Beyond Building: Fixing the UK housing crisis – Parliamentary event with London Renters Union

May 22, 2024 

Hosted in Portcullis House by Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP, Positive Money and London Renters Union brought together a coalition of cross-party parliamentarians, renters groups, researchers, and policy experts, for an event to discuss solutions to the housing crisis that go beyond building new homes, including scaling up social housing buy back schemes by councils and improving rights for renters. Watch the recording below. 

Good quality homes should be a right for everyone, not a financial asset used to churn out profit for the wealthy few. But right now, “we are living through a full-scale housing emergency”, as Siobhan Donnachie from London Renters Union put it in their opening remarks. Rent hikes in the last year were the highest ever recorded. 139,000 children are growing up in temporary accommodation, and Britain has the highest rate of homelessness in the developed world. We need bold changes to tackle this, not more sticking plasters.

Rather than being primarily a problem of supply, the UK housing crisis has been driven by decades of government and central bank policies that have turned our homes into vehicles for hoarding wealth. This is why building alone will never solve this crisis, alongside acknowledging the ongoing climate emergency, and the impact new house building and poorly insulated homes have on our dwindling carbon budget. This process of financialisation has inflated a housing bubble that’s bursting at the seams, and put the right to a safe and comfortable home further and further out of reach for millions of us. 

Solutions to the housing crisis must go beyond building new homes.

Such important work from @PositiveMoneyUK bringing together parliamentarians, renter unions & think tanks to discuss policy solutions.

Read about the work here – https://t.co/DBAXqmqgvy https://t.co/dq4AzErmaS

— Trust for London (@trustforlondon) May 16, 2024

Our opening panel addressed this urgency. Siobhan Donnachie from the London Renters Union, shared the harsh reality of life in the private rented sector and the need for rent controls. Our Head of Economics Danisha Kazi spoke about the disproportionate impact of the housing crisis on people of different ethnicities, the New Economics Foundation’s Alex Diner presented research evaluating the ‘right to buy-back’ scheme pioneered by the Greater London Authority (GLA), Alex’s slides can be found here. Lastly, former London Assembly member and MP candidate for Brighton Pavilion Siân Berry, spoke to how this scheme could be scaled up to increase the supply of social housing nationally, to address the vast unmet need.

Enjoyed this roundtable in Parliament today on ways to end the housing emergency in addition to building. Representation from renters, economists, Disabled people, community housing. I pitched on Buy the Supply and really felt the right people and right answers were in the room. https://t.co/7h14CZakyG

— Sian Berry (@sianberry) May 8, 2024

Wider roundtable participants included politicians such as crossbench peer Lord Best, academics, and representatives from renters organisations including ACORN, Scotland’s Living Rent, Generation Rent, and the Renters Reform Coalition. Our audience of campaigners and journalists also contributed to the conversation, with topics spanning from improving homes for disabled people, ensuring changes in demand from council acquisitions wouldn’t hike prices further, capital gains tax reform, a debate over the need to create a ‘soft landing’ for landlords with parallels drawn to reparations paid to former slave-owners following abolition, and how to frame these policies in the media. 

thanks @PositiveMoneyUK & @LDNRentersUnion for inviting us down yesterday! really productive and insightful conversation on how we can increase supply of genuinely affordable homes without building. https://t.co/JSEtahg8vr

— eilidh 🇵🇸 (@eilidhwashere) May 9, 2024

The innovative solutions discussed by all our attendees shows just how much more the government could be doing to transform our housing system into one driven by need not greed, where safe, comfortable homes are a right for all. Read more about our analysis and recommendations in our ‘Banking on Property report here. 

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