Member

I was privileged to serve as a member of the Augar review of post-18 education and funding in England, and we were very concerned about levels of maintenance support and loans, and especially about the abolition of maintenance grants. We heard widespread concerns about the cost of student accommodation and recommended that the Office for Students should examine it more closely. But we are not going to improve quality or availability by driving large numbers of private landlords out of the student market. The current provisions of the Bill on one hand and the general demand for accommodation on the other are such that if I were a student landlord not covered by the 4A exemption, my immediate reaction would be quite simple: I would just not rent to students any more.