In his speech Ken said:
Earlier this year I launched a specific appeal for Londoners to tell me their ‘Housing Horrors’- what was their personal experience of living in the private rented sector? 'We will publish our findings later this week.
We were overwhelmed by the things people told us. one wrote: “I currently live with my husband and 2 children in a small 2 bed flat in north London for which we pay the extortionate amount of over £1250 per month.
"We cannot move as we have elderly relatives in the area that we look after and our children are settled in school.” Another said: “As (previously) a University Lecturer - I've been forced to move back to my mothers and quit my job in the city simply due to the fact that the cost of renting even a room in London is unaffordable - unless I live in squalid conditions constantly having to move.”
Londoners need help with the housing crisis right now.
We are not talking only about the poorest or most marginalised. There thousands of Londoners, many aspirational and well-qualified, who by definition will never get into social rented accommodation.
Most of them cannot afford to buy. They are going to be in the private-rented sector for a very long time. Yet there is no London-wide action to address their housing issues.
Today I’m announcing that if elected Mayor I will establish a campaign for a London Living Rent. Too many Londoners pay more than one third of their income in rent. That benchmark should be the indicator that drives us in our work to improve the living standards of Londoners from all walks of life.
In more than half of London boroughs Londoners are paying on average over 50 per cent of their incomes. 'We should be doing everything we can to get that number down. Many people in reasonably well-paid jobs are seeing their incomes absorbed into their housing costs.
Learning from the success of the London Living Wage in arguing, cajoling, intervening and collaborating, the Living Rent Campaign will be a new way of making City Hall work for ordinary Londoners.
Secondly, we must actually intervene into the private rented sector. What London needs is a London-wide non-profit lettings agency. So I can announce today that I will work with other stakeholders to establish one that can start to make a change in the private rented sector for the better.
It will put good tenants in touch with good landlords across the spectrum of private renting so that both can benefit from security of tenure and reduce the costs of letting.
It will work with boroughs, landlords’ representatives and tenants’ representatives, to develop a London-wide strategy for tackling rogue landlords and driving up standards. It will tackle a series of issues on accreditation, inspection and enforcement, licensing and energy efficiency, as well as tenants’ deposits protection.
I want to end the churn-and-burn approach of some of the private letting agents, so I will be tackling abuses in this area. Through this work we will challenge the scandal of rip-off agency fees, horrific standards and the daily experience of disputes over deposits in the private rented sector, seeking to widen best practice such as that in Newham a borough that has made the campaign for a fairer rented sector a key part of their work.
From today I want to hear the views of key players involved in housing in London about how best to implement this new idea.
In the coming weeks I will set out more detail of how this new arm of the Mayor’s role will work. This fairer approach to housing in London applies the principles of our Fare Deal campaign to the issue of housing: Righting wrongs, restoring fairness, speaking up for the majority.
WHY ACTION IS NEEDED ON PRIVATE RENTED SECTOR
- 24% (700,000) households in London are in the private rented sector compared to 16% nationally.
- The cost of renting is not just an issue which affects low income Londoners – those on middle incomes are being hit hard. The average rent is now £1,000 and is the only option for many, given that the average first-time buyer property is now over £257,000.
- 40.8% of private rented dwellings do not meet the decent homes standard, (compared to 29% of owner occupier, 20% of housing association and 27% of council houses).
- Boris Johnson barely mentions the private rented sector and has failed to act.
Landlords Condemn Livingstone's Rent Cap Policy
RLA Chairman, Alan Ward, responded:
“Ken Livingstone's call for rent controls is an old idea which never worked in the past - until 1988 rent controls resulted in a shortage of supply and poorer conditions for tenants.
"Hardly a remedy for 2012. There is no doubt that rents in the capital remain far higher than anywhere else in the country but the answer lies in improved supply.
“With many, particularly young, people relying on the sector to provide housing to meet their needs, the RLA is calling on both Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone to support efforts to reform the taxation system to stimulate growth in the sector.
“Standards in the sector are best upheld when tenants have genuine choices about their housing options. Until we see a boost in supply, those choices simply do not exist.”
Commenting on Mayor Boris Johnson's plans for a pan-London accreditation scheme for landlords, Alan Ward continued:
“With over 10,000 landlords in London already members of the London boroughs' accreditation scheme, it would seem a waste of time and money re-inventing the wheel in this way.
“The Mayor should focus on supporting and encouraging exis
