Ben Hopkinson
@Ben_A_Hopkinson
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Head of Housing and Infrastructure @cpsthinktank Formerly @BritainRemade
London
Joined June 2014
London housebuilding has fallen off a cliff. London only started 4,170 homes in the last fiscal year, less than 5% of its housing target. What's caused the slowdown? 🧵
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The Lords have published a report on the Building Safety Regulator. It clearly isn’t working. - Urgent safety upgrades are being delayed - Flat renovations cost thousands more - New towers cost millions more - Some developers are giving up on tall buildings. (Thread)
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Cancelling the Landfill Tax is an unmitigated good. Kudos to @Ben_A_Hopkinson of @CPSThinkTank and others who campaigned on it.
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The rubbish tax could add £1bn to Heathrow’s third runway! This mutant tax change has to be stopped
The Government has proposed a seemingly innocuous tax tweak on landfills that could ruin housebuilding, the 1.5 million home target, and large infrastructure projects. The alarm bells are ringing on 'rubbish' landfill tax changes 🧵
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Less certainty. Less incentive. Fewer properties. Our Head of Housing @Ben_A_Hopkinson on the unintended impact of the Renters' Rights Bill as it receives Royal Assent 🏘️
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The Renters Act tribunal system is *insane*. 1⃣Any rent increase can be brought to tribunal. 2⃣No rent increase can occur until tribunal decides. 3⃣Tribunals are forbidden from saying rent should be higher than the Landlord. 4⃣ There are only *34* tribunal judges in the country.
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Sam does a good job of laying out the brewing disaster the Renters' Rights Bill will be. Renting sucks because of a housing shortage, which is only getting worse in London. Effectively implementing rent control will make renting even worse.
The government's Renters' Rights Bill looks like it will be a catastrophe, inadvertently introducing rent controls and reducing the supply of housing even more. It is the clearest evidence that the whole British state that has brought it about is completely broken: • Written
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But London and the UK are heading in the opposite direction. Housing starts have fallen of a cliff and new regulations risk driving more landlords out of the market, which will only harm the worst-off private renters the most. Read more here:
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The solution is building homes, not banning the last vestiges of a free rental market. Austin built 20k new flats in 2024 (that's like London building 183k in a year). Rents fell and landords now compete for tenants with offers like a free month of rent.
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The reason renting sucks right now is a lack of homes. When the vacancy rate in London is less than 1%, landlords know they will always find someone to rent their property. That means higher rents and lower maintenance standards.
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Scotland embarked on similar reforms in 2017 and 2022. Rents have gone from a ~3% increase year on year to 13% in 2023. The private rental stock is down 8.4% and 50% of landlords are thinking of selling.
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This matters because if we want a healthy rental market that provides flexibility and opportunity to tenants, we need landlords who think renting a property is in their interest. Landlords have already sold 300k more homes than they've bought since 2016. More will leave!
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Plus the tribunal can't recommend a rent higher than the landlord's offer. So tenants have every incentive to go to a tribunal, which will have a backlog and limited actual market rate data to work on. This is rent control through the backdoor!
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The Bill effectively ends market rent increases once tenants move in. Under new rules, a tenant can take their landlord to a tribunal over any rent increase. While the tribunal decides, the tenant pays the existing rent, and the Bill doesn't backdate the tribunal-agreed rent.
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The Bill also lets tenants take their landlord to a tribunal within the first 6 months of their tenancy if they think their rent is above market rate. If you think a proposed rent is above market rate (i.e. you can get a better deal elsewhere), just don't sign the lease!
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That hurts people who can't easily show that they're reliable tenants or who don't know any potential landlords. These are the very people who the Bill most wants to help, who risk being passed over by landlords who don't want to take a chance on them.
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Landlords will also be banned from accepting offers above the asking price. When landlords cannot chose between tenants on price, they will choose based on other reasons like CVs, references from past landlords, or only let to people they know.
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This results in a rather absurd outcome that the tenant can end the lease after just two months, but landlords have no certainty about if they could get their property back at an agreed point and risk up to a year of delays/no income if they pick the wrong tenant.
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Let's start with the headline policy, abolishing 'No Fault' evictions. What this actually does is ban fixed term rental agreements and gives tenants the near unlimited right to live in the property for as long as they'd like.
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The Renters' Rights Bill is about to gain Royal Assent. The Government has promised it will fix the private rental sector, but I've read through the Bill and worry that it risks harming the very renters it seeks to protect. 🧵
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