Election ‘last chance to fix broken renting system’ – as leaders urged to make ‘serious policy offer’
The general election may be “the last chance” to fix the UK’s “broken renting system”, housing organisations have warned as they called on party leaders to come up with bolder solutions to the crisis.
In an open letter to Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, groups representing tenants said thousands more people “face homelessness, poverty and exploitation” unless a “serious policy offer” is put on the table.
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It comes as one renter told Sky News how he has been priced out of his home following a 40% increase in rent – despite the flat having “an excessive mould issue”.
The groups, including the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and Generation Rent, want all party leaders to commit to rent controls, a full ban on no-fault evictions and greater investment in social housing.
In the letter, shared exclusively with Sky News, they said: “As organisations representing and working with tens of thousands of private renters across the UK, we are warning the next government that the housing emergency is set to deepen unless major action is taken as part of a serious housing policy offer.
“This could be the last chance to fix our broken renting system before countless more renters face homelessness, poverty and exploitation. “
Average UK rents have been increasing well above average wage rises in recent years, with Londoners facing cumulative increases of over 31% since 2021 and similar rises in other parts of England and Wales.
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One million renters forced to move
‘Priced out of my home’
For Michele Tellarini, who was “priced out” of his two-bed flat in Lewisham after the rent soared from £1400 to £2000 per month, the issue is having a “devastating impact” on his life.
The customer service worker says he and his two flatmates, a couple, earn below the London living wage so they have repeatedly been turned away from estate agents who say their collective salary is too low for them to rent somewhere new together.
This has forced them to go their separate ways – but Michele has also struggled to find a spare room for himself due to “obscene” prices and competition.
Michele Tellarini
He told Sky News: “The crazy thing is when you message someone for a room, they maybe have received 30 to 40 messages and then you try and get it for the price but there is someone else who offers more.”
To add insult to injury, the flat they can no longer afford to stay in has had an “excessive mould issue” which he claims the landlord told him to “just deal with”.
“It’s devastating. I have been having panic attacks,” he said.
“I have lived In London for six years – every time I have moved I have been pushed out because I can’t afford to live there anymore.
“It’s normalised (when you rent) but it has a huge impact, you are never able to feel like a place is your area.”
Michele faced a rent increase despite ‘excessive mould’ problems
He is being priced out of his flat following a 40% rent rise
Leaders urged to adopt three key measures
Michele, 31, backs calls for rent controls to be introduced.
Critics of this policy say it would force landlords out of the market or discourage them from investing in the upkeep of their properties.
But the letter from housing groups said said the “skyrocketing cost of housing” is fuelling a 49% rise in evictions and means a record number of children now live in temporary accommodation.
“The reason for this crisis is an overreliance on unregulated private landlords to meet the nation’s housing needs,” the letter said.
It added that the government is effectively subsidising landlords by spending billions on housing support for people in private rented accommodation – money that could be better spent on social housing.
Starmer and Sunak have both pledged to build more homes
NEF research in January found the government will pay an estimated £70bn in housing benefit and other support to private landlords over the next five years – six times more than the £11.5bn they will spend on building affordable homes up until 2026.
Other signatories of the letter, which was also addressed to Ed Davey and the co-leaders of the Green party, include ACORN, the London Renters Union and the Greater Manchester Tenants Union.
The groups said the next government “must urgently prioritise the right to housing for its citizens over the profits of landlords” and adopt three measures:
• Abolishing no-fault evictions “in full and without loopholes”, requiring landlords to sell a home with a sitting tenant if they wish to stay;
• Rent regulation so that no one should have to spend more than 30% of their income on rent;
• Ending Right to Buy and investing in a “huge public housebuilding programme” to deliver 3.1 million council homes over 20 years – including funding for local authorities to convert privately rented homes into social housing.
“We urge you to engage with these proposals and be bold in addressing one of the most urgent social crises Britain faces”, the letter states.
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What are the parties offering on housing?
Housing hasn’t featured particularly heavily in the general election campaign, which has so far been dominated by tax and spending.
But all parties have made pledges to sort out Britain’s housing crisis – which at its heart is a problem of lack of supply and spiralling unaffordability.
The Green Party is the only party that has backed rent controls in its manifesto, with the other parties more focused on housebuilding.
Labour’s headline offer to voters is to overhaul the planning system to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years. The party has also committed to banning no-fault evictions – a promise the Conservatives made in their last manifesto in 2019 but did not follow through on before the election was called.
The Tories, who also failed to deliver on their 2019 promise to build 300,000 homes a year, have pledged to build 1.6m homes over the next parliament, in part by abolishing legacy EU rules on nutrient neutrality.
The Lib Dems have set a housebuilding target of 380,000 homes per year, including 150,000 social homes.
Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield has resigned from the Labour Party.
The 53-year-old MP is the first to jump ship since the general election and in her resignation letter criticised the prime minister for accepting thousands of pounds worth of gifts.
She told Sir Keir Starmer the reason for leaving now is “the programme of policies you seem determined to stick to”, despite their unpopularity with the electorate and MPs.
In her letter she accused the prime minister and his top team of “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice” which are “off the scale”.
“I’m so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party,” she said.
Rosie Duffield. Pic: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via Reuters
Sir Keir has faced backlash after a Sky News report revealed he had received substantially more freebies than any other MP since becoming Labour leader.
Since December 2019, the prime minister received £107,145 in gifts, benefits, and hospitality – a specific category in parliament’s register of MPs’ interests.
Ms Duffield, who has previously clashed with the prime minister on gender issues, attacked the government for pursuing “cruel and unnecessary” policies as she resigned the Labour whip.
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She criticised the decision to keep the two-child benefit cap and means-test the winter fuel payment, and accused the prime minister of “hypocrisy” over his acceptance of free gifts from donors.
“Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous,” she said.
“I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.”
Ms Duffield also mentioned the recent “treatment of Diane Abbott”, who said she thought she had been barred from standing by Labour ahead of the general election, before Sir Keir said she would be allowed to defend her Hackney North and Stoke Newington seat for the party.
Her relationship with the Labour leadership has long been strained and her decision to quit the party comes after seven other Labour MPs were suspended for rebelling by voting for a motion calling for the two-child benefit cap to be abolished.
“Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister,” she said.
Ms Duffield said she will continue to represent her constituents as an independent MP, “guided by my core Labour values”.
UK
King Charles hails ‘uniquely special’ Scotland as it marks Holyrood milestone – before being hugged by woman
The King has paid tribute to Scotland as a “uniquely special place” for the Royal Family as he marked the 25th anniversary of the Scottish parliament.
At the ceremony to commemorate a quarter of a century since parliament opened at Holyrood, the King said: “Speaking from a personal perspective, Scotland has always had a uniquely special place in the hearts of my family and myself.
“My beloved grandmother was proudly Scottish, my late mother especially treasured the time spent at Balmoral, and it was there in the most beloved of places, where she chose to spend her final days.”
He said we are all “united by our love of Scotland”, paying tribute to its “natural beauty”, “strength of character”, “diversity of its people”, “passions and frequently deeply held beliefs”.
“From the central belt to the north Highlands, across the islands in Ayrshire, in the Borders, the cities, towns and villages, all the coastal communities, who I wonder, could not fail to be moved by this complex Caledonian kaleidoscope?,” he asked as presiding officer Alison Johnstone and the Queen sat beside him.
After he gave the speech, the King was hugged by a member of the public – who said she did so “because of him being unwell”.
The 75-year-old was diagnosed with cancer in February but has since returned to public duties.
Yvonne Macmillan, 59, from East Renfrewshire, attended the anniversary ceremony with her husband Russell who is registered blind and chosen as a “local hero” for work in their area.
“I asked him if he was feeling better and if I could give him a hug. I actually said to him: ‘Can I hug you?’,” she said.
“As I hugged him I said, ‘God bless you’, so it was like God giving him a hug.”
The King listens to the presiding officer of the Scottish parliament at Holyrood. Pic: PA
The Queen sits alongside the King as he makes his speech on Saturday. Pic: PA
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While Sir Tony Blair’s Labour government legislated for Scottish devolution in 1997 – parliament officially opened at Holyrood on 1 July 1999.
The King has made six visits to the parliament since 1999 – while his mother Queen Elizabeth II made 10 visits during her lifetime.
The King arrives at the Scottish parliament on Saturday. Pic: PA
Scottish First Minister John Swinney is one of a number of MSPs who have been at Holyrood since the start of devolution.
He said in his own speech in Edinburgh on Saturday that the parliament has “placed itself at the very heart of the nation”, describing it as a “vessel of enlightenment, invention and creativity”.
The King shakes hands with First Minister John Swinney in Edinburgh on Saturday. Pic: PA
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The SNP’s Christine Grahame is another MSP who has been there since the start.
“Free tuition, free prescriptions, game-changing policies to tackle child poverty, the ban on smoking, the baby box, ScotRail back in public ownership – none of this would have been possible without the Scottish parliament and the strength of our commitment to self-determination,” she said on Saturday.
The King said the devolved parliament has the ability to “touch and to improve the lives of so many individuals”.
Former first ministers Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf take a selfie as they wait for the King. Pic: PA
But he added that “there remains much more to be done” for Scotland, the rest of the UK, particularly with regards to climate change.
“Let this moment therefore be the beginning of the next chapter,” he told those assembled.
“The achievement of the past and the commitment shown in the present give us the soundest basis for confidence in the future.”
A moped riding phone thief was caught red-handed after police tracked the device down hours after he snatched it from a woman’s hand.
CCTV footage released by police showed a masked moped rider mount the pavement in Croydon, south London, to swipe a phone from a woman’s hand on 6 March, while another victim had theirs stolen while they waited for a bus an hour later.
Amari Scott, 20, looked surprised when confronted by officers inside a shop, where he was found with two mobile phones.
Amari Scott was caught red-handed. Pic: Met Police
“We’ve just had a moped rob a mobile phone off the pavement and the phone is pinging in this location,” one of the officers told him in body-worn camera footage before Scott was handcuffed and led away.
Police also recovered a stolen motorbike and Scott, from Sutton, south London, was later jailed for four years.
Two teenagers who committed four robberies in the space of just half an hour were also arrested as part of a crackdown in Croydon.
Aged 16 and 17, the teens were issued with referral orders after pleading guilty to charges of robbery, attempted robbery and attempted grievous bodily harm.
Amari Scott was jailed for four years. Pic: Met Police
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They were behind a spree of eight robberies across Croydon and nearby Bromley, including four within 30 minutes on the morning of 5 August.
Their crimes, which included the knife point robbery of a rough sleeper outside Croydon library, were caught on CCTV.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
One of the teenagers tried to discard a knife before she was arrested after a foot chase, telling officers: “The knife wasn’t mine”.
The other ran away, leaving a knife and his bag, but was lying in bed at home when he was arrested shortly after.
Two teenagers committed four robberies in 30 minutes. Pic: Met Police
The Metropolitan Police said officers are intensifying efforts to tackle robbery and theft, encouraging victims to report incidents as they happen to increase the chances of catching the criminals.
Chief Inspector James Weston said: “We understand the impact that robbery has on victims – it is invasive and frightening.
“That’s why our teams are working so hard to deter and catch offenders to reassure our local community.
“Thanks to the hard work of officers, our partners and community grassroots organisations, we are stepping up our efforts and tackling the issues that matter most to the people of Croydon.”
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