Nadia on... renters' rights

Everyone needs a home. Whether you’re a student moving to university, a young professional in your first job, a family putting down roots or a pensioner wanting to stay close to your loved ones: home is the foundation on which everything else is built. With a major shortage of social housing and house prices so far out of reach that renting is the only choice, finding an affordable home with a reasonable landlord when rents are rising faster than wages has become one of the defining struggles of our generation. In Nottingham East, 38% of households are in the private rented sector. 

Many renters are simply paying off their landlords’ mortgages and, in the end, won’t own any part of the home they’ve taken care of and paid for, while landlords hold outsized power and renters endure poor conditions, unaffordable rents, and a lack of security. 1 in 3 renters in this country are in poverty, often due to their extortionate housing costs. Meanwhile, no fault evictions by private sector landlords have been a leading cause of homelessness.

It shouldn’t be this way, especially when housing is a human right. It’s why I’m proud to have voted for the Renters’ Rights Act, which came into force in May – a huge, long-overdue step forward in giving renters greater security and protection.

It ended no-fault evictions, which was where a landlord could kick you out without having to give any reason, for eleven million tenants in England. Landlords can now only ask their tenants to leave for a limited number of reasons and they have to give them four months’ notice.

Among many other reforms, it also replaced fixed-term tenancies with ones that are rolling and open-ended, banned rental bidding, and stopped landlords from asking for more than one month’s rent in advance. These new rules apply automatically, including for existing tenants, regardless of what it says in your tenancy agreement. 

The measures in the Renters’ Rights Act are vital, but I believe that we still need to go further if we are to fix a system that is broken to its core. While the Act stops landlords increasing rents more than once a year and says that they should not be higher than market rates, it still relies on tenants challenging larger increases through the tribunal system and on the market to set rents. It also doesn’t prevent landlords raising rents significantly when tenants move out.

I do not believe that this is enough to stop rents, which are already at unaffordable levels, being hiked further still. I therefore want to see more action to limit rent increases and I have long been calling for rent controls.

I am also pushing for far more council housing to be built. The reason that so many people are at the mercy of private landlords is because of Margaret Thatcher introducing the Right to Buy in the 1980s, which has seen social housing sold off at a far higher rate than it has been replaced at. I want the government to launch a mass social housing programme and scrap the Right to Buy once and for all.

Making these reforms is not just about doing what is right for tenants; it is about doing what is best for our whole society. Without tackling the problems in the private rented sector and making our society less reliant upon it, we will not be able to tackle homelessness, poverty or inequality.

I’m delighted that the Renters Rights Act is taking big strides in this direction, and I will keep campaigning for the government to go further still.

nadiawhittome.org