White people are 36% more likely to receive a positive response when applying to rent on SpareRoom than black people
White people are 36% more likely to receive a positive response when applying to rent a home than black people, Sky News has learned.
Exclusive figures provided by Generation Rent show apparent racism currently in the rental market.
The campaign organisation used artificial intelligence to set up two fake profiles, a black and a white one, on the rental website SpareRoom. The only differences in their details were their names and skin colour.
Enquiries were sent out by both profiles to property adverts randomly selected across the UK, within minutes of each other, with different responses.
Analysis of more than 210 adverts found that the white facing profile was 36% more likely to receive a positive response than the black facing profile.
The white profile was also 17% more likely than the black profile to receive any response at all.
Generation Rent made applications to the same properties with two AI-generated accounts: One with a white woman and one with a black woman.
In one example the same message was sent by both profiles enquiring about a room in a townhouse.
“Hi there, I’m interested in the property, could I arrange a viewing please?” it read.
The white profile, named Lizzie, received this response: “Hi Lizzie, can you tell me a little about how long you would be looking for the room, do you work local etc. Many Thanks.”
The black profile, called Zuri, received a different message stating simply: “Hello, sorry it’s just been let.”
Paris Williams, 25, has been living in a HMO (house of multiple occupancy) in London for the past two years and describes racism as a barrier to finding somewhere better to rent.
“I’ve had my passport inspected,” she says, “(they asked) ‘is it really a British passport? You can’t be British’, but why can’t I be British?
“And then when you’re going house searching [they] ask ‘do you smoke weed? Because I have black tenants who smoke weed’.
“So you’re stuck. You know that you’ve got bad conditions here but you can’t move.”
Paris says the situation she is living in is “hell”.
Paris believes racism has been a barrier to her finding somewhere better to rent
The policy adviser sleeps with an alarm under her room door because she feels unsafe as the front door to the HMO is often left open by other tenants.
She has previously found a stranger in her hallway and once discovered an unknown man taking a shower in her shared bathroom.
“He was clearly visibly homeless,” she says. “He was wet, he didn’t use a towel, he had no socks on. [He said] ‘well your door was open so i just thought I could’.”
In the last two years she has applied for multiple rentals, even changing her clothes, “stripping back” her makeup, and tying her hair back for viewings.
She says she can afford to rent somewhere better because the feeling of being unsafe in her own home is “gut wrenching”.
“I describe it as fight or flight, you’re never really calm, you’re tense, you’re always waiting for something to happen.
“Every little noise – is that something? is it not?”
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‘Wild west hostile marketplace’
Tilly Smith, campaigns and partnerships officer from Generation Rent, helped carry out the AI profile research after suspecting discrimination in the rental market.
She describes the knock-on effect it is having, in a broader sense, on ethnic minority groups looking for somewhere to live.
“They’ve been forced into this sort of wild west hostile marketplace where they may or may not be able to find a property,” she said.
“So people become very placid and they feel they have to put up with poor quality housing with poor standards, with mould-ridden properties, with disrepair.
“There is the devastating issue of stress and worry of finding somewhere to live.
“There is also the more long-term enduring issue of people who are black, Asian, or minority ethnic who feel they have to put up with terrible conditions.”
In a statement SpareRoom said their “discrimination policy states nobody can discriminate against or reject someone due to their race.
“We look into every single report of discrimination we receive and investigate thoroughly – if we find that racial discrimination has occurred we’ll remove the user permanently.”
While racism in renting is not a new issue it is believed that it may be getting worse due to the low supply of private rentals available verses demand.
Read more: London ‘the only region with unaffordable rent’, says ONS
‘The current crisis will carry on’
Jabeer Butt OBE, chief executive of the Race Equality Foundation, says competition for “a smaller and smaller resource” may be making things worse.
“You can imagine racism is going to be at the forefront of that sort of thing,” he said.
“But then the reality also is that we know what the solutions are, we know what we can do to make it better.
“We know a significant programme of building social housing will change the whole dynamic of the housing crisis that we face…we’re not even managing to build affordable housing to the scale that we’re meant to be doing.
“And until we do that, the current crisis will carry on or potentially get worse.”
The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.
Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.
Read more: Thousands of jobs at risk as British Steel consults unions over closure
The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.
The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.
The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.
The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.
These steel workers could soon be out of work
However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.
Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.
However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.
They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.
The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.
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Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.
“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”
British Steel declined to comment.
UK
Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace branded ‘crude attempt to enrich himself’ as Chinese spy documents set to be released
Prince Andrew’s efforts to make money from his Pitch@Palace project have been branded as a “crude attempt to enrich himself” at the expense of “unsuspecting tech founders”, as new documents may shed more light on what he and his team have been attempting to sell.
Today is the deadline for documents to be released relating to Prince Andrew‘s former senior adviser Dominic Hampshire and his interactions with the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
In February, an immigration tribunal heard how the intelligence services had contacted Mr Hampshire about Mr Yang back in 2022. Mr Yang helped set up Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the duke’s scheme to help young entrepreneurs.
The alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo, has links with Prince Andrew
Yang Tengbo. Pic: Pitch@Palace
Judges banned Mr Yang from the UK, saying his association with a senior royal had made Prince Andrew “vulnerable” and posed a threat to national security. Mr Yang challenged that decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
Since that hearing, media organisations have applied for certain documents relating to the case and Mr Hampshire’s support for Mr Yang to be made public. SIAC agreed to release some information of public interest. It is hoped they may include more details on deals that he was trying to do on behalf of Prince Andrew.
So what do we know about potential deals for Pitch@Palace so far?
In February, Sky News confirmed that palace officials had a meeting last summer with tech funding company StartupBootcamp to discuss a potential tie-up between them and Prince Andrew relating to his Pitch@Palace project.
The palace wasn’t involved in the fine details of a deal but wanted guarantees to make sure it wouldn’t impact the Royal Family in the future. Sky News understands from one source that the price being discussed for Pitch was around £750,000 – there are, however, reports that a deal may have stalled.
Photos we found on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce website show an event held in Asia between StartupBootcamp and Innovate Global, believed to be an offshoot of Pitch.
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Who is alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo?
Documents, released in relation to the investigations into Mr Tengbo, have also shown how much the duke has always seen Pitch as a way of potentially making money. One document from 21 August 2021 clearly states “the duke needed money at the time, and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.
But Prince Andrew’s apparent intention to use Pitch to make money has led to concerns about whether he is unfairly using the contacts and information he gained when he was a working royal.
Norman Baker, former MP and author of books on royal finances, believes it is “a crude attempt to enrich himself” and goes against what the tech entrepreneurs thought they were signing up for.
Read more:
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He told Sky News: “The data given by these business people was given on the basis it was an official operation and not something for Prince Andrew, and so in my view, Prince Andrew had no right legally or morally to take the data which has been collected, a huge amount of data, and sell it…
“And quite clearly if you’re going to sell it off to StartupBootcamp, that is not what people had in mind. The entrepreneurs who joined Pitch@Palace did not do so to enrich Prince Andrew,” he said.
Rich Wilson was one tech entrepreneur who was approached at the start of Pitch@Palace to sign up, but he stepped away when he spotted a clause in the contract saying they’d be entitled to 2% equity in any funding he secured.
He feels Prince Andrew is continuing to use those he made a show of supporting.
He said: “It makes me feel sick. I think it’s terrible – that he is continuing to exploit unsuspecting tech founders in this way. A lot of them, I’m quite grey and old in the tooth now, I saw it coming, but clearly most didn’t. And a lot of them were quite young.
“It’ll be their first venture and you’re learning on the trot, so to speak. So to take advantage of people in such a major way – that’s an awful, sickening thing to do.”
We approached StartupBootcamp who said they had no comment to make, and the Duke of York’s office did not respond.
With reports that a deal may have stalled, it could be a big setback for the duke – especially with questions still about how he’ll continue to pay for his home on the Windsor estate now that the King no longer gives him financial support.
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