Labour's Michael Pennycook has said renters have been "completely let down by the Conservatives". The housing minister adds his party will "introduce legislation that will decisively level the playing field" between landlords and tenants without advocating hard rent control. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00There are obviously 11 million renters across the country,
00:02partly because we haven't built enough homes, but in particular enough
00:05genuinely affordable social rented homes. There's lots of people
00:08now in the private rented sector that weren't there before, and that's not just
00:10the young and the mobile, but lots of older people and those with families.
00:13They've been particularly hard hit by the cost of living crisis, lots of them
00:16are financially vulnerable, they're desperate for greater rights
00:18and protections, and they've been completely let down by the Conservatives.
00:21The Conservative manifesto in 2019 promised a fairer deal for renters,
00:25promised to abolish section 21 no-fault evictions, and they utterly let renters
00:28down. They had five years, they didn't pass that legislation.
00:31Labour are going to act where the Conservatives have failed and introduce
00:34legislation that decisively levels the playing field between landlord and
00:37tenant, and makes tenants better off, because the fact that they're not better
00:40off is hampering growth and productivity
00:42across the country. We're not advocating hard rent control because
00:45we worry that doing that would probably lead to landlords exiting the market,
00:50might make things a lot worse for tenants. What we have been
00:53advocating for some time, both in trying to strengthen the government's
00:56legislation, but also in our plans going forward,
00:59is to deal with extortion within tenancy rent rises. We've got to give tenants
01:02greater protection there, better means of redress when landlords
01:06attempt to hike rent, because if you think through, if we
01:09abolish section 21 no-fault evictions, the most obvious
01:12loophole for evicting tenants is to just jack up their rent by
01:16200, 300 percent. So we've got to give residents greater protection in that
01:19area, but not hard rent controls. What we're talking about when it comes to
01:22Greenbelt, yes we absolutely do need to release some parts of the Greenbelt
01:25occasionally. There's not enough brownfield previously used land
01:28in the country to meet housing need. The Conservatives are releasing Greenbelt
01:32in large parts of the country. They're doing it in a completely haphazard,
01:35chaotic way, often for speculative development.
01:37All we're saying is that there's a smarter way to do so. Let's have
01:40strategic Greenbelt release, local authorities releasing the right
01:43parts of the Greenbelt when they have to,
01:45particularly low-quality greybelt land. You know, the Greenbelt isn't in any way
01:49green and pleasant in every aspect. Let's release the right parts, and
01:53when we do so, and I think this transforms the conversation about
01:55development, when we do develop on that Greenbelt land that's been released,
01:58let's make sure it meets local housing need, it has the appropriate
02:01infrastructure, amenities and services, because too much Greenbelt development
02:05at the moment doesn't have that, and I think it inflames anti-development
02:08sentiment in general. We've got to deal with,
02:10not just, you know, the people who are going to oppose any type of development
02:14anyway. We've got to take those people on. We've got to have a better offer for
02:17the larger number of people who just say,
02:18I'm happy with development locally, as long as it's good development, as long as
02:21it's exemplary, it's meeting local housing need, it's taking our local
02:24housing council waiting list down, for example.