Responding to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, allegedly considering imposing a one-year rent freeze on private sector homes in the wake of the impact of the Iran war on the cost of living, Green MP, Carla Denyer, said:
“When the public is crying out for bold action to end the affordability crisis, reluctant half-measures floated in the press won’t cut it. If this Labour government is in any way serious about improving the lives of the 11 million private renters in England, I challenge them to announce a package of rent controls now, in full, as the Green Party has been campaigning for for years.
“I have spent over a decade making the case for rent controls as an essential part of making housing truly affordable, alongside funding councils properly to build and buy more council homes, and scrapping Thatcher’s ‘Right to Buy’ council home sell-off scheme.
“I can’t help but notice that after years of Labour ministers telling me their party does not support rent controls, and after rejecting my attempts since 2024 to amend the Renters’ Rights Act to include rent control powers, the Chancellor is choosing now, the week before the local elections, to ‘consider’ the idea. Could it be that they have been out door-knocking and discovered that our policies to protect renters are cutting through to a public fed up with Labour’s failures?”
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