Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is interest in this right across the House. All parties are now committed to making local enterprise partnerships work and to not going back to the old regional development agencies. It is important that LEPs are business-led and it is important they are strong in every part of the country. Members of Parliament can play a real role in encouraging prominent businessmen and businesswomen to get involved with LEPs and in making sure they deliver for local areas.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Q8. May I take the Prime Minister back to the question of the private rented sector in Britain? Across London, there are thousands and thousands of families—people in work and on benefits—who are frightened of rent increases, frightened of short-term tenancies and frightened of the consequences, for themselves and their children, of being evicted or forced to move out of the area in which they live. What is happening in central London is social cleansing, and it is coming to the rest of the country. Will he give me an assurance that, in addition to any regulation of the agencies, serious consideration will be given to the need to bring back rent control to protect people and ensure they have somewhere secure and decent to live?

[The Prime Minister]

Where I would agree with the hon. Gentleman is on the need for greater transparency in the work of letting agents in terms of fees. There is a need for alternative options, which we have put forward, for longer-term tenancies, but in the end we must allow customers to choose what they want. Where I part company with him is on the idea of introducing full-on rent controls. Every time they have been tried, wherever they have been tried in the world, they have failed. That is not just my view; it is also the view of Labour’s own shadow housing Minister, who is on the record as saying that she does not think rent controls will work in practice. Perhaps he might want to have a word with her before coming to me.