Housing in the elections

Posted: May 1, 2026 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Rent control, Scotland, Wales |Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

Significant change could be on the way for housing in the wake of next week’s elections.

The obvious place to start is Welsh politics, which seems set for a major change that could end 100 years of Labour dominance and see another party running the Welsh Government for the first time since devolution.

Recent polls have Plaid Cymru and Reform running neck and neck and a victory for either would take housing in new but opposite directions.

With a new electoral system adding extra uncertainty, Plaid looks favourite to form a new government but would probably need formal or informal support from at least one other party.

That result would bring some continuity for social housing: the last Welsh Government started with a cooperation agreement between Labour and Plaid, the two parties have similar targets for new social homes and the change might be felt more in details such as the energy standards that apply to them.

But Plaid is also proposing two significant changes with the potential to rewire the wider housing system.

The first is a pledge to introduce a right to adequate housing in Wales. This could help to make housing a higher priority in decisions on policy and investment and hold governments to account for them.

The right has widespread support across the housing sector in Wales and is also backed by the Greens and parts of Welsh Labour.

Preparatory work has already been done, with white paper proposals going out to consultation under the previous Welsh Government as part of the cooperation agreement between Labour and Plaid. 

But key issues remain to be resolved, including whether the right would be directly incorporated into Welsh law or indirectly via a duty on ministers to pay ‘due regard’ to it, or perhaps a combination of the two. 

This would probably mean the right being phased in and ‘progressively realised’ over time.

However, there are real barriers to implementation. Significant policy areas, such as housing benefit, are still controlled by Westminster, raising the possibility of the right being undermined by things like the freeze in Local Housing Allowance rates and the benefit cap. 

Even within Wales local authorities will need a lot of convincing about the strategy and funding for a change that could leave them facing the costs of legal challenges over policies and decisions forced on them by their constrained finances. 

Scotland could also get a right to housing after 7 May, with the SNP pledging to bring back a Human Rights Bill that was put on the back burner in the last Scottish parliament. This would incorporate a range of international conventions into Scots law and is also supported by the Scottish Greens. 

 It’s a similar story with the second major change, where Wales could be about to follow a path already taken in Scotland by introducing a form of rent control. 

Plaid is promising ‘fair rent setting’ through ‘limiting annual rent increases to the lower of wage growth or consumer price index inflation, or a clearly defined equivalent benchmark’.

That’s dipping a toe in the water but the Green Party has hinted that rent control could be one of the conditions for its support and it wants to go much further.

The Greens are promising a one-year rent freeze to be followed by rent controls allowing ministers to designate Rent Pressure Zones where rent increases would only be allowed where landlords ‘deliver genuine improvements to homes’.

The rules would apply across the private rented sector, with no exemptions for mid-market or build to rent housing.

That last bit seems to derive directly from the debate in Scotland, where the SNP Government has introduced exemptions to prioritise efforts to increase rental supply but the Greens have accused it of giving in to ‘lobbying by profiteering landlords’.

The prospect of forms of rent control in both Wales and Scotland would sharpen the debate in England as well. 

Tensions surfaced this week as the Treasury failed to deny a report that chancellor Rachel Reeves was considering a plan for a one-year rent freeze only for Downing Street to dismiss it and say ‘that’s not the approach we’ll be taking’. 

Housing secretary Steve Reed reiterated that ‘we are not looking at rent controls’ in an interview on Wednesday, adding that when they were introduced in Scotland it ‘ended up with rents going up much higher’.

But that is a change from the position he adopted back in 2019 when he was in opposition, when he described a plan for rent caps proposed by London mayor Sadiq Khan as ‘a fantastic initiative’. 

All that uncertainty is likely to have a negative effect on new investment in build to rent and could even lead to higher rents as landlords decide to increase them just in case. 

Which is hardly ideal timing with the Renters Reform Act set to be implemented on Friday with provisions including rent increases limited to once a year that are also open to challenge at tribunal. 

In the local election campaign in England, the Greens have sought to make rent control a key dividing line between them and Labour and that could increase the temptation for the government to defend its left flank by introducing a form of regulation.

Meanwhile Reform has inevitably played up the politics of housing and immigration.

Back in Wales, Reform has campaigned with pledges including a clampdown on immigration at a UK level, preventing ‘migrant HMOs’, reserving social housing ‘for Welsh men and women’ and removing sustainability requirements for new homes.

In line with its UK policy, local authorities would be mandated to enforce a strict ten-year residency requirement for social housing apart from for service veterans, domestic abuse survivors and care leavers.

Whatever the voters decide on May 7, major change could be on the way.

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