SADIQ Khan’s City Hall team don’t know if his radical new rent controls policy will help Londoners get cheaper rents or longer contracts, emails show.
Messages between the Mayor of London’s team and Greater London Authority staff openly discuss the “pros and cons” of different models of rent controls, but admit they don’t know exactly how their plans would help.
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Freedom of Information requests revealed that an impact assessment on the policy hasn’t been done.
An email sent to James Murray, the Deputy Mayor for Housing, said: “As you know, we haven’t actually done any impact assessment of how the Mayor’s proposals will improve things.
“For the London Model it’s hard to quantify the benefits as we can’t say how much average tenancy lengths may increase, for example.
“Because we don’t have an actual model, we can’t really show what the Mayor’s proposals would do to rents.”
The email was sent just a month before the Mayor unveiled his new policy to try and bring rents down and demanded the Government give him the powers to do it.
The Mayor’s team insist that if he does get the powers then full impact assessments will be done later on.
Other emails to Mr Murray show that “rent controls alone cannot be used to reduce rents to an affordable level” and more measures are needed.
And it admitted “we simply do not have time to do proper modelling of the different scenarios before the report is due to be published”.
Elsewhere the emails openly noted some of the flaws in the controversial policy.
GLA “policy colleagues” let the Mayor’s team know that “in markets such as New York and Berlin where rents are controlled both within and between tenancies, rates of housebuilding are even lower than in London”.
They also note that there will be an “impact of rent control on the market” and that measures should be discussed to “soften” the blow.
Because we don’t have an actual model, we can’t really show what the Mayor’s proposals would do to rents.
Emails sent to Deputy Mayor for Housing, James Murray
One email lists problems with the German model – which the Mayor’s team have referred to in the past.
It says there are concerns landlords in Berlin are using property investments as a pretext for hiking rents up outside the controls.
“These improvements may actually never happen, simply being used as a pretext to winkle out long-term tenants who are still paying very low rents,” it warned.
Emails list pros and cons of different models of rent controls too.
Mr Khan hasn’t yet said exactly how his rent controls would work if he were to introduce them.
Back in July the London Mayor called for radical new powers to overhaul the capital’s rental sector with a new private rent commission – and caps on rent increases.
But critics claimed it would end up wrecking the housing market – and questioned when Mr Khan can actually make it happen anyway.
Most private rents in Britain used to be capped so they couldn’t be hiked year on year.
But regulations on rent rises were scrapped by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it could even have the opposite effect and push rents up.
Conservative mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey said: “Rent controls don’t work, have never worked and will never work.
“They would take a bad London housing and rental market situation and make it worse.
“Sadiq Khan knows this, which is why he didn’t commission an impact assessment and can’t even quantify any benefits for what is supposed to be his signature campaign pledge.
“The only answer to the plague of high rents and high house prices is to build more homes; something Mayor Khan has failed to do.
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He added: “If the Mayor wants to be taken seriously, he should commission an impact assessment and come to the next Mayor’s Question time ready to quantify the apparent benefits of a policy that has been disastrous everywhere it has been tried.”
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: “Whatever the opponents of rent control say, renters in London need to know one simple fact: Sadiq wants to bring their rents down, and he wants the Government to give him the power to do so.”
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