"It is extremely inefficient for the government to be paying this money to private landlords when it should be building more new genuinely affordable homes and improving the quality and security of tenure for the homes we already have"
- Alex Diner - New Economics Foundation
Analysis of the latest official statistics reveals that private landlords will receive more than six times what the government is expected to spend on affordable housing in the five-year period from 2021 and 2026 (£11.5bn).
It comes after the government announced in the October budget that the local housing allowance would be increased to ensure people in receipt of Universal Credit or Housing Benefit are better equipped to deal with recent increases in private rents, which in November had increased 6.2% year on year.
This vital relief will help struggling families with the cost of living, but these new rates of support will once again be frozen from April, meaning more pain is locked in for low-income private renters.
And the increase means that even more public funds are being used to prop up a private rented sector riddled with poor-quality housing and many ineffectual landlords, instead of investing in affordable social housing.
Alex Diner, senior researcher at NEF, said: “Everybody should have an affordable, warm and secure home to live in, yet the government is spending billions subsidising a broken system which too often fails to deliver this.
“It is extremely inefficient for the government to be paying this money to private landlords when it should be building more new genuinely affordable homes and improving the quality and security of tenure for the homes we already have.
“To overcome this mess, the government must build more social homes to meet the rising demand for affordable housing, reverse its u-turn to loosen energy efficiency standards in the private rented sector and improve its plans to regulate private renting.”
