Member

Part of the rationale for this amendment, as I understand it, would be to create a link between rent increase and mortgage rates. Such a link would not be relevant to the 41% of landlords who, according to the latest English Private Landlord Survey, have no borrowing of any kind on their properties. Even for the cohort of landlords who have borrowing, the salience of the link depends on the terms of each landlord’s mortgage agreement. More fundamentally, I return to the Government’s view that any attempt to use a simple metric on rent increases would risk unintended consequences. It may incentivise landlords to increase rents annually to the level of the cap, when they would not otherwise have considered doing so.