Renters' Rights Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Jerome Mayhew and Lola McEvoy

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q You mentioned unintended consequences, a topic that I have come back to repeatedly today. We heard evidence earlier that rents in Scotland have outpaced those in the rest of the United Kingdom quite considerably in, I think, the last five years. You mentioned the 2022 rent control legislation and the impact that that has had on rents. If you can strip that out in your own mind and give us an assessment of what impact rent reform has had on rents over the past seven years, can you give the Committee a flavour of whether rents have gone up as a result, stayed the same, or reduced?

Anna Evans: We show in the report that the rents increased at a similar rate to the rest of the UK until ’22. If you were trying to isolate why there was a more considerable increase since that time, you could probably fairly conclude that it was because of the 2022 legislation, but it is very difficult to isolate out. The range of legislation that has been implemented in Scotland is significant, but there was a tipping point in ’22 when rents in Scotland appear to have increased at a greater rate than in the UK. The key point was the 2022 legislation.

I should also caveat all of that—as we have in our report—by saying that the Scottish rent data is not as good. It is based on advertised rents rather than any survey of in-tenancy rents. The published data on rent levels and the hike in Scotland will be for new tenancies, and therefore, that will naturally be inflated compared with most tenancies, because we know that landlords do not tend to increase rents in tenancy. They prefer to keep them at a level that keeps tenants content and therefore they have a longer rental period. That evidence has to be considered with caution, because it is based on advertised rents.

[Lola McEvoy]

Q Just for the eradication of any doubt, are you under the impression that the introduction of rent controls has led to an increase in rents?

Anna Evans: As I said, I do not think it is possible to absolutely isolate this out, but on advertised rents—new advertised rents—there was an increase post 2022 when that legislation came in. But you must remember that that does not include evidence of in-tenancy rents, which would be lower. So we cannot say that all average rents have increased as a result of that—we cannot say that at all.