Scottish Labour propose further rent controls…

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Rent Control:

The Fair Rents (Scotland) Bill, proposed by Pauline McNeill MSP, is under consultation until the 6^th of August.

The Bill, known as the ‘Mary Barbour Bill’ is proposing to enforce
fair rents on a points-based system which links local rents to average local
wages.

Mary Barbour was a socialist campaigner and political
activist, a heroine of the Scottish Labour movement who was the main organiser
of the women of Govan who took part in the rent strikes of 1915, and she actively
opposed evictions.

Scotland appears to have set the direction of travel for the rest of the United Kingdom on many issues concerning housing tenure when it introduced the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016, in which controversially “no-fault� eviction was abolished. It also included measures to control rents in designated Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs), but Pauline McNeill wants to go much further.

The new bill aims to controls rents such that, according to
Scottish Labour, would ensure that ‘no one is forced to rent a home that pushes
them into poverty’.

Labour Leader, Richard Leonard, has said:

“We have seen the return of private landlordism
and rents have soared whilst wages have stagnated… We think that private rent rises should be
capped and controlled. So, Nicola Sturgeon has a choice, will she take the side
of rogue landlords and a broken housing market? Or she can back Labour’s plans
and back our Mary Barbour Bill.�

Rent controls have been rejected by Westminster, but Corbyn’s
Labour in England support them and have pledged to introduce them south of the
border if elected.

After the comprehensive changes to the letting laws in
Scotland introduced in 2017, as predicted by landlord groups, rents in Scotland
have been rising steadily, hence Labour’s response in this bill to look at ways
to limit rent increases. The main proposals in the Bill include:

• enforced fair rents based on a points system
• rents linked to average wages to ensure
  affordability
• tenants given powers to challenge rents and seek
  reductions
• more effective enforcement of private rented
  property health and safety and energy efficiency standards
• amendment to the existing landlord registration
  scheme to include rents being charged by every landlord.

Fair Rents (Scotland) Bill

The Threat of Rent Control

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