Shapps: Rents are falling and tenants 'happier in private rented sector'

Published by 24publishing for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Central Government, Communities, Local Government

The housing minister Grant Shapps has told MPs that tenants in the private rented sector (PRS) are happier than in the social sector and that there is evidence to suggest that rents in the PRS are falling.

Responding to Labour MP Andrew Gwynne in Parliament yesterday on why his government was intent on removing further protections from private tenants, Mr Shapps denied this was the case.

He said: "It is worth remembering that actual measures consistently show that people are happier in the private rented sector than in the social sector, which might surprise him. I can also tell him that 90% of tenancies are ended by the tenant, not by the landlord."

Earlier, Mr Shapps was quizzed by Mr Gwynne on what assessments he has made of the affordability, length of tenure and standards of the PRS.

Mr Shapps said: "The latest report of the English housing survey was published on 9 February. It shows that rents in the private sector have reduced in real terms, that standards have improved and that only 8% of tenancies are terminated before the tenants chose so choose [sic]."

Shadow housing minister Jack Dromey waded in and called on Mr Shapps to retract his statement that rents have fallen, as analysis by the House of Commons Library reveals that in 90% of local authorities in England, in all nine regions, rents are rising or staying the same.

He said: "Will the housing minister now admit to the 1.1 million families struggling to pay their rent that he got it wrong?"

Mr Shapps replied: "The LSL survey shows that in the three months through to January rents actually fell, but we do not have to believe LSL.

"There was rightly some scepticism there—LSL measures only buy to let—so let us instead look at the absolutely authoritative figures recently produced by the English housing survey, which show that in real terms rents have fallen in the past year."

Mr Shapps said he had recently held a meeting with interested parties about rogue landlords. He said he will be "pulling together all the powers and issuing a booklet on that shortly".

He added that the number of non-decent homes in the private rented sector has fallen from 47% in 2006 to 37%.