The Government says it wants to tackle the cost of living, reduce homelessness, make housing affordable and bring welfare spending under control. Yet it has ruled out one of the few policies capable of helping to achieve all these aims.
On 20 July, shortly after becoming Prime Minister, Andy Burnham confirmed that rent freezes were being considered as part of his emergency cost of living package. But just four days later, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner closed the discussion down, saying the Government would not be looking at rent controls. So what exactly is the Government’s answer?
Private renting has expanded rapidly, particularly in London. In Enfield, the number of private renting households rose by a third between 2011 and 2021.
Rents have risen sharply too. By 2024, the average London rent was swallowing more than 40 per cent of the typical private renting household’s gross income, far above the 30 per cent generally considered affordable.
In Enfield Town, the tenant of a studio flat measuring just 23 square metres, barely the size of two standard parking spaces, saw the monthly rent, including heating, jump from £995 to £1,500 in 2024. The tenant challenged the increase at the First-tier Tribunal, but the tribunal upheld it. That added £6,060 a year to the cost of this tiny flat. To meet the full monthly charge without spending more than 30 per cent of their gross income, a household would need to earn £60,000 a year.
Unaffordable rents have real consequences. People cut back on food and heating and lose any hope of saving a deposit. Adults remain with their parents because even a small flat is beyond reach. Families become homeless, leave their communities or accept overcrowded accommodation. High rents also push more people into renting individual rooms in HMOs because self-contained homes are simply unaffordable.
This is the market Angela Rayner has decided should remain effectively uncontrolled.
The Government argues that rent controls could discourage landlords, reduce rental supply and undermine housebuilding. These risks should be taken seriously. Badly designed controls can create problems. But the Government treats the possible risks of regulation as decisive while largely ignoring the benefits of well-designed controls and the proven consequences of doing nothing.
Around 1.6 million private renting households receive housing support, costing £12.3 billion in 2023/24 and forecast to reach £14.3 billion by 2030/31. London boroughs also spent more than £2 billion on homelessness in 2024/25.
This spending protects tenants from immediate homelessness, but much of it ultimately becomes rental income for private landlords. The public pays month after month while acquiring no homes and creating no permanent solution. By comparison, the Government’s affordable homes programme provides an average of £3.9 billion a year to build affordable homes. That is a fraction of the public money spent propping up unaffordable private rents.
The Government’s position therefore amounts to this: it refuses to regulate excessive rents because this might affect investor returns, but it will continue using public money to sustain rents that millions of households could never afford from their own incomes. That is not economic neutrality. It is a political choice.
Its supply argument is also circular. Ministers say high rents must be tolerated because they attract investment in housebuilding that will eventually make housing affordable. Yet they also warn that investors will stop building if rents are expected to fall. If rents must remain high to maintain investment, then logically the promised affordability can never arrive. Renters are expected to endure unaffordable costs indefinitely, while landlord and investor returns are treated as something government must protect.
Rent controls are not unusual. Many comparable countries regulate rents, and recent research has examined how controls could address affordability without ignoring maintenance, new construction and rental supply.
There is also overwhelming public support. Seventy-one per cent of people in England support limiting rent increases to inflation. In London, 75 per cent support an annual cap, while only 9 per cent are opposed.
There was also, until recently, political support. In 2023, Andy Burnham joined Sadiq Khan and other city mayors in calling for an immediate freeze on private rents. A policy Burnham once championed has now been dismissed by his own Government.
Angela Rayner is entitled to demand safeguards, exemptions and proper evidence. What she cannot credibly do is rule out the entire principle while offering renters nothing capable of controlling what they actually pay.
Rent controls are not a complete solution, and building substantially more council and social housing remains essential. But they are a practical way of protecting tenants while the homes London desperately needs are built. Refusing even to consider them may protect landlord returns, but it leaves renters and taxpayers paying the price for a housing market that is plainly failing.
Read the full Better Homes Enfield report, Why London Needs Rent Controls: A Case for Fairer Housing, Lower Rents, and Community Stability.
Better Homes Enfield 