Rents May Be Frozen To Support Struggling Brits

Rents could be frozen as part of attempts to help Brits struggling with the cost of living, Andy Burnham has indicated.

The new prime minister is also looking at ways to bring down energy bills and cap bus fares to show his government is on the side of ordinary people.

He has also set out his ambition of ending rough sleeping in the UK during his time in office.

Burnham is expected to unveil a package of measures tomorrow aimed at putting more money in people’s pockets as he aims to hit the ground running after replacing Keir Starmer in No.10.

In his first speech in Downing Street, Burnham said he wanted to “give people some breathing space”.

Speaking to journalists in the No.10 garden afterwards, Burnham was asked if that would include measures on bus fares, energy bills and rent freezes.

He said: “We are looking at all of those things, but we will make more announcements tomorrow. We’re just finalising the details.

“It’s premature to say it will be any one of those particular things. We just want to do some things that people will feel and feel quite quickly. It won’t solve everything, it won’t take all of the pressure off but it just shows the direction of travel and that we’re serious about helping them out.”

Bringing in rent controls is one of the Green Party’s key policies, but critics say it could lead to a shortage of properties as landlords respond by taking them off the market.

Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, said: “Rent controls would choke off supply in the private rented sector, making it harder to meet the prime minister’s welcome ambition to end rough sleeping.

“The reality is that rent increases have fallen by two thirds over the past two years at exactly the time when supply is better meeting tenant demand. Rent controls would undermine all of this.”

Meanwhile, Burnham also failed to rule out increasing the top rate of income tax to 50p in the pound.

However, that would be a clear breach of Labour’s election manifesto, which he has insisted he will stick to.

The new PM also said he wanted to “fix” the social care system before he leaves office.

He said the NHS was spending billions of pounds a year looking after elderly people stuck in hospitals because there is nowhere else for them to go.

“I am ready to use some of my political capital on this issue,” he said. “I’ll be blunt with you. I would not want to leave office having done what Westminster has done, not just not just for 15 years actually, I think you’re getting close to 30 years.

“It’s not defensible. How many people have lost their homes and their savings in that time? We need to face it and fix it.”

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