the question is not whether we need rent regulation in England but what further housing catastrophe we risk without it.

Some people think rent controls are radical. How, then, I wonder, are we defining radical? Is it economics which pushes some people to the limit of survival, allowing housing costs to rise far beyond wages while a handful of people profit? Or, is it state intervention to ensure that the majority of people can afford to keep an affordable roof over theirs and their family’s heads?