Sky rents are unfair to tenants but we can build more homes

May 6 is the second anniversary of the Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla - a happy day for Brits up and down the country. But, this year, it also marks a less joyous occasion, The Cost of Rent Day. From now on, English renters finally stop paying their landlord and start earning for themselves. This is a shocking state of affairs and a clear sign that something is deeply wrong with our economy. Yet, Britain's for so long that these sky-high rents are often treated as a fact of life.

But, there is nothing inevitable about a system where renters surrender huge chunks of their income just to keep a roof over their heads. This crisis is the result of political choices. Thanks to the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, Britain has floundered under an effectively nationalised planning system where new development must pass through layers of red tape. This has caused house building to consistently lag behind population growth, driving up rent costs. For the first time in living memory, many young people feel worse off than their parents, unable to buy homes and get on in life.

When your hard earned cash is , it's easy to lose faith in the system. And, as ever, the temptation is to look for simple villains. Left-wing politicians are quick to blame greedy landlords, with Sadiq Khan promising new rent controlled properties to drive down costs. But more intervention isn't the solution to Britain's housing woes. In fact, it's Britain's managerial state, replete with pointless regulations, that stifled development to begin with.

The government says it's serious about planning reform. However, many of its housing policies risk making the crisis worse. The , for instance, could hurt the very people it is designed to help. The proposed abolition of Section 21 "no-fault" evictions is especially reckless. It would make it far harder for landlords to remove antisocial or non-paying tenants - at a time when courts are already straining under case backlogs.

Landlords are under no obligation to stay in the market. Faced with punishing new regulations, many will sell up altogether, shrinking the supply of rental properties and pushing up rents.

Worse still is the decision to slash house building targets in places like London while raising them in areas where there is little demand. This is top-down planning at its worst. Politicians can't dictate where people live and work. Their job should be to clear the path for development - not micromanage it.

With policies like these, it should come as no surprise that seventy percent of London boroughs haven't built a single new home this year. In fact, setting aside the pandemic, 2024 saw the lowest number of new houses built in almost a decade. If we continue down the path of planning and regulation, we are unlikely to build the 4.3 million homes needed simply to rebalance our housing market.

But, we shouldn't lose hope. Through meaningful planning reform, we can boost our housing supply and cut rents.

A good place to start would be allowing development on intensively farmed land within a 10-minute walk of railway stations. This policy alone could unlock enough land for a million new homes around London. What's more, it would do so without paving over rural idylls into soulless commuter towns.

Another way to get Britain building is by increasing the use of Development Orders. These handy tools already allow politicians to grant planning permission to a specific project or to any project in a defined area - overriding noisy NIMBYs. What's more, they don't require any new legislation, just political willpower.

For too long, the left has claimed to speak for renters, blaming landlords for what is ultimately a failure of government. The housing crisis is not the product of a free-market but of excessive state control. Only by rolling back the regulations on development, can we drive down rents and fix our broken housing market.