So far, attempts to tackle the UK’s chronic housing crisis have failed, and record inflation now puts households under further strain. In response to the cost of living crisis, on 8 September 2022 the prime minister announced an energy price guarantee.1‘Government announces energy price guarantee for families and businesses while urgently taking action to reform broken energy market’, Prime Minister’s Office press release, 8 September 2022. This will limit the average annual cost of domestic fuel to £2,500 for the next two years. However, National Energy Action predicts the number of UK households in fuel poverty is still likely to increase from 6.5m to 6.7m this October. It means that, without more financial support, many households will continue to struggle with the cost of living. This situation provides an opportunity to revisit the debate around rent control in the private sector. To differing degrees, the devolved administrations have seized this opportunity.

As part of its response to the crisis, the Scottish government announced a freeze on rents in the private and social housing sectors, until at least March 2023.2‘Rent freeze focus of programme for government’, Scottish government news release, 6 September 2022. It had already proposed longer-term rent controls in its December 2021 draft strategy consultation paper, A new deal for tenants.

Rent control is not part of the substantial reforms under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, which comes into force on 1 December 2022, but there are plans to consider it in the future. In The co-operation agreement 2021 (November 2021), the Welsh government and Plaid Cymru committed to publishing a white paper proposing rent control in the private sector.

The Private Tenancies Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 received royal assent on 27 April. It allows regulations to be introduced restricting rent increases.

The private sector is significant: in 2011–12, it overtook social housing to become the UK’s second largest sector behind owner-occupiers.3Private rented housing: the rent control debate, Briefing Paper No 6760, 15 February 2019. Most owner-occupiers with a mortgage have a regulated mortgage. Rents in the social housing sector are currently regulated by the government’s Policy statement on rents for social housing, published in February 2019. It was written when inflation was two per cent, and restricts rent increases in England by reference to the Consumer Prices Index. Due to the current cost of living crisis, in August 2022, the government published a consultation on imposing additional temporary restrictions on social rent increases.4Social housing rents, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, 31 August 2022; closes 12 October 2022.

Notwithstanding existing regulation in other housing sectors, and the above reforms and proposals elsewhere in the UK, there are currently no plans to regulate private sector rents in England. This is in spite of average rents in England being the highest in the UK.

Private sector rent control in England has been considered in the recent past. As part of the government’s proposals to improve stability for private sector tenants, rent control was discussed in its July 2018 white paper, Overcoming the barriers to longer tenancies in the private rented sector. Predictably, landlords’ representatives were against any form of rent control. They argued that the market for buy-to-let mortgages would contract and landlords would invest less in maintaining their properties or sell up altogether.

The white paper was followed in February 2019 by Private rented housing: the rent control debate (Briefing Paper No 6760, House of Commons Library). Seemingly in the context of longer standard tenancies, this briefing examined different mechanisms for rent control, including imposing either a maximum rent ceiling or an initial market rent that is regulated during the fixed term and/or at renewal.

But as none of the proposals were implemented, private sector rents are increasingly unaffordable. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that in 2020, lower-income households (households in the 25th percentile) in privately-rented accommodation, spent on average 37.8 per cent of their gross income on rent.5Private rental affordability, England: 2012 to 2020, ONS, 6 October 2021. The ONS considers that a property is affordable where 30 per cent or less of the household’s gross income is spent on rent. In less affordable areas such as London, those on a median income (50th percentile) spent an average of 37.7 per cent of their gross income on rent, while, on average, those on a median income living in the South East, the East, the South West and the North East spent 25 per cent or more of their gross income on private rent.

There are more recent reports of soaring rents. For instance, in July 2022, the Guardian reported double-digit percentage rent increase across the country.6Rupert Jones, ‘Private rents in UK reach record highs, with 20% rises in Manchester’, Guardian, 14 July 2022. In particular, in the last year the average private rent in Manchester increased by 23.4 per cent, while Chatham in Kent and Liverpool saw average increases of 21.4 per cent and 19.4 per cent respectively.

These figures suggest it’s time to follow the example of the devolved administrations and reconsider private sector rent controls in England. This could be as a short-term measure while many are struggling with the cost of living, resembling the energy price guarantee. But it should also be considered in the long term, to complement the proposed abolition of no-fault evictions. This would prevent landlords exploiting unregulated rents as a mechanism to bypass security of tenure.